[via Rodrigo]

More news published about the coming event:
– have a look at the official blog.
– dates are confirmed: 5th & 6th December, in Paris
– Robert Scoble and Shel Israel confirmed as speakers
– costs: 200 euros (without VAT) for the 2 days + lunches + cocktail party on Monday evening
– “merge” (it is in the air ;-) between Around the blog and Blog 2.0
– registration and program will be available in a few days

[via ZDnet.de]

First screenshots of the new look&feel; of Microsoft Office 12, presented at the Professional Developers Conference 2005 in Los Angeles.

Microsoft Word 12

Microsoft Excel 12

Microsoft Powerpoint 12

Microsoft Access 12

[via BusinessWeek]

It is just me or I have a problem today to understand these acquisition-deals?

Oracle Corp. is buying its struggling rival Siebel Systems Inc. for about $5.85 billion, continuing a recent shopping spree that has eliminated two of its biggest competitors as it aims to topple Germany’s SAP AG in the business applications software market.

Under the terms of the deal announced Monday, Redwood Shores-based Oracle will pay $10.66 per share in cash or stock for San Mateo-based Siebel, a once rapidly growing maker of customer support software that has fallen on hard times during the past three years.

The price represented a 17 percent premium from Siebel’s market value entering Monday.

Siebel shares rose $1.18, or 12.9 percent, to $10.31 during midday trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market, where Oracle’s shares gained 12 cents to $13.40.

Siebel has $2.24 billion in cash, reducing Oracle’s net takeover cost to $3.6 billion.

[…] In the past nine months, Oracle has either completed or announced five takeovers of business applications software makers, an expansion that has cost more than $17.6 billion so far.

The spree has swept up two of the industry’s best-known names, Siebel Systems and PeopleSoft Inc., both of which were run by former Oracle executives who had developed a frosty relationship with their former boss, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison.

For its part, SAP downplayed the significance of Oracle’s latest conquest. “Oracle is in the business to buy customers. Ours is to service customers,” said SAP spokesman Tony Roddam.

The Siebel acquisition, expected to close early next year, affects about 4,000 customers.

[…] Industry analyst Richard Williams of Garban Institutional Equities predicted Oracle will lay off more than 2,000 workers, based on the percentage of jobs that the company eliminated after devouring PeopleSoft, which had about 11,000 employees. Oracle fired 5,000 workers after that deal.

[via News.com]

I have a lot of respect for eBay, I am a big fan and convinced Skype’s user. But this move is just incomprehensible for me:
– The valuation is incredibly high. is the bubble back? oh no….. I mean, linked with the number of downloads/clients of Skype. Come on ;-) Let’s see how the “normal non-geek” guy will move on, when MS / Yahoo / Google will integrate VoIP’s functions in their very very largely spread tools.
– What are the real differentiators / entry barriers of Skype? I mean, Yahoo and Microsoft already acquired VoIP technology through start-ups, the technology is not in the center.
– Finally, and the most important point: what is the strategic link between Skype and eBay?? I mean, the idea that the current users are waiting for a way of communicating and discussing the deals per VoIP is….again incomprehensible.

On the other side, big congrats to the Skype’s team. What for a deal :-)

Have a look at the more professional analysis of Rodrigo and Jeff. And some inputs well summarized by News.com:

Company executives said Monday that eBay plans to pay $1.3 billion in cash and $1.3 billion in stock to the global communications company. It has agreed to hand over up to an extra $1.5 billion, for a total payout of more than $4 billion, if Skype meets certain financial targets by 2008, according to a presentation to investors on Monday morning.

[…] Luxembourg-based Skype, founded in 2002 by Scandinavian entrepreneurs, offers free computer-to-computer voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) calls and low-cost connectivity between computer and landline or mobile phones. It is considered the market leader in nearly all of the 225 countries and independent territories where it does business, according to a company press release. The company expects revenue of $60 million this year and more than $200 million in 2006, a Skype representative confirmed Monday. Skype has not yet posted a profit, an executive told Reuters.

Skype generates nearly half of its revenue base in Europe, about a quarter in Asia, and about an eighth in North America. The fast-growing company said it has 54 million subscribers and adds 150,000 users each day. There is currently about a 1 percent overlap among Skype and eBay users, according to the eBay investor presentation.

eBay CEO Meg Whitman told investors in a conference call that she hoped a power trio of eBay, Paypal and Skype would deliver an “unparalleled e-commerce and communications engine” by “removing a key point of friction between buyers and sellers.”

If you need a good and easy-to-configure tool to enhance the printscreen capability (eg. to capture some DVD’s printscreens), Gadwin is not bad:

There are several hotkey combos to choose from (PrintScreen is the default). Once you’ve chosen your favorite combo, head to the Destination tab and have the screen print out instantly, copy the capture to the clipboard, save it to a specific folder, or even send it through e-mail. You can perform full screen captures, or only capture a specific window.

