No one can argue that iphone launch had the sizzle that hasn't been seen before. Selling 500,000 phones in a little over a day (up to Saturday) is amazing. Consideringno 3G support,$499 and $599 price points and the fact that95% of the phones sold are the more expensive and higher margin version. This is new product introduction at its best.  read more »

I was at a business dinner organized by Silicon Valley Bank a few nights ago along with a few other CEO clients of theirs. It was good to hear and share thoughts about globalization, wage inflation, innovation and different views about the economy. Everyone shared their frustration about (difficulty in) hiring, wage inflation, on-site vs. offshore development etc. During the course of discussion, one of the CEOs asked me "will you start your next company in Silicon Valley"? "Absolutely" was my answer which surprised many CEOs. However, it shouldn't come as a surprise to mos  read more »

There was a well-written article in Wall Street Journal today about venture debt and its virtues. You can read the article summary here. You need subscription to read the complete article. Besides the fact that the article started with Retrevo, Pui-Wing did a good job of presenting different viewpoints about the venture debt from entrepreneurs, venture capital investors and venture lender  read more »

It is very easy to get lost at CES when there are 2,700 exhibitors displaying 20,000 consumer electronics products. From the sentiment on the show floor, I gathered the following interesting trends:  read more »

This is not a comprehensive list of cool products from the CES floor, just the ones that I came across in last three days in my miles and miles of walking. I know I have still missed many sections on the show floor. You can just imagine the scalewhen there are2700 exhibitors showing off 20,000 odd products :-).  read more »

Whew, CES turned out to be more exciting than I had thought. When we flew in on Sunday evening, traffic was light, there was no chaos anywhere, no lines to get a CES badgeholder and no lines at the hotel. It just seemed anti-big-consumer-show. But come Mon, the show floor opens and people start pouring in, pushing and shoving to find their way through. Here is a rundown.  read more »

Is search going to become the primary interface of choice for a consumer's online experience? What do consumers expect when they "search"? Do consumers need something beyond search for serious online purchases and services? These are some of the questions that we raised (and still grapple with) when we started Retrevo. Yes, we targeted a market that was big. We targeted a market that was undergoing a major transformation with analog to digital conversion, convergence of media and content portability. We targeted a market  read more »

Yesterday early monring in the wee-hours, we released our second major software feature set. Exciting part of this release is Daily Deals and Shopping. Now Retrevo becomes the first company to provide comprehensive product information that includes research, product docs, social media aggregation, shopping and bargains/deals on the web. So far we have received terrific feedback from early users. I hope you all enjoy the black Friday and every day through the new year because believe  read more »

Yesterday Scoble stopped by and hung out with us. He brought two brand new Zune portable music players with him - a gadget lover's dream. In case you missed it, Microsoft started shipping Zune on Nov 14th. You can read one of the press releases here. So there we were with Scoble and two Zunes; one black and one translucent brown (chocolat).  read more »

I attended the The Art of the Start event organized by SVASE last week. BTW, the book written by Guy Kawasaki is an interesting read if you are thinking about starting an enterprise. O  read more »