Jason Stamper's Blog: August 2005 Archives

Lights, Camera, Search: Google Launches Google Films
August 31, 2005

As if any proof were needed that Google is intent on parachuting into new advertising opportunities, it's just launched Google Films. It's a new web search feature that enables users in the UK to search for local film showtimes, read critics' reviews, and search for films by plot, genre and more.

It's also added a new Google SMS feature that enables users to get film showtimes and cinema listings on their mobile phone or handheld device via text messaging - potentially eliminating the need for that sneaky flick through Time Out in a newsagent when you are out and about and decide a little silver screen action is in order.

By including the words "films" or "showtimes" in their web search query, users can see information about showtimes and film reviews displayed above the Google web search results. For example you can search for a list of films and showtimes near a UK location by typing "film E9" or "film Hackney" into Google.

I've tried it and it works, with the best feature being the ability to sort results by theatre distance, movie popularity, movie rating or simply by movie title.

In terms of coverage of the film reviews feature, the biggest difference between this service and Time Out's film guide, for example, is just the same as the difference between reading Google News and buying The Guardian newspaper. Google News aggregates stories from hundreds of sources, and it's up to the reader to decide which of them to read, and how much credibility to attach to the particular media outlet that wrote the story. If you choose to buy The Guardian, you have already decided that you wish The Guardian to be your 'trusted' source for news, even if you don't necessarily trust all of its stories.

With Google Film you can indeed see scores of reviews for each movie, with sources of those reviews ranging from The New York Times to FilmBlather.com and everywhere in-between. Some will appreciate this variety, even though it means that one review that rates a film outstanding will appear alongside another that finds it appalling.

For example Entertainment Weekly says The Dukes of Hazzard is, "As a movie... more fun than it has any right to be." The BBC says the same film, "Seems to take pride in being as loud, obnoxious and moronic as humanly possible. With no discernably witty characters, lines or situations to speak of, this flat-footed remake is a real pain in the redneck." [Image: The Dukes of Hazzard, source: Warner Bros. I haven't seen it but I'll trust the BBC on this one.]

So others will continue to seek out the reviews in Time Out or wherever, because they have a level of trust in that publication's voice, and would rather read one review they trust than 30 that they either do not trust, or have not yet established a level of trust in. Some people will still buy The Guardian rather than use an aggregator like Google News - and still others will do both.

Aside from the aggregated reviews though, Google Films will prove immensely popular for doing what Google does best: presenting search results just how you like them to be presented, and enabling you to slice and dice those search results in an intuitive and genuinely useful and speedy fashion.

To use Google Films go to Google and type something like "film: london" or "film: charlie and the chocolate factory london" into the search pane. For all the ins and outs of how the new movie and SMS services work, visit here or here, respectively.

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Posted by on 04:10 AM

Borland's Interim CEO Steps Up Acquisition Hunt
August 30, 2005

Borland Software's interim CEO, Scott Arnold, told me in an interview last week that one of his first priorities has been to step up the company's search for suitable acquisition targets to flesh out its Software Delivery Optimization (SDO) portfolio.

Arnold, formerly Borland's COO, took the reins on an interim basis after the former CEO Dale Fuller stepped down on the announcement of a profit warning and missed expectations in July. However Arnold told me he has been told by the board that he is currently their leading candidate to become the permanent CEO. A decision is expected "soon". [Image: Scott Arnold, Borland interim CEO.]

Arnold joined Borland in November 2003, having come from McKinsey & Company where he is said to have helped to found and grow the organization's Silicon Valley office and global high tech and telecom practices. He was at McKinsey & Co for over 15 years.

Arnold said his first priority as the head of the application lifecycle management, middleware and development tools company has been to manage the transition from Fuller's leadership to his own, while at the same time asking his chief marketing officer, Rick Jackson, to effect the communication of that strategy both internally as well as with the company's key customers and partners.

