Random Thoughts from a Busy Summer

Unlike last summer, when major technology companies were canceling the annual user/partner conferences and forcing employees to take a week of unpaid vacation, this year has been a pleasant surprise--plenty of news, controversy, even new technology. Can a recovery be far off? Well, yeah, it could. But in the meantime, here's a rundown of a few items that have been in the headlines and on my mind during this busy summer:

At Breakaway XChange in San Diego last month, everyone was talking about Dell and the breaking news about its white box play and it is finally waking up and smelling the channel. Has anyone actually read the proposed reseller contract? It's got more holes than the Augusta National. And if you really believe that Dell is going to be a channel company, then I've got some great Ariba stock I'd like to sell you. Dell's Solution Provider Direct is designed to pinch Hewlett-Packard where it hurts--its sluggish channel business. Michael Dell took out Compaq, and now he wants HP's head on his mantle. He could care less about resellers.

Thinking about Dell's success, HP must be furious. Sure, Dell has turned computer manufacturing and supply chain management into a science, but when it comes to technology innovation, the company gets a big fat "F." HP has about as rich a history of innovation and invention than any company in the world, yet it can't seem to beat Dell. I keep thinking of when David Letterman lost "The Tonight Show" to Jay Leno of all people. Seriously, how furious must he have been? Funnier, smarter, more original, more popular--and still he lost. And Letterman didn't even screw his channel.

Speaking of Hewlett-Packard, I fell asleep during the marathon HP earnings call last week. I leaned back in my chair and went under somewhere during Michael Capellas' reading of "War and Peace," er, I mean HP's third-quarter report. I woke up about ten minutes later and still had to listen to more than an hour of the call.

Someone should tell IBM that turnabout is fair play, and I think that person shall be me. No other company in the IT industry engages in counter-press tactics more than Big Blue, jumping right on top of struggling rivals when bad news surfaces and airing their dirty laundry. Example: an IBM PR rep sent an e-mail to me last month titled "Another executive departure at Oracle," detailing how Nick Barley had jumped ship from Oracle to join Microsoft as director of marketing for the United Kingdom. Unfortunately, I received no such e-mail from Oracle when days later Louis D'Ambrosio abruptly quit as head of worldwide sales and marketing for IBM Software Group. Maybe IBM should stick to reporting on its own dirty laundry. It could start with its massive layoffs, perhaps.

That said, IBM deserves some applause. While IBM Global Services has been making all the headlines recently, IBM Software Group has been steadily on the rise, chipping away at rivals Oracle and BEA Systems in the competitive middleware market. If there's another software executive that's done a better job than IBM Software General Manager Steve Mills, I haven't seen it. Now if he could just get Lotus to snap out of its sleepwalk%85

I just saw that the final nail came down on Napster's coffin, as the "company" officially closed its operations and posted "Napster was here" on its Web site (how rebelliously cool!). I couldn't be happier Napster is gone. I think I made my feelings clear in "Confessions of an Anti-Napster Twenty-Something," but just to recap, Napster violated two rules. One, it was a company without revenue, thus a classic dot com. Second, it gave away copyright material free of charge, which is against the law. This is America, people. Free enterprise. Capitalism. Look it up.

While we're on the subject of bad companies on the verge of extinction, USAirways last month filed for Chapter 11. Again, couldn't be happier. Worst airline service ever. And to think the company had the nerve to blame Sept. 11 for its declining revenue and low tickets sales. If that was the case, how come Southwest Airlines is kicking ass?

That reminds me: if I see another person changing their infant child on the tray table instead of in the bathroom, I'm going to spontaneously combust like the drummer from Spinal Tap.

I keep hearing about how big the federal government market is for IT. But I'm wondering why if it's true, people are still smuggling knives and guns through airport security checks? Take a moment next time you board a plane. Take a really good look at that ticket agent at the gate as he or she checks your driver's license. Do they really read it? Do they even look at it? We've got the security technology, whether it's biometrics or smart cards or scanning equipment. Our government simply hasn't made the airlines implement it. Nearly a year after Sept. 11, don't you think it's time they start?

Yet another debacle: last month CMGI pulled its name from the New England Patriots new stadium two years after first signing the deal, which was $7.6 million a year for 15 years for the naming rights. On some level I felt vindicated because I told some friends last year that the Pats would rename the stadium before it even opened. Some said I was crazy, but I was close. There were a few soccer games and concerts at the new stadium this summer, but the Pats played their first game at Gillette Stadium.

Not sure about anyone else, but I think Apple's new "switch" advertisements are pretty cool (certainly better than that annoying Dell kid). It's about time Apple came up with some new branding and marketing ideas. Here's a company that nearly 20 years ago unleashed what is still considered the best television commercial of all time. Then they went silent. Or worse, they went stupid. "Think Different" was a disaster. After all, they put Francis Ford Coppola in the same company as Martin Luther King, Jr. and Franklin Roosevelt. Absolutely unthinkable. Have they seen "Jack"?

I don't want to be dropped into the Richard Gere, dove-loving, olive branch-carrying, Ghandi-quoting, Haight Ashbury-hanging, Cambridge-living crowd with my opposition to invading Iraq. But I do think the Bush Administration should be paying more attention to the domestic accounting crisis, Harvey Pitt, and the stock market instead of trying to drum up support to start a war very few people seem to want.

How is it possible that executives from Worldcom, Tyco and Adelphia have been cuffed and charged for their parts in the accounting scandal epidemic, but the so-called Enron Task Force has yet to make an arrest? I think if and when we do round up those Enron folks, the judge should punish them by giving them their own reality television show. It would surely be a hit, and nothing--I repeat, nothing--will be more damaging to them.

Sooner or later, I knew I'd find someone or something out there that was backlashing against the crackdown on dishonest executives and tougher accounting regulations for American enterprises: the Ayn Rand Institute. A recent editorial from Institute writer Alex Epstein implores CEOs to stop apologizing and pledging to reform, to resist trying to be better corporate citizens, resist government "micromanaging" of accounting, and "assert your moral right to make money" and "be proud that you have become rich." So sad. This guy is more out of touch than Phil Donahue. Maybe the Worldcom guys should send this editorial to their shareholders.

N I is this week, Sept. 9-12. Yes, that includes Sept. 11. I'm sure turnout will be huge. Good thinking, guys.