Seth Godin weighs in on Apple's 30% tax on Subscriptions

30%, the long tail and a future of serialized content

Except Apple has announced that they want to tax each subscription made via the iPad at 30%. Yes, it's a tax, because what it does is dramatically decrease the incremental revenue from each subscriber. An intelligent publisher only has two choices: raise the price (punishing the reader and further cutting down readership) or make it free and hope for mass (see my point above about the infinite newsstand). When you make it free, it's all about the ads, and if you don't reach tens or hundreds of thousands of subscribers, you'll fail.

TCS CEO N Chandra on CNBC

TCS CEO, N Chandra got interviewed by CNBC's Maria Bartiromo today. He talks in general about outsourcing, sectors seeing growth and TCS iON. Video below.

First Windows Phone software update

It’s not as bad as what the media made most believe.      

More answers about our first software update

Contrary to some of the gloomy headlines out there, our preliminary internal data paint a very different picture about update progress:

- 90 percent of people who’ve received an update notification have installed the new software patch successfully. (So when your turn to download it arrives, chances are good this will be a non-event.)

- Of the 10 percent who did experience a problem, nearly half failed for two basic reasons—a bad Internet connection or insufficient computer storage space. Luckily, both are easy to fix.

Has the update process gone perfectly? No—but few large-scale software updates ever do, and the engineering team here was prepared. Of course, when it’s your phone that’s having a problem—or you’re the one waiting—it’s still aggravating. That’s why we’re committed to learning from our first update and improving the process. We know we have work to do, and we won’t be satisfied until you are.

Amazon Instant Videos not a threat to Netflix (other video streaming services)

Amazon if any wants to add more Prime members with its move today of adding Instant Videos to Amazon Prime. Less than 5% of Amazon customers are Prime members but this lot spends 130% more than the non-prime Amazon buyer and Prime members are 92% more likely to renew their membership. Throw in a few freebies like Instant Video to increase value of the Prime membership and you start targeting the rest 8% as well.

Amazon Prime Members Now Get Unlimited, Commercial-free, Instant Streaming of More Than 5,000 Movies and TV Shows at No Additional Cost

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) today announced the launch of a new benefit for Amazon Prime members: unlimited, commercial-free, instant streaming of more than 5,000 movies and TV shows. This new benefit is being added at no additional cost -- Prime membership will continue to be $79 per year. Amazon Prime's all-you-can-eat free Two-Day Shipping has already attracted millions of members. Customers can learn more about an Amazon Prime one-month free trial and start watching instantly at www.amazon.com/primevideos.

"Millions of Amazon Prime members already enjoy the convenience of free Two-Day Shipping," said Robbie Schwietzer, vice president of Amazon Prime. "Adding unlimited instant access to thousands of movies and TV shows at no additional cost is a great way to give members even more value for their $79 annual Amazon Prime membership."

Take a deep breath Netflix, Amazon is not a threat. They are trying to guard and make their house stronger.

How bicycle makers got together and decided to fly...

If you love reading fiction, then immediately head over to WSJ and read this fine tale of how Microsoft won Nokia (and vice versa).

Nokia's Flirtations Put the Fear of Google Into Microsoft

Mr. Ballmer and his lieutenants headed for Helsinki in January to show how serious Microsoft was about cutting a deal. The plan was for Mr. Ballmer to fly privately into Helsinki, where he would then travel to a private Nokia facility, Mr. Elop added.

Mr. Elop said he instead got a call from Mr. Ballmer informing him that because of snow and fog, the plane wouldn't be able to land in Helsinki. About to run out of fuel, Mr. Ballmer instead landed in Stockholm. At that point, the fastest way for Mr. Ballmer to reach Helsinki was to fly commercially, Mr. Elop said, despite the greater risk that he could have been recognized.

While Mr. Ballmer was waiting quietly in the lounge, his cover was nearly blown when he was paged by name over the loudspeaker because of an error related to his plane ticket.

TCS iON - Cloud based ITaaS for SMB Market Segment

With the launch of TCS iON, TCS is now in fray with the global majors to provide hosted IT-as-a-service (ITaaS) to Indian SMBs and hopefully target global SMBs in next 12-18 months.

iON brings the power of world-class technology to India’s SMBs

iON provides best-in-class, on-demand business solutions using the very latest in scalable cloud computing technology. It has been developed to deliver IT in the third generation service model to SMBs. Using a pay-per-use business model, iON helps SMBs leverage world-class technology solutions as a key business differentiator. It removes the need for SMBs to invest in IT assets or retain scarce IT talent.

iON addresses the entire spectrum of an SMB’s technology needs, which range from business solutions like HR, finance, inventory, sophisticated domain-based ERP solutions to basic applications like email, document management and website services. iON is pre-configured with hardware, network and software bundled together and backed by business, technical and consulting services.

