Author: Tim Bajarin

Tim Bajarin is the President of Creative Strategies, Inc. He is recognized as one of the leading industry consultants, analysts and futurists covering the field of personal computers and consumer technology. Mr. Bajarin has been with Creative Strategies since 1981 and has served as a consultant to most of the leading hardware and software vendors in the industry including IBM, Apple, Xerox, Compaq, Dell, AT&T, Microsoft, Polaroid, Lotus, Epson, Toshiba and numerous others.

Why Glass is Critical to the Future of Tech

From the beginning of my career in tech, I came to understand how important the various materials are when it comes to creating products. My journey in semiconductors started by understanding the raw materials needed to create silicon-based wafers and then the processor itself. I continue to study the various materials needed to create all types of tech products that dominate our market today. It turns out, the material sciences are the lifeblood of all of tech creations and as such, science has advanced these materials, our tech products have become faster, smaller and more durable. It has made it possible for us to carry a PC in our pockets as we do now with our smartphones.

Up until about 2000, most of my work covering the PC industry was focused on components like PC displays, sound cards, semiconductors and similar items that made the PC a powerful tool for business, education and entertainment. But, with the introduction of the first flip phones and then eventually the smartphone, there is one material that has emerged that is probably only second to the processor when it comes to the importance of delivering a great user experience in all types of devices, especially mobile ones. That material is the glass screens on billions of feature and smartphones in the market today.

While I have known for some time the screens on our smartphones and tablets are a critical part of their design, I have to admit it was not until I saw the movie “Minority Report” did I realize the glass screen could be a key component of our digital future. Then in 2011, I discovered a fascinating video Corning put out entitled “A day made of Glass” and the important role glass will play in our digital world became clearer. In the video, glass mirrors become touch screens, glass table tops become computer screens, glass wall screens turn into touch-based portals to interact with content, etc. And in 2013, Corning updated the video to include even more fascinating ways glass will be integrated into our digital lifestyles.

Not long after Apple’s failed sapphire adventure, the role of glass, more specifically, Corning’s Gorilla Glass, became even more of a focus for me. It became clear Corning was advancing the properties of their glass screens and Gorilla Glass 4 is the most durable and scratch-free version they have ever brought to market. A new version in the works, code name Phire, is said to have properties close to if not equal to sapphire when it comes to delivering the scratchproof finish in a glass screen. Their R&D and advances in glass materials used in tech products seem unparalleled in our industry today.

There is a new entry in the market from Motorola that uses an OLED display and a plastic cover I also find interesting since Motorola claims their screen is unbreakable. Using a special five-layer process, which includes a plastic top cover for the OLED screen and the way they integrate it into the physical design of the Turbo Droid itself, it is purported to be an unbreakable smartphone. I hope to test one soon and, while I accept their premise, those who understand material sciences tell me a plastic screen could be dented or marred and over time could even yellow, which would impact its clarity. The folks from Motorola tell me they do not expect that due to some special coating they have on this plastic screen. But this is the first premium phone to use a plastic cover and it may be too early to tell if a plastic screen continues to hold up for the life of any smartphone.

That is why all other premium and mid-range smartphones use Gorilla Glass, as it has proven to be the best option for use on a pocket PC/smartphone and delivers the type of scratchproof durability needed, given the wear and tear smartphones take because of how they are used on a daily basis. While Glass screens are critical to the ultimate DNA of billions of smartphones in the market today, it is the future role glass will play in our digital lifestyles that should get most techies excited.

Corning’s futuristic videos give us a solid glimpse of our digital future. Putting glass screens on a table top and turning it into a huge interactive screen could change the way many people interact with their digital content. Making glass walls that can show off all types of video and content and applications that can be touched to activate them is exciting. Imagine a glass screen on your refrigerator or a glass mirror in the bathroom that delivers a touch-based gateway to all of your digital “stuff” and you begin to see the role glass will play in a much broader way in the near future.

The futuristic view Corning showed in 2011 and 2013 is closer to reality these days. If you happen to be at CES 2016, I understand Corning will be bringing this vision to life, featuring glass surfaces with extraordinary capabilities. If you are there, it would be worth seeing how much progress they have made in delivering their vision for glass and its potential impact on our tech future.

Why Google is at a Major Crossroads

For the last few months, we have been writing about the fact that millions of people, especially the younger generation, came into the digital age via smartphones. More importantly, their primary OS has been Apple’s iOS or Google’s Android. While Windows is still an important OS, it is mainly used for PCs. For billions of people taking part in the digital revolution, they have never used Windows and most likely never will.

This has led us to believe that, when this younger generation of users moves into the workforce, they will want to have the OS, tools and apps they grew up with and will want to use them as they go off to school and work as they grow older. We believe Apple understands this well and is moving more and more to make iOS important for all of their customers. With the iPad Pro, they are even creating a new set of devices using iOS targeted at business. I believe we will even see an iOS-based laptop in the not too distant future.

I think Google understands this to some extent as they continue to push Android developers to create more productivity apps and ones that can be used in all types of business settings, albeit mostly targeted for use on smartphones and tablets. But Google’s approach differs from Apple in that they have also introduced another operating system into their program called Chrome. This is an HTML-based OS and is the OS they push to laptops and even some all-in-one desktop computers as an alternative. To date, Chrome and Chromebooks have made some progress including major inroads into the education market.

But I see Google at an important crossroads. While Chrome is an interesting OS in its own right, it is Android in both an official and unofficial form that dominates the market for mobile. I believe it should be the principal OS Google pushes to a younger generation as they move into the workforce. At the moment, Google has what I would call a hybrid solution. Instead of working with hardware vendors to create Android laptops and 2-in-1s, they are pushing them towards using Chrome as the core OS and then creating a way for any Android app to work within Chrome.

The key reason they are doing this is because they have lost control of Android and, at the moment, they are not making the kind of money off Android they originally hoped they would. By fragmenting the OS and making it open source, mobile vendors have created their own versions of Android and, in millions of devices that use it, they are not tied back to Google’s services or ads since these vendors customize their version and create their own apps and services instead.

But with Chrome, they can enforce their control again since you can’t get into the OS without your Google ID and password. Then, once you are in, you are immediately tied to Google’s products and services including search and their productivity tools. This might be OK for some people but, for most of the world, this would not be acceptable. Indeed, we are starting to see some vendors, especially in emerging markets and one’s that are trying to bring PCs to a younger generation, starting to create Android based 2-in-1s and cheap Android laptops. They believe the iOS and Android generation could, at some point, want a device with a larger screen to be used for things like productivity, education, etc.

Today, companies like Xioami, Huawei and MicroMax have moved from smartphones to are either making laptops or rumored to be making one soon and, while they are–or will be–low-cost Windows laptops now, we expect them to soon offer Android-based 2-in-1s and laptops very soon. They are not the only ones planning Android 2-in-1s and laptops. I expect even some of the bigger PC vendors to do Android portable PCs in the not to distant future as well.

If Google continues to think Chrome running Android apps will work in emerging markets they are delusional. And, if they don’t find way to support these Android 2-in-1s and laptops as they come out, they will lose this Android battle too. Google is at a serious crossroads with this. At the moment, they are not backing any Android based 2-in-1s or laptops in the works and I see that as a major mistake. Hoping to attract the Android crowd to a PC platform by giving them Android apps, which may or may not run well within Chrome, may work in the US but this strategy is a dead end for them in the rest of the world.

The Most Interesting Gadget Fight this Holiday Season

I was looking over the list of the hottest tech products in demand this holiday season and two of them popped up as interesting and contradictory. One of the products are hover boards and I admit, I am really tempted to buy one. Ever since I saw the movie “Back to the Future” I loved the idea of having a hover board to zip around town and glide from place to place. Although the “hover boards” out now are actually pseudo-versions and more like a mini-Segway in some regards, they are still really cool. At my local mall, they have them in kiosks and I tried the Fiturbo F1. I loved how smooth the ride was and how easy it was to control. Here is a link to some of the top brands available including the Powerboard Hoverboard, which I have been told is the best of this new breed of hover boards on the market today.

The other hot products on the market are smartwatches and fitness bands, both of which emphasize how many steps a person takes and have all types of apps and other fitness related tracking to encourage us to stay active. But this product, at least for me, presents a real contradiction to my techno-lust for a hover board. This may seem silly but as a heart patient who strives to get in my 10,000 steps a day, the desire to buy a hover board presents a serious conflict. They key reason is I am a bit lazy by nature and it takes a real effort for me to exercise and walk my 10K steps each day. Hopping on a hover board and using it to get from place to place would be so much easier.

This holiday, the supply of hover boards will be relatively low because of limited stock, with sales between 75,000-100,000 units sold by end of the year. However, our estimate is this product will be even hotter next year and we will see between 400,000 to 500,000+ hover boards sold in 2016. Most are priced in the $250 to $1200 range and initially, geeks will be the one’s scooping them up. But we expect them to go more mainstream next year and, with more competition, the prices will potentially come down a bit by next fall.

In contrast, we will see close to 30-40 million fitness trackers sold this year, growing to about 50-60 million sold in 2017. And in 2016, we estimate about 30-40 million smartwatches will be sold. While I am still weighing the idea of buying my own hover board and inserting a bit of personal discipline so that, even if I own one, I will keep my aggressive walking schedule, the more important question at this time is whether this current crop of hover boards are worth buying this early in their lifecycle. It turns out that they are all produced by only two factories in Shenzhen and the six I mention above pretty much use the same internal designs but with different “skins” and outside designs to try and make each different from the other.

I am aware of the fact that, by this time next year, we will see even better models that are more sturdy with better mileage goals, as well as much better designs. Even though these current models are ok and work well, I see them more as beta versions compared with what we will see this time next year and the year after.

The other thing that will keep me from buying one this year is I am already seeing cities, shopping malls, and other public areas mulling over the use of a hover board. I liken it to the Segway problem when they came out. The folks behind the Segway thought cities would embrace them because they were fuel efficient and added a safe form of transportation that could be used on sidewalks, inside malls and stores, etc. However, almost immediately after the Segway came out, many cities and shopping malls banned them as they were deemed unsafe to use around pedestrians. A hover board in many ways is more like a skateboard and I am hearing that initially they may be governed by rules applied to skate boards and could be banned from malls and stores very soon.

So I will refrain from buying a hover board this year and wait for better models and better prices and allow cities, shopping malls, and the like to work out the legal kinks of where I can use one. But I am still itching to get one. I just have to exercise patience and wait a bit longer before I join the hover board crowd and work out the conflict of using a hover board sparingly while keeping up my step counts to make sure I stay healthy.

In Memory of Steve Wildstrom

When we started Tech.pinons in 2011, we searched for the best talent we could find to help us launch our analytical tech blog. One of the first people who came to mind was Steve Wildstrom who, for many years, was the tech writer at BusinessWeek and established himself as one of the great tech journalists in the world.

During our early days, he helped shape our design and editorial direction and, up until last year when he developed brain cancer, he was a weekly contributor to Tech.pinions. His writing style was informative, analytical, fluid and made even difficult subjects easy to understand for all who read his commentary.

As I write this, I am overwhelmed by the loss of this wonderful partner and friend who meant so much to me, our other partners, and many others. I had a relationship with Steve for 23 years and for me his loss is very personal. We served on various advisory boards, traveled together on occasion and were at countless Comdex’s, CES shows and dozens of other events over the years. His professionalism and commitment to his craft has had a great influence on me and the other partners at Tech.pinions. While he is no longer with us, his joyful spirit, warm smile, and the lessons he taught us will continue to guide our work. He will always be in our hearts at Tech.pinions.

Tim Bajarin
President, Creative Strategies
Co-founder Tech.pinions

I have asked our partners and some of his journalist friends who knew Steve well to share a brief comment about Steve.

“Before I had the honor of working alongside Steve for Tech.pinions, I was a huge fan of his work at BusinessWeek. For decades, I was a regular reader of his writings and learned a tremendous amount about the tech industry from his knowledge and experience. His ability to synthesize industry trends in conjunction with product knowledge enabled him to offer a perspective that was always fresh, useful and insightful.”

