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How Mobile Will Destroy Retail Margins

2012-12-21T22:45:17Z

Some of the news of the week has to do with eBay deciding mobile advertising doesn’t work for them as it clutters small screens and doesn’t provide that much revenue. This seems to make sense but if you think this in any way is going to change the impact of mobile advertising and commerce you are dead wrong.

Logic and rumors tell us Amazon will be releasing a telephone soon and the reasoning for them to do so goes far beyond expanding its ecosystem and pushing people to download apps and watch videos online.

Location based advertising is where everything is going.

We all know about the potential to flash an ad for a company when the customer is nearby and this will no doubt be an effective strategy to boost sales and traffic. Especially for restaurants who want all their tables filled.

The real power of mobile ads however comes into play when customers aren’t near the company’s retail location. Imagine you go to a car dealer and its competitor across town flashes an ad on the spot with a $1,500 rebate on any car in their lot and maybe offers to buy you lunch as well. You may not get up and go to the other dealer but you’d be a fool to not show the salesperson your cellphone in order to get a better price.

Think of all those purchases you have made over the years on your supermarket loyalty card and imagine if your supermarket had an opportunity to flash ads at you for the items you’ve previously purchased when you are at a rival grocer or at a pharmacy which now stocks almost everything the grocery store does.

And so it begins.

Sure, many savvy customers currently collect coupons and look for numerous retailers before going on a shopping expedition but the sheer ease of discovering competitive pricing will mean everyone will have access to the best prices at all times.

And retailers will have to price match or risk watching customers turn their cars around before they even park their cars in front of the store!

This is why the Amazon Kindle Phone has to happen. This is why Google purchased Motorola and is working on a killer “X Phone” to rival Apple and Samsung.

Moreover, this is why mobile devices will get cheaper as commerce will continue to subsidize them. Amazon and Google will no doubt want to get these devices into as many hands as possible – even if it involves losing (more) money on each one sold. Apple and Samsung will have to find ways to get a piece of this market and may have to partner or acquire. Suddenly Groupon has become more valuable. Suddenly, eBay has a chance to proactively sell you used products when you are in a retail store looking for something new.

Today, Amazon will sell you a Kindle Fire for $159 if you don’t mind the ads or $174 if want an advertising-free experience. In other words it is worth at least $15 to Amazon to show you ads on a tablet. Over time, if Amazon is successful with this dual-pricing strategy we can imagine it lowering the price of the subsidized model even more. A phone with permission to show you ads would be even more valuable than a tablet as you take it everywhere. Certainly Google can’t wait to bring its massive ad network into play in new ways. It certainly shows location-based ads today – but on a less proactive basis.

The takeaways are as follows:

Mobile devices will increasingly be subsidized
Google and Amazon have to have the best devices possible in order to compel users into their mobile commerce ecosystem
Apple, Samsung, HTC, Microsoft, Nokia and RIM have to come up with a strategy to compete in mobile advertising, commerce and location-based services
Retail margins for electronics and many other items have already taken a massive hit as a result of the Internet and mobile – but we haven’t seen anything yet
There is the potential for consumer backlash as they deal with ad overload
Apple will likely come out with an ecosystem for commerce and shopping – let’s call it iShop where it will handle flashing the offers while taking a cut of the sale
They may even (gasp!) charge less for a device which shows ads just like Amazon
Samsung may do the same
Carriers have an amazing opportunity in this space they will likely squander over the next few years
Consumers will win

VCs disrupted by Angels thanks to Cloud, Apple, Google and Facebook

2012-08-23T15:08:13Z

How too many investors can lead us to irrational exuberance 2.0

Fred Wilson, managing partner at Union Square Ventures is one of the most well-respected VCs around and does an amazing job with his AVC blog – it is in many ways a blueprint to starting a company. He has had so many good posts over the years it is tough to count.

In a recent interview with Technology Review he made some alarming comments which you should be aware of. He says VC firms are having a tough time raising money because returns have been mediocre. Amazingly, he describes “mediocre” as anything less than three times your money in a ten-year period which seems like an incredible return to anyone who hasn’t put all their investment dollars in Apple or Priceline.

He goes on to say venture capital is the best place to get money where a company has high risk but a large upside. He continues by saying that many IT companies can get going nowadays with money from Angel investors without the need for VC investments. This is exactly what David Rose alluded to when he keynoted the DevCon5 HTML5 conference last year in New York. The reality is the cloud is making it really easy to launch new companies.

Moreover, it is worth pointing out that ecosystems built by Apple, Google and Facebook make it infinitely easier to launch successful products as you can piggyback and augment products and services and instantly have access to hundreds of millions of potential users and customers.

Consider also that the freemium concept has allowed companies to instantly become juggernauts in their spaces. Skype is a great example of a multibillion dollar valuation put on a freemium service. LinkedIn at over $11B in market cap is another.

He continues to say one of the problems the industry faces is that there are a lot of people chasing a few big-name firms and moreover most of the money is tied up by “six white guys” who control two-and-a-half billion dollars. He feels this money would be better allocated to 25 firms where each has $100 million.

