Yangtheman

Life hacker

Archive for category high-tech

Follow your dream?

Sep 22

Posted by Yang Chung in entrepreneurship, high-tech, personal | No Comments

Should you?

I had a conversation with someone who has been quite successful as a serial entrepreneur. Since I have a lot of spare time, I wanted to pick his brain and get some pointers what I could follow his footsteps. His brief answer was that he just had been lucky, right place at the right time. He also said there are some people who are cut out to be a leader, founder, and entrepreneur. And, most people are not. He said God (whichever god depends on your religion) has set out a path for everyone. People have different strengths, and he doesn’t believe in working on improving weaknesses, but reinforcing strengths.

One of the books I like is Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. One principle in the book says that the state head must know how to utilize his generals’ strengths best. If a general is good at offense, he should be deployed in offensive position. And if a general is good at defense, then in defensive position. You can’t blame a general for not doing his job if he was assigned with a job he cannot possibly do well. It makes total sense……

So, what if your dream is not in line with your strengths? Or what if your strengths are not enough to reach your dream? Books and TVs are full of stories about people following their dreams, persevere, and actually achieving them. How about others who have followed them but never made them? There are many athletes, both professional and Olympic, who in spite of their best effort do not make it at the top. What about those countless artists and musicians? When do you realize that perhaps your strengths are not in line with your dream or just not enough? What do you do? Then, is it about different levels or definitions of success? Should an athlete be satisfied with making it to the Olympic teams?

It’s especially meaningful to me since I have two kids of my own. As a parent, I would tell them that they could be anything they want to be. Would I be setting them up for big disappointments? Shall I just tell them that there are different levels of successes, and they should set low goals? Jack Welch is famous for setting “stretch goals”, which may not be applicable for kids, but I really ponder over the whole thing.

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Dare to predict the future

Sep 21

Posted by Yang Chung in entrepreneurship, high-tech, startup | No Comments

Since the shutdown of the company I was working at previously, I have had some time to think about what I want to do. I still have the desire to start my own company, but it’s indeed getting harder and harder as I have certain family obligations. Next best thing is to join a startup, but there aren’t too many left standing in networking industry. As I have mentioned before, best case scenario would be to join a startup in web application space, but because I don’t have relevant prior experiences, it is tough. That leaves joining a well-established company in networking industry. While that’s good for supporting the family, it is bruising to my ambition and dream of starting a company of my own. However, life would not be worth living without a dream. We live one life, and I just refuse to accept that I will live the rest of my life as nobody in the sea of big corporations. Well, not exactly. My personality wouldn’t let me be nobody. I am too ambitious to be nobody in any company. Either I make a difference and become somebody or get the hell out. I think I’ve always enjoyed limelight – there is something about being a center of attention.

At any rate, I decided to examine history of technology innovations (as far back as I could remember), and see where the future innovations would happen. As people grow older, they tend to have “locked-in” view. I can feel that I already do that sometimes. But, it’s important to have open mind and views. I will let my imaginations go wild, and see where things might be headed in the future. This would be a good exercise.

I would divide Internet into two large areas: physical and logical (or Layer 1 to 4 and Layer 5 to 7 of OSI model). In physical side, you have telecommunications and data communications equipment that is responsible for delivering bits (zeroes and ones) from point A to point B. In Layer 1, most long hauls, WANs and LANs are either fiber or moving to fiber. To desktop is most likely to remain copper, and to laptop is most likely wireless (Wi-Fi variation). Long hauls use mostly SONET, the good-old, reliable SOB. DWDM stuffs much more information into single strand of fiber using different wavelengths. So, as long as you have fiber in the ground, DWDM or any other future boxes will be interested in stuffing more and more bits into the single strand of fiber. Similarly, Ethernet evolution map is pretty much intuitive, too: faster and faster. Also interesting thing is moving everything over IP. Storage used to be exclusively on fibre channel network, but with NAS and iSCSI, everything is accessible over IP without specialized network. There is even talk about implementing fibre channel over Ethernet. Actually, much more interesting things in physical side are happening in and around data centers. The need to have scalable data center is pushing for HPC environment where resources from multiple servers are pooled together. What’s happening now is like creating a humongous server with hundreds of CPUs and obscene amount of storage. With pre-partitioned storage, any number of CPUs can be instantly grouped together to perform certain jobs. For example, if there is sudden surge of demand for database processing, addition CPUs can be assigned to already existing database CPUs. It is like dynamic server virtualization. You can also imagine, with fast enough connection and fast enough storage like maybe Solid State Drives, that there could be separate “memory area network” in addition to “storage area network”. Thus you have three physically separate areas – CPU, memory and storage – being grouped dynamically on the fly and providing services to clients as needed. What provides physical connections for those three areas become quite interesting too…. Memory typically requires 50ns or less access speed, so I am not sure if current Ethernet switch can work. But, you could imagine some sort of box providing network connection to/from clients as well as between the three areas. That would be really neat… But the box needs to be as scalable as the computing resources. Also management would not be easy. There may be additional challenges I am not seeing right now, but I would believe that’s where most network, server, and storage vendors are heading.

