ForbesOnTech

Verizon Pops My Dream of Persistent Connectivity-- How to Turn a Good Customer Experience Into a Nightmare

In the world of personal computing there have been moments when I’ve wanted to take a large maul to what only days before had been a perfectly functioning personal computer and turn it into a small pile of smasked plastic, silicon chips and flat pieces of wire. And nothing brings this rage on faster than to have something I relied on and crowed about for months on end to stop working or become very difficult to use.

Congratulations Verizon, you turned one of the most important features of my go everywhere sub compact into crap. And Verizon managed to do this at a time when I was waiting for a loved one to come out of an oncological surgery suit and when I needed persistent connectivity most desparately.

Over the years, I’ve forgiven technology companies for a lot of errors and misdeeds. It’s always come down to my belief: In the end, well run companies "get it right."

But my view started changing three weeks ago when I tried to get a day pass from Verizon for its National Broadband wireless network. Until then – as San Diego County was aflame from its wildlands almost to the edge of the Pacific Ocean—accessing Verizon’s broadband network on an ad hoc basis (paying $15 for a day pass) was so simple that I had to take it for granted.

But I suddenly found that it was n o longer easy . Furthermore, I very quickly came to believe that one department at Verizon wasn’t talking to other departments. Over three days, I made a total of 15 phone calls to Verizon trying buy a day pass. A quick count of the numbers I wrote down and circled on my notepad shows seven different phone numbers. I lucked out on one call and got connected to a tech support specialist who finally got me connected. After I hunted down and found the ESN number for my X60’s internal Sierra WWAN modem. But the other numbers I called generated some of the most unsatisfactory customer experiences of my life.

It didn’t take m very long to figure out that not many people at Verizon are aware that the company offers several ways to connect to its wireless broadband network; PCMCIA cards and computers that include built in WWAN modems. Or that network access is available for a monthly fee on one- and two-year contracts, or on an ad hoc "day pass" basis. I patiently explained that I wanted a day pass to more Verizon phone reps than I want to count. Eventually I discovered that some departments at Verizon regard this feature as a "prepaid phone."

On top of this, Verizon expects anyone who calls for help with prepaid phones to know their phone number. But, as an occasion network user that’s something I have to get from deep within the help or Options menus in Verizon Access Manager application. But wait there’s more, on one computer the number is plainly recognizable, on another it’s not. Moreover, I’m handicapped and can’t write legibly with my dominant hand.

I’m probably the worse case scenario for a positive customer service experience: my wireless network provider had laid a path to a painless signup experience that I had used successfully many times; the service I purchased from my provider was so good I had to think very critically about things they could do better; Relatively few people have my handicap and are still as active with their computers as I am; Finally, I believe I have the right to a good customer and consumer experiences.

What’s most amazing to me about my damaged relationship with Verizon is this large communications company had the foresight to use a web page for day-pass signup. My experience using this signup service was so good, it was a big factor in my decision to tout Verizon’s national broadband wireless network in this blog.

For whatever reason, I can no longer access and use the signup web site and Verizon seems unable or unwilling to help me.

How important is persistent connectivity to me? You can bet that any cellular network that offers me an acceptable data rate (which I believe to be .76 MBps or faster) and an affordable national rate plan will get all of my household’s business and get my personal recommendation.

In Verizon’s defense I have to add that its National Broadband network fit my needs so well that my only complaint was it’s monthly price. And, in my travels up and down the west coast I’ve only found a couple of places where I couldn’t grab and hold a connection. Verizon was my first great experience with persistent connectivity. I hope it’s not my last.

After four failed attempts to get a day pass this week on this cell network’s national broadband service, I’m about ready to give it up. Sadly this also comes at a time when I have to renew my wireless plans.

Like a lot of technology buffs I thought that Intel’s WiMax technology would revolutionize persistent connectivity. However with the recent dissolution of the Clear Wire/Sprint alliance, my dream may have been shattered.

Persistent connectivity is as transformational as it is disruptive. If you experience it, come to rely on it and then lose it, you miss it a lot.

I hope Verizon makes a big commitment to broadband access. For the moment, it has acceptable network bandwidth and above average network penetration. I just hope that they return to a web-based signup procedure. That way I don’t get frustrated as I dial a long list of 800 numbers and speak to a legion of call center employees who get as frustrated as I do when they can’t match my needs with the offering their company provides.—Jim Forbes, now jumping from one free WiFi hotspot to the next, on 11/14/2007.

