“High tech startups are set to boom again, so here are some rules for getting rich, then getting out”

“High tech startups are set to boom again, so here are some rules for getting rich, then getting out”

“Okay, admit it. We’re all sick of reading depressing business stories like this: A promising technology company grows quickly and is heralded as a success story. It hires droves of talented engineers — until the day it suddenly starts laying them off. The company shuts down soon after.”

“It’s no secret that tight-fistedness is now an essential trait of an entrepreneur. The good news is that the Net meltdown has filled the classifieds with mountains of inexpensive gear, says tech exec Robert von Goeben.”

“So what’s wrong with selling out? Paradoxically, it seems that once you become popular, you also become very unpopular. Suddenly, those in the know aren’t as awed by Wolfgang Puck — not when his name is displayed in major airports across the country. They look down their noses at Yo-Yo Ma. They disdain Andy Warhol. What is it about ubiquity that breeds contempt? Every day, successful entrepreneurs have to make important choices about whether to expand, to open another branch, to franchise, to license. Once you’ve figured out a winning strategy, it seems only rational to cash out by letting the market have what it wants: More of you!”

“Barry Bycoff, the CEO of the Waltham software company Netegrity, agrees that leaders of high-tech companies are spinning some pretty incredible tales of why customers can’t live without their hardware, software, or services, even during a downturn. His analysis? ‘It’s all bulls–t.’”

“Barry Bycoff, the CEO of the Waltham software company Netegrity, agrees that leaders of high-tech companies are spinning some pretty incredible tales of why customers can’t live without their hardware, software, or services, even during a downturn. His analysis? ‘It’s all bulls–t.’”

“As in many marriages that end in breakup, the two companies had been drifting apart for months before the May meeting.”

“Any residual respect for industrial economy philosophies took a beating at InfoWorld’s CTO Forum here Wednesday after two speakers revived the idea that some ‘new economy’ ideas will play a vital role in the corporate enterprise. But today’s protagonists come from completely different ends of the technology spectrum.”

“The new domain name — “.biz” — is about to enter the lexicon of the Internet, joining the conventional ‘.com,’ ‘.net’ and ‘.org,’ as businesses that seek to strengthen their Web identities can now begin to sign up for new addresses.”

“An Integrated User-Centered Approach for Project Teams: Project success depends on the fit of a product or service with user goals and needs. Project manageability depends on a solid shared foundation for swift and effective decision-making. The Team-Based Ethnography offers a methodology to achieve both. The Team-Based Ethnography enables project teams to get to know users and to design for their needs. It lets teams adjust basic project management processes instead of adding new activities onto the existing workload.”

“Once upon a time, executives at i-shops used to tell anyone who would listen that the world was now conducting business on Internet time. They probably had no idea that the swift collapse of their industry would happen on Internet time as well.”

“Now that the cold war is history, intelligence pros are turning their black-bag wizardry toward corporate targets — maybe even the likes of you.”

“Several months ago when Steve Jobs used some choice expletives to express the pathetic experience of retail computer shopping, I didn’t think Apple would actually do anything about it other than complain. Well, they did. There are two Apple retail stores open right now — Glendale Galleria in Glendale, CA, and Tysons Corner Center in McLean, VA. I’ve just returned from a visit to the Tysons store.”

“Online auction site eBay is big. Very big… But sites of eBay’s size and growth rate always have special usability concerns, says Kipp Lynch, director of user experience at NerveWire Inc., a management consulting and systems integration firm in Newton, Mass. ‘You’ve got this huge amount of data, and there are usually two ways to get at it: search and browse,’ Lynch says. EBay does search ‘reasonably well,’ he says. But when it comes to browsing, taxonomy (deciding which items go into which categories) is tricky.”