Ira Brodsky.com

BlackBerry, Go Back to Your Roots!

My column at NewsFactor Network:

The only thing tougher than building a successful business from scratch is turning around a big company that has lost its mojo. Research In Motion launched the smartphone market by producing mobile phones that email addicts loved. But when Apple and Google came out with smartphones for consumers, and developers created hundreds of thousands of apps for the devices, they started a “bring your own device” craze that took a big bite out of RIM’s sales.

That should have been Research In Motion’s cue to reinvent itself. Changing its name to BlackBerry was beside the point. BlackBerry needs to identify the next big opportunity for mobile phones and seize that opportunity by developing innovative solutions.

After all, that’s how Apple and Google blew past BlackBerry. The original iPhone was an instant hit thanks to two innovations. First, it was an iPod with a phone and digital camera—all built to Steve Jobs’ demanding specifications. Second, it featured the first touchscreen that ordinary humans could actually use. Android did even better because it gave the other phone makers a free operating system that they could use to compete with the iPhone and it leveraged Google’s industry-leading Internet technology. And both products were exquisitely timed: iPhone and Android offered multimedia capabilities just as mobile operators began upgrading their networks in earnest to faster 3G wireless technology.

There are three things that BlackBerry can do to reclaim its magic. First, BlackBerry should drive the use of near field communications (NFC) technology to replace traditional credit cards, keys, and tickets. One of the major reasons that people buy smartphones is that smartphones serve multiple functions. We also know that most people carry around too many credit cards, keys, and pieces of paper. There is an obvious problem here that smartphones can solve. And it’s a good fit for BlackBerry, too: The Company has supported NFC since 2011 and has learned how to make exchanging data between phones and between phones and tags simple and convenient.

Second, BlackBerry should help enterprises use their mobile devices to conduct business. Up to now, BlackBerry has helped enterprises manage their devices, but this is no longer a growth opportunity. Most enterprises now support devices made by different manufacturers, and few are going to entrust the management of those devices to a single manufacturer. (Imagine Apple offering to help enterprises manage their Android devices!) Plus, the market is about to become more competitive, because many device management functions can now be handled by apps and cloud-based services. BlackBerry can make better use of its enterprise know-how by helping enterprises devise and execute mobile commerce strategies.

Third, BlackBerry must give consumers specific capabilities that they want but can’t get from other smartphone makers. Trying to match the sheer volume of content and apps available from Apple, Google, and Microsoft is a futile endeavor. BlackBerry recently announced relationships with music and video content providers including Walt Disney Studios, Sony Pictures, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group. While it’s easy to establish such relationships when you have tens of millions of users, leveraging them to drive growth is not so easy. BlackBerry is trying to woo consumers at precisely the same time that Microsoft and Nokia are making a big push for Windows 8. Though BlackBerry has done a commendable job attracting developers to its new BB 10 operating system, it is unlikely to finish above fourth place. BlackBerry’s top priority should be to empower consumers by moving the functionality of their credit cards and keys into their smartphones.

Apple and Google are vulnerable precisely because they are the market leaders. While both want the market to continue growing, neither wants to jeopardize its current business. Apple and Google act as if they have forever to develop mobile commerce. The iPhone doesn’t yet support NFC. That’s probably because Apple is concerned about NFC’s impact on form factor and cost. And while some Android phones do support NFC, Google is pushing for NFC to be more “open” to ensure there is always a place for Google Wallet. With Apple hesitating and Google mired in politics, now is the time for a hungrier and more nimble player to jump start the mobile commerce market.

BlackBerry has strayed from what made it a success. Trying to resuscitate a fading device management business, hiring music superstar Alicia Keys as Global Creative Director, and adopting a new name—these actions do not address the real problem. BlackBerry needs to revive the spirit that enabled it to design the first truly popular smartphones.

ZigBee Earns a Place in the Home

My latest article about wireless technology at NewsFactor Network:

The consumer electronics industry has talked about home automation since low-cost microcontrollers first appeared on the market a few decades ago. While some envision homes straight out of The Jetsons, most entrepreneurs have looked for practical ways to make today's homes more comfortable, energy-efficient, and safe. A key missing ingredient, however, has been a technology for networking large numbers of sensors and controllers freely distributed around the home.

A home automation network technology should be flexible, easy to deploy, and easy to use. It should be able to relay sensor data and controller commands in a timely, reliable, and (when necessary) secure fashion. And it should enable devices that are small, inexpensive, and consume minimal power. Ideally, it should be wireless , support ad hoc and mesh networking, and enable devices that can run for years off a small battery. ZigBee, a solution ten years in the making, meets all of these requirements.

