Apple’s Next Big Act

Even though Steve Jobs has declared that we live in post PC world. But it is still a fact that majority of worlds computers run Microsoft Windows. A staggering 85% of world’s computers run Microsoft Windows. Having said that, Apple has not dominated the desktop space since early 1980s. Since that time Microsoft has only grown its lead and mercilessly crushed all opposition in the process.

Today, the space has little competition barring a few million Macs (5%) or a meager Linux (1%) install base. This can all change in an instant if Apple decides to change one thing. Offer their OS X Lion on PC Platform.

Already, Hackintosh (Bootlegged Macs running on PC hardware) are a craze among the underground community. Hackintoshes have shown the way that the hardware and software can work wonderfully together. It is just up to Apple to officially support it.

If Apple does decide to offer its Operating System for non Apple hardware, there will be a huge paradigm shift. A large number of computers, especially in the corporate world, will switch to Macs. And here is why:

1. Better, stable and reliable Operating System than Windows.
2. Viruses do not work/affect Mac as badly as they do on Microsoft Windows offering better security.
3. Mac OS offers better quality products (app store, iLife, Facetime etc) that people will love to have on their PCs.
4. Cheaper than buying a Mac hardware
5. Steve Jobs stamp on the Operating System

Apple has never tried to sell just the Operating System. It has always thrived in selling a complete user experience coupled with out of this world innovations. Which is great but in today’s highly competitive world, selling the software in large numbers is the key to winning the race. Innovation can take you so far and sooner or later competitors catch on. Like Android did with iPhone. Like Windows did to Macintosh in 1980s. Now imagine, if Apple allowed its software to be available everywhere through HP, Dell and other hardware manufacturers, it will gain tremendous advantages. Here are the following advantages:

1. Adding millions of new machines without needing to ramp up production within Apple factories. A cheaper and faster proposition
2. Allowing even a larger number of computers access to its highly lucrative App store. The billions of downloads could simply become trillions in a matter of months.
3. Allowing it to compete better with Google (with its ChromeOS and Android) and Microsoft  operating system
4. With more users experiencing the power of Mac operating system, it will enable them to sell even more iPod, iPhone, iPads and even its hardware (Macbooks etc). Thus creating a hypergrowth in their various product segments.
5. Sell the dream of Mac everywhere

Finally, Apple can once again be the king of its kingdom that it single handedly created in 1977 by inventing the PC. This strategy will help it compete better with Google on one side and Microsoft on the other. Otherwise, Apple will always be a niche hardware/software manufacturer which will die off once the innovation machine stops.

Steve Jobs – Innovation Personified

Apple IIc

I wrote my first line of code on an apple II machine in BASIC when I was probably 13. Surely, there were IBM PCs around, but they looked clunkier than my Apple. I learned my first desktop publishing lessons on a Macintosh Classic connected to a laser printer on an apple talk network (the crude 1980s networking introduced by Apple). Wow! They had it all even then.

Next Computer

I moved on from Apple to Commodores about the time Steve left Apple to pursue other adventures. But by the time I was in college, I had found my new love. The NeXT computers with their ingenious NeXTStep Operating Systems. Yes, Steve’s second company was Next Computers right after he left Apple. So for the next four years (early 1990s) I wrote my papers on it, learned how to program in languages like C, Objective C, Perl, used this platform to build my first websites and ofcourse surfed the web (yes before Netscape era), and most importantly learned the Unix operating system the core of my career ever since.

