Intel Preparing To Ditch Google Smart TV Business

A new report released by market research firm IHS indicates that Intel has lost interest in building processors for smart TVs and especially for Google TVs. Intel held less than 2% of the TV Soc market in the first half of the year.

According to IHS, Intel is “quietly reshuffling resources away from the connected television semiconductor space” and is focusing much more on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets.

Samsung GoogleTV Blu-ray box.

Google TV is largely considered to have flopped and the outlook for smart TVs isn’t encouraging. While most TVs sold by 2015 are expected to be smart TVs, there is virtually no growth in TVs this year and the competitive landscape is forcing semiconductor makers such as Broadcom to exit the market. The smart TV is still n its early stages as there is not even an agreed definition what a smart TV is.

Taiwanese companies Mstar Semiconductor and Mediatek dominate the TV SoC market with market shares of 39% and 12%, respectively. U.S. based Trident has about 6%. Intel was among a group of new players which held a combined share of less than 2%.

“In a television semiconductor market characterized by entrenched suppliers and weak near-term growth prospects, Intel was facing enormous challenges in trying to establish itself as a competitor,” said Randy Lawson, principal analyst for display and consumer electronics at IHS. “And with the first-generation Google TV products proving unsatisfactory given their slow sales, it’s no surprise that Intel is moving away from the television SoC market.”

Wolfgang Gruener in Business Products on October 28

AMD Not Building Tablet Processors After All?

It appears that AMD has dropped its efforts to take its x86 processors or potential ARM processors down to the tablet market. In its Q3 earnings call, AMD said that traditional notebook segments remain the core trends in the PC market.

In a response to an analyst question, AMD CEO Rory Read stated that “I’m not sure the tablet just in the form factor itself is the real game in hand,” which is the first indication that AMD may not be challenging Intel in the tablet market. Read noted that “thin and light, convergence, [and] consumerization” remain the core trends in the PC market and while he did not explicitly followed up on that observation, we conclude that this will be the direction AMD will be maintaining. Interestingly, that direction is not different from the direction before the company fired CEO Dirk Meyer earlier this year for not taking advantage of new market opportunities.

Read hinted that AMD will be providing more information about its future products at its 2011 Analyst Call, which will take place in February of 2011.

Ethan McKinney in Business on October 28

HP Enlightening: It’s A Bad Idea To Sell The PC Business

HP’s new CEO Meg Whitman is in damage control mode and came to the conclusion that getting rid of the PC business does not make much sense.

“HP objectively evaluated the strategic, financial and operational impact of spinning off [the Personal Systems Group],” Whitman was quoted in a press release. 

“It’s clear after our analysis that keeping PSG within HP is right for customers and partners, right for shareholders, and right for employees,” Whitman said. Of course, HP was about the only place on this earth that suggested that spinning off PSG could be a good idea and HP was about the only place who could have thought it would need a “data driven” evaluation to decide against that idea. The money that went into this evaluation may have been better invested in finding a new opportunity for WebOS. Next time HP could simply ask someone outside the company.

The winner of this decision is Todd Bradley, whose future is almost as often discussed as the ;likely firing of Steve Ballmer. Bradley, who reportedly was not too happy that he did not get the CEO post at HP, will now remain in charge of the PSG. “As part of HP, PSG will continue to give customers and partners the advantages of product innovation and global scale across the industry’s broadest portfolio of PCs, workstations and more,” Bradley said in a prepared statement. “We intend to make the leading PC business in the world even better.”

Smart move, HP.

Kurt Bakke in Business on October 27

Huh? Mozilla Builds A Browser For Microsoft?

One of our eagle-eyed readers (thanks, Raphael) sent me a note that Microsoft today announced a bingified version of Firefox.

For a brief moment, you could think that Microsoft and Mozilla have fallen in love. Microsoft “teamed” up with Mozilla and created a version of Firefox, which Microsoft describes as a “popular” browser. All right, let’s not get carried away. Calling Microsoft’s kind words “love” is exaggerated, but they are a brief break from the bitch fest between the two companies we are used to otherwise.

So, Microsoft collaborated with Mozilla to come up with Firefox with Bing, which is a special version of Firefox that uses Bing as default search engine. The browser is not offered for download from Mozilla’s website, but the collaboration apparently required Mozilla to announce the browser via its main blog as well. According to Mozilla, the customized browser is a result of the cooperation between Mozilla and Microsoft that was announced about a year ago.

Given the circumstances of the cut-throat-competition in the browser market, it is remarkable that Microsoft would offer a version of Firefox for download from one of its web properties. From Mozilla’s view, it seems to be just a business deal. Having Microsoft promote Firefox with Bing should bring in additional ad revenues. In the end, Mozilla is unlikely to care where its ad money is coming from and some diversification of ad revenue sources isn’t such a bad idea.

As silly as it sounds, there may be a good reason for Mozilla to treat Microsoft nicely in the future as both are now sharing a common threat: Chrome (which was just released as version 15). IE will drop to close to 40% market share this month, Firefox will drop to about 26.4% and Chrome will come close to 25%. Over the past weekend, Chrome climbed past Firefox with 26.85% versus 26.31% share. Mozilla won’t be able to fend off Chrome beyond November. Chrome 14/15 is also about to exceed IE8 as most popular browser overall. Google’s browser has held the position as most popular HTML5 browser for more than half a year. Chrome 14 had more than twice the market share of Firefox 7 and IE9 over the past 30 days.

There may be a time when Microsoft and Mozilla may need each other to battle Google.

Wolfgang Gruener in Business on October 27

Nokia’s New Phones: Not Enough

Today in London at its big conference. Nokia’s CEO Stephen Elop announced its next generation phones, Lumia (Windows Phone 7.5 based) and Asha (S40 based), which we were told means “Hope” in Hindi. Although Asha is an interesting device for many emerging markets, it’s the Lumia that is most important to Nokia’s future and the announcement the market was anxiously awaiting. So while Nokia introduced two new Windows Phone smartphones of nice design (the Lumia 800 for the premium market and a slightly less costly version of the 710), and three S40 devices aimed at the market between feature phones and smart phones, overall the announcements at Nokia World disappointed on a number of accounts.

First, Nokia did not confirm when and what would go to North America – only that there would be a portfolio of devices released early next year (once LTE stabilizes they said). What does that say about the commitment from the carriers to Lumia? If you have a halo device (where the Lumia is being positioned) and it’s not being sold in the largest market, what does that say about your market position?

Second, there was no mention of how Nokia would differentiate itself from other Windows Phone vendors, other than with a better camera, a navigation application and music services. It’s not enough. Samsung makes a nice Windows Phone, as does HTC. Why would a consumer choose a Nokia device?

Third, the pricing was set at a premium pricing level (420 Euros, or about $599, before subsidies). Nokia is competing against the market leaders at about the same pricing level. There is no advantage taken by Nokia in trying to get back into the marketplace at a reasonable price with a premium product. It’s roughly the same price as iPhone 4S after subsidies and this could be a tough sell.

