Category: Technology

Adobe’s invisible weapons

Robert X. Cringely argues in this post that Adobe is in a great position to become the next big platform:

Adobe is moving into developer tools in a big way to support its grab for mindshare in the interactive/rich web application space where much of the excitement lately seems to be. Some people think of this as Browser Wars 2.0, but I think it is more fundamental than that. Here are the players. Microsoft is putting massive resources behind Silverlight. Sun is trying to take Java to the next level with Java FX. Mozilla is trying to improve its position through AJAX, Canvas support, and better offline support. And Adobe is leaning hard on Flash, Adobe Integrated Runtime or AIR (formerly code-named Apollo), and Flex. My money is on Adobe simply because of those two invisible weapons, PDF and Flash.

What could PDF, Adobe’s Portable Document Format, possibly have to do with this? It’s a 30 megabyte download living right now in more than a BILLION computers. Same for Flash — a BILLION computers. That’s more than 60 megabytes of Adobe code living in nearly every computer on every desktop or laptop in the world — greater market penetration by far than even Windows enjoys. And what’s IN there? Nobody outside Adobe really knows. Is there room in that 60 megabytes for the Adobe Reader, Flash, and a few hooks or applets Adobe might throw in to assist with some future product or service roll out? Sure, why not? That’s the power of invisibility.

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The overheads of outsourcing

Munjal Shah, CEO of riya.com/like.com blogs about having to close their Bangalore office. The overheads of having multiple sites geographically separated (especially for a small start-up) are just not worth the (fast reducing) cost savings. for:

Bangalore wages have just been growing like crazy. To give you an example, there is an employee of ours who took the first 5 years of his career to get from 1% to 10% of his equivalent US counterpart. He then jumped from 10% to 20% of his US counterpart in the next 1 year. During his time with us (less than 2 years) he jumped to 55% of the US wage. In the next few months we would have had to move him to 75% just to “keep him at market.”

Keep in mind that Riya are at the leading edge of this trend. We tend to only hire folks from IIT or other top schools. We tend to only hire the smartest folks from these schools. We only hire in Bangalore (just too hard to have three offices). We tend to only hire folks with a lot of experience. These are all characteristics that are critical for technology startups, but not necessarily for a big company like IBM or a services company like Infosys who can afford to train new graduates. I do believe that other startups in Bangalore will see the same issue in 12-24 months.

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I found it here.

How to make great powerpoint presentations

Marketing Guru Seth Godin has this insightful post on the right and the wrong way to make powerpoint presentations. The basic idea he espouses is that the powerpoint slides should be used to sell your idea emotionally. Don’t put facts and figures and numbers – that can go in the document that you leave behind.

Talking about pollution in Houston? Instead of giving me four bullet points of EPA data, why not read me the stats but show me a photo of a bunch of dead birds, some smog and even a diseased lung? This is cheating! It’s unfair! It works.

He goes on to give a bunch of DOs and DONTs which are worth thinking about. For example

Sound effects can be used a few times per presentation, but never use the sound effects that are built in to the program. Instead, rip sounds and music from CDs and leverage the Proustian effect this can have. If people start bouncing up and down to the Grateful Dead, you’ve kept them from falling asleep, and you’ve reminded them that this isn’t a typical meeting you’re running.

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