It's a Wonderful Life

Going to China

2006-11-26T17:50:00.000+02:00

Now this is exciting: in a week's time I will be in Beijing for a week and continue from there to Shanghai for another week...should be very interesting:)

Building OS Businesses

2006-11-26T16:03:00.000+02:00

Blueprint to a Billion Dollar Software (Open Source) Business out of Finland

There is a recent book called Blueprint to a Billion concentrating on about something that most Venture Capitalists and Entrepreneurs think about a great deal: how do I beat the 1 in 20,000 odds that my company (or the company I am considering joining or investing in) will scale to $1B in sales in five to seven years?

The book's author, David Thomson, has studied this question through financial analysis of all the US IPO (companies getting listed on a public exchange) companies since 1980, as well as through structured interviews. He has e.g. discovered that if a company did not have ONE of "Seven Essential" traits, it would take 14 years to hit a billion in revenues, versus seven years that a billion dollar company would take on average if it had all seven traits. And if a company failed to have TWO of these seven traits then the likelihood of scaling to a billion in revenues fell to non-existent. In the USA, only five percent of all US IPO companies since 1980 made it to $1B revenue (387 of 7454 companies) and only 29 of those made it to $10B revenue.

What is the ‘secret formula’ then? “The Seven Essentials” by Thomson:

1) Find or create a great value proposition.

2) Find a quickly growing market. Rapidly growing markets (100%+ per year) tend to be much more forgiving of mistakes than slower growing ones.

3) Get some marquee customers. Having big customers help you figure out your business model is a smart move.

4) Leverage a "Big Brother" Partner.

5) Be capital efficient. It's a myth that you need to spend lots and lots of money to build a Billion dollar business. Most companies are self-funding after a certain point (typically around $25M in annual revenues per the author), and they have high margins early on that are sustainable, and they don't consume that much cash to get there.

6) Get paired management teams. You need both an external CEO that focuses on the vision, product, marketing, and sales and an internal CEO/COO that focuses on delivering on that vision profitably.

7) Have at least one board member on your board, outside of your investor or management team that has grown a company to a billion.

My work this fall and winter will focus on exploring whether existing or new Open Source companies have or lack the possibility of becoming billion dollar revenue businesses and further whether it is possible that such a business will emerge from Finland, the birthplace of e.g. Linux operating system. Furthermore, does it make sense to try to build a big business with the open source approach or not.

Despite the success of Linux technology- and usage-wise, and business-wise the mobile-maker Nokia, Finland can claim very few Born Global businesses that have reached a Billion Dollar revenue in a short time; quite frankly, so far we have managed to create none, but I believe we are about to change this.

About OS Businesses

"There is one thing that is stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come". –Victor Hugo

I certainly believe that time for businesses embracing the open source based business models have come; and so do some major companies like IBM:

At a recent LinuxWorld, Scott Handy (Vice President of Open Source at IBM) said that:

- IBM will begin to invest more heavily in open source client-side middleware, development tools, Web application servers, data servers, systems management, open hardware architecture, grid computing and technology services businesses. We plan a major expansion beyond Linux into open source. It's poised to be a more disruptive force in the industry in the next three years than Linux has been in the last 15 years. With open source beyond Linux, we'll be as aggressive and leapfrog right to the injection stage.

There is a very good reason for IBM’s bold statement, ever since they decided to invest a Billion Dollars into furthering Linux about six years ago; they have managed to build a very significant service business around it creating billions in revenue annually for them. Arguably one could claim IBM being one of the most successful companies embracing open source (even though Google has not done too bad building their business on top of Linux servers).

IDC has some interesting insights into how open source usage is shaping up, they just conducted a survey in spring 2006 of over 5,000 developers in 116 countries, representing 38 developer networks.

The study declares that open source software represents the most significant all-encompassing and long-term trend that the software industry has seen since the early 1980s. IDC believes that open source will eventually play a role in the lifecycle of every major software category, and will fundamentally change the value proposition of packaged software for customers.

- The use of open source beyond Linux is pervasive, used by almost three-quarters of organizations and spanning hundreds of thousands of projects, said Dr. Anthony Picardi, senior vice president of Global Software Research at IDC.

- Although open source will significantly reduce the industry opportunity over the next ten years, the real impact of open source is to sustain innovations in mature software markets, thus extending the useful life of software assets and saving customers money.

The study finds that of the 5,000 survey respondents, open source software is being used by 71% of the developers in the world and is in production at 54% of their organizations. In addition, half of the global developers claim that the use of open source is increasing in their organizations.

So, the use of open source is there, and so is money for some big businesses like IBM, but what about start-ups? Is it possible that we will have independent open source companies with Billion Dollar revenues in the coming years? Good discussion has taken place online; see e.g. Stephen Walli’s blog.

