MacPro, 4K displays, and supply chain co-ordination

Many including me, have regularly hailed the innovative character of Apple.  In previous posts though, I have noted their innovation in areas other than product which normally steals the limelight. These other areas include in retail and in company cultural learning etc.  Tim Cook, now CEO, was previously in charge of supply chain, and it is this in which we see some clever co-ordination if not yet another example of innovation.

The MacPro product line has hit the headlines in the last twelve months for its delayed upgrades, and since the new radically different design was announced, the fact that it will be assembled in the USA rather than the far east.  One specification detail however has caught my eye, the fact that it can drive two 4K (ultra HD) resolution displays as well as an HDMI screen all simultaneously.  It's not the technical spec itself that peaked my interest (a lesson many traditional tech commentators and analysts should remember) but rather an aspect relating to market size and supply chain.  

Consider the market size for the new MacPro.  It's really aimed at supporting the most demanding professionals in music, video and software development roles.  And even some of those who would have previously bought the MacPro line will now be satisfied with the top end iMac models, given their capabilities. So the market size is likely to be less than it ever was.  The screen components are typically one of the most expensive parts of computers, so how could Apple repeat the trick of economy of scale in their supply chain for 4K displays which they exploited so well across other product lines (e.g. flash storage in iPod and iPhones, and wireless chipsets between computers and mobile products etc.)?  The answer may well lie in their rumoured entry into the television market.  4K TVs have so far sold in very few numbers due to many factors including very high price.  

The provision of an ultra HD 4K screen option in any TV offering (and not touted as the main selling point as others have mistakenly done - the Apple TV will headline other more consumer-friendly distinctive selling points) would offer a way to make economies of scale for the 4K display for MacPro and essentially lower the bill of materials (BoM) cost for both product lines by giving Apple much bigger purchasing volume potential for the cash that they hold.  Secondly, the storyline of the need for 4K display panels when negotiating with suppliers, many of whom like LG and Panasonic may well also be competitors the Cupertino firm wishes to beat in the TV marketplace, is at least useful and at most a strategic masterpiece.  Such competitors have no need to be nervous about 4K displays for the MacPro; their interest in a new player in the TV market would be rather different!  

Apple, Analysts & Innovation

Well it has been a while ... very busy with work ... but I couldn't resist a post about Innovation and Apple and Analysts, given the recent stock price performance of the most successful consumer electronics and computer maker of the last two decades, and the reaction to their quarterly financial results this week.

The sales and therefore revenues of Apple in the last quarter were higher than the same quarter in 2012, and higher than the so-called expert analysts expected.  The profits were down compared to the year ago quarter, and this is because the company has deliberately (including forecasting it in previous quarters) reduced its gross margin which has been traditionally exceptionally high amongst any company. The analysts who seized upon the profits report this week are the same analysts who have been critical that Apple have not made a cheaper low-end iPhone to attract more market-share!   They can't have it both ways.

Next, we are told that Wall Street and the analysts are concerned by the hint from CEO Tim Cook that exciting new innovative product classes (not just upgrades to existing top-selling products) may not be released until the Fall this year and into 2014.  This is criticism of the company that revolutionised the personal computer in 1984, revolutionised the music industry in 2001 with the iPod, and again stunned the world with a revolutionary mobile phone in 2007.  They then ignited the tablet computing market, where other big names had previously failed, in 2010.  Revolutionary products do not come around (even from the leading player) annually or quarterly or monthly.

Also innovation requires not only technical advancement, clever design, and vision to identify solutions which advance the status quo, but also an element of timing in the marketplace too, and the Cupertino company have shown that actually they are very good at timing.  I have no doubt that Apple will revolutionise other product categories in the decade from now, but it will be when they decide the time is right, not ignorant observers.  It's a pity that the market traders don't seem to share this confidence in a company with a proven track record.  Meanwhile competitors in Apple's existing markets are not seeing their stock similarly devalued while they play safe and make cheaper, lower quality plastic copies of lightweight razor thin notebooks, smart phones and tablets.

