Bizology

T-Mobile G1 (AKA Google Phone): First Thoughts

There are times when new mobile products impress me. Those are few and far between. A lot of today's mobile phones look alike - they are either an iPhone, or an iPhone imitator (every carrier has at least one of these), a BlackBerry, or "the rest". The T-Mobile G1 is somewhere in between an iPhone and a BlackBerry.

It's easy to speculate that the G1 is a direct iPhone competitor, and certainly people who are looking for a smart phone could compare the two. I've had this device for half a day so these are my initial thoughts. As I continue to use and test it I may feel differenly about it.

So far my feeling is that this device is aimed squarely at BlackBerry's consumer and small business market. I won't even consider a comparison to WIndows Mobile due to its instability and a user interface that hasn't materially changed in at least 5 years. For those that use Gmail this phone mirrors very close the experience you would receive on a BlackBerry that connects to a Microsoft Exchange server. The Gmail integration is absolutely seamless, to the point where you even see your tags and stars in the e-mail application. The calendar information is automatically populated (the iPhone cannot do this wirelessly when used with a non-Exchange e-mail account) and the Contacts in Gmail are populated automatically. Google is attempting to disrupt RIM's BES and its proprietary date service franchises. The data service alone is an enormous recurring revenue cash cow for RIM. And practically every business with Microsoft Exchange has a BlackBerry Enterprise Server.

What is lacking so far is polish - and that means that there are some "little" things that are missing. One example is an auto text feature. For example, if I want to type "I'll" the G1 won't make the i capital, and it won't add the ' mark. I have to do that manually, which can get annoying. There are very few other applications in the ""Market". I'm not a big fan of the keyboard. It may be OK for texting, but for writing regular emails it's doesn't feel as comfortable as a BlackBerry. Although Google's answer to music is its partnership with Amazon and its "one-click" song purchases, there is no application like iTunes to manage te music or photos. YouTube is included but doesn't seem to be as the same quality as on the iPhone. Go figure.

The development platform is also new. The quality of the SDK remains the be seen. Apple hit quite a few snags with its SDK when it first came out. As we test not only the phone but also the development platform we will learn more about its capabilties. For now, it is a good consumer-focused device. And it certainly exceeded my expectations for Google's first crack at a mobile OS.

Toilet Paper Entrepreneur

There are many books about business ownership, management, leadership, and other worthwhile topics business owners might find interesting. We read these books (you know the ones - the New York Times bestsellers) and we hope to apply 1% of the content for 100% of the effort. These books have their place in the libraries of business owners. You read them, you get motivated, and you hope that the content applies to your business in some way.

In thinking about how to best describe Toilet Paper Entrepreneur I thought it would be best to describe what the book is not and what you won't find in it. It's not filled with concepts practiced by management consultants at Fortune 100 companies, it doesn't have fancy matrices, and it doesn't have scientifically proven results from focus groups. It is not published by a business school and it doesn't have a renowned professor and large company CEO quotes on the back cover. If you have been a business owner for many years it won't tell you how to get to "the next level".

Much more exciting is what it does have, and in a nutshell, it speaks to the people who are working for a company or are in college but deep down inside they want to start their first business. You know who you are - the cubicle dweller (or midnight study mole in college) who has an idea and thinks about it, talks about it with friends and family, but at the end of the day goes to bed and to work (or school) the next day.

You might be wondering what toilet paper has to do with being an entrepreneur - well, metaphorically, toilet paper is a scarce resource- at least when you are not at home or at a place where you have
control over restocking it. And in that sense, entrepreneurs - the ones who take the leap of faith in themselves - also work with scarce resources, most notably time and money. The book talks about ways
anyone who wants to start a business with limited resources can do so. It's a "bottom line" book to starting a business on a shoestring, which the author supports wholeheartedly.

Those of you who are waiting to take the plunge will gain some benefit in reading about real life examples and experiences of real people starting and running businesses. The book distills these experiences in often humorous way and provides insight into real trials and tribulations of small business owners. Readers will be interested in learning about the author's own successes and failures in the forward section of the book entitled "My Three-Sheet Story".

Toilet Paper Entrepreneur is one of those books that you look for on the shelves of your local bookstore but not find it, or settle for something close. Specifically, those with the fire to start their own
business will find value in a book that offers direct, no-nonsense approach from experience and will hopefully persuade those who want to start their business to, well, "Just Do It!".

Achilles Heal of the Apple iPhone - AT&T's network

Apple's deal with AT&T deal was lauded as a coup for smart phone enthusiasts. The best device ever made on the largest network in America. The network with the least dropped calls. "iPhone 3G - Half the price, twice the speed". We've heard it.

