ForbesOnTech

Carl Icahn Raider of the Lost Ark-- Silicon Valley Takeovers Can Happen

Silicon Valley has always been unique. Entrepreneurs have been free to follow their dreams—as long as they coincided with the same path to liquidity as that of their venture capital backers.

But its gene pool lacks much of the fresh talent from outside northern California that marks other industrial centers. There’s almost nothing in the history of Silicon Valley and its entrepreneurs that makes me believe any company—most of all Yahoo—can survive a proxy fight like the looming battle between Jerry Yang and Carl Icahn.

Yahoo may be the best example in Silicon Valley of how not to grow a company.  In it’s short history, it’s never really been able to create a top notch brand and it’s become a revolving door for talent that’s moves laterally not upward. Yahoo is an artifact from an earlier age; a time when start-ups thought they would become content kings or giant search engine/ information aggregators. Along the way Yahoo lost its focus and it has jumped from haphazardly through a variety of business models, never quite succeeding at anything it tried. Yahoo has become yesterday’s brioche and it really doesn’t appear  there’s much that can save it.

To make my point try this: Every time you hear the name “Yahoo” think “Excite@Home.”  Where is this company today? It’s little more than a footnote and absent a near divine miracle, I think Yahoo is doomed to become a subordinate entry in the same footnote list as Excite@home.

But if nothing else, the unfolding story of Yahoo should increase the pucker factor for entrepreneurs and their investors. Until now the Valley has escaped predatory investors and take-over kings.  But if things are changing Carl Icahn may just be the lead predator in a pack of hungry foxes looking at some of Silicon Valley’s cash plump chickens.  Do I think Donald trump is going to invade the Valley anytime soon?  Hell no. But there are some companies that have enough cash to make them prime targets.

Take a second and imagine Apple if Steve Jobs’ health were to crash.  (Note, I give Jobs and Apple high marks for management of Steve Job’s brief fight with Pancreatic cancer that affected the company’s stock not a whit). If there were a change in Job’s health I believe Apple’s stock price would drop and consumer confidence in the brand would tumble. Add to this Apple’s image as “only one person can manage the beast so we don’t have a strong number two” and you have the picture of a company that could be taken over.

Who would do this? There are two obvious candidates in Silicon Valley—Larry Ellison’s Oracle or Google.

All of this is pure conjecture on my part and I’m not saying it would happen, I’m just noting that takeovers of technology companies are possible and could happen, as, long as the right celestial tumblers line up and the lock that’s heretofore stopped corporate raiders in Silicon Valley pops open.—Jim Forbes 05/17/2008.

Gates Foundation Commits to Basic Ag Science Funding-- Aim Is Small Farms in Developing Countries

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Moves Fund Research in Small Scale Farming

"If we are serious about ending extreme hunger and poverty around the world, we must be serious about transforming agriculture for small farmers, most of whom are women," Gates said.CNN story here

Once again, Bill Gates finds a base level solution providing strong vectors that help solve many key problems. In this case it’s a commitment to work on solving world hunger by improving small farm agrcutural methods in developing countries.

If you want to build, stronger, smarter citizens you must firzt have a basic level of agrculture technology to provide enough sufficient nutritional and caloric intake. Funding specialized research into agricultural technologies and products as well as educational institutions that enable all of this is an important evolutionary step in these overall processes.

In looking around at topics in the coming conference season, I was struck by Gates’ position on funding agriculture in developing countries. How does this compare in  importance to say a discussion of technology opportunities in Sharan Africa, West Africa or the Horn of Africa? Before you have techno0logy centers, you need people who are capable of feeding themselves and producing basic surplusses.

        Without such basic ingredients in developing countries you have conditions leading to wars over agriculturally or water rich territories or famine on a bibical scale.

The importance of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation funding agricultural research for small farms in developing countries?

        Some things are so self evident they need not be argued.

