Map Space. The $3.4 billion market for local search is heating up between Yahoo, Google, America Online, MSN Virtual Earth and Amazon's A-9, with mapping a key component. But maps come in different flavors and may not have a search component. Take, for example, the Akamai Net News Index. It offers a near real-time display… Continue reading Map Space

'War Powers': Original Intent. American presidents have enlarged the war powers of their office far beyond the framers' vision, says Peter Irons. By EMILY BAZELON. [NYT > Books]

Tech acquisitions and innovation An excellent piece in a recent BusinessWeek (“Too Much Cash, Too Little Innovation”, 7/18/05) tracks the recent rise in tech company acquisitions. The key factor is that the big tech companies are flush with cash, many of them sitting on billions in reserve. The problem is what to do with cash.… Continue reading Tech acquisitions and innovation

An excellent piece in a recent BusinessWeek (“Too
Much Cash, Too Little Innovation”, 7/18/05) tracks the recent rise in
tech company acquisitions. The key factor is that the big tech
companies are flush with cash, many of them sitting on billions in
reserve.

The problem is what to do with cash. One solution is
paying dividends, something which announces that a company is no longer
a growth company. Then there is spending on innovation, something that
some bigger companies are seeing smaller paybacks from. And then there
are mergers and acquisitions. According to the BusinessWeek article:

Companies have more
latitude to spend on deals when they can make the case that
consolidation will lead to stronger profits in the future, despite
evidence that merger results often fall short. That's one reason tech
M&A rose 20% last year, to $60 billion, according to Thomson Financial. The total is on track to rise 10% more this year.

The other reason for the
mergers and acquisitions is a decreasing return from research and
development. While some companies in high growth areas are still
spending major money on R &  D, those in more mature industries see less growth out of innovation.

As the article puts it:

The deals are clumped in a
handful of sectors. In markets where growth has slowed sharply,
consolidation is one of the few paths to boosting profits. That's true
in traditional wire-line telecom-one reason Verizon Communications is
buying MCI, while SBC Communications is acquiring AT&T.  It's also true in corporate software, where Ellison is leading the
merger wave. Oracle acquired rival PeopleSoft for $10.3 billion, all in
cash, in January, and Ellison says he's considering more deals.

Among the upcoming targets
predicted in the article are cell phone company T-Mobile, Research in
Motion (the maker of the Blackberry), customer management software
developer Siebel, and business analysis software maker Hyperion.

In
any case, the article notes that we may be reaching a slowdown in tech
innovation, at least in many sectors. Firms like Microsoft, Oracle, and
Dell are becoming more like Procter & Gamble and McDonalds than like the startups they once were.  [Oligopoly Watch

Air defense oligopoly According to an article in Air Force magazine (“What's Left of the Defense Industry”, July, 2005), many in the defense community are asking whether consolidation in the defense industry has gone too far. As the author notes: Once, the US military industry comprised dozens of major manufacturers and subcontractors, lineal descendants of… Continue reading article

Using Fastpush to install VNC flavors to multiple systems. Over at my Computerworld blog, I've just posted about using FastPush to deploy many of the available VNC flavors to multiple systems on your network automatically. Worth a read if you use VNC for remote desktop support in your organization… [Alex Scoble's IT Notes – A… Continue reading Using Fastpush to install VNC flavors to multiple systems

But Joe, they do!. Joe Wilcox talks about how this worm in reality shines the light on customers and patch management: 'The real spotlight should be on customers and patch management. If Microsoft doesn't provide tools these customers deem adequate to quickly deploy patches, then Microsoft competitors and partners should seize the opportunity to do… Continue reading But Joe, they do!

Scott Berkun: Work vs. Progress. Simple work, like mowing a lawn or washing a car has transparent progress: as each small unit of work is completed it's visible to everyone. But with complex work, building software, running a business, writing a novel, it is harder to identify true progress. [Tomalak's Realm]

Zotob and Variants. I've been reading the massive press coverage about Zotob (technical details are here, here, and here),   and can't figure out what the big deal is about. Yes, it propagates in Windows 2000 without user intervention, which is always nastier. It uses a Microsoft plug-and-play vulnerability,   which is somewhat interesting. But… Continue reading Zotob
and Variants

Hurry!. How can you tell if you're too obsessed with urgent? Do senior people at your company refuse to involve themselves in decisions until the last minute? Do meetings regularly get canceled because something else came up? Is waiting until the last minute the easiest way to get a final decision from your peers? Smart… Continue reading Hurry!

Clueless. We're all clueless. That's the best word I can use to describe the state of the art of marketing. Three examples: I'm at the supermarket yesterday. I run into my friend John, not someone I often see at the Food Emporium. John has a list. Standard grocery list, “here honey, please go out and… Continue reading Clueless