Category: iPhone

Apple vs Android

Published on by hansh51Leave a comment

I guess it’s time I offer up my comments on these two  behemoths battling it out. Right now Apple is king. It’s market share continues to rise, the number of apps available continues to grow at what at times seems an exponential pace, it is no longer confined to just ATT’s network. It’s a fast paced enjoyable story. On the other side you have Google’s “open source” OS Android. The one the press is hailing will  be king. It has developer panache. It’s market share continues to grow at a very impressive rate.  If you look at one of the latest surveys, Android in Q2 of 2011 amassed a startling 43.4 % market share in the smart phone markets .  On top of all this Google just decided to acquire  Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion. Who will win?  Will there be a winner?  Does there need to be a winner?  Will others challenge the two dominant players? Each phone has advantages and disadvantages.

Nothing revolutionized mobility like the iPhone.  It was a titanic shift in how we use and interact with technology on a day-to-day basis. Within a short time frame it seemed everyone in the streets, in the mall, at sports events were doing something more than talking and texting on their phone.   They even got ATT to join in the fun , all 300,000 employees.  Then they did the double “whammy”.  They got people excited about the web on mobile devices and applications.  Before you knew it the mass audience of the whisper campaign was the mass audience of consumers.  Thanks to the iPhone and also Google, the idea of a Garmin GPS was pretty much thrown out the door.  Apple did not change phones, they changed mobility.  Phones were merely a by-product of their success.  The latest estimates for the iPhone 5 is total shipments of iPhones will hit 95 million by the end of 2011.  This would be cause for concern for some of the also ran’s, like RIM, Nokia and Microsoft.  At some point in time the gap between competition becomes so great that the bottom feeders will never catch up.  The success of Apple launched Apple into some new territory, namely with the success of applications on the iPhone, Apple was suddenly more attractive to developers on a large-scale.  As I have stated before  it goes to show all this talk of open versus closed environment’s is a load of crap.  Developers go where the market goes.  Like so many things it’s all about market opportunity and money.

It was not long after the release of the iPhone that rumblings in the valley started murmuring about a phone from Google. It was a smart campaign as it was decided early on that Android would be released on the web as an open source project.  If you are going to create an effective “whisper” campaign one thing that is a must is mass.  Google did something a bit different is that they really got developers on board in their campaign, initially not as consumer driven as Apple.  But what it did was through developers get the consumer base listening.  Since it was open source anyone who wanted to build a phone could participate.  Pretty soon you had Samsung, HTC, LG, Motorola etc all lined up to deliver their first Android phone.  Being open source it provided the hand set manufacturers a better ability to tweak and tune the mobile OS to the handset’s.  This enable Google to scale the available marketing budgets as the handset manufacturers had a stake in the game and were clamoring for something to compete against Apple.

New to this is the Google decision to acquire Motorola Mobility, which to me is simply about two thins: Patent protection and owning the user experience, head to toe.  Patents are the legal area, nit my core, but I do understand in technology you want to have a fairly large patent library to protect yourself from lawsuits.  From that standpoint I get why Google is doing this.  From the other side I understand the attraction of owning the hardware soup to nuts, but I don’t understand why Google is doing this.  The side I don’t understand is to date Google has pursued more of a Microsoft Partner model in getting companies to use their Android OS, with this acquisition they are now saying they will compete against them.  This does open an opportunity to the other provider of mobile OS software, Microsoft. My one piece of advice to my old friends is give the software away, there never was nor will there be a huge market for operating systems in the mobile space.  The real money will be in mobile advertising.  Maybe a light bulb will go off over in Microsoft mobility, it would go something like, “Bing”.  Maybe.

There has been talk among the smaller players about a third eco system.  It has not been very well vocalized, but rather just drowned out as a bunch of noise from “wannabe’s”.  A third way is nice but you have to create excitement.  The mobile space at its core is about lifestyles, about making people feel good about themselves.  It’s about handling an important call or email and then getting back to your beautiful view of the Grand Teton’s.  It is there to make us happy.  When potential competitors dumb it down to features, killers applications, etc..they are missing the point.  make no mistake it’s a very big hill they have to climb, and as I pointed out with the Google – Motorola acquisition it may take one of the big two to make a mistake.  Apple, for certain has made those mistakes before and as long as they continue to pay attention to history I do not see that happening in the imminent future.  Google at this point depends on how head to head they want to go with Apple.  If the Motorola acquisition is about patents, they should be fine.  As far as I am concerned the third eco system is more a “niche” play then about gaining significant market share.  Some circles discuss Microsoft buying RIM or Nokia.  If that is what it takes to get market share I think it will end up being a colossal waste of money.  Don’t buy market share, innovate.