        That’s my screed for the week—Jim Forbes 01/25/2008

(mandatory disclosure. I am a graduate of an agricultural  and technology college as well as the direct descendant of female farmer from Western Colorado. That woman, my maternal grandmother, Ella Sherrod Forbes,  lost her husband to anthrax, then moved her family to California but instilled a love of the land and agriculture that exists in her lineage to this day.jmf)

Part III Wild Land Fire Safety-- It Begins At Home

San Diego Fire Blog Part III

Thoughts On the Edge of the Fire Pit

Like a lot of retiring boomers, I looked forward to selling my over priced house near where I worked (Silicon Valley) and getting a place in the country with a large oak tree for my hammock, and maybe a view out my breakfast nook of a spotted fawn hidden behind green leaves and red brown bark. And while I was at it, maybe I’d plant a tangy Eucalyptus or two for shade and grow my own grapes for artisan crafted big red wines.

Sounds idyllic, right?

What I’ve just described is literally the plans for an organic crematorium.

            Sorry for the contrived lead but after five days of fires on all four sides I wanted to write about something that I was taught back in elementary school in Azusa, CA;

Fire Safety When you live on the Edge of Wild Lands

            When I moved to this house I noticed a previous owner had used indigenous California plants to accentuate his house and lawn. Using native plants for landscaping was quite the trend in the early Seventies, when my house was built.

            The problem with that when you live on the edge of wild lands is that native drought resistant brush = chaparral. Chaparral is made up of three distinct plants that grow wild i what we jokingly call “national forests.” in California  Those plants are mesquite, ornamental madrone (which is actually a type of mesquite), scrub oak and poison oak. Each of those plants has two interesting characteristics: while very much able to survive droughts, their branches and leaves dry up; And, they burn hot enough to melt metal and destroy concrete.

            Don’t believe me, ask the 2,000 or so residents of Oakland Hills who returned after being evacuated to find homes –including the concrete slabs they were built on—completely and utterly burned.

            I have a simple rule about chaparral anywhere near my house.  I use a tractor to pull it out by its roots. A Wind driven, chaparral fueled, fire generates enormous amounts of burning embers that can travel a mile or so to start new spot fires.  Although my house was not damaged in the Witch Creek fire here in Escondido, five houses up the street at the base of my hill burned to their foundations.

            And on early Tuesday I got a lttle freaked when I thought I smelled hot plastic. As soon as I recognized the smell I jumped up, yelled “Holy Shit,. The boat!” I jogged out to the boat port, the oor got stronger and I looked closely at its deck. Right there where it’s gas tank normally sits but which I removed earlier, was a small melted depression with a  black piece of charcoal in the middle. I don’t have a degree in fire science, but I recognized the piece of charcoal as being manzanita. The closest surviving stand of which is two blocks away.

            As I kid, growing up in Azusa, I learned about the dangers of chaparral fires in the fourth and fifth grades. At about the same time they warned us never to play with blasting caps or railroad torpedo signaling devices. I’ve never forgotten those lessons, but judging from the damage I’ve seen on the news here in San Diego, basic wild land fire safety is no longer taught in public or private schools.

            It should be.

            Two of my best friends live today in the Gold Country in El Dorado County near Sacramento. Both have untended chaparral near their houses. I suspect that the next time I go up to visit, I’ll rent a tractor, bull doze and remove their stands of crematory fuel.

            I believe that the best approach to fire safety around my house is a nice lawn and water filled succulents, I don’t mind mowing my lawn but I do mind losing my house to a fire. When I realized that the nearby hills could burn this week— I raked, bagged up and removed my compost pile and took a long hard look at the properties that adjoin my mountaintop. I began saturating the citrus and avocado trees and got rid of the flammable detritus nesting against the fence that separates my neighbor’s untended five-acre field from my lot.

            The whole process took only abot four hours and afterwards I was pretty satisfied that my place, and I, was safe.

            I try to respect my neighbors. But their idea of a picturesque view that includes manzanita hedges and light tan, dried wild wheat, makes me think of me as a charcoaled curled up hot dog sizzling on a BBQ.

