Software, Interrupted

Why Novell is like Napster-era Metallica

Remember back when Metallica isolated the majority of their fan base with their (for the moment let's leave the stupidity of the music business and the fact that it only has itself to blame for people pirating songs out of this) and what it did to the band and the fans that supported them for all those years? That's how I am starting to think of Novell.

Metallica went from being loved by millions to being whiny about Napster, taking the focus of the band off the music and onto the ugly business of the music industry. Ultimately, more

Technorati blog claim (no content)

This is pretty annoying but it seems that I have to "claim" this blog. Apologies.

Technorati Profile

More SOA false prophets from Microsoft 'Oslo'

Once again Microsoft continues to muddy its SOA (service-oriented architecture) strategy with a push into model-driven development (MDD). While on the surface it may appear that this is meaningful, in fact all Microsoft is doing is dumbing down the already mediocre tools and "prescriptions" that currently suggest an obvious misunderstanding of the fundamental (primarily vendor-enforced) components of SOA, which usually include items like business process management, enterprise service bus, registry and governance.

Instead, Microsoft has a set of things that are not in line with any other vendor or standards group: "a bundle of BizTalk Server 2006 R2, SharePoint Server, more

Negative Approach Blog - where the glass is half-full...of poison

, but I realized I had already done those things already.

For those of you who don't know me, I am the CEO and Co-founder of more

Is your company screwed? (A quick analysis of BEA)

MySQL's , which gives you a great 13-point checklist to figure out if your company is screwed. If you do a quick analysis you can predict a bit of the future and also use hindsight to figure out if the company's strategy went sideways.

In light of all the hub-bub around Oracle trying to acquire BEA let's take a quick pass and see if the company is flailing based on a few of Zack's points.

Is everyone in your market having trouble?
No. In fact the application server/middleware/SOA space is growing at an alarming rate. The fact that Oracle wants BEA means that they see more opportunity that can be exploited and that they are more capable of generating dollars than BEA is with that product set. If we agree that BEA is struggling, they seem to believe it's because of their cost structure and not their products. Which leads to...

Understanding branding and viral marketing with A Bathing Ape

. Back in 2001 I went to Japan and become semi-obsessed with the A Bathing Ape (BAPE) brand. Every hipster kid had a cool BAPE t-shirt or hat and I just had to have one. We finally found the store in Harajuku where the line to get in was about 25 people. Eventually we got in and I was too much of a lummox to fit any of the shirts they had left. We mistakenly opted against a throw rug which is now worth $5k on eBay. The BAPE brand is far more than just clothing, venturing into toys, furniture and more

Pirate attacks rise 14% year over year

Pirates, aaargh. A

From the report: In the first nine months of the year, 198 attacks were reported versus 174 attacks reported in 2006 during the same time frame. A total of 15 vessels were hijacked, 172 crewmembers were taken hostage, 63 were kidnapped, and 21 were assaulted. If this trend continues, the decline in piracy attacks begun in 2004 will have bottomed out. Crew assaults, kidnapping and ransom rose dramatically from 2006.

If you want to freak yourself out check the

Maybe the

Are kids getting dumber thanks to TV and video games?

As someone who had hoped that Tivo and the internet were going to raise my child, I have to say that I am disappointed by this

As for the rest, well, the dystopian evidence seems overwhelming indeed, to the point where it might be no stretch at all to say the biggest threat facing America is perhaps not global warming, not perpetual warmongering, not garbage food or low-level radiation or way too much Lindsay Lohan, but a populace far too ignorant to know how to properly manage any of it, much less change it all for the better.

Now I

Worse than the old Plaxo? (Email by WebLaunch)

There is an incredibly annoying trend that I am suffering where candidates are sending me resumes using a service that basically requires me to opt-out if I don't respond to the first email. This is actually more annoying than and has now righted its course (though I still don't use it.)

Let me just tell anyone that thinks that this is a good idea that they are dead wrong. An impersonal email to the CEO that gets resent every few days will force me to write you off and make sure no one I know hires you since more

IBM ready to "kick Oracle's teeth in"

Ever wonder what the are thinking about? Seems that IBM has assembled "what it calls a Viper 500 program with IBM's account teams to replace Oracle in more than 600 accounts."

I do enjoy a slap-fight amongst software vendors...

"I am actively hiring people to go kick their teeth in," said Mike Borman, IBM vice president, worldwide sales for the IBM Software Group in a wide ranging 90 minute interview earlier this week before the hostile Oracle bid for BEA.

Despite it sounding a little bit silly, this is actually a good idea. Where do you go for growth more