iphone
I wrote two pieces recently discussing potential turnaround strategies for both Dell and Palm.
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The world is moving to a place where the laptop needs to become much more than just a laptop. An integrated mobile device is in the cards, that is the combo PC-Phone-Music Box. May be, even Camera. Dell needs to figure out a way to latch onto this trend, and find a hit product. iPod saved Apple. What will save Dell?
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With the iPhone announcement, we enter an era when all the other smartphone providers need to now sit up and define their own clear positioning and path forward. With Steve Jobs working his PR machine, and the media lapping up the show and tell, it is imperative that Palm, for instance, decides where it goes next.
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Of course, for both Palm and Dell, the driving force is going to be the iPhone, and how it moves the market. Here’s Frank Levinson’s piece, iPhone and the Future. Read the full article »
Last night, we were at a HBS event honoring Charles Schwab for the magnificent turnaround that he has instituted since his return as the CEO of the company he had founded thirty years back.
Today’s news proclaims the return of Michael Dell to the CEO spot at Dell, replacing Kevin Rollins.
Interesting development, although, my read about Kevin Rollins is that the crash of Dell is not necessarily his fault. Read the full article »
Verizon had apparently passed on the opportunity to be the exclusive partner for Apple’s iPhone. This post from Macuser nails the issue:
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In case you’ve missed the impact of this whole fiasco: I’m a Verizon customer. And my contract is in effect for another year. C’mon guys: I would have totally traded up to an iPhone if I could have stuck with Verizon. Meanwhile, Cingular is—no surprise—pleased as punch: “We think this is a win for Apple, and it is a win for Cingular.”
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There is, actually, a slightly greater significance to this situation. The telecom carriers, especially the mobile ones, have been outrageously difficult to do business with over the last 10 years. They are inflexible, muscle flexing, extortionists in their negotiation tactics.
For the first time, however, in Apple, they met their match. And the result is that Cingular decided to play ball, accept win:win terms, as opposed to the erstwhile “I make the money, and I don’t care whether you survive or not …” deals they forced on nearly every player in the ecosystem.
I say, Good.
With the iPhone announcement, we enter an era when all the other smartphone providers need to now sit up and define their own clear positioning and path forward. With Steve Jobs working his PR machine, and the media lapping up the show and tell, it is imperative that Palm, for instance, decides where it goes next.
So, in the same vein that I have written about Yahoo’s turnaround formula, let me sketch a hypothesis for Palm, which I also think could have a bright future ahead.
Let’s start with where Apple and the iPhone will never go: Business Applications.
And by this, I mean the non-email types of applications. I mean the heavy duty business applications. SAP. Salesforce.com. Webex. I mean CRM, PLM, ERP, MRP. I mean mission critical. This is one place where business users need to go, and an alliance between Palm and the enterprise application eco-system could well be the way to get there.
Apple is and will always be a consumer electronics company, so the enterprise segment opportunity will remain wide open. I strongly believe, this is Palm’s best bet going forward.
The other opportunity for Palm is to build devices that are “killer” application specific, but focused on the billions of “new” computer users. I spoke about this opportunity earlier here, and fantacised about Steve Jobs taking a crack at this. However, realistically, this is not an opportunity that Apple will go after. However, Palm could build a “Micro-Finance Phone” in collaboration with CitiBank, and go after the Fortune At the Bottom of the Pyramid.
Further Reading:
* iPhone’s Competitors: Synthesis
* Palm Changing Hands
* iPhone’s Competitors: Palm
* Palm: Stop Missing Obvious Opportunities
* Palm gets Rubinstein
* Palm’s Fate
* iPhone and the Future of Palm
by Frank Levinson, Guest Author
When I was sitting with some friends recently, we began talking about Apple’s introduction of the iPhone. We all felt that this product was one with much more promise than many we had seen in the last few years.
Why?
From the most straightforward view, the features in the iPhone have been available on the Dopod 838Pro has nearly all of the same hardware features, perhaps even more in that it has a second camera for video phone calls. (Where is that iSight camera on the iPhone anyway?)
What makes this device different? Read the full article »
Harper Collins announces an investment in NewsStand this week to enhance its digital efforts. This draws attention of book lovers and passionate readers to the future of Books.
Some of the more successful book projects recently have been the blockbuster Harry Potter series and the Da Vinci Code franchise, as well as the literary successes like The Kite Runner, Interpreter of Maladies, and others.
But for every success, there are hundreds of thousands of titles that sit in piles, languishing in sad insignificance. Authors spend large chunks of their lives to write books. A miniscule percentage of them actually get read. Granted, much of what is written is bad writing. However, even that which is good, needs marketing, and few titles actually recieve it.
Furthermore, much of the non-fiction writing, which sells better than fiction, says something which can be said in 100 pages, in 400, unnecessarily making the book less marketable. Business books are notorious for exhibiting this phenomenon.
So would eBooks change all this? Read the full article »
After Personal Computing, Film, Music, Steve Jobs is now tackling the Cellular Phone business, and with such aplomb, that one wonders why the SEC and the media would not simply leave him alone to do his thing … work his magic, wave his wand, think, feel, play … whatever it is that gives him the internal capacity for doing what he does best: come up with products that embody a sublime clarity of vision.
Really, these Options scandals and all are distractions that deter Steve Jobs from his real focus (and value) in life: leading the vision for whole huge industries, of human behavior, of social change!
Especially, given that nobody else, anywhere in the world, is capable of doing what he does, it seems to be foolish for society to crucify this man, rather than empowering him to do more.
Einstein had said of Gandhi, “Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as [Gandhi] ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth.” Jobs is no Gandhi in his capacity to sacrifice for humanity at large. His skills, however, seem necessary to a generation of humanity that has come to depend on technology as a way of life. Read the full article »
