Think.Tank – Page 58 – Tech.pinions

NSA Spying: Why So Little Outrage?

Since the revelations about the extent of telephone and internet surveillance by the National Security Agency first broke a couple of weeks ago, I’ve been struck by how little outrage there has been aside from activists at the left and right end of the political spectrum. Today, my wife Susan, who is tech savvy but doesn’t live and breathe this stuff the way I do, answered the question:

I assume that whenever I type something on a computer somebody is watching. How is the government different from Google?“

The fact is that most of us have, without really thinking about it, surrendered our assumptions of privacy. Someone–it may be Big Brother, or a private company that can be forced to share the information with Big Brother without telling us–is watching and we no longer much care. This attitude has seriously interfered with our ability to work up much outrage.[pullquote]Someone–it may be Big Brother, or a private company that can be forced to share the information with Big Brother without telling us–is watching and we no longer much care.[/pullquote]

There’s another factor. The NSA/CIA/FBI abuses of the 1960s and 70s, revealed in detail by the Church Committee and other investigations did real harm to real individuals and groups. People and groups were targeted for surveillance and sometimes harassment based on their constitutionally protected opinions, speech, and actions. People were outraged because the government’s behavior was outrageous.

So far, at least, no one has been able to point to any harm to individuals or groups that has been caused by NSA surveillance. Most Americans regard their government as mostly benign and the threat raised by government information collection is very abstract. As Matt Blaze of the University of Pennsylvania pointed out at the Computers, Freedom, Privacy conference in Washington, most Americans are comfortable with the government having the information as long as Barack Obama or George W. Bush wan in charge (though few people are equally comfortable with both), but almost no one would trust Richard Nixon with it. Nixon is safely out of the picture.
Personally, I am far more bothered by NSA vacuuming up records on every phone call made in the U.S. than I am by the PRISM program for collecting internet data. There is still much we don’t know, and probably never will know, about PRISM, but it sounds mainly like a streamlined system for NSA to retrieve targeted information, officially only on ”non-U.S. persons,” from internet companies.

On the other hand, the collection of phone data gives the government a shockingly complete record of our lives. In many ways, this so-called metadata is more useful than the content of the calls themselves because the data can be parsed by computer. Courts have long imposed a much weaker standard for the collection of call data, which requires only a subpoena, than for content, which requires probably cause and a wiretap warrant. But those rules were written before computers made the analysis of data far more powerful and potentially far more destructive of privacy.

At the CFP conference, NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake has a friendly audience for his attacks on NSA suspicionless surveillance. His bitterness at the agency is understandable, since it hounded and (unsuccessfully) prosecuted him for revealing financial mismanagement more than any intelligence secrets. But he went over the line when he compared the NSA to the Stasi, the East German secret police that set the Warsaw Pact standard for spying on its own citizens.

But the Stasi destroyed lives by the thousands for sins, real or imagined, turned up by its snooping. So far, there is no evidence NSA’s collection of information has been abused, again accounting for the lack of any real public outrage. But it is sitting there on the NSA’s computers and that is dangerous, given our own history of abuse. Maybe this information has been useful for disrupting some terror plots, but we need a discussion of whether it was worth the price–a discussion in which the government has been unwilling to engage.

Why the Microsoft/Best Buy Relationship is a Big Deal

Since Apple introduced their retail stores, Microsoft has been amazed at the success of the Apple’s stores and watched somewhat in horror as people flooded Apple’s retail establishments while stores like Best Buy and others that carry PCs languished by comparison. Microsoft also went to school on Apple’s stores and realized that creating a store dedicated to the sales and support of a product is becoming more important today as more and more digital gadgets come out and consumers need some hand holding in the purchasing and support department.

Microsoft has literally copied Apple’s store idea and over the last two years have started to open stores of their own, often times in eye-shot of Apple’s stores in some of the bigger malls. However, opening stores, paying for the retail space and populating them with sales people is a very costly effort. Even if they had wanted to scale up to meet their needs, it would take time. This is something that Microsoft does not have a lot of these days as their PC world is starting to decline in lieu of people buying alternative devices that use iOS and Android instead of Windows.

Microsoft decided to work with Best Buy to create what many saw as a store-within-a-store section inside Best Buy similar to the ones that Best Buy already has with Samsung and Apple. While Apple’s presence in Best Buy stores is more like a dedicated section, the Samsung store is literally an actual store-within-a-store like program that is even staffed by Samsung employees who service customers in their concierge area which is kind of like an Apple Genius Bar.

Given this frame of reference, most people who saw the announcement about this Microsoft and Best Buy relationship figured that it was a deal similar to the one Samsung had with them. And given the fact that Microsoft wanted to replicate their own stores quickly, it makes sense that they could use Best Buy to make this happen faster.

But the deal is much more than this. The truth is that Microsoft will now actually take over the PC departments of 500 Best Buy stores in the US and 100 in Canada and actually run them. They will decide what products are carried, how they are sold and serviced and be able to even limit what the competition can carry in this PC section. Best Buy will still keep the Samsung and Apple sections separate, but any PC or tablet apparently now will come under the scrutiny and discretion of Microsoft as to its placement within the PC section of Best Buy that Microsoft will now run.

This is a big deal. On the surface, it looks like a good deal for Microsoft since it does give them total control of their Windows franchise within Best Buy. But imagine if you are one of the OEMs. You now have to negotiate floor space with Microsoft, who by nature has to support all vendors who use Windows OS in their products. This begs the question then of how Microsoft handles this. Do they give preference to the big players and totally shut out smaller players who have bet their future on Microsoft products? How do they sell one vendors product over the other if they want all of their partners to be successful? While this is a big deal, it also has the potential of being a disaster if Microsoft cannot balance their partner’s demands with the reality of a finite floor space for Windows products.

So, why would Best Buy be willing to give up control of their PC department to Microsoft? As you know, Best Buy has been struggling of late and with the decline in the PC demand and shrinking margins, this part of their business was really hurting. In fact, there have been a lot of rumors that Best Buy would have to close even more stores if their overall store sales continued to decline.

This is speculation on my part but I suspect that this move by Microsoft can be likened to the investment Microsoft made in Apple when Steve Jobs came back in 1997. You may remember that Microsoft gave Apple $400 million, which included some cross licensing deals as well as stock. At the time, Apple was weeks away from declaring bankruptcy and this cash infusion from Microsoft literally saved Apple from this fate and bought time for Steve to turn the company around. This was actually a cheap cost for them since they needed Apple in the PC business to keep the Justice Department off of their back given the monopolistic problems they were already having with the US govt at that time.

Best Buy moves a lot of PCs for Microsoft, even if their own profit in PCs continued to decline. If Best Buy continued to close stores and even potentially go out of business it would have a huge impact on sales of Windows PCs and Microsoft could not let that happen. In a sense, this most likely buys Best Buy time to concentrate on improving sales of their other products, things like TV’s, refrigerators, etc that in most cases still have healthy margins and lets Microsoft deal with a business inside Best Buy that is set to decline every year going forward. I don’t know the fine details of this deal but it probably guarantees them a minimum in PC and related sales that at the very least keep each PC department even regardless of PC sales, something that really would really impact each stores financials.

This relationship needs to be watched very closely as it could be a make or break deal for Best Buy and if Microsoft fails in their stewardship of the PC department of Best Buy, it could have serious ramifications for the PC industry in the US going forward.

