November 2005

Andy Groove's story -- oh, yeah, the dude who made history with Intel in 84 by switching from RAM into the chip biz. A Strategy 101 case study.

...the economic reasoning by economists that is, makes perfectly good sense -- a must read. Scroll down to "why are we asking for donations". [ link]

Oh, and btw, consider donating yourself either --- MR is one of the best written blogs.

Jeremy's conclusions after a 60-day period of testing usage.

The difference between the two explained by GM and applied in a Southwest Airlines mini case study.

"The distinction is critical to business strategy. Core is differentiation in some attribute of the offer that leads to customer preference at the time of a purchase decision. Context is acceptable performance in all other attributes.  Unlike core, with context, while it is critical not to under-perform, there is no reward for over-performing. Southwest?s core is price, supplemented with availability and selection?the classic retail formula. That has not changed.  What has is that competitors are now matching these dimensions of their offer."

The new Yahoo Mail offers the RSS reading option -- my take is that this will become pretty much standard with any email client, be it web-based or not. Up to this moment the new Yahoo Mail is still in closed beta though.

update: more on the strategic implications over at Michael's.

Have a web 2.0 biz idea and you're not sure that it's been done? Check it out...

Read this first (if you haven't already) and then see it applied to MSFT back in their inception days.

In US the market is expected to be about $12bn in 2005 --- in Romania we expect about 4 millions, and that's a yoy 100% increase. [via Iulian]

Are you good at spotting fake smiles? Reminds me of the typical American "hi, how are you" without waiting for a response. I spotted 17 right out of 20. :)

I scored 21...:) [ link]

... by Amazon. Handy and very useful, smart move.

Oh well...

An Intel's game oriented on Intel's products though.[ via]

Click-to-call --- Google's experimenting it. I doubt we will see it in Europe though too soon due to the different ways of telephone using in this part of the world, especially when it comes to purchasing habits. (different telecom models) Still it looks like an untapped emerging market using new disruptive technology - voip that is.

on web 2.0, of course -- hosted by FT. (read from down up -- twisted FT usability)

I ran into the link several times today but have no time/patience to look into it. Fwiw, here it is.

...I'd make sure I check out this.

Still not familiar with the concept? It looks like Geoffrey Moore is blogging now. Go figure...:) It's definitely in my top ten daily readings.

just in case you're considering it...:)

Turns out that Americans working more is not (only) a cultural thing but (also) depends heavily on unions and regulations.

In a nutshell:

• code faster than any of your competitors
• absorb everything related to your business
• if it's not related to your startup make it related
• network with everyone you've ever met
• spend no money
• forget that you're swimming upstream directly into a black-hole

My advice is to read between the lines - the atitude is the most important of them, this is what most Romanian programmers (and not only) considering entrepreneurial ventures are missing from the whole picture. [ link]

20 things you didn't know about W.

link [via] and PG's take on the very same topic from this week

An online social place for recommendations on about anything. Interesting. [via]

Cringely's Google is web 2.0.

MSN+MSFT, Google and Yahoo. Actually there are only 2 European players in top 10 - Wanadoo and T-Online.

On an other note Jason says that there is a group of folks in Germany copying business models from US for flipping biz. So what? My bet is that it's the same all over the world, people are looking at successful models and try to roll them over where they have the local knowledge. They always did and always will, no need to re-invent the wheel - that's why they call it 'competition'. The sad truth is that this comes at the cost on innovating though.

For people in the know -- though it relates to NBA mostly.

So what is Google hunting for lunch these days? Apparently a photo face recognition company - Riya - for about $40 mil. Built to flip? :)

update: PK says the price is as much as $60 mil

I just watched Dick Hardt presentation on Identity 2.0 from this year's OSCON (I am so behind with lots of stuff) --- highly recommended, it's made in a Lessigian style, which I doubt I will ever be able do it. But that's besides the point anyways. [ via]

An eye opener - required reading for those with interests in the strategy field [ via]

I am quite surprised Romanians didn't make it to the top ten, most of the time I have the impression that the Romanians have the "l'ombellico dell mondo" atitude. :)
[via Michael]

4 things in the favour of living in each. I love Copenhagen but never been to Toulouse though.

Got asked by several people if and why I am not interested in going to Les Blog 2.0. While it sounds like a terrific networking event, (lots of cool people to meet face-to-face and hang out with rather than just reading them) having looked at the agenda didnot give me any "gosh, I wanna go" impulse.

The reason is simple, nowadays I find talking about blogging, what it is, how it's going to change the world, etc, etc, just boring -- blogging is a mean not an end, if you have something to say just say it on whatever topic, as simple as that. Even with my fellow Romanians who these days discover what blogs are and jump on the boat I avoid talking about what blogs are most of the time - I am rather showing them the benefits of it.

