Phil McKinney to CableLabs: Time for Some Cable Innovation?

Photo of Phil McKinneyIn a fascinating move, CableLabs, the non-profit research and development arm of the cable industry, announced today that Phil McKinney, former CTO of Hewlett-Packard’s Personal Systems Group, was coming aboard is CEO. What makes this interesting is that McKinney is an innovation guru and author of the recently published Beyond the Obvious: Killer Questions the Spark Game Changing Innovation. But CableLabs is not exactly Xerox PARC.

CableLabs has been responsible for some important innovations, most notably the DOCSIS protocols for moving high-speed TCP/IP data across cable networks. But in recent years it seems to have devoted most of its energies to helping cable companies comply as grudgingly as possible with legislative and regulatory mandates that they open up their proprietary cable boxes. This has given us a series of user-hostile and sparsely deployed technologies, including OCAP, Tru2way, and CableCARD that have done as little as possible to enable advanced third-party cable boxes.

I’ve known Phil for some years and find it hard to believe he would have taken this job unless the cable companies that own CableLabs saw some real innovation as being in their interest. The industry’s value-added content delivery  is threatened in the medium and long term over-the-top internet distribution and could badly use a dose of innovation.

McKinney says he will be heads down in  his new job for the next three months or so, but will be ready to talk about new directions for CableLabs in the fall. As they say in the TV business, stay tuned.

Dear Apple: Please Keep the iPhone Locked Down

Image of iPhone with padlockEver since Apple introduced the iPhone, first with no third-party apps allowed then permitting apps only under Apple’s strict supervision, there has been hand-wringing in some quarters of the tech world about how Apple’s locked-down mentality would stifle freedom and innovation. The latest blast  against “Apple’s Crystal Prison”comes from the Electronic Frontier Foundation:

While Apple’s products have many virtues, they are marred by an ugly set of restrictions on what users and programmers can do with them. This is most especially true of iOS, though other Apple products sometimes suffer in the same way. In this article we will delve into the kinds of restrictions that Apple, phone companies, and Microsoft have been imposing on mobile computers; the excuses these companies make when they impose these restrictions; the dangers this is creating for open innovation; why Apple in particular should lead the way in fixing this mess. We also propose a bill of rights that need to be secured for people who are purchasing smartphones and other pocket computers.

Fortunately, there’s no reason to believe that Apple is listening to the siren song of openness coming from places like EFF, the Free Software Foundation, Harvard’s Berkman Center, and the Software Freedom Law Center. Completely open systems would give opportunities for anyone with programming skill to get into the guts of any device and see what he or she could do with it. It’s possible that some wonderful things might result. But this same openness clears a pathway for the malicious or the merely incompetent. I don’t care if people want to mess up their own systems, but I don’t want their badly written or downright evil software corrupting mine.

The importance of user experience. By maintaining rigid control over just what software can be loaded onto an iPhone or iPad, Apple has created one of the best user experiences ever. An app that I download from the iTunes App Store may be good, bad, or indifferent in terms of its functionality or its usefulness to me. But I can be confident that it is not going to make a mess of my phone or tablet. And if it does something it shouldn’t, like upload my entire address book without permission, I can be reasonably confident it will be fixed quickly. I don’t have this confidence about any other phone, tablet, or PC except perhaps the fading BlackBerry and the struggling Windows Phone, which have lock-down policies of their own.

For people who really want to mess with their iPhones, they can always jailbreak them and live with the consequences, including a loss of warranty protection. Apple has tried to stop jailbreaking, but has generally been unsuccessful. For the rest of us, the overwhelming majority, we are happy to accept Apple’s restrictions  as the price of increased security and usability. I hate giving up freedom for an illusion of security, but Apple, unlike the Department of Homeland Security, seems to be delivering the real thing.

Misunderstood Gatekeeper. The same folks complaining about the lockdown of iOS are also fretting about new policies for Mac software. But here they seem to be willfully misunderstanding what Apple is doing. Apple recognizes that a Mac is a very different beast than an iOS device and that the sort of restrictions it imposes on iPhones and iPads simply won’t work on Macs. The new Gatekeeper for OS X Mountain Lion does no prevent any user software from being installed. In its default configuration, it will warn against apps that are not digitally signed by a registered Apple developer, but users can easily override the caution and install what they want. Other settings restrict installation only to apps from the Mac App Store, which are approved by Apple and which must obey  new rules requiring sandboxing of apps, or, at the other extreme, allow the installation of anything without objection.

EFF concedes that “fortunately, it will be possible to turn this off in Mountain Lion and install apps from anywhere you want,” but adds, “Apple is continuing down the dangerous road of making their products less open.” Failing to produce evidence of this, EFF’s Micah Lee falls back on hypotheticals: “OS X software authors will find themselves subject to the whims of Apple HQ. What would Mozilla do if Apple refused to authorize Firefox for OS X Mountain Lion, in the same way that Apple refuses to allow a true version of Firefox for the iPhone? Watch half their Mac market share disappear?”

EFF closes with a “Bill of Rights for Mobile Computer Owners.” It’s a strange manifesto, focusing on issues that very, very few users care about, such as the freedom to install the Linux operating system on the phone of your choice. Considering how few people have chosen to install Linux on PCs, where it actually works reasonably well,  this doesn’t seem like a burning issue for most folks. There is nothing in the call about security or ease of use, issues that actually driver users’ choices. This has been a huge blind spot of the free and open software movement for years. And until they take usability seriously, they will be pushed further to the fringes of the tech world and more and more of what we do goes mobile.

 

 

AMD’s “Trinity” APU Delivers Impressive Multimedia

AMD officially launched its “Trinity” line of second-generation AMD A-Series APUs for notebooks two weeks ago and systems will be hitting the store shelves in a few weeks; desktops are expected later this summer. Reviews are showing that AMD significantly increased its performance per watt over its predecessor, “Llano,” and as a result, Trinity is competitive with Intel on battery life as well. One set of special hardware and software features AMD collectively refers to as the AMD HD Media Accelerator relates to a visibly enhanced and faster multimedia experience, which I think deserves a closer look as mainstream and techies users alike can benefit significantly from their use. It is also good indicator that chip makers are focusing even more on the end user experience and ways to improve it.

Smooth out shaky videos

All of us reading this column have taken a shaky video on our smartphone, palmcorder or camcorder. Whether it’s soccer games, track meets, or the first time our babies run, we all take shaky video. And all of us have watched a shaky video, too, and people relate differently. Some have no issues, but many do and won’t even watch the video. My wife actually feels sick watching any video like this and I’m sure she isn’t alone.

To smooth out these videos and remove the “shakes”, AMD developed AMD Steady Video technology. When run on a Trinity-APU system, AMD Steady Video technology significantly reduces the amount of jitter the user experiences when watching these videos. It is also done automatically without user intervention when video is displayed on supported browsers and media players. AMD Steady Video works with the top web browsers and media players. AMD Steady Video web browsing is supported by Chrome, Internet Explorer, and Firefox. The feature is also supported in Windows Media Player, VLC Player, and ArcSoft and Cyberlink media players, too. This covers an incredibly wide swath of global users.

Improve video quality on any device

One of the technologies more sophisticated users can appreciate is the AMD Accelerated Video Converter. This technology significantly accelerates the recoding and transcoding of video. Recoding means changing the format and size of a video. This helps when users capture video in a very high quality format that is very dense, but want to put the video on their phones, tablets or even upload to YouTube. Recoding the video makes it smaller or places it into a different format where it can be better viewed, shared or edited. Transcoding means recoding and playing back the output in real-time versus storing and sharing. This is the area where the AMD Accelerated Video Converter significantly improves the experience because it cleans up that same video at the same time as it’s recoding the video.

Transcoding comes in handy when you have devices spread out all over the house with video files on them and you want to watch those videos on a myriad of devices from TVs to PCs to game consoles to tablets to smartphones. Transcoding optimizes the video specifically for the playback device as every device prefers different kind of video. A “Trinity”-based notebook using the Accelerated Video Converter with a program like ArcSoft Link+ acts as a “media server” and transcodes the video and sends it to the playback device. The source file doesn’t have to be on the “Trinity” notebook; it can be on any device in the home and if it supports the latest DLNA protocol and if on the same LAN. DLNA isn’t niched anymore as it is supported on virtually every new major consumer electronics device and will even be the basis for all future set top boxes that will stream protected content around the home.

As a final benefit, AMD Perfect Picture technology is a video post-processing capability that works in concert with AMD Steady Video such that all the video that passes through the Trinity-based notebook is cleaned up to look sharper and have richer, more accurate colors. As a result, users can playback better looking video on their companion devices regardless of where they are in the home. This usage model may be for the more sophisticated users, but through features like Apple’s AirPlay and iTunes Share, consumers are getting much more comfortable playing back content from remote devices

Speed up file downloads

Today on a Windows-based PC, there isn’t a QOS (quality of service) arbiter to determine which application gets bandwidth. Users can be downloading a gigantic file like a movie, game, or app and the rest of the system is useless for anything like web browsing and video conferencing. With data density increasing at a faster pace than bandwidth, this will become a larger issue in the future. This is where AMD Quick Stream assists.

AMD Quick Stream adds the QOS feature that Windows lacks. The concept is simple; it provides equal access to each download. If four apps are downloading content, each app gets 25% of the available bandwidth. With three apps, each would get 33%. I found this feature useful as I was downloading a game in the background, looking up stuff on the web, and doing a Skype call. The system just felt more responsive.