Well, that could not be farther from the truth. It's been almost 2 months and media frenzy over the poor quality of the connections has ensued. From personal experience I feel that AT&T's network leaves a lot to be desired. At the moment my iPhone shows 5 bars, on the Edge network (not the "twice the speed" network), and still I cannot browse the web. It is unbelievable. And even if I was in a 3G area the speed is not even close to what AT&T claims it to be.

About a year ago (last November) I purchased a Motorola Q9h. Decent phone at the time, and better than previous versions. However, the 3G network had exactly the same problems - it was not as fast as AT&T claimed it to be. There were other problems with the device, particularly with stability.

So in less than a year the 3G network has not improved, and I live in the NYC metro area. I am surprised that there aren't any lawsuits against AT&T for false advertising. Many people want to blame Apple, but I doubt this is Apple's fault, only because I get the same experience on other devices.

I hope one day AT&T will fix these problems or just admit and say that they do not have a reliable data network but are working to correct it. At least it will give people a light at the end of the tunnel.

Paul Revere, Independence Day, and a happy 4th!

As we get ready to celebrate the independence of this great country of ours I decided to look into one of the recognized leaders of American history - Paul Revere. A silversmith by trade he became a very successful businessman after the revolution.

But Paul became known as the guy who rode on a horse throughout the suburbs of Boston to warn people that the British were planning an attack. However, as it turns out, Revere wasn't the only one riding a horse to warn others. William Dawes went on a similar mission but is not nearly as known as Paul Revere. As I was reading The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell,  he writes that the reason Revere is known for the Midnight Ride is because he was more successful. People listened to Revere because of his "connections" to the citizens, his relationships, and viewed him as someone with integrity and honesty. Although not much is known about William Dawes, Gladwell suggests that Revere was know as someone known to the people with a history, while Dawes was another stranger.

It's interesting that in business so much depends on integrity, honesty, and genuine connections with people. People with whom Revere interacted made a decision to trust him based on their previous interactions and his reputation. Good thing Revere had all these attributes - we may have lost an important battle with the Brits. Paul Revere's legacy is that he was celebrated person who risked life and limb to warn Samuel Adams and John Hancock about a pending attack. Of course he wasn't celebrated during his lifetime. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem called Paul Revere's Ride is what made Revere famous after his death.

Well, enough of history. Have a happy 4th of July and enjoy the spirit of American independence.

What I miss about Windows Vista

Yes, I finally broke down and decided to get a MacBook Pro. Honestly, I didn't think the day would come...but it did. Now, I'm more of a practical person and not always the idealist. I'm also not an Apple purist, meaning that I can't give up access to the Windows OS. The challenge with not having access to a Windows OS is that you never know when you need to access a .net web site or web app that just won't quite work with a non-Internet Explorer web browser. And of course there are those beloved apps like Microsoft Visio that aren't available on the Mac.

So thanks to the brilliant people at VMWare I use their Fusion product to run Windows XP Pro (absolutely the most stable and reliable Microsoft operating system ever) as a virtual machine for all my Windows needs. I've been using it for several weeks and the software works amazingly well, unlike the old MS Virtual PC. The Windows XP virtual machine runs fast, almost to the point where you don't feel like you're working in a virtual environment. I even use MS Office 2007 and Outlook 2007 for my e-mail (yes, I do know about Office 2008 for Mac, but I want to see how well I can use Oulook 2007 running in a virtual machine).

Here are the top 10 things that I will miss from my Vista laptop:

1. Wasting at least 20 minutes in the morning waiting for the laptop to come back to life from hibernation and trying to resolve my simple dual monitor setup.
2. Intermittent hangups during the workday, such as the mouse cursor and IE freezing.
3. Freezing during docking and undocking
4. The friendly Vista security cop that asks me to confirm my actions constantly (I eventually turned this "friendly feature" off).
5. Waiting for a non-beta version of scanner software for my Visioneer scanner (not sure if people at Visoneer know but it IS 2008 and maybe its time to remove "beta" from their drivers for Vista).
6. The anxiety of wondering if the laptop will go into hibernate mode properly if I close the lid...or if I'm in a rush and the time that hibernate does not work the laptop overheats in my laptop bag.
7. The constant paging and disk spinning - even with 2 gb of RAM.
8. Seeing the "Vista is changing to Basic mode".
9. My overall favorite - getting the dual monitors to work properly..every single day.
10. The boot process that feels like eternity

So far the Mac experience has been fantastic. The MacBook Pro doesn't miss a beat. Just having the confidence of closing the lid/screen and knowing I can open it and be back to work in seconds is a huge time saver. I'm estimating that I save about 2 hours a day by using  Mac (meaning that I lost about 2 hours using Vista).

