I am going short on Apple, Microsoft and Google

It is interesting to see how things come full circle.

A few years back, an industry defining moment arrived when Microsoft decided to package its browser free along with the OS.  Netscape didn't stand much of a chance - who can beat free?

Microsoft itself, however, failed to subsidize on the value of the browser and missed being the market leader on the internet bandwagon. After all, how valuable can a "free" asset be?  The browser was just an add-on acting as a garnish to its core business of selling the Windows OS.  The issue with this view was that Microsoft completely underestimated the revenue potential of a new world opened up through the browser.

Google was one of the few companies who benefited from this. And apparently is now going about the same route. By providing Chrome OS and its variant - Android - as an open platform, it has thrown the gauntlet to Microsoft where it might hurt the most - the core business of Operating System.  By subsidising the Operating System itself through its core search based revenues, Google is aiming at preventing the competitive thoughts Apple and Microsoft might have towards dominating the "search" business.

It has supplementary impacts too - let me be adventurous and list down potential scenarios.

1. Apple, while being the most valuable technology company today, will find itself losing market share both in mobile space and in the desktop/laptop space due to the popularity of Android and Chome based tablets and mobile phone.  Apple might be forced to open up its stack to retain market share, but might be too late due to the number of players who might have already embraced Chrome/Android.  How many "iPads" can Jobs pull off after all?

2. Microsoft's second biggest revenue generator, its Office suite of products, faces revenue decline from the onslaught of Chrome extensions and applets...this will be exacerbated by the potential price war that could erupt with Apple as the third player. With both its core revenue components under decline, Microsoft might have to aggressively look at a third source of revenue - probably its Azure line - or risk getting split or going under.

3. In its quest for a universal search engine, spanning visual media and internet, Google itself might find its search business reeling under the onslaught of new players who can lease bandwidth and leverage Chrome for far savvier and user friendly applications.  Just like Microsoft failed to let go its inhibitions around Windows OS to embrace internet, Google might find it difficult to let go its core search revenue and latch on to new streams, particularly related to social networking.

The common theme among all these scenarios and examples being the inability of successful companies to let go of their winning themes and jump on to the next ones.  Focusing on core competence no longer wins the game, especially when the game itself changes.

And what does this mean for the customer?
- An integrated information world at last..an Internet 3.0 spanning all media types. I can probably use my TV, mobile device, laptop and tablet as interchangeable and completely linked technology devices that can access my personal and corporate information seamlessly through self-provisioning enabled by cloud service providers and players like dropbox.  From a social perspective, this would also mean the end of private life as we see it today.

We are indeed living in interesting times.  Whether this is a curse or boon, only time can tell.

Wisdom of Testivus - Testivus on Test Coverage

Early one morning, a young programmer asked the great master:

“I am ready to write some unit tests. What code coverage should I aim for?” 

The great master replied: “Don’t worry about coverage, just write some good tests.”

The young programmer smiled, bowed, and left.

Later that day, a second programmer asked the same question.

The great master pointed at a pot of boiling water and said: “How many grains of rice should I put in that pot?”

The programmer, looking puzzled, replied: “How can I possibly tell you? It depends on how many people you need to feed, how hungry they are, what other food you are serving, how much rice you have available, and so on.”

“Exactly,” said the great master.

The second programmer smiled, bowed, and left.

Toward the end of the day, a third programmer came and asked the same question about code coverage.

“Eighty percent and no less!” Replied the master in a stern voice, pounding his fist on the table.

The third programmer smiled, bowed, and left.

After this last reply, a young apprentice approached the great master:

“Great master, today I overheard you answer the same question about code coverage with three different answers. Why?”

The great master stood up from his chair:

“Come get some fresh tea with me and let’s talk about it.”

After they filled their cups with smoking hot green tea, the great master began:

“The first programmer is new and just getting started with testing. Right now he has a lot of code and no tests. He has a long way to go; focusing on code coverage at this time would be depressing and quite useless. He’s better off just getting used to writing and running some tests. He can worry about coverage later.

The second programmer, on the other hand, is quite experienced both at programming and testing. When I replied by asking her how many grains of rice I should put in a pot, I helped her realize that the amount of testing necessary depends on a number of factors, and she knows those factors better than I do – it’s her code after all. There is no single, simple, answer, and she’s smart enough to handle the truth and work with that.”

“I see,” said the young apprentice, “but if there is no single simple answer, then why did you tell the third programmer ‘Eighty percent and no less’?”

