Of course, one can always change the preferred search engine on the phone once you bought it.  But it defaults to Yahoo in this case.  Android’s biggest advantage is user customization.  This is like the antitrust fights agains Microsoft for embedding Internet Explorer with the OS “abusing” its leadership to force people to use I.E.  Like people won’t download other browsers!  It is really a hassle to download Mozilla, Chrome, or Safari, right?  Who wants to do 3 clicks?  Not to mention the fact that I.E. updates require more than 3 clicks and it gets updated more often that most geek’s underwear… But let’s not go there.

The trend of Androids with Yahoo, iPhones with Bing, Symbians with Google, Blackberries with Lycos (not sure if it still exists) and all permutations and combinations of those is what’s interesting.  The most useful feature of smartphones (besides the phone) is search.  How many times have you been in a restaurant and wanted to go watch a movie?  Who calls the theater anymore? But now the Search engine, the OS and the smartphone itself are independent entities.   By that I mean that you can go to your favorite website and buy a phone, pick your OS, your service provider and your search engine.  Cool!

It is also entirely possible that carriers and device manufacturers are so pissed at Google due to the Nexus One release that they are cutting them out of the loop.  Perhaps.  But if the trend goes on, for whatever reason mobile search will be up for grabs.  And, my fellow reader (singular) our mobile search is worth money, lots of money!

So when are we going to get service subsidies (i.e. lower data plan costs) from the search engines?  Picture this:  You go to your preferred service provider’s website and choose your plan, phone, OS, and accessories.  On the next screen you pick your search engine which includes an extra incentive.  Yahoo may offer $5/month rebate, Google $50 for accessories, Bing something else.  Now, that’s driving choices.

Google:  If you want to be back in the Android (what a funny incident) subidize people’s data plans and stop making your own phone.  Well, not really, just subsidize my data plan. 

Enjoy.

During this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the world’s most important mobile trade show, everyone seemed to think that a new OS (Operating System) is the way to go.  It is unclear to me what makes them think that.

First, I’m a bit tired of the overuse of the OS nomenclature.  Few deserve this title since they are really adding proprietary layers on top of Linux.  Actually most do, even the beloved Android and iPhone.  They should all be called “platforms”.  However that is not the cause of my outrage. No.

Second, who does the branding for these things?  Symbian, Bada, MeeGo, Mobiln, MeeMo, LiMo, Else, and others in addition to the successful iPhone, RIM, and Android.  My favorite name in a sarcastic kind of way will have to be “Windows 7 Phone Series”.  Redmond finally got something that does not deserve bashing throughout the blogsphere – a la Vista – and decides to use it everywhere.  I get it, kind of makes sense.  But, my fellow follower (singular) Windows 7 has a nice ring to it.  Windows 7 Phone Series does not, I’m sorry.

Third is that application developers have better things to do than to port their app to the “OS” of the day. And who is thinking about users? Thanks to this inflation you will have to scavenge the world to find the right app if you made the mistake to buy a platform that didn’t quite make it for whatever reason.  Now that is an outrage, but not the point of my post.  Suffice it to say that there will be plenty of casualties in these OS’s flood.

Amidst this Mobile OS inflation there is one that in my opinion deserves mention:  MeeGo.  Sure, the name sucks but I’ll have to give it some points for obscure geekyness.  A shape-shifting 9000-year old alien from the planet Marmazon 4.0 has to attract the dormant or not so dormant geek in most smartphone users, from the Blackberry suits to the Android hoodys.  Let’s just hope it doesn’t suffer the fate of the CBS sitcom who didn’t get the chance to finish a single season mostly because it wasn’t any good.

Anyway, MeeGo is worth mentioning not because of the fact that it is a joint venture between Nokia and Intel.  MeeGo is a platform that promises to bring smartphones to the 2010’s by using an x86 architecture instead of the perpetual ARM.  x86 architectures are ubiquitous in the PC world whereas ARM architectures have their humble roots in the embedded world (you know watches, sensors, WiFi radios, set top boxes, routers, cellphones – Ok, not so humble).   ARM uses RISC – Reduced Instruction Set Computing – vs x86’s CISC – Complex Instruction Set Computing.  This difference has allowed computers to run more complex software and algorithms so they can behave like, well, computers.  ARM on the other hand is fundamentally more power efficient, which explains its huge presence in mobility.

