With Apple’s iPhone landing in China in Q4 2009, anyone planning to deliver an iPhone Killer better get moving. With the iPhone now available in 88 countries, and with five more on tap in the near future (now including China, the world’s largest mobile phone market), challenging Apple for the touch-screen smartphone market just got a whole lot tougher. With Apple pulling down 32 percent of smartphone profits in the first half of 2009 on 8 percent of the world’s handset revenues and a $24 billion war chest, the question becomes not, “Who has the products or technology?”, but rather, “Who has the money to challenge Apple?”

Snow Leopard, a.k.a. Mac OS X 10.6

Apple announced this week that it will ship Mac OS X 10.6, code-named Snow Leopard, on August 28. Apple’s official point of view is that this is an efficiency and refinement upgrade of its already excellent desktop and laptop environment. But what I think is more interesting is this upgrade’s impact on Apple’s fastest growing business: the iPhone. Because the iPhone uses Mac OS X as its base, one feature in Snow Leopard suggests that we could see dramatic improvements in battery life in future iPhone versions.

What’s the big feature? It’s a geeky feature called Grand Central Dispatch (here’s an Apple PDF document that goes into details for those that are interested). It’s a new way of coding applications that makes them work seamlessly across one or many processors. It’s one of those programming abstractions that makes it significantly easier for app developers to write software for multi-core systems without all the attendant race conditions and latent bugs that belie today’s thread-based programs. Snow Leopard applications like the Finder and Mail use Grand Central Dispatch (also abbreviated GCD) a lot; it’s one of the features that makes the system feel so much snappier than your garden-variety 10.5 Leopard release, particularly since all current Macs have multiple processing cores. Apple also is encouraging all developers to use GCD in their third-party apps for the same reason.

So what does this have to do with the iPhone? It’s simple: it suggests we’ll see iPhones with multi-core processors and apps built for those multi-cores sometime in the next year or two.

Now I can hear skeptics saying, “How could a phone possibly need multiple processor cores?” And for the most part, they’re right — most phone functions don’t really need multiple processor cores if you have a fast enough processor. The iPhone does just fine with its 600 MHz ARM processor, so adding support for multi-core apps might seem silly.

But when you think about battery life,  multi-core suddenly makes a whole lot of sense. The problem is that power consumption increases with processor clock speed, so running processors at high speed depletes battery power faster. On the other hand, if a phone can achieve the same app performance with multiple cores running at slower speeds, batteries can last longer. In some cases, depending on the design and if unused cores are turned off when they aren’t being used, they can last a LOT longer, by factors of 2 to 5 times.

Multi-core apps are not a new idea. Intel, of course, embraced multi-core systems as its strategy for boosting performance when it became clear that continuing its war of ever-increasing clock speeds put it at a power disadvantage to rival AMD. Maynard-based startup SiCortex uses this philosophy to use thousands of “slow” processors (they aren’t really that slow, they just have slow clock speeds) in its desktop supercomputers. The big challenge has always been in coding parallel applications for commercial use. Despite several high-profile initiatives (some are described here) sponsored by everyone from NVidia, AMD, and Sun to Microsoft and Intel, no one yet has come up with any programming breakthroughs that have made their way into consumer electronics products yet.

Assuming my prediction that Apple will launch a multi-core iPhone next year are correct, Apple will be the first company to drive highly parallel OS services and consumer applications into a multi-core mobile phone. And if that helps drive development of iPhones that can run our mobile apps twice or three times as long, this week’s launch of Snow Leopard may have had more strategic import than “just a refinement.”

With Internet and mobile media growing faster than we can consume it, the only way to capture really big audiences in the future will be to aggregate them across TV, Internet and mobile Internet screens. Yankee Group expects TV ad market revenue to drop by more than $2.2 billion in 2009, and not to bounce back past 2008 values until 2012. Just as the music industry was forced to reinvent itself when digital downloads undermined its physical distribution models, the Anywhere Network’s abundance of content and advertising inventory will similarly reshape the TV, video, print and mobile media industries.

Earlier today, I hosted a webinar that explored how to get consumers’ attention in the age of Anywhere media.

The webinar runs about an hour:  audio (mp3) and slides (pdf).

NOT what the men were talking about this weekend

My family and I spent last weekend with two other families we don’t see as often as we’d like. Kids hung out, moms talked back-to-school, and the dads stood around and… see if you can guess. Handicapped the looming baseball playoffs? Compared barbeque techniques? Worried about the economy?

