Re: It's about user freedom, not developer control
'open core' is a marketing term. People have being wrapping open source into commercial products for 30 years (cf. SunOS, Sendmail and GRASS, just to name a few). Nothing that Apple is doing is new, it's just an extension of what other large systems companies have been doing since the 70s (when software was free with your expensive hardware).
And the GPL forces 'lock in' in all sorts of sneaking ways, with GPLv3 taking things even further (cf. patent granting provisions).
Finally, I'd point out that open source exist on a continuum that starts with public domain and ends with the Affero GPL license. From complete freedom to heavy restrictions, and, ironically, from no commercialization potential to very good commercial drivers...
It's not a new argument in the open source world. This whole discussion about open vs restrictive has been around for at least 10 years. One of the huge ironies is that restrictive licenses like the GPL create really good commercial models...
However, I would say that choosing the MIT license is one of the WORST things you could possibly do. It's a terrible license as it does nothing to protect developers from liability and it's wording/terms/provisions are dated. The Apache license would have been a MUCH better choice.
Anyway, I could probably write a book on this subject having spent much of the last 10 years working on making open source viable in commercial environments....
... entrepreneurs are almost always better off never taking VC money. That's because, whatever the exit valuation, cramdown will occur everytime you miss a milestone or there is another funding event.
The net result is that a founder that took two rounds of VC funding over 5 years would have been better off not taking any funding and just bootstrapping it. Yes, the overall valuation of the company will be far lower, but the actual value to the founder will be higher, with a LOT less grief.
That said, there are a few exceptions to this if VC money can enable truly explosive growth (cf. YouTube), but that not generally the case.
Their service, which I had been using for 7 years, is seriously overpriced. I moved to Sonic, which has 2x the speed for 1/4 of the cost...
Speakeasy's VOIP offering is really good, but it better be at more than $35/month. I calculated that if I used a pay-as-you-go service from CallCentric, it would be much cheaper, even while taking into account overseas calls.
It just seems that, given their price points, Speakeasy is just shooting itself in the foot. If competitors can operate at 1/4 of the price AND don't block access, well, you know what's going to happen.
... the top down approach is useful, but one needs to understand HOW it's useful. In fact, I sometimes give a whole presentation about why the top down approach is useful because not understanding it is one reason startups don't get funding.
The simplest way to understand why a top down approach is useful is to put yourself in the shoes of a VC (yes, I know, not necessarily pretty...). If you are evaluating companies to invest in, then the total available market (TAM) is very important. Why? Because if you want 10x return on your investment, then the investment size will be dictated by the TAM. Say the TAM is $100 million. Then, in order to get $10 million out of it (as an investor) then you would expect the company to acquire 10% of the TAM, dictating a max investment of $1 million.
Not understanding this dynamic is why a lot of startups don't get funding. They ask for $10 million with a TAM of $100 million, for example. Or, they fail to convincingly explain how they will gain, say, 10% of the market.
Conversely, tactics (and it is just a tactic) like giving stuff away for free (or using open source licenses) can be a good way to get x% of the market, although you still have to work on the monetization model that will equal some % of the TAM.
I should mention that, in practice, investors will only give you a very small percent of these theoreticals as they know you will likely need more money down the line and your chances of not meeting your goals are quite high... And these are just crude examples.
If you are getting a visa as a startup CEO (and it happens currently by using other visa categories), then you are likely VC funded or have other funding.
Most VC-funded startup CEOs and other executives I know (and I've worked with around 70 startups) make well over $150k/year and often over $200k/year.
Paying for health insurance is not an issue.
On the other hand, sending $10-$20 million per startup somewhere else should be considered a huge issue. That's our money (yes, it's your money too, from large US institutional investors) going to places like China and India. I know one VC here in Silicon Valley who works at a firm with close to $3 billion under management that has been doing 7-10 China deals in the last 18 months.
That's money that's not being spent here, and that is a real problem. Unlike, say, your healthcare red herring.
... it will be a moot point. Cisco's Globalization initiative has already moved a lot of talent out of SV and everyday I am hearing people leaving for other countries. That said, the situation is not dire yet.
What is needed is more and easier visas for engineering/business talent and students, not less. And certainly no regulation of VCs. Because, right now, there are lot of people who came to the US to make a career in tech that are leaving and a growing number of Americans are following them.
... and it was a ripoff. 1/2 the content is newswire stuff I read the night before and there is little to no actual original reporting. And what little there is concentrates on 'lifestyle' crap. Never mind the fact that the business section is the back page of another section.
