Old News dressed up as New News

As someone who tries to keep their eyes on technology, innovation and the actions of the big online companies to see what's happening next, it is rather shocking to occasionally see old news polished up as new.

An example of this is from today's BBC News showing an article about Google's wonderful email service, Gmail, providing an 'Undo Send' function for up to 30 seconds after an email has been sent.

Shocking because the feature in question has been a 'Labs' feature, available to all Gmail users, for many many years.

For me this is as heinous a crime as believing that a song on X Factor (or it's many equivalents) is original without realising that it had been written and recorded 30 years previously.

As I've mentioned previously, a fine example is those who think Steve Jobs invented digital music, the digital music player (iPod) and mp3s.  I, like many, had an mp3 player long before Apple's guru realised the potential of music and the company I worked for sold legitimate, legal, digital audio downloads long before iTunes thought people would pay for stuff online.

This is not to denigrate the wonderful job Jobs did in marketing something that the pioneers couldn't get out of the 'Innovators' stage of the Diffusion of Innovations curve... they didn't even reach Early Adopters in some cases - but they were, clearly, the future.

So Google having an 'Undo' button on Gmail is not an innovation. It's not a revelation.  it's not fascinating.  It's clearly a slow news day... and thank Christ for that. If we got through a day without a massacre somewhere in the world being reported by the news, then hooray for out-of-date tech news!

How to name tech products

Image from FreeDigitalPhotos.net

What’s in a name? Would an Apple, by any other name, smell as sweet?  Would Jobs and Wozniak have had as much success with their company if it had been called Lemon?  Would a Blackberry be better as a Raspberry or a Gooseberry?  Would Raspberry Pi sell as quickly if it was Apple Pie?

With tech products there is no hard-and-fast rule of what works and what does not.  Is Apple’s habit of naming OSX versions after big cats (Panther, Puma, Mountain Lion) better than Google’s rule of naming Android versions after deserts (Froyo, Gingerbread, Honeycomb, Ice-Cream Sandwich, Jellybean…)?  Does it make one product more likeable than another? Does it make it more reliable?  Does it sell more?  Are either of them fundamentally better (leading to greater brand recognition and helping drive brand loyalty) than Microsoft’s Windows versions (Windows 95, 97, Millennium, XP, Vista, 7)?

Some tech products have names that have little more thought behind them than no one else had the name and the inventors liked it (see Firefox).  Others used branding experts to exhaust all possibilities in the search of the one, true, perfect name (iPod).  Some brands are vanity projects (Dyson and Dell) whilst the actual product names are instantly forgettable (Latitude E6320 anyone?).

In an age of multiculturalism, anyone thinking of branding has to think how the name will be received in different countries and languages.  Mitsubishi should have consulted their Spanish office when deciding to call their 4x4 ‘Pajero’ (which has connotations of self-pleasuring in the Iberian language) and, because it has to succeed in the USA to gain global acceptance, the name must be easy to pronounce in English.

It can have connotations of space (Galaxy) or be an acronym (Vaio).  It can be frivolous (Twitter) or a compound pun (Pinterest; Instagram).   It could even evoke the beginnings of a burning fire (Kindle).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Having been asked to write something (above) for ZDNet Asia but for which I have been asked to include less questions, I created another version.  My inability to self-edit efficiently means I am including both versions in this post.... with full disclosure and apologies for repetition:

People who create, design and program tech products, have long had a sense of playfulness.  Perhaps it is the ability to create something from nothing, and name it, that gives a sense of power.  It is different from naming a child as one must consider the feelings and opinions of one’s spouse, relatives, the child’s grandparents and, in some cases, if the name is so odd, if it will lead the child to get beaten up at school.

With tech products there are no such limitations. But there are no rules either.  Some fruit are suitable names… but not all fruit.  An Apple computer would perhaps not have the image it does if it were a Lemon or a Banana.  Calling a smartphone a Blackberry might seem obvious now, but would we have embraced it if it had been called a Raspberry or even a Gooseberry?

