Planet Facebook

Saturday, 09 April 2011 15:55 Mike Swift / San Jose Mercury News 

As Facebook evolves from insular Silicon Valley start-up to a global company with a necklace of offices around the planet, it is relying on a key tool to extend its unique culture—the Landing Team.

A year ago, Facebook had no one in Austin. Now, Austin is Facebook’s biggest US office outside Palo Alto, California, with about 110 engineers and programmers—most hired locally. Recreating Facebook’s culture in Austin with a new set of hires was the job of six people, a meticulously screened group chosen from headquarters for their ability to be “culture carriers.”

“Maintaining culture is one of the top priorities we have as a company,” said Sarah Smith, a Stanford business school graduate who is head of online operations in Austin and led the Landing Team. “We’re trying to be really smart and learn about our growth. So we’re focused on building a few offices, but making sure they are really tied into the culture.”

The Landing Team is a key tool for Facebook, as the social network strives to extend its unique identity and values as it grows explosively and opens offices from Dublin, Ireland to Hyderabad, India. Like the Peace Corps, Landing Team members make a significant commitment, moving to a far-away city for a set period—one year, for the Austin group.

During that time, Facebook’s colonists are responsible for opening the office, recruiting and hiring the new workers, and ultimately, for instructing them in the ways of Facebook—while doing the job they had in Palo Alto.

“It really has been the hardest I’ve ever worked in my career,” said Nicci Ciranna, 26, who had only been at Facebook for one year before being selected for the Austin team.

“You’re transitioning your life somewhere new, where you don’t know anybody except your landing teammates,” she said. “And beyond that, it’s pushing you in every single professional direction: Learning how to be an amazing [hiring] interviewer for every single team in operations, not just your own team. Learning how to mentor and empower people. Learning every in and out of Facebook, in the context of the history of Facebook. I think that’s the biggest challenge when you have an office of new hires...how do you get them to understand what it means to be at Facebook?”

Facebook says it needs to open new offices to tap local talent and to build a presence closer to the global audience that uses its products. The social network now has more than 20 offices worldwide, following the opening of the first outside office in New York in November 2007.

The Austin team arrived in April to open an office responsible for technical support for Facebook advertisers and outside software developers, and for a risk team that deals with issues like credit card fraud. Facebook chose Austin because it needed that support office in the middle of the country, more in sync with other US time zones, and the company liked the wealth of local talent, thanks to the University of Texas and Austin’s tech history.

For Erik Fortin, a three-year Facebook veteran who grew up in Sunnyvale and had never lived outside the Bay Area, Austin was a chance to turn back the Facebook clock.

“It was an awesome opportunity to kind of see that growth happen all over again, from the beginning,” said Fortin, 28. “It was the ability to come out here, start something from scratch, and kind of put your name on that.”

Maintaining a coherent culture is critical for companies like Facebook, Zynga or Google, which are growing so rapidly that the closest comparisons might be the Manhattan Project to build the first atomic bomb, said Steve Blank, who teaches entrepreneurship at Stanford.

“This new class of companies is writing the new rule book for hyper-growth,” Blank said. If a new office strays from the mission or values of Facebook, he said, it would be costly because that problem could be replicated through that rapid rate of growth.

In Austin, the Landing Team hired their first “class” of recruits about six weeks after they arrived, and promptly used a mainstay of Facebook culture—”Hackathon”—to demonstrate its values, which emphasize collaboration, risk-taking and speed.

Hackathon is a regular Facebook event where the only rule is that for that day, you cannot do your regular job. In Austin, the landing team bought paint and instructed the new hires to mark up the walls, in the tradition of Facebook’s headquarters. One new hire showed up wearing a spacesuit—proof, the landing team felt, that the newbies were “getting” the Facebook culture.

“That first Hackathon really made us feel like we’re a startup within a startup,” Ciranna said.

Since then, the team has hired 11 additional classes of 10 to 15. The pace is so fast that the second-newest hires sometimes instruct the newest in the door.

The Austin office occupies space in a downtown office tower with PricewaterhouseCoopers, a cultural mismatch clear in the lobby as 20-something Facebook workers in jeans pass accountants in suits.

Inside the office, the style of Facebook’s Palo Alto office reigns. There are the same long wooden tables lined with computer monitors, the same lack of partitions between each worker, the conference rooms whimsically named for musicians, and the same work atmosphere—a mixture of intense focus and fun.

The Landing Team represents Facebook’s home-grown take on a common problem for fast-growing companies. Like Google, which sends experienced Googlers to seed its culture in new offices, Facebook says the Landing Team is critical.

“We think about, ‘Be open, Be bold, Move fast, Build trust’—these are things we talk about and demonstrate from the start” to new hires, Smith said.

With their commitment almost up, Austin’s team members have faced the same tough decision: They can stay in Austin, with the group they hand-picked and have grown close to. Or they can return to Palo Alto. They have had to make that emotional decision knowing the experience has changed them professionally and personally.