My thought process on the matter is the advent of cloud and ecosystems allows so much more innovation that the VCs are being disrupted by the angels. It is unclear if the market would be better served with more wealthy investors because it requires a tremendous amount of restraint to be a good investor in a heated market.

How many people went out and purchased homes which were larger or newer than they really could afford because everyone else was? How many of the smartest people on Wall Street bet their futures on complex derivatives that even Warren Buffet said he didn’t understand – because, everyone else was doing it? How many people invested in numerous CLECs, fiber and Internet companies in the nineties because everyone else was doing it?

From what I am seeing in the market the competent people are getting money and the ones who have less competence are struggling. I don’t mean this to be declarative – there are always exceptions but in general, there seems to be a balance of good ideas and people getting dollars to start and grow their companies.

So I do have to disagree with Fred a bit on this last point – if only because I don’t trust a plethora of VC firms to not lead us to irrational exuberance 2.0.

Should RIM Be Judged on its Hires or Fires?

2012-07-03T16:43:01Z

No company wants Apple as a competitor as the company has more momentum than the euro crisis. But that is the challenge companies like Nokia and RIM face on a daily basis. Yesterday I delved into the problems RIM faced because it had an email-centric view of the world which was just as keyboard-centered as it was focused on asynchronous corporate communications.

This morning I had a chance to speak with Luca Filigheddu who is the new BlackBerry Developer Evangelist for the Italian market. As you may remember, I wrote about him three years ago when I toured the Italian island of Sardinia. Luca is a serial entrepreneur who founded Abbeynet, a company developing applications for carriers including click-to-call solutions. More recently he has launched a suite of social applications – one which has gained a good amount of traction is Twimbow – a colorful social interface which you can describe as the result of Hootsuite and a box of crayons having a baby.

So what would make Luca who seemed to be very happy being an entrepreneur join RIM at this particular moment? In his words, the company was looking for someone with a business and tech background and the company flew him to the Blackberry World event and he came away impressed enough to take the position. He said he loves challenges and that Blackberry 10 will be a breakthrough product… Not just another OS.

The company realizes that developers are key to the success of their platform and as such is hiring developer evangelists in other countries as well.

But of course the Blackberry 10 delay is making developers and customers think about jumping ship entirely. To counter the anxiety in the market, Luca’s boss and another prolific blogger who I have known for years, Alec Saunders reiterated the company’s support for developers by saying to them, “You’ve got businesses to run, rent to pay, and investors to answer to. You are the folks who have skin in the game now, and aren’t just waiting for a new phone personally. We know this delay affects you, and we’re sorry.”

Moreover, Alec’s ultimate boss, Thorsten Heins the company’s new CEO said the delay was warranted because the release had to be perfect. Luca for his part agrees and said, “If this delay means the mobile platform, really meets the needs of developers and market, that is OK.”

It is worth pointing out that RIM has been a sponsor of an event called DevCon5 where TMC is a co-owner and which focuses on HTML5 and related development topics. I have seen firsthand how the company used the conference to woo developers.

Luca elaborated by saying the chance to work on a new platform is something which doesn’t happen very often and that RIM is assembling an entrepreneurial team inside the company. Moreover he said, this platform is very different and the user experience focuses on Blackberry people who need to get things done.

Other features he extolled in his blog include true multitasking and the ability to run native Android apps.

I asked him if he has a Playbook and he does – he explained this tablet has the same core as Blackberry 10. He concluded that he is looking forward to this new adventure.

Of course the pressure to deliver something perfect is on and the good news is as a piece of software, even if it isn’t exactly perfect, you can roll an update out fairly quickly to erase any problems. The Playbook OS and UI is pretty good in my opinion – certainly it can be improved upon and has evolved over time. This should mean that the Blackberry 10 OS will be even better.

The challenge for every company competing with Apple is of course competing with Apple. The have stores. They have “cool.” They caused Google to buy Motorola Mobility “Nuff Said.” They are scaring the life out of the tech space.

RIM for its part will need not only a great Blackberry 10 but a blockbuster OS which makes the media scream with excitement.

Moreover, it seems apparent you need really leading edge hardware to support your new software. They will also need some sort of gimmick – like Siri. By gimmick I mean something which makes you want to buy the product but then hardly use after you get it. You know like when you purchase something because of an infomercial you watched at 3:00 am after a few beverages.

Alec, Luca, Thorsten and the RIM team have their work cut out for them as all of this perfect execution has to happen while there are thousands of people being let go. The flipside is that they are hiring good people and Luca’s description of a new entrepreneurial team is exactly what is needed. It is worth noting in conclusion that if you judge RIM on its hires and not its fires you get a much different impression. Once this new OS is revealed, the market of course will have the final say on the company’s course change and whether the delay was worth it.

