Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Accountability in the Media

I suspect that when printed media was a fairly new thing, people trusted what was written more than we do today. Over the years, however, we've become pretty good at weeding through the fact and fiction that we see, hear, and read about in our mainstream media. The current election coverage is a rich example. In contrast, we remain fairly trusting of the technology news we read today. We're not attuned to filtering and questioning the bias here like we are with mainstream media. Is this a healthy thing? Technology is, by definition, technical. Therefore, it should just be facts, plain and simple, right? When someone in the tech media reports that a certain chip operates at 1.5GHz, or that a company's new platform release date is slipping, we have no reason to doubt that fact. Technology is what technology is. Or, is it?
 
Lately, I’ve been seeing more and more opinion (and terribly uneducated opinion) passing as fact in our technology media. I think this is primarily driven by 2 factors:
  1. With more and more "writers" and access points to the news (tablets, smartphones, etc) there's a lot more competition for our attention so sensationalism is creeping in to acquire and retain readership.  A good friend of mine, and ex-news cameraman, reminded me recently that the mantra in the media has always been "If it bleeds, it leads".  That explains so much.
  2. Our relationship to technology is becoming much more personal causing people to inject their personal bias into their technology reporting.  If you're following the news about BlackBerry, iPhone, Android, and Windows Phone, you'll know what I'm talking about.  The "news" is almost more like reporting religion than it is facts.
 
What's most disturbing to me, however, is how much power technology analysts and journalists have.  Writers that don't double check their sources or fact-check their data before they rush to print can actually cause significant material impact to shareholders and companies and they have virtually no accountability.
 
A good example of this is the October 9th statement from Jefferies analyst Peter Misek where he states that BlackBerry 10 will likely slip into March. This gets picked up by Forbes, PC Mag, Bloomberg, Yahoo News, AllthingsD, etc. and very quickly markets react.  Was there any news here? No. RIM, my employer, stated quite consistently that it's targeting release of BlackBerry 10 in Q1 2013. Yet one analyst decides he'll spin that information into a “slip” and causes real material impact. Here's the Forbes blurb:
 
Research In Motion: No BB10 Debut Until March, Analyst Says
 
Fortunately, there are responsible analysts out there that call him on it, but the damage is done.  Here’s a good example of someone else in the industry refuting his claim:
 
BlackBerry 10 delay refuted
 
One might argue that the industry is doing a good job of self-regulating as demonstrated by the two links above.  However, I say it’s not enough.
 
Now, the First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech, and freedom of press, etc. so, we can't keep people from writing whatever they want. However, we can try to hold them accountable. Here's what I propose:
 
Accountability for Tech Media:
1.     Each tech journalist and analyst gets rated by their readers and the industry over time. We're all used to rating apps we buy, pics our friends post on FB, books we read, sellers we’ve purchased from on eBay.  We even rate each other’s comments on tech forums. Why not rate the analyst’s predictions and their technology coverage? If they say something that turns out to be true, they get credit for that. If they say stuff that turns out to be false, they get dinged for it.   
2.     The rating should measure the analyst's Accuracy, Ability to Predict the future, and the Relative Bias we see in their work.  Meaning is it balanced or typically slanted in one direction all the time.  So, in the example above, the Jefferies analyst would have received a number of ratings that demonstrated the point they were making was not accurate (there was no slip) and potentially biased (what was the motivation of this non-news piece?).
3.     Statements made by Analysts moving forward would then be tempered by their industry rating. For instance, an analyst that checks their facts, makes generally good predictions, provides useful information, and tends to be fair and balanced in their coverage will have a strong rating and therefore warrant more attention when they make bold statements. Investors can react with confidence. Conversely, analysts that tend to the sensational, don't check their facts, and are generally seen as providing biased information will get low ratings. Markets and investors would easily know to take their comments with a grain of salt.
4.     People that rate others can also develop a rating based on how often their rating correlates with the industry's rating.  Thus, informed readers can develop credibility as well over time.
The beauty in a system like this is that it adds accountability. People are still free to say and write whatever they want. The difference is that now we have a rating to help us decide whether to react to the comments made by these people or not.  Also, by holding these guys accountable, analysts and tech journalists will double check their facts more and this can only have a positive impact in the quality of the news and information they deliver to us.
 