“iON will enhance India’s global competitiveness by giving 35 million Indian SMBs access to world-class, simple-to-use and scalable technology tools. SMBs can use the power of iON to build their business advantage and compete on the global stage,” said N Chandrasekaran, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, TCS, and Chief Architect, iON.

TCS already has 135 customers in India and plans to add 1000 in the next one year with a goal to achieve about US$1 billion in revenue over five years from iON.

Nokia Shareholders against the Windows Phone plans

Looks like this is written by nine kids.

Nokia Plan B

We are a group of nine young Nokia shareholders. All of us have worked with Nokia in different capacities in the past. We plan to challenge the company’s strategy and partnership with Microsoft in the next Annual General Meeting scheduled for May 3, 2011.

JCPenney games Google & does well at that

New York Times has brilliant exposé of JC Penney’s use of Blackhat tactics and gaming Google. The article raises some important questions on why this was not caught by Google earlier.

The Dirty Little Secrets of Search

Here’s another hypothesis, this one for the conspiracy-minded. Last year, Advertising Age obtained a Google document that listed some of its largest advertisers, including AT&T, eBay and yes, J. C. Penney. The company, this document said, spent $2.46 million a month on paid Google search ads — the kind you see next to organic results.

Is it possible that Google was willing to countenance an extensive black-hat campaign because it helped one of its larger advertisers? It’s the sort of question that European Union officials are now studying in an investigation of possible antitrust abuses by Google.

Investigators have been asking advertisers in Europe questions like this: “Please explain whether and, if yes, to what extent your advertising spending with Google has ever had an influence on your ranking in Google’s natural search.” And: “Has Google ever mentioned to you that increasing your advertising spending could improve your ranking in Google’s natural search?”

Recommended reading,

Microsoft + Nokia coming together leading to The Perfect Storm

So today, Nokia announced what few have been predicting last few days, that is, Nokia and Microsoft will work to form a broad strategic partnership that would use their complementary strengths and expertise to create a new global mobile ecosystem.

Nokia and Microsoft Announce Plans for a Broad Strategic Partnership to Build a New Global Mobile Ecosystem

Under the proposed partnership:

• Nokia would adopt Windows Phone as its principal smartphone strategy, innovating on top of the platform in areas such as imaging, where Nokia is a market leader.

• Nokia would help drive the future of Windows Phone. Nokia would contribute its expertise on hardware design, language support, and help bring Windows Phone to a larger range of price points, market segments and geographies.

• Nokia and Microsoft would closely collaborate on joint marketing initiatives and a shared development roadmap to align on the future evolution of mobile products.

• Bing would power Nokia’s search services across Nokia devices and services, giving customers access to Bing’s next generation search capabilities. Microsoft adCenter would provide search advertising services on Nokia’s line of devices and services.

• Nokia Maps would be a core part of Microsoft’s mapping services. For example, Maps would be integrated with Microsoft’s Bing search engine and adCenter advertising platform to form a unique local search and advertising experience

• Nokia’s extensive operator billing agreements would make it easier for consumers to purchase Nokia Windows Phone services in countries where credit-card use is low.

• Microsoft development tools would be used to create applications to run on Nokia Windows Phones, allowing developers to easily leverage the ecosystem’s global reach.

• Nokia’s content and application store would be integrated with Microsoft Marketplace for a more compelling consumer experience.

This is huge win for both companies. What sets this partnership apart is that the strengths of Microsoft and Nokia are totally complimentary. Here’s how:

Parameter

Nokia

Microsoft

OS

Lack of Strong OS, MeeGo taking longer than desired to take shape

Windows Phone 7 OS comes to the rescue.

Hardware Design

When it comes to hardware and hardware deisgn, Nokia is hard to beat.

Microsoft wants more OEMs to increase WP7 footprint, who better than Nokia.

Market Share

Nokia has 33% Market share.

Microsoft marketshare is 3% and it gets 33% to play in now. Increased visibility and credibility now.

Market Reach

Nobody does it better than Nokia when it comes to Market Reach, go to any under developed or emerging countries and you will find Nokia shops in every nook and corner. Nokia also has a great relationship with Telco’s and they will offer ease of buying for WP7 devices where credi card usage is low. Scoble got this, he writes, “Nokia has distribution. Distribution Google doesn’t yet have. Nokia has dealers and stores in the weirdest places on earth. Places Apple won’t have stores in for decades, if ever.”

