Gregarius » éléments par Carmi Levy

éléments par Carmi Levy

A window closes on Microsoft

Publié: mai 7, 2010, 12:07am CEST par Carmi Levy

The sound you heard after HP's purchase of Palm last week was that of Windows reaching the top of the roller coaster and beginning its inevitable trip back down. Microsoft had absolutely nothing to do with the transaction, of course, but the ripple effects of the buyout foreshadow a significant shift of one of Microsoft's most stalwart partners away from its core products.

Worse for Microsoft, the HP/Palm deal shines a bright light on the software giant's seeming inability to set a course for a post-Windows world. Giants can and do get left behind if they fail to move quickly enough.

Of course, Microsoft's own cancellation of the Courier (the device that didn't really exist, although we all know it did) does nothing to alleviate concern that the company is flailing away as the world shifts off of conventional PCs and toward mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. These devices don't run any form of its eponymous operating system, yet they represent the greatest source of market growth over the next five years. We still buy desktops and laptops by the boatload, and Microsoft will continue to pull in huge revenues as a result. But this is a mature market that won't be growing anywhere near as aggressively as that for mobile devices and services. Publicly traded companies live and die by growth, and as solid as Microsoft's post-recession performance has been to-date, it won't sustain growth indefinitely if it exclusively stays in ripening market segments.

One of the few official photos of HP's 'Slate' PC, as yet unnamed. [Courtesy HP]

Too big to shrink

There have been some reports in the legitimate tech press and elsewhere that HP has cancelled its Slate tablet device, which is reported to run Windows 7. There has never been official confirmation, though some publications cite anonymous sources inside HP.

Just the reports themselves, verified or not, cast a pall over the future of full-on, full-service operating systems like Windows. As capable as Windows 7 is, it's just too big, too fat, and too unresponsive for the kind of instant-on, lean-operating device we'll all be using in the future. You can't reverse-engineer a desktop OS to be best-of-breed in the mobile space any more than you can tune a car's engine to efficiently run a scooter. Yes, it can technically be accomplished. But it'll always be too big, too thirsty, and woefully unsuited to the task at hand. Better to build something ideally suited for the task at hand and dispense with the waste inherent in scaling down.

Apple figured this out with the OS that runs the iPhone and iPad. Google's reaping early rewards with its two-track Android and Chrome OS philosophy, although it'll ultimately make more sense for Google to combine the two under a consistent development and branding effort. Whether HP cancels Slate in the end, or simply downplays it, a webOS-powered HP tablet will most likely be thinner and more responsive (no, I won't say "iPad killer," but I know you're thinking it).

And just the fact that this fact seems obvious enough, is the most concrete indication yet that Microsoft's window may finally be starting to close.

Courier foreshadows another delivery

Still, I'm an optimist. And although we're seeing the sunset of a major phase of Microsoft's history, I think it's way too soon to write off Microsoft as a company.

Cynics have called the pseudo-death of the Courier tablet yet another sign that Microsoft doesn't get it. I think it's the cynics who don't get it. The facts are simple: Microsoft killed one reference design that was in all likelihood a disaster waiting to happen. As unique as the folding, book-like hardware form factor was, it would have been significantly more expensive to produce than a single-screen device, and its complexity -- ranging from a central hinge to a software paradigm that would have had to be rethought to fully take advantage of both screens -- would have further limited its potential market appeal.

Tech companies like to fling new and sometimes out-there ideas at the wall almost constantly. If those ideas don't fall silently and forgotten to the floor, then they're splattering spectacularly. Only a chosen few survive the brutal tech industry birthing process to become successful products. Just because the Courier is gone doesn't mean Microsoft doesn't have a bunch of other designs in various stages of development. I expect simplified one-panel evolutions of the Courier, running some variation of Windows Phone 7 (hopefully renamed by that time), falling into our hot little hands within the year.

Microsoft is already on the road toward something approaching a post-Windows OS roadmap. Windows Phone 7 is a huge leap beyond its earlier mobile offerings, and like the competing iPhone OS, it promises to scale nicely beyond smartphones and onto tablets and other mobile form factors. With some tweaking to branding (we're not exclusively in phone country anymore, Toto), the OS originally created for smartphones could underpin every Microsoft-powered mobile device.

Carmi Levy Wide Angle Zoom (v.2) Get off the Windows 7 treadmill, already

But not until Microsoft stops believing that Windows 7 is the answer for tomorrow's mobile user. It isn't, and engineering wizardry notwithstanding, it never will be. Microsoft can no more graft truly best-in-class multitouch usability on top of Windows 7 than Palm can suddenly build a 200,000-app universe. Instead of pouring copious resources into making a conventional desktop OS behave like a mobile OS, Microsoft would be better served adapting its existing (and quite slick) mobile OS into a core business platform for the post-Windows world. And the sooner it convinces hardware vendors to change gears from a Windows 7-based strategy to something more likely to compete with devices based on truly mobile operating systems, the sooner it'll regain relevance in a market that by the day seems at greater risk of passing it by.

Like Microsoft, HP became the behemoth that it is over the past 25 years largely by riding the wave of the PC revolution. This morning's newly announced notebooks...well, they look a lot like HPs. (One may say "Envy" on it, but it's no VooDoo.) Nevertheless, this season, HP is serving notice that it isn't afraid to at least partially abandon its Windows legacy. As difficult as it may be, Microsoft may want to consider doing the same.

I realize I'm getting a bit ahead of myself. The sky isn't falling, and as cloudy as Microsoft's OS roadmap may seem right now, the game for Windows isn't quite over. The roller coaster ride has a number of climbs and dips left in it. But it's clear the OS is running on pure momentum, and it's only a matter of time before the laws of economic physics grind the platform to a final halt. It's time for Microsoft to find another ride.

Carmi Levy is a Canadian-based independent technology analyst and journalist still trying to live down his past life leading help desks and managing projects for large financial services organizations. He comments extensively in a wide range of media, and works closely with clients to help them leverage technology and social media tools and processes to drive their business.

Actual Analysis: HP buys Palm, and the earth does move

Publié: avril 29, 2010, 1:19am CEST par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

Analysis

HP's just-announced $1.2 billion offer to buy Palm is as close as this industry gets to a lifejacket. Despite the fact that the deal won't suddenly vault Palm back to the top of the mobile market it practically created, HP's ultimate goals for its latest acquisition extend well beyond the near-term.

It's been clear for years that Palm simply couldn't make a go of it on its own -- that if the company hoped to remain relevant in today's fast-evolving mobile marketplace, it needed to be acquired. The announcement earlier this spring that Palm was seeking a buyer and speaking with interested parties confirmed that it was only a matter of time before a deal was struck.

A necessary deal

In that context, the HP buyout is hardly a surprise, and it represents the best possible outcome for Palm. The two companies complement each other rather nicely. HP gets Palm's innovative mobile operating system, webOS, a stable of well-regarded mobile handsets, and a treasure trove of patents. Palm gains access to HP's prodigious marketing muscle and global reach. It's that global reach that not even Apple can compete with, and could seriously rewrite how and where mobile devices are sold.

For its part, HP's efforts in mobile handsets for much of the past decade were largely ineffective. Its iPaq brand, acquired through the purchase of Compaq, was virtually ignored through much of its existence, with sporadic hardware refreshes and a stubborn adherence to the now-dead Microsoft Windows Mobile operating system. HP's mobile offerings had near-zero consumer impact and no carrier presence. Enterprise adoption was similarly weak before the Palm announcement. With $25 million in sales last quarter, it's easy to forgive casual observers who assumed HP wasn't even playing in this market. In many respects, it gave up long ago.

This deal gives HP another shot at mobile relevance, but it'll have to invest significant resources to give Palm the push that it needs to remain current and competitive. After years of reinventing itself to the detriment of a well-stocked product pipeline, Palm now finds itself in dire need of a rebuild. As its new owner, HP will be faced with the daunting task of not only bringing new products to market, but also rebuilding shattered developer loyalty and turning webOS into the kind of platform that spawns thousands of apps and an economy all its own.

Carmi Levy Wide Angle Zoom (v.2) A few years too late

Palm's mistake in introducing the Pre and webOS in 2009 was in focusing so heavily on the actual device that it forgot how significantly the market had changed since it introduced its first Treo smartphone. The offerings themselves were -- and are -- brilliantly engineered examples of next-generation mobility. From a usability standpoint, they even gave the market leading iPhone and Android solutions a run for their money. Had they hit the market three years earlier, they might have been enough to guarantee Palm's independent survival.

Unfortunately for Palm, it isn't 2007. Apple's iPhone and later, its App Store, rewrote the rule book that all mobile vendors must now follow. Market success is no longer determined by whoever rolls out the coolest devices. Without developer support, even the most deftly advanced piece of hardware will fail miserably. Despite Palm's efforts to reconnect with developers who had long since defected to competing platforms, the end result was an application store filled with tumbleweed and a roadmap with no direction. With no ecosystem to support the critically acclaimed devices and operating system, Palm's market share erosion continued to accelerate.

It's a process that will likely continue for some time to come. In the absence of an actual plan to kick-start the app side of the house and get developers on board, Palm will remain stuck around the fringes of a mobile market that's rapidly passing it by. The clock is ticking for HP, and its corporate leadership -- spearheaded by Tom Bradley, EVP of the Personal Systems Group -- knows it. Bradley was once Palm's CEO, so it's likely Palm will get what it needs to market, and quickly -- which includes that chance to develop its way out of its current hole.

But the Titanic couldn't turn on a dime, and neither can jaded and faded smartphone vendors.

The good news for Apple and Google is they have nothing to fear. It'll take the better part of a year to 18 months for HP to integrate what it's just bought and begin to turn things in a more profitable, growth-focused direction. In the interim, the Apple and Google mobile juggernauts will continue to grow, virtually guaranteeing that Palm will never again be a #1 player, and it won't directly threaten the industry giants anytime soon.

A different definition of success

Even so, dominance isn't necessarily HP's near-term goal here. For now, it's entirely sufficient to build a new foundation and leave the long-term stuff for another day. What matters to Palm is that it now has a new corporate parent willing to give it the resources it needs to become a viable, profitable smaller player in a market that'll eventually be large enough to support more than two dominant leaders. Apple's Mac has carved out a respectable and profitable business with only 10% market share, albeit in the computer space; and iPhone has commanded a 16.2% share of the global smartphone space, according to iSuppli estimates published today.

Palm has about a 1.5% stake in that smartphone realm, and the distance between it and iPhone from one point of view looks like a chasm. But Motorola is at 3.9%, which means Palm doesn't have far to go to resume being taken seriously. If that happens, Palm could indeed regain viability in the mobile market, but only if HP plays its cards right and invests deeply and quickly enough to turn things around.

Longer-term, however, HP will be selling Palms in places Apple and Google can only dream about. And with a global manufacturing influence that makes Apple look puny by comparison, HP can play the economies-of-scale game better than anyone. While an HP-owned Palm won't dominate today's market, HP's end game likely envisions a significantly changed environment that renders 2010-based assumptions of mobile market success obsolete.

Your chances of buying a Palm-branded device sometime this year may not have increased much as a result of this acquisition. But what you'll be buying years down the line may very well have changed after this week's announcement. It often takes that long to realize just how fundamentally things have changed following a business-seismic event like this. Don't bet against HP having the patience and the wherewithal to invest, heavily, in this long-term game. Just because we didn't feel the ground move doesn't mean it didn't.

Warning! 3D TV can kill you

Publié: avril 23, 2010, 4:22pm CEST par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

Poster from the 3D movie 'Eyes of Hell' If you're like me, and you're among the dozen or so who still watch the nightly half-hour of American commercial broadcast TV news, you've probably noticed that about a quarter of that time is devoted to ads. Two-thirds of those ads are devoted to drugs, and half of those drug ads are devoted to warnings about the many gruesome, horrid ways in which you might unexpectedly die. The unspoken reason why these ads appear there in the first place is because advertisers reason that if you're still watching the Evening News, you must be afraid to touch your computer or your smartphone to read the real news from TMZ, which makes you (wait for it...) old. (Meaning, above 29.)

Samsung's Australian unit doesn't want the drug companies to have all the fun. Barely a month after releasing its 3D television offerings on an unsuspecting world, the company has published a warning on its Web site down under that outlines a list of risks so serious that those network news drug spots seem tame by comparison.

A new dimension of illness

If you're perfectly healthy and have a hankering to spend money on still-evolving technologies, stop reading here and head down to the electronics big box store immediately. What I'm about to say won't interest you because you clearly need to feel the shockwaves from the depths of James Cameron's aquamarine cinematographic soul whenever he sinks a ship or blows up a planet. If, however, you're bothered by the potential of getting seriously ill by simply watching television, you may want to hold off on signing up to become a 3D household. Because if any of the following applies to you, Samsung recommends against watching 3D TV:

You're in bad physical condition
You need sleep
You've been drinking alcohol

* Possible side effects of ignoring this advice and watching anyway include the following laundry list of entertainment-related fun: epileptic seizure, altered vision, light-headedness, dizziness; involuntary movements such as eye or muscle twitching, confusion, nausea, loss of awareness, convulsions, cramps and/or disorientation.

Funny, I didn't see convulsions or loss of awareness in the first wave of ads for this technology. I guess they were hoping sleep-deprived drinkers who don't exercise would stay away from the 3D TV aisle.

This isn't the first time that a technology comes with some health-related caveats. Nothing in life, after all, is without risk. Emissions from cell phones have long been suspected of being related to certain forms of cancers. Excessive smartphone use can cause repetitive stress injuries (RSI) for thumb typists. Watching too much conventional television, or doing so in badly lit rooms, won't do wonders for your vision. Despite this, the Samsung warning breaks new ground in terms of relative risk and reward. That's some scary language to digest before sitting down with a bowl of fat-free-buttered popcorn, and it's way more than would fit into the average 30-second television spot.

Carmi Levy Wide Angle Zoom (v.2) Does the reward justify the risk?

So do you really want to see Avatar in your living room in 3D so badly that you'd risk seizures, convulsions, and loss of awareness? I can't decide for you, of course, but I'm voting no for myself for two reasons: A good HDTV signal is more than good enough for me, and I don't want to have to avoid open stairwells, or balconies every time I watch a movie.

When I first wrote about 3D TV last month, I lamented the lack of content, distribution, affordability, and relevance. I tagged it as a solution in search of a problem, and I advised readers to wait. A long time. This latest health scare only reinforces what I originally said, and galvanizes my belief that the industry is so focused on pushing next-generation technologies on often-unsuspecting consumers that it's willing to overlook the risks in the relentless pursuit of profit.

If Samsung and its fellow 3D TV vendors had any sense of right and wrong, they'd pull their products from the market until the health implications can be more thoroughly -- and independently -- validated. I believe, now as then, that anything that requires high-tech $250 glasses that act like virtual shutters in concert with the screen is way over the top for the average consumer. The impracticalities and costs associated with this kind of prematurely deployed technology were bad enough for the average consumer. The overt risks associated with the use of these still-expensive, still-cumbersome glasses merely sealed the deal. 3D simply won't fly until manufacturers can deliver the immersive effect without resorting to trick, health-damaging glasses. And any vendor that continues to sell these obviously interim solutions is putting the bottom line ahead of its customers.

There is no free ride, but...

I can accept that every technology carries a certain degree of risk. We always play the compromise game whenever we make the investment in any new gadget. But the risks with 3D seem to extend well beyond the usual aches and pains inherent in most modern devices. It's yet another sign (to me, anyway) that this is one technology that needs a few more years of baking before it's ready to be served.

Until then, if I want to be scared when I watch television, I'll simply watch the Evening News with Katie and wait for the inevitable drug ads to come on. And if I want to have a drink and hang out on my balcony, I'll be able to do that, too. Some things, like 3D TV, just aren't worth the risk, and should have been held back while manufacturers ironed out a clearly disturbing set of bugs.

Poster from the terrifying 3D movie "Eyes of Hell" from the historical Web site WidescreenMovies.org.

Twelve billion iBalls fall into Gizmodo's lap

Publié: avril 21, 2010, 1:21am CEST par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

What's a mobile device prototype worth?

Depends on who you are. If you're Apple, it's priceless. When you tightly control every aspect of the product development process, anything that subverts the message is a potential risk to the brand. Loss of control to a company like Apple is unthinkable. If you're Gizmodo, the answer is $5,000 -- which is the amount the tech blog reportedly paid to an unnamed individual who supposedly found the prototype of Apple's upcoming fourth-generation iPhone in a California bar.

In return for taking the super-secret device public and outing the poor Apple engineer, Gray Powell, who left the device in a bar in the first place, Gizmodo cashed in on an audience bonanza. For better or for worse, online readers are hungry for news about anything remotely connected to Apple. So a full-on overview of an inadvertently leaked next-generation device would be more than enough to whip the masses into a frenzy.

But at what cost? The mysterious individual who apparently picked up the forgotten device at the bar made some excuse about trying to return it to Apple. According to Gizmodo, he called Apple, was given a ticket number, and after being handed off between folks who seemingly didn't take him seriously, was never contacted again. After living in limbo for weeks, the device ended up in Gizmodo's hands.

A lucrative payday

The payoff for all this was lots of eyeballs. And in a world where audience size correlates directly to advertising revenue, this episode has doubtless added a nice bump to Gizmodo's bottom line. As a journalist whose work is often compensated based on audience size, I understand the flurry of possibilities that flowed through the minds of the folks at Gizmodo. You can do the right thing, or you can do the profitable thing. But if the two are mutually exclusive, doing the right thing too often will have you eating ramen noodles while your less morally-upright competition enjoys steak.

I guess it all comes down to honesty. Mysterious bar dude took a device he knew wasn't his, and after a cursory attempt to reunite it with its owner -- and a few weeks of apparent soul searching -- decided to cash in on the unit's obvious market value. Gizmodo bought the device under not entirely legitimate circumstances (did the seller provide a receipt?) with the full knowledge that it was sitting on a potential media frenzy time bomb.

I don't want to sound too much like a doting grandparent, but what we have here is little more than opportunistic theft.

Sure, no one picked the iPhone out of Mr. Powell's pocket. After enjoying some German beer, he updated his Facebook status to that extent, and did a fine job leaving it behind when he headed home. We've all been there before, and in most cases I'd like to believe that the Good Samaritans around us would more often than not choose to ensure said unattended device found its way back to its rightful owner.

But in this case, no one returned it. Along the way, the device was cracked open, sold, and photographed for all the world to see. Some unidentified guy made $5,000 selling something that was not his to sell. A reputable tech blog willingly spent $5,000 on a device whose proper ownership could not be clearly established. While Apple has asked for the device to be returned and Gizmodo has wisely agreed to do just that, the damage has already been done, both to a device that likely isn't as factory-fresh as it was when Mr. Powell last updated his Facebook status, and to the fortunes of a company whose marketing plan for its next major product release has just been turned inside-out.

Gizmodo and its advertisers have clearly had a great week because of all the attention surrounding this surreptitious "reveal," but one wonders whether the long-term impact will make us all feel a little dirty. We are, after all, the reason online and conventional publications go to such great lengths to get the scoop and share the news before everyone else. Winners profit and losers disappear...a process that's been playing out in media since long before the Internet became a factor.

Carmi Levy Wide Angle Zoom (v.2) A blog too far

But lines are crossed when money changes hands for goods that may or may not have been either stolen or, at best, obtained under questionable circumstances. It opens up the door to further escalations in the gotta-publish-it-now arms race that seemingly drives today's tech blogosphere. What's next? Will wannabe-scoopsters stake out every bar within a 30-mile radius of Apple's Cupertino headquarters in the hopes of scamming other less-than-security-conscious employees out of their under-development handsets? Will vendors start attaching small incendiary devices that automatically ignite if the individual responsible for their care and feeding drifts further than six feet away? The possibilities are endless, and more than a little frightening, but it's clear that Apple's already-near-maniacal security processes, including chaining devices to desks and keeping engineers in windowless rooms, are about to go into a higher state of overdrive.

So where does Apple go from here? Its stock price took a bit of a hit in the immediate aftermath, but will likely not suffer any permanent damage. And although it's pretty apparent now what the iPhone 4G will be, the market for this device probably hasn't changed much. Okay, maybe it's grown a whisker or too, but for the most part, buyers won't care one way or another that some fairly final product details were leaked a bit early. The ultimate market for this device won't shrink because of this affair.

As far as Mr. Powell is concerned, one hopes he's not unduly punished for his role in this. He made a mistake, but in a world full of nicer people, that mistake might not have led to Gizmodo getting its hands on it. For all Apple's inconvenience, it should thank its forgetful engineer for laying the groundwork for yet another spontaneous round of viral media coverage.

Meanwhile, in an interview today with Nick Denton, the publisher of Gizmodo's parent company Gawker Media, for the Village Voice, the blogger -- who formerly wrote for Gizmodo -- asked Denton whether the scruples of any other publication, such as The New York Times, would have stopped it from running the same story. "Is there a bigger scoop in technology journalism?" Denton responded. "Any decent journalist ought to be willing to sell their mother for a story like this." When pressed about whether he'd sell his own mom, he then added, "My mother's dead." She certainly is.

We're all left to wonder if our demand for instant knowledge of tomorrow's must-have products is forcing some people to play fast and loose with the basic rules of honesty and community.

The iPad delay is a crock

Publié: avril 16, 2010, 11:52pm CEST par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

Sorry, Apple, but your decision to delay introducing iPads internationally doesn't wash. Your excuse -- that US demand was unexpectedly high and, as a result, you had to prioritize customers stateside until production could catch up -- is about as shallow and transparent as a Petri Dish full of Joost's good ideas.

I don't believe Apple's flimsy excuse and I don't believe anyone else should, either. If you think that Apple, master of the consumer electronics zeitgeist, was unable to accurately predict epic interest in a tablet whose existence was first speculated upon prior to the Battle of Hastings, I've got a bridge to sell you. (It's in Saskatoon, but it's a nice one.) And if you think Apple was somehow precluded from filling its global supply chain with as many iPads as its magic wand could conjure, I suggest you chuck the Kool-Aid and find yourself a tall glass of juice. Prune juice, maybe.

All the time in the world

All right, I may be a little bitter because of the fact that I live on the wrong side of the border between Canada and iPad-ville. If I want an iPad of my own, I'll just have to schedule a day trip. However, those who've already beaten me across the customs gate have reported a range of issues accessing content from iTunes and iBooks. Even in its current Wi-Fi-only form, the iPad knows enough to thwart the efforts of conspiring non-Americans who may, try as they might to flout Apple's carefully laid plans.

As much as the perpetual Canadian in me hates to admit it, time is clearly on Apple's side. Despite the rush of tablet-like announcements from major vendors since the iPad was first revealed in January, it has no natural competitors just yet. And even if these other vendors like HP, Dell, Toshiba and, if the stars align and we hold our breath just so, Microsoft bring their own tablets to market before Apple's (say it with me) "shortage" is resolved, no competitor will have anything approaching the iPad's momentum for some time to come, if ever.

With this in mind, it's not as if the majority of motivated consumers will bolt the line and buy something else. Whoever wants to pay the early adopter premium for an iPad (and that's not even taking into account the four-figure "deals" that have just mystee-e-riously sprung up on eBay) will lay that money down, regardless of how much or how long the wait. Apple's carefully cultivated do-no-wrong aura enables it to get away with things other companies could only dream of.

Carmi Levy Wide Angle Zoom (v.2) An unhappy double standard

If Sony pre-announced a tablet and then failed to deliver, critics would ask for Sir Howard Stringer's head on a plate. (That's assuming it wasn't already on a plate after the reported delay of 3D Blu-ray for the PS3.) If Microsoft did the same thing, the usual Steve Ballmer-bashing and Google News headline-gaming ("Microsoft Clowns Epic Tablet Fail: Bozo Ballmer Holds Earth Hostage for One Month") would soon be eclipsed by a hearty round of indifference. For companies with less consumer cachet than Apple, delays of this nature would quickly ruin any market momentum...or stop it from accumulating in the first place.

I don't begrudge Apple's decision to engage in this little bit of marketing subterfuge. The company has earned the right to subscribe to this double standard, and it's keenly aware of how to leverage it in its strategic marketing plan.

Unfortunately for the rest of us, Apple's brand/product management panache and polish isn't all it's cracked up to be. From where I sit, Apple's move is a somewhat cynical, and perhaps morally questionable, means of dealing with consumers outside the US. If my Kindergarten teacher were still with us, she'd advise Apple to fess up and admit this was part of its plan all along. (Then she'd offer everyone milk and cookies.)

I'm being deliberately obtuse, of course. No one ever said global consumer electronics marketing had to be moral or nice. Nice guys often do finish last in this business (that could be the title of Gary Kildall's life story), and Apple didn't get to where it is today by waiting patiently in line while the Kindergarten teacher handed out the day's ration of chocolate chip cookies. No rules have been violated here, and no one deserves to be punished. But the ease with which market-dominant companies like Apple can manipulate consumer opinion should give us pause.

Have we become the herd?

How is it that so many have allowed one company to dictate the agenda by which they buy their stuff? Apple firmly controls the where, the when, and the how much. Consumers who have elevated Apple on a pedestal to the exclusion of all other alternatives have allowed themselves to be herded like sheep, while it plays fast and loose with the calendar, their wallets, and to a growing extent, their livelihoods.

Sure, international buyers can simply walk away and head over to the friendly HP kiosk (I hear the upcoming Slate will have an SD card slot, after all, and HP also sells a small selection of convertible laptops) but do they really want to spend the next couple of years explaining to their older, smarter brothers and savvier, younger bosses why the (cheaper) device they picked is better than an iPad? As much as we want to see a vibrantly competitive market for tablet-like devices and related services, for the foreseeable future, it's The Apple Show Starring Steve Jobs. And in the absence of any serious competitor, this show is likely to go on for quite a while.

Time wounds all heels

In a little over a month, this episode of history will be set aside. Apple will release the floodgates, thus magically spilling a suddenly ample supply of product to a weary, parched world of have-nots. Yea, and they shall become satisfied, and in their inebrium they will forget that they were played like pawns. More ominously, the precedent will have been set. And the next time Apple, or any other potentially popular consumer-facing company, decides to juggle global availability to generate more headlines, hype, and pent-up demand, it'll be that much easier to pull this play out of the playbook and execute it again.

Don't say we weren't warned, and don't say we didn't allow ourselves to be put in this position. Because if consumers refused to simply accept flimsy excuses like Apple's at face value, and would just walk away from the long, long line rather than let themselves be mesmerized like cats with multi-colored yarn dangling in front of their faces, none of this would matter.

The true cost of iAd

Publié: avril 9, 2010, 6:43pm CEST par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

Despite all the buzz this week that the upcoming major update to the iPhone/iPod touch/iPad operating system was all about multitasking and APIs, the real story was iAd. Although multitasking-deprived Apple fans haven't been holding their breath for almost three years waiting for an advertising framework, the new mobile ad network is infinitely more significant to the future of the platform than the ability to run more than one app at a time.

In many respects, iAd is nothing short of a full frontal assault on Google. While Google's model for generating ad revenue from activity-linked behaviors has rewritten the rules of advertising over much of the past decade, the path for the mobile market has not been as linear. Desktops and laptops have more than enough bandwidth and screen real estate to easily accommodate subtle text-based ads (or not-so-subtle dancing-cow banners) without significantly disrupting the end user experience. Indeed, many users can become so engaged in a given service -- search, mail, productivity, mapping, whatever -- that they virtually ignore the presence of ad-containing boxes toward the edge of the screen. Even if they're aware of them, the delivery paradigm on a traditional desktop, evolved in recent years to a ruthless level of efficiency, is largely responsible for Google's meteoric corporate rise.

The desktop ad paradigm isn't portable

What works on a large screen that we often stare at for hours during the course of a typical workday doesn't necessarily work on a much smaller screen that we glance at quickly as we rush from one meeting to the next. On smartphones, there isn't enough room or time for end users to consume ads the Google way. So the industry's inability to date to concoct a formula that works now gives Apple just enough of a window of opportunity for its own formula -- namely, in-app ads.

Like everything in the Apple universe, however, this new capability comes with a cost.

But because I'm an optimist, I'll focus first on the good stuff. Developers will love iAd because it addresses a few of the key issues that have made coding for the iPhone something of a thankless process for many. Coders must first navigate an approval process that is still less transparent than it needs to be, and that consequently results in some submissions spending weeks or months in approval limbo. Once approved, their titles must fight for attention amid a vast, fast-growing sea of competing apps. The pricing model doesn't do them any favors, either, as average selling prices have dropped significantly since the days of packaged software.

Giving developers the newfound ability to continue to make money via their apps, while also moving beyond the sell-once revenue model that's so long defined the industry, is a sea change that could give developers additional reasons to stick with Apple, while resisting the lure of up-and-coming competitors like Google's Android.

Carmi Levy Wide Angle Zoom (v.2) There's a downside, too

Not everything is perfect in iAd-land, however. If developers are happy that they've got new opportunities to make money, then end users must certainly be dreading yet another incursion of advertising into yet another aspect of their lives.

Although advertisers in recent years have found ever more creative places to plaster their messages in the real world -- on police cruisers, on the back of subway tickets and even atop urinals in public washrooms -- nothing approaches the aggressiveness with which they've invaded the online world. Ordinary Web pages become riots of Whack-a-Mole, as end users try to squash unwanted and unwelcome pop-ups. Advertisers use non-standard interfaces to keep the ads displayed for a precious extra few seconds before the elusive close box can be found and clicked on. Workflow grounds to a halt as ever more intrusive ad delivery mechanisms take over what used to be pristine online ground.

What's annoying to the average end user on a 23-inch screen is infinitely worse on a smartphone. Not everyone has an unlimited data plan. For those who do not, the prospect of multitasking applications seamlessly sucking up bandwidth to fill the in-app advertising pipeline is frightening. For mobile users who've become accustomed to lightening their data load while on the go, they now face the prospect of data overages to support ads they never asked for and never wanted.

Even if they are on an unlimited plan, the annoyance factor is potentially much higher because all that background ad-related data transfer takes bandwidth away from the stuff folks are trying to get done, like messaging, mapping, and searching. Thanks to the newly-multitasking-capable iPhone OS v4.0, it's entirely conceivable that a few apps pulling down ad content could easily saturate one's wireless connection. Think about everyone complaining about 3G coverage in urban areas today. Now multiply the problem by 4.

Who owns your data now?

In-app advertising also opens up a veritable Pandora's Box of privacy issues, specifically around how developers will use location- and user-based knowledge to tailor what's delivered. Since the process, delivered within the context of a given application, is one level removed from the operating system, who's accountable for the inevitable privacy concerns that will erupt when a misbehaving developer configures a misbehaving app to cross a privacy/confidentiality line or two? I see a lot of finger-pointing between Apple and developers when the first headlines begin to filter out, as well as a lot of nervous iPhone owners wondering, just who has access now to the trove of supposedly private data in their pockets, and what do they intend to do with it?

I don't begrudge Apple's desire to level the mobile advertising playing field and use its iPhone-related successes to date to give it a leg up in its quest to join Google as a Web services powerhouse. Advertising pays the freight for a growing range of online services, and it would be naïve to assume smartphones won't eventually become advertising platforms in their own right.

But in rushing toward a monetized mobile future and going for Google's jugular, Apple needs to ensure it doesn't damage the cherished end user experiences that got it to its current market position in the first place. The iAd platform will succeed or fail depending on how finely Apple can balance the competing needs of its often divergent stakeholders.

A bill too far: With iPad, AT&T attempts a triple-dip

Publié: avril 6, 2010, 4:12pm CEST par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

Do you ever get the impression your wallet is being relentlessly sucked dry? Or that consumers are being expected to pay for an ever growing list of subscription-based services that, in a less profit-mad world, would likely be free?

Apple's gotten quite enough publicity from me and my colleagues over the last little while. So while I hate to harp on the iPad yet again this week, I can't let go of the fact that this particular introduction represents yet another step toward the deepening fiscal enslavement of consumers.

Information never wanted to be free

As an example, let's consider the price we pay to connect to the Internet. In the very beginning, we dialed the Internet by phone on a 1200 baud connection. (Anyone remember Telenet? Paying by the minute?) A long time later, in the Mosaic era, outside of community-funded Freenets or gamey-looking PCs at the local library, we paid ISPs to go online. Cost-per-minute rate plans soon gave way to unlimited access, of course, but we were still paying every month for the privilege of sucking the Internet through the data equivalent of a straw. Information superhighway, my eye.

Soon enough, DSL and cable-based high-speed connectivity shoved dial-up to the side, but that monthly subscription of around $20 to $30 nearly doubled in most cases. For some consumers, ISPs added insult to injury by charging extra for modem rental; in some European countries, governments charged license fees for using modems.

As the world mobilized and cell phones became mainstream consumer offerings, our monthly budgets made room for yet another bill. As cell phones morphed into smartphones, the voice-only invoice became a voice-and-data plan. In many cases (mine included) we were paying two amounts to the same service provider/carrier to be online at home and on the go.

Another device, another bill

In its higher-end 3G form, Apple's iPad threatens to add to the budgetary hurt by requiring yet another payment to access the very same Internet we've been paying for (twice) all along. Now, in fairness, we should thank AT&T for busting some of the old, consumer-unfriendly paradigms of the carrier biz. Its rate structure -- $15 a month for 250 MB of data and $30 for unlimited -- is a paradigm shift from the typically far more expensive smartphone-based plans. That it doesn't require a contract is an even more radical change from the traditional lock-in strategy that's hosed us all since this entire industry was first formed.

So as much as I want to congratulate AT&T for dropping the price and making it easier for us to opt in and opt out whenever we choose, I still think it's a crock. Thanks to Apple and its US carrier partner-in-crime, anyone who chooses to buy a 3G-capable iPad now faces a third monthly bill for the one Internet that his/her tax dollars funded oh-so-long-ago.

Am I the only one who thinks we should be paying once no matter how we connect? It can't be that radical a concept, can it?

Carmi Levy Wide Angle Zoom (v.2) Like television before it

In many respects, increasingly fee-based Internet access follows the broadcast television model. In the beginning, we picked signals out of the air for free. While the resulting experience was anything but home theater-like, it reflected the then-state-of-the-art, and was generally considered acceptable for its time. The arrival of cable distribution of those formerly free signals meant we no longer missed our favorite shows because an intense rainstorm blew the rooftop antenna out of alignment.

The relentless march of cable/satellite bills has far outstripped the rate of inflation in both Canada and the US for the past decade. It has also given pause to consumers who have grown weary of getting their pockets picked at every turn. Keep in mind the public technically owns the frequencies over which radio and television have traditionally been broadcast.

Fair is not free

I'm not saying AT&T should suddenly offer its 3G service for iPads, smartphones, netbooks or any other device for free. I'm also not suggesting that a carrier that builds out separate infrastructure for terrestrial and mobile data access shouldn't be able to define and manage separate revenue streams for each. Although we may not always have the most peaceful relationships with our carriers, we should show them a little love for choosing to do business in a very difficult sector. They make multi-billion-dollar bets on what technologies will be hot, and they deserve the opportunity to generate reasonable profits from those investments.

The key words here are "fair," "reasonable," and "balanced." Which is my politically correct way of saying that the profit motive should not be an excuse for companies to thinly slice nearly similar services, and then resell them to us as though they were unique. They are not, and despite the very different kinds of infrastructure that support terrestrial and mobile Internet users, at some point, pipes are pipes are pipes.

We expect greater value

If the still-with-us recession has taught us anything, it's to question the value of the things we purchase and consume. And if we don't feel we're receiving value for our investment, the recession has further emboldened us to challenge the status quo and push for something better. AT&T's iPad data pricing model may look like a great deal when compared to existing smartphone plans, but to an existing AT&T customer, it seems like an unnecessary cash grab. It's entirely fair to ask why one customer can't tap into one wireless account with more than one device, especially if at least one of those devices was purchased outright rather than with an up-front subsidy and a two- or three-year contract commitment.

I know I'm likely screaming in the wind here. I get that entire business models of market-dominating carriers are based on prodding the same people to spend more and more for month after month. I get that shareholders love this kind of thing and will spank growth-driven companies if they deviate from this model.

But the idealist in me likes to think that 2010 will be the year when the average consumer maxes out the average number of individual subscriptions for technology-related services, and that the amount we spend on things that should be either free, less expensive, or combined into simpler packages will ultimately begin to drop.

In this context, paying once again for 3G service on an iPad could be the biggest sucker's bet yet. Apple could end up changing the landscape again, only not in a way it had initially intended.

RIM approaches the edge: BlackBerry needs a reboot, fast

Publié: avril 2, 2010, 5:24am CEST par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

Is the BlackBerry beginning to go bad?

It's becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the rising volume of speculation that the smartphone that started the smartphone revolution may be moving into a bit of a middle-aged funk. The share price of BlackBerry maker Research In Motion took a hit Thursday after the company reported lower-than-expected earnings for the last quarter. Although bottom line revenue rose by 37% and the company added 4.9 million subscribers globally, the numbers failed to meet expectations and spawned growing concern that RIM's best days may be behind it.

The famously secretive company will understandably not admit anything is amiss. But I'm not famously secretive, so here goes: The BlackBerry platform is under increasing threat from newer and, frankly, more exciting offerings from Apple and Google and its partners. I'll admit I'm a little biased here. As a Canadian who lives barely an hour's drive away from RIM's global headquarters in Waterloo, Ontario, I feel more than a little sadness that this national icon, long the symbol of can-do Canuck tech, is under threat.

Although Palm purists who still worship at the altar of Treo will forever claim the fallen PDA maker brought the first successful smartphone to market (three word to Palmies: Get over it), it was RIM's BlackBerry that started the on-the-go-e-mail revolution just over a decade ago. Its platform was, and still is, robust enough for businesses to buy in aggressively, and indeed enterprise support remains a key pillar of RIM's success. Companies love their Berrys because they continue to offer the kind of iron-clad-secure messaging that no other device, vendor, or platform can touch.

A very different context

If only the world hadn't changed around RIM in the interim. If the story were still about messaging, RIM's dominant market share wouldn't be eroding, and Apple's iPhone wouldn't be threatening to take over the crown. Unfortunately for RIM, messaging is no longer the only criteria for enterprises or, increasingly and especially, consumers. No matter who's doing the buying, applications now drive the smartphone agenda.

BlackBerry 8820 And it's here where RIM continues to get its clock cleaned.

Apple's 150,000-and-growing iPhone apps will be soon joined by a similarly fast-expanding group of iPad titles. Google's Android Market just topped 30,000 apps and will continue to grow, thanks to strong vendor/carrier partnerships and extensive marketing. BlackBerry App World was late to the party, launching a year ago, and has struggled to get to less than 3,000 titles. Marketing, inconsistent at the best of times, is virtually invisible now.

In fairness to RIM, sheer numbers aren't as meaningful as Apple and Google would have us believe. No one could possibly download and use every last app. Apple's huge numbers are bolstered by the kind of silly titles -- often related to sometimes-embarrassing bodily functions, the consumption of beer, and simulated animal sounds -- that add little value beyond party conversation. And like the mega-supermarket with so much choice that the average consumer spends twice as much time wandering the aisles before giving up in frustration, there's such thing as too much choice.

But to consumers who are rapidly taking over from enterprises as those who define the mobile agenda, none of this matters. All they know from the figures is that Apple and Google are hot, RIM is not, and they'll be bypassing the BlackBerry the next time they head into the store for an upgrade.

Carmi Levy Wide Angle Zoom (v.2) RIM has faced adversity before. In 2006, as consumer interest in smartphones grew, the company introduced the Pearl and, in doing so, began a successful extension of the formerly sober enterprise-only brand into the consumer space. Though more than half of all BlackBerry devices are now purchased by consumers, their basic design remains tied to legacy hardware and software. If the Pearl was good enough for mainstream consumer adoption in 2006, its still-similar descendents are woefully outclassed by competing designs now on the market. The world moved on, but the BlackBerry seemingly did not. To close the gap, here's what RIM needs to do:

Ditch its legacy operating system. The BlackBerry OS has evolved mightily to support a full range of services never envisioned a decade ago. But like a 1962 Volkswagen Beetle with a bigger engine, wheels, and brakes, the underlying architecture just can't keep up. And, no, v5.0 of the OS won't cut it. It's an evolution, whereas RIM needs a revolution.
Toss the damn browser. Now. The BlackBerry's built-in browser is, hands down, the worst piece of mobile code. Ever. RIM bought Torch Mobile last year to supposedly fix the problem. Time's up. Deliver something now, because the longer it takes, the more frustrated subscribers become.
Focus on developers. BlackBerry's development environment gives programmers grey hair. While competitors invest resources in making life easier for coders, RIM admits it still has a ways to go in this area. The company must bet the farm on rebuilding its developer ecosystem.
Go multitouch. We all know the Storm, RIM's first touchscreen device, was an unmitigated disaster; and the Storm2, while better, failed to erase our collective memory. A new OS should clear the decks for hardware designs more akin to 2010 instead of 2000.
Skip a generation. With the market focused on fleshing out 3G offerings, RIM should be pedal-to-the-metal on a 4G BlackBerry. On second thought, not a 4G BlackBerry. But an entire line of 4G BlackBerrys. Across-the-board availability will leapfrog RIM back into the position of market leader. Right now, it's just following.
Hug your carriers. In Verizon's eyes, RIM could once do no wrong. The carrier's retail outlets brimmed with gleaming BlackBerry devices right at the front of the store. Not anymore. Now, it's an all-Android shop, with RIM relegated to the dusty corners. Apple and, now, Google have proven the value of strong, deep carrier partnerships. It's time for RIM to stop relying on its legacy market position and aggressively court carrier/partners. They are, after all, the key to RIM's future.

RIM was once the lean, mean driver of the then-nascent smartphone market. It set the agenda and helped businesses and consumers alike understand the value proposition of these then-new devices. These days, it's a follower, and its momentum won't last forever. Nothing short of a radical rethink will change its current trajectory.

Enough with the Apple bashing!

Publié: mars 25, 2010, 10:54pm CET par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

As the hype machine for iPad availability revs up into overdrive (and, in some cases, tacks on afterburners), in a desperate effort to restore balance to the universe -- or, in some people's lives, what passes for a universe -- backlash against Apple increases to compensate. I'm thinking it's getting more than a little ridiculous to demonize a company because it's managed to succeed where others have failed.

I'm thinking it's time to stop the silliness.

Ever since Apple's return from the dead began about 13 years ago, it's become almost de rigeur to criticize it for being overly secretive, cultish, and obsessive. Apple-friendly consumers are dismissed as "fanboys" having drunk the Kool-Aid (a phrase Jerry Pournelle now probably wishes he'd never have coined). CEO Steve Jobs is accused of using his "Reality Distortion Field" to get customers to buy Apple products without asking so much as a single question.

Some opposition is well-deserved

I can appreciate where some of the opposition comes from. Apple is, after all, not the world's easiest company to deal with. It often seems to act in its own best interests and to the detriment of many of its stakeholders -- something iPhone developers appreciate all too well. Apple's behavior, as befits its position as the leading consumer electronics vendor of our time, isn't always as nice as it could be. Companies that choose to build their business models around Apple's platforms -- especially the iPhone/iPod touch/iPad -- must first come to terms with the cold reality that Apple may taketh away as quickly as it giveth. They know the risks going in, and they steel themselves for a rough ride as a result.

This is the price that stakeholders pay for being part of a vibrant market. If they want something a little warmer and fuzzier, I'm sure lesser islands of sanctuary like Nokia would be more than happy to coddle them a little. Unfortunately, all the coddling in the world won't ever make up for the fact that there's a lot more money to be made in Apple's App Store than Nokia's Ovi.

What I can't appreciate is the deep-rooted nastiness expressed by some who insist on remaining opposed to Apple's products or its way of doing business, on principle alone. To a certain degree, our complex allegiances to the tech companies that increasingly define the tools of our modern lives naturally lend themselves to polarized opinions and passionate clashes. In a simpler age, Chevy and Dodge aficionados would duke it out at the drag strip before declaring a victor, shaking hands, and going home. The tech industry, unfortunately, doesn't seem to shake hands much. More often than not, the high-spiritedness of the community tends to descend to mean-spiritedness almost as soon as the first article has been published.

Aside from being more than a little distasteful, the breakdown also clouds the core issues of whether or not a given product has value. We spend so much time flinging barbs back and forth that we forget that there may, perhaps, possibly, be something about the product that's worth appreciating.

It saddens me that a company can't succeed without being slammed for being successful. It saddens me that the industry as a whole can't seem to shake this knee-jerk, childlike behaviour. It saddens me that regular business folks, of the genus homo sapiens, observing us from behind the glass wall, conclude no one in the tech sector ever graduated beyond lame teenaged insults and put-downs. Sometimes I wish we could simply congratulate Apple for succeeding where others have failed, critique the company for its rough edges, and then move on.

Carmi Levy Wide Angle Zoom (v.2) The conspiracy to invent a conspiracy

So, to set the record straight, from where I sit, the media are not biased toward Apple. While there will always be those who lean one way or the other, there is no industry-wide conspiracy to paint Apple in a favorable light.

While I'm still on the conspiracy thing: No one has it in for wannabe-competitors, either. We'd all love to see countless worthy iPad competitors, and can't wait for other vendors to bring their offerings to market. The demand for something different has been obvious to us all since the very first tablet-like machines were demonstrated two decades ago. It's a category that's generated countless waves of unfulfilled hype since then, so forgive us all if we cut Apple some slack now that it has apparently cracked a very long-standing and stubborn nut. If it hadn't been Apple, the industry would still have gone a little giddy.

Detractors of all things Apple point to initial iPad sales figures as evidence that something is amiss. They claim supporters are manipulating the stats to depict Apple favorably. First off, no one cares about initial sales figures. They may fill editorial space on a slow news day, but they don't say much about a given device's long-term chances. Call me in three months and let me know how the thing is selling. Until then, trying to count a couple of days worth of sales is a patently useless exercise that proves nothing beyond the fact that some people have lots of free time on their hands.

Success makes you a target

In an age marked by endless waves of start-ups that are forgotten before anyone has a chance to remember them, the few companies that forge their own path to domination often become targets. In that regard, Apple is no different than IBM, Microsoft and, more recently, Google. If success is its own reward, it is also a prime motivator of the kind of mean-spiritedness that long ago might have been classified as sour grapes. It's high time we raised the level of discourse and rediscovered the basic principles every consumer values: Namely, does the product or service being discussed meet a given need at a given price at a given point in time? Does it do so more effectively than competing offerings? Will you buy it? Did you buy it?

Like it or not, Apple has taught itself well over the last 13 years. It reads consumers better than any other market competitor and, as a result, is able to generate levels of interest and buying activity that others can only dream about. It has learned to efficiently and effectively market itself, using processes that are rewriting the marketing zeitgeist. It succeeds where others have failed because it learns from the mistakes of others. Apple is the quintessential business success story, and we'd all do well to learn from its experience.

We'd all do well to learn from something, anyway.

Facebook jumps the shark

Publié: mars 22, 2010, 11:44pm CET par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

When news broke last week that Facebook users were on the receiving end of a large-scale phishing attack -- the first one to use external e-mail and not just the service's own messaging system -- I started to wonder whether the service had jumped the shark. If this sort of thing continues to escalate, you should start wondering, too.

Hardly a week goes by that Facebook doesn't get hit with another spam, malware, or phishing attack. Last week's screaming headline, that spammers are using conventional e-mail to spread virus-stealing malicious code to Facebook's 400 million users, is the latest chapter of a book that doesn't have an end in sight.

The more things change...

We've experienced this precise sequence of events previously, only last time it was Microsoft's turn to be the high-profile whipping boy of the hacker set. As criminals routinely targeted its Windows, Internet Explorer, and Office franchises, debate raged over the fundamental architecture of its products. The arguments, which will likely continue indefinitely, centered around whether the very design of Microsoft's products contributed to their vulnerability, and whether Microsoft did enough to fix security weaknesses as soon as they were identified.

Similar debates are already springing up around Facebook's response to a growing litany of threats to its platform and its 400 million registered users. To a certain extent, I view the two companies as victims of circumstance in that hackers prefer to focus their nefariously deployed resources on initiatives that will result in the most lucrative potential payoff. In other words, criminal ROI.

When Macs owned less than 3% of the overall PC market, for example, hackers simply couldn't be bothered to write illicit code for the platform. Things are different now that Mac market share has pushed into double digits. Windows was, and is, another story altogether. And because criminals always focus on the largest potential population of victims, it's hardly fair to fault the victim-companies. It isn't their fault that they did all the right things to grow so large, after all.

Carmi Levy Wide Angle Zoom (v.2) A tale of two companies

What we can fault them for is lackadaisical response to an identified threat -- or to a growing trend of escalating threats. This is where Microsoft and Facebook could not be more opposite. While critics will forever fault Microsoft for not doing enough and for not doing it quickly enough, it's clear that today's Microsoft is world's removed from yesterday's. It's invested billions to create platforms that address some of the well known weaknesses of older products. It's created a range of scheduled updates for its products (Patch Tuesday, anyone?) that have redefined how IT departments keep their fleets in tune. It's tweaked its sunset rules to minimize the damage caused by weakly secured, obsolete software. For better or worse, Microsoft has raised the volume on security-related issues, and in doing so, has ensured it remains high on the priority list of consumers and businesses as well.

Facebook? Not so much. While Rome burns, the social media giant twiddles its thumbs, offering up little more than common sense advice to end-users as it ignores the basic weaknesses in its platform. We shouldn't be surprised, as the company's earlier efforts to address privacy concerns -- an area closely related to security and data integrity -- were almost comically ham-fisted. In the realm of social media, this just isn't good enough. With more users globally than there are people in the US, the consequences of Facebook's Swiss cheese-like security can easily impact far larger audiences than the average phishing attack on a lower-profile group of victims.

When Microsoft faced a crisis of confidence among its user base, it made the tough decisions necessary to reorient itself around a new security mantra. It 'fessed up to some pretty iffy decisions made before Internet-borne threats became über-pervasive and, perhaps most importantly, made its stakeholders a central part of the solution. Today's environment is hardly perfect and, in fairness, probably never will be. Windows, Explorer and Office continue to be the targets of new forms of attack, and Microsoft continues to fend them off with ever evolving offerings.

This is the new reality of connected computing, and the only ones to blame here are the cretins who create the malicious code, write and distribute the spam and reap the criminal rewards of this growing "business." It isn't Microsoft's fault any more than it is Facebook's.

What matters most?

But here's the thing: From where I sit, Microsoft's solutions are far more critical to the success of the average consumer than Facebook's. One company's products give life to my laptop, let me connect to the broader Internet, and get actual work done. The other company's code lets me poke my friends and play FarmVille and Mafia Wars.

Perhaps that was a little mean-spirited, but it underscores the business rationale that we all -- companies as well as regular consumers -- apply to the tools we use every day. As revolutionary as Facebook has been at connecting us with long lost friends and maintaining virtual communities that can drive both social and professional success, it isn't a given that we'll absolutely need it to survive. Nor is it a given that some other Web 2.0/social media solution won't also hit critical mass and take Facebook's crown away. Friendster and MySpace both learned the hard way that relevance is as impermanent as the so-called "end-user loyalty" that got them to the top spot in the first place. Easy come, easy go. And when you're not weighed down by years of legacy files, macros, training, and ease-of-use concerns, migrating to the Next Best Thing is easier for the average social media solution than it is a productivity suite.