Should Operating Systems Matter Anymore?

I've been watching two of the smartest bloggers I know begin to explore the question "Do operating systems matter any more?

The initial discussion opened up here and got picked up as a post by David Churbuck on his blog here. This conversation and my growing dependence on web-based applications has forced me to ask myself "Do I really need to care who makes my operating system?"

I'm writing this on Google Docs and spreadsheets so I guess I've answered my own question. For the moment, I really don't care much whether I use an operating system developed by Microsoft, Apple or Adam's off ox.

    What I care about is connectivity and occasional local computing. And reliability and efficiency.

Microsoft has had it's decades in the sun. But it's latest operating system may be it's biggest commercial failure. From my side of the computer, Vista is a pig wearing vermilion lipstick and bright red rouge. I used it on a convertible notebook I had for about two weeks and disliked its performance and memory footprint. I really don't want to go back to Vista and I honestly don't want to be forced into using an operating system because it's the only choice I have on my preferred hardware platform.

    Going a step further, let me add that I"m not your average computer user.  I bought a spiffy 15-inch MacBook Pro last year and found some of its features so unsuited for my basic requirements that I sold it  to a friend who works for an all-Macintosh company.

I try hard to be specific in my criticisms. What turned me off about my MacBook Pro was the sub-par range of its WiFi transceiver and the fact that it ran very warm

     But I'm writing this morning about why anyone should give a damn about operating systems, not about why I disliked the MacBook Pro I bought and discarded.

    But there were and are things I really like about Apple today and right at the top of the list is the OSX operating system family and Apple's iLife applications. I believe OSX sets a very high bar for all operating systems. It's rock solid, fast and very reliable. Secondarily, the bundled applications included with the Mac may be the best ever shipped with any personal computer.Ever! And the iLife software suite works very well with Apple's OSX operating system. Unlike Vista it doesn't choke up when I switch apps.

     Moreover, OSX can accommodate 4GB of system memory, but moves out nicely with much less memory. Vista by comparison wants 2GB for full functionality but still requires that some programs run in a "compatibility" mode.

    And Linux? Give me a break. For all I care the penguin could be dropped into a try pot at some whaling station in the Baja Falklands and rendered into earth-friendly, biologically inert, facial soap.

     I use a personal computer to perform specific tasks, some of which could not otherwise be done very easily. My blog is one example.

          I really don't want to be forced into learning operating system minutiae. I also don't think most other PC users really want to be forced to become  network engineers or systems analysts. The God's truth for me is that such discussions are about as useful as enthusiast's arguments over an automobile store parts counter on what modification to an upright 1600cc Volkswagen engine produces the most horsepower. There was a time in my life when I cared about such things. That time ihas now passed. I want my operating system  and my computer to be like my Toyota Prius; I hit a round "on" button and I get to the task at hand without really thinking about what makes it possible.

     So please, please spare me the arguments about the efficiency of various "kernels" and "page swaps." I really,really, don't need, or want, to know about them. I just want to accomplish my sundry tasks. It's  personal computing, damn it, not the crusades.

     But there is an angle to this discussion that I care a lot about. It has to do with the underlying hardware and the capabilities it provides. Any hardware I use has to be drop dead reliable,  very sturdy (and for the sake of this discussion and its relevance to mobile computing-- which after all is one of this blog's primary topics, it has to be light enough for me to tot around for hours at a time and be able to get an Internet connection no matter where I am, the very first time I use it.

    I'm relying on shrink wrapped applications less and less today, so time to initial productivity is a key consideration when it comes to any portable computer I choose. Time spent looking at my fingernails as my computer loads an operating system is wasted time in my life. So the quicker an operating system gets out of my way, the happier I am.

All I want is a simple, solid operating system. I really don't want to spend a lot of time learning intricate keyboard dances to get to work, or having to remember to switch to a compatibility mode in order to run TroutFinder 2.0 as I sit by the side of some mountain road, waiting for my notebook to boot up perched beside me on the home built wood doghouse nestled between the driver's and passenger's seats in my beloved '68 Volkswagen bus.