Gadwin PrintScreen is an easy to use freeware utility that allows you to capture any portion of the screen, save it to a file, copy it to Windows clipboard, print it or e-mail it to a recipient of your choice.

There are also six different image formats to choose from, and each one can be resized.

After having installed the version 2.2 of blogkomm, I have also changed the way my posts are archived. I have enabled the “Post pages” option in Blogger, that means:

Post Pages give each of your posts their own unique web page, in addition to appearing on your blog’s front page.

That’s quite the standard today, I haven’t taken the time to change that before. Clear that google doesn’t really like the other structure I used, with one archived page and the different posts within this page with different post-ID’s.

So, the changes concretely?

• The permalink of each post is targeting a separate php page. The other structure is still active, that means that all the old links to my posts are valid, no problem here.
• The permalink-URLs are now much more clear than before. For example, the permalink to my post about Vint Cerf is http://www.didierbeck.com/2005/09/news-vint-cerf-joins-google.php
• The old comments are still in place and working.
• The publishing of my entire blog with the 540 posts takes more than 10 minutes. Before, I needed less than one minute…

So, sorry for the last instability, it was not very long but you could have been impacted. Now, I would like to change some little things in the design ;-)

So, I have taken some time to install the last version (2.2) of blogkomm developped by Holger Kreis (under Creative Commons licence). Have a look also at my last post about blogkomm in February 2005.

What is blogkomm?

blogkomm integrates the reader’s comments into your blog without any pop-ups. Besides this you have different features coming along with that, like

* different notification services
* preview feature
* user remember feature
* quick-Editing admin-tool
* recent comment-list
* multilingual interface
* a setup and configuration tool (since Version 2.1)
* comments moderation (since Version 2.2)
* gravatar-feature included

What’s new in v2.2?

• added Comments-Moderation feature. Comments can be reviewed before being approved and shown in your weblog (anti-spam)
• added Gravatar-Support. For more infos check out http://gravatar.com
• changed e-Mail Policy, e-Mail will be shown in admin-mode only
• added textile waiting for license clearance
• added css :hover pseudo-class, and css- classes for “even” “odd” and “mod”-rows
• added css-moderation enblng during setup
• added norwegian language file

[via Joi]

That’s an incredible move! Vint joins Google as Chief Internet Evangelist. Have a look at the Google press release.

Cerf joins Google from MCI, where he led technology advancements since 1982, with a break to return to research at the Corporation for National Research Initiatives from 1986 to 1994. On his return to MCI in 1994, he helped to put MCI on the Internet map. With Robert Kahn, he recently received the ACM’s A.M. Turing Award, considered “the Nobel Prize for computing,” for his achievements in computer networking. Cerf is also working on the Interplanetary Network, a project of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, which aims to extend the Internet into outer space for planet-to-planet communications. He will also continue in his role as the Chairman of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

I have discovered a website called softwareCEO.com, quite interesting for those who are working in this field. You can find an interesting interview of John Cimral, serial entrepreneur, and CEO of ProSight.

In 2003, ProSight had $9.2 million in sales, and last year it hit $12.8 million; that’s a one-year bump of 39 percent. During the last four years, company revenues have grown 2,399 percent. […]

ProSight helps customers measure and manage every component of their IT investment, to minimize risk and maximize return, and (often) to justify that investment to upper management or shareholders.

Their software plugs a critical gap for CIOs challenged to evolve beyond managing technical details like network performance and take on more strategic issues like IT risk management.

So, John Cimral is giving us his 14 success strategies:

1. It’s not enough to know who your customer is; you need to know how your customer buys.
2. Reference accounts are everything; in the early days, get your investors to help line them up.
3. For your first reference sites, give a bit on software, but not services.
4. Choose your investors wisely.
5. Let opportunity steer your business plans, but keep your eyes on the road.
6. Use corporate sales to leverage government sales.
7. When the herd starts running, think of lemmings.
8. The CEO must articulate — and embody — the company’s values.
9. Use partners (and their cash) to expand internationally.
10. Use partners (and their clout) to pull in leads at local events.
11. Never underestimate your competitors’ ability to steal your thunder.
12. Invest your marketing budget to give your customers a voice.
13. Don’t dilute the power of your user conference by letting in non-users.
14. Adopt a “customer intimate” business model, starting with sales.

I like the corporate code of ProSight: Make money, have fun, be ethical.

For each success strategy, you find an explanation and some good examples to illustrate. Worth a read! Be careful, I think that the article is not staying on-line for a long time…

Helvetia Patria Group, the company I am working for, launched its new website design.

Have a look!