Microsoft Apps on the iPad and beyond…

Posted: February 27, 2012 in Uncategorized
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I guess at first it sounds rather odd that the rumor mill is swirling with a pending release of Microsoft Office for the iPad.  I mean honestly for years Microsoft had been hell-bent on creating and owning the tablet market and now it sits at somewhere less than zero in the space.  Now it is reduced to playing Apple (and Google’s) game.  Granted we are being told great things will come with the release of Windows 8 somewhere later in the year, but in the mean time Apple is king and Google’s Android is the only thing making a run at that mountain.  In the meantime more reports are starting to surface that Microsoft Office is on the verge of releasing a version of Microsoft Office for the iPad.  It sounds a bit strange but we could make an argument for history repeating itself or we could see a battle ensuing between the two crown jewels of Microsoft: Windows vs Office.

When Steve Jobs launched the original Macintosh computer back in 1984 it ushered in the era of the graphical user interface (GUI).  He was not the first to do this as it was based on work done at XEROX PARC Labs, but he was the first to bring into to a mass audience.  One person saw the immediate impact and value of what the GUI would bring and set to learn all he could: Bill Gates.  Next his company, Microsoft, would start creating apps for the Mac, such as Word and Excel.  This is all, so far, common knowledge and those in the industry know the rest of the story.  But the question I put forth is “is Microsoft Office taking the same approach to Tablets as Microsoft did with the Mac”?   The reality is by the time Windows 8 ships it is pretty likely Apple will have sold another 25 million iPads.  I would also bet pretty strongly that when Windows 8 ships its initial year, it will not sell anywhere close to 25 million tablets (last quarter Apple sold 15.4 million iPads).  I am sure the Microsoft Office team, under the able leadership of Chris Capposella have had these discussions.  I am also sure that if they know those numbers they are asking,  ”Are people buying tablets instead of PC’s and are we in danger of losing market share”?

The second thing, and  I can only speculate here, is that this type of development is not going down well with the Windows 8 team.  A release of Office on a tablet other than Windows, before Windows releases their tablet. There was a time that  Windows and Office seemed to work hand in hand.  Those days are long gone.  With Steve Sinofsky hard at work releasing Windows 8 and launching Microsoft into the tablet space (yet again).  I am sure they would love to launch the first version of Office for the tablet as a competitive edge.  But based on what the rumor mill is saying, it sounds like Office cannot wait for that train, they will be catching an earlier one.  The market will be over 100 million tablets when Windows 8 launches and the reality is the Office team cannot wait for its brother in arms to catch up as the train will have long since left the station.  The good news for Windows is that at least for now it is limited to iOS and there seems to be no plans for Android.  But unless Windows 8 makes substantial headway in a short amount of time, the temptation and reality for the Office team will be too much to ignore.

A final question would be the viability of desktop productivity applications in a Tablet, a device with no mouse and no keyboard.  Would I find myself using Excel to make pivot tables on my tablet?  How about animation slides with PowerPoint?   Probably not.  I would hope that the Office experience would have been rethought with the different type of interaction between human and technology with the tablet.  Technology is in an exciting phase where we are no longer confined to the desktop, but can access technology solutions wherever and whenever we would like.   For a long time Microsoft Office has been trying to be part of that experience.  Pocket Office for Windows Mobile anyone?  They are not wrong to try but maybe the challenge is they are trying to create a mass consumable experience that nobody really wants.  When I am hard at work on an important presentation or financial review , being at a desk in front of my desktop or laptop makes sense.  But when I am out one the town do I need Office with me?  When I am on my tablet am I doing business or browsing the web?  Playing games?   All questions that have answers.

Microsoft Office is the most successful productivity suite in the industries history.  But as technology changes so are people’s needs and understanding of technology.  A lot of the ninety percent market share can be attributed to people buying PC’s that came pre-installed with their purchase.  That did not necessarily mean that people were actively using Microsoft Office.    It reminds me of the days when Windows Mobile launched and there was a lot of bickering between Windows Mobile and MSN.  MSN was on mobile platforms such as Symbian and RIM, where as Microsoft Mobile felt they should be only supporting one; Windows Mobile.  The problem was that if MSN had done that it meant the prime competition at the time, AOL and Yahoo would east up the rest of the market share, which at the time was the other 85 percent of the market.  Moving forward it seems  one of those titanic shifts is taking place in technology that occurs every  five years. It is rethinking the boundaries of how we consume and experience technology.  A final point is any time you ship a device with Office, you add cost.  Yes Microsoft expects money for its service.  In an increasingly cost conscience environment is Office something we need so bad on our tablet?  As part of the Apple App store how many people will actively search for and pay for Microsoft Office?  The question for Microsoft Office, in order to maintain 90 percent market share does Windows have to be content with 50 percent

Good Night and Good Luck

Hans Henrik Hoffmann February 27, 2012

Facebook IPO – The new tech bubble…not quite

Posted: February 8, 2012 in Google, Microsoft
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With the hype leading up to the Facebook IPO there is the beginning of a lot of discussion around a new Dotcom boom and bust. Just like we had back in the late nineties. Though I can see the similarities I don’t think this is going to be like the last tech boom. I believe we have come along way since the bubble and I view this upcoming tech bubble with a lot of optimism and I think with good measure.  But Wall Street, like any other media outlet love,s a good story and history always provides us a window into the future. But in the end there are a lot of reasons for my optimism around this new tech boom.  But before we move forward Let’s  consult history and what it taught us.

In the tech boom and bust there were a lot of things that went wrong, but maybe most notably was a loss of common sense.  A lot of discussion was around new business models and throwing away the old all due to the internet.  Though this was most certainly true it did not mean we replaced balance sheets, income statements and cash flow.  Second, as exciting as the internet was, the infrastructure was simply not in place to support some of the grand ideas.  Yes we were laying down fiber that would cir cum navigate the globe many times over, but most people were still connecting via a 28.8 modem with ungodly slow connection speeds.  The initial Application Service Provider (ASP) model was a precursor to Software as a Service (Saas) or what we refer to as the cloud today.  Your Facebook experience would have been very different and don’t even think if adding photos.  Another thing that was interesting was many companies you could not figure out what they did, it was like Wang computers all over again.  The classic was the Razorfish founders being interviewed on 60 minutes, nit being able to answer the question, “What is it you do?”  It was like asking Bob Dole, “Why do you want to be President”.  Just think Mark Cuban made billions all because he wanted to stream Indiana Hoosier basketball over the internet.  The sucker there was Yahoo, who bought a pile of nothing.

