There’s a “cap” for that

 

A few days ago we went with some friends to a shopping mall for a walk and buy a few things here and there.

In a certain moment, we walked by a Starbucks coffee shop, and one of us suggested making a break and stopping a short while for a coffee. It was a great idea, and many of us already headed into the shop.

No wonder, Starbucks is indeed a nice place to have coffee. Fresh environment, cool style, lots of variations and flavors of different coffee styles indeed. You can even have some extras, like assorted pastries, cupcakes, muffins or cookies… or alternative chocolate beverages. Fantastic service, quite personalized, young waiters and waitresses will call you by name to give you your drinks in hand. Fancy people here and there, from youngsters having a chocolate shake to senior people peacefully enjoying a cappuccino. There is all you could ask from a coffee shop…

However, one of us hesitated. He was not really sure about stepping into Starbucks. So he took his smartphone, and with a couple of gestures, he checked into something, and called all of us.

He suggested we went to his place, which was not really far from there, about a 5 minutes drive, so he would offer us what he said was really good coffee, the style we preferred. He only asked us allow him a 2 minutes stop on our way.

Shortly after we were comfortably sitting in his living room, and he asked us what sort of coffee we wanted. One of us asked for a strong long black coffee, another two wanted espressos, and there were requests for cappuccinos and even café au lait too. Strong and mild coffees were asked for within the group.

A minute later, our host came with a nice coffee service, and a special tray with different capsules so we could choose ourselves the actual coffee we would have. Can’t remember all the names, but there were red, green, purple, blue, black, brownish, yellow capsules, and each one of us could see in the cover what was the coffee like in each cap.

Clean and neatly, a few minutes after everybody had chosen his or her cap, we were enjoying a nice friendly conversation, fostered by the pleasant atmosphere, and one of us asked our host: “Hey, so are these all the different flavors you can have with Nespresso?”, pointing to the tray with all the remaining caps.

“Not at all”, he answered. “There are plenty more available, I just have at home my favorites”.

“But how do you manage when you run out of caps?”, another one asked.

“Well, know what? There’s an app for that”.

No kidding, he produced his smartphone from his pocket, and there it was: A nice Nespresso App from the iTunes online store, where his customer profile was predefined, and after keying his password in, a predefined order was ready for his to confirm, the ready to deliver in less than 24 hours.

In the meantime, we were really enjoying our coffees, the company and the conversation that was going on.

Another question popped up: “There are quite a lot of your favorites there in the tray, and yet there are many more available. Why do you prefer these ones?”

Our host smiled and promptly came with an answer: “Make an educated guess”, said he. “In fact, the coffee I might have in a given moment depends on many things. It depends on who you are with, the time of the day, the sort of conversation you are having… It is not the same to have coffee for breakfast than to enjoy a warm decaf after a lovely dinner with your sweetheart, is it?”

“Ah, so you have different choice for each different moment, don’t you?”

“Indeed… when I feel like having a coffee, unconsciously I think of the particular situation I have, and for each of them I know there’s a cap for that”.

What else? A touch of class indeed… Smiling, he sipped what was left from his coffee, and confirmed his caps order with a gentle touch on his iPhone while a long queue of people looking and behaving like androids was forming at different Starbucks shops all over the country, where customers did not find any more seats available, conversations were getting louder, and nervous waiters starting yelling customer names instead of politely addressing them with their orders.

what else?

 

Technorati Tags: android,iphone,ios4,apple,itunes,appstore,clooney,malkovitch,nespresso,what else,there's an app for that,smartphone,marketing,advertising,starbucks

Larry San & Lieutenant Apotheker

 

Cio-Cio San was her name. The teenage geisha who broke with her culture, family and traditions to engage and marry Lieutenant Pinkerton, an American naval officer assigned to Japan in the late 19th Century. Called back to duty in the US, he disappeared for a while, leaving poor Cio-Cio longing for his return.

At least this is the story that the arch-famous opera by Puccini depicts.

We believe the Pontifex Maximus at the oracle, aka Big Mouth Larry has been as much as Cio-Cio San craving for Apotheker. At least this is the story we conclude after the arch-famous tune by him in the press.

But Lt. Apotheker was, effectively, called to duty in the US when hired as new CEO for HP, and poor Larry San could only wait and hope.

Like in Puccini’s tragedy, finally Lt. Apoteheker has shown up in Japan… and like in Puccini’s opera, still this won’t avoid a tragic ending, we think.

Technorati Tags: apotheker,larry ellison,sap,trial,oracle,management,lawsuit,puccini,opera,madama butterfly

Incidentally, we would like to mention the irony behind having Lt. Apotheker popping up precisely in the country of the rising SUN… Small, but still some consolation for Larry-San though.

Commie Pontifex

 

While World War I was at its peak, say 1917, the Soviet Revolution led by Vladimir Lenin was as well about to succeed. Lenin’s plans were based on support form people’s masses and organizations, one of the biggest and most important being, of course, the Army. As the Army was engaged at war, mainly against the German Empire of the time, Lenin desperately needed to withdraw Russia from the war at any cost, surrendering it needed. What actually happened thanks to Lenin’s propaganda skills. Russia surrendered to the German Armies, which were in fact occupying part of the Russian Empire territory, signed the Brest-Litovsk Agreement, and went home.

In order to get the Russian Army quit the war and join his ranks, Lenin mastered a convincing motto: "(World War I) is a war waged between German capital against Anglo-French capital but fought by workers”. He basically was calling Russian soldiers to disengage from a cause that was not theirs.

