Legacy’s cost

 

“Number 2 is just the first one of the losers”, says a very famous motorbike racer who has been World Champion many times (still not retired) who loves being the fastest one.

This would be too radical a view when we have a look to any market, where there is not just one winner. It would actually be impossible under antitrust regulations.

However, the quote from Valentino Rossi (which is the biker’s name, as many bike fan’s might have guessed) can be understood in the context of what is currently going on in the smartphone market (and eventually in the tablet’s too), where old kings are running the serious risk of being phased out from their former positions.

Of course there can be space for them, and we actually believe there will always be, in fact. But it is really hard to accept being below second rank after past history dominance.

RIMM, Nokia, though still hitting very important volumes, might well be in that situation. The issue is the trend, clearly decaying, and the chance that they still base their current results on legacy. .

Legacy of corporate business and systems that have an enormous cost of change. Legacy of users who are provided a phone by their companies that might be used for personal purpose. Legacy from past experiences and resistance to adapt to new phones from previous ones.

But legacy has a deadline and does not last forever. History proves legacy is not enough, and costs empires. Ask the British about India, ask the French about Indochina, ask the Dutch about their Indies, or ask the Russians for the “xxxstan” republics. there is still a Britain, a France, Netherlands and Russia… but where did their empires go?

Technorati Tags: microsoft,nokia,rimm,apple,samsung,android,lg,htc,hp,webos,palm,meego,blackberry,consumer electronics,symbian,google

The Consul’s Legions

 

In the times of the Republic, Rome was ruled by the Senate. Senators were elected by the Senate, of course, but all men born within a senatorial family would be elected by birthright.

Senate had the power to declare war, and, therefore, it controlled the State Legions, the Roman Army.

Senate leaders (consuls, proconsuls, praetores or propraetores, province governors) therefore needed agreement and support from the Senate itself to use the Army for carrying on any war that sparked.

Commanding legions and succeeding at a military career was not an uncommon way to gain personal glory or reputation to step up for the commander. In many cases, successful political careers were based precisely in military reputation.

Therefore, political success required commanding legions, and commanding legions required support from the Senate. In other words, it was the Senate who controlled who could succeed in his political career by granting him command of legions, regardless the personal value as military leader of the commander.

If we look to the smartphone market, we see some parallelism with what happens to handset or operating systems manufacturers. Carriers do have a lot of power, and the success of this or that vendor depends quite much on this power. Carriers can, somehow, make or break success for this or that manufacturer. Much is being said, for example, about iPhones being distributed through Verizon, or about Apple’s relationship to carriers.

Successful Apples, Androids, LGs, Samsungs, HTCs, Nokias or RIMMs would depend on how “gracious” carriers might be when granting command of legions.

Back to Rome, we as well can see that if a given individual Senator was resourceful enough (ie rich and smart at the same time), he might enlist and equip his own legions, which would rival the State’s, controlled by the Senate. In fact this is what Gaius Marius did around 100 b.C. Thus, he became independent from the Senate to build his military and political career, pretty successful by the way.

We believe this is what Google might be doing, Rich and smart, they might be planning independence from senatorial carriers. And this might lead to a successful career, similar to Marius’, the only person in Roman History to be elected Consul nothing less than seven times.

Careful, Jobs… Androids might take this road to outflank you.

Technorati Tags: smartphone,apple,iphone,carrier,ios4,blackberry,rimm,android,google,symbian,meego,nokia,lg,htc,samsung,network,microsoft,windows phone 7

Frankenstein’s monster

 

If androids are originally artificially-made human-like entities, sort of robots, then we could consider the monster created by Herr Doktor Frankenstein one of the first ones, if not the very first, according to the wonderful story by Mary Shelley.

Human-like he was indeed, as he was made from dead human body parts her creator stole from cemeteries.

Alive thanks to science, once he was conscious of himself as a live being, the circumstances turned him against his creator and his closest friends, whom he ultimately ended up killing or contributing actively to their deaths.

Google, as a modern Doktor Frankenstein, has too created an Android. Still, Android per se has no sense by itself unless handset vendors use it and actually distribute it.

Open and free an operating system it is, Android can turn to a monster quite easily. And a dangerous one.

Watch out, hardware vendors on Android… some of you may not make it for the next version of the monster. By the way, isn’t it ironic that the Apple you wanted to compete against set already the example you might need to follow?

