FiberGeneration

Microsoft SMS : the Stupid Me-too Strategy

Microsoft has just launched its Windows Mobile Apps online store, apparently (you bet) to compete against Apple' s AppStore for the iPhone.

As I've both an iPhone and a PocketPC, I can do head-to-head comparison. I swear, it's not because I'm an Apple Fanboy, but the AppStore rocks and the WinMobApps sucks. A matter of product design, of course : the user experience per se, with the integration of the store into a global solution, the ease-of-use, etc.

For instance, the Microsoft store requires you to install Silverlight, to enable the caroussel type of product selection. Guess what : this feature is embedded into Mac OS X (ever heard of CoverFlow ?)...

That is a pretty stupid strategy from the guys in Redmond (another one ? ;-), proving that Microsoft is struggling like hell to stay... alive.

Funny MacDailyNews take on that one : "Any day now, we expect a post-liposuction Ballmer to show up at some trade show dressed in jeans and a black mock turtleneck saying "Boom!" a lot."

ROTFL (Rolling On The Floor Laughing) Seriously ;-)

Here's an ATM machine' s screenshot, captured last night in downtown Pau. What a brilliant customer experience, is it ?!!!

For you geeks reading this blog, here's the MS Windows' s error message :

Question : Who the heck developed this mission-critical app ?

Next question : When the hell will the big guys (hey, you're seeing a large bank here) realize that Windows really sucks ?

Who Said Fiber Is Secure ?

See this !

For the sake of your PC, better not visit the site (Mac users : you can ! ;-)

Cycling At The Fiber Age

Le Tour de France will make its annual stop here in Pau next week. The city is readying for the big show, with signs, ads, and welcome events popping up everywhere. In the meantime, the new release of the blockbuster "Pro Cycling Manager" game is on the shelves.

Among the key features of this 2008 version, there's one which rings a bell to me :

" Play in single and/or multi-player mode (allows up to 20 players over the Internet or via LAN). "

Imagine the benefits of FTTH Fiber-To-The-Home for such a game : no more players number' s limitation, so that you could be part of a *real* 200+ racers' peloton, even better graphics, and a faster speed of reaction for you to counterattack your rivals...

FTTH does offer many other possibilities to practice sports like Cycling or Skiing. For instance, imagine home-trainers connected to the Internet, simulating a real competition between cyclists for their  indoor training during winter...

Shall you be a game developer loving Sports (e.g. Cycling, Tennis, Ski, Rafting, etc.), please feel free to drop me a line : Pau is the place you should be.

When P.R. Brings You Joy & Faith (sort of)

For those of you who still have doubts on the bright future of Fiber To The Home, this press release will wipe them out right away.

ed. note : to read with a grain of salt, of course ;-)

The World In A Words Cloud

This is my Del.icio.us tags' list as seen by the lovely yet addictive Wordle cloud generator.

A wonderful tool to analyze a text to find out the most frequent words in it.

See here the result on a 12-pages document I wrote back in 2002 at Agilent Technologies for the introduction of a new product : the Modular Network Tester. This document was aimed at presenting the new platform to the sales channels. Look at the corresponding cloud, and you'll get the message ;-)

Thanks to Bruno Giussiani for the heads up.

Broadband Washroom

The lovely city of Pau is truly The Broadband Country. See this hand dryer in the restrooms at the Pau airport. The Dyson Airblade™. It wipes your hands dry in a matter of seconds, the time for you to realize that it's done. When hygiene and fun meet. That's innovation, Folks !

For more details on the Airblade™, go here.

You may read the whole "Why Airblade" section : it's a pretty nice lesson of product marketing.

Also, the Customer Service part is a model. I never thought hands drying could be so interesting.

Freak This

Seen in Pau yesterday, this banner at a perfume shop. Just curious to learn what a "Nail bar" consists of.

A Day Without Email Is A Nice Day

For those of you who still have some issues dealing with email writing, Marketing guru Seth Godin has recently published a funny piece of advice :a 36-points check-list aimed at helping us think twice before hitting the "send" button. If you're used to put your whole company into the "To:" field or bcc your colleague on the message you send to your boss, then you better learn and apply this list ;-).

