Outside Innovation

Protecting Your Privacy: Mobile Phone Basics

Two months ago, my Blackberry fell out of my car when I stopped at a rest stop on the turnpike. I was lucky. The young man who found it lying in the parking lot, decided to try to locate the owner. He called up last number I had called, talked to a friend I had just spoken to, who gave him my husband’s cellphone number, so we were able to connect and arrange the best way to reunite me with my Blackberry. I was very grateful to this young man, but I realized that I was amazingly lucky.

At the time I lost my phone, I hadn’t secured it with a password. I hadn’t set the screen-saver to provide the “if found, pls. call XXX-XXXX for a reward” to make it easy for someone to return my phone to me. And, I hadn’t protected the data on my phone from being scraped by someone who wanted to spy on me or to steal my identity. Thanks to this close call, I have now secured the data on my phone, and arranged to be able to wipe it remotely if it falls into the wrong hands.

Here’s a handy Infographic from the people at Backgroundcheck.org to remind us of “What Our Phones Can Reveal About Us”:

Recurring Patterns from Patty's Pioneers

At the end of October, a few of our stalwart band (going strong since 1989) of Patty’s Pioneers met face-to-face to compare notes on where technology is going and what challenges they’re confronting and overcoming in their varied businesses. As usual, the conversations were rich and deep and built upon the foundation we’ve established over the years. We delight in seeing the recurring patterns in how we think about applying IT, how we view the world, and how we address organizational issues.

We are all tickled by the fact that today’s technologies lend themselves really well to the kinds of system designs the pioneers are really good at. The systems and software these leading-edge architects design have lots in common:

• They keep a lot of data in memory/cache and deliver rich, but simple user experiences.
• They don’t assume an always up/high bandwidth connection, so they are parsimonious when it comes to transmitting data.
• They use consumer technology platforms as much as possible.
• They design elegant and simple APIs.
• They use services/distributed objects that request information and deliver information.
• They don’t care where in the world those services reside (in the cloud somewhere is generally fine).
• They assume that everything is loosely coupled (e.g., not always connected, but able to quickly find, connect and disconnect).
• They view the world as being made up of events that trigger actions based on business rules.

How (Not) to Raise Prices

Over the past month, three well-loved brands in the digital entertainment business have created a flurry of negative buzz about recent price hikes. Netflix changed its subscription pricing models, resulting in higher monthly rates for many long-time subscribers. Apple changed the commission structure for “in-app” media purchases, causing many publishers and online retailers to remove the “purchase more books/movies/TV shows now” links from their apps. Among the media suppliers impacted by Apple’s move was Amazon. One of the benefits of using the Amazon Kindle app on a variety of mobile platforms is that you can buy more books quickly and easily and download them immediately. Now Apple has made that harder to do on the iPhone and iPad.

One thing that customers love about Netflix, Apple, and Amazon is the ability to consume digital content quickly and easily. All three companies make their “stores” and their players/readers available on multiple devices. Apple’s iTunes is available from both PC and Mac, and you can play music and media you purchase from iTunes on non-Apple devices. Netflix lets you stream and play movies on over 200 Internet-connected devices. Amazon’s Kindle reader runs on iPhone, iPad, Mac, Windows PC, Windows Phone 7, Android, or Blackberry. Both Amazon and Apple have made an art form out of impulse purchases—particularly of digital content. The reason sales of digital goods have soared is that they are easy and convenient to purchase on a whim. Netflix makes the digital subscription model work by providing “all you can watch” plans at affordable prices.

Both Netflix and Apple have made pricing changes that have adversely impacted customers (in Netflix’s case) and partners (in Apple’s case). But our take is that Netflix’s price hike will damage its customer loyalty less than Apple’s in-app commission structure. Here’s why.

Apple: iCloud = Seamless Multi-Device Experience

I was pleased that Apple’s iCloud met 10 out of 12 of the customer-critical requirements we listed before the announcement! The combination of Apple’s iCloud, iMusic, Lion (the next gen OS for the Mac available next month), and iOS 5 (the next gen OS for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch—available “this Fall”) is a HUGE innovation in ubiquitous computing. It’s invisible computing. With this next generation Apple experience, YOU are truly the center of your universe. The devices you use are interchangeable (as long as they run iOS!), and ALL YOUR INFORMATION—from digital assets to contact lists to work in progress—are automagically synched, behind the scenes, to the Apple iCloud. Apple has done this without requiring you to DO anything. It’s the default. And, as Steve Jobs puts it, “It just works!”

iCloud Provides Seamless Synching of All Your Work and Assets. Whenever your devices are Internet-connected (via broadband, WiFi, or mobile communications) they will automatically synch everything you do on each device to the iCloud and back to all your other i-devices. This is HUGE! We’ve had applications that synched magically before: Lotus Notes, Blackberry mail, all the Google apps (calendar, email, etc.), Evernote, and many, many more. But we’ve never had ALL our apps and ALL our files and ALL our music and ALL our photos synched up immediately. And you don’t need to own a Mac (or a PC) or any computer to have this capability. This is the Post-PC, multiple-device, use it, and don’t worry if you lose it, era!

