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***SNS*** Platform Confusion
“Mark is the one person in the world who seems to know about everything.” – David Kirkpatrick, past Sr. Editor, Fortune; and author, The Facebook Effect
I have had a series of opportunities, over these last few weeks, to witness the industry confusion over the question of which platforms will succeed. Since the resolution, and understanding, of this question will drive much of the computing industry, and almost all of the telecoms industry, for the next 10 years, it seems worth writing about.
As members know, we chose “Emerging Platforms” as the theme for FiRe 2010, and we were fortunate enough to have had several key players in this battle join us for interviews.
Among them: Paul Jacobs, chairman and CEO of Qualcomm, and Jen-Hsun Huang, president and CEO of NVIDIA. Qualcomm is placed in an amazing strategic position at the moment, with radio codec chip and Intellectual Property domination in a phone world rapidly turning into the most energetic part of the computer world. And, unlike British ARM, Qualcomm has learned to make serious money from this positioning.
In fact – with kudos to ARM for all its great designs and contributions – Qualcomm may be the best example in the world of what a pure IP company is, what models it uses, and how it prospers in a world littered with kleptomaniacs.
I have had a lot of experience with CEOs over the years, and have picked up a truism: all are good at talking, but relatively few are good at listening.
In one of my conversations with Paul ramping up to our interview, he started telling me about new form factors planned for his Snapdragon processor, when suddenly he stopped cold, mid-pitch. “Maybe I should be asking you what you think of this size,” he said.
I told him I thought the CarryAlong size I’ve been describing in these pages since 1997 was the right size, approximately 7 inches by 9 inches.
Last week I had the chance to speak at the Accenture Global CIO Summit in Washington, D.C., attended by 60 chief information officers from major corporations in 16 countries. I told them, in short, that their responsibilities were changing, and that they should now prepare themselves to advise the CEO or board on using IT to achieve company goals ranging from currency manipulation problems to corporate carbon footprint strategies.
After the talk, David Kirkpatrick, moderator of the program, interviewed me for 30 minutes, with an iPad on his lap. (Accenture gave every participant an iPad, something I am seeing frequently these days.) He asked if the same size device would be around five years from now, and I said Yes. I added that Apple would make sure there was file compatibility as well.
The same size? he asked again. Won’t this go away, and be replaced by something else?
No, the same size.
(The iPad is just slightly larger than the perfect CarryAlong, with a 9.7” diagonal screen. Therefore, the screen itself is the perfect size, and the bezel should disappear. If you have to bet on whether the screen would get larger, or the bezel margin smaller, you now have the answer.)
I think that David, like a lot of people – perhaps including my friends Michael Dell (see our “Takeout” section) and Mark Hurd, HP’s CEO – take a kind of democratic, or “Let’s just see” approach to computer form factors. Who knows? might be the idea; Let’s just make something and see if the crowd likes it.
That, in fact, is the fate of the smartbook, the form factor that Jen-Hsun Huang was betting heavily on, after Intel blocked his access to the netbook world by messing with the chipset pinouts (and probably violating their contract with his company).
I said that the phone would stay as a handheld device, and that we would have some kind of desktop. Add in servers, and you have a four-member device team for CIOs to manage in the years going forward.
Not 40, not 10. Four.
The CIOs in the audience seemed as happy with this view of a constrained platform world as HP and Dell may be confused by it. Having four platforms to manage, for them, is enough, and I think they were somewhat pleased to think that things would not end up as chaotic as they appear today.
So let’s look at this form factor spectrum, and see who will win and who will lose.
Among the enterprise players, Microsoft will remain a winner, in my opinion; its primary challenge today is re-invigorating the company for that future self-image. I don’t see anyone breaking the Linux/Windows duopoly in server operating systems in the near term, which gives us Microsoft, Red Hat, and Oracle (with a nod to SAP, which I think will decline) on the high end of the software business.
At this stage, it is important to note the difference between the physical and OS platform wars. While the physical is tightly constrained, the OS world is much more open to change, and as we move down to the desktop, CarryAlong, and phone factors, there are more opportunities for new faces.
Just understanding that these few physical form factors will be the places where the winners will have to play should help all of our SNS members get focus in a time of almost complete confusion.
On the desktop, I think Windows owns the enterprise, and Apple will continue to make inroads on the consumer side. As I mentioned last December, MS seems to have lost the consumer game, with the exception of the Xbox. I know Ray Ozzie believes that the company needs to have a win in phones as well, and, for a certain larger success scenario to play out, I agree with him completely. This doesn’t mean that they will.