Basically I believe my initial analysis will focus on the possibility of MySQL growing to a billion dollar revenue as well as things related around ROI (Return Of Investment), and whether the bets around Open Source model actually make sense. If you have any thoughts on this or guesses e.g. on whether the first Billion Dollar OS business will be MySQL (full disclosure, I have a vested interest in MySQL) or someone else, please email me at mikko.puhakka@gmail.com . In the Open Source fashion, all findings will be available online.

Mikko Puhakka
www.open-tuesday.com
www.coss.fi/ossi

Back Online

2006-11-24T14:21:00.000+02:00

I will start updating this blog once again...the past year has kept me superbusy, but now there is more time to write once again...

Open Tuesday

2006-01-30T18:14:00.000+02:00

No posts in a few weeks as I have been busy writing up few academic articles, as well as setting up a new venture. From now on you can find my business related writings at www.open-tuesday.com and I will start writing more personal observations here.

MySQL & Open Source Success

2006-01-02T22:05:00.000+02:00

As an investor to MySQL, I feel a bit biased to rave about their success, so here is a link to one of my favorite blogger's post...still the big questions in my mind are when to go open and how!?

AC/OS: "A very happy new year for MySQL

In my in-box this morning was an update from Marten Mickos detailing the company's progress over the past year."

The Pitch

2006-01-02T20:47:00.000+02:00

Good post by Guy, with nice additions by Ronny

Ronny Max: "Guy Kawasaki 10/20/30 Rule (And my 100/10/1)

As a venture capitalist, Guy Kawasaki had seen a fair share of PowerPoint presentations, hence his 10/20/30 rule: PowerPoint presentation should have ten slides, last no more than twenty minutes, and contain no font smaller than thirty points. The ten topics that a venture capitalist cares about are: 1. Problem 2. Your solution 3. Business model 4. Underlying magic/technology 5. Marketing and sales 6. Competition 7. Team 8. Projections and milestones 9. Status and timeline10. Summary and call to actionPoint is people have short attention span. They want information quickly, without the hassles of noise (too much data) or errors (not enough knowledge).I have my 100/10/1 rule: 100 pages detailed plan (in writing), 10 minutes talk (PowerPoint), and 1 sentence elevators pitch (the gist of the idea). The detailed plan forces understanding. The presentation presents the highlights. And the Elevators Pitch generates interest. I found that I failed when I didnt use the 100/10/1 rule, and I succeeded when I did. Try it out. It works."

Predicting future is tough

2005-12-30T22:17:00.000+02:00

This is both funny and good perspective on how difficult predicting future is

Matthew Thomas Humor: "Bill Gates predictions about speech recognition: a historical review

Speech recognition software will become mainstream by 2007. Or by 2002. Or by 2007, or 2008, or 2006, or 2003, or 2001, or Windows XP, or 2006, or 2004, or 2005, or 2004, or 2009, or 2010, or 2007, or 2010, or 2015, or 2008. You can count on it."

Weather 2.0

2005-12-30T20:56:00.000+02:00

This is brilliant, very creative thinking by the 'Silent Penguin' what could be the businessmodel?

The Silent Penguin: "Social Weather 2.0

Here's an idea for a Weather site built around Web 2.0 goodness. There is probably something like this out there already - please let me know if so.

Basically the idea hinges around something I read once, that stated the highest chance of forecasting the correct weather for the next day was to say that it would be the same as today. I can't remember where I read that - but anyway.

The Weather 2.0 site is built on the Google Maps API and a user-base. Each user logs on to the site and can enter the current weather where they happen to be. The form allows things like general observations such as 'sun is shining', 'snowing' or just 'cloudy'. You can also enter things like current temperature, wind direction etc. if you happen to have the necessary gadgets available. Free text annotations are also possible 'freaking cold' or 'raining cats and dogs'. The information is then shown as a layer on top of the Google Map and pinned at your current position.

The user can also take a picture of the weather situation, upload that to say Flickr and link to the picture from their current weather observation. Of course you can subscribe to RSS feeds of weather observations from places you may be interested in."

Big OS news in 2005

2005-12-30T20:32:00.000+02:00

Good article on Businessweek recapping many big OS news for 2005

A Watershed for Open Source: "A Watershed for Open Source

Building & realizing value

2005-12-30T19:02:00.000+02:00

Great post about selling your company & about building value

The Post Money Value: "Build to Flip = Build to Fail

There are a bunch of blog posts flying around on the subject of flipping companies. Yes, weve been here before, 5 years or so ago, and yeah all the same issues remain. The interesting difference this time around is, thanks to the world wide everybody talking to/about/for everybody/everything, there is a ton of material for you, the start up, to absorb in your quest for world domination or just a bigger house. Some notable blog postings out there are Don Dodges notes on selling your start up. Smart guy, worth reading and listening to. He makes the point about talent and does it in a way that shows his experience and professionalism.