Bob O’Donnell
President and Chief Analyst
TECHnalysis Research, LLC

“Steve Wildstrom was one of the finest tech reviewers and journalists I have known. I worked with him, and competed against him, for decades, starting when we were both young labor reporters in Detroit — he was with the AP, I was at the WSJ. He was as smart and honest as they come and his weekly columns in BusinessWeek almost single-handedly gave that magazine its first real credibility in the tech world. I always learned something from his Business Week columns. After Business Week, he managed to actually raise his game at Techpinions. He was as smart and incisive as they came.”

He was a great person, father, husband and grandfather.

Although he had been battling a terrible brain cancer in recent years, I was still shocked when I learned of his death. Rest in peace, Steve.”

Walt Mossberg
Executive Editor and columnist of the Verge
and Editor at Large, Reviewer and Columnist, Recode.net

“I first met Steve as a colleague in the Washington, DC bureau of BusinessWeek. I was new to BW at the time while Steve had been there for years. This was prior to either of us becoming full-time tech columnists. But he was very welcoming. Through the years and after I left BW to join USA TODAY, I always enjoyed hanging out with Steve, which I typically got to do at conferences. Sure, we talked shop and about the people we had in common. But we also discussed politics and a range of other subjects. You got smarter just by being in Steve’s presence. He was a good guy and he will be greatly missed. RIP Steve.”

Edward Baig
Columnist, USA Today

“Steve was best known as a technology expert, but the better I got to know him, the more I realized he was endlessly erudite on an array of subjects: hard science, mathematics, history, and much more. Spending time with him was both an education and a pleasure.”

Harry McCracken
Technology Editor
Fast Company

“Over the course of more than two decades, I had a chance to be around Steve at countless events all over the world and always appreciated his insights and his friendship. Steve was not only one of the smartest journalists I knew, but also among the nicest. It was an honor to be his friend and colleague.”

Larry Magid
Chief Executive Officer at Connectsafely.org
Technology Analyst CBS News
Columnist, San Jose Mercury News

“Steve Wildstrom has been a towering (literally) presence on the Washington tech journalism scene for so long, it is hard to imagine this world without him. He consistently provided thoughtful insights about the developments that overwhelmed us. His valiant battle since he was diagnosed with a glioblastoma early last year has been remarkable – so consistent with his perseverance and dedication to his work and finding the right answer. He and Susan took on the complicated challenge of medical treatment and still managed to enjoy time with their families, especially their grandkids, whom he treasured and mentioned constantly.

Steve was a respected fixture of the tech scene, with his understanding of the policy issues that drive this city as well as his deep appreciation of the technology and business factors at the heart of this dynamic field. He was also a truly versatile thinker and, of course, a terrific writer – making sense of the complexity to a bewildered audience. Let’s not forget his dedication to children’s music education and his love of music. We’ll now live with the indelible memories of how much he and his work have affected all of us.

Gary Arlen
President
Arlen Communications LLC (research and consulting)

I remember when I first approached Steve about being a partner with us at Tech.pinions in June of 2011. I was so nervous — he was a legend in the industry and he probably had better things to do than help me start another tech-centric website. Surprisingly, he jumped at the opportunity and validated that what we were working on was unique and needed in the tech industry. Steve was the only reason I read BusinessWeek for nearly a decade until he left the outlet. His ability to help people understand technology in their terms was rare and inspirational. He embraced me even when I was young and starting out in this industry in the early 2000s and treated me as an equal rather than a novice. His voice and, more importantly, his friendship will be missed.

Ben Bajarin
Co-founder Tech.pinions

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Is Apple Positioning the iPad Incorrectly?

Over the last few weeks, since the iPad Pro came out, Apple CEO Tim Cook has often stated the iPad Pro could replace a laptop. While I believe there is some truth to this, after using an iPad Pro for some time now, I am starting to wonder if this positioning is completely accurate. When the original iPad came out, I bought a third party keyboard and used it as a laptop for short trips and in meetings to take notes. I even wrote a few columns on it and, over all, liked using it is as a pseudo-laptop. However, when I needed to do “real work” and was dealing with large documents, extensive spreadsheets and managing my media and images, I always went back to a Mac or a Dell XPS laptop for these heavy lifting tasks.

One of the more proactive and important bloggers is Jean-Louis Gasse, a former Apple exec and one of the most insightful people writing about the industry. Early this week, he posted an important perspective on the iPad Pro in his Monday Note where he questions Tim Cook’s positioning and suggests the iPad Pro is better suited for specific tasks instead of an “all things for all people” laptop.

Here is a short excerpt on his view but I highly suggest you read the entire piece since it is excellent. As an aside, it is worth subscribing to his blog since he always has an important perspective on our tech world:

Cook’s insistence that his iPad Pro is a replacement for his laptop is presumably sincere, but it’s misguided and unnecessary. The equivocations, justifications, and vague statements about the iPad Pro are easily resolved by a For What/For Whom question, by investigating the Job To Be Done

You work with architects, civil engineers, materials, fixture and appliances suppliers, kitchen and bathroom installers. Your iPad Pro is flat on a table while you sketch a design for the architect to flesh out, you scribble annotations on drawings and budgets, you redraw a layout by superimposing a layer on the original. The iPad Pro does more than replace your laptop.

You work for a wallpaper manufacturer and design pattern after pattern; you browse vintage nature photography for old hunting scenes, extract images that can be stylized as part of a new collection, add color swatches, overlay line drawings. The iPad Pro and its Pencil are your friends.

Before: a horizontal tablet and stylus for input, a PC with a vertical display.

Now: the computer, the display and the tablet are one – and you take it with you.

Horace Dediu put together a neat video in which he explains “The new iPad is like nothing we’ve ever seen before” and, a bit cheekily, makes the case that it truly is a desktop computer, as in a device that’s best used when laid flat on the desktop, as in the examples above.

Why, then, do so many of us — and I have been in this camp — insist on seeing tablets through PC goggles? We can meditate on the dangers of knowing too much, too deeply; we become prisoners of our deep-rooted beliefs. In a recent Monday Note on Killer Cultures, I referred to the revered founder of Digital Equipment, Ken Olsen, who said he knew people bought PCs, but sincerely didn’t understand why. His company’s All-In-1 productivity software running on a large remote machine covered all his needs. Looking at the iPad Pro, how many of us fail to see outside of our world?

In a recent piece, Living In Different Worlds, Benedict Evans concurs and concludes [edits and emphasis mine]:

“We’re all prone to apply old mental models to new things when they look like the old things. […]The challenge for a new thing is that you can fall into one of two traps – either you try to map it to the old mental model, or you decide that, since it has no existing mental model, it’s useless. So, the automobile is compared to the carriage, Uber is compared to taxis, digital cameras to film cameras, and smart watches to Rolexes. But sometimes there is no model. […] all of us have that same disconnect whenever we try to understand something new.”

Fortunately, we have children. In a Tech.pinion post titled The iPad Pro: The Start of Something New, Ben Bajarin tells us how his 12-year old daughter took over his iPad Pro [edits and emphasis mine]:

“So I should not have been surprised when my daughter started playing with the iPad Pro for a few hours and came back and showed me all the things she had done: movies she made, photos she took outside (which she edited/mashed up using the different apps she also uses in creative projects at school) and taking advantage of the unique benefits of the Apple Pencil. With nearly everything she showed me, I had to ask her how she did it. I had no idea some of the apps on iPad were as powerful as they were, enabling her do things I didn’t think were possible […]”

Presenting the iPad Pro as a laptop replacement for “many, many people”, or asking “why would you buy a PC anymore?” doesn’t shed much light. If you prepare complicated documents, proposals, financial filings, you should stick with a Mac or a PC.

Apple execs are fond of metrics such as the number of new iPhone buyers coming from the Android world (30%). Why not say that the iPad Pro will helpfully replace a laptop for 60%, or 25% of conventional personal computer users? In keeping with Steve Jobs’ Far Better At Some Key Things formula, why not say that the iPad Pro is a great laptop replacement for graphic designers, architects, mechanical engineers, musicians, videographers…and that the audience will grow even larger as new and updated apps take advantage of the iPad Pro’s screen size, speed, and very likable Pencil.”

Gasee is right on the money with this analysis. While I am not an artist, architect or civil engineer, I can see how the iPad Pro would be a godsend for use in their daily work and its potential impact on other major vertical markets could be significant. I understand why Apple would not want to create a marketing campaign for the iPad Pro with such a narrow focus but I suspect these will be the top buyers of the iPad Pro at first.

But there is another market Gasse does not reference directly I also see having some legs when it comes to adoption of the iPad Pro — the broader enterprise market. Apple clearly began their work with IBM to port 100 of their top mobile apps and management tools over to iOS long before the iPad Pro came out. This is clearly the device these apps work best on. The IBM tools are very rich and can be used across many IT apps to handle all types of mobile management and app integration issues. More importantly, IBM has become an important sales force for Apple and brings a direct sales team who will sell Macs, iPads, and iPad Pros to IT customers around the world. Yes, some of these IT situations will be for vertical applications, but it is my understanding that IBM plans, with Apple’s help, to take these to the heart of IT to provide advanced mobile solutions.

The iPad Pro has only been out a short time and availability of the Pencil and Keyboard is still limited. Which means it may take some time for it to find an audience sweet spot. I do sense its impact first will be on many vertical markets and eventually gain strength in IT and Higher Ed where a 13-inch tablet meets specific needs. I am just not sure it can really replace a laptop in its current form but am open to being surprised with its overall market appeal eventually.

Are We About to Enter The Era of Mobile Televisions?

One of the companies we have great respect for is NPD. In fact, some of our best industry friends are from this company. They recently sent me a press release with their updated research forecast for devices connected to TVs. Here is the news they sent out and a chart showing that 231 million devices are expected to be connected to the Internet by 2018.

“By the end of 2018, 231 million installed devices are expected to be connected to the Internet and able to deliver apps to TVs, representing 82 percent growth from 2014 to 2018, according to the Connected Home Entertainment Forecast report from global information company The NPD Group.

“The two largest drivers of growth will be the increased acceptance of connected televisions in the homes of U.S. consumers, as well as the continued adoption of streaming media players such as those offered by Google, Apple, Roku, and Amazon,” said John Buffone, Executive Director, Industry Analyst, Connected Intelligence, The NPD Group.

Forecasted # Installed & Internet-Connected Devices* Attached to TV
11E6DE63-B17D-4A3E-96D7-1EA77202A14E

Base: U.S. Internet households

*Devices include connected TVs, streaming media players, video game consoles, and Blu-ray Disc Players

Source: The NPD Group/Connected Intelligence, Connected Home Forecast

I have to admit, this projection is impressive and my first reaction is this forecast is conservative. Many people have 2, 3 and even 4 TVs in the house and, with Chromecast costing $39 and other options (except Apple’s new Apple TV) being well under $80, one would think, at the very least, they would have two or three of theses devices by 2018.

I happened to be with my friend Stephen Baker of NPD this week and, as we rode to the airport together, I asked him about this research. He says there are around 105 million homes in the US and this research projects about 80% of those homes will have at least two of these devices (with some having a bit more). That’s how they came up with the 281 million sold annually by 2018.

But he also stated that, in the future, demand for TVs will decline. Today, while people buy TVs for many rooms in a house, NPD thinks in the end most will have just two large screen TVs and will use tablets for viewing in other rooms in the house. Indeed, with pretty much all of the major networks creating online versions of their content or expanded shows on Netflix, Hulu, and other streaming services, using a tablet for TV viewing makes sense.

One of the companies that is hedging their bets on this is Samsung. They recently introduced an 18-inch tablet that, on the surface, seems to be huge for a tablet. But they actually see this more as a mobile TV and, while not positioning this specifically as such, they are hoping many buy it and use it for that purpose. On a personal level, I have a 13-inch Samsung Galaxy tablet on my bedside table and have it connected it to my Slingbox and the other streaming services I subscribe to and use only as a TV. It works perfectly and kept me from getting a TV for the bedroom.

