All Things CC:

Apple: Design Excellence as Competitive Advantage

Ashu Joshi — Mon, 30 May 2011 20:40:52 +0000

Steven Levy in the June 2011 issue of Wired Magazine describes how and why Apple rose to dominance, the following stands out:

“Still Apple’s full-on devotion to something as lowly as a cover is a classic example of how the company concocts advantages in the areas that rival previous hadn’t considered all that important.”

Delivering TV over Web

Ashu Joshi — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 15:06:12 +0000

TV coming as a service over Broadband/Internet… everybody is rolling up their sleeves and getting ready. Biggest hurdle – negotiating content license with Content Creators & Publishers.

Amplify’d from adage.com

A group of deep-pocketed companies, including Microsoft and Verizon, are exploring delivering TV service over the web, a move that could disrupt the economics of cable TV and lead to a new generation of “virtual” cable companies that provide TV without owning the pipe into the home.

Neither is close to rolling out their own web TV service, but both are determined to secure the rights so that they have the option of doing so in the future. They’re not alone: Cable operators are looking at web delivery to leap the confines of their wired network, and video-on-demand services such as Hulu, Apple and Amazon, as well as other brands not generally associated with TV, are looking to enter the TV market.

The notion of an “over-the-top” video service that bypasses cable and satellite networks has been around for a long time but generally has been held back by two main factors: programmers’ reluctant to license new players and cable, telco and satellite operators’ control over the access to the home. They’ve also been held back by the limitations of the web itself: The infrastructure just isn’t there to support as many live simultaneous streams of content as a popular live event like, say, the Super Bowl would create.

“Somebody is going to pull the trigger this year. It may not be 250 channels in HD, but it will be at a minimum a good handful of channels with subscription on-demand and the ability to get the content on lots of devices,” said Braxton Jarratt, CEO of Clear Leap, which also provides enabling technology for web-delivered TV.

Read more at adage.com

See this Amp at http://bit.ly/h1Ua8J

Peacetime & Wartime CEOs

Ashu Joshi — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 15:39:13 +0000

Ben Horowitz @bhorowitz on the type of CEOs needed during expansion vs. war. Google is entering a “war” and that couldn’t be truer! Gives high accolades to Andy Grove & Steve Jobs for being great Wartime CEOs.

Amplify’d from blogs.forbes.com

Interestingly, most management books describe peacetime CEO techniques while very few describe wartime.

In peacetime, leaders must maximize and broaden the current opportunity. As a result, peacetime leaders employ techniques to encourage broad-based creativity and contribution across a diverse set of possible objectives. In wartime, by contrast, the company typically has a single bullet in the chamber and must, at all costs, hit the target. The company’s survival in wartime depends upon strict adherence and alignment to the mission.

Wartime CEO is too busy fighting the enemy to read management books written by consultants who have never managed a fruit stand.

John Chambers had a great run as peacetime CEO of Cisco, but has struggled as Cisco has moved into war with Juniper, HP, and a range of new competitors.

Be aware that management books tend to be written by management consultants who study successful companies during their times of peace. As a result, the resulting books describe the methods of peacetime CEOs. In fact, other than the books written by Andy Grove, I don’t know of any management books that teach you how to manage in wartime like Steve Jobs or Andy Grove.

Peacetime CEO aims to expand the market. Wartime CEO aims to win the market.

Read more at blogs.forbes.com

See this Amp at http://bit.ly/e90Owo

Seismic Detection Otis Elevators

Ashu Joshi — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 21:01:25 +0000

Smart, smart design. And guess what it all worked! Otis demonstrated great customer responsibility ….

Amplify’d from www.businessweek.com

The United Technologies elevator unit took 13,000 calls from Japanese customers in 48 hours and restored service to 16,400 lifts within seven days

Michaud-Daniel knew Otis had technology on its side, since about half the elevators it maintains in Japan—including most in high-rise buildings and regions with severe earthquake risk—are equipped with seismic detectors. At the first vibration signaling the onset of a quake, these devices return the elevators to the ground floor so passengers can exit, then block them until Otis can check their safety.

The detectors worked. Some 16,700 elevators in the areas affected by the quake were shut down by the emergency systems. Otis, which had worldwide revenues of $11.58 billion in 2010 and manufactured about 40,000 of the 80,000 elevators it services in Japan, didn’t receive any report of trapped or injured passengers. “All the elevators operated as they were supposed to,” says Michaud-Daniel.

The bottom line: At the quake’s onset, Otis’s seismic detectors shut down 16,700 elevators. Then its personnel rushed into the zone to restore service.

