Stardust Global Ventures

Everybody is all up in arms over facebook places. Why? Confusion!

Let’s answer a couple of questions those of you who have never used location based services may have.

First of all if you’re using your computer, facebook places will not be told where you are or what you are doing. It doesn’t work that way.

Second, if you don’t use facebook on your phone you have no worries. Facebook places can’t possibly know with no input where you are or what you are doing.

Third, even if you do use facebook on your mobile device you still have to access the places tab and tell it where you are. For instance, when I am out and about in the world using facebook on my phone I have to open up the application and then manually open places and then type in where I am and it has to recognize that as a place or I have to tell it that where I am is the location of, for example, Lorenzo’s pizza. If I don’t tell it anything, it has no knowledge. GPS still has to be activated and linked with facebook in order for it to have any idea where you are.

The hype over facebook not being trusted is a whole other issue. I definitely understand there is little reason to trust facebook because they’ve certainly not done anything to garner trust. They’ve allowed your information to be public in spite of the steps you may believe you have taken to keep your privacy locked down. But location based services really are not smart. At least not right now. All of them, facebook included give you controls and you then set the privacy to whatever you choose. If you have facebook and don’t use it on your mobile device you have not one thing to fear. You don’t have to mess with your settings at all and it won’t matter one iota. You are as safe as you were before Places came to be.

EDIT: My friend Dameone Welch-Abernathy pointed out the one thing I forgot to mention. If you’re still really freaked out about all this, the one thing that guarantees you are not checked in is if you go to your settings and change other peoples ability to check you in where they are. Seriously though unless you have really skanky friends, they probably wouldn’t if they knew you didn’t want them too.

There’s a fundamental issue with AT&T that’s been nagging at me more and more lately. Let me set the stage

First, consider the brouhaha over the Google/Verizon watering down of net neutrality with their joint proposal. You’ve read about it, and I’m not going to pick a link to share. There are simply too many to choose from. It’s the proposal that says “we” want halfway net neutrality (subliminal message has to be “so we can control things and make a ton of money.”). This idea is counter to Google’s past positions, but it’s right in line with what any reasonable thinking person in the industry would expect from Verizon. It’s even predictable based on Verizon’s public statements the past few years.

Now AT&T weighs in on the AT&T Public Policy Blog with Wireless is Different. If you haven’t read it, put your hip waders on and click the link. Read this specious pile of steaming excrement for yourself. It’s the responsible thing to do.

When I read it, I groaned, but read on friend. As they say in the Ronco commercials – but wait, there’s more.

Sunday John Battelle (@johnbattelle) posted AT&T Weighs In: Trust Us, We Know What You Want. John’s one of the truly brilliant folks at identifying babbletalk and does a great job of dissecting AT&T’s specious statement. Again, go read for yourself. You won’t need the hipwaders for John’s post. If you’re an AT&T customer, you might check your blood pressure first.

I’m just bringing some sideline thoughts in as someone who spent a good many years in the Bell System and working for AT&T. I left in 1996. Yes, I left of my own volition. Even eagerly. But in 17 years I saw a lot of the reality that is AT&T.

An observation from someone who lived a career with AT&T:

From the Carterphone decision in ’68, to divestiture in ’83-’84 to TA-96 and beyond, AT&T has never offered a different reason; never used a stronger argument; never changed the song. AT&T’s DNA remains what it has been since American Telephone & Telegraph was  founded in 1886.

Wikipedia is an interesting, accurate (if incomplete) resource for the early creation of what remains the AT&T DNA.

A national monopoly
As a result of a combination of regulatory actions by government and actions by AT&T, the firm eventually gained what most regard as monopoly status. In 1907, AT&T president Theodore Vail made it known that he was pursuing a goal of “One Policy, One System, Universal Service.”

Early in the AT&T formation, avarice and power plays became a central theme, leading to the KingsBury Commitment in 1913. While this agreement has been positioned as placement of Interstate Commerce Commission oversight to ensure no more independent companies were swallowed by the beast, in effect, it granted AT&T authorized monopoly status for telephony services in the US. AT&T asserted control over the local and long distance telephone market. Coincidentally, the ICC approved 271 of 274 acquisitions by this voracious company from 1921 to 1934.

To say that AT&T was built with a feeling of entitlement and right to own telecommunications services in the US is an understatement. This sense of ownership runs deep. To the bone. It isn’t in the people. It isn’t in the culture of today. It’s in the DNA of the organization. It’s a genetic strand woven into the fiber of every work process, business plan, idea and proposal. It’s not out  of malice. It simply is what it is.

If we look at the defenses (or arguments against) the Carterphone decision, divestiture, TA-96, and countless other issues, AT&T’s response has always been “we know what you want”. Always. It is, in my thirty years experience in the industry, the only argument AT&T knows how to make. Win, lose or draw, it is their position and always will be.

Let me share a cartoon, and a story.

As someone who worked as an engineer inside AT&T, this was the culture. Art mimics life, and cartoons mimic reality. (Doubt that? Dilbert got his start in life as reality inside that same Bell System).

The corporate ecosystem that is AT&T believes to its core, that it knows better than customers what to do. over 124 years, the sense of entitlement to telecommunications services has been so deeply ingrained in the culture that it permeates every nook and cranny.

If Google is young and prideful, battling with young and dumb proclamations that it will “do no evil,” AT&T is an aging victim of its own prion disease. The corporate culture has folded in on itself so many times that healthy organisims (ideas) cannot replicate. A new idea that enters the ecosystem its prion form simply induces it to convert to the rogue form, which in AT&T, is the norm today.

Just as prions must be denatured to induce sterility and allow for healthy proteins growth, AT&T requires some sort of shock treatment to ever become a healthy organism. For prion disease, we’d use bleach, caustic soda, and pressurized steam treatment in an autoclave, but that may not be enough. As far as I can tell renaturization of a denatured prion has never been accomplished.

In short, death follows.

