Archive for: January, 2011

Smart pricing

Jan 24 2011 Published by Ben Chong under Business, Marketing, Product, The Daily Geek

I had to re-partition a hard disk recently.

If you don’t know what that is, you’ll appreciate the whole point of this article.

The deal about “partitioning” a hard disk is to define how it is to be used.

In my case, I had a computer with Windows 7 on it. I wanted to install Linux (another operating system) on that same computer. So I wanted to create some space on the hard disk for Linux. The task of creating this space is the task of “re-partitioning’ the hard disk.

By now you will probably appreciate the fact that re-partitioning a hard disk is not something you’ll do everyday.

This is something that the folks at Paragon Software Group seem to understand well. They sell a software tool, the Paragon Partition Manager, to help you re-partition your hard disk. Price: $39.95.

They also sell a version that has a single-use license for a mere $9.95.

Think about it. How often would anyone need to repartition a hard disk? Mostly never. But when you do, you’ll probably just do it once. Like me.

So a low-cost single-use license for this kind of product makes absolute sense. It caters to someone who knows that he needs to partition his hard disk just once and doesn’t want to pay too much for a full-blown partitioning tool.

You might argue that Paragon doesn’t have to create such a product: I would have had to pay $39.95 for the full product and still just use it once. They would have made four times the revenue.

But then, at $39.95 would I still choose Paragon’s Partition Manager? Probably not.

There are a several competing products out there with varying capabilities and cost. Windows 7 itself includes a (free) partitioning tool, which unfortunately (or fortunately, if you are Paragon) doesn’t work well in all cases.

By creating this low-cost, single-use version of its partitioning tool, Paragon has a very well positioned product that neatly balances price with capabilities.

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Garmin and the disappearing GPS

Jan 14 2011 Published by Ben Chong under Business trends

Or the need thereof…

Seriously, when was the last time you used a GPS?

By GPS, I am referring to a Garmin, TomTom, Magellan etc device that you either “stick” to your car’s windshield or pop on the dashboard.

I have not used my ancient Garmin in a long time. Not since I got my first Android phone.

Today, when I need to go anywhere new, I just pull out my T-Mobile G2 Android phone, launch the Maps app, search for the address, tap on the banner of the destination address on the map, tap on the “navigate” icon, choose “Driving Navigation”, and I’m on the way! If the address was sent in an email, I can just hold my finger over the text containing said address. Android automagically figures out that it is an address, and launches the Maps app.

Hello smart phone, good bye dedicated GPS device!

Google Maps is still not perfect for navigation in the sense that the map and direction data is not stored on the device. You still need some connectivity for the device to get the maps and directions. I found this out the hard way when I went to some place where there was no network connection. While the G2 was able to get all the navigation data to go to that place when I left home, it could not get the data to help me navigate home: there was zero cellphone or network access.

Here is where GPS manufacturers can avoid being made obsolete by smartphones: be able to provide products that allow offline navigation or complement the functionality of the built-in navigation apps.

Garmin tried shipping a GPS+smartphone device with Asus, the nuvifone (sold in some places as the Garminfone). This device combined a full-fledge Garmin GPS device with an Android phone. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a commercial success and Garmin and Asus terminated their partnership.

Garmin hasn’t given up (this is an existential issue) and is now selling the Garmin StreetPilot app for Apple iDevices. It is available on the iTunes app store at $40. Garmin currently doesn’t have a similar offering for Android.

Will Garmin’s approach of “cooperating with the competition” help prevent its GPS markets from being eaten by smartphones? That remains to be seen. There are a number of negative comments on the app.

Meanwhile, in a case of “your competitor is my competitor” cooperation, Nike and TomTom have come together to launch the Nike+ SportWatch. This combines Nike’s Nike+ shoe sensor watch technologies with TomTom’s expertise in GPS devices. This is clearly an attempt to roll back Garmin’s lead in GPS-equiped sport watches.

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CNN: Helping make Americans more insular

Jan 14 2011 Published by Ben Chong under Business trends

What’s wrong with the following picture?

This screenshot of CNN.com was taken in the early afternoon PST on Friday, January 14th, 2011.

When this screenshot was taken, almost all my favorite news websites (LA Times, Washington Post, New York Times, The Guardian, The Independent, BBC News), feature news from Tunisia: the “president for life”, Ben Ali, had quit as a result of mass protests. The only other news site that I frequent that did not mention news from Tunisia was the Detroit News.

I can understand why the Detroit News does not talk about Tunisia: it is a regional newspaper. I go to that website to read automotive news.

CNN.com, on the other hand, had (deliberate use of past tense) a reputation of being a great source of up-to-date news. If you are old enough to remember the first gulf war, CNN was the TV channel to tune into to learn the latest on what was happening on the ground in Kuwait/Iraq. That was how CNN built its brand reputation.

Today, when an authoritarian government is toppled by mass protests, which may result in either a domino effect or more oppression in the Middle-East/North Africa, CNN.com refers to the event in a single line news item hidden among everything else.

Granted that I am looking at the “domestic” edition of CNN.com whereas none of the other news sites differentiate between a “domestic” versus “international” audiences.

However, I think this is unfortunate, for it basically tells me that I can no longer trust CNN to be a good source of news. CNN has lost sight of what made it successful in the first place: delivery of news that matters.

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Are cameras on their way out?

Jan 05 2011 Published by Ben Chong under Business trends

Maybe not, but the camera industry appears to be one where new technology tends to keep manufacturers on their toes.

Witness the demise of complicated aim-and-adjust cameras when inexpensive point-and-shoot autofocus came along, and then the demise of film cameras when digital cameras came along.

Now the competition is more indirect (my “strategic competitor” concept): the smartphone.

If you are an iPhone user, when was the last time you picked up your camera?

You can’t remember?

Neither can I. In fact, I probably haven’t used my camera (a 12-megapixel, widescreen Panasonic) since I started using an Android phone.

Advanced camera plus phone combos are not new. I used to have a Sony Ericsson K750i which had a better camera than most digital cameras of the era.

But today’s smartphone have a better ecosystem than the old Sony Ericssons: real Internet connectivity and compelling Internet/cloud tools like Facebook, Dropbox etc for sharing pictures.

So today, you can snap a picture with your trusty iPhone/Android and with a few taps, share the picture with your friends/family and the world. You also no longer need to mess with cables or SD Card adaptors: just use Dropbox (and to a more complicated extent, ZumoDrive) to transfer the picture to your PC.

It looks like the camera manufacturers are starting to take notice. So Samsung just announced the SH100 at CES. It comes with Wi-Fi and can share pictures with your PC, Android device, Facebook, Picassa, Photobucket etc. Read the press release here. Adding WiFi to digital cameras is not new, but this is the first time I see WiFi being integrated into the camera experience along with Facebook and PC sharing capability.

Should other camera manufacturers follow suit?

There’s no easy answer. If they don’t, they risk being overtaken by the smartphone tide; at least, in the casual point-and-shoot segment. On the other hand, that segment may still go to the smartphones anyway: for casual point-and-shoot, you are not going to carry another gadget if your smartphone suffices…

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