The great master laughed so hard and loud that his belly, evidence that he drank more than just green tea, flopped up and down.

“The third programmer wants only simple answers – even when there are no simple answers … and then does not follow them anyway.”

The young apprentice and the grizzled great master finished drinking their tea in contemplative silence

- Courtesy google testing blog

Mint - Counting money made easy

I have a mild streak of obsessive compulsion in me....manifesting in an inane urge to prevent accumulation of pennies and counting the number of lamp post in a pier. 

So imagine my pleasure when I discovered mint.com last year.  The site is free to access and allows one to aggregate all the financial data automatically.  I could get all the credit card transaction details uploaded in one place.  My bank balance and salary credits could be viewed and compared against the expenses to draw up the net income.

I could also analyze the trends to see where I am spending more.  The site also gives suggestions on credit cards and CD options - though I have hardly used them. 

I did read a few articles that voiced mild concerns over the security risk that one is subjected to by placing all the financial data in one place - hopefully, Intuit - they own mint.com now - is big enough and secure enough.  Time will tell..meanwhile, the obsessive compuslive me is more than happy to see my pennies stacked up neatly by them.

Top 10 fiction books that you can read this year

Was writing out a list of books for my friend and the thought crossed my mind that this could be a good one to move in here...keeping in synch with my plan to increase the post frequency.

Here we go....of course, this is strictly fiction.  I thumb my nose at those non-fiction readers who pursue books for "intellectual" development.
1. Presumed Innocent, Scott Turow (there is also a movie version - Harrison Ford)

2. Burden of Proof, Scott Turow

3. Innocent, Scott Turow

4. The girl with the dragon tattoo - Steig Larsson

5. The girl who played with fire - Steig Larsson

6. The girl who kicked the hornet's nest - Steig Larsson

7. One for the money - Janet Evanovich (movie will come end of this year with Katherine Heigl)

8. Two for the dough - Janet Evanovich (there are 14 more in the series - I am spacing them out and have finished only these two)

9. Any book by Harlan Coben (there is a Myron Bolitar series that you will like - the stories are set in NJ)

10. Any book by Robert B Parker (go for the Spenser series, preferbaly in the order in which they were written.)

The last four are more entertainment fiction, sort of like an adult's version of Hardy Boys...so if you are a serious reader, please read my comments above about you.

And of course there are few very interesting books by Dr. Seuss about his cat :)

Let me know your thoughts on the list.  Can always add more...

Apple iPhone4 Success Masks Global Strategic Challenges

An interesting perspective on Apple's positioning...most interesting is the correlation of the stock with luxury goods. Is Steve Jobs only a US phenomenon?

Apple iPhone4 Success Masks Global Strategic Challenges

Gamble your money away...

Where does one draw the line between gambling and competitive e-commerce transactions?

I am a big fan of auction sites like e-bay and variants like Amazon Marketplace. e-commerce channels provides a transparent option for the customers to drive down the prices of goods and services. It also allows small businesses and individuals to reach out to larger markets with minimal shoe leather cost.

I am also all for online gambling sites and casinos that does not make any attempt to mask what they are selling - you smoke cigarettes knowing the risk.

But what about sites that egg your gambling addiction on surreptitiously?

The business model of penny auction sites like www.quibids.com and www.swoopo.com relies on this aspect.

Users are encouraged to bid on items that usually get sold at 30 - 40% of their market value. However, you pay for each bid you make and the bid amounts go up at an increment of 1 or 2 cents.

Let us take the case of an iPad that gets sold for 100 USD. If each bid costs 60 cents for a user, quibids will end up making 6000$ from the sale. And the temptation of the lower price will invariably lure bidders in as they would not want to lose the "deal" for holding back on 1 cent!!

Now let us look at the process from a different narrative view...there is a single winner who got a very good deal. There are multiple bidders who bet on winning but lost out much smaller amounts of money proportional to the bid made. Does this sound familiar to what you did during that last trip to Atlantic City or Vegas?

Now let us push this thought stream a bit more - in a roulette or blackjack game, I know the bidders in the game...here I don't. In fact, I am not even sure if there are robots out there bidding the price up and waiting for me to jump into the pool for the "win". I know my odds in any game in the casino - my odds here are hopelessly skewed as neither the final amount nor the number of players are fixed.

A beautiful business model - and on top of that I doubt if any of these "quasi-gambling" sites pay entertainment or gambling tax that the casinos pay out to the Treasury.

I wish I had thought of it first!