Netflix has perfected the art of putting their foot in their mouth.
DVDs will be staying at netflix.com
It is clear that for many of our members two websites would make things more difficult, so we are going to keep Netflix as one place to go for streaming and DVDs.
This means no change: one website, one account, one password… in other words, no Qwikster.
Now, all this is fine but what would happen to Andy Rendich, who was to be CEO of Qwikster.
There are very few names that comes to mind when someone talks of Ghazals. The name I would always remember first will be Jagjit Singh. It has been more than 20 years since I seriously started listening to Ghazals. Jagjit Singh's melodious and soothing voice has since been a constant companion and not even a week has gone by when I have not heard his ghazals. I had the pleasure of seeing him live in concert in Pune once. His soul-stirring renditions with humorous interludes made the evening most pleasant and unforgettable. The best era for him was when he sang with his equally talented wife, Chitra. I recall one of their ghazals from album, Passion where Chitra sings:
Ye kya Jaane mein Jaana hai, jaate ho khafaa hokar
Main jab jaanoon, mere dil se chale-jaao juda hokar
RIP Jagjit. You were, are and will always remain my favorite singer.
Gruber pictures Steve Jobs in his grass stained shoes.
Universe Dented, Grass Underfoot
I like to think that in the run-up to his final keynote, Steve made time for a long, peaceful walk. Somewhere beautiful, where there are no footpaths and the grass grows thick. Hand-in-hand with his wife and family, the sun warm on their backs, smiles on their faces, love in their hearts, at peace with their fate.
Steve Jobs is no more. But what stays behind is his vision of what he has shown us so far and what he planned for us in the last few years which is getting cranked in the R&D Labs in Cupertino and what we will see in the form of new innovations for the years to come.
Bill Gates
I’m truly saddened to learn of Steve Jobs’s death. Melinda and I extend our sincere condolences to his family and friends, and to everyone Steve has touched through his work.
Steve and I first met nearly 30 years ago, and have been colleagues, competitors and friends over the course of more than half our lives.
The world rarely sees someone who has had the profound impact Steve has had, the effects of which will be felt for many generations to come.
For those of us lucky enough to get to work with him, it’s been an insanely great honor. I will miss Steve immensely.
President Obama
Steve was among the greatest of American innovators -- brave enough to think differently, bold enough to believe he could change the world, and talented enough to do it.
RIP Steve.
Ouch..
World's cheapest tablet launched
Initial reactions to the Aakash were mixed, with the mainly middle-class technology department students at the event saying it needed refinement but was a good option for the poor.
"It could be better," said Nikant Vohra, an electrical engineering student. "If you see it from the price only, it's okay, but we have laptops and have used iPads, so we know the difference."
One good thing, it got a lot of press and the story made it to Techmeme.
I have a feeling Apple somehow hurried on the iPhone 4S release. The launch was underwhelming, nowhere near the Job'esque launches we are accustomed to, the product revealed was average, the product features, well, lacked luster. Little unfair on the new CEO, Tim Cook too as this was the first time he was doing the show.
Was this done due to fear of losing out to Andorid or Windows Phone 7 (the Nokia release), fear of losing out on another Holiday season or the fear of not keeping up with the release rhythm. Not sure what it is but definitely this is not the Apple of 6 months back.
Kiddish. Cook is no Jobs.
Apple mocks Windows 7 adoption rates with phony figures
New Apple CEO Tim Cook took to the stage to detail Apple’s adoption rates for OS X Lion. Cook claimed “It took Windows 7 20 weeks to reach what it took Lion 2 weeks to get to in terms of install base.” Cook revealed that Lion has been downloaded 6 million times. “The results are staggering,” he said as a result of digital downloads.
...
It’s worth noting that despite the hype, Apple has only shipped 6 million copies of Lion. In comparison, Microsoft has sold over 400 million licences of Windows 7. The operating system is also expected to be installed on 42% of all PCs by the end of 2011. Windows 7 will also ship on 94% of all new PCs during 2011 according to Gartner, that’s nearly 635 million new PCs. Nevertheless, 72% of statistics are made up and 82% of people believe in them right?
Kudos to Mac which is able to retain the 7% market share if not growing (this does not include iOS though).
Windows 7 overtakes Windows XP global share
October’s statistics show Windows 7’s global marketshare stands at just over 41 percent, while Windows XP holds a hair’s breadth away from 40 percent.
In between the two, Windows Vista — long believed to be one of Microsoft’s biggest mistakes in the operating system race — dipped below 11 percent. Apple’s Mac OS X remained steady, but rising slightly at nearly 7 percent.
Another facet of Microsoft which did not get due coverage this week.
Gears of War 3 sells more than three million copies in first week sales
Following more than 22,000 midnight madness launch events, Microsoft and Epic Games today announced that the Xbox 360 exclusive sold more than three million copies in its first week since release, cementing Gears 3 as the biggest game of 2011 and catapulting the franchise beyond one billion dollars in lifetime sales.