But just as quickly, Arnold said he has set about, "Much more aggressively pursuing M&A activity than before, with the goal being to push faster to SDO [Software Delivery Optimization] from ALM [application lifecycle management]."

Borland is no stranger to acquisitions. In January this year it acquired the application development process consultancy TeraQuest Metrics, while a string of acquisitions in 2002 included the buyouts of TogetherSoft (which had itself bought WebGain) for $185m, as well as Starbase and BoldSoft. 

Arnold said that the most likely acquisitions going forward are buys "a la TeraQuest", suggesting that either companies with expertise in improving the application development process, or enabling its improvement through the use of ALM tools, are the most likely candidates.

As for the recent call by Robert Coates - a former director and long-term shareholder who has argued that Borland should spin off its middleware and development tools businesses to concentrate on ALM - Arnold stated: "There is nothing that Coates has said that we have not thought of ourselves, or that is anything new. We are happy to hear good ideas from wherever they come, but we haven't heard a specific plan from Coates yet."

Arnold said that since both the tools business and middleware lines are profitable, they help to fund research and development in the faster-growing ALM and SDO spaces. However he noted that if the company received an offer for either of those businesses, he and the board would be obliged to consider them in line with their usual fiduciary duties and responsibilities.

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Posted by on 08:19 AM

Otellini Doesn't Want to Save the Planet, But To Save Intel's Skin
August 24, 2005

So Intel's CEO Paul Otellini says that the company is chasing a new goal: instead of striving for ever-faster chips, it will seek to optimise performance per watt - in other words to make them faster and more efficient, too.

Otellini, speaking at the Intel Developer Forum, said: "We'll save $1 billion in electricity bills for every 100 million units sold." He almost made it sound like Intel is doing this for environmental reasons, to help reduce the planet's energy consumption. [Image: Intel CEO Paul Otellini. How many watts were wasted in the making of his Powerpoint presentation? Source: AP.]

Perhaps I'm being overly cynical, but it occurs to me that the reason Intel needs to produce more efficient chips is because it realises that as computing becomes more and more pervasive - just take the increasing use of PDAs and smartphones to the iPod, PSP and Nintendo DS - its chips need to be ever more portable, and hence ever more efficient. The next barrier to the pervasive computing revolution is less likely to be chip speed than it is battery life.

If Intel wanted to save the planet from excessive power consumption, it could have made efficiency a higher priority long before David Ditzel founded Transmeta with exactly that goal.

As a corporation, Intel is by no means the worst offender when it comes to the environment. It maintains a team of full time environmental engineers to implement, run, review and continuously improve what it calls its Environmental Management System. But its products - which have been designed for maximum performance almost irrespective of power consumption - tell a different story.

Perhaps I'm not being too cynical after all. As Otellini said himself in his speech: "Left unchecked, power generation and heat would have limited the devices we build today and the ones we could imagine in the future." At least Intel is now imagining a future with more efficient chips. Better late, than never.

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Posted by on 04:45 AM

Tibco Explains "Time-Based" Pricing Model
August 22, 2005

I had the scoop on integration vendor Tibco's plans to roll out a rental-style pricing model last week: so well done me. Seriously though, the news came as quite a shock to Wall Street, and I had several analysts and bankers on the phone trying to find out as much as they could about the switch.

Then on Friday I was granted an exclusive interview with Tibco's CEO Vivek Ranadive, who had decided he needed to further explain the proposed change as it had caused such a stir when I broke the news. He started by telling me that it applies to all products and will be made available to all customers - both new and existing.

He said that the company is already incrementally rolling out what it is calling its "Time-Based" pricing model, which enables customers to pay for a bundle of software, services and maintenance over time. He insisted that it in no way replaces its more traditional license sales model, but rather is complementary.

Pointing out that the company already makes 55% of its revenue from a combination of ongoing maintenance revenue and services, Ranadive said that: "This is not in place of [Tibco's traditional] software sales, but in addition to. This is not a wholesale move to subscriptions - we are saying that for some customers who may prefer to consume software packaged with services on a more utility-style basis, they now have that option."