One superstar engineer/visionary like Ray Ozzie is worth 100 really great engineers. And, one really great engineer is worth another 100 good engineers. This is the normal order of things, yet few CEOs understand this. The truth is you need all levels of talent to build out a team, but without the superstar it will be tough to win.

What is Real?

2005-12-22T23:57:00.000+02:00

I love this kind of challenges to our perception of reality!

Fractals of Change: Evolutions Not Religion and Vice Versa: "You also cant prove that the whole universe wasnt created the minute you started to read this sentence completely populated with your memories and evidence of a much longer history."

Apple Moving Away From Mac, Building On iPod

2005-12-22T19:25:00.000+02:00

Great example how large companies can reinvent themselves...btw did any startups benefit/take advantage of this?

Apple will continue to move away from its Mac core in 2006. In a new research note, Goldman Sachs research analyst David Bailey maintained an "in-line" rating on Apple, but raised earnings estimates for the company, expecting holiday iPod demand and anticipation of upcoming product announcements to continue to drive earnings growth into 2006.

read more | digg story

There is a Billion of Us!

2005-12-20T22:27:00.000+02:00

One Billion Internet Users (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox): "One Billion Internet Users

Summary:

The Internet is growing at an annualized rate of 18% and now has one billion users. A second billion users will follow in the next ten years, bringing a dramatic change in worldwide usability needs.

Some time in 2005, we quietly passed a dramatic milestone in Internet history: the one-billionth user went online. Because we have no central register of Internet users, we don't know who that user was, or when he or she first logged on. Statistically, we're likely talking about a 24-year-old woman in Shanghai.

According to Morgan Stanley estimates, 36% of Internet users are now in Asia and 24% are in Europe. Only 23% of users are in North America, where it all started in 1969 when two computers -- one in Los Angeles, the other in Palo Alto -- were networked together."

Nokia 770: Okay, Silicon Valley Time To Get To Work :: AO

2005-12-20T21:34:00.000+02:00

Not just valley, rest of the world as well...or what are you waiting for?

Nokia 770: Okay, Silicon Valley Time To Get To Work :: AO: "Nokia 770: Okay, Silicon Valley Time To Get To Work"

Great Time to be an Entrepreneur

2005-12-20T21:27:00.000+02:00

I am REALLY waiting for another post by Joe Kraus, read the full post, as well as the comments, pure gold!

Bnoopy: "Its a great time to be an entrepreneur

Thers never been a better time to be an entrepreneur because its never been cheaper to be one. Heres one example.

Excite.com took $3,000,000 to get from idea to launch. JotSpot took $100,000.

Why on earth is there a 30X difference? Theres probably a lot of reasons, but here are my top four. Im interested in hearing about what other people think are factors as well."

Digital Future

2005-12-20T21:22:00.000+02:00

What does this mean for my or yours business in the future?

Digital Rules By Rich Karlgaard: "Terrifying Internet Facts"

How much should you give away?

2005-12-20T21:17:00.000+02:00

This got me thinking...how much should you just give away...and expect to get a ROI somewhere else?

Jonathan Schwartz's Weblog: "FREE SERVER! Just in time for the Holidays.
We ran an interesting experiment not too long ago, when we were rolling out our first Opteron servers. We distributed a bunch of free servers to new customers, just to get them exposed to Sun. It had the desired impact - on average, the 'return' on the investment of a free server was an average purchase order of ~15 systems. So we gradually ramped up the number of free systems - like a free software download, it's easier to close a sale with a self-qualified customer than an unqualified marketplace."

Why Blog?

2005-12-20T21:06:00.000+02:00

Enough said;)

gapingvoid: gapingvoid highlights 2005: "gapingvoid highlights 2005"

Thieves Everywhere

2005-12-16T20:33:00.000+02:00

If you haven't read Dilbert Blog yet, do so, atleast I really loved this particular post...I never thought of blaming other people for this!

The Dilbert Blog: Thieves Everywhere: "Thieves Everywhere

Today my wallet was stolen for the 400th time, and frankly Im sick of it. I dont know what bothers me more the crime or the fact that the thief always sneaks back into my home an hour later and puts the wallet back in a hard-to-find place such as the top of my dresser.

