Well Known Fact

What I Learned at #CES This Year: Part 2 of 3

Lesson 2: Glitzy tech sizzles, but ecosystems sell.

Traditionally, CES was about making the deal, but today, it’s just as important to make a big splash. To make that splash—or “earned media” as PR pros call it—something new, innovative, and clever drives mouse clicks and page views.

Trouble is: technology needs are rarely satisfied with one-off solutions, no matter the sizzle. Industry sales at scale require end-to-end ecosystems that allow for the full sweep of the production cycle. Absent all the pieces in the puzzle, it’s just a product, not a solution. Two recent examples:

Ultra-High Definition Television

The standard for so-called 4K television has been around for years. These new displays have roughly four times the horizontal resolution of today’s HDTVs—breathtaking clarity. Sony showed an outstanding demo unit at CES five years ago. But until last week, we haven’t seen on public display the end-to-end product line that allows professionals to shoot, edit, distribute and ultimately present that 4K content in, for example, a home theater setting.

Now that the ecosystem of equipment exists from a single manufacturer, individual content creators can investigate and buy these parts, or, if they prefer a competitor camera, for example, that may be better or cheaper than Sony’s offering (no list price yet), assemble the pieces needed for a competitive advantage. Sony has successfully moved their product line from product to solution.

3D Modeling

CAD (computer assisted design) packages have been around for a generation. They allow plans for three-dimensional objects to be designed, stored and transmitted digitally and rendered on screen or on paper. But building an object in three dimensional space with a two-dimensionally bound mouse is, well, flat.

The new Leonardo 3D Bird seeks to solve this problem as a feather-weight pointing device that is held aloft in a wispy ergonomic grip. The proper hand position is akin to about-to-toss-a-paper-airplane. Users manipulate the Bird on-screen with a new set of gestures (sounds naughty, doesn’t it?).

Once that 3D CAD file is ready, making a prototype or scale model is the next challenge. Here enters a growing vendor community of 3D printers. These are devices that make a life-like replica by layering micrometer layers of plastic or composite ceramic one atop another, similar to a ink-jet printer, but moving in three dimensions, and at a finer resolution.

These devices have been out for a while, but due to exorbitant cost, have remained a tool for specialist purposes until recently. CES this year showed several options at more approachable price points. Among them, solutions from MakerBot and Cubify.

Or, for more sporadic needs, a ‘cloud-based’ offering from Sculpteo: upload a file and your 3D prototype arrives by mail. Again—it’s not just a product—it’s a part of an end-to-end solution.

And increasingly, it’s solutions that customers crave, even if they can’t easily express their need in so many words.

This is the second in a three-part series about lessons learned from this year’s International Consumer Electronics Show (CES).

« Lesson 1: Be a great generalist, be a great unitasker or be gone

The Economics of Extraordinarily Large Numbers

An interesting article in The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) summarizes why Apple’s products are made in China.

The short answer: only China has the requisite labor force at the needed size, with the needed skills and living in the needed densities to crank out enough product to meet demand. No joke.

#MondayMusings — The Value of Testing

#ElectricCar — Getting Legislative

With the inevitability of electric vehicles becoming a more regular presence in our lives, a few modest accommodations are warranted.

As a prospective electric car owner, here are a few items you want resolved sooner than later.

1. Legislative safe harbor for required EV infrastructure

My new charging station is ensconced in my home garage, away from the elements and public view. But the device itself is rated for outdoor use. My car dealer has a charging station just like mine mounted on a monopole in the elements.

To date, Nissan and Ford are ‘strongly discouraging’ non-garage owners from buying their electric cars. This means that, for the near term, when you see a Nissan Leaf or Ford Focus Electric plying the streets, its driver started their day from a single family home garage bay. That can’t persist for very long. Eventually condominiums, public parking garages, apartment parking decks and homeowners associations with street-side parking will all need to get comfortable with pole-mounted charging stations sprouting up like so many mushrooms after a warm rainstorm.

You can imagine the legislation will be similar to what you find for personal television satellite dishes and solar panels—you can’t be forbidden from acquiring these necessities, but your local fiefdom can play a role in where it can be situated.

But so far, that legislation doesn’t exist yet in most places. That will change after a very public spat between a ruthless condo board and a prospective EV owner results in legislation. Until then, caution and diplomacy remain the watchwords.

2. Regulatory reciprocity

In my home state of Maryland, I can request a bumper-mounted sticker from the motor vehicle administration that permits use of the electric car in high occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes even when driving solo. I spend quite a bit of time in neighboring Virginia, and Virginia has a similar law. But these rules aren’t reciprocal—Virginia clean vehicles get no free pass on Maryland’s HOV lanes and vice versa. It’s high time that states permit their residents to cross borders and enjoy the same privileges.

I’ve engaged a member of the Maryland House of Delegates on the issue. I am seeking a tracking bill in the Virginia legislature in the current spring 2012 session. If you’re interested, I’d be happy to speak with my Virginia-based readers about helping push this important legislation.

3. Getting real on the federal electric vehicle tax credit

For cars purchased in 2011, the federal government offered an up-to $7,500 tax credit for plug-in electric vehicles. Many states offer their own tax credits or deductions.

