Android: fragmentation is innovation, bit it could kill you

Every time open source is in play, the risk of fragmentation is visible. If the code is out there and every hacker in the world has access to it, what prevents a fork? What prevents the original code to have 50 variations?

Nothing prevents it. It happens. But it happens less often than you might think.

First of all, most of the forks die. If there is a company behind a project, they die faster. Not because the fork is bad. It is just that the volume of development is so significant, the original developers stay with the main branch and the brand is attached to the original code (open source commercial projects protect the brand through trademark, so there is very little a fork can do to claim they are the original).

Forks ultimately die because they do not get enough traction, the developers get depressed, the fork gets stale. It is a vicious negative spiral.

If a few fork survive, the result - in most cases - is innovation. "Fragmentation is innovation", as Sean Moss-Pultz once said. I know many people out there believe the opposite, but think about it: if a fork includes smart ideas, and the open source license requires the code to be visible to the public, would you not expect the original project to embed them over time? Yes, me too.

Sometimes, the original project gets stale, there is no innovation, developers get bored, and they fork. Therefore, innovating. The developers of the original project wake up, improve their code, absorb some of the changes in the forks, and regain control. The result: a better product. More innovation. Nothing bad, something actually very good.

Now, let's look at Android. Any real forks out there? Yes, one from China Mobile. It might get actually successful, and I am sure the Google people are pissed at it. But it could generate a lot of good ideas, that they can embed in their project (assuming the not-invented-here mentality does not pervade the Google campus ;-) Overall, I do not believe it will be a major problem for Google.

It is China Mobile that has a problem: they need to keep the new OS compatible to the Android main branch. If they don't, all apps that are developed for Android will not work on their phone. The final result in my opinion? They won't make it. It is too difficult. They will create a China-only operating system, used by Chinese people, with apps developed by Chinese developers for the domestic market only. A missed opportunity for developers (although that market is big...). A sign of China refusing globalization and fighting Google and the US as a whole. A losing proposition, but nothing that would kill Android in the rest of the world, actually only hurting Chinese developers trying to export their good stuff.

So, is there a real problem with Android? Yes, but it is internal. The real fragmentation, so far, has been created by Google itself. They have released way too many operating system version, too fast. 1.x is not compatible with 2.x, in most cases. So much that our community client was built on 1.x, but for our commercial product we chose only 2.x. The effort of supporting two different clients was too much (hint: if you have an Android 2.x, check the Android Market for Funambol. It is an amazing client).

Was Google wrong at releasing so fast so often? I believe not. I believe they have been right. At the beginning of the cycle, you need to move fast, catching up with the competition. When the product is mature (they are almost there), you can start to slow down. In a year, nobody will remember Android 1.x or the G1 (a.k.a. the garage door opener).

Now it is time for Android to slow down. The next two Android releases, Froyo and Gingerbread (yep, what were you expecting after Cupcakes, Donuts, and Eclairs?), are going to be way more backward compatible than the initial ones. I am very sure about it. Most likely, they will change very little of the core or SDK, moving their apps on the Market (Maps, Gmail, Talk, Voice, Goggles, Gesture Search and so on) and making sure they work across all versions.

Google can afford external fragmentation (which is innovation), but not internal fragmentation (which is suicide). They know it.

A tour of Windows 7 Phone

Last night, once again in Italy (there must be something good there, if the best mobile hackers live In Italy: I bet it is the food), someone cracked yet another mobile operating system. This time is the new kid on the block, Windows 7 Phone.

I would not have cared for a Windows 6.x crack, but the new Windows 7 is the real deal, when it comes to Microsoft attempting to survive: if desktop becomes mobile (see the iPad), Microsoft 90% lead on operating systems is gone. Gone. They will be remembered as the pioneers of the PC era. Like people remember who built the Mini operating systems... Gone the desktop, gone their monopoly. Microsoft knows it well, and they went all the way, throwing in the trash 6 versions of Windows Mobile (six: didn't people always say Microsoft needed three versions to get good? Not this time, apparently).

Windows 7 Phone Series came out at the Mobile World Congress. They released an emulator for developers, but with no feature enabled. Last night, Dan managed to enable all the features of the emulator and boom, now we have access to the whole phone. Actually, he pulled the file from his site afterward, worrying about Microsoft, but he did it when he woke up (good hackers work at night, reach their objective, spread the word and they go to sleep). And as you know, when you sleep in Italy, we are awake on this side of the globe...

Short story: I put my hands on the ROM (hey, I am an Italian hacker after all, sorry Microsoft) and played with it a bit.

The home page looks like this:

It is very nice. Very smooth. Very non-Microsoft (ooops). Impressive and user-friendly. The start page is customizable, and you can put your favorite apps on it. Very different from the iPhone grid of icons (copied by Android). Different is cool, these days.

If you click on the little right arrow on the top, you get the apps screen.

A lot of applications, as you can see. Office is there in force, with Word/Excel/Powerpoint. And OneNote. There is a converter (cute). And the calendar app is pretty nice.

Obviously, a lot of emphasis is in cloud syncing and social networks. Here is the messaging setup page:

Facebook is there. Yahoo! is there. All Microsoft is there. Wait... Is there one big portal missing? Gasp, where in the world is Google?? Just when I wrote that Microsoft was the beneficiary of Apple fighting with Google. C'mon guys, be nice. Add Google. Be friends.

What else? Well, the Settings app shows a Backup and Find My Phone feature. Both are part of the MyPhone offering, allowing over-the-air backup and to find your phone when you do not know where it is. More, there is over-the-air update of the operating system (wow, just a few years too late, but glad to see it anyhow). You can't sell a phone without a cloud service these days.

Ok, almost done. What else is cool?

One for the geeks: the Task Manager!!!

There you have it, a tour of Windows 7 Phone. Impressive mobile OS. Different from anything we have seen coming out from Microsoft. Even different from the iPhone. And Android.

They are late, late, late, late, late. But I still feel they have a chance. They definitely have developers. And developers now make the difference between making it or breaking it in mobile (right, Palm?).

If they only would understand the business model of selling a closed source operating system is gone... They could be a monopoly.

Google and Apple fight, Microsoft gains

A couple of years ago, when the market was tanking, a friend asked me which stocks I would buy in mobile. I answered "Apple and Google, they are the only two companies with a clue in this space". I am not sure if I would have made money on the stock (I am an open source guy, money is bad :-) but they definitely delivered on the product side.

Not only they delivered it. They did it together.

Think about the launch of the iPhone. There was Google all over the place. The best maps implementation in the world, even better than on a desktop (let me repeat myself, better than the desktop, with pinch and zoom, any hint on the future of computing?). The YouTube app, first time we really managed to watch videos in mobile (via Google). Gmail integrated. A Goophone...

Google has been a big driver for the iPhone. Eric Schmidt was at the iPhone launch. He was on Apple's board. They were working together.

Then something happened: Google decided to push Android. They launched a device so ugly Steve Jobs probably is still laughing. Then it got better. And better. The Nexus One is the closest thing to an iPhone out there. I am sure Jobs noticed it...

Eric Schmidt left the Apple board. Soon thereafter, Google stole AdMob from Apple (they let expire a 45 days no-shop, and three days later Google announced the acquisition for $750M...).

