22
Sep 11

Steve Jobs: two visionaries in one

There are two kinds of visionaries in this world.

One imagines a new today and goes about creating it. The other imagines a new tomorrow — one that’s beyond the range of our current capabilities.

Steve Jobs has done a pretty good job in the here-and-now by revolutionizing computers, music, phones and tablets. But how good is he when it comes to looking, say, 15 years into the future?

This video from the 1997 WWDC provides a great insight into that. Answering a question from the audience, Steve talks about how information should be accessible from any device, anytime and anywhere, and we shouldn’t know or care where the information actually lives. It should be that simple for us. In other words, he’s describing cloud computing 15 years before it became reality.

Keep in mind, he’s saying these things before OS X, before iTunes, before apps, when phones were for phone calls and most of our data was spread out over the 4-gigabyte hard drive in our new iMacs.

The whole clip is pretty fascinating, but this highlight comes at the 4:24 mark:

One of my hopes is that Apple can do for this new type of network … with gigabit Ethernet technologies and some of the new server stuff that’s coming down the pike, and some thinner hardware clients … that Apple can make that as plug-and-play for mere mortals as it made the user experience over a decade ago. That’s one of things where I think there’s a giant hole and I can’t communicate to you how awesome this is unless you use it. And what you would decide within a day or two is that carrying around these non-connected computers or computers with tons of state in them, tons of data and state in them, is byzantine by comparison.

I suppose there’s nothing in The Official Visionary’s Handbook that requires a visionary to actually deliver on his vision. Maybe others had a similar vision about the cloud.

So let’s consider it a bonus that Steve didn’t just sit in his chair, Nostradamus-like, and imagine a future he had no intention of creating.

[Thanks to Jorge for the tip.]

apple / icloud / observatory / steve jobs / technology — 4 comments
20
Sep 11

Michael Dell’s world of fantasy and delight

Studies  have shown it’s natural and healthy for males to have recurring fantasies. But still, the ones dancing around in Michael Dell’s head may be pushing things.

To hear Michael tell the tale, life is sweet. All this talk of a post-PC world doesn’t phase him. Quite the contrary. With HP leaving the PC business, his eyes light up at the idea of gaining PC market share. So it goes in his recent comments to Financial Times.

Only a few problems with Michael’s logic.

First is the fact that HP decided to get out of PCs for good reason. Even though they sell more PCs than any company on earth, HP believes the smartest thing they can do is abandon ship. That’s because (a) PC profit margins are microscopic, and (b) it’s only going to get worse as PCs continue their descent.

Second, it’s hard to deny that demand for PCs is fading. Not only have the prognosticators lowered their global sales estimates, so has Michael’s own company. It was just one month ago that Dell cut its sales forecasts for PCs, citing “weakening consumer demand” and other causes.

Third, Michael was publicly downplaying his PC sales as recently as April, making sure we were all aware that Dell was now more focused on the enterprise, with PCs only representing one third of their business. The most positive thing he could say about PCs was that Dell made a “modest profit” on them. “I’m just level-setting what Dell is today,” he said.

He speaks optimistically of Dell’s prospects in tablets too—despite the fact that the 5-inch Streak is dead and the 7-inch model is languishing at best. For some reason, Michael’s fantasy here is that things will somehow be different when and if the tablet competition heats up. In fact, Dell will be one of dozens of tablet-makers all sharing the same OS, slugging it out for a sliver of the market.

“We are very distinct from our competitors,” says Michael in that Financial Times interview. Hard to argue with that.

At least IBM and HP stopped having those PC fantasies.

dell / observatory / strategy / tablets — 5 comments
15
Sep 11

Creativity has many fathers

To have a bit of fun with Microsoft’s plans to put Windows 8 on future tablets, Daring Fireball recently linked to two car ads. The joke was that Windows-powered tablets are going to need some serious power — like the devices in these ads. Microsoft’s aspirations aside, the ads alone tell an amazing story.

When I viewed the ad for Nissan LEAF. I thought, “Wow, what a fantastic concept.”

When I viewed the ad for Renault Z.E.. I thought, “Wow, what a fantastic concept.”

I had identical reactions because, as you can see, they’re identical commercials. Even more astounding, they debuted only days apart. Honestly, I don’t recall ever seeing ads from major companies that are so stunningly similar.

This, of course, made me highly curious. So I turned to my inner Sherlock. I found that many articles have been written about these ads (they debuted back in May). Unfortunately, these articles tell conflicting stories.

Nissan and Renault did enter an official alliance in 1999. Some say it was an “industrial and creative partnership.” Others say no, marketing was never part of the deal. The two companies remain very competitive.