Theres never anything missing from the wallet, so I know the thief isnt especially good at his job. It might be the same idiot who keeps stealing my car every time I park it at the airport. He always refills the gas tank and parks it somewhere in the general vicinity of where I know I left it, but still its rude and unsettling."

global microbrand rant

2005-12-16T20:02:00.000+02:00

I love this viewpoint! Now I just need to create my own ''Global Microbrand'':-)

gapingvoid: the global microbrand rant: "the global microbrand rant"

Remember LinuxCare

2005-12-16T10:13:00.000+02:00

Good article on Slashdot on lessons from the past OpenSource startups

Slashdot | Advice for OpenSource
Startups: Remember LinuxCare: "Advice for OpenSource
Startups: Remember LinuxCare"

Red Hat vs Novell

2005-12-16T08:40:00.000+02:00

Interesting post by Matt Asay comparing Red Hat's and Novell's approaches to the market.

AC/OS: The differences between Red Hat and Novell: "The differences between Red Hat and Novell"

Sony to lose $1 billion on Playstation 3

2005-12-15T21:11:00.000+02:00

Wow, it sure is not easy to be in big business..good perspective to look at if you are start-up, or even more established player like Nokia and are thinking how much launching of e.g. Nokia 770 will/could cost.

A report by Merrill Lynch has estimated that Sony will lose over US $1 billion in its first year.

read more | digg story

Getting it Right

2005-12-15T20:07:00.000+02:00

Great post by Ari Paparo on reflecting what del.ico.us did right and what he and his partners did wrong with a similar startup...must read for all wannabe entrepreneurs!

Ari Paparo Dot Com: Getting it Right: "Getting it Right

Congratulations to Josh on the del.ico.us acquisition. Yahoo will make a great partner for the bookmarking service.

Now a little part of me is cringing as I write this. Having founded a bookmarking company in 1999 with pretty much the exact same vision as the new crop of services, Ive got to feel, well, a little stupid. (or angry, or depressed, or whatever). Maybe writing about it will make me feel better and maybe even help me make a point or two about product development."

A VC: 27,000 Readers

2005-12-15T15:31:00.000+02:00

I follow closely to what Fred Wilson posts on his blog...and I certainly am not the only, check below! He has 27000 monthly readers...pretty good for a Venture Capitalist whose main job is afterall to make and manage investments!

A VC: 27,000 Readers: "27,000 Readers

I have been flying blind for over two years on a very important statistic.That being my unique audience count.

I started out using TypePad's stats and quickly realized they weren't going to cut it.

I put Sitemeter on my blog and have been tracking pageviews and unique visits for a couple years now."

The Post Money Value: Inside the process

2005-12-15T07:51:00.000+02:00

good, long post about raising VC funds, read it!

The Post Money Value: Inside the process: "Inside the process

Starting the day at 4a on a Sunday, having to roll out of a toasty warm bed into the Canadian winter, is not something Im all that excited about. Unfortunately, duty calls with this, the beginning of a busy week of meetings, travel, and checking out some new companies.
Over the past several weeks, Ive been packing in the meetings with new companies. Ive been impressed with the quality of the management and the opportunities being created. Its also nice to see folks doing some homework on our firm. Many entrepreneurs read this blog, check out our web site and, in general, are doing a good job knowing a bit more about our firm. Well done. And Alberts been back all focused and ready to ship stuff, go get em Albert.
One question that comes up is about the VC process and what to expect, timing, process, etc. Ive put together this long entry in an attempt to give you our process in the hopes it can help with your expectations. Keep in mind every firm is different and we all have our particular quirks, so your mileage may vary."

What to expect from Web 3.0

2005-12-14T11:46:00.000+02:00

just as I was starting to get some understanding of web 2.0...pace of things developing is so rapid it is some days quite frustrating trying to keep up with it

What to expect from Web 3.0 by ZDNet's Phil Wainewright -- Web 2.0 is just a staging post. Web 3.0 is coming, and it's going to recreate our notion of the application as well as upsetting a few applecarts along the way.

Software Only: The GapingVoid on Business Models

2005-12-14T11:06:00.000+02:00

This is funny, I guess happy times are returning to start-ups on the expense of VCs...

http://blog.softtechvc.com/2005/12/the_gapingvoid_.html

Discover Music - Pandora

2005-12-12T18:24:00.000+02:00

I am totally hooked to this, check it out!

Discover Music - Pandora: "When was the last time you fell in love with a new artist or song?

At Pandora Media (formerly Savage Beast Technologies), we have a single mission: To help you discover new music you'll love.

To understand just how we do this, and why we think we do it really, really well, you need to know about the Music Genome Project.

For almost six years now, we have been hard at work on the Music Genome Project. It's the most comprehensive analysis of music ever undertaken. Together our team of thirty musician-analysts have been listening to music, one song at a time, studying and collecting literally hundreds of musical details on every song. It takes 20-30 minutes per song to capture all of the little details that give each recording its magical sound - melody, harmony, instrumentation, rhythm, vocals, lyrics ... and more - close to 400 attributes! We continue this work every day to keep up with the incredible flow of great new music coming from studios, stadiums and garages around the country."

web 2.0 exit

2005-12-12T18:19:00.000+02:00

Things are moving with web 2.0, money in, money out...

