Please allow me to introduce myself… You likely don’t care and would not believe the volume of blog posts, research reports, technical writings and analyst studies I sift through on a daily basis. This is necessary both to stay informed and to re-evaluate my opinions as new facts emerge. I refuse to let my initial reactions … Continue reading The One Where Brian Is Wrong About Everything
Last week I said goodbye to Microsoft. This week I say hello to Microsoft 2.0. But before we look at where I think Microsoft is headed, let’s take a quick look at where they’re coming from. The further back you look, the further forward you can see. ~ Winston Churchill Microsoft 1.0 had one of … Continue reading Say Hello To Microsoft 2.0
This is not really a review of Office for iPad. It’s more of a review of Paul Thurrott’s review of Office for iPad. Thurrott has some interesting observations that I think are well worth addressing. So let’s get to it. Nicely Done It’s clear from Thurrott’s review — and all the other reviews I’ve read … Continue reading Office For iPad Beats The Hell Out Of Rooming With Paul Thurrott
The ghost of Steve Jobs haunts Google and Facebook. Unlike Apple, which has always aligned its interests with its users, both Google and Facebook must serve two masters: users and customers. They are not the same. Indeed, the divergent demands of these two groups has placed both web giants at a long term competitive disadvantage … Continue reading The Genius Of Steve Jobs Or Why Google And Facebook Must Make Big Bets
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?
Back in 2012, Microsoft’s then CEO Steve Ballmer started talking about Microsoft as a Devices and Services company rather than as a software company. This was a major strategic shift, and it was behind major moves like the launch of the Surface and the acquisition of Nokia’s Devices and Services business. This is a signal … Continue reading How to make Devices and Services work for Microsoft
Last week, Phil Schiller, Craig Federighi and Bud Tribble were interviewed as part of the Mac’s 30th anniversary. They — in no uncertain terms — slammed the door shut on the idea that Apple was planning on merging iOS (the operating system for their phones and tablets) with OS X (the operating system for their … Continue reading Unified OS Advocates Are Out Of “Touch” With Reality
Ever since Marissa Mayer took hold of Yahoo, she and her team have been updgrading the company’s online offerings to better compete in a rapidly changing arena. First came Flickr and the Yahoo Weather App, and now the former search giant is upping its news presence. Yahoo recently partnered with former New York Times tech … Continue reading In Defense of Yahoo Tech
Hewlett-Packard created a bit of a stir this week it promoted its PCs by announcing that it was bringing back Windows 7, the operating system that Microsoft replaced nearly a year and a half ago. Despite claims such as “HP really wants people to buy a Windows 7 PC instead of a Windows 8 machine” … Continue reading Windows 8 is Worse Than Vista (for Microsoft)
Apple’s App Store is a boon for many developers and budding entrepreneurs. It offers individuals the ability to create something from nothing with a worldwide distribution channel that costs them $99 per year to use. Apple is the portal. It is not, however, where a developer’s marketing ends. Daring Fireball’s John Gruber recently posted a … Continue reading Attention Developers and Publishers: Apple is Not Your Publicist
[pullquote]The man with a new idea is a Crank until the idea succeeds ~ Mark Twain[/pullquote] I tripped across a January 2010 article that absolutely skewered the introduction of the iPad, and it was just too, too, delicious for me not to stop and partake of its bittersweet irony. As my holiday gift, I wish … Continue reading Lessons Learned (And Unlearned) From The iPad’s Success
We track, analyze and oftentimes promote technology because of its overarching, mostly positive impact on our own lives and throughout the world. It’s many disparate parts, incorporating intellectual property and global manufacturing, hardware and software, content and creativity, when brought together at exactly the right time, in exactly the right way can be both uplifting … Continue reading 2013 Winners And Losers In Tech
The tablet category is quickly becoming a tricky one to analyze. As in the early stages of any technology category we are seeing the tablet market segment or splinter into separate markets. While I like to point out how large the tablet category is, one can’t accurately analyze the tablet category without peeling back the … Continue reading Low-Cost Tablets are the Netbooks of the Tablet Category
I regularly provide analysis of the computing market, trends inside Silicon Valley, the current state of the smartphone wars. This week, I offer instead my observations on Apple. Starting now… The persistent view among analysts that Apple can (magically) go down market, whenever they want, is, in my view, utter nonsense. It’s the same as … Continue reading Truth And Lies About Apple
“Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean.” ― Maya Angelou I want Windows Phone to succeed. More than that, I want Android to fail. I hate Android. There, I said it. Yes, I am a market analyst, detached, and I have absolutely no stake … Continue reading Windows Phone And Android Hate
Apple’s App Store is a bloated, visually appealing, industry-shifting revolution. Forget tales of Google Glass, the Internet of Things or talk of HTML5. The App Store — the home of the humble app — has only just begun to completely re-make computing, user interface and hardware design. The App Store has permanently altered the fortunes … Continue reading I Love The App Store. I Hate The App Store. I Love The App Store. I Hate The App Store.
