business

The Origin Of ‘The World’s Dumbest Idea’: Milton Friedman

On the idea of building shareholder value as a business strategy…

What’s the dark side of Silicon Valley?

I’ve been keeping an eye on this Quora question for a while now. Indeed, we mostly hear about all the greatness of the Silicon Valley, but there are much be a few downsides to living and working there. What are they? There are many great answers in the thread. Some are more insightful than others. One particular bit that I liked is this one:

Sh!tty technology. This one might surprise people. Aren’t we in the center of technology? Well, here’s the truth. 95 percent of these so-called startups are marketing experiments that (a) don’t need great technology and (b) have to execute fast, which means they pile on the technical debt.

Are coders worth it?

‘What about somebody in a coal mine — wouldn’t you say he works as hard as you? Why should you get paid so much more than that guy?’

Microsoft Reorganizes Itself – Crafty or Confusing?

This is a very nice summary of most Microsoft’s problems today, covering falling PC sales, mobile growth, tablet failure, Xbox, Office and Windows 8. Half the value of the article is in the links to external studies and references.

Everyone knows PC sales have started dropping. IDC recently lowered its forecast for 2013 from a decline of 1.3% to negative 7.8%. The mobile market is already larger than PC sales, and IDC now expects tablet sales (excluding smartphones) to surpass PCs in 2015. Because the PC is Microsoft’s “core” market, producing almost all the company’s profitability, declining sales are not a good thing.

Microsoft hoped Windows 8 would reverse the trend. That has not happened. Unfortunately, ever since its launch Windows 8 has underperformed the horrific sales of Vista. Eight months into the new product it is selling at about half the rate Vista did back in 2007, and that was the worst launch in company history. Win8 still has fewer users than Vista, and at 4% share a tenth that of market leaders Windows 7 and XP.

Reply to comments on Google Play for Android developers

Android and Google Play are awesome. But as someone involved with user feedback from Android apps, I have to say that not being able to reply to user comments on Google Play was a major issue. People asking questions, mentioning bugs, and just slandering – and there is no way for you to answer or get more details or even suggest an alternative communication channel. That was driving me nuts. And, apparently, I was not alone.

Well, it seems that Google has finally heard our prayers and is enabling replies to comments on Google Play. Initially, it was just for a few selected developers, but now this feature should be available for everyone.

Via Making Money with Android.