Apple iPad Unleashing Creative Destruction On PC Industry

Jul. 26 2011 - 9:46 am | 2,404 views | 0 recommendations | (Image via Wikipedia)

The Apple iPad continues its assault on the mighty PC industry and the market’s voracious appetite for the product indicates that PC makers have yet to feel the full impact of this paradigm-shattering product.

In fact, the most striking revelations in Apple’s stellar quarterly earnings report last week were not that its revenue rose 82% to $28.6 billion, or that its net income surged 125% to $7.3 billion—although those results are certainly striking.

No, what really stood out on the call was the realization that when it comes to the iPad and its impact on enterprise customers and on the PC industry itself, we are not really yet even at the end of the beginning—we are at most in the middle of the beginning.

(About the author: after many years as an editor and writer with InformationWeek and TechWeb, Bob Evans joined SAP in April as VP of strategic communications.)

That is, we are only just starting to be able to gauge the massive and wide-ranging impact that the iPad is having and will continue to have on enterprise computing and on the venerable PC industry itself: the best (or worst, depending on where you sit) is yet to come.

I have five specific reasons for believing that, and I’ll get to those in just a moment.

For the PC industry, the iPad represents something very like the meteor that blasted into the Earth 65 million years ago and made life on the planet unsustainable for dinosaurs. While life went on in countless other variations, for dinosaurs and other animals unable to adapt to the new realities of life on a very different Earth, the clock had simply run out.

Several weeks ago, after analyzing Apple’s first-quarter earnings results, I floated a somewhat similar idea on my SAP.com blog , and as a result some PC companies suggested that the clock had also run out on my ability to think.

They argued that while the new tablet format epitomized by the iPad is certainly shaking things up a bit, the mighty PC—a device that I readily admit will be remembered as one of the greatest inventions of the 20th century, if not the past two or three centuries—is more relevant than ever, and that a few permutations and adaptations will give it another 30 years of great success.

Hey, if I were in their shoes, I’d be saying the same thing. But the marketplace is telling us something quite different, and the marketplace always proves to be the best source of objective truth.

The best chance that PC makers have is to be brutally honest with themselves and admit that they need to get out of the spaces in which tablets will simply offer superior performance by virtue of their flexibility, form factor, user interface, immediacy, and growing acceptance as the preferred device through which people want to experience the world—at work, at home, at play, or on the go.

That brutal honesty must also extend to a hard-hearted analysis of which market segments, applications and functions will be dominated by tablets, and the PC companies should then plan to move their PCs out of those categories over the next 18-24 months.

At the same time, that analysis should also reveal areas where the PC’s sophistication, power, application depth, proven levels of security, and universally accepted standards should allow it to outperform tablets by an overwhelming margin—and that’s where the PC companies’ time, money, and innovation should be applied.

So about those five factors powering and accelerating the iPad’s creative destruction of the PC industry: here’s the list, and then I’ll offer a bit more on each.

1) Cannibalization’s Diminishing Returns: while the iPad snacks on Macs, it lives on a non-stop diet of PCs

2) Pilot to Penetration: after a year of playing footsie with enterprise customers, Apple’s getting serious

3) Unexpected Applications: corporate customers are deploying iPads in totally unprecedented ways

4) The Apple-Store Phenomenon: over the past five years, can any retail chain on Earth match Apple’s astonishing financial success?

5) Hooking the Kids: the iPad has been a blowout success in the K-12 market.

As you consider those factors individually and collectively, please bear closely in mind one very important detail that, in the context, is absurdly easy to overlook or to forget entirely:

The iPad is only 15 months old.

So just imagine the momentum the iPad will have generated by the time it hits the ripe old age of, oh, 3 years. As you think about that, bear these factors in mind:

1) Cannibalization: Apple freely admits that the iPad’s chewing into sales of its own Mac PCs. But COO Tim Cook also freely admits that in spite of that dynamic, Mac sales continue to outgrow PC sales by a factor of 5X. “In terms of cannibalization, we do believe that some customers chose to purchase an iPad instead of the new Mac during the quarter, but we also believe that even more customers chose to purchase an iPad over a Windows PC,” Cook said on the earnings call per the transcript from Morningstar. “As I’ve said before, there is a lot more of the Windows PC business to cannibalize than the Mac. Also, we believe that the Mac has many other attributes that would make it continue to do well in the market. We’re very happy that we grew 14% versus the markets growth of 2.6% which is about five times as Peter said earlier.”