Technorati Tags: frankenstein,android,google,smartphone,apple,ios4,steve jobs,ipod,google tv,handset vendor,iphone

 

The apple of their eye

We are used to having heard about the power of Bill Gates and Microsoft for years as much as used we are to reading about that man being one of the richest people on earth. We have seen charts and figures where Microsoft’s income proves larger than small countries’ gross national product.
For once we have seen that a fellow colleague in his industry has overtaken him as to power. Steve Jobs has been rated as more powerful than good ol’ Billy.
Not questioning at all the author’s argumentation, which we fundamentally agree with, we prefer to see this from a different angle, other than historical achievements or financial metrics.
Jobs has succeeded in engaging youth. Youth of today starts being the basis for customers of the future. Apple’s fresh, Apple’s new, Apple’s fun. Apple’s cool, in short. Lot’s of customer touch points, from PCs to TV, from music to movies. Even small kids are starting to get familiar to the “there’s an app for that” slogan.

indeed…

Microsoft is huge, large, dominates market segments, but… it’s a slow dinosaur claiming more the “me too” story and basically a follower. A losing follower for whom the gap with Apple broadens every day. Just consider Microsoft’s latest: Windows Phone 7, same old story, nothing really new, is it? What the heck can you do with WP7 that you cannot already do, and probably in a better way, with IOS4, Android or even Blackberry?
Precisely this is in our opinion one of the big sandbags Microsoft. This company is fundamentally based on legacy coming from a dominant position it used to have for decades, and at some extent still enjoys for the time being. For them, what they call innovation is what we would call patching and re-patching the same old core, like those unending “system updates” or “service packs” that may block your PC or your mobile phone for hours, just to catch up with things other computers do.
Once their dominant position was taken, they just slept on their own complacency, expecting the scene not to change ever again. Like an old Confucian philosopher that once happened to see a rabbit smash itself against a tree stump and made his lunch for the day, he waited and waited ever since in front of the same stump until he died from starvation, hoping that if one rabbit once smashed against the stump, why should not another one?
And the characters define companies. While Steve Jobs could never be separated from Apple as his alter ego, but surgically, and even after serious health problems he cared to continue his leadership, Bill Gates retired as if he did not really need to do anything more for his company.
And, by the way, leaving the powerful Microsoft in the hands of an insane pathetic baboon does not really seem to be the best choice if he really cared about his company. Just check this out…

Is this what being a billionaire might turn you into?

is this a way to engage youth? Is this sad copy of pop stars youngsters adore the way Microsoft expects to create trends and fashion? Because Apple certainly does. People wait hours for dining in a fancy restaurant, and pay fortunes to wear the same dress whoever celebrity you want to mention. Who waits for hours before stores open to buy Microsoft’s latest device or software? Who will pay a price premium to get something by Microsoft instead of Android, Blackberry or iWhatever?
And why this last difference? Fundamentally their management styles: While the middle aged baboon pretends he is a Jonas Brother and 40 years younger, Apple’s convince passionately the audience about what they do. Just look to the video.

Genuine gentlemen.

Notice the difference: The baboon “loves this company”. Jobs and staff love the things they do. The message is clear. What the baboon really loves is the obscene dollar amounts he is able to bleed from his company, where he probably reached the top spot just by chance. By the way, the guy should use some of those dollars to cover up a bit his serious transpiration issues and make sure he has a cardiologist with him when he behaves in public a way normal people wouldn’t allow their teen age kids.
Apple toppers focus on what their products do, and how they do those things.
Ironically enough, Steve Jobs has been accused of being arrogant… If arrogance is being proud of a product well done, I wish more CEOs had such arrogance. On the negative aspect of arrogance, however, isn’t it much bigger the one demonstrated by the Great Ape? At the end of the day, if we were supposed to get excited by listening to Big Ape, it would mean we should consider ourselves less than him. Inferior, in other words. Ballmer’s audience is the community of Microsoft employees, who are not really realizing that what Ballmer is really telling them is “you guys have to work like apes to make sure the money you suck from customers continues flowing all the way to my bank account; and, by the way, if you see my sweat, keep in mind this is nothing compared to the sweat I am going to squeeze out of you”. Where’s arrogance then?
If Gates, or, for the matter, Microsoft, were more powerful than Apple (or Jobs for the matter), why would Microsoft rush to open store just across the street from Apple’s? Why would Microsoft poorly imitate Apple’s?
Just incidentally… we said one of the basic points at the beginning of this post spoke about winning youth…
A sample about daily life use of today’s technologies. If you look to the logo in the laptop, or if you just check the name of the TV series (quite popular by the way), there is not much more to say, but our hope that there is no further joke in choosing precisely “Carly” as the name of the main character in an attempt to play some sarcasm on former HP CEO Fiorina, who recently got one of the worst ROIs in her personal performance against republican senator Boxer, we heard.