On Being Bullish on Apple

I was recently presenting some of our big picture technology trends to a group of venture capitalists. As is so often in these discussions Apple came up. They were asking me questions about the landscape and where Apple fit, and how they can compete, can they keep it up, etc., and after several remarked they were suprised how bullish I was on Apple. I shouldn’t find it suprising but I am continually inrigued when others are suprised I am so bullish on Apple.

To clarify, I am bullish on Apple the company. Apple the stock, is a very different conversation and one where the future is more hazy than clear. With regards to Apple the company I am extremely confident in the health of the company and I have written extensively so. However, with Apple the stock, I really have no idea what happens. Much of this has to do with the fact that I am not a financial analyst so understanding the games in which the stock market is played is not more core area of expertise. I, of course, have my thoeries as to why Apple’s stock is treated as it is, and I will flesh more of those out over time. But the core of the issue is that Wall St. uses a standard template to anlayze Apple when it there is nothing standard about how Apple operates. Perhaps more to the point, it appears Wall St. devalues Apple’s stock because of the competitive landscape the standard template they use influences their thinking. Google and Amazon can only have the ridiculous P/E ratios they have because Wall St. seems to view them as having no real competition.

We will continue to see over time things that Apple is able to do that competitors simply can not. This is what I call the vertical advantage. When you can build hardware, software, and integrate services all tightly together with a singular vision and customer experience in mind, you end up with a highl differentiated product. One that is differentiated both objectively and experientially. I’m yet to be proven wrong in this point by a non-vertical company who uses someone elses software to run on their hardware.

I’ll put out a teaser for our Insiders. I am planning a series for Insiders only, where I plan to make the case that Apple has no actual competition. In that, I will hopefully make some points that can end up being used as a new template to evaluate Apple. I know it sounds ambitious, but I believe it to be true and more importantly I feel I have enough data and support to make the case.

How Windows 8 Is Truly Broken

Regular Tech.pinions readers know that I am not a fan of Windows 8. But an experience today brought home just how truly broken the two-operating-systems-in-one-package really is.

I have been setting up a Lenovo ThinkPad Helix–one of the new breed of convertible tablet/laptops–for evaluation. I always try to do real work on eval systems and a project I am helping with requires forms to be filled out in Adobe Acrobat Reader. So I installed Acrobat, no problem (except for Adobe sneaking in Google Chrome and the Google Toolbar in the same installation.

Installing Acrobat changed the default program for handling PDF files from Microsoft’s Reader, a Metro program, to the Desktop Acrobat. And Windows 8 file assignments are global; there is no way to specify one program for use in Metro and another for Desktop.

So once Acrobat was installed, opening up a PDF web page or mail attachment in Metro dumped me into Desktop to use Acrobat. I could manually change the assignment of PDF files back to Reader, but then opening a PDF file on the Desktop switched me to Metro. For a saved PDF file, there’s the clumsy option of windows’ Open With command.

Microsoft has turned one of the simplest and most natural of operations into a thoroughly annoying pain in the ass. And dozens of other file types, particularly audio, video, and photos, cause similar programs. One way or another, accessing them forces jumps between Desktop and Metro.

The solution to this boneheaded problem is obvious: Allow a separate file association for each mode, and ship the OS with appropriate defaults so that content opens in the right program for each mode. It’s possible that the problem will be fixed in Windows 8.1 when the preview release comes out next week. But commenters in the official Windows blog have been asking for change and Microsoft has not responded, so I’m not hopeful.

One of the many disturbing things about Windows 8 is the sense that Microsoft has stopped listening to its customers. They didn’t listen during the beta test and they haven’t listening in the nearly eight months that the software has been languishing in the marketplace.

It’s possible that the two-headed nature of Windows 8 is so conceptually flawed that it cannot be fixed. We’ll see shortly how serious Microsoft is about trying.

In The Bizarro World In Which We Live, It’s Microsoft That Complains About Monopolies

Apple Inc. won a $30-million contract Tuesday from the Los Angeles Unified School District, paving the way for the company to provide every student with an iPad in the nation’s second-largest school system. ~ Los Angeles Times

Microsoft, unsurprisingly, objected to the purchase. But what was surprising was the rationale Microsoft used to support their position:

A Microsoft representative urged the board to try more than one product and not to rely on one platform. Doing so could cut off the district from future price reductions and innovations, said Robyn Hines, senior director of state government affairs for Microsoft.

But district staff countered that Apple offered the superior product.

Wow. Payback is a witch.

Microsoft Has Windows 8 Exactly Backwards

I understand (that Windows 8 is) the same experience across phone, tablet, and desktop…but it’s not the same software, it’s not the same operating system, and it’s not the same apps. ~ Leo Laporte, Windows Weekly Podcast 316

This is a great synopsis of everything that is wrong with Windows 8.

— Apple contends that you should use the right tool for the job at hand.
— Microsoft contends that Windows 8 is the right tool for every job.

— Apple makes the operating system fit the device.
— Microsoft pretends that the Windows 8 operating system – even though it’s really three operating systems – fits every device.

— As much as possible, Apple integrates the user interface across its desktop operating system (OS X) and its phone and tablet operating system (iOS) but it doesn’t pretend that the operating systems are one and the same.

— As much as possible, Microsoft disguises the fact that you are using three separate operating systems on the phone, tablet and desktop, concealing them all behind the facade of a single user interface.

— Apple’s iOS and OS X are two very different operating systems, proudly performing two very different functions.
— Windows 8 is three very different operating systems, slyly pretending that they can serve all functions.

— Apple’s iOS and OS X are playing to their strengths.
— Windows 8 is pretending that it doesn’t have any weaknesses.

— Microsoft’s goal is to have a consistant user interface.
— Apple’s goal is to have a consistent user experience.

And therein lies all the difference.

Google, Motorola, and the Future of Android

To hear both Sundar Pinchai, head of Android and Chrome at Google, and Dennis Woodside, CEO of Motorola Mobility, tell it, Motorola is just another Android OEM despite being a wholly owned Google subsidiary. This may be technically true at the moment, but it cannot be true for the long run. And just what Google does with Motorola has huge implications for the future of Android.

Business realities alone say the current arrangement cannot last. Motorola is a hole of at least $10 billion (purchase price plus cumulative losses, less the gain from the sale of the set top box business) in Google’s balance sheet. Although there was speculation at the time of the acquisition that Google was really after Moto’s patents, the standards-essential patents ase subject to fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory licensing worth much less than many believed. Sooner or later, Moto has to start paying its way.

Woodside himself suggested, perhaps without intending to, that the relationship has to change during an appearance at the D11 conference a couple of weeks ago. Competitors, he noted, are earning 50% margins on smartphones. ((Of course, the only profitable competitors are Apple and Samsung.)) “We don’t necessarily have the same constraints,” he said. “One of the areas that is open for Motorola is building high-quality low-cost devices. The price of a feature phone now is about $30 0n a worldwide basis. The price of a smartphone is about $650. That’s not going to persist.”

The difficulty is that Apple and Samsung, by virtue of their enormous volumes and tightly controlled supply chains, are already the low-cost producers. Motorola is not going to beat them on the cost side. So to underprice them, as Woodside is threatening to do, will require sacrificing gross margins, perhaps selling phones at a unit loss. For a business unit already losing money by the bucket, that would seem to be a suicidal course.