Fourth, what about the enterprise? There was no mention of how they would help with management and security for corporate. customers other than pointing to Microsoft tools and capabilities. IT doesn’t need yet another device to work with when there is already so much diversity from BYOD. IT wants help and expects some advantage from key suppliers. Microsoft management tools for mobile are inferior and especially so when looking at a diverse environment. Where were the partnership announcements with MDM vendors that would have indicated the serious nature Nokia places on business?

Fifth, what about Windows 8? That is the future (Windows Phone 7.5 is a place holder until the next gen devices come out in 12-18 months and bridge the PC, tablet and phone markets). This would have been a great opportunity to make a strategy statement at a high level at least, even if not a detailed statement. And it would have indicated an acknowledgement by Nokia of the importance it places in the partnership with Microsoft.

Finally, where was Microsoft’s endorsement? No one representative from Microsoft spoke during the keynote. No doubt Microsoft wants to keep some distance to not offend its other OEMs, but if this is such a close partnership, where is the “love”?

So I’m left with many questions after the announcements. How do the new devices fit into a diverse environment in an enterprise setting? Where are the enterprise tools to deploy, activate secure and manage them? What is the Nokia Value Add on top of plane Windows Phone? What did they do to enhance the Windows Phone platform beyond what Microsoft offers? Nokia seemed to show once again that they understand how to make appealing hardware, but fell short in service offerings that could differentiate them in the market, especially with the important business user.

The Bottom Line: Nokia World was really Nokia’s coming out party. It was meant to show a revitalized company. They did offer a couple of new phone families (one Windows Phone, one Symbian). But they missed the opportunity to show what Nokia represents longer term, how it adds value to the Microsoft standard OS features, and what it will do to differentiate in the market from both other Windows Phone makers and the Android and iPhone market.

Nokia missed an opportunity.

Jack Gold is the founder and principal analyst at J.Gold Associates, an information technology analyst firm based in Northborough, Mass., covering the many aspects of business and consumer computing and emerging technologies.

Jack Gold in Business on October 26

Sorry, It’s Game Over, Linux – Forrester Analyst

Forrester analyst Mike Gualtieri published a brave blog post today. It starts with “poor Linux.” Can you guess what follows?

The following next two sentences are: “It struggled so hard to dominate the world. It was the little open source engine that could, but it didn’t.”

A day after the release of Linux 3.1 and the introduction of Wii Controller support in the OS, Gualtieri argues that Linux has less than 2% share on desktops (but notes that it has 60% share on servers). According to the analyst, iOS and Android virtually killed Linux’ hopes in the mobile market and “cleaned clocks”.

“Sure, Android is built on top of Linux, but Linux is only one of many piece parts of the Android mobile operating system,” he wrote. “It is not Linux.”

The result? Gualtieri thinks that the Linux open source community will not be able to compete anymore. And if this remark wasn’t enough to upset the Linux community, here is an especially juicy one: ” Open source never seems to be the innovator. Instead, it seems to disrupt pricing power for established technologies.” Bam.

Gualtieri thinks that it is “game over for worldwide dominance for Linux”. At least on mobile and desktop devices.

Wolfgang Gruener in Business on October 25

Why IE6 Still Matters And Why You Should Not Care

There is an interesting report circulating this morning, courtesy of Geek.com. Volkswagen requires its suppliers to use IE6 when using Volkswagen applications. More than 10 years after its release, IE6 is still deeply entrenched in some environments, but has become virtually meaningless everywhere else.

Microsoft has gone to great length to strangle IE6, which has been more resistant to updates than any other browser so far. Released in August of 2001, IE6 shipped as the default browser with Windows XP in a time when Microsoft dominated the browser market with a 90%+ share. As Windows XP successfully penetrated consumer and business markets in the 2002 and 2003, the majority of business environments standardized Intranet and operational applications on IE6 and effectively locked in the software until the next major revisions of their environment.

The recommendation posted by Volkswagen reflects that scenario and is a sure sign that core applications inside Volkswagen are standardized on IE6 and are only guaranteed to run with this browser version. Volkswagen is more than likely to update its applications, but due to the significant investment that will be necessary throughout its enterprise, and due to the risks that such an change will bring, this will only happen when the advantages will heavily outweigh the disadvantages. Volkswagen isn’t the only company that still relies on IE6. For example, in the automotive world, GM has also deployed IE6 enterprise wide across multiple continents and a source tells us that, while the company has undergone a massive IT restructuring over the past 4 years, IE6 is still the browser of choice.

In terms of market share, NetApplications’ estimates IE6 share at 9%. This number indicates that, based on an Internet population of about 2.1 billion users (IWW), that about 190 million people worldwide still use IE6. Net Applications also says that more than half of all IE6 users are in China (54%), which is known to be widely standardized on IE6 in industrial and financial applications. If those numbers are somewhat correct, there are just 89 million IE6 users outside the borders of China. The numbers suggest that 3.3% of the world’s IE6 users are in the U.S. – about 6.3 million, based on IWW and NetApplications estimates. If we take industrial application use into account, it’s fairly safe to assume that IE6 has almost disappeared in general consumer applications in the U.S. For example, on the ConceivablyTech website, IE6 has a share of 0.08%.

If we look at the U.S. alone, and the IWW estimate of 245 million Internet users here, it is time for web developers to stop worrying about IE6 for their platform and interface designs. For the non-enterprise user, IE6 has become irrelevant, while IE6 has become a specific application that is mostly required to access very specific applications.

Wolfgang Gruener in Business on October 24

10 Years And 320 Million Units Old: Apple iPod

In October 2001, Apple promised to unveil a revolutionary media product. Few of us expected an MP3 player. Who could have predicted that a little white box would lay the foundation for an empire that turned into the world’s most valuable IT company ten years later?

The Apple in 2001 was a different Apple than it is today. The company had a market cap of less than $10 billion and we doubted the products the company as introducing. When Steve Jobs pulled a white box out of his pocket and described it as a “gorgeous” product that would, in combination with iTunes 2, change the way we would listen to music, I have to admit that I had the feeling that Jobs was exaggerating.

The original iPod had a 5 GB hard drive and was advertise to hold “1000 songs in your pocket.” It had a basic 160×128 pixel monochrome display, had a Firewire (400) interface only for data transfer and charging. back then, the iPod concept was, in its general perception, not so revolutionary. The industry tried to figure whether to use Flash or HDDs for MP3 players. The capacity of the iPod wasn’t at the top at the time and we had concerns that it may be too expensive ($399) to succeed. What few of us understood at the time, was that the iPod was the first product of a new Apple that created a cohesive, intertwined product line that laid the foundation that eventually delivered the most admired IT company today.

The iPod turned into a synonym for MP3 player over the years, and quickly captured market share. It took 19 months to sell 1 million iPods. The surge in sales began to quickly accelerate when the company launched its iTunes music store in April 2003. back then Apple said that it sold (back then DRM-infested) 1 million songs at 99 cents each during the first week of availability of the store. By the end of 2003, iTunes had sold 25 million songs and 2 million iPods. 12 months later, Apple announced 200 million songs and 10 million iPods sold. By April 2007, Apple said it had shifted 100 million iPods and 3 billion iTunes songs. In January 2009, Apple removed DRM from its iTunes songs. Today, iTunes downloads are at more than 12 billion and more than 320 million iPods have been sold.