The CarryAlong was already the fastest-growing computing sector when Steve Jobs launched the iPad (see “Upgrades”). As with his iPod attack on the already-burgeoning MP3 market, we should give Steve credit for getting on a winning horse. You can compare this with Michael Dell’s prediction, at FiReGlobal : West Coast 2009, that CarryAlongs would have flat growth going forward.
The launch of the iPad, taken alone, would certainly blow up that idea.
(I should note that Michael slightly modified this call in a later letter to SNS.)
The opening of the phone to computer operating systems, and the emergence of the new CarryAlong form factor, have opened the door for new players, worldwide, in the OS wars. It is no surprise that Google saw this coming on the handset, the presumed target of a huge new advertising wave, and had to be there, with its year-plus effort creating Android.
Two comments about Android seem appropriate at the moment:
First, it looks like a serious winner, based on early returns, and, more important, its consumer-friendly design. Verizon and Sprint will probably both sell scads of these phones, some integrated by HTC (now splitting its efforts between MS “Phone” OS and Google Android. More on this company in a moment.)
Indeed, the latest HTC phones at Verizon and Sprint, running Android, look like the hottest in the pack – or they did, until the iPhone 4 went on sale and immediately brought down T’s online systems and overwhelmed all of the stores.
I have no doubt that AT&T, with the worst network in the world and the best (i)phone on exclusive contract for a wee while longer, will add Android soon, just as I have no doubt that Apple will start shipping iPhones through other U.S. carriers, either in Q4 or soon thereafter.
Second, Google is not (yet) a product company: it does not have the infrastructure, management chops, or basic support experiences necessary, internally or externally, for product consistency and support. In this sense, although the company comes up with lots of nifty things, the question for rational (i.e., over-25-year-old) customers has to partly be: will anyone be there when it breaks, or when a new version is due out?
This battle on the phone platform is a global battle, and, while Nokia struggles to keep its share flat, and Samsung (South Korea) tries to figure how to make its own entry, where is, well, China – the country with more users than anyone else?
And here we have the Cat’s Paw again. HTC, from Taiwan, is looking to me more and more like a mainland China kind of player. I recently had a short talk with CEO Peter Chou, who sounds like a great guy, and we will probably have Peter as a guest at our next FiReGlobal : West Coast conference.
But close observers will have noticed Apple filing a rather massive set of patent infringement complaints against HTC for its phone/interface designs, at which point HTC, seemingly in the middle of moving from MS to Android, suddenly ran back to Microsoft to obtain blanket patent protection under the larger company’s portfolio.
What, exactly, does that tell you?
Indeed, China remains far behind in this realm, suffering both from self-inflicted delays in 3G as it worked to perfect its (partly stolen) TDS-CDMA standard, and perhaps from a Lack Of Source Technology (LOST?) Syndrome, period.
HTC’s approach, overlaying its own meta-designs on top of either Windows Phone or Google Android, is both clever and fraught with peril. Now, a bit too late, it sees this, I imagine.
Apple, on the other hand, has proved out the value of a closed system, a great product lineup, and a vertically integrated customer offering, from box to content site. (It’s too bad about the AT&T Network in the middle.) There is no one even close to Apple in the categories of consumer delight or integrated design.
Meanwhile, RIM, sensing undefended flanks on the CarryAlong side, has just leaked plans for a new tablet. This company has baffled me since it first launched its pagers: my only way of understanding its consistent success in a cellular world is: Excellent Management. Whether that can take the company up against MS/HP or MS/Dell in the enterprise, I don’t know. I don’t think it will help in the consumer markets.
Indeed, one wonders, if the phone platform is so critical to MS’ future, why it doesn’t just buy RIM (see “Ethermail”). It seems like the right answer, now that Apple’s market cap has outgrown that of MS.
In summary, there are going to be clear winners when the smoke clears. There will be four platforms, and it looks today as though Apple will eventually own the consumer side of the CarryAlong and Phone worlds. This will be a deep disruption to Samsung, Nokia, and RIM; any or all of these may get pushed into enterprise-only mode.
Android has had a great start on the consumer phone, but will need a lot more internal structuring, and better top-down understanding of what it takes to support products, before it is a long-term competitor. Ask T-Mobile how they feel about it, as Android’s first carrier. Or rather, ask the new CEO, as soon as they find one, or sell the company.