As the Russian commoner enlisted in the Imperial Army of Czar Nicholas Romanov was indeed from humble extraction and relatively fed up with the Romanov aristocracy, it was relatively easy for Lenin to succeed. The Russian High Command found itself with an unexpected enemy rising from inside that ultimately led to a dramatic defeat and an endless suffering of the people for decades. The Russian Army turned from fighting Germany to fighting local aristocracy. In other words, from fighting the technical and theoretical enemy (the Germans) to fighting a closer one which could be seen as more directly responsible of their suffering and poverty, ie their own aristocrats and landlords.

So the war against Germany was “technically” correct, but too high-level and far a concept. Russian soldiers where inflamed by Lenin to think shorter and focus on matters closer to them, to their daily lives.

If we think about an average juror serving at the Oracle-SAP trial, one thing we could consider is the actual way he might think. After all, an average juror is very much like an average citizen. They are on fixed income or salary, they have average rents… they are in fact far from the glamour and high standards of billionaires fighting about billionaire figures that are simply too big to fit in an average citizen’s mind. The numbers and figures talked during trials are way out of reach and beyond possibilities and imagination of average citizens. Therefore, even if legal argumentations could be technically correct, it’s fairly likely that a juror may think that this is a war waged by billionaires that just want to increase their obscene fortunes, but fought by regular employees.

Winning an jury trial is about winning the minds of jurors. It’s not about convincing experts, lawyers, technicians. And we think this is what probably Big Mouth Larry, Pontifex Maximus at the oracle, was aiming to when delivering the messaging he did in his testimonials on Monday. A technically correct argumentation, supported by Safra Catz’ moderate position, with the personal touch about the salaries of 100,000 families.

Now, for an average juror, all this sympathetic touch said by the guy owning the 6th biggest fortune in the world, the guy that spends thousands of dollars a day to sustain his standards of living, that affords teaming with other millionaires to yacht around the world, might sound a bit hypocritical. If the salary of 100,000 Oracle employees depended on the $4 billion Oracle is demanded on SAP and the Pontifex Maximus is so concerned with that, what the heck prevents him to spare $4 bn from his personal fortune to cover the problem? Wouldn’t he recover it sooner than later, so successful a businessman he is at Oracle?

We think that for the moment, Oracle’s strategy, technically correct from certain aspects, has missed completely the main target, which is winning for themselves the jurors minds and favor. It probably has not been the best choice to get the Pontifex to deliver the first heavy artillery blows, and they have missed who they need to convince. The battle’s not about technicalities that, by the way, fail to have documented support. It’s about convincing commoners about their cause being fair.

We understand it can be really difficult for a billionaire to think commie, but a commander at war should not forget considering the battlefield (ie jurors’ minds) specificities when planning battle. And, yes, Pontifex Maximus: This is something your dear Sun Tzu wrote.

 

Technorati Tags: larry ellison,safra catz,trial,lawsuit,tomorrownow,oracle ceo,sap,pontifex maximus,sun tzu,lenin,oracle,hp,apotheker

No apples for the apes

 

Tantalus was a powerful guy at his time in ancient Greece. Powerful enough to have been granted access to the gods, nothing less. Impressive.

Ungrateful though, he had an “inappropriate behavior”, and took with him nectar and ambrosia from the gods’ banquet table, and thus, “disclosed confidential information” to mortal humans.

That violation of the gods’ Standards of Business Conduct could not go through without punishment, and Tantalus was sent to Hades (the Greek version of Hell at that time; please note we carefully typed and initial “H” for Hell as confusion with “Dell” could have easily happen to our dear readers).

But not only was the guy sent there, where he might have eventually found a decent living by writing his memories and giving conferences and TV shows with forgettable American Presidents, the gods’ wrath went further. Instead of enrolling him in endless PowerPoint presentations about Standards of Business Conduct, which seems to be the classic punishment for normal mortals, they decided to teach him a lesson about ambrosia and nectar he would never ever forget: They placed him in a water pond beneath the most wonderful fruit tree in a way that when he wanted to calm his thirst off, water would withdraw from him, and when he wanted to reach for the low hanging fruit from the tree to fill his stomach, the tree branches would raise enough to remain always out of reach.

Thirst and starvation for eternity did not really seem a good plan. but we’d guess that is what happens when you fall short of expectations in such an exclusive club as Mount Olympus.

…

Microsoft is a really impressive company. Rich, knowledgeable, talented… a winning combination certainly. No wonder it is one of the best known brands, and much present in many people’s daily life, either as individuals or as professionals. Becoming the CEO there certainly gives you big green US presidents portraits, and, subsequently, a hell lot of power. You become a member of the super-exclusive elitist club of the people that appear regularly in Fortune magazine, and even the US President may ask for some of your time. Furthermore, if you wanted you could even have a yacht to win America’s Cup, or build spaceships to ascend to Heaven like a “Virgin”. You could say you reached the Mount Olympus of the 21st Century, you could say you are like a god on earth, couldn’t you?

When you imagine, dear reader, the banquets and conversations they enjoy in Mount Olympus, you expect at least fantastic goods and services, outstanding super cool products coming out from the companies they lead, from the companies that have put them in those jobs, would you not? “Product etiquette”, which, should it not be observed, creates an actual situation of “not living up to standards” that should end up in sending the non compliant guy to 21st Century Hades… (again, not suggesting a promotion within Dell at all).

Generally speaking, we think those super-exclusive people do well up there… but, being as human as people can be, there are always exceptions to the rule.

Enter Steve Ballmer, 50% Ape, 50% Man, 100% pure transpiration…

by the gods, someone bring deodorant to this guy

No wonder his sense of etiquette falls a bit short to expectations… but as well do his company products and services do, especially compared to other peers of his.