Nexus Q: Google's Lateral Move into the Home Entertainment Ecosystem

2012-06-28T16:21:13Z

There has been massive speculation regarding Google’s decision to purchase Motorola Mobility. Many, including the author believed this move was primarily driven by patents but it is becoming clear that even if this was the case, the search leader has looked to Cupertino as a guide and decided it too needs to be a hardware company building out ecosystems. Yes, Google, a company which makes most of its revenue via auctioning ads - having no brick and mortar stores, is getting beaten in terms of market cap and sales growth by Apple, a company which relies on malls and physical stores for a good part of its revenue.

Google obviously thinks it can take Apple on and while most of the tech sphere is focusing on the company’s Nexus 7 tablet, I find it only mildly interesting. Sure, the fact that the search leader is selling the tablet at cost as Gary Kim points out is worthy of note but we have been through this already with Amazon’s Kindle Fire – it seems only Apple can charge a large premium for hardware.

But then again, if this is the case then how does Google expect to compete against Apple in hardware.

The answer is obviously through the ecosystem. They hope to monetize services more effectively than Apple can. And they can no doubt do this as their pool of advertisers is the largest on the Internet – Apple isn’t even in second place when it comes to advertising online.

There are other ecosystem revenue drivers as well of course- such as apps and entertainment but let’s assume that Amazon, Google and Apple have similar margins in these businesses – in other words no one has a huge advantage.

To build out its ecosystem further, Google launched the Nexus Q, basically a digital media hub which works with Android devices and is the shape of a bowling ball. Think of it as a cross between Apple TV and Sonos – allowing you to stream audio and video to devices in your home from the cloud.

Moreover it is social, allowing visitors to your home to add their content – audio and video and adjust the playlist. This reminds me of the PartyShots app described by Jim Elayan of Itaas which allows guests in your home to share their pictures on your Samsung TV.

Jim Elayan of Itaas describes their PartyShots app allowing guests to share their photos on a Samsung TV (See video towards the end)

To some degree this move allows Google to get ahead of Apple in the home entertainment space. Of course Apple has AirPlay which does allow devices to be mirrored to Apple gadgets. I surmised in December of 2009 that Apple purchased audio streaming site LaLa to get into the home streaming space and I still believe Apple’s endgame is to supply the home with more gadgets such as a real TV, an updated Apple TV and more.

In the end, the ecosystem is king – it is no longer the computer, the OS, the network or the apps. The computing game has evolved from products to families of products and services which work cohesively together and lock customers in.

In fact this “locking in” is crucial because when you sell products at cost or at a loss, you have to make the money back somehow.

So let’s summarize by saying with the Nexus Q and “at cost” Nexus 7 tablet, Google has thrown its bowling ball into the ecosystem ring.

Cisco Underestimated Skype's Value. Acts against Microsoft Acquisition

2012-02-15T21:35:30Z

Cisco is far from the most open company in tech so it is ironic it is concerned about a monopoly over video conferencing a result of the Microsoft acquisition of Skype. The company’s Martin De Beer said, “For the sake of customers, the industry recognizes the need for ubiquitous unified communications interoperability, particularly between Microsoft/Skype and Cisco products, as well as products from other unified communications innovators.” This statement coincided with Cisco challenging an EU court over the acquisition.

One has to wonder however if Cisco underestimated Skype’s value. After all, the company has been sold twice in the last few years and the networking company didn’t close the deal either time.

The thesis that Cisco did not realize Skype’s importance is backed up by Cisco’s other actions – launching its consumer video service Umi - a Skype competitor. As you may recall I immediately said this service would fail and backed it up with ten reasons.

Here are the first three as a reminder - #1 is the most important for now:

1) Skype. Elaboration would be talking (writing) down to you.
2) Cisco's solution at $599 for the equipment and $24.99 per month is insane for a new consumer technology which has little to no network effect related to Metcalfe's Law. Oh and you need 3.5 Mbps upload speed for 1080p calls - meaning higher broadband bills for some.
3) Facetime: Apple's FaceTime is free and even though at the recent ITEXPO many people commented that using the software on an iPhone 4 is not great because inevitably your hand gets tired and falls to your stomach causing a nose-hair view of yourself to be transmitted - we can expect Apple to Facetime-enable everything they sell. Will Umi interoperate? If not, how will it compete?

And yes, the service failed shortly thereafter.

What is Cisco’s stance on video openness? In October of last year, the company responded to critics regarding its somewhat closed video ecosystem and decided to become more open. But this was five years into selling their telepresence products.

If anything, Cisco has been one of the more closed vendors in the market.

Remember what happened when Cisco announced it would buy Tandberg? Well, Stefan Karapetkov, Emerging Technologies Director for Polycom said the following:

Cisco announced today that they will acquire Tandberg, and this will have significant impact on the video communications market. It will reduce competition, and limit customers' choices, especially in the telepresence space. It will, hurt Radvision who now fills the gap in Cisco's video infrastructure portfolio.

I am however more concerned about the standards-compliance that have been the pillar of the video communication industry for years. Tandberg and Polycom worked together in international standardization bodies such as ITU-T and in industry consortiums such as IMTC to define standard mechanisms for video systems to communicate.

