From Evernote:

StratVantage Consulting, LLC — Mike’s Take on the News 04/23/01 Clipped from: http://www.stratvantage.com/news/042301.htm

The News – 04/23/01

Toffler Says We Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet

In a recent article in the Wall Stree Journal, futurists Alvin and Heidi Toffler scoff at the notion that the new economy is a sham, and that the dotcom bubble burst means a complete return to the old economy ideas of how to run an enterprise:

To imagine that the new economy is over is the equivalent of thinking, in the early 1800s, that the industrial revolution was over because textile manufacturers were going broke in Manchester.

Today’s stock-market agonies hardly prove the new economy’s non-existence. If stock prices plunge 50% on a given day, does that mean the actual underlying economic activities have been cut in half, that workers are producing half of what they produced the day before? If share prices mirror reality at all, they frequently do so with enormous lags and leads.

The Tofflers continue to say that the new economy has changed organizations dramatically. Corporations are flatter, less hierarchical, and their products are more customized. There is less vertical integration as supply webs have allowed companies to focus on their true core competencies. Companies must innovate faster and compete in ever-narrowing niches. The Tofflers point to a fantastic statistic: There are more than three million digital switches for each one of us today. This makes the half a billion PCs and the projected 1 billion cell phones seem like a drop in the ocean.

The obvious, inescapable fact is that the revolution is real, and it manifests itself at many levels simultaneously. Internationally, we see it in today’s drive toward globalization and the mounting backlash against it. Politically, we see it in novel battles over privacy and intellectual property. We see it in America’s increasingly intangible exports. We see it in breakthroughs in genetics and in the manufactured panic over genetically modified food. We see it in the phenomenal rise of media power — and the public’s rising hostility toward it. We see it in intergenerational relations. We see it in a polarization of wealth. We see it in fears of a so-called digital divide. We see it in a rising tide of anti-Americanism in Europe and Asia. These changes are not independent of one another. They are part of a larger pattern.

Something new is arising on the planet and it doesn’t fit the assumptions, models and paradigms left over from the industrial age. It is a new civilization of which the new economy is only one part.

The Tofflers assert that the ride has just begun, and the economic turbulence will continue as technological advances in every field drive changes in every aspect of our lives. The most important trend, they say, is the convergence of biology and digital technology. First, information technology will revolutionize biology, and then the reverse will happen, as we get biological computers and other hybrid devices of unimagined power.

Basically, it’s way too early in the game to get off the technology bandwagon. As futurist Kevin Kelly puts it, we’ve just 15 minutes into a 24-hour poker game. Hold onto your seats, and keep a poker face!

WSJ Online (subscription required)

New TrendSpot Rankings

As you may know, I maintain a page that ranks current emerging Internet-related trends called the TrendSpot. I’ve recently completed the April ranking, and there are a few changes. One thing that did not change was the fact that P2P computing maintains its spot at the top. In addition, I split the Auto-ID/Smart Homes topic in two. As if that weren’t enough, a new trend, P2P Backlash, debuts at number 14, with a bullet!

Check it out at www.stratvantage.com/trendspot/ and let me know what you think.

The TrendSpot

Can’t Get Enough of ME?

In the unlikely event that you want more of my opinions, I’ve started a Weblog. It’s the fashionable thing for pundits to do, and I’m doing it too. A Weblog is a datestamped collection of somewhat random thoughts and ideas assembled on a Web page. If you’d like to subject the world to your thoughts, as I do, you can create your own Weblog. You need to have a Web site that allows you FTP access, and the free software from www.blogger.com . This allows you to right click on a Web page and append your pithy thoughts to your Weblog.

I’ve dubbed my Weblog entries “Stratlets”, and they are available at www.stratvantage.com/stratlets/ . Let me know what you think.

