Gravity is not the main obstacle for America’s space business. Government is

IN THE spring of 2006 Robert Bigelow needed to take a stand on a trip to Russia to keep a satellite off the floor. The stand was made of aluminium. It had a circular base and legs. It was, says the entrepreneur and head of Bigelow Aerospace in Nevada, “indistinguishable from a common coffee table”. Nonetheless, the American authorities told Mr Bigelow that this coffee table was part of a satellite assembly and so counted as a munition. During the trip it would have to be guarded by two security officers at all times.

Exporting technology has always presented a dilemma for America. The country leads the world in most technologies and some of these give it a military advantage. If export rules are too lax, foreign powers will be able to put American technology in their systems, or copy it. But if the rules are too tight, then it will stifle the industries that depend upon sales to create the next generation of technology.

It is a difficult balance to strike and critics charge that America has erred on the side of stifling. They claim that overly strict export controls have so damaged the space industry that America’s national security is now threatened by its dwindling leadership in space technology. The system, they complain, fails to distinguish between militarily sensitive hardware that should be controlled and widely available commercial technologies, such as lithium-ion batteries and solar cells. The zealous application of the export rules is the American space industry’s biggest handicap.

So, my dear readers, imagine how amazed I was to find myself being truly inspired by my CEO,  for the first time in my working life! Philippe’s “no-B.S.” approach definitely works for me. I listened to his speech at a company meeting last week and – I am serious! – that was the most interesting, visionary AND inspiring speech that I’ve heard in a long time. It was clear what we’ve been doing, what worked, what didn’t and what we need to be doing and why it will work.

I already learned more than a few things from him just by listening to him  speak or conduct a meeting (or by watching him beat up a job candidate…). For example,  one CAN be “positive, but not marketing-ish,” even if situation is difficult. If one has an issue, one has to face it with no sugarcoating rather than ’play’ positive and pretend the issue is not there. One can have BOTH a driving vision AND be attentive to customers. One CAN release something when it is ready, not a year before :-) Etc, etc.

Finally, while some choose to lay people off, we at Qualys  ARE HIRING!  Come join us and help build the SaaS security platform that actually works! Specifically, we are looking for TAMs (kind like an SE, but better :-)), PMs and a lot of engineers.

After 26 days, and almost 350 million e-mail messages, only 28 sales resulted -- a conversion rate of well under 0.00001%. Of these, all but one were for male-enhancement products and the average purchase price was close to $100. Taken together, these conversions would have resulted in revenues of $2,731.88 -- a bit over $100 a day for the measurement period or $140 per day for periods when the campaign was active. However, our study interposed on only a small fraction of the overall Storm network -- we estimate roughly 1.5 percent based on the fraction of worker bots we proxy. Thus, the total daily revenue attributable to Storm's pharmacy campaign is likely closer to $7000 (or $9500 during periods of campaign activity). By the same logic, we estimate that Storm self-propagation campaigns can produce between 3500 and 8500 new bots per day.

Under the assumption that our measurements are representative over time (an admittedly dangerous assumption when dealing with such small samples), we can extrapolate that, were it sent continuously at the same rate, Storm-generated pharmaceutical spam would produce roughly 3.5 million dollars of revenue in a year. This number could be even higher if spam-advertised pharmacies experience repeat business. A bit less than "millions of dollars every day," but certainly a healthy enterprise.

Of course, the authors point out that it's dangerous to make these sorts of generalizations:

We would be the first to admit that these results represent a single data point and are not necessarily representative of spam as a whole. Different campaigns, using different tactics and marketing different products will undoubtedly produce different outcomes. Indeed, we caution strongly against researchers using the conversion rates we have measured for these Storm-based campaigns to justify assumptions in any other context.

Spam is all about economics. When sending junk mail costs a dollar in paper, list rental, and postage, a marketer needs a reasonable conversion rate to make the campaign worthwhile. When sending junk mail is almost free, a one in ten million conversion rate is acceptable.

