Tips For Technological Living: Own Tech, Don’t Let it Own You

[dc]A[/dc]s technology invades our lives and covers every facet of working, playing, learning and more, we as a culture will need to adjust and find balance so as to not get so lost in the digital world that we lose ourselves. We hear frequently about parents desiring to get their kids to shut off the video-game systems and go outside and play. Go out in public to restaurants, coffee shops and malls, and you see people fixated on their screens.

There is nothing wrong with embracing technological advances, however, I think we need to be aware of something important as a digital society. I fear that we may slowly lose the ability to be fully present in a moment or situation.

I noticed this about myself a few years ago while I was on my computer checking e-mail and responding to “important” work stuff. As I was sitting there fully immersed in my screen, one of my daughters was trying to get my attention. I’m not sure how long it took, but I think she had to say, “Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!” about four or five times. I recognized that it should not take me that long to respond, and, more importantly, my eyes were open to the reality that often I was not fully present in many important situations. We are allowing digital distractions to interfere with important moments.

Since then, I have worked to retrain myself to be more fully present when engaging in conversations with my family, friends and colleagues. And I’m resisting the urge to constantly look at my phone to see if I have new e-mail, check Twitter or Facebook or do something that would send a signal to the person across from me that they don’t matter as much as something on my digital device.

Perhaps this is not a problem everyone struggles with, but I am noticing it more and more with young people. I grew up with technology and have little or no recollection of life without a game system or personal computer. I am in my mid-30s and the digital devices I grew up with are light-years different from the ones my kids are growing up with, but the point remains that growing up digital leads to some of the tendencies I am noticing. There’s a lack of ability to be fully present.

I especially notice this problem being rampant where I live and work in Silicon Valley. Just the other day I was observing at a restaurant in Palo Alto, Calif., that’s popular for many business-lunch meetings that most, if not all, of those engaging with other humans were also equally engaged in their digital devices. I watched three different tables and in a time period of 15 minutes, every person at every one of those tables averaged checking their smart phones and responding to something at least three times.

This is clearly just becoming something that is socially acceptable. In a meeting or conversation, it’s now O.K. to turn our attention and be as equally engaged with a smart phone as we are with the person across from us. In fact it is not just O.K. it is normal and in some places expected. We are, after all, a multitasking generation.

In fact, an interesting thread comes up in some of our firm’s consumer interviews that are focused around computing. Very often, the desire to multitask and be engaged with multiple things at one time is a common one when it comes to computing products.

We are becoming not just comfortable with multitasking but we are also becoming experts at it. Multitasking extends from multiple tasks on a single screen to multiple tasks divided to multiple screens. More common in many households in developed countries is the use of a second screen while watching TV. Whether it is a tablet, smart phone or notebook, we are now engaging with multiple tasks on multiple screens, often at the same time. It is not possible for our attention to be divided across multiple tasks and multiple screens–at the same time. I’m guessing that the prior generation may have considered this too much to handle. We are becoming experts in multitasking, but I think it’s time we learn again how to single-task in certain situations and contexts, namely during engagements with human beings.

I am working to do this and I hope to bring my kids up with a heightened awareness of how and when it is important to exercise single-tasking — the importance of being present and engaged in a moment. Relationally, this is a key skill I’d love to see reacquired by the digital generation.

It will not be easy. Screen media competes for our attention and will continue to do so many times during our days. I’d love to see companies like Apple, Microsoft and Google even try to help turn this trend around — perhaps by offering technology like Apple’s Do Not Disturb feature to automatically kick in when I am in a meeting or when I get home.

There is a time and place for technology, but there is also a time and place to be present in the real world. If we can’t recapture the ability to be present, we may find that digital distractions cause life to pass us by.

The Opinion Cast: PCs are losing, Android is Winning?

Sorry for the long delay in our opinion cast. We are implementing a new model that we believe will make it even better. We have sought professional help and brought on a moderator / host Shawn King to produce and moderate our podcast efforts.

In this Opinion Cast we discuss the iPad Mini and the potential impact it could have on the PC industry. Windows 8 is upon us and we discuss Microsoft’s Surface and share some insights on how to think about it and products like it. Lastly, we take a deeper look at John Kirk’s series on Android winning the battles but losing the war.

You can also subscribe to our opinion cast in iTunes here.

Why Android Is Winning The Battles But Google Is Losing The War: Part 5

A Pyrrhic victory (/ˈpɪrɪk/) is a victory with such a devastating cost that it carries the implication that another such victory will ultimately lead to defeat. The phrase “Pyrrhic Victory” is named after King Pyrrhus of Epirus, whose army suffered irreplaceable casualties in defeating the Romans at Heraclea in 280 BC and Asculum in 279 BC during the Pyrrhic War. Someone who wins a Pyrrhic victory has been victorious in some way; however, the heavy toll negates any sense of achievement or profit. The term “Pyrrhic victory” is used as an analogy in fields such as business, politics, and sports to describe struggles that end up ruining the victor. ~ via Wikipedia

Series Schedule:

  • Mon: The Battle for the PC
  • Tue: The Battle for Mobile Phones Won
  • Wed: The War for Mobile Phones Lost
  • Thu: The Battle for Tablets
  • Fri: Picking Your Battles Is As Important as Winning Them
  • 5) Picking Your Battles Is As Important as Winning Them

    Recap

    “If we are victorious in one more (such) battle…we shall be utterly ruined.” ~ Pyrrhus

    Google, inarguably, won the war for the desktop. Their search strategy was brilliant, brilliantly executed and brilliantly successful. But they knew that mobile was the future and they knew that they needed to find a way to extend their business model to embrace mobile or they would eventually be isolated on the desktop with ever decreasing customers and ever decreasing revenues.

    Android was Google’s answer to how to monetize mobile. It would serve two purposes. It would transfer Google’s successful desktop search paradigm to mobile devices and it would disrupt the incumbent mobile operators.

    DISRUPTION

    In the latter, Android was entirely successful. The one-two punch of Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android demolished the then crown princes of mobile computing. Palm is gone. RIM is on its last legs. Nokia is no more than a vassal of Microsoft. Windows Mobile was utterly destroyed, its replacement, Windows Phone 7, has come and gone, and Microsoft is now rebooting the franchise for a third time with Windows Phone 8. Seldom, if ever, has an industry been turned on its head quite so thoroughly and quite so fast.

    PROFITS

    However, with regard to transferring Google’s desktop search model to mobile, Android has utterly failed. Google search on the desktop is one of the most profitable businesses in the world. Android on mobile is not only virtually profitless but, if your subtract the extraordinary expenditures involved in creating and supporting it, it is almost certainly a net loss for Google.

    SEARCH, APPS AND PLATFORM

    There are at least three reasons why Android is failing to serve Google’s purposes: search, apps, and platform.

    When Google created Android, they didn’t know, and probably couldn’t have known, how ineffective search would be on mobile devices. For a variety of reasons – but mostly due to the small screen size – search simply does not work on mobile devices the way it does on desktop devices.

    The popularity – and the peril – of apps was probably another unforeseeable development. In 2006, and long afterwards one could have, and many did, make the argument that web apps were the future. It just didn’t work out that way. Apps have proven to be far more successful than anyone could have predicted. And apps are a direct threat to Google’s search model since they can’t be “crawled” by Google’s search engines and since they entirely bypass Google’s advertising business model.

    Yes, search and apps were threats that Google may not have been able to previse, but their real failure was a failure to understand what platform was all about. To be fair, most industry analysts and pundits still, to this day, seem blinded as to what truly makes a platform successful.

    Units and Users vs. Dollars and Developers

    When it comes to platform everyone is focused on units and users. What they should be focused on is dollars and developers.

    A consumer who is willing to spend $100 is 100 times more important to developers, retailers, content providers and advertisers than is a consumer who is only willing to spend $1. More importantly, a consumer who is willing to spend $1 is infinitely more valuable than the consumer who spends nothing. Unit sales and users are important to hardware manufacturers like Samsung and Apple because hardware manufacturers get paid up front when the purchase of the hardware is made. But so far as a platform goes, the consumer who consumes nothing is a non-entity – they might as well not exist.

    All that market share that Android has? Toss it out. Start counting again and this time, instead of counting units and users, count the dollars that those users spend. If you do that, suddenly all of Android’s seeming paradoxes quickly dissipate.

    — Users who don’t spend money don’t attract developers, retailers, content providers or advertisers.

    — Users who don’t buy into the platform have no loyalty to the platform. They’re not customers for life. They’re customers until they get their next mobile device.

    — Users who don’t spend money have no network effect. Non-using users are not a boon to a network, they’re the bane of a network.

    Why Don’t Android Users Spend More Money?

    This all begs the question: “Why don’t Android users spend more money?” I know this is going to be dismaying to read, but I simply don’t know.

    I find all the current theories unsatisfying. Many of them are undoubtedly true. And some of them explain some of why Android owners spend less. But none of them – even in concert – fully explain to my satisfaction why Android users spend so very much less.

    I think that I could make a pretty good case that Google’s inattentiveness to their platform is the biggest culprit. And even Google seems to be waking up to this fact. Last month they initiated new guidelines for creating tablet optimized apps. Yesterday they modified their legal agreement with developers working on Android apps to specifically prohibit them from any action that could contribute to further fragmentation of the mobile platform.

    Will this be enough to increase user spending and purchasing? Who knows. For now we simply have to live with the fact that Android owners do not spend money and the consequences of that fact. The rationale for why it is so will have to wait upon further analysis.

    The Trojan Horse

    As I discussed, above, Android was terribly disrupting to the mobile device industry. Industry stalwarts such as Palm, RIM, Nokia and Microsoft Windows are either gone or are on the ropes. But Android may have been disruptive to at least one other company too – Google.

    There’s no evidence that Android is contributing to Google’s success. On the contrary, Android appears to be cannibalizing Google’s profitable businesses without generating any profits of its own. Android thoroughly destroyed the business models of the previous mobile moguls but it did not stop there. Android has now turned on its creator and it is destroying the value in Google’s advertising business, virtually eating the company up from the inside out.

    Picking Your Battles Is As Important as Winning Them

    The story of Android is still being written but the story being told by most pundits and industry observers is very different from the one that is actually occurring. Android has won the battle for market share but it is a Pyrrhic victory because it is coming at the expense of Google’s current profits and future prospects.

    Like Pyrrhus of old, Google, needs to learn that winning isn’t everything. Picking your battles is as important as winning them because each battle has a cost and some victories come at too high a price. In spite of its perceived success, Android is not serving Google’s interests. Its march needs to be altered else its victories will ultimately prove ruinous to the victor.

    PCs Gone Wild

    One of the most exciting things happening in the industry right now is the diverse innovation coming from Windows PC OEMs, who are making every type of form factor imaginable. Looking specifically at the traditional PC industry and traditional PC OEMs, I have never seen such a wide array of innovative products flood the market place and more are coming.

    All of this is being driven by Windows 8 and Microsoft’s bold approach to build an OS that can support such a diverse range of hardware. I have been using many of these devices and I have some observations.

    The first thing that strikes me is how different of an experience one can have with the same Windows 8 OS but with different hardware. Back in the old days, you could select a Windows laptop and expect basically the same experience across the board. Those days are gone, for now at least.

    Some form factors perform better as a traditional notebook. Others perform better as a tablet. The touch and trackpad experience varies from device to device. The performance of certain devices is drastically different. Some have drastically better battery life than others. The key point I am making, and the observation that really struck me, is that the device landscape for Windows 8 has become one of trade-offs. To maintain the level of form factor innovation we are seeing around Windows 8, OEM and ODMs will be making key decisions of which trade-offs to make in order to bring certain devices to market with certain features at certain price points.

    There has never been an environment like this before and my fear is that it is extremely confusing for interested buyers. Just as the OEMs and ODMs will need to make specific trade-offs, so will certain consumers need to be aware and comfortable with those trade-offs. Although trade-offs and compromises have always been apart of the PC shopping experience, it is severely exasperated to an entirely new level.

    Consumers shopping for PCs will be forced to examine the features and functions they value (and at what price) more than ever before. I am intrigued by the kind of impact this internal reflection could cause in the marketplace. The reality is that there are a massive amount of PCs in the market that are 4 years old or older. I’ve come across a range of data on this and from all what I have seen, it appears a conservative number is in the 100 to 120 million range. If we are starting with that number as a base then we would initially think that many consumers are in the market for an upgrade, and in fact they are. However, the hardware diversity and bold transition of Windows 8 may have adverse effects as consumers truly begin shopping with a more refined set of needs, wants, and desires, than ever before.

    Interestingly, I came across a story at USA Today which highlighted a survey from a Windows security software company called Avast. In this survey Avast gauged the awareness and likelihood of those in the market to upgrade to Windows 8. Of the 135,329 Windows users who responded to the survey, 33% indicated that they were probably not going to upgrade to Windows 8 in the immediate future and 41% said they were definitely not going to upgrade to Windows 8 in the immediate future. Now the nugget of data that came out of this quantitative survey that got a lot of press yesterday was this: Of those 135,329 Windows users who indicated they were in the market for a new PC, 42% said they were going to switch to an Apple product.

    Now many may say, that is one survey and often we have to take data like this with a grain of salt as Ed Bott did in his breakdown of that poll. But I have seen data from a number of other research companies and vendors that all back up this concern and relative uncertainty. However, a key point remains. A large section of the market is hesitant, and a large section of the market is looking at all their options, even if it means switching platforms. Doesn’t necessarily mean they will switch, but they are considering all their options–that is a key point.

