Why No One Can Match the MacBook Air

Peter Bright at Ars Technica has a feature about his frustrating search for a Windows notebook that can match the MacBook Air–and how difficult it will be for Intel to pull off its quest for Air-like Ultrabooks. The big questions is why it is so hard for PC makers to compete.

ThinkPad X1 photo
ThinkPad X1 (Lenovo)

The answer clearly has nothing to do with technology. Dell, HP, Lenovo, Acer, Sony, and Toshiba, along with smaller players, have all the skills required to design just about anything. Everyone is building their systems using the same components and, for the most part, the same manufacturing partners.

I think the real problem lies in the  marketing DNA of the computer makers, which has evolved to meet the demands of corporate  customers and the retail sales channel. While their  requirements  are entirely different, both drive design away from the clean and simple designs and low-cost, high-quality manufacturing that are Apple hallmarks.

Corporate sales are the lifeblood for many PC makers. Consumers buy a lot more units, but enterprises buy higher-end products and typically provide better margins. But corporations are very picky buyers. Their bid sheets generally include lengthy lists of specifications, often specific classes of processors, specific graphics systems, even specific Wi-Fi radios. They often require legacy ports to be included long after their usefulness has ended. And in most cases, supplying every item on the bid sheet is a minimum requirement to compete.

The result of this need to meet very fine-grained requirements is great complexity. The buyer of a 13″Mac Book Air has one choice to make: a 128- or 256-gigabyte solid-state storage device. The Lenovo ThinkPad X1, one of the most Air-like products, offers three different processors, optional Bluetooth, two flavors of mobile broadband, four Wi-Fi radios, 4 or 8 GB or RAM, and a choice of a conventional hard drive or two different SSDs, making 432 total hardware combinations.

This much variety complicates every stage of the supply chain, from buying components to stocking finished inventory. It raises costs. It also prevents optimizing the design around a set of component choices. (One consequence of the Air’s sleek, monolithic design–a big part of its esthetic appeal–is that what you buy is what you get; there are no field-upgradeable components.

In the consumer market, the problem is different but the result the same. Retailers (including Dell’s mostly online operation) want to have a product, or perhaps a choice of products, at every conceivable price point. This leads to a profusion of overlapping and very similar models and a product line that makes no sense even to very sophisticated buyers. When I asked Dell.com to show me 11″ to 14″ consumer notebooks, the site produced a page offering 12 different versions of two 14″ Inspiron notebooks, the 14R-2nd Gen and 14z (even the names are messy.)

Apple, by contrast, need not satisfy anyone but the ultimate user–and judging by the results, the lack of choice isn’t much of a problem. Even corporations, many of which are reluctantly buying Macs to meet the demands of their internal users, are learning to live with taking what Apple gives. This Apple-knows-best attitude strikes some people as paternalistic, even fascistic. But it produces great products that well-heeled buyers seem to love.

 

 

VizLingo – The Newest Gadget for Gen Z

Yes, the tech revolution has produced an endless stream of new gizmos, gadgets and tools. Some of these are vital to our day-to-day existence, like email, and some are simply a fun and entertaining distraction (Angry Birds anyone?)…

Not long ago, entrepreneurs Todd Younggren and Azeo Fables created hatched the idea to use the latest revolution in tech, mobile, to create a new way to communicate, and VizLingo was born.  Simply put,VizLingo is a messaging tool that translates your words into video. The UI is exactly what the new generation of users demands, fun and easy! Just type, see and send. The user simply types any message into VizLingo to see each word of their message illustrated by a 1-2 second video clip. Streamed together (with subtitles at the bottom for the less creative), it’s a visual puzzle that can be sent anywhere – directly to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, mobile phones and email addresses.

If you’re thinking “I don’t get it” – that’s actually a good thing.  It’s one of those subtle mechanisms that has to be experienced, like poetry for instance.  VizLingo is definitely a sort of “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” medium – a new form of visual poetry, if you will. It’s not only who it plays TO, but also what the “writer” puts into their work. My favorite part of  VizLingo is that, soon, the creator can customize their own Lingo by uploading video clips right from a mobile phone or digital camera. It’s fun and easy, and in the hands of a user who has the time to be super creative, it could definitely go big and go viral.

