There’s a company in Australia that’s growing at a tremendous rate, but isn’t receiving enough mind share in the business world. So far I’ve read about three business practices employed by Atlassian that stands out from the typical company.
No Sales Force
One of the the fastest growing enterprise software companies, Atlassian earned $105 mm in revenue for 2011, an increase of 35%, with no sales force. They’ve also had 40 consecutive quarters of profitability. Instead of employing a sales staff, Atlassian relies on marketing and good customer service to ensure its users have “a great experience with the Atlassian brand”.
According to co-founder Scott Farquhar:
Instead of a sales guy calling them up and saying ‘When are you going to buy?’ this week, next week, the week after, we allow all our customers to evaluate the software themselves.
We’re at the end of the phone if they have any questions but we’re not going to badger them, trying to get them across the line.
Most businesses don’t provide enough information about their products, instead hoarding information so customers are forced to consult sales staff. By publishing the price, customers know exactly what it’ll cost. thereby, alleviating the need to rely on sale tactics like discounts. The company could then just focus on making the experience and the product easy to try and easy to buy
Motivating Employees
This video adapts Daniel Pink’s talk at RSA and is based on his book, “Drive,” an exploration on what truly motivates us. When expounding on how to get employees to add value, Pink uses Atlassian as an example.
Similar to Google’s 20% time, Atlassian allow their developers for once a quarter, on a Thursday afternoon, to work on anything they want, any way they want and with whomever they want. The only requirement is that people have to show what they’ve created to the rest of the company at a fun and spirited meeting 24 hours later.
Financial incentives result in a negative impact because they are extrinsic, external and materialistic.
The reason Atlassian gives their employees 24 hours of free mental stimulation is because it fulfills their intrinsic motivation. This in turn gives gives them free time during work hours to create whatever their heart tells them to. The secret to high performance isn’t rewards and punishment, but that unseen intrinsic drive (what’s inside of you). Intrinsic drive is the drive to do things for their own sake the and the drive to do things because they matter
Atlassian calls these sessions “FedEx Days” because people have to deliver something overnight. These one-day bursts of autonomy have produced an array of fixes for existing software and ideas for new products that might not have emerged otherwise. This isn’t management through carrots and sticks. It’s innovation through autonomy.
Self-Analysis Instead of Peer Reviews
According to Atlassian’s HR director, traditional performance reviews cause anxiety for all parties and act as a demotivator. Instead of discussion about how to enhance people’s performance, the reviews caused disruptions and anxiety, and demotivated team members and managers.
Atlassian abolished official performance reviews two year ago, and replaced them with a brief weekly self-analysis that employees complete online by dragging a dot along an axis in response to questions.
You can read a more lengthy explanation on why they decided to replace the peer review system here.
For all the societal progress the future promises, there is one inevitability that saddens me the most: not being able to bring my children to a bookstore.
Indeed, the proliferation of e-readers and digital books has led to a steadying decline in retail book sales. Borders, the second largest bookstore chain in the U.S., teeters on the edge of bankruptcy; the company has already closed down bookstores and is delaying its payments to publishers in order to preserve liquidity.
A rosier future lies ahead for Barnes & Noble, as they announced its best sales in over a decade due mostly to online book sales for it’s e-reader, the Nook. Yet, it’s brick & mortar stores continue to be declining in revenue, and as a result, are closing at an alarming rate.
However, on a recent trip Barnes & Noble I came to the realization that these bookstores serve as more than just places to buy books, they are important threads in our cultural fabric. Whereas libraries are too staid and inhibiting to encourage social interaction, bookstores became a community hub. Anybody can discover something of interest to them at a bookstore, with magazines and music CDs to augment their attention and coffee tables to convene and discuss.
Unfortunately, bookstores are a dying breed that must give way to technology and convenience. Amazon has already announced the Kindle as it’s most popular retail item in history, and will continue to encourage this trend with its full financial weight.