Finally, while on the subject of innovation, lets not forget that Apple don't only have a track record of technology and product innovation, but also business model innovation, which is in some sense much harder.  The iPod not only revolutionised how we listen to music, but the whole business model of the music industry.  The iPhone not only revolutionised the phone, but again the business model behind cellular data services and transparent charges for them along with seamless WiFi switching models  previously defended by the mobile network providers.  Their retail stores have also revolutionised the high street in terms of the profitability per square foot used for product shelving.  Lastly, the app store model for paying software developers who write apps for iOS is another example of how a traditional business model has been re-shaped by Apple.  

I have no doubt that the biggest obstacle to addressing some of their new potential product classes which the analysts all crave, is how to break and redefine business models underpinning the new products themselves.  This requires partners to be convinced outside of Apple, just as had to happen (with record labels, movie studios etc) to make the iTunes Music Store such a runaway success.  When you develop not just revolutionary products, but also revolutionary user experiences, you invariably rely on convincing third parties outside of your own organisation to begin a disruptive journey with you so that the complete user experience from purchase to service to upgrade and transition is consistent.  This takes time.  I only hope that Apple's future partners show more confidence in them based on their track record than analysts do!

Design as a Mission

Another Jonathan, Mr Ive, the british design guru at Apple HQ, received a knighthood this week.  Like many people, I heard him interviewed on BBC Radio 4's Today programme.  In answer to one question, Sir Jonathan was talking about the importance of design and the culture of purpose at Apple, essentially saying it was the driver to making money rather than subsidiary to it.  For most organisations, especially tech companies, such a business 'mission' statement would sound implausible.  

However in Apple, it is not just a sentence on a piece of paper.  Nor is it even just about the products they make, although these are the most visible examples of it.   It is actually demonstrated in many more ways.  Their retail stores are another example, where designs are incredible including glass domes, glass staircases and other distinctive architectural features.  Corporate design finesse is also represented by the new campus they are building, and even their huge data centres.  Together with their internal 'university' re-enforcing the corporate culture, their mantra of 'start by designing the best - the customers will buy it - the company will make money' - is not only plausible but highly successful. 

The fall '11 device technology landscape

Being somewhat busier these days, my posts here tend to have bigger gaps between them .. but they will still happen! And they may be a little longer when they do.

As summer disappears and the leaves begin falling, more froth is bubbling on the technology landscape as many await the next move by mobile device leader Apple. Yes the next generation iPhone is coming and my 3GS is due for replacement so I await with interest. It's likely that this time the range of iPhones will be increased by a choice of high-end and less expensive models in order to broaden market appeal. The storage capacity of a lower priced model could certainly be smaller, given the imminent simultaneous launch of iCloud and the storage/streaming/download features it supports. The latter will also open the door for a couple of innovations, through its instant app-sync across devices facility.

The first is that when Apple decide the time is right to introduce NFC (Near Field Comms) to their devices, this will likely support multiple features/services, and not just the small-value contactl-less purchasing that most commentators talk about. I expect the sensing and proximity aspects of NFC to feature in a number of distinctive ways. The seconds is in the mapping space and especially how people locate and track other people and things that they care about, in a secure and privacy-aware way.

Away from Cupertino, what else is happening? Well RIM have continued to see BlackBerry sales drop sharply and are shedding jobs ... not good for the major corporate smartphone supplier. Its 200,000 PlayBook tablet sales have also disappointed investors. Travelling by train a lot recently, I see many employees juggling the corporate BlackBerry and their personal device of choice (Android or iPhone). This is an unsustainable behavioural situation and I believe that change will continue to happen in favour of the consumer/personal devices, especially as IT managers, CTOs and employees become more aware of the way that corporate security policies can be automatically and securely deployed remotely to protect company data while leaving the users happier and more productive with an experience/device they enjoy using.

Microsoft have begun to show people what Windows 8 will look like. Something tells me that many Windows users are not yet ready for another new operating system upgrade, they just want their existing PCs to work better like the smiley "I'm a PC" folk shown in Microsoft's recent TV advertisements. (Note that the Redmond company never used to have to advertise PCs a while ago!) And for those that do yearn to embrace the next Windows experience, they may be a little surprised to find that it may not be so happy to run some of the software they traditionally rely on. They may also be wary of the latest layer of user interface to be slapped on top of the system. But that is all in the future.