In terms of physical side of mobile industry, it’s also pretty much predictable. Apple iPhone and Google Android are paving a new era of mobile networks. Service providers need to upgrade their equipment to deal with more and more data. Thanks to the two pioneers, mobile phones will be considered as mini-computers where consumers are free (as much as phone manufacturer lets them) to download and install applications.

Logical side is even more interesting than the physical side in both wired and wireless networks. Whether you use desktop or mobile phone, what you do with bits delivered via the network is where the true value resides. However, I must say that I am much more excited about mobile apps than desktop apps. The evolution of desktop apps seems quite predictable. For example, social networking websites could be considered as enhanced BBS. I remember when I first got my computer in high school, it came with 2400 baud modem and the only “online” activity would be through BBS. I exchanged games with others physically…using 5.25” floppy disks. You could choose which BBS to go and hang out. When I went to college, I used newsgroups and IRC as BBS. Then to Yahoo Groups, and now it’s Facebook. Truly remarkable development has been around software-as-a-service model. In most cases, big software vendors tended to target customers who leave most margins, i.e. Fortune 1000 companies. Small-to-Medium businesses usually get crippled version at discounted price, but in terms of productivity, it could be considered a lot more expensive. When you move apps to web, now you have different economies of scale, and distribution and pricing model. Just as the Internet made “Long Tail” possible, SaaS changes the whole software landscape and makes it attractive to SMBs (not that it wouldn’t be also attractive to larger companies, but they may not have compelling reason to jump).

Also, when you add mobility, you get a whole different set of software. Mobility means your location may change at any time. The obvious apps are the ones that tell you about things around you, whether you are looking for a restaurant, a friend, etc. There is also notion of instant social gaming, where you hook up with whoever is available and play a game together. Another one is instant access to information wherever you are. One app I saw lets user scan a barcode of a product and find review/rating information about it. Pretty clever. So what makes apps on mobile phone with high-speed internet connection a lot more interesting is location + instant access to information.

What could be possible? Where could things go from here? SaaS means both desktop and mobile phone could access the same application. So the SaaS should be able to accommodate information from/to both desktop and mobile phone. Will desktops become just another (immobile) terminal to apps? How about SaaS of SaaS? If apps are moving to web, and there might be a need for information exchange between two or more SaaS apps. Mashup for mobile apps. There is an idea! Another characteristic of mobile phone is it’s most likely to be with owner all the time. So, it could be use as tracking device…..could be as physical as distance travelled or expenses……or some sort of analysis based on accumulated data…..like when s/he is most likely to spend money, etc. I actually have envisioned a society without cash, since a lot of financial transactions already happen without me actually touching the money. Money gets deposited using direct deposit. I always use credit cards for purchases. I then pay for credit charges using online banking. I don’t need to touch the money, period. So, what if you add charging capability to the mobile phone? It’s already done in Asia and Europe, where you can pay for goods using your mobile phone. It’s just that mobile carriers are not credit card companies, but it should be possible perhaps through partnership. Then SaaS could keep track of most of expenses through the mobile phones and provide you with financial analysis. That could be possible.

Actually, it would be impossible to think of all the possible mobile SaaS right now….., but it gives good topic ideas. From today on, I am going to write about at least one mobile SaaS a day.

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Just do it!

Feb 22

Posted by Yang Chung in entrepreneurship, high-tech | 1 Comment

There are a few people at work I enjoy having conversation with, and one of them is a software engineer with a lot of interest in marketing and starting a company.

One day he and I had a discussion about high-tech marketing strategies. I gave examples and principles from books I have read like Crossing the Chasm, Inside the Tornado, and Innovator’s Dilemma. But, he basically discarded them as garbage and they are all just after-the-facts, trying to explain what made companies successful. Hindsight is always 20-20, and it is easy to justify actions after success. I try very hard to make counter his points, but it didn’t fly.

