#1 - Ruminations on the legacy of Steve Jobs
"That day has come." Four simple words that signaled that Steve Jobs felt compelled to step down as CEO of Apple, the company he founded, then lost, then saw ridiculed and written off, only to lead its rebirth and rise to new heights.
It's an incredible story of prevailing (read: dominating) over seemingly insurmountable odds. A story that has no peer in technology, or any other industry, for that matter.
That is why even though this moment was long anticipated...yesterday's announcement nonetheless feels like a "Kennedy" or "Lennon" moment, where you'll remember "where you were when ..."
I say this having seen first-hand the genuine, profound sadness of multitudes of people, both online and on the street, most who (obviously) have never met the man.
Why is this? I think that we all recognize greatness, and appreciate the focus, care, creativity, and original vision that it takes to achieve it.
The realization that one man sits at the junction point of cataclysmic disruptions in personal computing (Apple II/Mac), music (iPod + iTunes), mobile computing (iPhone + iOS), movies (Pixar) and post-PC computing (iPad) is breath taking in its majesty. A legacy with no equal.
Read the full piece HERE.
#2 - Apple's Segmentation Strategy, and the Folly of Conventional Wisdom
There is a myth, more of a meme actually, about the 'inevitability' of commoditization. It is a view of the world that sees things linearly, in terms of singularities, and the so-called "one right path."
In this realm, where commoditization is God, horizontal orientation (versus vertical integration) rules the roost. How else to define consumers, not in flesh and blood terms, not as spirits that aspire to specific outcomes, but rather, as a composite set of loosely-coupled attributes.
This mindset is compelling because it is simple and familiar, but it also leads to blind obsequiousness.
Historical edifices are held as indelible fact. "It's Microsoft v. Apple all over again." "There has to be one absolute, dominant leader." "Open will always prevail -- and should prevail -- over proprietary systems." "Market share matters above all else. Even profits."
There is one small fly in the ointment to this ethos, however, and its name is Apple.
Read the full piece HERE.
#3 - The Great Reset: Why tomorrow may NOT be better than today
Growing up in the waning days of the Carter administration, I remember a societal malaise that was pervasive to the point of toxicity. A common sentiment then was that our best days were behind us.
How did we get there? Most fundamentally, a paralyzing period of stagflation meant double-digit interest rates and no economic growth.
However, it was also fed by an energy crisis; the first signs of Islamic fundamentalism's assent; and a lengthy political hangover that followed a scandal in the White House.
But as they say, it's darkest before the dawn, and in a flash, the malaise was gone.
To be sure, the next 30 years brought with it booms, bubbles and bursts, but the general sense, and one's expectation, was for a better tomorrow.
Today, however, I'd argue that our present no longer sits at such a simple, logical place where tomorrow is necessarily better than today. Simply put, our society is undergoing a "great reset" where for many the future is a very scary place.
Read the full piece HERE.
#4 - You say you want a revolution? It's called Post-PC computing
There is a truism that each wave of computing not only disrupts, but dwarfs its predecessor.
The mainframe was dwarfed by the PC, which in turn has been subordinated by the web.
Now, a new kind of device is taking over. It's mobile, lightweight, simple to use, connected, has a long battery life and is a digital machine for running native apps, web browsing, playing all kinds of media, enabling game playing, taking photos and communicating.
Given its multiplicity of capabilities, it's not hard to imagine a future where post-PC devices dot every nook and cranny of the planet (an estimated 10 billion devices by 2020, according to Morgan Stanley).
But, an analysis of evolving computing models suggests a second, less obvious moral of the story. Namely, when you solve the right core problems central to enabling the emergent wave (as opposed to just bolting on more stuff), all sorts of lifecycle advantages come your way.
Read the full piece HERE.
#5 - Android v. iOS: Why 'openness' may not be best
Open or perish. It’s a meme that’s been embraced as fact ever since Eric Raymond published his seminal essay, 'The Cathedral and the Bazaar.' If you are not “open,” (i.e., open source or open APIs), you don’t get it, and you’re destined for obsolescence.
But while there is an appealing logic to this premise, the reality just isn’t that black and white, especially when it comes to the mobile arena.
