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Biggest Flop of 2010?

geek — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 19:36:32 +0000

If the iPad is going to be singled out as one of the biggest successes of 2010, it’s also important to highlight the biggest flop of 2010, and without missing a beat I’d have to nominate the highly anticipated, completely unsuccessful, failure of Google Buzz.

Ultimately this failure will likely be overlooked in the years to come, but for many in the tech and social media fields it has left a lasting impression and the knowledge that Google isn’t perfect, and when it comes to social they’re not even close. Unfortunately, this failure also paved the way for Facebook to become the de facto standard for social media websites and allowed them an unprecedented leader.

Only time will tell if Google can ever make inroads into this rapidly growing marketplace, but I would have to guess with their string of less than successful offerings that it’s pretty unlikely. Critical mass has been reached and Google has missed the opportunity for now.

~geek

HP to Buy Palm for $1.2 Billion

geek — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 21:41:26 +0000

Hewlett-Packard has announced a $1.2 billion deal with Palm, Inc. that would allow HP, the highly successful technology mega-company to expand further into the smartphone market.

Nearly everyone on the street has known for some time that Palm has been shopping around their technology, looking for a buyer, and it seems that they may well have found their white knight in the coffers of Hewlett Packard. By offering a 23% premium, HP is paying a small price to show a commitment to the massive smartphone market. Once well known for their IPaq mobile product line, which includes a Windows Mobile based smartphone, HP has continually lost ground to the competition including Apple and Google.

As the words of this article are reaching the screen I, like many likely will, am wondering why HP, a company of such vast resources, would buy Palm, a company that has been floundering in recent years. Their last big success, the Treo, has been replaced many times over and their recent products were met with harsh criticism from even the staunchest Palm supporters. Hopefully they know better and we can all sit back and watch what they turn out of this acquisition.

~geek

Google, Android and Open Source Telephones

geek — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 17:23:07 +0000

Not surprisingly, I have an opinion about Google’s new Android phone operating system and their Open Handset Alliance, and as much as I don’t want to admit it I believe this is great for the consumer and even better for the phone manufacturers. Why? Because, finally the phone manufacturers can spend less time working on creating an OS for their phone and put those investment dollars into making their phones better telephones. Add in to that some additional functionality on even the most generic of phones and you potentially end up with an exploding smart-phone revolution that significantly improves the end-user experience.

It is yet to be seen how the companies that have signed on will take advantage of the open-source nature of the Android system, or even how similar the phones will be when they come off the assembly line. The open-source nature of the idea allows for so much variety and my greatest fear is that they’ll all come to a similar end result. Fortunately, companies will be able to choose what they offer – their own OS, a Windows platform or an open-source Linux platform, so maybe my fears won’t reach fruition and the market will allow the differentiation to come out in the user experience, the fit and finish of the product and, quite often, the hip factor that the handset carries.

What I don’t understand is how a company like Google can honestly suggest that this new technology will make the mobile internet experience “better than on a PC.” I’ve used the internet on my Blackberry, and frankly until web-developers get on board and write a user experience and code specifically for handsets I don’t see how a poor user experience is going to change with a new interface. It’s a tiny screen, a typically slow speed connection, and a sacrificed keyboard. Those things aren’t likely to change if phone manufacturers aren’t looking to alienate their customers, because frankly my Blackberry 8830 is plenty big enough. We’ll see what dribbles out in the second half of 2008, but I don’t see a revolutionary change from what we’re used to seeing today and I definitely don’t see it being better than my PC.

The ultimate winners here could be Linux and the Windows Mobile OS. Up until now the Microsoft product offering has been mixed, but now that the Google money machine has rolled into the open-source camp I imagine that Microsoft is going to have to step up to the plate or find the future of its mobile OS fading into the sunset. As a Windows systems administrator (everyone has to have a day job), I value the tools that the Windows Mobile OS offers , but I can’t use their phones because they’re typically not a good phone. If I can’t make and receive calls equal to even the lowest end LG phone, no amount of features will change my perception of that phone. Could Google’s announcement mean that I can get a mobile platform for system administration AND a good telephone? Only time will tell.

~geek