Starbucks Logo, Short Take

I've touched on Starbucks upcoming logo change before. I opined that removing both "Starbucks" and "Coffee"  seemed excessive and that if Starbucks was trying to broaden their brand perception they could take off "Coffee" and leave the "Starbucks". Apparently my take on things was very positive in comparison to those expressed by others.

The Economist has a great article that talks about the change and consumer reactions. One of the points they discuss is the fact that Starbucks wants to  join the ranks of McDonalds, Nike & Apple who all have logo's with no words. There is of course one significant difference between the logos of those three companies and what Starbucks is proposing.  The arches, swoosh & apple are all very simple designs.  The Starbucks Mermaid is not.  It takes a second or two for the eye to resolve what is going on with something that complex. That is unless of course you anchor it with words. Which is why the current Starbucks logo has had such a long and successful run.

I still think they can lose the word "Coffee" if they want to and come up with a logo that is attractive and memorable.  Removing "Starbucks" isn't going to broaden their brand perception in any way. When I see the Nike swoosh I don't think "shoes", I think "Nike", followed by "shoes". When I see the apple, I don't think "Great consumer electronic items", I think... well, I think of Apple which in turn brings to mind great consumer electronic items.

If Starbucks wants to broaden their brand they need to do it the way Apple has, by bringing out new product lines that people fall in love with and remember.

Image via Wikipedia

AMD, ARM, NVidia & The Mobile Space

I've been following AMD for awhile now. They've been a fascinating company to watch. It's not easy being Intel's only real competition in the processor space and while AMD has never made it look easy, they have managed to survive and even thrive at times.

The recent ouster of CEO Dirk Meyer was a surprise to most people. Meyer was instrumental in turning AMD around over the past few years and boards don't generally fire CEO's with that kind of track record.  If news reports can be believed the issue of contention was one I've discussed here in the past, mobile computing. Apparently AMD's board was not happy with Meyer's lack of enthusiasm to invest effort in this area.

Even relatively large businesses such as AMD have limited resources. Figuring out how to allocate those resources to best position a company for the future is the CEO's most important job. Intel is large and rich enough that they can afford to make a few mistakes and focus on more than one area. AMD doesn't have that kind of flexibility. Meyer apparently felt that their best bet for the foreseeable future was to focus on the server and desktop space. Mobile devices are showing signs of eating away at that space but nobody believes the market for 64bit X86 compatible processors is going dry up any time soon. It's easy to see why Meyer felt the way he did. AMD has been locked in a life or death battle with Intel for decades and diverting resources from that effort apparently seemed like a bad idea to him. Continuing to focus there was also smart given AMD's poor cash position and their success in the high end server market where margins are much higher.

At some point AMD was going to need to devote resources to the mobile space. Meyer wasn't ready, AMD's board was, Meyer is now out of work. On the one hand it's kind of impressive that a board would take this active a role in the running of a company. More often than not corporate boards seem to be content rubber stamping whatever the CEO wants to do. On the other hand though this may make it difficult for AMD to hire a CEO capable of leading the company through what will be a challenging transition.

It's likely that the Intel/NVidia settlement played a part in the boards decision as well.

Intel, with far superior resources has found it difficult to create a processor that can compete with the plethora of ARM variants out there in the mobile space so it's difficult to believe that AMD will do any better if they decide to go it alone.  One advantage AMD does over Intel is a superior GPU.  AMD could go the route that NVidia is with Denver and couple a licensed ARM processor core with their GPU technology. This would be a relatively quick way to get into the mobile space. That market isn't short on existing competition and NVidia already has a head start in this direction so the road in that direction is unlikely to be smooth or easy.

Ironically AMD had a product line called Imageon that they sold to Qualcomm in 2009 that paired an ATI GPU with an ARP processor.

Ideally AMD is going to need to bring additional resources into the picture through hiring of acquisition if they are serious about competing in the mobile space. The time will come when it makes sense to shift existing resources away from their traditional desktop and server markets but I don't think that time has come yet.

Image via Wikipedia

Related Articles

• AMD CEO ousted over tablets, but AMD ousted its tablet chip in 2009 (arstechnica.com)
• Could Intel-Nvidia deal finally do in AMD? (infoworld.com)

TRON, What's In A Name?

