Monthly Archive for September, 2011

Future TV’s made by Apple

Published on September 18, 2011 in Advertising, Apple, Cloud, Google, Microsoft, Online Ads, PlayStation, Sony, Technology and Xbox. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

Apple is going to release the most amazing device that is going to be another platform for everyone to listen to music, a place for you to use apps and play video games, and a place for you to watch movies and any other channel on TV. This device is of course going to be tied to their online store for easy purchasing of all those soft items.

This device is going to be an LED TV. It’s going to be revolutionary in scope. You can play video games using a iPhone or iTouch as a remote control and similar to function as a Wii remote .

Apple has the operating system already. They have expertise in manufacturing computer devices, video boards, and computer monitors. In fact, apple sells full computers that basically only look like monitors or in some respects a TV. What’s the difference between a monitor and a TV? A TV has a tuner. So Apple will put in a HD digital tuner; increasing the cost very little.

The television industry… pretty much undermines innovation in the sector,” Jobs said at the All Things Digital Conference in July 2010. “The only way this is going to change is if you start from scratch, tear up the box, redesign, and get it to the consumer in a way that they want to buy it.”

Innovation in televisions will come in the form of technology convergence by really making the TV the entertainment hub. It has to be all things to all people. It has to be able to not only connect to the Internet and watch channels similar to the Roku device, but it should have the ability to install apps like an iPhone or Android.  It will also allow you to connect a laptop or tablet so that the TV becomes an extension of the device, in an easy and fashionable way.

So, why doesn’t the Xbox or Sony PlayStation allow channels and apps to be installed easily? I would say bad vision which leads to poor business decisions. There are limited apps on the PlayStation and Xbox in their online stores; otherwise apps are installed with an OS update. The game console companies haven’t learned their lesson.  But I’m happy because now we will see some serious innovation and competition in this space. However, Apple does not have to compete directly with Sony PlayStation and Microsoft Xbox since these devices have been focused as a gamer device with the aspirations of being something more someday. Apple’s LED TV will be something more with the added benefit of also being a gaming platform.  We learn again from Apple that making a platform for developers to create apps and make money will help increase sales.

Lets also point out that the average American watches 5 hours of TV a day and plays on the Internet a couple hours a day.  If Apple makes the TV the entertainment hub to combine these activities, then they have a winning combination.

Now lets review what’s happening in the cable and TV industry. We see the same thing year after year. I have a cable bill for over $100/month, I have Netflix for $16/month, I have an internet bill for $40, I have a video game console (where Xbox customers also have to pay for their yearly membership). How do you decrease costs?  Today, you can purchase a Roku device; for which I have high hopes. Roku has a great vision with games and channels on their device. And it’s great for those who want to cut the cord and not have Cable or Satellite TV. But this company lacks the developer support that apple already has with the iOS. Apple should buy Roku and integrate their technology and vision into the existing Apple TV product.  Otherwise it’s an acquisition target for another competitor.  Apple is in the position to allow any developer to create channel apps and also sell or rent any content by streaming the video; similar to Netflix or Amazon Video services. There’s still the issue with limited original content and sports channels.  The new model is cheaper services, paying for only the content/channels you want to watch and better integrated devices.

There has been some innovation from traditional TV manufacturers. 3D and widgets have been introduced but they haven’t been very popular. Then there’s the incremental improvement in TV size and image quality. I see incremental improvements without much vision in the form of wireless connectivity and apps from some vendors. HP tried this with yahoo widgets without much success. Google is trying to sell a Sony Google TV device; which is another console to buy. Google has vision but doesn’t have the right expertise in manufacturing of monitors. But the vision is there. Google’s purchase of Motorola Mobility demonstrates that Google is interested in the TV hardware devices Motorola manufactures, but again it’s just another brick to plug into the TV. This might work and allow Google to integrate the Android OS which is a similar platform as the future Apple TV. Or at least I hope it does.

Apple also thinks it can do 3D better.  In 2010, Apple won a patent for a revolutionary new 3D screen system that would not require glasses and could be viewed by multiple people at the same time. The patent went so far as to slam current 3D systems, noting that most people dislike goggles and dismissing current non-glasses systems as “essentially unworkable for projecting a 3D image….”

Why else would Apple want to sell TV’s since it’s something most people already have and it’s a device most people want to own for at least 10 years? Well, because it’s another device to make money selling apps, music and of course commercials or ads.