And, as in ancient Greece, somehow the market gods are delivering him slowly to the 21st Century Hades of the IT Market (again, not really suggesting he should be hired by Hell-Dell). He’s been placed in a pond of operating systems, beneath a tree of wonderful fruit in the form of smartphones…

Whenever he finds himself thirsty of operating system technology, the pond withdraws its androids, symbians, blackberries, iOS4s and even WebOSs, and whenever he wants to reach a piece of fruit, revenue raises, but not for him to “touch”, while a subtle breeze sounds in his ears like “not yet, kid…”

In very many versions of the mythological story of Tantalus, by the way, as much as in many artistic representations of the story, the fruit in the tree are red, shaped like a heart, fresh, juicy… Apples!

Technorati Tags: larry ellison,richard branson,apple,microsoft,hp,nokia,rimm,blackberry,palm,webos,ios4,wp7,smartphone,symbian,google,android,tantalus,olympus

A tantalised Pontifex

 

It looks that Big Mouth Larry is seriously taking the challenge we suggested him some days ago.

As a matter of fact, he’s paid for some private investigations to find out the pharmacist’s whereabouts. Well, this sort of game is supposed to be carried out individually. Come on, Big Mouth, it’s no fun if someone else tells you where Léo is and you do not find out yourself… unless you tell us that instead of tennis, you are playing this with your friend Mark. Oh, yes, Mark has some experience in private investigations indeed, doesn’t he?

Yet we are puzzled about the point he’d want to prove. Assuming for a minute he found out the guy is anywhere out of legal reach to force him to serve the subpoena at the trial the oracle is waging against SAP, if Law can not grab him, it is absolutely useless. Sounds a bit paranoid, in our opinion.

So Big Mouth Larry, aka The Pontifex Maximus at the oracle, would be punished for his paranoia by knowing where the guy is, but not really being able to grab him, like poor old Tantalus, condemned by the Gods to starve in Hades below a rich fruit tree that raised it’s branches as soon as Tantalus tried to grasp any throughout eternity… which, for us at least, seems to be a heck of a long time, incidentally.

Technorati Tags: HP Board,Apotheker,Phyllis Hamilton,trial,lawsuit,management,oracle,sap,tomorrownow,pontifex maximus,hp,larry ellison

Big Apes don’t play Quidditch

 

Those readers who have read the Harry Potter saga , total or partially, are surely familiar to quidditch, the most popular sport in the magic world where the full story happens.

Two teams, one against the other, each one with the objective to score more points on the rival’s goal than the other.  Similar in principle to rugby, American football, basketball or soccer.

There is an important difference, though: Quidditch is played with four balls simultaneously.

First there is a quaffle, which is the biggest one. Players are supposed to pass this ball through three different rings at one of the field ends, which are the rival’s goal. Each time a team succeeds, they get 10 points.

Then there are two bludgers, a bit smaller than the quaffle. These two are used by one team players to beat, harass and distract the other team players, and make it more difficult for them to score with the quaffle. Two specific players have special bats to hit the bludgers against the other team.

And finally there is the smallest one, called golden snitch. It is the size of an iPod shuffle, and has two fast wings. It floats ans wanders around erratically, and one special player of each team, called the Seeker, has to be the first to catch it. Once it is caught, the match ends, and the team whose seeker got it gets a 150 point bonus.

If quidditch were played without a snitch, it would not be fundamentally different from other similar sports we mentioned before, would it? Indeed, as you might have guessed, it is the snitch that really makes the difference, for it depends almost on a simple flash of genius from the Seeker to strike a 150 points bonus and determine the end of the match.

Both teams will normally score regular points with the quaffle. Both teams will me more or less lucky in harassing the contrary with bludgers. But it is just one team which will get the snitch. Just one.

And this is the situation where Big Ape’s Microsoft is about Windows Phone 7. But his problem is that he still is thinking rugby, or basket, football or soccer, and he’s not understood that there is a snitch around that needs to be caught and really make a difference. If he just thinks quaffles, his team might score. But the other team certainly will too. As a matter of fact, if he plays against iPhone, Android, Blackberry or old-glory Nokia, these have already scored a heck lot of regular points more than he has. And the two first competitors of his have already seen the snitch and are moving their seekers towards it.

And, we are afraid, the only bright and shiny little thing floating over at Microsoft’s camp is his polished sweaty head top when he jumps across the scenery like a gorilla on caffeine overdose.

too much coffee, isn’t it, Big Ape?

Technorati Tags: steve ballmer,microsoft,apple,nokia,blackberry,ios4,wp7,windows phone 7,rimm,android,symbian,Steve Jobs,Bill Gates,smartphone,harry potter,snitch,quaffle,bludger,quidditch

Footnote: This post is dedicated by Sirius to Percy, Luna, Neville, Hermione, McGonagall, Hagrid, Draco, Rita Skeeter and even Bellatrix… you (should) know who you are…

(Do not) play it again, Steve

 

Who could not remember the famous quote by Rick to Sam, the piano player, in Rick’s café in Casablanca?

“Play it again, Sam”, as Rick was willing to remember good old times in Paris with Ilsa.

And Big Ape Steve keeps playing his worn out tune once and again, still under the spell of his unreal world where Microsoft reigns all over the marketplace.

As they have launched precisely Windows 7 Marketplace exactly the same way they launch everything: An incomplete product with less functionality than promised, and just under the stress of claiming they were on time to market.

Again, they follow the other Steve (Jobs by name) that already has had an AppStore up and running for years.

Again, they engage their partners and developers into a potential nightmare of upgrades and patches.

Again they promise first and deliver later: They won’t honor any payouts before 2011.

The same old tune once an again, like a scratched vinyl record in the times of mp3, video streaming and online connectivity.

In short, again late and short to expectations.

Still anybody surprised Forbes believes for the first time the good Steve is more powerful than the Big Ape Steve?