Cisco on the other hand is less interested in standards, and considers proprietary extensions as a way to gain competitive advantage. The concern of the video communication industry right now should be that the combined company will be so heavily dominated by Cisco that standards will become last priority, far after integrating Tandberg products with Cisco Call Manager and WebEx.

Telling is the fact that both Tandberg and Cisco declined participating in interoperability events over the last few months.

But this doesn’t mean Cisco hasn’t done the correct things for its shareholders by being more closed than most other companies. After all, if you are a dominant provider of a solution you aren’t required to open up your product unless a government forces you to. And this is why Cisco has inserted itself into the regulatory approval in Europe of the acquisition of Skype by Microsoft. De Beer continued, “Cisco does not oppose the merger, but believes the European Commission should have placed conditions that would ensure greater standards-based interoperability, to avoid any one company from being able to seek to control the future of video communications.”

And this is the challenge Cisco faces. Last week, Microsoft had a Lync Pavilion at ITEXPO in Miami and it was mobbed – lots of attention and buying – and it will expand in ITEXPO in Austin, Texas. And this was before Skype integration. Based on what I saw, enterprise buyers and resellers want UC solutions from Redmond.

Cisco will no doubt lose more share to Microsoft in the enterprise – this seems to be a given. But when FaceTime is a fast-growing competitor and is very closed, do we need to force Skype and Microsoft to open? In fact, in five years I predict Cisco having to worry more about Apple in the enterprise than Microsoft and Skype. And good luck getting Apple to open up.

It seems Cisco grossly underestimated Skype’s value and importance. The company had been burned by failed consumer product company purchase after purchase and didn’t want another mistake. This makes sense. But by the same token, Microsoft is facing a titanic battle with Apple and needs any advantage it can get. And this doesn’t even take into account the damage done by Google in the mobile and other spaces.

In a free market – companies should be able to make the decisions they think make the most sense for themselves and shareholders. I believe it would be an error to force Microsoft/Skype to open up.

Moreover, with the pace of IT consumerization is speeding up, Cisco will no doubt be playing a very difficult game of making purchases of pure B2B companies while having to understand which B2C companies are indeed crucial in the B2B world as well.

Woz, I Agree. Now What if the Samsung Galaxy Note Ran iOS?

2012-01-17T20:06:47Z

In July of 2010 I penned a piece about the ensuing marketshare loss Apple could face as a result of repeating the same mistake from the eighties in which it tightly coupled hardware and software while other companies were free to innovate on hardware alone. In a post titled Is Is Apple Repeating its Mistake from the Eighties? I explained how the thinness and lightness of the Motorola Droid X won me over in a few minutes. In December of 2010 I followed up with And Then it Hit Me, Open Always Wins and a few months back with Apple Screwed Again?

I witnessed firsthand how in the eighties the price/power curve of the PC clones helped make PCs much cheaper than Macs of equivalent power and over time as a result, software developers once loyal to Apple switched over to the PC. The Mac was superior to the PC in most every way except cost – the reality was though that most people would take 80% of the usability for 50-60% of the price or perhaps less.

A huge and imposing banner promoting the Samsung Galaxy Note at 2012 CES

Fast forward to today – there are quad-core 4G Android smartphones with better screens and battery life than an iPhone 4s and they are gorgeous. The Samsung Galaxy Note is just example one example of an Android smartphone on steroids – it supports HSPA+ up to 21 MBPS as well as 4G LTE has a breathtaking 5.3” WXGA HD Super AMOLED screen displaying yes a staggering 1280x800 pixels. The iPhone 4S has a resolution of 960x640) Although it has just a 1.4 GHz dual core processor it pulled up web pages at CES lightning fast and moreover can accept stylus input making it really part tablet, part smartphone and part paper notebook. Moreover it uses what the company calls an advanced smart pen which I saw in action allowing you to press a button to take a screen shot and circle a portion of it to copy and share.

So if you thought there was device consolidation, you would be wrong. In fact the 5.3” device which fit nicely in my shirt pocket is the newest must-have gadget to add to your collection of smartphones, tablets, laptops and PCs and Ultrabooks. But the cool thing about the Galaxy Note is not only the device but the fact that Apple didn’t come out with it.

You see, in the last five years the tech world has been ruled by Apple. Even faithful blackberry users who would never abandon a keyboard are being spotted in Apple stores the world over as they get wooed by the Apple sex appeal of sleek devices coupled with sleek software and speech recognition software which still needs a lot of work.

Who invented the touchscreen smartphone? Apple. Who invented the tablet that people actually wanted – with touch input? Apple. The laptop that weighs a few pounds and lasts a day on a single charge – no not the Ultrabook companies, Apple with its MacBook Air. But this new 5.3" form factor didn’t come from Apple and while my critics will be quick to point out – this device is not a big deal, I would argue it is. After all the iPad is just a large iPod Touch – the 5.3” form factor device with the smart stylus is new. It’s fresh. It’s different and it is the perfect hybrid device because it fits in a shirt pocket comfortably and allows near-tablet size video consumption.

