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As Esther writes, open source is a great way to circumvent office politics, which tend to rely on “who you know” rather than “what you know.” Open-source communities, while not perfect on this score, generally offer a meritocracy: You’re as good as your code (or other contributions). It’s a great way to prove what you can do.

CIO.com’s Esther Schindler suggests the perfect way to boost a career: Get involved in an open-source project:

Sometimes, there isn’t much you can do to kick-start your career. Not everyone can be lucky enough to get involved in a high-profile project at work, or to develop a talent in a technology that’s suddenly in-demand. But it surprises me when IT professionals who aim to move up the career ladders don’t take advantage of one resource that’s a win-win solution all around: get involved in an open source project.

Ah, yes. That work/life balance thing. Well, you always have retirement during which you can relax.

As a bonus, open source savvy developers tend to make up to 40 percent more than their proprietary peers. So, untold fame, more money, etc. What’s not to love about open source?

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The HP iPaq 910c Business Messenger is getting a younger sibling, according to reports.

Though definitely better known for its laptops and desktop PCs, HP isn’t new to smartphones. The company has released several models in the past, including the HP iPaq hw6945 Mobile Messenger and the HP iPaq 510 Voice Messenger (the first Windows Mobile 6 smartphone). Both were geared mainly toward businesses, and both garnered their share of favorable reviews from users.

Fellow PC maker Dell, meanwhile, has been hinting of its own plans to enter the smartphone realm. And up-and-coming PC maker Acer of Taiwan said earlier this year that it has a smartphone on deck for the end of this year or early 2009.

The most recent iPaq, the HP iPaq 910c Business Messenger, launched this summer. CNET reviewed the phone and found it to be a well-stocked, messaging-centric smartphone for mobile professionals, but said it faces stiff competition from the likes of HTC, Samsung, and Motorola.

We don’t have many details yet (iPaq App Store?), but the latest iPaq apparently will sport a touch-screen and keypad and will run on Microsoft’s Windows Mobile 6.1 operating system, according to sources cited by the WSJ. The phone will likely hit Europe by the end of this year, with a broader release to follow.

(Credit:
CNET Networks)

Aiming to push its hardware beyond the corporate world, Hewlett-Packard will release a new version of its iPaq smartphone that will also be marketed to consumers, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Follow me on Twitter @daveofdoom.

LucidEra was a strong evangelist for why on-demand can be a faster, lower cost, and more effective option, and the industry is better off for it.
LucidEra understood that for many companies especially small and mid-size, having a solution that can be up and running quickly is very important. Companies want answers as quickly as they can, and if given the choice between an expensive, time-consuming deployment and a quick one, they’ll pick the quick one.
LucidEra also understood that where BI can be most powerful is at the point where it really impacts the business–at the front lines, like the sales team.

The ability to handle multiple data sources matters.
To simplify deployments and deliver quickly, LucidEra started off focusing on Salesforce.com data only. However, customers often wanted to combine that data with information from other systems, like their marketing, finance, and operational systems. While LucidEra started moving in this direction later, it prevented them from getting crucial customer momentum when they needed it.

(Note: I made minor edits to the e-mail for blog purposes.)

Customers want the flexibility and power of true BI.
While customers like rapid deployments, they also want to know that the system is powerful enough to answer spontaneous business questions or identify and address unusual trends as they arise–all things which you can get from a traditional BI solution. And they want a system that will grow with them as their needs grow.

Customers want full-fledged BI made easier, not simplified applications.
LucidEra’s solution to the customer need for quicker and easier BI was to offer applications instead of a true BI solution. This meant a standardized data model approach and standardized reports. This approach requires customers to adapt their business problem to the LucidEra solution, when what customers really wanted was a quicker, easier solution that fit their particular business needs.

There are other vendors out there, Birst being one, who offer the speed, low cost, flexibility, and scalability that customers demand. They are thriving because they are doing right what LucidEra got right, and they are also providing the pieces that were missing.