Lastly, a month ago Google pushed an update of the Android OS that made it look like an iPhone, with pinch and zoom. A declaration of war.

And war it is. This month, Apple has sued HTC, the company which makes the Google Phone. A proxy to attack Google. It is out in the open. And it is going to be nasty.

What is next?

Well, you do not want to piss off Steve Jobs... He has recently said that "do not be evil" is bullshit (his words, not mine). And that "we did not enter the search business, they entered the phone business". He is pissed. Really pissed.

Few guesses:

1. the iPad might have Microsoft Bing as a default search engine (I am not suggesting they will strip off Google completely, they will nicely put it as a second choice)
2. that might happen on the iPhone 4.0 as well
3. the maps application might be removed and transformed into one Microsoft-like
4. the video application might be removed and transformed into one Apple-like (coming from iTunes)

How bad could this be for Google? Bad. Because Android will be dominant, but Apple is not going away soon and they will own a large chunk of the market. In particular, if the iPad becomes the future of computing, as I expect.

Is it bad for Apple? Of course. Google is the king of search, and their maps app is fantastic. YouTube remains number one. If you strip out Google stuff, the Apple fan might protest (as they are protesting for the lack of Flash, good luck with that). At the end, users might decide Apple is too close and move elsewhere.

Anybody gaining? Microsoft. This is the chance they were waiting for. With Yahoo, they now have with Bing almost 30% of the search engine market. If they get on the iPad and on the iPhone, they might catch Google in a couple of years.

On top of it, they are launching Windows 7 Phone at the end of the year. Everything I have seen so far is very nice (excluding the fact that Windows 6.x apps will need to be completely rewritten...).

Microsoft is very very late in mobile but when #1 and #2 are fighting, you have a chance to gain back. They have been friend with Apple in the past, when Apple needed them and viceversa. Now they could get back in the game, big time.

Do not discount Microsoft. Never.

Should you buy some Microsoft stock?

Warning: Company Advertising

A freemium model for mobile

It is interesting to watch buzzwords appear and disappear. Many live just for a few months. Usually, when they are gone, they never come back. Sometimes, however, it happens.

Freemium is one of those buzzwords. It is the model of giving away something for free, get people to use your service (hence, making the free version quite interesting) and then upsell a minority of people on additional features. A combo of the words free and premium.

It is the model used by Flickr, for example. You can use the service for free, but they will start hiding your old pictures if you do not pay, once you have a lot of pictures. Similar for LinkedIn and others.

Users like it. If the value you deliver for free is good, they use it happily. And there is nothing better than free. If at a certain point the value you deliver can be even better and is worth paying, people are happy to pay. They do not feel like you are robbing them, or nickle-and-diming. They are genuinely happy to pay (at least, that works for myself, I like free but I do not mind to pay for a good service, like Flickr for example).

The other model, of course, is advertising. But it is intrusive, in most cases. And you need to give up your personal info to an advertiser, which many do not like (I do not, sorry, I will keep using Adblock, I do not care if it hurts the content provider, it is my life you are playing with...).

Now, freemium was very hot a few years ago. Then it became very cold ("you cannot create a large company with freemium models"). Now it is back. LinkedIn is making a lot of money, and it will IPO soon (my prediction). Some interesting variations include having people pay for virtual goods (nobody beats Zynga in it, Farmville and Fishville are delivering hundreds of millions to them).

Guess what? You can build a large company based on a freemium model.

One place where freemium could work very well is mobile, in my opinion. I do not believe the pay-per-app model can create many large companies (or even one). What the AppStore is delivering are $0.99 apps, and nobody can make money with it, excluding a guy in a basement who is fine with making a decent salary. However, if your apps are free and you can charge along the way (freemium), that is a different story. Your adoption rate will be 1,000 times higher, and you just have to find a minority willing to pay a premium (note that only Apple supports this model, Android does not - yet).

Many believe the people who pay for Farmville are just dumb. I don't. If you buy a Wii game, you pay $50. And nobody thinks your are dumb. If you spend a lot of time in Farmville getting entertained (ok, that might be dumb, I get it), it seems very reasonable to me that you spend $50 for it, even if it is one dollar a week. And if you have 400 million people that could play, then it is easy to see how your revenues can be in the hundreds of millions.

Mobile is just an extension of your desktop life, with the slight difference that you have your mobile device with you every single moment of your day. Forcing people to pay, maybe on a per-month fee, it is a good dream. You can definitely do it in the enterprise, with SMBs and prosumers. But when you go to the large crowd, it is going to be harder and harder. Still, the market is enormous...

In my space, Apple charges $99 per year for MobileMe. There is a lot of room to cut that price (and it works only for the iPhone, so good luck if someone in the family has a different device). At the other end of the spectrum, Google charges zero for Google Sync (albeit it is quite a bad product, sometimes free can be of a depressing quality...). How do you move between these two extremes if you are a carrier? Per-month, per-year, free, advertising or freemium?

I say, for now, stick to per-user per-month on the high end of the market, and check freemium for the masses (they are coming).

Long post just to market Hal's last paper for mobile operators "Using Free-nomics to Avoid Pipe-ification". It is free as in freemium, since he expects you to pay one day, I guess. Check it out, it is worth it.

What if the carriers want the network to be crap?

I do not know when and where, but a few days ago I read a note that said "what if Google starts allowing phone calls among Android devices?". Yep, phone calls over IP, completely around the carriers. No voice dollars to the operators. Same as Skype on your PC, but your PC is actually mobile and you can move it close to your ear (try that with an iPad).

What if?

Well, no voice revenues anymore. That might hurt an operator, in particular in the US where the data plans are unlimited. And hurt a lot.

What prevents this scenario to become real?

The network. The bandwidth is not there yet. The network is overloaded. If you try a VOIP call on a mobile device, even with 3G, the quality is horrible. It is like trying Skype on a modem (I did, do not try, it is not good).

Now a thought: what can the carrier do to prevent this scenario? Simple, they can just keep the network as it is today: not-good-enough. They can make it better but still not good enough, because the amount of data load will increase naturally.

Think about it: they have to invest gazillions to improve the network and the only benefit of it might be having Google wipe them out. Does it make sense to you? Would they do it just because the users are asking for it? Can the market push it?

I really hope so. I would hate to see the networks crippled just for carriers to prevent the inevitable.

However, I actually see a good reason for the carriers to prefer the network to be crap.

And that is not a good thing.

Better lucky than smart

I have always considered myself a lucky individual. I have a great family, good health, real friends, a fantastic job and every physical item I actually need. I could always get more, but I do not care about it. I do not see the point of wanting more when I have all I need. I just feel, almost every day, that I am a lucky lucky bastard. And that I did very little to deserve it.

Last week in Barcelona at the Mobile World Congress, I felt exactly the same way. I felt I got even too lucky. This time, in my work life.

I have been talking for years about a few items: open source in mobile (easy to guess from the title of my blog) and server-based mobile computing (now known as mobile cloud services), with a focus on mobile cloud sync.

For years, I have seen the disbelief in the eye of every carrier I talked to. No, mobile and open source won't work together. Where is the IP? And why would we ever want to open our networks? It is all closed and it works so well for us. For years. Years!