Apple and the music industry have been engaged in a fierce tug-of-war over revenue sharing and royalties over provided music content, but the music industry has to largely thank Apple for transitioning the music publishing industry from physical disc sales to digital sales and rescuing it from illegal files haring that blossomed with Napster and grew plenty of successor networks after it was shut down. From the very beginning, Steve Jobs was very careful not to alienate its content providers. Even at its original presentation in October of 2001, when Apple gave away hundreds of “beta iPods” to the attendees of the presentation, each device came with 25 commercial CDs, whose content the company transferred onto each iPod (yes, about 300 attendees went home with an iPod and 25 CDs). The first iPods came with a translucent sticker on their displays that read: “Do not steal music.”

I still display the first iPod in my office and I keep it as an example of great product design – especially the physical click wheel of the Gen 1 iPod stands out from every other iPod that followed (the Gen 2 kept the scroll wheel, but grew to 10 GB and was offered for Windows PCs as well). The significance of the original iPod was not so much based on its tech specs, but its design and certain features that people considered as problems at the time. For example, there was no well-designed MP3 player at the time that you would have proudly displayed in public. Also, the Firewire interface solved painfully long data transfer times and the scroll wheel was an ingenious interface that enabled users to deal with large music libraries very effectively. In comparison, we had bulky HDD MP3 players, such as the Creative Nomad Jukebox (6 GB), that was about the size of a portable CD player, or there was Intel’s rather strange Pocket Concert MP3 player with 128 MB of memory for $400, which dies when the company killed its consumer electronics division in 2002. Like so many other products, the iPod did not invent its segment, but perfectly executed the idea of an MP3 player and fixed the ideas others had made before. The first MP3 player, by the way, was the $250 Eiger Labs MPMan with 32 MB of memory, which was shown at the CeBIT tradeshow in 1998. The first widely successful MP3 player was the Diamond Rio PMP300, which was also released in 1998.

Since October 2001, Apple released 22 different iPod models and claims to hold more than 50% market share of MP3 players worldwide, and more than 70% in the U.S.

In 2006, Microsoft decided that it would compete with the iPod and announced the Toshiba-built Zune. Unfortunately, like other products before, the Zune was merely a copy of the iPod and it was too late to make a dent in Apple’s empire – especially since Microsoft shot itself in the foot with awkward color choices such as brown casing and questionable features such as crippled Wi-Fi in the first-generation product. About a month ago, Microsoft quietly announced that it would stop making Zunes.

Apple still sells iPods, but the market has slowed down substantially. The company sold 6.6 million iPods in Q3, down from 9.1 million one year ago. A substantial share of iPod sales has transitioned to iPhones, which have become the effective successors of the iPod.

While we mainly see Apple’s iPad and iPhone today, it has been the iPod that created Apple’s mobile devices business and is, in large parts, responsible for the Apple as we know it today. Happy Birthday!

Wolfgang Gruener in Business Products on October 24

Windows XP A Decade Old, Surrenders To Windows 7

Windows XP was launched globally on October 23, 2001. XP, short for “experience”, was Microsoft’s departure from the GUI the was placed on top of DOS, which was the case with preceding versions such as 3.x and 95, and was built on top of the of Windows NT kernel instead. The OS was released to OEMs on October 24 and was available for sale on October 25, 2001.

While Microsoft repeatedly announced the end of retail and OEM sales of Windows XP shortly after the release of Windows Vista in January of 2006, the boom of netbooks as well as a badly received Windows Vista created a surge in demand for Windows XP between 2006 and 2008. Retail sales of Windows XP finally ended on June 30, 2008 and OEM distribution closed (with Windows Vista) on October 22, 2010. Microsoft still provides extended support for XP users until April 8, 2014.

It is unclear how many XP licenses were sold in total. However, an IDC analyst estimated in 2006 that about 400 million Windows XP licenses were in active use globally. It is estimated that Windows XP sold about 500 to 600 million licenses in total. That number compares to about 450 million Windows 7 licenses sold until the end of September, 2011. There is no information how many Vista licenses were sold, but we know that 180 million Vista licenses were sold within 22 months after launch. If we assume that Microsoft kept that pace of 8 million sold licenses per month over the following 26 months until end of OEM sales, the Vista may have sold about 384 million licenses.

According to StatCounter, Windows XP just lost OS market share leadership to Windows 7 this month. Windows 7 is estimated to hold 40.41% share this month, up from 39.04% in September. XP has fallen to 38.51%, while Vista is at 11.21%. Vista market share peaked at 23.60% in October of 2009, the month when Windows 7 was introduced. At that time XP, more than 3 years after the introduction of Vista, XP still held 67.55% of the OS market.

Wolfgang Gruener in Business on October 23

Mozilla’s Boot To Gecko Not Targeted At All Mobile Devices

There is not much we know about Boot To Gecko, Mozilla’s thin layer OS platform that will enable mobile devices to boot to a web interface that leverages open source APIs. CTO Brendan Eich recently revealed a bit more about the software that is scheduled for first demos in the first quarter for next year.

Boot To Gecko (B2G) is kept relatively low key at Mozilla these days. Information is scarce, the functionality of the platform is largely speculation in public and judging by the data published on the B2G Wiki, it will take some time until we get a first look at the user interface, which Mozilla refers to as “Gaia”. However, Brendan Eich just discussed the general approach Mozilla takes with B2G, which reaches from the philosophy behind the OS, to the software foundation and competitive thoughts all the way to the realization that B2G will not run “well” on all mobile devices.

Mozilla’s basic idea is to break out of the locked-in operating system that dominate the mobile world today, iOS and Android. Eich indicated that Mozilla will be using the Android Linux kernel or a kernel that is similar to it, which will provide fast access to web technologies such as JavaScript, which will also interface with key mobile applications on a high level such as USB, a camera, the phone as well as near field communications. There will be no proprietary technology in B2G.

When B2G is released, Firefox’ Gecko rendering engine will be “dissolved” into the OS, as Mozilla is apparently interested in interoperability between Gecko and Webkit inside B2G. In his speech, Eich refers quite a bit to Google’s Chrome OS and Android, which indicates that Google’s direction is influencing B2G and its final shape. However, there are some thoughts about Apple as well and Mozilla might be thinking to take some cues from the success of iOS as well. “We won’t run equally well on every device, but we will pick devices that we think are likely to be popular, that are well executed hardware, that, you know, can actually give Apple a bit of a run for its money,” Eich said. He noted that Mozilla has seen “sweet hardware” and has apparently been focusing on Samsung’s Galaxy II-S, and the Galaxy Tab 10 inch. While B2G isn’t running on those devices yet, the executive noted that there is hardware Mozilla “likes a lot”.

We have to speculate here, but Eich appears to be saying that B2G won’t be the best idea for every mobile device out there. Instead he hopes that the software will “be really awesome on certain well designed hardware.” Mozilla’s strength is openness and reach. It cannot afford substantial restriction on mobile hardware.

Daniel Bailey in Business Products on October 21

Google Introduces HTTP Pipelining In Chrome 17

Chrome 17 will become the ninth version revision introduced in 2011 and has just been released as Chromium nightly version of the browser via Google’s Webkit snapshot release channel. This new version is the first to integrate http pipelining via a flag.