Until now the lowest x86 has gone is Intel’s Atom family (which drove the netbook “revolution”).  What is so new about the Atom family?  Low power consumption in an x86 processor.  At the same time, Qualcomm has been touting its Snapdragon 1 GHz+ Arm based systems – base for the reference design of my favorite name Windows 7 Phone Series – and now powering some “smartbooks” (again with the naming).

You see what’s happening under the hood?  New product categories are being launched, OS inflation is flooding the mobile world but at its real core there is a tremendous collision happening.  ARM getting more powerful while x86 is getting more efficient.  This brings us back to why MeeGo is so significant for the industry.

x86 based phones are out there but none has really made a mark basically because they haven’t offered anything new.  In this blogger’s very humble opinion if Nokia-Intel get it right (which is a big “if”) this could be the next revolution in mobility: the power of a real computer in the palm of your hand.  With html 5, 4G networks, ubiquitous 802.11n WiFi,  comparative shopping, location based services, “billions upon billions” of webpages, will now be available to complex software thanks to CISC based smartphones.  By the middle of this starting decade we will all wonder what was the hype behind all these “clever-phones” that could barely browse the web.  We will remember them as we now think of the first color Mac’s.  Very cool but just a sign of what’s to come.

Enjoy.

This strategy represents a hardware/software branded device from Microsoft in a sense competing with its own OEMs.  All those companies however have not shown any loyalty to the Redmond folks since they have diversified or totally migrated to the Android platform.  So I guess Balmer decided: Screw them I will go Google … sorry I will do like Apple … not really, I will do my own hardware and control my own destiny.   Good move?  We’ll see.  But definitelly not a bad one or a move that will damage any OEM relationships.  The world is ready for a diversity in OSs and the smartphone categry is the fastest growing category in the industry.  Microsoft cannot aford to be the fifth. 

The question is:  Will this make a difference?  Not likley. 

Microsoft has by far the largest market share in the enterprise – with “big Windows”, not smartphones, that privilege belongs to RIM.  It boasts millions upon millions of applications and it is the “standard” enterprise Operating System.  These are not 99 cent apps, no! These represent real money for enterprises and Microsoft.  A simple copy of Office may go for hundreds of dollars.  Why? because it is the defacto standard (for now).  The smartphone world behaves very different.  With the exception of email and a couple of minor “connectors” to ERP systems there are very few apps for the enterprise.  In fact Windows Mobile today has the largest number of  enterprise ISVs (Independent Software Vendors) but they specialize in niche applications like inventory, supply chain, delivery, fleet management, etc.  The devices these apps run on are not your typical HTC smartphone Fender edition but very specialized hardware made by Motorola and others. 

The thing is:  The Microsoft name, which carries a lot of weight in the enterprise, does not represent a mayority choice for the consumers as it does in PCs or in those niche applications.  The perception of a “standard” OS with millions of applications does not exist in the Smarthphone world.  There are millions of apps for several OSs, in fact lots of apps are available for most smartphone OSs (paradoxically Windows Phone is typically the last one to be developed).  So my contention is that even if Microsoft comes up with a killer device it is an uphill battle to go after RIM, iPhone, Symbian, and Android.  It may much better than OEM versions since Microsft has intimate knowledge of hardware and software to make it so, but it will hardly take the world by storm as its competitors have. 

Good luck Microsoft and thanks for giving us all something to write about and for another great opportuniti for a clever Apple commercial.  I’m sure there’s a map for that somewhere.

Enjoy.

Acording to ABI Research the world will consume a staggering 450 million laptops in 2012 and [gasp] 650 million smartphones.  If you take into account replacement cycles, that is how fast people buy a new one the results are pretty revealing.  A laptop, on average get replaced every 3 years, which means that roughly 1.35 billion people will buy one within 3 years.  A smartphone, thanks in part to carrier subsidies, is replaced every 2 years, meaning 1.3 billion people will buy one.  Of course, they are both the same people!  The question is, are those 1.3 billion geeks (what an amazing number buy the way) ready for a 3rd device and all the annoyances (chargers, accessories, batteries, breakage, data plans, network connections, etc., etc.) that come with it?  Not so much.

Unless: a) It substitutes a device you already carry.  b) enhances a device you already carry, c) it changes the way you interact with technology or d) it is so damn amazing that you have to have it.