NextStep Desktop

The hardware and the accompanying software were so advanced in their times that even today, they can hold their own against the best of Microsoft Windows. The little black boxes let us use Graphical WordPerfect to finish our documents in visually pleasing screen fonts and let us print them on laser printers with a click of a button. While IBM PCs still boasted textual green screen based word processors connected to clunky dot matrix printers that made more noise than did any useful printing. We used to send emails through (even voice mails to other NeXT Step users) to people across the world using its graphical and simple to use email client. It let us read classics including the complete works of Shakespeare and other great books in perfect fonts and styles (probably world’s first Kindle), let me surf the web (before the birth of Netscape or even the tech boom on (an obscure) omni-page browser) and yes, it was all graphical, many years ahead of Windows 95. Did I mention, in my spare time, we used to play beautifully written games on it too. And some of them were networked, so that friends on other computers could join in. Yes, I am talking early 1990s ten years before networked/online games became a craze.

The original Macintosh Computer

Today, all NeXT affectiandos know that Steve bought/merged his NeXT Computers into Apple upon his return in 1997 and then launched the revamped MacOS X, which is essentially the next generation of NeXTStep OS. MacOS X today powers all Apple computers and is one of the most stable Operating Systems out there.

Today, I cant think of life without my iPod when I go hiking or my iPad when I need to read the latest classic or just surf the web. And oh, I ditched my PS2 in favor of iPod/iPad games that are so cool and better.

Steve’s innovative creations through the ages have mimicked my love affair with computers. I still remember the goosebumps I used to get when my little BASIC programming codes would run perfectly on an Apple Iic. I still cant believe the ease with which we used to get desktop publishing done in late 1980s on a Macintosh. And I could have never finished college with so much fun had I not had my Next experience. And ofcourse, without iPad where will we be all today.

So Steve today, you stepped down from Apple and resigned as CEO, but to us, who have lived through your life with Apple, you will be missed. And we hope that you can still play a critical role as Chairman and Board member in many years to come.

Be the first to market. Always!

First to market, first to realize the potential of an idea and its underlying technology and executing the business strategy ambitiously is the key to succeed. This has been the mantra ever since the Industrial Revolution began in earnest in mid 18th century.

Take the example of automobile industry at the turn of the 20th century. The first to invent and patent a combustion engine driven vehicle was Daimler and Karl Benz in Germany around 1885. Both had independently proposed an automobile powered by internal combustion engine (Benz) and gas powered (Daimler). They probably never met and had not envisioned that by 1926 their competing enterprises would merge to form Daimler Benz makers of famous Mercedes mark, one of the greatest names in automobile history.

In 1896, Henry Ford did the same with his first American vehicle in Detroit. By 1910 the automobile business was peaking in the United States with over 250 independent manufacturers competing for their share. There was constant innovation and improvement over previous designs. Literally, the car of yesterday was made obsolete by the latest model coming out every few months. Not much unlike the Internet craze of today where the latest iPhone or Android renders everything else obsolete.

By the year 2000 the manufacturers of automobile in the USA had dwindled to three, namely Chrysler (then Daimler Chrysler), Ford Motor Company and General Motors. The rest had either merged/bought out by these three or went out of business during the course of the century.

Today, Daimler Benz and their famous mark Mercedes is one of the leading brands out there. So is Ford Motor Company with F150 series trucks. But these were one of the first companies to realize the potential of an internal combustion engine based automobile as a real alternative to horse drawn carriage. Considering at that time, a car could not travel more than a few miles nor any faster than a slow moving elephant, yet the potential of the newly developed technology was huge. To make matters worse, there were no asphalt roads only pot hole littered dirt tracks that made driving a nightmare. All it required was belief in your idea, passionate hard work and precision engineering. Inventors like Ferdinand Porsche, Henry Ford, Karl Benz were out there designing vehicles right at the beginning. Today their brands have a history to tell.

But what about General Motors? It was not there right at the beginning. It came about in mid 1920s. That is true, but its individual brands were there from the beginning. This includes brands like Oldsmobile (now defunct), Chevrolet and Cadillac those were pioneering new vehicles that were competing head on with the bigwigs of their time. They all merged to form the General Motors group by mid 1920s and hence the birth of the largest automobile company in the world.

Being first, understanding the market dynamics and executing the right strategy is the key to becoming a brand and leader in your field. History constantly reminds us of this fact and car industry is one such example.

