*michael parekh on IT*

ON BILL GATES' MUSINGS AT "D"

TELL IT LIKE IT IS

Dan Farber at ZDNet has a good piece summarizing Bill Gates' kick-off interview with Walter Mossberg and Kara Swisher at the fourth annual Wall Street Journal "D" Conference in California.

It's always good to hear Bill Gates speak even on generally familiar topics since he adds nuanced insights through his extemporaneous and sometimes candid comments.

The "D" session is no different.  Here are my takes on the "nuanced insights" from the Farber summary:

1.  ON RADICALLY DIFFERENT OFFICE 2007:

"Gates described the new UI as a "scary step" and as "risky." The crowd was impressed, as were Walt and Kara, by the improvements to the user experience. They are significant, and one of the first times Microsoft has taken a substantial leap–at least five years in the making–in altering the user experience.

The geeky crowd clamored for a look at Outlook 2007, but it wasn't forthcoming."

To get a sense of just how "scary" the next version of Office is, take a look at this comprehensive tour of the beta by ComputerWorld.  For one thing, the familiar menus and toolbars in all the applications have been replaced with contextual "ribbons" that provide task-specific functionality when and where needed (that's the hope anyway).  And that's just the beginning.

2.  ON A MICROSOFT iPOD KILLER:

"Gates was asked about a rumored portable media player (iPod competitor) that the Xbox group is reportedly working on. "I have no announcement to make today," Gates said. "We are looking at various ways to bring more to that space. There is a lot yet that hasn't been done."

Good stuff...we like to see new stuff that hasn't yet been done...but hopefully Microsoft has internalized one of Apple's key rules of product designs:  "Less is More".

3.   ON OFFICE FUNCTIONALITY IN THE CLOUD:

There's no question that Bill Gates gets the vision of how much of today's Office functionality could be made available via the Internet, either by competitors and/or through Microsoft's own efforts.  Case in point:

"Gates was asked about the profusion of Web-based applications, specially Writely, which as acquired by Google this year...

"More storage is going to be in the cloud, a lot for free and what's not will be very inexpensive. Office connects up with Office Live or other cloud storage efforts to have your documents wherever you want to have them," Gates said..."

"...Gates also talked about Microsoft's cloud storage ambitions, which called "petabytes in the sky." Drives are getting faster and cheaper, and Microsoft will have a variety of services that will connect to petabytes in the sky, including synchronization and backup services."

The question though is how Microsoft addresses this opportunity not just technically, but also with the least negative impact to it's existing business model. 

It was also gratifying that Bill also finds the name "Office Live" lacking:

"When I spoke to Gates before the interview, he was extolling the virtues of Office Live (which he admitted is misnamed, since it doesn't replicate the functionality of the Office suite) and SharePoint Server 2007, which he has said will be looked upon as the most revolutionary aspect of Office 2007."

ComputerWorld agrees on the SharePoint Server:

"Microsoft's direction is clear: sharing, collaborating, searching. You can post PowerPoint slides to a SharePoint server, and your colleagues can select which ones to use in building their own presentations.

Enterprises today typically put entire presentation files on a shared network drive; using SharePoint lets users select individual slides in what Microsoft calls a SharePoint Slide Library. And users can be automatically notified when a shared slide is changed (so you'll know when a slide you've incorporated has been updated with the new company logo, for example)."

SharePoint obviously is most helpful in a corporate, group-sharing context.

4.  ON BEING EARLY WITH XBOX 360:  Gates offered another benefit from the massive investment in the XBOX initiative,

"He singled out Xbox Live as a success story, saying that 5 million pieces of content were download from the service last week. "The stickiness of the product is radically different,  so there is an advantage to an early mover," Gates said."

Maybe, maybe not.  To be continued.

5.  ON DARING COMPETITORS TO COMPETE:  At times, Gates revealed his feisty, competitive spirit,

"...next generation UI (speech, ink and vision, which will take  billions in research and dared anyone with an operating system to compete on that front)."

Google's got it's own seemingly Quixotic areas that it's spending oodles of money on.  It remains to be seen on which of who's made the right bets at the right time.

6.  ON MOST PITHY QUOTE:  The best Bill Gates line in the article, for me anyway, was this one in the context of the media industry trying to cope with the tectonic changes wrought by technology:

"He noted that the broadcast networks are trying to have their cake and eat it, trying to keep affiliates and advertisers happy at the same time they are pushing a la carte programming and feeling the impact of IPTV.

