Saturday, June 9, 2007

Dear Peninsula...

Dear Peninsula Pal, as you sit high up on that perch, I wanna throw a couple of questions at you: My eyes are brown, if I'm wearing a business casual blazer over slacks, what color should my underwear be? I mean, to be proper and all. And secondly, though a little off topic, don't you think it's almost corporate suicide if microsoft is making all these deals while using .net, stealing more VCSY patents if they might be using the XML Enabler, still announcing more deals, and all the while doing it without a deal in place or without being in negotiations for a deal (with a pretty strong assurance a deal will be forthcoming soon)?


Howdy Mo-
Per your question, number 2, maybe we can trace indications elsewhere to give us more stability in our theories. Glad we have this social platform of email and message boards to exchange ideas. Imagine trying to pull this off without being origanized.
First, look at these three blurbs about Powerbuilder

[1]
This is for reference about PowerBuilder: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerBuilder

PowerBuilder 11.Net Released!
Chris Pollach
posted Thursday, 1 June 2006
All;
I am pleased to imform you that Sybase has just released the first public Beta of the newest PowerBuilder family - version 11. This release is a radical departure from the previous web enabled versions and focuses on the many aspects of .Net development. I have been personally involved with PB 11.Net since November, 2005 and I can attest to the fact that you can now do RAD .Net development using this tool! You can build in hours what other .Net IDE tools will take you days or weeks. PB 11 raises the bar with its eveloutionary DataWindow.Net feature.

[2]
Smart Client Application Development Using PowerBuilder 11.0
PBDJ Feature — Smart Client Application Development Using PowerBuilder 11.0
By: Harry Zhang
Nov. 17, 2006 03:45 PM

[3]
http://download.sybase.com/beta/pb11eng_build/PB110install.txt
RC Build Installation Notes for PowerBuilder[R] Version 11  (c) 1991-2007 Sybase, Inc. and its subsidiaries. All rights reserved.  Updated 04/03/2007  This is the release candidate build of PowerBuilder 11.0. This build has   received limited QA testing. You must back up your files before you   install this build.
Notice PowerBuilder version 11.0 first public beta appeared in June 1, 2006.
Then PowerBuilder went MIA and resurfaced in mid-November 2006.
Then PowerBuilder resumes their attempt to get to market May 3, 2007 with another beta release.

Hey, Larry. When do we get to sell this thing?

Shuddup Lou. The Big Boss says we gotta stand here like a cigarstore indianapolis and whack the foist guy that shows up to claim the moneys.

But, Larry. Ain't dat our money?

Suddup, I tell youse. Da Big Boss he says da foist guy what tries to grab da moneys gets whacked.

Duuuuhhhh... somepin don't sound right about dis.

Ahhh, shuddup.

So, we look over the “big guys” and it looks like we have a template... a pattern of sorts, showing us these “next generation” capabilities as described in something “revolutionary” like PowerBuilder 11.0 came to a halt in June of 2006, made another public appearance in october-november of 2006 as a real-life beta mumbled mumbled mumbled throughout the holidays and new year and fart around some more ... and then come back to the fore in May-June 2007.

[Aside:
By the way, very interesting 'new' kind of search engine was played as a commercial on peninsulaTV:
eons.com
Their pres coo from monster.
Their senior vp of products was vp of community and web-publishing at TerraLycos. Most recently she was General Manager of Raging Bull.

I think I see focal point in there somewhere.]

Are we SEEING things? Are we all deluded and is the news deluding us? That's what we see with the large layers of players.

Then, as we look farther into the background of smaller players like PowerBuilder and, what do we see? Sure enough we see the same pattern. Have you ever seen a time when all the players in a highly competitive market all wait for each other to get in place before proceeding to gouge each other's eyes out? I haven't... unless there is some sort of manipulation going on in the background. A manipulation from a much higher power or the choosing of a much more desirable fate.

