Honda Accord V-6 Hybrid Drive

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Patrick Sauer summarizes his drive of a new Honda Accord V-6 Hybrid:

The new Accord V-6 Hybrid–that’s right, V-6 Hybrid–cruises out this winter and with it, a whole new way of looking at cars will follow in its wake. It used to be one or the other, V-6 power or four-banger mileage. But the super-geniuses at Honda have corralled an additional 15 horses under this Accord Hybrid’s hood (up to 255 hp) for those who like having their six cylinders but are feeling the pain at the pumps — by the way, this car will never, ever need to be plugged in. And here’s the best part, with that main course of horsepower comes a free side of better mileage–up from 24 city and 34 highway in the standard V-6 to 30 and 37 in the Hybrid. That means 633 miles per tank, in the fast lane–talk about wallet weight gain, ka ching.

The Business Sales Cycle: A Great Example from Jonathan Schwartz

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Sun Microsystems Executive Jonathan Schwartz writes a blog (which is a rather big deal). His most recent post summarizes the sales challenges when competitors are writing Sun’s obituary. Schwartz’s story is quite useful and interesting:

The customer started by telling us what our competitors had been saying about Sun, our platforms, and our future over the past two years. HP told him Sun was going out of business. IBM told him the future was all about linux, and that Sun was all about lock-in. Both competitors expressed a sympathetic concern that we weren’t “going to make it.” How charitable. The CIO wanted to know why they were wrong. This was going to be one of those “what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger” sessions. And we got right into it.
He told me consolidation was his number one priority. That’s why they were standardizing on HP. I asked “Which systems?” He responded “their enterprise systems.” I asked, “Itanium?” Wondering why they’d introduce a fork (new apps, new OS, new skills, and the expense of porting) if they were trying to consolidate platforms. He said they weren’t interested in Itanium. “No way, we’re going with PA-RISC.” I asked, “But isn’t that an end of life’d platform?” Silence. “Well, yes, I guess it would be.” How times change. Maybe HP had a specialty service for dead platform consolidation.

UW Grad Dallas Mayor Laura Miller’s Municipal Challenges

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Laura Miller evidently has her hands full, though I’m glad she did not give away the store to the Cowboys (looking for a large subsidy for their new stadium). Ralph Blumenthal checks out the Big D:

The losing Cowboys are fixing to defect again, the police chief and city manager were shown the door, a 350-pound gorilla made his own grand exit, and the hometown daily, former employer of the ex-reporter now ensconced in City Hall, is pinning Pulitzer Prize hopes on a pitiless expos? of everything gone wrong

The Art of Running A Small Business: Big Island Eco-Tours

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This work marks the beginning of a periodic series this site will publish on interesting small business owners. Small business, as many know, are the engines behind real job growth. Put simply, we need more people to get creative, chase their dreams and start a business (triple this need in the rust belt where traditional manufacturing jobs are going away).
Today’s 3 degree (did it get that warm?) Madison weather means it’s time to visit Kona, Hawaii and take a look at Dan McSweeney’s: Captain Dan’s Eco-Tours. Or, perhaps more appropriately, the art and study of whale watching. Dan has taken his passion – marine biology – and made a life’s work out of it along with a real business. He also brings a certain art, or style to the whale watch process.
Read on…..