Apple and MS are likely to control the CarryAlong OS going forward, if MS and its allies finally “get it” and recognize the strategic importance of the category. However, if HP keeps moving toward its own (non MS) verticalization programme, including WebOS, it will, I think, lose it all in this critical sector.
There it is: pretty simple, given the number of moving parts. I hope our members all prosper by these changes, and I look forward to seeing you do so.
Your comments are always welcome.
Sincerely, Mark R. Anderson CEO
“Adjusting the economic structure is not only a long-term strategic task, it is also an urgent task for today.” – Li Keqiang, in line to be premier of China, on the issue of increased strikes by Chinese workers; from the Financial Times.
“It’s an interesting market. What we have to be very careful of is projecting just how big that particular part of the market is going to be, because it’s very early days since any of these tablets have been on the market.” – Tudor Brown, president of chipmaker ARM.
“The tools to accomplish this include a foreign-focus anti-monopoly law, mandatory technology transfer, compulsory technology licensing, rigged Chinese standards and testing rules, local content requirements, mandates to reveal encryption codes, excessive disclosure for scientific permits and technology patents, discriminatory government procurement policies, and the continued failure to adequately protect intellectual property rights.” – Op-ed piece by James McGregor, former chair of the American Chamber of Commerce in China.
“This is a confirmation that Norway and Russia, two large polar nations, do not have a policy about racing, but a policy about cooperation.” – Jens Stoltenberg, Norwegian PM, on settling 40-year-old differences with Russia over Arctic territorial lines.
“Our highest priority is to keep and build the trust of more than 400M people who use our service.” – Elliot Schrage, Facebook VP.
“All end products – besides TV, from our experience – if [they are] to become very widespread, then they have to sell for less than $100, or even under $50.” – Tsai Ming-kai, chairman and CEO of MediaTek.
“Even Technologists Can’t Predict the Future.” – Headline in a Gordon Crovitz op-ed piece in the Wall St. Journal, describing the paper’s own “D” conference.
So, if you don’t care about the future, go to “D” – per News Corp.’s own self-view. If you do care, then go to FiRe 2011, May 24th, at the Montage Laguna Beach. Our technologists predict the future, successfully, every year, just as SNS has been doing since 1995.
This reminds me of an old favorite saw of mine: When someone tells you they can’t predict the future, believe them. They can’t.
This Windows Phone 7 device has a 4.1-inch WVGA OLED display, 1GHz Snapdragon processor, both AT&T and T-Mobile 3G with 1GB of flash, a 5-megapixel camera, 8GB of storage on an internal microSD card, GPS, and an FM radio.
» Dell Looking Glass
Dell Looking Glass tablet: with NVIDIA’s Tegra 2 chip, set for November
The Looking Glass has a 7-inch 800x480 display. It runs Android 2.1 on a Tegra 2 processor, with an optional TV tuner for ATSC or DVB-T programming. RAM is 4GB, with another 4GB of flash for storage, plus an SDHC slot for up to 32GB expansion, with a 1.3-megapixel camera.
» Dell Streak
Dell’s 7-inch and 10-inch Streak tablets:
Later this “summer,” the phone will be joined by Dell’s “Streak 5” (that’s the Mini 5); and a 7-inch Streak may launch late in 2010, with a 10-inch version released in early 2011, according to Engadget.
IBM researchers have produced a breakthrough technique that allows scientists to create nanoscale objects. The first mission was to produce the smallest 3D map of the world ever.
The team used a heated nanoscale silicon tip, shown here, to carve out a replica of the Swiss Matterhorn. The 25-nanometer-high 3D replica of the Matterhorn was created on molecular glass:
(credit ZDNet)
(See picture above)
Here is an extract from the abstract of the IBM team’s paper on creating a nano-3D map of the world, taken from Science: “For patterning organic resists, optical and electron-beam lithography (EBL) are the most established methods, but at resolutions below 30 nanometers, inherent problems exist caused by unwanted exposure of the resist in nearby areas. We present a scanning-probe lithography method based on the local desorption of a glassy organic resist by a heatable probe. We demonstrate patterning at a half pitch down to 15 nanometers without proximity corrections and throughputs approaching those of Gaussian EBL at similar resolution. Patterns can be transferred to other substrates, and material can be removed in successive steps in order to fabricate complex three-dimensional structures.” For those worried about how chipmakers may continue to proceed along the daunting curve of Moore’s Law, when even UV lithography techniques appear to be at their natural end, here is an answer: using heated nano probes on organic surfaces. You knew they would come up with something, didn’t you? This won’t solve the issue of overheating, but it’s a great step forward.