Samsung are having a hard time in the courts, with rulings in increasing numbers of countries that they cannot sell their Galaxy Tab models which not only compete with iPad but also look so similar in most design aspects that lots of non-geeks could be confused. HTC and other Android system smartphone makers must be still reeling slightly from how Google appeared to get into bed with Motorola last month, and looking for additional alliance options for mobile operating systems, either by partnering or acquisition in order to mitigate risk. However there aren't too many competitive options out there. You might expect the LinkedIn profiles of a few ex WebOS designers to be updated with new employment details soon.

Finally for this time, Intel has announced more about their roadmaps including extra support for even lower power processors that PC manufacturers may use to attempt to compete with the MacBook Air which continues to sell in huge numbers. Intel have also announced support for OpenCL in such processor families coming soon which should increase further the performance of future lightweight Air models. Then, like their bigger notebook siblings, they will be able to ship out some general processing tasks to the GPU (graphics processing unit) when it is not busy painting pixels on the screen.

More of a roundup and opinions of it soon!

Google, Motorola, HP & Autonomy

OK so it's been a while since the last post ... I've been pretty busy enjoying a new role at the TSB, but I couldn't ignore the recent corporate announcements...

So Google buys Motorola Mobile, acquires alot of patents, and says that its Android eco-system for third party hardware partnerships is intact, well maybe for now, but it will be interesting to see how long so called partners like LG, Samsung and HTC feel that they are as equal as Motorola, and stick with Android or cross the bridge to Microsoft and do deals like Nokia have already done. Even the patents Google has bought are not in the important areas of innovative user interface or hardware/software integration (which can be used to defend innovation in the marketplace). Instead they are in the areas of radio and network technology which like Nokia's portfolio can really only be used to extract royalties from others who use those technologies in their products. In 2007, Apple reinvented the phone and changed the mobile industry for good. This week, Google has changed the marketplace again, by effectively dis-incentivising a whole set of traditional mobile phone hardware vendors from having Android as part of their mobile strategy.

And then HP gives up its PC and mobile device businesses. This effectively wipes the traditional lineage of PC vendors (Apollo, DEC, Compaq, and Palm) off the map forever. HP have taken action to stop the haemorrhaging caused by selling large volumes of barely profit-making devices. You might think this is so that they can switch focus from PCs of the past to mobile computing devices of the future. However, with $100m being written off to pay distributors that are resorting to giving away HP tablet products in order to shift inventory, HP have also announced that they are killing off their mobile devices too, to focus on software and printers. They have also been spending by acquiring innovative firm Autonomy, although how HP's remaining hardware will benefit from this is yet to be explained. The ex-Palm employees must feel the most hit upon, having had their distinctive hardware and WebOS system software destroyed, the latter having been strangled by poor quality hardware that no-one wanted to buy. The PC landscape changed today.

Tech Industry overview 2011

As 2011 revs up into full steam, I'm taking a look at various sections of the tech industry. In January the year began with the once amazing Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas but it took place with barely more than a whimper. Facebook continues to lead the pack in the social networking arena, with Apple having failed to tie it's Ping music network into the social giant at the back end of last year. News Corp more recently has launched The Daily, a news service designed solely for online consumption via mobile devices such as Apple's iPad. It is hoping that people will pay for up to the minute news services which are provided by paid professional journalists - we will know by the end of the year whether its hopes are realised. Meanwhile AOL has bought the Huffington Post, taking the opposite view to Murdoch that free web based news content will prevail.

A day or so after an astonishing internal memo by Nokia's CEO was leaked in which he likened the company to a burning ship and catalogued major corporate in-house failures, the company announces a tie-up with Microsoft and its Windows Phone operating system. This virtually signals the end for the old leader Symbian and perhaps Nokia's latest Meego operating system too, as both companies try to catch up with Apple and Google in the mobile devices space. They have a lot of ground to make up and I am very sceptical that they can make it. HP's buyout of Palm has seen it describe a new push in the same marketplace with the inherited WebOS system but they similarly have a huge challenge ahead.

