Yahoo gets Right Media

The big news today is the 680Million Yahoo just plunked down for Right Media.  There is alot of good coverage on this at GigaOm and Techcrunch.  We all saw something similar coming after the big Google Doubleclick play.  But again someone at Yahoo is doing their homework.  This is a much better value play and the technology is much more efficient.  Nice job Yahoo…

There seems to be alot of buzz around Zwinktopia.  I am not that familiar with this other than it is aimed at the preteen crowd and they have begun the move into their own virtual world.  We will see how this plays out, but if nothing else we should all see a big flurry of similar type sites pop up soon.  Generally what one finds with any product geared to this age group is that they have a tremendous “big bang” and then fade away.  Can anyone say Cabbage Patch.

Vacation is just a mere two days away and I have the weight down to 197lbs, 31 lbs light than when I started in March.  I feel good and am eagerly awaiting the opportunity to get whooped by some 11 yr old girl on the courts.  I have been checking out Roger Cox’s tennis resort site almost daily, yes I have no life.  The reviews are pretty solid for Saddlebrook, even better than those for Bollettieri.  I arrive late Wens and hit the courts early Thurs.  I am hoping the weather will cooperate and not hit the 90’s, though it is looking like high 80’s for my whole 12 days there.

Well that is all the rmabling I have for today

Microsoft Record earnings again

So here is the question I have been pondering this morning.  If Microsoft is losing ground all over the place to the Googles, Linux and Notes of the world, how did it once again post record profits?  And with these record profits why is it that so many of the top Microsoft execs are leaving?  Could it be they are bored looking for new avenues to excel, new challenges?

I believe the demise of Microsoft has been greatly exaggerated, and really not true.  Are they at the front of every new idea and technology?  Of course not.  But what I can tell you from a corporate side is they are not far behind in anything and their stuff works very well with other components of their stuff.  Also the way their licenses work the more Microsoft you buy the cheaper the overall expense is.  Another thing that Microsoft has going for them is that every tech person is familiar with it, training or the high cost of specialty labor is not a concern when buying a Microsoft suite.

Now do I say all this cause I own a ton of Microsoft stock, no.  I own a ton of their stock because I believe all this and predict that they will continue to be a market leader if not dominator for quite some time still

But I ramble

Flex goes Open source

I see the big news of the day is that Flex, by Adobe, is going open source.  I have to say this has been just an absolute banner year for Adobe.  And now they are really going forward to embrace more of the developer community than they have in the past.  Known mostly for their niche products in the creative/media industries, they have really done well changing focus and direction.  With Flex, Apollo, and the release of CS3 it has been just a great few months for Adobe.  I do wonder however how much of this was made possible by the decision of Apple to use the Intel chipset?  Whatever the cause or reason its great to see.

Meeting day here was full of the more than typical BS.  I have never seen so many spend so much energy on getting so little done.  Seems every day another great idea is enacted to inhibit any progress at all.  Nothing like 3 hrs of paperwork for a 10 minute task, but this is where we are all headed here.  It only a matter of time til they see the light or see the pink slip, as things are falling apart quickly.  I guess the saying is true that everyone rises to their level of incompetency or at least the largest chunks rise to the top.  I am not saying they should let the tail wag the dog here, but it is quickly moving into the ridiculous.  Ok enough bitching on that

Just a few more days til vacation and I cant wait.  Tampa is looking like it will be 88-90 for my week there, thats alot of sweat coming.

well time to work and enough ramble for today

Muddled in Muck

I havent seen alot going on in the Tech sector this week.  Seems many are out enjoying spring as they should.  Life is to short just being tied inside all the time.  I read on CNNMoney that the Hedge fund managersare raking in some big bucks.  A bunch at over 1 billion in compensation.  Not really sure I would be looing to continue with working if I ever took in that kind of cash.  I am sure many of us could find things to do with our time than work.  I am also curious, Is someone really worth that type of money?  I mean really his grandchildren will be hard pressed to spend it and that is just one year.  I really respected Buffett giving away all that money, maybe many will follow suit and donate too.  On the way in I was listening to the Ipod and I heard some lyrics that got me thinking on this topic.  “Two more than they need, that is the dream”..its from a Tracy Chapman song and so true.  When is enough enough?