» Currency Wars: The Swiss Jump In
Members who have been following this thread have seen one country after another pursuing all manner of “unnatural acts” in the new game of manipulating forex rates as a simpler way of making money than improving GDP.
Japan, the master, was long ago joined by China, even better at the practice, with many others playing along as best they can. Even the euro’s decline, seen by many originally as a tragic consequence of the Greek debacle, is now being viewed in the City of London as the smartest move in decades, as the weaker currency helps the Continent keep exports rolling out.
But the Swiss? They were probably not on your radar. Until now.
Often perceived as a rock-solid reserve currency, particularly within the old EU, the Swiss franc has lately had the benefit of Swiss National Bank manipulations on a historic scale. According to the Financial Times, the SNB raised its reserves by $73B, or more than 50%, buying euros and selling the franc, trying to keep its own currency from over-strengthening.
It would appear that this May intervention in the markets was so large as to represent two months of the entire country’s GDP.
Now you see what I mean by comparing the two.
While the move has not been enough to keep the franc from continuing to gain somewhat on the falling euro, it has certainly helped vs. the dollar, falling strongly.
Kind of strange, thinking of central bankers as currency day-traders. And not reassuring.
» The SNS CarryAlong: Who Doesn’t Get It?
With the release of the iPad, Steve Jobs has piled onto the CarryAlong form factor trend, and the iPad’s initial global sales success (best-selling computer to date) is tribute to Apple’s great work AND to the form factor. There is now every reason to believe that the iPad will go on to dominate this category, and to become the best-selling computer of all time.
While Steve “gets it,” there are a surprising number of serious players who don’t. What about a couple of inches wider, or shorter, or smaller, or longer? Surely, to someone who sees no magic in the world, there is no particular magic to one particular size.
Wrong.
Dell, HP, and Lenovo have all blown huge amounts of time and money on dead-end products, apparently thinking that there would be new hits every inch or two along the way between the CarryAlong and the Phone.
The first big fatalities are now already history, just months after their introduction: smartbooks, joined by “minis.” This happened so fast that some companies have yet to release their new offerings in the category, even as the category dries up.
Here’s Lenovo at CES in January: “The smartbook market has the potential to be as large as, or to exceed, the netbook [CarryAlong] market” ( – Ninis Samuel, director of consumer marketing at the company). At the same time, Richard Beyer, CEO of chipmaker Freescale, predicted that 30 smartbooks would be launched in the first quarter of this year.
NVIDIA’s Jen-Hsun Huang, recently interviewed by me at FiRe 2010 on the issue of platforms, said in the FT this week: “We’re all disappointed with how the smartbook and tablet market has developed over the past year or so --- We didn’t really have an operating system to use.” He notes that Android is now going to fill that void.
Sorry, Jen-Hsun, I think you’re riding for a fall: it isn’t the OS, it’s the form factor.
And those from SNS ranks who made that bet, have just broken the computer sales record books.
A little advice to everyone else: stop messing around with the imperfect, and target your improvements (and investments) into the CarryAlong form factor.
Subject: “SNS: ChinaPan”
Mark,
[This issue was a] direct and focused note on one of the truly disturbing economic typologies on a macro scale.
In effect the lack of composite leadership and cohesive measures to govern and manage IP undermines the market-driven incentives of the West.
Moreover, this is trade war at its most basic. There is a lack of rational accounting which needs to target the real flow of wealth. The currency is IP, not dollars.
Thanks for this call to thought!
Kind Regards,
Ivan Zasarsky Deloitte
Ivan,
It has recently occurred to me that future trade relations and alliances will have to be based, at least in part, on IP protection. These “IP-based trade alliances” would easily include Europe, India, Britain, and Australia, but would, today at least, leave out South Korea, Japan, and China.
That would create an interesting shift in the balance of trade, wouldn’t it?
Meanwhile, there is the question of whether China should be removed from the WTO, since it has taken the position that its government (and therefore the majority of its businesses) does not need to adhere to WTO IP protection rules.
That would also be an interesting event.
