We discussed this before... but... what if Microsoft developer tools are better than Apple (xcode) and Android (eclipse) ? what if any guy can develop some software in a few days while doing the same for Android and the Apple takes 2x o 3x? what if Silverlight experience is better than html5 or native UIs? And... what if connecting games between desktop, xbox and mobile works?
Many "What IFs", but for me the developing tools and silverlight are key. Also on the RIM side QNX is a very promising bet against Linux/iOS/Windows, the demo doesn't feel real, but QNX is a strong OS.
I can't agree on the web side(asp.net, sharepoint, web parts, etc) but on the desktop (.net, c#, wpf, silverlight, parallel programming) I can't found something similar and when somebody speaks about HTML5 replacing the desktop I can't find any sense (I can hold my bet for the next 4 years.) There are few people with strong experience in many technologies to have a good argument in favor of the WEB with RIA. I simple example: there are not strong graph libraries (like Tom Sawyer, Jung) in html/JavaScript except prefuse in Flash.
You can't compare (or compare in an unfavorable way) the fundamentals of these companies with the fundamentals of hyped web companies, also many of those companies were profitable quickly and follow the IPO way. FourSquare will be here in ten years? Twitter? Zynga? M&A can make them durable but IMHO their fundamentals are more volatile: Google is not just a company who configured open source software and develop some scripts, some of their processes (adwords) can't be even copied with virtually infinite money (microsoft=>adcenter, yahoo=>overture, Apple=>iAds). We can argue that you can't copy/trash the network effect of facebook but we are in the prehistoric moments of the hypercompetitive web and their fundamentals are more volatile.
Yes, the founders level of motivation is a key factor of risk for a startup company, one thing is early after the creation and another ten years after, even if your company is profitable. One test is how motivation works after macro/micro economic cycles (i.e: dot com) or inflection points (crisis or growth). Also excelent moments in a company gives a false sense of security for the inexperienced management, so... I'll get the money if I have the risk of being out of business and without some personal financial security
I am one who doesn't really understand javascript hype (and have used it in advanced ways), there are few types, objects are automatically converted to strings, few functions support even for the web (urlparse). I am in favor of a VM to the web, supporting more programming languages.
If there are at least two people in the company and one consulting can cover their expenses I think that's the way to go. MSFT (Paul Allen and Bill Gates) did consulting in Microsoft.
Beyond the hype, Twitter is significant because you can crawl their complete social network graph of millions of users. Delicious et al offers a similar crawling but they don't have the same user base, and facebook doesn't permit to do this.
Why it's important? from a business perspective you can quickly analyze the customer sector of companies: look at dell followers, compare it to the apple ones, what's the difference? (don't know if apple is on Twitter so take this as an example)
Really like the [obvious?] crunchpad product. I really expect a new generation of products cloning iPhones, Kindles because Microsoft, Motorola, Nokia are sleeping under its comfort zones. Cheers to ASUS too!
As an Argentinian I see a core point missing: evolving Corruption
In this crisis US can't differentiate between free market and corruption. Why S&P and other rating agencies gave AAA to AIG? it was really a miscalculation?
But to be realistic Argentina is infinite far from US. US has the opportunity to heal itself while Argentina future is very dark.
Many "What IFs", but for me the developing tools and silverlight are key. Also on the RIM side QNX is a very promising bet against Linux/iOS/Windows, the demo doesn't feel real, but QNX is a strong OS.