Esta sección refleja noticias de la industria que merecen destacarse para conocer el ámbito actual y proyectado de la industria del software en Argentina y en el Mundo.
La Ciencia De Fijar Precios Al Software
Fijar precios no es una ciencia exacta, pero tampoco es magia – es influenciada por percepción que se tenga de su software, las condiciones del mercado y su valor. ¿Entonces cuál es el proceso de encontrar el precio ganador?
Marketing de software
El blog tiene entradas referidas al marketing de productos y servicios de software.
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La demanda antimonopolio presentada contra Google por el Departamento de Justicia de EE. UU. Esta semana contiene ecos del caso del gobierno contra Microsoft hace 22 años, pero dependerá de las formas en que los dos casos sean diferentes.
La defensa de Google incluirá su antiguo mantra de que "la competencia está a solo un clic de distancia", o, como dijo la compañía en un comunicado esta semana, "puede descargar fácilmente las aplicaciones que elija o cambiar la configuración predeterminada en cuestión de segundos, más rápido de lo que puedes caminar a otro pasillo en la tienda ".
Microsoft no pudo decir eso. Si el sistema operativo Windows te estaba volviendo loco, no podrías cambiarte al Mac OS, el principal competidor en ese momento, sin comprar una computadora nueva (y costosa). Por el contrario, Google tiene básicamente razón en que generalmente es fácil cambiar de motor de búsqueda, aunque se necesitan al menos unos pocos clics para hacerlo. Esos bajos "costos de cambio" son una razón fundamental por la que algunos expertos rechazan la idea de Google como "el nuevo Microsoft".
Pero demostrar que la competencia está a un clic de distancia no es lo mismo que demostrar que un mercado es competitivo. Si esa defensa es suficiente o no para que Google gane este caso, es importante comprender la diferencia.
Para que la competencia funcione bien, los consumidores deben poder y querer cambiar a mejores productos, y los nuevos competidores deben poder ingresar al mercado. No importa cuántos clics se necesiten para cambiar si no hay opciones decentes a las que valga la pena cambiar. Y en el mercado de los motores de búsqueda, los datos son una barrera de entrada poderosa.
“Muchas de las consultas que recibe un motor de búsqueda cada día serán aquellas que el motor de búsqueda nunca había visto antes”, escribió Megan Gray, asesora general del motor de búsqueda DuckDuckGo en una declaración de 2019 al Congreso de los Estados Unidos. "A medida que crece la participación de mercado de un motor de búsqueda, el porcentaje de nuevas búsquedas en ese motor de búsqueda disminuirá". En otras palabras, cuanto más grande sea, más fácil será ofrecer buenos resultados de búsqueda. Eso, a su vez, disuade al cambio. Si todos cambiaran a un nuevo motor de búsqueda, podría tener una oportunidad, pero ningún usuario tiene un incentivo para cambiar a lo que, al principio, es un producto claramente inferior.
Luego está el hecho de que "un clic de distancia" todavía está bastante lejos. El caso del gobierno de EE. UU. Gira en torno a que Google paga a empresas como Apple para que sean el motor de búsqueda predeterminado en navegadores y teléfonos inteligentes, lo que plantea la cuestión de cuánto importan los valores predeterminados. Los modelos económicos estándar asumen que un usuario cambia cuando le conviene hacerlo, lo que simplemente no es el caso. En su libro Nudge, Richard Thaler y Cass Sunstein llaman a esto la heurística de "sí, lo que sea": la mayoría de las veces optamos por la opción predeterminada. "Si, para una elección determinada, hay una opción predeterminada ... entonces podemos esperar que una gran cantidad de personas terminen con esa opción, sea o no buena para ellos", escriben.
La heurística de "sí, lo que sea" y otros hallazgos de la economía del comportamiento han tenido repercusiones en las ciencias sociales, pero desafortunadamente no han tenido tanto impacto en las leyes antimonopolio. Es poco probable que los tribunales estadounidenses reconozcan la barrera que realmente representa "un clic de distancia".
Sin embargo, Google lo consigue, por lo que paga miles de millones por ser el predeterminado. Si ser mejor fuera suficiente, ¿por qué no dejar que Apple llegue a un acuerdo con Bing o DuckDuckGo, y confiar en que los usuarios harían clic en su camino hacia el mejor producto?
"Siempre habrá algún grado de pura inercia y lealtad del consumidor ... debido en parte a nuestras limitaciones humanas", escribieron los economistas Hal Varian y Carl Shapiro en su libro Information Rules de 1999. “Estos costos pueden parecer pequeños”, señalan en el mismo capítulo, “pero pregúntese con qué frecuencia busca un nuevo agente de viajes, agente de seguros o banco. ¿De verdad sabe que está obteniendo el mejor trato posible? " Tres años después de la publicación del libro, Varian aceptó un trabajo en una pequeña empresa llamada Google.
Microsoft compra LinkedIn por 26.200 millones de dólares Así lo anunciaron por medio de un comunicado oficial. La transacción se hará en efectivo Infobae
Microsoft compra LinkedIn por 26.200 millones de dólares en efectivo (196 dólares por acción). Así lo informó la compañía por medio de un comunicado en el que se destacó que la red social de búsqueda profesional mantendrá su independencia y estilo habitual.
Jeff Weiner seguirá ocupando el rol de CEO en LinkedIn, y reportará a Satya Nadella, CEO de Microsoft. Wiener y Reid Hoffman, cofundador y socio mayoritario de la red social, mostraron su total apoyo a la transacción que, se espera, se llevará a cabo antes de fin de año.
El año pasado, LinkedIn lanzó una nueva versión de su aplicación y adquirió Lynda.com, una plataforma de educación online que rápidamente recibió el impulso con un aumento en la interacción con usuarios y una mejora de su situación financiera. Según se destaca en el informe, en un año la cantidad de usuarios aumentó en un 19% y las páginas vistas, en un 34%.
Microsoft financiará la transacción por medio de la emisión de deuda
"El equipo de LinkedIn construyó un gran negocio basado en conectar profesionales en todo el mundo", aseguró Nadella. "Juntos podemos acelerar el crecimiento de LinkedIn, así como el de Microsoft Office y Dynamics, porque buscamos empoderar a todas las personas y organizaciones del planeta".
"Así como cambiamos la manera en que el mundo se conecta a las oportunidades, esta relación con Microsoft, y la combinación de su nube con la red de LinkedIn nos da una chance para cambiar el modo en que funciona el mundo", dijo Weiner. "En los últimos 13 años, nos posicionamos de una manera tal que logramos conectar a profesionales y logramos que sean más productivos y exitosos, ahora espero liderar a nuestro equipo para que inicie un nuevo capítulo en nuestra historia".