The truth is that he was right. None of the authors – neither Geoffrey Moore and Clayton Christensen – has ever run a successful company. Also, so many successful companies in the valley have been accidental success. Look no further than Google. Larry Page and Sergey Brin never wanted to start a company. After successful prototype, they just wanted to sell the technology. Nobody including Yahoo wanted to buy the technology. Everyone thought search market was mature enough with no room for new player. They sat on a $100,000 check made out to “Google, Inc.” from Andy Bechtolsheim, mulling over whether to start a company or not. The same with Craig Newman from Craigslist.org, which is arguably one of the most visited websites in the world. He started out by managing a bunch of mailing lists, which was a pain and took a lot of his time. He wanted a better way to manage the mailing lists, and that’s how Craigslist.org was born. Mark Zuckerberg from Facebook never intended to create a company of current Facebook. He just wanted to find a way to see who’s who in his freshman class, and that’s how Facebook started. Similar stories exist for other companies like eBay and Paypal. Have they all followed the strategies and tactics laid out in marketing books? I am not sure. But, it is surely easy to tell the world – after such huge success – why certain actions taken at the time were so brilliant. But, who knows at the time it was motivated entirely differently?

In addition, most successful start-ups happened to be started by engineers, not marketing-types. From HP to Cisco, Sun Microsystems, Yahoo, and Google, all of them were founded by engineers.

Guy Kawasaki from Garage Technology Ventures said that one common mistake an entrepreneur makes is writing a business plan first. Instead, he or she should start building service or product and starting selling them first. It’s utmost important to get customer feedback as soon as possible. By incorporating customer feedback and improving service or product, the entrepreneur could build his/her business. If more capital is required for further growth, it’s much easier to raise funding with proven business model.

So, to my fellow entrepreneurs, JUST DO IT!

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Security: Tech’s all-time top flop

Feb 3

Posted by Yang Chung in high-tech | No Comments

InfoWorld recently ran a story about high-tech’s all-time top 25 flops, and security took the honor of being the first place. The list included pretty familiar flops like IBM’s OS/2, Apple’s Newton, and IPv6. As someone who works in the security industry, the finding isn’t all that surprising. It was actually pretty amusing, because my colleagues and I all knew security would in in that top 25. As in my previous blog entry, the number of malware is reaching an epidemic level and there are many variations of past and current malware including virus, worm and spyware.

It looks like the security industry has reached its limitation with current techniques.

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Microsoft + Yahoo is a bad, bad move

Feb 3

Posted by Yang Chung in high-tech | No Comments

Bad for Microsoft shareholders and probably good for Yahoo shareholders. 62% premium above Thursday’s closing price is a good offer, and board of directors at Yahoo must consider it very seriously.

Why is it bad and why it wouldn’t work? Let me count the ways…

1. Two mediocre companies – mediocre in terms of Internet world – will not create one better Internet company. Windows Live sucks. Yahoo has been losing its market share in search market and its new ad marketing system, Panama, hasn’t made difference to Yahoo. I really can’t see how the combined company will compete with companies like Google better…..

2. Mega merger rarely works. The reason why Cisco has been successful in M&A is because Cisco targets mostly small companies. There are a few exceptions, but it takes enormous amount of work to integrate large companies. It will take long time for Microsoft and Yahoo to work through integration, and competition will be far ahead of Micrsoft+Yahoo by then.

3. Microsoft has bullied its way into browser world by including internet explorer with its operating system, but these days, especially to web 2.0 companies and their web applications, browsers do not matter. Their applications are browser-agnostic in most part. Google returns the same result whether you have IE or Firefox or any other browser. Other Google services (or applications to an extent) will run the same whether on IE or Firefox or any other browser (if there is difference, it would be minimal). Furthermore, they are also OS-agnostic. Whether you run Linux, Solaris, or Windows, these web applications and web sites are made to run
the same no matter what OS and what browser you use. This is precisely why Microsoft should and is worried about Google and the whole slew of web 2.0 companies (look at Facebook and its huge list of applications – Facebook is already its own platform).

However, motivation is clear, and the proposed deal looks enticing to both Yahoo (for capital, financial and resource reasons) and Microsoft (for technology and market share gain reasons)…. But I can’t help but feeling that this will mark the time Microsoft finally jumps the shark……

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Signature-based security is no longer effective

Jan 26

Posted by Yang Chung in high-tech | No Comments

Dark Reading – sister site of Light Reading which had been source of much rumor and information when I was in networking market – has recently reported that malware is reaching epidemic level. It sites reports from two security firms, PandaLabs (research arm of anti-virus company, Panda Security) and AV-Test (an independent anti-virus software testing organization). Key statistics are the followings.