This is part two of a two-part series focusing on what’s gone wrong with Microsoft Windows. If you want to read part 1, click here. If you want to know what’s gone wrong with Microsoft Windows and what its probable future will be…well, read on…. Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in … Continue reading Beating The Dead Horse That Is Microsoft Windows (Part 2)
On June 10, 2013, during the Apple World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC) keynote, Apple unveiled two new videos: “Intention” and “Our Signature” Two videos, but only one message. Author’s note: All of the quotes from Apple’s videos are: “in bold text”. “This is it.” In those videos, Apple revealed its mission, its purpose, its essence, … Continue reading This Is It. This Is Apple. This Is Their Design.
Earlier this week, Apple released iOS 7 Beta 3, the third test version of the upcoming software for iPhone and iPad released in a month. Users, by definition registered Apple developers, who installed it made a remarkable discovery: The Helvetica iOS system font, widely denounced as too light by earlier users, had been replaced by … Continue reading Apple, Microsoft, and Listening to Customers
It’s not too often that I am reminded of something I wrote 17 years ago and am able to read it without cringing, at least not too much. This happened over the weekend, after Microsoft quietly announced that it was shutting down its MSN TV service at the end of September. The Verge linked to a … Continue reading A Requiem for WebTV
Last week, I tuned into Microsoft’s Channel 9 to listen to keynotes and developer lectures for MS BUILD, Microsoft’s developer conference. BUILD attracts Microsoft devotees from its developer community for PCs, phones, servers and even XBOX. The biggest item on everyone’s mind was Windows 8.1 and how Microsoft planned to breathe developer life into the … Continue reading Windows 8.1 Does Little to Boost Holiday 2013 Sales
Prologue E3 is technically a trade show closed to the general public, but E3 apparently grants industry status to anyone who has ever worked at a Gamestop or Target (Target sells videogames, right?). As such, the show is more like Comicon than CES. Some attendees dress as their favorite video game characters, there are enormous … Continue reading E3 2013: Fighting the Console Wars One More Time
One of the fundamental characteristics of a mature market, is mature consumers. These consumers are mature in the sense that they know what they want and more importantly they know why they want it. This kind of maturity can only come with a defined sense of needs, wants, and desires. That defined sense, can only … Continue reading I Need a PC and I Know It
I’ve been using Windows 8 in one form or another for well over a year and I keep hoping that it will become as comfortable as every other version I have used, going back nearly a quarter century to Windows 3.0. I hoped the final version would be better than the various previews. It was, … Continue reading Trying To Love Windows 8
Forget all the rumors of an Apple iWatch. Ignore the surprisingly good reviews of Google Glass. Neither of these will come close to replacing your smartphone. Not for many, many years; probably never. The question is not whether you will buy a smartphone – you will. The question is: which smartphone should you buy? I … Continue reading The Definitive Answer Guide to Which Smartphone You Should Buy