Smith, 33, has decided to stay in Austin for now. She teared up while talking about the connections she’s made. “It’s an amazing team, and I really love it here,” she said. Fortin will stay too. His conviction about becoming a leader at Facebook solidified during the year. “I learned I could stand up in front of a large group of people, and not completely choke,” he said.

Ciranna, however, will return to Palo Alto, working on Facebook internal communications to knit its growing global network of offices.

“I’ve grown in this role so much,” she said. “It’s so amazing to have a company of this magnitude and impact have trust in you to go and do this.”

In Photo: Nicci Ciranna was chosen to be part of a “landing team” to set up Facebook offices in Austin a year ago. Here, she visits at Facebook office in Palo Alto, California, on March 22, 2011. (Karen T. Borchers/San Jose Mercury News/MCT)

More Filipinos are ‘three screen’ consumers

Date Published: April 13, 2011

“MULTIMEDIA-TASKERS” are increasing nationwide, the local unit of The Nielsen Co. yesterday said, with more Filipinos able to watch TV, use their mobile phones or surf the Web at any given time in urban areas. 

 

Penetration rates for these so-called “three screen” consumers nearly doubled last year from 2006, indicating a complementarity that advertisers can utilize.

“The average in total urban Philippines is 23% in penetration. That’s about eight million individuals who have access to the three screens at any given point,” said Gerald G. Bautista, managing director of The Nielsen (Philippines) Co.

This is up from 13% in 2006, Mr. Bautista told reporters at a briefing.

Penetration was the highest in Metro Manila at 34%, equivalent to 3.17 million three screen consumers. Widening the scope to Mega Manila, penetration was said to be at 28%, or 4.97 million consumers
In other urban centers such as Cebu, the penetration rate was 22% (281,000 consumers) while in Davao it was at 28% (179,000 consumers).

“The three screen consumers are significantly using other media as well, they’re using the radio, watching movies and they read a lot in terms of magazines and broadsheets,” Mr. Bautista said.

“Indeed, the three screen consumers are very much multimedia-taskers.”

The largest proportion, or 34%, of three screen consumers are students. Mr. Bautista said this was to be expected, given that their generation basically grew up with the internet.

Other users are professionals who use the three media for occupation or work, or those who have the money to “play with the gadgets”.

In terms of television behavior, three screen consumers were found to watch TV everyday and almost 50% had cable subscription. Almost half access the internet four to six times in a week, with the access point nearly a 50-50 split between internet cafes or homes. For mobile phones, 96% are prepaid subscribers.

On a per medium basis, Nielsen said TV penetration increased to 96% last year from 95% in 2009. Access to the internet also grew to 36% in 2010 from 33%. The mobile telephone penetration rate remained at 63%.

The Nielsen data was taken from a survey of 2,000 respondents aged 10 and above in 21 cities nationwide.

Globe bolsters broadband unit amid growing competition

Date Published: April 13, 2011

GLOBE TELECOM, Inc. is gearing up for growing competition in the broadband Internet business, a segment in which its rivals have been teaming up to consolidate resources.

 

The telecommunication unit of Ayala Corp. has allocated more than a third of its 2011 capital expenditure to bolster its broadband services which consumers have tapped to complement the usual voice and text channels, its top official said at a press briefing after the annual stockholders’ meeting.

“We all know the trend is toward more use of broadband,” Globe Chief Executive Ernest L. Cu said.

“Very large enterprise customers to small and medium enterprises [are using this service]. This group has shown double-digit growth, that momentum is being carried this year,” Mr. Cu said.

The company said it has allocated $180 million of its $500-million capital expenditure for the year for the broadband business.

This comes after the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) earlier said it was likewise seeing an opportunity in the mobile broadband business after announcing that it will acquire a 51.55% controlling stake in Sun Cellular operator Digital Telecommunications Philippines, Inc. before July this year.

PLDT had said it will use the “combined networks of PLDT, Smart and Sun” to expand the reach of its mobile broadband services and also to “enhance capacity and expand broadband and 3G coverage for Sun Cellular.”

The competition in this segment was attributed to the changing profile of consumers who are “now using other channels to communicate,” Mr. Cu said.

Aside from the capital expenditure allotment for the broadband business, Globe Telecom will also be working to secure more bandwidth from the government, Mr. Cu said.

“Globe is the only other telecommunication company qualified for the remaining 3G slot of the government,” he claimed.

The company, in a disclosure filed yesterday with the local bourse, went on to report that the Southeast Asia-Japan cable consortium, which is currently building a submarine cable system expected to finish by 2013, will help boost the infrastructure needed to service broadband consumers.

Globe Telecom will also be looking to grow the segment serving businesses and also rolling out province-specific marketing campaigns to further support growth targets, Mr. Cu added.

Mr. Cu said such “regionalized offers” will give the company momentum.

“The market is matured but there is incredible diversity in promos in areas and carriers are taking advantage of that,” Globe advisor for the consumer facing unit Peter Bithos for his part said.

“We will go down to town levels and regions than broad strokes,” Mr. Bithos said.

For 2010, Globe’s net income fell 23% to P9.7 billion from P12.6 billion due to the “hyper competitive industry.”