The idle sound of birds talking led to the name Twitter…but it could just as easily have been Natter, or Cheep-Cheep, or Noise.   Raspberry Pi, the new open-source credit-card sized computer, has as much connection to its name as Apple Crumble or Strawberry Sigma.  The two main sources of computer operating systems have very different nomenclatures but neither indicates, at all, what the products actually are nor what they do. Some names, therefore, are designed to clearly differentiate themselves from the previous version, or maintain an air of seriousness some might consider appropriate for a business, such as with Microsoft Windows’s Millennium, XP, Vista and 7. Some try to exude power and passion, such as Apple’s OSX Cheetah, Puma, Jaguar, Panther, Tiger, Leopard, Snow Leopard, Lion and Mountain Lion over the same period.  Some try to suggest a sense of fun, as with Google’s mobile operating system Android, which uses deserts in its naming: Cupcake, Donut, Éclair, Froyo, Gingerbread, Honeycomb, Ice Cream Sandwich and Jelly Bean.

Some product names have little more thought behind them than no one else had the name and the inventors liked it (see Firefox).   Some brands are vanity projects (Dyson and Dell) whilst the actual product names are instantly forgettable (Latitude E6320 anyone?).

In an age of multiculturalism, anyone thinking of branding has to think how the name will be received in different countries and languages.  Mitsubishi should have consulted their Spanish office when deciding to call their 4x4 ‘Pajero’ (which has connotations of self-pleasuring in the Iberian language) and, because it has to succeed in the USA to gain global acceptance, the name must be easy to pronounce in English.

Tech products often try to suggest the future, or science fiction. So any suggestion of space is valid, as with Samsung’s Galaxy range, or Sun.    Acronyms will sometimes work, such as with Sony’s Vaio range, whilst some companies go for compound puns, such as with Pinterest or Instagram.   A verb suggesting the beginnings of a roaring fire might, for some, be a strange alternative to paper-based books (Kindle).

One can go through a complex branding exercise to try and suggest a name that summarises the essence of the product (iPod), or one can name a product after one’s daughter (Apple’s Lisa or the MySQL database) or a popular TV programme (Python) or an item of clothing the founder wears (Red Hat Linux).

In summary, there are no hard-and-fast rules about what names work and what names do not.  The only rules are:

a.        Make sure no one has used it before;

b.       Make sure it can be pronounced in English;

c.        Make it memorable.

Why we self-filter information...

Reading a post by Jeff Jarvis on lazy journalism and the easy target of new technology bringing the end of the world as we know it, I was inspired to add my tuppence-worth....

This is the issue that affects much of media.  Bias. It has been accepted for decades, if not centuries, that different newspapers will prefer different political parties and will skew the reporting to reflect that.  The paper one reads (if you still read dead trees) will usually reflect your political stance and how you vote - certainly in the UK.

Strangely there are still many who believe that editorials in traditional media are more worthy than blogs, which are ultimately editorials by unsponsored individuals. No less coherent or knowledgeable, necessarily. But by not having a behemoth organisation behind the writer, the opinions are for many less relevant.

And so it goes with new technology.  If one wants to believe Google is evil, one will self-filter news and articles to focus only on those that conform to one's world-view.  Ditto Apple.  Ditto Facebook. Ditto the internet. Mobile. Location...

It is frustrating, therefore, for those of us who 'get' technology, to see the myths being repeated time and again by lazy journalists.

I haven't self-filtered the various stories to focus on the Jeff Jarvis one that agrees with me, have I?! ...oh wait...

But heaven forbid that I should ever find a newspaper or site that agreed with me completely.... sometimes one needs naysayers and the small-minded in order to rant and vent....so long as everyone does rant and vent and does not simply accept the words of the sponsored without question...

This message has been sponsored by the Campaign for Ranting At the Press.

The Art of Innovation

Guy Kawasaki's presentation on 'The Art of Innovation' is worth recommending not just for the anecdotes, insider view, venture capital experience and pithy rules to innovate, but also for showing how to present to a conference.

Humour. A good sense of humour is good. If you don't have it, don't try and fake it, but if you have it, flaunt it....

This keynote was from 2007 - but having only just discovered it 4 years later I thought it worth passing on...

How to put out a Flash in the pan...

Twitter has been loud this morning talking of Adobe killing off its fancy animation language 'Flash' for mobile devices.  The news first came, it seems, on ZDNet whilst the Adobe website still talks about creating Flash for mobile devices, but then Adobe wouldn't be the first company that failed to tell its web team what it had told the rest of the world.

