Archive | July, 2004

How startups succeed

Jul 19, 2004
in Entrepreneurship

If you ever wondered what it takes for a startup to succeed, please read the email below sent from the CEO of one of our portfolio companies to his whole staff. Sure, startups don’t have the cash, the people, the distribution channel, and brand to compete with the established players but passion, drive, and an [...]

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Influencing the influencers

Jul 15, 2004
in Web/Tech

If I were a startup, one great and cheap way to build buzz and excitement is through the blog community. I call this “influencing the influencers.” Think about it – many of the more well known bloggers are also well known tech journalists, industry pundits, VCs, and technology executives. Forget about using the traditional PR [...]

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Subscription accounting

Jul 14, 2004
in Investing/Markets

Ok, now for some boring accounting stuff. Red Hat (RHAT) recently restated its financials. Its auditor, PWC, suggested that it change its revenue recognition policy. According to a CBS Marketwatch article: Under the accounting method used in the past, the company would recognize a full month’s revenue from a subscription agreement, even if a deal [...]

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On technology commoditization

Jul 13, 2004
in Open Source

If you ever wondered how Sun monetizes Java, I suggest reading Jonathan Schwartz’s (President of Sun) post on commoditization, standards, and Java. The crux of his discussion is that standardization and commoditization is not terrible as it inevitably opens up new market opportunities for industry players (just look at the railroad industry as an example). [...]

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Another day, another high profile blogger

Jul 10, 2004
in Web/Tech

Another day, another politician or high profile executive launches a blog. This time it is FCC Chairman Michael Powell and Sun’s Jonathan Schwartz. According to Michael Powell, he decided to blog because he wants to interact direcly with his constituency, creating a dialogue and urging Silicon Valley to get involved. He goes on to say: [...]

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Thoughts on the enterprise software market

Jul 8, 2004
in Entrepreneurship

Everyone is talking about the slowdown of growth in the enterprise software sector as one of the main reasons driving consolidation talks at companies like Oracle/Peoplesoft and Microsoft/SAP. We all know that the enterprise software business characterized by large licenses and 20% annual maintenance revenue is lucrative but also hard as the big get bigger [...]

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Jamdat Mobile files for IPO

Jul 5, 2004
in Investing/Markets

Russell Beattie has a thorough post on Jamdat Mobile’s IPO filing. This is significant because this is the first so-called “wireless application” play to hit the market. For those of you that don’t know, Jamdat is a provider of global wireless entertainment applications and enabling technologies that support multiple wireless platforms to wireless carriers, handset [...]

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