December 2011 – Page 2

Windows 8 Desktop on ARM Decision Driven by Phones and Consoles

There has been a lot written about the possibility of Microsoft not supporting the Windows 8 Desktop environment on the ARM architecture. If true, this could impact Microsoft, ARM and ARM’s licensees and Texas Instruments, NVIDIA, and Qualcomm are in the best position to challenge the high end of the ARM stack and are publicly supported by Microsoft. One question that hasn’t been explored is, why would Microsoft even consider something like this? It’s actually quite simple and makes a lot of sense the position they’re in; it’s all about risk-return and the future of phones and living room consoles.

The Threat to Microsoft

The real short and mid term threat isn’t from Macs stealing significant Windows share from Microsoft, it’s all about the Apple iPad and iOS. It could also be a little about Android, but so far, Android has only seen tablet success in platforms that are little risk to a PC, like the Amazon Kindle Fire. Market-wise, the short term threat is about consumer, too, not business. Businesses work in terms of years, not months. The reality is that while long term, the phone could disrupt the business PC, short term it won’t impact where Microsoft makes their profits today. Businesses, short term, won’t buy three devices for their employees and therefore tablets will most likely get squeezed there. Business employees first need a PC, then a smart phone, and maybe a few a tablet. There could be exceptions, of course, primarily in verticals like healthcare, retail and transportation.

What About Convertibles?

One wild-card are business convertibles. Windows 8 has the best chance here given Microsoft’s ownership on business and if you assume Intel or AMD can deliver custom SOCs with low enough power envelopes, thermal solutions and proper packaging for thin designs. Thinking here is that if business wants a convertible, they’ll also want Windows 8 Desktop and more than likely backward compatibility, something only X86 can provide. So net-net, Microsoft is covered here if Intel and AMD can deliver.

Focus is Consumer and Metro Apps

So the focus for Microsoft then is clearly consumer tablets, and Microsoft needs a ton of developers writing high quality, Metro apps to compete in the space. Metro is clearly the primary Windows 8 tablet interface and Desktop is secondary, as it’s an app. Developers don’t have money or time to burn so most likely they will have to choose between writing a Metro app or rewriting or recompiling their desktop to work with ARM and X86 (Intel and AMD) desktop. It’s not just about development; it’s as expensive for devs to test and validate, too. Many cases it’s more expensive to test and validate than it is to actually develop the app. Strategically, it then could make sense for Microsoft to push development of the Metro apps and possibly by eliminating the Desktop on ARM option, makes the dev’s decision easier.

Strategically, It’s About Phones and the Living Room in the End

Windows 8, Windows Phone 7, and XBOX development environments are currently related but not identical. I would expect down the road we will see an environment that for most apps that don’t need to closely touch the hardware, you write once and deploy onto a Microsoft phone, tablet, PC and XBOX. The unifier here is Metro, so getting developers on Metro is vitally important.

If Microsoft needed to improve the chances developers will swarm to Metro and do it by taking a risk by limiting variables, let’s say by eliminating ARM desktop support, it makes perfect sense.

Why Apple Will be #1 in 2012

A couple of weeks ago, market research firm Canalys made a significant prediction that by the end of 2012, Apple would be the number 1 PC vendor in the world. To get to this number, they recognized the iPad as a personal computer and pointed out that if you include iPad’s, Apple would be the #1 PC vendor as well as #1 mobile computer vendor in the market by the end of next year.

Although this prediction came from a respectable research firm, this same line of thinking was given even greater weight last week when HP’s CEO, Meg Whitman, told French reporters, when asked about the Canalys report, that she too believed that Apple is on track to replace HP as the #1 PC vendor in the world, although she hoped that HP would retake this position in 2013.

For the last 10 years, Apple has been all of the OEM’s worst nightmare. They became #1 in portable music players, and then became the #1 handset maker. And with the iPad they emerged as the #1 tablet maker. Now these OEM’s have to put up with the reality that Apple is on track to become the #1 PC vendor as well. And there is something else that Apple does that really irks them too. The fact that while they are having to live with margins of about 5-8% on almost all of their products sold, Apple is making margins well above 25% on everything they sell.

