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Q: As it applies to CEOs of public companies, are there any different requirements which might govern their twittering?
Schwartz: Well, I don’t use Twitter to discuss Sun’s financial performance. I use it to keep in touch with my friends and relatives. So I’m sure there are some that use it (as with any messaging service) for business purposes…For me, it’s a tool to keep me close to my social circle, not my professional circle. (For that, I use LinkedIn and Facebook.)

The more interesting question now is, how far off are we from the day when Schwartz and his fellow CEOs reach for Twitter when they want to get out the message? My hunch is that this is going to be a generational issue, and Schwartz sees a similar evolution. So I asked him about the likelihood he and fellow CEOs will take the next logical (and technological) step. Here’s what he had to say:

The example I use is this: When’s the last time you learned a new
(spoken) language? It’s a lot easier for a 3-year-old to learn a new language than a 30-year-old; the same applies to social infrastructure (although I’d like to believe the hurdles are a lot lower). People change all the time, so do communication preferences and technologies.

Sun’s CEO twitters? Cool. Then again, he is an early adopter. Schwartz was one of the first and most frequent users of corporate blogs to get out the word. Of course, not everyone agrees about the amount of credit he deserves. Waggener Edstrom’s Frank Shaw says Schwartz is wrong about blogging. My take: Shaw is wrong about Schwartz being wrong about blogging. More than any other CEO, Schwartz has become the face of corporate blogging. But that’s a side debate for another time.

Amazing how much Twitter is dominating the conversation of late. So at the risk of “all Twitter, all the time” overkill, I was intrigued when Sun Microsystems’ Jonathan Schwartz recently confessed to Tim O’Reilly that, yes, he Twitters, but no, he won’t fess up his user ID for public consumption.

Schwartz: So two Twitters walked into this bar…

A colleague points out that Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos, is already Twittering up a storm. Talk about change on the fly!

We’ve seen more CEOs take to blogging. But Twitter’s a bit of a different use of the technology. It’s more immediate and more interactive. Do you see it being embraced by CEOs as more of a mainstream tool of conversation?

Schwartz: No, but then again, that’s just me. And at 42, compared to some of the CEOs I met at O’Reillys’ Web 2.0 fest, I’m an old guy. As choices emerge, demographics and preferences become more important–the good news is, we all have different choices today than even five years ago. And once those choices sediment, it’s tough for people to change. I used to know senior execs who had their e-mail printed out. That’s mostly gone.

(Credit:
CNET News.com)

Are we still far from the day when CEOs will start announcing real news on their Twitter feeds, or do you think it will be more of, “Hey, I just fed the cat” kind of stuff?

Schwartz: That’s like asking “what will people do with ZFS?” or “what will people do with the Internet?” What people do with Twitter will be dependent upon who they are and how Twitter evolves. Both represent limitless opportunity…Do I expect news to be broken on Twitter? Yes. Financial news? Why the heck not?

In other words, it’s a near-perfect application of Pascal’s Wager, as Tim points out:

Given that there’s even a reasonable risk of disruptive climate change, any sensible person should decide to act. It’s insurance.

I’ve tended to fall on the side of the skeptics, though a recent Foreign Policy article has me nearly persuaded. I haven’t resisted because I know that global warming is a hoax, but rather because I haven’t been fully convinced by the evidence. (Well, really, it’s because I just like to be contrarian, but don’t tell anyone.)

The risk of your house burning down is small, yet you carry homeowner’s insurance…We don’t need to be 100 percent sure that the worst fears of climate scientists are correct in order to act. All we need to think about are the consequences of being wrong.

But I buy Tim’s rationale. The downsides to a better environment, more fuel-efficient
cars, etc., are not downsides at all. They’re things I’d like regardless of whether the world is burning up or not. So why not?

Tim O’Reilly makes the most cogent argument I’ve yet seen on why we should believe in global warming and act accordingly, even if we don’t fully buy into the hype: The downside to belief is quite small. The upside is quite big.

In my talks, I’ve argued that climate change provides us with a modern version of Pascal’s wager: if catastrophic global warming turns out not to happen, the steps we’d take to address it are still worthwhile.

commentary

That’s amazing progress in a year from a company that had never participated in this market before. Phones and computers are finally coming together, after years of promises of convergence. And Apple will definitely play a leading role in the definition of that market over the next several years, having earned the right during the first year of the iPhone.

