Thursday, 16 May 2013
Don't buy, rent
More evidence of the rapid changes in the game.
Adobe, the people who make very expensive software for designing pages or manipulating pictures, will no longer sell their software in shrink-wrapped boxes for you to install on your computer. Instead, they will rent you access to the software in the cloud for 20 or 30 dollars a month.
This follows the lead of Microsoft, another purveyor of expensive, shrink-wrapped software. They are now offering Office 365 which you can use, in the cloud, for a modest price each month.
There are clear advantages for companies and individual professionals. You don't need to manage installations, updates and crashes. You can pay for it as day-to-day expenses, rather than a big licence fee now and then.
Google are to offer a music-streaming service. Why buy, collect and store music when you can play what you want whenever you want it. Play lists instead of LPs or CDs.
Apple, who introduced adults to digital music, are considering the same.
And BT are offering Premiership football, which used to be something the broadcasters had to themselves, following the lead of Netflix who commissioned a series with a star, which, again, used to be something only the broadcasters did.
All this is possible because we live in a connected world, where you can get what you want when you want it. And there are many more people offering it than there were in the old world.
Tuesday, 26 February 2013
Power to the people
Ecotricity, the company from which I buy my electricity, have just put up two wind turbines at Ballymena in Northern Ireland which will be used to provide power to the Michelin tyre factory there.
This is what people did 100 years ago. The Lots Road and Greenwich power stations in London were built in the early 1900s to provide power for trams and underground trains.
There was no National Grid. If you wanted electricity for your business, you had to build a power station.
Over time, we built bigger power stations to provide power to whoever needed it and now, it is apparently the Government’s responsibility to ensure that we have enough generating capacity to keep all our fridges and iPads running.
Ecotricity are not just making money from supplying electricity, they are looking to find better ways of providing it. The wind turbines at Ballymena follow a couple Ecotricity put up in Dundee for the Michelin factory there. They say that delivering electricity to a specific business is more efficient than adding that capacity to the grid.
Good for them. We need new thinking in this business. Instead of calculating how much electricity we are using, how much we might use in the future and building gas or nuclear stations to deliver that, why don’t we work out how to use less electricity and how to generate some of it ourselves?
The ARM company which makes chips for mobile phones and tablets, got rich by producing chips which needed less power than those produced by Intel. A government would get lots of green points if it told manufacturers their fridges and TV sets had to use 30% less power by 2015 or else.
And it is possible to build houses which use next to no electricity for heating or cooling. Why not make this part of the building regs?
It is also possible to generate electricity from the daylight which falls on glass. Tiny amounts so far, but I’m confident that clever youngsters can work out how to generate enough power in our own homes to run the energy-efficient devices we will all have if the government takes my advice.
We don’t need more power. We need to work out how to use less.
This is what people did 100 years ago. The Lots Road and Greenwich power stations in London were built in the early 1900s to provide power for trams and underground trains.
There was no National Grid. If you wanted electricity for your business, you had to build a power station.
Over time, we built bigger power stations to provide power to whoever needed it and now, it is apparently the Government’s responsibility to ensure that we have enough generating capacity to keep all our fridges and iPads running.
Ecotricity are not just making money from supplying electricity, they are looking to find better ways of providing it. The wind turbines at Ballymena follow a couple Ecotricity put up in Dundee for the Michelin factory there. They say that delivering electricity to a specific business is more efficient than adding that capacity to the grid.
Good for them. We need new thinking in this business. Instead of calculating how much electricity we are using, how much we might use in the future and building gas or nuclear stations to deliver that, why don’t we work out how to use less electricity and how to generate some of it ourselves?
The ARM company which makes chips for mobile phones and tablets, got rich by producing chips which needed less power than those produced by Intel. A government would get lots of green points if it told manufacturers their fridges and TV sets had to use 30% less power by 2015 or else.
And it is possible to build houses which use next to no electricity for heating or cooling. Why not make this part of the building regs?
It is also possible to generate electricity from the daylight which falls on glass. Tiny amounts so far, but I’m confident that clever youngsters can work out how to generate enough power in our own homes to run the energy-efficient devices we will all have if the government takes my advice.
We don’t need more power. We need to work out how to use less.
Wednesday, 13 February 2013
Mutton dressed as lamb
Life is simpler if you are a veggie.
Mutton dressed as lamb, horse masquerading as beef, doesn’t matter at all.
What surprises me is that people are surprised to find that the stuff in ready meals is not what it says on the packet.
Processed meat has always has been made from the bits you cannot sell as ordinary meat. Sausages, kebabs, burgers, pies. Who knows what is in them?