My understanding is that while LucidEra’s shutdown is unfortunate and a bit of a drag for customers, there are multiple providers that customers can easily switch to and that LucidEra are being helpful with the data transference.

I received a number of pitches from competitors about why their solution is better, cheaper, etc., and one particularly well thought-out e-mail from Brad Peters, CEO of Birst, another on-demand BI provider. I’ve pasted the e-mail below with permission and it will end up on their blog sooner or later.

LucidEra, right and wrong Brad Peters, CEO, Birst

Monday’s rumor that on-demand business intelligence provider LucidEra was shutting down has turned out to be true.

What LucidEra got right:

What LucidEra missed:

It’s always unfortunate to see a fellow startup shut its doors, even when you compete with it, since strong competition validates an overall concept–in our case, on-demand business intelligence. The benefits are real. The value to customers is real. Unfortunately for LucidEra, their particular approach–specific applications, instead of general BI solutions–proved weak in the marketplace.

If you wanted something other than that standard report, how easy was it to get there? It appears that they didn’t have a strong answer for that. There are a lot of components that go in a true Business Intelligence solution–LucidEra was hoping that customers would be willing to sacrifice power and flexibility for speed and low cost. It seems that customers want the power along with the speed and low cost.

There are other options out there
There may be some industry naysayers out there who will wave LucidEra’s demise around as a flag of surrender for the overall on-demand business intelligence space. I think that this is shortsighted. While LucidEra may be an example of why overly targeted BI applications don’t have a large enough market to survive, it is not a harbinger of doom for the overall on-demand BI industry.

Critics will likely say it’s a cry for attention and money, quasi-analogous to how they perceived the legal action that the founders of ConnectU brought against social network Facebook, claiming that founder Mark Zuckerberg had stolen code and trade secrets from them. That suit appears to have finally petered out last month. As for the MySpace suit, the decision is in the judge’s hands now.

The case was brought forth by Brad Greenspan, who founded a digital-entertainment company called eUniverse in 1998. Greenspan served as CEO and chairman of the publicly traded eUniverse until late 2003, when he resigned amid financial woes that saw the company’s stock delisted from the Nasdaq index.

A federal court ruled Thursday that a lawsuit against the executives who sold social network MySpace to News Corp. can go forward, as Judge George King in the Central District of California rejected a motion to dismiss the case.

Greenspan is now at the helm of Live Universe, an entertainment holdings company that has acquired struggling dot-coms like Revver, whose troubles he blamed on policy at MySpace that blocked its ad-supported videos.

The current class action shareholder suit, Jim Brown vs. Brett C. Brewer et al., targets Rosenblatt, former Intermix President Brett Brewer, and venture backer VantagePoint Venture Partners as defendants (among others), with “Jim Brown” a representation of Intermix common-stock shareholders whom Greenspan claims were defrauded of billions. The real value of MySpace, Greenspan argues, was much higher than $580 million and not all of the requisite financial information was disclosed.

While Greenspan was at the helm of eUniverse, he oversaw the creation of MySpace, but it wasn’t until after his successor, Richard Rosenblatt, had taken over that MySpace gained mass appeal. Greenspan remained a shareholder, strongly opposed MySpace’s 2005 sale to News Corp. for $580 million, and has been targeting News Corp. and the Intermix executives who sold the company with legal action since 2006.

“It has been three years since I worked around the clock pleading with other MySpace-Intermix shareholders to vote against the sale of MySpace to News Corp. in 2005,” Greenspan said in a statement. “I knew that the value of the company was billions of dollars, however the deceptive practice of hiding MySpace financials by Intermix management robbed shareholders of their opportunity to adequately gauge the company’s value.”

The news was first reported by The Wall Street Journal on its Web site Wednesday night, citing people familiar with the matter.

Updated March 13, 12:45 PM PDT, to reflect the announcement by EA.