    The personal computing landscape has changed drastically in the last 3-4 years in that those who bought PCs in that time frame, who are now in the market for a new one, have a much more complex landscape than ever before. The competition for those in the market for upgrades will be fierce and more importantly consumers will be more savvy to their own personal preferences with these devices.

    There are a number of scenarios I can see playing out from optimistic to catastrophic for the PC industry and I will look at each briefly.

    Tablets and Premium PCs

    If you read my column where I shared some high level thoughts on the Surface then you understand my view that the product is not the best tablet nor is it the best notebook. Because I feel the pure tablet form factor perfectly serves the mass market needs, my gut is that consumers will shop for a no compromise tablet. However, we know that the traditional PC still plays a role. So I can see a scenario where consumers buy the best tablet and the best notebook, thus truly giving them the best of both worlds. This doesn’t necessarily mean they buy them in the same year but the point remains that I see a scenario where it could play out this way.

    If this happens, and consumers take this road in large numbers, it is very good for many players in the PC ecosystem. An interesting thought on this scenario, is that generally speaking a well made premium PC will have a longer life cycle, thus extending the refresh rate perhaps even longer than it is today for traditional PCs.

    Tablets and Low Cost PCs

    The other scenario I can see happening and one that may be a bit more troubling for certain companies, is one where consumers buy a no compromise tablet and a very low cost PC. If you buy my logic that the traditional PC form factor over serves the needs for a large section of the mass market, then a key question remains. If consumers, as they reflect and become in line with their true PC usage, realize that the tablet can do upwards of 80% of what they primarily do on a daily basis, then why would they spend lots of money on a product that will not get used every day, week, etc. If the tablet becomes the personal computer and the traditional PC just sits in the other room and is only used for some tasks, then in my opinion the traditional PC loses its perceived value in the eyes of consumers.

    In either scenario, the life cycle of the PC is extended and the refresh rate the industry used to enjoy with PCs will most likely shift to tablets. Lower cost PCs may need to be refreshed more often but in this scenario the profit opportunities are not in PCs they are in tablets.

    This scenario is one that not every OEM today is poised to compete in and could be challenging for some. The reality is the industry has changed dramatically. Consumers have become way more in tune with what they want and why they want it. That shift will have profound impacts on the types of products we see and who the winners and losers in the market may be in the future.

    The PCs gone wild trend of form factor innovation is not just necessary it is a necessity if companies are going to stay in the game, compete, and have sustainable business going forward. I’m excited about the innovation in PC hardware we are seeing today and I am even more excited for what is around the corner.

    Of Tablets, Phones, and Apps

    iOS 6 and Android logos (Apple/Google)This began life as a reply to a comment on Part 4 of John Kirk’s “Why Android Is Winning the Battles, But Google Is Losing the War,” but quickly got out of hand.

    John’s post sparked a discussion of Apple’s and Google’s different approaches to developing apps for tablets vs. handsets. Commenter rj said that Apple’s approach is to favor development of “Universal” apps that will run on either the iPad or iPhone. This is correct, but it rather misunderstands what a Universal app is. If implemented following Apple’s user interface guidance, a Universal app will effectively create two different versions in a single package.

    The Android guidelines focus heavily on scaling and are marked by a belief that, at worst, developers need make only modest adjustments to phone apps to make them suitable for tablets:

    Provide different layouts for different screen sizes

    By default, Android resizes your application layout to fit the current device screen. In most cases, this works fine. In other cases, your UI might not look as good and might need adjustments for different screen sizes. For example, on a larger screen, you might want to adjust the position and size of some elements to take advantage of the additional screen space, or on a smaller screen, you might need to adjust sizes so that everything can fit on the screen.

    Apple is much more concerned with the need to redesign apps for different display types:

    Ensure that Universal Apps Run Well on Both iPhone and iPad
    If you’re planning to develop an app that runs on iPhone and iPad, you need to adapt your design to each device. Here is some guidance to help you do this:Mold the UI of each app version to the device it runs on. Most individual UI elements are available on both devices, but overall the layout differs dramatically.

    Adapt art to the screen size. Users tend to expect more high-fidelity artwork in iPad apps than they do in iPhone apps. Merely scaling up an iPhone app to fill the iPad screen is not recommended.

    Preserve the primary functionality of your app, regardless of the device it runs on. Even though one version might offer a more in-depth or interactive presentation of the task than the other, it’s important to avoid making users feel that they’re choosing between two entirely different apps.

    Go beyond the default. Unmodified iPhone apps run in a compatibility mode on iPad by default. Although this mode allows people to use an iPhone app on iPad, it does not give them the device-specific experience they want.

    But reading the two sets of programming guidelines, I noticed a much deeper difference. Both, of course, are intended as developer references and contain a great deal of nitty-gritty information about APIs and how to implement specific features. But the Google version is full of code snippets and parameter definitions while Apple’s approach is much more concerned with reminding developers that what matters is the user experience and how good app design contributes to that experience. The Google approach is more practical, but Apple’s may be more useful. I don’t want to read too much into a couple of pages from developer manuals, but at least to me, they do sum up important differences in how Apple and Google approach the world.

     

    Why Android Is Winning The Battles But Google Is Losing The War: Part 4


    A Pyrrhic victory (/ˈpɪrɪk/) is a victory with such a devastating cost that it carries the implication that another such victory will ultimately lead to defeat. The phrase “Pyrrhic Victory” is named after King Pyrrhus of Epirus, whose army suffered irreplaceable casualties in defeating the Romans at Heraclea in 280 BC and Asculum in 279 BC during the Pyrrhic War. Someone who wins a Pyrrhic victory has been victorious in some way; however, the heavy toll negates any sense of achievement or profit. The term “Pyrrhic victory” is used as an analogy in fields such as business, politics, and sports to describe struggles that end up ruining the victor. ~ via Wikipedia

    Series Schedule:

    • Mon: The Battle for the PC
    • Tue: The Battle for Mobile Phones Won
    • Wed: The War for Mobile Phones Lost
    • Thu: The Battle for Tablets
    • Fri: Picking Your Battles Is As Important as Winning Them

    4) The Battle For Tablets

    If Android’s battle for phones is a Pyrrhic victory, Android’s battle for tablets is a flat-out ignominious defeat.

    Android’s Strategic Tablet Blunder

    The tablet’s larger screen size demands that developers create apps optimized just for its form factor. This makes tablets a seperate platform all its own. Google’s big mistake in tablets was that they either didn’t recognize or refused to acknowledge that fact.

    Google just saw tablets as big phones and acted accordingly. Rather than focusing on the creation of tablet optimized apps, Google encouraged their developers to create one-size-fits-all apps. Developers were encouraged to focus on scalability rather than optimization.

    Google made their mind set clear by refusing to even establish a separate tablet-optimized classification for their store. While their nearest competitor highlighted the fact that they had 250,000 tablet optimized apps, Google categorically denied that there was any difference at all between phone and tablet apps. The result has mostly been a lot of Android phone apps awkwardly stretched to fit the larger tablet screen. Even big name apps like Twitter and Rdio looked unwieldy on Android tablets.

    As recently as June 2012, when the Nexus 7 was introduced, Google Senior Vice President Andy Rubin reaffirmed that Google was sticking with its strategy of encouraging developers to write a single app for both phones and tablets.

    “I don’t think there should be apps specific to a tablet…if someone makes an ICS app it’s going to run on phones and it’s going to run on tablets.” ~ Andy Rubin

    Google’s policy was focused on the developer, not the consumer. It allowed developers to create apps that worked on more devices, but it did so at the expense of the user experience.

    Andy Rubin went on to admit that he was upset that Android tablets weren’t selling. After looking into the reasons, Rubin declared that Google had discovered the reason for the lack of sales. While hardware really mattered on phones, consumers bought into content ecosystems with tablets. Rubin said that Google had lacked some of the ecosystem pieces that were necessary – such as TV shows, movies, magazines, etc. – to make people want to consume on a tablet.

    “I think that was the missing piece,” Rubin said.

    Do you hear what Rubin was saying? In his mind – and presumably in the mind of all of Google – the reason that Android tablets weren’t selling was because of a lack of compelling CONTENT. Tablet optimized apps never entered into the proposed “solution” to Android’s tablet woes. The Nexus 7 was all about content delivery since – in their minds – it was content, not apps, that was the missing piece.

    Finally Google reversed course. On October 18, 2012, Google published a “tablet app quality checklist” on its Android Developer website and began to seriously urge developers to build tablet-optimized apps.Two and a half-years late and 250,000 iOS tablet optimized apps later, Google finally gets it – tablet optimized apps DO matter.

    Or do they get it? Google STILL isn’t asking developers to make separate phone and tablet versios of their apps. And they STILL don’t separate phone apps from tablet apps in their store. And when asked why there still aren’t many tablet-sized apps for Android, Director for Android Partnerships, John Lagerling, said:

    But before, I’ll be honest and say, yes, there was a lack of tablet apps that supported bigger screen real estate. But I’ll add that, I know we talked about the Cupertino guys, but obviously people who have smartphones are a huge target for us. If you look globally that’s something we worry more about, not so much about competing with other smartphones, but more about, how can we get more people onto the Internet on mobile phones? And that’s a big deal. That’s why low cost is so important.

    Translation: Smartphones are more important to us than tablets and market share is more important to us than anything.

    No wonder Android’s tablet efforts continue to languish.

    Android Tablet Sales

    So how is that one-size-fits-all, let’s-not-optimize-apps-to-the-tablet strategy working out for Android? The results speak for themselves.

    At last report, tablets were just 5.38% of Android’s daily activations. And Nexus 7 sales – although constantly referred to as a “success” in the tech media – have been humble, to say the least.

    Mark Mahaney, who follows Google for Citi Research … thinks Google sold about a million units of their tablet (that is made by Asus) and that accounts for about $200 million in revenue.

    Ben Schachter of McQuarie Securities agrees and estimates that Nexus 7 sales accounted for probably $150 million to $200 million…in… revenue.

    Piper Jaffray’s Gene Muster estimates that Google sold between 800,000 to a million units, while Doug Anmuth of JP Morgan says Google sold about 700,000 units of Nexus 7 tablets.

    Asustek CFO David Chang told the WSJ that the company was selling—not just shipping—500,000 units a month initially, when the Nexus 7 launched in July. Figures bumped up to 600,000-700,000 in the following months, and in “this latest month,” Google and Asus have sold close to one million units, said Chang.

    Let me put those numbers in perspective.

     

    • REVENUES

     

    The Nexus 7 may have made as little as 200 million – in revenue, not profit – in an entire quarter. That’s pathetic.

     

    • PROFITS

     

    And we know that Google didn’t make any profits from the sales of the Nexus 7 because they told us so.

    “When it gets sold through the Play store, there’s no margin,” Rubin said. “It just basically gets (sold) through.”

     

    • UNITS

     

    But revenue and profits really don’t matter in a subsidized model. The concept is to get as many units on the market as possible in order to enhance the opportunities to sell content and advertising. So let’s look at the Nexus 7’s sales numbers.

    The Nexus 7’s sales are either as high as 1 million units a month or as low as 1 million, 800,000 or 700,000 units a quarter. And the reason we’re relying on estimates is because Google refuses to release actual sales numbers – which is telling all in itself.

    By way of contrast, Apple sold a total of 3 million iPad Minis and iPad 4’s in their first three days of availaility. At its current pace, the Nexus 7 would take between 3 months to 3 quarters to even match, let alone exceed, the number of tablets sold by Apple’s first 3 days of sales.

     

    • SUBSIDIZED BUSINESS MODELS THRIVE ON VOLUME

     

    Those sales numbers are bad enough, but for a subsidized product, they’re gawdawful. Remember, the Nexus 7 is being given away at cost. Can you imgagine how many more cars or televisions would be sold if they were being sold at cost? The Nexus 7’s should be selling like crazy, not badly trailing competitive offerings that cost $300 more.

    This is a give-away-the-razor, sell-the-blade business model. (See my article entitled: “Selling The Amazon Kindle Fire and Google Nexus 7 Is As Silly As Selling Razor Blades To Men Who Love Beards“). Giving away the razor does not guarantee the sale of the blade but NOT giving away the razor DOES guarantee that the blades won’t be sold. Simiarly, volume sales of Nexus tablets do not guarantee that Google will profit from the sale of content and ads but low volume sales DO guarantee that they will not.

     

    • FUTURE SALES

     

    Pundits are opining that the Nexus 7’s lower price will make it a hot selling item for the holiday quarter. And I have no doubt that sales will increase. But if Google was having trouble selling the Nexus 7 when its only competition was the 7 inch Kindle Fire and the 10 inch Apple iPad, then why does anyone seriously think it will do significantly better now that it also has to compete with the Apple iPad Mini and the Microsoft Surface?

    Android Irony: Tablets Are Where The Ad Revenue Is

    The irony in all of this is that tablets are where the ad revenue is. Android has fought and won the battle for phones but phones don’t produce much ad revenue. Meanwhile, Android has ignored tablets and tablets hold the prize that they were so desperately seeking all along. Like a General who is a great tactician but a poor strategist, Android has won all of the battles that they’ve fought, but they’ve fought all of their battles in the wrong places.

     

    • TABLETS ARE MORE VALUABLE

     

    Studies have shown that tablet users are the more valuable consumers for advertisers to reach compared with PC and phone users. Tablet users spend 30 percent more time on sites and have 20 percent higher engagement.