A Delicious Eight Months | Union Square Ventures: "A Delicious Eight Months
On April 14th, we closed an investment in Delicious. We wrote about our initial investment here.

Eight months later, Delicious has been sold to Yahoo!. The news is on the Delicious blog."

Why Open Source?

2005-12-11T21:25:00.001+02:00

This is good, read the whole post as to what happened to SUN!

As you know, I am enamored by frictionless sales. Frictionless sales means reducing the pain for customers to adopt and use a service/product and consequently reducing the cost of sales and marketing to get a customer and generate revenue. As I mention in an earlier post, "The less friction you have in your
sales and delivery model, the easier it is to scale. The easier it is
to scale the faster and more efficiently you can grow.
http://www.beyondvc.com/2005/12/frictionless_sa.html

Dealing_with_Darwin

2005-12-09T12:49:00.000+02:00

One of my favorite business thinker's Geoffrey Moore has set up, like almost everyone, a blog. One entry that caught my eye was about the new challenges Microsoft, and other software vendors as: "the old innovation type of Microsoft was product innovation, while the new one is value migration innovation. That is, the web-enabled world has forced a value migration from product to service, the latter already beginning to marginalize the former, and the question is, can the company reposition itself in the new value chain to continue to capitalize on its intellectual property?"

Dealing_with_Darwin: "Microsoft, Meet Darwin Again

New Open Source Investment

2005-12-09T12:02:00.000+02:00

Index seems to be one of the most active investors in this space...

The venture firm that made a splash with Skype has added an open-source company to its stable.December 8, 2005Index Venture Partners, backer of blowout-success Skype, added an open-source company to its stable Thursday with a $5-million investment in business-intelligence software maker Pentaho.
This isnt the first open-source startup in the European venture firms portfolio. It is a backer of MySQL, a Red Herring 100 Europe company. The database startup has gained significant traction internationally, with some $20 million in sales in 2004 (see RH-100 Europe: The Ikea of Databases)."

http://www.redherring.com/Article.aspx?a=14797&hed=Index+Bets+on+Open+Source§or=Industries&subsector=Computing

If you have a flower shop, you are most likely infringing a patent...

2005-12-08T13:01:00.000+02:00

This says something about the relevance of patents today:

full article at http://biz.yahoo.com/usat/051206/13263022.html

For more than 50 years, Thomas Edison has been considered the nation's all-time most prolific inventor. He has 1,093 patents to his name, including the electric light bulb and phonograph. He is to American innovation what Thomas Jefferson is to American politics.However, Edison is apparently NOT the top American inventor. He has been bested by Donald Weder of Highland, Ill. - a man who, in contrast to the stupendous impact of Edison, has mostly used his inventive powers to give the world better floral arrangements. Weder, who is still alive and whose family runs floral packaging company Highland Supply, has his name on 1,321 patents. Almost all have to do with items you'd find at a florist. Weder's most recent patent - No. 6,962,021, granted Nov. 8 - is for a sleeve for holding a group of flowers. Before that, on Oct. 11, Weder was issued a patent titled, 'Method of covering a flower pot.' On Sept. 20, he was issued a patent titled, 'Method of covering a flower pot or floral grouping.'"

Tech's Big Comeback

2005-12-07T16:28:00.000+02:00

Cool, inspiring article in Business 2.0

Business 2.0 - Magazine Article - Printable Version - Tech's Big Comeback: "Tech's Big Comeback

Startups are hot -- again.
Valuations are nuts -- again.
Fortunes are being made -- again.
Here's how to play it right this time. "

Invention: The McDownload

2005-12-07T16:07:00.000+02:00

I guess this was expected...

New Scientist Breaking News - Invention: The McDownload: "For over 30 years, Barry Fox has trawled the world's weird and wonderful patent applications each week, digging out the most exciting, intriguing and even terrifying new ideas. His column, Invention, is available exclusively online. Scroll down for a round-up of previous Invention articles.

Movie, music or game with your Big Mac, sir? Thats what The Walt Disney Company in Hollywood has in mind. Patents filed by Disney reveal plans to drip-feed entertainment into a portable player while the owner eats in a restaurant.

You only get the full programme by coming back to the restaurant a number of times to collect all the instalments. McDonalds could use the system instead of giving out toys with Happy Meals, suggests Disneys patent."