The story didn’t (or doesn’t!) have to end this way. If Barnes & Noble, and hopefully Borders, can only muster enough encourage to innovate or change their bookstores to accommodate in digital readership, they stand a fighting chance against their demise.
One thing Amazon and Apple will never be able to compete with Barnes & Noble and Borders is their lack of brick & mortar stores. While the Nook was a noble attempt to compete on equal terms with Amazon, they are already fighting from behind. To catch-up you must run faster, not at the same pace.
Barnes & Noble should make all physical items in their store available to be purchased and transferred into a Nook, a Kindle, or an iPad. If these items aren’t available as digital copies, the Company should be pushing publishers towards that goal, much like Amazon is doing. Internet-capable kiosks should be next to every bookshelf to induce seamless, immediate and available purchasing as soon as a desired book is spotted, as well as provide reviews and other social tools for the discerning buyer. Music, as well as magazines, could easily fit into this model, especially with the iPad.
Of course, real books, as opposed to eBooks, will always be available to purchase, but now they’ll also serve as a discovery and confirmation tool.
Unfortunately, by closing down these bookstores, Barnes & Noble and Borders are destroying the one inherence advantage they have over their technologically experienced competitors.
What portion of your day do you spend in front of a digital screen? Like most people, the answer would undoubtedly be substantially higher than it was 5 years or even a year ago. However, whether this is cause for concern remains to be seen with the public at large. It certainly is alarming enough for the New York Times to run three provocative editorials in one week expounding on the adverse effects computers and Internet use is causing our society.
While many people say multitasking makes them more productive, research shows otherwise. Heavy multitaskers actually have more trouble focusing and shutting out irrelevant information, scientists say, and they experience more stress.
And scientists are discovering that even after the multitasking ends, fractured thinking and lack of focus persist. In other words, this is also your brain off computers.
The problem is similar to an eating disorder. Technology, like food, is an essential part of daily life, and those suffering from disordered online behavior cannot give it up entirely and instead have to learn moderation and controlled use. Researchers suggest therapy to determine the underlying issues that set off a person’s need to use the Internet “as a way of escape.”
Much of the concern about cellphones and instant messaging and Twitter has been focused on how children who incessantly use the technology are affected by it. But parents’ use of such technology — and its effect on their offspring — is now becoming an equal source of concern to some child-development researchers.
Over and over, kids raised the same three examples of feeling hurt and not wanting to show it when their mom or dad would be on their devices instead of paying attention to them: at meals, during pickup after either school or an extracurricular activity, and during sports events.
Data certainly shows the increase in Internet usage has been dramatic. Since 2001, the average amount of time US adults spend online per week has more than doubled. Harris Interactive’s annual poll revealed that average Internet hours grew slowly between 2001 and 2006, but took off in 2007 and increased even more rapidly in 2008.
Is the Internet Making Us Dumber?
The most heated discussion, however, seems to center around Nick Carr’s latest book, The Shallows: What The Internet Is Doing To Our Brains, which argues that due to the strong disruptions in thought caused by emails, instant messaging, surfing, etc., our brains lack the necessary focus to forge strong neural bonds. As a result, the depths of our thoughts are shallow, and our short-term memory is weakened.
Erick Schonfeld of TechCrunch, raises the point that Nick Carr’s arguments is a bit self-serving since as an author who makes money writing books, Carr would be committing professional cannibalism if he argued otherwise. Of course, the same could be said about Sconfeld. He does make one irrefutable statement, which is the brain was made to be rewired and changed on a constant basis.
This argument forms the basis of Navneet Alang’s editorial, For Better and Worse, The Web Is Changing How We Think, which I found to be the most credible. As one of the most adaptive part of the human body, how we condition our brain to function will inevitably be how it will work most efficiently. Alang believes that in a highly complex and networked social and professional environment, we prime our brains to think in non-linear, dynamic ways. Networking thinking, according to Alang, assists in the often multi-layered problems we face on a daily basis, such as figuring out the financial crisis.