            Prior to the fire season last year, I took my tractor to my neighbor’s field and cleared a 200-foot fire break on her side of the property. She didn’t like it and said that she probably had “liability issues” with my using the tractor to clear the field to bare mineral earth.

            I mentioned that if I burned because of her untended fire trap field, my heirs and assignees could probably “turn her field into a nice 15-home development, yielding a couple of million in profits!”

            She took my point and I’ve since cut her field twice, for free. The neighbor and I are on very good terms today. I drop of an occasional bag of yellowtail or halibut steaks and try to give her strawberries from my patch. We laugh about my cutting her field the first time and she’s come around on fire safety.

            I love living on the edge of wild lands a great deal. But living here involves stewardship of the land and an understanding of basic fire safety.

            My final thought is about something that you see down here in upscale communities that I really don’t get. Shake shingle roofing.

Good God, why not just douse your house in nitro methane and throw a road flare on it. That anyone would have a shake roof after the 2003 fire is beyond my comprehension. And that the county building and fire departments have not cited home owners with flammable shake roofs is a condition I just don’t understand.

            Fire takes three things: fuel, air and heat.  Reduce the impact of any one of its three components and you live another day.  Enhance key elements of the fire triangle like fuel or heat and you can lose your home, your life, and really hurt your loved ones.

I have to mention my respect and admiration for the wild lands firefighters of the State of California and the USDA’s Forestry Service hotshot crews. Houses and lives have been lost but without their gritty efforts this fire season could have been much worse.

            And, to the volunteers of the Calvan Christian High School who volunteered to set up an emergency overflow evacuation center here in Escondido you reinforced my respect for all people of faith. You also made a big difference for several thousand of your fellow residents here in town.

Jim “Joad”  Forbes from smoky Escondido on 10/26/2007. Now back to blogging about portable computing, organic gardening, technology and fishing at the same bat channel and the same bat time.

What Makes a Good Blogger Link?

It’s a hoot to see what kind of traffic a particular blog post will bring, particularly if one of my lame posts gets linked from somewhere else.

My all time best draw so far has been something I wrote on finding an old Porsche tractor for sale in a tiny avocado-centric village near my home. That particular post drove people to my site by the thousands over a two-week period. And I still get almost a hundred hits a week from people looking for information on Porsche tractors.

This site that drove all the traffic surprised me. It was a tractor collector’s link on John Deere’s site, www.JohnDeere.com. When I wrote the post on that old tractor, I was vaguely aware of the cult of antique tractors. If you don’t believe that there are a lot of people out there with a similar interest go to eBay and search on “antique tractor.”

All of t his is an intro to a post about link baiting at www.scripting.com. In an entry thats’ up today, Dave Winer writes about what will drive him to post a link, and what keeps him from not linking to a site. I admire Dave’s style and his commentary. His site is one of the first ones I read every morning, and he’s driven a lot of traffic to my site (About 400 since 4 a.m. this morning). Dave’s piece is an excellent primer on when to link and when to pass on the opportunity. It’s here.

I”ve benefited a lot from the “Daves” in my blogging, Churbuck and Winer. Both have linked to me and  I’ve learned a lot about blogging from both people.  What  I really admire though is that neither have ever done posted gratuitous links in their blogs.  Recently, PR people asking me to link to their clients in my blog have besieged me. I find this practice very annoying.

Well, I just saw the fishmobile coming down the road from the lake near my house.  I’m think I’m g goingv to go throw some flies at the dazed trout.  Jim Forbes, 4/27/2007.

HP Hires New Ethics Officer-- I Guess We Can Breathe Now

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/15748600.htm

A new shoe quietly dropped this week in the continuing saga of the HP Pretexting Investigation.

From today's San Jose Mercury:

"Hewlett-Packard, moving to repair damage caused by its discredited spy operation, has brought in a new executive to serve as an ethics adviser to Chief Executive Mark Hurd.

Attorney Jon Hoak was named vice president and chief ethics and compliance officer, the Palo Alto computer and printer giant announced Thursday. Hoak previously was general counsel for more than a decade at NCR, working under Hurd who was CEO at NCR.