Wrapping up

By adding the AMD HD Media Accelerator to all Trinity APUs, AMD is in many ways bucking the tech hardware industry rut of feeds and speeds that don’t demonstrably improve the end user experience. This is neither a minor investment nor a desire to load systems with bloat-ware; these are expensive technologies designed to improve user’s expressed areas of pain while fitting into very small resource footprints. The multimedia features are also comprehensively released and supported for multiple web browsers, media players, and home data protocols which ensure widespread deployment and regular updates. What AMD has done with AMD Steady Video and AMD Quick Stream is undoubtedly positive for end but also a positive message for the ecosystem, too.

Steve Jobs in Carbonite

Photo of Steve Jobs with iPhonePart of Steve Jobs’s brilliance in life was his mercurial nature, sometimes fortified by duplicitousness. He thought an Apple phone was the stupidest idea on earth until the arrival of the iPhone. He made fun of Intel processors  until Apple abandoned PowerPC for x86. He was a man of firmly held opinions that could change as circumstances required.

Steve Jobs dead, however, is frozen in time. The opinions he expressed in the year or two before his passing last fall are his views forever. And anything Apple does counter to those views is treated in some quarters as a desecration of his memory. And that leads to silly pieces like Gizmodo’s 10 Changes That Must Have Steve Jobs Spinning in His Grave.

The sad truth is that we have no idea what Steve Jobs thinks, or will ever think, about anything. All we know is what he thought of certain things under the circumstances that prevailed at some point in the past.

For example, in October,  2010, Jobs said: “The reason we [won’t] make a 7-inch tablet isn’t because we don’t want to hit that price point, it’s because we think the screen is too small to express the software.” But improvements in screen technology have made it possible to do a 7″ iPad with the same 1024×768 resolution of the original iPad and the iPad 2 and a pixel density similar to the third-generation iPad. So if Apple does a 7″ iPad, will that be a repudiation of Jobs or a recognition that something important has changed?

One of Gizmodo’s 10 violations of the spirit of Jobs is that supply executives are now attending meetings once the exclusive province of engineers and designers. Maybe that reflects Tim Cook’s preferences as a supply chain guru. But it might also reflect the fact the Apple is nearly 60% bigger than it was when Jobs stepped away from active management a year or so ago and that it now a vast enterprise that necessarily has to be run in a considerably more bureaucratic way. This, by the way, is why I think Cook is actually the right CEO at the right time; some of use remember a  much smaller pre-Cook Apple that constantly struggled with supply chain and channel management issues.

Of course, it’s possible that Jesus Diz’s Gizmodo post was just Gawker link bait. In which case, I apologize for linking to it.

 

Why Google is Creating Their Own Tablet

It is pretty well known now that Google is about to release a Google branded tablet. Sources tell us that it was designed by Asus and made by Quanta. Most expect it to be shown at Google I/O the last week of June and in the market sometime in July.

At first glance, the fact that Google will now be going head-to-head with their partners seems like a bad idea. Google has worked hard to convince partners to back Android and to date, in smartphones and tablets they have had many vendors commit to Android. And partners have taken Google at their word that they would not compete with them if they license Android and help make it successful.

There are a lot of reasons for the lack of Android success in tablets, some related to Google’s missteps in their designs and releases of Android for tablets, but no one can deny Apple’s great iOS and sleek designs that continue to give them an edge over competitive tablets based on Android. And at the vendor level, most Android tablet vendor’s products have paled in comparison to Apple’s iPad in both sleekness in design and marketing execution.

Also, Android in tablets has forked a couple of times already. While Android is the OS of Amazon’s Kindle, it has been optimized and customized to Amazon’s needs and is not considered a pure open and extended version of Android. And Barnes and Noble’s Nook has followed a similar path with their tablet. At the same time, vendors like Samsung, HTC and others have added their own UI and extra features to Android to make it their own.

While this may be good for the vendors, it does not necessarily mean it is good for Google. Yes, most conform to some of Google’s guidelines and include the Google search engine as well as connections to ads. But in some cases, especially the one from Amazon, they are much more interested in driving commerce and ads through their program then adhere to any of Google’s ads and commerce links that benefit Google.

I believe that once Google began to realize they were losing control of Android within the tablet market, they decided that they needed to have a vendor that would adhere to all of Google’s conventions no matter what they were and become the true “poster” child for Android tablets.

And who could do this better than Google themselves. In this scenario, Google would control the integration of the Android OS, the overall design of the tablet itself and all of the ads and eCommerce links tied to a tablet so they would have full control over it. And, they could drive its marketing, distribution and even the customer service needed to make a true Android tablet successful.

The operative word here is “true” Android tablet. Up to now, most Android tablets were true Android tablets only in the sense that they used Android at its core. But as you may know, fragmentation within the Android OS world has been rampant and this has had an impact on Android’s ultimate success in tablets. But Google wants to correct this and insure that Android can be very successful in tablets as well as smartphones.

In the end, they would be basically following in Apple’s footsteps. Although Google professes blind allegiance to an Open Source program, the fact remains that the most successful company in the tech world today turns its back on that model. Apple’s success comes through their control of the hardware, OS and applications eco systems that allow them to deliver complete solutions to their customers. And if Google creates their own Google branded tablet that is tied to its purest version of Android and linked to its own services and apps, this sets them up to finally have an Android tablet that will be truly competitive with the iPad.

I don’t know if Google would have moved in this direction had it not been for Amazon’s decision to use Android and make it the heart of an Amazon “closed” commerce loop. I suspect that when Android was created Google pretty much expected people to follow their program to a “T”. Silly Google.

Apparently Google has decided that it is time to take control of Android in tablets and do their own version that is tied tightly to their own business model. And if their partners get angry with them, then so be it.

One more thing- Although most expect that Google’s tablet will be priced at $199 and go head to head with Amazon’s Kindle, I would not be surprised if they actually go to school on Amazon and do some type of subsidization of their own with this product. We believe Amazon Kindle’s BOM cost is between $209 and $217. The difference in cost to consumer vs BOM is made up through some form of subsidization tied to what people buy on their Kindle’s Fire.

But I would not be surprised if Google matches fire with fire (pun intended) and prices their Google branded tablet at $179 and ties their subsidization to add revenue gained through purchases via their Google branded tablet. If so, this would have a disruptive effect on any Android tablet partners and could also force Amazon to be even more aggressive with their subsidization pricing on future Kindle Fire’s.

Why Google Should Fear Facebook

I have written quite a bit about my doubts of Facebook’s long term value. And amidst all the recent news about their IPO woes it seems like investors are skeptical as well. Last week I wrote an article highlighting my thoughts on why I am skeptical about Facebook’s long term value. Today I would like to explore a scenario that is the flip side of the argument I laid out last week. In this scenario Google should be very worried about Facebook–if they are not already.

Maybe this is weird but I have debates in my head where I argue many sides of a point or hypothesis while I am building my analysis. Even though I may have a conviction that a scenario goes a certain way, I believe it is important to examine all sides. My overall skepticism with Facebook’s business model, and value, is based on the assumption that their advertising business model and other potential revenue streams is limited to Facebook–their only asset to date.

There is no question that Facebook is gathering a database of extremely detailed profiles of Facebook users. The assumption has been that they would use that detailed user profile to match advertisers up with the right consumers as those folks use the Facebook service. As I pointed out last week, the reason consumers use the Facebook service is different from other services or content they consume where advertising actually works. Advertising works well when the ads are related to the content being consumed. With that in mind, if Facebook was to create an advertising network similar to what Google does with AdSense they could potentially take a big chunk of Google’s business.

One Ad Network to Rule Them All

Google has built their ad network by linking advertising up with related searches. This makes a great deal of sense and works quite well. Google uses services like Gmail, Android, Picassa, etc., to try and gain more information about people so they can sell more targeted ads. However for Google to come even close to knowing intimate details about me and my life, I would need to use all of their services. Something that it is not common for many consumers. However for Facebook to know all the intimate details of me and my life, I only need to use Facebook. Therefore, Google basis most of its targeted advertising value by knowing what was searched but Facebook can base its targeted advertising by knowing more about the searcher.

If Facebook created a service like Google’s AdSense they could extend their extremely targeted advertising strategy beyond the walls of Facebook. Given that many websites which require you to log in to sign up for a service, give consumers the option of logging in with Facebook, there are a myriad of ways Facebook can leverage their consumer profiles with all their online partners.

Extending value to advertisers and brands beyond the walls of Facebook is key to Facebook’s value in my opinion. This model could be completely disruptive to not only Google but the vast majority of advertising networks.

The Broader Opportunity

Even if Facebook employed this strategy, displacing something like AdSense is no easy task yet the upside is significant in my opinion. On Monday, Tim explored whether Facebook’s best days are over or ahead. He pointed out that the trend of vertical social networks is one we are watching quite closely. Whether it is publishing sites or communities based around specific interests, we believe those are the places where targeted advertising can thrive and return value. Facebook either needs to figure out who to create these niche communities within the walls of Facebook or do what I propose and give those sites access to their ad network.

What makes this strategy so interesting is that if it were done right, Facebook as a service could exist solely to collect key data needed for advertisers. If Facebook could have success building an ad network and monetizing it primarily with partners then potentially Facebook itself could be advertising free. Ads on Facebook right now clutter and detract from the experience which brings me there in the first place ( I also believe they are useless in their current form). I truly believe that if Facebook is reserved to only make money within the walls of Facebook, that they will make compromises that will seriously detract from the Facebook experience and drive consumers away. However, if they can make money outside the walls of Facebook then they have a chance of creating better experiences and keeping loyal Facebook communities.