     Operating Systems. Discussions about toasters are nearly as interesting. Oh, there are no magazines called "Toaster", "toaster Week", or "Toaster World."

     Well that's my two pennies worth--Jim Forbes, 10/09/2007.

Smashing the Useless Chimneys of SmokeStack Marketing Communications

I pay a lot of attention to portable computing marketing trends and while some of the companies in this category have done very well, others are losing market share at a time when the category is experiencing unparalleled growth.

It’s this last category of companies—mostly hardware makers-- that astound me.  Uniformly they appear to be practicing what amounts to “smokestack PR” in an era when new media outlets and marketing message opportunities are rapidly appearing.

At the heart of smokestack PR practices is the reliance on old media partners as a primary outlet for distributing product information (reviews, first looks and very rarely trend stories) to target audiences. The most obvious problem with this 20^th Century approach to marketing is that yesterday’s top-ranked outlet for such information is now in bankruptcy and its page counts are plunging. But the contract-marketing firms who serve this segment seem unable to see the looming fatal tiger trap.

And the firms that rely on old school marketing share some of the blame for the problems. The “client” at such agencies has grown accustomed to product launches synchronized with new processors, core logic or display technologies, rather than real world usage patterns. All too often, the client wears blinders that restrict the view of his products to units sold according to form factor, or technical specs. Get the client to remove their blinders and look at products deployed according to usage and a new model suddenly appears.

And of course that model that pops out of the mist opens new venues for marketing messages. And those venues are often direct high-speed pipes leading to more unit sales that come at lower cost per thousands of customers. But selling a smokestack client whose proof of work consists largely of phone contact sheets with conversation summaries or a hurried conversation on the back nine holes of a suburban gold course is difficult.

            Difficult, but it’s not impossible.  And if the “client”, “agency principle” or “account team” is using the technology they’re selling or demonstrating they should be capable of seeing and positioning the advantages of new technology beyond static bench mark numbers.

            I’m a pretty good case study in this. For a lot of my professional life, I wrote about and was married to smokestack marketing for portable computing. And along the way, I learned that form and function outweighed pure performance.  Three examples:

+ my life with HP’s early OmniBook  subcompacts. when I switched to Omnibook, I cut about seven pounds that I had to schlep all over the country. And I did it without sacrificing a single feature I needed to do well at my job. Sadly, the Omnibook ended up being miscast at “executive jewelry” rather than the breakthrough portable product it was.

+A two-year marriage to a Toshiba Portage with a “slice” bay and optional second battery. The first week I used this notebook I departed for a 10-day trip to Asia. While I was in Asia, I had to hit three important deadlines. The Portage performed flawlessly, despite some very rough handling by me at Raffles Bar in Singapore. When I landed at Narita in Japan I called my office and was told I needed to deliver a 2,500-word feature ASAP.  I boarded a UAL 777, took my seat, booted up the Portage and pulled out the printed notes I needed to complete the assignment. Eight hours later, I finished and saved the story. That was my first true “transcontinental” experience with a second battery and it still shapes my thinking on how important battery life can be in portable computer marketing. Toshiba seemed to be more interested in positioning this specific Portage model as something that filled in several check boxes in a matrix than in positioning it as a system for growing number of professionals who needed a reliable notebook with extreme battery performance.

+ Lenovo’s ThinkPad X60s and X60 tablet line. As a Demo producer, I talked and wrote a lot about concepts I called “persistent connectivity.” “pervasive computing.” But it wasn’t until I started using X60’s with integrated EvDo wireless modems that I really understood how important this concept is to mobile professionals.  And that realization hit me last year, while fishing at an out of the way lake in the Western Sierra when I received an urgent voice mail message from a family member telling me to “check my email now!” So, I hiked up to a hilltop near the Lake, booted the X60 up, logged on to Verizon’s access manager, signed up for a $15 day pass and connected to the EvDO network. The message was an urgent action request for me in my role as CEO of the first National Bank of Dad. I made the requested funds transfer, sent a text message alert to my off spring, hiked back down the hill and proceeded with the task at hand-- catching a  limit of big fall run rainbow trout. In this application I could just as easily have been a drug company rep booking a large order for s new pharmaceutical, as I was a Dad getting money to a grateful child. Of all the portable hardware makers, Lenovo seems to understand that usage, not the latest and greatest processor drives applications and customer adoption. And it’s adoption that drives sales.