VizLingo’s Global Lingo is communal, created by and for the VizLingo community, boasting tens of thousands of user-generated clips shared from all over the world. And in today’s world of “new normal” social marketing,  VizLingo could be a BIG deal.  In fact, I think Ford and the Hershey Chocolate company and Virgin Airlines, etc., should engage their younger clientele and create a promotion where anyone using their products in a VizLingo video and pushing it out to their own friends and fans, wins a [fill in the blank] … Virgin Airlines round trip to Tahiti, perhaps?

In the immortal words of one of my favorite ads, “This is not your father’s Oldsmobile.” And if VizLingo finds the creative joint ventures that FourSquare embarked on when everyone first stood there saying, “I don’t get it,” well, we may end up wishing we did.

 

Future TV, touch it, look into it, wave at it.

The choices for user interaction are multiplying rapidly

With IFA wrapped up and IBC coming, all the new TV related products as well as new TVs are in the press.
S3D screens, with and without glasses have been with us a while. Large screen displays that allow interaction with gesture have been available as expensive custom devices for election night and sports TV announcers. The console suppliers introduced lower cost gesture capabilities to TV screens, and most recently TV suppliers are offering touch screens.

New gesture remote control devices will show up later this year, and there are even a couple of voice-activated devices.
LG’s Pentouch TV shown at IFA is a good example. It comes with a pair of Touch Pens that can be used simultaneously on the screen. So users can sit really close to a big screen TV and draw pictures, or slect icons.

Stephen Gater, consumer electronics marketing director LG UK, commented, “We’re all used to touch screens being available on our phones and even tablets now, but LG is one of the first to be offering this technology on large TV screens.”
The LG TV also offer S3D capability with active shutter glasses.

What do we think?
The TV of the future and that future will be here by the holiday season of 2012, will be amazing. Competing with each other as well as tablets, phones and even AIO PCs, the TV set manufactures are scrambling to be innovative and differentiated. How we interact with the TV and communicate via will dramatically change in the next few years. Wirelessly and seamlessly connected to every other device we use, our mobile phone and tablets will be remote controls and second screens.

The TV will be picture frame when not showing Judge Judy, and we’ll push, wave at, talk to, and wipe our TVs, as well as watch them in 2D and S3D. TV—you ain’t seen nothing like it.

Amazon Plans on Stealing Android Developers From Google

You may think such a statement sounds absurd. However if a recent report from MG Siegler at TechCrunch is true then Amazon wants to lure Android developers for their own version of Android and Kindle products.

Tim Bajarin in an April PC Magazine column explored this similar line of thinking and now we have more data confirming this assumption.

Earlier today MG Siegler published his scoop on the upcoming Amazon Kindle Tablet. Throughout the report he details his own experience using the yet unreleased and unannounced tablet.

It is interesting to think about how and more importantly why MG Siegler came about this information. This is an important baseline for us to establish since it determines whether or not we can count the details of his experience as credible or rumor.

Given the amount of detail disclosed to MG and that the conditions of his arrangement were that he would get info but couldn’t take pictures, we can reasonably assume this is a planned leak. We also learned that he was in Seattle for this encounter and we know Amazon’s headquarters are in Seattle which strengthens the planned leak assumption.

Strategically this also makes sense for Amazon. MG is very smart, and he has also been one of Android’s harshest critics. He also covers Apple. A lot. So to give the scoop to a rather influential Apple journalist, especially if the outcome of his reaction is positive, which it was, is a smart PR move. My applause for Amazon PR.

All of that to say that I believe his account is credible and is a planned PR leak from Amazon. Therefore I am assuming his account is correct and the information is not rumor or speculation and therefore credible.

Now on to the part where Amazon wants to steal Android developers.