The Blackberry Tale Of The Day

In the aircraft bringing me back home last friday, I was sitting next to a Finance guy. You know, the kind of big-head/stripped-suit/heavy-smoker/VIP trader.

To give you an idea, the guy was still on the phone whilst we were ready for take off, discussing about a client of his willing to leverage on the fiscal package that Sarkozy offered to the richest French citizens on Day One of his Presidency.

Why post on that poor little anecdote ? This : during the flight, I've watched Al Gore' speech at the recent TED conference, on my iPhone. When the guy saw me, he took his Blackberry out of a pocket, and started to... play some kid's brick game.

Definitely, we are not on the same planet ;-)

Belgium Goes Web 3.0

This is true User-Interaction. Just amazing. And so funny ;-) Enjoy !

Fake Steve Jobs To Bob Metcalfe : "Go Get New Glasses"

Dan Lyons aka Fake Steve Jobs has the point with Bob Metcalfe' s EnerNet idea. His "one pair of glasses" theory is worth reading. Trust me. Because I'm a proponent of this idea that the Internet, Broadband, and Fiber can help solving the Climate Changes issues.

Wake Up Call By Google

Google did it again. A true breakthrough online app, which is set to be the next revolution in the Internet mattress - ooops, sorry, matters. See here for more details.

April Fool's Day For A Goofy Man

To my friend Handy.

Direct link to AlternativeEnergy' Comedy here.

The It-Could-Be-An-Apple-Gadget Edition

See here. The Flip is a brand new camcorder made by Pure Digital Technologies "for the rest of us".
Simple, easy to use, and just enough features for 80% of the population. On top, the Flip is pretty much affordable for most of us (at Agilent, I've learned not to say "cheap" ;-).
Definitely a gadget that could have been designed by Apple. Which, I suppose, has served as a model for the definition and creation of The Flip.

Fiber-To-The-Home : The Exploding Market

See by yourself...

[UPDATED 03-19-08 2:25PM CET] The video is no longer available on YouTube. That's the beauty of Web 2.0 and Rights Management ;-)

The Area 51, please ?

E.T. iPhone home ;-)

My name is Mr Incredible

I swear, I didn't take enhancement drugs ;-)

Here's My Best Profile On The Web

No wonder why I get so many hot calls !

JDSU vs. EXFO : Something Really Going On ?

Some Spanish folk has been googling for "exfo jdsu". Maybe for some competitive analysis purpose ? *

* in this case, dear FiberGeneration reader from Madrid : go to otdr.com, and buy Agilent gear. Still the best out there.

JDSU vs. EXFO : Rumor Or Not Rumor ?

Holy cow ! Seems that the small-world Test & Measurement industry' s engine is whirling fast after my recent post on the Google search for "JDSU announcement EXFO" thing. I can't stop looking at the stats : lots of visitors come to Fibergeneration to read this previous post, and much more.
First, to all of you I'd like to say that I'm honored being read by you dear T&M fellows.
Second, I'd like to highlight the fact that I'm definitely not responsible for the supposedly rumored announcement between your companies *.
Last, I'd like to confirm that I'll be attending OFC this year. And I hope I won't be banned from your booths ;-)

It's all about having fun for a change, Folks. I know, I should stop reading FSJ Fake Steve Jobs.

* ed. note : in a next post, I'll explain why I personally don't believe in a M&A kind of deal between the two firms. It simply doesn't make sense from an industrial point of view : the respective product portfolios are quite similar. I mean, JDSU already does what EXFO do, so, where's the benefit, if not for simply wipping out a rival (which is a very small one from a market cap perspective, see my next post, to be published later today) from the industry landscape.

post-scriptum : this whole stuff reminds me the good old days of the Bubble, when I was working at Agilent Technologies. Some day in 2000 or so, I was flying to France from Italy, back from a business meeting somewhere. Two rows behind me in the aircraft, two guys in dark suit & tie typical businessman battledress were talking loud about one of our rivals : GN NetTest. I couldn't stop listening for the whole flight, as they were discussing potential investors and buyers and blahblahblah. I quickly realized those fools were analysts, probably working for some big consulting and/or banking firm. At the arrival in Paris, I even had the name of the future owner of NetTest (i.e. Axcel, a danish investment firm). Let me tell you something : when you work for Agilent Technologies, you know what confidential information means. In the Business of Conducts policy, there's a lot of Do's and Don't s. For instance, this one : never discuss about business in a plane.