"There is a difference between what technology enables and what historical business practices enable."

Amen.

Great rundown by Dan Farber.  Look for more from the "D" conference over the next few days.

ON SELF-ASSEMBLING FURNITURE

COME TOGETHER NOW

If you're like me and try to avoid buying furniture from catalogs listings that say "some assembly required", technology may come to our rescue.  NewScientist.com has an interesting piece on the "self-assembling" chair:

"It's an art installation and built by Canadian artists Max Dean and Matt Donovan, and that the chair has yet to make its first "public appearance"."

As this site indicates, the artists hope to complete the project later this summer.

There's even a short video to see the thing in action.  It's almost as cool as watching the Terminator pulling himself together after losing some pieces.

Wireless, self-assembling, robotic furniture.  Now that's a clever way to get geeks interested in art, don't you think?

ON ISSUES OF THE DAY THIS MEMORIAL WEEKEND

WORDS TO REMEMBER

On this Memorial Day, 2006, I thought it'd be appropriate to re-visit some words from President Ronald Reagan's address at the Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia on this same day, 1986, two decades ago:

"I was thinking this morning that across the country children and their parents will be going to the town parade and the young ones will sit on the sidewalks and wave their flags as the band goes by. Later, maybe, they'll have a cookout or a day at the beach. And that's good, because today is a day to be with the family and to remember...

I know that many veterans of Vietnam will gather today, some of them perhaps by the wall. And they're still helping each other on. They were quite a group, the boys of Vietnam -- boys who fought a terrible and vicious war without enough support from home, boys who were dodging bullets while we debated the efficacy of the battle.

It was often our poor who fought in that war; it was the unpampered boys of the working class who picked up the rifles and went on the march. They learned not to rely on us; they learned to rely on each other.

And they were special in another way: They chose to be faithful. They chose to reject the fashionable skepticism of their time. They chose to believe and answer the call of duty. They had the wild, wild courage of youth. They seized certainty from the heart of an ambivalent age; they stood for something." 

These words from twenty years ago have special meaning today with yet another generation of young men and women risking life and limb thousands of miles away in another unpopular war.

This past week leading into this national holiday was also eventful on another front, as Congress and President Bush dealt with the controversial immigration debate while shaping new legislation.

Again, some words from President Ronald Reagan come to mind, this time courtesy of a terrific op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal a couple of weeks ago.  As the piece reminded us,

"In one of his radio addresses, in November 1977, he wondered about what he called

"the illegal alien fuss. Are great numbers of our unemployed really victims of the illegal alien invasion, or are those illegal tourists actually doing work our own people won't do? One thing is certain in this hungry world:

No regulation or law should be allowed if it results in crops rotting in the fields for lack of harvesters."

The op-ed folks at the WSJ add:

"The current immigration political panic is not unlike many in America's past, including a couple while Reagan was in public life.

He always avoided the temptation to join them, no doubt realizing that they were short-sighted politically, and, more important, inconsistent with his vision of America as the last best hope of mankind."

The whole piece is worth reading and re-reading more than once. 

Our 40th President again has some words worth keeping in mind as history seems to be testing us all again.

Happy Memorial Day Weekend, everyone.

ON ENERGY-EFFICIENT AND FUN TRANSPORTATION

EASY RIDER

Here's a description for a vehicle you don't see everyday, from Technoride:

"...three-wheel motorcycle in a rain-proof bubble, plus safety, fuel efficiency, and low emissions."

What are they describing? A concept "car" called CLEVER:

"...the CLEVER concept car is intentionally three-wheeled: It's a prototype two-passenger urban vehicle that's fuel-efficient, low-pollution, and relatively safe. The CLEVER, or Compact Low Emission Vehicle for Urban Transport, is the creation of nine European research and industrial partners."

A car designed by committee, some government sponsored no less.  You wouldn't have high expectations for something like this, but the specs look promising:

"The technology behind the CLEVER is a tubular frame (aluminum, with plastic bodywork) that protects the driver and the passenger, who is seated (not straddled) immediately behind the driver.

It uses a 218cc compressed natural gas (CNG) engine from Rotax, an enlarged version of the gasoline powerplant in the BMW C1—a fascinating two-wheel motorcycle-in-a-bubble that protects the driver in spills and rollovers.

