On Wednesday of this week, Infusion Software, a small company headquartered in Mesa, AZ, announced they had raised $9 million in venture funding. Two things made this special. First, there aren’t many high tech venture-backed companies in Mesa, AZ, and second, the founders of this company are two young guys who grew up across the street from my family. Their mother was one of the very first people to welcome us to our new home when we moved in 17 years ago this month. The president is another neighborhood kid from a few blocks away. Seeing these guys spread their wings, take some chances, capitalize on some good ideas and earn the respect of the best minds in the CRM industry is a real treat.

Scott, Eric, Clate — way to go, guys!

Technorati Tags: Infusion,
Entrepreneur

I spent many years of my career with a series of startups, and have deep respect for the courageous, adventuresome, fire-in-the-belly kind of folks who have what it takes to lead the process from embryonic idea to commerical success. I applaud Sun’s sponsorship of this series of Startup Camps: “Startup Camp is a face-to-face, collaborative event dedicated to bringing entrepreneurs and vendors together to share advice and information about getting a company up and running.”

I have found after much experience and soul-searching that I am actually more well-suited the to the virtual entrepreneurism that flourishes in larger companies like Sun Microsystem, but a part of my heart will always be in the startup garage. May entrepreneurism live long and prosper!

Technorati Tags: Entrepreneur,
Sun Microsystems,
Startup

• Google patents datacenter-in-a-shipping-container, ignores Sun’s BlackBox
  Is litigation brewing? Google received a patent for a self-contained data center similar to Sun’s Blackbox concept.
  (tags: blackbox datacenter google sunmicrosystems)
• Oracle Buys LogicalApps: Approva Remains the Land of Freedom @ tuesdaynight
  Blog by Ian Glazer pointing out that Oracle purchased LogicalApps to address audit controls monitoring and management. Approva remains independent.
  (tags: oracle logicalapps approva)

• Social Media Club
  Interesting organization formed “for the purpose of sharing best practices, establishing ethics and standards, and promoting media literacy around the emerging area of Social Media.”
  (tags: socialnetworking socialmedia socialnetworks community)
• The ‘Warrior’ Within Jonathan Schwartz
  Excellent article about Jonathan Schwartz rise to the top of Sun Microsystems – including the genesis of his ponytail.
  (tags: sunmicrosystems jonathanschwartz)
• Tracking Keywords on Twitter
  Instructions from Pat Patterson for tracking keywords on Twitter
  (tags: twitter tags tag)
• Aptera’s 300 MPG car available for pre-order – Engadget
  300 MPG in typical driving conditions? I’ll take one. Looks pretty sharp, too.
  (tags: hybrid automobile ElectricCar ElectricVehicle Aptera)

I am testing a feature that should generate Technorati tags.

oops! didn’t work. stand by.

We at Sun pride ourselves on a culture of innovation, but we certainly don’t have a corner on the innovation market. A good friend of mine, Lon Safko, is a serial entrepreneur and perhaps the most innovative person I know. I just listened to a recording of a talk entitled “The American Inventor” Lon gave to the Society of American Archivists on behalf of the Smithsonian Institution. In this 16-minute podcast, he outlines the process of innovation and gives a couple of examples of innovation in this own career. Great food for thought.

Plus, you can download one of his patented paper models for free!

Technorati Tags: Innovation,
Entrepreneur

I haven’t posted much to my blog for quite some time. Perhaps a quote from Larry Ellison, my former employer, will suffice for my renewed blogging effort …

During a recent visit to Israel, Mr. Ellison made a profound statement that gets right to the bottom of the Open Source controversy. At an event hosted Saturday night by TheMarker, the American Embassy and Oracle Israel, he said, “Open source is not something to be feared. Open source is something to be explained. Open source wins not because it’s open and not because it’s free. Open source wins only when it’s better.”

I agree. In a open world, with traditional barriers like availability and price stripped away, the best software will win because it is the best.

I remember many years ago when I heard John Young, then CEO of Hewlett Packard, state that HP favored open systems running Unix, rather than closed, proprietary systems. I wondered then how HP could compete without securing their installed customer positions with proprietary architectures and operating systems. History has shown that Mr. Young was right. Open systems and Unix prevailed, with the most innovative suppliers building market share.

In the long run, the same will happen with software. If Open Source creates an environment for innovation that is superior to closed systems, Open Source will win because innovation and quality will prevail. If Sun’s Open Source strategy enables Sun products to deliver superior innovation, functionality and customer benefit, this strategy will succeed.

Technorati Tags: Open Source,
Sun Microsystems

I was surprised to learn from a newspaper article this morning that Father’s Day was not officially recognized by the US government until 1972, the year after I graduated from high school. Promoted in the United States by Mrs. Sonora Smart Dodd, Father’s day was first celebrated in June, 1910, and was recommended as a national holiday by President Calvin Coolidge 15 years later. Father’s Day was recognized by a Joint Resolution of Congress in 1956. In 1966, President Lyndon Johnson signed a presidential proclamation declaring the 3rd Sunday of June as Father’s Day. It took six more years before President Richard Nixon established a permanent national observance of Father’s Day.

So, for the first 19 years of my life, I celebrated a holiday that wasn’t even “official” yet! But I still love my Dad. Officially.

Thank you, Richard Nixon, for making it all official. And thank you Dad, for all the great Father’s Days and all those days in between.

Technorati Tags: Father’s Day

Last night, I finished adding an archive page to my blog, so I can reach back through the months to retrieve posts, all the way back to my first post in May, 2005.

Thanks to Alex Ruiz for pointing out how to use the #showBigWeblogCalendar() macro and to my son David for providing the JavaScript for the drop-down list box which auto-populates and allows a user to select the month of interest.

Technorati Tags: Blogging

I signed up with Twitter last week, but still don’t know what it is really good for. I have a few “Twitter Friends” to follow (stalk?) around, but they only sporadically input what they are doing. I keep forgetting to twitter myself (is that how you describe an update?), so anyone stalking me doesn’t get a complete picture of my life.

One possible benefit might be to keep friends updated during a vacation – a string of virtual postcards, as it were. One friend has begun to update every few hours about her progress on a trip through Southeast Asia.

I was invited to be a friend by a person who has 10,473 friends at the latest count. I have no idea why she would want me to be her 10,474th friend. I wonder if she has too much time on her hands. Maybe Twitter is a way to ease her boredom – an online parlor game, as it were.

If any of you have any specific uses you have for Twitter, other than for online parlor games or vitual postcards, please let me know. You can stalk me at http://twitter.com/mgd.

Technorati Tags: Identity,
Twitter