Ranadive said that the Time-Based pricing model is likely to appeal most to new customers in Asia Pacific - where monthly pricing is very popular - or smaller enterprises for whom an up-front payment may be less attractive than paying over time. It may be a useful new tool for its system integrator partners like EDS and Siemens, Ranadive said, because, "It expands the range of companies they want to develop relationships with that they have not been able to in the past. It gives them more flexibility."

Existing customers wishing to expand their use of Tibco's software may also find the deal attractive, Ranadive said, for example those that wish to put Tibco's General Interface Rich Internet Application (RIA) framework on all of their users' desktops. "In the past that would cost millions, but now they could consider doing that," Ranadive said.

Ranadive insisted that the roll-out of the Time-Based pricing would not have a sudden, downward effect on Tibco's sales as customers suddenly swap to paying lower amounts more often: "The only impact we believe this will have is a positive impact on revenue," he said. "We do not expect it to reduce license revenue in the short term, and we hope over time it will have a positive impact."

Ranadive said the new model will enable it to engage with customers that previously it would not have been able to. The model is being rolled out incrementally, but being made available to new customers as well as existing customers who are expanding their use of products within Tibco's portfolio. "I haven't had a single customer say they want to switch, if they have already paid an up-front licensing fee," said Ranadive. "But we have had some new opportunities thanks to the new model."

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Posted by on 03:33 AM

Why Symantec is Buying Again
August 17, 2005

Not so long after Symantec took out storage management software vendor Veritas, it's on the acquisition spree again, this time buying up the far smaller Sygate Technologies for an undisclosed sum.

The deal enables Symantec to push into the network access control space, an emerging area of security where Cisco is currently the mindshare leader.

When the transaction closes, the company will immediately start selling Sygate’s Universal Network Access Control system through its own channel. Over time, elements of Symantec’s product line will be integrated into SNAC.

NAC systems give administrators a way to mitigate the effects of network attacks by checking endpoints for compliance with security policies and quarantining those at risk until their vulnerabilities can be addressed.

The plan following the acquisition is to integrate software such as patch management and vulnerability remediation systems to create what Symantec senior director of product management Brian Foster calls “remediation networks”.

For Sygate, a small five-year old software company, the deal gives it the massive market clout to take its NAC up against the likes of Cisco’s Network Admission Control and Microsoft’s Network Access Protection technologies. The deal also shows that Symantec remains prepared to splash its cash so as not to lag behind the latest security technologies.

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Posted by on 06:44 AM

For Sale: One Space Shuttle, Excellent Condition
August 12, 2005

One space shuttle for sale, in excellent if somewhat controversial condition. Probable new space craft project forces reluctant sale. One careful owner from new  - NASA - only 89.9 million miles on the clock. In good running order: used as an everyday runabout on long commute. One of only five in series, black and white paint job. Three Rocketdyne engines, 37 million horsepower. Runs on liquid hydrogen fuel, but can be converted to unleaded (not included in price or under warranty). Does 0-60mph in 3G. Tops out at 17,580 miles an hour (in orbit). Fully overhauled 1997-9, with 165 trick modifications including wicked under-chassis strip lighting a la Pimp My Ride. Can optionally be docked to Russian space station Mir (not included in price). Excellent exterior visibility (but with slight blind spot behind external fuel tank). Carries six passengers in cramped but comfortable accommodation, offers zero gravity conditions and 12 speaker Pioneer CD multi-changer, AM/FM radio and satellite video link with Houston. Fully space centre and Air Force base legal. 10 months tax (worth around $40 billion), sadly M.O.T. recently withdrawn. Excellent winter project or 'fixer-upper'. Any sensible offer considered. 

