72% of iPad users do not own an iPhone

Today I bumped into a very interesting report from ComScore on iPad users. In particular, there is one finding that jumped out at me: less than 30% of iPad users have an iPhone (27.3%, to be precise). 17.5% own a BlackBerry, the rest have an Android or something else.

It is interesting because it means that the Apple silo solution (MobileMe + iTunes) will not work for 72% of iPad users. When Apple announces their digital locker cloud solution (I am still betting it is by WWDC in June), they will leave all of them behind, scrambling for a solution to sync their phone with their tablet.

If you have an Android device and you cannot sync it to your iPad, then the Apple solution will be meaningless for you. You would better be served by someone who can go across devices (wink wink ;-)

On the other side, this puts even more pressure on Apple to have such a cloud solution. If you bought your iPad after your smartphone (likely) and you are looking at buying a new smartphone (very likely, you change mobile device every 18 months) then you might be attracted to an iPhone more than any other device. Now that you have an iPad (and you love it), you are more likely to ditch your BlackBerry for an iPhone, because Apple allows you to sync them transparently.

The other option, of course, is ditching your iPad for a BlackBerry PlayBook or an Android Tablet, but the iPad has such a lead in the tablet market - and I feel people will change tablet not as fast as they change mobile phone - that I see this as a 2012/2013 option. Not this year.

Bottom line:

• there is a huge market for syncing devices across platforms and the iPad is making this very visible (72% is a pretty big share...)
• there is a huge opportunity for Apple to use the iPad to drive iPhone sales, like they need more :-)

Is MeeGo dead or alive?

Yesterday I received a call from a banker asking a very specific question: "is MeeGo dead or alive?". That made me think.

If you do not know MeeGo, it is an open source mobile operating system. It was originated by the merger of Maemo (supported by Nokia) and Moblin (supported by Intel), and it is managed by the Linux Foundation.

I tried MeeGo on a laptop some time ago and I was very impressed. Great UI, playful, very interesting metaphors. I had good hopes for the OS because Intel was behind it, and I assumed the big gorilla (Nokia, funny how they are not considered one anymore...) would push great devices on it.

When Nokia announced their move to Windows Phone 7 before MWC, it was clear they decided to abandon MeeGo. Their slide, depicted below, did not leave many questions. MeeGo was not even illustrated ;-) while Symbian was going to die (an horrible marketing mistake, in my opinion).

That leaves Intel as the only sponsor. And they have not been able to produce a mobile device yet...

If you look at the mobile OS market, there are two clear leaders: Android and iOS. Is there room for a third OS? Yes, I think so.

Who are the competitors? Windows Phone, BlackBerry, Palm WebOS and MeeGo.

If you have to put them in a sequence, which one would you pick? Hard to tell, but MeeGo is probably between #3 and #4, because Microsoft is betting their life on Windows Phone (and they have tons of money) and RIM is still a formidable player (at least in emerging markets). I think MeeGo can beat WebOS, but is there room for five mobile OSs? I do not think so. I hardly see room for four, honestly.

That would mean MeeGo is going to die. Unless they find a home for it. Let me try to see if there is one.

Android is not really open source anymore. It is hardly open. The rest of the pack are closed OSs. MeeGo is the only pure open source play remaining. This is a big differentiation. At the end of the day, if Android stumbles (there are many reasons to believe it could happen, from lawsuits to fragmentation), MeeGo could be a great option for device manufacturers and carriers.

In particular, I have a feeling MeeGo has a chance on connected devices, beside mobile. The world out there is in need of a true open source OS, built for low power consumption and great interactivity. Something you can use for machine to machine (M2M) communication. It could work on cars, digital frames, microwaves, and a lot of more devices. We are talking trillions here. With Intel behind it, providing the chips.

That might be it. Grow in connected devices, hope for Android to stumble and maybe eventually make it back into mobile or even tablets and laptops.

I have great faith in the Linux Foundation and I think they can pull it off. Android destroyed MeeGo momentum and Nokia stubbed them in the back. You could conclude they should be dead by now. However, we know open source does not die, it grows and grows. Sometimes under the radar, but it does not stop.

If you look at the news, you can see some signs of it. LG is looking at MeeGo. Many others could follow, and in many different markets. Android is giving device manufacturers some worries, and they like to maintain their options open (and keep vendors - like Google - honest). There is life here.

Not in great health but not dead for sure. We'll hear about it for a long time, I believe.

A business model for open source (hint: it's the cloud!)

Yesterday I found on YouTube the keynote I gave at the Open World Forum in Paris last September. I talk about what I consider THE business model for open source projects: a separation of a free community edition for deployment (for people that have time but no money) and a commercial edition in the cloud (for people that have money but no time). Obviously, the example I am using is Funambol... but I think it can be a model working for a lot more projects.

Caution: it is 15 minutes long. Too bad the slides are not visible, this was my best zen presentation sequence ever ;-)



Video on YouTube

Android not open source is suicide for Google

Since the launch of Android, two forces have been at work:

1. Open Source, which made Android what it is today, the fastest growing OS of all time (I need data for this statement, but I am ready to bet it is true) on its way to connected devices domination (i.e. domination of the future of computing)
2. Fragmentation, which has generated a lot of problems for developers and device manufacturers, turning into issues for end users

Of the two forces, I think #1 is the key. Android has changed the game of Operating Systems. From a model where you had to pay for the OS (Microsoft Windows) to one where the OS is free and open. Linux and the rest of the Unix variations had tried it before, but only Android made it big. Because of the Google brand and timing (there was nothing like that available, and it was badly needed).

Google does not make money on the OS. They make money if you use it.  Their goal is to make sure it is in the hands of billions of people. Their money is on advertising, through search and maps. It is working astonishingly well.

To me, fragmentation just makes the road not as smooth as one would like it to be. It makes it like a Californian highway, vs. a Northern Italian one. The former is free, the latter is expensive. The former might have bumps, the latter is perfect. Still, I prefer the Californian highway. And I get to work as fast as I would do in Italy. Actually, faster because I do not have to stop at the toll booth. Could the road be better? Sure. Does it matter to me that much? Nope, I like it free.