I’m not a doctor, and certainly my analogy isn’t perfect. On the other hand, I’m a senior manager and enterprise architect with a lifetime of experience in the industry. This company we’re talking about is one diseased animal to be sure. And by the way, AT&T’s comments have absolutely zero to do with the issue of net neutrality in any way shape or form. They’re simply saying we should feed the beast.

Location based services (LBS) are all the rage today. From Foursquare to Gowalla to Yelp and more, the ability to check in, network and share tips via smartphones has captivated the attention of early adopters worldwide.

For those of us who live each day by our smartphones, that’s great, but we’re still in the minority.  There are far more standard mobile phones worldwide that smartphones. And while momentum is increasing, standard cell phones will continue to dominate the global market in many parts of the world.

Even with smartphones, there’s another aspect to location that technology can improve and automate – indoor positioning. A few months back Kevin Tofel wrote on GigaOm about a company that’s been working on patent pending location both indoors and underground to from 1-40 meters. As good as or better than GPS…for any cell phone – even those not equipped with GPS.

That’s right, with solid triangulation algorithms Aunt Suzy’s old flip phone can be located accurately too.

Here’s some info from a current press release:

GloPos, the developer of a breakthrough software-only positioning technology that makes all mobile phones location aware — outdoors, indoors, and even underground – has confirmed an indoor positioning accuracy of 7.7 to 12.5 meters in an independent test of its software conducted by VTT, The Technical Research Center of Finland.

Testing of the outdoor, indoor and underground accuracy of GloPos software was conducted by VTT at the Helsinki City Center on May 20, 2010. The GloPos application ran on a standard GSM-only mobile phone.

The stationary indoor and underground tests show that GloPos is capable of non-filtered average positioning accuracy of 15.1-23.9 meters. 75% of the measurements present an average position accuracy of 7.7-12.5 meters. With filtering, the indoor accuracy of GloPos technology is as good as the outdoor accuracy in an urban environment with a normal GPS embedded in mobile phones. When comparing with state-of-the-art cell positioning (Google Maps) the average accuracy is at least two times better and in some cases even ten times better (indoors).

“This successful test lays the groundwork for making all mobile phones location aware and opens up exciting, new opportunities in the personal navigation, social location, mobile search and personalized mobile advertising marketplaces,” said Mikael Vainio, CEO.

For those who remember Jaiku at its peak, location based on tower triangulation was becoming very important. It allowed a user created database of locations that Jaiku users with Nokia phones and the client software could then tag locations for future use.

That’s right, the model behind Foursquare and Gowalla was in live use with Jaiku long ago. The GloPos value really stems from honing accuracy for handsets that aren’t GPS-enabled. Remember those handsets are still SMS enabled. SMS is hugely popular and widely used.

We don’t talk about text a lot these days, but in 2008, in the US we sent 95.4 billion text messages. And we aren’t big text users. Many countries make optimum use of the lowest common denominator handset.

The truth is the Internet and value we get from it is really strongest when we support the the most basic end device – a standard cell phone.

GloPos potentially enables more granular location tagging that we see today in LBS. We can identify location not just to the store inside the mall, but which floor of the store someone is in.

GloPos makes location more important that ever in the mobile marketplace. it’s more ubiquitous than the other technologies we use today.

GloPos technology requires only a cellular network to make all mobile phones location aware. No additional hardware like GPS or W-LAN is required on a mobile device for achieving accurate positioning.

GloPos’ patent-pending, self learning algorithms can calculate an accurate position fix even in places where no W-LAN access points are available or no GPS can be used (i.e. in shopping malls, subways, underground parking, airports, sports arenas, exhibition centers). GloPos works wherever cellular network coverage is available.

GloPos Technology does not consume any extra battery life while operating as cell information is already being used to stay connected. GloPos enables longer device usage versus GPS and W-LAN, allowing battery power to be used for more advanced applications and driving more powerful processors.

We’re really just beginning to uncover the power and the value of location. Companies like GloPos are going to keep emerging as they bring new strengths to what we can do with technology we carry in our hands already.

Currently I am playing with the 64 GB 3G version of the iPad I won at the RSA Conference in San Francisco thanks to Tripwire. The features are very nice. The screen is crystal clear, although a little hard to see in the sunlight. It works well on wireless for videos and web browsing. Unfortunately for me, the AT&T coverage in my area is not 3G so not worth the 2 offered plans currently available. But… “How do you get around this” you ask. That is simple. Turn your phone into a wireless access point through various means of apps, hacking, or whatever. I used an app on my HTC Touch Pro 2 carried by US Cellular (3G locally now, ) and now have 3G access to the iPad via wireless through my phone. The best part is that it’s not really tethering so you don’t need the associated plan.

So with that the iPad is great. In my area I don’t need the 3G so I might sell it and get two of the standard wireless ones cause my wife loves it too. The apps, the games, and the possibilities, all right there at your multi-touch finger tips.

Until now I didn’t like Apple. Not because I grew up on PC’s. No. Just because I didn’t know them as well as I know PC’s. But after 2 weeks with the iPad I’m definitely a fan of the iPad and it’s possibilities with future releases. I hope to do more testing and possible a run with the AT&T 3G as it is available in a town about 30 miles away form me.

Every parent, teacher, educator and administrator in the world should watch this video. Twice. Then they should have to take a test.

This is the single most compelling talk from the recent 140Conf.

Our kids ARE the foundation that we’re building the world on. We don’t need drones and workers. We need thinkers and doers. Achievers and explorers. We need to teach our children to create, collaborate, build and network.

We need to do it now!

Don’t just shrug this off. Watch it. Share it. Spread the word. And teach your children well. Then teach help mentor three other children.

Our good friends at iotum just scored a sweet deal with Samsung Canada. If you buy a Samsung notebook between tomorrow, March 10th and April 30th, tax day for you Canadians, you will be given a free year of Calliflower Conferencing. This is a HUGE value and a fantastic service if you have a business that uses conferencing.

