Mar 28
The infamous September 2000 video of CEO Steve Ballmer going nuts at a Microsoft 25th anniversary pep rally will likely go down in tech history as one of the funniest videos ever.
Now in true Web 2.0 fashion, some anonymous soul has “mashed-up” that video with the famous iPod silhouette ads to create a possible new ad for Microsoft’s ill-conceived, and likely ill-fated Zune.
Not too long ago, ad agencies, design firms and other creative companies were about the only businesses that widely deployed Macintosh computers to their employees. But for a number of reasons, word of the benefits of Apple Inc. hardware — and software — on enterprise desktops is now spreading….
That list of reasons includes:
- Years of spyware, malware and virus headaches that affect Windows XP have pushed IT managers to scramble for new options they might not have considered in the past.
- The learning curve and disparity of Linux distributions is too high for easy general office use.
- Many corporate applications have been ported to W3-compliant Web services that are OS-agnostic.
- The Mac platform has moved to Windows-compatible Intel chips, which are less expensive and more powerful than older PowerPC processors and make virtualization a viable alternative.
- Mac enterprise administration has become more mainstream and interoperable with Active Directory, Microsoft’s user and inventory LDAP database. Active Directory is the backbone of most corporate environments and can be tied to everything IT-related, including IP phones, facilities access and, of course, computer security. Because Macs work with Microsoft’s directory, enterprise administrators can now more easily manage Macs alongside Windows machines.
- Apple’s consumer lineup is falling into the hands of business decision-makers and their families, and scoring well. What works well at home could do well at work.
Sean Buckley of Telecommunications magazine writes that one quote from the IPTV World Forum in London really stood out for him. That quote, from Accenture’s Arjang Zadeh, stated “quality, not content, is king.” Well, yes and no. It is not that simple, let me explain.
Why would such a quote stand out in Mr. Buckley’s mind? Well, as he goes on to explain, it hits home for him because of problems he encounters with his current provider, Comcast. Fortunately, one of the problems Mr. Buckley describes with Comcast, the transient but eerily predictable, “timeout” error when trying to access the On Demand service, can most likely be explained as an artifact of delivering a two-way service over a network originally designed to support one-way video. Press, On Demand again, and everything works fine. Strange.
IPTV is not immune from “strange” quirks either. In fact ANY digital service is subject to these “quirks”. You see with an analog TV signal (really any analog signal, but we are talking IPTV here) there is a graceful degradation of quality–without entirely interrupting the video program. Remember snow? Depending on the strength of the analog signal you have a really great picture or you have a less than great picture but you have one. In a digital system, digital cable, satellite or IPTV, the degradation is less graceful. Depending on what bits are lost, the picture may still look great, there may be “macroblocking” or the picture may drop entirely. Any of these digital artifacts may occur to cable, satellite or IPTV. Our experience in the field showed us that subscribers that came directly to IPTV from an analog service (Off Air, analog cable) were more sensitive by the digital artifacts. Those that had previous “digital experience” were less sensitive to the artifacts. Makes sense, now.
Without describing in full detail all the of mechanisms available in an IPTV system to ensure Quality of Experience (QoE), suffice it to say, there are several just at the network level which ensure the reliable delivery of packets to the IPTV STB. Of course, IPTV benefits from its inherit support of two-way traffic (unlike the CATV network to which two-way capability has been added).
Furthermore, QoE depends not only on the effectiveness of the network (core, transport, access), but the experience provided by the software platform. Just ask any subscriber of early stage IPTV deployments. Our early customers and their subscribers suffered through painful stages of learning–ours and the service providers–as the industry learned to deliver video over the telecom network reliably. These are the pains I have recently written about for the AT&T Uverse deployment.
However, content is an integral part of QoE and cannot be excluded from analysis. What we (my employer, Siemens Communications) have learned from our leading IPTV customer Belgacom, is that content remains king. This is where I believe I part ways with Messrs Buckley and Zadeh.
Belgacom learned is if licensing premium content was king, licensing exclusive content is like being the galactic emperor. Through their licensing of Belgian Premiere soccer, they attracted and more importantly retain subscribers. As you might expect from any relatively new technology, there have been QoE issues at Belgacom. However, understanding that great content is part of the overall QoE has been critical to the rapid success of BelgacomTV. A lesson for all IPTV service providers..
Mar 1
Om Malik, from Gigaom (see links on right), has written a piece on AT&T Uverse deployment of the Microsoft IPTV platform.
It is hard to get a grip on AT&T’s IPTV efforts. Dubbed Uverse, some say AT&T’s television service it is still stuck in neutral, plagued by technical problems. AT&T, however feels otherwise, and has started making a strong marketing push for the service, according to a report in San Antonio-Express News. The company claims that it has ironed out all the technical glitches and is now ready to take on the cable operators.
We’re ready to take our foot off the brake and step on the accelerator, John Stankey, AT&T’s group president for operations, said Tuesday. By the end of the year, we will be up and running in every significantly sized market where we operate.