Hoak's title at HP represents an upgrade in the role of the ethics officer, an HP spokesman said. Previously, the top ethics official was Kevin Hunsaker, who had been director of ethics and played a central role in HP's controversial spying operation.

Hunsaker was fired from HP after its investigation into a breach of boardroom confidentiality -- and the tactics used by HP investigators -- erupted into a national scandal over privacy. After refusing to resign, Hunsaker was dismissed and faces criminal charges along with former HP Chairwoman Patricia Dunn and three outside contractors. He has maintained his innocence."

Now that Hurd has hired a new ethics officer i suppose life can go on at HP's headquarter's on Hanover Street in Palo Alto.On reading the story this morning my first reaction was to give thanks that HP had not hired former Nixon plumber, G. Gordon Liddy for the job, or my other dark horse candidate, PBS' ethics man about town Bill Moyers.

Well until defendants show up in federal court in northern California using briefcases to obscure their faces, i've said all I want to about the investigation.

Besides, I have something nice to say about  HP in a later post.---Jim Forbes, on 10/13/2006 getting power tools put away and my tractor tarped before the Fall rains start.

The HP Affair So Far--Winners and Losers

Last night, I watched with wry amusement CBS' "60 Minutes" which featured back to back interviews with Patricia Dunn and Carly Fiorina. The latest installment in what may go down in history as one of the blackest marks in the history of Silicon Valley was entertaining and informative.

What was entertaining was reporter Lesley Stahl's eyebrow wrenching question  "What Went Wrong" to Ms Dunn as well as Ms Dunn's statement high in the interview that she didn't know whether or not she was going likely to be taken away in handcuffs.

Recounting the substanceof last night's segment isn't the point of this entry. Rather, I wanted to point out the winners and losers in last night's episode of HP  Torn Open.

To much of the world Ms Dunn now has a face. It's that of a courageous woman who has battled cancer to a draw twice before but now faces an uneven battle with Level 4 ovarian cancer-- a fact that didn't come out until 11 minutes into the interview. Ms Dunn did an incredible job of explaining the Byzantine board room politics she faced and the challenges to management that leakers present, to a company and to the sanctity of a board of directors meeting. She also was able to put a face on someone she apparently sees as a villain in this melodrama--alpha dog venture capitalist Tom Perkins, whose abrupt resignation was the first beacon in this drama.

Score one for Patty Dunn, although the value of this round is likely to be steeply discounted by the time this case gets a hearing in the California Courts.

I also give Ms Dunn considerable credit for trying to distance herself from the investigation by outside agencies of reporters, other board members and HP employees. That in itself helped her to score a win in this first (or depending on how you count them)Second Act of the HP drama.

The other real winner in last night's segment was Carly Fiorina, ,whose book about her tenure at HP goes on sale later this morning. What was very clear in 60 Minutes interview with Fiorina was that she's found some peace of mind since her firing by the board.  More than segment with Ms Dunn, Carly Fiorina's interview pointed out how dysfunctional HP has become, and how reluctant the company's managers were to deviate from the "HP Way." The company's first female chairman scored a knockout with her brief discussion of the negative effects of toxic board members.

The part of the villain in last nights segment on the two women who have been HP's board chairpersons was former board member and leading Silicon Valley Venture capitalist, Tom Perkins, who was unavailable for comment because he was at sea sailing his boat (described by Ms Stall as the world's most expensive private yacht.). Patty Dunn said Perkins was close to HP's board room leaker and described his huffy departure from the board. She also noted that the board voted to accept his resignation in record time and rapidly moved on to other business.

What's most apparent in the very public disclosures about HP's pretexting investigation are two important points:

1. Executive management could not be counted on to exercise critical thinking skills and as a result hazarded the company and its brands.

2. The HP Way may be out of synch with today's fast track executives who are more focused on stock prices than on product development or brand enhancement. Bracing your feet, resisting change and chanting "that's not the way we do things here, It's not the HP Way!" Is a surefire method to suborn management and endanger a company.