Mark Anderson Mark,
[This was an] insightful article on ChinaPan that rings depressingly true. I did, however, love the juxtaposition of the ChinaPan piece and Apple’s blow-out quarter. Toyota builds (some) products in the U.S. and ships the profits back to Japan; Apple builds products in Asia and ships the profits back to the U.S. As we watch all of the industries the U.S. has lost, we need to celebrate your “new regime” of Apple, Google, Amazon and, yes, such traditional powers as Microsoft, Intel, HP, Boeing, et al. who retain global leadership positions in their industries.
This notwithstanding, the long-term problem is clear – if you were running things in the U.S. (not such a bad idea!), what’s the answer?
Cheers,
Rick LeFaivre OVP Venture Partners Seattle
Rick,
Along the lines above, I would make a simple case: Western civilization is based upon the development of IP. Today, technology (IP) drives the global economy. No company or country can afford to continue to invest in huge IP projects, if its copies appear on a Hong Kong street for a dollar a few days or weeks after they hit the market.
Recognizing that this existing system of theft will not allow the continued success of modern civilization, I would insist on trade alliances based on IP protection.
Mark Anderson
Mark,
Knowing of your interest in the local orcas, I thought you might find (or have already found) this of interest in today’s NY Times:
www.nytimes.com/2010/04/27/science/27whale.html?ref=science
Best wishes,
John Phillips Teacher Santa Monica, CA
John,
There is work by the National Marine Fisheries Service now showing new species and subspecies groupings of orca around the world, and we have just heard of a separate body of work on the same subject being done in Denmark, with similar results.
My guess is that we are going to find that this species, which has been evolving as the apex predator in the ocean for between 30 and 50 MM years, long ago evolved into nutritional and behavioral niches that led to further genetic pressures and group differentiation.
This will also open up more protection to new species and subspecies, and should alert us to the greater value of the smaller groups.
All of this science will have, and is now having, the additional effect of demonstrating the irretrievable value of the only resident killer whales in the world, already endangered, and now having lost all breeding males in at least one pod. Tragically, this happens as the first paper is published showing potential inbreeding among this population.
Mark Anderson
Mark,
Fascinating times indeed. Who do you think lost out by not acquiring Palm?
Thanks much,
Chetan Sharma Chetan Sharma Consulting Seattle
I don’t think anyone lost out by not acquiring Palm; the sin was in buying them. But if there were one company/nation that was most tempted, I would guess it would have been Samsung/South Korea.
Although I can guess why Todd Bradley, past CEO of Palm and now the VP in charge of Personal Systems, would want to buy the super technology (Web OS) of his old company, the idea that HP is going to prosper by selling hardware with its own operating system is one which, I think, is truly Dead On Arrival.
Mark Anderson
Mark,
Having just read your special alert entitled “Phones Split the Tech Industry,” I found myself agreeing with much of it, but thought that there was one noticeable omission – that of Research In Motion and the BlackBerry development platform. In spite of Apple’s and others’ successes, Canadian paging juggernaut RIM remains huge and does not demonstrate signs of throwing in the towel anytime soon.
I have also agreed with your assessment in the past that Microsoft will remain strong for a long time in the enterprise market. In fact, I have long wondered why Microsoft has not purchased Research in Motion and created a fully vertically integrated corporate Smartphone for the enterprise which Microsoft can dominate from end-to-end and therefore provide a much richer and more “Apple-like” experience.
Do you have any thoughts on why this transaction that seems to make such sense (especially in response to HP’s recent activity) has never come to fruition?
Warmest regards,
Graham Anderson Euclid SR Partners New York
Graham,
Great minds, etc. (Please see my comments above on this exact question.) I think MS buying RIM, on the surface, would be brilliant. If it could keep RIM’s management, or most of it, it would make most sense, since that is the “secret sauce.”
Mark Anderson
Mark,
Want to see your “phone split tech industry” call become even more exciting?