Service providers  that understand the need for new approaches that emphasize  usage over matrix stats marketing messages include: Craig McCaw’s ClearWire, the Sprint/Nextel/Intel WiMax alliance and Verizon. Because of this fundamental shift away from smokestack marketing communications, these companies are poised to create and maintain leadership positions.

Other people, including the fellow PCWeek Alum Rob Oregan here are much more eloquent about this message, but it’s been on my mind for a while.—Jim Forbes on 09/11/2007

To Succeed Acer/Gateway Must Transform Itself-- Can Acer Really Become Customer Focused?

    If Acer uses its operational and marketing experience in the domestic US as any sort of template for the forthcoming merged Acer/Gateway entity, Acer could transform itself.

There was a time when Acer was a power house.  But those days are history now. Acer today is barely a slight tick in the market and I can't remember the last time I saw an Acer notebook on a US retailer's shelves, although I did see a nice Gateway convertible tablet this morning at a local Office Supplies store next to a bustling college campus.

     The one thing that Acer can use Gateway for is to revitalize its customer focused marketing efforts. A couple of observations:

     1.    Acer is great at building machines and peripherals When it comes to the US market, it's not well known.

     2.    In the US Acer, relies on ties with magazine editors to stay "in touch" with customers. Most of its programs are aimed at getting new notebook hulls in laptop round-up features that appear periodically in most computer magazines. At best this is "smokestack"marketing. At worse, it's an express train to the graveyard.

     3.    Acer is a veteran player in the notebook and desktop arenas-- but it's never had a large piece of the US market. It's come up with innovative packaging for its hulls ( The best example of this may be its Ferrari notebook. which  didn't sell well although it was sleek and colorful enough and enough to make it to inset photos on the covers of some magazines.) Another example of this is in the convertible tablet computing space where Acer was an early player although its systems have gained little notice and few users.

     4.     Acer's has acquired other technology and brands before In the 1990's Acer bought Texas Instruments notebook line, which was repositioned for the business segment by Acer.

     There are some pluses in the equation: foremost are:

     1. The Gateway acquisition gives Acer some first-rate marketing and computer design, many of which came from f Toshiba America's engineering design and marketing team. Also Gateway's PR Department includes several staffers who were instrumental in developing and implementing Toshiba's marketing programs when that company had a preeminent market position in the 1990's.

     2.     Gateway has a strong toehold in retail. Acer should be able to leverage this just like Lenovo has over the last 12  months.

     3.      Like Lenovo, Acer has a great manufacturing operation. One of Gateway's strengths is getting products to market and building a brand. Gateway's marketing department is customer facing, not industry facing. Acer absolutely needs this feature to grow its US market share.

     But if this is to succeed, Acer needs to look very closely at its prime competition; Hewlett Packard and Lenovo. What each of those companies does extraordinarily well is work with and respond to customers.  They also invest heavily in consumer-related research and development as well as consumer and interactive  marketing, traits that have caused both HP and Lenovo to grow their domestic market share.

    If were consulting to Acer now, some of the first things I would recommend are social media campaigns aimed at proactive technical support and mining blogs for perceptions and awareness of the combined company's products and services. I would also recommend a total revamp of the Acer.com by expanding and revamping the Gateway commerce engine.

     In looking at the coverage of the Acer Gateway merger, most news outlets focused on Lenovo as the company Acer was going to pursue in the market. Unfortunately, most of the stories missed an important detail: the fact that Lenovo transformed itself from system supplier (to IBM's ThinkPad Division) to consumer facing retailer. Lenovo did that masterfully by recruiting consumer and interactive marketing specialists, from Dell and high profile consultancies such as McKinsey and Company. Building a consumer-facing interactive marketing organization may be the biggest challenge Acer faces in the coming years.  Until it accomplishes that task, it's just another computer maker struggling to survive in an ultra-competitive market.--Jim Forbes 08/27/2007.

The Absence of In-Service Education for Pen-based Computing Hurts Brands, Consumers and Sales People

   I went whopping this week with a friend, intent on buying  a convertible notebook for his college-bound daughter. My buddy is an occasional reader of FobesonTech and a friend of some 40 years. Having gone through the-buy-a -notebook-for-the college-bound-child experience twice myself, I thought the trip could turn out to be a great buddy bonding experience.

