Economist Reality Check para o Porto Digital e outros “clusters” espalhados pelo Brasil

 : policymakers are obsessed by Silicon Valley. The Russians claim to have built a clone of it near Moscow. Latvia aspires to create its own venture-capital industry. Universities everywhere are building high-tech “incubators”. Yet there is little evidence that the model is transferable. Most incubators are a bit like roach motels: would-be entrepreneurs check in but never leave. The venture-capital industry is in trouble in Silicon Valley itself, given the high rate of failure of start-ups, and is unlikely to flourish in Latvia. Rohit Shukla of the Larta Institute in California says policymakers should stop obsessing about clusters (which are usually the product of accident, not planning) and embrace global networks instead. The rise of the internet, the growing importance of emerging markets and the proliferation of networking organisations like the Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE, a group with members across 14 countries), all make it easier to link talent with opportunity around the world.

 http://www.economist.com/node/21550239?frsc=dg%7Ca

Mudando o cenário da informática Pernambucana

Uma proposta prática, que defendo desde o início para mudar o cenário da informática pernambucana, é esquecer que governo existe: porto digital & cesar estão lá com seus memes e seus valores de 1999 e nós (empresas privadas) estamos no futuro: 2012. O que fazemos? Que tal *copiar* o modelo de sucesso da Tempest e da Neurotech? Pega inovação, empacota, bota dentro da mala e voa para SP.

Suponha que conseguimos convencer nos próximos 5 anos, 200 empresas a fazerem isso, afinal temos 150 cadastradas no pd e deve ter mais por aí afora. Suponha, que destas 20% cheguem ao patamar de 10 milhoes. O que temos no final de 5 anos? 400 milhões novos (sem finep, sem lei de informática) para dentro da economia da cidade.

Esta taxa de sucesso é alta? E se usarmos inteligência e cooperação para acelerar o processo, por exemplo: e se a Neurotech montar com a Ubee (http://startupbase.net/startup/ubee) uma unidade de prevenção de segurança em Shoppings via dados do produto dele combinando redes neurais? Essa joint venture pode faturar 10 milhões daqui 5 anos. E se as joint ventures que a E.Life tá fazendo com a mobiclub e a comment.lab faturarem 10 milhoes em 5 anos cada? E a Procenge? Talvez eles possam montar uma joint venture para oferecer um sales force automation for iPad com a Ftips?

E agora respondendo a pergunta inicial: como resolvemos os problemas mundanos do porto digital, ou melhor, do Recife como inteiro? Resposta: Um grupo de 400 milhões e possivelmente 1000 empregados tem poder político. Pode exigir colocar um presidente do porto digital vindo da iniciativa privada, quem sabe até do Sillicon Valley (!), pode exigir aos deputados que mudem o bairro de Recife e os outros. Em outras palavras: money talks and it walks.

Hoje somos todos pobres, sem voz, sem participação ativa em nada. Um grupo super pequeno de funcionários públicos centraliza e define quem fica com os jogos da secedu, quem ganha as licitações da ATI, as verbas da FINEP e da lei de informática etc etc. E eu digo: que engulam todo o dinheiro público sozinhos! Faz mal e dá indigestao. Causa dormência empresarial, coma e finalmente a morte.

Somente criando um grupo de milionários vindo do setor *privado*, os primeiros pernambucanos, que fizerem seu dinheiro fora deste clube seleto de amigos do governo vai ter o poder de mudar tudo isso. E nao em cinquenta, mas em 5 anos !

First song I recorded in 14 years? wow

I am the one for you, baby.

Microsoft gives up Yahoo

I just woke up and read in Spiegel.de that MS finally gave up of Yahoo. Smart move. All MS does not need right now is to waste time with corporate culture clashes. I am still betting on a much clever take over by Microsoft: that would be Adobe Systems with their almighty onipresent Flash. Much of the web is going multimedia and owning the top plataform to design enriched apps is going to make Microsoft current core business stronger.

I believe that MS should focus on software, be it service or licenses and not try to be a media advertisement oriented company . This has not  worked  and never will. They must fight Google, Oracle, IBM, Salesforce etc, but in their own field. Despite what everyone says, they are by far the top consumer-software company and come right after IBM in the corporate software market. So all in all, giving up a fancy media portal comes for the best.

Google brand in movies

I spotted another movie with Google product placement: Reservation Road starring Joaquin Phoenix and Mark Ruffalo. Joaquin plays a father that just lost his son in a hit and run accident on ‘reservation road’. Not believing the police was doing enough he decides… to google ‘hit and run’.

The day I started using GMail

Roomba is here

For like 5 years or more I was waiting for the day where I finally would benefit from AI in my place. So now besides Google I have the second most useful gadget AI can give: presenting my roomba (though I am thinking of rebaptizing him as Leo or Roy or even Marcio).

Useless photos of my new living room

And here it goes, my living room in Mannheim, Germany release 1.01.

(Thanks to IKEA)

Which company should Microsoft buy?

They want Yahoo. Some say they should go for SAP. I was thinking Adobe.

Its market cap is US$20.2 billion (half of Yahoo´s), its core business is much more similiar to Microsoft´s and last but not least, Adobe owns a virtual monopoly of the tools to build a much enriched web (including the web 2.n.n.n, videos, animations, 3D graphics etc). Adobe has just released its Adobe AIR and FLEX 3.0 platforms (in their site they even say FLEX is free and open source! How about that?). These tools bring real multimedia capabilities to the web, one thing that Google  text-mining obsessed culture seems  to hate  the most. But hey, do you really think the web will remain this dull all-text environment? I´m betting no.

So wouldn´t it be nice for Microsoft to control  the new tools for the new web? C´mon guys it´s a beautiful monopoly, isn´t it?

Douglas Coupland: The Gum Thief

Last week I finished last Coupland´s. No surprises here. The narrative experiments with a book within a book and the whole ouvre is a diary written by the main character all-suffering-lost-my-son Roger that ended up in a Staple and his never direcly speaking-to colleague a goth girl named Bethany. Doug makes Roger´s diary the plot epicenter by letting Bethany and others (her mom, others from Staples) getting to find it and starting to write stuff.

Bethany and Roger basically discuss the lives of losers (as they use to say in America) through short entries in this diary. In the meantime Roger keeps writing Glove Pond (a glamorous novel with witty people from the last century based on him and people in Staples). Glove Pond refers to Gum Thief itself (in a sort of recursive way) because the young writer that comes to visit the older one is also writing a novel taking place in Staples, the guy has a slight drinking problem just like Roger. Subtle geekish Coupland: creating strange loops.

The book is fun, but I think I am growing a little tired of pop-geek couplandish structure. But in a way, if books were restaurants, I keep reading him because I was once a very satisfied customer; the meal is just now not so much a novelty anymore.