This has been going on since butchers began. Sweeney Todd used customers instead of animals in his pies.
And what you do and don’t like to find on your plate varies from place to place. We like horses and dogs so we don’t want to eat them, in other places they don’t mind eating dogs or horses, but they would hate to find pigs or cows in their pies.
I became a veggie late in life with the help of my children and an American taxi driver.
My children, with the clarity of young minds, made me think about what I ate. And the American taxi driver told me we were raising our cows badly long before mad cow disease became news over here.
Maybe this latest media frenzy will make one or two others think more about what they eat.
Mutton dressed as lamb, horse masquerading as beef, doesn’t matter at all.
What surprises me is that people are surprised to find that the stuff in ready meals is not what it says on the packet.
Processed meat has always has been made from the bits you cannot sell as ordinary meat. Sausages, kebabs, burgers, pies. Who knows what is in them?
This has been going on since butchers began. Sweeney Todd used customers instead of animals in his pies.
And what you do and don’t like to find on your plate varies from place to place. We like horses and dogs so we don’t want to eat them, in other places they don’t mind eating dogs or horses, but they would hate to find pigs or cows in their pies.
I became a veggie late in life with the help of my children and an American taxi driver.
My children, with the clarity of young minds, made me think about what I ate. And the American taxi driver told me we were raising our cows badly long before mad cow disease became news over here.
Maybe this latest media frenzy will make one or two others think more about what they eat.
Monday, 28 January 2013
Why don't we do it ourselves?
George Osborne is getting it in the neck for not getting Britain’s economy roaring ahead.
But is the Government the only agency which can sort it out? I thought we were a light-touch, small government, fast-on-our-feet sort of country. Shouldn’t entrepreneurs, banks and other bright sparks be doing things which make them rich and us successful?
In China, the government directs everything and jumps on people who complain.
In the UK, the Government lets businesses direct lots of stuff - trains, electricity and gas, waste, and now, schools, colleges and hospitals. And we can, and do, complain all the time.
Why can’t we get ourselves out of the recession without the Government’s help?
But is the Government the only agency which can sort it out? I thought we were a light-touch, small government, fast-on-our-feet sort of country. Shouldn’t entrepreneurs, banks and other bright sparks be doing things which make them rich and us successful?
In China, the government directs everything and jumps on people who complain.
In the UK, the Government lets businesses direct lots of stuff - trains, electricity and gas, waste, and now, schools, colleges and hospitals. And we can, and do, complain all the time.
Why can’t we get ourselves out of the recession without the Government’s help?
Thursday, 24 January 2013
Us and them
Our politicians and our popular press just don’t get Europe.
They see it as foreigners interfering in our affairs.
Germany, France and the other people who do get Europe see it as a terrific opportunity to do things together, rather than separately.
Our lot see it in terms of ‘What’s in it for us?’. The enlightened majority in Europe see it as ‘What can we do for all of us?’
Cameron doesn’t want Europe doing things for us, yet he goes to the G8 summit and says G8 must do something to deal with multi-national companies dodging tax. Isn’t this something Europe could do more effectively than a single country can do on its own?
It’s fascinating. The arguments being used for the UK breaking away from Europe are exactly the same as the arguments the Scots are using for breaking away from the UK. But the UK going alone is seen as good whereas the Scots going alone is seen as bad.
I like change. I want the Scots to try it on their own. I’d love the Northern Irish to do the same.
I’d like England to be a full member of a federal Europe.
According to the politicians, I’m in a minority. Am I? Maybe a referendum would show there are more like me.
They see it as foreigners interfering in our affairs.
Germany, France and the other people who do get Europe see it as a terrific opportunity to do things together, rather than separately.
Our lot see it in terms of ‘What’s in it for us?’. The enlightened majority in Europe see it as ‘What can we do for all of us?’
Cameron doesn’t want Europe doing things for us, yet he goes to the G8 summit and says G8 must do something to deal with multi-national companies dodging tax. Isn’t this something Europe could do more effectively than a single country can do on its own?
It’s fascinating. The arguments being used for the UK breaking away from Europe are exactly the same as the arguments the Scots are using for breaking away from the UK. But the UK going alone is seen as good whereas the Scots going alone is seen as bad.
I like change. I want the Scots to try it on their own. I’d love the Northern Irish to do the same.
I’d like England to be a full member of a federal Europe.
According to the politicians, I’m in a minority. Am I? Maybe a referendum would show there are more like me.
Monday, 31 December 2012
Hares and tortoises
I’ve changed my mind about tax. When I heard that Amazon, Starbucks and others were paying minimal tax, my knee-jerk response was to dump Amazon and do my Christmas shopping elsewhere. I couldn’t dump Starbucks because I prefer Costa and Nero.
