Hi Tim, RE: " America has long been loyal to hype. This toothpaste will change your life. This car will get you the girls. This dot com will change the world. Sizzle. Madison Avenue. Evangelizing, Hype."
Annoying too, isn't? Welcome to capitalistic consumerism. One reason why I avoid consumer marketing, is exactly that reason.
RE: "During the peak of the bubble, CNBC and other networks breathlessly reported every utterance of that guy with the beret from JDS Uniphase."
I was getting a bit concerned too. Prior to the boom, the network communication industry was only those of us that really like technology in network communications of sorts. That was it. Then the boom brought in some people that loved money but were rather unloving to technology, flashy people, big spender types with image. (My comment isn't any reference to JDSU, just the general industry trend.) I think the geeks were feeling pushed out a bit. The good news though, is it's getting back to what it was.
RE: "This is hardly new. About 15 years ago we had 20 PC companies all claiming they would each have 30% of the PC market. So more recently we have had 20 wireless/telecom"
I didn't realize there were so many PC firms. But of course it makes sense. That's an interesting analogy. This type of cycle will repeat itself in some other fashion.
RE: "Space Available" signs all over Silicon Valley"
(humor) Hey, if a startup sees a "Space Available" sign for a long enough period of time, that generally means one can just move some stuff into the spot.
Squatter rights are back you know. Why pay, when squatter rights are alive and well in Silicon Valley?
RE: " I read Grove's article"
It's more than just hyping. It's a problem with too many conflict of interest. I think hyping is certainly the impetus to the problem, but it's conflict of interest that avoids rooting the problem out. In America, where capitalistic consumerism flourishes, you cannot legislate against hype, you can only legistlate for a separation of powers to catch the hype.
RE: "I hope, Amy, that your company escapes this fate."
Thank you. Statistically speaking, at this point, most likely our company will be around forever in some form or shape. The downturn does deliver some advantages and minimizes some threats. The competitive threat is higher for startups in an environment where the system is too flush with capital - too many companies get funded in the same space - which means oodles of competitors. The best thing for any company that already has shipping product, would be if industry VC funding got turned off fast and hard. It would minimze new competitors, hugely penalize the big spender types, while rewarding those that have qualities of persistence.
RE: "Perhaps a new bubble is forming...I don't know"
I'm betting it's a bubble.
RE: "America is losing some of its infatuation with new gadgets."
I don't think a company can run a business based upon selling some gadget, and I think you know that. You have to provide a solution that solves some type of customer pain, need. Pain fixers sell, pleasure givers don't.
RE: "most consumers simply don't see the need for blazingly fast CPUs. Some do, and they will buy them. But most don't."
Well, I still disagree with you on this. While I do concur the trend isn't like what it was, I am still seeing entrepreneurs (not us, as we don't work in the consumer space) that are creating services that put demands on consumer chips. We may have to wait until .NET initiatives come through. Could be a few years. Gates spoke quite passionately about Moore's law in relation to some of the futuristic things Microsoft is pushing. He's not one to mince words. But he is quite visionary and most likely correct.
RE: " Corporations may continue to need faster machines and networks, just as they did in 1995 and 1990 and so on. But we need to look at the big picture and see that their demand probably won't be enough to return us to the days of hype and glory"
As I see it, the near-term problem is capex is cut in the biz segment for chips. Possibly the mid-term problem may be due to the number of companies going out of business that are no longer requiring faster chips. Long-term problem is probably going to be the drag on innovation due to various reasons. Lots of startups went under, though there were too many of them. And then there's always the comm industry, where one can see classic textbook cases of innovation blocking, where certain type of telco are essentially working to block demands for Cisco products given that their biz model does better without innovation and consumption, meanwhile, ironically another set of carriers are rushing for such innovation only because their biz model is based upon competitive forces that require them to sell product. Whatever. But somewhere in that mess, there are some pretty strong forces that are working against innovation. (More on this some other time, it's rather interesting.) I wonder how that'll register itself financially, in years down the road. This is where my expertise on politics is lacking, but there does appear to be some industry forces that are more powerful than Cisco's desire to sell innovative product. I've been buying CSCO lately, but I should probably step back and give some of these things more consideration.
RE: "Meanwhile, a lot of those companies each hyping themselves"
I doubt today's companies are hyping themselves. Partly because the VC industry is reducing in size, which is where hype formulated around. Today, the customers have more power than the VCs. I wouldn't say that was the case in the late 90's, where you had to raise money because the average deal size was $16M. Nowadways the average deal size is no different than a large account, so customers are king in today's economy. That puts technologists back in the driver seat.
Regards,
Amy J |
