The Future of Enterprise Computing – and Social Computing

Posted on March 26, 2008 by lewisshepherd

I wrote the other day about how highly ranked the University of Virginia’s undergrad business school is (a close second in BusinessWeek’s annual ranking), and mentioned that one reason is the creative research and programs they sponsor.

In fact, thanks to UVA’s McIntire School of Commerce, I enjoyed a great day recently exploring some of my favorite topics with leading experts.  I was an invited speaker at their one-day conference on The Future of Enterprise Computing on March 14th, presented by McIntire’s Center for the Management of Information Technology (CMIT).  It was a fascinating day….

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The IC’s Own Geek Superheroine

Posted on March 25, 2008 by lewisshepherd

FACT: According to the law establishing the new position, the Director of National Intelligence is charged with “the recruitment and training of women, minorities, and individuals with diverse ethnic, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds,” as a way of broadening the personnel base on which the nation relies for intelligence analysis.

ANALYSIS: I’ve noticed that one of the single-most-viewed posts in this six-month-old blog has been my early profile of Dr. Lisa Porter, when she was appointed the first director of IARPA, the advanced-tech crowd for the intelligence community.

I can tell that the large volume of hits isn’t from my normal reader crowd, but comes in from search results. There was another uptick of hits on that old post this week, driven by searchers using Google and Live Search, and I believe it’s because WIRED magazine has its own profile of Porter in its new edition, the one with “Apple: Evil/Genius” on the cover.

The new profile, while short, doesn’t mind taking advantage of her apparently unexpected good looks; it begins, “Picture Q as a tall blonde woman with an American accent, and you’ve got Porter. Lisa Porter.”

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A Quick Long-Term Analysis of GOOG, YHOO, MSFT

Posted on February 2, 2008 by lewisshepherd

Fact: According to Forbes, writing after yesterday’s close of trading, “Unable to topple Google on its own, Microsoft is trying to force crippled rival Yahoo into a shotgun marriage, with a wager worth nearly $42 billion that the two companies together will have a better chance of tackling the Internet search leader…. Microsoft’s $31-per-share offer represented a 62 percent premium to Yahoo’s closing price late Thursday, although it’s below Yahoo’s 52-week high of $34.08 reached less than four months ago.”

Analysis: Most of the buzz about the Microsoft-Yahoo commentary yesterday was simply noise, bleating about the immediate impact (or not) on Google, as if the salience is a snapshot rendered in instantaneous who’s-up-who’s-down.  Yet I had a reader comment yesterday very perceptively on my post, saying “Whether the deal is timed well, overpriced or not, is for time to decide. Which may even take a couple of years!”

That got me to thinking about the value of these three companies over the long-term looking back.  Thanks to the web that’s easy to quantify, at least in terms of stock price; you can do it at MSN or on Yahoo Finance, but just for grins let’s do it at …

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