Jeff Weiner seguirá ocupando el rol de CEO en LinkedIn, y reportará a Satya Nadella, CEO de Microsoft
La transacción fue aprobada de manera unánime por la junta de directores tanto de LinkedIn como de Microsoft. Ahora se espera la aprobación de los accionistas de LinkedIn para poder cerrar el acuerdo durante el transcurso de este año. Microsoft financiará la transacción por medio de la emisión de deuda.
"Hoy es un día refundacional para LinkedIn. Veo grandes oportunidades para nuestros miembros y clientes, y quiero apoyar este nuevo negocio combinado", destacó Hoffman. "Apoyo completamente esta transacción y la decisión de la junta de llevarla adelante así que votaré a favor de la operación".
Microsoft sigue el ejemplo de Amazon, Corta el precio de sus productos de servicios en la nube
Amazon y Microsoft están bloqueados actualmente en una feroz batalla sobre el software y los servicios en línea de la industria masiva, que se valora en los cientos de miles de millones.
POR MAX Slater-ROBINS
IMAGEN: Getty Images
Microsoft ha reducido el precio de Azure, su producto servicios en la nube, después de que Amazon hizo algo similar a principios de enero, informa ZDNet.
Amazon redujo el precio de EC2, una parte de Amazon Web Services, y lo hizo más fácil para que un usuario sólo paga por los servicios que utilizan, con base en el momento en que los utilizan para.
Microsoft ha respondido y reducir el precio a través de su propia versión de EC2. La reducción del precio puede ser hasta en un 17%, de acuerdo con Microsoft, dependiendo del tipo de servicio utilizado y si está basado en Linux o Windows.
Microsoft también promociona las ventajas de Azure sobre AWS. "Vale la pena señalar que los casos Azure dv2 00 a diferencia de instancias de EC2 AWS - tienen equilibrio de carga y auto-escala integrada sin coste adicional", dijo la compañía.
"Además de ofrecer excelentes precios, ofrecemos aún más los programas de compra más flexibles descuento y apoyar su viaje a la nube", continuó Microsoft. Los descuentos de precios y flexibilidad vienen porque las facturas de Microsof para el uso en función de cada minuto, no por horas como Amazon.
Amazon y Microsoft están bloqueados actualmente en una feroz batalla sobre el software y los servicios en línea de la industria masiva, que se valora en los cientos de miles de millones. Las dos compañías recientemente comenzaron a concentrarse en Europa, que es $ 11 mil millones (£ 7,6 millones) del mercado por sí solo.
Netscape: el navegador web que se volvió contra Microsoft
John Naughton - The Guardian El Internet Explorer de Bill Gates mató a Netscape... pero volvió a aumentado en forma de Firefox, y ahora ha sido el última en reir
Bill Gates en el lanzamiento de Internet Explorer 4.0 en 1997. Foto: Dwayne
Así que Microsoft ha decidido "retirarse" de Internet Explorer, su navegador web. ¿Entonces qué? Para la mayoría de los usuarios de Internet la noticia probablemente clasificado en algún lugar cercano a la información más reciente sobre los rendimientos de los bonos de la deuda rumana. Pero para veteranos como este columnista, que pone la rúbrica de un interesante capítulo en la historia moderna de la industria informática.
Así que vamos a volver el carrete un poco - hasta 1993. Para entonces, el internet tenía aproximadamente 10 años de edad, sino por su primera década había sido en gran parte desconocido a nadie más que los geeks y los investigadores de informática. Dos años antes, Tim Berners-Lee había creado y puesto en libertad el World Wide Web en el Internet, pero al principio nadie se dio cuenta. Luego, en la primavera de 1993, Marc Andreessen y Eric Bina liberados Mosaic - el primer navegador gráfico - y de repente el "mundo real" se dieron cuenta de lo que era el Internet para, y clamaba a subir a bordo.
Pero aquí está la cosa extraña: Microsoft - por entonces la fuerza abrumadoramente dominante en el mundo de la computación - no se percató de la internet. Uno de los biógrafos de Bill Gates, James Wallace, afirmó que Microsoft no tenía ni siquiera un servidor de Internet hasta que a principios de 1993, y que la única razón por la compañía de establecer uno fue porque Steve Ballmer, Gates de segundo al mando, había descubierto en un viaje de ventas que la mayoría de sus grandes clientes corporativos estaban quejándose de que Windows no tenía una "pila TCP / IP" - es decir, una manera de conectarse a Internet. Ballmer nunca había oído hablar de TCP / IP. "Yo no sé lo que es", le gritó a los subordinados a su regreso a Seattle. "Yo no quiero saber lo que es. Pero mis clientes están gritando al respecto. Hacer que el dolor desaparezca ".
Pero incluso cuando los ingenieros de Microsoft desarrollaron una pila TCP / IP en Windows, el dolor continúa. Andreessen y sus colegas dejaron la universidad para fundar Netscape, escribió un nuevo navegador desde cero y lo lanzó como Netscape Navigator. Esto se extendió como reguero de pólvora y llevó fundadores de Netscape para especular (desmesuradamente) que el navegador se convertiría en la única pieza de software que los usuarios realmente necesitan - relegando así el sistema operativo a un sistema de soporte de vida simple para el navegador.
Ahora que llamó la atención de Microsoft. Era una compañía del sistema operativo, después de todo. El 26 de mayo 1995 de Gates escribió un memorando interno (titulado "Internet Tidal Wave"), que ordenó a sus subordinados que tirar todos los recursos de la compañía en lanzar un ataque de una sola mente en el mercado de los navegadores web. Dado que Netscape tenía una participación de 90% de ese mercado, Gates estaba declarando efectivamente la guerra a Netscape. Microsoft construyó apresuradamente su propio navegador, el nombre que Internet Explorer (IE), y se dedicó a destruir el advenedizo incorporando Explorador en el sistema operativo Windows, de modo que era el navegador por defecto para todos los PC vendidos.
La estrategia funcionó: Microsoft logró exterminar Netscape, pero en el proceso también casi destruyó a sí misma, porque la campaña activa una (competencia desleal) demanda antimonopolio que parecía romper la empresa, sólo para el fundador en el último momento. Así que Microsoft vivió para contarlo, e Internet Explorer se convirtió en el navegador del mundo. Para el año 2000, IE tenía una cuota de mercado del 95%; fue el facto estándar de la industria de, lo que significaba que si quería hacer una vida de desarrollo de software que tenía que asegurarse de que su materia trabajó en el IE. La franquicia Explorador era un monopolio en los esteroides.
Pero resultó ser un arma de doble filo. Las empresas y organizaciones grandes construyeron su infraestructura de TI en torno a Internet Explorer. El NHS, por ejemplo, tiene cientos de miles de PCs, y durante años, si usted quiere vender productos de software a ella, entonces tenían que ser capaz de ejecutar no sólo en IE, pero en una versión específica (6) del programa . Por lo que sé, que todavía puede ser el caso.