2) Pilot to Penetration: In each of its past three earnings calls, Apple has emphasized the unexpected success the iPad’s having in enterprise accounts, in spite of Apple’s admitted lack of focus there. In last week’s call, Cook signaled that Apple’s approach toward corporate customers is starting to shift from surprised acceptance to focused strategy—or as he put it, from pilot to penetration. “We are also gaining traction in the enterprise,” Cook said. “From the numbers that Peter spoke of, obviously now our attention is now turning and we’re starting to get corporations to do not just tests and pilots, but even more—it’s really converted to more of a penetration focus.” In a related comment, Cook expanded on that theme: “I would characterize this as we’re still building it out, and we do a bit better each quarter. We’re very, very happy with the numbers that Peter talked about earlier about the level of interest and taking people to the pilot and initial deployment stages, and now our attention is moving to penetration within those accounts versus sort of getting on the standards lists.”

3) Unexpected Applications: Because the iPad—and some other tablets—offer such profoundly different user experiences and intuitive capabilities, businesses are discovering that the iPad can be applied in a wide range of often-unexpected uses, and frequently in applications where no PC has ever gone before. CFO Peter Oppenheimer, after noting that quarterly revenue from sales of iPads and related accessories surged 179% to more than $6 billion, said that 86% of the Fortune 500 are now testing or deploying the iPad, up from 75% just three months ago. “In the 15 months since iPad was shipped, we’ve seen iPad used in the enterprise in ways we could have never imagined,” Oppenheimer said. “Companies like Boston Scientific, Xerox and Salesforce.com are deploying thousands of iPads in revolutionizing how their sales teams engage with customers. iPad is being used inside the country’s top hospitals like HCA and Cedars-Sinai and in retail at Nordstrom and Estee Lauder’s Clinique counters. General Electric, SAP and Standard Chartered have developed internal apps for training, currency tracking and business-process management to help make employees even more productive. Alaska Airlines and American Airlines are using the iPad in cockpits to replace paper-based navigational and reference information that pilots carry with them on every flight. We continue to be delighted by the diverse and sometimes unexpected use cases we see around iPad.”

4) The Apple-Store Phenomenon: While many retailers are retrenching their brick-and-mortar installations, Apple is expanding aggressively across the globe. And the company’s making some breathtaking bets along the way: for some time, Apple has wanted to add a fifth New York City store in the beautiful and densely trafficked Grand Central Station, but couldn’t find a suitable space. So Apple has combined its creative thinking with a sliver of the $76 billion in cash it’s built up and is paying $5 million to an established restaurant in Grand Central to vacate its lease 8 years early. And on top of that, Apple’s also agreed to take on a 300% rental increase for the space: it will pay $1.1 million per year, while the restaurant paid “only” $264,000. Based on the performance of Apple’s 327 stores (and 30 more will be added in Q3) and the brand impact its global retail network helps to create, it’s not unreasonable to expect that one year from now, the Apple Store phenomenon will be generating $5 billion in annual revenue. From last quarter, revenue for the stores was up 36% and retail-segment margin outpaced that by growing at more than 40%.

5) Hooking the Kids: A growing number of digitally native children and teenagers are being exposed to the iPad in schools, and this comment from Cook tells the whole story: “Our K-12 generally takes a very long time for new product categories, but last quarter we sold more iPads in K-12 than we did Macs. To do that after just five quarters is absolutely shocking. We would have never predicted that.”

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Why Amazon's tablet will threaten the iPad - msnbc.com

Amazon has become an electronics and digital services giant, with enough product savvy, customer leverage and brand power to do battle with Apple itself. The tablet war begins in earnest when Amazon introduces an Android-powered Kindle — hopefully this fall.

