We now know Apple has done well with the Apple Watch and that it outperformed the iPhone and iPad in terms of units shipped during their first 9 weeks on the market. However, they are doing these strong sales with the watch only connected to the iPhone. Of course, this makes sense. If the watch … Continue reading Is it Time for Apple to Open the Apple Watch to the Android Crowd?
It seems it is more interesting to write about Apple earnings when there is controversy. This time, it was two-fold. Wall St. had a high degree of confidence, as did I, iPhone shipments would be above 50m units. They were not and Wall St.’s expectations were priced into the stock (which remains undervalued) and then … Continue reading Apple Earnings Review
In 1995, Microsoft introduced its first really popular operating service, Windows 95, which was so attractive customers stood in store lines to buy it when it became available at midnight, and was a bargain when retailers offered it for $210, or $110 for an upgrade from something such as Windows 3.11. There was no built-in … Continue reading Windows 10: Microsoft’s New View
A lot has been written about the Apple Watch. A lot will continue to be written about the Apple Watch. Apple has positioned it as their most personal product yet. Personal tastes are often subjective and sometimes polarizing. Polarizing would certainly characterize the tone of much of the public commentary thus far. While the Apple … Continue reading Apple Watch Satisfaction
I’ve come up with a different way of explaining and framing the “post-PC era.” I gave the keynote at an IT conference the other day and chose to break out the talk into specific sections. Trends for the Desk, Beyond the desk, and Beyond the Hands. What’s happening in PCs, the desk, is pretty straightforward … Continue reading Computing: Beyond the Desk, Beyond the Hands
I’ve been doing a great deal of research on corporate purchase, usage, and management of devices recently, and I’ve come across some interesting findings. Most importantly, the corporate smartphone is far from dead. Though it’s easy to assume that BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) has taken over the world—especially in the US—and that everyone buys … Continue reading The Hidden Opportunity of Corporate Smartphones
I’m convinced an inflection point of mobile commerce is upon us. Several catalysts are developing and 2016 is shaping up to be the year we may look back and reflect upon as the year our commerce, banking, and financial services went mobile. One of the benchmark data points I research is share of mobile commerce … Continue reading The Mobile Commerce Inflection Point
Every market I study is fascinating in its own right. What keeps surprising me is the seeing how different things are in the markets I study. It would easier if all the markets were roughly the same, with the same brands, products, business models, et., all paralleling each other. But this would also be boring. … Continue reading India: Where the Future of the Mobile Internet is On Display
Waves of disruption The TV industry is constantly going through change. Focusing just on the last twenty years or so, we’ve seen several waves of disruption: Boxes – TiVo, Slingbox, and others, which allowed viewers to take the content they traditionally had to consume where and when it aired on their televisions and move it … Continue reading TV’s Detour
For most of my career as a PC analyst, I have followed and chronicled the evolution of the PC. My first project when I came to Creative Strategies was to work with a new group formed inside IBM that created the original IBM PC. By the time I was asked to be involved in some … Continue reading Is Android the New Windows?
The fight between Apple and music star Taylor Swift was clear knockout for the singer in her challenge to the not-quite-started Apple Music and one of the big stories of the week. It showed Apple is somewhat confused, especially given the fact the project has been going on for a long time. But what has … Continue reading Experience Shows Why Apple Music Has Been Just a Little Problem
Many of us have dealt with prerecorded treatment voices at medical centers. And many of us have found it frustrating, and worse if the situation seems bad, before you get to talk to a skilled human being. But the situation is getting a lot better as the virtual “professionals” take advantage of rapidly increasing action to … Continue reading A Virtual Nurse to Improve Your Medicine
AUTHOR’S NOTE: I do not know the source of this outstanding analysis, but I got it from Ben Thompson, HERE, and I will attribute it to him until such time as I’m advised otherwise. ADDENDUM: Ben Thompson has informed me that the brilliant “Omniscience, Omnipotence, Omnipresence” analysis upon which I built this article was original … Continue reading The god-like Powers Of Tech
Microsoft announced some key, but not terribly surprising, changes to their management teams yesterday. The headline was Stephen Elop, former Nokia CEO, will be leaving Microsoft. Most public commentary has been viewing the moves in light of Microsoft’s role in the industry making their own branded hardware, namely smartphones through the acquisition of Nokia. There … Continue reading Microsoft’s Re-Org and Their Future in Hardware
In the world of enterprise IT and high-end business computing, the idea of delivering software as a service is relatively old news. In fact, the acronym SaaS (Software as a Service) is now so commonplace there that you rarely, if ever, see it spelled out anymore. Plus, in that world, everyone is rushing to deliver … Continue reading Software is a Service
With Windows 10 on the horizon and Apple’s latest iOS 9 which will bring the iPad into much closer competition with PCs, it is worth looking at how the two platform companies are approaching tablets. As outlined in this report, my thesis for tablets has always been it is the true mass market computer. The … Continue reading Analyzing Microsoft’s and Apple’s Approach to Tablets
Much of the tech press regularly overlooks PCs for wearables, smart homes, and IoT-related topics but, in the real world and to many people, PCs still matter a lot. So, this week’s news out of Redmond and Taipei (where the annual Computex Trade show is being held) are actually really important. To wit, Microsoft finally … Continue reading Win10 + Intel Skylake + Thunderbolt 3 = Interesting PC
When I joined Creative Strategies 14 years ago, one of my research areas was the digital home. This era of my life is filled with fond memories of hacking together Windows-based home theatre PCs, connected storage networks to host all my media, various brands of digital media adapters, and running ethernet cables all over my … Continue reading The Battle for the Living Room Then and Now
For the time being, there are two developer and ecosystem events which set the tone for the consumer tech industry at large — Google I/O and Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference. For the much of the past 4-5 years as these events have gained steam, Apple and Google seemed to be on similar paths. On … Continue reading Foundations for Apple and Google
A lot of new consumer apps that present a big variety are the work of developers fresh out of Stanford or MIT. And then there’s Ron Glaser (by the way, from Yale). Glaser’s RealNetworks has been involved in computers and lately mobile devices, used to receive and send video. It has succeeded while many other companies … Continue reading RealNetworks: They’re Still Here
I’ve had the Apple Watch for nearly 45 days and thought I’d offer some updated thinking. Consider this a brain dump for the time being. Be warned this post is also a little lengthy. I’d like to talk more in a philosophical sense about the product and use that as a framework to see how … Continue reading Waxing Philosophical about the Apple Watch
You have to give Microsoft credit for its efforts to get just about any app on the Windows Phone. The need is obvious. Microsoft is selling to a small part of the phone market at a time when the requirements of iOS and Android take up most of the development time. That leaves the apps in … Continue reading Windows Phone Bids for iPhone and Android Apps
It’s often said we live in a golden age of television, with more quality content than ever before, consumable through a variety of channels and services on the devices of our choosing. What’s not to love? But the reality is, although there’s been a boom in funding for original programming and arguably an expansion in … Continue reading The TV Industry’s Lack of Imagination
For the last 25 years, I have looked very closely at the adoption cycle of products and I have learned something very important. Seldom does a product, especially a hardware product, find favor quickly with the broad consumer market. Video recording devices were refined and used in professional markets for over a decade before VCRs … Continue reading The Debacle of Google Glass
I’m likely to publish a larger global e-commerce report but wanted to share with our subscribers some big picture views on the e-commerce market. I’ve been doing quantitive research on the state of global e-commerce and have discovered some fascinating dynamics. Stats Worldwide, E-commerce is reaching an inflection point. In nearly every major market I’m … Continue reading The State of Global E-Commerce
