Blog Yes & Know

Be the non-anxious presence…

Leaders reveal their capability and their character when things go sideways. Edwin Friedman says that he best leaders are a “non-anxious presence in an anxious world.” While my day job …

Neko Neko

Scott Adams of Dilbert fame would love this word. “Neko-Neko”* is an indonesian word for someone with a novel idea that actually makes the situation worst. Look around you, do …

Is Adobe going to get crushed by the Big Guy?

The Journal reported today that talks between MSFT and Adobe broke down earlier this week. The issue is whether PDF will become a built-in feature of Microsoft’s office.
This is not a one way assault on Adobe, but a fundamental tension on who will innovate the platform and UI of the industry. Adobe has plans of it’s own that will make Microsoft the equivalent of plumbing. Needed but not discussed.

Flash: The New Computing Platform?

The newly-merged Adobe/Macromedia is rolling out ambitions plans for Flash, its Web animation tool. Most of the tech community is expecting there to be a battle between Adobe and Microsoft over Web graphics, but we think the competition goes a lot deeper than that, to the heart of the Windows franchise. We think Adobe is trying to make Windows irrelevant, and it might work.
To explain what’s happening, we have to spend a little time discussing what exactly an operating system like Windows is. To a computer scientist, an OS is the software that enables computing hardware to work. It manages the basic operations of the system (thus the name), so applications can perform the tasks desired by a designer or user.

You Have Less Credibility

I hate to be the one to break this to you, but you have less credibility than you once did. It’s nothing personal, mind you. There’s something bigger going on that’s impacting all high-tech companies. Because of it, you’ll want to shift the way you approach the market, before your competition whips past you.

Give Your Product Away, Make a Profit

We recently completed a project for a firm that was considering an investment in the digital photography business. They wanted a survey of the competition, so we dug into all of the startups and new companies bubbling up out there.
We were surprised by the large number of companies that were looking to give away photo editing and photo sharing software. Literally dozens of firms have sprung up that will give you free applications or free storage space for photos. We’re used to seeing free software in the Web 2.0 world, but usually there are just two or three such companies in each market category. In this case, we found dozens.

Creativity: build or buy?

Apple is known for creativity, HP is not. Is that random, or a series of choices that accumulates to one direction or the other? Asking what makes an organization or …