There were days I told my wife this mobile open source thingy might take ages to really happen. That I might have started a company too soon and I will be remembered as the one who originally believed in mobile open source, only to get the timing wrong. When I was fundraising for Series A at Funambol in 2005, I was repeating to VCs a word I heard from Andrew Aitken, one of my advisors: "open source in mobile is inevitable". Inevitable. I believed it then, I always believed it. However, it could have taken 20 years to happen…

Instead, it took way less.

At the Mobile World Congress, the talk of the show was Android. There were Android phones everywhere. It is mobile open source. The big announcement on Monday? Intel and Nokia, two of the largest players in mobile (who is bigger than Intel on chips or Nokia on devices?), announced MeeGo. A mobile open source initiative (and you can tell by the weird name, right amigo?). Then Symbian rushed out Symbian^3… Guess what? Mobile open source.

Stop for a second. The talk of the show was mobile open source?? The talk of the #1 mobile show of the year?????

Guess what, I got lucky. Mobile open source just happened. And I did very little to deserve it.

The second theme was the cloud. The mobile cloud. Devices connected to the network, syncing data among themselves and the cloud. Check Eric Schmidt talk at the show below. It is a turning point for the industry. It is a must-watch for anyone in mobile. He is preaching the convergence of computing + connectivity + cloud. It all happens thanks to the cloud. Replication, he says. Mobile applications are sharing intensive, sharing replication, he adds. I call it syncing, but it is exactly the same thing.


Who else talked about mobile cloud syncing? RIM, the maker of Blackberry. An entire presentation devoted to explain their new mobile cloud syncing product for SMBs (Blackberry Enterprise Server Express). And what about that spectacular presentation of Windows 7 Phone OS (really? That is all you could come up to beat the Zune brand? How do you call a Windows Phone phone? Windows Phone Squared? C'mon…). Look at the video below. It is all about cloud interaction, your friends, messaging. They do not even mention you can call people!!! This is how you sell a phone now. The cloud sells it.


Guess what, I got lucky. Mobile cloud services just happened. And I did very little to deserve it.

Anything else? Well, only some talks about how to make the network faster and more efficient, without killing it because of all the above. But this is just a technicality in the big scheme of things. Networks will be faster and will support the load. There is no other way. Engineers will make it happen. Cash will be there to support it.

I have to say the first two days of the show I was speechless. Andrew joked with me on Facebook that there is no way I was not talking… He knows me well, apparently. However, I was actually without voice. Mostly due to a cold, but also because I could not believe what was happening around me.

Everything I said and preached for years just happened. And I did very little to deserve it.

Unbelievable.

As they say: better lucky than smart.

Tethering and the iPad

Ok, I admit it. The iPad is often in my thoughts. Despite not being a mass market product, which usually is what interests me. What can I do? Anyway… I received an email from an Italian friend today, asking about tethering the iPad (see, it is not just me ;-)

My feeling is that people will simply not buy the 3G model, because the iPad is best used inside (try walking with it in your hands on the street, and watch out for that pole). Therefore, I expect most people to buy the wi-fi model. However, there are moments where 3G would be really useful. Still, adding $20 per month on a data-only plan is insane, if you already have a smartphone and you are paying a monthly data plan for it. Few will do it (and the 3G model is also more expensive…).

What are the other options?

One is that the carrier bundles your smartphone and iPad plan together. If the iPad plan is just $5 per month on top of your smartphone plan, many could go for it. At $10, I doubt it (I am cheap but I am not the only one out there).

The other option is tethering. The device has wi-fi, your smartphone has wi-fi and 3G: you just need to put your smartphone in tethering mode, creating a 3G connection to the carrier network and a wi-fi connection to your iPad. I do it all the time with my iPhone and my Mac. It is very fast, very convenient, in particular when there is no wi-fi around and I have to give a demo at a customer site (where there is often no open wi-fi available).

The problem? AT&T does not allow me to do it. I have to go around it, jailbreak the iPhone, add PDANet and hope not to be caught (if you are AT&T and you are reading this, I am obviously joking. I would never do such a thing).

In Europe, tethering is ok. It is quite expensive, but the carriers allow you to do it. It makes sense. If you are paying for a data plan, and it is metered, why limit you? More data means more revenues, so just go for it. I am told 3 in Italy charges 30 euros per month for 4GB (with voice and SMS included). It is a reasonable deal (although I would keep live video off-limits).

What's the difference between US and Europe? Metered plans.

In the US, we only have all-you-can-eat plans. They are good for users, who do not have to think about data consumption. Data size is not a natural measure. Time is (I know how long 15 minutes are). How big is a MB? Ask common users if they believe their graduation thesis (which took 6 months to write) is larger in size than a 5 minutes video on YouTube of a dog on a skateboard: the dog is not going to win, trust me. Nobody gets that video is so much larger than text. Why would they? All-you-can eat is so much easier to understand, and users do not worry when they click. Unfortunately, they get on drugs and it is hard to quit when you are addicted...

The problem is that the network gets overloaded fast. Ask people in San Francisco and New York with an iPhone. My friends are turning 3G off because it rarely works and sucks way more battery. That is bad bad bad.

So, what about time-based plans? I connect for 15 minutes, I pay for 15 minutes. Sounds easy to understand… Well, they might work for laptops and dongles, but when you have a smartphone always connected (e.g. to receive a stream of Facebook or email), you are screwed. It is always on. It would cost you a fortune.

Any other option? Well, in the desktop world, you pay for DSL based on speed, rather than time or bandwidth consumption. Can this be applied to mobile? I believe so. And I feel it would be the best option. However, for now, nobody is considering it. In my opinion, they should. What you have at home is unlimited connection, always on, you just pay more for convenience. Give me 2G for a very low price, 2.5 for a bit more, 3G quite expensive, 3.5G even more and so on. Maybe it is a bit early and the carriers have no way to bill this, but why not?

That said, tethering is still the best option for the iPad. One device has 3G (your smartphone, which needs it more and it is always on), all your other devices talk to it when they have to (when a high-speed wi-fi hotspot is around, you would always go for it, for speed reasons at least). One bill.

Personally, I believe Steve Jobs knows all this and he is forcing the carriers to adapt. The 3G plan for the iPad is just a joke. He is going to laugh at those that buy the 3G iPad, then laugh at the carriers trying to stop the wi-fi iPads owners to tether. Eventually, the users will win and Steve Jobs will add another nail in the carrier's coffin.

For now, if I have to suck up and get a metered access to have tethering capabilities in the US, I am ready to do it. If I can bet (and I like doing that...), I bet for this to happen in the US fairly soon. The networks are overloaded, the iPad runs on AT&T. AT&T has a crappy network. They have to stop it. They have to add metered plans. It is going to happen soon. In the meantime, they will try to catch the few that overload their network (AT&T, as I wrote before, it is not me ;-)

At the end, though, speed-based tariffs will win. But it will be a choppy road to get there.

iPad and a new life for synchronization

This morning I was reading the Seybold's take on Applications for the iPad. It is an interesting article.

Seybold's take is that developers will have to build specific applications for the iPad, rather than having their iPhone apps run on it, or just modify them for a bigger screen.