[Image: Atlantis, showing good condition and black and white paint job. Source: NASA] 

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Posted by on 08:59 AM

Is 'Hot Coffee' Sex Less Worrying than GTA Itself?
August 11, 2005

News that Rockstar, makers of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas have issued a patch to prevent access to the sexually explicit 'game within a game', leaves me scratching my head.

For one thing, the game within a game is only accessible to those who have deliberately downloaded a special modification from the Internet that unlocks the hidden scenes. As a result, the modification was voluntary, leading to the likelihood that this could become the least downloaded patch ever. [Image: less cleavage please, we're British. A screenshot from Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Source: Rockstar.]

Rockstar has offered the patch to anyone whose game has been exposed to the 'Hot Coffee' modification. It doesn't look like the huge inventory of games that are already lining resellers' shelves will have the patch added in advance - you will have to download the patch (assuming you have previously downloaded the mod) after you have bought the game. Sounds nuts.

Besides, as I said on my blog a few months back when there was a furore over the fact that Hollywood was gearing up to launch pornographic titles on Sony's PlayStation Portable games console, it's not the fact that you can get sex on your game console that is the real issue. It's the violence.

Numerous studies have found violent games damaging, and if you take all of the studies together, as Craig A. Anderson, Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychology at Iowa State University puts it: "Violent video games are significantly associated with: increased aggressive behaviour, thoughts, and affect; increased physiological arousal; and decreased prosocial (helping) behaviour... High levels of violent video game exposure have been linked to delinquency, fighting at school and during free play periods, and violent criminal behaviour (e.g., self-reported assault, robbery)."

I'm not suggesting that violent video games should be banned - they are already subject to classification by the British Board of Film Classification (bbfc) over here, just like videos and DVDs. But I do find it bizarre that anyone should get quite so upset about sex in games when violence is, in a very real sense, 'the name of the game'.

I can understand the surprise and dismay that Rockstar should have left the 'game within a game' in the final version, even though it could not be played without the special modification. But with the relatively easy access to pornography these days on video, DVD and online, I would have thought that it is the violence in video games that we should be looking seriously at, not a one-off modification that sees a pixelated video game character engaging in a little one on one.

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Posted by on 09:36 AM

NASA Astronauts: "Oh What a Perfect Day"
August 09, 2005

The astronauts of space shuttle Discovery have thanked NASA for inadvertently giving them a day off, since bad weather forced them to touch down a day late. The astronauts said they had spent the extra day looking out of the window. "The crew of STS-114 thanks you for a great day off," mission specialist Stephen Robinson told flight controllers on Monday.

You can imagine a similar appreciation had the train drivers of London's Silverlink Metro line been granted a day off and the chance to sample the views as they passed Willesden Junction in the guise of a passenger, can't you?

Still, it's not all bad for London's train drivers. "I wish I could come back up here whenever I wanted," Discovery's commander Eileen Collins said. With Silverlink train drivers no doubt enjoying free train travel on days off, they wouldn't even have to fork out the price of the return ticket to Willesden Junction to go back there whenever they want - talk about perks.

[Image: Astronaut Soichi Noguchi, STS-114 mission specialist representing Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), uses a still camera through an aft cabin cargo interface window on the Space Shuttle Discovery. Source: NASA. Hint: You'll need a longer lens than that to get Willesden Junction full frame. ]

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Posted by on 09:04 AM

Has Google 'Blackballed' Naughty News.com?
August 05, 2005

CNET News.com claims that Google won't talk to it until July 2006 in response to "privacy issues" raised in a News.com story which revealed details of Google CEO Eric Schmidt's personal life.

I wouldn't have revealed such details myself. The point of the article was to show that Google holds a lot of personal data, some of which is accessible to all over the Web. CNET could have made their point by saying that Schmidt's salary, net worth, home town and even music preference can be discovered online, without actually detailing them.

But if CNET's claim is true, it seems rather sad that Google should batten down the hatches and refuse to talk to journalists, when most of what News.com revealed was publicly accessible information, and none of it was likely to cause Schmidt any real embarrassment by it being made public. News.com revealed that Schmidt makes a lot of money and is also worth an awful lot of money, which will come as little surprise to anyone.

