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Author Archives: Tom Foster
Not All 3D is Created Equal
Although I’ve spent the majority of my career selling consumer electronics and working with consumer electronics manufacturers, I’ve never been accused of being a technology ‘early adopter’ in my personal life. I held onto my ‘flip phone’ until the last possible second, I still don’t have a Facebook page and until last year my TV had a tube in it. So if you want the opinion of the ‘Average Joe’ consumer, I’m your man – by the way don’t even get me started on Tablets – remind me why I need one? Unless of course HP decides to practically give them away again!
So when it comes to 3D TV, let’s just say it’s nowhere near my radar screen. The glasses are clunky, especially since I wear prescription lenses, the content is limited and I usually get a headache watching it.
So you can imagine when I touched down at the CES show in Las Vegas back in January I was bracing myself to be bombarded by more of the same not so interesting 3D technology from all of the vendors.
Well, this all changed the moment I arrived at the LG booth. I was greeted by a friendly woman who, much to my surprise and delight, handed me a very harmless pair of clip on glasses. “Hmm, I thought, these aren’t so bad – I can barely feel them on my face.” Then I proceeded to walk into one of the most incredible 3D experiences of my life. I couldn’t believe what I was watching – the 3D was absolutely amazing. One scene included a baseball player sliding into home plate and the sand flew up and looked as if it was going to land in the hair of the gentleman standing in front of me. Another was a sword fight and I found myself moving to the side in order to avoid being stabbed in the chest!
I was so excited about what I experienced at the LG booth; I couldn’t wait to see what the others had up their sleeves – besides it’s all the same, right? Wrong. Booth after booth I walked away disappointed and underwhelmed. Could LG’s Cinema 3D really be that much better than the rest? As far as I could tell, it’s no contest.
A technology guru I am not, but when this “Joe” is impressed, you techno maniacs may want to take a closer look.
By the way, how much does this cost? Ah, I knew there was a catch. Even though you won’t find this technology on my TV stand any time soon, it’s still very cool!
Posted in gapRaps, mind the gap: blog
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Like Netflix? Then you’ll love PrintFlix!
When I go back and think about how different my life is today compared to 10 or 12 years ago, I can’t help but be amazed at how dramatically things have changed.
A handful of products and services have literally transformed how I live my life. Google, TiVo, Facebook, iPhone, Netflix. Each one of these has had a profound impact on daily life by increasing overall convenience and/or productivity by an order of magnitude.
TV commercials and blind channel surfing are both things of the past thanks to TiVo.
Virtually any friend or family member is within reach, no matter how often they’ve moved, changed numbers or email addresses thanks to Facebook.
Need directions to the in-law’s house while talking to mom and checking the latest reviews on best sushi in San Diego? There’s definitely an app for that. Can any of us remember how we possibly got by without our third hand? Er, I mean, our smart phone?
Information has never before been easier to find thanks to Google (now, if only they could think up a way to just as easily search for my car keys…).
And when was the last time I ventured into a Blockbuster to rent a movie?
What’s that? Blockbuster went bankrupt?? Oh… Hm… Well I guess I hadn’t really noticed since I get what I want to watch almost immediately for a fraction of what I used to spend on movie rentals each month thanks to Netflix.
So when I heard last week that HP was considering applying a Netflix-style business model to the printing business, my interest was naturally piqued. What exactly would that be worth? Where anyone with a printer and an internet connection could subscribe to a flat-fee service offering unlimited personalized content delivery, on demand, at any time? Sounds to me like an all-you-can-print buffet!
It’s pretty clear why such a model would be a dream-come-true for HP. Any service that encourages HP customers to print more and more often is a clear win for HP (don’t think ink tanks, rather ink trucks). But would this business model be a true win-win?
In an ideal system, if the content were there, then wouldn’t this system cause home users’ ink and toner expenditures to rise significantly, thus undermining the value to the user? With Netflix, there’s no more cost associated with using your DVD player or watching streamed videos after paying the monthly subscription. But would HP’s new Netflix-like printer business model, let’s call it “PrintFlix” (“NetPrint” was already taken…), include the cost of supplies as part of its monthly subscription? Therein lies the rub, I think. Time will tell, and according to HP, time may tell “soon – very soon.”
Today’s success stories are no longer measured by market share and sales growth; rather, by what magnitude has your product or service fundamentally transformed your customers’ lives? Lucky for HP, VJ has just the right amount of energy and vision to pull something like this off; but as always, the devil is in the details!
Posted in gapIndustry, look who's talking
Tagged cloud print, cloud printing, hp, ink, Print, toner
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4G: Coming Soon or Already Here?