This brings us to Woz – the Apple cofounder who says he is a big fan of Android phones – and here is the interesting part – he describes what I have been saying for years:

There’s a theory that Android could do to iOS (Apple’s mobile operating system) what Microsoft Windows did to the Macintosh in the 1990s. Microsoft triumphed because it licensed its software to many different hardware makers and ultimately had much greater market share than Apple, which would only sell its operating system on its own hardware.

In the mobile space, Apple is using the same playbook, tying its software tightly to its own hardware. And with Android, Apple is facing the same kind of foe that it once faced in Windows. “I can see the similarity,” Woz says.

Worse yet, this time, he says, Apple is up against a stronger competitor, since in his mind Windows was never a very good program, while Android actually is. “There’s not as big a difference [between iOS and Android] as there was between Mac and Windows,” he says.

The question is what can Apple do about it?

The company has dabbled with allowing clones but pulled back the experiment after a short time.

In my opinion if it was to go forward with allowing hardware makers to get a crack at its software – it may want to try working with one company at a time. I’ve used Samsung as an example throughout this piece – why not get the iOS running on the Galaxy Note?

Sure I understand the negative ramifications from Apple’s perspective but the company is losing share left and right already to the Amazon Kindle Fire – eventually Cupertino could end up being in a situation where it is too late to change course. We saw that the last time Apple started to lose share to Windows and Intel – the question is whether the company has enough innovation up its sleeve to keep the cutthroat competition in the dust.

Disclosure: I own Apple shares

CES, Ultrabooks and Lowered Expectations

2012-01-08T20:40:43Z

It has been a few years since I have been to CES and I have to be honest, I have never seen the kind of lowered expectations for an event. There have been numerous stories from mainstream publications this past week telling us not to judge the future of the industry based on what the hot product at the show happens to be. For more see the end of this article.

While on the one hand this is good advice backed up by lots of flops like the Microsoft and HP tablet of a few years back that was supposed to be an iPad killer but was never released.

I’m wondering if it is just me who is skeptical about new technology in general. In other words CES or not you never really know if something is going to be the next big thing. Even when we are sure as an industry that a technology will take root, we have seen timing and other factors are more important than being an early player.

So just because 3D technology which was a hot trend at CES a while back is not mainstream it doesn’t mean it won’t be. Skype was way late to the VoIP game – MagicJack even later but both became successful examples of IP communications technology – a space left for dead by the majority of investors after the nuclear winter in telecom of late 2000.

This brings us to Ultrabooks – a topic I cannot be more delighted to discuss. Without a doubt this will be a major theme of this event and moreover I am writing this post on an ASUS Zenbook Ultrabook and love this device. How much? I am out here at CES this week and when I leave the room and don’t take it, I leave it in the safe.

The Asus is like a piece of jewelry – a fine watch as they say. In case you didn’t read my last post on the matter the keyboard is something I haven’t totally adjusted to – it lacks travel and forces you to hit it harder than normal to ensure all your letters appear on screen.

For a few years now we have heard the term consumerization of IT and to me this means bringing in really cool and trendy devices such as iPhones, Android smartphones and tablets into a company – and merging this with a wave of new software and applications designed to take these consumer tools and make them business tools.

While Ultrabooks are pretty much powerful laptops in sleek packaging – nothing new in terms of operating system or even software for that matter, they perform a slightly different function. They bring the power of desktop computing to tablet form factor. In other words these devices are the MacBook Airs of laptops. Having spent a fair amount of time in various Apple stores – my most memorable time was at the one on Greenwich Ave in Connecticut where a father gave his daughter a choice between the MacBook Air and the iPad.

I spent some time watching her go back and forth as she made the decision.

We all understand that there are big differences between these devices – one has hundreds of thousands of free apps which run on it from the app store – many of course have been written because the same tablet device doesn’t run Flash. The MacBook for its part is more powerful, has a bigger screen, etc.

But the point is the Ultraboook is the PC version of the MacBook Air meaning that if the MacBook Air is a serious competitor to the iPad then the Ultabook is the biggest threat to tablets in general.

Now the Asus I am using costs just a bit less than $1,500 and an Amazon Kindle Fire will set you back only $200. A big difference. Still there are worthy Ultrabooks on the market from the likes of Toshiba for $800. In fact the Toshiba is thinner than this Asus but the lack of bluetooth and less impressive screen resolution may be deal breakers for power users.

So to me this week at CES where a number of new Ultrabooks are expected is about not only innovation and design but competition.

I have spent my life in technology and have seen how competition has driven down prices incredibly – especially when Moore’s Law is thrown into the mix. In high school I wrote all the programs for TMC’s computers – they were all on a proprietary UNIX system but when it came time to migrate to a more powerful computer I hand-built a PC with an AMD processor running SCO UNIX – the price was much much lower and this new server was a monster in terms of disk space and processing power. The company which had sold us the proprietary UNIX system was named ZILOG and closed in the eighties at some point no doubt because proprietary has a tough time competing with open.

