The Cloud (come back to earth and reality)

Everyone's talking about The Cloud, the hype around it is incredible. It is the new frontier, the new killer-app. If you are not "in The Cloud", you are nowhere.

The Cloud concept is quite old. The general idea is that your computer, laptop, tablet delegates some of its functionality on external servers housed somewhere by someone that is giving you a service. Hotmail and Gmail could be considered a cloud email services. You don't have an email server at home, you don't have (or at least don't need) an email client in your PC. Your emails aren't even stored in your PC, all is hosted and handled by Microsoft's  or Google's servers and you only need a web explorer to access it.

So why all the hype about it?

We all have seen this image at work. Someday (it always happens sooner or later) internet connection is lost. For several hours you can't get email and you can't surf the web!!! Your life turns miserable. Without email it is obvious that your boss can't expect you to work or do anything useful!! Some people even run through the office crying about apocalypse... the IT Director is crouching in a corner with his right hand on his ear (Rainman-style) mumbling something about its not his fault... hell is loose.

I may be exaggerating but the truth is that without email it seems people can work any longer (and the IT guys get a couple of shouts).  Now just imagine that ALL your systems were "cloud" based. No access to the company's accounting. No access to Word/Excel/Powerpoint cloud-based apps. This time it would really mean that there is nothing to do.

The concept behind cloud computing is nice, the idea is great but there is still a long way to go to get to the place where it will be an acceptable solution for our needs. I use Dropbox and now I also use iCloud as cloud-storage services. I find the iPhone's new automatic backup service quite useful. I've been reading about the new services of cloud-synchronization that iOS5 is giving to game developers (I guess that to any iOS & Mac developer but it seems that game developers will be the first ones to take advantage of it) and I find it a good use of the cloud. But still it all seems more a file hosting service than a real cloud-computing service.

The first thing I've seen that made me think "wow, this is a good way to use cloud computing" is Silk, the new Amazon Browser for Kindle Fire. What Amazon does is handle all navigation in their servers, the dozens of connections that a web client makes to different web servers when trying to "paint" a page on screen (you get the web frame and text content from one place, ads from a different or several different ones, cookie counters from another, google analytics, Facebook "I like" and followers icons... etc, etc.). So Amazon pre-processes all of that and simplifies the connection with the client so that all complexity resides in the Amazon servers and little processing is left for the client. I havent tried yet it (Kindle Fire not available yet) but the idea sounds great.

I'm sure there are many other good solutions for the Cloud out there... but the same way Virtualization was a great idea but it took Vmware & others years to have a solution that IT departments would adopt for their systems, Cloud computing still needs some time to mature. I don't doubt it is the future, but not the present (yet).

Amazon's Kindle Fire

Techcrunch put it plain simple: Amazon Just Won the Android Tablet Wars With Kindle Fire

The first thing that came to my mind when asked about the new Amazon tablet was: cheap. Its bloody cheap. I haven't compared it spec by spec with other tablets (we'll get hundreds of those reviews in a couple of days all around the web) but we have reached a point where hardware is a commodity, the key features are not in the hardware spec of these kind of devices (as Apple knows very well).

Amazon is offering us a new experience. Its not a product, its an experience. Of all my MBA professors and lessons, the ones I always liked the most were the Marketing ones by Fernando Botella, and he always underlined the importance of experience vs product. Apple is the leader in this, and Amazon follows closely behind.

What are you getting with the Kindle Fire? We are getting an experience, something that works perfectly out of the box with the whole environment to make the best of it in a matter of minutes, be it video, music or books/comics/magazines. We get:

• Access to the kindle bookstore (millions of books)
• Access to hundreds of full color magazines
• Access to 100.000 movies & TV shows
• Access to the Amazon App store, full of Android Apps & games
• Access to 17 million songs
• Free cloud storage

And...

Beautifully simple and easy to use (thats what they say)

You may say that with this or that android tablet you have access to an App store and books and whatever... but in the end, what you really want is something your 3year old kid can use because it's as simple as 1-2-3 and that gives you all in a single package. And for only $199!

The iPad Killer?

Is it the iPad-killer? No, of course not. And I don't think Amazon has designed the strategy around it to fight the iPad. Amazon is, at the moment, in a different war, the war that Techcrunch says they've won today.

