I was talking to a fellow CTO of a startup company based in the bay area. Apple occupied most of our discussions. Prior to the economic downturn, when the credit was abundant, CTOs were okay in buying  Apple computers for their developers.  Guess what? CTOs are now questioning the need to buy expensive Apple laptops for their developers.
Apple laptops definitely has the cool factor written all over it. But a Dell laptop with Ubuntu does bring the same functionality to the table. Since most of the developers use either PHP …

We all have heard numerous  times about the issues with Vista: Vista does not work, is not compatible with everything under the sun, and blah.. blahs.  I am not denying some of these allegations. When I was running the IT at Music Intelligence Solutions, I made a conscious decision to standardize all our laptops and desktops on Windows XP - it was the right decision at that time.
Fast forward to now: I recently purchased a new laptop, which came pre-loaded with Vista. To be honest, I am pleasantly surprised and …

As we are nearing the end of 2008, we need to start reflecting on our startup madness of 2008. Following are the list of ideas that were overrated and over-hyped for year  2008. Definition of over-hyped: over 100 companies working on the same idea.

Social Networking: The over-arching theme was to build a social network for almost anything. Do you know a verb? lets start a social networking about it!!
White-labeled and Hosted Social Networking solutions: You would’t believe the number of companies offering these services.
Video Delivery: Thanks to YouTube, everyone jumped …

PC World just reported about Satellite Broadband initiative by ViaSat.
I can’t imagine companies are still chasing fancy and dumb ideas in this economy. This clearly shows that why we are heading into recession, also why we deserve it.

What I don’t like about this business idea?

Scheduled for launch in 2011.
Speed is only  2Mbps, that too in 2011.

Why I consider this a dumb idea:

It takes lot of money to own and operate a satellite, plus they come with an expiry date. It is not like an undersea fiber optic line, which can …

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Is this newsworthy and why am I blogging about it? Many entrepreneurs, especially CEOs with big corporation background, tends to emphasize on 24×7 uptime along with the necessity to handle gazillion hits on the launch day. Most people don’t even understand the …