I am optimistic this time around.  Exactly for the two reasons I outlined above.  Today we have a viable and always improving infrastructure for the internet.  Not just via lanline support but wireless connectivity has improved in leaps and bounds beyond what we could have anticipated.  We can thank the iPhone for making the wireless internet an enjoyable experience.  We can now view so many applications and services wherever whenever we want.  Services like Netflix, which will destroy the need for a DVD player in time.  New services are springing up all the time to further improve and enhance our online experience.  Though a lot of videos I stream through YouTube still need to be viewed in the Flash player within the browser, more and more video contents is being done in HD and allowing me to view full screen.  Within the next five years that will simply be the norm.

More importantly many of the IPO’s filed of late have business models and real revenues.  It’s not a promise of a better future, because the future is now.  The idea that old business models are, well old is not exactly true.  A solid income statement and strong balance sheet still matter.  In the case of Facebook they are starting to capitalize on their status as a “place to hang out” on the net.  The filing with the SEC already shows a company that makes $3.7 billion a year.  In a recent coffee I had, someone had met with the Microsoft Advertising team in New York.  the word in the street was that companies looking to spend online ad dollars wanted to deal with Facebook.  Back in the dot-com days you did not hear stories like that and certainly did not see revenue like that in the SEC filing.  It was always just a promise of a brighter future.  With Facebook the word one the street is they are set to grow and grow fast.  When you consider how much time people spend on Facebook versus Google or Bing there is more than just hope.  Advertisers want to spend with Facebook.  Facebook just needs to execute.

Many of the companies pre-Facebook have been impressive LinkedIn, Pandora, Zynga, and Zillow.  Are they Facebook?  No but with such a huge captive audience who is.  They are, however, companies with existing business revenues and opportunities to build on what they have.  This then just becomes a question of vision and execution.  It is by no means guaranteed.  Some I am not sure they are thinking big enough and attracting the audiences they have.  Pandora, as much as I love, needs to think of themselves as digital entertainment and not just music.  But the opportunities are there as we have come a long way since the original dotcom boom days, where we had grand idea just not the infrastructure or platform to execute those ideas.  We have those now.

There will be challenges along the way and as I have said before when America gets excited it starts to see riches, and a bubble will be born.  Our gold rush mentality makes it so.  We will over value companies and do so until basic economics takes us back to earth.  There will be those who time the market and capitalize on its excesses.  We call them Mark Cuban,the numbers of what happened in that transaction for a pile of nothing are staggering.  Mr. Cuban’s company Broadcast.com, generated $13.9 million in revenues in 1999.  It was sold in 1999 to Yahoo for $5.9 billion.  I don’t think this time around well see those type of valuations as business fundamentals will rule during this go around.  But the opportunities to cash in for a great profit will be there again.  Hopefully most will have learned this time around when to cash in.  Only god knows how many paper millionaires we had the first go around.  I met many of them and saw their egos rise and then fall back to earth.  The thud was rather distinct.

Good Night and Good Luck

Hans Henrik Hoffmann February, 7 2012

Apple, Apple, Apple…

Posted: January 30, 2012 in Android, Google, iPad, iPhone, Microsoft, Windows Phone
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Though Steve Jobs has left us and leaves a tremendous legacy and hole to fill, he obviously left a great pipeline of products in place for Apple. Earnings for the quarter at Apple blew past every analysts expectations.  They just seem to keep coming with quarters that seem beyond belief.  As reported on Cnet, during the period, Apple posted $46.33 billion in revenue and a record profit of $13.06 billion. iPhone sales jumped 128 percent year over year to settle at 37.04 million units, while iPad sales rose 111 percent to 15.43 million units. Apple’s Macs got into the mix, too, soaring 26 percent to 5.2 million units sold.  Those are huge numbers and daunting for anyone competing against Apple.  If we break them down one by one it’s interesting to see the challenges for those competing and what to expect and do next.

Looking at the iPhone sales the number is staggering.  They sold 37 million units of primarily the Apple 4s, not 5 but 4s.  The 4s was what we used to refer to as a “dot” release, not a major release. Just a release with minor enhancements like Siri.  To put in perspective Nokia has announced they have 1 million Nokia Lumia 710 in the channel.  That is not in consumer hands but just to resellers.  Apples number reflects units in people’s hands.  The other thing is due to Apple’s channel that is pure money back to Apple.  With Nokia they get most and pay back a small percentage to Microsoft for the OS.  Then there is Google with Android, which is an indirect model as the hand set manufacturers keep the money and Google looks to make money via apps and mobile search.  The units of Android phone is impressive but to date it doe snot have the bottom line impact of Apple’s iPhone.  That could change as the mobile web grows and mobile ads increase the revenue to Google’s bottom line.  Though Microsoft Bing is challenging traditional search, Google seems light years ahead in mobile search.  With a major release from Apple due in 2012 with the iPhone5 could they beat 37 million?  One can only wonder.

Tablets are the fashionable device of the moment.  They have been since Apple made them so.  Steve Ballmer said “they will never sell those things”.   They sold over 15 million units in the quarter.  Though there are Android tablets I have not seen the excitement for Android Tablets like I do for Apple’s iPad.  The iPad seems to be playing its own game, in the short-term that could change with newer revs of Amazons Kindle Fire and further down the road with Windows 8 tablets.  The challenge for the competition is they may be talking about exciting new releases but no one I know of is putting their purchase decision on hold to wait for an Android or Windows 8 tablet.  I expect for the next 2-3 quarters that Apple to rule this domain, unchallenged.  The question will be how far in front they will be when a competitive alternative enters the market.  We will likely see a iPad3 this year, probably before Windows 8 Tablets hit the market, no one is waiting.

An interesting area of growth for Apple is its “old” business of Macs.  They sold 5.2 million units in the quarter an increase of 26%.  That is at the expense of Microsoft Windows.  Apple with around 10% market share is in an enviable position as they are not the leader and can only grow their market share.  As Microsoft Windows Revenue has flat lined (it’s still in the billions in terms of revenue) and Apple is enticing more and more developers to its platform you are seeing the first significant threat to the Microsoft crown jewel in over twenty years.  It’s interesting that it is coming from a competitor whose environment is considered very closed.  I think many people felt the most likely threat to Windows was going to come from the Open Source community in some variant of Linux.  But with Apple’s success in Smartphones and Tablets I can see the traditional Mac business was going to follow and it has.

With all this success it has led to that great American problem.  What do you do with $98 billion sitting in the bank?  When I was ta Microsoft we had (and they still do) usually upwards of $30-$40 billion in cash.  It would seem with Apples cash they could do almost anything they want, but in actuality it is a bit of a capitalist’s dilemma.  The obvious thing to do is return money to shareholders in either a quarterly dividend or one time payment.  They could also do a stock buy back, with  a market cap over $400 billion this could further drive the stock up benefiting shareholders.  They could do acquisitions, but Apple has never done the big multi-billion dollar purchases of tech companies.  I am not a big fan of these anyway as in the short run they slow progress down and when complete the industry has moved on.  It takes a couple of years for full integration, look at Microsoft’s acquisition of Skype for $8 billion and we have yet to see the fruits of this hit the bottom line.  It’s not a bad problem to have but the one thing that is for sure is they will have to do something as sitting in all that money does not seem a viable option, nor will shareholders allow for it.

