| N E W S L E T T E R
The most accurate predictive letter in computing and telecommunications,
***SNS*** Behind FiRe
“Mark is the real thing.” – Roger Nyhus, Owner, Nyhus Communications
SNS Members are encouraged to share this week’s letter at will, in the hope that your friends will join you and us at FiRe 2010.
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Join us for the 8th Annual
Future in Review (FiRe) 2010 Conference
Palos Verdes
“The best technology conference in the world.” – The Economist
www.futureinreview.com/index.php
Latest additions:
“Peak Water,” with Wendy Pabich, President, Water Futures Inc.; and film producer, Patagonia: Ice to Ocean;
“CyberWar: Today and Tomorrow,” with Joseph Menn, author, Fatal System Error;
Climate Refugees: A first look at this Sundance film, with director and creator Michael P. Nash (don’t forget, last year’s FiRe Film The Cove, by Louie Psihoyos, just received the Academy Award for Best Documentary);
“Scaling Alternative Energy”: An Opening Night talk by world expert Nathan Lewis, George L. Argyros Professor of Chemistry, Caltech; and
“Sustainable Housing”: Real and proposed sustainable dwellings, with Robert Bornn, Founder, BuildingCircles Organization; and Hank Louis, Professor of Architecture, University of Utah.
This year’s theme: “Emerging Platforms”: Handhelds, Smartphones, Media Players, Pads, e-Books, Netbooks, Smartbooks, and (Repairing) the Cloud.
Participants and Speakers include (but are not limited to):
Ray Ozzie, Chief Software Architect, Microsoft
Jen-Hsun Huang, CEO, NVIDIA
Paul Jacobs, CEO, Qualcomm
Steve Squyres, Principal Investigator of the Mars Exploration Rover Mission (MER) and Goldwin Smith Professor of Astronomy at Cornell University; on “Finding Life on Mars”
A New Panel: “The Business and Technology Behind Hollywood”
John Cramer, Science Fiction Author and Professor Emeritus, Physics, University of Washington; on “Quantum Time Reversal”
John Delaney, Professor of Oceanography and Jerome M. Paros Endowed Chair in Sensor Networks; and Director, Regional Scale Nodes Program, University of Washington; on building the world’s first broadband ocean-floor remote sensing network
Plus:
Eric Darmstaedter, CEO, ClearFuels Technology
Chris Hancock, CEO, AARNet
Ricardo Salinas, Chairman of the Board, Grupo Salinas
And many, many more (see “Upcoming SNS Events“ for further details)
As SNS members know, every year we spend a serious amount of time creating the next year’s Future in Review program. We publicize the main speakers beforehand, and sometimes write about what happened after the event.
What often gets missed is the justification behind each selection of theme or onstage participant. We are a community that prides itself on caring about the future, and, ironically, this means that we pick subjects for our conference that may look a little confusing today to many readers, but which, five years from now, will generally look prescient.
In this issue, I’ll share the full draft agenda with all SNS members, for the first time, so that you can see the other themes and threads we think are important. Here I will also pull out just a few of the many outstanding segments, with comments on why they are integral parts of this year’s FiRe program.
I think, for non-attendees, this will provide a deep-but-quick preview of major new trends.
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My other reason for writing on this subject this week comes straight from one of the design idiosyncrasies that make FiRe great: we do our best to confuse the boundary between “speaker” and “participant.” In most conferences, there is a definite “us” and “them” thing going on. At FiRe, it’s the opposite: everyone is a potential speaker, something we recognize at the outset.
Sure, we pick critical new trends and find the world experts to describe them. But we will also pick from among general participants to be on panels, join the CTO Design Challenge, or give a quick HotSpot version of their own view of the future.
Now in our eighth year, I can say that this leads to a shared interest in solving problems, vs. impressing others; it has been a very successful aspect of the conference. For that reason, I wanted members to see what will be in the program, and why – at this stage of the still-draft-version of the agenda, when they still have a chance to be a part of the conversation.
So, the program is still open, and to those members who have not yet signed up: you may still, by registering, become a part of the FiRe onstage conversation yourself. You might say this is “last call” for speakers from among our own ranks. We will probably have the agenda locked within a week or two from the publication of this issue.
With these thoughts in mind, let’s walk through the agenda, together, and I’ll share some quick thoughts about segments that may not be obvious in their future import. The Theme: “Emerging Platforms”
Throughout FiRe 2010, we will be discussing new technology platforms. This is the most important overall theme for this year, I believe, and we will go into some depth and breadth on what the world will see over the next 3-5 years.
For the first time, and by special arrangement, we will be streaming all of FiRe to five selected Deloitte offices, for restricted use, around the world. (If your firm would like the same service, contact me.)