Google is now leading the pack in terms of Android devices sold but Apple remains the leader in terms of money-making in that market. Being a profit-leader is not just a good business statistic. it also gives them a huge cash reserve which is key to strategic purchasing power of components for the next generation of mobile devices. This in turn means that the highest quality devices can be marketed at lower purchase prices which helps drive sales in the longer term.

And meanwhile, on the streets of Cairo, yet another previously dictator-controlled country is suddenly teetering on the brink of overthrow, as people attempt to claim some form of democracy. It is indicative of the Internet's support of people-power that the first clamp down reaction of the incumbent Egyptian regime was to try and cut off the Internet and prevent the mobile social networking being employed by the people organising the protests. And Egypt will not be the last. Gradually over decades, we will see many other dictatorships around the world fall, as technology not only enables people to act on mass with a global voice, but also shows many of them for the first time the freedoms that those in other countries enjoy, and which they then aspire to for themselves.

The rest of 2011 will see some more players in the tech industry merge or otherwise disappear as the strengths of the leading players' platforms increase. Google will continue to suffer the challenge of a continually fragmenting Android system across so many device manufacturers as each of them attempts to differentiate their products. Apple will announce and ship updates to its iPad and iPhone, probably introducing a 'nano' version of the latter to compete at the lower end of the smartphone market. Their high end mobile device replacements will incorporate near field technology to facilitate payments as they take on the banks in the next phase of the iTunes account based eco-system. I see parallels from how the network operators in the mobile phone business have seen their power and value-add services diminish since the original iPhone arrived, appearing in the banking sector as they become bit shifters in the same way as the network providers.

Apple will also want to eventually condense the separate recently launched CDMA iPhone (and later iPad) for Verizon in the USA and other CDMA operators globally into a single worldwide phone which just works anywhere on anyone's network. I think the company is well aware that the international data roaming charges cartel between operators is the single biggest obstacle for users getting the great iOS device experience when travelling overseas. A new open-SIM approach which the operators are already fighting will also be on the Cupertino company's agenda.

The success of iPad shipments in its first full year was absolutely astounding for a new class of product, surpassing the statistics of the previous launches of DVD players, VCRs and other consumer devices, and I think surprising even Apple. The take-up of the iPad in major corporates with hardly any encouragement has also surprised many. This has the potential to really ignite the consumerisation of IT in organisations longer term.

And in the Summer of this year we are promised the next major revision of Apple's computer operating system, OSX (Lion), in which they will begin the transition of many old style computing ideas to the iOS-like mobile computing approaches. I believe the iPad is an embryonic symbol of how computer hardware will almost disappear in the decades to come, as people just get on and do stuff, working with information and media in far more natural ways than the stepping stone technology of the mouse gave us. As mobile networking speeds increase and devices are increasingly sharing information and media between each other, it is likely that Apple will considerably enhance their cloud-based services using infrastructure which is already built.

I doubt very much that 2011 will be boring technological year!

CES 2011 been and gone...

Well, I've had a break and left you all in peace over the Christmas & new year period for a few weeks. Now it's time to review the main stuff at Vegas's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) this year. Even though Apple doesn't attend CES, yet again this year most of the talk seemed to be dominated by one of their products and this time it wasn't phones but tablets. It's not as if they haven't appeared at CES before; in fact there have been concepts and vapourware from lots of companies over many years. However this year everyone it seems was trying to come up with the "iPad killer". So how did they do?

The most likely competitors expected to achieve any moderate success in the market are the RIM PlayBook and the Motorola Xoom. However one of the biggest problems for competing devices to iPad may actually be the sheer confusing number of devices, with around 40 different ones likely to appear in 2011.