3. Nepotism doesn't work. Founder's progeny in board positions may be great inroads for philanthropic entities, but unless they're qualified to actually run a division, or a company, they are little more than window dressing to an increasingly astute skeptical world.

4. HP needs to better identify potential leaders brought into the company. It's Board should reach out and find new consultants for executive staffing and security.  Their failure in this specific area is glaring.  Blaming senior HP managers doesn't cut it. HP had tremendous stature among stock holders and the general public.  Such audiences have a right to expect that board-level executives know right from wrong and moral from immoral. When a board member has to call a law clerk to see if something is legal or illegal, something is very wrong. Like Nixonian wrong.

Finally, there are two real losers in this battle. The HP brand and the company itself.

More than at any other time in its long history, HP needs to get back on track. Executives at this company need to pull together now to design new products for mass and specialty markets alike.

There was a time in the not-so-distant past when HP lead the way in technology design, innovation and implementation. Three of the products on my "All Time Greatest List" carry the HP brand. Those products are a scientific/technical calculator, an ultra compact notebook (the original OmniBooks)that has yet to be equaled, and a laser printer line.

To survive, HP needs to get back on track and spend more time working on new technologies and less time on damage control.

For the moment, I've stopped buying HP products, despite my need to replace a less than two-year old  17-inch screen Pavilion 7000 Series 17-inch notebook which croaked inopportunely this weekend. As much as I'd like to replace this notebook with another HP product, I won't. The reason is simple, the company has (I hope) temporarily lost its focus.

But there is a productive public relations path HP can take to regain some limelight.  That trail leads to Texas where the former Compaq organization-- now a member of the HP family, can wipe the dust off its products and technologies and hold them up in the bright southwestern sun.

But right now, i hear the coyotes loudly baying. I'm not sure, but the noise could be drifting down from Northern California near HP's corporate offices, or from down in the corner of my orchard here in rural Northern San Diego County. Either way, My dog Perro hears it too and is nestled securely in my bed, awaiting my return--Jim Forbes very early in the morning on 10/09/2006.

(Mandatory disclosure statement:  I own no stock in HP, but have purchased numerous HP products over the years and while working as an editor reviewed at least 15 notebook and desktop computers made and sold by HP.)

Maste of the Universe vs. Real World Small Business--Oh the Horror!

I’ve used my blog a couple of times to pitch the idea of small business moving to the web. It seems like such a natural idea. And when it's done right, it builds a tight bond between the customer and the business. My online relationship with Catalpa nursery is one example.  This smallish

New Jersey

nursery supplies me with exotic seeds (Havana Presidential Tobacco) which I grow down in my lower garden as an insect barrier. When I’ve had a problem with infertile seeds, Catalpa has been quick to supply new seeds and very good information on how they should be started. This small business gets how to use the web and understands customer service.

And it's not like I'm some huge customer. I think I've spent all of $60 with Catalpa, but they treat me like I'm the chairman of some agricultural cooperative. Not all small businesses are capable of offering great customer service, even though they may have great basic functionality on their web sites.

Truth is, I have pretty low expectations about small business web ventures and I believe that customer service is something you get better at over time.

Not every one, however, is quite as forgiving as I am.

Imagine how angry someone who has grown accustomed to most companies they deal with literally bending over backward to gain their favor when they encounter an inexperienced small business with a web component. GO just a step further and imagine how annoyed a low-level employee of that small business would be when some Master of the Universe unhappy with his experience says "I'll blog this experience with your company."

Whoa! I betcha they were quivering in their Nikes over that promise.

Now go to Stew Alsop's blog: http://salsop.typepad.com/smallthoughts/ and read about the problems he had going to his house in Santa Fe, which started with his being seated in the back of a plane next to an enormous woman and then having a tussle with a shuttle service's clerk/dispatcher.

Poor Stew is use to getting first class service and now he has to deal with someone who’s unmoved by his threat to write a negative blog post about his experience. Oh the horror!

Right off the top, I've avoided using my blog as an instrument of retribution. I've taken some shots at companies; notably Apple and Dell, but I've never made it personal. When I'm critical, it's been to suggest and note cause an effect. It's not about "well, I use my pen to vent and get even."

