[Image source]

There are only two ways to catch up a “market leader”:

1. the leader makes very bad decisions that eventually comes back to haunt him and leaves him vulnerable.

or

2. you buy a startup or small company that has the innovation, but lacks the resources, giving you a better possibility of catching up.

Either is very hard, just look at Microsoft. Vista really sucked, but still they are the “market leader” operating systems. Or see at Google, they bought Android and see where they are today, still on the hunt for iPhone and trying to be the dominant mobile platform.

So, what to do? Stop playing the game of others and play your own. The catch game is like gambling in a Vegas casino, you will win enough to continue betting, but will never win against the house or break even. Do something different, which makes you the leader since you are the first to come up with it.

For example, Asus and the netbooks (eventually everybody was able to catch up). More interesting, instead of trying to play catch-up, Apple did something different, the iPad, which is a device that is between the tablet, eBook reader and netbook.

Another example is the Puma Phone, just freaking cool stuff.

At the end of the day is like convincing people to not follow the conventional patch and follow, therefore making you the leader.

It was reported on the 7th of December that Apple bought Lala. With this move, Apple enters the streaming business and is getting their feet wet with cloud services. I think this has to do more with the trend toward streaming of music and Spotify coming early 2010 to USA, than any other thing. But what is Lala?

Lala is a music streaming service that lets you play music over your web browser. The only thing you need is an account. Also, you can upload and share your music collection, while having it available from anywhere. How does Lala make money? Well, you can buy unlimited web plays of a song for 10 cents, or just buy a download starting at 79 cents.

Lala is interesting to Apple for technical competence of the team, for the platform, which could be integrated with the iTunes Store (not just for music) and the Google deal. All this helps them prepare is case Spotify is successful, when they come to the USA early 2010.

What is the big deal with Spotify, you may ask, or even what is Spotify?

Spotify is a Swedish company that provide a service of streaming of music for free. You download the client and you have access to millions of songs without paying a cent. In exchange you have to listen to a occasional advertisement. but that is not a problem because, is much much less the an radio and TV. The killer feature of Spotify is the playlists: can create as many as you like and share them. If you don’t to listen to ads you can pay around 10 euros a month and you get to listen to your playlist online. Plus you can listen and download the playlist to a iPhone, Android or selected Nokia phone.

The usability design of the client is very similar to iTunes, so if you switch to Spotify the transition is seamless. Add to this that it looks like the iPhone app rocks.

As you can see Spotify is a threat to Apple music business, because you can have a huge catalog of music at your hands, with the same experience as you have it in your computer. Meaning that Spotify can become the window from which you access music, not iTunes and that is not good for Apple’s business.

Spotify is Awsome, iTunes a commodity and Lala just became the wildcard.

Yesterday, I was looking for some information regarding the “Shrink Volume” Windows Vista utility, and found an article in Lifehacker on dual boot Vista and Windows 7. There in the Opinions section, is a post titled “In 2009, Microsoft Still Underestimates the Web”. The post is a constructive criticism, on Microsoft failure in distributing the Windows 7 public beta Sunday mourning. The author attributes the failure, to Microsoft not taking the web more seriously and being clueless about “how to do stuff online”. That might be true, however lets look it from a different perspective, how about the cause being that Microsoft doesn’t understand its customers and thinks is still 1999.

Microsoft is a Juggernaut in the Software space, like it or not, and can do whatever they want. If they want to waste millions on trying to overtake Google in search, they can do it because they are Microsoft. Their ad campaigns are nothing compare to Apple, but they can spend the millions, get criticized and at the end it creates the buzz they are looking for. And if they want to release a beta of Windows 7 on such date, we will download it, even if we don’t like Microsoft.

This Software Juggernaut failed to understand the Windows 7 customers. I’m not talking about those that have Windows in their machines, or average the user that just wants thing to work, but the ones that want to go with the trouble of trying and testing Windows 7. We are not in those days when you can release a crappy OS like Windows Me and not get a backlash that might generate an effect on revenue. This is not 1999, when people voice wasn’t loud enough to be heard all over the planet. Now with broadband, mobile internet, Social Media and all Web 2.0, nobody is safe.

People that download Windows 7 Beta are early adopters and innovators that want to try Windows 7. They want to test it and see if they can find cool features or report a bug. While in this process, they will start a conversation by blogging, tweeting, recording videos and even distribute the copy they got on torrent sites. Microsoft failed to understand who these crowd is and why they want (and need) to download Windows 7. This are the customers of Windows 7 right now and right now, the number is bigger than it was 10 years ago.