First of all, be aware that there are spoilers ahead.  If you like to be surprised and haven't seen both TRON movies stop reading now.

My wife and I recently re-watched the original TRON in preparation for seeing the sequel, TRON Legacy.  It had been several years since I last saw TRON so I'd forgotten a lot of the details.  The story in the original was a flimsy pretext to get Kevin Flynn, the Jeff Bridges character into the computer world.  While it was certainly a revolutionary movie for its time, and one I recall fondly; it was not great cinema.  Finding a copy to view was difficult as it is currently out of print for some odd reason.  Possibly somebody at Disney thought it would be counter productive for people to see the original.  We weren't going to see the sequel until we saw the original though and I kind of doubt we were alone in feeling that way.  Disney likely lost an opportunity to sell a bunch of TRON DVD's and Blue-Rays.  Taking into account the age of the original it's possible that they are working on cleaning it up in preparation for a 30th anniversary HD release next year.  I guess we'll have to wait and see.

The title of the original is odd in that the character of TRON, played by Bruce Boxleitner was not the lead.  This left the people who made the sequel with a problem.  It would have been difficult to call it "Flynn: Legacy" as many non fans would have had trouble connecting the two movies.  This meant that they had to somehow include the character of TRON in the sequel.  The real world analog of TRON, Alan Bradley was easily and effectively worked into the opening and closing sequences but his inclusion in the computer world portion was perfunctory and confusing.  It didn't help that so far as I recall he was masked the whole time.  They could have dropped the whole TRON sub plot and I would have been happier and marginally less confused.  Likely they would have also had people complaining that the namesake of the film wasn't even in it.

The story the producers chose to tell exacerbated the problem in that not only wasn't TRON the secondary character, he was behind Flynn's son Sam and Quorra as well.

My business related point is that mistakes in branding can stick around for a long time.  The naming of the first film was an odd choice which in turn led to an even odder naming for the sequel.  Based on the box office results for TL it's kind of questionable that there will be another sequel but if there is, are they going to retain the TRON name?

OK, yes; weird and esoteric things pique my interest.


Image via Wikipedia

ARM, NVidia, Intel & Microsoft

I'm rushing this one out because the news is timely and I'm pushing myself to become a better writer.  As I start this I have thirty minutes before I need to be at work.  Luckily I have a five minute commute, so at least I get to use most of that time.

I've been expecting some sort of settlement between NVidia & Intel for awhile now.  I was fairly sure it would involve Intel paying NVidia a large chunk of money (it did) but the rest of this deal is a surprise to me, but not in a bad way.

In addition to $1.5 billion over the next six years NVidia & Intel have also entered into a cross licensing agreement that gives Intel access to IP that NVidia has developed for their GPU's while in turn giving NVidia access to IP that Intel has created in the processor space.  This might seem like a one sided deal in Intel's favor if not for the fact that NVidia is working on integrated ARM/GPU based chips.  With this settlement behind them NVidia should have much smoother sailing in implementing both their discreet graphics solutions and project Denver, the already mentioned ARM/GPU project.

It's no accident that the duration of this agreement is six years.  In August of last year Intel settled with NVidia & AMD over numerous other complaints.  One of the technical requirements was that Intel provide a high speed PCI based solution for the next six years.  NVidia needed this to keep their discreet GPU business viable.  What has essentially happened with these two agreements is that Intel has provided itself six years of reduced legal wrangling and access to patents that should help it's always lagging GPU development efforts.  AMD is the big loser here as their main edge has been the fact that they have both a very competitive GPU and processor and were thus ahead of Intel in the race to integrate these two components into a package that is both fast and cost effective.  In fact, Intel could potentially partner with NVidia to integrate an NVidia GPU & Intel CPU onto the same packaging, and perhaps even the same wafer in the next few years.  That would be a killer combination as NVidia GPU's have double precision floating point and error correcting memory to go along with excellent performance. AMD has double precision floating point but no Error correcting memory. Essentially you would have the best of both Intel & NVidia in that scenario and AMD would be sorely tested.

