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Jason Stamper's Blog: September 2007 Archives
Pause for thought
September 27, 2007
I'm off on paternity for a couple of weeks, so there will be even fewer blogs from me than 'regular' readers have come to expect. See you anon.
FT gets its gender confused, but its books right: why Data General was inspirational
September 21, 2007
I read with interest a really nice article by Alan Cane for the Financial Times’ Digital Business special report, headlined, ‘The six books that shaped my view of technology.’ I was particularly drawn to the fact that Cane, quite rightly, includes Tracy Kidder’s Pulitzer-winning ‘The Soul of a New Machine’.
It’s one of the first technology business books I read that actually made the big old technology firms, in this case Data General, seem exciting places to work. As Cane says, “With The Soul of a New Machine, Tracy Kidder introduced me in 1981 to the world of minicomputers. Kidder gave a racy account of how Data General, then a leading minicomputer manufacturer, fought against the odds to bring out its first 32-bit supermini in competition with all-powerful Digital Equipment Corporation.”
He adds, “In doing so, she pioneered the literary device of describing individuals carrying out mundane build-and-test procedures as if they were pulp fiction characters: ‘Seen at the wheel of his sporty red Saab, driving down 495, West [the head of the Data General project group] made a picture of impatience. His jaw was set, he had a forward lean. Sometimes he briefly wore a mysterious smile. He was a man on a mission.’”
I don’t profess to be an expert – by the time I read this book in the early nineties it had already become a classic while I was still at school. But I do know that Cane has his genders muddled: Kidder is a man, though with a first name like that it’s an easy mistake to make. I like the passage Cane picked out, though, because I met Tom West in the early nineties at Data General’s headquarters, and it describes him well...
Source: The Computer Museum. I think West is on the left, Kidder on the right (and not the other way around as suggested by the Museum). I met West many years later, but he still had the beard.
Should BEA be sold?
September 18, 2007
Billionaire investor Carl Icahn has increased his stake in BEA to 8.5% and urged the company's board to put the business up for sale.
I once toyed with the idea of using the headline “BEAfraid, BE very Afraid”. I am glad I didn’t, and not just because it would have broken new ground in the naff pun stakes. Indeed, I only toyed with it very, very briefly.
But it seems that headline may be just as poignant today, for different reasons. Back then I was writing how BEA was firing on all cylinders, approaching the $1bn annual revenue figure faster than anyone, and beating all comers with its legacy Tuxedo ORB and more modern WebLogic and application server products. The competitors had reason to fear BEA.
Today, the firm has as much to be afraid of as its competitors. It has seen its new license sales go into decline, lost around 12% of its stock market value in the past year, and been adjudged by analysts to be losing share to IBM and Oracle in particular.
All in a sleepy cause: industry does its bit for charity
September 06, 2007
To help promote the forthcoming Byte Night charity sleep-out, a gang of ‘flash mobbers’ assembled at 8.45 in Potters Field in London, laid down for a short nap, and then promptly disappeared.
The stunt was to help raise the profile of this October’s Byte Night and Byte Night Local, which will raise money to fight youth homelessness.
“Byte Night and Byte Night Local not only raise thousands of pounds – they also increase awareness of a critical issue for young people in the UK,” said Jamie Dawson, one of the mobbers.
Byte Night will see 250 of the IT industry’s biggest names sleep out in London to raise funds for NCH, the children’s charity. As part of a new initiative, Byte Night Local will allow regional teams to sleep out in their back garden, with family and friends. Find out more here.
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