    “We found it interesting that tablets also had a smaller percentage of users who adopted ‘do not track’ settings compared to PC users,” Mr. Barnette said. “Mobile had the highest percentage of users who adopt do not track at 60 percent.”

     

    • APPLE IS DOMINATING TABLETS

     

    And while tablets are dominating mobile revenues, Apple is dominating tablets.

    The iPad accounts for between 91% and 98% of web traffic for all tablets. That only leaves 2% to 9% total web traffic for every other type of tablet combined.

    And Apple dominates tablet downloads too.

    We estimate in the first half of this year the iPad saw over five times more app downloads than all Android tablets combined.”

     

    • TABLETS AD SPENDING OUTWEIGHS SMARTPHONE AD SPENDING

     

    And in the absolute kicker, it is anticipated that tablet ad spending will outweigh smartphone ad spending this holiday season.

    Think for a moment just how crazy that is. The ads for all the Android, iOS, Windows Phone 7 and every other smartphone combined will be outsold by the ads sold on tablets this holiday season. Wow.

    Next

    Google has won the battle for the desktop. Android has won the battle for the phone. But Google’s prospects are possibly worse today than they were when they embarked on their Android strategy. Tomorrow we sum it all up and look to the future in the final article of the series entitled:

    “Picking Your Battles Is As Important as Winning Them”

    After Sinofsky Can Microsoft Move Beyond Windows?

    Windows 8 logo (Microsoft)The departure of Windows chief Steven Sinofsky, hard on the heels of the release of Windows 8, came as a shock, but not a surprise. But the important question is less what led to the departure of the talented but abrasive Sinofsky than how Microsoft uses its latest executive shuffle to move forward in a tech world it no longer dominates.

    Microsoft is, in many ways, the anti-Apple. Unlike Apple’s tightly centralized, unified structure, Microsoft has long been a collection of fiefdoms. Although promoting Windows was the goal of just about every Microsoft product and effort, operating groups were often silos and turf was fiercely defended. Sinofsky, who had run the Office group, took over Windows after the Vista fiasco and proved his chops with the successful delivery of Windows 7 and Windows 8. (While it is far too early to judge the commercial success of Windows 8, it was an exemplary development process, especially in contrast to the chaos that gave us Vista.) Along the way, Sinofsky built the power of the Windows group by gaining control of  mobile device efforts. (Windows Phone operations are part of the Entertainment & Devices group, but have increasingly come under the sway of Windows.)

    It’s hard to overestimate Microsoft’s dependence on Windows. The chart shows the company’s operating profits by division:

    Windows and Microsoft Business are responsible for nearly all of the company’s profits, and the business division, consisting primarily of Office and Office-related back-end services such as Exchange and SharePoint, is very heavily Windows-dependent. Only the tiny Entertainment & Devices unit (primarily Xbox) and the money-losing Online Services (mostly Bing) and meaningfully independent of the Windows empire.

    The problem Microsoft faces today is that it has to move beyond Windows, but its recent instinct seems to have been to extend the franchise. The Surface tablet is an interesting product, considerably more PC like than the iPad and Android tablets. It’s a good match for a space Microsoft is trying to create between traditional PCs and the new tablets, heavily dependent on a keyboard and with an operating system that is a stripped-down version of the full Windows 8 experience and access to Microsoft Office applications–but only at the price of running in traditional desktop mode.

    I don’t think Microsoft can afford to leave the more tablet-y market to the competition, because while the Windows and Office lines of business will remain profitable for years to come, they provide very little opportunity for growth. Sinofsky was widely blamed, or credited, with derailing the imaginative Courier tablet that came out Entertainment & Devices group. I don’t know that Courier was the right device for Microsoft to make or even if it was a viable product, but it was very un-Windows-like in a way that probably sealed its fate.

    For many years now, Microsoft has been built on the proposition that its products exist to promote the greater glory of Windows. This kind of thinking has been most destructive in the mobile business, where efforts to force a Windows-like user interface onto Windows Mobile devices produced some of the world’s clunkiest smartphones. The unification of the Metro design language, originally developed for Windows Phone 7, across desktops, phones, and tablets is a step in the right direction. But when you scratch the surface on the Windows 8 desktop or go beneath the Surface,  you find the same old Windows. And it is increasingly a bad fit for the way people want to use devices today.

    Julie Larson-Green and Tami Reller, who are taking over Windows engineering and business operations, respectively, are able executives with solid track records. But they won’t have Sinofsky’s power within the organization. If that means they will be less able to protect the windows-centric thinking that has long been at the heart of Microsoft, it will probably be a good thing for all concerned.

    Things I Prefer to do on my iPad versus my Surface

    Last week, I covered areas and usage models where I preferred to use Microsoft Surface over my Apple iPad(s). I was actually surprised I would like Surface in so many areas given it is such a new device and ecosystem.   This week, I will reverse gears and discuss areas where I still prefer my iPad.

    Games

    I prefer genres of games like action, shooter, and racing.  With the iPad, I get choices like Infinity Blade, Real Racing, Metal Storm, Modern Combat, Zombie Gunship, and Need for Speed.  The Windows Store is starting to have some decent titles like Hydro Thunder Hurricane that show the potential, but for right now that’s what it is, potential.  With the performance NVIDIA Tegra 3, I hope that the store starts to get filled with good games.

    Podcasts

    Since Apple added its own podcast app, they have been so simple and reliable.  On the iPad, I can simply subscribe and auto sync with the bare minimum toggles to manage everything.  Slapdash is a decent start for Surface, but it doesn’t auto sync and gets some nasty errors or crashes if I wasn’t connected.

    Heavy Social Media

    The iPad literally has a social media app for everything and more times than not, they offer the first native apps for a new service.  Also, the best apps like Tweetbot are on the iPad, too.

    On Surface, the apps are OK for some casual social media, but not heavy duty.  They are a bit sluggish and lack key features.  One, for instance, is a very simple one, where you can pin a Twitter list to your start screen.  I can do this on multiple Android and iOS apps but not a single Windows RT app.

    Viewing Photos 

    I still prefer viewing and editing photos on the iPad.  It’s fast to open the app, open pictures, view and edit.  The editing tools are more sophisticated, too, with auto enhance and redeye.  While the Surface display is nice, I do notice a big improvement on the Retina display on the iPad 3.  One other pet-peeve I had with the Surface was when I wanted to sync photos.  It never asked me if I wanted to delete the photos on the iPhone.  Therefore, to delete the photos off the iPhone, I needed to add one more step.

    Taking Notes

    I take a ton of notes with my iPads using Evernote, unless it becomes unreliable and crashy where I then switch to the Notes app. The Evernote on Windows RT is the biggest disappointment of any app I have used so far.  I consider it Alpha as it either won’t sync, is slow to sync, or cannot view attachments without being connected.  Even though the app has access to the file system, you cannot add attachments other than photos.  Emailing notes works have the time and the other time crashes or displays the following error: “We’re having problems connecting to verify your info. Try signing in again.”  I tried OneNote for the tenth time. Incredibly confusing. OneNote then notes are displayed as “Personal (Web)>Quick Notes”. I’m sure if I used OneNote for years I would know what all that meant but I don’t.

    Business Collaboration

    While the iPad is primarily a consumer device, it has support for tools like Webex and GoToMeeting.  As an industry analyst, I get briefed a lot and these tools are invaluable for doing these.  Unfortunately, Surface does not currently have support for these and does not support them via the web browser, either.

    Wireless Video Mirroring

    This may sound uber-geeky, but I routinely mirror my iPad to my Apple TV to my HDTV.  I do this for many reasons, including to show off a web site, play a game, show off a new or funny app.  While the PlayTo functionality for non-DRMd video and audio is appreciated over the Xbox, it does not currently mirror the entire device.

    Managing Contacts

    I can very quickly and accurately view, open and edit contacts with my iPad.  I really do appreciate the linking of contacts on the Surface, but unfortunately, it is excruciatingly slow.  If I need to edit over 5 contacts, I usually just give up and go use Outlook instead.

    Cloud Storage

    iCloud storage for Pages, Numbers, and Keynote for the iPad is nothing short of awesome.  Now, if the apps were more compatible with Office, I’d switch over right now.  Surface does not make it easy to automatically store and update Office documents.  You see, there is no SkyDrive for Windows Desktop, only for Metro.  There is an Office Upload utility in Desktop, but it only works if you pulled the document from SkyDrive or created a document or saved once to SkyDrive.  Therefore, if you created a document offline, there is no way to have it autosave once you are connected again.  Neither Box nor SugarSync have Windows RT desktop handlers, either, which is very disappointing.

    Where does this Leave Us?

    Surface and the iPad are very good tablets.  What is most surprising is that Surface is brand new and it can do many things better than the iPad, now on its fourth generation.   I was surprised just how well Surface did “tablet-only” usages like video playback and even surfing the web.There is room for both these devices as they take two very different tacks.  Surface is a PC that’s also wanting to be a tablet.  The iPad is trying to be a tablet, not a PC (or Mac).   Surface will be good for those consumers like me who want it all and are willing to deal with the idiosyncrasies of the PC or have another tablet for 100% content consumption.   This battle is just getting started at a time when many pundits thought it was a closed and shut case for Apple.

    Why Android Is Winning The Battles But Google Is Losing The War: Part 2

    A Pyrrhic victory (/ˈpɪrɪk/) is a victory with such a devastating cost that it carries the implication that another such victory will ultimately lead to defeat. The phrase “Pyrrhic Victory” is named after King Pyrrhus of Epirus, whose army suffered irreplaceable casualties in defeating the Romans at Heraclea in 280 BC and Asculum in 279 BC during the Pyrrhic War. Someone who wins a Pyrrhic victory has been victorious in some way; however, the heavy toll negates any sense of achievement or profit. The term “Pyrrhic victory” is used as an analogy in fields such as business, politics, and sports to describe struggles that end up ruining the victor. ~ via Wikipedia

    Series Schedule:

  • Mon: The Battle for the PC
  • Tue: The Battle for Mobile Phones Won
  • Wed: The War for Mobile Phones Lost
  • Thu: The Battle for Tablets
  • Fri: Picking Your Battles Is As Important as Winning Them
  • 2) The Battle For Mobile Phones

    The Battle Plan

    Tech insiders have been predicting that peak search would happen for some time, as people shifted from using websites – where search is a natural activity – to using mobile apps.

    Google was far from unprepared. They knew that mobile was the future of search and they carefully crafted a plan:

    Step 1: Create a (putatively) open source mobile operating system called Android.

    Step 2: Give the Android operating system away for free.

    Step 3: Sell mobile ads and other mobile services on those mobile devices running Android in much the same way that they were currently selling ads and services on the PC.

    A Glorious Tactical Success

    Parts 1 and 2 of Google’s plan worked to perfection. In fact, Android was more succesful than anyone, including Google, could have anticipated or even imagined. Internal Google documents revealed at the Oracle v. Google trial show that Android’s growth far exceeded even what Google had projected or expected.

    Just five years after its debut, Google‘s Android mobile operating software now claims 75% of smart phones shipped, according to a new report from market researcher IDC. A simply stunning overall achievment.

    A Glorious Public Relations Success

    And don’t think that Android’s spectacular rise has gone unnoticed:

    CNet:

    “Android’s ascension to glory has been incredible to behold.”

    Dan Lyons:

    “Look, when three out of four phones sold worldwide run your operating system, I think it’s safe to declare victory.”

    CoolSmartphone:

    “Why Android has won”

    CEO Nathan Eagle

    “Why Android Has Already Won the Global Smartphone Race”

    Joe Wilcox

    “Android wins the smartphone wars”

    Chris Pirillo

    Android is the New Windows (I mean that in the most polite way, too)

    Venturebeat

    “As Android hits 75% market share, can anyone tell me why this is not Mac vs PC all over again?”

    An Inglorious Strategic Failure

    “Another such victory and I am undone.” ~ Pyrrhus

    Every report, every study shows that Google got it right. More and more ad revenue is moving to mobile. An analysis of the mobile traffic from a cross section of advertisers reveals up to 25-30% of all paid search traffic is now mobile. And more and more mobile phones are powered by the Android operating system. It’s only logical to assume that the more people buy and use Android phones, the more money Google will make from the sale of search, content and other services.

    Only that’s not happening. That’s not happening at all. Android appears to be an overwhelming success in every way. But it turns out that it is only an overwhelming success in one way – market share. In every way that matters – and especially in profits – Android has been a dismal failure.

    Unexpected, exponential user growth is usually accompanied by a dramatic positive improvement in the finances of a company and a higher return to shareholders. The curious aspect of Android’s success is that it has not had an impact on either. ~ Horace Dediu

    Yearning For Earnings

    During the Q3 2012 Earnings call, Google announced that it had a run rate of $8 billion from its mobile business consisting of revenue from ads, apps and content. That was contrasted with a $2.5 billion run rate of a year ago. CFO Patrick Pichette added “Ads continue to be the bulk of [the $8 billion], the vast majority of it.” Sounds like good news, right?

    The problem with the $8 billlion number is two-fold. First, the increased revenues appear to represent more of an reshuffling of assets than actual growth. Second, despite the presumably large increase in the run rate, Google declined to disclose Nexus 7 sales, app sales, content sales or ad sales and they stoutly refused to address mobile margins and profits.

