Now have a look at these pictures from the Golf of Figari.
Very special with all these rocks, beautiful ocean and sand.
Absolutely fantastic!
Bonifacio 2009 – Part V
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LinkedIn vs. Xing
Fast comparison between LinkedIn and Xing.
- November 1, 2003 – 5 1/2 years old
- 7 million members
- 26’000 groups
- 16 languages
- 600’000 paying members
- 240 employees from 22 nations
- May 5, 2003 – 6 years old
- 40 million members, thereof 10 million in Europe and 800’000 in France
- 300’000 user groups
- 4 languages
- 345 employees
My LinkedIn profile (member since March 2004, i.e. more than 5 years)
My Xing profile (member since November 2005).
The Innoveo LinkedIn profile and the Innoveo Xing profile.
Cross-posted on the Innoveo Blog.
Bonifacio 2009 – Part IV
Bavella, the highlight of the Corsican mountain!
For a very good reason : from one side the mountain pass, and on the other side the forest. It summarizes itself the particularities of the island relief, with dramatic rock formation and colours from most delicate red to the darkest grey and all “sprinkled” with giant Laricio pines. The most beautiful panoramas on the Bavella Needles can be seen at the passed called Col de Bavella ( 1218m high ) inside the regional reserve.
Software maintenance
via Judith Hurwitz
Judith is bringing, as usual, interesting feeds for thoughts, this time in the field of software maintenance fees.
[…] As the world slowly moves to cloud computing for economic reasons there will be a major impact on how companies pay for software. Salesforce.com has indeed proven that companies are willing to trust their sales and customer data to a Software as a Service vendor. These customers are also willing to pay per user or per company yearly fees to rent software. Does this mean that they are no longer paying maintance fees? My answer would be no. It is all about accounting and economics. Clearly, Salesforce.com spends a lot of money adding functionality to its application and someone pays for that. So, what part of that monthly or yearly per user fee is allocated to maintaining the application? Who knows? And I am sure that it is not one of those statistics that Salesforce.com or any other Software as a Service or any Platform as a Service vendor is going to publish. Why? Because these companies don’t think of themselves as traditional software companies. They don’t expect that anyone will ever own a copy of their code.
The bottom line is that software will never be good enough to never need maintenance. Software vendors — whether they sell perpetual licenses or Software as a Service– will continue to charge for maintance. The reality is that the concrete idea of the maintenance fee will evolve over time. Customers will pay it but they probably won’t see it on their bills. Nevertheless, the impact on traditional software companies will be dramatic over time and a lot of these companies will have to rethink their strategies. Many software companies have become increasingly dependent on maintenance revenue to keep revenue growing. I think that Marc Benioff has started a conversation that will spark a debate that could have wide ranging implications for the future of not only maintenance but of what we think of as software.
Interesting!
Cross-posted on the Innoveo Blog.
Bonifacio 2009 – Part III
North of Bonifacio, in the Corsica’s mountains, you can find and follow a marvelous river called “Solenzara”, which is also the name of the town where he Solenzara is entering into the sea.
Fantastic views and landscapes all along the river.
Bonifacio 2009 – Part II
I would like to continue our trip report with the presentation of the very nice hotel we were in, A Cheda. Very nice small structure with a lot of charm. All rooms are unique and consist of an elegant mix of modern material and equipment and old stones and wood.
The restaurant is also very interesting. Good quality with a Mediterranean orientation and exciting typical Corsican menus.
The hotel is well positioned outside Bonifacio, but not so far. All around, a marvelous garden with beautiful (old) trees.
On top, a very cool but professional welcome. Nice dedicated people who are delivering good services for this 4* hotel.
Very warm recommendation from the whole family for this very good hotel!
Bonifacio 2009 – Part I
Some days off with the family in Bonifacio (south Corsica, France). Very interesting small town (2’600 inhabitants without the tourists ;-), the southernmost commune of Metropolitan France. The Upper City, actually a very old citadel, is dominating some absolutely fantastic limestone cliffs, sculpted by the ocean.
(As usual, click on the pictures to have an access to bigger formats).
Bonifacio citadel and the limestone cliffs
Cliffs
The citadel seen from the harbor
More later ;-)
On heavy rotation…
Wow. Wow. Wow.
An *absolute masterpiece*, on heavy rotation since some weeks! Surely one of my preferred CD since years!
First, I have to say that I am a total-fan of Leonard Cohen since 15 years. His texts are extremely interesting, a real poet. This, on top of this very particular, original and timeless musical compositions… Just too much :-)
And, on top on top, there is his absolutely fantastic deep voice.
And, on top on top on top, when I have seen that the musical director and bass player of this tour is Roscoe Beck, that was again … just too much. Roscoe Beck is a great musician and bass player I have discovered for years as he was playing with Robben Ford, the well-known blues singer and guitar player. Roscoe is also well-known as one of the best specialist of five-string bass.