Return to Mike’s Take

From Evernote:

StratVantage Consulting, LLC — Mike’s Take on the News 04/19/01 Clipped from: http://www.stratvantage.com/news/041901.htm

The News – 04/19/01

Australia May Have Outlawed E-Mail Forwarding

Australia has recently enacted some changes to its Internet copyright laws that some critics claim would make forwarding an email without the writer’s consent a crime. Breaking the law could result in fines of AU$60,000 or five years in jail.

After the news broke in Australian papers, Australian Attorney General Daryl Williams said, "Contrary to alarmist media reports, sharing e-mail is not banned by law." When pressed by reporters, however, Williams equivocated: "For example, if the e-mail was simply a joke that everyone had been re-hashing for years, it is doubtful it would have the necessary originality to be protected by copyright. Similarly, a casual exchange of personal information or office gossip would probably not be original enough to have copyright in it."

Well, that clears it up, then.

As if that weren’t enough, Australia also has banned Web content that the police determine is offensive to children, no matter where it is produced. Fines of up to AU$10,000 can be levied with no outside oversight. Even worse: Web site producers can’t even get the content pre-screened to determine offensiveness. They have to wait to be cited.

While it may appear that our friends down under have gone completely mad, you should remember that our own Congress tried to accomplish pretty much the same thing recently with the 1996 Communications Decency Act (CDA), which was struck down by the Supreme Court in 1997.

Businesses should be aware that various countries have some pretty severe restrictions on electronic communications. For each country in which you do business, it is imperative to understand the laws regarding such seemingly innocuous activities such as forwarding email.

The Register

Video Downloading Already a Reality

Look out Blockbuster! Internet video rental company SightSound Technologies has been renting downloadable videos over the Web since 1999. The company offers “daily rentals” of films from Miramax Films, which will release twelve movies for download on Miramax websites, and Comedy Central, which is distributing episodes of “South Park” and “Dr. Katz: Professional Therapist.” SightSound is also distributing movies for Franchise Pictures, Unapix Entertainment and more than 40 other independent producers and special interest companies.

A recently featured movie, Miramax’s 1999 release, Guinevere, costs $3.49 to rent for a day and involves a 469MB download. With a 1Mbps home broadband connection, the 105-minute movie would take a little over an hour to download. You download the movie file, which you can play on your computer, as well as a decryption key needed to make the file viewable.

SightSound has added “direct to Net” to the entertainment lexicon that includes “direct to video” by offering the first movie made for the Internet, “The Quantum Project”, a $3 million 32-minute sci-fi drama starring Stephen Dorff and John Cleese. The company isn’t relying entirely on online distribution, however. They recently partnered with Microsoft to bundle a free copy of Quantum Project with downloads of Microsoft’s Windows Media Player 7.

SightSound currently has four patents issued and roughly 30 under review by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, and is aggressively going after other etailers selling audio and video recordings via online downloads.

Frankly, I’m amazed that the company, which started out life in 1995 offering secure audio downloads (record industry take note!), can find a big enough market in this bandwidth-starved world. The fact that they made the Microsoft deal and canceled their IPO in October indicates that they may truly be in advance of the market. Also, their release of the movie “pi” last year received only 128 downloads.

Indeed, not everyone is convinced of the promise of videos on the PC. “We like to use the ‘sitting forward versus sitting back’ analogy,” says Gene Klein, content VP for indie film site Reelshort.com. “If you’re watching a half-hour movie on a PC at your desk, that’s a long time to be sitting forward.” There are other, business-related, complications as well, not the least of which is the fact that the Internet is global, and movie companies typically sell rights on a regional basis.

Nonetheless, businesses that depend on revenue from forms of entertainment that can be digitized need to keep track of such developments. It’s entirely possible that someday soon you, and Blockbuster, may be Amazoned.

SightSound

Can’t Get Enough of ME?