ZigBee supports up to 64,000 devices on a single network. The latest standard supports both a basic feature set (ZigBee) and an enhanced feature set (ZigBee PRO). The latter permits self-powered devices as well as devices that can harvest energy from their surroundings using the optional ZigBee "Green Power" feature. Recognizing that key applications often have very different requirements, the ZigBee Alliance has also developed more detailed standards for specific applications such as smart energy, remote controls, and health monitoring.

A Big Deal

However, technical capabilities and detailed standards alone do not guarantee success. ZigBee has made substantial progress in recent years: It's been quietly integrated in TV remote controls and set top boxes. That puts ZigBee firmly in the hands of consumers and in a popular device that is strategically positioned to talk to both home automation networks and the Internet.

The emergence of ZigBee-based TV remote controls is a fairly big deal. Until recently, virtually all remote controls used infrared communications due to its simplicity, low cost, and good battery life. However, infrared has some major disadvantages. Infrared requires line of sight access and must be pointed at the target device. Low-cost infrared remotes can send but not receive data. Consequently, there is no way to command a misplaced infrared remote control to emit an audible signal.

Read the rest here.

ADDENDUM (January 11, 2013)

Cees Links, Founder and CEO of GreenPeak Technologies, a leading maker of ZigBee chips, predicted a while back that radio-based remote controls will ultimately replace infrared-based remote controls. Cees was a pioneer of wireless LANs (read his fascinating blog entry about Steve Jobs and wireless LANs here) and is now a pioneer of home automation networks.

Why We Are Headed Toward Economic Ruin

You can't keep increasing the money supply without devaluing the dollar.

You can't keep increasing regulations without destroying small businesses that simply don't have the resources to comply.

You can't keep raising taxes without discouraging investment.

And you can't keep increasing government spending without crowding out the private sector.

Virtualization Is the New Key to Wireless Innovation

My lastest column at Sci-Tech Today:

In the past, wireless carriers built and operated their own networks. Now, vital components of those networks are being virtualized--their functions are being provided as services over the Internet. Wireless network virtualization isn't just a more cost-effective way of doing things, however. Virtualization creates exciting new business opportunities for operators, resellers, and users.

Introducing new features and services on traditional mobile networks is time consuming and expensive because traditional mobile networks consist largely of proprietary hardware and software. Virtualizing the mobile network dramatically reduces the time required to develop and deliver new services. Services that catch on with consumers can be quickly scaled to meet demand. And virtualization makes it easier for third parties to create and sell packaged solutions for markets such as health care.

Read the rest here.

Does NFC Technology Have the Magic Touch?

You've probably seen Samsung commercials promoting a new technology (called NFC) that lets smartphone users exchange data just by tapping them together. My latest column at NewsFactor explains why NFC is destined to succeed:

Proponents say that near field communications (NFC) will change the world. With a simple tap of your mobile phone you’ll be able to pay for things, download information from posters, and open doors.

Many tech pundits, however, are skeptical about NFC. Some say there are better ways to do the same things. Others think NFC has a critical mass problem: Retailers won’t invest in NFC infrastructure until everyone has NFC handsets, and manufacturers won’t make NFC a standard feature on handsets until NFC infrastructure becomes ubiquitous.

The skeptics are mistaken. Retail businesses will flock to NFC once they see that it speeds checkout and creates new opportunities for interacting with customers. Consumers will warm to NFC when they discover that its tap-and-go operation is simple, convenient, and puts them in control.

Read the rest here.

Free Market Lessons From the Gadget Boom

My latest op-ed at American Thinker:

For years, the press was filled with stories about how the U.S. had fallen behind Europe in wireless. A 1999 TIME article entitled "Why Your Cell Phone Stinks" boasted that Europeans routinely used their mobile phones to pay bills, make reservations, and share digital photos. Americans, meanwhile, were still catching up with Europeans in text messaging.

Europe's wireless industry was booming. Unlike in the U.S., nearly everyone in Europe had mobile phones, and they worked on all mobile networks, because every phone manufacturer and every mobile network operator used the exact same technology. The lesson, according to the pundits, was that markets for new technologies do best when solutions are developed by industry-wide panels of experts and technical standards are enforced by governments.

Wireless was growing in the U.S., but at a slower rate. The pundits grumbled that new technologies do not fare as well in the U.S. because of what they called "market fragmentation." Consumers had to choose among competing standards. There were different mobile phone models for each network.

The evidence seemed to say that industrial planning and government mandates are superior to competition.

Fast-forward to 2012. Europe's wireless industry is on the ropes. Finland's Nokia, for years the world's leading maker of mobile phones, is sinking almost as fast as it rose to the top. The U.S. leads Europe in fourth-generation (4G) network deployments and user adoption of smartphones. AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon Wireless have built nationwide 4G networks, and Sprint's is under construction. Two thirds of the mobile phones sold in the U.S. today are smartphones.