Keeps Every Version of Your Work in Progress. Lion and iOS 5—the next versions of the Apple OS—also handle automatic version control. You don’t have to save your work in progress. Everything is saved and versioned automagically. You can continue to work exactly where you left off, using any application, and you can revert to an earlier version, or retrieve something from an earlier version. You don’t have to re-set up your work environment either. All of your open menus, the position of your cursor, etc., will be exactly the way you left them. The first applications to make use of this capability will be Pages, Numbers, and Keynote—the Apple suite of office apps. But, soon, any application that is ported to run on Lion will have that automatic versioning capability built in.

What We Want from Apple's iCloud

There will be tons written about the impact of Apple's iTunes business model vs. Amazon's and Google's media-sharing business models over the coming days and weeks. I'd prefer to step back and think not just about accessing music and movies but also about the IDEAL cloud service. That way, I'll have a better way to evaluate Apple's offering. And, as someone who has just gone through the considerable pain of migrating my iTunes library from one MacBook to another one (which I wasn't able to do without help from Apple's tech support!), I understand why it's necessary for Apple to offer a network-based service for storing, downloading, and streaming content (movies, music, audio, information). In fact, it's really amazing to me that Apple is so late to this party. I've been able to store every digital book I ever bought on Amazon for several years. I can download and read them anytime I want. It's about time that Apple caught up!

So here's my starting list of the characteristics that I want from Apple's iCloud (or from any competing offering). I hope you'll all chime in and add to this wish list. Then, when Apple announces on Monday, we can see what wonderful thing(s) they came up with that we didn't anticipate, and what they may have missed or gotten wrong:

1. Local/Mobile/Offline Usage. I want any application and all content I use to be able to be accessible and usable on an offline mobile device (e.g., when there is no Internet or communications signal). When I travelled to Africa with my WiFi-only iPad, I was really happy to be able to watch the movies I had pre-downloaded in bed in my hut out in the bush, or once in a crowded bus bumping down a dirt road in the middle of the night! I was also able to write in my journal, read digital books, and use a mind mapping program—all completely off the grid. That's important. We're not always online.

Will Skype Save Microsoft?

Like most of you, I was bummed when I heard the news that Microsoft was buying Skype. I always have a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach when a beloved tool/brand is swallowed by Microsoft. (Or even a person—remember Ray Ozzie? He was a rock star before he joined MS! I’m glad he’s no longer there.) I wrote off Microsoft as strategically relevant years ago. Loyal readers will notice that we rarely analyze Microsoft’s moves. Most of our clients just aren’t that interested either.

In the enterprise, MS software is a necessary evil. The MS Office franchise/lock-in has been remarkably successful for almost two decades. Enterprise IT execs have to take Microsoft’s enterprise strategy into account—as they do the strategies of Oracle and SAP—and of HP and IBM. But there’s no innovation involved. Just evolution.

Most of MS’s interesting innovations, IMHO, have been in the consumer gaming area—Xbox and Kinect—for example. In fact, it’s in the consumer world where Microsoft’s brand is actually popular, rather than tolerated.

Microsoft HAS to “Own” a Large Share of Mobile/Wireless Interactions
Finally, there’s Microsoft’s more current public strategic struggle to become a major player in the mobile/wireless field. Now that the majority of information consumption and interaction are taking place on mobile devices, Microsoft can’t afford NOT to be a major platform player in the mobile/wireless world. Microsoft has invested years in mobile OS skirmishes and attempts to woo handset suppliers and telcos alike to a MS-centric mobile ecosystem. Now the company is taking a more heavy-handed and direct approach: buying its way in. First, by mounting a coup at Nokia. Second, by injecting money and support into RIM in exchange for the Bing search franchise. And, now, the real land grab: buying Skype. Notice that Microsoft’s current strategy doesn’t presume that Microsoft owns the mobile OS. It’s playing higher up the stack in the Internet services space (search and real-time interaction).