Consider the different approaches to openness taken by the two companies with (arguably) the greatest product differentiation, most thriving ecosystems and potent cash-flow generation engines in the business: Apple and Google.
The former (Apple) is more proprietary, with an integrated approach to hardware, software and service. The latter (Google) is generally perceived to be more open, taking a “loosely coupled” approach to systems and services. Both are breakout businesses, with legions of devoted followers. So which approach is better?
Read the full piece HERE.
#6 - Innovation, Inevitability and Why R&D is So Hard
Federico Faggin, whose critical contributions at Intel led to the game-changer that was/is the microprocessor once spoke to the ‘inevitability’ of certain innovations, noting that, “Because these inventions have a certain inevitability about them, the real contribution lies in making the idea actually work.”
Thus, we can look at PCs, iPods, Google, eBay, YouTube, et al as inevitable in the sense that if the gorillas behind these innovations hadn’t broken through with their industry dominant offering, someone else would have.
In fact, Malcolm Gladwell (of ‘The Tipping Point’ fame) argues pretty convincingly in ‘IN THE AIR: Who Says Big Ideas are Rare?' that the history of science is chock full of ideas that several people had at the same time.
Far from minimizing the importance of the BIG BANG impact of wholly new ideas, this simply spotlights the truism that most “inventions” don't come from wholly new principles, but spring forth instead from the synthesis of existing principles.
Read the full piece HERE.
#7 - Retail needs a reboot to survive
While some may view the wholesale destruction of numerous brick-and-mortar segments as inevitable, we all have a vested interest in seeing the retail industry reboot itself for the modern age. Because as Main Street goes, so does America.
This is no mere platitude when you consider that 13.3 percent of all jobs in the U.S. are in retail (that’s 14.7 million jobs in all, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics), and retail is deeply tied to consumer spending, the same spending bracket that accounts for two-thirds of the U.S. economy.
This doesn’t even factor in the natural synergy between our domestic manufacturing base and Main Street retail as a sales channel for that base.
To say that our society and the American economy have undergone a prolonged period of disruption and change is an understatement. We are three-plus years removed from the onset of the Great Recession, a decade beyond the burst of the Internet bubble, and it’s almost five years since the rise of the iPhone, which signaled the true beginning of the always-on era.
Read the full piece HERE.
#8 - Five reasons iPhone vs Android isn't Mac vs Windows
Last week I presented at Stanford Graduate School of Business in a session on Mobile Computing called, "Creating Mobile Experiences: It's the Platform, Stupid."
As the title underscores, I am a big believer that to understand what makes mobile tick, you really need to look beyond a device's hardware shell (important, though it is), and fully factor in the composite that includes its software and service layers; developer tools and the ecosystem "surround."
Successful platforms, after all, are more than the sum of their parts' propositions. They are not simply a bunch of dis-integrated ingredients.
Having built hardware and software platforms since 1994, this thought process has led me to harp endlessly on why the iPhone platform (and its derivatives) is such a game changer. By contrast, I would argue that the long-term success of Android is anything but a given.
It's human nature to look to the past in an attempt to understand the future. As such, I was unsurprised when I was asked during my presentation if Apple and iPhone vs Google and Android in mobile computing is "destined" to play out as Apple and the Mac did when confronted by Microsoft and Windows in the PC wars.
As I have provided "big picture" analysis on this topic before in other posts (here and here), I want to share what I see as the five "little picture" reasons Apple vs. Google isn't destined for the same outcome as Apple vs. Microsoft.
Read the full piece HERE.
#9 - On Life as Art, Poetic Truths & Getting Rich
For me, the process of getting and being rich is simultaneously an aspiration, an outcome and a clear measuring stick of 'success.'
Ah, but isn't success a state of mind, defined by the quality of one's living, the values that one holds and the bedrock of family and friends?
Absolutely, but life is defined by paradoxes and how we reconcile them. After all, many a brilliant artist starves to death or goes bonkers, overcome by the sheer weight of market failure combined with the psychological isolation and loneliness that comes from failing to realize one's goals.
More to the point, we are not brains in a jar. We are flesh and blood, and for the limited time that we all have on the planet, few of us aspire to live monk-like existences devoid of material wants.
Read the full piece HERE.
