The Daydream Blog

Microsoft has launched a new Windows ad campaign starring Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates, to much derision. It does not, as yet, directly answer the criticism of my last post, that Microsoft’s PR is undermining its flagship product, Windows Vista.

Daniel Jakult, on his Red Sweater Blog, breaks ranks and suggests that the ad campaign is in fact genius, as it is trying to tackle Microsoft’s uncaring image.

Seinfeld’s sense of humour is not something I have ever particularly enjoyed, though I did get a warm fuzzy feeling from these ads. More so from Gates’s performance than from Seinfeld’s.

Daniel points out that:

“Most critics of these ads point out, quite rightly, that the message doesn’t ask viewers to buy anything. If an ad doesn’t ask you to buy something, surely it’s a failure.”

Remind you of another ad campaign designed to change the image and brand of a poorly regarded company? It reminds me of nothing more than Apple’s Think Different campaign. At the time it was criticised for being grammatically incorrect, vague and completely unrelated to the benefits of Apple’s products. It was the complete anti-thesis of current iPhone ads.

Apple’s marketing since Think Different has been an evolution from establishing a new brand through to promoting specific features, via customer endorsements (Switch campaign) and product differentiation (Mac vs PC). At the time of Think Different, Apple’s image was terrible, even if its products were actually quite strong. At the time, Apple needed to change people’s perceptions and expectations of it as a company, before they would even be willing to consider its products.

Microsoft is in a very similar position. Kevin Hoffman’s first take on the ads at The .Net Addict’s Blog points out that Vista is actually a strong product. Microsoft’s other products are also beginning to show considerable signs of improvement. However, the company still receives a lot of criticism, some of it less justified than in the past.

Microsoft has understood that any sympathy towards it is the result of Bill Gates’s philanthropy. Any company whose chief executive gives that much money to charity can’t be all bad, can it?

Apple needed to re-establish its credibility. Microsoft needs to show that it cares about its customers and they seem to be thinking different to do just that. An excellent move on their part.

It is also an excellent demonstration of how Google, Apple, Sony, Mozilla and Oracle’s competition with Microsoft is hugely important for consumers. A Microsoft as a monopoly in all computing markets is terrible and worthy of scorn. A Microsoft that has to compete will be great for everyone.

A major European newspaper company has decided to move its entire workforce over to the Mac. Estimates for Axel Springer range between 10 - 12,000 desktops, which will make them Apple’s second largest client, behind Google.

There are continued criticisms of Apple’s lack of focus on the enterprise. With the iPhone, Apple made a concerted effort to answer their critics with one big software update. Whereas with the Mac, support for VPNs, Exchange, workgroup sharing, security keycards has been a slow, but steady process. The main outstanding issues are the lack of a public product timeline, guaranteed configurations available for 3-5 years and the lack of some key third party enterprise software.

With the switch to Intel, Apple’s product timeline is now at least translucent, if not transparent. With Apple’s financial stability, I believe that Apple can afford to be less secretive about its future product road map. Certainly with the iPhone and Apple TV, it has been willing to pre-announce products and deliver a roadmap. Whilst this is less critical when Apple’s minor updates can be accurately predicted from Intel’s plans, Apple should bring more openness to its Mac plans. For example, the MacBook Air was only a rumour until just a few days before the announcement. An enterprise client looking to make a large laptop purchase would have been very disappointed to have that announcement sprung on them just after placing a large order. Pre-announcement of better Exchange support in Snow Leopard is a step in the right direction.

With Mac OS X’s tight integration with Mac hardware, having a guaranteed configuration is a minor issue. IT departments are unlikely to face major issues with even major updates to the Mac line. The only concern here will be employee envy, where the newest staff may end up with the newest, fastest, computers.

The lack of third party software is a chicken and egg situation. Apple has slowly but surely been adding enterprise class software to Mac OS X Server, but there is still a lack of key software. Namely middle-ware, such as IBM’s Websphere MQ, TIBCO Rendezvous or Orbix; CRM software and HR software. As the Mac’s presence in enterprise grows, this is really an opportunity for small Mac software firms to become big Mac software firms.

Apple has clearly focused a lot of effort on targeting the iPhone at the enterprise market. A significant amount of emphasis in the iPhone 2.0 update is towards features demanded by existing and potential enterprise clients.

