Competition
Apple/AT&T bait-and-switch
When the iPad was announced, a major aspect of that announcement was the $30/month unlimited data plan from AT&T for the iPad. Now, only two months after the iPad actually started shipping, AT&T is ending that plan as of June 7th, and I find it very hard to believe that Apple didn’t know this would […]
Systems doomed to fail: ULTra mass transit
Over at Futurismic (one of my daily science blog reads) is this post about the ULTra light transit system. The system is quite clever and takes a demand-based (vs. a schedule-based) approach to transit. But as you watch the accompanying video, ask yourself: why will the ULTra system likely never grow beyond small, custom installations […]
The Arc of Engineering
[Copyright 2008 by Bruce F. Webster. All rights reserved. Adapted from Surviving Complexity (forthcoming).] And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe, And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot; And thereby hangs a tale. — William Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act II, Scene vii. I have observed a pattern […]
The Art of ‘Ware (V 2.0, maxim 2:6): managing resources and talent
[From The Art of ‘Ware (Version 2.0) by Bruce F. Webster (forthcoming), Chapter 2, “Supporting Development”] When funds are exhausted, then money is raised under pressure. Control is lost and equity surrendered to supply the needed resources. One of life’s great ironies is that the worst time to raise money is when you really need […]
The Art of ‘Ware (V 2.0, maxim 1:4): misdirection and stealth
[From The Art of ‘Ware (Version 2.0) by Bruce F. Webster (forthcoming), Chapter 1, “Starting Out”] Successful product development required stealth and misdirection. Hide your strengths at first and appear to be weak; when actively developing, show no signs. Any concept, once viewed, can be imitated, in appearance if not in fact. There is a […]