Thursday, March 31, 2011
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Friday, March 25, 2011
Apple’s Secret Sauce: The Real Ingredients | BNET
Googling “secret of Apple’s success”–in quotes–gets 29,400 hits. That number will no doubt grow now that Apple has again topped Fortune’s list of the most-admired companies. A rolling stone gathers no moss, but a company on a roll gathers investors, groupies, and explainers. Like docents in a museum, they stand before the object they admire, telling whoever will listen why it’s so great and how it does what it does.
Funny, though, how the explanations vary. To Fortune, the secret is Apple’s “blistering pace of new product releases.” Actually, Apple sets “a deliberately moderate pace” to maximize its profits, says a thoughtful analysis by Christopher Meyer, consultant and the author of a book about speed, Fast Cycle Time. The secret is “staying upmarket” per to Bloomberg BusinessWeek, noting the fact that Apple dominates the market for $1000 computers. Only: Apple’s hottest product, the iPad, has competitors stymied because it’s priced below other tablets, says the New York Times’s David Pogue.
Some say the secret is vertical integration-but as Saeed Khan notes, that was also the supposed reason for Apple’s failures 20 years ago. Some, like Guy Kawasaki, say Apple invents whole new businesses by anticipating where the market is heading. Others argue that Apple wins because it surfs brilliantly on waves of others’ invention, pointing out that the iPad was neither the first tablet nor the iPhone the first smart phone.
We’re seeing two things here. The first: blind men groping an elephant. Though there are dozens of Harvard Business School cases about Apple, the company hasn’t become a specimen under the management microscope the way GE and P&G have. Instead, writers have focused on the all-important question of whether Steve Jobs is Svengali, Rasputin, or the Second Coming.
More insidious, this is a demonstration of fallacies Phil Rosenzweig skewers in his book The Halo Effect. Very often, Rosenzweig shows, people “claim to have identified the drivers of company performance, but have mainly shown the way that high performers are described.” Confusing causation with correlation, attributing virtues to a company simply because it’s doing well-such errors happen all the time. People with hobby-horse theories are especially inclined to ascribe a hot company’s performance primarily to the fact that it sounds like the horse they’re riding. (Don’t ask me how I know this.)
Forget the gurus.
In fact, the secret of Apple’s success is on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Apple’s Form 10K includes a remarkable paragraph under the heading “Business Strategy.” A small masterpiece of clarity and coherence, it states what Apple is trying to accomplish. Then it lists the half-dozen things Apple must do distinctively and well to succeed. Here’s the paragraph. (The italics and comments are mine.)
The Company is committed to bringing the best user experience to its customers
[Strategy starts with an unambiguous view of how a company will create value. This is Apple's: Let others do what they do; customer experience is how we play. So, if that's their game, how do they win at it?]
through its innovative hardware, software, peripherals, services, and Internet offerings. The Company’s business strategy leverages its unique ability to design and develop its own operating systems, hardware, application software, and services
[Required capability #1: Everything that a customer touches, we must be able to do ourselves. Corollary: It's ok--necessary, even--to outsource what doesn't touch customers directly, like manufacturing and logistics]
to provide its customers new products and solutions with superior ease-of-use, seamless integration, and innovative industrial design
[Capability #2: we must deliver product attributes that improve customer experience. Note the attributes not listed, like bleeding-edge technology]
The Company believes continual investment in research and development
[Capability #3: Plan and manage a research portfolio coherent with the first two capabilities and encompassing both new and renewed products]
is critical to the development and enhancement of innovative products and technologies. In conjunction with its strategy, the Company continues to build and host a robust platform for the discovery and delivery of third-party digital content and applications
[Capability #4: To own the customer experience, we must run a digital store so great that we can compel third-party providers to come through us. No one in the industry--or any industry I can think of--has anything like this]
through the iTunes Store. The iTunes Store includes the App Store and iBookstore, which allow customers to discover and download third-party applications and books through either a Mac or Windows-based computer or wirelessly through an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch. The Company also works to support a community for the development of third-party software and hardware and digital content that complement the Company’s offerings
[Capability #5: Others do this too, of course, with bigger and often more open communities. What people complain about in Apple's development community is a feature, not a bug; "complement the company's offerings" is the key phrase]
Additionally, the Company’s strategy includes expanding its distribution to effectively reach more customers and provide them with a high-quality sales and post-sales support experience.
