Good morning, It’s Martin Luther King Day in the US, so I know many of you may not be at work today, but I wanted to wrap up my interview with Hugo Barra, Vice President of International for Xiaomi. My original intent was to run the whole interview on Friday, but when the meeting afterSubscribe […]
Daily Update: An Interview with Xiaomi’s Hugo Barra (Part 1) on Xiaomi’s Strategy, Target Customer, and Unexpected Success in India
Good morning, A special treat today (and Monday): I was able to spend some time with Hugo Barra, Vice President of International for Xiaomi. We had a wide-ranging conversation about Xiaomi’s strategy, their target customer, success in India, how they make money, and accusations that they copy Apple. In fact, it was so much thatSubscribe […]
Daily Update: Notes From the Xiaomi Event, Refining Xiaomi’s Ambition, Additional Notes
Good morning, Hello from Beijing! Today was Xiaomi’s latest announcement and I published a Storify of my live-tweets here. Today’s update is my initial reaction to what was presented. On to the update: Notes from the Xiaomi Event I arrived at the China National Convention Center a little over an hour before the Xiaomi eventSubscribe […]
Xiaomi’s Ambition
Xiaomi, the Chinese smart phone company that late last month raised $1.1 billion at a $45 billion valuation, sells way more than smartphones: Mi.com boasts over a thousand items, and it’s the third-largest e-commerce site in China. One item it doesn’t sell, though, is a AA battery charger. Only Apple: I clearly remember when this […]
Daily Update: Looking Forward to CES, Looking Ahead to 2015, Apple and the Functional High Ground
Good morning, Happy New Year! It’s great to get back into the flow of things. Let’s get on with it! Looking Forward to CES It’s fun to rag on CES, particularly during the 00’s when Apple’s MacWorld keynote announcements would overshadow the going-ons in Vegas, at least from a news cycle perspective. It wasn’t justSubscribe […]
Daily Update: The Uber Problem, Samsung’s Next Act, Nokia is Back!
Good morning, With regards to yesterday’s note on the web not being dead, John Gruber wrote a great post called Native Apps are Part of the Web; I also forgot that I wrote a guest post earlier this year defending the web for writers. Still, though, it doesn’t really matter what any of us think:Subscribe […]
Microsoft’s Good (and Potentially Great) Minecraft Acquisition
It’s difficult to overstate what a big deal Minecraft is. It’s the third best-selling game of all time behind Tetris and Wii Sports, and unlike the latter especially, it is a remarkably sticky experience: the vast majority of customers (over 90 percent on PC, according to Microsoft) sign in every single month. Were Microsoft to […]
Daily Update: Zillow Acquires Trulia, Samsung Delays Tizen Again, China Investigating Microsoft
Good morning, Tech is amazing: after doing more of a thematic Daily Update yesterday, I now feel behind on everything that is happening. And it’s late July! One more bit of followup though on media and authority: I thought it was interesting to see Nate Silver complain about the attention the New York Times wasSubscribe […]
Daily Update: Apple’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats
Good morning, I am on vacation this week, so instead of Daily Updates based on the news of the past few days, I am doing Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats (SWOT) analysis’ of five of the most important companies in tech: Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon. These analysis’ are not meant to be comprehensive – I’m going toSubscribe […]
Daily Update: Samsung Profits Falling, Panasonic Toughbooks, Standards and the Internet of Things
Good morning, Just how useful is theory in understanding, and more importantly, predicting markets? Well, in the case of Samsung, pretty darn useful I’d say. On to the updates. Samsung Profits Falling From The Guardian: Samsung Electronics says that its second-quarter operating profits will fall to a two-year low, blaming growing competition in China, reluctantSubscribe […]