For the second time, thanks again to Deutsche Telekom, we will be streaming the opening morning conversations of FiRe to a much larger number of sites around the world. Last year we did this with 13 sites in Europe and Israel; I expect this year will see a higher number.
And this year, for the fourth year, we will again have the BBC World News with us as media partner, broadcasting selected interviews out to its 150MM global audience.
Add in bloggers and reporters from the global press, and FiRe will clearly be happening beyond the beautiful confines of the Terranea Resort.
Program Highlights
Here is the FiRe Agenda continuing draft – some segments pulled out of the table, interlaced with my comments:
FiRe 2010 CoNFERENCE AGENDA
Speaking assignments and agenda items are subject to change. Draft last updated 4/1/10
We currently have nine FiReStarter companies selected, with room for three more. In four years of running this program for world-changers, all of our participants have been pleased with the result. You’ll see the list below, and this private reception with the BBC is the start of their great week.
Opening Night
What is the most important question facing those living on Earth today? Two days ago, figuratively speaking, it was whether human activity was accelerating global climate change; the answer is Yes. Yesterday, it was: Which alternative energies should we be funding to combat the problem, and to avoid continued wars over oil? Vinod Khosla and others have helped us find good answers.
Today, the question is deeper. It turns out that it doesn’t matter what we know or like, if we can’t scale our choices fast enough to make a difference. Scaling, in the world of alternative energy, is Everything. So we found the world’s expert on this problem:
8:00pm - 8:45pm
Dinner Presentation: “Scaling (Alternative) Energy: The Key to Survival”: Presented byNathan Lewis, George L. Argyros Professor of Chemistry, California Institute of Technology
Followed by: Q & A and Discussion
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Do you think there is someone who knows more than Ray Ozzie about the platforms we’ll see over the next few years? I doubt it. Ray is a longtime SNS member, and is returning to FiRe for the first time since replacing Bill Gates as CSA at Microsoft, and this is sure to be a great kickoff to our event.
8:00am - 8:45am
“The Complex World of Emerging Platforms, from Cloud to Phone”: A Centerpiece Conversation with Ray Ozzie, Chief Software Architect and CTO, Microsoft; hosted by Mark Anderson
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Last year we had four world-class panels on various aspects of Cloud Computing, and Greg Ness’ panel caused fellow Advisory Board member (and InterOp founder) Dan Lynch to ask about what happened to the Network as its manual operations collided with the Cloud. Oops.
Thus was the Infrastructure 2.0 Working Group born, taking its name from our panel title. Today, the name is an idiom, the Group is about to release a very important engineering report, and FiRe continues to lead in seeing where cloud computing is headed – and designing it.
8:45am - 9:15am
“Is the Network Ready for Cloud Computing?”: A panel discussion with Glenn Dasmalchi, Tech Chief of Staff, Office of CTO, Cisco Systems; Lew Tucker, former Cloud CTO, Cloud Computing, Sun Microsystems; and more TBA; hosted by Greg Ness, Vice President, Infoblox
SNSers know that I’ve been talking about what we call the Advent of XY Computing for most of this decade: it’s the idea that one can take graphics processing units, turn them on their side, and replace Intel’s central processing units with them. Guess what? That day has come. But don’t take my word for it; listen to the world expert:
10:15am - 11:00am
Keynote Conversation: Jen-Hsun Huang, Co-Founder, President, and CEO, NVIDIA; hosted by Mark Anderson
Members also know that I think cyberwar is not in the future, but is already happening. Who might know more about that than anyone else? How about Barrett Lyon, subject of the new (and highly recommended) book Fatal System Error – together with its author, Joe Menn? Add in Raimond Genes, CTO of one of the world’s top security firms, and I think you will have the appropriate learning curve on this critical subject.
1:30pm - 2:00pm
“CyberWar: Today and Tomorrow”: A panel with Barrett Lyon, CEO, 3Crowd Technologies Inc.; and Raimond Genes, CTO, Trend Micro; hosted by Joseph Menn, Technology Correspondent, Financial Times, and Author, Fatal System Error
Members know I think Peak Oil is a marketing gimmick. Guess what is real? Peak Water.
3:00pm - 3:30pm
“Peak Water”: A panel hosted by “Water Deva” Wendy Pabich, President, Water Futures Inc.; and film producer, Patagonia: Ice to Ocean
Last year, we started a new program of showing unreleased films, beginning with The Cove, which went on to win the 2010 Academy Award for Best Documentary. This year, we are looking at another film screened at Sundance, showing the effects of climate change on human settlements around the world, starting with refugee movements already under way. This is another must-see film.