AdAge Global reported that “so far, neither automaker’s global agency is accusing the other of stealing its idea.” Stuart Smith says there is “fury” in TBWA\Chiat\Day LA (handling Nissan) and Publicis Conseil in Paris (handling Renault), as charges of plagiarism fly about.

Mysterious.

However, there’s one good reason why neither side has turned this into an international incident. That would be the ad for the Mitsubishi i-Miev, which was actually created well before Nissan’s or Renault’s ad.

And all I have to say is, “Wow, what a fantastic concept.”

advertising / creative / observatory — 9 comments
13
Sep 11

Crapware: the search for lost profit

Apple enjoyed pointing out the difference

Everyone knows that crapware is just a fact of life in the PC world.

From my conversations with people, I’m not sure they understand why.

Basically, it has to do with profit margins in the world of PCs. Or, should I say, the lack of them. When competition became fierce in PC-land many years ago, the PC makers had to compensate for the fact that they were cutting their prices to the bone. So they started renting out their spare rooms to strangers, so to speak.

It was only about three years ago that I attended an advertising meeting with the chief marketer in Dell’s consumer division. He had crafted his plan to meet sales targets for the coming year.

(Note: in marketing meetings inside Apple, we absolutely never talked about meeting sales targets. We only talked about doing good ads. The operating theory was that if we did our job right, higher sales would be the result.)

At the proper point in the meeting, Mr. Marketer made mention of the crapware on Dell computers. And yes, he called it crapware. He pointed out that margins being what they were, crapware actually accounted for just about all the profit on each sale. He invited the agency to come up with new suggestions for companies who might want to join the club — and pay Dell for the right to clutter up their PCs just a little more.

Macs, of course, don’t have this problem. You might get a demo copy of iWork, but that’s about it. Two reasons for this: (A) Macs have a very high profit margin, and (B) Steve Jobs has taste. He was no more willing to bloat a Mac with crapware than he was to slap one of those perma-bonded Intel Inside stickers on his MacBook Air.

Macs have that higher profit margin because those who buy Macs place a value on what Apple brings to the party: design, simplicity and reliability. They’re willing to pay more to get more.

The end result: while Apple makes only 7% of the revenues in PCs, its products account for 35% of the entire industry’s operating profits. Seems to be pretty good incentive for Apple to continue working just the way it does. No crapware allowed.

Now that mobile devices are dominating technology, history is repeating itself.

Crapware wasn’t even a thought on the first smartphones. Now it’s becoming ubiquitous. Same reason as above: intense competition has carriers scrambling for profits. Apple continues not to scramble.

Interestingly, in this category, it’s not like Apple products cost so much more. Thanks to Tim Cook’s operating skills, it’s not easy for competitors to undercut the price of iPhones and iPads. So even at a similar price, Apple pulls in the lion’s share of this category’s profit as well — literally two thirds of the available profit, according to Asymco’s last report.

What’s a smartphone seller to do? Crapware to the rescue!

Mike Jennings reports his crapware findings for PC Pro. In a wide range of Android phones, he found a treasure trove of crapware installed by carriers: multiple app stores, security software, game demos, etc., etc. While you can remove this stuff from PCs with a little effort, not so with smartphones. Most of it is here to stay, installed in such a way that it can’t be removed by the user.

Of course, those who don’t care about such things will continue to point out the benefits of an “open” system. Those who do care about such things will go with the phone maker who also cares about such things — and help pump up their profits even more.

apple / dell / observatory / strategy — 7 comments
08
Sep 11

Of icons, PCs and the third Apple founder

I’m not quite ready to proclaim a full-blown news crisis — but there’s a serious lack of stories begging for commentary today. I suspect a conspiracy.

Lost iPhone 5? Feels familiar. Carol Bartz getting canned by Yahoo? Boring. Carol Bartz saying naughty words on video? Only slightly less boring.

No, I’m afraid I’ll have to break format today. Some assorted items from the grab bag:

Bad design from Apple?

What's it mean?

It’s always fun to point out that Apple isn’t perfect. Dr. Macenstein offers up Apple’s worst icons, a quick tour of some bad Apple art. My personal least-favorite has always been the icon for iWeb. The doctor is right.

The lost art of code names

Apparently, all the good ones were taken. The next update to Android is code named Ice Cream Sandwich. Further proof that code names are not created in the creative department.

New PCs for HP to dump

It was big news when HP announced they’d be getting rid of their PC group. What better way to celebrate than to announce eight new PC models coming in the next two months. Maybe they’ll dump those for $99 too?

