Lesenswerte Analysen und Hintergrundberichte zu aktuellen Entwicklungen:
- Is the PC back? "The revenue pictures shows that (non-Mac) PCs have been declining for almost four years and into the present quarter and operating margin (“profit”) has shrunk to nearly $1 billion (while being generous with “other” PC vendors).Incidentally, the Mac is nearly the highest revenue PC brand and by far the most profitable. Indeed, it’s more profitable than all the other vendors put together."
- Big Blue and Apple’s Soul "To be clear, while I’ve been writing from Apple’s perspective, this is an even bigger deal for IBM. As I just noted, the total cost of a VAR “solution” is usually multiples greater than the cost of the underlying device or software; fully integrating a device into an enterprise is a messy business, but dealing with messiness is not only worth a lot of money, it also entails building deep and ongoing relationships with the company you are servicing. In other words, when it comes to the sort of enterprise deals that IBM is going to put together, iOS devices are much closer to commodities; it is IBM that will provide the most value from the enterprise’s perspective. This is a risk for Apple: it’s certainly possible to envision a scenario where IBM switches out iOS for another platform, and there will be nothing Apple can really do about that.I’m sure, though, that Apple is well aware of this and counts it as a price they are willing to pay6 (in addition to the commission they’ll likely pay IBM on each iPhone or iPad, in case it’s not clear who will be the lead in this partnership). Apple is getting access to a massive market that had long been off-limits, and they are doing so without giving up their product-centric soul."
- Let’s stop free photo opportunities for politicians at startups. "Here’s what the Berlin startup scene has gotten in return from these politicians so far:_____________ . Let me know if I missed anything."
- ‘It’s Time to Split Up Microsoft’ « John Moltz's Very Nice Web Site "For a services company, I always think your job is just to make the best damn service you can so that devices companies have to put you on their platform. That may be an overly naïve take on how the world works, however."
- Lost in the woods? This gadget can save your bacon Mit einer Reichweite von bis zu 50 Meilen: "Here’s how it works: Your phone connects to your goTenna through Bluetooth, goTenna then transmits the data you’re sending out to another (or multiple) goTenna through proprietary protocols, which then transmits it over Bluetooth to the phone connected to that other goTenna. It effectively acts as your own cell tower."
- App store revenue "Google said it paid out $5bn to developers from Google IO in 2013 to Google IO in 2014 (a little over 13 months) Apple said it has paid out $20bn to developers in total by the end of the June 2014 quarter, and at WWDC June 2013 it gave a figure of $10bn paid to developers (at the June 2013 earnings call a month later it then said it had paid out $11bn). So in the last 12 months, it paid out roughly $10bn. Google also said at IO that it has 1bn 30-day active Android users - the degree of precision is not clear. The iOS number is fuzzier: trailing 24 months' sales would be a little under 500m, but extending that to a three year lifespan would take it to over 600m."
- Xiaomi Unveils $13 Fitness Band "it can last 30 days on a full charge, and is waterproof with an IP67 standard." 13$!
- Seriously, Fuck You, "Kindle Unlimited" - The Awl "You can do anything you like with the public domain books and recordings you download from Project Gutenberg or the Internet Archive: Make a literary Girl Talk-type mashup with them, hide Satanic messages in there via "backmasking," make letterpress reprints of the books and illuminate them by hand with gold leaf like a medieval monk and sell the results on Etsy. It's all free and legal. That is what "public domain" means. (By the bye, I wrote to the PR contact supplied by Amazon in the subject press release, and asked how many of these six hundred thousand titles offered through Kindle Unlimited are in the public domain and therefore, already free to the public, but did not receive an answer.)"
- Xiaomi's latest phone gets a steel frame, IR blaster and top specs for just $320 "The boost in Xiaomi's sales figure is helped by the company's expansion into other parts of Asia, including Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines and, very recently, India. You can thank ex-Googler Hugo Barra for that, who has been very hands-on with this project. On a related note, there are now 65 million activated MIUI users, who will be able to upgrade to version 6 as of August 16th. After 26.11 million phones -- which translates to 33 billion yuan or about $5.32 billion -- so far this year, Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun expects to sell a grand total of 60 million phones in 2014, which would be more than twice of that from 2013."