In the foreseeable future we are going to see the battle taking place on two fronts – the iOS versus Android.  It’s not a battle of phones, it’s a battle for the soul of mobility.  The next innovations will remove us further from our dependency on hardware while making our devices seem more productive, like our old desktops, without the handcuff’s.  Don’t get me wrong I enjoy sitting down and typing these blog entries, and I do not do it on my tablet..yet.  It will change and it will change soon.  Just don’t thin of it as a physical keyboard.  To break the dominance of Apple and Android it will require yet another big breakthrough, like the one’s the iPhone introduced.  These type of titanic shifts do not happen that often – it could be in an area not related to software. such as alternative energies and longer battery life (I think we are all hoping for that one), or new virtual experiences.  In the meantime we can enjoy the battle as it is leading to new innovative technology and form factors that will enhance our life experiences.  At the end of the day we are human and we are designed to live.  Today that living is being done in two worlds, which is about all I can handle.

Good Night and Good Luck

Hans Henrik Hoffmann August 16, 2011

Mango

Published on by hansh51Leave a comment

I was watching the other morning the announcement by Microsoft of its new update to Windows Phone 7 called , “Mango”. On air was Windows Phone Czar, Andy Lee’s. As I listened to him fumble through a series of questions about what makes “Mango” so cool it took me back to my early years in the industry. I was listening to a program manager talk about the exciting new release of C/C++ 7.0 (put your pants back on I can tell you are getting excited already). He equated a C/C++ presentation to “watching paint dry”. I think I have made my point regarding Andy’s oratory skills.  Phone’s are a sexy device so if you are going to talk about a new phone update with over 500 new features it had better have some sizzle. Why not have some dancers?  Give the public some entertainment value.  Make them think they are having fun!  With my pontificating coming to a close, there were good things that came from this weeks announcement and a lot of things that made me worried for the future.

If you are going to pre-announce a new phone that will not be available for 6 months it had best generate some excitement, because what you are trying to do is tell the market place is, “hey wait…be patient because in 6 months we are going to have something for you that is really cool”.    I don’t think that was accomplished.  For starters this announcement did not have much of a whisper campaign leading up to it.  I first started hearing rumblings about a week ago.  In Microsoft’s defense it’s different when they leak to the press and Apple leaks to the press about a new iPhone, the market dictates and right now in terms of market share Apple is grossly superior.  There was a time in Windows 95 days that Microsoft was the king of the whisper campaign.  But to generate such a campaign there needs to be something in the new product to get people excited.  I heard a lot of feature discussions but nothing I would deem break through. Maybe it’s just me but I do like the name”Mango”.

Second competing on features is a zero sum game.  There are so many mobile apps available in the market place today and your phone form factors are pretty  well-defined, that there is not a lot of wiggle room to create the game changing feature that will change how people use their mobile phones.  The real game changer these days is to change the user experience, which Mango sounds like it is trying to do (or at least market), but it will not happen until the release in fall, just in time for the holidays.  The end users will decide.  However between now and then a whole host of new features will be provided across multiple devices.  Thus cluttering the market place even more.

Partnerships can be a blessing and a burden. The partnership with Nokia has a lot of great potential.  Nokia has invested heavily in emerging markets such as China and India.  Two countries with huge upside.  The downside is the company recently received an internal memo from CEO Stephen Elop that Nokia is a “burning platform”.  Not the kind of motivational speech I am sure Nokia employees were hoping for. A huge part of Mango’s success or failure will hinge on Nokia.  A company that is desperate and making its last stand.  That is not the ideal place to be if you are trying to recapture past glory, but due to a series of missteps Nokia and Microsoft find themselves on the same boat trying to plug the same hole before the ship slips below the surface seeking the depths of the abyss.

Microsoft, despite all the brain drain that has occurred, still have a lot of people who care deeply about the ability of the Windows Phone business to succeed.  Despite Andy Lee’s monotone delivery style he has a brilliant and successful track record at Microsoft, he is not a dumb guy by any stretch of the imagination. Sometimes a legacy of success can lead you down a road of false belief.  The Microsoft mobile group was on a path to success and just got side swiped by Apple, who had a grander vision for mobility.  But maybe that’s the point..it’s about mobility and not the phone.  As long as the game is about developing the next great phone, than an opportunity is lost as easily as it is gained.