There is some controversy in the market research world about this idea of adding iPads into the overall mix of computers sold since most PC market researchers put tablets in their own category and do not count them as a PC. But that is very old line thinking and if Meg Whitman is counting them as part of the way HP judges PC market share, then the researchers who count PCs in general will need to adjust their thinking on this also.

But Whitman’s comment that they can overtake Apple in 2013 is an interesting one. For one thing, I suspect she is hoping that by that year, their ultrabook will be a big hit and help bring their market share back up in laptops. Also, I am sure she is counting on their Windows 8 tablet to be a big seller in 2013 and that they can create a branded Windows 8 tablet that businesses and consumers want. I believe this is a good goal, but one that may not be realistic.

Keep in mind, Apple’s mantra is to stay two years ahead of their competition at all times. What this means is that they are not standing still. Although we don’t know what is in the iPad 3, I have no doubt that it too will help extend their lead in tablets well into 2013. By 2013, when the first generation of Windows 8 tablets are just hitting stride, Apple will introduce the iPad 4 (or 3S) and could have significantly lower prices by then.

We are hearing that Microsoft’s fee for Windows 8 tablet version could be as high as $68. If that is true, right off the top the BOM costs of Windows 8 tablets will most likely force prices higher than Apple’s low-end iPad is today. And if Apple starts lowering their prices in 2013 as I suspect they will, Windows 8 tablets would be at premium pricing.

Also, while Microsoft and Intel and their partners are excited about ultrabooks, their current pricing is too high for consumers. The good news is that by the end of 2012, we could see some really solid ultrabooks as low as $599 (without SSDs). But the bad news is they don’t know what Apple has up their sleeves with their MacBook Air line for Q4 2012. While Apple will never try to beat the competition at pricing, they still could lower their Air prices significantly and market it to consumers as getting more bang-for-the-buck by then.

And even if Android tablets start gaining market share in consumer markets in the future, most of them are coming from non-PC vendors. The major PC vendors are winding down their Android tablet programs and all the big guys will be backing Windows 8 by the end of 2012. They must hope that Windows 8 tablet is a hit for this to give them any market share boost over Apple.

That means that all of the PC vendors will most likely lose ground to Apple next year, and knowing Apple, once they get to the top of the PC market share mountain, they just may have enough new products in their upcoming arsenal to keep them there for some time. If this happens, the big PC companies may have to get used to playing second banana to Apple in this new role of #1 PC vendor, something that they would never have dreamed would happen.

Big Data, Price Discrimination, and Markets

At GigaOm, Derrick Harris has an interesting take on how data analytics are allowing New York landlords to extract maximum rents. It’s a good piece, but I think it just scratches the surface of what is going to become an increasingly important debate about the ethics of big data (where concern until now had focused primarily upon privacy issues.)

Driscrimination in admission prices — A form of price discrimination

Price discrimination is a technical (and value-neutral) term in economics. It refers to sellers charging different prices for a food or service based on factors other than the cost of providing it. In the past, price discrimination was difficult, both because it was difficult, as a practical matter to charge different prices to different customers and because sellers lacked the information they needed to determine a profit-maximizing individual price. Airlines have used discriminatory pricing since deregulation and have gotten increasingly good at it.

But there are a lot of problems inherent in price discrimination. For one thing, it is inherently a distortion of free markets. Efficient markets theory, to the extent that anyone still believes it, assumes that all participants in a market, buyers and sellers, have equal access to the information that goes into price-setting. Price discrimination, at least as practiced in the real world, depends on the seller having information no available to the buyer. Car dealers could engage in price discrimination because only they knew what the wholesale price of the car really was and what prices were on comparable sales to other customers (a power eroded by the web.) Airlines and hotels have lots of information about available seats or rooms, marginal costs, and expected demand that lets them vary prices profitably.

The growing ability to collect and analyze vast amounts of data, plus the trend to online sales that allow customized price quotes not possible in brick-and-mortar stores, is bound to produce a lot more price discrimination. Is this necessarily bad for consumers? That’s not clear, although there definitely will be winners and losers. It is also sure to produce growing calls for regulating the practice.

