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?

I am a bootstrapper (new book from Seth Godin)

from Seth Godin new book:

“A bootstrapper is determined to build a business that pays for itself every day. (…) it´s easiest to define her by what she is not: a money-raising bureaucrat who specializes in using other people´s money to take big risks in growing a business.”

 Yeah! rock it!

http://www.changethis.com/8.BootstrappersBible

A MUST read for anybody that wants to leave the dull public job or the yellow-grey corporate cublicle and go start-up.

Best argument on why Social Networks are overrated

Google Blogoscoped citing Jason McCabe Calacanis at a discussion in front of a crowd interested in Facebook issues.

<<Social networking is second only to chat rooms as being the lowest CPM, the worst place to advertise… that’s not gonna change. And the reason for that – and this has nothing to do with Facebook, MySpace has the same problems – the reason is the content of your friends and family is more compelling than any advertisement will be.

This is why the comments in the last panel were so foolish about it being so competitive to Google, because Google has the greatest advertising in the history of media ever created… which is search advertising. When you type a word into the box, we know what you’re looking for.

When you’re on Facebook, we know you’re looking to meet a girl or a guy, or talk to your friends or your family. It’s a terrible platform to advertise, it always will be. It will always be low CPM, but high page views that make it up in volume. It’s a terrible, terrible way to make money.>>

So true!

Force.com may unleash the genie for small software businesses

On Sunday Force.com will be released as a platform to build entire web applications from scratch using Salesforce.com infrastructure. They are calling it PaaS (Platform as a service). They write “With the Force.com platform, you can build any application, any database, any logic, and run it all on demand on our trusted, secure infrastructure.” Force.com comes with Visualforce, which they promise gives the developer the possibility to create quickly great Ajax-based user interfaces on top of their applications.

Force.com gives freely Force.com cookbook, which I think it´s worth a quick read: Wow, it integrates with the Eclipse Platform! So you create your applications confortably offline and then zap, upload it to Force.com. The text has some inprecisions (calling the MDC pattern a paradigm for instance), but all in all is a good start. I bet they will improve that when people start using the thing.

Remeber Java? If this catches on, Salesforce.com may be the epicentrum of a movement for a new generation of small software companies from Pakistan, Brazil, Bulgary, South Africa and wherever there is internet to develop and market their software through a reliable world wide brand. Force.com has the potential to become the first marketplace ever of reusable software components, applications and mash-ups. Tapping in a huge, huge money pod.

We will see…

Fact of the day

ko.com is owned by The Coca-cola Company.

Joost list of possible future partnerships

The blogosphere got wild about a leaked pdf that described Joost software architecture but also some possible future parnterships with TV-networks around the globe. The PDF called Joost-network.pdf is no longer available, but I could get the list in the cache form Google. Here it is:

Animation: Aardman, Hasbro

Comedy: Avalon, Broadway Video, Heavy.com, MavTv, National Lampoon, Documentaries, 2entertain, New Atlantis, Terra, Wall to Wall

Entertainment: A&E, Channel 4, CHUM International, FHM, Freemantle, Endemol UK, ITV, Oxygen, ProSieben, Program Partners, Rainbow, Sony, Television Francaise 1, The Horror Channel, Warner Bros., Zone Media

Film: Elo Audiovisuel, Filmserve, Shorts International (they have 4 short movies there already)

Lifestyle: A3tv, Fitness on Demand TV, HealthiNation, Indivisual, Muses Productions, Guinness World Records, Plum, Resort Spa & Travel TV

Music: EMI, Fab Channel, Ministry of Sound, Sony BMG, Warner Music Int’l, Unitel, Universal Music Group

News: Chat the Planet, CNN International, Guardian (that would be really nice), JumpTV, Just Fabulous TV, Sports, All3Media, Fight NetworkFrank Warren, Golfspan.com, NHL, Pro Elite, Red Bull, Seconds Out, The Fit Show, Video Time TV, WCSN

Where are the $ 4 billion in market capitalization that were just here a second ago?

It was like Steve Jobs went to the toilete and while there someone in the blogosphere posted the news that IPhone would be delayed several months. After Steve is back he exclaims: “Oh my! Where are the $ 4 billion in market capitalization that were just here a second ago?!?!”.

Reported today by Techcrunch. Now “volatility” has gained a whole new meaning.

Why India is winning the software development game

Here is a meaningful example of what Software Companies in India are up to. Tata software, the biggest player from India is betting on the next wave of software development: model transformations and model-driven engineering. This proves that despite being a industry behemoth Tata still can think. Oh yes. India is not only about body shopping, but productivity, agility and reliability. Three magic words in the software engineering kingdom. In India, it seems, success means commitment to Innovation.

Latest news on Joost

New York Times reports that Joost had just completed another investment round receiving $ 45 million from CBS and Viacom. According to the article Joost has signed impressive 500,000 users since its debut in late April. I have been using it for a while now: they had another release this week with some fixes in their interface (e.g. to see available channels you had to go a very non-intuitive way, now it´s much better). They´re improving a lot their content, right now I am very fond of the Independent moviesand the ShortTV channels, both showing very cool movies. Also I saw IBM, HP and Virgin addvertisement. Not bad for a test phase…

Suhas Gopinath: the $100 Million Wunderkind from India

Spiegel has a nice piece on one of the youngest and most successful software entrepreneurs from India. Suhas Gopinath is only 21 years-old and runs Globals Inc that has 400 clients worldwide and according to this blog 700 employees, mostly paying for offshore services. He started the company when he was only 14 (!) and 7 years later he is news everywhere. There is even an entry in Wikipedia about him.

In Spiegel´s article, Mr. Gopinath is described as a very talented geek, a bit shy and not at all fond of this pop-star Sillicon Valley thing. He lives with his parents, never goes to the movies and work everyday for long hours. It seems a little boring for me, but as they say in America: no pain, no gain.