   It was, right until our third stop of the day at a just-opened Best Buy store in Glendora, CA. My friend's kid told her dad she wanted to use the notebook to take hand written notes in class, as well as for entertainment purposes in her dorm room. Right off the top, I made sure my buddy happened to walk by a shiny new HP tx100 portable that was near an end cap.

    The extremely polite salesman swooped right over. I asked him if the HP tx1000 "was a convertible tablet PC?"

    He soon had the screen twisting, dipping, jinking and jiving, which apparently some people in the Eastern Los Angeles County town of Glendora think is the primary hallmark of a tablet PC.

    My buddy knew what requirements were paramount for a notebook that would be used in college classrooms. "How long will the  battery last and is this suitable for use in the uneven lighting of lecture halls."

   I couldn't resist adding, "I see this uses an AMD processor."

    The salesman told us that the battery was good for "several hours" adding that many  "high performance desktops use AMD processors." It was very apparent that the salesman didn't know squat about tablet computing. Furthermore, his ignorance turned a potential customer into someone who will most likely never shop at Best Buy again.

    I thought this might have been a "one of" experience so on Friday i went to a nearby Best Buy store in northern San Diego county and stopped to look at, heft and type on the HP tx1000 prominently displayed on a counter top. In the material the store was displaying adjacent to the unit, the words "tablet computer" jumped out. The salesman quickly explained to me how the screen could swivel and tilt so that I could use the machine comfortably in just about any circumstance. (which outside of it's use in tablet computing would be useful if my eyes were coaxially controlled like a chameleon or sitting on top of stalks like a snail)

    I asked the question, "How do I write on the screen?"

    The salesman told me that I had to "download something from HP for that feature."

    "Really?" and "HP is going to send me a digitizer screen that will automatically eject from my the drive bay?," I wondered.

    So I requested that the salesman find out how much the HP tx1000 equipped with a digitizer screen would cost. Off he went to a store system and 20 minutes later he was back with the correct model number and a price of about $1,400."

    I continued walking around the portable computer dept, noticing how much Toshiba had dropped the prices on their Satellite line and thinking, "damn the Satellite is a sturdy looking portable, I should review one soon."

    But at the end of my little shopping expedition, I walked out of Best Buy thinking it would be a cold day in hell when I ever bought there, or recommended the store to a friend.

But the real victims in the true life tale of tablet computing shopping gone wrong are:

1. HP, the salesman did such a bad job and was so uneducated about the product that he didn't even know the model number of the HP tx 1000 family that had the digitizer screen. Furthermore, they didn't even have that model in stock. For this category to take off, tablet computers makers need to develop and deploy in-service education programs.

2. The category of tablet computing; My friend came away from this experience somewhat confused.

3. Best Buy; I don't know that I can trust them to sell me the right computer for a specific task.

4. The salesmen; they hadn't been trained or seen the correct product appropriately demonstrated.

    I feel sorriest for HP. Although it has the most active tablet computing evangelism staff in the industry, its efforts are aimed at adopters, not retailers. And HP's attempt to bifurcate the tablet computing segment into high and low ends is a sound strategy that could be replicated by other companies, including Lenovo, which has it's own house and ThinkPad brands.

    My buddy and I had a blast shopping. We ended the day kicking tires at Toyota and Dodge dealerships, eating InNOut burgers outside under an awning and feeding plump sparrows pieces of french friend potatoes.  Oh, and we wandered around Fry's Electronics for about 30 minutes and found a young sales associate* who not only what a tablet computer was, but also knew how to use and demonstrate the technology. My buddy walked out of the store with a lightweight, relatively inexpensive, Fujitsu convertible notebook that should serve his daughter well.

   Although it may not have the entertainment bells and whistles of the HP tx family, my friend's daughter already has an iPod or two and huge library of movies and music. She's good to fly away to college. But I don't envy my friend's Ikea bill when she gets settled in her first apartment.

   Been there done that, twice.

    Hey, a little retail therapy never hurt anyone.Besides when its for a loved one, it can turn into a great mitzvah.  Cast your bread upon the waters, throw your french fries in front of a legion of ravanous sparrows. It all comes back.

