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  1. Apple Stock and the Laws of Probability

    Posted by Burgher Jon
    / April 25, 2011 / 6 Comments
    Lately, I have seen a lot of discussion about tech stocks that makes me want to pull out my old Discrete Mathematics text book.  I’m pretty sure if I pulled it out I could find a section on the isolation of individual events.  It’d read something like this, “If you...
  2. A Danger of Clouds is Storms

    Posted by Burgher Jon
    / April 22, 2011 / Leave a comment
    Yesterday Amazon’s cloud infrastructure failed.  If you use the internet much you probably noticed at least one or two down sites.  This raises an interesting question about the potential dangers of cloud computing at the enterprise level: If an oligopoly forms where there are 10-20 large cloud providers in the...
  3. Is Office 365 Microsoft’s Best Move Since Office?

    Posted by Burgher Jon
    / April 21, 2011 / 2 Comments
    Microsoft went live with their Office 365 solution a couple days ago.  Yes, its only in beta.  Yes, it only has email, Sharepoint and IM.  Yes, it’s 3+ years after Google Docs started eating away at their market share in this space. But it IS something and it DOES come...
  4. Ubiquitous Data Eventually Decays Business Models

    Posted by Burgher Jon
    / April 20, 2011 / Leave a comment
    Yesterday I spent some time thinking about how to enter markets where there is an existing oligopoly  with high barriers to entry.  Specifically, I was responding to Chris Dixon’s post about whether (or not) and how Apple might be able to bring the success they had in phones to television. ...
  5. Entering an Industry: Partner, Piggyback or Create?

    Posted by Burgher Jon
    / April 19, 2011 / 1 Comment
    So Jobs doesn’t believe an “additional box” is a viable strategy for seriously entering the TV industry. This leaves three places to enter: 1) integrating into set top boxes, 2) integrating into other TVs, or 3) Apple creating its own TV. Regarding #1, the last thing the cable operators want...
  6. Business Guy vs. Engineer

    Posted by Burgher Jon
    / April 13, 2011 / Leave a comment
    When something is scarce, it’s valuable. MBA’s with buzzwords and the ability to raise a million dollars around some web idea are not scarce. They are fungible. People who understand technology and are willing to bend it to their will, on the other hand, are scarce. They can’t be found...
  7. Damned if you do, Damned if you don’t?

    Posted by Burgher Jon
    / April 11, 2011 / Leave a comment
    A company starts off scrappy, and against all odds, not only does it vanquish every startup of its generation, but it also takes the lead from the former incumbent. Then it grows big, hires lots of employees, many of them from the companies they defeated, and then are surprised when...
  8. The Best of the Tech Bubble Meme

    Posted by Burgher Jon
    / March 28, 2011 / 1 Comment
    Yesterday the New York Times published a story about the (possible) bubble in technology that’s occurring at the moment.  The story itself was just a mainstream version of what has been said by about every blog in the space (including mine), “Hey, there seems to be WAAAAY more investment in...
  9. Anticipate Your Feeder Businesses

    Posted by Burgher Jon
    / March 24, 2011 / Leave a comment
    On the airplane on Monday I was catching up on Inc Magazine and spotted a little story about Lifesta.  Essentially what it does is allow people to sell and trade their unused GroupOn coupons.  I thought this was a fantastic idea because I believe there aren’t any shortage of people...
  10. What the Next Company to Make a Killing in Social Will Do

    Posted by Burgher Jon
    / February 22, 2011 / 1 Comment
    In the latest issue of Forbes (the one with the scary bomb on the front) there’s an article on page 21 about a little known Bourbon Whiskey brand, Pappy Van Winkle’s that caught my eye.  The company consists of a father and son team (both descendents of Pappy) who brew...
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