The engine has a reported fuel economy of 108 mpg (2.6 liters per 100 kilometers) with a range of 125 miles or 200 km from its twin six-liter carbon fiber tanks."

Good you say, but does it have any oomph?  Well, the article states:

"Acceleration for the CLEVER is 7 seconds from 0 to 40 mph, with a top speed of around 60 mph, or 100 kph."

Not quite a motorcycle, but definitely better than a Vespa. 

My question is, does it have a navigation system and a plug for an iPod?

ON A NEW WAY TO DRESS A SALAD

DROPLETS OF TASTE

It's always interesting when you see "out-of-the-box" thinking my mainstream consumer products companies applying new or old technology to tried and true products and adding a true value proposition to boot.

That's what went through my mind watching a TV commercial for a new salad dressing "spritzer" from Wish-Bone.

The value proposition?  It's apparently one calorie per "spritz". 

We all know how tough it is to resist lots of dressing on a salad, thus negating the dieting value proposition of the salad itself.

Does it work?  Well, I haven't tried it yet, but doing a Google search yielded this enthusiastic endorsement from "ItalianGirl40":

"Oh my goodness. I totally love them. 1 calorie per spray. We tried the Red Wine Vinagrette and the Balsamic Vinagrette. I love anything with vinegar it it and the red win one is very strong and wonderful.

My co-worker loves the balsamic one. I bought them last week at the grocery store. Very very good for you. It is totally fun to spray your salad, veggies or wraps with this stuff.

The total fat in the red wine one is 1 gram per serving size, which is 10 sprays. 10 calories and 10 calories from fat. So I totally recommend these to try. I paid like $2.35 for one bottle."

Just "spritz" on the dressing.  Who'd have thunk?

Will have to put in on the list for the next trek to the grocery store.  

ON THE TEMPTATIONS OF THE NOKIA N80

LATEST AND GREATEST

Every few months, a new phone/PDA comes along that seems too tempting to resist. 

The latest for me the Nokia N80, due to be "officially" available via a GSM carrier in the US  (likely T-Mobile, AT&T/Cingular etc.) later this year.

Of course you can get one "unlocked" from an online vendor, for the nose-bleed inducing price of almost $800, before the extra accessories and doo-dads.

What's so appealing about this?  Well, it's one of the few true "world-phones", with quad-brand capability.  As of this writing, there are about 32 models to choose from, according to cell phone retailer Cellular Concepts.

The N80 also has a 3 mega-pixel camera (that also double as a video camera), a feature offered in far fewer phones.

As this review in PhoneScoop elaborates:

"The Nokia N80 is one of the first Nseries phones announced for the U.S. Most the others, even the N90, were mostly intended to be sold abroad. But with this model, Nokia included just about every feature and radio you could pack into a phone to make it truly global.

The N80 has quad-band GSM with EDGE, WCDMA 2100 for abroad - or WCDMA 1900 for use here (depending on the version) - Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and even FM visual radio."

The feature that most interests me though, is the new "khtml" browser in the phone, which is based on the same technology as Apple's Safari browser.  This means that it's likely to be compatible with more websites than almost any other cell phone out there.

The coolest feature of the browser on the N80 though is to see web pages you've browsed in side-by-side thumbnails, with the ability to zoom in and out.

If you want to see the browser in action, I'd recommend checking out the video review from PhoneScoop (via YouTube).

Overall, a noteworthy step ahead for browsing on mobile phones.

ON THE EMUSIC VALUE PROPOSITION

DEAL OR NO DEAL?

(This post has been modified from the original in response to a reader comment)

I've posted on the state of online music services from time to time, and am an avid user of services like Apple's iTunes music store, Yahoo!'s music service and Rhapsody from Real Networks.

eMusic is an online music service I'm occasionally tempted to try.  Their value proposition is true-fold, according to their web-site:

1.  The promise of non-mainstream music: 

" eMusic offers a diverse catalog of over 1,000,000 songs from over 3,800 record labels around the world...offering a diverse catalog of over 1,000,000 songs from established and emerging artists in every genre from the world's top independent labels"

2.  All MP3s, all the time: 

"We are the only major music service to make all our music available as MP3s. That means more freedom of use for you! Our songs play flawlessly on any digital media player including the iPod ®. You can burn unlimited CDs, download to an unlimited number of computers, play on any digital music jukebox, and the list goes on."

