Apple notebook event: The spotlight turns to notebooks

updated 10/14/2008, 11:58PM EDT.  Fixed typographical errors.

You already know that Apple is set to announce something notebook-related later today.  After all the leaked pictures and spy shots, it’s easy to say that this is a very anticipated event (and one that must be Apple’s worst-kept secret to date).  Personally, I have been waiting for this day for over a year.  Besides waiting to purchase a replacement for my late motherboard-gone-bad iBook G4, I think that new MacBooks will directly affect Apple’s success in the computer market.  Hit the “read more” link for… more.

As it stands today, Apple has a very simple notebook MacBook line-up.

MacBook 13″

MacBook Pro 15″

MacBook Pro 17″, as well as

the not-very-competitive MacBook Air (13″)

The Air doesn’t fit into any specific category because its purpose and form-factor have been overshadowed by the netbook/mini-notebook market in the PC segment: why spend $1800 on the Air when you can get something smaller, lighter, and more expandable for $450?  It’s not like you’re really buying the Air to edit video anyway.  Whatever the case may be, the simplicity of Apple’s notebook lineup is a benefit but also a curse.  Being overly simple, the current line-up limits its market appeal and potential.  How so?

As I’ve ranted about for years on in, the MacBook 13″ is not powerful enough and the 15″ Pro model is too powerful… for certain markets, that is.  There exists a substantial market for powerful 13″ notebooks (just look at Dell XPS 1330).  Unfortunately, the current MacBook 13″ does not fall into that category: lacking a dedicated GPU makes it simply that: lackluster (performance-wise).  As we (as a society) make the move to portable work solutions, the requirement to own a powerful and portable notebook becomes ever-important.  The 13″ form-factor is the perfect size for such powerful portability, as opposed to the slightly-too-big 15″.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, the 15″ MacBook Pro is too powerful.  Currently, it can only be purchased with a dedicated GPU.  Are there consumers who don’t need all that power but want the 15″ screen?  Plenty!  Just take a look at how many 15″ Inspirons Dell sells that don’t have a GPU!  And it’s easy to see why: the price of such a Dell machine in a 15″ form factor is about $1299.  Contrast that with the price of the base MacBook Pro 15″ - $1999.  Yes, you can argue that comparing Apple and Dell is like comparing Apples to oranges.  And it’s true: they go after different markets.  Apple has made the choice to compete in the high-margin, high-performance, low(er) volume segment.  Dell is a market-share whore, trying to attain the highest market share possible at the expense of sacrificing prices and turning itself and its products into commodities (boxes that run Windows).  But that’s not the point.  The point is that Apple can do better by changing its marketing strategy.  The solution is very simple: give people choices, and they will buy from you.

1) Apple already owns the far-superior OS X - and that’s what switchers are looking at the most when going to the Mac.  It’s a competitive advantage that other PC makers simply can’t achieve, making it a flat-out barrier to entry.

2) Apple knows its buyers: the video/audio/photo/web-design professionals buy the highest-end Apple gear and will continue to do so.

3) New users are turned away by the huge price tags.  As I explained above, the only way a potential buyer can enter the 15″ Mac market is to spend $2000 on the MacBook Pro for power he doesn’t even need.

4) By selling on education rather than ignorance, Apple will provide greater satisfaction.  This is Apple’s strong point, as they’ve been trying to make the consumer more educated in the choosing the Mac.

5) Greater market share is always good.  The key is to keep with the greater value-adding Apple is known to do: great design, great usability, all tightly integrated into one package.  Don’t become Dell, but strive to gain a bigger piece of the notebook computer pie.  More Macs being used in public (they are portable, after all), builds more confidence for those who have not yet made the switch.

Keeping these key guidelines in mind, I think that the key differentiator in the new notebook range will be the GPU (along with the obvious releases like the amount of RAM, hard drive size, and processor speed/cache/FSB speed).  Here’s what I think Apple’s new notebook offerings will consist of: every notebook, regardless of screen size, will have a “regular” and a “Pro” version.  This means that the lineup will be called “MacBook,” will untie screen size from performance, and will consist of:

• 13″ MacBook
• 13″ MacBook Pro
• 15″ MacBook
• 15″ MacBook Pro
• 17″ MacBook Pro (the demand for 17″ notebooks is dwindling).