Unless, of course, someone is prepared to subsidize this raid on the business models of Apple and Samsung. And that someone would have to be Google, which certainly has the deep pockets needed for this fight. Taking on Apple, while difficult, doesn’t pose huge problems for Google. Over the past few years, the relationship of the companies has deteriorated from best buddies to frenemies to all-out competitors.

Samsung is a very different matter. The Korean giant is second only to Google itself in importance in the Android ecosystem. It is by far the largest seller of Android handsets, from the iPhone-challenging Galaxy S 4 to low-cost units for emerging markets. And it has to be watching the Google-Motorola relationship with an extremely wary eye.

For now, Google and Samsung are co-dependent. That fact is what lies behind Google’s much trumpeted arms-length relationship with Motorola. But the relationship will be severely tested if Motorola goes at the heart of Samsung’s Android business model. (Microsoft’s OEM partners were very unhappy when it went into hardware competition with the surface and surface Pro, but at least it did not try to undercut their pricing. And, for better or worse, poor Surface sales have largely spared it fallout from entering the competition.)

Samsung has options if it comes to view Google as a competitor in a way that makes the current Android arrangements untenable. It could fork Android, going forward with its own flavor of the operating system and its own services, home-grown or developed in partnership with other players, in place of Google’s. It could accelerate the development of Tizen, the Linux-based mobile operating system it has sponsored along with Intel. Or, far less likely, it could move to Windows Phone (unlikely, I believe, because while this might be the easiest course to execute, the fact that it is trading one gorilla dance partner for another will make it unattractive.)

The defection of Samsung from Android would put tremendous strain on Samsung, Google, and the Android world. Software has never been Samsung’s long suit. It can afford to buy a lot of talent, but changing a hardware company’s culture to support the software effort required is very difficult. Android would become largely a Google/Motorola business. The viability of all the profitless Android phone makers is dubious, let along their ability to provide leadership.

If all these hypothetical strategies succeed, we could see a very different phone market: Apple would continue to be Apple, mostly riding above the fray. Samsung would be slugging it out with Googlerola. And Microsoft and BlackBerry would be trying to squeeze out some gains from the confusion.

WWDC Nuggets and Observations

The True Post-Steve Era

Even though Steve Jobs direct influence has been absent at Apple for a few years, his signature on specific things was still there. Apple does not plan products in one or even two year cycles but rather plans much farther out. Much of what we have seen over the past few years, Steve would have had at least some insight and influence on. However, I think what we are now seeing are specific things coming from Apple in which Steve has no influence on. Basically we are seeing direction and decisions made by the leadership in a true post Steve Jobs era.

I’ll be honest, even though I believe the culture of Apple to be sound and to be a culture unique with innovation and vision, I still was curious to see key decisions that would be make without past guidance from Steve. The question I get most often from the financial community is whether I believe Apple can truly innovate with Steve’s vision not present. I, of course, have always believed this but I think now we see the evidence as well that the answer is yes.

Whatever the tech media community bubble thinks or opines about iOS 7, I am confident the mass market, the market Apple really cares about, is going to love it. This is a huge step forward for the platform and one that I believe is a new solid foundation to build upon. This is a positive sign for those of us observing Apple in the the post Steve Era.

Game Controllers

Initially, the point of support for third-party game controllers didn’t get much press. Now, more articles are coming to light looking at the importance of this move. This is a big step but Apple is not ready to take on the console business yet and here is why.

Even though I think Apple believes that the gaming angle can be a trojan horse to the living room, and it can at least until an Apple TV SDK comes out, there are two things missing in Apple’s gaming ecosystem that need to get solved if they want a true console experience.

The first is better multi-player. The XBOX 360 just hit its 29th month as the number one selling game console. The primary reason for this is the network effect accumulated by XBOX for its LIVE service for multi-player online gaming. People simply want to get together with a large number of friends and go play online together. Game Center does not support this use case yet, and if a console mentality is to be pushed true multi-player and even massive multiplayer needs to integrated into Apple’s gaming ecosystem.

The other is a technical issue. Connect third party controllers to an iPhone or iPad, and connect to the TV through AirPlay, and you have a close to console experience. Except for the latency of WiFi. I’ve tested this in a number of environments and my conclusion is that WiFi is not the solution for latency free AirPlay mirroring of a game to the TV. Now this may not be a huge deal when playing Angry Birds. But if I am to go play Modern Warfare with friends in a competitive environment, it is a huge deal.

Only one solution has crossed my path that I believe solves this and that is the 60 ghz solution. A number of companies are offering 60 ghz chipsets that are built specifically for solving bringing gaming from smartphones and tablets to the TV. 60 ghz is a shorter range spectrum than WiFi and best in a line-of-sight environment but it solves the problem of managing a real-time gaming solution over WiFi.

On this point, I am a proponent of separating our rich media networks from our data networks and a technology like 60 ghz is easy to implement and brings with it a quality of service for rich media applications.

Intel and Haswell

The close collaboration between Intel and Apple with respect to Intel’s 4th generation core, named Haswell, is very interesting. If you recall the first MacBook Air was released with some special collaboration between Intel and Apple and led to the design of the first MacBook Air to be possible.

This collaboration effort is yielding best of breed battery life and it is more than just slightly significant. If there was any doubt that Apple was committed to Intel in their Mac line, that doubt is now cast aside. While I don’t see Apple switching their iPhones or iPads to Intel architecture any time soon, the tight integration of their chips into Mac products will allow Apple to do things other competitors simply can not.

A Line In the Sand

Lastly, this WWDC was a statement show for Apple. They are they looking to present the image of the company in a new light. This is evidenced the videos they showed during the keynote. But more importantly they drew a line in the sand and re-enforced their commitment to innovate uniquely and differently for both their Mac line and their iOS line of products.

This was made clear with the desktop and notebook specific features that were added to Mac OS X Mavericks. Many things that cater to power users. It is clear that Apple is not trying to “dumb down” OS X and try to make it more like iOS. If anything, Apple is tightly integrating services across the platforms but not looking to merge them. Apple is clearly taking a different path from Microsoft with regards to the operating system and that is now as clear as ever.

When it comes to PCs Apple is headed down a different path than the PC makers who have to run Windows. Apple’s vertical model allows them to do things competitors can’t. I am confident that over time these differences will become more evident and help Apple stand out from the pack even more than they do know.

Is Apple Making A Play For the PC Market Too?

Everyone knows that Google’s Android operating system dominates phone market share, Apple’s iOS operating system dominates tablet market share (for now) and Microsoft’s Windows dominates PC market share. While Windows is shrinking in overall market share – if you combine phones, tablets and notebooks/desktops together (and you should) – it has, until now, been a given that Windows will continue to dominate the massive, but shrinking, PC marketplace.

But is that true?

— The MacBook Air used to be a high-priced luxury product for Apple. Now it is their lowest priced, base model. For a thousand dollars, you get one of the lightest, fastest, most powerful notebooks on the market.

— Windows owns the low-end of the market, but the low end is being swallowed whole by tablets. When faced with a choice between a bottom-of-the-line $350 HP or Dell notebook and a top-of-the-line $350 iPad Mini, many consumers are opting for the latter.

Apple has captured 90 percent of the PC market for machines over $1000 since 2009. And given the rapid collapse of the PC market (at the hands of Apple’s iPad and smartphones), that’s a pretty sweet segment of the market to own. ~ AppleInsider

Microsoft has virtually no presence in either the phone or tablet markets. But they also have virtually no presence in the high end of the PC market either. And that’s the only end of the market making money and, in the long-run, it may be the only end of the market that survives the invasion of phones and tablets, too.

