QS: Business Rules for Our Time

After reading Alan Webber's recommendations in this post:

Rule #3: Ask the last question first. The last question is, what's the point of the exercise

Rule #23: Keep two lists, one that holds what gets you up in the morning and one for what keeps you up at night

Rule #4: Don't implement solutions. Prevent problems.

I am strongly considering buying his boook: Rules of Thumb.

Has any of you read it?

Update: Here you can find an interview with the book author.

And if I am at thought provoking reads, I would strongly recommend the KillerInnovations series.

QS: Romania a $2bn Virtualization Market?

Looks like I'm staying on the quest for strategy topic and asking the following question:

Is Romania a $2bn virtualization market?

The question was raised after reading an article published on Wall-Street.ro:

The virtualization market is estimated at $2bn in 2008 according to studies quoted by Sebastian Pascu, Red Hat Certified Engineer/Romsym Data

While I doubt the correctness of the above number, I think there are a couple of interesting questions I'd like to get answered:

• Which are the largest data centers in Romania?
• How many servers are hosted by governmental institutions?
• What virtualization providers are present on the market?

If you have any answers to the above questions or you'd like to add some more please drop me a note.

Resources:

• Virtualization Continues to See Strong Growth in Second Quarter, According to IDC
• Virtual server market ramps up despite downturn
• Worldwide Server Market Contracts Sharply in Fourth Quarter as Market Revenues Decline to $53.3 Billion in 2008, According to IDC

QS: Why Asesoft and eMAG?

While I've been reading about it all over the internet, I still cannot find a good answer to why Asesoft has bought 51% of the online retailer eMAG. I am definitely unaware of the online retailing market so I'd really love to have an answer from the market experts to:

Why has Asesoft taken over 51% of eMAG online retailer?

The official announcement mentions that this is just a financial investment coming from Asesoft to help eMAG consolidate on the market, but I'd say that it doesn't make for a good take over justification. Not being an expert, I'd speculate that:

1. Asesoft is interested in the eMAG distribution chain and eMAG will become a strategic part of Asesoft Distribution (in favor of this hypothesis comes the fact that Asesoft has also acquired a division of Flamingo International specialized in distribution)
2. eMAG needed a lot of money that they couldn't get without giving up control

What's your opinion?