My fridge is listening to me


hal9KIt seems oddly fitting that this week — a week scarred by the bizarre and violent mass murder in San Bernardino — that I received a LinkedIn invitation to connect with someone who listed this as their job description:

Install, maintain, and repair GPS, WiFi, and security camera systems on tour buses. In 2010, working with grant money from Homeland Security, I installed security systems on a fleet of tour buses and I have been maintaining those systems since then. In 2011, I helped install multi-language listening systems on tour buses and have been the lead maintenance technician. Currently, I am project manager for upgrading a fleet of 50 tour buses with […]

By |December 4th, 2015|2015, Big Data, cloud computing, law, Privacy and Security|77 Comments
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Soylent Green — Now Made with More Women!

Soylent_greenSoylent Green is the punchline of a bad joke told to me at the breakfast table by Channing, my 13 year-old son, but in a way it is fitting for this column about women executives in danger of being chewed-up by their corporate machines. And kudos to you if you caught the reference to Edward G. Robinson’s final film — about an over-populated world where people are recycled into cookies.

First up is Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, whom I’m told is rapidly losing the support of her hand-picked board. Mayer, who is expecting twins, will probably not be returning from her upcoming maternity leave and Wall Street has begun speculating about possible successors. […]

By |November 30th, 2015|2015, cloud computing, Companies, competition, Industry, strategy, Technology|76 Comments
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Amazon’s cloud monopoly

GartnerCloudEarlier this year two different research reports came out describing the overall cloud computing market and Amazon’s role in it. Synergy Research Group saw Amazon as by far the biggest player (bigger in fact than the next four companies combined) with about 30 percent market share. But Gartner, taking perhaps a more focussed view of just the public cloud, claimed Amazon holds 82 percent of the market with cloud capacity that’s 10 times greater than all the other public cloud providers combined. I wonder how these disparate views can be possible describing the same company? And I wonder, further, whether this means Amazon actually has a cloud monopoly?


Yup, it’s a monopoly.

By |November 2nd, 2015|2015, cloud computing, Companies, competition, Internet, law, strategy|80 Comments
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Why Yahoo is worth less than nothing


marissamayerA reader pointed out to me today that Yahoo, minus its Alibaba and Yahoo Japan stakes plus cash, is now worth less than nothing according to Wall Street. This says a lot about Yahoo but even more about Wall Street, since the core company is still profitable if in decline. If I were a trader (I’m not) that would argue Yahoo is a buy since there’s likely to be a future point at which the company will be free of those other riches and even Wall Street will be forced to give the carcass a positive value.

But when I heard about the negative value story the first thing […]

By |October 21st, 2015|2015, Companies, Entrepreneurship, Industry, Internet, Media, strategy, Venture Capital|58 Comments
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Last chance to get a Mineserver™ for Christmas!

newmineserverlogo.jpgIt took only two days for our three sons to reach their $15,000 Kickstarter funding goal and visions of building a kit car were dancing in their heads. Almost three weeks later, however, total pledges are just nearing $30,000, which puts profits more in the deluxe quadcopter range. Still good, but not a Manx dune buggy. But there is one more day to make your pledge — the only way to get a Mineserver™ or Mineserver Pro™ in time for Christmas.

Along the way we gained the attention of Mojang, owners of Minecraft, who didn’t like our logo so the boys held a contest with the winner (from Hamilton, New Zealand!) getting a […]

By |October 19th, 2015|2015, Entrepreneurship, Family, Gadgets, Startups|86 Comments
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