Lastly, the broader opportunity becomes even more interesting as we think about mobile and emerging platforms like the television. My point that Facebook may very well know more about me than any other company pitching advertisers becomes interesting with mobile advertising and even my future experiences with TV. If TV networks can partner with Facebook for example they could begin to deliver some of the most valuable advertising in the form of rich media due to the amount of information they know about me. Which if you think about what ads I see today on TV, in print, online, etc., it becomes clear very little is known about me.

Facebook, in my opinion, is the only company today who is in a position to completely change the advertising realm across a range of mediums. However, it depends on them thinking bigger than themselves and the destination they built.

Apple’s iPad will be dominant until…

Watching the professional industry watchers speculate on how long Apple’s iPad will dominate its market segment is kind of funny. Will it be 2012, 2013, no it’s going to be 2015 and then they will fall, right?

iPad screen imageThe funny part is that nobody knows for sure what’s going to happen, but the pronouncements of Apple’s pending demise are delivered with the confidence of someone that has seen into the future. That is of course, until the sales numbers prove them wrong — then another date of demise is announced a couple of years further into the future, and the cycle seems to endlessly repeat itself.

At some point you have to be correct, right?

Just like when the iPhone was first released, many people didn’t think the iPad would be successful. When it was, everyone started to look at when the competitors would topple Apple’s seemingly unsurmountable market lead.

Maybe the RIM PlayBook (Yes, that’s a joke), or one of the many Android tablets that hit the market every other week. So far, nothing has even come close.

There are two things that prognosticators seem to neglect when forecasting Apple’s demise.

First, In order for Apple to fail so badly in the tablet market, they would need to stop innovating completely. If Apple released the same iPad, with no new hardware or software features for two years, they could be overtaken in the market.

However, that’s not what Apple does. They innovate yearly on either hardware, software or both. Innovation is not just about changing the look and feel of a product, it’s about continuing to offer customers solutions to problems. Complex lifestyle problems that continue to evolve require a company that is able to predict what we will need.

Apple has a proven track record in doing this. Macs, iPhones, iPods, iPads and even its many software apps are glimpses into how Apple thinks, not just with design, but also functionality.

The second thing that people count on is that Apple’s competitors will stop trying to copy Apple’s success and make a move to surpass the iPad. Recent history suggests that none of Apple’s competitors are willing to do this.

The industry right now is fighting for second place and they seem content to do that for the foreseeable future. That’s not necessarily a bad thing for them — selling millions of tablets still makes them and the shareholders are happy.

However, settling for second place doesn’t make you innovative. It doesn’t make you a company that consumers want to support. It makes you a company that understands that you don’t have the innovations and design to do it on your own.

Apple’s competitors are afraid to step too far away from the iPad because they want consumers to think of them as a competitor. If their tablet doesn’t look and feel like an iPad, they risk losing sales. That goes against their main goal of making money.

Apple’s design and functionality goals are to make the best products to help its users solve a problem. If they succeed at doing that, the money will follow. Don’t get me wrong, Apple expects its products to be big hits, as every company does, but they go about it in the right way.

The next time you see a forecast of Apple losing its dominance in a market, ask yourself what the competitors are doing to differentiate themselves from Apple. That answer is all you need to know.

Next Time, Samuel L. Jackson Should Try Matzoh Balls

Apple is having some fun with a TV ad in which Samuel L. Jackson tells Siri to remind him to put the gazpacho on ice. Unfortunately, when others try to replicate the experience, Sire is going to leave them with hotspacho, because she can’t seem to get that reminder right.

The problem here would seem to be a breakdown in communications between the creative types at the ad agency and people who actually use Siri on iPhones. She has a lot of trouble with the word “gazpacho.” Even when I helped by giving the context of “Spanish restaurant,” Siri had a lot of trouble with the request:
Siri screenshot After I tried six or seven more times, she finally got it right. But when I asked Siri to rem,ind me to freeze the matzoh ball soup, she got it right the first time, with no trouble.

This little experiment mostly demonstrates the extreme sensitivity of speech systems to the language model they use. I suspect the Spanish-language version of Siri does a lot better with gazpacho, but maybe not so well with matzoh balls.

There are two lessons here. One is  that the product folks should really have a close look at the ads to make sure the claims hold up. (My guess is that this one slipped through because the creative team really, really wanted Jackson’s crack about hotspacho.) And we are still a long way from speech becoming a comprehensive, everyday alternative for text entry and navigation.

 

 

Will CableWi-Fi Make Public Wi-Fi Work? We Can Only Hope

Wi-Fi symbol and cable company logosThe leading cable companies in the U.S. are banding together to set up 50,000 Wi-Fi hot spots. Any subscriber to one cable providers will be able to use the others’ services; for example, a Time-Warner Cable customer in New York, where the service, called CableWi-Fi, is set to launch, will be able to log on to to a Cablevision hot spot. This is great news for consumer. Maybe.

Unfortunately, I heard about the cable companies’ plans while traveling to New York on Amtrak’s Acela. The Acela and other Amtrak Northwest Corridor boast free Wi-Fi, but it is generally so bad that I usually turn it off to force my iPhone and iPad to use cellular connections. Otherwise, they can spin forever just trying to check for mail or load tweets. Mobile devices are generally designed to use Wi-Fi when available, but they aren’t smart enough to figure out when the access point isn’t really connected to anything downstream and they just keep futilely trying unless you turn Wi-Fi off.

Amtrak has an excuse for its horrible Wi-Fi; trains rely on flaky, low-bandwidth  wireless connections that many passengers will try to share. But Wi-Fi service almost as miserable is all to common.  Free Wi-Fi connections are almost guaranteed to be awful, especially if the hot spot location is busy, and even paid service, such as absurdly overpriced hotel connections (the more expensive the hotel, the more you pay), if often nearly unusable.

The biggest problem is that it is  to set up a hot spot, but not so cheap to run one. A consumer grade access point/router can cost well under $100 and even a carrier grade Cisco access point goes for under $1,000. The problem is that you need a way to connect your hot spot to the internet, and this connection, known in the trade as the backhaul, is where the cost starts mounting up. Even my terrible Actiontec wireless router, supplied by Verizon, regularly delivers 20 megabit per second downloads, but that’s because it’s connected to FiOS fiber and there are almost never more than two of us using it at once. Have 100 people sharing a 2 Mb DSL connection and you begin to see the problem.

Inadequate backhaul is probably the biggest reason for the disappointing performance of public
Wi-Fi. Paid sites, such as those amalgamated by Boingo,  tend to do better, but even there you’ll find tremendous variance in performance. It doesn’t strike me as good business for vendors to promise free Wi-Fi and then deliver a terrible experience. Let’s hope the cable companies provide backhaul over their own speedy DOCSIS networks, but there is no guarantee they will, especially if the hot spot locations are not passed by cable service.

Another open question is how easy it will be to connect with these hot spots. The cable companies have made it clear that this is a service for paid subscribers, so they will need a way to authenticate logins. This can be a real pain for users, since the username and password information generally must be entered manually on a mobile device every time you connect (and often, reconnect, when your connection is mysteriously dropped.)

A new standard called Hotspot 2.0 (also known as PassPoint and IEEE 802.11c) could make these connections much easier, at least with devices that implement it in either hardware or software. These devices would authenticate themselves to a hot spot without any manual intervention by the users. The cable companies, however, have not indicated whether they will be using this technology.

If the cable companies do this right, it could greatly enhance their ability to deploy their existing services to their existing customers wirelessly while avoiding the difficulties imposed by wireless carriers’ data caps. But unless is it well thought out an executive, CableWi-Fi will just be another chapter in the long saga of public Wi-Fi disappointments.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Windows 8 Problem I’m Looking Forward To

Windows 8 introduces a problem new to the annals of computing. Systems using the new Uniform Extensible Firmware Interface in place of the venerable BIOS and a solid-state storage device in place of a spinning hard disk may boot so fast that there is no way to for a human being to interrupt the process. No more F8 to get to the Windows startup menu, or F2 (or any of a number of other key combinations, depending on the manufacturer) to change system settings such a selecting the first boot device.

Boot option screen

Windows chieftain Steven Sinofsky has a post on the Building Windows 8 blog detailing Microsoft’s response to the problem. Basically, any failure to boot normally automatically generates an option screen that lets you choose a response. Interrupting an otherwise normal boot can be accomplished through settings within Windows, then restarting.

Having spent far too many hours of my life twiddling my thumbs while Windows systems rebooted, this is one problem I am really looking forward to. (Of course, Macs have dealt with related problems for years by just having you hold down a key as you power up.)

Why Apple is Wrong About Convertibles

On Apple’s last earnings call, CEO Tim Cook responded to a question on Windows 8 convertibles by saying, “You can converge a toaster and a refrigerator, but those aren’t going to be pleasing to the user.” At first glance, this makes total sense, and from the company that brought us iPod, iPhone and iPad, this has wisdom. But as we peel back the onion and dig deeper, I do not believe Apple is correct in their assessment. As I wrote here, I have long-believed that convertibles would be popular in 2013 and I still believe convertibles will be a thriving future market, albeit not as large as notebooks or tablets.

Mashups between two devices are rarely successful, particularly in mature markets like PCs. I have researched, planned and delivered 100’s of products in my career, and very rarely have I seen two purpose-built products combined to create something real good. The problem becomes that by combining two products, the result becomes good for no one. The primary reason this becomes the case is that you have to make tradeoffs to make the combined product. By combining most products, you are sub-optimizing the separate product and what they uniquely deliver to their target markets. Convertibles have that possibility, but if designed appropriately as I outlined previously, this won’t happen.

