Archive | November, 2003

The Economy and IT Spending

Nov 25, 2003
in Economy

It looks like the economy in Q3 grew even faster than we initially thought, 8.2% annual rate versus 7.2%. It was not too long ago that the Department of Commerce released numbers showing 7.2% annualized GDP growth for Q3. If you take a closer look, “equipment and software” spending was at a 15.4% annualized rate. [...]

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Capital Efficient Business Models

Nov 19, 2003
in Entrepreneurship, Venture Capital

Yesterday I participated on a panel at the Mid Atlantic Venture Conference on the current venture capital market and how to raise capital. While this was a plain-vanilla panel about venture investing, there was one theme that was echoed by a number of my fellow panelists from Rho Ventures, New Venture Partners, Edison Ventures, and [...]

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Chuck Prince, CEO of Citigroup

Nov 16, 2003
in Economy, Globalization

I was at the TIE Tri-State annual event in New York yesterday and participated on a venture capital panel helping young companies refine their pitches and business strategies. There were some interesting software and BPO (Business Process Outsourcing)companies that presented. On the BPO side, it was quite fascinating to hear about the types of services [...]

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netForensics raises $12 million

Nov 15, 2003
in Security, Venture Capital

Congratulations to netForensics! We are excited to have Nomura as a new investor and look forward to them helping us with our international expansion. For those of you who are interested in security, please see an earlier posting on Microsoft and Securing the Perimeter.

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Strategic Investors-the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Nov 12, 2003
in Entrepreneurship, Venture Capital

I had the opportunity to speak on a panel today at the Corporate Venture Capital Summit. There was an interesting crew of speakers representing corporate-related venture activities for companies such as Hitachi, Intel, Nokia, Panasonic, Siemens, and Kodak. While one moderator cited numbers showing that the amount of corporate venture investing in terms of dollars [...]

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Thoughts on Offshore Outsourcing

Nov 10, 2003
in Globalization

A number of my portfolio companies outsource development to India and other locales. When offshoring it is important to think about what can and cannot be offshored, whether management can handle it, and whether or not you open your own office with your own infrastructure or outsource completely. Given that an increasing number of companies [...]

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Novell in Microsoft’s crosshairs?

Nov 5, 2003
in Open Source

Novell to buy Suse “This is not about competing with Microsoft. This is about addressing the impediments holding Linux back,” says Chris Stone, Novell’s Vice Chairman in the office of the CEO. What a great quote! I have worked with Chris in the past having invested in his prior company, Tilion. Chris is a smart [...]

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Corporate DNA

Nov 4, 2003
in Entrepreneurship

Like individuals, every company has its own DNA. Every company possesses a unique team with a unique culture, rhythm, and way of doing business. What many of us forgot during the last few years is that it is awfully hard to change one’s DNA. What do I mean by that? Well, a number of companies [...]

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