The FDA announced a new program on April 20, 2010 to regulate home-use medical devices and ensure that caregivers and patients safely use these complex devices. A public workshop was held on May 24th.
www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/ucm209138.htm
The FDA has been tracking healthcare migration back to the home since a seminal white paper in 1998 by William A. Herman, of the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health:
“Ironically, it’s beginning to seem that this period of apparently normal centralization [..to special facilities..] was a temporary aberration. A century later, gains in technology are moving care back to home settings”. …”…home-centered capability is expected to become a catalyst for a huge health paradigm shift from ‘last-minute heroic intervention’ to ‘consumer-driven individualized prediction, prevention, early detection, and maintenance” [1] [1] William A. Herman, Donald E. Marlowe, and Harvey Rudolph, “Future Trends in Medical Device Technology: Results of an Expert Survey”, Center for Devices and Radiological Health, FDA, April 8, 1998
And FiRe attendees have been enjoying an early view of this platform shift with speakers such as Don Norman, on designing user interfaces, and Eric Dishman, Intel Senior Fellow, on the coming “Silver Tsunami” bringing challenges and plenty of market opportunity.
Warm regards,
Jean A. Wooldridge, MPH
Jean,
This is a major trend, and it plays well with the related shift toward creation of easy-to-use and cheap devices for emerging markets.
Mobisante’s unveiling, at FiRe 2010, of its handheld, cellphone-based ultrasound unit, is just such a discovery.
Mark Anderson
Mr. Anderson,
Please let me introduce myself. My name is Vaclav and I work with David Vogt of CrowdTrust. [Disclosure: I am an advisor to CrowdTrust, and David serves on the Project Inkwell Steering Committee. – mra]
I had the pleasure of reading two [SNS] articles. First, regarding your views on China and second, on the topic of HP & Palm.
I was wondering what were [your] thoughts about Microsoft acquiring some hardware company, namely HTC, within the smartphone space. They believed that HTC would deliver nothing but MS customers. I think that Mr. Ballmer is unhappy about their move (at least partially) to Android. Intel and Nokia are getting their own OS and HP has their own OS.
Dell is still stuck in the PC world, but it’s uncertain as to how long that will last. Microsoft might buy Dell for the server technology and play Intel against AMD in times to come. IBM is annoyed by the Sun & Oracle deal. IBM lost Java and Oracle gained not only Java, but its server architecture for their datacenters, and its “free” database to go after Microsoft. That’s another discussion. Just more problems for Microsoft.
Microsoft would like to give everybody free phones with Windows Mobile [now Windows Phone] which doesn’t sit well with cell phone manufacturers. Microsoft also needs an app store—another thing that Mr. Jobs got right with iTunes. The store earned him huge amounts of money and as a result, everybody now works for him for free [by showing off their phones? – mra] and only a fraction of competitors can make any money. Smart and humorous.
With regards to [the] iPad. I think the device is in an entirely new class which will allow younger generations to interact with computers drastically different than then how we did. When I talk with others, most of them get hung up on the fact that there is no keyboard. I think that keyboard, as we know it, will become a niche product for data entry. We will have speech
recognition and touch interaction with new interfaces that will respond far better then keyboards and mice.
Thank you for taking the time to read this and I am hoping that one day we’ll get a chance to chat in person.
Yours,
Vaclav Vincalek Pacific Coast Information Systems (PCIS) Ltd. Vancouver, B.C. Canada
Vaclav,
It is a pleasure to meet you electronically. Generally, I would try to disagree with everything you’ve written, to make more interesting copy, but I find myself at a loss: we seem to agree on everything.
I’d say you have a very well-informed understanding of the industry, and of product acceptance.
Mark Anderson
Mark,
I held out on buying an iPad until the 3G came out. I’m now out on the road for the first time with my new toy and I am finding it at least as exciting as the iPhone (which I still consider the best consumer electronics product in human history – as Arthur C. Clarke said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”). Yes, on one level the iPad is just an iPhone with a big screen.
But in this case, “just” is a big deal. A big screen changes the function. It is a legitimate reading (and video) tool in a way the iPhone is not. With 3G and Wi-Fi it is “always on”. And it doesn’t have to boot up. It is just on. Always. (Hey, how about, “always on real time access” – AORTA. It’s got a nice ring to it.) [AORTA is a longtime SNS coined term. – mra]
On the road, it covers most of my needs. And I can even read it in a dimly lit restaurant or bar. But it’s like carrying a magazine. And it has that ineffable “wow” factor. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. It’s just fun to use. A Kindle never inspired me to give up the aesthetic experience of a book. But with the iPad I’m struggling to come up with a reason I would ever want to travel with a book ever again.
I agree with you that this is going to become the best selling computer ever. I only bought it on Friday and already I can’t imagine not having it.
I have been sharing photos with my brothers [while traveling], and it is an example of a valuable function that nothing performs as well as the iPad (we’re not all going to sit around a laptop and look at photos in the same way we pass the iPad around).
