Lunsford Group Wireless Industry Snapshot 2010

I recently update an internal document for our firm that I made which serves as a wireless industry "cheat sheet," or quick reference guide. Nothing proprietary, so I thought I would share it with all of you.

Lunsford Group Wireless Industry Snapshot 2010

View more presentations from Bernard Moon.

Crispin Porter + Bogusky Hammering Apple's Image for Microsoft

Crispin Porter + Bogusky's ad campaign for Microsoft is working against Apple so far. It seems that they might turn around Microsoft's image as they did for Burger King. Except from the Fast Company article, "Microsoft's "Laptop Hunters" Campaign Eating Away at Apple":

"A BrandIndex survey of 5,000 people shows that among the 18-to-34 year-old demographic (that's right, young people) Apple's "value perception" has taken a nose-dive. BrandIndex rates a brand on a scale of -100 to 100 (zero meaning the brand is getting equal positive and negative feedback) by simply asking customers whether they feel they get a good value for their money. Apple enjoyed a value rating of 70 as recently as last winter but has plunged to 12.4 since then. Microsoft, meanwhile, has rebounded from an indifferent zero in February to 46.2 today, indicating that its latest attempt to portray Apple as overpriced is hitting home with customers."

DocVerse Launches Collaboration Plug-in for MS Office

DocVerse is a pretty cool product I came across a couple weeks ago. It was written up in GigaOm here, so obviously I don't read everything out there :)

It allows to you collaborate online with MS Office software. The initial focus is on PowerPoint which is an obvious starting point and something that was needed. Especially as travel budgets get cut, online collaboration will become more commonplace and PowerPoint is a good market to target. It's in private beta, but you can download their plug-in here.

Microsoft's Productivity Future Vision

HatTip to Sam. The Empire is still strong and lies waiting in the shadows...

"Microsoft’s long-term productivity vision explores how we will create and share content; collaborate across teams, organizations and networks; and how we will gain contextually relevant and anticipative insights based on preferences and intent. All these scenarios are showcasing real, emerging technologies explored with various Microsoft product and research teams as well as at Microsoft partners and across the industry."

Some old concepts, some new, all cool.

Microsoft Azure Launches... Tech's Dogfight in the Clouds

The juggernaut that is Microsoft growled at PDC 2008. Fierce determination, sheer intelligence still present within Microsoft and questionable leadership continues to move it forward. Microsoft's announcement of Azure provides their answer to Google App Engine, Amazon Web Service, and other cloud computing plays.

Microsoft continues to make the tech landscape exciting and fun to observe. The Empire lives on!... Well, let's wait and see how they execute on Azure over the next few years.

ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley has an excellence overview, "Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform: A guide for the perplexed."

ReadWriteWeb's Richard MacManus has some more commentary here, "Microsoft Azure Aims to Re-define the OS."

Microsoft's New Commercials... Thumbs Up

HatTip to TechCrunch. Came across the new Microsoft commercials on TechCrunch. I'm a Mac guy, but I will say this second of set commercials is pretty good. Almost makes me want to be a PC :)

Steve Ballmer Selling Windows 2.0

@TechCrunch5.0 Today's lunch panel is hosted by MSN Money. The presenter just showed an old commercial with Steve Ballmer (1986). Hilarious. Old school.

Seinfeld Microsoft Ad is Out

Check it out. It was okay. VentureBeat's MG Siegler has more on this here.

Microsoft-Yahoo Dead... Yahoo Needs a New CEO

The blogosphere is buzzing about Yahoo killing the Microsoft deal:

"Yahoo’s Black Monday Begins With Shares Down 20 Percent."

"Yahoo Execs’ Reaction: “I Need Some Prozac”" BoomTown

"Yahoo breaks the wrist, Microsoft walks away"

"Yahoo’s Yang Speaks, Notes That Glass Remains Half Full"

If Microsoft has really passed on this deal and isn't waiting for Yahoo's shareholders to beg Ballmer back to the table, Yahoo! really needs new leadership. Jerry Yang's recent performance on this deal and his time back at the helm of Yahoo! showed that he isn't the right person to lead them to new lands. I think they really need an outside CEO to salvage their company's future.