A)  Substituting a device you already carry is kind of lame.  In order to do that it has to do everything the old device did and more.  Kind of what smartphones did for the cellphone.  But it comes at a price.  That is the approach Microsoft and partners in crime are taking with teh “convertible” laptop.  Ever since the Concerto, that approach has failed miserably.  The enhanced user experience that touch brings does not justify the extra cost.

B)  This may be the key to the tablet success.  What if you could share your smartphone’s dataplan but have access to a bigger screen when you need it?  Charge it and use the same accessories and apps your smartphone or your laptop uses but the experience is so much better due to touch, weight, a better screen and better interaction with your media.  In other words, your laptop becomes your “content creation” device and your tablet a “content consumption” alternative with much, much better experience.  The question still remains, how much is that worth and will manufacturers and carriers make money?

C)   Changing the way you interact with technology needs a huge amount of disruption.  One approach, suggested here, is to just make it part your your life and go after the time people spend with media in a different way.  That is all good, but IMHO, it will still limit the penetration.  As I have suggested in previous posts, the internet is desigend for a screem, a keyboard, and a mouse.  Last I checked, there are no plans to change that any time soon.  Be that as it may, media convergence – your pics, videos, blogs, magazines, books, news “papers”, etc. – in a single point may make sense, but again , at what price?

D)  Lastly, an amazing device will drive some crowds, especially from the Silicon Valley sweethart even if there is no use for it, like the Newton or Apple TV.  This unfortunately is very nichy and I doubt Apple, Microsoft, HP, and others will be making such a splash for a niche.

One could argue that the Amazon Kindle, by far the most successful of these form factors (which by the way is expected to sell some 6 million this year, puting it in the category of niche for geeks), has it right.  Mainly because it is designed to read books.  Anyone that has played with it can see why.  Great battery life, great form factor, light, and a brilliant eInk display that is the closest thing to paper that is powerd by a battery.  But the key genius of Amazon is not that the device is brilliant, is the business model.  Buy a book and voila, it gets delivered to your Kindle without having to worry about a data plan, a monthly bill, or extra charges.  It is still a 3rd device, but it substitutes the book, magazines, and newspapers we used to carry around.  THe lesson here is subsitute something you carry today and make it simpler, better, and cheaper (at least over the long run).

The question is what will the tablets strategy be?  It is tough to say, but as geeky as I am, I will wait before I splurge for the $500 – $1000 tablet plus an extra data plan.  For once, a “revolutionary” gadget does not excite me that much.  Is it a sign of aging or just a sign of the times?

Enjoy.

Without having had my hand on it it is tough for me to have an opinion on its performance. But given the engineering track record of Silicon Valley’s favorite they probably nailed it (even if they didn’t you know there will be a Nexus 2). But that is not what will make it a success, nor is that what is surprising about it. Motorola, LG, HTC, Sony Ericsson, and others have or have announced plans for Android powered smartphones. Yet, Google, the author of Android, decides to put out a device that competes with all of them. Moreover, Google does not have to make money from it (even though they will) since it is really a bet on mobile advertisement revenue. So far nobody has found a way to make money on mobile ads, but it is my contention that if somebody can figure it out it will most likely be Google. It is hard to imagine that Google decided to compete with their hardware partners just to make a “few” bucks selling hardware. They most likely did it for the same reason Google does everything else: to disrupt a market.

Imagine a world in which you do not have to pay for cellphone service. Pretty much the way you didn’t have to pay for TV in the past. Advertisers paid for it and consumers take advantage of that money flow. I know, I know, those days are waaaay over and not likely coming back anytime soon (until Google has a say). But in the mobile Internet business the biggest barrier to entry IMHO for mobile search to explode is the hefty $30 – $50 a month data fee from your preferred carrier plus a $100 – $300 “club entry fee” for your favorite smartphone. Sure there are hundreds of millions of smartphones out there and there will be more in the years to come, but the mobile search revenue still dwarfs the “fixed” one. Granted usability, contextual value, and other issues are still important. But Apple and Google will shortly solve those. Cost will remain a barrier. Unless, yes, unless it is free. In other words, paid by advertisers. You and I can pick our favorite smartphone subsidized by a carrier to get your voice revenue and Google pays your data plan as long as you search. Weird? Sure, but then again Google is known for its weird business models.

Enjoy.