If you like what I’ve written, rate this piece!  J
 
--Larry

Monday, October 8, 2012

Misconceptions about BlackBerry...


As an evangelist for BlackBerry, I often find myself in front of audiences full of people with lots to say about RIM and BlackBerry.  I hear and read lots of commentary, and though a lot of it is repeated over and over, most of it is just plain inaccurate.  In my 20+ years in high tech, I've never experienced a topic so heavily covered by the media and yet contain so few facts.  I think this is partly due to the fact that as a society, we've become like religious zealots about our mobile devices. Our phones have become extensions of our identity or personality, and thus take on an emotional attachment, exempt from objectivity and fact checking.  So, in the interest of education, I'll share with you some of the misconceptions I hear all the time along with my perspective about what's real...
 
Here are some of my favorite uninformed statements:
  1. "RIM is dead" or "RIM is going bankrupt"
  2. "BlackBerry 10 is 'too little too late'"
  3. "BlackBerrys are for business"
  4. "BlackBerry doesn't have any apps"
  5. "BlackBerry should just adopt Android"
 

1. "RIM is dead" or "RIM is going bankrupt"
First, some facts:
  • RIM has $2 billion in cash
  • RIM has no debt
  • RIM owns all its buildings/real estate
  • RIM is growing in subscribers and app developers  
  • The internal culture at RIM is very strong
I believe this misconception stems mostly from RIM's loss in US market share.  The sentiment that RIM is going bankrupt or that it's dead is uniquely a US thing.  BlackBerry is thriving in other parts of the world quite well.  It's the #1 device in Latin America (all countries) and BlackBerry enjoys an insane fervor in Indonesia where people camp out at BlackBerry stores the night before a new device launch and seek RIM employee autographs when we hold conferences and events there.
The US, however, holds the worldwide megaphone for news in the smartphone sector, so that's what we hear.  It's certainly true that the market share for of BlackBerry devices has decreased dramatically over the last 3 years from a peak of 20% in 2009 to about 5% in 2012.  So, it's understandable why someone would come to the conclusion that RIM is dead or going bankrupt.  However, there's a lot more going on here than people realize.  First, the market share is so low in the US because we don't have a device in the portfolio that meets the needs of the US market right now.  The US market wants a thin piece of glass, GPU-accelerated graphics, all touch, with lots of apps on it.  I agree we should adapted to this trend a lot sooner than we did.  However, what we did was decide to take the hit in the short term and step back, rebuild, and plan a leap-frog strategy.  And that's exactly what we've done with BlackBerry 10. 

It started about 2 years ago with the acquisition of a few companies strategically designed to create a new BlackBerry platform.  These critical acquisitions include:
  • QNX.  Arguably one of the best RTOS's in the world.  QNX runs in 60% of the cars on the road today, it's in Cisco's largest multi-core Internet routers, most of Las Vegas's gambling machines, the space shuttle, and a majority of the world's nuclear power plants.  It's a battle-tested, high performance, multi-tasking, beast of an OS that thrives in life-threatening real-time situations.   This new OS, at the heart of BlackBerry, is strong enough to power innovations in mobile computing for the next 10 years.  BlackBerry 10 is much more than a smartphone OS as will become more clear over time.  QNX's connection to the auto industry (see CES award) will bring innovations to the smartphone-car interface that go well beyond what is available today.
  • Torch Mobile.  Torch mobile is one of the world's most active contributors to Webkit for mobile devices.  Webkit is the rendering engine used in all of today's major browsers (Safari, Chrome, Android Browser, Opera, etc.).  More recently, this acquisition has helped to create a killer browser for BlackBerry 10, and has catapulted the BlackBerry browser and the BlackBerry web platform (called WebWorks)  to the front of the HTML5 compatibility race.  An increasing number of companies that are betting their mobile future on web technologies are building on BlackBerry PlayBook first and porting afterward to more constrained web browsers found on iOS, Android, etc. 
  • TAT (aka, The Astonishing Tribe).  This Swedish Design shop is a crazy bunch of UI/UX designers!  These guys designed the UI for the Google G1 phone, and have developed a tool chain based on Qt and QML for building extremely, dare I say "astonishing" user interfaces.  Since the acquisition, they've been working closely with our User Experience team (headed by Don Lindsay, ex Design Director at both Apple and Microsoft) to create a UI and UX tool box to enable app developers to very easily build rich and compelling BlackBerry 10 apps.
So, YES, the market share has been hit hard while we've been rebuilding.  The important question is this:  Is the declining market share indicative of RIM's demise, or is it a temporary phenomenon necessary to endure while we build a new, really great platform?   I think you can guess where I stand on that question.  :-)
Another  thing that baffles me when I think about people on the outside looking in, is they're very quick to make blanket statements about a company's health based on a stock price or a quarterly earnings statement.  Stock prices are based on pubic faith about your future.  With so much misinformation out there about RIM, it's hardly a reliable guide.  Similarly, earnings reports represent rear view mirror sales.  When you're building a new platform, you can't base the viability of the new stuff based on how the old stuff performs.   
To get a good picture about a company in the midst of a turn-around, you have to dig deeper and ask these kinds of questions:
  • Are they making the right changes at the top?  Answer:  YES.  All new C-level execs, energized, focused, and aligned.  There's a plan, and we're following it. 
  • Is key internal talent leaving?  Answer:  NO.  The key architects involved in the core BlackBerry 10 teams are all staying put. This includes hardware, software, tools, user experience, etc.  This is a very exciting time to be at RIM.
  • Do they have the capability to bring the new stuff to market? Answer:  YES. QNX, Torch, TAT, and much more are very formidable forces.  The tech is  definitely there.
  • Do they have the manufacturing and distribution channel in place?  Answer:  YES and YES.  The carriers love it and want it now.

