Infocom convergence war: Apple vs Google vs Facebook vs Amazon

The magazine Fast Company discusses this month the actual infocom war which oppose 4 corporate titans involved in many infocom sub-sectors. CNBC made an interview with the editor-in-chef.

It appears that very recently you could describe these 4 titans in few words: Apple did consumer electronics. Google did search, Amazon a web store and Facebook a social site. Each tech titan pushing further into mobile tablets, apps, cloud data and beyond. Fast Company offers four scenarios where each titan could emergence as a big winner of this tech war.

"In some ways their competition with each other will continue to elevate them ahead of the rest of the pack, but their actions and their ambitions are driving them into each other's areas. whether that's Google launching a social network, Amazon launching an ipad competitor, these companies are definitely looking for the same larger opportunities in mobile and media and data. and that's driving them into each other's areas. You know, at the same time they are setting the agenda for wide swaths of the rest of the economy. it's other folks who are forced to respond and react to what these guys are doing... I think the question here for investors is where will the profits go? right now apple is in the driver seat in terms of how big their profits are, the cash they're generating, the growth we're seeing from them.

But to put it in retail terms, this is like a battle between the Nordstrom, Walmart and Target models. i put Apple in the Nordstrom category, Google and Facebook are more Walmart. You sort of trade convenience for a little bit more of an open ecosystem but doesn't work quite as well. and Target is more of Amazon's model. They're really selling commerce, all these other things are feeding you into buying things from Amazon. I think that's the real issue is which one of those models wins out. I think they're all at slightly different life stages too. amazon ig@ on track to be the fastest company to reach $100 billion in revenues projected by I think 2015. That's tremendously fast."

"At the same time as you mention, Apple is making so much money and i think it takes apple about nine days to generate what Facebook generates in a year in revenue. But Facebook does have 800 million customers, right? users, and they have data from those folks on what they like and how they end up using that data may be tremendously valuable in the years ahead... How do you define actually winning? is it the amount of money they make, their entrepreneurship and innovative skills or the products they put out. or is it all of that? certainly from an investing point of view making money's important."

http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000051097

Louis Rhéaume
Infocom Intelligence
louis@infocomintelligence.com

Amazon competing with publishers, not just bookstores

There was an interesting article in the NY Times about the new strategy of Amazon concerning publishing. They are more and more competing, not only with bookstores, but also with publishers. They are cutting the middleman by signing publishing contracts directly with authors. With the proliferation of tablets, ebooks are more popular than ever. Amazon can control most of the value chain: the reading device the Kindle Fire and the distribution online channel.

Amazon just started giving all authors, whether it publishes them or not, direct access to the Nielsen BookScan sales data, which records how many physical books they are selling in individual markets (cities). It represents a one-on-one communication between authors and their fans that used to happen only on book tours. Recently, Amazon made an obscure German historical novel a best seller without a single professional review.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/17/technology/amazon-rewrites-the-rules-of-book-publishing.html?pagewanted=all

Louis Rhéaume
Infocom Intelligence
louis@infocomintelligence.com

Article on RIM new development initiatives

There is an interesting article on the NY Times on Research and Motion new development intitiatives. They will present this week a conference where they have to persuade critical applications developers to create new apps for the new generation of BlackBerrys that will use a more capable operating system known as QNX (pronounced CUE-nix) and for the tablet PlayBook. One problem with the Playbook is that there are few apps available now.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/17/technology/research-in-motion-pins-hopes-on-its-next-os.html?src=un&feedurl=http%3A%2F%2Fjson8.nytimes.com%2Fpages%2Ftechnology%2Findex.jsonp

Louis Rhéaume
Infocom Intelligence
louis@infocomintelligence.com

Some key elements for innovation management value creation: the case of Yahoo versus Google

In a recent interview, a former Yahoo VP argues that the key element for efficient innovation management in order to create value is to have an organization enabling small accountable and empowered team that can take risks. Salim Ismail is a successful angel investor and entrepreneur. He has operated seven early-stage companies and is a frequent speaker on internet technologies, private equity and entrepreneurship. From February 2007 to February 2008, Salim was a Vice President at Yahoo and the Head of Brickhouse, Yahoo's internal incubator where game-changing ideas were brought in, built and launched. He is now working for Singularity University.