Web 2.0 in Europe

2005-12-07T12:51:00.000+02:00

Web 2.0 phenomena is Coming to Europe as well, with a little help of our US friends...this is one of the only events I've noted in Europe on this topic:

Software Only: "Les Blogs II: Session on Investing 2.0

Five days to go before the already sold out Les Blogs begins. I will be leading the session on Investing 2.0, or investing in a Web 2.0 context - in which not that much investing is required. There have been plenty of panels and speeches on the subject, including the VC 2.0 panel of the Web 2.0 conference that I liveblogged."

Creating your own luck

2005-12-07T12:43:00.000+02:00

I enjoyed this post by Steve, I have to find this book for Christmas reading for myself...

VCball: "How to Create Your Own Luck

This week I picked up a book, called Lucky or Smart, written by Bo Peabody. Bo was the founder of Tripod, a 'user generated platform company' in today's parlance, which he sold to Lycos for $58M. At the time, Lycos fortuitively put into a lockup, against his desire, so by the time he was able to sell the stock, it had gone up 10X."

10 Challenges for Software CEOs

2005-12-07T12:07:00.000+02:00

I don't think I've come across more than a handful of sw start-ups that could answer these questions in the 10+ years I have been involved with them

http://www.sandhill.com/opinion/editorial.php?id=57
10 Challenges for Software CEOs
As the industry evolves, vendors must ask themselves tough questions about their current operations - and be ready to act on the answers."

OSSI site and Blog

2005-12-06T12:38:00.000+02:00

Website for our Open Source research project is up, including a blog, check it out! www.coss.fi/ossi

Tips for the first VC meeting

2005-12-06T12:36:00.000+02:00

good stuff for entrepreneurs....Happy Independence day to all my fellow Finns!

I had a meeting last week where an entrepreneur insisted on showing me a demo first. He was scrambling around asking for wireless keys and looking for ethernet jacks, while I sat there and tried to engage him in conversation. He lost my interest right then and there. As I started to think more about it, I thought it would be helpful to share some of my thoughts on how to make the first VC pitch a better experience for all participants."

http://www.beyondvc.com/2005/11/tips_for_the_fi.html

Edge: THE UNIVERSAL LIBRARY By George Dyson

2005-12-03T11:20:00.000+02:00

From one of my favorite websites edge.org an interesting viewpoint about books having souls, I totally agree on that, while I do like the idea of a universal library

Edge: THE UNIVERSAL LIBRARY By George Dyson: "Why does
this strike such a nerve? Because so many of us (not only authors) love books.
In their combination of mortal, physical embodiment with immortal,
disembodied knowledge, books are the mirror of ourselves. Books are not mere
physical objects. They have a life of their own. Wholesale scanning,
we fear, will strip our books of their souls. Works that were
sewn together by hand, one chapter at a time, should not be unbound
page by page and distributed click by click. Talk about 'snippets' makes
authors flinch."

O'Reilly: What Is Web 2.0

2005-12-03T11:15:00.000+02:00

Many have asked me to define web 2.0, as in Europe, and especially in Finland there is still very little discussion or action in it...O'Reilly has a comprehensive post on it, check it out

O'Reilly: What Is Web 2.0: "What Is Web 2.0
Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software"

Conversion rates

2005-12-03T11:12:00.000+02:00

A challenge many OS companies face...how to turn users into dollars, check out the post!

AC/OS: "Downloads and conversion rates

Who has the most downloads? Mozilla FireFox, with MySQL not far behind."

Tapping into the Wisdom of Communities

2005-11-29T22:00:00.000+02:00

This is too interesting to miss, I guess i will spend even more hours than normally online during those days;-)

Irving Wladawsky-Berger: Tapping into the Wisdom of Communities: "Tapping into the Wisdom of Communities

During the Golden Age of Athens around the 5th century BC, its citizens are said to have gathered in the agora to discuss and make decisions about issues important to their community. On December 1 - 3, we will see the 21st century version of such a community dialogue, as Habitat Jam brings together tens of thousands of people around the world in a global conversation about the future of our cities to discuss issues and recommend solutions for our rapidly urbanizing planet.

Habitat Jam is only possible because of the universal connectivity and reach of the Internet, as well as the development of a wide variety of tools which have essentially turned the Internet into a very effective social networking platform. It is likely to be the largest-ever interactive global event."

More Finnish entrepreneurs with fresh ideas

2005-11-29T19:09:00.000+02:00

I don't know whether this will ever be a business, but it is such a crazy idea that I like it...real out-of-the box thinking!

New Scientist Breaking News - Air guitarists rock dreams come true: "Air guitarists rock dreams come true

Aspiring rock gods can at last create their own guitar solos - without ever having to pick up a real instrument, thanks to a group of Finnish computer science students.

The Virtual Air Guitar project, developed at the Helsinki University of Technology, adds genuine electric guitar sounds to the passionately played air guitar.

