Hi Izak. I am quite interested in the details of your last idea for a synchronous platform. If you don't mind, could you shed some light on what problem you trying to solve? Thanks.
Obviously the argument about if Apple's growth is sustainable or not also hinges on something troublesome about its history: the presence or absence of Steve Jobs. Will you invest in a company that is so much personified in an individual who will definitely leave someday?
This type of snafu is not unique to Bootuplabs and can happen even to best run orgs (I remember someone here ranting about ill-treatment at Seedcamp last year). I think managing nerds gets a little tricky when high expectations are involved. After enduring the flames,the guys at Bootuplabs have done their best to explain and apologize about the whole incident. I for one think the world needs more startup minded groups like this, not less. As a startup commnunity, I sincerely hope we can be forgiving.
When reputations are at stake and someone got disappointed, it gets hard managing a PR crisis like this. But all Bootuplabs needs to do is stay focused, reach out to good developers and do its best to create valuable companies. People will pay for Jamie's experience if Bootuplabs creates winning startups that sell.
What Friedman should be asking is as technology commoditizes, what other high-growth areas can the US be competitive in?Apart from some narrow niche (OS and productivity software, chip design), it seems the US is content with shifting certain types of hardware design and fabrication to foreign nations, while enjoying the role of brand marketing. Cost is usually cited as reasons. I think the question should be: what other growth areas remain and how can they be exploited by these risk-takers?
Re-echoing what someone above said, the analogy in the article is quite stale, without bearing fresh insight in relation to startups. It tries too much to cash in on tabloid like sensationalism ''Kidnappers'' while pretending to educate its readers. It is also wordy. There are a few writers on here who try to share insightful messages in fewer words (Sivers etc.,) and they are modest about the attention they get. Focusing the readers' attention on the amount of shareware money one earns is the equivalent of cyber bling: very suspect.
Yeah, I laughed on reading that: ''that was just the demo'' : ). I am typing this on a Nokia E63 and it seems kind of ok, though a robust budget device. I have to place the phone some distance from eyes because it's resolution is bright. Point is, there are still some nuggets of good engineering at Nokia. Just give them time to learn from mistakes.
Apple still has to contend with Nokia for the largest mobile computing firm slot, as far as it concerns mobile phones. Granted, Apple has the larger profit because of its iTunes/Apps ecosystem which enables the iPhone, but Nokia still has the larger sales numbers and is working hard to build its ecosytem with its new Maemo OS. I also find WinPhone 7's concept of ''hubs'' radically innovative and superior to the the apps concept. In other words, no one is sitting still...