Davemichels

Samsung and BlackBerry are good enough for government work.

Late Thursday, the U.S. Department of Defense granted security approvals to BlackBerry’s new BlackBerry 10 devices — the Z10 and Q10 — and to a version of Samsung’s Galaxy S4 that’s outfitted with Knox, the company’s new security software.

Though DOD approval won’t result in immediate product orders for either company, it does clear the way for orders to be placed in the future. Good news, since the Pentagon currently has some 600,000 mobile device users. More important, however, are the implications of the agency’s endorsement.

Certification by the Pentagon is the gold standard in mobile device security. And it opens the door to all sorts of lucrative contracts from government customers and those from highly regulated industries like healthcare and finance.

So, truly a significant milestone for BlackBerry and Samsung, which, with Knox, has just fielded the very first approved-for-DOD-use Android-powered device. But not for Apple. It, too, is seeking security clearance for iOS 6. But the Pentagon has yet to grant it, though it is expected to later this month.

Looking for a remote webcam solution for monitoring the home or office? There’s no lack of such products, but they often require a monthly fee and have either confusing software or a setup process that’s too complicated for many. A new Indiegogo project kicked off on Monday for Skycam, which solves all of these challenges thanks to Skype.

For $99, project backers get a Skycam webcam that can record video on a micro SD card. Of course, you can access the camera remotely in real-time from practically any connected PC or Mac, tablet or mobile phone running iOS, Android, Windows Phone 8 or BlackBerry. The secret sauce here is the use of Skype.

To set up the Skycam, you simply add it to your Skype account where it becomes one of your favorite contacts. Want to pop in and check on the pets? Just call your Skycam through the standard Skype application:

I’ve actually set up several different remote access webcams in my home over the past few years and I have to say: I think more simplicity is needed for these products. Each camera I’ve used has its own software, which typically isn’t the greatest quality. I often rely on third-party apps to access the cameras, but even these have their quirks. And gaining true remote access to a home-based camera typically requires firewall configuration, static IP addresses and — in some cases — a third-party DNS solution.

That’s why I think this project is on to something. It alleviates all of the challenges I just outlined and makes a remote webcam more of an easy to use appliance. And it does so with software that’s commonly used already. I also like how this isn’t a standard webcam you’d typically use for video chatting: Skycam can be used to monitor a dark or lowly lit room; a feature I like on my existing webcams.

With a built-in microphone and speaker, you can even use Skycam to chat with someone nearby the camera. Of course, you’ll see them, but they won’t see you. I do wish the Skycam had tilt and pan capabilities, but that would be tricky to implement with Skype as the underlying transport solution. And it would complicate what looks to be an economical and simple way to monitor a remote area.

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People pining for Skype video calls directly in the browser have something to look forward to today, provided they use Outlook.com for their email. On Tuesday, Skype announced a preview of web support for its audio, video and instant messaging services in Firefox, Internet Explorer and Chrome. The service is integrated directly with Outlook.com, making it easier to make and receive Skype calls directly from your inbox.

Skype is rolling out the new service Tuesday in the U.K., with the U.S. and Germany to follow in the coming weeks. Worldwide availability is expected over the next four to five months.

Being based in the U.S., I can’t test Skype over the web just yet, although I’d like to since I use a browser-based Chromebook Pixel as my full time computer. In the meantime then, I’ll have to be satisfied with this Skype demonstration video:

Note that in order to get Skype in Outlook.com you’ll have to install a browser plug-in. That tells me that Microsoft likely isn’t using the WebRTC protocol to enable Skype in the browser even though last year it signaled support for it. Firefox and Chrome already support WebRTC, which natively allows for audio and video calls in browsers without any plug-in required.

It would be nice to see Microsoft eventually open up Skype to browsers without requiring Outlook.com. I doubt it will; at least not for a long while. Kudos to Microsoft from a business perspective, however: it’s a smart play  to make the company’s email service more attractive to the millions that already use Skype around the world..

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Blackberry’s CEO is back giving more awesomely quote-worthy statements to the press as his company tries to make itself relevant once again in mobile computing. This week Thorsten Heins made waves by opining on the limited future of one of tech’s strongest growing device categories: tablets.

He told Bloomberg:

“In five years I don’t think there’ll be a reason to have a tablet anymore,” Heins said in an interview yesterday at the Milken Institute conference in Los Angeles. “Maybe a big screen in your workspace, but not a tablet as such. Tablets themselves are not a good business model.”

BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins

Heins’ comments have been mocked mostly for his eye-popping five-year prediction and because of the fresh memories of BlackBerry’s utter flop in the tablet market: the Playbook. But, really, it’s not totally impossible that something much more compelling than tablets may emerge before 2018 that will make iPads or Galaxy tablets unnecessary — that’s just the nature of tech. After all, BlackBerry executives know all too well how quickly an established market can change after watching the iPhone and Android decimate its smartphone  business over the last several years.

But, as a factual, across-the-board statement, the notion that “tablets aren’t a good business model” is problematic. There’s at least one company that might argue with him since it’s been doing pretty well in part thanks to its decision to start making tablets in January 2010. Samsung, for its part, seems pretty happy with its decision to get into that business too. Gartner expects the worldwide tablet business to grow from 197 million units this year to 467 million units by 2017.

You know who’s not having a great time in the tablet market? Companies that were late to the game. Like Motorola. And Dell. Don’t forget HP’s Palm debacle.

And, yes, BlackBerry. The BlackBerry Playbook arrived a year after the iPad, but the software was missing huge, important things, like native email and calendaring. The tablet flopped, and the company wrote off a large amount of unsold devices.

The Bloomberg article reminds us that Heins has previously said he’ll make another Playbook if he can make it profitably. That statement is more in touch with reality: it’s possible that BlackBerry can’t make a tablet that is measurably better than what’s already on the market and do it at a profit. It’s hard to compete with Apple and Samsung at this point, given their strong mobile computing brands and deep supply chains.

Heins seems to be implying that smartphones will be more central to the computing experience, as Matt Rosoff argues here at CITEWorld. That’s certainly plausible, but the idea that BlackBerry will be the one to figure this out is harder to believe.

In any event, Heins’ biggest priority right now is promoting his latest smartphones and the new BlackBerry 10 operating system. The success or failure of those products, as opposed to the future of tablets, will determine if his company is around in five years.

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If you want to know the most in-demand tech skills, that info is readily available. Want to learn the programming skills most coveted by employers? Done. But what are the skills and specialties that no one wants any more? What core competencies raise red flags instead of call backs? 

(See also the Top 7 Most In Demand Tech Skills For 2013 and 15 Programming Skills Most Coveted By Employers.)

A survey of 1,100 tech-hiring professionals by Dice, a job firm for tech professionals, offers some insight. Combining the Dice survey and other research, including an off-the-record conversation with an engineering VP who participates in hiring decisions, here are some of the outdated tech skills and withering technologies to be wary of putting on your resume:  

1. Windows XP Admin/Help Desk

Many IT professionals, from engineers to help desk support workers to system administrators, have significant XP experience. Unfortunately, this may no longer be a useful attribute. Windows XP still holds the #2 spot for desktop operating market share (just behind Windows 7), but its fate is sealed. Microsoft ended XP license sales more than two years ago and plans to cease supporting it in less than a year. 

