The alleged killer of three of chip maker SiPort’s top executives will be arraigned on Wednesday after being arrested without a fight over the weekend. The crime, allegedly perpetrated by fired engineer Jing Hua Wu, stunned Silicon Valley.
A day after he was fired, Wu reportedly returned to the company’s office on Friday and gunned down three executives – Sid Agrawal, chief executive; Brian Pugh, vice president of operations; and Marilyn Lewis, human resources chief — in the middle of a meeting.
SiPort has established a memory fund for the victims of the shootings, in agreement with the bereaved families. The funds will go toward charitable causes identified by the families, according to Aiman Kabakibo, founder and the new chief executive. He thanked the community, customers and investors for their support.
Checks should be made out to Silicon Valley Community Foundation, noting “SiPort Memorial Fund” in the memo line and mailed to 3255 Scott Boulevard, Santa Clara, CA 95054. Contributions are tax deductible.
In the world of IT, there is an interesting balance between innovation and risk. While innovation is what is usually talked about – it is the mitigation of risk that often drives the decision. That is why the IT leaders remain the leaders and the startups spend most of their time pushing boulders up a hill.
In the world of IT quantity is quality – the more product you have in the field within production environments – the less risk there is for the next guy. But if that is the case – then aren’t startups always at a disadvantage? Abso-friggen-lutely. Startups have to bring compelling technology to the table in order to even be considered. Startups shouldn’t even be allowed in the door unless that is true. Otherwise it’s a waste of everyone’s time (including their own). But assuming they have done this – then the next most important thing startups need to focus on is risk mitigation!
Luckily for the startups – there are end users that are “early” adopters. But I am still shocked at the number of startups that have terrible customer reference programs, awful case studies and very little focus on customer testimonials. And hardly anyone ever, ever, ever leverages their channel partners for testimonials.
In many cases, IT professionals are not implementing innovation – that is the unspoken reality – by adopting the leaders. However, they do so because it is the safe choice. And at the end of the day – when it comes to running the operations of your company – you will more often than not go with the proven choice.
Taking the “safe” choice isn’t an issue of politics but rather quality – real or perceived. One of the biggest challenges with IT infrastructure is there are infinite variables. Therefore the more a product is implemented – the more common variables it is exposed to – which results in a greater chance of success in your data center.
Does that mean that you shouldn’t implement solutions from startups? Yes and no. The focus should actually be on innovation that provides real value to your operations. Here is the litmus test – a startup has to really earn your business by providing something so compelling, unique and valuable that it becomes pretty much a no-brainer.
What about the risk? Do your homework and make the startup vendors do their part to mitigate the risk. Even if they have only 10 customers – make sure that you get to talk to as many of those customers as you can. And make sure they give you a case study on each of those customers. Another way you can reduce risk is to use the new product or technology for an application that isn’t mission-critical as the first step. Get a feel for it before you make it a part of your core applications and/or operations.
Original post blogged on b2evolution.
I've never met Yahoo's soon-to-be-ex CEO Jerry Yang, but from all the interviews and talks I've seen, he seems like a pretty nice guy. Unfortunately, nice guys often don't translate well as heads of big companies. It's sad, but to look out for the best interest of your company, you have to be pretty ruthless. Yang, it seemed, had no fangs.Mike Arrington has the post up with a release from Yahoo. I think that founder should stay and be supported. Me being the arbiter of all things scoops in tech has to give a shout out goes to Kara Swisher first broke the story here. Then pulls out the magic again by getting the internal memo (see below).
There is no question in my mind that Jerry Yang was forced out of town on a “rail”. I hate to see this, but the mob got him. All that value flushed down the market toilet. Personally, I was cheering for Jerry and hoped he could put it together. Hopefully this could give him some cover. Maybe the search will take a long time.
Remember that Steve Jobs was supposed to be the interim APPLE CEO.
