mba

Imagine Apple with an MBA at top, no Steve Jobs

By-the-numbers MBAs are not always a good fit for U.S. companies. Particularly those in the business of product innovation. Just imagine a bean-counting mathematical-model-driven MBA running Apple.

Instead of the iPad, we might have an Apple Netbook. Instead of the iPhone, a Rokr. In short, products that are low risk, devoid of inspiration, and easy on the balance sheet.

MBA-as-CEO is a point eloquently made by Bob Lutz, the former Vice Chairman of General Motors. While MBAs have a role to play, the by-the-numbers, post-1970s variety sitting at the top of the corporate chain of command can be devastating … Read more

Thunderbolted, Sandy Bridged MacBook Airs in June?

Right now you can have an ultra-portable MacBook or one with up-to-date guts, but you can't have both. But that's apparently changing, if rumors are to be believed.

The latest from parts suppliers in Asia indicates that Apple is set to begin mass production of Thunderbolt- and Sandy Bridge- (with Intel Graphics, natch) equipped MacBook Airs late next month, to debut on sales floors in June (which corroborates reports we made back in February).

The news comes from analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, from Concord Securities, who gave his take on the Air production to AppleInsider. In addition to being … Read more

Business, Ethics, Barcelona: Doing Good When You're Not Doing So Well

I just returned from Barcelona (where every tourist now seems to be tracking the path of Woody Allen's Vicky and Christina...), attending a few sessions of the Doing Good and Doing Well Conference organized by IESE Business School and Net Impact, an organization that connects MBA students interested in social responsibility.

That a leading business school is dedicating an entire student-run conference to the topic of responsible business is remarkable (HEC Paris will do the same soon in May, also in collaboration with Net Impact) but not an isolated phenomenon. In the past few years, several top business schools, … Read more

Stanford and Harvard teach businesses how to squash open source

Having given in to gravity, America's elite graduate schools are taking on open source.

In recent research published in Production and Operations Management, Deishin Lee (Harvard Business School) and Haim Mendelson (Stanford Graduate School of Business) teach would-be business executives how to "Divide and Conquer: Competing with Free Technology Under Network Effects."

The professors argue that:

(T)he ideal scenario for the commercial vendor is to bring its product to market first, to judiciously improve its product features, to keep its product "closed" so the open-source product cannot tap into the network already built by … Read more

MacBook Air verdict: Seminal computer, five reasons

The Apple MacBook Air is a seminal computer. There I said it. I'm not going to pretend that my opinion is the final word (or anything close to it) but I will weigh in by saying it's a ground-breaking product. After using it for about two months, here's why.

(Note: I am not a Mac enthusiast. This is the first Apple I've ever owned.)

This is not a CNET review. The CNET review is here.

1. Very thin, very light but comparatively fast. That's no mean feat. Subnotebooks I've had in the past (e.… Read more

If the Roomba went to grad school

"Roombas" and "Scoobas" are fine for what they do, but--how shall we say this--they're kind of dumb. The "Microrobot UBOT," on the other hand, is kind of like a Roomba with a college degree.

Rather than randomly vacuum or scrub as it bumps its way about the house, the UBOT senses its target floor, sweeping and mopping at the same time in a single pass while avoiding duplicate cleaning. But just like some overeducated humans we know, it can correctly perform its duties only with the help of others--in this case, bar codes … Read more