However, due to fragmentation, I have seen a bunch of news pop up. Scary news.

First, Honeycomb - the latest version of the Android OS - is not going to be available in open source soon. That might be ok, as long as it happens sooner rather than later. The move is meant to cut out the little ODMs which were building devices on the open source version, fragmenting it.

Today, the news is that Google is forcing licensees to abide by 'non-fragmentation clauses'. Therefore, if you are a licensee, you can build your customizations only if Andy Rubin says it is ok.

Fighting fragmentation is very important to Google. They get bugged about it on a daily basis, I am sure. However, check the current distribution of Android versions:

Android 2.x is at more than 90%. That is all you need. Some people will be always left over. After all, 11% of people still use IE6 as their browser...

I do not think fragmentation is such an issue with Android to prevent it from being the dominant force of OS in the future. I believe pissing off all your ODMs and pushing them to choose other platforms might actually do it.

Eventually, preventing fragmentation might be suicide.

Take a bit of fragmentation, keep the open source model, let people vent about it and move on.

Google, you are winning: if it ain't broken, do not fix it...

Did Amazon just launch the mythical GDrive?

The race to cloud synchronization just got hotter today. Amazon has launched Amazon Cloud Drive, a space where you can put all your data. Interesting enough, they decided to market this service with music first, although the system allows you to upload any kind of data (like your pictures, documents, videos). They have just one player for mobile - the music player on Android - but it is clear this is just their first move.

We were all expecting Apple to bring iTunes to the cloud, or Google to launch a music cloud service, and - surprise surprise - Amazon did it first. I actually called it a few weeks ago, when I wrote about trust and who could own your data in the cloud. Amazon is a trusted source, they could be the one going across devices (since Apple will do only iOS and Google only Android). It is a bold move. Maybe this is why the CEO of RealNetworks stepped down yesterday ;-)

If you look at the service, the aim is clear: create a digital locker for all your data. One that you will be able to access across a ton of devices, mobile and not. Some of the data will be synced, some will be streamed.

It does look familiar, doesn't it?

The pricing is aggressive but not too much. They are undercutting Dropbox by 100% (50G cost $50 vs. $100... ouch) and they throw in 20G for free for a year if you buy an MP3 Album (the lowest price for an MP3 album is $0.69 right now, do your math and buy one today...). The price is roughly inline with their public S3 offering (you get to those numbers as a third party when you buy 4,000TB). However, they are not undercutting Google, which has Google Storage at a quarter of that cost (double-ouch).

Yep, Google is selling 1G of storage for a quarter dollar a year, Amazon for one dollar, Dropbox for two dollars. Get ready for this to get better (for consumers) while margins get squeezed. There is no money in storage, the game is on features. If you battle on storage, you are dead.

It is funny all attention is on music right now. The labels are on fire, saying Amazon must pay them a fee (for what, having an hard disk which is not physically connected to your PC? Yeah, right, good luck). Amazon will knock down the labels and it will be a free game for all, as they have done with DRM and mp3 when they launched the Amazon MP3 site. This is going to be fun to watch.

However, the focus should not be just on music. Rumors about Google launching the mythical GDrive have been around for years. Then one day Amazon comes around and does it for them. It is the ADrive. It is big news. The start of the race to the cloud. The GDrive is history.

What will Google do? What about Apple? I bet the answers will come before summer. Get ready, it is going to be a hot spring for cloud synchronization. It is great to be part of it.

Your tablet will never be a laptop

I am on record as one of the first who said that the tablets were the future of computing for the masses. I stand by my assessment of a year ago. I am even more convinced that the tablet will replace the home desktop computer for the majority of the population and, for that matter, laptops.

However, I am very surprised when I hear people saying that the tablets will replace laptops for people who use them to work. The tablets are not good to do work, period. Any work.

They are not made for it. They are made for entertainment, with some light work in between. They have a precise scope in the workplace: take notes and give presentations. And do some communication. The rest of their life is on the couch at home or on the plane.

I feel it is insane to really believe you are going to use your tablet for heavy document writing, or to work on a spreadsheet. The UI interface is not conducive of high productivity. Your hands are always in the middle, you cover your visual interaction with your hands. It will always yield to low productivity results.

Some people say "simple, just get a wireless keyboard". Wrong. The OS for a touch device will always force you to touch the screen. You will end up putting your hands on the screen way too many times, which will lead to low productivity.

Some people say "then use a keyboard and a mouse". Wrong. The problem is that the OS for a touch device is built for touch. If you try to overlap a mouse interaction on it, you will end up with a multi-modal device, one that is the classical hybrid that sucks on both. iOS works because you interact with touch. Some of its paradigms will be ported to Mac OS, but Mac OS will always be a mouse-centric OS, while iOS will always be a touch-centric device. They will not fully merge, and for a reason. Look at the success of the Microsoft strategy around one OS for everything...

I am not the only one saying this. Steve Jobs is. Look at the presentation of iPad 2. Where is iWork in the presentation? Where is the innovation around Pages, Numbers and Keynote for iPad? They were not there. What Steve presented is iMovie (cool) and GarageBand (very cool). No productivity tools. He knows, as we do, that the iPad is not going to replace your work laptop. For entertainment, it will.

There is no swiss-knife when it comes to devices. In your pocket, you keep a smartphone. In your bag to go back and forth to work, a laptop (which does perfectly replace your desktop, BTW, just add a keyboard, mouse and monitor). On your couch, and in meetings, a tablet.

You just need to makes sure you keep all of them synchronized. But for that, there are solutions.

Google Voice is key for domination in mobile

I have been a GrandCentral user for a long time, way before Google bought them to create Google Voice. I love the service, and it got better with time. Slowly, but it got better.

[START RANT] I am just waiting for the possibility of sending international SMSs to call it the best tool I own (oops, use as a service). Not sure why international SMS support is not there, because I would pay for it! Nowadays, I have to open up Skype and send an SMS to an international friend (paying dollars), to get an answer in Google Voice, then go back to Skype. Aaarrggghhh!!! [END RANT]

Rant excluded, I think Google Voice is awesome. And I do not believe people understand how critical it is going to be for Google domination in mobile.