Así que el propio éxito de Microsoft en dominar el mercado de los navegadores en efecto bloquea algunos de sus mayores clientes en un túnel del tiempo cada vez más disfuncional e inseguro. Pero agarre monopólico de Microsoft en el sistema operativo del PC y el mercado de software de oficina también la hacía ver lo que estaba sucediendo en la industria de la computación en general. Del mismo modo que se perdió el internet cuando apareció por primera vez, Microsoft también se perdió el cambio a la computación en nube y los dispositivos móviles.
Y debido a que Internet Explorer era tan dominante, Microsoft tenía poco incentivo para actualizar y mejorar la misma. Así que, al final, otro - más innovadoras - navegadores como Opera, Safari, Firefox y Google Chrome finalmente apareció. En comparación con los recién llegados, IE se veía cada vez más cansado y empobrecida, el equivalente en software de un ex campeón de peso pesado engordado y artríticos. Y lo más interesante es que el contendiente que provocó su caída fue Firefox, el producto de la Fundación Mozilla, una organización creada a partir de las ruinas de ... Netscape. ¿Quién dijo que no hay justicia?
La guerra de las consolas ha terminado, y tenemos un claro ganador The Economist
La sede central de PlayStation en San Mateo, California.
Los comunicados de noviembre pasado de Sony PlayStation 4 y Xbox de Microsoft One fueron vistos como el último hurra de las consolas juegos hogareños de alta gama.
Las versiones anteriores de cada dispositivo fueron duramente golpeados por la baja tecnología Nintendo Wii. Y los juegos más simples jugadas en los teléfonos inteligentes y las tabletas están ganando popularidad rápidamente. La estrategia de Sony era hacer su nueva consola de un dispositivo más sofisticado, especializada orientada a los jugadores empedernidos.
Microsoft se fue a la inversa, por lo que la nueva Xbox un dispositivo multimedia versátil, dirigido a un mercado más amplio. La estrategia de Sony rápidamente comenzó a ser más exitosa: en sus primeras seis semanas se vendieron 4,2 millones de las nuevas consolas frente a 3 millones de Microsoft.
Microsoft reemplazó al jefe de su división de Xbox y redujo sus precios. Sin embargo, un año después de los lanzamientos, Sony está todavía muy por delante, y IHS, un investigador de mercado, predice que se mantendrá de esa manera. Aún así, la Xbox One ahora vende más que la última versión de la Wii, y lo ha hecho mejor que Xboxes anteriores.
Microsoft anunció el despido de 18 mil trabajadores La empresa estadounidense aseguró que pretende alinear los negocios de dispositivos y servicios adquiridos a Nokia con su estrategia general. TN
Microsoft anunció el despido de 18 mil trabajadores
Microsoft anunció que despedirá a unos 18.000 empleados durante el próximo año, en una de las mayores reestructuraciones de la industria informática.
Los despidos anunciados representan casi el 14 por ciento de los más de 125.000 empleados de Microsoft, a los que se sumaron 30.000 de Nokia tras la compra de la unidad de móviles de la empresa finlandesa, el año pasado, por unos 7.000 millones de dólares.
En un comunicado, Microsoft indicó que todo el proceso tendrá un costo de entre 1.100 millones y 1.600 millones de dólares en el próximo año.
La cifra incluye entre 750 y 800 millones de dólares en indemnizaciones de despido y otros conceptos y otros 350 a 800 millones de dólares en cargos relacionados con sus activos. La nota añade que Microsoft espera haber completado la reducción de personal para el 30 de junio de 2015.
Los despidos incluyen 12.500 puestos profesionales y en fabricación, según precisa Microsoft.
Los despidos se consideran una reestructuración a medida que Microsoft traslada su centro de atención de áreas como los software Office y Windows hacia los teléfonos y otros equipos electrónicos portátiles.
Satya Nadella, CEO de Microsoft, quien asumió la dirección de la firma en febrero, señaló que los despedidos serán informados durante los próximos seis meses y prometió el pago de indemnizaciones.
A sólo dos meses de iniciado el mandato del nuevo presidente ejecutivo Satya Nadella, Microsoft se siente como una empresa totalmente diferente. Es finalmente dejar atrás el pasado y mirar hacia el futuro. Eso es nada menos que una cosa maravillosa, pero viene con una advertencia: Usted tiene que preguntarse si no llegó a tiempo.
El martes, en su conferencia anual de desarrolladores en San Francisco, el gigante del software ha presentado una versión gratuita de su sistema operativo Windows -un cambio radical en la estrategia que nunca nunca sucedió bajo ex jefe Steve Ballmer- y un día después, la compañía hizo un movimiento aún más notable en el abastecimiento abierto muchas de sus herramientas de desarrollo de software y lenguajes de programación, que comparten libremente el código subyacente con el mundo en general.
Esto puede parecer una cosa pequeña, pero en el mundo de Microsoft, es absolutamente enorme. Durante las últimas dos décadas, Microsoft-más que cualquier otra gran empresa de tecnología-ha mantenido su distancia de la cada vez más poderoso movimiento de código abierto, y durante años, se trabajó activamente para aplastarlo.
Cuando usted también considera que la compañía lanzó recientemente una versión de su suite de software de Office para el iPad de Apple-algo que Ballmer se resistía a hacerlo, ya que podría dañar las ventas de tablets con Windows-usted sabe que Microsoft finalmente está listo para competir en el futuro. Nadella ha llevado a la empresa por el cuello e inmediatamente tiró de él hacia delante. Se da cuenta de que en el mundo de hoy, Microsoft debe operar más como Google. Usted no tiene éxito al tratar de forzar un sistema operativo caros en el mercado. Expande tu imperio tecnología, ofreciendo sistemas operativos libres y herramientas de desarrollo libre. A continuación, puede hacer que su dinero mediante la venta de otras cosas, como los servicios web y los anuncios en línea e incluso Microsoft Office.
La cuestión es si, después de tanta agua bajo el puente, Microsoft realmente puede hacer que esto funcione. Dentro de la compañía, las voces han estado pidiendo grandes movimientos como este desde hace años, y aunque vaciló bajo Ballmer, rivales como Google tomaron el control de tantos nuevos mercados, desde teléfonos inteligentes a los servicios en la nube. Ex- Microsoftie Sam Ramji era una de esas voces, y aunque aplaude el nuevo Microsoft, no está seguro de que el futuro puede ser ganada. "Los tiempos están cambiando", nos dijo después de que Microsoft reveló su sistema operativo libre y herramientas de desarrollo gratuitas. " Pero es el cambio muy pronto lo suficiente? " Mark Russinovich. Foto: Josh Valcarcel / WIRED
¿Cuál es innegable-aunque Steve Ballmer negó durante años-es que Microsoft tuvo que hacer estos movimientos a por lo menos tener la oportunidad de luchar en el nuevo mundo de la tecnología. Y Mark Russinovich-un Microsoft Fellow y uno de los arquitectos principales de servicio en la nube de Windows Azure de la compañía, un paso más hacia el futuro-considera que la empresa está preparada para tener éxito. Esto comienza con la versión gratuita de Windows, que se dirige no sólo a los teléfonos inteligentes, pero a la próxima gran cosa : llevar encima.
