Slow news day…

Google just made 300 people from their Doubleclick acquisition redundant. That’s a fifth of Doubleclick’s global workforce. Is anyone remotely surprised? The press is making this a big deal as it’s the first time Google has made any major job cuts but really after a merger there are going to be layoffs unless people find … Continue reading “Slow news day…”

Google just made 300 people from their Doubleclick acquisition redundant. That’s a fifth of Doubleclick’s global workforce.

Is anyone remotely surprised?

The press is making this a big deal as it’s the first time Google has made any major job cuts but really after a merger there are going to be layoffs unless people find themselves new roles in the new merged company. The whole support infrastructure of an acquired company comes under direct scrutiny from the janitors to the IT support folk, from the HR people to the corner office managers.

Newsflash: The Earth rotates around the Sun!

Ridiculous

Diamond Dan A pathetic attempt by the Orange Order to increase visibility and relevancy. Rather than paying for the commission of a comic book character they could have started policing their own people and weeding out the bigots and louts. As I said last year: As a Catholic who attended the celebrations on 12th July … Continue reading “Ridiculous”

Diamond Dan

A pathetic attempt by the Orange Order to increase visibility and relevancy.

Rather than paying for the commission of a comic book character they could have started policing their own people and weeding out the bigots and louts. As I said last year:

As a Catholic who attended the celebrations on 12th July 2007 in Holywood, I must say the sectarian displays were not comforting. The booze-addled skinheads wearing nylon uniforms in red, white and blue really set the scene. Add to that the drizzle waiting for about 90 minutes for the march to organise themselves to come up and down the main street. It really helped the spirits.

So how about making the 12th July more inclusive and less about the STUPID in our history?

ADBE: Nearly there

The recent news that Adobe Creative Suite 4 will not be 64-bit for the Mac is taken as a blow to the Mac. It will be 64-bit for Windows on 64-bit machines running a 64-bit Windows OS (which is a surprisingly small number of people). 64-bit Windows XP runs slower than 32-bit Windows XP so … Continue reading “ADBE: Nearly there”

The recent news that Adobe Creative Suite 4 will not be 64-bit for the Mac is taken as a blow to the Mac. It will be 64-bit for Windows on 64-bit machines running a 64-bit Windows OS (which is a surprisingly small number of people).

64-bit Windows XP runs slower than 32-bit Windows XP so the benefits are not likely to be seen there and the number of people running (or able to obtain XP-64) is a rounding error on the Windows sales market. In truth, the only advantage to running XP-64 was to be able to address more than 4 GB of memory with a single process but for many the disadvantages with DirectX and .NET outweighted the advantages.

With Windows Vista, every Vista DVD (with the exception of Starter) ships with 32-bit and 64-bit versions – and if it’s not there, you can buy it from Microsoft for a small additional fee. This means, in theory, if you install with a 64-bit processor, you’re going to get a 64-bit operating system. For home users, this means being able to address between 8 and 16 GB of RAM. For the “Pro” versions of Vista it means being able to support more than 128 GB (not that there are many machines that can fit that amount of RAM in their cases!) The 64-bit version of Vista still has compatibility issues with hardware and software but in the next few years it will be standard. What this means for most people is that when they buy a new PC, they’ll get the benefits of 64-bit software.

Adobe’s problem with CS4 is that it’s 32-bit software written using the Carbon APIs. Apple has been shopping Cocoa as their next-generation framework around for a decade now and still Adobe (and Microsoft) laboured on with the Carbon ‘compatibility’ API because it represented the least amount of work for them. The plan originally was to make Carbon 64-bit compliant but in WWDC in 2007, this plan was trashed. Carbon is old, archaic and it’s too much work to get it to 64 bit when they could keep it at 32 bit and put extra work into Cocoa to make it fabulous. But this buggered up the plans of Adobe and Microsoft and as a a result, Officd will likely remain 32 bit and Adobe’s Creative Suite will not be 64-bit until version 5 which is a long time away.