Although the iPad Pro will never be positioned as a TV, it too is connected to my Slingbox and streaming services and I have caught myself using it on the patio and other rooms in the house many times since I started testing it. Actually, I started doing this with the original iPad when it came out and love the idea that a tablet could deliver a mobile TV experience.

I believe Samsung is really on to something with this 18″ tablet/TV concept. When Dell brought out their 18″ all-in-one, we also used it for that purpose. It was a mobile TV. Of course Dell did not design it for this use but many used it that way anyway. And to be fair, some of the larger tablets and smaller all-in-ones that have come out have probably been used as a mobile TV too.

Last year I spent some time with Intel’s chairman Andy Bryant and he told me that his kids discovered that the Dell 18 inch all-in-one was great for streaming media and games. Once he saw that how his kids used the Dell product he was hooked on the idea of larger tablets and smaller all-in-ones being used for these purposes.

But with Samsung being a major TV vendor and partially positioning this new 18” tablet as a mobile TV, if it is even mildly successful it could launch a whole new purpose for larger tablets. In the past, a mobile TV had to have a TV tuner inside for it to even be classified as a portable television. With video streaming and products like the Slingbox and direct delivery of TV content from the networks and specialty sources like HBO, Showtime, all one needs to have is a good WiFi connection to turn any tablet into a TV and a movie playback device.

The only drawback at the moment is the lack of access to live local content but that sacred cow will soon fall as more and more people become switchers and force the local stations to stream their services in the near future. Actually, in my case and using my Slingbox connection to the TV in my study, I get all the local content I want, making any tablet and especially my 13″ Samsung tablet a full blown mobile TV.

This is an idea whose time has come. People are very mobile these days and are watching streamed TV shows and movies even on small smartphone screens and small to medium-large tablets like the iPad Air. However, while watching video on smaller screens is OK, once these devices get to the 13-18 inches size, their potential to deliver an actual TV-like experience will become much more desirable and the concept of a mobile TV could really take off.

Why Apple’s A Series Processors are Central to Their Future

Anyone who has had a chance to use the iPad Pro realizes very quickly that this is one really fast tablet. Apple’s A9 processor is what they calla a “desktop class processor” and that sure seems to be the case.

The folks at ArsTechnica did an excellent piece using data from GeekBench and GFX Bench to show speed comparison of Apple processors used in past iPads and iPhones. They showed just how far Apple has come with this chip. I highly recommend you check the piece out to get a deeper look at these speed comparisons.

Apple’s move to create faster and more powerful processors of their own is a really big deal. In fact, we have been warning our PC and Semiconductor customers for years Apple clearly has a plan to make their A Series processor central to their future and use it to create a whole host of new products that would help them gain even more control their destiny. At the moment, Apple is highly reliant on Intel for processors they use in their Mac line. I don’t see that changing anytime soon. I see the Mac continuing to be Apple’s flagship PC product and favored by a traditional PC crowd for years to come. However, I also think that, over time, the Mac crowd will shrink and Apple will be OK with this as it transitions over to more iOS devices that could supplant the Mac in many use cases.

Over the years, Apple has hired hundreds of semiconductor engineers to work on their chip designs and, under the late Steve Jobs’ guidance, crafted what one could call at least a 15-year plan to make the A series chips equal to or more powerful than the Intel processors they use today. I don’t think Apple has any plans to put their A series chips in a Mac soon. I’m not sure that, in the broad scope of their long term strategy, this makes sense. The reason I think a Mac could keep using an Intel chip for some time is I believe Apple has no interest in merging the two operating systems. In fact just last week, Tim Cook told the Irish Independent newspaper “Apple would not make a “converged” Mac and iPad”:

We feel strongly that customers are not really looking for a converged Mac and iPad,” said Cook. “Because what that would wind up doing, or what we’re worried would happen, is that neither experience would be as good as the customer wants. So we want to make the best tablet in the world and the best Mac in the world. And putting those two together would not achieve either. You’d begin to compromise in different ways.

It would be important to note here I believe this also represents a demarcation line between user interfaces. I sense Apple wholeheartedly believes the Mac’s UI should be tied to a keyboard and trackpad and will not put a touch screen in a Mac. On the other hand, iOS was built specifically for touch as the primary UI and, as with the iPad Pro, makes a keyboard just an accessory, albeit an important one for when the iPad Pro is needed for more keyboard intensive tasks such as writing documents, answering email or creating very long text messages.

This transition to making their A Series processors, specifically designed to work with iOS, is highly strategic and aimed at a younger generation of users who have been using iOS on their smartphones and tablets since they were young and consider this their OS of choice. Apple knows full well these younger users are the future workers in business and is working hard to create the kind of tools that can follow them into the business world when they enter it over the next 3-10 years. The iPad Pro is the first with others to follow (including, I believe, an iOS-based clamshell). This would give those workers another option for use in a business setting sometime in the near future.

But advancing the power and features of their A9 architecture and future processors goes well beyond their current device offerings. Rumors that Apple is working on a car is intriguing and, if true, it would need a powerful set of processors to handle the entertainment and navigations systems as well as any crash avoidance functions a smart car needs. I also see Apple eventually creating products for VR, AR, more advanced home automation, smarter TVs and perhaps even specialized gaming systems that would work with a future Apple TV system.

Although they could use chips from other vendors, advancing their own semiconductor architecture would give them more control of their designs and ecosystems. While we can’t think of Apple being a semiconductor company like Intel and Qualcomm, this division inside Apple has the same goals and objectives a mainstream semiconductor company has. However, these current and future processors are designed for use in custom Apple products and by using their own processors they can really control their destiny.

Apple’s semiconductor division needs to be seen as one of Apple’s greatest assets whose charter is to give Apple the processor power they need to continue to be the innovative and tech trendsetting company it is today. Indeed, the chip designers and engineers are central to Apple’s future and will only become more important to Apple products over time.

Apple TV and Its Future App Ecosystem

Now that I have had some serious time with the Apple TV, it is clear Tim Cook’s comments about apps being the future of TV is quite important to the vision Steve Jobs suggested to his biographer. In fact, I am pretty certain Jobs meant apps when he told Walter Isaacson he “finally cracked it.”

Although the apps available are scarce now, once you start playing with them, you begin to see the potential. Apple treats the TV as a serious platform for developers and needs them to create a rich ecosystem of innovative apps designed just for the Apple TV to reach its full potential.

Now word is coming out Apple is about to send a lot of what I would call Apple TV evangelists to start talking to software developers to get them to be creative on Apple’s new TV platform.

According to a story on Appleinsider:

“The Apple TV Tech Talks will kick off in Toronto on Dec. 7, Apple announced on its developer site on Tuesday. From there, stops will span across the U.S. and Europe, before concluding with lectures in Tokyo and Sydney.

“Get in-depth technical information on building and designing for tvOS, learn refined coding techniques, and obtain valuable development instruction from Apple experts,” the company said.

This evangelistic move comes directly out of Apple’s Desktop Publishing playbook. Back in 1985, when I got to work on Apple’s DTP marketing focus, Apple realized that, in order for the Mac to become the gold standard in desktop publishing, they would need serious support from developers and the people who published documents at small publishing houses, advertising agencies and even people who did newsletters.

They sent out software evangelists all over the US and Europe and even did special DTP seminars in various cities showing off how the Mac and Pagemaker could be used to create documents on a desktop PC. At the same time, they worked the development community to create things like new fonts, new templates and all sort of applications that would enhance the types of things publishers could do with their Mac/Pagemaker solution.

This type of software evangelism is actually guerrilla evangelism. It is designed to jump start the developers and get them moving faster to create apps for the Apple TV and help Apple establish this product as the game changing device Jobs promised.

I see Apple doing this to insure top notch developers really understand Apple’s vision and how best to create apps that will be viewed on 40–65 inch screens. These screens are a challenge to most developers since they are used to creating apps for much smaller screens. But they also present a new canvas for them to work with and Apple wants the most innovative and unique apps to drive greater demand for the Apple TV. If they do, it means strong sales, especially by the later part of 2016, when I believe Apple does a much larger marketing campaign around the new Apple TV.

I know from personal use of the Apple TV that, once you have apps to choose from, you want more. This is Apple’s way of making sure the developer community moves faster to create TV apps and bring new, innovative apps to the Apple TV sooner rather than later.

Although this approach is not new to Apple given its desktop publishing roots, Apple is one of the best at exciting their developer community and giving them tools and, in this case, special handling to help them be creative. In the process, they earn more money by creating apps people will buy that make the Apple TV experience much richer. If they are successful, by this time next year, there should be thousands of Apple TV apps available and we will begin to get a better picture of Steve Jobs’ vision for re-energizing the interactive TV experience.

How Apple Prompted Google to Create “Chromedroid”

News broke last week that Google was in the process of possibly merging Chrome and Android into what perhaps we should call “ChromeDroid”.

Although Google has not confirmed this (yet), Eric Schmidt’s recent comments at an event in Asia suggests this is likely. If you have read my columns in Tech.pinions recently, I have often suggested this was inevitable. Although Chromebooks have been successful in education, their lack of an apps ecosystem made it unlikely Chrome would be Google’s long term OS beyond its use in this vertical market.

I have also argued Apple’s iPad Pro, with its iOS operating system, would be targeted at business users and upper-end consumers and that Apple would make iOS the cornerstone of a broader push into business. As Tim Cook stated recently at the last launch event in San Francisco, “People can do 80% of what they need to do in iOS” — regardless of whether it is used for business or consumers’ needs. One of the more interesting facts about iOS is this is the OS Gen Z, Gen Y and younger Millennials cut their teeth on when it comes to their introduction to personal computing. It seems logical that, when this younger generation goes into the business world, they could or would want 2-in-1s or even laptops running iOS instead of being forced to use Windows or even the Mac OS X. Ironically, I was told recently that, to some of this younger generation, Mac OS X is now considered “their parent’s OS” in the same way the Mac generation of users referred to Windows in the past.

Using this logic, it is reasonable to ask the question of whether Android could also be the OS a portion of this younger generation wants to take with them into the business world? Although iOS dominates as an OS for most millennials in our country, Android actually outsells iPhones around the world. Many Gen Y and Gen Z, even in the US, start their computing journey on Android instead of iOS. Would they, like their iOS counterparts, prefer more powerful Android tools to take with them into the corporate world? If this happens, it seems this move could be highly influenced by Apple taking iOS mainstream. Depending how they craft these merged operating systems and their ability to scale to things like 2-in-1s and laptops, it will determine if Google will be competitive beyond smartphones in the future.

Google seemed hellbent to make Chrome OS their desktop and laptop OS and push this Web-based OS to be the one that transcends their tablet and smartphone Android platforms. But there is one problem with this. What makes iOS and Android so appealing is that each has over 1.5 million apps in their stores and Gen Z , Gen Y and millennials crave the versatility an app ecosystem gives them. Add to that the fact these operating systems are the ones they use day in and day out with a plethora of apps that meet pretty much every digital need they have and you can see why taking their mobile OS of choice to larger form factors in the business world makes sense.

With the iPad Pro (and a potential MacBook with iOS on it some day), iOS could be the enterprise OS of the millennials. Apple seems to understand this well. The new iPad Pro as a 2-in-1 makes it easy for this demographic to go from their current mobile first approach of using technology to making it possible for them to use a powerful new mobile form factor with the same OS in their jobs. Couple this with next generation iOS applications, such as the apps IBM is creating for iOS, why would they want or need to move to Windows if they can do the same tasks as powerfully and efficiently on iOS in a 2-in-1 form factor or lightweight clamshell?

It is clear to me Google realizes what Apple is doing with iOS and that Chrome would not cut it with this younger generation who want greater flexibility and versatility in the devices they use. While I doubt they’ll completely abandon Chrome, since it is getting serious traction in education due to its low cost and Web-based curriculum being designed for it, I am saying Google now sees that, for this younger generation, Android may need to be able to move out of its smartphone and tablet confines and into new designs that are more acceptable for use as a business tool when this younger generation moves into Corporate America. Merging Chrome and Android does this.

