Blog post

Beating drums

March 11, 2012 – 7:01 pm

Beating Drums

Image source: Gary Denness

 

Quite often businesses resort to announcing products way before they are ready to ship and sometimes even before they have started making them. For example Microsoft is known to announce and show off technology demonstration months or even years before the product ships.

 

So, why do they start beating drums so early? Here are a 6 reasons why :

  1. To avoid loosing existing customers: Customer who are using your existing products want to be re-assured that you have something exciting right around the corner. In the age of global competition and unlimited choices keeping the customer engaged is more important now than ever before.
  2. To gauge the demand: This is primarily used by startups to gauge demand for a particular product idea to get an understanding of whether it’s worth building and developing a business model around it.
  3. To help define & tune the product: Announcing your product early helps business engage potential customers, gather feedback and help define & tune the current product or enable the business to create follow-on products derived from the one they just announced.
  4. To line up partners & enable the ecosystem: Certain products heavily rely on having partners (including developers) sign-up. E.g., Windows operating system needs developers to update their apps and make new one way ahead of the product is available. Announcing a product early will help gather the attention of partners & engage with them early on in the product cycle to be successful.
  5. Competition is making noise : News is a form of advertising. When competition announced something compelling and is making a lot of noise – often business respond with their own announcements to counteract.
  6. Financial returns : For public companies product announcements have a impact on the market value of the company and certain times companies do resort to using this to the advantage of the shareholders.

Pre-announcing products does not always work and can easily backfire if used without understanding as covered in the article Knowledge@Wharton.

What is your take on companies pre-announcing products?

 


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When competition shows up

March 7, 2012 – 7:49 am

Whether you are a trailblazer or a entrepreneur, competition does eventually shows up. And more competition will showup as days go by.

You do have a choice to either ignore competition or to accept, adapt & thrive. Ignoring competition is usually a path to annihilation. Accepting the existence of competition and adapting by focussing on your strengths, differentiating and giving customers a reason to choose you is a means to thriving in competition.

When competition does show up it attacks you with innovation or price and can cause significant loss in revenues. Traditional business theory suggests to leverage complex analysis and respond back to competition’s moves. However, it’s more important to focus on your team & product strengths, find ways to differentiate, give reasons for your customers to pick you instead of someone else. In a grocery store shelf, stocked with various boxes of cereal some boxes appeal to price, others to taste and the rest to packaging and brand conscious customers. There are a few cereal boxes which don’t really speak out why they are different or interesting.

So, when competition does show up what is the reason a customer will pick you?

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What is PandaBoard about?

February 29, 2012 – 1:43 pm

 

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Image source: dougward and adapted by Jay Goluguri

I have been part of the PandaBoard project since the beginning. When we launched the PandaBoard about 14 months back we did not put a specific usecase around it. We had a single goal “create a open development platform available with latest cutting edge OMAP SoC and make it available at the lowest cost possible to enable broadest adoption”.

Developers around the world have embraced the PandaBoard and we have shipped a ton of platforms and strong demand continues. The PandaBoard platform continues to evolve and lead the development platform pack with the launch of PandaBoard ES leveraging 1.2Ghz Dual Core OMAP4460 SoC.

Developers did amazing things with PandaBoard which we could not have possibly imagined at the time of conception. For example:  Mind controlled robots, autonomous UAV & cars, Clusters & Builders, Software Defined Radio, Devices for assisting visually impaired, media centers to name a few.

A lot of PandaBoard developers have asked for making their own OMAP4 powered products. Given the OMAP44xx 0.4mm BGA package is not easy to work with and complex to build a board with for most production houses and challenges in support. We have worked with several 3rd Party SoM vendors to provide access to low volume SoM. This enables developers to design a board & product around these SoM and procure them in low volumes.  We continue explore options to a enable broad range of products .

All in all this reinforces the belief of not putting a firm use-cases around the platform but to enable open innovation with the PandaBoard. I do want to attempt and pen down a few key things that set’s PandaBoard apart:

  • Open: PandaBoard platform is open and will always be.
  • Cutting Edge Application Processor: PandaBoard platform will have the high performance and low-power leading edge OMAP SoC
  • Lowest cost: Low cost principle is to enable access to broadest range of developers without compromising the capabilities and application potential the OMAP SoC can enable. A couple of examples: 
    • we opted to have 1Gb of LPDD2 (RAM) instead of cutting a corner and saving a few dollars on the final price. This enables developers to leverage the full power of Dual Cortex-A9 powered OMAP4 SoC for their applications without crippling their creativity due to lack of RAM.
    • We could have choosen to drop the simultaneous dual display support and save a few dollars but we believe it’s important to enable such differentiated features of OMAP SoC and enable developers to leverage it.
    • We could have chosen not to have world-wide distributors sell the PandaBoard (i.e., build/ship directly) and save a several dollars typically in distributor mark up. But, we find that having the convenience to buy PandaBoard with familiar & local distributors makes lot of sense to most developers and we choose to make it broadly available with distributors. That said we will continue innovate on cost.
  • Robust Platform: We learned from looking at other open-source hardware project experiments that it very critical to have a robust and fully functional hardware platform at launch. i.e., we cant expect to sell a <$200 platform and expect the developer to upgrade as something is not yet working in the hardware they have at hand. So, the core driving principle is that when we ship – we ensure all the hardware is fully working and all peripheral are as robust as possible
  • Strong Upstream support: OMAP platform has been leading the pack interms of upstream kernel support and PandaBoard platform will continue to have solid support in upstream. We believe this is a key to enable developers and projects around the platform. In addition PandaBoard happens to be the ONLY development platform support in upstream Android Open source project.