What Apple ads would look like without Apple

It takes some kind of talent to distill something as cool as iPad into a commercial as mediocre as this. But Verizon was up to the task. Stunning. In the old days, Apple had to approve ads from its partners-in-crime. I suspect that rule has been eased.

The Steve Jobs biography meets its match

Ron Wayne, the long-forgotten “third partner” at Apple back at the dawn of time, sold his 10% of the company back to those two other guys for $800. This secures his place in history as the Pete Best of the computer industry. Now Ron has published his own biography called Adventures of an Apple founder. This one doesn’t even bother to start off as a hardcover.

Have a good weekend, all.

advertising / android / creative / hp / observatory — 2 comments
06
Sep 11

Google’s “don’t be evil” loophole

Technology companies can be so lovable when they’re young and feisty.

They can say things like Don’t be evil and be cheered on by the masses.

It’s only when they grow up to be global powerhouses that their words get turned against them. This technique must be in Chapter 1 of the official Google Critic’s Handbook, since most anti-Google articles seem to use this ploy.

Does this mean I can rise above doing the same?

Nah. I’m only human. And I couldn’t help but notice an example of Google’s confused sense of evil on their own corporate philosophy page. The sixth of their “Ten things we know to be true” is You can make money without doing evil. Elaborating on that, they say:

We believe that advertising can be effective without being flashy. We don’t accept pop–up advertising, which interferes with your ability to see the content you’ve requested.

Maybe there’s some kind of semantic difference between “accepting” pop-up ads and sticking them in our faces. Because, as I have complained before, pop-up ads on YouTube videos are as annoying as ads get. They absolutely do interfere with your ability to see the content you’ve requested. They require you to take action to make them go away, and then they require you to restart the video if you’d like to see it as it was meant to be seen — unobstructed.

As an anti-advertising advertising man, I’ve often talked about the basic respect that ads must have for the user. Anyone with a sense of advertising morals understands the importance of not annoying or badgering those with whom you are trying to start a conversation.

Obviously, Google gets this. Enough so that they wrote it into their corporate philosophy, right under the “evil” thing.

Maybe they just see YouTube as a loophole, because it’s not a Google-branded site?

No. Not possible. That would evil.

android / google / observatory — 6 comments
01
Sep 11

Doomed TouchPad dooms iPad!

I guess they’ve lowered the admission requirements at pundit school.

Either that, or they’re overdoing it in that one course where they teach young seers to “always take the surprising point of view.”

First, a quick review: HP buys Palm for $1.2 billion to get WebOS. They labor for a year to create TouchPad. TouchPad gets panned by the critics. After seven miserable weeks, it gets dumped by HP. Then comes the fire sale. People line up to buy the $499 TouchPad for $99.

Cue the pundits: if so many people will buy an orphaned TouchPad for $99 — iPad is doomed!

There’s an article at CNET entitled iPad met its match in the TouchPad. This article observes that only TouchPad has come close to “eclipsing the fixation that consumers have had on the iPad.”

Over at Forbes, they cut right to the chase: Why the Undead $99 TouchPad Might Portend The iPad’s Doom. Here, it’s noted that  TouchPad’s buying frenzy proves that a tablet can actually succeed against iPad by undercutting it in price.

Neither article notes the obvious: people love “steals.” Of course they’ll line up to buy a $499 device for $99. That’s 80% off. They’ll also camp out to buy a $60,000 car for $12,000 or a $400 washing machine for $80. This isn’t exactly a Mensa-level brainteaser.

The problem for Apple’s competitors is that there is no PC parallel here. Apple is selling iPads at a price that’s nearly impossible to undercut. When price isn’t the argument, it’s product vs. product — and it’s awfully hard to compete with the combination of Apple design, iOS and the App Store.

So watch out, Apple. TouchPad has proven that tablets will fly off the shelves if they’re priced at a fraction of cost. You don’t really think you can remain the leader simply by building better devices, do you?

This brand of punditry contains one serious flaw. That is, Apple doesn’t just sit still. iPad continues to improve year after year. And, in case no one noticed, Apple has incredibly good profit margins (thanks, Tim). Even if a competitor one day figures out a way to undercut iPad in price, Apple is perfectly capable of responding.

So, as HP starts making more TouchPads to dispose of all the spare parts in their warehouse, I wouldn’t take that as a sign of iPad’s pending demise.

I’d take it as a sign that if you don’t know what you’re doing in this business, your tablet will die a premature, grisly death.

hp / observatory / tablets — 5 comments
28
Aug 11

In appreciation of Steve: Think different, remixed

Last week, I noted that if one were to combine the words to Apple’s Crazy Ones ad with historical images of Steve Jobs, it would make perfect sense.