Nope, not even close. Instead they bowed their heads over their three iPhones and talked apps. Morning, noon, and night, until by Sunday evening even they acknowledged what the rest of us already knew: they needed some serious ther-app-y.

Funnily enough, none of the iPhones were new, and none of their owners work in the high-tech sector. So after the novelty of a new gizmo wears off, and if you’re not paid to care about our business during the workweek, what gives?

Surely, part of it is a transition to becoming an Anywhere Consumer. We are gradually being empowered to take our activities with us wherever we go, and we’re each having our own personal aha moments as that happens. But another part of it is a problem stemming from the crushing mountain of opportunities piling up.  As I observed the conversations about this app and that one, the core thread was how you find the ‘really good apps’ — whether you think that’s Cleartune or RunPee.

With over 50,000 apps for the iPhone alone and more coming every hour (whether Google’s offerings get approved or not; to Apple and AT&T, thou both dost protest thy innocence too much), browsing the App Store is like doing a Google search. If you don’t know what you’re looking for, the results are overwhelming. Already Apple is categorizing apps, offering staff picks and apps of the week to help us browse more easily.

What lessons from other situations where mountains of stuff overwhelm our ability to select and process will apply? Media editors develop a point of view on behalf of a particular audience and use it to filter content for us. Are the software titans of the future the equivalent of the New York Times or The Daily Beast, which sifts news for things I and the rest of my liberal-leaning Boomer cohort might want to know?

Several years ago I predicted that the big software companies ahead will not be ones that control some monolithic end-to-end software experience like SAP, but those that sit astride many ’atomized’ applications — software broken down into small components that can be done in the 45 seconds we have to spare while waiting in line, using whatever device happens to be handy.

The first year of the App Store proves my point. The next big thing in the business of software is the business of distributing application atoms Anywhere. Portals are the new Oracle.

Cloud-like business models are all over the map. “Cloud hosting”, ” Managed public cloud”, “Virtual private cloud” and among others are flooding the market in leaps and bounds. Every provider seems to have a cloud computing story to tell. You may begin to question the credibility of some cloud-based offerings, if not all. You are not alone. Lately, I have received a number of inquiries asking for the clarification of emerging cloud computing models and cloud strategies.   What are considered as cloud offerings; what are not?  Is cloud computing simply a resurgence of the mainframe era with a new twist?  If  cloud computing is the future of Anywhere IT, where are we at this point in time?

I believe some of the answers to these questions will evolve over time as market dynamics continue to take shape.  But still, to be able to engage our clients with a flow of fruitful discussion about cloud computing, we must first bring clarity to the cloud.   Our latest Yankee Group Report, “Pinning Down Cloud”, written by a team of analysts covering various aspects of cloud computing, lays down the definition of cloud computing.

In essence, we define cloud computing as ” dynamically scalable, virtualized information services delivered on demand over the Intenet with multitenant capability, service-level agreements (SLAs) and usage-based pricing.”  We go on discussing the core components of cloud computing used in our definition.

Using this definition, it becomes clear to me that the majority of today’s hosting soltuions are no more than  repackaging of traditional applications with a “cloud-ish” label.  The lack of scalability and automation mechanism to support dynamic service provisioning  is a showstopper for hosting providers to create any credible cloud offerings.  Scalability and automation are a baseline; providers also need to look at the broader context of how such capabilities are used to transform enterprises, their employees, partners, and customers.  This may require years of hands-on experience and practice.  By then, providers should have the right tool and skill set required to play a different game in the cloud computing arena.  Surely not the name game, but one you can win.

What game are you playing?  Do you have the right skill to harden the cloud?

In a previous blog I described how I found myself on vacation in Canada with a smartphone with a dead screen even though the rest of the phone functions worked. The big challenge was entering the PIN for the SIM when restarting.

Anticipating that I might need the directory at least, I went out to look for a cheap, replacement phone. In my Third World naiveté I had assumed that buying a replacement phone would be easy. It would have been in Bogota Colombia where I live. I guessed that the operators wouldn’t sell me one but surely all those big box retailers, independent “phone stores” and kiosks in the center of the big malls would sell an unblocked phone?

Well, no.

After asking at probably 10 stores in a very large mall in Kingston, a kind-hearted guy in an electronics store finally told me that there are no unblocked phones in Canada. The operators control 100% of distribution, even through the retail channel: new phone, new line. You can buy a prepaid phone and via the usual “friend of a friend of my brother-in-law” route you can find someone to unblock it. But the cheapest prepaid was $90 Canadian (US$80) or about the price of a mid-range prepaid phone in Bogota.