Most analysts and commentators still seem to overwhelmingly believe that Apple are likely to continue dominating as market leader with iPad with around 70% share as these competitors come to pass. The PlayBook will try especially to appeal to those corporates that already run Blackberry devices, however the iPad has already become a consumer-led trojan horse in many large global corporations. The PlayBook seems to suffer some power management and browser/scrolling performance issues, the latter apparently common amongst many of the Intel competitors at CES. Many competitors also have too small screen sizes, and the promise of later larger models will worry potential buyers in case the apps each device is trying to build up will not look so great or function well on a different sized screen later.

Apple still leads the way in aesthetics and design, although a new even sleeker upgraded iPad 2 is expected in the next month or two. They also have advantages in hardware-software integration and hence a better user experience, and their massive app store ecosystem. On the profits side, Apple also have cost/volume advantages in component supplies not only due to the number of iPads being made but also some of the components that it shares with other Apple products. This will make it difficult for competing companies to match quality and price of device.

The Smartphone licensing race

So Windows Phone 7 (WP7) is now out there on some handsets attempting to compete with the increasing raft of phones running various versions of Google's Android operating system and Apple's iPhone with its iOS. There is a difference however. Phone manufacturers using WP7 or Android have to license that operating system from Microsoft or Google.

They have to decide in the first place which phone models to bring to market with which features and then which system to licence on top of it. While there is a huge marketing budget behind Microsoft's push for WP7, the manufacturers do not have a bottomless pit when it comes to releasing new models of handset. With the increasing competition in the marketplace, Android and WP7 will be vying with each other in the handset producers' minds. And then once they have made their choice of system for a handset, then they have to decide what version of that system software to release on it. There is already significant fragmentation of Android software versions out there across different devices, and WP7 will likely go the same way once later versions appear to support more features. Because some of these features depend on hardware, not all devices will be able to run or upgrade to all versions.

Apple do not have this problem of licensing iOS on iPhone. They can also more easily plan and control the evolution of the hardware and software features on their devices. Handset producers do not have the option of having iOS on their devices and so when choices have to be made for new handsets, it is one of WP7 or Android that will lose out. As the turf wars begin in the future smartphone market, Apple may end up benefitting from the competition between the other two. This benefit is additional to their ability to provide a simpler user experience and higher build quality from the in-house design and integration of hardware and software, and their superior model for developers to earn money from apps.

Mobile business models

We all know that the world of devices is going mobile. Desktop PC sales have slowed while those of notebook versions have increased over recent years. The smart phone has also dominated the device in people's pockets and tablet devices are now taking off as a more intimate way to use a computer that is carried with you.

As these trends continue, business models need to adapt to so that users' experiences are good, especially in the context of wireless network connections to the increasingly important 'cloud'. The computing industry has tended to embrace these types of changes more readily than the telecommunications industry. Apple's original iPhone, didn't just reinvent the phone (device) but also the business model that the cellular operators had assumed before then. This included data tariffs, customer support ownership, and connection transparency.

There has been one sorry state of affairs, bolstered by an ugly cartel, that has blighted the mobile cellular network business model for mobile devices however; that is the international roaming charges. These are incurred when you take a mobile (cellular networked) device outside of your home country and continue to want to use it in the same way as usual. In practice consumers have chosen to be very wary of this (on vacations and visiting family abroad) and businesses have endured ridiculous costs when their employees have travelled (for meetings abroad etc.). The European Union has spent a considerable time investigating such charges by mobile cellular operators and have finally come up with a ruling. Unfortunately it reduces the prices that can be charged for calls by only tiny amounts (a few pence for UK users) and states that operators should cap and then cut off data connectivity altogether for users who incur a few tens of pounds (euros or dollars) of data usage when an arbitrary level of use is reached. This is not exactly the radical change that is needed.

Mobile devices with continuous connectivity will continue to be most important in the future. The current system of charging and business models has to be broken across international boundaries. It needs the same radical change that the original iPhone stimulated in other areas of business models. Perhaps it needs to be achieved the same way ... through developments in the marketplace, as it seems like leaving it to the regulators is pointless.

Organisations setting expectation

Have just returned from a short vacation trip on the Orient Express, hence the relatively quiet period on this blog ... not much reasonably priced internet access on there! Back now and raring to put fingers to keyboard.