[Capability #6: Elsewhere in the 10K, Apple says its stores "control the customer experience" and notes that they are in desirable (i.e. high-rent) locations and staffed with knowledgeable and experienced (i.e., well paid) people. As for post-sales support, every Apple owner knows that its support is the industry's best--not perfect, but the best, whether on the phone or at the Genius Bar, which is itself a stroke of genius. If customer experience is your game, customer service is not a cost to be minimized]
The Company is therefore uniquely positioned to offer superior and well-integrated digital lifestyle and productivity solutions.
There you have it: The six ingredients of Apple’s secret sauce. There’s nothing special about them. Here’s what’s special:
First, they work together as a system that is at unity with itself. Each capability reinforces and amplifies the others; and to win the game they play, no other capabilities are needed.
Second, Apple actually does what it says. There’s a long list of ways in which Apple could get distracted from its strategy. (I noted a couple of them above.) What sets Apple apart is the ability to those six things very well and to the relentless exclusion of anything else.
Photo courtesy flickr user Michael Bentley
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Monday, March 21, 2011
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Thursday, March 17, 2011
The Abuse of Private Manning
Pfc. Bradley Manning, who has been imprisoned for nine months on charges of handing government files to WikiLeaks, has not even been tried let alone convicted. Yet the military has been treating him abusively, in a way that conjures creepy memories of how the Bush administration used to treat terror suspects. Inexplicably, it appears to have President Obama’s support to do so.
Private Manning is in solitary confinement at the Marine Corps brig in Quantico, Va. For one hour a day, he is allowed to walk around a room in shackles. He is forced to remove all his clothes every night. And every morning he is required to stand outside his cell, naked, until he passes inspection and is given his clothes back.
Military officials say, without explanation, that these precautions are necessary to prevent Private Manning from injuring himself. They have put him on “prevention of injury” watch, yet his lawyers say there is no indication that he is suicidal and the military has not placed him on a suicide watch. (He apparently made a sarcastic comment about suicide.)
Forced nudity is a classic humiliation technique. During the early years of the Bush administration’s war on terror, C.I.A. interrogators regularly stripped prisoners to break down barriers of resistance, increase compliance and extract information. One C.I.A. report from 2004 said that nudity, along with sleep deprivation and dietary manipulation, was used to create a mind-set in which the prisoner “learns to perceive and value his personal welfare, comfort and immediate needs more than the information he is protecting.”
Private Manning is not an enemy combatant, and there is no indication that the military is trying to extract information from him. Many military and government officials remain furious at the huge dump of classified materials to WikiLeaks. But if this treatment is someone’s way of expressing that emotion, it would be useful to revisit the presumption of innocence and the Constitutional protection against cruel and unusual punishment.
Philip Crowley, a State Department spokesman, committed the classic mistake of a Washington mouthpiece by telling the truth about Private Manning to a small group (including a blogger): that the military’s treatment of Private Manning was “ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid.” He resigned on Sunday.
Far more troubling is why President Obama, who has forcefully denounced prisoner abuse, is condoning this treatment. Last week, at a news conference, he said the Pentagon had assured him that the terms of the private’s confinement “are appropriate and are meeting our basic standards.” He said he could not go into details, but details are precisely what is needed to explain and correct an abuse that should never have begun.
For the Record (March 17, 2011)
This editorial incorrectly reported that Pfc. Bradley Manning is shackled while exercising in the recreation room in the Marine Corps brig. He is only shackled while walking to and from that room.
Private Manning, unlike most other prisoners, is never allowed to mingle with other prisoners. We consider that to be “solitary confinement,” but the Pentagon says it is not because he is allowed to shout to prisoners elsewhere in his cellblock. Our editorial criticized Private Manning’s detention conditions because he must strip every night and hand over his clothes to a guard (unlike most other prisoners). The Pentagon says this is not forced nudity because he is then given a Velcro-secured wrap-around “smock” that he may sleep in.
What is Obama thinking?
Satellite Photos - Japan Before and After Tsunami - Interactive Feature
This terribly tragic.....
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Friday, March 11, 2011
Giant Ant Hill Excavated
This is incredible! I wish it were higher quality but you get the idea.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Greg's bite: Microsoft pays Nokia $1 billion to use Windows 7? | MacTech
By Greg Mills
Talk about mutual desperation or a marriage from hell. "Bloomberg" reports that Nokia has held out for US$1 billion from Microsoft to use Windows 7. Microsoft head honcho Steve Ballmer seems to think he can buy his way into the smartphone market that Microsoft abdicated over the last few years.
