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Microsoft Should Donate PowerPoint to the Taliban

Posted on April 28, 2010 ·

I don’t pretend to be a military strategist, but I’ve figured out how to win the war in Afghanistan.  OK, not on my own – The New York Times helped, with an article titled: We Have Met the Enemy and He Is PowerPoint:

Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the leader of American and NATO forces in Afghanistan, was shown a PowerPoint slide in Kabul last summer that was meant to portray the complexity of American military strategy, but looked more like a bowl of spaghetti.

“When we understand that slide, we’ll have won the war,” General McChrystal dryly remarked, one of his advisers recalled, as the room erupted in laughter.

Another choice quote:

“It’s dangerous because it can create the illusion of understanding and the illusion of control,” General McMaster said in a telephone interview afterward. “Some problems in the world are not bullet-izable.”

Wait, since when do Army Generals not like bullets? 🙂   But there’s more:

Last year when a military Web site, Company Command, asked an Army platoon leader in Iraq, Lt. Sam Nuxoll, how he spent most of his time, he responded, “Making PowerPoint slides.” When pressed, he said he was serious.

Platoon commanders spending most of their time fiddling with Powerpoint?  And we wonder why …. (slapped my hand, scrapped the rest of my comment…)

So here’s my 3-step Military Strategy, bulletized (could fit one PPT slide!):

  • Ban PowerPoint from the US Military
  • Convince Microsoft to donate 10,000 copies of PowerPoint to the Taliban
  • Go get them while they are busy PPT-ing 🙂

(Note: the above does not constitute a pro-war stance- I’m just having fun…)

Update: an old post of mine comes to mind:Romulan Attack Because of Microsoft Office

(Cross-posted @ CloudAve)

Filed Under: Humor · Tagged: , , , , , , , , , ,
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Edgy Marketing: Great Plains and SAP Guy vs. NetSuite Guy (Mac vs PC)

Posted on April 15, 2010 ·

You’ve seen Great Plains and SAP, now in the Grand Finale they come together to match up against Mac .. I mean the NetSuite Guy:

(Cross-posted @ CloudAve)

Filed Under: Humor, Marketing / PR · Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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Edgy Marketing: Great Plains Guy vs NetSuite Guy (Mac vs PC)

Posted on April 15, 2010 ·

Since I’ve shared with you a video  making fun of the Suites it’s only fair to show how a “suite”, NetSuite makes fun of competitors.  Oh, I love edgy marketing:-)

But this is nothing.. wait till they publish the SAP vs NetSuite video we’ve just seen at the SuiteCloud conference 🙂

(And I can’t wait for a SAP response ….)

(Cross-posted @ CloudAve)

Filed Under: Humor, Marketing / PR · Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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Click… Click … #FAIL. The Microsoft Dynamics Obstacle Course

Posted on April 13, 2010 ·

I guess I should start theme days.  Yesterday it was passwords, today it’s a picture is worth a thousand words.  Well, this time it’s actually 4 images, but they tell the full story.. no comment required.

dyn1

New Blog Post: Check Out the NEW NetSuite Compete Site!: check out the new NetSuite compete site for competitive… http://twurl.nl/0h2gyj

OK, I am clicking through.. only to find this:

dyn2

What’s this?  Obstacle course?  hm… click through again…

dyn3

Geez, will this ever end?  Click… click..

dyn4

No way, Jose.  I’m so outta here.  #FAIL.


Update: On second thought, I think Microsoft must have a penchant for Obstacle Courses – here’s another one.

(Cross-posted @ CloudAve)

Filed Under: Marketing / PR · Tagged: , , , , , ,
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My New Favorite Old Blog…

Posted on March 10, 2010 ·
Jonathan Schwartz, President and CEO of Sun Mi...

Image by TechShowNetwork via Flickr

My new favorite old blog is former Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz, blog.   It’s at the old URL, but has a new title:

What I Couldn’t Say… The “About” section says:

I think I’ve said pretty much everything I could say as CEO of Sun Microsystems. The more interesting stuff was what I couldn’t say.

And that’s what this blog (and maybe a book) is going to be about.

Mostly.

For a taste of his newly found freedom, read Good Artists Copy, Great Artists Steal.

And that’s all have to say… 🙂

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

(Cross-posted @ CloudAve )

Filed Under: Blogging · Tagged: , , , ,
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Mark Suster on Fox News: How to Present Your Business to a Crowd

Posted on February 26, 2010 ·

My favorite quote: One of the worst things with Powerpoint is the bulletpoint…

(Cross-posted @ CloudAve )

Filed Under: Marketing / PR · Tagged: , , , , , ,
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Laser Friday

Posted on February 12, 2010 ·

News on lasers of all sizes hitting targets of all sizes…  let’s start small – hey, small is beautiful, after all.  Besides, this is one laser you could own at a reasonable size one day.