This is a huge win for Microsoft, Microsoft can bring its Marketing musclepower and exploit these markets.

Search & Ads

Nokia cares less about what the search engine is which goes in the device but would love to have some TAC Money, which I am sure is a part of this deal. Nokia also can look to monetize using AdCenter, another incentive for Publishers and Developers to focus on Nokia Devices/WP7 Platform.

Big Win for Microsoft. More than 35% of Mobile devices in the world can now have Bing Search. Another avenue for AdCenter to provide ad services on Nokia devices. I believe this will be outside of WP7 devices as well so this is really huge win.

Microsoft .NET and Developer Tools

Nokia will now be able to attract 100’s and 1000’s of .NET developers who will build for WP7 Nokia devices. This was a challenge with Symbian.

Microsoft gets a boost with more people using the Developer tools increasing .NET footprint. Silverlight gets a boost. More developers means more Apps, more apps means more marketshare which means more revenues from Marketplace.

Nokia Maps

Navteq is more than just software for navigation and Map services. It has a great GIS database (3D geospatial imagery, traffic info etc) which powers a lot of services uncludinng Yahoo and Bing Maps.

Location is big on mobile devices and WP7 gets navigation using Nokia's Navteq. We will still see Bing Maps in some manner but direction will be provided by Navteq.

A Brand New Ecosystem

By coming together Microsoft and Nokia have formed a brand new Ecosystem, one which gets powered by an upcoming OS, hardware superiority and scale at which these companies are known to execute, all this backed by the great R&D organizations these companies run.

Microsoft, Nokia Combination provides a great alternative to iOS/Android. Competition is good for consumers.

Tepid demand, small or no lines at Verizon or Apple Stores

Tepid demand, small or no lines at Verizon or Apple Stores. What happened? Verizon had us believe that there was good demand for iPhone 4 when it sold out its pre-order within 24 hours.

Verizon iPhone is Greeted by Short Lines: Here's Why

The day has come. The iPhone is finally available on the Verizon Wireless network. At last, the CDMA version of the iPhone 4 is now available to the masses at Verizon Wireless and Apple stores, Wal-Mart, Best Buy, and online. But where are the masses?

According to reports Verizon fanfare over day-one sales doesn't come close to matching the excitement of iPhone 4's initial debut on AT&T's network just over eight months ago. News reports from across the country say foot traffic is light to retail stores. Lack of interest in the iPhone 4 contrasts Verizon's earlier claims it sold-out of its first batch of iPhone 4 stock in less than 24 hours when it made the phone available on Feb. 4 for its customers to pre-order.

HP announces WebOS FUD for PCs

Today HP announced that its bringing WebOS to PCs.

HP Announces webOS For… PCs?

HP’s Todd Bradley just went on stage at the webOS event and said: “I’m excited to announce that we’re bringing webOS to the device that has the biggest reach of all: the personal computer.”

Considering where they (actually Palm) are with WebOS (remember Palm Pre) over the last two years, it will be interesting to see how soon, if ever this translates into a reality. I think it will, but will it succeed, I have my doubts. As for the TouchPad release by HP today, Good Luck with the summer release, by then Apple would have released iPad 2 and Motorola Xoom will be a bigger reality.

Nokia, our platform is burning

Stephen Elop, CEO of Nokia has a very honest memo sent to Nokia employees before the expected strategy announcement on Feb 11, 2011. While the storytelling is great, I hope the revival is too.

Nokia CEO Stephen Elop rallies troops in brutally honest 'burning platform' memo? (update: it's real!)