Apple stands to make huge revenue selling more apps and music however Ad revenue is another billion plus dollar revenue stream for Apple. And ads can be better, if that were even possible.  If Apple knows who you are based on your account and from other social media information AND they know what kind of music and television you watch, then they can push personalized ads and commercials. Commercials for the kids, parents or whoever else is using the TV. This is an incredible platform for not only innovating and changing industries but making huge money. Also, as far as I can tell, Google has been stealing Apple’s interfaces and functionality in the form of Andriod smartphones and Android tablets. Apple TV and Apple iAd platform will finally allow Apple to rip off Google’s advertising functionality.

So let’s sum up what will happen. A new Apple LED  TV with the iOS operating system will let people use apps purchased from the Apple store, music and video that streams from Apple’s cloud service (so you don’t have to have a large hard drive anymore).  An Apple LED TV will full yintegrate one single piece of hardware without additional unnecessary cords to external gaming or cable TV consoles. And Apple iAds platform will allow anyone to finally publish advertisements for the television, apps, and anywhere else Apple products take us.

Cloud Storage needs

Published on September 13, 2011 in Cloud, Dropbox, EMC, entrepreneur, Google, Microsoft, SharePoint, Storage and Virtualization. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , .

Did you know that your computer needs are exactly like everyone else’s? You want unlimited storage that is available, backed up continuously for restore and accessible anywhere and from any device. So, where do I get this? Well, you will have to understand that is where we are headed but there are some hurdles to get there.

First there’s a company that’s afraid to provide this commodity service to it’s customers because they WILL be called a monopoly again. Not only that, they don’t quite realize they are a cloud services company.  And we have our traditional enterprise software companies who don’t realize they are in the “storage” business, instead they define themselves in a smaller category of “enterprise backup and restore”.  But there are some who have played in this space without real commitment like EMC, who like to focus their energy on the more lucrative enterprise market.

Which means smaller companies like Dropbox, Box.net, Sugar Sync, Bitcasa, Spot Documents and SpiderOak are providing “cloud storage” to millions of regular users. I’ve read the number of users these companies are servicing have approached 25 million users.

An amazing thing is happening. There is a convergence of events driving the development of new online storage companies.  These events include the availability of low cost enterprise storage, new cloud infrastructure companies (providing storage) are in business, much more data is being created by people on multiple devices, which is enabling many of these cloud storage organizations to achieve major economies of scale and greater control of growing data volumes, not to mention PC hard drives are being made with low quality standards which drive more customers to cloud based storage. New virtualization technologies, both proprietary and open source, are also deeply involved helping drive these new service and businesses.

So now we see entrepreneurs creating companies that act as a “middle man” by building an interface to a cloud infrastructure and selling the services, supporting users and building applications to connect to the cloud storage solution. From what I can tell, Amazon is the driving factor here. And Amazon is doing an amazing job. Their storage services are priced low, provide high levels of availability, allow for a great management interface, API’s and are innovating like no one else. Their stock price is rising for a reason and it’s justified. Amazon recently introduced Cloud Drive, an online file storage service where everyone gets 5 GB of free storage space to store all kinds of files in the cloud. You can purchase additional storage space at the cost of $1 per GB. However, if you are to upload non-music files to Cloud Drive – like your documents, pictures, DRM protected music, or even complete file folders – you’ll have to use your web browser. That’s obviously not a very convenient option especially when you wish to upload multiple files from various desktop folders. There’s a free utility called Gladinet Starter that will map your Cloud Drive account as a local drive so you can access your online files and folders from within Windows Explorer itself. But Amazon is still not a complete solution for all platforms. They want to be a player but like EMC they want to continue selling their existing products to the other players.

EMC could have provided these services and they are especially at fault since they are in the “storage business”. They own Mozy that does online backup and restore. And this is a great service but so limited at this point. You can connect to the  Mozy over the web and “restore” the document. But that’s the issue. Stop calling it restore. They own all the pieces such as enterprise disks, security and virtualization in the form of VMWare products. They need to take a deep hard look at these small contenders and also Amazon and compete with them. My guess is that Amazon is using Tier 1 and Tier 2 storage which includes EMC products and they can’t get in the business of competing with their customers so then they just sell the hard drives and back-end services. I’m not sure I agree with this as a long term approach but in the short term they have a responsibility to their stockholders. Those are the business choices companies make. And that’s why sometimes they go out of business when the market changes.

