My Internet Notebook

Salesforce.com unveiled their latest goodies at Dreamforce’05 – the so-called AppExchange, which is based on their successful CustomForce offering, a number of API that makes creating custom apps a snap. The AppExchange is a step further in solidifying the idea that SFDC is not just an application vendor. They want to be a platform vendor. That is where the real money lies. Once you have a proven platform, you create an eco-system. While your partners and developers make some money, you reap the most benefits.

SFDC CEO Marc Benioff claimed in his SF Chronicle interview on Sunday that: “he wants people stop buying software from Microsoft” instead, people should just lease software as a service from his company. Microsoft, be worried!

“With AppExchange, salesforce.com has cracked the code of what we call application syndication — an efficient way to create and distribute a wide array of on-demand applications,” said Sheryl Kingstone of The Yankee Group. “No other vendor comes close to matching this vision.”

Google engineers have made very few mistakes in the past. Their products (web search, to be specific) has been rock solid. However, I recently stumbled on an 404 error when I clicked on a sponsored ad from just below the search field. Perhaps working on many fronts has finally made its dent on Google’s product quality.

The URL shown in the picture is http://www.google.com/home.php.

I am generally very interested in numbers, because numbers can give you a big pictures of things, giving you a solid basis for understanding the subject in question and more.

Today I came across the following numbers:

China has 400 million youths, 50 million middle-class households (no number on what qualifies as middle-class, bummer;-) as of 2005. The middle class households in China is expected to triple to 150 million by 2015. Last year (2004), about 5 million cars were manufactured and sold in China, GM China has about 10% market share. Over the next few years, the growth of the automobile industry is expected to be beteew 10-15%. These two number seem to match if you assume that the middle-class status in China is symbolized by the ownership of cars.

Americans bought 2.29 billion books in 2004, published by a total of 83,000 publishers, more than 70,000 of which have 10 or fewer titles. You think Amazon.com is big, but researcher estimates that total online sales of books accounted for only 7-10% of toal US book sales. Do this mean Amazon.com still have room to grow? Independent Book Publisher Association.

Do you know how big a cut Amazon takes from book sales on amazon.com website? 55%. No wonder Amazon can still have some healthy margin.

Many Internet companies in China were founded by oversea returnees (called Hai Gui in Chinese) from the United State. Their business models are also strikingly similar to the Internet companies in U.S. Here is a short who is who in Chinese internet gold rush.

Internet Portal

The largest Internet portal play Sina, Sohu, Tom Online, and China.com are all Nasdaq traded public company.

Internet Search Engines

Baidu.com recently went IPO on Nasdaq with a first day trade pop of almost 400%, making hundreds of its employee paper millionares. Its co-founder Robin Li’s stake is valued at more than US$600 million.

Sogou.com is the home grown search engine of sohu.com.

3721.com, a local search engine, was bought by Yahoo for $120 million. That operation is now part of Alibaba.com, as part of Yahoo’s $1b investment deal in Alibaba.

Internet Auction

Alibaba.com operates Taobao.com, a C2C auction site in China.

EachNet based in Shanghai was bought by eBay for $180 million.

Internet Payment

Alibaba.com operates Alipay.com.

Internet etailer

Joyo.com was bought by Amazon.com for $75 million. DangDang.com is the another big etailer in China.

Internet Media

Job search leader ChinaHR.com sold a 40% stake to monster.com for $50 million.

Travel site eLong.com sold a 52% stake to InteractiveCorp for $168 million.

The famed SRI International, a nonprofit research institute in Menlo Park, is leading a $12 million research project to design a mobile medics vehicle where robotic arms remotely controlled by surgeons treats wounded soldiers on the battle field.

“The result will be a major step forward in saving lives on the battlefield,” said Scott Seaton, executive director of SRI’s engineering and systems division.

Research fundng comes from the U.S. military’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

“Designing the system won’t be easy. SRI envisions a small, mobile unit containing all the basic tools needed for field surgery. Those tools, manipulated by robotic arms, would be controlled by a doctor miles away, linked to the pod via wireless communications. ”

Reported by SF Chronicles this morning.