Please read the press release below for more details on this really fantastic opportunity!

Samsung Canada Channel Partners To Offer “Calliflower” Conferencing With New Laptops

In Exclusive Deal, Samsung Canada Resellers To Offer Multimedia, Social-Network-Style Conferencing Service to Purchasers of Select Netbooks and Laptops

OTTAWA, CANADA (March 10, 2010) – iotum announced today that Calliflower, its interactive conferencing and collaboration service, will be promoted through the VAR and system integrator channels of Samsung Canada. Under an exclusive agreement from March 1st to April 30th, 2010, Samsung resellers will offer purchasers of selected Samsung netbooks and laptops the first year of Calliflower service free, and will receive commissions when their customers sign up. 

Calliflower applies an engaging, social-networking-style visual interface to the task of conferencing and collaboration, and under standard pricing charges a $50 US monthly flat rate for unlimited use for up to two organizers.  Participants can join through local access phone numbers in major Canadian cities and around the world, or via Skype into a single conference, all while sharing presentations, documents, links, and chats with all those remotely assembled.

Calliflower’s  intuitive controls also allow participants to see the status of other callers and raise hands to request the floor, while also providing call recording, invitations and reminders, integration with calendars, and more.

“This partnership is a great way to grow customer relationships for our small-business retailers and system integrators, by offering another powerful, money-saving tool alongside our laptops and netbooks,” said Michael Dodgson, Product Marketing Manager for Netbooks at Samsung Canada. “We also see the chance to promote great Canadian technology in a space – teleworking –  that’s very much in demand.”

iotum CEO Alec Saunders, for his part, acknowledged that Samsung Canada’s promotion would provide a great boost to Calliflower’s long-term user base. “We’re so confident in the service and the sales channel, that we’re willing to offer the first year’s service for free – a $600 dollar value,” he said.

Samsung Canada resellers and retailers will have customers sign up for Calliflower through a web site, entering PC serial numbers for proof of purchase and downloading the client software.

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About iotum

iotum is a Voice 2.0 company that aims to reinvent business conversations and shape a world of relevant communications where devices, social networks and Web services work seamlessly together to let people communicate with whom they want, when they want and on the device they want. 

About Samsung Electronics Canada Inc.

Samsung Electronics Canada, Inc. (SECA), a wholly owned subsidiary of Samsung Electronics Co., markets a broad range of award-winning digital consumer electronics, information systems, telecommunications and home appliance products. SECA upholds Samsung’s mission to provide consumers with innovative digital convergence products that possess exceptional technology, quality, features, performance and value.

Samsung has been a global TOP sponsor of the Olympic Games since 1998 and has been a presenting sponsor of the Olympic Torch Relay from 2004 to 2008.  Also through Samsung’s Four Seasons of Hope charity, Samsung helps athletes and celebrities raise funds for their respective charities, including the Wayne Gretzky Foundation in Canada.  Samsung is also a proud sponsor of Hockey Canada.

For customer service inquiries, please call 1-800-SAMSUNG (1-800-726-7864), and for more information, please visit www.samsung.com.

For some readers, this post will feel like scraping the asphalt, then rubbing rock salt in the wound. If it feels that way, you might want to get used to the feeling. It’s here to stay.

I’ve written about communications technologies for many years, from every angle. But that isn’t all I do. While I’ve worked in small startups, unlike many of my colleagues, I’m deeply entrenched in enterprise architecture at the Fortune 100 mindset too. I see things from more than one angle. Working as the advising technical architect to a very forward-thinking CTO of one such company, my views of the enterprise embrace new technologies like cloud computing, mobility, netbooks and the iPad in different ways. Hanging with my enterprise architecture colleagues sometimes heightens the chasm I see between emerging technologies and reality. Hence, this rant.

Enterprise 2.0 is bandied about far too often these days and I want to debunk it. Enterprise 2.0 is the Johnny come lately, gotta get on Web 2.0, geez we’re so current mantra that’s overly popular in some circles today. So let’s be clear. Web 2.0 is dead. It’s last decade. It was nothing but fantasy to begin with. Web 2.0 is PR spin for keeping current with technology. Keeping current with technology isn’t forward thinking. It won’t future proof your business. Keeping current is not rocking the boat while you’re motionless in calm water.

The real next generation enterprise never uses the phrase Enterprise 2.0. They’re too busy building the next generation. They’re impatient. They’re agile. They’re looking to run major project initiatives with a lean team of a handful of people, re-architecting global networks in shortened time frames. And they’re succeeding. They’re doing more, more quickly with a team of 6-8 people than they used to do with project work teams of 40 or 50. And they’re improving the bottom line while they do it.

This isn’t the enterprise where your daddy worked for 30 years. And neither will you.

This next generation enterprise is a lean and mean behemoth. Sounds like a contradiction, but it isn’t. It’s made up of a hundred thousand people. Not employees. Contractors. Oh sure, there are maybe a thousand core employees, but the new enterprise doesn’t lease or own office space. They contract with cottage workers around the world. They know timeshifting and placeshifting work to where the talent is leads to lower CapEx, lower OpEx, higher margins, and more profitable business. They know the best and brightest aren’t interested in moving to BFE to work on some boring account-focused project. These people want 12 projects at once. They are nimble, intelligent, proactive and aggressive.

This new enterprise understands cloud computing for what it really is – yet another buzz phrase that means something or nothing different to everyone, but has some key values at its core.

• The data center can be anywhere or everywhere. It doesn’t even have to exist. The data center can be web services connected to a server here with a database there. Anywhere.
• People can be anywhere and everywhere. And they are. They don’t have to work for you permanently. They just need to give you the right slices of their time and talent.
• The cloud can be anywhere. It is. It isn’t a cloud. It’s a network of clouds. It’s the Internet – a network of networks. It’s the same story we’ve been selling for 30 years, but it’s real.