(See also Microsoft Is Trying To Sell Windows 8 To Enterprises, But Most Want Windows 7 Instead.)

2. Adobe Flash Developer/Designer

Web developers, app developers and designers have long relied on Adobe Flash to create interactive features. Yet Flash's future, particularly on mobile - is quickly drying up. It's now been three years since Steve Jobs created a stir when he posted his Thoughts on Flash memo outlining the reasons why Flash would not be part of Apple's iOS. At the time, Flash was considered so dominant that many analysts wondered if Jobs' decision would crush iPhone sales.

It did not.

Just over a year after the Jobs memo, Adobe announced it would stop developing Flash for mobile devices. Today, Adobe's former CTO, Kevin Lynch, works for Apple. The future belongs to HTML5. Learn, write and build accordingly.

3. Software Support

The transformation of computing from desktop to mobile, and especially the transition of software and services into the cloud is limiting opportunities for traditional/packaged software support. Today, you need to know how to manage software services and software configurations in the cloud. 

(See also Legacy IT Vendors Shoot The Sales Messenger.)

4. SEO Specialist

Google no longer has a Search group. It's now called "Knowledge." That should be a telling warning for all the search engine optimization (SEO) gurus and ninjas looking for work. Expect SEO work to be de-valued going forward. The explosion of smartphones, apps and real-time location information - and especially social media recommendation - is diminishing the importance of search results. Eventually, information may be delivered to us even before we search for it as our integrated, connected systems anticipate our needs.

5. Quality Assurance Specialist and Managers

Hiring professionals in the Dice survey placed Quality Assurance (QA) on the "low priority" side of the ledger. Do not expect this to change. These days, the tech industry seems to be following Google's lead and turning everyone into beta testers. Users are the ultimate quality assurance staff - and they don't get paid!

6. - 9. Mainframes, Voice Telephony, PC Support, COBOL

According to a recent story in the Austin Post, tech recruiters "recommended (that) a 40-year-old still working in COBOL reevaluate why they're a coder." Pretty harsh. But the fact is, technology continues to move forward with no time spared for sentiment.

If you are gainfully employed as a PC repair tech, a COBOL coder, or are working on any of several older technologies, such as voice telephony or as a PBX technician, say, good for you. But don't count on keeping that job for the long-term, or being able to find another one like it. 

10. Something That Seems Secure Today

The TIOBE Programming Community Index lists C, Java, C++ and Objective-C as the programming skills most in demand right now. But here's the thing. In 2009, Objective-C was barely in use. The rapid success of the iPhone and iPad vaulted the language's popularity. Now, however, just over three years later, its popularity is already stabilizing.

In today's superheated technology environment, even the most popular, most secure seeming technology skills can suddenly become obsolete. That's just the way it is. No matter how in-demand your current skill set, you can never rest on your resume. 

Learning Is The Key

Will highlighting the wrong skill set to a recruiter brand you as out of touch - or too expensive to hire? Perhaps. But don't expect anyone to tell you that's what going on. More likely, they may just won't return your call, or let your resume vanish into the ether. (There will probably always be a few legacy jobs in all these areas, but that's about it.)

The only solution is to keep learning - and keep showing that you can learn. While the pace of skills disruption may well be increasing, learning new skills has never been easier. That includes formal schooling as well as free and low-cost resources like Khan Academy and CodeAcademy, for example. 

Here's the bottom line: Since so much technology is fairly new to everyone, why should a company invest in experienced candidates - rather than someone just starting out? Writing for The Wall Street Journal, business professor and entrepreneur Vivek Wadhwa, was brutally direct:

It may be wrong, but look at this from the point of view of the employer. Why would any company pay a computer programmer with out-of-date skills a salary of say $150,000, when it can hire a fresh graduate — who has no skills — for around $60,000? Even if it spends a month training the younger worker, the company is still far ahead. 

(See also Vivek Wadwha in How A $20 Tablet Will Change The World [Video].)

It's not just about the money, of course. To justify any salary, it's not only about what you know - now - but what you can learn going forward. The key to a long career in Silicon Valley, or anywhere in the tech world, is showing that you can learn and adapt - and master - constant change.

Good luck!

Lead image courtesy of Flickr.

A workplace collaboration platform might not be worth anything without real-time functionality these days, so Citrix has stepped up its game.

There has been talk within the telecom industry for many years regarding whether communications service providers would eventually just become providers of dumb pipes or provide added value they can charge for. The move to IMS in-part was supposed to allow these companies to add more apps and services to their offerings, allowing them to generate more revenue.

When Apple opened up its iPhone platform, hundreds of thousands of apps began to do many of the things telcos would have liked to provide. Moreover, many functions which telcos used to charge for like SMS were given away for free from the likes of WhatsApp and Facebook.

A natural place for these companies to look for growth is an adjacent industry – one which could not easily be disrupted by an app or a technology shift.

This explains AT&T’s move into the home security market with its Digital Life solutions which also tackle the task of home automation. TMC reported on this news in the past but the big roll out was today in Atlanta, Austin, Texas, Boulder, Colo., Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, Philadelphia, Riverside, Calif., San Francisco, Seattle, St. Louis and select areas of the New York and New Jersey metropolitan area. The company plans to introduce Digital Life in up to 50 markets by the end of 2013.

“We know how important security is to our customers, and this was our top priority when we set out to build Digital Life,” said Kevin Petersen, senior vice president, AT&T Digital Life. “People rely on their mobile devices more than ever, so Digital Life offers an easy and convenient way to secure their homes, protect their families and simplify their lives from virtually anywhere.”

The system is designed to be user-friendly and control cameras, door locks, lights, thermostats, small appliances and provide the capability of setting alerts or programs which manage your home.

Customers can choose from two base plans: Simple Security, which is their basic home security package; or Smart Security which includes enhanced security features and the option to add home automation.

• Simple Security - Includes 24/7 home monitoring, 24-hour battery backup, a wireless keypad, keychain remote, recessed sensors and an indoor siren for $29.99 a month plus $149.99 for equipment and installation.
• Smart Security - Includes the benefits of Simple Security plus a choice of three of the following features: motion sensor, carbon monoxide sensor, glass break sensor, smoke sensor or takeover kit.  Smart Security begins at $39.99 a month plus $249.99 for equipment and installation.

Customers who select Smart Security can add these automation packages:

• Camera Package - View live video from inside and outside of the home for an additional $9.99 a month plus equipment and installation.
• Energy Package - Control appliances, lighting and thermostats for convenience and energy efficiency for an additional $4.99 a month plus equipment and installation.
• Door Package - Allow a pet sitter or repairman into your home remotely with automated door locks, or check to see whether your garage door is open or closed for an additional $4.99 a month plus equipment and installation.
• Water Detection Package - Detect water leaks before damage occurs for an additional $4.99 a month plus equipment and installation.
• Water Control Package - Detect leaks and shut off water at the main water source for an additional $9.99 a month plus equipment and installation.