We have previously reported about this new feature and its availability via a switch, but Google recently added a flag that can be accessed via chrome://flags and activated by clicking the HTPP Pipelining checkbox.

While Firefox and Opera have offered pipelining for some time, Google has just recently added support for this technology that can dramatically speed up the load times of web pages, especially of those that are held down by significant latency connections. Pipelining refers to an approach in which multiple HTPP requests are sent before any responses are received. The effect is reduced network load and delivers potentially shorter load times, as long as the server the browser connects to supports this feature as well.

Google does not reveal how many simultaneous requests Chrome uses (Firefox, for example, enables users to determine the maximum number of requests), but we know that Google is very cautious about this feature for now.

This must be enabled in about:flags. It is naive and assumes all servers correctly implement pipelining. Proxies are not supported. The current implementation cautions users that not all servers correctly support pipelining and proxies are not supported at all. Until launch, Google said that it will add a capability to support proxies, detect broken transparent proxies and mitigate broken servers. Chrome will also be able to optimize itself to determine the best number of parallel http requests.

You can try this new feature by downloading a recent Chromium snapshot. The feature is integrated in the browser in build versions 106364 and higher.

Daniel Bailey in Products on October 20

The Art Of Comparing Browsers: The Dos And Don’ts

The Internet is at war. In fact, the whole consumer market is actively engaging in many wars across many different levels. The thing is, while we know that there is a “browser war” going on out there, we wonder what exactly is going on. Who is actually fighting and how? We are all familiar with the “big 3” and I would even risk saying “big 5”: Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, Google’s Chrome Browser, Mozilla’s Firefox, Apple’s Safari, and Opera’s Opera Browser. But what are they fighting for? Market share? Mozilla will tell you that they are fighting for the open web, and yet, no one else is. At the end of the day, regardless of the individual motives of the companies, this whole war is about who has the browser you should use.

So, how do you figure out what browser you should use? Chrome is constantly at the forefront of new technology, Firefox has the most add-ons and biggest community, Internet explorer has the most users, and well … Opera and Safari really have nothing special about them aside from the fact that they are the next two big (and yet really small) browsers on the list of many, many others out there. Yet, they offer very distinct flavors of a browser experience some people prefer over any other browser out there.

To the average user who just wants to surf the web, the presence of advanced technology and philosophy behind a browser doesn’t matter. Most people want the most stable, and fastest browser. Those with a bit more understanding also look at security and the browsers overall effect on their system. All of the big 3 browsers know this, which is why you have things like Google’s plethora of benchmarks that make Chrome out to be the fastest browser and you see Microsoft pitching security scares.

At the end of the day, who do you believe, and how do you actually compare browsers? Are there any tests that are objective and fair in the sense that you can accept them at face value or do they all have to be taken with a grain of salt? I have been throwing out a lot of questions, so let me answer this one right away: There is no such thing as a fair test. All tests, no matter who makes them, are tailored to cater to a certain feature. If the developers of a browser provide it, a test is made for a certain browser, and even if a third party like ConceivablyTech were to create their own tests and run them in a seemingly fair way, these tests still focus only on a handful of features, which do not represent a browser as a whole and may end up being misleading, whether on purpose or not, to the end user.

With that said, however, these tests do serve a purpose. Most benchmarks out there are actually created to help developers (not users) to evaluate their products and find places to improve, and many users can see the strong and weak points of different products based on these tests. However, before you use any test to determine which browser you should be using, think about this: Does this test target what you care about?
Another thing to keep in mind is the platform software and hardware. If I were to run a test pinning Chrome versus Firefox on my machine with 8 GB of 1666 GHz DDR3 RAM, a 3 GHz quad core i7, and a dedicated Nvidia GeForce GT 540 with 2G B of dedicated VRAM, and a 7200 RPM SATA6 HDD on Windows 7 Ultimate with drivers tailored for this specific hardware, I would get a very different result than on the machine I had 2 years ago.

Trying to find the right browser for you, other than following the crowd and a certain hype, involves some work. I suggest to sit down and pin down what is important to you. What do you do with your browser? What do you want it to do for you?  What aspect is most important to you on this specific machine? What do you not actually need? If you answer these questions you can pick specific tests, which will help you tell what browser is best for your needs. Better yet, you can even run the test yourself pinning the different browsers against each other. The results might surprise you. You might find out that the browser you have been so dedicated to for so long is not actually the right browser for you, and you may be happier with an alternative. You might find that you are actually using the right browser but the wrong version. Remember that not all browsers were created equal.

As for me, I mostly use Firefox. My reasons are that, on my machines, no matter which browser I test, the results are hardly significant because my hardware can push these tests to their limit, and even if one browser uses more memory then another, I still have more RAM then I know what to do with. In that case, I look for the community. I have also grown to rely on many different add-ons which I simply could not browse without. However, I am not saying Firefox is the browser for you. Everyone should make their own choice, and I encourage you to think about what I have said and go and figure out which browser is in fact tailored closest to your needs.

If you don’t know where to start, feel free to post what you are looking for in a browser in the comment below so we can try and help you and send you to tests for your needs. Also let us know what browser you use and why. Here at ConceivablyTech we are always interested in our readers’ opinions and you might also just help someone else decide which browser they should use.

Michael Rabinovsky in Business on October 20

Defining Leadership: Sir Richard Branson

I’m at the McAfee Focus event this week. They had Sir Richard Branson on the stage talking about leadership. He has an interesting take on leadership and Steve Jobs. Branson was one of those featured years ago in Steve Jobs’ think different campaign. Called Here’s to the Crazy Ones, the commercial ends with the thought that the people crazy enough to think they can change the world are often the ones who do.

Leadership
Branson has a unique view of leadership and you can easily see why people like working for him. He feels that the greatest leaders listen and continue to learn after they have become leaders, they learn to delegate, and, while he didn’t say this, he implied that they have a passion for what they do. Great leaders get out in front and aren’t afraid to fight for what they believe in. On this last note, he spoke about British Airways and how they played dirty tricks like hacking into Virgin’s computers to gain competitive information, and an aggressive campaign to disparage Virgin’s executive team. He went to war and got one of the largest legal settlements against this larger competitor.

In the end, you are left with the image of a man who enjoys what he does, ensures he balances work and personal life, is a fair competitor who doesn’t tolerate dirty tricks from others, and someone who leads from the front a group of folks who are likely to follow him anywhere – because he truly cares about them and the firms he owns.

I fly Virgin Airlines myself and have found it to provide one of the best experiences in the air. In short, from personal experience, Branson seems to drive a level of customer satisfaction that is in line with Apple, but without the unfortunate consequences.