Is this a big deal

First, lets dispel the idea that 64-bit software is considerably quicker than 32-bit software. In many cases it is slower. But being able to address a lot more RAM – or even being able to reduce the reliance of disk at all and keep entire apps, especially those regularly used, in RAM, is a bit step forwards. Heavy Photoshop users routinely throw around images that are multi-gigabyte in size and being able to load the whole thing into RAM is a huge potential speed boost (never mind having Photoshops own Virtual Memory system eclipsed by fast RAM rather than slow disk).

The gains enjoyed by moving to 64-bit Photoshop on Windows may be reduced by the fact that Vista is a dog (link, link ) and will already reduce performance (though you can turn off the eye candy in Vista and it improves performance considerably). And the fact that, well, it’s Windows which brings along with it an entire world of suck. (This is my opinion). Having to use Windows every day saps my enthusiasm for computing as a whole (and I can say this after using Windows every day for the last 9 months in the day job going from using Mac OS X for years in the day job). Windows just isn’t a lot of fun.

So my opinion is that, performance wise, this won’t make a lot of difference.

Who’s to blame here?

I think that miscommunication between Apple and Adobe is to blame. Adobe knew about Cocoa and how it was the future. Apple should have communicated earlier that it saw no future for Carbon beyond the first 10 years. It’s a stupid mistake to make for two companies who have so much in common and who could be great together and this brings me to a point which has been laboured a few times in past years.

Apple and Adobe could do with working closer together for the benefit of both. It would help to reduce the frustration of everyone who’s had to work with Adobe’s implementation of Acrobat on the Mac platform. It might even bring Flash/AIR to the iPhone/iPod touch platform.

I lay the blame at both their feet for not working together. There’s definitely issues with the companies as they both seem to be angling to be a forerunner in the online application space. Apple is trumpeting HTML, Javascript, AJAX and their own media types. Adobe is trying to get Air, Flash and PDF everywhere. But there should be enough crossover that these companies, which have a long and chequered history, to work together. The adage “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” is certainly true when both companies consider Microsoft. Microsoft is attacking Apple in operating systems (mobile, portable, desktop, server) and media (Windows Media versus Quicktime) and attacking Adobe with Silverlight (as an alternative to AIR/Flash) and their online document formats (which challenge PDF).

Adobe is a relatively small company. They have under 7000 employees They had enough clout to buy Macromedia and gain control of Flash. Adobe’s market cap (the market value of their corporation) is just over 20 Billion this morning.

Why is this relevant?

Apple has about 20000 employees. They’ve got a lot of cash in the bank ($18 billion at last count) and will likely pull in another billion profit at the end of this quarter. With Cash and stock, they could buy Adobe and still leave themselves with a few billions dollars as a buffer against hard times.

What would this mean?

Look at Apple’s recent acquisitions? They bought Macromedia’s Final Cut product pre-1999 and killed the Windows version, releasing the code eventually as Final Cut Pro and iMovie. They bought Astarte in 2000 and released iDVD and DVD Studio Pro. They bought eMagic in 2002 to get Logic and killed the Windows versions. They bought Nothing Real to get Tremor and Shake and killed the Windows versions. Apple isn’t afraid to spend some money to get strategic technology and then kill off a product or three in order to retain loyalty. There were a lot of Logic users who were pissed at Apple’s decision to kill Logic for Windows and I’m sure there were a few who were annoyed about Shake (though decidedly less due to the eminence of Linux in that space).

Wouldn’t an Apple acquisition of Adobe seem to make some sense?

It would give Adobe access to hundreds of Cocoa-proficient engineers with access to the bowels of CoreImage. It would accelerate the development of Mac compatible software development within that company. It would mean that Flash on Mac might not suck as much. And it would likely mean that not only would Adobe stop making Craprobat Reader for Mac, they may rethink the PDF strategy of the company and make it less of a second class citizen on the Mac. Yeah, it’s my opinion.