Cars give us a few examples to work from. As the car industry matures, we see more and more specialization. There are now sedans, coupes, mini-vans, SUVs, mini-sedans, sports cars, trucks, truck-hybrids, etc. Specialization is the sure sign of a mature market as consumer’s tastes have gotten to a point where they know exactly what they want and the industry can profitably support the proliferation of models. Industry support is a very important in the industry must be able to afford all this proliferation. The auto industry supports this through common parts that are shared like chassis, engines, and electronics.

What does this have to do with convertibles? Ask yourself this question: If my SUV could perform like a Cayman Porsche, would I like it? Of course you would; it is called a Porsche Cayenne. The problem is, you could pay up to $100,000 for it. Want your sedan to drive like a Cayman? Just get a Porsche Panamera. The problem, again, is that is around $95,000. The expense isn’t just about the brand. Porsche invested real R&D and provides the expensive technology to make these “convertibles” perform well.

There are similarities and differences between the Porsche Panamera and Windows 8 convertibles:

  • Price: Buyers will only need to spend an extra $100-200 more than a tablet to get a convertible. Many will make that choice to have the best of both worlds. The average U.S. car is around $33,000 while the Panamera is around $100,000, three times the average. One argument Apple could have is that if future, full-featured tablets become $299, the added price could be too much to pay for the added convertible functionality.
  • Low “Sacrifice Differential”: This is Apple’s strongest point, as in many mashups, combining two products results in something that isn’t good for any usage model. “Fixed” designs will need to be less than 13mm thick and the “flexible” designs (ie Transformer Prime) need to be less than 18mm thick with keyboard. Otherwise, the convertibles will be too thick to serve as a decent tablet at 13mm or thicker than an Ultrabook over 18mm.
  • Transformation capabilities: Convertible form factors like the Transformer Prime can convert into a “notebook” with an add-on peripheral, but cars cannot. I wish there were a 30-second add on kit that could turn my Yukon into a 911 Porsche but there isn’t. Related to PC convertibles, if you have ever used the Asus Transformer Prime, you know what I am talking about. It is one of the thinnest tablets, and when paired with its keyboard, is only 19mm thick. One of the great features of the Prime is that the keyboard provides an extra 40-50% battery life boost that actually adds utility. Windows 8 for the first time supports the lean-forward and lean-back usage models. As a tablet, the users uses it with Metro. As a “notebook” clamshell form factor, the users can use Metro and then use Windows 8 Desktop with the trackpad and keyboard. This has never existed before and Apple doesn’t have this capability in iOS or OSX.
I do believe that convertibles ultimately will have space in the market as they serve to eliminate, for some users and usage models, redundancy of having two devices. OEMs must be particularly careful in how thick they make them. The original iPad was around 10mm and that was pushing some of the boundaries, particularly with reading books. The thicker the designs, the less desriable they become as they will not make a very good tablet. Flexible designs like today’s Asus Transformer Prime, when connected with Windows 8, could be a lethal market combination as it combines a thin tablet and a keyboard when you want it. Gauging by how much shelf-space is devoted to iPad keyboards, I must conclude that consumers are snatching these up in high volume.
I believe Apple is wrong about convertibles, but on the positive side, Apple’s warning gave the entire industry pause for thought. Interestingly, it provided the opposite effect of what I believe Apple intended, which was to freeze the market. Instead, it indicated that Apple was not going to do it, which motivated more OEMs to build, given they wouldn’t have to worry about Apple. While the volumes for convertibles won’t be as large as tablets or notebooks, I do believe they have a place in the market in the mid-term.

Are Facebook’s Best Days Over or Ahead?

With Facebook’s public offering over, its time to ask the question of whether Facebook’s best days are over or are there any other scenarios that could boost their earning potential and actually let them grow revenue. To date, they have mostly used ads and special partnerships to monetize their connections to 900 million people around the world and that has allowed them to earn serious money in the process.

My friend Michael Miller wrote a great piece at PC Mag entitled “Facebook’s not so secret weapon-Infrastructure” and explains how Facebook’s servers are based on the Open Compute project for efficient data centers. At its core, Facebook has one of the best and most responsive data centers available that can be quickly customized and optimized for new products and services, which I consider a major asset and one that could be much more proactive in delivering new products and services in real time.

We already know that Facebook is a place for making connections with friends and family and in a broader sense, lets us connect to companies, products and services as well. But I think there are at least three other major products and services they could offer that could extend their growth substantially and enhance their revenue potential.

The first would be to follow an important trend in social networking called vertical networks, or linking people of like minds together and make it easier to connect with people vertically within Facebook. To a degree they have that now with Facebook groups but it is not designed to really target vertical markets. Our research is showing that there is a real demand for dedicated vertical social networks tied specifically to interests. For example, a social networking site truly optimized for pilots. Facebook does have a group called “Pilot Connect Social Network” within Facebook but it is poorly laid out and somewhat difficult to follow. But what if they really took aim at hundreds of like-minded subjects and created a very rich social network that is elegantly designed and easy to make connections. This would allow them to provide even more targeted ads, and because it would be part of Facebook as a whole, it could also cross reference any topic or ad that might be relevant to this audience such as hotels near small airports, etc.

I love scuba diving and there are many sites about scuba diving, but no single social network around this subject that really appeals to me. But what if Facebook gave me dedicated scuba diving group or scuba network that is very rich in content and well designed that I really want to go to every day to see what’s new. I buy scuba diving magazines to read about diving resorts and get tips, but I also love the ads in there that are really aimed at me. This includes ads about new equipment, diving resorts, etc. At the moment, Facebook does not really provide a rich network for like minds and if done right, this could be a major growth opportunity for them.

The second thing I think they could do that could really enhance their long-term growth is to become the social network for applications. Mark Zuckerberg has alluded to this but the basic idea would to become the social link between existing apps and multiple users. A good example of this is in multi-player games. Most games today are designed for single user play. But what if any game I have could be played with my friends across town or around the world. Or what if I have an app like a photo sharing app? If Facebook could be the social link between different photo apps, it could be used to do innovative things that blend images and video into a multi-app, multi-user environment. Or what if Facebook becomes the social networking glue between existing sites for diabetics? While they could create a richer internal Facebook network for diabetics, if they were also the social link between dozens of other diabetic sites, the content for the diabetic consumer becomes even richer.

But the third area that they could mine is through extending their ad network beyond the walls of Facebook. Facebook is building a detailed user profile of each Facebook user. One of the more interesting things Facebook could do is to extend that demographic profile to build an advertising network similar to Google AdSense. If they could partner with other top tier sites and extend their demographic database and targeted ad-matching network to other websites outside of the Facebook experience, they could seriously threaten Google’s dominance in this area. Google only knows what people are searching for whereas Facebook knows quite a bit about the searcher. The latter is much more valuable in matching the right ads with the right user and Facebook may be one of the only companies out there currently who can deliver this across the web.

While Facebook already has a rich framework to use to continue to connect people together around their social network, it is clear to me that they still have a lot of room to grow and expand and monetize new services. I don’t believe that Facebook’s best days are over. Indeed, I think that they have climbed some pretty big mountains to get where they are today, but I suspect that they have even more mountains to climb and could use what they already have to build on and continue to grow the company significantly in the future. The key word for this growth will be to continue to innovate and execute and I believe if they do the things mentioned above, along with others I am sure they have in the works, the company could become even more powerful and profitable in the future.

3 Columns Skeptical of Facebook’s Long Term Value

In light of Facebook IPO day, I thought I would share three key columns I wrote about Facebook. I remain skeptical of Facebook’s long term value. Specifically the business model and sustainable value to those they depend on to make money. Facebook, like Google, is a company where people are the product. The big difference in my mind between those two companies is that Google has quite a bit of proprietary IP around solving a problem–search. Facebook may have some enabling technology, may or may not actually be a sustainable social platform, but is the problem they are solving one that is defendable?

If the answer is yes then how do we explain the massive migration from MySpace to Facebook? Yes Myspace did not innovate and did not develop solutions that cater to a larger demographic. Facebook did a great job expanding their value from college students only to a wider audience. That being said what is stopping someone from coming up with a better idea, or a better way to stay in touch, than what Facebook has? Is the problem they are solving really that hard to solve?

The first column I wrote almost a year ago for TIME looks at this subject of whether Facebook can go the way of Myspace. I encourage you to read it as the first of the three columns I wrote. It will give you a timeline of my thoughts, how they evolved, and the overall case I make against the long-term value of Facebook.

Could What Happened to Myspace Happen to Facebook?

I decided to revisit this topic just earlier this year, again for TIME, where I explore if Facebook has peaked and we are now witnessing the beginning of the end. This particular article is by and large the most read piece of content I have ever written. It could picked up by other major outlets like CNN, the AP, and a few others. And if you take a look at the comments you can see how heated the debate gets. My overall point was that if you look at users of Facebook who have been on the service for a length of time they tend to see their usage decrease. We can call this Facebook fatigue but the initial thrill of discovery weans and the service becomes more management than discovery. Discovery, in my opinion, is one of the stickiest psychological aspects of any online service. Think about why you spend time browsing in a mall, or electronics story, or Amazon, or an App store? It is largely due to the thrill of discovery or the hopes to find something new of value.

This is the same experience for a new Facebook user. It is the thrill of connecting with old friends, colleagues, or classmates that engaged us in the beginning with Facebook. Seeing what loved ones from a far are up to, finding new friends or interests. But then there comes a point where that initial thrill of discovery weans and the service can become overloaded with information you don’t care about or are not as interested in any longer. Things like this are the root of my concern of Facebook over the long haul.

Is This The Beginning of the End for Facebook?

My most recent column, which we ran here on Tech.pinions, was on why I wouldn’t invest in Facebook. My overall reasoning is built upon my above two points and columns. That if consumers, the longer they use the services, are not as engaged with Facebook then the value to an advertiser goes down.