In my opinion, while the Internet was first created as a tool, it soon became an indispensable part to people’s lives, relied upon to such an extent that could be considered damaging to our society. Texts, instant messaging, and emails soon took the place of verbal, and even face-to-face, communication. We as social humans are able to maintain a larger breadth of friendships and relationships, but at what cost to our more intimate and immediate ones?
We are able to consume information at larger rates than ever before, but at what cost to our attention span and about ability to think deeply? The analogy in the NYTimes article is apt, the Internet is akin to food, of which there must be conscious balance of knowing when to consume and when not to.
I wrote one of my first blog posts three years ago (reposted below) and examined Facebook along with every other tech pundit in the blogosphere. At the time, Facebook had opened up its network to include people beyond the college communities and was experiencing enormous growth.
However, the biggest news at the time from Facebook was that it would enable developers to create applications within in Facebook to tap into its enormous userbase. A writer from TechCrunch believed Facebook would soon serve as the internet’s operating system and eat Microsoft’s lunch.
In personal disbelief, I explained why Facebook could never become the next Microsoft or any large internet entity at the time, and can only become what it uniquely is, which is Facebook. I also took the opportunity to explain what I liked and disliked about Facebook and thought their application platform was a big mistake. Of course, as time would prove there were many things everyone got wrong including myself. Therefore, I’ll enumerate what has changed since three years ago.
The Facebook Platform was a Disaster.
The promise land of viral marketing on the Facebook network was soon abused by app developers and users were bombarded with messages and invites to “worthless” apps. To be fair, there were a number of very useful applications, but they were lost amongst the jungle that became people’s profiles and soon Facebook was becoming as bloated as MySpace.
We were never provided an effective way to find quality apps like we can with Firefox plugins. There was no easy search by rating or apps downloaded. Something had to change before users became disgruntled with the increasingly difficult to navigate user profile. Luckily, Facebook was smart enough to realize the traffic brought on by the applications was more harm than good.
Facebook Refocused on the Essentials
After a few iterations, applications on Facebook were pushed further and further behind the peripheral of the users, which all began with the implementation of tabs. Since the Platform was now secondary to Facebook, the interface was rededicated to values of Facebook, which was connecting people in a meaningful way. The newsfeed became a more and more important way to share both personal and public content with their friends and daily communication can now take place on one’s own Facebook profile.
The Facebook Platform was a Success
Since the aforementioned change, developers now had to create great, quality apps in order to capture mind share of Facebook users. What resulted was the proliferation of very immersive massive multi-player games such as Mafia Wars or Farmville. So addicting were these Facebook apps, that advertising and virtual item spending earned these developers hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.
With a legitimate means of allowing 3rd-party developers to create valuable businesses, the platform can no longer be deemed a failure. Instead, it should serve as a preview into the vast potential of social software.
Facebook Really Did Become the Next Facebook
In my blog post, I wrote:
I can’t really see Facebook becoming the next Microsoft. Nor can I see it becoming the next Google. Windows was essential to using a computer and Google was essential to finding information and accessing the Internet. Both those companies fulfill essential needs for people. Facebook doesn’t really fulfill a need yet.
This was absolutely wrong on my part. Facebook has became as essential human interaction as email. There doesn’t seem to be any slowdown in its enormous growth, which is already at 400 million active users. In 2007, monthly unique visitors in February was at 19 million visitors. in 2010, it grew to 127 million visitors.
Its growth made almost no other social network in the Western world worth mentioning (MySpace who?), and attrition rate will continue to be close to zero as long as Facebook keeps improving its features. With recent plans to enter China, who knows where the ceiling is for Facebook?
Just like there won’t be another Microsoft or Google, I highly doubt there will be another Facebook.
What Happened to My Writing?
I will admit my writing has actually degraded in the three years since I last posted that article. I was willing to include my voice into my writing and didn’t care about public convention. At the present time, I don’t think I could have compared Facebook to a prostitute and have it make sense within the scope of an analysis.