Some commentators have been remarking, probably rightly, that Steve Jobs has finally won, beyond the grave, in his war against Adobe.  It was in April last year that the Apple anti-Flash venom started spitting.  Mashable ran a series of emails between Steve Jobs and an Adobe developer that suggested Jobs' hatred of Flash was purely about the stability of the platform and the ability of Apple to be able to lock in both app developers and iPhone and iPad users by making it harder to create the same app for multiple platforms (Android, Windows, RIM etc.).

The 'Roughly Drafted Magazine' blog ran an article just after the Mashable one that gives a nice summary of the real background to the Apple-Adobe spat.  In short, it has nothing to do with Flash. It has nothing to do with whether or not Flash is unstable or not.  It clearly has nothing to do with delivering a great user experience, as most websites had some element of Flash when the iPad first appeared (not to mention the iPhone before it) which could not be viewed by Apple users.

So if Adobe won't support Flash for mobile devices, surely it cannot be long before Flash dies out? HTML 5 will take over completely once Internet Explorer adopts HTML 5 with version 9, (despite many users still on I.E. 6, such as corporate clients too frightened to update anything once they have locked it down enough to make it secure) and no website will be developed using Flash.

So what is the fall-out to this?  Flash developers had better start retraining and fast. Flash trainers had better start teaching something else.  Accessibility experts had better start charging for something else as they won't be able to spend hours pointing out how un-accessible Flash is.

And pages will load faster...(take note Burberry!)

And the world keeps turning...it just no longer uses Action Script...

An atheist's view of Steve Jobs

It was two weeks ago today that the world started an outpouring of comment on Steve Jobs and his sad death. As it is sad whenever anyone dies... a bit of a tautology that is repeated by every media outlet whenever anyone famous dies of any cause at any time in their life.

Apple's website is still, two weeks after his death, showing the memorial photo any time you visit the website.  A day of memorial one would expect.  A week might be appropriate for the founder and CEO of your company.  But how long will it now stay up? Will it be dropped, unceremoniously, without notification, after three weeks? Or a month? Or will they keep it there for a year?  What is the appropriate amount of time to grieve for someone you didn't know at all, except through the vicarious the spotlight of celebrity?

Candles outside the Apple Store, London

The outpouring of emotion, such as flowers and candles laid outside the Apple store in London, echoed the sudden quivering of the traditionally British stiff upper lip and ultimate breakdown of the previously stoic public into a collective, sobbing, emotional wreck, when Princess Diana (or Mrs Diana Windsor, as some might prefer it) sadly died (see the flowers below).

Flowers outside Kensington Palace

Then, as now, I find myself wondering why people care so much.  Surely, it is because the person (Jobs, Diana) was famous? That people felt that they knew them? Or was it that they found the death of a celebrity a useful catharsis for them to release pent-up emotion for some other, more private, loss?

I am not a psychologist and shall not attempt to understand it, suffice to say that I don't.

However, another phenomenon seems to have occurred around the death of Jobs.  Stories of him being a bully and a tyrant have finally seen more widespread coverage since his death, which allows one to reasonably address the fact that far from being the best CEO in the world, his is a case study that should be used in business schools to show how a great leader should not behave.

An apparently obsessive care for the detail of products makes a great product designer, not a great boss.  A culture at an organisation where people fear the CEO does not make for the best working environment.

When Jim Collins studied exceptional leaders and came up with the concept of a 'Level 5' leader who enabled great change at an organisation that survived a change of leadership and continued to make the organisation highly successful, he  described parable of the fox (which knows many small things) and the hedgehog (which knows one big thing).  Jobs was probably a hedgehog - he knew how to make great products and charge customers a premium for them.

Ansoff's Growth Matrix

When discussing technology innovation on the masters courses, Apple is frequently  cited as an example of an organisation with a great growth strategy - for product development and diversification - creating new products for existing markets and creating new markets (as per Ansoff's Matrix shown here).

Through the use of iTunes, Apple have also managed to ensure casual customers become loyal customers (achieving market penetration).

It is also worth remembering how much Apple's stock has risen recently, from an average of $7 to $10 for most of its life to 2004, to a current $420 - showing how much the iPhone and iPads have radically changed Apple's revenue structure.

Apple stock from 2000 to 2011 from Yahoo! Finance

So it can be safely stated that Steve Jobs was a great CEO in delivering value to the shareholders and creating products that became market leaders for several years after launch.