We are seeing the same thing happen in the Android ecosystem – it happened in the PC market, with laptops and numerous other spaces.

And it will happen to Ultrabooks. In a year a Zenbook equivalent to what I am using now will likely cost $899 or less.

So yes, trends in tech are tough to nail down – especially when it comes to timing. But the Ultrabook is evolutionary as much as it is revolutionary and as great as tablets are they really stink at doing things you need a PC for – they aren’t wonderful for content creation for example – switching windows on an iPad is still tedious as compared holding the Alt button and hitting Tab repeatedly.

And then there are the websites – how many times have I tried to complete an ecommerce transaction on a tablet from RIM or Apple only to find the formatting is not designed for a tablet and I have to wait to get to a PC to do it right.

The price discrepancy between a Kindle Fire and Ultrabook is massive a 4x differential or in my case 7.5x.

But we are at the beginning of a new subcategory of product and unless you believe the consumerizaion of IT is just a fallacy you better realize and quick that your executives will be asking about Ultrabooks soon. Moreover a gift to corporations may come in the form of more users buying their own Ultrabooks and bringing them to work – saving companies who allow foreign equipment into the mix a good amount of money.

So sure, lower expectations all you want. But from where I stand, Ultrabooks are a must-have at this price point – just wait until the competition heats up this week at CES.

For more see articles relating to products unveiled at CES and how they have failed:

The 'CES curse?' Gadget show has poor record, AP, Peter Svensson
CES not always the greatest guide for commercial success, CNET, Roger Cheng

Bluetooth Smart Ready Shows Potential

2011-12-19T17:51:59Z

Bluetooth to me is one of the most convenient technologies I use as it allows me to get rid of the cord from my mobile and desk phones. I am surprised actually that everyone doesn't use a stereo bluetooth headset - at gyms around the country it seems like one out of 10 music listeners have given up their typically white cords in favor of new technology.

Frankly I just don't get it but am hoping that the new bluetooth 4.0 standard which is more miserly with power will make a good technology even more useful. It is worth pointing out the SIG wants you to refer to it as Bluetooth Smart Ready.

In theory the power consumption is so low that you can get a year out of a device using a button size battery - now that's low-power.

As you might imagine, applications in home automation and the medical field are prime examples of where such a low-power wireless technology will shine.

Thanks to Kickstarter there may soon be an automotive app - one which syncs with your iPhone 4S which was the first phone to support bluetooth 4.0 BTW. The solution constantly updates your car's location via a small device which is connected to your automobile. It then allows you to find your vehicle when you need to - let's say after that trip to the mall around holiday time when your car is lost in a sea of steel and paint somewhere in a 100 acre lot.

But more interestingly this new bluetooth spec means there is some new competition in the M2M space and technologies like NFC and perhaps ZigBee may lose some marketshare as a result.

I am not holding my breath for the world to go bluetooth when it comes to stereo headphones but perhaps they will at least embrace it for a wealth of other activities which make their lives better.

Hat tip Richard Sprague who retweeted Scott Jenson

Google Pays Half Million Per Patent for Motorola Mobility

2011-08-16T11:58:14Z

Google just purchased patents as part the acquisition of Motorola Mobility – 24,500 of them to be exact. At a $12.5B valuation that puts the value per patent at $510,204 apiece. But the search giant also gets 19,000 employees on top of the 29,000 it already has.

The question is does Google want these employees or to manage a business which is so different from software and advertising that it makes your head spin. I spoke with Kris Kendrick of Sonus who used to be with Motorola and he sees this acquisition as Google picking up the hardware “wedge” into software.

But I just can’t see Google wanting this hardware business and if the company does want to enter this space, picking up Motorola seems odd as the company has had management issues for over a decade and although the company has always had great technology, they have never been able to execute properly. After all, when Apple collaborated with Motorola on a cell phone, it was a flop – it was so bad that Steve Jobs realized how dysfunctional cell phone makers were and subsequently embarked on his own phone design.

Yes, Motorola can boost Google TV but again, I don’t see it – does Google want to get into the low-margin hardware business? Especially after failing with the Nexus one – a phone of their own design – manufactured by HTC?

It seems far more likely that Google wants to open-source everything Motorola has and do it for the express purpose of having a platform across phones and televisions where it can show its ads. The best way to do this is to white-label everything Motorola makes and OEM it all to the tech ecosystem.

With all these new patents, the company has ample protection from Oracle, Apple and Microsoft so now the hard work begins of taking products which are generally sold to or via service providers and instead wholesaling them in the hopes of taking Android to the next level and moving upmarket with regards to hardware design.

There are many moving parts here and I am looking forward to seeing how Google procedes with this major purchase.