They even run interesting promotions from time to time, like offering 25 to 50 free music tracks in a 30-day trial.

So what's the catch?  Well, it's pricing from my perspective.

After digging through their site, you find that they offer three tiers of service:

• "eMusic Basic: $9.99 per month/40 downloads - that's $.25 a song
• eMusic Plus: $14.99 per month/65 downloads - that's $.23 a song
• eMusic Premium: $19.99 per month/90 downloads - that's $.22 a song (best value!)"

At first blush, the prices of $.22 to $.25 seem like a bargain compared to the $.99 cents on Apple's iTunes and elsewhere.

When you run the numbers for the three tiers, including the maximum number of downloads, you get the following number of tracks per year from eMusic:

480/780/1080 at Basic, Plus and Premium

Am still on the fence whether to try it or not.  The issue swings on the quality of their independent tracks and whether there are a sufficient number of them that appeal to any one subscriber to take maximum advantage of the subscription and the pricing.

Any thoughts?

ON APPLE LAGGING IN ONLINE SERVICES

TIGHT FIT AHEAD

Another day, another potentially "hip and cool" product and service from Apple, this time in partnership with Nike.  As the press release describes it:

"The new Nike+ Air Zoom Moire is the first footwear designed to talk to iPod. Nike plans to make many of its leading footwear styles Nike+ ready, connecting millions of consumers to the Nike+iPod experience.

With the Nike+ footwear connected to iPod nano through the Nike+iPod Sport Kit, information on time, distance, calories burned and pace is stored on iPod and displayed on the screen; real-time audible feedback also is provided through headphones. The kit includes an in-shoe sensor and a receiver that attaches to iPod.

A new Nike Sport Music section on the iTunes® Music Store and a new nikeplus.com personal service site help maximize the Nike+iPod experience."

So, a cool, personalized online service, with most of the work done by Nike (the shoe sensor, the online service that tracks the running progress...just add an Apple iPod Nano).

But as Aaron Baar of Adfreaks.com puts it,

"...what I really want is an iPod that will work out for me."

I may be missing something, but where's the innovation in online services from Apple beyond iTunes?

Despite all the recent innovative brilliance and success of a Steve Jobs-driven Apple*, there is one product area in which the company seems to be lagging in the race with competitors on both price and quality.

And that is ".Mac" (aka dotmac),  the "other" online service offering from Apple, after it's market-leading iTunes music and video store.

Here's what the service offers, as described on it's own web-site, under the slogan, "Create with iLife, Share with .Mac" :

Your life. On the Internet.

• Publish in One Click with iWeb
• Photocast with iPhoto
• Exchange Files from Anywhere
• Stay in Sync
• Communicate the Way You Want
• Back Up Your Life
• Bring Groups Together

All admirable features.  And much needed by increasingly mainstream consumers trying to cope with a deluge of digital photos, videos, and music files. 

And that's BEFORE Apple releases it's long-rumored digital media hub.

At it's core though, .Mac is about services around online storage.

This is an area where there's been an explosion of consumer offerings both by startups and services to come from the majors like Google "GDrive"), Microsoft (LiveDrive) and others. 

It's also an area I've been focused on for some time now, both in terms of the opportunity and the challenges of the rapidly evolving business model.

It's important to note that even before formal online storage offerings from Google, the company already offers over 2.5 Gigabytes of storage free as part of it's Gmail service.  This of course prompted Yahoo! to bump it's offering to over 1 GB free. 

An enterprising user can do a number of things that .Mac offers, by just creatively using email and this substantive amount of free online storage.

But there are also a number of venture-backed startups that are offering dedicated services in this area.

I commented on a good review done recently by Mike Arrington's TechCrunch, of some of these online storage services. 

The most aggressive service there on pricing at the time of the review, was Streamload, offering a full 25 Gigabytes of storage for free.

In contrast, here's what Apple's .Mac actually offers at "not-free" price points:

-1 Gigabyte of combined storage for email and documents for a single .Mac account, priced at $99 per year (roughly $8.25 per month) .

-If you spring $179.95 for the year (about  $15 per month), you can get the "Family Pack" .Mac package, which offers one master and four sub-accounts (email addresses at .Mac), along with 1 GB of storage to split with the WHOLE family.  That's upgradeable to 4GB for more dough.

The slogans for the service should be "Share with .Mac, but not TOO much!" and "Give us your credit card while you're at it!"