Cloud computing is not about putting data centers in the cloud really. It’s not about putting services in the cloud either. It’s about the ubiquitous access of the cloud. I can get to the cloud from any device, any time, wherever I choose to work. That, my friend is cloud computing. Access to anything and everything. And that’s the real power behind openness. Not risking your data, but enabling the people who need access to have access. Cloud computing isn’t about the core of the cloud, but the access to the ends, wherever they may be.

Often the ends will and do exist inside the cloud. That’s what makes them most accessible.

In this new enterprise, things like this will happen:

That’s what Lotus Notes replication might look like on an iPad. Say what? Yeah Notes on the iPad. Or iPhone. Or netbook. Or anything that you use to access the cloud. From anywhere. Any time.

How? The cloud baby. It’s in the cloud. It’s called desktop virtualization and it’s spreading across those old enterprises in prototypes, beta tests and early implementations right now. Sure you hear about server virtualization, and it’s a big deal. A really big deal. It’s the green initiative those enterprises are talking about. But you know what? They don’t care about green, they care about money. And for a big enterprise with multiple data centers that green is the color of money. They’re reducing electricity costs by millions with server virtualization.

Desktop virtualization is green money colored too. No longer will the enterprise sign a master agreement to buy new laptops every 3 years from Dell, HP or anyone else. Why? They don’t need to. They won’t have to. Businesses hate that relationship and this is a profitable way out. It’s as green as a thousand dollar bill. A shipping container full of them.

There’s another green effect in play. Employees require real estate. In the old enterprise, they have to have a place to go. It’s where check boxes get checked. Attendance. Tardiness. Vacation. The old enterprise, The dying enterprise. The model that’s quietly starting to fade.

The new enterprise employees are mostly teleworkers, but even that term holds less meaning. Mobile solutions deliver cloud connectivity to the resources. Today’s teleworker may spend several hours a day at a coffee shop. IM, SMS, VoIP telephony, online video provide more than just alternatives to cubicles and travel for meetings. Today’s worker is either a digital immigrant or digital native. For us it’s the preferred method of work. It’s incentive. It makes a job more appealing. It’s so very now.

For the aging worker, it’s not an invitation to leave. It’s an invitation and incentive to keep working. Companies are finding this truism every day. They call it retention of institutional knowledge. It’s a powerful, valuable tool in hanging on to the older workers who know the business details because they helped build it from the ground up over the past 30 years.

Where do these virtual workers go if they don’t have a cubicle to call their very own? Home. Starbuck’s. Portugal. Ireland. The beach. An island. Any place they like. Where they are doesn’t matter. Place shifting lets them be wherever they like. I say virtual workers because teleworkers don’t need to be employees. They can be contractors. Many are. Many more than you probably think. Pick a number. Think higher. Higher. You’re close. But it’s a growing number and the pace of adoption for this approach is accelerating.

Desktop virtualization will lead to the desktop being whatever the enterprise chooses for tools. The workstation? Whatever that contracted employee chooses to use, or within some supported set anyway.

Enterprise 2.0 as a Web 2.0 carryover? It’s not dead. It was never born. It’s just spin doctor hype from enterprises trying to gain some attention and hang on to relevance. There are many of these. BUT, there are many enterprises that are well into the migration toward the real future. In The Third Wave by Alvin Toffler laid out the vision of the electronic cottage back in 1980. Toffler looked at early personal computers and saw into the future. That future is here, and our electronic cottage today may be as small as a Blackberry or iPhone. The choice of personal computing tool is filled with options.

As for employer, who do you work for really? Your father’s company? Your employer? Do you go report in every day to your cubicle just so they can verify you’re still alive? I work for me. For my family. I work to make our life better. That might mean long hours, many projects, bureaucracy and BS. But it doesn’t have to mean imprisonment in an 8×8 cell so a supervisor can watch me to make sure I’m still breathing.

More and more, the power of business, from very small companies to the biggest global enterprise is the value of human resources. The staff. The talent. The brains. The engineers, sales pros, writers, designers, relationship managers who really fuel the stream of money. Not employees, but people who receive value in pay for providing value. The value proposition of permanent staff employees is changing. The equation is changing. The balance of power is changing.

It’s happening right now. Every day. In more major enterprises than you probably think. Why do I think this? I live there, and I’m helping make it happen. I’m changing the world of work for me, and by extension for you. Get ready.

Something to keep in mind when reading this, I didn’t do a technical review. If you want that, you’ll have to wait for Ken to write something. These are personal experiences and feelings from a pseudo geek.

You’re probably aware of the queries both Ken and I have thrown out about iPhone stuff. We’ve been such strong proponents of RIM, I’m pretty sure most of you can’t fathom us switching sides. We didn’t, at least not exactly.

We got iPhones.

I know, that’s got to be the big shock of the year. So how come I said we didn’t switch sides? To switch sides implies we are no longer rooting for the other team, and no longer view them as quality and that simply isn’t the case.

We took a little road trip this last weekend and our friend Dameon, aka @phoneboy called while we were in transit. Something I thought about while talking to Dameon was how much I still loved my Blackberry. My Blackberry Bold found a new home with my son who swears it’s the best phone ever – that coming off the Nokia 5800 Xpressmusic phone which we loaned him a year ago and he LOVED.

What I loved about my Blackberry.

Both the Blackberry curve and bold are impressive devices. They thread messages wonderfully, their messaging service works almost flawlessly, to send both text and mms is super simple, and the apps for basics like twitter and facebook work better than their native platforms work most of the time.

I also loved typing on Blackberry. Typing on a qwerty keyboard is so much easier than a non qwerty, and when I say that I mean it beats hands down my use of the iPhone. If I had to say one thing would make me think twice again it would be that feature, or lack of a feature that could cause me to rethink.

The Blackberry messenger service was incredible. The iPhone may have over 100k apps but nothing I have found touches what Blackberry messenger could do, from basic messaging, one on one, to group messages, as well as file and picture transfers I simply don’t see anything in iPhone that comes close.

