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iPad Gladiator

Apple, iPad and Accelerating Growth in the Enterprise

Feb 2012/in /by

The most exciting development in the Enterprise today is not, as Salesforce and Jive would have you believe, “social networking for business” but the not-so-stealthy explosion of the iPad as a productivity tool.

We see dramatic deployments every day, especially into the enterprise sales and customer marketing teams which are the teams we work with most often. Eric Lal of ZDNet keeps a site updated with iPad pilots — often documenting large company decisions we have already seen on the ground — thousands at a time!

Even big blue IBM may now have one of the largest Apple and iPad deployments in the world. As an Apple fan it’s terrific to see the corporate world finally seeing the light. Even my own R&D team (for a long time PC-based nerds) are adopting a mix of Apple in with their PCs, iPads (of course for development) and iPhones in with Android phones (which after all you can hack and play with so much more easily than an iPhone).

I also agree with Peter O’Neill at Forrester that many market researchers are falling behind in their methodology and not including broad enough sources of corporate deployment. They have a PC bias and may be missing the rapid growth of BYOD (bring-your-own-device) policies at companies large and small. BYOD is not only popular but in the end it’s cheaper. Cisco pioneered this policy 5 years ago, showing that it was, in the end, cheaper for IT to support. And while IT departments still worry about data security, I was convinced this was solved the day my Symantec customer told me in 2011 that he could now work officially work on the iPad (Symantec is the most paranoid company on security – appropriately so given that it’s their business).

There are two major waves happening for enterprise sales teams right now: social collaboration (yes I don’t think Salesforce and Jive are wrong) and the iPad. And the FirstRain customer intelligence system is right at the intersection of the two – with our sizzling hot iPad app and integration into the top collaboration portals. We have customers deploying in all of them: Jive, Salesforce, Microsoft and Quad (Cisco) and in every case enterprise sales reps also have iPads (either their own or company issue) so they can stay on top of their major customers wherever they are.


And I hope I never have to use a PC again… although this is a false hope since my husband is the lone hold out in our family because he is an electronics designer and needs the high end tools which will probably never be on Apple (sigh).

Image from AllThingsDigital

baby-ipad

Black and White and Dead all over

Oct 2011/in /by

It’s always interesting, as we begin to approach the end of another year, to think about how far technology has taken us once again. With the holidays right around the corner, I’m confident that more people than ever will be hoping for an iPad2 in their stockings. Since the new release of the iPad2 in March of 2011, Apple’s iPad sales have rocketed over the sales of any other tablet device. As a result (or perhaps vice-versa), people are shifting their behaviors when it comes to reading and consuming information. Maybe people are feeling compelled to help the environment and go green (saving trees is a great thing!). Perhaps more people are taking advantage of awesome applications like our very ownFirstRain, which helps deliver news in a faster, more efficient way than ever before (in fact have you tried our FirstRain iPad app?).  Or maybe people just feel compelled to keep up with the pace of modern technology—the iPad is a perfect, modern example of how amazing technology can be.

In the morning, I ride San Francisco’s Caltrain from the city down the Peninsula to our FirstRain office in San Mateo.  I can’t remember the last time I saw a rider reading the actual newspaper—and I take the Caltrain every day.  The typical Caltrain passenger behavior (and we’re talking about mostly Silicon Valley employees) is coffee in one hand and iPad in the other.  For the few not lucky enough to have a new iPad, you have people like me who scan news on their iPhone (although thankfully I am able to access news using the FirstRain iPhone app!) Either way, I’d say 8 out of 10 Caltrain riders definitely use technology to access the news they may have been receiving years ago from printed versions. I feel badly for the guy who stands at the end of the station trying to sell newspapers! This shift in behavior is not limited to just business professionals. Last week Mashable.com published a video portraying a 1-year old baby using an iPad. When handed a magazine, this adorable baby girl began to press the non-existent buttons, not turn the pages. She resorted to her only knowledge of how to “read,” that is: how to read using technology. Is this a sign of what’s to come for the next generation?  Will turning the physical pages in books, and magazines become ancient history? Was there a generation that mourned the physical satisfaction of pressing cuneiform into clay tablets, or decried the loss of reading an elegant scroll?