Hello there,
There is a pertinent story about a man who was working on an oil platform in the North Sea. He woke up one night from a loud explosion, which suddenly set his entire oil platform on fire. In mere moments, he was surrounded by flames. Through the smoke and heat, he barely made his way out of the chaos to the platform's edge. When he looked down over the edge, all he could see were the dark, cold, foreboding Atlantic waters.
As the fire approached him, the man had mere seconds to react. He could stand on the platform, and inevitably be consumed by the burning flames. Or, he could plunge 30 meters in to the freezing waters. The man was standing upon a "burning platform," and he needed to make a choice.
He decided to jump. It was unexpected. In ordinary circumstances, the man would never consider plunging into icy waters. But these were not ordinary times - his platform was on fire. The man survived the fall and the waters. After he was rescued, he noted that a "burning platform" caused a radical change in his behaviour.
We too, are standing on a "burning platform," and we must decide how we are going to change our behaviour.
Over the past few months, I've shared with you what I've heard from our shareholders, operators, developers, suppliers and from you. Today, I'm going to share what I've learned and what I have come to believe.
I have learned that we are standing on a burning platform.
And, we have more than one explosion - we have multiple points of scorching heat that are fuelling a blazing fire around us.
For example, there is intense heat coming from our competitors, more rapidly than we ever expected. Apple disrupted the market by redefining the smartphone and attracting developers to a closed, but very powerful ecosystem.
In 2008, Apple's market share in the $300+ price range was 25 percent; by 2010 it escalated to 61 percent. They are enjoying a tremendous growth trajectory with a 78 percent earnings growth year over year in Q4 2010. Apple demonstrated that if designed well, consumers would buy a high-priced phone with a great experience and developers would build applications. They changed the game, and today, Apple owns the high-end range.
And then, there is Android. In about two years, Android created a platform that attracts application developers, service providers and hardware manufacturers. Android came in at the high-end, they are now winning the mid-range, and quickly they are going downstream to phones under €100. Google has become a gravitational force, drawing much of the industry's innovation to its core.
Let's not forget about the low-end price range. In 2008, MediaTek supplied complete reference designs for phone chipsets, which enabled manufacturers in the Shenzhen region of China to produce phones at an unbelievable pace. By some accounts, this ecosystem now produces more than one third of the phones sold globally - taking share from us in emerging markets.
While competitors poured flames on our market share, what happened at Nokia? We fell behind, we missed big trends, and we lost time. At that time, we thought we were making the right decisions; but, with the benefit of hindsight, we now find ourselves years behind.
The first iPhone shipped in 2007, and we still don't have a product that is close to their experience. Android came on the scene just over 2 years ago, and this week they took our leadership position in smartphone volumes. Unbelievable.
We have some brilliant sources of innovation inside Nokia, but we are not bringing it to market fast enough. We thought MeeGo would be a platform for winning high-end smartphones. However, at this rate, by the end of 2011, we might have only one MeeGo product in the market.
At the midrange, we have Symbian. It has proven to be non-competitive in leading markets like North America. Additionally, Symbian is proving to be an increasingly difficult environment in which to develop to meet the continuously expanding consumer requirements, leading to slowness in product development and also creating a disadvantage when we seek to take advantage of new hardware platforms. As a result, if we continue like before, we will get further and further behind, while our competitors advance further and further ahead.
At the lower-end price range, Chinese OEMs are cranking out a device much faster than, as one Nokia employee said only partially in jest, "the time that it takes us to polish a PowerPoint presentation." They are fast, they are cheap, and they are challenging us.
And the truly perplexing aspect is that we're not even fighting with the right weapons. We are still too often trying to approach each price range on a device-to-device basis.
The battle of devices has now become a war of ecosystems, where ecosystems include not only the hardware and software of the device, but developers, applications, ecommerce, advertising, search, social applications, location-based services, unified communications and many other things. Our competitors aren't taking our market share with devices; they are taking our market share with an entire ecosystem. This means we're going to have to decide how we either build, catalyse or join an ecosystem.
This is one of the decisions we need to make. In the meantime, we've lost market share, we've lost mind share and we've lost time.
On Tuesday, Standard & Poor's informed that they will put our A long term and A-1 short term ratings on negative credit watch. This is a similar rating action to the one that Moody's took last week. Basically it means that during the next few weeks they will make an analysis of Nokia, and decide on a possible credit rating downgrade. Why are these credit agencies contemplating these changes? Because they are concerned about our competitiveness.
Consumer preference for Nokia declined worldwide. In the UK, our brand preference has slipped to 20 percent, which is 8 percent lower than last year. That means only 1 out of 5 people in the UK prefer Nokia to other brands. It's also down in the other markets, which are traditionally our strongholds: Russia, Germany, Indonesia, UAE, and on and on and on.
How did we get to this point? Why did we fall behind when the world around us evolved?
This is what I have been trying to understand. I believe at least some of it has been due to our attitude inside Nokia. We poured gasoline on our own burning platform. I believe we have lacked accountability and leadership to align and direct the company through these disruptive times. We had a series of misses. We haven't been delivering innovation fast enough. We're not collaborating internally.
Nokia, our platform is burning.
We are working on a path forward -- a path to rebuild our market leadership. When we share the new strategy on February 11, it will be a huge effort to transform our company. But, I believe that together, we can face the challenges ahead of us. Together, we can choose to define our future.
The burning platform, upon which the man found himself, caused the man to shift his behaviour, and take a bold and brave step into an uncertain future. He was able to tell his story. Now, we have a great opportunity to do the same.

Stephen.