Yahoo became a matrix company under Terry Siemel, with several layers of organizational approval. The firm is now developed under the traditional verticals administrative functions. Google on the other hand always promoted risks taking and has less organizational layers of approvals, even less under the new CEO Larry Page. Free time is giving to engineer to work on the innovation project of their choice. Google encourage risk taking. Many internal resources of Yahoo made spin-off outside the firm like Zynga. Like Xerox which created many innovations like the mouse, the operating systems, Ethernet but did not develop it, outside spin-offs of Xerox created more value than Xerox itself: Apple, 3Com, Adobe Systems; history is repeated with the case of Yahoo.

According to Ismail, in the fast moving area of high tech, it is difficult to play the game of catching-up on trends and competition. Few players won that game. Apple totally reinvented the company, but they have relied on the Blue Ocean Strategy.

For more information on the ideas of Salim Ismail, see the interview on TechCrunch.

http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/11/keen-on-how-yahoo-screwed-up-and-lessons-for-other-silicon-valley-giants-tctv/#ooid=locnJ1Mjq5H8b_xXxgp9bym7HAdEvXrv

Louis Rhéaume
Infocom Intelligence
louis@infocomintelligence.com

A new model for universities: Singularity University

A new model for universities is proposed by Singularity University in Silicon Valley. It was founded by Ray Kurzeil and Peter Diamandis. Serial entrepreneur Salim Ismail is now the university’s Global Ambassador.

They offer a ten week intensive Summer program where you can learn new technologies and search for solutions to social challenges. It aims to offer "pull content" and updated knowledge versus the traditional "push content" model offered by traditional universities, since 700 years.

The point is in many sectors like technologies, the traditional learning in universities is often out of date, even before the end of the studying. With Singularity University, teachers are often entrepreneurs or experts in technologies, or social challenges.

For more information, see the interview on TechCrunch. Few places are available per year.

http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/10/keen-on-the-future-of-the-university-might-well-be-singularity-tctv/#ooid=lpcnJ1Mjpkg-iPDxshtswvbzMbaOvKiP

Louis Rhéaume
Infocom Intelligence
louis@infocomintelligence.com

Evolution of the smartphone sector

According to a study by Millennial Media, the smartphone sector is growing quickly.

Thus, it appears that:
-60% of the devices have a touch screen. Only 33 percent of the devices had a touch screen in March 2009.

-Now, all of the 20 top phones are now smartphones.

-The top three manufacturers in 2009 were Samsung (21.6%), LG (12.52%)) and Apple (11.35%). Now its Apple (30.76%), Samsung (14.94%) and RIM (11.76%)

-Mobile ads have evolved: 52% of ad campaigns actions lead to visiting a site compared to 15% in 2009. Click-to-call actions have gone from 1% to 37%. And app downloads surged from 3% to 23%.

-Six verticals — finance, retail/restaurants, pharmaceuticals, automotive, entertainment and travel – experienced triple digit growth year over year from Q2 2010 to Q2 2011. Finance grew by 1,095% while retail/restaurants grew by 956% and pharmaceuticals grew by 426%.

-Smartphones now represent 67% percent of all impressions on devices while connected devices such as tablets and the iPod Touch represent 17% of all impressions.

Louis Rheaume
Infocom Intelligence
louis@infocomintelligence.com

Mobile Internet will surpass fixed Internet in 2015

According to IDC, tablets and smartphones will drive significantly the consumption of mobile Internet. It will surpass fixed Internet (PC) around 2015 in the number of users. New players such as Amazon in tablets, will push mobile Internet.

This will drive new business models to create value from mobile Internet users.

Fixed and mobile Internet users will increase from 2 billion in 2010 to around 2.7 billion in 2015.

For more analysis on the modifications of technology business models you can read, in the coming weeks the Chapter of the Book:

"Rethinking North American telephony business models in the age of turbulence."
From Louis Rhéaume, TELUQ and Yves Rabeau, UQÀM.
In the book In: Advances in Communications… Volume 8 ISBN # 978-1-61324-794-5
Editor: Anthony V. Stavros, pp. 1- 40 © 2011 Nova Science Publishers, Inc.