    What we do know for sure is:

    — Cost-per-click (CPC) was down
    — Traffic Acquisition Costs (TAC) were up
    — Profit from Android was un-reported and possibly non-existant

    Upon revealing the numbers, Google’s stock tanked. With Google’s stock falling a shocking $68 or 9% in a matter of hours, Google was desperate for good news to give to its shareholders. If there was ever a time to reveal Android’s profits, that would have been the time. Instead, managment adamantly refused all requests for specifics on mobile sales, margins or profits.

    With their stock plummeting, you can bet your bottom dollar that if Google had garnered any profits from Android, they not only would have revealed them, they would trumpeted them as loudly as possible. After all, it’s not like Google doesn’t like to brag about Android. They tout their Android activation numbers all the time. The fact that Google did not reveal any good news regarding Android can mean only one thing – there was no good news to reveal.

    After all, there is simply no good reason NOT to reveal Android’s numbers and associated profits. You could argue that Google is being coy and hiding numbers for competitve advantage but what possible competitive advantage could there be?

    Further, there is every reason TO reveal profits. If the numbers are rising at an appreciable rate, that would be an exciting development that Google would want to reveal. It woud prove that their strategy was correct and that Android was winning. It would put to rest any lingering doubts, questions or suspicious that things with Android might not actuallly be as they seem. It would be a demoralizing blow to their competitors and a shot in the arm to their stockholders. And perhaps, best of all, it would be an incentive for their customers to increase their ad spending and hop on board the Android gravy train

    It is, in fact, almost a certainty that Android DOES make Google a profit. But that profit must be so embarrassingly small that it would be counter-productive for Google to announce it. Doing so would not help Google’s stock, it would hurt it as the revelation would expose exactly how little Android has actually accomplished.

    Pyrrhic Victory

    Android has overwhelmingly won the battle for marketshare. But the purpose of market share is to get more developers, more apps, more advertising eyeballs, more content, to deliver more revenue – and most importantly – more profit for all involved. Android isn’t delivering any of that.

    This is a classic Pyrrhic Victory. Android is winning the market share battles but Google is losing the profit war.

    The irony here is poignant. In a reversal of the famous Rolling Stones song, Android got what it wanted – market share – but not what it needed – profits.

    Next

    How could this be? How could there be such a disconnect between the number of Android users and their value to Google?

    Tomorrow: “The War for Mobile Phones Lost.”

    The Way it Was and the Way it Will Be

    My family and I have been up visiting my wife’s grandparents up near the Oregon-California border. We have visited this old-fashioned town many times but today a thought occurred to me as I looked at a dictionary prominently displayed in the living room.

    The Websters Dictionary is from 1957 and just over 2300 pages long. It is old enough that the word computer states “one who computes, a reckoner, a calculater.” What strikes me when I look at that picture is not just how much things have changed–since that is undeniable (that entire book is replaced on the iPad with a 20mb app–but rather how many analog process we find commonly in our houses today that will someday be replaced by objects yet to be dreamed up.

    I look at our grandparents and parents houses and find many low-tech things. I look around my house and find many high-tech things. But I wonder how many of the high-tech state of the art electronics I have today will look low tech, or be entirely foreign to my grandkids.

    My children have no idea what a typewriter is or did. I wonder if their kids will have any idea what a PC is or did.

    Will tablets still be around, will smartphones have evolved into something else entirely, or perhaps communications will be embedded into every screen embedded into countless electronics all over the public and private sphere.

    It’s fun to dream.

    How the iPad Mini Could Impact Future PC Sales

    [dc]N[/dc]ow that the iPad Mini has been out for a while and many of us at Creative Strategies have been testing them, it is becoming clear to us that this 7.9” form factor or most 7” inch models will literally become the most important tablet for consumers in the future. There are a lot of reasons for this, but the main one is that it is light, thin, and in the iPad’s case, delivers a best in breed tablet experience. Also, these smaller tablets will always be cheaper than larger tablets because the BOM cost for a smaller version will always be less than the bigger models.

    But as I have personally used the iPad mini for some time now, I have begun to see my usage patterns with tablets change significantly. Before the iPad Mini, the tablet I used the most was the original iPad. Although I also used my Kindle Fire HD often for reading and media consumption, the iPad was my real go-to device. And it became even more important to me once I added the Logitech Ultrathin keyboard to it since it now was used for content consumption as well as productivity.

    However, there is an 80/20 rule with tablets that is becoming an important metric when it comes to tablets and PCs. It turns out most consumers can do about 80% of the most common tasks they do with a PC on a tablet, and any other key tasks, such as media management, large spreadsheets, music server, etc are designated to the laptop. But once I started using the iPad Mini, I found that it now became my go-to-device because of its lightweight, small size and literal duplication of everything I have on the iPad as well as the full iPad experience.

    But there is an interesting twist to this. When my only tablet was my iPad, I defaulted to my laptop for heavy lifting tasks. But once I started using the iPad Mini, I found myself-defaulting to the 9.7” iPad with its keyboard as my main productivity device and found that in this case, a 90/10 rule kicked in. That means that I spent 90% of my time on these tablet solutions and only about 10% on my laptop.

    Now I realize that this may not be a broad trend, but we are hearing the same type of storys in our consumer interviews. Although fresh and not fully completed research, many people who have an iPad Mini and are sharing similar stories. Almost all that we talked to told us that the role of the laptop has diminished for them significantly since they got the iPad, and were now using the iPad Mini more frequently than their larger iPads.

    When I asked them if they were interested in buying a Windows 8 PC, their comments were pretty consistent. They said that if the PC were only used 10-20% of the time, they would most likely just extend the life of their PCs or laptops instead of buying new ones. And if they did buy a new PC or laptop, it would be the cheapest they could find, as they could no longer justify a more expensive and powerful version if it mostly sat at home and used for such a short time for more data or media intensive apps.

    I suspect that this scenario with consumers may play out a lot more in the future, and at the very least, their tablet does handle the majority of their daily digital needs. The PC as we know it today will continue to lose its primary role in the home given its lack of use more often than not.

    Even yesterday on a call with analysts Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang made a key point. He said:

    consumers realize “a great tablet is better than a cheap PC.”

    If this trend does play itself out as I have suggested, the impact on the traditional PC market could be dramatic within two-three years. As consumers buy lower cost and small tablets that will only get better in performance, screen clarity, and apps, it supersedes their PC use and demand for PCs and laptop will decrease significantly.

    As my colleague Steve Wildstrom stated on Wed, PCs will not go away, but will soon play a different role for consumers than they have in the past. But if tablets increase their role as the dominant device for consumers to access the majority of their digital needs, than the impact on PC demand has to be impacted down the road. In fact, some key industry insiders call this the PC Cliff, suggesting that we could see a time in the not-so-distant future where demand for PCs fall by a steep amount, giving way to tablets that will take over their role as the major growth segment and primary of the PC industry.

    Interestingly, there could be a silver lining for traditional PC vendors if they innovate quickly. In my comments above, I mentioned that the iPad Mini has now become my go-to tablet while the original iPad with the Logitech keyboard is now my cross over device handling consumption and productivity. And my use of my laptop has declined as a result of this. But for me, the iPad with a keyboard has become kind of a laptop replacement. It is touch based, lighter than any laptop I could ever own, and has an average 10-hour battery life and runs most of the apps I need, as well as giving me a very rich Web browsing experience.

    But my iPad with keyboard is really what we call in the industry a hybrid, which has a touch based tablet tied to a detachable keyboard. Microsoft’s Surface falls into this category as does HP’s Envy X2 that they call a convertible. The nomenclature for this seems to be ever changing but we define a convertible as a tablet/keyboard combo that does not detach and a hybrid, a tablet with a detachable keyboard.

    The interest in the hybrids as we define it is extremely high, although the demand for Windows RT based hybrids like the Surface is somewhat muted since it does not have backward compatibility with existing Windows apps. Instead, the hybrids we are seeing great interest in, both with consumers and business users, are Windows 8 devices that use an x86 chip and has full backwards compatibility with existing Windows software like HP’s Envy 2 Convertible. But if the scenario I suggest plays out, it will be these hybrids that drive “laptop” sales in the future, while demand for more traditional laptops will wane considerably.

    I believe that the iPad mini and smaller tablets will be even more disruptive to the traditional PC market than the iPad has been to date. We can envision a time soon where a user has a 7” tablet mostly for content consumption, email and Web browsing, and a hybrid to pick up any productivity slack they may have. The bottom line is, the more consumers use tablets of either size, the more they realize that the laptop or PC in the home is overkill, and decide to either just keep the one they have longer or buy the cheapest PC they can for any extra computing needs they may have that a tablet cannot do.

    I fear that a PC cliff is not far off and we are urging all PC vendors to seriously consider the ramifications of what these smaller tablets will mean to their future PC and laptop demand.

    An iPad Mini Epiphany

    So, I’m reading this article entitled: “Physicians excited about lab coat pocket-ability of Apple’s iPad mini” and I suddenly have an epiphany. Or, at least, a mini-ephiphany. Or indigestion. Not exactly sure which.

    Anyway, it occurs to me as I’m reading this article that there is an entire sector of computing where the iPad, in general, and the newly minted iPad Mini, in particular, have no competition. They OWN this market.

    From the article:

    Epocrates, a maker of point-of-care applications for medical professionals, gathered data from 48 different physicians that use its products. One in three of those physicians said they are planning to purchase an iPad mini due to its convenient small size.

    And earlier this year, one survey found that more than a quarter of European doctors use an iPad at work, while another 40 percent said they planned to buy an iPad within six months.

    Emphasis added

    They say that a picture is worth a thousand words. Try this thought experiment:

    Picture a doctor walking from patient to patient, either in their private practice or in a hospital setting. Picture them inputing data into an iPad or using the iPad to share information with their patients.

    Now picture them holding the iPad Mini in one hand and doing the same kinds of things…then slipping the iPad Mini into thier coat pocket.

    An easy picture, no? The picture of the iPad works, but the picture of the iPad Mini – held in a single hand – just feels right, at least to me.

    A Smaller Piece Of The Puzzle That Fits In More Places

    In July, I wrote an article entitled: “The PC is the Titanic and the Tablet is the Iceberg. Any Questions?” The purpose of that article was to show how the tablet would undercut the PC because many of the things that the tablet did well, the PC did poorly or not at all. I went back and re-visted that article with the iPad Mini in mind.

    Picture this:

    STANDING:
    Tablets excel at working while you are standing. The iPad Mini would do most of those tasks even better. Tasks done by matre d’s, inventory takers, tour guides, concierges, face-to-face service providers and order takers of every kind, would benefit from the use of the iPad Mini.

    ROOM TO ROOM, DOOR TO DOOR AND REMOTE LOCATIONS:
    Tablets excel at working when one has to move and stop and move yet again. The iPad Mini would do those tasks even better. Car dealerships, like Mercedes Benz, are giving tablets to their salespeople. European doctors are rapidly taking to the tablet. Service technicians at Siemens Energy are using tablets while servicing power installations. Scientists are using tablets during field research. Nurses, realtors, journalists, park rangers, medical technicians…the list of users and uses is nearly endless. They would all benefit from the use of an iPad Mini.

    SALES:
    If you’re in Sales, you’re into Tablets. For some salespeople, the larger iPad would make a better presentation device. For many others – and perhaps most others – the iPad Mini would do the job even better. Whether you’re traveling or standing or presenting or taking an order and acquiring a signature – tablets are a salesperson’s best friend. An iPad Mini would be more like a bosom buddy.

    KIOSKS:
    While the PC makes for a terrible Kiosk, the tablet is almost ideally suited to the task. Tablets as Kiosks are making their presence known in places as diverse as malls, taxi cabs, hospitals, the Louisiana Department of Motor Vehicles, and the FastPass lanes at Disney World. I think the larger sized tablet is more appropriate for a Kiosk that the iPad Mini. But the iPad Mini would be perfect for smaller spaces such as in car dashboards, taxi cabs, banks, and such.

    LOANERS:
    Tablets are starting to show up as “loaners” that are lent out as entertainment devices. They’re being purchased by libraries. Airplanes run by Singapore Airlines and Qantas use them as in-flight entertainment devices. Airports like New York’s LaGuardia, Minneapolis-St. Paul International and Toronto Pearson International, lend them out to waiting passengers. The tablet is ideally suited for the task. It is light, it is portable, it is versatile, it displays content beautifully and it is sublimely easy to use. If the larger size tablet is ideal, then the iPad Mini is a dream come true.

    EDUCATION:
    PCs in schools are mostly relegated to teachers and computer labs. Tablets live in the classroom and they reside in the hands of the students. No one wants to learn HOW to use computers anymore. Students simply want to use computers to help them learn.

    The tablet is starting to take educational institutions by storm. It acts as an electronic blackboard, as a digital textbook and as an interactive textbook.

    It’s at the K-12 level (the San Diego School district just ordered 26,000) and at the Universities (Adams Center for Teaching and Learning at Abilene Christian University, George Fox University, North Carolina State University in Raleigh). Tablets are even finding their way into the top-tier high schools in China.

    Some schools have even reported a 10% improvement in the exam scores of students who use tablets in lieu or paper books.

    We’ll have to see how the education market sorts itself out. But for smaller children at least, the smaller size of the iPad Mini seems like the perfect teaching tool.

    The Competition Comes Up Small

    Now try to picture any of the above tasks being done with an Amzaon Kindle Fire, Google Nexus 7, or Microsoft Surface? More difficult, right?

    — The Amazon Kindle Fire has little chance because it has no tablet optimized apps and because the tablet is designed to pull the user into their store.

