Sylvie in Sweden!

Boo hoo

2005-10-14T13:00:00.000+02:00

When I got the book in my hands, the first thing that crossed my mind was ‘Ow, do we need to read a book of 400 pages just with technical explanations in it?’ But as I begun to read, I was quite eager to know how the story would develop. It all seemed pretty logic that the leading figures in this book, Ernst and Kajsa, work together on this big project as they already did cooperate in the past in a successful way. But this story turns out to be their nightmare.
Ernst and Kajsa had a vision: becoming the first online retailer shop of the world. I too thought it was quite original, and was curious about how they would handle the whole process of birth of the company, boo.com. But pretty fast it became clear to me, that they already made some basic faults in the start of their company.
First, they hired the wrong people in my opinion. They’ve only start looking for new skilled people when the damage already had been done. And by this, I’m referring to the troubles they had with launching the site. Why wait so long for a professional company to contact?
Secondly, I think that they lost the general view of how many companies were parts of boo. I already had troubles remembering al the names of the investors, banks, shareholders,…That has a consequence that they lost focus on which was really important now: the launch of the site after six months of delay or thinking on how they can take expand their company that didn’t even existed for that moment.
What really annoyed me was the fact that those leading people seemed to party all the time! Should starter companies not be working day and night to build up a decent company?
I must admit that the site was successful and most of the customers were satisfied.
In the end, I think it would have worked out perfectly if they only had begun small, but expanded over time. Who is small, can become big, but who is big, can only fall down…

The triumph of the nerds

2005-09-30T13:00:00.000+02:00

‘The pc took over the world’. With that sentence Bob Cringely starts his documentary. And I don’t disagree with him. After what I’ve seen, I can’t even be more convinced about that sentence than I am now. I was so surprised about a few things.

First of all, I thought Silicon Valley was just a name of an area and not related to some kind of microship made of silicon, which was later supplied by Intel. Second was the fact that the first real pc was already on the market in 1975! An Altair 8800. It sounds so spacey. And the most awkward thing of all was that the thing didn’t even have a goal! An other thing that I found funny in this documentary is the fact that all great and big ideas arise in a basement…The constant war between IBM, with their Compaq, and Apple, with their Macintosh is a fourth issue of which I wasn’t awear about. And as we say in my country :’When two dogs fight over a bone, then a third one will run away with it’ is totally suitable for this situation. While IBM and Apple kept on arguing the whole time, they didn’t notice their common enemy, Bill Gates. With his software program ‘Windows’ he left competition far behind him. But the most amazing thing is that this evolution is going on since 1975 when Ed Roberts invented the Altair 8800. In thirty years time we come from a not operational machine to a high speed, multifunctional personal computer.

Sometimes I ask myself if this monopoly of Microsoft will continue. As we’ve seen in this brief history it is all about market profits and how to handle the demands and offers. But most important find the right nerds…

Welcome!

2005-09-29T02:54:00.000+02:00

Hi there everybody!

Welcome to my first blog! I hope you'll have a good time here! I will try to update my blog as much as possible. I'll write about my school, my trips, my friends...

Bye!
Sylvie