Of course the built-in video chat capabilities are amazing. I've used the iChat AV software to video chat with friends and it has worked very well.

So where did Microsoft go wrong? Well, Vista could have been a better product. But its not finished and from my experience, full of time wasting, confidence crushing bugs. And its not like I even did an upgrade on my old laptop - Vista Business came with it pre-installed. Hopefully, Microsoft can redeem itself with Windows 7 that is due to be released sometime next year.

Mainstream Linux finds a home for itself - mobility

I think most people would agree that Linux on the desktop has been a failure so far, except for the brave few who prefer to spend their time compiling drivers and learning the pleasantries of the command line. On the server side Linux continues to be a strong contender and both Red Hat and Novell are doing well getting their server products in the enterprise, and in Novell's case, teaming up with Microsoft.

So if desktop Linux hasn't touched the hearts of ordinary people can it do so via mobile devices? The Linux Mobile Foundation and Google's Android-powered "gPhones" aim to prove that it can. If anything, we will get much more functional cell phones with more capabilities and better tie-ins with applications. At least the operating system of the phone will be standards based, rather than proprietary operating systems that are found on today's cell phones. Let's hope both organizations can help free the current generation of cell phones from the stranglehold of proprietary and closed systems.

Apple out innovates the PC industry - AGAIN

  (Photos from MacRumorsLive.com) - Yes, Apple is releasing an ultra-thin laptop called MacBook Air. Thinner than thin! $1,799 gets you the thinnest notebook ever with a 13.3in screen, 80 gb hard drive, and 5 hours of battery life. Also announced a price drop in the not-so-popular Apple TV (down to $229). And Apple is now in the move rental business - you will be able to watch rented movies on the iphone.

I'll never understand why with the vast resources of Dell, HP, Lenovo, Toshiba, and others why these companies can never out-design Apple.

Now I have another reason to go to the Apple store!

2007 - Year in review

With the end of the year just two weeks away I thought it would be interesting to do a brief technology recap. A lot of new products came to the market and a few exciting ones were announced:

Microsoft Vista and Mac OSX 10.5 (Leopard) were released to the world this year - along with more funny Mac vs. Vista ads. Apple still seems avoid marketing to business, even though VMware and Parallels both released virtualization software that allows Macs to run Windows concurrently.

Apple's iPhone went on sale with a media frenzy and people waited outside for hours to get their hands on one. A little over a month later Apple decided to do away with the 4 gig iPhone and lower the price of the 8 gig iPhone, and issued $100 store credits after loyalists cried foul. For the record, my $100 credit is collecting dust. I was planning to use it to buy an iTunes card, but that is apparently against the rules.

Linux - Nothing to write here since nothing of note happened this year. Not much ground was gained here at all. It's still an operating system for the uber geek.

Michael Dell returned to become the CEO of the company he once started. Dell had been losing market share to HP, IBM, and even Apple. Time to get back to basics at Dell.

The OLPC laptop finally became a real product. This is a laptop geared for developing countries. It was supposed to be the $100 laptop, but became the $200 laptop instead.

Google announced their Android software for mobile phones. The software is designed to operate cell phones and will allow software to be written and installed on devices. Google is also a bidder for the 700 mhz radio spectrum, the same radio spectrum used by analog TV channels (you know..the rabbit ears on your TV). Analog TV is going to the age of the dinosaur in 2009 and if Google wins the spectrum from the FCC they will be able to build out their own cellular network, or simply end up licensing it to one of the existing carriers.

The final nail in the coffin was hammered into CompUSA. They are finally shutting down all their stores, joining Computer City in the world of failed computer hardware stores.

Verizon Wireless announced that they will be "opening their network" so that customers can purchase cell phones from sources other than Verizon Wireless dealers. This is called "Bring Your Own", giving new meaning to BYO. Verizon Wireless uses handsets on the CDMA network, the same network as Sprint. Conceivably, Sprint cell phone users will be able to reprogram their cell phone to work on the Verizon Wireless network. Can't wait to see the 100 steps it will take to make this happen. It is good news for handset makers like Nokia, Samsung, LG, Motorola, and others. They can now sell their CDMA handsets directly to consumers.

