My thoughts on Blackberry and Mobile Computing

At the company I work, B Sharp Technologies, the management team one week ago decided to embrace twitter and social media in general.  While bumbling through twitter, I had this brief discussion about Blackberry with Tim Stevens, the chief editor at Engadget.

I agree they can't be #1 or #2 today, but I very much think it is possible to plan a road to it.

Bill Gates did it to mighty IBM and Steve Jobs did it to Microsoft after Microsoft saved their bacon.
We know it is possible for the little guy to out innovate the big guy. In fact in Apple's case they did it after having moderate initial success, had a terrible fall, only to rise from the ashes again, much bigger and stronger. Sound like Blackberry? Well the first two chapters anyway.

Before one can rise again, the company needs to meet some basic prerequisites first.

Firstly, they they need a strong, patient, focused and cohesive management team and board who are hungry to succeed and have the ability motivate a staff with serious morale issues.

Secondly, they need a high level plan which they are given sufficient time to execute. Berlin was not rebuilt in a day. The details of the plan can be formulated based on how things progress.

Thirdly, they need a strong and flexible technical platform in place to work from.

Before talking about Blackberry and whether they have the necessary prerequisites to go forward, lets look at the "kings".

Apple - They no longer have the strong and focused management team. The guys who got them here are gone. Not only are they gone, but they are virtually irreplaceable. They seem to be left with bureaucrats who are overly obsessed with generating big short term gains and squashing the competition when possible, particularly via patent litigation. They have seemingly lost the cohesiveness, focus and possibly the hunger as well. Do they have a plan in place to lead the way to the next paradigm shift? With constant quick releases of pointless new S versions of products and obsession with keeping competition like Samsung down rather that trying out-innovate them, I can't see much happening that will be noteworthy. iWatch? It does not excite me like the Google Glass HUD (heads-up display) initiative. If you want a wearable device, what is the point of wearing it on your wrist?
Wearing it on your eyes and in your ears give you a whole lot more possibilities. I think one of Warren Buffets' famous quotes apply to Apple "Bad things aren't obvious when times are good"

Google - They have their strong leaders still there who are still very much intimately part of big new initiatives such as Google Glass and Driver-less Cars. They brought in a CEO and learned a lot from him about how to run a business, not one of their strong initial skills. Google is going great guns and I cannot see the other "Kings" being in any position to keep up. The Google Glass project alone could could be a big enough game changer to define the next paradigm shift. There just does not seem like there is anything that can slow Google down anytime soon. I think though they are facing some focus issues due the sheer volume of their projects and initiatives.

Microsoft - Well they are a giant seemingly going nowhere on the innovation front. Their management team is in disarray. In fact they have had leadership issues since the day Gates resigned. Platform? Yeah they do have a nice new consolidated one, but will that be the platform to allow them to lead the way to the next big thing? I don't think so. They are constantly playing catch-up and they are now alienating their partners by entering the hardware business and competing directly with many of them. Their biggest strength is customer lock-in,  which means, it is hard to leave them because there is so much dependency on their software. But that market advantage is starting to wear thin in the mobile world.

The only company "king" then that has it together to lead the way to the next shift is Google. The others are ready for the taking.

So what about Blackberry then? - How can they take on the "kings", particularly Microsoft and Apple? I have been studying the management team at Blackberry and I am very impressed. They interview well, they are calm, low key ,well prepared and seem clearly focused. I really like the fact that they don't waste their time trying to "diss" the competition. They seem to have a high level plan, and part of it is probably to put all their focus now into getting back onto a reasonable playing field first before they can start thinking about executing their next play.  Currently, if Blackberry can be well entrenched as number #3 in the smartphone OS business, ahead of Microsoft, I would think the management team will be very happy with that.

Blackberry has completed all the pre-requisites. They just completed the last one, which was to release the platform which will be their technical foundation for at least the next decade as announced by the CEO. I think anyone technical, who has studied the QNX platform, will have a difficult time disagreeing with the fact that Blackberry currently has the most superior platform from all the players.

Many analysts and technology writers can't see the "forest from the trees". If they could I suppose they would be CEOs and not analysts. That is the reason I feel many of them for example with respect to Blackberry ask similar questions or make similar claims in their articles. 1. "Is Blackberry too late?"; 2.  "Do they have enough to compete with the kings?"; 3."They don't have enough to differentiate themselves today"; 4."They do not have the necessary apps to sway people away".