Cool or Not Cool? Bandzoogle and it’s Cool Connection to Direct-to-Fan

I recently interviewed Dave Cool, the “voice” of Bandzoogle. Dave Cool writes the Bandzoogles’ blog, well known for inspiring and supporting Bandzoogle’s #1 mission: To make Direct-to-Fan a very real accomplishment for artists and bands everywhere.

Dave Cool is perhaps best known for having directed and produced the documentary film “What is INDIE? A look into the World of Independent Musicians” which documented the experience of being an independent artist in the music industry. That movie actually became it’s own testament about the power of Direct-to-Fan, creating a huge movement around indie music and the process that independent musicians go through around today’s new tech and the seemingly endless opportunities.

The film featured several leading experts in the music industry, including Derek Sivers (CD Baby) and Panos Panay (Sonicbids), as well as with 20 independent artists. Without any background in film and funded entirely on his own, Dave Cool took the film from a small do-it-yourself project and turned it into an indie success story in its own right, with the film screening all over the world and being mentioned on CNN.com and in Newsweek Magazine.

A big inspiration in the world of musicians and bands, Dave inspires artists to keep control of their content on as many levels as possible and to maximize their fan outreach and merchandising. If you are a musician breaking out in today’s world, this is a must. In the end, however, one thing Cool makes infinitely clear, is that it’s still about doing great work.

Bandzoogle is a web-based platform for artists and bands, allowing them to create a dot.com website – something bands MUST have, especially in the world of ever-changing social media. If a band puts their energies into MySpace, for instance, well… we all know what happened there. So a Facebook page is great, but a dot.com is still a necessity, and Bandzoogle is the leader in making this accessible and easy – ”Easy enough for even the drummer to do,” jokes Dave Cool during our interview.

He also spoke quite a bit about social media NOT being a one-size-fits-all – and perhaps not being a good fit for some artists at all. (Sacrilege right?)

You can hear this interview in its entirety at http://bit.ly/DaveCool and you can get a complimentary digital copy of “What is INDIE?” when you sign up for Dave’s mailing list at: http://bit.ly/hs4uk6

Windows and ARM: A Fork in the Road

ZDnet reports that Microsoft has tentatively decided that Windows 8 running on ARM processors will only support new Metro-style applications, not programs written for older versions of Windows and Intel processors.

In one sense, this is not surprising. Existing applications would have to be recompiled to run at all on ARM systems and would probably need substantial tweaking to run well. The ARM systems would probably be mostly tablets, and the existing Windows desktop interface does not work at all well on touch systems. On the whole, users of ARM-based Windows systems will be better off without these old applications.

The problem is that the result of this decision, if Microsoft goes ahead with it, is two operating systems, both called Windows 8, with radically different capabilities. This is a situation that cannot help but create confusion for users, especially if there are both ARM and x86 tablets with very different software abilities.

I have long though that Microsoft would have been much better off following Apple’s iPad approach and use an enhanced version of a phone operating system for tablets rather than a cut-down version of a desktop OS. What looks like it may be a fundamental fork in Windows suggests that Microsoft made the wrong choice.

Apple Will Re-Invent Television

There is re-invigorated conversation around Apple and its Apple TV efforts in light of Steve Jobs’s comments to Walter Isaacson that he has finally cracked the TV interface. And now again with recent Wall St Analysts voicing their conviction that 2012 will be the year of Apple TV. We all know Apple wants a play in the television arena. Apple TV is still a hobby to them but at some point in time Apple TV will become a business and a healthy one at that.

Much of what is happening around the web, and with other pundits, feels very similar to the time prior to Apple launching the first iPhone and fundamentally re-inventing the smartphone. In fact my father provided the media with a quote about the first iPhone that circulated widely. Rather than call Apple’s first iPhone a smartphone he called it a “brilliant phone.” I found that quote fitting.

In the year leading up to the first launch there were mockups, hype, rumors, speculation, skepticism, optimism, and then one day it was unveiled and none of the hype could do it justice. It helped us re-imagine what a pocket computer should be and I would argue Apple continues to do so with each new iPhone.

Predicting exactly what the disruptor is proves more difficult than knowing which areas of the industry are ripe for disruption. Television is ripe for disruption and I believe Apple will be the one to do it. So rather than predict how, I would rather point out where some of the opportunities may lie.

