Continuing to dominate the tablet market, Apple has announced sales of three million new iPads over the three days launch. That's double the sales of the previous iPad launch, but with two models to choose from, which was more popular?
They Fly Off Shelves, But Which Flies Further?
Apple has made its usual post-launch sales announcement, with the news that it sold three million fourth-generation and mini iPads over the launch weekend. Apple provided no breakdown of the sales, which hit 34 countries on Friday, and with the launch of the cellular models still to come, there could be a lot of market confusion as the tablet sales shake out into the holiday season.
Were the same 1.5 million buyers who turned up for the iPad 3 launch buying one of each model to round out their collection? Apple's brief release fails to enlighten us, probably as it won't want rivals to know which of its products is delivering the best sales.
Given the appalling east coast weather during the launch, Apple would likely have sold more, even though trade was reported as brisk at its New York outlets. There is also no word on Mac or iPod sales, which were also refreshed at Apple's October event.
Tablet Market Warfare
After the immense battery of launches and sales in October, Apple now faces major competition in the tablet market. To highlight that point, IDC's latest stats show Apple's tablet market share down to just over 50%, down from 60% this time last year. No matter, how good the reviews, sheer choice will dilute Apple's sales.
Chart: Worldwide Tablet Vendors Market Share, 2012Q3Description: Worldwide Quarterly Tablet TrackerIDC's Worldwide Quarterly Tracker provides total market size and vendor share for both the Tablet and eReader markets in 46 countries. Detailed segmentation is provided by CPU, operating system, connectivity type, screen size and resolution, storage, distribution channel, and customer segment. Measurement for this tracker is in units, value, and end-user price. For more information, or to subscribe to the research, please contact Kathy Nagamine at 1-650-350-6423 or knagamine@idc.com. Further detail about this tracker can be found at:http://www.idc.com/tracker/showproductinfo.jsp?prod_id=81Tags: Samsung, Apple, Amazon, Asus, Lenovo, Tablet, IDC, tracker, Q3 2012, 3Q 2012, market share, galaxy, iPad, Kindle, Transformer, ideapad, 2012Q3Author: IDCcharts powered by iCharts
While second place Samsung can only manage 5%, expect Microsoft and partners to make a sizeable entrance in the next set of figures. On a positive note for the major players, shipments are up across the board, and Apple's new numbers might shift the balance back up.
Meanwhile Apple is still rolling on, with moves toward a 6.10 release of iOS via a new beta, and the release of the cellular-equipped tablets. It will soon however be having to defend its tax position with stories around the world about its paltry (but completely legal) contributions in some countries.
It looks like Microsoft has the stage all to itself today with a west-coast launch of Windows Phone 8. Google has been forced to postpone its Fall product launch due to the impending hurricane, which is being recording in minute detail across the web.
Not A Good Day
With the impending hurricane threatening a large part of the east coast and New York, Google had little choice but to cancel its launch of the new Nexus 4 smartphone and the expanded range of Nexus tablets. Since most of the information is already out there, a delay won't hurt the company, and with minds on more practical matters, focus and coverage would be limited.
That leaves Microsoft with a free run across the tech press with its San Francisco Windows Phone 8 launch event, assuming they've cleared up from all the rioting last night over the Giant's World Series win. That will come hot on the heels of the Windows 8 launch, that Microsoft managed to pull off in Times Square before the weather closed in.
Social Takes Over
With so much information about the hurricane needing to be dispersed over such a wide area, social media is leaping to the fore. Not only can those in the hurricane's track keep a detailed eye on its progress vita Twitter, but the world is watching on beach-front web-cams and every local news site is doing its best to keep readers informed.
Google isn't abandoning its users though, a mash-ups of Google Maps and the storm track, or more practically, evacuation center information and other details are being put online to help. Those faraway, perhaps on one of the thousands of cancelled flights, are getting help and advice online wherever they are stuck.
Decision makers and the general public are all getting direct data as the weather recon planes and sea buoys measure the surging tides and wave height, and the plummeting air pressure in the heart of the storm. As long as the power holds out, this will be the best recorded hurricane in history.
On a local, state, national and global basis, everyone's actions are under scrutiny. From foolish weather presenters trying to get closest to the storm to the politicians and civil leaders who must manage the response, the next few hours and days won't be a good time to make a public mistake. Stay safe if you're in the direct path, under the threat of blizzards or flooding inland and we'll hope to see you on the other side.
No one else comes close as the two heavyweights for tech gadgets blow the field away with their latest figures. Apple reported its third-quarter iPhone 5 launch profits, but Samsung is way ahead in overall sales.
Sales Apocalypse Incoming!
Next quarter, Apple will report its figures for the recently announced iPad 4, iPad mini, new iPods and new Macs. It threatens to be the biggest thing since The Beatles, which for some men in suits talking numbers is pretty scary. This quarter, Apple merely reported the 5 million iPhone 5 sales and a few other bits and pieces (get the detailed numbers here).