First of all, if you have Google Voice, you do not need one particular carrier. You need someone to give you connectivity, but you are totally unplugged from them. You can move to a different carrier and not even notice it, since your number is on Google Voice. It makes the carrier a voice and SMS pipe. You can simply go with whomever gives you better connectivity and lower prices. Huge.

Second: the future of computing are a bunch of devices you carry with you, all with some wireless connectivity. It can be your tablet, your smartphone or your laptop. They will have all-the-time connectivity one day. 4G or 5G, whatever. They will be always-on and able to talk to the world. Still, you will want a single number, one that people dial to call you. They call you, the smartphone rings, or the tablet rings, or the laptop rings (in the last two cases, you'll need a Bluetooth headset if you are in public). Or all of them at the same time. It does not matter.

What matters is that you will need an infrastructure to make all your devices converge into one for the outside world. It is like email and the ability to read it from different devices, but real time. You do not give people three different email addresses, for when you are home, work or in between.

If you have an Android tablet, it will all work through Google Voice. If you have an iPad, too bad, Apple does not have it (actually, they will try to prevent it to limit Google and help the carriers).

Eventually, more people will be forced to choose Android over iPad. For a stupid feature, but a very important one: nobody wants to give the rest of the world two or three different numbers and say "try the first number, then the second, then the third". There is a reason why nobody calls you at home and work anymore: they call you always on your cellphone because they know it is the only number they have to dial (even if it might cost them 10 times more, as in Europe). Convenience is everything. People are fundamentally lazy.

Somehow, Google Voice is key for Google domination in connected devices. Weird.

No trust, no cloud

A few weeks back, at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, I was invited to give a talk about "Consumers in the Cloud". It is a hot topic: consumers are putting more and more personal information on the cloud, from their friends (address book) to pictures, videos, files and much more.

My talk focused on one major topic: trust.

Trust is the key when it comes to putting your data in the cloud. There are things you want to share with everyone, some you want to share with few, and few you do not want to share with anyone (probably, not even your mom). My focus was on the latter.

Why would you put your persona data in the cloud, anyway, if you do not want anyone else to see?

First, because you are afraid to lose it. Because your data is important. And if you put it in your hard disk and it blows up, you have lost it forever. A picture gone is a part of you gone, a memory that will never come back.

Second, because you want your data to move across your devices. If you take a video on your mobile phone, where do you want to see it? On the small screen or on your TV (or - at least - on your PC)? Yep, me too.

Therefore, your data will end in the cloud, eventually. Synchronization across connected devices will drive it. Backup, Time Machine will make it secure and easy. Once your data is in the cloud, you can pick what to share (not everything).

Trust comes in because you need to be sure that the place you put your data in will not give it away, or use it for different purposes. You need a safe for your data, a locker, a place with a key you only have. The bank itself cannot open it, cannot see it. You must trust them.

Who do you trust?

Do you trust Facebook for your important data? Well, rent The Social Network and let me know...

Who could you trust, then?

Your device manufacturer, maybe. Can you trust Apple? Probably, but there is a major flaw in their ecosystems: they are close. You must have iPhone-iPad-AppleTV and so on for everything to work smoothly. If anyone in your family has an Android, the Apple world breaks. Device manufacturers cannot go cross-platform, so they will never be able to be a good digital locker.

Google? I doubt it. Maybe. But their business model is built on sniffing your data and make money on it. They will analyze your information. They will know it. And they have another issue: they are the land of Android and they have neglected all the other platforms because of it. It is Android or a browser, anything in the middle is decaying (look at the poor support they give to sync with a BlackBerry... And they do not even have contact sync on Outlook...).

Anyone else?

The carriers. They can go cross-platform. They have a brand known well. Some of them are even trusted, mainly in emerging markets. Are people loyal to their carrier? Not really. Do you want to give all your data to AT&T, get locked in so you can't move to Verizon. Maybe not. But they definitely have a shot.

Ouch, who is left?

A third party, a startup, someone built with with this idea in mind. It could be Yahoo! or Amazon, or someone we do not even know now. I think a company will eventually own this space, and it is going to be huge. It is all your data in the cloud, it means your life, something you will pay for. To someone not doing advertising, not looking at your data.

Someone you trust.

The day iTunes will fly in the cloud

UPDATE: it did not happen ;-) I got the iPad2 predictions, but that was too easy. Apparently, Apple is not ready for the cloud story yet (and I know why: it is hard to pull it off...). Next stop: the announcement of iPhone 5 in June. It will happen, someday... Lesson learned: never bet on something you really care about...

Tomorrow is iPad2 day. As usual, I should come with a list of predictions on the device, getting some right and some not. However, I do not believe it is going to be a special day for iPad enthusiasts: iPad2 will be faster, lighter, thinner and with a camera in the front (and back, although I would not bet my house on this one). Nothing revolutionary, just evolutionary. I know a ton of people who have been waiting for the camera to buy it. They will be in line. Apple will sell a ton.

What is going to change our world is not the iPad2. It is the announcement around MobileMe and the cloud. I am ready to bet any amount it is going to happen tomorrow.

I have been waiting for this moment for months, probably years. Obviously, I am biased: my company, Funambol, provides a mobile cloud synchronization solution, sort of MobileMe for the rest of us. It works on Android, BlackBerry, Symbian, Windows Mobile and even iPhone and iPad. We sell it to carriers, device manufacturers and portals, and we have one for consumers too (you can try it out at my.funambol.com).

It all started with iTunes. It was the Trojan horse for the Apple strategy. Buy an iPod, you need to sync music to it. Get iTunes. First only on Mac, then also on Windows. Everybody installed one.

At the time, Steve Jobs was sure: the PC will be your media hub. The place where you would store everything, from music to pictures to videos. A cable and boom, all your data would move to other devices. Cable syncing was everything.

