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Archive for the ‘Board Of Intellectual Capital’ Category

Microsoft’s Ballmer: “For the cloud, we’re all in”

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, tagged , , , , , , , , on March 5, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Here is an interresting article from SFgate.com.

“Microsoft is betting the cloud will deliver it and its customers the most opportunities for innovation and development. And according to CEO Steve Ballmer, five key reasons are driving the company’s confidence in — and technology strategy for — cloud computing in the coming years.

Microsoft’s 2010 task: Make the cloud clear

“For the cloud, we’re all in,” said Ballmer during an address and live Webcast at the University of Washington’s Paul G. Allen Center for Computer Science & Engineering in Seattle. “Literally, I will tell you we are betting our company on it.”

In addition to Microsoft’s Azure platform, Ballmer said the cloud and its potential is behind Microsoft’s technology strategy and that the company, while perhaps behind in some areas such as phones, is with the market leaders when it comes to cloud computing.

“The cloud fuels Microsoft and Microsoft fuels the cloud,” Ballmer said. “We have 40,000 people employed building software around the globe, about 70% of the folks that work for us are doing something designed exclusively for the cloud or designed to serve one of the five points I spoke about today. A year from now, it would be 90%. How we are thinking about delivering it really builds from this cloud base.”

During the hour-long address, Ballmer detailed the five key dimensions of the cloud driving Microsoft, the first being that “the cloud creates opportunities and responsibilities.” That means it provides people the opportunity to create and share content “instantaneously,” but also requires a responsibility around privacy and confidentiality. “It is a dimension of the cloud that needs all of our best work in my opinion,” Ballmer said.

The second key dimension is around learning, what the cloud learns about the world and about users, bringing data together to enable better decisions.

But the cloud, like many disruptive technologies, is not a static entity, he suggested. “The cloud needs to learn about you and needs to keep learning and figure out about the world that has been described virtually,” Ballmer said. “The cloud itself needs to learn, it has to represent the real world and keep getting smarter and better to help me learn.”

The next dimension Ballmer detailed involves how the cloud “enhances your social and professional interactions” and enables people to connect on multi-faceted levels.

“The ability to really connect people and help people connect is just beginning to be tapped,” Ballmer said.

Using an example of Xbox Live tapping into British television service Sky, Simon Atwell, senior program manager at Microsoft’s XBox division, showed how users could virtually watch TV together, interact via prompts and connect socially using the gaming platform, without actually having to be playing games the entire time. While the demonstration suffered from “4,700 miles of geographic latency,” Atwell was able to display the experience in part.”

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Top IPO Contenders in 2010

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 4, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Here is an Article worth reading from Ajax World Magazine.

“As we start this year, hope is mounting on a vibrant IPO market, better than last couple of years. This article lists 20 companies that are hot candidates for IPO. The list has some well-known names like Facebook, Skype, LinkedIn, Twitter, Digg, Yelp, LiveOps, and Tesla Motors. The less known names are – Associated Content, Brightcove, Chegg, Demand Media Etsy, Exact Target, Gilt Group, Glam Media, Rearden Commerce, Workday, and Zynga.

Workday is the new company founded by Peoplesoft founder David Duffield. It’s a SaaS-based HR and ERP company. Zynga is a hot company in the virtual gaming space on the Internet. It’s famous game Farmville is raking in good revenue from Facebook users. I hear the game is quite addictive.

Twitter is rumored to be valued at billion plus dollars, that with very little revenue. It has the publish-subscribe model where conversations-by-subject can be tracked. That should be a bonanza for marketers,  seeking specific target audiences.

Most of the companies in the list are addressing “content” either the discovery or the publishing of. We don’t see the old-fashioned enterprise applications anywhere, a reflection of the changing times. Workday is in that category, but purely cloud-based offering just like SalesForce.com few years back.

Companies like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Skype brag huge number of eyeballs (users), bringing back memories of the dot.com days. Jeff Bezos in the height of the boom had said, “I spell profit as prophet”.

Let us get back to some crazy wealth-creation via IPOs. It’s about time.”

Read the original post here.

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“My Digital Footprint” by Tony Fish – Principal of AMF Ventures and a member of Gerbsman Partners Board of Intellectual Capital

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, tagged , , , , , on March 2, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Footprints

As important as our environmental carbon footprint is our digital footprint, which represents a significant business opportunity, once it is fully understood.

Tony Fish, a member of Gerbsman Partners Board of Intellectual Capital and serially successful entrepreneur, who advises Gerbsman Partners high growth business on their digital strategy and has written a book on the subject, My Digital Footprint.

“Everything we do on the internet is recorded and analyised from those seeking financial gain from understanding our behaviour, think Google. Our digital footprint includes the data from our interaction with different devices including PC, Mobile and TV, Examples of digital footprint data are websites we look at, our online purchases, location, attention, watching preferences, who we call and for how long, the content we create for twitter, blogs or pictures and the online conversations we have via e-mail or on social networking sites.

We have become used to the free model, TV paid for by advertising, search for free. To get these services there is a trade, your data for free services. Whilst we may have concerns about privacy and civil liberties, it must be acknowledged that we largely give these up as soon as we log in, switch on or click.

Such privacy concerns are of little concern to some people, who have either grown up with a ubiquitous and nearly free internet or have a trust in the trade and brands. These consumers will happily or unwittingly generate a significant amount of personal data as a by-product of their daily interactions. This process has been accelerated and enhanced by smart phones that add location-based, real-time data to extend significantly the user´s digital footprint”.