The company reported $36 billion in revenue, $8.2 billion in net profit, based on sales of 26.9 million iPhones, 14 million iPads, 4.9 million Macs and 5.3 million iPods. iPod sales were down almost 20% from this period last year but could well ping back up as the new models launch, Mac sales sneaked up 1%, but will all those new models may well go ballistic while iPad sales are up 25%.
That lot represents a record September quarter for Apple, and it is expecting $52 billion in the next quarter (and Apple usually underestimates these numbers)! Shareholders get a dividend of $2.65 per share.
Enter Samsung's Powerhouse
Samsung, with its far wider product range (including the new mini Galaxy SIII) and the fact that it makes stuff for a lot of other companies (including Apple, as well as Google's new 10-inch tablet), manages to make Apple's figures look pretty small. The company sold 56.3 million smartphones, which accounts for over 31% of the global market, double Apple's 15% figure. However, Samsung's stock value is just a third of Apple's.
However, its financial figures are pretty comparable with net profit for the South Korean firm doubled to a record 6.6 trillion Korean Won, around $6 billion in 3Q, powered by smartphone sales and huge demand for its processors, display panels and use of its manufacturing base.
The figure isn't higher than Apple's as Samsung struggles with the lumbering HDTV market (although its large TV panel sales are back in profit), and making all these things is expensive, with continuous rising costs in Asia. There is no breakdown yet on how the Samsung Galaxy SIII is selling (Samsung say it has shipped 20 million). That will be the key point of comparison for many, and while Apple is expected to surge next quarter, Samsung is looking at reduced profits.
Anyone Else?
The other smartphone makers are so far down the scale it seems rude to compare them. The analyst firms will produce their next comparisons in the coming weeks, but it doesn't look like good news for anyone outside the top two.
On the tablet front, Amazon also reported its figures with a $274 million net loss, but only stated that the Kindle FIre HD (which it sells at a loss) was the No. 1 product across Amazon stores worldwide. With the product just hitting Europe and Japan expect it to continue to dominate in the run up to Christmas and the company to benefit from content sales.
Despite their legal battles, both must be pretty happy at the top of the pile, and it is hard to see how even almighty Windows Phone 8 and Surface or Lumia and Asha sales could propel Microsoft or Nokia anywhere close, that is a battle that will take years to win.
There's plenty of handwringing and tech speculating around the launch of Microsoft's Surface tablet--most of it about whether consumers are interested in coughing up $499 for the new toy. But the true star of the Surface--its new Windows 8 operating system, which launches today--means infinitely more to a swath of tech giants that include Acer, HP, and Toshiba. Microsoft's Windows 8 could fuel their success, and yet for the first time ever, they'll compete with Microsoft in hardware.
Then there's Apple, which looms over the launch of any new device that isn't an iGadget. Windows 8, while certainly an elegant entry to the software space that will enable more mobile consumption, is also arriving years late to the industry, after Apple has struck a commanding lead in the smartphone and tablet markets. Just this week, for example, Tim Cook boasted that Apple sells more iPads now than any OEM competitor sells PCs. Pressured from all sides, OEMs will now be competing with each other on Windows 8; with their own software partner Microsoft for the Surface; with their own Android-powered products; and most dauntingly, with Apple.
So the question now is whether traditional hardware manufacturers--those long dependent on licensing third-party software and pushing low-cost hardware at high volumes--have finally reached an inflection point. And if so, why didn't they see it coming?
In a series of recent interviews with executives and top players from hardware giants--including Acer, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Samsung, Sony, and Toshiba--Fast Company asked about industry disruptions, about their dependency on third-party software makers such Google and Microsoft, and whether they are experiencing the Innovator's Dilemma, the term coined by Harvard professor and author Clayton Christensen to describe when companies put too much emphasis on current current needs rather than adapting to the technology needs of tomorrow. At a moment when most pundits are scrutinizing processor speeds, price points, and device performance, we asked how these companies now approach innovation in a world increasingly dominated by mobile, and in a mobile world increasingly dominated by Apple. We'll be rolling out the full series in the coming days.
Given Apple's announcement this week that it has sold 100 million iPads to date, we started by asking hardware manufacturers one question: Why didn't they--and not Apple--invent the iPad first?
It's a tough one. But as nuanced as the answers may be, most can be summed up in two words: Blame Microsoft.
Hardware makers like Dell and Toshiba have relied on Microsoft's operating system for decades. This culture of dependency means innovation is essentially limited by what Microsoft says is possible. Apple, on the other hand, has controlled both the hardware and software, allowing it the freedom to dream up and developed game-changing products such as the iPod, iPhone, and iPad. As David Johnson, Dell's SVP of corporate strategy, told me, "Apple has a different business model than the Dell business model ... The reason we didn't come up with [the iPad] is because there wasn't an OS provider that could work with a tablet."
