Blog Yes & Know

Yahoo Partners with Motorola: Should You Care?

Yahoo and Motorola recently announced a multi-year deal where Motorola will pre-load Yahoo Go for Mobile on “tens of millions” of mid-priced and high-end Motorola phones. The deal is similar to the deal Yahoo and Nokia struck in January. Currently, Yahoo Go for Mobile is available in US only from Cingular on a single Nokia phone (S60-based Nokia 8862) available since February. 5-10 models are shipping with the service in Europe and Asia.

Web 2.0 Takes Another Step Forward

Market analyst powerhouse Gartner recently came out strongly behind Web 2.0, which we and others see as another step toward the Web 2.0 vision. While Gartner expects the majority of Global 1000 companies to adopt some technology-related aspects of Web 2.0 by 2008, companies will be much slower to adopt the social dimensions of Web 2.0.

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.

Are the Mammals Eating Your Eggs?

Clients ask us lots of questions, but with the world buzzing about Web 2.0 and software changing in some pretty significant ways, one question that clients should ask but never do is, “Is my company becoming a dinosaur?” Maybe it’s because people don’t want to know, or perhaps Rai Wasner, a former colleague, had it right years ago when he said that life can be pretty good for the last dinosaur as you seem to have the whole swamp to yourself.
Once you stop innovating, you’re stuck in the status quo, and if—really when—the world changes, you’ll be unable to adapt. Your company’s name will be added to the corporate “Where are they now?” file.
As a public service, Rubicon Consulting has compiled a list of signs that your company may not be as nimble and innovative as it needs to be to defeat challenges from upstart competitors.

Software as a Service: The New Cargo Cult

The big buzzword at April’s Software 2006 conference was Software as a Service. What does it mean, what impact will it have, and what should companies do about it? Former Oracle exec Ray Lane, now a venture capitalist, listed the key attributes of hot new software companies. They included software that’s viral (anyone can download it and try it out), that generates value for an end user (so they’ll have an incentive to install it), that doesn’t require any data entry or training (so users can work with it instantly), and that generates immediate value (he called it "value first, pay later").

New Drivers for Digital Video Editing: A Personal View

My experience over the past year with digital video (DV) makes me wonder if the market is changing in important ways that are perhaps not being picked up by the market. Like so many parents, I bought my first camcorder after the birth of my first child. My wife and I took lots of video the first few years, and I spent many, many, many hours turning the first couple of years into a decent—but not great—movie. By the time my son turned six, I had four years of partially edited video and was falling further behind even though we were taking less video and I had better software. Suddenly, a year ago I started taking a lot more video and within days turned it into dozens of five to eight minute videos kids and adults love to watch.
I don’t have a whole lot more time on my hands, so what changed? Hint: the difference is not the fabulous editing software now available for consumers, nor any of the snazzy little DV cameras on the market. It is more fundamental than that.

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.