I often mention experience here in this blog, as a differentiator in customer service. And I put it much higher than technical specification for the success of gadgets. My recent trip on one of the most luxurious trains in the world has provided me with another example of a great customer experience, with parallels to the more familiar Apple examples. In the same way that delivery times for Apple products have often been bettered by actual delivery dates, the Orient Express organisation mirrored this by setting expectations of a very reasonable level of customer service and then still exceeding it. This is actually a very simple thing to think about and execute but it's amazing how many organisations just don't get it.

People love to believe that they are getting extras or something better than what is promised. Achieving this when your standards are already good is an example of how to make customers feel great about products and services.

Lingfield Park visit

Today I had the pleasure to talk about future disruptive technology at Lingfield Park in Surrey to a group workshopping the future strategy for the South-East of England. I included material on innovation, the environment, employment and devices amongst many others. The session was run by the SE Partnership Board, and brought together a strong set of influencers from that region to work through the issues. I also had an opportunity to run a longer session at the HQ of the Partnership Board in Guildford later in the day. Thanks to all those who attended, and I hope you had a productive day.

Corporate employee provision

In the future, it is likely that the workforce will be much more fluid than today. Each individual will be more likely to time share between different employers at the same time. Just-in-time skills provision will be a competitive edge for companies. Social networks may support the matching of near-real-time skills provision. Policies in HR departments will need to change to accommodate multiple employers per employee.

Consumerisation of IT provision will enable people to obtain their Information Technology tools personally but yet attach to multiple corporate networks, and for organisations to pay something towards the cost of provision while eliminating duplication. While some of this happens already, it will be far more widespread and commonplace in future.

The Research & Innovation difference

In my previous life, as part of the research and innovation business of a global telecommunications company, I experienced first-hand the challenges of running and reaping the benefits of such a business. The biggest challenge is often getting ideas from research actually exploited and used for benefit either as product or service or internally. Part of the problem with this is how research is seen from other parts of the organisation, and how they interact together. When times are difficult, it is often research which is scrutinised and 'productivity' examined. The productivity of research is clearly driven in large part by the calibre of the people, but the research culture within the organisation is also very important.

The culture of research varies enormously across different organisations and is set from the top management. I have seen good and bad examples in the same organisation depending on the executives and seniors leading research at different times. The key thing I learned is that for success, research needs to be recognised as being different. It isn't the same difference as with other departments like Sales, Marketing, Development, Customer Support etc. For these, one size can fit all in terms of policy and execution. Research on the other hand benefits most when viewed differently. I would highlight a number of examples.

In Human Resources policy for recruitment, you ideally want a very different policy and process for finding new talent. The general HR processes which weed out candidates leaving only well rounded individuals of a traditional profile is wrong for research, where you want to attract and retain people who think different, challenge the status quo and may be rather unorthodox. In finance, it makes very little sense to set budgets on some artificial year boundary and require the same justifications (not none but different) as other operational departments. Research projects don't fit such nicely defined accounting periods, and you will rarely justify them in the same timescales as other departments. And in IT support and purchasing, researchers shouldn't be fenced in by rules that enforce the same vanilla boxes and technology as in the rest of the organisation; instead some need the latest kit or unusual new technology which cannot be corporately approved yet. The final example of many I could quote is accommodation policy. The surroundings for teams of researchers should facilitate the flow of innovative juices, which doesn't mean the use of traditional desks and offices but rather a mix of quiet reading areas and open comfortably furnished areas with unlimited refreshments on tap.

It is the seniors and leaders of research who understand the need for these differences in culture that stand a chance of growing and running a successful business. The people who work in such research organisations will thus feel motivated and valued and ultimately more productive. Their management that will justify these differences for their people to the rest of the business will be those who stand more chance of successfully building a reputation and interaction with the rest of the company.

Does free mean altruism?

