Last week, while watching Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s stiff introduction to Windows Phone, I wondered about his facial and body language. He didn’t exactly seem happy to be introducing Windows Phone, which launches a new brand for Microsoft and its hardware partners.
2001: An Apple Odyssey
It is not uncommon for bloggers and journalists to get hung up on the present. For Apple, there’s big noise about soaring stock price, even considering economic recession, and increasing demand for iPhone. But the past defines the present. For Apple, products or services launched in a single calendar year—and the consistent execution that followed—define current successes, including iPhone.
I contend that next to 1984, when Apple launched Macintosh, 2001 was the most important year in the company’s history.
SAI Chart of the Day: 2B App Store Downloads
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. A chart can say so much more. Earlier today, Apple announced 2 billion downloads from its mobile App Store and 85,000 applications available. Silicon Alley Insider put that apps into a shocking chart.
Now This Is Advertising!
Only Microsoft could be so bold. As I explained in my last post, TechFlash’s Todd Bishop and I have been bantering back and forth about what is advertising. Oh, these IM arguments can be brutal. Anyway, […]
What is an Ad?
TechFlash’s Todd Bishop and I disagree about what constitutes an ad. I ask you which of us is right. The disagreement started over Todd’s post “Windows Ads, Finally Cool?” He reports about some Windows 7 videos that popped up online a few days ago.
I saw the same vids on Tuesday night and almost blogged about them. But I recalled reading something a few weeks ago (from the esteemed Long Zheng) about the same videos being produced conceptually for Microsoft. Also, the run times were all wrong for broadcast. Nobody airs a 51-second commercials. I dismissed the videos as YouTube-distributed marketing material, but not advertisements.
Michael Arrington, Talk Dirty to Me
There’s something dirty feeling about watching Michael Arrington’s interview of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. I don’t mean that as criticism of Michael; plenty of other folks have done that all too well. It’s this new media thing, where you sleep with the people you write about. You do business with them and for them.
Who am I to criticize? The new media thing is working out rather well for TechCrunch, which makes oodles of money, commands huge traffic and pageview numbers and mingles with Silicon Valley’s dealers and stealers.
Headline of the Day: ‘AT&T to Welcome iPhone Users to 2003 Tomorrow’
All Things Digital—and it’s an understatement. “At some point late tomorrow morning, the carrier will release an update enabling MMS,” he writes. About a minute later, AT&T’s network will go all to hell—it’s the end of the world as we know it—as iPhoners break out in one giant unison MMS.
Ah, the iPhone. A few weeks ago, I pronounced that my Nokia N97 is gone, it’s back again. I dumped the iPhone 3GS, and I’m surprised how little I miss the smartypants phone. Perhaps it was a psychological sense of missing out on something that caused the “disconnected” feeling using the N97 that I blogged about . No more.
What is Microsoft’s Search Engine?
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTbAvVYk9d0] That’s the question Todd Bishop (accompanied by John Cook) asked people on the streets of Seattle about six months ago. No one seemed to know what was Microsoft’s search engine (At that […]
Why the Dow is So High But Consumers are So Low
Yesterday, I warned that signs of economic recovery are nothing more than a mirage. Today, I’m freaking out because Robert Reich has got an explanation so simple and so obvious. If the former US Labor Secretary’s analysis is correct, as I believe it is, the economy’s in deeper doo doo than even my worst warnings about it.
My Run In With Fake Steve Jobs
It’s not the first encounter. But this time, I fought back. Last week, someone tweeted that I had been Fake Steved. Last week, at Betanews I blogged: “Why I chose Windows 7 Over Snow Leopard (and you should, too).”
For Fake Steve (aka, journalist Dan Lyons) that translated into post title: “Borg lapdog says you should choose Windows 7 over Snow Leopard.”
$4,999 Car Is the Answer
Today’s Jeopardy question: How do you turn around the auto industry? For at least one automaker, perhaps even two or three, a sub-$5,000 car is my answer. Over lunch, I read news analysis “Small Isn’t Beautiful” in Sept. 19-25, 2009, Economist (I’m a print a subscriber). Economist aptly explains why the auto history is hosed, now that cash-for-clunkers programs are gone, there’s no credit for fancy, high-priced cars and demand increases for smaller, fuel efficient and environmentally friendly vehicles. Let’s not forget the production problem: For mature markets, at least, production capacity exceeds demand (and did before the econolypse).
Recession and the Recovery Problem
I sit outside the auto repair shop waiting for the brake light switch on my aging Toyota Corolla to be fixed. I type on the Nokia N97 smartphonne, on which I also have been reading news. I had blogged that the N97 would get a second chance. The iPhone 3GS is on ice, so to speak. But my N97 experience is topic for another post.
My interest here is the news I was reading in the New York Times about an analyst report suggesting that the economy is starting to recover. It’s not. But first, the Times asserts: “A measure of supplier deliveries, rising stock prices, an increase in consumer expectations, a jump in building permits and the ‘interest rate spread’ bolstered the index in August.”