Category Archives: Business

Paying Developers is A Bad Idea

September 26, 2012
Business, Platforms
95 Comments

The companies that make the most profit are those who build virtuous platform cycles. There are no proof points in history of virtuous platform cycles being created when the platform provider incents developers to target the platform by paying them. Paying developers to target your platform is a sign of desperation. It means developers have no skin in the game. A platform where developers do not have skin in the game is artificially propped up …Continue reading →

Retail Pricing, Markup, and Margins

August 30, 2012
Business, Mobile
2 Comments

Tom’s Hardware is generally really solid. But they should stay focused on technology because this post is seriously absurd: “More than two years after the introduction of the iPad, Samsung appears to be very confident in the tablet market and is shooting for margins that exceed Apple’s iPad levels.” – Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 Has Bigger Profit Margin Than iPad, Aug 27, 2012 MSRP stands for Manufacturers Suggested Retail Price. It is the price a …Continue reading →

A Mouse and Keyboard Don’t Make a Hardware Company

July 25, 2012
Business, Customer & Product
47 Comments

Microsoft is not, and never will be, a hardware company. Please don’t go off saying “what about Xbox or mice & keyboards?” Microsoft does not really want to build & sell hardware. Surface is akin to Google’s Nexus; a ‘north star’ product intended to lead OEMs in the right direction. “With Surface we wanted to make sure that no stone is left unturned, in terms of really showing Windows 8 in its most innovative form. …Continue reading →

The Five Big Guys

April 15, 2012
Business, Mobile, Platforms
17 Comments

I’m working on writing up my thesis on the future of the consumer technology business and have convinced myself that there are 5 companies that stand to dominate. I call them The Five Big Guys. This post lays the ground work for that thesis by discussing these 5 companies. In 1989 I read the tea-leaves and made the call that Windows was going to dominate and OS/2 was going to fail. I felt I was …Continue reading →

Brand is a Critical Part of the End-to-End Experience

April 1, 2012
Branding, Business, Customer & Product, Mobile, Startups
4 Comments

A commenter on another of my posts asked me to explain further why I think “brand is as much a part of the end-to-end experience as the user interface, device, OS, apps, and services.” I took it as a challenge to actually get my thoughts on the subject down in writing. So here we go… I use the following mental model when thinking through end-to-end user experiences: Or, since this is not real math, in words: …Continue reading →

Be Either an App or a Platform, Not Both

August 24, 2011
Business, Leadership, Platforms, Startups, Technology & Execution
9 Comments

If you think the thing you are building is both an “app” and a “platform” you will fail. Oh, and if you think it’s going to be a just a platform, you will fail too. (Update: April 6, 2012 – I updated this post with some typo fixes and minor tweaks). A recent story on Hacker News gave me an excuse to write down my thoughts on this subject. I’m reposting here in order to …Continue reading →