Read more at www.businessweek.com

See this Amp at http://bit.ly/hAQvQi

Apple vs. Samsung: Tales of Supply Chain

Ashu Joshi — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 16:52:37 +0000

Apple is known for clever partnerships yielding the best supply chain management. Imagine the Apple A4 & A5 chip are built by Samsung, using Samsung IP and building blocks but Samsung cannot build their own chip but has to use Nvidia.

The article talks about how conglomerates have to keep barricades up between different divisions. I suspect that in this case – Apple is also muscling its way for better deals. And why shouldn’t they?

Amplify’d from www.businessweek.com

Steve Jobs likes to poke bears. The Apple (AAPL) chief executive officer has ribbed the likes of IBM (IBM), Google (GOOG), Adobe (ADBE), and Microsoft (MSFT). In many cases, he rips into these companies even while Apple depends on them as partners. Adobe and Microsoft, in particular, have long provided valuable software for Apple’s operating system. No matter. They’re still subject to abuse from the man in the black turtleneck.

His latest whipping boy: Samsung, a rival to Apple in the consumer electronics business. During the iPad 2 unveiling on Mar. 2, Jobs roasted Samsung, making fun of one of its executives who tried to defend sales of the Galaxy Tab, the company’s answer to Apple’s first tablet computer. He also gave Samsung top billing in a chart proclaiming 2011 the “Year of the Copycats.”

See more at www.businessweek.com

See this Amp at http://bit.ly/f4M3jr

User Interfaces & Interactions

Ashu Joshi — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 01:20:49 +0000

User Interfaces & Interactions, including touch & gesture based interfaces will always be subject to individual bias, experience, style, and preferences. Individuals using new interfaces either because of it being on a new device (e.g. moving from Blackberry to iPhone) or a changed interface on the existing class of device (e.g. Blackberry Bold – Keyboard to Blackberry Storm – Touch) will learn to adapt – most people do so assuming that they are not turned off to give up the device entirely (either due to other functions such as Phone Call Quality or having compelling features forcing them to adapt to the new interface).

Adaptation happens, I can safely say based on my own experience and those of my network – family, friends, and colleagues. For example several friends of mine initially remarked that they had trouble using the iPhone’s soft keyboard compared to physical keys of a Blackberry. Over a period these folks have gained a liking to the soft keyboard and adapted to it. This adaptation could be natural – they learn to adapt, and get better at it with each use (like learning anything – Golf for example). Or the adaptation could be ‘forced’ – that is you use the interface and ‘compromise’ with it because of other features on the device. One may learn to deal with the Apple iPhone soft keyboard because of the number of applications available on it. I for one still struggle using Soft Keyboards and I am sure there are others like me. I think interfaces, even touch, will be highly subjective to individuals.

Apple’s single button for navigating the user interface on the IOS devices at times is constrained. Are consumers able to adapt and use it effectively – absolutely yes! But that does not imply that it is easiest way or the most intuitive way. And Apple may even move away from that one Button given the current release of IOS – 4.3 supports Multi-Touch gestures (I tried them and they work absolutely great – even better than using the Home Button).

Minimalism in design does not translate to simplicity. In other words, just because the device has minimal or one or no buttons, does not imply it is easy to use. Ease of use, or simplicity is a function of features, and the context of it being used. Assuming you are in a bus, with one hand held above to anchor yourself, and you want to access an app. In the multi-touch version of IOS – you have to use 4 or 5 fingers to ‘swipe up’ on the screen and then select the app to launch. Try doing that with one hand… If this example is not practical enough imagine trying to call somebody by looking them up using one hand on a touch screen. That exercise can be made ‘simple’ by a search button – not a web search – but being able to search for anything – any contact, any app by touching the search button. I like that about my Nexus S and use it frequently. Search is not just about web search – but finding information on the device itself. And as we live more of our life in the Smartphone or Tablet – being able to search easily is critical.

Independent of buttons, simplifying use and removing redundancy is beautiful – I find the extra press of “OK” after entering the 4-digit security code annoying on my Nexus S compared to an IOS device ….

————————

Notes:

Post Inspired By, and kind of response to Ross Rubin of NPD wrote an excellent blog post on the subject of buttons and touch-enabled devices.