MG details the version of Android as “nothing like the Android you’re used to seeing.” So as to be expected Amazon has taken and created their own version of Android. Because Amazon has their own marketplace they don’t need Google for anything therefore customization is feasible. Google only allows “approved” versions of Android to get Market Place Certification, so if an OEM wants Android Market on their device they have to play by Google’s rules.

Amazon never wanted to, has no intention, and has no need to play by Google’s rules.

The most interesting detail of MG’s account is the detail of what version of Android Amazon built this new Kindle experience on. He details that it is built on some version prior to Android 2.2 Froyo.

This is fascinating.

Why would Amazon not use Froyo? Why would they not use Gingerbread? Why would they not want to go live with Ice Cream Sandwich? Why would they choose what many would deem a supremely inferior and outdated version of Android to build their experience on?

The answer I believe lies in Amazon’s desire to lock Google completely out of benefiting in every way from their tablet, should it be successful. First off Google made major changes which included adding restrictions when they released Froyo. A strong case could be made that Android was more open prior to Froyo. More importantly many of the toolkits and technologies related to the SDK for Froyo evolved.

My point is that to take a version of Android that is not cutting edge means that Amazon intends to make their version cutting edge and will most likely release their own better version of an SDK to write apps for the Kindle.

If Amazon does fork Android as MG states then it means developers will be presented with a choice. Support and develop apps for the Kindle or develop apps for the broader Android ecosystem. I believe Amazon in this move plans to entice developers to follow them down their forked path of Android. They can use their marketplace, as well as their economic incentives to get developers paid, to create all the needed nuggets to attract developers.

If Amazon can show developers the money, and I believe they can, they may have a real shot attracting loads of developers to their market place who will develop apps for their version of Android.

Given that Amazon’s version of Android is so highly customized I am guessing that they have stripped every benefit to Google in terms of data, ads, revenue etc out of this product. Which would mean that Google would not benefit at all should this Kindle succeed. In fact I would be comfortable if we agreed that in fact this Amazon Kindle is not really running Android at all.

Netflix vs. Starz: Hollywood Keeps a Tight Rein on Content

In a short article today, The Los Angeles Times sheds some fascinating light on the failed negotiations that will result in Netflix losing streaming movie and TV content from Starz at the end of February.  Nextflix, the paper said, offered $300 million a year to extend the agreement, but Starz wanted nothing less than a change in Netflix’s one-price, all-you-can-eat business model. It wanted Netflix to charge premium prices to viewers who wanted the Starz content.

Netflix screen grabIn recent Tech.pinions posts, Ben Bajarin, Patrick Moorhead, and I have all argued, in somewhat different ways, that winning the cooperation of the studios who control content is the key to realizing the potential of the convergences of information technology and entertainment. But the Starz move, and other developments such as Fox Television’s decision to withhold new episodes of its shows from Hulu.com for eight days, show that if anything, Hollywood is becoming more resistant to anything that challenges its traditional distribution.

On one level, it’s difficult to argue against the Hollywood position. The studios do not face the challenges that record labels did a decade ago. The DVD business is crumbling and theatrical distribution, while healthy, is showing slow growth at best, relying mainly on ever-rising ticket prices to drive revenue. But “broadcast” TV (I use quotes because relatively few people see these shows through over-the-air broadcasts anymore) is holding up well, and cable on-demand and premium channels are thriving. The studios know they are fighting a historical tide, but for the time being, they don’t see various forms of internet distribution replacing the revenues that they stand to lose from their existing business models.

Starz is owned by Liberty Media, whose chairman, John C. Malone, and CEO Gregory B. Maffei, are about as smart and as tough as they come. (If you ever get into a negotiation and see Malone on the other side of the table, run.  This is the guy who made a fortune selling cable operator Tele-Communications Inc. to AT&T and another fortune as AT&T spun out Liberty Media when it sold its cable operations to Comcast. AT&T took a bath, and Malone made money on both ends of the deal.) I would not dismiss them shunning the Netflix money as the act of foolish Luddites who can’t see what’s coming.