Globe claims its subscriber base for broadband reached one million customers in 2010 while its mobile subscribers numbered 26.5 million.

Shares in Globe closed yesterday at P840, down 0.06% from its previous close of P840.50 apiece.
- Emilia Narni J. David

Google takes on Facebook with latest social tweak

ALEXEI ORESKOVIC, Reuters

03/31/2011 | 06:58 PM

SAN FRANCISCO, March 30 (Reuters) - Google Inc will begin allowing users to personally endorse search results and Web pages, its latest attempt to stave off rival Facebook Inc while trying to jump onboard a social networking boom.

The so-called "+1" button will start to appear alongside Google search results for select users from Wednesday, letting people recommend specific search results to friends and contacts by clicking on that button.

Eventually, the feature may begin to influence the ranking of search results, though that is only under consideration. Results are now ranked via a closely guarded algorithm.

The world's leader in Internet search is battling to maintain its share of Web surfers' time and attention, which is increasingly getting taken up by Facebook, Twitter and other social networks. But it has struggled to find its footing in the nascent market.

Its last attempt to create a social network — Buzz — has not fared well. A flood of complaints about how Buzz handled user privacy cast a pall over the product. On Wednesday, Google announced it had reached a settlement with regulators under which it agreed to independent privacy audits every two years.

With the new +1 buttons, Google aims to counter one of Facebook's most popular features. The new feature comes nearly a year after Facebook began offering special "Like" buttons to websites, creating a personalized recommendation system that some analysts believe could challenge the traditional ranking algorithms that search engines use to find online information.

A LOSING BATTLE?

Maintaining its role as the main gateway to information on the Internet is key for Google, which generated roughly $29 billion in revenue last year — primarily from search ads.

While Google remains the Internet search and advertising leader, Facebook is taking a larger and larger portion of advertising dollars.

Google said that +1 recommendations will also appear in the paid ads that Google displays alongside its search results. In its internal tests, Google found that including the recommendations boosted the rates at which people click on the ads, executives told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday.

Eventually, Google plans to let third-party websites feature +1 buttons directly on their own pages, the company said.

Google's Matt Cutts, a principal engineer for search, said the +1 buttons were part of the evolution of Google's own social search efforts, rather than a direct response to Facebook's Like buttons.

"We always keep an eye out on what other people are doing, but for me the compelling value is just that it's right there in the search results," said Cutts.

Google introduced social search in 2009, and in February the company began displaying special snippets underneath any search results that have been shared by a person's contacts on Twitter, the popular Internet microblogging service.

Currently Google is not using +1 recommendations as a factor in how it ranks search results — a user only sees that a friend recommended a search result if the result would have turned up in a search based on Google's existing ranking criteria.

Google's Cutts said the company is evaluating whether to use +1 recommendations as a ranking factor in the future.

To use the new recommendation system, users must create a Google Profile page. Any +1 clicks that a person makes will be publicly visible to their network of contacts, which is based on existing contacts in Google products such as the company's Gmail email and its instant messaging service.

Google faced privacy criticisms last year when it launched Buzz, a social networking messaging product that automatically revealed people's personal contact lists to the public.

Cutts said that Google hoped to address any potential privacy concerns with the +1 service by making it clear that any +1 tags are public.

"As long as people have that mental model, they know what to expect, they're not surprised if they +1 something and it shows up in a different context," he said.

The feature will initially be available to a small portion of Google users in the United States on Wednesday, and the company plans to allow other U.S. users to sign up to try the +1 feature later in the day. — Reuters

Information overload

By Raul J. Palabrica Jr.
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 20:23:00 03/31/2011

MENTION the words “Encyclopedia Britannica” or “Encarta CD encyclopedia” to a teenager or somebody born in the early 1990s and expect to get a quizzical look.

For people in that age bracket, those terms hardly ring a bell. The things they represent are as recognizable as their great grandparents or the historical figures they were taught in the elementary grades.

Generation X members (who are now enjoying senior-citizens discounts) will remember Encyclopedia Britannica as the 15-volume or so set of books that schools used then as reference material for various subjects.

The children of the baby boomers who were born when computer technology was on the upswing will recall Encarta as the go-to compact disk for quick information for research assignments.

Not anymore. Like the floppy disks and diskettes of yore, CDs have gone out of style in favor of flash drives and other devices that can store tons of data in gadgets that can fit into small pockets.

What’s more, there’s Google, Yahoo! and other Internet-based search engines that, at the flick of a finger, can download all the information available in cyberspace on any subject under the sun.

With access to it almost unrestrained, anybody with just the right amount of computer knowledge can upload any kind of data or information in the Net for viewing.

Overload

As if these sources of information are not enough, there’s Twitter, Facebook and other social-networking sites that allow their members and occasional visitors to chat, ask questions or seek advice on any subject that may strike their fancy.

There is no dearth in the responses they will get, more so, if they post their request for information or advice to their enrolled “friends” and the latter’s respective individual links.

There seems to be hordes of people who either have a lot of time in their hands or use the Net as a crutch for their lonely social lives.