In just one week, Gears 3 has already grossed more than any 2011 video game to date.
Look at it, today is 29th September and month ends tomm, could this post be to meet monthly quota?
John Gruber on Techcrunch post The Top 6 Alternatives to the Kindle Fire
Isn’t this piece from Matt Burns exactly backwards? Is there a single AOL/TechCrunch reader, even one, who is better-informed by having a writer at a big-name technology site claim that any of these tablets are worth consideration? Why would anyone buy any of these turds instead of an iPad or Kindle Fire?
Put another way: Was the purpose of this piece to help readers understand the actual implications of Amazon’s entry in the tablet market? Or to create the false impression that the tablet market is more competitive and complicated than it actually is?
Yesterday there was a report by Goldman Sachs which pointed out that Microsoft stands to make $3-$6 per Android device sold. That's well below the numbers we have been hearing so far, which quoted the patents use royalty amount to be around $15. So how much does Google earn throughout the lifetime of an Andoid device. I got that answer on Quora.
How much does Google earn throughout the lifetime of an Android device?
Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster estimated that Google made $5.90 per Android user in 2010. Assume the average user replaces his/her Android every 21 months (standard cell phone replacement rate in the U.S.), and that would translate into $10.32 per user over the lifetime of the phone. Of course, if the phone then finds its way to another user, that adds to its lifetime value.Munster also predicted that Google could generate $9.85 per Android user in 2012, or $17.24 over 21 months. This number is also close to Eric Schmidt's goal of generating $10 per Android user per year (with a billion users). But forecasts like these rarely prove completely accurate.
With a run rate of 500K Android activations, Microsoft stands to make 500K x $4.5 (average royalty amount) x 30 days x 12months = $810M. Goldman Sachs puts this number as $444 million considering the fact not all Android OEMs (most notably Motorola) have the royalty paying arrangement with Microsoft.
Google will stand to make $9.85 x 500K activations x 30 days x 12months = $1.7Billion per year. Considering standard cell phone replacement rate in the U.S. of 21 days, the amount is $17.24 per Android user and this comes to $17.24 x 500K activations x 30 days x 12months = $3.1Billion over the lifetime of an Android device.
So what's the difference between Google and Microsoft. One big difference is that while nobody can eat into Microsoft's pie, Google is vulnerable to the newer OEMs like Amazon. The money that Google makes from Android is the money from Apps download, Google Search use and Ad views and clicks on these devices. Amazon if successful with Kindle Fire has its own App store, its own Mobile browser and I am sure somewhere they are building Mobile ads serving engine and with a strong alternative in Bing, Google can lose quite a bit of share to Amazon.
Now this is called a Press release. In this case Larry Ellison is taking exception to comments made by Autonomy’s CEO after HP acquired Autonomy that they never seriously considered Oracle. Oracle as a part of this response has put Mike Lynch’s PowerPoint slide sales-pitch up on the Oracle website. Love the straightforward non-legal language of this press release.
Another Whopper from Autonomy CEO Mike Lynch
Autonomy CEO Mike Lynch continues to insist that Autonomy was never ‘shopped’ to Oracle. But now at least he remembers and admits to meeting with Oracle President Mark Hurd and Doug Kehring, Oracle’s head of M&A, this past April. But CEO Lynch insists that it was a purely technical meeting, limited to a ‘lively discussion of database technologies.’ Interesting, but not true. The slides Lynch showed Oracle’s Mark Hurd and Doug Kehring were all about Autonomy’s financial results, Autonomy’s stock price history, Autonomy’s Price/Earrings history and Autonomy’s stock market valuation. Ably assisting Mike Lynch’s attempt to sell Autonomy to Oracle was Silicon Valley’s most famous shopper/seller of companies, the legendary investment banker Frank Quattrone. After the sales pitch was over, Oracle refused to make an offer because Autonomy’s current market value of $6 billion was way too high.
We have put Mike Lynch’s PowerPoint slide sales-pitch up on the Oracle website – Oracle.com/PleaseBuyAutonomy – with the hope Mike Lynch will recognize his slides, his memory will be restored, and he will recall what he and Frank Quattrone discussed during their visit to Oracle last April. Yesterday, the Autonomy CEO did not remember having any meeting with Oracle. Today, he remembers the April meeting and inaccurately describes how it came about and what was discussed (see next paragraph). Tomorrow, he will need to explain his slides.
Amazon has a new Kindle but this time, the Kindle, that is Kindle Fire can do more things than just being an e-reader.
