Friday, January 8, 2010

How and why Apple does "controlled leaks"

Think what you will of Apple and their legendary silence before releasing new products, but this MacObserver article really hits the nail on the head from a business perspective.

In the case of this week's leak to the Wall Street Journal, the author states that Apple needed to release the tablet information early because they wanted:
  • to light a fire under a recalcitrant partner
  • to float the idea of the US$1,000 price point and gauge reaction
  • to panic/confuse a potential competitor about whom Apple had some knowledge
  • to whet analyst and observer expectations to make sure the right kind and number of people show up at the (presumed) January 27 event. Apple hates empty seats and demands SRO at these events.
The author, John Martellaro, is a former Apple marketing manager, so (a) he should know what he's talking about, and (b) FWIW, humble little me agrees with his statements.

I'm surprised more companies don't take this approach, but I guess that Apple has an advantage here of releasing "game changing" products, from the original Mac, to the iPod, and the iPhone (along with some duds as well).

New Palm phones look nice, but are they enough?

Catching up on the CES news, Palm has come out with some nice-looking new versions of their phones, but I'm afraid it may be too little, too late for them.

I think history will show that Palm had the chance to be a dominant player in the cellphone market, but for one reason or another (bad design or bad management) they never got it done.

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Hey Apple - wake up

Wow, a great post here titled "Hey Apple, Wake Up, It's Happening Again", about how Google having Android running on all mobile phone hardware platforms (versus the iPhone) is just like the original Mac/PC battle of the 80s and early 90s.

Once again we get the choice of one Apple product running against software and hardware from a variety of companies.

Monday, January 4, 2010

Funny Drupal cartoon

For anyone that uses Drupal, this image of Mr. Obama typing a Drupal path from Dries Buytaert's website is funny stuff.