 

The PandaBoard project will continue to evolve innovate and listen to the developer community. The future is bright and awesome!

 

Disclaimer: The content of this posting is my own opinion & view and dont necessarily represent my employer’s (Texas Instruments Inc.,) positions, strategies or opinions.

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Simulate your worst fears and gain clarity on what’s REALLY important

February 28, 2012 – 4:57 pm

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Wrong priorities, false assumptions, layers of fears are what prevent us from gaining clarity & getting to that which is REALLY important to us in our life. Often we hear stories of people who had a near death experience or serious life event that enabled them see through this and gain clarity on what’s ‘really’ important.

How can we get to that which is really important, that which really matters to us, that which we care about deeply without actually going through such events ourselves? This is question that has been raised often & by many people and is what I will attempt to address in this post.

I strongly believe that we do need major jolts to push us to gain such clarity. However, I do also believe that we have the right apparatus, in our mind to simulate our worst fears & experience the events in our minds to help gain clarity on what important. This is the key!

Here are some tips on how we can do simulate over worst fear:

  • Make a list of yours worst fears. Let take a example “The fear of dying”.
  • Set aside a couple of hours in a day: I would recommend morning hours when usually the rest of your family is asleep and when you don’t need to rush to a meeting or run a errand.
  • Sit quietly and contemplate about this fear: Here are examples questions you can ask yourself and try to chip away the stuff from the really important stuff. e.g., “If I only had 1 year to live” : “What would I do over the next year?”, “who are the people I want to spend my time with?”, “What are the experiences I will seek?” and more importantly “what stuff from my life will I stop doing?”. The key is to seriously ‘believe’  & ‘visualize’ the statement that you are contemplating on in your mind.
  • Make notes: Write down key points that come-up from your contemplation of the fear 1) important stuff list 2) stop doing list
  • Pare down : Most likely your list has the core elements that you think are important but it might be a little too long or not clear enough. Try to distill the key elements out of the list by clubbing things which are similar & dropping stuff that is redundant or not relevant.
  • You have it! : You now have a decent set of things that REALLY matter to you that have just passed the “worst fear” test. This is something you can trust and look upto for clarity, direction & priority.

Changing your life and developing clarity needs commitment and hardwork. Tips like above are only useful if you make time and put in the effort to really try it.

Have you tried something similar? What other tips & trick do you use to gain clarity in your own life?

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My life with a smartphone – 2011 edition

December 19, 2011 – 4:12 pm

 

Smartphones are not new to my life. I have over the last 10 years with my current employer have been intimately involved in the smartphone technology revolution we are witnessing today. As with any technology the way each of us embrace it and adapt to it is our own unique story. I wanted to dedicate a post on how I have been using smartphone in 2011 and how it has affected my life.

My primary smartphone in 2011 has been the Nokia N8. (Thanks to @NokiaDeveloper for giving me a C7 that I immediately sold on Amazon and bought the N8 instead). To give you a little context of when I came from I had used the HTC HD2 (loaded with Android/CM7) for a few months – CM7 was great and the Android appstore offering on par with the best – however, the HD2 was a bit large at 4.3” display (which is excellent for webbrowsing) and had a mere 5MP (w/LED flash) camera, the battery hardly lasted a day of use.

Let’s take a look at my daily usage:

Morning Drill:

On most days I miss the wakeup alarm on my phone (I cant blame the loud N8’s loud speaker). But I first check out the time. (NOTE: I dont like wearing a watch and I simply love the Nokia N8’s always on Screen saver clock – it’s one of the most handy & used features by me.) I typically keep the phone around me for about 30 mins while I get ready – checking new emails (via Mail for exchange & Gmail) and reply to urgent stuff, twitter/ facebook (via Gravity) and review my day’s appointments. I also catchup on the latest news via CNN & Engadget. Ocassionally, I check the weather as well.

At work

My usage at work tends to be mostly answering phone calls (about 30mins) and responding to SMS. I do most of my primary work on a Mac and typically don’t use the N8 for anything else at this time.