Nice sense of humour…

Not really sure that Jobs is the apple of their eye to Gates & Pals, but we would certainly recommend them to keep an eye on that Apple and begin to learn something. Good manners to start with, we’d advise Big Ape in particular.

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Clearer than CEOs

 

People can be much clearer than CEOs, spokespeople or PR specialists. Indeed…

Check the link in the pic for original source.

No wedding, we’re afraid…

 

If you recall the last traditional weddings you might have been invited to, you will certainly remember the bride arriving to the ceremony. And if you squeeze a bit your brain, you might as well remember that she probably was late a reasonable time for. It is actually expected from her to be late on purpose, in order to increase expectation around her. But not too much. Arriving later than a reasonable timing is as worse as not arriving late at all. Like many other things in life, too much is as bad as too little, and finding the right balance becomes almost a form of art, not really at the reach of many people.

                                                             

There is still a second wave, a second wow effect, which spins around the scenery and the atrezzo around the bride. People will pay a lot of attention to any details of her costume, hairdo or make up.

All this wow thing is only justified for the uniqueness brides have around them during the wedding day. It is her guests want specifically to see, to talk to, or to get a nice picture with.

Being too late will, therefore, be a terrible sin for a bride on her wedding day… But still guests are likely to be a little tolerant and magnanimous as they are predisposed in favor of her. (Please note we are prudently avoiding to mention the classical guest, normally being the mother-in-law of some guest that justifies its mere existence with a lot of venomous critic they really enjoy spitting on the bride, the ceremony, the banquet and specifically on any guest younger then themselves). Being in this tolerant mood, should the sin occur, it might be forgiven if (and this is a big “if”) the bride avoids the second (and unforgivable) one, which is not looking magnificent form the top of her head to the end of her toes. If she doesn’t, there will be not a well-equipped enough toilet nor closet in miles around to fix a very bad first impression.

Should the bride have the slightest stain in her dress, the most unperceivable scratch in her make up, or simply one single hair out of its place, then the “someone’s-mother-in-law” effect will be unleashed as a thunderbolt throughout the guests and relatives, and something that was planned to be the most wonderful day in her life will turn into the worst, slowest and longest possible nightmare for both mortal sins, eventually leading to psychological issues for the bride and potential divorce in record time.

We have no idea about the social life or family setup of the guys responsible for the Windows Phone 7 launch at Microsoft. No idea either about their education nor manners.

                                                                              

But we seriously suspect the so-long-planned wedding between the market and WP7 operating system may not end like fairy tales. No matter if the bride’s father (ultimately a certain Steve Ballmer) is planning to throw in $400 million to ensure the most wonderful celebration. It could very well be ten times as much, result will more than probably remain unchanged.

First Sin: The bride has arrives real late. Too much even for the most unconditional fans and supporters of Microsoft, who, by the way, had not had too good experiences with previous girlfriends (ie Windows Mobile different versions), and while waiting for the bride, have been exposed to very nice-looking, well-educated and good-mannered alternative ladies (ie RIMM, IOS4, Android –yes, yes, we admit “Android” is not what you would call a nice-looking lady precisely). Even another late arrival as WebOS or an old-fashioned veteran like Symbian might be better considered than WP7 at this point.

Second Sin: Despite expectations, and knowing before-hand what the other ladies had been doing around for a lot of time, WP7 came handicapped: No matter how “Pure and Virginal” (Microsoft claims it was built brand new from scratch, breaking a historical family tradition of patching and patching it once and again, Service Pack 1 to Service Pack n), Apps are (very) limited, in the scale of 1 to 300 compared to IOS4, for instance; as well, App Developers are seriously restricted (no access to camera, for example) and basic features like “cut&paste” or flash capabilities simply do not exist. WP7 alone, conveniently hosted and supported by Microsoft, of course, threw away all the majesty that a proper bride needs for her wedding day.

