Updated Messages in the Veodia Studio

I've Blogged today on the Veodia Blog about the updated messages in the Veodia Studio.

Check it out.

My favorite:


And the relevant video:




E.T.

Bill Gates - The Interview

In his latest blog Dale Dougherty wrote about Bill Gates from another perspective than usual.

"...
This year, Gates made an important and potentially difficult transition at age 52, leaving Microsoft as CEO and devoting more of his time and energy to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It's a shift in focus, moving from defining strategy for Microsoft to a broader strategy for improving the lives of the world's poor. Bill Gates exemplifies what Tim O'Reilly is talking about when he says that those of us in the tech industry should increasingly "focus on stuff that matters."
..."

Interesting discussion about Microsoft, software, technology, vision and much more.

Take the time and enjoy.





E.T.

Microsoft PowerPoint – not ‘future compatible’

I was working over the weekend on an important presentation, using MS Office for Mac. As always, I was (or thought I was) careful, saving drafts and backups every few minutes…

I finished the presentation, just in time for breakfast with the family, and sent it to my team.
Few minutes later, I get a response that they cannot open the file.

“Strange… I just saved it”, I thought out loud.

When I tried to open the original file I got this message:


I checked my backup files, as well as any recovery files in the system folder – they all were corrupted…

My response included a big “F…” + few words in Arabic, Hebrew, Russian and 3 other languages I just invented for the occasion.

I called some friends and tried to retrieve/save at least the text from the files…

Finally, I changed the mime type from PPTX to PPT and the files opened.
Just to be clear – the latest format was not working, while an previous format was.

Now, when I can smile and learn from this experience, I can say that MS PowerPoint for Mac is not 'future compatible'…

Probably the only application that do not support its own newer formats…

E.T.

Under The Radar: The Business of Web Apps : Aggregation (2/...)

Additional notes from the Under the Radar event - Aggregation track.

---

https://www.docsyncer.com/

Want to be in the center in a all document management of the organization and people.

They offer:

• Migrating to online document editor - as GoogleDocs
  
• Collaboration and remote access to users
• Enterprise search - find your documents in the organization

The new service has already over 4M documents.
They claim for an automatic upload and sync process as well as easy to adopt from a user experience perspective.

In the future they would like to work with additional online editor (Zoho and such).
Offline capabilities are on the roadmap.

The panel tried to ask some hard questions about collaboration, versions, security and offline capabilities.
I do not think they are trying to solve these issues, which could be consider as a 'platform' for this domain.

I liked their visual design (did not use the service yet).

---

http://www.kwiry.com



A service that allow you to 'text'/SMS/voice/eMail yourself for reminders.
They focus on SMS as it the most use and simple scenario.

The eMail you receive - with you note + marketing/ads information.
Collaborations, sharing and other srvices are available as well.

Comments from the panel:

• A simple scenario such as trying SMS yourself during driving - so you could read and learn more while you are in the hospital... Well - this is why they have the voice interface as well.
• Does text messaging used by non-teenagers? They claim there is a growth in SMS usage across all generations.
• The business model and the capability/potential of driving people to go to websites of advertisers. Kwiry call it "Call for Action".

---

http://www.orgoo.com

Would like us to us argoo as our "communication cockpit".

different IM/eMail/Chat accounts managed in one screen.

Video chat and other advanced features (presence, profiles and such) are available as well.
A demo of 4 people doing a video chat at once.
Video chat was a nice feature as well. As well as the easy embedding in facebook/MySpace.

Conversations using different medium (IM, SMS, eMail) are being aggregated and shown as one eMail stream on the screen.

Cool mashup.

Do I want one service have all my username/password information?

---

http://www.pageonce.com/

One personal page that has access to all your data (as far as they think it is relevant).
Fast setup for common web portals and services.

Again, do I want one service have all my username/password information?

The panel was focusing on security topic.
Pageonce said they are using bank level security. In addition, most people as using a small set of user/password set and they can now be aware of all the activities done by their 'identity'. So, it may help you to find if someone is abusing your account.

The idea of having all your info on one server was not well received by the panel.

Well - you could start with aggregating eMail, airline, newspaper, amazon and such first and later on decide if you would like to go and put your bank info.

Private beta available on http://www.pageonce.com/utr.htm

---

Overall - all the services are trying to make all our information more available.
Will it create more noise or will it allow us to focus on the more important things... ?

To be continue.


E.T.

Technorati Tags: Event, undertheradar, software, microsoft, orgoo, docsyncer, kwiry, pageonce

Under The Radar: The Business of Web Apps (1/...)

Today I am at the Under the Radar event.


Some comments from the first session.

---

http://www.splashtop.com

Interesting virtualization software that tries to make the experience of starting working on the PC as simple as open your mobile phone/PDA. They showed a demo of booting a PC and have some apps running with in 12 seconds. (cool if you like Linux apps). The Windows XP was booting in the background...

It seems that 'hibernate / sleep-mode' is doing some of this things al ready - as long as you have no problem with Power. Is it greener or safer to have the PC off.

---

http://www.elastra.com/

Sorry - Did not understand what, how and why they are doing what they are doing.
I tried.
So - here is an image that may help you.

---

http://www.jumpbox.com/

Presented a solution for the consumer / small business solution for virtual computer that could run on top of the current OS and virtualization apps.
The demo included 'easy' configuration process.
There is a nice collection of open source apps and tools as part of the 'box'.

This make 'playing' with new and open source application easy and less risky.
However, it is not free.

Support is optional and on top of the package (~$200 per instance per year).
The support is for the jumpbox and not for the applications on top of it.

I think it could be a great 'sandbox' for POC and demos, before running the applications on your hardware.

---

http://www.universant.com

They (re)worked the main business processes and application functions and offer them as a open source platform.

From my experience in enterprises it is hard to offer 'one size fits all' and have most of your customers happy - especially in the SMB market.

---

Overall - the potential is clear.
It was interesting to see the focus on the consumer and SMB markets. Especially the consumer one. Running virtual OS / computer for non-business reasons is interesting.

Time to juice the laptop...

To be continue (if I find a power source...)

E.T.

Technorati Tags: Event,undertheradar,software, microsoft

Notes from Momentum Growth Conference (8/8)

Notes from Momentum Growth Conference.



Buy, Sell, Hold? - Yes, You Have Mo' to Think About
You've grown your company. You're making money. What's next? IPO, acquisition, or just keep walking. In this session, hear about the exit strategies that momentum companies have to think about, and plan for, today.

TSX - Ungad Chadda, Vice-President and COO
Thumbplay - Are Traasdahl, CEO & Founder
Microsoft - Marc Brown, Director of Corporate Development
IMVU - Eric Ries, CTO

(no links, sorry, Blogger really needs to improve linking and adding image capabilities...)

The panel agreed the focus should be on building a real business.
They disagree on what does it mean...

Nice quote: "companies do not fail due to lack of technology - they fail due to lack of customers..."

Building a dream-team is the key step in building a real business.

First hires for technical or product driven companies - should be in the marketing area - as you need to generate lead and to make the market ready for your branding and product.
(???)

Executive team of a start up changes with the phases of the company.
The role of the executives changes as well.

The transition from 'traffic' or # of users to monetization is not trivial (duh...).
Partnership with a market leader or a company the complete your value offering is a logic step.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Done.

It was a long & good fun day...


E.T.

Technorati Tags: Event, Web 2.0
, dealmaker, undertheradar, tsx, thumbplay, microsoft, imvu