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Does Apple Need A Jobs Transplant?

Apple CEO Steve Jobs is back at work after a 6 month medical leave of absence.  During that time, he apparently had a liver transplant.  There has been a great deal of speculation that Job, who has been treated for pancreatic cancer, may have suffered some form of relapse with the cancer spreading to his liver.  While that remains unclear, what is clear is that Apple is in a very difficult position.

Few companies are more closely associated with their supreme leader than Apple.  Jobs has led the company to a spectacular string of successes and the little company that could is now a technology powerhouse controlling the music industry, influencing the computer industry, and transforming the mobile phone industries.  That’s a lot of power for one man to wield. 

With all of this success, Apple shares are soaring.  Even in the middle of a terrible recession, Apple is trading high.  But all of that could come crashing to the ground if Steve were to suddenly have to leave the company (or worse).  While Apple managed to run just fine in Steve’s absence, Jobs has never been far from the company or from the minds of shareholders and fans. 

Which begs the question, is it time for Apple to anoint an heir apparent for Steve Jobs should he no longer be able to run the company?  Should Steve follow the Bill Gates example and move to a creative and supportive role but turn full control of the company over to others? 

There are obviously hundreds of talented and creative people at Apple.  Perhaps it is time for some of those people to have their moment in the sun and prove to the Apple faithful (and more importantly to shareholders) that Apple is capable of surviving Steve Jobs.   

As painful as it may be, Apple may very well be in need a Jobs transplant.

Unified Entertainment and Communications for the Home

Don’t underestimate the power of young people to shape our future communications.  A few years ago, who would have imagined that texts and tweets would become more popular than phone calls for a huge segment of the population?  Nor would we have guessed that Facebook would infringe on the space previously held by email - which itself booted good old fashioned snail mail years ago. 

Before last week, I never would have thought that home game systems were anything other than child’s play.  And yet, I’m now totally convinced that we are at the threshhold of the next big advance in entertainment, communications and home networking. A sort of Unified Communications (UC) for the residential set brought to us by the Xbox and Playstation. 

Here’s how my eyes were suddenly opened.  Read more

iPhone 3.0 Rocks, AT&T Sucks

If you are as big an iPhone geek as I am, you woke up early this morning to see if the new 3.0 software update was ready to be downloaded.  It wasn’t, but became available for download around 10 am pacific time.  Early reaction to the new software is glowing.  The phone seems much more responsive and less sluggish.  New Voice Memo feature was much needed, and ability to search for terms across the entire device (emails and apps) makes the phone an indispensible tool.

In all, the new iPhone 3.0 software brings a slew of new features to the wildly popular device, over 100 updates in total.  Chief among these are the highly anticipated arrival of cut & paste, MMS, and data tethering.  It is a huge update which brings the bulk of  ‘most wanted’ user features to the device.

However, all is not joy in iPhoneland.  Apple’s carrier partner AT&T, has increasingly upset iPhone customers, threatening the ‘golden-device’ status that the iPhone has enjoyed thus far.  In a move that can only be described as short-sighted (or incompetence as the case may be) AT&T will be blocking both MMS (the ability to send pictures and video to other mobile phones) and tethering (using your iPhone as an internet data connection for your laptop) on the iPhone 3.0 software.  While both of those features may come at additional cost later this Summer, that is not fast enough for iPhone users.  In addition, AT&T is removing the pay-as-you-go option for iPhone customers.  And to make matters worse, AT&T has managed to further upset loyal iPhone customers by making them pay a hefty surcharge to upgrade their phones to the new iPhone 3G S when it is released later this week (You can sign a petition to protest AT&T’s customer hostility on Twitter: http://twitition.com/f96aq)

Which begs the question, no matter how much you love your iPhone, how much abuse are you willing to take from your carrier before you simply walk away?

I’m thrilled with the continuous updates and feature enhancements that Apple has been making, but look forward to a day when the iPhone is available on better, faster, and friendlier carrier networks.  AT&T has made it painfully clear that they don’t really value their customers beyond the dollars they can wring out of them.

AT&T could be using the limited amount of time they have left in their exclusive iPhone contract to lure in new customers and dazzle them with great service and support.  Instead, they have chosen to squander their advantage.  Apple may have trained their customers to pay a premium for quality products, but few are willing to pay for outright customer abuse.

I’m sure that many iPhone customers join me in longing for the day when we can break free from AT&T’s shackles and flee to a more customer-centric carrier.

Verdict: iPhone 3.0 rocks! AT&T sucks!