At a time when Apple advertises it's computers and other products as driving a digital-media rich lifestyle for consumers, it's interesting to see how the online features that most encourage digital media usage, compare against what's currently out there.

Hopefully we'll see some renewed focus on this area some time shortly.

* Before I get some feedback from die-hard Apple fans, I'd like to clarify that I've been a big fan and consumer of a lot of Apple products and services over the years, and have posts singing their praises over the past few years. 

But I've been seeking the value in this instance as a long-time .Mac customer.

Disclosure:  I'm an Apple shareholder.

ON GOOGLE SELLING VIDEO ADS

PUMP UP THE VOLUME

The New York Times has an article titled "Google Moves to sell space for video spots on network of Web Sites", that portends the changing face of the web for mainstream audiences.  Specifically,

"GOOGLE is taking its first steps to go after the huge market for television advertising this week with a new service that will place video commercials on the many Web sites where it sells advertising.

For now, Google isn't placing video advertising on Google.com or the other sites it runs, but it says it is considering doing so in the future."

It's only a matter of time that video ads enters the online advertising realm.  It's almost already here anyway.

Take my post yesterday on the frustrations of opening products in plastic blister packs.  At the time of this writing, Typepad (the service hosting this blog)'s ad partner Kanoodle, was serving up ads next to that post featuring "SealiT, Vac and Zip, (as seen on TV)". 

If you click on that ad, it launches directly into a video commercial that's familiar to most of us who've watched a little bit of late, late night TV.

As Michael Arrington points out, new startups are already focused on applying the technology of web-inspired ad-serving to off-line cable and broadcast TV networks, in a low-cost, high efficiency way:

"...small businesses already have a wonderful way of getting normal television ad spots produced and run. SpotRunner will help small businesses create an ad and run it on normal television for extremely low prices ($44 for ESPN in central California, for example)."

And while Mike Arrington makes some good points on why the particular approach outlined in the NY Times' article might not work for Google, I do think videos on web advertising are here to stay in a broader context.

I just hope against hope that both the ad networks and advertisers exercise some discipline on how intrusive these things could be made to be, something I've railed against in the past.  Inside Adwords currently states:

"...unlike some intrusive advertising, users will have complete control. When a page loads, only a static image will be visible; the video will not start playing until the user initiates it. He or she will be able to advance the video, pause it, adjust the volume or click through to the advertiser's site..."

Here's hoping against hope that this spirit of self-control catches on.

ON THE PERILS OF PLASTIC BLISTER PACKS

SHARP CORNERS AHEAD

It's good to see an article on a topic that at first blush seems too trivial but vexes most consumers today.  Wired has a timely article titled "Tales from Packaging Hell", that encapsulates the problem:

"From Psyclone electronics cables encased in impenetrable layers of thick plastic to DigiPower camera batteries coated with packaging several times the size of the item itself, the hardest part of buying electronics these days is opening the products when you get them home. In many cases, it makes solving Halo 2 seem like a kindergarten project."

The reason of course is retailer concern over theft (aka shrinkage):

"The bottom line is the bottom line. Retailers demand the hard-to-open packaging to avoid "shrinkage," or shoplifting, a problem that cost U.S. stores more than $10 billion a year or $25 million a day, according to statistics from the National Association for Shoplifting Prevention. They also want the item to be visible to customers and capable of withstanding the rigors of long-distance shipping from manufacturing plants in Asia."

I didn't realize how big a problem this actually is, as the article indicates:

"But it's not just a matter of customer frustration. These packages pose real danger. Data on the topic is irregularly collected and vague; the U.S. Centers for Disease Control's most recent accounting, in 2001, listed "unintentional cut/pierce" as the fifth most common cause of nonfatal unintentional injury, but that also includes the much more common assortments of knife accidents owing to normal kitchen work."

As an avid consumer who's suffered lots of cuts trying to open these blister packs, all I ask is that the packaging be designed with some indication on the best way to cut it open.  Provide a point of entry.  This apparently is a novel thought for industry participants as this quote indicates:

"An executive with Performance Design Products, which makes electronics accessories under the labels Pelican and Headbanger Audio, acknowledges something needs to be done.

"As a consumer myself of other products, I've always wondered how the heck do I get this open," said Paul Chen, PDP's vice president of content and licensing. "We could probably do a better job to outline the best way to open this product. That is something to consider."

Better late than never, I guess.