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Turn Around Series: Jerry Rawls, Finisar (Part 11)

Posted on Sunday, Mar 18th

After undertaking significant changes, cost cutting and other strategic moves, Finisar has emerged as a company poised for increased market growth. SM: And your stock went from under a dollar to quite a bit higher now? JR: Our stock is quite volatile, and always has been. It went from less than a dollar to, I

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Enterprise 3.0 Collaboration: eProject (Part 2)

Posted on Saturday, Mar 17th

[Part 1] Continuing in the vein of venture due diligence, here’s the second part of the eProject story. SM: What is the competition, and how do you differentiate? JP: A number of companies are in this market, from baseline project management tools like Microsoft Project to more traditional enterprise packaged software from companies like Planview,

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The Education Problem: Raj Reddy (Part 9)

Posted on Saturday, Mar 17th

Our discussion now focuses on a key element of the ‘learning by doing model’: mentors, and evolves into the root of education – the process of learning. SM: Right now what is happening is at a very low level. There is no “methodology”, just a connection with a tutor who knows the material, sort of

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Turn Around Series: Jerry Rawls, Finisar (Part 10)

Posted on Saturday, Mar 17th

More on the strategic decisions and cost-cutting measures taken. SM: How did you do that? Did you change materials, did you negotiate your supply contracts? I mean 70% of material costs is a lot of material costs to shave. JR: The way we did it was we bought a laser fab in Fremont to make

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Enterprise 3.0 Collaboration: eProject (Part 1)

Posted on Friday, Mar 16th

I have discussed a framework for Enterprise 3.0 recently, and wrote a few pieces to illustrate the Saas and Extended Enterprise trends that I deem as the drivers. Here is a company, eProject, and its CEO Jeff Pancottine, answering some of my clarifying questions. At the heels of Cisco’s Webex acquisition, this seems to me

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The Education Problem: Raj Reddy (Part 8)

Posted on Friday, Mar 16th

In the next segment, we discuss how Raj’s model could be applied on a global scale. When thought of in these terms, it could become a revolutionary methodolgy and change the concept of education throughout the world. SM: So Raj let me explore a different thread with you. Kind of like an evolution; let’s assume

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Turn Around Series: Jerry Rawls, Finisar (Part 9)

Posted on Friday, Mar 16th

Essential to the turnaround of Finisar were decisions which were much different than those being made by competitors, and different than prevailing popular trends. Ultimately, these decisions were also the right ones for Finisar’s survival. SM: And there were lots of process innovations along the way? JR: Exactly. So sharing all of that with a

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The Education Problem: Raj Reddy (Part 7)

Posted on Thursday, Mar 15th

Raj continues discussing his new education program, and the key benefits it provides. SM: So this is going to be a state funded program? RR: The scaling can be anything, I can take a million people. This particular program scales because everybody gets their own computer. It is a wireless network campus, so all I

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