Facebook is at a bit of a crossroads in its all-too-brief history. Its massive popularity has placed it squarely in the crosshairs of a criminal community intent on exploiting the largest, most profitable audiences out there. The timing couldn't be worse, because the company still hasn't had the opportunity to develop the kind of security-aware culture that would allow it to proactively take these growing threats on, and win.

As users are increasingly exposed to Facebook-linked attacks, they'll find themselves wondering if the ability to poke their friends is worth it.

Microsoft cuts and pastes an egg

Publié: mars 18, 2010, 5:05pm CET par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

Ever since she brought me into the world, my mother has taught me many things, namely to not only learn from my own mistakes, but also from the mistakes of others.

Microsoft clearly never spoke to my mom, as evidenced by its decision to leave cut, copy, and paste capabilities out of the new Windows Phone 7 Series platform, at least in the early rounds. If they had paid Mom a visit, they would have been told -- after being offered some tea, of course -- to fix all the boo-boos of earlier smartphone operating systems before releasing their own updated version. She would have advised them to understand the rough spots encountered by competitive offerings, and do everything in their power to avoid them.

I think my mom's ticked with Microsoft

Okay, perhaps she wouldn't have worded it precisely that way, but I'm certain you get my point regardless. I'm sure I speak for my mother (and likely, a whole bunch of you, too) when I say I'm disappointed in what may either be Microsoft's "decision" to leave three of the most basic functions in the history of computing out of its just-announced OS, or as we seem to be learning now, it's having overlooked the whole subject in the planning phase.

This morning, blogger Long Zheng reports he was told by Microsoft that cut and paste is something the company hopes will find a place in Windows Phone 7 Series at some future point.

Now, the initial excuse the company provided was (and is, and quite likely always will be) insufficient and, if we're being brutally honest, more than a little arrogant: "Most users, including Office users, don't really need clipboard functionality." So what's the story now, after Long's report: "We asked users to give us some details, and they decided, most users do like clipboard functionality, just not right at first?"

Carmi Levy Wide Angle Zoom (v.2) While I realize OS vendors have to make countless decisions about which features should and should not make it into the final product, I bristle at Microsoft's tone -- a bit like US Congresspeople explaining why the public option for health care is a really, really, really good idea, but just not for the bill being discussed today. If Microsoft (or, for that matter, if anyone at all) can learn anything from Congress this year, it's that people don't like being told by The Powers On High what they are supposed to want or not want, and when.

It isn't Microsoft's place to tell users that they won't ever need to cut, copy, or paste anything for as long as they own their new devices. It's the kind of blow-off statement that sounds shockingly like Apple when it introduced the iPhone in 2007, similarly stripped of any ability to cut-and-paste. After a sea of complaints from users and reviewers who actually do know what they want, and don't need to be told, Apple wisely retro-baked that functionality back into the OS two years later. While the controversy didn't seem to dent Apple's market share, Microsoft hardly has the benefit of Apple's marketing prowess or brand equity.

Apple aficionados were willing to cut the company some slack, and ended up buying iPhones anyway. Microsoft aficionados are a lot harder to find, they won't line up around the block in the middle of the night, and they'll probably pick up an Android-powered device as an alternative. With Windows Mobile...oops, Classic devices retaining this feature, and Windows Phone 7 Series lacking it, the inconsistency is difficult to understand. However you slice it, there will be no slack for Windows Phone 7 Series, and it's more than a little shocking that Microsoft couldn't see this coming.

Teaching us all a lesson?

In fairness to Microsoft, its new mobile OS includes a data detection service that automatically recognizes common elements like addresses and phone numbers. Within this context, perhaps there's room to make the argument that cutting and pasting is yesterday's news. This technology, popularized with the first mass-market GUIs in the early '80s, and perpetuated in virtually every desktop and mobile OS ever since, could be one of those things that we hold on to like a security blanket. And like the ratty old blanket, perhaps there's a time when we need to let go. Maybe, just maybe, Microsoft is doing us all a favor by pushing it out the door.

But consumers are a fickle lot. And what makes sense from a strategic or historical perspective isn't necessarily right from the point of view of the guy forking over the dough for your new wonder-product. Never mind that Microsoft may, in fact, be "right" in concluding that we no longer need cut, copy, and paste on our mobile devices. Customers, after all, are always right, even if their choices make them look like circus clowns who do their makeup in the dark. It's their mistake to make and their shame to live down. Even if the vendor believes otherwise, it's not the smartest business strategy to call them idiots and make fun of their smudged face paint.

It's at moments like these that the mobile browsing experience truly does resemble the desktop browsing experience. (IE Mobile 6 on Windows Mobile 6.1.4 emulator) Casting off a legacy

In fairness to Microsoft, I somewhat understand where the company is coming from. Previous versions of its mobile OS suffered from what I like to call Shrunken Windows Syndrome. Instead of being built from the ground up as truly mobile-enabled solutions, they seemed to be pared-down versions of Microsoft's flagship desktop OS products. Microsoft's philosophy seemed to be that if it worked on a PC, it would work on a smartphone or a PDA, too. I used a number of Windows CE and Mobile devices over the years, and I never got used to navigating a full-on Start menu, complete with cascading sub-menus, with a stylus or thumb keyboard. It was as if Microsoft never actually used its own mobile products out in the field, and never listened to users who complained bitterly that its design philosophy simply didn't work out there.

With Windows Phone 7 Series, Microsoft seems to have finally gotten the mobile message. It's built from the ground up as a modern, competitive, lean and efficient mobile OS. I suspect the cut-and-paste omission is the company's way of overcompensating for years of heavy Windows legacy on its mobile products, a hackneyed way to break with its past.

Memo to Redmond: There are other ways to accomplish this.

It's only temporary

If Long Zheng's reporting is accurate (and it often is), I'd wager that v7.1 will have copy and paste...that is, if Microsoft doesn't cave to the firestorm earlier and release it as an on-the-fly fix. Either way, the only way Microsoft will ever gain traction in the mobile OS market is by listening to both customers and prospective customers and integrating their suggestions -- well, the value-added ones, at least -- into successive generations of their product.

This is a gaffe Microsoft simply can't afford. Its mobile OS is in the fight of its life as Microsoft battles the Apple/Google/RIM juggernaut on one hand and its own declining mobile market share on the other. Beyond the numbers, there's the risk that the market has already given up on Microsoft succeeding as a mobile vendor. That psychological factor (something Palm knows all too well) is something Microsoft needs to fix by reinstating cut-and-paste support. Now wouldn't be soon enough.

The missing dimension in 3D TV

Publié: mars 15, 2010, 3:30pm CET par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

Poster from the first widely-distributed 3D movie, Bwana Devil (1952). I risk being tagged a curmudgeon, but I'll say it anyway: 3D television isn't ready for prime time. It isn't ready for your living room, either (or any living room, frankly).

Headlines claiming 3D TV to be the greatest thing since the creation of 2D TV, are sadly more than a little hyperbolic, and I wish the industry would ease back on the PR push to get us to replace our still-new LCD and plasma televisions with 3D versions.

I know this comes as a bit of a disappointment for vendors like Samsung and Panasonic, which last week started selling 3D TVs through US retailers. But anyone who ponies up a triple-digit price premium for the right to wear goofy, overpriced glasses to watch content that doesn't exist yet and can't be broadcast over conventional distribution channels is, to put it gently, gullible.

Someday isn't here yet

Samsung, Panasonic, and other television vendors have been working themselves into a tizzy over 3D TV ever since this year's Consumer Electronics Show, where 3D TV was the darling. Unfortunately, they're all in for a very hard lesson. Despite the headlines, breathless press releases, and similarly breathless product reviews, 3D TV has no immediate future in the living room. That may very well change, someday, but it'll take a whole lot of evolution -- in technology, content and marketing -- before 3D makes the mainstream leap from movie theaters to living rooms. Here's why: Carmi Levy Wide Angle Zoom (v.2)

No content. While a growing percentage of top-grossing movies over the past couple of years have been 3D, the vast majority of movies and virtually all televised content remain conventional 2D. While Avatar has used breakthrough 3D cinematography to become the most successful movie of all time, it's an exception to the rule. How many other movies really need the full-on 3D treatment?
No distribution. If you want to watch a 3D movie, you're buying or renting a 3D Blu-ray disc. Current-generation cable or satellite-based distribution simply can't support the bandwidth required by a 3D broadcast. Will this change someday? Certainly, and for DirecTV customers, who may have access to a grand total of three 3D channels by June, soon. But for the rest of us, the best you can hope for is a half-resolution 3D signal from your television provider. And don't be surprised if you're charged a premium even for that half-baked "solution." Either way, if you do the math, your fancy new screen will be yesterday's news by the time the majority of distributors get with the 3D program...assuming they ever do.
No affordability. Every new technology carries a significant premium, and 3D screens are no different. Samsung's $2,899 package for a 46-inch screen, two sets of glasses, and a Blu-ray player seems rich in a world awash with sub-$1,000 sets. Want more glasses? They're $250 a pop, a figure which will be inscribed into your brain the moment you discover your five-year-old has left them on the living room floor just as the dog sniffed around for something new to chew. Economies of scale will, as they always eventually do, bring prices down. But do you really want to wear special glasses every time you watch television? As technology advances and potentially (or hopefully) makes glasses unnecessary, will your expensive new acquisition even be compatible? Don't count on it.
No relevance. 3D has been around in one form or another for decades. It's had more just-about-finally-almost-here moments than any technology deserves to have. Despite the fact that it's finally moving past its cheesy/campy movie past and becoming an accepted cinematographic tool, television is an entirely different ballgame. We don't watch TV like we watch movies. The typical TV viewing session isn't an event. Watching the local news, Stephen Colbert, or the mercifully last few episodes of Lost will never qualify as events, either. And I don't want to see my local weather dude in 3D any more than I want to feel as if I can touch Mr. Colbert as he faux-grills his guests. Although 3D adds some value to some admittedly limited forms of entertainment (such as movies), it adds patently none to the vast majority of today's televised content.

I understand the full-court press to move us all into 3D TV. Manufacturers are hurting. After spending most of the decade coaxing us out of our now all-but-gone CRT-based televisions and into bigger, flashier and, yes, more expensive LCD and plasma flat panels, they sat quietly by as we hunkered down though the recession. Now they want -- nay, need -- for us to have an entirely new reason to buy new stuff. There's always got to be a reason to drive the consumer need to replace things before their time. And if this year's reason doesn't take off, watch for next year's CES to carry an entirely different theme.

When my Betanews colleague Tim Conneally called it kids-stuff in an article last week, he was uncomfortably (for vendors) close to the truth. For all the novelty value of watching a 3D movie on a properly equipped home theatre, the realities of content and economics mean it'll be a long time before any of this is as routinely workable as regular old 2D HDTV is today.

The magnificent John Candy as 'Dr. Tongue' from 'Evil 3D House of Pancakes.' Dreams don't always come true

In the ideal world, vendors announcing products based on radically new technologies would be greeted by thunderous applause and near-universal approval from rapturous consumers eager to spend whatever it takes to remain current. In the real world, however, announcements are rarely met with such unmitigated adulation. Buyers who have seen and heard it all before are growing tired of overly optimistic vendor claims, and are rightfully challenging them. In many cases, they're simply ignoring them outright.

That seems to be happening in my immediate circle of friends and colleagues, where no one has any plans to replace their current equipment with 3D anytime soon. Their universal conclusion -- which I share -- is it's too early, and too many additional pieces have to come into play before it becomes a reasonable and reasonably affordable choice for consumers. As hard as vendors have decided to push their 3D wares in 2010, they're dreaming in three-dimensional Technicolor if they think this is the year the mass television market moves beyond two dimensions.

Second thoughts about Google Buzz

Publié: mars 11, 2010, 4:24pm CET par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

So it's been a few weeks since Google Buzz launched, and because I'm a good little geek-soldier who eats his own (figurative) dog food, I've invested lots of time to learn how it works and, more importantly, how it can work for me. Although I'm doing my best to be an optimist, I can't seem to warm up to Buzz. Yes, folks, I think I'm falling out of like with Google's new social media darling service.

Or, to be blunt, Google Buzz sucks.

Maybe that's a little harsh. Maybe it sucks for me and not for others. Maybe other users absolutely love the thing because they feel it's already transformed how they connect to each other. If you're one of them, please let me know, because so far, no one I know has bothered using it to any great degree.

And there, dear readers, is the core problem. Despite the fact that Buzz leverages our existing Gmail contact lists to give us a head start in the friend-population game, it doesn't seem to be translating into actual, sustained, meaningful activity.

In the early going for Facebook, as you may recall, its friend approval process often left your universe as pathetically empty as a sixth grade prom dance floor. Google, by contrast, leveraged Gmail to avoid repeating Facebook's mistake, but its jumpstart philosophy doesn't seem to be resulting in anything remotely approaching an enjoyable party. Whenever I click on the Buzz link from Gmail, I feel like I'm right back in the sixth grade, down to the dim gymnasium with the lousy acoustics and watered down punch.

Carmi Levy Wide Angle Zoom (v.2) There are so many reasons to rant on Google for foisting yet another social media failure on us, but for now, I've narrowed it down to these four:

Conversation stream hijackers. Every time I sign in, there's a monumentally long conversation thread from Robert Scoble at the top of my list. Now, don't get me wrong: I've long been a fan of Robert Scoble and decided to follow him precisely because I appreciate his perspectives on the rapidly evolving social media landscape. But his overwhelming presence at the top of my Buzz feed is starting to annoy me. To his credit, he's recognized this flaw and has apologized for it -- though he really shouldn't, because it's not his fault that bad interface design allows uber-users to overwhelm the feeds of regular folks like me.
Interface from hell. I wouldn't mind Robert Scoble's extreme ownership of my screen real estate if I had the ability to move things around to suit my needs. But Buzz's no-customization philosophy means you're stuck with whatever's there. You can't filter out users or threads that don't interest you. You can't prioritize the ones that do. You're stuck. And those things that look like overlaid folders? They don't work. For all the criticism that Facebook has received over the years for its revolving door of radical interface changes, at least we can eventually tweak that interface to somewhat reflect the things that matter most to us. Google Buzz assumes we all subscribe to the old Eastern Bloc notion of one size (badly) fits all.
Inconsistency with other Google services. Remember the nasty old days of DOS when every app had its own interface and command structure, and moving data from one to another was the PC-era equivalent of Babel? Well, after a couple of decades of getting used to Microsoft's cross-application philosophy -- with across-the-board methods for printing, saving files, cutting and pasting content, among others -- it almost seems as if Google wants us to go back to the pre-Cambrian period. Every Google service seems to come with its own unique interface and, as a result, its own unique learning curve. While I understand that a social media tool like Buzz will necessarily have a fundamentally different feature set than, say, an RSS reader like Google Reader, there's no reason why some of the baseline conventions of Google Reader, such as the ability to expand and collapse conversations and seamlessly connect to and manipulate feeds, can't be adapted for use in Buzz as well. Using the two services side-by-side reinforces my belief that they may as well have been designed on different planets. There's no reason for this.
Cryptic contact management. After years of finding friends in Facebook and identifying interesting folks to follow in Twitter, the Buzz approach to adding contacts is a major letdown. Not that I'm surprised, as contact management within Gmail has never been a Google strong suit. But it's particularly botched here, starting with a "Find People" routine that first forces you to scroll through the friends you're already following. Once you get to the Suggestions field at the bottom, you're faced either with a long list of people you don't know (maybe they sent spam to your Gmail account six months ago) or a really short list of people you don't know. "Load More" buttons are few and far between. Right now, I've got one under the list of folks I follow. Which means it's useless to me. I'd like to have one that helps me find new people to follow, but that's nowhere to be found. Similarly counterintuitive design decisions abound throughout Buzz.

I'm apparently not alone, because the kinds of conversations that routinely happen on other social media platforms -- multiple back-and-forth messages that often pull in participants from near and far -- just aren't happening here. I fear Buzz may go down as yet another failed attempt by Google to figure out the social media Holy Grail.

I've always thought of myself as a pretty tech-focused guy who can figure out the peculiarities of virtually any piece of software or, increasingly, Web-based service. But Google Buzz makes it such a frustrating, annoying process to get anywhere close to functional with people who matter to me that I've concluded my time would be better spent elsewhere. I'm not convinced spending hours fighting with Buzz's busted interface will do anything to get my "friends" to wake up and engage in this new environment. From where I sit, I doubt it'll change without radically invasive surgery to the product. Even then, I wonder if users already entrenched in Facebook and Twitter will even care enough to chime back in to Buzz.

Suddenly Apple hates Wi-Fi

Publié: mars 8, 2010, 4:36pm CET par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

Because removing porn from the App Store wasn't enough, now Apple's taking aim at software that helps iPhone, iPod touch and, soon, iPad users find Wi-Fi hotspots. Forgive me for cynically choosing to disbelieve the company's excuse -- that all of these apps use undocumented or private APIs and consequently must be removed for the sake of the platform's future. If Apple actually had a workable, believable strategy for approval, it wouldn't have approved any of these apps in the first place.

The apps are -- or, rather, were distributed under the trade names Sekai Camera, Wifi-Where, and yFy, among others; and they made it easier for owners of such devices to find Wi-Fi networks and thus avoid using their more costly and often congested 3G connections. In the bad old days of wardriving, we simply walked or drove along a public thoroughfare and constantly refreshed our network lists to identify convenient and often free hotspots. The process was manual and tedious, and these packages automated the process of discovery just in time for Wi-Fi to become table stakes on handheld devices. With more end users than ever before seeking safe havens to avoid busting their carrier-imposed 3G data caps, Wi-Fi finders, scanners, and stumblers had finally hit the big time.

Herding the subscriber sheep

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to conclude that Apple and its carrier-partners weren't particularly pleased with this trend. I'm going to assume the wizards at AT&T didn't much appreciate the potential long-term thinning of subscriber revenue, and quietly encouraged Apple to squash it before it became rampant. I'm singling out AT&T because it's such an easy target of consumer discontent, but this may as well apply to any other carrier in any other country. They're all cheering Apple's move because it tilts device traffic back onto their own wireless networks.

Carmi Levy Wide Angle Zoom (v.2) Never mind that developers have been begging Apple to open up the API so that they don't have to get in through the back door. Never mind that tech-savvy consumers now have another reason to jailbreak their devices. Never mind that this is yet another example of near-Draconian (or maybe full-on Draconian) control over a platform that, despite its extreme popularity, remains a prime example of the risks of leaving too much control in the hands of one provider.

What's to stop Apple from summarily choosing another category next week, or next month, or whenever, as a candidate for pruning? What's to stop Apple from deciding that developers, whose only option up to then was to creatively work around deliberately baked-in limitations in the SDK to bring consumer-friendly offerings to market, have gone too far and need to be taught a lesson?

To be blunt, no one can stop Apple from doing whatever it wants. I've said before that this is Apple's playground, which means it can make the rules, interpret them as it sees fit, and change them on a whim. And developers and other stakeholders have no say in any of this. They simply have to hope that the elephant they chose to sleep with doesn't roll over in the middle of the night and crush them.

I don't say this with malice or anger. It simply is what it is, and despite the platform's overwhelming success over the better part of the past three years, it leaves consumers and developers with a choice to either put up with Apple's model or seek alternatives.

Please hold that thought for a second.

A case of non-coincidental timing

All this comes just as Apple gets set to begin shipping iPads to an adoring public. Retail availability in the US is now set for April 3, and sometime toward the end of April in Canada. This means potential buyers are already deciding how much hard-earned cash to bring along when they wait in line overnight to buy one. Will they cheap out for the basic Wi-Fi version, or will they go full-on for a 3G-enabled iPad?

The timing of the latest app takedown is no coincidence: Apple and AT&T clearly want to influence potential buyers to stretch for a 3G-capable version to at least hold out the potential of ongoing subscription-based revenue. Think of this latest move as a scorched-earth strategy for wannabe-Wi-Fi-only iPad users. I'm betting that around this time next month, Wi-Fi-only iPads will be only slightly more difficult to find than two-headed Lincoln pennies, as Apple's carrier-friendly/consumer-unfriendly supply chain strategy snaps into focus.

Which brings us to the alternatives. As Microsoft is painfully learning, no platform remains dominant forever. Sooner or later, the conditions that allowed the market leader to become the leader in the first place will shift, and in so doing, will allow challengers to lay down roots and eventually outflank them. The incumbent's vulnerability to defeat in this manner can be influenced by how it treats its market. Do so with cooperative partnership and you stand a better chance of getting stakeholders -- namely developers and consumers -- to stick with you a bit longer. Do so with a cynical sense of arrogant protectionism, and they'll happily dance on your grave.

The crack in Apple's foundation?

Does this mean Apple's latest App Store move will lead to its ultimate demise? No. But does it shift a few more grains of sand in a different direction? I strongly believe that it does. And we all know how massive tectonic market shifts can begin with a few simple moves. It could be years before the rats begin to abandon any sinking ship with an Apple logo on it, but don't think for a second that seemingly small acts like this won't play an eventual role.

The iPhone/iPod touch/iPad universe remains the place to be if you're looking to build mobile apps. Google's Android is a distant second fiddle, and RIM is barely out of the gate. But Google's approach -- open source and decidedly less school marm-ish in its definition of what developers can and cannot do -- may yet be the kind of landscape that developers will target if Apple's mercurial form of relationship building becomes too onerous. Apple's Wi-Fi move is pushing things with this sensitive audience yet again. At some point, they may yet decide enough is enough.

Is Apple afraid of Google?

Publié: mars 5, 2010, 12:06am CET par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

After reading through the avalanche of reactions to Apple's wide-ranging lawsuit filed Monday against handheld vendor HTC, I'm beginning to think that Apple may very well fear the rise of Google. And an indirect legal assault on the eminent provider of Android-powered devices is easier, cheaper, and less risky than a direct attack on Google itself.

What has Apple to lose?

On the one hand, it's somewhat laughable to think that Apple would be afraid of anybody. In less than three years, the iPhone has redefined the smartphone market. Whereas we used to view smartphones as basic phones with e-mail and Web capability, the iPhone has expanded our thinking tremendously. Today's smartphones are full-on application platforms that are rewriting what we can get done while we're on the go. Apple's been at the forefront of this transition, and its continued growth on all fronts -- unit sales, revenue, and platform expansion, among other metrics -- should be enough to inspire confidence in Cupertino that it can easily weather any potential challenger.

On the other hand, it's not too much of a stretch to conclude that Apple has the most to lose if someone else comes along and threatens to steal some of its thunder. And while initial efforts to bring Android-based devices to market were less than impressive (the G1 was about as desirable as a Yugo, and early versions of Android only hinted at the new operating system's potential), Google has since found its groove. Many of the hottest new designs out there are now powered by Android, and the Android Market has staked out a strong second-place in the online app storefront wars.

Which largely explains why it took Apple almost a year-and-a-half after HTC launched its first Android-powered device, to move ahead with its multi-faceted lawsuit. It makes little sense to burn legal resources if the target in question isn't threatening to slice into your market share and revenue. This is probably one of the only small comforts, for instance, that Palm has left: It's too inconsequential at this point to become a target of Apple's wrath.

Letting history serve as guide

Carmi Levy Wide Angle Zoom (v.2) Apple has learned the hard way that ownership of intellectual property -- the ability to stake your claim on what belongs to you and you alone -- is critical to its survival. This is especially true in the technology world, where intellectual property is so often intangible, and IP ownership can be so difficult to define. When you fail to leverage control, you run the risk of being leapfrogged.

But that lesson has led Apple down a familiar path, even when that path has led nowhere before. Apple's futile attempts long ago to squash Microsoft Windows continue to guide the company's strategy today. Had Apple succeeded back then in asserting its ownership of key elements of the graphical user interface, today's desktop operating system landscape might look markedly different.

Apple clearly hopes that by playing tough with mobile competitors, it'll set itself up for one of two outcomes: Either it will ink licensing deals with virtually any handheld vendor it chooses to pursue, and in doing so guarantee itself a long-term source of revenue; or in the absence of a partnership or legal victory, its litigation-happy strategies will cast enough of a chill over the industry that competitors are afraid to push too hard lest they find themselves in Apple's crosshairs.

It's this second potential outcome that should give pause to anyone with even a passing interest in the evolution of mobile technology. While Apple has every right to pursue its interests in court to ensure that competitors do not undeservedly profit from its earlier investments, consumers have a similar right to an openly competitive market where players don't first have to negotiate legal minefields before bringing new products and services to market. And left unchecked, Apple's campaign (first Nokia, now HTC) to assert its ownership of every shred of IP related to the iPhone, could slow down the pace of innovation just as compelling and competitive platforms reach critical mass.

If Apple wins, how much incentive will remain for competitors and would-be competitors to throw themselves into the market? Even if it doesn't win, the message has been sent: If you know the lion is out there, you'll likely just stay home.

The Google tangent

I don't see Google staying home anytime soon. The search giant has too much invested in its multi-pronged efforts to grow and expand its level of control over the mobile platforms through which its services are delivered. But unlike Apple and RIM, Google isn't in this fight alone. Aside from its self-branded Nexus One phone (ironically, a product of HTC) it isn't a primary handset vendor. Does it have sufficiently deep pockets -- and resolve -- to keep its Open Handset Alliance together if an Apple victory poisons the waters for its platform partners?

No one really knows how Google will respond to this flanking attack, if it will even respond at all. But it's clear that Apple's campaign against HTC isn't really about HTC at all. Rather, it's targeting key vendors whose size and influence will prompt other competitors to take notice...and take cover. There will be more lawsuits, and resources on both sides that should have gone into developing and marketing innovative products will instead be directed toward funding court costs and lawyers' fees.

Once upon a time, Apple portrayed itself as David to Microsoft's Goliath as it battled the ultimately dominant force from Redmond. A generation later, the world's attention has shifted from PCs and laptops to mobile devices, and Apple now finds itself in the role of Goliath. It knows full well that dominance isn't permanent, and anything that can be done to slow down new entrants should indeed be done. That it continues to let a certain degree of historically entrenched fear guide its actions isn't necessarily a negative thing. Tension, after all, is a great driver of increased performance. But at this level, at this scale, and at this crucial moment in the history of the mobile market, it runs the risk of slamming the industry it helped define into neutral as lesser-endowed players run for the hills.

In that respect, Apple really shouldn't be living in fear of HTC, Nokia, or any other potential competitor. The real fear belongs to consumers like us, and it should be directed back at Apple.

The porn-free iPhone? Not exactly

Publié: mars 1, 2010, 9:35pm CET par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

At first blush, Apple's decision to cull a few thousand sexually suggestive titles from its iTunes App Store may seem like a puritanical attempt to cleanse its consumer-friendly image of any taint of smuttiness. But like everything related to Apple, the reality distortion field that surrounds the company makes even this assessment a questionable one.

Don't think for a second that wannabe-porn (what Apple called "overtly sexual content" in its removal notices to affected developers) won't be returning soon to any platform with an Apple logo on it. And don't think for a second that Apple will be upset about welcoming more skin to its ecosystem.

But first, let's look at last month's apparent purge of pseudo-porn. Apple's got a lot of good reasons to clean things up. Namely, as it gets ready to ship iPads later this month, it recognizes that the demographic spread of its iPhone/iPod touch universe will shift once the larger-screened devices hit the market. As iPads pop up in the home and at school, the last thing Apple wants or needs is for a less-than-optimally-supervised child to accidentally stumble into the kind of content that was once delivered surreptitiously to one's doorstep in a paper bag (no, not my own doorstep, but gee, thanks for asking).

It's all about control

Carmi Levy Wide Angle Zoom (v.2) Don't get me wrong, though: Apple doesn't necessarily need or want a totally skin-free App Store. It simply wants to be able to control the not-suitable-for-prime-time content that does ultimately get approved. There's money to be made from all forms of porn, and publicly traded Apple never met a profit-driving opportunity it didn't like. That it may or may not be wearing a bikini in the process is immaterial to Apple.

So while slicing 5,000 or so somewhat blue offerings from its App Store could be seen as correcting an earlier mistake to approve them in the first place, it's really little more than Apple's attempt to control how those apps appear and how they're purchased. Those 5,000 apps will be back before long, and they'll be displayed on the online equivalent of fresh new shelving.

To keep things simple, let's call anything up to and including February 2010 the "pre-porn era." While Apple happily approved titles from well-known publishers like Playboy and Sports Illustrated, as well as lesser lights like On The Go Girls and Iugo Mobile Entertainment, it didn't categorize them as uniquely as, say, the neighborhood video store would typically treat its adult material. We're all familiar with the stereotype of the cordoned off section at the back of the store, the one kids aren't supposed to enter. The App Store wasn't quite as segregated during this era, so apps with "overtly sexual content" were finding their way into other, more mainstream areas of the online resource.

It was the Web-based equivalent of putting soft-core next to Pixar's latest release. Until it had a way of keeping the iffy stuff permanently under wraps, Apple's only real solution was to remove it entirely while it programs a workable, long-term solution.

Another wall in the garden

That solution will likely take the form of an "Explicit" section in the App Store. Developers are already atwitter over reported sightings of this new category, and Apple's non-confirmation notwithstanding, it would result in a virtual kind of back-of-the-store section -- one that would keep the kids from accidentally encountering things they shouldn't...and developers from complaining that their more mainstream, seriously-themed titles were appearing cheek by jowl (I know, ew, but humor me here) with the titillating ones. Walling off the garden solves the conflict neatly just as it sets the stage for ongoing profits from this growing market space.

In Apple's post-porn era, which essentially begins now, segregation of content is crucial as the iPhone OS universe continues to expand beyond the original phone-based device. The iPod touch has become the de facto choice of today's kids and teens. For parents not ready to go the full-on cell phone route with their kids, the iPod touch is the ideal compromise as it isn't a simple game machine like the Nintendo DS/DSi and Sony PSP, and it doesn't come with the monthly hit from a wireless carrier. The iPad will extend this even further, as schools are actively exploring the tablet device's educational potential. You can't very well have questionable titles creeping into the mix when the principal is doing her research.

How do you define it?

If you're a parent, of course, this entire discussion doubtless makes you feel a little dirty. Porn, after all, is the scourge of the Internet. We can debate all day how we choose to define the various grades of porn, but ultimately there will be no agreement. Apple's "overtly sexual content" is someone else's soft-core porn. And to my prudish, spinster aunt who never smiled for as long as I knew her, the swimsuit catalog that appeared in her mailbox like clockwork every spring was the pornographer's equivalent of a ticket to a very hot, eternal place.

In any form, pornography's pervasiveness defies the imagination just as it opens up business opportunities for those with the cojones to set the morality of it all aside for a bit. As a profit-seeking, publicly traded company, Apple is simply pursuing a market opportunity that presented itself when developers first decided to push the boundaries of skin -- and taste -- and got the first of those now-disputed 5,000 apps approved.

The fact that Apple has decided it doesn't want porn ruling its platform doesn't mean it doesn't want porn at all. It simply means that Apple wants to rule everything that goes on in its software universe. That some of the titles may be considered by some pornographic, or overtly sexual, or whatever, is irrelevant to the company. In the coming months, Apple will put the proper controls and processes in place to effectively manage the content and the revenue it's expected to generate.

Anyone who thinks the same thing isn't about to happen on every other mobile platform in existence is at risk of misunderstanding just how critical this skin-flecked revenue stream is to everyone's future business. Android and BlackBerry users? You're next.

Google's big Italian adventure

Publié: février 26, 2010, 12:16am CET par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

That sound you heard coming from the general direction of Italy earlier this week was the sound the Internet makes when it becomes just a little bit less free.

When an Italian court convicted three senior Google executives for breach of privacy, sentencing them yesterday to a six-month suspended sentence, it set a dangerous precedent. Unless the case is turned over on appeal, such a precedent could force every Web services provider on the planet -- including Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft -- to be completely accountable for every piece of text, audio, and video that any Average Joe decides to upload to his servers.

Four bullies, many victims

The case revolved around footage uploaded to Google Video in September 2006 that depicted a group of four teenagers beating up a Down Syndrome child. It was the site's most-viewed video before Google received complaints and removed it two months later. Prosecutors said the video violated the victim's privacy and that Google should have moved more quickly to remove it from its servers. They originally charged four executives with violating Italy's privacy laws and with defamation. They convicted three of them -- chief legal officer David Carl Drummond, ex-CFO George De Los Reyes, and privacy director Peter Fleischer -- on the privacy counts and acquitted them of defamation. The fourth defendant, Arvind Desikan, was cleared of all charges. (The four bullies were convicted in youth court.)

The executives are expected to appeal -- not to avoid jail, because the judge imposed suspended sentences on all of them, but to ensure the outcome doesn't force monumentally impossible data and content management rules onto every Web services operator on the planet. Such legislative-imposed oversight, unthinkable at first and every blush, would be akin to asking AT&T to vet every phone call made by every landline and mobile subscriber. "Ridiculous" only begins to describe the prospect.

It's all in the definition

Carmi Levy Wide Angle Zoom (v.2) In assessing the merits of the case against Google, the court chose to define Google as an Internet content provider and not an Internet service provider. We all know that the average ISP simply doesn't have the cycles to actively monitor and respond to everything its users do online. The Italian justice system gets that, too. And in defining Google as a content provider, instead, it chose to lump the company into the same boat as newspapers, magazines, television broadcasters and other conventional media outfits.

Which would be lovely and workable if, like the average newspaper, Google exclusively published its own material. But it doesn't. It facilitates the publishing of material submitted by millions of subscribers. It's one thing to be the gatekeeper of material submitted by a hundred or so reporters and editors, and quite another to run infrastructure that manages an endless torrent of material submitted by countless, usually anonymous, end users. It's massively shocking and more than a little disappointing that the judge in this case allowed such a definition to stand, and serves as yet another reminder that the court system, in Italy and elsewhere, continues to lag the rapid evolution of technology and its impact on common behaviors in society.

When a ruling can't stand

I believe this case will be turned over on appeal because the standard of care for publishers of their own content is necessarily different -- by virtue of the much lower, controllable level of content -- than the standard of care of providers who host sites that publish user-provided content.

If, however, my worst nightmare comes true and the ruling stands, then the climate within which services like Twitter, Facebook, Gmail, and YouTube (which Google bought soon after the offending Italian video was posted to Google Video) will become very chilly, very quickly. Believers in the Apocalypse could easily conclude that these services would all cease to exist after being shuttered by owners freaked out by the daunting prospect of actively monitoring so much content in real-time.

The rest of us know, of course, that this won't ever happen, but that doesn't mean the Italian judiciary's message hasn't resonated deeply in communities around the world. We've gotten the message, Italy, that services like Google need to do a better job policing what goes on in their own backyard. We've also learned, again thanks to the Italian court, that it's time to get back to reality and figure out workable frameworks within which that can actually happen. Convicting their senior leaders using legislation designed for the dinosaur media age isn't the answer. Instead, nations interested in protecting their Internet-using citizens need to leverage appropriate government or quasi-government bodies to put partner with them to enhance end user privacy and balance individual protections against the risk of heavy-handed censorship.

Ask a Canuck for advice

Canada got the message and, as a result, is now seen as a global leader in the drive to balance individual and collective rights in the Internet Age. Its Privacy Commissioner, Jennifer Stoddart, played hardball with Facebook last year, forcing the social media darling to tighten its privacy policies and procedures. Facebook's penance in Canada has since been deployed globally. More recently, Comm. Stoddart took notice following the Google Buzz launch earlier this month, and is currently looking into the new offering in light of complaints that it plays fast and loose with users' private data.

Notice Canada didn't sue either company's senior leaders. It chose a more direct, and ultimately more successful, route to ensure the services took reasonable care on behalf of their subscribers.

Shocking as it is, the Italian ruling does serve a somewhat beneficial purpose in that it focuses attention on an issue -- online privacy and service provider and end user accountability -- that's long been shunted off to the side in the rush to release the next coolest thing. We've been so focused on the technology of social media that we've forgotten that all these great tools can significantly accelerate the rate at which innocent people can be victimized by those who choose to do harm. In the old days, transgressions like the Italian video wouldn't have gone much beyond the inner circle of victimizers and victims. Today, they can go viral in no time flat. Symbolically punishing the guys who wear suits won't fix anything.

Overcast, or, How I learned to stop whining and embrace the cloud

Publié: février 23, 2010, 12:46am CET par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

It's one of the most predictable responses in all of tech: Every time there's a blowup over some online service's privacy or data security lapses, if you stick your head out the window and focus yourself just so, you can hear the rumble in the distance as naysayers happily share their told-you-so stories of woe.

Without your even asking, they'll go into excruciating detail over how cloud-based services aren't ready for prime time and probably never will be. They'll tell you how distrustful Web services vendors are, how they view our confidential data as means to a profitable end, and how only an idiot would move off of conventional network-controlled infrastructure and throw every shred of personally identifiable data into the nebulous clutches of an unseen service provider.

By the time they get to the part where they swear they'll never run anything that isn't installed on a server that they physically control, I'm just about ready to run for the exits.

There's no going back

I've been hearing a lot of this over the last few months. First when Facebook's latest privacy faux-pas earned it the undying attention of Canada's Privacy Commissioner, and last week following the firestorm of disapproval that followed the Google Buzz launch. And as much as I believe companies like Facebook and Google need to be held accountable for their too-loose interpretations of confidentiality and privacy, I'm similarly adamant that the cloud don't-wanna-bes are howling senselessly at the moon.

Carmi Levy Wide Angle Zoom (v.2) A little history might help make this a little easier to take. A cloud-free existence is as impossible to imagine today as a phone-free one was in the '70s, a PC or fax-free one in the '90s, or an Internet-free life for much of the past 15 years. Like it or not, the cloud -- or Web-based services, or software-as-a-service, or whatever else you want to call it -- is here to stay, and anyone who sanctimoniously opts out amid claims of never, ever moving over is in for a rude awakening.

That's because, despite the still-significant issues surrounding the transition of applications from locally installed, owned, and administered infrastructure to a decentralized model that's controlled by a provider other than you or your company, the cat is already out of the bag and it won't be getting back in anytime soon. Make that at all. When we go online in any capacity -- even reading a site like Betanews and leaving a comment -- we're buying into the cloud-based paradigm where we leave footprints far outside our firewall and far beyond our own ability to control them.

If only it were so simple that anyone who wanted to opt out of a cloudy existence could flip a switch and make it happen. Sadly for these Luddites of the Web Age, it isn't. If they were to successfully take their opposition to all things cloud-based to its ultimate conclusion, they'd miss out on pretty much every form of online interaction that increasingly drives our personal and professional lives.

With that in mind, if you find yourself among the cloud-hating minority, here's what you'd miss out if you decide to fully cut the Web services chord and revert to a locally-hosted and controlled way of life:

E-mail. That message you just sent your mom? As soon as it leaves your cozy network, it's in the cloud, touching servers near and far, going places you couldn't even begin to imagine. E-mail was the first and still is arguably most widely used cloud-based app. I'd like to suggest dusting off that old fax machine and calling a paper supplier.
Web browsing. When we go online, we leave traces of ourselves virtually everywhere we go. We don't even have to deliberately leave a comment, either. That pesky little IP address of yours gets logged into every Web site you visit. With it, the server owner can find out a whole lot about you. The cloud strikes again, apparently. I hear broadcast television (which you're going to be watching extensively after you remove all traces of Web activity from your day-to-day existence) is still somewhat interesting once the infomercials are over.
Text messaging. That cell phone in your pocket isn't immune to the influence of the cloud, either. Few online services are as easy for carriers to track as SMS-based messages. So when you fling your girlfriend a text that you're picking milk up on the way home, you're buying into the cloud. Now that I think of it, even a voice call kind of qualifies, so you may as well pitch your cell phone or smartphone entirely. To ensure you're not out of touch, stock up on quarters and hope Ma Bell doesn't yank every last pay phone from your favorite haunts.

Thunder cloud (Photo credit: Carmi Levy)

Insert tongue firmly in cheek

I realize I'm being more than a little ridiculous. But sometimes it takes one form of silliness to expose another. Our interconnected online economy practically compels us all to give up some personal information to a third party at some point in time. No, we don't all have to join Facebook, and we can buy and install Outlook and Exchange on our own machines instead of farming our messaging service out to Google. But at some point, the strategy of limiting exposure to online services and holding on to as much physical ownership of applications and data as possible simply runs out of steam. Eventually, your data's going to have to leave the nest, venture outside the firewall, and land on a server that you do not own.

Taking the high (and mighty) road of cloud-refusal ignores the growing reality that standalone solutions relegate those who use them to a standalone existence. While it's entirely possible that someone could unplug and live an idyllic life off the grid, it's infinitely more likely that this is little more than a pipe dream for most of us. The Internet as a whole is one giant cloud-based service. We can no more easily turn it off than we can learn to live without telephones. The world relies too heavily on this interconnected technology, and our ability to build careers and connect with the people who matter most increasingly relies on it, too.

Photo credit: Carmi Levy

Microsoft's mobile dreams aren't dead yet

Publié: février 18, 2010, 11:07pm CET par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

I read "Windows Phone 7 Series is a lost cause" with great interest. In it, my Betanews colleague Joe Wilcox lays out the reasoning behind his apocalyptic conclusion that Microsoft has used up its ninth life in trying to extend its desktop OS dominance into the mobile OS space.

He makes a number of rational, indeed valid, points about why Microsoft won't be a top-tier mobile OS vendor now, anytime soon, or ever. Microsoft's Windows Mobile franchise has been in freefall for years, thanks largely to a legacy OS that was completely out of tune with today's market, and a product development roadmap marked by countless delays and occasional lipstick-on-a-pig refreshes of the increasingly creaky product. So since it's hard to argue with the facts, with the numbers, and with history, it's also hard to take exception to his thesis.

But I'll disagree with him anyway. Because for all the headlines that Apple and Google have generated with their respective iPhone and Android universes, Microsoft remains the company whose software we touch when we get off the road, get into our homes and offices, and get down to work. And as much as some of us like to malign Microsoft for clinging to yesterday's business model long after the rest of the world has moved on, Apple and Google have hardly been poster children in playing nice with our data or playing nice with developers. Microsoft may be down, but it's more than a little unfair to say that it's completely out.

Mobile: The platform Microsoft can't refuse

Carmi Levy Wide Angle Zoom (v.2) First, the why: Microsoft cannot afford to abandon the mobile market any more than General Motors can afford to walk away from next-generation propulsion technologies. Like GM, Microsoft is faced with making huge investments to catch up in areas where others have leapfrogged it. When GM finally does bring such products to market, starting with the Volt next year, it'll lose money on every one sold. The cars themselves will likely underwhelm, as they'll be first-generation examples of radically new technology selling for significantly more than existing offerings from competitors. Toyota's recent troubles notwithstanding, the strength of its Prius branding should hold.

But here's the kicker: If GM continues on its same old path, it'll be dead in five years. Not bankrupt-and-bailed-out-by-the-taxpayer dead. Dead-dead, because the world will have long since moved on from the traditional solutions on which its original business was based.

On reflection, this looks a lot like the Microsoft of today. Its legacy revenue streams -- namely Windows and Office -- won't exist in any recognizable form in five years. Windows, in particular, will decline largely due to the shift from desktop to mobile. Despite the fact that big operating systems just don't fit into our world view anymore (does anyone even care about what OS the iPhone runs?) Microsoft needs to find a new revenue source to replace it.

So Microsoft abandoning its mobile efforts would be akin to GM deciding it doesn't want to be in the transportation business anymore. It's unheard of, and it won't happen for either company anytime soon.

Who needs hardware?

What will have to change, however, is Microsoft's view that it has to own the OS in order to own the revenues that ultimately stream through it. I don't buy that for a second. Google's done just fine making money off of services that run on countless hardware and software platforms, all of which are owned and controlled by companies other than Google. While Google's Android, Chrome, and Chrome OS initiatives are all designed to return some gatekeeper-like powers to Google by giving it greater control over the mobile OS, browser and desktop browser experience, the company will survive quite nicely in the unlikely event that all three initiatives simultaneously implode and fail to gain further market traction.

(That said, I've got issues with the decision to pursue both Android and Chrome OS, but we'll discuss that another time.)

Apple's model, of course, has always been hardware-based. And a good-enough OS with a good-enough developer community that allows it to sell zillions of high-margin devices is good enough for the company and its shareholders. In this respect, it's somewhat unfair to compare it directly to Microsoft, which never bundled desktop or mobile versions of Windows into self-branded hardware.

However similar or dissimilar they may be, they still compete against each other when we head down to the wireless store and ogle the shiny new devices. And for all their success to-date, Apple and Google have both made critical errors along the way that leave room for others to carve out enough market share to, if not dominate, at least survive. Apple continues to tick off developers with an opaque app approval process that discourages long-term partnership and threatens to sink lesser-capitalized small developers. Google's push to become a player in social media -- latest salvo, Buzz -- has opened it up to the kind of privacy firestorm that threatens to derail Facebook's quest for global social media domination.

Windows Phone 7 Series Music Hub

Is the OS the only avenue?

Into this breach steps Microsoft, which wisely -- and finally -- dumped its old Windows Mobile architecture in favor of a clean-sheet design...or at the very least, dumped it off the roof onto the top-floor balcony, where it may be called "Windows Mobile Classic" (a new euphemism for "dumped").

As sweet as Windows Phone 7 Series seems to look and work, it won't threaten the iPhone or Android. Not soon and not ever. But Microsoft's mobile end game isn't limited to the mobile OS itself. Its upcoming Office 2010 suite will be more Web- and mobile-friendly than any previous version of its venerable productivity offering. Its search partnership with Yahoo positions its Bing search engine favourably as a distant #2 to Google. Its Xbox Live and also-ran Zune marketplaces are finally being pulled in a consistent direction.

Even if Microsoft's new mobile OS dies on the operating table, that won't stop the company from throwing everything it has into ensuring it remains more than relevant as consumer attention shifts away from its traditional desktop strengths and toward the mobile Web. It's almost too easy to write the company's efforts off solely based on its well-regarded but late-to-the-party new mobile OS. There's so much more to this story.

The overkill response to Google Buzz

Publié: février 15, 2010, 6:22pm CET par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

In today's viral, social media-driven world, it never seems to take long for things to get ugly. This is especially true for Google Buzz, which became a lightning rod for privacy-related criticisms almost as soon as it went live last week.

My advice to the critics: Don't get your panties in a knot.

Google's public privacy debacle

I'm not saying that Buzz didn't come out of the box with an embarrassingly long list of issues. It did, and Google should fix them pronto. And Google users everywhere should hold the company accountable for doing precisely that.

I'm also not saying that such criticisms aren't deserved. Whenever any Web service is flawed to the point that everyday use can compromise the integrity of our personal information, we can't simply let it slide. As originally delivered, Buzz was, shall we say, problematic. Its auto-follow feature created a list of contacts from users' Gmail accounts and automatically followed them. Then, it "helpfully" made this list of most frequently used contacts public, so any stranger with a Gmail account could then see who they'd been corresponding with.

Carmi Levy Wide Angle Zoom (v.2) Buzz's initial profile setup was also a privacy minefield. At first blush, the profile requirement wasn't such a major issue, since most social networking tools ask for at least some personal data. It helps add value to the user experience by, for example, making it easier to localize search or quickly build a list of contacts.

Unfortunately, the devil of Google's profile setup methodology lurked in the details. While users of most other online services could expect this private, personally-identifiable information to be kept relatively private, they had no such protection in Buzz. Google by default made the profile public and forced users who wanted it kept hidden to edit their profile manually.

Changes are welcome but insufficient

We all know how this works in the real world: Tech-savvy early adopters will typically explore the full feature set and tweak the settings to their heart's desire. The other 95% of the population would never even know there were additional settings to set -- and they'd be exposed without even knowing it. It's a scary place to be, and Facebook, for one, has been there too many times to count. As more services move online and become more dependent on socially aware architecture, it'll only get worse.

To its credit, Google has responded quickly to the criticism. Specifically, it's rolled out two separate waves of changes to the service. The ability to block those who follow you and those you follow from your public profile is now a much more prominent and linear component of the setup and account management process. Blocking followers is also more visible, and you can do it before they actually start following you. Previously, you had to wait until someone started following you before you could set up a block, which was another point of exposure. More broadly, Google is making it more obvious to users what's public, what isn't, and how they can change things to suit their personal comfort level.

Although the controversial auto-follow feature has now been replaced with one that merely suggests whom you may want to follow, Buzz continues to make new users' follow lists public until they specifically choose otherwise. While this fits Google's release-first, tweak-later-and-iteratively Web app development methodology, it reinforces the never-ending struggle between usability and privacy, and how Web services vendors don't always strike an optimal balance. Since this looks like the first social networking tool in Google's inventory that'll actually stick around, it's a conversation we'll likely be having for a while.

We still need to be nice

As we discuss the pros and cons of Buzz, we'll want to keep in mind the tone with which these conversations are held. While the feedback is mostly deserved (Google missed the memo on privacy, and wrongly assumed that none of this mattered to its users), the nasty barbs being tossed in Google's direction are largely uncalled for.

Maybe my rampant Canadianism is showing through, but when the blogs and Twitter feeds light up with Google-is-evil invective that would make my mom blush, I can't help but think that we all need to step back and put it in a little perspective:

No one forces you to use Buzz. This is all volunteer. If you don't like the feature set, use something else. Or nothing at all. If the vendor can't or won't solve the critical issues at the root of the firestorm, you can easily opt out. (At least in Buzz's case now, you can opt out from the Buzz tab in Gmail, which wasn't there at first.)
It's free. I always laugh when users assume vendors owe them something when a given service doesn't work as intended. It could be loose with privacy (Facebook or Google), unavailable (Twitter), or feature-deficient (every other service known to humankind) and thousands of people will cry foul as if they've been fundamentally wronged. They haven't. They've invested nothing beyond their own time to use these services, so when they glitch out they should shrug their shoulders and move on. If they've decided to base their careers and lives on these free services, I humbly suggest they consider an upgrade to a premium account, which adds some vendor accountability and gives folks a leg to stand on when they feel they aren't getting their money's worth.
Responsibility for privacy rests with you. Relying on vendors to secure our privacy is like trusting used car dealers to do everything in their power to get us the best deal. That's our job, not theirs. So if their tools for managing privacy are deficient, it's up to us to navigate them and make them work for us -- and, yes, complain. We may grumble at the inconvenience, and we may jump to competitors who make it easier for us. But in the end no one else is going to captain this ship, so stop complaining if things get rough along the way.

I have no doubt the conversation will ultimately make Buzz a better product. It is, after all, how Web services evolve today. But it's time we stopped blaming vendors like Google for being evil (They're not. A bit disconnected, perhaps, but not evil), and realized the accountability for online privacy rests with us and not them.

Google Buzz's first victim: Facebook

Publié: février 11, 2010, 9:09pm CET par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

For all its success in turning mostly free Web-based services into lucrative rivers of cash, Google's been a miserable failure in the social networking space. While Facebook marched from a Harvard dorm room to a global army of 400 million users and Twitter became the short-form darling of politicians and celeb-utantes alike, Google threw one project after another at the wall (Orkut and Wave, anyone?) and hoped at least one of them would stick long enough to gain traction.

They never did. Orkut may be huge in Brazil and India, but it's virtually invisible everywhere else. Wave disappeared into the ether after its much-hyped public launch last September. Less ambitious steps toward creating a more social online experience (like baking Google Talk into the Gmail interface) similarly vanished from the tech culture radar almost as soon as they appeared.

