Mark Cuban and Walt Mossberg close out BIF-3

An extra camera appeared when Mark Cuban took the stage to join Walt Mossberg for the last session of BIF-3. After a little joking about Dancing with the Stars, Walt asked Mark why he wants to buy the Cubs. Mark replied that there's tremendous opportunity in picking up an iconic brand and finding ways to use it in this age of widespread digital media. Although Cuban is often associated with online sports broadcasts, he mentioned that what's not as well-known is that his company streamed all kinds of other things back then, such as shareholder meetings. Mossberg asked if video (like Youtube) is a destination, or just another datatype; Cuban chose datatype, saying "bits are bits."

Then Mossberg steered the conversation to something that a lot of us can sympathize with, what he calls the "Soviet Ministries": telcos, especially cellular carriers who want to control everything their users do. For example, Verizon Wireless decides which cell phones its customers can use, what applications they can install, and what activities they can participate in. Some readers will object to this because many of you know 1) how to pick out a relatively open phone and 2) how to find and install 3rd party apps, but if you know Mossberg's work, you know that he's advocating for every user... not the hypothetical average user, but every user who might want to use personal technology. Cuban compared the current situation to the way we were trapped by network protocols ARCNET, Token Ring, all sorts of things that couldn't talk to each other. Trapped in MS-DOS, the days of undocumented Windows calls, etc.

Cuban thinks the biggest opportunity right now is in making the next great operating system. Cuban: "There's a lot of things wrong with the Mac operating system." Cuban objects to the fact that you can't run Mac OS X on any hardware you want. He mentioned that there are a lot of interesting things happening in Linux, to which Mossberg replied that Linux isn't really ready for everyone. He challenged Cuban to take Linux, and "finish it" so that every user could use it. They talked about Vista for a bit. And while Cuban said he's a big fan of Microsoft, he thinks Vista is a huge mistake. Vista is one reason why he thinks there's a big opportunity to come out with a great operating system.

Mossberg and Cuban considered whether the PC is going to be replaced by something else, such as cell phones. Cuban said that it's not just the cell phone that are competing with the PC, and suggested that we look at where people get content: it's the cell phone, iPod, PDA, and laptop when you are outside the house. But when you're in the house, it's your home theater, your DVR, etc. This led into discussion of Cuban's HDNet, which is growing fast (7 million subscribers). They got onto the fact that men will watch anything that's on HD... paint drying, grass growing, etc. They've got Torchwood, they let Dan Rather ramble on for an hour commercial-free, plenty of sports.

One of the reasons that Cuban is into HD right now is that ten years ago, he expected that everyone would have 100 Mbps to the house by now. He was wrong about that and disappointed. Mossberg asked why it's not better, and Cuban said it's because investors punish the publicly-traded telecommunications carriers every time they try to invest in infrastructure. Cuban thinks they need to go private to get us to 100 Mbps and beyond.

They talked about Cuban's chain of theaters and the theater business in general. 3-D is a big part of the future. Mossberg mentioned that Jeffrey Katzenberg recently told him 3d is coming back in a very big way. Cuban agreed, and said it won't be long before 1,000 theaters (not necessarily his) nationwide are 3-D enabled. Animated features, horror movies, the upcoming Beowulf, and more.

Cuban's message for companies is to remember that Google, Microsoft, and some 12-year old is waiting to kick your ass. You can't ever relax, but that's the fun of it. If you let your guard down and stop paying attention, you're going to wake up and find out your ass has been kicked.

Posted October 11, 2007 03:15 PM by Brian Jepson | Permalink