Image by Edward Eustace

But that is it.  The deification of Steve Jobs is somewhat unnecessary.  I realise that posting a blog about him is perpetuating the impression that he is the only person of worth who has died.  His inventions certainly changed the technological landscape by influencing how Microsoft developed Windows (the OS that most people still use) and how mobile technology can become ubiquitous.  Interesting to note, by the by, how Microsoft make no mention of Apple's use of the WIMP interface (Windows, Icons, Menu, Pointing device) in their own potted history of Windows.

The BBC documentary in May 2011 showed through MRI scans how "Apple was actually stimulating the same parts of the brain as religious imagery does in people of faith".  The theory (by Dean Hamer) that there is a gene which predisposes people to being religious or having 'spiritual experiences' helps explain my own perplexed view of the Apple faithful (or iCult as it has been dubbed).

So if Hamer is right, I am genetically predisposed to treat all evangelicalism with suspicion...be it for Apple, football, or one of the many gods.

The Church of Apple has many devotees - and a higher than average percentage of them work in the media - helping fuel the constant messages of Apple omnipresence.

But in the end, us atheists must pray, with ironic tongue firmly in cheek, that sense will see the day, reason will out, the blind shall have their veils lifted and that everyone shall see that there is no god. There is only:

HTC Sucks - and not in a good way

Having been a fan of Android phones in principle since they came out (the open nature of Android, the viable alternative to iOS and the Apple fanfest, the particular liking of Google's way of doing things as opposed to how Apple or MicroSoft do things) I have been traumatised by my experiences with my first Android phone.

Money being an object for most people like me, I could not go and buy the Google Nexus S (a Samsung phone) but haggled with my mobile company (Three) to get a £10 per month SIM card with all-you-can-eat data, 750 minutes of talking, 150 texts and a few other things.  I then bought a mobile separately working out that over 2 years I would save almost £200, as opposed to paying a monthly contract of £25 or more.  I bought the HTC Desire (the precursor to the HTC Desire S and HD versions) as a friend had one and had had no problems with it and I saw good reviews on the internet.

The friend in question doesn't use apps.

I've uninstalled all apps except for Google's own apps and a couple more, and yet am still in danger of running out of internal phone storage space. Again. After 8 factory resets trying to remedy the matter.

Yesterday, three apps (Goggles, Maps and Evernote) automatically updated themselves and the remaining internal memory went down from 44MB to 22MB in an instant and then trickled down to 15MB with me doing nothing on the machine!

HTC only made 150MB of internal memory available for apps. So even though I move all my apps to the external storage (the SD card), they still leave residual memory on the internal storage that eats away until there is nothing left.

When the memory slips below 15MB, Gmail and Exchange stop updating.

HTC have, eventually, offered to repair the mobile, and I might ask them to just to make sure there is no fault with the hardware. But I fear the fault is with the design.

For the first time ever I'm jealous of iPhone users who have no issues with app space running out.

What this has taught me is two things:

a. avoid HTC like the plague: there is a reason their handsets are cheaper...although TechRadar does list 3 of them in the top 10 Android phones, and 3 in the top 5... irritatingly...
b. look for internal storage for apps when buying a smartphone.  I have never, however, seen this listed on the product specifications online or instore.  You have to dig deep to find it...but it is worth digging.
c. if you want a recommendation for any hardware from a friend, make sure the friend is a similar user to you. If they are a light user, then it won't help a heavy user judge performance.

Yes...that is 3 things...but anyway...

All of this is, of course, obvious. But the obvious only presents itself sometimes too late...

Enough already with the competiton! Work together and everyone wins...

Marshall Kirkpatrick wrote on ReadWriteWeb how Microsoft seem to have created a virtual skateboard-view to scroll through maps. They call it, apparently, "Street Slide".
As Marshall says, it seems to knock the pretty multi-coloured socks off Google's StreetView version that first allowed us to see the streets before we got to them by following the map.

Many is the time I've found the name of a business I know to exist on 'X' street, by checking on StreetView and then searching for their details online.

So Microsoft have shown they don't just to Office software...but can do fun stuff too.  Check the video here:




The problem that I have is, once again, there is TOO MUCH CHOICE!

I personally prefer Google Maps and Google StreetView to other systems in the UK, such as MultiMap, or StreetMap.

