The Tablet as your new all-in-one

Tablet devices like the Apple iPad, Samsung Galaxy Tab  and Motorola XOOM are changing our world in ways that people are now just beginning to realize. The rise of the tablet and the apps that run on them is causing a shift to occur that will affect the things people buy and how they access content.  Products that had unique hardware for enabling common tasks or conveying information are about to be replaced.

Applications (called Apps), running on a tablet computer, are going to become the defacto way to access content  (news, tv, movies) and to control devices (TVs, PCs, game consoles and more). The Cable service that used to give you a remote control, will now give way to an app that runs on a tablet. Xfinity, Time Warner Cable and others are leading the charge here with their respective cable tv apps. With these apps,  and others from Slingbox, and Netflix, the remote is built-in. The Tablet just became your new all-in-one and it will go much further than just controlling your TV.

Regarding content (news, tv, games and movies), the publishing industry is still figuring out the eBook/eMagazine business model and distribution strategy (see prior Ebooks post). Clearly, tablets will play a huge role in how we consume news. News Corp is jumping at the opportunity with The Daily, a paid application that gives you daily news for $39.99 for a two year subscription.

It doesn't stop there. Last week, I used my iPhone to advance a PowerPoint presentation on my PC, more as a way to demonstrate how change is occurring than anything else. Car companies like Hyundai Motors are now offering the owners manual for their Hyundai Equus car in a digital format - they provide an iPad as the actual owners manual.

Look for much more than just owners manuals, magazines, movies and remote controls going forward.  Tablet apps are going to explode and the demise of consumer electronics dedicated hardware has begun. Look for more and more games to be tailored for tablets. How much money will game controller firms throw at hardware in the future?

So in a way, the tablet and their affiliated Apps becomes the new All-in-One. Going forward, it will be less about the tablet itself, and more about the Apps that run on the tablet that becomes the consumer selection criteria. The race for tablet App development has already started, but it is about to explode.

2010 in Review: As Facebook Grows, so does Cyber Warfare

If the growth of Facebook and the emergence of the Apple iPad were the most widely reported tech stories in 2010, the emergence of Cyber Warfare that targets governments and enterprises is the most under reported one, with far greater consequences.  In fact 2010, could be viewed as the year that Cyber Warfare emerged as a true weapon. Below I outline six steps to take to protect your enterprise.

It is now very clear that certain governments are using Cyber warfare to attack adversaries, including private/public companies. Some key things that occurred in 2010:

1. Facebook and other consumer social sites played a role in the Great Hack of Google and 34 other firms. However, it is worse than that. Thousands of firms may have been breached according to Kevin Mandia, CEO of security firm Mandiant.
2. Redirection of US Internet Traffic by China on April 8, 2010 and the attack of at least 5 other firms.
3. Confirmation by the US Federal Government that attacks against Google and other enterprises were ordered by Chinese Government officials (via CNBC).

A key conclusion from an earlier post: these new modes of attack, known as Advanced Persistent Threats, are far too sophisticated to stop with software and firewalls.  The best known method to protect your corporate assets (source code and intellectual property) is to isolate key corporate systems from the normal corporate network. In other words, you need two networks.

What does all of this really mean? Well, for starters, it is a new era of electronic warfare and this time it is information that is the currency that is being fought over. There stakes are very high: the future of countries and the future economic well being of both the country and the companies that operate in those countries.

Why? Well, the military and technology firms are linked together in interesting ways, as this article (based on research by Rand Corp) demonstrates. Companies have become fronts for governments and military organizations. Some may say that this is not new, but the scale of what is going on now has not been seen in the past.

