Ged Carroll

Month: December 2011

  • I like: Samsung Galaxy Y DUOS

    I currently have two mobile phones, an iPhone 3GS for all that stuff that smart phones do and texting. My second phone is a Samsung B5702 DUOS phone that does my voice calls. My Samsung B5702 DUOS is a predecessor of the new Sony Galaxy Y DUOS. Its a great feature phone with a week long battery life and a space for two SIMs.
    Samsung GALAXY Y DUOS Product Image (4)
    With the Samsung Galaxy Y DUOS, it looks like I’ve been finally given a reason to upgrade. On the specifications the phone is a basic Android smartphone. And that’s fine, I wouldn’t be interested in any of its Android features. Where the Samsung Galaxy Y DUOS excels is that unlike the vast majority of dual SIM feature phones and smartphones available it supports UMTS networks.  This provides you with yet more options when you are roaming abroad on networks.

    It should be available early next year, but you will need to trawl Google and Amazon (I’d advise Amazon Germany) to find it as your mobile phone carriers won’t like it. Mobile carriers tend not to like dual SIM phones. In domestic markets they would allow you to change your call routine based on the call plans of your two times, while still receiving calls.

    So you might do calls out on one SIM to take advantage of its free evening calls, will using a cheaper SIM for daytime calls. This means that the carrier doesn’t get to maximise the revenue from you as a customer.

    Consequently, distribution of these devices in western mobile markets will be limited. However I imagine them being very popular in the likes of Hong Kong where taxi-drivers usually have a bank of phones on their dashboard to handle customer orders.

    More information on Samsung’s press room – the press release doesn’t give an exhaustive breakdown of the technical specifications and too much meaningless marketing platitudes.

    You can find more device related opinions and reviews here. And more wireless related content here.

  • STRATFOR breach

    I got an email about 40 minutes ago announcing that STRATFOR were looking into a breach of their servers and email. I’ve always found their analysis on international issues informative and insightful which has helped in my work thinking about international projects with NGOs and in my writing here on this blog. It is one of a a number of media outlets that I pay a subscription to.

    Given that Stratfor position themselves as not only domain experts in territories around the world and geopolitics, but also opsec (operational security); the data breach is a shockingly bad own goal. It will be interesting to see how their brand manages to recover. The hackers have made off with a trove of government, academic, media contacts as well as general people like me who are curious about what’s going on in the world.

    Dear Stratfor Member,

    We have learned that Stratfor’s web site was hacked by an unauthorized party. As a result of this incident the operation of Stratfor’s servers and email have been suspended.

    We have reason to believe that the names of our corporate subscribers have been posted on other web sites. We are diligently investigating the extent to which subscriber information may have been obtained.

    Stratfor and I take this incident very seriously. Stratfor’s relationship with its members and, in particular, the confidentiality of their subscriber information, are very important to Stratfor and me. We are working closely with law enforcement in their investigation and will assist them with the identification of the individual(s) who are responsible.

    Although we are still learning more and the law enforcement investigation is active and ongoing, we wanted to provide you with notice of this incident as quickly as possible. We will keep you updated regarding these matters.

    Sincerely,

    George Friedman

    Cryptonome have more details here: complete with the obligatory Pastebin links. Twitter currently has a lively discussion on the hack.

    Update (February 2023): Stratfor bought all its subscribers an Equifax monitoring package for their credentials and offered discounted subscriptions. It revamped its infrastructure and carried on. Stratfor never completely recovered from the breach. It eventually sold itself to a larger group Rane. As part of Rane the Stratfor work continues and they still sell expert consultancy.

    Rane have since embraced social media to promote its content to prospective customers. The quality is the same high standards as what it used to be under Stratfor before the data breach.

  • IWC 59210 movement

    Why does someone who spends his working day thinking about the future and all things digital care about the IWC 59210 mechanical watch movement? A modern quartz movement watch can be more accurate.

    An analogue watch has some advantages over a digital display in terms of legibility and the ability to see how much time one has until an appointment, but that can have quartz movement behind it.