Telecom Monthly - June Newsletter: Sex, WiFi and Bankruptcy

There is only so much doom and gloom a guy can take.  Thank  the telecom gods it’s Summer and there are enough diversions to keep our minds off the economy.  Actually, signs are finally pointing to a bottoming out of the depression and that signals better times ahead . . . we hope!  The question is: how long can some of the Telecom Industry’s most vulnerable companies hold out?  The vultures are waiting to pick the carcass clean; that you can be sure of. 

While April was filled with drama, May was all about price cuts, innovation, and sexspionage.  Carriers are lowering prices and improving offerings, the FCC is tightening rules, and customers are just trying to find a way to pay the bills. 

One way that carriers show how well they are doing is through the announcement of how many new customers they are able to bring aboard.  But that can be a tricky number.  Take Verizon for example: they are reportedly spending $200 in advertising for each new FiOS customer they sign up.  Ouch!  AT&T is in a similar situation with its U-verse service.  But Vonage is in the unenviable position of spending up to $300 for each new VoIP customer it is able to buy.  If you can’t get your customers on the cheap, buy them!  But that strategy doesn’t work forever. Eventually, some bills have to be paid.

AT&T is a company which is not inclined to sit still and wait out the recession.  They have been dabbling in all sorts of ventures lately.  Perhaps most interesting is the big T’s interest in cloud computing services.  AT&T is slowly rolling out new cloud services such as Internet file storage which allows customers to access their data from anywhere they have Internet connectivity.  Of course, they aren’t alone in this space, everyone from Microsoft to Amazon have been blowing clouds for quite some time and there is always the threat of Google making its enormous cloud computing network available to the public at little or no cost. 

Sprint may have opened a Pandora’s box when it began offering unlimited prepaid mobile service for just $50 a month on it’s Boost network.  Virgin has matched that offer and others are following suit.  But that marks a serious decline in carrier revenues and a price war is the last thing that Sprint needs right now.  Due to the economy, lowered rates look like they are bound to stick, and that will likely place intense pressure on the post-paid market as well. Perhaps Sprint is hoping that they’ll be able to switch some users on to more lucrative plans for the about-to-be-launched Palm Pre.  But with a $200 asking price (after a $100 mail in rebate) the Pre may not be Sprint’s salvation in the bottom feeder market they have so eagerly been developing at just $50 per month. 

And what are old school carriers like AT&T to do about their rapidly aging wired networks?  Ruckus Technologies hopes to solve many home wiring problems through their wireless “Ruckus” box.  AT&T thinks it can speed up local installations and lower install costs with the Ruckus technology.  That solves the problem in the home, but what is AT&T going to do about its ancient switching equipment and millions of miles of aging copper?   Perhaps there is a wireless solution in the future for some of that mess as well. 

Some interesting news on the regulatory side last month in the US: the FCC began tightening the screws on local number portability (LNP for short), in a ruling designed to make carriers more responsive to customer requests to move a phone number from one carrier to another.  Carriers will now have just one business day to complete the request.  And a Federal Appeals Court has determined that cable companies cannot be granted exclusive rights to apartment buildings and condos.  Perhaps there will be a rebirth of telecom competition after all.

Abroad, Deutsche Telekom is getting blasted for commissioning reports on the sex lives of its employees!  They have also admitted to scouring the bank records of more than 100,000 workers.  If they lose too much money on law suits, perhaps they can drum up a bit of cash with a “Telecom Workers Gone Wild” video.   Anyhoo…

Embattled Nortel is experiencing a slowing of its sales cycle due to the economy and concerns regarding the company’s bankruptcy and who might eventually control the company’s assets.   A cartel of former Nortel executives are exploring the possibility of buying the company and are seeking one billion dollars to seal the deal.  Regardless of who takes control of the company, current CEO Mike Zafirovski should probably start airing out his Golden Parachute.

Someone alert Captain Nemo!  The sub-marine telecommunication cable business is hopping again.  As many as 16 new cables are scheduled to be turned up this year.  The cost of laying under sea cable has dropped dramatically and as the volume of transatlantic data and voice have increased, the pressure for increased availability and lowered costs has also increased.  This should be very good news for the industry and for customers looking for more options and lower rates.

And finally, Skype is feeling the pressures of the increase in consumer mobile as land line replacement.  Consumer VoIP no longer looks like the sure thing that it did a few years ago.  But Business VoIP has never been hotter.  Recently, Skype began to dabble with Business VoIP solutions and now it is looking to enlist industry Value Added Resellers (VARs) and Telecom Agencies to resell its products.  They will soon find that the small to mid size business market is nearly entirely driven by price.  Can another price war be far behind? 

