The Network is the Platform

PlugandPlayTechCenter

The day started with a meeting with the Dutch business community. They organized breakfast at the café of the Plug and Play Tech center. Immediately people are around you discussing their ideas and business with you. We listened to speeches made by

• Cees Jan Koomen; he is establishing a silicon valley like eco system in the Netherlands

• Prof Inald Lagendijk of our delegation talking about technology transfer starting at the Technical University of Delft

• Carlos Gutierrez of the Larta institute; the Larta Institute is a professional services firm providing entrepreneur training, commercialization, and technology transfer services for governments, companies, and universities.

The center itself incubates 120 firms, some of them being startups founded by entrepreneurs who sold their companies for millions. They are situated on the first flour, the Venture Capitalists and business angels on the third. The working places look a bit dull but the atmosphere seems stimulating for the entrepreneurs. The owner is considering new centers in the region as well in other places in the world (Delft perhaps?).

Cisco
Cisco is known for its routes and switches, forming the basic components for the messaging on the Internet. Their strategy is expressed by “The Network is the Platform”. Ten years ago Sun used a similar expression “The Network is the Computer”. Both are right in the way that the network combines and rules, and provides the intelligence for nowadays services “over IP”. We had a real life teleconference with a Cisco employee in Amsterdam only using 15Mb per second. It really performed well and was very user friendly.

The San Jose Sharks
Is “Hockey” a sport or a show? I think it is the latter. I have never seen so many real life commercials in between the actions on the ice. 17000 People went crazy when they saw their team win the match against the Los Angeles Kings. How would it be to see a short track speed skating competition in such an ambiance?