Yesterday, I wrote about five things the Android tablet camp is missing in its fight against the iPad, a fight it appears to be losing pretty badly. I mentioned that things could change when Amazon's tablet is in the mix. Here's specifically what Amazon brings to the fight:

A blurred line between products and services
The benefit Apple brings with its hardware is a full software and services ecosystem that nearly every user participates in. It's true, almost all iDevices are registered to an iTunes account with a credit card attached. By definition, the same goes for Amazon's Kindle. This indicates both a seamless interaction between hardware and software, and a healthy revenue stream that justifies not only aggressive pricing but the pursuit of bigger and better engagement. Plot the course of iTunes over a decade, then look at Amazon's own evolution in digital media. A tablet will only propel the online retailer further.

Google, meanwhile, is a major service provider, but you don't need to buy a Google-powered hardware product to use Gmail or Google Maps. Likewise, most users of Google services don't pay Google a penny; the healthy revenues come from advertising. This creates a bit of a roadblock when it comes to paying for premium media. How many of us use YouTube daily? Now, how many of us have ever rented a movie from it — or knew you could?

The tablets running Google's Android are built and marketed by companies with their own interests and goals. Samsung, for instance, has its own media hub, one that competes with Google's. Amazon's tablet may run Android, but it will likely deliver a very focused experience — around Amazon services, not Google's.

Affluent users seeking simple, guaranteed experiences
There's no doubt that anyone buying any tablet right now is among the well-heeled. If you're strapped for cash and need a simple computing device, there are $300 laptops that do more of the conventional PC thing. But among tablets, Android tabs appeal to power users, those who understand the context — and freedom — of the Android OS. It's a tough sell, especially when prices are all equal.

People with $500 in their pocket and a little experience with iTunes can more quickly grasp what the iPad does. Many of these same target customers own Kindles now, and will strongly consider a hop to a Kindle tablet. They may have an Android phone, but their relationship to Motorola or Samsung is not direct, and is certainly not one of mutual devotion. In a recent survey by Retrevo.com, Amazon was the non-Apple tablet "manufacturer" most preferred by respondents, by a wide margin — even though it has no tablet. 

An uncomplicated retail experience
Part of the reason that Android phone sales don't translate to Android tablet sales is that phone companies — not Google or the hardware brands — are the key marketers of Android phones. Tablets, at the moment, are sold more like computers and portable media players, and neither Google nor most of its hardware partners have a big advantage there.

Companies such as Samsung, with healthy relationships with the likes of Best Buy and Walmart, have a leg up, but the best positioned are, of course, the companies that control their own retail experiences. Apple is the easy example, but the better one may be Barnes & Noble.

The Nook Color, in its half-year existence, has arguably become the most successful Android tablet on the market, sold without the blessing of Google (or its Android Market). People don't necessarily even know it is an Android tablet. B&N has many of the attributes discussed above, but chief among them is a very clear retail experience, that capitalizes on the familiarity shoppers already have with the brand and all that comes with it.

Amazon doesn't have a bunch of shops around the country where people can go, test stuff out and even get free Wi-Fi and book samples. But it does have near omnipresence in Web retail, including its own Android app store, and it's been known to partner with Starbucks and others from time to time. However Amazon chooses to launch the Kindle tablet, it will have a clear value and a clear target — which would be a first for a full-fledged Android tablet.

As usual, you can catch up with Wilson on Twitter or over there on that newfangled Google Plus.

More on Amazon tablets and e-books from msnbc.com:

Amazon launched Cloud Player, which allows users to upload their music to the cloud, and then access it from computers and Android phones anywhere. Msnbc.com's Wilson Rothman explains why that's a big deal.

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ScreenChomp iPad App Brings Digital Whiteboards to the Classroom - PC Magazine

As technology becomes an increasingly vital part of the learning experience, educators will need the proper tools to help facilitate learning. TechSmith Labs aims to assist with ScreenChomp, a free screen capture and recording technology that's available exclusively on the iPad.

ScreenChomp is a digital whiteboard that educators can use to write and draw on (in twelve different colors) with their fingers. ScreenChomp work can be recorded and edited in Camtasia for Mac or Camtasia Studio to create recorded lectures and instructional videos with a professional aesthetic. ScreenChomp video can be downloaded as MP4 files, making them easily shared using ScreenChomp.com, Facebook, YouTube, iTunes, Blackboard and other video repositories.

