Size and internal vs. external coordination costs matter a lot. North of 100 people in a company, employees don’t all know each other. Politics become important. Incentives change. Signaling that work is being done may become more important than actually doing work. These costs are almost always underestimated. Yet they are so prevalent that professional investors should and do seriously reconsider before investing in companies that have more than one office. Severe coordination problems may stem from something as seemingly trivial or innocuous as a company having a multi-floor office. Hiring consultants and trying to outsource key development projects are, for similar reasons, serious red flags. While there’s surely been some lessening of these coordination costs in the last 40 years—and that explains the shift to somewhat smaller companies—the tendency is still to underestimate them. Since they remain fairly high, they’re worth thinking hard about.
Author Archives:
Bruce Sterling does Google Glasses
Dell VRTX
Also, see TPM’s coverage.
New GTD strategy
How GitHub runs itself
In that I work at BigCo that wants to transform, with lots of software in our future, I think a lot about this talk:
From the 2012 Monktoberfest.
Upcoming talk on Dell’s New Cloud Strategy
I’ll have a little cameo on a webinar tomorrow, speaking broadly to Dell’s cloud strategy. It’d a good chance to see what we’re up to now-a-days and how we think about it. This will be one of the first, public overviews of our cloud approach since we announced we were no longer building and running our own public cloud.
And, it’s got a snappy title: Is Cloud Meeting Your Expectations? Today’s Results….Tomorrow’s Promises, and the agenda:
According to IDC, cloud revenue is growing at more than 25 percent a year, and will reach $55.5 billion by 2014. I think we can agree that cloud is here to stay, but is your organization seeing the results they expected? This session will show customer success in adopting cloud; time/cost savings, and improvements to the quality of life. There will also be a discussion on up-and-coming cloud trends and how Dell is addressing these and simplifying the process with Dell best practices, cloud enabled hardware, software and services.
Join this session to:
- Discover how organizations like yours are successfully adopting cloud and seeing real business results
- Understand future trends that can affect your organization, and hear how Dell is addressing these with the right solutions: hardware, software and services
- Learn 3 key steps in making cloud adoption work best for your organization
If you sign-up and attend, you’ll get to see my buddy Roy in action as well.
You’d probably also like this one with Barton George and John Willis: How IT and Developers Can Join Forces to Innovate in the Cloud.
Not sure which half works
In a separate study, out of 3000 marketers surveyed 41 percent said they were “uncertain” about the effectiveness of Facebook marketing.
–Brands allocating most of social marketing budget on Facebook, uncertain of worth
That’s too bad. All this fancy Big Data and clicking was supposed to fix that old quote.
Microsoft keeps fast following to the cloud
In addition to Azure, Microsoft is offering other cloud services through Intune, its Internet-based computer management service. Developed for small offices with limited IT help, Intune provides a set of automated updating and management functionality for keeping Windows-based business computers in operating order. A quiet success for Microsoft, Intune now is used by more than 35,000 organizations, according to the company.
–Microsoft TechEd focuses IT pros on the ‘Cloud OS’
True to their "fast follower" approach (where, back when the phrase was coined, "fast" meant years, not months), Microsoft is "fastly" getting all cloud. I really like the "dark horse" approach of Intune – a sneaky way to disrupt end-point management, coupled with free/cheap anti-virus, you’ve got the chance to take out a whole segment of the IT market and solidify your position.
Also, if you switch over to cloud-dependent services, you probably address lots of the "lost" cash due to piracy…either giving you that cash back (pirates go navy, as it were) or opening up The Market’s desire for cheaper alternatives, like Ubuntu or hacked OS X on affordable x86 laptops – or crazy stuff like Android/Chrome books.
The Internet is now the check-out isle
I’m not actually mad at either Scalzi or Amazon; I’m getting good entertainment value for money. But I am in awe at the effortlessness with which successive instalments of cash are being whisked out of my wallet. In the hands of someone evil, this could be dangerous.
Have you seen that meme – most recently in Mary Meeker’s annual chart-porn montage – about The Market having lots of credit cards and one click buying? Well, here’s the point: if the Internet has become that check-out isle at the grocery store, if you’re a merchant: start putting up a bunch of little impulse buys instead of higher priced, bigger chunks of commerce.
Server sales
Basically, if you sold a Unix or proprietary server, your revenues shrank.