Starting with iPhone Day on June 29, 2007, iPhone sales have followed a bit of a bell curve pattern, peaking at 2.35 million shipments in the fourth calendar quarter of 2007 before retreating this year. That spike was driven by what was a smart move in retrospect but perhaps Apple’s biggest public-relations blunder in its first year of the iPhone: the infamous price cut.

While that process was going on, however, a vibrant developer community had already sprung into action, creating hundreds of unauthorized applications for those willing to “jailbreak” their iPhones. These developers found a relatively easy way to bypass Apple’s lock on the handset, which also allowed a thriving “gray market” for unlocked iPhones to emerge all over the world. Executives at carriers who had signed exclusive revenue-sharing deals with Apple were likely not amused.

In the next 12 months, iPhone buyers are going to be all the people who couldn’t justify spending $399 on a phone as well as those who would have never considered buying a phone that ran on a slow network, plus the hard-core upgraders, I suppose. Some analysts expect Apple to sell as many as 18 million iPhone 3Gs in the next six months, although that seems quite a stretch to me. But it doesn’t seem impossible that Apple would ship at least 7.5 million iPhones over the remainder of the year, hitting its 10 million goal for 2008.

(Credit:
James Martin/CNET News.com)

I’ve seen this phenomenon several times over the past year, with co-workers, family, and friends–people who I never thought would be interested in a smartphone–amazed at how the iPhone has changed their life. I’m sure that’s also happened to BlackBerry owners, Windows Mobile users, and the Europeans who probably look across the pond at us with bemused looks from behind their Symbian smartphones, but in the last 12 months, it has been the iPhone users who have gone through that awakening process, and many of them have been first-time smartphone owners.

(Credit:
Apple)

One year after Apple’s iPhone made its debut in a frenzy of consumer lust, much of the hubbub may have died down but the story is just getting interesting.

The other main difference that will play out during the second year of the iPhone will be official third-party applications, combined with a faster networking pipe and GPS on the iPhone 3G. Business-oriented smartphone users will now also be enticed to take a look at the iPhone with the addition of support for Microsoft Exchange e-mail and security for those conservative IT types.

Click on the image above to see a gallery of highs and lows from the iPhone's first year.

Apple has sold around 6 million iPhones so far, in its first year in the mobile phone market.

Let’s take a quick look back at the first year of the iPhone. Apple sold 6 million iPhones from a year ago this weekend up until around the middle of May, when it ran out of the older generation model ahead of the debut of the iPhone 3G on July 11. The company said it “underestimated” demand for the older model when it made its purchasing decisions for 2008, meaning that Apple will not have sold a single iPhone during the last six weeks of its first year.

Around the same time, Apple finally addressed the pleas of the developer community for a chance to get their hands on the iPhone. In mid-October, CEO Steve Jobs announced that Apple would release a software developer’s kit in February that would allow third-party developers to create software for the iPhone. The SDK will be a little late, but Apple and other companies have shown what types of applications are possible using the unique touch-screen user interface on the iPhone, and the fruits of that labor are expected to arrive in early July.

As a result, Apple has realized that it will have to embrace the business model used by the rest of the mobile phone industry, and has made significant changes to the way iPhones will be sold in the second year of their existence. While the mobile industry might have forced Apple to bend to its will in certain ways, the iPhone’s breakthrough user interface and Internet browsing prowess clearly caught the attention of the mobile industry, and we’ll probably find out by this time next year whether any of them have learned their lessons.

When the iPhone was first released, Apple was willing to forgo the usual subsidies attached to a high-end phone in exchange for the long-term revenue-sharing agreement, perhaps believing that its marketing expertise could sell iPhones as combination high-end iPods, phones, and mobile browsing devices at the higher prices. But once the initial hype wore off during 2008 and a general economic malaise set in, phone buyers–especially in Europe–seemed put off by even the $399 price. Some experiments with lower pricing by O2, the iPhone’s U.K. carrier, quickly moved its remaining inventory of iPhones.

In just a year, the
iPhone has had a clear impact on the way smartphones and mobile software in general are now designed, and has raised consumer interest–especially in the U.S.–in the concept of truly mobile access to the Internet. But Apple has struggled to find the right price for the iPhone, manage its supply chain, and limit the ability of hackers to get total control over the iPhone.