I am a Google user. This blog is one example. I also have Gmail, use Google Sites and of course Search. And Google PowerMeter is great. And it's all free! Well of course it means I accept some advertising component but free in the sense of paying. But I am also an Apple user. The MacBook Pro I am typing this on is one example. I also pay for MobileMe services which give me Mail, Websites and data syncing. It's a bit like how I sometimes watch commercial (ad-funded) TV, but I prefer the quality of BBC channels. Advertising pays for a lot but often the best or premium content is paid for by the user directly.

Google don't offer their services for free out of altruism, they do it to further the advertising platform that they use which is a legitimate business model. And just like with the TV, it is good that there are non-"free" alternatives in the marketplace, providing that they are actually delivering quality, and quality that is higher than the ad-funded competition. I am a great supporter of the BBC, but the fact that there are commercial ad-funded competitor channels only helps to maintain the quality the BBC strives for. Microsoft have provided lower quality paid alternatives (Vista, WinMobile, Zune) than Apple; Google are providing good quality free alternatives (Chrome OS, Android, etc.). The competition will be good for innovation, the marketplace and the consumer. I look forward to 2010!

The androids are coming...

The androids are coming ... ok so I have blogged about robots before ... this time I am talking about the Google mobile device operating system! The mobile industry has always been sceptical of success for new entrants ... this was true but wrong in the case of Apple with their iPhone. Will it also be the case for Google with Android?

Well first you need a brand. With its integrated hardware and software approach, Apple specifies and and very carefully controls the brand. Whatever carriers partner with Apple and whichever geography they operate in, the iPhone brand and marketing is very strong and totally controlled. Google has one of the most recognised brands on the planet; so much so in fact that it has become the verb for web searching in our dictionaries. With Android however, Google's brand is practically invisible. Outside of the mobile industry, for the ordinary man or woman in the street, they have a much bigger chance of saying they have heard of iPhone than Android. Android phones have virtually no obvious Google branding. Further, because it is an open free-for-all approach, every Android phone's user interface can look very different, and so far this is the case. As more and more manufacturers bring out Android phones, more and more unfamiliar variations appear. This makes things unrecognisable for users and more complex for third party application developers.

Secondly for success penetrating the mobile market, you need a successful business model. There are three typical approaches. The integrated model which has been a success for RIM with the BlackBerry and Apple for the iPhone (and iPod), the Open model such as Linux and Android, and in between the licensing model used by Windows, and until recently Symbian. The latter has now been taken over by Nokia and is being made open-source. While the Open and Licensing models have worked very well in the computer server and desktop market, they have struggled in the mobile market, where the performance/power balance, interaction through the user interface and integration between hardware and software are all more critical. In fact due to the flexibility of open Android, it is more likely to take share from Windows Mobile than from RIM and Apple.

Google's Android will certainly appear on more phones by the middle of next year. Whether their approaches with brand and business model will mean that Android phones appear in many people's pockets remains to be seen. Android might just become the Linux PC equivalent on mobile devices; an open, flexible, system which appeals to hobbyists and hackers. It could make the mainstream too ... but it will have to change or buck the trend to do so.

Future customer service

It is more than likely that when you last called an organisation for customer service, you were disappointed by the experience. In the UK, this is more than often the case. There are good examples of customer service, but in far too many cases, the emphasis on cost-reduction, centralised command and control structures, inappropriate implementations of technology such as Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and low skilled workers in call centres, means that the customer is left with a bad experience.

New technology can be employed in many ways to provide excellent customer service. Automation and self-service is appropriate for some quick and simple enquiries. However when someone calls with more complex enquiries, technology should ideally get them connected to the most appropriate person who can help within the organisation. It should not be assumed that the most appropriate person will be part of a call centre resource either. Intelligent routing of calls can enable direct connection to any part of the organisation.

Since automation and self-service will deal with routine and simple transactions, the people recruited to provide service in future need to be better educated, and higher skilled than is typical at present. This adds to cost in one way; however this is offset by savings in fewer repeat calls, fewer dropped and abandoned calls, and higher customer satisfaction.

Other technologies such as speech recognition and synthesis can offer some more natural bit automated service. Online communities and forums can also provide alternatives to some traditional call centre operations. Indeed the newer generations will require that organisations utilise many new channels to provide them with service.

