Opinions

Using Cloud Analytics to Corral Big Data
April 12, 2013

Strategic Big Data and Actionable Analytics are two of the Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2013, according to Gartner. Yet only 12 percent have a big data strategy that governs their daily operations, a recent survey of 339 data management professionals by SAS and SourceMedia found. In my view, this gap is the result of years of unfulfilled promises from a previous generation of business intelligence and data integration vendors.

The Wild and Wonderful Future of Wireless
April 11, 2013

The wireless industry is in the middle of a transformation. That means there are many new opportunities going forward, but there are many new challenges as well. Which ideas, companies and sectors will win is the question. As a wireless and technology industry analyst, I have followed and worked with many companies as they changed the industry -- and change continues.

The Say-Anything Salesperson Is a CRM Killer
April 11, 2013

I was talking to a friend of mine whose company had a rough first quarter. As is often the case, both sales and marketing came under scrutiny; several salespeople were let go, and marketing is now under a microscope. In trying to perform a post-mortem on the problems, we struck upon the issue of salespeople. The sales manager held up a former employee as an example of the kind of people he wanted; this guy was a go-getter.

OpenStack Gives the Open Source Cloud a Lift
April 09, 2013

Since its start in the summer of 2010, the OpenStack open source cloud computing project has been the subject of a lot of hype. Today, the technology, backers and users of OpenStack are giving substance to all of that sizzle, and skepticism is giving way to service provider and enterprise use cases across the globe. OpenStack is relatively immature and still requires a high degree of technical aptitude to deploy, but its community continues to grow.

The Next Big Thing in Smartphones: Multiple Video Camera Support
April 08, 2013

I've been meeting with a number of companies that build video-editing software, and I've been becoming increasingly concerned that we aren't at all ready for a world in which nearly every car and every head has a streaming camera attached to it. Regardless of whether we are prepared or not, I think it likely that the next big smartphone feature will be the ability to stream multiple cameras at once.

5 Things That Kill CRM ROI Dead
April 05, 2013

Back in the old days -- like around 2003 -- the rate of what was termed "CRM failure" was unacceptably high. You often heard it bandied about that 70 percent of implementations were failures. That was an estimate -- companies were not coming forward to confess their CRM disasters, so building a scientific sample was impossible. Still, the number reflected the general dissatisfaction.

It's Time for Aereo to Soar
April 04, 2013

Aereo streams television over the Internet for a fee -- so far only in the New York City region. Its expected rapid rollout has not happened over the past year. Why? One reason is that Aereo was being sued by various broadcasters. However, the decision handed down this week from the Second Circuit Court of Appeals looks good for Aereo.

Yahoo and Summly: CliffsNotes for the Mobile Era?
April 02, 2013

The IT industry is no stranger to youth worship, but Yahoo's multimillion-dollar deal for Summly pushes that notion into cradle-robbing -- well, high school-robbing, anyway -- territory. That's because the punchline beneath the headlines is the age of Summly founder. Nick D'Aloisio, 17, appears to have qualified as the world's youngest VC-backed entrepreneur.

What the iWatch Could Be if Apple Still Had Guts
April 01, 2013

Steve Jobs was a guy who took big risks. The iPod was a big risk. The iPhone was even bigger, given that the market was dominated by companies like Nokia and BlackBerry, which had locked up the carriers in many regions. The iPad was riskier still, given what a failure the Windows tablet had been. Now that Steve isn't at Apple anymore, the company's investors and folks like Steve Wozniak are losing hope for the firm.

BlackBerry Z10: All Sizzle, No Steak
March 28, 2013

When the BlackBerry Z10 was first in my hands, I was prepared to write a glowing review of the new device and operating system. I like BlackBerry. I thought I was going to be able to write how it was a real competitor to the Apple iPhone and Samsung Galaxy. I was hoping to be able to say BlackBerry was back. Unfortunately, I can't -- not yet. The new Z10 is better in some ways and worse in others.

The Fall of Apple and the Return of BlackBerry
March 25, 2013

We tend to be slow to see change. If a company is on top, like Apple was, it takes a lot for us to see its fortunes have changed, as they clearly have post-Jobs. If a company is on the bottom, like BlackBerry was, it may be even tougher to see it on the rebound. We simply don't like the change in our worldview, and this isn't just with regard to companies but people as well.

Samsung's Galaxy S4 Dims Apple's Glow
March 21, 2013

Talk about attracting attention. As I write this, there are more than a thousand recent news stories and opinion pieces on the Google News site about the brand new Samsung Galaxy S4. That's an incredible win for a company that a few short years ago wasn't well known in the wireless business. Since Samsung is successfully transforming how the world thinks about it as a smartphone maker, what can we expect going forward?

Dell's XPS 18: Radically Rethinking the Tablet
March 19, 2013

From the first day of the tablet computing revolution -- April 3, 2010, when Apple's iPad became publicly available -- users have willingly traded limitations in computing form/function for innovations in access/interface. In part, that was because Apple maintained a careful line between the iPad and its traditional Macbook and iMac products to avoid self-cannibalization.

RIP Android: Google Loses Its Steve Jobs
March 18, 2013

Andy Rubin was Google's Steve Jobs, and with him now booted off the Android product, that platform in its current form will pass. It is kind of funny to see the spin on this, which suggests this was Andy's decision. Yeah right, and I'll be buying that bridge in Brooklyn shortly.

Caveat Inventor: The New Patent Paradigm
March 15, 2013

The most significant change to U.S. patent law since 1836 -- or perhaps 1790 -- is being implemented on March 16, 2013. Part of the America Invents Act of 2011, it concerns the doctrine of first-to-invent, laws concerning the protection of original inventors, regardless of whether they were the first to apply for a patent. The new law awards inventorship under a first-inventor-to-file standard.

The US Hasn't Lost Its Tech Edge
March 14, 2013

There is much lamenting in some quarters that the U.S. has lost its road map for tech innovation. Many point to China as a country in a hurry to catch up to and even pass America in technology. They talk about how China is stressing tech-related endeavors and how forward-looking it is. I simply don't buy this argument. Why? Let's start with retailing and Amazon.

What's Eating Microsoft?
March 14, 2013

Microsoft was once rapidly growing like Google and Apple. Then it changed. It became a very large, but very slow growing company. These days it seems stuck, struggling to break into other businesses. The growth wave Microsoft rode crested years ago, but it hasn't been able to catch the next wave.

The Employee Heroes at HP: Making an Impossible Turnaround
March 11, 2013

It is very difficult to pull off a turnaround. This is because you typically start with a company that is unprofitable and lacking the resources to compete. You have employees who are still on the job only because they haven't been able to find another one, and you're selling products that few want to buy. To successfully execute a turnaround, you need heroic employees who are willing to step up despite the problems.

IBM's Big Bet on Cloud Analytics
March 08, 2013

A growing number of established and emerging software and technology vendors are seeking to take advantage of the convergence of Big Data and the cloud. None has made a bigger bet than IBM. Since 2005, IBM has spent more than $16 billion on 35 acquisitions to boost its analytics capabilities. The company is hoping that this investment will generate approximately $20 billion in annual sales.

The Tooth-and-Nails Scrap for the No. 3 Smartphone Spot
March 07, 2013

Until about six years ago, the wireless world was pretty predictable. BlackBerry and Nokia were the leaders, and everything was growing and stable. Then the iPhone earthquake changed everything. Android soon followed, creating more disruption. Today the global handset leaders are Samsung and Apple. However, the big story in 2013 is who will be No. 3. The competition will be intense.