Fascinating, since it was only a couple of months ago that the company’s tech troubles were highlighted in the Wall Street Journal, pointing to the problems with Microsoft IPTV software.
From everything I know from publicly available sources and people close to the Microsoft product, the Uverse deployment is stabilizing (apparently, enought that AT&T feels compelled to begin limited rollouts), however the actual deployed service will have far fewer features than AT&T had hoped for and an order of magnitude fewer features than the Microsoft marketing machine has been pitching for the past 2 years.
The actual Uverse product looks very little like what Microsoft has been showing to the market–at trade shows and other public events. Many features of dubious customer value, like “instant channel change” are conspicuously absent from the Uverse deployment. However, their absence is not by choice, but due to poor architectural choices and a poor understanding of service provider economics. It looks like Microsoft is learning the hard lessons about building a scalable IPTV solution–lessons the rest of the industry learned years ago. It would also appear AT&T is learning a tough lesson about listening to the Redmond marketing machine.
Unfortunately for AT&T, the next lessons will be even more painful as their “partner” begins competing with them for their own customers. Just look at what’s happening with Xbox Cinema on Xbox Live. Microsoft has gone to great lengths to ensure their brand remains prominent in their IPTV offering. There will be no question in the mind of Uverse users that they are using a Microsoft product (insert joke here).
The Uverse service gives Microsoft a prime opportunity to upsell subscribers to other Microsoft products like Media Center PCs, powered by Vista and mobile devices powered by Windows Mobile. These devices do not have to be connected to the AT&T Uverse service but connected directly to Microsoft “over the top” of AT&T.
Thus far, Microsoft has played nice (relatively speaking) with its service provider customers in the mobile arena. This is not surprising when you recognize that they have the financial resources and investor backing to be very very patient when entering new markets. However, just as the success of the iPod precipiated Microsoft dumping its “Plays for sure” partners and building their own “iPod killer”, the Zune, I believe the iPhone will inspire the monopolists in Redmond to take a harder stance with wireless operators and begin to push for concessions that give them more control over the mobile devices running Windows–just as they do on PCs today. The emphasis for Microsoft will shift from providing capabilities that give wireless operators the platform and toolsets to build compelling wireless features, to the virtues Windows Mobile for the wireless consumer. The service providers differentiation and value add will diminish to the point that the average mobile consumer won’t care from whom they get the service, but only that they have the latest version of Windows Mobile and Microsoft mobile applications (has anyone seen this movie before?).
This same fate awaits AT&T in their wireline business as their Uverse subscribers increasingly look for Windows and Windows applications, caring less and less about the network (and service provider) that delivers them. The next few years should be interesting.
Steve Jobs definitely loves having symmetry in his product lines, so even though this seems pretty unlikely it’s not totally impossible that he’d want to bring multitouch to stuff besides the iPhone… I hate to perpetuate rumors but this one is too good not to discuss. What do you think, is this the killer feature for Leopard 10.5?
Sales of Apple Inc.’s Mac line of personal computers saw year-over-year growth accelerate over 100 percent during the month of January, with revenue growth rising even further, according to Pacific Crest Securities. Mac sales were up 55% in December. Is this a trend?
Want to cancel your TiVo? When you call to tell them about it, they might just try to teach you how to defeat their DRM in order to keep you as a customer. That’s what happened to Tino, and he wrote all about it….
I explain to her that I know I can move the files over but raw TiVo files are encrypted and useless. She said you can just download an application to convert them yourself. I explained this would be illegal under the DMCA and TiVo somewhat agressevly tries to enforce the encryption. She said so there is no way you can get an application to convert the files. I told her that I could get such an application but that it is quite illegal and Tivo could sue me or worse. The total times she tryed to get me to do something illega so I would keep the TiVo service, about 4. If I wanted to be illegal I could just dump the cable too and friggin download everything DRM and commercial free, DUH.
Morgan Stanley analyst Kathryn Huberty reiterated her buy rating on Apple Inc. shares, saying she believed the market is underestimating the likely success of the iPhone. She raised her 2007 iPhone sales forecast by 33% to 8 million units from 6 million, following a survey of 2,500 U.S. consumers. Huberty also believes Apple’s ability to leverage strong iPhone demand is being underestimated. “While we see positive leverage drivers across Apple’s product segment, the iPhone alone increases scale (better pricing from suppliers), strengthens retail store leverage (increased velocity on fixed-cost base) and takes advantage of lower NAND [memory] pricing in the market,” Huberty said in a research note.
Apple will hold a special event at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) trade show on Sunday, April 15. While no details were available on what, if anything, will be announced at the event, Apple has used such events in the past to launch significant product releases.
I bet it is Leopard OS X 10.5, what do you think?
Although the FAIR USE Act introduced yesterday will have little more than a symbolic effect on the DMCA, that isn’t stopping the Recording Industry Association of America from unloading on the bill with both barrels.
“The DMCA has enabled consumers to enjoy creative works through popular new technologies,” the RIAA said in a statement.”
LOL!
Linen Theme by The Theme Foundry
Copyright © 2012 Ryan Petty. All rights reserved.