Thanks? Giving?

Today most Americans will take a holiday, ostensibly to give thanks. But most will likely give thanks, as they have in years gone by, by simply eating too much.

It’s an interesting contrast to the time when the original settlers observed their first Thanksgiving. When they did so, it was with less food, less security and less freedom than we have today. Now most people in the West have an almost embarrassing choice of food. And although we may have new concerns about national security, the West enjoys freedoms that are unparalleled in human history. Ironically, some of those freedoms are such that they have the potential to end the free society we now know.

In Engand we celebrate Harvest Festival, where in days gone by they had all kinds of ripe fruits and sheaves of grain on the altar. Nowadays, its dented tins of beans and old cauliflowers that have sat in the fridge too long after being bought in a BOGOF deal at the supermarket. In sunday school as a child, we all sang: "We plough the fields and scatter the good seed on the land, and it is fed and watered by God's Almighty Hand. . . .” In so doing, we tried to thank God in our own way for His love and His blessings.

This kind of recognition of harvest plenty was in the background of the early settlers at the Plymoth Plantation, when they kept what we think of as the first Thanksgiving in 1621. They had, after all, come from England, so their perspective was what they had learned in church there.

Just under half of the Mayflower's contingent had associated together in Holland as part of a sect of the Puritans known as the English Separatist Church. The other colonists included people from a variety of towns and villages who had simply joined the company in the hope of finding a better future in a new world. Some of these were hired to protect the interests of the London stock company who financed the voyage; others were Puritans who did not consider themselves Separatists.

So it was a diverse group that made it through that first year. Forty-six of the original 102 settlers had died, but the harvest was good. And because the Indians had been particularly helpful teaching how to extract the sap of the maple tree to refine it into syrup and how corn could be 'popped', the two gourps joined together for 3 days for their first harvest celebration of turkey and deer and mashed pumpkin. Most of the food was supplied not by the settlers but by the Indians and when it became plain there would not be enough food, the Indians left the colonists and returned with five deer, which they contributed to the feast.

Sadly, it took only a generation or so before the children and grandchildren of the first settlers and their Indian mentors were killing each other. Other forces had taken over, and the two groups no longer had a friendly relationship. Perhaps it’s a good lesson that the history we are taught is not always the complete picture. It also teaches us that once human nature is involved, the picture becomes much more complicated as to intentions and motivations.

For many Indian people, “Thanksgiving” is a time of mourning, of remembering how a gift of generosity was rewarded by theft of land and seed corn, extermination of many from disease and gun, and near total destruction of many more from forced assimilation. As currently celebrated in this country, “Thanksgiving” is a bitter reminder of 500 years of betrayal returned for friendship.

In these times of global struggles, it may be time to remind ourselves of the destruction and pain we can inflict upon communities and remember those less well off than us and to hope for a better year - next year. Can we be strong enough to learn the truths of our collective past? Can we learn from our mistakes? I hope so.

To my American friends and their families and to members of my family who are a long way away in Colorado, Happy Thanksgiving -

SaaS, MessageLabs and Symantec

Way back in the day, I recommended using a little known startup company to scan and filter email messages... They were a company who grew from where I grew up and seemed to have their fingers on the pulse. They were the first ones to notice and inform on a particularly virilent virus in the early parts of this decade.....and now they really have broken into the big league...bought out by Symantec....

MessageLabs were the first company I knew adopting the SaaS model before Servoy and now
Symantec sees the further potential of the SaaS model for security services and following the close of the acquisition which will establish MessageLabs as a dedicated SaaS product group featuring MessageLabs full suite of services and Symantec’s current SaaS services: namely online storage, online back up and remote access.

Whoosh - at last a bit of good news for UK businesses... SaaS is described as one of the most impactful trends in software with a current estimated market size of $5.71 billion (in 2007) reaching $16.98 billion by 2012, representing 24.4 percent CAGR according to IDC1

Its not a girl...its never a girl....

"It's a webcam porn site - it always is"

I just love the rise of the social network environment and as this hilarious animation shows - real life can sometimes suck!



Which site will become the next pathetic digital castaway desperately clinging to their former popularity?! Lets start the bets rolling in..... MySpace, Friendster, Facebook, Meebo, Beebo, SitonMyFace, Digg, del.icio.us, orkut, Fark, Twitter, Ping, StumbleUpon, Live Spaces, Mixx - you get the picture.... BTW - which one of these doesn't exist - YET?!?

I love a condiment with booze in it...

As people who know me, may well I have noticed, I'm not the biggest fan of Microsoft and perhaps they were eyeing people like me when they decided to blow £166 million to improve the image of Vista and counter the effect of Apple's Mac vs PC commercials.

It's supposed to help redefine the meaning and value of Windows...hmmm.......

Jerry Seinfeld (didn't he have Mac sitting in his lounge on his show?) is being paid £5.5 million for this and how amusing (spot the irony) that Bill Gates is performing as his sidekick. He's the straight guy to Seinfeld's witty performance (?!)