Multi tasking is yet another feature the Blackberry does well. With the Bold I was able to have multiple applications running at the same time, and did. I could have a call up, apps running, all while web browsing, something I’ll talk about later.

There are a few apps on the Blackberry that I miss but the truth is, if I were to shift back to that device I would miss some apps from the iPhone. Still, worth a real mention here is an app that I used in beta called socialscope. There has not been another mobile app that remotely functions the way socialscope does. That one app is a struggle and why it took me a while to buy the tweetie app on iPhone, something I wish I hadn’t purchased because I don’t find it better than anything else on iPhone that’s free. I remember hearing how fabulous it is and all I can say is, those who said that never had socialscope. ‘Nuff said.

Now web browsing. If all you’ve ever had is basic browsing like those non-smart phones offer, the Blackberry browser wouldn’t seem bad at all. I know because that is all I ever had pre Blackberry. However, once you have experienced other types of browsing you quickly see that RIM has a lot of catching up to do in order to provide a comparable experience. I’m not sure they can, actually. It’s unfortunate because so many things about the blackberry are actually superior to the iPhone. The appstore and browser make all the difference in the world. So let’s talk about that.

Experiencing the iPhone.

Many of you know that about a year ago Ken and I both got an ipod touch. Why that matters is because getting an iphone meant we already had a clue how to use it. Using the iPhone isn’t quite like using other phones or pda’s. It simply behaves differently, has a unique interface, which ultimately anyone can use because you don’t have to tell someone what to do to use it, it’s incredibly intuitive. It functions and works so easily and that is one of the great things about it.

We spent a year using ipods yet were pretty hesitant to get an iphone. There wasn’t any one straw that broke this camels back, it was many things.

First, while we don’t much care for the typing experience on iphone, something I’m sure we will eventually not have is a keyboard. Certainly not in the way we have them in current iteration of computer systems. I think touch, and ultimately voice will be our interface. We both think it likely.

Second, we are growing more and more mobile. Down sizing if you will. We want a device we can use in more ways than just to text or im and talk on the phone. Certainly I was able to watch youtube on my Blackberry, but if you put the Blackberry screen next to the iphone screen you can quickly see that there’s much better ability to see things on the iphone. I don’t have to squint as much and that is a big deal as I rarely have my glasses. Ken wears bifocals which also makes the iphone much more user friendly!

Third, the browser. There is not enough white space to talk about how brilliant the browsing experience is on the iphone. I LOVE the browser so much! It is the BEST browser on any mobile device I have ever used, and I have used several. I like that you in essence get tabbed browsing, and so far I haven’t found a limit to the number of windows I can open.

I love the ability to both pinch the screen to make it smaller or bigger, depending on need. The way I can scroll so seamlessly across a page not optimized for mobile browsers.

I don’t like the way my messages are threaded in the message box. It has made it impossible to respond to pokes much of the time. If I get a poke from someone and immediately following get a message, the message can be addressed, the poke can not.

I also don’t like that I literally have 3 different inboxes for mail. They all fall in the mail section but are separated there into 3 different boxes. It is more tedious and  I don’t care for it but it’s certainly doable.

The appstore, that’s incredible. If you’ve tried to use an appstore for any other platform you can appreciate a simple click and install process and how nice that would be. Blackberry appstore would like to be good but it isn’t. It’s a real pain.

Itunes on the other hand makes everything awful. I do NOT like itunes. Now, I will grant you that maybe I don’t use it to it’s best advantage, so that could be user failure. But many people I talk to despise the itunes interface and I wish it wasn’t so annoyingly cluttered, or processor intensive. I also wish there were better directions for how to prevent your non DRM’d media from becoming owned by itunes. I know how to do it should I need to, but it is a non-intuitive process. Funny how all the rest of the things about the iphone just work on an intuitive basis but not itunes. Not sure what happened there but someone clearly dropped the ball.

The sum of the total…

I wish I could tell you all that I wouldn’t change back, but that wouldn’t be fair. I probably would in the right circumstances. But for now, I’m an iPhone user and it’s not that bad. It’s not perfect, but I’m still learning. I’m sure I’ll have more to say as time goes by. I’ve only had it for a couple of weeks and I have a lot to learn.

One of the great values of the iPhone is the rich selection of apps. We know and love them even though the selection of garbage apps is huge.

Those apps aren’t a problem. They simply consume space on the App Store and clutter things.

This morning my headache is Ping! Which simply doesn’t. I’d read some time back how similar to BB Messenger this app was. Being a recent convert, I had to check it out. It was one of my favorite BB apps.

Messages beteen Sheryl and I vanish. We both added @newmediajim, and while it worked fine for Sheryl, Jim never got my messages.

My point is that apps, whether free or paid, are like noise. Not terribly different than a nosiy web page. To succeed they need our attention. Why? Because with a click, your app is gone and we’re on to something else. It’s that easy.

A wildly popular app will gain buzz. An dysfunctional one is a forgotten failure. Unlike banking officials, there is no bailout or golden parachute for failed apps.

If a networked app can’t handle the basics elements of thigs like WiFi and DNS, it’s time to fix it or move on. Leaving this sort of thing in the app store doesn’t help your reputation.

Gosh people get so upset about a gadget that not only isn’t in their hands but isn’t supposed to replace current devices. This is supposed to be a new category of device. Why are people so tied to knocking a product or putting someone else’s opinion through a meat grinder?

My first thoughts on the iPad hold. I think it’s COOL! I want it. I can’t wait to own one. I would definitely be a first generation owner if I can justify throwing some money at it.

I think there are some perspectives missing from this whole discussion. Mr. Jobs said this is not a netbook, it’s not a phone, it’s not a pc, it’s something in the middle. A whole new way of doing stuff. Maybe not to the iphone user, though from all things I read and heard yesterday, there will be new things for those of us who already are familiar with that device.

I was on someone else’s site responding to comments yesterday about how I don’t think we should undervalue this new device. It seems to me, this is the future, not the past and to compare the two is not possible. They offer different strengths.