Sprint Telehealth and M2M Event 2011

2011-07-26T20:38:32Z

Last week I spent time at the Sprint Telehealth and M2M Event which they call Emerging Trends and Solutions in Telehealth, Remote Patient Monitoring and Wellness Forum. It was an intimate event but full of partners like Digi and many others who were thrilled to show off their solutions which work in-part with Sprint's networks. BTW - for those of you who go back to the UNIX days of dumb terminals - you may remember DIGI used to be a player in the space of allowing many terminals to attach to a PC-based UNIX system. Yes, we are talking pre-Linux here - in the late eighties/early nineties.

The mood was upbeat and positive, this part of Sprint's business is doing well and a wave of partners are enthusiastic about the future of telehealth, telemedicine and the machine-to-machine (m2m) markets.

It was exciting to see how technology is being adapted to solve real-world problems such as those in the medical space where remote monitoring and diagnostics can reduce costs while improving quality of life for the disabled, elderly and really anyone who takes advantage of the latest solutions which are continuing to be rolled out.

I took a good deal of video at the event which took place at the Sprint M2M Collaboration center in San Bruno, CA. Here they are for you viewing pleasure. I have embedded two of the videos and the rest are links which will open up when clicked.

Sprint M2M On-Body Monitoring Mood Widgets

Sprint M2M Home Health Monitoring

BlackBerry PlayBook First Thoughts

2011-05-19T15:15:55Z

In my review of the BlackBerry PlayBook I must say I am impressed with the device - it is small - not too heavy, feels good in your hands and runs Flash like a champ. The back of the device is rubberized which holds the promise of increased durability and a large degree of scratch-resistance. TMCnet's Stefanie Mosca has more thoughts on the device and as a BlackBerry user it was certainly more functional for her. She also thinks it is an ideal device for traveling which is tough to disagree with - it likely even fits in most purses. But if you don't have a BlackBerry smartphone you may be disappointed as the PlayBook doesn't have native Microsoft Outlook connectivity yet. A BlackBerry smartphone lets you not only tether it to this tablet to gain access to your contacts and email but you can utilize the 3G connection as well. This is important as the PlayBook currently lacks connectivity to cellular carriers.

During my testing I think the nearby iPhone and iPad actually got jealous as I went through a number of TMC videos on the screen and enjoyed them in native Flash format. Until HTML5 becomes common on websites, I find the support of this format to be crucial for all computing devices.

The tablet is similar to an iPad in many ways such as allowing you to pinch and zoom with two fingers. Due to its smaller size, typing is quite comfortable in landscape mode while a larger tablet requires single finger typing - unless you rest the device on your lap or a table.

The sound the PlayBook makes when typing is satisfying and minimal haptic feedback makes the onscreen keyboard feel real. And it actually has a Web browser which works very well - especially when you consider how poorly many other BlackBerry devices render Web pages. It may be a tad slower at rendering pages than an iPad 2 but it certainly isn't a terrible delay.

Multitasking doesn't trip it up either - you can be listening to Slacker Radio while viewing Flash videos and both music sources can be heard simultaneously. You can also upgrade the OS via WiFi which is a breakthrough compared to having to connect to a PC and the process took me about 15 minutes to complete.

The swiping gestures allow you access to everything the PlayBook has to offer. Just swipe from the very bottom and very top to access virtually everything you need such as settings and options. In fact the swipe replaces the home button which doesn't exist.

So is it as good as an iPad? In some ways yes as it is more portable and allows you to actually see all websites - not just ones without Flash. I also found it to be a great size for viewing video. Where if falls down is in polish - the software while awesome is not quite as refined in terms of usability as an iPad or iPod. Moreover, there are far fewer apps available for this device.

This gets us to the controversial question of device size - in my opinion the PlayBook is small enough to carry very comfortably and still it is large enough to read web pages and books all day long. It does generate a fair bit of heat - more than either iPad 1 or 2 but nothing like a laptop. In terms of screen real estate you're talking about 2.5-3 smartphones in total.

Obviously being able to view all websites makes the PlayBook a far better purchase decision than an iPad or iPod but the flipside to this benefit is the massive number of apps in the Apple App Store vs. the BlackBerry App World. Moreover, in the case of the iPad the larger screen will likely be seen as better by most users. If you don't have a BlackBerry smartphone on and near you, Outlook email access is not currently possible - except via OWA and perhaps third-party apps.

If you are BlackBerry smartphone user and the limitations above don't put you off - definitely consider this tablet. For non-BlackBerry users - a software update with Outlook compatibility will make this device a solid choice - but you may want to hold off till then.

TMC Launches New Logo for Online Communities or OCs

2011-03-18T20:43:10Z

Many of you know TMC has been building viral, content-generated online communities for over a decade and in response to all the questions we have received over the years about community building, we have even launched an informative, objective and educational webinar centered on community building for companies in every industry whether they be in the B2B or B2C space.

Today we unveiled a new logo for these communities - and I wanted my readers to be the first to see it. I really hope you like it... Especially our new tagline, "Connect in the cloud." Also - notice how the cloud is a puzzle - which is supposed to symbolize "connecting."

Electronic Warfare is the Future. Are You Ready?

