Category Archives: Techpinions

Techpinions Insiders post on Mozilla, Google and Apple

Going forward, while I’ll continue to post regularly here, I’ll also be contributing increasingly to the Techpinions Insiders service, which is a subscription-based offering that complements the publicly-available content on Techpinions. Right now it’s $5 per month, and subscribers get lots of extra content for that $5. I highly recommend subscribing.

My first post for the service is a quick take on the news from yesterday that Mozilla is switching its default search engine for Firefox from Google to Yahoo, ending a long-standing relationship. I examine the key data around both search engine and browser market share, as well as the changing economics of Google’s search business, and I also talk about Apple’s slow and subtle move away from Google for search. I encourage you to go take a look (individual pieces may be read for a micropayment of 25 cents).

Oh, and I also have my regular weekly post on Techpinions today, which is about the various lenses through which one can see Google, and the implications.

Techpinions post: Google and Microsoft’s platform problems

My post on Techpinions today is about Google and Microsoft’s platform challenges, which appear very different on the face of it, but actually have a lot in common. Microsoft increasingly wants its third-party services to succeed on platforms owned by (arguably) its two main competitors, Google and Apple. While Google is struggling to compete on a platform it theoretically owns (Android), which has been increasingly co-opted by both official Android licensees and users of the AOSP version of Android such as Chinese OEMs and Amazon. Microsoft’s challenges are particularly stark, and stem in part from the business models it and its competitors employ for key services:

Microsoft competing against freeHead over to Techpinions to read the full post.

 

Techpinions post: Apple Watch impact on smartwatch market

This week’s Techpinions post is a follow-up to my post from a few weeks ago about market prospects for smartwatches, off the back of my smartwatches report. I revisit my conclusions both from that report and from the previous post in light of Apple’s forthcoming Watch. As you may recall, I’ve been extremely bearish about the smartwatch market absent some major catalyst, and Apple’s entry into the market always had the potential to be that catalyst.

The concluding paragraph from the piece is below:

For all these reasons, the Apple Watch will be just the kind of catalyst I talked about in the conclusion to my report. It won’t drive majority adoption of smartwatches any time soon, but it promises to fix several of the key demand- and supply-side barriers to smartwatch adoption, and will be a huge hit for Apple. At the same time, it will provide a boost to other vendors, who will have to compete largely around the Android opportunity and the lower end of the market. Exactly how big the boost to the market will be is hard to estimate until we know more about the watch as we approach its release. But we could easily go from single digit millions of shipments per year to tens of millions in the wake of its launch.

You can read the whole piece, including the reasoning behind that conclusion, here.

Techpinions post: Five thoughts on privacy and security

My post today on Techpinions is on privacy and security, and was sparked by what’s been widely called the “iCloud hack” since the news broke at the weekend. Since we know little about the mechanics of the hack so far, I’ve held off commenting on the specifics, but instead shared five more general thoughts on privacy and security:

  • If Apple really is at fault, it needs to remedy the situation fast
  • The impact to Apple will be very limited
  • Privacy attacks are very targeted
  • The difference between careless and deliberate privacy invasions
  • Users are always the weak point in security.

Feel free to head over there to read the piece in full, and as always feel free to join the comments section – it’s always a good place for vibrant discussions on the issues.

Techpinions post: potential acquisitions for Apple, Google and Microsoft

This week’s Techpinions column was prompted by a tweet from Alex Wilhelm of TechCrunch, who asked which companies Apple, Google and Microsoft should acquire next. I fired off a quick response, but decided that this would make an interesting post in its own right, and spent some more time drawing up a list. I also added Amazon to the list of potential acquirers just for fun. Here’s what I came up with:

  • Apple – Bose, Broadcom’s baseband business, Yelp
  • Google – Spotify, Jawbone/Fitbit/Withings, Pinterest
  • Microsoft – Here, Foursquare, Everpix/Picturelife
  • Amazon – Hulu, Pandora, Etsy/Shopify.

You can read the full post, which includes my rationale behind each of these choices, over on Techpinions.

This week’s Techpinions column – Apple and Mobile Payments

My column for Techpinions this week is about Apple and mobile payments, and was prompted by the current heightened interest in Apple’s plans in this area, driven both by the prospect of new iPhones and wearables. I quote survey results from my recent report on smartwatches, but also highlight the vicious circle that plagues the mobile payments space:

The mobile payments vicious circle

Aside from the overall challenges facing any company in the payments space, I talk about the major technologies Apple might choose to use, including both NFC and Bluetooth LE (Apple has so far favored the latter). You can read the whole thing on the Techpinions site. All my Techpinions columns can be seen here.

New report and post on smartwatches

My firm, Jackdaw Research, has just published a report for subscription clients on the topic of smartwatches, entitled Smartwatches: Market Prospects. It features several consumer surveys which gauge demand for current and future smartwatch features, and evaluates the current offerings in the smartwatch market. I’m bearish on smartwatches as they currently stand – demand for the features they offer is weak, and that demand is currently being met by weak supply too, as all of the current offerings are flawed by virtue of the compromises they make between battery life, displays, performance and usability. The market is likely to remain small unless something changes – one of those, of course, being a disruptive entry to the market by Apple.

My Techpinions post today summarizes some of the key findings of the report. Here’s a quote:

Measured against these criteria, the current crop of smartwatches on sale does very poorly. I did my own ratings as part of my report, and I ended up with scores which were barely above 50% across these seven categories. Unlike most reviewers, I don’t see the Pebble as the clear leader in this market – in fact, all the devices ended up clustered around a very small range of unimpressive scores. If we’re really honest with ourselves, we should expect much more of these devices before we embrace them, and unless they do more we’re not likely to see them sell above current levels.

The UK’s Guardian newspaper also did an extensive write-up on the report, which you can find here.

There’s more information about the report, and an opportunity to buy it directly, on the Jackdaw Research website. The report is available as part of our subscription research service for clients, and is $500 for non-clients.

Today’s Techpinions post: What does cloud-first, mobile-first mean for Microsoft?

I do a weekly column for Techpinions in addition to my regular stream of posts here on Beyond Devices. Today’s post is about what cloud-first, mobile-first – one of Satya Nadella’s mantras – means for Microsoft. Here’s an excerpt:

The bigger challenge, though, is Microsoft will increasingly be competing against the owners of the two major platforms even as they seek to broaden their offerings onto these platforms. Apple and Google both have their own offerings which compete with Microsoft’s Office, Skype, OneDrive and Outlook.com products. Their competing products are in most cases free to the user, bundled into a broader suite of online services or into a hardware purchase. How will Microsoft compete against these two companies on their own platforms in a way that both adds enough value to justify charging money and overcomes the disadvantages of being a second class citizen? Other commentators are saying Microsoft should abandon both its devices and platforms businesses and focus on cross-platform services, but the fact Microsoft’s two major competitors own those platforms should be cause for reflection.

You can read the full post here.