What’s next for the iPhone?
So as we look forward into the second year of the iPhone’s life on this planet, we can already see that some things will be very different. For one, it looks like Apple has finally settled on a price for the iPhone: $199 for the 8GB model and $299 for the 16GB model. It will get down to that price thanks to hefty subsidies from AT&T and other carrier partners around the world, which means the end of the revenue-sharing agreement that Apple signed with its initial carrier partners.

It's hard to believe, but it's been a year since hopeful iPhone owners crowded Stockton Street in San Francisco, hoping to get their hands on Apple's first mobile phone. For more photos from year one of the iPhone, click on the image.

(Credit:
Apple)

Just 10 weeks or so after thousands lined up to be the first to purchase an iPhone for $599, Apple cut the price to $399, angering some of its most loyal customers. The company moved to mollify the early adopters with a $100 store credit, which seemed to douse the flames.

But Apple still appears to hold the high ground in terms of software design and the appeal of its user interface. The first year of the iPhone was humbling for the company, in a certain way, as it realized just how much it had to learn about this strange new mobile world. But it was also affirming in that users, critics, and competitors have all acknowledged the changes in mobile computing created by the iPhone’s software.

Apple will face a different environment in its second year. Research In Motion is dramatically expanding its efforts to attract regular people, not just businesspeople, to the BlackBerry. Windows Mobile and Palm are expected to have new versions of their operating systems out next year. And while I think Google’s Android software is aimed more at midlevel “feature” phones than the iPhone, the buzz around that eventual launch should be intense.

The iPhone 3G is set to arrive on July 11 with a faster networking chip and support for third-party applications, and could dramatically increase sales.

(Credit:
CNET Networks)

It’s now mass-market time for the iPhone. If I may make a sweeping generalization, the early buyers of the iPhone seemed to reflect two types of people. One, the hardcore gadget-lovers who had been waiting for an Apple-designed phone for years to replace their Palm, Windows Mobile, or BlackBerry smartphone and didn’t care that the iPhone ran on the slow EDGE network with stock applications. The other? Normal, everyday people who had never seen the need for a smartphone until they saw the iPhone merely say “Hello,” in the first commercials run during the 2007 Oscars, and had no idea what they were missing running on the slow EDGE network with stock applications.

But it was the interchangeable, chrome-lined, steel barrels, the switching-out of which can, in minutes, effectively shrink the SCAR from carbine length to submachine gun, that most impressed Special Forces operators interviewed by Military.com on the firing line in Northern Virginia recently.

Featuring a short stroke gas piston system, its ambidextrous layout, telescoping, folding butt stock and adjustable cheek piece aim to please even the fussiest of commandos.

SOCOM has ordered about 18,000 SCAR variants for its troops, including a limited run of about 1,200 rifles already in production, FN USA told Military.com.

Available as the MK-16 or MK-17, (accepting 5.65 and 7.62 NATO ammunition respectively) the SCAR is a highly modular system designed to adapt easily to future upgrades and new ammunition. The weapon, produced by the Belgian company Fabrique Nationale Herstal (FN), with replace the Colt M4, long a source of bitter gripes throughout the SF community due to its lack of punch and high jam rate (PDF).

The new Special Forces combat assault rifle (SCAR) meant to replace a hodgepodge of weapons currently used by U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) is undergoing its field assessment phase, the last step before full-production and battlefield deployment.

FNH

“That’s the best part of this weapon,” one soldier told Military.com. “When we deploy, we usually go with just our M4s. But if we’re on an operation where we need an overwatch or we’re observing at a distance, the M4 doesn’t do us much good until it’s too late.”

Both the Mk-16 and Mk-17 accept barrels measuring from 10 inches for close-quarters assault work to 18-inch sniper units.

The idea is that Biblical commandments were not designed to inhibit people, but to enable and improve them. Sometimes we let the letter of a law impede the spirit and end up cramping our capabilities. Is there a correlation to software?

Wikis may be more powerful than a Microsoft Word document, but if they’re not at least as easy, then they’re simply not going to get used. Period. Google gets this: Google Docs is actually easier to use than Microsoft Word.

