Consumer Startups without Revenue are Products, not Businesses
A “must read” for folks starting to build their startups, Greg provides insight both into the lifecycle of the startup as well as the conflicting market pressures placed on them.
We’re told not to be sheep, yet Samsung itself is just falling in line with the herd.
For months, the tech and Android faithful have been taking note of the Galaxy S III’s impending launch. Would it finally be the leapfrog ahead of the iPhone? Would it retain the Galaxy’s dominance in the Android sphere? Was the two month delay from Mobile World Congress going to bring us the unicorn of phones?
Here we have a phone that, despite months of pent up excitement about revolutionary design and hardware, was quite thoroughly iterative. Samsung faithful will point to the myriad of software tweaks Samsung has rolled out, but beyond the Siri and WP ripoff functionality, I’ll believe things like eye tracking work when I see it. And this is assuming they don’t just bloat the phone with the Touchwiz UI like every other stock Samsung.
And again, with Android, it’s all about the hardware. And the GS3, while no slouch, simply does not impress. Quad core is nice, as is 720p, but your competitors are providing that without compromises such as Pentile screens or subpar plastic build quality. So you’re left with a phone that, despite its modern specifications, already feels like an also-ran.
Now, HTC used to fall into this trap thoroughly- there were so many variants of HTC phones that even, a phone otaku, could not keep them straight. And they all looked the damn same: Generic. But with the One line, HTC seems to really have turned it around. They not only look great, but they feel great, with thoughtful design and hardware selection. Oh, it also doesn’t hurt that HTC is already selling their phone today.
It’s easy to fall into the classic OEM trap of assuming dominance and kicking back. But the life of an OEM is a rollercoaster, and if you don’t keep climbing, you’re inevitably falling back in line with the herd.
Source: theverge.com
Photos from my Tokyo trip that I previously blogged about.
Nothing particularly techy here, but some fun commentary of cultural differences and lots of food.
The Game Has Changed
Few, if any of you, were expecting the Lumia 900 come and go without my commenting on it. After all, some are calling it Nokia’s last stand- bold words for one of the world’s cellular giants. But rather than try to review the 900, which has been done far better by quite literally every tech journalist in town, there are some interesting launch takeaways, even just a couple days after it hit the street.
Hype
It’s hard to remember a time before iPhone megalaunches, but it did exist. A few short years ago, smartphones were lucky to be noticed at all- they were the devices of the 1% and the enterprise- few ‘average’ Americans were considering Windows Mobile and Blackberry powered devices. It wasn’t that the OSes were terrible (though, they were)- there simply was no cool factor in owning most smartphones. Instead, you had devices like the RAZR earning most of AT&T’s marketing spend; phones that sold on physical beauty. Passionate phone buying could be described as ponying up for the magenta flavored RAZR.
A predecessor to the System we know
Those few smartphone buyers often had no control whatsoever. Even if it came out of their own pocket, their enterprise would clearly dictate what devices could join the corporate email and calendar. A ball and shackle.
Apple, as we all know by now, changed the game in many ways. But among the most significant was convincing America that it needed smartphones. It didn’t really matter if you had all that much business to do on your phone. It didn’t matter if you could even connect to your corporate Exchange account (that came much later). It didn’t even matter that you were going to get an inferior data connection. No, it became an emotional decision.
Of course, Microsoft was as clueless to the threat as Flynn. They relied on the their own Tron to protect them- the power of Exchange and the enterprise ecosystem. But this could only last so long.
Steady Progress
While Apple changed the game on the hype dimension with the first iPhone, it wasn’t until later generations would pick up numerical steam. In fact, it took 74 days to reach 1 million sales for the iPhone- comparable to the first Verizon Droid. Of course, the smartphone market had expanded greatly from 2007, with over half of all Americans owning a smartphone today. But that’s largely a result of Apple opening the minds of consumers.
The Competition
Sure, there have been successful phones such as the Galaxy Nexus, a critical darling and the launch of a new generation of Android devices. But what does successful mean? A typical Android device is expected to sell a few hundred thousand devices in its lifetime; we’ve already seen the original Droid, the blockbuster, sell well over a million. In aggregate, you find that Android does control a very significant, likely majority, stake in the smartphone market. But it’s highly fragmented; OEMs contort the OS onto all varieties of novel devices and hope they can ship a hundred thousand before anyone notices the flaws of the approach. Even a flagship product such as the Galaxy Nexus only sold about 700,000 phones in the first month- merely a few hours of iPhone sales.