- The secret of Minecraft — The Message — Medium "“A generative, networked system laced throughout with secrets.”When you write it that way, you realize it doesn’t have to be software. This is a stretch, but you could apply that description to the greater Star Wars universe—not just the movies, but all that followed: the books, the video games, the spit-spraying backyard lightsaber battles. And, based on all the fan fiction and wizard rock they inspired, I’d say the Harry Potter books managed to boot up a generative, networked system of some sort.But now, in the 2010s, Minecraft improves upon those examples, because it does not merely allow this co-creation but requires it. And so the burning question in my brain right now is this: What happens when we take the secret of Minecraft and apply it elsewhere, in new ways?"
- YouTube's Biggest Star Is An Unknown Toy-Reviewing Toddler Whisperer "DisneyCollectorBR’s most watched video, an unwrapping of “egg surprises” branded by Angry Birds, SpongeBob, and Cars, recently hit 90 million views. Five other videos have received over 40 million views, and another 15 have over 20 million. The channel’s hundreds of videos have been watched over 2.4 billion times — that’s more than “Gangnam Style” by Psy."
- 9punkt vom 17.07.2014 - Perlentaucher "Amazon ist heute überall! Während die Schriftsteller noch über das jetzige Amazon klagen (siehe Efeu, hier), zündet Amazon offenbar schon die nächste Stufe der Rakete: "kindleunlimited", eine Art Flatrate für Bücher für 9,99 Dollar im Monat, Werbespruch: "Enjoy unlimited access to over 600,000 titles and thousands of audiobooks for just $ 9.99 a month." Darrell Etherington verweist in Techcrunch auf einen bei Google noch zugänglichen Amazon-Link, wo das Angebot schon dargestellt ist. Amazon konkurriert mit Diensten wie Oyster, die gerade einen solchen Service aufbauen wollten. Aber eine kleine Frage ist noch offen: Amazons "Testseiten führen keins der fünf großen Verlagshäuser auf, also auch nicht Simon & Schuster und HarperCollins, die mit Oyster bereits kooperieren. Die größten Verlage verlangen eine große (das heißt siebenstellige) Grundgebühr im voraus, außerdem müssen die Dienste jedes Mal zahlen, wenn ein konkretes Buch gelesen wird. Neuausgaben bleiben den traditionellen Verkaufswegen vorbehalten. Amazon scheint einen besseren Deal im Sinn zu haben...""
- Wissenschaftler haben herausgefunden: Filesharing hat keine Auswirkungen auf Kino-Erlöse
- IBM and Apple: Catharsis "This dramatic turnaround–Apple moving to a device leadership position and IBM moving to a service leadership position–created the conditions for today’s announcement of a strategic partnership–an event which is astounding to those who witnessed the 1980s and 1990s. Were it not for the tenacious independence of Apple and the business model agility of IBM, neither company would be around today to leverage one another."
- Buch/Handel 2020: „Who will keep a dominant Amazon honest?“
- TOA14: Startup Studios Set to Be a Hot Post-Accelerator Trend "A startup studio, according to Matthews, is a company that builds companies, providing in-house expertise to accelerate them to the product/market fit that he believes is crucial to the success of any entrepreneurial endeavour. There is no time limit – each startup within the studio is funded to Series A level, in exchange for 20 percent in equity (in the case of Neverbland)."A
- Sling's 'M1' streaming box brings built-in WiFi at a lower price Faszinierender Trend.
- VentureBeat Launches Marketplace for Research Reports - B2B @ FolioMag.com Sehr sinnvolles Konzept: "Called VB Insight, the platform is built on an App Store-inspired marketplace model that will offer a range of research reports for sale from VentureBeat analysts as well as outside contributors. [..] VentureBeat is currently hand-picking the analysts—approaching independents and smaller firms—who set their own price for each report with guidance from VentureBeat editors who, for now, are also vetting and editing the reports."
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