The Bible has this great counsel in Mark 2:27:

ECM, of course, is not alone in this. CRM (customer relationship management), ERP (enterprise resource planning), and other enterprise applications think more of the enterprise than the person within the enterprise that is forced to use the software. SAP’s CEO suggested the other day that this is by design. Well, it’s a lame design.

commentary

I had a very frustrating experience this morning. I decided to start editing an internal team wiki and ran into a significant roadblock: To edit the wiki, I first needed to learn “wikiml.” What is wikiml? I’m glad you asked. It’s a wiki markup language so that wikis look more like Web pages/documents, and not like a stream of undifferentiated text.

Of course there is. Software developers need to focus on creating software for humans, not expecting humans to reshape their behaviors for software. Enterprise content management (ECM) has been a market that has depended on people changing their behaviors to fit the system…which is why 95 percent of any given enterprise persists in not using the software.

Software is for people. When it’s not, people won’t use it, at least not as much as they otherwise would.

There’s just one problem: Wikiml. Who wants to learn a markup language just so you can collaborate with colleagues? It’s not that the markup language is particularly difficult (here’s a cheat sheet for reference), but requiring the learning of a new language is a step backward, not forward, in terms of ease of use.

The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.

Testing the forthcoming Zune 120

This is a bit of a tease, so I’ll keep it short. Yes, Microsoft is building a 120GB
Zune. Fan site Zunerama uncovered an FCC filing, and yesterday got Zune team member Cesar Menendez to confirm the news.

As
iPod fans will no doubt note, 120GB is still short of the 160GB offered by the top-capacity iPod Classic. I can’t say much, but I’ve seen what Microsoft’s planning, and befitting its status as a software plus services company, the real advances aren’t going to be in the Zune hardware, but in the Zune software and associated services. Apple makes great devices, and so far iTunes has remained ahead of the Zune software, but Apple has sometimes fallen short in the services arena. Microsoft has a huge challenge taking on the iJuggernaut, but they are far from giving up. That’s good news for us–competition means better products from all sides.

The Yahoo Messenger for Vista beta software supports computer-to-computer calls as well as calls to and from phones, Yahoo said Wednesday. It also can communicate with cell phone text messages sent with SMS (short message service) technology.

The software is available at Yahoo’s download site.

Other features in the version include vector-based graphics for better independence from variable monitor pixel sizes; a Windows Sidebar gadget version; integration with Yahoo address book; integration with Flickr for photo sharing; the ability to view videos and photos sent as Web page links in the chat window; customizable skins; tabbed conversations to cut down on window clutter. Why, I don’t know, but I avoid tabbed IM windows even though I use tabbed browser Windows extensively. Go figure.

Update 4:30 p.m. PT May 1: I corrected the download link and a reference to the Messenger 9 beta for Windows XP, a separate product from the Messenger for Vista beta.

The software is one of the few Vista-specific applications around, taking advantage of the graphics display abilities of the Windows Presentation Foundation underpinnings of Vista. My comrade Ina Fried was favorably impressed by the interface.

Yahoo has released its Windows Vista beta of its instant-messaging software, adding support for voice chat and cell phone text messages that were missing from the preview version that’s been out since December.

Yahoo's updated messenger program for Vista adds voice dialing as well as eye candy known as "Voice Visualizations."

(Credit:
Yahoo)

BARCELONA - Skyhook Wireless announced on Monday at the GSMA Mobile World Congress here that Texas Instruments will use its hybrid positioning technology in its mobile chips, so that cell phones can provide more accurate location information.

The way it works is that Skyhook will use Wi-Fi access points to triangulate and get a fix on known Wi-Fi hot spots. The company has a database of where Wi-Fi hot spots all over the country are located. Specifically, it uses the
Mac address, a unique identifier that every piece of hardware on the Internet must have, to identify the router, and it matches that identifier with the location. Using multiple signals in the same geographic location, the Skyhook technology is able to pinpoint a location.

Skyhook has developed a hybrid technology that uses GPS satellite technology and Wi-Fi to help provide geolocation services. Skyhook’s technology is used today on Apple’s
iPhone, among other services and devices.

The company has also integrated GPS into its technology, so that it can be used to get an even more accurate location-fix on phones that have GPS receivers. GPS allows Skyhook to cover more ground with its geolocation technology. And it also provides location information more quickly than GPS alone. Because GPS uses three or four low-orbiting satellites to pinpoint a location, it can take a few seconds before it’s able to calculate a location. Skyhook’s Wi-Fi technology can get location information much faster.

The Skyhook XPS hybrid software will be used in TI’s current and future NaviLin 6.0 and WiLink 6.0 solutions.