One little factoid I missed when talking about CES last time was the fact that Microsoft has announced that they'll be supporting the low power ARM CPU architecture in Windows 8.  This should make NVidia happy as it means they'll be able to provide their partners with chips(assuming Denver is a success) that run Windows.  I'm not a Windows fan boy and I tend to think that the importance of platforms, particularly Windows is going to continue to decrease in the future but it's hard to see this announcement as anything other than a win for ARM.  What this means is that NVidia & Intel will likely be competing across the entire spectrum of devices in about three years.  Intel has the advantage of size and money.  NVidia has the advantage of starting with a CPU architecture that is much more power efficient than Intel and a clear head start on the GPU side of things.  Plus Intel will be making annual payments of $250 million to them for the next six years.

OK, ten minutes to go and I need to fix my links so I'll wrap things up here by saying that Intel & NVidia both appear to have done well for themselves here.  It's going to come down to which side executes best on the technical, operational and marketing fronts.  Great technology by itself has never been enough.  History is littered with companies that came out with technically superior products that failed the test of the market and/or their competition.

At the end of this six year window we'll either see Intel & NVidia working very closely together or at each others throats.  I don't see a lot of room for anything in between.

Related Articles

• Intel/NVIDIA bombshell: look for NVIDIA GPU on Intel processor die (arstechnica.com)
• Windows 8 to run on ARM Processors
• Previous Settlement (PCI)
• Text of Latest Settlement

Image via Wikipedia

Lego's, Minecraft, Garry's Mod & The Joy of Building

I've mentioned Minecraft before in this BLOG.  This time I'm going to discuss it in depth. Minecraft is a relatively new independently produced "game" that recently moved to the beta stage.  In spite of not being deemed release quality nearly a million people have bought it at at a discounted price of around $20 per person.  To be clear, the game is actually priced in Euros.  When I bought it a few weeks back the price in Euros was about $20.  $15 - $20 million in revenue for a game that isn't complete is a pretty impressive feat.

I put the word game in quotes above when I initially used it because Minecraft, at least at this point isn't really a game in the traditional video game sense.  It does have a rudimentary "survival" mode where you can run, hide from or attempt to kill various bad guys but so far as I can tell that isn't the way most people are using it, myself included. Minecraft is what is referred to as a "sandbox" game.  This means that it provides an environment and tools to create landscapes, buildings, devices, etc.  In the current version you start with a randomly generated world that you can explore, gather resources in and modify.  Here's a look out the window of my comfy little hideaway.

Those are trees in the distance outside my window and I'm holding a pick ax.  Yes, the graphics are primitive.  Minecraft has a Lego like aesthetic that actually works well.  The success and continued popularity of Lego's long ago proved that we love to build stuff and that we are willing to accept simplified abstractions to get our fix.  Like Lego's Minecraft is block based.  Each block is a one meter cube.  There are objects in the game that are smaller than this, but those are limited and tend to react in ways that are true to the cube paradigm.  If this sounds like a limitation, well it is; but it is a useful one.  This model simplifies things to the point where it is relatively easy to understand how to build stuff. Much like Lego's, there are a nearly limitless number of projects you can do if you have the time and interest.  Here's an impressive example of what I'm talking about that was created using a version of the code that is well over a year old at this point.

In addition to building Minecraft also has some basic physics built in.  Other than being smothered by falling sand when I removed a block I shouldn't have I haven't spent any time exploring this aspect of the game.  My general impression is that this area is still underdeveloped though people are already doing some very interesting things.  Roller Coasters & explosions are popular examples.

Garry's Mod is another sandbox themed game that has been around about twice as long as Minecraft and takes a very different approach on the technical side while leveraging a similar business model.  It's built using Valve's source engine and is thus  more realistic looking.  The physics model in GMod is  richer as well.  You can build rockets, fireworks, a plane and just about anything else you can imagine.  Personally I find the building tools kind of cumbersome and complicated in GMod which is why I haven't spent a lot of time on it but it has a rabid fan base and if you have time and patience you can do some really amazing things with it.

GMOD is available through the Steam online store.  It sells for between $5 & $10.  I read an article recently that said the author receives 50% of the unit price, so $5 if it is being sold at the regular price and $2.50 when on sale.  Based on the following articles...

Garry's Mod Sells 310,000 units on Steam through November of 2008
Garry's Mod Sales Increase > 30% Per Year Over Past Three Years

I estimate the following sales figures.