In February, EA issued a public statement saying it had made an earlier offer to Take-Two that was rejected and that it was boosting the per-share price it was willing to pay to make the deal worth $2 billion. But Take-Two quickly issued its own announcement, saying it thought EA’s offer was too small and that it would prefer to wait to have any negotiations with anyone until after the April 29 release of Grand Theft Auto IV, which is expected to be a hit.

The bid for the rival publisher of the Grand Theft Auto game places the value of Take-Two at $2 billion. Announced Thursday, the EA tender offer is set to expire April 11 at midnight Eastern Time, unless extended.

Electronic Arts has launched a $26-per-share tender offer for all outstanding shares of game publisher Take-Two following the rejection of an unsolicited bid.

Until Microsoft finds some compelling reason for people to care about its operating system, or provides differentiated value beyond the operating system, it’s going to find that Windows 7 won’t solve its ills. Midori, which blends the cloud with the desktop, is a much smarter bet. Windows 7? It feels like more of the same Vista problem.

No one is buying Apple’s machines because of an upgrade from OS X 10.3 to 10.5. They’re upgrading from Windows XP or from the
iPod or
iPhone. They want, in other words, a different computing experience, not merely an improved operating system. No one thinks about operating systems anymore. Or not much.

Microsoft’s only hope at this point is that customers will forget Vista as rapidly as they did Millennium and ramp up anticipation for
Windows 7. Actually, it’s real hope is that Windows 7 will be worth waiting for.

In a clear indictment of Microsoft’s Windows strategy, new research suggests that up to a third of all new Windows Vista machines get downgraded to XP, either by the hardware vendors like Dell, or by customers.

That is a massive number. Ironically, it’s a number that works to the short-term advantage of Microsoft’s top and bottom lines, but it still represents a vote of “no confidence” in Microsoft’s Windows strategy.

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“I’ve made a judgment that it could be beneficial to the court” to conduct at least the first portion of the hearing “in a closed courtroom,” Ware said Monday morning.

Many documents in the case have been filed under seal, including instant messages reportedly sent by Zuckerberg to colleagues at Facebook.

The beef stems from allegations by ConnectU’s founders that Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg stole their business idea in 2003, when the founders were students at Harvard University.

A lawsuit between ConnectU and Facebook was settled earlier this year. ConnectU now says Facebook, the most popular social network in the world, entered into the settlement fraudulently. Therefore, it says, the case must be reopened.

Reporters from CNET News.com, the San Jose Mercury News, and Bloomberg had objected to the courtroom being closed, which is uncommon in federal civil cases, and asked for a delay so their attorneys could be present. Ware rejected the request, saying he would “set up a time to make objections.”

SAN JOSE, Calif.–A hearing in a dispute between Facebook and ConnectU wrapped up early Monday afternoon with no ruling, after the federal judge overseeing the matter had closed the proceedings to the public and the press.

U.S. District Judge James Ware plans to issue a ruling before too much time has elapsed, attorneys involved in the matter said as they left the courthouse here following the hearing, which lasted somewhat less than two hours.

Updated 1:12 p.m. PDT to reflect that the hearing session has ended.

“We have to make hard choices about whether a Hubble mission is worth it now, when moving ahead is likely to have an adverse impact on other programs, including quite possibly other programs in astronomy,” Sherwood Boehlert, a former Republican congressman from New York, said in 2005.

Space is an interesting subject. It arguably matters most to our knowledge of life. Understanding issues affecting the universe today will help us recognize them as they impact our lives going forward. And since we simply don’t have the ability to explore space the way it would be required to fully understand our history, it’s the Hubble Space Telescope that we must rely on to provide that for us.

But it’s not without its critics. With each new service mission (including the latest), critics have contended that Hubble simply costs too much for what we’re getting. And according to one U.S. legislator, it’s to the detriment of other programs.

Hubble’s cost is certainly high. According to NASA, the telescope has cost the United States $9.6 billion since its launch in 1990. In that time, critics remind us that scientists still haven’t determined the real age of the universe; they still don’t know, for sure, how the galaxy was formed, and they wonder if all those pictures Hubble sends back are really all that important.