Pace here has been lets say slow.  Not a real lot going on and it seems that to keep everyone busy we are being swamped with busy work.  Hey sometimes you just have to go with the flow and deal.  Things should pick up upon my return from vacation as we have a Voip implementation and a closet switch refresh needing to happen.  We had a tough time between the Cisco and the HPswitches as far as making a decision.  The cost differential was just too great to overcome the bean counters here.  What can you do?

On this slow day that is all of my ramble….

Blackberry, RIM, finally gets a clue

The big news yesterday, or the soon to be big news is that Blackberry, RIM, is now going to be able to support all Windows mobile devices with their BES.  Tis is huge since the largest rap on the company is the look and feel of their hardware, almost everyone says software wise they are way ahead of the game.  I am not sure why this took so long and release is not for a few months.  Probably the announcement had something to do with a little outage last week, heck we can all use good press once in a while.  This may be a fatal blow to other devices or more correctly platforms.  Blackberries are by far the most used in the business world and mark my words within a year of the release RIM will jump 5 points in market share.

There is a gentleman’s wager here on which technology will be more prolific in 4 years, Wi-Fi or Wimax.  I am on the side of Wi-Fi as this tends ot be the closest to implementation and the cheaper option currently.  Thank you London for hoping on the Wi-Fi bandwagon.  I will toast to you when I have won the bet.  Of course I am worried about Echo Peak from Intel, but that is still a little ways away.

As far as I am concerned the weight goal has been met, yep reached 200 this am.  I have a week to spare before I get to go to the Tennis camp so maybe I can trim a few more lbs off.  28 lbs in 2 months, and all this from taking away junk food, soda and running a bit everyday.  I like most in this country got lazy and developed food in mouth disease.  I feel alot better and am looking forwar to getting a tad lighter.  A lean mean fighting machine  lol

Well that is all the rambling I have for today

Monday, Monday

Welcome all…this weekend was beautiful up here in NY, first real nice day of spring.  Friday I spent at poker night, my once a month pleasure and ended up winning the night.  I have done this a few times and I am surprised every time I win.  The players coming to our game are getting better and better.  I hope to play again in May when I return from Tennis camp.  On Saturday I went to the zoo with a friend who came down from Vermont.  What a great day to walk around  I always learn something everytime I go yet still dont know the difference between a tortoise and a turtle? 

I didnt see much going on tech wise over the weekend but I have to send everyone to this site.  I was sent to it from Scobles site and its really something you should all see.  This week there is alot of busy work to do before I leave, nothing that will really lead to anything but enough paperwork to choke a horse.  seems I am falling further and further into the corporate abyss.  Ok I will ramble more later

Ken Blanchard management Socialism?

So at the behest of my CIO I am reading the latest Ken Blanchard book on management and team building.  Now I will prface my comments and let you know I have only gotten through the first 200 pages but so far…utter crap.  The theory is basically the second coming of Marx and Engels.  I just do not see how in the cutthroat world of todays corporations this has a chance.  The whole be humble, work and do with the company on mind, and kumbaya.  Now if you happen to be CIO or you were at a company where this is already in place, well then you can revel in your utopia.  But, for most middle managers, this is career suicide and just not practical.  One of the cornerstones of his premise to to get every employee to think company first, yeah nice idea next thing you will tell me is world peace is good.  the problem lies in the fact that as middle managers we supervise people who have no stake in theoutcome, yes a borrrowed phrase from Jack Stack.  All most employees care about is how to get there next dollar and still leave by 5pm.  Our own HR departments foster this type of thought and behavior.  Go ahead if you dont believe me and try to fire mediocre.  Most employees dont care whether or not the shareholders make a dime as long as they get their share from the coffers.  Lets face it basic human nature or at least the human nature that has developed here is much more selfish then Mr Blanchard sees.  I can seee his next book will begin with “To each according with his needs, from each according to their abilities.”

Now onto what is happening…Google kicked but releasing its q1 numbers up like 69% year over year, seems there is a method to their madness.  I looked at news on Myspace yesterday, wasnt terribly impressed they would have done better to copy Newsgator more that what they put up.  Not really a hot news day on the tech front.