7:00pm - 8:30pm
Global Film Debut: Climate Refugees (Rhinofilms) – Michael P. Nash, Director and Co-Producer, and Steven Nemeth, Co-Producer, documentary film Climate Refugees
One way to understand which platforms will be coming up is to ask the chief executive in charge of making the chips that will go into most of these devices. Qualcomm is behind a good number of these itself, and we will talk about them all, as well as the future of wireless. Member Paul Jacobs returns to FiRe for the second time, five years later:
1:30pm - 2:15pm
“Centerpiece Conversation with Paul Jacobs, CEO, Qualcomm”; hosted by Mark Anderson
Imagine that three-fourths of our planet were covered by water, and that we knew less about what was under its surface than we know about the moon. Then imagine building the planet’s first underwater city of remote viewing structures, covering square miles in size, with electricity and broadband out to all points. Imagine viewing across the ocean floor for miles from each station, imagine seeing the ocean all the way up to the surface using remotely controlled electrical vehicles, and imagine all the life forms and data that will come in, much of it unseen before, on a regular basis. Imagine ---
John’s project is already funded, and he’s building it.
8:30am - 9:00am
“Building the First (Remote) Underwater City”: An interview with John Delaney, Professor of Oceanography and Jerome M. Paros Endowed Chair in Sensor Networks, and Director, Regional Scale Nodes Program, UW; on the construction of the world’s first undersea broadband and power-supplied permanent remote sensing network – Hosted by TBA
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OK, so there’s water on the moon – and on Mars, too. So what? But what if there were life on another planet – not a million light years away, but just around the solar system corner?
9:00am - 9:30am
“Searching for Life on Mars”: Steve Squyres, Principal Investigator of the Mars Exploration Rover Mission, and Professor of Astronomy, Cornell University; hosted by Larry Smarr, Director, California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2), UCSD ____
I would be the first one to say that time reversal is just outright impossible, right? Don’t you agree? But what if, in the crazy world of quantum entanglement, we’re wrong? John is working on this question now, and there is probably no one more qualified in the world to find the answer.
9:30am - 10:00am
“Looking Further: The World in 20 Years, and Experiments in Time Reversal”: A conversation with John Cramer, Science Fiction Author and Professor Emeritus in Physics, University of Washington; hosted by David Brin, Author, Physicist, and Co-Host of TV’s “ArchiTechs” series.
Well, those are a few of the thoughts behind some of the highlights of FiRe 2010. You can see why we’re not like any other conferences, and why people like FiRe so much, once they’ve attended. Indeed, this year’s return signups are up 60% over last year’s.
I hope SNS members will join us at the beautiful new Terranea Resort; unlike the beautiful old Hotel del Coronado, the Terranea is a four-star business hotel. Whatever your experience or expectations, they will likely be exceeded by the most amazing new hotel on the California Coast.
I hope we’ll see you there,
Sincerely, Mark R. Anderson CEO
“There is no doubt some state actors have sucked out huge amounts of intellectual copyright, designs to whole aero engines, things that have taken years and years of development.” – The British government’s security czar, Lord West, parliamentary under-secretary for security and counter-terrorism; quoted at Defensetech.org: http://defensetech.org/2010/03/23/uk-under-cyber-attack.
Thanks to member Jan Greylorn for the pointer.
“Frankly, I wish I had resigned then.” – Jerome York, past Apple board member, deceased this week, upon Steve Jobs’ lack of public transparency regarding his health. Quoted in the Wall Street Journal.
“If the Renminbi appreciates it should weaken the price competitiveness of Chinese products. In principle that should be good news for Korea. But it really depends on how many Korean companies have factories in China and what proportion of their Chinese output is exported.” – Park Chul-hwan, official at the Federation of Korean Industries.
“There is a strong view in Asia, which I share, that a revaluation by Beijing against the dollar would be mirrored in revaluations by other currencies.” – Tim Condon, chief Asia economist at ING, Singapore.
“It’s very difficult to make governments change their ways. You can rule against them, in one way, and they just find a different way to achieve the same goals.” – Richard L. Aboulafia, analyst at the Teal Group, on Airbus and its support countries being found in violation of subsidy laws by the World Trade Organization.
“The success of Sync proves that customers want to be connected. The speed with which we hit the 2 million mark, the premium Sync adds at auction, and the improvements in purchase consideration show that it is a true differentiator for us, adding real value for the customer.” – Ken Czubay, Ford marketing VP.
“We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat. There were leaders who knew better, who would have liked to deal. But they were trapped. Conservative talkers on Fox and talk radio had whipped the Republican voting base into such a frenzy that deal-making was rendered impossible. How do you negotiate with somebody who wants to murder your grandmother?” – David Frum, former Bush (W.) speechwriter; quoted in the New York Times; on the GOP’s behavior regarding the healthcare bill.
“If you don’t get governance right, it is very hard to get anything else right that government needs to deal with. We have to rethink in some basic ways how our political institutions work, because they are increasingly incapable of delivering effective solutions any longer.” – Larry Diamond, Stanford University democracy expert; quoted by Thomas Friedman in his New York Times column.