So with all that in mind when the time is ready Apple will unveil to us their next greatest product creation and none of the current buzz will do it justice. For the simple reason that I expect nothing less from Apple.

The TV is an incredibly important “screen” in the lives of many consumers and it will become a key battleground for many companies. The TV experience has not changed much, with the exception of the DVR, since color. The TV screen itself is dying to become smarter, run software, become more personal–and even more–the television experience itself is stale and dated and in desperate need of disruption. Tim brings this out in his column stating that TV is one of the industries Apple will disrupt at some point in time.

What Apple TV Will Not Be and What it May Be
As I have read much of what is being hyped and speculated about with Apple TV, I have to point out what Apple TV will not be. It will not be just a simple streaming service that delivers content a different way than through the cable or satellite providers. It may include elements of that but it will not be focused around that. As we know the cable TV networks and service providers have an incredible amount of power, out-dated business models, and licensing agreements still in place from the 50’s. They are also completely inept when it comes to technology. We have pointed out the massive challenge working with these content companies has become.

Re-inventing the TV experience has to be more than just TV programming. Re-inventing the TV will require turning the TV into a platform to deliver rich content, new software, interactive programming and more. The opportunity is to turn the TV into a “platform” similarly the way PCs, smartphones, and tablets are platforms.

This will require new hardware, new software and a host of other things. I still remain skeptical that Apple actually wants to build and ship a piece of glass as an integrated TV set, as the only solution. If buying a new TV is required for the new Apple TV I think it would be a mistake. Consumers hold on to TVs for a 5yr average now and such a strategy would lock out a number of potential customers due to the lack of desire to buy a new TV. I find the set-top-box strategy to be a more relevant strategy and one that can keep up with the pace of innovation. As much as I am skeptical of the need for Apple to ship and build a fully Apple TV integrated TV set, the notion that current display hardware is not sufficient to realize Apple’s vision for TV is the strongest case.

That being said I fundamentally believe innovation within TV set hardware is still needed. I will give you one example.

In many R&D labs of TV manufacturers, new aspect ratios are being experimented with. One aspect ratio in particular I find interesting is 20×9. You may think to yourself why would I need a 20×9 aspect ration when the current standard is 16×9. There is an interesting answer.

20×9 brings the opportunity to use the outer edges of the display for “other” things than the video. Say for example that I wanted my Twitter feed, or sports scores, or interactive features to co-exist with what I am watching but I don’t want to see my picture in anything less than 16×9. Using the 20×9 aspect ratio would allow the viewer to still watch an unaltered video experience but use the outer areas of the display for other relevant content. Things like apps, news streams, and anything else we can come up with to complement the TV viewing experience. Of course these side bars can be turned off as needed but also usable as needed.

That is one simple way new hardware can be created that change how we experience TV today and re-shape it in an entirely new way.

John Gruber brings out some interesting thoughts and he outlines how apps are the new channels and using voice to fetch relevant data. Jean-Louise Gasse in his Monday Note builds upon Gruber’s thoughts and adds how an ever-increasing amount of people are using things like iPads to simultaneously watch TV and use their “other” smart screens like tablets and smartphones to add to their TV experience.

What makes the TV screen interesting is that it is not a personal device or screen. At least not in the same way that our smartphones and PCs and tablets are personal. The TV is more of a shared or social screen. Therefore our relationship with it is very different. Because of that it presents and interesting challenge where using our personal devices to enhance the shared TV screen experience may be very interesting.

Perhaps the future version of Apple TV will be all of these things. New innovations in the TV set using new aspect ratio’s or screen technology, combined with using other smart devices to enable a much more holistic, personal, and interactive experience.

The most important first step will be to turn the TV screen into a platform. When this happens we will see innovation come from software developers, service providers and yes the content industry. Opening the door for software developers to create compelling new experiences on the big screen, is perhaps the biggest and most disruptive opportunity.

I am hesitant to speculate knowing that whatever we come up with won’t even be close, at least I hope, to what Apple shows us–someday. Who knows when it will happen it could still be years away but I can’t wait until it is ready. In time Apple will not just show us a smart TV they will show us a brilliant TV and in the process re-invent TV.

Zittrain vs. Apple: What About the User Experience?