I feel like Facebook is this girl I’ve been dating for all the right reasons (intelligence, personality, good looks), but then everyone else is starting to notice her because she decided to wear makeup, a push-up bra, maybe some net stockings and hooker boots.
However, I’m going to continue my pursuit of better and, hopefully, funnier writing.
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Facebook: The Next Facebook
Date Posted: August 2007
It’s been about two weeks since the entire blog community decided Facebook was the greatest web entity since Google. Don’t get me wrong, I use Facebook on a daily basis, along with Gmail, Netvibes (my RSS reader), and ESPN. However, my problem with this recent infatuation with Facebook because of its new platform is that it misses the whole point of why Facebook is so great. I feel like Facebook is this girl I’ve been dating for all the right reasons (intelligence, personality, good looks), but then everyone else is starting to notice her because she decided to wear makeup, a push-up bra, maybe some net stockings and hooker boots.
The communication between friends, the sharing of memories through photos, and other social features made Facebook what it is today. I place a ton of value in keeping in touch with friends, core and ancillary, which is why I don’t think Facebook is going to go away anytime soon. These applications/widgets on the Facebook platform certainly make the whole experience more enjoyable, but it doesn’t mean I can’t live without it. Innovations like the News Feed, in conjunction with killer apps like Photo and Events, make it what it is. It’s also the little things:
- Clicking on Emma’s photos gives you the link of ‘Photos of You and Emma’.
- Clicking on Emma’s profile shows our mutual friends
- A feed of recently tagged friends
- Setting your relationship status with another person on Facebook, thus linking them.
I could go on and on, but the point is, Facebook’s growth is attributable to them completely nailing the basics from functionality, ease of use and aesthetics, to the granular privacy settings. The Platform is a very nice addition and potentially an extremely important one – but it would be nothing without the strong foundation already in place. And a lot of the tech bloggers who have recently joined the bandwagon fail to mention this.
Granted it’s only been a few months since the platform launch, so hopefully we will see more useful apps, but so far I’ve found myself rarely using these applications on a regular basis. I do, however, like to look at other people’s pictures and stalk them. That will never get old.
Facebook is the Next ______
I can’t really see Facebook becoming the next Microsoft. Nor can I see it becoming the next Google. Windows was essential to using a computer and Google was essential to finding information and accessing the Internet. Both those companies fulfill essential needs for people. Facebook doesn’t really fulfill a need yet. But who cares? It is still and will always be a great service for high school students and college students. These people will always continue to use it to keep in touch with their friends as they grow older, but how much value will they get out of it once they grow older and start a family. Will it continue to be a staple in my life? I’m not sure. Hopefully, there’s continued innovation on Facebook for me to keep on using it. As long as Facebook is not acquired, we’ll continue to see new features roll out.
The Parakey acquisition does start to convince me that they are for real and not just pumping valuation for an exit that makes turning down Yahoo’s $1.6bn seem like a smart move. On that we can just wait and see. My major scepticism is an old media issue – social media is a lousy way to generate business versus search – no database of intentions and users too busy connecting with each other to read the ads. I have seen this viewed as old media thinking, but revenue has to come from somewhere – subscrīptions or ads and I cannot believe it is going to be subscrīptions
I also think that social media may have reverse economy of scale – the more join the less useful/cool it becomes for the original members and audiences bifurcate. Particularly if there is too much drive to monetize and marketers get a chance to push their products (in ultra cool, student friendly, heavily embedded and disguised ways of course) and then the smart people leave the “mall” for cooler places to hangout. My sense is that The Valley wants a big new success story to follow Google as well as a counterweight to Google. So there is a lot of motivation to have an open API where small start-ups can make money – perhaps some kind of eBay economy will emerge. However, when Microsoft was on the rise we saw lots of Microsoft killers get a lot of support and get nowhere. Nobody wants dominance by one player, whether Microsoft or Google. If Facebook remains closed their support from developers/start-ups will fade once the hype phase recedes. If they really open up then it could be a big deal.