One of the things I really dislike about the blogosphere today is the growing number of on-line urine fests. They do little more, i believe, than show a lack of maturity or an understanding. In this medium, it’s one on one, not who you are and what your Technorati ranking is.

Frankly I don’t think anyone cares where you are on a Technorati list, although when it comes to .22 rat shot, I rule. How sad is that?

But it is fun to watch what happens when a Master of the Universe given their due in the real world, outside of technology and

Silicon Valley

. Everyone needs a “welcome to the real world moment,” even venture capitalists and retired technology journalists--Plain old retired Jim Forbes from Walla Walla, Washington, wirelessly via an EvDo modem equipped itty bitty ThinkPad X60 on 08/19/2006

Will Hell Freeze Over--Cell Phones to Supplant PCs?

http://news.com.com/Does+cell+phones+impact+outweigh+PCs/2100-1041_3-6097950.html?tag=html.alert

I get a hoot every time some esteemed pundit says "cell phones will overtake PCs . It makes me laugh, especially when they say handsets have replaced the wristwatch and some cameras. Then they go off into offshore Fantasy world, pointing out how cell phones have replaced wallets and eliminated the need to carry cash....

Yeah, right. In Japan, parts of Asia and in northern Europe and other places where Bluetooth is used for things other than Borg headsets, in-car cell phone connections (providing you can get your address book to work with your car's bluetooth system.

But guess what? The US market isn't like Japan. Most US consumers would suffer cardiac arest if they got a phone bill like the ones Japanese carriers routinely send their cell phone subscribers (which includes all their cell phone-initiated transactions and various surcharges as well as air-time voice and texting charges). Furthermore, the Japanese cellular and US markets don't share a lot in common.

It's very true that in Japan cell phones are much more an important part of their culture   and that this technology is much more important to consumers in Nippon than PC technology. To a US technologist, Japan's cell phone and networks are extremely futuristic. But the assumption that the US market attributes will match that of the Japanese market just isn't based in reality.

TO begin with the infrastructure in Japan is years ahead of that in the US. Billing for consumer purchases initiated by Bluetooth cell phone hand sets is done by the cellular carrier. The consumer sees one bill at the end of the month, not a basketful of paper.  Also, the purchase of third party products like phone based games is handled though the cellular carrier. Moreover, Japanese consumers upgrade their phones to take advantage of new technologies much more often than US consumers. Also, Japanese cellular subscribers are very driven by the latest fashions and trends, traits that don't overlay the US market, where cell phones are often kept for two years or more.

Anecdotally, none of the US startups tring to eek out a buck with cell phone game business models hav yet to generate returns. Companies like MForm and Digital Chocolate have recieved considerable funding but are still a long ways from paying back on their investments. Also, over the last 10 years there's been no shortage of start-ups come and go in the cell phone services category.

Are there lots of people who use their cell phones to tell time? You bet there are. Are there legions of people who use their cell phones to buy goods and services? absolutely. There's just not many of them in the US market, yet. But this will change by 2010. Before it does, however Bluetooth usage will have to become a more integral part of  US consumer behavior.(More on this later this week here)

Will the cell phone supplant personal computers here in the US?  Not for at least a decade. US cell phone networks have been designed largely for voice, not data. Data (an expensive option in US cell phone markets today) is what drives emerging non-traditional cell phone usage . It's data and acceptance of new compelling ways to use a handset that will cause the cell phone to supplant the PC in consumer markets, not pedictions by futurists, entrepreneurs or venture capitalist.

And what the heck, unless your a really sharp technologist who blogs using a Treo 650 on a helicopter on your way to the best golf match in the country, how ya gonna blog on a cell phone-- Cranky old Jim Forbes on a 90 degree evening waiting for a cool ocean breeze to wash over my little mountain here next to the southern California coast. 07/24/2006

Adios BillG-- you were relevant and fun

Nothing goes on forever, not Bill Gates at Microsoft, not even inshore tuna runs just beyond La Jolla Beach.

