April 29 Roundtable Recording

For anyone who missed it live, here is the recording:

Roundtable Starting In 30 Minutes

Today’s roundtable is starting in 30 minutes, at 8 a.m. PST/11 a.m. EST/8:30 p.m. IST. Click here to join.

Building One Of The World’s Biggest Tech Blogs From New Zealand: ReadWriteWeb Founder Richard MacManus (Part 1)

Richard MacManus is the founder and co-editor of ReadWriteWeb, which he founded in April 2003. Today ReadWriteWeb has millions of readers and is syndicated by the New York Times. Through his blog, Richard has become well known for forecasting technology trends and how they will be adopted or used throughout the world. Richard was born, raised, and continues to live in New Zealand. He has a bachelor’s degree in English literature.

SM: Let’s start at the beginning of your story. Where do you come from?

RM: I come from Wellington, New Zealand. I was actually born on the South Island, but we moved to Wellington when I was 11. >>>

HP Buying Palm for $1.2 Billion

Well, just about a month back, I analyzed what went wrong at Palm (NASDAQ:PALM) and said that the best fit for Palm as an acquirer would be HP (NYSE:HPQ).

Well, HP IS acquiring Palm for $1.2 billion in cash including debt. HP will pay $5.70 per Palm share, a 23% premium to Wednesday’s closing price of $4.63. Shares in Palm have fallen 52% over the past 12 months.

Ironically, HP just acquired 3Com, the former owner of Palm. Palm was spun out of 3Com, taken public, then lost its leadership position in the PDA business that it successfully pioneered, having missed the smartphone opportunity initially.

Under HP, as I said recently, Palm will have an opportunity to build an enterprise applications strategy, utilizing HP’s strong enterprise channel.

We will watch closely!

Putting China On The Silicon Valley Map: NetScreen And Fortinet Founder Ken Xie (Part 7)

SM: What is your observation about Silicon Valley in the era in which China has become such a big factor in the world economy?

KX: In our space China is still a small market. Their IT assets are growing very quickly. In our space the key is to quickly do the innovation aspects of technology. I do see some change in their entrepreneurship and VC environments. >>>

Soros On Financial Reform

Some of you may be following the Senate hearings today. Here is George Soros on what needs to happen: Do not ignore the need for financial reform. It was written on October 25, 2009.

At the moment, Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein is being questioned by Senate investigators. Senator Levin has done a very good job this morning of presenting a use case of the failure of the current financial system and the kinds of conflicts of interest that prevail.

How all this unfolds, we shall see. But in general, I resonate with Soros that markets and bubbles need to be managed, regulated, and kept under control so that they don’t create such systemic panic.

Blankfein seems to agree.

That’s a good start. Soros, Blankfein, and the titans of Wall Street are the most knowledgeable about the system within which they operate. Who can provide a better analysis of what caused the kind of systemic failure we just experienced?

Who can better debug this system than those who understand it best?

Blankfein, for example, is arguing in favor of higher capital reserve and lower leverage. Good. He says it will make loans more expensive and harder to obtain. That’s good too, because free credit was also one of the culprits of the catastrophe.

In any case, at least, in today’s America, the right questions are being asked.

That’s half the battle, already.

Vision India 2020 Book Review: Naeem Zafar

Naeem Zafar teaches entrepreneurship and innovation as part of the faculty of the Haas School of Business, University of California Berkeley, and is the founder of Concordia Ventures.  He is also a charter member of TiE Silicon Valley. Here is his review:

“Vision India 2020 is unlike any other book that I have ever read. Starting with historical data, each story builds credibility with the reader. All of a sudden, the reader finds himself way in the future, speculating if the future has really happened. Sramana weaves technical details with a vision of the future that ignites the imagination and takes the reader into the realm that makes everything seem possible.  >>>

Putting China On The Silicon Valley Map: NetScreen And Fortinet Founder Ken Xie (Part 6)

SM: What was Fortinet’s revenue last year?

KX: We had $250 million in revenue. We are as large as NetScreen was when Juniper acquired them. >>>