THE NEW ‘OS’ WARS: WINNERS AND LOSERS

By: Tim Bajarin (10.29.2010)

The new OS war will be between operating systems that can work on all types of digital screens.

For decades, when people talked about OS wars, they were mostly referring to the Windows vs. Mac battle. These two operating systems have dominated the PC landscape with Windows owning about 90 percent of the market. This OS war has been great for the PC industry, because as Apple continues to innovate on its OS platform, it forces Microsoft to innovate as well, and in turn, consumers constantly receive new and more powerful OS platforms for their PCs.

Now there is a another OS war developing around smartphones, and if you think the PC OS wars were nasty, just wait for this OS war to heat up. We've already seen charged rhetoric from Apple CEO Steve Jobs over the iPhone, Andy Rubin at Google defending Android against the competition, and RIM's CEO Jim Balsillie ranting about Jobs and company during the iPhone antenna dilemma. All of these folks realize that the stakes are very high and that they need to do whatever is necessary to keep the market looking at them and pushing their platforms forward. To put these OS stakes into perspective, market researchers say that 1.2 billion cell phones will be sold worldwide this year. And while smartphones represent only 22 percent of the cell phone market for 2010, they will make up 60 percent of the market in the U.S. by 2012 and 65 percent of all cell phones sold worldwide will be smartphones by 2015. That means that by 2015 we could see as many as 750 million smartphones sold around the world, which is a massive market and will create amazing market opportunities.

Source: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2371776,00.asp, accessed on November 4, 2010. 

GOOGLE TV: BOOM OR BUST

By: Tim Bajarin (10.18.2010)

The industry has been trying to bring IPTV to your TV since 1997. What makes Google and its partners think they'll be successful?

I have a question for you. Do you want to view the Internet on your TV? With all of the activity in IPTV these days, this is one of the key questions that is at the heart of whether IPTV eventually succeeds or fails. Since TVs were invented, we have been trained to sit in front of them and consume not interact with them. And only recently have we had to multitask with our TV. Even though we've had picture in picture for years, it took news scrolls at the bottom of our TV screens to train our brains. So, how will consumers integrate the new and even more complex IPTV features into their TV viewing experience?

One of the traits of consumers that has emboldened the IPTV crowd to push forward is the fact that many people sit on their couch and use their laptops or tablets while watching TV. They reason that if they multi-task in this fashion, they may be willing do it on the bigger screen. While I accept the fact that people may want Internet content, such as movies, TV shows, YouTube, etc. on their TV screens, it is quite a leap to assume that people also want to read their newspapers and magazines or view Web sites on a big-screen TV.

Source: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2370894,00.asp, accessed on November 4, 2010.

GOOGLE TV: BOOM OR BUST

By: Tim Bajarin (10.18.2010)

The industry has been trying to bring IPTV to your TV since 1997. What makes Google and its partners think they'll be successful?

I have a question for you. Do you want to view the Internet on your TV? With all of the activity in IPTV these days, this is one of the key questions that is at the heart of whether IPTV eventually succeeds or fails. Since TVs were invented, we have been trained to sit in front of them and consume not interact with them. And only recently have we had to multitask with our TV. Even though we've had picture in picture for years, it took news scrolls at the bottom of our TV screens to train our brains. So, how will consumers integrate the new and even more complex IPTV features into their TV viewing experience?

One of the traits of consumers that has emboldened the IPTV crowd to push forward is the fact that many people sit on their couch and use their laptops or tablets while watching TV. They reason that if they multi-task in this fashion, they may be willing do it on the bigger screen. While I accept the fact that people may want Internet content, such as movies, TV shows, YouTube, etc. on their TV screens, it is quite a leap to assume that people also want to read their newspapers and magazines or view Web sites on a big-screen TV.

Source: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2370894,00.asp, accessed on November 4, 2010.

PRISONS AND MOBILE PHONES

Bricking the intruders

If mobile phones can’t be kept out of prisons, can they be made useless?

Oct 14th 2010 | RAIFORD, FLORIDA AND PARCHMAN, MISSISSIPPI

THE striking thing about mobile phones in American prisons is not that they exist—though they do, in great numbers—but the ingenuity used to get and keep them. There are the usual entry methods: from visitors, corrupt guards or in packages hurled over the fence. But phones often take more exotic paths. In South Carolina a potato gun was used to fire phones over prison walls from a distance of a third of a mile. In Mississippi a suspiciously heavy and bounceless basketball in the recreation yard was found to contain 19 phones and chargers. (…)

Available on http://www.economist.com/node/17257847?story_id=17257847, accessed on November 4, 2010