Ah, this anecdote recalls another short one in my memory bank. A few years later, once again in an airliner somewhere in the european sky. The guy the next row on my right hand side was reading a powerpoint presentation on his laptop PC. Guess what : he was with our biggest rival, based in Germany too, and was reviewing a new product introduction presentation. I got the premiere, for free...

T&M Industry : How To Get The Rumor Mill Started

Earlier today, someone from Canada googled "jdsu announcement exfo". Surprinsigly (well, not that much, indeed ;-), FiberGeneration went out as number one result on the first page (see here).

The interesting stuff is : JDSU and EXFO are two key players of the Telecoms Test & Measurement industry, EXFO being the #1 vendor on Optical Test gear. Guess what : EXFO is a canadian company.
Means that something is going on between the two rivals. Which wouldn't be surprising to me, provided that EXFO seems a bit isolated in the T&M field. Until now, we've got four major players : Agilent Technologies, JDSU, Anritsu, and Fluke+Tektronix, and a smaller yet leading one : EXFO. Not a sustainable position for the Quebec-based firm, as the market is booming again, thanks to massive FTTx rollouts all over the planet.

JDSU buying EXFO ? Quite an option for the earlier, who is made of a succession of M&As over the last 15 years or so : in the mid 90's Schlumberger T&M was sold to Wavetek, which merged a few years later with Wandel & Goltermann to form WWG, which got acquired by TTC/Dynatech to form Acterna back in 2000. Last, JDS-Uniphase bought Acterna in 2005, to form JDSU. The actual M&A' rythm of the T&M giant seems to beat on a 3 to 4-years timeframe : we are just in the right timing for the next one !

Scoble And I.

So, World' s famous blogger Robert Scoble is born on January 18 too. Until today, my references were Montesquieu, Cary Grant, or Kevin Costner. Now I have to add Mr. Scoblezeir. That's the Web 2.0 Age, Folks ;-)

That's Web 2.0 At Its Best

Here's a modern, innovative way to do the exec summary of an event.
See Mahalo Daily' s Veronica Belmont funny video : Steve Jobs' MacWorld Keynote in 60 seconds. Boom. Gorgious. Incredible.

That's Why I Don't Like Windows *

Look at this snapshot, which I captured this morning on "my" laptop PC (you know, this brand new Dell Latitude sporting a CoreDuo but no built-in WiFi ;-).
Translation, for those of you who don't read french in the XP texts : " the folder 'Emploi' contains items with names too long to be contained by the trash."
Reminder : this is Windows XP, licensed in 2007. The folks in Redmond will never stop surprising me.

* ed. note : I replaced the word "hate" by "don't like". Because a computing stuff is not worth the hate, even if it's MS-branded. Actually, there are much more critical fights than this one those days, don't you think ?...

Welcome To The New French President Era

Want to know why my home-country is going mad those days ? Read this true story on our "new" President, who just made it on TechCrunch, by the way. Jaw-dropping. When the journalists at your top-5 medias are unable to double-check an information, you're in big trouble.

post-scriptum : Congrats anyway, Mister President ! ;-)

How To Grab Market's Attention During The Holidays Season, Lesson Number One, By Fake Steve Jobs

Forbes' s senior editor Dan Lyons, aka Fake Steve Jobs, is currently offering one of the best yet impressive lesson of viral marketing to the Blogosphere.

A masterpiece of buzz, FSJ' s latest posts about Apple willing to sue him - read : the author, aka Dan Lyons - because of some confidential infos' leakage are just generating a tremendous traffic on the Fake Steve Jobs blog.

For those of you who didn't realize, it's Christmas' time. Holidays season means low traffic on the Internet superhighways. Except for people who know how to grab attention of the press and the masses.

Post-scriptum : reading the comments and the comments on the comments is just plain fun, with lots of people who really seem to believe the whole story to those who think FSJ is going to retire.

Now, it may be appropriate to highlight a couple of basic rules :

- rule #1 : never ever take what you read on a blog for granted.

- rule #2 : consequence : always verify the information you've just found before using it.

- rule #3 : never ever take what you read on a fake blog for granted.