Available (forthcoming Q4-2011) on the website:
https://www.novapublishers.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=25245

Louis Rhéaume
Infocom Intelligence
louis@infocomintelligence.com

Montreal Start-ups festival: challenges and motivations of entrepreneurs

Direction Informatique magazine did an interesting 5 minutes video on the challenges and motivations of entrepreneurs during the Montreal start-ups festival. Video in French and English.

http://bcove.me/cmgyovo5

Louis Rhéaume
Infocom Intelligence
louis@infocomintelligence.com

IBM has now 100 years

Today, there is an interesting article on IBM in the Spanish newspaper El Pais. It talks about the recent strategy of IBM. The firm has now 100 years. In 2010, the consulting and technology services accounted for 56.4% of revenue, programs, 22.5% and machine business 18%. One has to remember that IBM dominated the PC business in the 1980's. Between 2000 and 2010, IBM bought 116 companies.

According to Mr. Zufiria, an executive manager of IBM, the best invention of IBM, which has 76,000 patents in its portfolio, is to sustain the culture of progress. In the last decade, the image of IBM dedicated to the machines has evolved into a company also dedicated to the services and enterprise software. IBM sold his home computer unit to Lenovo, among other movements, bought the consultant Price Waterhouse Coopers Consulting. "This change is a response to globalization and the challenge faced by companies in mature sectors, where part of the offer are already standardized services. This transformation reflects IBM's commitment to build a business based on value proposition. In there, you select investments designed to create a difference. " To Zufiria, customers are seeking solutions and facing transformational issues.

"With Price Waterhouse, it allow us to have knowledge of business processes and provide this global response. " The same principle applies to business management market. "The challenge is no longer in the data warehousing tools. It is situated in the analytical processes around that data, that allow a company to understand their situation and make decisions in real time. " In this area, IBM has invested U.S. $ 14 billion, to create a complete portfolio of predictive analytics solutions with the acquisition in five years of 24 specialized companies.

IBM is really a transnational firm profiting from regional expertise and selling those solutions globally. IBM has made a million dollar bet on free software, "open source". IBM spends 6% of its revenues on research and development. " Thus, explains Zufiria, the company is not seeking an offer that is redundant, or which already exists. "In 2007, opened 500 patents. It was not a selfless act, but IBM was trying to drive the standardization, for example, certain operating systems or software components, so as to accelerate the transition to other software layers on top IBM can provide the greatest value. "

Source: http://www.elpais.com/articulo/Pantallas/IBM/anos/reinventa/elpepurtv/20110613elpepirtv_1/Tes


Louis Rhéaume
Infocom Intelligence
louis@infocomintelligence.com
Twitter: @InfocomAnalysis

For Marc Andreessen "Mr. Internet" : we are not in a second tech bubble

For Marc Andreessen "Mr. Internet" : we are not in a second tech bubble. Marc is the founder of Netscape who created Internet with images. He is now a Venture capitalist involved in Groupon, Twitter, Facebook, Zynga. He is making a tons of millions in profits from its internet investments. He suggests that right now, major tech stocks are undervalued on the stock markets: for instance Cisco Systems, Apple, Microsoft. He said that Apple's Price-Earnings (PE) ratio is just 10 if you delete cash. He suggests that fast growing valuations of private and public stocks are not general, but in fact isolated, mainly in social networks (Faceboook, Zynga, Linkedin).

For Marc, new tech companies are trying to become profitable companies and not just new promising new IPOs (Initial Public Offerings) like firms in 1999-2000. They tend to have stronger business models than in the last decade.

For the whole interview on the Wall Street Journal see

http://online.wsj.com/video/groupon-investor-marc-andreessen-no-tech-bubble/275ED9C5-2BCA-4BFD-9FBA-97BCEF0D48F7.html

Louis Rhéaume
Infocom Intelligence
louis@infocomintelligence.com
Twitter: @InfocomAnalysis