Category Archives: Business

One of the hottest territories in the technology industry today is the e-books market. New readers (or multi-purpose devices with reader functionality) are getting launched in quick succession and big players are entering the fray. With heavyweights like Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble, Google, Microsoft, Samsung, HP and Dell competing to sell the devices that can serve the purpose of an e-book reader, it’s too early to call who will stack on the top of the lot. The first mover advantage here is arguable, but “multi-device application” advantage is certainly not.

Amazon has adapted, what we can call, a “multi-device application” strategy which can work  big time in its favor. It has decoupled the Kindle application with the Kindle hardware, i.e. the software application that you use to read the books on Kindle e-book reader is available for a slew of other platforms including Windows, iPad and Android for free. So an e-book that you buy from Amazon can be read not only on Kindle, but on virtually any device you own.

This multi-device functionality together with other value propositions of Amazon has given it a big advantage. Amazon has got the biggest collection of books in its e-bookstore. Books is their forte. Book buying experience on Amazon is second to none. They have strong customer relationship and command unparalleled trust when it comes to books. And when you can buy a book from Amazon and read it on any device, the probability is really high for customers to use their store.

Amazon enjoys advantage, something similar to what Microsoft did with its Windows operating system back in its early days. Microsoft distributed Windows openly to run with different processors and computers made by all PC makers, making it the platform of choice for application developers and the end users. Similarly Amazon is distributing books to be read on any device, no matter who’s selling the device. This will likely give the Kindle maker an edge and could make it the e-bookstore of choice for the end users. There’s one catch, Amazon better make money selling e-books.

The one thing that really helped Microsoft capture the personal computer market was its strategy to focus on software that goes on computers made by any computer manufacturer from IBM to Dell. That’s been the company’s strategy which has proven great for it over the years. Windows became the platform of choice for application developers due to its great reach in turn making it irreplaceable for the PC users. Apple on the other hand made really great Macs by developing both the machine and the software that goes on it. A semi-closed ecosystem with a handful of application makers (like Microsoft Office) making software for it. Apple found its niche in the cool and trendy crowd consisting of students, designers and artists.

Bring in the mobile space. The very strategy that worked against Apple in computers playing field is now proving to be its most valued asset. Apple is a company that controls end-to-end development of its mobile phone. It controls all three key elements of the phone – hardware, software and the chip component. This gives Apple an unprecedented advantage in providing integrated user experience. Apple is able to remove any friction between hardware and software. Adding the chip development expertise to this provides Apple accuracy in estimating the processor performance and map it to feature development. The out of the box experience that FaceTime delivers is one of the first examples of how vertical integration is going to do wonders for Apple.

The only other company that has all three elements of mobile phone under its control is Samsung. Samsung, the world’s largest conglomerate, has great expertise in chip development and hardware manufacturing. Samsung manufactured phones running Windows Mobile software have been around for a while, but Samsung launched its bada platform for mobile devices in late 2009 to have complete end-to-end presence in the mobile world and Samsung Wave became the first bada based phone to enter the market a few months back. All the elements coming together positions Samsung perfectly to be a challenger in providing vertically integrated experience on the mobile platform.

Now moving on to talk about the emerging markets. Mobile phone market is growing at a tremendous pace in the developing countries. India and China each have more mobile phone users than the total population of United States. If at one end a smartphone costs more than the monthly income of many people in these countries, it is a wannabe gadget for the growing middle class. While iPhone fanaticism is catching up in these countries as well, no one can dispute the unparalleled hold Samsung’s got in the Asian markets. Samsung has one of the most efficient marketing machinery and brand presence in the electronics market out there. This positions it strongly against Apple et al to get smartphone market share in these countries.

There’s still a while to go before calling out the winner in the mobile devices world. Apple, with its genius design and development of iPhone and iPad, has captivated the imagination of everyone from consumers to competition. But it will be interesting to see how Samsung and others fare in there in the coming years and what role the emerging markets will play in deciding the fate of these companies.

Information overflow is one of the biggest problems in the world. Today you can find a lot of information about any topic anywhere (well “almost” anywhere) instantly. There is abundance of information which has created a problem in itself i.e. how to use it without losing key data points? Companies have made fortunes by organizing, presenting and searching information.