Yahoo the other day and now Google - nothing new just the "how cool" type of thing. Mainstream media that is. :)

@rgumente is not web 2.0 compliant at all. (0 out of 10) :))

A head to head comparison of the offered services.

Looks like in China they also star the toilets. In Romania they represent an important advertising medium actually. :)

Yahoo Finance and Forbes magazine have a special edition providing calculations of how much a family needs to make per year so that it makes a comfortable living in the USA ("living the American dream" that is :) ). The most expensive places turned out to be NYC with a $483,800 per year and Boston, MA with about $408k. The figures are net of taxes and consider a family of 2 spouses and 2 kids.

Is it just me or that is a s***load of money as compared to, let's say, Europe, or even for Scandinavia. :) Also, on the other hand, what I find interesting though is that the rate of startup emergence (or value creation) is way higher across the pond while the costs for a startup are decreasing by each day on both sides.

Note to myself. :)

The first Google hit for Bucuresti Romania points to the url of the USA embassy in Bucharest. Similarly for Bucharest Romania.

1. It is just a PC-software company. "The facts show that isn't true," with 40% of revenue now coming from outside the core Windows and Office franchises.
2. That Linux will kill Microsoft. Linux has gone nowhere on the desktop, and on the server is growing at the expense of Unix, not Windows.
3. The Google myth -- it competes with just 3% of Microsoft's revenues. [from over at PK]

... is going down.

Oh well, that's just in case you're after some gossip.

...by a partnership Mercora/Google Talk, this time, with the latter apparently not getting as much traction since launching. Interesting nonetheless - though I also tend to agree with the GYM frenziness.

Oh yes, it's been a while since they started it, I even pointed to their coverage of USV sessions a while back - USV's website basically is a VC-based weblog. A must-read, free online lessons for anybody from both the investors and entrepreneurial sides.

Everybody seems to talk about it and yet I somewhat feel that few people acknowledge that this is the beginning of a very strong network Google play, by giving clear metrics to the individuals for evaluating their content creation tool (blog, platform, reconstructor, community, whatever) and making it profitable if they are able to, of course. An web-based entrdpreneurial tool for the web, or, if you want, an enabler of the concepts Umair has been saying over and over again in the context of micromedia (I like microchunking :)), peer production, and/or network economies.

Posting on this blog has been quite sporadic for the last two months or so since I had to deal with a considerably and unexpectedly high amount of work I needed to prepare for and execute in a relative short period of time and time, as always, didnot give me the chnce to stay on top of what had been going on the news level lately. Nowadays things started to become more predictable though the workload is still considerably high. So what's going on in Romania these days and has been for the last weeks or so?

The word of the day seems to be strikes -- we had the unions from educational system doing it for a couple of weeks now asking for an increase in the salary budget that should be the equivalent of at least 5 6% of the 2006 projected budget. As far as I know the figure budgeted was below 4% (3.8%) while the last year figure was about 4.2%. Lots of negotiations were in place and lots of egos and mediocre political interferences as expected (actually the education minister resigned for the low figure in the first place), and in the end the compromise that Tariceanu et all came up with was an additional of 1.2% (on top of the3.8% from the 2006 budget) that the difference up to the 5% difference that should be reflected from infrastructure projects that the educational system may benefit from.

Even though apparently both parties said yes, it looks like we have an idiotic strike continuation due to some procedures followings in courts combined with, of course, the ego of the some of the union leaders. Leaders whom everybody should keep in mind that are mainly formerly communists clerks that now changed their jobs as representing a system they have no solutions for as leaders from within and, moreover, just waiting only for a similar bureacratic and incapable government as the problem solver. My guess is that things will work out somewhat -- for the entire background read this.

Other than that tomorrow Bucharest is expected to be paralysed by yet another strike of the unionists representing the metro system. Here things are more simple -- the union demands are for about 23% salary increases. Facts to consider: for the last year or so the price for a metro ticket increased by more than 20%, the metro company is still not profitable and let's say that it is easy to spot that the company is run badly only if one customer is simply using it from time to time and looks at simple, easy to notice metrics. Hence instead of correcting the management defficiencies and increasing the operational efficiencies for putting more on the salary side the solution was just asking for a burden on the expense salaries. Perhaps the entire picture becomes more consistent if I just mention that the union's head and the one deciding about the strike is an opposition (PSD) senator. So the problem is nothing but politics, unfortunately, will be surprised if Tariceanu will compromise on it.