How far back should we look to confirm our hypothesis, which is rapidly becoming a circumstantial fact?

SOMEthing is holding back the next-generation capabilities from being introduced. The VCSY detractors need to tell us why this is happening as it most certainly indicates a united front across an entirely fractured group. Well, as the legal and financial expertise on the messageboard all declared, they know nothing about the technology or the technology industry so they're obviously a useless accessory to our discussion at this point because they have all this time been able to tell us how much money we will make if none of this is true. We've heard all that before.

As far as legal considerations, the debate as to whether Microsoft will fight the patents is rather moot at this point as the entire mass of web-aligned companies certainly appears to me to be poised at beta while watching Microsoft roll out their alphas (late as usual) and ALL of them appear to be waiting for something to happen.

So are we. So am I. So is the world. We are the world... we are the children... we are the... click

I want to know now “How much will VCSY be worth to the perception of speculators and investors in the near term should the unthinkable happen and Microsoft settles with VCSY on the SiteFlash patent (only).”

You know what I would do if I were Wade and Microsoft walks calmly past the July deadline? I would sell each of Sun, Apollo, Apple and Yahoo a license for all VCSY software for one dollar. The stipulation being I get first dibs on buying Microsoft assets on the full line of Microsoft assets. With that and the VCSY capabilities, I could make a fortune greater than the mass of fortunes the others would make. THAT is how important the established user base is when you are talking the ability to step beyond the office software in use by Millions (most likely growing with a few year to billions) and apply that storehouse of granular information specifically applied at the point of origin and use rather than going into a box where whizzards and lizards do incantations to find your social security number keyed birthday value .

Established base is the metric I would use for calculating the value of the licenses for each player in the market and the gold standard for determining market desire and value is by measuring the reaction of Microsoft developers/oem and client/customers to these alpha announcements. All this neato gizom stuff you'll be seeing a beta on the Microsoft stuff in oct-november 2007 and then they can launch final test builds and go to product in spring of 2008. Sounds equitable to me.

That will penalize Microsoft one year for trying to run the blockade in November with the jump to Linux rafting. It will give all Microsoft advantages away and even the playing field.

Why? The skunked their competitors by knowing more and using more of VCSY technologies than the others. The others are like children in the khmer rouge.

What makes this fair? Microsoft has a ready made base to bleed into. The others will have to 'sell'. Microsoft already 'has'. That is their advantage. This advantage deserves a handicap, especially when the horse was found with his head in our bed. Chop. There goes that 'extra arm'. Are you feeling ok? You're looking a little pale. Want a tornarquette on that?

Cleverly, I think, Wade isolated Microsoft in the field with a tag for litigation and a holdout for late beta in order to demonstrate to the others (who've been given beta status since oct-nov of last year – all the while MSFT was trying to escape even having to use the architecture by placing it on a Linux open-source) who was da big boss in the software world (thus polluting VCSY's ability to leverage their original work on the patent deliverables) and washing their hands of direct contact with the Internet. They could run Linux based web services through the browser and interoperate with Linux, thus never having to make the proprietary to XML over http trip that would be so costly in litigation and license payment.

They had (still have) Ozzie working like a maniac on Live interoperation across RSS so that might be a salvation... in five or six years once Microsoft shareholders realize there's something kind of... shall we say... 'inefficient' about the. But, heck, so what, right? It's only money. Microsoft can throw away 20billion in R&D and laugh about it.

If you're still paying a lawyer to think for you at this point, your journey on the 21st century Internet has come to an end just as surely as an SUV rolled over and on fire on 101 gets only a passing glance because of the sheer boredom of drivers looking for something a bit more interesting than the ordinary.

By the way, don't keep trying to shoo the two experts we have in corporate law. We might need some free advice and clue-making to cover the next round of litigation VCSY will enter into with a war chest. I mean... SOMEbody amongs that big groups of hangers on must have seen the light and asked VCSy for a menu and a price sheet. Either that, or they are all as stupid as a misguided stumbling giant. They race to build out their next generation stuff and they can't put it out until Microsoft goes? I guess on that day they will all line up at the license table or shove out the rent checks to the hosting network centers to nest their 'new thinking' on technological power.