Nokia and Microsoft both have seen Apple eat their market share with the viral iPhone and iOS since it was launched. At one time Microsoft had some traction in the semi-smart phone market with its rather primitive phone software. The market shunned the Microsoft OS as it was light years behind Apple's iOS. Nokia, likewise, had a giant share of the dumb phone market and has seen its share drop dramatically since the iPhone 1 taught the world what a true smartphone could do.
A few weeks back the CEO of Nokia famously pounded his chest with a visceral proclamation of defeat at the hands of Apple and Android. The dumb phone market is doomed to sink, to represent a minor league market as consumers choose smart phones as the difference in price between dumb and smart phones is erased. Why buy a featureless cell phone, when for the same money you can get a full featured smart phone?
Nokia, despite the enormous market share they enjoyed, failed to realize the days of the "just a cell phone" devices was over. Now, too late to the party, their desperation has led them to "jump off a burning oil platform into the sea." The dramatic description likens staying with the status quo and being burned to a crisp by Apple or jumping into unknown waters seeking software solutions from an outside source.
The development of the Apple and Google infrastructures -- which includes both the operating systems and well developed app stores -- is a very hard act to follow. The Nokia software department was hopelessly floundering; management knew it but was unable to fix the problems.
Microsoft has seen a very low level of acceptance for its Windows 7, sort of a smartphone comparison to the awful Windows Vista computer OS that was just about completely shunned by the PC market, for a long list of good reasons. With the revelation that Nokia demanded and got a billion dollars cash from Microsoft for adopting WIndows 7 comes the question, "Did Microsoft also pay other handset makers to launch their Windows 7compatible handsets?" If not, the dismal failure in the market place would have me think the handset makers ought to also demand serious money from Microsoft or quit supporting the failed Windows 7 OS.
Sometimes bigger isn't better, it's just bigger. Grasping at "the wrong straw" may well turn out be the last major gaff that takes Nokia down for the count. A failure for Nokia-branded Windows 7 smart phones will likely bring down both Nokia and Microsoft's "too lame, too late to the party" smartphone OS offering that have to be at least a year off. Apple isn't sleeping at the switch. Already hopelessly behind, another year is an eternity in the fast developing smart phone business of today.
The CEO of Nokia seems to forget that if he likens Apple and Android to the fire on the preverbal oil platform, jumping into the sea is also hazardous as there is a deadly great white shark circling the waters who eats half baked products for lunch. That shark is also Apple. The stock market gets it and has seriously discounted both Nokia and Microsoft, expecting the worst. Bigger isn't better, it's just bigger -- and more spectacular when it fails. Windows 7 as a platform hasn't been well supported by the developer community so far, despite begging, cajoling and outright bribery by Microsoft.
The power of a substantial three-point system is impossible to beat. You need solid hardware, solid software and an app store that can compete with Apple and Android. Windows 7 isn't that substantial, their app store is lame and there isn't a good reason for that to change. Nokia should have gone with Android, but that also has its risks as Apple is suing every handset maker who produces handsets for that platform and patent infringement suits are going to hit the fan this year. Look for the Android platform to get seriously hurt by Apple's legal assault.
The smart money has already laughed off the Nokia/Microsoft collaboration as two has beens, trying to resurrect a dead duck. Nokia stock has taken a 25% hit and there is a strong push within Nokia to push back on the deal with Microsoft, which hasn't been signed yet.
History is full of giant companies that didn't see the direction their market was going and slowly faded to black. As I sometimes muse when I wear my oriental wise man hat, "those who stand too long in the road of progress will be run over." Nokia and Microsoft Windows 7 are very likely road kill under the runaway Apple smart phone and iPad machines. Both Nokia and Microsoft failed to see the future and will pay the price.
That's Greg's Bite for today.
(Greg Mills is currently a graphic and Faux Wall Artist in Kansas City. Formerly a new product R&D man for the paint sundry market, he holds 11 US patents. Greg is an Extra Class Ham Radio Operator, AB6SF, iOS developer and web site designer. He's also working on a solar energy startup using a patent pending process for turning waste dual pane glass window units into thermal solar panels used to heat water see: www.CottageIndustySolar.com Married, with one daughter, Greg writes for intellectual property web sites and on Mac/Tech related issues. See Greg's art web site at http://www.gregmills.info He can be emailed at gregmills@mac.com)
Why Nokia failed: 'Wasted 2,000 man years' on UIs that didn't work • The Register
When Nokia CEO Stephen Elop announced that Nokia was abandoning its development of its own smartphone platforms and APIs, and betting the farm on somebody else's, many people asked why it was necessary.