According to wireless analyst Jeff Kagan, "This is the kind of new and innovative service we can expect from the wireless industry going forward. This is an exciting opportunity for AT&T, and a competitive threat to the traditional home security and automation business. I think we can expect to see much more innovation in this space thanks to this move from AT&T. This service connects every part of a consumer's home to the AT&T Mobility wireless network. Home automation and security is the next generation of services we will see AT&T offer across the country."

ADT is the leading player in the market with nearly 16,000 employees and over six million small business and residential customers. They will have to contend with a new and very large competitor in AT&T.

I reached out to Sarah Cohn, Director, Media Relations about the company’s thoughts on the new competition and she said, “With nearly 140 years of experience, our customers have told us that what matters most to them is the quality and reliability of our home automation and security solutions. Telecom and cable companies have been in the security space before, and we welcome their re-entry because we believe it will not only raise awareness of smart home technology, but also expand the category, ultimately helping to attract new customers to ADT Pulse.”

Of course AT&T has the ability to not only offer home automation but can further bundle television, wireless and broadband service into an attractive package which may cut into ADT’s margins if they choose to compete for market share. Consider this the new quadruple or quintuple play. Moreover, AT&T has retail stores which means this real estate has just become more valuable as some customers will certainly be swayed to purchase from the company which allows them to speak to a salesperson about their home security system in their local shopping center or mall. In fact, home automation can be a complex concept to many - seeing solutions in action at a store is likely the best way to sell such solutions.

There is always the chance that AT&T’s marketing clout will grow the market and as a result, the entire home security and automation sector will see a boost. Either way, for AT&T, the move to offer television and now security and home automation shows that communications service providers do have numerous options when it comes to extending their revenue base beyond just dumb pipes.

Tags: adt, at&t, att, home automation, home security, verison Related tags: equipment installation, smart security, simple security, security includes, service providers, security

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While software-defined networking (SDN) seems to be still stuck in the hype cycle, use cases from service providers and a few enterprises were on display at the Open Networking Summit last week. And now more could be on the way, this time from businesses operating at webscale: Facebook and Amazon.

According to a job description posted on the careers section of Facebook, the social-networking company looks like it wants to deploy software-defined networks at production scale. The right person for the open software-engineer job will head up efforts around “designing and implementing control plane systems for our network.” The job “may involve evaluating third party and open source software,” among other possible tasks. That could mean Facebook wants to explore existing proprietary controllers and other software components from vendors such as Big Switch, alongside the code that will emerge from the OpenDaylight Project vendor-led consortium.

The Facebook SDN hire suggests that Facebook is now ready to go beyond early-stage work that Facebook was doing at the beginning of the year and apparently was engaged in as early as March 2011.

As for Amazon, the retailer and Amazon Web Services operator posted earlier this month openings for an “SDN Software Development Engineer” and a “Systems Engineer” focused on “EC2 High Performance Network Virtualization.”

Amazon has a couple of ideas up its sleeve, judging by the job descriptions. First, it wants to improve the performance of its virtualized networks, to make them perform as well as networks running on bare metal. Then, Amazon wants to make multiple SDN features available to AWS customers. And because AWS is so popular and continues to grow, that could have some neat implications for customers interested in making their bandwidth as scalable as their compute and storage resources.

Amazon did not respond to a request for comment, and a Facebook spokesman was not able to provide any additional detail. But Jay Parikh, Facebook’s vice president of infrastructure engineering, will be talking at GigaOM’s Structure conference in San Francisco on June 19, and maybe then we’ll hear more information.

If the new Facebook and Amazon SDN hires move quickly, next year’s Open Networking Summit could be filled with some of the biggest use cases yet. Even so, wide-scale use of SDN among enterprises might come later next year, if not in 2015.

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It appears that Deutsche Telekom has decided that it can and should ignore the basic principles of net neutrality. It is setting up limits on how much traffic its customers can use, and saying that competitors' video products will automatically be throttled to 384k, which makes them basically useless. But, of course, this throttling does not apply to Deutsche Telekom's own video offerings.

The data traffic generated by the use of Telekom' own IPTV platform Entertain won't be attributed to the volume integrated in the tariffs. "With Entertain, customers book television. We will therefore ensure that they will not suddenly sit in front of a black screen," explained Hagspihl. Also, voice telephony through Telekom's fixed line subscription will be excluded.

But... competitors? Well, too bad. This is a fairly bold move by DT. Of course, telcos have long wanted to do this, trying to force people and lock them in to their own (often overprice and underpowered) services, but to directly punish competitors is a pretty blatant statement by Deutsche Telekom that it thinks it can get away with this because of its dominant position in the market. Of course, if I'm a Deutsche Telekom customer, I'd be incredibly pissed off that Deutsche Telekom is basically telling me that I'll be penalized for using other video or voice services, even if they're better. Yes, those competing services will work fine beneath a certain traffic level, but people don't realize just how much data they often use these days -- especially when you're talking about bandwidth-heavy video.

Deutsche Telekom's explanation for this is almost entirely bogus.

"We want to continue offering our customers the best network in future into which we invest billions of euros. However, constantly increasing bandwidths can't be financed through constantly dropping prices. We will have to charge customers with very high data consumption more in future," said Michael Hagspihl, managing director marketing at Telekom Deutschland.

First of all, broadband remains an incredibly profitable business, and while the telcos love to make these claims, they're simply not supported by the data. They're making money like crazy on their existing networks, and although keeping up with the growth in bandwidth does require some investment, it's easily affordable under the current structure. What this is about is exactly what everyone knows: killing off competitors, limiting the market from disruption and trying to control these other services, like video and voice, so that people are forced into using Deutsche Telekom's own services.

In fact, Deutsche Telekom's CEO more or less shows off the standard hubris of telco execs these days, believing that the only thing that's important on the internet is his network, and everything else you get is only because of him:

"Without our telecommunications networks and modern primary products there wouldn't be any online services coming from Google or Apple," [Deutsche Telekom CEO Rene] Obermann told the Deutsche Presse Agentur.

Uh, I think you mean that without your monopoly power over the network people wouldn't have to use your lines to reach those services, which is what they really want. The "value" here that people get isn't Deutsche Telekom. They supply the pipes. The value is in all of the various services available, and Deutsche Telekom is trying to make those useless... oh, unless, those service providers want to pay up. It's the same old net neutrality story. The telcos overvalue their networks and they try to get paid twice for the same thing. They want customers to pay to reach Google and Google to pay to reach the customers.

Thankfully, the German government isn't too keen on where this is going:

Economic Minister Philipp Rösler voiced concern in a letter to Telekom's CEO Rene Obermann on Wednesday, a copy of which Spiegel Online obtained.

In the letter, Rösler warned of possible restrictions for "flat rate" customers. He said Federal government and consumer protection authorities would "follow very carefully further developments in relation to the varying treatment of Telekom's own services, and that of others, in terms of network neutrality."

Federal Consumer Protection Minister Ilse Aigner also criticized the new policy in an interview with Spiegel Online. "At first glance, progress for the customer can not be seen," she said. "Limiting flat rates is certainly not consumer-friendly," the Bavarian conservative CSU minister said.