Now it’s about sustainment for the next 6 months as Microsoft will need to keep the name “Mango” on people’s lips.  There will be significant hurdles as between now and then there will be updates from Android, called “Honeycomb” and the release of the iPbone 5.  It will be imperative to continue to re-iterate the new features coming in “Mango” and get people to wait.  But Microsoft is a big company with a lot of different big initiatives and what is hot one day and considered a company directive is gone the next as XBOX, Bing, Office, Windows all vie for the publics attention and affection.  That to me is the big question over the coming months leading up the official launch.  Can Microsoft maintain the initial momentum garnered from this weeks big press release in New York, can a whisper campaign be sustained end elevated. Whispers can grow to a Lions roar, causing excitement, angst, a multitude of emotions or they can just blow away silently with the wind, all but forgotten.

Good Night and Good Luck

Hans Henrik Hoffmann May 26, 2011

Google I/O 2011

Published on by hansh51Leave a comment

I followed with a lot of interest the Google I/O  conference for developers online this last week. The I/O conference was held in San Francisco and there were a lot of interesting announcements and observations.  For starters it’s always interesting to see the charismatic Vic Gudotra present. Prior to his role at Google, Vic was the right hand man for the former Microsoft VP of development evangelism at Microsoft Sanjay Parsatharathay,  Sanjay was a lousy speaker, where as Vic was quite comfortable in front of an audience.  It always seemed Vic was the voice and face for developers at Microsoft, so it was a coup when Google stole him. He now is leading the development programs at Google.  Many people at Microsoft say he has adopted the Microsoft play book at Google.  I would say he has updated it and improved it.  For this event however he was the host so his role was minimized as developers never want entertainment they just want to get into the guts of the technology and how it will improve their productivity and generate new opportunities.  I am going to take the high road to summarize my impressions

Day one at the conference was all about Android.  Google started by highlighting all the success Android has had with developers world-wide.  When you look at the number of developers and the number of applications that have been built its pretty easy to have a successful opening to a developer conference.  Android has 100 million activated devices worldwide.  Any business today getting into the mobile space will only talk about two things Apple iOS and Android. So what were the cool announcements?  Improvement to the AppMarket for Android and some new tools for Eclipse (an open source development tool that has a huge following, not sexy but very important)) I found Android@home  the most interesting announcement and comical hysterical announcement at the same time.  The idea being Android on any device anywhere.  Think beyond what you know today and think of home appliance running Android tomorrow, it could be your oven, your washer, pretty much anything that could benefit from software. This is not a new idea, Novell and Microsoft toyed with this idea over fifteen years ago.  Interestingly Microsoft’s initiative was called…@home.  I think the difference now is where Novell and Microsoft were ahead of the curve, it seems like we are at the dawn of where this idea will become reality.  Coming up with big ideas is not that hard, timing it however is the trick to success.

Day two was about Chrome.  Chrome today is really a browser.  If you look at browser market share Chrome is between 10% and 12% (NetMarket Share Data).  Which is impressive but still a long way off from catching Firefox or Internet Explorer.  Chrome however is about the future of web development and browser-based hardware devices.  Recently we have seen the first Chromebooks hit the market and the conference had several more announcements about Chromebooks.  The idea of an always connected browser-based device without all the overhead if a traditional operating system has some merit.  The problem at east for now is we are not always connected and sometimes we do not want to be.  Still I agree with most that this is the start of the next generation device, where connectivity will be ubiquitous and cloud services will be everywhere.  Google also announced the expansion of the Chrome Store.  This is  all fine and dandy that it no is available in 41 countries, but we do seem to have a lot of companies out there with a lot of online stores…how many do we need?

Finally across both days there were a couple of horizontal technologies that went across both Android and Chrome. One was cloud based services.  The idea beyond a marketing term is that the days where certain things could only be done on the desktop are coming to an end.  Sure there may be certain apps that leverage the capabilities of the desktop OS or hardware, but they will have limited market value.  The idea that a word processor needs to be tied to the PC is rapidly changing as apps like Google Docs increase in functionality.  Are they at parity with Microsoft Office?  Not even close today, but the ability to make up ground and create new cloud based scenarios is causing disruption in the landscape and will continue t do so (that is not to say Microsoft could not be the drivers of this change).  The other theme was every demo it seemed was Angry Birds.  I gotta be honest I don’t know these birds and I am not sure why they are angry, but my kids do.   It got to the point it was annoying.  Hey wait…it’s on my iPhone.  I need to talk with my children.