Microsoft Zune is threatening Apple iTunes in Video space

While Apple iTunes is still the dominant force in the US market for movie electronic sell through (EST) and Internet video on demand (iVOD), Microsoft’s Zune Video buoyed by XBOX 360 & Kinect Sales in last quarter has cemented its place as #2 competitor with 17.9% market share in 2010 up from 11.6% last year. Apple share in this timeframe (2010) was 64.5% down from 74.4% last year (2009).

Apple iTunes Remains Dominant in U.S. Online Movies in 2010, Despite Competitors’ Inroads

Despite intensified competition from fierce rivals including Microsoft Corp. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Apple Inc.’s iTunes store in 2010 managed to hold onto its dominance in the U.S. market for movie electronic sell through (EST) and Internet video on demand (iVOD), new IHS Screen Digest research shows.

The Apple iTunes online digital media store accounted for more than two thirds of U.S. EST/iVOD movie consumer spending in 2010, at 64.5 percent, down from 74.4 in 2009. The company also maintained its control of three quarters of the U.S. EST business in 2010. Apple’s hold on its market share supremacy was all the more impressive given that the business underwent a significant expansion in 2010, with EST/iVOD movie revenue rising by more than 60 percent for the year.

“The iTunes online store showed remarkable competitive resilience last year in the U.S. EST/iVOD movie business, staving off a growing field of tough challengers while keeping pace with an dramatic expansion for the overall market,” said Arash Amel, research director, digital media, for IHS. “Apple faced serious competition from Microsoft's Zune Video and Sony Corp.'s PlayStation Store, as well as from Amazon and—most significantly—Wal-Mart. However, iTunes managed to grow because of the introductions of the iPad and the second-generation Apple TV, which have spurred the company's movie rental offerings and have invigorated the iTunes multi-screen ecosystem. We expect that in the United States, Apple's strong performance in iVOD will allow it to continue to bypass the video on demand services offered by many major cable operators.”

Arrington working for Arianna??

Just can’t imagine Arrington working for Arianna.

You’ve Got Arianna: AOL Buys Huffington Post for $315 Million in Cash, Appoints Huffington Editor-in-Chief

In a bold and definitive move, AOL is paying $315 million in cash to buy the Huffington Post, one of the Web’s most prominent news and opinion sites.

As part of the deal, Huffington Post Co-founder Arianna Huffington (pictured here)–who was derided by some when she co-founded the left-leaning site in 2005 with investor and well-known communications exec Kenneth Lerer–will become president and editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post Media Group within AOL.

Honeycomb is looking good

Caught the Techcrunch demo of the upcoming Motorola Xoom tablet running the new Android Honeycomb OS which unlike other versions of Android is focused on tablets. Features that stood out for me – Performance and the ability to set up your home screen using widgets (so much cool than stupid icons). The use of widgets on home screen seems to be inspired from Live Tiles on Windows Phone 7 but given the size of Tablets, you can do so much more here.

First Impressions Using Android Honeycomb, Google’s iPad Rival

But Honeycomb changes all that. It’s a solid competitor to iOS — better, even, in some ways. I won’t be at all surprised if we see Honeycomb explode on tablets the way Android has exploded on mobile handsets since the original Droid launched in November 2009. Yes, carriers and OEMs will undoubtedly add their own skins and bundled applications, but provided they don’t do anything too outrageous to the user experience, Honeycomb feels like a winner.

With failed 20% time projects, Google Engineers writing fiction now

You don’t need any further proof than the recent Google excuse of Bing copying Google results to get to know that Bing is getting more successful day by day. I find it amusing that Google chose to unveil this “spy-novelesque stunt” on a Search Engine Land site and not through their official channels and only when Microsoft responded on Bing Blog, would Amit Singhal from Google come out with their take on their blog.

To be clear, we learn from all of our customers. What we saw in today’s story was a spy-novelesque stunt to generate extreme outliers in tail query ranking. It was a creative tactic by a competitor, and we’ll take it as a back-handed compliment. But it doesn’t accurately portray how we use opt-in customer data as one of many inputs to help improve our user experience.

Guess with all the failed 20% time projects, Google Engineers are moving towards writing fiction now.

iPhone arrival slowing down Smartphone sales at Verizon

Would be great to know if other OEMs are suffering the same fate in view of iPhone’s arrival on Verizon.

Motorola Mobility sees slowdown in Verizon sales

The CEO of Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc., the cell phone maker that recently broke away from Motorola, on Wednesday said the company is already seeing a slowdown in sales of its phones in Verizon stores, as consumers are waiting for the launch of the Verizon iPhone.