By stating that Microsoft doesn’t understand the Internet is like saying “we” don’t understand China. The internet is not just a bunch of look a likes, in front of the computer, connected 24/7. We are people, with different feelings, ideas, ambitions and goals. We connect with each other, based on sociological patterns, using  the Internet as a tool. Western world looks at Chinese in the same way, we think they are the same because they look similar and act similar (the irony is that hey also think we all look the same). However they are a culturally rich and diverse country, with various languages and ethnic groups, with different ideas and dreams. Yes, they all live in China as most of us “live” on the Web, but that doesn’t make us all the same.

Any company that wants to reach its customers through the Internet, has to understand that the dynamics are the same if they wanted to reach a community in flesh and bones. How many times a has the power of a community, country, city or group of people has been underestimated ? How many times, have we been surprised on how people behave in unexpected ways, in regards to specific products, services and events? The social interaction that is natural to us, magnifies and accelerates on the Internet, which is still sociological in nature. That is why, by trying to “understand the Internet” as a whole companies, already have lost the battle, instead they have to look at it granularly.

Neither Microsoft or Google understand this, however they where both lucky to become dominant players in their spaces. Most people have limited choices for operating systems, as well as advertising platform on the net. That doesn’t mean one understands its customers better than the other. Google is less hierocratical than Microsoft, that is why it looks like they are more upbeat with trends and setting the tone. Also that Google’s rise to fame, was part of the “Web 2.0 era” and are seen as more “cool”.

The cause of Microsoft problems is Microsoft itself, from their leadership to their culture. In the case of Google, Google itself will be the cause of their future problems.

Failure to Launch Serve

Microsoft got some heat because weren’t prepared to handle the spike of downloads.  Yes, its Microsoft fault because they initially created the scarcity by announcing that only 2.5 million downloads will be available, however they got their act together, fixed the problem and extended the period of availability until the 24th of January.

My question is how do you prepare for such demand.. or event? How do you know how much your current setup can handle it? Its kind of difficult if you don’t have the right tools and money to find out (in the case of Microsoft is their culture). Some people might suggest, “hey why not use BitTorrent?” The issue with using BitTorrent is that Microsoft are against those networks and have shown their feelings toward trackers and index sites. So, uploading it to Mininova or The Pirate Bay is out of the question. They could use Mininova distribution service, which requires the content to be free. The other alternative is to setup up their own trackers and apparently, they don’t have the competence or interest in using Bit Torrent as a distribution tool. That will be interesting, however their culture will not permit it. So they are stuck with using the traditional way, hosting and managing themselves. Maybe, like I said before, Microsoft is jut to old and doesn’t get it.

All this problems aren’t that bad for Microsoft, they create some buzz, people get interested and they get feedback for free. Also, is not a new thing, its documented that other companies had their problems in the past i.e. Paramount with the launch of the Ironman Blueray live, Apple with their Mobile Me downtime. Even Salesforce which is a company that core business is to “serve” and offer reliable cloud CRM, had some downtime.

The bottom line is that “Serving” is not an easy task and shouldn’t be taken for granted. We will continue to see more service outages, failures, etc. because they think it just takes to put a server online and viola. Companies need to realize that they need to understand the customers they are targeting and communicated with them. You will be surprise how responsive and understating people are, if you provide constant communication to them. They know problems will rise once in a while and will forgive that. However what they will not forgive is that the company that “Serves”, doesn’t prepare for such p
ossible problems and doesn’t communicate efficiently.

Its similar to a relationship with your partner or spouse… communication, communication, communication.

We will not have history lesson or fact listing of these three big companies, Wikipedia can serve this purpose. However, I’m here to point something out: Microsoft did it to IBM and Google is doing it (or did it) to Microsoft. Therefore somebody will do it to Google, yes it might be hard to imagine, but 10 years we never thought Google will be.. Google.

You see, IBM was the leader in the computer industry for about three decades. Then there was a shift to the personal computer, mainly on the need of having computers in our desktops, helping us with our daily tasks. Microsoft took over the PC business since anybody, with the capacity to manufacture hardware, could “clone” the IBM PC and use the Intel chips. Apple on the other hand targeted designers, therefore leaving Microsoft as defacto OS in desktops computers.