2007: 134,000
2008: 174,200
2009: 228,202
2010: 303,509
2011: 410,000

With approximate revenues of

2007: $670,000
2008: $871,000
2009: $912,000
2010: $1,214,035
2011: $1,638,947

Estimated revenues scale more slowly than units sold because starting in 2009 GMOD was offered for sale periodically at 50% off.  The sales figure estimates are supported by another article that I link below in the "Related Articles" section.

Keep in mind that the initial work on both of these products was done by a single programmer.  I think most of us dream of winning the lottery but Garry Newman & Markus Persson both created their own single ticket lotteries.

Online sales channels provide a tremendous opportunity for even niche product such as these to shine.

If you're looking for casual fun I recommend Minecraft.  If you want to create highly complex environments and are willing to deal with a somewhat steep learning curve I recommend Garry's Mod.

Top Image via Wikipedia

Related Articles

• Indie Mega Hit Minecraft Gets Inevitable Merchandise [Minecraft] (kotaku.com)
• Garry's Mod continues to sell well with over 770,000 units (news.bigdownload.com)

CES, Pastrami & Starbucks

I'd love to say something clever and/or insightful about the Consumer Electronics Show but I've never actually been to it and this year was not an exception.  Given that I'm going to limit myself to a few observations.

Before I do that I'm posting a link to a BLOG entry that I really enjoyed.  The BLOG is called "The Daring Novelist" and the title is "Books Are Note Commodities! They're ... Pastrami On Rye!". In addition to being enjoyable to read the author makes a great point about specialization and differentiation and how important they are not only for writers, but for business that don't want to compete on price alone as well.

On to CES related topics.  I have a general sense of blah at this point as in general there hasn't been a lot of exciting news.  There are dozens, if not hundreds of Android based tablets coming.   Android 3.0 was demoed and while video of it looked very nice it doesn't seem like "Honeycomb" is going to be earth shattering, though the fact that it is aimed specifically at tablets is interesting.  In reality though the Android platform already provides significant functionality and a fairly good overall experience.  Where it falls short of Apple is in the applications space.  Android does have one advantage in that Google's various applications always debut and get updates on it first.  This is not enough to offset Apple's iPhone application ecosystem but it shouldn't be dismissed either.  Highly popular 3rd party apps do show up on Apple products first, but it is increasingly common to see them appear on Android.  Angry Birds and Pocket God are two examples.  Recently published data shows that Android has surpassed Apple in share of total smart phone subscriptions.  This is a compelling reason to conclude that most publishers are going to port at least their more popular applications to Android.

With the latest rumors claiming that the Verizon iPhone will be announced as early as next week the tables could very quickly be turned with Apple once again moving ahead in terms of total subscribers.  It's hard to see how a Verizon iPhone won't hurt Android some. It's not tragic for Apple even if Android stays in the lead. Apple sold less than half the computers that Dell & HP did last year but given Apple's far superior margins I suspect that either company would gladly switch places; particularly Dell given their declining market share.

One other CES related topic is the MakerBot Thing-O-Matic Kit.  Apparently MakerBot had some of the assembled kits at CES and they were very impressive.  I've been casually interested in CNC for a while now. The Thing-O-Matic looks like a nice/interesting tool, though with my sub standard mechanical skills I'd much prefer something that came already assembled.  Pricing seems reasonable given the capabilities.  Having one would be  like having your own little desktop factory.

One last item, apparently Starbucks is going to have a new logo soon. I've been thinking about this for a couple of days, and my first, second and third reactions aren't positive.  I understand the desire to remove the word Coffee from the logo given the direction the company is going in but I don't see the wisdom in removing "Starbucks".  It seems a bit arrogant and honestly the logo looks kind of naked and ugly with no text.  I don't think it is anywhere near as bad as the recent Gap logo debacle, but I will be curious to see how people react as they role this one out.

I added the following an hour or so after posting the rest.