You want to know more about somebody you met recently? Type his name in a search engine or social networking site. Chances are he has been written about, mentioned in some report, or has filled up a form somewhere, or maintains a Facebook account. Voila! Your background check is done.

You want to know more about a product you want to buy, a school you want to enroll in, a place you plan to visit, or a dining place recommended by a friend?

Go through the same search procedure and satisfy your curiosity. Halfway through your reading treasure and after one hour, however, you may have to decide which information to believe and which to discard. Welcome to the world of information overload!

Decisions

A recent article in Newsweek magazine discussed how “the Twitterization of our culture has revolutionized our lives.” Using data gathered from various research studies, the author analyzed the effects of today’s abundance and availability of information on the ordinary person’s decision-making process.

The premise is undeniable—our brain can take in only so much information load. Anything in excess of that load capacity puts a strain on the brain’s ability to make well-thought-of decisions. When that happens, “the brain struggles to figure out what to keep and what to disregard. Ignoring the repetitious and the useless requires cognitive resources and vigilance, a harder task when there is so much information.”

Ideally, the availability of information allows a person to weigh the pros and cons of an intended action, analyze the short-term and long-term effects of a decision and, in a manner of speaking, learn from the mistakes of the past.

The flipside of that perceived advantage is, “every bit of information presents a choice: whether to pay attention, whether to reply, whether to factor it into an impending decision.”

Quoting a research study, the article pointed out that “when we make decisions, we compare bundles of information. So a decision is harder if the amount of information you have to juggle is greater.”

Unconscious

Weighed down by information, sometimes conflicting or confusing, the brain becomes “a victim of info-paralysis” and refuses to make a decision, or, if forced to do so, makes objectively poor choices.

To aggravate matters, after a decision has been made and the person later comes upon additional information that he should have taken into consideration, he becomes disappointed (or worse, depressed) about his action.

Thus, the author pointed out that “if we manage to make a decision despite info deluge, it often comes back to haunt us. In a world of limitless information, regret over the decisions we make becomes more common. We chafe at the fact that identifying the best feels impossible.”

So how does one avoid, if not minimize, the adverse effects of information overload on the decision-making process?

The author said that “creative decisions are more likely to bubble up from a brain that applies unconscious thoughts to a problem, rather than going at it in a full-frontal, analytical assault.”

Those unconscious thoughts are believed to arise when the brain is in a state of relative peace or not under stress, such as, while a person is in the shower or a setting different from what he’s been used to in his daily life.

In the midst of information overload, the author advises that we “need to pull back from the constant influx and take a break. That allows the brain to subconsciously integrate new information with existing knowledge and thereby make novel connections and see hidden patterns.”

The line to the spa starts at the right.

PLDT-Digitel Deal, End of unlimited calls, texts feared

Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 04:03:00 03/31/2011

By Doris Dumlao, Paolo Montecillo, Gil C. Cabacungan Jr.

MANILA, Philippines—The return of telecom duopoly in the country can shore up profits for leading players Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) and Globe Telecom and may spell cutbacks in the industry’s offering of unlimited voice and text messaging services to consumers, lawmakers said Wednesday.

PLDT recently signed a share-swap deal that will allow it to take majority control of Gokongwei-led Digital Telecommunications, whose cheap services through the Sun Cellular brand have gnawed sharply at the profitability of traditional leaders PLDT and Globe Telecom.

The stellar rise in the stock prices of PLDT and Globe Telecom after the deal was announced indicated a growing perception that with Digitel now out of the way, the two companies can now collect higher prices for their services.

In one of the internal memos issued by Globe management to employees when the PLDT-Digitel deal was announced on Tuesday, the Ayala-led telecom unit said one potentially good outcome was that “PLDT is seen to carry the cost of bringing rationality back to the market by paying for this acquisition and that Globe is seen to benefit from it as profitability remains in a more stable and consolidated market.”

Another internal Globe memo obtained by the Philippine Daily Inquirer said: “We might find ourselves competing in a more rational marketplace with better margins as the new opposition could decide to scale back on the unlimited propositions that undermine industry.”

Consumers worried

Consumers are indeed now concerned over what the deal might mean for Sun Cellular’s unlimited and bucket-priced call and text services that the public enjoys.

Sun Cellular introduced unlimited call and text services for fixed monthly fees into the Philippine market, forcing its competitors—Smart of PLDT and Globe Telecom—to follow suit, resulting in lower profits.

“The fear of the public is whether PLDT—that used to oppose unlimited services—might change the brand Sun and everything it stands for,” said Antonio Cruz, president of consumer group TxtPower.

Goodbye to price wars

Technology blogger Abe Olandres of Yugatech.com said the competition between companies, which results in innovation to users, would suffer. “Say goodbye to the price wars (though not really entirely gone). From being a three-way contest, it’s now down to two—PLDT vs. Globe,” he said.

But subscribers may also benefit from the optimization of the two companies’ combined networks, Olandres said. “Big is good for business, but when big becomes bad or monopolistic, that’s what consumers fear,” Cruz said.