  • Number of malware has increased 5 to 10 times in 2007
  • Average of 3000 new variation of malware each day in 2007
  • Approximately 72% of networks with more than 100 workstations and 23% of home users are currently infected with malware even with operative antivirus or other signature-based tools in place
  • Approximately 5.5 million different malware files identified in 2007 – 5 times as greater than 2006
  • 118,000 different malware files in 2 weeks of January in 2008

All these numbers indicate that signature-based approach to computer and network security is no longer effective and cannot scale. While signature-based solutions have worked fairly well so far, they have one fatal weakness; no known signature, no detection and thus no defense. And as the numbers show, the rate at which malware is created is clearly overwhelming signature-based security companies.

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Pros and cons of outsourcing software development to India

Aug 24

Posted by Yang Chung in entrepreneurship, high-tech | 2 Comments

So, I am winding down on my pursuit of the startup. I had to. My saving level is dangerously low, and I have a family to support.

And, this outsourcing to an Indian software company was a BIG mistake, too. What it came down to is the heart and soul put into the work. They will do a job to meet the spec, but as any software engineer knows, there are million ways to write a code, and these guys will write the minimum or take the shortest path to meet the spec. That doesn’t mean they will think about efficiency or quality of the code. So, quality of the code is always questionable. But, again the biggest problem is that these guys will not go above and beyond. Just do the minimum to meet the spec and that’s it.

When I told many people that I was going to outsource the coding, they thought I was crazy. It’s core of my business, and you should never outsource something that’s core to one’s business. That’s so true, because I just learned it hard way and also it is clearly said in the book I am currently reading, Living on the fault line by Geoffrey Moore. Well, actually at first, I didn’t think the website was the core, but marketing strategy was, because writing a website is so trivial and anyone could do it. I wanted to do it cheaper and faster, and concentrate on good marketing so that I can attract critical mass of users. But, it was the core. In consumer website space, user experience is everything and the website that was built by this Indian outsourcing company – which by the way had developed other social networking sites before – had the worst user interface. So, I basically told them to stop the development since I want to cancel the project. Of course, they weren’t happy about it, but there was really no point in going on. The website developed by them was so inferior to current competitors.

Recently I had to research open-source social networking platforms, and I was surprised to find so many. And, they all looked really good. I remember distinctly that I searched for such platform in October of 2006, and there really weren’t much. I found a few that I’d have to buy, but no social networking…. Though, I am not sure if I would have time to develop the site myself even if I found a suitable open-source social networking platform. The learning curve would have been too steep. That was actually another reason I decided to use an outsourcing company….., but it turned out to be probably worse.

Ah, well…. You live and learn and move on.

Also, another thing that I learned was that most of the successful startups were founded by engineers and geeks, not by business or marketing people. I’d better go and hit programming books!

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What makes a company great?

Jul 5

Posted by Yang Chung in high-tech, strategy | No Comments

It was my junior year in college that I picked up this free issue of BusinessWeek. It had a special section about Silicon Valley, and reading it was like an epiphany. It was amazing to read about unconventional folks, mavericks, and renegades were truly shaping our world. They were because after the industrial age, we live in formation age and these companies were creating innovative software and hardware that were fueling and driving information age. I wanted to be one of them, creating a company that would change the world and perhaps make a lot of money on the side. But, I wasn’t sure how I would go about doing it. I was naive and still trying to figure out my place in this relatively new world, having immigrated to US just about seven years ago.

Well, I had an opportunity to work for startups in the Silicon Valley, and it was during this time that I became fascinated with high-tech marketing, thanks to VP of Engineering at Caspian Networks who recommended Geoffrey Moore’s Crossing the Chasm. He is now founder and CEO of Ethernet fabric company. Since then, I wanted to move onto product marketing area, but the opportunity didn’t arise until 2004.

I had a chance to work for Samsung Electronics in Korea. It wasn’t an easy decision. It took me three months to decide. I’ve heard some horror stories about harsh treatment from jealous colleagues and cultural shock experienced by Korean Americans who went to work for a company in their mother land. Also, they were going into a very tough market, router market where Cisco owns 70% market share in all segments and 95% in mid-range segment. Other big telecommunications companies like Nortel, Alcatel and Lucent tried to challenge Cisco, but all failed. What I liked about Samsung was that it had huge amount of cash. If Samsung were in the game to win, it was going to be a long battle that would require lots of cash.

But, what I faced was quite dismal. Samsung, a large company in all aspects with 200K+ employees worldwide, truly exhibited everything you could expect from a large company. Working there was living the words of Clayton Christensen’s Innovator’s Dilemma. And we are not even talking about a disruptive innovation. Actually, most of the leading Samsung products happen to be with sustaining technologies instead, like more dense memories or phones packed with more and more advanced features. Clayton Christensen’s definition of disruptive technology is not radically different technology, but entirely different application of current or new technology targeting entirely different market.