Denny Hill Capital Seattle
It is fun watching a revolution happening right before your eyes – and touch.
Now if only I could get Safari to launch on my brand-new iPad, I’d feel the same way.
Mark Anderson
Mark,
Jan Greylorn Consultant Planning Systems Seattle
Quite a few international trading partners of China were “shocked” when the country pointed to its new “Indigenous Preferences” program, essentially forcing IP disclosure and minority ownership on non-Chinese companies, and requiring Chinese government-owned or -controlled companies to purchase China-only technologies and brands.
Now, they get it.
Many Western technology companies are pushing back, behind the scenes, but without much success, I think, to date.
Guess what, guys: you should have been reading SNS. And if you were, you should not have been disclosing your IP.
To now have the final shoe drop is not too surprising: China is demanding source code and encryption algorithms for all non-Chinese security software.
Of course it is. Can you say “No”? No. No. No. No.
See, it isn’t so hard.
No.
Mark Anderson
Re: SNS: Future in Review 2010
Re-reading your wise FiRe interview provoked several quick questions. First, how much of the super-quick trading advantage held by elite NYSE players like Goldman Sachs is due to having their computers located next to the stock exchange... and how much is owed to a much simpler fact - that members of the stock exchange get to trade with each other pretty much for free? (Goldman certainly owns a NYSE seat or several, directly or by proxy.)
You and I don’t get to trade for free, so we limit the speed and number of our trades. Goldman and other seated members don’t have to; any commissions they pay to themselves. So, should not NYSE memberships be considered an unfair, anti-competitive advantage? Simple solutions come to mind:
(Or, instead of a percentage “tax” call it a “fee” and float it to whatever level will pay entirely for the SEC and all related enforcement/research, removing all that from the federal budget books; such a re-naming might make it ideologically palatable and possibly allow this badly needed measure to be slipped into the conference Finance Bill, now under negotiation.) Of course, I am no expert. Curiosity is my metier and this one has me scratching my head.
Oh, one final question. We know that President Obama’s fetish for conciliatory negotiation is his own Grand Delusion. It may be endearing to see him keep extending his hand, but when is enough enough? Isn’t the Minerals Management Service scandal the smoking gun that should get BHO to finally appoint a special prosecutor? One charged to investigate a decade’s systematic depredation and undermining of the United States Civil Service? Sure that sounds like a boring topic. But it is the crime of the century, a deliberate campaign to cripple nearly every agency of government, and the oil in the Gulf is only the most superficial manifestation.
David Brin Physicist and Science Fiction Author San Diego, CA
David,
Good questions, as usual.
As for server location vs. cost: I think there are two different types of trading firms involved here. For vampire firms, like Goldman, having speed access is probably critical to their strategy, which is, I suspect, as close to “front-running” as you can get, without perhaps actually front-running (trading in front of client orders).
I am told that Goldman buys the data leading to prices just before the prices themselves are announced, then calculates the pricing on its own, then makes the trade before a retail investor even sees the price. For that, its servers have to be very close.
For trading companies that are not pursuing this line of trading, then pricing, as you suggest, becomes more of an advantage.
We certainly agree on using Yucca Mountain now; there is much too much waste essentially sitting out in the rain, in many decentralized locations. Lock it up underground, at Yucca. And I agree with you: it will just grow in value, and probably be re-used someday.
It seems to me that, since you wrote this letter perhaps, Obama has finally gotten some steel in him over the oil issue. A few days ago, he demanded, and received, a $20B escrow fund from BP for damage. The company also suspended dividend payments, per Obama’s request.
Indeed, his energy speech of about a week ago was almost a “Churchillian Moment,” as we’ve come to describe what we need on this issue
The saturation of our government services, three levels deep (vs. the usual one), with political appointees specifically either anti-qualified or anti-charter (or anti-regulation, period), has created a lot of expensive, unqualified bureaucratic seat warmers.
We can’t afford it, as Katrina proved, and we don’t want it. I doubt, however, that Obama will go out looking for the trouble that unwinding this carnage would bring.
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 October 26th to 28th, Mark will be hosting panels at the third annual Family Office Circle meeting in Heidelberg, Germany, on Cyberwar, the North American Economy, and Mobile IT.
In between times, he will be moving from air to sea to land in order to complete the first film on the science behind what is killing our killer whales. Is it in time?
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