    — Nexus has little chane because it has no tablet optimized apps and because it relies on content and ad sales in order to make money.

    — Windows Surface has little chance…yet.

    Microsoft is very good at ecosystem, but their tablet offerings are currently unsuitable for the one-handed tasks that I listed, above. First, their tablets are too large. Second, the 16:9 ratio makes them awkward to hold in portrait mode. Third, their current iterations seemed focused on surface use, not hand held use. Fourth, and most importantly, they do not currently have the job-specific apps necessary to perform the required tasks.

    Job Specific, Proprietary Apps Are The Key

    It is this last point that I want to dwell upon for a moment. When the press and the pundistocracy talk about apps, they usually focus on the big ticket items like Angry birds, Instagram, Facebook, Flipboard, etc. But the key to Apple’s app dominance are the untold number of proprietary, job specific apps designed by and for doctors, hospitals, park rangers, restaurants, entrepreneurs, businesses, educational institutions and government entities. THAT’s where the power of apps lies.

    Neither the 9.7 or the 7.9 inch iPad tablet are competitor proof. But if you need a hand-held tablet that’s serious about apps, then no one competes with the iPad Mini in that space.

    Tech Could Learn from the Election: Big Data Rules

    XKCD xartoon

    I have wanted to write about the growing importance of big data and analytics for a while, but this is a tech site and I did not want to get it embroiled in the political tempests. But now that the votes have been counted, we have a stunning demonstration of the power of data, as suggested by the XKCD cartoon above.

    In the closing days of the campaign, New York Times blogger Nate Silver emerged as a lightening rod. He drew fire from both Republicans and traditional pundits of all stripes for his insistence that despite the closeness of the polls, both nationally and in key states, that President Obama was an overwhelming favorite to win re-election by a narrow margin in the popular vote and a much larger one in the electoral college. He was, of course, dead on.

    People who are now hailing Silver as the greatest political pundit ever are completely missing the point, because Silver’s approach was about as far as you can get from the seat-of-the-pants, anecdotal methods of pundits. He went with the data.

    Silver’s best friend was something known to mathematicians and statisticians as the law of large numbers. What this theorem, first developed in the 18th century, says is that as you take many samples some some phenomenon, say the percentage of voters supporting Obama in Ohio, the results of these tests will cluster around the true value. (The law’s cousin, the central limit theorem, allows much great specificity about the nature of that clustering, but also is subject to much more stringent restrictions.)

    Pundits kept focusing on individual polls and the fact that the difference fell within the margin of error.* Silver understood that as you used more and more polls, the probable error of the aggregated result shrank. In other words (and very roughly) if 10 polls each show Candidate A with a one point lead, you can be reasonably confident that A is in the lead even though the error of each poll is plus or minus three points.

    Silver also used a tool that gave him a way to quantify predictions. Now a model necessarily involves making a lot of assumptions. For example, Silver’s novel (which he has been reasonably transparent about, though he has never released its detailed specification) assigned a fairly heavy weight to key economic indicators early in the campaign, but reduced the weight as time went on based on the assumption that new data have less effect as election day nears. It also involves weighting the influence of polls based on their track record and “house effect” (a tendency to favor on party or candidate relative to other polls. He then used to model to run thousands of daily simulations of possible outcomes, a sort of Monte Carlo method. His probability of victory on any given day was simply the percentage of simulations in which a candidate emerged as the winner.

    This sort of analysis has only recently become possible. First, we didn’t have the raw data. There were fewer polls, and greater lags between the collection of data and its release. Second, until the recent massive increases in cheap and available computing power, doing thousands of daily runs of a model of any complexity was impossible. A similar phenomenon lies behind the increased accuracy of weather forecasts, including the extremely accurate predictions of the course and effects of Hurricane Sandy. Weather forecasters use supercomputers for their simulations because the models are far more complex, but the techniques and the beenfits are much the same.

    Too bad we don’t have more data-driven analysis in tech. Of course, there’s the big problem that a lot of the necessary data just isn’t available. Only Apple, Amazon, and Samsung know exactly how many of which products they sell, and they are not inclined to share the information. Still, there are analysts who make the most of the data. Two who come to mind are Horace Dediu of Asymco, who keeps tabs on the handset business, and Mary Meeker of Kleiner Perkins, who provides infrequent but deep data dives. We could badly use more data and less posturing.

    *–Poll margin of error is one of the most misunderstood concepts around. First of all, the term should be abandoned. The correct concept is a confidence interval; what you are saying when you claim a margin of error is plus or minus three points is that some percentage of the time (the confidence level, typically 95% in polling) the actual result wii be within three points of the reported value. Pollster should act more like engineers and surround their point values with error bars. Second, the size of the confidence interval is purely a function of the sample size and says nothing whatever about how well a poll is executed. So a poll with poorly put questions and a badly drawn but large sample will have a tighter confidence interval than a much better done poll with a smaller sample.

    In Praise of Old-fashioned PCs

    .Photo of IBM PC (Wikipedia)

    I’m a big fan of tablets, especially the iPad. Altrhough I find myself spending more and more time with a tablet and less and less with a traditional computer, I can’t imagine getting by without a Windows PC or a Mac. And that is why, though the market for traditional computers will shrink, they aren’t going away.

    The tablet is the only computer a lot of people will ever need. If the iPad or an Android tablet isn’t quite up to the job, the new, more PC-like Microsoft Surface might well be (See Patrick Moorhead’s post on Surface’s advantages.) But a lot of people falls well short of all people.

    When he introduced the iPad in2010, Steve Jobs famously observed that that PC was like a truck and the iPad was a car, and most people don’t need trucks. He was right, but seriously underestimated the importance of trucks. Nearly half of all vehicles sold in the United States are light trucks. Even if you eliminate the more car-like crossover SUVs (maybe those are the Surfaces), trucks still account for about a quarter of the sales.

    I’m writing this on a Windows desktop PC (for a change; I usually work at my iMac  when I’m at home.) Because I can. I’ve done WordPress posts entirely on the iPad (with a Zagg keyboard) and while it is quite possible, it isn’t much fun. I regularly work with multiple windows open and often cut and paste material from one app to another. You cannot easily do that on a tablet.

    There are three activities that keep me on the traditional PC. I do a lot of technical writing and editing, which generally involves large (100-pages plus), highly formatted Word documents. There is no alternative to Word, and often Excel and PowerPoint for collateral material. A lot of tech pundits who keep predicting the imminent demise of PCs and heavyweight Microsoft Office applications underestimate how deeply these are ingrained into enterprise workflows.At the recent Apple product announcement, the thing I found myself lusting for was not the featured iPad mini but the new 27-in. iMac with a Fusion drive.

    I also do some video editing. Not a large amount but enough to know that I want the fastest, most capable system I can lay my hands on. Even simple editing is taxing on a system and transcoding and rendering video can get really time consuming. Also the process of capturing an hour of live video and editing it down to a five- or ten-minute cut can generate many gigabytes of files.

    Finally, there’s photo editing. I love the hands-on aspect of photo editing on a tablet and iPhoto for iOS is a fun tool. But for serious work, whether it is preparing graphics for Tech.pinions posts or processing my own photos, I turn to Photoshop.

    While we are talking about threes, there are three things that PCs have and tablets lack. First is processing power. Today’s tablets have plenty of power for the tasks they are intended to do, including rendering HD video. But to achieve 10 hours of battery life in a very thin, light tablet, thingsa have to go, and one of those things is raw computational power. There’s no way an ARM chip or even an Intel Clover Trail Atom is going to match the performance of an Intel Core i5 or i7 with Intel’s latest integrated graphics, let alone with a discrete graphics system.

    Second is a big display. Some tasks, especially those involving multiple windows, want all the display real estate you can throw at them. I generally work with 27-in. displays and am thinking of going to dual monitors if I can figure out how to make them fit. A tablet limits you to one smallish window (one and a half, sort of, on the Surface.)

    Finally there’s storage. I haven’t taken an inventory lately of how much storage I have connected to my local area network, but it’s more than five terabytes, with a terabyte of local storage on my two main desktops. A tablet offers 64 GB, max. Yes, there is all but unlimited storage in the cloud, and I keep a lot of stuff in the cloud. But I want local copies of my important content, and that includes lots of music and photos, as well as thousands of documents.

    For all these reasons, my PCs aren’t going to disappear. And neither, I suspect, are an awful lot of others. (On the other hand, I do find that I am using my Mac and Windows laptops less and less, as tablets take over the mobile chores.) Many business users are going to continue to need full-bore PCs as well, although there too we may see fewer laptops and a return to desktops.

    At the recent Apple product announcement, the thing I found myself lusting for was not the featured iPad mini but the new 27-in. iMac with a Fusion drive. I love the super-portability of the tablet, but I still need the heavy iron too.

    Ten Things I prefer to do on Microsoft Surface versus my Apple iPad

    My primary tablet of choice for years has been Apple’s iPad. The iPad, iPad 2, and the New (now old) iPad (3). This is after trying at least 20 other tablets with Android phone, Android tablet, Kindle Android, Windows 7, webOS, and QNX operating systems. Before Surface, I used my iPad 2 primarily in productivity mode with a Logitech keyboard in “fridge toaster mode” and used my iPad 3 as my primary entertainment device when paired with the HumanToolz stand. I find that combination suited my distinct needs.

    After all of the contextual “research”, I have finally found a device that could make me leave the iPad at home, that is, after some improvements. After using Microsoft’s Surface for about a week, there are some usage models that I prefer to do on the Surface over the iPad. Before you decide to go directly to the comments section and flame me without reading the article, my next column will be on where I still prefer the iPad in specific usage models, which are many.

    Email

    I have been critical of Windows 8 email earlier versions, but in the final throes of pre-launch, Microsoft redeemed themselves with a very solid Mail update. The email client is fast enough, is threaded, pulls in avatars from other services that personalizes the experience and easily handles attachments in a way that I am familiar with Windows. Emails are very quick with Surface’s keyboard, too. It’s not perfect as I want a unified inbox, in-message web links, and shortcuts like “add to calendar”, but given this is only version 1.0, I am certain Microsoft could enable it if they wanted to. Question is, how good will they make it until it pulls business from Outlook?

    Random, Unplanned Web Browsing

    Internet Explorer on Surface is a full, PC-grade browser, unlike Safari on my iPad, but it feels as fast as a tablet browser. While I run into sites that are just ugly on the iPad, Internet Explorer just works as it doesn’t need to cut corners. I never get a down-featured mobile site either, which I routinely get on iPad Safari. Like Mail, it’s not perfect either as it doesn’t even have synced bookmarks. For planned browsing where I go down my favorites list I still prefer the iPad, but I have to think Microsoft will add this or lose many customers to Google Chrome, which works very well on X86-based Windows 8 tablets. In fact, on my Intel Clover Trail-based tablet, I’ve already shifted to Chrome because of the lack of IE bookmarks.

    The other thing that is, quite frankly, emancipating is being able to interact fully with a web site or service. I am very disappointed with the lack of Metro-based social media apps, but overjoyed that I can do EVERYTHING on my tablet with a social media site I can do with my full PC. Literally, upload, download, post, reply to every and any site without worrying about if that app has connected with that API or not. IE supports every Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn and Pinterest feature. Why? It’s simple, because it is full-featured PC browser with access to the system’s file system and peripherals. That, paired with Nvidia’s quad core Tegra 3 that accelerates HTML 5 drives a complete web experience.

    Does this mean I don’t want apps? No way. I want apps for speed too, but want the web when I want the whole experience. I want it all.

    Writing Research and Blogs

    On my iPad, my blog workflow today moves from iPad Evernote to WordPress on the iPad and then final edit on a PC. If you have ever worked with iOS WordPress and photos, you understand why. With Surface, I start with Word then publish inside the app to WordPress. One app, one device; what could be simpler? And it is so, so much easier with the type cover with a trackpad to pound out a 1,000 word piece of work. For research papers, there is no substitute for Word. It’s just the gold standard of productivity. Enough said.

    Wireless Printing

    While not that sexy, I have appreciated the consistency of Surface’s wireless printing. Like web browsing, it just works. When printing from my iPad, half the time it prints garbage or ten pages when I really only wanted the first page. This has come in handy for my kid’s school projects and when printing out contracts to sign and scan. For the record, no, Surface doesn’t support my HP or Neat scanner and I do that on a full PC.

    Task Switching

    It seemed for the longest time, Apple was “holding out” for easy task switching. Then came the very much appreciated two finger gesture for the iPad. I thanked Apple profusely for this. Microsoft and the Surface take this a few steps forward with the simple left thumb flick, which allows the user to keep both hands on the device and task switch. When I am showing friends and family the Surface, they are all “gee whiz” on this very simple feature. I liked webOS and QNX task switching better than Windows 8, but must say, I have warmed up to Windows RT and 8 task switching, and certainly prefer over my iPad.

    Instant Access to Information without Opening Apps

    If you want to get an Apple fan boy riled up, just start a discussion about Live Tiles or Android panes. You can just see the blood pressure rising and the next hour of conversation is around ease of use and what normal consumers want. Well, I like Live Tiles because it saves me time and some don’t because they are “confusing”. Without even touching the Surface display I can see emails, calendar, and weather, stocks, Tweets, breaking news, updated podcasts and about 100 other pieces of information. I think other consumers will prefer, too, after some time as icons are so 1980’s. I believe Microsoft jumped ahead of the curve on this tile concept and Apple will follow at some point.