No one much likes their cable company and the notion that we will eventually be able to pick and choose the content we want from the internet is an appealing one. But I think would-be cord-cutters who don’t want to give up current, premium content are going to have to wait at least a few years–and real innovation in entertainment content delivery will probably have to wait with them.

 

How To Fix the A&T/T-Mobile Deal

Sascha Segan, the phone guru at PCMag.com, has an interesting suggestion on  how AT&T might salvage its challenged purchase of T-Mobile USA. Divesting 25% of the company wouldn’t satisfy Justice Dept. antitrusters, but a binding promise to open its network to competitive mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) just might. Read Segan’s full post here.

Spectrum Wars: The Bleak Outlook for Wireless

In a post at TechCrunch, Frank Barbieri argues that the entire dispute over the AT&T’s acquisition of T-Mobile is really about the failure of spectrum allocation policies in the U.S. He’s right although AT&T’s short-term case would be stronger if it were moving faster to deploy the unused spectrum it already has. And Barbieri is right that the biggest roadblock to freeing that spectrum is local TV st ation owners, who in many cases, especially the most valuable big-city outlets, are CBS, Disney (ABC), NBC Universal (soon to be Comcast), and News Corp. (Fox.)

Cover Art: The Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd

One reason for the transition to digital television in the  last decade is that digital TV uses spectrum a lot more efficiently than its analog predecessor. TV stations traded their old frequency assignments–the spectrum is now mostly owned by Verizon, which is using it for 4G LTE service, and AT&T, which will eventually do the same–for new assignments. But an HD broadcast channel only takes about a third of the bandwidth assigned. The hope was that stations would create second and third channels, but mostly they are filling them with endless loops of local weather radar or similarly uninspired programming, or leaving them idle altogether.

Unused or underused TV channels do seem to be the easiest part of the 500 MHz of bandwidth that Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski hopes to free for mobile wireless use. But legally and politically things get sticky very fast.

One problem is the question of who actually owns the spectrum. In recent years, users such as wireless phone carriers and satellite operators have been required to buy the rights to spectrum at auctions. Earlier, however, the bandwidth was licensed without charge, to be used by broadcasters “for the public convenience and necessity.” Ownership remains with the people of the U.S., that is, the federal government.

As a matter of law, that is indisputable, But as a matter of equity, broadcasters argue that hardly any current owners are the original licensees and that the spectrum has actually has actually been paid for many times over as the licenses have been bought and sold. Regardless of how the spectrum was originally assigned, current owners have an equity interest in it and, in fact, it is often their most valuable asset.

The FCC proposes that the unused frequencies be sold in  an “incentive auction,” in which current licensees will get an incentive to participate by being given a share of the proceeds. This will require congressional approval, and we all know how well that works. One big argument is over just how big that incentive payment will be. The broadcasters seems to think something like 90% of the proceeds would be appropriate, which the government would like to reverse the ratio. Then there are questions about just how voluntary participation in the sale would be and just how to handle the fact that some stations would have to move to new frequencies to allowed the freed-up spectrum to be consolidated into more usable blocks.

Barbieri is quite right that local broadcasters have tremendous power in Washington. Getting free media on the local station still matters a lot to every member of Congress.

The one  hope for anything happening in the near term may be Congress’ desperation to cut the budget deficit without cutting popular programs or raising taxes. In the end, it was congressional hunger for the revenues from reselling analog TV spectrum that put an end to years of successful foot-dragging by broadcasters in 2009. The same could happen this time, though not without an epic fight.

 

 

 

Why Silicon Valley Needs a New Name

I was visiting with one of Silicon Valley’s bright thinkers last week, Kanwar Chandra the CMO of CSR and founder of Sirf, and he told me that Silicon Valley is really no longer Silicon Valley. In fact, he said it needs a new name. He went on to say that Silicon Valley has really become the Valley of platforms.