I tend to agree.

He added:

For starters, many iPad users will not opt for a full wide-area wireless broadband subscription. Instead, they will use it for communications when near a Wi-Fi hotspot or subscribe to an occasional-use wide-area broadband plan. Applications that assume full wireless connectivity anytime the iPad is on will not be as well received as applications that are developed for occasional use. Many iPhone apps are constantly updating the information they provide, but iPad applications that require a constant or almost-constant connection will not be as functional.

Hard to disagree. As I wrote before, I am betting that non-3G iPad will beat 3G iPad, 80% to 20%.

And finally he concluded:

Because the iPad will not be an always-on, always-connected device, applications will have to recognize that fact and compensate for this difference between the two platforms.

Pop. A light bulb on my head.

With the cost of network and the need for carriers to limit heavy usage by people, in the near timeframe (before 4G is here but who knows for how long) tablet will not be welcomed in the cellular network. I mean, you could have them connect to 3G, but it would cost you a fortune. Therefore, you won't do it.

You could tether them to your always connected smartphone, but the carriers won't allow you. How difficult is to think about an iPhone sharing wifi with an iPad? Not difficult, it is just not good for the carriers on the dollar side, so they will make it really not attractive for you (or just prevent it, as Apple and AT&T are doing today).

The result, Seybold says, is that tablet will be on-line with wi-fi, then off-line, then again on-line: like a Kindle (I am still betting on Apple providing some free 3G access only to download content from iTunes, in the future). And like a Kindle, they will store data on the device, to be accessed off-line.

Like a Kindle, the key for the tablet market will be synchronization. Data to be synced will go from books to videos, from address book to calendar, from pictures to music. And a lot more.

Just when you thought the world was going all network computing, synchronization is still king :-)

My Nexus One almost became an iPhone today

I woke up this morning and my Nexus One told me "I am ready for an upgrade". One click, a reboot, and I had a new phone.

Google (or T-Mobile, who knows and who cares) pushed down an OS upgrade. All of a sudden, the phone is capable of pinch and zoom, the feature that made the iPhone famous. It is a new phone.

I know we are used to this market moving fast, but let me stop for a second and reflect on what is happening. Three years ago, I was used to phones that would live with a bug for their entire life. No bug fixing. Never. You had a problem, too bad. Buy another phone.

Then came the iPhone. Apple introduced a new concept for mobile. OS upgrades via the Internet (and a cable). It started with bug fixing and then they began pushing features.

Desktop OS had bug fixing for years, and they still do. However, you do not get features. In mobile, you do (for free).

Palm improved the process with over-the-air OS upgrades, similar to Android. No cable. It is like magic. Your phone transform itself. No need to click, download, plug. A few seconds later, the phone is new.

It will spread to desktop, simply because the OS are converging and the speed of the mobile market will take desktop with it. The iPad is the new desktop and it will have OS upgrades. So will Chrome.

Tomorrow, if Google and Apple get together, my Nexus One could really transform in an iPhone. A question will pop up, a click, and boom.

For now, the Nexus One is still far from the iPhone. Amazing technology, too many buttons. A geek phone built by geeks for geeks. Fantastic integration with Google stuff, in particular Google Voice, great camera, spectacular navigation. Still, too complicated to use, not intuitive, very hard to type on.

Pinch and zoom made it closer to the iPhone. One more software upgrade and it could pass it. It is not a dream, it is a possibility.

The mobile and desktop devices are becoming plain tablets, looking the same. What matters is the inside. And the inside changes while you are sleeping.

Get ready for a world of interchangeable devices.

iPad scorecard and some thoughts

The iPad is finally out. If I look at my predictions of six months ago, I think I scored pretty high. I should start investing in the stock market or play the lotto ;-)

Things I got right:

1. the name iPad. I had some doubts, but they actually picked the name I suspected in August. Too bad for the jokes, they might just add some color to its success (or lack thereof)
2. built on the iPhone OS vs. Mac OS
3. one button device
4. price point "around $599, maybe even less". It starts at $499, which surprised many
5. wi-fi and 3G, but with wi-fi more prevalent and 3G as an afterthought. Let's check back in a year and see how many bought the 3G models: I bet wi-fi will beat 3G by 80% vs. 20%

Things that surprised me:

1. lack of webcamera. I can't believe it. It prevents me to give it to my mom, who is the perfect buyer for the device (but she can't live without videochat). I am so shocked that I think they will add it shortly (check the image on the right from the actual iPad, the address book app supports taking pictures...). Maybe even in the first release in March. A "one more thing" delayed joke
2. the holder on the portrait side. If this is a video device, I just do not understand why I can't watch videos when the device is charging. I don't get it. May I repeat it: I don't get it. Still, it would not be a good reason not to buy the device
   

That said, the most interesting element of the entire iPad story is its positioning.

I thought "Kindle-killer" was the easiest one. Look at the New York Times demo they gave. Astonishing. The newspaper is so good looking, you want to throw away the paper for good. When they show the picture in the middle of the page becoming a video, you realize the Harry Potter newspaper is not far. This is the future of newspapers. The best of both worlds: a full page with articles, with the articles being alive.

Instead, they positioned it as "the best way to experience the web, email and photos". Books and newspapers are not mentioned in the tag line, not even video. Email is. Email??? Email???????? Email is dead, it is a relic in the enterprise. Social networks are the future of messaging. That is what kids do. Email is not a consumer feature anymore. The iPad is for consumers, right?

More: they talked about iWorks. Who do you think would work on a spreadsheet sitting on the couch? Anyone in the enterprise? Holding the device with one hand? Why? Why???

There is always a why. Steve Jobs knows the market better than anyone. Definitely better than me.

However, there have been times when I was right and he was wrong. When he positioned the web as the ultimate SDK for the iPhone, for example. I said "no way, developers won't go for it, not now, it is too early". He announced an SDK a few months later... A super U-turn. And the SDK is what made the iPhone the success it is. The App Store is what makes the difference today with other OSs. The super U-turn made the difference.

Or maybe he was not wrong. He knew it, but they were not ready with an SDK. He was just pretending there was no need because they could not deliver it.

What is clear is that he did not position the iPad against the Kindle. Probably because he believes that is just a niche. He positioned it against the netbooks. At the top of the netbooks price range, as Apple usually does.

Netbooks are not bought by you and me (unless you are a geek who needs two laptops). They are bought by people that have a desktop and need something to move around their data. Or that do not even have a desktop.

In that category:

1. my daughter (7 years old). She loves my iPhone. She will prefer an iPad over a netbook a million times. She is the perfect user for it. It does everything she likes (browsing, watching pictures, gaming). And she does not have to sit on a chair to use it, which kids rarely like
   
2. my mom (more than 60 years old). She loves my iPhone. Same as above, only that she cares about browsing, watching pictures, email and video Skype. The lack of the camera kills it, but as I wrote above, it is going away in no-time.
3. my wife (less than 40 years old). She has a laptop and she would not give it up (it is a Mac, btw). However, what she does on that device is browsing, email, social networks, pictures and music, plus video Skype. She also reads books and the New Yorker. She has only one spreadsheet, which would be easily managed by the iPad. She won't buy one, until her laptop breaks. But when it does, she will be ready. She even bought a thing recently to be able to use her laptop on the couch. If you have that thing around in the house, it means you are also ready for the iPad
   

Look at the list above. It is a very large chunk of the population. The non-geek, non-enterprise crowd. It is not us (sorry, if you read this blog and you are an unemployed non-geek, you have some problems). It is them. The other 90%.