When the Internet came to play and Microsoft “was doing all that talk and no walking”. At that point it didn’t matter, until Google took over search supremacy and search has become the killer Internet App. Fast forward to today and Google is the king of the Internet. Microsoft is now  trying to battle the “monopoly” of Google and being careless of Windows and Office products.

IBM has its place in the IT Industry and Apple has it place in the consumer electronic Industry as well as it “niche” in the Computer Industry. Microsoft has its place in the Software Industry and is a dominant player in the Business sector. However, for some reason they think that the only way to grow is to challenge Google. Will see what happens with Microsoft and if they will ever realize, that they are looking themselves at the mirror, when looking at Google (in a twisted and interesting way).

How does history repeat itself? Well it repeats when a dominant player wants to get into a industry that is not his core competence. This is mainly related to a main trend or a shift in a focus toward other technologies. It also repeats it self because,( well at least I am) getting tired of Google being a bully, having advertising on everything and buying wasting all that money on unproven companies. Remember the days when we started to get tired of Microsoft?

Google is now a bully, trying to be everywhere and strengthening their monopoly. Maybe now Microsoft knows how everybody felt about them. I’m kind off getting tired of Google search, there are too much adds and I don’t feel I’m getting the best results. Now they are becoming a bit “too big” that they are crowdsourcing search.

Who will do to Google, what they did to Microsoft?

Well, not a search engine, or software company, nor Apple. Apple is happy on being seen as a “niche” company, although they are pretty dominant. Also, there are rumors going around Jobs health and it might be end of an Era. The answer to the question is in the BitTorrents. To be more specify I put my money on The Pirate Bay or Mininova. This is mainly based on their increase in popularity (see here and here) and since they are a integral part of satisfy a need hunger for any kind of media (especially The Pirate Bay by being a Index and Tracker).

What makes Mininova and The Pirate Bay interesting is the trend to deliver media over the Internet and in different mediums. They are the dominant players today, even if they don’t make the millions made by iTunes Store. In addition you can see how they are diversifying and growing organically, by creating new “project” or services. Some of them are:

• Vio Mobile Video Convertor
• Baywords (uncensored blogging Plataform)
• Slopsbox (email address for sites that ask registration to deliver content)
• Bayimg (uncensored image hosting)
• Snotr (online video)
• Mininova Content Distribution

Will see what happens, however I’m excited by the possibilities by this companies. They are challenging the status quo, being a reminder that we shouldn’t be taking everything for granted. I guess they haven’t reach their potential thanks to the bad aura surrounding BitTorrent. However there is nothing Google can do right now to counter them, if Google does anything this just signs of trouble for Google?

Originally this was the title of this post:

Removing your battery from your MacBook, will decrease its performance.. So what?”

I still feel the same, however I changed my mind, when thought about it from a broader point of view. If your laptop, either made by Apple, Asus, Sony, HP, Dell, slews of the performance of the CPU if its ONLY running on the power (no battery), do you care? In my case it depends, for a few it might be important, but most users might not care. As its stated in “The Inmates Are Running the Asylum“, its better to make 20% happy, than trying to satisfy everybody. More on this later…

It is reported that “Apple notebooks take huge performance hit with battery” and Apple apparently acknowledge this some time ago. After pondering on it, I got to a conclusion: so what and who cares? Is this important to most Mac owners ? My guess is that the majority will care less, what they care about is that their laptop works, in such way that they don’t have to think about what is going on under the hood. They don’t even want to think about the hood, they just want to concentrate in their books, designs, emails, art, etc. , they want to be able to create and worry about other thing and not the pains sometimes one has to suffer with computers.

Looking more into the the reduction in performance, it seems  logical, because one of the main parts of the device is not connected to it, meditate about it. Take cars for example, your car can run without a battery, but will it start? Will you be able to play some music on the stereo? Its all about the tradeoff, you give something, but you get something else: trade. Expanding more on the car example, will it be great if your car will calculate how many kilometers were left, when you are bellow one third of the full tank. Even better if it will ask me if I will like to go into “gas saver mode”, while detecting that you haven’t gone over 50 km in the last 10 minutes. It could be possible, but will complicate things more, making the care more robust and rise the cost for: tradeoff.