News articles.

Due to the slow economy, most tech companies are being cautious and ratcheting back sales forecasts for software and hardware. The exception: Infra-Strategy, a company that operates a group of Web sites that help people find a lawyer and info to deal with bankruptcies, divorces and DUI cases. Visits to the sites are booming – with visits to totaldivorce.com, for example, up 112% in October 2008 (I found the picture on the website particularly compelling). Apparently, in bad times, divorce rates go up. Who knew?

Is it always a recession when it comes to IT Operations? Companies are constantly trying to find ways to do more with less in IT – reducing costs but keeping the same or even adding functionality – deploying technologies that drive IT consolidation such as mobile and remote access, unified communications and virtualization. Chris Silva of The Forrester Blog for IT Infrastructure & Operations Professionals is looking for a research panel to find out what fellow IT companies are doing to keep their IT budgets in check. To join the research panel visit: http://itpanel.forrester.com/.

The Cloud Computing Monopoly debate continues. O’Reilly Media founder Tim O’Reilly and technology writer Nicholas Carr (of “IT Doesn’t Matter” fame/infamy) have been discussing the ‘potential for a single company to achieve monopoly control of the world of cloud computing.’ But what’s even more interesting is the “who will make a lot of money” in cloud computing question.

One easy, inexpensive way to actually increase your effectiveness in 2009 is to, right now, make a quick review your risk management processes.  As you take a look at how you’re using risk in your organization, I’d ask you to make sure that those processes are providing value for the energy you’re spending.  If they’re not - if you’re not successfully using risk within security and with the other lines of business that you serve - then I’d like to invite you to  come take advantage of RMI’s public training session for 2008, held in Columbus Ohio on December 10-12.  >A brochure is here<.

For three days and $1,995 - you’ll get real answers to many of the commonly voiced frustrations RMI hears concerning risk & risk management.  Answers around measurement, application, communicating risk to other lines of business, heck, basic answers as to what risk is and how to get consistent, defensible values that actually mean something.

Not to mention - Strengthening your Risk Management processes increases your ability to manage risk, which reduces the amount of risk you actually face.

NEW TO THE PUBLIC STUFF!

I’m personally excited because this is the first time that our public training we’ll feature measurement “calibration” exercises and include excel tools to take home and use for quantitative FAIR analysis.  These are benefits we’ve only previously reserved for private client workshops.

I know that FAIR can help you and your organization, but as the sales guys always say, “don’t take my word for it”.  Here’s something we recently received (unsolicited) from the CSO of one of the 10 largest banks in the US, who has had several of his analysts receive this same basic training:

I would like to also add my deep appreciation for what FAIR and RMI has brought to (us) and how we go about the business of risk analysis. We have had some great conversations around risk with the lines of business that have ended very favorably for us.

More information can be found on RMI’s website here:  http://www.riskmanagementinsight.com/12_2008_training.html

Thanks.

Oh and tomorrow, we’ll talk a little bit about quantitative and qualitative risk.

“Developed economics, especially in the United States and Western Europe, will be the worst affected, but emerging regions will not be immune,” said Peter Sondergaard, the global head of research at Gartner. “Europe will experience negative growth in 2009, the United States and Japan will be flat.”

Forrester is more optimistic (so far). Back in September, the analyst firm revised their prediction downward to an increase of 6.1% instead of the original 9.4%.

But both firms agree that the first IT purchases to feel the cut are in hardware – PCs, servers, storage devices, communications equipment, etc. Next up, software purchases and IT servers.

So are MSPs immune to the economic slow down? With expected layoffs and certainly hiring freezes across the board, turning to MSPs to pick up part of the load is starting to look better and better. At the recent MSP Alliance conference in Chicago, attending MSPs had a rosy view about growth in their industry, with sales cycles actually shortening from 6-12 months down to 2-6 months and 25% of them actually increasing prices in the past six months. It’s a good time to be a MSP.