“Don’t let those little punk staffers take advantage of you, and stand up for yourselves.” – Republican House Minority Leader John Boehner, referring to Democratic colleagues and the banking lobby, in that order.
“He cannot be a Lone Ranger.” – Washington State Gov. Christine Gregoire (D), on State Attorney General Rob McKenna’s (R) decision to join 12 other Republican AGs in filing a suit against the just-passed U.S. healthcare bill.
“The pace of --- the housing and property market indicators sort of smack of a bubble to me.” – Rachel Ziemba, Roubini Global Economics Senior Analyst; on the China market.
“The demand for Shenzhen property is very strong, but much of the demand is for the purpose of investment.” – Michael Yuk, agent with Centaline, one of the largest real estate agencies in China.
“We hope that U.S. companies in China will express their demands and points of view in the U.S., in order to promote the development of global trade and jointly oppose trade protectionism.” – Yao Jian, spokesman at the Chinese Commerce Ministry.
“China’s currency manipulation would be unacceptable even in good economic times. At a time of 10% unemployment, we will simply not stand for it. --- That was the last straw. We are fed up, and we are not going to take it any more.” – Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY).
» Healthcare Blowback: A Hail Mary to the Supremes
It was predictable that there would be a court challenge to the new U.S. healthcare law, and it is not very surprising that this came, within minutes of the bill’s passage, from the Red (GOP-controlled) States Attorneys General, starting with Florida.
What IS surprising is that Washington’s Attorney General, Rob McKenna – a Republican in a state with a Democratic Governor, Senate, and House – decided to reject his state’s counsel in joining 12 other Republican AGs, and one Democrat, in challenging the healthcare reform act this week.
Even more surprising, he did it, not at the end of a long and distinguished career (a la Sen. Chris Dodd), but during exploratory meetings on running for Governor of a Deep Blue state. What was he thinking? The short answer must be: he wasn’t.
At a time when each day in the U.S. brings more proof of Republican Party “issues,” such as McCain reuniting with Palin to save his own district primary race, or the Central Committee Young Eagle youth recruitment wing spending thousands at the Voyeur Club, a faux-lesbian simulated-sex-act club in LA – well, the party is obviously broken.
What matters: as the November elections come up, while their own strategists (Karl Rove) tell the party that they are going to clean up on their intransigence over healthcare (something McKenna also obviously believes), the reverse will, I think, be true: they will suffer additional self-induced losses.
If so, this will leave the Democrats in even more control than they have now, with plenty of time to fill Supreme Court seats in the third arm of government.
If McKenna is a test case of this question, he will most likely suffer the same fate.
Why is this such a bad move on his part?
The real story here: when Rush Limbaugh announced that: a) GOP success required Obama’s outright failure; and b) he would leave the country if the healthcare bill passed; two things became evident:
This was a high-risk game, and they have just lost it – unless the Supremes reverse the law. And after Bush v. Gore, I have to say, I think the Supreme Court is a completely arbitrary, political animal. I wouldn’t try to predict its next move.
Obama, on the other hand, is now on the way to pulling six rabbits out of a hat:
The “guy who couldn’t get things done” will likely suddenly turn into one of the most productive achievers, in his first two years, in U.S. history.
The political stage in the U.S. is rapidly reversing itself again. Someone should have warned Mr. McKenna.
» The Ultimate Netbook: the iPad
This coming weekend, the Apple iPad finally hits the streets. Much has been written about it, and I will try to not repeat any of it here.
I believe the iPad will exceed even Apple’s public sales projections. This is not because iPods are cool, or iPhones are popular.
Rather, it is because a pad version of the Netbook ought to be the best-selling computer of all time, if past SNS writing on this subject is correct. Sure, there will need to be a keyboard attachment available for the moment, but SNSers are already aware that the magic of the sales figures come not from chip type or screen resolution, but from the size of this computer.
Instead of the Apple positioning as a Kindle-killer, or as a saving grace for the paper print press industry, the iPad is much more: it is the coolest Netbook.
If you believe already, as I long have, that Netbooks will outsell all other computing categories by the end of next year or so, then it doesn’t take much to explain why the pad version, linked to Apple’s apps and content distribution system, will be a huge success.
While Jobs himself seems unaware of the definition of “Netbooks,” positioning the iPad against them, what our members need to know is that the iPad will be the King of the Netbooks. If you saw it as something else, sales would be strong but lower. Instead, see it this way, and raise your projections.
Yes, Steve, you, too. As perhaps the first guy to understand the uncontested power of this format, I have little doubt that, once the world realizes they have the best Netbook yet made, these will sell sell sell.
» Federal Judge Confirms SNS’ View: “You Can’t Patent My Dog”
This week, for the first time in U.S. patent history, a federal judge has ruled that naturally-occurring genes cannot be patented.