“Chaos. Good news”
The Epic Struggle
Analysts and journalists alike have built up the Nokia Lumia 900 launch to be nothing short of the return of the User. The system has remained as Apple’s territory ever since it was wrestled away from Microsoft. But now Microsoft is back, much for the wiser, seemingly ready to put it all on the line to defend its legacy- its relevance. The expectations are such that if Microsoft doesn’t succeed, it’s squarely in hostile territory, among its fiercest competitors.
However, the User’s intervention in this scenario is not one that will be able to turn the tide. The Lumia 900, whose sales are still unknown and tentatively positive, but can only be disappointing in contrast with the iPhone. The 900 is a beachhead and nothing more- there is no realistic expectation that it alone will carry the Windows Phone ecosystem, the Son of Flynn, until it’s ready to fight. Even if the 900 outsells the Galaxy Nexus, the Sam Flynn is hopelessly outnumbered- for now.
Microsoft’s only strategy is tri-fold. It introduces chaos to a nearly-steady-state market, it energizes the few allies it has left, and it allows WP to hold its ground, prepare, and hope that they will soon be able to restore the system.
Land of the Rising Sun
As many of you know, I recently traveled to Tokyo for a few days, mostly for leisure. Of course, being the “otaku” (or, loosely translated, geek) that I am, I couldn’t help but take many mental notes on the technology in use here. In the same vein as my post on India, here are a few of my findings.
1. Technology drives cultural norms, not the other way around
One of the most surprising parts about this trip is that I was expecting to see all sorts of crazy tech that we don’t have in the US. Instead, I found that the uniqueness of Japan is not the technology itself, but how it’s being used. the phones they use are largely the same (see below) and they use the same kind of laptops, internet connections, and even subway cars as we do. However, there are some differences. The first is that while NFC and RFID use exists in the US, it is currently a joke; many use traditional tickets for transit, and few (if any) use NFC for payment. On the Tokyo metro, nearly no one uses paper tickets, and many even use their phones to pay for the metro ticket (billed to their account). Additionally, in most places, you can pay with your “Suica card” aka your rapid transit card, and even get your change back to it. Contrast that with far lower credit acceptance, due to the charges and the cash culture, and it’s totally out of sync with the US. It’ll be a long time before I imagine this kind of NFC/RFID penetration in the United States.
2. Vending machines….vending machines everywhere
Here’s where the practicality comes into play again- the Japanese have no aversion to replacing labor with vending machines. I don’t just mean having vending machines on every block to replace most convenience stores, but I mean even in restaurants and major venues. At one restaurant I went to for ramen, you chose and paid for your ramen in the machine, and an assistant just took the slip and gave you the corresponding food a few minutes later. At a beer factory tour, you prepaid for the beers and the machine gave you tokens. While vending machines are “tacky” by American standards for anything but the lowest calibre purchase (eg amusement parks), it is a labor-saving and convenient way of doing business here.
3. The nation of iPhones and Flip Phones
Many of you gathered this was going to make it into my post based on my previous Facebook status and you were right. I have seen a total of 6 folks with Android phones here, and 0 Blackberries, Windows Phones, etc (I actually got a “Nokia? What is that?” when someone saw my phone). This country LOVES its iPhones. Everywhere you go, the populace has them; I even met one who had 2 iPhones in his hand. While many are using apps for the domestic market, you see plenty of heavy Facebook use as well. You can’t even get “2G” service here- the baseline of cellular is what T-Mobile and AT&T call “4G” HSPA+. It’s amazing to me that despite the propensity of Japanese brands hawking Android, it made so little impact against iOS.
The other part of this headline is the flip phone. Now, I don’t mean the flip phone your grandma has- these flip phones are seriously equipped with 2.5-3” screens and seem to have some processing power in them. However, they’re still “dumbphones” with a simple OS. Despite this, many folks have a flip phone to this day, and many more keep one side by side with their iPhone. I haven’t figured out why this is, but I would guess there is some cost element to the equation.
4. But not the land of the Macbook
While you may have assumed from the previous point that the Japanese are drinking the Apple Kool-Aid, it’s far from the reality. The first MacBook I saw here was in the airport, held by someone who was clearly American. Japan is still land of the PC, with tons of hardware built to the market with custom keyboards and price points. I would also fathom a guess that Windows does a better job of language normalization for the translated edition, but that is purely speculation. Regardless, the Japanese show that they are not afraid to pay for quality in general, so I find it hard to believe that the economic point of owning a PC is the tipping factor.