Harvard Law School Prof. Jonathan Zittrain does not like the iPhone. Or the iPad. Or much of anything about the modern app economy.

Jonathan Zittrain phoyo — Jonathan Zittrain

In an article for MIT’s Technology Review, Zittrain takes up a theme he has been sounding for the past several years, bemoaning a loss of a golden age of software openness, when “anyone could write and run software for an operating system, and up popped an endless assortment of spreadsheets, word processors, instant messengers, Web browsers, e-mail, and games.” In the dystopian future Zittrain sees, “an unprecedented shift of power from end users and software developers on the one hand, to operating system vendors on the other” means the Apples, Googles, and Microsofts of the world will control what you can do with your PCs, phones, and tablets and we’ll all be the worse for it.

Zittrain is a very smart and witty guy, but I think he is missing something very important. Nowhere in his article does the phrase, nor the concept of, “user experience” appear. Back in what Zittrain sees as the glory days of computing freedom, the user experience was horrible. The overwhelming majority of computer users–a far smaller segment of the population than they are today–weren’t writing their own software. They were struggling to figure out how to use the awful stuff they already had. The situation was so bad that in 1998, I worked with Clare-Marie Karat of IBM Research on a computer user’s bill of rights that focused on the most basic of usability issues.

The fact is that the many millions of people who have bought iPhones and iPads have made a choice. They have ceded to Apple the right to to choose what software their devices can run in exchange for a superior user experience. They don’t seem at all unhappy with the choice. Speaking for myself as an iPhone and iPad owner–and as someone who once upon a time wrote his own software–I’m perfectly happy to have someone keep the junk off my devices. I’m not always entirely happy with Apple’s choices, but I think it’s a good deal on the whole. I have spent way too much of my life cleaning up after really bad software.

I think there’s another important misconception that Zittrain perpetuates. He repeatedly refers to the 30% of the price that Apple claims as its share of App Store sales as the “Apple tax” (and ditto for the Google tax in the Android Market.) The fact is that 30% of the retail price is a lot less than developers had to give up in that mythical golden age when software came in boxes. Back then, they were lucky to get 10% after a publisher, a distributor, and a retailer all took their share–and that was only if they were lucky enough to get distribution in the first place.

An arrangement that takes care of marketing (to some extent) and distribution and still delivers 70% of the retail price to developers is better than anything they have ever had before. It has led to a massive outpouring of independent developer creativity unparalleled since the days of VisiCalc. The only complaints have come from vendors such as Amazon, which are basically resellers and don’t have 30 points of gross margin to share, and they have found their own workarounds. And from a few academics who value some abstract notion of software freedom above user experience.

How Nintendo Helped Microsoft

Earlier this week Microsoft shared that the XBOX 360 had the biggest sales week in the history of Xbox, selling more than 960,000 consoles in the U.S. during the week of Black Friday. That is a lot of consoles, in a market where the XBOX has significant penetration already. So the question is who bought nearly 1 million XBOX consoles in one week?

Now this is purely speculation since we don’t have specific demographic information, but my intuition is to say they were mostly Wii up-graders. The Wii has dominated the last few Christmas seasons and has exposed many families to gaming who were not hard-core gamers, which is the audience for the XBOX 360 and PS3. Nintendo’s more casual gaming style with the Wii and allure to families as well as children helped grow the market for console gaming. As families became interested in a more graphically rich gaming experience, and their kids who grew up on the Wii got older and now wanted a more immersive gaming experience, the time of the XBOX 360 arrived.

The Kinect helped also selling more than 750,000 Kinect sensors in the same week, an incredibly high attach rate. This is further indication to lead me to believe that many families in the US are upgrading from their Wii to the XBOX 360.

The Wii did a wonderful job making gaming less threatening. It was exactly the market Nintendo targeted. That in return grew the market by bringing families who had children too young for an XBOX or PS3 or were to intimidated by the complex controller. Now it appears the XBOX 360 and Kinect sensor are the perfect step up from the Wii.

It will be interesting to see how Nintendo positions the Wii U in light of some of these recent market advances.

Best Tech Gear 2011

Perhaps you skipped Black Friday because of some aversion to rampaging, drooling, pepper-spraying bargain hunters. And Cyber Monday was kind of a dud once you realized that it’s really Cyber Week, and that the best bargains for tech gear are yet to come.