If you were annoyed with the AT&T vs. Verizon marketing battle over who has the most 3G coverage in the US, you may want to hibernate for the next few years. Carriers are gearing up to roll out 4G networks soon and the respective marketing teams are preparing for battle. In fact, they’re already grossly over-exaggerating their offerings. For starters, carriers are touting their new 4G wireless, which should be available relatively soon in the US (end of the year for Verizon, mid-2011 for AT&T). Sprint already offers “4G” WiMAX and regional carrier MetroPCS recently unveiled the first “4G” LTE network in the US. But there’s a problem. 4G doesn’t exist yet.
The International Telecommunication Union, who officially determine what is considered 4G (and 3G, for that matter), have not finalized the standard. Actually, they won’t have it finalized until at least next year. So how could carriers be offering me 4G right now if the standard has not been determined? Glad you asked… they can’t. Several marketing departments have clued in to this slight untruth and are now offering mobile broadband at “4G speeds” rather than simply saying they offer 4G connectivity. Sprint’s new ad claims that the company is the first to offer devices that download “at the speed of 4G.” Clever. But still, what is the speed of 4G if it doesn’t exist yet?
The 4G standard will likely call for a minimum speed of 1 to 1.5 Gbps, something current networks have not achieved yet. The first networks to support these speeds will use either WiMAX 2 or LTE-Advanced, both of which won’t be available until late 2011 or early 2012. But battle lines are already being drawn. In the US, LTE is backed by Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile, while WiMAX is supported by Intel, Comcast, Clearwire, and Sprint. Unless carriers find an affordable way to blend or overlay the two differing technologies, expect a marketing battle of epic proportions.
Posted in mind the gap: blog
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Projector Market Turns the Corner
An increase in the number of active projector models may not directly correlate to a renewed strength of the overall economy, but it certainly proves that the projector market is turning the corner. Falling prices have had a negative effect on margins for manufacturers, but it seems to have also created a significant increase in consumer and business-to-business demand. The renewed demand is significant enough that e-commerce resellers have taken notice and begun adding new models left and right. Manufacturers and their distributors are releasing entire lines of projectors simultaneously and e-tailers are following suit by adding the models to their sites in groups.
The economic downturn initially forced manufacturers to release fewer new products while resellers consolidated to focus on their strongest selling models. But now, with a slew of new projectors released over the last quarter, resellers are making more models available with a wide range of features to choose from. With the holidays ahead, distribution is not expected to slow down any time soon and consumers looking to buy a projector online should have more options than ever before!
Kodak’s Newton May be HP’s iPhone
For over 20 years I have incorrectly predicted that the Philadelphia Flyers would win hockey’s Stanley Cup championship. I thought “Matlock 2020” would be TV gold in 2001 and just three weeks ago I packed a coat for my trip to a boiling hot Rome. Predictions have never been my forte, but after combing through some past pico-letters, I think that this blind squirrel may have found a nut.
“I saw the future tucked way behind the high definition sets and Atlas plasmas. I saw it in a little 3” LCD screen.”
– “You Had Me at ONE” pico-letter January 2005.
What I saw at CES four years ago was a new camera from Kodak called the EasyShare ONE. The $599 camera was a brave introduction from Kodak and a pioneering product stuffed with features never before offered. The EasyShare ONE was the first camera fitted with a touch-screen display that allowed users to effortlessly flip through pictures and menus by tapping the screen. Kodak’s camera was also the first ever equipped with WiFi connectivity; giving users the ability to email and post their pictures via hotspots across the country.
The “cool” factor of the EasyShare ONE and the camera’s seemingly endless applications were mind blowing. I thought that consumers would salivate for the ONE and that Kodak had finally found a honey pot.
I was wrong.
Sales of Kodak’s EasyShare ONE hardly met expectations. The same ills that killed off the innovative camera were eerily similar to the toxins that took down Apple’s infamous Newton PDA. The EasyShare ONE was given a $699 price tag, far above the costs of similarly performing cameras and, like the Newton, the model was simply ahead of its time.
Two years to be exact:
In January 2007, Apple launched the iPhone and the rest is history as a trendy computer company dumped the cell phone industry on its head. Just as the Palm Pilot plunged into the market that the Newton first found, it was Apple’s iPhone that exploited touch controlled, wireless devices that Kodak first developed in the EasyShare ONE.
While the iPhone on its own has been a historic success, the residual universe that has developed around the device has been Apple’s crowning achievement. Apple’s App Store is the hive where developers create and distribute inexpensive programs that are downloaded for use with the iPhone (and iPod Touch). This hive has grown into its own ecosystem. Thousands of independent and small software developers, drawn by the prospect of quick millions in downloads, have developed over 65,000 applications in two years that have generated over 1.5 billion downloads.
