Saturday, March 30, 2013

It's time for a change

It's been 3 years since I've been here. Much has changed. AMD is a spent force. Trying desperately to stay alive...forget being relevant.

However, a new challenger has arisen. ARM has created an alternative for Intel where none existed before. What Intel was to PCs - ARM is to the new world of tablets and phones.

However, the real threat to Intel is not merely ARM. It is the myriad of Operating Systems that are emerging in the tablet/phone space. iOS, Android, Windows 8, Tizen, Firefox - and who knows what else may happen.

Into this fractured world - comes the reality that scaling your architecture for 1 OS (Windows) on the PC business is vastly different from enabling it for 3-4-5 OSes. Specially when you are the challenger. And the risk of not supporting that OS fast enough is market share.

What should Intel's strategy be...? How do they create the scale they need to be a major player in phones and tablets?

Predictions I made - 3 years later

THIS WAS A POST I WROTE IN 2009 AND JUST DIDN'T GET ROUND TO PUBLISHING.

Things are too busy to get to the blog regularly. But I thought I'd go back and look at a couple of things I predicted and how they turned out.


The Apple effectThe first thing I wanted to touch on was my prediction of where Apple was heading and it's impact to the industry. Essentially I predicted that Apple would eventually generate significant revenues from content and user experience and would extend their hardware strategy to every touch point where they believed they could deliver connected content to the end user. And that unless other IT companies like Dell and HP had a strategy to own the end user experience and monetize it - they would be sucking lemons in the long run.

Here's what's happened.

1) Apple extended their business into phones and iPads. Adding 2 more crucial hardware touch points in the connected content consumption usage models. You now have the ability to own and use Apple hardware at any point of the day. Regardless of what you are doing.

2) Apple's content business is thriving. More importantly, they create the App store and that is a huge reason for the success of the iPhone. That model is now being replicated by not only other phone players - but also Intel through App Up Centre.

3) Dell, HP and other's are unsuccessfully following Apple into devices. But are missing a key part - content and apps. They just don't get it. HP however through the acquisition of Palm have an opportunity through Palm OS as a foundation for a unique and satisfying experience. Let's see if they can capitalize.

4) Google develops Android and gives it away to the industry.

4) Intel and Nokia partner to develop MeeGo. Nokia is losing traction in the phone business. Intel is terrified that their hardware will become irrelevant because Windows is a lame duck in the world of phones and gadgets. And if They need their own software strategy.

Apple and Google on a collision course:

Back in December 2006 I wrote this article on how Apple and Google were heading to a collision or co-operation.

So here we are 3 years later. And guess what - they are heading to a collision.