Deutsche Telekom has its dominant position in the market because until not that long ago it was the state owned telecom provider. Trying to block out competitors with bogus excuses and limitations for consumers certainly seems like a pretty big abuse of that position.

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After months of talking in broad strokes about its intent to get into the home security business, AT&T is ready with the full details.

The company says its “Digital Life” service is now available in 15 cities — Atlanta; Austin, Texas; Boulder, Colo.; Chicago; Dallas; Denver; Houston; Los Angeles; Miami; Philadelphia, Riverside, Calif.; San Francisco; Seattle; St. Louis and parts of the New York and New Jersey metropolitan area.

The company plans to expand to more than 50 cities by the end of this year.

As for pricing, the basic service will start at $30 a month (plus $150 upfront for equipment). For $10 more per month (and an additional $100 in equipment fees), users can add three additional services, including sensors for motion, glass breakage, smoke or carbon monoxide.

For even more, customers can add cameras, water-leak sensors, remote-controlled door locks and other features.

The service is designed to work regardless of which provider a customer has for their home phone or wireless service. Mobile apps for Android, iOS and Windows Phone allow customers to keep tabs on the service.

“We know how important security is to our customers, and this was our top priority when we set out to build Digital Life,” AT&T’s Kevin Petersen said in a statement. “People rely on their mobile devices more than ever, so Digital Life offers an easy and convenient way to secure their homes, protect their families and simplify their lives from virtually anywhere.”

AT&T’s pricing and options are designed to compete with similar services offered by security specialists like ADT as well as regional players and other new entrants, such as cable provider Comcast.

Video conferencing is growing and it is doing so in the enterprise market – just not in the way it is measured today.

[If you are new around here, then you should know I've been writing about WebRTC lately. You can skim through the WebRTC post series or just read what WebRTC is all about.]

David Byrd wrote earlier this month about “growth” in telepresence and video conferencing:

According to IDC, the worldwide enterprise videoconferencing and telepresence equipment market declined 8.6% year over year in fourth quarter of 2012. The full year total for 2011 was $2.71 billion versus $2.64 billion in 2012. The decline was attributed to global macroeconomics rather than businesses souring on the need for video solutions. In fact, good growth was seen in room based video conferencing (4.1%) and personal videoconferencing (5.0%). The segment demonstrating a continued decline was the high-end or multi-codec immersive telepresence segment, which declined 32.8%.

So there’s a decline. It is in telepresence (which I rather hate), but room systems and “personal” ones saw “good” growth.

Bollocks.

Yes. There’s a demand.

Yes. Video conferencing is still needed.

But how many more room systems and “personal” systems do you need when you can get a bring-your-own solution for free? Be it Skype, Google Hangout, Tango, FaceTime, Twelephone, Bistri or any other.

There are more hourly video minutes on Skype than there are video conferencing systems of the type described above worldwide. Probably there are more ongoing Skype video calls at this moment than there are video conferencing systems out there…

Video conferencing is the high end of the market, but the low end is getting to a point that it should be analyzed and somehow added to the figures, otherwise, we will start losing interest.

I had a video call of the good-old type a few weeks ago – one that used Scopia Desktop, a product I’ve had the pleasure to use at RADVISION for many years. And yes, the video quality is better than most anything else I tried in the last couple of months (except for that telepresence call I attended). But you know what? It didn’t make a difference. I can live with the difference in quality quite easily and I am sure almost anyone else can as well.

And Skype is definitely growing. So are the other companies I’ve listed. Each one of them probably sees more video calls than any video conferencing deployment out there.

IDC – you are searching in the wrong place

Video conferencing companies – you need to find a way to bring something unique to the market. Better video quality doesn’t cut it anymore. Those WebRTC startups? They will end up eating your lunch sooner or later. And there are more than a 100 of them already.

One of my favorite movies when I was growing up was the 1984 classic, “Revenge of the Nerds.” If you haven’t watched it yet, take two hours to do so–yes, it’s available on Netflix:

The movie really spoke to me–a guy so nerdy that the kids at my private school for gifted children nicknamed me “Encyclopedia Yeh”…when I was in the 3rd grade.

Yet today’s viewer would probably find it hard to believe. The’d marvel at the concept of computer programmers and homosexuals being abused and socially shunned. I’m glad that times have changed in the past 30 years, and that we live in a more enlightened society that tries to fight bullying and respects intellect.

At the end of the movie, the protagonists make a moving speech:

“Gilbert: I just wanted to say that I’m a nerd, and I’m here tonight to stand up for the rights of other nerds. I mean uh, all our lives we’ve been laughed at and made to feel inferior. And tonight, those bastards, they trashed our house. Why? Because we’re smart? Because we look different? Well, we’re not. I’m a nerd, and uh, I’m pretty proud of it.

Lewis: Hi, Gilbert. I’m a nerd too. I just found that out tonight. We have news for the beautiful people. There’s a lot more of us then there are of you. I know there’s alumni here tonight. When you went to Adams you might’ve been called a spazz, or a dork, or a geek. Any of you that have ever felt stepped on, left out, picked on, put down, whether you think you’re a nerd or not, why don’t you just come down here and join us.”

Today, “The Big Bang Theory” is the #1 show on TV, and Chris Hardwick has his own talk show. Yet while I’m glad that nerds have a respected place in society, it saddens me to see what we’ve done with it.

Maybe it’s because more recent generations of nerds haven’t felt the same persecution, or that geekdom has become cool. Whatever the reason, nerds now act like the bullies that once terrorized them.

Today’s startup culture can still be open and inclusive, but it is often closed and cruel as well. “Brogrammers” act like the jocks of yesteryear, privileged and arrogant. Worse, we’re so self-righteous that anyone we disagree with suffers the wrath of the Internet mob, without due process or restraint.

Abraham Lincoln, perhaps the wisest man who ever lived, said, “If you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” We’ve been tested, and I’m not sure I like the results.

(Cross-posted @ Adventures in Capitalism)

CloudAve is sponsored by Salesforce.com and Workday.

About a third of human beings now use the Internet. And most of the growth these days now comes from people in the developing regions. Mobile now represents about 10 percent of total usage, and will grow. 

By putting its own media content store next to Google Play on its new Galaxy S4 smartphones, Samsung is essentially turning all of its users into beta testers that could determine the future of the Android operating system.

Think about it. Apple has iTunes. Android has Google Play. Amazon has its own Video On Demand with music and books. BlackBerry as its App World and Microsoft has its Windows Phone Marketplace. What do all of these companies have in common? To a certain extent, they all make their own operating systems, have application stores and sell content such as books, movies, music and television shows through their own proprietary channels. 

Where, exactly, does Samsung fit into this equation? 

With the release of the new Galaxy S4 flagship, Samsung has taken all of its media “hubs” and consolidated it all into one Samsung Hub that sells books, movies, television shows, games, apps and music. Samsung Hub comes preloaded on all new Galaxy devices and is pushed front and center with a widget on a home screen panel on its devices. 

