David Coursey

Philippe Kahn, the founder of Borland, once gave me a very good piece of advice: “Dont ever give your customers a reason to reconsider.” Why? Because when customers are forced to think about their buying decisions, some of them are going to shop elsewhere. Apple is a good example of this. In the past when […]

There are three things in life that should be postponed for as long as possible. Two of these you are already familiar with: death and taxes. The third is less well-known but is also something wed just as soon take a pass on, though it eventually catches up with us. Im talking about changes in […]

Its been rare in my reporting life that one minute I realize I have a problem and the next minute—literally, almost—the solution appears during an interview. Heres the setup: E-mail arrives with an attachment. Most attachments get stripped off by the anti-virus/anti-spam software on my Exchange server. Or by Exchange itself, which automatically stops certain […]

Its hard not to get excited about the local search services recently announced by Microsoft and Google—and Amazon now is jumping into the mix. Merging street maps with aerial photography, point-to-point routing and a database of interesting places make for some impressive screen displays. Microsoft is calling its effort Virtual Earth. The demonstration I was […]

As Intel recasts itself to become “a platform company” customers have every reason to wonder, “Whats in it for us?” Its too early to tell, but Im hopeful Intels platforms will make PCs easier to buy and less expensive, as well as allow them to add important functional improvements. The challenge in creating new platforms […]

Once again we are hearing rumors that Apple Computer is in talks with Intel about using that companys processors to replace at least some of the IBM PowerPC in its Macintosh. What are we to make of these whispers? Id bet that the rumor is a reflection of Steve Jobs displeasure with the speed at […]

The FCC has done the right thing by forcing Vonage and other new-age carriers to quickly remove a potentially fatal flaw in their VOIP networks. If youve been following this, you know that when I say “fatal flaw,” Im talking about the flaw being fatal to the user, rather than merely the product itself dying. […]

Intel says it wants to be a platform company. The statement sounds odd to me because Ive always thought that Intel was a platform company. However, we live in a brand-conscious world, and Intel has been very successful giving catchy names to the microprocessor sets it sells to its hardware OEMs and, eventually, to you […]

Most people dont think of fun and spam as residing in the same universe. But if you cant beat it, I say, why not have fun with it? OK, youre right; maybe I have been spending too much time in front of the computer lately. But if spam is going to show up despite my […]

So you think your buying a VOIP telephone system for your company was really smart? You certainly have reason to: Your users love the tight integration between the phone system, their e-mail, and other PC features. And the chief financial officer loves the “deal” you got on long-distance rates. Everyone agrees: Youre a hero. Not […]

It is tempting to read too much into Adobes decision, effective June 3, to close its online content store. Neither Adobe nor online content seem any worse for the companys experience in selling electronic books, but they dont seem very much better for it, either. Despite Adobes efforts—and they have a big stake in this—electronic […]

While the cash-for-old-content crowd was gathered in New York for the Digital Asset Management Symposium this week, I was sitting here in my office thinking about a very different, but related topic. This is digital asset management gone wrong, to which I am applying the term “digital asset manglement.” Here are 10 ways digital asset […]