And whilst I like the ethos behind the Open Source version: OpenStreetMap, where generous, earnest people give of their time to help create a publicly owned (that is, license-free) detailed set of maps, I find that I still rely on Google.

Why?

Because it's all there. It's all connected. I can go from a Google Search to local map view to a company's website more or less seamlessly.  Now the other maps can and probably do a lot of that.

My problem?

Too much choice.  Why can't they all get to together, have one big happy love-in, and create one map.

One map to rule them all.

One map to do everything, from geo-location services, to hyper-local advertising and community features, to feature-rich 3D views of the places in question.

Competition is not good. Competition just confuses the issue. Most people do not go for the 'best' option available. They go with what they know.  Most people use what they have already installed on their mobile. They use what's easiest to find on the Internet - and, curiously, a Google search on 'Online Map' produces not Google Maps as the first link, but MultiMap. Google is only fourth on its own system!  This could, arguably, be to show how it is not indulging in anti-trust (or monopolistic) practices.  It could also be that the right hand of Larry Page doesn't know what the left-hand of Sergei Brin is up to.

In fact, I realise that this is beginning to become a theme.  I've discussed too much choice in software for Office functions, too much choice in online dynamic display systems (i.e. Flash vs Silverlight), and too much choice in E-Book formats.

Whilst I commend inventive minds with entrepreneurial spirits for trying to make the world a better place, I can't see how having a myriad of competing systems helps anyone.  They all have their pluses - and their minuses.  They all appeal to a core set of users, and then to the rest of the world according to the almost random process of innovation diffusion.  One system is adopted by Apple, and becomes almost defacto on mobiles. Another is adopted by Google, and becomes the dominant one on the internet. 

What we need, of course, is a benevolent dictatorship to force the geniuses in all these companies to work together, to ensure that there is only one system and it is the best and it incorporates the best features of all the other systems and everyone's happy and everyone knows where they are.

And while we're about it - I put myself forward for the job...or will there be too many dictators all patronising their preferred system....?

The Future of E-Books is Mobile...not E-Book Readers

Over the past few months there has been much talk of e-book readers from the likes of Amazon (the Kindle) and Sony and a host of others.  Apple are launching their new iPad around now, HP have the 'Slate' coming out soon, and the mini-tablet laptop that is portable enough to be used on the move means that people are suddenly, seriously, talking about e-book readers as the future.

They are wrong.

The tablet products from Apple and HP are going to be best used in the home.  They will allow one to access multimedia at the dinner table, in bed or in the garden, without a spaghetti junction of cables or heated and flattened thighs to worry about from traditional laptops.

However, for people on the move, the iPad type products, and I will include the Kindle and other E-Book Readers here, are inappropriate.  Purely and simply, do they fit neatly in a jacket pocket?

No - only if you are wearing a large suit jacket.  Women may choose to carry them in their handbag, and many businessmen will use their briefcases for that too... but for universal acceptance of the medium, it will have to become far more portable.

Two weeks ago I finished reading my first Sherlock Holmes book (it was free, being out of copyright, and so a good way to test e-books)... but read it entirely on my mobile phone.  I don't have an all-singing and all-dancing iPhone or Nexus1 either (nor any other type of touch-screen)...but a relatively small-screened Blackberry clone from Nokia, the E61.

Why did I go with Nokia?  It's very simple.

I'm cheap and it was free.

My mobile company wanted me to renew my contract and begged me to take one of these Qwerty keyboard mini-computers at no extra cost.  I said 'Thanks'.  If they want to offer me a Nexus 1, I'll say 'Thank you'.

Anyway, I downloaded the ebook of Sherlock Holmes: "The Valley of Fear" from the Libris app on the Nokia Apps store... the app was free.  I've since also tried 'Wattpad' from the same app store...but this is not about comparing apps.

This is about the ease of use, or usability if you will, of having your e-book in your mobile handset.  It meant I always had reading material with me. I didn't have to check if I had space in my pocket for an oversized e-book reader.  I didn't have to worry about switching a Kindle or Sony reader on, booting up etc. to start reading.