"In order to come out with a tablet, you had to have the ability at that time to influence and manage the power architecture, as well as a software layer," Johnson continues. "The reason why Apple has had so much success is because they've vertically integrated all of that into their environment. If you step back and look, that's not been Dell's historical model. We leverage and integrate others' technologies. But in this particular case, those other technologies didn't exist until now. I can simplify it to say that the Android system didn't work in a tablet form factor, Microsoft wasn't ready, and we're not an OS provider--we had a dependency on the OS providers."
Samsung mostly echoes Johnson's sentiment. "I think it's a matter of timing," says Samsung SVP David Song. "For instance, with the PC, without Windows 8, it's very hard to make such kinds of tablets--that type of hardware. Apple and Android provided ecosystems, and with Windows 8, Microsoft has just opened a new ecosystem. But before having that ecosystem, it was very hard to deliver these types of devices. That's why [a Windows 8] tablet like the iPad or an Android tablet has just been launched."
Peter Hortensius, president of Lenovo's global product group, says, "I think the global view is that everyone got a little bit surprised by touch [technology]. We had touch devices, but the industry just didn't connect the dots like [Apple]."
Hortensius lets out a short chuckle when I ask him why Lenovo didn't create the iPad before Apple.
"Well, if I knew that I might be living on a beach somewhere in a tiki hut retired," he says.
Stay tuned for more thoughts in the coming days on innovation and disruption from HP, Acer, Lenovo, Samsung, Sony, Dell, and Toshiba.
The computing world won't change overnight with the launch of Windows 8, but in a few years time, the digital environment could be influenced heavily by what Microsoft shows today in New York.
The Big Day is Here
It is kind of odd watching a Microsoft software launch, we've seen the operating system in action since the first builds, developer betas, public trials and all the way up to RTM. So, there isn't a huge amount for Microsoft to amaze us with.
But, combined with all the new hardware that's coming, Microsoft can still pull off a few tricks. And it has to both amaze, inform and delight with the launch, as hundreds of millions of perfectly happy Windows 7, Vista and XP owners remain to be convinced.
You can watch the webcast here, and we'll update with product and feature news as it happens. With Microsoft having taken over a chunk of Times Square for the whole day, it could be quite a long running series of events.
Vyre has announced the launch of On Brand 2.4, the newest version of their Brand Asset Management (BAM) Solution. This updated version of On Brand, which started as a tool used to help users manage digital content on mobile devices, has a variety of new features designed to make the SaaS based system more efficient and easier to use.
Vyre, whose marketing automation solution product, Unify, is being used to improve content management has brought a variety of new features to On Brand, its brand management solution. These new features include, advanced reporting, more support for devices that have HTML5 video, such as tablets and mobile devices, streamlining and UI enhancements, documentation and updated help guides.
Reporting
As with other versions of Vyre On Brand, version 2.4 provides users with the ability to configure reports and comment on how digital assets are being used and to export the information to other places, like Excel. Now, users can also base their reports around their creative workflow projects. These projects can be filtered by type, date, users, activity and brand, while users can also also choose what information can be displayed to themselves and other users.
HTML5 Video
Vyre recognizes that there are more users who use iOS and Android devices, such as smartphones and tablets. With this new update, it’s easier for users to play video (in all of the major web browsers) on devices that use HTML5.
Creative Workflow
With On Brand 2.4 the Creative Workflow module has be updated to allow users to manage their projects more easily and efficiently. Updates include:
More administrator rights for administrating projects.
Filtering by brand to add users to projects.
User profiles can be linked project members.
Revisions no longer need a project manager’s approval.
General efficiency updates to project overviews, activity listings, brief management and the viewing and filtering of projects.
Multi-brand Enhancements
Users are now able to manage brands more easily, with a simpler system that provides more brand support. Clients now have a choice between single branded On Brand, multi brand and tailored On Brand, with customizations.
Users can create sub-domains, which can be managed and used within the system by both clients and partners.
Products and clients can have their own sub-page (for example: brandname.company.com).
Sub-brands, including individual brand users, assets, articles, taxonomy and permissions can now be quickly created within the system.
Help Guides
An online help site has been added to On Brand to help with users problems and questions about the system. Help Guides include both short videos, on each area of the system and text guides.
Working on the hush-hush, a team of AOL developers has reconceived the way email is experienced. Photograph by Thomas Hannich
How does it feel to throw a product launch and have nobody come? Just ask AOL. In November 2010, the company unveiled Project Phoenix, a platform intended to rev up its doddering email business. Once synonymous with email--and mailbox-cluttering installation CDs/drink coasters--AOL had been lapped by free-mail rivals Yahoo, Microsoft, and Google, and an @aol.com email address had become the tech equivalent of an AARP membership card. The goal with Phoenix was to turn that around by offering Gmailesque features such as threaded emails and built-in chat, plus new functions like the ability to update your Facebook and Twitter statuses. The company even offered alternatives to the unhip AOL domain name: @ygm.com ("you've got mail"), @games, @wow, and @love. And to maximize its usefulness, Phoenix let users aggregate any external email accounts into their AOL inbox.
