Microsoft BizTalk is one of the sleeper products in the Microsoft Windows Server family. BizTalk is at the core of Microsoft’s Business Process Automation (BPA) solutions and – with the release of BizTalk Server 2006 – is maturing nicely. One of my investments – Oxlo Systems – has built its products for the auto industry on top of BizTalk and has had great success with the BizTalk Server platform. Microsoft recently wrote up a nice case study on Oxlo and what they’ve done using BizTalk. Oxlo has received a lot of help and support from Microsoft – both the BizTalk product team, the vertical sales organization, and Microsoft’s Emerging Business Team (lead by Dan’l Lewin.)

I read You Need to Be a Little Crazy : The Truth about Starting and Growing Your Business over the holiday break. Barry Moltz’s marketing and PR Director Sarah Moore sent me Barry’s book after sending me an email suggesting my blog fit with Barry’s writing. While I probably have read my lifetime supply of “entrepreneur / startup books” I decided I’d give this a try since (a) Sarah asked nicely and (b) I once had the domain “entrepreneursarecrazy.com” (with some weird idea of writing something about entrepreneurship) so the title of the book “spoke to me.”

I received several comments and private emails about my post on Investment Agents – Good or Bad? A colleague sent me a good follow up note adding some flesh to my comment that the ratio of charlatans to qualified agents is 100:1. He’s asked to remain anonymous, so I thought I’d summarize his comments here – the basic message being that there are some non-trivial legal considerations for the role the placement agent plays in soliciting investors and structuring the transaction.

Well – the first business day of the year is officially over. Apparently Yahoo just rejected an offer from Microsoft for $80 billion because it wasn’t enough. My guess is that Microsoft forgot to include the “!” in Yahoo! and pissed someone off (the “!” has got to be worth at least $20 billion.) I felt like shit all day today, but my cold (the first one I’ve had this year) at least had a side effect of getting me out of a trip.

It’s been a quiet day today as I sit in Amy’s office in downtown Boulder and get geared up for the year ahead. My inbox is empty, my todo list is mostly empty, and my brain is clear. There’s something really elegant about the first business day of the year which – apparently – wasn’t today but is tomorrow. As I enjoy the sun going down over Boulder, I’ve been reflecting on my first company (Feld Technologies). I looked at the Business Plan series to see where I had left off and – voila – the next section to talk about is The Company. Since I’m in Boulder, land of hippies and crystals (and lots of Internet entrepreneurs, plenty of mountain bikers, and some amazing Olympic athletes) I thought this sychronicity warranted that I crank out another post on the Business Plan.

Another day, another question to answer that was stuck in my “answer this question on your blog” someday folder in Outlook. When I got my new IBM X41 tablet in September, I wrote a glowing review of it. I recently was asked if I still like it – three months later I’m still loving it. Laptops usually last me six months, so let’s see how I feel on April 1st. Ironically, I’m not using it as a tablet much (occasionally when I’m lying on the couch reading while listening to music, I’ll flip it into tablet mode so it (a) takes up less space and (b) I can monitor my email without having to move around each time something arrives in my inbox. However, as a standard, hardworking laptop, it’s great.

In our previous post – which started to get long and unwieldy (ah – the need for an editor – where are those guys when you need them) – we didn’t cover two critical issues: (1) What happens if the acquisition is in cash vs. public stock vs. private stock, and (2) Who pays for the “basis” of the stock options? The form of consideration of the acquisition can be a many spendored thing. We’re going to ignore tax considerations for this post (although you shouldn’t – we just don’t want this to be 12 pages long.) If I’m an employee of a seller, I’m going to value cash differently than public stock (restricted or unrestricted?) differently than public stock options differently than private stock (or options). If the buyer is public or is paying cash, the calculation is pretty straightforward and can be easily explained to the employee. If the buyer is private, this becomes much more challenging and is something that management and the representatives of the seller who are structuring the transaction should think through carefully.

If you are interested in the story of how things play with Joe Nacchio’s criminal insider trading indictment I recommend you subscribe to the New West Networks Boulder feed as Richard Martin is writing a series titled The Nacchio File. Nacchio is at the top of the Qwest meltdown pyramid and – among the expected editorial chatter – the case will likely be covered heavily by the local (and national) news guys.

My sister-in-law Laura just introduced me to PalmArt. Her friend Rob Davenport is one of the featured artists in their gallery. Super cool stuff.