Two interesting articles from the Knowledge@Wharton (free subscription) and the MIT Technology Review about:

– productivity growth in the last years

– the usage of IT as a competitive advantage.

Three short abstracts:

– 1.4% from the 70s into the 90s

– 2.5% since 1995

– 4% since 2001.

i’ve created finally a comment functionality in my blog :-)

and without moving away from blogger, thanx to a “tool” from Holker Kreis! Holker is publishing his tool called Blogkomm as a freeware (current release: v1.6, used for my weblog: v1.7 beta). this tool is actually a set of php and css files, which can be integrated in your existing blogger’s blog. quite well documented, but you have to know something about css and php to be able to customize it a bit. for the functionalities, let’s see on my weblog, or the one of Holker ;-)

thx to Holker for his great job!

Already a new CD entry (right column)! It’s about a limited edition of the last great Placebo’s CD – Sleeping with ghosts.

In this limited edition, you will find a bonus CD with 10 amazing and unexpected covers. Some examples:

– Running Up That Hill (Kate Bush)

– Where Is My Mind (The Pixies)

– Johnny And Mary (Robert Palmer)

– I Feel You (Depeche Mode)

– and … Daddy Cool (Boney M) :-)

Really great and interesting!!

Three figures as a summary:

– fine: $613 million

– fine in % of Microsoft’s revenues (2002-03): 2%

– available cash by MS: $52 billion (!!)

So, I think that the problem for MS is not really the money (no charity subscription needed ;-), but more a strategic one. Difficult to accept that somebody else can impose which components can be integrated in the Operating System, and which cannot be. Media Player, in this field, could be just the first example of a long list of imposed changes…. Is this change interesting for us, for the end-consumers? Not really sure…

Who really likes/wants to play video or listen to music with a RealPlayer?? Real product challengers can win market shares (eg. Winamp) because they are really good products for the consumers.

I have added a “On heavy rotation” section (right column of the blog, under the “Contact” section). I will put here some audio CDs and / or DVDs I’m listenning to these days. I’ve started with an interesting CD from a French Parisian DJ called Stéphane Pompougnac and his sixth “Hôtel Costes” compilation. What is this Hôtel? The Hotel Costes, in the heart of Paris near the ultra-chic Place Vendome, is the place to be seen for top models, rock stars and film stars from around the world. The Costes brothers have been careful to make the music in the hotel an integral part of its special charm. Stéphane Pompougnac plays a selection of lounge tracks.

Steve Gillmor had an interview with Ray Ozzie, the CEO of Groove, about the new functionalities of the third version of this collaboration tool in an eWeek’s article. They talked together about the following issues:

– notification features

– the Groove File Sharing integrated in the explorer

– (RSS) aggregation and publication

– “zero-IT aspect”

– Longhorn as a threat

– virtual office & the positioning of Groove

Let’s have a look.

Umh, let’s have a look at this :-)

This time, it’s about pingu, seal and the famous yeti. I got personally the following results:

– best top: 447.31

– best score: 1’547.28

What about yours?

It appears that we are, since yesterday, in a “Google dance” phase :-)

After my two “active” weeks on the Net, I’m quite proud of the result of the following Google-search (keywords: didier beck).

On March, 2, I published a blog concerning Skype, a P2P net-phoning service, which works really great (excellent sound quality, ease of use, no firewall – routeur – NAT configuration required). We are using this tool intensively since then, and our experience is very good. You cannot imagine the positive impact on costs :-)

One anecdote: the two founders of this voice over IP (VoIP) company are Zennstrom & Friis, well-known as the founders of…KaZaA!

Now, let’s talk about business and strategy:

1) Skype announced a new investment of $19 million (this money is coming from two investors, one of them is Index Ventures, which is also investing in….MySql), to be able to finance the link between this VoIP tool and the traditional phone network. Skype will buy a huge amount of minutes by traditional telephone carriers, and sell them to their clients with a “premium-service”.

2) Skype will announce a deal with a major European cordless home phone maker which will integrate Skype in its phones.

3) Skype will furthermore announce a partnership with Pantronics, a maker of headsets for office and home phones.

Great!!

stowe boyd published his first impression about the new beta version of Groove. i’m a convinced (private and professional) user of Groove v2.5, which contains some strange and disconcerting user interface components (i agree with stowe) in the current version. the new one seems to be quite better in this area, and pretty well integrated in Windows. i will start the beta-test tomorrow. stay tuned!