Ken made some great points to me this morning. He said this isn’t a computing device this is a connecting device. I hadn’t thought of it quite like that but that’s worth some consideration.

What about other possibilities? How about a holder that will keep it protected in the kitchen while you look up recipes? Or in the workshop where you might need to know what tool you need to do something? How about sitting on the coffee table so you can read the newspaper or as the remote for your home theater system so you don’t have to shell out 200 bucks for a remote to run it all? How many 200 dollar gadgets can it replace in an all in one new device that also happens to do some other really cool things?

Where are the futurists? We aren’t going to be sitting with a keyboard and mouse the whole rest of our lives. We’re going to be changing and evolving. We are going to be swiping screens and using our voice to do things that to now were just possibilities on the horizon. Tomorrow we’ll be doing a wide array of things we can’t even fathom. The iPad is a step toward it and a step away from where we’ve been. Am I the only one who sees that?

And another thing, to loosely use one of Steve Jobs statements, the processor in this new device was not meant to compete with a 3.8 hyper-threaded or quadcore anything. It is a different animal altogether. It is apparently as fast as anyone has seen anything run. I say WOW and COOL because it won’t heat up at the same rate as a traditional computer, won’t need the cooling system attached, and will in general require less power to run, which is FABULOUS!

Like many other people I sat on my sofa watching as patiently as possible for what was coming for Apple. Having recently switched to an iphone from a Blackberry, I had high hopes and great expectations. And I also made the assumption that many others did that there would be a tablet on their horizon. I wasn’t wrong but that wasn’t the big deal. Not in my opinion.

140,000 apps at your fingertips. From day one.

Right now, iPad can run almost 140,000 of the apps on the App Store. It can even run the apps you’ve already downloaded for your iPhone or iPod touch. Learn more

That is certainly a big deal. It’s super cool, and I’m probably more aware of how cool it is having used my new iphone for a couple weeks. But that’s just the beginning. The new iPad Also has the ability to dock to a keyboard. If you haven’t paid attention to me ranting about this in the last year, you won’t know one of the big reasons we didn’t choose an iphone sooner was no physical keyboard. I do miss it and this makes me really happy. Productivity will begreatly enhanced with this.

Watch out Kindle!

Another game changer from my perspective is iBooks. A beautiful, easy to use virtual bookshelf, the book reader and bookstore ‘just works’. Kindle over priced themselves, making their devices more expensive than many netbooks, and consequently their lack of extra abilities will make it impossible to compete with this new device. It’s unfortunate that they will be collateral damage but they will and so will all other book devices.

Unlimited 3G Data? YES!

If I had to pick a single part of the Steve Jobs News Cast this morning that really turned our world upside down, it has to be the 3G data plan for $30 a month, no contract, cancel anytime! I won’t repeat it but do think this will change the future landscape of mobile computing because this one statement invites competition that we haven’t seen for a long time. Competition will be good for our pocketbooks.

Now you’ve seen some of the neat pictures, I’d like to ramble for just a minute. I love this device. This is a device that in my mind is just about the coolest thing I’ve seen, since the pc. I was practically drooling, largely because I see how much this will change the future, our future.

Of course with the good comes the bad, and I would be remiss if I didn’t mention a couple of things that are lacking or outright missing. There is no camera. You can’t do video. You can watch it but no creation. Also, the storage ability, or lack there of makes it impossible to make this a primary computing device.

All of that said, the iPad has so much potential for putting something that was typically a tool associated with mac centric geeks in the hands of everybody. It will force us to change our computing behavior thereby creating acceptance of new ideas to further enhance our lives.

I’m so excited!

Technorati Tags: iPad, Apple, Steve Jobs, Kindle

My 2 cents, for what it’s worth. I don’t get all this hub bub about how scary it is to share your location with the world. We used to put our addresses in the phone book. OH NO! Who hasn’t been ‘stalked’?

Just today I saw no less than 4 posts about the geolocation craze. I’m in it and loving it. My favorite quote comes from Euan Semple.

Euan wrote:

I am always surprised when people write as if they were victims of technology rather than in control of it – I guess it is a bit like email!

Why do I like this? It points out that with technology we have more choices and more options to control what we take in, or to better filter things. Expecting everyone else to accommodate us is a little arrogant. Certainly we should try not to be too disruptive, but we really do need to better handle what we take in and stop expecting others to handle it for us. Filters are a key component to our sanity in a world where we are inundated with too many choices and too much noise.

Just a little piece of my mind. I won’t be leaving too many lying around. I need them.

Technorati Tags: geononymity, sheryl breuker, filters

Many of you know, Ken’s phone, a blackberry curve, went kaput just prior to the Christmas holidays. Ken and I have been predominantly Blackberry users since my arrival in the US 2 years ago. My initial experience could have had me forever a fan girl, actually, it did leave me a fan girl. I am a Blackberry fan. I don’t think that’s in danger of changing anytime soon. And why would it? So many things to like.

Of course, what I realized as time went by is that the things I most appreciate about a blackberry are things any smart phone could have offered me. It really comes down to the connectivity. The ability to connect to a variety of people and places from virtually anywhere. The form factor was fantastic, the QWERTY keyboard, outstanding, the multi-tasking superb. Even the browser, though certainly not what many have come to expect, still brought me to the world in ways I hadn’t conceived of 5 years ago.

Today my world is different. I look to the future with a different set of eyes. Eyes far more attuned to possibility. Where is mobility heading? I listened to a webinar by Gartner, an analyst group who has a lot of gifted people sitting in their offices studying trends, people who take real data and make smart projections and predictions based on a variety of factors. One of their projections struck a chord in me.

Gartner has suggested that by the year 2013, 3 years from now, the mobile browser will overtake todays browser in a pc. This makes a great deal of sense to me. It makes sense because the smart phone industry on a global level is growing at a huge pace. People will be browsing on their phones, or whatever we call the next device we pocket that we can use for voice and data.