    Or so it seems, writing from my outside office,next to my best-ever garden, under a thatched palm leaf roof, in rural northern San Diego County.--Jim Forbes on 06/30/2007. Only four more days till Kaboom time.

*ever the reporter, I found out that the sales associate at Fry's went to Foothill College, one of the schools that has benefited from HP's educational computing evangelism program. Like I said, cast your bread upon the waters and see what happens.

(mandatory disclosure: In the 1990's I served as an unpaid member of mobile and personal computing advisory panels for IBM, Toshiba, and Hewlett Packard)

   

Tablet Computing Evangelism Done Right-- HP Leads the Way Again

In the race to build market and awareness of convertible computing, Industry warhorse Hewlett Packard is beginning to stands head and shoulders above other manufacturers in exposing its products to large numbers of current and future users.  And the reason for its success may be closely linked to an evagelism program aimed at higher education.

Take a quick tour west coast colleges and it’s very hard not to notice teachers and students  using a stylus to take notes on their HP convertible notebooks. And the reason for the groundswell use of pen-enabled portables is an active evangelism program run by Jim Vanides (pronounced Va-nydes) HP’s program manager for worldwide higher education, who administers the company’s efforts to seed colleges, universities and other schools with tablets.

HP’s evangelism program is rooted in its decades old academic philanthropic programs, which originally seeded engineering labs and classrooms with test equipment such as oscilloscopes and other instruments.

Vanides, based at the company’s headquarters in Palo Alto, can often be found, however, visiting college campuses or speaking at educational computing conferences nationwide.

            HP’s tablet evangelism program is substantially different from those run by virtually all other computer companies (specifically Apple), which have largely been aimed at driving software developers to support new architectures or hardware platforms. HP focuses its evangelism program on a traditional market—education, Vanides reports. “We are focused on STEM (Scientific, Technical, Engineering and Medical) colleges.”

            Vanides, who has a Masters in education from Stanford University, notes  “a big part of the evangelism mission is to show teachers what they can do with (pen-enabled convertible notebooks), and how it helps improves learning.”

            Thus far, HP’s tablet computing program has spread its offerings to more than 200 academic institutions that are using the new technology to improve teaching and learning, Vanides says “And more schools are being added to the program.”

            HP’s tablet computing program isn’t a passive. In fact, it’s quite active in spreading the message.  Vanides notes HP recently issued a request for educational grant proposals and quickly received more than 80 responses.  Each award will be classroom-sized grants of 21 tablet computers, Vanides added.

            Although most of HP’s convertible evangelism efforts are directed at schools that fit it’s STEM educational framework, the company also has “mindfully” helped community colleges where its hardware, used in combination with wireless networking and messaging software has helped expand “office hours” by giving students electronic access to teachers.

            When talking to HP’s Mr. Vanides, it’s very hard not to notice his devotion to the concept of using technology to improve teaching and learning.

            Although he seems reluctant to admit it, HP’s evangelism program is also an informal close-up lens on what does and doesn’t work in tablet computing. “We do talk informally with product development and marketing,” he said.

            HP’s interests in seeding convertible computers aren’t limited to colleges and universities; the company also has an evangelist that specializes in K-12 education.

            Jim Vanides is one of the most visible academic computing evangelists and his blog here should be a must read for anyone interested in tablet  computing’s potential.

            And what does Mr Vanides think about the effects of evangelism? “I’m very surprised more companies don’t do it.”

--Jim Forbes 06/22/2007

Apple's Steve Jobs With a ThinkPad--And One More Thing, Seriously

So, when Apple's Steve Jobs wanted to announce and show the company's first WinTel software offering in more than a decade-- a version of its Safari Internet browser-- what machine did he chose to trot out on stage?

A Lenovo ThinkPad Reserve, the markedly upscale of the ThinkPad line that comes skinned not in textured black plastic, but rich tanned saddle leather on which the owners name is embossed. Priced at about $5,000, ThinkPad Reserve makes a statement when you need to go beyond basic black.Way beyond.

Apple's Safari browser has a long way to go before it reaches the penetration of FireFox, much less steals significant market share from Microsoft's Internet Explorer, the current industry standard. And to gain a tiny secure foothold, Apple has to do more than just announce a placeholder product in the market. To gain even moderate acceptance Apple has to demonstrate that Safari can do things better than Internet Explorer and Firefox, which is a very tall order. Moreover, by launching a Wintel browser Apple could cracking open the sash malware developers need to attack hardware running the new software; which would dampen the Cupertino, CA, company's claims on being a "more secure" platform than Internet Explorer.