While acquisitions are difficult to effectively integrate, it was the best option that Yahoo! had on the table. I assume hubris played a part on this situation. The idea of Microsoft acquiring an icon of Silicon Valley bothered even those outside of Yahoo!'s walls. But imagine the potential of this merged entity? The combined search market share, all those email accounts, online ad platforms, Microsoft's R&D and Yahoo's smart but dumb acquisitions, and the muscle of Microsoft? Scary especially since I never count out the original Evil Empire. They might move like a DeathStar, but they still have smart, quality people in Redmond and the cash to burn through their mistakes.

So who should be Yahoo!'s new CEO? Obviously someone with operating experience at an Internet company, unlike Terry Stemel, and strong knowledge of the online ad marketplace. It's natural to look at high-profile candidates, such as Meg Whitman, but how about an executive at Google or a CEO of an online ad company? Who knows, but it will be interesting to see how all of this plays out over the next several months.

MIX08 Follow Up

Last week's Microsoft MIX08 was a pretty good conference for Innotive and my friends. Jimmy was on the following panel discussion and was good enough to be invited to another conference to speak. Outside of a business setting, he's hilarious. Anyway, some of his major points are at 27:00, 43:10 and 53:15 (here he gives a pretty good Hugo Boss analogy) of the video.

How Design Impacts the Bottom Line

Is good design good business? Listen to these customers discuss how good design helped them:
- Reach the market faster with lower development costs
- Increase the revenues and retained earnings of their products or services
- Increase market share.

You'll hear how design has created real competitive advantage for businesses across the spectrum from consumer to business brands. Hear from the design professionals who did the work, and the customers who hired them.

Here is their main presentation:

Effective User Interfaces in Windows Presentation Foundation and Microsoft Silverlight
(yeah, the title is lame and not really descriptive or catchy)

Come see how customizable user interfaces were created by extending XAML in a way that integrates various content formats into a single consistent UI. Learn how to build an effective UI, extend XAML, build a Windows Presentation Foundation and Microsoft Silverlight application that can consume extended XAML, and much more.

Microsoft MIX08... Innotive Presenting

I arrived in Las Vegas this evening to attend Microsoft MIX08. I was suppose to be here a couple days ago, but I got sidetracked to Orange County for good reasons that I'll blog about later.

Anyway, my friends Jimmy and Peter are here since Innotive is presenting. Jimmy was part of a panel today:

How Design Impacts the Bottom Line
Thursday, March 6 8:30 AM - 9:45 AM, Delfino 4101A
Speaker(s): Dave Blakely, Jason Brush, Jimmy Kim, Will Tschumy (Moderator), David Watson, Luke Wroblewski

You'll hear how design has created real competitive advantage for businesses across the spectrum from consumer to business brands. Hear from the design professionals who did the work, and the customers who hired them.

And Jimmy, Peter and their colleagues are presenting tomorrow:

Effective User Interfaces in Windows Presentation
Foundation and Microsoft Silverlight
Friday, March 7 11:45 AM - 1:00 PM, Lando 4204
Speaker(s): Peter Chang, Jimmy Kim, Laurence Moroney

Come see how customizable user interfaces were created by extending XAML in a way that integrates various content formats into a single consistent UI. Learn how to build an effective UI, extend XAML, build a Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) and Microsoft Silverlight application that can consume extended XAML, and much more.

I posted before about what they built using Microsoft's Silverlight, but here are some other general demos:




CNET has a good overview of MIX08 here.

TED... Microsoft's Worldwide Telescope

Microsoft is announcing their Worldwide Telescope at TED now.

Roy Gould is providing an introduction. He believes this will "change the way we do astronomy and teach astronomy."

One feature he describes is how you can create your own tours of the universe. This will allow people to tell their own stories of the universe. Pretty cool.

Now he's introducing Curtis Wong from Microsoft, who led the project. Stud. He provides a brief overview and states that it will be available this spring for free.