• The “regular” (non-Pro) models will run on lower-end (slower) hardware, not have dedicated graphics cards, and will have less ports than their Pro brethren.  Perhaps they can be a little thinner because of the lack of a GPU and certain ports.  Obviously, they will cost less than the Pro versions - starting at about $1000.
• The “Pro” models will include the highest-end hardware inside with super-duper powerful GPUs, a plethora of ports, and the latest gadgetry.  ExpressCard, FireWire, eSATA, and wireless USB are standard.  Prices are higher on these models, being around the $2000 range.
• The 17″ MacBook should stay as a Pro model only, as I don’t believe there is a high-enough demand for these gargantuan notebooks when not configured to great extremes.
• Obviously, the MacBook Air does not fit into any of these categories: it’s the slowest, thinnest, lightest Mac.  The geniuses at Apple need to run the numbers to see if it’s worth keeping around or scrapping the entire project and introducing a lower-cost netbook (ala Dell mini studio 9- just a bit more usable and expensive).  They can even forgo the netbook as we know it and build a larger version iPod touch for this market segment.  But this is an entirely different bowl of soup.

By segmenting the notebook line-up in this way, Apple will undoubtedly achieve the five goals I set out above.  In fact, the company can achieve them with flying colors.  Apple retains the simple line-up and pricing structures along with the higher margins they’re known for, and consumers purchase only what they need.  I’ve seen so many people purchase the current 15″ MacBook Pro just because they wanted the screen real estate the 15″ offered (the 13″ was too small) but didn’t need (in their life!) all the power the notebook comes with (if you like it or not!).  It’s funny seeing Apple lock people into an up-sell based on lack of education, since that’s what sells the 15″ Pro to soccer moms.  At the risk of offering a car analogy on a tech site, it’s like shopping for a Honda Civic, finding out it’s a little too small for your taste, and the only bigger vehicle in the line-up is the Hummer H1.

As for the rumor-mill: as we get closer to the scheduled event (12 minutes as of this writing), more and more pictures and details surface.  I believe that this picture is in fact of the lower-end “regular” MacBook 15″: fewer ports is all we can see right now, but it’s a start.  Moreover, the statement by Peter Oppenheimer (during a financial results call) regarding a major product transition can be simply what I have just described: they will split the line-up into Pro and “regular” models and see more customers going for the regular models, thus seeing a dip in revenue - something they plan on making up in the long run with increased volume.

The biggest computer company in the world, once known for their ugly and boring “beige boxes,” has been hot in the last month, shipping new products and getting the media abuzz with products in the labs. Here’s what’s been coming out of Dell lately:

1. Just now Dell announced a new addition to their Inspiron notebook lineup - the Inspiron 13 (1318, to be exact).  This is a 13″ notebook that replaces the old 14-incher, aligning the company’s Inspiron line with the higher-end XPS trim.
   Starting at $699, this (very good-looking) notebook is configurable with up to a Core 2 Duo T8300 (2.4GHZ, 3MB L2), 320GB of spinning storage, and 4GB of RAM.  This is a significant change for Dell because the old 14″ Inspiron didn’t fit with the line-up at all and this 13″ will simplify the company’s notebook lineup for consumers, which now consists of Inspiron 13″, 15″, and 17″.
2. Earlier in the day, PowerPoint slides with Dell’s planned XPS Studio 13″ and 16″ notebooks were leaked.  It’s very interesting what Dell is doing with their XPS and Studio lines.  Here’s a brief history:
   • Dell XPS started out as the gaming/high-end division within Dell, making desktops and laptops for gamers and those needing alot of power.  The first XPS notebooks were thick and heavy, but were very powerful - and were true gaming machines.  The desktops were equipped with lights and lots of power - just what a gamer is drooling for.
   • With the acquisition of Alienware, Dell expanded the XPS notebook line down-market to compete in the premium (non-gaming) segment.  Here’s when the beautiful XPS 13″ and 15″ notebooks were born.  These are still being sold by Dell today and are intended to go after Apple’s MacBook line.
   • In the beginning of the summer, Dell announced the Studio notebook line.  This threw the enthusiast and geek communities into a bit of a stupor, as the Studio notebooks competed with their XPS cousins - having almost the same design, price, and specifications.  The only difference is that the Studio line includes 15″ and 17″ models whereas the XPS (non-gaming) line has been sold with 13″ and 15″ models.  (Yes, there is still a 17″ XPS M1730 gaming notebook of the early generation XPS line - the bulky, heavy, and hot-running desktop-replacement rig being sold today, but consensus is that it is being phased out for Alienware notebooks).
   • With the leaked slides today, the earlier confusion about XPS and Studio lines was cleared up a bit: the Studio brand will become the higher-end Dell notebooks, the step-up from Inspiron.  Within the Studio line, the XPS line will bear the name of those notebooks that have the most premium and most powerful specifications.  Thus, XPS will be a sub-brand of Studio, creating “Studio XPS 16″ - as in the leaked slides.
3. In July, Dell has been reported to be developing either a mobile phone or a media player.  As you might remember, the company has competed in the media player space before (Dell Digital JukeBox) and in the “everything but a phone” space (Dell Axim PIM).  The DJ was not a “bad” product, but lacked the “oomph” and “coolness factor” needed to compete with iPod.  The Axim’s handheld market went away and morphed with the cell phone.  Both product lines are no longer made by Dell.
4. Now, Dell has assembled a very ambitious group of people to work on the rumored media player to compete with iPod.  Some member of the group have even worked at Apple.  Whatever the product/service will be, it is getting the most media coverage a Dell consumer device has ever received, and this is the first big step tipping Dell into the “hot” area of the thermometer.  The company, with Michael Dell at the reigns again, seems to be taking some early steps in becoming an innovator.  Now those are big words of praise for a company like Dell, especially coming from me, and here’s why: Dell has never really made and manufactured anything that was not a computer shell or enclosure.  Think about: the firm, ever since the beginning, has been known to take existing hardware and software, slap on the Dell name on the boot software/firmware, and design an outer case for it with the company’s name.  Compare that to Apple, a company which not only makes such “outer cases”, but also makes its own software that integrates seamlessly with those shells hardware.  So for Dell to be designing something from the ground up is a major step forward.

For me, Dell has now reached the point of having to make a cross-roads decision: they are well-known for quality in the PC market and are taking the right steps to change their old image of making ugly hardware (as witnessed by the notebook development above).  The real question is where else can they go?  And it’s a question that Michael Dell thinks about very often, if not dreams about.  The new media player and cell phone initiatives are a sign that Dell - as a company - has finally awoken and decided to hire a team of innovators and engineers (and not those that make PC “shells”).  In any case - whatever Dell is doing - it’s getting much buzz in the tech world and that’s why I consider the company to be “hot”.

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I don’t know about you, but I have a few external hard drives that I use on a regular basis.  Some I use for backing up specific machines; others I use storing ripped DVDs (that I purchased, of course).  And yet others I use for transferring large amounts of data between machines.  Whatever the use might be, I have found it very practical to physically label my drives.  I have given these external hard drive labels the following attributes, as you can see below:

• Drive name
• Capacity
• Format
• Contents (optional)

What’s in a name?

This might seem a little out of the “ordinary”, but I give unique and distinct names to my external drives.  This way, I can call a drive by name and automatically know the purpose that it serves in my digital life.  Moreover, naming my drives and then putting those names physically on them lets my friends and family know exactly which drive to take out of my “tech drawer” when it comes time to watch a movie or when I call home asking to be sent a specific file that’s stored on a specific drive.  (I usually don’t take all of my drives with me, so let’s hope that this is a rare occasion.

The moral of the story is that if you have a multitude of external storage devices and want to easily remember what’s on each drive, give your drives unique names and physically label them.

PS: the physical labeling part is a temporary solution, of course, until technologies like embedded e-ink get to be mainstream.  Until then, I can dream of displays like these taking the place of my Avery 5160 sticky labels.

Follow the jump for some pics of my dear hard drives with clear, bright, and white labels.

Microblogging services like Twitter, Jaiku, and Pownce are gaining steam, popularity, and new users by the bucketful every day.  This article, however, is not about why I like to use these kinds of applications or how much I look forward to getting Twitter updates by person x.  No, this article is about the (as of yet unexplored) applications of microblogging services that could bring them into the black on the income statement.  What is this untapped use I write of?  Two words: customer service.  