    I like a mechanical watch movement because:

    • The movement of a good mechanical watch is an object of beauty in itself. The great watch companies take as much pride in making the insides look as beautiful as the watch exterior. It is rare to see that detail in the design of modern products outside those designed by Apple
    • You have a lifelong relationship with a mechanical watch. Companies like Rolex will service your watch for you every few years or so and will even refurbish it if necessary. Patek Philippe have used the same strapline in their advertisements for years: You never actually own a Patek Philippe. You merely look after it for the next generation. Good quality design is products that you will want to own until you wear them out, or they wear you out. It is also a good way towards creating more environmentally friendly products and I haven’t even got on to challenge of battery disposal…
    • Finally, I like to be able to know the time all the time. I wear my watch in bed, in the shower, in fact it only comes off if I find it getting in the way typing. Part of this comes from having done scuba diving when I was younger; your watch became part of you. I had a quartz watch and moisture got in stopping the watch dead. A friend had an automatic watch movement in a Seiko which had a little damp in but kept on going. Both of use eventually invested in good quality Swiss watches

    The IWC 59210 is a marvel of the watchmakers art. It holds up to eight days power when fully wound up and runs at 28,800 beats per hour which is a marvel for a mechanical device that small.
    IWC calibre 59210
    The IWC 59210 movement goes into the Portofino range of watches which have a case that is not as technical as the style of watches that I like, but make a nice dress watch if you like that kind of thing. More related content can be found here.

  • iPhone pragmatism

    Despite working as a digital strategist and creative thinker (whatever the hell that means) agencyside, I have a very pragmatic relationship with technology both past and present from the iPhone to my original Mac. I have had Macs since 1989, primarily because they were the closest thing I found to a computer that just worked.

    I had analogue mobile phones from my time DJing and having friends who worked in cell phone service centres. My first phone that I had to buy was digital, the mobile phone was a Motorola; mainly because One2One (now Everything Everywhere) sold a package where you paid just over 100 pounds and had a phone for 12 months, with a small amount of inbuilt local call time. At the time I used it as a more reliable version of my pager. Even back then SMS proved to be more reliable than the pager that I had used previously

    I went from Motorola to Ericsson, mostly because Ericsson handsets were really well made and then moved to Nokia when Ericsson merged its handset business with Sony. I moved from Nokia to the Apple iPhone and a Samsung feature phone for two reasons:

    • Apple had an address book that worked. My address book didn’t brick the phone. I haven’t had that bad problems with data corruption and it syncs with my computer. It has all the productivity applications I enjoyed on my Nokia phones like MetrO and QuickOffice. The iPhone also has major flaws. For instance, the browser isn’t great, but I put up with it because I can sync my bookmarks for it across from the Safari browser on my Mac. The biggest think that I miss was the Nokia keyboard and laptop layout on the Nokia E90 Communicator
    • My Samsung phone could take two SIMs which is a boon for traveling. This is something that most phone manufacturers don’t provide for markets outside the developing world

    My iPhone was also expensive, like the price of a cheap laptop kind of expensive, which means that I look at it in a different way to previous smartphones. Instead of getting rid of my phone every 18 months, I am thinking closer to three years, just like my laptop.  An additional factor  is that whilst the first iPhones were a radical leap forward,  the iPhone 4 and 4S don’t have sufficient must-have value for me to move on until my current phone dies or the next iteration of the iPhone comes out.

    Now I wouldn’t say that I am an everyman for the iPhone using population; but this has to have some effect on sales. For every iPad that Apple sells there maybe at least a few iPhone upgrades put on hold as an opportunity cost.

  • Barusch gets story wrong

    Last week I commented on a blog post by Ronald Barusch called Dealpolitik: Yahoo!’s survival plan. In his post Barusch critiques Yahoo! Inc.’s pursuit of different options for the company. Part of his critique reflected on Microsoft’s hostile takeover bid for the company three years ago:

    True, with hindsight the Yahoo board made a world-class blunder in turning down the Microsoft $33 per share bid over three years ago. But the board has to make the best of today’s situation.

    Whilst I agree with the Barusch central thesis that the company needs a new direction or possibly a new owner, and don’t have any particular sympathy for the board, I don’t think that the argument for new management at Yahoo! should centre around the Microsoft takeover bid.