Samsung is a little bit of a misnomer in this equation. It is not like Apple, which makes its own operating system. It uses Google's Android. By juxtaposing its Media Hub next to Google Play, Samsung is basically asking users to make a choice. Where will you get your content? From us or from Google?

What is Samsung's goal here? Is it preparing to fork Google's Android operating system and go it alone? With Media Hub, Samsung may be turning users into millions of "beta testers." If people end up using Media Hub for their content and apps instead of Google Play, Samsung may see reason to fork Android and go it alone. If not, Samsung can try to create its own hub of content that runs across all of its devices, just as Sony tried (and failed at) a couple years ago.

This… is a little awkward.

Tense Relations Between Samsung & Google?

Much was made earlier this year about how Samsung has grown so dominant in the Android ecosystem that it has become a threat to Google. In certain ways this is true, in many ways it is not. The hinge of the argument is that Samsung could fairly easily strip out all of Google’s services from Galaxy devices and serve similar services up itself. So, no more Gmail, Chrome, Google Play and so forth. 

Google executives have reportedly acknowledged that Samsung, while being its biggest Android ally, is also a cause of anxiety. It would not take much for Samsung to fork the open source kernel of Android and go it alone. Google would then lose out of the all-important user data and profiles that are the core of its advertising business strategy through mobile.

Samsung already makes many of its own alternatives to Google’s offerings through its TouchWiz interface. Samsung has its own email app and browser. Galaxy smartphones come loaded with dual apps for almost every core function – one from Samsung and one from Google. Usually, the Samsung ones are inferior.

And now there is Hub.

Hub Next To Google Play

Why do these mobile operating system makers put content in their app stores? Really, the profit margins are not great as companies like Apple, Google and Amazon have to license the content from the creators (movie studios, record labels etc.) and barely eke any money out of it for themselves. 

But what content does do is sell devices. The best thing that Apple ever did with the iPhone was create the App Store and open up iTunes so music and movies could be downloaded to people’s smartphones. You could argue that the App Store/iTunes has been responsible for selling more Apple devices than any other force combined. 

This fact is not lost on Samsung.

Yet, Samsung is a little bit different from Apple. Its product portfolio is broader, especially when you factor in that it makes televisions (which are some of the best available). Samsung is not just looking to sell smartphones, it wants users to go down the full profile and own a Samsung tablet, computer and TV.

That, Samsung’s director of product marketing Ryan Biden tells me, is the biggest push for Samsung Hub.

“Hub is really intended for people that own multiple Samsung devices,” Biden said. “It now allows us to deliver content to other devices from Samsung.”

That is why Samsung has baked in “screen-mirroring” into its recent Galaxy devices. Through Wi-Fi Direct, you can broadcast what is on your phone to your Samsung TV or vice versa. Apple can do this in a limited fashion with its Apple TV box and AirPlay but that then creates three devices – TV, smartphone, box – Samsung can do it with two. The kicker? It has to be two Samsung devices. 

Biden downplays the fact that, just by its very existence, Samsung Hub battles Google Play. In Samsung’s mind, they are for two very different use cases for a media store. 

That may not exactly be the case though. Google’s Android runs on smartphones and tablets and it has Google TV, where Android has been fitted for the big screen. Samsung has even made some of its Smart TVs with Google TV integration. So, the differences that Biden cites may not be as far apart as Samsung likes to think.

Got $50,000 for a cup of coffee? How about $50,000 for coffee with Apple CEO Tim Cook? If you’ve got the cash and a charitable heart, then head on over to Charitybuzz where an auction is under way for coffee with Cook at Apple headquarters. Bidding, which has already reached $14,333, ends May 14th. Charitybuzz is hoping the offering will fetch at least $50,000, which will be donated to the RFK Center for Justice and Human Rights. Incidentally, if you can’t afford Cook, former president Bill Clinton is only asking $20,000.

Looking to getting its product into the hands of more people, Nuance Communications announced today that its Swype virtual keyboard for Android will be available from the Google Play store starting Wednesday. The introductory price is 99 cents, and there’s also a free 30-day trial version.

Swype, which first debuted on the Windows Mobile-based Samsung Omnia II back in 2009, allows users to type words by dragging their finger from letter to letter in one continuous motion.

Till now, Swype was only available preinstalled on select smartphones, or to users who signed up to be part of the beta program.

Now, any Android smartphone or tablet owner can get it, and the latest version of Swype accommodates all types of users, from swipers to traditional typists and even those who want to dictate text.

Swype already offered next-word prediction based on context, but now it includes new features to make the keyboard smarter and more accurate. A Smart Editor function suggests edits based the entire.

There’s also an opt-in Living Language cloud service, which Nuance has been testing since October, that automatically updates the keyboard’s dictionary on a daily basis with trending words and phrases. It even supports more than 20 dialects.

During a preview meeting with AllThingsD this week, Aaron Sheedy, vice president of mobile product at Nuance, gave the example of adding “Tsarnaev” to the dictionary after last week’s tragic Boston Marathon bombings. Sheedy said these “hot words” are determined by crawling Web sites and looking at terms being used by its Living Language subscribers.

The service also backs up and syncs your personal dictionary, so it doesn’t have to relearn words and phrases even if you switch devices.

For users who prefer to peck at the keys, a function called Smart Touch studies how one’s fingers are interacting with the screen to learn his or her typing habits. If it sees that someone is tapping between the A and S keys and usually wants S, Swype will automatically adapt so that S is selected each time (when it makes sense).

Swype also offers a dedicated Dragon dictation button for those times when it’s more convenient to dictate a message. In order to use this, however, you need to have Nuance’s Dragon Mobile Assistant app.

Nuance, which is known for its Dragon NaturallySpeaking speech recognition software, acquired Swype in October 2011 for $102.5 million, and has been making updates to the keyboard app throughout. The company said that it finally decided to release Swype on Google Play after “incredible consumer demand” from the users of its beta program.

But of course, getting Swype in front of more people will also help it take on its main competitor, SwiftKey, which currently sits atop the paid apps list on Google Play.

In February, SwiftKey released a version of its keyboard that incorporated swipe gesture support similar to Swype’s. But Sheedy believes Swype’s multi-modality, accuracy and support for more languages will help it set it apart from the competition.

It will be interesting where the two keyboards are at when Nuance CEO Paul Ricci hits the stage at the 11th D: All Things Digital conference in late May.

Vidyo, the videoconferencing startup that has been making the competitive enterprise videoconferencing business rather interesting over the last couple of years, has just closed another round of funding.

The company said today that it has closed a $17.1 million round of funding from its existing syndicate of investors, plus a new lead investor, Triangle Peak Partners. The round brings its total capital to $116 million raised since 2005.

It’s Vidyo’s fifth round of funding, the last being a $22 million series D led by QuestMark Partners. Networking company Juniper Networks later joined that with an undisclosed amount at the time, though a little back-of-the-envelope math suggests it was between $12 million and $14 million.

Previous investors include Menlo Ventures, Rho Ventures, Sevin Rosen Funds, Saints and Four Rivers Group.

