Tech News

Windows 8: What’s the Best That Could Happen?

Posted by Burgher Jon
/ October 29, 2012 / Leave a comment

Microsoft launched their new Windows 8 operating system. It appears from all of the reviews that this change is more like Windows 3.1 to Windows 95 (When you were like, “woah, what’s this whole Start menu thing?”) than it is like Windows XP to Windows 7 (When you were like,...
Gates and Jobs in the Context of Time

Posted by Burgher Jon
/ June 12, 2012 / Leave a comment

“I firmly believe that 50 years from now he’ll be remembered for his charitable work. No one will even remember what Microsoft is, and all the great entrepreneurs of this era, people will have forgotten Steve Jobs. There will be statues of Gates across the third world and … there’s a...
The Facebook IPO’s Effect on Software Startups

Posted by Burgher Jon
/ June 6, 2012 / Leave a comment

Two of the heavyweights in the startup world have now weighed in on the Facebook IPO and how it impacts the early stage software world, so I figured it’s time I did to. Paul Graham has warned the companies in Y-Combinator about the dangers of needing money at a time...
Zuck’s Sweatshirt

Posted by Burgher Jon
/ May 15, 2012 / 1 Comment

Mark Zuckerberg goes on TV to ring the bell in 5 days and the big question is, will he be wearing his Sweatshirt or will he put on a suit jacket? I’m not planning to invest in Facebook, but if I were, I would be hoping he sticks to his...
The Way I See the “Talent War” in Pittsburgh

Posted by Burgher Jon
/ May 10, 2012 / Leave a comment

There have been a number of interesting articles in the past few weeks about the “talent war” that tech companies in Pittsburgh are fighting. There was one (actually from last year, but I recently saw a link to it) about Pikimal addressing a shortage of developers by finding strong candidates...
Zynga’s Hybrid Cloud

Posted by Burgher Jon
/ May 9, 2012 / Leave a comment

There are two things I thought I’d share about the story I read in iWeed this morning about Zynga’s hybrid (internal/Amazon) cloud: In the hype about cloud it’s easily to lose track of just how immature we are so far. The fact that with all the cloud options out there in...
File System For the Cloud

Posted by Burgher Jon
/ May 1, 2012 / Leave a comment

Once in a while something comes along and you’re like CRAP, why didn’t I see that coming. Box.com being the NAS of the web (not just for their apps but for ANYONE’s) is frickin brilliant. Releasing their API isn’t just storage as a service, it’s something more than that. It’s...
2 Ways to Spend 1 Billion Dollars

Posted by Burgher Jon
/ April 10, 2012 / Leave a comment

$2 Billion changed hands yesterday in the form of the two biggest news items of the day: Facebook spent $1 Billion on Instagram. They acquired an innovative, competitive (if tangentially) product to make their company better. Microsoft spent $1 Billion buying patents from AOL. The rumor is that they may have...
Sunny Days?

Posted by Burgher Jon
/ April 9, 2012 / Leave a comment

One of my primary investment theses at the moment is that the cloud is not only growing, but that we are just scratching the surface of what’s possible. That’s why when I read that Amazon’s S3 growth has declined slightly, I was surprised. To be clear, it’s not like S3...
Democratizing Spelling

Posted by Burgher Jon
/ March 27, 2012 / Leave a comment

One of the cool things about big data is that it lets you see every trend, whether you expect it or not. I remember the old hunch reports that would show interesting anomalies, like the fact that dog owners are 16% more likely to consider Paul McCartney their favorite Beatle. These...