    As the industry moves to large surface usage models and environments for full rooms, kitchens, bathrooms, etc., live tiles will be commonplace. And, yes, I had PointCast and Yahoo widgets and stopped using them because they became a hindrance over time, but these tiles are different, as they are the experience, not an add-on.

    Rental Videos

    I watch a lot of rental movies and TV from the Apple Store on my iPad. I do this a lot while crashing on the couch or in bed. I use the HumanToolz stand to prop up the iPad 3 on my chest so I didn’t have to hold it. When Amazon Prime came to iPad, I still used the iPad, but switched to Prime. It wasn’t about the deals, it was that Prime enables streaming and the Apple Store does not on the iPad. I sometimes had to wait over an hour for an Apple Store video to download. I get the QOS challenges with streaming, but somehow Amazon and Netflix deals with those. Plus, Apple deals with streaming on my Apple TV just fine, so it’s just frustrating. With Surface, I use the Xbox movie store where I can stream or download and play. This is a lot more convenient than the iPad.

    One broadcast channel app that was quite good was the ABC Player. My wife and I watched “Revenge” together and Surface provided a better quality and stable video experience than the iPad. I haven’t had the chance to test every service, but I also thought the Netflix and Hulu+ experiences were also very solid.

    Anything that Really Requires a Mouse

    As I use my iPad for productivity in addition to entertainment, I attempted presentations with Keynote and spreadsheets with Numbers. I tried for years to love these on the iPad but ended up abandoning them after each new release. Pages was fine but spreadsheets and presentations were nightmares even for editing files I created first on a PC. The lack of a mouse was the biggest issue for me as I had to learn a bunch of new gestures on a small 9.7” screen. With Surface, I have a keyboard, trackpad, optional mouse, Excel and PowerPoint. If you’ve done spreadsheets and presentations, you know how much easier this is and can relate. As in web browsing, this is an area where the four Nvidia Tegra 3 cores are making an impact.

    Group Music Listening

    I still prefer personal listening of music on the iPad as it’s faster and simpler, but in a group environment, Surface is just all that better. Microsoft essentially took the Xbox music experience and put it on Surface. If you’ve never experienced it, you should, as it’s as much about the video as it is the music. As you play a song, you are fed some incredible transitions that go way above cover art.

    Sharing Anything

    With my iPad, it’s up to Apple to determine what app or service I can directly share to. Like rental movies, this is Apple simplifying for the consumer and ensuring QOS. Also, if all apps had access to all Apple APIs, Apple couldn’t fully monetize its connections. Microsoft has chosen a different another route, one that is more partner-friendly and inclusive. This isn’t Microsoft jut being the good citizen, it’s part of their business model of monetizing the OS and they are years behind in the tablet war.

    In Metro, I literally click on the “Share” charm and any, and I mean, any app that has a “contract” to share, I can share with. Let me use sharing pictures as an example. On my iPad from the Camera Roll, I can share a picture to 2 non-Apple apps, Facebook and Twitter. On Surface, I can share that same picture to 6 different non-Microsoft services and apps and that’s only two weeks in before many social media apps even surface.

    Hate my iPads?

    I love my iPad and it has been the “chosen one” for many years, for basic productivity and for fun. I cannot tell you just now many times I received flak years ago, before the iPad, for forecasting three years ago that the tablet would be the primary content consumption device for the home by 2015. I think there are many more believers now. I am here to say that the iPad finally has some authentic competition, stiff competition, and that’s from Microsoft Surface and from other Windows RT and 8 devices. Holistically, the iPad has it more together, but then again, it doesn’t do as much, either, and has a multi-year head start. Surface is far from perfect, has its flaws, but also delivers a much better experience than expected, and selectively delivers a preferred experience in certain usage models.

    Next week, I will outline usage scenarios where I still prefer my iPad.

    Why Does Microsoft Make It So Hard?

    Surface with Excel (Microsoft)Are you planning to use a new Microsoft Surface for business? You might want to think again, at least if you are concerned about legal niceties.

    At ZDnet, Windows guru Ed Bott examines the strangely complex  legalities of using Microsoft Office on Surface. Office 2013–at least its Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote applications–is part of the Surface’s Windows RT operating sustem. But the bundled software, Office Home & Student 2013 RT, prohibits use of the programs “for any non-profit, commercial, or other revenue-generating activity.” Which seems to mean that if I were writing this in Word on a surface, I would be violating the license.

    It’s not as though you have a choice about the version of Office on your Surface. Office RT comes with it and is the only version that can be installed. (The forthcoming Surface Pro will support any Windows version of Office, but probably does not come with any Office software included.)

    There are several ways out of this. If the Surface is owner by a company and if the company has an Office Volume License Agreement, the restrictions are waived. Same if you subscribe to a business version of Microsoft’s forthcoming Office 365 service, $150 a year for Small Business Premium, $20 per user per month for Office Professional Plus.

    Bott says you are probably also in the clear if you own a fully licensed version of Office 2013 Professional and maybe Office 2013 Home & Student, although those products won’t ship for a couple of months.

    Pages, Numbers,  and Keynote aren’t the greatest word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation software in the world. But at least if you buy these iPad apps, for $10 apiece, you can use them for whatever you damn well please.

     

    Let’s Talk About the iPad Mini and Ultra-Mobile Computing

    [dc]A[/dc]pple announced today that they sold 3 million iPad Mini (Wi-Fi version) and fourth generation iPads in three days. Through some smart discussions with some folks who track supply chain shipments, I estimate that around 1.7 to 2 million of those were iPad Mini’s. Call it an educated guess. Any sane person who saw the product in person and understands the value of tablets to the end consumer, would not be surprised with the Mini’s success. I have a hunch the iPad mini will be one of the hottest sellers this holiday season.

    I have had the iPad Mini since Friday and I have observed some interesting things.

    An iPad For Everyone

    I am drawn to big screens. As impractical as it absolutely would be, I would own the biggest possible HDTV imaginable. However, there are many who are much more practical in these matters than myself – like my wife. This is why the diversification of the tablet form factor, and in this case the iPad, is an important move. The market favors options, and this includes the portfolio from single brands.

    We have already heard quite a bit about the iPad Mini in education, particularly k-12, and I do believe it has a great deal of upside in that market but there are a few other segments that I think are particularly interesting for the iPad Mini. Specifically women and China (Asia).

    My wife and kids already prefer the iPad Mini over its larger brother. I still use the iPad heavily but I have integrated it into my life in ways most have not and depend on it for a large percentage of my computing tasks. What makes the mini such a delight to use is how easy it is to hold. This, in my mind, has always been the attractive feature of the smaller form factor tablets. This may be the practical feature that many, particularly women, may appreciate about the iPad Mini.

    Asia is a market that loves miniaturization. Through the decade plus I have been and industry analyst and have studied the global consumer market, I have been shocked at the ultra-small gadgets and PCs that are particularly popular with Asian consumers. This is why, in my opinion, the iPad Mini is so strategic for Apple in China. Its unique form factor, rich ecosystem of apps, and specific software innovations for the Asian market, give it one of the strongest tablet strategies for Asia. Of course the lower price helps as well.

    The iPad Mini represents an option as a part of a portfolio of computing devices from Apple. For many it will be the perfect iPad.

    Let’s Go Outside

    One of my working hypothesis with tablets, is that their more mobile form factor, allows us to take computing to locations where notebooks can’t or are not suited for. As we have studied tablet usage from a variety of different vantage points we continually come across use cases where tablets are being used in much more mobile context than notebooks. Particularly because one can stand up, walk around, be truly mobile and still use the device.

    This is the usage model that I thought would lead the iPad out into the world more often. I have seen people using their iPads at the beach, park, walking in the city, etc., but now having used the Mini, I think this product has a shot at being the iPad we see being used out in public regularly.

    The case for this ultra-mobile iPad may be made even stronger with the WAN connected Minis and could spur entirely new usage models for pervasively connected mobile computers.

    Going back to the appeal of the Mini for women for a moment. Women are uniquely positioned to embrace this ultra-mobile personal computer because most of them regularly carry a bag or purse in which to store it. The Mini fits into few of my pants back pockets but realistically I would never carry it in my pockets.

    To be entirely honest, it was this big screen, connected mobile experience that I genuinely liked about the Galaxy Note 5.3 inch phone. That device was just too clunky as a phone to fit the bill in my opinion. The Mini could lead us into some interesting areas if it not only leaves the house, but gets used in places currently only smartphones get used.

    Let’s Play Some Games

    Another area that stood out to me with the iPad Mini was gaming. And not just casual gaming, full on immersive, hard core gaming experiences.

    I grew up in the Nintendo and beyond era. Even as I got older and had a family, I still enjoy a long gaming session from time to time. I was surprised over the past few years to see so many non-casual and more hardcore immersive games (particularly first person shooters) showing up on the iPad. I tried many of these games and just couldn’t take to them. At first I thought it was the virtual D-pad but now I think it was simply the size of the iPad. Although not impossible, it is awkward, to hold the iPad two handed and still easily use a virtual D-pad and soft buttons on the screen. All that goes out the window with the Mini.

    I was pleasantly surprised how great of an experience gaming is on the iPad Mini. I have any number of dedicated mobile gaming consoles and I have to say the Mini is on par with all of them.

    We all know games are particularly compelling on tablets, and although there are a number of hardcore and immersive games for the iPad, I am not sure how well they are doing. All of that may change if developers catch wind of the iPad Mini as a gaming platform. The iPad Mini could very well be the device that brings Apple into an entirely new level as a gaming platform.

    I am excited to see where Apple, developers, and the market take the iPad Mini. This is a fresh new form factor, and one that absolutely has a different appeal and experience than the iPad. I expect some evolving will happen with both platforms as the consumers try and evaluate both to see which ones meet their needs exactly. This is why it is important to have choice. Not all consumers prefer the same solution, and for Apple’s key growth products–which the iPad is in–making sure there are options for all types of consumers and market needs is essential.

    Upside Down Analysis

    These thoughts via Business Insider:

    According to estimates from Canaccord Genuity, Samsung has shot further ahead of the pack as the world’s largest smartphone manufacturer, shipping 56.3 million units in the third quarter.

    Apple’s consolation is that it still takes a larger share of industry profits, despite shipping approximately half as many units as Samsung.

    Today’s analysis of the mobile industry makes my head hurt because it is analysis turned on its head. In business, profits are not the consolation prize. Profits are the ONLY prize.

    Sheesh.

    When is a Tablet not a Tablet? When It’s a Surface

    Let me start this column out with some context on Windows 8. My mind has changed to a degree about Windows 8 and in particular touch based notebooks and UltraBooks. Several of the Windows 8 PCs I have been using are pure notebook form factors with solid touch-screens. I was never as negative on the addition of touch screens on notebooks as others in the industry, primarily because for over a year now, I have been using my iPad heavily in many work contexts with a keyboard accessory. So the idea of having a keyboard in front of me and touching a screen rather than using a mouse is an everyday way of life. I genuinely believe that many will welcome and enjoy the addition of touch in Windows 8 on many notebook form factors.

    I’ll also add this point, Windows 8 may be one of the better Windows releases, if not the best I have seen in some time. I’ll write more on that later and I realize I may be in the minority with that statement.

    But now I want to turn my attention to Surface, and more than just Surface, Windows 8 on devices that look and feel more like a tablet.

    Just Because You Touch a Screen Doesn’t Make it a Tablet

    Simply because a piece of hardware has the ability to touch it, does not make it a tablet. The traditional metaphor of a PC is the desktop / notebook mode. In this mode the screen sits on a desk, or a lap, and is used at arms length. Tablets on the other hand blow that paradigm wide open because they are built to be used while being held—mostly one handed— and operated solely by touch. Tablets are designed, and their experience is designed, to be more intimate and more personal. This does not mean the addition of a keyboard to a tablet is not useful, only that it is not required for most common tasks.

    Steve Ballmer made a specific statement about Surface that I want to point out. He said:

    Windows 8 is the greatest example of the PC meets the tablet – Steve Ballmer

    This quote is a prime example of the way Microsoft thinks about Windows and computing. It highlights that they are still using the old school PC metaphor of computing being done on a desk or lap, at arms length, while stationary. And the Windows 8 platform, as well as the Surface, and many other tablet centric Windows 8 PCs fully conform to this metaphor.

    Just look at how Surface was designed and where its value is being positioned. With a kickstand (to prop it up), and a keyboard, AND in landscape mode. All the same features of a notebook. In reality the Surface is a unique new form factor, but it is still largely dependent on the traditional PC computing paradigm. It is designed to converge these two experiences rather than innovate on their differences.

    It is important to add here that I am a mature tablet user. I have been using the iPad since the beginning and have it fully melded into all areas of my life in key ways. I also heavily used many tablet PC devices well before Surface. Many writing about Surface rightly point out that it should not be compared to the iPad. I agree, for many of the reasons I point out above, and more to the point that I am not convinced Windows 8 is actually a tablet OS—yet. But to the extend comparing is necessary, it is because the iPad is the gold standard of a tablet experience on the market today.

    Ballmer said that Windows 8 is the PC meets a tablet. My response to him is that the iPad is the re-invention of the PC.

    That Tablets Advantage is Portrait Mode

    I firmly say, and stand on my conviction that the iPad has not only re-invented the PC but changed the computing paradigm for a few reasons — Portrait mode and touch computing (accomplishing complex computing tasks that once required a mouse and keyboard via touch).

