Articles by Rob Enderle

Last week was an interesting week. Apple announced what appears to be a penis iron in the new iPad, and folks are burning through their monthly 4G data plans in a few hours. Tim's having his first Antennagate moment, and Steve Jobs he isn't. On the other hand, Meg Whitman announced her first major restructuring since taking over HP, and on pape...

Windows 8 is likely the most ambitious UI project for Microsoft since Microsoft Bob, and we all know how that ended up. What was kind of sad about Microsoft Bob was that for what it was intended to do, it was both cutting-edge and very successful. However, because it was positioned as the follow-on to Windows, the bar was set too high and the product failed spectacularly. ...

Over the years, I've watched company after company lose its invaluable edge because executives critical to its success moved on, or died, and didn't pass on critical skills. Only IBM really made a massive effort not to screw this up, and even it eventually forgot, forcing a massive reset -- which almost caused it to fail -- in the late 1980s and early 1990s. ...

If you think about it, Apple and Microsoft have kind of switched places with their recent operating system refreshes. Microsoft, which is dominant with PCs but anything but on tablets and smartphones, is leveraging its smartphone platform heavily to create a new PC product. Apple, which is a small player with PCs but massively dominant with smartphones and tablets, is keeping the two technologies at arm's length. Microsoft's latest OS is a smartphone-like product, although it is weakest with smartphones. Apple's is a PC-like product, although it is weakest in that space. ...

This weekend,"Act of Valor" opened, but this isn't a review of this Navy Seals-based action movie. Instead, I'll focus on the incredibly low budget of US$13 million for a film with massive amounts of live action and the feel of a war movie. Movies like this can easily cost 10x to 50x as much. An amazing combination of technology from Adobe, Canon, HP and Nvidia made this thing possible, and much of this technology is available to you. In fact, the movie was created mostly with tools you could have in your home.

Last week, Cisco raised an objection to the Microsoft acquisition of Skype, saying it would hurt video conferencing interoperability -- even though, in this space, you could argue Cisco is not the poster child for interoperability. Coincidently, I met with the CEO of LifeSize last Thursday, and he saw this Microsoft acquisition as a huge opportunity. LifeSize is the poster child for video-conferencing interoperability. ...

Boy, if there were ever an indication that we're in the post-Steve Jobs years, it was last week when there was a major rally to hold Apple accountable for the poor working conditions at Foxconn in China. Now I'm all for accountability, but this would be like a European country holding a restaurant there accountable for the working conditions on U.S. fishing boats (and there was even a TV show on how bad that job can suck). In fact, this effort might actually make working conditions in these factories worse, simply because companies like Apple will now be more motivated not to report problems outside of their authority. ...

Last week was the coming-out party for AMD's new CEO, and his core message was that the market was undergoing a shift -- and when markets shift, leadership changes. His point was that Intel's leadership was at risk and that AMD was poised to take over that leadership. At the foundation of this argument is the nature of this change, which is m...

Earlier this month, Microsoft applied for a patent related to a technology that would highlight areas of high crime and route people around them. Folks seemed to get upset because areas like this tend to struggling due to a lack of revenue, and this would route people who might otherwise shop there to other safer and likely more lucrative areas. ...

I'm a moderate Republican, which means that if I actually think about platforms, Obama, as a moderate Democrat, is closer to where I am than any of the folks running in my own party. What absolutely flabbergasts me is that these candidates don't seem to realize there is something called "the Internet," which points out with incredible glee every instance when they don't tell the truth or punt on a question they don't know the answer to. Or that the result will likely then become a gag on the Jon Stewart show, which is a guilty pleasure for most of us. ...

One of the things that unfortunately doesn't happen much since Bill Gates stepped down is a quintessential talk on what the future will look like, and I find I miss that. So, to fill my own need for such a talk, this week's column will focus on the interesting products I saw come out at CES and the future they represent. I'll close with my pr...

Last week, an announcement from Lenovo got me thinking of Rory Read, AMD's new CEO, who made some cryptic remarks about AMD going into ARM and no longer chasing Intel. Now, there are a number of hybrid or crossover products that will be coming out this year, with the most interesting being a cross between a notebook and tablet. This design, and we'll probably see some examples at CES this week, will likely be the showcase for Windows 8. ...

This month begins the march to 2012 technology with the Consumer Electronics Show just around the corner. Vendors have already started prebriefings for what will likely be a cascade of announcements all happening in the same one-week time frame. This will be the last year that Microsoft keynotes or has a major presence at this show. Like Apple...

If there was ever a year for train wrecks, 2011 was it. It is that time when we look back at the screwy decisions executives made last year, and be thankful that we aren't them. There were a number of career-limiting moves last year that warrant a top spot on my Bozo meter I'll end with my product of the year: the 2011 product that I found I just c...

Christmas is coming in a few days, and many of you are kicking back with some eggnog for a well-deserved rest before the day arrives, and you are looking forward to the annual family who-is-the-biggest-ass competition. Yes, this is the time of year when relatives feel the need to overimbibe and tell us how we should live our lives, or they critique our kids or spouses, and we, unfortunately, are likely to do the same. ...

IBM's Watson supercomputer became famous when it beat the top "Jeopardy" champions on TV. What folks didn't know is that Watson did that with significant handicaps that wouldn't be applied were the same system actually deployed to answer real questions. What Watson is particularly good at is providing the right answers to questions, which appa...

Well, it is December, when sugar plums fill children's heads and analysts look into their crystal balls to see what the new year will bring. Assuming the world doesn't end, 2012 should be a watershed year for personal technology, showcasing the beginning and end for a lot of companies, as well as major transitions for those that are left. Overa...

Well, today is your first day back (if you live in the U.S.) from the long Thanksgiving holiday, and you are likely still suffering through a bit of a food coma hangover and are wondering where your waist went. Trust me, it went on a long vacation and probably won't come out again until summer -- or it may be gone for good. Today is Cyber Monday...

This story was originally published on Aug. 15, 2011, and is brought to you today as part of our Best of ECT News series. I've been covering video conferencing (now often called "telepresence") products since the late 80s and saw my first offering in the mid-60s as a child at Disneyland. Over the years, product wave after product wave has come to...

Next year is an election year, and there is no doubt we will have plenty of examples of politicians who should have had their hormones either surgically removed or had someone wiser make their decisions for them. On the other hand, the technology market has certainly had its fill of scandals over the last 12 months, many of which centered on HP ...