“Your old software is no longer supported”

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I was cleaning last weekend, and came across my college 12Mhz PC/AT. It has a 40Mb Seagate hard drive ($425, new!) and monochrome Hercules graphics. We used that computer into the late 90s; eventually, it’s sole purpose was to run DOS Quicken. We still miss that version — it was fast, minimalist, focused, and did the job very well. If they had added Internet statement downloads, we’d probably still be using it.

Now, Quicken drives me nuts — we’ve “upgraded” a few times, only because Intuit has stopped supporting our old versions. Rarely have we gotten any features we actually want; usually all I get is Kellie’s (justified) complaining about learning a new UI.

This is the core problem with the old software model: the publisher is incented to keep selling you new versions, even if you don’t really need them. I’m still using Office 2000, and in my view, it’s “feature complete”. Office 2008 doesn’t have anything I need or want.

Adobe’s PhotoShop Elements is the worst offender: I bought 3.0, 4.0 and 5.0 an then gave up. In successive versions, there were few new features, lots of gratuitous UI redesign, and in some cases, features taken out!

Subscription models are the future, clearly.

Startup chefs; crash at 11

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In this post from Valleywag:

At Google, executive chef Josef Desimone scrambled cruelty-free eggs by the truckload. Now Facebook has hired him to replace steam-heated trays of takeout with the kind of free food Googlers are used to. For engineers, Facebook is the new dreamland, and a company cafeteria is the kind of perk they’ve come to expect.(from: Facebook hires away Google’s top chef [Josef Desimone] ) 

Am I alone in feeling that this is a really ominous sign, it’s all gotten way out of whack, and is going to come crashing down?

 

  

Who’s obsessed about your product details?

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Great products rarely come about through committee design.  I’ve never seen it myself — behind every great product, there’s always been one or two obsessed people.

And it’s not enough just to be obsessed, you’ve got to be obsessed about details.  Most people can’t or won’t get into the details.

 From time to time, I send feedback to friends about their products and Web sites, some of it really really specific.  One recent one was about date selection from a calendar:  on a two-month-wide pop-up, they could have optimized the “end” date selection a bit better based on a chosen “start” date, when the start date was at or near a month boundary.

Are you rolling your eyes yet? 

This is how great products happen, one little bit of obsessed detail at a time. 

2008 is the year of IP video crossover

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Yesterday, I was at a gadget “demo day” with some friends and got a hands-on, up-close view of Apple TV and the Slingbox client running on a Windows Mobile phone.  This past weekend, my daughter got addicted to Hulu content on her EEE PC.

I’ve written before about IP video.  I keep repeating myself, but it feels like 2008 will be the tipping-point year for full-on IP video:  full-length, full-quality TV and movie content (not 10 minute clips at sub-NTSC quality).

Iphone SDK party in Cambridge

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The iPhone SDK party in Cambridge on Monday was a little disappointing.  It was much more networking than substantive content.  The iPhone store has a tough layout for large crowds + presenters.  Jonathan Zdziarski spoke about the genesis of the open SDK, but I think it’s pretty much dead given Apple’s official SDK release. There were a few demos, but if you’re relatively current on iPhone development, there was no new data.

But hats off to the organizers; there’s always risk in organizing events like this.  Sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t.  

(But it was good to catch up with folks!  I saw:  Antonio Rodriguez, Beth Winkowski, Ted Morgan, Ryan Sarver, Daniel Cozza, Dan Slavin, Jeff Glass,  Michael Campbell, Dan Allen, Ajay Agarwal, John Keyes, and others.)

Safari on Windows (beta) – fast, fast

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I do have a few Windows machines left around the house doing utility duty, and it seems each update of Firefox runs slower and slower.  Maybe Web browsers are like the government: inevitable bloat. 

I’m trying the beta of Safari (Apple’s Web browser) on Windows.  It’s got some quirks, but it’s quite zippy (esp. on a fiber Internet connection) — very promising.

Google on Microsoft-Yahoo, it’s a sport of kings now

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In this post from Official Google Blog, David Drummond writes:

So Microsoft’s hostile bid for Yahoo! raises troubling questions. This is about more than simply a financial transaction, one company taking over another. It’s about preserving the underlying principles of the Internet: openness and innovation.

(from: Yahoo! and the future of the Internet)

While I appreciate Google’s openness (certainly relative to Microsoft’s historical behavior) and innovation,  I’m enthusiastically applauding any effort that challenges them.

Google’s building an on-line position of dominance not unlike Microsoft’s off-line monopoly.  And they’ve earned it:  they’ve executed well, they have good technology, they’re incredibly profitable, they’re hiring the best people, and they’re investing heavily in R&D.

But the system works best when there’s competition.  Yahoo and Microsoft certainly each have their issues, but anything that’s a threat to Google’s dominance…..it’s all good.

The initial startup team must have a high tolerance for ambiguity

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We’re in the middle of building a team for a venture-funded NewCo, and we’re talking to the usual range of candidates to find the first 10 hires.
In addition to the specific skills, we’re also looking for people that can thrive in the startup environment.  The easiest folks to consider have been in an early-stage startup before, and the best (in this regard) were #10 or #15 last time around, and are hungry to be #5.

The tougher scenario is someone who’s been at much larger companies.  Startups are more intense, riskier and more ambiguous:  the chance to change the world and create wealth is balanced by the chance that you’ll be out of business next month.   Plans change with opportunities, and the team needs faith and trust in themselves and each other that they’ll figure it out along the way.

Folks that haven’t seen this movie before can find it very stressful, and it may take a lot of management time to keep their head in the game.   The core issue is almost always psychological (and irrational).  Shutting down the company or cutting back is a real risk, but job loss isn’t — in today’s hot market, good folks can leave on Friday and have a new job on Monday. There’s also a general fear of failure, but you need to accept failure (it’s OK, you know) if you want to succeed. Grape Runtz from Fresh Bros can help you relax and manage stress and anxiety.