As for the SFGate website, there's another useless thing. It's virtually impossible to find the ACTUAL weather in your neighborhood (wunderground is waaayyy better), events are impossible to navigate (oh yeah, and thanks for writing about how cool something was AFTER the fact), and when there are helicopters buzzing my neighborhood for hours I can never find out WHY.
Funny enough, one of the most popular parts of the SF Gate website is the article comments, an area where people love to participate despite atrocious technology.
In summary:
1. The paper version isn't worth more than 50 cents
2. The online version is worth even less
Unless they decide they are really going to be a local paper and build a better website, then it's hard to see why anyone would want to pay anything for it.
... for once TechDirt has an article which is condescending at best and shows an ignorance of market mechanics at worst.
There are a myriad of reasons why the iPhone is not the right solution for some (most) people:
1. Poor phone quality - yes, it is still a phone and quality/reliability matters to some segment of the population
2. No enterprise control - this is why RIM is the king of the enterprise. Until Apple has a BES equivalent, the iPhone is no competition.
3. Doesn't fit your particular use case - this is a duh. Market diversity exists because everyone has a different use case. Glass screen, tethering, lack of keyboard, size, battery life, cost, etc. are all part of your particular use case. Obviously Apple is meeting only a limited set of use cases as the global sales numbers are a fraction of what Nokia or Samsung each week.
Finally, the author displays a lack of basic business understanding. There are generally three types of business models - volume and low-ish price, niche and high-price, volume and high price. With the average BOM of a cell phone being very high (relative to say, netbooks), Apple is largely fitting into a niche+high-price strategy, particularly if you look at it from a global point of view. And this is even more true when you consider that the intersection of people owning iPods and owning cellphones is quite high (at least in the US), so Apple was able to tap into consumer device consolidation, which allows for a higher average price point.
I think it's important to remember that popular phones come and go. Does anyone remember the StarTAC? Or even the RAZR and the ubiquitous Nokia 6xxx series? And what about the original Palm? Fact is, tech moves on and the technology fad of today is not likely to be tomorrow's. The iPhone is just that, the fad du jour and in 5 years, something else will come along to be just as fadish (Danger, anyone)?
The reason for Windows dominance has nothing to do with Microsoft and everything to do with the Windows ecosystem. There are 300k+ companies developing on Windows, and that has presented a huge barrier to adoption for all flavors of Linux for years. And just because Google releases something that's going to tie you to their oh-so "production ready" cloud, it doesn't make an ecosystem.
Never mind that Google has never been very 'open' about it's own code releases. Sure, Android is supposedly open-source, but how restrictive will the inevitable app store be? And what happens when Android is married to Google Voice, with phone number portability and VoIP? Hmmm, mobile devices + desktop OS with applications running in an opaque infrastructure we control? Sounds a lot like the new Microsoft, possibly even worse since you won't control your data or hardware.
In the end, users don't give a crap about the OS, what they care about is the apps. Apple has shown that brilliantly with iTunes and MSFT's offerings are 'good enough' for most people, at least at the desktop level. Displacing either of those without a huge set of compelling apps that only run on _your_ OS is going to be virtually impossible.
Years ago, I had hoped that Linux on the desktop could be something achievable, but it will probably take at least another 10 years for that to become a reality. And only if end-user applications are compelling and much better than what's available elsewhere....
Most journalists are far too overworked to do a good job of reporting the facts and prone to just go after easy stories. Not only that, but they are also woefully underpaid, making them vulnerable to all kinds of manipulations.
Bloggers are hugely biased and often lax in fact checking, but at least they are very up-front about that sort of thing. Unlike, say, the Washington Post, which is now selling 'access' (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/24441.html). Oh, the irony, that was a _blog_ reporting about that...
Apparently you've never tried. I've had at at least 3 tickets thrown out in the last 10 years using this and I know of a further 3 people in 3 other states that have done the same.
Not only that, but that particularly defense was explained to me by an attorney that does ONLY traffic cases....
So, unless you have actual experience to the contrary, I would say that it works quite well...
They are almost certainly in violation of the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD), which is the Federal DoT's guidelines for how these things are supposed to be setup. Every state has their own official version derived from it and courts will throw out tickets that are based on non-conforming devices.
Almost every form of visual entertainment has embedded advertisement these days, so much so it's hard to separate the advertising from the content. That's the whole point Mike is making and you are in violent agreement even if you can't see it...
It's not selling anything. It's a brand commercial.
The idea is the next time you go to buy a mobile phone, T-Mobile will either be your first choice, high on your list or even, now back on your list. And if you are an existing customer, they are hoping that by making you feel good, being cool and entertaining, you won't switch carriers.
Basically, it doesn't need to sell you anything, just be memorable in a positive way.