And that marks our farewell to May and embrace of Summer.  May the sun shine brightly and help us recover our collective sanity after the darkest Spring in recent memory.  A boat load interesting news floats on the horizon and we look forward to towing it in to you on TelecomMonthly.com.

Happy June everyone!

The Channel Invades IT EXPO With CVx

For years, the IT EXPO has been the essential trade show for cutting edge IP telecommunications, and is the longest running trade show in its category.  It is the show where many important partnerships are struck and where you go to find solutions to modern telephony problems.  However, until now, it hasn’t been a great place for independent agents and VARs to find potential new sources of revenue.

All of that is about to change. Technology Marketing Corporate (TMC) and Beka Publishing (ChannelVision Magazine) have announced a partnership to create an indirect sales channel section within TMC’s Internet Telephony Conference and EXPO (IT EXPO) at the October 17-20, 2010 event.

The new show within a show will be called CVx and will trade on Channel Vision’s indirect channel distribution and TMC’s solid trade show planning.

“For some time now readers and supporters of ChannelVision have been asking when we were going to extend the magazine and Web site brand into the trade show format,” said Berge Kaprelian, CEO and president of Beka Publishing. “We are excited and very optimistic about the opportunity to do just that in partnership with the folks at TMC and in conjunction with such a valued and well-run event.”

Attendies of CVX will be able to take part in a series of educational seminars and sessions directed exclusively to telecommunications agents, resellers, other indirect distributors and their partner suppliers.

“For a decade, the telecom reseller/agent community has used ITEXPO as a place to meet and form valuable relationships. Adding the CVx sessions and networking opportunities to the program at ITEXPO West next year solidifies the event’s position as the prime venue for resellers and agents to add high-demand new solutions to their portfolios,” said TMC president and conference chairman Rich Tehrani.

We will follow this news and let our readers know when the web site for CVx becomes available.  Until then, for more information about ITEXPO, contact Dave Rodriguez at 1-203-852-6800, ext. 146 or drodriguez@tmcnet.com. For information about CVx, contact Berge Kaprelian at 1-480-503-0770 or berge@bekapublishing.com.

What Google Has To Fear From Wolfram

An inventive new web search service has just become available to the public which just might give Google search a run for the money some day.  WolframAlpha is a sort of automated mashup of Yahoo Answers and Google Search.  Type in your question and Wolfram returns a detailed answer instead of a list of web sites where you might find an answer. 

For example, we typed “Apple” in the WolframAlpha search box and instead of a list of web sites to visit, we were given Apple Computer’s latest stock price, market cap, revenue, number of employees, comparison to competitors, business sector, and link to the company’s web site.    A promisingly interesting, but limited, result. 

Wolfram also determined that there might be other uses of the word “Apple” that we might have been looking for and gave the option to further define the search as “ a food, a species specification, a spacecraft, or general material.”    Clicking on “General material,” the service returned information regarding the density, pH, storage lifetime, optimal humidity, etc. of apples. 

By contrast, Google search results are  ”dumb.”  If you search for “Apple” you get a list of web sites which mention the word “Apple.”  However, you’ll have to sort through all the garbage and do all the research on your own.  Wolfram succeeds in getting you started on your search, but, doesn’t do a very good job of getting you to your next step.  For detailed information, you’ll still need to search Google, Wikipedia, or visit your local library. 

With a little more work, Wolfram could easily become the initial launching point on the web for researchers and students everywhere.  However, the current service is far from perfect.  Aside from some basic information, Wolfram will NOT give you detailed history, links to other resources, or helpful tips or discussions.  Additionally, the service does not seem to have indexed very many of the things that people actually search for.  Wolfram currently has  no way for you to search for subjective search terms (for example “What is the best hotel”) - you must pick a quantifiable term.

When searching for “Voice Over IP,” which is a hot topic in the Telecommunications industry, Wolfram Alpha returns the message: “WolframAlpha isn’t sure what to do with your input.”  For now, the service is best if you enter a date, a town, stocks, a calculation, math formula, food, name, measurement, or musical note. 

As limited as it currently is, Wolfram shows tremendous promise.  If the service is able to expand the searchable database, increase content options, link to more information, and possibly allow users to augment information or suggest additional information, Wolfram could quickly become a very disruptive and useful resource in the search industry. 

We’ll be keeping a close eye on Wolfram as it grows.  While Google has nothing to worry about yet, with some additional work, we may very well be looking at the beginnings of the next great Internet service. 

