Articles by Rob Enderle

You betcha. OK, I'm just kidding -- but in most markets that are divided like the PC market, where one vendor has 90 percent and the other 10 percent, a well-funded competitor would likely take out the 10 percent vendor on the way to taking on the 90 percent vendor. However, as I look at this, I think Chrome will cause both Apple and Microsoft to ...

In the United States, the 4th of July is celebrated as Independence Day, recalling the time when Americans stepped away from a government they viewed as repressive and forged a new future. Over the years, I've worked for a number of harsh managers and companies. Some were actually good for me -- others not so much. I wonder if we all shouldn't take a moment to consider whether we wouldn't be better off in another career, department, company -- or retired.

Over the last two weeks I attended two events: one organized by the Blu-ray folks and one by HP. Both PR teams did excellent jobs; however, one had a strong offering to work with, while the other was stuck with a toad of a product offering. Both products look to add value to platforms that are struggling at the moment. Printing is dropping off ...

Whether you're identifying with a religious group, a technology group, or some other group, I often wonder if you truly care if the information you receive is false. If you look at how people flock to Web sites that are obviously on the extreme right or left of an issue, or if you watch debates on abortion or gay marriage -- or even whether the sitting president has a clue -- don't you often get the sense that for many, believing they are right and putting down those who disagree is more important than actually being right?...

Apple is making an impressively strong statement that it can survive Steve Jobs' departure. While I still don't think it has the magic that Steve Jobs brings to the table in terms of execution, it is actually doing better at the moment than when he was there and active. Palm just took a major shot at its base and missed, and Apple is going after ...

Last week was one of those rare weeks when there was way too much going on to cover in one column. Microsoft stole E3 with what may be the closest thing to a "Star Trek" holodeck yet. Computex was all about battles between smartbooks and netbooks; Intel and AMD; and Windows and Android. ...

Last week, Microsoft announced its new search push at Google -- and unlike Live Search, which was a joke, Bing looks to have the right stuff. The question is, can Microsoft get people to move? Palm initially looked as though it was going to get iPhone users to move, but that hope started to sputter last week. It increasingly looked like Palm would follow Netscape and Transmeta in making the mistake of scaring a competitor into corporocidal (as in "homicidal," but with corporations) behavior. Rather than taking a bite out of Apple, it looks like Palm may be pwned. ...

We all remember Sarah Palin. Like many, I too got excited about the difference she would bring to the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign. She showed well at events, and she looked good on paper. Then came her interviews, and suddenly she was the new Dan Quayle -- or, basically, another person who trades on looks and luck and doesn't figure doing homework is actually necessary. ...

For the last decade, the PC market has kind of sucked. Against the massive growth of the '90s, and with the exception of Apple, which didn't do well in that decade, the PC market has been a poor reflection of the excitement that once surrounded it. Part of the problem was the focus on computation and the lack of focus on things that make computing exciting. In this respect, Apple was the exception, and the fact that it put much more emphasis on the visual aspects of computing -- and recently put a graphics chip in every computer -- helps explain why users tend to be more excited about Apple products. They have, until now, virtually stood alone -- but that is about to change.

Last week, a number of Apple supporters took me to task for my comment that Apple made the technology equivalent of sugar water and that Steve Jobs gave up on his goal of changing the world. I'm hardly original in thinking this way. It does amaze me that not a single Apple fan cared about global warming, philanthropy or even Apple's lack of computing prowess. They earn their reputations every week.

It is both interesting and ironic that three of the major companies in tech each defined something early in their lives they didn't want to be and then became it. In the cases of Apple and Microsoft, the top people in each company forgot about the epiphanies they had early in their careers -- for Microsoft, a couple come to mind. Google's case...

Apple was having a good month until last week. Sales were up explosively -- at least, for the iPhone and iPod -- but all of that good news was trashed when the company first allowed a questionable application onto the iPhone and then killed it without explanation. Already, the tone surrounding Apple appears to be changing. It often seems as thoug...

I was in Malta last week at the IFA 2009 conference, which is partially intended to drive interest into Malta as a technology center. This is one of the locations where people believe a new Silicon Valley might be born, and that certainly focuses us on the fact that the current Silicon Valley isn't what it once was. A few weeks ago, I was at a lunch with a large group of folks who helped found the Silicon Valley, and we discussed what killed it. ...

Last week, I wrote about the 3rd Rebirth of Computing. This change will lead to the potential for Google to be vastly more powerful than any company in the history of the world. Given the historical patterns associated with companies that get even a fraction of this power, current trends are frightening. Therefore, in the interest of getting ahea...

The gaming market has been broken for a long time, and the Conficker worm is a reminder that the PC concept is also becoming unmanageable. Developers want one platform to develop to; they don't want three consoles, two portable gaming systems, lots of phones and a PC. Users want something vastly less complex and really would like to go back to a time when they only worried about the price and where the on switch was. ...

I spent much of last week attending an event put on by HP, Intel and BMW, which launched HP's new professional workstation line on top of the new Nehalem processors from Intel. This took place at DreamWorks, where we were treated to an early screening of the "Monsters vs. Aliens" movie. This last was a showcase for DreamWorks' huge 3-D bet and one that I haven't been a believer in -- until now. Now, I think we are actually at the same kind of inflection point that led to movies, movies with sound, and movies with color -- all of which were thought to be passing fads initially but that we now can't do without. ...

The U.S. stock market had a really happy week last week. The market was on a long rally, and a number of high-profile technology vendors made interesting moves. The first was the release of Dell's Adamo product -- the first laptop offering that really was rethought as more of an art project than a typical laptop. While expensive, it actually feels worth it. The second was the leak that Sun was about to be acquired by IBM for US$7 billion, which has to have old time IBMers dancing in the aisles. Sun pounded on IBM a lot in the '90s. ...

Last week, I got into an argument about whether Microsoft was using TomTom to go after Linux. I also attended several events where the massive costs of the AMD vs. Intel litigation were discussed. I got to thinking how both entities -- AMD and FLOSS -- are currently defined by the dominant company that exists in their space. For FLOSS -- the open source software community, not the stuff you clean your teeth with -- it is Microsoft that seems to define them, and they have been largely the anti-Microsoft folks for all of this decade. Now that Microsoft is interoperating, has its own open source efforts, and is generally not pissing off buyers as much, FLOSS has evidently decided to FUD Linux and blame Microsoft. ...

One of the things that fascinates me is how large companies, when given an "in your face" example from a competitor, more often than not ignore it. For instance, Apple is one of the few companies that designs marketing into their products, out-executes the industry in marketing, and enjoys the highest segment margins and generally the highest grow...

A few weeks ago I compared the Obama Stimulus package to what Intel was doing to prepare for the future, and I didn't find out until later that the people at Intel were following advice that Andy Grove, their most famous CEO, had given years ago. That advice was that companies that try to save out of a recession generally fail; you have to invest in your future if you want to survive.