Google's strategy with Buzz serves notice that it may have finally figured out a formula for integrating more social networking goodness into its already leading suite of Web services. Here's what Google got right with Buzz:

It isn't a solution in search of a problem. Wave was and is impressive, chock full of features that, when we first played with them with our friends and colleagues, gave us all more than a few "wow" moments. Wave was cool at first. But after the buzz (sorry) wore off, we all realized there was no corresponding consumer or business need to keep using it. Wave accounts everywhere have been gathering dust ever since.
It's relatively simple. Those cool features in Wave presented another problem for Google: They made absolutely no sense to the average end-user. While tech-savvy users happily explored the feature set, people with, to put it charitably, more mainstream technical capabilities just didn't get it, and stayed away as a result. Google Buzz is, for now at least, a much less ambitious product with a more restrained feature set and interface. But that's just fine. Because it's simply an extension to the familiar Gmail environment, it won't leave users scratching their heads.
It's connected. The online world has enough walled gardens. Most of us don't want or need to spend countless months building yet another social network to the point where it's even remotely useful. Google Buzz leverages existing connections in Facebook, Twitter, and other Google services to give new users an instant head start.
It's mobile. My experiment with Wave ended the moment I hit the road. Social networking tools need to work across every platform in the typical end user's life. Twitter and Facebook work as well as they do because you can easily do most of what you need to do no matter what device you're using. Mobile-enabled access also opens the door to geolocation-based services, which is shaping up as one of The Next Big Things in online advertising.

So now that Google seems to finally have gotten its act together on the social networking platform front, should Facebook be worried? I'd wager yes. Its vulnerability lies in the fact that it's never quite played nicely with others, its interface is maddeningly and unnecessarily difficult to use, and it's constantly reinventing itself -- and ticking off end-users and advertisers in the process -- as it attempts to become the sole platform within which its subscribers choose to work, play, and interact online.

Dominance isn't permanent

Carmi Levy Wide Angle Zoom (v.2) While Facebook fans may point to its 400 million-strong subscriber base as ample evidence that Google poses no threat, that figure can be misleading, as it's doubtless inflated by countless folks who have let their accounts lapse. Like MySpace before it, once the non-core users got tired of logging into a separate environment to connect with each other, they simply went back to whatever worked for them before.

Facebook also remains a closed-off environment compared to Google's more open landscape. While Apple's tightly controlled model seems to work well in the mobile space, it's a different ballgame in Web services, where Google's throw-the-doors-open approach has allowed it to build a broad and deep ecosystem that developers and businesses alike want to connect with. While Facebook's application platform seems, on the surface, to have been successful, Google generates far more cash from its apps, many of which actually change how we use the Web. Facebook's environment, on the other hand, remains choked with Farmville, Mafia Wars, and half a dozen apps that let users poke each other in new and fascinating ways.

Finally, Facebook's inability to keep its feet out of its mouth when it comes to security and privacy continues to give users a growing excuse to quietly try out, and transition to, new alternatives as they are introduced. While no company, including Google, can ever grow to market-dominating size without getting some egg on its face, Facebook has long fared worse than Google in this regard. Eventually, regular users notice and lose their connection with the service.

Google's ability to persevere and finally get it mostly right with Buzz stands in stark contrast to Facebook's propensity to periodically roll out disruptive changes to both its interface and its policy framework. While Facebook rearranges the deck chairs without actually improving the experience for anyone, Google methodically adds functionality to its key offerings and gives advertisers, developers and end-users alike ample reason to spend more time there.

Change begins slowly

Like most Google products, Buzz will remain a work in progress for quite some time. So while on a feature-for-feature basis it will likely lag Facebook for a while, it's likely good enough in its initial form to prompt some Facebook users to question why they're spending so much time over there.

Twitter also finds itself in a newly vulnerable position thanks to Google Buzz, but that's a whole other issue for a whole other column. For now, it's Facebook that needs to look inward and wonder if the model that worked so well when it was a category of one remains relevant now that the sleeping giant has finally woken up. Google's Buzz may finally challenge Facebook to decide what it wants to be when it grows up, or become another MySpace as it becomes yesterday's news.

Goodnight, moon: What I learned from a space shuttle

Publié: février 8, 2010, 11:19pm CET par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

Like many nighthawks across the continent, I found myself glued to more than one screen...all right, three. Plus my BlackBerry...as I watched this morning's launch of the Space Shuttle Endeavour. I observed the spectacle with a curious mixture of excitement and sadness because after the current STS-130 mission, the shuttle program has only four more scheduled flights before it's grounded for good.

It's not the retirement that gets me. Every technology has its day, and it's fair to conclude that a system largely designed in the early 1970s has now served its purpose and should logically be replaced. It's also fair to conclude that this same system was and is too complex to ever be fiscally feasible. Despite the orbiters' reusability, which was supposed to drive down the cost of spaceflight, extensive maintenance in-between missions made the program even more expensive to fly than conventional expendable rockets. The shuttle's inherent design flaws (you'll never see humans riding below any other part of a space vehicle again) pretty much sealed its fate.

The absent successor

What irks me about the whole thing is the fact that when the shuttle program is over and done, there won't be another program waiting in the wings to take over. President Obama's 2010 budget announcement last week virtually killed funding for the Constellation program, which would have resulted in new hardware to take humans more safely into orbit, to the moon and beyond.

We've been down this road before. After the Apollo program ended with the Apollo/Soyuz Test Project in 1975, nearly six years passed before the US once again launched its own astronauts into space. Then as now, NASA lacked the funds because the US lacked the national will to prioritize spending on sending humans into space. Then as now, NASA found itself going up against a wartime government dealing with frightfully uncertain economic conditions. Then as now, NASA lost the battle and spent years twiddling its thumbs waiting for its new ride to be ready.

With Constellation now virtually dead, NASA doesn't even have that comfort anymore. Had the key components for the regularly scheduled program already in progress -- the Ares I rocket and Orion capsule -- survived the axe, NASA would have had at least a five-year gap before its next launch. Now, it could be buying seats on Russian Soyuz rockets indefinitely while it waits for commercial space interests to fill the giant void. While thousands of NASA employees wonder what tomorrow might bring (hint: it won't be pretty) I can't resist the urge to draw a personal connection.

Liftoff of Space Shuttle STS-130, perhaps the final nighttime liftoff in the shuttle program's history. [Courtesy: NASA]

Liftoff of Space Shuttle STS-130, perhaps the final nighttime liftoff in the shuttle program's history. [Courtesy: NASA]

Of cars and spaceships

Carmi Levy Wide Angle Zoom (v.2) My wife and I cart our kids around in a vehicle we affectionately call the "wondervan." Despite our guilt over contributing to global warming, our car is an essential pillar of life for us and our kids. Like all vehicles, it has a finite lifespan, and we're already planning for its replacement over the next couple of years. The plan will be relatively simple: Save up a lot of money, do a lot of research and preparation, drive to the dealer in the old car, and return home (somewhat poorer) in the new one.

The same process applies in the real world. Planning for any technology platform's end-of-life is a fundamental requirement of any business in any sector. The laptops that your employees use and the servers they connect to can only last for so long. When they reach the inevitable point of no return -- where the costs and risks of keeping them in service outweigh an investment in followon technology -- it's time to take the plunge. Your business can't afford to be without laptops and servers until you decide you've got enough money saved up. The time to get off your duff and do something about it is not just before the thing dies an inglorious death or the vendor pulls its support. If you fail to bake lifecycle planning into your operations, your fate may be even more bleak than NASA's. The agency, despite countless layoffs, will exist in some form by the time this is all over. Your business? Don't hold your breath.

For a variety of self-inflicted and externally influenced reasons, NASA's new business model will see it walking the proverbial five miles to school for a whole lot of years before a new vehicle, likely developed by commercial partners, is ready. The agency failed to anticipate upcoming change, and now thousands of its employees will pay the ultimate price. I'm going to guess the former Can-Do organization will have a tough time convincing us to stay engaged while its human spaceflight capability remains grounded.

Who do you trust?

Despite their obvious differences, businesses and government agencies are equally dependent on trust. Once stakeholders lose trust, it's over. Would you willingly do business with an organization that failed to anticipate end-of-life for its core competency?

As you scope out potential partners, supply chain members and, yes, even customers, you're making one judgment call after another, typically revolving around whether you think this outfit has the brains and the moxie to stick with you for mutual benefit. If its leadership is so blind that it can't anticipate normal technology turnover, do you really want to be aligning yourself with it in the first place? Would you have any trust in its ability to balance near-term and long-term goals? I'm going to guess letting something like this happen would erode your confidence a bit.

In a year or two, my wife and I will take that infrequent trip to the dealer and return home with something newer, nicer, and safer than the vehicle it replaces. By then, NASA will be well into its human spaceflight stand down, waiting for the figurative bus while nations with bigger budgets and different priorities pass them by. I do hope businesses are studying this monumental gaffe and revisiting their technology investment roadmaps to ensure they, too, don't get caught without the basic ability to keep themselves relevant.

Would you pay to read this?

Publié: février 5, 2010, 7:08pm CET par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

Everyone's got an opinion surrounding Engadget's decision to temporarily deactivate user comments because of its editors said things had gotten "mean, ugly, pointless, and frankly threatening in some situations." While I find the reaction to Engadget's decision engaging and often amusing (Betanews reader comments, in particular, often make for fun late night reading) I'm a little surprised at the near-universal lack of understanding of how the Internet works in 2010.

I have three fundamental thoughts on Internet publishing that may help put the Engadget brouhaha in perspective:

Web sites need comments, period. Engagement between publishers and readers is a prime creative lifeblood of the publishing industry. Writers and editors can't do what they do unless they directly understand who's reading them and what they're thinking. Comments are a critical element of this feedback loop, and a site without them rather misses the point.
Trolls happen. It's a given that not everyone likes to play by the rules. Large groups of people, whether they're taking in a baseball game or reading a tech site, cover a wide range of capabilities and motivations. Happily, the most readers choose to be positive contributors to the process, while only a small minority either lack the ability or the will to play nice. The comments section reflects the reality of the human condition, and it won't ever change. Readers can choose to not read, while publishers can choose to ban the trolls. Or, as Engadget decided to do this week, take their ball and go home.
This Internet thing costs money. The rise of the Web over the last 15 years or so has conditioned us into believing that all of this is and should forever be free. The current argument over Engadget's decision to suspend commenting has shed light on the realities of publishing on the Web. As much as we all like to get something for nothing, it takes resources -- money, people, and time -- to launch and run a server, populate it with content, and find ways to convert it into a self-sustaining business. Since readers don't pay the shot, advertisers do. But they'll only pay if there's an audience. Bigger audiences are, of course, better, but numbers are only part of the equation. Quality counts, too, and a site overrun with trolls doesn't just consume the resources of whoever's publishing it. Advertisers balk at paying money to connect with readers who are too focused on flinging the online equivalent of bat guano at each other to ever consider going out and buying what these companies are offering.

With these basic truths in mind, it's clear that Engadget's publishers felt the need to stop the flow of nastiness for a bit while they figured out their next move. We can slice them a new one if we wish, but Engadget's goal is not to make friends with the largest number of commenters. Rather, its entire reason for existence is to sell a particular audience to a particular set of advertisers. And if those advertisers don't feel that either the numbers or the demographic criteria fit their respective business needs, they'll pull their support.

Carmi Levy Wide Angle Zoom (v.2) Which brings us to the iPad launch, which delighted the folks who pay the bills because it meant they were delivering their message to a larger-than-usual audience. Apple's announcement gave online publishers a unique opportunity to enjoy higher-than-usual advertising revenues as a direct result of this audience. When big stuff happens in the tech world, people go online to learn about it and decide whether or not it makes sense for their needs. Traffic spikes as newbies and old-timers alike hit the Web looking for information, insight, and guidance. Everything else -- like run-of-the-mill news stories in the wake of the earthquake in Haiti -- gets shunted off to the side as sites do their best to meet demand. And drive it even further.

Is it fair that a touchscreen device trumps the very real drama unfolding in a certain Caribbean nation? No. But no one ever said publishing had to be fair.

Write what's hot, or don't get paid

Which largely explains the all-iPad-all-the-time philosophy that Engadget had followed in the days leading up to Apple's much anticipated announcement. Criticism in the comments notwithstanding, the site was merely reflecting what its readers were asking for -- if not directly, then certainly through their online readership patterns. The site capitalized on a golden opportunity to increase readership and the closely-linked, all-important advertising revenues. Likewise writers, some of whom are paid on a traffic-based formula, focused their efforts on the topic that would return the greatest number of page views.

Speaking for myself, the simple truth is, I typically get lots more page views when I write about Apple than when I write about, say, how social media is helping Haiti's recovery. To wit: My column last week about the iPad prompted 82 comments, as of the time of this writing. My Haiti piece? One. Based on this outcome, where do you think I'm going to focus my efforts in future to maximize reader response and, consequently, advertising value and revenue for my employer? Do you think I'm interested in writing stuff that no one reads? Do you think we'll be able to support a business that doesn't optimize its output for the largest, most desirable audience possible?

As I go through the ongoing process of coming up with topics that I think readers want to read, and that I think advertisers will appreciate, I focus on stuff that's hot and, yes, conversation-generating. If techies are discussing it around the water cooler, I want to write about it. I suppose if I wrote for a site whose readers paid for the privilege, I'd be able to back off the max-the-audience-please-the-advertiser mantra. But until the Web shifts to that model -- and the announcement by The New York Times that it will return to charging for access in 2011 signals a possible change in direction for the industry -- we'll continue to see wall-to-wall coverage of the most in-demand topics.

Because for now, advertisers call the shots. Not readers. And Engadget's decision to kill commenting for now is solid proof that Engadget listened to those who pay the bills before it pulled the plug.

Update ribbon (small)

Engadget restored users' commenting ability Thursday afternoon. In a blog post, its editor-in-chief, Joshua Topolsky, wrote, "Making personal attacks against other commenters, publications, or our own editors seriously degrades the community and quality of the discussion, and it won't be tolerated."

Let's stop the iPad whining: It's not about the hardware

Publié: janvier 28, 2010, 8:53pm CET par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

It's almost embarrassing...Correct that, it's big time embarrassing, for me to read some of the public's response to yesterday's announcement of the Apple iPad.

Yes, we know that the name is thematically close to a certain feminine hygiene product. No, we don't need to read the obvious over and over in the comments section of every tech and mainstream Web site, blog, Facebook page, Twitter stream, and (gee, thanks, Brian Williams) nightly newscast. We get it. It may have been funny when we were in the second grade, but now that we're all supposedly adults, it strikes me as needlessly juvenile.

The world already thinks that geeks live in their mothers' basements and emerge into the real world only when their carefully managed stashes of snack cakes and Mountain Dew run low. This isn't going to help erase the stereotypes anytime soon.

Missing the point

The fact that so much of the harsh criticism seems to focus on the name suggests not everyone fully understands why Apple is unique among manufacturers in its ability to grab and keep our attention. It isn't, and never was, about the hardware.

Carmi Levy Wide Angle Zoom (v.2) While Apple is exceptionally adept at leveraging the latest principles of industrial design to create products that elegantly fit into our day-to-day lives, its experience with the iPod, iPhone, and now the iPad reinforce its belief that great hardware can only get you so far. Eventually, someone else will introduce a competing device that looks better, has a more compelling feature set, massages those features together more effectively, does so at a more affordable price point, and makes anything that came before it look like yesterday's news. If you're banking on the sexiness of the device itself (which pretty much describes most hardware-focused vendors these days) you're missing the big picture.

So let's stop whining about what wasn't included in iPad v1.0, shall we? Because things like memory card slots and a USB jack can easily be added to v2.0 or 3.0. Apple never gives away the store with the first release of a product: You'd think we would have all learned from the iPhone experience, which was introduced with glaring hardware gaps (lack of 3G, anyone?) that have since been largely addressed. Indeed, three years since it was first announced, complaints about the iPhone's hardware capabilities are almost inaudible. The App Store gets all the bouquets and brickbats these days, as it should. Because the device is little more than a channel to bigger and more lucrative things for Apple and its carrier/developer partners.

So if it isn't the hardware, then what is it? From where I sit, the glue that keeps it all together once the newness of the physical device has worn off is the surrounding ecosystem. The iBooks Store now that now joins the iTunes and App Store ecosystems promises to do for book publishers what iTunes did for the music industry. Apple's masterstroke lies in how it extended an already successful platform, giving itself a natural head start that one can imagine has already sent Google's Android team scraping the cupboards for a very different type of tablet.

It's all potential for publishing

Is Apple's new offering fully baked yet? For book publishers, not even close. So far Apple's got deals with only book five companies, and availability of both the device and the software/content distribution landscape that surrounds it will be US-only for now.

But the potential is there for all of us to recognize once we stop trading moronic jokes about the name.

Also still firmly in the potential pile is the iPad's capability to transform the newspaper and magazine industries. I was impressed with the brief demo delivered by The New York Times because it showed, however fleetingly, the possibilities inherent in transitioning a traditional paper into tablet form. It isn't enough to dump the paper-based version into an electronic device, and yesterday's demo reinforced that the Times and Apple get that. From what little we saw from the Gray Lady this week, there's at least some value-add there, and I look forward to trying it out on my kitchen table sometime soon.

Despite the promise, the business model that would, indeed should, surround it was nowhere to be seen yesterday. There was no mention of other publications, no sign of this becoming an open platform that'll be made easily available to other publishers, no mention of a subscription model that would make it a no-brainer for readers to finally make the switch from paper to screen. And please don't tell me you read it for free on the Web...we all know that experience is ridiculously lame.

I'll forgive the omissions because Apple needs to leave a little in reserve to allow for future growth. What matters here is that Apple will in all likelihood become the first vendor to successfully sell tablets in a market sector where other vendors have gone to die for the past 15 years. And while the juveniles among us mock its name, it becomes increasingly apparent that there has been a need for in-between, tablet-like devices like this all along, but no one's figured out the secret sauce that will get mainstream consumers to buy in.

Because laptops suck

If we're being brutally frank, laptops and desktops are great at getting work done but lousy tools for exploring content. We've held on to our paper-based subscriptions and physical books for as long as we have because the tech revolution has failed to offer us a compelling alternative. While everyone else has been trying to sell modified laptops or tweaked smartphones to fill in this middle ground of sorts, the iPad finally gets close enough to the usability mark -- with the obvious exception of balancing the thing on your lap for an entire two-hour movie -- to get the tablet party started in earnest.

The iPad won't replace netbooks, laptops, or any other device in our personal and business inventory, so I won't waste anyone's time drawing comparisons. Because it's a net new category, it'll be a tougher sell to post-recessionary consumers wary of adding yet another costly doodad to their lives. But once we look past the childish jokes about its name, we'll be able to focus on how Apple's growing ecosystem could potentially change the way we acquire and consume all forms of content. That, more than any slick piece of hardware, is the big story here.

Live from the real world: It's the iPad

Publié: janvier 27, 2010, 5:37pm CET par Scott M. Fulton, III and Carmi Levy

By Scott M. Fulton, III and Carmi Levy, Betanews

Analysis

Fulton, Levy, Apple, Tablet Scott Fulton, Managing Editor, Betanews: We fully anticipate that you'll be following this morning's Apple premiere news from any one of the many gadget blogs with reporters on the scenes, working hard even as we speak to tweak the geek connections on their 3G iPhones. (Or, if they're lucky, on their Droids.) But at some point, you'll want to be able to step back out of the wilderness, as it were, to catch a breath of reality before going back in.

This is why Betanews contributing analyst Carmi Levy and I have opted, just for your sake, to stay behind with you in the real world today, to bring you our thoughts as to what Apple's move today will mean for those of us out here -- people who prefer to improve technology rather than allow technology to try to improve us.

Carmi Levy, Contributing Analyst, Betanews: Here's my quick brain dump on the tablet-to-be-named-later device that's apparently coming from Apple:

Apple is far from the first company to try to carve out a profitable business in this technological middle ground between full-blown laptops and increasingly capable smartphones. This is a market segment where, for the better part of the past 15 years, countless vendors have impaled themselves on inflated expectations and deflated products that probably won't even make decent museum pieces someday.

From where I sit, if Apple introduces just another device into this technological Death Valley, the company is sunk. But the company never does the "just another device" thing, anyway, so there's little risk of that. Whatever feature set it ultimately has, and whatever it's ultimately called, the magic sauce won't be in the device itself. Rather, it'll be the services behind it. Apple's own playbook -- invented with iPod/iTunes and perfected with iPhone/App Store -- dictates tight integration between device, service, and content provision/purchase/management. The new device will not deviate from this strategy. Rather, it'll extend it into new market sectors.

Since it's worked so well for music and software, a larger form factor device will allow Apple to apply this same approach to similarly struggling sectors whose leaders had previously failed to transition from conventional to Internet-borne business models. Publishers who haven't already worn their knuckles raw on Apple's front door will miss out, as Apple's model could do for the written word what it's already done for the singing one. Newspaper and magazine subscriptions on a dead-simple-easy-to-sync device would be a godsend for an industry that otherwise has no hope. Similarly, movies and other rich content will play better on a 10-inch screen with a lifestyle-friendly interface than on a 3.5-inch smartphone.

There's certainly a risk of consumers balking at the price, and complaining that they have to carry, pay for, and manage yet another device. But if the hardware/software/service bundle is as compelling as Apple's two previous mobile platform smash hits have been, consumers -- Apple fanatics as well as mainstream -- will once again line up in droves to buy in.

Scott Fulton: I think we'll know for certain whether this new design is as hit when we see a response from the fashion accessory industry. The iPod created a form factor that clothing and accessories designers, and even automotive interior designers, could build around. And the iPhone has followed suit in that regard as well. When a fashion accessories designer makes room in his design portfolio for a trendy item that's made to support a particular brand of gadget, you know that designer has reason to believe the market for the gadget has scaled up to the market for clothing, which is huge.

Maybe this would be a great Lifetime reality show challenge: Make a room full of amateur fashion designers craft a trendy accessory for this tablet thing. Imagine a button down shirt with an eleven-inch pocket. Or a clip-on belt holster the size of a Bowie knife.

Here's how I perceive the situation for Apple going in: Back in 2007, there was an urgent, if then under-appreciated, need for the handset form factor to be revolutionized, carried several steps forward. We needed for handsets to get past the incremental, evolutionary phase, and move several years ahead in one fell swoop. Apple accomplished that with a product that will probably be memorialized in history as America's first game-changing product of the 21st century. Steve Jobs was for handsets what Jim Bowie was for knives.

But a similarly urgent need does not exist, I believe, in the field of tablet PCs. While Apple can proceed with the business of revolutionizing the concept of portable, keyboard-less computers with full screens -- and I fully expect Apple to succeed in that department today -- the breadth of its impact on the world at large will be smaller because this is a small market already. Apple could expand the size of that market with a successful design, but that's like adding landfill to the perimeter of an island.

However...only a company in Apple's position could be perfectly fine with that. Let's face it, this could be one of the world's most stunning limited successes. It could be a major investment in a minor market. But few other companies in the world are in a market position to pull this off, to be able to succeed on a limited scale and be good with that. One has to be a little jealous of Apple just for the fact that it can afford to do something great with something small. Not even RIM on one side or HP on the other could really afford a similar gamble.

If this tablet design is to have any truly lasting impact on the world at large, it will need to be in how it's operated. It needs to be usable in such a way that it makes user experience (UX) designers in other fields of endeavor, including PC applications, stop in their tracks and realize, "Damn, we should be doing this." In that respect, Apple does have at least some opportunity to make a broader, if more indirect, market impact.

Live Commentary

11:39am PT: SF3: It looks like a wrap. Final thoughts from me: I expected a big iPhone. That's pretty much what I'm seeing, except that it's not really a phone. (And it has AT&T, so it's less of a 3G.) I expected an expanded iTunes platform for books, and that's what I'm seeing.

Game-changing innovation in platform design? No. It's an extension of what they have, an "iPhone Maxi."

But as I said in the intro, I don't believe Apple needs to succeed to succeed here. The real success for the company will be getting its feet wet in the CPU production department, to start the growth of its own hardware platform, which will eventually extend to iPhones everywhere.

CL: My bottom line: It's an impressive piece of hardware that borrows liberally from Apple's iPod/iPhone playbook. It'll sell well, and will vanquish bad memories of multiple generations of really lame tablet offerings from other vendors. The big gap in this remains periodical publishing. It remains to be seen whether the New York Times agreement is a one-off, or whether Apple will successfully create a platform that pulls in other newspaper and magazine publishers. The iPad is a promising evolutionary product. The revolution will come when failing industries figure out how to leverage it to fundamentally change the nature of their business.

11:35am PT: CL: I see some cannibalization from higher-end netbooks, but not much. Much as Apple did with the iPhone, it'll skim off the early adopters before adjusting its pricing longer-term.

11:34am PT: CL: They didn't specifically use the term "multitouch" but I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that the "manipulate it with your fingers" line of reasoning suggests that it's multitouch capable.

11:32am PT: Jobs: "Do we have what it takes to establish a third category of products? We think we've got the goods." [via The iPhone Blog]

11:30am PT: SF3: They must be talking about hardware now because the geek blogs all went silent again.

11:28am PT: SF3: Confirmation on the wires, the CoverItLive service was indeed knocked down.

There's very little "multi-" in this product introduction, though. No multi-user. No multi-channel conversations. No multitasking. (Little multitouch, I assume you have to be able to hold down shift while typing capital letters, right?)

11:26am PT: CL:The case seems to offer a modicum of angled support. Not perfect, but better than a featureless slice, I suppose.

Shipping in 60 days. Let the lineups begin.

SF3: Ah, okay, I can see it making a little sense. Not that the keyboard itself is portable, but if you kept it on your desk in the office and took your iPad with you, it makes a little sense. (A little.)

But the pictures they're going to leave us with are of people propping the device up in their laps to type? Not a smart decision.

11:23am PT: CL: The price point is better than we had all initially expected, but still at the high end of a post-recessionary economy that's really enjoying $300 netbooks. It'll sell like hotcakes at this price, but it'll really soar once carrier subsidies increase and up-front costs drop to the same ballpark as an average iPhone.

SF3: Even the $829 price tag for the 64 GB model with 3G included is actually pretty respectable. I always expect the "Apple premium," which is understandable and even desirable from a qualitative standpoint. But this isn't too extravagant at all.

CL: 3G-enabled devices get pretty expensive if you go hog wild with memory.

Hark...is that a keyboard I see? With a dock?

SF3: I'm seeing a picture of an iPad dock on Engadget. I don't see how you could type on that thing.

11:20am PT: SF3: $499 price tag will wake me up. That's where the A4 chip starts kicking in.

11:18am PT: CL: All iPads unlocked, and all use GSM micro-SIMs. Good news, since it'll let folks with GSM-enabled carriers shop around.

11:17am PT: "Every iPad has the latest and greatest Wi-Fi. But we're going to have models with 3G built in as well."

SF3: At last, the first mention of the words "3G."

CL: Suggests a two-pronged strategy similar to the iPhone and iPod touch. Interesting - and smart.

SF3: I fear an effort to gloss over the implication of "AT&T." Except the fact that I'm not seeing the carrier's name here could be the "One More Thing" part.

CL: $10 for iWork. Revolutionary price point...for a conventional take on conventional software. Nice, but not out-of-the-park nice. Apple's still missing the cloud-based boat.

AT&T. Sigh. Aren't there any other carriers out there? Why does 2010 dawn with yet more carrier-specific exclusivity and lock-in?

$14.99 for light use and $29.99 for unlimited: Suddenly, laptop/netbook and smartphone data plans look overpriced. Welcome to price erosion across the board...we can all thank Apple for kickstarting the trend.

SF3: Sigh indeed. Here's the part where I start typing Y-A-W-N.

11:13am PT: CL: Possibly. And I think I'm screaming into the wind on the keyboard thing and expansion base because they're both not happening here. But the one-size-fits-all form factor that's dominated the iPhone landscape and now seems to be defining the iPad one can't last forever. At some point, they've got to accommodate different strokes for different folks -- all without diluting the elegant simplicity that got them to the top of the market in the first place.

SF3: I do like the idea of a portable graphical calculator, something I've always hoped the industry could produce. I could imagine any number of real-world uses for such a thing.

11:10am PT: CL: Would be nice to see a third party keyboard that hard-docks into the iPad. An expansion port of some sort might kickstart the industry. Can't tell from the pics what the device's physical expansion capabilities are, though.

SF3: Yea, but wouldn't such a device be a tacit admission that the function doesn't really fit the form? Sort of like the MacBook Air with the hard drive that you plug into it from the outside like an I.V. unit.

11:08am PT: CL: Good to see a new iWork for iPad. Reinforces that you can do more than just watch movies on this thing. I still wouldn't write War and Peace on a glass keyboard, but just having software that's more capable than a text editor is encouraging.

SF3: I think if you put that much forethought into productivity software for a slate form factor, they should have expended an extra ounce of fuel to find some gadget-y way to make the device hold still so you can type on it. Maybe netbooks are cheap, Steve, but at least they fit on your lap. I'm worried that typing on a iPad will be like playing Scrabble on a sheet of ice.

11:04am PT: CL: So iWork has a new UI. Lovely, I'm sure. But productivity apps aren't about the UI. What's underneath, folks? And will these things integrate my iPad experience with my Web experience? Wish I could tack iWork for iPad as a front end onto my Google Apps apps.

What, geeks don't use spreadsheets? :)

SF3: There was somebody I read here recently...maybe one of our readers will remind me...who pretty much said, geeks don't use spreadsheets. (What, you don't agree? Tell me about it in comments.)

11:03am PT: SF3: Here's the part where all the geek blogs go silent. I'm literally reading one-word paragraphs now. "Spreadsheets." Like there wasn't enough caffeine left to coax them to type the letters, Y-A-W-N.

10:59am PT: CL: Hard to tell from the demo what the screen's quality is as an e-reader. Screen shots LOOK nice, but the only way to really tell is to sit with it (uncomfortably) in one's lap.

Hmm...iBook Store to buy books right on the device.

Let's get this straight: there's an iTunes store for music and video, an App Store for software, and an iBook Store for books. Is this universe getting a little confusing? Is there opportunity for consolidation into one superstore/software environment?

SF3: iBooks is exactly right on target so far -- 100% "iTunes for books."

CL: Another example of using the original iTunes model and extending it into new content. I'd prefer one big umbrella for all my content, but I'm picky that way. I can understand why Apple would focus individual "stores" for each category.

SF3: I think it has to say "books" in the brand. If it really were "iTunes for Books," that would sound too much like a Microsoft branding campaign.

CL: True. Can't rebrand what is already an entrenched brand years after it became entrenched. Too confusing for consumers.

Ah, iWork. Will productivity software become interesting again? Let's see.

10:55am PT: CL: Perhaps. But there's still an industry that sells books and newspapers, antidiluvian as they may both be. And it's an industry that's begging for some sort of transition. I'm going to go way out on a limb and say this is the most mainstream move yet to fundamentally change how this stuff gets produced, delivered and paid for. Well, that last part I'm still waiting for: how are we gonna pay for all this, Steve?

Ooh, bitchslap to Amazon. iBooks intro starts with a backhanded compliment, then an imonous warning: "Amazon's done a great job of pioneering this functionality with the Kindle. We're going to stand on their shoulders and go a little further."

10:55am PT: CL: Disappointed the NYT slice of the presentation focused only on a narrow slice of the end user experience. I know they have lots of ground to cover in very little time, but the publishing angle is so much more fundamental to where this thing will go. Do we really need another gaming demo?

They'll get lynched by the Apple fanboys - I'm betting one of these will be on the ISS before long. At only 1.5 pounds, that's only $15,000 to get it into orbit.

SF3: Back to your point: If this thing is to revolutionize publishing, you'll need to produce more than The New York Times on it. Imagine if the iPod were introduced to the public with a demo of it only playing Stravinsky symphonies.

CL: Agreed. But if the NYT buys in, others will follow. You need a marquee first-adopter, and they don't get more marquee than the Times.

SF3: Problem is, is it the right marquee now, especially for the market Apple's trying to address? Jobs & Co. may think it's the reader of the New York Times Book Review. But that reader is thinking, "Books? Those are old."

CL: You're right, Scott. I think was being a wee bit elitist back there. Gotta grab everyone's attention, and cutting edge gaming does that every time.

What's battery life when this thing's screaming through high performance games, though?

MLB.com...nice graphics! Is there a steroid-enabled mode as well?

10:50am PT: NYT guy: "We think that we've captured the essence of reading a newspaper… all in a native app."

CL: This, in a nutshell, is the essence of what has ailed the publishing industry all along. They simply haven't had a viable platform to replicate the act of reading it on paper, in an electronic form. If iPad manages to pull this off -- at a price point that doesn't scare consumers off -- we may have just witnessed the landscape shift a little in the right direction.

Note to all newspaper publishers everywhere: Start calling Apple. Now. Do not wait. I'd LOVE for my local paper to bundle in one of these babies with a subscription commitment. Publication subscriptions could be the new carriers of periodical-based lit.

SF3: Back to form factor a second: Just from the photos, I've noticed SVP Scott Forstall trying to fit the device somewhere on his lap; and then there's the guy from the gaming magazine, who plays the game by grasping the device firmly in both hands and suspending it on the desk.

I'm not sure, but I think Sony may already have an edge in device comfort, as far as gaming is concerned.

CL: Agreed, Scott. But ecosystem will trump device design every time. If Apple can flesh out the underlying infrastructure, that'll buy it time to make improvements to the generation 1 hardware. iPhone has followed a similar path, and it's worked well for them so far. The hardware need not be perfect out of the gate. Just good enough. Which in Apples case, is never much of an issue.

SF3: Maybe, but I'm imagining, who's the first guy/lady who will give this device the "Richard Feynman" test (suspending the O-ring in a cup of ice water): Who's the guy who will come on CNBC first and say, "I can't find a place to _put_ this thing in order to use it? And demonstrate the point in a living-room setting.

10:44am PT: CL:I think Pixel Double gives Apple a quick and dirty way to leverage everything that's already out there. Longer term, I suspect developers will to at least a certain extent target one platform - iPad - or the other - iPhone/iPod touch - because some things simply work better on larger screens and larger form factor devices than others.

10:43am PT: CL: Question is, how much of the current iPhone/iPod touch app inventory run unmodified on the iPad. What's the user experience like? Do these apps scale well onto the new device?

"We built the iPad to run virtually every one of these apps unmodified right out of the box. We can do that in two ways ??" do it with pixel for pixel accuracy in a black box, or we can pixel-double and run them in full-screen."

"Virtually every one" is never as great as it sounds.

SF3: "Pixel Double?" That reminds me of the graphics modes on the Apple II. Remember when the //gs came out? It could run with "really great graphics," assuming you wanted to plunk down $60 more bucks for the incompatible high-res version of "Carmen Sandiego." But then it could still run the "thousands of Apple ][ programs." Albeit in a graphically defeated mode.

CL: Now for the main event: talking directly about The New York Times. NYT's Martin Nisenholtz discussing the paper's plans for iPad.

10:38am PT: CL: Good point, Scott. This also allows it to scale by starting on a net-new platform. As its popularity moves up the growth curve, it'll allow Apple to ramp its own pipeline as well. Diving into smaller form factors right now wouldn't have allowed Apple that opportunity to grow gradually.

SF3: That gets back to my broader theory: Apple doesn't _need_ to have a _stunning_ success right now in its history, to be successful. It could simply use another good enough product in its arsenal. So far, that's what I'm seeing here, "good enough." It extends the iPhone OS into an "economy size" form factor, it doesn't really create a new platform as much as extend the existing (healthy) one.

CL: Showing unmodified iPhone game on the iPad. This is crucial for Apple - leveraging the existing software base, developer community and tools means it doesn't have to start from scratch building a new marketplace.

Apple is also learning its lessons: New SDK, including iPad tools, is being released today, too. Nicely thought out.

10:34am PT: CL: Wonder what Intel has to say about Apple's choice of processor. Has Apple just hit another architecture-related fork in the road a la 68XXX-to-PowerPC, or PPC-to-Intel?

16-64 GB of storage. Can't tell if that's expandable...looking hard at the screen grabs to see if one of them's a memory card slot. The one under the power button looks suspiciously like one. Or am I just being hopeful?

SF3: I think Apple needed an opportunity to stretch its legs coming out of the cocoon, in terms of developing the heart of its own hardware. Starting too miniaturized might put it in danger, so I'm thinking the tablet form factor was necessary to give Apple a starting point for itself -- so it can work up to producing chips for its own iPhones later.

10:31am PT: SF3: Or you do like Douglas Adams, you take your towel with you wherever you go. A kind of rubber track pad. Maybe that's the iPad fashion accessory we've been looking for.

CL: Screen - size is much better for watching a movie than an iPhone/iPod touch. But aspect ratio isn't HD-optimized. Welcome to an eternally letter-boxed future. And don't get me started about how to hold this thing at the right angle for a 2-hour movie.

SF3: I can't cross my legs for that long.

CL: 1.5 pounds, a half-inch thick. No doubt, it's a great piece of tech to slip into a carry-on bag. Watch it carefully during security screening, though. We now have the hottest device for thieves.

SF3: Okay, now we're talking my language about something: 1.0 GHz Apple A4 chip. Apple's chip factory goes to work at last.

CL: Carmi Levy: "iPad is powered by our own custom silicon. Our own chip. It's called the A4, and it screams." 1GHz. 16, 32, or 64GB of flash storage. "It's got the latest in wireless: 802.11n, WiFi, and Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR."

10:27am PT: SF3: I'm starting to wonder about the form factor. I'm looking at the Gizmodo photos, and I'm seeing Steve sitting easily in his chair perusing Web pages, but already I'm noticing something: It doesn't appear that there's a convenient place for a user to put this thing. With an iPhone, you have one hand holding the phone and another one typing. What do you do with a slick surface device with only simulated keys resting against your freshly washed blue jeans?

10:24am PT: CL: "If I'm on a Mac, I can get events, places and faces from iPhoto." Hmm, that rather confirms it to me: they still want you to believe every Apple product will somehow be richer if you hang it off of a Mac as well.

The return of album artwork. Today's music consumers forget how much fun it was to read the liner notes. Maybe there IS hope for the music industry yet.

10:21am PT: SF3: You begin to wonder what the platform extension for this will look like on an iMac.

CL: Does every Apple demo have to be laden with countles uses of the word "gorgeous"? We get it...please move on.

SF3: It's as if they'd hired Charles Nelson Reilly to right the script.

CL: ...and if Apple will offer a preferential experience on Macs - like iTunes was in the early days - or deliver consistent multiplatform capability right off the hop. I wonder if the company is losing its "drive Mac growth" ethos...or if it really even matters any more.

I think Steve would look great in the center square, Scott. But only if Florence Henderson is on with him, too.

10:18am PT: SF3: That gets back to that whole, what kind of _platform_ are they building for it, issue. The content delivery model. Smartly, Jobs is saving that part of the introduction until later in the event.

Leave it to Canadians to be erudite and considered when providing feedback online, Scott :) I think the masses still see this as a hardware play, while a small, bigger-picture-thinking minority understands the what's really changed here. 8+ years after iPod, after all, most folks still think it's just a slick media player.

SF3: Notice how soon Jobs started right into the iPad -- with the iPhone introduction, he took some time, built up some expectation.

CL: I believe the speed with which he dove right into iPad suggests there's more to this. He's building to something else...and it ain't just the device. Waiting for news on partnerships, ecosystems, the lovely glue that keeps everything underneath together and vital.

10:16am PT: CL: Desktop UI looks like an interesting mix of OS X - the dock on the bottom - and iPhone/iPod touch (the app icons on the desktop itself.)

Giant on-screen keyboard. I hope the keys are bigger than my big, fat, glass-challenged fingers. For large volume text entry, this still isn't the holy grail.

Facebook was the first web page shown. New York Times the next. Waiting to see the publishing play. Don't let me down, Steve!

Keyboard looks like a digitally rendered version of the current Mac-standard 'board. Looks nice...

"Steve. "More intimate than a laptop....and it's so much more capable than a smartphone." Me: Intimate? Yeesh. Some things we don't really want to know.

Using the NYT again for his web demo. I think the story here may be a little deeper than just hardware, folks. Keep going, Mr. Jobs...

10:12am PT: CL: iPad it is. Going to have to provide elocution lessons to Apple Store employees to ensure they don't confuse customers. iPad = iPod?

Desktop UI looks like an interesting mix of OS X - the dock on the bottom - and iPhone/iPod touch (the app icons on the desktop itself.)

10:08am PT: SF3: It's extraordinary how few of the "live feeds" are actually updating, or have even started. I think CoverItLive.com, which provides some of the back end for these guys, may have actually crashed.

CL: "Live" doesn't mean the same thing that it once did. Then again, "new and improved" has never been new OR improved, so I guess nothing's really changed.

10:05am PT: The event has begun with the now-customary iPod status report. But judging from the reports I'm reading, that update is flying by at lightning speed. My guess is, expect content partners to take the stage, and Apple will need time to fit them all in.

9:58am PT: SF3: I have to say, I'm impressed with some of the questions I'm seeing on the live blog feeds with user feedback. On Canada's National Post live blog, for instance, is a fellow asking, why does there appear to be so much emphasis on the hardware aspect of this, when it's the underlying platform that will make or break this venture? The implication here being, Apple needs to extend iTunes into larger-screen media in such a way that it has some reach to hardware beyond just this iTablet/iSlate (following the iTunes for Windows philosophy).

Twitter couldn't save Brangelina

Publié: janvier 25, 2010, 6:05pm CET par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

I'm not one to follow the lives of celebrities. I don't watch TMZ, and the very sound of Entertainment Tonight's Mary Hart's voice is enough to make me nauseous. I turn my head as I walk past the supermarket tabloids in the checkout aisle because I could care less who Jennifer Aniston is dating this week or that Elvis was spotted in a rural Kentucky laundromat. I've got better things to do with my life than wonder how many more kids Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt want to adopt or when she plans on getting another tattoo.

For all my celeb-fatigue, though, I found it interesting this past weekend when I first learned about the Brangelina supercouple's separation not from television, radio, or a newspaper, but from my Twitter feed. After I sarcastically retweeted the supposed news, I heard from a number of friends that they, too, had gotten the news from online sources.

Things are tough all over. And tougher here.

While the recession ravaged businesses in all sectors, it's been particularly brutal if you work in conventional media. Long in decline because of the industry's general inability (or unwillingness; I'm still trying to figure out which one is more true) to adapt to the growing influence of online tools on how we learn about the world around us, so-called traditional media outlets have especially taken it on the chin during the recession. That's because the advertisers who drive their major source of revenue have reined in their own marketing budgets. Well, the lucky ones have. The unlucky ones no longer exist.

Wide Angle Zoom (200 px) So instead of reading the newspaper, we custom-build our RSS feeds and hoover them wherever we happen to be -- desktop, laptop, mobile device, game console, whatever. We're no longer stuck waiting for our favorite television shows to be delivered via conventional broadcast. Instead, we watch them online. Radio was bypassed years ago when we began using iTunes to program our own playlists instead of relying on some anonymous program director to do the same thing.

In every case, the Internet has turned us into masters of our respective media domains. While conventional media routes control of the message through relatively few gatekeepers who shape the message for the masses, new media hands that control over to us. Katie Couric is no more the sole source of breaking news from Haiti than Mary Hart is the only place we can learn about Brangelina.

Social media vs. Mary Hart

Conventional media's monopoly over the flow of information and advertising dollars is crumbling. Or, to put it in headline form for Mary Hart's teleprompter: The entire industry is cooked. If television, which used to be a license to print money, no longer has the sure-fire ability to suck in millions of viewers and connect them with advertisers willing to pay for that connection, Mary Hart and Katie Couric won't be the only televisionistas headed for the unemployment line.

Those Web 2.0 -- or, dare I say, Web 3.0 -- tools that readers of sites like Betanews have been using to Tweet and Facebook each other for the past couple of years have evolved into de facto communication platforms in their own right. While my tech-Luddite in-laws may laugh at the thought, it is indeed possible to cut off all conventional television, radio, and newspapers and get all your news from new/social media sources.

Next week, a group of journalists will do exactly that, living in a farmhouse in the French countryside and using only social media tools to cover their respective beats. No conventional media allowed. The project, "Behind Closed Doors on the Net," runs from February 1 through 5, and should reinforce social media's transition from neat way to keep in touch into a powerful, real-time information medium. I'm sure when all is said and done, sipping from the media spigot through exclusively new media channels won't pose any obstacles to news gathering. And if social media tools are good enough for professional journalists, they'll be good enough for regular consumers, too.

A case of unfortunate timing

If only it were that simple, then every conventional media outlet on the planet would have long ago adopted the tools of new media and we'd still be relying on publishers and broadcasters for real-time news. But things rarely transition smoothly in any industry, especially those too resistant to change for their own good. Even if Twitter's a better real-time means of learning the size, shape, and theme of Angelina's newest tattoo, it's a scary business model (for now, at least) because advertisers haven't bought in just yet. So while the new tools are home to growing legions of engaged, motivated audience members, they're not anywhere near capable of replacing the money lost by advertisers no longer content to pay premium rates for conventional media audiences who no longer exist because they're all Facebooking and Twittering.

Welcome to today's Social Media Catch-22.

A morphed photograph of Brad Pitt with Angelina Jolie. [Courtesy MorphThing.com] Like most of the rest of the world, I have no idea how Brangelina's split will play out, and I don't much care either way. But that's not the point. While the subject of a celebrity breakup is shallow to the extreme, I nevertheless find it fascinating to watch through the lens of social media. How we learn about everything around us -- from relief workers tweeting from the front lines in Haiti to politicians blogging from the seat of power to journalists updating their Facebook pages from the anchor's desk -- is evolving almost as fast as the tools themselves. And unless Mary Hart learns to tweet for real, the scoops and the advertisers that come with them will become fewer and further between for her and others like her.

Fruity pebbles

The emergence this week of a new offering from Apple -- which could, depending on who you listen to, be a tablet, a slate, or a Star Trek tricorder-like device -- adds yet another wrench. If the form factor, content payment-and-delivery model and carrier/publisher partnerships pan out as the universe says they must, conventional media will end the week either saluting Apple as its savior, or blaming it for the industry's eventual demise.

Picture of Brad Jolie morphed with Angelina Pitt, or vice versa, comes from MorphThing.com.

Carmi Levy is a Canadian-based independent technology analyst and journalist still trying to live down his past life leading help desks and managing projects for large financial services organizations. He comments extensively in a wide range of media, and works closely with clients to help them leverage technology and social media tools and processes to drive their business.

Google's deal with the devil: Declaring war in China while competitors wimp out

Publié: janvier 21, 2010, 10:49pm CET par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

I was just old enough to remember, and appreciate the significance of, the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989. The iconic image of a dissident standing defiantly in front of a column of People's Liberation Army tanks is as powerful today as it was when we first saw it.

Back then, activists fighting for greater freedom used surreptitiously acquired fax machines to get the word out to the rest of the world. It was an early sign that technology held the potential to undercut control-freak-government efforts to stifle free speech. Now that the Internet has taken over as the platform of choice for Chinese freedom-lovers and freedom-crushers alike, the battleground has shifted irrevocably, and the autocratic Chinese government hardly has enough political officers to keep its spy game machinery in balance.

That doesn't mean it isn't trying, however.

It all begins to unravel

Four years after it launched its google.cn search service in China, Google now finds itself staring down the gun barrel of that proverbial tank. At the time (and ever since, if we're picking nits) the company was derided for censoring search results in accordance with limitations imposed by the Chinese government. Google justified its decision then by saying this is the price foreign firms must pay if they wish to do business in China.

That all changed earlier this month. On January 12, just after discovering an unprecedented cyber attack on its services and users, the company published the following on its blog:

We launched Google.cn in January 2006 in the belief that the benefits of increased access to information for people in China and a more open Internet outweighed our discomfort in agreeing to censor some results.

Fair enough, and from where I sit, it was a Hobson's Choice that the "Do No Evil" company has balanced quite nicely these past four years. Google made a deal with the devil with its eyes focused intently on a bigger picture that envisioned delivering greater access to class-leading Internet Web services for Chinese citizens. It held its nose for the entire time, confident its move would eventually spark greater freedoms in a country where the government's definition of the word differs from that used elsewhere.

History's most iconic living symbol of the individual's stand against government oppression: one brave Chinese citizen against a column of tanks.

We won't directly accuse the government, but…

Wide Angle Zoom (200 px) After revealing that its systems had been hacked and it would enter into discussions with the Chinese government (and possibly exit the Chinese market entirely if things weren't resolved to the company's satisfaction), Google didn't specifically accuse the Chinese government of backing the attacks. But it's fairly clear to anyone reading between the lines that Google believes the Chinese government was trying to take its censorship deal with Google to places never envisioned four years ago.

Simply put, no one outside the Chinese government has access to the scaled resources necessary to mount attacks of the magnitude uncovered by Google. Never mind the fact that the Chinese government stands virtually alone in having a motive to spy on human rights activists and their sympathizers in the first place.

The fact that Google is willing to walk away from the largest, fastest growing Internet market on earth -- it grew from 10 million users a decade ago to 340 million today -- just before it starts generating world-beating revenue, speaks volumes about how its corporate ethics have evolved since google.cn went live in 2006. Although Google plays second fiddle in Chinese search (31% market share to Baidu's 60%) it remains well ahead of Yahoo and Microsoft and stands positioned to cash in on its strong-second position as this market matures. It's all potential from where Google sits, so its threat to take its ball and go home should send a message to competing tech firms that deals with devils ultimately have limits.

Not everyone gets the message, however. Microsoft, which in December referred to China as "the most important strategic market," shows no signs of growing a spine. CEO Steve Ballmer told CNBC, "We've been quite clear that we are going to operate in China, (and) we're going to abide by the law." I guess "abide by the law" makes it sound palatable, even if "the law" is little more than an autocratic edict designed to suppress the actions of freedom-seeking Chinese citizens.

At least Microsoft has company in the "Do Some Evil" camp. Yahoo, an organization that apparently never met a Communist regime it didn't like, happily filtered its search results before hooking up with Alibaba in 2005. After buying 39% of the Alibaba partnership, Yahoo made headlines later that year when it delivered material from Shi Tao, a journalist, to the Chinese regime. Mr. Tao was subsequently convicted and is now serving 10 years in prison.

I'm sure leaders of both companies are sitting on pins and needles as they wait for the outcome of Google's negotiations with Chinese authorities. I'm certain they'd be beside themselves with glee if the company that's kicked their Web services tail in virtually every international market decides to abandon this one. I'm certain their PR minders will find ways to soft pedal their cozy relationship with the Chinese government in light of the Google hacking.

Principle over profits

While the end result remains a great unknown, the fact that a profit-seeking American company would put its most promising growth market on the line over a fundamental issue of freedom and security, and be willing to duke it out with the world's most powerful Communist government, should be an eye-opener for any Western firm thinking of doing business in a country where freedom remains something of a four-letter word. Compromises made in the interest of maintaining a guiding presence in the market mean little if the government ultimately chooses to bulldoze its way to confidential data after a few years have passed.

Even if you have no business in China, ask yourself which company you'd trust with your data: the one with a spine, or the one that gives Communist officials anything they're looking for? In the end, what happens in the Far East may very well dictate what happens here, and who deserves to prevail as Web- and cloud-based services continue to creep into the mainstream.

The narrowing divide between the rest of the world and Haiti

Publié: janvier 19, 2010, 5:46pm CET par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

Betanews urges its readers everywhere to contribute to the effort to restore vital services to Haiti, by contributing to the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund today.