Apple is truly in a state of grace.  It seems even when they do wrong, as in the previous quarter, they rebound.  It would be easy to see a future where we all are using Apple products, luckily tech and society do not work that way.  There will come a time when younger generations will not think Apple s cool as their parents think it is.  We are in a time when tech trends start with the teenagers and young adults.  Do I see a time when younger generations say “wow Microsoft or Dell is cool”.  Right now I am having a hard time believing that scenario will ever happen.  More likely it will be a young fresh start-up similar to a Facebook or Twitter.  When will this happen?  All I can say for sure is the next 2-3 years it is not likely to happen and the Apple strength will continue.  There are exciting horizons with iCloud and AppleTV.  But as I am fond of quoting Bill Baker, “The future comes slowly, change happens quickly”.  This will be the case with Apple as well but in the meantime let us just enjoy being, “Wowed!”.

Good Night and Good Luck

Hans Henrik Hoffmann January 30, 2012

Is Microsoft .NET a second class citizen of the Cloud?

Posted: January 24, 2012 in Uncategorized
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This was sent to me as a possible discussion for a local user group. It is interesting that it would come up, but not surprising. The cloud is on everyone’s mind.  It is the current “buzz” in the industry.  It has long been said in the industry that the development platform of now and the future is the internet.  As companies began to productize these web-based solutions a name was needed.  Anyone who ever saw a whiteboard presentation, when you drew a network diagram  when the diagram eventually went out to the internet, we drew a line to a…cloud.  Amazon was the first to build a successful business model around cloud based computing and shortly thereafter everyone followed.  Now it seems everyone is talking cloud offerings (Google, Apple, IBM, Microsoft etc..).  Go to any tech companies website and you will see a cloud solution somewhere.  To grow the business you need developers to follow you.  The race is now on to get developers to create new and exciting cloud applications..  With the release of Windows 8 due later this year developers are being told by Microsoft, “Bet on Windows 8″.  What maybe gets lost is during the previews at the Professional Developers Conference in 2011 a lot of what was discussed was Windows 8 integration with the cloud and cloud based services.  But where does Microsoft’s cloud offering Azure fit into this picture?   In a larger context where does .NET fit into today’s developer mindset?

It has been over two years since I was at Microsoft, but when I left we were on the .NET Framework 4.0.  As I write today we are still on the .NET Framework 4.0.  There has been little  heard from Microsoft regarding the future of .NET.   In the mean time  the industry continues its march to the cloud.  If you go to the Microsoft Azure page you will see for development a lot of tools supported other than .NET.  Beyond .NET there is node.JS, Java, PHP and “other”.  This highlights the Microsoft conundrum.  Microsoft went down the path of .NET and for a long period more or less ignored what was going on in the world of development.   Microsoft needs developers writing to the Azure platform, in fact for the Server and Tools division at Microsoft, its very life depends on it.  But getting developers to pay for development tools when so many are available for free on the internet is becoming an increasingly hard challenge.  Therefore they need to be “friendly” to the non-Microsoft development community.

Open Source is big and it is a developers paradise.  It was one of those things when open source first became a household name at the dawn of the consumer internet.  It’s the largest development community on the planet.  There is a lot of innovation that is happening out there on the internet that is far larger than what 90,000 Microsoft employees can do, of which less than 1000 are focused day-to-day on these issues.  On the net speed is everything.  What I ship one day can be gone the next.  At the same time on the net you can quickly generate mass, which leads to wide-spread user acceptance and “viral” marketing.  One day Facebook was a university social network and shortly thereafter it was a global phenomena.  The inability of Microsoft to effectively leverage the open source community has stunted its ability to attract new and emerging development communities.  They do have something called Codeplex which is Microsoft’s open source community.  However it is not as big as other development communities on the web.  This inability to leverage the web development community to its full potential has fostered an environment where Microsoft is chasing innovation and is not driving innovation.

As we look at Windows 8 the discussion is around the Metro interface and writing applications to the Windows Runtime or WinRT.  I guess when we talk about the Metro interface we are talking about a desktop UI,  a question is how much time will an end-user spend within Windows and does a new UI matter a whole lot for Windows when the first thing I do when I log on is go the internet.  A stat I heard several years ago said that 75% of development is focused on the web and 20% is focused on Windows (the other 5% is targeting hardware).  That number may have changed, but I doubt Windows development went up and web development went down.  Is Windows 8 development targeting the 20 percent?  Which then brings us back to the central question, where does .NET fit into all this and what is Microsoft telling developers to do with .NET?  I feel like .NET is going the same way of Silverlight…confusion.

When looking at the market for developers in the coming year I was sent the following list of top ten development skills (click here).  It is interesting to note that Microsoft development skill sets are not a part of the list.  That is not to say everything is open source as iOS development skills is in the top three.  It does highlight where open standards and innovation lay a large role in the future development road map.  It is apparent that Android and iOS are leading the way for mobile development and will do so in the coming year.   This will be challenging for Windows 8, as developers can target an existing market or a potential market.  In the end I think many will do both but it’s apparent that Windows 8 is not going to make anybody put aside their plans for developing on Android or iOS.  It used to not be that way.  The release cycles for the latter two is fast and furious and keeps the development community engaged.  When your company is building a platform, engagement is paramount because it means they are listening.  You could be presenting the worst crap on the planet, but as long as the developer are listening to your crap and not your competitors that is ok.

Finally the biggest and most important question moving forward is does .NET have a future??  It is known that current Windows Chief Steve Sinofsky is no big fan of .NET and the move to WinRT could be viewed as the death of .NET.  But then if the development community is out their debating whether .NET is relevant to the cloud or not, what should they be doing?  Silence is not an answer and providing a bunch of marketing spin until an answer is provided is just insulting.  Changing direction is hard, especially when so many have invested in .NET Development, and will likely continue to do so.  We could be looking at a situation similar to Visual Basic 6 developers, who refused to move to .NET, until around ten years later support was finally pulled from them.  It is also a question of enterprise apps versus consumer apps.  Enterprise do not move as fast as consumer based apps.  Can you message a development platform to both with equal success?

Steve Ballmer likes to tout the largest development community with the largest market opp in the world when you target Windows 8.  He is wrong.  He has been wrong for some time.  The largest market opp in the world is the internet and that is not going to change anytime soon.  It seems rather stupid that I have to write the obvious.  The viral ability of the net. Most developers are leveraging the internet for development so it comes as no surprise when they start looking at cloud development they look to open source to provide the tools and the guidance.  It is really no different than society has always worked, when we look for advice we look to our peers.  Now they are simply our virtual peers.  Microsoft’s cloud message so far had been confusing and I think most so for developers.  At the end of the day developers will do what they have always done, which is follow the money.  No developer likes to write an app that nobody uses.