Then came the cloud. With Google and Facebook pushing it hard. With all your pictures moving to the cloud, with your videos being posted somewhere far away. And the tablets, which screw up cable syncing (syncing one device with a cable is ok, two is too many), and made the PC less relevant (also, I should thank the laptops for this, because they are not always on).

The PC lost as the media hub. The cloud is your media hub. That is where you will store your life, your address book, your calendar, your pictures, your videos, your music, your files. All backed up and secured. And synced across all your devices, from your PC to your laptop, from your IP phone to your TV, from your picture frame to the dashboard of your car.

Steve Jobs knows it and it showed for the first time with the AppleTV: no cable there, not even a sync mechanism with the PC, it is all cloud driven. Now they are ready to go all-in. Moving iTunes to the cloud, making MobileMe the hub for your entire life, from PIM to rich media.

It is going to be a turning point in this industry. The moment that makes the cloud the place where your life is stored. The start of the connected devices game, where data gets synced from the cloud to any of your devices, seamlessly.

Apple created the online music business. The smartphone business. The tablet business. Tomorrow they will be doing again, creating the cloud media hub for Apple devices. It will start a market, which will take off like a rocket.

Why do I love it? Because I am convinced Apple is not going to get 100% market share.

In any family, there will be Android devices and Apple devices, and probably much more (I am sure that if I have an Android, my daughter will want an iPhone, and vice versa). Variation and fragmentation will be key. Apple will not be able to solve that problem. Google will not be able to solve that problem. It will be left to those who can go cross-devices. And I know the best one (although I am biased).

Not sure if I will be able to sleep tonight ;-)

Why I believe Microsoft will buy Nokia

I have been pretty lucky in January to predict that Nokia would pick Windows 7 as its new OS. I even won a beer in a bet with the Honorary Consul to Finland in Silicon Valley, clear sign the Finns were not expecting it at all...

I felt it made sense for the situation Nokia was in. I do not think they had many choices. I believed Android was a better option, but it was just not going to happen. Microsoft, also because of Elop's background, was the easiest path.

However, I have been quite surprised by the way they threw Symbian under the bus. I was ok with killing MeeGo, although it is sad to see it (almost) gone, but I feel Symbian has so much market share - still - that a light touch would have been better.

I would be shocked to hear today from any developer in the world "I am still developing for Symbian". As of last week, Symbian is a dead platform, everybody is jumping from it.

Unfortunately for Nokia, developers are not jumping from the platform towards the same boat. They are going to miss the Microsoft boat because it is just a raft, right now. However, they will not miss the Android cruise ship, because it is enormous, it has a pool and a casino on it (check this fantastic video, it is amazing to see how fast Android grew).

Giving up on Symbian, waiting for a Windows Phone to appear (at the end of the year), means wasting a long year, probably even two. If you consider where Android was two years ago (nowhere, check the video above for February 2009) and where they are now, you know what I am talking about. This market is moving at Silicon Valley speed, if you miss two years, you are history.

That's why I think Nokia is doomed as an independent company. Before the announcement, their market cap was $43B, now it is $32B (yep, eleven billions jumped off the platform too). That means today Microsoft has 7 times Nokia market cap (they are at $224B).

With the devastation of the Symbian story (and the grow of low-cost devices from MediaTek and Android), I can only see the stock go south from here. In a year, I bet their market cap will be around $20B, just half of what it was before the announcement.

Put yourself in Steve Ballmer's shoes. At that time, your market cap will be ten times Nokia's. Their company will be $20B cheaper. Apple will be out with iPad 2, iPhone 5 and maybe even an iPhone Mini, with the highest margins ever. Android will be over 80% of market share in mobile, with Google making billions in mobile ads. Where can you go? You can't beat Android, because it is open source and it sells for zero dollars (and it has a momentum that cannot be stopped). But you can chase Apple.

And to chase Apple, you need a vertical integration, from the phone to the OS to the cloud. Microsoft+Nokia is exactly that. Give it a year, there will be friction between the two sides, because the pressure will be enormous and these things rarely work. Microsoft will be left with the only choice of buying, with everyone saying "smart move, you got them for cheap!".

That's why I believe ultimately Microsoft will buy Nokia. And a fantastic story of a company, which was selling rubber boots in the coldest place on heart then moved to mobile to conquer the world, will come to an end. Knowing the Finns, they will drink on it, and move on with a smile. They still have Angry Birds, after all.

Android Honeycomb is no iPad

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about the Home button of the iPad, what I call "The Panic button" (the one you press when you are in panic, that brings you home). Someone told me the post was Zen, even too Zen... "How can you write an entire post on a single button?".

The answer is "Just because I can ;-)".

Jokes apart, I still believe it is a little detail that makes all the difference in the world (of UI).

Today, looking at the pictures of the new Android Honeycomb operating system (the one designed for tablets), I found a confirmation. Look below.

What is it?

Simple, this is the home button on the Android tablets, just slightly more complicated. Slightly.

First of all, is there really a Home button? Let's look left to right.

The first button must allow you to scroll the screen to the left. The middle one to scroll the screen up. The third one... well, maybe that thing on the top is an arrow pointing top-right: so it must be a button to scroll the screen up and right (although I am not sure why I would do it).

Right? Wrong.

The first button is actually Back. Mmhh, like the circular rotating arrow I have on my Android today. But the circular shape of it somehow gives the impression of going back. This one, it does not. In particular, not with a touch interface (it could, with a mouse-based interface).

The second button is actually Home. Hey, how did I miss it? That is a house, not an arrow! Yep, one close to an arrow, which is not really an arrow...

The third button allows you to switch between applications you have open (I am not even sure what its name might be ;-) Something that would freak out your beginner user, the actual Panic button, but the one that generates panic because stuff move in front of your eyes and you do not exactly know why.

I do not think my mom will ever click the Switch App button intentionally. She would not know what to do with it. She wants one single application open, the one she is using. She does not understand multitasking, multitabbing, multiwhatever. She is old school, when people would watch TV without an iPad on their lap.

