Tuesday, October 29, 2002

Dell is Losing Friends in the Valley? I've seen 2 pieces recently in the WSJ and the Chronicle (see Shark-jumper: http://radio.weblogs.com/0106285/2002/10/28.html Discussing Dell's efforts to commoditize product categories, including some suprising moves into routers (effectively ending a partnership w/ Cisco) and now printers (ditto, HP). Interesting comments regarding the latter move, which is seen an attack on HP's cash cow, so that Carley is less able to fund other businesses (read: PCs & servers). Also, seen a wild-eyed note that Dell might buy BEA; wouldn't that be something / a mess. The guys at Merrill had a great comment buried in a 9.10.02 note from Steve Milunocich, which said that Dell wins when markets go into "overshoot," Clayton Christen-ism for commidity markets.http://www.innosight.com/ 12:29:27 PM    comment []

Siebel Brings 2 Dates to the Dance: "Microsoft and Siebel integrate apps and .Net, while Sun and Siebel explore J2EE" http://www.informationweek.com/story/IWK20021025S0013 Siebel and MSFT have 100 engineers working on the integration of Siebel & .NET; while Sun & Siebel have 10 engineers. Is Java 10x easier than .NET or what's going on here? Gates says that MSFT will help w/ UAN initiative as well. Siebel & MSFT as partners, these are strange times indeed. 11:58:57 AM    comment []

Glad the drama is finally over; (somehow I missed this last week -- apparently spending too much time on Project Amsterdam). Sun Joins WS-I http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/1488041 Sun will run for one of the 2 board seats in the election next March. 11:47:39 AM    comment []

Fans Say Thanks to Giants http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/10/29/SP242422.DTL Wish I had made it over to the whole ballyard yesterday to say thanks for a great season to the Skipper and the Boys. As the article says, "It would have been a great day for a parade." Yes, indeed.  Even if Dustry does come back, which I'd put at 50/50 at this point (does he really want to go to Chicago? guaranteed NEVER to win), it's still going to be a challenging year for Sabean & Crew: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/10/28/SP210285.DTL Sabean has always gone w/ verteran talent, which makes every year a bit of a crapshoot as he has to re-load. As much as I appreciate what they've done this year, I think  the Giants are better off without Reggie Sanders and Shawon Dunston. Say what you want about Livo, but I think the Giants need to give him a chance to see if he can rebound from 2 terrible WS performances. Remember, he was way clutch in Game 4 of the NLDS (elimination game) and NLCS, when he held the Cards to 2 runs. 11:44:29 AM    comment []

De-Centralization is In: http://news.com.com/2010-1071-963113.html Kevin Werbach, formerly of Esther Dyson's Release 1.0, weighs in in a new essay on how Wi-Fi, Weblogs and Web services are connected. He argues that they all represent a new de-centralized paradigm for IT, going against the traditional nature of centralized systems. The core reason? Centralized systems are expensive to scale and don't reflect the way people want to work. The question becomes how to describe and/or quantify the value of distributed systems. Kevin submits that there are parallel themes happening in Telecom & software between open spectrum and web services. No question that Kevin's a bright guy and usually a few moves ahead of the rest of us. He's exploring these issues in more depth at an upcoming conference in December, SuperNova: http://www.pulver.com/supernova/ Take a look.   11:36:15 AM    comment []

The Sky is Falling, The Sky is Falling .... Consumer Confidence is down according to the Conference Board. "A weak labor market, the threat of military action in Iraq, and a prolonged decline in the financial markets have clearly dampened both consumers' confidence and their expectations for the near future," said Lynn Franco, director of the group's research center. (http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1035903578677098951,00.html?mod=home_whats_news_us) -- (Req. subscription) This shouldn't really be a surprise to anyone, though it is the lowest rating since Nov. 1993. Given that consumers have been driving the economy for the past 15-18 months, what does this mean? People often say one thing and do another, so perhaps folks will continue to spend through the holidays, given the bump in the stock market, low interest rates and promising Q3 GDP (coming on Thurs.), but then again significant developments in Iraq, Indonesia or elsewhere could make folks actually stick to what their telling pollsters. 11:26:11 AM    comment []