Thoughts?

Source for Graphic: NPD Group

Siri’s Bing Moment

There were many interesting nuggets that came out of WWDC 2013. For our insiders, I plan to share the few that I don’t think are getting enough attention but yet are more significant than I believe people realize. But perhaps the most awkward part of the keynote was when Apple announced that the new and updated version of Siri will run on Microsoft’s Bing search engine.

This move is clearly one that is up for interpretation. I’m sure many will speculate that this move is nothing more than Apple doing what they can to eliminate any dependencies for Google on core services. Or that Apple does not want to give Google any more valuable data than they already have.

We have opined and written much on our thoughts that Apple clearly wants to usurp the search experience from Google. Siri is a way that this is happening as it functions as an interface layer, which Apple controls, for a search paradigm. Realistically, for a Siri user, it is irrelevant which search engine it uses so long as the data is accurate.

So I decided to put Bing to the test. Microsoft has a challenge called Bing It On in which they challenge you to submit five search queries then vote on a side-by-screen results screen on which you thought was most relevant to you. You don’t know which engine you are choosing, you simply pick the side that you think presented the best results. So I decided to try this as an experiment.

Here are the search queries I used.

– How to identify a queen bee cell
– How to play bluegrass guitar
– Schedule for Wimbledon 2013
– Omelet recipe ideas
– Grammar resources

The way in which I decided which side-by-side screen shot won was by how close to the top the most relevant answer was to the reason behind my search. Interestingly Bing won 4 out of 5 times. The only query Google won was the Wimbledon schedule.

I was actually surprised at this and it has inspired me to try and change my default search engine from all my devices from Google to Bing as a longer term experiment.

As I pointed out before, Siri running Bing may be up for interpretation in terms of Apple’s intentions. However, what matters is that the results are relevant and actionable.

The last thing I want to point out, and I plan to flesh this out more in the future, is that I will not be surprised if we see Apple and Microsoft become closer partners on things in the future. It appears they both now believe they have a common enemy in Google. ((I’m not sure Apple believed this until the last few years)) What’s more, is that in my opinion Google’s enemy is not Apple but it is Microsoft. I firmly believe that Google prefers Apple in the world but wants to eliminate Microsoft from the face of the planet.

Microsoft knows this and I believe will find ways to strategically partner with Apple in this fight. One could be brining Office to iPad only and never to Android. Bing is just the first of many strategic moves I think Apple and Microsoft will take to make sure the Google dictatorship does not rule the world.

The Second Most Important Failed OS

There’s little doubt that NeXTSTEP was the most important failed operating system. Though it went down with the overpriced and underpowered NeXT computer, it evolved into Mac OS X when NeXT was acquired by Apple and NeXTSTEP architect Avie Tevanian went there with Steve Jobs.

But honors for second place should go to WebOS, the operating system developed for the Palm Pre. Struggling Palm never had the resources to develop WebOS to its potential. Acquirer Hewlett-Packard had big ambitions, but corporate turmoil caused abandonment of the project before it got off the ground.

But while WebOS may be dead (LG now owns whatever is left of it), it influence lives on. iOS 7, announced by Apple today, shows more than a few traces of WebOS, especially in the user interface for multitasking apps, where a user can scroll through cards representing running apps and flick away cards to kill apps that aren’t needed. Google Now, which uses somewhat similar gestures to look through and dismiss notifications also shows lingering WebOS influence.

Software comes and software goes, but good ideas have a way of living on.

My Windows 8 Wishlist

In a couple of weeks, Microsoft is expected to release a preview version of Windows 8.1. Preliminary indications are that ti will be a relatively modest overhaul of the radically new Windows 8 user interface. My suspicion is that it will prove tings, but not enough to solve the serious usability issues of the UI–or the be both more precise and put my finger on the problem–Windows 8’s two disparate UIs. Here’s what I hope Microsoft will do with the final version of 8.1. (As usual, I will refer to the two UIs as Metro and Desktop.)

Fix Metro control panels. The original version of Windows 8 requires going to Desktop for all but the most rudimentary system functions. What Microsoft has shown of 8.1 suggests considerable improvement in the number of settings you can modify without leaving Metro, but still not nearly enough. I would like to see a Metro version of any control panel required for normal user operation of a PC (I’d exempt a few of the more advanced and arcane ones, such as the Services panel.) If you are working in touch, you should be able to do everything important in touch, and Desktop control panels don’t allow that.

Persistent charms. If you can make the taskbar persistent in Desktop, why not the charms bar in both Metro and Desktop. The charms don’t take very much real estate. Why not give users the option of access without that awkward swipe-from-the-side gesture?

Universal app search in Desktop. If start typing on the Metro Start page, you automatically begin a search for apps. Typing in any empty area of the Desktop should have the same effect. This, by itself, should eliminate most of the pining for the legacy Start button. (Contrary to many reports, the current version of 8.1 does not bring back the Start button. It just provides easy access to the Metro Start page.)

Unify Internet Explorer. Windows 8 includes two browsers. They are both called IE 10, but are in fact completely separate, with independent bookmarks, histories, and preferences. It is necessary to have two different browser front ends to match the two UIs, but they should share their data. At the same time, your choice of a default browser in Desktop should not affect the behavior of the Metro browser.

Let Desktop be Desktop Default file associations cause some very odd behavior in Desktop. Double click on a photo in Desktop, for example, and it opens in the Metro Photos app. This leads to the jumping-between-UIs behavior in Windows 8 that drives many users, myself included, nuts. There’s a common thread to most of these suggestions. From a user interface point of view, Windows 8 is two operating systems bolted together. That is baked into the architecture of the system and is not going to change. But it should be possible to pick one or the other, for the current session or forever, and stay in it.

Desktop is a fine, time-tested UI for large displays, keyboards, and mice. Metro is a good touch interface for smaller displays. But with Windows 8 today, and with what appears to be only modest improvement in 8.1, it is impossible for users to live in one or the other. And I believe that, no such relatively minor quibbles as the loss of the Start button lie at the heart of the cool user response to the OS.

Apple’s Next Technology Move to Drive Industry Direction

I have been told that I am the analyst with the longest history of professionally covering Apple. I think this is a polite way of saying that I am old. I started covering Apple in 1979 and began covering them professionally as Creative Strategies’ first PC analyst in 1981. Interestingly, when the PC industry kicked in with the introduction of the IBM PC in 1981, there were no PC analysts. The four of us, which included someone from IDC, Dataquest and Forester were actually drafted or forced to cover PC’s along with our current job of researching the role and impact of mini-computers for our respective companies.

From this position I have been able to watch the PC industry grow from the inside and got to deal with all of the major PC executives in person from the beginning. All this to say that over these 32 years I have developed a pretty broad understanding about what makes the tech market tick and the leaders and technologies that have driven the tech industry to what it is today.

Although Microsoft, Lotus, Software Publishing, IBM, Compaq and Dell along with many other software and hardware companies lead much of the PC’s direction over these 32 years, there is one company that actually had perhaps the greatest influence on the direction of the PC industry and tech market that exists today.