Specifically, U.S. District Court Judge Robert Sweet ruled that claiming a patent on naturally-occurring cancer-causing genes BRCA1 and BRCA2 was discovery, and not invention, and therefore not allowed. This is a legal argument that SNS has been making for over a decade.
The case was brought by patients and the ACLU against Myriad, a Utah holder of the patents.
SNSers already knew this, from a series of issues beginning about 12 years ago. Here are two excisions:
From “Quotes of the Week” in SNS: “Proprietary Portals: Gated Communities,” July 11, 2000:
-- the reason the PTO announced last week that they were making gene patents harder to get is because: a) they are so confident in their current stance, or b) they realize they are in the middle of a major misinterpretation of patent law -- ?
I am going for (b). The next SNS T-Shirt: “You Can’t Patent My Dog.”
From SNS: “With A Bang,” January 10, 2001:
U.S. Gene Patents: Still Dumb
“The U.S. Patent and Trade Office released its new, improved version of what it terms “tighter” rules for awarding gene patents this week. Now, those smart readers not already familiar with the SNS take on all this might be asking, Why release new rules at all? Will there have to be new rules every few weeks? What is so wrong with the old rules that they have to be constantly upgraded?
Which brings us to the new rules. SNSers know that it is Illegal to patent natural genes. Someday soon, we’ll all be wearing T-shirts emblazoned with the phrase, You Can’t Patent My Dog! Unfortunately, the Commissioner of the PTO is unaware of this rather international view, and continues gaily on patenting all manner of naturally-occurring genes, despite language in the enabling legislation for genes which specifically prohibits such idiotic behavior.
The new rules now tie description of the use of a gene to its patent. You can’t patent a gene in the U.S. unless you can say at least one thing that it does.
This is called selling out to the large pharma companies that have the money to figure these things out, and has absolutely nothing to do with whether anyone should be allowed to patent something which is not an invention.
I am looking forward to the day when all of these patents are ruled to have been improperly granted, leaving only patents on genes that were created by human modification.
May it come soon.”
Here is a key section of the judge’s finding against defendant Myriad:
“The claims-in-suit directed to ‘isolated DNA’ containing human BRCA 1/2 gene sequences reflect the USPTO’s practice of granting patents on DNA sequences so long as those sequences are claimed in the form of ‘isolated DNA.’ This practice is premised on the view that DNA should be treated no differently from any other chemical compound, and that its purification from the body, using well-known techniques, renders it patentable by transforming it into something distinctly different in character.
Companies and officers that agreed with our interpretation over the last 12 years will be less likely to be part of the coming market asset collapse in old biotech that will likely accompany this finding. You can’t say we didn’t warn you; we did.
My guess is that this will have been the most important case in genetic legal history. Thank you, Judge Sweet, for getting it right.
That took a while.
SNS member Elon Musk completed the first static test firing of the Falcon 9 rocket, on its pad at Cape Canaveral, last week. The first attempted launch of the new Falcon 9 should follow sometime this month.
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While Richard Branson’s and SNS Member Burt Rutan’s Virgin Galactic II took its maiden test flight last week:
Subject: SNS: “The Smartphone Surprise”
Mark,
Really really interesting findings. So as devices continue to get smaller and smaller – When someone figures out how to wirelessly connect your Smartphone with your Monitor and Keyboard when you walk into your office through some kind of a black box, then add some better MS Office capabilities…and KABOOM!. Who needs a computer anymore?… People like the portability of a phone…it’s the shirt-pocket size that matters….look out laptop manufacturers…it going to be attack of the Smartphones!
Thanks,
Brian McMullen LMC Consulting Group [Seattle]
Brian,
I do indeed think that, for consumers, things like the Smartphone and the Netbook will suffice for almost all computing needs. This makes for a serious split with the full-time office worker, and her needs, which continue to look like desktop material. This splitting has gotten almost no attention yet.
Mark Anderson
Mark,
[Bellevue, WA]
Sailesh,
Some people may not know that you recently were at Microsoft yourself, which gives this view a lot more beef than pure conjecture.
I think you have described the Microsoft strategic position perfectly. The company’s strategy is looking dog-eared, at a time when it should be bringing full-on OS to the phone, just as Apple did.
As for Intel and hurt feelings, I wonder, given how many different initiatives Intel has created that used Linux or other software of its own, competitive with Microsoft: at what point does MS just stop caring what Intel thinks, and moves forward into the next stage of the art, the next platforms?
Since we will have almost all of these players at FiRe, perhaps we can get a conversation on this going.
Perhaps more important, I should remind our members that your new firm is a FiReStarter Company, and that you’ll be telling much more of your healthcare-solutions story at FiRe this year. My congratulations to you on that score, and we look forward to having you with us.