I didn't, very importantly, have to worry about holding the still-heavy e-book readers in one hand while standing on the tube, or waiting in line.  Whilst my partner was in the changing rooms in a clothes shop, I was able to battle the potential boredom by instantly whipping out the mobile and continuing with my e-book.  For those who like to read in the toilet (not that I would ever suggest such a thing) it is easy to use the mobile handset (as many already do for calls and texting)...less so with a bulky e-book reader.

My mobile - as with all smartphones - is also able to hold my music and podcasts. It's my portable camera.  I can browse the web (albeit in an unsatisfying way with such a small screen), email and, of course, even use it for phonecalls (remember those?).

In short, Sony, Amazon, the Cool-er, Elonex, Barnes & Noble, Apple, HP and probably a number of other manufacturers hoping to tap into the e-book market should think carefully about who is going to use the machines.  They absolutely do have a market - I'd love to be able to buy one reader with all my study-books pre-loaded (including the online extra information that some text book publishers provide).

But they will never reach the ubiquitousness of the mp3 player and iPhone if they can't become truly portable.

We need one machine to rule the world ... not a dozen of bulky single-use gadgets that will break, get stolen or be too impractical to use.

E-Book readers: it's Betamax vs. VHS all over again

I like gadgets. I'm male, of a certain age, living in the UK. Demographically speaking, I'm a core target for manufacturers of gadgets, widgets, gizmos and, as I like to call them, 'kerchunks' (the sound that a good gadget should make when opening and closing).

However, long before I could afford to buy gadgets of any quality, I had to be very careful where I spent my money. I would wait and see if the prices came down (which, according to Moore's Law, they always did). In some cases, (such as a decent Digital SLR camera), I've postponed the purchase so long I'm not sure when I will finally buy... but I'll obviously get far more megapixels for my money than I would have 2 or 3 years ago.

Back in the eighties (showing my age) I couldn't afford a Walkman (or a clone) until I was 16... no one bought one for me (we lived in a cardboard box in't' middle of road), and I had to save up to pay for one. And when the time came, I looked at Which? Magazine to compare the models available at that time, and traipsed up and down Tottenham Court Road in central London going into every electronics shop to compare prices and haggle with the shopkeepers until I found the bestest one that fit my budget.

It was an easy choice, all of the players played cassettes. CDs didn't exist then, but the same search would have been undertaken just a few years later for a CD player, or stereo. For TVs - again - the same kind of search. You can decide on CRT or flat-screen, Plasma or LCD, but they all need to show broadcast content.

When mp3 players came along, the choice was equally easy, until Apple reared it's over-styled head with the iPod, which was unable to play the 25GB of mp3s I'd accumulated by digitising my entire CD collection...without me going to the hassle of reformatting my entire collection. Disc space on my computer at that time meant that that was not going to happen easily, and anyway, why should I? The other mp3 players were cheaper, had more capacity and had built-in FM radios and voice recorders as standard. But to the great unwashed masses, they weren't as 'cool' as Apple.

Apple, to give them their due, did a good job of tying people in to their brand with the vertical integration of their iTunes store with the iPod players. So why did the iPod win over the other mp3 players to become the defacto player? Could it be that by providing legitimate, (i.e. 'legal') downloads for the hairy hoards, that is that by providing the content, they were guaranteeing the success of the player?

And not for the first time has this happened. When video cassette recorders (VCR) came along at the end of the seventies and early eighties, the decision was between two rival formats. The superior format, superior in quality of image and fidelity of recording and playback, was Betamax... the choice for professionals before and since. The popular format, however, was VHS. Why? There has been lots of debate as to the reasons, but I'm going to add my tuppence-worth to that debate, for our household pondered the same question at that time, three decades ago. Ultimately, we wanted content. We wanted to be able to rent any film (well, to have a selection of hundreds rather than dozens)... and the local videostores all had huge selections of VHS films and one tiny shelf of Betamax. Simple. We went with VHS... as did most people... with Betamax dying an unhappy death as a consumer product.

What is irritating is that the issues of the Betamax vs VHS debate repeat themselves. We do not learn from history (or do we?). Betamax was the superior product, but VHS won out. Everyone who bought a Betamax player ended up storing it on the attic for another 20 years, unable to throw away such an underused piece of equipment, and fuming that they'd wasted hundreds of pounds, backing the wrong proverbial horse in the format wars.

So now to the latest gadget. The e-Book reader. With the recent launch of the Amazon Kindle in the UK, there have been lots of articles telling the world how wonderful they are... but ignoring the same problem we saw with mp3 players and video recorders. Format.