It is very often that one sees such statements as “It is our mission to bring the best products to our customers.”  Some companies do a very good job of listening to their customers and meeting their mission statements, resulting in great customer satisfaction, and (more likely than not) great returns.  Other firms don’t fare very well in this department and don’t do a very good job in listening to the voice of the customer.  Whatever the scenario is, it has become very difficult for large corporations to listen to their customers.

This new “difficulty” has mostly been a result of information becoming more decentralized: we went from having print media (newspapers and magazines) to wide broadcast media (TV and radio) to the internet - where inputs can come from places not related to the company, such as online forums, chat sessions, and online user groups.  Some of these extremely valuable places of feedback don’t stay online long enough for a company’s employees to notice them.  Chat sessions, for example, aren’t even documented most of the time.  ”How can this be,” you ask?

On one hand, the internet has made communication easy with tools such as email, IM, chat, forum boards, and SMS.  On the other hand, the internet has also made it easier for people to interact on a global scale, increasing interaction and communication exponentially.  Such large-scale communication has made acquiring feedback difficult for some firms, especially ones that either serve large markets, sell many products, operate internationally, or perform a combination of all three.  Collecting feedback about a company or its product has become somewhat analagous to searching for a needle in a haystack.  Sure, most companies have Feedback and Contact Us sections on their web sites, but there are a few problems with acquiring feedback this way:

1. Not all users go there to leave feedback.
2. Those who do leave feedback either get a heartless, automated response email, or aren’t even informed that their input has been heard or has actually been applied and/or considered  in the next design of the product.  This leads to
3. Decreased participation on company-issued feedback mechanisms and a lesser opinion about the company in question.  People will think that “Nobody is even going to read or take seriously the information I just wrote to company x on its feedback website, so why did I just spend ten minutes wasting my time writing about how the product can be improved?”  After this, it’s a downward spiral that repeats itself and never ends.

These issues call for a different type of feedback mechanism - one where people’s suggestions and feedback about a company’s products get either

• Rewarded,
• Compensated, or
• Somehow acknowledged (by a human).
  • Automated emails don’t count… They’re so very “web 1.0″.

So where do we start in the process of designing these new “social customer service and marketing” experiences?  Yep, you guessed it: the microblogging networks.

*Note: since I know and use Twitter the most out of all microblogging network services, I will rely on its feature set the most in this article (no matter how many times or how long it’s been “broken”).  Moreover, most of the suggested uses I propose will seem a little “janky,” and that’s the point: currently, real-world uses are simply non-existent.  But with the help of a current microblogging company or a new one, it can be done.

First things first: a company can establish an account on Twitter and send out periodic updates such as new product announcements, changes to the product line-up, seasonal specials, promotional buying codes, and everything else far and in-between.  Twitter users interested in the company can follow it on Twitter and those who do are guaranteed to get updates in their Twitter feed that the company posts (or Tweets, as it is called by Twitter folk).  A great benefit of being on the receiving end of messages such as these is that posts on Twitter are limited to 140 characters, meaning no Biblically-long press releases that put you to sleep after the second paragraph; when on Twitter, all updates and announcements from companies have to be straight and to the point.  Here’s an example:

“Annoucning the iPhone 10G. Starting at $100. 80GB of storage, T1 download speeds in the palm of your hand. Your life, in your pocket. Available 7/1/2012. Visit apple.com/iphone.” Posted by AppleInc.

or,

“A kind reminder from your friends at Procter & Gamble that the Crest toothpaste you purchased last week might contain chemicals known to interfere with digestion processes. Recall information available at P&G.com/recall.” Posted by Procter & Gamble, Inc.

The great thing is that this can be done now, without any special modifications to Twitter, by any company who wants to participate.  Geek clothing company Uneek Geek , that prides itself on its unique and beautiful designs, already doing this (note: Uneek Geek is a sponsor).  Moreover, this would only work within a large company if one person (or one very tightly-integrated department) were responsible for the publishing of Tweets.  Otherwise, the message would be diluted.