Phoenix landed with a thud. Existing AOL Mail users didn't see a compelling reason to switch to the platform, and--perhaps because it looked so much like Gmail--neither did many other people. (At its peak, Phoenix had 30,000 users; currently it's chugging along with 15,000 devotees despite the fact that AOL no longer officially supports the service.)
Now, with less fanfare, AOL is trying again with a platform called Alto, which launched on October 18. But unlike Phoenix, which merely tweaked the email experience, Alto is a complete reimagination of it. And here's a real shocker: AOL produced Alto through the kind of speedy, agile development process you'd associate with a startup, not a $3 billion corporation that defined web 1.0.
Alto is the product of a deliberate strategy change in the wake of the Phoenix fail. David Temkin, AOL's SVP of mobile and mail, split AOL's email operations into two tracks. One group continued to work on upgrading existing AOL users via incremental improvements that were unveiled this July. The other team, working under the radar even within the company, had license to create a truly disruptive product. "Email hasn't had a serious rethink really since Gmail came out," says Temkin. "We wanted to take a swing at that and not be tethered by the existing 20 million or so people using AOL Mail. The idea was to create without scrutiny and questioning."
David Temkin, right, AOL’s SVP of mobile and mail, gave Alto director Joshua Ramirez, left, and his team free rein to create an email product that looks and functions unlike any other platform. | Photo by Kevin Kunishi
Temkin assembled a cross-functional team of about a dozen developers, designers, and product managers, led by Joshua Ramirez, a senior director for product management of AOL Mail and Alto. Both Ramirez, a 37-year-old who had previously logged time at Apple, eBay, and Yahoo, and Temkin, 45, a veteran of Apple and Palm, brought fresh eyes to the project, having joined the company after the Phoenix launch. Drawing on insights gleaned from ethnographic studies of Phoenix users, they aimed to keep what people liked (aggregating multiple email accounts, for instance) and remedy what they didn't (multiple accounts also multiplied inbox clutter and email anxiety).
First proposed in April 2011, Alto was slated for a beta launch the following October. "What allowed us to move so quickly was having design, development, and product constantly talk in real time," says Ramirez. "It wasn't your typical waterfall process, where you define requirements, the developers build it, hand it off to QA, and 12 months later you have a product. This was continuous development." Key details were ironed out during an off-site hackathon, in August, at a rustic retreat near Monterey, California. Says Ramirez, "We packed three weeks into six days."
Visually, Alto won't be mistaken for its competition. "We wanted a product that could attract people from across a coffee shop," says Temkin, who relied on design director Bill Wetherell to create a user interface that passed "the 15-foot test." Alto is a web-based client that looks like a mashup of Twitter and Pinterest, with incoming mail showing up in a vertical feed along the left side of the page. Abutting it is a thin column of icons for basic functions (compose a message, find a contact). The right two-thirds of the window is dominated by rows of tiles called "stacks." These are the source of the platform's unique look, as well as its innovative functionality. "We wanted to provide a post-foldering approach to organization," says Ramirez. (You can create folders in Alto, but AOL's studies show that few consumers actually use them.) The stacks update dynamically and work continuously, automatically sorting incoming messages, which also appear in your main feed, into five default groupings: daily deals, social notifications, retail, photos, and attachments.
These piles reflect the most common categories of email received by AOL accounts--and the fact is that even in the Facebook era, email remains the de facto beast of burden for photos and attachments. Notes Temkin, "No one's going to send bills to your Facebook account, and you're not going to get financial statements sent over text messages."
Alto uses a visual search to display the content being delivered: Click on the photos or attachments stack and you get an instant array of thumbnails displaying its contents--no searching or opening of messages required. Users can also create custom stacks for subjects like travel, work projects, or family by setting simple rules for sorting by sender, domain, or keywords. There's even an option to have certain types of messages bypass the inbox altogether, instead sending them right to a stack for periodic checking. Explains Temkin, "By sifting through bulk mail, you end up with the things that really matter in your inbox."
From studying Phoenix, the Alto team knew that while people like to aggregate multiple accounts, they didn't want to set up a new account in order to do so. With Alto, users can simply log in with an existing Gmail, Yahoo, .mac, or AOL account. (At least initially, Alto won't support POP3 email.) This is a platform meant to streamline your routine, not add to it.