Cruz added that the public deserved better services and reduced prices as a result of the deal. “The PLDT-Digitel deal, it is hoped, should improve the Philippines’ standing in terms of Internet service pricing in Southeast Asia,” he said.

Bayan Muna party-list Rep. Teodoro Casiño said he was worried that Sun Cellular’s innovative strategies that helped reduce the cost of services, like unlimited call and text plans and lower rates, would be reversed. “The public has to be wary of potential monopoly practices resulting from this takeover,” Casiño said.

“If this PLDT buyout threatens the economy, puts the interest of the general public in peril, and intimidates an otherwise competitive environment in the telecom business, then perhaps it must be evaluated,” said Quezon City Rep. Winston Castelo.

Castelo said Congress should look into the terms of the buyout because PLDT practically acquired a big market share by “killing a strong competitor.”

Pass antitrust law

Negros Occidental Rep. Alfredo Benitez said PLDT’s purchase of Digitel had made it more urgent for Congress to pass an antitrust law to keep markets competitive and prevent the formation of cartels or monopolies.

“We have to rush the enactment of an antitrust law to determine if the purchase is meant to curtail competition,” said Benitez in a text message.

Insensitivity to complaints

Eastern Samar Rep. Benjamin Evardone was worried that consumer complaints on the poor quality of service and the telephone companies’ insensitivity to complaints would worsen.

“As it is, there are already mounting consumer complaints such as overbilling and dropped calls that are not being addressed by the telcos. This should prod the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) to intensify its monitoring over the industry players to prevent abuses,” said Evardone.

Pangilinan assurance

During the official announcement of the PLDT-Digitel deal on Tuesday, PLDT chair Manuel V. Pangilinan said the operations would remain separate from each other. PLDT has assured subscribers of both mobile brands Smart Communications and Sun Cellular that they would continue to enjoy the same quality of service at the same price.

As a result of the deal, PLDT will be in control of most of the franchises for cellular mobile telephone service in the country.

70% market share

PLDT will also end up with three of the four third-generation or 3G licenses, which companies use to offer mobile broadband services.

TxtPower’s Cruz said the government, particularly the NTC, should ensure that the new PLDT and Sun network would not eventually monopolize the country’s telecom sector.

With the deal, PLDT is expected to have a 70-percent market share in the country’s competitive telecom industry both in terms of revenue and subscribers. Globe Telecom has the remaining 30 percent.

With the PLDT group now controlling the bulk of the market, the pricing power of Globe Telecom has just weakened, said Campos Lanuza & Co. head of research Jose Mari Lacson.

“Selling Globe may be a possibility now if the Ayala Group wants to extract the remaining value in the company. They may also opt to fight it out, but that will require extra resources, which they or their partner, Singapore Telecom, may not be willing to shell out just yet,” Lacson said.

NTC Commissioner Gamaliel Cordoba declined to comment on the deal, saying that the regulator had yet to receive an application to approve the PLDT buyout. The NTC’s green light is required because a franchise given by Congress will change hands.

Challenge to San Miguel

San Miguel Corp. (SMC), which aims to be a major telecom player after forging a joint venture with Qatar Telecom to launch the Wi-Tribe brand, thinks the industry still has space for a third strong player.

“SMC is now in full-swing to build a brand new mobile broadband network that will be robust and reliable. Our network will address voice and data capacity, which we all know is very much congested resulting in rampant dropped calls and slow data speeds,” San Miguel president Ramon S. Ang said.

“Be a little more patient, our services will soon make a huge difference,” he added.

Analyst Lacson said SMC would be affected both positively and negatively by the deal. “The negative is that Liberty will have a tougher time now that the market space just became smaller for the telecom contenders. With its strategic direction currently uncertain given the loss of its top executive [Anastacio Martirez], we wonder how Liberty will try to position itself in this new environment.

“The positive, however, is that San Miguel’s financial strength has increased relative to its perceived rival, First Pacific/PLDT Group. First Pacific has given up a sizable chunk of its equity in the PLDT Group, which weakens its balance sheet to a degree,” Lacson said.

Microsoft co-founder slams Bill Gates in new book

By Paul Handley
Agence France-Presse
First Posted 04:35:00 03/31/2011

WASHINGTON—Bill Gates plotted to grab Microsoft shares from his cancer-stricken business partner Paul Allen, the software firm's co-founder has claimed in a new memoir.

Painting an unfavorable view of Gates and his rise to the pinnacle of global business, Allen details Gates' 1982 scheme "to rip me off," just as Microsoft was becoming a computing powerhouse with its MS-DOS operating system.

In an excerpt from his new memoir "Idea Man", published Wednesday by Vanity Fair magazine, Allen describes Gates, the world's second richest man with a $56 billion fortune, as brilliant but a schemer from early days to control their firm.

The book, Allen's take on the company's early history, confirms the long-reported tensions between the two partners.

In early 1975, after a test on an early Altair microcomputer proved their BASIC program, they decided to form a partnership: Micro-Soft.

Allen said he had always assumed a 50-50 split.