I have seen one market where closed won out against open despite all the players rooting for open. That was when Bloomberg refused to distribute their data as digital data feeds for other platforms to slice and dice. Bloomberg’s demise was constantly predicted. They won by delivering a better service that really met the needs of traders. It was a classic focus, focus, focus story. If Facebook was focussed on one market – say college students – I could see them having that focus and just being the best. But being the best and most focused for everybody on the planet
Is There Real Stickiness?
I’m seeing people leave MySpace and LinkedIn and others to come to Facebook - they are abandoning their existing investments in terms of friend networks on those social networks and migrating to Facbook. Wonderful for Facebook for now, but what does Facebook do differently that prevents the same thing from happening to them when the next hot site rolls around? All that said, I love Facebook for what it is – a phenomenal social networking site that is making a lot of great moves to capture excitement. It also has some great applicability in the enterprise space given the exclusivity of work networks.
You see articles surfacing about the cut-rate pricing on Facebook ads because the click-through rates are horrendously bad. I know of others who ran campaigns over the past couple of years who saw the same thing. Facebook today is a poor advertising destination, regardless of how good in theory it should be. Given that this is their entire revenue model, that is a very serious problem. Without that solid revenue model they are a classic Web 1.0 “eyeballs are worth something!” company.
What made the Microsoft Windows platform so successful was the strength of its 3rd party ISV ecosystem, and how the Windows platform and economics enabled so many ISVs to be financially successful over the long run. I don’t see that today on Facebook – how exactly are ISVs monetizing all those Facebook widgets? Perhaps by driving people offsite back to the source Web sites? Ads in the widgets? Whatever could happen, it’s not happening much now.
Facebook’s Value is in its Openness (or Not)
When I first used Facebook in college the real value was in the closed community. It encouraged people who never had any intention to join a social network to join one because we all trusted the people in our network/college. It was a truly ingenius move. Although it recently opened up its network – probably when it realized it already saturated all of the college campuses – it’s still closed to people not on the network. That was a problem on MySpace. Pages on Facebook aren’t indexed by Google and only people in your trusted closed community can see your profile. Even the platform isn’t really open; developers can’t port their Facebook applications over to any other platform or system. I have been wondering how long it would take before the elephant in the room was exposed. How many companies are going to devote time and resources to building applications for a silo that use proprietary code that cannot be reused outside of the silo and that can only have a limited amount of possible users? It is not surprising that there are rumors that Microsoft wants to buy them. I also find it interesting that Marc Andreessen would come out in anyway to support a closed silo that attempts to create its own version of the Internet. Currently most Social Networking sites create closed silos of user information and content that cannot be easily shared, reused, or redistributed outside of the network. Facebook is a closed Silo. Myspace is a closed Silo. A Facebook member cannot export their Profile to Myspace. A Myspace member cannot export their profile to Facebook. This is not because their is no technical way to export member profiles; its because both companies want to lock users into the Myspace and Facebook silos.
The Facebook “Open” platform is not only a gimmick it is also an Orwellian attempt to hi-jack and redefine the term “Open.” I think that many “Open” source proponents would agree that “Open,” when it refers to software applications at the very least, means interoperability. Facebook is not interoperable. Myspace is not interoperable. From today onwards, it is my hope that those reporting on and covering Facebook will no longer use the term “Open” to describe the Facebook platform. The data and content that members own cannot be easily exported out, or used with many other existing internet applications. The flow of data and information is one way. The Open platform is in fact open for developers, but closed to the rest of the Internet. A one way vacuum of application development that can never expand to any users base other than Facebook. FaceBook is a “Closed” platform much the way that Microsoft is a closed Platform. Develop for Microsoft and your application will be dependent on Microsoft technology and will not easily port to any other platform. Develop for Facebook and your application will not work on any other platform. By developing applications for either you have limited the possible amount of networks that can distribute and use your application.