Thank you for writing,
Mark Anderson
Mark ,
I completely agree about smartphones taking over the market, at least for the developed and BRIC-level countries, though I’m sure they’ll complement rather than displace computers. I’ll be interested to hear your take on the Windows Phone – although I’m impressed by the design and the Silverlight programming environment and the innovative way apps are integrated into the relevant place to use them, I also see Microsoft making pretty much every mistake Apple made with the iPhone in the first version. Do you think it will dent the market? It’s certainly a big win for Qualcomm, who has ousted Nvidia from an app co-processing niche it thought it was defining with Tegra (do you think you could get Dr Jacobs and Jen-Hsun on stage together at FiRe to get their differing views of mobile chipset paths?).
Palm finally has its SDK out so it will be interesting to see if they regain any momentum.
One thing about smartphone pricing; that’s quite a US-centric view – we’ve had smartphones free or heavily subsidised with contract in the UK for more years than I can remember off hand and the iPhone was the first device in a long term to buck the trend. There are even pre-pay BlackBerry deals (and I think pricing plans are the real potential stumbling block to the widest adoption of smartphones – the comments I hear attributed to US teens say that they don’t want to browse or tweet because the costs would eat into the budget they have for texting, and they haven’t seen the appeal of free messages with a higher data cost over text messages that they pay individual low prices for).
I don’t know how far device purchase cost actually affects the figures – I believe it’s what actually gives Nokia its position, far more than features, apps or phone design; it seems more as if the local market somehow just puts up with what it’s used to. Like the online comments I see suggesting that European mobile networks can’t possibly offer better service or less restrictive options than US operators; there’s the assumption that if this is the way things are, this is the way they have to be – is that a law too?
All the best Mary
Mary Branscombe Technology journalism & consultancy London, UK
Mary,
You are always so smart and caught-up. I think Windows Mobile 7 is going to be too little, too late, which may be a bit of what you are implying re: making the mistakes of the iPhone. By delivery date later this year, people are going to be further down the handset innovation highway. I think the current re-do leading to WM7 has been a heroic effort, and it will certainly be properly received into the market by existing MS exchange fans, but I don’t see it making a crater the way the iPhone continues to do.
And don’t forget the very interesting question of how the iPad and iPhone will play together; there is a very large area for integration, cross-messaging, and tying, that no one seems to have picked up on yet, at least outside of Apple.
They will, not too long after this weekend’s early shipments.
I don’t think Palm has a happy ending. Or, as Michael Dell once described Gateway in a FiRe interview: they are closer to the end of the story than to the beginning.
It is hard to ignore the global growth of prepaid phones and plans; this is easily the most high-growth area in handsets. While smartphones were historically niched in the expensive phone category, as we’ve both noted in different geographies, those days are over, and I wonder how smartphones (i.e., all future phones) and the prepaid world will get along.
Your comments about kids’ budgets vs. high-end service charges is spot-on, and this kind of thinking will no doubt permeate the prepaid market as well. Who wants to chew up a just-funded phone by using video transmission on the first day after the last pre-pay? On the other hand, if kids in Egypt start getting video services at a quarter of the cost being charged in the U.S. (and they will), someone is going to have to answer to their customer base on the American side.
Hmm, that would be AT&T, mostly.
Thanks for another smart letter,
Mark Anderson
Mark,
Once again, a wonderful, insightful issue. If I may, I would like to suggest that you publish the smartphone essay and your response to Matthew Koll as separate blog posts on your website. Both are worthy of much wider discussion. If you put them on the blog, let me know and I will once again try to give it a boost on some of the networks I participate in.
Also, I would like to let you know that in a few months’ time I will be returning to school as an MIT Sloan Fellow. My mission is to get a handle on new business models, technologies and practices that can help turn around the fortunes of the media industry. I don’t know if you have a cut-rate plan or free subscription for students, but if you do, I would like to sign up or be included. If not, I understand and hope to be back on board at some point as full paying member of the club and maybe an attendee at the famous FiRe conferences.
Thanks,
Ian Lamont [Editor The Industry Standard]
Mark,
I thought you might like this particular article:
www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601010&sid=aNZe4JWeV1aw
[Excerpt from same:]
March 17 (Bloomberg) -- China is in the midst of “the greatest bubble in history,” said James Rickards, former general counsel of hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management LP. The Chinese central bank’s balance sheet resembles that of a hedge fund buying dollars and short-selling the yuan, said Rickards, now the senior managing director for market intelligence at McLean, Virginia-based consulting firm Omnis Inc. “As I see it, it is the greatest bubble in history with the most massive misallocation of wealth,” Rickards said at the Asset Allocation Summit Asia 2010 organized by Terrapinn Pte in Hong Kong yesterday. China “is a bubble waiting to burst.”
