I have started to play a bit with the new flickr video extension. An example below from my travel to St Barth (with my htc touch cruise):
Some information about the new service:
Not bad ;-)
I like more and more (high-end) watches. The role of the brand, the incredible high technological sophistication – but still manually produced and 100% mechanical ! -, the emotion generated by this kind of watches…
I have discovered in the last time three great brands, quite different from each others: Hublot, Panerai, and U-Boat. I have published an article about Hublot last year.
As the BaselWorld Show is now taking place in Basel / Switzerland (the biggest luxury conference in the world), a lot of interviews and reports are going on in the media. A good opportunity to listen to Jean-Claude Biver, the CEO of Hublot, who is very well-known in the high-end watch industry because of his huge success with BlancPain (he successfully re-launched this company and its brand in the 1980’s, before sending it to Omega and being integrated in the Swatch Group) and now with Hublot. A visionary, full of energy and ideas, very people-oriented. So, a lot to learn here on leadership ;-)
So, first, in the last “Bilanz” newspaper (April 2008, in German), you can find a great interview of Mr. Biver. He is giving the some business figures concerning Hublot in this interview:
I was also happy (and not surprised) to read that Mr. Biver’s preferred watch is the “Big Bang 44mm All Black” model, which is actually absolutely fantastic!
During our last stay in St Barth beginning of this year, I also had the chance to see the Hublot Saint Barth special model. But I cannot find any information or picture online for this model. Arrrgggg :-)
Another interesting interview, this time a video in English with Mr. Biver, for the Herald Tribune. Quite funny. He is explaining that Hublot is offering a piece of his own cheese to its guests at BaselWorld! And, somebody saying that his four passions are his family, watches, cheese and wine, cannot be a bad guy ;-)
via 451 CAOS Theory
Great post about some impressive figures from the Linux kernel development.
- There have been almost 10,000 patches in each recent quarterly Linux kernel release.
- Releases include work from ~1,000 developers and ~100 companies.
- Since 2005, Linux has had more than 3,600 individual developers and more than 250 companies contributing to the kernel.
- The individual development community has tripled in the last three years.
- The top 10 developers have contributed 15% of changes, and the top 30 developers have contributed 30% of changes to the kernel.
- Linus Torvalds is 27th on the list of contributors with most changes over the last few years. He has 495 to his name.
- More than 11,500 or 14% of kernel changes have come from developers with no commercial entity backing their Linux development.
- Another 13% of changes come from developers with ‘unknown’ commercial affiliation.
- When we get to actual companies, Red Hat leads with 9,351 kernel changes, or 11.2%. Next is Novell with 8.9%, IBM with 8.3% and Intel with 4.1% of kernel changes.
- More than 70% of all kernel development is demonstrably done by developers who are being paid for their work.
- From the 2.6.11 kernel to the 2.6.24 release (1,140 days), there were an average of 2.8 accepted patches applied to the Linux kernel tree per hour.
- An average of more than 3,600 lines of code is added to the Linux kernel tree every day.
- Since 2005, the kernel has grown at a steady rate of 10% per year.
Gosh, if this is not showing the incredible health and dynamism of the Linux community!
cross-posted on the innoveo blog.
I have just bought 3 CDs in the last days. Three CD in 3 completely different styles, but the three are really great. Highly recommended!
If you should chose one, buy Duffy! Absolutely great. She is coming from Wales. A mix between Motown and Carmel (your remember her?), with a profound “Black” voice and groove. I love her music!
I was mostly using the web interface of twitter till last week.
I was searching for a good twitter windows-client and after a while, I have found that twhirl has a very good echo everywhere. It is also the first Adobe AIR application that I am using.
And, just after some successful days of usage, I have read that Seesmic is acquiring twhirl! Cool. More information about the acquisition by Loic.
My twitter account is didierbeck.
Beginning of this week, Nick and I were able to assist to a business meeting with some people in Amsterdam – Holland, based on the last TelePresence system from Cisco. Below a picture taken just before the conference start in Zurich.
This experience, I must say, was absolutely great! You really feel the presence (good product name ;-) of the other participants thanks to the high-quality video (1080p), the fact that the 3 screens are reproducing the real size of the participants, and because of the quality of the sound (CD quality). The oval form of the table with each half-part on each side of the table is also a good idea.
More information: cisco TelePresence 3000 (pdf).
Below another picture from cisco. You see the both parts and a presentation projection just below the table (another good idea!).
Cross-posted on the innoveo blog.
We are very proud at Innoveo to announce that we are now officially a Business Partner of HP (Hewlett-Packard) since about one month.