In a statement announcing the funding, Vidyo said it saw billings increase by 68 percent year over year. This included a 77 percent surge in its health care business, and 67 percent growth in large enterprises. Since it’s private, it doesn’t disclose revenue.

Vidyo’s secret sauce is a technology called Adaptive Video Layering. Its hardware sits in a rack in the customer’s data center and constantly watches the underlying network conditions, and then adapts to meet them while video calls are under way. If there’s a lot of interference, the Vidyo system throttles up and down on the picture and sound it’s trying to deliver, based on the condition of the network. But it also adapts dynamically to the device that’s being used: It supports Apple’s iOS devices and also Google Android devices. It’s also the technology behind Google Hangout.

It's hard to forecast the future. Not only do we tend to view the future through the lens of the present, we more frequently get the timing wrong. Perhaps the more common forecasting error is of timing, not direction. 

Many developments which occur, generally as expected, take a decade or more to arrive in any significant way. That might not be a crucial fact for most people and companies, but it is decisively determinant for investors in technology start ups. 

Being right about the trend doesn't help if one is wrong about the timing. 

Earlier this month, Twilio announced that the company joined the Google Cloud Platform Partner Program and that the Twilio API had been integrated into the Google App Engine. Twilio (in partnership with KDDI Web Communications) has now announced the launch of Twilio for KWC, bringing the Twilio API to the Japanese developer community.

Twilio for KDDI Web Communications (Twilio for KWC) includes the same functionality as the Twilio API making it possible for Japanese developers to build communication-driven web and mobile applications. Twilio For KWC also offers localized currency, documentation and resources. Noriyuke Koide, General Manager for the Twilio Division at KWC, says in the press release that:

“Twilio has a fantastic platform that allows developers and enterprises to build the future of communications. We are thrilled to extend Twilio’s API to our customers through our new Twilio For KWC offering.”

Developers in Japan who would like to start using Twilio For KWC can sign up for an account at the Japanese Division Twilio Website.

Sponsored by

Reinvention and resilience are key to the success of any business. Look no further than the implosions of Borders Books, BlockBuster, Kodak, or any of dozens of other once seemingly impregnable or too-big-to-fail companies that have tanked in the past decade, to remind us that companies that fail to notice and adjust to change – and to see opportunities to innovate – are effectively digging their own graves.

So, amid today’s accelerating technological change and the resulting hyper-connectedness, how do we recognize when our own company is vulnerable – when we’re facing our own Kodak moment? I’ve pulled together  the seven major disruptive forces that have overturned and redefined the way business is done today.

The Google Effect: The separation of humans and information

The last time you Googled something, did you stop and think, “Hmmm, I wonder if these results came from a database in Oregon, Georgia or Virginia, or maybe from The Netherlands or Australia?” Of course not. Through the Google Effect, information and physical location in our personal lives have been fully virtualized and dematerialized.

So why in many organizations are the two (often very expensively) still forced to be co-located?

The Skype Effect: Free communications, death of distance

Remember yesteryear, when the physical distance of a long-distance phone call really mattered? When a call of 10 miles was significantly cheaper than a call of 1,000 miles, and an overseas call was a true luxury? Today, internet -based communication platforms have cost and usage bases that are completely disconnected to distance; speaking to someone around the world via the internet is the same as calling across the street.

So why mandate that employees travel to their knowledge work, when instead the work can go to employees?

The Facebook Effect: The virtualization of human relationships

Fundamental to Facebook’s immense popularity is that it allows you to maintain and enhance personal relationships even without regular physical presence.

The same intimacy is available to corporations, where working relationships based on capability and mutual trust no longer need to be physically proximate. So why stick to the high-maintenance, time-consuming and costly methods of the past?

The LinkedIn Effect: The virtualization of specialized knowledge

LinkedIn allows us to map our professional networks, and then to quickly locate trusted expertise. Why can’t organizations work in the same manner? The LinkedIn Effect provides a map of our personal networks; when brought to business, this capability enables the virtualization of expertise, allowing the right person to be brought to the right task at the right time.

The Amazon Effect: The virtualization of customer experience

Amazon knows you better than the manager at your corner store. Yet, when was the last time you met anybody from Amazon? This virtualization of customer intimacy is led by (but not the sole domain of)  new market leaders like Amazon, Netflix and Apple. Yet it is a viable option available to all organizations.

The Pandora Effect: Algorithms building customized products

“How did they know that?” If you’re a Pandora customer, you’ve probably asked that question. You provide Pandora with your favorite artist, or a few songs you like, and suddenly hours of music you truly enjoy is produced. It’s not magic; it’s Pandora’s algorithm at work.

This algorithm, finely honed by reviewing massive amounts of data, creates remarkably accurate musical taste profiles. In knowing just a few things about you – the first few dots if you will – the algorithm connects the rest of the dots to create customized play lists.

From such experiences, consumers are beginning to consider all their other business relationships: “If Pandora figured this out about me so quickly, why is my bank still so clueless? After going to the same ATM for 10 years, it still asks me what language I speak!”

iPhone Effect: The experience is more valuable than the physical product

Customer value is no longer confined to the physical manifestation of a product. Instead, it’s often found in the software. This was central to the recent transition in the mobile phone industry. Ten years ago mobile phone providers competed on hardware attributes – remember the famous Nokia ringtones, or the form factor of the Motorola flip-phone? That was the basis of competition.

Today, winning iPhone and Android models differentiate on the experience delivered chiefly by software. Most of the physical attributes of a mobile phone are now commodity. The experience has usurped the widget.

These seven effects are working together to alter the competitive fundamentals of many industries. With game changers like these, the cost of adhering to an industrial business model is significantly greater than moving to something new.

Malcolm Frank is Executive Vice President of Strategy and Marketing at Cognizant Technology Solutions, a global provider of IT, consulting and business process services based in Teaneck, N.J. 

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Photo courtesy justin maresch/Shutterstock.com.

 

 

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It’s a rare thing for the computing and tech services giant IBM to miss the consensus expectation when it reports quarterly earnings. If Big Blue can’t hit its numbers, the thinking goes, it’s probably bad news for much of the IT industry.

That’s the conclusion of Chris Whitmore, an analyst with Deutsche Bank Securities, in the wake of yesterday’s earnings report. “IBM hasn’t missed consensus earnings expectations for eight years which raises the specter of increased macro risk and substantially weaker IT hardware spending,” he wrote in a note to clients today.

IBM is better than most at managing sales that turn south in one part of its business, but still able to make its numbers, he writes. That it wasn’t able to do so this quarter “raises a red flag” for other tech companies, especially those that sell a lot of hardware, including Hewlett-Packard, Dell, NetApp and EMC. “The IBM miss is a decidedly negative read through for the entire IT hardware segment and we are incrementally more cautious on the sector,” Whitmore wrote.

Expect a lot of attention on IT spending trends in the coming weeks, as other large IT companies get ready to report their results. The next big indicator will be when EMC reports quarterly results next week. HP, Dell and NetApp all report results in mid-May.

