It’s the 4th of July (Happy 4th!), and as I was pondering all of the great gifts that have been passed down to us here in the U.S.A., my thoughts drifted to lots of other things that we shouldn’t be thankful for — a sort of hit list for really bad ideas that seem to keep re-appearing periodically. So here’s a list of 10 bad ideas that piss me off this glorious 4th of July:1. Format Wars. Am I the only person that believes that format wars are counterproductive and basically futile? The poster-child of a lost effort in this type of war is Sony (remember Betamax). And as we all know, they are in the midst of another one (which they will lose also) with Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD. Everyone knows the outcome — the more capable and technically sophisticated format (Blu-ray) will lose out to the cheaper (and faster to market) alternative (HD-DVD).2. If You Build It, They Will Come. We all know about the blazing success of web sites like YouTube, My Space, digg. Everyone gets excited when phenomena emerge that have $0 consumer acquisition costs (i.e. buzz does the work). Then comes that hard part — “Is this a business?” Remember Friendster? $0 consumer acquisition costs are meaningless of the revenue per consumer is $0, and the variable cost of a consumer is even infinitesimally greater than $0. Who thinks You Tube will be around in 12 months? Any takers? 3. Planning for Upgrading to Vista. When/if it ever launches, all of the cool stuff either has been taken out (WinFS), or will require too much horsepower to be worth it (interface). Is anyone planning to launch Vista in the enterprise?4. Google FUD. Have you heard this — “Hey — we can’t do that because Google is going to do it!” Google is the FUD machine (the approach to technology innovation quashing perfected by IBM in the 70’s). Who really believes that a single player can dominate all aspects of the Internet, computing, life in general. Go ahead — launch your business and/or product. Google can’t do everything (although they can scare everyone). Google Checkout will not destroy eBay (but it might destroy Yahoo! Search Marketing).5. Paying for Infrastructure Software. Pay for applications, not infrastructure. Why use Oracle 10g when MySQL is just fine for most applications. Why buy an application server when JBoss will do? Get over your need to play golf at Pebble Beach with your Oracle rep — spend you money on applications, application development, not infrastructure. 6. Believing That ‘IT Doesn’t Matter’. Nicholas Carr did the IT world a disservice not because of his research, or potentially his conclusions, but for the tagline that is inanely parroted through the halls of corporate America. Yes — people have over-invested in potentially irrelevant technology, sold features to the business rather than the business benefits of technology. Mea culpa. That doesn’t men that technology will become exactly like the power utilities, or irrelevant to corporate strategy. If you believe (and implement this), your more nimble and tech-savvy competitors will focus on using technology to create advantage, and will eat your lunch.7. Believing What You Read. Whenever you hear ‘I read on a blog..”, just ignore the rest of the statement (except if it is ITXtreme :-). Unless you like creative fiction, most of the stuff that you read is lies, damm lies, and outright fabrications.8. Blaming Technology for Human Issues. Take the favorite whipping boy today — myspace.com. Any product that allows user contribution and communication can be used by bad people to hurt people. It’s not the technology’s fault — it’s human nature’s fault. 9. Cool Ideas Matter Most. Execution matters — I’m tired of the resurgence of the irrational exuberance of fun new things on the web. But we all know that if any of these new businesses will succeed, it will be based mostly on their ability to execute.10. Making Your Customers Criminals is a Good Idea. There are too many examples of this — the RIAA suing teenagers rather than creating a business model/product that works for them, and Microsoft’s impending ‘Windows Genuine Advantage’ meltdown this fall are two examples that come to mind. When did prosecuting your customers become a good idea? what ever happened to meeting the customer’s needs with an appropriate product? The laziness of the telcos in the entire net neutrality debate smacks of this also (i.e. calling out ‘free-loaders’ on the web, as if paying $50 a month for unguaranteed bandwidth is not a telco scam).I’m sure the list could continue, but enough for now. Careers