Microsoft without Bill Gates is going to be a much different place and probably a much more aggressive competitor. I'm an unashamed Microsoft supporter. Over the last 20 years I've seen numerous competitiors demonize Gates and Microsoft while they jump up and down saying "Our product is better and Microsoft is an unfair competitor."

And the noise level from the collective crybaby dot coms drowned out an important fact. Business may be fun, but making a profit for your stock holders, employees and invstors is a serious undertaking. If you're not turning a profit, don't expect to be taken seriously. And only  a few of the companies who cried they were being crushed by Microsoft were profitable. I've always laughed at industry conferences when some temporary luminary would stand up and attack Gates, as if he ran the entire company by himself. Or when they tried to project an image that "our technology is so damned good and we're so bright, we can kill Microsoft and they know it."

Case in Point, Netscape:

Hey, where's Netscape today?  oh that's right, they were broken up, their capital equipment was sold at auction and much of their technology is at AOL or Sun.

And what put Netsacpe on the slippery slope to hell?

As much as Netscapes former executives, backers and consultants would have you believe that it was Gates,  pitchfork in one hand, swishing competitors aside with swipes of his mighty pointed tail and then stomping on them with mighty kicks from his cloven heels, that killed them. More often that's pretty far from the truth.  Most often companies that wanted to compete against and overtake Microsoft lost the race due o numerous bad decisions.

Microsoft didn't kill Netscape, flawed decisions did. One of mya favorite Netscape decisions was one made at the highest levels of the company to release  a browser that included  word processor, spreadsheet and presentation graphics modules (all of which are core Microsoft revenue makers. Netscape execs and marketing staff though they would topple Microsoft and that there plans to turn Netscape into an online commerce giant  would give them added street cred.

All that Netscape's failed strategies did though was force Bill Gates to do something he's the best in the world at-- strategic mid- and long-term planning. Gates launched his strategy, Netscape died and the rest is history.  but it wasan't Gates that slew Netscape, it was the company's own actions.

For many years I would sit through meeting after meeting with start-ups laden with one-time Netscape managers. Repeatedly I would hear about how evil Microsoft and Bill Gates were. It r eally pissed me off, because the entrepreneurs had been blinded by drinking their own poisonous KoolAid. I always wanted to ask the management teams of startups loaded with ex Netscapers, if "They could blow up their new company faster than they did Netscape."

I never asked the question, but I thought a lot about it. and in the following years all but a couple of those start-ups have gone fins up, victims of bad business plans that thought clicks would be equal to dollars, or which launched unproven technology or which based their business on solutions for which there were no real immediate problems. That's not a mistake Bill Gates made very often, although I still smile when I think about Microsoft BOB and other attempts by the company to implement social interfaces.

What gets forgotten in discusisons about Microsoft is a simple proposition-- millions of people and legions os businessses have put their faith in the company by purchasing and using its products.It's been Bill Gates, his vision, and his willingness to force the company into spending money to turn R&D projects into products that's been a driving force at Microsoft.

There's another side of Gates I often think of. And this image brings me into this story. Over the years, I've done numerous interviews with Gates, sometimes they were formal, other times they came about as a result of my improbably being near him in a public or semi-public setting. Even when it seems like he's been physically uncomfortable, he's always engaging and takes the time to provide direct and expanded answers to questions. He's fun to talk to and he doesn't talk down. If he thinks you may not understand something, he provides logical explanations.  And he's not above admitting he made a mistake. Or laughing at himself.

If you've never seen them, make an effort to view anhy of the severalMicrosoft parody videos that Microsot made and privately showed o small audiences in the late 1990's.  My all time favorite is one that's a send-up of an infomercial starring Bill Gates called Web of Wealth. i give it two thumbs up.

But even in the formal setting of an interview in his office, with PR minders at hand, it's hard not to see the personal side of Gates.  He has a nice desk, that's often cluttered with the business at hand. But one of the first things i've always noticed about his office is the credenza bewhind his desk, on which sit numerous snapshots of his children, wife, sisters, mother and father and momentos of his private life.  It's the contents of credenza that speaks the loudest about citizen Gates, his values and what he may do going forward.

