23 Feb 10 New Product Release Cycles – what is wrong?
I have been troubled by a couple of things in the last few weeks – why is it that when a new product comes out from someone new in the game the incumbent is written-off very quickly. Take the example of Andriod – Google is shipping 60,000 phones a day. And the assertion thus that Microsoft should be afraid even though it sold 2o million phones in 2008. Why is it that Apple has quickly managed to threaten Nokia, Microsoft and RIM in short space of time. Besides a superior product I think the reason is more entrenched in product release cycles.
If Nokia and Microsoft have been in the business way longer than Apple, they should have been able to react at lightning speeds to counter Apple. It was known for a long time that Google will enter the mobile space but why didn’t Microsoft react fast and come out with something hard-hitting? Same goes for search, real-time platforms, social networking etc. So why do we see this?
I think the real reason is the time established companies take to bring in new product releases. This is in my opinion nothing to do with the usual adage of – big companies are slow or reactive and bureaucratic . But that there is no defined process to have a frequent defined new product releases even if it is only with a set of small feature additions/edits. By this I do not mean security patches. The only company that is good at regular and frequent new product releases is Apple. Apple tends to do a complete overhaul of it’s product line every 18-24 months and small regular releases and upgrades every 6-12 months. The unofficial buying guide for Apple products sums it beautifully. Which other company has such predictable new product release cycles and overhauls? Other than Apple, Facebook and in some areas (like search) Google nobody does this well.
A process to make this happen in a large corporate will make sure it remains competitive and any new innovative idea is put into the market soon rather than wait for a new player to proves it’s worth – when it might become too late. If Microsoft and Nokia had such processes in place would we see such threats to it’s existence in the mobile space?
I doubt even companies like Google have such processes in place – which is why we see reactive and panic stricken incomplete and incompetent product releases like Google Buzz to catch up with the likes of Facebook and Twitter. Orkut strategy was totally broken and even in regions where Orkut was big they are now loosing ground as they cannot keep up with product/feature releases from Facebook.
So what makes Apple so good at this? I think the reason is their involvement in selling hardware which needs frequent new releases and overhauls. Which means that they have managed to do this for every product – whether software or hardware. Same might be for Microsoft when it comes to Xbox, but in other areas they don’t think that way.
Hardware industries can teach these web companies a few good lessons on new product release cycles.
Tags: Android, Apple, entrepreneurship, Facebook, Google, hardware, Microsoft, new product, Nokia, Orkut, product, Product Development, release cycles, start-up, Twitter, web
17 Feb 10 Do the Biggie’s have a war cabinet?
Hit first, hit hard, keep hitting
I always wonder do the big global multinationals have a war cabinet. And if so how do they operate? Who is the enemy? Who is the friend? Here I mean the big multinationals who are in the new economy and not the old economy of military hardware, manufacturing, energy etc. I mean more like Google, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, IBM, Amazon, Dell, HP etc … Observe most of them are American.
Looking at the announcements from the likes of Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google recently they seem to be at war with each other. Facebook trying to bring down Gmail, Google trying to beat Twitter and Facebook with Buzz, Apple trying to beat Microsoft and Google and so on … It really looks like a Mexican stand-off.
But in this war against each other how do they react to each others moves. With budgets as big as a small country they need to have strategies and thinking which is not too far from managing and defending a country.
I am an admirer of Admiral John (Jackie) Fisher – generally regarded as one of the greatest admirals in the British Navy. Fisher is primarily celebrated as an innovator, strategist and developer of the navy rather than a seagoing admiral. One of his quotes springs to mind here – “Hit first, hit hard and keep hitting“. Now I truly believe in doing that to your competition. It is not survival it’s winning I care about when running a company. So does any of these biggie’s have such strategies and do they have admirals like Jackie who think like this?
Tags: Amazon, Apple, competition, Dell, Facebook, Google, HP, IBM, innovation, Microsoft, MySpace, Strategy, Twitter, War Cabinet
17 Feb 10 Innovation – mutation or big bang theory?
Innovation is a new way of doing something or “new stuff that is made useful”. It may refer to incremental and emergent or radical and revolutionary changes in thinking, products, processes, or organizations.