Good Night and Good Luck!!

Hans Henrik Hoffmann January 24, 2012

CES 2012

Posted: January 13, 2012 in Android, Google, Microsoft, Steve Ballmer, Windows Phone
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Well this has been the week of the big Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in the glamorous city of Las Vegas.  It is a show, sad to say, I have never been to but would love to go someday.  Still with today’s interactive technologies it is pretty easy to follow from far away.  The great thing about CES is that it gives consumers a window n how they might spend their money in the upcoming year.  Or not.  Last year was a big year for 3-D TV’s, but I don’t think consumers were ready to give up their new LCD or Plasma screens just yet to experience 3-D at home.  This year promises a whole host of new gadgets and who knows what will be the biggest.  But it is always fun to hear what the big industry players are planning.  Even more exciting can be the young start-ups.

This year, as always, CES started with the keynote from Steve Ballmer, the loud and proud CEO of Microsoft.  Of course the big news had already broke, this would be Microsoft’s last CES.  This was the last chance to see Steve.  It was a draw and then Steve went on to present, uh, well, nothing really at all.  Most of which he talked about had already been announced in previous talks about Windows 8 and Windows Phone.  The biggest announcement was really that Nokia was coming back to America with the Lumia 900.  It is sad to see Microsoft leave the event.  I am not thrilled that they have chosen to do big releases via internal style events and over the web.  My preference is in person events but I may be a bit old school in that thinking.  The problem I have with over the web is it usually means at a desk at work where there are many distractions.  Such as Bob’s vacation or Steve i snot happy at work or..well you get the picture. You may see higher numbers but how many people are really engaged in what they are hearing and seeing?  In any case we bid Microsoft a fond farewell.

Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt participated in a “pseudo” panel.  Not sure what kind of panel this was intended to be as it sounded like a group of Google partners just nodding their heads to everything Eric said.  But there were some valid discussion points, mainly the idea of ubiquity between connected devices.  Just think of it this way..walk around your home and see how many devices, appliances etc have digital displays.  You would find dishwashers, washer and dryer, clocks, stereo’s, etc..They should all be talking to one another and to the cloud.  And according to Eric they should be built on a foundations of, drum roll please…Android.  To be clear this idea is nothing new.  Microsoft had this idea of Microsoft @Home over ten years ago.  Novell had its embedded systems technology(NEST).  But like so many things in technology it is not predicting the future, it is timing the future.  As Eric points out with mobility and wireless pretty much everywhere making this “connected” home is much closer to reality.  Google is taking the lead.  Lets see how soon others begin to follow.

The term Gorilla Glass was new to me but it made a splash as Sony showed a Viao made out of Gorilla Glass v2.  First question o I want a laptop made of glass?  It will be a little bit heavier, but the environmentalist in me asks the second question: Is it recyclable?  IN any case they did show hat this glass could withstand 120 pounds of pressure making it fairly durable.  Given how often I drop things this is a good thing.  From a pure aesthetics standpoint it would seem you would be able to do some pretty fancy stuff with color.  I think more than anything this highlights advances being made in the materials that make up our technology toys.  A good thing and though not “sexy” now it will be in the future.

When we look at the best in show winners there, as usual is some interesting stuff.  Kudos to Nokia for coming through with the best smartphone of the show the Nokia Lumia 900.  The Asus Memo 370T Tablet running Android and priced for $250.  It has 16bg storage, oh how far we have come.   The features are nice and with those low price points it makes total sense.  I found the best software app, Bluestack interesting.  It brings all 400,000 Android apps to Windows 8.  It used to be the other way around, with competing platforms looking to run Windows Apps.  Remember Apple had dual OS capabilities.  If you want to be a real old-timer who remembers IBM OS/2 v2.0 with the Windows Subsystem?  To be fair these type of subsystems traditionally ran slow and were painful.  I would hope that Bluestack brings something new to the table and is…fast.  Which it should be ok at since Android Apps for phones and Tablets are not like running Microsoft Office.  Size matters.  One thing to note Bluestack is not yet in beta.  Murmur.

My summary of what I have read and followed about CES is there was a lot of focus on Tablets.  A lot of new and upcoming releases tied to Windows 8 and Android.  The one thing I am interested to see when Windows 8 Tablets roll out is cost.  It seems like Apple has staked out the high ground and Android the low ground, and both have lots of applications.  Is the middle ground a viable place to be? On the TV front I think we are waiting for the next big revolution.  Google did some talk about interactive television, however we are not there yet.  Apple has been strangely silent of lat  in this topic.   But I expect them to bet big on Television.  I do expect in the next 2-3 years for this to be a huge focus of CES.  The interesting question and one of great anticipation is who will lead.  Overall though this was not a great year at CES as there was no break through announcements.  No technology that came out and said this is what will be big in 2012, right or wrong (think 3-D TV).  Looking at the products it was more claims of, “This will be a big improvement on what currently exists”.  Take your pick, Tablets, Smartphones, mobile gaming etc…Next year will be bigger with Windows 8, though I don’t hear of anything ground breaking coming from Redmond…yet.  But what we want from CES is not an upgrade but something that changes how we experience life.

Good Night and Good Luck

Hans Henrik Hoffmann January 13, 2012

Windows Phone..where are we today

Posted: January 9, 2012 in Google, iPad, iPhone, Microsoft, Windows, Windows Phone
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Mobility is always one of the topics I like to write most about as I find the world fascinating. From the carrier networks and billing systems down to the actual consumer devices. I was at Microsoft in Bldg 117, home of Microsoft Mobility, when the first Windows Phone was released. I had every Windows Phone OS from v1.0 on up to 6.5. I won’t go through the whole history, but needless to say, things started to fall apart for the Microsoft Phone business after the release of the Apple iPhone.  With the latest release of Windows Phone, code-named Mango and the flowering relationship with Nokia, Microsoft at long last seems in a position to compete with Apple and Google.  However so far Windows Phone, despite every positive reviews seems to be at a cross roads.

Recently former Microsoft Windows Phone GM, Charles Kindel on his blog wrote about his thoughts as to why, despite in his view, WP7 is a superior product, sales were so lack luster.  Though I don’t agree with all his points some are very valid.  He highlights four areas of the mobile eco system. They are as follows:

  1. Carriers
  2. Device Manufacturers
  3. OS Providers
  4. Users
  5. Developer **

As noted in his blog he intentionally left the developer community off the list, but I shall add it back in.  So there you have it 5.