AOL at one time was also the darling of the internet. A big fat closed platform that attempted to lock in users. While AOL had quite a run, it was only a matter of time before users understood that AOL was not the Internet. That there were millions, and millions of other networks to participate in. Once the hole of reality was opened and members realized that they were free to go beyond the AOL wall, the flow of members leaving the silo could not be stopped.
To most reviewers and tech pundits, the Apple iPad will be a disappointment once it actually hits the consumer market in March. Most have complained that it’s an over-sized iPod Touch that’s missing features such as a camera, USB port, etc. Yet, these critiques were made in expectations of the perfect netbook or next generation iPhone, which I don’t think was Apple’s or Steve Jobs’ intent.
In certain aspects, the iPad has an advantage over smartphones and netbooks. As media devices, the small form factors of the iPhone and Android-based phones make reading text and viewing video an unpleasant distraction at best. Netbooks, on the other hand, lack the convenience and always-on capabilities that seem essential in a portable device made for leisure rather than productivity.
The true comparison for the iPad should be with e-readers. Although these devices can’t do much besides show text on a screen, demand for the Kindle and Nook exceeded supply during their initial launches. For all the features critics have complained about the iPad lacking, it should seem incomprehensible that a monochrome tablet-wannabe could merit a $300+ price tag. Yet, it seems to have struck a chord with consumers who prefer the simplicity and unobtrusiveness of a thin, light-weight tablet. If a book requires a flat-service to stand on, two hands to operate, and turns off every 3 to 4 hours, would anyone purchase it? This is where e-readers succeed and netbooks/laptops fail. Form factor matters in the functionality of a device, and this is probably where Steve Jobs’ mind was at when he said the iPad will be the most important thing he’s ever done. If the immediate target for the iPad is the e-reader market, I’m assuming Apple’s next iteration of the iPad can compete on par with most mobile computers. Yet, I think Apple has a bigger goal.
For the longest time, the way we’ve interacted with technology has long been in the most crudest of forms – a knob here and a button there. The most complicated interaction thus far requires a keyboard and a mouse. Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Dell, various Taiwanese firms, and Apple realized the transformative effect the iPhone and it’s multi-touchscreen had on the mobile industry needed to be applied to our computers. In fact, I don’t doubt we’ll soon see the same transformation in the way we’ll interact with our household appliances, our travel vehicles, etc.
However, the iPad is far from being a perfect or even adequate replacement for the portable computer. According to MacLife, the iPad is missing the following features: camera, connectivity ports, multi-tasking capability, flash support, OS X and HDMI output. Mashable adds that it should have included drag-and-drop file management, native widescreen, 1080p video support, and SD slot. As a tablet, here’s what I would want the next iPad to have.
Incredible Battery Life
What has been lost amidst all the hoopla is the proprietary computing chip running the iPad. Apple bought a little-known semiconductor company, PA Semi, with the intent of building a power-efficient computer chip just for the iPad. The supposed claim is that battery life for the iPad is around 10 hours under intense video viewing, longer than all netbooks, but paling in comparison to the week-long usage of a Kindle. It’s unfair to compare an LCD screen to e-ink, but it’s a significant trade-off that somehow must be solved. Apple’s A4 chip is a step in that direction, but for ours and Apple’s sake I hope it reaches it fast.
Instant-on Capabilities
Using the iPhone’s lightweight OS was the most pragmatic solution for Apple. Mac OS X would have significantly reduced battery life and interfere with the responsiveness most consumers demand out of a portable device. Unlike the iPhone, which is an always-on device, the iPad has the luxury to be turned off, thus saving battery life (a key feature!). Yet, this benefit can be a nuisance if it takes an unacceptable time to start-up.
Ground-Breaking User Interface
At the same time, the iPhone OS was an easy way out for Apple. The company could have done a lot more in terms of interactivity, especially given the larger touchscreen real-estate. So far, how we’ve interacted with the iPhone and other touchscreen devices is just the tip of the iceberg on the potential of the interaction between our fingers (we’ve got 10) and a complex operating system. This video shows the extent of what we can do with this technology (please view at 4:50, it’s a must watch).