UPDATE...
More detailed coverage after my light live blogging post :)

"WorldWide Telescope peers into Big Dipper" CNET

"Sneak peek at the the virtual universe" Cosmic Log from MSNBC


ted2008, ted

INNOTIVE'S SILVERLIGHT INTEGRATION... MICROSOFT SILVERLIGHT TO POWER BEIJING OLYMPICS

Timely news from from Allen Stern, "NBC Universal Selects Microsoft and Silverlight to Power Olympics Video," since my friend Jimmy, CEO of Innotive, called me a couple days ago to check out their new build on Microsoft's Silverlight platform. Innotive already had a video wall application, which can show hundreds of simultaneous video streams running, but with Silverlight they built one with a hundred live video streams. It's pretty cool, so check it out:



In the video is our friend, Peter, Innotive's CTO who led this project. Both are my friends that I did my first two startups with.

More on the NBC and Microsoft partnership for the Beijing Olympics from TechCrunch and Mashable.

TECHNORATI RELAUNCHES... BLOG SEARCH IS DEAD

Dave Sifry announced Technorati's redesign and change of focus today. I believe this is a good move on their part to expand their services to meet the changing landscape of this new media world.

Steve Rubel is spot on about "Blog Search is Dead and Google Killed It"

Over the past several months, I have found Google's blog search slowly improving while Technorati's search results have been declining in quality. It seems to be that Technorati has kept up with indexing many of the older blog posts and content. Their search isn't as deep any more. I've always believe if Google ever dedicated real resources to their blog search that Technorati would suffer, and I assume we will eventually see this unless Technorati keeps taking steps like this in the right direction.

Robert Scoble shows himself to be a bit weak on the analysis part again. His view is on the opposite end of Rubel's: "If Technorati can beat Google, why can’t Microsoft or Yahoo?"

Technorat beat Google? Is he a New Jersey boxing judge? I guess that's why he's a marketing guy. It's almost amusing that he states, "I have a feeling that their valuation just went up about $500 million. At least." Huh? Hello? Who would buy Technorati at that price? Also I wonder if he's tried his old company's search engine? It's pretty good and sometimes better than Technorati on blog search. Test it out.

Anyway, here's more from TechCrunch.

TELLME BEING ACQUIRED BY MICROSOFT... FORMER COMPETITOR, OLD MEMORIES

GigaOM is reporting that Tellme will be bought for $800 million or more. Congratulations to their founders and team! Brings back old memories when we competed against Tellme. Tellme raised an incredible $239 million in 2000. Then there was BeVocal and HeyAnita, my old company. My friends and I introduced the HeyAnita founders to Softbank and then they recruited us to help them expand into Asia. So my friends and I started HeyAnita Korea back in early 2000.

Tellme's founders were the golden boys from Netscape and Microsoft, and our founders were less shiny, older guys from Microsoft. For various reasons, such as being underfunded and management missteps, HeyAnita eventually closed down their U.S. operations a couple years ago. To Tellme's credit, they executed well with some bumps along the way but eventually became profitable and hit over $100 million in revenues. Somewhere here there is a great case study on the factors for successful and failed startups.

TechCrunch has more here.

Diamonds in the Rough of Redmond

Well, my fourth column is going up tomorrow (every thursday), but here is a sneak peek:

Diamonds in the Rough at Redmond
There's a lot brewing in Microsoft's Social Computing Group—including a new paradigm for email and a social networking environment that could 'Wallop' the competition.

I actually wanted to write about more interesting applications and research I saw at Microsoft, but I was too busy this week so I had to shorten the piece. Not at this time either since I have to go to sleep now. I'll save it for another day.

UPDATE: Since AlwaysOn's old pages were deleted and I don't think they will restore it for a while here is the article cut from MSWord (This was a Best of AO article for 2005):

Diamonds in the Rough of Redmond
There's a lot brewing in Microsoft's Social Computing Group—including a new paradigm for email and a social networking environment that could 'Wallop' the competition.

I had a chance a couple weeks ago to visit Microsoft Research’s Social Computing Group in Redmond and speak with Lili Cheng, who is the Group Manager, on some of the cool stuff they are working on in the space of social computing, blogs, and virtual worlds. Lili has been at Microsoft Research for over ten years now and she started in their virtual world group which was eventually renamed the social computing group.