We are member of the Developer & Solution Partner Program (DSPP). Our front-end solution for the Insurance Industry and our company are listed in the worldwide partners and solutions catalog!
innoveo solutions is a software company whose products, services and technologies enable its insurance industry clients to create business value. It provides high-level expertise in software, multi-channel e-business platforms, SOA, architecture, open source, infrastructure in combination with insurance industry knowledge.
This membership is concretizing a solid, trustful and already quite long common partnership. And also the fact that quite a lot of us are former HP employees ;-)
All this was possible thanks to the great and constant support of Petra Wildemann, Worldwide Director Financial Services / Insurance at HP.
cross-posted on the innoveo blog.
Our business colleagues from logix-tt (a Swiss company specialized in tracking & tracing solutions, navigation systems and security techniques) has just launched their new modular Navigation System, which is not only incredibly cheap (99 EUR incl. VAT) but also seems to be very easy to use. On top, the system is very modular and is delivered with its own SDK!
From the press release:
GoTo® is not only unique regarding the price-performance ratio, it is the only navigation system with a complete module concept.
By simply adding modules, the navigation system turns into a TV (DBV-T), an internet terminal (GSM, 3G), a DVD-Player, a hands free mobi le phone and lots more.
The software is modular, too. Based on eCos1, Swiss company logix-tt has created its own operating system lbcs2-that enables you to fit additional software to your GoTo®.
Scripting language Pawn 3 (based on Javascript or C) makes it possible to create your own software to be run on the device. GoTo® uses Enlightenment as user interface, so the device is not only available in many colours – but the user interface will fit perfectly.
More about the product at http://goto.ag.
via Wikipedia
In about one week, we will have the pleasure to go to India, and more precisely to Chennai, for a business trip. Wow :-)
Chennai, formerly known as Madras, is the capital of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Located on the Coromandel Coast of the Bay of Bengal, Chennai has an estimated population of 7.5 million (2007), making it the fourth largest metropolitan city in India and one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world.
The city was established in the 17th century by the British, who developed it into a major urban centre and naval base. By the 20th century, it had become an important administrative centre, as the capital of the Madras Presidency.
Chennai’s economy has a broad industrial base in the automobile, technology, hardware manufacturing, and healthcare industries. The city is home to much of India’s automobile industry and is the country’s second-largest exporter of information technology (IT) and information-technology-enabled services (ITES), behind Bangalore. The city is served by an international airport and two major ports; it is connected to the rest of the country by five national highways and two railway terminals. Thirty-five countries have consulates in Chennai.
Absolutely impressive! This city has actually more inhabitants than Switzerland! The weather is also quite different as by us: 32°C during the day and a minimum of 20° at night. With 90% humidity…
via 451 CAOS Theory and AlwaysOn
First time I am reading some explanations (apart from the $1bn deal ;-) coming directly from Marten Mickos, MySQL‘s CEO, concerning their decision to sold out to SUN, instead of going for an IPO.
The fact that it all happened so quickly makes it obvious that Sun’s and MySQL’s organizations have a cultural affinity that enables such fast convergence on a major strategic deal. What was it that justified the deal to start with?
Here is my entirely personal view of the factors that made the deal happen:
- Jonathan Schwartz is a brilliant CEO and he has a great team. Who wouldn’t want to work for him?
- Sun has always had the same focus as MySQL on the networked world. Focus and alignment!
- Sun has become the world’s strongest proponent of free and open source software. We are happy to be part of that!
- Sun has changed its strategy to include partnerships with former competitors. Hey, coopetition is what we always did!
- Sun has never stopped innovating or stopped investing in technology. Impressive!
- Sun has a huge field operation that can bring MySQL to more customers faster. Thank you!
- MySQL would be a great complementary fit in Sun’s product portfolio. We like being useful! We love being uniquely useful!
- Sun’s corporate culture is among the best a startup can ask for. We can work from home! We can innovate. We are thrilled!
- Sun is a bold and fun disruptor again, and we see a huge upside in its strategy. I am not saying that success is a given, but I am saying that Sun’s new strategy is one of the most exciting this industry has to offer. We are all in!
- Sun was really eager to get us on board and we were treated with the greatest respect from the start. (And I hope we did the same in return)
In light of the above, the decision ultimately was easy. Initially it was not easy at all, because we all had such a strong commitment to go public and continue life as an independent company. It was hard work to change our minds. But once we saw that within Sun we would get the same benefits as going public, but with more resources and operational backing, we realized that Sun was for us like an IPO, only better.
Comprehensive, pragmatic and courageous decision!