Here is clear example about tradeoff Wii vs Play Station 3

Its interesting to read the comments in the post mentioned above, how this is not news, talk about tradeoff or criticized Apple decisions. Here is little secret: if you don’t like it, don’t buy it, if you don’t like Apple buy another thing. I don’t like them that is why I own a “Dell From Hell” XPS 1330. I’m satisfy with it, I love the fact that has a small adapter (as MacBook). I understand when I need full power and brightness in the screen and when I need 4 hours of battery, and I appreciate the freedom of choice. It doesn’t run hot because it has a 5400 rpm and integrated video card, I don’t need more because I don’t play games. I used to have 17in, 10 pound monster, with a 2 pound power adapter. I was giving up something that now I value more than the value of having everything. I want mobility, portability, comfort. I identified that new value and decided to trade for it.

Dell from Hell – source

Back to making 20% happy: that is why Apple does best, he makes them really happy. If you think Apple design decisions are stupid, then Apple is not designing for you, is for others that find their products worth the so called “premium”. I don’t like their products, but doesn’t mean they make crappy ones, its just not for me (or maybe you). Someday this might change, like when comfort became more value than power, in the meantime I will continue to learn from Apple, understand their customers and have fun posting about it.

I have had this topic on my mind for a long time and wanted to write a blog post about it. It was going to be on how the only good customer service left, can be found in Apple Stores and at my mom’s store. Concluding that Apple some how, found a way to train their staff to provide good customer service (and my mom just rules too much). But all this changed this weekend, the reason: I went shopping for a traveling Backpack (see image bellow). Also, like this blog post, for a long time wanted to buy one, but I never got totally convinced.

Source

I like to travel around and is tough to do it with regular luggage (although I don’t travel as other do, I travel ). I always went to checkout the bags, but never understood this product and is tough to buy a product when you don’t understand it. You may ask yourself, what is to understand about a backpack? Trust me there is a lot, but at first glance the only thing I saw was size, materials and the brand name. I thought this characteristics defined the price, although they have a saying, they share the responsibility with other properties or characteristic of same importance.

I went to InterSport in a outlet shopping center in the outskirts of Stockholm. I went in to the store and like always I helped myself to checkout the bags. After five minutes an a employee asked me if I was looking to buy a bag and I told her, yes. What happened in the next 30 minutes was mind boggling, I got a crash coarse on backpacks. I mean I was amaze by how much is to this bags and she did a very good job. She went around explaining each bag, trying to find out my needs, what will fit me, my type of travel, etc. She made me try them and see how they felt and fit. From that point one can get  a feeling that this person knew what she was talking about. The way she dealt with me was very good, because she sensed in a good way, I was price sensitive and tried to find the best value for me. Also remembered me about the 30 day return policy most stores have in Sweden. So, I bought it and follow her instructions to fill it up with clothing and test it, if I don’t like it I will return it, that simple.

Of coarse this doesn’t make us understand if this is an abnormally or is there something to learn from the shopping experience. And things didn’t click until the cashier commented that she is very experience in this because she hikes and loves to hikes. That was my moment of “ahaaaaaa”. Well it was like an hour later after I was able to digest everything, but it was thanks to the conversation with the cashier. The key word here is love, a word that is used so lightly this days, but still is very important. What does apple store clerks and this lady have in common? You guessed right, Love for what the product or service they are in charge of (selling or helping). Yes indeed they love it. Apple customers are the best sellers you will find, because plain and simple, they love their products and is easier to sell something you love  contrast when you don’t. [Clarification for any smart ass: in the contrary if you sell a person you love that means the opposite]

Finding people that provide customer service and are crazy about a product is tough to find, that is why ladies and gentlemen, good customer service is a rarity these days. And is not an easy task to make people love a product that they own or don’t have a saying on how is made. So there lies the challenge: how to train people to love the product or service they are providing customer service for. Maybe next time you put an ad for new employee, the main requirement: “love our product”.

I was working, some weeks ago, on a assignment with my partner. He is a rock fan and loves music, so much that he is in a band. So while we worked he was listening to a Internet radio station www.181.fm (Eagle Classic Rock). Anyway’s, I’m a hip hop, R&B, rap, contemporary rock, alternative, electronic, fan. Once in while some of the songs played where to familiar to me where I realized that some of the songs a listen to today sample or “cover” from this classic rock songs. Here is some of the songs I remember:

This is not news, most people that are more than casual listeners know this happen. Some even sample from “classical music”. Take for example Jedi Mind Tricks in his song On the Eve of War ft. Gza, which original is from Karl Jenkins – “Palladio I – Allegretto”. But it made me wonder how difficult is it today to be original or is it productive to try to do it. Apple has done a business on being “original” or trying to be “original”, to the point where some copy from them in one way or another. The evidence can be seen on how many click wheel (from iPod) or touch screen (iPhone)  clones we see around. Today most mobile manufacturers focus is touch screens, and before that most mp3 manufacturers tried to out done the iPod.