-iTodd

Landlines Going The Way Of The Dodo

Thanks in part to consumers looking to lower expenses in the current recession, cellphone only households have surpassed landline only households for the first time ever.  The report conducted by the Centers for Disease Control surveyed 12,597 households on their available means of communication in the second half of 2008. 

The shift toward mobile only phone service in Residential customers gained 3% over the first 6 months of 2008, the largest recorded jump since the government began recording this data in 2003. 

An additional 15% of households report having both a landline and one or more cell phones but maintain their landline for Internet connectivity only and do not accept calls on their landlines.  Nearly a third of respondents aged 18 to 24 live in cell phone only households.

Telecom Monthly - May Newsletter: The Great American Melting Profit

Settle in my friends, for today we have a tale of trouble, trickery, and tribulation to tell as April lived up to her stormy reputation.  By now, even monks living in Tibetan caves know that the world economy has rarely been worse, and when times get tough - the tough get nasty!  Several of the industry’s biggest names have proven that if you fail to claw for survival, you might just get dragged down with the likes of Motorola and Nortel.  If you’ll give us a moment, we’ll deliver your juicy  ultra-digest version of what happened last month in our back stabbing, hand wringing, stimulus seeking industry.

Hopefully you weren’t in the process of funding a big tech start up last month.  If so, you likely found it more difficult than expected to find investors.   Venture capital took a huge 56% plunge in the first quarter of 2009 compared to the same period one year ago - the lowest level of technology investment in over a decade.  But that doesn’t mean that a few high flying tech companies haven’t managed to soar.

Soar is exactly what Twitter did in April as it became famous through the efforts of Oprah, Larry King and  other celebrity bigwigs.   Unfortunately, all the buzz resulted in more tweets than Twitter could keep up with, which has left users increasingly frustrated with Twitter’s adorable “Fail Whale,” the symbol displayed when servers are busy.  But that wasn’t the end of Twitter’s troubles, as the company also dealt with a series of well publicized and troublesome Internet worms which infected the service.  That didn’t stop Ashton Kutcher from becoming the first Twitter user to record one million followers.   And if all this attention has you thinking that Twitter is king of the social networking hill, you’d be way off - Twitter has a long way to go until they hit the 200 million users that Facebook just recorded (at least 180 million more users to go).

It seems as though everyone faced a challenge in April, but few worse than what cellular handset manufacturers were challenged with.  Nokia profits fell 90% and Sony Ericsson reported losses of $467 million in the last quarter.  Unfortunately that will translate into 2,000 additional layoffs at Sony Ericsson, which has  seen its share of the market slip an additional 2 points to an abysmal 6%.  But the losses of Nokia and Sony Ericsson are nothing compared to the dramatic fall from grace which Motorola has suffered in the past year.  Once the number one handset maker, they now share a paltry 6% of the market.

Poor T-Mobile can’t quite catch a break with their “iPhone Killer” Android phone.  The public and media just don’t seem enthusiastic about the device.  To date, just one million of the slightly clunky Android phones have been sold.  The Android platform is open to any developer or handset manufacturer, but that hasn’t resulted in critical mass - at least not yet.

The cable companies managed to make their own little bit of news this month as Cablevision prepared to roll out its super high speed internet service which promises to bring a blazing 101 MBPS to users in New York City for just $99.95 per month.  Streaming American Idol will be a snap at speeds that high.  They might even find a way to wrestle a few bucks out of Uncle Sam’s broadband stimulus to make the product available in more areas and possibly at more affordable rates.  Meanwhile, Time Warner cable continues to piss off savvy consumers with talk of a broadband cap.  We honestly have to wonder if anyone at the company is capable of touching the pulse of the government and consumers - both of whom are pushing for bigger, better, faster, cheaper when it comes to broadband.  No one wants to worry about the number of I Love Lucy episodes that they can download before big brother turns off the Internet.  Time Warner needs to catch a clue.  The need for higher bandwidth just increased exponentially as broadcasters and consumers have switched to high definition media and streaming.

Things are a bit different at AT&T which has been hit hard over the last few years as consumer long distance began to dry up as a viable business model.  However, the company has successfully shifted its focus to more lucrative wireless and Internet services and is displaying strong vital signs and impressive resilience in this troubled economy.  We’re just not quite sure how the public is going to react to their new family tracking service know as “Family Maps,” which allows you to keep tabs on the physical location of all mobile units on your account.  We can only assume that the app was developed by George Orwell or the NSA, but your teenager is still going to find a way around the service (that’s what they do best).  In less spooky news, iPhone owners will rejoice as AT&T prepares to nearly double the speed of their 3G network in coming months.