The iPad is a new paradigm of human-computer interaction. The desktop is gone. The folders are gone. The documents live inside the app. The device transforms itself in the object it becomes. It is a non-object. It is what you want it to be. One touch on an icon, it is a calculator. No folders, no files, just numbers as if you were holding a calculator. One touch and it is a notepad. One touch and it is a picture frame. It is the future of computing.

The iPad is the replacement of the home desktop computer.

Look at your parents staring at a computer. They can't do double-click. They will never master it. They do not like the mouse. Look at how they never really understood the folder metaphor. They are scared in front of the machine. Clicking with panic. Always at a distance. No love. Just need.

Now give them an iPad. No panic. No fears. They will touch everything. It is so easy. So fast. With my fingers! And when I am wrong, just one click at the one button and it is back home. Safely. A pleasure to use.

The rest is left for us geeks. The concept of operating systems, folders, Unix, everything we learned. Forget IT Managers for the home, it is going away (now we'll need network managers :-)

Bottom line: whatever pundits say, the iPad is going to be the start of a revolution. I have a feeling it won't sell in large quantities, but it is going to fill a niche after another. Those that want interactive books in color, then gadget freaks, then kids, then moms, then grandparents. Year after year, Apple will improve the device and make sure all the niches will be served.

The iPad is the future of computing for the masses, as the iPhone has pushed the mobile computing model to what it is today. Thanks to the iPhone, 66% of phones sold by Verizon last quarter were smartphones (not even one iPhone). The iPhone showed the world what people could do with a small tablet with one button, connected to the mobile network outside the home. The iPad is going to do the same, inside your house.

Trust me, I am good at playing the lotto.

My final prediction on the Apple slate

In August, I wrote a post with some predictions on the Apple slate or tablet. Now that it is finally about to be unveiled (on Wednesday), I wanted to add a few final thoughts.

First of all, I still believe what I wrote on that post:

1. I still think it will mainly be an e-book reader, doubling as a video player, gaming machine, browsing tool and more. But the reason to buy it will be to read books, newspapers and magazines
   
2. I still think it will have a camera for videochats (therefore, it will be on the front, not on the back)
   
3. I still believe it will be built on the iPhone OS, vs. a full Mac OS X. Actually, I now believe it is going to be built on the iPhone OS 4, and they will unveil the new OS version on Wednesday for developers. While you port your iPhone app to OS 4, just make sure to take into consideration a bigger screen. That's it.

I believe the UI is going to be easy and simple, with one button. You do not realize how important is the "Go Home" button until you watch one of your older relatives use an iPhone: it is the safety net, what you click when you are lost. Something that relieves you from any anxiety in using an electronic device. For non-skilled users, you just wish they had one in any PC (hint: your older relatives might not need a PC anymore, this might suffice).

I feel they will position it as an add-on device, not as a laptop replacement. I am expecting 10" and a price point around $599, maybe even less. I just do not see how they can go to market with something at a $1,000 price, honestly. But I have been wrong before.

I think it will have a holder/charger as the iPhone, but on the wide side (because you want to watch something when it is on the charger: try to do it on an iPhone turning your head...).

I believe it will have both wi-fi and 3G. However, 3G will be available only to access iTunes. Therefore, you won't need a data plan. It will be free and the carriers will take a cut of the downloads (books, music, video, apps) and, therefore, they might even subsidize it. You will be able to sync video and stuff on the device when you have wi-fi coverage, so you will be able to watch it on the go. I just do not see how they can ask people to buy another data plan, even if it is added on an existing smartphone plan. I do not believe they will.

I am convinced they will announce Verizon as a partner, probably also selling the iPhone. The AT&T dumb-pipe-in-the-making process will be completed.

Lastly, I am not sure they will call it iPad as I originally thought. The idea of the retired Conan O'Brien joking about the max version of it (maxi-pad) has made me totally change perspective. iSlate sounds like a good name at this point...

Whatever they show, it is going to be the start of a new revolution. Yet another must-have device, one I will be in line to buy in March when it will be available.

And with all these predictions, I have a good probability to get one right :-)

Chumby and the Internet of Things

While everyone is talking about cloud computing (including me, because mobile cloud services is going to be one of the main topic of 2010), another phenomenon is becoming more visible, every day. We are about to enter the Internet of Things era.

Every device out there will get an IP address. And it will be able to dialog with the rest of the world.

When I say device, I mean everything. From a refrigerator, to a camera, to an alarm clock, to a light bulb, to a car, to a garage door and so on.

I have heard about this concept from my friends at WideTag, a company I have been advising for a while (they have only one problem: they are too smart). They have built an open protocol (OpenSpime) to allow devices to communicate among themselves. You need something specialized to scale to trillions of devices...

It appears simple at the first look (why is it different from having a bunch of computer connected to the net?). However, it is going to change our life dramatically.

Having everything connected is a bliss. I bought a Chumby last week. It is an alarm clock. With a touchscreen and wi-fi connectivity. Built on open source (you can easily get root access in the Linux box), with a thriving community of developers building widgets for it. Therefore, it doubles as an Internet radio, an online picture frame, a weather station, it plays your Google Voice messages and a lot more.

I started developing a widget to show pictures from our Funambol server. So that you can take a picture on your phone and it shows up on your Chumby (or your mom's Chumby), without pressing a button. I wrote it in ActionScript 2, because the widget are based on Flash. With FlashDevelop and some example code, it took me no more than an hour...

Boom, I have pictures rolling on my Chumby. Data synchronized across the world. I take a picture on my phone in Europe, it gets automatically synced on the cloud, and it shows up on the other side of the world in my kitchen.

I brought the device home to do some more development (I want to put my Funambol calendar on it, so I can wake up and see what I have to do that day, just to ruin it right away ;-) and I left it on the counter in the kitchen.

In ten minutes, my daughter was playing with it. She found the widget for the Artillery game and she took over... Once she was done, my wife looked at it. She briefly mentioned it was an ugly device but she got over it quickly. The EDIS feed (Emergency Digital Information Services) shows alerts for bad weather in California. Since it is raining outside, she got hooked. Couple it with the weather forecast, her email, some classical music in the background and I got a "can you make it a gift for me for last Christmas?". Yep, she really liked her Christmas gift, so much that she wants to exchange it for a Chumby...

I was at CES in Vegas a few weeks back. They were showing microwaves with Android, refrigerators with Android, weight scale with Android. All devices interconnected, talking one to another. All syncing data among themselves (yep, I have a feeling Funambol will play a role in the Internet of Things era ;-)

It is going to be an amazing world. The only issue will be dodging so much information and unplug, just to read a book. Oopss, wait, we'll do it on an e-book reader... Get ready, if this was a world of billion of mobile phones, in ten years we will have a trillion. Now you just need a community of people to join together to make it actually work.

No, Google will not subsidize the Nexus One (for now)

I have read lots of different comments on the Nexus One. As you might expect, I have my opinions on it...

