Wednesday, August 06, 2003

Xian pointed me to the horde of returns for Robb's Law (a term he coined from a statement I made).  All but 5 or so returns are for this usage.  I did find another quite apt Robb's Law: "It's impossible to devise a foolproof system as Nature will simply evolve a more perfect fool." 10:49:35 PM    Comment_ Trackback []

More on BTO: see prior post for more.   An example of the changes that make the large auto companies vulnerable to micro assemblers. Over the last decade, the automotive supply base has consolidated so much that there are now a number of extremely capable multi-billion dollar Tier 1 suppliers that can design, engineer, and manufacture major portions of a vehicle or even an entire vehicle. Some OEM projects, primarily in South America and Europe, have taken advantage of this opportunity and have had sizable sections of the vehicle designed and outsourced in such a modular fashion. In lieu of having thousands and thousands of parts manufactured separately and then assembled at the final vehicle production facility, these suppliers have begun to deliver modules such as: entire doors, complete seat sets, instrument panels, chassis, or front-end assemblies--directly to the automakers’ assembly line. 9:58:44 PM    Comment_ Trackback []

Baseline.  The Dell of the auto industry?  Introducing:  BTO. At this site, the company he chairs plans to build highly customized vehicles starting at $35,000, by outsourcing just about all aspects of their construction to suppliers whom he consolidates on this spot. If successful, BTO can post net profit margins he estimates at between 15% and 20%, unheard of in an industry where the bottom-line margin ranges from zero to 3%. BTO will have 400 employees, excluding suppliers.  Interesting.  The standard specs, modular OEM construction, and integrated supply systems the auto industry is using to reduce costs may prove to be their undoing.  Agile micro custom assemblers that leverage these new capabilities could eat their lunch.  IF (this is a big if) this is true, the only way out for the car industry is to continue to focus on brand in the short term (and all that means: local service, etc.).  As the big brands crumble, the best defense may be to focus on the car of the future's microprocessor heart:  the fuel cell fly-by-wire chasis (more) -- which will be important within the decade.  The huge R&D budgets necessary for this will keep small players at arms length.   Unfortunately, this will also likely mean there is only one winner in the end.  The market for these chasis, given the expense of producing them may yeild a natural monopoly. 9:53:14 PM    Comment_ Trackback []

Still working..   Adding names, correcting spelling errors, etc.  I am just starting to realize that by the time I am done, this blogroll will stretch the length of my homepage. 11:09:21 AM    Comment_ Trackback []

Phil Wolff interviews RSSJobs creator Steve Rose.  Here is one of the frustrations that led him to scratch that itch and build the site: I had to go to Monster's web site to see all the results. Then there was Dice. It gave me up to 50 jobs for each agent every day. Most of them were the same as the previous day's results! They were supposed to be just the new ones. I was spending all my morning time before work weeding through these, and I rarely had time to check any other sites that I didn't get emails from. Sites that didn't get updated every day went un-checked for weeks or months. Who knows how many potential jobs I missed out on because I didn't have time to check all the sites I wanted to check for updates. 10:11:19 AM    Comment_ Trackback []

Kevin Werbach caught that AOL hired John McKinley from Merrill Lynch as its CTS (I missed it).  Wow, I know John McKinley.  Great guy.  Smart guy.  Wish he was there two years ago, AOL would have launched weblogs last year.  Regardless, he will change the dynamic at AOL. 9:16:13 AM    Comment_ Trackback []

Ed Cone reports that presidential candidate John Edwards has made his first foray into weblogs (although he is not yet running a weblog yet).  Over time, candidates and companies are going to come to conclusion that they will need to treat influential webloggers the same as journalists. 8:52:47 AM    Comment_ Trackback []

SCOs stock is zoooooming.  There's money in them thar copyrights.  I don't think most people understand the situation.  SCO isn't going after the small fry that uses Linux because they don't have any money.  They are going to start hammering businesses that would be happier paying $100,000 k in licensing fees rather than paying $100,000 k in lawyers fees, audit costs, and turmoil/confusion.  I've seen this in action and it works. 8:51:07 AM    Comment_ Trackback []

Francois corrects my post on Overture's Keylime software.  He is using the software currently and it uses 'Web beacon' technology (a clear gif or some sort from Keylime's servers embedded in a customers Web site template).  The customers don't need a Keylime server on premises and can access reports via a browser.  This makes much more sense.  I wish that when I went to the site the technology white paper didn't give me an error.  If I was a customer, that would have resulted in a lost sale.  I wonder how much they spent on the CMS running their site? 8:39:21 AM    Comment_ Trackback []