And it is this definition which made me wonder how one looks at innovation in different places. When it is incremental it is more like mutation within an organisation. An idea that goes through a change between silos due to exchange of ideas, inspiration from other areas, problems reaching or expanding customer base or just accidental discovery. More often than not incremental change doesn’t require inventing anything new. It is often just a matter of combining and recombining capabilities across disciplines, organizations, and sectors. These capabilities are usually kept under wraps and difficult to access. And opportunities in areas like healthcare, education, energy etc needs more opening up of these so more cross pollination and mutation might occur for us to see better solutions. Data sharing is one of the most important aspects of this mutation as it is with biological process of mutation.
The Big bang innovation is revolutionary changes that result from radically different way of thinking a problem and it’s probably solutions. Each big bang innovation is followed by an era of mutation with small changes until another big bang innovation happens in the area. One of the best examples of big bang innovation is invention and commercialisation of microchip or integrated circuits by Robert Norton Noyce who co-founded Fairchild Semiconductor and Intel giving Silicon valley it’s name. Ever since Moor’s law has made sure small innovation or mutation keeps innovation alive.
While there is nothing new in what I have discussed above. The biggest question facing those entrepreneurs, itching to build a new product, disrupt the norm, innovate and scale an organisation, is what kind of product to build and what kind of innovation to work on. Big bang innovations are very difficult and one sees a lots of failures. And the small innovations resulting from mutations are mistaken for big ones – typically how a feature is mistaken for a product. A clear understanding of the two will help the founders decide how to build the company, size it, raise funding, build, scale, target customers and look at possible exits. More often the big bangs take deep pockets and longer to succeed as they need mass adoption to succeed too – Google, Ebay, Amazon being typical examples. Mutations more often last for a short time, and target small niche markets thus surviving by being acquired quickly. Small changes caused by need, combination of disparate products/services and being in a risky environment where they can become obsolete quickly.
Google is probably the best example of a big bang which has a great ecosystem for mutations so they survive for a long time to come – just as biological organisms do. Other such examples are Microsoft, Facebook, IBM and Amazon – all big bangs who now are in constant mutation mode to make sure they survive the hostile environment they live in.
Before one starts on the entrepreneurship journey one needs to know what innovation they are working on. So what innovation are you? Big bang or mutations – remember there cannot be many big bangs 
Tags: Amazon, Ebay, entrepreneurship, Facebook, Google, innovation, Microsoft, mutation, start-up, Twitter
20 Sep 09 Real-Time vs Delay Tolerant search – I
There is a rush towards real-time search spurred by the likes of Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, Google (Google Wave), Microsoft (through investment in FaceBook) etc. While I can understand why the likes of Thompson-Reuters, AP etc would like to be in real-time search, it is hard to say what the future holds for others. Will our appetite for real-time search take over most parts of our internet search? Am I interested in news about M&A, investments, politics, economics, business, disasters etc in real-time? While I get the news, I am more interested in analysis and so is rest of the population (IMHO). So while the main real-time search contenders cannot gain more than getting us news at the earliest and impact a small part of our appetite for information, they do little to give us insight, informed choice and educate us little about issues we know and understand less.
I am interested in news but more in analysis, I would like to know which bank failed but also why and on deeper analysis of how. I would like to buy a product with a good deal of information about it along with some good analysis but not just be the first to know about it’s release. So while real-time search does well on information now – it is more concerned with news and little else. I would for example want to know what is reason or affects of certain economic, political or social issue which has little to do with real-time search. Also when I look at some real world actions like the best deal for a ticket to NYC . Can I do without going on multiple real-time search (inc Google, Bing etc) and comparison sites for days and get some informed choice? I think there is an opportunity for what I call “Delay Tolerant Search” which in my opinion solves bigger problems and I think we have a great appetite for solutions around this. This holds true for some of our daily actions on the internet and quality of articles – which is why Rupert Murdoch is leading the effort to get people to pay for great content.