Jeff Bezos letter on Amazon.com
Kindle Fire brings everything we’ve been working on at Amazon for 15 years together into a single, fully-integrated experience for customers – instant access to Amazon’s massive selection of digital content, a vibrant color IPS touchscreen with extra-wide viewing angle, a 14.6 ounce design that’s easy to hold with one hand, a state-of-the-art dual core processor, free storage in the Amazon Cloud, and an ultra-fast mobile browser – Amazon Silk – available exclusively on Kindle Fire.
So Kindle Fire is competition for not just Apple (for the tablet part) but also of Google and Microsoft (for the browser part). Amazon amazingly has a great use case for Cloud and they are applying that with Silk now, the new mobile browser for Fire.
Silk isn’t just another browser. We sought from the start to tap into the power and capabilities of the AWS infrastructure to overcome the limitations of typical mobile browsers. Instead of a device-siloed software application, Amazon Silk deploys a split-architecture. All of the browser subsystems are present on your Kindle Fire as well as on the AWS cloud computing platform. Each time you load a web page, Silk makes a dynamic decision about which of these subsystems will run locally and which will execute remotely. In short, Amazon Silk extends the boundaries of the browser, coupling the capabilities and interactivity of your local device with the massive computing power, memory, and network connectivity of our cloud.
John Gruber does well with his views of the new Kindles. And Chris Espinosa has his views on the privacy implications of the Silk browser architecture.
Amazon.com and the Fraying of a Nation's Decency
It doesn’t feel like one nation when a company like Amazon, with such resources to its name, treats vulnerable people so badly just because it can. Or when members of a presidential debate audience cheer for a hypothetical 30-year-old man to die because he lacks health insurance. Or when schoolteachers in Chicago cling to their union perks and resist an effort to lengthen the hours of instruction for children that the system is failing. Or when an activist publicly labels the U.S. military, recently made safe for open homosexuals, a “San Francisco military.” Or when most of the television pundits go on with prefabricated scripts to eviscerate their rivals, instead of doing us the honor of actually thinking.
Bing is glorious than ever today.
Something New on the Homepage!
If you have an HTML-5 enabled browser, you now get all the beauty and intrigue of the Bing homepage with a little breath of life added. Users without a modern browser will continue to see the gorgeous still photography that we’re known for. Not getting the video and want to see what the fuss is about? Try downloading IE9 and going to www.bing.com.
It feels so wrong that this article has been written by Ryan McCarthy who himself was Business Editor at The Huffington Post till recently.
Business Insider, over-aggregation, and the mad grab for traffic
Take this article, for example, which employs one of the site’s characteristically amusing headlines “IT’S OFFICIAL: The Recession Has Created A New Lost Generation.” The piece was, as of this morning, posted prominently near the top of Business Insider’s home page, but it’s a flat-out rehash of a strong piece by the AP. So far, Business Insider’s piece has attracted 4,600 views, per their stats.
The AP summarizes new Census data, which can be found here, talks to economists and provides very valuable analysis of what this new data says about our economy. Very little of this is readily apparent from the Census news releases, by the way. The AP reporter, Hope Yen, did the hard journalistic work of sussing out these figures.
What does Business Insider’s piece offer? By my count, the piece reprints seven datapoints from the AP’s article. It offers one link to the AP’s piece, and no link to the Census department’s latest release. Nor does it offer any original analysis, context or information It does, however, link to a Business Insider slideshow of “19 scary facts about getting a job in this economy” at the bottom of the page. I have no real idea if Business Insider pays for AP content — I can only assume that if it did they’d simply cut and paste the entire AP article onto their site.
And then the respectable Marco Arment of Instapaper fame whose whole business is based on scraping and republication writes this:
A Business Insider retrospective
Why wouldn’t I want to be associated with Business Insider? It has nearly everything that offends me as a web reader and writer: linkbait headlines, more ads than content, more sharing buttons than original words, top-list “slideshows” that make readers click for every item and defraud advertisers into thinking that their pageviews are legitimate, Tynt messing with copy and paste, Vibrant Media’s double-green-underline ads, generic images slapped next to each post (often poorly Photoshopped®), and tabloid coverage of every rumor and inflammatory non-event so they can fight all of the other tabloids for Google’s pennies.
Not to defend Business Insider but I wonder if Marco would have written this article if the 8891 hits that Marco got from Business Insider was in 100’s of thousands. BTW, here's Business Insider's response to Marco.
Meg Whitman has the reins now. Apotheker moves out happliy with $25 million.
HP Names Meg Whitman President and Chief Executive Officer
HP today announced that its board of directors has appointed Meg Whitman as president and chief executive officer.
In addition, Ray Lane has moved from non-executive chairman to executive chairman of the board of directors, and the board intends to appoint a lead independent director promptly. These leadership appointments are effective immediately and follow the decision that Léo Apotheker step down as president and chief executive officer and resign as a director of the company.
