Larry Osterman is a long-time engineer over at Microsoft and he has a really interesting blog post that reviews his twenty year stint at the world’s largest software company. It’s a walk down memory lane. “I�ve watched three different paradigm shifts occur in the software industry, and most of a fourth. The first one was the shift of real computing to �personal� computers. The second was the GUI revolution, the third was the internet, and now we�re seeing a shift to smaller devices. We�re still not done with that one.”
Martin Tobias over at the VentureBlog explains what he wants from the next generation of the Web. He also examines the benefits or otherwise of some recent technological advances. He asks a number of questions:
“1. Over the last five to seven years has technology increased or decreased your personal productivity?
2. Increased or decreased your overall quality of life?
3. Strengthened or weakened your interpersonal and family relationships?”
Meanwhile Karen Richardson, CEO of E.piphany is interviewed over at the BBC. “There is no short way or quick remedy to success, just do it the right way even if it takes a little longer.”
I see that Novell have another management re-org taking place. Novell is a company with potential, marrying their SUSE acquistion with their traditional network management strengths would seem to have a lot of potential. The question is can they turn the ship around…
CNET has an interesting article from the Harvard Business School on how smaller players can survive in competition with the big boys and girls. “The essence of a niche strategy is to achieve specialization by taking explicit advantage of the opportunities provided by the ecosystem while avoiding the kinds of traps that challenge firms in such environments.”
Footnote:
Thanks to Neville Hobson and Greg Brooks for some of the links.
Murphy's Law 