The point… well its hard to be original because we are overloaded or bombarded  with so much information. So all that information is what makes our “inspiration” comes from somewhere. Although it maybe be argue that nothing in the world is purely original, but today in this age, how much of what we come up is it ours and how much is from everybody?

Well.. at least you know they come from Cartoon Stock.

The answer:

SEX

I was in Wired Magazine Online and then saw the top 10 list of most read articles  and a couple caught my eye. Which I opened first? Well, it was this one: “NSFW Gallery: Blu-Ray Porn, Mechanized Masturbation and Puskirts at Japan’s First Sex Show“. I was working in another post, but for some reason I thought this was a quickie post (you can see the theme now),  I just need to do.

Sex sells and that is why its hotter than the iPhone or any Apple product. It doesn’t get the PR that Macworld gets, but I bet sex toys sell a lot, even more than iPods (sorry no stats and that is why it is a bet). Its a taboo, but a business where you can make a lot of money. The problem is that if you care much of what people think, you might have a problem sleeping on night. But business is business and if you do it right, there is nothing wrong with it.

Damn! I think i lost my bet (source)

Still they are business opportunities related to sex, from sex education, to accessories and media. Prostitution and anything with minors should be banned and put in jailed, but there are other stuff that really can make a difference in persons life. How? Well, for some people (and cultures) sex is instrumental in the success of a marriage. Yoga is kind of a hot thing, so why not do something similar with the Kama Sutra. The sessions might be in group ,but more private and couples will learn more about  life, sexual union, conduct and love. They also will get added pleasure  and thrive to get in shape. Win-Win-Win situation, especially those in the mid life crisis.

Based on what is my way of thinking, well… read this article on Inc.com “Why Sex Sells More Than Ever”. As the article states in the intro:

Valentine’s Day marks the busy season for companies that make “pleasure products” and other adult merchandise — a $2 billion industry that’s moving out of the shadows and into your local shopping mall. Meet the savvy entrepreneurs, many of them women, who are cashing in on America’s naughty side….

I wonder what other countries have a naughty side? Looks promising for Japan…

Note: the above link didn’t work at the moment of writing of this post, click here for the cached version by Google.

The computer is personal again, and it may sound very familiar. But if you think about it, all in this age is about being personal and unique. You are a image and you market yourself. One way is through clothing and gadgets, other through social media.

People will think that Apple products as beautiful and unique, or I’m wrong. Well that is the “feeling” I get from people that buy apple products. “I’m cool, hip, not like you with your ugly PC” an exaggeration but in some sense it may be true. But apple notebooks and computers are not personal; they say I’m one of a small pack that is easy to spot. I like easy and not complicated and don’t mine paying a premium for it.  The same feeling I get with ipod, iphone and all their other white, silver or black products. Are they personal? Personal Computers may have the personal name on it but are not personal. In the other hand blogs are personal. Where I’m going  with all this nonsense you may think (and hope you are still reading and willing to read). Hear is the deal:

So, I just created this blog and I’m searching for a theme in the wordpress presentation section and stumbled with this theme. And it was like hitting the first piece of a domino line, one memory after another where going down.

Image source here

 Well, there like just four pieces knocked, but you get the pictured.

 So I saw the theme and a say to myself, “this looks familiar”.

And I remember a recent news post I saw in notebookreview.com where HP announced a new version of a laptop called the Artist Edition. They are not the same design or maybe colors, but I just remembered it.

Image Source here

I don’t know for you, but for me this is something way better than an apple laptop, when dealing with art, not functionality, ART. Apple computers (desktop and laptops) may be simple, clean and nice but they don’t let you express you self. They don’t provide nothing like hp in terms of artistic expression. Yes I can’t create my own designs in HP site, but that is not far from now.

Remember I said it sounded familiar, here is why:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tX98H96A_SY]

And from where did HP have all this sudden artistic competence? Remember the Voodoo PC acquisition (news post here). HP new all the way what it was doing and the competence they got from this. Yes Vista sucks and that may be a killer in some sense, but it will be hard to agree if you don’t think that the Artist Edition is a step toward letting a machine that will let you self express.

It’s a marketing campaign, but yes thanks to HP (and Voodoo), the computers are personal again.