Using a computer to monitor the hand movements of a 'player', the system adds riffs and licks to match frantic mid-air finger work. By responding instantly to a wide variety of gestures it promises to turn even the least musically gifted air guitarist to a virtual fret board virtuoso.

Aki Kanerva, Juha Laitinen and Teemu Maki-Patola came up with the idea after being invited to develop a virtual instrument as part of their coursework. 'The first thing that came to mind was an air guitar,' Kanerva told New Scientist."

An open source guide to a flat world

2005-11-29T16:51:00.000+02:00

This is cool, I hope Mr. Friedman follows through with this idea...

FT.com / Business life - An open source guide to a flat world: "An open source guide to a flat worldBy Andrew HillPublished: November 28 2005 18:34 | Last updated: November 28 2005 18:34Thomas Friedman has a vision for the final edition of The World is Flat: anybody will be able to update it.// <

It's been suggested to me that we actually turn the book into an open-source product. Just put it up on the web like Wikipedia [the collaborative online encyclopedia] and let people add to it says the New York Times columnist, who is working on the second edition of his bestseller on globalisation.It is a vision that will turn his publishers Penguin/Allen Lane in the UK and Farrar Straus Giroux in the US pale with anxiety about the copyright implications, not to mention the risk that opponents of the book or its message about the benefits of globalisation will try to hijack the wiki edition. But it is a vision that is perfectly in tune with the picture of a globalised and interconnected world that Mr Friedman outlines."

Cost of Proprietary software

2005-11-29T09:04:00.000+02:00

Matt Asay, one of my favorite bloggers about open source has an interesting take on the cost of proprietary software for vendors

AC/OS: "The cost of proprietary software...to its vendors

Marc Fleury says it costs $2.50 for a proprietary, enterprise software company to earn $1.00 in maintenance revenues. John Powell, CEO of Alfresco, says (and he should know, having run operations at Business Objects) it costs $1.20 (to get $1.00 in license revenues). Either way you do the math, that's a terrible way to make a living. It's just too expensive to be a proprietary enterprise software vendor these days."

1.5 million mails per day

2005-11-28T22:19:00.000+02:00

1.5 million emails per day???...and I thought I had it bad;)

feather: "The team has posted the official Request for Proposal (RFP) on our web site. The deadline for responses is Friday, December 2nd.
What are we looking for? Someone, either an independent contractor or a team, with significant background in system and network admin services who can help us manage our significant infrastructure requirements.
We service over a thousand committers, operate over three hundred public mailing lists, handle well over 1.5 million incoming emails per day, deliver a rather large multiple of that number, host over thirty top level projects, serve about five million web requests (not including our mirrors), host over six gigabytes of release packages, and have over two hundred thousand commits under our Subversion repository.
We expect the Apache Software Foundation to continue to grow. Accordingly, we must plan our infrastructure to scale to handle the increased loads. And growth, in terms of resource creation (new mailing lists, accounts, etc.) is one of the primary stresses on available volunteer time.
Interested? Please read the entire RFP and submit your proposal. Thank you to everyone who might consider taking on this worthy challenge.

"

Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning

2005-11-27T21:56:00.000+02:00

this is brilliant case of entrepreneurship...a group of Finns made a full length movie with no money over 7 years, and have now had close to 3 million downloads of the movie after about a month since introduction!

Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning: Introduction: "In the Pirkinning?

Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning is a feature-length sci-fi parody, seven
years in the making. It is the product of a core group of five Finns,
and over 300 extras, assistants and supporters. The film combines
world-class visual effects, a rough-and-ready sense of humour, and a
passion that provide the basis for the first-ever Finnish science
fiction adventure."

Google-Mart

2005-11-27T21:12:00.000+02:00

An interesting post about google REALLY taking over the world

PBS | I, Cringely . November 17, 2005 - Google-Mart: "Google-MartSam Walton Taught Google More About How to Dominate the Internet Than Microsoft Ever Did
By Robert X. Cringely

Play to your strengths. That's the key to success in any industry. This is the week I promised to explain where I think Google is headed, and playing to the company's strengths is key if they are going to do what I think, which is effectively take over the Internet. Oh they won't steal it or strong-arm us. They'll seduce us into giving it to them. And I am not at all sure that's a bad thing."

Googling For Gold

2005-11-27T21:06:00.000+02:00

Google just seems to be overtaking the world...good article in the new businessweek

Googling For Gold: "Googling For Gold With a market cap in orbit and more cash than a small nation, Google's heft is altering the tech industry's behavior. But when does its long-awaited shopping spree begin? With the news that shares of online search giant Google Inc. had crossed the lofty $400-per-share mark on Nov. 17, the world may have witnessed something akin to the birth of a new financial planetary system. Given its market cap of $120 billion, double that of its nearest competitor, Yahoo!, Google now has the gravitational pull to draw in a host of institutions and company matchmakers unable to resist the potential profit opportunities."