It would aggravate a lot of Windows users who use/pirate Photoshop on Windows and that market is very large but considering the roadmap they could present, it would then make sense for Apple to do a license trade-in for the Mac-only version. Buy a Mac and trade in your Adobe CS for Windows license for a free Adobe CS for Mac. That would nearly halve the cost of moving to the Mac and get Apple a load of good kudos in that space at relatively small amounts of lost revenue.

This is not a time to be meek.

Nokia Ireland parties like it’s 1999. Or 2001.

ENN’s Ciara O’Brien writes: “Nokia is challenging Apple in the digital music market with a new online music store aimed at Irish customers. … Tracks from the Nokia Music Store are compatible with any device that plays Windows Media Audio files (wma), which are embedded with Microsoft’s digital rights management technology. However, iPods and iPhones … Continue reading “Nokia Ireland parties like it’s 1999. Or 2001.”

ENN’s Ciara O’Brien writes:

“Nokia is challenging Apple in the digital music market with a new online music store aimed at Irish customers.

Tracks from the Nokia Music Store are compatible with any device that plays Windows Media Audio files (wma), which are embedded with Microsoft’s digital rights management technology. However, iPods and iPhones do not support the wma format, effectively cutting iPod users out of Nokia’s potential customer pool.

The good news for the Finnish mobile giant is that there are plenty of mobile phones and other devices out there capable of playing the Windows format files.

Emphasis mine.

It’s 2008. 70% of the market has an iPod. iPods play Apple’s DRMed tracks as well as non-DRM’ed MP3 tracks – both of which you can buy direct from Apple. Apple’s iTunes Music Store is currently being challenged by Amazon who has started selling DRM-free MP3 tracks.

And Nokia is challenging Apple with a Windows-only DRM solution that won’t work on an iPod and which will likely get Zuned in a few short months?

‘”We want to become a major player in the music market,” said Shane O’Brien, service and software manager with Nokia in Ireland’

This press release from Nokia would have been revolutionary in 1999, innovative in 2001. Maybe even newsworthy in 2004. But now?

It literally shows how out of touch with the market Nokia truly is. My advice: Fire the dumbass who thought this was a good idea, get in bed with Amazon and stop piddling about with end-of-life DRM solutions.

It’s like a big bargain bucket of stupid with a side order of failure.

Look outside, the future is happening.

Ask yourself: Who do you think you are?

This is the question I’m going to ruminate over for a while. How about everyone ask themselves the same question. Don’t just fire out an answer. And if you’re not sure what to write, ask someone else. Related posts: Money for nothing and chicks for free 1000 fans Venture Altruists I love it when you … Continue reading “Ask yourself: Who do you think you are?”

This is the question I’m going to ruminate over for a while.

How about everyone ask themselves the same question. Don’t just fire out an answer. And if you’re not sure what to write, ask someone else.

Following 17000 people?

The Scobleizer says he’s following 17000 people. How on earth can anyone process the Tweets of 17000 people if any more than 10% are saying anything interesting? The problem with systems like Twitter is that they allow you to bypass the Dunbar Number which, to all intents and purposes, tell us how many people we … Continue reading “Following 17000 people?”

The Scobleizer says he’s following 17000 people.

How on earth can anyone process the Tweets of 17000 people if any more than 10% are saying anything interesting?

The problem with systems like Twitter is that they allow you to bypass the Dunbar Number which, to all intents and purposes, tell us how many people we can keep in our social networks in a very real sense. Our brains are simply not set up to be able to handle any more than that without data/context/relationship loss.

Now, if Roberts wants to come clean on how he manages relationships and updates with 17000 people on Twitter, 5000+ on Facebook and the umpteen emails and other methods of conversation that he receives without diluting the impact of the individual content.

I don’t mean to demean Robert but claiming on Twitter that you’re following 17000 people is akin to announcing to all of them that you’re mostly ignoring everything they say.

I just don’t think that’s polite or anything to boast about.

