Articles by Rob Enderle

There has been a lot of discussion on the differences between Steve Jobs' Apple and Steve Ballmer's Microsoft, with a common argument being that Apple innovated and Microsoft didn't. I don't think the facts support that. I'd argue that Microsoft out-innovated Apple during Ballmer's tenure, but Apple out-executed Microsoft. It wasn't Ballmer vs...

If you look back at what Steve Jobs did, he took a hard look at Porsche and Sony, and then he effectively built a better Sony. As Apple's star rose, Sony's star crashed, but Jobs never targeted Sony directly. He just figured out what Sony wasn't doing right, and he did that extremely well while Sony lost its way. He didn't copy Sony's produc...

The new deal IBM and Lenovo announced last week showcases that the companies are on very different paths toward two widely divergent but equally powerful goals in what is a rapidly changing market. Lenovo is on a path to dominate the hardware side's second technology wave, while IBM is jumping to what may be the fourth technology wave. IBM domin...

IBM is putting a massive amount of resources into Watson, which has the capability to dramatically improve the quality of our decisions. Since most don't know how Watson works, I thought it would be interesting to emulate how it might think when tied to a topical subject. As the U.S. approaches its next election circus, two candidates have jumped to the top as both frontrunners and targets. ...

After my Belize retirement update appeared last week, a number of things happened. Most initially were rather painful, but eventually I was placed on the phone with Rod Kazazi, the project CFO who is based in the United States. Since we both had a financial background, he was able to address most of my concerns by informing me of solid programs that ensure the project will be completed. Had I met him sooner, I doubt I would have had to raise the alarms in my column, as there have been a number of recent improvements that put my mind more at ease about the project. ...

As many of you know, I've been executing on a long-term dream of first creating a vacation home, then retiring in Belize I've been putting some rigor into the effort to make sure the perception of the dream doesn't outpace reality. I've often been brought in on projects (like Zune) that should have been shut down early, largely because executive s...

This story was originally published on Oct. 14, 2013, and is brought to you today as part of our Best of ECT News series Here in Silicon Valley we are currently worried about a major transportation strike, and I doubt many on either side yet realize that this is likely to accelerate the move to automate most of the related jobs. There is little dou...

As we're recovering from Christmas and getting ready for the big New Year's Day hangover, I'm reminded of the Chinese curse, "May you be born in interesting times," because 2014 is likely to be a very interesting year. I expect the Democrats will be trying to distance themselves from their failed Affordable Health Care Act, while Republicans will ...

As we approach the end of the year, it is time to look back on 2013 and consider what we've learned about technology and human nature. Both Apple and Dell were massively changed; HP, Yahoo and other companies were in various stages of being turned around; and Google went from a company that wanted our private information to one that wanted our jobs...

I just finished reading a very interesting book by Intel Futurist Brian David Johnson, Humanity in the Machine: What Comes After Greed? Stock market trading systems, venture capitalists and NASCAR teams are all optimized toward a defined goal of winning, in most cases, an excessive accumulation of wealth, he argues. ...

One of the recurring themes in the technology industry is that very successful companies become arrogant and start taking unnecessary risks or abusing customers -- the two aren't mutually exclusive. That behavior can accomplish what competitors have failed to do: It can kill them. I was in IBM in the 1980s when it exhibited this behavior, and I...

I can hear the virtual voices screaming: "No, there is no way -- he isn't an engineer, he is an actor." Yet in a way, so was Steve Jobs. If you've read any of the stories about what he was like in person, you already know that at the start, Steve was a hippie who rarely bathed, cried a lot, and didn't like shoes. If you compare that Steve Jobs to his on-stage persona, it's clear that when he was pitching a product he was acting.

I got a note from a guy a few days ago who said he had an idea that would transform Microsoft, and he wanted me to introduce him to Bill Gates so he could present it. I don't do that, but he was persistent, and it got me thinking. Given that both Apple and Microsoft are based on ideas that came from outside, there is irony in the fact that both firms now have a massive wall between them and outside ideas.

I went public last week with my opinion that IBM eventually will beat Amazon Web Services, even though Amazon won the first skirmish. I was referring only to the federal government, not the largely user-based market Amazon currently serves, but I was less than precise, and I can see why some took offense and disagreed with the broader statement I didn't intend to make.

I've been noodling on this question ever since I attended an EMC analyst event last month and was astounded by the number of analysts who wanted its CEO to run for office. They started with president but seemed to feel no matter where he ended up in government, he would make things better. Joe Tucci is one of the few statesman CEOs and has a rathe...

My perception of social media changed a lot last week. I went from thinking of it as a sometimes helpful annoyance to a deadly hazard run by criminally negligent executives. Nearly getting kicked to death as a result of a Facebook post will do that to a person, I know that now firsthand What happened was pretty nasty and could have been lethal, so ...

Apple fans generally have a cow when I write about things left out of an Apple product, because to them, anything Apple brings out is perfect and to suggest otherwise is heretical. Given that I think fanboys give up their intellectual freedom to the vendor or product they religiously follow, I tend to wear the Apple Heretic badge with honor -- and thus I'm going to point out the technologies the Microsoft Surface 2 and Nokia 2520 products have that the new iPad Air lacks.

Demo's fall conference took place last week, and it didn't disappoint. This show has proven to be both a great and an expensive experience for me every year. Great because the technology shown is often truly amazing; expensive because I almost always end up buying one or two items, and my taste trends toward pricey. This year was no different, and my product of the week is the product I'd most like to personally own. ...

Here in Silicon Valley we are currently worried about a major transportation strike, and I doubt many on either side yet realize that this is likely to accelerate the move to automate most of the related jobs. There is little doubt the problem we are currently seeing here will be virtually gone in a decade, but I doubt the workers will be very happy with the solution.

A Tesla S caught fire last week. I have a lot of experience with cars, with lithium-ion batteries -- and with both cars and batteries catching fire. For a time, I was the lead battery analyst in the U.S., and my house nearly burned down when a lithium-ion battery pack decided to fail while charging. (Thank goodness I'd also been trained to fight fires). ...