I am a Korean American, and I am somewhat passionate about Korean companies. In the back of my mind, I thought my high-tech marketing knowledge with heavy experiences in data networking and in startups, I could make a real impact and be the real change agent at Samsung. It didn’t happen, and I could spend another full post on why. At any rate, in the light of iPhone’s huge initial success, selling out 500K units last week, I wondered how come no Korean company, with heavy chips on their shoulder and arrogance could not create such “iconic” product that people could get really passionate about. Other foreign companies have done it. Sony certainly has done it…., many times with Walkman, Playstation, etc. According to Tony Seba and in his book, Winners Take All, success of Apple’s iPod could be attributed to creation of “whole product”. iPod was only successful with iTune application and iTune store by providing users a complete digital music experience. iPhone might actually fail because of poor experience with AT&T. Wireless carrier matters a lot to create “whole product” of a cellular phone since poor cellular quality will hinder users from positive experience.

I think it’s useless to exclaim R&D or technical strength if you cannot exploit it and lose in the market. To win in the market, you have to know the market. Peter Drucker once said that “The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself.” Perhaps the problem with these Korean companies and why they have not been able to create an iconic product is that they do not know the market.

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Do you dare to predict the future?

Jul 4

Posted by Yang Chung in high-tech, strategy | No Comments

“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.”

  • Thomas Watson, Chairman of IBM, 1943


    • “There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.”

  • Ken Olson, President, Chairman, and Founder of Digital Equipment Corporation, 1977


    • “640k ought to be enough for anyone.“

  • Bill Gates, 1981


    • “What the hell is [a microprocessor] good for?“

  • Robert Lloyd of IBM’s Advanced Computing Systems Division, 1968


    • “I see little commercial potential for the Internet for at least ten years.“

  • Bill Gates, 1994

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    Software is the king

    Jul 4

    Posted by Yang Chung in entrepreneurship, high-tech | No Comments

    I wish someone had told me about it early, perhaps before going to college. I have been working for about 10 years now with most of experiences in data communications, and it’s been pretty obvious to me that real value of a system resides in software, not in hardware. In the communication systems, what determines reliability is usually their OS and software in general. Hardware matter, too, but only up to certain point. And, it’s relatively easy to reach a reasonably robust hardware product. The real art of creating value is really in software. I wish I have known this before. While I started my freshman year as a CS major, but later I changed to EE because I didn’t like to spend too much time in front of a computer.

    Anyhow, the two pillars of data communications industry is Cisco and Juniper. When Juniper first came out, its software took much different path from Cisco. Cisco’s IOS used to be this humongous, non-modular piece of code and changes in the one part of IOS may easily break different part of IOS. It was somewhat synonymous to MS Windows OS, where the backward compatibility requirement has hindered it from introducing much better OS for a while. Also, their approach was similar where Cisco IOS would support any network protocols under the sun like DECnet and Appletalk, while Juniper only supported newer protocols. When a process within IOS fails or goes nuts, it would bring down the whole system, but not Juniper’s OS – JunOS. It was definitely smaller, faster, more reliable and more resilient. But now Cisco’s new OS called IOS XR is also modular SW, I think the playing field has leveled. Cisco is a big power house in networking which commands more than 60% market share in most of industries it has penetrated, and Juniper might forever remain as the number 2, niche player in the market (Crossing the Chasm).

    Anyhow, when I look at new innovation or innovative companies popping up, it’s not in L1 to L4 of OSI layer. It’s usually in higher level. Look at all web 2.0, social networking and SaaS (software as a service) companies taking the market by storm. Some say it’s bubble 2.0, but this time I think everyone including investors is careful about business models and revenue history/projection. Also, anything related with proprietary hardware like building ASICs takes too long and too much capital. Building software takes much less time and capital, and there are literally thousands ways to implement a feature, so it’s really up to how well the software is structured for performance as well as scalability that would make a huge difference.

    It also brings an interesting point, too. If you look at technology advancements in the last 100 years and last 20 years, the rate of advancement in last 20 years is very high. If this rate would continue, it’s mind boggling to imagine what the next 10, 20 years will bring. That’s also why benefits of proprietary and custom hardware such as ASIC or company like SUN might be in the big trouble. The system built with off-shelf components may run as fast and reliably as custom hardware. Again, the value will be on software. How well it is designed and written will make all the difference.

    I have two kids of my own, and I don’t know if I would want them to become engineers like me…, but if they want to, I would definitely ask them to go into software industry, not hardware. I suppose hindsight is always 20/20. Life’s most valuable experiences are learned from mistakes.

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