A CES related event that I should have mentioned was Microsoft's announcement of support for ARM based CPU's.  This is another indicator that they are adjusting to the fact that monolithic PC's and operating systems are going to be a much smaller percentage of the total market in the future.  Smart phones and Tablets are increasingly powerful and with the addition of external displays and input devices when at home or work they are rapidly approaching the point where they could be most people's universal computing device of choice.  This is particularly true if you throw in the development of cloud based storage and application solutions as the risk of losing data declines significantly.

IT has oscillated between highly centralized and highly distributed models numerous times over the past four decades. With cloud based computing and highly mobile devices it looks like we're going to settle some place in between those two extremes.

Image via Wikipedia

Related articles

• Google Teases "Honeycomb" Tablet OS At CES (searchengineland.com)
• Verizon iPhone unveil February 3 2011? (slashgear.com)
• Is the Verizon iPhone News Coming Next Week? (blogs.wsj.com)
• A sea of tablets at CES, but no iPad-killer (reuters.com)

2010 Year End Wrap-up and Predictions

Looking Back

I covered a number of different topics over the past six months.  NVidia & Apple were mentioned frequently as were the Motorola Droid X, Kindle and the IPhone .  I also did a series of three articles that analyzed Martin Guitars apparent pricing strategy.  Here are brief followup comments on some of these companies & products.

• Nvidia: Discreet graphic sales have rebounded in recent months and their embedded GPU's are finally gaining some traction.  Publicity wins in the HPC space have been impressive.  They've obviously decided to punt on the X86 market long term since they don't appear to have any plans to develop an Intel compatible processor of their own or acquire VIA for theirs.  I don't see PC's or Windows vanishing any time soon but it's clear that in the future people will primarily interact with the Internet via mobile devices and ARM based solutions fill this space nicely and the NVidia Tegra product is an increasingly credible offering in this space.  With both Intel & AMD offering products with GPU's integrated onto the same packaging as the main processor the discreet GPU is going to be an increasingly niche product.
• Apple: The IPhone 4 woes have pretty much blown over.   Apple has continued to establish themselves as a premium brand with innovative design wins and great marketing.  This company more than any other understands that the technology is secondary to putting out compelling products that customers feel a connection to.
• Motorola Droid X: I'm still happy with my Droid X.  The Froyo update added some nice capabilities and overall it's been a very good experience.  Inevitably though it seems like the longer I have a device the more unstable it becomes.  Adding and removing software is always a crap shot.  In theory it shouldn't make a difference but perceptually anyway it certainly seems to.  On the plus side, when I do need to pull the battery to clear the phone I only have to wait a couple of minutes for it to boot up, which is much better than the past couple of RIM Blackberry phones I've used or owned.  In regards to stability, I'm less inclined to blame Android than I am the fact that the more complex a device is, the more difficult it is to get everything to work properly together.  Today's smart phone's are essentially palm sized personal computers and all that functionality comes at a price in terms of reliability.  This is likely one of the reasons Apple is so draconian in how they approach 3rd party Apps for their mobile platforms.  
• Kindle: Which brings me to the Kindle.  Within the limitations I discussed in earlier BLOG entries it continues to be a pleasure to use.  The recently announced ability to loan books  was a pleasant surprise; as with the text to speech function Amazon has left it up to content providers to say yes or no to enabling this feature on a book by book basis. Simplicity is a wonderful thing in some cases and this is one of those.  There is increasing evidence that the Kindle and IPad fill different enough niches that there isn't currently a lot of overlap.  This is particularly true given the relatively low price of ~ $140 for the entry level Kindle.  If you can afford $500 or more for an IPad you can probably come up with the money for a Kindle as well.  .  

Looking Forward

Here are some fearless predictions on various products and companies and what the new year might hold.