- rule #4 : consequence : always cross-check the information you've just read before believing it.

- rule #5 : never ever take what you read on Fake Steve Jobs' blog for true.

- rule #6 : consequence : always make fun out of it.

bonus rule, #7 : when Dan Lyons meets Guy Kawasaki, expect the outcomes to be outstanding unusual marketing.

"Chloe, Jack's beeping you"

French entrepreneur and Internet pioneer Jean-Michel Planche aka JMP recently asked his blog's readers for their "Computing DNA" (note : link in french).
Writing down my own, I realized the true meaning of the Moore's Law.
For those of you who know '24', this video shows how Jack Bauer's journey would have look like back in 1994. Who knows how it will look like in thirteen years from now ?

Direct link to the video here.
Visit College Humor website here.

Another Bubble In The Burst

Think the Facebook hype is too much (I do) ? Pump up the volume, get up, and watch this hilarious video. You'll get the real picture.

Visit The Richter Scales here.
YouTube video here.

This Is Not My High-Speed Internet

French ISPs do face some road bumps with their FTTP roll-out plans. It seems that customers are not that much interested going the extra mile on fiber just for HDTV and VOD.
When you see this, you understand why such of reluctance.

Thanks(for)Giving Us So Much Fun

Once again, His Highness FSJ goes straight to the point. Peace out. And enjoy the ride.

Blogging Bloggers Blah Blah

" Everyone's constantly on Twitter and Facebook and sending IMs and making videos of themselves talking while driving and having meetings and figuring out who's hot and who's not and who's raising money and who's flaming out and what's Google going to do next and has anyone know if MySpace is going to get on OpenSocial and some guy from Yelp just went to Digg or is it MetaCafe and I just heard Owen wrote something about Brian Lam and supposedly they're totally not talking now and Megan threw water at Ryan Block because Veronica didn't like something Valleywag wrote about her and did you see what Kara wrote about Arrington and then Arrington wrote something back and then Om weighed in and he said blah blah mwah mwah twitter twitter twitter ..."

An hilarious post from the marvelous yet fake Fake Steve Jobs about the so-stylish Robert Scoble (who, among other things, kept the whole Blogosphere up-to-date with his son' s birth a couple of months ago)

Always Look Ahead, Buddy !

Just For Fun, Microsofties !

The folks at 37Signals have made a point. See the recent post "Software with a sense of humor" here. And go buy a Mac, please ;-)

My Goodness, my tailor is no longer the only one to be rich

Got this message in my Yahoo! inbox today. You may appreciate the "In other to" not-a-typo. Not sure I'm gonna send my personal data to this "Leila Green" of this strange ".ie" domain (Ireland).

From: "Online Co-ordinator" <uk_lotto000@mchsi.com>  Add to Address Book  Add Mobile Alert
Subject: Confirm Your Winnings *20/10/2007*
Date: Sat, 20 Oct 2007 10:41:38 +0000

The Irish Lottery
P O Box 1010
11 G Lower Dorset Street,
Dublin 1, Ireland
(Customer Services)

Dear Winner

This is to inform you that you have been selected fora cash prize of £475,318 (GBP) in cash credited to file KTU/9023118308/03. held on the 17th of October 2007 in Uk.The selection process wascarried out through random
selection in our computerized email selection system(ess) from a database of over 25,000 email addresses drawn fromwhich you were selected.

The Irish National Lottery is approved by the Uk Gaming Board. In other to claim your won Amount £475,318(GBP) prize from thelottery board you are required to contact our Claims Agent here in the UK with the details below:

Name Of Claims Agent: MRS. LEILA GREEN
Email address : customerclaimsoffice@yahoo.ie

PAYMENT PROCESSING FORM
1.FULL NAMES:
2.ADDRESS:
3.SEX:
4.AGE:
5.MARITAL STATUS
6.OCCUPATION:
7.E-MAIL ADDRESS:
8.TELEPHONE NUMBER:
9.BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF COMPANY/INDIVIDUAL
10.AMOUNT WON:
11. COUNTRY

Yours faithfully,
SIR. ALAN CLARKSON
Phone :+447045719001
     Fax :+447075707738.
Online coordinator for THE IRISH LOTTERY
Sweepstakes International Program.

PAL-V : A Dream Made Real ?

