Rumour has it that Toy Story 3, as made by Disney, has been cancelled. That’s entirely not surprising now that Lasseter and Catmull are now the big fromages at Disney Animation. Who knows what’s going to happen now?
The Pixar/Disney deal is so reminiscent of the NeXT/Apple deal. There’s an acquisition and suddenly the company heads are all belonging to the company that was acquired! Of course Steve is getting better at it. NeXT was acquired for $400 million ($350 million of cash and stock, $50 million in paid off debt). This Pixar deal has ballooned to over 7 BILLION. He’s learned a bit, that Jobs bloke.
Anyway – back to Toy Story 3. It’s not clear to me whether TS3 has been actually canned or just going to be remade by the Pixar team. If the former then I guess the decision is made to not create a sequel for the sake of it. If the latter then I guess they just want their baby back.
Dragging this topic to business and, separately, software.
The idea of ephemeral businesses, most often short lived microbusinesses, is intriguing. A business opportunity that opens for a short while and the founders get in quick, make their buck and then get out. The company doesn’t fail – it just lives it’s life and expires gracefully – it’s role fully fulfilled. It’s not the usual way that we view businesses, but then these days what exactly does tradition have to do with business? An example was the enterprising chap who would automatically track XBox 360 deliveries and provide you with the info for a fee. Sure, he can repeat the experiment with the PS3 and with other devices but as supply begins to meet demand, the need for the tracker business expires.
On the software front, are there software products (other than an automatic XBox 360 tracker) which have a finite lifespan? As movies start to emulate/repackage/are replaced by video games, will we see the same phenomenon with software? Will there be a time when software just completes it’s life cycle? Is this when the next big thing comes along? Or is this when the need for the software dies? Or is this when the software has become “perfect”? Again, Guy Kawasaki has a theory that when your first product ships (thus becoming your cash cow), then you should immediately get started in creating your cowslayer. Cash is not going to roll in ad infinitum from your first product. You need to have a new product that will become the new cash cow for the company. And in assuming it’s role, your older software will be allowed to retire gracefully.
I’ve rambled a bit this evening, but it’s just thoughts crystallising. My friend Simon seemed somewhat interested in some of the ideas I had for the software by Infurious, mostly because they served to address some of the itches he would like to scratch.
Goodnight.