Well, I thought I’d take a crack at it myself.

Here’s my little tribute to Steve. Hope you enjoy.

apple / creative / observatory / steve jobs — 23 comments
25
Aug 11

Here’s to the crazy one

I was searching for the words to describe what I was feeling yesterday when word spread that Steve Jobs was retiring as CEO.

I was very sad, of course — for Steve, his family, the Apple community and the world in general. But I was also heartened by the extraordinary praise being pushed out by the mainstream media.

Then I realized that the most appropriate words for this occasion were written many years ago, with Steve’s enthusiastic approval.

The Crazy Ones commercial that launched the Think different campaign has always been one of Steve’s favorite ad moments. When the spot was first created, he spoke of how deeply it moved him. He has shared it at a number of Apple events. He was emotionally invested in it because he believed it captured the true spirit of Apple, explaining why Apple does what it does.

Interestingly, few have noted that it also captured the essence of Steve himself. Though the ad featured a series of those who changed the world through their “different” thinking, you could just as easily place this script over images of Steve at various points in Apple history:

Here’s to the crazy ones.
    The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers.
    The round pegs in the square holes.
    The ones who see things differently.
They’re not fond of rules.
    And they have no respect for the status quo.
You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them.
    About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them.
Because they change things.
    They push the human race forward.
And while some may see them as the crazy ones,
    we see genius.
Because the people who are crazy enough
to think they can change the world…
are the ones who do.

Some believe that Steve wrote these words himself. That isn’t true, but he did contribute a few words — and they are arguably the words that best describe his contribution to this world:

They push the human race forward.

That’s exactly what Steve does. Sometimes we go kicking and screaming (“where’s the damn floppy disk!”), sometimes we’re just outright seduced (iPad), but “forward” is where we go.

Though Steve may one day leave Apple for good — remember, he’s still Chairman — his values never will. Innovation is now institutionalized at Apple. Tim Cook’s memo to employees today reaffirms this:

I want you to be confident that Apple is not going to change. I cherish and celebrate Apple’s unique principles and values. Steve built a company and culture that is unlike any other in the world and we are going to stay true to that—it is in our DNA. We are going to continue to make the best products in the world that delight our customers and make our employees incredibly proud of what they do.

So on “the day after,” we can be heartened by two things: Steve is still Steve and Apple is still Apple.

There’s still a lot of pushing to be done.

apple news / observatory / steve jobs — 13 comments
23
Aug 11

HP Personal Sys Grp 4 Sale: Call Léo

It’s those damn phone hackers again. This time they’re listening in on Léo Apotheker’s conversations at HP. I can’t condone the hackers’ methods, but I thought this transcript would be of interest to my readers.

——————————————————–

8.22.2011 | 9:48 am | HP | Apotheker Office Line 2

JACK
Hello, is this Léo?

LÉO
Yes, who is this please?

JACK
Hi Léo, my name is Jack.
I’m calling about the Personal Systems Group for sale?

LÉO
Yes, hello Jack. How can I help you?

JACK
Well, can you tell me a little more about it?

LÉO
Anything in particular?

JACK
Does it come with all the accessories? Like confusing
models and configurations, mediocre designers, invisible
profit margins, crapware and infuriating tech support?

LÉO
Yes, it comes with all the essentials.

JACK
And you’ve sold your soul to Intel and Microsoft?

LÉO
Correct, and those contracts will be included as well.
They’re fully transferable.

JACK
Perfect. Well look, I’m very interested.
Are you flexible on price?

LÉO
I’m sorry, no. It’s just supply and demand.
Right now, we’re the only PC group for sale —
at least until Michael Dell accepts reality.

JACK
Alright, but listen, I’m also interested in tablets
and smartphones. Anything like that available?

LÉO
I do have tablets and smartphones, but they’re not for sale.

JACK
Just my luck. I was bidding for Palm a year ago and
some ass swooped in and bid $1.2 billion for it.

LÉO
Uh … that was my company.

JACK
Oh god, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to call you an ass.

LÉO
No prob, it wasn’t me. It was the guy who had my job before.

JACK
Okay, I get it. So you’re going to keep selling WebOS tablets
and smartphones then?

LÉO
Actually, not. We’re going to caravan out to the Palo Alto
landfill and dump all the code and unsold devices.

JACK
Wouldn’t it be easier just to sell it all to me?

LÉO
No, I need to prove that my predecessor wasted a billion dollars.
If I sell it to you, we wouldn’t lose nearly as much.

JACK
(Dramatic pause)
Ass.

hp / observatory / tablets — No comments
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