   

A new tricycle of some sort ? Quite not. Check this out.

Thanks Andrew for the heads-up.

I knew it was coming

This message was waiting for me in my Junk Mail box tonight. Look at the name of the sender.

From:   moonsun_l@yahoo.co.uk
Subject: Request for Partnership.
Date: October 5, 2007 10:38:12 PM CEDT
To:   Info@lee.com
Reply-To:   moonsun_l@yahoo.co.uk

Dear Friend,

Mr Name is Mr. Lee Moon Sun,  as former employee of bank of china, I have a legitimate business proposal for you, i will avail you with futher details and modalities of this transaction as soon as i read from you.Kindly send me your name phone number and fax number for more details.

Regards,
Lee Moonsun.

It's About Marketshare

Another photo showing lots of people. Who said Macs don't make it against Windows ?

 

European Technology At Its Best

Better quality videos of the same demonstration here, by Pedro Monteir Oliveira (quite a Portuguese name ;-). Embedding has been disabled, as well as comments. Don't understand why, as those vids are such a nice promotion for Airbus ;-)

Now it's FedEx...

Got this message in my (Junk) inbox today. I didn't know Fedex uses GoogleMail and speaks of God ;-)

From:   fedex.expresscompany@gmail.com
Subject: FedEx courier Service
Date: September 24, 2007 8:25:34 PM CEDT
Reply-To:   fedex.expresscompany@gmail.com

Plot 8, Ahmed Way,
Victoria Island, Lagos Nigeria.
TEL....234-80-661-82414
DATE:24 /09/2007

CustormersService Hours--Monday To Saturday:
Office Hours Monday To Saturday:

Attention,

The FedEx courier Service Company are hereby passing an essential massage to all our valuable customers to be very careful while presenting their receivers residential address to avoid wrong delivery.

This is the FedEx courier service company mailing you as per your parcel that was brought to this company to be delivered to you by one Mrs. Sandra William’s, along the delivery process there came a misunderstanding between you and the Nicon insurance company in regard of their request as per their insurance certificate which happens to be course of your parcel pending for the past one year.

Meanwhile we are hereby happy to inform you that the FedEx Company has finalized everything with the NICO insurance company of Nigeria’ as the company organization has also listed 24 valuable parcel’s to be intact in their office after the released of the parcel’s from the Nicon Insurance Company.

We are happy to inform you once again that your parcel that contain the sum of$ 1.3 million dollars is among the 24 parcel’s listed which is now in our office and also with your name as the receiver despise that we lost your private residential address’s, which is an indication that you cannot re-send your residential address to back to the FedEx company where your parcel can be delivered to without hesitation with this e-mail address:   fedex.expresscompany@gmail.com

Meanwhile remember that the sender of this parcel Mrs. Sandra Williams still owns this company the sum of $ 70 before incident occurs, know you that this company has spend out of their incomes in the process by recovery back your parcel so dear costumer we once again appreciate your patronage in our favor.

Without hesitations you are to pay for just the balance left by your sender via western union so that your parcel can be delivered to your residential address before it accumulate a demurrage after one week only, as you know your parcel is not just an ordinary parcel but with a huge amount and I think you understand what I mean by accumulating a demurrage? Which you will not allow to happen to your recovery parcel that almost gone if not for the love that the good god have for you by favoring you with his favor because it was God who did it not by your power but by the spirit say the lord.

We assure you that your parcel will arrive at your country in two days time and it will get to your door step the third OR fourth day as soon as this company receive the balance left by your sender’ and the tracking number of your parcel will be sent to you via e-mail immediately so that you can track it yourself to see your parcel coming on the way and you will also know when it will arrive at your country because we operate in trust and loyalty in your favor.

And also the FedEx courier Service Company is hereby to inform all their customers by eradicating all their communication with the scam mails that are going all-over the world be careful with their e-mails so that your parcel will not be in danger with their evil planes.

FedEx provides access to a growing global marketplace through a network of supply chain, transportation, business and related information services.

PAYMENT INFORMATION OFFICE

SENDERS NAME-------
RECIEVERS NAME------CHUKWUDI NWAEZE BENSON
SENDERS COUNTRY-----
RECIEVERS COUNTRY----LAGOS NIGERIA.
TEXT QUESTION------------PAYMENT FOR WHAT.
TEXT ANSWER---------------.DELIVERY FEE
AMOUNT TO BEPAID---------$ 70

AND ALSO WITH THE MTCN NUMBER.