Dado que el sistema operativo es libre, Microsoft puede obtener más fácilmente la cosa en los teléfonos, gafas digitales, y otros dispositivos, y una vez que está ahí, y Nadella empresa puede utilizarlo para vender aplicaciones y servicios en línea. "Si nos fijamos en la forma en que los modelos de negocio se van, no se trata de la pieza de fondo-la mayor parte del sistema", Russinovich nos dijo el miércoles en la conferencia de desarrolladores de Microsoft donde se dio a conocer el nuevo sistema operativo. "El dispositivo en sí-el sistema operativo que se ejecuta en la parte superior de eso-no es donde el valor es. El valor está en lo que se pone por encima de eso".
De hecho, es. El problema es que Google y Apple han prácticamente ganada la guerra de teléfonos inteligentes y tabletas, y algunos de sus rivales, incluyendo a Google, ya tienen una ventaja en llevar encima. Si Microsoft ha ofrecido una versión gratuita de Windows hace unos pocos años, el reto por delante no sería tan difícil.
De manera similar, por abrir la fuente de sus herramientas de desarrollo-incluyendo el marco NET programación y lenguajes de programación Visual Basic y C # -. Microsoft pueden conseguirlos en las manos de más codificadores, y eso significa que estos codificadores construirán más cosas para Windows y otros productos de Microsoft plataformas-al menos en teoría. Como software de código abierto, estas herramientas son más atractivos para los codificadores no sólo porque son libres, sino porque es más fácil de entender cómo funcionan. Si usted está construyendo una aplicación encima de un marco de programación similares. NET y ejecutar en un insecto, Russinovich dice, hay casos en los que usted necesita entender el funcionamiento interno de la estructura con el fin de encontrar ese error. "Cuando su fuente abierta", explica, "usted puede ir y mirarlo y decir:".Oh, es por esto'"
Ramji acuerda que el libre NET es el camino a seguir-. Tal como haría con cualquier otro avezado. Pero al igual que con la versión gratuita de Windows, que cree que el cambio puede haber llegado demasiado tarde. Debido a que las herramientas de programación como Java han sido de código abierto durante tanto tiempo, que ya están cubriendo el mundo de la programación, y cosas así. NET tienen un montón de ponerse al día. "La tecnología de la cuota de mercado mayoritaria... es difícil de desbancar, por que hay muchos subsidios externos-proyectos de la comunidad, de la palabra de la boca, los productos comerciales."
En otras palabras, un código abierto. NET está ahora libre para extenderse a través del paisaje tecnología, pero va a tener dificultades para reemplazar Java, que se engancha en tantas partes de ese paisaje. O, si se quiere, se puede pensar en esto en términos más sencillos : Nadella es el hombre adecuado para Microsoft, pero debería haber llegado hace años.
Judgment day for Android: Apple, Microsoft file lawsuit against Google, Samsung
This is what Steve Jobs meant when he threatened to go nuclear against Android.
Yesterday, on Halloween, a consortium of companies including Microsoft, Apple, Sony, Ericsson, and BlackBerry filed lawsuits again Android manufacturers such as Samsung, HTC, LG, Huawei, Asustek, and ZTE, as well as other Android manufacturers. All the lawsuits target Google as well, if only indirectly, and one mentions the company by name, saying its core money-maker, Adwords, violates a 1998 patent.
Essentially, having failed to compete in the marketplace, Apple and Microsoft are choosing to compete in the courts.
Apparently, they haven’t learned anything from the recent past, in which Apple won a billion-dollar judgment against Samsung that has since been whittled down, reduced, appealed, and essentially stuck in legal limbo. One tremendous accomplishment of that lawsuit, however, has been that many lawyers have gotten much richer.
The lawsuit stems from over 6,000 patents acquired by Apple, Microsoft, and others from the bankrupt early mobile innovator, Nortel, for $4.5 billion in 2011, and amassed in a holding company that the companies’ executives, in an adolescent fit of testosterone overdosing, dubbed Rockstar Bidco. Google was also bidding for the patent portfolio — it was the first bidder, at $900 million — but lost that battle.
At the time of that bidding war, there were already 45 patent lawsuits against Android in various shapes and forms. Today, there are many more. And Google, probably, knew at that moment that this day was coming.
The Google lawsuit cites United States Patent No. 6,098,065, won by Nortel originally, for “matching search terms with relevant advertising.” In other words, this is not just a fight against Android. Rockstar Bidco — and by extension Apple and Microsoft — are firing directly at the very basis of Google’s existence, its very lifeblood, and the source of all the revenue that enables it to build and give away the world’s best or second-best mobile operating system essentially for free: advertising.
It’s genius, really. Why attack your enemy’s toes when you can go straight for the heart?
And the companies say that by bidding on the Nortel patents, Google was essentially admitting that it was infringing them:
Google was aware of the patents-in-suit at the time of the auction.
Google placed an initial bid of $900,000,000 for the patents-in-suit and the rest of the Nortel portfolio. Google subsequently increased its bid multiple times, ultimately bidding as high as $4.4 billion. That price was insufficient to win the auction, as a group led by the current shareholders of Rockstar purchased the portfolio for $4.5 billion.
Despite losing in its attempt to acquire the patents-in-suit at auction, Google has infringed and continues to infringe the patents-in-suit.
That’s really going too far — the patent portfolio includes many mobile-relevant patents that any company in the space would love to have — but it may play well in court. The Adwords-relevant patent was issued in December, 1998. Google was founded in September of that year, and currently earns $50+ billion annually based on technology that, on the surface, appears to infringe the patent.
(Of course, the patent may also be obvious — at least, it is in retrospect.)
The Samsung lawsuit cites seven patents that Rockstar Bidco, and by extension, Apple, Microsoft, Sony, and Ericsson, say Samsung infringes. They include U.S. Patent No. 6,765,591, on virtual private network technology, a user interface patent, and a seemingly impossibly broad U.S. Patent No. 5,838,551, which covers an “Electronic Package Carrying an Electronic Component and Assembly of Mother Board and Electronic Package.”
The lawsuit is extremely comprehensive, citing no fewer than 118 claims of infringement on Samsung’s part, and no fewer than 21 “prayers for relief,” in the somewhat archaic language of the court. Those prayers, which Apple has been offering up fervently for years now, include that Samsung be found guilty of infringement, be forced to pay damages — including triple damages for willful infringement — and either a permanent injunction or a “compulsory ongoing licensing fee.”