This is not a knee-jerk reaction to Apple’s iOS strategy, although I think Apple’s recent moves pushed them to do this sooner rather than later. The merger of Chrome and Android has been coming for some time. Google has stated they want Android apps to work within Chrome. It’s a good idea but, with Chrome being grounded in HTML, it does not provide the level of flexibility Android users want in various form factors. Merging the two and using Android as the core OS for cross-platform and cross-device implementations keeps them competitive with Apple and Microsoft.
Google has not publicly clarified the merger of Android and Chrome but I can’t see them doing otherwise if they want to stay relevant in a fast moving world where mobile is driving the future of technology.

The Serious Outside Threat to Our Power Grid

Two years ago in my annual column on predictions for the New Year, I said I feared some rogue group would attack our power grid and could take out cities, banks, businesses, and other high profile services. This was a concern for me and folks in the tech industry in general. Our technology, in one form or another, is at the heart of managing these power grids and I felt an attack on it was also an attack on our tech industry.

I was reminded of this prediction when I read the latest Gartner forecasts that had an interesting take on this subject:

By year-end 2018, 20 percent of smart buildings will have suffered from digital vandalism. Digital vandals will plunge buildings into darkness or deface signs in exploits that may be more nuisance than threat, but which require adequate perimeter security and a strategy that links building security with the larger organizational security process.

As buildings get smarter, they can also become more vulnerable and this compounds the concern I have about potential attacks against the power grid in general. At the IoT/building level, there is stellar work being done in terms of security by companies like Dell, IBM and IoT enterprise software companies like Mocana. But, if the power grid goes down, even these efforts may not be enough to keep them secure.

My fears about this issue were stirred up again last weekend as I watched one of my favorite TV shows, CBS’ Sunday Morning. This TV magazine show always has great stories, some heavy, some lightweight, but I am old school and like to watch it while reading my Sunday paper. On last week’s show, they had an interview with Ted Koppel, the 43 year veteran of ABC news, who was discussing his new book called “Lights Out: A Cyberattack, A Nation Unprepared, Surviving the Aftermath”.

The book’s description says, “In this tour de force of investigative reporting, Ted Koppel reveals that a major cyber attack on America’s power grid is not only possible but likely, that it would be devastating, and that the United States is shockingly unprepared.”

Three blurbs state the importance of this book:

“In Lights Out, Ted Koppel uses his profound journalistic talents to raise pressing questions about our nation’s aging electrical grid. Through interview after interview with leading experts, Koppel paints a compelling picture of the impact cyberattacks may have on the grid. The book reveals the vulnerability of perhaps the most critical of all the infrastructures of our modern society: the electricity that keeps our modern society humming along.”
—Marc Goodman, author of Future Crimes

“Ted Koppel has written an important wake-up call for America on the threat of a crippling cyberattack. The danger we face right now is great, but so is the failure to acknowledge that the threat exists at all.”
–Leon Panetta, former U.S. Secretary of Defense

Lights Out illuminates one of the greatest vulnerabilities to our nation – a cyberattack on our power grid. It is a wake-up call for all of us. We are the nation that created the internet; we should be the first to secure it. This powerful book could be the catalyst for just such a change.”
–General (Ret.) Keith Alexander, former director of the National Security Agency

One of the things Koppel said in the CBS Sunday Morning interview is “China and Russia are already in the grid”, according to named sources in the book and that “many other groups are targeting the US power grid.” He also emphasized a key part of the book that says at the moment, “the US is completely unprepared for a major attack on our power grid.”

I don’t believe this book is alarmist in any way and my early read of it shows it is well researched, well written, and presents a very important message to both our government and those of us in the tech industry. However, I have to admit, the more I read, the more scared I am about this actually happening and the aftermath of this kind of attack. I have often been asked what keeps me up at night and it is this attack on the power grid that always comes to mind first.

As retired General Keith Alexander stated in his comments on the book, “This powerful book could be the catalyst for just such a change.” I truly hope our government officials and those managing our power grid take his message to heart and are moving fast to protect these important electronic grids that make our lives easier and our businesses more effective thanks to the power we get from these grids. However, I think we in the tech industry have to be beating a drum loudly as well to get the government and power companies moving faster to secure the grid and root out the likes of Russia, China, and other groups who would love to debilitate and destabilize the US as part of whatever grand goals and schemes they have to weaken the US.

As Mr. Koppel points out, “The US is shockingly unprepared” and this should be a serious wake-up call for all of us, even if it gives us nightmares just thinking about it.

I am not a book reviewer but Mr Koppel has struck a raw nerve with me and his message is something all of us who benefit from the grid need to take note of and start bugging our legislative officials and those running our power grids to get them to deal with this threat with much greater effort than it appears they are doing now. In fact, I am surprised this has not become a campaign issue for any of the current candidates who are running for president because, as the book points out, the takedown of our grid could come in the not-to-distant future. Whoever is elected president may have to deal with this while they are in office.

While the book will most likely be scary to read, I do suggest you think about reading it and getting a sense for how serious this issue really is. I know for those of us in the tech world who understand the ramifications of this message, it needs to be heard and acted upon. Let’s hope those who have the power to protect us understand this threat as well and are working around the clock to prevent it.

Microsoft’s Surface Book and its Impact on Apple and PC Vendors

I have been intrigued by various reviewers who have suggested Microsoft’s Surface Book is the best laptop on the market today. If I were one of Microsoft’s PC partners, this very thought would offend me. PC makers have bent over backwards recently to try and create slick, well designed laptops, taking their cue from Apple and trying to make them thin, sleek and light, yet highly functional. Dell’s XPS 13 and Lenovo’s new YogaPro comes to mind as good examples.

When Microsoft introduced the Surface Book in NYC earlier this month, I had to miss the event due to a schedule conflict so I had not seen it in person to judge myself. But now that it’s on shelves, I went over to the Microsoft Store and got a chance to check it out. I have to admit, the reviewers who praised it as the best laptop on the market have a point. Its design is somewhat close to a MacBook Air and, in that sense, it’s relatively equal to a 13 inch MacBook Air. But it of course differentiates from the Apple laptop significantly since it has a detachable screen that can be used as a tablet.

Perhaps a more accurate way to describe the Surface Book is it is the best “convertible” PC on the market. At the very least, it should give the traditional PC vendors a new target to go after from a design perspective and force them to try and create something even better for a cheaper price. Actually, I think that is part of Microsoft’s strategy — to push PC vendors to be more innovative. But I also believe Microsoft is in the hardware business to stay and will be a competitor to their customers from now on, too.

For Apple, I see the Surface Book putting pressure on them to possibly create their first true convertible in the future. I spent some serious time with the Surface Book and loved it in the tablet mode. It is thin, light and, with their new Pen, works really well since the version of Windows 10 on it is customized for this design. When I used it in the laptop mode, I was really surprised how well it worked as a Windows 10 laptop and loved the idea I had both a laptop and a tablet in a solid package that used a very powerful desktop class OS.

Of course, Apple does have a product in this category, although it is more like a 2-in-1. The real virtue is its tablet role and a keyboard is kind of an input addition close to Microsoft’s Surface Pro designs. Their new iPad Pro comes out in November and will play a similar role in the Mac community, albeit with iOS as its anchor instead of Mac OS X. The Surface Book is such a stellar design, I think it will become the poster child for most Windows PCs someday and be the catalyst to make convertibles the standard laptop over $500 in the future. If that happens, it could push Apple in this direction too.

At the launch of the iPad Pro, Tim Cook said the iPad does 80% of what people need to do when they compute and this new tablet/keyboard combo will be sufficient for most people’s needs, whether for business or consumer users. This is important since Apple pretty much defined the touch UI through the iPad and has continued to make touch with iOS the best touch-based OS on the market. To them, iOS seems to be the OS they will champion to business and consumers in any 2-in-1 or maybe even someday a convertible design.

Microsoft has a different view that says a desktop class OS with touch is the best way to go. The touch UI on Windows 8 and 8.1 were weak but the touch UI on windows 10 is much improved and works well with their desktop class OS. It is here where Apple and Microsoft have a deep divide.

Apple clearly wants iOS to be the heart of their broader reach into the market and make it the cornerstone of their business and consumer strategy. Mac’s will always have a place, especially with power users, but Apple seems to see power users who need a Mac as a much narrower audience. There is a larger audience that could benefit from iOS and its ecosystem of 1.5 million apps, which makes it much more versatile for most users.

This leads to two big questions for Apple in light of Microsoft’s Surface Book. First, if Microsoft and their partners are successful in making “convertibles” the standard laptop configuration over time, will Apple be forced to follow suit? How long can they stick with their laptop is a laptop and a tablet is a tablet focus if a convertible becomes something business and consumers really want?

And secondly, if they do a convertible, which OS will they use? At the moment Mac OS X is not touch based and Apple would have to put a lot of engineering dollars into it to make it competitive. It is more likely a convertible would have iOS but Surface Book and likely competitors who create similar versions could prove, in this form factor, a desktop class OS is what people really want.

At the moment, my best guess is Apple uses iOS on any device that needs a touch interface. Which means, if they do a convertible, it would be iOS based. And they would keep the Mac and OS X focused on the trackpad and very keyboard-centric. It is also too early in the convertible cycle within the Windows world to conclusively proclaim this is the future of laptops. But from what I saw in the Surface book, I believe it will have a significant impact on future PC OEM designs and perhaps, at some point, it could force Apple in a similar direction.

Microsoft Sees Apple has Been Right All Along

For the majority of Microsoft’s existence, they have been an OS company that provides key software that ran on PCs. Then, in the mid-1980s, they became a software applications company and dabbled in things like mice and keyboards as well. While they got into hardware with the XBox, this product was a vertical play for gamers and had no impact on their core businesses and PC partners. During that, period I was very close to Microsoft. In fact, often Steve Ballmer and I would meet or have lunch when he came down to Silicon Valley to discuss Microsoft’s visions and strategies and he would try and convince me Microsoft was on track to dominate the PC world well into the future.

But on at least two occasions, I suggested to him ultimately Apple had the better business model in that they controlled the hardware and software and also oversaw its user interface so the hardware could be tweaked to the UI. I suggested this type of oversight would help Apple in the long run and give them greater control of their destiny. At the time, Ballmer could not see this as a plus for Apple and banished the idea they would ever want to own or control the entire ecosystem in order to guarantee Microsoft’s future. They relied too heavily on their PC partners to help get Windows to a broad market and, to be fair, during that time period he was right.

However, what concerned me even then was that, as early as 1988, we started to see consolidation in the PC market. Because an IBM PC clone could be made with basic parts taken off the shelf, companies around the world were coming out of the woodwork to create PCs and sell them in local markets. Most of these became what we call “White Box” vendors, but NCR, DEC, Panasonic, Toshiba, Acer, Samsung, Great Wall in China and about 2 dozen other branded vendors jumped in to what was a lucrative market but one that became highly competitive. By the early 1990s, we started to see the first wave of consolidation and well over a dozen companies dropped out of the PC market altogether. That consolidation continues today an,d with each wave of mergers, Microsoft’s partner and distributor pool of Windows decreases.

Microsoft is a smart company and I think they saw the consolidation writing on the wall pick up steam at least 4-5 years ago. Secretly in their labs, they began to create prototypes of various kinds of hardware for two key reasons. One was to try and influence designs they wanted their partners to bring to market such as the 2-in-1 Surface, but the second was even more strategic. Market consolidation is a huge threat to Microsoft and, by creating their own PC hardware, they were building an insurance policy for the future that guarantees that, even if more consolidation takes place, they could become a serious vendor in their own right. This would guarantee there would always be a solid hardware vendor carrying the Windows OS forward should consolidation impact their current partners and reduce the number of vendors who would sell Windows PCs.

With Microsoft’s new Surface Pro 3 and 4 and their new Surface Book, they are now direct competitors to their partners, something Ballmer told me back then Microsoft would never do. Of course, Ballmer’s gone and any strategy he had in the past has been trumped by Microsoft’s new leadership who are much more realistic than Ballmer ever was about Windows future.

But if you look at Microsoft’s new strategy, one can’t help but see this is an acknowledgment Apple’s business model of owning the hardware, software and services is ultimately the best one that assures Microsoft’s control of their destiny. At the moment, it looks like Microsoft will only have three serious PC partners — HP, Dell, and Lenovo — doing any volume. Some are asking how long even these vendors will continue to support PCs given shrinking margins.