I can't help but be impressed by Gates' determination to use his personal fortune and very public image to help provide solutions for vey real problems for current and future citizen's of the world. There have been very few people in the world of technology who have dedicated their fortunes and lives to issues as important as those being addressed by the William and Melinda Gates Foundation.

The only thing that comes to my mind, that's even close,  is what Jim Barkesdale did for the schools and students of his native Mississippi.

I wish more technologists would be like Gates or Jim Barksdale, take a look around the world or their home regions and invest in solutions to real problems. But I'm not going to hold my breath for anyone to even come close to what Bill Gates can and will do. Too many of our technologists are more invested in the big score-- finding a solution to the one big problem rather than many solutions to many small problems that cummulaitvely have a huge impact on our lives.--Jim Forbes, from rural,northern, San Diego County.

Larry Ellison Wants To Bring Home America Cup

I have a confession of sorts: In the world of things that plow through the water,stopping infrequently to sacrifice a defenseless anchovy in the hopes of hooking something bigger, I'm called a "stink potter."  That is to say  that I use fossil fuel (gasp!) to push my boat about the better known fishing spots here on the southwest corner of 'Merika.  But wait, there's more: I love the symmetry, efficiency and bliss of sailing. Running on a long reach in a following sea, listening to a sail boat hiss through the water and the canvas snap in response to zephyrs as wind cools my sun savaged face, is my idea of bliss.

A long time ago, i pictured myself in my retirement years, ghosting quietly up to a mooring buoy in Avalon harbor on Catalina Island, looking skyward at gulls wheeling, diving and pooping freely on the shiny teak decks of my imaginary sloop.  Hell, I even dreamed I'd do a TransPac transit or two and make my way unburdened by cares to Southeast Asia, or the South Pacific in this dream boat.  But things turned out differently. 

My boat is an fisherman from it's raised bow, past its stout center console and two-scoop bait tank, ending to my oh-so reliable 40 horsepower Suzuki four stroke outboard. It fulfills my need to imagine myself as an over-50 pirate ranging the California Coast and it satisfies this burning desire to fish where no one else has a line in the water. On the sea, I find that elusive "one clear" moment, that keeps me on an even keel.

But, I still haven't lost my love of sail. That's why I follow off shore regattas and the ultimate race for upscale American rag baggers with more money than sense-- the America Cup.

America Cup boats are to sailing what a Porsche 917 was to Le Mans road racing.  Designed to  slip through the water with a minimum of drag and rigged with sails that are actually airfoils, America Cup racers are the absolute pinnacle of marine architecture.

One of the entries in the forthcoming heats that lead to a coveted berth in the America Cup race in Barcelona, Spain, next year, was unveiled today this week in San Francisco. The boat is sponsored jointly by BMW and Oracle. Here's the big surprise, Oracle's Larry Ellison intends to skipper this boat in part of America Cup race, if the boat wins the preliminary heats leading up to the '07 race.

BMW has gone all out with the new boat, equipping it with enough bells and whistles to make your inner geek go all tingly. High on the list of technologies supported on the boat is full wireless connectivity. But the wireless link doesn't just end with a custom tactics and navigation program running on a waterproof notebook mounted near the coxswain in his crowded cockpit. The link also runs to self-darkening sunglasses worn by crew. The oh-so cool shades not only protect the crew's vision, they also provide heads-up displays of wind velocity, direction and other critical data points.  How cool is this?

God, I want one for my boat, so I can visualize the species of fish, water conditions and distance to the target connected to my little fishing boat's 802.11 network. I'm sure i could afford it, if I sold my children for medical research.

And speaking of money, wouldn't it be more economical and a better use of Ellison's time, if he had just bought the America Cup, halyards, rigging, tiller and all, rather than say Siebel?--Jim Forbes, tongue firmly lodged against the side of my cheek wirelessly from rural northern San Diego County.