The blogosphere has suddenly discovered the incredible array of products, tools and services Microsoft has long possessed. Better late than never, I suppose. Fact is, their realization of the obvious is in large part due to the accessible dynamism and well-regarded tech cred of Microsoft’s new CEO, Satya Nadella. Nadella’s hire makes for a great … Continue reading Panic Inside Apple and Cheers for Satya
Gerald Ford was clumsy, Jimmy Carter was out of touch, Mitt Romney was a flip-flopper. All these characterizations (and many more) were the result of what have been called political “narratives” – stories the media tell about politicians and candidates to make sense of isolated incidents and create stories they can sell to voters. Like … Continue reading The Danger of Narratives in Tech
When I first started doing industry analysis in 2000, my focus was heavily on mobile computing. Our firm has a legacy of PC industry analysis and, at the time I joined, we were embarking on the major shift from desktop computing to mobile computing. Mobile computing in those days was defined as a notebook or … Continue reading Mobile Changed Everything
Asustek’s Dual-OS Devices Hit a Wall: At CES in January, Intel boasted a plan for tablets and even laptop-like devices to dual-boot Windows and Android. But in the face of staunch opposition from Microsoft and Google, it looks like this audacious, if curious, plan is not going to happen. Asus has become the latest to … Continue reading ICYMI: Bye-bye Dual Boot, Search Struggles
Over the last several months, we’ve seen moves by the US carriers to introduce a new model for paying for devices in addition to the traditional subsidy model. The new model allows customers to pay for their devices over a period of time in monthly installments. It began at T-Mobile in May 2013, and the … Continue reading How Carriers’ Move Away From Phone Subsidies Could Hurt Them
Like many new industries, the smart wearables market is filled with lots of startups looking to create interesting new products and build a successful business. Unlike previous hot trend markets, however, the launch of the wearables market also happened to coincide with the rise of crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo. It’s a fortuitous combination … Continue reading Wearables Cautionary Tale
There has been a good discussion recently on our site about Apple and India. I try to maintain as global a perspective as possible. I study in depth markets like China, India, Latin America, and more. I look for data from these markets; I search for trends, and try to get a handle on each … Continue reading Why China is More Strategic to Apple Than India
Apu Kumar has held senior leadership roles at iconic technology brands as well as early stage start-ups, Hewlett-Packard, Phoenix Technologies, CNET.com, mySimon and is currently the SVP, Chief Deal Hacker at BlueStacks – GamePop. This is part 1 of a 2 part series from Apu on the PC industry. Evolution “We are the facilitators of … Continue reading Future PC Part 2: Evolution and Resurrection
Apple’s TV device made the headlines again this past week when Tim Cook mentioned at the annual shareholder event that it was a billion-dollar business for the company in the last fiscal year. Apple subsequently made clear that this included content as well as hardware sales connected with Apple TV. Though Tim Cook made clear … Continue reading Taking Apple TV beyond a hobby
India is considered to be the next big superpower and second largest market for smartphones. It is a country Apple often ignores in their giant plans to get iOS to concur the smart phone world. Sure, bureaucratic hurdles do exist, and Tim Cook has pointed those out on prior earning calls, but while every other … Continue reading Does India Exist for Apple?
Perhaps I should have titled this “India Is The Future Of The Smartphone Wars”? The appointment of the highly capable Satya Nadella to lead Microsoft only partly explains why I am thinking more about India and technology. The other reason is that it increasingly appears that the future of smartphones, and the winners and losers … Continue reading India And The Future Of The Smartphone Wars
Apu Kumar has held senior leadership roles at iconic technology brands as well as early stage start-ups, Phoenix Technologies, CNET.com, mySimon and is currently the SVP, Chief Deal Hacker at BlueStacks – GamePop. This is part 1 of a 2 part series from Apu on the PC industry. Trepidation “Trepidation is either the sign of … Continue reading The Future PC
Anybody still recall when Apple’s chief competitors went about mocking the company for being, well, technology designed for older people? Those attacks came to an abrupt end in large part because Apple kept on printing money. I suspect, however, there is a second reason: iWatch. iWatch may be the perfect personal computer for boomers, seniors … Continue reading But Apple Is For Old People! Where iWatch And Apple Have The Last Laugh.