In the unlikely event that you want more of my opinions, I’ve started a Weblog. It’s the fashionable thing for pundits to do, and I’m doing it too. A Weblog is a datestamped collection of somewhat random thoughts and ideas assembled on a Web page. If you’d like to subject the world to your thoughts, as I do, you can create your own Weblog. You need to have a Web site that allows you FTP access, and the free software from www.blogger.com . This allows you to right click on a Web page and append your pithy thoughts to your Weblog.

I’ve dubbed my Weblog entries “Stratlets”, and they are available at www.stratvantage.com/stratlets/ . Let me know what you think.

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From Evernote:

StratVantage Consulting, LLC — StratVantage News Summary 04/16/01 Clipped from: http://www.stratvantage.com/news/041601.htm

The News – 04/16/01

B2B Exchanges Have Lost $1 Billion

The trough of disillusionment widens and deepens in a recent Reuters article. The article quotes an equities analyst’s claims that companies have lost at least a billion dollars on public exchange efforts. It’s hard to put too much credence in the number since most of the exchanges are private, but, then again, losses of such a maghnitude don’t seem that unlikely.

It is less easy to believe an article, however, that confuses the recent revenue problems of Ariba and Commerce One with public exchanges. These two companies are eProcurement vendors; they are not public exchanges, nor do they really supply public exchanges. I’ve seen this a lot in the trade press – writers who confuse all kinds of eCommerce with exchanges. What Ariba and Commerce One do is enable companies to automate the procurement of indirect materials. The resulting systems do not resemble exchanges closely at all. An exchange is generally thought of as an embodiment of the “Fat Butterfly” model.

Exchange vendor SupplyConnect defines the Fat Butterfly this way:

The term “Fat Butterfly,” in describing e-markets, comes from the depiction of numerous suppliers representing one wing of a butterfly and numerous customers as the other. The “fat” in “Fat Butterfly” connotes that the e-market is robust in terms of provided member services and liquidity.

Very few of Ariba and Commerce One’s customers would fit into this category. Rather, they are typically one-to-many marketplaces: one buyer/seller, many sellers/buyers. As such, they are not exchanges.

While this may seem to be a quibble, it is important if the media is going to equate financial woes in eProcurement vendors with problems for an unrelated eCommerce effort, exchanges.

All this is not to say B2B exchanges aren’t having problems. Ariba, in a case of the pot calling the kettle black, recently predicted the demise of all public exchanges, and plenty of writers and analysts are all too eager to kick exchanges while they’re down.

Consider the author of the $1B loss quote, Credit Suisse First Boston analyst Brent Thill. Thill now claims he was never convinced about the promise of B2B exchanges in the first place: “This B2B marketplace thing was going to be the hottest thing since sliced bread, but...I don’t think they’re anything more than vaporware.” Thill has a buy rating on supply chain software vendor i2, who would greatly benefit from a shift to private exchanges. (He also recently tried to explain away Nike’s claim that i2 cost them millions.) Yet Thill had a strong buy on Commerce One as recently as last December, so he was obviously drinking the Kool Aid then. In February, he said that Dell’s shutdown of their marketplace powered by Ariba would have “zero” effect on Ariba. He sounds a little like a pumper now gone dumper.

My point here is that analysts are camp followers, ever willing to subscribe to the herd mentality. They were the cheerleaders of irrational exuberance a year and a half ago, and they’re the purveyors of doom and gloom today.

What businesses need to do is really examine and understand the value propositions involved in doing all kinds of eCommerce, from eProcurement to exchanges. Will it help your business to streamline your procurement? Will it help if you trade goods and services on an exchange? Can you save money by participating in online auctions? Would the pain involved in setting up an intelligent supply chain be worth it in the end?

Analysts, pundits, and clueless writers who confuse indirect goods procurement with exchanges can’t answer these questions. Only informed decision-makers within your business can.

If you want my opinion, this trough of disillusionment will last probably through the end of the year. After that, the reports of real advantages gained through eCommerce by pioneering companies will start to turn the tide. I predict it will only take one high profile success per industry to get the herd back singing the praises of exchanges and eCommerce.

