Google and Antitrust

It came as no surprise to me that the EU ruled, and fined Google for monopolistic practices. Antitrust situations are always tricky, especially when the two biggest in the tech industry have involved relatively open operating systems in Windows and Android. The nature of the open model is good for consumers by keeping costs of … Continue reading Google and Antitrust

Netflix’s Miss, New Assumptions, and Increased Competition

It was interesting to see some of the Netflix bears come out yesterday and add comments via Twitter and other platforms. I find it more difficult to buy any of the extreme bear cases for Netflix, but it is important to recognize and understand some of their broader challenges. Churn and Customer Acquisition Costs Naturally, … Continue reading Netflix’s Miss, New Assumptions, and Increased Competition

California Data Privacy Law Highlights Growing Frustration with Tech Industry

After years of glowing admiration and perceived innocence, the tech industry is in the throes of its comeuppance. Driven by everything from the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data privacy scandals, to social media-driven fake news concerns, consumers and legislators are starting to push back on the goose that laid the golden digital egg. There’s growing awareness of … Continue reading California Data Privacy Law Highlights Growing Frustration with Tech Industry

Memory market and Micron continue upward trend

One of the darling tech stocks of the last year has been Micron, a relative unknown in the world of technology compared to names like Intel, NVIDIA, and Samsung. With a stock price driven by market demands, and increasing over 90% in the last calendar year, there are lots of questions about the strength of … Continue reading Memory market and Micron continue upward trend

News You might have missed: Week of June 29th, 2018

Duplex is out for Public Testing This week at an event in Mountain View, Google demoed the public release of Duplex to a group of reporters. The demo took place at Oren’s Hummus Shop in Mountain View but no video recording was allowed so we have mostly an account of what happened through the reports’ … Continue reading News You might have missed: Week of June 29th, 2018

Media and Entertainment Super Bundle Follow Up

Last week I talked about the coming of the super bundles. The overall arc of that piece was more about what super bundles are and why consumers will be drawn to them over traditional cable packages. Throughout the article, I mentioned some companies were positioned better than others, namely Amazon and Apple. In the recent … Continue reading Media and Entertainment Super Bundle Follow Up

The Coming of Super Bundles

I’ve written extensively about the growing trend of unbundling happening to the cable TV bundle. Voices in tech keep highlighting the cyclical nature of this trend where everything that was once bundled becomes unbundled only to be bundled again. The important observation we cannot escape is the inherent value in bundles. Bundles work for a … Continue reading The Coming of Super Bundles

Workplace Transformation

There is a theme or industry buzzword, that doesn’t get a great deal of attention. Workplace transformation is how enterprise-focused companies are describing their efforts to bring the workplace into the modern age. Some broad themes came before this one like the consumerization of the enterprise, and bring your device/apps/services, and all were an admission … Continue reading Workplace Transformation

Warning: The iPhone X Could Be A Problem For Analysts

WARNING: Angry critic of Apple’s critics ahead. Proceed with caution. You have been warned! On April 30, 2018, Daniel Howley, wrote: “The iPhone X could be a problem for Apple.” Rhetoric First, let’s discuss the rhetorical device used both in the author’s headline and throughout the article. The author says the iPhone X “COULD” be … Continue reading Warning: The iPhone X Could Be A Problem For Analysts

My Five Simple Rules to Survive Social Media

So much happened over the past couple of weeks that led many to reassess their engagement on social media. The Facebook and Cambridge Analytica debacle might have been the straw that broke the camel’s back, but social media has been under scrutiny for quite some time. From Twitter’s problem with hate speech to Snapchat’s dubious … Continue reading My Five Simple Rules to Survive Social Media

Is it time for an Ad Free, subscription based version of Facebook?

Facebook is undergoing a great deal of scrutiny these days. Over the last 18 months, they have come under fire for being a service that rampantly spread fake news without any checks and balances applied to their service and did not protect their customer’s data from being hijacked. Some have even gone as far as … Continue reading Is it time for an Ad Free, subscription based version of Facebook?