"ScreenChomp marks the launch of TechSmith Labs, an initiative to foster innovative solutions and receive valuable customer feedback to improve our existing applications," Jeremy Vanisacker, product manager at TechSmith, said in a statement. "TechSmith Labs will continue to expand, introducing more innovative ideas and solutions for TechSmith customers to use and provide feedback."

According to TechSmith, ScreenChomp can make a significant impact on students' learning and education by creating a 1-on-1 learning environments where students can move at their own paces using technology, an area where they're already heavily engrained.

The free iPad app is available for download right now.

Earlier this month, Microsoft updated its iPad app for Bing with more than 100 new features and improvements, including a magic lasso tool that lets users circle words that they want to search, rather than highlighting and copying and pasting them into a search bar. Last month, Rosetta Stone, maker of the popular software for learning a language, also released an interactive app for the Apple iPad and iPad 2 called TOTALe Companion HD.

For more, check out PCMag's guide to the best Note-Taking Apps for the Apple iPad.

For the top stories in tech, follow us on Twitter at @PCMag.

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Verizon launches iPad-challenger Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 for $500-$630 - Real Time News, India

Verizon launches iPad-challenger Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 for $500-$630 | Real Time News, India HomeFeedsContactAboutTwitterReproduce Navigation GOVERNANCEForeign AffairsLaw & OrderEnvironmentEconomyPoliticsTradeTECHNOLOGYSoftwareInternetPhonesTabletsPCCOMMERCETransportationAgricultureIT ServicesEducationFinanceEnergyTelcosMediaSTATISTICSCOLUMNSSPECIAL Search form Search You are hereHome Verizon launches iPad-challenger Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 for $500-$630 Submitted by Trisha Thomas on Tue, 07/26/2011 - 19:54

Verizon Wireless, the first major telecom operator in the World to launch 4G LTE, has introduced the 10-inch Samsung Galaxy Tab for US customers.

The 4G LTE-tablet, arguably the most advanced in the World today, will be available for $530 and $630 for the 16 GB memory version and the 32 GB memory version respectively. Customers, however, will have to sign on to a two-year contract.

A 16GB Wi-Fi-only Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 will also be available online for around $500 (the same price it is available from Amazon for.)

Verizon, which also launched the HP Pavillion dmz notebook as well, is offering the same data packages for the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 as well.

A 2 GB per month plan, suitable for those who use the tablets only for ordinary browsing and not for watching videos, will cost $30 per month, while 5 GB of data (for the occasional video) shall cost $50 per month and the 10 GB plan will cost $80 per month.

Users who want to watch a lot of videos have no option but to rely on the built-in WiFi.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, which shares its dimensions with those of the latest iPad, is considered by many to be superior to the Apple product due to its more advanced specs and features.

On Verizon, the LTE network will allow between 5 to 12 Mbps of download speeds and 2 to 5 Mbps of upload speeds, comparable to DSL connections.

Unlike the iPad, they will support Flash-based video (most Internet video) and plays and records full high definition video as well.

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Credit Card Reader for iPad Available Today From Inner Fence

Inner Fence, maker of Credit Card Terminal, is now shipping Credit Card Reader for iPad.

Seattle, WA (PRWEB) July 25, 2011

Inner Fence, maker of Credit Card Terminal, is now shipping Credit Card Reader for iPad. The Apple-authorized hardware accessory allows merchants to swipe credit cards and is free to new Credit Card Terminal merchants.

“We’re already seeing high demand for our iPad app—more than twice that of our Android app. Small business owners find that iPads fit the way they work perfectly,” says Derek Del Conte, CEO of Inner Fence. “Adding a reader transforms iPads into even more powerful small business tools.”

Credit Card Terminal is the leading credit card point of sale app available for Apple’s iPhone and iPad, as featured in Apple’s “Office” prime-time television campaign. Until now, merchants could only perform keyed transactions using the app, but now they may use the new Credit Card Reader accessory to perform swiped transactions as well.

The Credit Card Reader accessory attaches to the iPad dock connector. It is designed for speedy transactions and high volume with a high-accuracy read head and sturdy construction. The accessory was tested and certified by Apple to be compatible with iPad as part of the Made for iPad program.

Swiped transactions are advantageous because they are much faster and less error-prone. Merchants may also be able to qualify for lower rates under the terms of their merchant account agreement.