Still in development is Alto's business model. Mail is a key driver for AOL's media properties--the default entry point for AOL Mail users is the AOL Today page, which links to top stories from the Huffington Post, Patch, and other AOL brands. Temkin insists that connecting users to content won't be as central to Alto, though there will eventually be a "top stories" stack containing news clippings that link to, say, HuffPo articles. "We're looking at ways of monetizing this product," he says. "Unlike AOL Mail, we'll likely implement premium features that you pay for on a subscription basis. AOL Mail is a purely advertising-supported product. Alto is optimized for acquiring email users who are open to a new experience."
Even if Alto grabs those users, Macquarie Capital analyst Ben Schachter says it's not likely to elevate AOL's fortunes in the short term. Although its stock price has more than doubled in 2012 and the company posted its smallest revenue decline in seven years in the second quarter--thanks largely to a $1 billion patent sale to Microsoft--AOL's revenue from display advertising on its media properties was basically flat, and its subscription-access business continued free-falling, dropping another 13%. "Efforts like new mail or video are interesting," says Schachter, "but AOL hasn't proved it can make them into meaningful businesses. Changing people's email habits is a tough thing to do."
Six weeks before launch, a calm and confident-seeming Ramirez and Temkin are focused on software bugs, not business plans, making sure that the "minimal viable product" that early adopters see this fall "works well, is beautiful, and addresses the main case uses of email," says Temkin. "We're a big company and we want to rebuild a reputation for innovation. I feel we have an infinitely stronger product than we did with Phoenix--but it's best to speak softly and carry a big demo."
San Jose is the place to be, as Apple confirms the 23 October launch event for the iPad Mini, setting it up for a battle royale with Microsoft's new Surface tablets.
Contenders, Ready…
Okay, these two devices aren't direct competitors, however by launching around the same time, it gives the watching world a grandstand view of a real Microsoft vs. Apple battle, something we haven't really seen before since the early and recent-era PC days.
Microsoft unveiled the pricing of its Surface tablets earlier, which pitches it directly against the full-size iPad range, with the addition of its unique cover/keyboard. While the iPad Mini is designed to compete more with the Kindle Fires and Nexus tablets of this world, its premium quality and iOS experience will make for interesting comparisons from users.
With Apple having confirmed the news of a 23 October event, which will show off the new Mini iPad the new iTunes, a new Retina MacBook, perhaps new Mac Minis and maybe some other goodies, it might be quite a show.
But with all this news leaking out well in advance, Apple really needs to ditch the "look at our magic" presentations and do something new and different. A more hard-hitting, consumer focused event with content subscriptions to broaden the ageing iTunes approach will be greatly appreciated.
In the Eye of the Consumer
So, with the holiday season looming, buyers will have a wider choice of tablets than ever before. Apple, Android makers and Microsoft will all be promoting their devices heavily. Certainly, Apple's market dominance will be watered down come next year, but Apple will be happy maintaining its margins and the sense of "best-of-breed", regardless of how true (or not) that perception is.
Microsoft will be looking to set a decent base on which to grow the Windows 8 (and Windows RT) base. But, it risks user confusion and fragmentation from its multi-OS approach, while Android makers will be looking to pick up on the massive Android smartphone user base.
The iPad Mini really could be the first Apple device in some time that fails to impress, as it launches into such a crowded, vibrant market. While Surface tablets may lack the vibrancy of the iOS ecosystem, if it takes off in numbers, that advantage could soon be wiped out. So, there is much to play for from all parties and it will be the mis-steps and mistakes that are more likely to be remembered than the successes.
Yet another DAM week has flown by. In digital asset management news, there’s some DAM fun (and games), a major upgrade for MediaBeacon’s R3volution 5.1 and a full launch of the CognoSys CogDAM suite.
Game On
You may not be accustomed to seeing “games” and “digital asset management” in the same sentence, but gamification has established major beachheads in CRM, sales management tools, retail websites and training — so why not join the fun?
One example is metadata games created by the Tiltfactor Lab at Dartmouth, under the direction of Dr. Mary Flanagan.
A suite of open source, free, Net-based games were developed to increase the use of archives, initially using the collection at the school’s Rauner Library. Participants in Zen Tag, for instance, simply list descriptors for a random image displayed from the collection. “For some reason, it is a compelling activity,” the Lab researchers note on their website. And, in their Guess What? game, one of two players selects an image (from among several displayed) based on clues sent by the other, networked player.
In a brief essay, "Is Gamification the Next Big Thing for DAM Systems?" AssetBank, a browser-based DAM application vendor, tackles the question that is probably on your mind. It may already be too late to hold back the tide of fun, the essay says, given that research firm Gartner predicts more than 50 percent of organizations that manage innovation processes will gamify those processes by 2015.
MediaBeacon Unveils 5.1
MediaBeacon has announced a major upgrade to its DAM platform. New features in R3volution 5.1 include real-time predictive search with data mining algorithms and access control rules, theme management of the interface, the ability to quickly publish assets across MediaBeacon instances and an expanded API.