Is 54 yr old Seinfeld, who's heyday was in a 1990's sitcom, the sort of cutting edge personality to try and make Windows Vista look cool compared to the Mac? Yeah that really 'connects' with people.

All I can say is, the guys at Apple who create their ads must be really quaking in their boots..

Thank goodness for friends

It's frightening to realise how quickly time passes as each day goes by. Every year on we're a little bit older, a little bit wiser and hopefully a little more humble.

As Tilly approaches her fourth birthday her innocence amazes me. I wish I could bottle the feeling I get when she smiles or sleeps - and exclude the irrational irritation of being irked when woken so early sometimes. So much has happened for her in her short time on this planet and whilst she doesn't realise it, she has brought so much pleasure and happiness to those who know her.

When she was rushed to hospital last year and in intensive care, I was in Amsterdam preparing to take snaps of Servoyians old and new being introduced to the snazzy 4.0 features but nothing on earth would have stopped me from rushing to get the next flight out to be with her. How ironic that airplanes can be so invaluable. All the old friends who knew of our worry supported us and were there for me and not least my wife, who had to deal with it all with me over in Europe.

This is not though, supposed to be a sickly sweet rambling about my daughter and my family. Luckily a 3 yr old is quite elastic and bounced back quickly. We have been through some tough times in the past but we're still there surviving.

It's been seven years however, for some families for whom time has no doubt stood still. I can vividly recall that day.

Back in the days when Servoy was in its infancy and still throwing up down the shoulders of the lead protagonists, I took a well earned and rare lunch break. The details of the sandwich are long forgotten but not the reaction I had to the news I heard on Radio 4.

Months earlier I had been lucky enough to spend time with with old friends in the heat of southern USA at a conference for (dare I say it) FileMaker. We had with the usual restraint, managed to enjoy a cool beverage on more than one occasion and laughed about the plans that were afoot. Bob had been banging on again about lack of sleep due to his new beautiful twins and as a group we had laughed at his stories (shocker I know!)

By now I had known Bob for quite some time and those that do know him, know that he is not often lost for words but when I heard the news (garbled as it was and factually incorrect at the time) my thoughts immediately went to him and his family. There was talks of planes heading towards LAX and all over the air across North America. Panic was being spread by the media and those desperate for information.

I broke the news via instant messaging - even in those days it was the quickest way to be in touch and all phone lines were engaged when I tried ringing so it was with great relief to me when I saw him online and asked if he was OK? He turned the television on and CBS was alight and he was speechless. The rest is history and time is a great healer I hope for all those affected. Being thousands of miles away, I still hoped in some way I could help.

I realised recently through adversity, what it all comes down to is friendship. I am grateful for many things when I look out of the window (excluding the British weather, which this year has been even more default grey (or gray for the American readers) and shitty) but none more so than friendship.

This years' ServoyWorld (our fourth already!) was in sunny Las Vegas - whoosh now there's a place like no other...a place where it seems people go to die after spending their children's inheritence hoping against all hope that they can get a flush or crabs(sic) or both ;-)

As you can tell, I'm not a gambler. Maybe I have gambled too much with things of more value than monetary gains in the past and it has taught me a lesson. The $14 bucks I went with, returned with me! It was an amazing conference organised brilliantly by Brenda and Carla - faultlessly IMHO and our largest yet. People enjoyed the trip to the strip - the poker tournament - the conference sessions - the amazing keynote and demos. On several ocassions I was lucky enough to stand back and watch as people smiled and clapped and laughed.

What I did experience also, was the all too infrequent quality time with my friends. People I have met over a great period of time were also there sharing wild and crazy code and enjoying being as one as a community..a community that shared the good feeling of a great product with that great set of people behind it.

I have been lucky enough to see Las Vegas once before, with the same set of friends like Jan, Bob and Yvo and on that occasion I only had the pleasure(!?) to see the inside of Caesars Palace and the strip as I drove to the airport.

That day it took 4 hours to check in at McCarran enroute to Heathrow via Texas. As I took off on the internal flight, all flights were grounded as yet another terror plot was uncovered. The CNN news at Dallas Airport was scarce - all I knew was that I was stuck with no idea of when I would get home...the idea of having to fly was not a pleasant one. That day we were lucky....lets hope that lady luck is always our side in the future and life doesn't throw a 7 when we're all in.

The people at the reels in the airport at Vegas seemed oblivious to time and tide and perhaps this was their way of forgetting the events that are scarred across everyone's memories. 2973 people from 90 countries lost their lives 7 years ago- so many people affceted in so many ways. I'm sure each family has their own way of coping, and I have no doubt that one of those ways is through their friendships.

I value mine more than ever, especially my best friend.


"True happiness consists not in the multitude of friends, but in their worth and choice."
- Samuel Johnston