However, Fish argues that raw data from mobile, web and TV users is of little value unless it is put into context. It is not so much what you might be doing, or saying, but who you are doing it with which creates and accelerator of value creation. For example, the fact that you have just bought a new watch is of minimal interest on its own, purchase made. While you might be interested in watches, you have just bought one and are, therefore, not likely to be in the market for one soon. But if you are going online and telling everyone how wonderful the watch is, and how great the service you received was, this is of value – especially to the dealer and other relevant suppliers, who can identify your long-term value from measuring your digital footprint. Further I can now determine who influenced you to purchase the watch and who you influence – this created new value.

In the future, those of us with the largest digital footprints will be the most valued consumers. Fish predicts that soon we will all have two online identities: a personal one tailored for consumer benefits and a business one for a different level of transaction.

He concludes that the ability to understand the value of online conversations is an opportunity, as nobody owns the space. Entrepreneurs and digital businesses should, therefore, gather and analyse data, and concentrate on developing online relationships that can help them tailor products and services to customers´ needs.

About Tony Fish

Tony Fish: entrepreneur and strategic thinker with over twenty years of experience with leading brands, high growth companies and in venture capital. Tony is an experienced and qualified board level executive with professional experience crossing Web, mobile and TV and divides his time between his non-exec roles and board advisory work.

Tony is an acknowledged public speaker and a leader in “2.0” thinking, through the recipient of independent awards such as placement in the top 10 in The Observer and Guardian newspapers “The future 500 rising stars”, and from global recognition from his peer group.

Tony is known for delivery, probing questioning, clear decision making, simple no-nonsense attitude, robust financial views and governance controls. Tony enjoys an unblemished professional reputation, has a wide and diverse professional network and will bring a truly innovative flair.

Tony Fish B-Eng MBA C-ENG FIET FCIM is the author of “My Digital Footprint: a two sided business model where your privacy will be someone else´s business” Nov 2009 and has previously co-authored two books on mobile and innovation: “Mobile Web 2.0: the innovators guide to developing and marketing next generation wireless/mobile applications”, August 2006; and “OpenGardens, the innovators guide to mobile data industry”, December 2004.

Tony can be reached at: tony(dot)fish(at)amfventures(dot)com

About Gerbsman Partners

Gerbsman Partners focuses on maximizing enterprise value for stakeholders and shareholders in under-performing, under-capitalized and under-valued companies and their Intellectual Property. Since 2001, Gerbsman Partners has been involved in maximizing value for 60 Technology, Life Science and Medical Device companies and their Intellectual Property,, through its proprietary “Date Certain M&A Process” and has restructured/terminated over $790 million of real estate executory contracts and equipment lease/sub-debt obligations. Since inception, Gerbsman Partners has been involved in over $2.3 billion of financings, restructurings and M&A transactions.

Gerbsman Partners has offices and strategic alliances in Boston, New York, Washington, DC, Alexandria, VA, San Francisco, Europe and Israel.

For additional information please visit www.gerbsmanpartners.com

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Alliance to boost startups, hire more grads

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, Business models, Economy, Investments, Market research, Strategy, Technology, Venture Capital, tagged , , , , , , , , on February 25, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Here is an article from SF Chronicle´s tech section worth reading.

“Intel Corp. and 24 venture capital firms will invest $3.5 billion in U.S. technology startups over the next two years, as part of a broad initiative to boost the nation’s competitiveness and create jobs.

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Harvard’s Rogoff Sees Sovereign Defaults, ‘Painful’ Austerity

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, tagged , , on February 24, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Here is an article from Bloomberg.

“Ballooning debt is likely to force several countries to default and the U.S. to cut spending, according to Harvard University Professor Kenneth Rogoff, who in 2008 predicted the failure of big American banks.

Following banking crises, “we usually see a bunch of sovereign defaults, say in a few years,” Rogoff, a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, said at a forum in Tokyo yesterday. “I predict we will again.”

The U.S. is likely to tighten monetary policy before cutting government spending, sending “shockwaves” through financial markets, Rogoff said in an interview after the speech. Fiscal policy won’t be curbed until soaring bond yields trigger “very painful” tax increases and spending cuts, he said.

Global scrutiny of sovereign debt has risen after budget shortfalls of countries including Greece swelled in the wake of the worst global financial meltdown since the 1930s. The U.S. is facing an unprecedented $1.6 trillion budget deficit in the year ending Sept. 30, the government has forecast.

“Most countries have reached a point where it would be much wiser to phase out fiscal stimulus,” said Rogoff, who co- wrote a history of financial crises published in 2009. It would be better “to keep monetary policy soft and start gradually tightening fiscal policy even if it meant some inflation.”

Failed Marriage

Rogoff, 56, said he expects Greece will eventually be bailed out by the IMF rather than the European Union. Greece will probably announce an austerity program “in a few weeks” that will prompt the EU to provide a bridge loan which won’t be enough to save the country in the long run, he said.

“It’s like two people getting married and saying therefore they’re living happily ever after,” said Rogoff. “I don’t think Europe’s going to succeed.”

Investors will eventually demand higher interest rates to lend to countries around the world that have accumulated debt, including the U.S., he said. The IMF forecast in November that gross U.S. borrowings will amount to the equivalent of 99.5 percent of annual economic output in 2011. The U.K.’s will reach 94.1 percent and Japan’s will spiral to 204.3 percent.

“In rich countries — Germany, the United States and maybe Japan — we are going to see slow growth. They will tighten their belts when the problem hits with interest rates,” Rogoff said at the forum, which was hosted by CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets, a unit of Credit Agricole SA, France’s largest retail bank. Japanese fiscal policy is “out of control,” he said.”

Read the whole article here.

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