Richard Branson on Steve Jobs
Branson is a fan of Steve Jobs, but the management style is vastly different. Branson delegates heavily and provides for significant autonomy, Jobs was a massive micro-manager. Branson focuses on making his companies great places to work, Jobs not so much.   Both executives had a deep connection to their products and were the face of their companies, but Branson appeared to be very focused on ensuring he had fun and Jobs was more driven. This partially led to his demise, because it put massive amounts of stress on him.
The lasting lesson is that you can be successful and still have fun, you can be successful and still treat your folks well, and you can still be successful and do a few truly crazy things like Virgin Galactic. In the end, you are left with the view that the ad that focused on “The Crazy Ones” was more about Branson than Jobs.
Branson clearly admired Steve Jobs and thinks highly of Apple’s products, but he also thinks there are other important aspects of running a successful company. He demonstrates that belief and he spends a great deal of his time to tackle international problems associated with making the world a better place. In short, Branson puts what he cares about first and this is reflected in his companies, employees, and philanthropic efforts. He drives ideas like job sharing, which shift more focus on the personal lives he argued could massively reduce unemployment while improving work/life balance for many.

In short, he argued you could be a success and still be a great leader, with great products, by just having the right priorities.

Sir Richard Branson for President?
The latest Republican Debate was coincidently going to be held in the same complex the evening after Branson’s talk. Branson articulated a better plan to address long term joblessness than either party has so far presented. He demonstrated personal values that were less about ideological differences and more about making companies and countries successful while also improving the quality of life. He even pointed out that he uses all the profits from his dirty businesses to develop alternative fuels. I was left wondering what it would take to get someone like Branson to run for President, or to get one of the existing candidates to be more like Branson.

In the end, if only one idea came through to other leaders, his primary directive that his firms never do anything they would be embarrassed to read about in the paper, is one that most leaders, and virtually every politician, should learn and follow.

Apple Exceeds $100 Billion Annual Sales – And Disappoints

Apple reported yet another fantastic quarter that brought in more than $28 billion and wrapped about Apple’s first $100 billion fiscal year. Unfortunately, the iPhone did not meet analyst shipment expectations, which sent Apple’s stock below the $400 mark again.

It appears that Apple has landed in the general financial analyst territory, in which a miss of street expectations will translate in a nose diving share price. Apple’s fiscal Q4 (calendar Q3) revenue was $28.27 billion, up from $20.34 billion last year. The net profit jumped to $6.62 billion, up from $4.31 billion. Apple’s cash on hand as well as short-term investments remained flat at just under $26 billion, while the company’s total assets now stand at $116.3 billion, up from $75 billion last year. $30 billion alone went into long-term securities.

The revenue for the entire fiscal year was $108 billion.

To keep these numbers in perspective, Intel also reported quarterly revenues today – and came in at $14.3 billion with net income of $3.7 billion. Apple is already twice the size of Intel in revenue and remains ahead of IBM, which reported $26.2 billion of revenue and earnings of $3.8 billion. For the fourth calendar quarter, Apple expects revenue of about $37 billion, which will push it well ahead of HP, as well as record earnings of $9.30 per share, which will put Apple into the neighborhood of $10 billion of profit. The estimate is credible, especially since we know that more than 4 million iPhone 4S devices have been sold already.

Unfortunately, that has not been enough for analysts, who criticized that Apple sold only 17.07 million iPhone during the quarter, and missed the 20 million unit estimate. Apple couldn’t make up with the fact that 11.12 million iPads were sold, a 166% increase over last year. Apple also sold 4.89 million Macs (+26%), but is now seeing notably fewer iPods being shipped (-27%, 6.62 million).

After hour trading reflected the analyst sentiment and sent the stock down 6.6% or nearly $28 to $394. Nearly $26 billion of market cap being wiped out within a few hours.

It is unlikely that there will be any significant damage from this artificial miss at this time, but it is a sign that analysts may be much tougher with Apple in the future.

Kurt Bakke in Business on October 18

What’s All the Fuss Over Firefox’s New Rapid Release Cycle?

Things on the Internet happen fast. The web is constantly expanding, evolving, and becoming capable of new and amazing things. Our web browser is literally our window into that ever expanding world and the browser’s capabilities – and maybe even more importantly, it’s limitations – define our experience. So it should come as no surprise that all the major browsers: Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and even Microsoft’s Internet Explorer are adopting or have already adopted a faster cycle of updates and new releases for their browser software.

So why is this post just about Firefox?

Because their change from an intentionally slow or at least slower release cycle (about a year between major releases) to a rapid release cycle (6 weeks between releases) is the only one causing significant ripples in certain technology communities. Chrome has always had a rapid release cycle for their updates and inversely Internet Explorer has been so notoriously slow in releasing new versions of their browser that even a faster pace for them is still slow when compared to Chrome (and now Firefox).

The loudest complaints seem to be coming from enterprise IT professionals who see this newly mandated rapid release cycle for Firefox as a serious impediment to maintaining security on the networks they’re responsible for. But they’re not the only ones complaining. There’s also considerable unrest from developers who build add-ons for Firefox that are now finding compatibility issues too difficult to keep up with.  Likewise, users of Firefox are experiencing frustration due to constant updates from either Firefox or the developers of the add-ons they have installed. Or, their favorite add-ons simply stop working because of incompatibility issues between old and new versions.

In a seriously reduced and simplistic version of browser history you might read the current drama like this:

First, there was Internet Explorer and everyone in the world used it almost exclusively, including businesses, because it came as the default web browser on PC’s. Eventually some other browser options came along and Mozilla Firefox was arguably one of the best alternatives. Many businesses switched from Internet Explorer to Firefox, or allowed their employees to. At that time, Firefox provided a great alternative and they rolled out their updates and new releases at a pace which allowed many IT departments to keep up with security maintenance and developers to keep their add-ons compatible. This resulted in Firefox becoming popular with both business and personal users.

Then came Google Chrome. They adopted a philosophy of speed and wanted their browser to constantly be in a state of improvement – so they released updates and new versions of their software in what’s called a rapid release cycle, or simply put, very, very fast. Consequently, they started out a little lean and a little buggy but quickly fixed those problems and became one of the “big three” in what many call The Browser Wars.

This philosophy of rapid release cycles that worked so well for Google seemed, to the other major players, to have some merit. After all, if the web is changing shouldn’t the browser be changing to? And if the web is changing fast, shouldn’t the browser do likewise? It would seem that now Mozilla, the creators of Firefox, think so too. And they feel strongly enough about this decision to take the current heat from their critics.

Mitchell Baker, Chair of the Mozilla Foundation, said recently on her blog, “If we want the browser to be the interface for the Internet, we need to make it more like the Internet [read: fast]. That means delivering capabilities when they are ready.” Not a year after they have been developed, as she says earlier in that post had sometimes been the case. She continues by saying if they refuse to adapt and update often then “the browser becomes a limiting factor in what the Internet can do.”

So like it or not, Firefox’ rapid release cycle is here to stay. Chances are you fall into one of the three groups listed below. Check out how this decision affects you and what Firefox is doing to meet your needs.

Enterprise IT Professionals

Mozilla has not been deaf to the complaints of enterprise IT professionals and has in fact released a proposal for an Extended Support Release (ESR) to be made available to enterprise users.

Here is the proposal description as published on MozillaWiki:

Mozilla will offer an Extended Support Release (ESR) based on official releases of Desktop Firefox. Releases will be maintained for seven release cycles (42 weeks), with point releases coinciding with regular Firefox releases.