Products cited include the Galaxy S III, the Galaxy family of tablets, and others.
In other words, this is likely to be the definitive battle that shapes Android and the future of mobile technology in the U.S. and abroad. Google will likely strike back — every large enterprise has patents that just about every company could be conceivably infringing — and we’ll likely enter a long, protracted, messing, and boring sideshow of legal shenanigans that advance the world of technology not a single bit, but continue to enrich lawyers.
And may, eventually, result in licensing fees on Android that will make the free operating system slightly less free.
Microsoft gana un 17,4% más y logra una facturación récord
Oficina de Microsoft en Bucarest. Reuters Europa PressRedmond (EEUU)
La compañía tecnológica estadounidense Microsoft logró en el primer trimestre de su ejercicio fiscal un beneficio neto de 5.244 millones de dólares (3.800 millones de euros), lo que supone una mejora del 17,4% respecto al mismo periodo del ejercicio anterior, informó la multinacional.
Asimismo, la propietaria de Windows indicó que su facturación entre julio y septiembre alcanzó los 18.529 millones de dólares (13.247 millones de euros), un 15,7% más que el año anterior y la cifra más alta en los tres primeros meses de un ejercicio fiscal en la historia de la compañía de Redmond.
En concreto, Microsoft destacó que su negocio de licencias dirigidas al consumidor facturó un 7,1% menos, mientras que el de licencias comerciales incrementó un 7,2% sus ingresos. A su vez, el área de 'hardware' aumentó un 37% sus ventas.
Amy Hoo, directora financiera de la compañía, destacó que Microsoft fue capaz de generar una facturación "récord" en el primer trimestre fiscal a pesar del periodo de transición que atraviesa la multinacional, que reemplazará a su consejero delegado, Steve Ballmer, a lo largo de 2014.
Mulally is a bit of a shock to some people because he has no connection to high-tech. Prior to running Ford, he was CEO of Boeing's commercial airplanes division. He started at Boeing when he graduated college, and spent 37 years there.
Despite Mulally's lack of expertise in the tech industry, he would be a good fit for Microsoft.
The Wall Street Journal called Mulally, "one of the most highly respected CEOs in any industry," and Barclays analyst Brian Johnson told the Journal, "There is no doubt that Alan has fundamentally transformed Ford both in simplifying its brand portfolio and developing a system that coherently exploits scale while generating interesting, exciting product."
Ford, under Mulally, was the only American car company that didn't need a bailout. Mulally recapitalized the company through private markets, and got it back on its feet.
In 2009, Bloomberg Businessweek wrote of Mulally's first two and a half years running the company, "Under Mulally, decision-making is more transparent, once-fractious divisions are working together, and cars of better quality are moving faster from design studio to showroom ... Ford's far-flung fiefdoms are starting to collaborate, a once wasteful and balkanized vehicle development system is beginning to cohere."
Exactly what Microsoft needs
That sounds like exactly what Microsoft needs. Investors may agree. After Mulally's name was floated the stock was up 1.5% on a day when the broader markets fell.
For years, Microsoft was known for brutal internal politics. Its groups worked in silos, and rarely collaborated. Ballmer just reorganized the company to kill those silos, and get the company working together. When Ballmer put together his reorganization plan, he consulted with Mulally.
More than a reorganization, Microsoft needs great products.
In 2007, Apple changed everything when it introduced the iPhone. Ballmer basically laughed at the iPhone when it was released. That was a huge mistake.
The iPhone sparked a revolution that resulted in Google dominating the smartphone market and tablet computing eroding the personal computer market.
Business Insider
In 2009, Microsoft controlled ~70% of all Internet-connected computing devices. Today, it's down to 24%. As Android, and Apple's iOS (the software powering iPhones and iPads) take over more Internet-connected devices, Microsoft becomes less and less relevant.
Microsoft's Windows operating income was down 55% thanks largely to the rise of Apple's iPad, which is decimating the personal computer market.
At Ford, he hasn't rolled out mind-melting cars. The Ford Focus is an excellent automobile, but it's not exactly the iPhone of cars. Ford's market share in North America has stabilized under Mulally, but it's about even with where it was when he came in, according to data on a Bloomberg terminal.
Making comparisons between the auto industry and the tech industry on a product basis are tough, and imperfect.
Importantly for Microsoft though, the damage is done with the iPhone. There's not much to be gained by looking backwards.
Microsoft has a decent plan on how it's going to rebound. It has Windows Phone, Windows 8, and the Surface tablet. All of those products are still rough around the edges, but they're pointed in the right direction.
Mulally, with a fresh set of eyes, could help focus Microsoft's strategy and get the company back on top of the tech world.
The other candidates aren't perfect either
But what about the Next. Big. Thing.? After all, technology isn't defined by what's been done; it's defined by what comes next.
Microsoft is overflowing with really smart people building amazing technology. We've been in the company's labs on off-the-record briefings and seen some really cool stuff. Microsoft doesn't need a great visionary to think of the next major product. It has plenty of those people at the company already.
What Microsoft needs is an executive who can streamline operations, get everyone working together, and decide which projects get oxygen and which products get drowned.
Mulally may not be a perfect candidate for the role, but neither are the other candidates.
Stephen Elop, who is rejoining Microsoft from Nokia is said to be a top choice. However, he's bounced from job to job through the years, and his most recent job as CEO of Nokia was unimpressive. Nokia was on the cusp of bankruptcy before Microsoft bailed it out.
Tony Bates, who ran Skype, is also said to be a top choice. He doesn't have the experience of running a major public company. He was CEO of Skype for less than a year before Microsoft bought it. Is he really ready to take on a massive company like Microsoft?
Can Mulally find Jony Ive at Apple?
Mulally may lack tech skills but he's an engineer by training. He already pivoted once from planes to cars. It's entirely possible he can pivot to technology.
Besides, Microsoft is a unique technology company. While a lot of people look at Microsoft and want to compare it to Apple, the truth is the two companies are radically different.
At Apple, the company is laser focused on two products — the iPad and the iPhone. It has other stuff like iPods and Macs. It's also developing new products. But, at its core, Apple is a simple company. Want to know how well it's doing? Look at iPad sales, look at iPhone sales.
Microsoft is more like GE than Apple. It's a sprawling company that makes tablets, makes keyboards, makes mice, does console gaming. It's in cloud computing, it's big in the enterprise, and it's big with consumers. It's a little bit of this, a little bit of that. And when one division struggles, it has many others to pick up the slack.
Mulally, with experience running big companies like Boeing and Ford, could corral Microsoft's overflowing talents and aim them in the right place. He doesn't have to be the next Steve Jobs. He can be the next Tim Cook, and find the next Jony Ive at Microsoft.