I'm of two minds as I watch the heart-wrenching disaster unfold in Haiti. On the one hand, technology has been pressed into service in innovative ways to connect victims with their faraway families, to marshal resources from aid-providing nations and organizations, and to make it easier for you and me to help out by texting contributions from our mobile phones. Rescuers are Twittering, albeit haltingly, from the front lines, while Facebook pages are serving as virtual bulletin boards -- all signs that social media continues to come of age as a force for good in a less-than-fair world.

As heartening as it is to see technology used for such crucial benefit, however, the utter collapse of the nation's physical and technological infrastructure -- already tenuous before the earth shook -- has laid bare the limitations of our modern tools of communication. While this country of 9 million was already in dire straits long before the earthquake virtually flattened its capital city last week, this latest disaster has pushed the nearly failed state even closer to the brink. Bandwidth and access are either gone completely, or so constrained that they may as well be offline. Power, water, landline phones, and cellular services -- essentially anything that requires an overhead wire, underground piping, or a tower -- are down until further notice.

Granted, rescuers and victims alike are so focused on survival that often the last thing they'll be thinking about is finding a mobile phone so they can update their Facebook page. But the dearth of connectivity in the quake's aftermath only serves to make a sad situation that much sadder.

Chaos can visit us, too

Wide Angle Zoom (200 px) More ominously for those of us helpfully thumb-texting our contributions from our smartphones, the crisis in Haiti has reinforced just how close the rest of us are to similarly dire straits. Despite our First World, technologically advanced way of life, were we stripped of our basic infrastructure, we too would easily devolve into anarchy inside of three days.

On the surface, it seems laughable to draw any sort of parallel between a sophisticated, vibrant, self-sustaining society like ours and that of an island nation that's been unable to pull itself up by its bootstraps for much of the last century. As gangs of looters -- likely boosted by at least some of the escapees from the collapsed prison just outside of town -- began to roam the streets of Port-au-Prince about three days after the quake hit, it reinforced just how close to anarchy most large cities can be even on a normal day. It's why aid agencies counsel even those of us in supposedly urbanized regions to always have a 72-hour supply of essentials on hand. The thinking goes, if basic services go dark, it'll take at least that long for rescue and aid workers to deliver anything approaching meaningful levels of help. And until then, we're on our own.

So as we sit glued to our screens, watching the numbers grow and the situation darken, we may want to remind ourselves that the same thing can happen to us. If the so-called "Big One" ever strikes San Francisco or Los Angeles, there's no guarantee that these cities wouldn't find themselves grappling with many of the same overwhelming hardships currently facing Port-au-Prince. Desperation, after all, doesn't have its own nationality, language, or culture; and construction standards and national will notwithstanding, a shattered American city is just as likely to slide into the abyss as any other before outsiders can reach in and save it from itself.

Time for some hard, personal questions

As much as we find ourselves feeling compassion for Haiti, we need to look at our own needs as well and ask ourselves the same hard questions that often get asked only when disaster strikes: Namely, if some sudden and catastrophic event destroyed all water, power, and connectivity services, what would we do to keep ourselves and our families safe? How would we continue to function as individuals, as communities, and as a society at-large, if the physical and technological infrastructure that underpins our supposedly advanced economy is irrevocably shattered? Even if our connections are simply knocked out of commission for a few days or weeks, would we have what it takes to keep going?

I'm probably too much of an optimist for my own good, but I believe that buried deeply within every tragedy is at least a sliver of hope. If Haiti's pain is to have some kind of benefit -- to itself and to others -- then it will be a realization that we cannot continue to presume that the services that maintain everyday life will be there tomorrow. And if they aren't, we need to know what we need to do, both personally and professionally, to keep ourselves functional and relevant. Assuming they'll be there, or that some higher power will swoop in to save the day if they're not, is hopelessly naïve.

Enter the dusty DRP

Companies have been working on disaster recovery plans for time immemorial, confident that these often binder-sized documents and related tools and processes are all they need to stay in the game if chunks of the company get taken out. Whether the source is Mother Nature, a band of terrorists, or a disgruntled soon-to-be-ex-employee intent on bringing the company down with him, IT departments with a clue have devoted significant resources toward building, testing and updating these plans, then hoping they're never needed.

Watching Haiti descend below its already-tragic baseline should provide the ideal catalyst for companies of any size and in any sector to dust off the DRP and ask if they're doing enough to protect their interests in case the worst happens. Haiti's experience should challenge companies to question whether the growing cloud-based movement is a good or a bad thing in the event of total urban meltdown. It should open the eyes of all IT and business types to the reality that such a meltdown "can't happen here." It can and it will.

And whatever form it takes, when the time comes, organizations that fail to draw parallels between their own reality and the awful images being broadcast from the disaster zone may yet find themselves on television for all the wrong reasons.

Betanews urges its readers everywhere to contribute to the effort to restore vital services to Haiti, by contributing to the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund today.

Now, the great Facebook security giveaway ...literally

Publié: janvier 14, 2010, 4:58pm CET par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

Facebook wants to be your new security maven.

Go ahead. Have a good laugh. I certainly did, after I first learned about Facebook's plan to partner with security provider McAfee to boost end-user security on the often-attacked social media platform.

Under the terms of the deal, Facebook's 350 million (and growing) users will get a free six-month subscription to McAfee's Internet Security Suite, after which they'll be eligible for ongoing discounts. The partnership also means McAfee is now Facebook's exclusive consumer security software provider for the next year -- something which will doubtless come in handy whenever a Facebook user's account gets hacked. If this all-too-common event happens to you, you'll be locked out of Facebook entirely until a McAfee tool scans your computer and declares it free of malware.

Is it too catty to say this is too little, too late? Is it also less-than-kind to say Facebook's attempts to boost end-user security would be better focused on finalizing (and sticking with) a privacy policy that doesn't confuse and anger the majority of folks who take the time to learn about it?

When behaviors trump solutions

Is it similarly mean-spirited of me when I conclude this will have as much impact on end-user security as "Don't Drink and Drive" messages have had on the average drunk driver. We can implement all the DUI laws we want, after all, and we can install breathalysers on anything that moves, but we'll still be cleaning up alcohol-fuelled wrecks and putting up roadside memorials to their victims.

No technology in the world will save people from themselves, and that truth is the one thing Facebook doesn't seem to get.

Wide Angle Zoom (200 px) That doesn't mean that Facebook won't try to toss more technology at the malware issue. The geek's solution to a problem, after all, is to always buy another box or install another layer of code. Yet the reality that Facebook currently faces is infinitely too complex for a mere tool, rooted much more in who we are and what we do rather than what we buy. It should be obvious to just about everyone (except somehow, perhaps by virtue of its size, Facebook) that end users refuse to self-educate on best practices for online security. But there's a deeper cause here that may be a little harder for Facebook to swallow because to do so might require the company to admit it's (gasp!) deficient in some way -- that it simply isn't structured to meet the security challenge head-on.

Privacy = security (T | F)

Those deficiencies have played out in stark relief in recent months. After a Canadian public policy group complained about Facebook's porous-as-Swiss-cheese privacy policies, Canadian Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart launched an investigation. Her findings were released in July 2009. Assistant Commissioner Elizabeth Denham and other officials in her Office, including Colin McKay, Director of Research, Education and Outreach, met with Facebook's leaders, hovering over the shoulders of the company's developers as they supposedly improved their privacy infrastructure. After several months of this, late last year, Facebook rolled out its new global policy.

Declaring this new policy a dud is all too easy, like kicking your younger brother after you've already immobilized him with the big pillow from the sofa. Instead of making it simpler for users to manage the list of individuals and companies and faceless entities that have access to their personal information, Facebook made it simpler for users to realize that everything was open by default. Accounts that had been shut tight became free-flowing spigots of data, some of it confidential. Users suddenly found their formerly "private" data being broadcast to any stranger with the wherewithal to look at their profile page -- or worse, to people who weren't even registered Facebook users. (Or people who weren't even people.) Walls around the world lit up with complaints from users desperately trying to reset their settings before their parents found out about their new tattoos or secret girl/boyfriends.

So what does Facebook's privacy competency have to do with its effectiveness in ensuring a secure environment for its users? Everything, because privacy is little more than a personal application of security. And unfortunately Facebook's track record in privacy isn't stellar. Even with the prodding of a major government agency, Facebook hasn't been able to make privacy work, either to its advantage or that of its users. Yet we're now supposed to trust that the company's newfound friendship with McAfee will make it easy for users to trust that it can keep the baddies at bay.

Um, not so much. First we're fooling ourselves if we think some fancy new Web-integrated security tools will magically fix things. To borrow Sarah Palin's metaphor, it's like putting lipstick on a pig -- and in this case, the pig has a little leakage problem on the other end. From badly designed third-party applications that compromise the security of unaware users to poorly designed administrative interfaces that intimidate even advanced users, the Facebook platform itself is a nightmare of security. Couple that with an organizational culture that has raised inciting mass-scale privacy revolts to a high art, and you have the basis for a perfect storm of security nastiness.

Towards an insecure future

Over the next few weeks, countless Facebook users will gain access to these new features. Emboldened by their newfound security, they'll doubtless continue to click on hinky come-ons and sign away their first-borns' confidential data in exchange for Farmville credits, Mafia Wars weapons, and a lifetime supply of astrology predictions.

Facebook would like us to believe that its deal with McAfee protects us from the countless stranger/malcontents who want to attack us from the outside. The company fails to realize -- or maybe it does and simply won't admit it -- that the real threat comes from the legions of end users who simply won't take the time to learn even the basics of online security.

More ominously, Facebook fails to realize -- or admit -- that its own inadequate organizational structure and technology architecture will continue to put those same legions of ignorant users at risk long after they install their new toys from McAfee and dive into another round of Farmville. It's that false sense of security that scares me most, and provides the first glimpse of the ingredients for an eventual flattening out of the Facebook growth curve.

This version of the article contains corrections suggested by Canada's Privacy Commission office.

CES 2010: Where did Windows Mobile go, and what will take its place?

Publié: janvier 7, 2010, 9:06pm CET par Scott M. Fulton, III and Carmi Levy

By Scott M. Fulton, III and Carmi Levy, Betanews

CES 2010 Top Story Microsoft's big theme coming out of 2009 was "Three Screens and a Cloud." Thanks to a few power outages punctuating yesterday evening's keynote, there were often more clouds than there were screens. But when the smoke and the steam cleared, it turned out there was one less screen than people were expecting -- in some respects, the biggest screen of all: the small screen. I discussed the lack of progress on the Windows Mobile front earlier this afternoon with Contributing Analyst Carmi Levy.

Nexus One: More than a phone, less than a game-changer

Publié: janvier 6, 2010, 5:20am CET par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

Call me hopeful that Google's announcement of Nexus One Tuesday helps it positively influence the evolution of an open, innovative wireless market. Call me similarly hopeful that Google's move into hardware -- a bold decision that builds on its earlier success facilitating the creation of the Android mobile operating system and orchestrating the Open Handset Alliance's go-to-market plans -- will drive the success of the next truly competitive smartphone platform.

But as hopeful as I am, I'm not yet convinced that one phone can ever deliver all the goods. Nexus One is hardly the earth-shattering, apocalyptic shot that will catapult the smartphone market into next week.

While I give Google credit for managing to recreate a small fraction of the kind of gadget mania that's driven Apple fandom for much of that company's history, I feel compelled to be the guy that rains a little on everyone's parade. Yes, there's a bulging list of super-cool features -- for instance, speech input that actually works (and in virtually every major app, no less), a multi-colored trackball for customized alerts, dual-microphone noise cancellation for hands-free operation light years removed from the speaking-in-an-oil-drum experience of most current devices, and a slick interface that suddenly makes competing Android-powered devices look lame. Yet with all that, the Nexus One is hardly the "superphone" that Google claims it to be.

It's not about the device

Even if Nexus One lived up to the hype and proved itself the greatest phone in the universe, that should not be enough for Google to paste "Mission: Accomplished" on its flight deck. Gadget worship may fill the comment sections of tech sites and blogs alike, but it isn't what drives the industry. The significance of Nexus One's announcement has nothing to do with the device itself and everything to do with Google's desire -- nay, need -- to control the mobile Web services experience as thoroughly and efficiently as it controls the desktop Web services experience.

Wide Angle Zoom (200 px) Google is what it is today because it figured out how to monetize common online activities like search, e-mail, and productivity better than anyone else. It generates more money per unit of online end-user activity than any other Web-focused organization (Yahoo, you there?) a reality that gives it an ever growing pile of cash that allows it to invest in whatever next-generation initiatives it wants.

Still, while Google wishes it could ride the Web-on-a-conventional-PC gravy train forever, the real world has other plans. That's because desktop and laptop PCs are yesterday's news, with growth curves flatter than a Nebraska corn field. Mobile platforms represent today's and tomorrow's explosive growth markets. Either Google converts its ability to connect advertisers with users of its services to a mobile paradigm, or it joins Microsoft and IBM in the shadowy category of companies that were once all-conquering, but retreated from their mythical status when the world changed and they failed to stay ahead of the curve.

The Android operating system was created under the auspices of the Open Handset Alliance, a Google-led 47-member consortium of hardware vendors, carriers and vendors. Android was supposed to keep Google ahead of that curve. Designed from the start to be open in the same vein as Linux, Google's goal for Android was to reduce costs to consumers, foster innovation, and accelerate the growth rate of mobile devices by driving them into markets unsustainable using conventional closed models followed by Research In Motion and Apple.

In that respect, Google has already succeeded. Since the first admittedly lukewarm HTC G1 appeared in the fall of 2008, the new OS has gained impressive momentum on a broad range of devices, and is now ideally positioned as a viable #3 to RIM and Apple. Google has kept the good times rolling with continued updates to the OS and focused investment in a development ecosystem. The result? Application availability that just powered through 20,000 titles (small compared to Apple's 100,000+, but still a respectable showing for a new player), and a fast-growing market share that research outfit Canalys pegged at 3.5% by the end of Q3 2009.

But in bringing its own phone to market, Google risks ticking off its alliance partners -- especially the mobile handset vendors like Motorola, Sony Ericsson, Samsung, and LG, all of whom signed on to the project hoping Google would remain a benevolent partner and not a ruthless competitor. If anyone's looking for evidence that Google intends to play hardball, look no further than its choice of OS for the new device. For now, Android version 2.1 is available only on the Nexus One. How many bets Google continues to favor its own devices from here on out? How many bets that Google doesn't much care if it alienates a partner or two (or three) along the way in its pursuit of mobile OS and services dominance? How many bets its hardware "partners" already have dartboards mounted in their respective boardrooms?

When Google eventually falters

With all this in mind, it's clear that while Nexus One is not the "superphone," it is more than just a phone. It's Google's bet on its future. If history is any guide, it'll turn out to be a bad bet, and Google's attempt to stay dominant for more than one computing era will fail as surely as Microsoft's attempt to navigate beyond desktop productivity and network software was. Scoff now, but when we look back 10 or 15 years from now, the leaderboard will be as radically changed as the tools and processes that will define tomorrow's business and consumer technology landscape.

Google won't disappear, of course. But the King of the Technological World mantle will have been passed because the core competencies that ensure an organization's eminence during one period of technological evolution (think mainframe, desktop, network, Internet, Web 2.0, mobile) almost never ensure eminence during subsequent periods. Like career criminals who swear they'll fly straight, we can cross our fingers and hope against hope that this time it'll be different. But ultimately, we know this is how things have to play out.

The Nexus One is already being lauded as the great phone it is. But is it in and of itself a game changer? Hardly. The game is only getting underway, and like the competitors around it, Google has many moves yet to make.

Hype this! Apple's marketing puppet show continues

Publié: décembre 31, 2009, 8:16pm CET par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

We segue into 2010 with rumors swirling around the biggest mega product announcement since the iPhone. If Apple's mythical tablet device -- the "iSlate," if insiders and analysts are to be believed -- is in fact announced sometime in January, Apple fans will once again dance in the streets before lining up in the middle of the night, wallets in hand, ready to buy into the latest must-have doodad from Cupertino.

Not that I'm one to make resolutions. They are, after all, pointless promises that are inevitably broken before the last bit of confetti has been swept out of the gutters in Times Square. But if I ever had to make one, it would be to ban the Apple hype machine permanently from our midst. The noise from all this speculation is hurting my head, and I just want it to stop.

Because we're all talked out

Please don't misunderstand where I'm coming from. I'm a big fan of Apple. I've got two Macs in the house, three iPods of various generations, and an iPod touch on the way. I like to spend time in Apple stores because, even if I'm not buying anything that day, they have a feel-good vibe that few other retailers can match. I'm even debating putting an Apple sticker on my car because it'll make my kids happy. But after spending much of the past year with a sore neck from conflicting reports about Apple's supposed tablet device, I'm pretty tired of having every conversation dominated by something that's never even been officially acknowledged by this officially secretive company.

Wide Angle Zoom (200 px) Which, I realize, is entirely Apple's goal. Without saying a word, Apple has managed to yet again get the faithful to whip themselves into a frenzy over what might be. The company has reaped billions of dollars worth of publicity without buying so much as one television spot or magazine ad. It isn't baseless, of course: You have to have a compelling product to engage consumers. People don't get excited about the run-of-the-mill, and it takes a lot of special sauce to create a seemingly never-ending string of aspirational products. Apple has it, whatever "it" is, and no other company of its generation has managed to connect with everyday consumers on quite the same level.

So it's clear the company's done its homework and has succeeded in exorcising the demons that almost destroyed it in the 1990s. Thanks largely to the stewardship of Steve Jobs, Apple has rewritten the design and marketing rules, and rightfully deserves to have consumers want its products. But to what extent? Should they abandon their families and camp out on strip mall sidewalks for days on end to be the first ones on their block to bring home Apple's newest baby? Should people fearful for their jobs pile on even more credit card debt just so they can upgrade their dowdy old phone for an iPhone, complete with a fat (and expensive) monthly voice and data plan? Should all conversations revolve around future products whose potential feature sets swing wildly by the day?

The tablet ain't no netbook

While a certain amount of speculation is healthy for any industry, I believe there's a tipping point beyond which it becomes more than a little silly. We spend so much time discussing the minutiae of what this mystery thing may or may not do that we forget the big picture of why we use technology in the first place.

As I wonder about the tablet, I can't help but think about netbooks. These diminutive, inexpensive devices were the hardware story of the year as budget-crushed consumers looked for ways to remain productive without cutting into that week's grocery order. There was no runup of publicity surrounding netbooks. No lineups around the block. No frenzied speculation about feature sets.

The netbook is the anti-tablet, then, a known device with known capabilities that consumers instantly get. The tablet? Not so much. Not that Apple should ever feel the need to make its own netbook, mind you. The company will never play in the low-margin end of the market. It doesn't need to play the price game to compete, and the tablet will continue that premium strategy. But when the hype machine kicks into overdrive, too many consumers end up buying not because they need it, but because they feel they'll be missing out if they don't buy in now. It's as shallow as the pet rock was, a purchase rationale that revolves around being part of the crowd and not around actually meeting a particular life need.

“We spend so much time discussing the minutiae of what this mystery thing may or may not do that we forget the big picture of why we use technology in the first place.”

-Carmi Levy

Which is why I'm so troubled by this latest chapter in extreme Apple fanboyism. The tablet may yet be the solution to a number of critical challenges facing a range of industries. It could be the platform that saves the newspaper and magazine industry. It could be the e-book reader solution that does for book publishing what the iPod did for the music industry. It could rewrite the future of any company, in virtually any industry, with the courage to strike a deal with Mr. Jobs. But until we actually see the device and know what it's capable of, we just don't know.

Which makes every breathless report a senseless exercise in crystal ball-gazing.

Perchance to dream

Maybe the ongoing recession has made us more willing to dream about what may be, to adopt a childlike desire to buy stuff that makes us feel good about ourselves. Maybe tough times make it easier to sell something based more on fiction than on fact. Maybe we all need a little escape, and the hype-in-overdrive may indeed give us precisely that opportunity.

But at some point, we need to get back to reality. And when I pull my wallet out of my pocket in 2010, it'll be to buy something that directly addresses a known issue in my personal and/or professional life, and I won't be lining up in the middle of the night for the privilege of being among the first to have it. As Apple's herd moves mainstream, I'm quickly losing my desire to buy into its mindless mania.

Broken Berry: RIM runs out of free passes

Publié: décembre 28, 2009, 4:57pm CET par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

Like the other over-50% of smartphone-owning people in North America, I'm quite the fan of my BlackBerry. Even in an era when newer kids on the block -- namely Apple's iPhone and Google's Android -- garner more accolades and headlines for having slicker interfaces and cooler (and more) apps, the BlackBerry platform remains the safe, reliable choice that's good enough for most consumers and businesses. Despite analyst predictions that the BlackBerry will someday be reeled in by the upstarts, Research In Motion continues to grow and dominate the market it practically defined a decade ago.

We may want to revisit the "reliable" bit, though. After a week from hell marked by two highly publicized continent-wide outages, BlackBerry users are asking themselves whether this is the new normal, and why BlackBerry devices seem especially vulnerable to this kind of mass outage when competing platforms like iPhone and Android are not.

Centralization or distribution?

At issue is RIM's philosophy of routing messages through a centralized Network Operations Center (NOC). This architecture applies to BlackBerry Internet Service subscribers (corporate traffic routes through each company's own BlackBerry Enterprise Server), and allows RIM greater control over encryption and security than more distributed solutions.

This degree of centralization comes with a downside, however: Lose the NOC and you lose everything.

Wide Angle Zoom (200 px) While the Internet was originally designed as a distributed network of networks that could keep functioning even if entire chunks were blown away by a global thermonuclear exchange, RIM's philosophy is more like the conventional data centers of old, where monolithic machines behind impermeable walls managed all traffic and processing. In doing so, they allowed companies to have maximum control of all consolidated resources because they could manage virtually everything from a single pane of glass. It was simple. As long as everything worked.

As it built a solution that allowed it to deliver a level of end-to-end encryption that its competitors could only dream of, RIM evolved its NOCs to scale to global proportions. With 36 million subscribers and climbing, its network of NOCs -- each one allocated to a broad geographic region -- scaled to meet this growing demand. When the first mass outages became front-page news in 2007, however, the BlackBerry's Achilles Heel became all too apparent. As the problem persists almost three years later, it's fair to ask if a little more -- or, perhaps, a lot more -- redundancy is called for.

The increasing irrelevance of security

The thing is, the average person walking into a carrier's retail outlet doesn't much care whether one device, platform, or service is an order of magnitude more secure than another. For all our discussion about keeping ourselves safe when we go online, about bulletproof online banking and about keeping the latest malware away from our machines, we still haven't adapted our day-to-day behaviors to reflect this new high-security reality. We still don't think It Can Happen to Us -- we still click "Go Here" links that friends send us via e-mail and Facebook, and we still update our banking on surreptitiously grabbed (because they're free) Wi-Fi connections at the local coffee shop.

We do so because we believe that security, in general, is fundamentally good enough. Whatever devices, applications, and services we choose to use, and however we decide to make use of them, the risk of something really horrid happening to us -- at least from our vantage point -- remains tolerably low. So despite the fact that BlackBerry has always been the one with the differentially robust security architecture, the alarming truth for RIM is that most mainstream consumers don't give platform security a huge amount of thought before they invest in it.

This is who I root for

I live not too far from RIM's Waterloo, Ontario, Canada headquarters and the company casts a broad shadow throughout the region. Since RIM is ultimately my hometown team, I'll admit to sitting by the sidelines and wishing the company could lick this issue and stop future outages from happening. But despite its robust growth to-date, I fear it's only a matter of time before users get fed up with these unannounced service interruptions and start seriously considering alternatives. Will they dump their BlackBerry devices en masse in the months to come? Hardly. But will they start to entertain alternatives for the day when their contract runs out and it's time to consider a replacement? Absolutely. It's a slowly evolving process that RIM wants to stop, cold, now.

Like Microsoft before it, RIM's image as the inviolable alternative for its existing customers will end sooner if it can't put these high-profile failures behind it. In the absence of a permanent solution, the loyalty of existing customers will loosen just enough to give competitors room to weasel in, while the impression of potential customers will be muddied by the potential for future failures...and the memory of recent ones.

There's no rule that says a given platform will remain dominant forever. Just as Microsoft is grappling with a new reality, where longstanding customers of its packaged Office productivity suite are ever-so-slowly starting to look at less expensive or online alternatives, RIM now finds itself catering to customers whose long-held allegiance to its platform is beginning to weaken in the face of more robust competition and a fast-evolving market demand that cares less about security than it does about ease of use and application availability. Headlines like this don't help matters.

As we lean more heavily on our mobile devices to manage our day-to-day workflow, having our connectivity simply removed for hours at a stretch, with nary a word from the vendor, itself becomes a security risk. When you're away from the office, your mobile device is your lifeline. As much as RIM wants customers to believe that encryption and centralized vendor control are the keys to an effective and safe mobile experience, customers beg to differ. Customers simply want it to work, and if the back-end technologies and processes aren't enough to keep widespread outages from happening, they'll happily go elsewhere to keep themselves connected and in business.

It's a radically different view of security than the one that RIM first laid out years ago, but one the company needs to both internalize and apply if it hopes to avoid flatlining in the year ahead. The proverbial clock is ticking.

Shut up and drive: The menace that is mobile technology

Publié: décembre 22, 2009, 1:12am CET par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

I like my toys behind the wheel as much as everyone else. Between my GPS, iPod, BlackBerry, and DVD player, I've got enough technology to avoid getting lost, stay entertained, stay connected, and keep my seat-belted kids from beating each other silly. I have no idea how my Luddite parents survived the Dark Ages before in-car electronics, and I'm not sure I ever really want to know.

Before setting off on a drive, it takes me about five minutes to get all my doo-dads connected and working. My wife, bless her, usually gives me a small grace period for fiddling before her patience wears thin.

Wakeup call from a trucker

After a particularly harrowing experience on the highway yesterday, I'm seriously considering turning them all off for good. While cruising along at an easy 70 mph and minding my own business in the middle lane, I heard what sounded like a gunshot. Straight ahead of me, the shredded tread from an obviously just-exploded tire flew out from under the trailer of an 18-wheeler in the right lane and rapidly closed in on my windshield.

Wide Angle Zoom (200 px) I did my best Michael Schumacher impression as I aggressively tossed the wondervan into the left lane and watched the flailing piece of rubber disappear to the right side of the car. Small pieces of debris bounced off of the hood as if to reinforce just how close we had come to having a really bad day.

After the adrenalin rush subsided and I was able to explain to the kids why I had just introduced them to the wonders of high-g maneuvering on a public highway, I thought about the amount of time I had to avoid disaster -- namely none -- and what might have happened had I instead been busy with my GPS, my iPod, my BlackBerry or the kids' DVD player. It wouldn't have been pretty.

The long arm of the law

My home province, Ontario, just enacted a law that bans the use of handheld electronics at the wheel. Effective now, drivers here aren't allowed to hold a cell phone to their ear, fiddle with an iPod, touch their GPS, or even text their mothers-in-law. As part of sweeping changes to eliminate accidents caused by distracted drivers, the provincial government is cracking down on any behind-the-wheel activity that takes the driver's eyes off the road. If a cop catches you not using a hands-free device or otherwise playing with your toys instead of devoting your full attention to piloting your vehicle, it'll cost you.

Good. Because if I had been skipping to the next song on my iPod when the tire just ahead of me decided to let go with a bang, I might be writing this from a very different place.

As scared straight as I am by yesterday's experience, I'm concerned that I'm screaming into the wind. Our collective desire for mobile gadgets reached the insatiable stage years ago, and is probably somewhere near scarily-addictive by now. What alarms me about the industry's apparent fascination with in-car electronics is its unwillingness to consider the potential dark side of this trend.

In recent years, vendors have been falling all over themselves with glee as miniaturization, integration, and economies of scale all converged on the automotive space. Thanks largely to Moore's Law, devices and capabilities that may once have been too large, expensive, feature-deficient, or cumbersome to build into a car have suddenly become feasible and affordable for pretty much everyone. The average family vehicle -- long a technological dead zone of half-melted cassettes and dusty AAA maps -- is suddenly a prime target for the latest mobile gadgets, and drivers are only too happy to buy in.

Saving the car industry, one option at a time

Car manufacturers, desperate for anything approaching profitability in the wake of their recessionary near-death/government-bailout experience, increasingly see in-car electronics as something approaching salvation. Adding $2,000 in-car nav systems and mobile Wi-Fi hotspots to virtually every model in the range allows carmakers to pad margins and drive recurring revenue (what, you thought those wireless subscriptions were free?) in an era where selling the basic car is no longer enough to guarantee survival.

But just because you can sell the giant screen that drops down from the ceiling so your kids can watch Dora the Explorer over a satellite link doesn't necessarily mean you should. On the last van I test-drove, the screen blocked the rear-view mirror for taller drivers, and the interface for getting it to work forced some parents to divert their attention away from the road while they tried desperately to get Dora back. On that same vehicle, the in-car nav -- part of a $2,500 option package -- was mounted relatively low in the center stack and used so many small buttons around the screen that even the supposedly well-trained sales rep gave up in frustration. And she was parked in the driveway.

As much as modern drivers like to pack their cars with the equivalent of a data center's worth of computing power, the sad truth is that little of it contributes to the act of driving safely, while much of it actually inhibits one's ability to keep one's vehicle between the lanes and in one piece. I've always known this somewhat logically, of course, but it was driven home when I realized just how close we all came to being smacked by an errant piece of road debris. When it happened, I was doing everything my driving instructor taught me to do, including looking down the road and actively watching for any trouble. The car I had just passed, whose driver may or may not have been texting her mother-in-law? I'm betting she wasn't.

At some point, our fascination with all things technological needs to align in some form with the basic physics of everyday life. At some point, someone we know will be on the wrong end of a texting driver or a Dora-finding parent, and by then it may be too late to wonder why we never bothered to check our unabashed adoration of in-car electronics at the door.

The hang-up with the Google Phone

Publié: décembre 18, 2009, 4:24pm CET par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

Have you ever noticed that the next great über-device is always something ahead that people want, but rarely -- if ever -- something in front of them that they have? It almost doesn't matter what that device is, just as long as the rumor mill is so overhyped and over-amped that device-tech followers can't focus on anything else. It's almost as if the device is sustained by its lack of existence, by its mythology rather than its technology. As long as it's "out there," rather than right here, it becomes the single focal point for anyone who lusts after it, and fans literally count the days until it hits the shelves and changes their lives forever. "Forever," in this case, being about 38 minutes, until the rumor mill cranks back up again.

It's like a great party, where reality doesn't seem to matter much as long as everyone's having a good time.

And almost three years after Apple announced the iPhone and kicked off a new era in über-device worship, Google's taking a crack at the iPhone killer crown with its rumored upcoming handset, the Nexus One. Is it or is it not an iPhone killer? Should we even care? And while we're at it can we please retire the phrase "something-something-killer?" It's getting old.

A strange shift in direction

Wide Angle Zoom (200 px) I'll apologize now for not having gotten it in the beginning. I thought Google's strategy was to quarterback the Open Handset Alliance, to get a broad-based consortium of handset vendors, carriers, and software developers together to redefine how the typical mobile device is designed, coded, and sold. I assumed Google's stewardship was the first significant effort to make modern mobile platforms open and less expensive. I felt this way right up until the moment that the near-mythical Nexus One/Google Phone/Latest Jesus Device emerged from the shadows, and all but confirmed Google's intention to go for Apple's and RIM's respective jugulars.

I do understand why Google would want to have its own branded phone. No one, after all, enjoys letting someone else get all the accolades -- and the Android project is designed from the outset to let the handset vendors and carriers control the shots, and ultimately brand themselves more closely to end-users than Google can.

There's a reason why Apple and Research In Motion own both the hardware and OS for their respective platforms: They can define every aspect of the end-user experience without giving anything away to anyone else. If closed environments are the domain of the control freaks among us, then projects designed to be more open often leave quarterbacks like Google forgotten while everyone else celebrates in the end zone. Sure they designed, initiated and controlled the play, but they were way on the other end of the field when points were scored.

Google, from where it sits, is tired of letting Motorola, LG, Samsung, et al, own the stage and drink in the fans' adulation. The company hopes that by jumping across the software/hardware divide, its upcoming self-branded phone might allow it to capture some marketing mojo.

More specifically, Google also wants absolute control over how it connects services to advertisements to audiences. In its traditionally delivered Web services world, it doesn't answer to handset vendors who customize their own devices for their own purposes. While it has to ensure its services play nice with Internet Explorer and Firefox, no other players stand between it and its advertising targets -- namely, us. Its Chrome browser and Chrome OS project are designed to strengthen that connection still further, while enabling it to more closely control the technologies that drive its ever-growing spigot of ad-based revenue. The same thinking now applies on the mobile side.

From friend to foe

All this brings no comfort to LG, Motorola, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, and the other handset vendors who, as part of the Open Handset Alliance, either are or will be leveraging Android in their own products. Their partner since day one has now emerged as a competitor. And it's not just any company -- it's the 800-pound gorilla of every market it touches.

For Motorola, the last thing it needs after delivering its first serious hit following years of wandering in the smartphone desert, is the vendor equivalent of the Borg now breathing down its neck. I wonder if the handset vendors' respective decisions to join the Alliance and place their bets behind Android would have been any different had they known back then that Google would someday try to move into their territory. I also wonder if this opens the door for Alliance members to start hedging their bets elsewhere, in case Google uses this initial device as the foundation for a more aggressive push into mobile hardware.

I'm probably being just slightly too hard on Google. As a publicly traded company, it has every right to competitively pursue whatever avenues it sees fit to drive revenues, profits, and ultimately, shareholder value. Its earlier efforts to break a carrier-controlled model it has long characterized as unfairly expensive, complex, and punitive to consumers (remember its position on 700 MHz spectrum?) highlight a very real need to change the way consumers and businesses acquire, use, and pay for mobility. Its ability to efficiently generate advertising-based revenue from online activity should evolve nicely from its roots on the desktop to the rapidly expanding mobile environment. Its very future depends on it, frankly, as conventional PC growth flattens and mobile take-up explodes.

In short, Google has no choice but to be aggressive in everything it does in the wireless space. And if that means becoming a hardware vendor, too (well, through its OEM proxy, HTC), then that's what it intends to do to make it happen. Along the way, though, it risks alienating partners it worked years to get to this point. It also risks derailing Android's momentum just before it truly breaks into the mainstream as a credible alternative to the iPhone and BlackBerry.

The fans will doubtless get their new phone before long (look for an official announcement during CES). But once the fever of a hot new device wears off, Google may find itself dealing with the longer-term implications of ticking off the very partners it needs to ensure the new platform's ultimate success. No one ever said the handset business was easy. Google's about to learn this first-hand.

The wireless data paradox: AT&T asks you to use less data

Publié: décembre 14, 2009, 10:45pm CET par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

AT&T top story badge So let me get this straight: AT&T says iPhone users are using too much data. And to ease the resulting strain on its network, the carrier wants to...(ahem)...encourage its customers to throttle back on YouTube, live-streamed radio, and other media-rich apps. A week after playing the good guy with "Mark the Spot," a handy iPhone app that lets users report on coverage dead zones, AT&T is reversing any goodwill gained by warning heavy users they may soon face extra charges for their data gluttony.

Someone please tell me this is little more than a badly thought-out joke.

Since when does a supposedly progressive-thinking company try to rein in its customers' behavior by asking them to turn back the clock? Last I checked, technology tended to evolve in only one direction, and trying to slow it down or reverse it would be as advisable as attempting to hold back an accelerating space shuttle. Of course, an iPhone isn't cranking out millions of pounds of rocket-fuelled thrust, but the prospect of millions of subscribers peacefully going along with AT&T's grand plan strikes me as risky and ill-advised in its own right.

A failure of its own making

Part of me wants to feel more than a little sorry for AT&T. Its exclusive deal with Apple should have been a coup for the carrier. A couple of years of US market exclusivity for the iPhone should have been more than enough to attract -- and keep -- scads of Apple-loving, subscription-paying smartphone fans who happily lived at the upper end of the average revenue per user (ARPU) curve. The marquee value of being the iPhone's exclusive carrier should have been sufficient to reinforce AT&T's market position in the brutal pecking order of carriers.

Wide Angle Zoom (200 px) But a funny thing happened on the way to smartphone nirvana: AT&T's network proved to be woefully under-built for the iPhone's unprecedented data appetite. So rather than spend what it needed to bolster the nuts and bolts that kept iPhone users connected and happy, the company instead continued to market the heck out of its uber-product -- and in doing so continued to hope that folks wouldn't notice.

Unfortunately for AT&T, they did notice. And as more iPhone users use more data-heavy apps (just what the ads have been telling them to do all along), network reliability continues to plumb the depths and subscriber complaints continue to pour in. The problem, particularly acute in device-dense urban areas, manifested itself most recently in San Francisco this past Friday, when many iPhone users found themselves without Internet connectivity for much of the afternoon. It wasn't the first time this has happened and it likely won't be the last as iPhone mania -- both in terms of new users signing onm and existing users becoming more at one with the device -- shows no signs of abating.

Not entirely in control

Sadly for existing AT&T customers, it doesn't look as if the carrier has much of a handle on the problem. Speaking at a conference last week, CEO and president of AT&T mobility and consumer markets Ralph de la Vega admitted its New York and San Francisco wireless coverage was "below our standards." Jim Cicconi, the company's senior executive vice president of external and legislative affairs, was similarly blunt, in an interview last week with CNET's Marguerite Reardon:

Wireless-data usage is growing far faster than anyone had expected. And if we don't do something soon, we will run out very fast. And then we will have to start telling wireless customers that they can't do all the things they want to do with their devices.

I have to apologize to Mr. Cicconi, who clearly wishes he had had happier news to share, but his position is bogus. Data usage didn't grow faster than anyone -- notably AT&T -- expected. It grew just as quickly as the pundits claimed it would. In fact, we'd be in even worse shape if the economy hadn't tanked and kept even more consumers from diving into the iPhone pool.

It's hard to believe that AT&T couldn't anticipate the wireless data growth curve. It's also rather easy to believe AT&T hoped it would be able to ride the iPhone wave without investing enough in its wireless infrastructure to handle the load. Like the car owner who puts off slapping on winter tires as the cheapskate's way out of preparing for winter, AT&T got caught short when the big blizzard rolled in and it was woefully unprepared.

All of which leaves AT&T in an unenviable position where 3% of its iPhone subscribers account for 40% of total data usage. Does it institute usage caps on these heavy users? Does it throttle them back? Does it charge them through the nose? Perhaps it might consider doing all three. If you want to play the game at a level or two beyond everyone else, after all, perhaps you should be willing to pay extra for the privilege.

History repeats itself

We've been down this road before, of course, with peer-to-peer downloaders running afoul of ISPs' acceptable use policies. In many cases, usage caps, throttling and differential rate plans have quelled the debate, and ensured regular folks can still get stuff done online without their sessions slowing to a crawl. We'll save the net neutrality debate for another day, but clearly the industry needs a way to balance the needs of the heavy-duty users with those who just want to send an e-mail to grandma.

Unfortunately, AT&T exemplifies precisely the kind of strategy the industry doesn't need right now, if ever. You can't sell the heck out of a solution, starve it, and then hope consumers don't complain too loudly. You can't blame the mega-streaming 3% for doing what your ads have been begging them to do since the day you first started selling the device. You can't back away from your own accountability to do everything you can to deliver a quality end-user experience. You can't use differential rate plans before you've ensured your network can first be all that it can be.

And if you try, consumers with long memories will keep that in mind the day you lose exclusivity. Because the first carrier that punishes heavy users in this manner will itself end up punished.

iTunes gets cloudy: Will a web-ified future save iTunes or kill it?

Publié: décembre 11, 2009, 12:43am CET par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

I'm not at all surprised that Apple's recent purchase of Lala Media, a previously-ignored music streaming outfit that likely would have flatlined otherwise, is already generating rumblings of impending major change to one of the most pivotal brands in its arsenal. While it was the iPod and iPhone devices that first established Apple's consumer product cred and later sealed its long-term position on the techno-cultural podium, it was iTunes that turned the process of buying, managing and consuming content from a chaotic mess into something that ultimately killed the local record store and permanently changed the entertainment landscape.

If only the world never changed

But nothing stays still for long, and as iTunes gets ready to celebrate its ninth birthday, its future is already being rewritten. And none too soon, because iTunes is badly in need of fixing. The package has virtually always been a pig. It's too large, unwieldy, and slow for its own good, and too quirky in day-to-day use. It sucks back system resources and forces users who like to work to music to make a tough call: iTunes, or work, but not both at the same time unless the performance goal is a 386 running WordPerfect circa 1989.

Apple has had eight major upgrade opportunities to get it right, and it's failed at every turn, adding features on top of an already rickety architecture and letting users on both Macs and Windows suffer the performance-sapping consequences. The interface, which has often served as a canvas for Apple's latest design theme, violates more usability principles than the dashboard of a first-generation Yugo.

Wide Angle Zoom (200 px) The intent of iTunes is admirable, and it's been hugely successful largely because it's free and most folks consider it good enough. But it's about as far removed from Apple's simple-at-all-costs ethos as you can possibly get. It's time for Apple to get serious and apply the same design- and usage-led thinking to iTunes that it applies to everything else in its stable.

The shift is already underway

The timing for this transition is ideal given the current trend toward thinner, Web-based, mobile-friendly solutions that don't necessarily revolve around a computer. The concept of mobile devices tethered to desktop or laptop computers laden with entire libraries of purchased or downloaded music is increasingly seen as yesterday's model. Folks are getting tired of having to download something to a computer before syncing it to a mobile device. They're fed up with having to move gigabytes of content from one hard drive to another when they get a new machine.

Thanks to Google's ever expanding universe of Web-based services, consumers are also gradually becoming more comfortable moving some (not all, not yet, but getting there) of their precious data to the cloud. But it won't stop with productivity-related data. It's inevitable that music, video and related entertainment-focused content moves in that direction as well.

This transition toward cloud-based paradigms isn't just affecting the Microsofts of the world, and Apple knows it. And before a savvy web services outfit outflanks it with a cloud-focused content acquisition and management solution that out-iTunes iTunes, it looks like Apple's building a web-ified, wireless-driven solution of its own. Good on them. If you're listening, Mr. Jobs, here's my wish list:

Make it work on any mobile device. I know it's tempting to give preference to the iPhone and iPod Touch crowd. Avoid the temptation at all costs. Remember how the original Mac-only iTunes exploded in popularity and cultural significance as soon as you released it for Windows? Keep the same strategy in mind this time out and make sure other major platforms like BlackBerry, Android and, yes, even Palm's webOs get to join the party. I know you've had fun blocking Palm devices from using iTunes, and I appreciate that you own the playground and want consumers to keep buying Apple-branded mobile devices. But at some point, this proprietary silliness has to end.
Let me store everything in the cloud. Google's been hemming and hawing over its mythical Gdrive for longer than I wish to remember. Don't make the same mistake. Even if you have to cannibalize your .ME service, find a way to cost effectively let iTunes users stream their content online, again from any device. Whoever drives ubiquitous, cost effective, Web-based storage into the mainstream first, wins.
Make the wireless carriers play ball. Strike a deal with them to introduce stream-friendly rate plans. AT&T will hate you, but none of this will ever fly if wireless consumers are worried about busting their measly 500 MB/month data allocations.
Don't kill me with DRM. Don't make me jump through hoops to enjoy legitimately purchased content on a number of devices and/or platforms. Your decision to make the current iTunes DRM-free was a great one. Don't change direction now.
Ignore protests from record labels and studios. They'll certainly howl with each inevitable step away from the models they've held near and dear for so long. Tough. After they failed to anticipate and respond to the realities of selling content in a broadband-driven Internet era, it fell to you, Apple, to introduce a model that worked well enough for everyone. Don't let them ruin the party now that content moves from download-and-install to cloud-based.

In the coming year, I expect this landscape to get a lot more convoluted than it already is, as players large and small maneuver around each other for position. As is often the case when markets move through historic inflection points, it isn't fully clear how all this will play out and who will be left standing when the dust settles. But the lessons that Apple taught the then-new online music market earlier this decade -- delete superfluous features, integrate the hardware, software and network, simplify the purchase experience -- continue to apply in today's vastly expanded multimedia market.

It'll be nice to finally have an iTunes delivery method that lives up to the promise and doesn't frustrate us with unchecked bloat, machine-tied inconvenience and interface-based gridlock in the process.

Not the first, not the last, technology predictions for 2010

Publié: décembre 8, 2009, 2:35am CET par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

December never fails to make me cringe. I know full well that journalists will be filling my inbox all month long with countless requests to guess what next year's hot technologies will be.

I can understand why they would. Trying to predict what comes next in tech has always been an important way for businesses and consumers alike to make the right decisions about what to buy -- and what to avoid -- in the months ahead. Like the groundhogs who have been doing something similar for generations, we all want to know what's coming so we can plan more effectively for the future.

Fine, fine...I'll do it

Being the good little soldier that I am, I'll do my best to give them folks the answers they need. Virtualization? Absolutely. Anything green? Without a doubt. Wireless? That's about as sure as shooting fish in a barrel. Then I'll put my crystal ball away for another year before pulling it out and replaying the process yet again, albeit with slightly updated predictions.

Wide Angle Zoom (200 px) No one ever bothers to...Okay, I take that back. No one except Joe Wilcox ever bothers to measure whether these predictions are on the mark. But I don't see small business owners prowling the aisles of the local big box store with these end-of-year or end-of-decade prediction articles in hand, zeroing in on the stuff the analysts thought would sell.

I realize I'm selling my profession somewhat short, but we're no more clairvoyant than the next guy. Indeed, clairvoyance isn't what being an analyst and making annual projections is all about. Because we spend all day, every day, studying this stuff, we certainly have lots of hard-earned insight. We can certainly speak to the forces that may be driving one particular technology faster than another. We also understand, innately, what all this could mean for the average person or organization using these new tools. But asking us to list them in precise order of priority, or predict where Company A's market share will be at this time next year is about as precise, productive, and effective as choosing the trifecta at a soon-to-be-shuttered racetrack.

Still, my curmudgeonly attitude aside, I realize nothing I do or say will stop the annual ritual. So since I can't beat 'em, I may as well join them. Here's how I see 2010 playing out:

Lots of wireless carriers will claim to have 4G or 4G-ready devices, networks and services. They'll all be lying. They might want to wait until the ITU actually ratifies one or more of the dozen or so proposals in front of it before laying claim to a technology that, as of today, doesn't officially exist.
Apple's App Store will more than double in size to over 200,000 apps. The actual number will matter less to the planet, and to the average user, than it does today. Its competitors will continue their futile efforts to stay in Apple's numbers orbit. They, too, will be wasting their time.
The term "netbook" will officially be banned in my presence. It's a really small notebook, people. Why it merits its own name when other machine sizes don't is beyond me. No one calls 17-plus-inch laptops "heavybooks", so they?
Palm's comeback stalls as developers stay away in droves and carriers move on to the Next Big New Thing. It simply lacks the resources to maintain a consistently full product pipeline, and will be a lovely acquisition target by this time next year.
Google's Android becomes The Next Big New Thing as consumers and businesses alike learn that platforms matter far more than devices. Platforms that advance the state of the mobile Web services art -- which Android will do in spades as developers improve their skills on it -- may even remain The Next Big New Thing well into 2011.
Microsoft's Windows Mobile 7.0 finally ships, but turns out to be too little, too late, and fails to stop the company's mobile slide. Since it hasn't yet converted its Danger acquisition into a strategic driver of future mobile growth, Microsoft will be actively looking for a new acquisition target next year to re-energize its mobile ambitions.
Apple finally kills its iPod Classic. The Shuffle isn't too far behind: Do we know anyone who owns one?
The iPhone won't grow a keyboard. Apple's single-form-factor strategy has worked nicely so far, so it sees no reason to mess with a good thing.
The mythical Tablet won't ship in 2010, but unseen forces at Apple's Cupertino campus will nevertheless continue to enjoy pulling the strings on the most masterfully conceived shadow marketing campaign ever.
Windows 7 will continue to do well in the market. Lots of folks will continue to whine about Vista. Not because there's any point, mind you. Just because.
Office 2010 will ship. The Office 2003 holdouts still complaining about Office 2007's radical new interface will continue to be the ones least likely to actually own legal copies.
Facebookers, Twitterers, and bloggers will continue to post frightening volumes of private information online, and will continue to scream bitterly when their boss (or mother, or spouse, or mistress) finds out about their so-called "private" postings. I predict the Internet in 2010 will be just as private (namely, not at all) as it was in 2009. And every year beforehand, too. The rest of us will continue to be entertained by folks who still don't get it.
Speaking of Facebook, it will introduce more changes to its interface as it zooms through half a billion users and becomes a UN-recognized nation. Users, who all pay nothing for the service, will howl to anyone who will listen that Mark Zuckerberg ruined their lives.
Google's relentless campaign to own every shred of data we've ever created, owned, or touched picks up steam thanks to legions of users who, in the rush to start using the latest doodad from Mountain View, still refuse to read the Terms of Use statement before clicking the "I Agree" button.
I will polish off my crystal ball around this time next year, because maybe this prognostication thing isn't so annoying after all. Just don't hold your breath waiting for any or all of these to come true. Sometimes, technology should just follow its own course.

See ya later, WinMo: Microsoft's mobile strategy needs a reboot

Publié: décembre 3, 2009, 10:57pm CET par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

Microsoft Windows Mobile alternate top story badge There are lots of winners in the wireless wars. Microsoft, unfortunately, isn't one of them. Thirteen years after it first introduced Windows CE, its homegrown OS for small devices finds itself perilously close to oblivion. With market share for Windows Mobile OS in freefall, vendors fleeing and its mindshare in meltdown, now is as good a time as any for the company to dive into a full-on re-think of its mobile strategy.

Or an exit from the market until it can figure out what makes the most sense.

While it's unfortunate that the company that dominated the desktop for so long hasn't been able to repeat that success on shrunken-down devices, Microsoft's experience should serve as an example to the players now lining up for their shot of wireless glory.

What's in a name?

Microsoft's first mistake was branding. It never stuck with a name long enough for the public to know what it was buying. Or should buy.

What started life as Windows CE eventually became Pocket PC, and then Windows Mobile. With enough variations and flavors to confuse even the most ardent Microsoft fan (quick, what's the difference between Windows Mobile 2003 SE for Pocket PC Phone Edition and Windows Mobile 2003 SE for Smartphone?) it's no wonder that most consumers long ago dropped Microsoft's mobile products off of their radar. Even now, the company hasn't learned: Its current "Windows phone" branding makes a murky brand identity even murkier.

Wide Angle Zoom (200 px) I admit to having owned two Microsoft-powered devices in my lifetime: a Windows CE 2.0-powered HP 360LX and, later, a Motorola Q smartphone that ran Windows Mobile 5.0. While the old clamshell-style HP was too big to shlep around in my pocket, the Q was lean enough to be my constant companion. Unfortunately, its barely-contained Windows heritage made it something of a dog in day-to-day use. Basic address lookups became tests of patience as I stood on sidewalks and waited for my lithe, almost-sexy-looking phone to churn through my contact list and return the name I asked for.

Not lean. Not mean.

When I traded the Q in for a BlackBerry, I spent an hour in-store scenario-testing updated WinMo machines -- by then, up to the 6.0-standard -- against everything else the store had. And still, I waited for even the most basic of tasks. For all its engineering prowess, Microsoft never integrated the lean-and-mean ethos that has always driven competitors who didn't already own the desktop OS market. Even today, claims on its Web site that, "It's like your PC just grew legs," illustrate the kind of disconnected thinking that continues to fuel the mobile unit's decline. Tech-conservative enterprises may like its security and Windows familiarity, but that's no longer enough.