What else -- on the political side nothing unusual -- the same idiocies and/or idiots fighting for power regardless their political color (opposition or government), communists versus neo-communists, people interested in keeping their positions - Nastase and Vacaroiu (both former PMs, nowadays still Parliament leaders and old-not-yet-proved corrupted Romanian officials) -- those guys use all their power of influence just to play a frontline role, IMO they seem to have lost the reality check and common sense for a long time now. The good news is that regardless all those political games the big picture means that joining the EU puts a lot of pressure to an old and outdated system for being changed. Slowly and with a lot of hiccups, but it does change. Even though these days EU seems to have internal problems as well for being as worried about some punks from the boundaries who don't seem to get it and/or bother too much about what common sense might mean.

On the business side though things seem to be quite positive. BCR is about to be privatized for a handsome amount of 3.4bn euros with the final and unexpected bidders being the Austrian Erste and the Portuguese BCP, banks which some analysts rushed to consider 2-tier players. Other than that the business environment is very alive and kicking, lots of multinationals are rushing in to open local offices and exploit probably the least untapped market from Central Eastern Europe. The context is good with several opportunities to exploit in spite of the above-mentioned idiots in charge for politics now given that the EU guidance provides a somewhat predictable and stable business environment. Lots of bureaucratic stuff nonetheless, but nothing more unusual than across Europe, everything taken with the local cultural difference flavours, of course.

Other quickies:
- the IMF agreement extension has been postponed due to different budget philosophies for 2006. The discussion will resume sometimes next January though.
- the IT&C market will top about euro 4bn this year (with software market increase of about 25% -- lots of consolidation in this space) -- on a similar note the exports are predicted to reach some 29bn euros next year, we will see about that. FDI figures are also looking encouraging.
- lots of VERY interesting projects for Bucharest for the next 3 years or so - I am very much in doubt here given the 15-year history and knowing who the people in charge are. I guess seeing is believeing, though Bucharest has changed a lot lately. In good.

On a blogging note, last Friday there was a blogger meeting in Bucharest - it was fun and informative, bloggers from Romania (also non-Romanians) are very interesting people. Pics here or here, some impressions in English here or here.

The Father of Modern Management passed away. Here at @rgumente all express grief for that.

It is a company that nobody should under-estimate, in spite of being everybody's favourite basher. It looks like Ray Ozzie has increased decision power now.

update: Bill's email and Ray's memo available.

:) link via

Nice satellite pics of Bucharest - one from 1984 and the other from 2004. Things have changed, to quote a Dylan song. :) More pics of other cities here. [thanks Jake]

link via

... on the phone.

After the Forbes' article, this may put the phenomenon in clearer context. After all, the bloggers keep a blog primary for serving as a therapy :). 

The flying mall that is:

"Michael O'Leary, Ryanair's chief executive, reportedly said that revenues from inflight gambling and services will replace the traditional ticket in four to five years. As he sees it, it can be done at no cost." [link]

Yahoo's employees stealing the free-offered food by Google by sneaking into the campus. Besides free food apparently there's an ego contest. Reminds me of kindergarten. :)

google.com define:outrageous -- three definitions are presented, the third comes straight from wikipedia: :))

""Outrageous" is the fourth single from pop music singer Britney Spears released from the album In the Zone in June 2004 in the US only."

Gave some thoughts to the VC's business model fundamentals tonight -- latest PG's essay hits the nail in the head, as always highly recommended.

Looks like it is more and more challenging to do an MBA assignment these days, students are asking for info directly from blogs. :)

Would you pay 5 bucks per month for Google? I wouldn't!

... about Microsoft that is. With a bonus here. Better that than the usual FUD about MSFT from around about everywhere, huh? :)

Seen them last week, I just had the time to have them posted it: here and here

Meet the women running the show. They might impact the business in the years ahead.

I always think this quote is extraordinary true: ?Women who seek to be equal with man lack ambition ? Timothy Leary?.

Personal note: I miss Carly Fiorina.

Maybe Nestle have to speculate this. They could even create a slogan.

Who gets the most damaged from the Apple/Sony pissing contest? The consumer, of course - a typical case of value destruction upstream the value chain, in the distribution channels. [link]

If you don't have it yet -- hurry up and start it up.

Great story from Jeff exemplifying that while it is nice to acknowledge that you're sorry when you screw up you'd better have a plan to fix things. And do it asap. Set up a strategy and execute it that is.

Just took the "can you pass the (British) citizenship test" and scored 9 points, closed to the 11-13 points range that would have given me the right of a seat in Parliament. I was positively surprised though to my shame I wasn't able to figure out the spill somebody else's pint in a pub situation (question number 8) --- I chose the fight over buying a replacement, the manners should always prevail. :)

I learnt about it over at Rachel's who's also mentioning about the British government having started taking citizenship tests.

The idea and the experience.
It's so much "social" out there! I must be prepared. :)