Here is the release from Yahoo
The press release:
Yahoo! Conducting Search for New CEO
Co-Founder Jerry Yang to Step Down Following Appointment of New CEO
and Return to Former Role as Chief Yahoo! and Board Member
SUNNYVALE, Calif., Nov 17, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) –
Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO) today announced that its Board of Directors has initiated a search for a new Chief Executive Officer. Jerry Yang, co-Founder of Yahoo!, has decided to return to his former role as Chief Yahoo! upon the appointment of his successor as CEO, and he will also continue to serve on the Board. Yang, 40, assumed the CEO role at the Board’s request in June 2007, and he has led Yahoo! through a strategic repositioning and transformation of its platform.
Chairman Roy Bostock, working with the independent directors and in consultation with Jerry Yang, is leading the process of assessing potential candidates and determining finalists for consideration. The search will encompass both internal and external candidates, and the Board has retained Heidrick & Struggles, a leading international executive search firm, to assist in the process.
“Over the past year and a half, despite extraordinary challenges and distractions, Jerry Yang has led the repositioning of Yahoo! on an open platform model as well as the improved alignment of costs and revenues,” said Roy Bostock. “Jerry and the Board have had an ongoing dialogue about succession timing, and we all agree that now is the right time to make the transition to a new CEO who can take the company to the next level. We are deeply grateful to Jerry for his many contributions as CEO over the past 18 months, and we are pleased that he plans to stay actively involved at Yahoo! as a key executive and member of the Board.”
“From founding this company to guiding its growth into a trusted global brand that is indispensible to millions of people, I have always sought to do what is best for our franchise,” said Jerry Yang. “When the Board asked me to become CEO and lead the transformation of the Company, I did so because it was important to re-envision the business for a different era to drive more effective growth. Having set Yahoo! on a new, more open path, the time is right for me to transition the CEO role and our global talent to a new leader. I will continue to focus on global strategy and to do everything I can to help Yahoo! realize its full potential and enhance its leading culture of technology and product excellence and innovation.”
Internal Memo from Jerry Yang to all employees
Kara Swisher has the internal memo from Jerry Yang to fellow Yahooers… This is pretty epic and so sad. I can’t believe that Yahoo can’t get their shit together to support their founder.
o: all yahoos
Fr: Jerry
Subject: update
yahoos -
i wanted to address all of you on the news we’ve just announced. the board of directors and I have agreed to initiate a succession process for the ceo role of yahoo!. roy bostock, our chairman of the board, is leading the effort to identify and assess potential candidates for consideration by the full board. the board will be evaluating and considering both internal and external candidates and has retained heidrick and struggles to help in this effort.
i will be participating in the search for my successor, and i will continue as ceo until the board selects a new ceo. once a successor is named, i will return to my previous role as chief yahoo and continue to serve as a director on the board.
last june, i accepted the board’s request that i assume the ceo role to restructure and reposition the company as a whole in order to more effectively meet the fast-changing needs of both users and partners. since taking on the ceo role, i have had an ongoing dialogue with the board about succession timing. thanks in large measure to your tireless efforts, we have created a more open, competitive yahoo! and we believe the time is now right to transition to a new ceo who can take the company to the next level.
despite the external environment we face, the fact remains that yahoo! is now a significantly different company that is stronger in many ways than it was just 18 months ago. this only makes it all the more essential that we manage this opportunity to leverage the progress up to this point as effectively as possible. i strongly believe that having transformed our platform and better aligned costs and revenues, we have a unique window for the right ceo to take ownership over the next wave of mission-critical decisions facing the company.
all of you know that I have always, and will always bleed purple. i will always do what I think is right for this great company. while this step will be an adjustment for all of us, i know it’s the right one. i look forward to updating you on this process as soon as the board has developments to share, and will continue to do everything i can to make yahoo! fulfill its full potential.
thank you,
jerry
Jerry: I am available to take over as CEO. Let me know when the interviews start. Time to clean house.
I love Drew. Here’s a guy who always puts his 110% into everything he does, and he does it so well at the same time.
More on the Strands blog here.
Novafora Inc., a startup developer of video processors, has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Transmeta Corp. for $255.6 million in cash. Novafora is developing video technology on a chip. Word on the street is that the technology is very ‘hot’. The video market is in the need for faster processing at the chip level. Right now video adoption is huge and the capabilities for moving video online is stunted by the capabilities in processing power.