Which brings us to Microsoft's second mistake: assuming that a great mobile OS was simply a pared down version of its desktop equivalent. Microsoft, which has subscribed to this mantra right down to the Start menu and cascading menus that until recently defined the UI, completely missed the mark on this one. We don't use handsets in the same way that we use laptops. We don't necessarily need to replicate the full-on interface and user experience of the average PC.

First, we don't have the screen real estate. What works on a 23-inch flat screen doesn't simply shrink to the 3-ish-inch panels on most phones today. And if you try to make it shrink (heaven knows, Microsoft has tried), the end result is a jumbled on-screen layout and confusing navigation.

Second, we don't have the time. It may be acceptable to wait a few seconds for our laptops to look up an address. After all, we have dozens of other windows running at the same time, so we're absolutely free to pop into any of them and work on something else until the machine completes the task. We can also heat up our tea, catch up on water cooler gossip, or simply sit back in our seats and relax. When you're in transit, you need that answer now. From an often underpowered, battery-deficient sliver of technology that you're using in the millisecond before an errant taxi mounts the curb and ruins your day.

Others innovate while WinMo stagnates

Apple, which wisely stripped anything remotely desktop-like out of its Mac OS X when adapting it for the iPhone, gets the need for simplicity. Likewise, Research In Motion, whose BlackBerry devices are often pilloried by tech-fashionistas for having an OS whose interface hasn't changed much in a decade, remains a model of stripped down simplicity. My BlackBerry may not incorporate every last feature from the laptop in my office, but when I'm zinging from meeting to meeting, I don't need every last feature. I just need the thing to work. And it does. Fluidly.

The success of Apple's App Store and Google's Android Market illustrate another key Microsoft weakness. Apple's 100,000 apps and Google's 10,000 dwarf Microsoft's Windows Marketplace for Mobile, which launched in October (for 6.5-based machines only) with about 250 titles. Last month, it tacked on a whopping 84 apps to that title, by finally extending the Marketplace back to WinMo 6.0.

While the oft-delayed WinMo 7.0 could have created some much-needed excitement before compelling new alternatives hit the market and shifted vendor attention away from Microsoft, it's becoming increasingly clear that not even a new OS can rescue WinMo.

Microsoft's acquisition last year of Hiptop vendor Danger Inc. shows it's not giving up just yet. Rumors have also swirled that the company's interested in acquiring RIM. Still, the Danger acquisition has already bitten Microsoft after a high-profile data loss in October. A possible RIM buyout would lead to similar grief, as it makes no sense to break the bank before you get your own house in order. On culture alone, a Microsoft-RIM linkup would be an integration nightmare.

After 13 years and countless kicks at the can, it's time for Microsoft to call it a day. Kill Windows Mobile, consolidate resources and skills from the shuttered unit as well as Danger and Zune -- which continues to impress with technically sophisticated offerings that languish on store shelves -- and pick one cohesive strategy. Then stick with it. And whatever the company decides, it has to move fast. By this time next year, the market, dominated by RIM, Apple, and Google, will be even less forgiving than it is now.

Not-so-mobile battery life: Time to force the issue

Publié: novembre 30, 2009, 6:47pm CET par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

I was having a lovely conversation last week with a woman who had just upgraded to a Palm Pre. She's been an avid user of Palm products since the company's first-generation PalmPilots defined the PDA market, and was thrilled to see her beloved Palm finally get back into the game with a modern smartphone, a competitive OS, and a reasonably solid-looking business plan.

She waxed poetic about its user interface, the slickness of its multitasking, the smoothness of its application integration, and its great camera. I nodded appreciatively as she took me through her experience. I'm an old Palm PDA addict, too, and I often find myself secretly rooting for the company to overcome its demons and regain, if not market dominance, then at least something that'll allow it to survive and thrive as a smaller kind of innovative agent provocateur in a larger smartphone market.

Your mileage may vary

Then she told me about battery life, and suddenly things weren't so lovely. Her device lasts for about three hours of consistent use before she needs to plug in. Granted, she admits she's a heavy user, often hammering away at her device as incessantly as most of us use a regular desktop or laptop computer during a typical work session. Even so, she hardly expected to have to charge up by lunch each and every work day. It means she carts her adapter with her wherever she goes. She's bought one for the car, too, as well as an extra one for the office so she's never far from a top-up.

And on the days when she's either not in the office or simply forgets to bring an adapter along with her? She lightens her use as much as possible, which sometimes gets her to dinnertime. Or she simply does without, which kind of defeats the purpose of buying a mobile device.

Wide Angle Zoom (200 px) I'm not the only one who thinks this is a little more than ridiculous. Later, over dinner with a group of tech journalists, they all scoffed at a half-workday's worth of power, and said they'd strike any energy-deficient devices off their personal-purchase shortlists. And while our battery-starved Pre user says she remains enamored of her new device and has no intentions of returning it to the store, they felt those intentions were largely due to her status as a Palm superfan. Their opinion was, only a true Palm fanboy or fangirl would find it within herself or himself to ignore such a glaring fact as energy drop-off, when comparing the Pre to any other device in the store...assuming she'd even go so far as to make a comparison first.

Behold the power-blind consumer

But maybe that's the problem: You can't really see power drop-off in the store, can you? Chances are, most consumers will never know about battery performance before they sign up for a two- or three-year contract and bring their new wonderphone home. At least when we buy cars, we have EPA stickers that provide somewhat understandable estimates of city and highway fuel economy. We know the numbers are often optimistic because the test regime is so patently disconnected from the real world. But at least these figures provide some basis for comparison and understanding. Consumer electronics buyers don't even have that. Manufacturers provide little to no guidance and in-store salespeople, focused on making the commission-boosting sale, are rarely of much use.

And using "lousy battery life" as an excuse for returning a recently purchased phone won't fly with most carriers. It isn't defective, after all: That's just the way the thing was designed. (I suppose you could lie, but I can't sanction such behavior.) If you bought the electronic equivalent of a gas guzzler, you're stuck either buying extra batteries for the thing, or walking around with adapters in your bag and one eye on the nearest outlet.

Palm Pre Demo

This isn't solely Palm's issue, and I don't want to seem like I'm harping on this one company. The sad reality is all smartphones suffer from this same affliction to varying degrees. Every new feature seems to require a new kind of radio. Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, and multiple flavors of second- and third-generation cell network coverage may result in the electronic age equivalent of the Swiss Army knife, but they exact a heavy toll on battery life. Once you turn them all on simultaneously to run all those funky apps you downloaded to find the nearest restaurant, alert your friends via Twitter and Facebook, shoot and upload a video of your adventure and keep the cops from busting you for not using a handsfree device, you'll be looking for supplemental juice soon, too.

Apple's iPhone gets an extra slap with a wet noodle because of its non-removable battery. At least the Pre gives you the option of swapping in a fully charged battery when your first one dies. The iPhone seems to be somewhat better at managing its battery through the day, but even friends and colleagues I've spoken to say stretching things much past dinnertime is often asking too much.

Failure to meet growing demand

Moore's Law never seems to have applied to battery life. And while processors, memory, and screens have all advanced by leaps and bounds in recent years, batteries have not. While new battery technologies and chemistries hold promise, we're stuck in neutral -- or reverse -- for at least the next couple of years.

Perhaps we've grown accustomed to laptops that barely squeeze two or three hours out of a full charge. Perhaps we've actually believed netbook manufacturers who claim eight-hour runtimes or handheld vendors who swear by week-long standby endurance. Whatever our earlier assumptions, we now know we're being hosed on the battery life front. We've moved beyond basic e-mail and voice on our mobile handsets, and now use them to run intensive, integrated, connectivity- and power-hungry applications. It's entirely appropriate for us to move power capacity closer to the top of our priority list.

Until an industry standard for battery life along the same lines as the EPA's fuel economy estimates emerges for mobile devices, consumers will continue to shop blindly, only to get home and gradually realize that they aren't as mobile as they thought they were. Expect this to be portability's Achilles Heel until the industry gets serious about properly, and transparently, balancing between power and performance, and until consumers begin to demand the same.

The fallacy of Facebook privacy

Publié: novembre 26, 2009, 7:03pm CET par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

Natalie Blanchard is either the most naïve Facebook user in the history of the social networking service, or an incredibly unlucky woman who just can't seem to get back on her feet. Whatever title she ends up wearing, she's quickly becoming the poster child for caution in the social media age. Unless you belong to a mysterious sect that specifically bans any form of online activity, either learn her difficult lesson or risk suffering a similar fate.

The resident of Bromont, Quebec, Canada suffers from severe depression and has been on long-term disability leave from her job at IBM for over a year-and-a-half. She had been receiving benefits from her company's insurer, Manulife, until earlier this fall when the checks suddenly stopped coming. When she called her insurance agent to find out why, she was told the company had looked up her supposedly private Facebook account, and found pictures of her posing with Chippendale dancers at a bar, attending a birthday party, and enjoying a beach vacation.

For its part, Manulife won't comment specifically about the Blanchard case. While the company has said it "would not deny or terminate a valid claim solely based on information published on Web sites such as Facebook," it did confirm that it does check into the Facebook accounts of its clients. And given Facebook's architecture, even a private account will leak information like photos and status updates to anyone with even a basic ability to navigate the service. Despite Facebook's recent efforts to shore up its privacy policies and procedures, its online definition and application of the term still differs greatly from how we learned it as kids.

Privacy? What privacy?

This comes too late to help Blanchard, of course, who couldn't understand how her insurance overlords got a hold of her supposedly locked down postings. This was her first, last, and only mistake. Because nothing is ever private on the Internet. And at the risk of kicking an unfortunate soul when she's already down, if you really wanted to keep something to yourself, you wouldn't put it online -- in any form -- in the first place.

Wide Angle Zoom (200 px) We participate in social media specifically because we want to share slices of our respective life stories with those around us. Some of us also want to grow that audience, hence the relentless pressure to amass more online "friends" and followers. These tools have turned many of us into prolific broadcasters. And like any broadcast, where what's sent out is often consumed by a different audience than the originally intended one, there's always a risk, however small, of the message landing wrong. In Blanchard's case, not only did the photographic message spread further than intended, but it also prompted her insurer to believe she was no longer suffering from depression and could head back to work.

Whether she returns to her office or stays home will now likely be decided in court. Blanchard has filed a $275,000 civil suit against the insurer, and the first hearing is scheduled for Quebec Superior Court on December 8. However this particular case plays out, Facebookers, Twitterers, MySpacers, and bloggers everywhere now have another high-profile example of someone who, for whatever reason, failed to appreciate the impact her online activities would have on her real life.

In many respects, it's easy to feel sorry for Ms. Blanchard in her rejection of the insurer's rejection of her. She feels wronged by the company. She feels the company mistakenly assumes the pictures its investigators saw were clear evidence of her recovery. She claims the clubhopping, the partying, and the prancing around on the beach were all recommended by her doctor -- tonics for a depressed soul. She claimed that "in the moment" she felt fine, but leading up to and following the moments when those pictures were taken, she remained her depressed self.

The futility of picking a winner

It's hard to tell who's right and who's wrong in a case like this. And in virtually all respects, it simply doesn't matter. Manulife drew its own conclusions based on the evidence available to it through social media. Whether it's justified or not is almost irrelevant. Merely the whiff of impropriety in a social media posting is often enough to prompt an employer, an insurer, or some other class of protagonist to pull the plug.

As we lead more of our lives online, the number of incidents like this will only skyrocket. Things like due process and presumption of innocence will all be tossed out the window as large organizations become more comfortable with their newfound power over employees and other small-potatoes stakeholders. HR departments now routinely Google job applicants and dig into their activities on popular social media sites to get a better picture of them than any resume or cover letter could ever provide. You can say what you want in your application package, the thinking goes, but what you do on your own time speaks volumes about the kind of person you really are...and whether you'll even get to that coveted first interview. The scrutiny doesn't end when you get the job, either, as our desire to hang it all out for all to see has tilted the playing field in favor of those who employ us.

I'd like to assume the rules for staying under the radar in this increasingly open, privacy-free environment are straightforward and easily understood. I'd also like to assume that there's an all-encompassing list of do's and don'ts out there that we can use as a guide for this Byzantine new order. But we all know where assumptions ultimately lead us, and in any event, the environment is changing too quickly for any one solution to ever stick long enough to be useful.

The sad truth is this: There's no way to ensure every person who reads every one of our online activities will absorb the tone of the message exactly as we originally intended. We could, of course, unplug completely. But that's an alternative that carries risks of its own, most of which are significantly worse than running afoul of some pencil-pushing insurance industry investigator.

Where there's smoke: Apple warranty stance raises troubling questions

Publié: novembre 24, 2009, 2:18am CET par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

I'm the last person who would ever come out in support of smoking. It's a noxious, nasty habit that according to the US Centers for Disease Control kills 443,000 Americans every year. The CDC says smoking is the root cause of over 30% of all cancer-related deaths, 80% of all lung cancer-related deaths, and 80% of deaths due to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

These are big, ugly numbers, for sure. But I'll be selfish and focus only on one: My father was a secret smoker for years -- a secret that ultimately landed him in hospital with a compromised heart, and a secret that ultimately killed him.

So far be it for me to defend smokers. And I won't. But after Apple's recent moves to tighten its warranty coverage and deny repair claims on machines that had been exposed to smoke, I find myself wondering whether the company has gone too far, and whether fair-minded consumers are being taken for a ride when they either buy an Apple-branded product or purchase an extended warranty.

The Non-Warranteed Warranty

First, the basics: The Consumerist reported last week on a couple of cases where Applecare Warranty claims were denied by Apple after technicians discovered the machines had been exposed to cigarette smoke. The company said it would not require its technicians to work on anything that could harm their health. And since nicotine is on the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's list of hazardous substances, Apple made it official by letting its techs refuse to provide service and, in the process, essentially void the warranties of smokers.

Wide Angle Zoom (200 px) But here's the challenge: Not everyone whose machine is damaged by smoke is necessarily a smoker. While we can easily wag our fingers at folks who carelessly dangle a burning butt mere inches from their keyboard -- and laugh at them when the ragged remains muck up their keyboards and clog their fan intakes -- what about those poor saps who've never smoked in their lives, but happen to live or work in an area where their machines may suck up whatever's already in the air?

We don't often control where we both take and use our mobile devices. Some of us are occasionally forced to take our laptops into smoke-choked public places (they may be disappearing, but they still exist) or have the dumb luck to work in offices where the chain-smoking bosses still don't care about workplace health standards. Any machine that spends a few hours, days, or weeks in places like these will likely emerge with its insides coated with nicotine. Whether it's first-hand or second-hand smoke will hardly matter.

But wait, there's more

All of this means that Apple's newly tightened rules could potentially void coverage for perfectly well-meaning non-smokers who had the misfortune of using their machines in less-than-optimal environments. More ominously, Apple's move opens the door for other vendors to not only follow its lead, but to also pick and choose the kind of environmental conditions they'd like to void next. And even if they bother to update their fine print after you bring your spanking new piece of hardware home, chances are the first you'll hear of it is when something breaks and you bring it in for service, only to be told you're rather out of luck.

Apple has already managed to tick off some iPhone users by refusing to replace units whose moisture sensors had gone off. Immersion is another no-no for electronic devices, and Apple's been just as diligent ensuring it isn't on the hook for sweaty exercisers, rain-soaked commuters or folks who like to keep the humidifier on high. When I first wrote about this for Betanews last August, I got panicked phone calls from friends suddenly afraid to bring their iPhones into the kitchen while cooking or into the car on a damp, foggy morning. One father of a toddler freaked when the little munchkin appeared in his home office with a water pistol. It was empty, but he's now so worried about Apple's anti-moisture stance that the iPhone usually stays at home.

Say goodbye to mobility

Now that the smokey Pandora's Box has been opened, it's only a matter of time before we can't take our devices outside (UV, windborne pollen, excessive carbon dioxide due to global warming) or inside (fireplace emissions, paint fumes, foot odor) and are instead relegated to sticking them in protective bubbles that allow absolutely no interaction with the environment around them.

Yes, I'm being ridiculous. But so is Apple. Can the company's technicians truly tell the difference between smoke deposits left by a smoker, those obtained from second-hand smoke and those received during a business trip to smog-choked Shanghai, China? If Apple is so intent on shielding its techs from hazards, can it reasonably assure us that every piece of hardware it has ever made is completely devoid of noxious substances that can cause permanent damage to someone unlucky enough to pry open the case? In fairness to Apple, its latest generation of hardware leads the industry in eco-friendliness, but still, it's more than a little arbitrary to single out smoke deposits and nothing else.

Legally inclined folks refer to it as "reasonable use," which means, simply, that they'll cover claims arising from regular usage scenarios, and will deny those resulting from anomalous use. So accidentally bumping your machine against the door jamb as you rush out of the house is considered reasonable use. Pile-driving it into that same door jamb to test its structural integrity or otherwise entertain the small-minded? Not so much.

I get that vendors have to establish basic ground rules to prevent those small-minded folks from taking advantage of the system, and driving higher costs for the rest of us. I also get that the corporate ethics of a company led by a man who's been to the medical equivalent of hell and back twice, may be somewhat predisposed toward encouraging healthier, greener life choices. If that's what it takes to reduce the CDC's figures and save families needless heartache, then so be it. Vendors still shouldn't use it as an easy way to wiggle out of warranty obligations.

Tuning out the tablet: Time to give the endless speculation a rest

Publié: novembre 20, 2009, 5:42am CET par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

Wide Angle Zoom (200 px)

I'm sure I'm not the only one who looks at renderings of Apple's long-rumored tablet - or iTablet, or whatever name the faithful have assigned to it this week - and wishes the FedEx truck would pull up to my door with an early demo in time for the holiday season. I'm sure I'm also not the only one who's ready for the endless speculation to, well, end.

I don't think I've ever seen an unreleased product generate so much discussion without so much as a peep from the vendor of record. I realize the frenzied speculation is as frenzied as it is because we're talking about Apple, and that if this were any other company, we'd collectively yawn our response before moving on to the next big thing. This is a company that seems unique in its ability to generate so much activity around what is, for now at least, vapourware. And while I appreciate the value of healthy exchanges in advance of a major product launch, I can't shake the feeling that the never-ending iTablet fever is just a little much, and that we'd all be doing ourselves a favor by giving it a rest and waiting until Apple actually ships a working product.

Like junk food - great taste, not so healthy

Don't get me wrong: This is all good for Apple. Once again, without spending so much as a dime on advertising, Apple has managed to keep its corporate brand front and center in both tech and mainstream media. It hasn't had to use its PR firm retainers to pre-announce anything because breathless conventional and social media folks have been perfectly willing to share their so-called news on the company's behalf. Any other vendor would sell its first, second and third born offerings to have even a fraction of this kind of market visibility and influence. Decades from now, when media mastery is taught in institutions of higher learning, Apple's ability to time and again conjure a deafening buzz around things that may or may not see the light of day will serve as an iconic case study.

But is any of this good for us? Is it helpful or hurtful for consumers and wannabes alike to spend days on end hovering over blog entries, twittering madly or debating in online forums? These activities in and of themselves are the sign of a healthy community, of course, and are crucial to giving vendors the kind of insight they need to continue to deliver market-relevant products and services. But has the uber-hype that seems to follow Apple around - and that has seemingly impossibly shifted into an even higher gear for the iTablet - finally reached the point of diminishing returns?

Too much of anything isn't good for you

I'm going to argue that the hype has gone well beyond the point at which it adds any value to our collective lives. We're working ourselves into a tizzy over something we know nothing about. We don't know what OS this thing will run, how large it will be, what kind of screen it will have and how much it'll cost. We've seen lots of beautifully rendered images of it and heard a near endless string of confirmed - then scotched - confirmations of imminent component orders and production. And as much fun as it is to bat around possibilities, it hardly seems like a productive way to spend time.

That's because while we're all breathlessly sharing thoughts and opinions - but precious few facts - on a mysterious device that we now won't apparently see until late next year, we continue to be challenged with more mundane needs, like using technology that's available today to keep customers happy, our bank accounts filled and our lights on. I have no issue gazing into the collective crystal ball as a means of informing the kinds of decisions we need to make either today or in the near future. Keeping at least half an eye on what's coming is one way of avoiding nasty surprises and keeping one step ahead of everyone else. But when said crystal ball becomes our sole focus of conversation, I'd like to humbly suggest that we've gone too far. Balance matters here, too, and if we're spending all our time discussing a mythical product that's close to a year from possibly seeing the light of day, we're missing the significance of today.

We're missing the real point

In a way, it's a little disappointing that the enormous halo cast by this not-quite-a-product product eclipses the real issue at hand: that vendors have for the better part of the last decade failed to convince consumers that they should pony up for devices in the empty space between pocketable mobile devices and laptops. UMPCs and later MIDs failed to gain any traction thanks to low value propositions and ridiculous pricing. Netbooks have come close, thanks largely to their just-good-enough-for-the-purpose performance, conveniently portable form factor and recession-friendly price point. Timing has also helped netbooks carve out a niche, as their short range wireless and, increasingly, carrier-supported 3G connectivity gives them mobile capabilities that earlier, less well-connected devices could only dream of. Increasingly Web-centric application models don't hurt, either.

The success of the netbook is giving rise to new forms of devices and revenue models that could - maybe - finally fill in the veritable valley of death that has already claimed so many mid-sized, mid-priced form factors. While it's unclear where Apple's product will ultimately fit, it's hardly a big story until the company actually moves closer to marketing the thing. Until then, every other competing vendor has just gotten a bit of additional breathing room to figure out what resonates with consumers before Apple satisfies the fanboys and finally introduces its tablet. Or whatever it is.

Until then, count me among the cynics who really doesn't care whether or not it has an OLED or a TFT screen, whether it's released as one product or two, or whether it costs $2,000 or half that. Only when we begin to see actual data points will we be able to decide whether it's worth pulling the plastic out or our wallets. For now, even Apple is capable of overstepping the limits of my patience.

After the Psystar verdict: Send in the clones

Publié: novembre 17, 2009, 8:57am CET par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

I feel a little sorry for Psystar. But only a little, because the Mac clone maker should have realized it couldn't rewrite history.

Its latest courtroom loss -- where a US District Court judge last week sided with Apple and said Psystar can no longer sell hardware based on hacked versions of Mac OS X -- will in all likelihood bring the whole concept of clones to an inglorious close. And none too soon.

Another case of history repeating itself

We've been down this road before. In 1982, when a fully tricked out Apple II Plus cost an order of magnitude more than a modern-day low-end PC or netbook, there was ample room in the market for knockoff hardware that offered the same user experience for less. If your choice was a relatively inexpensive clone or nothing at all because the name brand offerings were simply too rich for your budget, the choice almost made itself.

Wide Angle Zoom (200 px) Franklin Computer, which introduced machines based on Apple's motherboard design, reverse-engineered ROMs and openly copied operating system, was an early and perhaps the best known example of the breed. Unfortunately, it also learned rather quickly just how aggressively Apple would protect its turf. Barely two months after Franklin's first machines hit the market, Apple sued the upstart clone maker. After a six-year, often-nasty legal battle, Apple forced Franklin out of the clone business for good.

Of course, Apple wasn't completely averse to the idea...except when it wasn't on its own terms. The company licensed Apple II ROMs to Bell & Howell and Tiger Electronics, and by the mid-90s had launched an official Mac clone program as well. This short-lived dalliance ended abruptly, however, when Steve Jobs returned to the fold in 1997. System 7-based machines from such companies as Power Computing, Motorola, and UMAX died a quick death after Jobs terminated the licensing deals forged during his absence. The company's message, then and since, has been clear: The only hardware that runs any Mac OS will be a Mac box designed and sold by Apple.

You'd think that Psystar would have gotten the message.

The not-so-hidden cost of cloning

Twenty-seven years after Apple first went postal on third party clone vendors, it's a safe bet that Mac clones are finally a dead business. While there will always be hackers perfectly willing to reverse-engineer any combination of hardware and software to allow anyone to run some flavor of Mac on non-Apple hardware, it's equally safe to assume that solutions like these will live on the fringe of the market. So-called "hackintoshes" make for fun conversation, of course, and there's doubtless a visceral thrill associated with running an Apple-sourced, partially modified OS on something as cheaply mundane as a netbook. But would you stake your business on such a solution? Probably not, and there's the rub.

Clones introduce a level of unpredictability into the user experience that makes them a ridiculous proposition for any kind of business use. When a vendor-forced system update, patch, or bug fix can easily break a hacked solution, it's difficult to understand the value proposition of saving a couple of hundred bucks on hardware. If you're building a spare machine in your basement on the weekend, by all means have at it. If you're buying a fleet of machines for your company, however, the risks of not going with something more mainstream will almost certainly result in your spending more time than normal keeping things functional.

And as you try to calculate the TCO of a clone-based solution, don't forget to attach a dollar figure to all those hours you and your IT folks will spend on your cheap-yet-unsanctioned hardware/software. That extra IT time quickly negates any up-front savings. The equation doesn't change much if your business is too small to justify a full-on IT department. Even if you're a company of one working from home, can you really afford to lose your system when the vendor of record decides to break the clones once and for all? Can you trust that every court proceeding from here on out will be decided in the clone vendor's favor? Platform stability, never a strong suit for clone makers, is a crucial component of proper IT-business strategy.

Living with Apple's choice

We can argue ad infinitum over how Microsoft's embrace of open availability of its OS on commodity hardware allowed it to build a much larger ecosystem than Apple's closed strategy that inextricably and permanently tied its hardware to its OS. Could Apple have sold more copies of its OS had it opened it up to a larger number of hardware vendors? Certainly. Would it have been as capable of defining and controlling the end-user experience? No.

And given how the end-user experience has always been at the very core of Apple's value proposition -- indeed the very basis of its ability to command the prices that it does -- it's easy to see why Apple would consistently protect its rights and move to shut down wannabe-clone vendors at every turn. It's a mindset that doesn't just stop with Macs: This culture continues to serve it well as it oversees the growth of the iPhone/iPod touch platform, and has almost certainly helped fuel Apple's brand value.

As we examine Apple's mobile experience, we can whine all we want about how tightly it controls how its devices run, how apps are submitted and approved, and even how they're installed and used. But like the Mac before it, the mobile landscape is Apple's to control.

As much as clone vendors like Psystar have banked on the Robin Hood-esque notion of allowing those who could not otherwise afford a Mac to have some sort of access to the Apple experience, the apparently permanent truth is that Apple, whatever it's selling, has no intention of ever giving up its overarching control of the combined hardware and software environment that it created. And whether we like it or not, this is the business model that the company has chosen in its pursuit of profit. Don't like it? Buy something else, because the era of pretending to be something we're not is finally drawing to a close.

The iTunes App Store at 100,000: Can we stop counting, already?

Publié: novembre 12, 2009, 8:46pm CET par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

Ever since Apple launched its App Store barely 16 months ago, we've paid a lot of attention -- indeed, too much -- to the number of applications it contains. As the App Store crossed the 100,000 title barrier last week, it occurred to me that the bigger this number gets, the less it actually means.

I get that Apple has won the sheer-number sweepstakes. I appreciate that no other mobile storefront can even come close. I also understand how broad software availability (in terms of sheer numbers as well as ease of acquisition) has helped fuel the growth of the iPhone/iPod touch universe. I just think we attach way too much importance to this single figure, and it distorts our ability to understand ultimate value to end users and developers alike.

So many titles, not enough room

Never mind that no one person could ever assess, let alone install and use, anything approaching a broad cross-section of this ever expanding library. Ignore the fact that the vast majority of these titles are near-dormant, gathering dust while the masses pay attention to newer, higher-profile offerings. Forget that this number is bloated by countless apps that replicate bodily functions, play visual party tricks, and otherwise consume time that could be productively spent...I don't know, composing e-mails to your mother.

Wide Angle Zoom (200 px) Does the world really need fifty different ways to display the time? Or forty-five weather forecasting apps or a couple of hundred alarm clocks? At what point does the sheer size of the library become so large that successive additions become meaningless? I accept that there's a certain value in choice -- that in a tiny library, users would be ill-served by a product category with only a couple of feature-limited, badly integrated choices. A larger playground increases the size of the app-specific talent pool and ensures someone looking for an alarm clock will eventually find what he or she needs.

But there's choice and there's choice. When neighborhood supermarkets replaced the corner store, we all benefitted from greater choice and more competitive pricing. Economies of scale will do that, as stores that buy in larger quantities have greater buying power than those with smaller inventories. But as plain old supermarkets were supplanted by big-box megastores, we ended up with too much of a good thing. A thirty-minute cruise through the aisles easily doubled or tripled as many of us got lost in the cavernous new temples of conspicuous consumption. We'd stand in front of the ketchup shelves, unable to decide between the ten brands, fifteen different sizes, and packaging combinations, and even colors...remember green and purple? We'd end up with more than we needed, or stuff we hadn't intended on buying in the first place.

YouRememberThat.Com | MySpace Video

Lost in the wilderness

Apple's App Store has gone well beyond the big-box stage. Shopping there isn't the focused, quick and direct process it once was, and by the time most of us are done loading up on new code, we inevitably end up with stuff we didn't want or need in the first place. Worse for Apple, it can't simply build a bigger building to house all its new inventory. Computer and iPhone screens aren't getting bigger, and new and existing titles find themselves fighting for an ever dimmer slice of virtual storefront for consumers' increasingly ADHD-infused attention.

It hurts developers as well as consumers. We wrestle with the challenge of finding what we want without pulling our hair out in the process, while developers simply try to avoid getting lost in the ever growing ocean of offerings -- assuming, of course, that they can get past Apple's app approval process to get into that ocean in the first place.

I hesitate to blame Apple, as it's simply riding the wave of the most buzzworthy mobile device to hit consumers' radar since Ford's Model T. As long as we're content to measure the iPhone platform's worth by the number of available apps, Apple is perfectly content to trumpet each major milestone, and absolutely justified in doing so. For a company that has long prided itself on simple, easily understood methods for users, nothing's easier to articulate than a big number that dwarfs all competitors, and keeps getting bigger on a seemingly exponential path.

Even if, from where I sit, it's an ultimately meaningless number, it remains a marketer's dream, so don't expect Apple to stop flogging it.

New ways to measure

Still, it leaves the door open for measures of value that reflect actual utility. Google's Android platform may sport a software library that's an order of magnitude smaller than Apple's, but Google doesn't live in the same download-and-use universe that Apple does. Its core strength lies in its expanding universe of increasingly integrated Web-based services. And successive generations of its mobile platform will reflect this shifting reality, especially as 3G wipes GSM and CDMA off the map, and 4G-based technologies like LTE move into the mainstream.

It may seem laughable now given AT&T's and other carriers' troubles with network coverage of any kind, but at some point in the not-too-distant future, mobile bandwidth will be so abundant that the same paradigms of always-on Web services that we take for granted on our conventional laptops and desktops will seamlessly apply to our smartphones as well. And the download-and-use metaphor will fade.

So although the size of Google's library currently places it in a firm second place in the mobile online store rankings and gives it a fair degree of street cred, I doubt Google hangs on the daily figures as much as Apple does given the sea change that will fundamentally change how we get work (and play) done on mobile devices.

For now, though, we still measure our devices by the number of apps available for download, and we continue to focus on quantity when handicapping the various platforms against each other. As mobile infrastructure matures and consumers improve their ability to assess the value proposition of a platform's complete feature set -- and not just its simple library size -- simply having the biggest of anything may no longer be enough to sustain interest. Bigger, after all, isn't always better.

Analysis: The end of business-by-litigation?

Publié: novembre 12, 2009, 8:30pm CET par Scott M. Fulton, III and Carmi Levy

By Scott M. Fulton, III and Carmi Levy, Betanews

Analysis

The largest and widest ranging PC technology dispute, perhaps in the industry's history, came to an abrupt end this morning with Intel and AMD agreeing to set aside most of their differences, and all of their legal disputes. Is this a signal to the various litigators in the information technology industry that litigation is no longer the way to go, that it's too expensive a way for a company to continue protecting its market position? Betanews caught up with our contributing analyst Carmi Levy, by way of his trusty BlackBerry, on a train headed to Toronto this morning.

Carmi Levy: If litigation isn't too expensive from a fiscal perspective, then it certainly is onerous from a corporate attention perspective. Specifically, getting involved in years-long, tit-for-tat pitched legal battles that spill across global borders can often be the catalyst for losing focus on core competencies. While lawsuit-laden companies inevitably claim their legal processes do not impede strategic planning or day-to-day operations, it's clear that they're being overly optimistic. Litigation is a distraction. Never-ending litigation can split a company's focus for just long enough that it can easily lose touch with the needs of its market.

In a post-recessionary world, organizations are more vulnerable than ever to the consequences of this form of split focus.

Scott Fulton: Under the terms of this morning's agreement, Intel didn't have to acknowledge any wrongdoing, and it can continue offering volume rebates so long as they're not exclusionary...Doesn't that mean the cases of the New York Attorney General and the EC go flying out the window?

Carmi Levy: We may yet see pending cases in New York and Europe get tossed in the wake of this deal, but we'll have to wait and see how each jurisdiction weighs in. It's still early in that process, and it could take weeks or months before Intel gets the all clear in every venue where these is either current or pending litigation. Still, on the surface, it looks likely that Intel's ability to offer non-exclusionary rebates cuts the legs out from virtually all cases against it.

Scott Fulton: Is the business world ready for the dull, boring reality of competition between equal innovators everywhere in the spirit of openness and (yawn!) friendship? (Or put more directly, won't the rest of us in the media need to wake up to the new reality of business?)

Carmi Levy: I think it's time we -- both consumers as well as media, and while we're at it, the litigants and vendors, too -- moved on and paid more attention to what vendors do in the market with their products and services and less on what they're up to in front of a judge. In Intel's and AMD's case, they bring us technology that powers the information economy. They both have finally woken up to the fallacy of devoting endless resources to legal action that doesn't enhance their ability to design and market better products. Hopefully now they'll both be able to get back to business -- albeit an admittedly changed one.

And when they do, I think there's still ample opportunity for these two companies to slug it out where it matters most: in the market at large. Without the weight of seemingly never-ending litigation dragging them both down, we can look forward to more innovation and fewer antagonistic press releases and court filings.

Which means journos like us may have to change our approach to coverage as well!

Firefox turns five: Thanks for giving us a choice

Publié: novembre 9, 2009, 9:25pm CET par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

Birthdays in the world of tech normally aren't that big of a deal for most folks. We tend to feel as much nostalgia toward hardware, software and services as we do toward flu shots and oil changes for the car. But even if you don't use Firefox -- and by the numbers, that's over 60% of you -- it's difficult to underestimate this once-upstart browser's impact on the way we experience the Internet, and how our software is developed in the first place.

Replacing monopoly with choice

Before Firefox came along, Internet browsing was Microsoft's game to lose. The company had successfully used its ability to bake IE into the fabric of its dominant operating system, to none-too-subtly force mainstream internauts to overlook the alternative. If IE was already sitting on the average user's desktop, the logic went, why would he or she even bother to download Netscape?

The strategy worked, as Netscape began a long, slow slide into oblivion. Users by the millions simply stuck with what their OS came with. I'm keenly aware of the fact that Betanews readers can download and install a browser in the time it takes to change the channel. Yet I'm also keenly aware that our tech savvy readers are far outnumbered by the kind of Internet users who, for a while anyway, didn't understand what a browser was, and who thought "The Internet" was the glowing IE icon on their desktop.

Wide Angle Zoom (200 px) Microsoft got this, too. Whatever your view on the company, it's easy to see that this fundamental understanding of its audience helped it recover from almost missing the browser bandwagon altogether. Antitrust cases notwithstanding, Microsoft's recognition that most everyday end users wouldn't bother (at least in the chaotic early days of the commercialized Internet) to take the time to download something as mundane as a browser, helped it drive a large chunk of the Internet agenda for the better part of a decade. Although we scoff at the notion of default desktop real estate today, it mattered immensely when Windows 95 first hit the market.

The shift toward download-your-own

But getting and keeping a monopoly are two entirely different things. As Microsoft eventually learned, product innovation matters, and its inability to focus on that growing market need left the door slightly open for an alternative.

By failing to move the bar once it wrested control, Microsoft virtually guaranteed that increasingly sophisticated and demanding mainstream users -- who by then had figured out how to customize their desktops with their own software choices -- would eventually take the time to download and install a new browser. By 2004, there were enough of them who were ticked off with IE's dominant market position, its bloat, its disrespect for the Web standards of the day, and its sock-it-to-me reputation as a target for hackers that IE's days as the default choice were numbered.

It's easy to forget that Firefox wasn't always a flexible upstart. It was born out of the ashes of Netscape's Mozilla Project, a bloated failure that stands as an example of too many features and not enough thought devoted toward making them work with each other...or for the end user. The project's rebirth under the Mozilla Foundation as a broad-scale open source collaboration allowed it to return focus to the singular browser. It also gave it the edge needed to position itself as a viable alternative to the then-dominant IE.

Firefox introduced a number of features that we now take for granted: Tabbed browsing, add-ons and extensions, integrated search, themes, consistent support for Web standards, download management, pop-up blocking, and best of all, speed. And while age has helped more recent competitors like Google's Chrome begin the process of turning yesterday's David into today's Goliath, Firefox remains a formidable platform with enough developer and end-user support to ensure it won't soon meet Netscape's fate.

Of course, nothing is a given in the world of tech. And despite its vaunted success in hacking out a growing base of fans (over 24% of all users, according to October 2009 data from NetApplications) and taking on a company many saw at the time as unbeatable, Firefox the browser isn't immune to the creeping ailments of age. It's gotten bigger and slower with each successive generation, and its prodigious use of memory and system resources remains a widespread source of irritation. But as the first truly successful example of an open source product that went mainstream, Firefox has helped build the business model by which software that's given away for free can become the basis of an industry.

An intensifying market

As version 3.6 gets set to go gold, the core developers are already filling in the blanks on a roadmap that stretches years into the future. Google, which was an early and ongoing Firefox supporter, now wants its own piece of the action as it aggressively improves Google Chrome and uses the browser as the basis for its first full-blown desktop operating system, Google Chrome OS. The broader client market is evolving as well, as the desktops that defined the bulk of our online activities in 2004 give way to increasingly mobile form factors and uses. Firefox's mobile project, known as Fennec, is expected to deliver a working product in 2010. None of this would have happened without Firefox 1.0.

No one quite knows where any of this will end up. And whatever features and performance the various players pile in to their respective offerings in the coming months and years, they'll all owe a debt of gratitude to a product...more accurately, to an open source project that saw the potential in shifting the market away from dominant offerings from commercial players that limited choice and stifled development.

In that respect, Firefox was less a product than a revolution in how software is developed and used, and how sustainable markets are built around these products. I can't wait to see what the next five years have in store.

How RIM can avoid a premature endgame for BlackBerry

Publié: novembre 5, 2009, 6:23pm CET par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

Once not so long ago, if you wanted bulletproof e-mail on a mobile device, you bought a BlackBerry. Research In Motion, the company that practically defined wireless messaging a decade ago, has done quite nicely for itself since then, garnering over 56% of the market for smartphones in the US and about 20% of the overall wireless handset market that includes smartphones as well as conventional feature phones. Its end-to-end encryption and still-unique service paradigm that routes messaging traffic through secure Network Operations Centers further endeared the platform to enterprise buyers, even as the company was successfully pushing the franchise into the consumer space.

Unfortunately for RIM, nothing stays the same in the increasingly competitive wireless market. The BlackBerry is no longer a market of one, and many of the features that defined the platform -- including push e-mail and enterprise-class security -- are no longer unique. Worse, the critical feature set for a modern smartphone has expanded to include rich Web access, broad application availability, and an integrated, Web services-aware operating system. It's no secret that the BlackBerry platform lags in all of these areas with its fine-for-the-1990s browser, relatively paltry app ecosystem, and an OS that despite regular incremental updates still betrays its decade-old roots.

As investors push RIM's share price down, and the drumbeats grow louder to aggressively address these shortcomings, the company finds itself at a crossroads. Either it radically changes the strategy that's driven its growth to-date or it risks becoming an also-ran in the US market. Nokia, whose devices once accounted for over 35% of all US sales, lost the script when it misread Americans' growing taste for affordable, feature-packed, and well-integrated smartphones. Today it's American market share languishes at barely 7%.

Wide Angle Zoom (200 px) It's a lesson that RIM would do well to learn, because at this critical inflection point in its history, a stay-the-course mentality could doom RIM to a Nokia-like fate.

To maintain leadership in a market that grows more competitive by the day thanks to continued strength from Apple's iPhone and a rapidly building frontal assault by Google's Android, RIM needs to focus on some fundamental changes, including:

Simplify the product lineup. The almost overflowing BlackBerry product tree stands in stark contrast to the singular focus of Apple's iPhone hardware. RIM sells dozens of devices through countless carriers, often so subtly differentiated that even hard-core fans can't keep track. Sure, most BlackBerry aficionados know that a device number that ends in 30 has built-in GPS, while one that ends in 20 includes Wi-Fi. But the finely sliced marketing messages demanded by such a broad product line tend to dilute the branding effort. As beneficial as multiple devices and form factors have been in terms of appealing to consumers (and carriers) with different needs, they've also dimmed how the BlackBerry is perceived in the minds of potential buyers.
Get serious about courting developers. Application developers care about two things: development effort and profit potential. As it stands now, RIM loses on both fronts. The tools to develop software on the BlackBerry platform are too cumbersome to use, which extends development time and effort. And since the BlackBerry app market itself is just a fraction of the size of its major rivals, there's less opportunity to drive revenue. Compared to iPhone and, increasingly, Android (which already has well over 10,000 apps to RIM's 3,000 or so) it's a no-brainer: BlackBerry development loses every time. RIM has had ample time to bring a streamlined SDK to market along with easily accessible training and support resources for developers. It's also had lots of time to go for Apple's jugular and point-for-point pick off the things about iPhone development that tick developers off (I'm looking at you, opaque approval process). And to be fair, it's making progress. Just not as fast as it should.

RIM BlackBerry Curve 8530 from Verizon Wireless

Fix the browser. You can't write a product review of any BlackBerry without calling out its lame browser. While competitors have moved on to multitouch-capable interfaces that closely mimic the conventional desktop Web, RIM's offering hasn't changed much since it was first introduced. The result is a stripped down, slow, often frustrating online experience. In fairness to RIM, it's doing something about it. This summer, it acquired Torch Mobile, which makes the WebKit-based multiplatform Iris browser -- a deal that's expected to bring a new standard browser to the BlackBerry sometime in 2010. It can't come a moment too soon.
Find a new differentiator. Rock solid, enterprise-class, push-based e-mail is yesterday's news. And even if it wasn't, consumers don't much care about it anyway. Apple's got the application ecosystem to end all application ecosystems. Google has tight Web services integration. Palm has an innovative UI that blurs the line between local apps and the cloud. What's RIM's unique story going to be? The company isn't saying, but unless it comes up with something to differentiate itself, its good-enough strategy that matches competitors feature for feature will guarantee a long, less-than-comfortable decline as newer, more unique solutions hit the market. Motorola's Droid may hold some lessons here, as it illustrates how a hardware vendor can come back from the dead with an offering that moves the mobility bar solidly beyond basic e-mail and Web browsing.
Learn from the Storm. RIM's first touchscreen device, rushed to market to capture holiday shoppers' interest, was by all accounts a botch. Yes, it ultimately sold well, but its rocky launch tarnished the formerly invincible brand and illustrated the perils of timing product releases to unrealistic seasonal buying patterns. If the engineering isn't fully baked, no product should ever see the light of day. Similarly, devices without Wi-Fi have no place in today's market. While RIM avoided ticking Verizon off by deleting the feature from the first generation Storm, it alienated consumers who simply expect this in anything they buy today. RIM repeated the no-Wi-Fi mistake with the Tour, and one hopes it won't happen again.

While the BlackBerry franchise doesn't face an immediate risk of extinction, its long-term success -- and the success of the company that spawned it -- could be compromised...unless RIM drops the overly conservative mentality, and starts swinging for the fences. Nothing short of a radical re-think will keep the BlackBerry as dominant in the future as it has been in the recent past.

Antisocial media: Lack of safeguards is killing the experience

Publié: novembre 2, 2009, 4:35pm CET par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

Say it with me, everyone: Facebook sucks.

I don't mean that in a literal sense, of course. But the growing number of obviously hacked status updates and phishing-like scams coming from folks we all thought were our friends has me wondering if Facebook is having more than a little trouble keeping a lid on the kinds of nasties that have already ruined e-mail, Usenet, and while we're at it, the Web in general.

Face it, folks, the Internet is a cesspool of sleaziness that makes my city's down-on-its-luck downtown core look luxuriously palatial -- and safe -- by comparison. When a full quarter of the status updates I receive in any given day look questionable enough for me to take the time to respond to the sender that I think his/her account has been hacked, it's a sign that Facebook's got a serious security issue, and things only seem to be getting worse.

Facebook saves face

I don't want to pick on Facebook too much. They've had a tough year, after all, with users in a number of countries taking them to task for their Byzantine privacy and copyright policies. Here at home, Canada's Privacy Commissioner just finished a months-long investigation that resulted in Facebook implementing significant changes to its privacy management processes and documentation. I realize it's a big job, and the developers and lawyers who made these changes and rolled them out globally probably need a vacation. Whether they get to take it is another story.

Wide Angle Zoom (200 px) Facebook, unfortunately, isn't alone. Twitter has also fallen victim, with shady links that were obviously sent by a malicious bot or similarly questionable, non-human source now becoming regular fare. An unprintable reply from a complete stranger, for example, would have routed me to an X-rated Web site had I been stupid enough to follow it. Some are a bit more subtle, but no more successful: This morning's direct message from a friend ("hi. I found you on here http://reallyhinkylookinglink.com") caused my antenna to go up because:

He's my friend and we both already know quite easily how to find each other online;
He used to teach with me. I know for a fact that he uses both upper- and lower-case letters when he writes; and,
He loves his sleep. He wouldn't be sending Twitter DMs at 3 a.m.

Like spam before it, I have no doubt that some of these come-ons may be sophisticated enough -- or merely sufficiently normal-looking -- to fool a few gullible recipients. Which, in the end is why such garbage continues to exist. Even if the take rate is 0.0001%, that's enough to keep the cretins who pump this stuff out still in the game.

We thought closed meant safe

But social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter aren't e-mail. Perhaps I'm more than a little naïve, but I'd like to think that because they're large-scale applications delivered by one provider, said provider would have more control over what goes on than, say, an e-mail service forced to work in a wider context. If e-mail is the Wild West with relatively few rules and no one in a position of absolutely control, Facebook at least has some sort of sheriff who dictates -- and hopefully enforces -- something akin to law and order.

Like I said, I'm probably being naïve, but Facebook and Twitter both more or less own their respective playgrounds while Microsoft's Hotmail does not. I'd like to think that that subtle difference should be enough to at least keep a lid on the influx of sewage. Then again, I guess I'd like to think a lot of things...but that doesn't mean any of them will come true.

The problem with social media tools lies in the fact that they are social to begin with. Unlike e-mail or earlier forms of online messaging and interaction, which generally set few limits on who we could reach out to, most social media applications challenge us to build communities of friends. We choose who to let in and who to exclude, and that very process lulls us into a fairly false sense of security. For we believe that once we've vetted our so-called online friends that we're all able to let our guard down because the playground itself is safe. I already let my friend into my house, the feeling goes, so nothing bad can happen from here on out.

Which is terribly wrong, of course, because as much as we'd like to believe that our friends, colleagues or acquaintances would never deliberately harm us, they can do immeasurable damage when they are compromised by their own innocence and/or ignorance. We see it every day in real life: folks too ignorant to understand the risks of H1N1 going to work because they don't want to let their team down, or well-meaning friends bringing nut-laced treats to a peanut-free home. We let these people in because we know and trust them. And in doing so, we expose them to our soft underbelly because we figure there's no need to apply the same kind of protective thinking that applies when we're around strangers.

Paranoia goes social

It's that kind of mindset that makes us that much more vulnerable to social media-borne attacks than those delivered through more conventional channels like e-mail. We've all been conditioned to reject the obvious spam (misspelled subject lines, Nigerian princes, cheap meds and all) but a link from a Facebook friend still doesn't raise the same level of alarm, if at all.

It should, of course. And until more of us become as jaded and cynical when we're Facebooking and Twittering as we do when we're e-mailing and IM-ing, these services will continue to be increasingly popular targets of choice for hackers and criminals. And while that's happening, we need to figure out better ways to convince ourselves -- and more importantly, the connections around us -- that just because it's social doesn't necessarily mean it's safe.

I'll apologize for opening with such strong language. I don't really think that Facebook sucks. But that could change very quickly unless the company, along with Twitter and any other major social media competitor, gets as serious about security as it already has about privacy.

Non-exclusive iPhones: Has Verizon waited too long?

Publié: octobre 29, 2009, 10:08pm CET par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

I've never been a fan of exclusive deals between handset manufacturers and wireless carriers. I understand why they appeal to the Apples and the AT&Ts of the world in the first place, but it ticks me off that sweet deals like this always seem to leave consumers out in the cold. They limit choice and competition, which tends to keep prices artificially high for longer than they should, and they make it easier for carriers to maintain the kind of old, customer-unfriendly practices that have long stained the industry.

When a given gotta-have-it device is available only through one carrier, consumers are forced to make a Hobson's Choice in that they can choose by device, or by carrier, but not both. And if they dislike the exclusive carrier for any reason, they either hold their noses and sign, or learn to live with another carrier's second-rate hardware.

Either way, it's not exactly democracy in action, and it often results in less than optimal experiences for consumers. We all deserve better.

Change already happened

So it's with more than a little eagerness that I watch rumors of Verizon potentially adding the iPhone to its portfolio around the second half of 2010. While the cynic in me thinks the company's still smarting from its stupid-in-hindsight decision to spurn Apple a couple of years back -- a decision which resulted in AT&T becoming the exclusive launch carrier in the US -- the realist in me says Verizon has better things to do than lick old wounds.

Wide Angle Zoom (200 px) First, disclosure: My fellow Canadians and I are no strangers to iPhone exclusivity. Rogers Wireless has been the sole carrier of the device since its debut here just over a year ago (please don't get me started on why we were iPhone-less until 2008). Canadian exclusivity is about to end as both Bell and Telus are scheduled to start selling iPhones here next month.

I hardly think we're alone, either. From where I sit, it's only a matter of time before exclusivity ends in every market Apple is in, as the company shifts toward a cross-carrier model more like Research in Motion's. Although different carriers obviously carry different BlackBerry models, you've still got a certain degree of choice no matter whose store you walk into, or who's sending you a bill every month.

As encouraged as I am to see Verizon potentially getting into the iPhone game, I'm left wondering if its timing is all that great. After all, the wireless market in the second half of 2010 will look radically different than the wireless market of today. Google's Android mobile operating system -- at one time largely a curiosity, due to its limited availability on none-too-impressive hardware -- is about to bust open big time thanks to high-profile hardware releases from a number of vendors, including Samsung, former Microsoft Windows Mobile stalwart HTC, and a possibly resurgent Motorola.

Within a year, Google's services-rich strategy could fundamentally alter the power balance in the wireless device/application market, and erode the iPhone-vs.-everyone else halo that Apple currently enjoys. That's because while Android's 10,000 titles can't match Apple's App Store dominance, its tightly integrated Web services give it enough room to make an end run around the iPhone, and seriously erode the optimistic sales and revenue figures being floated around a possible Verizon iPhone play. When you've got Web services, you don't always need "an app for that."