Yahoo News

ASPs Defying Predictions of Demise?

GartnerGroup has predicted that 60 percent of Application Service Providers will be out of business by the end of this year. Then why are their numbers increasing? Summit Strategies recently counted 1,870 companies in the directory at ASPNews.com and 1,763 at ASPStreet.com . Summit says these numbers don’t even include some industry-focused vertical ASPs (known as VSPs in the ever-expanding xSP lexicon).

Summit argues that these VSPs, which are typically launched by a corporate parent that is an industry player, may have several advantages over the typical, cash-starved, venture-backed ASP. For one, they generally are well-funded from the start, and for another, they have the backing of an influential industry player, which bequeaths them brand presence, channels, and credibility in their target markets.

Summit points to three VSPs as examples: Sallie Mae Solutions (www.salliemaesolutions.com ), a new division of Sallie Mae, which manages $66.7 billion in student loans; RMX, or RetailersMarketXchange (www.rmx.com ), which evolved from the Chevron Retailer Alliance program and is targeted at convenience stores’ and small retailers’ supply chains; and Sabre eMergo (www.sabre.com/emergo ), a division of travel giant Sabre, which provides business-management solutions for the airline and railroad industries.

Summit sees these VSPs as becoming virtual workplaces for their industries. I see instead a concentration on smoothing the supply chain. Much like the exchange market, which is evolving into intelligent supply chains, the ASP market seems to be gravitating this way as well. This could be another instance of a sector in trouble heading right for the comfort of existing companies’ sponsorship, and pitching in to evolve the next generation supply chain.

Businesses should be aware of this trend, and, when considering ASP services, seek out these specialized VSPs, which can bring lots of valuable industry experience and contacts to the party.

TechRepublic

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From Evernote:

StratVantage Consulting, LLC — Mike’s Take on the News 04/11/01 Clipped from: http://www.stratvantage.com/news/041101.htm

The News – 04/11/01

Confidence in B2B Exchanges Flows

Well if you’re not confused about the B2B exchange marketplace, you’re not paying attention. The March issue of manufacturing-oriented magazine, Start, quotes Jupiter Research as saying independent-sponsored marketplaces (ISMs) are gaining speed. ISMs, which I call Captive Exchanges, are business-to-business groups created by industry leaders. Jupiter says they are moving online faster, and enabling business operations sooner than expected. “More than 41% of 58 ISMs already have the ability to conduct business online, and another 33% were speculated to have launched by the end of 2000,” the magazine said.

In the last edition of StratVantage News Summary, I reported Ariba’s gloomy prediction that all public exchanges were doomed. This was a particularly interesting statement, considering that Ariba’s stock is floundering, and statements of doom and gloom won’t do anything to enhance its price.

So I guess, when you look at it, Jupiter’s statement really says nothing about the viability of the online exchange, just that they’re really good at spending venture capital getting to market. And also good at getting industry analysts to write favorable analyses, it would appear.

In the same issue, Start quotes AMR Research regarding consortium trading exchanges (CTEs). CTEs face ten trouble spots:

· premature promises of functionality	long delays in the delivery of collaborative commerce applications
· lack of consensus about where functionality should reside	cost to integrate back-end systems
· need to budget for the total cost of the exchange	supplier recruitment, participation and integration
· competition among the best-of-breed vendors	immaturity of standards
· marketplace-to-marketplace integration	political infighting

Other than that, they face clear sailing!

These varying viewpoints underscore the importance of businesses formulating a solid business case before getting involved in B2B exchanges. Concentrating on bringing efficiency to your own supply chain is likely to be more fruitful in the short run.

Start Magazine

Gratuitous Fun

OK, this has nothing to do with business or eCommerce, or anything that I usually write about. It’s just so doggone cool.

Here’s a site where you can make your own license plate images using your favorite words or phrases. Do I need to go on?

Acme License Maker

Can’t Get Enough of ME?