“We are fortunate to have someone of Meg Whitman’s caliber and experience step up to lead HP,” said Lane. “We are at a critical moment and we need renewed leadership to successfully implement our strategy and take advantage of the market opportunities ahead. Meg is a technology visionary with a proven track record of execution. She is a strong communicator who is customer focused with deep leadership capabilities. Furthermore, as a member of HP’s board of directors for the past eight months, Meg has a solid understanding of our products and markets.”
You may have heard that a number of government officials are investigating whether Google has violated state and federal anti-trust laws. The Federal Trade Commission, state attorneys general and a U.S. Senate subcommittee are all trying to determine if Google is competing fairly in the marketplace, or if they have acted in ways that are anti-competitive.
Because Google competes against Yelp to provide consumers with the best information about local businesses, these government groups have asked Yelp to discuss our experiences with Google’s conduct.
We have responded to these requests and told officials that we believe Google has acted anti-competitively in at least two key ways: by misusing Yelp review content in their competing Places product and by favoring their own competing Places product in search results.
Ben Edelman brings some good points.
Google likes to argue that "competition is one click away." First, I question whether users can actually leave as easily as Google suggests: Popular web browsers Firefox and Chrome strongly favor Google, as Google CFO Patrick Pichette recently admitted ("everybody that uses Chrome is a guaranteed locked-in user for us"). In the mobile context, Android offers Google similar lock-in. And even on non-Google mobile platforms, Google serves fully 95% of searches thanks to defaults that systematically direct users to Google. Meanwhile, syndication contracts assure Google exclusive long-term placement on most top web sites. Against this backdrop, users are bound to flow to Google. Then advertisers must go where the users are. Whatever choice users have, advertisers end up with much less.
In the last ten years, Google grew from 12% to well over 80% worldwide. In that time, Google moved from zero ads to a dozen or more per page; from placing ads only on its own site to requiring advertisers to purchase ads with thousands of partners of dubious or unknown quality; from hustling to convince advertisers to buy its novel offering, to compelling advertisers to accept the industry's most opaque pricing and most onerous terms. At the start of a new decade, Google is stronger than ever, enjoying unrivaled ability to make advertisers do as Google's specifies. It's time for advertisers -- and the regulators who protect them -- to put a check on Google's exploitation of its market power.
My views:
Customers will never switch from existing web services unless the new web service is even 1% superior. Google knows how to extract the maximum out of Network effects and knows it will take a long time for Bing to get to the level of Google just because of Network effects. And acquisitions like Zagat and competing products like Places are to retain and grow the network effects. All these feed into Google's only product, Google Search. Bing is innovating fast which shows up in continuous growth in search share, so I am sure Bing is now a blip in Google's radar. It's only time when the advertisers and the consumers have a real alternative. Almost 30% people already are enjoying that in US.
This is what I wrote yesterday about TechCrunch Saga. Mark Sigal extends and taking TechCrunch as an examples points out why these deals fail.
TechCrunch as a metaphor for why most M&A fails...
So why do most of these deals fail to realize their ambition? Here's my take:
- Pre M&A v. Post M&A Disconnects: Acquiring companies spend an inordinate amount of time on pre-deal sourcing, due dilgence and integration plans, YET seemingly burn those plans or fail to hand them to the actual operating team, post M&A. To say that it is common for disconnects to occur post deal close is to miss the larger point of how common it is for the people who negotiated the deal to be DIFFERENT than the folks that you will be working with on a day to day basis.
- Pissing off the 3-4 Core Keepers: Everyone knows that in every M&A scenario that while technically a company, line of business, brand and team are being acquired, in truth, the deal's long-term success typically comes down to successfully retaining and engaging the 3-4 core keepers that make the company unique. Thus, it is shocking how often these people are either not locked in to a long term plan, have post-deal incentives out-of-whack with the long-term goals of the deal, or worse, are abused, ignored or insulted to the point that they self-select out of the game. Happens all the time.
- Failure to Communicate and Coordinate: You hear the platitudes over and over about how "people" make or break a company (in media, and especially in journalism, that truth is exponentialized). Yet, you see it repeatedly where there is a failure to pick up the phone, hop on a plane, grab a beer and make engaged dialog happen. Smart people forget this one repeatedly, which may be a simple by-product of the unhealthy marriage of conflict-avoidance and passive-aggressiveness that propagates throughout so much of the tech biz.
- The Conqueror's Mentality: Pure ego and org chart truth dictate that the acquirers tend to feel like conquerors rather than cultivators and trusted keepers. And while there is a pragmatic truth that to acquire is to conquer, there is an emotional truth that EVERYONE wants to feel like a winner, and when you fail to keep that truth front-and-center, good, smart people with other options will check out. They always do.
Unfortunately, TechCrunch IS a story now. Sad to see the moral demise of a site so liked by the tech community. Mergers and acquisitions are difficult and there always is a bloodbath, in TechCrunch's case it came way too soon.