Today, the game is changing again for the auto industry. The birth of hybrids and alternative fuel powered vehicles are making the technological innovations of last century obsolete. By 2010, over 50 new automobile manufacturers were registered in the USA with more likely to join them. And exclusively all of them are focused on alternative fuel based vehicles or using computer driven autonomous vehicles. The current market leaders include Toyota, Honda and Tesla as they have their vehicles plying the roads in multitudes. The next few decades, this innovation will be fueled by new ideas and backed by new technology. It will be redefining the industry and maybe some of the old horses (Ford, GM, Daimler etc) might not survive the new wave. But maybe tomorrows General Motors could be Tesla itself, redefining the future of commute for the world.

So whatever your field, whatever your enterprise, try to innovate and lead from the front. Do not wait for others to show you the way.

Indus Script – Holy Grail of Undeciphered Scripts

One of the world’s oldest cultures is known as Indus Valley civilization. A culture that was far more advanced than we give it credit today. For instance, 5,000 years ago they had cities built on a grid based system. A water distribution system to homes and most remarkably, a citywide sanitation system, world’s first, which allowed people to use the bathroom in their homes.

The society was well ahead of its times, and thousands of years before Greeks or Romans had something similar. The remains of their cities can be found all over present day Pakistan. The most famous of them is Moenjodaro. A city worth rivaling the best ancient world left for us to wonder.

The civilization also left behind remnants of their long forgotten language, the Indus Script. Today, scientists around the world are trying to use technology to resolve its mysteries and share with us what they said in those few tablets, seals and signposts that we have gathered.

This video shows one such effort of how they are getting closer to an answer. It is one of the greatest language puzzles of all time and a Holy Grail of undecipherable scripts.

>Kindle or Paperback?

>
Kindle or Paperback?

That is the question which my digitally inclined friends and I are pondering. So at our home, we have painstakingly collected close to thousand book personal library. The collection is still growing as we speak as each week a new book is added from somewhere. 


These books are stored in nicely built custom wooden book shelves line the walls of our home including bedrooms. Yet, I have even more books in boxes stowed away in storage. Sadly some of them have to remain there till I find time and money to build more custom book shelves to house them.


But now, with Kindle, iPad and other ereaders, the concept of a home library seems quaint, heavy and expensive. I can fit almost all of my books (they take up over 30+ cartons) of them and many more onto a book reader thinner than the Time Magazine that I get delivered each week. Or is it?


I have my dad’s edition of Charles Dickens novels which themselves are over 50 years old. I have Shakespeare in a special hardbound collectors edition to share with friends. And oh, Homer’s Illiad and Newtons books in Great Books Americana edition. But Kindle have them too and they are all free (atleast at the time of writing this).


Suddenly my multi-room, multi-shelf book collection can now be housed inside a magazine size Kindle.


So is Kindle and iPad the future of book reading? 


Hmmm. Something to ponder.


What happens when Apple goes bust or Amazon no longer exists? What happens to my books bought through electronic medium for e-readers? Will they survive the decades ahead in digital form and can I pass them on to the next generation like my dad shared them with us?


Can iPad books be still the thing to read in say 2030? Or will they be dead along with the technology that housed them? I can still read paperbacks that I bought during highschool (1980s era) without any trouble. Will that be true with an iPad?


History of digital world tells us that we wont have a Kindle in 2030. Today’s “in” and “hot” technology will be lost, old fashioned and forgotten by that time. Does anyone remember Newton from Apple? The world’s first handheld PDA that died unceremoniously during Steve Jobs second coming. Does anyone remember a Palm PDA that once controlled 95% of all handheld market? Where is it now? 


And then, we went through the same crazy world with music. The LPs, cassettes, CDs all replaced and rebought in mp3 format. Yes, we all ended up buying again and again the same song after every so many years. And then the same happened with Videos. My Star Wars VHS collection no longer plays on modern players. Heck, I need to buy HD versions again just to keep the movie playable.