My answer to those analysts questions are: 1. "Its never too late, if you have completed the pre-requisites and you are confident and determined" 2. "Yes they do for the same reason as 1" 3. Well they do on the UI front with HUB and Flow for business people, but not enough to get the general consumer 4. Agreed, but it should not matter in the long term. I will talk more about this down below.

Here is what really like about what Blackberry is doing and why I think they can become one of the  leaders in their field in time.

1) They are downplaying the Tablet. I am no visionary, but it would be great if they have the gutsy plans to scrap the tablet completely. Instead focus on becoming one of the leaders in embracing an alternative to the age old fixed display. They need to find a way to incorporate a large display solution with a small mobile device. Carrying around two CPUs to perform essentially the same functions, but with one just being used to provide a larger display surface makes little sense. Therefore giving the smartphone the ability make its display bigger, effectively makes a tablet redundant.
Maybe they look into a flexible display for the smartphone that can adjust in size as needed. We are seeing innovation already in this area from the likes of Samsung. Maybe they incorporate HUD, a kind of real time, virtual projection system similar to what is being done in the Google Glass project. Imagine sitting in a subway train and having HUD integration with your mobile device so you can read a big digital version of a newspaper that moves with you as you move your head. At home or office you could cradle the phone to a docking station with all the necessary peripherals, such as a big display. With Google glass you wear the whole computer, but maybe the phone can still have a fixed display that can integrate with a HUD peripheral when needed. They should start with output first. Input can come later.

2) They are talking about maybe getting out of the hardware business. If they can partner with a big player like Lenovo or Sony, then innovating, designing and building these new display devices and peripherals around the QNX platform become even more realistic. The Chinese and Japanese markets for QNX OS will open up as well.  Blackberry branding will change, but similar transitions such as IBM thinkpad to Lenovo Thinkpad  were fairly smooth. Blackberry can stay focused on advancing their new software platform for future mobile computing solutions while partnered with a strong set of hardware partners.

3) They are downplaying the importance of Apps. Well maybe they have no choice as they don't have the market share to get developers interested. I am hoping though that they have the vision that fat apps are only temporary. I think they do because they built the Android player. They know for the short term they have to appease the analysts and investors who place huge value on apps support, particularly leading ones like Instagram, Skype and Netflix. It is unlikely many of the app vendors would want to put resources into learning Cascades and to build their app all over again with all the testing challenges that go with it. It would probably be very tough to justify the ROI for most companies, but maybe an Android port could be simple and easy to do.
To me the whole Apps thing on mobile devices is one big con job. The apps stores generate huge revenues for the store hosts. I am not saying there was any deliberate conspiracy behind the initial app phenomenon because there was a practical reason to create large numbers of apps due to limitations in the devices. With 3g and LTE being virtually standard everywhere, a big increase in CPU power and browsers speeds being on par with laptop versions, I don't think we need all that many apps anymore. I "chuckle" when I go onto sites such as the New York Times, Cricinfo and other news sites and they ask if I want to download their native app version. Why? What about Twitter, Facebook, Linked IN, Youtube? I am sure most of us are perfectly happy using the thin version of these on our laptop, so why not on mobile devices? If developers spent more time focusing on good web mobile user interfaces, most apps would not be necessary. Native apps are also built so that user navigation can be consistent with apps built into the OS, but a lot of this can be accomplished on thin versions using CSS3 rendering today. We have developed at B Sharp, thin apps using the simple open source CSS3 toolkit called iWebkit, which can make a basic web app look just like an iPhone/iPad native app. Again its all about spending time and effort into building simple developer toolkits for thin solutions. But thin mobile apps are not in fashion, so its not happening as fast as it should.
There are still many apps which have value in remaining fat. Good examples are Evernote and Dropbox which are built for offline use. A similar argument can apply for games which can also be device intensive. It is though only a matter of time when thin is king. Remember in the 90s how much demand there was for people with Visual Basic or Powerbuilder skills? Boy did the need for those skills die off pretty quickly, seemingly overnight.  Similarly demand for objective C and Cascades developers should dissipate. Hopefully Blackberry's focus on Apps is part of a short term plan, just as a means to keep them in solid 3rd place for now.

4) They seem to be looking at providing practical NFC functions. I read they recently signed a deal to validate visa transactions. Hopefully they have lots of future plans to be one of the leaders in embracing NFC transactions which should become a standard and important part of the mobile experience.

