Cnet’s article Apple offers Mac Mini ‘grab bag’ reports on an otherwise unreported speed bump on the Mac Mini. This looks like a duck and cover on Apple’s part, since the Mac Mini just saw an announced revision with the addition of the previously optional Bluetooth and Wi-Fi support in the high end model. Read the rest of this entry »
It was great to see Paradigma Software’s Valentina listed on Doug Barry’s Web Services and Service-Oriented Architectures site under the list of recommended object-relational solutions. Doug has a book on the topic, Web Services and Service-Oriented Architectures: The Savvy Manager’s Guide
The Trademark Dilution Revision Act has some ugly ramifications for the software industry. Although my understanding of trademarks is that its possible to use similar trademarks for different classifications of products and services (like Apple Music and Apple Computer), this could completely transform trademarks to support only industry giants to totally own a particular mark. You could see Amazon the online bookseller force an Amazon rain gear to drop using the term “Amazon” — the argument being, these smaller and unassociated companies will dilute the value of the use of the larger company in the mark. Read the rest of this entry »
Letting your focus drift can up-end your business at any time: before you release your first product or after you have had a success or two.
As a software vendor, your first priority is to ship product. If you are an Engineer CEO or a technology researcher, it is very easy to consciously or unconsciously place technological perfection above all else or get caught up in the total functionality of the technology you work with. Read the rest of this entry »
Shade is a general 3D modeling and animation product from Japan. It has an ancient history as far as software goes, beginning life in 1986 and quickly dominating the Japanese 3D market. At the time, the Japanese desktop computer industry was dominated by the NEC-98 series, not exactly an IBM/AT clone but close enough; yet not close enough that it wasnt a problem developing for it. The NEC-98 series ruled Japan’s computer industry, and not a lot of foreign software ran on it without serious adaptation. No real foreign competition in the very early 3D market ever made it on the NEC-98. Read the rest of this entry »
A start up CEO usually has to fill an incredible array of roles before the operation becomes viable. This is especially true of Engineer CEOs who end up spending 90% of their time coding and the other 10% actually running the business. A serious problem which I have seen in many start ups that Proactive International has worked with, is that start up CEOs either forget what a CEO is actually supposed to do, or, never knew what they were supposed to do from the beginning. Read the rest of this entry »
A lot of start ups formed from refugees from other companies often fall into the trap of thinking that sales is someone else’s job. In large companies, you’ll find employees who think this part of the company codes; that part of the company sells. It is a sickness that can cripple the big boys and kill start ups. Read the rest of this entry »
Here is the second deadly sin of a software company CEO - running out of money. In fact, there is another deadly sin related to financing, but lets cut to the quick of it and talk about a software company’s money supply for meeting goals. As simple as this sin may sound (and you think, avoid), it happens because of very common misconceptions. Read the rest of this entry »
About two months ago I attended a facinating roundtable discusion at the Software Association of Oregon’s monthly industry meeting. The topic of the round table were the top seven deadly sins that can kill your software company. It was directed towards CEOs, but there was plenty of interest to anyone who works in a software company. I had already been working on a list and description of self destructive behavior I have come across in my experience, so this was of great interest to me. The first deadly sin covered was “ignoring your customers and their real needs.” Read the rest of this entry »
Mark Baard at Wired News is reporting on hackers who have figured out a way to get the proto version of MacOS X for Intel machines to work on non-Apple hardware. Apple must be loving the extended attention from the open/free software crowd. Read the rest of this entry »