Vint Cerf, VP and chief internet evangelist at Google has a few regrets about the original design of the internet, but he’s hoping software defined networking may help right those wrongs. Cerf spoke at the Open Networking Summit Tuesday in Santa Clara, Calif., where he juxtaposed the creation of the internet and the evolution of the world wide web with the development of software defined networking.

He began with a rueful acknowledgment that back in the early 70s, when creating the addressing scheme for the internet, 32 bits were enough. The point of the story — we ran out of 32-bit addresses two years ago — was to illustrate how the common knowledge at the time influenced the architectural decisions the creators of the internet made.

Yet, 40 years later, the internet is still the valuable foundation of our communications infrastructure, and Cerf hopes that in building out this next generation networks we learn a bit from the creation of the internet. For example, he calls for the creation of open standards where differentiation doesn’t come from companies patenting protocols, but rather from branding their services or branding their unique implementations of a standard protocol. That’s because interoperability is important for building networks that are stable and resilient. As Cerf said: “Stability is your friend in networking environments.”

“If you want things to interoperate, standards are important,” Cerf said. “That’s not to say you can’t explore new ideas, but when you want something big to happen then you need to think about standards.”

In that same vein, Cerf also explained how as companies build out software defined networks they should consider the things that made the internet a success: the loose coupling of the gear that underlies the internet as opposed to a heavily integrated and brittle solution; a modular approach allowing new companies to develop solutions that might work between layers in the stack; and open source solutions, which are recommended but not required.

SDN can build a web for the future.

Cerf then went into some of the opportunities that SDN can offer to improve some of the shortcomings of the internet. For example, the current way we route traffic relies on the network having a physical port to send a packet to, but the OpenFlow protocol changes the destination address from a physical port to a table entry, which enables a new type of networking. One that might be more suited to the collaborative web we’re building today.

Content based routing also could be an option — something we’ve covered at our Structure conference in 2011. In content based routing you take the content of a packet and use that to determine what to do with it. It turns routing into something that’s closer to the way Twitter works as opposed to how the U.S. Postal System does. For example you would look at the content of a packet and route it to people who said they want to receive that information. It becomes multi-cast instead of a one-to-one connection.

As for the core tenet of software defined networking, separating the control plane from the data plane, Cerf said. “I wish we had done that in the internet design, but we didn’t.”

But that also means people can build new networks that resemble older networks while sneaking in revolutionary new features. Cerf is excited about the ability of those building SDN products and networks to mimic the core functions of today’s networks in order to drive adoption but then introduce something new like content-centric routing. Or perhaps they can implement better security to protect people from identity theft, from inadvertently becoming zombies in a botnet attack or from any number of security threats that exists online.

Cerf is confident that SDN can help address those issues and more. He envisions using SDN to perhaps define areas where people can access intellectual property in a controlled manner that may prevent people from making illegal copies. SDN might also be a way to bridge the divides between different networks today.

He pointed out that when the internet was developed researchers built different networks depending on the medium, so a mobile network and a wireline network today don’t look the same to software running over those networks. You can’t run traffic seamlessly across both at the same time. With SDN you could.

He closed with a few examples of how SDN is helping Google, from its implementation of an intra-data center WAN to using software defined networks to boost the utilization of spectrum through tools like Google’s white space broadband database. This example, as well as the idea of creating a unified network using different medium, has me really excited to see what Google might do with its own fiber network and a corresponding Wi-Fi network.

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There’s no need for Microsoft to build its own Windows Phone 8 devices because partners are already offering a great hardware experience. That’s according to Terry Myerson, who leads Microsoft’s Windows Phone division, and who spoke at the D: Dive into Mobile conference on Tuesday. Myerson specifically gave Nokia and HTC a shout-out as two of the hardware partners that provide compelling Windows Phone 8 handsets.

The smartphone situation is the complete opposite of the PC and tablet markets where Microsoft surprised many with the Surface RT and Surface Pro computers it announced last June. These machines compete directly against Microsoft’s long-time licensing partners such as Dell, HP, Lenovo, and Samsung, to name a few. It also may be why some of these companies are trying to break away from from Windows. HP introduced an inexpensive Android tablet in February while Lenovo now offers a Google Chromebook for the education market, for example.

Myerson’s comments don’t surprise me, even though we’ve heard rumors of a Surface phone for months. I don’t see what Microsoft can offer from a hardware perspective that its Windows Phone 8 partners aren’t already offering.

In particular, Nokia is building a wide range of superb hardware for the mobile platform; the direct result of a huge partnership with Microsoft it began in February of 2011. The flagship Nokia handsets meet nearly all, if not all, of Microsoft’s current Windows Phone 8 hardware requirements. There’s simply no reason for Microsoft to build a Surface phone at this point; it may make sense in the future if the company plans a vertical product design strategy.

Because of that, Myerson’s comments raise a different question in my mind: If the available Windows Phone 8 hardware is already good enough to keep Microsoft from designing its own, is the software simply not resonating with enough people at this point? The operating system is intuitive and fresh, but outside of Microsoft’s own horn-tooting, very little independent data shows that Windows Phone 8 is a raging success.

As Microsoft likes to say, however, its phone effort is a marathon, not a sprint. Perhaps later in the race the company will design and sell its own phone hardware. For now, there’s no need to wait for a Surface phone.

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The online education movement is transforming physical colleges at a fast pace. The California State University system is the largest university system in America and they are aggressively expanding its experimental foray into Massive Online Open Learning (MOOCs), based on an unusually promising pilot course.  They will offer a special “flipped” version of an electrical engineering course [...]

Here's one for you: how is it that some of the smartest, richest, market-savviest companies on the planet - allegedly - can't seem to figure out how to name their products in a way that isn't strikingly confusing?

The "new iPad" is not to be confused with the iPad 2. The new iPad is in fact, iPad 3. Only, Apple doesn't call it that - nor do they market it as "new iPad" anymore, either. Rather, it is now branded as "iPad with Retina display" - with the "R" capitalized, though not the "d."

Don't ask me why.

While the iPad with Retina display is newer than iPad 2 it does not come with a model number. Nor does the iPad Mini. At least, not yet. I assume that Apple will still sell "iPad Mini" - likely at a lower price - when the newest "Mini" model is released. Which I'm also guessing will be called "iPad Mini with Retina display." Or maybe iPad Mini 2. 

After that, all bets are off.

Which brings up the question: how is it that some of the smartest, richest, market-savviest companies on the planet - allegedly - can't seem to figure out how to name their products in a way that isn't strikingly confusing?

Welcome To Branding Hell

What comes after iPhone 5? iPhone 5S, perhaps? Or iPhone 6? Is there any real difference? 

And will it come pre-loaded with iOS 7?

Yet despite the inexplicable naming conventions that Apple uses for its products, it's not the worst perpetrator - not even close. 

Which is better? The HTC One or the HTC First? How is it possible that HTC offers multiple "Ones" at the same time? Which "one" do you want?

• HTC One
• HTC One S
• HTC One SV
• HTC One V
• HTC One X
• HTC One X+ (no, I did not make that up)

I'm not even going to attempt to wade through the angrily confusing versions and price points of software products, such as Microsoft Office. There's "Premium," "365," "Enterprise," Mid-Sized Business" - to name only a few!  