However, I am sure she would click on it by mistake. She would panic, she would lose confidence in the device, she would think it is an enemy, not a friend.

That is why I am going to buy her an iPad tomorrow. Android is no iPad, sorry. And yes, just for a little button, however Zen it is. It is $499 more for Apple, Zen.

The next Nokia OS: Android or Windows?

I have read rumors that Nokia will have a special announcement on February 11th. Many are convinced it will be a shift away from the current strategy on operating systems.

Let me revisit what they have now:
- Symbian, a semi-open source OSS, their stronghold in the smart-enough-phones
- MeeGo, a fully open source OSS, now managed by the Linux Foundation, which is a merge of Maemo (formerly Nokia) and Moblin (created by Intel). In theory, this is Nokia's play in the touch phones or Internet phones (the smartphones that are so smart to have a good browser), including tablets

Everyone will tell you that a dual-OSS strategy is a lack of focus. It is already difficult to have one, having two is impossible. Too much effort, too many resources, too many things overlapping (hint for Google: you should pick between Android and Chrome OS, choose the former ;-)

Now, if you were Nokia, would you pick Symbian for the future? Probably no, it is an old OS, it has a very long history and a lot of code that is hard to manage: it is time to let it go, albeit slowly. This is exactly what Nokia has been doing lately.

What about MeeGo? It is a pretty good OS. I have tested only the laptop version, so I cannot fully comment on it. But Maemo was very good as well, so - if you combine that with the Linux Foundation management - I have very few doubts it is going to be a great OS.

Therefore, one would assume that Symbian for the low-end (and dying) and MeeGo for the high-end (and growing) is the way to go. Nokia's strategy makes a lot of sense.

Unfortunately, there is a little problem: a phone today is appealing if it comes with developers. And developers go where there are a lot of phones. There are no MeeGo phones, therefore there are no Meego developers.

The big question is: will there ever be a lot of MeeGo developers? Hard to say, the ship has sailed a long time ago. Developers today build for iPhone first, then Android. If they have a good reason (i.e. Microsoft paying) they build for Windows Phone 7. If they are in the enterprise, maybe they look at BlackBerry. If they want to support the existing bunch of devices, they suffer and go with Symbian as well. Hard to think they will pick yet-another-OS...

Will developers go for MeeGo? Honestly, it is hard to be optimistic. If this is the conclusion Nokia is coming to, then there is just one alternative, unimaginable until a year ago: that Nokia will start building phones with a third party OS, like any other device manufacturer excluding Apple.

It makes sense to me. They do not have to bet the entire house on one OS, they can keep Symbian going and maybe even find a place for MeeGo (although having three OSs would sound insane at best).

Bottom line: they still have a super-powerful brand and, with a popular OS with lots of developers, they could keep selling like crazy.

Options? Probably just two: Android or Windows Phone 7.

Naturally, I would go Android. It is open source, it is winning (ehm, are the two related?), there is room for differentiation. Granted, Google is not the easier partner to work with and Nokia will probably not be considered "special" by them. But it is a sure bet. Nokia with Android will sell a lot. It is a killer combination.

However, Microsoft needs Nokia more than Google does. And the new Nokia CEO, Stephen Elop, is a former Microsoft. The two companies have existing relationships (remember the Nokia notebook, built on Windows 7?). It is a no-brainer from the corporate perspective. Still, Windows Phone 7 is not a winner (yet) and it needs to attract developers (a lot). Going with Microsoft is a bigger risk, but Nokia will be treated as "special" for sure (although they will not have room to customize the UI on the phone, which is a biggie). In any case, it must be an attractive proposition, because Microsoft will offer the moon.

Windows Phone 7 needs developers and, possibly, having Nokia behind it will attract them. If that happens, we'll have a third OS with equal chances to Android and iOS. Having just two in the fight would be better, but variety is the spice of life, after all ;-)

I vote Android, but I bet Nokia will go with Microsoft (assuming the rumor is right, of course).

Android on the Playbook? Cool but unlikely

I have used the BlackBerry Playbook and I have been honestly impressed by the OS. It is very quick. And the UI is beautiful. It looks like the combination of Palm WebOS (beautiful but slow) and Android (fast ;-)

However, it is missing one little thing: developers.

I know developers (or so I believe, being modest is not my thing ;-) and I see a hard path for RIM to attract them to the Playbook.

The SDK for the Playbook requires Air, which is cool and has a good amount of developers. However, they are not mobile developers. You still need to convince the Air developers to build for the Playbook. It is a totally new platform, because it is a tablet, not a PC. Today the people building for tablets are mobile developers, not PC developers (because they come to the iPad from iPhone and to Android tablets from Android phones). RIM is asking PC developers to move to mobile, which they eventually do. But it is an additional step, a significant one.

You would assume RIM will add a JVM to the device. At least, to allow BlackBerry developers to port their Java apps to the device. Not doing it will piss off the BlackBerry developer community, which is their captive audience. Microsoft has done that with Windows Phone 7, but I would not recommend it to RIM. Bad idea to piss off your community, albeit small. They are your core, those building enterprise apps.

Now, I read about a rumor today: RIM might be thinking about allowing Android apps to run on the Playbook. Technically, I believe it might be doable, because the JVM Android uses (Delvik) is open source and it runs on a Linux derivative (Playbook OS is QNX, a Unix derivative, close enough). However, there are a million internal calls that would have to be rewritten and most apps would not work at all. Android is even moving towards allowing native apps to run (with the NDK), so imagine what it would mean porting... A mess.

However, it makes business sense. Android has a ton of developers and the idea of easy porting to the Playbook must be appealing to RIM. Also, because QNX is the future BlackBerry OS, for all BlackBerries (my personal bet). Therefore, if they can make it really compatible to Android, they would solve the developers issue.

Easier said than done. Knowing OSS and virtualization, the probability of this attempt turning into a major failure is huge. Unless Google wants this, which might make sense to attack Apple iOS. With Google behind this move, maybe there is a chance this will succeed.