On the post: Even The Open Source Community Gets Overly Restrictive At Times
Re: It's about user freedom, not developer control
And the GPL forces 'lock in' in all sorts of sneaking ways, with GPLv3 taking things even further (cf. patent granting provisions).
Finally, I'd point out that open source exist on a continuum that starts with public domain and ends with the Affero GPL license. From complete freedom to heavy restrictions, and, ironically, from no commercialization potential to very good commercial drivers...
On the post: Even The Open Source Community Gets Overly Restrictive At Times
This is not a new argument
However, I would say that choosing the MIT license is one of the WORST things you could possibly do. It's a terrible license as it does nothing to protect developers from liability and it's wording/terms/provisions are dated. The Apache license would have been a MUCH better choice.
Anyway, I could probably write a book on this subject having spent much of the last 10 years working on making open source viable in commercial environments....
Chris.
On the post: WSJ Editor: Those Who Believe Content Should Be Free Are Neanderthals
Insulting to Neanderthals....
On the post: Apparently Even VCs Get Confused Over Ratio Ownership Compared To Total Value
Re: ownership
On the post: Apparently Even VCs Get Confused Over Ratio Ownership Compared To Total Value
Except that in my experience...
The net result is that a founder that took two rounds of VC funding over 5 years would have been better off not taking any funding and just bootstrapping it. Yes, the overall valuation of the company will be far lower, but the actual value to the founder will be higher, with a LOT less grief.
That said, there are a few exceptions to this if VC money can enable truly explosive growth (cf. YouTube), but that not generally the case.
On the post: Olympics Tries To Block Olympian Newspaper (From Olympia, Washington) From Trademarking Its Name
There's also an Olympian ...
Seems pretty ridiculous and reminds of Nissan vs Nissan.
Chris.
On the post: Speakeasy The Latest VoIP Provider To Block Certain Calls
Re: Yes it should
On the post: Speakeasy The Latest VoIP Provider To Block Certain Calls
I dropped Speakeasy two weeks ago
Speakeasy's VOIP offering is really good, but it better be at more than $35/month. I calculated that if I used a pay-as-you-go service from CallCentric, it would be much cheaper, even while taking into account overseas calls.
It just seems that, given their price points, Speakeasy is just shooting itself in the foot. If competitors can operate at 1/4 of the price AND don't block access, well, you know what's going to happen.
On the post: There Are Numbers Less Than 1%
Mike, I disagree....
The simplest way to understand why a top down approach is useful is to put yourself in the shoes of a VC (yes, I know, not necessarily pretty...). If you are evaluating companies to invest in, then the total available market (TAM) is very important. Why? Because if you want 10x return on your investment, then the investment size will be dictated by the TAM. Say the TAM is $100 million. Then, in order to get $10 million out of it (as an investor) then you would expect the company to acquire 10% of the TAM, dictating a max investment of $1 million.
Not understanding this dynamic is why a lot of startups don't get funding. They ask for $10 million with a TAM of $100 million, for example. Or, they fail to convincingly explain how they will gain, say, 10% of the market.
Conversely, tactics (and it is just a tactic) like giving stuff away for free (or using open source licenses) can be a good way to get x% of the market, although you still have to work on the monetization model that will equal some % of the TAM.
I should mention that, in practice, investors will only give you a very small percent of these theoreticals as they know you will likely need more money down the line and your chances of not meeting your goals are quite high... And these are just crude examples.
On the post: Supporting A Movement Towards A Founder's Visa
Re:
Most VC-funded startup CEOs and other executives I know (and I've worked with around 70 startups) make well over $150k/year and often over $200k/year.
Paying for health insurance is not an issue.
On the other hand, sending $10-$20 million per startup somewhere else should be considered a huge issue. That's our money (yes, it's your money too, from large US institutional investors) going to places like China and India. I know one VC here in Silicon Valley who works at a firm with close to $3 billion under management that has been doing 7-10 China deals in the last 18 months.
That's money that's not being spent here, and that is a real problem. Unlike, say, your healthcare red herring.
On the post: Supporting A Movement Towards A Founder's Visa
If they regulate VCs...
What is needed is more and easier visas for engineering/business talent and students, not less. And certainly no regulation of VCs. Because, right now, there are lot of people who came to the US to make a career in tech that are leaving and a growing number of Americans are following them.
Chris.
On the post: Music Reviewer's Blog Suspended For Promoting Music
Re: Clearly the record company
It the worst kind of cynicism and sleaze to give people something then claim it was stolen. Typical.
On the post: Fine, Let Newspapers Collude
I paid $1.09 for the SF Chronicle...