Technology changed so fast that we lost information that we were unable to transfer to the next medium. Palm games and content is not necessarily available onan iPhone or Android phone. I do have my Atari (1982) still with me with the original Pacman, Space Invaders and Astroids. But Atari is defunct and those game cartridges are worthless and not playable on the current hardware. 


So the question really is will my books bought today be usable on a hardware 20 years later?


This is a problem and we need a solution. A workable solution.


The book readers from Apple, Amazon, Barnes and Noble need to agree on a common protocol to share content. The hardware should be independent of where the books were purchased from. In other words, if I buy something from Apple, it should be readable on Apple hardware or even Barnes and Noble or any other reader that uses the same protocol. Currently, a Kindle book is only readable on kindle (be it on ipad, PC or a kindle hardware). But a Kindle book should be readable on iBooks as well. And an ebook from iBooks should be readable on Barnes & Noble Nook.


Without this collaboration, it is difficult for any serious book reader and collector to move to the digital world.


So till then, I will prefer to buy paperbacks for all the great books that I find in the market and will only occasionally purchase ebooks as I want to pass on the library of books to the next generation to enjoy.

Tintin – Secret of the Unicorn is now a Spielberg Movie

The long wait is finally going to be over this December 2011 when Adventures of Tintin will make it to be big screen. The comic strip “Secret of the Unicorn” is going to be one hell of a ride for us Tintin affectiondos when it is released in 3D in cinemas worldwide. The technology, as seen from the just released teaser trailer, promises to bring great CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) to the big screen in 3D. It literally blurs the lines between animation and real life drama with such realistic imagery.

The movie is directed by Steven Spielberg and produced by Peter Jackson. The deadly combo are sure to give the world a taste of Tintin that has a huge cult following worldwide.

The movie is based on the comic strip Secret of the Unicorn and by the looks of the trailer, it seems to be following the storyline originally penned by Herge decades ago. But you never know with Spielberg who prefers to change the story to suite his movie.

Tintin fans worldwide are no less passionate about his adventures as one can find Star Wars fans. They are everywhere and love every bit of if, despite the comics being written in pre-word war II era.

The trailer gave a glimpse of all the major characters including Captain Haddock, Thomson and Thompson, Professor Calculus, Snowy and of course Tintin. Let’s see if they can live up to their comic fame on the big screen.

Greg Mortenson – You are still my hero

CBS may have taken a few potshots at you to improve their sagging TV ratings. Jon Krakauer: might have gotten his 15 minutes of fame that he has been so desparately seeking to improve his profile (and possibly make his next book a best seller). But in reality none of this changes the fact, that for the better part of last 20 years you have dedicated your life to building hundreds of schools in the most remote and forgotten parts of the war ravaged world.

It also does not change the fact, that your schools were the first education that anyone has received in in generations, especially the girls.

It also does not change the fact, that your books have inspired countless people, to think for others rather than themselves for the better good of humanity.

Your actions, have inspired a whole new generation of philanthropists and social entrepreneurs who are out there trying to play their part in making this world a better place.

While CBS’s tabloid journalism might try to derail your noble mission to educate the poor of the world, it does not change the fact that each day another child comes home better educated than his parents. Each day, a girl learns the meaning of life and her rights as a human being which sadly her mother missed out by being kept illiterate.

While the CBS investigative team (Andy Court, Kevin Livelli and Maria Usman) has never left the comfort of their homes to visit any war torn regions, nor have they gone and lived among the poorest of the poor. They certainly do not know the meaning of poverty, uneducation and powerless lives. They are probably just seeking cheap publicity to further their journalistic careers. Today, they take a pot shot at you, tomorrow, they might go after Nelson Mandela.

Dr Greg, you are our hero and you will remain one no matter what. What you have done for the people of Pakistan and Afghanistan is unique and angelic. May God give you reward in this life and hereafter for your good deeds.