Voice-Assisted Typing
The one feature that all tablets must lack is obviously the keyboard. Most users would view that as a critical flaw when comparing a tablet to their laptops. In reality, most web browsing, texting, and instant messaging can be handled sufficiently with a virtual keyboard. It’s when business-critical emails come up that really require a physical keyboard. If there is a way to effectively integrate speech recognition software to a tablet device in order to make-up for the typing deficiencies inherent in a tablet, then I think the tablet can truly be used en masse.
Most reviews out there on Google’s Chromium OS aren’t so much reviews on the operating system itself, but more about the potential of the new operating system. It’s difficult to write a review for a product that is simply a web browser and little else. I hope Google does more in the next few years to turn Chromium into a real desktop OS. However, the most likely outcome, in my opinion, is that there will be a convergence between Android and Chromium much like we will see the lines blur between smartphones and netbooks in the near future.
Flexibility or Lack Thereof
Personally, I was very excited to test out this new OS from Google. During my childhood, after installing a 12gb hard drive, which was enormous at the time, I installed as many different operating systems as I could find and download (via a pathetic 56k modem). There was no academic motive, just the fact that I could and wanted more choices in an operating system than just Microsoft Windows. Linux, BeOS, and BSD were much too complicated and limited to use on a normal bases. The security and efficiency flaws in Microsoft were a major turn-off. So when Apple decided to switch their chips from PowerPC to Intel and thereby made running Windows on the Mac feasible, I made the switch. Flexibility was the reason I overpaid for an expensive MacBook; for any programs I could not run on the Mac, which were very few, I could boot into Windows.
The lack of flexiblity is the biggest complaint I have with Chrome OS. While I realize the web browser accounts for 90% of a desktop’s usage time (and will most likely increase in the future), we are quite far from the point when everything will be stored on the cloud with 100% security and up-time. Even at that point, it still doesn’t hurt to have data and applications stored locally on the machine. Would users want to make available their illegally downloaded music and videos? The ubiquity of BitTorrent leads me to say no.
I understand why Google wants to have a piece of the OS market as much as it does the browser market, even though it stands to profit very little from either. The majority of Google’s revenue comes from online advertising and its ability to target ads based on users’ inputs: search terms, keywords, etc.). Having more information about the users means better targeting in ads and more revenue. The entire premise of Chromium allows Google to have complete access to a user’s online life and daily habits once logged into a computer. Every online application and website I use through Chrome can somehow be reported to Google and while that isn’t necessarily a bad thing, I can’t help but think of Big Brother and 1984.
There aren’t many benefits of using Chromium versus a true desktop OS, which is what has boggled the minds of many reviewers (exhibit one, two, and three). However, Google’s intentions for Chromium may stop at Netbooks and eventually merge down to the mobile device.
Chromium on Your Next Mobile Phone
If mobile is the new Internet, Google has certainly invested a lot of resources into reasserting its dominance in this new frontier. The open-source Android seems to have received adoption from many major players in the mobile industry and Google recently announced development of the Google phone.
The Android already serves as a significant mobile application ecosystem for Google. If those applications could be easily ported as extensions to Chrome/Chromium and vice versa, Google may no longer need to have two distinct operating systems. As consumers continue to prefer smaller and more compact netbooks while continuing to carry larger and more powerful smartphones, those two devices might as well merge as one. The purpose and functionalities are essentially the same – email and web access. Moreover, the possible prevalence of VoIP might make mobile carriers irrelevant – although I highly doubt it. In any case, it seems Google is heading for where the puck is going to be – a world where everyone is connected all the time on their smartnetbookphones.
Sony and Nintendo both have it. Apple has made clear its intentions to get one. And Microsoft has every reason to get one, but shuns it. It’s the portable gaming device, a staple for both Nintendo and Sony’s PlayStation division and most recently, the iPhone 3GS’ improved processing power – its most lauded improvement – is a significant step in turning the iPhone into a viable gaming platform.