The iPhone will undoubtedly be a success in the enterprise market. Anyone who doubts that is kidding themselves or trying to downplay the iPhone for marketing their own products.

The question is whether success with the iPhone will lead to increased enterprise Mac sales. There has been a long debate as to whether the iPod Halo effect exists. Will there be an Enterprise iPhone Halo effect.

The key factor is that enterprise IT departments will have to purchase Macs and learn Mac development tools to develop custom, internal, iPhone apps. Whilst many enterprises have a small number of Macs in their design, web and media departments, having Macs in their IT departments is much more likely to lead to a wider uptake of Macs.

Although administration and development functions are normally quite separate in enterprise IT departments, administrators are going to make considerably more effort to better integrate Macs into their environment for IT users, than for design or media users. Once IT administrators are confident that they can integrate Macs into their infrastructure, the door is opened for wider scale adoption. With significant misgivings over Vista, readily available Mac VM software and continuing Windows security concerns, removing the biggest barrier to entry - a Mac cynical IT department, will lead to a significant increase in the number of Macs in enterprise.

There is another key user group that will help to drive adoption - gadget hungry executives. As key executives increasingly purchase Macs for their own use, they will demand full access to their corporate infrastructure. Again IT departments will prioritise keeping this user group happy, further weakening barriers to entry.

Combined with the “one” feature of Snow Leopard being better Exchange integration, Apple stands well placed to take advantage of a “perfect storm” of iPhone developers, executive decision makers and a weakened Microsoft to finally make that breach into the enterprise computing market. The question is whether they will listen to enterprise demands for the Mac, in the same way as they have listened to their iPhone demands.

It also opens an opportunity for Mac software developers to develop enterprise class business software, a market segment where the Mac currently suffers. Products like Differencia will hopefully be well placed to help Apple win new business.

There is a meeting scheduled for Scottish based Mac developers attending WWDC. Initial plans are for meeting at the Thirsty Bear on Sunday, 8th June at 6PM. Exact timings may change.

If you are interested, please email david at macmacdev dot com. Further details and updates can be found at the MacMacDev website.

There are already 8-9 attendees, so a healthy number. More the merrier, so please let David know if you would like to come along too.

With rumours swirling of a 3G iPhone, I have long wondered why the lack of 3G has received of so much criticism. The few people I know who have used 3G phones report a sorry history of bulky, buggy handsets, dropped calls and little benefit over regular mobile phones. Is 3G a real, glaring omission from the iPhone? Are users pinning their hopes on Apple delivering them from 3G purgatory? Or, is it just a case of the media trying to find something to criticise about the most hyped handset in history?

Performance

Steve Jobs has stated that the iPhone lacks 3G due to poor battery life, and that a 3G iPhone would be released when this issue was resolved. Soon after the iPhone’s release, AnandTech did an in depth analysis of this claim. They found that 3G does indeed use significantly more power than the iPhone’s EDGE network on a device that supports both. The article demonstrates that WiFi actually uses less power than both 3G and EDGE, whilst offering significantly better performance. WiFi’s inclusion in the iPhone, in place of 3G, therefore makes considerable sense. In addition, 3G has the biggest impact on battery life when being used for a phone’s core function; telephone calls. Although a sensible implementation would fall back to GSM for phone calls, this has serious implications for key 3G selling points - making calls whilst transferring data and video calling.

The AnandTech article also touches on another key issue - identifying applications where the bottleneck is the CPU, not the network. Interestingly, the iPhone has a CPU that balances performance with battery life.

The question is now whether users are willing to sacrifice battery life for networking performance? Has Apple made the right compromise on their behalf?

My Feature List is Bigger Than Yours!

The criticism levelled at the iPhone has been a typical list of feature-envy. The lack of 3G, “only” a 2 megapixel camera, no physical keyboard, no GPS, no removable battery and no expandable memory.

Similar criticisms have consistently been levelled at the iPod. With hind sight, it is easy to demonstrate why Apple made the decisions it did with the iPod. A non-removable battery allows for a more durable portable device. Early iPods used smaller physical Hard Drives, which had smaller capacity than their rivals, but also made them more portable. Using a better quality music format, AAC, rather than MP3, mitigated this issue. Instead Apple included FireWire, in place of its competitors’ USB 1.1, allowing for fast transfer of thousands of songs.