The latest rumors, based on a Broadpoint.AmTech report cited by AppleInsider, state that VZW could get away with putting up a $300 subsidy per unit for late 2010-model iPhones, if it (easily) sells 14 million of them the following year. While batting numbers like these around is risky business (risky if you like being right, which it seems fewer people do nowadays), you might still get at least a baseline understanding of why Verizon might think it could pull this off.

The time-eroding value of money

But would Verizon be able to make as much money off of iPhone subscribers as AT&T has managed? Can anyone be just as profitable selling a device in Year Four of its lifecycle, as simply one of potentially many carriers? After all, there's no guarantee that Apple isn't also going to offer its devices to other carriers by the second half of 2010, so maybe Verizon should push for a smaller subsidy to limit its exposure. Or perhaps Verizon should push Apple to source only the latest generation (4G?) iPhone instead of the 3G S, or whatever passes for current-generation at that time. And if Android takes root and closes the feature/app gap, should Verizon push for an even sweeter deal? Or simply walk away?

However it plays out, it's becoming increasingly clear that any delay is bad for everyone:

Bad for Apple because it keeps an artificial upper limit on market share growth. Worse, because it pushes broader iPhone availability so far out that by then, it'll be competing against itself with the tablet..or whatever that next "One More Thing" turns out to be. Apple's overall product roadmap means iPhone's window as a profit-rich halo device could close before Verizon even gets in the game.
Bad for Verizon because it needs to build out a robust offering of leading edge smartphones to maintain its shrinking market share advantage. Android-based devices will help, but iPhone would push Verizon over the top headline-wise. Assuming it happens sooner rather than later, of course.
Bad for consumers because they shouldn't have to wait years for wider carrier availability, and the positive effect on rates and plans that competition of this sort inevitably brings.

None of this would matter if the iPhone were a middling piece of mobile hardware with a barely active application store and moribund developer community. If we all coveted other devices (and if the iPhone wasn't so culturally, if not numerically, dominant), we'd yawn at the prospect of any carrier, much less Verizon, adding a new device to its portfolio.

But the iPhone is none of those things, and consumers deserve to have the choice earlier in the product life cycle. That they may be forced to wait until the second half of next year is further evidence that carrier-exclusive deals make no sense in today's fast-changing mobile market. It's time for them to disappear for good.

Nokia lawyers up, chooses to fight Apple in court rather than the market

Publié: octobre 27, 2009, 12:16am CET par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

If timing is everything in business, Nokia apparently didn't get the memo. Apple's iPhone has been on sale for about 28 months now, but only last week did Nokia file a wide-ranging lawsuit in Delaware District Court that covers no fewer than ten alleged patent infringements.

This isn't anything new in the tech industry. In a business where intellectual property accounts for a disproportionately huge slice of any given product's value proposition -- and ultimately its market success -- fights over who came up with what idea first are common. For example, Research in Motion has paid out over a billion dollars over the last three years to settle two significant patent lawsuits that, if left unresolved, could have shuttered its popular BlackBerry devices for good.

Sue me -- it's the in thing to do

Of course, RIM isn't alone. Tech companies of all stripes are often forced to fight off lawsuits that may or may not have merit. For example, Apple, Belkin, Best Buy, Dell, HP, Intel, Netgear, and Sony are part of a group of 22 hardware vendors and retailers who were sued for patent infringement in 2007 by Wi-LAN.

The Ottawa-based Wi-LAN, which in 1994 was awarded patents for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) technology, claims 802.11-based solutions that have been brought to market since that time have inappropriately used Wi-LAN's IP. The company is targeting firms that incorporated 802.11a- and g-based technology into its products, which were then sold to customers, along with companies had anything to do with the supply chain. Wi-LAN, which last year added a few more plaintiffs to its lawsuit and has also claimed that its technology also forms the basis for 802.16a and WiMAX standards, is no stranger to the process: It's been suing various tech companies, including Cisco, since at least 2000.

Wide Angle Zoom (200 px) While I support any company's right to actively defend its investments in developing new technologies and bringing them to market, there's a fine line between fighting for what you believe in and building a business case for organizational growth that's based largely on the pursuit of settlements and awards as a substitute for bringing actual products to market.

So as I look at Nokia's latest legal salvo, I'm left wondering if this marks the company's first tentative step toward a slippery slope where litigation -- not innovation -- defines its corporate culture.

A legal solution to sinking market share?

Nokia, like Wi-LAN, isn't exactly riding high in the market these days. Its US market share, which was once a healthy 35%, has shrunk to 7% and shows no sign of turning around. The company has also seen its global-leading market share slip thanks to a stodgy product lineup and a smartphone pricing model that seems to suit high-end PCs better than mobile devices. It missed the industry's transition from basic cell phones to smartphones and in doing so has ridden its budget devices down the one-way escalator to the basement while Apple, RIM, and a gaggle of Google Android-following vendors have captured the market's attention. Its mobile OS roadmap is all over the map, and its Ovi Store online app market is a lame duck afterthought that reinforces just how much Nokia still doesn't get it.

If Apple is the jock, RIM is the super-nerd, and Google is the cool new kid everyone's talking about, then Nokia is the doddering grandpa of the bunch.

From where I sit, Nokia's decline has sown the seeds for this latest lawsuit. Because if it had read the tea leaves correctly and recognized that data was the new voice for today's mobile market, it wouldn't have the time or the inclination to divert resources away from its core business. Nokia came to dominate its landscape because it delivered the right cell phones at the right price to a global market that a decade ago couldn't get enough of their newfound ability to talk on the go for cheap. But as voice-focused handsets evolved into data-centric, fashion-forward pocketable computers, Nokia kept pumping out the same old handsets. Sure, some of its N- and E-series smartphones looked great on paper, but scant carrier support and scandalous up-front purchase prices kept them from making much of an impact.

Not a troll. But reminiscent of one.

Which leaves Nokia in the sad position of suing the most obvious target in the hope of winning something in court that it couldn't win out in the real world. Forced to make up billions of dollars in lost revenue, it turns to lawsuits for what it apparently hopes will be a new form of revenue stream. I hesitate to call Nokia a patent troll, because it actually is in the business of designing and selling actual products. But this is the kind of lawsuit that gets real patent trolls kicked off of the invite list to the luxury box at the baseball stadium, and I suspect Nokia will soon find itself in similar straits. You don't make friends this way.

And even in a perverse universe where such behavior is applauded, lawsuits like this are a drain on corporate productivity, even for companies as large as Nokia. And even if Nokia itself manages to keep its employees focused on the task of building and marketing sellable stuff while this lawsuit plays out, the rest of the market -- including customers, members of the supply chain, and the media -- won't necessarily follow suit. While Nokia will try to get all of its stakeholders to focus on whatever great new offerings it has coming, everyone else will be wondering how the company's newest legal adventure is faring. This isn't how good buzz is created.

In the grand tradition of the American tech market, litigation will always loom large as a potentially viable business plan for companies that couldn't make things fly otherwise. Even as it struggles to keep pace globally, Nokia remains a potent force in mobility, and it's not like it'll disappear from our midst if this lawsuit fizzles. But Nokia's repeated failure to connect with American consumers has clearly reached a point where the mothership finds itself willing to lash out at its competitors in any way it can, in a belated effort to keep them in their sights.

This is not how leading companies behave. And it's not how wannabe-market-leaders convince the rest of us otherwise.

Our love/hate relationship with Microsoft: What happens now?

Publié: octobre 23, 2009, 4:04pm CEST par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

Over the years, Microsoft has been vilified for more reasons than you can shake a memory stick at. But the world is bigger than Microsoft; and if we're going to take the time and effort to hate something, it makes more sense for it to be something deserving of hate -- like government corruption, unsanctioned access by certain countries to nuclear missiles, and diseases that evolve faster than our ability to comprehend them. Tossing bile at a mere software company would be too easy if it weren't so pointless.

As Microsoft releases Windows 7 unto a world that has been well-trained to be suspicious of such events, now is a pretty good time to reconsider why so many people have for so long held a special degree of contempt for the company. It's also an ideal time to question why this has been the case in the first place, and figure out what our attitudes should be from this point forward.

Microsoft's failures have always led to success

There's a reason Ford never followed up the Edsel with another car called "Edsel:" Some brands just deserve to die. (It's a good thing "Vista" wasn't a Microsoft executive's first name.)

Wide Angle Zoom (200 px) Most recently, Vista's been the lazy person's target for vilification and vitriol. When it was released, it was big and buggy, and although Microsoft eventually fixed most of the countless niggling problems with its flagship OS product, it couldn't repair the damage to the Vista brand.

Vista is only the latest in a long line of Microsoft missteps. Whether it's on account of the Xbox red circle of death, XP's sieve-like (in-) security, Windows ME's general crumminess, or Bob's absolute disconnection from reality, Microsoft has had to survive a number of high-profile failures.

But the company that's never failed hasn't been invented yet. (Sorry, Google.) Failure is what teaches great companies -- and people -- to achieve greater success the next time out. And in Microsoft's case, its successes far outweigh its failures. For better or worse, Microsoft's influence on a wide range of markets has forged consistency and purpose in those markets, when no one else was willing or able to step up to the plate and take the lead. To wit:

Desktop operating systems. While some folks have valid reasons for disliking Windows, there's got to be at least some good baked into it to explain the basic fact that 90% of the computing world runs it. Since Windows 3.0 first transitioned Microsoft's GUI-based OS from curious plaything to serious competitor, the franchise has been the centerpiece of an ever-growing ecosystem of developers, vendors and users, all of whom have built careers and businesses around this now-ubiquitous OS. Mass adoption in various markets often seems to be accompanied by a certain degree of contempt: We all may despise Toyotas for being boring, soulless transportation appliances, but we buy them by the boatload because they get the job done.
Applications. I still get e-mails from frustrated WordPerfect for DOS users who claim writing just hasn't been the same since Microsoft's Word vanquished WordPerfect's offering -- and, rather starkly, WordPerfect Corporation itself. Whatever. I still have nightmares when I remember trying to move data between Lotus 1-2-3 and WordPerfect. Microsoft's Office paradigm redefined how we got work done, and its market dominance made it easy for me to share my work with virtually anyone else who mattered.
Development. The catch-as-you-can state of programming languages before Windows-based machines took over forced developers to either invest significant time in learning multiple languages, or risk backing the wrong horse by choosing the wrong one to learn. Products like Visual Basic opened up development paths to more users and broadened the landscape for consumers and businesses alike. Suddenly, programming wasn't so arcane.
Networking. While Novell rightly gets credit for defining and popularizing the modern Local Area Network, Microsoft's Windows NT Server assumed the mantle and drove the concept into the heart of corporate IT. It certainly wasn't always pretty, especially if you were responsible for patching and securing it, but it was a good enough, familiar enough product family for most organizations.

A kinder, gentler Microsoft

As it brings Windows 7 to market, Microsoft is showing signs of greying around the temples. Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in the evolution of its CEO, Steve Ballmer. Long known for being an exuberant -- sometimes overly so -- Microsoft booster, Mr. Ballmer's antics, from throwing chairs to cheerleading during keynotes, are near-legendary. But somewhat uncharacteristically, his behavior during the Windows 7 launch has been nothing short of reserved and reflective.

Through Ballmer, we see a Microsoft that isn't so much monolithically monopolistic as it is customer-centered and, dare I say it, soft around the middle. Could this be a kinder, gentler Microsoft? Perhaps. The company makes it clear that consumer feedback to Vista's failings guided its Windows 7 development effort. And as new software delivery paradigms threaten its OS and productivity software dominance as never before, its efforts to build businesses in previously non-core sectors (Windows Azure Platform, anyone?) provide glimpses into a company that has come to terms with being merely mortal.

What's left to hate?

So this clearly isn't your father's Microsoft. But is that a good or a bad thing? Is a post-antitrust, post-king-of-the-world, post-desktop company that doesn't rampage through its markets as much as it carefully steps through them necessarily a good thing for the broader tech market?

Perhaps so. The tech landscape already has an heir apparent in Google, which now finds itself in the similarly unenviable position of lightning rod for those who seem to always need a lightning rod. By virtue of its size and perception as a monopolistic player, Google now falls under the same harsh criticism that had defined Microsoft for the better part of a generation.

Which leaves Microsoft to define a new path for itself, unencumbered by the weight of the constant attention typically afforded a singular leviathan of a given industry. It also leaves those of us who habitually cast an evil eye on this or any company, to wonder whether doing so serves any real purpose at all. Anyone who flogged Microsoft for the sins of its most recent Windows products, lost any significant reason this week to go on doing so. Sometimes, it just pays to be nice.

The Windows 7 launch: The cultural event of the entire afternoon

Publié: octobre 19, 2009, 11:17pm CEST par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

Have you reserved your copy of Windows 7 yet? Did you book off work? Get a babysitter for the kids? Stock up on Red Bull and Doritos?...No? If you're one of the dozens who pine for midnight door-crasher sales at the electronics big box store and Rolling Stones-themed launch events, you may want to make alternate plans.

For anyone who doesn't live in a cave in Afghanistan (and even for a few folks who do), this week could be the most exciting one in an age as Microsoft launches its newest -- and possibly company-saving -- operating system, Windows 7, on Thursday. But 14 years after it redefined the rock-star launch party with Windows 95, and nearly four years after having invested a half-billion dollars selling us Vista, this time around, Microsoft is taking a lower-key approach.

Don't start me up

The company isn't saying how much it plans to invest in marketing its new OS, but the message around the October 22 launch event itself suggests the days of Jay Leno hawking the OS to the tune of "Start Me Up" are firmly history. This Thursday, expect Steve Ballmer to deliver an uncharacteristically subdued message at the launch event -- no tossed chairs or spontaneous onstage cheers. The good times, for Microsoft and for us, ended a while ago.

Wide Angle Zoom (200 px) As much as we all pine for the days when a new operating system from Microsoft was a cultural event, the new reality is that hardly anything changes when a new OS is released. Given the back seat that operating systems in general now take with respect to other, sexier elements of the technology that increasingly defines our work and home lives, Win7 could be an absolute yawn.

When Apple's Mac OS X Snow Leopard replaced Leopard earlier this year, the underpinnings of the Mac universe remained largely as they had existed before. Likewise, don't expect Windows 7 to rewrite the history books. Your PC works just fine today, and it'll work just as fine on the 22nd and beyond, no matter what OS you run. Whatever comes next from any given vendor will forevermore be merely an evolutionary increment just beyond currently available offerings.

There's a reason an Apple iPhone-themed event often jumps into mainstream media, while an updated Mac OS stays firmly on the tech pages. Mobility is as sexy today as the desktop OS was 15 years ago, and each new release is, for now anyway, a quantum bump over the suddenly dowdy stuff we're carrying around in our pockets. But even this won't last forever: Hang around long enough and something will come along eventually to relegate mobile hardware and operating systems to a similar place. It's how tech works, and just as individual products have a limited shelf life, so, too, do entire categories.

Ah, what memories...

Too good for their own good

In so many ways, Microsoft and its mainstream consumer and enterprise OS competitors have done too good a job creating the ultimate in commoditized software. The modern OS is so ruthlessly capable of everything we demand of it, that choosing between them is largely a matter of personal taste. While the flame wars between Mac and Windows fans will continue until long after computers have morphed into tiny networked processors that are implanted into our heads at birth, it's a safe bet that you can get pretty much anything done on one that you can get done on the other.

Not every technological road is as drivable, of course. While some users may find certain functions easier on a given platform, the bad old days of locking yourself out of entire classes of software and functionality because you chose one OS over the other are pretty much over. We will, of course, save discussions on gaming for Macs for another day. Whatever apps you run, no matter what OS you choose, the borders that used to define your playground have long since been torn down. OS choice no longer defines how free you are to move data and workflow between machines or networks.

Where we're all headed: Up

Indeed, moving data around is an increasingly quaint notion thanks to the rise of the cloud. While Microsoft's recent unfortunate Sidekick data lost-and-found incident (whether or not you take Microsoft's word for it that the incident took place "below" the cloud somewhere) may have cast some well-deserved shadows on the cloud movement, the trend is unavoidable. You can resist entrusting your data to a Web-based service until you're blue in the face, but it's hard to ignore reality, and as Microsoft shifts its attention to its online offerings -- Azure's coming next month -- because, frankly, it has to, the locally-focused OS will gradually fade from its longstanding frontline role.

It's a bit of a tough pill to swallow, especially for those of us who remember the Windows 95 launch. It was as close to mainstream mania as Microsoft will ever get, and it marked the desktop operating system's coming out party after over a decade of living on mostly beige boxes in mostly corporate environments. As much as earlier versions of Windows had driven consumer adoption of PCs, it was Windows 95 that punched the OS into the average consumer's mind and convinced us all that PCs didn't just get work done. Windows 95 also made PCs fun, not to mention attainable and usable for the legions of folks who never got DOS and were still struggling to understand GUIs on the decidedly lame GUI of Windows 3.1.

As impressive a product as Windows 7 seems to be, it doesn't move the bar over Vista and XP as much as Windows 95 did over 3.1 and even DOS. Even if it did, we'd all be fogging the windows at the Verizon store, begging for some in-hand time with a new Droid-powered device. Which explains why I've already booked my time off from work, called the babysitter and stocked the fridge and pantry with enough munchies to feed an entire block party. We're still celebrating the introduction of new technology, except it no longer sits exclusively on a desk.

How do you define performance?

Publié: octobre 15, 2009, 10:26pm CEST par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

System performance is an interesting concept; everyone seems to define it differently. To some, it involves chewing through a complex spreadsheet. To others, it's how fast a 3D video sequence can be rendered, or how easily Web pages are served up.

Call me a rebel, but after years of living off of a BlackBerry, my thinking has evolved. As much as I focused on megahertz and gigahertz for much of my computing life, the most important criteria for me these days are how fast the thing turns on, and how long it stays on before I have to recharge it.

It goes against everything we grew up with, of course, as the PC industry has always been obsessed with the electronic era equivalent of brute force horsepower, rather than eco-friendly efficiency metrics. But when I'm sitting in a deserted airport terminal with an hour's worth of work to power through and only 45 minutes of remaining battery life, the last thing I'm thinking about is processor performance.

Machines (and uses) have changed

Wide Angle Zoom (200 px) However we choose to define performance, we've always assumed that performance measurement benchmarks were run on machines that had already been powered on and booted up. We also assumed that these machines were plugged into a power outlet. These days, these assumptions are laughable, because outside of cubicle-dwellers sweating over dusty desktops for their corporate overlords, few of us leave our computers on 24/7/365. We take them with us to places like Starbucks, where finding a power outlet is about as challenging as locating the lost city of Atlantis, and we don't have the luxury of time to sit and wait while our machines boot up.

This shift in performance metric priority is being driven by two major changes in attitude and technology:

Green matters. Conserving power didn't matter much when 30-pound desktops ruled the planet and no one paid attention to how much all that electricity cost. Now that we've mobilized, disconnected, and learned the value of power-performance curves, the cost and availability of power are suddenly much more important to us. It isn't feasible to leave a laptop or other mobile device perpetually powered on. Even if we didn't run the risk of frying our laptops inside their padded cases, their three-hour battery life would leave us high and dry before lunchtime.
Software deployment has evolved. Corporate software distribution methods that required conventional desktop machines to be powered on at night, are yesterday's news. Today, commodity chipsets, firmware, and monitoring software allow machines to be remotely -- and automatically -- woken up, updated, and shut down. Web-based remote management solutions keep mobile machines in top form as well. In many cases, cloud-based software infrastructure is largely obviating the need to update client code in the first place. One reason that everyday users neither know nor care when Google Docs adds a new feature is because the software no longer makes a big deal of it. Windows tends to announce when it's been patched or updated, but Web apps typically don't.

Beyond eco-friendliness, better, smarter client hardware, network control, and an increasingly thin software stack, lies another simple truth: Today's mobile machines lead very different lives than more sedentary desktop hardware we all grew up with. We shut them down and hibernate them before shlepping them from one place to another, and when we get to our destination and open the lid, we expect things to happen quickly. The more dynamic nature of the modern workplace, coupled with the transition of mobile handsets from basic voice devices to full-featured computing devices, has radically altered our expectations of how these devices -- mobile or not, pocketable or not -- should work.

Thankfully, the industry is tentatively taking notice. The turtle-slow speed with which the average computer wakes itself up, freshens its desktop, and presents its happy face to its owner, is finally getting some attention from hardware vendors. HP's QuickWeb and Dell's Latitude ON, for example, boot into reduced-scale environments for quick access to simple apps like e-mail and contact management. Beyond launch performance, once these machines are on, the amount of time they actually remain on is also finally becoming a key concern for hardware makers.

I'd like to ask them what took so long, but that would be cliché. What matters is that this real-world performance metric is no longer being ignored. And as operating systems initially developed for handsets such as Google Android start showing up on netbooks and other lower-end machines, end users will increasingly expect these larger devices to offer the same kind of instant-on, battery-friendly experience provided by more traditional handhelds.

Not so fast

As heartening as it is to see vendors finally wake up to power-on and battery life performance, we're not quite up to speed yet in terms of standardizing and normalizing the messages they send to the broad base of consumer and enterprise buyers.

For example, Nokia claims its new Booklet 3G will run for 12 hours before it needs to be recharged. In the absence of standardized power-based performance metrics, however, it's difficult to take Nokia at its word. Is it 12 hours of watching a movie? Is wireless on or off? If so, is it Wi-Fi, 3G or both? Since vendors have no established baseline for these performance claims, they're free to say pretty much whatever they want.

As a result, they'll continue to use rather useless metrics (like how many cells their batteries have) to flog their machines. But computer vendors making a big deal out of six- or nine-cell batteries aren't much removed from automakers hawking the size of a given vehicle's gas tank. In both cases, we still don't know how far the thing will go. In the real world, we continue to lack industry-accepted parameters akin to the EPA's fuel economy standards that allow computer buyers to make apples-to-apples comparisons.

Change often comes to an industry when consumers demand it. And as we spend ever greater stretches of time using battery-powered devices far from home, the onus is on us to challenge vendors to get straight with realistic methods of measuring such real-world performance parameters like battery life and power-on availability. I'm sure I'm not the only one who looks forward to evaluating comparable machines based on performance figures that weren't first invented by the marketing department.

Danger signs: Now how secure does the cloud look?

Publié: octobre 12, 2009, 11:57pm CEST par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

There are service outages, and then there are service outages. T-Mobile customers who carry the Sidekick smartphone are learning the hard way that there's a major difference between having no access to a service for a little while and losing every contact, calendar entry, and related shred of personal data they've got.

In the not too distant past, Google, Twitter, and Facebook have all experienced basic, quaintly simple service outages. Despite the headlines and general chaos associated with each incident, the bottom line impact was never all that onerous: When service returned, so did their users' data. For the most part, users were given an easy excuse to take a few hours off. And with the exception of Google's subscription services, most were free, so folks couldn't argue that they weren't getting their money's worth.

More than a free service

Microsoft's experience isn't turning out as charmed, and it wouldn't surprise me if some of the folks behind its 2008 purchase of Sidekick maker Danger might be rethinking the $500 million deal in the wake of last week's worse-than-usual outage. When service was restored and countless users (Microsoft and T-Mobile still aren't fessing up to actual numbers) realized their devices had been wiped clean, Microsoft was forced to release an unprecedented mea culpa admitting data had been lost and would in all likelihood not be recovered. More embarrassing for the companies involved, Microsoft implored users to keep their batteries in place and avoid resetting their devices or allowing them to lose power.

Wide Angle Zoom (200 px) However you slice it, this is not a happy place for anyone. While it's easy to assume Microsoft's and T-Mobile's customers are the real victims here, the sad truth is these very clients shoulder at least part of the blame for losing their stuff. It may sound harsh, but users who rely so heavily on a vendor that they neglect to implement their own disaster recovery plan shouldn't complain too loudly when said vendor drops the ball. Although in this case Microsoft and T-Mobile were accountable for the service itself, data ownership always resides with the customer. While the peculiarities of the Sidekick dictate that much of the data resides in the cloud, end users remain ultimately accountable for their information.

Sadly, many of them are learning a hard lesson about the value of local syncing. Whatever mobile device or OS you're using, this should be a wakeup call if you're not doing the same.

A cloudy question

This debacle doesn't just force this particular service into question. More ominously, it challenges the very notion of cloud-based services at a time when their takeup rate is accelerating. The fundamental trust that we have in such services -- that a provider that specializes in large-scale deployments like this could absolutely never lose our precious data -- has been thrown into question. Suddenly, keeping things stored on our rickety old hard drives, or at least backing them up there, may not seem like such a bad idea. Any way you slice it, it's a backward step in the march toward the cloud.

To its credit, Microsoft is doing everything it can to make the best of an unfortunate situation. It's apologized for losing customer information, it's scrambling to recover what it can, and it's offering up a free month of data service. While customers who have lost it all may disagree, this is a textbook response to this kind of situation. And as the vendors involved strive to save whatever face they can, it's fair for current and prospective customers to feel burned by a service whose monthly subscription fees implied a certain trust relationship. More than a free service like Twitter, which when it inevitably goes dark users can simply shrug their shoulders in response because they're simply getting what they've paid for (namely, nothing), a service like T-Mobile's that comes with a monthly bill can't simply rely on shoulder-shrugging users when the worst happens.

Thunder cloud (Photo credit: Carmi Levy)

[Original photograph by Carmi Levy]

A case of bad timing

All this must weight heavily on Microsoft as it prepares to release its core cloud-based environment, Windows Azure Platform. While Microsoft was hardly involved in the architecture decisions made years before it acquired the Danger unit, the brand association is anything but positive as Microsoft takes its biggest step yet toward a Web-enabled services model. Convincing customers still comfortable with the notion of physical servers in tangible data centers that they should toss their data into infrastructure owned and managed by some unseen entity just got a lot harder.

Google, Salesforce.com, and other cloud-based vendors -- free or not -- are doubtless also feeling Microsoft's pain, because they all know full well that this kind of thing can happen to them, too. The industry clearly has a long road ahead of it as it seeks to balance the compelling capital and operational advantages of Web services with the never-ending need for customers to take an active role in securing their data.

That road will be difficult indeed if vendors ignore the need for this form of partnership. Despite their passion for making their new generation of Web-based services as worry-free as they possibly can, no amount of technology can ever remove the need for personal and corporate accountability from the equation. Vendors that market themselves as the answer for customers who can't be bothered to pay attention to their own data need a not-so-slight attitude adjustment.

For their part, customers also need to begin challenging cloud-based services vendors with specific questions revolving around how data is secured, backed up, and restored. Before signing on the dotted line, they should ask about what tools and processes the vendor makes available for customers to self-serve their own backups. Even if it's as simple as a basic export to a .CSV file, with the right support from their vendors, customers can set up automated processes that ensure they can keep going even if the service itself does not.

Vendors that don't help customers help themselves will be quickly eclipsed by those that do. And when the worst happens and a vendor-caused meltdown takes data with it, customers that don't step up to the plate will have no one to blame but themselves. Welcome to the new reality of the cloud.

The virtual mega-mart: Apple's oversized App Store

Publié: octobre 1, 2009, 5:13pm CEST par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

By all definitions, Apple's iTunes App Store is a massive success, with sales numbers that would make McDonald's franchisees green with envy. Two billion applications -- half a billion in the last quarter alone -- have been downloaded since the store went live just over 14 months ago. With over 85,000 apps, it puts every mobile platform competitor to shame. The 125,000-strong iPhone Developer Program and successive evolutions of iPhone and iPod touch devices should keep driving growth for a while.

This is all obviously good for Apple, because a vibrant online App Store naturally drives demand for its high-margin hardware. And in the case of the iPhone, AT&T and other partner-carriers benefit from carrying a device whose sales are driven not only by desirable hardware, but by the ability to easily turn the device into pretty much anything the end user wants. The paltry few-thousand choices on Research In Motion's BlackBerry App World, or Palm App Catalog's even paltrier few dozen apps, end up serving as inadvertent advertisements for the iPhone.

When numbers overwhelm

The real issue for software developers is whether any of this is good for them. While all of them would likely give their eye teeth to develop for the hottest platform, there is such thing as being too hot. At a certain point, hugely popular ecosystems like Apple's App Store become a liability for developers who don't want to get lost in the crowd.

Wide Angle Zoom (200 px) Precisely where that point lies is a great unknown. Was it at 25,000 apps? Or will Apple cross the threshold at 200,000 titles? No one really knows, but in the still solidifying world of online software sales and delivery, I'll venture that at some point, too much success for the hardware/online app store vendor translates into weaker prospects for the little guys just trying to get their piece of the action.

A quick comparison with traditional retailers might help. In the typical big-box retail store, shelf space is everything. Vendors fight tooth-and-nail to get as much visibility as possible, brutally negotiating for every linear foot of exposure. In this ultra-competitive landscape, physical positioning drives sales numbers. Large store footprints offer more opportunities for large vendors to display their wares. Lose the battle and you're shunted to the bottom shelves. Or worse.

Clawing for space and visibility

While the strategy of clawing away for space and visibility scales rather nicely in any physical retail space of any size, it tends to fall apart when you try to transition it to the virtual space of app stores. There on the palm-sized screens of smartphones, there's a finite limit to the amount of visibility any one product can have. Customers will only scroll through so many screens before they elect either to buy or bail out.

So as Apple's download numbers soar toward that magic three billion mark, the customer's ability to find the one app that he needs becomes a hit-and-miss proposition. And if you're the developer of that one app, you come to realize that as the app store customer base scales up, the ratio of misses to hits scales with it.

An approval process that can be charitably described as opaque, or not-so-charitably called unfair and glacially slow, doesn't help. While it's a safe bet that Apple has beefed up the teams handling the crush of inbound app submissions, it's also clear that the company is far from quelling the chorus of complaints and making the process as streamlined as it needs to be. Even if the wildest optimists among us believe that the company will soon address every last complaint, the sad truth for developers is that it's harder to stand aside from the crowd when you're selling yet another GPS-enabled local business finder into an App Store that already counts two dozen similarly featured offerings.

Apple's App Store may be desirable because it has tons of traffic, but its interface leaves much to be desired when you're trying to figure out which one of these near-identical choices is the right one for you. It's one thing when they're free, as you can simply download them all and try them before making a final choice. But commercial apps don't always offer a free trial. So you cross your fingers and hope you've made the right call.

iTunes App Store, Android Market, and Windows Mobile Marketplace

Going the way of the shopping mall?

Dilemmas like these may cause some developers to rethink whether they want to be in the busiest virtual space at all. As many real-world retailers have discovered, the local mall -- once revered as the temple of retailing -- is under threat. Relatively high rental costs, often restrictive limits on what vendors can and cannot do with their stores, and a gradual shift away from one-stop-shopping toward distinct, more specialized big box retailers, have turned many malls into gap-toothed shadows of their former selves. The mall model, once touted as inviolable, is now obsolete.

As some online app store competitors offer developers better deals than Apple's 70/30 split, and as they move to make their approval processes faster and more transparent, Apple risks becoming characterized as the modern counterpart to the arrogant mall owners of the 1970s. These people once believed there would never be an alternative to their ultra-busy centers of suburban retail life -- they named their malls with words like "Village" and "City" because that's what they thought they were building.

As their experience has proven, nothing lasts forever, especially in the fickle world of consumerism. More ominously for dominant players like Apple, a less-than-ideal deal for developer-retailers hardly compensates for the hoops they often have to jump through to go to market. At some point, some developers may become unhappy with the deal they're forced to take, and may start looking to competing platforms' app stores to fulfill their marketing needs.

In such cases, their relatively small size could be seen as an advantage.

The current numbers obviously don't show a torrent of defections just yet. But the bigger and more distant Apple becomes, the easier it becomes for the seeds of doubt to be planted. As competing mobile vendors watch Apple run away with the app store prize, it's their best hope to remain in the game. As developers continue to wonder whether a compromised deal with Apple -- in a store whose overwhelming size makes it ever more difficult to break through and connect with buyers -- is worth it, alternative delivery channels offer similar hope that they won't get lost in the crowd.

My father's laptop: A humble machine's simple lesson

Publié: septembre 24, 2009, 4:46pm CEST par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

As laptops go, it's nothing out of the ordinary. An average brand -- Compaq -- running an average operating system -- Vista -- used for the ordinary, average sort of things, like Web browsing and messaging. With its 17-inch screen, built-in webcam, and a hard drive with enough capacity to store everything I've ever written, it's the kind of machine that pretty much defines mainstream computing.

The difference is this was my father's machine. And after getting a middle-of-the-night call yesterday from my mom saying he had passed away, just like that, it was the first thing I saw after I got to their house and walked into the living room.

There it sat on the portable stand he had bought, in exactly the same spot where just hours earlier, he had been working, finishing up his nightly round of online research and e-mailing. In exactly the same spot where he suddenly slipped to the floor, felled by a sudden, massive heart attack after a dozen years fighting heart disease. In exactly the same spot where my computer-phobe mother had left it after I had her carefully remove the power and USB cables to keep it safe from the inevitable crowds of visitors.

Wide Angle Zoom (200 px) He came late to the technological game. After years of insisting that his old WebTV set-top box was all he needed to experience the Internet, he finally relented last year and agreed to move up to a real computer to stay in the same orbit as his increasingly Web savvy grandchildren and friends. He spent months researching the ultimate deal, often calling me to commiserate over the latest Best Buy catalog. After short-listing the most likely candidates, he'd listen patiently as I weighed the merits of each one and carefully tried to explain why one or another did or did not fit his needs.

When the planets finally aligned and the particular model at the top of our ever evolving hit list had its price slashed by some $300, he pulled the trigger and brought it home. Like any overgrown kid in a toy store, the new plaything occupied his every day and his every conversation. For months, every friend of his -- and even some total strangers -- knew he had scored the deal of the century. And for months, those same friends -- and strangers, too -- could count on a daily dose of e-mailed wisdom from my increasingly wired and wireless father.

For the 13 months that he used it, the machine served its purpose well, allowing him to video chat with our kids and critique their latest batch of pictures. Often during the day, he'd ping me in Google Talk and we'd talk...about what he was up to, what I was up to, and what music I should be listening to as I did it. He could have just as easily phoned, but speaking online seemed cooler to him, and somehow gave his voice an added bit of zing. It was something he could share with me in ways that no phone could ever match. If I wasn't around, he'd leave a message, and add to an archive of sound bites that at some point we'll feel ready to listen to.

So why do I bring any of this up? Because through my formerly Luddite father, I was able to view the market for consumer technology through a unique lens. To him, the machine was the vessel through which he connected to the most important people around him. He spent his days experimenting with ways to make those connections stronger, using e-mail to invite dignitaries to his synagogue's 50th anniversary and manage his Meals on Wheels driving schedule. If he didn't know something, he knew whom to ask. He went from denying he needed any of this stuff to basing much of his day on it. In doing so, he turned himself into the perfect use case for the typical non-techie consumer who had a lot of stuff to do and needed a flexible solution to help him get it all done.

And I, as his on-call support team, was challenged to explain the complex to him in ways that he understood, that were relevant to a 74-year-old man who just wanted to share pictures of his grandkids with anyone who cared. It kept me focused on the "why" of technology, and his voice in my ear reminded me that as important as specs, feeds and speeds are, at some point they all end up in the hands of someone who just wants to get stuff done.

His computer still sits on the stand where he was working right up until the moment he died. The stickers he haphazardly plastered onto the palmrest are still there, too, testament to someone who never missed an opportunity to put his stamp on everything around him. For the last 13 months of his life, this was a critical window on the world for him, and seeing it sit, idle and dark, only reinforces what's been lost. To the uninitiated, it looks like an average piece of hardware. To him, it was anything but.

As I stare into my own laptop and wonder about my own use of technology and what it all means, or should mean, I think of how his computer transformed him in the last chapter of his life. If technology has to have a meaning, I'd like to believe that this would be it.

For AMD, keeping it too simple may be too stupid

Publié: septembre 21, 2009, 10:59pm CEST par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

The "Keep It Simple, Stupid" rule works in business as well as in everyday life, primarily because it forces us to focus on the one or two basic issues we need to make the right decision. My kindergarten teacher shortened it to "KISS," perhaps in the interest of simplicity. When you're driving a car: Know where you are, know where you're going. Leader of the free world: Keep your hands clean, know what you're aiming at. Reprogramming your iPod/in-vehicle audio system interface: Pull over, let the semi pass you.

More data, please

The computer market never got the memo -- or if it did, maybe no one could make sense of it. This is a good thing, though, because when you're investing in a technology, more data is always preferable to less. Whatever parameters you're measuring -- processor architectures and speeds, types of memory, hard drive spin velocities and capacities, or display resolutions and refresh rates -- the more you know about what's going on under the hood, the more likely you are to make a sensible buying decision that you can live and work with.

Wide Angle Zoom (200 px) Now all of a sudden, AMD wants to dumb this process down because some people find it too confusing. And that scares me more than a little. The company's just-announced Vision program aims to replace the information-stuffed process of buying a computer with one based on three categories: Vision, Vision Premium, and Vision Ultimate, each of which corresponds to a particular end user need. Plain old Vision machines define the low end, and will do the trick for Web browsers and basic game players. Vision Premium might be suitable for gamers interested in something more challenging than Solitaire or Sudoku, as well as HD video. Vision Ultimate addresses the most demanding gamers and content creators. Early next year, Vision Black-based machines that target high-end users will join the party.

There's an eerie resemblance here to "Vista Premium" and "Vista Ultimate," but I suppose AMD didn't get that memo, either.

A slightly blurred vision

After a generation of PC marketing being driven by and targeted at technically inclined folks who used the often arcane parameters of hardware capability to measure bottom line performance and calculate value propositions, my mother-in-law is now calling the shots. If AMD's strategy plays out, consumers who don't understand the difference between level 2 and level 3 cache will now find it easier to choose the right solution.

AMD Vision Ultimate logo I get that. I've seen my mother-in-law's eyes glaze over when I try to explain the benefits of 7,200 RPM drives versus 5,400 RPM ones. She doesn't much care that a quad-core processor lets her edit photos and video more smoothly than a dual-core one, and she wishes I'd stop trying to get her to upgrade her webcam from her current, lame VGA device that washes out in the low light of her home office to an HD-capable one that doesn't make her and my father-in-law look like stop action ghosts. While I quote numbers to illustrate the benefits, she waits for Wal-Mart to drop the price on a cheap machine she'd like to install in the kitchen.

What about the rest of us?

So she'll appreciate AMD's gesture. It's the rest of the world I'm worried about. Taken to its ultimate extreme, simplified computers will make it virtually impossible to make real, side-by-side comparisons. Want to know if $699 is too much? Tough. No longer will savvy customers be able to laugh off the know-it-all salesperson's claim that no one else can match their price. How can you appreciate a product's capabilities when its basic guts are deliberately hidden from view? Simplified marketing may make life easier for the uninitiated, but does the message have to be so diluted that folks with more than a little knowledge can't dig a little bit deeper on their own?

When otherwise educated customers are forced to buy based on vague notions of role- or task-matched performance, the entire process begins to look suspiciously like the one from the most recent silent auction at my children's school. In amongst the various items up for bids -- the gift certificates, logoed clothing, and small electronics -- was an envelope with a single word printed neatly across the seal: "Surprise." Based on similar experiences from past years, there was an even chance that the envelope contained a booby prize, such as a yellowed old bumper sticker or a collection of discarded scripts from last year's school play. Well-meaning parents, hoping this was a non-booby-prize year, nevertheless bid the mystery envelope up to $50 before the night ended, and ended up with a $25 gift certificate at a local coffee shop for their donation.

I'd hardly expect someone laying down hundreds or thousands of dollars at a profit-seeking technology store would be as understanding as these involved parents were. If the recession has taught us anything, it's the value of a dollar. Computers are not sold in sealed envelopes, and customers aren't supposed to guess, even vaguely, at what might be inside.

A better kind of simple

Intel already gets the message. While it arguably kicked off the simplification parade with the Centrino brand, and has been gradually moving away from feeds and speeds ever since, shoppers who understand GHz and Gbps can still pull out info sheets at the store and geek out to their heart's content. To its credit, Intel recognizes that today's PC buyers come in all sorts of shapes, sizes, and levels of knowledge. And a one-size-fits-all, universally-simplified marketing strategy fails to give the tech-savvy buyer sufficient background to make the right decision.

I appreciate why AMD is going simple. Data released last week by iSuppli shows its market share down by 1.4% to 11.5%, while Intel's is up by 1.5% to 80.6% -- its highest since 2005. Companies in decline need to do radical things to change their fortunes. But ticking off the large percentage of the market that still has a clue isn't a great way to start. Even my kindergarten teacher would agree.

Zune dreams: Microsoft's refusal to say die

Publié: septembre 17, 2009, 7:42pm CEST par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

A boxing match can be a fascinating thing to watch, especially when it's between deliberately mismatched fighters who probably have no business being in the ring at the same time. But since these things are more about business than fighting, anyway, audiences are often treated to cruel spectacles of an overwhelmingly powerful athlete beating an out-of-his-league opponent to a bloody pulp.

If the poor shlub doesn't collapse in a heap or put his gloves down and head for the corner, you can always count on the ref to step in and stop the carnage. But only after the members of the audience have been satisfied that they saw what they came to see.

The real world, sadly, doesn't work that way. There's no ref to stop the battle before it spins out of control. And quitting is usually the only viable option once a company realizes it's in over its head.

Fighting on

Wide Angle Zoom (200 px) Microsoft hasn't gotten that memo. Three years after releasing its first Zune media player to what may be charitably described as lukewarm reviews, it's still hacking away at a platform that's barely managed to stay on consumers' radar. Or anyone else's. Its latest attempt, the Zune HD, is clearly the company's best release yet, with flashes of innovation that illustrate how deep the creative spirit continues to run at Microsoft. Too-sexy-for-my-shirt sleekness, OLED touchscreen, HD Radio and 720p hi-def external output via an available dock illustrate how much the game has changed since the early days when these things only played MP3s.

If only great design were enough to keep a decent media player going. Unfortunately for Microsoft, it isn't. While Apple's shipped 220 million iPods since 2001, Microsoft's barely topped 3 million in a shade less than three years. The first two hardware generations were credible me-too designs, but didn't offer anything unique enough to break iPod users out of their habit.

Zune HD is Official Beyond value-for-money or feature set considerations, however, consumers just don't covet Zunes like they covet iPods. Beyond Apple's consistent sense of industrial design that allows it to charge a premium for simplicity, its content and application ecosystem seals the deal. When you buy an iPod, you automatically become married -- for better or for worse -- to iTunes. Whether you love it or hate it, you've got to admit it at least means something to the iPod owner. The Zune? You get the Zune Marketplace that currently has seven free applications available for download. Microsoft's promising more, but its refusal to open the ecosystem to developers means it won't be challenging Apple's 75,000-title (and growing) App Store anytime soon.

Microsoft's Zune Pass, a $14.99 monthly subscription that gives Zuners unlimited (well, unlimited as long as they keep paying) access to six million songs in the Zune Marketplace library, is an creatively cost-effective way to keep buyers entertained. But like so many great ideas that fail to light the world on fire, it may be just a little too advanced for consumers who are still more comfortable buying and downloading songs online or ripping them from CDs.

We need competition

All of this means Microsoft's latest stab at Zune will likely end up where its previous attempts ended up: Nowhere. Which is unfortunate, because the media player market needs credible alternatives to keep the Apples of the world honest and to maintain the pace of innovation in this fast-evolving market. Apple is a better company because Microsoft insists on nipping at its media player heels. Without competition, leaders risk becoming complacent. And while Apple hasn't exhibited any outward signs of easing off the gas pedal, the continued presence of alternatives that can keep it from growing its near-74% media player market share can only be good for consumers.

Still, if Microsoft hopes to be more than an afterthought, it needs to abandon its careful, evolutionary strategy and swing for the fences. A more radical approach might include some of the following:

Combine the Zune and Windows Mobile units into one. Forked development divides resources and increases time to market. Consolidating the two would drive Microsoft's agility in developing compelling mobile platforms and distributing them, quickly, on whatever platform makes the most sense. Apple's mobile platform covers both its iPod media players and its iPhone smartphones, so there's no reason why Microsoft can't follow suit.
Extend the Xbox. The consolidated mobile entity outlined above should also find a way to incorporate core competencies from the Xbox unit. Mobility's future is games, after all, and where better to gain that expertise?
Collapse all online stores into one. The fact that Microsoft has three such stores only serves to confuse consumers. The Zune Marketplace, Windows Marketplace and Xbox Live would be far livelier under one, consistently branded umbrella.
Open the development ecosystem. Apple's strength is largely based on a vibrant application market that encourages third parties to add value to the basic platform. Microsoft needs to motivate the same kind of thinking for its Zune platform. Although every other mobile platform vendor is already diving into these waters, innovations like more advantageous pricing models, transparent approval processes, and targeted marketing assistance could differentiate a Microsoft-branded application marketplace.
Buy Palm. The Zune HD may be pretty, but it'll never be as buzzworthy as Microsoft needs to bust out of niche status. For all its troubles, Palm still commands tremendous respect in the industry, is still staffed by some great engineering talent and can still generate headlines that transcend its now-miniscule market size. Such an acquisition would be just disruptive enough to shake Microsoft out of its mobile conservatism. At the same time, it would convince the rest of the world that the Redmond-based company means business, and isn't content to simply release another disjointed and derivative product.

I'm impressed that Microsoft has stuck it out this long. But I fear it'll keep getting bloodied if it keeps stepping into the ring without a secret, breakout weapon (steroids, perhaps?) that might give it a fighting chance of survival. It's been on the ropes for so long that nothing short of a completely new way of approaching the fight will improve its prospects.

The wireless carrier conundrum: Perpetuating the myth of connectivity

Publié: septembre 11, 2009, 4:26pm CEST par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

I'd hate to be a wireless carrier. Customers don't like you, regulators are constantly sniffing around the edges of your operations and you're perpetually faced with the Hobson's Choice of investing billions in new network capability or risk falling behind other, similarly vilified competitors. In short, you can't win. And the recent spate of negative publicity surrounding the real-world experiences of customers using 3G-capable smartphones suggests this situation won't improve anytime soon.

It's their own fault

In many respects, carriers are victims of their own marketing. In trying to sell us sleek, next-generation handsets like Apple's iPhone and Palm's Pre, they almost always use the same kind of demo to illustrate just how insanely great these things are. Typically, a disembodied hand swipes the screen, deftly navigating from a GPS-enabled app to a messaging application before finishing off with an almost-mandatory trip through the Facebook app. These carefully crafted videos illustrate the ideal usage scenario -- where you live and work in the shadows of your very own cell tower, and your neighborhood is surrounded by friendly police officers who actively keep every other 3G smartphone-carrying user miles away. In reality, you couldn't buy this kind of network performance even if you could afford it. But illusion sells, so the carriers' unrealistic marketing campaigns continue to set ridiculous expectations.

Wide Angle Zoom (200 px) So given the huge gap between expectation in reality, when you get home with your new wonderphone and realize you live in a 3G dead zone, you're forgiven for cursing under your breath that maps now load in minutes and not seconds, and you often find yourself re-sending e-mail messages because the process fails more often than it succeeds. Forget 3G speeds: You'd be happy with any connection at all.

Yet 3G underperformance is the industry's dirty little secret as it continues to market next-generation, blazingly fast wireless for all its worth. Left to their own devices, consumers are stuck either asking friends who live nearby for their anecdotal experiences with a given carrier, searching online forums and blogs for anything remotely relevant, or crossing their fingers and hoping they don't live or work in the wrong area.

Urban spooning -- less fun than it sounds

For users of certain high-end smartphones in densely populated urban areas, even 2G service is a distant pipe dream as advanced handhelds spin their virtual wheels waiting for some form of network connection. These data-rich devices place so much more strain on the underlying wireless infrastructure than earlier smartphones that when enough of them show up in the same geographic area and start reaching out, they end up in the wireless equivalent of a traffic jam.

Users in smaller population centers are luckier in this respect. Outside of densely populated urban areas -- or heavily attended conferences like SXSW that have generated their own form of wireless network gridlock -- they rarely run into the kind of end user crush that prompts some city dwellers to walk the streets looking for better signal.

To most of us, the answer is simple: The carriers should build more capacity in areas where high density meets high demand. Unfortunately, nothing is ever simple in the Byzantine world of wireless. Even if carriers wanted to load the equipment in their trucks and fan out to every cell tower in the city, regulations from overlapping jurisdictions ranging from local/municipal for zoning to the FCC for transmission rights and spectrum use often mean delays of months and years before long suffering customers see any kind of improvement.

By then, of course, many disenchanted wireless users may have already bolted to competing carriers. Where, doubtless, some of them will run into similar bandwidth issues. For now, it's a problem with no immediate solution.

It wasn't always this way

I don't remember this being as annoying before 3G became prevalent. Perhaps earlier generation smartphones based on the now seemingly ancient CDMA and GSM standards could get away with pokey, inconsistent performance because we already had such low expectations. Like the early days of dial-up Internet access, simply getting online and staying online was considered an achievement. If you lost signal every once in a while, that was the price of going wireless. Or so it seemed. The user experience, in all its text-only e-mail and stripped down half-baked WAP browser glory, was so lame to begin with that not even a substandard network could ruin the experience. We simply didn't know better, and even if we did, our expectations were still pretty limited.

These days, as smartphones have sprouted advanced, high-resolution touchscreens and browsers that easily replicate the desktop experience, such back-end shortcomings are a little more obvious. And a little more painful. It ticks us off to have come so far with such incredibly capable hardware, only to be let down right at the gates to heaven itself by a network that just can't deliver the goods. Or would deliver the goods if only the darn carrier would chime in to and spend the money on things that don't necessarily make for great commercials, but nevertheless improve the real-world experience for real-world customers.

Is it worth it?

It's easy to conclude that carriers do themselves a disservice by misrepresenting their ability to deliver acceptable network performance. It's also easy to conclude that long-term customer retention needs to take precedence over short-term subscriber growth.

But as long as the cost-benefit ratios to carriers for tactical improvements to their existing 3G networks tilt toward the status quo, nothing will change. Carriers will continue to oversell 3G capability, and they'll repeat the same process when the industry inevitably transitions into even higher capacity 4G infrastructure.

For their part, consumers, wowed by ever cooler demonstrations from carriers more interested in flash than substance, will continue to buy into the myth that what they see on television will closely reflect their actual ownership experience. Carriers will certainly continue to deserve their tarnished reputations, but consumers unwilling to take the time to understand the differences between 3G fact and 3G reality deserve at least part of the blame as well.

It's the end of the iPod as we know it

Publié: septembre 8, 2009, 4:24pm CEST par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

The big news this week promises to be Apple's annual September product launch on Wednesday. Of course, the famously secretive company won't confirm anything before then, but if the rumors are to be believed, Apple is about to release another generation of refreshed iPods on a drooling world.

Which begs the question: Does the world even need a new iPod? Or, viewed another way, have the old iPods run their course? Or another, does anyone buy single-function music players anymore, or has the world moved on to multifunction devices?

The classic has had its day

The cynic in me believes the Day the iPod Died was when Apple shifted away from its hard drive-based iPod classic, and moved toward the flash-based iPod touch. Indeed, the touch -- either the model Apple is selling now, or the one that'll be on sale following this week's announcement -- has infinitely more in common with the iPhone than it ever had with the original iPod. Which means it isn't really much of an iPod at all. Which, from where I sit, means the iPod, as a brand, refers to yesterday's technology.