2. "BlackBerry 10 is 'too little too late'"

Let's break this one up into two pieces because neither is true.
 
"BlackBerry 10 is too little" 
This kind of statement is, of course, subjective.  What's "too little"?  Your "too little" might be different from my "too little".  So, let's try to make this less subjective by considering not our opinions, but the opinions of the people in the industry that buy these devices in large quantities: the Carriers.  We've not divulged the names of the carriers that have committed to BlackBerry 10 yet, but our executives have been sharing BlackBerry 10 with major carriers, and there's some news out there about it:  :  RIM gives Canadian carriers a look at its new BlackBerrys.  Suffice it to say, it's definitely not too little.  The carriers LOVE it. Why?  it's innovative.  It's not the same user paradigm that Apple brought to the market 6 years ago.  A lot has changed in technology since then, and BlackBerry 10 --whether you want to believe it or not-- is really innovative.  You'll find that you can get a lot more things done on your device in less time, less clicks, less remembering where you stuffed which pieces of information.  A common message that we're hearing from people that are using it today is, "after using BB10, I find the <insert your favorite other smartphone name here> to be clunky and slow"
 
"BlackBerry 10 is too late"
This one always makes me laugh.  Like, yeah, the final chapter on smartphones has been written.  Last time I checked, only half the addressable market in the US (and we lead the world here) is using a smartphone.  If you think it's too late because of money, read #1 above. 
So, notwithstanding the fact that people change phones ever 2 years and that many people still love BlackBerry, China is not online yet, and here's the critical one...   [wait for it....]   people are getting fatigued with Apple.  The devices all look and act pretty much the same.  The in and out of apps use case hasn't changed in 6 years.  The most recent Samsung commercial cracks me up.  I have to give Samsung credit, they've totally captured it.  "The headphone jack is going to be on the bottom!"  ROTFL...  I really think people are starting to look for, dare I say it, something "different".   Too Late?  I think not.  There's plenty of market share out there and this industry is still in it's infancy.  There's lots and lots of innovation yet to be delivered.      


3. "BlackBerrys are for business"
Historically, this was the case.  However, about 2 years ago, the number of subscribers using BlackBerrys for consumer use exceeded business use for the first time and has continued to pull away.  In addition, the classification that a device is for business or pleasure no longer makes sense. 
The BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) trend we've all seen with smartphones has shown us that people want to carry one device around with them.  There is no work device or personal device.  In response to this trend, RIM has taken a leadership role in the smartphone industry with respect to BYOD with 2 products:
BlackBerry Balance is a capability on newer BlackBerry devices that allows them to separate -in a very secure way- a person's personal data and apps from their sensitive work data and apps.   BlackBerry Mobile Fusion is a professional grade device management system.  It offers a web portal for IT administrators that allows them to manage iOS, Android, and BlackBerry devices at their company.  Most IT departments are familiar with BlackBerry's Enterprise Solutions and recognize this brand as secure and trustworthy.  These two products are innovative BYOD features and capabilities that set BlackBerry apart from other platforms.   
BlackBerry 10 devices are high performance, GPU accelerated, multitasking machines that will allow users to play games and quickly check email without leaving the game app.  Once you see it, you'll know what I mean.   So, if you've not seen it, watch this:  BlackBerry 10 Demo


