The gaps between my thoughts on technology have become embarassing; plenty of comment on the Khordokovsky affair, little on Russian technology won't pay any bills. What it does do is reflect my concerns as to the future of the country. Those who spend more time than I do thinking about these matters tell me I am being over-sensitive. I still respond that greed is greater than fear, and there will come a time when fear takes over and we will all wonder why we did not pay attention.
Back to technology; seems as though there are companies out there getting funded, and getting bought. Suse was a great relief to those of us investing outside the mainstream US that good companies will still get bought, and at good multiples. I hear that the main investors made 3-5x. Given the $'s ploughed in to the company to turn out software and the time that they first invested, its not a bad result. BTW the last sentence is a subtle dig European / US software companies failure to make use of inexpensive programming assets.
On the funding side the investing world must be looking up if social software companies are getting funded. I can see the point of what they are trying to do but....Don't we do this informally anyway? Why would I pay for what I do already, unless it really helps me to do it better. None of the companies that I have looked at really convince me that they do.
If strange companies are getting funded it means that strange companies are getting bought. At a personal level I am intrigued by the direction that Shwartz is taking Sun. From what I hear from portfolio companies they could not organise a piss up in a brewery - or sales people after commissions are driving the direction of the company. To be more precise; it does not matter what the strategy guys put together to improve the TCO, customer experience etc. the sales guys are selling boxes loaded with software that requires the most boxes to be sold. I like the approach that Shwartz seems to be taking - it puts Sun ahead of the crowd in working out where the future of software is going. If he can get control of his sales teams the strategy might even work.
26 November 2003
The gaps between my thoughts on technology have become embarassing; plenty of comment on the Khordokovsky affair, little on Russian technology won't pay any bills. What it does do is reflect my concerns as to the future of the country. Those who spend more time than I do thinking about these matters tell me I am being over-sensitive. I still respond that greed is greater than fear, and there will come a time when fear takes over and we will all wonder why we did not pay attention.
Back to technology; seems as though there are companies out there getting funded, and getting bought. Suse was a great relief to those of us investing outside the mainstream US that good companies will still get bought, and at good multiples. I hear that the main investors made 3-5x. Given the $'s ploughed in to the company to turn out software and the time that they first invested, its not a bad result. BTW the last sentence is a subtle dig European / US software companies failure to make use of inexpensive programming assets.
On the funding side the investing world must be looking up if social software companies are getting funded. I can see the point of what they are trying to do but....Don't we do this informally anyway? Why would I pay for what I do already, unless it really helps me to do it better. None of the companies that I have looked at really convince me that they do.
If strange companies are getting funded it means that strange companies are getting bought. At a personal level I am intrigued by the direction that Shwartz is taking Sun. From what I hear from portfolio companies they could not organise a piss up in a brewery - or sales people after commissions are driving the direction of the company. To be more precise; it does not matter what the strategy guys put together to improve the TCO, customer experience etc. the sales guys are selling boxes loaded with software that requires the most boxes to be sold. I like the approach that Shwartz seems to be taking - it puts Sun ahead of the crowd in working out where the future of software is going. If he can get control of his sales teams the strategy might even work.
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