We all wait with anticipation but it kind of spoils the fun to know what's coming, doesn't it? I mean, all this is becoming quite anti-climactic to me. I do think I will be stunned by the valuation on V when the licenses are announced. But, right now, according to our resident legal eagles, we have tons to fear in the future. Not now where we can do anything about their fears besides sell. Now. But they haven't given us any help on what to do now if we find that Microsoft has settled with VCSY and bought a license and then all the others line up to pay their license fees equal per the valuation benchmark in Microsoft as applied to their particular industry and clients and vertical usage. VCSY will likely desire dibs on those areas of vertical application(s).

So, please ask wrecklaw and DC-Sleeve to speak into Mister Microphone and tell us what we can expect. More doom and ruin? Hmmm?

So as unpleasant as their trajectories seem to be, they are marking a path for us to not step, which we do therefore tread. If it weren't for their posts, we wouldn't know what skeptical people are asking and we wouldn't know to provide them an answer as clearly as possible. It may not always be possible to write succinctly as there are so many facts, so many words and so many hours... I might need a whole lot more to tell the whole story... which is awsomely fascinating but a real bore if you can't tell anyone.

2 comments:

baveman said...

Axalto unveils smart card powered by .Net

By Ellen Messmer, Network World, 12/06/04

Axalto last week offered up a smart card based on Microsoft's .Net technology, which could make it easier for corporations adopting .Net for Web services to develop card-based security.

The Cryptoflex .Net card, which can provide two-factor authentication and e-mail encryption based on public-key technology, can be programmed using .Net tools, including Microsoft VisualStudio .Net, says Neville Pattinson, director of business development for Axalto. Until now, Axalto had based its smart cards - which are basically coprocessors and software on a plastic card - on either a proprietary operating system or Java.

"Before, [the developer] had to specifically be trained in a Java card environment, which created errors and inefficiencies," Pattinson says. "With the Cryptoflex .Net card, it will be easier to program the server, client and card applications together."

Axalto worked with the software firm Hive Minded to design the .Net card. It took more than a year to have it ready, largely because the .Net smart card footprint required 8K bytes of RAM, more than double the amount used in Java smart cards.

"We had to search for the right chip platform," Pattinson says.

The .Net card, which can hold an X.509 digital certificate and run a variety of cryptographic processes, hasn't yet been implemented in any organizations. In contrast, there are millions of Java-based smart cards in use today.

Microsoft has announced its willingness to be an early adopter in a big way.

The company will swap out the Indala-brand smart cards, now used by more than 55,000 Microsoft employees for remote authentication to the network, to replace them with the Cryptoflex .Net smart cards, says Charles Fitzgerald, Microsoft's general manager of platform strategy.

Fitzgerald says the .Net-based card will also give Microsoft the opportunity to test the smart card in applications other than remote-access authentication.

"With .Net we can put more applications on the card, such as perhaps using it for cafeteria credit for employees," says Fitzgerald, noting that Microsoft will be looking at a range of possibilities for internal use of the Axalto cards next year.

Fitzgerald says Microsoft anticipates developers supporting .Net technology will make use of smart cards in the future. Microsoft began mandating employee use of smart cards for encryption-based, two-factor authentication after a security breach a few years ago involving a hacker break-in traced back to a stolen password.

Smart cards with X.509 digital certificates provide a stronger form of authentication, and Microsoft now issues a smart card to every employee for authenticating identity over the network or encrypting e-mail.

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2004/120604axalto.html

baveman said...

On June 2, 2006 Axalto has combined with Gemplus to form Gemalto, a leader in digital security . This website has been updated and moved to the Gemalto web site. Please update any bookmarks you may have.

http://www.gemalto.com/