The Christmas presents arrived, but not quite as quickly, or as well-packaged as Amazon do. So why was I punishing Amazon for being cleverer? The Government doesn’t do what it does as well as Amazon does retail
The successful international companies operate above individual governments.
Starbucks and Amazon show what can be achieved by looking at the global picture rather than saying: in England we work this way, in France cette mode and so on.
Successful companies constantly review how they do what they do. If they stand still, some bright spark in Rio de Janeiro, Mumbai or Shanghai will disrupt their market faster than a speeding bullet.
Governments are concerned only with their country, their voters and are hamstrung by special interest groups who threaten to vote for the other lot if anything changes. We in Britain are the best example of this. Join forces with Europe? Not likely. Improve the way we run the Health Service, the BBC, our local councils? Heaven forbid.
If politicians want international companies to pay more tax, they must become cleverer.
Simplify the tax system. Look at how the world works, not simply how we in Britain work.
Work out how to attract international companies and see the benefit of having them here in terms of jobs and business, not just tax.
Europe has more success with international companies than we do because it is more beneficial for a company to deal with Europe than with individual governments.
Whipping up anger about international companies not paying tax doesn’t achieve anything. Working out how to keep pace with the cleverest companies in the world would.
The Christmas presents arrived, but not quite as quickly, or as well-packaged as Amazon do. So why was I punishing Amazon for being cleverer? The Government doesn’t do what it does as well as Amazon does retail
The successful international companies operate above individual governments.
Starbucks and Amazon show what can be achieved by looking at the global picture rather than saying: in England we work this way, in France cette mode and so on.
Successful companies constantly review how they do what they do. If they stand still, some bright spark in Rio de Janeiro, Mumbai or Shanghai will disrupt their market faster than a speeding bullet.
Governments are concerned only with their country, their voters and are hamstrung by special interest groups who threaten to vote for the other lot if anything changes. We in Britain are the best example of this. Join forces with Europe? Not likely. Improve the way we run the Health Service, the BBC, our local councils? Heaven forbid.
If politicians want international companies to pay more tax, they must become cleverer.
Simplify the tax system. Look at how the world works, not simply how we in Britain work.
Work out how to attract international companies and see the benefit of having them here in terms of jobs and business, not just tax.
Europe has more success with international companies than we do because it is more beneficial for a company to deal with Europe than with individual governments.
Whipping up anger about international companies not paying tax doesn’t achieve anything. Working out how to keep pace with the cleverest companies in the world would.
Friday, 28 December 2012
Driving skill
London has great public transport. Trains, tubes, buses get millions of people where they want to go every day.
On Boxing Day we saw the best and worst of this.
The worst were the ASLEF train drivers who went on strike because the generous wages they get are not enough to get them out of bed on a bank holiday.
The best were the bus drivers who packed in as many of us as possible and got us to and from our sales, our football matches and our tourist sites.
Driving a Tube train is easy - so easy it can be automated. Driverless trains are operating now and will be the norm in a few years.
Driving a bus is difficult. You share the road with car drivers who don’t know which lane to be in, cyclists who wear black at night and come up the inside and pedestrians who get drunk and wander into the road.
The men and women who drive buses are, like the people who drive big trucks, skillful, calm and courteous. They are better drivers than the rest of us.
The Association of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen are not engineers or firemen. They are the skills we needed when steam trains ran. We don’t need those skills today.
Nor do we need the union belief of the 1970s that going on strike forces employers to pay higher wages.
It should be clear by now to even the locomotive engineers and firemen that going on strike forces employers to work out how to use technology to replace you.
On Boxing Day we saw the best and worst of this.
The worst were the ASLEF train drivers who went on strike because the generous wages they get are not enough to get them out of bed on a bank holiday.
The best were the bus drivers who packed in as many of us as possible and got us to and from our sales, our football matches and our tourist sites.
Driving a Tube train is easy - so easy it can be automated. Driverless trains are operating now and will be the norm in a few years.
Driving a bus is difficult. You share the road with car drivers who don’t know which lane to be in, cyclists who wear black at night and come up the inside and pedestrians who get drunk and wander into the road.
The men and women who drive buses are, like the people who drive big trucks, skillful, calm and courteous. They are better drivers than the rest of us.
The Association of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen are not engineers or firemen. They are the skills we needed when steam trains ran. We don’t need those skills today.
Nor do we need the union belief of the 1970s that going on strike forces employers to pay higher wages.
It should be clear by now to even the locomotive engineers and firemen that going on strike forces employers to work out how to use technology to replace you.
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