I decided I could live without the screen although eventually I did mess up the blind PIN entry and was without my phone for FOUR WHOLE DAYS until I got back home to my stash of unblocked phones.

No, I don’t think the Canadian operators should change distribution strategy to deal with the probably infinitesimal quantity of foreign visitors whose phones get damaged and need replacement. But I spend considerable time writing and speaking to emerging markets operators about opening up the retail channel for replacement phones for their own customers. It was a surprise to see an advanced economy market like Canada mired in a distribution strategy that I believe is being (slowly) abandoned by operators in the developing world. Many South Asian markets like India or Bangladesh are 100% non-operator distribution. Oi in Brazil has said they will only sell SIM cards.

And it is not just that “other markets are doing it”. I see no point in subsidizing replacement phones. I see no need to control 100% of the distribution channel. More importantly, I see no need to swell subscriber ranks with inactive phones.

I assume that most people who are forced to buy a prepaid phone when all they want is a replacement just chuck the SIM in a desk drawer and forget it. At best they use any included credit and then chuck it in the desk drawer or the garbage.

We have calculated that, depending on the operator’s disconnect policy, something like 30% of subscriber ranks can be inactive mainly because of unused SIMS from prepaid phones bought for replacement. This sends the wrong signal to the market, to the regulator, and to investors: penetration is overstated, ARPU and MOU are understated.

Subsidization — that drives the need to block phones — also sends the wrong message to consumers who have a distorted view of what a phone is really worth. An iPhone isn’t worth US$99. It is worth something like US$300-400.

Operators in all markets — emerging and developed and even Canada — should encourage the development of a non-subsidized retail channel for replacement. It won’t be easy but we have to get there.

Reading room at the U.S. Library of Congress

Bloggus interruptus. Firing up my contributions to our blog again after a five-month hiatus feels weird. I almost feel as if I need to re-introduce myself, as if at a 12-step program: ’Hello, my name is Emily, and I can’t stop thinking about connectivity’s impact in our lives.’

Why five months? That’s the time it took me to finish writing a book while suspending any other writing. It won’t be ready for months more, given the follow-on steps at McGraw-Hill and other publishers — gotta get all those commas in the right places, then go kill some trees. Yes, I’m well aware of the potential irony of Yankee Group’s ideas about ubiquitous connectivity being prepared to be frozen in a disconnected, analog format like chewed-up trees and ink. We do expect it to come out in e-book format as well.

But will people continue to read long-format thinking, digital or otherwise? On the consumption end of Anywhere content, the shortening of attention spans isn’t news; rather it’s a decades-long megatrend. Most recently, Carl Howe saw a stat that only 20% of people in the U.S. read even one book in the last 12 months.

What of the attention spans for generating content in the age of Anywhere? After months in a mode of mapping out the long arcs of chapter premise, introduction, body, examples, sidebars, and conclusion, it definitely feels weird to be resuming the construction and near-simultaneous publication of a standalone, crisp, 300-word thought.

Larry Weber’s view is that as we move to ubiquitous connectivity, nothing digital will ever be finished. Kind of unsettling in a way. What pushes a writer to lock up his final ideas if they’re only going to digital screens with a constant link to more, to the new? I so enjoyed the sense of closure that came from shipping  (ok, emailing) the completed manuscript.

So while our book’s manuscript is finished, we’ll now start constructing a digital home on our website for the more, the new. Anywhere (don’t tell me you’re surprised by the name) will live on with more voices, more ideas, more data well beyond the moment it’s frozen for your Kindle pleasure.

That’s my warm-up blog entry, leaving the chapter arcs behind. I promise more coherent snappy entries from here!

As the strategic value of online content assets continues to grow, chaos and confusion are rampant within the content delivery network (CDN) market. Challenging dynamics coupled with increased demand for content delivery solutions means that a diverse array of companies are keeping a close watch on the space and the relevant players within it.

Yankee Group has developed an Anywhere Scorecard for the CDN market that assesses the relative strengths and weaknesses of the key global providers. The scorecard takes an objective look at how a provider’s Vision and Ability to Transform in the market influence the strength of its offering, and how these dynamics inform customer buying decisions.

Earlier today, I hosted a webinar were I explored the transformative trends affecting the CDN market and ranked 10 of its most significant players. The presentation also featured Yankee Group Senior Vice President Zeus Kerravala, who introduced the new Anywhere Scorecard concept. You can read more about the Anywhere Scorecards here.