Some of the best songs of Leonard Cohen are present on the double-CD: Dance me to the end of love, Bird on the wire, Everybody knows, In my secret life, Suzanne, Hallelujah, I’m your man, Sisters of mercy.
And for me, the best song on the double-CD: If it be your will, sung by the Webb Sisters. So great. So great, I just miss the words to describe the emotional impact of their performance… Something you have to listen to once in your life…
Oracle buys Sun
As everybody already knows, Oracle is buying Sun for about $7.4 billion, including Sun’s debt ($9.50 a share in cash). Some interesting thoughts from Larry Dignan, Editor in Chief of ZDNet.
- [Oracle] added that the acquisition of Java “is the most important software Oracle has ever acquired.”
- Oracle also becomes a full-fledged hardware player.
- Oracle and Sun have been long-time partners. […] “More Oracle databases run on the Solaris Sparc than any other system,” said Ellison, noting Linux was second. “We’ll engineer the Oracle database and Solaris operating system together. With Sun we can make all components of the IT stack integrated and work well.”
- Oracle with Sun appears to be the Apple of the enterprise. Indeed, Oracle President Charles Phillips noted that the company is looking to offer everything from apps to the disk.
- Oracle’s stack of IT stuff now includes:
- Java;
- Solaris;
- Enterprise applications ranging from CRM to ERP to business intelligence;
- The database (Oracle and MySQL);
- The middleware;
- The storage hardware;
- Cloud computing services;
- And servers.
- Art of War approach:
- Oracle gets to annoy IBM—and own Java—over a few pennies a share more than Big Blue was willing to pay.
- Oracle gets to kill MySQL. There’s no way Ellison will let that open source database mess with the margins of his database. MySQL at best will wither from neglect. In any case, MySQL is MyToast.
- Sun has a big installed base. All the better to upsell applications into.
- Sun was relatively cheap compared to Oracle’s other acquisitions. The price was above the Hyperion buyout but below PeopleSoft and Siebel.
- Oracle saves Sun management from what could have been a complete debacle following the IBM takeover talks. The Sun board had been split on the IBM deal. Today, it’s all roses.
The official Oracle press release can be found here.
It is clear that this deal will change the IT landscape quite massively. And the consolidation is definitely not finished…
Cross-posted on the Innoveo Blog.
What next for HP?
via Judith Hurwitz
Judith has joined the yearly HP industry analyst summit organized by HP. This summit is dealing with everything at HP, excepted the PCs and printers. Based on the discussions there, Judith is giving her view on the possible future of HP. Very interesting analysis!
I think that HP is at a crossroads. Today it is the largest technology company. This is a wonderful opportunity because size gives customers comfort. […] On the other hand, it provides a challenge. When you are this big, you have to act big and bold. You have to set a leadership agenda that the market and the customers take note of. […]
- Be Top Dog in Selected Markets. HP’s overall strategy remains consistent: it’s objective is to be either number 1 or 2 in each product category it participates in. While HP has made some strides in achieving this lofty goal, it is still a work in process. […]
- EDS is larger than HP’s printer business. With EDS as part of the portfolio, the amount of revenue from printers and ink has started to diminish. In fact, HP executives proudly announced that EDS is as large as HP’s printer revenue. […]
- Procurve chases Cisco in network management. While HP has been in the networking business for decades, it has been a well kept secret. Because of HP’s tight partnership with Cisco, HP has been wary of appearing to compete. However, it appears that HP is now willing to take on Cisco in the networking switching arena. […]
- The software business is (still) important. HP has long had a love/hate relationship with software. HP has selected management and automation to focus its software business. […]
- HP does the cloud. […] Clearly, the cloud strategy is a work in progress. But HP is thinking about the right issues as it makes its way into this important emerging area. HP’s intent is to leverage its software assets to create a common framework for its cloud strategy. HP anticipates that it can leverage EDS’s expertise to gain a cloud framework that it can leverage with customers.
- HP expands Software as a Service. When HP acquired Mercury it also picked up a growing SaaS business. The company is planning to continue to focus on this arena both in the enterprise market and the SMB market. SaaS offerings will continue to focus both on the testing and the remote monitoring markets. […]
HP is very focused on being a provider of IT services, hardware, and software. It has no desire to be a business management or a business consulting organization. While HP is most comfortable in the hardware arena, it is making important strides in this part of the business. […]
The software business, on the other hand, is still at a transition point. While HP has done extremely well with its performance management and testing business, it has had a hard time creating an overall software portfolio. Opsware is clearly being used to provide the foundation for cloud computing but it will take some more time and cycles for this platform emerges as a power. […]
In my view, there will be more aquisitions to come for HP. I suspect that most will be in software and will have to fill the gaps in data management and security. […]
Disclosure: we are at Innoveo member of the Development and Solutions Partner Program (DSPP) and a worldwide Financial Services Industry Partner.
Cross-posted on the Innoveo Solutions blog