CBR recently voted the founders of Google, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, among the 10 Most Influential people in technology in our recent CBR 10 Most Influential Special Report. So come on guys, don't make us wish we hadn't. 'Blackballing' journalists is not big and is not clever. I hope I don't have to explain why a free technology press is important to such a forward-looking company as Google. But perhaps given the fact that it was Playboy that Google granted its exclusive pre-IPO interview to, they do seem to have a slightly odd view of the people they will, and will not talk to.

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Posted by on 08:39 AM

"ESB Inventor" Riddle Solved?
August 04, 2005

The question over just who invented the enterprise service bus, or ESB, saw another dramatic twist yesterday as Gartner's most senior middleware analyst, Roy Schulte, told me that it was Candle's Roma product of 1998 that is the ESB's "most direct ancestor", but that it was Sonic Software that coined the term.

The row over who invented the ESB - said to be the new paradigm in open, web services standards-based integration technologies  - began early this week with Tibco Software's chairman and CEO Vivek Ranadive telling me that it was he who invented the technology, contradicting Sonic Software's long-held assertion that it invented it.

Ranadive told me that he invented the ESB, and that Sonic Software's claims that it did so are "a complete joke". Sonic Software subsequently went on the record to say its engineers invented both the technology and the term to describe it before it released its first ESB in February 2002. Sonic said that Gartner VP and distinguished analyst Roy Schulte would back up its claim.

Speaking to me yesterday, however, Schulte explained that the picture is altogether more complicated than either Tibco or Sonic Software portray it. Schulte confirmed that, "The first time I heard the term 'ESB' was from Sonic. Sonic also shipped the first product that used the term 'ESB' in 2002."

But Schulte said it is not clear exactly who invented the concept behind the ESB: "I think that Sonic invented the term to the best of my knowledge, although the concept had many fathers. Like most things, ESBs had precursors, and other labels (web services broker, web services manager, fabric, web services network) have been used to describe the same or similar types of middleware products."

As for the technology ideas that went into the concept of the ESB, Schulte asserted that: "The most direct ancestor to the ESB was Candle’s Roma product from 1998, later called Candle Pathwai." Candle was acquired by IBM in April 2004 - an irony that will not be lost on either Tibco or Sonic Software, since IBM has only recently begun to claim that it too has an ESB of its own - IBM's head of software Steve Mills recently telling ComputerWire that: "I know we do [have an ESB], in fact I've been delivering ESB functionality for many years."

However, while Schulte said that Candle's Roma is probably the closest direct ancestor to the ESB, he was quick to point out that: "Roma was an ESB in every respect except that it did not have web services support. Web services are definitional to an ESB – if it can’t send and receive SOAP/HTTP messages or if it doesn’t support WSDL [web service definition language], then it is not an ESB."

"Sonic’s XQ (later called Sonic ESB) did support web services and thus was an ESB in 2002," said Schulte.

So where does all this leave Tibco chairman and CEO Vivek Ranadive's claim that it was he who "wrote the book" on the ESB, seemingly supported by the fact that Tibco has always called itself 'The Information Bus Company'? "What Tibco was selling in the 1990s was an enterprise message bus, not an enterprise service bus," argued Schulte. "Like Roma, it predated web services so it was not an ESB."

"However, like Roma, it had most of the other characteristics of an ESB by 1998," Schulte continued. "In fact, although it lacked web services support then, it had integration features like transformation, adapters and (later) business process management (BPM) that were missing from many of the first ESBs. In other words, Tibco’s products in the 1990s were supersets of the first ESBs in many respects but their lack of web services support meant that Tibco had a subset of an ESB in some respects. Now, of course, Tibco’s Businessworks product family has web services support so it is a pure superset of an ESB."