4. "BlackBerry doesn't have any apps"
If you're using an older BlackBerry, one running BB4 or BB5, this is definitely true.  And, unfortunately, there are still a lot of people using older devices.  My sister-in-law is a nurse at a big hospital chain in California and was just given a BlackBerry by her employer.  She was having trouble getting the device to do something, so she handed it to me to "fix".  My first realization was that the OS was so old, I didn't remember how to do said function on that old OS.  This is part of the problem.  Many of the devices out there are from another era...  A time before app stores.
The fact is that there are over 100,000 apps in BlackBerry App World.  Just about everything you need is there.   And BlackBerry 10 will have tons of apps. The app count comparison was interesting in the early days of smartphones, but I don't believe it has any meaning anymore.  PC World wrote a great article on this titled "Why the Number of Apps in an App Store Doesn't Matter".  They found that there's over 1200 versions of solitaire in Android Market and over over 900 in apple app store.  When you remove all the duplicates, all the stores have about the same number of unique apps. So, the main problem with the app counting metric is that it counts all the duplicates, all the fart apps, all the junk apps that get accepted into app stores often without any curation.   One market place (I don't need to mention which one) doesn't do any checking to see if the app someone is uploading is actually their app (sounds crazy, right?) or whether it contains IP that doesn't belong to them or viruses that could hurt unsuspecting consumers. 
The BlackBerry App ecosystem is healthier than ever.  Vision Mobile recently reported that BlackBerry is most profitable app platform for developers (Vision Mobile Developer Economics 2012).  They found that not only does BlackBerry pay more on average per app than both Apple and Google, but it also costs less to develop the apps.  Mobile developers are smart people and know how to follow the money.  Consequently, we've had more vendor registrations in the last year (a 229% increase over last year) than every before and the number continues to rise.  On the consumption side, we've also enjoyed acceleration in app downloads.  Recently we hit 3 billion downloads for App World.  This happened in less time that it took to get to 2 billion which was less time that it took to get to 1 billion.  
Keep this thought in mind:  These numbers are all for our old BlackBerry OS based devices.  Imagine what will happen when we have a kick-ass, competitive and differentiated BlackBerry 10 device in the market Q1 next year.   



5. "BlackBerry should just adopt Android"
This argument is, in my opinion, the least informed of the whole bunch.  Here's why:  If RIM were to adopt Android, it would be a death sentence.  A slow and painful certain death --not to mention a colossal waste of innovation.

Here's a question that I hope will illustrate the point for you:  If you were the CEO of RIM and could do either of the following, which would it be:

A) Adopt Android and get in line with all the fragmented, un-differentiated devices out there whose primary purpose is to deliver ad revenue to Google, or
B) Create a differentiated, innovative, new platform that provides real value not addressed by any other platform 
Now, I think most rational people would choose "B".  The sentiment that's causing some people to say "A" is that they just don't think B is possible.  They've given up on B as an option.  The fact is, B, is what we're doing.  It's what we've been building since we acquired QNX. 
Other people will say, "No, it's not Android.  What RIM needs to to win back market share is more apps".  
Well, more apps (though important) isn't going to do it either.  What's needed is a truely great user experience.  Something that makes consumers say, "I _need_ that device".  It's designed to help people get of stuff done more easily and quickly.  It's a revolution in the smartphone user paradigm.  Starting from scratch, we designed a platform that addresses how people use their devices today.  If you're a productive person, or someone that strives to be successful or creative, then you'll find the BB10 device the one you'll need to have.   See #1 and #2 above for more background. 


--Larry McDonough   @lmcdunna

Head of Platform Evangelism, Americas,
Research In Motion
Silicon Valle