Before this summer, Microsoft had organised a quite easy contest asking to Hotmail’ users to share the date when they created their Hotmail account. Hopefully, I was one of the first in the ‘world’ Using Internet since 1992 still gives a competitive advantage.

After summer Microsoft contacted me congratulating me as I won a birthday cake!

After few exchanges of email I received the huge cake and enjoyed it with my family during the birthday of my nephew.

Thanks folks for the tasty cake!

Birthday cake won during the context: Hotmail celebrates 15 years

[1] http://blog.i14y.net/2007/07/16/10-years-anniversary-of-my-email-account-on-hotmailcom/

Ideally we should see the platform less attractive like Ovi or Palm  sharing a higher percentage of their revenue to attract new developers but apparently such “objective” indicator doesn’t last.

No, less attractive platform ask for a lower cost of entry (the developer submission fee) from 99$ (Apple) to 0$ (BlackBerry).

Then, why BlackBerry, based on its user base is not capable to attract more developers?

Smartphone App-o-graphic by[x]cubeLABS

I accepted to check the phone even if I don’t know a lot about iPhone 4, I own an iPhone 3G.

First, I looked at the box: very bad printed image of the iPhone.

Box of a faked iPhone

The box mentioned “Phone 4″ and not “iPhone 4″

Phone 4 printed on the box

I opened the box and a phone resembling to the iPhone 4 appeared

Phone 4 shape resembling to iPhone 4

First impression is that the phone is not heavy, a first hint of its quality?

I check each side of the phone 4 and it looks like a real iPhone 4; all connectors or buttons seems to be present.

Phone 4, top of the smartphone

Phone 4, right side of the smartphone

Phone 4, bottom side of the smartphone

Phone 4, left side of the smartphone

Face B of the phone shows an interesting information. This is the first time the term “iPhone” is used but “Designed in California. Assembled in America“.

I didn’t know that America was a country!

Phone 4, Face B of the smartphone

Now, let’s see the content of the box: one cable for the synchronisation and one power adapter. I tried the USB adapter and it worked.

Phone 4, box containing the cables of the smartphone

Phone 4, box containing the cables of the smartphone

Phone 4, box containing the usb adapter of the smartphone

Again, the adapter mention “Designed by Apple in California” but the hardware is “made in China”

Phone 4, box containing the usb adapter of the smartphone

Now, that we have checked all parts of the Phone it is time to start it but nothing happen! The screen stayed black.

I decide to use the adapter provided with the Phone 4 and plug it into the bottom side of the Phone but….

Plugin in the Phone 4 to the usb adapter

The connector of the Phone has been installed backwards! it is simple impossible to plug any USB adapter into the phone

I then tried with my Belkin USB adapter (http://amzn.to/iBIFKi), same happen!

This is quite fast the end of the game, a fake iPhone 4 bought a bit more than 150€ could not start at all and couldn’t be connected to iTunes.

You have been warned!

Google tools

Create a new project: http://code.google.com/hosting/createProject

Create a new group: http://groups.google.com/groups/create

Mercurial source control

Quickstart to mercurial http://mercurial.selenic.com/quickstart/

Quick reference card and cheat sheets: http://mercurial.selenic.com/wiki/QuickReferenceCardsAndCheatSheets

Mercurial source control: http://mercurial.selenic.com/downloads/

Eclipse IDE

Eclipse IDE: http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/

Google Plugin for Eclipse: http://code.google.com/eclipse/docs/getting_started.html

Mercurial plugin for Eclipse: http://code.google.com/a/eclipselabs.org/p/mercurialeclipse/

MercurialEclipse and its priceless tips  http://www.javaforge.com/project/HGE

Create the new repository – watch this tutorial : http://www.javaforge.com/wiki/78696

Gnu Privacy Gard (GnuPG) tools : http://www.gnupg.org/

LinkedIn proposes me to connect with Wizard of In, J.R.R. Tolkien or Sherlock Holmes

It was faster to run a test using the tools already installed on my machine. 