He astutely pointed out that it is the center of mobile and wireless development platforms with Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android platform driving major growth around the world. And with Intel jumping on the low voltage processor bandwagon, along with the many Valley companies building IP around ARM cores, it is also the center of platform development in mobile related processors for companies to build next generation mobile devices. The company he founded, Sirf, is the leader in GPS processing and much of the GPS and mapping platforms are being driven by Sirf and other companies in the Valley related to location based hardware and software.

It is now the center of activity in social networking with Twitter and Facebook leading the way with their various platforms that people can develop on. eBay and Craigslist were created to be major platforms for driving eCommerce and both companies are based in the Silicon Valley region. The Bay Area has also been at the heart of BioTech thanks to the pioneering work of Genentech and work at Stanford and UC Berkeley along with many Valley based biotech firms. The Valley’s VC’s are backing start-ups in green energy here in Silicon Valley in a big way that suggests that the Valley will become a hotspot for alternative energy platforms too.

Companies in the Valley are also leading most of the major cloud based projects and initiatives with SalesForce.com and Oracle’s Web based apps providing critical platforms for enterprise. And we will soon see the introduction of Apple’s iCloud and I am willing to bet that they will define how the consumers see and understand what the cloud is all about.

More importantly, Apple’s iCloud will become a major platform for innovation. And of course, Google’s cloud programs are already a big hit and as they make their cloud based business tools more robust and take on Microsoft with their cloud initiatives from an Open Source approach, they too will provide a major cloud based platform for business and consumers.

This shift from silicon being at the center of the Valley’s tech existence to one of platforms driving its future growth is actually quite significant and one that needs to be recognized. To frame our region as just Silicon Valley these days does it an injustice.

But here is the problem. If we see the Valley’s reason-to-exist moving from Silicon to platforms, what do we call it? Silicon Platform Valley does not roll off the tip of the tongue. Or perhaps Technology Platform Valley is the right name. Or how about Silicon Valley now Platform Valley? OK I admit that I am very bad at naming things.

So, I need your help.

If Silicon Valley has evolved beyond its core technology and is now becoming the center for broad technology platforms, is there a better name for it then Silicon Valley? I know the tendency will be to just leave it as it is, but somehow I sense we need to grab hold of this idea of it being the center of new and innovative platforms and embrace it wholeheartedly.

So, while the chance of actually changing its name is remote, I am still open to any good names you can come up with that perhaps we can push behind the scenes and at least get people seeing Silicon Valley for more then being just the center of the universe for silicon based chips.

Your comments and name suggestions are appreciated.

If you feel obliged please comment below or feel free to send me electronic mail at Tim@techpinions.com.

Why Apple Should Build a TV

While I don’t believe it, to many, it appears that Apple has already won the smartphone and tablet wars, so the next logical conclusion is “what’s next”. Many articles about the Apple in the TV business rumors (not to be confused with the “hobbyistApple TV) focus on what a lousy business TVs are or questioning if Apple could add enough incremental value given cable and content companies have the power position. These are good and pragmatic reasons, but then again when has Apple been pragmatic? I see nothing pragmatic about expensive MP3 players at 2X the price of others, paid music downloads or app stores 10 years ago. I personally would like to see Apple enter the TV market.

appletv

TVs and STBs Have Big Issues

Let’s face it, TVs aren’t very easy to use, especially when they are connected to a set top box (STB). Most of us tech-heads forget just how literate we all are with technology. Just ask a less tech-literate person to change inputs on the TV to go from the set top box to the DVD player. Many times they have “Channel 3” written down somewhere so they remember. Ever lost that remote? Sure you have and it really pissed you off. How about a set top box from a cable company? Mine takes almost a second to change the channel. And why do I keep running out of storage when I have TBs of secured storage in other parts of my house? I know what you are thinking… too complex, too many companies involved with too many conflicting agendas. Well, I’ve heard that same short-term thinking before with digital music.

uglyremote

Big Problems Need a Fearless Company like Apple

Apple has a solid track record in fixing those issues that have plagued users for years. Apple has significantly moved the industry in:

  • Simple digital content downloads
  • Application purchasing and updating
  • UI simplicity
  • Computer boot time, wake from sleep time
  • Reliability and dependability

So Apple fixes huge issues and TVs and STBs have big issues. It sounds like the perfect match.