I know what you’re thinking: Jobs’ vision was better than Ballmer’s, which may be true, but I believe Jobs’ team executed better than Ballmer’s. At the end of the day both companies had to catch up to Research in Motion’s Blackberry dominance in the smartphone market and they both had the opportunity to do it with a mobile browser. Let me explain. The common vision here, which in hindsight sounds even lame, was to allow web browsing with a cellphone. Apple executed that vision since the first version with a flawless browser experience. While Microsoft decided to develop very limited Pocket IE with their traditional first-version-to-be-fixed-several versions-later approach. The networks weren’t ready for a “big boy’s browser” anyway. Several years later Windows Mobile is a distant follower in the race that will most likely define the next decade.

Same vision, radically different execution. So my contention is that execution is really the cornerstone of leadership. One could argue that execution is what provides credibility, but that is a “rear view mirror” approach. Vision with execution is what leadership is all about. Again, I do agree that a vision needs to be clear, compelling, and credible to inspire execution. And that is the true definition of leadership.

Enjoy.

Anyway, Android is now adding true multitask capabilities, a better than ever PND (personal navigation device) performance – with accessories and all – as well as a notification panel that keeps you in control of what you want to be notified about, when, and how. Personalization – which is really tough to do on the iPhone – is what’s new! Of course most contenders will catch up with features, but one has to analyze the cultures behind each device to understand what’s really the key and what markets they will appeal to.

Apple, of course is the “I control everything” culture. I have the best designers in the world, and I have apps, music, and all, so the end-to-end experience is Applesque all the time. Things usually work seamlessly well and when problems arise, they usually get fixed before the people get unrest. I call that the Emperor culture.

RIM, on the other hand is also end-to-end, but it is clearly a messaging centric company. Email is their roots and will never compromise the ability to input text the way God intended it, with a real keypad feel. Its OS is solid, secure, light, and simple to use. A true “Executive” style culture.

Nokia is a mass marketer. A phone for every liking is their strength. How can they have 50% market share otherwise? They have keyboards, touch screens, small, big, medium all colors, etc. This is a bit confusing for power users and it does limit their ability to have a comprehensive set of apps that can cover all those phones. They are a true mass pleaser and not too enthusiastic with the powers; a socialist if you will.

Microsoft, well, what can we say about our friends from Redmond? Are you a PC? then you know what i mean. There are probably more applications written and running for Windows Mobile than any other OS out there (the majority of them are quite nichy – for warehouses, UPS drivers, etc.), since a big number of developers is familiar with the .net framework and the mobile version called Compact Framework (CF) is similar enough in style. When more than one app is running at the same time they tend to step on each other. Unfortunately, most don’t work well, the OS has to be rebooted a couple of times a week, and it takes forever to start, especially if you have lots of apps. True Anarchy!

Android is different because Google is different. Each manufacturer that uses Android will have the ability to tailor the phones to their brand and service provider. Google will provide some common elements and APIs to minimize chaos. They will manage the app store which in a way will help apps run across products in a slightly more organized fashion. Of course, not every device will be perfect, but they will all live in harmony. Users will perceive commonalities giving them the “Googlesque” identity but each with its own personality. Just like a democracy.

Of course, Democracies have prevailed throughout the course of history and some lucky monarchies have survived if nothing else for the amusement of the tourists.

Enjoy.

I haven’t seen the charts and I’m not ready to throw my money at a Google chart, but you have to admit it is pretty amazing what Google can put together. Are we in a new trend of technical indicators? The Rising Star, Bollinger bands, Google trends. Pretty cool!

Enjoy.

“Anyone who cares about media – indeed, anyone who cares about our society and where it’s going – must read this book” – Robert Glaser, CEO, RealNetworks. “Anderson’s insights … continue to influence Google’s strategic thinking in a profound way.” – Eric Schmidt, CEO, Google. These are just two of the bragging rights printed in the back of the book. In my opinion – dare I add it in the same paragraph as the prior two – his insights are, well, insightful indeed. Since I joined the blogsphere I have been trying to explain what has been the catalyst for all this seemingly nonsensical blogging and niche media producing. In an eloquent production Anderson managed to put it in very simple yet profound terms.