What impressed me about Google I/O was the clarity of what developers should be looking to do to create value today (Android) and to start thinking about tomorrow (Chrome).   There is a lot to be said to keep it simple.  In many ways that is what Google has done.  Provide the building blocks and let the developer community be innovative and creative. We are still along way from the full promise of what the web can and will deliver but the pieces are coming together to make it accessible  to a very large audience.  As I have written before to be successful in technology you must have a clear vision  of the future and be able to articulate that vision to a large and broad audience.  Did Google I/O answer all the questions?  No.  I am still a little confused as to why we have to have two different platforms, why not just make it all Android?  But the long-term vision of the role the web will play in our lives and where Google will fit in that ecosystem is clear.  There was a time it was all about a PC in every home, now it’s..to the cloud.

Good Night and Good Luck

Hans Henrik Hoffmann May 19th 2011

You need to be Cool to be Tech

Published on by hansh51Leave a comment

Kevin Turner, Microsoft COO, would often get asked by internal employees, “Why can’t Microsoft be cool like Apple?”.  He would always reply, “I would rather have 90% market share than be cool”.  I think the question actually made him upset. I found his dismissive attitude towards Apple rather naive and offensive.  All I can say is its dangerous to use the past to justify the future.  It has been a interesting twist of events to get to this point and by all accounts great product execution by the people at Apple.  With the latest earning release, Apple continues to be operating on all cylinders, forging ahead full throttle.  Their Apple iPhone now has 5% global market share, an increase over last quarter of 115%.  It is now more profitable than Microsoft.  No small feet given they make hardware, which naturally has higher COGS.  How does something like this happen?  It’s an interesting journey.

I think you have to take a step back before you move forward.  When technology  was first thrust upon us in the late eighties/early nineties it was new and foreign.  You needed a grease monkey to help with running it.  Grease monkey being men who had not showered in a week and slept under their desk.  Not a pretty site.  Speaking of pretty sites the technology we were given was not pretty either.  It was big, clunky and beige.  You needed to hide it in a home office as it did not make for pretty home decor.  But the people behind these new innovations were proud of what they had created, like they had unlocked the mysteries of the universe.  The early phase of technology was exciting but very intimidating, as many of the people who were the first to use at home and at work started their word processing experience on a typewriter.  If you made a mistake you used something called white-out.  Some of my readers of middle age will be laughing now, while my younger audience is clueless as to what I am writing about.  This new computer based word processing was intimidating and frustrating.  Auto-save did not always exist.  If your computer crashed after working two hours on a midterm, late at night, you lost everything.  No joke, I know from experience.

Along the way though something else was happening.  A generation if kids were growing up with this technology.  They were used to interacting with technology.  They had higher standards.  They had lives.  Kids today have no fear of technology.  Give them a device and they naturally start poking around trying to figure out what cool things it can do.  There is no intimidation about technology.  It is just something they are accustomed to.  Their natural curiosity just takes over and takes them away.  You see it in school with 2nd and 3rd graders walking around with a iTouch.  The presentations they do on the Mac at school is better than most presentations I give at work (supposedly I am a pro) – they are more lively and more colorful.  It is most amazing how seamless the whole experience seems to the younger generation.  They are not intimidated, they do not need to learn, they just know.

Thirdly there is digital convergence.  The lines between PC’s, Television, phones, music, etc..were all being blurred as everything is going digital.   The debate today of is a Tablet a PC or not highlights this for me.  Who cares except for a bunch of marketing and industry analyst folks.  At the end of the day consumers are buying what they desire and if a Tablet can perform all the tasks they need, great.  They will forgo the purchase of a Netbook or Laptop, but they are still interacting with a whole host of offerings that they used to do on a laptop (or not).  It could be streaming Netflix.  Browsing the web for a great deal on sports attire.  Listening to  music.  With everything going digital how we view and interact with technology is about to explode well beyond where we are today.  Flat screens will be on and in everything we buy or utilize.  Our home appliances,, our transportation (private or public).  All the lines are becoming blurred and in doing so things are becoming much more interesting as a wave of new devices become available and better yet they are all mobile,  They are thin, sleek and in color.

For technology companies to be successful, in particular in the consumer space, they must pay heed to this fact.  If they want to be successful if they want to take market share, they have to get the “cool” factor going.  They need to pay attention to design.  Those consumer behavior studies that discuss things like emotional response are relevant.  They should be scrutinized and thoroughly studied, not in a effort to disprove them but to learn from them in intricate detail.  Most people in the world are not engineers or software designers.  It’s Bobby Joe who is a mechanic. Terri who is a nurse.  Jack the insurance salesman.  They may seem drab to some but they are a large part of the economy and they want and use technology, is it wrong for them to want a sleek silver mobile device with cool apps?  Do not dismiss their opions as irrelevant. Respect them or lose them.  And if you lose them watch all you have worked for wash away with the tide.