Last week, here at the FirstRain office, we had our own conversation about the lack of reading print media in today’s society.  Ryan Warren, our VP of Marketing, noticed and commented on the fact that I printed out a colleague’s blog to read over, instead of just editing and reading it on my laptop. I tend to focus better on what I’m reading when I print out a physical version (Facebook & Twitter are not floating around in the background this way). Proof that printing out someone’s paper to edit is becoming less common, he asked if this was something I did normally. What if I’ve been the only person out there who still prints out things to read?

So I decided to investigate. I sent out an email survey to a network of friends, all millennials, all in my age bracket, mostly young business professionals and a few graduate students, asking them all if they preferred reading text online rather than printing out and reading a hard copy.  I wasn’t surprised by most of the responses. 90% of those who answered preferred to read online.  Some preferred to read online only when the length of the reading material was limited to four pages or less. Others preferred to read online if it was reading for pleasure rather than reading for business or school. And sure enough, some opted to read online because it was “greener.” One friend said it was easier to “stay organized while having everything in one place” on their laptop.  I was quite impressed with the reasoning behind each of their answers. Am I the only person still printing!? Don’t get me wrong, I read articles online every day and I don’t buy physical paper newspapers. I use our FirstRain apps and use the Web to access the news. Yet, sometimes, I still chose to print things out in order to help me focus… even though I suppose this makes me old fashioned. Maybe when I finally purchase an iPad, I’ll give up my old habits. I’m really curious to see what lies ahead for future generations and how they’ll consume the media of tomorrow.  Will the baby with the iPad write this same blog post, wondering how many people still prefer touch interfaces instead of just having it plugged directly into their brain?

ipad1

Two of my loves just merged: FirstRain and the iPad

Oct 2011/in /by

We announced the FirstRain iPad app yesterday. Our new iPad app marries the elegance of the iPad with the precision of FirstRain’s business Web. It’s visual business monitoring – slick, fast, cool, beautiful, powerful – all the adjectives we can’t use in a press release but want to say. I truly love it and it’s now how I stay on top of my customers, our industry and everything else business wise that I need to know in a few minutes a day.

If you are in sales, marketing or purchasing, or you are a partner in a law firm, or a librarian, or a MI or CI professional, you are going to want a FirstRain subscription and this app. You are missing developments in your market, your customers, your vendors TODAY that you can now see real-time with the gentle swipe of a finger.


Bond and Competition

Apple vs. Google—Frienemies?

Feb 2011/in /by

Sometimes you have to wonder, are Google and Apple friends or enemies? They compete to move an industry left behind, forward. Is that really competition or is it a concentrated, coordinated effort to bump everyone else out?

Apple and Google are now in full competition for the digital newsstand. First Apple has a new subscription model – and yesterday Google introduced the “One Pass,” a similar payment system for digital content. With both of these competing services, will just one come out on top?  Both are a big deal to the publishers and while the initial changes are small the long-term effect is disruptive.

Apple has now made electronic magazine and newspaper subscriptions part of the iTunes app store. Their newsstand will be similar to the iBook store, in hopes of attracting people deeper into the digital world.  The newsstand is already selling the digital versions of various major magazines and newspapers, and Apple has readied changes in iTunes so that I (the end customer) am able to use the app store billing system, all on my one credit card.

Google’s “One Pass” does the same thing for Android devices and beyond (accessible via web browsers). They will implement the familiar “Google Checkout” online payment service to users who wish to pay for content. One Pass is in a race with Apple’s newsstand to compete for users who buy digital media through mobile devices. An additional perk that Google offers however is more flexibility in payment options. As long as the user is signed into their Google account, they can purchase publications from any other participating website (whereas Apple’s has to be through iTunes).

Clearly Google is building flexibility in as a differentiator to Apple.  Apple is putting in draconian control and a whopping 30% revenue share. Any news service currently offering an app with a subscription must now either offer the app within the Apple store, or allow Apple to offer the same app for the same price or less.

In contrast, Google is allowing purchase of subscriptions, articles, or even day passes at a much more competitive revenue split of 10%.

