Thursday, January 26, 2012
Google's Hidden Card: Become An ISP
Image via WikipediaSteve Jobs decided a long time ago that he wanted to do both hardware and software. Bill Gates' cofounder Paul Allen wanted the same. But Bill Gates vetoed the idea. He wanted to focus just on software. Software that will run on all kinds of hardware. You could argue Bill Gates won the first round and Steve Jobs won the second round. But then Google was even more detached from hardware than was Microsoft. And yet Google bought Motorola, a hardware company. Granted it bought Motorola primarily for the patents to hit back in the Android fight. But there is no denying all that hardware.
Larry Page's Challenge
Google is going to build smartphones and tablets in-house. And that is not easy to do. Apple leads that herd.
Google, the king of search, made several clumsy efforts in the social space until it finally hit Google Plus. Google Plus is great, but it is no Facebook. And Google is well positioned in the Big Data space as well as next generation industries like driverless cars. Talk about hardware, software integration. A car is conspicuous hardware.
I think what though will set Google on the path to becoming the most valuable company in the world is Google getting into the ISP space. Hardware-software-connectivity integration beats hardware-software integration. (Not Hardware, Not Software, But Connectivity, One Gig Per Sec: This Is What I Am Talking About)
What would be some of the ingredients? One gigabit per second speed. Ad based. Use snooping technology. (Eric Schmidt's Cloud Computing And My IC Vision)
The snooping technology is that the ISP reads the web addresses of all the websites you visit and serves ads accordingly. It is like Gmail reads all your emails and serves relevant ads. Same thing. It will not be an invasion of privacy. It is machines reading.
Google as a global ISP would eclipse Google as the search engine of choice in terms of influence and revenue. That also might be the best way to conquer the mobile space with Android.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
The $100 Price Point For The Smartphone
Image by Getty Images via @daylife$200 does not feel right. Microsoft and Nokia will have a huge advantage that they seem to want to enter the market at the $100 price point. Microsoft Finally Cracked The Phone
A $200 price point is actually a $600 price point. Only they don't charge you up front. You pay month after month for two years.
BGR: AT&T’s Q1 2012 roadmap: Nokia Lumia 900 to launch March 18th for $99.99
That price point would make this sleek smartphone an absolute game-changer for Windows Phone ..... Nokia could easily have a hit on its hands when this handset launches later this quarter.If Android is free why are the good Android phones the same price as the iPhone?
The real stickler though is the monthly price. There Republic Wireless has nailed it. Only they are not a reality in the market yet. $19 a month is a good price point there.
Republic Wireless, Galaxy Nexus And Tardiness
Netflix Bouncing Back
Image via CrunchBaseI rooted for Netflix when it decided to bet on streaming. (Netflix Cut Off The Gangrene Limb) And then its stock price collapsed. And that surprised me. But now looks like Netflix is bouncing back. That stock price drop was a sneeze it just had to wade through. But cutting off DVDs before the market cut off Netflix was a smart move. It was a life saving move, to put it more bluntly.
A drop in the stock price was the price Netflix paid to stay alive long term.
GigaOm: Netflix streaming users now outnumber DVD subscribers 2:1
even with its steep decline in DVD rentals, the overall number of customers is growing again. Netflix lost 810,000 U.S. subscribers in Q3 as a result of its unsuccessful attempts to spin off the DVD business into a separate company, as well as a price hike earlier in 2011. In Q4, that combined subscriber number once again grew by 610,000...... Netflix won’t enter any other territories in 2012, and might have to work on making more money with streaming if it wants to keep expanding in the future. Because DVDs may not be around for much longer.
Secretive Apple (2)
Image via CrunchBaseSecretive AppleApple: $10 Billion To $400 Billion In 10 Years
The Significance Of Eating An Apple
The Next Web: This is how Apple’s top secret product development process works
Every product at Apple starts with design..... Instead of the design being beholden to the manufacturing, finance or manufacturing departments, these all conform to the will of the design department headed by Jony Ive.
A start-up is formed....... Once a new product has been decided on, a team is organized and segregated from the rest of the company by secrecy agreements and sometimes physical barriers. Sections of the building may be locked or cordoned off to make room for the teams working on a sensitive new project. This effectively creates a ‘start-up’ inside the company that is only responsible to the executive team, freeing them from the reporting structure of a big company.
Apple New Product Process (ANPP). .... a document that sets out every step in the development process of a product in detail .... maps out the stages of the creation, who is responsible for completion, who will work on each stage and when they will be completed.
Products are reviewed every Monday. ...... no product is ever more than two-weeks away from a key decision being made
The EPM mafia. ...... The engineering program manager (EPM) and the global supply manager (GSM). ...... executives that spend most of their time in China overseeing the production process.
Once a product is done, it is designed, built and tested again. ...... a 4-6 week process that ends with a gathering of responsible Apple employees at the factory. ..... The EPM then takes the beta device back to Cupertino for examination and comments, hopping right back on a plane to China to oversee the next iteration of the product. This means that many versions of any given device have been completed, not just partially prototyped. This is an insanely expensive way of building a new product, but it is the standard at Apple.
The packaging room. ...... A room in the Marketing building is completely dedicated to device packaging. The security here is matched only by the sections of the building dedicated to new products and to design. At one point before a new iPod was launched there was an employee who spent hours every day for months simply opening the hundreds of box prototypes within in order to experience and refine the unboxing process.