Tags: delay tolerant search, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, real-time search, Search, Twitter
26 Aug 09 3G Booklet – Begining of things to come?
Nokia is planning to release the Nokia 3G Booklet . Now this did come as a surprise to a lot of people, but I have been predicting this for a while. I think we will soon see Vodafone, Orange, 3, T-Mobile, O2 branded 3G netbooks in the market. This is what will ultimately “kill the wifi hotspots” (well almost) and bring the focus back on these telcos and mobile device makers.
While the Nokia’s “Booklet 3G” — is an Intel/Microsoft-based netbook, I think this will soon change to Symbian OS. Similarly we will see Andriod or Chrome OS on the Google Netbook and Apple will be coming out a netbook with iPhone OS. What the hell maybe even RIM will come up with a netbook with BlackBerry OS and Palm a netbook with WebOS. All in due time. But I think the biggest selling point will be the 3G card in the netbook and the ‘App Store”. Apple has shown the way to success of app stores. We will see the Nokia 3G booklet being the way Ovi store will sell apps on the netbook and the Nokia phones – with both running the same OS this will be an awesome play. With all Palm, RIM, Nokia, Apple going gung-ho about app stores I see this to be the main way to buy and use apps – on both netbooks and mobile phones.
In my opinion these guys should go the way Nivio has – treating software like any other content and allowing users to rent applications like MS Office installing them in seconds (like a iPhone app). I have never used Novio’s service but looking and reading about what they do I think they are onto something big – starting in India and then SME’s in US and Europe. I would love to see the same on netbooks coming from mobile device companies and telcos and I think the app stores are making this possible already.
One important note – Microsoft seems “lazy” in this area and I don’t see them making much of a move. Though they still lead in mobile OS’s they don’t seem to be moving fast enough with products to beat the likes of Apple and RIM. Some arm twisting by Microsoft might slow down this move/diversification to netbooks by telco’s and mobile device makers but unless they form a partnership with Nokia to kill Symbian OS or buy one of the main players they will loose out big time and will only end up on some applications. We have not heard of a “MS App Store” and even if we do I doubt many out there will be excited to build apps for them.
Tags: 3G, App Store, Apple, Blackberry, Booklet, Google, iPhone, Microsoft, Netbook, Nivio, Nokia, Ovi, RIM, Symbian
09 Aug 09 A Day at Tomorrow’s Web 09
I spent the whole day yesterday with some amazing people at Tommorow’s Web, a conference by young minds to discuss the future of Internet and Technology industry. It brought together young technology entrepreneurs giving their unique perspective on the Internet and future technologies. An excellent event put together by Grant Bell and Rob Day. The best part was no one of my age (oh shut up!!) was allowed to speak on stage .
I shall refrain from calling all those I met yesterday as “young ‘uns” and call them “smart minds” as the presentations they gave were well above what I have heard many grown ups give. The quality of talks and content was well beyond my expectations. The talks ranged from well thought out, grounded and brilliant advice to freelancers from Anna Debenham to in-depth technical discussion on opening the web with a lot of API love by Jamie Rumbelow. A very confident and love your work from Nick Pellant to very sound design and user experience discussion by Greg Cooper. Not to be left behind a very well thought out business plan for Giglocator by James Proud. Meaghan Fitzgerald and Anna Debenham have covered the happenings at the conference.
While I loved being at the event reminiscing what I did when I was 16 years old – all I could think about was debating on political issues and concentrating on getting to a good university. Growing up in India in a high pressured environment where the T-shirts one wears was more important than how smart you are, there was no choice. Hence I think in some way I see the conference as liberation of the youth – allowed to do what they feel is right. Probably also because this is a choice these young entrepreneurs make and have little to fear of failure.
While I think the liberation of the youth and doing what one loves to do is a right thing as I always tell myself and any passionate entrepreneur, I fear for some of these smart minds as I think a lot of them do not have a “Plan B”. Perhaps I am being cynical, perhaps I am being practical or maybe plain insane. But the emphasis on going to university is what I grew up with and this is still the main driver in the east and in the US. While there is a lot of talk about how universities are failing the youth, not keeping up with the changes in technology, society, expectations etc – I think it’s these smart minds who will drive the change. And keeping them out of university is a “Bad Idea”. So is this “liberation of the youth” really right?