It is no secret this move into hardware has angered their current PC partners. While not necessarily seen as a betrayal, they would have preferred Microsoft not get into hardware and put more of their design and software UI resources into their partnerships instead of creating their own hardware and tailoring it for their own devices. However, Microsoft ultimately has no control on how successful Dell, HP or Lenovo will be or even if they will continue to support Windows in PCs, given the volatile state of the market and the level of consolidation that continues today.

What Microsoft has had to conclude is that, in the end, the idea of owning the hardware, software and services is the only way to control their destiny. At this time in their history, they had to make this difficult decision even if it brought them into conflict with their PC partner relationships. It looks like “the Apple Way” is now the Microsoft Way too.

Could Xiaomi start the Android 2-in-1 ball rolling?

If you follow Xiaomi, you know the company has diversified from being a one trick pony with a smartphone to creating a whole host of tech accessories, TV’s and gadgets, including a new scooter they developed with Segway. Xiaomi’s smartphone business has done very well in China but there is increased competition from Apple, Lenovo, and Huawei and the company has seen the need to expand their presence by creating new devices and services to broaden their overall tech portfolio.

But the one area the PC guys were watching closely was Xaiomi’s interest in moving up the tech chain, perhaps trying to compete with them in PCs. PC manufacturers don’t have to wonder about Xiaomi’s intentions now. Word has leaked this Chinese company is getting ready to bring out their “Surface” killer, or a full 2-in-1 design. It is unclear at this point whether it will run Android or Windows, but I assume we will find out before too long.

If you have read my columns here recently, you know I have suggested the market could be ripe for an Android 2-in-1 or even an Android laptop. I know of at least two Android laptops in the works and the folks at JIDE in China are doing their own 2-in-1 they plan to license to vendors later this year.

While I don’t see what Xiaomi is doing with their 2-in-1 necessarily impacting the traditional PC vendors anytime soon, you can bet they will be watching  three key things closely. First, they will watch what the uptake will be for an Android 2-in-1 or laptop (if indeed it does run Android). This will be on the heels of Apple’s intro of the iPad Pro, which I have stated in numerous columns will be an important product with which Apple starts taking iOS into a broader business and enterprise market. If this is successful, I could see it driving an interest in Android in similar form factors.

The second thing they will be interested in is if the channel has interest. Today, Android smartphones are well accepted in most channels and Android tablets have seen serious growth through traditional retail as well. However, an Android 2-in-1 or laptop has not been tested in the channel and these devices will require sales and aftermarket support the channel would need training on to offer them effectively. They could most likely go through VAR’s and specialty retailers at first but, if there is SMB interest, then mainstream channels would be needed to get them into these smaller markets.

Third, if there is an interest in an Android 2-in-1 or laptop in enterprise, if and when should a traditional PC company do one of their own? Today, the PC vendors are still focused on Windows, but with Microsoft doing 2-in-1s and laptops of their own now and treading on their hallowed ground, their loyalty to Microsoft is weakened and they would be more open to doing something more aggressive with Android on hardware.

There is one last thing that would need to happen if an Android 2-in-1 or laptop is to have any chance of success. It needs Google’s blessing. The Jide version from China appears to have Google backing and, if so, then Google seems to be at least marginally behind this idea. Although they are still pushing Chrome to the desktop and laptops, I do think they see the future of Android in 2-in-1s and laptops could be important as they would tap into 1.5 million apps and could be used to expand Android’s presence to business audiences in the same way Apple plans to use the iPad Pros with iOS and its 1.5 millions apps for the same reason.

It seems at first Xiaomi plans to sell an Android 2-in-1 in China but I would not be surprised if they decide to make their 2-in-1 the first hardware they bring into the US market — one they have had their eyes on for some time. I think it is too early to tell if Android in these new form factors could be successful but I do see Xiaomi’s move into getting the ball rolling towards Android in these new personal computing designs.

Microsoft’s Hardware Strategy and the Impact on Their Ecosystem

In last Friday’s main column on Tech.pinions, I wrote about Microsoft getting into hardware. The important takeaway is the idea that, as the PC industry consolidates, Microsoft has fewer customers who could ship PCs with Windows on them. If that happens, it is problematic for them so they are learning about making hardware as a defensive move so they can eventually guarantee they could become a strong hardware vendor to make and sell PCs in volumes, especially for the consumer market.

However, this move is a double-edged sword for them and their partners. For most of Microsoft’s life, they have been a software company and, once they did get into hardware, it was via mice, keyboards, and accessories. Their only other move into hardware until they launched the Surface was the Xbox.

Even when they first got into hardware with the Surface it was not much of a threat to vendors since this first version used an ARM processor and had very little software that would work with on it beyond what was available with the Windows OS on these systems. However, once Microsoft launched an X86 version of the Surface, it became clear to their customers Microsoft was now a competitor as well as a software provider to the OEMs.

At the time of the x86 Windows launch of the Surface, Microsoft was basically doing a 2-in-1 prototype. Its initial goal was to get their partners to do similar models. They and Intel both believed the concept of a 2-in-1 was powerful and, since Microsoft missed the tablet boom, this was their way to differentiate and marry the tablet and laptop concept into one. Of course, they positioned this a productivity tool and hoped their PC partners would help them champion this design. While a few created some 2-in-1s, they were really not behind the idea and most OEMs opted to stay with the laptop format, adding touch screens and displays that could fold and be used as a tablet similar to Lenovo’s Yoga.

While the OEM partners were not thrilled Microsoft had created mobile hardware that could compete with them in some areas, they were relatively forgiving until Microsoft introduced the Surface Pro 3. This version was much more powerful and started to gain some traction in the enterprise. And the Surface Pro 4 is even better. To date, Microsoft has now sold between 8-10 million Surface devices and, with the Surface Book, they are now really treading on the hallowed ground of their OEM customers, taking their laptop businesses on head-to-head. To say Microsoft’s partners are not enthusiastic about this would be an understatement.

Hours after Microsoft released the Surface Book, I got calls from some of the PC OEMs who were caught off guard by the announcement. They were also perturbed at Microsoft for not showing them this in advance and perhaps rightfully upset that Microsoft is now creating a convertible or full laptop that now competes with them for premium laptops in the enterprise. The irony is not lost on them that, as Microsoft introduces a new Surface Pro 4 advertised as the tablet that could replace your laptop, they are now creating their own full blown laptop too.

I realize Microsoft has priced this at the upper end of the premium market for laptops at $1499 and is hoping their partners will get off their butts and create laptops even more innovative and sleeker than their Surface Book. However, what they actually did was piss off their partners who now feel more and more that Microsoft will become a serious competitor in hardware and steal business from them, especially in the enterprise.

With the introduction of the Surface Book, I sense a real wedge has been driven between Microsoft and their important partners who they must rely on to help keep the Microsoft Windows franchise alive and moving forward. While I don’t believe any of them will abandon Windows, I think Microsoft’s move into laptops pushes the OEMs loyalty to the limit and could make them less likely to be a Windows-only shop in the future. As I have written here a couple of times, I believe Apple is going to make iOS their main OS for consumers and enterprise and the iPad Pro is their first major hardware to be targeted aggressively at business users highlighting the huge range of iOS software available for use in just about all settings. I have also suggested that, if iOS is pushed to a broader business audience, I could see Android being used in the same way. I am aware of at least two Android ultra-thin laptops that will come to market by early 2016 and I sense the big OEMs would be more open to adding them to their product mix now that this loyalty link to Microsoft has been breached.

Autonomous Cars and Their Ethical Conundrum

I am rooting for autonomous cars. AARP has said I am now a Senior Citizen. I have the card they sent me in the mail to prove it. While I admit I am getting up there in age, I am concerned someday the DMV will yank my license for either age or health reasons. When that time comes, I want a self-driving car in my driveway to make sure I have the freedom to go anywhere I want as I have since I was 16 years old. Unlike others who are hesitant about driverless cars, I would embrace it wholeheartedly as I would just as soon sit back and read, work on my laptop or peruse an iPad than have to deal with traffic and navigation. Even today, if all I needed to do is tell my car where to take me and all I had to do is get in and sit back and enjoy the ride, I would be one happy guy.

Now I know we are years away from getting autonomous cars on the road and getting the right kind of government regulations passed to make this possible. But the technology is getting close enough to create these types of vehicles and, in theory, they could be ready for the streets within the next 3-5 years. I suspect I have at least another 15-20 years before the DMV yanks my license so, as long as they are are ready by then, I can live with that. But as I have been thinking about the various obstacles and roadblocks that must be solved before everyone could embrace autonomous vehicles, there is one particular issue tied to their success that concerns me — ethics.

At the recent Re/code Mobile Conference, they had a great panel on self-driving cars. At the end of the session, I posed this question to the speakers on the panel:

Let’s say that I am in a self-driving car. It has full control and the brakes go out. We are about to enter an intersection where a school bus had almost finished turning left, a kid on his bike is in the crosswalk just in front of the car and an elderly woman is about enter the cross walk on the right. How does this car deal with this conundrum? Does it think “if I swerve to the left I take out a school bus with 30 kids on it. If I go straight, I take out a kid on a bike. If I swerve right, I hit the little old lady?” Is it thinking, “the bus has many lives on it and the kid on the bike is young and has a long life ahead but the elderly woman has lived a long life so I will take her out” as the least onerous solution?”

I realize this question is over the top but one can imagine many types of ethical issues a self-driving car will encounter. Understanding how the engineers, philosophers and ethicists design the final algorithms that sit at the heart of these autonomous vehicles will be very important to to the success of these automobiles.

My colleague over at PC Mag, Doug Newcom, wrote a good piece on this ethical question. He said:

“The day after getting a ride in Google’s self-driving car in Mountain View, California, I attended an event at Mercedes-Benz’s North American R&D facility in nearby Sunnyvale. Among several topics covered throughout the day, Stanford professor and head of the university’s Revs program Chris Gerdes gave a presentation that delved into the subject of ethics and autonomous cars.

Gerdes revealed that Revs has been collaborating with Stanford’s philosophy department on ethical issues involving autonomous vehicles, while the university has also started running a series of tests to determine what kind of decisions a robotic car may make in critical situations.

As part of his presentation, Gerdes made a case for why we need philosophers to help study these issues. He pointed out that ethical issues with self-driving cars are a moving target and “have no limits,” although it’s up to engineers to “bound the problem.”

To do this and move the ethics of self-driving technology beyond a mere academic discussion, Revs is running experiments with Stanford’s x1 test vehicle by placing obstacles in the road. He noted that placing different priorities within the vehicles’ software program have led to “very different behaviors.”

I am encouraged by the work being done at Stanford’s Revs Program and know similar work is being done at many universities and inside all of the autonomous car makers. Solving this ethics problem needs to be at the top of their list when it comes to how they program these cars beyond the fundamental software tied to cameras, CPUs, sensors, etc., that control the car’s functions. While I doubt they could ever program a car’s ethical take on all situations they could encounter, these folks will have to go the extra mile on this issue if the public is ever to really embrace driverless cars and make them the future of personal transportation.

Why Microsoft is Getting into Hardware

When I started at Creative Strategies in 1981, the PC industry was in its infancy. In fact, my first consulting project was with the IBM team led by Don Estridge and Bill Lowe, the two men who brought the IBM PC to market. I have seen the PC industry ebb and flow and, over those 34 years, have witnessed consistent consolidation in the industry. At one point, there were over 30 mainstream PC brands around the world. Today, there are basically four top tier brands — Apple, Dell, HP and Lenovo — and another lesser tier that, at least at this time, includes companies like Toshiba, Acer and Asus. Then there are white box PC vendors that meet different needs in different markets.

But with the PC industry contracting and selling only about 280-300 million PCs a year and showing no growth, only the big players will probably have the staying power to keep their PC business alive. Companies like Toshiba, Acer and Asus could have trouble competing against the big guys as they see their margins shrink and their own bottom lines strain. They could be forced to scale down their PC business altogether over the next 2-3 years. If this happens, it will be a issue for Microsoft as their OEM customer base would also shrink.