Having noted that, Apple's growing number of practicing and lapsed "faithful" are likely to try the new version of the Safari browser. And although that's a plus, it remains to be seen whether or not the new software will supplant Firefox, which could be Apple's real target.

Apple is a first rate software developer, and it's success with the OSX operating system and i-family applications is testament to the innovation, creativity and skill of its internal software development. I for one would love to see Apple get back in the PC software business and believe such an entrance could return innovation to a somewhat moribund market.

but looking at stills from Apple's Worldwide developers conference yesterday, I was surprised to see Steve Jobs carrying a ThinkPad on stage.  Seriously. Welcome to the world of Wintel portable computing, Mr. Jobs.

Oh and a tip of my Los Angeles Dodgers baseball cap to Fake Steve at blog spot for bagging the photo.--Jim Forbes 06/12/2007 from the San Gabriel Canyon, upstream of Azusa, CA, wirelessly via Verizon EvDo on my drop dead reliable ThinkPad X60 tablet.

Foleo--Palm Pushes Creativity and a New Frontier

Right now the technology industry, particularly the mobile and its associated segments seems to be suffering from a general lack of creativity.

I mean think about it, when was the last time anyone introduced took a chance and went against the commercial tide and launched something that wasn’t just a repackaged “me too” product?

Nothing brought this home more vividly to me than analysts’ reactions to Palm’s new Foleo e-mail appliance, described by its pioneering father , Jeff Hawkins’, as a companion for smart phones.

            Launched yesterday at the Wall Street Journal’s All Things Digital Conference over the hill from me in Carlsbad, CA,  analysts quickly adopted an “I Don’t get it” pile-on that clearly demonstrates how much creativity and critical thinking is missing in today’s market.

            When I saw Foleo the first thing I though was “how HP Omnibook 800-like” and “cool instant on and drop dead simple mail synchronization.”

            Bear with me as I shift into my Sam Salmon mode and swim against the popular tide flowing against Palm’s newest appliance.

+Foleo’s industrial design is outstanding. It’s unobtrusive yet stylish. It has a full-sized keyboard, which is critical to usability. This is exactly the type of product that Jeff Hawkins excels at and which is appealing to executives and other classes of workers professionally tied to critical email.

+ The addition of Wi-Fi to this platform makes it an attractive alternative to subcompact notebooks that are twice as expensive. With WiFi, its users can hit Web-based productivity apps like Google’s Docs and Spreadsheets (which severs the expensive bond I had with Microsoft for the last two decades) for those occasions when email text editors just don’t do the job.

+Foleo’s price is low enough to insure initial adoption by corporate and other high visibility workers. If you look back in time, the original Palm Pilot wasn’t priced very low, wasn’t the first device in its category, yet it went on to establish a strategically important beach head that has been expanded by other companies who have rode Palm’s technological bow wave.

+ The email management and synchronization software for Foleo is top flight. It’s simple to set up intuitive and works right out of the box. Again, these are trademarks of Palm products, yet the analysts covering this product launch yesterday either couldn’t remember this or just incapable of understanding how important creativity is to furthering technology.
+The choice of a Linux operating system wasn’t surprising. Palm’s management has made it very clear over the last several years that they were investigating Linux and may use it if it helped a product or technology.

+One of Palm’s historic strengths has been third-party developers. Foleo is a product that can blossom quickly with such backing. Furthermore, the stature of Jeff Hawkins is such that the risk capital suppliers may be willing to take a flyer on third-party Foleo development efforts.

+ Foleo is a first generation product. I’d be willing to bet part of an avocado crop that future products will be more complex and have many more features. In fact, when I saw Foleo yesterday, my first reaction was ”add a digitizer screen, and change some mechanicals and this device could make a great sub-$1,000 tablet computer.

+ Foleo bolsters the capabilities of smart phones and will play to dual mode wireless phones that support cellular and WiFi technology while using Bluetooth for short range networking and synchronization.