Nokia acquired Navteq, the GPS mapping company. Navteq provides mapping software for virtually every GPS device on the planet. Excellent move on Nokia's part. GPS is becoming a more integral part of cell phones and PDAs these days.

Google's entry into the cellular phone market - what does it mean to you?

Yesterday, Google made its ambitions for the cell phone market known - they will be developing, and most likely giving away, mobile phone operating system software to manufacturers. You may be wondering why the media and industry see this as a major announcement.

To get a full understanding of the potential here turn on your ordinary cell phone and notice the steps it takes to get you to a dial pad. Ordinary cell phones have software that is loaded by the carrier. The carriers rarely develop their own software and in more cases then not they license the software from others. It's been a very long time since I've owned a cell phone - I've been using a PDA/phone device since the Treo 600 came out in 2003. The most frustrating thing about cell phone software is that you can only customize it so much, and you have to live with the carrier's overtly aggressive branding. And the only thing you can do on most phones is make a call and maybe browse the for-fee multi-media services the carrier provides. The software is locked down.

Google aims to turn the tables. They're offering to give away (or charge a very low fee for) the mobile software that the service providers pay for today. In exchange, they agree to open the mobile software to developers to launch a new breed of applications and to extend the utility of today's cell phone.

It looks like T-Mobile and Sprint are on top of this wave in the US market, AT&T is missing (probably because of the iPhone), and Verizon Wireless is missing as well - because they're always missing from revolutionary advances in technology. T-Mobile has always innovated more on the data side but have found it difficult to compete using the old Voicestream network, which doesn't have nearly as good coverage as Sprint, AT&T, and Verizon Wireless.

Google also has some challenges. They're definitely not known for their user interface design. I use gmail begrudgingly and I don't love using it, but I'm used to it. Yahoo's user interfaces are a lot more user friendly, so I almost wish Yahoo was doing this instead of Google.

So what's in it for Google? Advertising share! They hope they will compensate for giving away the software by making money on mobile ads. Hopefully, they won't be too intrusive. But it remains to be seen if consumers will embrace whatever the software Google plans to launch. People who shun PDAs and use cell phones want simplicity and ease of use. We'll see if Google can deliver.

Verizon, and the age of bandwidth dominance

In a post a few months ago I wrote about how I switched off my regular phone service and switched to Comcast cable. Unfortunately, due to substandard quality of their voice service and the relatively low Internet speed did not make it as good a deal as I imagined (to be fair, several friends that have Comcast voice are happy with their service). Luckily, Verizon recently made their fiber-optic FiOS service available in my area. Of course I decided to make the switch back to Verizon.

FiOS is no small installation. It took the technician an entire day run fiber to my house, install a box on the outside and the inside of my house, and tap off the existing coax cable (very clever) and twisted pair wiring inside the house to make the TV, Internet, and phone live. Their install process is substantially more structured and formal then Comcast's. I also felt that the installer was much more qualified to do the job of hooking up all three service and even spent time to explain how everything works.  The bandwidth is now at 20 megs, I have a lot more TV channels, and the voice service is as clear as the service I used to have with copper wires.

The FiOS service is Verizon's security blanket. Without investing $23 billion in infrastructure it's hard to believe that they would be able to survive as a company. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 required equal access to competition to the "last mile" of communications service. This last mile is typically owned by a local telephone carriers - the regional Bell operating companies (RBOCs). Now that the last mile is being converted into fiber, and offering much more then just Internet access, the 11 year old telecom act may not be so relevant anymore.

One category of service providers that compete with Verizon on offering bandwidth - the DSL providers that helped bring high speed Internet access to businesses and residences - are in trouble. Verizon has no obligation to let competitors ride on their fiber network. Once a services like FiOS is installed it's not possible to have a DSL line, because there are no more copper lines from the telephone poll. A consumer would need to order a new, regular copper phone line (called a POTS line for Plain Old Telephone Service) and then contract a competitor like Covad or SpeakEasy to deliver DSL. However, this would make the entire process cost prohibitive and provide less bandwidth to the consumer (DSL bandwidth varies but typically is not as nearly as high as the 20 megabyte standard service offered by FiOS).

The cable companies also have a problem. Verizon, and the other RBOCs, have more resources and are more recognized for voice services. And they are offering the same services as Verizon that cost more and deliver less value. So the cable companies better start thinking of a new business model or strategy because it is possible that those coax cables hanging on telephone poles (see the irony here?) might go dark one day.

Of course running fiber is no small task and it will take years for Verizon to offer this product to the masses. But they are getting faster, so the competition should start thinking about where they will be in the new world order of communications.