First Mover's Advantage - How Long Does It Last?

Companies that see an un-served needs or wants can create a solution and be first to market. My friend was an engineer in a semiconductor  fab (fancy name for factory), saw that the technicians were holding an apparatus awkwardly, so he made and sold the same apparatus with a different handle. He even received a patent for it! This example is a niche one, but if the solution has a large enough of an addressable market - watch out! Once you spend time and money to validate the market, design, create, promote, and finally activate your channel to sell it, watch out! Money smelling fast followers will ride right behind your hard paved path and slingshot right over you.


ICQ : The first large scale instant messenger application. Users were identified by an long ICQ number, which made adoption slightly difficult because you cannot find a fellow ICQ by name. In some ways, its difficult usage model gave it a "not-just-for-anyone" hipness. Which also made it its weakness. Microsoft, a well known brand because you had to look at it to even work or play games, introduced the MSN Messenger in 1999. I think that this is where marketing and a business model would have helped ICQ.

ICQ status icon was also its brand

Netscape : The first widely adopted internet browser was called Navigator Succumbed to free Microsoft Internet Explorer. 

iomega : This was the a backup solution for home and light business and commercial. It was popular because iomega offered large amounts to be stored outside of the PCs internal hard disk drive. The only way to back up data back then was to use 5 1/4 or 3 1/2  floppy disks, which had very limited storage. With the advent of USB and smaller form factors of hard disk drive (to cater to the laptop market), iomega's unique value proposition was washed away by technology. Probably nothing iomega could have done.


AOL : one of the first large scale internet service provider (ISP), connecting users via a phone line and model. Not going as far back as Compuserve. They transformed to a portable company, with a large following largely because of their initial ISP users. But as fiber optics lowed enabled multiple ISP providers, combined with the onslaught of other portals such as Yahoo, contributed to its downfall.

Kodak : This iconic American company ushered in the camera age. Fuji entered the market and caused pricing pressure on Kodak. Although Kodak was an early "inventor" of digital photography, fear of cannibalization, a half hearted push into the digital age eventually will lead to its demise. Divesting into printing, a field already dominated by strong printer providers is a sign of their desperation.

Atari: This company made video game a common household appliance in the mid 1970's. The model 2600 will eventually sell 30 million units. As Atari transitioned to new generations, Nintendo also introduced the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) with better graphics and game. Later Atari releases, including the ill fated Jaguar, were all bombs. Atari died by unguided innovation.

Extending The Life of Hardware Via XP Virtualization

Virtualization has been a hot topic - for good reasons. It consolidates multiple machines (servers)  into one - thereby saving energy, space, and maintenance. But if you are not a data warehouse provider, why should you care? How can average consumers benefit from virtualization?

I am such a person - an average consumer. In my possession are perfectly working devices - namely a slick thin Canon scanner, and very cool OLED Sony mp3 player. As far as I know, the slim Canon scanner is no longer in production. Same goes for the Sony OLED mp3 player. These were bought about 5 years ago and have worked flawlessly. A great testament to excellent engineering, manufacturing, and design.

My laptop was upgraded to Windows 7 (Enterprise 64-bit). But my devices no longer worked. I tried installing the application and drivers for the scanner and mp3 player, but my devices were not recognized. After many months of research, I found out that Microsoft included XP virtualization in Windows 7 Enterprise. After installation, my dead dust-collecting devices came to life!

As a normal consumer, virtualization saved me by:

1.  $100 : Sony OLED cigar shaped mp3 player (can change volume, track, and folder with just one hand)
2.   $80  : Canon Lide scanner (very slim, stands up right, USB powered)
3.  $50   : PDA (don't laugh)
4.  $20   : Time and frustration of porting old data and music (Sony had a ATARC format)
5.    $5   : The environment : I reuse my hardware, which means it does not go to the landfill

"XP Mode" virtualization is available in Window 7 professional. $200
Most of us have Windows Home Premium, but does not include "XP Mode". $120


   ROI of virtualization = $255/($200-$120) =  318%

The Demise of Trade Shows

Every year at the Design Automation Conference (DAC), the biggest annual trade show of our industry, we are forced to wonder what to announce, what to hype, predict what our competitors will announce, and how to keep our annual flocks of visitors coming. Sometimes I feel like a magician, trying to squeeze a drop of exciting tidbit and blow it up to a slide deck. Not fun.