A Look Back

Apple was the first to introduce a commercial PC with the Apple I and II but it ultimately influenced IBM to get into the market. In 1984, Apple introduced the Mac with its graphical user interface, which of course drove Microsoft to follow suit with their eventual Windows OS. But with the Mac they also introduced another key technology that the industry adopted rather quickly. When PC’s came out, they had a 5 and 1/4 inch floppy disc for storage. Apple bucked this trend and put a 3 and ½ disk reader in the Mac and within two years, all PC’s adopted 3 and ½-inch floppy drives.

While still at Apple, Steve Jobs became very interested in laser printers and private labeled the first desktop laser printer from Canon. After he departed in 1985, Apple execs, lead by John Scully, married a piece of software from Aldus called Pagemaker to the Mac and along with Apple’s laser printer birthed desktop publishing. Within three years, the IBM PC compatibles had a similar solution and became a big part of the desktop publishing revolution.

Around 1989, Scully got really interested in the impact of desktop publishing on storage and took the bold move of introducing CD ROM drives in the Mac. While its initial impact was to give desktop publishing content, which included text, images, and even some video, a larger storage medium for DTP distribution, this move also birthed what was known as the multimedia PC. Apple owned the desktop multimedia PC for about 2 years but by 1991 most PC’s were also being shipped with CD Rom drives in them.

In 1998, after Jobs returned to helm Apple he turned his eye on industrial design and created the first popular all-in-one desktops PC’s with his candy colored iMacs.
By 2001, All-In Ones that were IBM PC compatible started coming out and are still a key part of desktop PC sales today.

While he did not invent the MP3 player, he reinvented it with the iPod. He did not invent the smartphone, but reinvented it with the iPhone. And he did invent the tablet; he reinvented it with the iPad. In all three of these cases Apple has taken a leadership position and drove their competitors and the industry forward in leaps and bounds.

Where to Go From Here

So, what is the next big technology that Apple will make popular that the entire industry will need to follow to be competitive? About 4 years ago I was asked to go and meet with the senior execs of an east bay company that very few people had heard of. I was only aware of them because when IBM still owned the PC division, they had looked closely at this company and in my work with IBM and eventually Lenovo who bought the PC division from IBM, I had to work with this technology as part of my role in testing products for them.

The company was AuthenTec Inc. They were a hardware security firm whose crown jewels was a fingerprint reader that many PC companies had embedded into laptops to provide an additional layer of security by means of fingerprint identification. Late last year, Apple bought AuthenTec for $356 million dollars and has brought them in house to work on various ID authentication projects in the works.

While I suppose Apple could include their fingerprint reader in new Mac laptops, I believe their real goal is to bring second and possibly even third levels of ID authentication to the iPhone and iPad. While laptops can be left behind, iPhones and iPads are even easier to lose and misplace and securing these more mobile devices is becoming paramount in the eyes of Apple’s iPhone and iPad customers.

However, trying to put a fingerprint reader on small mobile devices is difficult to do in a way that it is easy to use and foolproof. Apple has only owned the company for 10 months or so but I am convinced they are working overtime to try and get this technology into the next version of the iPhone. The most logical way to do this is to put the fingerprint reader in the “on” button on the bottom that when touched with the proper finger allows you to securely open the scroll bar. But since people also hold the iPhone in one hand and at least one or two fingers touch the back of the screen to hold it, it is plausible that the fingerprint reader can be on the back.

I have no doubt that when Apple eventually introduces their much rumored TV or even an iWatch, these moves could drive the industry in new directions. But as in the past when Apple introduced key technologies in their products and the industry followed, my bet is that the integration of a fingerprint reader in the iPhone and iPad, will actually have the greatest impact on the future designs of all smartphones and tablets in the future.

Why is Apple So Polarizing

One of the things I am excited to do with our Tech.pinions Insider content, is dive into subjects that may be more controversial than things we want floating around in the public sphere. So that is what I hope to do with this topic and the question at large in which I raise.

A balanced opinion of anything these days is generally hard to find. So many topics are extremely polarizing, for lack of a better word. Politics are perhaps one of the most universally polarizing topics for the general public. However in tech circles few topics are more currently polarizing than Apple. I recently lobbed the question of why Apple is so polarizing on a new discussion platform called Branch. Thanks for the many who added to the thread with many smart comments as they further helped me flesh out my thoughts on the subject.

We have to acknowledge that the general public does not seem to fall into the crowd with highly polarized opinions of Apple the company and its products. Rather it is centered more around the tech elite (early adopters) and many mainstream technology media and pundits. I see this on a daily basis as I write quite a bit about Apple for Tech.pinions and for TIME. The comments I get from the anti-Apple crowd are simply astonishing. I also follow a great many of pro and anti-Apple folks on Twitter. You can tell who these people are because they either regularly write or tweet extremely negative, Apple is doomed, hooray their reign is over articles, or they write or tweet extremely positive articles point out why Apple is not doomed and their reign is not over. It seems that generally speaking there is very little grey area around the topic of Apple in these circles.

In either case I am fascinated by how this came to be and why it still exists today. I have several theories to share. 

Loyalty to my Tribe

There is simply no question humans routinely exhibit tribal behavior. There are elements of this mentality in the polarization of politics but there is no better example than in sports. Extreme loyalty for ones sports team and utter disdain for rival teams is prevalent in many sports fans. Some of this can be engrained by upbringing but it is also learned by time spent in the tribe. I have seen first hand the evolution of fans of local sports who start as a casual fan then evolve into a fanatic. It seems as though it is tradition as a part of that tribe to largely hate for no good reason rival tribes.

This tribal behavior is what I am certain is at the root of most polarizing issues and in particular the on about Apple. But a deeper issue still exists. Why do we end up in certain tribes.

Personal Preference

This is where personal preference comes into play. Those who are the most vocal and either attack or defend (or both) the decisions of others, are doing so because of the highly specific personal reasons they choose one product or another. Mature consumers know what they want and why they want it. Often when you come to make a purchase with such a level of personal preference as something like a personal computer, you don’t make the decision lightly. Each platform whether it be Windows, Android, or Apple’s, appeal to different audiences for very different reasons; all of them extremely personal in nature. When we make decisions at such a deeply personal level we often believe those decisions to be superior to the decisions of others. 

This is why we see such heated debate, in my opinion, by the most fervent of consumers. If you followed or chimed in on many of the comments on John Kirks recent series you noted some of this, largely from the Android camp. I’ve seen this as well from the Apple camp but you, our regular readers and commenters, are much more balanced and sane no matter which camp you are in. However, I notice that those most passionate work very hard to justify their decisions and rationalize that others should be making the same decisions as them. Again, I am generalizing, but I think it is a worth while point in the discussion.

A while ago I opened up this topic as a branch. I’ll share a few summaries of key points that folks chimed in on below.

From Jan Dawson:

It taps into lots of larger themes – elitism, gargantuan profits, the power of brand, marketing, design, style etc. vs. substance, closed vs. open. So much of what’s ostensibly about Apple specifically is really about these larger themes and people’s strong feelings about which side of each of those tensions is right. And once you have strong feelings on both side, that just escalates beyond all reason and it’s no longer a rational argument (see also American politics).

From Shawn King:

A certain portion, the majority, of Apple’s customers just used the machines. But a vocal minority felt the need to stand up and defend their platform. Thus began the PC vs Mac Wars. It was the form of that defense – strident, unyielding, dickish at times, that helped to cause the polarization.

The internet “helped” and exacerbated the polarization.