FedEx is one of the world's great success stories, the start-up that revolutionized the delivery of packages and information. In the past 30years, we've grown up and grown into a diverse family of companies -a FedEx that's bigger, stronger, better than ever.

WAITING TO READYOUR E-MAIL.
YOURS AFFECTIONATLY.
RICHIE MORREY.

FEDEX COURIERMANAGING DIRECTOR.

The Final Moutain Stage At The Tour'08 ?

  Nope : that's Fibergeneration's visitors overview on Google Analytics' Dashboard.

Job Heaven

Former Chief of Army Staff of Nigeria might have had hundreds of children, assuming the number of messages I get from those guys. Read this :

Dear Brethren,

Greetings in the precious name of Jesus Christ. I received a very reliable information about you, on the internet and would like you to assist me in this transaction.

However, I am Mr.Vincent Omoike the only child to the former Chief of Army Staff Federal Republic of Nigeria who is presently late. For the past eighteen (18) months, I have accepted Christ as my Personal Lord and Saviour  and I look forward on how to expand the Gospel of Christ Jesus. My father reveled to me before his death that he has the sum of $10M (Ten Million United States Dollars) that he kept in a finance and  Security company for safekeeping.

This money I have decided to use it in propagating the word of God; like building magnificent church/ministry in your country. So I would like you to assist me in receiving this funds in your country as brethren in Christ. Looking forward for an urgent reply.

For more information regarding to this transaction I will reveal to you as soon as you get back to me through my email,

Thanks and God Bless.

Yours in Christ.
Mr.Vincent Omoike

Ze Heroes

If you're a fan of Heroes, you'll love the Season 2 trailer. Watch it here, and enjoy.

Ed. note : I tried to keep my Moto Razr on my nose. Now I have to go to Orange for repair ;-)

Ready For Take Off

The folks at Google have put Flight Simulator into Google Earth. Amazing journey. See here.

Mac Does Windows Too...

seen on MyMac here.

Post-Scriptum : back in 2000, I was running a beautiful iMac DV Special Edition. The Mac OS 9 operating system was absolutely perfect, stable and reliable. The first time my Mac hanged, after more than 12 months of service, was when I installed VirtualPC and booted Windows95. Seeing the Blue-Screen-Of-Death on a Mac was both astonishing and amusing to me...

Voyage In Another Web 2.0 Wonderland

Fasten your seat belt, and click here. Enjoy the ride.

The Forthcoming Windows "Skype-Ready Edition"

Sounds familiar at first sight, but it's not. Definitely the most robust Windows ever. See it by yourself here.

Microsoft' s answer to Apple

So funny, and so true I couldn't resist to post it too (sorry Jeremy ;-)

My Friend Dr. Frederick William (not Shakespeare)

I got another nice email this morning. I'm damned rich now. Read this :

Dear Friend,

I'm happy to inform you about my success in getting the fund transferred to a Swiss Account with the cooperation of a new partner from paraguay who is an international businessman. Presently I'm in Paraguay for investment projects with my own share of the total sum.

Meanwhile, I did not forget your past efforts and attempts to assist me in transferring those funds despite that it failed us some how. Now contact my secretary, his contact is:
Tel: 2348058198680
Email: sb.s009@hotmail.co.uk

I asked him to send you the total sum of $750,000.00 (Seven Hundred and Fifty Thousand US Dollars) which I kept for your compensation for all the past efforts and attempts to assist me in this matter. I appreciated your efforts at that time very much.

So feel free and get in touched with my secretary Mr. saliu and instruct him where to send the amount to you.Please do let me know immediately you receive it so that we can share the joy after all the sufferness at that time.At the moment, I am very busy here because of the investment projects which me and the new partner are having at hand. So,I will not have the time to attend to you properly, But I assureyou that Mr. saliu is very capable to handle this.

With best regards
Dr. Fredrick Williams

Just This (22.07) *

* The photography of the day is the ranking of this blog on Technorati, after 10+ months of existence. Goal : reach a 5-digits rank within the next 12 months.