Today the war was about Android tablets, and Amazon has simply cleared the way to attempt the assault on the iPad. Today Amazon has stated its intentions to Apple: "Hey Mr. Apple, I'm here, I have a good product with  all the power of my online store, cloud, services, etc... I've crushed the other Androids with a single blow and now I'll come for you". 

The rumor is that early 2012 there will be a new Kindle Fire with a bigger, ten inch, screen and prepared for the fight with the iPad. According to this rumor the current Kindle Fire will only be a first step that will get the wheel spinning around, getting speed for the "real" launch. Seems a reasonable strategy and I hope it is true because it will be good for all of us. Competition always is.

Business thoughts: Competition vs Market Fragmentation

In the past couple of weeks we have been reading some of these news:

• HTC interested in buying its own mobile OS (and dropping Android?)
• Amazon's next tablet will be a blockbuster and a thought that follows is: How "open" will Kindle tablet be? 
• GameStop Confirms In-House Android Gaming Tablet (Gamestop is one of the biggest videogame stores worldwide)
• Telefónica, Vodafone y Orange irrumpirán en la mensajería instantánea este invierno (Telefonica, Orange and Vodafone will get into IM this winter... )

Some talk about companies getting into markets to compete... but others aren't about competition, they are about fragmentation... which is quite different.

You and I can compete in many things... you may decide to manufacture a car and if I decide to compete with you I could manufacture one too... users would be able to buy yours or mine, but they know that the fuel can be bought at the same place, that they use the same roads and streets, and that they can be parked in the same parking spaces.

Now imagine if your car and mine couldn't use the same fuel... and that there are 5 or 6 other people manufacturing cars that use different fuels too. And different streets... and... and... it would be a nightmare.

That is the difference between fragmentation and competition.

If you want to fragment a market you need to have all the cards ready to guarantee yourself enough market share to prevail. You can't fragment to keep a 5% market share because you'll be eaten quite fast.

Apple can decide to fragment a market but only because they create a great product and provide all the tools it needs to succeed: good software, application store, content store, etc. Amazon can do the same (and did with Kindle) but what will Gamestop offer to differentiate itself? Games? Sony has a "Playstation certified" tablet... but of course Sony owns the Playstation and the Playstation Network. Will GameStop prevail as a player in the tablet market? We'll see...

The 3 most important Spanish carriers want to enter into the IM arena... (I remember when in 2001 we had in Xfera/Yoigo a IM project, compatible with MSN Messenger and Yahoo Messenger) to compete with WhatsApp (and the messengers Apple and others will release). How much money are they investing to create the "mega IM platform"? How will they make us change from WhatsApp to their new IM? Are their offering innovative new features? Will it be centred on user experience or just a defensive movement? or a tantrum against the loss of income? We'll see...

Ahora que viene Amazon... mi experiencia con Kindle.

Por fin Amazon va a abrir tienda en España. Era algo que esperaba hace tiempo y que aunque a mi no me va a afectar demasiado personalmente (siempre que puedo prefiero leer en inglés salvo que el autor sea hispano hablante), si que va a dinamizar mucho dos mercados: ventas online y mensajería. Y ya nos hacía falta.

Hace año y medio compré mi primer Kindle de Amazon. Acababa de terminarme un libro que costaba (y me costó) 24€ en cualquier librería y vi en la tienda de Amazon el Kindle por $139 (unos 100€). La cuenta se hace rápido: Si cada libro me cuesta 24€ aquí pero 9€ para el Kindle, con 10 libros habré amortizado el aparatito. Dicho y hecho, a las pocas semanas tenia un Kindle en mis manos (y a día de hoy más que amortizado).

Han ocurrido varias cosas desde entonces:

• La media de libros que he leido ha aumentado. La comodidad de tener un aparato que apenas pesa y que puede contener decenas de libros es inimaginable hasta que lo tienes. Me he ido de vacaciones con varias docenas de libros y segun terminaba uno podía elegir qué otro leer... 
• Los clásicos me salen gratis: Gracias proyecto Gutenberg
• He comprado más libros en los últimos meses que los que compraba antes de media. La comodidad de tener la tienda de Amazon directamente en el Kindle y en cuestión de segundos buscar un libro o un autor, comprarlo y descargarlo invita al consumo. La comodidad de comprar un libro que se va a publicar en una fecha determinada, incluso comprarlo con un descuento, y que el día de publicación "aparezca" en tu Kindle... no tiene precio.
• Mi gasto en libros ha disminuido. Curioso, comprando más libros gasto menos en libros? Está claro. El precio de los libros en España es desorbitado. Me encantaria conocer mejor los márgenes de las Editoriales pero no puede ser que un libro aquí te cueste el doble que el mismo libro editado en USA (pero en inglés, claro). Muchos libros sale más barato comprarlos en USA y que te los manden que comprarlo aqui.
• Mi gasto en Amazon se ha incrementado. (Y eso es lo que quería y ha conseguido el señor Bezos)

