Google & Motorola

Aug 16, ’11 8:54 PM

Fascinating development with Google buying Motorola Mobility for $12.5B.

I don’t buy for a moment that Google are super smart and played everyone else. To me it feels more like an act of desperation and the price and breakup clause all point to Motorola having a lot of leverage.

Lots of interesting angles to this story but two that really struck me – patents and platforms :-

It’ll be interesting to see if this is just about patents (an area which is becoming increasingly difficult to navigate) or if Google plan to vertically integrate to compete with Apple. Since they lost the recent patent bidding war for the 6000 Nortel patents, Google have become increasingly bitter about the impact of patents on their ability to give Android away.

Up until now Google has claimed a level playing field for any Android manufacturer – although there has been a lot of rumor around restrictions and/or requirements they require to get the “good stuff”.

In my view Google needs to much more carefully curate the platform if they want to compete – users expect stuff to be consistent and well integrated. Right now Android feels like too much of a compromise – it all comes down to who is the customer and Android still feels like the customer is the network provider. Things will only change when google start to see the customer as the end-user. Might never happen – as the saying goes “if you’re not paying for something, you’re not the customer; you’re the product being sold”

The other interesting angle is about the Android platform. How is Google going to manage the other Android manufacturers? One things for sure – it gives HP an opportunity to license WebOS more widely as Android manufacturers such as Samsung and HTC look for an OS which may becoming tied to a hardware.

Interesting times.

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Great Tour de France

Jul 24, ’11 6:55 AM

What an awesome finish to the Tour this year. As loads predicted it all came down to the time trial and Cadel Evans and the BMC team crushed the opposition.

Inspiring stuff.. I’d write more but it just makes me want to get out on my bike!

r

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Platforms – evolving Twitter

Jul 18, ’11 6:21 AM

Building true platforms has long been an interest of mine going back to the days of Teknekron and their marketdata platform. Building APIs and critically an ecosystem around an API can be an incredibly powerful thing but it’s not easy.

This article in the NYT reminded me of just how difficult it can be to build and evolve a platform. Very few firms (Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, Google, Amazon etc) have managed to do this well and all have faced the tensions that come as the platform matures and critically as business models evolve.

Platforms can be great for customers and ISVs but all of us need to understand the potential for lock-in and cannibalization. Lock-in is hard to avoid – and provided it’s done consciously and with careful risk management the leverage from a broadly adopted platform can be worth it.

In the case of Twitter what I find particularly interesting is that Twitter was primarily a platform from the beginning. Most platforms seems to have evolved from changes in direction or evolution of companies (Amazon for instance) whereas Twitter started as a platform and as they have realized the need to “own” the customer experience (or perhaps monetize their platform) they have acquired or build more and more of the applications. Frustrating if you are an app-builder (who didn’t get bought) or someone who was trying to build a competing business on top of the platform.

The scale and speed of adoption of some the compelling platforms (Android, IOS, Facebook) these days is amazing. Asymco has some fascinating analysis of the latest figures.

It’ll be interesting to see if Twitter manages the transition – I assume they believe they are sticky enough that ISVs and users have to stay.

Of course Google may have different ideas.

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More on computational photography

Jun 23, ’11 2:49 PM

These articles at the WSJ and NYTimes detail the latest startup around computational photography. Lytro uses a microlens array and smart software to allow users to switch points of focus – after the photograph is taken.

Very cool.

This is just the beginning – no shutter lag, 3D, increased resolution, automatic bracketing – all in software.

The demo pictures are fun to play with but I can’t wait to see the actual camera. It’s an uphill challenge when phones come with built in camera (The best camera is the one you have with you) but being able to play with focus and more after the fact sounds intriguing.

 

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Update on Cloud based living

Mar 29, ’11 11:40 AM

In a previous post I mentioned that I’d experimented with using a Google Chrome OS based notebook. Moving to living “in the cloud” isn’t really practical for me – yet. But the latest announcement from Amazon about cloud based storage addressed another of my issues.

It’s been possible to stream music from the cloud for a while – Spotify is a great service – although not available yet in the US and the idea of an “all you can eat” music subscription does appeal.

However for someone with 100G of music the abilty to back the music up to the cloud and made available anywhere i have a connection is awesome. That plus the seamless integration with Amazon’s MP3 store and things are starting to look interesting. Looks like Amazon got ahead of Apple on this.

Now if they could only provide an iOS client for my iPhone.

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Someone “knows” where you are – at least 78% of the time

Mar 29, ’11 11:32 AM

I find privacy an intriguing topic – the rise of sensor laden smart phones and “big data” mining technology has caused a perfect storm around personal privacy.

There’s no doubt that credit card companies had similar abiliies in the past but the granularity, precision, scale and pervasiveness of the possible invasion dwarf previous possibilities.

