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Posts from the ‘Innovation’ Category

Jun 8

OS X Lion: At $29.99 Apple Applies Pressure to Microsoft

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Yesterday’s trio of announcements by Apple were like manna even for ardent Apple critics.    With new versions of OS X and iOS on the way, Apple also announced iCloud, a set of cloud based services meant to replace aging MobileMe.  There was a lot to like.  While comparisons between OS X Lion and upcoming Windows 8, and iOS5, Android and Windows Phone 7 are inevitable, I continue to be impressed with Apple’s focus on making life easier for its users.  All three initiatives (Lion, iOS 5, iCloud) are major steps forward.  Which bring me to an interesting point.  Pricing.

OS X Lion will be released via the Mac App Store for $29.99.  Yes, $29.99.  OS X users will remember that the current version of OS X, Snow Leopard (10.6) was also $29, but Snow Leopard was positioned as a minor update to Leopard (10.5).  Lion will be different in several ways.  First, Lion will only be available with the Mac App Store.  No disk based distribution.  Second, Lion can be installed on all home computers for $29.99–one, two, three, or ten, it doesn’t matter.  They all get Lion for a one-time charge of $29.99.  Third, Lion will ship as unified client and server versions.

If one is to believe the Apple marketing machine, the Mac continues to gain market share in the personal computing market–a market that shrunk by ~1% for maybe the first time ever.

This led me to think about the pricing pressure on Microsoft as they contemplate the next version of Windows, Windows 8.  The Apple model is different in two very important ways. One, every copy of Lion will be installed on a device built by Apple and on which Apple has earned margin.  Two, the Mac App store gives Apple a share of the revenue on many of the apps & applications which run on its OS.  Apple is moving the personal computing business model toward the wildly successful iOS/iPhone/iPad model.  Lion is the next step.

At $29.99, Lion should bolster Apple’s OS market position while applying a significant pressure on Microsoft to sell the next version of Windows for much less than it has historically.  This cannot come at a worse time for Microsoft.  Already facing pressure from Google in its core productivity application Microsoft Office, Microsoft now faces an OS challenge from Apple that like the threat from Google, applies downward price pressure, but more importantly changes the underlying business model.

Take the new app business model of Lion and bolster it with iCloud services and the way we think of operating systems fundamentally changes.  Apple is truly moving us into a post PC era and they aren’t afraid to cannibalize current products, profits and business models to get there.  Apple’s willingness to innovate on behalf of its customers is reflected in its current share price (AAPL) and market capitalization.

Mar 3

LED Lighting: Finally Ready for Primetime?

Let There Be Light

I’m a huge sceptic when it comes to new lighting technologies. Nothing seems to work quite as well as a good old-fashioned incandescent light bulb.  Yes, they are inefficient, they give off large amounts of heat and  yes, they have a short lifespan.  However, they are relatively cheap, provide a nice warm light, they are dimmable and are simple to dispose of.  There is an almost endless variety of incandescent lighting options.   In the Northwest, with our filtered sunshine and 9 months of gray skies, good lighting is vital. Read more

Oct 20

Gyro Bowl

This isn’t just for kids.  I NEED one too!  From Amazon.com

The Löopa gyro-bowl may look like it’s out of this world because, well, it is. Made with revolutionary spill-resistant technology, the Löopa gyro-bowl will keep your kids entertained and your living room clean at snack time. With gravity-defying engineering, dry food and snacks stay inside the bowl and off your floor no matter what kind of high-flying fun your kids get into.

Sep 29

Viral Loops, the A-list and Building a Successful Business

I started writing this post about a year ago, but never published it.  Today,  I came across an article in FastCompany, entitled “How much are you worth to Facebook?“ The author,  Adam Penenberg, introduces a concept called “viral loops” with which companies like Facebook and Twitter have successfully grew their user base by connecting one user to the next. Read more

Sep 2

Your competitive advantage

Seth Godin 2009Competitive advantage is similar to a concept we Product Managers call “Distinctive Competence” and it is a fundamental building block of any business. Those who don’t define it (early), wander aimlessly in search of customers, revenue and success.

Here’s another brilliant gem from Seth Godin:

People are fickle, but we’re generally rational. When someone makes a choice (hiring, firing, choosing a vendor, buying a soda) they’re using some sort of internal logic and reasoning to support that choice.

As a marketer, you win when they choose you.

So, why choose you?

The answer to that question is your competitive advantage. What makes it likely that more than a few rational people will consider their options and choose you or your company or your organization?

Truth: It’s rarely a computerized cost/benefit analysis. Instead, it’s a human choice.

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Jul 25

Randy Pausch, author of The Last Lecture, has died.

Randy Pausch, the Carnegie Mellon University computer science professor whose final lecture inspired millions, has died of pancreatic cancer. Dr. Pausch, 47, who turned the lecture into a book, said that no one would have been interested in his words of wisdom were he not a man in his 40s with a terminal illness.

For any of you that missed Dr. Pausch’s Last Lecture, here it is:
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More about Dr. Pausch.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randy_Pausch

read more | digg story

Jul 8

CafePress acquires ImageKind

Congratulations to ImageKind and to Kelly Smith of Curious Office on this announcement today!

Imagekind, an online art and poster site that also offers customized framing services, has agreed to be sold to CafePress for $15 million to $20 million in cash and stock, according to a person familiar with the deal.

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The Seattle startup had raised $2.6 million from Curious Office Partners, German book publisher Holtzbrinck, Silicon Valley venture capital firm Crosslink Capital and angel investors.

The company is led by Kevin Saliba, a former Expedia executive. It was originally incubated by Curious Office Partners, a Seattle angel investment firm founded by Adrian Hanauer and Kelly Smith.

May 2

Are gadgets killing the internet?

From The Guardian online:

Jonathan Zittrain, the amiable but intimidatingly brainy 38-year-old professor of “cyberlaw” at both Oxford and Harvard universities, thinks we shouldn’t forget the Hush-A-Phone story: it shows that unimaginable future innovations depend on our present-day technologies being “generative”, or open to being fiddled with. (A personal computer is generative: it can be programmed to do things the manufacturer could never have predicted. A coffee-maker is not.)

But things are looking grim, Zittrain argues in his new book, The Future Of The internet And How To Stop It. While we rightly fret about censorship of the web, a cause with which Zittrain has been closely involved, we’re missing another serious problem, beneath our noses. To put it briefly: those gadgets you love so much — your iPod, your iPhone, your BlackBerry, your PlayStation, your Sky+ box — may be killing the internet.

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Apr 29

Gin, Television and Social Surplus

Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations, has posted on what he calls the “social surplus” or the time we gain by participating in the culture versus just sitting back and watching it pass by pursuing activities like watching TV.

Clay specifically cites TV, and singles outs sitcoms, as a sort of glue holding society together as we transitioned from the Industrial Revolution to post WWII society with higher GDP per capita, better life expectancy and more free time. Now imagine if all that time spent watching TV could be put to use and benefit of society–the social surplus. Read more

Apr 6

Joost Disappoints as Next YouTube

Internet TV startup Joost, backed by CBS, was supposed to be as big as YouTube. Instead, it’s in danger of being squeezed out as the networks scramble for a billion-dollar payday.

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