5)  What I like most of all about Blackberry is their management team. I can't say this enough. They have passed with flying colours at least to an outsider like myself. Internally I am sure things are not that rosy, but where is it in any company? Many people say they are late to the game.
But why not instead look at the how they managed to get back into the game at all? That is a lot more interesting, surely? The board replaced their CEOs just a mere year ago. The new CEO Thorsten Heins formed a cohesive management team which then had the unenviable job of having to make the company lean, which meant cutting jobs. In addition they had to deal undoubtedly with conflict issues with their current Java team and the QNX team from Ottawa. I can't imagine how difficult it must have been to deal with this type of conflict and initial low moral while the company restructured, knowing they had a massive product development effort going on with BB10. This happened while they had to keep investors and unhappy corporate customers at bay. Then they also had to introduce the UI team from Sweden into the fold. That must have resulted in some serious sparks flying.
So I as a consumer and business owner myself, I am not lamenting about how late they are to the game, but rather quite in awe at how they managed to get such a strong first iteration of their product out this soon frankly.

I will be continuing to follow Blackberry and I am very interested in what they have planned for tomorrow. I really believe they have a pretty good chance to regain market share in 3 to 5 years and compete head on with the "kings" in the mobile computing space, and even lead the way in some cases.

My Platforms
Work: Ubuntu Linux 12.04 laptop with VM versions of Windows XP and 7. Getting 8
Mobile: MAC air 11", Google Nexus 7, iPod touch, Blackberry Z10 (which replaced my daily use Galaxy GS3 on Monday)
Home: iMAC 21"
Productivity: Google Apps for Business and Google Drive.

The POST-PC Era

All of a sudden the the term "POST-PC" is the latest buzzword. I heard it first from Steve Jobs when he used it in 2007 or so. I also heard Bill Gates use the term PC Plus. I looked it up and it turns out that the term was not coined by Steve Jobs but rather, David Clark from MIT in 1999.

Nevertheless, regardless of who invented the term, it is something that is difficult to explain like the way cloud computing means different things to different people. I think Steve Jobs referred to it in the context of devices such as the iPhone and later the iPad. I think for him devices such as Smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices would replace the need for a PC. I think Bill Gates may have meant that PCs will no longer dominate but rather be just another computing device.

For me post PC is about data. It is a combination of devices of all sorts with whatever operating system, but most importantly must include cloud computing and the general concept of thin. To me post PC means that I can get the data I want from any device anywhere. The device is all about the user experience. Gone should be the need to have large local disks or software installed other that the core OS and OS distributed apps such as a browser. The device should have the ability to figure out my context, which means it just needs to be told who I am.  I should not have to install any software on it. I should be able to do my daily stuff like do credit transactions, show my drivers license, passport or boarding pass, read my documents and email without doing direct file transfers or anything like that. Currently gmail, google apps, google maps, office 365, spotify, rhapsody, Salesforce, Netflix, Android, iOS, iPad, Blackberry 10, NFC, GPS, and the traditional PC and laptops themselves combined all contribute to the post PC-era.
  
iTunes, Microsoft Word, Excel, Outlook, Big local hard disks to store pictures, backup devices, downloaded mpeg movies, iTunes App store, Google play store are current PC Era items that need to be left behind as soon as possible.
 
Buying your own tunes or movies from iTunes or Amazon. No.. Just use netflix, spotify, rhapsody. Your playlists and movies should be anywhere and everywhere. On My phone, tablet, my car, my laptop, my PC. Same goes for downloading apps. They need to be thin, with exceptions (see next paragraph).

But that is not to say it all needs to be left behind. That will not be possible today. CAD, Movie studio editing, Software development tools, PC games and that kind of specialized stuff should remain on a traditional PC. They don't need to be everywhere and every place. That is why PCs are still must be part of the Post PC era. That is all the more reason why I like Bill Gates' term much better ==> PC Plus. 

The Post PC things not with us yet that I am most excited about are:
1) Wearable devices. The Google glass project has me really intrigued. In fact really, really intrigued. It is only at the drawing board stage, so we will seeing a lot more coming from them, other than a google glass hangout session with some sky divers. 
2) Also what are we going to do with NFC? Why is it taking so long to become mainstream? We need some pioneers. We need the big players like Apple, Google and Microsoft to team up and make it happen. If its not NFC, then something else. I must say I was excited to read about RIM's NFC deal with Visa. I will be very happy in my lifetime if I don't have to carry money, drivers licenses, insurance, passport or credit cards.  Its all there in my context on any device, anywhere. 

