The Start-up File

Health, cheap food, and the race to the bottom

Human food chain consumed tainted pet food

Unsurprisingly, adulterated pet food entered the food chain and was consumed by millions (see Feds: Millions have eaten chickens fed tainted pet food).

Expect to see more like this - the competition to extract more profit out of cheaper food by any means is in high gear. Read more ...

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Posted by william at 22:44 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Giving away the Store ...

Bill Burhnam notices the upcoming endgame of tactical open source business

[Business Models]

In Indian Outsourcers: Open Source's Best Friend or Worst Enemy, Burnham describes the latest chapter in the open source story as the battle between outsourcers and Open Sourcers over support profits.

Having myself been part of what he describes as the first chapter, I'd wish that he (and others) go back and recall some of the early discussions of Open Source business models, before the support side was anointed as the One True Model with Redhat - there was tactical AND strategic sides both at that time.

But what he's describing is the endgame for the tactical side - read more...

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Posted by william at 22:37 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Open Source about to explode Wireless Security Market

OpenSEA launches at InterOp

[Serving a Market]

Most of the business press will miss this, but a big thing just happened. Wireless security via an open source industry initiative OpenSEA will quadruple the market growth of 802.1x wireless security by widening adoption of WEP technologies. Jon Oltsik even acknowledges parentage, which is unusual for an analyst. Its a perfect example of what I spoke of as strategic open source (see prior blog entry).

With 802.11 WLAN's everywhere, you'd think that businesses would've already mined out all the opportunities ... but its actually quite the opposite. Read more ...

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Posted by william at 20:36 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Internet Security Market takes the next step...

Interoperable Standards created by Open Source

[The Internet]

Two years back Dan Lynch asked the panel of Internet Experts at Stanford's "Internet: Today and Tomorrow" about interoperable security standards. Last week at InterOp, the trade show he invented, OpenSEA was announced, taking 802.1x into that arena using open source as the active means to that end. It almost exactly matched what he asked for.

[Disclosure: Dan's a friend, and led the finance of one of my ventures. His son, Zack, was in today's SF Chron promoting NeuroInsights, and it's a great read on both of them.]

It occurs to me that people don't get the elements of how this all works together, so I'll break it down into details. Read more.

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Posted by william at 00:17 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Dismal Failure turns out to become Brilliant Success

"The Marriage of Private Equity and Tech Investing" – David Rubenstein

[Serving a Market]

Last week David Rubenstein, co-founder and managing director of The Carlyle Group, gave a talk at Stanford's Business School on the invention of the private equity business. In a fast paced, staccato style, he hammered the audience with his personal history, private equity's necessity of invention, reasons behind its dramatic growth, lucrative current deals going down, its potential near term bust, and long term post-bust future.

If you blinked, you probably missed 2-3 slides. It was that fast.

Ironically, the mere existence of a private equity market says more about the qualities of the public equity market than anything else - read more.

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Posted by william at 02:11 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Dismal Failure turns out to become Brilliant Success

"The Marriage of Private Equity and Tech Investing" – David Rubenstein

[Serving a Market]

Last week David Rubenstein, co-founder and managing director of The Carlyle Group, gave a talk at Stanford's Business School on the invention of the private equity business. In a fast paced, staccato style, he hammered the audience with his personal history, private equity's necessity of invention, reasons behind its dramatic growth, lucrative current deals going down, its potential near term bust, and long term post-bust future.

If you blinked, you probably missed 2-3 slides. It was that fast.

Ironically, the mere existence of a private equity market says more about the qualities of the public equity market than anything else - read more.

Continue reading "Dismal Failure turns out to become Brilliant Success"

Posted by william at 02:11 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)