As for the SFGate website, there's another useless thing. It's virtually impossible to find the ACTUAL weather in your neighborhood (wunderground is waaayyy better), events are impossible to navigate (oh yeah, and thanks for writing about how cool something was AFTER the fact), and when there are helicopters buzzing my neighborhood for hours I can never find out WHY.
Funny enough, one of the most popular parts of the SF Gate website is the article comments, an area where people love to participate despite atrocious technology.
In summary:
1. The paper version isn't worth more than 50 cents
2. The online version is worth even less
Unless they decide they are really going to be a local paper and build a better website, then it's hard to see why anyone would want to pay anything for it.
On the post: iPhone Haters Are Stick-Shifters In An Automatic World
Gotta say...
There are a myriad of reasons why the iPhone is not the right solution for some (most) people:
1. Poor phone quality - yes, it is still a phone and quality/reliability matters to some segment of the population
2. No enterprise control - this is why RIM is the king of the enterprise. Until Apple has a BES equivalent, the iPhone is no competition.
3. Doesn't fit your particular use case - this is a duh. Market diversity exists because everyone has a different use case. Glass screen, tethering, lack of keyboard, size, battery life, cost, etc. are all part of your particular use case. Obviously Apple is meeting only a limited set of use cases as the global sales numbers are a fraction of what Nokia or Samsung each week.
Finally, the author displays a lack of basic business understanding. There are generally three types of business models - volume and low-ish price, niche and high-price, volume and high price. With the average BOM of a cell phone being very high (relative to say, netbooks), Apple is largely fitting into a niche+high-price strategy, particularly if you look at it from a global point of view. And this is even more true when you consider that the intersection of people owning iPods and owning cellphones is quite high (at least in the US), so Apple was able to tap into consumer device consolidation, which allows for a higher average price point.
I think it's important to remember that popular phones come and go. Does anyone remember the StarTAC? Or even the RAZR and the ubiquitous Nokia 6xxx series? And what about the original Palm? Fact is, tech moves on and the technology fad of today is not likely to be tomorrow's. The iPhone is just that, the fad du jour and in 5 years, something else will come along to be just as fadish (Danger, anyone)?
Chris.
On the post: Why Is Google Turning Chrome Into An Operating System?
What about the ecosystem?
Never mind that Google has never been very 'open' about it's own code releases. Sure, Android is supposedly open-source, but how restrictive will the inevitable app store be? And what happens when Android is married to Google Voice, with phone number portability and VoIP? Hmmm, mobile devices + desktop OS with applications running in an opaque infrastructure we control? Sounds a lot like the new Microsoft, possibly even worse since you won't control your data or hardware.
In the end, users don't give a crap about the OS, what they care about is the apps. Apple has shown that brilliantly with iTunes and MSFT's offerings are 'good enough' for most people, at least at the desktop level. Displacing either of those without a huge set of compelling apps that only run on _your_ OS is going to be virtually impossible.
Years ago, I had hoped that Linux on the desktop could be something achievable, but it will probably take at least another 10 years for that to become a reality. And only if end-user applications are compelling and much better than what's available elsewhere....
Chris.
On the post: Judge Says Blogs Not Legitimate News Source; No Shield Protections
Re: You're right
Bloggers are hugely biased and often lax in fact checking, but at least they are very up-front about that sort of thing. Unlike, say, the Washington Post, which is now selling 'access' (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/24441.html). Oh, the irony, that was a _blog_ reporting about that...
Chris.
On the post: Another City Caught Lowering Yellow Light Times To Catch More Red Light Runners
Re: Re: Re: With or without cameras
Not only that, but that particularly defense was explained to me by an attorney that does ONLY traffic cases....
So, unless you have actual experience to the contrary, I would say that it works quite well...
Chris.
On the post: Another City Caught Lowering Yellow Light Times To Catch More Red Light Runners
Re: With or without cameras
On the post: NY Times Discovers That Advertising Is Content; Content Is Advertising
Re: Re: Re:
Almost every form of visual entertainment has embedded advertisement these days, so much so it's hard to separate the advertising from the content. That's the whole point Mike is making and you are in violent agreement even if you can't see it...
Chris.
On the post: NY Times Discovers That Advertising Is Content; Content Is Advertising
Re: Great Video, Lousy Commercial
The idea is the next time you go to buy a mobile phone, T-Mobile will either be your first choice, high on your list or even, now back on your list. And if you are an existing customer, they are hoping that by making you feel good, being cool and entertaining, you won't switch carriers.
Basically, it doesn't need to sell you anything, just be memorable in a positive way.
Chris.
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