John Petote [Angel Investor Tech Coast Angels Santa Barbara, CA]
John,
Interesting piece, and frightening. There are many, many people on Wall St. who have been worried about a Chinese bubble. I guess I am one of them, although I have tried to be a little more specific about my concerns, which flow not just out of overheating in the domestic Chinese real estate markets, but also in a banking system composed of banks that are not banks.
I think this is a perfect setup for a chance for some very smart top-down guys (the Party) to make one or more really big mistakes, in a relatively non-forgiving environment.
Mark Anderson
Mark,
As you say, “culture war” goes far beyond the cliched, insipid “Left-Right axis.” It is now much more about fear vs confidence, future vs past, and resentment toward the entire caste of people who have knowledge and skill. Yes, one outcome is a venomous rejection of science. But the same inchoate, populist rage boils toward the civil service, e.g. the teachers, police and health workers we hire to perform complex, democratically-mandated tasks, and even to our senior military men and women. The US Officer Corps, the third best-educated group in American life, has suffered too from our national schism. Though stoic, they are deeply worried.
Deliberation and reasoned argument has broken down, in part, because such enlightenment processes are now portrayed as evil, in their own right. Disagreement and negotiation over policy has been replaced by hatred of the very notion of “us.”
Mark, you quote Burke. I’ll respond with historian Arnold Toynbee, who showed that civilizations break down when their “creative minority” fails to innovate new answers to challenges confronting them. This happens in two ways. (1) The leading minority ceases to be creative and degenerates into a mere “dominant minority” -- pursuing the tiresomely predictable logic of oligarchy. Or else (2) decay sets in when the rest of society no longer supports or fosters or believes in its creative minority.
One now see evidence of both trends. In capitalists who care less about innovative competition than the status-based rent-seeking [which] Adam Smith despised... and in a growing rift between citizens who are technologically savvy and their neighbors who dread tech-driven change. Number (1) is a natural occurrence, rooted in 4,000 years of feudal rule. #2 is also understandable. (Imagine how it stings, in Red America, to see the brightest high school grads regularly depart for glittering blue cities.) But it is the coincidence of both trends -- the latter stirred up by the former -- that makes this an especially destructive moment. One meriting the name “Phase Three of the American Civil War.”
Which brings up an area [where] we disagree, Mark. You call the Culture War manipulators short-sighted and stupid -- killing the golden goose that made them rich in the first place. Sure stupidity plays a role, as in Civil War phase one, when two hundred thousand poor whites fought to benefit slave-owning patricians who were clever at manipulation, but dismal at foresight or statecraft.
But after 20 years of culture war, “stupidity” beggars all probability. Were it the sole explanation, neoconservatism would have stumbled, by accident, into a policy or endeavor that tangibly benefited the U.S. The sheer uniformity of its track record-- including the near-perfect reversal of former conservative principles -- suggests another theory.
[David then added this paragraph:]
Aw, you know what my contrarian alternative is. But if you insist... I do not “think that” culture war is a deliberate plot to wreck the American Experiment. But I do feel the consistency of this explanation merits a place on the table, alongside the Standard Model of incredible neocon stupidity. In fact, there are well-heeled interests with motive, means and opportunity - interests that have invested heavily in culturewar-promoting media. But people who could picture nefarious KGB plots, 30 years ago, won’t even let themselves daydream about “who might actually want America to tear itself apart.”
It’s not paranoid to at least ponder such things, now and then.
David Brin Physicist and Author San Diego
David,
I guess we do disagree slightly, but I always enjoy your consistently contrarian views.
The neocons’ only job, as far as I could tell, was to get the U.S. to fight Israel’s enemies, and it worked beautifully. Saddam was never a threat to the U.S., and George Tenet told the Senate so just weeks before fighting began; but he was a major potential threat to Israel, with dreams of uniting all the Arabs in the Middle East.
Getting more than 100,000 U.S. boots on ground in the region was a gigantic win for Israel, and a gigantic loss for U.S. citizens, who will pay for generations.
As for wrecking the American Experiment, etc. – I don’t think the manipulators care. In fact, in this new age of “party before country,” which is the GOP theme song, I don’t see any indication of real patriotism. We are at the most dangerous time in U.S. economic history, and we have a party with the motives of a South Chicago bully and the intellectual engagement to match.
No, I think the manipulators – specifically Karl Rove, the Neocons, Fox News (Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes), Rush Limbaugh – have a horrible task, which has been facing them since Reagan’s team violated past Republican ethics and brought religion into the fold: how to serve the very rich (mostly in the North), while using the votes of the increasingly poor (mostly in the South).
This effort has required using red herring issues like Gay Marriage and Partial Birth Abortion to keep the poor in line, while continuing to cut taxes on the rich and generally pass legislation that further impoverishes their base. Economics for the left hand, anti-government and gay-bashing for the right hand.
Can you imagine waking up every morning, knowing that your job that day is to serve the rich, using the votes of the poor? Tough job.