Wide Angle Zoom (200 px) So why does Apple insist on maintaining a brand that, to most consumers, connotes a device that only plays music?

Of the four basic types of iPods -- shuffle, nano, touch and classic -- only the touch is sufficiently differentiated from anything else currently on the market. The other three are basic variations on the same old theme (stylish music player) that's been around since 2001. While they differ in physical size, screen and storage capacity, we use them to play music, and as our eyes permit, videos.

Apple keeps four differentiated types of iPods around because the basic engineering on at least two of these lines (classic and nano) hasn't fundamentally changed in years. While the classic's been in freefall for some time and will either die this week or soldier on for another year or so before quietly fading into history, the margins and sales numbers for the nano make this unassuming, no-longer-leading-edge media player the backbone of the franchise. While axing the nano would be a dramatic move that would likely garner breathless international headlines well beyond the tech pages, it wouldn't do much for Apple's bottom line. Expect the nano to hang around for a while.

Apple's iPod event 2009

So has the shuffle

The shuffle was Apple's first truly mass market iPod, and when the first chewing gum-sized model was released in 2005, the price of admission for everyday music listeners into the Legion of Apple was driven low enough that fans who didn't care about the lack of a screen or severely limited capacity bought in anyway, no questions asked. They valued the cachet of being part of iPod Nation. (I say "they" -- my own shuffle is still kicking around in my car.)

But that first shuffle was a brilliantly simple and robust design compared to today's over-engineered, undersized generation. The only worry with my old one was where to keep the cap when charging it through the built-in USB connector. These days, shuffle owners have to carry around their cables with them, and hope they don't lose them before their battery dies. And using it in the car? Forget it: The minimalist design that led to all the controls being cattle-prodded onto Apple's innovative (and fussy...and expensive-to-replace) headphones also now prevents you from simply jacking it into your car stereo's audio port. Well, okay, you sort of can, but don't expect to be able to change tunes on the fly. Needless to say, I won't shed a tear when this one's discontinued. It won't be for a while, of course, but let the record show I'm no fan of proprietary designs that limit a device's use.

So we're left with the touch -- pretty much the only iPod worth buying anymore, and the only device in the line that's really not an iPod at all. As you can tell even from a distance, the touch is not so much a music and video player as part of a full-on platform that's redefining the concept of tablets and webpads in ways we're only beginning to understand. Apple's masterstroke in bringing it to market was leveraging its iPhone development process into a device that delivers the complete iPhone application experience for folks who'd rather not have the phone as well (or who would rather not have AT&T). In so doing, Apple accelerated the rate at which it could recoup its fundamental research and development costs for the platform -- a trick which allows it to make more money for a longer period on each premium-priced touch than would otherwise be the case.

Wants, not needs

So the answers to my questions from way back in the second paragraph become plainly apparent: No; no one really needs an iPod. It was, and always has been, an aspirational purchase, one that typically costs more than competing devices, offers relatively fewer features for a given price paid (I'm still waiting for voice recording capability, Mr. Jobs), and locks owners into an iTunes universe that isn't everyone's cup of tea.

Despite all this, carrying an iPod -- from the humble shuffle all the way up to the innovative touch -- still brings with it a personal sense of inclusion in a not altogether exclusive, but still desirable, club. No one brags about his Creative Sansa; and whether tomorrow's iPod bears any resemblance to the iPod that first bowed in 2001, is virtually meaningless in the context of everyday conversation. We may not be able to buy music-only iPods for too much longer, but buyers won't really care either way. They've become comfortable with the brand, whatever it signifies, and look forward to someday getting touch-level capability at a shuffle/nano price point.

And that comfort level almost guarantees that, as of this Wednesday, enough people will want the new devices with the word "iPod" on them that it won't matter that they're being sold under a brand that's increasingly irrelevant to consumers, in a world that increasingly sees single function devices as commoditized and ultimately forgettable. Wherever the iPod presently stands on its maturity curve, the brand will continue to lead the market, prompting us to replace our old ones, just because, for some time to come. The devices may be marketed as "new," but nothing's really going to change for a while.

Cloudy forecast? Gmail outage shouldn't cast such a chill over Web apps

Publié: septembre 3, 2009, 9:48pm CEST par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

Will this week's Google Mail outage frighten you out of shifting more of your computing solutions into the cloud?

On balance, it shouldn't, as no technology is perfect and failure is part of the landscape whether we keep our stuff in a data center, in a box under our desk, or on some unseen Web server on the other side of the country. But any failure of this magnitude offers up a prime opportunity to discuss -- and hopefully improve -- the weaknesses that can still bite us.

A dimmer forecast

By now, we all know what happened: On Tuesday, Gmail's Web interface took a two-hour siesta and left millions of users unable to access their accounts. Thanks to social media tools like Twitter and Facebook, many users quickly learned that the Gmail application itself was still available, and switched to their iPhones and BlackBerrys to get their webmail fix.

Google, which initially called it a "minor problem" caused by underestimating the impact of taking some servers offline for routine maintenance, later fessed up and admitted what happened next was a pretty big deal. Close to 37 million users in the U.S. doubtlessly nodded their heads, and cloud computing's sunny future dimmed significantly, if temporarily, in response.

Wide Angle Zoom (200 px) This latest outage (Gmail's last large-scale failure didn't garner as many headlines because it happened when most folks were asleep) raises valid questions about the viability of cloud computing, and the vulnerabilities we take on as we shift applications and data from their traditional homes on client PCs and servers to unseen resources on the Web.

Don't toss out the cloud. Yet.

Kindly note that "raises valid questions about the viability" does not mean "should never be adopted." Cloud computing offers up significant advantages to businesses and consumers, and the latest Gmail outage doesn't change what's fundamentally right about this architecture. It does, however, give providers an opportunity to assess how Google could have responded more effectively, and how we, as users, can better protect our interests before the next inevitable failure.

Because the failure started within Google's infrastructure, let's first focus on what the company needs to do to minimize the potential for a recurrence, and to improve response in the event that something happens anyway:

Test more effectively. Routine maintenance shouldn't take down a production environment. For a company with as much technical depth as Google, underestimating the impact of load balancing in the wake of taking some equipment offline is a pretty embarrassing goof. Going forward, I'd expect tighter internal processes to better understand the potential impact of any internal changes on external users.
Communicate more honestly. Google's initial message -- it's a minor issue -- served only to tick off millions of users already peeved that they had no e-mail. Customer Service 101 dictates that you do not minimize the experience of an aggrieved customer. Understand? Yes. Empathize? Certainly? But minimize? Avoid at all costs or risk the virtual equivalent of a kick in the shins.
Suggest alternatives more quickly. The outage affected only the Web interface. If you could access the app another way -- say, through your BlackBerry Gmail app -- you were fine. Google needs to more proactively communicate workarounds like this. At the very least, it gets a minority of those affected sort of back up and running.

And because responsibility is a two-way street, here's what users should do to prepare for the inevitable and ensure they can keep working even if the worst happens.

Install Google Gears. This neat code that syncs your mail -- and other Google stuff -- to your local machine so you can continue working when you lose network connectivity, could have saved you some serious headaches this past Tuesday. Google Gears users simply kept working when the Web interface went down, and synced up when everything was fixed. Is it perfect? No. But sometimes good enough is all you need.
Identify alternative modes of access. If you've got an iPhone, BlackBerry or Android device, install Gmail. Now. When the inevitable next outage happens, the more ways you have to get in, the better.
Avoid the single point of failure. I've got a friend who long ago set up a rule in his Gmail account to reroute all his inbound e-mail to a Windows Live account. Although he's likely Google's biggest fan, even he appreciates the value of not putting all your eggs into one basket. He had never logged into the Microsoft account -- until Tuesday. While everyone waited for Gmail to wake up from its slumber, he continued working.

The promise of cloud-based apps is the same whether they're consumer-focused and free or subscription-based and used to run a business. Specifically, they deliver good enough functionality without requiring the complexity of a local install. For smaller businesses, cloud-based apps let them tap into greater capabilities without having to stretch their IT resources. No huge up-front investments or complex implementation projects. Just subscribe and go. And as the vendor updates the app, the company benefits, too.

But as the shift toward the cloud continues, end users have the right to the same kind of service level agreements that have governed more conventional applications for generations. If your installed version of Microsoft Office goes bad, these expectations are outlined right on the box the software came in. Even though most Gmail users are getting it for free, they nevertheless expect some kind of defined response. For consumers and businesses subscribing to Google's premium services, expectations are decidedly -- and understandably -- greater.

It may very well be that Google's current service levels exceed those that the average customer would be able to achieve using an in-house, server-based messaging solution. But despite this, the optics in the aftermath of Gmail's latest outage are such that cloud computing carries risks, and the poster child for the cloud computing era, Google, needs to raise the level of its game and assume greater responsibility for the impact an outage has on its paying and non-paying customers. A tangible outcome to this outage will further solidify cloud computing's future.

Related Content: Gmail is back up after two-hour outage

Google calls Gmail outage 'minor issue', but thousands beg to differ

Don't drop that phone! Fragile devices threaten customer loyalty

Publié: août 31, 2009, 11:31pm CEST par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

Wide Angle Zoom (200 px) The iPhone is a technical marvel, a full-on computer that happens to fit in your pocket. It isn't alone: The average BlackBerry is also pretty magical in its own right, as are high end phones from Nokia, HTC and a host of other vendors.

Fantastically capable as they are, don't drop yours. Don't get it wet, either. Don't stress or damage it in any way. Because if you think you can simply bring it back to the store where you got it and swap it out under warranty for a replacement unit, think again. Violate the warranty terms and you'll be buying yourself a new one.

Despite growing discontent in Apple's support forums surrounding overheating iPhone batteries --and a similarly increasing frequency of cracked screens that may very well be related to the battery issue-- the company contends there have been no confirmed iPhone 3GS overheating incidents. The company says it is investigating a mere handful of customer complaints, but isn't admitting it's got a design or production-related issue with the device. Even allowing for the usual vendor underestimation, that total number of affected units likely represents only a tiny minority of in service iPhones. Still, any blemish on a popular product can be troublesome to vendor and buyer alike.

Apple, you've got a problem

Apple's refusal to admit there may be something wrong with the iPhone's basic engineering is crucial to the future expectations of owners unfortunate enough to own a portable Apple-branded toaster oven. As long as Apple denies it's got a problem, it can easily shift the blame to the consumer. By claiming consumer behavior voided the warranty, Apple keeps a lid on its support costs.

This isn't a new strategy for Apple. Earlier this year, support forums were crackling with reports of iPhones dying after their internal moisture sensors were tripped. In those cases, Apple's response to consumers was similarly intransigent: You dropped it in water, took it to the gym for a sweaty workout, or kept it in your non-air-conditioned kitchen for an entire day while you slow-cooked Friday night supper, tough luck.

To a certain degree, I appreciate Apple's position. There are plenty of people out there who would willingly abuse a liberal product warranty and see it as a get-free-hardware card, a manufacturer-insured justification for irresponsible behavior. Why bother keeping your device protected when you can simply pick up another one, no questions asked? While there will always be customers out there who willingly abuse the system to avoid paying hundreds of dollars in repair or replacement costs, Apple's get-tough approach nevertheless puts it at risk of ticking off consumers who take a decidedly more mature approach to caring for their devices.

Our growing mobile reliance

It may seem like a trivial matter, an extension of the usual cat-and-mouse game that buyers play when they buy complex electronics only to have them fail long before their expected design life is over. But it's anything but trivial as consumers and businesses alike lean increasingly heavily on mobile devices. The industry's inability to effectively deal with durability and consumers' relative naivete in not demanding more consistent warranty terms could hinder our ability to get the most out of these otherwise game changing technologies.

Although Apple gets the headlines these days because it owns the most visible mobile technology brand, this applies to every other smartphone vendor as well. The fine print that no one reads in the excited rush to buy that shiny new wonderphone and get out of the store is coming back to bite some buyers. Left unchecked, some vendors may find themselves on the wrong side of consumer expectations.

It ain't easy being mobile

Unlike desktop PCs that just sit there for their entire lives, smartphones don't have it so easy. Even if we think we're being careful with them, they're nevertheless exposed to environments that would bring a conventional PC to its knees. We leave them in the car on a summer's day, toss them in a backpack for a mid-winter commute to work or keep them on the bathroom vanity while we shower. We don't follow the battery care instructions to the letter (or at all) and I doubt anyone anywhere can honestly claim to have never dropped the thing.

But it's hard to believe vendors couldn't foresee this kind of end-user experience. We've been carrying cell phones for a couple of decades, now, and that's given us plenty of time to get used to dealing with wireless carriers and the hardware vendors that supply them (and us) with the latest and greatest phones. Millions of us have already called our carriers with countless tales of woe, and their help desk logs are doubtless stuffed with insight into how devices fail. Hardware vendors have on occasion managed to bring toughened devices to market --Motorola stands out as a vendor that stuck with it for longer than most-- but today's buyers barely pay attention to durability.

They should.

Arm yourself

As we're peppering the in-store representative with every last question about how much memory it has, whether our neighbourhood gets decent 3G coverage and what it'll take to keep the monthly voice and data bill under three digits, we need to challenge them on durability and warranty as well. Think about how you'll be using your device, then ask what happens if it fails. Get answers in writing, if at all possible, and don't be afraid to walk if you think a given carrier and hardware vendor won't stand behind a product and a reasonably careful consumer (you, of course.)

The responsibility extends to Apple and competing smartphone vendors as well. As they decide how conciliatory or aggressive to be when responding to apparent failure patterns, they'd do well to consider how their responses might influence future buying decisions. As consumers increasingly demand fair (not overly generous, not scandalously rigid, just fair) after-sale warranty support, vendors do themselves a disservice by assuming market leadership translates into permanent customer loyalty. If anything, loyalty is the first thing that evaporates when smartphone vendors play hardball with their customers.

Mac OS X Snow Leopard is coming: Yes, do upgrade!

Publié: août 27, 2009, 8:50pm CEST par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

If nothing else, the operating system market these days is infinitely entertaining. Consider the humble upgrade.

Some OS upgrades, like XP-to-Vista on a marginally capable machine, demand more up-front planning than the end result is often worth. You end up spending money and time on a machine that, while it may look prettier, runs slower and gives you more headaches than it solves. Other upgrade scenarios, like Vista-to-Windows 7, are a lot more straightforward and easier for most folks to justify.

There's a third class I like to call the no-brainer upgrade. And Apple fans with relatively recent Intel-based Macs find themselves blessed as the Cupertino company prepares for tomorrow's general release of Mac OS X 10.6, otherwise known as Snow Leopard.

Wide Angle Zoom (200 px) In the overall scheme of things, Snow Leopard isn't a huge deal over 10.5 Leopard. Now that release was a pretty major bump over 10.4, so anything short of an OS capable of making breakfast and serving it up in bed for us would likely be greeted by a yawn from the Apple faithful. But evolutionary as it is, 10.6 packs enough goodness into itself that it's difficult to see too many Macs running 10.5 by year's end. Here's why:

It's smaller. In a world where every new version of a thing is inevitably bigger, fatter and heavier than the thing it replaces, it's pleasantly shocking to see Apple swimming against the tide. Once the upgrade process is completed, the average Mac's hard drive will have available about 6 GB more space. Sure, that's barely enough to stuff a couple of movies, but merely the principle of making the OS smaller in the first place is enough for me.
It's cheaper. We've been conditioned to paying triple-digit prices for operating systems almost since the beginning of the PC era. If Apple had asked for $129 for a 10.6 upgrade (the same price it asked for 10.5) I'd probably have carefully weighed the nice-to-have-but-hardly-necessary benefits against the price approaching that of the iPod nano I need for the car. But for 29 bucks, enough to cover a few frames of bowling for me and the munchkins, it's a fast, discretionary purchase. (Amazon has marked prices down even further, to $25 for the basic upgrade package, or $43.99 for the five-user package.) I could get used to this mad money OS pricing strategy, and I'd rather spend it on this than on a game I absolutely abhor.

Snow Leopard also has enough goodies stuffed inside that it'll provide far more than $29 in entertainment value alone. Since that money will go a lot further on my wife's and son's Macs than it would watching a lousy movie next to a bunch of unruly theater-goers and munching overpriced, stale popcorn, I'm voting we cancel the family movie night on Saturday and stay in. My wife and son are already backing up their data, and have scheduled some time on the weekend to bump their machines. And I didn't even have to work on them.

Coming on the heels of my recent writings on Windows 7 upgrades, this might sound a bit odd. Am I not the same guy who railed against shrink-wrap upgrades on some older hardware? Am I also not the dad who refused to force his kid to dump XP?

Yes, and yes. And I'm sticking to my story. Because you can't compare Apples to...uh, Windows. Upgrading an OS in Apple Land is worlds apart from doing the same thing in Windows. By virtue of the fact that Apple builds and controls the hardware, upgrading a Mac is by definition a more controlled process than upgrading a Windows box, whose iterations after all possible hardware combinations are considered can easily run into the billions. The cynic in me says Macs are dumbed down enough that everyday folks can confidently update their own OS. The realist in me wonders why Microsoft, whose Windows 7 is justifiably being praised for raising the state of the OS art, is only figuring that out just now.

Snow Leopard Delivering an OS upgrade for under 30 bucks is one of those game changing moves that forever alters how consumers view a given product or service. The tech industry is full of price-driven moments like this, like when PCs finally dropped below $1,000, cell phone rate plans went from $2/minute to unlimited, and digital cameras plummeted from the $1,000 range to $100 or less. These days, sub-$300 netbooks are redefining our perceptions of price and value, and giving hardware vendors fits in the process. In all cases, drastic price reductions thanks to rapid, economies-of-scale-driven advances in technology turned former luxuries into everyday appliances that even kids could afford. It's only natural that OS pricing would follow.

Now, there's nothing that says Apple won't crank the price up again when it releases v11, which will obviously be a much more significant and fundamental change than a mere decimal point product. But its pricing strategy for the 10.6 upgrade shifts consumer pricing expectations downward, and we all know that once they descend, they don't easily rise back up again.

Cheap, however, doesn't mean free. Various flavors of Linux, including some superbly well baked distros like Ubuntu, continue to thrive as shining examples of open source goodness. I thank my lucky stars every day that they exist, as they exert a definite influence on the broader market and keep pressure on major vendors like Apple and Microsoft to keep the innovation pipeline on their own products well stocked. And as much as we'd all like to believe every OS and app we load onto our machines should be free, free doesn't pay the rent, and at some point there's got to be a business model to ensure the product survives. Since operating systems don't benefit as cleanly from the advertising baseline that supports so many Web services, the user's got to fork out something come upgrade time. (We'll leave Google Chrome OS for another day.)

But in pushing the pricing envelope for a commercial offering and challenging other expectations about what an upgrade is and should be, Apple's thrown yet another gauntlet down in a growing battle for OS supremacy. With less than two months to go before Windows 7 goes gold, this may yet be the golden era of the operating system. Where's my popcorn?

Windows 7 is coming: Don't upgrade

Publié: août 20, 2009, 5:12pm CEST par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

To upgrade or not to upgrade: It's the issue of the moment for Windows users everywhere as the hype machine for the October 22 Windows 7 release gathers steam. And as we gaze at our existing machines, either running a snappy but outdated XP or a pokey but still slick looking Vista, and wonder whether we should be planning a late night trip to the big box store for our very own copy, I've got one word for you: Stop.

Wide Angle Zoom (200 px) There are plenty of reasons why you'd want to refresh your existing machine with a cool new operating system. Pre-release versions of Windows 7 have displayed impressive performance, stability, and usability. Device compatibility -- a major bugaboo early on for the ill-starred Vista -- is much improved. It's smaller and lighter than the OS it ostensibly replaces, a nice reversal from the years-long tidal wave of ever-more-bloated products from the world's largest software vendor. Win7 scales better and can take advantage of more memory and multicore processors. That the new OS looks cool enough to not embarrass Windows fans when they run into Mac zealots at parties is an added bonus.

I don't doubt that Windows 7 seems to be Microsoft's strongest OS in years. I also don't doubt that most of us will eventually use some form of it. I just don't think we should be running it on any machines we're using now. Unless you're a weekend tinkerer with extra PCs hanging around the house and a lot of extra time on your hands, upgrading an existing machine is for suckers.

Married to the hardware

Just because you can slap in some DVDs and upgrade your current machine doesn't mean you should. Call me old fashioned, but I'm a big believer in upgrading your OS when you upgrade your hardware. Windows isn't like a Linux distro you install yourself. Hardware vendors devote significant resources tuning it to support their PCs. Tweaking the Windows image to work cleanly with a given hardware build is a critical value add that explains why more of us don't build our own systems from scratch. Installing a retail-purchased box of Windows 7 on a machine whose vendor never certified the specific build is a veritable invitation to a litany of niggling little problems -- issues arising from the fact that the hardware was never intended to work with anything but the OS that was originally installed.

And what about those Linux boxes? There's a world of difference between a tech enthusiast's latest challenge and the laptops your company just deployed to your sales force. When you're the one doing the building and the configuring (and you presumably know what you're doing) there's an expectation that things will go wrong and you'll be able to figure out how to fix them. Tweaking is part of the fun when you build it yourself. I doubt that salesperson in the field would be too pleased after a driver compatibility issue at a client site turned the laptop into a doorstopper.

People buy mainstream hardware pre-loaded with mainstream operating systems because they just want it to work, and they don't have the cycles to figure it out for themselves. Drop an upgrade on top of all that integrated goodness and you're back in the world of white boxes and intermittent glitchiness.

Of course, even that risk may not be enough to deter some users from dumping their old OS, anyway. I admit some folks may not be happy with Vista's performance on their current machine and may be, to put it charitably, highly motivated to be the first to upgrade. Microsoft's design philosophy for Windows 7 -- namely make it smaller and lighter without compromising the omnibus, full-featured architecture that has always allowed Windows to seemingly be all things to all people -- holds promise for some that they'll finally be able to put Vista-induced pokiness behind them.

Time ticks down for XP

XP users may also want to jump, though for different reasons. While the older OS doesn't bog hardware down to the same degree that Vista often does, it suffers from an aged interface only its mother could love, lagging security capabilities and rapidly diminishing vendor support. Microsoft doesn't make as much money selling it, either. And while we really shouldn't play the little violin for a multibillion dollar global corporation, profit-seeking organizations can't sustain less than optimally profitable products forever. As much as some loyalists would like to keep XP alive forever, its time is clearly running out.

But the realities of tightly coupled OS/hardware packages signal the death knell for the shrink-wrapped boxes that used to signal a new OS release. We don't buy software off a shelf anymore. The OS comes pre-loaded when we buy our hardware, and as a result most of us have gotten used to upgrading to a new version of Windows whenever we get a new machine. Businesses, too, wary of the enormous costs of certifying a new OS build in complex network and application environments, are also beginning to see the merits of streamlining their OS roadmap and tying it to hardware refreshes.

Unlike applications, new operating systems rarely deliver the kind of functionality or productivity improvements that would justify the project cost. As organizations look for ways to shave unnecessary expenses, the standalone OS upgrade project has emerged as low hanging fruit. They're justifiably content to live with an older, not-quite-leading-edge OS as long as it works and doesn't fail in some way every other day. For the most part, XP and Vista continue to deliver on that front, so it makes eminent sense to keep them chugging until IT can deploy some shiny new Windows 7-equipped machines.

Sure, those poor users won't have as much to chat about at parties, and the Mac folks will be all over them for a little while longer. But as the OS increasingly becomes a commodity product, anyway, the prospect of investing time and money on something you'll get essentially for free the next time you visit Best Buy will increasingly be seen as laughable. For now, keep your wallet in your pocket and start researching your next PC instead.

COUNTERPOINT:

Windows 7 is coming: You should upgrade by Scott Fulton

A browser war veteran turns wannabe

Publié: août 17, 2009, 5:53pm CEST par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

Marc Andreessen is a brilliant guy. His Mosaic browser, which eventually morphed into Netscape, introduced us all to the concept of surfing and ushered in the Internet as we know it. His new way of looking at online services -- which seems ho-hum today but was radically transformational 15 years ago -- freed us forever from the tyranny of arcane, unfortunately named services like Archie, Veronica, Jughead, and Gopher. In taking Netscape public, he set the stage for dot.com-era IPOs that created countless tech billionaires-as-rock-stars and defined an era when technology's potential was seemingly limitless. Let's call him brilliant and visionary, then.

Wide Angle Zoom (200 px) However, even geniuses have their bad days...sometimes, they have many. Netscape was eventually wiped off the relevance map when Microsoft finally woke up to the Internet reality and paved over the landscape with Internet Explorer. The Internet bubble burst as the perverse logic that drove much of it -- eyeballs, "stickiness," and the ridiculous notion that bricks-and-mortar were headed for permanent and complete obsolescence -- was finally and thankfully replaced by the old rules of business that dictated you needed to generate revenue, and that revenue needed to exceed your costs.

Succeeding despite adversity

Still, Mr. Andreessen has always managed to come out on top. At the height of the industry's headiness, he sold Netscape to AOL for $4.2 billion and hung around for a bit as AOL's CTO. Later, he went on to establish Loudcloud and eventually sold it, as Opsware, to HP for $1.6 billion. Last month, he and Ben Horowitz founded a new venture capital firm, Andreessen Horowitz, and targeted its first $300 million fund at tech entrepreneurs. Let there be no doubt that Andreessen is Silicon Valley royalty.

One of the fund's first beneficiaries is RockMelt, a startup that plans to release a new browser. The company isn't saying much (yet) but it promises the new browser won't be derived from any existing technology. Instead, it'll be built entirely from scratch. In the era of Web 2.0 and increasingly dynamic and interactive online services, a browser based on modern principles and optimized for this environment is definitely a good thing. The real question is whether the world needs a new social media-aware browser. Or even cares. After all, it's not like Flock has set the world on fire.

As I stare at my machine (a typical laptop running a typical OS and a typical array of productivity and connectivity applications), I realize I've got more ways to surf the net than any one person really needs. My list of installed browsers includes Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, and Chrome. I certainly don't need them all, but since they're free and since some sites tend to work better in some than in others -- Chrome, for instance, does funny things to some of my blog posts, while Firefox plays nice -- I feel better keeping them all around, just in case.

Clinging to yesterday's thinking

And when RockMelt goes live, I'll probably download and install it, too, because it'll also be free, and my hard drive's big enough to handle as many browsers and plug-ins as I could ever hope to have. But just because I can and will doesn't mean it'll ever make money. And there's the rub: I fear Mr. Andreessen is chasing yesterday's dream -- namely recapturing the browser-based glory he knew when Netscape was the Internet for most of us -- while the rest of the online world long ago moved on.

Oh sure, alternative browsers are alive and well. Mozilla's Firefox has hacked out an incredibly respectable 20% global usage share, and challenged the old assumption that no one could beat Internet Explorer because it came installed on every Windows PC. Firefox proved that if you built it, and built it well, savvy users would take the time to make the switch. Google's Chrome proved the need to return to our Internet roots with a small, light, blazingly fast browser that dispensed with the bloat that had gradually converted the average browser from a climbing-the-stairs-victoriously Rocky into the equivalent of a long-retired, unshaven, pot-bellied, dog-slow, has-been "Rocky VI."

Netscape founder and venture capitalist Mark Andreessen

So, yes, the world needs better browsers today. And will continue to need them tomorrow. But, sadly for Mr. Andreessen, we no longer need to add another name to the list of browser vendors fighting for our desktop loyalty. The big boys already have it covered, and with each successive update, are finding ways to deliver greater Web 2.0-era functionality with less bloat and less instability.

I'm not certain I understand how RockMelt plans to carve out a business model by slicing the browser market even more thinly and hoping advertisers come along for the ride. Notably, Mr. Andreessen sits on both Facebook's and eBay's boards of directors. No doubt he's imagining some kind of connection that would allow RockMelt to improve the user experience for social media and other interactive services. But until we all decide our current browsers are patently unable to get the job done -- something I'm just not seeing -- it's difficult to imagine IE and Firefox users running for the exits.

We need more than browsers

We no longer lack the tools to explore the Internet at a basic level. I'm sure I'm not the only one who questions how a me-too product is going to improve our collective online capability. Geeks may appreciate the fresh technology under the hood, but attributes like that hardly matter to the vast majority of consumer and business users who wouldn't even know or care what browser they're using. For them, good enough has always been good enough, and only a new category of software, beyond the browser will justify any differential mindshare. And revenue.

RockMelt answers a question no one's been asking for much of the last decade, and would have been much better off looking beyond the browser to an entirely new way of experiencing online services. Mr. Andreessen's always done extraordinarily well with the new, the different and the radical. As he looks for other places to invest his $300 million, I humbly suggest he keep that in mind.

Three cheers for Goliath: Microsoft Word and the battle for ideas

Publié: août 13, 2009, 5:47pm CEST par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

It's always a kick to watch little David saunter onto the battlefield, load his slingshot and knock off the dominant, arrogant Goliath. We all enjoy rooting for the little guy, and whenever he prevails over the odds-on favorite, we can't help but feel that all is right with the world.

Sometimes, though, Goliath needs to pound his tiny adversary into the ground.

Microsoft found itself on the wrong end of a patent infringement judgment in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas earlier this week. Judge Leonard Davis upheld an earlier jury verdict against Microsoft in a long-running patent dispute launched by Toronto-based i4I Inc. Davis ruled that Microsoft wilfully violated i4i's parent that covers specific methods used to read custom XML files.

Wide Angle Zoom (200 px) That's not the scary part for the hundreds of millions of people who spend the bulk of the workday in Word. Beyond increasing the original $200 million in damages to $290 million, Davis also imposed a permanent injunction against sales of Microsoft Word 2003 and 2007. Assuming nothing changes from this point onward, Microsoft will no longer be able to sell Word in the US in 60 days. And if you want technical support when opening custom XML-based documents, you'll be out of luck, too, as Microsoft's help desks will be banned from answering any related questions.

Look at me, says the judge

Don't buy the hype for a second. Although headlines screaming about the impending death of Word make for memorable moments around the water cooler, it's difficult to believe that a hyperbolic injunction governing one of the key instruments of modern business would ever actually be implemented. This is little more than a blatant grab for attention by an otherwise anonymous judge, and another example of how small companies that feel they've been wronged try to level the playing field by going directly for Goliath's jugular.

I'm inclined to believe we'll all still be able to buy Word in 60 days for a number of key reasons:

The fight isn't over. Microsoft has already announced it will launch an appeal. Given the glacial pace of justice, the injunction will be covered with a thick layer of dust by the time every last motion is launched, debated and settled.
East Texas is a patent troll's dream. The numbers don't lie. If you're a plaintiff in a patent case and you want a court that's friendly to your plight, you seek out East Texas. According to the Patent Prospector, file your case in East Virginia or Western Wisconsin courts and you've got an even chance of winning. Go to Mid-Florida and your success rate bumps to 55%. The highest patent holder success rate, 67%, belongs to East Texas. If it goes to trial, you're in even better shape: Plaintiffs win fully 71.9% of their cases here, with median damages topping out close to $20 million per case. Can we say "cha-ching?"
Replacement is always an option. Microsoft is certainly capable of developing alternative technology and releasing it as a patch or an update. It isn't inexpensive, easy or without risk -- which largely explains why the company has been duking the issue out in court for the better part of five years and still hasn't gone down the tech-replacement route. But it's not unheard of, and Microsoft can work around the issue more easily than its David-like, less resource-rich opponent.
Brinkmanship is the name of the game. The most eye-catching headlines get everyone's attention, and it doesn't get more eye-catching than "Word is dead." But i4i's goal isn't to put Microsoft out of business. It's to push the software giant as close to the edge as it can to squeeze the largest possible settlement out of the deal. It's a great negotiation strategy, and it's working.
Microsoft and i4i were once friends. Way back in the days of Office 97 and 2000, Word had no way of natively supporting custom XML documents or templates. Microsoft looked to i4i to develop a plug-in that added this functionality. When Microsoft natively included this type of XML capability in Word 2003 -- and subsequently 2007, as well -- the situation soured between the two, and i4i launched the legal proceedings that culminated in this week's ruling.
The plaintiff is out of business if Word dies. Even as the case has ground through the courts, i4i has built a consistent business creating tools that allow companies (mostly pharmaceutical firms) to create forms and other front ends that allow for rich data entry and collaboration. The tools are built both on and in Microsoft Word, so if the parent application disappears, so, too, does i4i's business model.

Beyond the legal machinations and inflated damage claims that are par for the course in cases like this lies the stark reality that Word is not just a piece of software. It's an institution that for many of us governs how we spend our day, create our work, and share it with our colleagues, clients, friends and family. We can argue, correctly, that the days of shrink-wrapped software are drawing to a close as Web services become ever more sophisticated. We can also argue that Microsoft has a limited window of time to carve out a post-Office business strategy. But we're still nowhere near the tipping point, and for now at least, the thought of a Word-less world is laughable.

The actual threat lies elsewhere

It's easy for a district court judge to make what seems to be an historic ruling when he knows full well it'll be turned over on appeal. I suspect an appellate judge for a higher court would spend more time weighing the market-impacting implications of such a ruling and less time managing the ensuing PR and media storm.

For all of those who use Microsoft Word, it'll be business as usual for as long as they want it to be. The real threat is longer-term, and comes from the Web. If anyone's going to kill the Goliath word processor -- and its sibling Office products as well -- it won't be a small developer of collaborative applications from north of the border. David won't win so easily this time, and Goliath will live on to fight a much more evenly matched opponent before long.

Twittered off: Time to grow up

Publié: août 11, 2009, 12:27am CEST par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

Last week's monumentally scaled denial-of-service attacks -- more recently attributed to a massive attack on a Georgian professor and part of the ongoing dispute between Russia and Georgia -- once again showed just how soft Twitter's soft underbelly is. And for a service used by 44 million people last month, getting hauled to its knees by a bunch of political/cultural enemies intent on opening up a new front in a simmering regional conflict isn't exactly a sign that all's well on the security front.

Wide Angle Zoom (200 px) If Twitter were a bank, the angry mobs would have already descended on Capitol Hill, pitchforks in hand, calling for someone's head. But since Twitter's just an itty-bitty message service, and since it's free, it gets a pass. It shouldn't.

Pass or not, Twitter finds itself in good company. Recent history proves just how tough it is to go viral. Susan Boyle, this year's Britain's Got Talent contestant who went from nobody to global video star after her frumpy-homebody-sings-like-an-angel audition turned non-believers into believers, could write a book about it. She hit it big, melted down under the pressure, and is now challenged to figure out where she goes from here.

Of course, few people will rise -- or fall -- as quickly as the now-forgotten Ms. Boyle. Twitter may yet join her. It may be the belle of the social networking ball after a meteoric rise in popularity, fuelled by the breathless approval of Hollywood's power elite (thank you, Ashton Kutcher) and mainstream media trying to look hip (CNN's Don Lemon, where are you?). But its inability and/or unwillingness to outgrow its gawky adolescent stage and grow some serious architecture could consign it to the social media scrap heap that's already in the process of claiming Friendster and Orkut.

Growing pains

Like the average teen, Twitter's problems stem from the fact that despite its achievements to-date and its incredible potential as the defining messaging platform of tomorrow, it is as immature as the guy running the french fry machine at the local fast food joint. Its problems stem from the following three issues:

It's small. The company has approximately 29 employees. The bank might like leanness, but when global growth requires robust, scalable infrastructure, it won't happen when the average elementary school classroom is larger than your head count.
It has no business plan. I know founder Biz Stone has repeated ad nauseum that his company doesn't need to generate cash for the foreseeable future. I know better than to question the motives of someone with a pretty solid track record in building social media networks that stick. But if Twitter ever hopes to address the size issue outlined above, it needs to generate pipelines of cash to fund its growth and maturity.
Its architecture is famously weak. The company's service is supported by one ISP...which reduces redundancy in the face of large-scale attacks like the one it experienced last week. Google, which is rewriting the book on Web service redundancy with distributed data centers, also came under attack. But it managed to limit the damage thanks to its sophisticated failover capability. Facebook weebled and wobbled, too, but didn't fall down, also because its basic infrastructure is stronger. If Twitter wants to continue playing in the big leagues, it needs big league infrastructure.

A checkered history

This was all true before last week's attacks, of course. For much of its history, Twitter has wrestled with spotty and inconsistent service. The Fail Whale that appears when things don't work as they should has become a defining icon of social media-era outages. When the whale became a regular thing during a period of particularly steep growth last year, alternative microblogging services like Identi.ca and Jaiku and even FriendFeed, gained traction among users frustrated with Twitter's flightiness.

But once Twitter seemingly stabilized, speculation about its future once again ceased and the alternative services slipped back into the shadows. Last week's attacks prove Twitter's problems continue, and we do ourselves a disservice by assuming it's the only viable microblogging service worth considering. While switching away from Twitter for good would be a serious hassle for users who have spent months building follower lists and gaining eminence in this virtual space, it's not unheard of for leading platforms to become ghost towns. AOL, for one, assumed its then-loyal fan base would always be loyal. History bears out how wrong this assumption can be...and in this case, was. Loyalty, especially when there's no real price tag attached, is never forever.

And if Twitter hopes to convert its present-day darling status into a sustainable business that reinforces twittering as basic a function as picking up the phone or sending an e-mail, it needs to invest big in technologies that make it as dead-reliable as the phone company has always been. There's something to be said for picking up a phone, even in the middle of a major power outage, and hearing that comforting dial tone. Modes of communication don't become ingrained in our culture until they're just as reachable -- and trusted.

It's a matter of trust

Right now, I don't trust Twitter to always get my message across. And as I consider which channels of communication I use to connect with the people who matter most, I often stop myself when I get to Twitter. I've been let down too many times to entrust my next meeting, family get together or chat with my wife to a service that doesn't seem to learn from its past mistakes.

Like the teenager with all that potential but a questionable track record, I'm holding my breath that one of these days Twitter figures out what it needs to do and sheds the gawkiness of adolescence. We all want it to grow into a finely turned out, impressive adult, but I doubt we're willing to hang around forever waiting for it to get its act together.

Yahoo deserved to die

Publié: juillet 31, 2009, 3:23pm CEST par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

It's not nice to speak ill of the dead, even if they're very much alive and only dead in the business sense of the word. But it's super easy these days to look at Yahoo's co-founder and ex-CEO Jerry Yang and laugh out loud at how he squandered tens of billions of dollars --and his company's very future as an Internet powerhouse-- because he thought he knew better.

Wide Angle Zoom (200 px) The short strokes of this week's Microsoft-Yahoo Internet search partnership must make Mr. Yang sick to his stomach: What Microsoft was willing to spend upwards of $45 billion for barely 18 months ago it has now won for…nothing. Sure, Microsoft didn't swallow the company whole. It's just a partnership, after all. But that matters little in a search market where the two players were doomed to an eternity of irrelevance if they didn't get together at some point. Living together, marriage, whatever we call it, Microsoft figured out a cheap way to gain access to a much larger search audience, and Yahoo had no choice but to sign the papers and move in.

Hail to yesterday's Goliath

That's what happens when you're an also-ran. And let's not mince words, Yahoo was and is an also-ran. While I admit 20% of the U.S. search market isn't shabby, the company is a mere shadow of the brash organization that in 1995 took a stab at categorizing the then-new-to-regular-folks Internet with its index-based approach to navigation. It may be hard to remember what life was like B.G. (Before Google) but Yahoo WAS search back then. And while a relatively static, category-based, manually updated index was doomed to fail the Internet changes too fast for something so inflexible. Yahoo, not Google, has the distinction of being the first verb of the commercial Internet era: Anyone remember "Do you Yahoo?"

Didn't think so.

So when Microsoft first came calling, first chatting amiably about hooking up in 2005 and then, a year ago February tabling the gigabuck offer that would trigger Mr. Yang's ultimate departure, Yahoo's first response should have been akin to the 30-something never-been-dated woman who still lives at home with her parents: Yes. When the market has slowly squeezed the life out of you and rendered you a distant second fiddle with no hope of imminent recovery, the last thing you should do when so many zeroes after the dollar sign are flashed in your face is respond with defiance.

Yahoo had no options in 2005. It had even fewer in 2008, and it had none earlier this week when current CEO Carol Bartz finally did the deed. That Yahoo had no choice is obvious. That it took so long for it to personally and corporately reach that conclusion cost countless shareholders vast amounts of money, and thousands of employees their jobs. Any company that so ignores doing the right thing in favor of a CEO's need to project hubris deserves to die, so it was good to see Yang's successor pull some salvation out of an otherwise unmitigated disaster.

Abandoning a dead brand image

Kudos to Ms. Bartz for doing the right thing for Yahoo's remaining shareholders and remaining employees and, frankly, for anyone who still uses the company's mostly second-rate online services. Like AOL before it, Yahoo had long since slipped from the public consciousness as an innovative leader. Allow me to use e-mail loyalty as an analogy: If people with gmail.com e-mail addresses are somewhat more tech savvy power users of Google's leading edge Web services and hotmail.com users are mostly kids and mobile-addicted teenagers, Yahoo users were --and presumably still are-- the older folks who couldn't be bothered to switch to something better or hipper. This kind of brand awareness is not how future business success is created, and Ms. Bartz finally admitted it as such in signing the partnership deal.

Thanks to this long-overdue change of direction at Yahoo, the search -- and more importantly, search-based advertising-- market looks markedly different than it did at this time last week. Sure, no one without three shots of Tequila in him could claim that adding Microsoft's 8% share of the U.S. search market to Yahoo's 20% share will cause Google, with 65%, to run for the hills. When you own almost two-thirds of any market alongside near-bulletproof brand ubiquity and end-user entrenchment, it'll take more than a zero-dollar partnership by your two closest and much weaker competitors to knock you off your throne.

Forget the percentages for a sec

But this is a case where psychology matters more than numbers. Where the market previously had only one viable alternative for most online advertisers - if they didn't go with Google, they often didn't advertise at all-- it now has two. As the combined entity approaches 30% market share, it's suddenly large enough to attract the attention of advertisers interested in exploring whether there are other cost effective ways to reach consumers through search. Up until now, there weren't. But something shifted below the landscape when Yahoo said yes, and we now finally have a horse race.

And a race of any kind is good for everyone. It encourages real competition by putting the heat on market leaders to maintain high levels of innovation and, more critically, keep things fair on a pricing and customer service front. I'd never accuse Google of being anticompetitive (that's the European Union's job, apparently) or customer service challenged. But it's easy to conclude that the incentive to play more nicely with everyone else in the playground just increased by an order of magnitude.

Which brings me to Microsoft. The legacy operating system and productivity app vendor that so many wrote off as unable to transition into the Internet economy managed to prove them wrong with a search product (Bing) that continues to impress. The Yahoo deal now exposes Bing to an audience 2.5 times its original size and opens up another lucrative revenue stream for Microsoft, which kinda matters while the rest of us debate the future of those legacy categories it's dominated for so long.

Google's already questioned the deal (big surprise) and antitrust regulators will doubtless get their shot. But for the first time in years, search is fun again. Game on, and thanks, Microsoft, for being so persistent despite Yahoo's ongoing stupidity.

Have high-end Macs made Apple the preferred choice of snobs?

Publié: juillet 25, 2009, 1:44am CEST par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

Just released figures from research firm NPD seem to suggest that Apple has a firm handle on the rich and famous.

In June, Apple owned 91 percent of the so-called premium computer market -- machines costing $1,000 and up. That's up three points over May's figures. Way back in early 2008, it was a mere 66 percent. Apple is clearly doing something right to attract the well-heeled.

Historically, Apple has been happy to maintain the status quo, to remain in the upper registers of the market and avoid slugging it out in the cheap seats. Even as netbooks seemed to take the computing world by storm, Apple steadfastly refused to bow to calls to dive into the low end of the computing pool. Just last week, Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook reinforced his company's position, saying, "Our goal is not to build the most computers, it's to build the best. Whatever price allows us to build the best computer, we'll build it there...We can't build a great $399 computer."

Wide Angle Zoom (200 px) I agree. The average netbook makes a rusted out 1988 Toyota Tercel liftback look luxurious in comparison. Flimsy keyboards, snap off-but-not-back-on parts, and squeaky and creaky plastic everywhere else promise a mercifully short and sad service life. You get what you pay for, which in the case of the average netbook is relatively little. Relatively elevated return rates and online forums and blogs filled with nasty comments suggest I'm not alone in my disdain for this vision of uber-cheap computing.

Apple, for good reason, is steering well clear. This is where bottom feeders live, and presumably go to die. Introducing a full-on netbook at this price point would surely kill its carefully cultivated brand.

But if you read into Tim Cook's careful choice of words, you may notice something else: Namely that they can't build a $399 computer, but they'd be happy -- and absolutely able -- to build a $399 something else. They already make an even less expensive device that possesses many of the attributes mobilenauts hold dear. Depending on where you buy it and what your particular needs are, it's either an iPod touch or an iPhone. With a little stretching and tweaking, it's not out of the realm of possibility that something based on iPhone/iPod Touch bones might make a great $399 something.

Of course, that's not what the rumor mill is saying. The latest word (which, as you know, I've already bet my next mortgage payment on) is that Apple's bringing a $799 tablet-based device to market sometime in 2010. Apple, which has been defining and redefining form factors since the day it was founded, has never been content to simply follow anyone else's lead. So whatever it has in store, count on it not being a me-too product. And while all this speculation grew tiresome months ago, it still begs two key questions that don't seem to be getting much air time:

Should it be a downsized Mac or an upsized iPhone/iPod Touch?
Will it cannibalize existing Mac sales in either case?

Let's look at them in order:

Downsized or upsized? I'll apologize in advance for not having a set answer for this. Wait, I lied. I do: It depends. Our one-size-fits-all understanding of mobility needs to be replaced with something a little more flexible. For some folks, mobility is the ability to quickly look up stuff online, send relatively short e-mails, and maybe do some light editing. For them, the average iPhone or BlackBerry may be enough. For users who take their machines into meetings and remote offices and need to create larger volumes of work, a keyboard-equipped form factor with a real screen and Actual Microsoft Office, or something like it, are critical. An upsized iPhone -- complete with non-standard productivity apps and the need to sync and translate files -- may be just the ticket for lighter mobile needs, while a downsized Mac may suit the road warriors among us. Notice I didn't say Windows XP-powered netbook. Would you honestly want to crack one of those open in your next business meeting?

Cannibalize the Mac? It sounds like heresy to deliberately sell a less expensive product that knowingly cuts into sales of existing, more expensive, and higher margin offerings. The heresy issue is something that's seemingly dogged Apple forever. Indeed, other Tier 1 vendors that have gone down the netbook route have experienced it first-hand as their early netbook offerings shifted some revenue away from their existing low-end conventional laptops. So it's entirely fair that Apple, whose brand image is arguably more polished than those of its competitors, is afraid to even open up that Pandora's Box. But no company can afford to ignore its market. And if Apple fans expect a something that offers reasonable mobility and workflow support and costs in the high three figures, then it unnecessarily assumes major risk by ignoring the growing calls for too long.

In the short term, such a device may indeed siphon away some dollars from folks who would have purchased a full-on MacBook or MacBook Pro. In the long term, however, it'll attract additional attention and customers to the brand and prevent existing customers from looking elsewhere when they want something smaller than a conventional laptop. Erosion of existing customers is the biggest danger Apple faces by delaying the inevitable.

As much as Apple would like to maintain its current product roadmap and ignore what's happening in the lower end of the market, it can't afford to sit still. The world is changing around it, and the company must adapt its product line to suit customers' evolving needs. That may mean iPhones on steroids, MacBooks struck by shrink rays, or both of the above.

History is filled with examples of companies that, content to occupy their niche, missed the higher order changes outside their little islands that eventually swallowed them whole. While I'm hardly accusing Apple of keeping its head in the sand, it needs to accelerate its ability to adapt to global trends that redefine what hardware looks like and how it works.

Nothing snobby about that.

Dying for an iPhone: Questions raised by the Foxconn suicide

Publié: juillet 23, 2009, 7:58pm CEST par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

If you've got your cell phone or smart phone handy, I'd like to ask you to pull it out of your pocket or off your desk and give it a long, hard look.

By any definition, it's a pretty impressive piece of technology. You can call anywhere in the world, surf the Web, IM your parents, and even orchestrate meetings with far-flung team members you'd rather not meet in person. When you're done working, toss a stereo Bluetooth headset on and take in a movie without the hassle of overpriced theatre popcorn or whining kids kicking the back of your seat.

Modern day slavery?

By any definition, what we can do in the palm of our hand is nothing short of mind-blowingly magical. But how would you feel if you knew someone had died in the process of bringing this modern marvel to you? If you knew the modern-day equivalent of slavery was being used to produce your slickly capable wonderphone, would you be as likely to pull it out at the next party and demo it to your friends?

Wide Angle Zoom (200 px) Of course not. Not consciously, anyway. And no one's saying slavery is prevalent within the global supply chain that keeps a flow of increasingly capable technologies flowing into our hot little hands. But the recent suicide of a worker for Apple subcontractor Foxconn raises questions about the unseen pressures that boil below the surface of the glitzy display at your local electronics store, and the role we play in keeping that pressure on.

Some background: Sun Danyong, 25, worked for Foxconn, the Taiwanese electronics company that manufactures the iPhone for Apple. The company, corporately known as Hon Hai, is one of the world's largest electronics and components manufacturers. Sun, who lived in Shenzhen, China and worked at the factory there, had been responsible for 16 prototypes of the upcoming fourth-generation iPhone. As you can well imagine, any leaks related to this super-secret device could be hugely damaging to Apple.

Unfortunately for Sun, one of the prototypes went missing. After Foxconn's Central Security Division allegedly detained him for questioning, then abused him in the process, he jumped to his death from his 12th floor apartment window a week ago today.

To its credit, Apple has been up front in its response. Its statement leaves little doubt about where the company stands:

Apple is committed to ensuring that working conditions in our supply chain are safe, workers are treated with respect and dignity, and manufacturing processes are environmentally responsible.

Apple says it's currently investigating working conditions at Foxconn's plant to ensure compliance with its supplier code of conduct. And Foxconn itself has apologized to Sun's family, suspended a security official, and spearheaded a police investigation.

That's all well and good, but Apple's been down this road before. In 2006, Apple investigated claims of employee mistreatment at Foxconn, and concluded the company was largely compliant with its employee treatment practices. Although Apple found evidence of some minor violations, including excessive hours of work and the occasional denied vacation day, these were deemed minor enough for Apple to keep Foxconn as a key supplier. Three years later, obviously not a whole lot has changed. Apple's code of conduct states that suppliers "must uphold the human rights of workers, to treat them with dignity and respect as understood by the international community." I'm wondering if excessive interrogation qualities as dignified.

Demanding companies. Demanding consumers.

As upsetting as all this is, it begs the question why companies are so sensitive about stray prototypes in the first place. I lose stuff all the time. Usually, it ends up being little more than an annoyance to me and a reason for my wife to jokingly needle me for my absent-mindedness. I get that a next-generation iPhone prototype is worth a lot more to the world than my beat up BlackBerry. But how much more? And why?

First answer: Lots more. Second answer: Because we demand it. We are so addicted to having the latest and greatest thing in our hands as soon as it is humanly possible that we're willing to ignore what it takes for companies like Apple and Foxconn to deliver the goods. While the moral thing for Apple to do would be to find another supplier that truly respects its workers' dignity and human rights, that would likely mean major delays in bringing new iPhones -- and iMacs and AirPorts and iPods, etc. -- to market. As the Cupertino company weighs its options, backing away from its role of providing fashion forward consumer products to an adoring public probably isn't among them.