Must Read: “Living With Complexity” by Donald Norman

Experience Trumps Features

Ashu Joshi — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 23:36:08 +0000

Steve Jobs was quoted saying the following at the launch of iPad2 earlier this week:

Apple’s pushing it as a giant leap forward. That’s it for the video. Again, this is the intersection between technology and liberal arts. It’s in Apple’s DNA that technology is not enough. Hardware and software need to work together. Nowhere more true than in the post-PC market. Competitors describe tablets like PCs, with specs and the like, but the iPad shows that it’s all about the intertwined software and hardware. They need to be easier to use and more intuitive than PCs. Jobs thinks that they’re going to be competitive.

This really goes to the heart of how different Apple is from Google. Let me give you some evidence, Google on its GoogleTV effort announced an interesting set of features in the September/October 2010 timeframe – you can read about them here. Of specific interest is the one about “Fling”:

Fling a video to your television

Find a great website on your phone and want to show it to everyone? Now you can. “Fling” what you’re watching, listening to, or doing on your phone by sending it to your TV with the press of a button.

It received feedback and coverage, and NPD’s Ross Rubin tweeted about it as well:

Looks like Google TV’s ‘Fling’ feature will be its counterpart to Apple TV’s AirPlay.

The reality is far from it – and not because the feature does NOT exist but because the experience is tedious. A great consumer experience removes the challenge, removes the complication… In order to “Fling” a page or a video to the TV from an Android phone – you have to “Share”. Yes “Share” – there is no simple press of a button. On the Browser bring up the “Menu” (1), select “Share” (2), and then select “Google TV Application” (and that’s 3). The idea that it can ‘flung’ is not intuitive, you don’t know anything about it.

Contrast that with Apple’s Airplay, a nice icon shows up in a Media Player (with IOS 4.3 supposedly AirPlay will become available to third party apps as well) – tap the Icon, and select the TV/Device to ‘airplay’ to. The context is within the application and it is not being called share.

Now, purely technically, can Google implementation improve – absolutely yes. The key difference is that they release features with plenty room for consumer experience optimization.

———-

Notes:

1. Snapstick with meager resources gets it (check out how they “snap” the video to the large TV) BUT to be fair – you need to use their app, and their box connected to the TV

2. Business Insider’s Dan Frommer in a blog post today shows that GoogleTV-based Logitech Revue is ranked #563 compared to AppleTV at #10 on Amazon’s Best Selling Electronics.

Apple: Defining the Post-PC Era

Ashu Joshi — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 19:01:05 +0000

An excellent editorial piece by Joshua Topolsky of Engadget – whether iPad2 is revolutionary or evolutionary – Apple is changing the game. And in doing so forging new territory.

Amplify’d from www.engadget.com

In this new world, Apple no longer has to compete on specs and features, nor does it want to. There is no Mac vs. PC here — only “the future” versus “the past.” It won’t be a debate about displays, memory, wireless options — it will be a debate about the quality of the experience. Apple is not just eschewing the spec conversation in favor of a different conversation — it’s rendering those former conversations useless. It would be like trying to compare a race car to a deeply satisfying book.

Apple is in the process of making the iPad the de-facto standard for what the next stage of computing looks like, from the look and feel to the kind of software and experiences you have on the device. Apple doesn’t just want to own the market — it wants to own the idea of the market. We’ve seen this act before, and we know how it ends.

Read more at www.engadget.com

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/bsvn3

iPad: Can rivals compete on price?

Ashu Joshi — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 14:31:16 +0000

Interesting analysis by TechRepublic on how Apple’s own retail stores provide an edge in pricing compared to HTC, Samsung and host of other Tablet vendors.

Amplify’d from www.techrepublic.com

Takeaway: The biggest disappointment of nearly every promising competitor to the Apple iPad has been the price tag. Learn the one trump card that allows Apple to out-price rival tablets.

More specifically, the combination of Apple’s 300+ retail stores and its online Apple Store means that the company sells a huge chunk of its iPads directly to its customers. While Apple has cut distribution deals with Best Buy, Target, Wal-Mart, Amazon, and a few others, those are mostly market-share grabs and ways to help spread the iPad’s marketing message.

Apple appears to carefully control the inventory it sends to these retail partners. Even during the holidays, there weren’t typically huge stacks of iPads on a pallet in the aisle at Best Buy or Wal-Mart like other popular consumer electronics such as the Nintendo Wii or the Xbox 360. The iPads seemed to be sprinkled among the various retailers throughout the holidays. Meanwhile, the Apple retail stores were loaded with an almost unlimited supply of iPads, so if you wanted to make sure you got one your best bet was to go there (or order one from Apple’s Web store). One estimate was that Apple sold 8.8 iPads per hour per retail store on Black Friday.

was

was utterly impossible for Samsung to hit — unless it was selling the tablet directly to consumers

Read more at www.techrepublic.com

See this Amp at http://bit.ly/gJTafc

Logitech Revue sold 93,400 Units as of Q4 2010

Ashu Joshi — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 20:34:46 +0000

The Logitech Revue has two primary peripherals – MiniController and the TV Cam. Per Logitech’s 10-Q for the quarter ending 12/31/2010 – Revue and peripherals sales were $23.4million.