• IPhone: This is a device that may have reached maturity.  I'm not saying that Apple won't continue to try to innovate, but future functional changes are likely to be much less revolutionary.  Stylistically I'd expect a fairly radical departure from the IPhone 4, likely to a form factor with softer edges like the latest Touch & the first generation IPad.  I also expect a CDMA capable IPhone.  Adding a CDMA IPhone will clear the technological hurdle that has prevented Verizon from selling IPhone's in the past.  I believe the contractual hurdle ends January 1 2011.  
• IPad: On the IPad front the most likely change is the addition of a back facing camera.   I expect to see some modest price drops and enhancements but nothing earth shattering.  I'm not even convinced that we'll see a substantial increase in the resolution of the display.  Fragmentation is something that Apple has been criticizing Android for recently and with every new device they come out with that has a different display resolution their fragmentation increases.Other credible rumors include a mini USB port. Less likely, at least in the short term is some sort of hybrid display that works both in bright light and darkness.  There is at least one option.  The technology used in the OLPC is available from a company called "Pixel Qi" and features both a color mode similar to LCD's and a black and white mode that shares many properties with E-Ink.  If Apple adopts this or a similar technology for the IPad then Amazon and other companies producing E-Book readers are going to see their sales drop primarily on the high end since there would no longer be a compelling reason for people to buy an E-Book reader in addition to their IPad.
• Kindle: I don't see dual mode displays being as big a boost for E-Book readers such as the Kindle.  Yes, they would add some nice capabilities but much of the appeal of these devices, particularly the Kindle is their simplicity and cost.  A color display would be a plus, but if it adds significantly to the initial purchase cost or tempts Amazon to try to go head to head with Apple and other tablet producers it is likely to be a net negative long term.  There are no clear answers here but I'd be inclined to move to a hybrid display and keep the functionality of future Kindle's focused on books and possibly other media.  I'd also want to keep the price of the entry level model below $150. 
• Amazon: In theory Amazon can cut and run at any time in regards to the Kindle.  They already support reader software on the majority of platforms that people care about and it's hard to believe that the margins on the Kindle are very high, or even positive when all costs are taken into account.  However, no other platform makes it easier to buy books from Amazon.  If you're making the bulk of your money selling "media" as most companies do in this situation than clearly facilitating purchases is in your best interest.  
• Software Patents: I'd like to think that this is the year that software patents will become saner but there is plenty of evidence to argue to the contrary.  Here's just one example.  This is why I'm not a fan of software patents.  The concept of double clicking initiating an action has been around for a long time.  probably decades.  The trivial differences described in this patent required no innovation and little thought.  I don't think it is productive or beneficial to have entities going around filing for and being granted these kinds of patents.  If software patents are legitimate at all than the bar should be MUCH higher than this.
• Paying For Online Content:  It seems like we've finally turned the corner in regards to paying for online content.  I'm not going to claim that piracy does not exist or that there isn't room for improvement but I'm seeing things happen in this space that I wouldn't have just a few years back.  Minecraft is a simple yet addictive game that is currently in Beta but available for sale.  As I write this they have managed to sell nearly a million copies at about $20 per.  In the bad old days we essentially had a situation where legitimate access to digital content was nearly non existent and expensive while illegitimate copies were readily available and free.  This created a culture of entitlement that has been very slow to subside.  Apple made the first significant dent with the ITunes store and others have followed. Making online payments and purchases easy and reasonably secure by way of services such as PayPal has also helped.  The cost of creating and delivering digital content is almost entirely in the creation part of the process.  The per unit variable costs are essentially nil.  As people become increasingly willing to pay for online content we're going to see more business models that are based off of customers paying directly, rather than indirectly by way of ad revenues.  

Closing Musings

As 2010 comes to a close I've been writing this BLOG for almost exactly six months.  I've had a lot of fun and am looking forward to continuing to make updates in 2011 as time and inspiration allows.

I'm grateful for a lot of things this year, one of which is the fact that at least a few people have apparently taken the time to read some of my musings.  While I'm not writing here to become rich or famous I'd be lying if I claimed that I don't get a bit of pleasure out of every single hit this BLOG gets.  Thank you to everyone who has read even one word I've written.

Photo Credits

• Past Image: Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
• Future Image: Pixomar / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Related Articles

• West Coast Entrepreneurial Hub Lands Babson College Commitment (bostonkayakguy.wordpress.com)
• Amazon: Third-gen Kindle is all-time bestseller (news.cnet.com)
• Nvidia Tegra 2 hailed as Honeycomb CPU of choice (go.theregister.com)
• Motorola Disputes 'Exploding' Droid X Incident (pocketnow.com)
• Amazon: iPad owners buying Kindle, too (intomobile.com)
• You Can Now Borrow/Lend Kindle Books (techie-buzz.com)
• Amazon set to sell 8 million Kindles this year (telegraph.co.uk)