The hottest device in the market today, may also be the most overrated

I am of course talking about the 10 inch tablet device like the iPad.
The Macbook air is so much better for the business user than the iPad. Similarly the Surface may also turn out to be better for the this type of user. I see so many people even in our boardroom propping up their tablets like a laptop but then have to put the tablet down flat to type. I suppose the MS Surface would make life better in that regard. I doubt though that it will give me as a business user and developer what the brilliant and underestimated value a Macbook air can give me. But what about if I just want to sit up in bed and browse away using a nice touch interface? Or if I just want to jot down some quick notes without have to fire up the small Macbook Air type laptop/netbook? Or what if I want to look at a quick video or take a quick snap? Wouldn't the tablet be perfect for that? For me an Android phone with the bigger display (including the Galaxy note) completely negates the need to have a the traditional tablet at all. And I can also still store this device in my pocket and make phone calls on it. 

The Google Drive and the Cloud.

I am torn between the benefits of offline vs. true cloud file management. The wonderful google drive has added to these mixed feelings. While there are clear benefits to having synchronized local drives, it also slows down our forward progress. Take trues google doc .gdoc files. These are similar to Unix symbolic links, where we can setup easy access to files or executables somewhere else on our computer. A .gdoc file then is a pointer to your actual file somewhere on the cloud and definitely not a copy of the file. At first I thought, wouldn't it be nice to have a local off-line editor to manage .gdoc files as well? But the offline gears type browser editor, should be used as an exception, not the rule. If you want to stay true legacy, you still can because google drive still synchronises .docx files the traditional way, where behind the scenes, files are being copied back and forth. An example of the exception to which I was referring to is if I am on a plane and want to work on something, clicking on a .gdoc file would be a problem. For these rare situations, it should not be a big deal to download the file manually beforehand, work on the file using the gears version of gdocs and sync it back up manually once done. If you forget to download the file, you would be out of luck, but how many times would it happen? If so just eat the peanuts and drink you coffee. You can pick up the file at any airport lounge. It won't be long before every plane also has online access (with a price of course) anyway.
I also like some of the talk about moving development environments such as eclipse to cloud with access to source code also in the cloud. Wouldn't it be nice to just install a development environment once and have it available on any any computer? Well, we are a few years away from that, but at this point I am certainly enjoying not having much dependancy on legacy office apps like word or excel. Instead I work on a google doc, don't even worry about saving the file. Then come home and from any computer, go into my google drive, and the link is just sitting there. No waiting for a sync, just click and I continue where Ieft off. 

Steve Jobs Betrayal

Most of you have read this quote I am sure.

Jobs said, “I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple’s $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong. I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product.


I guess he didn't!

The Facebook IPO

Is Facebook another AOL or Yahoo? Or will it be another Microsoft or Google? Obviously most investors are hedging their bets on the latter. I am going to be a wimp and sit on the fence on this one. What I can say is that I really did scratch my head when AOL bought Time/Warner. It just made no sense that a glorified ISP with contact that you could anywhere by surfing the internet, could buy a seriously established outfit like Time/Warner. As it turned out I had every right to scratch my head. Facebook certainly needs to become a lot more than a social network with advertising. Maybe it will expand to the enterprise via its social network and its large user base, much like google did with its search engine. Microsoft"s entry point to the enterprise was its home PC operating system which they managed to monopolize. But I also can't deny that I am scratching my head how a social networking website could have the third biggest ever IPO in history behind GM and Visa. On the other hand Zuckerberg is a bona fide wunderkind like Gates and Jobs there just may be no stopping him. The next few years will be very interesting.

The New IPAD

There is no doubt Apple revolutionized the tablet. In fact I wrote a long blog entry about that. But now they are just goofy. Their home page says "RESOLUTIONARY, the New IPAD". Ok....whatever. 
So they really are calling it The New Ipad. Ok....whatever. 
Why didn't they call it what is it. The New Ipad 2. 
So what do they call the next one that comes out in 3 weeks or so. 
ALITTLEMORE-SOLUTIONARY, "The New Ipad S"? Or The Brand Spanking New Ipad? The newer Ipad? 

I am looking forward to the iPhone 5... er I mean the New iPhone launch to see what it has to offer beyond Siri 2, or should I say the New Siri. 

Poor Steve Jobs must be rolling in his grave already. I am afraid this company has already lost its lustre in such a short time. It really is amazing how one man can make that much difference.

NOTE: I am of course fully expecting on March 19th or whatever the date is, that they brand it the IPAD 3 or Ipad Steroid or IPAD GT or some other name and claim that was their plan all along. Either way its all a very goofy marketing campaign from a marketing oriented company which is what they have become.