    I wrote a long analysis on computing in Portrait mode, where I highlight the many advantages of this mode of computing for things like writing, reading, browsing the web, etc. I use portrait mode primarily on my iPad. Only some things like games and a few other apps use landscape exclusively. The iPad, and nearly all of the 275,000 tablet apps and growing not only support both portrait and landscape but they are built uniquely to take advantage of both modes.

    Conversely, Windows 8 and Surface, appear to be built primarily for one mode—landscape. Given that Windows 8 is built for a 16:9 format this is not surprising. The software was architected for landscape. Although, the screen can be used in portrait mode, doing so presents a far less enjoyable experience than in landscape. For some this may not be a problem but for me it was a fundamentally counter experience to what I consider a pure tablet experience. Many popular apps, including MSFTs own app store, are built only for landscape mode. A mode that while leaning back in bed, or a couch, etc., is just not comfortable to hold for long periods of time.

    I’ve been adamant that browsing the web in portrait mode if far better than in landscape. As is reading books, magazines, etc,. Take a look at the side by side screen shot of the NY Times on Surface and on iPad. Both in portrait mode.

    Click for larger image

    What happens when you orient Surface to portrait mode, due to the 16:9 aspect ratio, is that everything gets smaller. Where when you flip the iPad, and even Android tablets, the text size stays the same in some cases, or shrinks slightly in others. What you get in portrait mode is more text on a screen, that even when smaller is not crunched or impossible to read. You are able to see more of the web page on the Surface because of 16:9, only the text was much harder to read. Of course you could zoom in or tap in, but that required some time to get the web page consumable. Not a deal breaker, but also not ideal.

    Oddly enough two experiences I had were not horrible in portrait mode and you will be baffled by one of them. The first was the Kindle app, which just as I described about the iPad never changed the text size when flipping from portrait to landscape. Which being able to view significantly more text on the screen than the iPad in portrait was a welcome addition. The other experience was with the desktop version of Internet explorer on the Surface. I pointed out a few weeks ago the odd solution of having two different versions of Internet Explorer. In that article I complained that the desktop version of Internet Explorer was not as touch friendly as its Windows 8 app brother. However, it turns out that desktop Internet Explorer is more portrait mode friendly than its Windows 8 app brother. When using Internet Explorer on the desktop, the web operates more like the iPad. When you flip the screen between portrait and landscape the text stays the same size and you simply see more on the screen. Go figure.

    Landscape obviously has its advantages in many scenarios like movies, some games, etc. But, in a broad set of tablet use cases portrait is equally and sometimes more important. A true tablet in my opinion provides an excellent experience in both landscape and portrait modes.

    All of that to say that there may some hope for Windows 8 from a pure tablet standpoint. Some apps gave me hope while others caused me to shake my head. Portrait mode in Windows 8 will require some specific software approaches from companies and developers who understand portrait and landscape mode and the key tablet use cases for both. It is simply not there yet holistically.

    Conclusions

    There are more things I like about Surface, and Windows 8, as PCs but not as tablets. I believe that those consumers in the market for a tablet, are not in the market for a PC. Therefore for the tablet market, I am not convinced Surface, or either flavor of Windows 8 is a solution. We will see if this changes or not.

    I know many happy Surface customers and many of them have never really used an iPad and are fully in Microsoft’s ecosystem. This may be the recipe of success for Windows 8 PCs.

    For Apple, it means they still have no true tablet competition, particularly with the iPad.

    Don’t consider this column a review of Surface. That is coming, as their are many things I like about it as a touch based PC, gestures in particular. The main point I am trying to get across is that we need to think about PCs and tablets differently.

    When it comes to the tablet discussion, we will need to dive deeper into the 7” form factor role. A form factor Microsoft is avoiding. If Microsoft wants to be serious about tablets, they will need to think long and hard about how to approach the 7” form factor.

    I’m sure there is a market for these type of converged devices, but the question is how big? I can see people buying the best pure breed tablet and a very low cost notebook as an equally compelling solution. A solution which actually may be the best of both worlds not a compromise of both worlds.

    There is still more to be said in this discussion. Things like how does the iPad stack up to the Surface as a PC? Especially if one does not care about Office. Some may say you can’t compare the Surface to the iPad in terms of a tablet and I may not totally agree but I see their point. However, some may also say you can’t compare the iPad to the Surface in terms of a PC. For that I say we will see.

    Windows 8’s Greatest Sin

    Anyone who is in business knows that once you have made a sale, you want the next sale to become as seamless and as automatic as possible. This is why newspapers and magazines push subscriptions so heavily and why so many services, like cable, phone, electricity, etc, rely so heavily upon monthly billing. They know that customers are far more likely to continue buying their goods or services from their existing provider if the purchase of those goods or services becomes routine and automatic. When the customer is given no chance to re-think or re-evaluate their decision, there is far less liklihood that they will change that decision.

    Perhaps Windows 8’s greatest sin is that it is going to force Microsoft’s current customers to have to re-decide; to re-evaluate; to re-think their current purchasing decision. And if you’re the incumbant, that’s never a good thing.

    Netflix

    Netflix started a website that rented videos and delivered those videos to its customers by mail. Netflix introduced the monthly subscription concept to their service in September 1999 and dropped the single-rental model in early 2000. Since that time, the company has built its reputation on the business model of flat-fee, unlimited rentals without due dates, late fees, shipping or handling fees, or per title rental fees. ~ via Wikipedia

    Netflix continued to expand their services by offering streaming video rentals. At the base level, Netflix was charging its customers a flat $10 for both its mail and streaming videos. Then Netflix committed a cardinal sin.

    In the fall of 2011, Netflix dramatically changed its pricing. Customers could no longer continue to pay $10 and get both the mail and streaming services. Customers had to choose between paying $8 for the mail service or $8 for the streaming service or $16 for both. This forced Netflix’ customers to re-evaluate their subscription plans. And when they chose, many of them chose to cancel their subscriptions altogether.

    On October 24, 2011, Netflix announced it had lost 800,000 US subscribers in the third quarter of 2011 and that more subscriber losses were expected.

    Netflix’ decision hardly killed the company but it unnecessarily cost them approximately a million subscribers. By forcing their customers to re-evaluate and re-think their previously automatic decisions, they gave their customers the worst option of all – the option to opt out of their Netflix subscription altogether.

    Windows Upgrades Were the Surest of Sure Things

    Microsoft’s Windows has had a virtual monopoly on personal computing since the mid-ninties. Windows software comes bundled with most new PCs, so the vast majority of operating system upgrades were invisible, automatic and virtually painless.

    There were fewer sure bets than that those who owned a Windows PC were going to buy another Windows PC. The only question was “when”. For most, seeking an alternative to Windows simply didn’t even enter into their minds.

    Windows 8 Will Cause Hesitation

    A new study by Forrester Research — as reported by Social Barrel — shows that only 33% of companies who responded to their new survey have plans to move to Windows 8, Microsoft’s latest upgrade of its operating system.

    Ten percent of the respondents have no intention at all to upgrade. The remaining 40% of the survey respondents stated that they have no plans of upgrading to Windows 8 yet.

    “Social Barrel” says the percentage decline is “massive” in comparison with companies that intended to shift to Windows 7 when it launched in 2009. At that time, 67% of the companies that participated in a Forrester survey intended to shift to Windows 7, with 28% either not considering the update or are totally skipping it. ~ MacNews

    Windows Users Have Other Options

    It’s a whole new computing world out there. In 2006, there were only PCs and a smattering of smartphones and tablets. In 2012, we have:

    — Mobile devices outselling PCs
    — The Mac and the iPad seen as perfectly mainstream
    — Bring Your Own Device and computer decision making moving from the home to the workplace rather than from the workplace to the home
    — iPad’s viewed as all the computer that some people need

    Last week – two days before Windows 8 was announced – Apple introduced a new iPad Mini. But, in a surprise move, Apple also updated their third generation iPad to a fourth generation, and refreshed almost their entire Mac line.

    Do you think that was coincidental? Or do you think that Apple was offering Windows’ existing users a clear alternative to Windows 8?

    If I’m Going To Have To Learn A New User Interface Anyway…

    Windows 8 is remarkable, daring, and innovative. But it’s also a departure from nearly everything that Windows’ customers have known Windows to be. Windows 8 is a radical makeover. It forces people to relearn how to use their computers.

    And if customers have to re-learn how to user their computers anyway, then they might as well consider learning a new operating system. Like a Mac or an iPad.

    If I’m Going To Have To Buy New Computer Hardware Anyway…

    Windows 8 is designed for a touchscreen.

    And if customers have to buy new computer hardware anyway, then they might as well consider buying a new type of computer. Or tablet. Like a Mac or an iPad.

    If I’m Going To Have To Decide Which Type Of Computer To Buy Anyway…

    Microsoft thinks it is giving its customer’s choice, but what it is really doing is foisting decisions upon its user base.

    — Windows RT or Windows 8 Tablet?
    — Surface or one of a plethora of thrid party hardeware options?

    In the abstract, choice is always good. But when you’re trying to get an existing customer to re-buy from you, extensive decision making is the last thing you want.

    If the customer has to decide between this Surface and that, between Arm and x86, between phablets and laplets, then the customer might just decide to exit the Windows ecosystem altogether. Because once you start to think about your options, you start to think about ALL your options, not just the options made available by Microsoft.

    Conclusion

    When you have an existing customer, the worst sin you can commit is to force that customer re-evaluate their past buying decisions. I’m quite sure that Windows 8 is going to sell a LOT of computers. However, many of those computer purchases may end up being Macs or iPads.

    The Personal Computing Land Grab

    It is hard to describe what is happening right now in the personal computing industry than anything other than a massive land grab. The land grab I speak of does not apply as much to traditional “old school” computing devices like desktops and portables, but it does apply to smartphones and tablets.

    The point that continues to be forgotten, is that there are still billions of people who do not have a smart phone, tablet, or other form of primary computing device. This point is understandably forgotten because so many in the mainstream media only focus on the here-and-now and that is ok. But in the here-and-now many tend to focus on the market share point as if the market is as big as its going to get. The reality is that specifically with smartphones and tablets we are in the midst of the largest global total addressable market (TAM) expansion we have ever seen.

    Just a quick look at some numbers highlights this. Right now we sell around 80-90 million traditional PCs every quarter. That market is not currently expanding. If we believe, as I do, that the tablet market is larger that the traditional PC market, then the upside is still significant. Approximating up to the current quarter, there are less than 20 million tablets sold worldwide on average every quarter. Which means the opportunity is to add tens of millions of new tablet buyers each quarter with the current growth rate of 50-60 percent a year. Smartphones sell just over 100 million world wide every quarter, similarly growing at about 40-50% year over year. Which means tens of millions of new customers will be buying smart phones globally every quarter. This market expansion is being driven by new customers, first time buyers, and that is the key to the land grab.

    This global expansion is being driven primarily by Post-PC devices of a highly mobile nature. The limiter with old school PC devices was and still is the form factor. Desktops and portables, due to their design, simply had limited use cases. Namely, you had to be stationary. With a desktop, you sat at a desk and couldn’t move. With a portable, you could move from one location to another but still needed to be stationary to use it. Tablets and smartphones break the computing paradigm of being stationary and bring mobile computing into new places. This is why the market opportunity for tablets and smartphones is much larger than desktops and portables—mobility.

    The key to this land grab is entry points, and they key to defending your land is ecosystems.

    Getting Consumers To Move Onto Your Land

    Step one is get consumers on to your land. If we trace Apple’s strategy back just over 10 years, this was the iPod. The iPod, with its simple yet powerful value proposition, is the product that set the stage for Apple. The iPod could arguably be explained as the catalyst for the post-pc era.

    This battle to get consumers onto your land is the single biggest reason the pace of innovation is picking up. Many were shocked that Apple refreshed as many products in their product line just before the holiday quarter. The truth is that most if not all of the refreshes, new product launches, etc, are targeting new customers or ones who have not upgraded in quite some time. Take the iPad Mini for example.

    As hard as it is to believe not everyone has an iPad. Yet there is still extreme interest around the tablet form factor. Apple is convinced that once people start using iPads, they have profound and some times life changing experiences. Our own internal consumer research confirms this as well. So for Apple, primary strategy number one, is to break down the barriers to owning an iPad. Apple’s focus is to bring premium features to the market at mainstream prices. We could debate that point all day but an objective look at the pricing and features of all products in the market would validate the point. With every upgrade the brought to their holiday lineup, they stayed true to that formula. And as Tim Cook said, “we are not taking our foot off the gas.” Most Apple competitors aren’t in total control of the gas pedal, yet alone have enough money to keep their foot on the gas. Strategically, this is a key point in the land grab.

    Microsoft, and their partner ecosystem, also understand the land grab. Microsoft had, and still has, most of the land of traditional desktops and portables. Key point number one for them is to maintain that land but expand into new ones. Hence their aggressiveness with new form factors across the board. Windows 8’s success hinges on its ability to move into new land during this land grab, namely post-PC devices. This is also where uncertainty still remains about the platforms ability to do so.

    The Sticky Ecosystem

    Hardware and software get consumers in the door, or onto the land in my analogy. The services are the part of the ecosystem that keep people loyal. iCloud, iTunes, iMessage, etc., are examples of this for Apple. XBOX Live, XBOX Music, Office related services, SkyDrive, etc., are examples of this for Microsoft. All of these services act as glue tying their hardware and software services together in relevant and useful ways for consumers.

    The strategy is to get consumers onto your land and keep them there with a strong and useful ecosystem. To some degree these ecosystems are mature and to some degree they are not. The services element of this is one of the most exciting upsides and is still full of unexplored territory.