Carriers are kind of the Mitt Romney of tech, he wants to be popular to the conservative base of voters but he is not.  The carriers want to be like Silicon Valley, but they are not.  Telco execs are closer to Depends than Huggies.  Silicon Valley kids are definitely in the Huggie category.  Carriers at the end of the day own the last mile to the customer.  Any service for mobile devices will run through them.  They get us all connected.  It’s exciting stuff.  That being said no one gets excited by their carrier.  High School kids do not say they are cool now that they have Verizon Wireless.  Kids are excited by the device and  the functionality it provides them.  Voice and data plans are a necessary evil.  The only talking points are quality of service and the cost of the service.  But make no mistake these old boys wield a lot of power and would like nothing better than to be recognized as “cool” for it.  If you want your device sold you have to play with them…unless you are Apple which managed to dictate their own terms.  This leads us to the next category.

Device Manufacturers do some of the really cool stuff that make the handsets we buy..well cool.  But how do carriers select which handset they will place in their storefronts and promote?  Well we have two different approaches.  One is very monolithic and takes control away from the carriers.  That of course would be Apple.  Apple s the only device manufacturer that I can think of that was able to dictate how their phone would be sold , which at first was sold exclusively through AT&T.  Steve Jobs knew he had broken new ground when Apple created the iPhone.  It was a leap-frog step in mobile phones.  He knew it and he negotiated it.  AT&T sold voice and data plans for the iPhone, but Apple got the rest, including the App Store.  All AT&T could hope for was that the iPhone would drive more subscribers to their network.  It did.   a lot of new subscribers.  On the flip side is Google and what they have done with Android.  Buy a mobile OS, leverage open source and let device manufacturers create.  It was a good plan that gave some leading handset manufacturers cool software so that they could compete and sell against the iPhone.  Quickly HTC went from being a dominant Windows Phone shop to a dominant Android shop.  Other handset manufactures fell quickly into line such as Samsung and Motorola.  Device manufactures had the flexibility to innovate and not have to adhere to a rigid set of software design practices.  Charles Kindel highlighted this in his blog and I am in strong agreement with him on this.  Microsoft has not done this and it has caused friction with device manufacturers. The carriers liked this model as it was less friction between the carriers and device manufactures.  It gave carriers more variety to sell and also more inexpensive devices. Cost was an area where Google could innovate and compete with Apple.

For the providers of OS’s there are primarily three: Apple, Google and Microsoft.  Apple is a walled garden or prison cell, which ever analogy you prefer. Google is on the flip side as it pursued more the open source model and courted developers heavily to their Android platform. I flatter Microsoft by putting them here as they are around 2% in terms of market share, but they have over $30 billion in cash so I guess I should.  Operating systems, whether they are on a tablet, laptop, phone  or other don’t matter as much as the makers would like to think.  But they do enable our experiences so to minimize them would also be wrong.  Really Apple is a soup to nuts shop so they own hardware and software design,  Google and Microsoft differ in approach and cost.  Google has a better developer model and doe snot cost.  Microsoft is less open and does charge for the OS to hand set manufacturers.  In my view these two things will slow down their progress in the market place and to get to a substantial market share is going to be a hard journey.

Users in the end decide where they want to invest their money.  Sp much of what they invest is not necessarily for cool features and cutting edge technology.  It is for how the product makes them feel.  Don’t get me wrong all the technical stuff is very important in making the end product successful, but at the end of the day users want to feel good.   Apple has been far and away the best at this.  Android is good, but it is a cheap alternative to Apple.    Though Charles Kindel claims the Windows Phone is the best bar none, it is hard to substantiate when it’s hard to find anyone (as of yet) who owns one.  My view is tainted toward the positive as I live in Seattle so I have plenty of Microsoft employees happy to show me all the cool features.  Note to Microsoft employees here.  Stop showing features and hand the phone to whomever you are talking to, so they can “experience” the phone.  Feature demo’s are for geeks.

Finally we come to developers.  The are the Windows Phone is weakest in.  Remember Steve Ballmer saying, “Developers, Developers, Developers” .  Apparently he forgot.  Recently Apple hit 500,000 applications, Google has a few hundred thousand.  Microsoft announced they hit 50,000..  Apple amazed me as they used Object C as the development language for the  iOS.  I sold C compilers in the early nineties.  It seemed dead.  However after the release of the iPhone it went from dead to one of the top ten programming languages.  Developers g where the money is.  The development language they use is secondary.  Google use of open source made sense, since the open source community is a whole lot of developers at heart.  It’s a large community so leverage their brain power.  Which brings us back to the Microsoft developer.  Who is Microsoft asking to write Windows Phone apps?  Simple the large and robust Microsoft developer community and yet they are still not even visible in the rear view mirror of Apple and Google.  Why?  For starters mobile apps are simple and cheap.  It is based on a high volume lower margin principle.  Plus a lot of Microsoft developers are not targeting consumer apps.  One of two things has to happen.  Either Microsoft has to create enough consumer demand for Windows Phone to bring developers over to Microsoft or they need to attract non-Microsoft developers to the Microsoft brand.  Not easy but it has to be done.

In the long run I expect that Microsoft will pour enough money into Windows Phone to drive some success, but how much and what is deemed a success is to be determined.  I think short-term it makes more sense for Microsoft to go after Google and Android as Apple has extremely high consumer satisfaction.  A recent study cited 85% of Apple iPhone users would buy Apple again.  Android is ow cost but it is also in danger of fragmenting as the OS layer as more handset manufactures modify the OS , thus creating apps that are compatible on some devices but not all.  This needs to happen fast as Android sales are sky rocketing.  Microsoft and Nokia will have a successful launch and Windows Phone will increase in market share (how much?!?), but the next big question will be can it create and sustain momentum?  Though Charles Kindel claims the Windows Phone is the best mobile phone on the planet, that does not translate into success.  Technology is littered with products that were deemed the best and yet failed to catch on.  It is early for Windows Phone 7 and Microsoft is way late to the game.  Their key partner, Nokia, is making a last stand with the Microsoft mobile platform.  In the mean time Apple and Google have not slowed down.  It seems impossible to overcome.  But what does Microsoft have to lose except for ….the future.

Good Night and Good Luck.

Hans Henrik Hoffmann –  January 9, 2012

Windows 9

Posted: December 19, 2011 in Uncategorized
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Is it “Back to the Future”? No, I am just starting to think about ahead to the future of Windows. There is a little bit out there on the internet that we can point to regarding plans post Windows 8 which is set to ship god knows when.  But it makes for an interesting discussion.  One blog I found references a few things about the possible Windows 9 principles.    First it will be 64 bit only. 2:) There will be no legacy support.  3:) There will be only one OS 4:) There will be one user interface.  A lot of this was discussed at the Worldwide Partner Conference earlier this year so these are not shocking details but it does make for an interesting discussion and speculation.