To be short:

1. install Visual Studio 2010 Express http://www.microsoft.com/express/downloads/
2. install IIS 7 and all ASP.NET options using the Microsoft Web Platform Installer http://www.iis.net/webpi
3. run as administrator the following command lines:
   32 bits: %windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\aspnet_regiis.exe –i
   64 bits: %windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\aspnet_regiis.exe –i
4. Create an account on http://www.twitter.com
5. Run IIS 7 as administrator
6. Create a new site called “nettwitter” and choose a port: e.g. 8081

7. 

   Create a new site using IIS7 named nettwitter

8. Update the application pool of the nettwitter site in order to .NET 4.0 target framework

9. 

   Update to .NET 4.0 the target framework of the nettwitter site

10. Run Visual Studio 2010 as Administrator
11. Follow this twitter tutorial: http://www.giantflyingsaucer.com/blog/?p=2074
12. Publish the web application using the following properties

13. 

    Properties to set for the deployment of the nettwitter site on IIS7

14. You should see your last tweets as described inside the post

I also tried the twitter API provided by http://www.twitterizer.net 

1. run the sample from http://www.twitterizer.net/downloads/#general by running the Twitterizer2.3.1-examples\TwitterizerExampleApplications.sln project
2. That’s all folks

Next time, I do the same exercise using Python; Then I may start to develop a tool to fasten and improve the visibility of the tweets (tweetdeck, twitter and the others quite sucks)

One of the main concerns for a firm is when, how and to whom they should market their products. Firms make marketing decisions based on how much data they know about their customers and potential customers.

They may choose for mass market when they do not know much about their customers or they may market directly the consumer based on some observed characteristics.

Depending on the needs, the firm will use one of the two methods (primary and secondary) to collect its data.

Primary data collection is more expensive to produce as “they have to be observed and recorded or collected directly from respondents” (William M. Pride, 2008).

They are four main techniques (Baker, 2000):

1. Obtrusive: the interviewee is directly observed while realising an act (e.g. movement of an individual in a kitchen). Disadvantage: its impact on the behaviour of the interviewee as he/she knows he/she is observed; the observer shouldn’t intervene during the experimentation (Hamer, 2003)
2. Non-obtrusive: the interviewee is observed quietly by using “invisible” devices like electronic devices (e.g. camera, internet browser). Advantage: Nominal impact on the behaviour of the interviewee
3. 3. Experiment: the interviewee is requested to test a variable (e.g. a drug, flight simulator). Its difficulty: to establish the results keeping certain variables constant so that the effects of the experimental variables can be measured
4. Survey: the data are collected through mail, telephone, personal interviews that can be structured or unstructured (Amir Azarpazhooh, Winter 2008).  Its difficulty: the “physical” collection of the result is not guaranteed (e.g. the interviewee is too lazy to send the answer by post mail) (Ibeh, 2004)

Secondary data collection is less expensive to produce as they are normally compiled inside or outside the firm. They include: Firm’s records (e.g. Customers sales figures), Trade associations (e.g. chambers of commerce), Government statistics (e.g. Census) or Syndicated research reports (e.g. Gartner) (Baker, 2000) .

Today, the amount of data collected is so huge that computers, spreadsheet applications or more commonly “data mining” are tools used to give value to the data collected (Montgomery, 2001).

Clickstream data, defined as “the electronic record of Internet usage collected by Web servers or third-parties services” (Randolph E. Bucklin, 2008) tracks the navigation patterns of the Internet users in order to display advertising based on the observed interest of the consumer with a high degree of precision:

• Keywords collected from pages the consumer has loaded in its browser
• Data the consumer has entered onto the web pages (e.g. Facebook profile)
• Network-based marketing take advantage of links between consumers to increase sales (Montgomery, 2001); (e.g. Friends of Facebook)

Works Cited

unknown, A. (YYYY, MM DD). Critically analyse the effectiveness of primary and secondary research applied to product development (looking at qualitative and quantitative research). Retrieved December 05, 2010 from UK Essays: http://www.ukessays.com/essays/marketing/primary-secondary-research.php

William M. Pride, O. C. (2008). Marketing, 2010 Edition. Mason: South-Western College Pub.

Amir Azarpazhooh, W. H. (Winter 2008). Structured or unstructured personnel interviews? Healthcare Management Forum , 21 (4), 33-43.

