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Would you really take this CEO job?
Businessweek says NCR boss Mark Hurd is "high on the short list" to become Carly Fiorina?s replacement as Hewlett-Packard CEO. On paper he sounds like a good candidate -- so do a lot of other gainfully employed chief execs inside and outside the technology business -- but the handicapping speculation still begs the bigger question: why bother?
I don't mean to be smug but why would any CEO of sound mind want this headache? This isn't the same as Lou Gerstner arriving at IBM in 1993 to save the day. When Gerstner replaced John Akers, he was given carte blanche. The company was on all fours and IBM?s board was desperate for somebody to rescue the situation. (Remember, Akers' plan was to break IBM up into "Baby Blues.")
With HP, the board is saying, "Hey, we basically like the strategic plan. It?s just a matter of execution." Whoever takes the job under those conditions will need more than supreme talent. He or she will need quite a lucky shamrock as well.
GoogleSmear as political tactic
Saw an interesting post on the subject of ?GoogleSmearing? by Juan Cole, a professor of Middle East studies at Michigan. Could this become the next trend in what passes in this country for political discourse? Hope not.Leading them by the nose
Why would somebody of sound mind wait 36 hours on the street just to be first in line when a store opens its doors for business? "It's fun," Richard Roth told our very own sleep-deprived reporter David Becker, after being the first person in San Francisco to buy a Sony PlayStation Portable. Then again, you should consider the source. Four years earlier, Roth said, he also was first in line to buy a PS2. "It's my 15 minutes of fame. You don't get on CNN for putting in a preorder at GameStop."
Such is the power of marketing to convince people of otherwise sound mind to act like goofs and spend as if their lives depended on it. Sony?s quite good at this. Apple is even better--witness the expert way the company generates advance buzz for upcoming products.
But nothing holds a candle to the mania that settled upon this country in 1983 when Coleco?s Cabbage Patch doll mania sent moms and dads across America into a months? long scavenger hunt--and the toys were butt-ugly, at that!
Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson on violent gaming
Rep. Mary Lou
Dickerson
Here?s what she had to say:
If you had your druthers, what would be a fitting solution? Do you want stricter controls on the sale of these products or do you want manufacturers to steer clear of certain subjects and how they get represented in the games?
In essence, my legislation (House Bill 2178) says that a person may file a personal injury or wrongful death lawsuit against a manufacturer or retailer of a violent video or computer game who has distributed, sold, or rented a violent video game to a person under the age of 17 if the game was a factor in creating conditions that assisted or encouraged the person to cause injury or death to another person. Since a personal injury lawsuit is a civil (not criminal) matter, prosecutors are not involved.
I agree with your point that it might be very difficult to demonstrate a causal connection in a particular case -- but this is a good reason to conclude that the legislation would not lead to frivolous lawsuits or unjust awards to plaintiffs. People who bring personal injury lawsuits should have to meet a high standard of evidence.
Each wave of new media technology in the last century has triggered its own particular concerns. What is it that is particular about video and software games?
I have nothing against latest video and software games as a technology.
Many games are very good. In fact, I have been very impressed for several years by increasingly realistic graphics, speed and interactivity--such as feed-back joy-sticks. But I am persuaded by numerous studies of psychologists and pediatricians that the increasing realism of video games risks blurring the lines between fantasy and reality for some children.
Game manufacturers know that some of their games are inappropriate for, and can affect the thinking and emotional states of, children -- that is why they have a rating system.
In Washington, and most states, we don't allow adult magazines or pornography to be sold to children. And I'm certain that if movie theaters started admitting children into x-rated movies, parents would demand stronger legislation. It is similar with those games that are virtual snuff films. If adults want to immerse themselves in games where players advance to different levels by beating women to death with bats, or urinating on and burning African-American policeman alive as they scream in agony (while having audio with racist voice-overs) that is their right. But if children who play these games hour after hour after hour act out their fantasies in real life, the victims should also have a right to redress, if the plaintiff can demonstrate a causal connection.
Your proposal would allow for wrongful death or personal injury lawsuits if ?the game was a factor in creating conditions that assisted or encouraged the person to cause injury or death to another person.? That sounds awfully vague. Isn't that putting a very difficult charge to a prosecutor who must prove the connection?
If I had my druthers, retailers would never sell an M-rated game to a child without the consent or knowledge of the parents, and parents would become more involved in their children's game choices. I personally believe it is morally wrong for manufacturers to make games where points are scored through the murder of women, law enforcement officers, minorities -- indeed any innocent person. The recent move of avowedly racist groups to create and use minority-killing and Jew-killing games to recruit children to their causes is particularly repulsive, even alarming, to me. But I do not believe it is legally wrong for manufacturers to create such games for "adult" consumption. My concern is for the children. I applaud the ESRB for creating the game-rating system to flag when games might be harmful to children, but if I had my druthers the manufacturers, and retailers, would take steps to enforce their own ratings.