Recently news surfaced that GM was stopping advertising on Facebook due to the ads not paying off or delivering the ROI they expected. This was predictable and not surprising based on the arguments I have offered. When you think about why ads work on TV, print, and other forms of offline media, it is because the audience is either engaged and captive, or highly segmented, or both. Think about why ads work in Men’s Fitness for example, a service I subscribe to. I am interested in fitness, exercise, etc., and nearly 90% of the ads I see in this magazine are relevant to the subject matter of the captive audience. The same is true with TV shows and a range of other mediums where advertising has been historically successful.

In all of those mediums where advertising pays off, there is a captive audience, engaged with content directly related to the theme of the ads. This is not true of Facebook. If the content I am engaged with is that of friends and family then how exactly do advertisers match their content up with me in a relevant way? Facebook has to hope that I share my interests, likes, dis-likes, etc., in order to get a detailed information about me as possible in order to help link advertisers up with me based on my interest. The only problem is that the thematic content related to sports, fitness, hobbies, interests, etc., is not the reason I go back to Facebook. It is simply to stay in touch with friends and family.

The psychology of what has made ads useful in other targeted content mediums does not translate to Facebook. It is because of that point that I struggle with Facebook’s business model.

Why I wouldn’t invest in Facebook

In the column above I point out why I think more vertical social networks, ones that cater their content, services, and engagement around specific things, have more of a chance at being successful. Social networks for car lovers, food lovers, fashion fanatics, fitness, health, mothers of kids of all ages, etc., provide more valuable content and lead to a more captive and segmented audience. It is in these environments that an online social platform can thrive.

Maybe Facebook will figure out whom to segment its social platform even further in order to drive more engagement around specific subjects. I think this will be very difficult for a general-purpose social network to accomplish but perhaps they will figure it out.

For now I will remain skeptical and observe as more vertical social networks arise and become more valuable to advertisers.

Our Future Smart World

One of the things our firm does for our clients in the technology industry is help them think about the future. This one thing alone is one my favorite things about doing trend forecasting, future scenario planning, and analysis. In fact, many of my absolute favorite types of conversations are ones that include extensive use of words like someday and in the future. However, it comes with a downside. Spending quite a bit of time envisioning the future leads can often lead to disappointing experiences with technology in the present. Mostly because we dream big about all the possibilities with technology and how smart technology will continue to solve problems and make our lives better. This happens to a degree today but not to the extent we envision. It all comes down to dreaming about what is possible with technology and realizing we are no where near having our smart devices fulfill their potential.

I see so much more potential for smartphones, smart TV’s, the smart home, smart health, traditional computing products, game consoles, cloud services, etc., than exists today. However, for some reason tablets are the category exciting me the most and not disappointing me. I can only conclude the only reason why that is the case is because tablets are so new and still in the process of defining their roles in the lives of consumers.

Smart Devices Aren’t Really Smart–Yet

This perhaps is one of the things that frustrates me the most. I know we are pushing these devices to their computing limits today but I know truly smart devices are not too far off. My point on this topic is that today devices we call smart contain no real artificial or adaptive intelligence. The only reason my smartphone or tablet may be different than yours is because I put the time in to personalize it. I don’t go buy a new smart device, let it learn about it me, and then have the device customize the experience for my unique uses. For it to be smart, in most cases I have to add the intelligence to make it smart. Someday this will be the case.

To illustrate this point I would like to use App stores as an example. You and I may use our smartphone in entirely different ways. A smartphone can represent a number of different things to a number of different consumers. Take Apple’s app store for example. If two consumers open the app store and look at the featured section for example, they will see exactly the same thing. Yet how these two consumers use this phone may be polar opposites; they see the same static information. The only time this changes is via search and perhaps Apple’s Genius suggestions ( which I have never found useful for my own needs.)

If my smartphone was actually smart when I went “app store shopping” I would be presented with a fresh and dynamic view of applications based on the things I have primarily been using my phone for lately. This would be a fresh personalized app shopping experience that could change on a daily, weekly, or monthly time frame depending on the things I have been doing the most lately with my phone. Or perhaps even change with the seasons. When Football season starts, my smart device would know I like football and specifically the 49ers. I would like to see whats new in software for Football experiences like games, news, and more.

Of course one may say that this is the point of search. I agree, however search is best, in my opinion, when you have a general idea what you are looking for. It is less useful when you have a vague idea or no idea and are in a browsing mode. I do this quite a bit as I just open the app store to do some general browsing. I would love a more customized app store experience based on my unique uses with my smart device. It is these kinds of adaptive and dynamic experiences with smart devices that are unique to my personal habits and needs that I am looking forward to with the next generation of smart technology.

What it will really boils down to is that our smart devices will move from being useful to also being helpful. That, I feel is the root, of the artificial intelligence element of the smart device future. A world where smart technology is helpful as well as useful is a vision I can get behind. And by helpful I mean able to anticipate the user needs and preferences and offer up assistance based on context and situation.

Right now we are in the stage where our personal computing is more personalized by me than dynamically customized by the devices intelligence in order to become truly personal. In the future I assume the ideal scenario will be where both exist. There will be times where I want the assistance of the device to customize or anticipate my needs, wants, and desires in any situation, and other times where I want to spend the time to customize it myself.

Many things, from more advanced semiconductors, better predictive software and artificial intelligence, and cloud technology need to come together to make this future a reality. As I survey the landscape today we still have a long way to go before this vision of the future is realized, and I can’t wait until this happens.

Staying in Contact with this Generation of College Students

Lindsay Pund is a junior studying English and Business at Whitworth University. She is completing several writing assignments for a class and was given the topic by the Tech.pinions columnists of how college students stay in touch with friends and family while away at school.


For the majority of college students, college is the first time they are away from home for an extended period of time. Regardless of how far a student goes for school, be it in the next city, state, or country, the question of communication is a common subject. Once it is established how often communication is to be expected, either with family or friends from home, the discussion of which mode of communication will best serve the purpose begins. When students went off to college a few decades ago, they had significantly fewer choices than those at hand for the current generation of college students.

In the lives of college students today, the varieties of communication are virtually limitless. While snail mail is still an option and care packages are always welcomed, there are many other ways to keep in touch in this evolving digital age.

Cell phones are a staple form of communication because they serve the dual purpose of actually making phone calls as well as offering an outlet for silent interaction through texting. While talking to a variety of students, many said that their phone is their main mode of communication with family. Junior Cameron Williams said, “I mostly use my phone to talk to my parents and I use texting to quickly communicate with friends on campus.”

Many students I talked to agreed that they use talking on their cell phones primarily for communicating with their parents. When asked what is used to keep in touch with friends from back home, everyone answered, “Facebook.” Facebook is an efficient tool to stay in contact with friends because it allows for easy access to current information. In receiving feedback regarding Facebook habits, I found it interesting that most people used Facebook to share information and see updates from their friends, rather than actually communicating in way of a conversation.

Another online venue to address a wide audience is the option of blogging. Some students choose to have blogs where they write about what they are learning in classes, doing while hanging out with friends, and particular interests. Blogs are uniquely effective for communication in that they allow students the freedom of staying in touch when it works with their schedule as well as providing an opportunity for those who want to know more about their life away from home to access the information without having hour long phone conversations. While blogging is an option for communication, it is not yet common among students.

An additional mode of communication available to this generation of college students is video chatting. While Skype is currently the most well known, there are other video chat software options available, such as ooVoo. In talking with students about their use of video chatting, many replied that it is not their preferred mode of communication, and when they do use it, it is most often with high school friends at different colleges, as opposed to their family. I believe the main reason for this being the case is that video chatting requires both parties to be in front of a computer and is a larger commitment compared to a quick phone call while walking across campus.

As a college student, I find myself able to identify with the majority of these answers. While I participate in the occasional blog post and Skype conversation, the majority of my communication happens through my cell phone. For me, this is true because my cell phone is always with me and creates an avenue for quick and easy access to anyone I may need to reach.

While looking into possible improvements for communication choices for college students, I found most people to be happy with the options already at hand. The exceptions to this opinion took form in the desire for improvements within already existing technology. For freshman Phil Moore, he said he is “looking forward to the day when there is higher definition for video chatting,” while also acknowledging that it is only a matter of time before this becomes a reality. Sophomore Graeme Lauer added that he would like to see HeyTell (a smartphone app that uses voice recording to text) become more common, as he believes this would be the best of both worlds between phone calls and texting. Lauer said he could see himself using this application to communicate with his family and friends from home as well as his friends at school. And finally, Anna Simpkins commented, “it would be nice if all of my friends had an iPhone, that way I could make better use of FactTime when I am on the go.”

For busy college students, quick and efficient communication is essential. With the evolution of technology, it is challenging to predict what will replace the current modes of communication. But one thing is for certain: nothing will ever be able to replace care packages from home.

Affordable UltraBooks are Coming But They aren’t UltraBooks

There are looming PC wars coming and it isn’t between Macs and Windows based notebooks. If you follow this industry you know that Intel is seeking to rejuvenate the notebook market. They are doing this by putting quite a bit of marketing weight behind the term UltraBook. To spur development in this category, Intel is putting some very specific hardware specifications around the term that OEMs like Dell, HP, Acer, etc., must conform to if they want their notebook to be called an UltraBook and take advantage of Intel’s marketing dollars for UltraBooks. Obviously every OEM is making UltraBooks.