Starting with 64 bit only I am not sure this is as big of deal, as for example when Windows 95 came out, which was 32 bit. When the industry moved from 16 bit to 32 bit the issue of compatibility wad important.  There were a lot of 16 bit Windows apps that would need to be supported.  Microsoft came up with Win32s (subsystem) in order to support those older applications.  In those days if you were a developer writing exciting applications you were writing to the Windows API’s.  This was before the web had taken off.  In order for an application to perform it needed Windows.  Moving forward to today’s developer environment, though still important, Windows is not the center of the development universe.  Developers are writing applications for the internet, meaning that consumption is through the browser (Internet Explorer, Safari, Chrome, Firefox etc..).  Don’t get me wrong the decision (if true) to move to 64 but only will be a bit painful.  However there will not be as many applications that need to be moved to 64 bit in comparison to the jump from 16 bit to 32 bit.  There should be ample ramp up time.  We should see performance benefits from 64 bit, but in the end I believe due to the web this will be a non-event for both Microsoft and the industry.

The move to 64 bit makes the “no legacy” support a non-issue.  If you have an app that is dependent on Windows you are one of the few.  Over 70% of new development targets the web.  With more services being pushed to the cloud our PC’s are starting to resemble, dare I say, dumb terminals.  For device manufacturers this may be a bit more challenging as all device drivers will need to be updated.  So if you have a HP printer connected to Windows 7 or 8 and you buy a new PC but not a new printer, you will need a device driver written for 64 but.  Seems trivial to those who know what they are doing but most people don’t know where to find an update driver.    This will in the short run create support challenges for many and likely some PR disasters along the way, but we shall overcome.

One OS for all.  It seems like I have been here before back when Microsoft was shipping Windows and Windows NT.  There was a push to have a consolidated client operating system.  The world is a bit different now with the proliferation of different device form factors.  We now have Tablets, SmartPhones, Desktops, Laptops and new devices on the way.  So the question is how broad do you want to be when you say one OS for all?  Windows 8 already promises to be the desktop, laptop and tablet OS.  I guess that leaves the Windows Phone with is sitting over in a different organization at Microsoft, The Interactive Entertainment Business Group (IEB).  The group that owns the XBOX.  As I have said before this will not be a long discussion.  In the end Windows always wins.  Windows Phone will have a new home in the  next couple of years.  The key element in all this to me will be release cycles of the OS.  Phones and Tablets in the industry usually have new releases every year.  A desktop is every three years.  Ina  society where technology is consumer driven and these more aggressive life cycles are the norm, this will be the single biggest challenge of one OS.

Finally tagging on to that is the idea of one user interface.  My phone will look and feel like my laptop.  My tablet will feel like my phone.  Who knows what new devices and form factors lay on the horizon, but one thing is clear.  When we see Windows 9 the landscape will have changed yet again.  It is an interesting and predictable view from Microsoft.  But these ideas seem to much like an upgrade, a rather evil terms by today’s standards.  The idea of comfort.  It is something you are familiar with and feel at home with.  It is the Windows user interface. With Windows 8 the user interface is set to change with the introduction of the Metro interface.  A step in the right direction.  However Metro is taken from the Windows Phone experience, which is not built on the Windows code.  So the circle continues to morph into new and unexpected shapes.  When Windows 9 ships I do not expect Metro to be the user interface.  A bold prediction if I do dare say so myself.

In the end I do believe what we have “heard” so far is a good foundation for the future of Windows.  As I have stated it raises a number of questions.  Some internal to Microsoft and political.  Some are yet to be known as we do not know where the industry will be 3-5 years from now and what direction it has taken.  Others will be dependent on the success or failure of Windows 8, specifically in the tablet space.  If it succeeds expect the Windows division to consolidate and own all OS experiences within Microsoft.  If it fails and they continue to lose ground to Apple and Google, the wild west will be reopened at Microsoft.  I would hope that Windows will make some bets on the future that are yet to unfold.  It would be nice for a Windows OS to actually drive excitement in the industry again.  Not just OEM’s getting excited about selling more laptops, but actual enhancements that change how we work and interact with technology.  It would be nice to just have a vision for the future and not an upgrade.

Good Night and Good Luck

Hans Henrik Hoffmann, December 19, 2011

The Cloud called SalesForce.Com

Posted: December 9, 2011 in Uncategorized
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One of the phenomena’s that came about during the DotCom era was Customer Relationship Management Software.  To be clear it did not start during this period but it seemed to generate a lot of press during this period.  It became significant as large enterprises needed to centralize how they managed their relationships with customers.  On paper or in PowerPoint it made a lot of sense.  Suddenly you had companies popping up providing customers with a solution.  On paper and in PowerPoint.  In reality it was actually not so bright and cheery.  However one company seems to have emerged from the rubble fairly unscathed and intact, Salesforce.Com.  It’s worth a look as beyond CRM I think we will increasingly see more of these Cloud players enter the market, in fact we already are.

I gotta admit CRM applications are painful. Does not matter who you are – the user, the administrators, the system integrators, etc…I have been around quite a few of them.  Early in my career at Microsoft, a corporate decision was made to go with Siebel Systems Software as Microsoft was growing and had customer information in spreadsheets, databases and 3 rd party software all over the company.  It was becoming increasingly difficult to manage and get good information out of those systems.   After the decision was made it would take over 2 years before it successfully launched Siebel internally.  The user experience was awful.  Later when I was part of the account team for Microsoft covering AT&T Wireless, AT&T was implementing Siebel for their call center.  Three system integrators later and millions of dollars spent it failed.  It was an industry joke.

Why do these systems even exist?  Well there is a huge demand for being able to manage customer relationships in a centralized way.  Both for small and large business it is important to project sales, pipelines etc..as  a measure of the overall health of an organization.  When we talk of Enterprise Resources Planning (ERP) we talk about the cost of running a business.  With CRM we are measuring to see if  our revenues will exceed our costs.  CRM is the window into the pulse of the customer, or so it was hoped.  Initially CRM was thought of within the confines of a companies IT infrastructure. In hindsight that may have been a limited outlook.  The internet was exploding and it seemed apparent that CRM should reach beyond the confines of the corporate network infrastructure.  CRM systems during this time period became synonymous with cost over runs.

This brings us to the promise of the cloud in helping us off load those costs.  In the dotcom era a lot of companies came that had the right idea, they were just ahead of their time and the technology was not quite ready.  A few, however, did survive.  One from the era was Salesforce.Com.  Unlike other companies I worked with in the Dot Com era SalesForce.Com has a better and more mature plan.  An example of a company not so good at CRM in the cloud was a company called Corio.   I met with their CTO, who was an entertaining ex-Oracle guy, who laid out the Corio plan.  He said they were going to take Siebel, make it cookie cutter and resell to companies with no customization.  Remember how I started this blog post?  My eyes were rolling as soon as he said “cookie cutter Siebel”.