Innovation coming from startups again and getting assets from Transmeta will help Novafora.
The acquisition agreement provides, among other things, that Transmeta may not enter into any future licensing transaction prior to closing of the merger without Novafora’s consent. The acquisition is expected to close in the first quarter of 2009. After the closing of the merger, Transmeta’s common stock will cease to trade.
Formed in 2004, Novafora is a video processor company enabling OEMs to deliver on the promise of the digital video revolution. Zaki Rakib is CEO and co-founder of the startup. Before Novafora, Zaki co-founded Terayon Communication Systems in 1993.
Shlomo Rakib is chairman, CTO and co-founder of the firm. He also co-founded Terayon and served as its chairman and CTO. At Terayon, he is said to have invented the S-CDMA technology that fueled Terayon’s initial success and which was incorporated into the widely-adopted DOCSIS 2.0 cable data standard.
Major League Baseball announced today that it has selected Adobe’s Flash video platform to deliver its live and on-demand video for the next two years starting in 2009. This is a blow to Microsoft and its Silverlight video technology, which up until now had been powering MLB video.
The MLB.TV service got off to a rough start this year as the service went on the blink for paying subscribers during the opening two days of the season because of a problem with its Mosaic media player. We don’t know if this issue was Silverlight-related, though the problems didn’t seem to stop MLB.TV from becoming a hit with fans. Major League Baseball Advanced Media Group is responsible for about $450 million in revenues, with half of that coming from paying subscribers to MLB.TV.
From a press announcement about the switch, we were able to learn a few more details about the service:
MLB.com streams live every Major League spring training, regular season and postseason game, more than 2,500 annually, via its out-of-market subscription product, which has seen more than 1.5 million total subscribers since its debut on Opening Day 2003. Since that time, fans have accessed more than 1.8 billion streams of live and on-demand multimedia offerings on MLB.com, representing nearly 200 million hours of participation. By the end of 2008, MLB.com will once again stream nearly 12,000 live video events, including Major League Baseball games and thousands of events for its various business partners.
MLB’s move to Flash is also a bit surprising given the success Silverlight enjoyed during the very high-profile Olympic games. People groused (myself included) about the time-delayed content and installing a plug-in, but the video itself performed quite nicely. Though to be fair, Flash is already installed on more than 98 percent of Internet-connected desktops, and 81 percent of videos viewed online worldwide are streamed using Flash. So, Adobe has that going for them.
Microsoft is fast-becoming the Redmond-headed stepchild of the online video world. The National Football League also chose Flash to stream its games earlier this year.
Television is being revolutionized.
What are the business opportunities for you in net video? Attend NewTeeVee Live (at special $450 rate) to find out.
The latest Top500 list was unveiled on Friday. For those who haven’t read the release, whoa nelly! The list has always been a highly debated and contested flexing of one’s supercomputing might. This list was no dissapointment.
The biggest story of this year was the backyard brawl between ORNL’s Cray XT5 system, Jagaur, and the reining champ, RoadRunner at LANL. Fighters, to your corners! It was widely publicized that Jaguar had a distinct chance to inch out the RoadRunner. Alas, Wyle-E-Coyote never wins. The folks at IBM/LANL did a quick upgrade in June in order to ensure their command. It worked. RoadRunner is #1, Jaguar #2. Ladies and gentlefolk, we officially have two 1PF+ machines.
The number three system was no slouch either. NASA Ames took #3 with Pleiades, an SGI Altix ICE system spinning at 487Tflops. #4 and #5 are both BlueGene’s of various flavors located at LLNL and Argonne respectively. TACC fell to #6 with Ranger, their massive Sun machine. Cray took #7 and #8 with an XT5 at NERSC and an XT4 at ORNL. Sandia/Cray took in #9 with new upgrades to the Red Storm machine.
All in all, we’ve seen some incredible performance jumps this year. You now have to top 400Tflops in order to inch yourself into the top six. Wow.
For more info on the latest Top500, read the full release here.
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