John's Music Blog

For those of you who are watching closely, you will notice that I added a new entry to my blog roll.  I recently got reconnected with Denise Shiffman, former marketing executive at Sun Microsystems, through another former client who has found her way to Mimosa Systems.  Denise has a new book coming out in the fall, which I hear is on Enterprise 2.0.

I met with an investor last week at a hotel in Boston.  He was in town to attend the Enterprise 2.0 conference.  The basic goal of his attendance was to get a better handle on when, or if, money was going to start changing hands for his Enterprise 2.0 company.  Let’s face it.  It takes time for some things to develop.  As one storage-industry watcher reported, a lot more money has been invested in storage companies than will be returned in profit.  I suspect the same may be true for Enterprise 2.0, though I haven’t done the math. (more…)

I’ve made more than a few mistakes in my various careers.  One of them was buying a near bowling-alley length automated tape library (ATL) with a robot whose size, if not speed, would rival any in Detroit.  I made the purchase based upon the promise of future enhancements that would ensure this would be the last tape library I would ever buy.  You see, the ATL was going to be upgradeable to a Virtual Tape Library (VTL), and all my backup and restore problems would be, if not solved, at least contained.   To be fair, it was a committee decision, but I was a strong internal proponent.  Suffice it to say that the VTL upgrade was late and more virtual than real, and the ATL wasn’t the last library the company had to purchase.  In fact, I heard rumors that a second ATL was  offered for free, since the VTL upgrade was late.  But I can’t verify the rumor.  By that time, I had moved on to a new company, where my job was predicting the future.  The irony is not lost on me. (more…)

I had the pleasure today of spending some time with Acopia, a leading supplier of file virtualization solutions.  For those of you who haven’t lived and breathed storage for the past 20 years, suffice it to say that file virtualization brings a number of benefits to file-server and storage administrators, not the least of which is flexibility for the buyer.  Which brings me to opportunity.  

If we’ve learned anything over the last 300 years, it is that flexibility can be just as valuable as capability.  The Revolutionary War in the British colonies more than 200 years ago showed the benefit of flexibility over the much more capable British Regulars.  I flew back from Europe a few years ago sitting next to a NATO general, and we spoke at length regarding NATO’s re-engineering efforts, as they increased focus on flexibility.  Prior to the re-engineering efforts, no one would have doubted NATO’s capabilities, but certainly NATO’s flexibility could be called into question. (more…)

I added a new link on the resources page of the blog a couple of weeks ago, and thought I would add a post, just to ensure you take a look.  The link is to The Funded, which is an online repository of customer experiences in working with venture capitalists.   The customers are in large part entrepreneurs that received venture backing, or at least sought venture backing.  The site contains commentary of these entrepreneurs regarding their specific experience in working with various venture capital firms. In some cases the postings contain  commentary on individual partners at those firms.  Postings are allowed only by approved writers, and there is a public and a private section.  The private section is viewable only by individuals who are approved to post commentary.  VCs are excluded from posting – along the lines of not allowing the horse to guard the oats.

What I learned in reading through the public and private posts is that there are individuals with some very strong opinions, both positive and negative, regarding particular VCs.   I also confirmed what I had long known: It doesn’t take long to spoil a good name which was years in the making.  And finally, if someone attacks you unjustly, someone else will rise to your defense, but the voice of the attacker will likely be louder.  If you are seeking venture capital, I would suggest at least a review of the site to see what has been said.  It’s not an end point in an investigation regarding a particular VC, but it is a data point. If you are a venture capitalist, I would recommend having someone monitor the public portion of this and any similar sites.  It may provide an early warning to problems in your company’s client-engagement process or in partner behavior.