Cuantas veces he repetido la palabra "comodidad"? Unas cuantas... ese es el secreto! La compra inicial del Kindle fue sobre todo económica. El incremento en consumo ha sido por la comodidad.

Como afecta a todas las partes?

• Yo he salido ganando.
• Amazon ha salido ganando.
• Las editoriales españolas han salido perdiendo.

Espero sinceramente que ahora que Amazon abre en España las cosas cambien un poco en el mundo editorial español. No hay un sitio centralizado de verdad donde poder ir a comprar ebooks. Si los compras no hay mecanismos sencillos para los "mortales no-tecnólogos" para llevarse esos ebooks a sus dispositivos. Si Amazon trae su experiencia a España, va a arrasar con el mercado de ebooks porque, a diferencia de USA, aquí no hay un Barnes & Noble y un Nook plantando cara (salvo que La Casa del Libro o El Corte Ingles se pongan las pilas muy rápido).

Por cierto, que fue del reader que presentó Movistar hace unos meses? Han vendido alguno? Otro proyecto aparcado para nada? La cantidad de dinero que esta gente tira por no hacer bien las cosas...

Y, señores editores, 9,95€ por un ebook es excesivo. Piensenselo un poco.

El futuro de los medios

Durante las próximas semanas voy a intentar analizar el estado actual de los medios (Radio, Prensa, TV) y de las artes (Libros, Cine, Música) no sólo en España, si no a nivel mundial, con las amenazas actuales y los cambios que previsiblemente van a ir ocurriendo en los próximos meses/años.

Es un tema que he ido siguiendo desde que comencé a estudiar la carrera de Teleco allá por 1993, cuando me "pasaron" por primera vez un par de archivos en un formato llamado MP3 y que sólo un amigo loco que tenía una RDSI en casa era capaz de bajarse en un tiempo razonable (los simples mortales teníamos módems a 19200 o 28800 mientras que los afortunados de la RDSI llegaban a 144000 uniendo los dos canales de datos más la señalización, creo recordar!!!!)

La evolución de las redes, de la conectividad en los hogares y, finalmente y más importante, los dispositivos de "presentación" de la información (ya sea un iPad o un Smartphone) ha llevado al punto actual en el que el cambio es inminente.

La amenaza que sufría a música hace 10 años hoy la sufren todos los medios. Sin embargo, dado que somos el único animal que tropieza dos veces con la misma piedra, medidas similares a las que fueron tomando las discográficas son las que están tomando las productoras de TV, editoriales, etc. La consecuencia de estas medidas ya las conocemos (las discográficas son la sombra de lo que eran y por el camino apareció un tal Steve Jobs con iTunes, entre otros...) y sin embargo el miedo a tomar decisiones valientes y arriesgadas pensando no en la cuenta  de resultados del 2011 o 2012 si no en la de 2015 o 2020 impide que las cadenas de TV, productoras, editoriales, etc. se adapten al nuevo escenario.

Ayer ya vimos que GoogleTV viene a Europa. En mi twitter también mandé un enlace a las previsiones de Amazon de vender 5 millones de tablets en 3 meses (quién disfrute de la lectura y no tenga un ebook o, mejor, un Kindle debería empezar a investigarlo). Y por la noche leí que las ventas del iPad se aceleran por, basicamente, "la incompetencia de su competencia". En definitiva, todo este mercado se está acelerando rápidamente.

En principio estos serán los temas que quiero ir analizando:

1. Música
2. Cine
3. Libros
4. TV
5. Prensa
6. Radio
7. Publicidad

Puede sorprender que la publicidad aparezca ahí... pero dado que es quien mantiene vivas a las TVs, Radios y Prensa... y quien está sufriendo más por el mal uso que se está haciendo de la misma... es importante revisar el rol de la publicidad, cómo debería usarse y cómo mejorar la experiencia tanto para el usuario final, el espectador, oyente o lector, como para el propio anunciante.