From Walt French:

Apple has always been on a gee-whiz crusade and of course, the infidels hate that. Since 1984, the infidels have been the entire IT establishment, a confederation that needed and still needs benefits of network effects under Microsoft’s hegemony. So each $1 of Apple’s successes might threaten $2 of Establishment. Lots at stake.

From Ryan Buckwalter:

It’s all because of attitude; the attitude of the company, their leaders, their PR, and their overzealous fans. Any Apple product is generally a fine product, usually with good parts in a fairly well design package, but the attitude is that these products some how magically transcend their parts into being something far more, something without flaw and beyond the reach of any other product; thus worth the high asking price. These Apple products aren’t shown “as they are” but instead in a form of “perfection” and “simplicity” as if they really were made of “magic”. This would be great and all… if it were true, but it’s not. Apple products are often flawed, poorly designed, etc. The attitude is to ignore those flaws as they never existed.

Lastly, here is a link to Marco Arment’s post on the subject.

I’d love to open this up to a discussion with our members. So feel free to add and chime in.

TV and Killer Apps

The Financial Times recently released a special report titled “Digital and Social Media Marketing.” The folks at Social Commerce summarized the lengthy release and drew out several bullet points I find especially interesting regarding the state of television:

The average American still spends about five hours a day glued to TV; the smart money in digital is being invested in making TV advertising better
TV is not dead, it is just evolving into a two screen experience, the TV display and a tablet or smartphone. “Lean-back” TV experiences, passively consumed from the comfort of the couch, are giving way to “lean-in” TV experiences, where viewers multitask viewing and interacting on smartphones and tablets
A survey by Time Warner’s Medialab found that 65 per cent habitually multitask with a digital device while watching TV. Much of this activity is in social media discussions of TV shows (tripled in the last 12 months), stimulated by TV networks to sell TV advertising space by showing their content is more engaging

This report only confirms what I had previously suspected: multitasking is now widespread. I used to think only younger demographics multitasked but it seems that these days people of all ages use tablets or smartphones while doing other tasks. It’s done by business execs but also by those in the home. People use their smartphones or tablets while talking on the phone and while watching TV.

Since the late 1990s I have used a laptop while sitting in front of the TV. I now often use a tablet, but until the devices came out, I was the only one in my house who took advantage of a second screen. Now my wife and the grandkids play games or surf the Web on their tablets while watching TV. In a sense this qualifies as part of the two-screen living room experience but I believe this model has enormous potential when the device is intrinsically tied to TV viewing itself.

There are currently a lot of apps designed to enhance the TV viewing experience. I have Comcast’s XFINITY TV app, which lets me record programs remotely; the IMDB app, which gives me info on movies, TV shows, actors, and entertainers; the TV Guide app; and more. All better my TV experience but I believe that this is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the future of two screens in the living room.

When the Apple II came out in 1978, Visicalc, the first PC spreadsheet, was developed for it. It became the killer app that moved the machine from hobbyist stature to the business world and it quickly became a tool that even large businesses started using to manage their financial forecasting. When the IBM PC came out, a product called Lotus 1-2-3 became its killer app that caused the IBM to take off like wildfire in a short time. The key for both of these products’ growth was what the industry calls an SDK, or a software developer kit, which provides tools for developers to write applications for the machines. In fact, tens of thousands of apps fueled the growth of the IBM PC and PC clones as well as the Mac and to this day remain an important part of their software ecosystems.

Various companies have been creating smart TVs, Web browsers, and their own apps but what is missing is a dedicated SDK that can work on one or multiple PC platforms and encourage the development of apps for the TV. More importantly, this SDK focus should be more on the tablet or the smartphone and how they connect to the TV to deliver a richer viewing experience. I think we will soon see a model in which the TV is just a smart screen with apps designed to work with it via tablet, smartphones, and perhaps PCs or laptops.
There has been a lot of talk about an Apple TV and I actually have a bet with my son on this. I think it will make a physical TV as well as a new souped up set-top box that gives all digital TVs access to its program. My son, on the other hand, believes the real magic will be with the SDK and a new Apple TV box. He says it doesn’t make sense for Apple to make an actual TV at this time. However, we both believe that the Apple TV focus will be on the iPhone and iPad; the TV will be more of a screen that is tied to and interacts with an ecosystem. It could ultimately change the way we view television and, in true Apple fashion, redefine the second-screen concept.

Just look at what Google is doing with Google TV. It too has a similar model in mind. Android TV apps are already popping up but the platform needs a dedicated SDK that just focuses on the TV to give developers the ability to create products that make the two-screen experience fly. Microsoft is also trying to drive a two-screen experience, albeit through the Xbox at the moment. I expect the company to flesh this out further in the near future.

It will be very interesting to watch what happens in the coming months with this two-screen concept. Google, Apple, and Microsoft all have their big software developers’ conferences within weeks (and miles) of each other. (Google I/O begins on May 15, Apple’s WWDC on June 10, and Microsoft’s Build 2013 conference on June 26.) They will all likely announce big news around their new operating systems and development tools for their core products, but I also expect that they will make clear their plans for a future TV.
The connection between smart TVs and mobile devices is still in infancy. This could be the year however, when these mobile devices take on a more interactive role within the TV viewing experience. By July we may finally get a real glimpse of what the two-screen TV future will actually look like.

Google Glass and Segway: Early Adopter Lore

In 2001, the Segway hit the market. VCs like Kleiner Perkins’ John Doerr fawned all over it pre- launch. Even Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos were enthralled when they saw it. To its inventor, Dean Kamen, it represented the next breakthrough in personal transportation. His boldest claim came when he predicted in Time magazine that the Segway “will be to the car what the car was to the horse and buggy.”

Kamen is a true renaissance man and when he speaks, it is best to listen. He has had the ear of at least two presidents and is highly respected in the medical field for his invention of the all-terrain electric wheel chair. Perhaps he is best known for inventing the insulin pump.

I had the privilege of sitting next to Kamen at an event at the San Jose Tech Museum just before the Segway came out. I was already aware of his accomplishments and I was (and still am) in awe of him. Regis McKenna, the legendary PR vet who handled PR for Apple and Steve Jobs until the mid-1990s, was also sitting with us. I clearly remember how McKenna, who is a type 1 diabetic and had used an insulin pump since it came on the market, took this opportunity to thank Kamen for creating this medical wonder and to explain how it affected his life. It was a very touching moment and, in turn, Kamen graciously thanked McKenna for his kind remarks. At that moment it really hit home that technology was not just something that I work with but rather something that has the potential of improving lives.

The Segway, however, had a lot of problems from the start. To begin, it cost more than $3,000 and had a short battery life. There was also serious pushback as local communities banned it on sidewalks, malls, some streets. Many people were not pleased to share the roads and aisles with Segway riders. In 2009, Time magazine named it one of the 10 biggest tech failures of the last decade.

Although the Segway was a bust at the consumer level, it has been embraced by vertical markets such as police departments, private security in malls and entertainment parks, and tour companies. This isn’t surprising given that most new technologies are often flushed out in vertical markets before ever getting cheap enough to find broader consumer demand (if they ever do).