A Bold Assumption on Content and the Distributors

My assumption is that Apple will find a business model the content providers will find advantageous or tempting enough to cross the cable and satellite companies. If not, then you would expect them to declare war and do everything in their power to circumvent this by investing in the “pipe” or content companies themselves. This market is too huge and too big an opportunity for the most valuable company on the planet to pass up. I know, this sounds impossible, but when Napster arrived on the scene, how plausible did iTunes sound? How plausible did downloadable movies sound with bit-torrent around?

So why should Apple make a TV? Because there is so much they could improve and people will pay a hefty premium to have a superior experience in a few different areas.

Finding Content via Advanced HCI

Controlling a device with 1,000s of “channels” makes absolutely no sense with a physical remote like we have today with up and down buttons and even numbers. This would be like instead of having Google web search as we have today, we were stuck with Yahoo directories and no search. Directories made sense until the options exploded, like we have today with content.

Apple is one of a few companies who could master controlling the TV’s content via voice primarily, then secondarily air gestures for finer grain controls. First, the TV needs to be smart enough to determine who in the room has “control” and who doesn’t. It’s the future problem of today’s “who has the remote” issue. Then it needs to separate between background noises and real people if you are to have the best voice control. After you have found what you want to watch, you can fine-tune with the flick of a finger. This takes technologies even more advanced than the Kinect to pull this off, including the right sensors and parallel compute power delivered by OpenCLTM frameworks.

Apple Device Integration

If Apple developed a TV, they could conceivably guarantee that the iPhone, iPad, Time Capsule and Macs could seamlessly share content between each other. We have seen from the issues with Android and webOS on getting Netflix and Hulu+ that content providers are more apt to license when there are more closed systems.

As I am watching my NFL Football game, I want perfect, real-time sync of stats on my iPad, and want to be able to carry the game from the media room with me on my iPhone into the kitchen. I’d like overflow content storage to go to my Mac, PC, or Time Capsule. Finally, I would also expect to see sharing of basic sensors like cameras, microphones, gyroscopes, proximity sensors, and accelerometers to extend and facilitate security, monitoring, and gaming applications.

Apple Basics

I would want some of the basic positive characteristics I get in my iPhone and iPad in my iTV. I would expect it to be very responsive, reliable, and with a sense of awesome style. My set top box or my TV is neither of these. I would know that every differentiating feature would work well or it wouldn’t be included. I would also expect some key 10’ UI apps as well.

Conclusion

I believe Apple can and will be able to arrive at a business model with content providers and cable/satellite companies. Either that or it will get very ugly for everyone. The most valuable company in the world with a huge pile of cash, no debt and a historic track record of pioneering breakthrough content deals can do this, or if forced to will go around it. Apple has been a company that fixes those nagging problems, and the TV and STB have a lot of them. Our basic method of finding content is broken. STBs crash and are slow and don’t work with other devices in the home. I’d like to see Apple fix these issues. How about you?

In Praise of Longevity: The HP 12c Calculator

How many tech products that made their debut in 1981 are still with us today in essentially unchanged form? Today marks the 30th anniversary of the release of the HP 12c financial calculator, a device contemporary with the Apple ][e, the IBM PC 5150, and the Osborne I.

HP 12c photoUnlike the iconic HP 65, the 12c never really caught the attention of techies. It was designed for financial number crunchers, not engineers or programmers. But its array of built-in financial functions, its ease of use, and even its quirky but efficient reverse Polish (RPN) data entry has endeared it to its target audience to this day.

The price of the 12c has come down somewhat since its introduction. It first went on sale for $150, about $274 in today’s dollars. Now you can buy it for about $60 and a modernized Platinum edition (among other things, it allows standard algebraic data entry as well as RPN) for a few bucks more. A special 30th anniversary edition is $80.