I saw the phone for the first time around mid November, by mistake. I was at Google, meeting an executive, when he dropped the phone on the table. His eyes panicked while he tried to hide it. It was pretty clear to me of what I saw. However, I am not a journalist, I am bound to confidentiality and I definitely do not write about certain things on blogs (sorry).

Also, I had written a post a few days before about why "Google would not make a smartphone"... My reasoning was that it made no business sense, having Google made Android the mobile OS of choice for device manufacturers. It made (makes) no sense for Google to undercut them, right when Android is about to win the game.

Seeing the phone, at first I was a shocked, thinking they were actually making the gPhone. Then I thought about it and I concluded: "nope, it is not going to be a Google-manufactured phone, it will be a device manufacturer phone, sold by Google". Exactly like they were selling the G1 an G2 for developers before (we bought a couple, online, same thing as today only limited to developers).

Now that it is out, I have the exact same feeling. They are selling online a developer phone to stimulate the market. The phone is built by HTC and they clearly spell it out in the Terms of Sale. It is sold subsidized, yes, but by T-Mobile (yep, an old-style mobile operator, there are still around). If you want to buy it at full price, it costs as any other phone. The difference is that you can buy it online (although I think you can buy unlocked Symbian, iPhones and Windows Mobile online too…). Honestly, the only difference is the URL, which is Google, instead of Amazon (a significant change, mind you, I am not downplaying the move of Google to act as a retailer).

They did not go against the device manufacturers. They built it with one device manufacturer they know very well (HTC built the first Google phone, ooops, Android phone). They pushed the market forward once again. Device manufacturers that were sitting on Android 1.5 cannot relax. The market is moving. If a device manufacturer thinks it can sit on a release, Google makes sure it has a new Android version out with a reference phone. It is a stimulus to device manufacturers. It is not against them. Google needs device manufacturers (for now) and vice versa.

What about the mobile operators? The Nexus One is not against them either. You need a data plan at least, from T-Mobile or any other carrier that will sell it and subsidize it. They provide it to you. Google is not a carrier. It helps carriers make money. Google needs them (for now) and vice versa.

Now, the big looming questions is: will Google subsidize the phone? Not this one, apparently. And not any phone soon, in my opinion (some disagree ;-) However, Google could: the mobile phone today is a glorified web browser (their tagline is "Web meets phone"…), bringing advertising dollars to Google. It is easy to assume they should do it, changing the game forever. Give a phone away for free, destroy the device manufacturers and force the carriers to offer pure data plans to survive.

I might be dense, but I stand by my first comment months ago: it does not make business sense. It won't happen soon.

Android can only succeed if device manufacturers are pushing it hard. And they are. Google won't screw that. Did you wonder why they did not launch the phone before Christmas? Not to screw the Motorola Droid launch. One day, when Android will be the clear winner in the mobile OS space, they might (and they probably should). Now, nope.

And do not forget the carriers. They are here, alive, doing well. They are fighting not to become a pipe. If you think the world market can go around them, you are foolish. They still control the network, and they are not going to give it up that fast (and if someone wants it, they have to pony up a lot of billions to buy it, not even Google probably can…). Google needs to work with mobile operators. One day, that might change. Now, nope.

Bottom line: Google is doing this for developers, not consumers. They get this. This market is going to be won by the OS that can attract developers. Giving everyone in the world easy access to a reference phone is a very smart move. We started building stuff for Android 2.0 in Europe, on the emulator. It just does not work. You need the real phone. Now we can easily buy it. The rest is free marketing. They did not piss device manufacturers or carriers off. They are working with them. They got an enormous amount of ink, which will convince developers even more that Android is going to win. As a by-product, they will sell some phones online. I am ready to bet their margin on the phone is ridiculous (if not zero): all money to HTC and the carriers.

Developers developers developers. Steve Ballmer knew it and maybe has forgotten it. Someone else is doing it way better. Trust me, I know developers. Mobile developers in particular. We have tens of thousand working on Funambol. What works with them is open, and open source in particular. Nothing else works and will ever work (sorry, Microsoft, it is time you get it). You nail the competition, if you can convince developers. Google is pulling a Funambol (ok, this sounds a bit too strong, but it feels good to write it :-) We just started a few years before them. They are doing what we do, but at a grand scale. And they are going to be immensely successful (while we would settle for that $1B elusive open source company :-)

Sorry consumers, you'll have to wait a bit for your free phone with $20/month data plan with no commitment. It will happen, eventually. But it is going to take a while.

Laughing with European carriers

I spent some time in Europe around Christmas, joining our team in Pavia and visiting family.

With the need of being always connected (my BlackBerry not being enough, apparently), I decided to buy a USB Modem Stick for 3G Mobile Broadband. They are very popular in Europe (in Italy, in particular, I have to say). You plug it in the USB port of your laptop and you have Internet access up to 7.2Mb (which is way more than my DSL at home...).

I did some comparative shopping online and, as usual, I ended up choosing a Wind one. They have the best pricing for someone which lives abroad. The box said "39 euros with 40 euros of traffic". Nice, they are giving me one euro!! Plus, they have a data plan for 12.5 euro cents every 15 minutes, unlimited traffic, on a prepaid card. What not to like?

I spent the 39 euros happily to get the box. The price was tax included: I am so used to paying 9.25% more than the listed price, that I look like an idiot when I buy stuff in Europe. Plus, I can't recognize Euro coins because I left Italy when we had Lira, so I look like a total idiot when I am carefully looking the coins. They do not get it I am a foreigner because my Italian is still pretty current ;-) They just think I am dumb, which fits with what came later.

I got to my hotel, opened up the box, followed the instructions to put the SIM card in the stick (not easy, a bit of geekness needed) and plugged it in my Mac. The installation program came up on screen (very nice, no CD needed, read directly from the stick: optimal because I do not have a CD reader...), two clicks and a "Connect" button showed up. I got excited and clicked. A few seconds and booom, I was on, HSDPA: everything superfast. My Mac started downloading emails, I opened a few web site, then everything stopped.

Oopss, what happened?

I decided to read the fine print (I told you, I am an idiot, that is what you are supposed to do first). It said I had 10 euros of traffic on the card, plus they were going to give me 5 euros every month for six months (for a total of 40 euros). Got it. Then I started wondering what kind of data plan was I using a few seconds before, while connected... I read a bit more and it said the standard plan was 0.3 euro cent per KB. And that I needed to send an SMS to activate the 12.5 euro cent per 15 minutes plan.

Ouch, I thought. A quick look at the log and it said I downloaded 3MB in 85 seconds. Quick math: at 0.3 cent per KB, 3MB... 10 euros gone. I was out of luck, not even money to send the SMS and request the activation of the time-based billing.

What???? You sell me a stick for ultra-fast download with a laptop and it comes with a per-kilobyte billing?? And I have to send an SMS with a card inside a stick (how do I do it?), with text "EASY SI" and wait 24 hours? Easy what? You took 10 euros out of my pocket in 85 seconds!!

What does a raged customer do in the US? S/he calls customer service. So did I, using my cellphone. American ingenuity.

