Mike Maney

Tag: Technology

  • My How Time Flies in Technology

    How long have I been doing PR in the technology industry? How about 1997 when buying things on the Internet was a novel, really big deal. The things I’ve seen…

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  • Mobile Operations: The Lee Majors of the Enterprise

    There appears to be a lot going on in the world of enterprise mobility (he says as he types this post from his iPhone on a bus at 5am). I say this after sitting and listening to a number of my client’s customers who came together yesterday I’m Orlando to talk about how they are using mobile solutions to make their operations more efficient. These were big companies saving big dollars by simply (okay, maybe not that simply) using souped up cell phones to read bar codes and radio frequency tags to capture diferent kinds of data. In doing so, they are making their companies faster, smarter and more responsive to changing conditions.

  • I got into MIT (Technology Review, that is)

    OK, so maybe my SATs and choice of communications as a major hindered my shot at getting into MIT. What they didn’t hinder was my luck in getting a letter printed in MIT Technology Review. The letter is based on a story I read in the publication on my way home from SXSW last month (as well as a tweet from the magazine’s editor, Jason Pontin):

    Technology Review: Letters From Our Readers:  “Out Of This World”
    I read the January/February 2009 issue on my flight home from South by Southwest (the magazine was part of the conference’s swag bag). There wasn’t a weak story on any page, but one was out of this world: Adam Fisher’s oral history of space tourism (‘Very Stunning, Very Space, and Very Cool’).

    While I’ll probably never have the millions to afford a flight to the International Space Station, I can rest easy knowing that my $300 three-hour flight in a cramped coach seat was more comfortable than the accommodations afforded professional space travelers. I only wish I had the window seat they had.

    Mike Maney
    Doylestown, PA

    I may never make it as a subject of one of the magazine’s articles, but it’s still pretty cool to be a part of one of the smartest crowds in technology, if only for a fleeting two paragraphs.

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  • Why Palm Fails

    Palm recently released the Palm Treo Pro to a thundering wall of silence from the masses. Why? In my opinion, because no matter how great and innovative the device is, the company has become irrelevant. Palm was the only one not talking about the iPhone over the past year. I used to be a Treo fan (I think I had the only Treos that never crashed). By putting its head down and not engaging in the only conversation its peers were engaged in, Palm faded and not even an incredibly innovative device is likely to save it.

  • Momentum for mobile open source e-mail

    After a roughly two year stint running PR for IBM’s pervasive computing/wireless business and a similar period of time working with some of the best and brightest in open source, I find posts like this one from Funambol CEO Fabrizio Capobianco encouraging:

    “I read Hal’s recent press release about Fusemail (another smart email provider who realized there is ton of money to be made in mobilizing their customers, behind the carriers) and the last sentence hit me:

    FuseMail selected Funambol’s software during the second calendar quarter of 2008, the most successful quarter in Funambol’s history. Funambol completed a company-record ten sales transactions with innovative providers of email and PIM sync around the world, including several well-known service providers, online portals, such as AOL, and mobile operators. In the second quarter, the company also closed a Series B round of $12.5M in venture capital and significantly strengthened its solution by introducing important new support for BlackBerry and the iPhone 3G.

    Kudos to Fabrizio, Hal and the rest of the Funambol team!

  • Philippe Kahn Successful in Transpac Sailing Record Attempt

    Congratulations to Philippe on his and Richard Clarke’s successful Transpac Sailing Record. I’m by no means a close friend of Philippe’s, but I have been lucky enough to have had an e-mail conversation with him (we have a mutual professional acquaintance). I’m not a sailor, but it’s fun following one I know.

  • Lyons is right. Lying is wrong.

    Rule #1 in PR is don’t lie. Spin? Sure, we all do it to some extent (I’d claim spin is no longer the sole domain of PR even). But never, ever lie. The truth always comes out.

    The current Bush Administration is a prime example of this. Another is the current dustup around Apple’s PR team trying to game the press and shareholders about their CEO’s health.

    I encourage you to read the posts by former Fake Steve and current Real Dan Lyons for an inside look at how both sides are playing this game. The Fourth Estate smells blood and rather than getting out of the water (or getting a bigger boat), Apple’s PR team continues to chum the waters.

  • The Passion of the Community

    UPDATE: Added direct link to Roberto’s post.

    I wouldn’t be surprised to see a firestorm erupt over Roberto Galoppini’s open source multilevel marketing suggestions in this post by CNET blogger Matt Asay:

    Users promoting the software that they’re already adopting, but getting paid something for it.

    One of the underlying tenets of open source is the passion of the communities that form around specific (and popular) projects. Adoption is, in large part, driven by The Breck Principle: You tell your friends, they’ll tell theirs, and so on. Of course, in order for that to happen, the software needs to be well-written and useful.

    Roberto floats the idea that project leaders and companies can spur greater adoption of their products by employing the basic ideals of pyramid marketing schemes. Pay your best users to promote your software within their communities, who recruit new users to do likewise, with each newer user getting a smaller promotional payout and the original evangelist making more dinero as the foundation of his or her pyramid gets bigger.

    In a normal proprietary software setting, I’m not sure anyone would blink an eye at this approach. In fact, the way affiliate marketing dollars are allocated, it’s basically already being done. The problem with this approach is that the money corrupts, forcing software on users at the expense of choice. The reason Dell and HP sell Windows-based systems is not because it’s a better operating system (this is not to debate the merits of Windows versus Linux), but because Microsoft spends bucketloads of marketing dollars to make it fiscally irresponsible to explore other avenues. And those dollars don’t stop at the computer makers. They funnel down through channels and across applications. Take Microsoft’s “pyramid” marketing dollars away and I suspect the Dell and HP marketing budgets would be drastically smaller. This is not an indictment of Microsoft (nor Dell or HP). It’s how they market. And there’s no denying it works.

    Is it a model that could work in open source? Would it create a caste system within open source between those projects that have marketing dollars and those that don’t? Does it usher in a new phase in the lifecycle of open source software that puts a premium on marketing at the expense of great software?

  • Don’t Cry for Them Argentina

    According to this post by CNET’s Matt Asay, Argentina’s government is considering moving its entire information technology infrastructure to open source. There’s nothing earth-shattering in Argentina’s cost-savings rationale for considering open source. In fact, governments (and corporations, for that matter) adopting open source is rather ho-hum at this point.

    Matt also points out that an underlying driver behind this is software piracy. Open source helps Argentina comply with proprietary software license compliance by…gasp!…doing away with the issue altogether. Read Matt’s post for more on the cultural issues surrounding this.

    What’s happening in Argentina is an example of the problem Microsoft and other proprietary companies have gotten into. Their businesses are based on selling restrictive software and enforcing licenses through organizations like the BSA. It’s a model that open source sent to the dustbin long ago. In fact, there is little doubt that their core license policing/anti-customer business model is driving sales for open source. Rather than locking customers in, it’s driving them away.

  • The Problem with Verizon’s $100 Unlimited Wireless Plan

    Interested in Verizon Wireless’s new $100 all-you-can-eat voice plan? May want to check out this post by Silicon Alley Insider’s Dan Frommer first.