Even at that price, it’s probably one of the more profitable–in margin terms–products in HP’s lineup. Its innards have been modernized over the years; the original relied on a lot of discrete components. The bill of materials for a couple of chips, a 10-digit seven-segment LCD display, some plastic injection moldings, and a couple of alkaline batteries can’t be more than a few dollars.

But it’s a device that still does its job. Nothing is faster or easier at calculating the monthly payment on a mortgage loan or the present value of a 10-year stream of income. The 12c could easily still be around in another 30 years.

Android Hardware Is Too Saturated For Its Own Good

The plethora of Android devices on the market was added to in a variety of ways today with news from IFA.

My friend Evan Selleck asks a good question over at PhoneDog. Is the market being saturated with Android smartphones?

The answer is yes. Resoundingly and overwhelmingly yes. There is a difference between choice and too much choice. I believe there is a paradox at play with regard to the strategies of Android hardware makers. They believe the more devices the better. I actually believe the opposite is true.

I read a book a while back called “The Paradox of Consumer Choice: Why More is Less” by Barry Schwartz. His main premise of the book is that too much choice actually makes it harder for consumers to make decisions. If you are interested in this I highly recommend reading the book.

If I were to put myself in a consumers shoes, something I do often, and I were genuinely shopping for an Android phone I would find it difficult. There are simply too many choices. You also have the added bonus of knowing something better is just around the corner because Android vendors release new phones as often as rabbits have babies.

Furthermore a saturated landscape of devices is even harder to justify in a market that is in the process of maturing like the smart phone and tablet segment. Most consumers are still buying their first smart phones. Therefore they are still exploring what they want in a smart phone.

So the paradox is that Android vendors believe more is better when in fact while this market matures more is less. Android vendors should be making it easier for consumers to choose their products not more difficult.

The impact is that this saturation and overwhelming amount of choice with Android devices will most likely lead consumers to go with the safe bet, which is the iPhone. All the reviews of the iPhone are positive, consumers hear from their friends how much they love the iPhone, etc etc.

When you add all that up you can see why I stated that the iPhone 5 would be Apple’s biggest launch yet.

The bottom line is this saturation in the Android space makes it easy to conclude that the iPhone’s dominance is no where near being threatened. Apple is the #1 smart phone manufacturer and it doesn’t appear that will change anytime soon.

If you look at the history of the technology industry, the most iconic products stand apart. Take the Palm V(5) for example, arguably one of the most iconic products in our industries history. Palm didn’t release five Palm products that year. They just made one the Palm V and it was the most desirable PDA by far. Apple’s strategy has been the same.

While this market is maturing the right strategy for Android vendors would be to pour all their resources into creating one amazing device per cycle. Unfortunately they are falling into the trap of thinking the more devices the marrier. Thus saturating the market and making it hard for consumers to choose.

You may say this sounds silly since Android has been growing at alarming rates with vendors employing this strategy. To that I say let’s re-evaluate Android market share at the end of the year.

Obscure Attack Threatens Privacy, e-Commerce

An attack on a Dutch company in the obscure–to most of us–business of issuing digital certificates poses a serious challenge to secure web communications. No, you shouldn’t stop using Amazon.com or Gmail, but the attack opens another front in the never-ending war that threatens the security of the internet. The tale is a bit complicated, but I’ll try to make it simple. (And thanks to Swa Frantzen of the SANS Internet Storm Center for his detailed analysis of the incident.)

Since the early days of the the secure hypertext transfer protocol (https) has been used to lock down communications between browsers and web servers. Its use is indicated by the letters “https” in the URL, often a locked browser icon, and sometimes the use of green text in the address bar (screen shot above shows Google’s Chrome browser connected to a secure site.)

Https depends on something called a digital certificate that is supposed to do two things. First, your browser checks the certificate for proof that the server it is connecting to is what it claims to be, that is, it asks the server to present a digital ID card proving that it really is mail.google.com. Second, the certificate includes a key that is used to set up encryption of the traffic between the server and the browser.