Inner Fence is providing a free Credit Card Reader for iPad when activating a new account. Additional units are available at http://www.innerfence.com for $79.

Credit Card Readers for iPad are shipping immediately and support iPad and iPad 2.

About Inner Fence

Inner Fence is a privately held Seattle-based software development company that builds mobile credit card applications, allowing merchants to accept charge payments from anywhere. Their Credit Card Terminal app is available on iPhone, iPad, Mac, Android, and Windows Phone. For more information, see http://www.innerfence.com.

###

Derek Del Conte
Inner Fence
1-888-922-8277
Email Information

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Kindle, Nook now offering periodicals on iOS; where will you buy? - Reuters

By Darrell Etherington at GigaOm

Tue Jul 26, 2011 3:33pm EDT

Amazon and Barnes & Noble both introduced new features to their respective iOS applications on Monday, even as they were required to remove links in their apps to outside storefronts. Kindle now supports viewing of over 100 of its newspaper and magazine titles, and Barnes & Noble has announced that Nook for iPad will soon offer access to over 175 digital periodicals. Because of the timing of this feature introduction, I’d say it was possibly a negotiated concession by the e-booksellers, won in exchange for the removal of the outside store links.

I’ve been able to try out Amazon’s implementation of magazine and newspaper viewing, which went live yesterday. It does add a nice splash of color to otherwise text-heavy content, but if you’re looking for interactivity, you should probably look elsewhere. The periodicals offer more in terms of user interface advantages on the iPad then they do on the Kindle, owing mostly to touchscreen navigation, but special features like rich media and the kind of visual flair that made magazines like Wired on the iPad such a joy to read are lacking.

The Nook software appears to have more lofty aspirations. Its titles are billed by the company as “interactive, full-color” editions that also feature something called “exclusive ArticleView” with allows for user customization of how articles are displayed. The update isn’t yet live in the store, however, so we can’t say for sure how it will compare to either Amazon editions or native iPad apps.

Whether you choose to subscribe through native apps, or through either the Kindle or Nook stores may depend on your device usage habits. Amazon and Nook subscriptions both work well across multiple platforms, meaning that you can subscribe once and access them on your iPad, dedicated e-reader, and possibly your Android device or iPhone, too. iPad periodical subscriptions for dedicated apps typically only work on the iPad itself (although some offer print subscriptions that carry over to the iPad, so you have two possible formats for reading).

In some cases Amazon or Nook editions may also be cheaper, but that wasn’t so in many of the examples I checked. National Geographic, for example, which benefits greatly from the iPad’s beautiful display, is $19.99 for an annual subscription through the App Store, and $1.99 per month on the Kindle store. The Kindle version is a lot less visually impressive, and costs more money, since it lacks a flat yearly subscription.

So I put it to you: Where will you buy your iOS magazines and newspapers now that new options are available?

View This Poll

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Recognia Releases Unique Chart Pattern Recognition iPad App - National Post (registration)

Recognia, in partnership with missingSTEP, announced today the release of a unique stock chart pattern recognition iPad application available through the Apple Inc. AppStore. The application, titled “Stock Chart Patterns”, is the first of its kind to provide automated chart pattern recognition that offers a quick view of bullish and bearish stock chart patterns including “head and shoulders,” “double tops and bottoms,” “triangles,” “wedges,” “diamonds” and more.

“With increased use of mobile platforms for investing, creating an iPad application that gives traders the ability to access hundreds of trade ideas daily via our automated stock chart pattern recognition was a natural progression,” said Recognia’s Peter Ashton, Vice President of Products. “The development of this new application further demonstrates our dedication to bringing actionable investment research to self-directed investors.”

“This application brings, for the first time, Recognia’s unique investment research and automated chart pattern recognition tools to mobile traders,” said Alp Simsir, President and CEO of missingSTEP. “We are proud to provide easy access to the research necessary to make well informed investment decisions.”

About Recognia

Recognia provides intuitive, easy-to-use investment research for self-directed investors. Founded in 2000, Recognia today has more than 20 million provisioned accounts worldwide, with products servicing the largest and most successful institutions, stock exchanges and online brokerage firms, including Bloomberg, NYSE Euronext, Saxobank, HSBC, Charles Schwab, TD Waterhouse, ICICI Direct, Lightspeed Trading, and many more.