The challenge as I see it for UltraBooks is that many of the first ones at launch and perhaps those that follow will be priced more in the premium price range rather than value. Many of the early UltraBooks we will see will be $699 and above although a few may get lower and many will skew higher as well. What our consumer data from our own research and consumer interviews is telling us is that Apple has about a $250 grace price point. Consumers know Apple’s Macbook Pro and MacBook Air lines are not the cheapest products on the market. For MacBook intenders, any comparable product must be at least $250 less than a comparable MacBook product to fully sway a consumer when price comes into play. But as I have pointed out before price is becoming less and less of an issue in mature markets.

Although we expect UltraBooks to continue to drop in price there is a sub-category of notebooks emerging which may be even more interesting.

If It Looks Like an UltraBook…

Intel wants to own the UltraBook category. They are investing a lot of money around the term. However, there is a strict set of requirements notebook OEMs must abide by if they want to use the term. If there is one thing I have learned in my 12 years of being an industry analyst it is that OEMs don’t generally like being told what they can and can’t do with their hardware designs. Every OEM wants to take advantage of the thin and light designs driving UltraBooks but they may want to vary the CPU capabilities, and what if they want to use an non-Intel chip for a design that looks exactly like an UltraBook? The answer is they can’t call it an UltraBook.

Earlier in the week AMD launched a very impressive 2nd-Generation A-Series APU, codenamed “Trinity.” Many OEMs have strong relationships with AMD and will most likely use these chips in their lineup of notebooks. So how do OEMs cover their bases by making non-Intel UltraBooks? Well, HP recently launched a new term called SleekBooks. We call this category Ultrathins and we expect many Ultrathins to enter the market well below the price of UltraBooks. And that is what makes this so interesting.

While Intel is going out and spending millions of dollars marketing the UltraBook term, it will indirectly benefit a range of competing platforms. Ultrathins will look nearly identical to UltraBooks with the only minor configurations or specifications, that many consumers may not even notice. The bottom line is that consumers will walk into retail and see UltraBooks, SleekBooks, and perhaps more terms on the way, and with all of these options consumers may very well go with price and walk with with something other than an UltraBook. Perhaps even not knowing they didn’t purchase an UltraBook.

Now, on the surface it may seem as though Intel may not like this scenario. But realistically Intel simply wanted to rejuvenate the notebook category. I believe their marketing of UltraBooks is going to do just that. Even though it may very well help their competitors chipsets and even to a degree help Apple.

I have a feeling there is a large chunk of consumers who are due for a notebook upgrade. The iPad has, for some, served as a sufficient supplement to their existing notebook making it easier to delay the purchase of a new notebook. Whether it is UltraBooks or these new thin and lights that will look and smell like UltraBooks but be priced quite a bit lower, we expect at least a short term positive jump the overall notebook category over the next few years.

Mac Momentum

This is one of the more interesting things to watch. Mac sales are growing at incredible rates. It seems each quarter Apple is selling more Macs than ever before. I was recently in an Apple store with a newly renovated training center. When I walked into the store I assumed the training tables would be filled with people learning how to use their iPads. Instead every table and every consumer at that table was learning how to use the new Mac they just purchased.

If Ultrathins that are very thin, light, and powerful hit the market below the $599 price like we think may happen, it could provide a serious jump start to the notebook category. And at $599 or lower the prices of quality notebooks will be significantly less than an entry level MacBook Air, which may be a key in slowing down Apple’s momentum with Macs.

The Notebook form factor is facing important times as consumers are faced with new questions about computing and their own computing preferences due to the iPad. Consumers are asking new questions about their own computing needs and looking more intently for specific solutions–especially those shopping for new notebooks.

This is exciting and challenging for many in the notebook ecosystem.

NVIDIA GeForce Grid: Killing off Game Consoles?

Yesterday, NVIDIA launched VGX and the GeForce Grid, which, among many things, could render future game consoles obsolete.  This may sound very far-fetched right now, but as I dig into the details of the capability of the GeForce Grid and map that against consumer future needs, unless future consoles can demonstrably deliver something unique and different, they will just be an unnecessary expense and a hassle to the end consumer.

Problems with Cloud Gaming Today

Services exist today for cloud gaming like OnLive and Gaikai.  They have received a lot of press, but it’s uncertain if their business models and experiences would exist years from now if they stay with their current approaches and implementations.

Scalability is one issue.  Services need to directly match one cloud game session with one graphics card, so if you have 1,000 gamers, you need 1,000 graphics cards.  You can just imagine the challenges in scaling that experience out to millions of users.  You would need millions of graphics cards, which in a data center environment doesn’t make a lot of sense logistically or financially.

Latency is another issue.  Cloud game services need to maintain severs 100s of miles away to maintain an appropriate latency in game-play.  Latency is the lag time between when a user does something and they get a response. Imagine if there were a one second delay between the time you pull the trigger in Battlefield 3 and the time which something happens.  This would render the cloud game absolutely unplayable. Latency in social media apps like Facebook is acceptable, but not with games. Having to provide “edge servers” close to end users like the industry does today is completely unproductive as you cannot leverage these same servers during off-times and it’s difficult to even leverage servers across different time zones.  Therefore, servers are sitting around idle with nothing to do. This places another immense financial burden on the cloud game provider.  NVIDIA and their partners are attempting to solve these problems.

Nvidia VGX and the GeForce Grid

NVIDIA, with VGX and the GeForce Grid is attempting to solve the scalability and latency problems associated with today’s cloud gaming services like Gaikai and OnLive.  NVIDIA VGX are the technologies addressing the current virtual display issues and the GeForce Grid is the specific implementation to attack issues in cloud gaming.  They are addressing the problems with two very distinct, but related technologies: GPU virtualization and low latency remote display.

Virtualization of the GPU enables more than one user to share the resources of a graphics card.  Therefore, the one to one ratio between user gaming sessions and graphics card goes away.  With NVDIA VGX, multiple users can share a single, monster-sized graphics card.  This provides much better scalability for the cloud game data center and correspondingly reduces costs and increases flexibility.

Lower latency remote displays enable a significant improvement in the speed at which the remote image is sent to the end client device.  In this cloud gaming scenario, the gaming frames are actually converted into an H.264 movie and sent to the user.  NVIDIA has enabled improvements in the process by eliminating many steps in the process.  The frame of the game no longer needs to touch the CPU or main memory and is encoded directly on the NVIDIA VGX card and sent directly over PCI Express to the network card.  By bypassing many of the previous components and removing steps, this speeds up the process immensely.  This delivers a few benefits.  First, all things equal, it can deliver a much faster experience to the gamer that they never experienced before.  The experience just feels more like it is happening locally.  Combined with GPU virtualization, the reduced latency also enables cloud gaming data centers to be located farther away from users, which increases data center utilization and efficiency.  It also enables entire geographies to be served that could never be served before as “edge servers” can be consolidated.

Wither Future Game Consoles?

If NVIDIA and its partners can execute on the technology and the experience, it would essentially enable any device that could currently playback YouTube video well to be a virtual game device. Gamers could play any game, any time, and immediately.  What kinds of devices do that today?  They are all around us.  They are smartphones, Smart TVs, and even tablets.  There’s no loading games off of a disc, no downloading 500MB onto a PC; its just pick the game and play.  Once the gamer is done playing on the TV, they can just take their tablet and pick up in their bedroom where they left off.

This kind of usage model is quite common when you think of it.  Many consumer books, movies and even music in this same way, so why not games?  For many consumers, convenience trumps quality and that’s one of the issues I can see with future consoles.  There is no doubt that the visual detail and user interfaces will be much more sophisticated than cloud gaming. As I look to how well the iPod did with its “inferior” music quality, consumers chose convenience over quality.  Look at Netflix on a phone or tablet.  Consumers can get much higher quality on the local cable service, but a growing number of consumers choose convenience over quality.

Device makers and service providers who don’t see any monetization currently off of games today will very aggressively adopt this approach.  TV makers, for instance, see no revenue from any game played on their devices.  Gaikai, as an example, is cutting deals with TV manufacturers like LG to provide this service built into every Smart TV in the future.  Telcos and cable companies are also very motivated to tap into the huge gaming revenue stream.

I believe that consoles will adopt cloud gaming capabilities in addition to physical media or they will be viewed as lacking the features gamers want.  I also believe that cloud gaming will seriously cannibalize future game consoles.  Many who would have purchased a new game console if cloud gaming with NVIDIA VGX and GeForce Grid had not existed will not buy game consoles.  With that premise, it begs the question if future game consoles have a bright future.  If game console makers don’t do something aggressive, their future is looking dim.

If you would like a deeper dive on NVIDIA VGX and the GeForce Grid, you can download my whitepaper here.

What People Really Think About Online Privacy

Grandstanding politicians are always ready to pillory Facebook and other online services as destroyers of privacy. Silicon Valley tries to avoid thinking about igt. But how do ordinary folks really feel about the issue?

It’s hard to generalize based on a sample of four not randomly selected individuals. But based on what I heard from a panel of consumers at the Privacy Identity Innovation conference in Seattle May 14, these folks, at least, have a nuanced and generally accurate view of the state of online privacy.

Ralph Munro

One interesting conclusion from the panel, moderated by my friend and CBS Radio technology analyst and ConnectSafely.org co-director Larry Magid, is that privacy concerns are focused much more on the use of information by friends, enemies, potential employers, and other individuals than the on the possible sale of data by corporations. “My generation is pretty aware of the implications of putting information out,” said Landon Bennett, a University of Washington-bound Seattle high school senior. “It’s at the back of my mind at all times.” He admits that the world is becoming “more fishbowl like.”

Ralph Munro, born in 1943, brought the perspective of another generation. The former Washington secretary of state noted that the loss of privacy is nothing new. “I was raised in a house with no phone,” he said. “Our first phone was a party line and there was no privacy.” (For those of you too young to remember, a party line was a phone line shared by two or more families–a sort of primitive voice Twitter. To make a call, you had to listen to see if anyone else was using the line, and once there, you could eavesdrop to your heart’s content.)