For enterprises, all of the investment in products that represent the future could be wasted if those secrets are stolen. Cisco learned this a few years back when some of its code was stolen by Huawei Technologies Inc. The lawyer who represented Cisco, G. Hopkins Guy, won an injunction against Huawei and was widely recognized for his ground breaking work that resulted in a worldwide injunction against Huawei.
What does this all mean to you and your enterprise? For starters consider doing this:
1. . Develop a comprehensive strategy to combat cyber warfare and make sure it includes a training program (cyber war gaming) for executives, not just IT staff. 
2. Take the steps to isolate your corporate systems. No matter what you hear from major analyst firms or anyone else, physical separation of information on computers (e.g. a separate network) is the only sure way to stop intrusion right now. Look at models that the military has used (classified vs unclassified systems). This also has major implications for desktop/pc access.
3. Shield key data centers/systems from wireless access and wireless monitoring. For those with remote sites (e.g. retail branches), don't over look these sites as methods of access. If you have any doubts about this action, you need to read The Great Cyber Heist (courtesy of the NY Times).
4. Re-evaluate all browser and operating system security at an architectural level. Evaluate roadmaps from all providers and make the tough, but correct decisions on what platforms you will invest in going forward. Blindly following the incumbent provider may not be the answer that solves your issues.
5. Intrusion from the inside is also a growing issue. Compartmentalizing information so that no one person has access to everything is key, as is a practice of not keeping all source code in one location or on one physical server.
6. Block Facebook. As popular as it is, Facebook isn't secure and it isn't good for your corporate security. Run Facebook in conjunction with certain web browsers and you have the perfect system for intrusion. Many governments and enterprises block access to Facebook and now you know why. This won't be a popular decision, but it is the right one.


So, in 2011, expect to keep hearing more about Facebook and its growing valuation.  2011 may also be called the year of the Tablet (the rise of Android based Tablets). That is all well and good, but the number one issue your enterprise or government needs to prepare for is cyber warfare. 2011 is the time to get prepared for the attacks that are yet to come.....Happy New Year.

The iPad Arrives at Target as Tablet Announcements Increase

Three weeks ago the headline that caught my eye was the front page of the Target Sunday Flyer in the San Jose Mercury News: The iPad is available at Target. Yes, now Target, AT&T, Verizon and others are going to resell the iPad. Apple is expanding distribution just as the wanna be Tablets show up.

There are so many Android Tablets arriving it is hard to decide where to start. The Samsung Galaxy isn't bad, but I wonder if the Verizon will really push it. The 5 inch Dell Streak isn't bad but it looks more like a phone than a tablet.

The Blackberry Playbook Tablet looks interesting, but I don't see any ads from Blackberry pushing it yet. I also don't see the Playbook out yet.

That brings me to HP and Microsoft. The two made big noise earlier this year, but that was before HP bought Palm. Now there is an eery silence, from both companies, except for occasional promises from Microsoft.

So while all the new comers get ready for their launch, Apple is reportedly expanding iPad production capacity to 3 million units a month. It will be interesting to watch this play out.

Fingernails and SmartPhones

A small musing on one aspect related to Smartphone selection.

Many of my female professional associates have long fingernails that make it hard to use a touch screen smartphone. As a result, many of them are going the way of the Blackberry or Android devices because of the physical keyboard.

In fact, some of my friends carry two devices, one for heavy texting, the other for browsing. Maybe the iPad will change that behavior (eliminate the need for a second device).

What is your preference?

Smartphones, Tablets and the Rise and Fall of Technology Providers

Time changes all things and 2010 is no exception. Everywhere I go, I see iPads.  In fact, my team at Saba Software helped me produce an awesome launch video about Saba Live and it has iPads featured in it. No one has made a challenge so far to the iPad. Nothing, not a squeak.
What is interesting to watch is how the smartphone wars have changed the landscape.  My friends at Gartner used to say that it wouldn't take much for Palm to be successful. Palm is gone. HP wants PalmOS...
Microsoft put out a new phone called the Kin and promptly killed it, only days after starting a TV advertising campaign. You can still see the website that shows the Kin, but you can also read the details about how it got killed here.
Google now claims that an Android phone is sold every two seconds and that Android is surpassing the iPhone. That may be, but Android doesn't have the cult appeal of the iPhone. That said, some techies are starting to shift. However, the new data plan for the iPhone will mean millions of teenagers will get iPhones, since many parents will go for the $15 dollar a month data plan.
Nokia, the world's largest producer of smart phones recently warned that earnings may fall.
The Apple iPad created a new category and is now a mainstream toy for all the tech enthusiasts that travel the world. Mainstream consumers are snapping them up too. Who will respond to the iPad? So far, no one has.
So, in the course of 36 months, the market for smartphones and tablets has changed. Vendors like Apple and Google are on the rise. Others are taking their lumps. As I have said before, user experience trumps everything.

