Author: JP

I learnt recently that Bungie, the people behind Halo 3, has done something quite unusual. For the last decade or two, most start-ups have had acquisition by Microsoft (or, more recently, Google) as their goal. Bungie, having achieved their goal, have apparently agreed terms with Microsoft to go back to being an independent company.

This by itself would have intrigued me, maybe just a bit. Coming on the back of Halo 3’s incredible success, it would normally have intrigued me even more. But what got me is the following quote from the BBC article:

On the Bungie website, Frank O’Connor, lead writer on Halo, explained the move to the community of fans: “Bungie has long been built on creativity, originality and the freedom to pursue ideas.

“Microsoft agreed, and rather than stifle our imagination, they decided it was in both our best interests to unleash it.”

Put this in the context of the following quote from Microsoft:

Shane Kim, corporate vice president of Microsoft Game Studios, said the company was “supporting Bungie’s desire to return to its independent roots”.

He said Microsoft would continue to invest in Halo entertainment property with Bungie and other partners, such as Peter Jackson, on “a new interactive series set in the Halo universe”.

“We look forward to great success with Bungie as our long-term relationship continues to evolve through Halo-related titles and new IP created by Bungie,” he added.

So let me get this right. Microsoft are letting Bungie go back to being independent, recognising that they might “stifle” Bungie’s “imagination”. Wow.

Sometime in 2000, when I chaired the technology incubator at what was then Dresdner Kleinwort Benson, I remember getting into conversation with Professor N “Venkat” Venkatraman about a related subject: in those days, so many startups seemed to have “bought by Microsoft” as their exit strategy. Venkat remarked that the trend could not continue, for two reasons. Firstly, Microsoft were running out of a critical currency …. their equity was no longer attractive to new hires. Secondly, partly as a consequence of the equity currency problem, but more as a result of becoming mainstream, they were unlikely to remain the only game in town for startups who wished for a trade sale exit. In both cases, we came to the conclusion that at some point Microsoft would no longer buy companies outright, but instead take a minority stake. That way, the potential problems to do with attracting talent or retaining speed and agility could be solved.

And now, seven years later, we have Bungie jumping. With Microsoft’s blessing, and while Microsoft retain a stake. Intriguing. Very.

Maybe the Blue Monster is working after all. Something’s changed.

Every now and then I start thinking about what the inception, brokering and delivery of masses of event-driven asynchronous “services” would look like, and, for some inexplicable reason, somewhere along the line I start thinking about the weather.

Particularly since I came to the UK, I have been fascinated by the weather. When I got here, I could not believe just how much media time was devoted to the weather, be it TV or print or radio. After staying here for a bit I could not believe how much people actually talked about the weather, how much the caricature of English people always talking about the weather turned out to be true. Once I’d been here for a few years, I could not believe how changeable the weather was, how often a day that started with bright windless sunshine could end in wet and windy.

Talking about people talking about the weather reminds me of one of my favourite Mad Magazine cartoons, I think it was Don Martin who did it. Titled Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions, the first frame showed a person walking in from the outside, completely drenched from head to toe. And an observer asking “Is it raining outside?”. The cartoonist then proceeded to suggest a series of answers, ranging from “No, I always get into a shower fully dressed” to “%@*£”. Incidentally, while recuperating over Christmas, I treated myself to this: the entire Mad Magazine oeuvre available on disk. Fantastic stuff. Sergio Aragones and his Marginal Thinking Department never failed to amuse me, whatever my mood.

Talking about the changeability of the weather. I am gently tinged with trepidation as to what tomorrow night holds, as we try and raise funds for homeless youth. Do try and help us, you will find the link here and in my sidebar. My thanks to all of you for your incredible generosity, we have already raised nearly £10,000.

Malcolm touches upon one of my favourite subjects, the nanny state, its attempts to de-risk society, and the totally inane consequences of such actions.

He makes a key point: when risks go down (say as a result of structural change), the mechanisms we use to measure risk often stay in place, despite the total pool of risk shrinking. We start getting disproportionate views of any incremental risk as a result.

Maybe there’s a link to the root causes of Michael Power’s Risk Management of Everything. When people run out of first-order risks, they start focusing on second-order risks, and soon we land up in that awful place where risk management is a zero-unemployment industry.

Risk management, like flood inspection, works best when there is a risk to manage.

After the New York Times announcement recently, one could be forgiven for assuming that paywalls are finally beginning to come down. The FT announced today that they’ve changed the model for access to FT.com. It would appear that the first five articles are free to all; a further twenty-five, or thirty in all, are to be made available every month free of charge, but only to “light-touch” registrants. Beyond the 30, people will need to subscribe.

My initial reaction? Bemused, maybe even confused. How would someone police the first five articles being free to all? I assume free to all means no registration. Sure, you could store IP addresses and grant each address up to five articles per month without registration, but what a nightmare. What a palaver. For no value. So I must be wrong. Some sort of registration must be in place for the 5 free. In which case I don’t understand the difference between the first five free and the next 25 free, unless there’s a second stage of registration. Whatever it is, there would need to be some form of reset every month-end as well. It all seems so pointless.

Content is not king. The customer is. Scarcity is not king. Abundance is.

Paywalls will come down. More later.

Apparently this video has been around for a while, but I’d never seen it. It’s about six minutes long and otherwise completely work-safe. But do be careful how you are seated while watching it, I nearly ruptured myself early this morning.

Thanks to Brittany for pointing it out to me, just what I needed to start a grey Monday morning. God’s in His Heaven and all’s well with the world.

As usual, available on my sidebar via Vodpod as well, for your convenience. Why for your convenience? Well, you don’t have to remember which post you read it in, all videos that I refer to can be found via the VodPod.