The webinar runs about an hour: audio (mp3) and slides (pdf).

In June, former Yankee Group analyst Josh Martin posted a blog about flying cross country to San Francisco while using Virgin America’s in-flight Wi-Fi network. I’m currently having the same experience but on American Airline en route from San Jose to Chicago.
As a general doubter of the ability of wireless technologies to replicate and replace the wireline experience, I approach this expecting significant limitations in speed and application usage. I was wrong.
So what works? Just about everything.
The first speed test somewhere over northern California shows 2.4 Mbps down; 264 kbps up. That’s comparable to a mid-tier DSL connection on the downstream side. The second test somewhere around Salt Lake City when I notice a few more laptops open comes up at 1.46 Mbps down and 286 kbps up. Still not bad.
So let’s run this puppy through its paces, making it progressively more demanding on the connection at each step.
• Launch a VPN session to access corporate e-mail? Check.
• Tweet the fact that I’m 36,000 in the air? Check. Get immediate response? Check
• Launch multiple IM sessions? Check.
• Stream music from Pandora? Check.
• Check out a few random videos on YouTube? Check, sort of. There were a few buffering delays but nothing more than I occasionally get on other Wi-Fi connections
• And finally, a Skype video call to Yankee Group’s Wally Swain in Colombia? Yes, it works save for the bad background noise and the fact that I don’t want to be “that guy making the loud phone call.” Not much I can do about that.

What doesn’t work? From an application perspective, not much. The overall experience is solid but not the most comfortable in a standard coach seat. A few more inches of forward leg room might help but that’s not likely to happen in this millennium.
As Josh Martin noted in his blog, there certainly will be some consumers/road warriors who view see seat 10A as their last refuge from connectivity but progress can’t be stopped. The ability to clear out the in-box, catch up on news and brag to other geeks about your connectedness is well worth $9.95.

They’re at it again. The major music labels are planning a new album format called CMX that includes album art, videos, lyrics, and music videos. It’s an attempt to revive the somewhat moribund album format and to add value to digital media sold to consumers. Plans are to launch a few albums using CMX in November and use consumer feedback to improve the product.

Now before we judge this effort too harshly, we have to recognize that a lot depends on what the exact offer made to consumers will be. If these new products are priced aggressively and provide a lot of consumer value, they could have a chance of capturing some consumer interest. Except for one thing — did I mention that Apple is working on a similar but different product called Cocktail?

There are a million ways these effort could go, but my belief is that these efforts differ because the music labels are worried about the increasing (many would say dominant) influence Apple has on music worldwide. With that as a supposition, I speculate that these efforts will differ significantly in:

• Distribution. The major labels will distribute their CMX-based albums through Amazon and Rhapsody; Apple, of course, will distribute its albums through iTunes.
• DRM. Unlike today’s relatively unencumbered MP3 and AAC tracks, both album formats will be wrapped in digital rights management restrictions. My bet is that this is an area where the two standards will diverge significantly, with CMX containing more restrictions via Windows Media DRM, and Cocktail fewer along the lines of existing Apple Fairplay restrictions for iTunes (playback on 5 computers, unlimited iPods). Regardless of the DRM technology, I expect both to use the relatively new MPEG21 standards to bundle up their content.
• Compatibility. I believe that CMX probably is targeting the new Windows Media platforms such as Microsoft’s XBox 360 and soon-to-come Zune HD. You know what Apple will do: their albums will load on the market dominant iPod and iPhone players.
• Consumer acceptance. If this is the way that these albums are designed (admittedly complete speculation on my part), there won’t even be a contest. CMX, because of the limited player base it sells into, will go nowhere. Why? Because with the vast majority of cars, docks, and other accessories built to support iPods today, if CMX can’t support that platform, no right thinking consumer is going to buy albums that won’t work in those environments. Apple albums, on the other hand, will play nearly everywhere, simply because it has done eight years of market spade work to make that possible. Game over.

All this said, I think both efforts will have surprisingly little effect on the music market. Yes, afficionados will buy these bundles to get the cool add-ons, but at the end of the day, music is now a much more portable experience than it was back in the day of CDs. It’s become a medium you listen to during your commute or during your walk to school; it’s not an experience where most consumers sit and study the materials. And unless the music industry comes up with substantially better packaging of album content (read that as more than one or two good songs per album), consumers will just keep on buying tracks instead of albums. It’s just too late to put the digital music genie back in the bottle.