April Fools

I hate April Fools day. The internet is full of stupid and you never know when a news item is going to be true or false – because some of them are subtle and some are ridiculous. And it takes days for all of the BS to be uncovered and laid to rest. It’s actually … Continue reading “April Fools”

I hate April Fools day.

The internet is full of stupid and you never know when a news item is going to be true or false – because some of them are subtle and some are ridiculous. And it takes days for all of the BS to be uncovered and laid to rest. It’s actually worth not bothering to get out of bed.

So…why did I?

Indeed.

(Jared has the scoop)

You dropped it…

You broke it… …it’s your fault. (I’m kinda tired already of people thinking that if they email the CEO that things will magically happen. Goes to show that Mac users are really whining snobs.) Related posts: Make the fork not hurt FaceTime for Mac and the Mac App Store I want email everywhere Why is … Continue reading “You dropped it…”

You broke it…

…it’s your fault.

(I’m kinda tired already of people thinking that if they email the CEO that things will magically happen. Goes to show that Mac users are really whining snobs.)

Venture Capitalism

Just over two years ago, I wrote about Venture Capitalists and how their use these days was not the money but rather their contacts; it was their address book and not their cheque book that entrepreneurs should be interested in and, to this day, I agree. That’s not to say I’d wouldn’t be interested in … Continue reading “Venture Capitalism”

Just over two years ago, I wrote about Venture Capitalists and how their use these days was not the money but rather their contacts; it was their address book and not their cheque book that entrepreneurs should be interested in and, to this day, I agree. That’s not to say I’d wouldn’t be interested in a VC or business angel wanting to help me set up the best co-working place in the world (but I digress).

Hank Williams on “Why does everything suck” writes:

“VCs generally don’t add that much value beyond cash. They will try to say otherwise. Unless they are famous for adding such value (check Google) they are probably lying. Aside from the fact that they are probably incapable of adding much value, even if they could, VCs are extremely busy managing their portfolio, meeting new companies, dealing with limited partners, etc. If you want your company to succeed, you will really have to do it yourself. Believing that a VC is going to add some incredible value that is going to help make your company is foolhardy.”

That’s almost the opposite of what I said back then and these days I’m inclined to agree. I’ve done enough networking over the last decade to see me through though I’m always interested in meeting new people and listening to new opinions (which is why I’m enamoured with NiMUG, OpenCoffee and other social events).

I’m certainly man enough to admit that I don’t know everything and that there are people that I want to spend more time with just to learn the pearls of wisdom given out so casually (and no, I’ve not met any of them at $BIG_COMPANY.) I’ll also admit that last night, while furiously tapping in code, it dawned on me that I might actually be too old to do anything else entrepreneurial. I had my shot and created a moderately successful company that will likely last a long time but never buy me a sports car. Since then I’ve been too pre-occupied to do much more than plan.

The new plan, after the wedding is all done, is to finish off some things I’ve started. I’ve got half a dozen domains sitting as constant reminders of unfinished work. And the code I’m writing is a means to an end so that I can stop depending on other people to do the graft and start depending on myself. Eating my own dog food so to speak.

Denny K Miu writes on lovemytool.com about VCs:

“VC’s have been my best friends and my worst enemies, in ways that are not always within my immediate control. In the process, ironically, I have come to respect Venture Capitalist as a profession, which I believe is the least understood if not the most misunderstood. And I am convinced that mistakes I have made with VC’s (eventually turning many of them into my worst enemies) were a result of my inexperience as a CEO compounded by a total lack of understanding of who VC’s are and what they do for a living.”

I’ll be honest. I don’t even like the idea of a Venture Capitalist: I just want the money. Doing stuff on the side just means it remains small fry and you don’t get to realise the big plan that kept you awake until the birds started twittering (presumably from their mobile phones) the next morning. So what do you do? Get in a VC, beg your way through the interviews (trying not to sound like an insufferably arrogant prick) and then be happy with the 3% of equity you retain?

I am amused by how my own opinion has changed over the last two years, borne out of frustration.