Technorati Tags: Casablanca,Forbes,Apple,Back to the Mac,Bill Gates,Steve Ballmer,Steve Jobs,Microsoft,Marketing,AppStore,Windows 7 Marketplace

Sultans of suing

 

We are sure that if we mentioned Dire Straits, every body would recall its unique style, mainly driven by lead singer and composer, Mark Knopfler. Some people consider him the best guitar player ever, and his live performances all over the world are memorable. Sultans od Swing, Tunnel of Love, Telegraph Road, Gold…Many hits come to our minds, but from them all, it is the famous duet with Sting, Money for Nothing, what draws our attention more, together with Private Investigations.

Buzz around another Mark comes back. The Mark Hurd again has bounced up again in the press, as some additional documentation around the fishy Fisher has come to light. Beyond an inappropriate relationship between hard Hurd and fishy Fisher, it looks as if hard Hurd disclosed confidential information to the latter. So fishy Fisher seems to be getting a second 15 minutes of glory Andy Warhol said everybody deserved. However, being represented by the famous attorney Gloria Allred, it appears to us that fishy Fisher has had to devote many more than a mere 15 minutes to the “Gloria” to just get again 15 minutes of “glory”… Not sure this is a good ROI, frankly.

As it is already well known by those who have followed the case, hard Hurd settled private whatever issue fishy Fisher had with him. This happened before he was fired by the HP Board, and likely was one of the mean reasons precisely to lose trust in the guy, and ultimately show him the door. The private settlement included an undisclosed amount of dollars to be paid by hard Hurd to fishy Fisher, cost which simply adds up to all other costs hard Hurd has had (including the intangible impact on his family and reputation) for not having thought it twice before behaving like a hormonally unbalanced chimpanzee during mating seasons.

Although Big Mouth Larry quickly came to the rescue, and saved for him the match ball against hard Hurd, we would still question if all the cost he’s taken was really worth it. Is hard Hurd any better personally and professionally than he was at the time in which praise and success were a constant in his service record?

Again that “Money for Nothing” tune in our heads, as we recall part of its lyrics: “Money for nothing, and your chicks for free…” Indeed the private settlement was something hard Hurd was perfectly ready to afford, and certainly big money for fishy Fisher. Certainly “money for nothing” for hard Hurd, given the ROI he got, though this time the chick was not for free precisely, was she?

After all the “private investigations” after the affair, maybe Mark (Knopfler) could eventually consider legal action against Mark (hard Hurd) for copyright infringement by the latter. Private Investigations and Money for Nothing have been in billboards and hitlists for years already. Just to keep lawyers busy, you know, as suing is starting to become a tradition for hard Hurd, we’d say.

By the way, if Knopfler really gets to legal matter, he could as well include copyright infringement about Sultans of Swing. At the end of the day, hard Hurd is really becoming one of the Sultans of “Suing” lately. True or not?

Technorati Tags: HP Board,HP,HP Way,Mark Hurd,Jodie Fisher,Ray Lane,Larry Ellison,Oracle,Management,Dire Straits,Sting,lawsuit

The apple of their eye

We are used to having heard about the power of Bill Gates and Microsoft for years as much as used we are to reading about that man being one of the richest people on earth. We have seen charts and figures where Microsoft’s income proves larger than small countries’ gross national product.
For once we have seen that a fellow colleague in his industry has overtaken him as to power. Steve Jobs has been rated as more powerful than good ol’ Billy.
Not questioning at all the author’s argumentation, which we fundamentally agree with, we prefer to see this from a different angle, other than historical achievements or financial metrics.
Jobs has succeeded in engaging youth. Youth of today starts being the basis for customers of the future. Apple’s fresh, Apple’s new, Apple’s fun. Apple’s cool, in short. Lot’s of customer touch points, from PCs to TV, from music to movies. Even small kids are starting to get familiar to the “there’s an app for that” slogan.

indeed…

Microsoft is huge, large, dominates market segments, but… it’s a slow dinosaur claiming more the “me too” story and basically a follower. A losing follower for whom the gap with Apple broadens every day. Just consider Microsoft’s latest: Windows Phone 7, same old story, nothing really new, is it? What the heck can you do with WP7 that you cannot already do, and probably in a better way, with IOS4, Android or even Blackberry?
Precisely this is in our opinion one of the big sandbags Microsoft. This company is fundamentally based on legacy coming from a dominant position it used to have for decades, and at some extent still enjoys for the time being. For them, what they call innovation is what we would call patching and re-patching the same old core, like those unending “system updates” or “service packs” that may block your PC or your mobile phone for hours, just to catch up with things other computers do.
Once their dominant position was taken, they just slept on their own complacency, expecting the scene not to change ever again. Like an old Confucian philosopher that once happened to see a rabbit smash itself against a tree stump and made his lunch for the day, he waited and waited ever since in front of the same stump until he died from starvation, hoping that if one rabbit once smashed against the stump, why should not another one?
And the characters define companies. While Steve Jobs could never be separated from Apple as his alter ego, but surgically, and even after serious health problems he cared to continue his leadership, Bill Gates retired as if he did not really need to do anything more for his company.
And, by the way, leaving the powerful Microsoft in the hands of an insane pathetic baboon does not really seem to be the best choice if he really cared about his company. Just check this out…

Is this what being a billionaire might turn you into?

is this a way to engage youth? Is this sad copy of pop stars youngsters adore the way Microsoft expects to create trends and fashion? Because Apple certainly does. People wait hours for dining in a fancy restaurant, and pay fortunes to wear the same dress whoever celebrity you want to mention. Who waits for hours before stores open to buy Microsoft’s latest device or software? Who will pay a price premium to get something by Microsoft instead of Android, Blackberry or iWhatever?
And why this last difference? Fundamentally their management styles: While the middle aged baboon pretends he is a Jonas Brother and 40 years younger, Apple’s convince passionately the audience about what they do. Just look to the video.