With Apple at 30% and Google at 10%, are they together trying to become a monopoly in the digital newsstand industry? Will it be worth it to publishers to accept this reduction in revenue just to associate with the “cool” Apple brand – or will they be compelled to access the explosive number of Apple device users?  Either way, whoever ends up dominating the digital newsstand, this will revolutionize the news industry.

If done right, these two “frienemies” will drive many more readers to the new digital era of media. And these new digital copies of magazines and newspapers will be anything but ordinary– they are a great outlet for a new generation of creativity of media creation. Can’t wait!

Here is a survey by Josh Gordon, comparing readers’ preferences on digital magazines, versus traditional websites.

water ripple

Can the Telcos calling business survive the iPhone now?

Feb 2010/in /by

A warning tremor rippled through the telco business last week – did you notice it? Apple announced that it will now allow iPhone users to use Internet calling services over cellular networks. Up until now you could use VoIP but only through Wi-Fi, i.e. not in most of the places you’d like make a phone call.

Last week “Apple … confirmed the change and said it applies to applications for the iPhone and the new iPad tablet device unveiled this week, some of which will come with 3G capabilities”.

You may remember that not long ago Apple blocked Google Voice which then triggered an FCC inquiry. Now “FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski on Thursday praised Apple’s latest decision”.

This is just the beginning of a disruption that will eat away at the core calling businesses of AT&T and it’s competitors. iPhone 3G apps from VoIP providers like fring, iCall and a soon to be upgraded Skype will start to eat away at call time and, while there are some technology challenges that are still annoying today, it’s only a matter of time.

Like many other technology trends it’s starting small but the disruption will be long term and profound. If your customers are in this space, or you invest in this space, there is a How To on our support blog you can use to get FirstRain to watch this space for you.

apple

Tracking Apple rumors with FirstRain

Jan 2010/in /by

On the eve of the rumored Apple tablet announcement, after Apple has just announced the best quarter ever, it’s interesting to look at how we stay on top of a hot topic like Apple rumors.

FirstRain has a topic called “Apple Rumors” because there is an abundance of chatter on the Web trying to answer the question “What’s next for Apple?” and it takes our ranking algorithms to pull out just the interesting stuff and remove the junk, duplication and noise.

The topic works particularly well since we crawl many of the sources of chatter for the company, which include 100s of blogs worldwide that seem to only discuss Apple’s future products. Anyone who has ever followed the blog the Boy Genius Report would know the valuable insight that select bloggers can provide. To reduce the noise on the Web, FirstRain uses a proprietary system to rank blogs in terms of authoritativeness and content quality.

This is how this topic is reported within FirstRain – and you can set up a saved search that will push the ranked web results to you in RSS or email.

In one quick summary using our signals on the right hand side or in the chart, you can see the rumors that may be interesting to follow up with additional research. Or, if you’re about to step into a meeting with Apple or listen to their conference call, the rumors could provide you with ideas for questions of the team.

  • Will iPhone OS 4.0 use Bing as default search engine?
  • Will iPhone 4 casing will be touch sensitive?
  • Will iPhone 4G gets OLED removable battery and video chat?

And you’ll notice what appears to be a possible June launch date for a Verizon iPhone, which has been speculated about for quite some time.

Note – Apple does try to shut down rumors too – as when they sued Think Secret and got it to shut down because it seemed to have too much inside information.

AAPL_1

Reading the Signals on Apple and the Mobile market

Jan 2010/in /by

The three most recent Signals on FirstRain tell an interesting story:


Combine this with a look at volume of content on the web around Apple. This is a chart of web content volume for Apple – here you can see that the discussion on Apple went quiet for a while, it then heated up around the Mobile computing discussion, but despite all the considerable chatter on the much-rumored Tablet on the web, the Quattro acquisition generated an even larger spike in web content.


All signs are that 2010 is the year that marks the major transition in Mobile computing platforms. The explosion of smart phones, the rapidly growing tablet choices, ebooks etc. all free consumers from their PCs and even from their Macs.

If the new Apple “Tablet” is as sexy a product as the iPhone was (and there is no reason to believe it won’t be) – their new move will allow them to grab an interesting piece of the mobile ad market and put Apple again in a commanding position.

This is probably why the Quattro acquisition is such a hot topic on FirstRain.

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