Windows is dead. Let’s all salute it — pour out a glass for it, burn a CD for it, reboot your PC one last time.
Windows had a good run. For a time, it powered the world. But that era is over.
It was killed by the unlikeliest of collaborations — Microsoft’s ancient enemies working over decades, in concert: Steve Jobs, Linus Torvalds, and most of all, two guys named Larry and Sergey.
Late on Monday, Microsoft announced its unsurprising $7.2 billion plan to buy Nokia’s smartphone division. Nokia is the world’s largest manufacturer of phones that run Microsoft’s Windows Phone operating system (which is a bit like pointing out that, at 5-foot-6, I’m the tallest member of my immediate family). Microsoft is buying Nokia in order to control both the hardware and software in its devices; this move, Microsoft promises, will improve the phones themselves and make them easier to sell.
But this is the antithesis of the company’s Windows strategy. Though Microsoft insists otherwise, when this deal is done, the thing sold as Windows won’t be what it’s always been — it won’t be software that runs on lots of companies’ hardware, a platform to unite disparate manufacturers’ devices. Instead, Windows will be much like Apple’s operating systems, iOS and Mac OS. Windows will be proprietary software attached to proprietary hardware — Microsoft’s code running on Microsoft’s devices.
In a document that lays out the “strategic rationale” for the deal, Microsoft makes a stirring case for vertical integration: for a single company that makes both mobile software and hardware together. By purchasing Nokia, Microsoft says it will be able to create better phones by reducing “friction” between hardware and software teams that now reside in separate companies. Combining the companies also improves marketing “efficiency” and “clarity” — Microsoft can sell a single Microsoft device that bakes in the best services from both firms (Skype, Office, Nokia’s mapping systems).
Finally, vertical integration helps Microsoft’s bottom line. Today, for every Windows-powered phone that Nokia sells, Microsoft gets less than $10 in software licensing fees. When it owns Nokia, Microsoft will be able to book profits on hardware, too. Rather than make less than $10 per phone, it will make more than $40.
Steve Jobs long pushed against Bill Gates’ idea that hardware and software should be made by different firms. And back in the PC era, Gates was right. Gates recognized that most computer users didn’t understand hardware. We couldn’t tell the difference — and didn’t really care much about — the processors, drives, displays, and other physical components that made up one PC versus another. As a result, making PC hardware was destined to be a bruising commodity business, with low brand recognition, constant price battles, and dwindling profits.
But software, Gates saw, was a different story. Software had a face. Software imprinted itself on users — once you learned one Windows PC, you understood every Windows PC. Unlike hardware, software enabled network effects: The more people who used Windows, the more attractive it became to developers, which meant more apps to make Windows computers more useful, which led to more users, and on and on. Finally, software was wildly, almost unimaginably profitable. After writing code once, you could copy it endlessly, at no marginal cost, for years to come — and make money on every single copy you sold.
But mobile devices altered that calculation. Today, hardware matters. Unlike in a PC that you kept hidden under your desk, the design of your mobile device affects its usefulness. Things like your phone’s weight or the way your tablet feels in your hand are all important considerations when you’re buying a device; you won’t choose a phone based on software alone, and you might pay a premium for a device that’s particularly well-designed. In the mobile world, as Apple has proved, hardware can command just as much of a profit as software.
You might argue that once the basic design of a good phone or tablet becomes well known, lots of companies will copy it, and that hardware will again become a commodity. That’s the tide Apple is now battling against. At some point mobile components will become good enough and cheap enough that a $50 phone might function just as well as a $100 or $200 phone. When that happens, people will again start choosing devices by price, and hardware profits will dwindle to nothing. And, as happened with PCs, software, not hardware, will become the industry’s dominant business.
All that may well occur. (The fear of commoditized hardware explains Apple’s languishing share price.) But if mobile hardware does become a commodity and software once again becomes the determining factor in your choice of phone, we won’t see Microsoft profit from the shift. That’s because, in the last five years, a brutal, profit-destroying force has emerged in the tech world: Android.
Google’s mobile operating system — which is based on Linux, the open-source OS whose fans had long dreamed would destroy Windows — is free. Any mobile phone manufacturer can use and alter Android however it pleases. This accounts for Android’s stunning market share — close to 80 percent, according to IDC — and that market share gives Android the benefit of the network effects that once worked so well for Microsoft. Nokia was paying Microsoft $10 for every phone it sold, and in return it got an OS that can’t even run Instagram. Microsoft says that it wants to keep licensing Windows Phone to other manufacturers even after it purchases Nokia, but because they can always choose Android (which runs Instagram and everything else), few phone-makers are likely to take it up on that deal.
That’s why the Nokia purchase signals the end of Windows as a standalone business. There are now only two ways to sell software. Like Apple, you can make devices that integrate software and hardware together and hope to sell a single, unified, highly profitable product. Or, like Google, you can make software that you give away in the hopes of creating a huge platform from which you can make money in some other way (through ads, in Google’s case).
Microsoft Buying Nokia's Smartphone Business for $7 Billion STEVE KOVACH
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Nokia CEO Stephen Elop.
Microsoft announced tonight that it will buy Nokia's devices and services division.
This is the part of Nokia that makes smartphones (and soon) tablets.
Microsoft will pay 3.70 billion Euro for Nokia's devices business. That's nearly $5 billion is U.S. dollars. Microsoft will also pay an additional 1.65 billion Euro ($2.2 billion U.S.) for the rights to Nokia's patents.
All together, the deal will cost Microsoft about $7 billion U.S.
Microsoft will also take on about 32,000 Nokia employees. Nokia's CEO Stephen Elop will transfer to Microsoft too. (Elop used to work at Microsoft before becoming the Nokia CEO.)
The joining of Microsoft and Nokia isn't a huge surprise. Nokia is the only manufacturer that exclusively uses Microsoft' Windows Phone 8 operating system for its top-tier smartphones. Meanwhile, Microsoft has struggled to gain significant market share for Windows Phone as Android and the iPhone continue to dominate.
Nokia's flagship Lumia phones are most likely the best-selling Windows Phones today. The company sold 7.4 million last quarter. A lot of those sales are due to the fact that Nokia attacks the low-end of the smartphone market with cheaper devices. It also makes high-end phones like the Lumia 920, 925, and 1020.
This can also be another sign that Microsoft is taking its transition from a software company to a "devices and services" company much more seriously. Until last year, Microsoft did not make any major products (besides the Xbox) itself. That changed with its line of Surface tablets that run the new Windows 8 operating system. The company announced that it was making the transition to a company that provides both devices and services.
But Microsoft has yet to make a smartphone of its own, despite numerous rumors that it had plans to. By buying Nokia, Microsoft now has its own manufacturer that it can work closely with.