But the party may soon be over. Absent an extension of the federal tax credit—which is no sure thing in the current climate—all of the electric vehicles on the market are too expensive at their current price points (Nissan Leaf starting at $37,000 and Ford Focus Electric at more than $40,000) to be cost effective in the long term, or affordable for financing for all but a very few car buyers.

Likewise, the vultures are circling a generous federal commercial tax benefit for companies investing in major infrastructure projects supporting EVs.

We’ve all heard the rhetoric from the auto makers: as soon as EV sales volume starts picking up, economies of scale for the battery packs will start kicking in and prices for EVs would ease. The proof is in the pocketbook: electric car manufacturers need to stand up and match price cuts to offset the federal tax breaks that are going the way of the dodo.

For electric vehicles to become more than a fringe offering, their drive-off-the-lot cost needs to be in the realm of internal combustion cars of the same class, and the economic benefits for total cost of ownership need to be made clearly and prominently. I think I have the contact information for those Infographics guys around here somewhere…

This is the eighth in a series on the state of electric vehicles in 2012.

« Part 1 of the Electric Car Series: “On the Bleeding Edge”

« Part 2 of the Electric Car Series: “A Recent History”

« Part 3 of the Electric Car Series: “Nissan Leaf Test Drive”

« Part 4 of the Electric Car Series: “Charged Up”

« Part 5 of the Electric Car Series: “Mindfulness”

« Part 6 of the Electric Car Series: “Difficult Conversations”

« Part 7 of the Electric Car Series: “Secret Message: Like Really Cheap Gas”

An Open Letter to Congress: On #PIPA and #SOPA

Dear Members of Congress:

I am gravely concerned about the potential adoption of the bills generally known as SOPA and PIPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act.

As eWeek recently noted, “The language of SOPA is so broad, the rules so unconnected to the reality of Internet technology and the penalties so disconnected from the alleged crimes that this bill could effectively kill e-commerce or even normal Internet use. The bill also has grave implications for existing U.S., foreign and international laws and is sure to spend decades in court challenges.”

Both bills greatly expand on existing, reasonable restrictions to the point of unreasonableness and provide tools to law enforcement agencies that effectively place non-Judicial persons in the role of playing judge and jury without due process.

Both bills usurp existing protections on prosecutorial restraint and permit gross travesties of free commerce to occur on no more than flagrant accusations, with little recourse for those affected.

I urge you, Members of Congress, to stand proudly against these two dangerous pieces of legislation.

Sincerely,

Cory Siansky
www.WellKnownFact.com

What I Learned at #CES This Year: A Three Part Series

Lesson 1: Be a great generalist, be a great unitasker or be gone.

The tablet market best describes this lesson.

Apple owns the general tablet market with iPad.

For e-book readers, Amazon’s e-ink Kindle line represents one example of a product offering good value (starting at USD $79) for a very constrained list of functions.

There remains room in the current marketplace for additional unitasking tablets, but I’m not convinced I saw them at CES this year.

The Samsung Galaxy Note might be such a device. But probably isn’t.

Let’s dig deeper.

Apple’s iPad, for better or worse, owns the generalist tablet market. This is not to say other general purpose tablets can’t be successful in the market. The Samsung Galaxy Tab 7 has great appeal, for example, even though it hasn’t won huge market share. The 7 is probably the most capable under-appreciated product on sale right now.

What I am saying is that the ship has sailed for mindshare for the first generation of general use tablets. Apple 1, Rest of Marketplace Zero.

If Microsoft expects their new generation of Windows 8 tablets to succeed, they need to innovate fast. Like Google, Microsoft sets an OS standard and has little control over the hardware their partners offer on their platform. Android competitors cannibalize one another all the while funneling cash to Google’s maw.

Microsoft will need to out-Google Google to make a general purpose Windows 8 tablet more attractive to an existing Android tablet-buying audience. Oh wait. That hasn’t taken off. Scratch that.

Microsoft will need to out-Apple Apple to make a general purpose Windows 8 tablet more attractive to an existing iPad-buying audience. Oh wait. That’s improbable. Scratch that.

Microsoft must create their own market by executing phenomenally on what a Windows 8 tablet should be (whatever that is). Or in an alternate reality, Microsoft must create an OS that offers hardware partners the latitude to deliver it to market at a phenomenally low price. In this scenario, some bad behavior or shortcomings might be overlooked on the back of perceived value (see Amazon Fire).

Absent a generalist approach, a purpose built one-task wonder can succeed. It must do what it does phenomenally well and at a right price for its market. I mentioned Amazon’s e-ink Kindle line earlier, but let’s look at an entirely different slant.

A more mature product of also-called-tablets exists in the form of Wacom’s fabulous input devices. This is a company that knows its niche market incredibly well and continues to innovate for its market. The product performs its role well, and is priced right for its audience.

Wacom lives this mantra—they are working hard to get their devices right and haven’t rested on their laurels.

Products that innovate, execute well and are priced right have a chance. Everything else, see dust bin.

This is the first in a three-part series about lessons learned from this year’s International Consumer Electronics Show (CES).

Lesson 2: Glitzy tech sizzles, but ecosystems sell »