Genuine gentlemen.

Notice the difference: The baboon “loves this company”. Jobs and staff love the things they do. The message is clear. What the baboon really loves is the obscene dollar amounts he is able to bleed from his company, where he probably reached the top spot just by chance. By the way, the guy should use some of those dollars to cover up a bit his serious transpiration issues and make sure he has a cardiologist with him when he behaves in public a way normal people wouldn’t allow their teen age kids.
Apple toppers focus on what their products do, and how they do those things.
Ironically enough, Steve Jobs has been accused of being arrogant… If arrogance is being proud of a product well done, I wish more CEOs had such arrogance. On the negative aspect of arrogance, however, isn’t it much bigger the one demonstrated by the Great Ape? At the end of the day, if we were supposed to get excited by listening to Big Ape, it would mean we should consider ourselves less than him. Inferior, in other words. Ballmer’s audience is the community of Microsoft employees, who are not really realizing that what Ballmer is really telling them is “you guys have to work like apes to make sure the money you suck from customers continues flowing all the way to my bank account; and, by the way, if you see my sweat, keep in mind this is nothing compared to the sweat I am going to squeeze out of you”. Where’s arrogance then?
If Gates, or, for the matter, Microsoft, were more powerful than Apple (or Jobs for the matter), why would Microsoft rush to open store just across the street from Apple’s? Why would Microsoft poorly imitate Apple’s?
Just incidentally… we said one of the basic points at the beginning of this post spoke about winning youth…
A sample about daily life use of today’s technologies. If you look to the logo in the laptop, or if you just check the name of the TV series (quite popular by the way), there is not much more to say, but our hope that there is no further joke in choosing precisely “Carly” as the name of the main character in an attempt to play some sarcasm on former HP CEO Fiorina, who recently got one of the worst ROIs in her personal performance against republican senator Boxer, we heard.

Nice sense of humour…

Not really sure that Jobs is the apple of their eye to Gates & Pals, but we would certainly recommend them to keep an eye on that Apple and begin to learn something. Good manners to start with, we’d advise Big Ape in particular.

Technorati Tags: steve ballmer,steve jobs,bill gates,apple,microsoft,ipod,iphone,ipad,back to the mac,windows,windows phone 7,wp7,ios4

Clearer than CEOs

 

People can be much clearer than CEOs, spokespeople or PR specialists. Indeed…

Check the link in the pic for original source.

Caesar’s wife

 

Before becoming Consul of Rome, Julius Caesar was appointed Pontifex Maximus. He was appointed head of state religion. At that time, he was married to Pompeia, granddaughter of former dictator Cornelius Sulla. Thus, Pompeia was the head of state religion too, at least in matters related to women, in those years. Pompeia was Caesar’s second wife.

Some time after Caesar’s appointment to the job, Pompeia, as his wife, hosted the Festival of the “Bona Dea” (“the Good Goddess""), only for women attendance, to which men were forbidden to participate.

One of the start up politicians of the time, Publius Clodius Pulcher, disguised himself as a woman and entered the venue, apparently with the intention of seducing Mrs Caesar.

Not really producing any evidence of any wrongdoing, the episode was seized by Julius to demand divorce from Pompeia under the argumentation that “my wife ought not even to be under suspicion”. The real reason behind this break up and divorce were much more political, as politics of the time was mainly driven by family relationships worked out by marriages. Caesar was already deep into politics by that time. Historians strongly suggest he already had his next marriage (ie political alliance) in mind in his quest for power.

We have read the recent article in Fortune which analyses more in depth the story behind Mark Hurd ’s departure from HP a few months ago. Quite detailed and thorough.

Detailed enough to imagine a nice story.

In a given point in time, after having divorced its previous companion, the HP Board married Mark Hurd as the new CEO. In a certain point in time, Mark decided to have Festivals with other top executives from potential customers. Of course, those festivals were very exclusive, discreet, and reserved for the attendance of VIPs only.

A relatively unknown would-be starlet, Jodie Fisher, was hired by HP so as to greet guests to those festivals, and eventually supervise Mark’s agenda, ensuring he spent enough quality time with each person in the festival. Necessarily she herself spent a lot of time with Mark, with or without witnesses.

Not really producing any evidence of any violation of HP’s harassment policy, the episode was seized by the board to demand divorce from Mark… pity the HP PR spokespeople failed to make the historical parallelism. It would have been fun.

Still, though HP was not totally clear about the story, probably in the hope of letting it pass as fast as possible, smart journalists like those at Fortune open the door to details. A mere matter of trust, we may conclude after reading his article. The HP Board lost trust in Mark, even beofre anybody else did, even with no proof nor evidence at that time.

We agree that for any company, its CEO “ought not even to be under suspicion”. They in fact are an asset of the company they work for, aren’t they?

There is still, however, an interesting open question after the story. As the Festival’s episode was an excuse for Caesar to divorce Pompeia, a necessary step in his political career and quest for power, were there any quests for power behind the ousting of Hurd? We have no idea, but it would be interesting, in our opinion, to investigate a bit the likely candidates to marry the HP Boards at the time, and like enchanted frogs or toads, transform themselves into princesses or princes.

Technorati Tags: Mark Hurd,Carly Fiorina,HP,HP Way,Ray Lane,HP CEO,Management

 

A question of honor

 

Despite the sound title for this post, unfortunately we are not talking here about the known song by Sarah Brightman, are we? Wonderful performance in Las Vegas a few years ago, highly recommended to those who might appreciate good music.