Evening Dance

My evening are filled with family, home/outdoors, shopping malls/dinner etc. I typically use the Nokia Drive to navigate us to the destination and it works like a charm (except for search which can be improved). I also use the Music application to play our favourites tunes in the car (especially to keep my daughter entertained while I drive). I tend to take most of the photos with my camera (typically about 5 per day) and upload them to directly to flickr (via PixelPipe). I do occasionally check twitter/facebook and news (especially while my wife is busy shopping). I also typically read about 5-10 webpages on a my phone each evening espeically when away from home. I take picture of stuff I want to track in Evernote and email it to my evernote account. (due to lack of evernote client on N8).

Good Night Kiss

One last email check & final dose of twitter/facebook before I sleep. And then finally before I sleep – I religiously set a couple of alarms for next morning.

Other usage notes:

  • Phone charging: On most days I don’t really bother charging the phone at night as I know that my N8 will make it thought the night without any issues (I cant claim that for other power powerful smartphones I have played). I typically charge my phone using the Nokia’s fast charger each morning for an hour or so. I know that if I need to charge it a microUSB port would be available in my car & at work. And if there is a risk that my battery will die – I have a fast way to switch on the power savings mode that will certainly get me through till I reach a power outlet.

Built-in Apps:

  • Mail : Mail for exchange and Gmail support work fine and meet my needs.

  • Webbrowser: The browsing experience is seriously lacking (In areas of display resolution, browser performance & rendering) . Once you taste the Android browsing experience — you really can see what I mean.

  • Calendar: Works beautifully. I just hope that the home screen widget uses space more efficiently

  • Camera: The best image quality (unparalleled in any 2011 smartphone). Performance needs improvement (especially startup & shot to shot). The UI is not bad – but, can really be improved.

  • Maps: Best mapping application I have used (and it’s work every penny of the $8B Nokia invested :) – however searching for places can be improved.  I cant see myself using the Android maps as it has no offline support and.

  • Music: Mostly to list to music on-the go in my car and when I work out.

3rd Party Apps

Most of the big ecosystems (iOS, Android & soon WindowsPhone) have been making a big noise on with their app store metrics. But, I am a strong believer that ‘quality not quantity’ is important to a end user. I also firmly believe that most users use about 10-15 apps on a regular basis (though they may try a lot more in a device’s lifetime).

Here are apps I use on a regular basis:

  • Gravity – For Twitter & facebook

  • Nokia Pulse – Still in Beta. But, I use this to send short updates to my family

  • PixelPipe – Use it to send picture from my N8 directly to flickr.

  • Upcode – QR codes are not dying. So, this is quite handy.

  • AAS – I keep track of whats going on in the Symbian world (afterall Nokia N8 is a Symbian ^3 device)

  • Enagdget (RSS widget – I made my own via appwizard)

Ocassional Usage:

  • Joikuspot: Somehow this has been pulled from Nokia store in US. But you can get it directly from the publisher.

  • Google Maps: I mainly use it as the Nokia Maps seach mostly never finds what I am looking for. I typically seach on google maps and then load up the info into nokia maps to give me turn by turn routing.

  • HDR Pro Camera: Just a nice app to capture and experiment with HDR photos.

  • Sports Tracker : I use it to record my occasional jog

  • Talking Hamster : It’s a neat little app that I use to amuze my daughter

  • Skype

  • Angry Birds : A casual game I play when I have a few dull minutes I want to pass

So now with all of this said – smartphone (N8 in 2011) has now woven into my daily living. Here is summary of what I learned about my my smartphone usage & preferences.

The essentials (what I can’t part:

  • Core phone: Yep – it need to be solid, stable & should work!

  • Robust Email: It should just work with a range of email accounts

  • Great camera: Though I have moved to using a DSLR at home for photos – smartphone camera will continue the camera at my arms reach for years to come. So, I just need the best camera in the phone I carry.

  • Usable & intuitive browser: Currently very lacking in a N8 – I do think a good browser is a must for me (something on part with Android browser on my HD2)

  • Best Text input: should be intutive and fast (this is currently a limiting factor in N8 soft keyboard which feels contrained).

  • 3.5-3.9” Display – I cant really go back to the E72/Blackberry style phones after I had the taste of bliss (larger touch screen devices like the N8)

  • Functional button & key add to usability: Manufacturers are on a path to removing all button from a phone – but I have found that I like thoughtfully designed and implemented button (e.g., the Lock/Unlock key on the N8 – missing in most modren smartphones).

What’s missing:

  • Nokia N8 currently does not have apps for Evernote & Audible that I use often.

  • Breadth of apps is important: My needs and workflow is dynamic – I would like to have an app ready on my smartphone so that it fits into my workflow.

  • Fast camera performance is a must.

  • Fitness Accessories: I would like my phone to keep track of my weight, calories burned, sleep times etc – an accessory that works out of the box will keep me healthy

     

 

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