Nokia had spent 15 years trying to develop and maintain its own software, which it regarded as strategic to maintaining its independence. Elop's decisions have ensured that Nokia didn't just get another option to run alongside its own, but it would abandon these, writing off the investments it had already made. In his opinion, these weren't good enough.
But why? Nokia had (and still has) one proven and successful smartphone platform, and had spent years bringing another one to maturity. It had, belatedly, unified both under one API for developers. Yet Elop judged that neither of these two high-end platforms would ever gain the developer support they would need to stay competitive.
Nokia had been watching the Symbian software as it was created, since the mid-1990s, and licensed the operating system before Symbian was even created. Symbian proved to have many advantages over the recent competition in some important areas. With its mature and well-debugged phone stacks, it is better for phone calls than any other smartphone: it drops fewer calls, the calls sound better, and it uses the antenna better. Symbian's power consumption and performance on comparable hardware are also best of class, despite the baroque middleware added over the years by Nokia. Yet Nokia's phones were considered uncompetitive in the marketplace, because new products from Apple and Android had raised the bar for ease of use, particularly for new data applications, and Nokia's user experience was awful.
The UX matters: it's the first thing potential customers see when a friend passes them their new phone in the pub. A well-designed UX is consistent, forgiving and rewarding; Nokia's user experience was inconsistent, unforgiving and hostile. Nokia's designers honed in with meticulous attention to the wrong detail. Apple's iPhoneOS UI had some unusual features – smooth graphics that played transitions at 60-frames-per-second, thanks to a dedicated graphics chip. Instead of redesigning the entire UX, Nokia acquired expensive professional-grade video cameras to determine the animation speed, and having confirmed that yes, it was 60fps, tried to recreate the transitions.
Touch input was welded onto Nokia's Symbian S60 user interface – which had originally been designed for alphanumeric keypad-based phones back in 2000 – and it was a clumsy fit. Punters expected a "direct manipulation" UI, which this plainly wasn't. Long overdue rationalisations to the confusing S60 menu hierarchy or settings weren't executed, making it very hard to do the simplest things.
Nokia showed a demo in 2007, nine months after the iPhone was announced, but before it had even landed on non-US shores. "We can do this passing fad for touch screens, too," Nokia assured developers.
But it was, at best, a stop-gap. And Nokia was still relying on this ugly mess for its "flagship" two years later. The question as to why Nokia surrendered its independence lies in why it took so long to engineer a competitive UI, and then under new management, decided that it couldn't.
I've called it the "for want of a nail" question: if Nokia had a UI, it would not have had to lose its independence. And as Nokia gave up its independence, Europe lost its last global technology platform. US and Japanese companies now dictate the market.
Dead ends
Now the lid is being lifted on this saga.
A great introduction comes from veteran mobile developer and co-author of a couple of technical Symbian books, Mark Wilcox. Wilcox had worked inside and outside Nokia before joining the Symbian Foundation several months after it launched. I'm surprised his account hasn't got more coverage in blogland since it was published last week. It would be the basis for a good disaster movie for techies – but one where the ending is so depressing nobody would want to watch it.
Through incredible software mismanagement, Nokia simultaneously pursued two dead ends, writes Wilcox, neither of which worked. Nokia management had belatedly realised it needed a better story to tell developers, and in early 2008 acquired Trolltech, which has a very successful and well-regarded C++ framework called Qt. Qt doesn't specify a look and feel, though, but the Trolltech had plenty of experience creating these for potential customers, and saw little point in simply recoding a legacy UI that already looked dated. Having done as they were asked, and made Symbian programmable via Qt, they set about modernising and simplifying UI development.
Next page: Design patterns were 'reverse engineered from code'
Brilliant piece on a tragic failure. I am not sure their move to Microsoft will herald any better news.
India Painting Her Car for the Big Class Race
Wednesday, March 09, 2011
Apple updates software for the Apple TV | MacTech
Apple has updated the software for the US$99, streaming-only Apple TV to version 4.2 It adds support for AirPlay in iOS 4.3, support for Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound when playing Netflix videos and the ability to access MLB.TV and NBA League Pass Broadband content
There are also new slideshow themes; you can view photos with the new Scrapbook, Photo Mobile, and Holiday Mobile slideshow themes. Apple TV 4.2 also improves the on-screen keyboard, letting you search and enter names and passwords more easily, according to Apple.
You can update the Apple TV software via iTunes.
I am buying
Sunday, March 06, 2011
Saturday, March 05, 2011
India and Amara on Mt Tolmie
