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While I was in London Friday and Saturday for a number of Qelp business meetings, I selected these days in particular to be able to join Andrew Snoad and Tony Bicknell in celebrating the 10^th anniversary of their firm Decision Tree Consulting (DTC). They invited all those who worked with DTC in the first 2 years of starting their company for a dinner tour on the Thames. Andrew refreshed my mind telling me that in fact I was their first large customer. I had them conduct a survey in 24 countries about the decision making process for videoconferencing equipment in multinational companies. I was working for Sony in those days, setting up their European business for videoconferencing systems and combatting with PictureTel who was the market leader. Sony had spotted videoconferencing as a potential mass market( it’s still a niche unfortunately), but had little experience in the telecoms market which is why I was brought in. DTC won the assignment for the survey while in competition with Anderson Consulting and Coopers who should have been able to leverage their international presence but didn’t.

Earlier that Friday I met for lunch with Osman Mardin, who supported me while I was conducting a tough financing round for ThreeFive Photonics in early 2003. Guess what? He reminded me that I was his launching customer after he left investment bank Robertson Stephens and started Sardis Capital, his current financing firm. Do I have a preference for selecting start-ups? Not necessarily –although I sympathize greatly with them- but if you award them the business you are more likely to get the undivided attention of the entrepreneur which can lead to more value for money. You don’t forget your first date, you don’t forget your first customer – it does create a special bond.

Last night I took my son Koen to the Champions League match AJAX - Arsenal. It was a birthday present we still owed him. After we had settled ourselves in the ArenA stadium for the match to start, SMS messages started to come in, from daughters Merel and Fleur and good friend Ronald. In fact Ronald was the one who introduced me to this mass hysteria last year for the first time, when he kindly invited me to the annual AJAX - Feyenoord match. It was fun watching the game with Koen, while at the same time exchanging SMSs with 3 people. By messages going back and forth, we actually found out more about players since we lacked the technology couch-potato-watchers at home have. So halfway the match I thought it would be fun to send a MMS of Koen with his live comments from my Treo. Shooting the picture and preparing the MMS went well, sending it not quite. After several attempts I got error messages saying that delivery could not be completed ("but we’ll continue trying"), I guess due to either missing handset settings of the receiving phones or compatibility issues between the different mobile networks. So I decided to send the picture as an email attachment from my phone. It took several minutes before it arrived with Merel and Ronald, but it worked fine. MMS-Email: 0-2. Despite all the camera phones, MMS has not come off the ground. I think mobile operators are probably better off investing money in getting email accepted as a mobile application than MMS. The Blackberry success illustrates the potential market. True, the tariffs are not at a premium like MMS. Here in the Netherlands MMS is offered at something like 40 Euro cents per message, while email is billed per KB. However, faster end-user adoption of email is quite likely to make up for the lower tariffs. Uhh…and what about AJAX - Arsenal? AJAX was defeated with 1-2, due to sleepy players in the first two minutes of the match, an unfair penalty and last but not least an arbiter who needs some basic football education This last piece of opinion comes from still famous Johan Cruyff, who watched the game instead of his mobile phone.

Phone camera’s already "outsell" regular digital camera’s, but mobile operators notice hardly any difference in their mobile data ARPU. How come? A lot of research has been published already about the root causes: complexity of the service, user interface, costs of a MMS, lack of a killer application etc. Seems that users actually have become quite creative in using their mobile phone camera for day-to-day applications that do not require any network connection:

• Remember where you parked your car
• Record the opening hours of that new store
• Document your favorite haircut
• …and many more household applications can be found here at 43 Folders

With all those new applications and tariffs for mobile data coming down, there must be hope for the telco’ s of this world that at some point in time people will want to share that offline creativity with their remote friends and family. Slow adoption from a mobile operator’s perspective, but compare the progress made since those good old days of the first black-and-white camera’s!