The Digital revolution has done more to society than making information available within a couple of keystrokes. Democratization of the tools of production (jeez, sounds like x-soviet propaganda poster), Democratization of the tools of distribution (ditto), and swifter connections between supply and demand have dramatically changed what once was a hit driven economy to an economy of lots and lots of niches. I profoundly agree, although I have to say that we still need a lot more work on the “connections between supply and demand”.
Chris Anderson, editor in chief of Wired magazine and and author of The Long Tail Blog explains in what I believe is some of the best business writing there is, the economic distribution of media production, the head, and the tail. And, as he admits, participates in both taking advantage of the tools and technologies that are available to all of us these days. The insights are extremely good and the analysis even better.
I have to say, though, that the book suffers from repetitiveness surprising for an editor and blogger of his caliber. It made me think that in his effort to produce a hit (which he did) he had to meet a number of pages goal so you get a bank for you buck. What saves the book is Anderson’s mastery of the craft. He is indeed an extremely good writer. Even when I had heard the story of the 4 million songs in Rhapsody maybe for the fourth time half way through the book , he managed to keep me going and I did not skip to the “meat of the chapter” like I sometimes (Ok usually) do with other business books.
Definitely a good read, insightful and highly recommended. I can’t wait to read Free (I did not mean “read for free”, although that wouldn’t be bad either)
Enjoy.

It is all over the news that Eric Schmidt, Google’s CEO, resigned from Apple’s board recently citing “conflict of interests”. Businessweek published an article contrasting the two companies. It highlights the fact that they are still aligned against Microsoft, but their ideologies are vastly different. There are some speculative blogs that tie this resignation to Apple’s removal of Google Voice application from the iPhone store. Although it might have been the proverbial “last straw”, it is hardly the reason. How much conflict was there really and how different are their interests? Google Voice proves the point in a very interesting way.

For those of you who didn’t get the traditional Google “invite” for Google Voice or never heard of its acquisition of Grand Central a couple years back, it may sound weird that a voice app will be so game changing. But Gran Central started with a simple concept: You sign up and then you can manage all your numbers every way you want by writing rules to deal with your all calls. Your boss calls any of your numbers and you decide where and when it rings. Let’s say you want it to your cell only during work hours (you don’t have to tell him/her it is 11 -3). An 800 number calls and you can send a “number canceled” tone so they take you off their list. Your spouse calls? All you numbers ring. Anything else goes to voice mail. And – this is the feature that makes me drool – it is a single voice mail for all your numbers. And, are you ready for this? you get an email with a visual version of your voice mail. Sort it, read it, delete it, whatever you want! No more fiddling around with “6-6-6-4-7″ or whatever weird combination of digits you always forget to look for the one important message you know you missed!
Cool, so far, isn’t it? How much will you pay for the convenience of your true Personal Digital Assistant? $20, $50 / month? How about nothing? Sounds like a deal doesn’t it? Not too fast. Being now owned by Google you will expect them to make money. And yes, you guessed it, through advertisement. They recently were awarded a patent in which they claim all sorts of advertisement opportunities: ring-tones, busy signals, call waiting, while you wait for the call to be connected, etc, etc, etc. Although some may be annoying to users, I’m sure Google will not abuse it so you want to turn it off. And that model is where Apple and Google do not see eye to eye.
Apple has made boatloads of money by keeping control over every element of the value chain of their solution. The little (not really little) exception on the iPhone is the cellular carrier. But you’ll have to forgive them (for now) since building worldwide cell networks requires amounts of cash that even Apple cannot pony up. But it is controlled through a tight partnership with, for example in the US AT&T. Apple sells iPhones only to them (again for now) and in exchange the vow not to allow applications that will cause damage to AT&T’s cash cow. As you can imagine, Google Voice is one of those. So Apple pulls it off the App store.
On the other hand, Google is a friend of the open source initiative. They claim (and quite successfully) that openness is the way to go. Allow the best software engineers to produce the best product and improve on it around the world. We will all benefit. Android (Google’s mobile OS) is an example of that. We will soon see lots of new phones using this OS and they will all be slightly different but will share the core (Linux kernel with a Webkit browser) defined by Google but handed over to the industry, source code and all. Chrome OS (which isn’t really an OS either) will follow suit. Google’s model is based on making money by all the information that passes through their cloud (or humongous array of computers).
The core is Google’s mantra and let the best software win. Whereas Apple is end-to-end control since I am really the best. One can draw parallels to the political ideologies of the world and reach unsubstantiated conclusions on what may happen some years after this “wall” has been built. I won’t, just to avoid hurting cult fans in either side of the battle, since I am not sure, my faithful reader (yes singular), which camp are you on.

Enjoy.