'technology' Category
-
An end run around roaming
July 22, 2011When it comes to telecom expenses, I can be a real cheapskate. I travel frequently in Europe, most often to my portfolio companies in the Benelux and the UK. One of the beauties of Europe is the accessibility of my habitual destinations via high-speed rail from Paris. Paradoxically, an inexpensive and brief 2-hour train ride […]
-
Is software relevant ?
June 12, 2011At the last minute I was asked to fill in as a replacement to give a keynote speech last week to the International Conference on Software Business in Brussels. I discovered that starting a keynote with a Dilbert cartoon is an effective ice-breaker for a one-hour slog. Here is the slideware of the keynote discussion […]
-
How to approach a VC for a job
February 13, 2011Although not as voluminous as our deal flow, I receive a lot of CV’s each week from people soliciting job opportunities. I am a firm believer in the open flow of information and opportunities. If I think two people would mutually benefit from knowing each other, I’m happy to take the time to introduce them, […]
-
Mobile ingenuity in Africa
January 30, 2011This week’s Economist features another report on the innovation spurred by mobile phones in developing countries, a theme readers of my blog will know is close to my heart. The ingenuity never ceases to amaze me. Take mPedigree, a mobile service launched last year enabling consumers to text serial numbers of medications to a central […]
-
Free your career
January 8, 2011It’s the time of year in many cultures that we make and break resolutions in an annual ritual of reflection. For those newly-minted graduates that I’ve been fortunate to already meet, and for the thousands of you in French corporate jobs with an entrepreneurial twitch who are hesitating to take the plunge, I strongly recommend […]
-
The G2: my new number 1
December 5, 2010About a year ago, Bill Gurley penned an excellent write-up called Android or iPhone ? Wrong Question, which submitted that both Google and Apple and will dominate the smartphone market while injuring innocent bystanders. With the accelerating growth spurt of Android-compatible devices and the increasing propensity of app developers to limit themselves to these two […]
-
Radical suggestion to Big Media: You are not the story.
November 15, 2010Readers of my blog know that I rarely shy away from criticizing the French financial press (the reality is that I still read it regularly and often find it relevant and thought-provoking). But to paraphrase Winston Churchill, the only thing I find more infuriating than the French media is… all the other media. Particularly the […]
-
Calling all geek girls
November 10, 2010I’ve written in the past about the dearth of women entrepreneurs in France, and Vinita Gupta’s column yesterday in BusinessWeek zeroes in on the scarcity of women in senior roles within tech companies. Her data centers on the U.S. but many of her observations apply to some European countries as well, others less so. For […]
-
The death of the mobile web greatly exaggerated ?
October 16, 2010Reminiscent of the debates of the waxing and waning of the ideal size of the client (as in client/server) during the 1990s, the mobile apps vs. mobile web debate seems equally sinusoidal. For those millennials who were too young to remember, the client/server revolution taught us the virtues of transforming the all-powerful mainframes combined with […]
-
The joys of interoperability
September 17, 2010I’m in a chirpy mood this Friday for the dullest of reasons. Two incidents are responsible, and both have to do with interoperability. First, my office iPad is now functioning properly with our office wifi network, so I can shut off the power-rapacious 3G connection. Despite both the iPad and our wireless lan being fully […]
-
France’s internet pure players
September 10, 2010Le Journal du Net today presents a concise summary of the performance of France’s internet pure players, segmented by domain and business model. For the internet portals, the general diagnosis is negative, largely due to the decline in online ad spending and the ensuing downward pressure on CPM’s during the economic crisis. AOL France closed […]
-
Is platinum dead ?
September 2, 2010Katy Perry topped the Billboard 200 this week, the weekly ranking of albums by units sold, having sold 192,000 copies of her album Teenage Dream. Yes, you read correctly, that’s 192 thousand. To put this in perspective, during Michael Jackson’s Thriller album’s reign atop the Billboard 200 into 1983, it sold 29 million copies. Okay, […]