With a raft of companies including Cape Clear, PolarLake, Fiorano Software, Iona, SeeBeyond and others recently joined by BEA, IBM, Oracle and Tibco in espousing the benefits of ESB technology, competition is getting stiffer by the day. With ESBs thought to play a key enabling role as the foundation for service oriented architecture or SOA - which is itself expected to be one of the most important trends in enterprise IT over the next decade - it is not surprising that vendors are talking up their ESB credentials, or at least downplaying their lack of them.

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Posted by on 10:13 AM

Why iPods Will Not be Hurd Again at HP
August 01, 2005

Seems HP's new CEO Mark Hurd was wholly unconvinced of the logic of a major systems and services company reselling Apple's iPod on wafer-thin margins -- the company announced it will end the deal in September. And not before time, either.

The deal looked like an own-goal from the outset, and I said as much in my blog in September 2004 in which I asked the question "HP: To Invent or Not to Invent?"

While many set about coming up with a player of their own to try and give Apple a run for their money, the then HP CEO Carly Fiorina's decision to back the iPod looked at odds with the slogan, 'HP Invent'. Even Dell - not known for being on the cutting edge of consumer gadgets - managed to come out with its own MP3 player before HP had shipped its first iPod. Dell's device may not quite have the cachet of an iPod, but you can be sure that Dell makes serious margins peddling its own little gizmos. Image: Fiorina brandishes an iPod (source: Joe Cavaretta/AP)

If there was any of the Compaq engineering talent still left at HP -- many are thought to have left since the acquisition -- it would have been great to see them try their hand at an iPod killer. It was a Compaq team that came out with the iPAQ, let's not forget, which itself quickly rose to dominance in the handheld business computer category.

The Wall Street Journal has it on good authority that a non-compete clause from the Apple deal means that HP will not be able to partner with another digital music player maker or launch its own until August 2006.

Perhaps Hurd has plans for HP to come out with an iPod competitor when the non-compete clause expires. Perhaps not. It's likely this decision was made based on simple mathematics. While HP's iPod sales were not inconsiderable -- accounting for around 8% of the 6.2 million devices that Apple shipped in its latest quarter, and an average of around 5% each quarter -- the question is one of margins.

HP lent its distribution channel of up to 100,000 outlets worldwide to the iPod, but Hurd obviously doesn't think the company got enough revenue from the relationship to make it worth continuing.

There may be other vendors happy to lend their distribution channel to the iPod despite relatively slim margins from doing so: it's not so much that it's likely to be unprofitable, it's just that with relatively meagre profits it's not an area a company like HP should be spending too much attention on.

However with Apple now having a far greater direct retail presence than it did back in 2004 when the HP deal was first brokered, it's possible that Apple no longer needs a channel partner like HP. In fact with Apple hoping to cross-sell the Mac mini, iMac and numerous iPod accessories to today's iPod buyer, it may suit Apple just fine to drive people to its online and bricks-and-mortar stores anyhow.

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Posted by on 03:35 AM

Hold the Front Page: SPAM DANGER LOOMS

This press release just came in, and it was sufficiently newsworthy for me to post it straight up here without further ado:

"Specialist internet technology company, ARKom is warning companies in the UK to be on their guard against SPAM email [their caps, not mine]. A growing problem which costs businesses millions of pounds each year, ARKom believes that companies in the UK are not doing enough to protect themselves -- leaving them wide open to the havoc that SPAM can cause."

Yeagh, apparently there is also this security threat called a VIRUS, which I believe companies in the UK should also be on their guard against. And they must not forget about the ROGUE EMPLOYEE or the ever-present danger of a DENIAL OF SERVICE ATTACK.

Ten years ago, advice from a company to be on guard against spam would have been legitimate. To warn UK businesses about the dangers of spam today, when there can be few businesses in the UK or elsewhere that have not already had to learn for themselves the damage and disruption that spam can bring, is, let's be honest, STATING THE OBVIOUS.

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Posted by on 02:26 AM