Second things… second: Twitter has a nifty feature, it’s called “@”.  It is also known as direct reply.  Typing @ followed by a Twitter user name will send a direct reply to that user.  For example, typing @sashok followed by whatever you want to say will send a direct reply to me (my Twitter name is sashok).  Twitterers can use this direct reply feature to provide the company with valuable feedback.  Let’s imagine that Joe Consumer just received Apple’s update above on Twitter.  He can immediately reply to Apple by typing (@AppleInc) and say something like:

“Wow!  That’s great news.  I hope you were able to add cut-and-paste - something that has been missing in the iPhone for the last six generations”.

In a similar way, the preceding response can read something like:

“Will you please add MMS support as a software update… please?  Pretty please…”

Communications channels become two-way streets this and are much more open this way, with a company being in a position to quickly reply to all suggestions.  By replying to Joe Consumer, the company will have already solved our first goal above - acknowledgement.  Within the company, these suggestions can be categorized and sent up to the right people (software developers and iPhone engineers, in our case).  By doing so, companies are able to receive improvement suggestions in a way that’s fast and inexpensive, while satisfying those who make those suggestions (with quick, personal responses).  As a side benefit, this also adds a human component to a company.

The best for last: monetization.  Currently, microblogging services either have none what-so-ever or very little when it comes to revenue and profits.  Twitter is rumored to be working on a plan to bring in revenue and Pownce has the “freemium” model in place by offering premium services for paid users.  Both companies have somewhat high operating costs - dealing with incoming and outgoing text messages, server upkeep and capacity expansion, to name a few (no, I haven’t seen any real financial info… yet).  However, both companies’ services can be sold as packages to companies and corporations wishing to improve customer satisfaction, marketing, and outreach to specific audiences.

Twitter can offer firms the ability to auto-categorize responses and conduct surveys.  If, for example, a Tweet comes to Apple asking the above question about MMS, it can be automatically routed to the “questions about MMS list” within Apple’s (highly modified for large amounts of data) Twitter interface and an Apple Twitter representative can answer it.  Survey conducting is self-explanatory: Apple can Twitter-out a question asking which of the following features users would like to see the most in the next update to the iPhone:

1. Google apps push and sync capabilities (Gmail, Calendar, Docs)
2. A2DP Bluetooth
3. More storage capacity

Users can vote, 1, 2, or 3 by texting a direct reply.  Twitter can provide the tech infrastrure for Apple to tie into in order to count the responses and then make decisions internally.

Survey participation can even be rewarded.  If a Twitter user sends a reply to Apple’s survey, a special promo code can be sent back to the user to use in the Apple online store.  This takes care of being rewarded and compensated - as per our goals set out in the beginning.  To generate even more feedback, companies using Twitter can make a contest where every 1000th respondent to a company’s survey wins a free item.

If companies embrace microblogging services as a support a tool, the revenues generated from these new clients will become the bread and butter of microblogging services and communities such as Twitter.  Because of the very social nature of these services, they can bring a lot to the table by providing personalized customer service and marketing services for businesses, introduce a quality source of user feedback, while maintaining high morale of those who provide this feedback.

However, my model does have some limitations and exceptions.

1. It can’t be used very effectively for tech support on a case-by-case basis, so don’t expect to see Twitter conversations start up containing instructions on how to replace the hard drive in an iMac.  Even so, this limitation can be overcome by providing the user with a case number and the correct toll-free number to call in regards to the issue he/she is having.
2. Whether a company’s efforts pay off using one of these microblogging services greatly depends on the culture of the company.  This is a very complicated topic and is beyond the scope of this article, but (even though I used it as an example) I can’t imagine Apple providing an open, immediate, and direct answer to the following question: “When are you planning on including MMS support in the iPhone 3G?”  To this question, I would expect Apple to answer “We do not discuss unannounced or rumored features” or “We are constantly reviewing our products and services to improve their quality.  At this time, we are not prepared to discuss this particular feature.”  That’s just Apple, however.
   And yet there is something potentially powerful about Twitter being a service as I propose: it might just “open Apple up” and turn the company around from a closed-lipped beauty to a “talkative pretty”.
3. Companies that do choose to participate and improve customer service, marketing, and feedback on such services have some costs to pay and decisions to make.  Costs such as new employees to do the “Twitter thing.”  Decision such as which questions to answer and which to ignore.
4. When a company exposes itself in this way, it can easily become flooded with useless information.  Nothing prevents Twitter users to “swarm” a company and bombard it with questions, silly comments, and irrelevant material.