To permit organizations sufficient time for testing and certification, the ESR will have a two cycle (12 week) overlap between the time of a new release and the end-of-life of the previous release. This will allow organizations to qualify and test against Aurora and Beta builds for twelve weeks leading up to the ESR, and an additional 12 weeks to certify and transition to a new ESR.

Maintenance of each ESR, through point releases, would be limited to high-risk/impact security vulnerabilities and would also include chemspills (off-schedule releases that address live security vulnerabilities). Backports of any functional enhancements and/or stability fixes would not be in scope. At the end of the 30-week support tail the release will be end-of-lifed in conjunction with an updated ESR being offered.

Mozilla will continue to collect additional information on deployment of Firefox in managed environments, and will work with community groups to facilitate adoption of the official releases of Firefox in those environments. Based on the data collected and adoption of the new release process over the course of maintaining the ESR, Mozilla would announce the continuation or impending end-of-life of the program. The initial proposal would be to support a minimum of two ESR releases.

The Development Community

In versions Firefox 4 and later, there are 600 Million add-ons used daily. That number is pretty staggering and even if you’re not a developer yourself, I’m sure you can understand that there are certain challenges that arise when trying to keep 600 Million little programs working together smoothly. Before the recent change of pace this was difficult, but it only happened once a year or so and Mozilla was able to give developers a heads up on what was changing in the new release in time for them to make the necessary changes to their add-ons in order to keep them compatible. Now, with the release cycle so rapid there’s no time  to give that crucial heads up and some add-on authors are being left in the dust.

However, just like with the enterprise IT folks, Mozilla is working to meet the needs of this community too. Justin Scott, Leader of the Add-ons Team at Mozilla, recently wrote a detailed blog post describing the challenges the new rapid release cycle has caused and what they’re doing about it.

His full post is well worth a read but the very short answer to “How does Mozilla plan on helping its developer community?” is this three part plan:

- Firefox developers should consider the add-on compatibility impact of every change they make.

- Firefox developers should follow a compatibility notification process to ensure we communicate changes to add-on developers.

- AMO (addons.mozilla.org) will scan hosted add-ons for issues with the new Firefox version and automatically bump their compatibility if none are found.

At the moment, there is an Add-on Compatibility Reporter that helps users notify Mozilla when add-ons are not working.

The Average User

The main complaint from the average user is that their favorite add-ons no longer work and that the updates are driving them insane. Mozilla’s answer to this is that they’re continuing to work with their developer community to smooth the process of updating by maintaining compatibility between releases. They’re also working on silent updates.

Final Thought

With all this focusing on complaints and/or the negative results of this decision by Mozilla it would seem appropriate to close by taking a look to see if this change has resulted in anything positive. According to this post on lifehacker, Firefox 7 has become the second fastest performing browser behind Opera and the fastest out of “the big three”.  Other reports also brag of increased security in the form of 11 critical bug fixes. So yes, rest easy Internet, turns out they do know what they’re doing.

About the Author:

Patrick Murphy is the founder and CEO of BrandThunder (BT). With its extreme makeovers for Internet browsers, BT creates persistent engagement between major brands and their online consumers. You can view their theme gallery with Firefox, Chrome and IE browser themes. BT’s new platform, BT:Engage gives everyone the tools to build and share their own browser themes.

Patrick Murphy in Business on October 17

Chrome Passes Firefox Market Share For The First Time

Google’s Chrome web browser briefly exceeded Firefox market share last weekend by a miniscule margin. IE market share continue its decline and now averages less than 40% market share.

Firefox dropped to a new weekend low last weekend and slightly exceeded Chrome market share with 26.62% vs. 26.59% on Saturday, but dropped below Chrome on Sunday with 26.16% vs. 26.22%, according to market share data provided by StatCounter.

For the first half of October, IE averages 39.99%, Firefox 26.68% and Chrome 24.85%. Compared to September, IE is down 1.67 points, Firefox is down 0.11 points and Chrome is up 1.24 points. Safari has picked up 0.37 points to 5.97% market share and Opera is up 0.11 points to 1.83%. In our 6-month trend rating, Google is near its maximum value of 6.56 market share points gained over the past 6 months, while Firefox lost 2.99 points and IE lost 4.53 points.

If the current trend holds up, then Chrome will match Firefox market share next month in StatCounter’s charts.

Chrome’s advance is largely driven by its success in South America, where the browser has exceeded IE market share IE market share on 7 of the past 16 days. Chrome hit a record 40.82% share in South America yesterday. In Asia, Chrome has become the second most popular browser with an average share of 26.6%, ahead of Firefox with 25.15%, but well behind IE, which still dominates with 43.81%.

In North America, IE leads with 44.33%, followed by Firefox with 23.15% and Chrome with 20.01%. Safari is particularly strong in the U.S. with a share of 11.91% (and 11.31% in North America overall).

Wolfgang Gruener in Business on October 17

AMD Goes With the Power of 8 in New FX

The technology market is fun to watch because, every few months, a vendor attempts to disrupt it with a new product. This week it is the AMD 8-Core FX processor, which signifies AMD’s willingness to take Intel on for the gaming performance crown. It is aggressively priced and impressively powerful. But is the market ready for an 8-core part?

8 Cores in a Dual-Core World

My first 8-core system was from Intel and it was a beast. It was based on Intel’s professional Xeon part for servers and it would spin my power meter like crazy. It also did a nice job of heating my office, something that was kind of nice in the winter, but not so much in the summer. However, I quickly discovered that I rarely used more than 3 cores and I was spending a ton of money on operating this beast with very little return, so I went back to 3- and 4-core parts from AMD and Intel. However, that was then, and this is now.

Now I typically run 3-, 4-, and 6-core systems and regularly light up all of the cores. This is because I’m increasingly running multi-threaded applications and the multi-core capability of Windows Vista was significantly improved with Windows 7, which now appears to shift loads more aggressively to the idle cores than Windows Vista did. Suddenly I’m looking at my old 6-core AMD box and realize it isn’t enough. Windows 8 is expected to be even more aggressive with more cores than Windows 7 is.

In addition, these newer systems are better at powering down the idle cores so that you can have the performance when you need it and are no longer trying to set speed records with your power meters.

iPads and Why Desktop Computers Aren’t Dead

One other thing I’m beginning to highlight as a trend is that folks who are living on iPads appear to be going back to desktop computers at home and in their offices. The tablet is what they use when they are away from the desk. It gets massive battery life and is ideal for email and web browsing, but it is clearly underpowered for creation a desktop computer provides more performance for the money (and assures a bigger screen) than any laptop.

In short, this new part arrives when, apparently, a lot of folks are looking to revisit desktop computers. I do think it is interesting that it took a tablet to revitalize the desktop computer market.