Getting back to Salesforce, they were much more pragmatic.  First their application would live in the cloud.  So all up-time and management of systems was on Salesforce.  That already is saving an IT department money.  Second they would allow customization, through a partner channel.  This made a lot of sense, because every sales force is different and always has some unique requirement.  To try to create cookie cutter solution is like trying to put a square peg in a round hole.  They created a developer platform to support this customization.  These are all attractive solution offerings and reduce the burden to IT departments.  ATT Wireless was a good example of an IT department with extreme costs and therefore extreme burdens.  My last employer, Limelight Networks was an example of a company that was small and needed CRM, just not the headaches that went with it.  Salesforce made a lot of sense.

My impressions of Salesforce as a user were fairly favorable.  There were a lot of “how to” questions to the Salesforce guru at Limelight.  I am not sure any company can have a CRM app without having to hire a person or team of people to act as your go to people for general Q & A.  Even with a user interface as kind as Salesforce, there still is a lot happening and you could spend weeks trying to learn everything it does and how it interacts with other corporate information systems, or does not interact.  Because companies evolve there is a need for the CRM app to evolve with the growth of a company.

Salesforce right now is maturing. Like many fast growing companies it is in its  arrogant phase., This is based on feedback from people I know whom they have called upon.  It’s typical.  One because their CEO Marc Benioff is an ex-Oracle guy.  Oracle guys all seem to be aggressive type-A personalities.  Two during the early hip honeymoon phase all tech companies I have been around or worked at are cocky when things are going well,  The list is long, Microsoft, SUN, Google, Apple, Yahoo, and every dotcom start-up I was around (something to do with over inflated stock prices).  In hindsight,  it’s a good place to be. It is  a fun period professionally to know you are leading the pack. It will be interesting to see how SalesForce expands and goes to version 2 and 3 of the company.  Or it could end up like PeopleSoft and Siebel, two companies founded by ex-Oracle guys only to be acquired by Oracle.

The cloud is very real and is set to become a dominant part of the technology landscape.  Salesforce.com survived the dot bomb days and has emerged as a leader in the Cloud App delivery space.  They are still in the enviable space that many sales opportunities are greenfield opportunities (meaning net new revenue) which Wall Street loves.  Moving forward like any fast growing company  they will have to prove they are more than a one trick pony.  They will also need to be more humble.  Given their executive leadership that may be a bit of a sticking point.  The good news as I have said the cloud is here and Salesforce is well positioned to be a leader.

Good Night and Good Luck

Hans Henrik Hoffmann December 9, 2011

Killing the Microsoft Tablet

Posted: November 23, 2011 in Uncategorized
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Around the time Apple launched the tablet Microsoft was working on something called the Courier. A Microsoft alternative to the iPad.  Microsoft beat writer Jay Green just did an expose on the Courier and what happened for CNet.  It’s a pretty telling article on some of the inner working at Microsoft and how decisions are made.  It makes for good corporate political intrigue .  It raises a lot of questions.  I shall try to provide my insight.

I remember the first photo’s of the Microsoft Courier, the new, but ill-fated Microsoft project to capture the tablet market. For starters it was different. It opened like a book with two screens. It looked very cool and sleek.  It showed thinking outside of the box ( I hate that term).  Being at Microsoft at the time it was something everyone craved.  Microsoft has and still is in the mindset of let others create the market and we will come from behind and take the market.  In the past against WordPerfect, Lotus, Novell and many others it was a strategy that worked well.  Lately that has not worked so well starting with Search, Smartphones, Social Networking, Digital Music, Cloud Computing (Ballmer’s quote on the cloud -”We’re all in”…did you really have a choice?) etc..it has, in my view, become a rather outdated mode of attack.  The market is moving much faster and the gains some of these companies make in market share, make it a lead that cannot be caught

In reading the article you get a sense of internal Microsoft politics and I have to be honest a rather disconnected Bill Gates.  We will tackle the latter first and then move on to this blogs episode pf “Dallas” in the next segment.  At one point as things unfolded Steve Ballmer turned to his old friend, boss and Microsoft chairman Bill Gates for his opinion and guidance on which direction to move forward with.  J Allard and crew met Bill at his Kirkland office to review and promote the Courier, as the Tablet for Microsoft moving forward.  Things were going well until the discussion of email came up.  The Courier teams view of email was web-based services such as Hotmail and gMail.  Bill still had and has stuck in his head Microsoft Outlook as the greatest email client since sliced bread.  I think Bill has lost touch with how people communicate.  We have services like SMS (text messaging), Instant Messaging, and Social Networking.  There are a lot of options that do not require a desktop app of the power of Outlook.  But Bill is not a hipster so the new communications technologies seem primitive to him.  He is so connected to his inner geek.  As Steve Jobs said, “It would not have hurt him to have dropped some acid when he was younger”.  The Courier team did not gets Bill’s blessing.  They should have brought some LSD.

Microsoft politics at a high level is pretty simple.  The group with the most money wins.  At Microsoft that really means two groups, the Microsoft Windows division and Microsoft Office division.  What the Courier team was doing was a stripped down version of Windows that would have its own release cycles.  I always felt one of J Allard’s great attributes at Microsoft was his ability to see what was wrong with success.  When he launched XBOX he essentially formed a new company within Microsoft and did not fall into the Microsoft product group track.  The challenge the was going to have with Courier was it required an operating system.  He was going to do battle with the Windows Division.  It was to be a David versus Goliath moment.  However in this story David does not win.

Steve Sinofsky is the President of the Windows Division, Though not always popular, he does do one thing very well, ship products on time.  I can only guess at this time but I doubt my guesses will be that far off base.  To talk slightly technical for a moment we have the issue of code bases.  This is the actual code developers write to create Windows.  The stuff that makes most people’s eyes glaze over.  What J Allard was proposing was a “new” Windows OS for the Tablet.  One with its own release cycles.  Over time it would “fork” into a completely different direction and I could see eventually being its own OS with its own fiefdom at Microsoft. .  These are very valid points as Microsoft release cycles are no longer acceptable in today’s technology world.  In the old days three-year release cycles were the norm.  In today’s consumer driven world the norm is 12 to 18 months.  More importantly it would not be under the guise of Steve Sinofsky.  Given that the Tablet space is one of the hottest markets on the planet and Microsoft was starting to work on the planning for  Windows 8, this was a battle Steve was not going to lose.  Steve simply could say, “J I have 10 billion dollars….game over”.  And so it was.