But there is another problem, especially for Microsoft. DDell and Lenovo are mainly focusing on enterprise and SMB, although Lenovo does have a healthy consumer business in China and Europe. At this time, HP still has a solid PC business targeting enterprise and consumers, even though the move to split the company has many concerned about the long-term viability of HP’s PC business. It is too early to tell how successful this split will be but, should HP flounder in their PC business, that could have a major impact on Microsoft — HP may not be able to deliver the volume shipments of PCs that would help drive their Windows franchise to a broader consumer audience. Add this to the fact Apple is getting more aggressive with their own Mac and iOS tablet business and are challenging Microsoft’s Windows OS with enterprise and consumers. With the iPad Pro, Apple could bring even more business users to their platform given the rich ecosystem of apps available, especially for the iPad.

Originally, Microsoft’s Surface and Surface Pro were designed to help drive the 2-in-1 concept and get their hardware partners to follow suit. But the Surface business is now a $6.7 billion dollar one and no longer can be looked at as just a prototype business. The good news for Microsoft is their partners have created 2-in-1s and, with Apple introducing the iPad Pro, Apple basically blessed this category of devices and 2-in-1s are on track to be big sellers, especially to business users. Even Microsoft’s new Surface Book is designed to push their partners to create more innovative and sleek designs. That is why they priced their version at $1499, knowing full well it will spur partners to replicate the design and come in at prices much lower than theirs. I actually think the Surface Book is such a great laptop it too will be a big money maker for Microsoft even when the OEMs release similar models.

But, in the end, what Microsoft is doing is learning how to create great hardware, which will serve as a potential back up strategy for them should more of their OEM partners flounder, with the possibility some might even abandon the consumer PC markets, given their low margins and expensive channel support. This move to hardware is very strategic for Microsoft. Although marquis products drove this initial strategy in order to make sure their partners innovated around new form factors, they now are on to more of a defensive position. This is being done in order to guarantee there will continue to be great and innovative hardware to support Windows, especially for the consumer market, so they can be ready to pick up the slack should they loose hardware partners who support their platform in the future.

Microsoft and Apple’s Diverging Bets on Their Future

As I watched the live video from the Microsoft device launch event earlier in the week, I could not help but be struck by the incredible divergence of OS strategies Apple and Microsoft have as they try and push their respective platforms into the market. Microsoft has clearly put all bets on Windows and, through Continuum, it now makes it possible for all of their devices to work together better and deliver across-the-board productivity to devices and services for potential users. As we found out multiple times during the Microsoft event, the primary focus of their strategy revolves around productivity.

On the other hand, Apple is always trying to make Mac OS X better and it seems the MacBook Pro, Mac Pro and perhaps even some MacBook Airs continue to gain ground in the enterprise and are moving upstream in terms of a solution for business power users. But if you look closer at recent Apple announcements and product introductions, Apple clearly seems to be placing more and more of their bets on iOS. We already know iOS is a great consumer operating system but, with the introduction of the iPad Pro, Apple is making an important statement about taking iOS well beyond the consumer market and positioning it as the everyday device for mainstream business users. And even though Apple now stresses productivity, it really pushes the “fun” and “creative” aspect of their apps to hook more people to their ecosystem.

At Apple’s recent event, Tim Cook stated an iPad Pro could do about 80% of what a PC could but is much more versatile. Like Microsoft, they have their own cross-device software called Continuity. They take this a bit further by making it work with two different operating systems even if they are based on the same root code. The iPad Pro may be thought of as something targeted at the Surface Pro and in many ways it is. But the use of iOS in the iPad Pro and how Apple will take this more consumer-focused OS into mainstream business is really where Microsoft and Apple diverge. More importantly, Apple appears to be betting the company on iOS being its OS for consumers and business and seems well positioned to take advantage of an iOS ecosystem of 1.5 million apps to support that position.

To date, Microsoft’s revenues for Surface Pro have been about $6.7 billion, which probably translates to about 8-10 million sold since release. It will not surprise me if Apple sells as many or perhaps a bit more iPad Pros during its first 12 months on the market. And the big thing that will help them create strong demand will be the app ecosystem that comes from the App Store. Apple even hedged their bets by working with IBM to port over 100 enterprise class mobile apps for iOS, thus bulking up their overall business app offerings. Even Microsoft has given Apple a boost in their quest to make iOS more attractive to a business and productivity audience by creating a full, and by the way, great version of Microsoft Office for iOS. I am not sure Microsoft would have done this if they had realized Apple would go after their core business customers with iOS. As I have written before, I believe Apple will eventually do an ultra thin laptop powered by iOS that would go after Microsoft’s new Surface Book, although I doubt it will be detachable.

I am very impressed with the new Surface Pro 4 and their stellar new Surface Book but it looks to me like Apple and Microsoft are now going after the same business customer but with very different operating systems. At the moment, Apple probably has the edge because of the iOS app ecosystem although, to be fair, most of the productivity apps needed for use in business already exist. But make no mistake, we have a new battle royale going on. Instead of the Mac vs Windows fight of the past, it is now iOS vs Windows that is becoming the new battlefront.

Why Apple’s $25 Billion Enterprise Business will Double in Five Years

While Speaking at the BOX customer conference this week, Apple CEO Tim Cook said, “If you look at the last 12 months, (enterprise sales were) $25 billion. This is not a hobby. This is a real business.”

Although I was not at this event, I am told by some who were there that the size of Apple’s enterprise business was a huge surprise to them. Their perception had been Apple is really a consumer company, not one focused on IT.

But this is not news to Apple’s competitors in the enterprise. They have been telling me for years Apple has been making serious inroads with IT directors and more and more Macs were being brought in “through the back door”. They have been forced to support Macs now in the same way they support Windows machines. And, for most enterprises, the iPad has become the tablet of choice in this market segment since it was launched in 2010. Apple is selling about 4 million Macs per quarter and we estimate at least 35-40% are going into the enterprise.

But there was another comment Tim Cook made that was perhaps even more interesting. “We’re in the early days of what we can do,” Cook said. “My gosh, we haven’t started yet.” This is a correct assessment by Cook about their enterprise business and one that should scare competitors. Apple does not have a dedicated sales force, support division or even a structured organization focused on the enterprise, yet they had $25 billion in sales to this business audience.

Cook’s comments suggest to me that, besides creating more products for the enterprise, they will hire more sales and support staff and perhaps create an enterprise solutions team to formally go after the enterprise over the next five years. In that sense, Apple has not even started their real enterprise push and yet, they are making billions of dollars in sales to these business customers.

BTW, if this does happen, this would be another break from the Steve Jobs legacy at Apple by Tim Cook. Jobs pretty much pushed back on creating a dedicated effort targeting the enterprise. I suspect he was really put off by the two Apple CEO’s before him that went after the enterprise in various ways and totally failed in their attempts. He was especially appalled at Michael Spindler’s move to make the Mac look like a PC and license the Mac OS so it would become integrated into the business market faster. But I think Jobs was much more interested in capturing consumer audiences and just did not give their teams the support and dollars needed to make the enterprise a major emphasis. But now under Cook, it is clear enterprise is a targeted audience Apple will be more aggressive with in the future.

It also reinforces the role the iPad Pro will play in making a more aggressive move into this lucrative business user base. It is not a coincidence IBM ported their mobile applications to iOS, not Mac OS. And with Microsoft delivering the full Windows Office toolset for the iPad, the same fundamental tools used on PCs is fully available on the Mac OS and the iPad, making Apple’s devices a stronger alternative to Windows machines that have dominated the enterprise for three decades. As I mentioned in other columns, I also think a big part of this enterprise strategy revolves around iOS instead of the Mac. Yes, the Mac will still be an important tool for business users but it could be pushed more towards the power and professional users such as graphics designers, engineers, media creators, etc. But as Cook has said, you can do about 80% of what a person will do on a PC with an iPad Pro and it, along with perhaps iOS-based MacBooks and other hardware, supporting iOS could be where they get the greatest traction in their quest to extend their role in IT.

While Apple has quietly made these inroads into the enterprise, I believe Apple’s build out of an enterprise class sales, support and solutions consulting group, should that happen, would give them the framework to start making a much more formal push for the adoption of Macs, iPads and iPhones into the enterprise. It would also most likely spawn their first serious ad campaigns just targeting the enterprise crowd by 2017. That is why I think they could double their enterprise sales within five years and, if they put the full Apple mindset on creating new products for IT and do a strong marketing push to IT programs, their sales to enterprise customers could be even higher.

Why Google Needs to Back Android for Large 2-in-1’s and Laptops

Last week, I wrote a piece on Tech.pinions that pointed out Gen Y, Gen Z and Millennials have all grown up with iPhones and iOS has become their main mobile operating system. I reasoned that, when this generation moves into the business world, it is most likely they will want tools that favor iOS rather than have to move to and learn a completely new OS such as Windows. I believe Apple has created the iPad Pro with this in mind and I would not be surprised if, at some point, Apple even does a touch-based clamshell with iOS as its operating system. There will always be some who prefer a clamshell to a 2-in-1 form factor.

But using this logic, it is reasonable to ask the question of whether Android could also be the OS a portion of this younger generation wants to take with them into the business world? Although iOS dominates as an OS for most Millennials in our country, Android actually outsells iPhones around the world. Many Gen Y and Gen Z, even in the US, cut their computing teeth on Android instead of iOS. Would they, like their iOS counterparts, prefer more powerful Android tools to take with them into the world of business?

I believe the answer to this is squarely in Google’s court. Today, the Android OS world is still highly fragmented. Apple has a distinct edge over Google because they own the hardware, software and apps ecosystem and have brought a level of important continuity between iOS upgrades and their ability to interact with other iOS and Mac devices in their ecosystems of apps and services. But Goggle still has multiple versions of their own Android as well as non-Google certified versions floating around. That means some Android apps work fine with some versions of Android, while others do not. They have also been weak on how they update Android, although it is getting better.

The bigger roadblock I see with this is Google’s tight grip on the certification process for Android and what an OEM partner must accept in order to receive Google’s blessing or certification for their Android devices. Most Android hardware players want to add their own tweaks to the UI and try and differentiate it from other vendors. Google makes that difficult for them, given their demands that they can use these partners as a vehicle to drive ads and revenue to Google. I believe Google needs to loosen their grip on these controls over Android if this mobile OS has any chance of getting this younger generation to take this OS with them as they move into the business world.

A month back I wrote a piece asking “Could Android save the PC industry?”. I wrote about a Chinese company named Jide, founded by three guys formerly part of the Google Android team, who have created a version of Android for use on a laptop. The Jide OS is called Remix, it runs Android apps, and it includes the Google Play store, which suggests Google has sort of blessed this version. Check out its site and click on the demo. But the operative phrase is “sort of blessed by Google.” In the past, Google did not want Android to be used on anything other than a smartphone or a tablet. But with Jide, Google has slightly loosened their grip and allowed this platform to have a type of certification that lets them deploy the Google Store. It still not clear whether Google actually endorses this version or that they gave these Ex-Googlers some type of special dispensation.

Google seems hell bent to make Chrome OS their desktop and laptop OS and push their Web browser to be the OS that transcends their tablet and smartphone Android platforms. There is one problem with this. What makes iOS and Android so appealing is each has over one million apps in their stores and Gen Z, Gen Y and the Millennials crave the versatility an app ecosystem gives them. Add to that the fact these operating systems are the ones they use day in and day out with a plethora of apps that meet pretty much every digital need they have and you can see why taking their mobile OS of choice in larger form factors into the business world makes sense.

As I pointed out in the article on iOS being the enterprise OS of Millennials, Apple seems to understand this. The new iPad Pro as a 2-in-1 makes it easy for this demographic to go from their current mobile-first approach of using technology to making it possible for them to use a powerful new mobile form factor with the same OS in their jobs. Couple this with next-generation iOS applications, such as the one’s IBM is creating for iOS, and why would they want or need to move to Windows if they can do the same tasks as powerfully and efficiently on iOS in a 2-in-1 form factor or lightweight clamshell?