The launch is controlled by the Rules of the Road....... a top secret document that lists every significant milestone of a product’s development up until launch. Each milestone is annotated with a DRI (directly responsible individual)
Penina First, Swifto (2)
Penina First, Swifto
LinkedIn Swifto is creating a marketplace for things you need now.
CrunchBase
Penina First | Cartier Women's Initiative Awards Swifto is a mobile web-based marketplace for instant local services and needs...... a way to find temporary workers in a flash ..... ‘You can book restaurants and airplanes at the last minute,’ says Penina First, the start-up’s 23 year-old founder and CEO, ‘yet so many simple needs go unmet when friends or word of mouth can’t help.’ In Penina’s mind, the world is slow and old-fashioned about finding people to do odd jobs. ‘You don’t need to read a CV to hire a drive-shoveller or a party-helper! Just mutual trust and their desire to work.’ ...... ‘almost any need! ...... The whole process takes on average 12 minutes, which is the beauty of the concept. A proprietary algorithm gives preference to replies in the direct vicinity, for speed is the essence in Penina’s business plan to trump time and get people not just what they need, but right when they need it. Helpers can be paid via a PayPal account ....... In Israel, the original site generated 3,000 to 4,000 jobs each month for the 19,000 workers on its books. ‘It’s not rocket science!’ says Penina. ‘We just leverage the speed and use of mobile and smartphone technology, so we’re much more dynamic.’ ...... ‘I had over 30 temporary jobs as a student!’ She also has entrepreneurial mettle: ‘when I was 16, I started writing ideas down in a book. I called it Making Products More Efficient and Better! The first idea was for a talcum powder in the form of a spray.’ She may not need to develop that one just yet, since her original idea quickly drummed up seed funding and won Israel’s Prime Minister Award for Innovation, quite a coup for a young girl now heading a full-time staff of 15. What does her family think of her success? ‘They’re amazed that people want to invest in my project! Perhaps it’s because I’m young, I just don’t see the risk.’ In fact, Penina sees Swifto as pure common sense and would have been the first to use her own service.
The Next Women: Penina First, Founder Swifto, on Her Billion Dollar Goal grew up .... in the heart of Jerusalem ..... Even though she received a Masters in Biotechnology, she was always thinking of ways to start a business. As soon as she graduated, she won the Exit09 competition, a prestigious award sponsored by companies like IBM and Google. She used the $100,000 prize and mentorship opportunity to start a company called TodayJob, which helped connect employers with potential employees. ...... After the success of her TodayJob, and at the age of only 24, Penina is excited to launch Swifto, an evolution of her first company, which helps people get what they need in a hurry through the Internet. ...... we'll work our magic and find people who can help you out ...... An online and mobile marketplace for instant needs solved by the people nearby. ...... and I decided that there must be a solution for the sort of problem where you need someone now ..... everything we've achieved is only a beginning ........ Our company's goal is to reach a 1 billion dollar valuation by 2013 ...... Generally I never felt real discrimination against me as a woman or as a young woman either. It may even be an advantage; people remember me because there aren't many women founders out there. ..... Just do it. Don't overthink it.
Quora
Opinion Stage
Digg
Israel21c: The CEO who wants to help New Yorkers get help At just 24, an energetic Jerusalemite is winning prizes for her ambitious company, Swifto, which enables New Yorkers to find helpers in minutes. ...... She has degrees in chemistry and biology, and she loves extreme sports. ..... Never one to be timid, she quickly branched out from Israel and set her sights on New York. ...... Need someone to shovel your driveway before work? Fix your bike in a hurry? Take your cat to the vet? Find a laptop cable in time for tomorrow's business meeting? Swifto can help. ...... goes beyond the Craig's List concept to bring you what you need when you need it. ...... First likes to jet-ski, skydive, swim and play tennis. ...... Since founding her company two years ago, First has built up a staff of 13 in her Herzliya offices. She recently returned from Paris, where she was a finalist in the Cartier Women's Initiative Awards. ...... Born and raised in Jerusalem by American immigrant parents, First has never let a good opportunity pass her by. ...... "I sold chocolates in school, and I bought a coffee machine and sold coffee to kids in older grades. I always knew I wanted to start an innovative company." At 16, she started scribbling down product ideas such as talcum powder in spray form. ...... last November received the Prime Minister's Award for Young Entrepreneurship. ...... generates thousands of jobs each month for about 20,000 registrants. ..... Profits will come from premium rate SMS notification or a percentage of the overall rate. ...... First hired an outside software company to do the initial programming but later took it in-house and currently employs six software developers. ..... "We went through a couple of iterations and will go through more, as we gain an understanding of what the product is and change it according to what people request," she says. "Every day it's something new." ..... "I enjoyed the field of science, but there's a lot of bureaucracy and things happen slowly in biotech," she says. ..... That just wouldn't do for this energetic thrill-seeker who cites Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg as her role model. ..... An award-winning tae kwon do martial artist, First plays tennis and squash, swims, bowls and skydives. She and her husband, who took her last name upon their marriage four years ago, are learning how to surf in the Mediterranean. ...... "The perfect day for me would be waking up very early and going on a jet ski, then swimming from one end of the Kinneret [Sea of Galilee] to the other, then horseback riding," she says.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)