Now that Google Glass has come onto the scene, I see some similarities between it and the Segway. The rhetoric, for one, is parallel. Google CEO Larry Page talks like it will be the next big thing to revolutionize the world. After spending two weeks with the glasses, noted technology blogger Robert Scoble wrote, “I will never live a day of my life from now on without it (or a competitor). It’s that significant.” My company will be getting a pair of the glasses to test in the next month and perhaps we will have the same reaction.
There’s certainly a lot of hype, but Google Glass isn’t even commercially available yet and pushback has already started. People worry about invasion of privacy and distracted drivers. It’s being barred in movie theaters, casinos, strip clubs, and bars and a recently introduced bill could ban the use of the device while driving.

I have no doubt that early adopters will shell out the $1,500 at first but some of my tech friends express concerns. How will they look in public while wearing them? Will others think they aren’t engaged in conversation, but rather searching for things? I compare it to wearing a Bluetooth headset; when speaking to a person, I take it off lest they think that I am not listening to them but instead to something coming through the headset.

Tech You Can Wear

It will be very interesting to see how the first generation of users will evaluate its worth given that only 8,000 testers will receive them. These early testers, however, should give us a good sense of whether these glasses have staying power. I suspect they might conclude that Google Glass is not really ready for consumer primetime.
Like the Segway, it will likely get the most attention from vertical markets where its real value can be exploited even at its high price, which is not aimed at consumers anyway. It must drop to around $300 before it gains any traction in the mass market. Even then, there will probably be a steep learning curve in functionality and social norms before it is accepted for everyday use.

I may be wrong about the Segway comparison since they are clearly two very different technologies. Still, I can’t help but see the likenesses between them. I fear that once the novelty wears off, unless there is a killer app, Google Glass could lose steam and potentially go the way of the Segway.
On a personal note, I strongly believe in the potential of wearable devices, regardless of the reception of Google Glass. It will go down in history as one of the products that helped define wearable computing. Wearable devices give us a digital sixth sense and we are just scratching the surface of how they can provide enhanced information that will impact all aspects of our personal and professional lives in the future.

Sorting Through a Flood of Leaks

It now appears there may have been less than met the eye to reports about the National Security Agency’s PRISM program for obtaining information on users from a variety of top internet players including Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Facebook, and Apple. Detailed stories by Claire Cain Miller in The New York Times and Declan McCullagh on Cnet describe a process by which the companies worked out an arrangement with NSA for an efficient, and secret, response to request for information.

The PRISM story, broken nearly simultaneously by Glenn Greenwald in The Guardian and Barton Gellman and Laura Poitras in The Washington Post, seemed a bit off from the beginning. It was impossible to square the stories with the fervent denials of the companies involved. It now appears that the stories, based on a deck of PowerPoint slides describing PRISM, may have overstated the cased and that the slides themselves may have exaggerated NSA’s capabilities. It wouldn’t be the first time a PowerPoint presentation stretched the truth a bit, and the slides that were published has a distinct marketing tone to them.

But there are now two big questions here. One is what is really going on with government access to internet records, phone records, and who knows what else. The other is who or what is behind a flood of leaks of classified documents. Today, for the third time in four days, Greenwald (with Ewan MacAskill) published a leaked classified document, a presidential order requesting what amount to cyber war plans. One of the toughest jobs a journalist faces is trying to figure out the motives of a leaker; if you are being used, it’s good to know for what purpose. Leaks, unless they are authorized (which is sometimes the case), entail great risk to the leaker and I believe something other than public-spiritedness is usually behind them.

If the Obama’s administration had hoped to stop leaks by coming down hard on leakers, the strategy clearly is not working. But there is a curious coincidence in the timing and content of these particular leaks. The come as Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in the U.S. for talks with President Obama about, among other things, charges of official Chinese intrusions into government and corporate computer systems in the U.S.

It’s more than a little mind-bending to figure out what to make of all of this.

The Power of The Internet In Your Pocket

Sent from my pocket computer. That is my signature for any email sent from my iPhone. When most people think of their smartphone they don’t necessarily think of it as a pocket computer. Yet that is exactly what this device is. 
In 1949 Popular Mechanics famously stated: “Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons.” What once fit in a rather large room, now fits in everyone’s pocket.

Have we yet wrestled with the implications of this reality? I don’t think so. 

1 out of 7

Today, approximately 1 out of 7 people on the planet own a smartphone. That comes out to just over a billion smartphones in use in the world. You may think 1 out of 7 sounds like a lot but in the big picture we still have a long way to go. 
Bringing a computational device in the form of a smartphone to every person on the planet is a potential reality and the promise of the future. But even more profound and perhaps even more important to future of humanity be these devices to the Internet. I would argue that the Internet is the most valuable feature of any smartphone. By bringing the Internet to every person, by way of a smartphone, will drive it to be the primary computational device for more people than any other piece of hardware. For the masses in the developing world a smartphone is not just a pocket comptuer, it may be their only computer.

Over the last decade, the Internet has already transformed the developed world in ways never imagined. It has transformed how we communicate, how we learn, how we play, how we work, and how we are entertained. All these and more will continue to undergo radical transformation. But most of the innovations we can point to are all coming from first world perspectives and solving first world problems. Often, innovation from a first world perspective is generally more about convenience. From a third world perpsective, innovation will play a key role in survival. 
When the developing countries get their hands on the profound power of the Internet in their pocket, it will not transform how they work, play, and learn, it will revolutionize it.

Knowledge is Power

There is simply nothing like the Internet. The collection of knowledge and information on the world wide web is unparalleled. Of course the web contains its share of stupidity but it also contains quite a bit of valuable knowledge which is more readily accessible today than at any point in history. 
It is fascinating to look at this by using the analogy of good old fashioned libraries. Once upon a time in history the library (a storage facility of valuable information) was reserved for kings, nobles, and high class citizens. Over time they shifted from private access to public access. The printing press drove this shift and mankind entered into an era where knowledge became accessible in ways it never had before. I believe when the masses have the Internet in their pockets, it will have as profound of an impact as the printing press–perhaps even more. 

Think about all the free knowledge we can glean from the Internet. I myself have been amazed at the things I have learned and experiences I have engaged in that came from the web alone. Things I would most likely never have ventured to try or do without the Internet at my fingertips. For example, I learned how to roof an addition on my house all to contractor code. I learned how to milk a goat, play the drums, string a tennis racket, how to tie fly fishing flies, and a plethora of other things. 
Today, pocket computers are already transforming key parts of the developing world. In some cases they are providing a new tool in the fight for survival. For others they are transforming how they do business or engage in local commerce and even banking.

Agriculture is another area the mobile web is revolutionizing rural parts of the world. It is fascinating how smartphones are being used in Africa to negotiate prices for certain crops, get seasonal growing advice, and learn how to better manage their crops and grow new ones.

The health industry is being transformed as people can get treated or diagnosed remotely where doctors are scarce via the web and a pocket computer. In some areas doctors are even remotely training and sharing information about how to fight disease and promote better health among villages. 
Remember the Arab Spring? A civil uprising by freedom fighters was powered by the mobile web. What kind of activism will pocket computers empower as more and more people get the Internet in their pockets?

A first class education can be brought to any person. Or they can simply glean knowledge as I did on subject matters of interest which is freely accessible online.

On every continent the mobile web is positioned to revolutionize banking, health, activism, disaster management, education, communication, and even entertainment. 
Future generations from every part of the globe will grow up drastically different then the generation before them. Some parts of the world have gone from poverty to at least middle class luxury in less than 10 years. Many of them have been in China. Parts of India and Africa are equally undergoing drastic changes and accelerated growth thanks to technology. Many of us will watch as before our very eyes some of the largest populations and societies will be transformed by pocket computers and the Internet which will power them.