2011-02-14T15:16:46Z

Stuxnet is Victory at Entebbe 2.0

The Stuxnet worm alleged to be the work of Israel and the US was designed to target and disable Iranian centrifuges by increasing their speeds to dangerous levels while reporting to operators that all was well. The latest report from the New York Times shows this worm has also hit five industrial sites in the land of Ahmadinejad.

It’s no secret most of the world does not want Iran to get nuclear weapons and the best weapon being used to deter the country’s nuclear program was sanctions and if they are working it would be tough to know it as the country are prospering greatly as the price of oil is much higher than what Iran has budgeted.

So electronic warfare is a nice and neat way to disable a portion of the country’s operations without the need to go to war, risk lives, etc.

Because of the nature of this attack some predict the Iranian nuclear program has been set back by two years, making this attack historic in its ingenuity. It is really Victory at Entebbe 2.0. As you may recall, Operation Entebbe was a daring hostage rescue mission pulled off by the Israel Defense Forces in 1976.

Cyberattacks are not new by any means but the level of sophistication and damage created by this attack make it something bad guys everywhere will be trying to emulate. And this means as we interconnect more systems from smart grids to smart homes… From automobiles to transit systems and full cities, we need to understand the stakes are higher than ever. Rogue countries and terrorist organizations have a new standard to try to beat and it is not out of the question to see countries engaging in more frequent cyberwars in the future. This could be in conjunction with conventional wars like when Russia and Georgia had their recent conflict or full out cyberwars like Stuxnet or when Russia targeted Estonian web servers with DDoS attacks.

For the tech industry this means massive new budgets will be allocated to not only defending against such attacks but developing ingenious new ways of disabling enemies.

And while cyberwar sounds less ominous than having bombs dropped on your head, there is no telling what sorts of damage citizens of the future will be facing if cyberterrorism and cyberwar escalates.

Austin, Texas Selected For ITEXPO West 2011

2011-01-27T23:13:32Z

I have some very exciting news to share regarding ITEXPO. I alluded to it a few weeks back and now it’s here. ITEXPO West 2011 will be moving to the Austin Convention Center in Austin Texas, on September 13-15, 2011. ITEXPO was launched in San Diego, CA at the Hotel Del Coronado and moved to Long Beach and eventually Los Angeles. This move reflects the requests of many exhibitors and attendees.

One exciting benefit of the move for the communications and technology community is free WiFi in the convention center. The convention center is also located 15 minutes from the airport and is within walking distance of 6,000 downtown hotel rooms. Moreover, many refer to the city as the live music capital of the world.

It should come as no surprise that with less regulation, fees and taxes, the business-friendly Lone Star State is doing far better than California in terms of business growth and unemployment rates and although I look forward to bringing more events to California in the future, it is worth noting that show organizers want to host conferences in cities and states where the politicians create the most favorable business climate.

Moreover, Austin is surrounded by technology companies and the communications corridor of Dallas/Richardson is within driving distance. The response so far from those in the know has been very positive and we look forward to seeing you there and discussing the move further next week, Feb 2-4, 2011 in Miami at ITEXPO East 2011 and as soon as the show is over, expect the ITEXPO site referring to Austin to be up and running.

Getting to Know ITEXPO Participants

2011-01-25T01:33:48Z

AT TMC, we painstakingly attempt to ensure you know as much about the participating companies at our events as possible before the conference so you can get a sense of who is there, where there expertise lies and if they may have something of value to offer you as you look to make purchasing decisions in the world of technology and communications. As a result we survey ITEXPO speakers and exhibitors before the event and ask questions which can help you connect with thought leaders you believe might be of assistance at the event.

Not everyone answers but we do send the questions to hundreds of companies and they seem to trickle in each day. Here is the list of people and companies who responded to my questions and links to their answers. I truly hope you find it useful.

Oh and one note you should know... Many of these interviews are with speakers and/or exhibitors from the 13 collated events with ITEXPO such as Smart Grid Summit, Etc.

NAME	COMPANY
Mike Ross	4PSA
SANDRA XIMENA DIAZ HOYOS	SMART NETWORK SOLUTIONS
Mark Armentrout	Texas Institute
Alon Cohen	Phone.com
Jim Machi	Dialogic
Nathan McNeill	Bomgar
Mike Coffee	Commetrex
Jonathan Fuld	SIP Print
Alex Ferdman	Telinta
Ian Colville	Aculab
Christine Holley	ININ
Dina Vance	Ulysses
Matt Larsen	WISPA
Shawn Tsetsilas	Cellular Specialties
Ryan Lynn	Qwest Communications
Carl KS Teo	Ecocarrier Inc.
Bill Prout	Astaro
Tim Titus	PathSolutions
Aidan Connolly	Idiro
Andy Huckridge	VSS Monitoring, Inc.
Mark Ricca	IntelliCom Analytics
Michael Oeth	Junction Networks, Inc.
Michael Wheeler	NTT America
Tim Whittington	Aastra USA
Toby Holmes	WORKTANK
Doug Mohney	HD Voice News
Greg Maudsley	Juniper Networks
Steve Johnson	Ingate