"But Bill had another idea," he wrote: A 60 percent share for himself, claiming he had done more of the programming.

Allen reluctantly agreed, but a short time later, after they had licensed BASIC to NCR Corp. for $175,000, Gates demanded a 64 percent stake.

Unclear on the rationale, Allen nevertheless agreed.

"I might have haggled ... but my heart wasn't in it," he wrote.

Much later, Allen said, he mused over how Gates reached the 64 percent share.

"I tried to put myself in his shoes and reconstruct his thinking, and I concluded that it was just this simple: What's the most I can get? I think Bill knew that I would balk at a two-to-one split, and that 64 percent was as far as he could go."

"I'd been taught that a deal was a deal and your word was your bond. Bill was more flexible; he felt free to renegotiate agreements until they were signed and sealed."

In 1980 the rapidly growing company hired Steve Ballmer as manager of what was now Microsoft. Ballmer would become chief executive in 2000.

Two years later Allen came down with Hodgkin's lymphoma, one of the more curable types of cancer. While taking radiation treatment, he clashed with Gates over a key business decision, and began mulling his exit from the company.

That December, he overheard Gates and Ballmer discussing his illness, and "how they might dilute my Microsoft equity by issuing options to themselves and other shareholders."

"I burst in on them and shouted, 'This is unbelievable! It shows your true character, once and for all.'" he recalled. "I was speaking to both of them, but staring straight at Bill."

"I helped start the company and was still an active member of management, though limited by my illness, and now my partner and my colleague were scheming to rip me off. It was mercenary opportunism, plain and simple."

Despite Gates' six-page written apology that stressed their partnership's success, Allen said he was determined to leave.

Gates then made one last effort: he tried to buy out Allen at a "low-ball offer" of $5.00 a share. Gates rejected Allen's counter of $10, and, in hindsight, Allen had no regrets.

By holding on to his Microsoft shares as Gates ran the company, Allen now ranks 57th on the Forbes global billionaires list, with a cozy $13 billion in the bank.

Building up a networked society

Saturday, 26 March 2011 18:08 Rizal Raoul Reyes / Correspondent

THE use of broadband technology in the Philippines will experience tremendous growth in the next two to three years, according to the top official of a telecommunications service provider.

In a recent interview with the BusinessMirror, Ericsson Philippines and Pacific Islands president and country manager Rajendra Pangrekar said the company is bullish on the growth of broadband as there will be higher demands from sports, commerce, entertainment, languages and gaming, among others.

“We still see a 15 million to 20 million increase in broadband subscribers in the next five years in the Philippines. Moreover, Ericsson projects a 2-percent to 3-percent growth in machine-to-machine communications devices starting in 2012 until 2015, and higher growth beyond.”

Pangrekar said the main driver of the broadband uptake will be the affordability of the devices. On a global scale, Ericsson projects a growth of 500 million subscribers in broadband, widely 10 percent of the total subscriber-identification module penetration of the market, according to Pangrekar.

On a regional level, Pangrekar said the Southeast Asian region offers a lot of growth for broadband, and the Philippines, in particular, with less than 5 percent of the population, having access to broadband technology.

Pangrekar said Ericsson believes there is still growth in the short messaging and voice services. At the same time, the country would experience enormous growth in data and the broadband traffic. The competitive environment in the Philippines has increased, highlighted by declining average revenue per user, and cashflow for the operators.

According to Ericsson, operators will encounter challenges to efficiently address the increasing demand for new services alongside the forces of mobility, cloud and machine-to-machine connections. Ericsson envisions the “networked society,” where everything that benefits from a connection will have one. To enable operators to build a networked society, the company said networks need to be more scalable, smarter and deliver superior performance to ensure profitable delivery of attractive services to consumers, enterprises and partners.

“What that means is that the legacy network has been built for text and voice and not for high-volume heavy growth generated by the increase in broadband use. What we see in the Philippines and the rest of the region is a wave of modernization of network infrastructure, from legacy to the modern offerings driven by cost efficiency and capacity,” he said.

Pangrekar said Ericsson has complete turnkey end-to-end solutions to serve the demand for 3G, 4G and long-term evolution technologies.

He said all the developments on broadband will ultimately benefit the consumer. “It’s an exciting time for the telecommunications industry—the developments in broadband, user applications, and the launch of new devices all mean more value for the consumer. What we are seeing is a complete ecosystem that is much more coherent and offers richer functionality to users. Ultimately, we foresee that we will live in a networked society and that telecommunications will enhance quality of life as never before—and this represents exciting opportunities for all operators.”

Pangrekar said Ericsson is capable of bringing the necessary solutions to make network providers more competitive in a more dynamic environment.

“We have end-to-end solutions for network modernization that would reduce operating expenditures and capital expenditures which will provide a cost-efficient mechanism to deliver voice and data,” he said. “We also manage networks for some of the world’s leading operators. We want our customers to be able to focus on differentiation—how can they create more value for their own subscribers?”