That is why Microsoft has decided to drop out of the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Rather than not being able to innovate and trying to fake it every year at CES, it is better to drop out and then innovate-create relevant buzz when the product is tested and ready.

Trade shows, in my opinion, benefit the small companies who need a place to be hear and seen. But for the big guns, there is almost nothing to gain.

MacOS X Lion (10.7) Quick Review

I finally had a chance to try out the latest operating system for the Mac laptop (such as MacBook Pro, MacBook Air) and computers (iMac) called  "Lion".  As a happy user of Snow Leopard and Windows 7 (virtualized via Parallels 5), I wanted to see what the fuss on Lion was about.  Lion was released on July 20th, 2011.

Touted as a major improvement to the previous version called "Snow Leopard", here are my quick findings of visible upgrades.

   1. Ability to expand a program such that take it occupies the entire screen- the way applications do on an iPhone or iPad

   2. "Mission Control" allows the user to see all programs that are running.

   3. "Launch Pad"  allows the user to view all installed applications. Very similar in experience to using an iPhone/iPad/iPod.  that have been installed in one view. Prior to Launch Pad, users either had to find programs via the "Dock" or use the "Finder". Very cumbersome and a welcomed feature. Mission Control looks just like the home screen on an iPhone or iPad.

  

My question is : I use an iMac, so I don't have a touch pad for gesturing. Am I left out?

Brain Fart

Hm.. testing out Google analytics, so here is a link to a blog that really has nothing:

http://etherealbrainthreads.weebly.com

Music Distribution

Have you ever wondered how music is purchased with the advent of online distribution (Apple iTunes, Amazon, Google)?

According to today's SJMercury:

   Album (digital) : 103 million
   Album (CD)    : 225 million
   Singles (digital) : 1.27 billion

Was surprised the large CD album count. Might be attributable to the fact that albums in the CD format is not that much more expensive, but comes with the lost-in-the-mp3-digitial-age album cover. When I was younger, half of the magic was looking at the cover, reading the lyrics, while I listened away. Remember those days of looking the the Police's Synchonicity album? How about the Chevy (or Ford or GM) on the Car's album?

Another non-surprise : why buy entire albums when you can buy the one single that you only cared about?

Using Technology To Revive An Old Brand

Lou D'Ambrosio, the new CEO of Sears, is using his background in technology to revamp sales at Sears. All sales people will be receiving iPad or iPod Touches to track inventory and customer.


"Everything starts with knowing what our customers want to buy and how then delivering that across platform".

Well, he might be missing several points, mainly:
1. The Sears brand is old - you will be tracking how low income buy items that are usually on sale
2. Will your new system tell what your customers want, but that you don't current carry? How can you increase sales with this information?

At the end, I think that this is a using a band aid to fix a major leak in a dam.

A New Start. Again.

Time is often called the fourth dimension to augment the Euclidean concept of "space". But it is also used as a metric to see how far you have gone in life.

     "How old are you?" asked the man.
     "20." replied the boy.
     "So you are a junior in a university." inquired the man.
     "No - I am taking this opportunity to sample diverse life experiences to probe and discovery my nature" the boy responded.
    

When the boy replied "20", the man ignored the fact that time is a science concept to time Euclidean space and time together. The man just simply wanted to use "20" as a metric to see how far the boy has progressed in life. There have been great "metric challenged" individual who changed the outcome of the planet. Andrew Carnegie, the philanthropist & steel tycoon was only 5'0". So where am I going with this? It is 2012, and whether you like it or not, another notch has been etched on the metric stick. What will you do to measure up?

Me?

   1. Have fewer friends, but connect deeper.
   2. Reduce my carbon foot print.
   3. Live as if this is the last day on the planet for me.