Apple, Siri, and Dealing With Failure

A report on Siri came out from the Information yesterday (Paywall) and got quite a bit of coverage and commentary from other news publications and talking heads on Twitter. Reports like this that largely site ex-employees are always hard to know how much you can believe, however, the issues around management decisions regarding Siri and … Continue reading Apple, Siri, and Dealing With Failure

Machine Learning Inspired Semiconductor Designs

In this column/analysis, The Semiconductor Golden Era I wrote in January, I outlined how the next decade would yield more creative and innovative semiconductor designs than anything we saw in the race for performance era of the past few decades. We have enough CPU performance, and we will still see innovation in GPU design, but … Continue reading Machine Learning Inspired Semiconductor Designs

Spotify’s Probability as a IPO Success

Spotify has been a subject of interest of late, especially among many investors I work with. I try to be relatively optimistic when it comes to the tech industry, but there are times where it becomes harder when patterns align that you have seen so many times before. When it comes to Spotify, it seems … Continue reading Spotify’s Probability as a IPO Success

Apple and China: Data on iPhone X Launch and Chinese iCloud Transition

There are two interesting narratives surrounding Apple and China. One around the launch of the iPhone X and the “supercycle” analysts hoped for which was going to require the Chinese market to participate. The other is around Apple having to transition to localized Chinese servers for iCloud. Analyzing the iPhone X Launch I see a … Continue reading Apple and China: Data on iPhone X Launch and Chinese iCloud Transition

Social Media and AI Warfare

As we are continuing to be reminded, social media is a powerful force. It has given individuals a powerful voice and empowered communities to stand up to governments, oppression, and a range of social issues. While we have been made keenly aware of the benefits of social media, we are continually reminded of late to … Continue reading Social Media and AI Warfare

News You might have missed: Week of February 9, 2018

Nest is rolled back into Google On Wed. Alphabet Inc announced that it rolled Nest into its hardware group. Under the new org structure, Nest CEO Marwan Fawaz reports to Google’s hardware chief, Rick Osterloh, a former Motorola executive who took charge of all Google’s consumer devices in 2016. That includes Google Home smart speakers, … Continue reading News You might have missed: Week of February 9, 2018

TITAN V launch strengthens machine learning lead for NVIDIA

Earlier this week, NVIDIA launched the Titan V graphics card at the NIPS (Neural Information Processing Systems) conference in Long Beach, to the surprise of many in the industry. Though it uses the same Volta architecture based GPU that has been shown and discussed and utilized in the Tesla V100 product line for servers, this … Continue reading TITAN V launch strengthens machine learning lead for NVIDIA

Monitoring Heart Health

Long-time readers of my column will know that I suffered a heart attack in 2012 and underwent a triple bypass. As you can imagine, this was a serious operation brought on by long hours, extensive travel, not eating correctly and minimal exercise over a 25+ year period. The good news is that when the heart … Continue reading Monitoring Heart Health

Misunderstanding Smart Speakers

I’m not sure if there is a misunderstanding of the smart speaker category or if it is just because of how I have my news, analysis, and Twitter feed curated. Whichever the case, I’d like to elaborate on how I think about this space now that we have a few years of market intelligence and … Continue reading Misunderstanding Smart Speakers

AMD Making Strides with EPYC Server Platform

We all know that a competitive market is one that is healthy. Multiple options for your PC, your smartphone, and yes, your server, mean that every party involved needs to be more aggressive in development to outdo the competitor. For many long years, that type of environment did not exist in the server space and … Continue reading AMD Making Strides with EPYC Server Platform

Winners and Losers in Consumer Tech This Holiday Season

One of the things we like to do every year about this time is asking consumers in the US what technology products are on their list this holiday season. In a broad consumer survey, we conduct we explore purchase intent for smartphones, TVs, PCs and tablets, and wearables/smartwatches. Outside of those core categories we also … Continue reading Winners and Losers in Consumer Tech This Holiday Season