As Internet turns 40, barriers threaten its growth

(The Philippine Star) Updated September 07, 2009 12:00 AM

Internet pioneer Len Kleinrock poses for a portrait next to an Interface Message Processor, which was used to develop the Internet. AP
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NEW YORK (AP) — Goofy videos weren’t on the minds of Len Kleinrock and his team at UCLA when they began tests 40 years ago on what would become the Internet. Neither was social networking, for that matter, nor were most of the other easy-to-use applications that have drawn more than a billion people online.

Instead the researchers sought to create an open network for freely exchanging information, an openness that ultimately spurred the innovation that would later spawn the likes of YouTube, Facebook and the World Wide Web.

There’s still plenty of room for innovation today, yet the openness fostering it may be eroding. While the Internet is more widely available and faster than ever, artificial barriers threaten to constrict its growth.

Call it a mid-life crisis.

A variety of factors are to blame. Spam and hacking attacks force network operators to erect security firewalls. Authoritarian regimes block access to many sites and services within their borders. And commercial considerations spur policies that can thwart rivals, particularly on mobile devices like the iPhone.

“There is more freedom for the typical Internet user to play, to communicate, to shop — more opportunities than ever before,” said Jonathan Zittrain, a law professor and co-founder of Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society.

“On the worrisome side, there are some longer-term trends that are making it much more possible (for information) to be controlled,” he said.

Arpanet network

Few were paying attention back on Sept. 2, 1969, when about 20 people gathered in Kleinrock’s lab at the University of California, Los Angeles, to watch as two bulky computers passed meaningless test data through a 4.5-meter gray cable.

That was the beginning of the fledgling Arpanet network. Stanford Research Institute joined a month later, and UC Santa Barbara and the University of Utah did by year’s end.

The 1970s brought e-mail and the TCP/IP communications protocols, which allowed multiple networks to connect — and formed the Internet. The ‘80s gave birth to an addressing system with suffixes like “.com” and “.org” in widespread use today.

The Internet didn’t become a household word until the ‘90s, though, after a British physicist, Tim Berners-Lee, invented the Web, a subset of the Internet that makes it easier to link resources across disparate locations. Meanwhile, service providers like America Online connected millions of people for the first time.

That early obscurity helped the Internet blossom, free from regulatory and commercial constraints that might discourage or even prohibit experimentation.

“For most of the Internet’s history, no one had heard of it,” Zittrain said. “That gave it time to prove itself functionally and to kind of take root.”

Even the US government, which funded much of the Internet’s early development as a military project, largely left it alone, allowing its engineers to promote their ideal of an open network.

Berners-Lee & Web

When Berners-Lee, working at a European physics lab, invented the Web in 1990, he could release it to the world without having to seek permission or contend with security firewalls that today treat unknown types of Internet traffic as suspect.

Even the free flow of pornography led to innovations in Internet credit card payments, online video and other technologies used in the mainstream today.

“Allow that open access, and a thousand flowers bloom,” said Kleinrock, a UCLA professor since 1963. “One thing about the Internet you can predict is you will be surprised by applications you did not expect.”

That idealism is eroding.

An ongoing dispute between Google Inc. and Apple Inc. underscores one such barrier.

Like some other mobile devices that connect to the Internet, the iPhone restricts the software that can run on it. Only applications Apple has vetted are allowed.

Apple recently blocked the Google Voice communications application, saying it overrides the iPhone’s built-in interface. Skeptics, however, suggest the move thwarts Google’s potentially competing phone services.

On desktop computers, some Internet access providers have erected barriers to curb bandwidth-gobbling file-sharing services used by their subscribers. Comcast Corp. got rebuked by Federal Communications Commission last year for blocking or delaying some forms of file-sharing; Comcast ultimately agreed to stop that.

 ‘Net neutrality’

The episode galvanized calls for the government to require “net neutrality,” which essentially means that a service provider could not favor certain forms of data traffic over others. But that wouldn’t be a new rule as much as a return to the principles that drove the network Kleinrock and his colleagues began building 40 years ago.

Even if service providers don’t actively interfere with traffic, they can discourage consumers’ unfettered use of the Internet with caps on monthly data usage. Some access providers are testing drastically lower limits that could mean extra charges for watching just a few DVD-quality movies online.

“You are less likely to try things out,” said Vint Cerf, Google’s chief Internet evangelist and one of the Internet’s founding fathers. “No one wants a surprise bill at the end of the month.”

Dave Farber, a former chief technologist at the Federal Communications Commission, said systems are far more powerful when software developers and consumers alike can simply try things out.

Farber has unlocked an older iPhone using a warrantee-voiding technique known as jail-breaking, allowing the phone to run software that Apple hasn’t approved. By doing that, he could watch video before Apple supported it in the most recent version of the iPhone, and he changed the screen display when the phone is idle to give him a summary of appointments and e-mails.

Other barriers

While Apple insists its reviews are necessary to protect children and consumer privacy and to avoid degrading phone performance, other phone developers are trying to preserve the type of openness found on desktop computers. Google’s Android system, for instance, allows anyone to write and distribute software without permission.

Yet even on the desktop, other barriers get in the way.