Adobe vs Apple is really about Flash losing to H.264

It is the talk of Silicon Valley. The Flash smack down by the usually reserved Steve Jobs. The return strikes from Adobe, which didn't really accomplish much, except make it look very obvious that the two companies are not talking.

It seems that Adobe's Kevin Lynch never really talked to Steve and it was naive to think that Apple would ever give up control of its user interface for the iPhone, iTouch or iPad. That was really one of the big issues. Flash could enable a common user interface across all mobile devices. Ah but that is when the chess match gets interesting.

It is also a fight about money. Adobe sells tools that allow the creation of Flash and it has a great business. Apple makes money too and you can argue with their tactics, but you can't argue with the success of the iPhone or the App Store.  I don't see too many developers complaining about the App Store model, as many are now rich beyond their wildest dreams.

HTML 5 and H.264 are here. Argue as much as you want, but the numbers on H.264 are real. I was surprised by the uptake, but it is clear that it is already game, set, match for H.264.

The Five Factors that make the iPad a Winner

Today is launch day for the Apple iPad, the tablet device that is destined to be a PC laptop killer.  In previous posts, including ones on eBooks that go back to Gartner Research Notes I wrote in 2000, we described the aspects that an eBook Reader  (tablet like device) would need and predicted the year it would appear (2007). Now it is 2010 and we essentially have the second generation device with the Apple iPad.

There are four factors that make the iPad a winner:
1. Platform. Form factor and a great display are the starting points. The hardware isn't perfect, but it has a familiarity to all previous Apple devices. It doesn't have everything, but third parties (see guide from Mashable) will help out here.
2. Operating System. Simplicity and a progressive disclosure based UI design are at the heart of it. For any Apple user, it is immediately intuitive. For any new user, it takes little time to get used to it, except for the touch typing.
3. Content. This is where things start to change. The content available now is tiny compared to what is coming. Apple has figured out the recipe for its platforms and understands that people not only want content (iTunes), but that they highly desire it. Music was the first content store, there will be many more...
4. Applications. Lots of firms are recompiling and refactoring their iPhone apps to work on the iPad. There will be lots of iPad specific apps coming too.
5. User Experience. The last and most important factor is user experience. When people are delighted by a device, that is a great user experience. More than anything else, Apple has figured this out. Like its famous Apple Mac computers and the revolutionary iPhone, the reason Apple is succeeding is because of the superior user experience they deliver. The iPad will be no exception.

So put aside all the hype you will hear. The iPad has just changed the personal computing market and it is a few apps short of being a laptop killer (Walt Mossberg agrees). These are the reasons that the iPad is a winner and probably the reason that you might have one sooner than you think.

The Apple iPad: The Game was over before it began.

In previous posts, I predicted that the iPad would be a huge hit. Many were skeptical in the press. Order taking just started last week (the unit hasn't shipped yet) and sources told the Wall Street Journal that hundreds of thousands of iPads have been ordered.

Where are all the orders for the look alike devices? The truth is Consumers are much smarter in 2010 than they were in May 1990, when Windows 3.x was announced. The iPad isn't even shipping yet and it has already won.

Of course, it isn't the iPad itself that is the difference. It really is the Operating System, the User interface and the applications and content that you can put on it that are the difference makers. Put simply, the iPad and it's brethren the iPhone/iTouch offer a superior user experience. They delight their users.

So the game is over before it has even begun. It will be interesting to watch which vendor makes a counter move, but they have mountains to climb and few have done their homework like Apple has on this product. Clearly, Steve Jobs and team have every right to be giddy with excitement.