So, the ones that are on my radar now are the Amazon Kindle, the Sony Reader Touch Edition, the Cool-er, the Elonex eReader; and the Nook from Barnes & Noble, the US book shop chain. Will I buy one? Not yet.

I've tried the Amazon Kindle. After hearing so much noise about e-Ink (or is it e-Paper?) I am quite disappointed to find the dull screen that has all the lack-lustre of paper with none of the comforting texture of it. I'm also surprised at how heavy it is. It's a small gadget, thin, not much bigger on the front than a typical paper-back. But it can't comfortably be held in one hand for any length of time, as a paperback can. You'd need to rest it on your knee or a table... although for that, why not use a laptop? And no touch-screen? Where have they been hiding for the past 3 years? It took me a while to realise that they expected me to use buttons to turn pages rather than swiping the screen.

The Sony Reader has a similar screen size, looks cleaner, and the leather-pouch makes it easier to hold (like real books) than the Amazon version.

But I fear that ultimately, it's going to come down to content again. Amazon is the online bookstore of choice, but since Google announced last week that they were going to start selling e-books themselves (and remember that they've been scanning all known books over the past few years - including hundreds of thousands of orphan books), one has to assume that content is going to win again... and the reader that wins will be the one that has the biggest catalogue of books available to download.

But... but... what if... what if Google's Eric Schmidt, Sony's Howard Stringer and Amazon's Jeff Bezos sat down together and came to a deal? What if they decided to not follow the Apple model of tying people into one particular format, but allowed all Google books, and all Amazon books, to be downloadable on all readers, be they from Sony, Amazon, Elonex or whoever?

They'd still make their money from the downloads.

They'd have a wider potential audience by not restricting themselves to owners of one particular reader.

They'd drive the uptake of e-book readers as the public would no longer hold off to see which kerchunk wins.

Everyone talks about 'collaboration' and 'Web 2.0' and 'Social' until they talk about business... then it's back to the same old cut-throat winner-takes-all mentality of decades ago.

MBA graduates cherry-pick technology employers

A little late, perhaps, but such is the way of the web that so much information makes it hard to keep track of everything.

My excuses for only now seeing a CNN article on the Top MBA Employers, published in May 2009.

What is interesting is that tech. companies like Google and Apple are in the top 5, alongside the predictable consultants such as McKinsey and BCG. Microsoft is at a still-respectable 12, but then there's a huge gap before getting to IBM (31), Cisco (42), Yahoo! (67), Ebay (69) and HP (70) and Nokia (85).

The tech. companies surely have a more secure future than many of the others in the list. BMW, for example - a car manufacturer - is at 22. Even the CIA fairs better than some, at 47.

So why is this? Is it based on salary? I doubt Google pay the best...

Is it based on prestige? Having to read endless reports and models by McKinsey and BCG for an MBA may give them an unfair advantage (if the post office began producing endless research, case-studies and 'nineteen Ns' models for logistics supply-chain management, maybe they'd be top of the list).

I admit to being surprised that MBA graduates aren't targetting tech. companies more, but perhaps the biggest problem is that they tend not to be taught much (in my experience) about new technology. They'll study ERP systems from the 80s, or how to project manage a new implementation, but they're not too hot on keeping up with the latest trends.

Is this the fault of the business schools who teach what is known (the trouble with new technology is no one can be 100% certain what will work and what won't) or with the students - who tend to be younger than the faculty - not engaging with their peers outside the MBA and seeing the potential of Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, bio-tech and so on?

Some schools concentrate on entrepeneurship, but that doesn't help the majority who want a good job with good prospects and a good salary. It would be interesting to see a study of the tech. firms who have recruited MBA graduates, and an attempt to measure (against a control firm) whether or not the fledgling company has benefitted from their educated intake.

Why can't they all agree on one software package?

I read a wee article today on VNU Net (www.v3.co.uk) that "IBM is reportedly dumping Microsoft Office in favour of its own version of Open Office, Lotus Symphony" and again I felt a bit of a rant coming on.

I've sat down now, but that hasn't removed the desire to rant.

I like to think I'm not a geek, but I do like good technology. Let's remember, from the Compact OED, is defined as:

technology

• noun (pl. technologies) 1 the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes. 2 the branch of knowledge concerned with applied sciences.