On the Virginia Tech front and the package sent to NBC from Ismail Ax aka Cho Seung-Hui.  I am for the broadcast of the video.  I think that it is important for us as a society to see this type of thing from time to time.  Not the bloodshed or the killings.  But a wakeup call to us all that not everyone is playing with a full deck.  Not everyone sees this land as the utopia some make it out to be. There are plenty of Cho’s out there and hopefully none will take their rage and anger to this extent.  But to hide our heads in the sand here, no matter how difficult it is to see is not the right move.  Maybe seeing his rants will open the eyes to those who can prevent such atrocities…but hey maybe I just ramble

15 minutes of Fame about to Fade for Sanjaya

Ah so the big news of the day, that is right folks Sanjaya has gone home.  I feel for this guy.  I know he currently is riding his 15 minutes but does he really think he has talent?  I mean this is almost a William Huang situation, with minor nuances.  I am sure he will put out some joke album, maybe have a novelty song for a little while before just fading away.

I still dont get the whole StumbleUpon thing with eBay.  I just dont see how this can generate 40 million in revenue for them over any period of time.  Plus Google responds with a similar feature, took them a long time to come up with those dice and probably didn’t cost 40 million to code.

I am a huge Met fan and last night was great, Willis always kills us.  We got on him early for another good win.  Atlanta is doing well I just dont see them being able to win all year, but they have been so good for so long any Met fan, myself included would be nervous.

Myspace news is scheduled to be released today, not up as of right now so I will see what it has going for it later.  I am curious if the bubblegum kids really care about news and if this doesn’t lure and older crowd.  There are both sides of the coin here with opening up to or attracting and older clientele.  No surprise that this will end up being a ugc play in short time.

If anyone has been to Hopman Tennis at Saddlebrook recently tell me how it was, I would love to hear about your experience.  I will be there for a few weeks and will attempt to write daily about my experience.

Well that is all the rambling for me this am

Miss Me?

I have been offline for a few days, got a case of the lazies.  I was up at 5am this am trying to get back on track.  Doing my running and stuff to reach my tennis camp goals.  I am just 3 lbs away from the magic 200.  With two weeks to the day to go (8 work days) I feel confident I will make it.  Played some tennis Sunday with my old doubles partner, and we crushed our opponents.  We played well but not our best, though this tends to be the case when we get a big lead on people.  We are not the best of really laying down the hammer.  Work has been slow, probably because I have not been there in days…haven’t really missed much and will be caught up by the end of tomorrow.  I saw that Google has once again over paid for a company.  I mean really 12 times revenue for Doubleclick?  I see Monster as the next big name to be gobbled up.  Does anyone recognize the similarities between Monster and Symbol??The same CEO maybe?  This would be a nice play for Yahoo or better yet Microsoft, or will the Google boys over pay again?  I saw American Idol last night and really Sanjaya is horrible.  Lets see if he stays on again.  There is part of me that really wants him to win, that would be so funny.  I must say though as a country music fan no one really nailed a good country sound….they all went really pop.

I see StumbleUpon is on the blocks…not really sure why its definitely not best in class but seems to be hopping on the acquisition bandwagon.  The suitors seem to include eBay, AOl and others.  A bad deal all the way around. Update eBay supposedly has a terms sheet in the 40 million range, money well wasted.  I am still a huge fan of Scrapbloglets hope they get some suitors with some pockets to really develop the heck out of that. 

Well thats all I got for now plus I rambled too much for my first day back anyhow

Coddling the Stupid

So here I was out on my morning run with nothing really to do but bounce around with my ipod and think.  It was during this time this morning that I had a thought.  I was trying and have been for sometime, to figure out why I rub so many people the wrong way.  Is it my intention or just my overall charm.  I came up with, right or wrong, that I cannot coddle the stupid.  Is this my issue or is it that society nowadays is so focused on being PC and making everyone feel good that we have, especially in the workplace, accepted mediocrity and began coddling the stupid?  Where are the Jack Welch era that demanded high performance and who would suggest parting with the lower portion of any workforce.  Now I know there is more to being a good employee then just knowing your stuff, but should that not be the base or foundation?  So many people I run into on a daily basis just cant get out of their own way.  If you have been reading you know today is meeting day and yes that means put on a happy face.  I have been beaten down to the point where I seem to no longer care.  I have always been of the ilk that our job as IT execs was to get as much done for as little as possible.  Not try to suck every dime out of the corporate coffers to coddle the stupid.  That we need to hire, train and promote employees who have not only a career but a purpose, a drive toward excellence.  The corporate climate tends to be make work and do as little of it as possible, I wonder it the 26,000 getting let go at Citicorp are coming to this realization now that they are carrying their pink slips?  I know I for one am not going to change the American corporate climate, but realizing what is happening and making decisions on whether you can stomach such behavior is important.  So my questions will continue…but I ramble