Coming forward to today we look like we are still 12 months from the release of Windows 8 (maybe sooner depending on which rumor mill you are listening to).  In the meantime the market has heated up.  The iPad 2 is a run away success.  It sold 500,000 in its first three days on the market.  We now have low-cost providers entering the market for the holidays the Amazon Kindle Fire and the Barnes and Noble Nook.  These coming at prices below $200.  The early review on the Amazon Kindle Fire are very good.  In the mean time we wait for Microsoft.  Will it be June?/  In time for the holidays in 2012.  What version will Apple be on?  By then they should be hard at work on the iPad 4.  I big bet Microsoft is making is the belief that the market wants Windows, that they specifically want a Windows Tablet.  The market moves fast, it will be different when the Windows 8 Tablet ships.

Finally the frustration for many Microsoft employees was that there was a cool device being worked on.  It was perceived as something that could change the game and make Microsoft likable again.   It was different and dangerous, something that is a must if you are to change a market.  But do to internal politics we never saw the Microsoft Courier.  It was created with a start-up mentality in some cool offices in Pioneer Square.  As Jay Greene comments that has all been shut down.  I am not surprised by the death of the Courier and it’s legacy   It was a battle that it was never going to win.  However I know that the people at Microsoft crave this type of excitement in product development.  Though Windows brand still commands 90% market share, it is frankly becoming a rather dull brand.  In the mean time we are promised better things for tomorrow.  However a promise for tomorrow is a promise to no one.

Good Night and Good Luck

Hans Henrik Hoffmann November 23, 2011

The Greek Debacle

Posted: November 15, 2011 in Uncategorized
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We seem to hear it every day. It’s on the news. The impact to the global economy could be immense.  The fall of the Euro Currency and the Euro Zone could begin.  The ripple effect will bring us into a global recession.  All this stemming from the birth place of democracy, Greece.  Somehow I don’t think Aristotle saw this coming.  How does a global economy evolve so that Greece holds the fate of economic recovery or economic disaster in it’s seemingly feeble hands?  More than anything it is evidence on how connected we are as a global economy.  It just takes one domino to fall to set in motion a chain of events.  It’s an interesting phenom but somehow the domino example simplifies what is a rather complex topic, but one I would like to try to tackle.  Hopefully it will make some sense in the end.

In college I studied in Copenhagen for a year in 1987 (prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall).  A primary focus was, the then 30 plus year old union, the European Economic Community.  The big transition being discussed at the time was not the move to a common currency, the Euro, but the move to border less states.  At the time you still required a passport to travel from Denmark to Germany.  It was a point of pride for my fellow students to have a passport with a bunch of  stamps representing all the countries they had visited.  All the students in the program had the travel bug.  Later in the school year we went to the European Union headquarters in Brussels, Belgium to see, hear and learn how this community worked.  We visited the different branches of EU government, US trade representatives and enjoyed Belgian beer.  It was an exciting time in Europe as they were moving forward with great plans of an integrated Europe.   There were obstacles. Certain countries were economically well behind others, this included countries such as Ireland, Portugal and Greece.  While other stronger members, primarily Germany paid the bills to modernize these struggling countries.  Looming in the distance was the idea of a common European currency.  The idea of saying good-bye to Italian Lira’s and Greek drachma’s

Stepping back a bit further Europe as a whole has always had different views on social services.  In part driven by the culture, in part driven by the different relationships between labor unions and the state and private industry.  There are, like any system, both good and bad things.  There are basics like health care.  In Europe it is covered by the state (through higher taxes), but specialty services like a back surgery you may need may take a long time to get scheduled.  But talk to anyone in the United States who is out of work and the biggest concern is health care.  Another big one is retirement.  In France for example some public workers can retire in their fifties.  With people living longer and needing more care in their old age, this has become problematic. not to mention very costly.  There are a lot of other services provided by many European Union members but bringing this back to current events when the economy dives it impacts these social services.

Since the fall of Lehman-Brothers we have seen the global economy dive, and it is worth to note I say global economy.  We are interconnected.  The effort to create a common currency in Europe was well founded as the world looked only to, and still only looks to the US dollar for safe haven.  This has been a savior for the US as foreign countries buy up US treasuries and float our debt.    The euro for a while looked like it would act as an alternative to the dollar.  And for a while it was.  The challenge in Europe is it is often called the United States of Europe, but in really these are still independent sovereign states.  Though they for the most part have a common currency (Denmark and the United Kingdom have yet to move to the Euro), in term of funding social services each country still has to fiance these services on their own.  This means that each country has to finance these services through the issuance of government debts.  In the end you have Greek Bonds, Italian bonds, Spanish bonds etc.. With 27 countries in the European Union how do you proactively manage each countries finances?  This is unlike the states in the US that have to balance their budgets each year, which is why a lot of the big cost cutting we see on a daily basis is happening at the states and down through counties and cities.  Imagine if you will 50 states, in addition to the federal deficit, all running multi-billion dollar deficits.  Now imagine Europe..except your not imagining.

When the economy tanked the math becomes pretty simple.  If your tax revenues fall below what your services cost you start to run a deficit and the lager the deficit grows, the more it costs to finance as the banks who loan the money expect higher returns, in the form of higher interest rates.  At some point the interest rates get to a point where the country cannot make payments.  In the case of Europe the magic number seems to be 7% interest.  So what does Greece have to do?  They have to cut government or what is being called austerity measures.  This means social services that have been available for years have to be re-examined and cut.  It could be health care costs are slashed.  Retirement ages are raised. Pension payments are cuts.  Unions rights are challenged.  Education cuts.  It all sounds very familiar to what we hear about on the news on a daily basis in the United States.  Except in this case it is very real.  However as we have seen on television this leads to civil unrest.

One scenario has that Greece declares bankruptcy and exits the Euro and goes back to the drachma.  That means anyone in Greece owing money in Euros will see there costs dramatically rise as the relationship between the drachma and Euro is one where we will likely see the drachma slide and thus end up costing debt holders even more money.  This will likely also lead towards sky rocketing inflation in Greece,  All in all this scenario would be bad for Greeks and the Greek economy. It would also cause instability in the Euro as you would then have the who’s next scenario, which right now is Italy, an even bigger problem looming, that is no longer on the horizon.  If the euro starts to falter it will be good for no one.  As we are hearing this eventually starts to impact economies beyond the shores of Europe.  We have already seen some Wall Street firms make bad bets on Greek debt, leading to more layoffs.

It’s hard to believe that the birth place of democracy has become such a focal point of global economics and politics. What would Aristotle or Socrates do?   Of course much of their dialog was about the conflicts of man himself.  this material thing called the economy might not interest them a whole lot.  But it is of interest to the people who make up the economy, who are already on edge from three years of economic unrest.  Frankly we are all tired of the instability in an increasingly connected and unstable world.  It’s still hard for most to grasp how Greece holds our fate.  I have  tried, but does this comfort someone who is unemployed in Topeka?  Maybe it is best to leave this to Socrates:

“True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us.”

Good Night and Good Luck

Hans Henrik Hoffmann November 15th 2011

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