If this were not enough, there is yet more…

In the classical marketing approach that Microsoft has accustomed all of us for years, once more they are overdoing themselves. Not happy with deserving eternal damnation without relief (those of you who have read some of the Bible know what we are talking about), they have already announced (vaguely, but they have) future upgrades and improvements that sound as scary as Service Pack Release Notes.

So Microsoft is planning to get the dollars from the customer and give him in return a limited product with limited development possibilities (already declined by some of the top guys there, like Layar or Fring), and a promise of having to travel though the desert for an unspecified period of time to eventually get to the end state they are supposed to have paid for. Simply fantastic… but only for making the script for a Hollywood B-series moviestarred by Barbra Streisand, Diane Keaton or Meryl Streep, so sad a romance this sounds like.

Whoever ends up willingly with the knot tied must really love this bride…

…what probably is a sacrifice Apple, HP, Nokia, HTC and others may be willing to assume.

Nothing personal

 

In an attempt to grab back presence in the market, mainly in the consumer space, but collaterally in the more professional one, the guys at HP launched a massive marketing campaign a few years ago, “The Computer is Personal Again”.

It was a massive, integrated, worldwide campaign that certainly allowed HP to catch some attention and again recover some of the punch it had in earlier times, as you might have read in the above link. The main idea here was to make people understand that they could use HP hardware, mainly from the Personal Systems Group division, for their daily life.

Leaving aside stories on top execs that took too seriously the campaign motto, and engaged in fishy affairs too personally, the effect in the market was certainly notorious. HP made a good marketing job, and collected the corresponding results in its financial statements since the launch of the campaign.

Still we believe the campaign remained just that: A mere campaign. It did not fundamentally change a company that started from hardware and still is mainly hardware-based. Mark Hurd himself, as the last relevant CEO for the time being, based his strategy in being “the infrastructure leader”. This was not at all in synch with all the personal messaging, was it?

It appears that in fact, there is really nothing personal in the HP strategy. And the problem with this is that a significant part of the available IT hardware these days and in the near future is really going to be truly personal.

In a world where being online permanently gets more and more relevant, people will demand devices which suit them upfront. Not that a device is capable of whatever feature you could imagine and the user has to change his habits and customs to adapt himself to it. Not that much that manufacturers define how the world is going to be, but more how much manufacturers are able to offer a product and its services which are adapted to what the customer already knows he could do, and the way he wants to do it.

Smartphones, for instance, are today more powerful than PCs from five or six years ago. And you can carry them in your pocket. You can even do things with them you could not dream about with your old desktop unit 10 years ago. For an increasing number of people, they are their main tool for daily life: From work to personal purpose, entertainment or planning vacation. They store very private data, as their wallets or purses would. Is there anything more personal for someone than his own wallet?

Once you have quite a variety of operating systems, hardware manufacturers and telco carriers that fundamentally do not differ much from each other (including prices and fees), customers will choose the combination of device, operating system and carrier that makes it easier to just start to use the device, or that allows the easiest customization to tailor the end product to each individual, even letting him choose the color, texture and shape of the case!

Just look to the automobile industry. When mass production started in the times of revered Henry Ford, he got the famous question: “May customers choose different colors for their car"?”. And he made his famous reply: “Yes, as long as it is a Ford, a model T, and black”. At that time, all the possibilities around a car (a black Ford model T was a finished product) were beyond imagination, and features that today we take for granted in the simplest car did not yet exist in the most visionary pioneers of that industry. Today, when it comes to buying a car, the set of options and accessories sometimes reaches the volume of a pocket dictionary. Even the guys making the Mini (quite popular in Europe for decades) claim today that there are not two Minis alike. The idea being “your Mini is unique because you are unique”.

The guys at Apple, from the very moment the first idea sparked in Steve Jobs’ mind have always applied the same principle. From what the customers wants, from what the customer would like to have, from how the customer would like to use the product, they make all the way up to the components they might need to build the product, and as well to the how to build the unit. Moreover, the product would still not be released until it really was the most perfect item (by design, by quality, by functionality) that could be produced within the industrial environment of the time. Jobs’ himself is famous for being a perfectionist close to hysteria.