A planetary nebula captured with Hubble.

Hubble has also provided scientists with views deep into the universe. With the help of Hubble, scientists are able to see galaxies, supernovas, and other phenomena billions of light years away. That’s not important just for the cool pictures. It gives astronomers deeper insight into how galaxies and the universe were formed. And it helps us understand how our own galaxy could act in the future.

Check out Don’s Digital Home podcast, Twitter stream, and FriendFeed.

Hubble’s importance

I could go on, but the laundry list of advancements Hubble has provided us with is far too long to be documented here. Is it costly? Sure. Could it have been built better to weather space conditions more effectively? Of course.

Nebulae, which are basically flattened disks of gas and dust, were thought to be the birthplace of planetary systems. Thanks to Hubble, that hypothesis was confirmed when it captured those disks around young stars. It gives us significant insight into the formation of our own planetary system.

(Credit:
NASA)

One of the main goals of Hubble, when it was first launched in 1990, was to measure the rate at which the universe is expanding in an effort to determine its exact age. According to NASA, that rate had errors of up to 50 percent before Hubble launched. Today, the rate of errors is just 10 percent, thanks to Hubble.

But for all its faults and costs, they pale in comparison to all of the knowledge Hubble has given us. Simply put, the Hubble Space Telescope has proven its worth. And I don’t believe there’s any debating that argument.

I won’t go into the history of Hubble (after all, you can find that anywhere), but I think it’s important, especially as astronauts come back to Earth after improving it, that we consider some of the advancements Hubble has provided.

Yes, they are.

In 1994, Hubble helped scientists determine that black holes exist at the heart of every active galaxy. Prior to that discovery, scientists believed that black holes were found only in certain areas or in the middle of a select number of galaxies.

“SFC has patented a method of converting energy using fuel cells that allows for miniaturization by focusing on simplified fuel intake, sealing and electrical configuration. We have also used low-cost materials and mass production techniques to lower the cost of manufacturing fuel cells. “Active Crossover Control” by SFC permits active monitoring and minimization of the negative methanol crossover effect, thus upping the fuel cell’s performance. The result is an extremely short startup time and highly efficient fuel cells by SFC. A mixture of methanol and water is introduced to the anode side by a patented internal water-management system. This enables us to employ 100% pure methanol in our fuel cartridges.”

Our technology is an “active” style DMFC with water and air management by pumps and crossover control permitting the use of various types of membranes. The fuel cell uses 100% methanol supplied in convenient, safety-tested and certified cartridges and dilutes it to the mix ratio required for power production.

These results (the combination of good performance, long life, and a range of membranes) are certainly interesting enough that I asked them after the interview to comment in more detail on what they mean by active crossover control, and share what they can about how it works:

They have over 7,500 fuel cell units sold. The products range from 600 to 1,600 watt hours per day in size (25 to 65 watt nominal power), with prices ranging from 2,000 to 4,000 euros. The system efficiencies are rate at 30%. A bit over 40% of revenues are from the recreational market, predominantly including APUs for RVs, including major manufacturer names like Hymer and Concorde, and 40% of the total revenues are into the US and European military customers for remote power systems and mobile power packs. Among the other intriguing applications they have developed include solar / battery / fuel cell hybrid power systems for off grid power solutions. They have also begun making initial inroads into the EV and hybrid vehicle market for light vehicles as well. SFC warranties a 3,000 hour life of the system (they estimate roughly 6 year life expectancy in a typical recreational vehicle application), though they cautioned me that many of the systems see several times that in practice.

I had a chat with Dr. Peter Podessor this week. He is the CEO of Smart Fuel Cells (XETRA: F3C.DE), the best fuel cell company that most Americans have never heard of. Cleantech Blog did an article on the problems with micro fuel cells last year, but we have never written much on the larger size methanol fuel cells that Smart Fuel Cell is developing. SFC is one of the longest running direct methanol fuel cell companies in Europe, but never has made much press in the US, despite the fact that the US is one of their largest markets.