Something else that has been on everyone’s mind, the Apple tablet. Who knows if they have one up their sleeve or not, I think it entirely likely, but whether they do or not, what is likely is somebody is making one and it will more closely approximate the apple iphone than it will a blackberry curve or bold.

Now, why would I say that? One doesn’t need to be a rocket scientist to have enough perception to know that the swoosh of a finger on a screen beats the hell out of a mouse. Do you remember what it felt like the first time you used a mouse? The inability to control it perfectly, the way the cursor would run all over the screen, and how you felt incredibly inept? The mouse hasn’t changed much in all these years and the lack of control, with practice yes it got easier, but what could be easier than touch with your finger and being that exact? What about voice controls? These are both things the iphone does well and are really the beginning of a new way of computing. I realize all of you who have been using an iphone for what is now nearly 3 years, are laughing and thinking, DUH. We already knew that. But that thought shouldn’t take away from the fact that other devices have had a lot to offer as well.

But the times, they are a changing, and with it our computing habits, and that brings us to devices that also must change to keep up.

I don’t know what you all read on the web, but everywhere I look there are articles talking about smart phones and tablets. These are almost buzzwords today. A few short years ago if you had a mobile phone, all you really cared about was whether it would give you the ability to talk to someone when you were out. Then it was all about text. How many stories have you read about the massive cost of not having unlimited text plans? Today with global travel so prevalent, it’s data costs. What is data? It’s the web pages you view, the things you download, the newspapers you read, the youtube video’s you watch. And we all do watch and read those things, or anyway it would seem so. In a few years it really will be world acceptance, not so different than what the telephone became as it caught on, the only significant difference is the speed that it will do so.

So today I write this on a netbook. The little 10.1 inch screen a far cry from my desires a few years ago to sit in front of a 21 inch screen. No my eyes haven’t improved and I haven’t gotten a stronger prescription of eyewear. What I have gotten is a device that is mobile, handy, wifi enabled, capable of doing basic computing ‘stuff’. Beside me sits my trusty Blackberry Bold. But waiting for me in my living room, bleeping away is my new 32 gig iPhone 3GS. It’s ready for me to do what I will. Will it take me to the next iteration of technology? Of course it will. That’s all it can do. But it isn’t perfect and I’m pretty sure there isn’t a technology out there that will wow me the way I could have been wowed a few years back. Technology is too much a part of my world. I can’t see the future, but I have it on good authority we’ll recognize it when it happens.

Technorati Tags: blackberry bold, iphone, technology, sheryl breuker

Ripples of shock went through the Twitterverse last night when I said I was sleeping on the idea of an iPhone to replace Blackberry as my next mobile phone. Rest easy. All is well and harmony has been restored to the universe. But there were enough comments from friends and colleagues that I thought I’d explain why the consideration, and why I’ve eliminated the iPhone yet again as the phone for me.

First, why consider an iPhone?

Like most people, I’m impressed by the application platform. More importantly, I’ve been considering doing some development work again; something I haven’t done for many years. The iPhone is a far easier platform to develop for than other mobile devices. RIM has been my platform of choice, but frankly, I don’t see doing RIM development as being worth the headache and heartache it involves. Developing an iPhone/iPod app is doable, and could lead to other new things.

But, I have an iPod Touch. And most of the apps in the app store are garbage. I don’t want to create more garbage. Still, that isn’t what led me to back away from the iPhone.

What kills the iPhone for me, is the iPhone itself, in a number of ways, partly coupled to the Apple culture.

1. It’s a 3G device, but I live in a 2G community. 3G won’t be here before 4G hits much of the US. I haven’t seriously been considering a 3G device because they suck power when there’s no 3G available, and battery life is a big concern for me.
2. The iPhone is quirky and unreliable. I only say this based on how many times I’ve seen my friends and colleagues complain that they lost this or that and had to do a complete, tedious restore process. Or they were off to the Genius  Bar. That’s nice, but the nearest Genius Bar is a 6 hour drive for me. I won’t go there. Ever. So any failure of that sort, means shipping my phone into space and doing without until it returns; not a good solution.
3. Battery life is at a premium. My Blackberry has the best usable battery life I’ve ever seen. It’s better than my iPod Touch, every Nokia since the N73, my older WinMobile Treo. And it’s easily swapped. The iPhone doesn’t have good, let alone stellar battery life from all I’ve read. But at least if the battery in the iPhone dies, I can go sit and do nothing. A non-swappable battery is simply stupid beyond belief.
4. External memory is a concern. Sure the current 3GS has a 32G option, but there’s no microSD support, which seems terribly shortsighted and something that can’t be fixed without a new iPhone. Not good for me.
5. The keyboard on the iPhone isn’t really a keyboard. I’ve used my Touch for a year and hate it. Yes, I’ve learned I can get used to it. Getting used to it and liking it are personal things. I don’t like the iPod keyboard and I don’t believe I ever will. The Treo, with it’s combination of touchscreen and keyboard were my favorite solution. Maybe one day the iPhone will incorporate a slider keyboard. That would make me reconsider.
6. Contract lock. I’m already an AT&T customer, but I’m not under contract. I’d like to keep it that way and an iPhone means signing a 2-year contract. I don’t have to do that.

No, I don’t expect to do dev work on any mobile platform at this point. The iPhone is the only one I was considering, and if I don’t use an iPhone, why bother? It was a nice idea, but that motivation is gone for the time being. Maybe it will resurface at some future point.

Reality is that my work is largely in enterprise network and communications space. And government space. And security space. Areas where the mobile of choice is a Blackberry. The iPhone hasn’t penetrated my core target client base, and it isn’t on track to any time soon.

Windows Mobile hasn’t penetrated anywhere really. Except Redmond. There are pockets of use, but it’s simply not the OS for me.