That coupled with the willingness of consumers to give up personal information to received personalized products or advertising subsidized services means we live in a world where as Scott McNeally said – “You have zero privacy … get over it”. And that was over 10 years ago!

What is interesting for Thomson Reuters is how we can build products which meet our customers expectations in terms of ease of use and relevance without destroying their trust in how we use the insight gained from how they use our products.

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Computational Photography

Feb 14, ’11 1:22 PM

Startups like Instagr.am and Path are interesting from a social perspective and perhaps a way to push back against Facebook. But the real innovations in photography following the move from film to digital are only just beginning. Until now we’ve been for the most part emulating film and legacy cameras. Even to the point of making a noise when the shutter opens & closes ;-)

Recent innovations such as sweep mode – allowing panaoramas to be generated or HDR capture to allow more detail to be captured in a scene are interesting but Pelican Imaging really caught my eye. Rather than try to add yet more mega-pixels, they are using an array of sensors, powerful cpus and software.

Sure this will mean thinner phones but the idea of “post-capture focussing” is incredible and just the beginning. Another example where the move to digital will drive innovation to software. Camera manufacturers such as Nikon, Canon had better take note if they are not to be caught like Nokia…..

More here from the American Scientist.

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Chrome OS & cloud based living

Feb 13, ’11 7:28 PM

I finally had a chance to try Chrome OS on the Google prototype hardware (CR-48). The hardware is un-remarkable – a little sluggish and a trackpad which continues to irritate long after you get used to its idiosyncrasies. After my current laptop (Macbook Air) it’s pretty disappointing – but it is a “prototype”.

The OS however shows real promise – there’s no question that you can practically live in the cloud these days – the os is slick and does all I need, the apps are fully featured enough, the browsers are fast and with a decent web connection I don’t see much of a downside. I’m writing this now on the CR-48 and don’t feel any restrictions.

However, I still do a fair amount of work without a decent connection – offline mode is less compelling and with no local storage I can’t even bring stuff with me…. Even the iPad can do that.

That said – I think with better/more modern hardware I could live on this device. Cloud based living is getting very close. I’ll be very interested to see production hardware.

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Nokia, Microsoft & HP

Feb 11, ’11 11:08 PM

Sad news that Nokia has finally recognizing their missteps over the past couple of years. What was remarkable to me is the lack of realization that excellent hardware simply wasn’t enough. The last Nokia phone I bought, the N97 was such as disappointment.

Both Motorola and Nokia rested on their laurels. Often innovating in hardware but ignoring the need for excellent software – they simply didn’t compete.

Now they’ve taken different paths with Nokia firmly in bed with Microsoft (almost a merger?), and Motorola choosing Google/Android.

Right now I think Nokia stands a better chance of the two – simply because MS + Nokia is a significant partnership whereas Motorola + Google looks like just another commodity Android play. Either way these once dominant firms are no longer in control of their own destiny. I hope Nokia can succeed in “disrupting the existing ecosystems” but I’m skeptical.

I like the bet that HP have made. WebOS is a really nice OS. Couple that with nice hardware, and a real understanding of enterprise requirements and execution (shipping!) then they could be a really interesting competitor to Apple.

Fundamentally the hardest thing is to say no to features or avoid a decision by making something configurable. Simplicity. Apple under Steve Jobs has been able to do that – assuming that continues they are going to be hard to beat.

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Infrastructure and Choice

Jan 18, ’11 4:52 PM

The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires – Tim Wu was a very interesting read covering the implications of industry structure for innovation and freedom of expression.

It provides a fascinating history lesson on “the cycle” – the progression of information business such as Radio, Telco, Movies, TV and of course the internet. Fascinating stuff and something I’ve thought about in the context of enterprise software platforms.

I remember the debate when Microsoft put a browser into Windows. It certainly slowed innovation, caused Netscape problems and it was years until Firefox, Safari and now Chrome became compelling alternatives or replacements. I’d argue that not all of Netscape’s problems were Microsoft induced however.

But from a software developers (which I was at the time) point of view – having a browser built into the OS (assuming the customers deployed it) was great – I could assume that it was there, part of the infrastructure, and leverage it.

I think there’s powerful leverage for firms who are willing to build or buy infrastructure which in some ways takes away developer choice. I think that’s one of the most valuable propositions of Software as a Service. By choosing to build applications on top of a SaaS platform you “free” the developers to focus on adding value just as I was freed by Internet Explorer :-)

Choice isn’t always a good thing.

The lesson from the book seems to be the danger of allowing any one company to own the critical infrastructure because it becomes a barrier to innovation and freedom of expression. In covering the latest iteration of the cycle the book doesn’t address Google’s motivation (advertising) but I have to agree that sometimes you need that level of control to get things done.

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