business

HP needs more style, less substance

9 February 2013 by Steve Blum
, , , , ,

First new Chevy of the 80s.

Hewlett Packard is the latest high tech company to distance itself from reported labor practices used by some Chinese contract manufacturers. It’s telling its suppliers to limit the number of student-age workers, the type of work they do and the hours they work.

The email to HP’s suppliers follows similar measures by Apple and Samsung. Two weeks ago, Apple said that a labor contractor used by one of its Chinese suppliers was forging documents in order to hire underage workers.… More

How about renaming the company "Windows"?

5 February 2013 by Steve Blum
, , , , ,


Honest, my first name isn’t Baghdad.

Epidemics are easy to spot in retrospect, but it’s difficult – even dangerous – to predict that one case of a new disease will turn into something virulent. That said, our planet’s mass market of seven or so billion people is slipping away from Microsoft. They’ve caught the same bug that floored the company formerly known as RIM.

Three news items point in that direction. First, Acer is seeing growth in Chromebook sales and sliding Microsoft numbers.… More

Blackberry is as good as ever, but no better

30 January 2013 by Steve Blum
, , , , ,


None of this Tomfoolery for Blackberry!

What RIM, excuse me, Blackberry showed this morning was solid technology that’s ahead in some regards and more or less keeping up with the pack in others. The new Blackberry 10 operating system is consistent with what they demonstrated and described last October at MobileCon.

They have a full touchscreen phone and they’re keeping a keyboard model in play. That’s probably a good idea given that their best short term hope is to re-energize their legacy institutional customers.… More

RIM backing away from hardware

22 January 2013 by Steve Blum
, , ,

For sale?

RIM is talking about getting out of the hardware business and making a living licensing its soon-to-be-released Blackberry 10 operating system. They talked about getting into the OS licensing business at the Mobilecon show in October, although they seemed pretty intent on staying in the hardware business too at that point.

They’ll have a hard time transitioning to a licensing model. RIM’s selling proposition is beginning-to-end enterprise/institutional IT network support. Consumers don’t buy Blackberries, and that’s where the major manufacturers are focused.… More

Simplicity key to manufacturers' home automation solutions


Cloud-based server checks to see how it's running. You can look inside yourself to see if you need milk.

Three competing, and perhaps ultimately complementary, home automation business models are emerging:

  • Manufacturer supported.
  • Consumer-centric.
  • Carrier managed platform.

Lowes and AT&T moved aggressively at CES last week to position themselves as leaders in the consumer and service provider categories, respectively. Several companies were pitching to manufacturers, but the leader in that space looks to be Arrayent at this point.… More

Next wave of global technology brands coming from Southeast Asia

16 January 2013 by Steve Blum
, , , ,

Disco fever, Hanoi style.

Southeast Asian manufacturers fared better at CES last week than companies from Africa, South America or even India, where the exhibitor count was two, none and ten, respectively.

I counted a total of twenty-one companies from the ASEAN region, with Singapore accounting for thirteen of those and Thailand with three.

Tosy, the sole Vietnamese manufacturer, had the biggest floor presence. The Hanoi-based toy maker was demonstrating its range of dancing robots on a big stage in the Las Vegas Convention Center's Central Hall.… More

Lowes executes a home automation play

8 January 2013 by Steve Blum
, , ,


Presumptive retailing.

“It's our fault – technology and business models – we just haven't gotten it right,” said Kevin Meagher, vice president and general manager for the smart home segment at Lowes. The problem isn't consumers, who readily accept automation. “It's in our cars and none of us would buy one without it. The hurdle is getting it into the home,” he said.

Meagher was speaking at the Parks Associates Connections Summit at CES this afternoon.… More

DISH hops out fighting

7 January 2013 by Steve Blum
, , ,


Joe Clayton takes a combative stance.

“If skipping commercials is illegal, I guess we're all just a nation of outlaws,” said Joe Clayton, DISH CEO. He was speaking at a CES press conference today, defending the AutoHop feature on DISH's Hopper set top boxes and calling for change. Change in the pay TV business model, change in the attitudes of networks and change in industry attitudes towards consumers.

Clayton was positioning himself as a consumer advocate, saying the industry was moving toward “a tipping point” on programming costs.… More

Get out of town to see new broadband horizons

One trend to watch for in 2013 is consolidation and growth in rural broadband in the U.S. AT&T and Verizon are backing – sometimes running full speed – away from the wireline business in less densely populated markets. That's an opportunity for entrepreneurs with rural telecoms experience to create their own kind of economies of scale.

Frontier Communications is well down that road, with five million phone lines under its management nationwide. Like Google, Surewest is looking to Kansas as a growth opportunity.… More

Metro broadband: without the political cards, you're not playing with a full deck


Political value: the need for speed at the San Leandro public library.

There’s an argument to the effect that the prices charged for broadband service by telcos and cable companies in urban areas are higher than necessary to provide that service and make a reasonable profit.

It’s not crazy talk. You can make a case that more densely populated areas have lower per household costs – opex and capex – and that more affluent areas have higher profit margins.… More