Google needs to understand this. I am not suggesting they abandon Chrome since it is getting serious traction in education due to its low costs and web-based curriculum being designed for it. But I am saying Google needs to see that, for this younger generation, Android may need to be able to move out of its smartphone and tablet confines and into new designs more acceptable for use as a business tool when this younger generation moves into corporate America.

Google’s new Android 10″ tablet with keyboard, the Pixel C, is a step in the right direction. But this screen is too small for serious productivity. This move seems more like a knee jerk reaction to Apple’s iPad Pro launch a few weeks back. You can bet Apple is going to put serious dollars into marketing the iPad Pro to business users and work even closer with business app makers to shape enterprise apps.

If Google even wants a chance to capture a younger generation and move Android into business as they hit the workforce, Google needs to heartily endorse the idea of Android in large 2-in-1’s and laptops unless they want to let Apple own this younger crowd — many of whom are already switching to iOS.

Could the iPad Pro Cannibalize MacBooks?

In my main column on Monday, I talked about how iOS could become the enterprise OS of the millennial generation. I argued that, as Gen Z and Gen Y become millennials who cut their computing teeth on iOS, they would take tools based on this into the business world and, over time, iOS would become defacto for this younger generation in business. But I also mentioned that, if Apple is successful in getting this younger generation to make iOS the standard business operating system, then its impact on Microsoft, Intel and their OEM partners would be impacted by this over time.

If you look at kids in college, high school, and even grammar school, iPad and Android devices dominate their mobile tools and the Mac is their preferred computer for most in college and high school. When I spoke to an MBA class at a major university last year, there were 101 students in the class and all but one had a Mac. Although one could argue that if these kids move into the business world and are forced to adapt to Windows they would. But it is more likely that, because of BYOD, Apple-based products would come into these IT departments in increasing numbers. Also, there have been many stories written in the last three years about companies realizing they need to support Macs and iPads if they want to entice the type of top talent they need to run their businesses in the future.

Apple’s new iPad Pro gives this younger generation a new tool to add to their Apple product mix when going into the business world. Apple could use this to drive iOS into mainstream business and, over time, make iOS the primary business OS. In the article, I talked about its ramifications for vendors in the Windows ecosystem and the challenge this has for Microsoft in trying to keep the Windows franchise the center of the business computing world in the future. Had Steve Ballmer invested in Windows Phone once the iPhone came out and made it a serious competitor, perhaps this younger generation would have this option and, if enough people were Windows Phone users, that could translate into them keeping Windows as their business tool once they went into the workforce. But that ship has sailed and the momentum has swung, particularly to Apple, when it comes to making a mobile OS grow up to become something even business users could embrace.

If this plays out as I suspect it could, it also presents an interesting problem for Apple. Unless the Windows crowd can find a way to convince a younger generation to switch to Windows, iOS seems to be on track to become at least a major enterprise alternative in business settings for this next generation of workers. But the iPad Pro could be problematic for Apple.

Apple seems to have purposely positioned the iPad Pro directly at the business community and if successful, its flexible nature could end up being the preferred business tool of the millennial generation and end up cannibalizing sales of the MacBook and Macbook Air line of Apple laptops.

This is only problematic in that they have spent decades positioning the thinner and lighter MacBooks in this area and it would be a change of direction. From Apple’s standpoint, they would still get the revenue and, as Cook has stated, the iPad Pro is more in line with their purest vision of portable computing in the future.

However, its impact on Intel could be significant. For years, many people have wondered if Apple would use their own chips someday in their MacBook, Mac Pro and iMac line. But I’ve always thought Intel’s processors made more sense for these products and, with Intel constantly upping the power threshold as well as lowering the energy draw, that Apple would use Intel’s chips for a long time. I still think that is the case for the MacBook, MacBook Airs, MacBook Pros, iMacs and Mac Pros. But the MacBook and MacBook Air represent about 50-55% of all personal computers Apple’s ships. If the iPad Pro catches on and can deliver a more flexible MacBook-like experience, then this product could eat into Apple’s MacBook demand and Intel would lose significant business — fewer Intel chips would be shipped to Apple customers.

As I have written a couple of times over the last week or two, I see the iPad Pro as being much more disruptive to the market for laptops. Even Apple’s own laptop business could be affected by this move. The good news for Apple is even if it does affect them, their revenue stream will not be impacted and indeed it will probably grow. But for those in the Windows world this could, over time, impact their current business model and strategy. It will be interesting to see how the iPad Pro influences the overall market in the next three years. I sense that it will present a serious challenge to the Windows crowd.

Why iOS Could Become the Enterprise OS of the Millennial Generation

For the majority of my life, Windows and the Mac have been the operating systems that have dominated my personal computing experiences. iOS and Android only recently have become supplemental operating systems I use in my smartphones and tablets. But I believe there is a changing of the “OS Guard” happening as Gen Y and Gen Z users grow up and become millennials and move into the business sector. The tech tools they use and how they use them will be quite different than the generation before.

This younger generation does use PCs. However, they actually spend the most time on their iPhones and iPads and Macs are mostly relegated to serious productivity projects. More importantly, they know iOS inside and out as they spend much more of their day in this operating system then they do on any computer they have. I believe Apple understands this better than anyone and their most recent iPad Pro is a nod to this trend. More importantly, I see Apple using this to drive millennials towards making iOS their OS of choice as they move into their careers and new jobs. In fact, within 5-7 years, I suspect Windows will not even be of interest to this younger set, as iOS will be the device operating system that dominates their work and personal lifestyles.

Tim Cook told the audience at the recent launch event that the iPad Pro is “the clearest expression of our vision of the future of personal computing.” Steve Jobs basically said the same thing at the original iPad launch when he called the PC a truck and tablets cars. Cook also said in a Buzzfeed interview recently, “I think that some people will never buy a computer because I think now we’re at the point where the iPad does what some people want to do with their PCs”. 

I believe Apple’s goal with the iPad Pro is to make it the next major tool they provide to all, especially millennials, and make it the logical device they take with them when they join the workforce. An iPad Pro with a keyboard and iOS will handle the majority of what they need in their job. And, thanks to Microsoft, even Office on iOS and hundreds of other business class apps are being created for iOS each month. Even if they bring their Macs with them, Apple’s continuum strategy makes it easy to go between a Mac and an iPad Pro and work seamlessly on either without skipping a beat. It is not a coincidence that IBM has ported over 100 of their enterprise-class mobile management and security tools to iOS. With the iPad Pro, Apple is poised to bring the Apple ecosystem to the business market in a dramatic way and it will be the millennials who drive it into mainstream businesses over the next 5 years.

If this happens, it will have major ramifications for the PC industry. If the millennials, who will be a major force in the business world within the next 5-7 years, opt for iOS, what does that mean for Microsoft? It is unfortunate Steve Ballmer said the iPhone would be a flop and did not give the Microsoft teams the support they needed for them to do their own competitive product immediately after the iPhone came out. Getting millennials to use Windows Phones could have ensured a Windows future. While Windows will still have life while my generation is in charge of the business tools, when millennial numbers grow in the ranks of business users and take over the IT management jobs dominated by my generation today, will Windows even be relevant in business if iOS is the dominant OS for this age group?

And how will this impact Dell, HP, and Lenovo — whose financial lifeblood is tied to Windows today? Millennials making iOS the dominant OS over time would surely impact their current business model. This won’t happen fast. But if iOS is the dominant OS for Gen Y, Gen Z and millennials and they are our future workforce, within 5-10 years Apple could be the one that dominates all aspects of the business and consumer markets.

Apple is crazy like a fox with this strategy. 

One could say the iPhone and iPad with iOS is laying the groundwork for Apple to eventually own, not only the consumer market but, over time, the business market too. Steve Jobs was the master planner of this strategy. While he lost out to Bill Gates and the Windows crowd for the first thirty years, if Apple executes this plan as I think they will, Jobs’ team could dominate the world of personal computing over the next 30 years. Although Tim Cook has been charged to execute this strategy, make no mistake — Jobs was the architect. From the beginning of the Mac era for Apple, Jobs had hoped and probably expected it to become the business tool of choice when compared to a DOS-based PC back in 1984. However, he misjudged Microsoft’s ability to adapt to a GUI based world and the PC continued to reign in business for decades.

Jobs knew he lost my generation and the Gen Xers but understood that, if he could get the generation after them hooked on his newest OS, iOS could someday become the cornerstone of his broader strategy to undermine Windows in business and slowly but strategically create the hardware platform Apple could use to drive iOS well beyond its consumer base. The iPad Pro is their first serious tool at the heart of this strategy — move iOS into mainstream business. You can bet Apple has other hardware platforms in the works that support this direction. Perhaps a clamshell with touch using iOS is not far around the corner.

The Mac will still be an important part of this strategy too, but I think they are content with its position changing and letting the iPad Pro and future iOS products be the tool millennials and the generation after them carry when they join the workforce. That is why their continuum software is more strategic to their longer-term strategy than any of us expected.

It is clear to me Apple is not content with just owning the consumer market, something that was a key part of Jobs’ goal since he rejoined the company in 1997. But make no mistake, Jobs wanted to own the entire market and it appears to me that, by getting this younger generation hooked on iOS, Cook and his team just might be able to deliver. 

Amazon’s $50 Fire Tablet will Shake Up the Tablet Market

On Sept 17th, 2015, Amazon released three new tablets I believe could serve as a catalyst to help jump start the market in terms of units shipped. At the upper end is a 10” tablet that will sell for $230 with 16GB of storage and an 8” model with 8GB of storage. Both models have a Micro SD slot and, for about $17, you can upgrade to 32GB. For $24.99, you can have 64GB of storage. Note the prices. Amazon is being very aggressive and these should be big sellers over the holidays. However, the tablet they launched for $50 is the most interesting. This is called the Fire 7” edition. It has 8GB of storage and also includes a SD card slot for additional storage. At this price, Amazon has to be selling this at cost, but they clearly believe it can be strategic to them for a couple of reasons.

First, the 7″ Fire is pretty much a portable multimedia player. One of its key reasons to exist is for videos, movies, and other streaming content. If a person has Amazon Prime, they have access to thousands of movies and TV shows as well as music. In essence, this tablet is a front end to Amazon’s broad range of content. It will also be a great portal into Amazon’s shopping services. One can use it to buy anything Amazon sells using a highly mobile and secure device. The second reason it is strategic is it helps Amazon extend their brand into homes and families in a broader way. At $50, it’s almost a no-brainer to get one of these for each kid in a family. Or for that matter, have one in each room. Since I test tablets, I already have a tablet in every room of my house and it is very handy to be able to pick one up at any time and use it for a specific purpose.

One important thing to note about the Fire 7 is that this is a quality device. Today, most tablets in the $65-$99 range are of poor quality. In fact, the ones I have purchased in Asia when traveling have all died since they were not durable or even all that functional. But a quality tablet at $50 in the US and other markets where Amazon sells products is an eye catcher and I think they know there will be a lot of interest in them. One unique marketing move by Amazon is to offer a “buy 5 tablets get one free” promotion. They believe that, at $250 for 6 tablets, a lot of people will buy them over the holidays as gifts for family members and even business colleagues.

It will be fascinating to see the acceptance of this product in the market but my gut tells me they will sell a boatload of them and it will be an important tool to help them grow Amazon Prime and related services.

While I like the new 8” model, the more interesting of the two pricier versions to me is the 10” tablet for $230. Amazon will be offering a optional keyboard case with it and, in a sense, this becomes Android’s answer to the 2-in-1 models Microsoft, PC vendors and Apple, with the new iPad Pro, are offering this fall. A few weeks back, I wrote here in Tech.pinions that I believe there is a market for an Android laptop. I reasoned that, for most people in the world, their introduction to personal computing has come through an Android Phone. It seems logical, as they become more computer literate, that many of them may want to graduate to a larger tablet or even a laptop. But the idea they would make the jump to a Windows PC as their first true PC is hard to imagine. Indeed, it makes more sense that these folks, who cut their teeth on Android, may want an Android-based large tablet or a laptop with a UI they already know and can use without much of a learning curve. Even if they will use it for productivity, they now have many of the same tools on Android that are on Windows, plus tons of Android apps that cover a broad range of user’s needs in a form factor that goes beyond their smartphone.