Contacts

for Recognia
Kate Frankenberg, 312-346-7811
kate@vividascent.com

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Facebook's new iPad app: 6 'spectacular' features

A determined tech blogger discovers a "hidden" version of the social network's much-anticipated iPad app — which is then lauded by critics

Facebook's new iPad app has been more than a year in the making, and thus far, anxious iPad users have only received ambiguous "it's coming… eventually" updates from Mark Zuckerberg and Co. But Sunday night, enterprising TechCrunch blogger MG Siegler discovered a hidden version of Facebook's new iPad app while playing around in the code for the site's iPhone app. Several other tech bloggers subsequently accessed the app — before Facebook caught on and blocked it — posting their early reactions online. It's unclear when exactly the app will be officially released, but in the meantime, what improvements do we have to look forward to in this "spectacular" new offering? Here are six:

1. Easy sidebar navigation
The "most important difference" between this newly discovered iPad app and current iterations of Facebook on iPhones and other platforms, says Josh Constine at Inside Facebook, is the retooled navigation system. There's now an expandable navigation sidebar that pops out from the left side of the screen, accessed with the mere flick of a finger. From the menu, users can navigate between the News Feed, Messages, Events, and other features, allowing for "speedier movement." The sidebar is a smart use of iPad's "screen real estate," says Chris Gayomali at TIME. Because it can always be tucked away, "your screen is never overcrowded."

2. Time-saving overlay menus
The new app makes "great use" of "pop-overs," or overlay menus, that have become popular on other iPad apps. That means that instead of being taken to a whole new window to view notifications or compose messages, these features just pop up in a small window in the corner of the existing screen. "This allows users to quickly check for these types of activity without losing what they’re currently viewing," says Constine.

3. Improved chat
Just as navigation appears in a sidebar on the left of the screen, the chat feature can now be accessed via a sidebar on the right side. This is designed to "permit persistent use" of chat while doing other things on Facebook, says Constine.

4. A big emphasis on "Places" 
"Facebook's location push is apparent" in the way the new app ramps up the Places tab, says Jacob Schulman at This Is My Next. Places, which allows users to check in to locations like restaurants and bars, connects directly to the iPad's GPS, displaying a large map on the right side of the screen, and friends' location updates on the left. You can comment on friends' locations using this feature, too.

5. Eye-popping photos
"Browsing photos on the Facebook iPad app is a fantastic experience," says Gayomali. Not only does the iPad's 9.7-inch screen blow up the photos beautifully, but it's "twitch-fast" to toggle among them. The app also allows you to crop photos using two fingers to define the boundaries of the crop. "It has a nice Minority Report feelin' to it."

6. A better-looking "Friends" page
The iPad app offers an improved showcase for the Friends page, says Gayomali, which now uses "large, square-shaped thumbnails" to display high-quality photos of friends in an alphabetized, easy-to-navigate list. "It seems like [Facebook's] answer to [Google+'s] Circles."

Sources: Inside Facebook, TechCrunch, This Is My Next, TIME

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How To Unlock the Hidden Facebook iPad App (Again) - PCWorld

Yesterday, after Facebook accidentally leaked their long-overdue official iPad app, the blogosphere errupted with instructions on how to unlock the hidden app. Facebook quickly responded by blocking Facebook for iPad. Clearly there is a lot of interest in the app, because today hacker chpwn released a tool called FaceForward that re-enables the hidden feature.

Here's how to use it:

0) You must have a jailbroken iPad to use FaceForward.

1) Install Facebook for iPhone on your iPad.

2) Launch Cydia and search for FaceForward

3) Install FaceForward. You will be prompted to reboot your iPad.

4) When you launch the formerly iPhone-only app, it will now be iPad native!

Facebook for iPad is still in beta and this release was clearly a mistake. Obviously if the FB team was ready to release the iPad app they would. Use at your own risk.

Something to say about Facebook for iPad? Use the comments!

Mike Keller is our resident iOS nerd. Catch Diary of a Developer every Tuesday here at GeekTech.

[via iPhoneHacks]

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