The cancellation of the Palm Foleo marks the latest in a long string of failed attempts to create a market for keyboard-based devices that are smaller, simpler, and cheaper than personal computers. Computer companies have been trying to make sub-PCs work since the 1980s, but the only place they have been a major success is in Japan, where the complexities of typing in Japanese encouraged many people to buy cheap word processors instead of typewriters.
Mobile Commerce, Really?
A colleague recently bent my ear regarding mobile commerce and how she can barely wait for some of the new services (like this one) to become available in her area. I love a good gadget as much as the next guy, but having lived through electronic wallets and many of the other “great ideas” on the front-side of the dot com boom, I’m a bit skeptical.
For those that are willing to learn, failures teach us more than successes, so this got me thinking about what the past can teach us about these new service offerings. I’m not talking about ringtones and wallpaper; I’m only talking about stuff you buy with your phone, not for your phone.
Impact of Amazon Flexible Payments Service: Computing as a utility
The announcement of Amazon FPS made my whole week, on a lot of different levels. I’m excited about the service itself, I’m excited about what it means for the development of web applications, and I’m excited about what it’ll eventually do for the mobile data world.
Okay, I’m just excited.
Separating "How" from "What:" An open letter to the tech industry
One of the advantages of working as a consultant is that you get to look at the big picture across corporations. You can see trends and common themes that might not be obvious to somebody working in a single company.
One of the themes that’s become very clear lately is our industry’s difficulty telling the difference between “how” and “what” when designing products.
Separating “How” from “What:” An open letter to the tech industry
One of the advantages of working as a consultant is that you get to look at the big picture across corporations. You can see trends and common themes that might not be obvious to somebody working in a single company.
One of the themes that’s become very clear lately is our industry’s difficulty telling the difference between “how” and “what” when designing products.
Virtualization in the Real World
Conventional wisdom, in lumping Second Life with MySpace, FaceBook and other social networking sites, dismisses it as merely a social site. By “dismisses” I don’t mean to say that people think as a phenomena it is unimportant and can be ignored, but merely that they think of its impact solely in terms of social interaction. I am more convinced than ever that Second Life is really a new medium of virtualization, and is far more revolutionary than most people realize.
Telephony meets the Internet: What it means to you
The Emerging Telephony (eTel) conference brings together the open source and web telephony community. It doesn’t get much attention in the mainstream tech press, but it’s an interesting place for scouting out telephony trends that might affect the tech industry as a whole. We went to this year’s conference. Three themes stood out that deserve your attention:
Top 10 Trends for 2007 High-Tech Markets
Rubicon has always served its clients by scouting trends and drawing out the implications to those high-tech companies seeking to craft winning strategies. To help you plan for the new year, here’s a look at what we think is going to matter in 2007, why it’s important, and what we think it means in terms of opportunities.
Hardware to Watch in 2007
We’re optimistic that 2007 will turn out to be a year of significant progress in the creation of new types of computing devices. Here are some of the things to watch for, and why we think they’re significant:
- Culture & Leadership (146)
- Entrepreneurship (160)
- Featured (8)
- Market Power (216)
- onlyness (124)
- Social (80)
- Talks (29)
- Technology & Trends (78)
- The Personal Story (81)
- Uncategorized (195)
