If you are interested in some discussions and assumptions about the infrastructure of Google and its massive grid cheap computers, let’s read the following article from the MIT Technology Review.

It seems that Google is hidding its real numbers concerning its incredible infrastructure and that the way Google is operating its infrastructure and the quite innovative approach concerning this grid computing are perhaps more relevant as THE competitive advantage of Google than the different search algorithms.

I managed to get in the beta program of Gmail of Google ;-)

A lot of (partly completely crazy) things were written about this. Anyway, I’m now trying this new email system quite a lot, to be able to really talk about Gmail. Stay tuned for more information.

My Gmail: didier DOT beck AT gmail DOT com

Skype released a new version of his so great P2P phone (VoIP) tool yesterday:

=> Skype v0.97.0.40

Thomas Claburn interviewed Ray Ozzie, the founder of Groove and creator of Lotus Notes, for InformationWeek on April, 12. The discussion was about different items:

As usual with Ozzie, some very valuable comments!

Some days ago, news.com published an interesting article about MySQL, the Swedish GNU-licensed database system. We are using this DB in the eBusiness Center (pdf) where I’m working, not in a productive environment (without any surprise, we use Oracle ;-), but as a local DB for the developers.

Our usage of MySQL seems to represent actually the strategic positioning of this product in the market, i.e. MySQL is trying to sell its product as an easy-to-use but professional and scalable database. This role was in the past played by Microsoft SqlServer, which is now becoming more and more a direct competitor of Oracle and IBM DB2. Consequently, the MS product is also becoming more and more complexe and expensive. Microsoft leaves this niche market, I mean the market for test, development and small productive environment, which requests less functionality than the ones you can find in Oracle, DB2 or SqlServer.

MySql is a good, performant and reliable database with a reduced set of functionalities, which are just ok for a lot of usages… The product works with a GNU-license, the support fees are really reasonable. It is also interesting to mention that MySQL is developping the product by its own, I mean they do not use the open-souce developers community. This is clearly a way for them to have the product development and technology-orientation under control. MySQL owns all the rights of its code.

I recently bought the last DVD live of Placebo called Soulmates never die – Live in Paris 2003.

It’s really a great and amazing DVD, incredible band, that’s fucking rock & roll!!

Frank Black appears on the last track, a famous cover from the Pixies called Where is my mind.

Based on an advice of Laurent, I’m now testing newsgator, which is at the same time a news agregator and a blog publishing tool (this post is realized in newsgator). What’s really cool is that this tool is completely integrated in Outlook and has a publishing plug-in for blogger. Other ones already exist for Radio, .Text, MovablePoster, etc. (see here for the complete list).

First impression: the agregator part is well integrated in Outlook and very easy to set-up. The publishing part seems to be ok! I will use this tool for a while, stay tuned for more information in some days!

Second impression (after the first publishing): I have to check some details about the post process, specially the formatting and title parts ;-)

As promised, I would like to write down some thoughts about an article – Reclaim your job – from S. Ghoshal and H. Bruch published in the Harvard Business Review from March 2004.

I like this article because it talks about the so-called managers (uhm, have you noticed – manager – not leader ;-) who just complain all the time about:

I am sure that you also meet regularly this kind of managers ;-) Bruch and Ghoshal made a quite impressive analyse about these points and found out, as expected, that….these are just excuses! This kind of boring reaction is mainly due to a lack of self-confidence and/or inhibition due to risks.

On the opposite, the two authors tried to identify which are the most important elements to be able to reach some success, instead of loosing time, focus and energy by complaining all the time. Three blocks crystallized:

– have our tasks under control and to manage the expectations of our stakeholders

– proactivity (acting, instead of re-acting mindset)

– go away from the desire to be indispensable

– busy to effective work

– learn to say simply “no”

– try to find new way to receive resources (money, people, mgmt attention, etc.)

– out-of-the-box, no can’t do mindset

– no limitation, break the rules

– choose a patient, methodical, out-of-the-box approach

– understand well the corporate strategy

– present alternatives to serve it efficiently

– base = strong expertise in a specific field

Waou, I find this framework really interesting and reproductible based on by own experience.

We all have lost one of the major out-of-the-box thinker in the field of strategic leadership, I mean Mr. Sumantra Ghoshal, who died unexpectedly on March 3rd 2004…..

I was preparing a blog concerning his last great article in the Harvard Business Review from March 2004, co-authored with Heike Bruch, Reclaim your job, when I found this painful information on the Harvard Business Review’s web site.

Do you know Sumantra Ghoshal? I personaly really like this guy and you HAVE to read at least two of his books, both co-authored with Christopher Bartlett:

– Managing Across Borders: The Transnational Solution

– The Individualized Corporation: A fundamentally new approach to Management.

I will publish my blog concerning the mentionned article in a few days.

Another “useful” Google’s tool (in beta). It gives you the possibility to monitor specifics Google searches by sending you an email alert each time the results are different. Very easy to use (web interface).

You can register your searches here.