As an example, we might quote iPhones… An iPhone is basically an iPod Touch (a definite winner, a conqueror of users’ hearts) that gets telephone capabilities after it has proved a success. Symbian and Windows Mobile have been designed as phones that afterwards were to have added email, music, multimedia capabilities. Precisely the opposite approach.

Apple took a successful product and added valuable features and functionalities customers would be glad to pay for. When making their first calls with iPhones, they already knew how to use the device, and setting it up was a matter of seconds. Windows Mobile and Symbian devices were forcing users to adapt themselves to the smartphones they supported. No wonder that Apple fans are rather unconditional fans, and do not worry much about the product cost premium.

This is HP’s issue: How can you claim your product is personal when you are asking your customer to do what Microsoft Almighty allows you to do the way Microsoft Almighty forces you to do it?

To be personal again means that your device (notebook, tablet, smartphone…) has to be as unique as possible, and that, once the OS, hardware and carrier layers are put aside for a moment, can only be achieved with the right AppStore: Broad variety of developers and applications, easy to use kind of thing. And this matter, not being easy for a guy like Windows7 Mobile, will certainly be a major challenge to HP, no matter how good or bad WebOs is (judge by yourself).

We believe the market will be personal. For everybody, and this includes HP. And being personal will take more than millions of dollars spent in nice fonts, nicer ads, and some celebrities of the moment. Nothing personal, but you cannot afford having nothing personal.

Constipation by words

 

It normally is very healthy to eat fruit. In fact, it is much recommended here and there… moms of all times have had their little struggles here and there with their kids tough, but still, it is a good thing to do.

However, eating too much could be not so positive. When you have too many apples, for example, you might have either an indigestion issue, and afterwards hate them for ever on, or you could have a more or less severe case of constipation for which we kindly decline to comment further.

Difficult to say, in any case, how many apples represent the limit that separates a healthy diet from a traffic issue in the belly.

For instance, if we go back in History to the first documented case of issues around apples, we can see that it took just one bite for Eve and Adam to release the wrath of God and have them fired from the Garden of Eden. I guess that after having seen the results, they would indeed have chosen constipation rather than having to find a new home. Incidentally, we must add, that’s the moment when Evil probably invented mortgages, so Adam and Eve could afford housing for the large family they were supposed to deliver afterwards; at the end of they day, they had been expelled from Paradise with no stock options they could cash-in, and just with a little powerpoint slideset in the shape of a tree leave to cover their nakedness. Poor fools; the snake came around teling them that if they bit the apple, they would be like Larry Ellison, above Good and Evil…

To others, it takes quite many more apples to get severe issues.It looks as if after millions of them, Evil succeeded in making Steve Jobs believe he was like the Almighty, with power on life and death.

Dead on arrival they are, he claimed, like the Pope launching a Crusade (“Deus le volt”, Latin scholars may recall. ie, “God wills it”). The War Cry.

(in order to better play God, we believe the guy’s chief marketing officer should advise him to let his beards grow a bit longer)

An excess of self pride was the very reason for the Fallen Angel to break apart with God and pretend to corrupt God’s creation from the beginning by making Eve and Adam take the bit and the “byte”. Have too many apples driven you, dear Steve, the same direction?

Let the market decide. And make the most of it while you can. If Apples are so healthy (not only to your personal fortune, by the way), don’t you think that people will eat less berries, whether they are blue, red or black?

Great marketing stuff, all these stories about leading the market, creating the future, inventing tomorrow, blablabla. But it is just that: An enormous bluff that just sets the environment of choices for end users to select what fits them most.

In the US it is said that Ronald Reagan won the 1980 elections because he was running against Jimmy Carter; had he been running alone, he would have lost. This basically meant that it was not Reagan winning, but more about Jimmy Carter having screwed up all by himself. Be more elegant, and do not give in to the arrogance of basing your success in removing the credit of others that are not necessarily doing a bad job, Jobs.You have already got quite a number of things to be proud of. You do not need to insult the millions of smartphone, tablets, PCs, notebooks and mp3 players users who have not yet been lucky or intelligent enough to fall under the apple spell. You might want to keep in mind that insulting is the privilege of the oracle, and he might sue you if he feels you are competing against him (unofficial rumors say that he once sued himself for not having insulted a taxi driver in a compliant way).

Not to mention that given your relatively recent medical record, you should actively be very careful with your diet. Too many apples may cause indigestion or constipation… but having to eat your own words might even kill you.