Microsoft seems to be planning a murder. Its victim? Any kind of innovation in the Netbook market.
Take a look at the netbooks on sale right now. Virtually all have Windows XP, 1GB of RAM and a 160GB hard drive. The key factor in building a netbook is price, so you’re not going to expect a powerful machine for your money.
Of course, manufacturers are trying to sqeeze that little bit of extra power into their new models. The problem is that Microsoft is hell-bent on stopping them.
Let’s investigate:
The Evidence:
- MSI has been forced to remove the hybrid storage in its new Wind U115 netbook thanks to a new decree from Microsoft that anyone wanting to install Windows XP on their machine can’t use storage that combines the speed of flash memory with the greater size of a hard disk. This follows an earlier rule that netbooks with XP can’t have more than 1GB of RAM.
- Microsoft hates the name ‘Netbook’. They’d prefer we all use the term “Low cost small notebook PC“. Yes, that’s just as catchy and marketable isn’t it? It’s almost as if they want them to sound less desirable.
- Until there was a public outcry, Microsoft wanted to limit the netbook-friendly version of its upcoming Windows 7 OS to run no more than three applications at once. They eventually grudgingly relented and allowed unlimited apps.
The Motive:
Vista sales are flagging and Windows 7 is still at least four months away from release. Demand for XP is higher than Microsoft would like.
The fact is, people don’t care that the computer they’re buying is cheap and running an old OS; it does what they need it to. That must hurt Microsoft. Killing netbooks by strangling them with licensing restrictions and poor marketing is their desperate attempt to keep Vista sales afloat.
The Verdict:
Customers won’t be fooled. They’ve heard Vista is a poor choice and they’ll continue buying netbooks with XP as they’re cheap and ’good enough’. Microsoft’s actions, especially the licensing restrictions that hold manufacturers back from innovating, are at best morally questionable and at worst crying out for an anti-competition case against them.
For now let’s sentence Microsoft to a stern slap on the wrist and a demand that they realise that, as usual, the customer is right.
The BBC is inviting you to ‘remix’ interviews with technology innovators, including Maholo’s Jason Calacanis, as the second edition of their R&D TV show goes live.
Created by BBC Backstage, the Corporation’s developer network, R&D TV is the first step in allowing viewers to legally re-edit professionally-produced footage into new forms.
BBC Backstage are hoping that this episode will prove more popular than the previous one, which resulted in only one video mashup from the public. The problem here is that while the video may be interesting to some people (readers of TheNextWeb will probably enjoy it without re-editing it) it’s not something that cries out to be reworked.
R&D TV is an innovative idea, but one that comes from a department at the BBC that’s a little like Morgan Freeman’s character in Batman Begins. They’re working on great projects, but not always with a great deal of support from the wider corporation.
Speaking at the June meeting of Manchester’s Social Media Cafe on Tuesday, BBC Backstage Senior Producer Ian Forrester discussed the project in detail. Many attendees asked why they hadn’t put a popular show like The Apprentice online for remixing. Sadly, there’s little chance of that as licensing deals mean that everything from music to many of the staff on the show would need to be paid for again.
Part of the problem is that some of the BBC’s TV producers and management aren’t keen on the idea of throwing footage out to the public to use as they please. Until there’s a culture shift within mainstream media, projects like R&D TV will remain nothing more than quirky side-projects.
This is a shame. Artists like Cassette Boy are showing that people will remix TV footage whether you let them or not; just see his Apprentice reworking for proof of that. The sooner the TV industry embraces this idea the better. This kind of cut-up TV art would make great promotional material for the show itself, not to mention brilliant training material for rookie video editors.
In the meantime, you can get hold of R&D TVhere. The footage is available in a variety of formats and can be used in any non-commercial project.
The Wall Street Journals reports that Microsoft is expected to announce their new Search engine effort during D: All Things Digital.
Apparently Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer himself will announce a search engine code named Kumo.com (empty page).
From the WSJ:
“For months, Microsoft has been testing a prototype of the new search engine, code-named Kumo, with Microsoft employees. The technology is designed to cut down on the length of typical Web searches by grouping the results of a search for, say, a particular model of car into helpful categories like parts, used car listings, online discussion forums and videos showing the vehicle.
Microsoft is planning a major advertising campaign to promote the new search engine and has hired the agency JWT, a unit of London-based WPP PLC, to develop a campaign for the product, people familiar with the matter say.”