>Startup to Massive Companies

>I ran across this interesting blog post by Reid Hoffman, (Linkedin co-founder) that talks about how to take your startup big.

http://greylockvc.com/2011/03/22/ten-entrepreneurship-rules-for-building-massive-companies/

Keeping a startup as startup for more than five years can be a drag. In worst case scenario, your competitors will catch up and grow beyond you. Or someone with deeper pockets might under cut you. Hence, taking it to the next level, and making it big is the key. So plan ahead and plan well.

Moin Akhter – Greatest Comedy Act of our Times

The greatest comedian ever to have been born in South Asia (India, Pakistan and Bangladesh) played his last act today. Moin Akhter died today in Karachi, Pakistan when he suffered his second heart attack. He was 61.

I still remember with fond memories, when as a kid, I used to hear audio tapes of stand up comedy acts of Moin Akhter. Even to an 7 year old, he was funny. Really funny. My mom would put on the tapes to amuse us all. Not just the kids, but even 70 year olds could not stop but laugh at his jokes.

He was a big hit across the Indo-Pak subcontinent drawing in large audiences wherever he performed. Even some of his memorable  jokes made their way into Bollywood cinema and acted in the films by the greats like Amitabachan and Dharmindara.

He made it big on stage, as a stand up comedian traveling worldwide and entertaining people of all ages. His jokes were always family friendly and never crossed the border into what one may consider “Adult only” audience.

He respected his peers and elders and encouraged youngsters to make a name for himself. Moin Akhter was a truly gifted person. And he used it to perfection in every field he worked.

I share here a link to one of his memorable program on PTV in 1980s where we see him take on a banter with some of the greatest contemporaries of their time.

http://youtu.be/aT7enljEJsE

Comedy cannot be the same without him.

May Allah rest his soul in peace.

Can Australia, England or India lift the Cup?

It is worth a thought. But can Australia, England, India or South Africa succeed in lifting the cup? Based on the cricket played in the past one year it is clear that these teams are well placed above the rest to lift the coveted cup. Australia, having soundly beaten England in a recent one day series, while India and South Africa have triumphed over opponents have made their case for lifting the trophy very strong.

Pakistan has not shined in a worldcup since their final appearance in 1999. In fact, since that time, they have had spectacular exists in 2003 and 2007 worldcups. Making the worldcup campaign moot. This time round, they are without the services of some of their best fast bowlers (Asif and Aamir) who are sadly banned for at least two worldcups (including this one) and therefore, are limping into the tournament with not a strong bowling attack. Their openers are beginning to score runs, which is rare, but can they last the form in the tournament only time will tell. Without the top order firing, Pakistan will have a hard time even winning the quarter final.

New Zealand have had a torrid time in the recent past and therefore their chances of even making to quarterfinals are remote. While Bangladesh cannot get their act together for more than a game to even scare any of their opponents. They might win an odd game here and there but that’s where their World Cup campaign will wither away.

West Indies have not really fired since the 1983 World Cup Tournament in England. Heck, they have not made even the semi finals since that time. And that is almost 30 years. Their chances of winning quarterfinals are very remote considering that they have hardly won any matches in recent past.

Sri Lanka, is probably the only team capable of breaking into the semi final lineup by causing an upset between our favourite four (India, Australia, England and South Africa). However, it is only an outside chance. They are the finalists of the 2007 worldcup so they do have some match winners among them, but time will tell if their campaign will go beyond Quarter finals.

The teams that make it to the semi-final are going to be India, Australia, South Africa and England. All these teams have tasted victory at all levels of the game and know what it takes to win. They will be pushing each opponent to their limit and will make it harder for the rest to win this tournament. If I had a choice of a winner among them, I choose a final between England and South Africa with South Africa finally lifting the Worldcup.

But in cricket, one never knows what is going to happen till it happens. So we shall have to wait, watch and see who finally lifts the coveted trophy.