Together, I can see how these three models can drive a lot of sales of tablets for Amazon and, if the $50 model has strong demand, it could even drive the overall market for tablets up by as much as 10-15% from where it is today. It will be hard to tell how much they impact Amazon’s bottom line though since the low cost model is clearly a loss leader to drive more services and product purchases and tracking that is difficult. And I suspect the margins on the two other models are about 7% to 10% at best. However, at the strategic level, I see these tablets as big winners for Amazon and should help them have a pretty good holiday season.

The Two most important Things Tim Cook Said at Last Week’s Launch Event

I have been thinking about the comments Tim Cook and other Apple execs said last week and there were two specific things Cook said that were quite intriguing and important to Apple’s future. The first comment came when Cook unveiled the iPad Pro, he called it, “the clearest expression of our vision of the future of personal computing.” This is significant for many reasons. The key one that stands out to me is the idea that a large tablet with a keyboard is their vision of the future of personal computing. I was with Bill Gates in the mid 1990s when he told a small group of us analysts that “pen computing” was the future of personal computing — so this idea goes back at least 20 years. However, Apple’s embracing, embellishing and implementing this vision with a desktop class processor, the A9, and the fact this is a touch-based system says a lot about the way Apple is thinking about portable computing in the future.

While I don’t believe it means they will drop the Macbook Pro or even the Macbook Air anytime soon, it is clear there is little room for further innovation in the clamshell form factor. Yes, you can do Yoga-like designs but even PC makers who create these products today buy into the idea that a 2-in-1 delivers much more flexibility when it comes to the future of mobile computers. What is interesting is, from the Apple viewpoint, it could suggest Mac OS X and iOS could be on a collision course. Although with Apple’s continuum strategy in place, the interoperability between iOS 9 and OS X may make the need for merging a non issue. Cook also recently told Buzzfeed, “I think that some people will never buy a computer,” Cook says. “Because I think now we’re at the point where the iPad does what some people want to do with their PCs.”

As Ben pointed out in yesterday’s Insider piece on the iPad Pro, Apple validated the 2-in-1 category by bringing the iPad Pro to market. You can expect their competitors to crank up their own innovation engines for this platform. This is where I believe we will see the greatest innovation in mobile computers in the next few years. Apple’s Pencil will be a differentiator for them at first but I suspect voice navigation, 3D gestures and other UI concepts will be deployed on 2-in-1s as Apple, Intel and PC OEMs accelerate their R&D in this type of mobile computer.

The other thing Cook said that should be watched closely is his comments on the A9. He stated it is faster than 80% of the laptops on the market today and their new processors deliver desktop class performance. This is important for many reasons but the deployment of the A9 in the iPad Pro means they see this as delivering a full PC experience right out of the box. In my notes from a discussion with Apple execs, the A9 is actually faster than a core i7 and has faster and better graphics. I see Apple’s increasing prowess in semiconductors leading them down a path in which they will use their own chips some day in all of their PC based products. The good news for Intel is they could stave off a move by Apple to go to their own chips by moving their processors over to 10 nm, and eventually 7 nm to, at least in theory, always be ahead of Apple when it comes to next generation processors. But I think it is highly likely Apple will want to eventually control their entire destiny and, some day, use only their own chips if they can make them work with both operating systems seamlessly.

What I think is clear from last week’s event is Apple has pivoted quite a bit towards the iPad being their platform for their future of computing and they will likely bring the rest of the industry along with them. For Apple’s competitors this is a silver lining.

To date, demand for PCs and laptops are off about 8-9% for this year. The PC industry has been searching for a way to get people more interested in buying new laptops to replace older models. Perhaps, with Apple’s help, the 2-in-1 category will really catch on and we could potentially see a serious move by millions of people over the next three years, not only to upgrade, but buy these new 2-in-1 devices to give them what Apple and the PC crowd believe is the future of personal computing. At least, that is what the PC crowd are hoping for and are now keeping their fingers crossed and cheering on Apple with the new iPad Pro.

How the iPad Pro with Pencil Maps to the Desktop Publishing Revolution of the Past

I met with Steve Jobs two days after he came back to Apple in 1997. At the time, Apple was in serious trouble and I asked him how he planned to bring Apple back to health. He told me the first thing he planned to do was to go back and take care of the needs of their core customers. He defined these customers as graphics professionals, publishers and engineers. He felt the CEOs before him had let those customers down by not advancing the Mac platform.

What the Mac is particularly good at is things like desktop publishing, graphics design and engineering tasks and it was viewed by this audience as an important tool to help them get their jobs done better and faster. When I saw the new iPad Pro, my mind went back to this conversation with Steve and I could see his influence in this new product. With the addition of their Pencil stylus and the iPad Pro’s ability to use it at the pixel level, the iPad Pro is the kind of tool artists, graphics designers and engineers will love. It gives them a level of control over their projects in precise ways that should make their jobs easier.

I also see an iPad Pro link to the desktop publishing revolution of the past. I worked on the DTP project for Apple in the mid 1980s and saw first hand how a tools, in this case, the Mac, Pagemaker and a laser printer, could revolutionize an industry and eventually go mainstream. Interestingly, when Pagemaker was released and it caught the attention of graphics designers, publishers and those who did newsletters, most of us assumed this would be a niche market. But, as history shows, the concept of WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) eventually moved to word processors, spreadsheets and many other programs where layout and design was important to all types of projects. In fact, one could argue the principles of DTP, as laid out by Apple, drive the design of Web pages and many apps too.

With the iPad Pro and Pencil, Apple gives these same customers Jobs wanted to serve when he came back to Apple in 1997 another set of tools that will dramatically impact their workflow. In fact, the presenter from Adobe at last week’s event stated using Adobe Tools designed to work with Pencil meant people can now do things they could not even do on a PC. For these users, this is a big deal. I talked to some graphics designers after the Apple event and they are salivating over this product. They can now toss out their Wacom tablets and work directly on a large screen and interact with and manipulate their drawings, designs and engineering projects at the pixel level, which ultimately gives them more control of their designs or projects.

At first glance, one would think that, like DTP in the beginning, this is a niche market and only design professionals would be the target audience for the iPad Pro given the level of control Apple delivers with this new iPad. However, I learned early on the power of Apple to influence a market and, just as DTP eventually moved down to mainstream productivity tools like word processors and the like, I think this new form of input, as delivered by iPad Pro/Pencil integration, has broader ramifications for the overall PC industry. Indeed, we got a glimpse of that from the Microsoft demo during Apple’s launch event. Microsoft showed how a person could draw three circles and they quickly snapped to a clean digital implementation in the form of a chart. Even a simple arrow became a clean digital one for inclusion in a document. But I see this as the tip of the iceberg for how the role of a stylus will play in even mainstream productivity tools over time. A side note here – Bill Gates actually saw this vision in the early 1990s and he called it “Pen Computing”. But it looks like Apple will finally deliver the actual tablet/stylus package Gates envisioned and drive its impact into the broader market, something that was a key part of Bill’s vision back then.

Of course, using a stylus with a tablet has been around for years. One of the best and one I use myself is the recently launched Jot Dash by Adonis.

But none of the styli on the market today delivers the level of precise control Apple gives iPad Pro users with the Pencil. Today we may think a generic stylus is good enough to deliver similar input and design control and, in some cases, that may be true. But the thing that made the Mac great in 1985 is Apple introduced the GUI to computing and then made an SDK for developers to create apps for the Mac. The result was Pagemaker and thousands of other apps that could harness the power of the Mac to deliver great new apps. Yes, the PC guys caught up by 1989-1990 and perhaps this time, if they really understand what Apple has done with redesigning the iPad Pro to work with this specially designed Pencil stylus, they could respond to this competitive threat faster.

Apple delivers their own special SDK tools for third-party developers to create apps to make it more useful. That means we could see some really great apps for the pro users but mainstream business and perhaps even consumers may get new applications that are Pencil-compatible that will help Apple drive the iPad Pro to a broader audience.

I am not saying Apple’s use of a special stylus with the iPad Pro may have the same impact DTP has had on the market although, from my viewpoint, it does map what we did in DTP in the 1980s. On the other hand, if the software developers create apps that really take advantage of the hardware/software solution the iPad Pro and Pencil deliver together, I could see it influencing the broader use of a pen with tablets beyond traditional input and navigation. It will be fascinating to see if a “Pagemaker for Pencil” comes out or what else the creative app makers deliver for this new tablet/stylus platform.

Even though Steve Jobs’ team is delivering on his idea, Gates has to feel a bit vindicated at this point. He called Pen Computing the future of computing and, up to now, a pen has been more of a tablet peripheral. But if Apple makes the iPad Pro with Pencil successful, perhaps his pen computing vision will be fulfilled, even if it takes Apple to make it happen.

Can Android save the PC Industry?

A few months ago, I wrote a piece in Tech.pinions asking if “Android is the new Windows?” In the article I pointed out that, when the PC was the center of our universe, Windows was the one constant all PC vendors and developers could back. Today, the OS universe is quite different and there are two other operating systems — iOS and Android — that have divided the attention of OEMs and app developers. In sheer terms, Android has become the dominant device OS for tech products around the world.

For the PC industry, the rise of mobile, especially smartphones, has impacted the tech market. While demand for PCs has declined, demand for smartphones has risen exponentially. But there is an interesting trend developing within the Android community that, in a strange way, could actually be the PC industry’s savior. One of the things we know from our research is, for over 1.5 billion people, their first introduction to personal computing has come through a smartphone. More specifically, an inexpensive smartphone that gets them connected and gives them access to tons of apps, but is usually of poor quality with various technological limitations. We know many of these people will eventually upgrade to a better smartphone and this is where Obi Mobile and Motorola are positioning their high quality, low priced phones.

However, there is a pretty serious school of thought developing about this audience that posits the idea that, at some point in the next two to four years, they may actually want to buy something with a bigger screen that has even more functionality. This school thinks this device most likely will be a laptop, not a tablet. Part of the reason they think so is 5.5” and 6” smartphones have already impacted demand for tablets and, for the most, smartphones with large screens already serve as a tablet as well as a smartphone. On the other hand, we know from research many of these people are very familiar with a laptop and, in a lot of cases, have coveted a laptop as a better tool for them to help educate their kids, manage media and perhaps even help run a family business with a better tool.

But, for me, the big rub with this idea is the leap of faith that says, if they were to move to a laptop, they would want a Windows-based portable computer given that the only OS they have ever used is Android. What makes more sense is to create a version of Android that can be used on a laptop. Yes, this has been tried before with the Motorola Atrix but the timing and implementation was wrong. It turns out, a few companies are already thinking along these lines and at least one solid Android OS that can be used on a PC is actually ready for the market now. It is coming from Jide, founded by three Google employees. They were part of the Android team but left to create a very rich version of Android that can run on a PC. In fact, they are already selling a 2 in 1 Android portable for $400 and taking pre-orders now.

The Jide OS is called ReMix and it runs all Android apps and includes the Google Play store. That suggests to us Google has actually blessed this version. Check out their site and click on the demo. You will see it runs Powerpoint and other Office apps as well as Android apps in native form. Our sources tell us Blackberry is also doing a dedicated Android OS that is highly secure and there is at least one other major company in the software space doing something similar.

These are interesting developments and could have ramifications for PC makers. Today, their OS loyalty is still with Microsoft although all have broken ranks to support Chromebooks, too. But we could see legitimate demand by smartphone users who will, in the near future, want to graduate to a laptop. In this case, I would be more inclined to think a move sideways to an Android laptop they are familiar with makes more sense. If so, PC makers would support Android on a PC in a heartbeat. This could be an impetus to actually help grow demand for laptops and PCs in the future.

This is an area to keep a close eye on. While Android today is a mobile OS, its reach beyond mobile, thanks to Jide and others, suggests its role could eventually be much broader. The next logical place for Android to go is the laptop and, perhaps, even a low-cost desktop.