Ever since I saw the first cell phone with built-in GPS, I knew this would be a hot market for applications. It is nice to have confirmation. In their efforts to make Android/G-Phone an instant market hit, Google ran a contest awarding a quarter of a million dollars to people who wrote cool applications for their mobile platform. Ten teams earned $275,000 each for the software they developed … and each application used GPS in some way. Rephrased: Google gave $2.8 million dollars only to people who developed GPS-aware apps. I can’t comment on any of the winners having not seen their products first hand, but the market validation at play here is extraordinary. GPS combined with wireless data networks and cheep server hosting has created an entirely new and viable market. The ability to tie people on the move with anything that enhances their ability to be on the … Continue reading →

The technology business has more than its fair share of lose nuts.  Some are wealthy as well as insane, while the dot-communist are poor and insane.  Perhaps the key to success in this business is being bonkers. Sadly, some of the insanity is settling in Microsoft, as witnessed in a blog written by Sergey Solyanik.  Sergey recently escaped from Google and landed back at Microsoft.  Perhaps he had been on a spying mission all along.  Regardless, he seems to have mentally drifted in the direction of a room designed with very soft walls. “I can’t write code for the sake of the technology alone — I need to know that the code is useful for others, and the only way to measure the usefulness is by the amount of money that the people are willing to part with to have access to my work.” (emphasis mine)  “Only” is a rather … Continue reading →

In a presentation I’m giving at Software Business 2007 on the topic of “How the Software Business is getting Crazier”, I talk about why growing your business from top-down, as is the tradition in the software world, may not be the best approach. In the good old days (which were about a decade ago) most B2B firms started vending their technology to enterprises. This made a great deal of sense given that: Technology was expensive to develop, and thus expensive to buy Fast payback on development from early-adopters was essential to maintain fiscal life-support Only enterprises were sophisticated enough to implement most technology Marketing and distribution costs were significant But a lot has changed in a mere decade. Software is cheaper to build due to more developers, better tools, Open Source models, etc. Software design has been simplified to the point that nontechnical people can implement many/most products The Internet … Continue reading →