But now here we are at Vague Sense of Anxiety Thursday, when, according to www.xmasclock.com, there are fewer than 1.9 million shopping seconds left until Christmas, and you still haven’t decided which products deserve your attention, or Santa’s.

Here and in this space in the coming 1.9 million seconds are some suggestions, in the form of my picks for the best tech products of 2011. We’re going to look at the basics today, before moving on to Best Gizmos of 2011, followed by Best Software and Services.

And no, I don’t get paid by Apple and no one in my family owns Apple stock.

BEST SMARTPHONE:

Q: Siri, what’s the best smartphone introduced in 2011?

Although Verizon’s tantalizing 4G LTE network remains out of its reach for now, the Apple iPhone 4S is still at least a generation ahead of a growing pack of rivals. Yes, it has a new dual-core processor, but in real world performance you’re unlikely to be dazzled. Yes, it has an improved camera, front and back, still and video, but it’s a catch-up feature, not a flashy innovation.

So much for the yes-buts. Two things pushed the iPhone 4S ahead of a pair of runners-up from Samsung, the Galaxy S II and the forthcoming Galaxy Nexus, which is expected to make its debut on the Verizon network any day now. The first is the iPhone’s new antenna configuration, which improved the connection rate and quality of calls on the two networks I tested, Sprint and AT&T. The second is Siri, the voice-control system that everyone is talking about. Siri is huge, and it’s just the beginning.

BEST LAPTOP:

I’m typing this on a 13-inch Apple Macbook Air, which got a much needed and long-awaited makeover earlier this year. My colleague Ben Bajarin has already written convincingly about its charms, so let me just add this: At least once a day I either lose the Air under papers on my desk, or panic because I think I left the office without the Air in my briefcase. A quick pat on the side of the bag reassures me that no, the Air is in the bag. Unlike the feeble chips in earlier models, the new processor has enough horsepower to run all but the most demanding applications. And yes, if you must, you can run Windows on the Air.

The keyboard is a full-size delight, but I still find the 11- and 13-inch displays a bit claustrophobic on occasion. (So, my latest secret vice is taking the Air on a trip not instead of, but rather along with, my Apple iPad 2. Then I can use the iPad as a separate display for the Air, putting email and Twitter and other distracting apps on the remote screen, and doing word processing or other tasks on the main display.) Rumor has it that Apple is cooking up a 15-inch Macbook in the Air form factor, and if so, I’ll find it hard to resist. But for now, this year, the Air is almost perfect.

Runner-up? Samsung’s Series 9.

BEST TABLET

By popular consent, 2011 was the year of the tablet. And one tablet completely dominates the rest. The new Apple iPad 2 dazzles on the hardware front, and it’s simply a delight to use. But the real strength of the iPad is the software, not just the much improved iOS 5 operating system, but also the universe of thousands upon thousands of useful and entertaining and productive apps. No other tablet has the app library that the iPad has. If you create stuff, whether for work or play, the iPad is superior to all the others. Even if you just consume stuff, including movies, TV shows, YouTube videos, music, ebooks and the like, the iPad will become your new best friend.

That said, Amazon’s Kindle Fire gets the runner-up nod on the basis of its consumer friendliness. As they say, the Fire allows Amazon to get in bed with its customers. The Fire is quirky, but it’s going to be fun to see it develop.

BEST POCKET CAMERA:

In a photo finish, the winner is Apple’s new … Just kidding! Apple’s cameras basically suck.

On a purely technology basis, I’m intrigued by the Lytro Light-Field, the first camera that allows the photographer to focus a shot after the picture has been taken. But it doesn’t qualify because it won’t be out until early 2012. And I love my Canon 5D Mark II SLR, but it was introduced before 2011, so it doesn’t qualify, either.

My problem is that the big Canon is too heavy to carry everywhere, and the camera built into my iPhone leaves a lot to be desired. So, I’m always on the lookout for a pocket-size camera that takes great pictures.

Two models from Canon share the Best Pocket Camera award: The PowerShot S100, an upgraded version of the delightful S95, and the PowerShot ELPH 300 HS.