For its Portable Music Player, Apple focused on the portability, the music and the player experience. They looked at the whole experience, rather than aim to have the longest feature list simply for bragging rights.

With the iPhone, the 2 megapixel camera is a sensible option. In a small device with limited optics, a larger resolution camera would only give marginally better quality photos, whilst eating up limited storage space. No GPS? Cell tower and WiFi hot spot triangulation are good enough, without additional electronics and greater expense. No Physical keyboard? Sacrificed in favour of a larger screen and robust enclosure.

Apple has consistently foregone a long list of features, in favour of products that focus on doing a limited number of things, very, very, well. When Apple does add new abilities to their products, they are complete solutions, rather than half baked features included just to add to the list.

The Business of 3G

Some of the rumours about the 3G iPhone have come directly from Apple’s mobile network partners. Many network operators have invested huge sums on 3G licenses and deployment. Many seem to be struggling to recover these costs. They have stuck to their traditional business model - subsidised handsets, basic tariffs, supplemented by expensive, “value added services”, such as sports clips, video calling and pseudo-internet services. With business-as-usual, networks are struggling to recoup their investment in 3G.

The iPhone has shown them that there is another way. The handset is not subsidised and is only available with an expensive Pay Monthly tariff but includes unlimited data usage. Apple has also identified the killer application for mobile data services - the full Internet. Despite its “painfully slow” EDGE network, iPhone owners use the internet more than those of any other handset, including other Smart Phones and the beloved Blackberry. Little wonder then, that Apple’s partners are desperate for a 3G iPhone.

Oddly it is not anything about 3G itself that begs for it to be included on the iPhone. Nothing about the technology, with its high dropped call rate, and the under-whelming value added services, is particularly appealing. Instead it is Apple’s redefinition of the mobile phone business model, that makes 3G an appealing technology.

Even more ironic is the fact that iPhone’s expensive tariffs have also received a lot of criticism. And yet, it is precisely that all-you-can-eat data pricing that has led iPhone users to embrace mobile browsing and justify the need for 3G.

Imagine a cheap, subsidised, Pay-As-You-Go iPhone, with a sand boxed internet in place of Mobile Safari and metered data charging. 3G has little appeal in this environment.

3G or 4?

When Apple introduced the iPhone, there was little appeal for 3G and yet, perversely, they have created the killer handset and killer apps that could make 3G a success.

There is also another question raised by the iPhone’s success. If WiFi already performs better than 3G, shouldn’t Apple simply wait for the next generation, WiFi based 4G networks to be built? There can be little question, with the history of mobile networks, that 3G will be replaced sooner rather than later. 3G has been available around the globe for over six years. Limited uptake of 3G suggests that, like High Def DVD, it may be a technology that is leapfrogged by the market place.

Should Apple perhaps ride out the criticism about the lack of 3G support? Or should it popularise the stagnant technology, as only it can, with the combination of the iPhone’s rich mobile internet experience and unlimited data plans?

Despite my lack of enthusiasm for 3G, Apple should probably introduce a 3G iPhone once battery life improves. Unfortunately, with the investment the network operators have made with 3G, they are unlikely to build 4G networks before they have recouped their 3G investment. The window before 4G becomes available is just too great. 3G support will deflect criticism, whilst being an anti-climax for those who see it as some nirvana for mobile internet use.

Lost in the mists of time and in the obscurity of a niche platform, many do not realise that the Web was invented on a NeXT machine running NEXTSTEP (whichever form of capitalisation was prevalent at the time). And that NEXTSTEP is the precursor to Mac OS X. The MAKE blog has some photos of the NeXT machine that hosted the world’s first website.

The first browser, WorldWideWeb, was written in the precursor to Cocoa, the tools used to create most of the great, new, software on the Mac, including Differencia.

As I mentioned in “Web 0.9 beta“, Tim Berners-Lee always envisaged the web to be read/write, presaging Web 2.0, as can be seen in this screen-shot.

What is fascinating is that if you read the text in the about box, you can see that Berners-Lee already had the concept of helper applications. In this case, specifically for a NNTP news-reader, presaging RSS links on pages being opened by a third party news reader application such as NetNewsWire or NewsFire.

I used to be surprised that Apple did not make more of its Web heritage, but I guess you cannot really say much about how great your current products are, based on a third party product developed 17 years ago for a platform created by a company that you paid $400m to do a reverse take over of yourself.