Higher speeds aren’t the only thing that iPhone owners have to celebrate, as Apple has just sold its one billionth app last month.  That’s a whole lot of sales in a very short period of time.  So what do you do to celebrate your success? Sketchy reports claim that Apple has been in hot and heavy talks with Verizon about possibly bringing an iPhone and a new tablet like device (rumored to be a larger format high resolution iTouch-like device) to AT&T’s rival.  Some think that Apple is merely using Verizon to get a better deal from AT&T whose exclusive iPhone contract is set to run out next year.  But two can play at that game as Verizon is also rumored to be in talks with Apple’s chief rival, Microsoft, regarding a Zune-phone.  Is Verizon playing hardball with Apple in the attempt to win an iPhone contract, or do they simply hope to land both of these competitors?  They shouldn’t count on it.  Apple looks to be the player with the loaded hand and AT&T and Verizon would each be lucky to land a deal.  Still, with each passing year, the temptation for Apple to make its attractive iPhone available on other networks becomes increasingly likely.  The iPhone will no doubt become network independent at some point in the future as it burns through the number of potential converts from AT&T.

If you enjoy corporate thrillers, Sun Microsystems was in the middle of a big one last month.  IBM chased Sun and sought what it thought was a sweet deal for the server and Solaris operating system company.  But when Sun asked for more money than IBM thought was reasonable, IBM abruptly broke off negotiations and Sun’s shares plummeted.  But not for long.  In a shocking turn of events IBM’s competitor, Oracle, snapped up Sun for $7.4 billion in a move that is sure to shake up the suits at Big Blue.  There are many unanswered questions surrounding this deal, mostly involving Sun’s open source efforts with Open Office, MySQL and Java.

And that’s the sort of month it was - one minute, a handset maker was reporting gloom and in the next we’d hear the juicy details of corporate intrigue.  In the end, April proved to be a stormy mistress, but as they say, “April showers bring May flowers” . . .  a saying that we can only hope comes true.

Moto’s Meltdown

The once powerful Motorola is in a head first plunge toward the icy waters of  irrelevance since it’s leap from the peak of the cellular handset world.  As a result, Moto is preparing to separate its handset losses from the rest of the company with a planned spin-off of its wireless phone division.  However, results from the last quarter don’t bode much better for the rest of the company.

Motorola saw its net loss grow to $231 million in the last quarter with a fall of nearly $2 billion in sales over the same period last year.

At its high in 2005, Motorola held a 25% share of the mobile handset market.  That share is currently 6% with a wince inducing loss of 23% from the previous quarter alone.

Moto will attempt to turn the death slide around with new Android based smart phones later this year, but many fear that tough competition in the smart phone market may make such a move too little  too late.

The remainder of the company saw heavy, if not as dramatic, losses as well.  Sales in the home networking division fell 16% in the last quarter and 11% in the enterprise business unit.

The company lost over $1 Billion of its cash reserves in the last three months with about $5.8 billion remaining.

Tweeted To The Max

What happens when a little free word of mouth gets out of hand . . . let’s look at Twitter to find out.  

Like the rest of the world, I’ve been hooked by the simplicity of Twitter.com, the newest social networking phenom.  But lately, I’ve had the sneaking suspicion that Twitter was having a hard time keeping up with me.  Increasingly, instead of being able to post a 140 character message, I’ve received a picture of a whale being lifted out of the water by little birds - the infamous Twitter “Fail Whale”.  Cute, but annoying, and a sign that Twitter is drowning in its own success.

Twitter has caught fire and is now growing at the hard to imagine rate of 2,565 percent.

Twitter has become a household name, in no small measure due to celebrity shout-outs from the likes of Oprah, Ashton Kutcher, Larry King and and many other well know folks from the entertainment and corporate world.  Kutcher became the first person to reach one million followers, followed less than an hour later by CNN.  But it is the use by business for marketing purposes (ourselves included) who have made Twitter a sudden necessity for corporate communication.  Even stogy old stalwart like AT&T are now happily tweeting away.

The question that so many are wondering is will Twitter be able to scale quick enough to match its success, or will the fail whale become a symbol for what can happen when your free business model suddenly leads to more success than you can handle?

-iTodd

Telecom Monthly is on twitter too, you can follow us at twitter.com/telecommonthly

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You be the judge - Will Motorola Survive?
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