—

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The real reason:

It is the goal of Big Cable to keep new media out of people’s lives for as long as possible.

Explanation:

For those not in the know, Time Warner Cable is a provider of cable internet (it’s in the name).  The company also delivers cable (TV) over the same infrastructure.  Let’s make an assumption a fact in our discussion: providing TV services for such cable companies as TWC is more profitable than delivering the internet.

What about phone companies that provide DSL internet service?  Well, glad you asked: “Phone companies are less concerned about congestion and are unlikely to impose metered usage on DSL customers, because their networks are structured differently”, writes AP Technology writer Peter Svensson.

Take a look at Time Warner’s bandwidth caps described above: 5GB for the low-end plan and 50GB for the plan with the most data transfer capacity.  In today’s growing trends of new media distributed over the internet, such bandwidth limitations would first affect content termed “new media”: podcasts, netcasts, and internet-based entertainment.

If you haven’t yet heard of or tried such content as is listed above, I suggest you do: it’s audio and video content brought to you for consumption on your schedule.  Some of the most prominent networks in “old media” (NPR, PC Mag, etc.) have their content available in podcast form for free.  This means their content comes to you as it is released and you can play it either on your computer or on a personal media player such as an iPod, Zune, or even iPhone.  The best part about podcasts (for me) is not the benefits described above, but the fact that the internet allows for the distribution of content that would not otherwise make it (by numbers, for example) on the big screen or to the TV because its ratings aren’t high enough, allowing very small yet interested niches to be reached.  (For full disclosure, we at TechNest Report are in the process of starting up our own podcast).  In any event, by imposing a limit on bandwidth and charging overage fees for using more than their alloted amount, ISPs will be pushing consumers toward consuming less “internet content” and more “traditional content” delivered by the cable company, mainly - the good-ol TV.

This sets up a perfect scenario for a conflict of interest, and here’s why:

1. Only cable companies have an interest in internet tiering.  DSL companies don’t because their networks work differently.
2. Cable companies carry TV signals over the same infrastructure as they do internet signals.
3. Being more profitable, cable companies need to figure out a way to push their customers toward consuming more TV.
4. What better way to accomplish #3 than to set restrictions on the way consumers receive content that competes with TV?  Answer: limit the way such competing content (like podcasts and other types of new media) gets to consumers by setting outrageous limits on how much of the competing content they can consume.
5. Higher profits and margins!

The fact that the “limitaton of internet content consumption” starts at the source - the ISP - is extra “perfect”.  Because of this, a Cable company like TWC can even begin to control the speed of podcast and new media delivery to the consumer.  So if I were to be living in an area with internet tiering and would be downloading/streaming a podcast, it might come to me at really slow speeds and make such content unbearably slow - rendering it unwatchable.  The ISPs are in a a position to implement this measure - they, afterall, “provide the internet”.

Now before you begin typing my email address in the To: field of your email client, let me say these few words:  I am completely in agreement that having 5% of the customers consume more than half of a service is not fair if everybody pays the same price.  If service is degraded for 95% of users because 5% of users are using more than half of available bandwidth something should be done.  In fact, I’m sure you’ve heard about internet services compared to cell phone service usage: use more, pay more; go over your allotment, pay extra.  The same principle can be applied to the many utilities we use today: water and electricity, to name a few more.  If, for example, everybody in South Florida pays $50 a month for unlimited water use and 5% of customers use more than half of available water, this would mean one of two things:

1. A certain portion of the remaining 95% would not get water, or
2. Those 95% would get water, but instead of water coming out of the faucet with good, constant pressure, it would trickle out in droplets.

That’s the argument I’m sure cable companies are to use in their quest to tier the internet.  I think that people should pay for what they use.  But if Time Warner is to succeed in its quest, they have to do a few things:

1. Make it crystal clear to customers what it is they are getting for the amount they are paying.
2. Provide customers with an easy-to-use and live-updateable service of measuring their usage (similar to how cell phone companies provide statistics on how many minutes and text messages customers have used to date.
3. Provide reasonable overage fees for those who go over.

Only after taking such steps will internet tiering work in a beneficial way for the consumer and for the (cable) ISPs.  Why will it be beneficial for ISPs?  Because they won’t be getting a call every thirty seconds from their customers asking the same question: “Why is my bill so much higher than that of last month?”