No show in Las Vegas, but a bit further westward, we are afraid… up to Oakland, as readers do probably expect.

Despite SAP accepting to pay for the attorney’s fees nothing less that $120 million, jurors still have to determine the cost of damages to be paid to the oracle. At the moment, the oracle is claiming about $2.3 billion.

Today we got former Oracle’s President Charles Phillips testifying. Two highlights from his words today.

First, we has declared that the oracle’s software licensing would have been charged to SAP for a fee ranging from $3 to $4 billion. Other sources up that figure to $5 billion, but we will stick to Reuters. Well, we are certainly no experts in software fees, but even in the case that TomorrowNow’s full plan to take customers from the oracle’s had completely succeeded, it seems quite an unreasonable figure. We are not sure at all that the oracle would have had equivalent revenue for all those customers. Still, Mr. Phillips played the role he was expected to as a former top executive at the oracle, and the figure was thrown in to justify the $2.3 billion claim, and even make it look reasonable in front of jurors.

Second, and most important in our opinion, we would like to highlight the actual words by our Testosterone Champion: "There's sort of an honor among warriors here that we can compete fiercely, but we don't take each other's software," Phillips said.

Oh, puh-leeeze...!!!!!!!

In a gentlemen’s atmosphere, Testosterone Champion’s (TC for short) words would have been very welcome, would not have drawn any attention, and would have been understood as utterly polite. But since the beginning of the friction between the two software titans, back in 2007, we would not precisely compare it to a gentlemen’s duel in the times of Louis XIV, would we? Big Mouth

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Larry’s corroding and aggressive words, to begin with, followed by all the documents and evidence that has been published so far.

If we review TC’s  relatively recent past, it does not really look that the word “honor” is something he has not had to look up carefully before declaring anything today. More than 8 years in an extra-marital affair, and his move to IBM ally Infor (while all the buzz around Mark Hurd to the oracle’s and so forth) do not precisely prove he’s ever known what “honor” really means.

We do not take each other’s software, but we may take ourselves to hang around for years with women other than our own wife, or we eventually take Oracle’s confidential info and use it at Infor?

We do not really believe people are made of two personalities, one of which develops at work the other one at home. When we talk about individuals, we are basically talking of single entities that will basically behave the same way in either scenario. So if you betray your family, which should be sacred for you, are you telling me you will be able to keep loyal to a company that just pays you a salary, no matter how big, should the occasion arise? We are afraid we will not swallow that one, TC…

Maybe Apotheker was not the best choice for HP, and maybe Apotheker is not really the right witness to call, but TC is surely not the best example to preach “honor”, as Mark Hurd was not either a paradigm of the Standards of Business Conduct he preached for years at HP.

 

Questions? Ask Mark

 

The Chosen One has apparently declined to attend the oracle’s party… Too bad, we think.

People have a remarkable tendency to talk about famous individuals and celebrities, particularly if the gossip around is not related to an immaculate reputation. Mass media are made by people, and addressing people. They are not an exception. And if someone with the fame and reputation of Big Mouth Larry finger points someone in particular, that person is ultimately screwed.

HP is claiming that the Chosen One would be getting distracted from his new duties as CEO. Well, a guy born in Germany, educated in Israel, living in France, now moving to California, having been able to reach the CEO job at SAP, enjoying a team of executive assistants and backed by smart people leading the different businesses HP is made of, speaking five languages (one of them German, another one Hebrew, which is written “backwards”) can live with that for a few weeks, we think.

HP’s argument sounds weak. And a poor defense is sometimes equivalent to a strong offensive from the enemy. A weak defense is just providing ammunition to the Pontifex Maximus. Not showing up defaults to the Pontifex being right, and unwillingness to assume responsibilities after having left his former employer. We agree the Pontifex is not really proving elegant at all, and his style matches, in our opinion, much more the one you see in Gangs of New York than an educated discussion. But precisely for that, we would not advise to give a poor excuse to stay off.

If the Chosen One is innocent, he should actually leverage the opportunity to demonstrate his innocence, particularly in a case like this one, where Big Mouth Larry is providing a hell lot of free publicity.

Standing up as well can have the total opposite effect than the one insistently sought by the Pontifex Maximus: Strong leadership and principles. Something that, by the way, HP badly needs. If the Chosen One wants to show he cares for his new company, he should think of his reputation as an asset he is not the sole and single owner of. His reputation and his style is as well an asset of whatever company he works for in a given point in time.

Keeping the cleanest possible reputation is, therefore, something he accepted owing to his employer and his fellow employees since the moment he signed his contract and assumed responsibility. Step up, Léo. You are obliged to do so to yourself, your family, your business partners, your customers and, of course, the employees you lead. In case you had questions, Léo, you can always give Mark Hurd a call about the topic.

  

 

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Appeasement does not win wars

 

In 1938, Sir Neville Chamberlain, British Prime Minister, together with Edouard Daladier, French Premier, met with Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini in Munich, to discuss upon German demands prior to what later would become World War II. The agreement they came up with after a few days was reported by the British politician as “The Peace of Our Time”.

Basically, what the two Western representatives had done was giving in to every demand from the Germans. The main issue at the stake was the partition of Czechoslovakia, and, shamefully enough, the Czech representatives were not even allowed to participate in the meetings.

Sir Neville came back with a feeling of triumph that was as well backed by the majority of Great Britain. He was in fact welcome as almost a hero. The savior of peace.

you can read appeasement in his face…

Chamberlain’s future successor, Sir Winston Churchill, knew better. In a speech in the House of Commons, he regarded the agreement as a total defeat: “We have suffered a total and unmitigated defeat”, said he. He foresaw the consequences of the agreement. Most Historians actually cite the Munich Pact as the peak in the disastrous Appeasement Policy led by British and French governments. About one year after it had been signed, the world was at war.