Of interest is that Microsoft hired Crispin Porter & Bogusky to design a $300 million ad campaign to rebrand Microsoft a while ago but decided to use JWT for this product. Can’t wait to see what it does and how it compares to all the other supposed Google Killers.
Anyone remember Cuil? Or Wolfram?
What will we say about Kumo in a few months?
Klaas Verbeken starts his Pecha Kucha presentation titled “Porn & the future of the web” with the obvious question: Who has downloaded pr0n? The greatest common nominator in mankind is sex, however sex doesn’t sell. 40% of all downloads are porn related. We currently have sharp high-quality HD Video but we want DVD because people don’t want to see all the actual details.
Porn is the drive behind a lot of innovation online such as video conferencing with naked ladies and live chat. However, sometimes technology doesn’t get adapted such as the multi-angle cameras that were only used by the porn industry. There are billions of dollars flowing in and out of the porn industry which led to the development of SSL techology.
The big question is: to pay or not to pay. We are currently not paying and preferring user-generated porn such as YouPorn. We choose for free content. It’s hard to get a monitizing model right.
Consumers of porn are becoming both producers and competitors in the case of Sellsumers where you can sell your sextape. A final example of a technology “invented” by the porn industry (AdultFriendfinder) is IP-to-geo translation. This currently drives the web with Google redirecting all our services to our local domain again.
Written on 1st April 2009
13 COMMENTS Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
In this economic climate, when large venture rounds are scarce and acquisitions even rarer, it’s fortunate that the depression has not had an impact on entrepreneur innovation and drive.
Today, we’d like to announce a new initiative, lead by European tech blog ArcticStartup along with ourselves, Techcrunch Europe, Techcrunch France. The initiative is called MicroFundr and is focused on providing investments up to €14,000 Euros (USD $18,500). Another interesting spin is that all applications will only be accepted via Twitter (follow @microfundr), by simply submitting a link to your site.
To be eligible, start-ups are required to have a turnover of no more than €140,000 Euros per year (USD $185,000), and should aim at an exit worth no more than €14 million (USD $18.5m).
Full details of the fund are available at over at ArcticStartup, but needless to say we’re very excited and proud to be involved.
The announcement was officially made yesterday evening, our very own Boris had the opportunity to discuss the fund with none other than Andrew Keen. We’ve embedded the video for your viewing pleasure below:
Written on 6th December 2008
0 COMMENTS Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
A group of European sailing enthusiasts have just created a solar-powered, Linux-brained sailboat that can sail anywhere and navigate pre-set race courses with no human intervention whatsever! Sounds like a novices dream and a fantastic way for beginners to learn.
The Roboat can calculate the optimal route by weighting drift coordinates against weather parameters. The rudder and sails as well as the tacks and jibes are autonomously controlled by incoming data from sensors (GPS, compass, anemometer, etc.), which are analysed using artificial intelligence.
According to CleanTechnica: The Roboat is actually an adapted 3.75m Laerling beginner’s sailing vessel that has been kitted out with a Linux operating system and a control software suite that uses Java and C++.
The boat also features sensors that track position and speed over ground, speed through water, ultrasonic wind speed, and more. When a destination is set, the Roboat’s chain-driven motors adjust the mainsail, jib, rudder, and boom. In case its solar panels fail, the Roboat also comes with a methanol fuel cell for backup. (more…)
Written on 27th November 2008
12 COMMENTS Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
I came upon a wonderful story about a worldwide effort to bring internet access to people across the globe, despite hurdles such as no connectivity, no phone service and no electricity.
SolarNetOne is a collaborative effort spanning several continents, organizations, and technical disciplines. The goal of the effort is to develop a feasible, sustainable solution to bring the internet to places that have no connectivity, no phone service and no electricity.
Developed by Florida based GNUveau, the system is a solar-powered Internet “hub” (running Ubuntu GNU/Linux). The terminals includes access to web browsing, email, voip, office, multimedia, software development and web development tools as well as 15,000 other applications. Wifi coverage spans a 2-mile radius, with no fuel costs, no polluting emissions and a long lifespan of up to 20 years with proper maintenance. The entire system, in fact, operates on about the same amount of power as a 100-watt light bulb, GNUveau says. (more…)
When will we see foldable e-paper on the street? Will advanced algorithms and Internet eventually put publishers out of business? – Nobody knows… But we do witness a devastating momentum for traditional publishers, how can these companies reinvent themselves? Are they doomed?