Performance

One of the best places to go for benchmarks is Tom’s Hardware Guide and, as usual, they have done an extensive set of them here. What you’ll immediately see is that AMD tuned the FX for the future; it is strong on power management and multi-core work and sucks at single-core tasks. Unfortunately iTunes, one of the most common applications, is single core.  You’ll also note that the i7 pretty much dusts this part which often comes close to it, but always between the i5 and i7, suggesting this is a better alternative to the i5 than it is Intel’s premier part. The i7 is substantially more expensive though, showcasing AMD’s value message and the FX prices slightly above the i5. One area to look at is gaming and the FX, particularly with the incredibly intense Crysis 2 tests, matched the i7 once again showing a strong foundation; in the F1 test it didn’t do as well, and World of Warcraft heavily prefers the i7. Tom’s attempted to do Windows 8 tests (most benchmarks won’t yet run) and the initial impression is this will be a strong Windows 8 product. Particularly looking at World of Warcraft, FX went from behind to the lead. Power savings under Windows 8 improves markedly as well.

This means that if you are not buying ultimate performance where the i7 still rules, if you are anticipating Windows 8 and don’t live on iTunes (you are doing something like photo or video editing or playing Cysis, that is heavily multi-threaded) the FX is a nice alternative to the i5 for a bit more cash.

These tests really showcase massive multi-core performance improvements in Windows 8.

The New AMD

I think the most interesting part of the FX launch is this signifies AMD’s willingness to get back into the performance game with a new more powerful, and more efficient, part. It always seemed strange that they were willing to cede the top spot to Intel unchallenged and while Intel is executing very well, a little competition is good for everyone. Intel still holds the top spot with the i7, but the Windows 8 scores showcase that AMD is moving on that platform to close the gap. In the end, I’m looking forward to retiring my 6 core desktop and replacing it with an 8-core tamed, oh wait, it is unlocked, partially tamed beast because, with Windows 8 coming, you can now never have enough cores.

Now if someone will just kick Apple in the butt and get them to rewrite iTunes for this decade?

Rob Enderle in Business on October 13

Chrome Climbs Past IE For The First Time In SA

It is a big year for Google’s Chrome, as the browser has become the world’s most popular HTML5 browser, as it is on track to replace IE8 as the most popular single browser version, as it is shooting to exceed Firefox market share in November and as it will pass IE in market share in at least one continent: For the first time, Chrome has exceeded IE market share in South America last weekend.

South America is, by a great margin, Chrome’s strongest global region. On four consecutive days last week, Chrome replaced IE as the dominating browser in that region, with market shares ranging from 37.36% to 39.91%, according to preliminary data published by StatCounter. It was only the second time in more than 14 years that IE had lost the market leadership to a rival browser on an entire continent in a non-war environment. Firefox previously surpasses IE in Europe and still holds a big lead in Germany. Chrome is especially strong in Argentina with nearly 43% market share, Chile with 50% share, Uruguay with 44%, Venezuela with 37%, and Colombia with 47%.

According to Internet World Stats, South America has about 162 million Internet users, or 33.4% of all users in North, Central, South America and the Carribean. 50% of all Internet users in South America are in Brazil, 16% in Argentina and 14% in Colombia.

Microsoft has been struggling to maintain IE market share and has largely focused on growing its IE9 user base on Windows 7 to prepare for a major application transition when Windows 8 is introduced. However, while Microsoft almost appeared to have abandoned IE8, IE7 and IE6 users, as well as those who run their browsers on Windows Vista and Windows XP, the company recently launched a new marketing campaign that targets all browser users. As Microsoft did last year, the company may be able to stabilize IE market share.

Google recently released a free PC remote control application, which carries tremendous value for the Chrome ecosystem and is likely to help Google gain market share. Mozilla appears to have stabilized Firefox market share losses and is much stronger than it was just a few months ago. If the current trend holds up, then we predict that Chrome will match Firefox market share in November, and it will surpass IE market share on the basis of a monthly average in that month as well. Firefox will end 2011 with about 26% market share, Chrome with 27% and IE with about 38%.

Chrome has also replaced Firefox as the second most popular browser in Asia this month.

Wolfgang Gruener in Business on October 13

The Internet Has More Than Half A Billion Sites

The number of websites continued to grow at a rapid pace in September. Netcraft reports that there are now more than 504 million active hostnames (active and inactive websites).

The net gained about 3.8% or about 18 million new hostnames, which now stand at 504,082,040 sites, according to Netcraft. Apache remains the most popular web server and is now home to more than 326 million host names. Netcraft said that the server added more than 10 million new hostnames, but lost about 86,000 active websites and about 1.09% market share as a result. Apache is estimated to be the foundation of currently about 99.9 million active websites.

Microsoft IIS added about 600,000 new active sites in September and now hosts just over 21.1 million sites. Nginx was the winner of the month and gained just over 1.6 million active sites to a total of 19.1 million destinations. Google is fourth with a total of 13.8 million hosted sites. The four largest platforms host a total of 153.9 million active websites.

Kurt Bakke in Products on October 13

Microsoft Plants Security Scare As IE Plunges To 40% Market Share

Microsoft has just launched its fall IE advertising campaign and maintains the strategy of touting IE’s superior security features. A website that has been created in partnership with the Online Trust Alliance, the Identity Theft Council, and the Anti-Phishing Working Group, Microsoft concludes that IE achieves a perfect score in browser security and both Chrome and Firefox will leave you unprotected against certain attacks.

“Stay safe” is the tone of the Your browser matters website, which instantly ranks your browser on security features. The bottom line is that it is simply a browser version check, which will give a current IE9 or IE10 a score of 4/4, a current Chrome 2.5/4, the current Firefox version 7 a result of 2/4 and the older Firefox 3.6 just 1.5/4. In 16 evaluated criteria, IE misses only 3 security features, Chrome misses 7 and Firefox fails on 9.

While you drop into a panic if you are using Chrome or Firefox, you could realize that the value of the evaluation is somewhat limited. Can a browser’s security be based on 16 hand-picked features? Probably not and each browser maker could slant the evaluation in any direction that puts them into a better light. Is Firefox 7 only half as secure as IE9? That would depend on your view and on a test scenario, but I would think that Mozilla would disagree. A fair scenario may also consider the frequency of update cycles and their effectiveness, for example.

We are not aware of any browser security evaluation that is comprehensive enough to provide a clear-cut recommendation, which is the most secure browser. Too many security features have circumstantial value; the best protection against malware today remains common sense on the user side and a healthy dose of interest to stay up to date on what not to do on the Internet and how to discover and get rid of malware should you be infected. The fact is that no browser is 100% safe at this time. If you contract malware on IE, because the browser does not auto-update a browser-extension, it is not much help that IE is generally considered a safer browser, but you learn that only its rivals support browser extension auto-updates.

The latest Microsoft campaign has, just like most other browser campaigns (including the recent pitches by Google) questionable marketing value. When Microsoft launched its IE8 security (TV and Internet) campaign in July of last year, it showed immediate effect as the decline of IE market share was halted for two months. However, a year later, IE had lost about 10 points of market share and is battling to stay above the next big barrier this month: 40%. 12 days into October, IE market share is down more than 1 point over September and has averaged 40.07% this month, according to StatCounter. Firefox stabilized at 26.8%, while Chrome appears to have picked up share from IE and will be playing with the 25% mark this month. Chrome currently stands at 24.62% in October, but is sharply trending up.