The ultimate vision ought to be that organisations provide simple products and services that just work and hence the call centre is less used in the first place. However it is important that where they are required in future, technology is used to improve the experience rather than detract from it.

Making opportunity out of a crisis

Today I had the pleasure to spend time in a session with Peter Weill from the MIT Sloan school of Management who amongst other roles is chair of the Centre for Information Systems Research (CISR).  He was talking about the opportunity within the current economic downturn for organisations to take stock of the real costs and value of the IT they employ and to optimise the business processes which involve the IT systems.   Research his centre has done has shown that the deployment and use of IT infrastructure can have a return on investment (ROI) of more than 80:1, a ratio unsurpassed with any other organisational asset except perhaps the people in it.  But many organisations don't reach anything like this figure.  The current economic crisis provides a context in which ideas to radically revise IT infrastructure are likely to come up against fewer internal blockages and organisational inertia than when times are good.  There is more of an appetite for change at this time than any other.  Peter's view therefore was that this is the time to act.  

The new capitalism ...

I have to admit that I have never found the BBC's Robert Peston's reports on TV news very appealing.  However I read this entry on his blog entitled "the new capitalism" and was very impressed.  It provides a very interesting and succinct summary of the economic position now in the current financial crisis but also makes some excellent points about the likely future now that this has all happened.  This provides an excellent context to examine technology futures in 2009.  I thoroughly recommend reading it.

Following interest rates..

So today the Bank of England lowered the base interest rate to the lowest for 57 years to just 2%.  While this makes life a little better for borrowers, it presents savers with a problem.  Commentators on TV today were recommending that savers faced with lower rates of return than in recent times should shop around and simply move their funds to the banks that offer the best rate for their savings.  This is fine in principle.  But actually there is much inertia to this apparent flexibility.  If you bank online, you really don't want yet another set of login credentials for yet another organisation, everytime you want to move banks.  Indeed this may involve having one time authentication pads or similar devices nowadays.  

People have enough credentials to look after for online services without introducing more just to move money around.  And this is likely to be relatively short term, as each bank offers other deals.  You can spend your whole life checking and re-checking for the best deals on mortgages, savings, insurance etc etc etc.  and then moving all your details around.  Most people don't have that time.   In the future, we will need transparent automatic trusted proxies that act on our behalf, maintaining profile information, and anonymising this information as we require as we go about our online lives.  As we move from managing relatively simple personal profiles of textual information to multiple whole avatars and identities in the virtual world, this need will become even more acute.  For those that already feel they suffer from information overload, you haven't seen anything yet!

Open Innovation

It used to be that companies always kept their R&D secret.  It used to be that research was largely an internal function of a company.  And it used to be that it was only the research department that was charged with responsibility for innovation within a company.  Invention is only innovation when it means something for the customer.  Research and generating inventions expressed through intellectual property is relatively easy.  Turning that invention into innovation is much more challenging.  

Nowadays some companies are breaking these rules from the past.  And its not just the innovative companies that might first spring to mind ... such as Apple.  Even former monopoly telecommunications company BT has changed enormously.  It is now recognised as an innovation leader.  It has transformed from that old monopoly into this innovation leader by taking an open approach to innovation.  It runs scouting teams globally to find the best technology out there.  It has formed strategic partnerships both with academia including the best universities in both the UK and US, and also with suppliers and customers.  The latter is quite novel, through a specific programme of engagement with key large customers to apply research to their problems.  It has the largest foresight team in the UK and its ideas scheme within the company is a leading example of how to harness the innovation of people throughout the organisation.  And it works with New Venture Partners to identify potential spin outs and start-ups for technology it develops in-house.  This sharing of early innovation is perhaps a slightly counter-intuitive way to turn an internal research project into a solution, but has many advantages, including widening early adoption.  

In the future, it is clear that the old models won't be so successful any more.  Supply chains will be more fluid and much more collaboration will be evident all along it.  Rather than just selling to customers, joint development between organisations will shorten timescales and sharpen focus on the solutions to real problems.  In future we won't just be talking about mesh networks of computers, but mesh networks of organisations too.