If you want my opinion, it is not going to happen. The Playbook will eventually have a JVM, allowing existing BlackBerry apps to run on it. This way, the transition from an old BlackBerry with BBOS to a new BlackBerry with QNX will be smooth. They will also provide Air for easy porting of PC apps and to add a cool factor. Lastly, they will allow web-based technologies (e.g. HTML5) on QNX, because it is the future (and they are already doing it with WebWorks). RIM will want their own developers, not someone else developers. Developers are the king in mobile. You do not want your king managed by someone else...

For all of you thinking fragmentation is a bad thing, I agree. It would be better to have just one platform to write to. However, I am afraid it is not going to happen, at least not soon.

The iPhone Home Button is genius

After the release to developers of the iOS 4.3 beta, a bunch of people have noticed a new Multi-touch gesture support for the iPad. It says:

“This beta release contains a preview of new Multi-Touch gestures for iPad. You can use four or five fingers to pinch to the Home Screen; swipe up to reveal the multitasking bar; and swipe left or right between apps. We are providing this preview before releasing them to the public to understand how these gestures work with your apps.”

The first reaction from BGR has been to claim that the Home button will be removed from the iPad (and the iPhone), and it will be replaced by these new gestures.

I wrote about the Home button before, but I have thought about it a bit more lately. In particular, after CES, where I played with a bunch of tablets. Most of them have no buttons.

I watched people pick up the BlackBerry Playbook, play on an app, then look for the Home button. With their surprise, it is not there. They looked everywhere and finally they had to ask the RIM person at the show: "how do I go home?". "Simple" - he answered - "just swipe your finger from the outside of the tablet towards the inside and you are good to go". The reaction was "oohh, ok". That was it.

You can read the above as the consequence of the iPhone Home Button. People are used to it, they look for it, they can't find it, they are told how to do it, they learn, end of story.

I think you would be wrong.

Read the sentence above: "they are told how to do it". They do not know how to go home...

The Home Button is the Panic Button. The one you click when you are lost. The one that brings you home immediately. You can play with the iPad as much as you want, you can explore, you have no fear to get lost, because you can always go home. With one click, there, ready for you. A physical button.

The Home Button is what makes the iPhone a friend, versus an enemy. If you have watched your parents use a computer, you know what I mean. Your parents think about the computer as an enemy. They do not touch things they do not know, they do not explore, they are afraid they will never be back. If you give them an iPad, it is a friend. They click everywhere, who cares? One click and they are home.

I do not buy the idea that Steve Jobs did not want the Home Button, as some are implying today (hinting this is the reason why it will be removed). I think the Home Button was genius. And it still is.

The only reason I see for removing it is the addition of the camera in the iPad 2: finally, that will tell us where is up and where is down in the iPad (today, you can rotate it freely and you will never find out). The camera being in one specific position will screw up the positioning of the Home Button. If you put it on the right, you are favoring right-handed people (and I always suspected Jobs is lefty ;-) Therefore, if you remove it and make it virtual, the lefties will be happy.

Easy compromise: leave it there and add a multi-touch gesture. My mom will click on the Home Button and smile at her panic button. My daughter (kinda lefty) will use multi-touch to go home. Analysts will not be able to say "The Playbook does not need a Home Button, the iPhone does, therefore it is more advanced". Everybody will be happy. No Panic.

I do not think the Home Button will go away (although I have been wrong before ;-) It is genius.

The day open source saved the carriers

I was certain of the future of open source in mobile, so much that I bet my career on it, despite many saying it would never happen. The last place to conquer in mobile was wireless and we did it.

We did it, despite the carriers saying it would never happen. It took a lot of sweat but, eventually, they embraced it. What is happening on Android is amazing, to say the least. Open source is becoming the backbone of the mobile carriers on the server side as well. It just happened.

One thing I would have never imagined was that open source would actually save the carriers business. At least not the current one. I thought it would change the way they would do business, and eventually allow them to make even more money. But I was convinced it would take a long time.

Instead, today open source saved the carriers. The FCC decided to not impose the net-neutrality rules on the mobile operators, focusing only on the wired world. The reason: open source.

From this article, here you have an excerpt of the press release:

Further, we recognize that there have been meaningful recent moves toward openness, including the introduction of open operating systems like Android. In addition, we anticipate soon seeing the effects on the market of the openness conditions we imposed on mobile providers that operate on upper 700 MHz C-Block spectrum, which includes Verizon Wireless, one of the largest mobile wireless carriers in the U.S.

In light of these considerations, we conclude it is appropriate to take measured steps at this time to protect the openness of the Internet when accessed through mobile broadband.

See, they did not touch the mobile carriers because of "open operating systems" like Android. There is no equivalent in the desktop world, where Windows has 92% of market share and Mac 5% (and there are no signs of a quick change in the future).

I was expecting everything, but not that mobile open source would save the carriers. The unthinkable happen. You are welcome: this what you get for telling me that it would never happen ;-)

The future of the TV remote

I have been thinking about the connected home a lot in the last few weeks (hint: I finally have time to think, what a novel concept ;-) One area of my focus is the couch and what's in front of it: the TV.

I just bought a wide-screen LG TV, which I am not allowed to unwrap until Christmas, so it is sitting in my living room (these self-presents are such a bad idea...). Like you, I am moving to a bigger and bigger screen.

Contrast that with the move to smaller screens. Your mobile phone and your tablet. None are good enough to really watch TV or movies. They are second class citizens in the video world. You do it, because you do not have anything better. You do not have a couch when waiting for a bus, or on a plane. You do not have a 50" TV. If you do, if you are around the house, you are going to sit on the couch and watch the TV.

Yes, I also believe you do not like to sit at your desk at home in front of a computer, even to watch a stupid YouTube video. You would rather do it laying on the couch under a blanket, with some popcorn on the side (ok, I am going too American on this one, let's make it pizza for international purposes).

Now, the TV is getting connected. This is the Christmas it is happening. It can be your actual TV with wi-fi, but most likely for now a device that connects to the Internet and puts stuff on your screen. Such as Apple TV, or Roku, or just your Wii-Playstation-Xbox being able to get content from the outside world and show it on the big screen.