Chosun media, showing off newspaper 2.0
Doomed? Not by a long shot! at least, if we have to believe the marketing manager of Chosun. Chosun is a Korean newspaper giant, based in the heart of Seoul. I have to admit, I never heard of the company before I visited them today. But like many unknown Asian companies, Chosun is a prominent player with amazing proportions, newspaper circulation surpasses that of well-known newspapers like the USA today. The marketing manager believes that businesspeople will always appreciate an edited and selected overview on the daily hot topics. And if it isn’t on paper, it would be on a different medium. And as much as I like to argue the contrary, he might have a point. Financial Times recently announced that their amount of online (paying) subscribers is increasing fast. We got a tour at the HQ, and they actually got excited of the Nintendo Wii again! (has been a long time)
Epic 2015
But if you ask me; newspaper publishers are biased towards their believe that a good paper requires manual work, something that will seize to exist in the future. This three-year-old videoclip made by Robin Sloan and Matt Thompson try to sketch that situation. Skip to 6:40:
During these times we are all somewhat paranoid about what the future will bring and whether we are entering a startup depression. In his newsletter dated September 27th, Jason Calacanis writes:
“It’s my belief that the economic downturn will be much worse than it is today, and that 50-80% of the venture-backed startups currently operating will shut down or go on life-support (i.e. 3-4 folks working on them) within the next 18 months.”
Jason gives startups a few pointers on how to survive the upcoming days and advises them to get focused, get leaner, and ultimately get profitable.
R.I.P Good Times
Om Malik had written last week that Sequoia held a meeting of all the entrepreneuers/CEOs of its portfolio companies and advised them to tighten their fiscal belts. Attendees were greeted with an image of a Grave Stone, with the following message: “R.I.P.: Good Times“.
According to The Marker, Other VCs such as Benchmark and Carmel Ventures in Israel have not only asked their portfolio companies to make budget cuts but have also taken their own advice and fired a few employees of their own.
So you may ask, is all this paranoia justified?
Some people in the industry think differently and much more optimistically about to the situation. Fred Wilson, of Union Square Ventures, an early stage venture capital fund in New York City, writes:
“But I do think Jason’s missing one important point in his email. It’s not the venture backed startups that are going to struggle the most…All startups are going to have to batten down the hatches, get leaner, and work to get profitable, but the venture backed startups are going to get more time to get through this process than those that are not venture backed. Here’s why.
Venture capital firms are largely flush with capital from sources that are mostly rock solid. If you look back at the last market downturn, most venture capital firms did not lose their funding sources (we did at Flatiron but that’s a different story). If you are an entrepreneur that is backed by a well established venture capital firm, or ideally a syndicate of well established venture capital firms, then you have investors who have the capacity to support your business for at least 3-5 years (for most companies).
Venture capital firms will get more conservative and they will urge their portfolio companies to do everything Jason suggests (and more), but they will also be there with additional capital infusions when and if the companies are making good progress toward a growing profitable business.”
Lack of IPO’s
According to VentureBeat, Mark Heesen, president of the National Venture Capital Association, believes there is an economic crisis in the lack of IPOs. but he doesn’t agree that so many start-ups are going to close. He believes there are still many angels who will continue to finance innovation among the seed-stage companies.
Mike Kwatinetz, founder and partner at Azure Capital Partners who invested in Bill Me Later during the post-bubble period and sold it recently to Ebay for $945 million, believes that this is exactly the time when investors should look for and target good business opportunities that they could profit from when the market revives.
He raises five good points:
Since there’s less competition between the VCs, deals are priced more reasonably.
Entrepreneurs have a better understanding of how much funds they really need in order to build their business and will stop asking for $40 million.
The entrepreneurs who will stay in the game are those that really have a passion about building their company and not those adventurous entrepreneurs who come to Silicon Valley to make a few easy millions.
There’s less competition between companies and there are less startups doing the same thing.
One can hire a more skilled staff. Since the last bubble it’s been quite hard to find good people. Now this will change.
Flush out the doomed start-ups
So what do I think? In all honesty, nobody really knows what will happen as the startup world has never had to deal with such economic uncertainty in the past. However, it is my belief that the current situation will only do us good and allow those startups that have a unique offering to survive while flushing out those startups that were doomed to failure from the beginning. As Calacanis writes, companies now need to get better, more efficient, deliver more value, and use more cost-effective means to develop and promote their offerings. But this is not a bad thing. It just means that those entrepreneurs who really believe in their ideas need to find new ways to adapt to the current situation.