In this sense, the real culture war is inside the GOP. The other war, the one that everyone talks about, between the two parties, is just a spinout from the original conflict.
Mark Anderson
Re: SNS Special Letter: Repairing Brains
Mark,
Ye gods.
Letters like that one serve to remind us all that there are many, stunning, discoveries left to be made by humanity, and that we must all respect those with the temerity to prove the point, despite ‘established wisdom’ to the contrary. Only thus are all truly important things achieved - they must, of necessity, happen despite the protestations of those comfortable with the status quo.
I am hopeful that this discovery may turn out, in humans, to be as effective as it has the potential to be. That would be, truly, a life changing thing.
It reminds me of another of the great medical mysteries - why some organisms can re-grow severed limbs, and humans cannot. Letters like that one remind us all that such mysteries, too, may yet be solved.
See you at FiRe.
Regards,
Simon Hackett [CEO Internode Pty Adelaide, Australia]
Mark,
Content observation, and personal note.
This is an excellent Special Letter, both from an information and writing style standpoint. Matthew Klipstein (and expert editor Sally, who earlier made one of my guest SNS letters suitable for human consumption) has a crisp, readable style. I would hope your future Special Letter guest writers strive to match it. Matthew does a good job communicating both his fascinating research points and the understated personal drama which frames them … and, from my perspective, the Letter is even more poignant considering that a decade ago, I suspect he may have been in no shape to pen such a piece.
It strikes home personally, too. In the past week, [a family member] has suffered two strokes, and there’s still evidence of bleeding in the brain from either the first stroke or one even earlier – While the eventual outcome of NeuroRepair’s work is not likely to help in this case, it’s a reminder that all of us might, unexpectedly, benefit from such research.
Thanks to you and Matt (and Sally) for this Special Letter. I suspect NeuroRepair will be a hit at FiRe 2010.
Frank Catalano Principal Intrinsic Strategy Seattle, WA
Simon and Frank,
Thank you for your (and many other) kind comments about Matthew Klipstein’s amazing Special Letter, and personal story. We look forward to having Matthew and the research team with us at FiRe, to bring us further up to date and answer a thousand questions about where this work is next to go.
Mark Anderson
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SNS is the most accurate predictive letter covering the computer and telecom industries. It is personally read by the top managers at companies such as Intel, Microsoft, Dell, HP, Cisco, Sun, Google, Yahoo!, Ericsson, Telstra, and China Mobile, as well as by leading financial analysts at the world’s top investment banks and venture capital funds, including Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Kleiner Perkins, Venrock, Warburg Pincus, and 3i. It is regularly quoted in top industry publications such as BusinessWeek, WIRED, Barron’s, Fortune, PC Magazine, ZDNet, Business 2.0, the Financial Times, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere.
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Mark Anderson is CEO of the Strategic News Service. He is the founder of two software companies and of the Washington Technology Industry Association “Fast Pitch” Forum, Washington’s premier software investment conference; and has participated in the launch of many software startups. He regularly appears on the CNN World News, CNBC and CNBC Europe, Reuters TV, the BBC, Wall Street Review/KSDO, and National Public Radio programs. He is a member of the Merrill Lynch Technology Advisory Board, and is an advisor and/or investor in OVP Ventures, Ignition Partners, Mohr Davidow Ventures, the UCSD Calit2 Laboratory, the Global Advisory Council of the mPedigree Network (Ghana), SwedeTrade, The Family Circle (Europe), and the Australian American Leadership Dialogue.
* On April 21st and 22nd, Mark will again be speaking to the Family Office Circle in Heidelberg, moderating panels on the current economics of “North America” and “Philanthropy in Action.” * On May 5th, he will moderate a panel discussion on Information Technology, with Microsoft and Ericsson, at the Sweden Week Business Focus Conference in Seattle, at the Swedish Cultural Center. * From May 11th to 14th, Mark will be hosting the 8th annual Future in Review (FiRe) Conference at the Terranea Resort in Palos Verdes, CA. (For details and registration, see www.futureinreview.com.) * And on June 9th, he will be keynoting Accenture’s 2010 Global CIO Forum in Washington, D.C.
In between times, he will be starting to plan this summer’s annual road trip. Let’s see: room for one speeding ticket, reserved, per trip; check. No more than a thousand miles per day in the plan; check. “We pass them, they don’t pass us” rule intact; check. Car in perfect condition; check. Pick the most beautiful roads in the country; still working on it.
Copyright 2010, Strategic News Service LLC.
“Strategic News Service,” “SNS,” “Future in Review,” “FiRe,” and “SNS Project Inkwell” are all registered service marks of Strategic News Service LLC.
ISSN 1093-8494
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Recent Issuesscott2022-09-20T16:01:24-07:00
SNS: Behind FiRe
