I just returned from a week at CeBIT. I’d hoped to be able to post regularly while I was there, but internet access where I was staying was too expensive to justify anything but critical communications, and my schedule was too packed during show hours to allow for browse-time via the open Wi-Fi base stations […]

I recently read The Innovator’s Dilemma, which is a great book by Clayton M. Christensen about why dominant incumbents rarely continue as anything more than crumb-catchers (if they aren’t forced out of business altogether) once a disruptive technology takes hold.

Voice-over-IP is a disruptive technology. VoIP used to be something that only large businesses could consider, […]

Sun and Java. Apple and QuickTime. AOL and instant messaging. It’s a mixed blessing when a company’s most-interesting assets don’t come with a ready-made windfall.

AOL claims that about 40% of Americans from age 14 to 24 use AOL Instant Messenger (a.k.a. “AIM”). They say that 2.3 billion messages a day are sent through their systems […]