Munro noted that people are perfectly willing to surrender privacy for small rewards. “People worry about privacy, but everybody signs up for a Safeway card. People are giving up their own privacy.” And when Munro suffered a serious illness a few years ago, his family sacrificed privacy to put out daily reports on CaringBridge. “I got messages from all over the world. I can’t tell you what that meant to me.” But, he admits, “Most people my age have no idea of the lack of privacy on the internet.”

Diana Henneuse, the mother of an eight-year-old daughter, shared the typical concerns of parents: “I’m concerned because of all the temptations out there. I worry about bullying and stalking. I want to be with her when she is on the computer.” And she worries that both children and adults spend their lives distracted by technology.

Imei Hsu is a psychotherapist and belly dancer and has the possibly unique problem of managing those two very different identities online. As a psychotherapist, a major preoccupation is protecting patient privacy and complying with the laws, such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. “The laws need to catch up,” she said.”HIPAA and the like can interfere with the practice of medicine” by preventing practitioners from taking full advantage of communications technology.

When you listen to politicians such as, say Senator Al Franken (D-Minn.), you get the impression that Americans are cowering at the assault on their privacy by Facebook and Google.  “The more dominant these companies become over the sectors in which they operate, the less incentive they have to respect your privacy,” Franken told the American Bar Assn. “When companies become so dominant that they can violate their users’ privacy without worrying about market pressure, all that’s left is the incentive to get more and more information about you.”

But based on what I heard from an admittedly limited sample in Seattle, that’s not where real peoples’ concerns lie. Their worries about online privacy are less corporate and much more personal and intimate. Privacy concerns are real, but the policy responses can seem like solutions in search of problems.

 

 

The Challenge of Competing With Apple

One of the more interesting questions I get asked as an industry analyst, that has followed Apple since 1981, is why Apple is so successful? And another question I often get is, why Apple’s competitors can’t make any headway against them? These are honest questions and to those really not familiar with Apple, the companies rise and current dominance in non-PC devices is somewhat puzzling.

There are many books out about Apple these days that talk about everything from Jobs’s history, tenets of Apple’s business models, to secrets about Apple’s internal management ideas. And most know that they differentiate themselves through great industrial design, incredible software and a rich ecosystem of software and services. However, after years of watching Apple close up and personal and having dealt with every one of their CEO’s from the beginning, as well as interacting with various Apple execs over the years, I would like to suggest that the reason Apple is hard to catch is that there are five additional principles, that guide Apple, that makes competing with Apple so difficult.

For any products that Apple creates, the people who create them have to want it themselves.

So many times, in projects I do with other tech companies, the goal is almost always based around the technology first and then if people really want to use it second. Geeky engineers are dazzled by the technology at their disposal and often create something because they can. But Apple’s approach is quite different. The engineers who are creating Apple products actually make them for themselves. And Jobs was the chief “user” of Apple products when he was alive. All of their products are based on his intuition that represented the real customer. And his engineers had to come to grips that in designing a product, it has to be something that they personally would have “technolust” for and could not live without.

The products have to be easy to use

Steve Jobs was a stickler on this point. While industrial design is a critical component of any product they make, if it is not easy to use, it is considered worthless to the consumer. This is what drove their user interface designs from day one and is still the mantra pushed to their software and hardware engineers every day they come to work. All of the products they create have to be intuitive, easy to understand, and learn. As technology has become more intricate and users want more features, the task of keeping things simple is sometimes difficult. And Apple creates tools for power users to rookies, which can mean a broad range of ease-of-use issues. But even with that, Apple is the only company I deal with where ease of use is more important then the product itself and Apple makes this a critical goal of their approach to creating anything for the market.

Keep things simple

I was in Paris for the last two weeks and had talks with various French telecommunication officials on many mobile computing issues. But one conversation I had in particular emphasizes this keep-it-simple point. We were discussing how to compete with Apple, a major pastime for all Apple competitors and carriers these days, when the question of why Apple is really successful came up. And one exec nailed it when it when he said he felt that the real reason Apple is successful is because they have one product, in this case the iPhone, and minimize the decision making process for the consumer by making things simple. The person speaking was with a carrier in France and he said that in their stores, they have to have as many as 25 different models of phones available. That makes it hard for his staff to be really knowledgeable about all of them all of the time and their customers just have too many options to choose from.

But Apple only has one iPhone model and anyone who has gone into an Apple store understands that every staff member there knows a great deal about each of the four major products they carry in their stores. They don’t have 5 iPhone models to choose from; they have only one. While this may seem limiting given the amount of smartphones available to users, the truth is the reverse. Our company has done consumer research for over 30 years and consumers constantly tell us that while choice is nice, in reality they want the process of choosing a tech product to be simple and easy to do and not complicated by a plethora of choices.

Yes, there are tech savvy people who like more choices and sometimes even like complexity, but from years of experience as a market researcher, I can tell you that in the end, the majority of users are not tech savvy and keeping things simple for them is a plus. Apple understands this and is never tempted to add multiple versions of an iPhone, iPad or even more then one or two types of iPods to make buying an Apple product simple. And consumers seem to appreciate this considering the huge number of iDevices they are selling each year. I know the tech media and techies are the most vocal about this issue of choice, but in the end, while choice is good for competitive pricing, what non-techie consumers really want is simplicity.

Offer great customer service and in-store experiences

Steve Jobs understood one of the major conundrums of technology. That conundrum is that even if you create products that are easy to use, the variety of things people want to use their technologies for often creates complexity, and because of this, consumers at all levels may need some hand holding from time to time. I was one of the most vocal critics of Apple when they introduced their first retail store in Tokyo in 2002 and thought it was crazy for them to try and go into retail. At the time, and even today, tech retail stores are in decline and big box stores like Costco and Walmart sell products on price and nothing else. I thought that if price were the issue, an upscale retail store would be DOA. Wow, was I and other naysayers on Apple’s store strategy wrong about this.

Apple uses this conundrum to their advantage. Because they keep product SKU’s simple, the salespeople inside their stores know their products really well. Notice that when you go into an Apple store and are greeted by one of their sales staff, you are not asked “how can I help you?” Instead they ask “What would you like to do today.” They go right to the heart of any technology users question that is always related to what they want or need to do with the technology they are interested in.

And once you explain your needs, in most cases they can take care of it on the spot. Or if you need more hand holding, they turn you over to the Apple Geniuses. No wonder 50% of people buying Apple products are new to Apple. Apple’s products are simple to understand and use but if you do have a problem, Apple can take care of it at their stores or over the phone quickly.

Apple only makes a product if they can do it better

Apple normally doesn’t invent a new product or product category. Sure, they did invent the first commercial PC with the Apple II and the Mac improved on PC’s with a graphical UI and the mouse input. But since these were introduced in the late 1970s and early 1980’s, all of their other products were recreations of existing products. They did not invent the MP3 player-they reinvented and made it better. They did not invent the smartphone-they reinvented it. And they did not invent the tablet-they reinvented it. Or in essence, they made it better.

As Apple designer Johnny Ives said recently, “Our goals are very simple – to design and make better products. If we can’t make something that is better, we won’t do it. Clearly, Apple applied that thinking first to iPods, smartphones and more recently, to the iPad.

Apple stays at least two years ahead of their competitors.

This is the one that scares Apple’s competitors the most. While those competing with Apple are just getting products to market that are competitive with a current Apple product, Apple is already working on the products at least two years out. For example, the new iPhone that will most likely go to market in Oct, was designed and signed off two years ago. And the iPhone they are working on now is for the fall of 2014. The same goes for the iPad. The new iPad that we will most likely see next March was signed off two years ago. The one they are working on now we will probably see in 2015. This is a nightmare for Apple’s competitors and will continue to be for some time. Besides having geniuses in design, software and retail, they also have the cash to invent components, manufacturing processes, etc., which almost makes it impossible for the competition to make any real headway against Apple. And don’t let the fact that Android has become the #1 smartphone OS make you think that it is the big winner. Yes, Android has gained ground by the sheer numbers of companies and products pushing Android. But the real measure of success is in the profits and Apple is making as much as 70% of all the profits in smartphones and about 85% of the profits in Tablets. Just ask any Android competitor which they would like more, market share or profits and you get the answer to the real measure of success in this market.

These five principles may seem a bit simplistic given the fact that they also have great software, industrial design and a powerful eco system of content, apps and services as part of their success equation. However, I can tell you that from my three decades of following them, that it is these five key principles that are what really makes them successful. And as long as they adhere to them, it is pretty likely that Apple will continue to grow and command a relatively large share of the market in the product categories where they compete and continue to give their competitors real headaches for some time to come.

Intel Could Use a Dose of Andy Grove

No 286In a presentation to financial analysts on May 10, Intel CEO Paul Otellini said he was not particularly worried about the prospect of Microsoft issuing a version of Windows for ARM processors later this year. “We think [x86 is] a differentiator,” he said. “We have the advantage of the incumbency, the legacy support.”

Maybe he’s right. But it is disconcerting to hear this sort of complacency from the head of Intel, especially at a time when ARM-powered smartphones and tablets pose an unprecedented threat to Intel’s core laptop and desktop business.

I can only wonder what Andy Grove would say. Grove, who was Intel CEO from 1987 to 1998, famously wrote: “Business success contains the seeds of its own destruction. Success breeds complacency. Complacency breeds failure. Only the paranoid survive.” Grove also once ordered an advertising campaign attacking what was then the company’s most successful product the 80286 processor, in an effort to get customers to move to the newer, much more capable, and ultimately wildly successful 80386.