Baker, M. J. (2000). Marketing strategy and management (Palgrave Macmillan; 3rd Revised edition edition ed.). Unknown: Palgrave Macmillan.

Edward H. Ip, P. L. (2004). Interactive Profiler: An Intuitive, Web-Based Statistical Application in Visualizing Educational and Marketing Databases. Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics , 29 (2), 157-175.

Ibeh, J. K.-U. (2004). Conducting survey research among organisational populations in developing countries: can the drop and collect technique make a difference? International Journal of Market Research , 46 (3), 375-383.

Hamer, B. (Director). (2003). Kitchen stories [Motion Picture].

M. Kataria, K. L. (2009). Effects of social marketing on battery collection. Conservation and Recycling (53), 429–433.

Montgomery, A. L. (2001). Applying Quantitative Marketing Techniques to the Internet. Interfaces , 31 (2), 90-108.

Randolph E. Bucklin, C. S. (2008, March). Advances in clickstream data analysis in marketing. Journal of Interactice marketing , unknown pages.

R4egov: The technical components

The architecture of the system is based on Open Source or Microsoft solutions. We selected the two competing architectures to address the needs of the partners and to ensure an interoperability of the most used multi-tier architectures on the market.

Open Source Stack:

• Intalio|BPMS
• Apache foundation components
• WSO2 Enterprise Service Bus
• Web Services Specifications

Microsoft Stack:

• Microsoft BizTalk 2006 R2
• Microsoft SharePoint 2007
• Microsoft .NET 2.0
• Microsoft .NET 3.0
• Windows Communication Foundation
• Windows Workflow Foundation

Further information about the project available on http://www.r4egov.eu

When you use GMail and receive an email containing MS Word or an MS Excel document, GMail proposes you three options (Click on the screenshot below to see it full size):

1. View the document as HTML
2. Open [the document] as a Google document
3. Download the document

The problem with this approach is that GMail doesn’t allow you to open your document with his competitors like Zoho, Thinkfree or gOffice.

A much better/competitive solution should allow the GMail users to modify his settings. If the user subscribed to a competitor, he should be able to select the competitor.

In the future, the user should be able to load his attached documents with the Web2.0 application of his choice (Click on the screenshot below to see it full size)

Now, dear European commissioners, isn’t the time to put pressure on this new monopoly like you did with Microsoft in a recent past?

List of online Word processors :
http://itredux.com/office-20/database/?family=Word Processor

List of online Spreadsheet applications:
http://itredux.com/office-20/database/?family=Spreadsheet

Basically nothing new, the customer design his process and he hopes to deploy it quickly. Previously this task needed many consultants, customisations and money.

Today, SAP CFO, Dr. Werner Brandt, says that A1S will “…reduce the TCO by 90%…” [2] by removing the need of the customisations by well paid consultants. SAP proposes a “…suite in a box…” that can be customised by the end user with the help of a telesales person. This summarises the process of deploying an SAP solution to some BPM 2.0 concepts developed by Ismael Chang Ghalimi (Zero code, Used by Process Analysts, One-click deploy) [3]. Here the SAP A1S added-value [2]:

• Covers all relevant areas of business (“suite in a box”)
• Eliminates buyer’s risk (TRY)
• Fast time to value (RUN)
• Quick and easy user adoption (RUN)
• Rapidly adaptable to changing customer needs (ADAPT)
• Reduces total cost of ownership by up to 90% (ADAPT)

Ismael Ghalimi says that BPM 2.0 [4] is also “…Free of charge…“, “… [uses a] Web 2.0 user interface…“, “... [is] loved by ABAP… Folks…” Those assumptions will have to be verified when SAP will present his product to a broader audience and after some first user experience feedback’s.

Two questions come to my mind:
Is SAP A1S an output of the cooperation with Intalio or, more correctly, the fact that SAP ventures funded Intalio [5]?
Is a 90% reduction of the TCO means “Free of charge” for SAP?

[1] http://www.sap.com/company/press/press.epx?pressid=7227
[2] http://www.sap.com/germany/company/ investor/pdf/WB_UBS_March14_Final.pdf
[3] http://www.intalio.com
[4] http://itredux.com/bpm-20/BPM20.pdf
[5] “Workflow, Document and Business Process Management”, http://www.conspectus.com 2004