Other upgrades include a “complete adoption” of HTML5 to facilitate using the platform on an iPad, and enhanced support for external applications.
CognoSys Launches CogDAM
India-based VAR and integrator CognoSys Technologies has launched its end-to-end CogDAM Digital Asset Management suite, although arguably it is closer to the Media Asset Management end of the spectrum.
The suite includes a single-click encoding service with live streaming based on Microsoft’s Azure Media Services, and an integrated environment for managing a media portfolio in-house, including images or video. Videos taken in the field can be immediately transferred to the media server, encoded in multiple formats without human intervention, and streamed to any user on any device.
CognoSys envisions such use cases as corporate intranet TV for training or product information for employees, suppliers and clients, or event live streaming.
Today marks the launch of the latest iPhone. We'll update over the course of the day with any drama or quirks, as the residents of the lucky launch territories get their hands on Apple's newest upgrade.
Stories From the Stores
The Apple iPhone 5 hit the stores today in territories around the world. Things got off to a shaky start for the rather maligned Maps app in iOS 6.0 as it couldn't even find the Apple Store in Sydney, Australia. The countdown to the sale there was met with a rather tired cheer due to some customers who'd been queuing for days to be at the front of the line.
Here's a pic by Twitter user Jen Dudley Nicholson of the final countdown, she also points out there were no iPhone 5 covers in the store, making for nervous moments for those who don't like their naked iPhones to get dinged.
Britain's Stiff Upper iLip
In London there are reports of queues of 800+ people around some stores for the new phone (I genuinely thought most people wouldn't be that bothered, so color me impressed). The doors have just opened in stores and we'll try and get some news from the frontlines.
If you're not at a store in the U.K., then you can order an iPhone 5 from most stores. A tip here, the 16GB and 32GB models seem to have two week backlogs in most places, which may well grow as interest picks up, but you can pick up the 64GB model with just a few days wait, although that may well change.
This month is pretty much draws a line under what has come before for smartphones, and defines where the market heads in future. Today saw Nokia and Motorola launch bigger, better models, with new features. But, will the public bite and will they matter in just a few months time as Apple awaits?
Motorola on a Roll
One time kings of the mobile market, Motorola has been looking to win back users with a series of increasingly impressive devices since the original Razr. The new Droid Razr HD from the now Google-owned Motorola comes with a larger 4.7-inch SuperAMOLED HD screen, a bigger battery (unless you own a Razr Maxx) and the promise of 24 hours usage.
Packing Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, and Google's Chrome browser, there is a lot of power inside the executive-styled design, but is that enough to make anyone rush out for an upgrade, or to abandon their rival device for a Motorola? Even the promise of an imminent upgrade to Jelly Bean is just par for the course.
Nokia Not Out, Yet
Pretty much as seen yesterday, Nokia took to the stage and launched the Lumia 920, despite a hiccup with the webfeed that left viewers in the cold. Powered by Windows Phone 8, Nokia has good reason to hope for a serious boost to Lumia sales which have now hit 7 million in a little under a year.
To cover a wider section of the market, there is also the Lumia 820, a mid-range and more compact device. But, you know a company is kind of lost when it thinks announcing deals with airlines to put wireless rechargers in their lounges is important. Just how tiny a percentage of the potential user base does that sort of gimmick really appeal to?
Nokia will be hoping to make more of an impact with its free music streaming service, that was announced before the main event. But, again, most users already have a sizeable music collection or are happy with existing services, signing up for another one is just a hassle many don't need. Nokia's stock price plummeted after the reveal, suggesting investors aren't convinced either.
The Falling Apple
For Apple, whatever it does with the iPhone 5 at its 12 September event, it must be slightly boring to know they'll crush this opposition on the first day of sales. However, in the big scheme of things, the only way is down in terms of hype, market share and prestige value. A slightly bigger screen is hardly cause for a big whoop. More power? Who really needs it? Better maps? Yawn!
While Apple has a huge advantage over the likes of Nokia and Motorola, a sizeable percentage of iPhone 4S owners are part way through their two-year contract. With the move to tablets (on recent trips, I've seen large numbers of owners taking their iPad or Nexus out and using it as a camera and social media device on the go), a new phone is less of a must-have.
Yes, Apple will still sell many millions of iPhone 5s, but as the overall concept of the smartphone matures and stagnates, users will have fewer reasons to get excited, enthused and sucked in. Samsung seem to have hit the right note with the in-between Note device, so it perhaps in TV or another area that Apple will look too for its next multi-billion dollar business.
Drupal, get ready for some fun. Badgeville announced the launch of its gamification and behavior management platform for the open-source content, social and commerce management system.
The integration is designed to simplify the ability to apply what Badgeville calls “engagement mechanics” to websites built and managed with Drupal. It will be offered by Drupal-service provider Acquia to its customers.