Information abundance and availability has done great for the world. It has leveled the playing field in many ways. People can make informed decisions. You get the breaking news the same time as anyone else in the world. You can analyze the archives from years back just like anyone else. But even after having access to the same information some people can make better decisions than others. That’s because  just having information is not enough. The important thing is how can you leverage the available information?

Information can be leveraged by converting it into knowledge. Knowledge is a result derived out of the information through perception, learning and reasoning. Knowledge is precious.  It is actionable. The differentiating factor lies in how well you are able to extract the knowledge out of the information to make critical decision, how well can you apply the learning from historical scenarios to predict the future and how well you can apply analytical reasoning to reach to the optimal results.

Technology that plays a major role in organizing the information plays an equally important role in converting it into knowledge. Complex algorithms that would adapt with usage plays a critical role in knowledge generation. Another important element in this process is human input to absorb the knowledge and make decisions. The idea is to process the information and synthesize the data to derive intelligent conclusions. This is more of a cyclical than a linear process. A process where information flows in and gets processed, knowledge is extracted, decisions are made and the processing algorithm and decision-making process gets adapted based on efficacy of the results. The adapted infrastructure is used to further take information and produce knowledge.

From the premier of a country to the layman witnessing an event down the street, everyone has got a voice and the leading way to raise it today is through twitter. Whether you are a celebrity managing a PR disaster or a brand raising product awareness, the best way to do it is by being precise, direct and without filters. This is where twitter comes in play. A 140 word short message that you can send out to the world irrespective of who you are, where you live (almost) and what you want to say (risks exist!). All in all, twitter provides everyone with a microphone to express ones views loud and clear.

One of the main advantages of this form of direct communication is that there is almost nothing lost in translation. The message reaches the audience as you want to send it. The chances of you being quoted out of context are less than ever before and the fact that it is on the web, the golden rule of “web never forgets” applies to your tweets to a large extent. Twitter has been more effective than other sources of information sharing like blogs, podcast and youtube. Reason being twitter is effortless. You can speak your head out and you don’t have to be a writer or photographer to do that.

Indian Premium League, one of the most lucrative sports league in the world, unleashed the power of twitter in one of the best possible examples of how dominating this medium can be. All through the tournament and scandals surrounding it, the role of major Indian newspaper and news channels was limited to quoting the role players from their twitter feeds. No major news conference, no people running with cameras and microphones, but as much, if not more, buzz and fan following, all through twitter.

The word of mouth social campaigns like Malaria No More and relief efforts in Haiti reached new heights with the help of twitter.

Twitter does a great job in leveling the playing field. You no longer have to wait to be reached out to or asked for an opinion. There’s the microphone for you and you got to leverage it to reach out to your “followers”.

With iPhone App Store having close to 100,000 applications, the most intriguing question is that can any other platform match the enormous ecosystem advantage iPhone has through these applications? On the flip side, top 40 applications in iPhone are really what 90% of people care about. So will Android, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile et al level the playing field by getting these top 40 applications on their platform?

Indirect network effect of the applications (apart from the design genius) makes iPhone one of the most wanted gadgets today. It’s the same network effect that gave Windows the edge in personal computing and is working for Facebook in social networks. But one industry difference makes iPhone more vulnerable than Windows in 90s and that is the openness of the competitive platforms. In the smartphone world, all platforms are open for software developers to launch their applications. The developers who wrote applications for iPhone will pretty much write applications for BlackBerry et al if they see traction for these phones and their applications in the market. If the competitive platforms are good enough to rope in the top applications on their platforms, they might be able to bridge the gap.

But then there’s the long tail. You go somewhere, you remember it because that was the place where you found that obscure song you were looking for, a copy of that biography you didn’t find anywhere else, or that phone application which helped you survive in a foreign country. With close to 100,000 applications, you can find almost anything in the iPhone App Store based on your needs at any given time and it will be a while before a competitive platform catch-up on that.

So will top 40 level the playing field? Well it depends. If the tail behind the head is long enough to attract the masses, the company with the long tail can survive the competitive attacks. What is required in this case is to make sure that the customers realize that you have got the long tail. Your communication with your target customer base should focus on, among other things, the long tail.