That’s over 65 new applications and 1.5 million downloads per day
, folks.
Much to Apple’s delight, this community of developers and its amazingly creative applications are now driving iPhone sales. As investment house Piper Jaffray recently shared, Apple has created a self sustaining business model – as more apps are developed, demand for iPhones will increase, therefore creating a larger market for more apps, and the cycle repeats.
In the printing world, HP has developed a product that walks the line between the EasyShare ONE and iPhone. HP’s $399 Photosmart Premium TouchSmart Web All-in-One Printer (or PPTSWAIOP for short) is the industry’s first web connected printer. Driven through the model’s touchscreen interface, the printer can download and operate newly developed applications supported by HP’s Apps Studio.
HP has the potential to grow its PPTSWAIOP and App Studio into a massive hive, bigger than even Apple’s App Store, and in doing so create an astounding competitive advantage over its hardware rivals. However, for HP to grow its App Studio into a dominant go-to-market strategy, the company will have to commit to tactics that counter its religion.
Forget about printing.
The first thing the printing goliath will have to do is forget about printing and trust that ignoring today’s ink profits will bring more hardware sales in the future. To date, printing is still top of mind for HP and the PPTSWAIOP’s first applications have centered on printing. However, having such a narrow focus caps the creativity that developers could apply to future applications for the printer. If Apple, for example, took HP’s approach, early applications would have centered on making phone calls and downloading music, both of which are profit centers. Apple was willing to ignore downloads and phone calls knowing that future applications would drive hardware sales later on (underline that).
With printing amnesia, HP could install its App Store operating platform on every device it makes –notebooks, frames, handhelds, calculators, scanners, printers, monitors, everything. By doing so, HP has a potential installation base of tens of millions of products in less than a year. A larger population would encourage more programmers to develop applications for HP devices, creating the same cyclical business model that Apple has grown.
HP’s second big pill to swallow will be to open source its App Studio platform, a course the company is rumored to take in December. To date, HP has kept its App Studio under wraps and has only announced jointly developed applications from big houses such as Google and Disney. However, if the company wants to generate a groundswell of creative and demand driving applications, it will have to ride the backs of thousands of small development houses using open source code. HP’s future will be the creativity of these independent programmers who will create applications that have nothing to do with the company’s printing business.
An app will be created that can wirelessly throw images from a Kodak brand camera to a HP photo printer. An app will turn a HP scanner into a baseball card reader, instantly organizing a stuffed shoe box into a digitized personal library. Someone will write an app that turns a frame into a television. A kid right now is developing an app that will fax me the exact time and date when my Philadelphia Flyers win the Stanley Cup (sometime next June).
I want that Flyers app and I’ll buy a HP printer to get it.
Hewlett-Packard was founded by two unknown inventors in a backyard garage whose first product was hardly a printer. HP today has the chance to turn every market it competes in completely upside down, but it will take several thousand unknown programmers and applications that have nothing to do with printing to do it.
Palm Pilot or Newton.
iPhone or EasyShare ONE
PPTSWAIOP or…..
Posted in gapRaps, mind the gap: blog
Tagged Apple, apps, hp, iphone, newton, Photosmart, Touchsmart
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Who Said Inkjet Technology Was Just for Printing?
Apparently a group of researchers at NC State think differently. They?ve combined the adhesive proteins found in the glue of marine mussels and printer inkjet technology to develop a medical adhesive that is both non-toxic and biodegradable. They are leveraging the inkjet technology to gain greater control of the adhesive placement during surgery resulting in faster surgical recovery and reduced scarring.
Will marine mussel protein become the new ?Ink?? Which pharmaceutical company is going to become the next HP?
Stay tuned?
(To learn more, click the link below)?.
http://health.usnews.com/articles/health/healthday/2009/03/18/mussel-based-glue-may-make-surgery-safer.html
Do You Know Where Your Kids Are?
As I was racing through the North Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center during this years CES show, something caught my ?parental? eye. I rarely get a chance to stop and look at all the gadgets, since we?re typically racing from one meeting to another. However, as the father of a 3 year old boy, who is always on the run, this new product from Lok8u, LTD, stopped me in my tracks.
It?s a GPS child locator that secures to a child?s wrist and looks like a digital watch.
If the watch is forcibly removed from the child?s wrist, an alert is sent to designated mobile phone and/or email address with the child?s location.
Some other interesting features include:
- You can locate your child by sending the text ?wru? to NuM8 from a mobile phone.
- You can locate your child by clicking ?where r you? from the Lok8u secure portal.
- You can set up ?safe zones? where your child can safely play.