A nice lady answered, Aurelia. I asked a few questions about my balance being zero euros. She checked and told me she had no idea where my 10 euros went, but she confirmed my balance was 0. I told her I was connected for a moment and she told me she had no idea, because they do not get traffic data until the next day (ooops, so much for real-time traffic inspection and billing). I mentioned my theory, that in 85 seconds I went through 10 euros.

She started laughing. I mean, not smiling. She could not stop. While she was laughing, she tried to apologize about it. But she could not stop.

I asked her if I was the first one. She said, the first one to do it in 85 seconds.

She was cracking up. I broke the Italian record for blowing 10 euros on a stick. I guess most of other users do it in a few minutes. I was quicker. The Usain Bolt of USB modem sticks.

I asked Aurelia if I won anything for breaking the record, like getting my 10 euros back. She became serious all of a sudden. "Nope, there is nothing I can do about it". She did not add "you idiot" because she was really nice. I told her "in the US, the customer service representative would apologize to me, give me back the 10 euros, then add another 10 euros as an apology". She was puzzled and did not know what to say. I thanked her for being nice and told her goodbye.

I was 10 euros lighter but it was worth it. I would pay 10 euros for a good laugh any day. Going to the movies is more expensive.

I have my card in my laptop right now. I have 27 euros on it because I had to top it with 25 euros to be able to use it (at zero euros, you can't do anything. Nice trick, with the 10 euros I would have gone by forever), plus they gave me the first 5 euros free for the first month (after sending another SMS). I spent 3 euros using it every single day for two weeks to check email, browse and Skype with people around the world (in Italy as well, since it is cheaper than calling from my Wind cell phone ;-) I am a truly happy user. No monthly bill, and I will be back in Italy a few times this year. The money will last me the full year for sure, probably even a couple of years...

Still, I have that nagging feeling that someone in marketing at Wind tried to rob me of 10 euros. And managed to do it. With a smile. Demonstrating I am an idiot.

Call me stupid, but I feel customer service comes first. If you are in a competitive market, with everyone around you trying to make you a pipe, you have to be extra-careful in managing your customers. You have to make them happy (not laugh). You have to convince them you are the best, that they really care about you. You have to make them love your brand, your logo, your customer service people.

If you don't, people will leave you for someone else as soon as there is a better offer. It is business 101. Carriers must learn it fast. There is no walled garden anymore.

In the new world of wireless, customers have the last laugh...

Always blame the dumb pipe

I have written many times about the risk for mobile carriers to become dumb pipes. The device manufacturers are all out trying to steal the relationship the carriers built year after year with their customers.

It started with RIM and the Blackberry, then came Apple the iPhone. Nokia with Ovi, Palm with Synergy, Motorola with MOTOBLUR, Sony Ericsson with Rachel and more to come.

The carriers are all fighting back: Vodafone with 360, built on technology they acquired (Zyb), and many others licensing code from third party vendors (many, many carriers, I know for a fact ;-)

I always knew that being a pipe is painful. Your revenues become flat, then they start going down. The brand of the device manufacturer becomes all of a sudden more important than yours. Your users become their users.

However, one thing I did not expect: the carrier being blamed for everything...

This is what is happening these days with at&t and the iPhone. Anything cool about the iPhone is Apple's making. Anything bad with the iPhone is because of the network. It is because of AT&T. They get blamed over and over, with crowds dreaming of a Verizon iPhone (ready to blame Verizon as soon as they take on the device).

This article on the New York Times talks about the AT&T network versus the Verizon one, claiming AT&T is not worst than Verizon. Actually, some of the issues iPhone users are experiencing are just due to the iPhone bad usage of the network.

That does not surprise me. A few weeks back, I put the SIM card linked to my AT&T Blackberry account into my iPhone: a few moments later, I received a call from my AT&T representative asking me not to do that. I asked why, since I believe I am paying the same amount for the iPhone plan and the Blackberry plan. They said the iPhone use of the network is way different and my Blackberry plan does not cover that. No surprise the AT&T network is collapsing...

Who did I blame for the call? AT&T, of course.

Always blame the dumb pipe. After all, they must be dumb because they let the device manufacturers take their users and blame them for anything. Dumb and dumber.

Bada starts with bad

Picking a name for a product or a company is not an easy task. When I chose Funambol, I looked for a Latin word starting with Fun, and the concept of tight-rope walking fit perfectly a commercial open source company. I found out later the word can't be pronounced in English or spelled on the phone. Too late, I got stuck with it :-)

Still, I like that Funambol starts with Fun. It brings a good vibe to everything we do.

Today Samsung announced Bada. The name means ocean in Korean. Which is nice. And you can always yell Bada Bing Bada Boom. Which might cheer you up.

But Bada starts with Bad. And there is more to the name.

First of all, it is yet another platform. How many do we need?? Enough already... There is a reason why Funambol decided to acquire an Ajax framework. The future of mobile development is web apps, locally installed with sync and push... We are fed up with any language which is not Javascript+HTML+CSS.

Bada is C++. Developers have had enough of C++, they need something cool to feel their time spent in front of a computer is worth it. I know it is geeky to talk about languages, but Windows Mobile is not going anywhere, also because people like to use Java. And Objective-C is kinda cool.

Then the SDK and IDE are only on Windows. I know, I know. I am an open source guy who does not get that Windows has 92% of the market. It is an obvious choice if you are developing a consumer application (!!!). If you are targeting developers, Linux is much better. Mac OS is much better. Windows is just one choice and most likely not the good one. If you want people to work on your C++ platform, better make an SDK on Linux or Mac fast.

Moreover, they call it "open" but it is not open source. I think we are past SDKs that are not open source. We are past platforms that are not open source. If you are targeting developers, please get yourself in line. We (I have been writing some code lately ;-) do not want to touch proprietary SDKs anymore. Period.

I know users do not understand what open source is and they can't appreciate the benefit of it. But developers do. They see the code. That is what they use to develop. If the code is not open, they go somewhere else.

Lastly, with all written above, there are no phones supporting bada today... Do you really want me to buy a Windows machine to write C++ code on a proprietary platform for a phone that does not exist?

Why?

Why???

Some days I wonder why Google is the only company in the world getting it right. As evil as they are (and they are, the Google DNS service is the incarnation of evil) they just get it. They get developers. They built a platform around a mobile operating system out of nowhere. They got developer to write Android code before there was a phone. They open source everything (although I do not like the way they keep the development process closed, the code is open and they get by with it). They let you use your tools. Maybe it is just that they are a company built by developers. But they got every device manufacture to adopt it (they sold it to the OEM developers, you know? Not their users...) and they are going to dominate the market next year. Every carriers I talk to is about to deploy Android phones, not one or two, five or ten in 2010...

I am sorry but I feel Samsung does not get it. If they want to lure developers, they better call someone who knows how to do it, or they have a guaranteed failure in front of them. Bada is going to also end with bad.

Somebody better build a sexy Android phone for Europe soon

I was reading an IDC statement the other day about Android in Europe:

Android OS continued to grow its market share from 4.2% in 2Q09 to 5.4% in 3Q09. Several operators listed Android devices in 3Q09 for the first time, which helped Android shipments to grow, though consumers steer clear of Google's OS and sell-out is below everyone's expectations. Consumers recognize the Google brand, but still do not understand what Android is.