The Internet revolution will cause more profound global change than the industrial revolution ever did. And the crazy thing is, we have barely started this quest to bring the Internet to everyone on the planet and give them the power of a PC in a device that fits in their pocket.

How Consumer Electronics Will Swing With the Seasons

One of the more interesting trends we are watching develop is the increased seasonality of specific technology purchases. We have been anticipating this for a while now as more and more consumers are being conditioned to buy and or upgrade their technology in the late half of the year.

 With Apple being completely silent the first half of 2013, we believe they are clearly embracing this trend and intend to push all their major product announcements to the second half of the year to be in a strong mindshare position for the holiday season. In many countries, premium smartphones are already seasonal purchases as upgrades often come up later in the year. It seems as though tablets and traditional PCs are also on the path to a seasonal pattern.

This has its advantages and its disadvantages. The advantage is that very targeted and specific promotions can be pushed to consumers with new release hardware for the holiday shopping season. Retailers are highly incentivized to get consumers in stores every way possible this time of year and will do what they can to get shoppers in the doors.

The disadvantage is over-saturation. If everyone launches new smartphones, tablets, PCs, TVs, etc., for the Q4 push then it will become difficult for many to cut above the noise and stand out from the pack.

If you couple these large Q4 product pushes with the low-cost trend we have outlined before, it becomes concerning that consumers may purchase devices not really suitable for enterprise computing and then try to bring them into the work environment. This could cause more pain then it is worth for most workers.

To help with this potential problem, we believe that IT companies will have to increasingly invest in valuable information as a part of their BYOD programs. Some enterprises do this today but many will need to follow suit. The goal is for notebook intenders looking to upgrade or buy a new machine for work, would be able to use an internal resource to see recommended hardware in the categories or notebooks, hybrids, convertibles and tablets.

For many PC OEMs, IT departments could become their best friends and can be used as a vehicle to better inform consumers to get the right hardware for the right job.

How the Tablet is Killing the PC

IDC recently released its forecast of PC sales for the last quarter and said PC shipments were down 13.9%. It laid much of the blame on Windows 8, but I am not sure this analysis is completely correct. While others have also mentioned Windows 8 as a key factor in PCs’ steep decline, there are other layers to this onion and Windows 8 is just one of them.
Windows 8 being a transitional OS certainly played a role, but I think factors such as refresh cycles are also culprits. Even if the tablet had not been invented the PC industry would still face these challenges; these days consumers simply hold on to their PCs as long as they possibly can. It is not just that consumers don’t feel inspired to upgrade, it’s that the notebook they have been using is good enough.

To a degree the same has been true of enterprise accounts, and if Windows 8 is to blame at all, it would be with regard to IT purchasing. Large enterprise buying often leaned toward the first half of the year. With many IT customers not being early adopters of new operating systems, we never saw large quantity buys in this period of time for traditional PC form factors.

The days where we look at the PC as a benchmark for the health of the technology industry is over. Many PC buyers simply don’t value the PC as much as they used to. Instead the value in buyers’ eyes has shifted to mobile by way of smartphones and tablets. This is true of both consumers and enterprises. PCs continue to play a role in many people’s lives, but they are not as central as they once were. Tablets and smartphones have encroached on their place.

If anything, the PC’s future is one of very low cost. We buy them because we need them, but not necessarily because they are highly valued. Of course high-end market segments will still value the traditional PC form factor, but that is a much smaller niche compared to the mass market. This does not mean consumers are ready to toss PCs out of their digital mix altogether. We just see them holding on to current models longer, or if they do need to buy a PC, it will be the cheapest they can find to meet their basic PC needs. Current lower priced PCs are “good enough” to meet any needs unmet by tablets or smart phones.

The Revenge of Steve Jobs

I’ve mentioned Steve Jobs had hoped his Apple II, and then the Mac, would be the market leader in PCs. But IBM clones and Microsoft stole Jobs’ thunder and dominated the PC space for decades.

If you peel back another layer of the onion you see another key reason for PCs’ decline in demand. In one sense, Jobs finally did deliver a PC that gave Apple a weapon against Microsoft and the dominant IBM PC clones: you could argue Jobs finally got the dominant platform of the future with the iPad. With this tablet Apple has reversed the fortunes of PC vendors. All Things D published both the IDC and Gartner numbers for Q1, 2013 and wrote about both companies’ guidance for PC sales for the rest of the year.
“At this time,” wrote Arik Hesseldahl of All Things D, “it has to be said that much of the blame for the damage being done to the PC businesses of all the companies around the world can be laid at Apple’s feet: Sales of the iPad, the world’s leading tablet brand, have a lot to do with the collapse in PC sales.”

When Jobs introduced the iPad he said this product would drive the post-PC era. I think he knew his tablet was the reinvention of the PC he had long sought to bring to market, and that it would actually cause the decline of PCs, even if it meant cannibalizing Mac market share.” and “by the time he introduced the iPad he had in place all of the hardware, software, and services needed to connect the iPad to his ecosystem. Even with a decline in Macs he was insulated from the impact of a Mac sales downturn on his business.
On the other hand, HP, Dell, Acer, and other PC OEMs who were totally PC-driven are feeling the shock of the PC decline; unlike Apple they are not insulated from the impact of these sharp declines in PC demand. Their only hope is that Microsoft can deliver key software and services they can use on tablets and convertibles of their own. It may be too late however, given Apple’s strong lead in tablets, not to mention competitors like Samsung, Amazon and others who are in many ways better insulated through their own ecosystem of products and services.

While Jobs is no longer with us, I think he knew this would happen. Perhaps his last major act was to give us the iPad; final revenge for his years of toil in the PC market where he was always #2, despite being early with many of the innovations that actually took PCs to the masses. If Jobs were with us today I suspect he would not shed a tear to see the decline of the PC market. Rather he would revel in the role the iPad has played in bringing his PC competitors to their knees.
While we could see an uptick in PC demand later this year when low cost touch-based clamshell style laptops come out during the holiday season, I fear the heyday of strong demand for PCs is over. It is about to take a back seat to the tablets and smartphones of the future.

Welcome to insiders

Welcome to Tech.pinions Insiders and thank you very much for signing up. We, the Tech.pinions team, believe that Tech.pinions insiders can break new ground as a real-time magazine for those passionate about the technology industry. We are planning quite a lot of exclusive columns, analysis, features, reports, and audio / video features for our members. We believe that our members are our customers and we believe by building a service like Tech.pinions Insiders, we can develop a service to cater to our readers rather than advertisers.

The Daily Tech.pinion will stay free as well as some other timely analysis of recent news that we want to be consumed by the public. But our Tech.pinions Insider members will get even more depth and analysis on all subjects. Since we are just starting out, the volume of Insider exclusive content will grow every week. So make sure to keep checking back for new exclusive content.

One of the things we are excited about with Insiders, is that it gives our writers the ability to go into more depth, analysis, and even more opinion on industry subjects than we tend to do in the public sphere. We are looking forward to all the exclusive content, new features, and deeper analysis we have planned for our Insiders and we hope you are as well.

We greatly desire feedback from the Insiders experience since this service is for you. All feedback is welcome so we can continue to develop Tech.pinions Insiders to meet our readers needs and sustain the business.