It can be argued that by entering in the portable gaming fray, Microsoft would lose out to more experienced and specialized companies much like it did with the Zune and Windows Mobile. Yet, I’d argue that by leveraging its Xbox gaming division to create a portable gaming device, Microsoft stands a chance to revive those two ailing products.
After a letdown with the first generation Zune, the new Zune HD actually got its act together.
The Zune HD is the best touchscreen PMP (portable media player) on the market. It’s got the most unique vision, the most impressive hardware and the most stylish software. – Gizmodo
Yet, no one seems to care since Apple and its customers now relegate the iPod to second-class status. The new frontier is the mobile phone, where everyone is still searching for that elusive iPhone killer.
However big the mobile phone market currently is or going to be, Microsoft clearly shows no intentions of competing against its archnemesis, Google, which is odd since Google is knocking on every one of Microsoft’s doors; the Internet Browser, the OS, the Mobile OS, the Office Suite, etc.
Windows Mobile’s share of the Smartphone market has fallen year-on-year, decreasing 20% in Q3 2009. It is the 4th most popular smartphone operating system, with a 7.9% share of the worldwide smartphone market. – Wikipedia
Would it be that difficult to package Windows Mobile with the Zune HD, which already has a critically-praised online music marketplace in the Zune Pass?
Perhaps the most compelling reason to buy a Zune HD right now isn’t the gorgeous screen or forthcoming apps, HD radio, or slick design… To us, it seems like the single most compelling reason to choose this device over something like the iPod touch can be boiled down to one thing: Zune Pass. – Engadget
The answer is no, but then how many would want to purchase this device when the iPhone already exists? This bring us back to the point of a portable gaming device. Leveraging its expertise with the Xbox, Microsoft could theoretically create a mobile phone with enough gaming prowess to give all its competitors – Sony, Nintendo, Apple, Google – a run for their money. This doesn’t sound that absurd when you look at how Microsoft first dipped its foot into the video game industry.
Microsoft took a big gamble when it decided to enter the video game market in 2001, knowing it was going to compete against the most influential and venerable company in the industry in Nintendo and the maker of the best-selling console of all time in Sony. Yet, it also knew it was entering in a multi-billion dollar market (12.1 billion in 2010) that didn’t seem to be showing any signs of contraction.
With its gigantic cash war-chest, Microsoft devoted enough resources to its Xbox division to close the gap between the other two industry leaders; back in 2005, the gap between Microsoft and Sony was 33%, it’s now, less than 10%. Yet, after Sony decided to enter into the portable gaming foray against Nintendo in 2003, Microsoft never came up with an answer to the PSP or DS. Not to mention, the PSP was marketed as a PMP as well.
No one disputes Microsoft has a history of winning and it has the market cap to prove it, but it has been languishing in its non-core divisions for far too long while its other competitors are making headlines for innovating in new areas. If Microsoft can create a device that is as sleek as the Zune HD, iterate a decent version of Windows Mobile, and leverage its Xbox division to create a viable portable gaming platform, then we’ll truly have the world’s first iPhone killer.
Here’s a UI suggestion if this frankenstein device ever comes to fruition. The slide-out portion where most QWERTY keyboards are normally found – like with the Motorola Droid – can be where the d-pad and game buttons are. GG.
“Life is an ongoing process of choosing between safety (out of fear and a need for defense) and risk (for the sake of progress and growth). Make the growth choice a dozen times a day.” - A. Maslow
I wrote one of my first blog posts three years ago (reposted below) and examined Facebook along with every other tech pundit in the blogosphere. At the time, Facebook had opened up its network to include people beyond the college communities and was experiencing enormous growth.
“Life is an ongoing process of choosing between safety (out of fear and a need for defense) and risk (for the sake of progress and growth). Make the growth choice a dozen times a day.” - A. Maslow