Sales and Marketing

Todd Cochrane had a dream that he met with a Microsoft executive and the number of current Vista sales were something in the neighbourhood of the US national debt. That would be 8.5 trillion copies served. Since I laughed when I read the post that makes me hopelessly geeky.

You've got to hand it to the buzz-marketing folks that work for Apple Computer... or, er, Apple! Apple! Apparently something happened yesterday. Apple managed to be bigger than the whole of CES and they were not even there.

In a stunning move, Steve Jobs invented -- or, pardon me, "innovated" -- the cell phone, the music player, digital camera and personal digital assistant. It does look cool but I have never gotten the appeal of these all in one things. Inevitably they do nothing well.

You think this is going to appeal to the Blackberry crowd? (Disclosure: I have a 7130e) Not a chance. How do you type coherent emails on a touch screen? Want to listen to music? Well not for very long because if need the iPhone available for calls you don't want to be wearing down the battery.

[Content in this post originates from www.bradfordgibson.net.]

The neatest trick that this box does is OS X. Apple has shrunken the kid in the family; this is the new Mac Mini. Elegant and sleek, with a bit more memory, a bluetooth keyboard and mouse; you may have the start of a super portable computer. I do feel kind of vindicated (ie: hear my prediction on Victor's New Year's Eve show) that the touch screen interface is somewhat tablet like... watch for the invention, or, er, the "innovation" of tablet computing in a future iteration of this device.

Victor Cajiao of the Typical Mac User podcast hosted a live Talkshoe edition of his podcast on New Year's Eve. The theme of the event was Apple predictions for 2007. I was privileged to take part in the conversation and would like to thank all of the participants for their positive contributions; it was a blast.

You can listen to or pick up the podcast here.

It seems that Dell UK has valued OEM Windows XP Home at

On your latest Bradcast -- a feature interview with Michael Auzenne of the Manager Tools Podcast. Michael, along with podcasting partner and management consultant Mark Horstman, produces one of the most consistently practical, useful and impactful podcasts in the 'sphere today.

Business advice, management consulting and personal coaching topics have been flogged to near extinction in various books, courses and schools. Despite this, Auzenne and Horstman routinely provide fresh conversational insight on these topics. You won't agree with everything these guys say on Manager Tools but more often than not you will find yourself realizing that they have developed a conversational mentoring approach that makes you feel like you're there asking for help at Mark's office door. This is the kind of approach podcasting was built for.

Manager Tools "Time to Party?" episode... Do the right things at this year's office party.

Update: Sorry for the dropped audio file... It has been newly restored and placed back on the server.

manager-tools auzenne

Forget about history, competition, restraint of trade, restrictive licenses and virtual monopolies. Let's just look at where we are now in the world of operating systems and services.

Market forces -- big and small -- have led to a world where the first operating system you buy for a new computer is essentially free. Free.

I don't want to hear about the "Microsoft tax" or how darned hard it is to buy a computer without an operating system so that you can load your favourite distro of Torvaldux. Don't ask for a discount if do get a computer without an O/S pre-loaded because to do that will cost the manufacturer money; so you will not be getting a discount. The O/S on any computer you buy -- PC or Apple -- is free. If you don't understand the economics of what I'm saying then do you think this Dell Dimension E521 that sells for as low as $329.00 would be $130.00 if there was no O/S installed on it? Of course you don't.

"But Brad" you say, "manufacturers pay OEM license fees to big computer makers. They get a cheaper price than retail." So cheap in fact that the cost of the O/S is not a significant differentiator in any buying decision. So cheap that if you don't really know the "true" price (whatever that is) and you don't even notice it, well then it's free. Essentially free. Forget about all those O/S boxes you see at the computer store with the $199, $299, $399 price tags. Who are those for any way? Who the heck is going to "upgrade" a computer to Vista? Microsoft certainly does not expect you to "upgrade". This era of PC is built for the O/S that came with it, don't whine and complain that your 2004 AMD whatzit with the really old fashioned graphics card from Feb 2005 doesn't run Vista well. If you need the tea leaves read for you just look at the new "plain English" EULA from Microsoft.

The first user of the software may reassign the license to another device one time.

(Translation: Because you will not want to do it again.)

This is a legal way of giving us a clue. Microsoft is doing us a favour by pricing the retail product at absurd levels. You think all that Aero glass is going to clean itself without brand new hardware?

Much has been made of restrictive licensing covenants in the new Vista EULA. Buyer beware. If you don't like the idea of features disappearing or the possibility that your legal copy of the O/S may be designated for rendition or that your media files may all stop working then you have a choice. Don't boot the code. Nobody has taken that right away from you.
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Microsoft Vista EULA OS

What the conniption is going on over at the Podshow silo? Since when is not providing complete descriptions of shows or show notes acceptable? I wanted to find out what Trucker Tom was up to on his last few shows and all I see are a few words in the show description followed by ellipses. I zoomed over to iTunes and the show description fields are incomplete over there too.

After playing with open standards for a couple of years, it seems the spicy curry from which Podshow was formed has been re-worked by an American family restaurant. Too bad. And too bad for some of the good shows over there that now have their show notes and extra features neutered by a dysfunctional, glam site. Is this what you wanted Mr. Gillmor Gang? (I would link to you but, well, you know...) Shame on you Doc Searls for taking part in this bland reinvention of American radio. Welcome to Myspacification 2.0.

Tip of the hat to Boris for pointing to this awesome site on home improvement for women; BeJane.com. Built with drupal, I defy anybody to tell me that the drupal CMS belongs in the same category as Wordpress and TypePad.

The sight is still short of some content in places but I'm bookmarking it for my "inner Jane".