I'm not sure what's sadder here
Is it that HP’s Touchpad outsold all of Samsung’s Android tablets? That a dead tablet outsold nearly every other tablet but the iPad? That Samsung is “not doing very well in the tablet market” and yet has the #1 tablet sales among Android manufacturers? That the Amazon Fire, a forked version of Android, outsold all other Android tablets combined?
There’s so very much wrong with the Android tablet ecosystem that it’s hard to imagine it making inroads not only against the iPad product line, but soon the onslaught of Windows 8 tablets.
While the success of Win8 tablet is hardly guaranteed, if I were an OEM making Android tablets, I’d be getting mighty excited for an “exit strategy” using Windows 8. Hell, could it be much worse than today?
What Steve Ballmer can't learn from Steve Jobs
A very frank and knowledgeable look at how Microsoft and Apple are more different than most realize, and why counting Microsoft “out” may be beneficial for it.
It's not "If"
It’s going to be “for how much”
I always smiled when analysts claimed Microsoft wouldn’t ever bring Office to the iPad. If that was the case, why does Microsoft make Office for Mac, let alone make it as good (better in some ways) than its PC equivalent? Microsoft makes money from software, and they’re not going to ignore an entire market without a damn good reason. As soon as they started publishing OneNote apps, it should have been obvious.
But back to the point- I just can’t imagine Microsoft publishing Office as some piddling app for $9.99. Considering how much the enterprise desktop version costs (hundreds of dollars, for those of you unaware), I would fully expect Office for Mac to hit the triple digits. While this is probably overkill and unlikely to be purchased by home users, it’s perfect for the enterprise customers that Microsoft doesn’t want to ignore as they adopt the iPad.
That strategy also gives Microsoft’s Windows 8 platform and version of Office 3 competitive advantages:
- It almost certainly will be far more feature-rich than the trimmed down iOS version
- Existing enterprise licensing will apply to Win8 devices, but probably not iOS
- It raises the real & perceived price of turning your iPad into a replacement laptop. No longer is it “Oh, for $500 I’d rather have an iPad than a cheap Best Buy laptop” but it’s been raised to at least 600, which is spitting distance for an Ultrabook, and higher than the rumors for Win8 tablets.
[Disclaimer: I know nothing of the project from my time at Microsoft and am sharing no known insider knowledge. This is purely my perspective]
Edit: So Microsoft has contacted The Verge saying the pictures are fake. While that’s probably true, I still think they are gearing up to at least have an “Office Lite” so as not to be locked out of the iOS market for their enterprise solutions. Again, they’ll leave plenty of room to make Windows 8 the premier platform for enterprise.
Edit 2: It gets murkier. Something is getting announced, but it’s not what the Daily screenshotted. Should be pretty clear at this point that Microsoft is working on some sort of Office for iOS.
Big and Bigger
Was at the AT&T store today taking care of some small stuff, and got to play with an HTC Titan, Focus S, and Galaxy Note while I was waiting. Some very high-level thoughts:
- The Titan’s screen looks pretty decent at first/second glance, despite just being an SLCD and have a horrendous pixel per inch. Kudos to HTC for putting some lipstick on a pretty tough situation.
- The Focus S’s Super AMOLED Plus (no pentile!) screen didn’t seem as bright as the adjoining Focus Flash’s Super AMOLED, but it did have a… serenity that the non-plus AMOLED lacked. Things were smoother and a little less in your face.
- Unfortunately, the S on display had serious burn-in on the screen from running the demos. I didn’t even think that was possible with an AMOLED…
- The Focus Flash and the iPhone 3GS were listed side by side as freebie phones. But while the Focus display did its best to brag about specs (storage, CPU clockspeed, AMOLED, etc) the iPhone panel simply had the price. It’s as if AT&T knows you couldn’t possibly be buying a 3GS with any care of the hardware specs.
- The Galaxy Note is pretty. And it’s pretty thin. But I have absolutely no freaking idea how anyone can get that into their pant pocket. It’s just monstrous. Also, I would tend to agree with the reports that the software isn’t really made for the pen.
- 4G LTE in the store wasn’t registering any faster than HSPA+ enabled devices, which leads me to think that AT&T’s backhaul is going to limit them way before HSPA+’s tech does.
So much for "timely" upgrades
Phones that just came out don’t even have an ETA on Ice Cream Sandwich, and many others will get updates so late, any buyers definitely will be eligible for upgrade pricing first. They’re not even being subtle about forcing users to upgrade anymore.
Stay classy, Moto.