It is happening now. People are streaming more Netflix movies (me included) than ever before. Not sure if you heard about this stat, but a recent study showed that Netflix represents more than 20% of downstream Internet traffic during peak times in the U.S. That is a lot ;-)

What is lacking in this big scenario? The remote.

Why? Your actual remote sucks. Actually, the remotes. If you look at my couch, I have a thing to hold the remotes, with four pouches: TV, DVD-Player, TiVo and now a Wii remote (it made it into the fourth pouch once I started streaming Netflix from the Wii. Before, it was stored somewhere else. It kicked out the VCR remote for good).

Remotes have been forever an afterthought, which has always amazed me, being a usability guy. Ata, the Funambol Product Manager and another user fanatic, uses this example to define a good vs. bad user interface: what is the most important button on a remote? The PAUSE button, which you need to click in an emergency when your wife calls you, the phone rings or someone is knocking at the door. Can you find it in the TiVo remote below?

Good job, that was not hard. TiVo gets it right (there is a reason why I love their product ;-)

Now what about here?

Yep, I thought so ;-)

Now, let's make it a bit more difficult. Let's try to imagine a connected TV. Let's go with what Google is doing. Here is the remote for the Google TV (I am serious, they are actually selling this thing). Where is the Pause button?

Ok, this is ugly... If we have a connected device and we do not know how to control it, how is it going to work?

Well, I think it is going to still be ugly for a while, but I have a feeling.

There is a device that is laying on my couch now. I use it to browse the web. I use it to interact with people while watching TV. I use it to multi-task while watching boring games.

It is my tablet. The iPad or the Galaxy Tablet, same thing. It is touch based, it can change its look depending on the goal I have, it can suggest me things to watch (think Bee.tv here, a very cool concept), it can even stream video directly to my TV (that is Airplay on Apple TV, a new and very interesting idea).

The tablet is the natural TV remote. And a lot more.

Finally, I can focus on what I love

I started Funambol with a couple of friends eight years ago. Pretty much the same day when my daughter was born. I called it the Big Bang. It was a double new-beginning, something like seeing a double rainbow, but not on drugs (well, my wife might disagree...).

Eight years have passed and Funambol is a great success. We are doubling our revenues compared to last year and we have ten new Carrier Edition servers going live this quarter around the planet. One of the top carriers in the world launched two weeks ago and they put two million users on the platform right away (systems are well, up and running and smiling ;-) More to come in the next weeks, since there is a rush to go live before Christmas from a lot of our customers.

Overall, the cloud synchronization and device management space is red hot right now, in particular due to the shift towards connected devices (starting with tablets and moving to connected TVs this Christmas). All things I predicted years ago, including the explosion of mobile open source (I got lucky!) On top of it, we have plenty of cash in the bank since I closed a new funding round in September.

Eight years have passed and my daughter is now skiing with me. We talk about how kids are born (actually, that was my wife's duty, I promised I will tell the boys). She corrects my English, while I correct her Italian. She is a big girl. Sometimes, I think about the day I will walk her down the aisle. I know I will not be the only man in her life forever. She will grow up and need someone else.

That is what happened with Funambol. Eight years in the life of a company are like twenty-four in the life of a person (baby, do wait after college, please). Funambol is ready. She needs a new man. She needs to grow up. She needs to scale to that billion dollar company I dreamed for her.

In October, I went to the board and suggested we hire a new CEO to bring Funambol to the next level. Amit Chawla, who has 25 years of experience in the Telco space, is our new CEO. We have been working together for a couple of weeks now. He is the man who will scale Funambol.

I took the role of President, and I am also the Chairman of the Board.  I am now free to focus on what I love, which is awesome. I am happier than I ever been. I know It was the right move at the right time.

People close to me will tell you that I always said "I will not be the CEO of Funambol when I will turn 40". Today is my 40th birthday. I achieved everything I wanted in life so far. I am a lucky lucky man.

Focusing on what I love is the best present I could wish for.

Why tablets are jump-starting the connected home

I have been thinking a lot about mobility inside the house, lately. It is a novel concept, if you think about it. In your house, devices were not supposed to move. You had a landline phone, a desktop PC and a TV, plus a VCR/DVR and so on. All static.

The fist moving part was probably the wireless phone. Initially, a wireless version of your landline phone, then your actual mobile phone, becoming the main way for you to communicate with the world - even at home.

Then you bought a laptop. Mostly a desktop replacement, so you can use it while moving around (starting with coffee places). But you wanted to use it around the house as well, or - at least - you did not want to plug an ethernet cable every time. Therefore, you added a wi-fi router, close to your Internet router. If you are like most people I know, your router was in the home office, close to your desktop. For some, the wi-fi coverage of the initial wireless network did not travel too far. Too bad the signal was weak near the TV or the toilet, you could live with it.

Then came the iPad (and all its sisters). A weak signal near the TV means a weak signal on the couch. The main repository for the iPad. The place where you really want to use it (while your laptop is in your home office). Otherwise, why did you get one? Same for the kitchen, because that recipe on the iPad looks so yummy. Or your bedroom, because nothing beats watching a stupid YouTube video on the iPad before going to bed. And what about the restroom? Hey, you can hold this thing with one hand, like a magazine, but it contains a full newspaper... You definitely need great wi-fi coverage there as well.

And so it happened: your home is now fully connected. There is no spot in the house where wi-fi is weak. It is strong in the office, the living room, the kitchen, the bedroom, the restroom.

Think about it: your home is now fully connected, because of your tablet. And you are not alone, this is a trend that will bring all homes fully connected. For Thanksgiving, Toys"R"Us was selling an Android tablet for $139.99. Everybody is getting one. Even just to have it and tweet about the game on the couch.

If the connectivity is good on the couch, it is good for the TV. Your Wii gets connected, even if you bought it as standalone. And now you can use it to watch Netflix movies. Your TV gets connected.