Sadly, we'll forget about Sun Danyong's death in a blink without ever having had the chance to learn about the kind of work environment that drove him to his unthinkable end. And by this time next year, the final versions of the product he seemingly lost track of will land in Apple Stores across the land. Consumers, blind to the supply chain machinations that make such achievements possible, will once again hand over their money and thank their lucky stars that home-grown American companies can deliver such iconic American products like the iPhone.

But we live in a global world where Fords are built in Mexico, Chevys come from Korea, and Toyota Camrys built in Kentucky and Indiana are judged to have the most American content of all. There's no going back to the quaint old notion of local manufacturers using local suppliers whose kids played baseball with your kids. These days, workers halfway around the world work for companies that don't always follow the same workplace standards we do. These companies also operate within societies that don't always define human rights in ways that would make sense to us. And as long as we push consumer products companies to bring ever more capable products to market at an ever accelerating pace, stories like Sun Danyong's will continue to happen.

I'd like to suggest never buying anything from a company whose suppliers aren't completely above-board in treating employees with absolute respect. But then we'd never buy anything again, which leaves us with an invisible problem tied to an impossible solution.

Suddenly, that wonder-device in my pocket doesn't seem so wonderful after all.

We won't get 'mooned' again, or, why space still matters

Publié: juillet 20, 2009, 10:32pm CEST par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

I'll fess up now and admit I'm a space head.

I always have been and, much to my wife's chagrin, probably always will be. I've been heading into my backyard over the last few nights to catch a glimpse of the combined International Space Station/Space Shuttle Endeavour complex as it flies overhead at five miles a second. There isn't a whole lot to see, frankly. Just a white dot that moves through the sky for a couple of minutes before winking out unceremoniously somewhere near my neighbor's maple tree. The kids occasionally come along, if only to make sure I don't get lost in the thorny bushes in the corner of our yard.

All of which begs a number of questions: Why do I stare at a fast-moving dot in the sky while my puzzled neighbors look out their windows and wonder if I've lost it? Why does the thought of humans circling the planet in the world's most expensive vehicle jazz me so? What does any of this have to do with my regular existence as a technology analyst and journalist? Why is this relevant to you, my readers?

Wide Angle Zoom (200 px) First off, I enjoy making people wonder about me. It's like sport without the risk of injury. Second, what they do up there inspires me to raise the level of my game down here. Third, space travel -- and leadership in this sector -- has everything to do with American technological leadership. By extension, that leadership sets the tone for innovation in the broader technology sector -- for regular folks like us. Lose sight of the big orbital picture and we may as well hand over our position as a world leader in tech to another country -- Russia, China, India, take your pick -- that wants it more than we do. Would an iPhone be just as sweet if a company halfway around the world built it before Apple did? Would a Chinese-owned search powerhouse be in our best interest? If we fail to stick to the space vision that made us a powerhouse a generation ago, we may yet find out.

Blind vision

And losing our vision is what we've been doing since the early 1970s, when President Nixon prematurely cancelled Apollo, gutted the follow-on shuttle program, and turned NASA from national hero to national has-been. The agency's been wandering through the woods ever since, and the longer it flails, the more likely it becomes that the next Microsoft, Google, or Apple won't be headquartered on US soil.

Although it may not be immediately obvious, there's a direct connection between our investments in space and our achievements as a leading technological nation. The space race in the 1960s not only challenged hundreds of thousands of space industry workers to push the limits of what was possible to beat the Soviet Union to the moon. It also inspired a generation of kids who would never so much as touch a rocket, let alone build one for NASA, to push their own limits in science and engineering. The space program was a halo for anyone who aspired to grow up and wear a pocket protector, who questioned the status quo and set out to make the impossible possible.

It's no wonder that the PC revolution, the commercialized Internet, broadband and wireless networking and countless other technological revolutions of our time hit critical mass in the wake of the US moon missions. That's because to a person, every Silicon Valley geek who slaved away in a garage building the Next Big Thing was probably a space geek at some point, too. Would the fires of innovation have been lit if they hadn't had a massive almost-40-storey rocket to inspire them? Doubtful.

As I write this, two of my fellow Canadians are among 13 astronauts -- the largest group ever -- on board the ISS. It's a veritable United Nations of spacefarers up there with American, Russian, Canadian, Japanese, and German representation. What they've learned in keeping a 330-ton multi-noded vehicle fully functional as it flies through space at 17,500 miles per hour is rewriting the book on how teams can successfully cross political, cultural and language barriers to accomplish common goals. The ISS is helping establish new benchmarks in project management as well as the obvious science and engineering -- all lessons that government-funded NASA is only too happy to share with the world at-large.

Spacely starvation

Yet as the shuttle program winds down to its 2010 retirement and the follow-on Constellation hardware remains mired in bureaucratic gridlock and budgetary starvation, the US will once again find itself unable to launch its own astronauts into space. As it currently stands, the gap will be five years. But increasingly, it looks like it could only widen, which makes original plans to return to the moon by 2020 look laughable indeed. Forty years after Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to set foot on another orbital body, we live in a world where politicians dicker over budgets for NASA, debating for months over dollar figures that would barely cover a week's worth of military operations in Iraq. We cancel or scale back missions to other planets -- savings, perhaps, hundreds of millions of dollars -- while signing trillion dollar checks for golden parachute-protected financial sector leaders who wilfully ran their companies into the ground.

Apollo 11 mission badge While this travesty of national priorities continues to play out and American's space interests starve, competing nations like China are pedal-to-the-metal on their own plans to accelerate their space programs. And as they inspire their own generations of tomorrow to pursue their technological dreams, American industry, lacking the celebrity of a globally leading space program, will continue to wrestle with falling numbers of science and engineering grads and an inability to fuel tomorrow's tech business growth.

Forty years ago, we won the moon. That we failed to capitalize on what could have been will reverberate through the technology industry for well over another 40 years. Whether we're even globally relevant by then depends on whether we're willing to finally get serious about turning past investments in space exploration into sustainable business opportunities for tomorrow.

In the Palm of iTunes' Hand: Why won't Apple play nice?

Publié: juillet 16, 2009, 3:48pm CEST par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

I tune, you tune, we all tune to iTunes.

Except if you own a Palm Pre.

Or anything without an Apple logo, for that matter.

When Palm announced earlier this year that its spanking new Pre smartphone would be able to sync with Apple's iTunes, it raised eyebrows for tweaking the nose of the mighty fruity company. After all, Apple has spent years -- and likely huge amounts of money and countless souls of lawyers and judges alike -- setting the standard for zealously protecting its intellectual property. One doesn't cross Apple lightly, or expect to get away with it for too long.

The other shoe drops

Wide Angle Zoom (200 px) So it comes as no surprise that barely a month after issuing a support note containing a thinly veiled warning against the practice, Apple has officially and concretely responded to Palm's opening move by releasing an update to iTunes. Known as version 8.2.1, the new code specifically kills the ability of earlier versions of iTunes to sync content on non-Apple devices. Palm Pre users with a particular addiction to iTunes now face a short list of inelegant alternatives: They can either elect to never upgrade iTunes beyond 8.2, or revert to dragging and dropping their music files onto their device. If they're feeling really adventurous, they can always pull out that scuffed up first-generation Shuffle from the junk drawer and go to town. Either way, the Pre's days as a wannabe-iPod are over.

Of course, Apple is free to do whatever it wants with its software. It built iTunes as a value-add to its iPod -- and later iPhone -- franchise and in doing so taught the rest of the industry that you needed more than a cool device to dominate the media player market. The resulting troika of hardware, software and online store set the bar for seamless acquisition, management and use of content, and now most other players in this space are rushing similar software/store combinations to market. But Apple was the first, and it remains the gold standard against a fleet of half-hearted competitors.

Apple rightfully owns the digital music market, and since all's fair in marketing and war, the company is completely justified in protecting its interests when at least one of the legs of its painstakingly built triad comes under threat. We may not have liked the kid at the playground who took his ball away from us and went home in a snit. But it was his ball, after all.

Because iTunes is an OS

What's good for the company, however, may not be good for the rest of us…and that playground kid always ended up with no friends, anyway.

Apple's move to cut Palm off begs the question of how closed we want our operating systems to be. And don't doubt it for a second: ITunes has evolved into an operating system in its own right, an ecosystem within which developers and content creators bring productions to market, and within which consumers consume those productions and fuel significant revenue streams for all involved. Like any good OS, iTunes is now the focal point of a large, vibrant marketplace within which a wide range of stakeholders interact almost constantly as they build increasingly sustainable businesses within it.

We may dismiss iTunes' claim to OS status because it's "only" music and video, but there's no denying how influential Apple's once-modest playground has become. And given the broader world's slow and inevitable move toward more open platforms that invite diversity in, Apple's decision to maintain its walled garden suggests it's nowhere near comfortable giving up even the slightest bit of control.

Apple's core values have long revolved around tight integration of hardware and software, and rigid control of the resulting environment. By keeping third-party hardware vendors out, Apple avoids the kind of billion-iteration challenge faced by Microsoft, which devotes vast resources to ensuring Windows runs on every combination of system board, video subsystem and disk controller known to humankind. Apple's short-lived experiment with clones in the mid-90s ended for precisely that reason: The company's culture simply couldn't accommodate a big, wide interface with third-party providers. Back then, Apple decided it would be easier to design an experience around a small number of its own designs. That fanaticism holds true today whether it's a Mac or an iPod/iPhone, and will probably remain true in virtually everything Apple brings to market for the forseeable future.

But it's publicly unfair

While this may be good for Apple, it makes me wonder how this serves the public's interest. Do we want one company exerting such tight control over something that's so instrumental to so many of us? Is it fair to consumers that the now-mainstream capability of iTunes can only be had on Apple-branded devices? And does barring access from competing hardware ultimately harm Apple's ability to grow its market? You may laugh at that last one -- after all, Apple's done pretty nicely for itself thus far. But you've got to wonder whether revenues would grow more quickly if iTunes could be used seamlessly on a wider range of devices.

Want more heresy? Should Apple's App Store be open to other hardware platforms aside from the iPhone and iPod touch? Would the iPhone universe be a happier, or more profitable, place if iPhone apps ran on non-Apple hardware? It's fair to speculate given the slowly growing open source influence in the mobile market as Google's Android OS is joined by offerings from the Nokia-backed Symbian Foundation and LiMo. While it's preposterous at this point to assume any of these new entrants will render Apple's model obsolete overnight, it's not much of a stretch to conclude the open source trend is being watched carefully in Cupertino. But will that be enough to convince Apple to voluntarily play nice with Palm and any other vendor that wants sanctioned hooks into its software?

We may never know, because hell will probably freeze over before Apple pulls down the walls to its various gardens. From where Steve Jobs and Co. sit, it ain't broke, so they have no intention of fixing it.

Will Office 2010 put Google Apps in its place?

Publié: juillet 13, 2009, 8:50pm CEST par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

Microsoft Office 2010 alternate top story badge Welcome back, Microsoft. After a few years of getting your butt kicked by Google, it's nice to see you waking up from your monopolistic slumber. You seem to finally get it that both Windows and Office don't have indefinite or guaranteed futures, and you're willing to hang yourself out over the edge a bit to keep them both relevant.

This week, Office 2010, the new version of Microsoft's productivity suite, is being shown to developers and media this week at the company's Worldwide Partner Conference in New Orleans. It includes browser-based versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote that should forever banish bitter memories of Microsoft's initially half-hearted online productivity efforts.

Beyond the cosmetic

Microsoft has apparently moved on from making change for change's sake [cough, Office 2007, cough], and now seems to finally recognize that the way we work is changing in an increasingly mobile, broadband-enabled, and collaborative world. The company's three-screens strategy that dictates seamless integration across desktops, browsers and mobile devices signals a merciful break from its historic adherence to the PC.

Wide Angle Zoom (200 px) I'll reserve final judgment until I bring home my spanking new copy sometime next year, but if early indications mean anything, Microsoft is digging beneath the surface and giving us something more fundamental than the software equivalent of a fresh coat of paint.

I like that. There's nothing more yawn-inducing than another evolutionary introduction of an evolutionary product that simply mimics design decisions made 15 or 20 years earlier. In shaking up the very foundation of Office, Microsoft holds out hope that the way we string words together, crunch numbers, inspire others, and stay connected to them will evolve beyond the PC era paradigm of categorized apps on a hard drive and toward truly integrated services wherever they're needed.

Facing new competition

This seeming reawakening couldn't come a moment too soon. Google's gotten a ton of great press for getting the Web services zeitgeist, and for delivering a suite of online apps that, if they don't approach Office for outright functionality, provide a decent subset of features for the right price -- namely, free. Other no-cost alternatives, like OpenOffice.org and Zoho, have also garnered headlines for delivering a near-Office experience without the licensing headaches.

Headlines are one thing, reality is quite another. If these alternatives were as perfect as some claim, we'd all be using them now. Much to the freebie vendors' chagrin, that's not quite how it's worked out. Despite looking like a sleeping, elderly uncle, Office continues to rake in the cash ($16 billion per year) and remains the preferred productivity toolset for at least 80% of businesses. We all may play around with Google Docs, using it for some lightweight note-taking and archiving. But we're still doing the heavy lifting in Office, and sharing the final results as attachments. Web-based tools are a nice complement to the tried and true Office suite, but in their present state of evolution, they're hardly ready to take Microsoft on. Like it or not, the world runs on Office, and slowly growing competition from freebie and Web competitors notwithstanding, this isn't about to change anytime soon.

Of course, it's entirely possible that Microsoft will pull another Vista and dump an under-performing chunk of code on the world. But if it lives up to the early hype, Office 2010 could rank alongside Windows 7 as an example of a leaner, meaner, more relevant Microsoft than we've seen in years.

Last month, I shared a few wishes for Office 2010 in an open letter to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. I'm under no illusion that either Mr. Ballmer, a team of his developers in Redmond, or even the Microsoft campus janitorial staff tracks my every published word and integrates every last suggestion into each subsequent release. But I'm still encouraged to see the suite heading in more or less the same direction I had hoped. Which means a Web interface that recognizes the need to move data seamlessly between environments -- desktop, Web, and mobile -- and a recognition that today's Office alternatives fail miserably in that regard.

Bottom line: The alternatives suck

Which likely explains why I haven't switched my own workflow exclusively over to Google Apps, and have no intention of doing so. Please don't get me wrong: I'm all for collaboration. My Kindergarten teacher taught me how to play nicely with others, and to this day I spend much of my time working interactively with clients and colleagues as we collectively -- and almost always remotely -- work together to turn ideas into finished and publishable products.

To be fair, Google Apps is a decent collaborative toolset that I'd love to use more. Unfortunately, Corporate America hasn't drunk Google's Kool-Aid. So every time I start a new project with enterprise clients and colleagues, I end up talking to myself because corporate IT has no intention of dumping Office, tossing its corporate data into the cloud and having its employees work exclusively within the browser.

Even if I were working alone, I'd expect to get laughed out of the room if I submitted an article as a Google Docs document. Until the world evolves beyond Microsoft's productivity world view, I'm pretty much in a world of my own if I choose to live exclusively in a non-Microsoft, Web app world. Even if more companies and individuals come on board (and there's no sign that they're shifting en masse) I'm also not too keen on having other folks make live changes to something I've worked on for weeks. Call me a Luddite, but there's something comforting about keeping an archival version of a document on a local drive that only I can access and modify. Collaboration is a great way to unleash the power of the collective, but there are limits.

Unlike its wannabe productivity suite competitors, Microsoft has lived both sides of the equation. It wrote the book on desktop-based workflow, and is better positioned than any player (yes, even Google) to marry the way we've always worked to the way we'll work in future. Say what you want about Microsoft, but don't call it irrelevant anymore.

Not just Vista: The operating system is dying, too

Publié: juillet 6, 2009, 8:07pm CEST par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

Okay, so I raised a bit of a stink with last Friday's Wide Angle Zoom. So to make sure my position on Vista, operating systems, Microsoft and the future of the technological world under President Barack Obama's leadership are completely understood, I wanted to address some of the more...ah, pointed perspectives from the Comments section. I've paraphrased the wordings to protect the innocent. Here goes:

Vista is a great operating system. There's nothing wrong with it.

Technically, this is correct. Never did -- or would -- I say that Vista sucked. If it did, I wouldn't be using it on my primary laptop.

Microsoft continues to sell it, and will continue to provide support for it per its widely known schedule. But beyond the numbers, in a somewhat more spiritual context, Microsoft has already cut Vista out of the will. Marketing strategies that worked in 1999 don't work today as new form factors and ubiquitous wireless and broadband access have completely rewritten the OS landscape. The good old days, when Microsoft's dominance of the desktop was absolute, are over. We don't exclusively use desktops anymore, and the OS as we know it won't exist in a few years.

It's Vista's lousy timing to be the OS on sale when this process began to accelerate, but it's more than a little unfair to blame the product for this. Sometimes, the world just changes and nothing you can bake into a new-and-improved product can change that reality.

Wide Angle Zoom (200 px) Microsoft messed up in releasing an OS that only ran properly on new PCs and ignored the needs of millions of existing customers.

By a show of hands, who runs out to the Best Buy at midnight and snaps up a shrink-wrapped box of a snazzy new OS? That may have been how we were introduced to Windows 95, but these days, we upgrade when we get new hardware.

I realize Betanews readers are infinitely more likely to have the technical chops to properly upgrade an existing machine. But the vast majority of the PC-buying consumers look more like my mother-in-law. They wouldn't know an OS from an S.O.S., and I'm going to guess you've never bumped into them in line at the big box store at midnight listening to the Rolling Stones croon "Start Me Up."

With the vast majority of operating systems delivered by OEM vendors on new machines, it's more than a bit silly to castigate Microsoft for ignoring its loyal base of millions of fans. Few of them really care that they're not running the latest and greatest version of Windows, and they'll be perfectly happy to upgrade when their existing computer gives up the ghost. When they go shopping, they're buying hardware, not operating systems. So forgive Microsoft for focusing its OS development efforts on something newer than a dust-covered Pentium II.

Microsoft is rushing Windows 7 out the door to recapture its OS leadership.

News flash: Microsoft still owns the OS market. Always has, and pretty much will for the next few years. As so many of you correctly pointed out, Vista was abnormally late to market. Microsoft usually follows a three-ish year cycle, and given Vista's abnormally long six-year gestation, Windows 7 more or less gets the company back on schedule. We can debate whether XP SP1 and SP2 merited "new OS" status until the cows come home, but the reality for Microsoft is we'll likely never see such big bang projects in OS-land again. Gradual evolution is the name of the game from here on out.

There are few other OS alternatives beyond Linux and Apple's Mac OS X.

Good point. One of the reasons why Windows has been as dominant as it is for as long as it has is because it combines a relatively easy-to-use UI with an ability to play nice with pretty much everyone's hardware. It's the biggest ecosystem out there, so developers and other third party vendors flock to it.

Is it technically better than anything else out there? We can debate that one until the cows leave home once again, but the answer is irrelevant. What matters is that it's good enough, and it has been good enough since Windows 3.1 finally relegated the command line-driven world of unfriendly DOS apps to the dustbin of history in 1992.

Vista isn't dead. It will live forever because some users just won't let go of it.

In a sense, every OS lives forever. In basements across the land, there are countless old machines running every form of DOS, Windows 3.X, 95, 98, and even Windows Me. The people who own these machines generally fall into two groups: enthusiasts who ardently love their old operating systems and can't bear to let them go, and regular folks like my mother-in-law who don't know the difference, and never saw the need to upgrade because it just worked. Generations of kids have grown up on supposedly obsolete hand-me-down PCs, and that won't change anytime soon.

But OS-huggers, mothers-in-law, and basement-dwelling kids don't make up the majority of the PC market. PC buyers do, and Microsoft, Apple, and every Linux vendor worth its salt will continue to focus on the folks with actual intentions of buying new hardware.

At the end of the day, most people just don't care about their OS. As long as it makes all the important things work reliably and invisibly, they're happy. And that's the thing with Vista: While the enthusiast community rages on about how great Vista is or how much it deserves to forever burn in effigy, the rest of the world has moved on. Barring evolutionary improvements, the OS as we know it is as good as it needs to get. Form factors are changing, new players (Google, anyone?) are hedging into Microsoft's turf, and it won't be long before the OS fades from its formerly starring role in your local electronics store.

But that's a discussion for another day, and a future column.

Vista's dead: Microsoft kills an OS and no one cares

Publié: juillet 2, 2009, 6:51pm CEST par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

For anyone still burning a torch for Windows Vista, its time is rapidly approaching. Buy now or forever hold your peace.

I can't say I'm surprised at how any of this has turned out. After all, Vista's launch was, to be charitable, rocky. When it first arrived just before Christmas 2006, it was late, bloated and, for some, expensive. It may have looked pretty on the outside, but critics quickly pounced on it for driver incompatibility, sluggish performance on mainstream -- and sometimes even high-end -- hardware and enough bugs to fill a family-sized tent on a weekend camping expedition. Microsoft didn't help matters with its ill-fated "Vista Capable" designation -- a public relations debacle that convinced buyers who were too lazy to read the fine print that Vista would run just as well on hardware barely suited for XP.

It's always too late to change a first impression

Since first impressions are often the only things that matter in today's attention-deficit world, Vista got stuck with a reputation it's never quite been able to shake. Which is somewhat unfortunate given how nicely Vista has padded Microsoft's bottom line since then. It's sold hundreds of millions of copies and it runs on the vast majority of laptops on display at the average big box electronics retailer. Service Packs and updates have fixed most of the major bugs and security gaps and more devices than ever are Vista-friendly now that hardware manufacturers have gotten into the driver game. Vista hasn't been the failure its detractors long said it was.

Wide Angle Zoom (200 px) But memories are funny things, and despite its market performance over the past two-and-a-half years, no one seems willing to forgive Vista for being inadequately baked and improperly messaged when it first arrived. So Microsoft, recognizing that the era of the operating system is past middle age, is killing Vista. There's been no press release, of course, no official announcement that it's ending production -- because it's still churning out retail boxes and pre-loaded builds for OEMs just as it always has. But last week's announcement of the Windows 7 Upgrade Option Program signals the likely death knell for Vista.

Free, cheap, and desperate

The Windows 7 Upgrade Option Program is a promotion under which customers who buy a PC equipped with Vista Premium, Business, or Ultimate between now and October will be eligible for a free upgrade when Windows 7 ships. It's designed to prevent the usual drop in demand for a current OS that precedes the launch of the next generation -- a critical move in the middle of a recession, when no one's buying anyway. To further stoke interest among folks not interested in picking up new hardware anytime soon, Microsoft is pricing pre-orders for Windows 7 Home Premium at $49 and Professional at $99 -- as close to fire sale pricing as we've ever seen on a Windows product.

What does all of this posturing and price manipulation mean? Simple: The writing is on the wall, and Microsoft will do anything it can to protect its Windows franchise, even if it means killing off one of its own. Vista's the new sacrificial lamb. Given how well pre-release versions of Windows 7 have been received, it's in the company's best interest to finish off Vista as quickly as it can and shift everyone's attention to Windows 7.

“Microsoft has always managed the Windows sub-brands in a chaotic, ever-evolving manner, grazing over naming conventions as casually as most of us would cruise the buffet table at a distant cousin's wedding.”

The company needs to move fast, because the age of selling a full-featured OS that fetches a triple-digit price is drawing to a close. We run applications, not operating systems, and Apple's $29 upgrade for Snow Leopard signals just how commoditized the OS has become, and how little the average cash-strapped consumer or business owner is willing to pay for it. While you still need an OS to run the hardware that allows you to get online and run the applications you need, the slow evolution of increasingly network-centric computing points toward a future where what's powering our hardware is less important than it is today.

Tomorrow's operating system won't be the headline-grabbing, Mick Jagger-attracting retail superstar that Windows once was. As long as it connects all the underlying pieces together (and stays out of our way while doing it) that will be enough. A leaner, meaner, cheaper Windows 7 bridges Microsoft toward this somewhat uncertain future. Likewise, big and brash Vista no longer has a place in the line-up, hence Microsoft's all-hands effort to make us forget it ever existed.

But I like Vista

As the transition from Vista to Windows 7 gathers steam, countless folks running Vista find themselves wondering whether Microsoft's accelerated transition to Win7 means they're about to be orphaned. Not especially. Like all Microsoft operating systems, Vista will receive the same tiers of extended support that have traditionally applied to all versions of Windows.

Microsoft is only shifting its marketing focus: Support timelines aren't being changed, and current users have nothing to fear beyond having less to talk about at their next party.

Protect revenue at all costs

In the end, what matters to Microsoft, as with any company, is moving product and maintaining revenue. Whether it's called XP, Vista, Win7, or even Bob is almost immaterial. If it sells, it stays. If it doesn't, it's gone. Microsoft has always managed the Windows sub-brands in a chaotic, ever-evolving manner, grazing over naming conventions as casually as most of us would cruise the buffet table at a distant cousin's wedding. The company's eclectic naming choices are coming full circle with Windows 7, returning to the simple numbering scheme that started it all.

Call it anything you want, as long as you call it Windows. That'll be good enough for Microsoft as it figures out how to make money in a post-Windows, post-Office landscape. With Vista out of the way, the company at least stands a fighting chance of convincing jaded consumers and enterprises alike that the OS is still relevant. Windows 7 is indeed a leaner and better product than Vista. The question on everyone's mind is whether that's enough to sustain the franchise.

Myth-busted, or, Would AT&T have forgiven Savage's bill if he wasn't a TV star?

Publié: juin 29, 2009, 4:07pm CEST par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

You've got to feel some serious empathy for Adam Savage.

The co-star of the popular Discovery Channel television show Mythbusters found himself on the receiving end of a huge bill after a recent vacation to Montreal, Canada. He had tethered a cellular modem to his laptop, and ended up racking up $11,000 in charges before returning to the US. Upon his return, AT&T, claiming he had used over 9 gigabytes of data during his foreign surfing adventure, helpfully shut his account down. Only when he called them to complain about the outage did he learn he had been hosed.

(Disclosure: I was born and raised in Montreal. Although I moved away quite some time ago, it bothers me to see visitors to my fair city have anything remotely approaching a negative experience. I can accept a sub-par smoked meat sandwich or poutine. But being charged the equivalent of a base model Hyundai for the privilege of checking e-mail and surfing the Web for a few hours is ludicrous. I know it's an American carrier, but even the most tenuous connection to my beloved hometown bugs me. End rant.)

The benefits of fame

True to his geek's soul, Savage subsequently used his Twitter following (64,270 as I write this) to pressure AT&T into excusing the bill. He posted this plaintive tweet: "Text messaging fees are stupid robbery? (they are), AT&T is attempting to charge me 11k for a few hours of web surfing in Canada. Pls RT!" The subsequent re-tweet storm prompted AT&T to call him the same day and resolve the issue. In the end, AT&T did the right thing and waived all charges.

Wide Angle Zoom (200 px) As encouraged as I am to see a quick resolution to this obviously ridiculous example of antagonistic customer "service", I'm reminded that AT&T's rapid and complete response has little to do with its efficient customer service capability [cough] and everything to do with Mr. Savage's wide-ranging, tech savvy celebrity.

Not all of us star in popular television programs, nor do we have tens of thousands of Twitter followers or Facebook friends. At one point, Savage tweeted a very telling exchange:

AT&T guy on the phone with me: "Apparently you've got enough Twitter followers to get our attention." Me: "50,000". Him: "Wow".

Good for Savage. Not so good for the rest of us. When you're an average, mostly anonymous, wage-earning, bill-paying shlub who's received a similar surprise, chances are your carrier won't be calling you in response to a broad-based outpouring of re-tweeted support. Instead, you'll be calling a toll-free number and waiting for hours to speak to a clueless agent in India, just like the rest of us average shlubs. You'll be lucky to have service restored within days, if at all.

Fighting back

All of which begs the question: How can consumers protect themselves from carriers who willingly bury terms of service deep in fine print so thick with legalese that even experienced lawyers have difficulty figuring it out? There's no perfect solution, of course, but I've evolved a few simple assumptions that have kept me from facing four- and five-digit bills upon my return.

Assume you'll get fleeced when you're roaming. Savage's experience with AT&T is typical. If you're out of the country and using a partner carrier's network, it will charge you 15 cents per kilobyte. In a world where the average Web page can range between 10 and 100K, simply looking up the weather, checking your e-mail and updating your Facebook status can easily cost you more than breakfast at a family restaurant. Stream some Internet radio and YouTube video and you've just paid for steak dinner at a high end restaurant. Or that Hyundai.

Assume your carrier won't make it easy to track usage. Would you drive a car without a functioning gas gauge? Of course not. But every day, we go online without understanding how much data we're consuming and how much it costs us. It may not matter so much when we're at home, because most broadband Internet services have sufficiently generous caps to accommodate all but the most voracious file downloaders. But mobile users already know to limit high-bandwidth usage lest they blow through their often paltry monthly data limits. Carriers will claim to helpfully provide online tools that facilitate tracking, but finding them is often an adventure in itself. Carriers make more money by keeping customers in the dark and hoping not all of them will contest overage charges.

Assume your carrier can't count. Even if online usage tracking tools are easily available, don't be misled into believing that they're remotely accurate. In Savage's case, he says he spent two or three hours engaged in basic Web surfing. He wasn't streaming audio or video, making video calls or otherwise engaged in any high-bandwidth activity. Yet AT&T's systems dinged him for 9 Gb of usage. If you think you've been wronged, who are you gonna call?

Savage planning

Whenever I travel internationally, I do two things before I get anywhere close to a border: I turn off data service on my BlackBerry, and I plan my trip around free Wi-Fi wherever possible. I've spent countless hours exhaustively reviewing my own carrier's terms of service, and the only conclusion I can draw is I'd be asking for a Hyundai-equivalent bill if I dared use a partner-carrier's cell-based network for data coverage.

The cynic in me knows full well why this is the case. The majority of customers, lacking the time, resources and will to pursue cases like this, choose to accept excessive international roaming charges. In most cases, the bills aren't anywhere near $11,000. If it's an extra $50 or so, the silent majority will likely assume it's normal, and grudgingly pay the premium as the cost of cross-border travel.

But in a world where watching one YouTube video from a foreign land can cost the equivalent of a week's wages, outdated and clearly punitive roaming plans clearly need to go.

And that's no myth.

A wish list for Office 2010

Publié: juin 25, 2009, 7:16pm CEST par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

Attn. Steve Ballmer (the real one, not the fake one):

Hi, Steve. I know you don't know me from Adam, but I've never been one to let a little thing like complete strangerhood stop me from sharing a thought or six. So here goes.

I've used Microsoft Office products for almost as long as I've been using computers. I spend more time with Word -- the central tool of my writer's existence -- than I do my own wife. And as you work diligently on Office 2010, I wanted to ask you, as a humble, long time customer, for a few favors. Thanks in advance for hearing me out.

1. I want my interface back

Remember Office 2003? Remember its interface? I know you spent months leading up to the Office 2007 release saying the old menu-and-icon paradigm had outlived its usefulness, that it needlessly buried some features so deeply in menu structures that most users never found them. You gave us something called "Ribbons" and said this new approach would revolutionize how we worked.

Wide Angle Zoom (200 px) Well, if "revolutionize" means "kill my productivity for months on end," then I suppose you're right. Even now, over 18 months after switching over, I still find myself pining for the old, comfortable interface. I've customized it as best I can, but it's still too radical a shift. And given the fact that no other Windows applications outside the Office universe support this silly Ribbon thing, I think it's time you admit defeat and move on.

2. I want it to love the Web

I'll fess up: I use Google Apps. There's something cool about having all my stuff in the cloud. I often take notes in Google Docs applications, and then access them from any machine in the home office, including, gasp, our Macs. I always forget what you call your online apps (are they "Windows Live" this week?) but every time I log into my Microsoft account on the Web, I'm reminded why Google still eats your lunch in the Web apps world.

But here's the thing: Web apps may be great for everyday, informal kinds of work. But the world still works in Office. When I research an article, I may use Google Apps to take notes and pull research material together. But when I deliver the final article, it's in Word.

It's this disconnect where your opportunity lies. All this moving stuff back and forth between my Web apps and my Office world is a real productivity killer. The formatting doesn't always survive the trip, and I always have to remember whether my data's currently in the cloud or on my drive. Either way, I hate having to manage two separate and distinct environments.

If you somehow managed to link the full-blown capability of the Office that sits on my laptop with the Web-i-fied flexibility of cloud-based applications, I'd be a happy camper. I know you know Google Gears is already moving Google Apps in a more desktop-centric direction, but it's nowhere near turnkey enough for my computer-phobic mother-in-law and my overworked business colleagues.

Microsoft still retains a massive amount of trust on the desktop, and for all the talk of the Web killing Microsoft Office's future, I just don't see folks abandoning Office en masse for the current generation of skeletally featured Web offerings. Yes, they're getting better all the time, but it'll be a while before we toss out our Office install discs.

Figure out a way to seamlessly connect a rich desktop client into your existing and expanded Web properties and you'll have me hooked. Add a really functional mobile client on top of that -- also reaching into the same Web-based file repository -- and I promise I'll never use Google Apps again.

3. I want it small, fast and portable

You know how some flash drives allow you to install open source software on them? How come Microsoft Office isn't small or squishable enough to do that? I'd love to carry my Office files and applications with me wherever I go, and I'd like to leave my laptop at home when I travel. I suspect drive vendors would line up at your door for the right to market Microsoft Office preloaded on their devices.

With that in mind, I've got to believe that flash- and mobile device-based Office clients (real ones, not the half-baked solutions in Windows Mobile) would influence the conventional client team to develop smaller, faster code. Did you ever use WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS? I know it's an unfair comparison, but that ancient piece of software on an even more ancient 386 was a snappier writer's tool than Word 2007 on my all singing, all dancing Core 2 Duo laptop. Why is that? Usability should include tools that don't take agonizing seconds to catch up to a fast typist.

4. I want it reliable

“Add a really functional mobile client...reaching into the same Web-based file repository, and I promise I'll never use Google Apps again.”

This may come as news to you, but Office apps don't always behave as they should. They freeze or otherwise crash. They generate weird error messages. Their template files suddenly go corrupt. I often have to hunt down my install disks to reinstall something that was working just fine last week. It's beyond annoying because it takes time away from my day that I simply can't afford to lose.

Could you redirect some of that usability testing to reliability improvements? I know this isn't the sexy stuff that shows up in keynote speeches and demos. But it's the kind of thing that can make or break whether I stick with Office next time out.

I apologize for sounding like a whining kid on a shopping mall Santa's knee. I'm usually not so up-front about asking for stuff. But Office is the one piece of Microsoft-branded software that literally sits under my nose all day, every day. I can't possibly overstate how important it is for you to get the next version right. I'll even be so bold as to say Office matters more to Microsoft's future brand value than Windows does. Please don't ship a warmed over Office 2007 and think it's enough. It won't be.

Can't wait to see what you come up with. Thanks for listening.

Sincerely,

Carmi

Leave Steve's liver alone

Publié: juin 22, 2009, 8:08pm CEST par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

It's a question friends and family have been asking me ever since The Wall Street Journal reported last Saturday that Apple Chairman and CEO Steve Jobs had undergone a liver transplant two months ago: Should our health records be made public?

Wide Angle Zoom (200 px) I admit I'm of two minds on the issue. On the one hand, Apple shareholders have the right to know how the company they essentially own plans to manage itself both today and in the future. They deserve enough information to make informed decisions about whether they wish to retain their ownership stake and how they wish to remain involved, as shareholders, in the evolution of the company. It's a fundamental pillar of our economic system that publicly traded companies provide enough transparency to keep shareholders informed -- not to mention senior leaders honest.

On the other hand, CEOs are regular people, too. And they deserve the same right to not have their insides displayed, in color-enhanced 3D relief, on the evening news. We'd get really upset if Aunt Martha's blood test results were scanned and uploaded, complete with scripted narration, to YouTube. Yet we seem to believe similar openness is acceptable with near-rock stars like Steve Jobs because, well, they're near-rock stars. Somehow, somewhere within the complex interrelationship between captains of industry and their vast communities of shareholders, customers, suppliers and observers, a line has been crossed.

Are they inseparable?

When it comes to senior leadership, few companies are under as close scrutiny as Apple because, frankly, few companies have tied their future success as closely to the big kahuna. He is known widely for walking into product planning meetings and redirecting entire projects to suit his drive for simplicity and style. He's so closely tied to the company's products that a Jobs-less Apple is simply inconceivable to some. A colleague once likened the Apple-Steve Jobs relationship to a favourite lunch choice, peanut butter and jelly. While you could indeed make a sandwich of one ingredient without the other, it just wouldn't be the same.

Although I'm not willing to directly compare apples to peanuts, I think all the wondering about Apple's future either with or without Steve is fair game...to a point. Love him or hate him, we all agree he isn't the typical, tie tied-too-tight, anonymous CEO. Lost in near-oblivion during the lean years following his ouster, Apple has done more than simply regain profitability and industry relevance since his return. It has redefined entire new markets -- media players and smartphones -- and established new industrial design and marketing benchmarks. It's stretched beyond its roots as a tech company, even dropping the "Computer" from its name, to become a cultural pacesetter, the kind of company other companies want to be when they grow up.

Sh-h-h, not so loud

Apple is also a company that raises corporate secrecy to a high art. It's not something I say grudgingly. Indeed, in an industry where you're only as hot as your latest device, uncontrolled leaks of information can erode your competitive advantage in a blink. Apple's response has always been to tightly control what's shared, when it's shared, how it's shared, and who does the sharing. In the Internet Age, when an anonymous blog posting by a disgruntled employee can go viral before lunchtime, this level of control is remarkable.

That secrecy lies at the root of the current debate over the health of Steve Jobs. In Apple's world, even anonymity is delivered with an extra dose of stealth: The Wall Street Journal's original story was unsourced, meaning the paper didn't even want to say it had received its information from anonymous sources. CNBC later confirmed the story through anonymous sources, and in doing so reinforced how seriously Apple takes its external silence. In the absence of any hard evidence of succession planning, shareholders and observers have had little alternative but to speculate on Apple's future plans, and how deeply the absence of its uber-leader will affects its long-term prospects.

On the surface, Apple events aren't as much fun in recent days as they used to be. Marketing VP Phil Schiller, who delivered the Macworld and WWDC keynotes in the CEO's absence this year, isn't anywhere near the showman that Steve Jobs is. While his presentations are informative and well delivered, they don't make audience members feel like dancing in the streets. Operationally, Tim Cook seems to be doing a great job filling in as CEO. Share prices are up, most of the company's hardware offerings have been nicely refreshed, and the iPhone 3G S introduction seems to have gone well.

But Jobs hasn't been gone long enough for his absence to really be felt on the product pipeline. It'll take years of product introductions to get a real sense of whether Apple can go it alone without its one-of-a-kind co-founder and whether or not the bench was deep enough to maintain his legacy. My take: Anyone smart enough to turn a failing computer company into the cultural powerhouse of its time is probably smart enough to build a team that can carry the ball after he's gone.

He's just a regular guy

Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduces his company's name change to 'Apple Inc.' in an April 1, 2006 keynote address. For all the wild success Steve Jobs has achieved in business, he remains a husband and a father facing down a serious, potentially life-ending illness. The image of a robust, confident, billionaire captain of industry clad in his iconic black turtleneck and jeans as he delivers yet another blockbuster message to the world does little to mask the frightening reality of his current state. Sick or not, every CEO eventually leaves the post. And life goes on.

If you currently own Apple stock or are mulling over the possibility, you either do or do not believe that the company has enough of a succession plan in place to keep things going after his inevitable departure. You'll make your buy/hold/sell decision based on whatever information you can assemble at the time, and then you'll work with your financial advisor to maximize your returns and minimize your exposure to risk.

Hopefully along the way, you'll leave the speculation over the health of Steve Jobs out of it and let the company's performance speak for itself. Whatever we do for a living, we all deserve some quiet time to lead our lives as we see fit. Steve Jobs should be no exception.

Twitter grows up: Lessons from the Iran experience

Publié: juin 18, 2009, 8:37pm CEST par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

It was do or die for Twitter last week. To its credit, it didn't die.

Every promising new technology reaches a point in its life cycle when it either grows up and becomes part of the everyday landscape, or it flames out and becomes a footnote to history.

And as history illustrates, it's a process that often repeats itself like clockwork over surprisingly long periods of time. Almost twenty years to the day since student leaders of a massive protest in China's Tiananmen Square used then-novel fax machines to bypass traditional media, organize themselves and share their message with the world, opponents to the disputed election in Iran found themselves using Twitter in much the same way.

Playing a very serious game

In many respects, it's how the game is played in places where free speech isn't enshrined in the constitution (wait, what constitution?) -- and you risk being hauled in, or worse, for simply being out on the street. When massive crowds of ordinary people line up against well-armed, government sanctioned forces, their only saving grace is the power of information. They can't shoot back, of course, but the mobile Internet can outrun even the most powerful weapons. Even before the bullets began to fly in Iran last week, pictures, videos and quick snippets were already getting out to an increasingly distressed world.

Wide Angle Zoom (200 px) It's the technological equivalent of a cat-and-mouse game. Just as the authorities figure out how the supposedly rebellious masses are using a certain set of tools to bypass government-imposed limits on expression, those masses are already moving on to the next technology baseline. Conventional e-mail isn't working? Switch to a Web-based service like Gmail or Hotmail. When they block those, switch to Instant Messaging. Toss in a few proxy servers and IP spoofing services for good measure. And when those inevitably get stomped by the powers that be, pick up your mobile phone and start texting. It's all about staying one step ahead of your adversaries.

Relevance, anyone?

This is all infinitely fascinating if you've got a Molotov cocktail ready by the door, but what does any of this have to do with you and me? Or with conducting business in a decidedly more peaceful part of the world?

More than you might assume. Up until some hinky election results exposed what increasingly looks like rigged voting in a country not historically known for being remotely democratic or free, Twitter was a tool many of us loved to hate. It was unstable, feature-thin, prone to high levels of noise, and often annoying too. Ashton Kutcher punking CNN annoying. Lindsay Lohan shooting topless photos of herself annoying. Worth a laugh at the water cooler, but hardly something the company should be using to raise brand awareness and get closer to stakeholders and improve operational agility.

Everything changed when a bunch of protesters in a distant land stumbled upon Twitter after their usual methods of opening windows for the rest of the world stopped working. Government censors, apparently unaware that cat-and-mouse is as relevant today as it's ever been, did their usual thorough job blocking blogs and other conventional Web-based resources.

So the Internet-savvy commonfolk switched gears and found another way to marshal themselves. And world media did the same when pretty much all of them were kicked out of the country, and have since leaned heavily on Twitter to connect with sources in the country and learn, haltingly, what's going on.

From protest to business

Although it may not seem like it at first blush, what's happening in Iran is very much like Marketing 101 for the social media age. The only difference is the average company is trying to raise awareness and sell stuff. No politics, no bullets, just marketing. The Iranian experience holds major lessons for companies still clinging to the notion that Twitter -- or Facebook, or any other singular social media tool -- isn't worth using at this point in time because it's too trivial for the important business of building business.

They couldn't be more wrong. The stark reality for these companies is they can't afford to be left behind. In many cases, their customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders are already using these tools, too. Organizations that keep their heads in the sand and stay on the sidelines risk being left out of the conversations that ensue because their stakeholders have already moved on. It's like targeting customers on Downtown Main Street long after the malls sucked the streetscape dry...and after big box stores did the same thing to the malls. You can't afford to rely on yesterday's tools or processes.

While the often dizzying pace of evolution of social media tools can make it easy to justify a wait-and-see approach (why invest in something that may not be around in six months, after all?) the costs of using yesterday's tools (fax, anyone?) long after the world has moved are almost always more significant.

The only constant is change

Social media platforms are ephemeral beasts. Industry pioneer Friendster is now an afterthought. MySpace is laying off hundreds of staff as its user base shrinks, and even Google has failed to gain any traction with Orkut. So the risks of using the wrong platform are real. And it's easy to use these failures, and the fast-moving evolution of these platforms, as an excuse to hang back.

But when you're under threat and you're not sure what things will look like tomorrow, you often have no choice. And sometimes you have to make do with flawed, incomplete tools still undergoing rapid change. In that context, the situation in Iran won't magically fix all that ails Twitter. The service still has an ocean's worth of scalability and performance issues to address. It also doesn't seem to have much of a business plan. But Twitter's geopolitical debut does reinforce the value of quickly latching on to emerging tools of communication to pursue a common goal quickly, efficiently and cost effectively. It also reinforces the value of doing so before your competitors do.

Five Vista perception problems Windows 7 must overcome

Publié: mai 28, 2009, 7:25pm CEST par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

Poor Windows 7. Months before its official launch, it's already fighting to live down the reputation of its older siblings. It's bad enough it has to fight perceptions of insecurity (I'm looking at you, XP) and bloated incompatibility (Vista, anyone?). But like the poor kid entering a high school after his older brothers have spent years being serially suspended for misbehaviour and general hooliganism, Windows 7 has an uphill battle ahead of it. Whether the perceptions are earned or not is irrelevant. Undoing them is a monumental process either way, and it all rests on the shoulders of a kid whose only mistake seems to lie in carrying the family name.

Wide Angle Zoom (200 px) But undo these perceptions it must. Windows 7 promises to be Microsoft's most crucial launch ever because the company's very future has never been in as much question as it is now. Its two cash cow franchises, Windows and Office, are mooing a little less deeply these days thanks to a seismic shift away from the traditional PC model. While Vista's problems are more perception than anything else, there's no escaping the cruel reality that the age of Windows-everywhere-by-default is over. As conventional desktop and laptop PCs give way to all sorts of new form factors running all sorts of new operating systems and connecting to the outside world in all sorts of unconventional ways, Microsoft can't afford another lukewarm Windows launch.

So far, at least, Windows 7 looks like Microsoft's best bet yet to lay to rest long-held perceptions that its OS offerings are bloated malware magnets that needlessly clutter end-users' lives. Before Microsoft declares ultimate victory, however, it needs Windows 7 to overcome five key perception challenges:

1. It's a security nag

Microsoft blew it big time with its nag-in-a-box approach to Vista security. While more savvy users could easily tweak the settings to stop the annoying reminders from popping up every third mouse click, most users lack the time and ability to dig into the guts of the OS and make the changes themselves. Windows 7, which promises to ship with even more robust security capabilities, will at least be configured out of the box to be somewhat less annoying than a late night infomercial pitchman.

2. It's a security black hole

Dominating the market for so long makes you an easy target for all sorts of malevolence. Hackers and criminals target Windows because it's more fun to inflict damage on hundreds of millions of Microsofties than a few million Linux users. As much as critics like to knock Windows for being the security equivalent of Swiss cheese, Microsoft's become quite effective at identifying vulnerabilities and closing gaps. Windows 7 should only extend that robustness -- assuming end users continue to hold up their end of the bargain.

No discussion of Windows security is complete without putting it into an Apple context. While Apple fans fervently believe their beloved Macs are completely impervious to viruses, Trojans, worms and related nasties, the sad truth is Macs have gotten off because their single-digit market share wasn't large enough to make the investment worth it for hackers. As Apple's market share continues to grow, that will almost certainly change.

(And before you slam be for being anti-Apple, a bit of disclosure: I've got an iMac and a Mac mini in my home office, happily coexisting alongside Windows Vista, XP and, horrors, 98. I love my Macs, too, but I don't believe in blind worship.)

3. Macs do stuff that Windows can't

I get that some things may be easier or more elegant on one or, to be fair, the other. I often find myself shifting work between Mac and Windows machines because my brain works better in that OS for that particular task. For everyone who says only a Mac can do video or music production, I can find two people who beg to differ. I have no problem being a multimedia maven on my Vista machine, and my experiences with Windows 7 betas convince me the experience will only improve. It's time to discard 1980s-era OS-based xenophobia. Times have changed.

4. It's bloated

Microsoft knew it had a problem when users openly campaigned to extend XP's availability and support. The fact that Vista has almost zero presence in the fast-growing netbook space illustrates how critical it is for Microsoft to return to a lean and mean OS methodology. We don't need slick-looking interfaces that subsequently bog down system performance. We need elegant, simple environments that make the best use of whatever modern hardware we may be using.

Now that Microsoft has decided to remove the silly three-application limit from Windows 7 Starter Edition, Windows users looking for a light and agile OS that runs on lower-powered hardware no longer have to downgrade to XP. Windows 7 on netbooks is the clearest message yet that this is not your father's Vista.

5. It has lousy compatibility

Microsoft deservedly took it on the chin for chintzy driver compatibility when Vista was first released. It's done a much better job reaching out to hardware vendors throughout the Windows 7 development process to minimize the number of stranded pieces of hardware this time out.

Can you ever hit 100% compatibility? No. But the scanner that I never managed to get working with Vista worked just fine with the last Windows 7 beta. And, no, not even my Macs could make that claim.

Although it's still too early to divine whether or not Windows 7 will save the franchise for Microsoft, we do ourselves no favors by writing it off simply because of broad-based -- and often wrongly-formed -- perceptions. Like that high school kid forced to live down his older brothers' reputations, we at least owe him the courtesy of hearing him out and letting him perform on his own merits before we cast judgment. People, after all, can change. Families can, too.

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éléments par Carmi Levy

Publié: mai 7, 2010, 12:07am CEST par Carmi Levy

Publié: avril 29, 2010, 1:19am CEST par Carmi Levy

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Publié: janvier 28, 2010, 8:53pm CET par Carmi Levy

Publié: janvier 27, 2010, 5:37pm CET par Scott M. Fulton, III and Carmi Levy

Publié: janvier 25, 2010, 6:05pm CET par Carmi Levy

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Publié: janvier 14, 2010, 4:58pm CET par Carmi Levy

Publié: janvier 7, 2010, 9:06pm CET par Scott M. Fulton, III and Carmi Levy

Publié: janvier 6, 2010, 5:20am CET par Carmi Levy

Publié: décembre 31, 2009, 8:16pm CET par Carmi Levy

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Publié: novembre 20, 2009, 5:42am CET par Carmi Levy

Publié: novembre 17, 2009, 8:57am CET par Carmi Levy

Publié: novembre 12, 2009, 8:46pm CET par Carmi Levy

Publié: novembre 12, 2009, 8:30pm CET par Scott M. Fulton, III and Carmi Levy

Publié: novembre 9, 2009, 9:25pm CET par Carmi Levy

Publié: novembre 5, 2009, 6:23pm CET par Carmi Levy

Publié: novembre 2, 2009, 4:35pm CET par Carmi Levy

Publié: octobre 29, 2009, 10:08pm CET par Carmi Levy

Publié: octobre 27, 2009, 12:16am CET par Carmi Levy

Publié: octobre 23, 2009, 4:04pm CEST par Carmi Levy

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Publié: octobre 12, 2009, 11:57pm CEST par Carmi Levy

Publié: octobre 1, 2009, 5:13pm CEST par Carmi Levy

Publié: septembre 24, 2009, 4:46pm CEST par Carmi Levy

Publié: septembre 21, 2009, 10:59pm CEST par Carmi Levy

Publié: septembre 17, 2009, 7:42pm CEST par Carmi Levy

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Publié: août 31, 2009, 11:31pm CEST par Carmi Levy

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Publié: juillet 16, 2009, 3:48pm CEST par Carmi Levy