Tech in a recession

Although technically we are not yet in a real recession (definitely not here in Slovakia) the global media has been spinning the story of the crisis on the financial markets in this direction. What this means is that most common folks are already freaked out and are probably lowering their spending. This results into less revenue for companies and adds to all the recession worries.

In large companies the expected lower revenues often lead to cuts in jobs and and lowering investments and the earlier a company cuts back, prepares for the worst – the higher is the chance for it to weather this storm. Suns CEO Jonathan Schwartz posted and interesting post on his blog where he cites an email he sent out to the upper management. He makes the case that the current situation actually plays into the hands of Sun as a lot of companies will try to leverage technology and automation to compensate for head count cuts and to increase efficiency. When is the best time for a company like Sun to approach customers and offer assistance with making processes leaner and more efficient using tech solutions?

I see a lot of people in corporate IT hanging down their heads, complaining about the lowering of head count, reducing investment while opportunities slip by. I think Schwartz has a point and it is not only tech companies like Sun that can leverage the current situation. Even internal IT departments, CIOs, should approach their business and offer help. More often then not assistance like this can make a big difference while making the IT department much more valuable.  In a crisis situation like this I think the most important thing is to keep your head up high and be proactive – it is "opportunity" season!

New MacBooks and MacBook Pros selling out?

The Apple Blog has posted a short info that the MacBooks and MacBook Pros are being sold out in major flagship stores around the world (San Francisco, Toronto, Manchester) which I cannot verify at the moment. If true it would confirm Apple in its strategy not to enter the low cost notebook market and instead rather bring pro features to consumer markets. It is very easy to credit Jobs with such a move as he is known to have made some drastic moves within Apple (You did notice Apple makes phones now right?) but I am thinking this could have been driven by others as well. With Tim Cook and Jony Ive getting some spotlight time at the notebook event and just seeing how passionate Ive was about his new babies I really think investors are dumb to be scared of Jobs leaving the company. He did build a culture within the company that some say is molded around him but you cannot deny the passion Apples employees have for their products. And if Ive, Cook, Schiller and others are a sign of things to come – Apple has nothing to fear.

Smart move Apple, if only I hadn’t bought the February 2008 MacBook Pro

Oh dear Yahoo…

I really don’t know how to put this… Yahoo is dying and dying fast.

During this week a number of top executives have announced that they are leaving the company. Among them are some execs from Yahoo’s more successful acquisitions like the founder of del.icio.us or both co-founders of Flickr. With the drain I think the top management structure is really starting to crumble and the people who are left will face the wrath of Yahoo’s shareholders. Expect a major down-swing of the Yahoo’s stock price and more people jumping ship in the days to come.

I still consider Yahoo to be one of the greatest internet companies but for some reason the whole Mircosoft vs Google vs Yahoo war is moving forward and Yahoo seems to be the first casualty…

Techcrunch.com has an interesting list of ex-Yahoo executives and where they landed post Yahoo.

Short Slovak Barcamp review

The first slovak Barcamp took place as I already mentioned in an earlier post on the 14th of June in Bratislava’s A4 venue. It was a great event and I wanted to thank the organizers and sponsors for the great work during the whole event.

The conference itself was a mix of technical presentations from some leading experts in their specific topics (Synopsi – security, Digmia – hosting, ….), some startup promotion and experience sharing ( Richard Voda – Pozrisi.sk, Chris Clay – soup.io,….), to some specialized presentations like Michal Pastier’s Viral and others. From this point of view the conference was very rich on topics and cool presenters. On the other hand the variety of presentations made it somewhat difficult to refocus on new topics with each next presentation and it was difficult to keep track of everything. That however did not diminish my overall experience and I enjoyed my time there a lot.

The organizers have promised to do another one this year looking forward to the Slovak Barcamp’s next installment.

Slovak BarCamp

The first Slovak Barcamp is being organized in Bratislava on the 14th of June. The venue will be A4 – Nulty priestor which is a comfortable small place designed for something like this. What can you look forward to seeing there? Well the first thing is of course the people – from slovak, czech, austrian,… tech experts to internet media proffesionals, marketing gurus and more. Currently there are around 70 people registered for it and you can assume the number will still get bigger. The presentations will take on topics like web security, internet marketing, web TV and a lot more. Sign-up if you can make it !!

Looking forward to seeing you there.