Once again, I do not think anyone in Europe buys a phone for what is inside. The fact there is Android in a phone does not matter. Not that much inside the phone matters.

What matters is the outside. It is the look.

Yes, you can claim that with Android you can now take a picture of a book and have the book name show up in a search. And you can do the same with business cards and touristic spots. Or search by voice. Or show your friends augmented reality. That is super cool.

If you are a geek.

Sorry, if you are not a geek looking for a geeky companion, you are not going to score showing off your Android phone. Actually, you better keep it in your pocket.

I am not saying this is true only in Europe. But we Europeans do look at what you wear and at what you carry. You get judged based on the color of your socks (if you are Italian, you know what I am talking about...). Your image is important to you and it is reflected on what you wear and carry (purse or phone, same thing). We Americans (cool to be able to talk about both without taking sides ;-) are not looking at people that way. Not in Silicon Valley, not around the part of the country I have been to. What you do matters a lot more. And if you can find a product by its barcode and save a buck or two, you might even be considered cool. Actually, geek is kinda cool, at least in the Valley (now you know why I moved here 10 years ago :-)

For Android to sell hard in Europe, we need a sexy device. Something that sends out the right message to the people around you (your message). Something that matches your purse, shoes or belt.

I haven't seen one in the market yet. Until there is one, I fear Android will not take off in Europe. However, I guess it is just a matter of time. There are so many device manufacturers on it that we'll probably see one or two in 2010.

My impressions on Chrome OS

I have been curious to check Chrome OS since I first heard of it. It is mobile open source, after all, so it fits well with my blog. But my curiosity really stems from the confusion in my brain about the Google OS strategy between Android and Chrome OS.

Android is a full OS for a mobile device. It is getting better by the day (bringing supercool apps with it: I drove with the new Google Maps Navigation tool to work yesterday and it is WOW). Android is going upstream. I am betting we will see a in-car navigation device on it very soon. We are seeing eBook readers already and netbooks. If you look at it, you would assume Google strategy is to kill Microsoft from the bottom: kill Windows Mobile and move up, slowly killing Windows. There are already way more mobile devices than desktops...

Chrome OS is an OS in a browser. A purest form of business model for Google, since it forces everything on the cloud, where they make money. I followed the easy instructions and I quickly built an image on a USB key. I booted my laptop and boom, in 10 seconds I had the OS up and running.


Excluding Wi-fi and audio not working, everything else pretty much worked as expected. Not very fast, I have to say. But I was not looking for that. I was looking for a use case.

I could not find it...

If the OS selling point is that it boots fast, then who cares? My laptop (Mac) boots a little slower but I close the lid and it goes on standby. I open it and it is there. Not in 10 seconds, in 2. Unless the OS crashes or I have to reboot for an upgrade (no more than once a week), I could not care less about the booting time.

Then what? Maybe an uncluttered UI. Yes, that is nice. But the compromise is big. The little windows (e.g. the calculator) open up in the bottom right and they stay there iconized. That is a menu bar, like in every other OS. However it is confusing, because they are trying to stretch a browser to resemble a desktop environment. Chrome OS is something you need to get used to, unlike Android that is immediate.

Aside from some very specialized devices, where you might need just a browser (kiosks?) I do not get it. Maybe I am dense, but I see two paradigm that fits usability patterns:

1. A full desktop interface, with multiple windows and spaces. A menu bar. Multiple apps running at the same time in different areas of the screen (not tabs). Mouse and maybe touchscreen as a nice to have for presentations. Keyboard. The full enchilada. Power to the user. Not a cramped UI.
   
2. A home screen with icons to launch single apps. You click one, it opens, you do something, you close it (or leave it open if it really makes sense). One-click to the task you have in mind.
   

The desktop interface can scale down to netbooks and maybe tablets. But it is an overkill for mobile devices with small screens, or even eBook readers. Actually, it is probably an overkill for anything that is not meant to be heavily multi-purpose.

The home screen interface can scale up, maybe even to desktops. I do not see a reason for Android not to make it up there. Maybe it won't happen because we are all so used to what we have, but there is a chance. At the end of the day, it is a Linux distro and it is proving useful, with lots of apps. I see a future where it could eat in the Windows and Mac OS plate.

However, I can't see it with Chrome OS. On a desktop, it is too limiting. On a mobile device, it is not usable (it is clearly designed for interaction with a mouse). Unless there is a category in the middle where it will fit, I do not get it.

And products in search of a problem are not usually best-sellers. You need a problem to solve first. I understand why a world in the cloud helps Google business, but they are better off going the Android route. There, they solved a problem - and a broken business model.

Yahoo Go(ne)

Today, I found out that Yahoo Go is gone. It is an interesting development for the Yahoo mobile platform, definitely linked to the departure of Marco Boerries in February (just after presenting the new application at the Mobile World Congress, where I was on the panel... weird).

I have followed the Yahoo Go platform since the beginning. Some days, I felt they were totally on the right path. Some days, I felt the complete opposite. The difference? In the details, as usual.

The idea was intriguing: bringing the entire Yahoo experience on any phone. A rich experience. It made sense.

The problem? Too rich. Too heavy. They tried to implement the app download in chunks (it would not download a feature until you actually wanted to use it), but it was still too slow and too heavy. You might think they were simply ahead of their time. The network were not fast enough. The devices were not powerful enough.

It all came down on usability. The thing was not usable. Period.

On the other side, Google chose a different path: simple one-purpose apps, rather than one gigantic app. The entire Google experience a-la-carte. You can download Maps, if you want. Or Voice. Or Gmail. All individually.

The Google strategy worked. The single-purpose app delivers what you need. It is fast to download and fast to start. It is usable. It also fit well with the iPhone and device manufacturers in general. You give some room to Google but not too much. It is not the full Yahoo experience, it is the Apple experience with some Google flavor (BTW, I think the strategy will backfire, Google will slowly but surely penetrate the entire phone, starting with building their own OS ;-)

I still remember a billboard on 101, where Yahoo was advertising that Yahoo Mobile was years ahead of Google. It was... But it did not last long. It seems ages ago, but I guess it was just before the iPhone (I said it before and I repeat myself: we will always talk about the wireless market before the iPhone and after the iPhone. It changed everything).

Later, Yahoo tried a different strategy to catch up. It focused the app more towards bringing an entire content experience on any phone, including Yahoo. That is, taking your Facebook, Twitter and such and putting it on your device. Something that made sense, but not for Yahoo - in my opinion. They are a content provider, not an aggregator. Those that can aggregate are device manufacturers (think Palm Synergy or MOTOBLUR) and mobile carriers (first out of the gate is Vodafone with 360, many are following in panic, I know because they are calling us...).

What is left for Yahoo? I am not sure. It is a company that has so much content that a mobile extension sounds like a no-brainer. The issue is that the brand is damaged, people are moving away from it every day. I used My Yahoo, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo IM, Yahoo Finance for years and I moved away ever so slowly, one app at a time. I still have my Yahoo email, but that is it. And anything they can do in mobile will probably not matter to me.

However, I have great opinion of David Ko (he is a super-smart guy), so I am sure they will come out with something good. But they need to do it fast.