Technology is here to help us. Otherwise, it does not belong. Technology with a confusing name is, therefore, suspect. If you can't even get the name right, what else might be wrong with it?

A Galaxy Far, Far Away

Consider Samsung. Go into an AT&T store, for example, and there you find at least six different "Samsung Galaxy" devices. These are not to be confused, however, with the various "Galaxy Nexus" devices. In other words, the Galaxy brand name now means essentially nothing.

If you don't believe me, just answer this question: which Galaxy is right for you? A Samsung Galaxy S III or a Samsung Galaxy Note II? Will you even bother to find out? Should you have to try?

What? There's a line of various Galaxy "Tabs"? 

Does Samsung not want my business?

And is the Galaxy Note 8.0 four times better than the Galaxy Note II? (Or do Roman numerals count for more?) Wait. Will the next version of the Galaxy Note 10.1 be a 10.2? 

Nor is it possible to divine the brand meaning - and thus the brand value - of the Motorola Droid line versus Android versus Nexus - all of which is owned by Google. Which I've heard is now overseen by the Google Chrome team.

Do companies just pick names out of a hat?

If not, then how much money did Nokia pay its marketing staff to promote the Lumia 820 as "our most versatile phone?" Was it more or less than they paid the team that branded the Lumia 920 as "our most amazing phone?" 

In just the U.S., there is a Lumia 710, 800 810, 820, 822, 900 and 920. I dare you to uncover the meaning, intent, price, value, speed and/or ability of any of those based on their actual name. According to Nokia's own site, the Lumia 900 is available "from $0.01" whereas the Lumia 800 is "from 526.72." 

Why? It seems backwards.

And, no, I am even going to try and select which of these fourteen different Blackberry smartphones is right for me.

Are these companies even paying attention? Maybe it's time for some brand simplification to put some sense in the market place.

Image courtesy of Shutterstock.

If the netbook wasn’t dead already, it soon will be — give it another year or so.

That’s the word from research house IHS iSuppli, which has slapped an expiration date on the netbook, following the device’s continued decline into irrelevance. That date? The year 2015.

IHS figures that netbook shipments, which topped 32 million at their height in 2010, will be a mere 3.97 million in 2013. That’s a precipitous 72 percent fall from the 14.13 million shipped last year. Next year will see an equally gruesome drop, with shipments hitting a little more than a quarter of a million.

And in 2015: Zero.

Hardly a surprise. If anything, it’s a shock that netbooks are still around today. With tablets becoming increasingly more ubiquitous, there’s little room left for the netbook in the market for which it was intended — that middle ground between laptop and smartphone. That niche has been fully occupied and expanded by the iPad and other devices like it. One could make the argument that the lowly netbook’s decline began with the debut of the iPad, a device that offered a better set of answers to the questions posed by that nascent category.

“All of us use laptops and smartphones now,” Apple co-founder Steve Jobs said during the 2010 launch of the iPad. “And the question has arisen lately: Is there room for a device in the middle? … Some folks say this device is a netbook. … The problem is, netbooks aren’t better at anything.”

Harsh words, but largely accurate. Certainly, they were borne out in the ensuing years. The massive surge of interest in tablets heralded by the iPad led to an equally massive loss of interest in netbooks. The PC industry shipped 32 million netbooks the year the iPad launched. Five years later — if IHS is correct — it won’t ship any. And the netbook will be little more than the wrong answer to that question Jobs posed back in 2010.

Guest author Indus Khaitan is a co-founder of Bitzer Mobile.

Classical sales models are an artifact of the assembly line economy. Manufacturing builds parts; assembles finished goods, ships them to a warehouse and relies on sales and marketing to bring in revenue. This is how cars, medicines, beauty products, books, food and beverages, and many other things have long been built and sold.

Applying the classical model to enterprise software is doomed to failure.

The 3 Components Of Classical Sales

Territories, quotas and commissions are the three components of the classical sales model:

1. Territories were created to increase customer coverage based on how far a sales representative can drive, meet a customer and be back home in the evening.

2. Quotas further divide a territory between multiple individuals or simply create a target number to help assess how much a territory could add to company revenues.

3. Commission plus a fixed monthly retainer constitute the total compensation. If the sales numbers are above the agreed quota, commissions may be higher.

Why It Doesn't Work For Enterprise Software

The buying process of enterprise software is fundamentally different today, making the classical sales model obsolete:

1. Buyers are informed. Thanks to Internet, people know about the product before they start a conversation with a software vendor. As a result, few buyers are willing to spend time with classical sales professionals. Instead of a sales pitch, they are looking for thought leadership, education and the advice of a trusted partner. The new rule is, “show me how you’ll solve my problem," not “tell me about your product.”

2. Inbound Marketing is trumping outbound marketing. Prospects discover a product or a company via influencers, search engines and other channels before they start a conversation. Website content, videos, product literature, blog posts and so on enable customers to understand the product before they meet a salesperson. Inbound marketing helps them self-select or eliminate a product.

3. Enterprise software is assembled after buying. Software does not work in isolation; it gets orchestrated with pre-existing pieces. An enterprise solution is a sum of individual parts a company may have bought from multiple vendors. A database, a middleware server, an identity framework, an application builder, a security appliance… the list goes on. Fast-paced innovation is creating companies that are good at one or two things and enterprise customers may be looking for a collection of best-of-breed products.

4. Multi-functional teams work for closing deals. As the complexity of software grows, product management, R&D and sales must work together to create a “solution” before a purchase transaction is made. The days of individually “shrink-wrapped” software is over; even ordinary enterprise apps are produced using a variety of enterprise tools working together, each serving its own purpose.

5. Buyers are distributed across geographies. In today's connected world, a lead in the sales funnel may originate from New York, but the decision makers are based out of Washington DC while the implementation team is based in India.

In the new normal, enterprise software buyers increasingly seek solution white-boarding sessions - not sales pitches. Traditional sales models simply can't cope with the changes, but effective replacements have yet to appear. Until a solution is developed, enterprise software vendors - and buyers - will find themselves under increasing pressure.

 

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With work forces becoming increasingly more mobile, there is a need for businesses to have quick and easy communication lines with employees on the move. Being able to achieve this with existing enterprise and telecommunication infrastructure means companies can improve communication with staff without increasing costs. This was the idea behind the creation of Red Oxygen. It’s a service that combines the functionality of email applications with the convenience and mobility of text messaging. With the help of Red Oxygen’s API, sending text messages from an application or CRM is simple.

Red Oxygen has a number of integrated products that allow users to perform a number of tasks; use an existing address book to send text messages, have calendar reminders sent automatically to a phone, send broadcast messages to large groups and receive SMS replies directly in an email inbox. Users can also do things like generate emergency alerts, send appointment reminders to clients, schedule text messages, generate customer care notifications and more.

The Red Oxygen Red API uses REST calls issued in XML format. It allows direct access to the Red Oxygen SMS gateway, allows users to send automated text message alerts, intelligently respond to text message replies and more. Further information is available on Red Oxygen’s website.

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Red Oxygen API Profile

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