In the unlikely event that you want more of my opinions, I’ve started a Weblog. It’s the fashionable thing for pundits to do, and I’m doing it too. A Weblog is a datestamped collection of somewhat random thoughts and ideas assembled on a Web page. If you’d like to subject the world to your thoughts, as I do, you can create your own Weblog. You need to have a Web site that allows you FTP access, and the free software from www.blogger.com . This allows you to right click on a Web page and append your pithy thoughts to your Weblog.

I’ve dubbed my Weblog entries “Stratlets”, and they are available at www.stratvantage.com/stratlets/ . Let me know what you think.

Return to Mike’s Take

Copyright © 2002, StratVantage Consulting, LLC. All rights reserved.

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From Evernote:

StratVantage Consulting, LLC — Mike’s Take on the News 04/09/01 Clipped from: http://www.stratvantage.com/news/040901.htm

The News – 04/09/01

Confidence in B2B Exchanges Ebbs

Here’s one for the “I Told You So” file. In a Computerworld story today, Ariba vice president for corporate strategy, Martin Ryu, predicted the demise of all public exchanges. According to the story, Ryu said industry competitors haven’t been able to agree on marketplace business models and that connecting disparate corporate architectures is a feat beyond the reach of modern technology.

Ryu’s pessimism might have something to do with the 50 percent drop in Ariba’s quarterly revenue and impending layoffs at the maker of indirect materials procurement software. And I think his statement is a bit extreme. I do think, however, that the direction he indicates is valid, and have thought so since I wrote a white paper on public exchanges last summer for my previous employer. In the paper I argued that most public exchanges would wither away, leaving one or two public marketplaces in each commodity industry.

I predicted that private exchanges, one to many marketplaces hosted by buyers, would take their place. GartnerGroup agrees, predicting that, by 2005, “the entire supply chain between suppliers and buyers will be automated.” This rather startling prediction relates to two other Gartner predictions:

· There may be as many as 30,000 private exchanges today in various stages of development. In contrast, the number of Public or Captive Exchanges now in existence is estimated to be around 1000.

· Global corporate spending via exchanges will reach $6 trillion (revised from an earlier $7.3 trillion) in 2004, up from $145 billion last year.

So, on the one hand, corporations will spend $7.3 trillion in exchanges within three years. On the other hand, those exchanges may be private, buyer-dominated extended supply chains rather than the public exchanges popular today.

Businesses need to understand that the role of public B2B exchanges is rapidly evolving and this means caution is advised when committing to exchange participation. There are a number of very successful B2B exchanges, particularly in the energy industry, and others such as network bandwidth exchanges and Covisint, the automotive exchange, that may be successful. My more recent white paper details a number of questions businesses should ask before joining exchanges.

Those businesses with hard goods oriented supply chains should consider supply chain automation and management software to help improve efficiency and communication among supply chain partners. Eventually, everyone’s supply chain will be automated using this type of software. Those who get there early should enjoy a competitive edge.

Computerworld

Too Early for Bluetooth?

Bluetooth, the short distance wireless standard originally developed by handset maker Ericsson, will not be supported by Microsoft’s next operating system release, XP, due out later this year. The software giant said it wouldn’t support the standard due to the lack of production-quality chipsets. Microsoft’s Pocket PC division hasn’t gotten the news, however, and is planning on supporting Bluetooth in its operating system.

Ericsson, meanwhile, is shipping Bluetooth enabled cell phones, using the technology in place of wires to connect headsets. The company predicts 10 to 15 million devices will ship this year, with as many as 100 million shipping next year.

The failure of a planned Bluetooth interoperability demonstration at this year’s CeBit conference is evidence that we are early in the adoption of this standard. In addition, there have been several reports of Bluetooth devices causing interference with other wireless networking products, especially those based on 802.11b, which uses the same 2.4Ghz radio frequency.