Engaging for Rewards
Gamification rewards desired behaviors such as starting discussion forums, commenting and writing and replying to blog posts in order to increase customer loyalty, satisfaction and retention. There are also “anti-gaming mechanics,” which set limits on how many times a behavior can be rewarded.
Badgeville CEO Kris Duggan said in a statement that this is the first integration between an “industry-leading gamification and behavior platform and Drupal.” He added that Badgeville uses Drupal, along with customized functionalities, to manage its own Badgeville Community.
Other current customers who use Badgeville with Drupal include iVillage, Paypay’s X.commerce and PropertyInvesting.com. The company said that its customers typically see increases in user behavior tied to business objectives of between 20 and 200 percent.
Badgeville said that its platform has led to significant increases in customer loyalty and engagement. It cited the example of Mother Nature Network, a site focused on environmental and sustainability news, that uses the Badgeville platform to reward such behaviors as Green Blog posts, reader comments and uploading videos.
Points, Levels, Missions
The gamification platform’s rewards include points, achievements, levels, tracks and missions. Its social gaming techniques include contests, leaderboards and notifications.
For instance, a user is notified that someone has written a review on the site about a new line of sneakers. That user reads the review, writes a comment, and then writes his or her own review. Badgeville’s gamification components can award the user with a Marathon achievement level, which the platform allows to be used for special privileges or discounts.
Based in Menlo Park, California and founded in 2010, Badgeville provides gamification and social engagement solutions to influence and analyze user behavior.
The Cupertino-based company has sent out the invites for next week's launch event for the iPhone 5. With the iPad Mini likely shifted to October, expect Apple to focus strongly on the new hardware and software features as it struggles to offer differentiation in an increasingly level playing field of superphones.
What's in a Name?
The Apple invite offers little in the way of hints to dig for, with a great big shadowy "5" suggesting the device will actually be called iPhone 5 rather than any of the other suggested monikers. The phone's design and iOS 6 features have been discussed to death, with most of the physical features leaked as prototype parts or actual components.
Hitting New Heights?
As usual, there will be a massive wave of hype as the product is shown off in full form for the first time. Even with the new design, there are so many varied devices with screen resolutions, mega-cameras, novel materials and built-in features, that Apple could struggle to stand out from the crowd.
This time it will be the new software features that really need to shine, to help keep up Apple's momentum. After the relatively niche appeal of Siri, what can Apple add this time beyond the shown-in-beta maps and other tweaks?
The new iPhone should be available for pre-order straight after the event (and after the Apple store has recovered from the inevitable surge and crash). it is likely to go onsale around the 21 September, but with so many users on long term contracts or having migrated to other devices, the days of huge queues flooding stores (outside China) are likely to be over.
Following on last week's unstructured data management product launch, Quest has just announced a new business intelligence tool that aims to build a bridge between business analysts who create data, and data consumers that use that data to make decisions.
Quest Toad
So maybe that’s a fancy way of saying Quest has launched a new suite of business intelligence tools that aim to take meaning from data, but it also highlights the huge gap that has emerged between those who are developing data and those that need to use it.
The new tools, which are built around Quest’s Toad suite, aim to provide enterprises with the ability to leapfrog the gap between IT and business users securely and without having to pay out a small fortune for it.
The Toad concept is not new. Toad has been around for a while in the shape of Toad for Oracle, for database administrators for Oracle products, and is available for Microsoft’s SQL Server, IBM’s DB2 and Sybase as well.
Toad Business Intelligence
According to Quest, the new BI Suite is a collection of three separate existing tools from Quest that, combined, will enable organizations to access, integrate, cleanse and distribute data across the enterprise. The three tools consist of:
Toad Intelligence Central: This is the hub of the new suite providing a virtual data layer across existing BI and IT architectures. It enables users to share data and offers data views across the two desktop tools: Data Point, Decision Point.
Data Point: Connects to traditional data sources like relational database management systems, or data warehouses, along with connections to non-traditional data sources including Salesforce.com, Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition, and other cloud data sources.
Decision Point: Enables users to combine, explore, analyze and understand data in simple interactive views to speed data analytics without issues with compliance or governance.
The BI Suite also helps technical and non-technical users understand data by offering new interfaces. With it, technical users have all the tools needed to provision and deliver complex data, while non-technical business consumers can access this data through visualizations or existing business intelligence systems.
It also provides automated dataflow processes that enable self-service data integration with agile access to data located in different repositories across the enterprise. By enabling enterprises to connect all data sources and cutting out manual processes, Quest offers the ability to analyze data over longer timeframes that provide more accurate pictures of what’s happening.
Toad Business Intelligence Suite is available now, with North American pricing at US$ 1,295 per named user with a minimum of five seats. If you’re interested in more on this, check out the video below.