Read the rest here.

Why Is the Race Close?

Decades of media propaganda and public school indoctrination, as well as growing dependence on government, are taking their toll:

President Obama’s re-election hopes should be growing dimmer by the hour.

His domestic policy has caused unprecedented suffering: high unemployment, gas prices that have doubled, and record numbers on food stamps and disability.

His foreign policy has emboldened our enemies. Our embassies are under attack and Iran’s genocidal leaders are closer to acquiring nuclear weapons.

And yet it is a tight race. How can that be?

Perhaps the polls are wrong. But it’s more likely that decades of media propaganda and public school indoctrination, as well as growing dependency on government, are taking their toll.

Read the rest here (Daily Caller).

Obama's Foreign Policy Chickens Come Home to Roost

My column at the Daily Caller from September 13, 2012:

Four years of appeasement are finally paying off. The Obama administration apologized for a movie that no reasonable, intelligent person could take seriously. The apology served as an invitation to attack our embassies. And it predictably led to the demand that we prosecute the movie’s producers for “hate speech.”

Our embassy in Cairo accused the producers of the movie of abusing “the universal right of free speech.” They could more credibly be accused of abusing their video recording equipment. The movie looks more like a spoof than a dangerous propaganda film. While the Obama administration is quick to detect “religious incitement” when it is directed at Muslims, it’s not sure what to think of an angry mob that tears down our flag and replaces it with the black flag of al Qaida.

Within hours our consulate in Libya was also attacked and our ambassador and three consulate staff members were killed. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issued yet another apology: “The United States deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. Our commitment to religious tolerance goes back to the very beginning of our nation. But let me be clear: There is never any justification for violent acts of this kind.” President Obama echoed this view.

In other words, Secretary Clinton and President Obama excused the violence before they condemned it.

Read the rest here.

President Obama's Failed Policies of the Present

My latest column at the Daily Caller:

President Obama accuses Republicans of clinging to the failed policies of the past. But the Obama administration has revived the practice of picking winners and losers in the marketplace. That policy didn’t work in the 1930s and isn’t working today.

Policy wonks believe that businesses are congenitally short-sighted — that businesses must be prodded to invest in infrastructure and tomorrow’s technologies. But it’s not true. The mobile phone industry continues to spend tens of billions of dollars acquiring spectrum rights, building nationwide networks, and developing next-generation technologies. Businesses wisely make long-term investments when there are good prospects of success.

The Obama administration clings to ideas that even FDR’s treasury secretary, Henry Morgenthau, said didn’t work. Every available means is being used to undermine natural market forces: loans are being made that will never be repaid, regulations and taxes are being enacted to punish select industries, corporate bondholders are being expropriated, waivers are being granted to individual companies, and private businesses are being squeezed out of markets.

No wonder the U.S. is experiencing the worst economic recovery since the 1930s. Who wants to invest in businesses when the federal government is running around trying to make winners out of losers and losers out of winners?

Read the rest here.

PolitiFact's Faux Fact Checking

My contribution to American Thinker's blog:

Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan were repeatedly accused by the media of making false claims during the Republican national convention. The reporters didn't just question the accuracy of certain statements as they might have done in years past. They flatly stated that the assertions were found to be false by the fact checkers.

However, just because someone hangs out a shingle that says "fact checker," that doesn't mean they have a lock on the truth. Heck, it doesn't even prove that they are credible. This is particularly true in politics, where facts often mingle with opinions. Like initial reports about breaking stories, the findings of self-appointed fact checkers should be greeted with skepticism.

It's not terribly surprising that the mainstream media has pounced on the opportunity provided by the fact checkers. The media's credibility among the American public is at an all-time low. Most Americans perceive the media as terribly biased. No doubt, many media figures believe they can boost their credibility-or at least shield themselves from further charges of bias-by hiding behind self-styled fact checkers.

Fact-checking websites use a number of tactics to convince visitors that they are fair and reliable. They claim to be non-partisan. They demonstrate their neutrality by criticizing both sides. They show that they are thorough and nuanced by assessing some claims as partially true and others as partially false. And they use gimmicks such as the "Truth-O-Meter" to convince people that they are singularly focused on gauging the truth.

Take for instance PolitiFact.com. This fact-checking website is operated by the Tampa Bay Times, a newspaper widely considered anti-Republican (and known to some as the "Florida Pravda"). However, if a website purports to be fact checker, then shouldn't it be operated by people who can legitimately claim to be impartial? PolitiFact is staffed by the same old reporters and researchers.

Read the rest here.