Bottom line: the lack of support in Microsoft’s next OS will slow Bluetooth adoption slightly, but the main use of the technology, at least out of the gate, will be to get rid of all the wires that clutter up our lives. (For more information on Bluetooth and other wireless technologies, you can check out my wireless white paper .) I predict that Microsoft will be forced to play catch up with a subsequent service pack release to add Bluetooth functionality.

Computerworld

Can’t Get Enough of ME?

In the unlikely event that you want more of my opinions, I’ve started a Weblog. It’s the fashionable thing for pundits to do, and I’m doing it too. A Weblog is a datestamped collection of somewhat random thoughts and ideas assembled on a Web page. If you’d like to subject the world to your thoughts, as I do, you can create your own Weblog. You need to have a Web site that allows you FTP access, and the free software from www.blogger.com . This allows you to right click on a Web page and append your pithy thoughts to your Weblog.

I’ve dubbed my Weblog entries “Stratlets”, and they are available at www.stratvantage.com/stratlets/ . Let me know what you think.

Return to Mike’s Take

From Evernote:

StratVantage Consulting, LLC — Mike’s Take on the News 04/05/01 Clipped from: http://www.stratvantage.com/news/040501.htm

The News – 04/05/01

Court Decision Limits Patent Rights

Late last November, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit set aside the “doctrine of equivalents,” which grants broader protection and rights to patent holders.

The decision in Festo v. Shoketsu Kinzoku Koygo Kabushiki trims a legal principle that once let inventors claim rights to ideas beyond the scope of their patents. Patent holders were able to claim patent violation against any product that performed an equivalent function of the patented product. As a result of the decision, however, any changes or additions to the initial filing would not be protected under the doctrine of equivalents. The ruling is retroactive, throwing open the whole body of patent legal decisions to new scrutiny.

Critics of the decision say it could encourage a rash of copycat products and mean millions of dollars of lost revenue for patent holders. Especially hurt could be the high tech industry, which relies heavily on patent protection to maintain competitive edge.

The decision’s supports claim it will force companies to be more precise in patent claims by closing one of the loopholes in patent law.

Festo has hired former Whitewater prosecutor Kenneth Starr to represent them in a Supreme Court appeal. But plenty of damage could be done by the time the High Court agrees to hear the case. Already the decision is being cited as precedent, and a least one patent claim has been overturned as a result.

Business owners who rely on patents to protect their products and processes need to be aware of this decision and consider amending their patents to specifically rule out copycat products.

ZDNet

Get an MIT Education on the Web – Free!

One of my sayings is: “On the Internet, everything devolves to free.” This story proves this maxim, and how! Thanks to OpenCourseWare, a new plan out of MIT, over the next decade you’ll be able to go to MIT over the Web. Well, you may say, plenty of schools offer distance learning; what’s the big deal? The big deal is, MIT will make all of their course material, including class lectures, reading lists, exams and videos, available on Web for free. You will be able to essentially audit an MIT education. It’s going to cost MIT about $100 million to do this, and it will be voluntary: up to each professor’s discretion. Of course, you won’t get college credit or a degree, but, hey, it’s not the letters that count, right?

According to President Charles M. Vest, the university’s president, MIT is not worried about students opting to avoid the $26,000 in tuition. “Our central value is people and the human experience of faculty working with students in classrooms and laboratories, and students learning from each other, and the kind of intensive environment we create in our residential university. . . This is a natural fit to what the Web is really all about. We’ve learned this lesson over and over again. You can’t have tight, closed-up systems. We’ve tried to open up software infrastructure in a variety of ways and that’s what unleashed the creativity of software developers; I think the same thing can happen in education.”

As laudable as MIT’s effort is, one wonders about the various intellectual property challenges, and the possible “MIT aftermarket” that might spring up, repackaging the courseware. In any event, any business whose core purpose is online learning must be quaking in its boots at the possibility that this sort of thing might catch on.

New York Times (registration required)

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