Time for a New Software Model

2005-11-27T09:22:00.000+02:00

Can open source really benefit a company in both development AND marketing? Interesting post by OS veteran.

SandHill.com | Engineering | Time for a New Software Model: "Time for a New Software Model
Sales and marketing costs are dragging down the enterprise software business. Open source offers one way to resurrect it.
By Larry Augustin
Nov. 11, 2005

Ask a software vendor about the benefits of Open Source and you'll get a few stock answers. It's inexpensive. R&D costs are lower. Developers are plentiful. But few vendors realize the true operational leverage that Open Source offers in sales and marketing.

V2C Forum 2005 - ENTREPRENEUR BOOTCAMP

2005-11-27T09:02:00.000+02:00

I'll be speaking here on thursday

V2C Forum 2005 - ENTREPRENEUR BOOTCAMP: "1. Entrepreneur Bootcamp: How to Raise Growth Capital

Entrepreneurs of young technology ventures often EVENTUALLY find it impossible to realise the full potential of their business without external resources, both financial capital and knowledge capital. Due to the risky nature of their business, venture capital is practically the only source available. However, due to the increased complexity of high growth venturing, venture capitalists have tougher time making investment decisions and appear to demand more than is being offered, in terms of investment-readiness. There is clear mismatch between the expectations of entrepreneurs and venture capitalists. The Entrepreneur Bootcamp will provide entrepreneurs with insights and tools on how to package and sell ideas in order to raise growth capital. The interest, herein, is to widen and strengthen the pool of growth entrepreneurs in the Finnish Federation of Enterprises."

What? The Open Source Movement; a Socialist phenomenon? :: AO

2005-11-26T23:46:00.000+02:00

Good post on AlwaysOn! Well, I certainly haver never considered myself Socialist...I believe the next 12-18 months will be very interesting regarding Open Source, I am betting on 5 big IPOs that will prove for once and all Open Source as a viable business and investment opportunity

What? The Open Source Movement; a Socialist phenomenon? :: AO: "What? The Open Source Movement; a Socialist phenomenon?
Sometimes people say stuff that seemed like a good idea at the time

Simon Edhouse [Virtusoft] | POSTED: 11.22.05 @06:00

One of the fascinating battles taking place on the Web, (and there are a few big ones underway) is the growing war of words between the old-guard (more Web 1.0) capitalists, typified by Microsoft and SAP, and the open-source (more Web 2.0) development community. However, the acrimony seems to be largely flying in one direction.

In a sign that the old guard may be starting to panic about highly collaborative open-source business models, Shai Agassi, president of the product and technology group at SAP, (who also blogs here, hello Shai) claimed that not only was Linux not innovative but that it represented I.P. Socialism. He is not the first to dredge up cold-war rhetoric to try to discredit Linux-type solutions and dissuade clients from switching. In an interview in January this year, in response to a fairly loaded question about people clamoring to reform and restrict intellectual-property rights Bill Gates said:

There are some new modern-day sort of communists who want to get rid of the incentive for musicians and moviemakers and software makers under various guises. They don't think that those incentives should exist. Hangon, is Bill seriously lumping the IP issues of the Open Source debate in with music and movie piracy? It wasn't said overtly, but he is inferring this kind of linkage. The incentives that Bill is talking about are all regulatory processes that predate the Web, and this I'm afraid makes him sound more and more like yesterday's man. "

Ross Mayfield's Weblog: Wiki Wednesday November 2nd

2005-11-26T23:28:00.000+02:00

I have been thinking of setting up a new monthly networking event in Helsinki. We have Mobilemonday that is thriving, but I would like to see something like wiki wednesday being set up, that would nicely complement my open source activities.

Ross Mayfield's Weblog: Wiki Wednesday November 2nd: "Wiki Wednesday November 2nd

The whole Socialtext team is in town for an on-site retreat next week, so we are having this month's Wiki Wednesday in Palo Alto. Some great suprise guests are coming by. Mark the date and sign up on the wiki.

Also, a few of us are coming to TagCamp this weekend. Unfortunately it overlaps with the UCLA-Stanford and Earthquakes-Galaxy football games, but I'll stop by for some geek time.

October 28, 2005 in barcamp, wikiwed | Permalink"

About time

2005-11-26T19:04:00.000+02:00

I have been contemplating about setting a blog for about a year, here it is finally. I don't know how this is going to shape up yet as next week we will launch a work related blog that will be concentrated on Open Source at www.coss.fi/ossi and I will be posting over there as well.

I guess the intial goal for myself is to try to post almost daily and in a way keep this as a place to remember and develop the things I am thinking about and working on whether that being personal or not.