Palm’s Foleo device shows that there are still companies and executives out there who have both the creative chops and backbone to launch products that expand existing categories and pioneer new ground. I think Foleo and future versions of this product could open the floodgate to a new generation of important devices.

More importantly, if you want  to see how to demonstrate a product look here at the launch feed from the AllThingsD conference. No one is better at demonstrating a product than Jeff Hawkins. Period.

It’s just too bad that industry analysts and so-called seers have become risk adverse and unwilling to gauge the power of creativity in an otherwise moribund market. Jim Forbes—05/31/2007

(madatory disclosure: in the 1990's I served on a Palm  advisory panel)

Time for See Through Portable Computer Demonstrators

Notebook computer marketing hasn’t really come very far in the last 15 years. To make this point take a close look at last week’s launch of new portables equipped with the just released new core logic and more “capable” and faster processors.

Looking at the sheaf of material I collected from last week’s new product unveilings, I’m disappointed.

You see, only one of the notebook manufacturers reeally took the time to go beyond the Santa Rosa and Centrino Pro feature set data sheets provided by Intel. And that’s a damn shame, since in today’s market, notebooks have become the industry’s bread and butter and not one manufacturer is doing a damn thing to show me, or millions of other buyers why I should purchase a specific system. And guess what, it’s not just the notebook makers, the fault can also be put squarely at the feet of processor makers and the computer industry press.

            I spent much of my career writing about portable computers and I was always stretched to come up with an idea to illustrate my storied beyond lame product shots. I have some responsibility for the crush of boring material and  I’m ashamed of it.

In the real world, I’m a pretty creative person. Over the years, I’ve held marketing management positions for an aerospace company, an automobile/truck manufacturer and consulted for companies with products that are difficult to illustrate or conceptualize. But until last week’s Santa Rosa launch that I hadn’t really thought of solutions to the problems of notebook marketing.

            Let’s go back in time to the early 1960’s: it was a time of awakening technology. Almost every boy I knew understood basic aeronautical and flight characteristics because they owned and flew u-control model airplanes powered by .049 cc two-stroke model airplane engines. And a few of us went from building model planes to one of that age’s ultimate models ,”The Visible V8.”

This model rocked my 12 year-old world. It was a plastic see-through model of aV8 engine that had almost all the parts of a real V8, and, it had an electric motor that made the parts move.

I probably learned as much about internal combustion engines from that model as I did from 15 years of reading John Muir’s “How to Keep your Volkswagen Alive and Running for the Complete and Utter Idiot.”

            And this brings me full circle back notebook marketing in today’s world. If I were doing PR for Lenovo, HP, Intel, nVidia or AMD, one of the most important projects on my list of things to do would be building a “see through notebook” that highlighted new technology. And then, I would have mandatory pass-fail classes for every marketing person who was charged with promoting my portable products.

            It’s one thing to leave a PowerPoint printout behind with an editor or analyst, and an altogether different thing to show them what makes a design different, or more suited to a task than previous models.  And this is a task that calls for visual models.

OK, so how do you demonstrate or backup claims that a new antenna technology and a new chipset improves wireless connectivity. I’m so glad you asked, because I have a simple answer for that.

            After you’ve shown off your see-through portable, you adjourn to a parking lot where your capable assistant has set up a battery powered 802.11n network, measured and marked off range distance from the wireless router in feet. Then you take your old technology, put in the hands of the interviewer and have them walk down range, measuring the signal strength and throughput at specific distances. But that’s done with old technology and now on to the new.

            To really strut your stuff: You pull out a box with your new computer and show what a good out of box experience you can provide. Your interview subject wanders down range, taking comparative measurements with the new product and gets a real life “hands-on” user experience.

            This seems to me to be better than a boring chart with MPixels, MBits, MFlops and other boring performance metrics.

            I’ve never been known for subtlety in my reviews so I have to say this outright: If a notebook maker is going to claim that there components are “protected” by a technology, it’s easier to support the claim by showing a visual model than it is by merely including the fact in a written or oral presentation.

            It’s time portable computer makers and their partners emphasized “show” over “tell” in their presentations. Visual models can increase share points in a crowded market. Oh, my Visible V8 model?  I did blow it apart by using too much power on the engine. I still laugh thinking about how that piece of plastic came explsoively undone at about 300 rpm.—Jim Forbes—05/14/2007