Small Gun, Lots of Small Targets

Former Microsoft CTO Nathan Myhrvold currently runs aptly named Intellectual Ventures.  At TED (not to be confused with Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure) he presented a laser system that can shoot down mosquitoes at a rate of 50-100 mosquitoes per second (!).  Here’s a demo video – obviously in slow motion:

The best part: he assembled this system from commercially available parts, in fact some components were acquired on eBay.  The guiding software is said to be refined enough to not only find the target, but determine their size, speed, sound characteristics, in fact separating females (the gender that bytes humans) from males, and only hit the real enemies.  So your birds, pets and neighbors are safe. That is, until a hacker decides to experiment 🙂

If this sounds like mini Star Wars, here’s the real thing:

The Big Bang.  Big Gun, Big Target

The US Airforce’s he Airborne Laser Testbed system had a successful test off the California coast this week, when an airborne laser successfully  destroyed a missile minutes after it’s launch, while it was still in boost phase:

Not sure if the youtube version of the video will be allowed to stay on, but here’s a link to another version. While the experiment was technically successful, the future of the program is in doubt: there is only one system on one single airplane.

Well, let’s see, I promised all sizes: we’ve had the Big One, and a small laser against lots of tiny targets.  Let’s see what happens when lots of small lasers target on tiny target.

192 Lasers Hitting One Little Target

A research team at Livermore National Laboratory successfully fired a focuses array of 192 laser beams at a helium-filled target no larger than a BB shot and instantly heated it to 6 million degrees Fahrenheit. The gas vanished in a tiny explosion.   Wow… I wonder how they measured 6 million degrees?  But it’s nothing, the objective is to reach 200 million degrees.

Heartwarming news… especially that I live a mere 10 miles from that Lab.  But not all is lost, I got some assurances from Charlie 🙂

@ZoliErdos we’ll try to remember you after the The Ignition

Thanks.  Forever 🙂

(Cross-posted @ CloudAve )

Filed Under: Technology · Tagged: , , , ,
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Steve Ballmer Signs a Macbook – How About the Apple Tablet?

Posted on January 25, 2010 ·

Legend says Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer got really angry last year at an internal Microsoft event, when he saw an employee taking his pic with an iPhone- he grabbed it, pretended to stomp it and made fun of the employee (is he still an employee?) .

Well apparently he is more tolerant with outsiders, in fact may even have developed a sense of humor… watch this video showing Steve Ballmer as he signs a student’s Macbook:


Now that he warmed up to it, I wonder if he’ll go on stage and sign the Apple Tablet Steve Jobs is about to unveil?

(Cross-posted @ CloudAve )

Filed Under: Humor · Tagged: , , , , , , , , ,
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Don Dodge Dumps Microsoft After it Dumps Him

Posted on November 16, 2009 ·

It’s less than two weeks ago that Microsoft let Don Dodge go, along with 5,000 other employees.  He parted gracefully, then soon posted:

Getting dumped by Microsoft was a life changing event…for the better. The future is very bright. The opportunities are amazing.

Don probably set a World Record in the speed of getting a new job offer:

Vic Gundotra at Google was the first one to contact me with an opportunity…90 minutes after the news of the layoff hit. That fast decisive action was refreshing, and such a contrast to the slow, secretive, bureaucracy at Microsoft

Not only the outreach was quick, but the entire hiring process concluded in days, which is highly unlikely for Google. Yes, Don Dodge is now with Google and it did not take long for him to dump the remainder of his Microsoft life:

  • Thanks Microsoft Outlook, but I’m going to Gmail.
  • Thanks Microsoft Office Office 2007, but I’m going to Google Docs.
  • Thanks Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.5, but I’m going to Google Android.
  • Thanks Microsoft Internet Explorer, but I’m moving to Google Chrome.

Yes, I’m sure Microsoft made the right move, getting rid of a well known public face of the company was all worth it, and now this very public slap in the face is just the icing on the cake.  Well, Google was smart enough to turn Microsoft’s loss into their own gain 🙂

Congrat’s to Don for landing on his feet extra-fast, and – to paraphrase his blog title – moving onto The REAL Next Big Thing.

(Cross-posted @ CloudAve )

Filed Under: Business · Tagged: , , , ,
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Inconvenient Outages…

Posted on October 14, 2009 ·

Zia Yusuf, SAP’s EVP, Global Ecosystem & Partner Group tweets from SAP Teched:

RT @SAPEcoHub:New SAP EcoHub Blog: SAP Community Bio: Your Connection Between SCN and LinkedIn: Well, it ..

SAP Network Blog: SAP Community Bio: Your Connection Between SCN and LinkedIn

Great, let’s check it out:

The SAP Community Network is currently down.
We are working to restore the site as quickly as possible.


Current downtime is estimated at less than one hour.
You may contact us with questions or concerns.

Ouch….  Almost as “good” as Windows crashing on Bill Gates🙂

(Cross-posted @ CloudAve )

Filed Under: Humor · Tagged: , , , , ,
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