| August 4, 2000 | 03 00050 61 00080401 |
Mr. Morris E. Jones
Business Unit Manager
morris.jones@intel.com
Cable Network Operation
Intel Corporation
350 East Plumeria; Mail Stop CHP3-105
San Jose, CA 95124
| Subject: | Business Plan |
Dear Morris,
Here is a beginning on the SDS "story" in an Executive Summary, per request from Pat Lincoln at SRI on July 27, and the telecon you and I had the other day. Notice that initial numbers are just plugs to start thinking about things.
Incidentally, below is another inquiry about SDS. As we discussed recently, I am not sure why this is happening all of a sudden the past few weeks, but it may provide a bounce in advertising from exposure on the Internet, as set out in the Strategy section.
Strategy is a key area of the plan; and, the Table of Contents may need different sections, or different arrangement. Your comments on this are helpful, if time permits.
The next section to be developed is to explain the company. One approach is to incorporate Jack's thoughtful letter on July 26, 2000. Would like to get feedback from you on this, and from Pat, if everyone has time. We need to identify ownership. This starts with a 75% - 25% initial split. To get participation of key people, we may award ownership starting from the initial split.
We need to identify skills and people to build the organization. Right now we do not have a lot of people who are unable to do the work that needs to get done. We get to build from a clean slate based on commitment to the Vision, Mission and Strategy. Suggestions of people who can handle assignments would be helpful. I am going to define a role for you, which you can, of course, decline based on continuing commitments to Intel. Everyone will naturally want you to be vice presidenf of product development because of your technical skill. My sense is that you should be the CEO, because of broader strength that spans engineering, marketing and business functions. I realize you prefer to do the technical stuff, but, as I have mentioned many times, there is no one else on the planet better prepared for bringing forth the major advance we propose to lift civilization by melding computer architecture with the architecture of human thought. This takes leadership with a broader vision, which life has bestowed upon you at this hour. We can struggle along with someone else in the other capacity. Based on how things develop, possibly Jack Park would do it. That would give him a direct influence on creating a graphical mapping feature for links and subjects, which he has been discussing.
Marketing strategy depends on making SDS easier to use, which seems like a product development task, and so is identified as the first Mission of the company. If we cannot make SDS easy to use, nobody is going to use it, as we have learned the past 15 years. The letter to you on May 31, 2000 discussed preparing SDS requirements. How much of this needs to be in the business plan? Do you have a sense about the level of effort and skills needed for this task? Is it one person a year, 2 people 18 months, 3 people 2 years? Comments on this would be helpful?
Now that we see SDS work product, by itself, builds interest, and that the web provides an inexpensive universal advertising medium, per below, we need a product that enables a wider range of people to use SDS within the time they are willing to try it, per our meeting on July 6. Of course the level of effort people will make depends on the level of perceived value. People who encounter SDS records on the web may have a heightened determination based on seeing a significantly enhanced capability. Others will be motivated by heightened need, i.e., they have big problems with significant value at risk.
So, if people are going to keep calling up to ask about SDS, would like to try and have something to give them they can use. I think we are partially there, but need input on moving ahead. Will call you tomorrow to review ideas.
Thanks.
THE WELCH COMPANY
Rod Welch
rowelch@attglobal.net
Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 10:31:39 -0700
Timothy Fong
tim@lassotech.com
Mr. Rod Welch
rowelch@attglobal.net
The Welch Company
440 Davis Court #1602
San Francisco, CA 94111 2496
| Subject: | Interesting Articles |
Rod --
What does your company do? The articles look interesting.
Tim