Then it spills to the bedroom, where your alarm clock gets connected. Picture frames appear around the house, all showing pictures taken a few minutes before. Appliances in the kitchen have connectivity: your gas appliance knows it is going to be freezing cold tonight and turns on a bit earlier. Your sprinklers know it is going to rain in the afternoon so why bother even starting?

It is the connected home, the Internet of Things moving its first steps. It all started with a stupid tablet that most people buy, not sure what to do with it. It provided the connectivity for everything else to get on.

Amazing.

Windows Mobile 7? No thanks, I am a developer

As you might remember, I have been quite positive on Windows Mobile 7, from the user perspective. It looks like a well designed UI. I haven't had the opportunity to actually play with a device for an extended period of time, but it looks good - at least from the outside.

Clearly, Windows Mobile 7 is a big gamble for Microsoft. They had an enterprise-ready operating system and they trashed it, in favor of a consumer one. While doing it, they also trashed all Windows Mobile 6 applications, which are not compatible to Windows Mobile 7. That forced developers to start from scratch while waiting for the new OS to appear.

The vacuum has been filled by Android, which has attracted the largest share of developers for the enterprise. The rest are building for iPhone.

Now that Windows Mobile 7 is actually available, what are developers doing? Will they build consumer apps for it? What about the enterprise ones?

My first checks are not positive. At all.

The Funambol Community Manager posted in his blog yesterday and summarized what he does not like about Windows Mobile 7:

1. No support for open source licenses
2. Only C# supported
3. Missing APIs

He concluded:

developers will sit and wait, not considering Windows Mobile 7 a serious OSs until a new release is out

I can't agree more. He is a developer. He knows what he is talking about.

Lack of OSS licenses limits development, but you can go around it. Forcing people to develop in C# is a huge requirement, which will trim down the amount of developers (although Apple was able to convince a lot of people to code Obejctive-C, so you never know).

The last one, though, is the killer. Just take Funambol and our community as an example. We are ready to go and we would love to build a sync client to bring Windows Mobile 7 in the family. However, we simply cannot do it. There is no PIM API in Windows Mobile 7. There is no way a developer can access contacts or calendar data.

If you recall, I bitched about Apple not providing APIs. Eventually they did. I bitched about Apple initially providing only contacts, and not calendar. Eventually they did (at version 4 of the OS...). I believe that was a mistake, but they could go away with it, because they were early.

Microsoft is late. They cannot get away with it. An operating system without developers is dead. If you cannot get the developers to build on it, you are doomed. They have lost the enterprise developers and they are not doing nearly enough to get the consumer developers.

Very risky move for a latecomer.

Finally, Apple is making MobileMe free

I have been saying for a while that Apple will eventually open up MobileMe, making it free.

Synchronization of your personal data in the cloud is the stickiest service imaginable. Once a system has your spouse cell phone (which you do not know, trust me) and the picture of your kids, you are locked in. No chance to move out. They have you.

Look at Flickr, which does picture "sync". I have my entire life there. If they raise the price to $50/year, I will simply pay it. I just cannot conceive the idea of moving out. Too much effort, and too much risk. My pictures are my life. I do not want to mess with my life. I am ready to pay any reasonable price for it.

What I never understood was the price for MobileMe. $99/year is an hefty price. One that prevents the masses to join. One that limits Apple's ability to get sticky-er. A price paid only by few (geeks).

Synchronization does not work like that. It is impossible to find millions of people willing to pay for it. If you are a pure consumer, you just do not see the value in it. It is a nice-to-have, not a must-have. Until you start using it. At that point, you cannot live without it. It is your life on the cloud, moving across your devices. It is you.

Think about losing your phone, with no cloud service where you stored your data. Think about losing all the pictures you took (and you had no way to sync somewhere, or you were just too lazy, because you needed a cable or to click on an icon). Think about losing all your friends contact info. Yes, at that moment you realize the value of transparent synchronization, the value of having your data automatically stored somewhere, the value of getting everything back with one click.

But you would not pay for it, probably. It just sounds like an insurance.

However, once you are using a cloud sync system, you are in for good. It is just like having push email on your mobile phone. "Nah, I do not need it". Then you start using it and you would kill anyone who wants to take it away from you. The famous Crackberry.

No, no, it is not just for business people. It is you, the consumer. Let me take away your SMS, your Facebook. Let me take away your iPhone and move you back to a dumb phone. See... You will kill me.

Think about it. Once you start using synchronization, you are locked in. It is too good. You see your life moving across all your devices. You know someone is taking care to secure it for you. They do the backup you always forget. They will save your friends and your kids.

At that point, you are not going anywhere. And once that happens, there are so many ways to monetize it. From advertising (Facebook is making billions of dollars, you know...), to storage (think Dropbox), to paying for restore (this is a smart one, more once we have launched a few customers on it ;-) There are billions in cloud sync. Billions.

So, cloud sync is sticky. Few want to pay for it. But once they use it, they are locked in. Make it free, you will get everyone in the world to join. And you will make a boatload of money on the premium part of the freemium model.

I am sure Apple knows it. I am sure they realize it. There is a reason why they have built a huge cloud computing center in North Carolina. They want to store your life there. Starting with your music. iTunes on a desktop is going to be replaced by iTunes in the cloud. The cable is going for good. All your data will be synced to the cloud and back to your devices (did you notice that the new Apple TV is just a cloud device? Did you notice that the new MacBook Air does not have a CD? It is all going in the cloud, then synced and streamed back to your devices).

So, what was the missing link? MobileMe becoming free. I have been waiting for it for a long time. Today, the rumor became true.  In the new iOS 4.2 builds, there is a message that says: "The maximum number of free accounts have been activated on this iPhone".

Here you have it. Not every aspect of MobileMe will be free. Just the part that will lock you in (let me bet: PIM sync, with a storage premium on rich media, for starters). They know how to make money on the rest, beginning with selling you content (music, books and movies). Maybe, they were just not ready, so they put a high price on MobileMe, to make sure they would have a limited set of "test" users. They now have the cloud computing capacity to make it happen. And they are going for it.

Facebook and Google, be worried, Apple is coming. It all starts with cloud sync.