Assuming all of this was only Revue and using an ASP of $250 (instead of $299, since they dropped it during the Holidays) – it would result in an approximate sale of 93,400 Units in little less than 3 months ….

Note R&D expenses were incurred for Revue development – with the development being outsourced? 10-Q makes special note of increase in Consulting Fees due to Revue. And also Marketing & Selling expenses were higher due to Harmony and Revue. All those loft parties apparently did no good …

A detailed analysis at some point with a better model may be more useful. Below are the significant statements pertaining to Google TV and Revue (mentioned 23 times) in the 10-Q.

Amplify’d from www.sec.gov

For home entertainment systems, we offer the Harmony line of advanced remote controls, Squeezebox wireless music solutions and, in the United States, a
line of Logitech products for the Google TV platform, including the Logitech Revue companion box, Logitech Mini-Controller and Logitech TV Cam with HD Vid service. For gaming consoles, we offer a range of gaming controllers and microphones, as well
as other accessories.

Adoption of the new accounting guidance primarily impacted the revenue recognized from Logitech Revue and our
LifeSize video conferencing products. The adoption had no impact on revenue recognized from the remainder of our peripherals, as they are not multiple-deliverable revenue arrangements.

The sale of Logitech Revue consists of two deliverables: the hardware with essential software delivered at the time of
sale, and unspecified additional software upgrades to the essential software on a when-and-if-available basis. Logitech allocates arrangement consideration to each of these deliverables using a selling price hierarchy. Under the new accounting
guidance, the selling price is based on VSOE of fair value, if available, TPE if VSOE is not available, or ESP if neither VSOE nor TPE is available. The relative selling price of the hardware with the essential software is based on ESP. The relative
selling price of future upgrades to the essential software is based on TPE. Amounts allocated to the delivered hardware and essential software are recognized at the time of sale provided the other conditions for revenue recognition have been met.
Amounts allocated to the future unspecified software upgrade rights are deferred and recognized ratably over the estimated 24-month life of the hardware. There was no impact to prior period financial statements from adopting the new accounting
guidance as it relates to Logitech Revue, because there were no sales of the Logitech Revue prior to adoption of the guidance.

We achieved retail sales growth in all product families during the three months ended December 31, 2010 compared
with the same period in the prior fiscal year, with double digit percentage growth in pointing devices, video, gaming and digital home. Digital home is a new product family combining Harmony Remotes, Logitech Revue with Google TV and peripherals
associated with the Google TV platform.

To date the platform has not met widespread consumer acceptance and our sales of Logitech Revue and related products have
been below our expectations.

In the three months ended December 31, 2010, our retail average selling price increased 3% compared
with the three months ended December 31, 2009, and increased 16% compared with the three months ended September 30, 2010, reflecting in part the launch of Logitech Revue in October 2010

In the Americas region, retail sales increased 31% and 35% and retail units sold increased 6% and 16% in the Americas
region in the three and nine months ended December 31, 2010 compared with the same periods in the prior fiscal year, reflecting strong sales of products with higher average selling prices and in particular, Logitech Revue. All product lines
produced double digit percentage sales increases in both the three and nine month periods ended December 31, 2010 compared with the same periods in the prior year. Sales of the Digital Home product line were especially strong, based on the
newly-launched Logitech Revue.

The launch of
Logitech Revue and the associated peripherals contributed sales of $23.4 million to our new Digital Home product family in the three months ended December 31, 2010.

Marketing and selling expenses increased 43% and 46% in the three and nine months ended December 31,
2010 compared with the three and nine months ended December 31, 2009, primarily due to the addition of LifeSize sales and marketing personnel in December 2009, and variable demand generation activities focused on Harmony remotes and Logitech
Revue.

The increased advertising and marketing spending related primarily to approximately $27 million of variable demand
generation activities in connection with our Harmony Remotes and Logitech Revue, as well as other new product launches.

Consulting fees related to our development of Logitech Revue for Google TV also contributed to the increase in research and development expense compared with the prior year.

Read more at www.sec.gov

See this Amp at http://bit.ly/gCgSut