Blog Yes & Know

Who wants you to be their Leader?

The Wall Street Journal Bookmark's section this morning reviewed a book called "Why Should Anyone Be Led by You?" Besides noting the great title (who came up with that?!), I …

Past the Facade of Degrees, Pedigree, and Bios

Want to know who someone is, how insightful they are and what they really care about? Then stop listening to their self-promotion pitch inclusive of the mckinsey-harvard pedigree*, or reading …

B2C Marketing Has Its Nuances

Last weekend I wrote about Cisco entering multiple, disparate markets at the same time. While I thought that vertical strategy appears to be a good fit with the strengths and …

3 questions to a personality profile

Found this on the web. In 3 questions, it got close. At work, it didn't mention that I should be in service, or an entrepreneur. Both of which I think …

Market Entry Moves by Cisco Warrant Review

For every successful market entry, another 4 fail. I learned that in grad school. One of the few facts that made practical sense, and thus stuck. That metric included every …

Unlike ASPs, SaaS is Hotter than it Looks

I think SaaS (Software as a Service) is potentially the biggest issue facing software firms today. This formerly "ASP" (application service provider) model blipped back in '97-'00. And it seemed …

Help! Microsoft Is Targeting Our Business

Recently we've been hearing that more and more. The companies being targeted usually assume they've being singled out for special attention from Microsoft, but when you add up all the reports a different picture emerges. What is not new is that Microsoft sees you as nothing but a bucket of money to them. What is new is that Microsoft is targeting almost every major tech company, all at once. This is a fairly new behavior for Microsoft, and it means the rules of competing with Redmond have changed as well.

Blogging: Friend or Foe?

Blogging is hip. Blogging is cool. More and more companies are using blogs as corporate marketing tools. Some of these efforts are enormously successful, while others make us shudder. Before your company adopts a blogging strategy, here's what you've got to know. Some companies like Google, GM and Cisco have official company blogs. Others like Sun and Microsoft have hundreds of employee bloggers to which the companies link to from the corporate web site. Still others are encouraging executives and rank and file employees to blog, but don't seem to be having much success. Here are some thoughts about corporate blogs.

Software as a Service: Over-hyped, But That Doesn't Mean it Won't Kill You

We were involved in a recent roundtable meeting where the topic of Software as a Service (SaaS) came up. Some of the people there felt it's an important trend, others viewed it as the latest round of Silicon Valley hype. Our view is that it's an important change in the way the industry works, but one that will take years to play out. As so often happens in our industry, it will probably be written off by a lot of people before it has its greatest impact.