Is there a simple summary on how the water management & active crossover control works? Active crossover control means advanced algorithms that manage fuel crossover and adapt it to the particular situation’s needs. When fuel crossover is not desired, it is reduced to about 2 per cent. In situations when fuel crossover is beneficial to the product, it is deliberately increased. - SFC’s water management submodule regulates the water balance of the product by matching water emissions and water recirculation. This process and the device performing the functions work reliably in a very wide window of operating conditions and are protected by several patents.”

SFC’s private equity backers included leading European private equity group 3i, strategic investor DuPont, and institutional backing from Deutsche Bank. SFC is publicly traded now, and after a fairly fast run up from 37 euros to north of 50 euros when it first went public in 2006, the stock has dipped back into the low to mid teens. That gives it a current market capitalization of around 100 mm euros, with around 50 mm euros of cash and 14 mm euros in revenues (including 70% from product sales) with a loss in 2007 of less than 5 mm euros. Possibly even more impressive, according to Dr. Podessor they have given guidance that they expect to break even in 2008. Aside from the technology, at an enterprise value to trailing revenues of 3.5x, plenty of cash, and projecting a near term breakeven, it is hard to see how SFC is not one of the cheapest fuel cell stocks out there, as well as with 7,500 units sold, one of the most mature. For someone who has been a long time skeptic of fuel cell companies, Smart Fuel Cell is a refreshing story.

It has been nearly five years since I last had the chance to speak with Smart Fuel Cell founder and then CEO Dr. Manfred Stefener, and a lot has changed. That is to say, unlike almost every other fuel cell company I know of, they have actually done what they said they would five years ago.

Neal Dikeman is a founding partner at Jane Capital Partners LLC, a boutique merchant bank advising strategic investors and startups in cleantech. He is founding contributor of Cleantech Blog, a Contributing Editor to Alt Energy Stocks, Chairman of Cleantech.org, and a blogger for CNET’s Greentech blog.

The technology is direct methanol, where methanol mixed with water is fed directly into the fuel cell. Their products are medium power range systems, mainly for APU type applications. An interesting tidbit on the technology, the classic problem in DMFC has always been the crossover problem, where methanol seeps through the membrane, reducing efficiency and performance, among other things. SFC uses a patented water management and active control system that has permitted them to deliver commercial products using membranes from a range of suppliers, including Johnson Matthey, DuPont and Cabot Industries, apparently relatively indiscriminant of the membrane itself.

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But Spore presents a couple of problems, at least in terms of whether or not it could be an all-time best-selling game. First, it is a PC–and
Mac–title, not a console game. And secondly, according to Pidgeon, it doesn’t seem an obvious choice for endless expansions like The Sims franchise is.

And while none of the analysts interviewed for this article could see any already announced game topping GTA IV’s short-term records, that doesn’t mean it won’t happen.

(Credit:
Rockstar Games)

“Personally, I think Spore is going to be a huge influence on the games industry,” Pidgeon said. “And I think it’s going to do well. I don’t know if it’s going to be another Sims, but I think it will be broadly popular.”

And given how quickly Bungie Studios’ Halo 3 was reduced to second place, it stands to reason that even the monstrous pile of cash GTA IV has earned so far–it has already sold more than 6 million copies, Take-Two said–could be in danger from some game already in the pipeline.

News.com Poll Great expectations
What has the best chance of breaking Grand Theft Auto IV’s entertainment industry record for first-day sales?

Among the games that are set to be released in the next few months that seem like potential contenders: Electronic Arts’ Spore, Blizzard Entertainment’s StarCraft II, Konami’s Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, EA’s 2009 version of Madden football, LucasArts’ Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, Activision’s next Guitar Hero offering, Harmonix’s next Rock Band version and Nintendo’s Wii Fit.