As Fred writes:
“I don’t think we are in a “depression” in startup land. We are in a down cycle driven by a bad global economy. I think the web and information technology is one of the few bright spots in an overall gloomy economic outlook. So if you are working on a web technology company, be happy that you aren’t working for a bank, a brokerage firm, an automobile company, or in many other industries. The tools and services that are made in the web technology business are only going to increase in demand over the next five years. But we are going to have to service that growing demand with leaner and more focused businesses and it’s time to start thinking more about profitability and how you are going to get there.”
Survival of the fittest
About a year and a half ago I wrote about the fact that we have too many startups offering us too many of the same things and that it may be time for Darwin’s survival of the fittest to take its place in the dotcom world. I mean, how many social networks do we really need?
“How many social bookmarking apps do we need? Is there really a place for seventeen social aggregators, or eleven blog comment plug-ins? Attention to hard numbers and real growth rates might lead hopeful entrepreneurs and investors to get smart fast and drop experiments that aren’t working, and to go back and dream something up that is really innovative instead of just-another-fill-in-the-blank application.”
Get funded one way or another
It’s time to get innovative people. It’s time to make changes. And if you’ve got a good, unique concept, I don’t think you need to be worried. You will get funded one way or another by VCs who still have plenty of dow or an angel who rather keep his money away from the Stock Market these days. Those companies that need to be worried are the ones that offer too much of the same and too little of the extraordinary. Sure, most startups will need to cut their budgets, but what doesn’t kill us, makes us stronger and the extraordinary will thrive. So stop getting depressed. Stop panicking. Depression and panic will lead us no where. Get inspired. This is your time to shine.
Written on 11th September 2008
11 COMMENTS Patrick de Laive, Internet entrepreneur and co-founder of The Next Web Conference. Twitter: @patrick
Today the shortlist of the Dutch Innovation Awards, organized by Accenture has been announced and 50 Dutch (some from Belgium) companies made it to the list. A professional jury selected these companies out of 200+ submissions.
I’ve handpicked some of the nominees that might be of interest to you: Game Overlord – Game developers Habbo Hotel – Virtual hangout for teens eBuddy – Web based IM with over 40 million users I-wood – Banners on your idle mobile screen (Dutch) LiveCastr – Livestream from your mobile Movels – Read books on your mobile Myngle – Learn languages online Netlog – Pan European social network I-Rex – Kindle lookalike Open Projects – free open source 3D content creation suite Paybymail – Payments via email (iDeal). (NOTE: Paypal is non existent in the Netherlands UPDATE: Paypal has almost 2 million Dutch customers in NL, can paybymail grab a piece of the market?) Payter – Mobile payments via Near Field Communication Rabo SMS Betalen – Per per TXT message no account needed SellaBand – Crowdfund your favorite band StartyourStation – build your own tv channel Symbaloo – Before the iPhone was out they already had the icon interface. Easy startup page ViralTracker – Tracking Viral Commercials Wuzzon – Mobile content platform (Dutch) Zilok – The Next Web startup 2008, online rental platform aka the eBay of rentals
To see all nominees and vote for your favorite go to the Innovation Award website.
Written on 8th June 2009
22 COMMENTS 
Microsoft seems to be planning a murder. Its victim? Any kind of innovation in the Netbook market.
The BBC is inviting you to ‘remix’ interviews with technology innovators, including Maholo’s Jason Calacanis, as the second edition of their R&D TV show goes live.
Written on 20th May 2009
Written on 16th April 2009
Porn is the drive behind a lot of innovation online such as video conferencing with naked ladies and live chat. However, sometimes technology doesn’t get adapted such as the multi-angle cameras that were only used by the porn industry. There are billions of dollars flowing in and out of the porn industry which led to the development of SSL techology.
Written on 1st April 2009
In this economic climate, when large venture rounds are scarce and acquisitions even rarer, it’s fortunate that the depression has not had an impact on entrepreneur innovation and drive.
Written on 24th October 2008
Written on 13th October 2008
Written on 11th September 2008
The Next Web Blog is closely associated with The Next Web Conference which is held annually in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. At this event speakers from all over the world come together to talk about, and show off, the future of the Web. (More info 