Right now my son is still pretty content having Mom and Dad close by. However, as he gets older and begins to spread his wings of independence, how can we have the peace of mind of knowing he?s safe while out playing with his friends, going to the beach or shopping at the mall?
The world I grew up in is much different than the world we live in today. In fact, over 800,000 persons were reported missing in 2006, and 80% of those were juveniles according to the FBI?s National Crime Information Center.
That?s a staggering number and probably every parent?s worst nightmare.
So I guess the big question is; what does all this cost?
- the WATCH ? approximately 149 Euros
- the monthly SERVICE charge -
4.99 to 19.99 Euros
- the ?piece of mind? of knowing your child?s location ? PRICELESS
The Return of the Prom King
For years and years, HP and dozens of other companies took the abuse, the taunting, and the mockery. Quarter after quarter, day after day, the companies stuck in the bottom-feeding retail clique had to sit in the stands as Dell, the direct channel King of Prom, received all of the glowing accolades and rewards. Dell?s direct business model eliminated the pudgy retail middleman. Dell is more efficient. Dell is more customized. Dell is tailored to the customer?s every want and need and Dell gives it to them at a better price. For years and years they all heard it: HP, Sony, Toshiba, Apple ? why can?t you be more like Dell?
But just like any natural system, the PC and electronics industry lives at the whim of entropy. Over time, when computer prices could not get any lower and the world was just flooded with them, Dell?s direct business model hit a plateau. But stocks don?t care about entropy and pressures from Wall Street forced Dell to do the unthinkable and join the nerds at the retail table in the cafeteria. But doing business in retail is far, far more costly and complicated than anything Dell had ever seen from its comfy direct business model. Even scarier was that the companies Dell was joining had decades more experience in battling the retail wars.
The nerds had waited a long, long time for this day. Finally, the Prom King is on their turf and they are fully armed with spit-wads.
Six months after Dell?s computers and printers arrived at stores, the company has held its sales results very close to its chest. However, the company?s first efforts have been met with great resistance and the common challenges of being the new kid at the table. Dell?s biggest challenge is to feed that pudgy middleman, the retailers themselves, who constantly demand helpings of more and more money ? or what are otherwise known as marketing development funds. Marketing development funds help pay for shelf space, keep the displays looking good and decorated with promotional materials, and give incentives to employees who push the products to customers. Most importantly, the funds help the pudgy middleman pay for advertising, an area that Dell has particularly struggled in.
Since its debut at Staples last November, Dell has advertised its desktop and notebook computers 155 times, a relative drop in the ocean when compared to HP?s 1,356 total ad placements. Though HP works with vastly more retail outlets, the company is outpacing Dell at same stores. HP has placed twice as many ads than Dell at Staples and has tripled its rival at Best Buy. More startling is Dell?s lack of activity in PC Bundles, a sales package that links printer and computer sales and a tactic many thought would be Dell?s best bet to kick retail doors wide open. To date, Dell has not advertised a single PC Bundle.
Dell is learning that it can?t simply rely on its Prom King brand name to be successful in retail; it takes a lot of money. A recent lawsuit suggested that HP has over $100 million in marketing development funds dedicated to Staples alone.
That?s a really big spitwad.
Perhaps Dell?s biggest obstacle is that the retail business model contradicts how the company got rich to start with. Dell didn?t make its billions on computer or electronics sales alone, its profits were generated through complimentary products and services that were attached to each computer sale. With its direct business model, Dell was able to contain its customers and push additional monitors, cables, software packages, and (most importantly) extended service contracts. By attaching all of these add-ons to its computer sales, the company could turn a $599 unprofitable desktop into an $849 box of pure cash cow. In retail, Dell has lost control of its customers and is at the mercy of retailers, who pick and price products however they choose. Dell can?t sell $35 USB cables or their profit filled service contracts in retail and must count on the meager profits of its computer sales alone. It must turn Dell?s stomach.
The ones who first taunted the nerds are now reminding Dell that it takes a long time and a lot of money to be like the HPs, Sonys, and Toshibas. Even a company the size of Dell has to build marketing development funds, a consistent advertising campaign, and sales strategy for each and every retailer it works with. Those things don’t happen over night. For Dell to be a retail hit, the company eventually must push its other product lines, mainly televisions, through retailers and that takes a great deal of arm twisting (time & money).
Dell?s news is not all bad as it posted positive earnings last week and appears to have turned the financial corner. The company has also managed to distribute its ink and toner cartridges to retailers, a huge achievement for the company that will have a very positive impact on future profits. However, the retail road is a long one and Dell?s journey with the pudgy middleman will be a bumpy ride.
The nerds have waited long enough. They may proceed to wedgy.