All of this, obviously, depends on the integrity of the certificate. Some time in the past–just when is not certain yet–unknown parties breached the system of DigiNotar, a Dutch certificate authority. The attackers issued a number of fake certificates in July. On July 19, DigNotar discovered the attack an revoked a number of certificates. However at least one, for google.com, was missed. This fake certificate was used to connect users, mostly in Iran, to a fake Google site.

All of this had little immediate effect on anyone outside Iran. Microsoft, Mozilla, and Google updated their browsers so that they will no longer automatically trust any certificate issued by DigiNotar (the situation with Safari on Macs is more complicated.) This is a problem for DigiNotar and its legitimate customers, but is the best way to protect everyone else.

Furthermore, the fake certificates were only a problem if users were also directed to a fake site. This required a separate attack on the internet’s domain name system (DNS) to replace the legitimate addresses of Google servers with fake ones. That is why the attack only affected users of Iranian DNS services. (There’s only speculation at this point on why Iran,  but one possibility is that the attack was designed to allow the country’s security services to read what users thought were secure, encrypted communications with gmail and other Google services.)

Still, this is another serious warning shot telling us that major improvements are needed in internet security. Attacks redirecting traffic to fake web sites, either by compromising DNS servers or through a technique known as DNS cache poisoning, are not rare. When combined with undetected fake certificates, they have the potential to be devastating.

One obvious area for improvement is the certificate authority infrastructure. As it exists, the certificate authority is what engineers call a single point of failure. Compromise it and the entire security system, which ultimately runs on trust, fails. In particular, a speedy investigation is needed into how the audit trhat followed DigiNotar’s discovery of the breach failed to find the fake Google certificate.

 

Will an HP PC Spinoff Make a Stronger Competitor?

I have been having conversations with key executives around the industry about HP’s decision to explore spinning off their Personal Systems Group, which is the group that makes their business and consumer PC’s. An interesting question that has come up is whether or not spinning off PSG will make for a stronger or weaker competitor in the PC industry?

The logic goes that PSG was so tied up in big company atmosphere, who as of late was prioritizing software and services over hardware. Knowing how large companies often move slow and conservatively I can see how this could be an issue for a group who wants to act more like a startup.

So the real question is if HP does decide to go ahead and spin off PSG, will this move put them in a better position to compete?

I certainly can see and sense the desire from my PSG colleagues to move and innovate faster. The PC marketplace is changing rapidly and competition is getting fierce. But PC’s are not going away and can still be a legitimate business if managed well and they innovate in a more timely manner. So it makes a fair bit of sense to build a case that if spun out they could innovate, create and compete in a fast moving market.

It is also very difficult in today’s changing technology landscape to run a business with a successful enterprise and consumer division. Both require very different mindsets, strategies and leadership.

The fact of the matter however is that whether or not an HP spinoff can make for a stronger competitor in the industry will depend on the leadership and the talent that goes with it or is acquired as a new organization.

If the spinoff is approved by the board and moved forward with, this new entity would start its life as a Fortune 60 company with over $40 billion in annual revenue and it would be the #1 PC manufacturer (if you dont’ cound tablets).

That is not a bad way to start off. However the real test of the leadership will be not just to maintain but to grow their percentage of market share in all the areas they choose to compete.

Although execution will be critical and will be what others affirm as the challenge, what may be even more important is the right vision.

HP’s slogan has been the “PC is personal again.” However the real challenge of the companies who aren’t Apple is to make the “PC interesting again.”

Intel is hoping they can assist makers like Dell, HP, Acer, Samsung and others with their UltraBook initiative. Will UltraBooks Make PCs Interesting Again?

If HP does decide to spin off PSG what we will look for is their vision. What categories will this new entity focus on? Where do they believe the growth areas are? How will they compete, differentiate and add value?

Those questions and more will be what we look for as analysts in order to come to an opinion on how successful and competitive this new business will be in the marketplace.