Grove remains a senior adviser to Intel and has always avoided any public criticism of his successors. But I find it hard to believe he is happy watching the company he built acting so passively in the face of a threat.

Side note: Intel was actually a major player in the ARM business for some years. It bought Digital Equipment’s StrongARM business in 1998. The chips, renamed XScale, powered many handheld computers and early smartphones. Intel sold the division to Marvell in 2007.

Tablet Computing in Portrait Mode

Last week I wrote about my two must have iPad accessories. In that list I included the Logitech Ultra-thin Keyboard Cover. Among the many reasons I like this case over similarly good ones like the Zagg Folio or the Adonit is because it allows me to do computing on my iPad in portrait mode. It is very interesting to me that so many companies who make keyboard accessories assume that when you want to use the keyboard you want to use it with the screen sideways or in landscape mode. Even the Logitech Ultra-thin case has the smart cover magnet in the dock groove assuming you want to prop it up with the screen horizontal. Notice most tablet manufacturers orient their buttons and ports in a way that assumes mostly a landscape over a portrait mode of use. The iPad is the exception where the buttons and ports seem to by oriented for more portrait mode–at least in my opinion.

Interestingly, I have found that my preferred use for docking the iPad and using the keyboard is in portrait mode. I am convinced that computing in portrait mode is far superior to landscape mode for many different tasks. This hit me the hardest when I used the iPad for the first time for browsing the web. Browsing the web in portrait mode is by far the best way to browse the web. This should be obvious since many websites are designed with up and down scrolling rather than left to right. Browsing the web in portrait mode allows you to see more of the website at one time. Beyond browsing the web there is another use case that I believe computing in portrait mode is far superior for and that is writing.

Better In Portrait Mode

I do quite a bit of writing whether it be reports, columns, or even responding to clients with lengthy emails. This is one of the reasons that using a keyboard accessory with my iPad is a must. Writing while using the iPad in portrait mode is a powerful experience. The primary reason for this is because you can see more words on the page when writing in portrait mode. Throughout human history, whether penned by hand, or while using a typewriter with a paper stand in the back, producing the written word on a medium that is longer than it is wide has been the norm. When you see people using pen and paper today you don’t normally see them turning the pad of paper sideways. Yet if you think about it, writing, working, and being productive while looking at a medium that is longer than it is wide is something that is foreign to the world of computers.

Computing in portrait mode is relatively unexplored territory. Since the beginning computers have had square monitors which eventually evolved into the norm for today which is 16:9 landscape. Due to the standard landscape orientation of computers to date, software has mostly been written with this screen orientation in mind. What happens, given the massive growth of tablets, and the fact that they are also computers, if software developers start thinking of writing software for use while in portrait mode? Most apps today, with the exception of things like games, support different screen orientations. What is missing is that the user experience with the software does not change much based on my screen orientation. Apple’s Mail app actually does change the UI when in portrait or landscape mode. However, when I am in portrait mode I can focus on the email because the side bar containing my inbox goes away. But when in landscape, the inbox sidebar is present and stays in sight.

This is a good example of a software interface being designed to make the application useful whether it is in portrait or landscape mode. Different screen orientations will present different looks and ways to use screen real estate. I believe that as software developers re-imagine their software for tablets they will also consider dual screen orientation experiences with the same software.

Portrait vs. Landscape

With this in mind I have been thinking a lot about the types of things I prefer to do while in portrait versus landscape modes with the iPad. Nearly all tasks that would qualify as productive I prefer to do in portrait mode. While the other tasks, with the exception of web browsing, like playing games, watching video, etc., I prefer to do in landscape mode. Reading is sometimes productive and sometimes for entertainment but either way reading is far better in portrait mode over landscape. This of course makes sense for things like video since they are produced in widescreen not portrait. For games it depends on the game since there are many great games that use both screen orientations. What has stood out for me though was how many tasks that were considered working or productive tasks that I preferred using the iPad in portrait mode.

This is something that is only possible with tablet computers since laptops and desktops are not designed to allow you to change your screen orientation based on the software experience you desire to have. This also makes a very compelling case for a keyboard accessory for a tablet.

One of my biggest complaints with the iPad’s virtual keyboard is not that I can’t type fast on it because I actually can. My biggest complaint is that I can’t use it for any real productive input while in portrait mode. And when I use it in landscape mode it takes up nearly half the screen leaving me with very little of the software application to see while typing. This completely defeats the profound experience I have while writing in portrait mode due to how much of the screen and words I can see at one time.

These are the kinds of experiences that are only available on the tablet form factor. I hope that as keyboard accessories continue to get refined and perfected, so will the software that will change not only our computing paradigm from mouse and keyboard to touch but to also break away from landscape computing as the only mode for working on a tablet.

DISH Hopper: What Goes Around Comes Around

Satellite TV operator DISH Network got a lot of attention when it announced its new Hopper DVR with a feature that “can automatically skip commercials in primetime TV – ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC in HD. Only on the Hopper. Only from DISH.”

Photo of Replay 4000
The Replay 4000 DVR from 2002.

A cool feature, but hardly new. When ReplayTV introduced the first DVR in 1999, it included a 30-second skip-forward button, a revolutionary idea at the time. (Replay was the brainchild of Anthony Wood, who went on to found Roku.) Three years later, Replay, by then owned by SonicBLUE, introduced the Replay 4000. The new DVR included the ability to skip commercials automatically as well as a feature that allowed sharing of recorded programs with other Replay owners over the internet.

As I wrote at the time, this was viewed with great alarm by Hollywood, and the studios predictably rose up and crushed SonicBLUE, which had a fatal penchant for provoking legal challenges. But Replay, which launched a bit before the more successful TiVo, played an important part in revolutionizing how we watch television.

 

RIM Needs to Stop Embarrassing Itself

I haven’t seen a company embarrass itself as much as RIM has in the last year or so. From failed products to sad attempts at marketing, it seems that RIM doesn’t know when it’s time to take a step back.

There’s a lot to be said for the bravery of a fighter that repeatedly gets back up after being knocked down. However, RIM has been knocked out. The company needs to take a step back, regroup and do something substantial.

In its latest debacle, RIM hired a busload of protesters in Australia to hold up signs outside the Apple store that read “WAKE UP.” Really? Apple needs to wake up?

While nobody knew it was RIM that organized the protest, sleuths on the Internet quickly tracked it back to them. A couple of weeks later RIM followed this up with its “Wake Up. Be Bold.” Web site. The site contains the most confusing message directed at Apple.

It reads:

It’s time to mean business.

Now, before you go looking for your suit and briefcase, we’re not talking about that kind of business.

Business is no longer just a suit-wearing, cubicle-sitting, card-carrying kind of pursuit.

These days being ‘in business’ means you’re the kind of person who takes action and makes things happen.

You don’t just think different… you do different.

It’s a simple choice:

You’re either here to leave your mark and eat the opportunity for breakfast

OR

You’re satisfied to just float through life like a cork in the stream.

Now, we know some people will choose to float on by and that’s fine.

Being in business is not for everyone, but unfortunately… there is no middle ground. You’re either in business or you’re not.

For those of us with our eyes wide open, we need to realize there’s only one device for people who mean business… the brand that’s been in business from the very beginning.

The only word I could come up with to adequately describe this campaign is pathetic.

RIM is talking to Apple, the company that changed the smartphone and tablet markets forever. Apple is defining every market they enter, forcing all of its competition to rummage for the second place scraps.

These days, RIM isn’t even on anyone’s radar as a competitor. Remember this is the company that made it’s name with secure email and then released a tablet that couldn’t do email.

What RIM needs to do is keep quiet for a while so it can work on products that will appeal to consumers and businesses. It is the quality products, not silly marketing campaigns that will win people over.

RIM is right about one thing. “Being in business is not for everyone.”

Back to the Future: Windows RT Browser Wars

Internet Explorer 3 iconThis morning, I had the strange feeling that I was back in 1997. With Google cheering them on, Mozilla complained that Microsoft was unfairly excluding browsers other than Internet Explorer from devices, expected to be mainly tablets, running the forthcoming version of Windows designed for ARM processors.

A bit of background: Browsing on Windows 8 for Intel/AMD processors will be open to all comers. But Windows RT, the ARM version, places many restrictions on applications. Microsoft says the only applications with full, desktop-style access to the system with be a version of Office, the Explorer file manager, and the Internet Explorer 10 browser.

Strictly speaking, Mozilla is right. It does not appear that browsers other than IE will be allowed on Windows RT. But so what? Microsoft was nailed in the turn-of-the-century antitrust suit for using Windows’ mono[poly position on desktop computers to restrain competition in the browser market. But Windows’ monopoly isn’t what it once was, and Win RT doesn’t have a monopoly of anything. We have yet to see a fully functioning version of it demonstrated publicly.

Furthermore, Apple, which arguably does have a monopoly (and remember, a monopoly is only illegal if it is obtained illegally or if it is abused) in tablets, doesn’t welcome browsers other than Safari on iOS devices. There are alternative browsers available in the app Store, but they are skins slapped on Safari. Apple would seem a more appropriate target for frozen out Google and Mozilla.

Maybe this is just reflex, or maybe Microsoft seems an easier target because of the antitrust history. But the Modified Final Judgment that settled the case lapsed a year ago, though there is still ongoing supervision as a result of a case brought by the European Commission.

That may be what’s behind a curious comment attributed to Microsoft Deputy General Counsel David Heiner. CNET reports that Heiner told Mozilla that Windows RT “isn’t Windows anymore.” That may just be a lawyerly way of saying that Windows RT is a new product, outside the scope of previous antitrust judgments.