    There is much land still to be grabbed. The pace of innovation is going to continue to accelerate because of it. But this competition will make each competitor better and in the end bring to us, the consumers, some of the most exciting, useful, and enjoyable technology products never before imagined.

    Why Surface Will Be Good for the iPad–and the Rest of Us

    Microsoft SurfaceFor the past 2 1/2 years, iPad as has ruled the world of tablets. Except for Amazon’s Kindle Fire and the Barnes & Noble NOOK Tablet, both special-purpose devices dedicated to consumption, there has been no competition worth mentioning. But with the entry of Microsoft into the fray, both with the Surface and an assortment of third-party Windows 8 and Windows RT tablets, the business is about to get a lot more interesting.

    I start from the premise that only competition keeps the tech business driving forward and that in the absence of effective competition products stultify. This definitely happened in PCs. After Apple failed to respond to the introduction of Windows 95, the Mac market share fell to the low single digits and without effective competition, Microsoft innovation faded. It has only been Apple’s across-the-board success in recent years that lit a fire under Microsoft.

    The iPhone never had iPad’s grace period. It entered a crowded market, where it had to displace the entrenched market leaders: BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Palm, and Symbian. That proved to be surprisingly easy, helped by lunkheaded competition, but  Android soon came along as a serious challenger. I don’t think there is any doubt that the iPhone and Android have made each other better and I expect this process to continue, especially if Google can build and app and services ecosystem that rivals Apple’s. And I think the entry of Windows Phone 8 can  only improve things, pushing both Apple and Android, though its commercial success is an open question.

    The fact that iPad has improved quite a bit since its 2010 introduction seems largely the spillover of iPhone features into the tablet space: better apps, better services, faster processors, and the retina display.  The first notable effect that tablet competition has had on the iPad is the introduction of the iPad mini, which is clearly a response to smaller tablets finding at least some success in the market.

    Android tablets, especially the larger ones, have suffered from many problems. but the overwhelming issue is the lack of decent software. The success of iOS devices and even, to some extent, of Android phones has proven that consumers want native apps. But Google has had a very hard time seeing beyond the browser. The Android app situation remains calamitous, with most of the available choices being blown-up phone apps that are terrible on a 7″ tablet and unspeakable on a 10″.

    Microsoft is not making this mistake.  The selection of Windows RT apps is still quite limited, but Microsoft understands the care and feeding of developers. The RT apps that are available are designed for the Surface’s display (and those of Windows 8 laptops and tablets) and consistently speak the Metro (for lack of a better name) design language common to Windows 8/RT and Windows Phone. Many of the apps are quite good (a notable exception being the built-in Windows 8/RT Mail app, whose awfulness is both inexplicable and inexcusable.)

    Equally important, Surface is being launched into a mature Microsoft ecosystem. Microsoft has spent years seemingly pouring money down the holes of Xbox and what used to be called the Windows Live collection of online services. But now, those investments may be about to pay off, as the company pulls together the entertainment content of Xbox and cloud services such as SkyDrive, Outlook.com, and Office 360–not to mention the deep understanding of cloud services it has gained from its enterprise back office offerings. iOS devices sold a lot of Macs because of the way they work so well together in the Apple ecosystem. The same dynamic could work for Microsoft in reverse: the vast installed base of Windows PCs could sell Surfaces and Windows Phones to gain the advantages of the Microsoft environment.Surface is being launched into a mature Microsoft ecosystem..

    Surface is not designed as a head-on competitor for the iPad. In many ways, from its ability to work with USB peripherals to its all-but-mandatory keyboard, it is far more PC-like. Like the iPad itself, it represents a new device class in what is turning out to be a surprisingly big space between smartphones and traditional PCs.

    It’s going to take a while before we can judge the success of the Surface strategy. Microsoft, however, is a patient company that is smart enough not to expect an instant payoff from its very big bet. But by offering tablet-hungry consumers a worthy alternative to the iPad, Microsoft has put pressure on Apple to keep its game up. That can only be good for all of us.

     

     

    Microsoft Pulls it Together (Almost) for Windows 8 Launch

    I attended Microsoft’s launch last week for Windows 8, Windows RT, and Surface. While launch day is only one milestonephoto 1 (3) in a string of milestones, launch day is the one day that everything must come together, the day where some make their final judgment. So how did Microsoft do?

    Importance of Launch Day

    Launch days is one day in many important days that a product or service goes through in its lifecycle. I believe it is one of the most important days, though, as it pulls together all the hard work of the previous years into just a few hours. The value of launches differ between consumer and commercial products, too. In the commercial world, buyers like IT managers don’t expect and quite frankly don’t believe that everything would be together on day one. They’re a skeptical bunch, due in part to just how many times they have seen products and services not live up to their promises in the past. Maybe they even lost their job or got reprimanded for making what ended up being a tech mistake that cost their company time or money.

    Consumer product launches are different, in that those product and services get measured by press and reviewers based upon what it can do on launch day, not at some point in the future. There are some exceptions that consumers make, where if they trust a brand and they make a future promises the company is believed, but for the most part, what is launched on that one day sticks for a very long time.

    One final important piece about launch day is “permanence”. What gets written by press and analysts on launch day is rarely updated if something changes. With most consumers checking out the internet before they buy, this is vitally important. So how did Microsoft do?

    Windows 8 Launch Day Plusses

    Looking holistically at the day, I have to give credit where it is due. Microsoft did a very good job pulling everything togetherimage on game day. Microsoft made a good case that Windows 8 was the best Windows yet, good for older and the newest systems. On almost every metric, Microsoft showed that Windows 8 is better than Windows 7. They didn’t address the lack of a Start button or the potential confusion, but I don’t think this was the right place to do that. That is best demonstrated in the marketplace.

    The demos were some of the best I’ve ever seen from Microsoft as Mike Angiulo and Julie Larson-Green did their magic. They made a pretty good case for why consumers would want Windows 8, particularly on touch-based devices. I particularly thought they did a good job showing and talking about how Windows 8 works with other Microsoft-based properties. Angiulo and Larsen-Green also did a very good job in showing the absolute breadth of designs supporting Windows 8 and Windows RT. The device onslaught was impressive, from notebooks, to hybrids, tablets, convertible flippers, convertible swivelers, to all in ones. They showed devices from all the big brands at prices ranging from $499 to $2,499.

    Steve Ballmer was in rare form too, with a good balance of his famous passion and facts. He was there to put the final stamp on the event by showing just how committed Microsoft is to the Windows 8 ecosystem and experience by outlining just how many Microsoft apps and services have been developed to support a seamless Windows experience.

    The launch wasn’t perfect, though.

    What I Wanted to Hear More About

    Microsoft demonstrated their best launch I have ever seen, but it could have been better, had they made a stronger case on a few items.

    I have been a bit critical previously on how Microsoft has handled the rollout of Metro-based apps in the store. Without having enough high-quality apps, Windows 8 could have been compared to the webOS Touchpad or 10” Android tablet ecosystem, which would have been disastrous. Microsoft definitely came through on video streaming services by adding Netflix and Hulu within weeks of launch. They also showed up with many key new site apps, even though CNN is still MIA. What Microsoft missed at launch were key social media apps. While I understand that the People app has some good connections to services, it does not replace a native social media app for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, or Google+. One example is Twitter. I, like many, have Twitter lists they want on their primary start screen. Not a single Metro Twitter app supports this. I would have at least liked for Microsoft to address this head-on and give a date when some of these apps are committed. In Surface reviews, the number of high quality apps was on key criticism in every single one of them. It didn’t have to be like that and was avoidable.

    I would have also liked for Microsoft to address any hardware incompatibilities with Windows RT as opposed for users to find out on their own. Microsoft stated that Windows RT “works with 420,000,000 devices” but how do I know if that one Neat scanner or HP scanner that is so important to me works well? Microsoft has done a ton of work testing, but I would have at least liked to see accessible resources for consumers to check if their special peripheral works well. By not disclosing this, it made them appear to be hiding something.

    Finally, there is the commercial PC and tablet market. Enterprises are currently shifting from Windows XP to Windows 7 on standard form factors like notebooks and desktops and therefore Windows 8 for the most part is irrelevant to them. Tablets are another matter altogether. Tim Cook routinely announces the extremely high per cent of enterprises rolling out or evaluating iPads, the latest figure pegged at 92%. Given Microsoft makes 75% of their profit from the commercial market, this seemed like an oversight. Given the competitiveness of the Windows 8 and Windows 8 Pro tablets, many enterprise IT people would be hard pressed to justify an iPad purchase, Microsoft should have at least given a tip of the hat to Windows 8’s applicability to the commercial market.

    Where We Go From Here

    Many consumer reviews have been written and there will be many, many more in the future for Windows 8 and Windows RT. For the most part, the die has been cast and the Microsoft marketing and ad machine are in full swing, all which will make a difference on perception. The Windows 8 launch was the best Microsoft launch I have ever seen or attended, and I have personally attended many. While Microsoft didn’t address everything they needed to in order to seal the deal, they absolutely got Windows 8 and RT off to a solid start. Now it’s time to see if that translates to sales.

    Buyers Remorse is a Way of Life in Tech

    [dc]H[/dc]ave you ever bought a tech gadget and two weeks later, a better version of it comes out? Or purchased one of the new HDTVs with high resolution and then seen a new version with even higher resolution come out just weeks later for the same price? It may be relatively obsolete after CES in January as all TV makers will introduce their 4K or Ultra HD sets with 4 times the resolution of today’s HDTV’s.

    Whether consumers like it or not, buyers remorse is just a way of life in the world of technology and that will never change. How come you ask? Well, there are a lot of reasons but the basic answer lies in the fact that no matter what product a tech company puts out, it is in its DNA to make it better, faster, thinner, lighter or develop a whole host of other tech related advancements that enhance the product further. I have been covering the tech market for 35 years, and this cycle never changes. However, the pace of tech advancements today is faster then I have ever seen in my years of covering technology professionally.

    When Apple introduced both the iPhone and the iPad, they pretty much committed to a year long cycle before new models came out. This was because as early as 2003, Apple was updating the iPod every 6 months and consumers were squawking about this pace of upgrades and their buyer’s remorse. So Jobs said at one MacWorld that they were going to start this yearlong cycle to help alleviate those concerns. And this has been the case from then until last week.

    So, why did Apple introduce a 4th gen iPad just seven months after the 3rd generation iPad hit the streets? My educated guess is that once Apple perfected the A6 chip, which they introduced in the iPhone 5 and doubled the speed of iPhone, they really wanted to upgrade the iPad as soon as possible so that both products performed at these new processing levels. Having both equal in performance makes a lot of sense because once you use the iPhone 5, you clearly want that same speedy performance in your iPad too.

    Keep in mind, Apple does not do R&D then put things into manufacturing over night. The fact that they were going to put an A6 chip in an iPad was probably put in place at least 18 months ago and while they could have held it off until next March, the performance gains they had with the A6 chip was just too good to hold off releasing it until next year.

    But this same logic drives much of the tech vendors thinking about product releases. Many Android backers and PC vendors update smartphones, tablets and laptops in 6-month increments. And if a consumer service has new features, it usually gets upgraded even faster, even if it means offering a new device with more advanced features to handle the new services.

    When I was a kid, I remember getting a hand held transistor radio so I could listen to baseball games. And I saved up my money to get this particular model that was small and very portable. I literally scraped pennies and dimes together over a period of time so I could buy this particular radio I had seen advertised in the back of Popular Science.

    Well, guess what happened. As soon as I got the radio, the newest model was released and as a kid, I had my first bout of buyer’s remorse. And even today, that happens all too often for me even today. But at some point I just have to say that this product will meet my immediate needs and pull the trigger and buy it.

    While Apple releasing a new iPad may have come quickly, the same will happen with the Nexus 7. Google is likely to introduce not only a new 10” model soon but also an updated 7” version too, even though the current one hit the market just 4 months ago. And given the pace of technology advancements, I will not be surprised if Amazon upgrades their current Kindle Fire HD six or seven months after the current model came out.

    So, the fact that Apple introduced a new iPad not long after the last one came out should not be that upsetting to people. The opposite would be to tell Apple to slow down the pace of innovation and as a technology buyer that is the last thing I want Apple to do. The same goes for Google, Amazon and any other company who delivers innovative products. The key is to understand that what you buy today will meet your needs today since you may not even know what your needs will be tomorrow. That is the job of the tech companies; to anticipate users future needs and drive their R &D in that direction.

    A Surface Retail Reality Check

    Photo of popup Microsoft store

    Whatever the buzz that got some people to line upo for the midnight launch of Surface sales at Microsoft Stores last night seems to have dissipated quickly. This afternoon, I stopped by the popup store in Westfield Montgomery Mall  in Bethesda, Md. It was a slow time of day, about 3 pm on a Friday, but the heavily staffed store wasn’t having a lot of luck even getting passing shoppers to stop and take a look at its assortment of Surface tablets and Windows 8 laptops. At one point, I counted five customers (at least in the sense they were looking) and 10 store employees, probably mostly contractors.

    Here’s a very of the same store, located at the crossing of two main aisles, from the level above:

    Photo of popup Microsoft store.

    And here, for contrast, is a shot of the Apple Store located directly above the Microsoft popup. It’s actually pretty empty by Apple standards, but Microsoft would die for this sort of quiet time.

    Photo of Montgomery Mall Apple Store.