Greenspan should have removed the punch bowl
The Daily Telegraph: In late 1999, Fed officials coming together for their regular Federal Open Market Committee took stock of the irrational exuberance then gripping the investment community.
VA Linux, a company that gained 700 percent in its IPO, had just disclosed in a filing that it might never make a cent. All this prompted staff economist Mike Prell to wonder whether a state of temporary insanity had now settled over lower Manhattan.
?"Not bad for a company that some analysts say has no hold on any significant technology," Prell tells the meeting. "The warning language I've just read is at least an improvement in disclosure compared to the classic prospectus of the South Sea Bubble era, in which someone offered shares in 'a company for carrying on an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is'. But, I wonder whether the spirit of the times isn't becoming similar to that of the earlier period."
Makes you pine for Bernie Ebbers, doesn't it?
John Edwards: Podcaster
He didn?t get to be vice president but the former Democratic candidate plans to start regular podcasts.
?Next week John Edwards will participate in an exciting new medium: podcasting. He will answer your questions and update you on his family and projects. Do you have a question for John Edwards,? reads the promo on his Web page.
Guess what he hopes to be doing come November 2008.
The myth of the violent gamer
There?s been a lot of buzz on the legislative front about what ?to do? about violent video and computer games.
This is a red herring if ever there was.
I?m not looking to let the cyber game industry off the hook for its sundry stupidities (Do we really need a game reenacting JFK?s assassination?) But laying blame for the coarsening of society and the desensitizing of so many of our youth at the doorstep of the game development community is a cop-out.
In the search for root causes, has anyone noticed how religion has figured in recent stories about shooting incidents leading the national news? Terry Ratzmann last month went on a shooting rampage. Should we infer any link to his regular church attendance? The local cop interviewed by the Associated Press believes the motive the motive had something to do with the church.
And what to make of Dennis Rader, a man who was president of his church council and described as a faithful Christian? These days he?s in policy custody and accused of being the notorious BTK killer.
Well, you get the point.
E-mail and its discontents
Some interesting stats on e-mail usage, courtesy of ClearContext, a San Francisco-based software company that?s developed an inbox manager for Microsoft Outlook.
A couple of tidbits particularly caught my attention: About one-third of the respondents say they use Google?s Gmail, a service that?s still technically in beta ? though the rumor is that the company?s getting close to an official debut. The other point: roughly half the respondents `fessed up to keeping anywhere from 50 to more than 3000 old emails in their inbox. Don?t let my IT administrator know but I?m a repeat offender on that count.
Of course, the broader question of how to best manage the daily inflow of email remains the holy grail of the software business. Spam shows no sign of letting up. The biggest change on that front seems to be that Suha Arafat has replaced Sani Abacha as my most persistent spam interlocutor.
Whether it?s a company like ClearContext or some other startup, whatever bright bulb comes up with the magic bullet ? if such a thing even exists when we?re talking about spam ? will walk away rich and famous.
Blogging Beyond the Men's Club?
Newsweek, a publication that consistently reaches for the banal, outdoes itself with this piece by Steven Levy. I don?t have enough time to tick off all the reasons why I think this a bunch of baloney ? especially after
Ray Ozzie redux
Microsoft?s surprise acquisition of Groove Networks was not so much of a surprise when you consider that Bill Gates is one of Ray Ozzie?s biggest fans.
But there?s also a little-noticed twist to the story: change a couple of names and faces and this has the makings of d?j? vu.
Recall that the Wizard of Oz(zie) first rose to fame on the strength of his development work at Iris Networks, a small software outfit he founded north of Boston. The product he created was Notes. Lotus Development subsequently bought the company which still retained a large degree of autonomy remaining at its original headquarters.
In 1995, when IBM launched a hostile buyout offer for Lotus, Big Blue?s then-CEO Lou Gerstner knew that winning over this superstar developer was key to the deal. So he went out of his way and paid a personal visit to to woo Ozzie. It worked and Ozzie stayed ? for a while.
Money?s obviously a big part of this deal but don't underestimate the mutual attraction factor. The acquisition brings together two kindred geek souls who speak very much the same language. (Although from this reporter's perch, I think Ozzie clearly has the superior software development chops.)
The big question is what kind of imprint Ozzie can make as the new Chief Technology Officer in a huge and often unwieldy Microsoft empire. Stay tuned.
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