“Halo and GTA are fairly unique properties in the interactive entertainment world,” said Colin Sebastian, a senior analyst for Lazard Capital Markets, “so it’s difficult to say if anything in the next couple of years will reach these (early sales) levels.”

And since we’re talking the entire entertainment industry, there’s also the small matter of the forthcoming Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull from Paramount and LucasFilm.

Another set of titles that could contend for the all-time sales records, though probably not the short-term records, are the Guitar Hero and Rock Band franchises, since they will likely have an endless supply of expansions and accessories. And they have long-term potential that even GTA probably can’t match.

That said, there’s no reason to think that GTA IV will set or hold any kind of long-term sales numbers. While it’s certain to make gigantic amounts of money and sell many, many millions of copies, it’s not necessarily the kind of game that will sustain its sales over the long haul. Rather, it’s the kind of game the attracts hard-core gamers, most of whom want to get it right away.

“If you measure in terms of one-day sales,” said Michael Pachter, a video game analyst with Wedbush Morgan Securities, “there’s likely nothing (that can break the record) until the next GTA.”

“Part of this is also where we are in the hardware cycle,” Pidgeon said, explaining that GTA IV was published when the Xbox 360 and
PlayStation 3 have only been out for a couple of years. Over time, as millions more gamers bring those consoles home, “it’ll be easier for some blockbuster title to sell big.”

“Guitar Hero and Rock Band (are) franchises where, when you add the numbers up, they’re just spectacular,” said Pidgeon. “You see them played in bars, and (they present) a really interesting growth opportunity. There’s a lot of room for exciting growth in that sort of product. That’s the sort of thing you don’t see with GTA.

In large part, Pachter said, that’s because the GTA franchise has the significant advantage of being perhaps the world’s most popular video game title that is available on multiple video game platforms. Indeed, many analysts have said that the game is not only selling well on its own, but is also driving sales of the consoles it can be played on, Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Sony’s PlayStation 3.

Spore (video game)
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (video game)
StarCraft II (video game)
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (movie)
Something else
Nothing will break that record.

‘Grand Theft Auto IV’ broke the all-time records for single-day and one-week entertainment industry sales. It looks like it could be tough for any forthcoming game to knock GTA IV off the top of the hill.

“If you measure in terms of lifetime sales, I think Wii Fit,” Nintendo’s forthcoming exercise game, could break sales records, said Pachter. “I think it’s going to attach about a one-third rate to all Wiis, and globally, that means (since there have been 20 million Wiis sold), it’ll pass GTA IV by the end of next year.”

And beyond the cross-platform versus single-platform issue, there’s also the small matter of the miniscule selection of full-fledged AAA games that simply attract huge audiences.

In fact, the timing of the GTA IV launch itself could eventually be why it gets surpassed.

Some people are expecting Spore, the next game from The Sims creator Will Wright, to be a big winner for EA, particularly because The Sims became the best-selling PC game of all time and recently passed 100 million total units sold, counting all its expansions and sequels.

But according to several industry experts contacted for this story, none of those titles seems likely to score the kind of cash in a single day or single week that GTA IV did. So while one of those games, or possibly another one not listed might some day best GTA IV in total sales, it seems that its short-term sales records are safe for the foreseeable future.

“The special thing about GTA is that it’s a cross-platform title and can leverage the install bases of both” consoles, said IDC games analyst Billy Pidgeon. “The fact that you could only play Halo on the Xbox 360 made a difference.”

On Wednesday, Take-Two Interactive, which owns GTA IV developer Rockstar Games, announced that the new game had raked in all-time records of $310 million on its launch day of April 29 and $500 million during its first week. The single-day figure shattered the previous record, set last September by Halo 3, of $170 million.

By comparison, Halo 3 is only available for the
Xbox 360.

Though Halo 3 held the all-time entertainment industry record for single-day sales for eight months, it could be a long time before anyone bests the record-shattering sales achieved by GTA IV.