While I loved what a lot of them are doing – I think some of them are not really sustainable businesses over a longer term and some will fail. Some of these smart ones have never ever failed and I would hope they never do but having a plan B will make them more prepared and something to fall back on. I agree with James Dyson that what UK needs is more people going to university to study science and engineering and spend time learning things in depth – this is key to a sustainable UK economy.
I don’t mean to discourage any of the smart minds I met yesterday. I only think their potential is huge and needs to be nurtured and they need to have a plan B. And I think going to university is a key to that. I am by no means being a pessimist – I am an optimist and I think these smart ones have a great future.
On another note – where were BBC, Nesta, VC’s and other organisations who talk about future of UK’s technology scene but not around to cover such a promising event?
Tags: conference, entrepreneurship, internet, start-up, technology, Tomorrow's Web, UK, web
02 Aug 09 Will Microsoft buy Zoho?
While this might sound odd and unbelievable to many I think Microsoft will do good to buy Zoho. While Zoho faces competition from Google with it’s Google apps there have been numerous complaints form customers about lack of proper integration between the various apps and with gmail which is quite frustrating to the enterprise user. Google has also been playing catch up with Zoho in terms of bringing in new apps and still lacks the complete office suite that Zoho does – including project management, CRM, marketplace etc. While Salesforce has a great SaaS product they will be beaten by Zoho soon as they lack the complete suite that Zoho seems unbeatable at. While Zoho has been slow at some products like Zoho mail, they have finally understood what the customer is really looking for.
I think Microsoft will try to buy Zoho. Microsoft has promised to release a free online version of their next MS Office but even they will struggle to integrate the suite well enough to meet the needs of a SME who is today moving to Google apps/ Zoho etc. While this makes commercial sense – Microsoft will be afraid of going for such a deal as the stock market will perceive them to be unable to build such a product themselves and see it as a sign of weakness. Which this might be true, but I still think they will be stupid not to approach Zoho.
28 Jul 09 Adoption vs Retention
A lot of business plans we see are a technology push where we have a technology in search of a problem and customer. The way to build a business and put together a business plan is to detail a customer problem/pain and look for possible solutions. Any solution found should have a way to acquire and retain customers. Also such a solution should if possible ride on an existing related growing solution to a customer problem and customer retention solutions. Once you retain customers business models to monetize will follow.
At the heart most business plans is customer adoption and not customer retention. Entrepreneurs and investors alike do not understand how behaviors change after adoption. Social networks, e-commerce portals and other internet portals are typical examples of businesses where entrepreneurs need to be able to come up with plans for keeping up with growth in customer adoption which can move from being linear to exponential very quickly. One needs to come up with scenarios and lead indicators to see which behaviors are being enacted to then bring in actions to grow further, lead and win in the market. Adoption does not guarantee winning it guarantees survival, retention guarantees us a win. It’s a theme even investor’s overlook while funding companies.
Amazon.com is one of the best examples of successful customer adoption, retention and continuous change and adaption to keep retention up while understanding how to react to exponential growth from a very linear growth pattern. This is still a challenge for Twitter and Facebook while retention is still up we will need to see what new innovative services and products they come up with to maintain this retention while keeping growth high so monetization can follow . Friends Reunited is an example of good customer adoption which then did not keep up the innovation in bringing new ways to retain customers and got stuck in ways to make money without understanding how to retain customers while the likes of Facebook, Bebo and Myspace too over most of their regular customers. While all above is known fact – the issue I am trying to point out is that most such companies have no plan to understand indicators of exponential growth and no plan to understand how customer retention is important. There is a need also to understand that customer retention comes from not being stagnant but by keeping innovation up and bringing in new products and services regularly. Is it any surprise that Bebo and Myspace will keep seeing retention numbers go down?
Tags: business plan, customer adoption, customer retention, start-up, technology
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