There’s growing speculation in the Valley about the next move(s) of Google. Although it’s a "public" company since the IPO, its business directions are still very secretive. So people are turning towards cold war behaviour, when we used to analyze the Kremlin’s (lack of) actions in great detail as it was the only information available. Here’s what some Google watchers are saying and concluding about where the company seems to be going:

• While dominating PC based search, Google also wants to become the mobile search czar for the 2 billion mobile phone users.
• BusinessWeek discovered that the company quietly acquired Android Inc., the 22-month old start-up ran by people coming from mobile device maker Danger, known for the SideKick smartphone (made famous by Paris Hilton when she lost it…)
• Buying dark fiber to connect antenna’s to support a WiFi or cellular network?
  New Gmail accounts are now tied to US cell phone numbers if you want to use the new GoogleTalk instant messenger client
• SilliconBeat reports that Google appears to have acquired a company called ZipDash which offers maps and traffic info for your mobile phone
• Raising $ 4 Bln. to make an acquisition of a mobile or wireless company, according to SilliconValleyWatcher because mobile phones tell your location and location is "everything" for advertisers, Google’s biggest customers
• Using the $ 4 Bln. to put up a nationwide (USA) WiFi network, GoogleNet, according to Om Malik

While it’s not yet entirely clear what Google’s plans are, there are a few others interested in this mass market, including Microsoft with its Windows Mobile phone platform and not to forget Yahoo!.  Yahoo’s COO Dan Rosensweig said: "the mobile Internet industry is at a "tipping point." As mobile use continues to grow, more customers will want access to their Yahoo! services." Rosenweig also claimed, "The Internet has become essential. The industry is ready, and mobile usage is exploding". Earlier this month Yahoo head-hunted Nokia’s Christian Lindholm, known as the godfather of the Series 60 platform user interfaces, to head up the Global Mobile Products division at Yahoo.

So what are Google and Yahoo up to? Introducing a WiFi based mobile phone and network? Applications that run on a Linux mobile phone and pull you towards their portal or search engine? A Skype kind of solution for low cost calls based on VoIP? Interesting times for consumers, mobile phone companies and Google watchers!

It’s more difficult in one country than another to do business. That’s the idea behind a study published last week by the World Bank, ranking 155 countries on a set of criteria including Starting a business, Hiring and firing, Getting credit, Protecting investors, Paying taxes and Trading across borders.
For 2006, the top 3 countries in terms of "ease of doing business" are New Zealand, Singapore and the United States. The only two European countries who made it to the Top 10 are Denmark (8) and the UK (9). The Netherlands is showing up at an embarrassing 24th place. Any politicians around looking for ammunition to make some business friendly, sweeping changes?

Reading just this blog, you almost would think we’re on a castle tour. After visiting Chateau Coulon Laurensac near Bordeaux in July, we visited today Kasteel Sterkenburg in Driebergen, the Netherlands. It has recently become the property of friends who are now making efforts to return some of its original glory. Which does not come easy…. We spent a sunny day at the castle as part of our quarterly get-together with longtime friends Jelle & Claudine -hosting us at their premises- and Hans & Angela from Delft. The kids of our three families were around as well and enjoyed discovering the castle and surroundings. When asked to help clean a chimney, the boys found an egg from a crow’s nest. A wonderful day at a piece of cultural heritage that deserves to be taken care of.

What does the picture below tell you? It’s a 9 year old boy waiting with his father just outside a fashion shop until his mother and two teenage sisters have finished shopping. Sometimes, that’s what visiting a city during holidays seems to come down to. The shops are apparently irresistible compared to culture and street life attractions. This picture was taken (with my Treo of course) in Santander, capital of Cantabria in north-western Spain. Like Oviedo, capital of Asturias, these are nice cities to wander around - and do some shopping… (Koen and I ended op crossing the street waiting on a bench for about 30 minutes until this single shop was conquered by the ladies, meanwhile sending SMSs to daughter Merel about how long it was going to take!).