We are numb to technology.  It has become pervasive and we are seldom wowed by what we see or experience. What will catch our eye is how it makes us feel. How it makes us look.  It is all in our basic human emotion.  So deep yet so shallow.  When I see the latest iPad are people wowed by the operating system?  I honestly doubt anyone really thinks about that.  The fact is technology is becoming more and more an extension of the human experience, it is becoming an ingrained part of that experience.  In some instance blurring the lines of fiction and reality.  Those lines will only become more blurred moving forward as technology accelerates, we accelerate.  But one thing is for certain we want to feel good about where technology takes us and we want to look good doing it.  We want to be cool.  It may be shallow but it’s who we are.

Good Night and Good Luck

Hans Henrik Hoffmann May 2, 2011

Where is the Microsoft Tablet?

Published on by hansh51Leave a comment

It has been nearly 2 years since the release of the iPad and during that time we have seen a titanic shift in technology and the market’s expectation of what technology can provide.  It seem every week companies are coming out with a new iPad application.  If you watch local news or national programs they all seem to have a iPad application. The good news for the market is it is not just the Apple iPad.  Not far behind and rapidly growing its user base are the Google Android tablets.  The Android provides a greater range of choices while still providing access to thousands of cool and useful applications.  Soon there will be other entrants like the HP tablet based on the Palm OS.  The interesting thing is not what is coming out, but where is the 800lb gorilla?  It seems very hard to hide a beast of that size, but yet the gorilla has remained hidden.  You cannot even hear it whisper.

At the recent Consumer and Electronics Show, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was on stage delivering the keynote address.  What I guess was interesting about the whole presentation was not what he said but what he did not say.  At a trade show where everything was focused on tablets, Ballmer talked about everything but a tablet.  His big thing was Microsoft’s foray into engineering and developing for ARM (for you non-techies who read my blog it’s a microprocessor like Intel).  This should not be trivialized, this could have benefits.  However it is short on sex appeal.  Unlike some tech shows where new things are touted at CES, tablets were new, but there were sales to back it up.  So it was not just another gizmo.

Since CES we have seen launches of new Tablets like the Samsung Galaxy and iPad 2.  We see them developing channels for resale through the service providers.  Companies like AT&T and Verizon are eager to have these devices on their network as they can drive data plans.  Microsoft for years has been trying to build a resale channel with the Telco’s. An old boss of mine is in charge of creating the worldwide reseller channel with the telecommunications carriers.  What does he tell them when they ask, “what’s your tablet strategy?”  He also used to tell me in sales, “You are what your numbers say you are”. In its first weekend of sales the Apple iPad 2 sold over 500,000 tablets.     Now we can have positive adjectives to describe our numbers, which is fun or we can have negative adjectives to describe our numbers, which is pro fain.  Apple and Google would both have very colorful adjectives.  Microsoft, well lets just say they may need to spend time in the confessional booth .

One thing that seems to be holding Microsoft back and seems to fuel a lot of speculation and gossip is what  operating system will they use, when they do come out with a tablet (I gotta admit I am guessing on this one as I have seen nothing in the press or heard from old friends about this one)?  The debate is between Windows 7 and Windows Phone 7.  Do you mimic what Apple did with the iPhone and simply enlarge to the iPad or do you go with your bread and butter, your flagship product, Windows.  I can say from a historical point of view when push comes to shove, the big boys at Microsoft always win, with that in mind it would seem Windows 7 will come out on top.  All I know is while the debate rages on the market does not stop.

When thinking about what is going on can history really repeat itself again?  Microsoft was in the Smartphone business for quite some time before Apple joined the party with the iPhone, and before they could respond out the gates and off to the races came Google’s Android platform.  By the time Windows Phone 7 came out the market was in a mature phase, so the Windows Phone was just another player trying to be heard. The Tablet business is similar in many ways. Microsoft has been in the Tablet business even longer than the phone business, as the vision of a more interactive device had long been a pet project of Bill Gate’s.  Yet as I sit in my office it seems as if history has already repeated itself.  Apple came out withe iPad but not far behind, once again, was Google with their Android based Tablets.   To be honest this is all eerily similar to the early days of the PC industry where Apple made the expensive high-end computers and Microsoft did the cheaper low-end computers, except now we can replace Windows with Android.  One area of my theory can be brought into doubt by one single question, “Where is the Microsoft Tablet”?

Good Night and Good Luck

Hans Henrik Hoffmann March 24th 2011