In the end… the real questions…

Why are ISPs so interested in providing internet tiering services?  That’s the underlying, million-dollar question.  Today’s economic pressures are enourmous: the growth imperative of publicly-traded companies is huge.  CEOs and other executives are required to bring their shareholders value, and the meaning of that “word that starts with V” is beginning to take shapes (multiple meanings).  In the end, what this is is hypercapitalism.  And it’s not so prominent in the scenario I described above.  It is, however, prominent, in other ISP-related stories.  More on this later, probably (since our growth imperative here at TechNest Report is not as high as that of ISPs and other publicly-traded organizations; thank God?  No, thank our founders - me).

“Exchange for the rest of us”:

Let’s see what Microsoft’s identifiable markets are: home users, business users, corporate customers.  In an interview on Windows Weekly a few months ago, a Microsoft executive in the online Live division explained how the company sees corporate users also as home users who want to enjoy their computers and have fun with them when not at work (my paraphrase).  He noted that it was Microsoft’s goal with Live to unify the experiences of such users.  That’s great and all, but just tell me one thing: how does a tech company that has been (incorrectly) relegated by the media to be the best choice for “home users” beat you in making “Exchange for the rest of us”, when Exchange is your own (Microsoft’s) product?  It’s so embarrassing that it overshadows Windows Me (the biggest flop to leave Microsoft labs).

Just in case you have been living under a rock for the last few months, that company with the “home user” target market goes by the name of Apple, Inc.  You know, the company who is known for turning certain industries upside down and re-inventing the business processes within them.  Apple announced MobileMe on June 9, 2008 and dubbed it “Exchange for the rest of us”.  That “exchange” reference, as mentioned earlier, is alluding to Microsoft Exchange - a corporate/large-business email and PIM tool/service.  MobileMe basically does Exchange but for the consumer - on a personal subscription level.  Herein lies the question: how does Apple, a company so focused on the “home user”, roll out something Microsoft should have been selling for the last five years?

You see, somewhere along the lines of Xbox breakdowns, Vista problems/negative PR, and chasing after copying Apple with Zune, Microsoft completely missed the boat.  For a nominal fee to the user, Microsoft should have created “Exchange Hotmail”: a paid-for part of Hotmail that “brings your data with you at the speed of *push*” (my marketing tagline).  It should have been the scaled down, personal version of Exchange that integrated with Hotmail/Live mail in the cloud, integrated with an Exchange-compatible mobile client, and pushed out to Outlook/Windows Live Mail on the desktop.  It would do push email, calendar, and contacts the way Exchange does it, only Joe User would be able to sign up for it himself.  But it wasn’t to be.  Apple brought it first because Microsoft was too busy defending its “server plays”.  Most likely, the big M felt that introducing a personal version of Exchange tied to Hotmail would in some way enroach on its own user base of corporate Exchange users.  But that’s just a load of bollocks, since the two markets using Exchange enterprise and my proposed Exchange Hotmail would be different (a corporation would still run an Exchange server for company-wide email and Joe the employee would simply subscribe to Exchange Hotmail for personal use).

On second thought, the company did roll out a scaled down version of its server product for home users dubbed Windows Home server.  Why could it not have applied the same type of thinking to an email and PIM system?  After all, the new Microsoft is all about software plus services (as described in the linked memo by new Microsoft chief Ray Ozzie).  Exchange Hotmail would have been a perfect play for Microsoft.  So in the end, Microsoft is left with a very popular online mail solution (Hotmail) yet has not made a significant effort to monetize it.  Apple, on the other hand, has beaten Microsoft at their own game and has brought out a kick-butt web service and, along the process, used Microsoft’s “Exchange” moniker in its description - almost as a mokery.

On triple thought, what has Microsoft really done to Hotmail and its consumer online services lately?  Sure, they have copied Yahoo! and made Hotmail “drag-and-drop”.  But what Apple is really great at doing is making an end-to-end solution, as the comapny has done with iPhone and MobileMe.  The latter is the perfect complement for the iPhone user.  Microsoft hasn’t seen the light at the end of this tunnel, and the jury is still out to see if it ever will.