— DERIVATIVES technological adjective technologically adverb technologist noun.

— ORIGIN Greek tekhnologia ‘systematic treatment’.

So.... 'the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes'... so let us assume the 'application of scientific knowledge' is the software...be it MS Office or Lotus Symphony or Google Docs or Open Office or whatever.

The 'practical purposes' are removed by virtue of the fact that the documents produced by the different software systems are never 100% cross-compatible. Now, one could easily argue that none of them are perfect... but by having large endorsements of different packages means that smaller companies and inidividuals are increasingly going to diverge from one package to purchase and/or use, by choice, the one they know. Which will be the one they experience every day at work (at IBM, or Microsoft, or Google, or any organisation that uses their software).

Shurely (hic) it wouldn't be too much to ask for the different software-makers to collaborate on producing the definitively perfect office package? They could brand it differently and price it differently to tie in to the other software or Operating Systems if they must (e.g. Windows, Leopard, Linux, Chrome...) but at least they would all be compatible with each other across machines of different ages. That, as anyone who has tried to open a document at home done on Office 2007 at work, when the home package is Office 2003, is not always simple.

So slapped wrists and eternal shame on IBM for trying to get their staff to use Lotus Symphony rather than MS Office. If any of us outside the Big Blue do business with them, we'll now have to make sure our documents are saved appropriately and have appropriate plug-ins to open their documents and...

...and while we're talking about it, why can't all mobile manufacturers use the same operating system... it's irritating enough trying to format for the hundreds of different handset screen sizes and resolutions currently on the market, without also having completely different systems every time you upgrade a phone.

I've just upgraded from a 'quite good phone' to a 'smart phone' - within the same nameless Finnish brand - and yet basic functionality from the old phone doesn't exist on the new one. One would have thought that the most basic usability testing any software or hardware manufacturer would do would be to ensure old habits are easily translated onto the new system.

But, harping back to Office, the 2007 version proved that the Seattle giants do not know their arse from their 2003 elbow... and I now spend up to 10 minutes hunting for certain functionality. Surely (again, so soon?) it would have been better to provide the new interface on 2007 as the default interface, but allow users to switch back to the previous one (where they know where to find things)? That way they could educate new users in new 'best practices' without irritating the hell out of those of us who were very very used to the previous incarnation.

Kane Kramer... Steve Jobs should pay him millions...

I was listening with great interest to the Guardian Tech. Weekly podcast this morning - which I try to do every week (and highly recommend it for keeping one abreast of all techie things without getting bogged down in details) and they were talking about Kane Kramer... the British inventor who came up with the idea, the concept, the technology, the drawings and business plan for digital audio downloads and portable players back in 1979!  This was his drawing then of the portable digital audio player:

Everyone knows, of course, that Apple never invent anything, they just take other inventions and make them work a little better or more user-friendly and then they put them in a pretty box (disclosure, I used to have Apple computers in the 90s and that has put me off anything the company does for ever more); but it poses the lovely question of intellectual property.

Kane, as I'm sure I'd call him if we ever met, came up with the idea. Patented it. Was talking about it with various technology companies, but was unable to get it up and running.  An idea ahead of its time.  The idea that his idea was ahead of its time is also past... the Daily Mail wrote about it last September... and how Apple will not pay him anything.

So what happens now?  Out of patent, the iPod and other mp3 players, which would not work without Kane's invention, are earning billions for the various companies (let's not forget that Apple are the biggest and worst at it... Creative are also big in the arena, Sony still muddling along etc.).  

One could argue that that's always the way - the inventors might get the posthumous glory but never the riches in life... but surely there has to be a better way?  With Web 2.0 encouraging collaboration and sharing on all levels, what happens to people who give ideas and knowledge freely, to see others make millions out of it?  Isn't it about time that ideas should be protectable through Intellectual Property law?  Shouldn't there be a global agreement on inventors getting some compensation (not much, but let's say 0.01% of gross profits... not enough to damage the companies concerned, but for every $1 million that they make from the inventions, the inventor would then make $100.  OK - it isn't much.  It's quite pathetic even, but over time it could make a difference.  And with companies such as Apple making $5 billion per year, that 0.01% would become $500,000... which would at least allow the inventors to buy themselves a little peace of mind.