While it would be easier to get blood from a stone, than confirmation from Apple, all the ecosystem signs are now pointing to a 21 September launch for the next iPhone, with Verizon banning all sales staff holiday from that date until the end of the month.
Ringing in the Changes and the Sales
As a spectator sport, frankly Apple could sell tickets and popcorn for its launch events. This year, Verizon has all but confirmed the date for the new iPhone by cancelling holiday from that point for the rest of the month. I'm quite happy with my iPhone 4S, I have no need for a more powerful device, or a bigger screen, or any of the other bells and whistles Apple will no doubt be offering, but for a gadget circus, this should be hard to beat.
With all signs now pointing to a 12 September launch event and the opening of pre-orders (hopefully Apple will have bulked up the web store, but I bet it will still keel over within seconds) for the iPhone 5, with it going on sale the following week. There is also the likely announcement of the iPad Mini (or whatever it will be called) which should be available in October, we're all set for another fun Fall of gadget watching.
And this year is set to be quite the event, with new Nokia Windows Phone 8 devices across all categories including Nokia phones, a new Samsung Galaxy Note and much more. But the iPhone 5 will likely be the media-enforced high point of the season and whatever technology Apple can pack into it will get the masses enthused.
Changing the Record Too
However, as we've seen in recent iterations, don't expect the huge queues and over-dramatic theatricals, smartphones aren't magical anymore, no matter how the makers try to spin then. For a start, more users are locked into longer contracts, buyers have less money, or other things to spend it on, and there is a wider range of top class devices to choose from.
Verizon will be stocking Nokia's Windows Phone 8 devices this year (according to Bloomberg), and likely giving them a great deal more space then than original Lumia devices got in other stores. So, we might have seen a peek in launch-period sales for smartphones, with the money now coming from the mid-range and emerging markets.
To spice things up, we should see some added tabloid "fury" as Apple has changed the dock connector, expect a good few "I'll never buy another Apple device ever" non-event stories. The current range of lawsuits being flung about might get even more ridiculous (expect someone to try to ban Apple from selling iPhone 5 in at least a few territories).
Either way, prepare for the excitement, or, if you're bored of the whole thing, remember to turn the Internet off that day.
You are about to launch your intranet site and you ask yourself “Have I forgotten anything?
Ensure that you are ready for launch with this simple checklist.
Engage Users
Intranet naming competition
Get the whole organization involved with an intranet naming competition. This is a fun, informal way to get users involved with the intranet prior to launch.
You want to motivate employees to get involved, so some sort of prize on offer is a great idea. The prize for the winning suggestion usually depends on the size and culture of the organization. I’ve seen everything from a fully paid holiday to fancy dinners. The key here is to create a buzz and excitement about the intranet. You know your organization, so choose a prize that you think will most motivate employees to get involved. Do not underestimate the power of recognition. A great way to put this into action is by acknowledging the winner in the next company newsletter, along with the winning suggestion.
Assemble a group of "intranet champions"
Gaining acceptance and buy-in from key stakeholders and all staff is essential. Combat this challenge by putting together a group of intranet champions. These are the people who put up their hand and want to be involved in the intranet project. They trust and believe in the new intranet and are happy to tell everyone else how great it will be! Support and encourage your intranet champions, and you will be rewarded with a highly anticipated intranet launch.
Countdown until launch day
Build anticipation and awareness of the new intranet by creating a countdown until launch day. Do you have a current intranet? Implement a ticker that tells staff how many days until launch. Alternatively, use current media like email, newsletters and posters to keep users up to date with the anticipated intranet launch.
Have a launch party
Most organizations don’t need an excuse to have a party, so why not have one for the launch of the new intranet? This can be anything from a launch morning tea, to a fully catered evening event. Again, the goal here is to create a positive association with the new intranet.
This is also a great time for the CEO to reiterate the pain points of the current methods and present the new intranet as a key business tool and solution. Reinforce user engagement by posting the photos of the launch party on the new intranet.
Goals and Objectives
Review your intranet road map
Just like a street map, your intranet road map will show you exactly where you need to go to reach your destination. In this case, your destination is a successful intranet!
This is a good time to review the objectives that have been set for Phase 1. Have these objectives been met?
The importance of feedback
Once the intranet has been launched, what are the goals for the next six months? 12 months? An essential element in setting goals is user feedback. Re-interview key stakeholders after launch to gauge feedback. Has the intranet met expectations? What can be improved?
You may also want to introduce a suggestion box onto the intranet. This is where all users can have the opportunity to post their feedback. It is also a good way to find out what else users want to see on the intranet. Use this information to engage the whole organization, by creating an intranet wish-list. Create a quick poll with the wish list suggestions and have users vote on what they would most like to see implemented on the intranet.
Again, this will ensure that users remain engaged after the launch and make certain that your intranet is constantly changing in line with company objectives.
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