P.S. Throughout the article, I put “home user” in quotation marks because for years it has been thought that “home use” was the best use of Apple Macs.  Though this opinion is beginning to change rather quickly - and as it should - many uninformed tech journalists, “experts”, and those in tech media still wrongly believe this to be the case.

Difficulty

Replacing a hard drive in a desktop PC is a piece of cake: pop off the panel covering and remove the sliding SATA trays.  But when it comes to notebook computers, the difficulty varies since the construction of notebooks is not as standardized as it is for desktop PCs.  For example: in most Dell notebooks, one only need to remove four screws and a covering panel on the bottom of the machine to get to the hard drive; on an iBook (as it was in my case), one needs to remove upwards of 30 screws and take apart practically the entire computer.

Supplies

Removing upwards of 30 screws from my main machine wasn’t exactly something I took lightly.  After hearing Adam Christianson of the MacCast podcast go through with the procedure with his iBook and break the internal power supply cable, I became even more fearful.  But my growing storage needs overcame my fear and I decided to do it.  After looking at iFixit’s excellent step-by-step picture and instruction guides I set a budget of no more than $150 on the entire project and ended up ordering these items:

• Western Digital 250.0GB “Scorpio” 5400RPM 9.5MM SuperSlim IDE Notebook Drive with 8MB Data buffer (from MacSales.com; $114.99 for drive, $119.99 shipped)
• iFixit.com tools: total $12.85 - $5.00 discount + $4.11 shipping = $11.96 total.
  • Spudger (from iFixit.com, $2.95)
  • T8 Torx Screwdriver (from iFixit.com; $4.95)
  • Phillips #0 Screwdriver (From iFixit.com; $4.95)

iFixit.com

Besides providing excellent guides that are tailored to your specific model Mac and iPod repair/DIY projects, iFixit.com also sells the tools you need for those projects.  In my case I needed the above screw drivers and spudger and iFixit.com has a very convenient option to purchase these when you are looking at the project your are planning on accomplishing.  Sure I could have gone to the local hardware store and bought these there, but I was willing to wait since I ordered the hard drive online as well.  Besides, I would rather pay a small amount extra for shipping and handling and make my choice online of the exact items I need than to go and hunt these items down in multiple local stores.  Who knows, maybe the local store is out of the T8 Torx today…

P.S. A note of importance: being built in 2004, my iBook uses an ATA connection for its drives instead of SATA (Serial ATA).  As far as I know, all other iBooks also utilize the same ATA connection interface.  The new MacBooks, which replaced the iBooks in Apple’s lineup a few years ago, use SATA.

Upon receiving the hard drive and the tools, I backed everything up to an external drive using the awesome (and free) Carbon Copy Cloner and got to work.  Without further ado, here are the pictures I have from the “iBook surgery” (my Flickr set).  A time-lapse video will be coming shortly.  Enjoy and let me know if you have any questions on the procedure in the comments.

We have been receiving emails throughout the day of withdrawn functionality from Google Calendar.  We have tested the issue and are now confirming that users no longer have the ability to specify which calendar(s) are displayed.  Three staff members and five acquaintances and general friends-in-tech have confirmed our findings.  We have tested using Firefox 3, Firefox 2, IE 7, Safari 3.1, and WebKit r34728 nightly build.

Earlier in the week, this feature was controlled by check boxes next to every calendar name.  This means that as of now, there is no easy way to choose which calendars are shown and which are hidden in the popular online calendaring application (which, for those of us with a multitude of calendars, is a major minus).

If you have any information about this, please comment on this post or send email to getsatisfaction at TechNestReport dot com

I needed to download a template from Microsoft’s Office 2007 site and upon visiting Microsoft.com, I saw this:

If that doesn’t stike you as funny (or at the very least ironic), then let me put paint a background description.  The notebook pictured above is an Apple PowerBook (titanium).  Unlike current Macs, it didn’t have an Intel processor and didn’t run Windows natively.  Rather, Windows could only be run in a painfully slow virtual mode through the now-discontinued Mac Vitual PC environment.  Moreover, the notebook was released in January 2001 and discontinued in September 2003.

So, it’s a great complement to Apple and their design team that Microsoft would use a notebook no longer in production as their home-page PC image for promoting security downloads.  It’s a testament to the timeless design Apple’s products have.

What else does it mean to you?