Microsoft is also guilty in that they could have provided these services a while back. Now as far as Microsoft is concerned, they could also buy storage solutions from an enterprise storage vendor, build a virtual storage infrastructure and leverage their virtualization technology for most of these core services, if they wanted. They have skydrive, not to be confused by live drive, and Microsoft doesn’t do much more than provide a web interface. Their customers have to go through the trouble of installing windows live essentials and their live mesh software that syncs photos and documents. How about add this to their OS as a native feature? Oh, monopoly…forgot.  This is the same company that sold a product called SharePoint Portal server 2001 that extended windows by allowing a user to map a drive or create a drive letter to connect to SharePoint. Which means they had a product that allows users to seamlessly store documents on a company’s web storage  server(in the company “cloud”). Microsoft has the vision and capability to extend their SkyDrive functionality by building the services, the web interface and the mobile apps for iPhone and Android if they wanted. We could have had a folder like drop box creates that connects directly to the cloud or even a “My Cloud Documents”; or even a disk drive to hide the fact that the data wasn’t on the computer. They are seriously missing this. I worry that Microsoft’s decline will come within the next 5 years and it will be swift and painful.

Google wants to build their Chrome PC where everything is in the cloud. So, your storage is in Google docs, your applications are on Google or at some other online company and you no longer need anything on your PC other than a Google Chrome web browser. It’s an interesting idea but a reach.

For now I just want unlimited storage that is available, secure, backed up continuously for restore and accessible anywhere and from any device.  Oh, did I mention I wanted this to be so simple to use that it just works and the cloud drive/folder shows up on my computer/device natively like any other folder or disk drive.

How do you kill Microsoft?

Published on September 3, 2011 in Apple, Google, iPhone, Microsoft, Technology and user experience. 0 Comments

How do you kill Microsoft? Improve the end user experience. Microsoft has bright engineers and business people. They have been extremely good at consistently making satisfactory products and in some cases stellar products for their time (and then over charging companies.) Yes, competition has been stifled which has resulted in innovation being hampered in some areas. But it has also allowed for companies to standardize and work on improving their own end user experience. Administrators can integrate technologies and come up with some amazing solutions which have resulted in allowing these corporations to bring more and better services to its customers. It has allowed all companies who have adopted these technologies and practices to remain competitive and increase the barriers to entry in their respective markets. Microsoft has been great at slowly improving the user experience but their focus has been on the corporate technology manager and administrator.  But I want more and better. And better means they need to regain their original frame of mind where they knew it was about making the user experience, regardless of who that user is, amazing. Make the buying experience better for the consumer and CIO. Make the implementation and administration experience better for the technology manager and administrator. Make the development experience better for the developer. Make the technology available and free for the student, open source engineer and business start-up with a special limited license. Make the product fun, fast and error free for the user.

Steve Ballmer once said at a conference to employees that Microsoft technologies have to be like toasters where they just work and it’s easy enough for his mother to use it. Ok, but make the products not only as stable as a toaster but so great I want to butter my bread all the time.

What Apple and Google has demonstrated to the world was that it can be done better. And that improving the user experience regardless of their technical skill is the key to killing any reigning champ.  I once remember a Lotus Notes developer telling me that the only reason everyone was adopting Microsoft Exchange Server was that it was so colorful and easy to use. Regardless of the feature strengths the product had over the competition, she was right. The product was designed for an amazing user experience over any other product on the market.

Here’s another story… A month after the Apple iPhone was released, I was in Redmond having a conversation with a number of the Exchange and Windows mobile product developers and managers. I spoke to one of the developers who said he quit the mobile team out of frustration and moved into the Exchange team. He said not only was he bored with the mobile development work he was doing but frustrated that there was no drive to change the UI or user experience within the team. And he wanted to join a winning team. A group formed around us listening to our conversation. I explained that I loved the iPhone and was trying to get the product adopted in my company as the standard mobile phone for communication and collaboration. The Microsoft employees, ever faithful and oblivious, told me the iPhone would never be widely adopted by corporations given security concerns. I disagreed. The security issues can be resolved and Apple also licenses the Microsoft ActiveSync technology, but the user experience is so far superior that end users will mobilize and bring this technology into the company, just as customers had done in Microsoft’s early history.

To command line, or not command line, that is the question: Whether it be nobler in the GUI…Well, give them both is obviously the answer but give them BETTER is the key.