Microsoft's purchase isn't likely to annoy other manufacturers that make Windows Phones either. Most of those manufacturers (Samsung, HTC, etc.) have been able to make more money from Android devices than an alternative operating system like Windows Phone 8. Nokia is the only manufacturer that relies almost entirely on Windows Phone 8.
Finally, there's Elop. He's one of the names that have been floating around as a potential replacement for Steve Ballmer as Microsoft's CEO. Ballmer announced last month that he plans to retire within a year. A special team of Microsoft board members is now on the hunt for a new CEO.
Here's the press release:
Microsoft Corporation and Nokia Corporation today announced that the Boards of Directors for both companies have decided to enter into a transaction whereby Microsoft will purchase substantially all of Nokia’s Devices & Services business, license Nokia’s patents, and license and use Nokia’s mapping services. Under the terms of the agreement, Microsoft will pay EUR 3.79 billion to purchase substantially all of Nokia’s Devices & Services business, and EUR 1.65 billion to license Nokia’s patents, for a total transaction price of EUR 5.44 billion in cash. Microsoft will draw upon its overseas cash resources to fund the transaction. The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2014, subject to approval by Nokia’s shareholders, regulatory approvals and other closing conditions. Building on the partnership with Nokia announced in February 2011 and the increasing success of Nokia’s Lumia smartphones, Microsoft aims to accelerate the growth of its share and profit in mobile devices through faster innovation, increased synergies, and unified branding and marketing. For Nokia, this transaction is expected to be significantly accretive to earnings, strengthen its financial position, and provide a solid basis for future investment in its continuing businesses. “It’s a bold step into the future – a win-win for employees, shareholders and consumers of both companies. Bringing these great teams together will accelerate Microsoft’s share and profits in phones, and strengthen the overall opportunities for both Microsoft and our partners across our entire family of devices and services,” said Steve Ballmer, Microsoft chief executive officer. “In addition to their innovation and strength in phones at all price points, Nokia brings proven capability and talent in critical areas such as hardware design and engineering, supply chain and manufacturing management, and hardware sales, marketing and distribution.”
“We are excited and honored to be bringing Nokia’s incredible people, technologies and assets into our Microsoft family. Given our long partnership with Nokia and the many key Nokia leaders that are joining Microsoft, we anticipate a smooth transition and great execution,” Ballmer said. “With ongoing share growth and the synergies across marketing, branding and advertising, we expect this acquisition to be accretive to our adjusted earnings per share starting in FY15, and we see significant long-term revenue and profit opportunities for our shareholders.”
“For Nokia, this is an important moment of reinvention and from a position of financial strength, we can build our next chapter,” said Risto Siilasmaa, Chairman of the Nokia Board of Directors and, following today’s announcement, Nokia Interim CEO. “After a thorough assessment of how to maximize shareholder value, including consideration of a variety of alternatives, we believe this transaction is the best path forward for Nokia and its shareholders. Additionally, the deal offers future opportunities for many Nokia employees as part of a company with the strategy, financial resources and determination to succeed in the mobile space.” “Building on our successful partnership, we can now bring together the best of Microsoft’s software engineering with the best of Nokia’s product engineering, award-winning design, and global sales, marketing and manufacturing,” said Stephen Elop, who following today’s announcement is stepping aside as Nokia President and CEO to become Nokia Executive Vice President of Devices & Services. “With this combination of talented people, we have the opportunity to accelerate the current momentum and cutting-edge innovation of both our smart devices and mobile phone products.” Nokia has outlined its expected focus upon the closing of the transaction in a separate press release published today. TERMS OF THE AGREEMENT Under the terms of the agreement, Microsoft will acquire substantially all of Nokia’s Devices and Services business, including the Mobile Phones and Smart Devices business units as well as an industry-leading design team, operations including all Nokia Devices & Services-related production facilities, Devices & Services-related sales and marketing activities, and related support functions. At closing, approximately 32,000 people are expected to transfer to Microsoft, including 4,700 people in Finland and 18,300 employees directly involved in manufacturing, assembly and packaging of products worldwide. The operations that are planned to be transferred to Microsoft generated an estimated EUR 14.9 billion, or almost 50 percent of Nokia’s net sales for the full year 2012. Microsoft is acquiring Nokia’s Smart Devices business unit, including the Lumia brand and products. Lumia handsets have won numerous awards and have grown in sales in each of the last three quarters, with sales reaching 7.4 million units in the second quarter of 2013. As part of the transaction, Nokia is assigning to Microsoft its long-term patent licensing agreement with Qualcomm, as well as other licensing agreements. Microsoft is also acquiring Nokia’s Mobile Phones business unit, which serves hundreds of millions of customers worldwide, and had sales of 53.7 million units in the second quarter of 2013. Microsoft will acquire the Asha brand and will license the Nokia brand for use with current Nokia mobile phone products. Nokia will continue to own and manage the Nokia brand. This element provides Microsoft with the opportunity to extend its service offerings to a far wider group around the world while allowing Nokia’s mobile phones to serve as an on-ramp to Windows Phone.
Nokia will retain its patent portfolio and will grant Microsoft a 10-year license to its patents at the time of the closing. Microsoft will grant Nokia reciprocal rights to use Microsoft patents in its HERE services. In addition, Nokia will grant Microsoft an option to extend this mutual patent agreement in perpetuity. In addition, Microsoft will become a strategic licensee of the HERE platform, and will separately pay Nokia for a four-year license. Microsoft will also immediately make available to Nokia EUR 1.5 billion of financing in the form of three EUR 500 million tranches of convertible notes that Microsoft would fund from overseas resources. If Nokia decides to draw down on this financing option, Nokia would pay back these notes to Microsoft from the proceeds of the deal upon closing. The financing is not conditional on the transaction closing.
Microsoft also announced that it has selected Finland as the home for a new data center that will serve Microsoft consumers in Europe. The company said it would invest more than a quarter-billion dollars in capital and operation of the new data center over the next few years, with the potential for further expansion over time. NOKIA LEADERSHIP CHANGES Nokia expects that Stephen Elop, Jo Harlow, Juha Putkiranta, Timo Toikkanen, and Chris Weber would transfer to Microsoft at the anticipated closing of the transaction. Nokia has outlined these changes in more detail in a separate release issued today. EXTRAORDINARY SHAREHOLDERS MEETING Nokia plans to hold an Extraordinary General Meeting on November 19, 2013. The notice of the meeting and more information on the transaction and its background are planned to be published later this month.
The Atlantic Charles Simonyi sets off on a space tourist trip in April 2007. (Shamil Zhumatov/Reuters)
JF: You are a longtime pioneer at Microsoft and elsewhere. What was the basic idea that made you think you needed to take a different path in software development?