“[At the virtual world group] We designed all these communities and groups, but we started to ask how do people actually think about themselves and the people they interact with, so about five years ago this led to the forming of the social computing group. We started with this little project called the “personal map.” We went to a mall and wrote down the people we cared about. People drew who they cared about and started with the most important people and put them in clusters. We looked at people’s contact lists on their computers and typically they didn’t have them. A lot of times it was just a short or long alphabetical list. What we did was we said there must be some way we can automatically do this for people. So we looked at our emails, scan it, and built this (graphical) personal map based on who you communicate with. So as I email you and others, it dynamically creates these clusters of people around you. The system can organize your email based on how you communicate.”

This simple exercise and program, which would be the basis of future applications, was interesting since you don’t have to input or do anything. It dynamically changes over time. The system automatically adds people to your list and groups them based on who you email and copy. The cool application of this idea was an email program called “inner circle,” which was the Social Computing Group’s effort to make email better. “Inner circle” alphabetically orders a list of the top forty people you interact with, and dynamically changes over time as you change who you communicate with. It also naturally works out that the top people are your list are those you care about the most. In terms of functionality, you can click on a person and it shows all the conversations you had with that person and any relevant documents or links that were sent. You can also mark and item and share it other people on your list.

Lili went on to describe an experiment they ran, “We compared this email system to a search-based email client (folders). It was really interesting because search was faster, but our test group significantly liked this one [“inner circle”] the best. I think it was because with search you know things are there but you don’t feel confident that things are being organized for you. So you still have that angst of totally not organizing anything because you don’t trust it enough. So they like to see the people being organized in the system for them.”

I thought this was a very cool and appealing email service. Why didn’t Microsoft already integrate this into Hotmail or Outlook? Outlook would be an integration that makes sense since it is typically work related emails with your important personal contacts spotted throughout your address book. I also thought if it could be effectively integrated into Hotmail there would be an appeal similar to Google’s Gmail service, and create a shift back to Hotmail as a primary account for those attracted to Gmail’s unique functionality and structure. Hotmail managers should seriously think about integrating “inner circle” to their service.

Wallop is the group social network and blogging environment. The service got some press over a year ago (“Will Microsoft Wallop Friendster?”), but hasn’t seen much since. I’ve been trying out Wallop over the past week and I like it. I’m tired of most of these social networking sites (beside awesome content-based ones like AlwaysOn), but I believe it would have done well if it was taken to market especially last summer. As Friendster fizzled out and MySpace took over, Wallop can be a replacement if the MySpace fad dies out.

Its user interface is clean and easy to navigate. There are drop-down menus and drag and drop functionality for moving text, pictures, and music. There is a level of interactivity that isn’t available on other sites. You can post comments on almost anything on friend’s page, such as a picture or text. You can mark an item on a person’s page as a “favorite” not just the overall profile of a hot guy or girl. There is also a self-policing function where you can report “bad content.” There is also a graphic map of your network and how each person is connected to you, which I thought was cool. You can also import content from another blog onto your Wallop blog pages, and post and respond to messages through email. I like this better than Microsoft’s other effort into the social networking space, ThreeDegrees, which is too simplistic and dumb-down.

Lili explains, “Wallop was about creating a different model of communication. The intent wasn’t to create a social network or blog. It wasn’t to create large networks of people. It has a different center.”

I guess the question is whether Microsoft wants to add to the fad pot or not, or can it develop Wallop into a longer-lasting application integrated with some of its other product offerings. Either way, Wallop gets my vote for kicking Friendster, MySpace, and Orkut’s butt.

A light application called “flipper” was a great extension of Wallop on your desktop. It’s a small screen on your desktop that pushes to you pictures and personal posts from your social network, and it has a flip button where you can quickly flip through whatever recent activities people were doing on Wallop.

“I love this one because you think of the presence of people you cared about in a peripheral but light and fun way,” Cheng stated.

There were some other cool products which I will hopefully write about later, but overall I was impressed with the cool and cutting-edge developments Microsoft Research was working on (as an Apple fan and one who loosely called Microsoft “the evil empire” I feel dirty now).

I asked Lili why some of these applications and research hasn’t been integrated into Microsoft’s products, which she replied, “Product teams have different cycles. We can prototype stuff faster than they can actually build… We’re only nine people, so we have to pick and choose carefully to present to the product people. In some sense we are like a startup group in Microsoft that has to pitch to other groups for them to learn and consider our ideas.”

There are definitely some diamonds in this rough of Redmond.