Steve Crocker, an Internet pioneer who now heads the startup Shinkuro Inc., said his company has had a tough time building technology that helps people in different companies collaborate because of security firewalls that are ubiquitous on the Internet. Simply put, firewalls are designed to block incoming connections, making direct interactions between users challenging, if not impossible.

No one’s suggesting the removal of all barriers, of course. Security firewalls and spam filters became crucial as the Internet grew and attracted malicious behavior, much as traffic lights eventually had to be erected as cars flooded the roads. Removing those barriers could create larger problems.

And many barriers throughout history eventually fell away — often under pressure. Early on, AOL was notorious for discouraging users from venturing from its gated community onto the broader Web. The company gradually opened the doors as its subscribers complained or fled. Today, the company is rebuilding its business around that open Internet.

What the Internet’s leading engineers are trying to avoid are barriers that are so burdensome that they squash emerging ideas before they can take hold.

Already, there is evidence of controls at workplaces and service providers slowing the uptake of file-sharing and collaboration tools. Video could be next if consumers shun higher-quality and longer clips for fear of incurring extra bandwidth fees. Likewise, startups may never get a chance to reach users if mobile gatekeepers won’t allow them.

If such barriers keep innovations from the hands of consumers, we may never know what else we may be missing along the way.

http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=502927&publicationSubCategoryId=71

072009: Intel takes on developing world with dust-proof PCs

Technology

MONDAY, 20 JULY 2009 17:36

INTEL Corp., readying a new version of its Atom chip, is taking a second crack at getting customers in developing countries to buy more personal computers (PCs). The first crop of Atom-based computers, released last year, were designed to win over customers in places such as rural China and India. Instead, consumers in the US and Western Europe snapped them up to use as extra PCs, said Sean Maloney, Intel’s head of sales. The company now wants Atom to achieve its original goal: appealing to people who don’t already own computers, he said. Intel is building a new version of the chip that uses less power and helps PCs survive more severe conditions in the developing world. The company, the world’s largest chipmaker, also is counting on wireless carriers to subsidize the cost of the PCs. “As yet, they’ve not been a huge success in emerging markets,” Maloney, 53, said in an interview. Atom sells for a fraction of the price of Intel’s other processors. That allows PC makers such as Asustek Computer Inc., Dell Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co. to offer PCs for a few hundred dollars. Broadening sales of Atom-based computers would help Intel offset a slump in the overall PC market, which accounts for more than 90 percent of its sales. Laptops run by Atom chips—known as netbooks—have mainly served as an accessory for existing PC owners, said Patrick Wang, a Los Angeles-based analyst at Wedbush Morgan Securities. “It’s become basically that fashion statement, that secondary toy,” he said. Buyers in the developing world have spurned low-end computers over concerns about durability, says Santa Clara, California-based Intel. Unlike in the US, many shoppers in those regions can only afford one computer, so it has to be rugged enough to last. Intel’s challenge is creating something that doesn’t cannibalize sales of its more expensive products. The company says that won’t happen because netbooks only have 10-inch screens and limited computing functions. That means they don’t compete with more expensive laptops, Maloney said. Google is developing a new computer operating system, based on its Chrome Web browser, that will initially be targeted at netbooks. Netbooks were the PC industry’s only source of growth last year, bringing in more than $500 million in sales for Intel. The netbook market will rise to 126 million units in 2015 from 12.5 million in 2008, Piper Jaffray & Co. estimates. In total, about 302 million PCs sold last year, according to Gartner Inc., a research firm in Stamford, Connecticut. Intel also is trying to spur sales of netbooks’ desktop counterparts: machines called nettops. So far, low-cost desktop computers haven’t met the needs of people in places like India, said Noury Al-Khaledy, the general manager of Intel’s netbook and nettop business. Current products can’t stand up to dusty working conditions, he said. “Dust is a huge problem,” Al-Khaledy said. “If you spend $299 on something that doesn’t work, and you’re not making that much, that’s a whole lot of money.” A lower-power version of Atom will help with dust. If the processor uses less power, it generates less heat, eliminating the need to put a fan in the computer. That means the PC chassis can be sealed, keeping the electronics safe from the elements. Forging deals with more wireless carriers will be key to the growth of netbooks and nettops in developing countries, Al-Khaledy said. Wireless companies are seeking ways to bolster revenue as the mobile phone market grows saturated. Carriers could subsidize some of the cost of a computer—or even make it free—in return for an internet service contract. AT&T Inc. and Verizon Wireless already offer those kinds of deals for netbooks in the US. Mobile phone companies worldwide are in talks with computer makers about contracts that could involve millions of units, said Intel’s Maloney. In developed countries, children of netbook owners may be another big market, Maloney said. The company is working with computer makers to create netbooks aimed at eight- to 14-year-olds. “The industry really just hasn’t prioritized it,” he said. “There are a series of PC makers who are now firmly targeting that younger group, and we’ll see what happens in the holiday season this year.” Bloomberg

http://www.businessmirror.com.ph/component/content/article/52-technology/13415-intel-takes-on-developing-world-with-dust-proof-pcs-.html