CS: It came from looking at the gap between what the hardware made possible and what was achieved by the software. If you look at the growth in hardware, it has been astounding. Of course everyone knows about Moore's Law and the exponential increase in computing capacity. The increase in storage capacity joined that, and the bandwidth between the computers also followed that exponential curve. And that created some incredible improvements in our lives, but if you look at it just with cold eyes, the gap has been widening between the possibilities and the realities. You must remember, too, when 2001 came out--
JF: Yes, it would've been 1969 or '70.
CS: I was just looking at the implied use of computers and displays in that film, and it was literally quite right, especially in the sequences when they were going to the moon. The displays in the cockpit there were very much like the displays that you see in the cockpits today. Hollywood seems to be ahead of the curve of showing the capabilities.
Also, if you look at game improvement, starting with Pong and going to modern games like Halo, the detail and the excitement that you get is just tremendous. We have more memory than we can shake a stick at, which is wonderful. At home I'm moving all my DVDs to disc. And all my photos -- not only the present photos, but the past photos. And my CDs--everything is going on a disc. And the displays! Remember when Bill Gates was building his house?
JF: Yes.
CS: Of course there was this dream that he would be showing art on his walls on displays. We were kind of envious: "Oh my God. He is so rich that he can have a display just for art." And in fact, in his house, in many places, there was a double wall. You had a walkway behind the walls to accommodate the displays, which were four or five feet deep and required heating and cooling and everything else. Today, displays--I've just been to a Rolling Stones concert and they had like a 100-foot display. And go to Times Square and there are skyscrapers whose only purpose is to carry a display on their windows.
This all has to be activated by software. We have some terrific new applications, and in that I include search engines Google and Bing, and, of course, the Microsoft Office suite. The potential is much, much greater than that. And it really has to do with involving knowledge or encoding knowledge in a deeper way. That's basically the reason I thought that a different path was needed.
JF: If the potential of software had been realized the way other potentials have been realized, how would our lives be different now?
CS: I think that the basic answer is that nobody would be doing routine, repetitive things. Think of how many times you go to a new Web site, and after you've formed that intention and made the decision, the rest is routine and repetitive. Look at health care and the incredible number of repetitive and routine actions you have to take as a patient.
Amazon has been applying a sort of rationalization and organization to a wider area of retail--but the elimination of routine activities from your life is the main thing we have missed. I think what will happen is that the concept of what's routine--and therefore avoidable--will expand. For example, making appointments, maintaining your calendar. Better software will definitely get into those areas.
JF: One other backward-looking question: As you try to explain the differential rates of progress in hardware versus software, is it a failure of effort or are the problems of software intrinsically harder?
CS: It's the latter. I sometimes call software "distilled complexity." Hardware is actually quite a bit simpler. It's this fairly simple logical divide. The same thing is true for printers. For example, I often show a slide that shows the inside of a teletype from the 1960s--you know if you look at an old James Bond movie and you can see the Telex machine making the noise in the corner. And if you look at those Telex machines, how complicated they were, and you look at a modern inkjet printer and open it up and there are practically no moving parts in it, you know there's the head, and there's the band that pulls the head along, and that's about it.
The other example I use is the Merganthaler linotype machine.
JF: Yes, I actually set hot lead on the college newspaper on one of those things.
CS: These were wonderful, wonderful machines. But, you know, they were expensive. They were dirty.
JF: And because they were complex, they broke, too.
CS: They broke, and that added to the expense of having to fix them. So what we've done now is, in a way, we've swept the room. We've swept the complexity into this thing, which is the software, and then we could afford to super-optimize the hardware.
JF: It's all sort of standard performance indices as opposed to basic architecture.
CS: Right. Nobody cares anymore because that's not where the action is. Certainly, for example, when you talk about memory--talk about simplicity! What's simpler than memory? There's an address and there's a bit there, and it had better get the bit back. It's either a 1 or a 0, and if I put a 1 there, I want a 1 back, and if I put a 0 there, I want a 0 back. And then do this as many times as you can, as fast as you can. That's it. End of specs. And that's why chip manufacturing moved completely out of the U.S. because it's--
JF: --Sort of purely execution.
CS: Execution, yeah.
JF: As you think of the software of right now, of 2013, which part of the software that people interact with are you most impressed by, for its incorporation of intelligence? Which one most annoys you for its lack of intelligence? And 10 years from now, what will be the most dramatic change for people?
CS: I think that just in terms of usefulness and the incorporation of intelligence, the simple task of spell-check is very impressive, actually. The statistical translations are getting surprisingly useful for purposes that people use them for. When you go to Wikipedia and misspell a name, for example, you will get very, very good suggestions, and you get there very quickly even from limited context and hits. I think that's amazing, and I'm in awe of that.
In terms of annoyance, I will tell you that what annoys me the most is consumer electronics. Consumer electronics is the most pathetic piece of--
JF: Crap?
CS: Your word!--that is foisted on us. The worst part of consumer electronics are the remotes. I go to a place, be it someone's home or a hotel room, and I'm faced with four remotes, none of which are labeled, and each one has about 50 buttons on it. None of those buttons have anything to do with anything I would like the display to be used for. Anyway, enough of the rant.
JF: Yes, I think everyone would recognize that. So is that where you think we'll see the most embedded intelligence in five or 10 years or in some other area?
CS: I think that it will be completely rationalized. The interesting thing about that is that there really doesn't need to be that much knowledge turned into it. It's covered by my phrase of "repeated activity": You don't want routine, repeated activity. I think that's where the intelligence will come in. It will be in health care and, generally, the organization of your life.
In some sense, everybody has a secretary available in terms of word processing and in terms of e-mail. We don't send faxes. We don't ask somebody to fax things. We don't ask somebody to create or send a letter. We can do it ourselves conveniently. But, for example, in terms of organizing our lives, we don't have a secretary who knows everything and can make obvious judgments without asking us, follow up on things--all of those tasks that a good executive secretary would be doing. I think that will be available in five or 10 years. It will be an app.
JF: God willing. I know that part of your team with David Allen is working toward this goal, right?
CS: Absolutely. Well, let me say a qualified yes. The cooperation with David Allen has to do with, of course, getting things done, which is a subset of that. You of course know everything about that. But it's a self-generated portion of your life--you still make the decisions. The human need is to be happy and be served, but the theoretical, technical need is to encode things in an intentional way so that computers can act on them.
JF: In various fields of expertise, whether it's aviation or genetics research or professional sports or art, there are things insiders know are difficult that people on the outside world don't recognize as being difficult. What is the underappreciated hard part of the work you and your company are trying to do now?
CS: I want to say facing up to complexity, but we don't do that. We are trying toexpress complexity. We have to leave behind some of the established patterns, but we have to kind of find this narrow sweet spot where we leave behind some of the patterns that got in the way as things evolved. So it's going forward in an uncertain path with a careful mix of renewal and conservation. We also retain those patterns that not only served us well in the past but will serve us well in the future.
12:18
Juan MC Larrosa
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