Reading my reports here and there, probably mostly on Facebook, you may have heard the stories about me, so I’ll fill in quickly. I only had a very slight headache, but on Sunday afternoon, I started pronouncing some things very oddly and by midday Monday, I was both talking and writing what would best be … Continue reading I’m Back, But What an Interesting Week It Has Been
Business is a combination of war and sport. ~ André Maurois The Long Summer Of The Microsoft Monopoly Olympics Computing was pretty simple for the last 15 years: PC plus a browser. Both are splintering now. ~ Benedict Evans (@BenedictEvans) Once upon a time — long, long ago in 2006 — the Personal Computing Olympics … Continue reading Who Won The Mobile Tech Olympics?
One of the hottest topics in personal technology these days is the smart watch, one of several new categories of smart wearable devices. The idea with a smart watch is to offer tidbits of “glanceable” information and various types of notifications within a small, lightweight form that people are already accustomed to wearing on their … Continue reading Watch What Happens
When you are as big as Apple only certain markets work because real growth must come in staggeringly huge increments. Only platforms matter—not technologies—because platforms become ecosystems; properly nurtured, they are self sustaining. Witness the iPhone: a radio, a screen, and some processing handed over to app developers becomes a game box, a newsreader, a … Continue reading iWatch: It’s About The Ecosystem
On September 13, 2011, Zach Epstein, explained to us us why Windows 8 was the dawning of a new age. And on February 9, 2014, Paul Thurrott explained to us why the sun was prematurely setting on that age. [pullquote]Calling Windows 8 a “software design” is like calling bald a hair color.[/pullquote] Between those two … Continue reading Windows 8 In Hindsight
Hopefully you have read several posts I have posted this week. This one on Microsoft and Android and this one on Google vs. Android. These posts are building blocks for a foundation I am laying to help our readers understand critical things about this market going forward. The smartphone market is the single largest product … Continue reading Google, Android, AOSP, iOS and the Global Smartphone Market
Yukari Iwatani Kane is a former Apple beat reporter for the Wall Street Journal. Her book, “Haunted Empire: Apple After Steve Jobs,” is due out in March. I respect everyone. I even respect journalists. ~ Alexander Popov From an article in the New Yorker, Ms. Kane opines on the present state of the post-Steve Jobs … Continue reading Apple Is Doomed…Yet Again
As Apple looks about for ways to extend the iPhone-iPad ecosystem, personal health care seems like a natural. The iOS devices are already extremely popular with health care professionals, and apps that supply health information to doctors are among the most expensive products in the App Store. In a Tech.pinions Insider article, John Kirk figures … Continue reading Why Health Care Is Not the Future for Apple
According to this report Microsoft is pulling in healthy revenue from Android. We knew that Microsoft was holding on to patents which many Android OEMs are using and now paying Microsoft a fee. Microsoft may very well be making nearly as much and in some cases more than Google off Android. Microsoft makes money off … Continue reading Microsoft and Android
[pullquote]Some smartwatches are dumber than the sundial. ~ chetansharma (@chetansharma)[/pullquote] Until recently, wearable computing devices have been fairly uninteresting to me. I’ve read the various articles concerning wearables, but I consider wearables to be in a terribly primitive state — niche, at best, gimmicks at worst. And Apple wearables? I’ve ruefully nicknamed the rumored Apple … Continue reading A “Healthy” Strategy For Apple’s Wearables
The worldwide market for smart connected devices continues to be a battleground not only for device makers, but for the companies that create the operating systems and ecosystems that power those devices: most notably, Google, Apple and Microsoft. Each of the companies currently offers two major OS choices: Android and Chrome for Google, MacOS and … Continue reading The Multi OS Conundrum
Amazon has been a fascinating company to watch. My perspective with Amazon has always framed them as a retailer who fused technology to retail in brilliant ways. Only Amazon’s retail strategy was not in physical space but in the digital space. And their mechanism for commerce was to turn our computers into a cash register. … Continue reading Amazon’s Long Game With Hardware