Nokia has deeply penetrated the cheap phone market. Standard mobile phones, a new model every week. Some weeks every day. But in the high end, and the enterprise space, they’re a non-event in my target client base. The E series might be big in European enterprise markets, but in the US, it doesn’t exist. The N series seems to only exist in the die hard Nokia lovers segment. While I can get an E71 at a reasonable price, even cheap with a contract, why would I? It’s a phone that’s at de facto end of life just by virtue of how Nokia rolls out new ones. Nokia doesn’t make sense for me.

My opinion of ‘droid phones and Android is already well known enough. Not for me.

To be fair, I do love the iPhone browser. I love some apps, but not all. But the Touch is enough. There’s plenty of WiFi. It’s a great sofa computer for casual computing. The iPhone would be too. A great computer, but not a great mobile phone as a single device for my personal requirements,

Blackberry. Simple, obvious, and expected. And the choice is pretty easy for me. There’s either the Curve 8900 or the Bold 9700. The only differences I can see are the Bold comes preloaded with OS5. I may have to load that by hand on an 8900. And the Bold is a 3G device in my 2G world. I already know my Curve 8310 gets better battery life than Sheryl’s Bold 9000 and 3G searching for network is one big driver. The other is WiFi, which both the models I’m considering have. But I manage WiFi pretty judiciously on the N95 when we use it. I learned how to do that without even thinking about it when I  started testing the Nokia N series phones.

Winner – Blackberry Curve 8900. The biggest changes and enhancements for me? WiFi, 3.2MP camera and a faster processor that my older 8310. All things I want and need.

Interesting that over 6 months after picking the 8900 as my next phone, I’m still sticking with that decision. Of course, that doesn’t mean I’m running out today to part with money and buy one. My 8310 is on its last legs, but it’s limping along and gets the job done. It’s my primary device for communications of all forms for about 14 hours a day.

When’s the last time you got 14 hours use out of your iPhone without plugging in to keep it alive?

The other day I posted 2009 – Ken’s Year in Review and promised I’d follow up with this requisite annual blogger’s rite, my look ahead. There may be some bumps in the road and unexpected twists here, so hang on dear reader. Put your tray table in the upright and locked position, raise your seat back and make sure your seatbelt is securely fastened. I’ve never been particularly shy or softspoken about my look at the future, and I probably won’t be now.

Disclaimer: These are my opinions alone. They don’t necessarily reflect the opinions of any employer past or present, my lovely partner Sheryl, the companies named herein, or anyone else on the planet. Your opionions and mileage may vary widely. Cheap shot comments will be tossed into the abyss, but open conversation and debate is always welcome.

Disclaimer 2: This is not only an opinionated post, it’s a long one. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Early in 2009 I predicted it was going to be the year Cisco took a big black eye. I agree, that didn’t happen. Instead they’ve taken a light bruising all year long. 2009 was a year when Cisco excelled at absolutely nothing that mattered in the market in my view. They were vanilla custard and simply didn’t matter in the market. They got off easy, and in 2010 they won’t. I said a black eye in 2009. I’ll predict a savage beating in 2010, the likes of which they’ve never felt before. I bet you’re curious where, aren’t you?

First in unified communications and VoIP space. I’d say Cisco is going to get their lunch eaten by multiple players. The Cisco solution set is pretty decent (Call Manager and the like), although their phones are forgettable. It won’t matter. I think they’ll get beaten repeatedly by Lucent, Asterisk, Mitel, and others. Even IBM, yes IBM, will cause pain for Cisco. 2010 will be the year Cisco learns how much they don’t know about telecommunications. It will be a bitter pill to swallow.

They bought Pure Digital for the Flip and they’re about to get a bunch of hype for the new Flip with built-in WiFi. I give that buzz six weeks and then they’ll take a good old fashioned, bare knuckles ass whuppin from the likes of Kodak’s Zi8 and a handful of others. More importantly, the current generation of cameras built in to mobile phones, notably iPhone and Blackberry, are likely to shift up taking another huge bite out of the whole dedicated camera market.

Then there’s Cisco’s core business – switching and routing. Coupled with some repercussions of the recent Starent acquisition and Juniper getting serious about the market, I expect some big moves in this space. Juniper will play big and strong. The big dog, Cisco, is going to get rocked back on their heels in some major networking deals in 2010. People will start to think about other options more often before simply choosing Cisco.

Oh, and John Chambers, the Rupert Murdoch of networking, will finally move on. I’ve seen his leadership at Cisco as ineffective in recent years and I expect him to move on, flying off with his golden parachute.

Then we have Yahoo. The worn and beleaguered Yahooligans will continue trickling out the door at every opportunity. There’s still a lot of talent at Yahoo and they are ripe for the picking. They don’t have that many execs left from the old days. Jerry Wang’s departure was really good for Yahoo. Replacing him with Carol Bartz was, IMHO, not a good move. Other than trying to prove her balls by swearing, she’s done nothing that I’d expect from a CEO leading a company. She needs to go. I believe in 2010 she’s out the door. She can take the flying monkees with her too.

Of course there’s Microsoft, the Gorgon with more snakes in its head than Medusa. (Yes, the irony of Gorgons being female is intentional, for a reason…read on). I expect more layoffs at MS. Significantly more. Microsoft is still a very fat company, with plenty of trimming to do. In 2010, I think they’ll do some in the right areas. They’ve missed the mark a time or two with cutbacks, and some course corrections will happen this year. OCS will do well, especially against Cisco. Momentum will gain there.

Most importantly, I think Steve Ballmer will depart. He isn’t good for MS. I think many people feel that way, but nobody says it. I expect him to leave MS and land somewhere equally visible. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s somewhere near either Redwood Shores or Pleasanton in California. ‘Nuff said.

Oh, and MS in an effort to prove they’re not evil and soften their image will place a woman in a very visible leadership role, perhaps Ballmers. We should hope it won’t be Carol Bartz, although she certainly seems to cast a flirtatious eye toward Redmond every now and then.

Yes, there is plenty more if you’re still here. Continue reading “2010 – Ken’s Look Ahead” »