Today it has been announced that SAP has agreed to pay for legal costs after the TomorrowNow trial. We talk of $120 million, which is not a small quantity just for legal expenses and fees. Consistent with SAP’s non-contest position, it could be imagined that SAP attorneys are trying to show goodwill after they admitted formally long ago they played inappropriate practices. As a side effect, they may be seeking to placate the beast they have in front of them, Big Mouth Larry, Pontifex Maximus from the oracle, and eventually get a better conclusion at the end of the trial.

Because it has to be well understood that these $120 million are just that: Legal costs. Nothing to do with the $2 billion the Pontifex demands upon business damages. That is precisely what the trial is about. And, at the moment, the Pontifex has not given in an inch in that demand, despite taking the $120 million, of course, like Germany did not change its plans after having got the Western approval for annexing the Sudetenland in 1938.

We will see on Friday, when the Pontifex is supposed to step in full majesty and glory into Court. Incidentally we should mention that he will as well have the advantage of having known about a theoretical deposition by Apotheker on previous Thursday. We are not sure about the benefits of not appearing personally.

We are not sure that SAP and Apotheker are 100% aware of what is going on. Appeasement might work when the ultimate objective of both parties is to prevent war, when war is more a threat than a really likely possibility. And as far as we know, we truly believe the oracle has set for aggressive war. Consciously giving in, as the Russians did in 1812 against Napoleon and 200 years later against the Germans, does only make sense if you simultaneously devastate the territory you give up. Certainly appeasement won’t help at all if your way of appeasement includes a $120 million cheque.

Appeasers do not win wars.

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The Chosen One is coming…

 

Well, well, well… The Chosen One will come, stand up and eventually fight.

Oh, yes… The One chosen by the Pontifex Maximus at the oracle, Big Mouth Larry, will finally step in and face the challenge from the Oracle.

Now, it is not yet known if The guy will appear personally, honoring the well known advertising campaign by HP, “Personal Again”, or if he will leverage new technologies and appear through video playback.

Accepting the challenge from the Pontifex Maximus is already a good step forward, and we sincerely hope he will appear personally. This would add to his credibility, and certainly impress jurors positively. As well, he would have the chance to answer any evidence against him the Pontifex has announced everywhere he has.

He has been personally attacked, and his appearance would give him an opportunity to turn the trial on his benefit.

Coming up in video screen, on the contrary, would give a poor impression, and would eventually look as if he just wanted to prove he is not a crook (with the permission of Richard Nixon) but ultimately refuses further defense. He would not be able to stand to any questioning, and the oracle’s lawyers would be in a strong position to eventually use the tape against him. They will, should they be given the slightest chance. Video would weaken his position, and strengthen the oracle’s claim for his cowardice. All the benefit of stepping up would be offset by the video.

We will see.

Still, Apotheker, the Pharmacist, the Potion-Maker, the Sorcerer whose reputation and credibility are at the stake, should have additional interest in going to Court. So far, it appears the SAP lawyers have not really made a good start, and like the other Sorcerer we all have seen in Fantasia (Disney), will have to clean up all the mess his theoretical defendants have made. These guys, full of good intentions like Apprentice Mickey Mouse, may have really lost control of the situation from the beginning, we are afraid.

 

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The Good Thief at Judgment Day

 

For those readers who have had traditional Christian education the character of Saint Dismas should not be unfamiliar. This Saint is as well known as The Good Thief. He was a thief who was crucified beside Christ, and before both of them died, he repented (last minute call indeed!) from his sins and previous life, and Jesus granted him a place in Heaven.

Despite having in front of them nothing less than Pontifex Maximus at the Oracle, playing the Good Thief does not seem the wisest strategy for the lawyers at SAP. At the moment, they have played quite a smart strategy, tying with the Oracle before the trial started, in our opinion, which could be considered a major achievement given they have admitted guilt about “inappropriate behavior” against the oracle.

As the trial is set to determine how much SAP should pay to Pontifex Maximus Big Mouth Larry, the fact that SAP started admitting $40 million in damages “because of their subsidiary’s ultimate failure to lure many customers from Oracle” is a piece of cake to the lethal lawyers that work for the oracle.

For God’s sake! Attempting to minimize damages by saying that as a thief you were doing a bad job does not minimize guilt at all. It basically means admitting that not only you have been a thief, but a stupid one. The potential damages, the intention after the theft, the plans remain the same. Only for this jurors should grant the oracle anything they ask for!. No wonder that in parallel as well SAP has offered another $120 million in concept of attorneys fees and costs. By the way, SAP is reported as having already accrued for as much as precisely $160 million for this trial. (Running out of batteries, SAP?)

Judgment Day has started… but let’s understand clearly that Judge Phyllis Hamilton is not God, and definitely it is not the moment to play the Good Thief role. (We may leave the Pontifex Maximus playing the role of Caiaphas, though, well escorted by Annas Hurd…)

Footnote: Hermione, this one’s for you too… you know why, don’t you?

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Utterly unfair

 

People like money. People want money. In the name of money, crime has flourished here and there. So who would be surprised to read that people want “their” money back? This is applicable to HP employees, and to anybody else in the world, whether they are employees, self entrepreneurs of retirees.

It seems quite obvious a conclusion. Still, it deserves some comments, as the way this has been written looks a bit too simple a view.

We think they deserve it. We agree with the conclusions at the end of the article, but not for the same simplistic rationale. The reference article just says that since economical results for HP have recovered, salaries should be restored and that’s it.As well, the article generalizes too much.

If we look to the official memo to employees at HP, we see a couple of items that have not been explained much in detail in the online report:

First: Salary reductions were not applied to total earnings by employees with variable salary. Just to base pay. What means that the cut was smaller than it looked.