Depending on its exposure, Microsoft’s latest marketing campaign is most certainly impacting the browser share race. IE share is about half a point higher today than it was yesterday (41.22% versus 40.62%), but the value will change slightly until the day is over as regions with higher Chrome market share (including South America) are fully included in StatCounter’s charts.

In our opinion, education about browser security is necessary and we are glad that Microsoft highlights the importance and basic vulnerabilities on its new site. However, giving a false sense of security by telling users that their browser achieves a perfect score of 4/4, while it clearly has vulnerabilities and imperfections, is counterproductive and potentially misleading. It is critical for users to not lose their Internet smarts and realize that irresponsible behavior will not protect them from malware, no matter what browser they use.

Wolfgang Gruener in Business on October 12

Is It Time For Windows To Die?

Why would you throw away a brand that has built your fortune and supports the paychecks of more than 90,000 employees? Perhaps, because time has caught up and your old brand has too much baggage to take you into the future. If Windows 8 is just a code-name, and Microsoft leaves most of the idea of Windows 1 in the past, could or should Microsoft complete the reinvention circle and launch the new OS with a new name?

If you ask such a question and refer to an iconic brand such as Windows, you’d be called nuts and your other option in consideration may be business suicide, or rescue, depending on your view. Introducing a new brand is nothing that you do because you feel like it. Tinkering with the brand logo can be disastrous (remember the Gap logo redesign wreck?) and eliminating, redirecting and creating a new brand for something people are used to is something you may want to think about for a long, long, long time (longer than Netflix did).

However, if the brand has outlived itself, a new brand may hold more opportunity than the old. I wonder, if that is the case with Windows? And, as a side note, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings sits on Microsoft’s board and could give some valuable advice how not to introduce a new brand.

Windows 8 Start Screen

Reinvention

Microsoft tends to overuse phrases when it introduces a new version of Windows. Reinvention would be that word for Windows 8. I won’t go into details about Windows 8 and its tiled interface. However, it is that interface that spearheads a range of “reinvention” that just isn’t Windows anymore. The original Windows introduced a windowed interface that has been controlled with the mouse as the main form of input.

Admitted, you can still have the legacy interface in Windows 8, but this new interfaces is tiled, not windowed. The mouse is not the primary approach for data input anymore. It is all about touch. Touch may not make sense on vertical screens and I somehow believe that Microsoft is a bit too optimistic about our willingness to switch from a very granular input method (mouse) to a rough and much less exact way (touch), but there is no denying that this new Windows version is a clear departure from the original Windows. There is no Start menu (which arrived in 1994 with Windows 95) anymore. Instead of folders, we will get screens. Windows open in full screen and it may be tough to call those full-screen displays windows.

There is a good chance that this departure is not enough and Microsoft will have to adjust the software to make it work on all devices that are targeted. However, considering that big departure and the fact that windows are largely gone, what is the purpose of calling this OS Windows?

Devices

This new operating system will not just run on PCs. It will run on tablets, ARM and x86. It will run on everything in a range that spans from very little processing power to enthusiast boxes. The anticipated system requirements are below those of Windows Vista in 2006; Microsoft is investing a lot of time and money to further bring down those (processor and memory) requirements in an effort to reach as many devices as possible – devices that we may describe as PC+ or post-PC devices. Whatever it is, it is prudent to anticipate both scenarios and Microsoft’s development certainly indicates that the company wants to be prepared for PC+ and Post PC.

There is a an entirely new range of devices that are targeted by this new operating system – a range of devices that has not worked well with Windows in the past. There is a subjective concern that hardware that depends on maximum battery efficiency and performs well with very little horsepower just does not work with Windows. Windows has been held down by its significant system requirements and even if Microsoft reduced the required horsepower, there still is perception baggage: A Designed for Windows sticker on a tablet does not invoke a lot of confidence in the buyer of such a product. In a space where iOS and Android are seen as lightweight platforms, Windows is still too clumsy, too chunky and not nimble enough to compete against this new class of rivals.

It may not be such a great idea that Microsoft will leverage the Windows brand to compete against multiple Google brands (Android, Chrome) and multiple Apple brands (iOS, Mac OS).

Windows 8 On-Screen keyboard

The Changing OS

Let’s be honest: the general idea of what an OS should be and what it should do is changing. We are not just dealing with new devices and new technologies how we input data on a screen. We are seeing platforms that are changing the way we are using computers and how we are accessing data and services. Cloud technologies are changing our computing experience as we are increasingly connected and we demand access to all information all the time.

Google’s Chrome OS may not have hit a homerun yet, and Chrome OS is surely far from perfect, but it is a sign of things to come. In Google’s case, there is a minimal interface that provides access to a backend that delivers access to data, software and services. It may need a few more evolutionary stages until the mainstream user could consider it an option for Windows, but Google is certainly working toward the goal of turning it into a mainstream platform. For example, we just heard that Chrome will get support for Mozilla’s Joystick API, which will effectively turn Chrome into a much more attractive gaming platform as it will support devices such as remote controls and gamepads. Mozilla, on the other hand, is expected to release Boot-to-Gecko as a mobile OS platform next year, which could drive the idea of a cloud OS much more aggressively.

The Windows platform has not changed and it is, subjectively, still the same local workspace it was first released in 1984. There is still a basic OS interface that provides access to locally installed applications that run on top of it. The OS Microsoft demonstrated at its Build 2011 conference is carefully heading toward cloud services via its app market place, the integration of Xbox Live and via the new device types it supports. If Windows has to change even more because of a changing platform environment that is fueled by connected services, the perception of that change will have to be strongly supported by product branding and there is the question if Microsoft could do this with the name Windows.

Steve Ballmer’s Legacy

Windows 8 is do or die time for Steve Ballmer. Period. There isn’t much Steve Ballmer has created at Microsoft, at least not as far as the consumer sees it. Ballmer is the operations manager who happened to be in the right place at the right time and was lucky enough to fill in for Bill Gates.

Of course, that description isn’t fair and if you look a bit closer, Microsoft has to thank Steve Ballmer for the cash it has right now. Where the average company thinks it can earn $1, Steve Ballmer knows how to make $2. Unfortunately, that talent is not enough and when Steve Ballmer leaves Microsoft, the company will still be emotionally tied to Bill Gates and Ballmer’s image is likely to fade quickly. What will Steve Ballmer be remembered for? His monkey dance? (As funny as this dance is, it shows one thing: This guy is one dedicated CEO!)

Ballmer has been attacked for several years because of Microsoft’s non-moving stock price (in a similar way, Intel has been complaining about its stagnant stock as well, but it seems that Paul Otellini is largely escaping those complaints). Those attacks will continue until the stock price changes or he is able to establish his own legacy. It won’t work with Windows, but with a product and brand that he is connected to. Windows 8 would be one of his last opportunities.

The Reality

As much as I would believe that Windows 8 should not be called Windows 8, we know that Windows 8 is more than just a code name. The blog that is promoting Windows 8 is called “Building Windows 8″ for a reason. Using the name as a successor for the successful Windows 7 makes also sense. It is rather unlikely that Microsoft would drop the Windows brand.

If it was me, however, I’d be considering a switch into a new era that is as significant as the user model that Windows 8 introduces. What about Tiles?

Wolfgang Gruener in Business on October 11