    I explained in my comment to the Barusch article that whilst I didn’t have sympathy for the Yahoo! board, I also didn’t think that the whole picture of the Microsoft deal was reflected in the article. I think that there is a serious argument to be made for the Microsoft deal being a flawed structure, with a distinct possibility of it not a viable deal in the first place. There are two main strands to my thinking:

    • First of all the destruction of value meant that many Microsoft shareholders were opposed to the deal, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it was a bad deal for all Yahoo! shareholders. (Only the ones that initially opposed the deal. Since the Microsoft deal at the time offered cash for the first 50 per cent of shares and Microsoft shares for the last 50 per cent shares. Given the state of Microsoft’s share price over the past decade or so and the state of the Microsoft online services line, cash would be preferable.)
    • The second and more important strand is that the deal had a number of antitrust roadblocks to cross. Whilst Microsoft is a bit player in the search engine advertising market, it is already a convicted monopolist in its server and tools business. This important because Yahoo! is not only a media company; but also a key contributor to a number of critical open source projects; having contributed to PHP, the Debian Linux distribution and Hadoop. Given this, the deal would have been exposed to antitrust risk in the EU. A second risk of antitrust would have come from the Japanese and Chinese markets were you have national internet champions in Softbank (majority owner of Yahoo! Japan) and Alibaba trying to escape the clutches of Yahoo! instead being acquired by Microsoft

    It was interesting that neither Microsoft, the media or Yahoo! broached the likely antitrust implications publicly at that time. Which I suspect is partly a credit to good execution by Microsoft’s corporate communications team.

    The Microsoft bid was a powerful lever that helped Microsoft secure the search deal it wanted with Yahoo!. Though Microsoft has failed to reap the full commercial gains partly because it’s AdCenter technology wasn’t as good as the Yahoo! Panama project it replaced – and neither were as good as Google’s own advertising technology.

    What should the Yahoo! board have done, and what should it do next probably has more options in it than football fans arguing over the performance of their team manager and I don’t have the definitive answer.

    But I suspect my comment may have been bounced from the Wall Street Journal Online site because it throws a spanner in the works of the Mr Barusch. His nice, neat storyline with the Microsoft deal opportunity as an inciting incident into a downward spiral of a digital greek tragedy. Mr Barusch and his colleagues don’t want the evidence to get in the way of a good story

    As an aside, it also shows how powerful storytelling is as a way to game media | public relations in favour of the PR over the journalist. People like stories, they think in stories and it makes it easier to efficiently and effectively file easy copy or blog posts.

    So if the Microsoft hostile takeover bid wasn’t the inciting incident what was?

    My own personal opinion is that spiral probably goes at least as far back as Yahoo! overpaying for its purchase of Broadcast.com – a business that had some 13.5 million USD in revenue per quarter, acquired for 5.9 billion USD in Yahoo! stock back in 1999. It was a bad deal, and it adversely affected Yahoo!’s approach to strategy, risk-taking, decision-making and speed of execution. This is likely to affected Yahoo!’s thinking on its attempted acquisition of a young Google.

    I believe that the damaged approach to strategy was a major factor in Brad Garlinghouse’s famous peanut butter memo from 2006 (though as Techcrunch summised it was also a political power-play and as I mentioned at the time, Garlinghouse was as much to blame in many respects as other senior executives.)

    Investor Paul Graham thought that Yahoo! was screwed by cultural traits baked into the organisation’s cultural DNA as far back as 1998:

    • Less interested in innovating in advertising, because this would expose customers to the reality that they were overpaying for their inventory.Yahoo! was build on brand advertising driven by reach not by targeted ads so they missed why search advertising (and a good search engine was so important)
    • Yahoo! thought of itself as a media company rather than a technology innovator; back then technology companies sold software rather than advertising, so by default they must be a media business
    • Fear of Microsoft – whilst Microsoft is a big ugly mean company now, it is nothing compared to the beast it was before the internet became mainstream and the Judge Jackson trial. Graham thought that Yahoo! tried to define itself out of the footprint of Microsoft. All of this meant that Yahoo! wasn’t a Google, Facebook or Twitter-style technical talent magnet