Second: As these cuts have to be compliant with local regulations should there be any, in many countries in the world these reductions are simply non-effective, as local legislation protects salaries in a way that they cannot be reduced even if the consent of the employee is granted.

We are not going to discuss that cutting salaries was not a technically correct measure. It was one of the valid choices HP had to address the economical situation of the time. Indeed it was. And, as long as it complied with local regulations, it was legal to use it.

Now, having said this, we will try to go beyond, and imagine the ultimate target. The guys deciding to take this option (reduce salaries) were guys whose total earning from HP mainly came not via their own base salaries, but proportional to the value of shares. So increasing the value of the shares was their primary target. Not, as presented to the employees, was it about competitiveness and so forth.

There is only one way to increase share value significantly in the short term: Increasing profits. To increase profits, there are only to ways to do it: Either increasing revenue beyond expectations keeping costs in check, or to reduce costs significantly. From these two possibilities, it is kind of obvious that the second one is the easiest.

We believe this was the ultimate intention of the board. Just make sure the market understood they were slashing costs, and therefore increase shares value. Nothing else.

We base our opinion on the wording of the communication to HP’s rank and file employees. Messy, at some point, and potentially unclear for the average employee, who has by no means the slightest individual influence in results, and gets the explanations under the apparent “share-of-the-pain” by managers, who pretend their salaries’ cuts are even bigger than theirs.

Average employees might get lost in all the technical explanations, but what they know is that their cost of living is not paid with percentages. The greengrocer’s, the butcher’s, utilities’, insurance, schooling for kids and a long list of daily expenses are not paid on percentages, but on counting dollars. And though a 20% cut on Top execs base salary may sound big, if (this is a big “if” indeed) shares value performance means a massive payment to them, the ultimate impact is ridiculous in top exec’s earnings. As documented before, a 20% cut in former HP CEO Hurd’s earnings in 2009 roughly meant $290,000 out of more than $42,000,000, what basically proves the point. Who would care for 20% of base salary, or even 100%, if shares value can mean 30 times as much?

Not elegant at all. It simply cannot be imagined that such execs dare that much to add insult to injury. At the end, it could be even thought that they are making their millions not at the expense of competition, or by fair play in the market. They were making their earnings out of employees that supposedly are always declared to be “the most important asset” in the company whatsoever. But nothing different should have been expected, we’d say if we review recent posts from ours too.

The good news for HP? Léo Apotheker could not have found a better opportunity in the beginning of his tenure to gain a solid support basis from his more than 300,000 troops.

The skeptical view? Léo Apotheker’s income is based on shares value as much as Hurd’s was. What basically means he could be driving HP the same way as Hurd did.

The bad news? If things went bad for HP, it would behave like any other company does when targets are not met: “The most valuable assets” are sold out.

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A matter of faith

 

We have just been aware of the first commercial delivered by Microsoft to promote its Windows Phone 7 smartphone.

Really: The new advertising campaign by MS, on behalf of its WP7 operating system for smartphones.

When we watched it, the first impression we got was that it could not be a better match for Microsoft’s image. They have taken a lot of money to produce a technically correct ad, and have compressed to many things to try to deliver a simple message.

Typical from Microsoft: Too much complication to express something simple, too many taglines to deliver a theoretical breakthrough.

The message was much simpler: In theory, WP7 will deliver a user experience that will avoid situations like the ones depicted in the commercial.

The communication: Complicated, difficult to understand, and really needs time and many replays to get the message through.

The tagline: As in every Microsoft product, 90% of it is redundant and/or useless, 5% could be useful or valid, and the remaining 5% is to pay for the campaigns that will try to justify the previous two. Take a look to any Apple commercial: Simple, concise, and to the point. See samples here, and here, and here.

Now, having said this, the next thing that pops in our minds is: If WP7 is going to be so different that it will fade away other already proven and well established alternatives, why and how is it going to make that shift in the market happen?

The communication miserably fails to achieve this. It is a matter of faith in them what this add is asking customers to make, just because it is Microsoft.

We have all seen situations like the ones describes in the add. And many of us have even starred them, we must admit. It is not, however, because of the phone itself. It’s not because of its operating system. Curiously enough, the add targets mainly Blackberries for some reason, and we’ll come back to this later. It is the contents what matters, it is about all the things we now can do or access to just by having a smartphone. And from a content perspective, and from a features point of view that Microsoft pathetically challenges the faith they are demanding from their fans, if there are any left. Too late, too featureless for a bride in a wedding, we said a few days ago.

Back to Blackberries… what is Microsoft’s fixation with these guys? No iPhones, no Symbians, no Androids. Just Blackberries. But all of them are really blocking the door to the WP7s. It could be that Steve Ballmer does not want to be like George Bernard Shaw inviting Winston Churchill to one of his grand openings once. Mr. Shaw sent two tickets to sir Winston with a note that said “I am presenting a new play, and I would be very glad to have your attendance. I am sending two tickets so you may come with a friend, should you have any.” To what sir Winton elegantly replied: “I appreciate the honor, but state matter make it impossible for me to attend,. I shall gladly attend a second performance, in case there is any.”

 

We could imagine Apple, Google or Nokia execs receiving notes from Steve Ballmer with sample units of WP7 and notes saying something like “We would appreciate your feedback and opinion about the new operating system WP7, as this is going to make people forget about their current phones. We send several units in case you would like to request a friend to help you using them, in case you have any.” To what Jobs, Elop and Eric Schmidt could easily reply: “Too busy counting revenue and profits from our smartphone divisions; impossible to care for WP7 right now, but we will gladly review version 2.0 should it ever exist.”

 

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