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.”

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.

First, Apple’s patent application on iPod interface has been rejected. Apple could still re-submit their application within 3 months. But it is obviously a setback to the company.

Second, Google submitted a patent application on “Embedding advertisements in syndicated content”, i.e. RSS. THAT would be a setback for other Internet Ads guys like Yahoo and Ask.com.

I have thought about patents around RSS, podCast, VODcast etc lately. If Google can patent embedded ads in RSS, why can’t I patent embedded ads in PodCast.

If you are a small enterprise software company, what benefits would you get by having a developer program.

• Increase adoption/awareness of your technology in the market
• Leverage your limited internal resources
• Reduce sales cycles

Of course, all this assumes that you have something valuable to offer to developers who can either use your ware to satisfy their needs or add value to your ware on a reseller basis.

How to setup your program then? There are already a lot of tools out there that can help you get started cheap. For a started, you can run a forum with open source phpBB. Other options include portals, wikis, blogs etc.

So the ‘hammer’ finally hits today. People’s Bank of China annouced that it will revalue the Yuan (a.k.a RMB) immediately against US dollars by a 2.1% increase. The annoucement came quietly in the backdrop of noisy national security talks surrounding CNOOC’s takeover bit of Unocal. No leaks, smart moves!

Although some US congressmen labeled this as a ‘good start’. In my view, this is a significant development. Once you start loosen the grip, there is no way back!

Why do I care? Simple: because I have a lot of friends and relatives in China, and my family and I travel often to China. Now with this currency revaluation, my US income doesn’t afford me the purchasing power I used to have. I know 2% is small, but what if that number becomes 40% as the market seems to think so …