iTablet

There is a huge gap between a laptop and a smart phone. And the gap is getting bigger.

The UMPC is supposed to fill in the gap but it seems very unlikely now. The price point is not right (Sony UMPC or Samsung Q1). It is too slow and the target audience is not clear either. It is like anything can go wrong with the UMPC went wrong.

What is not right about the laptop? Not much actually. It is just a little too big to be carried around all the time, and it costs a little extra outside the comfort zone for every member in a family to own one. For most families, the laptop is used by daddy and mommy to continue working on what is not done in the office or to manage household accounting. It is really used as a workstation. How about a second computer for entertainment and education? A desktop would cost less. But it takes too much space for most homes on this planet, except for those in the North America. Besides, you cannot carry a desktop around. How about a smart phone? No, it just doesn't cut it. The screen and the keyboard are too small. For the foreseeable future, the smart phone will remain as a contingency device.

So we need something cheap with a form factor between a 12-inch-screen laptop and a smart phone. It is a huge gap. It is a product that can have the profit margin falls between that of a laptop PC and a smart phone. This device will be a mobile device for Internet, like a TV set for TV programs and movies. It will be a device for personal email, photo, video, music, instant messaging, learning, and of course, Internet browsing.

Will the TV set become the family Internet device? It is very possible, but it will happen later than the tablet device. It still takes another year or two for the technology to ripe. But it will take a while after that for the price to be palatable. Furthermore, the frequency of replacing TV is slower too.

There are prototypes and products showing up in the market. Take a look at OLPC XO 2.0 and Asus Eee PC. I wonder when Apple will release its "iTablet". It is just a matter of time.

U.S. Monster Employment Index April 2008

The US Monster Employment Index increased to 174 in April. It was a sharp increase from March and formed a trough by tracing the index values. Is the economy in the recovery yet?

Not really. It is really a seasonal phenomenon. As the index is not seasonally adjusted, it is hard to tell whether this is in fact a decrease and by how much. Monster said, "The Monster Employment Index added seven points in April, as online job availability in the U.S. continued to rise moderately for the third consecutive month. Despite the gradual upward trend during the past three months, the Index remains down six percent year-over-year......" "While the Monster Employment Index registered its strongest single month gain in over 12 months, the increase was largely seasonal in nature."



So far it is an interesting experience to watch this index. It demonstrated the characteristic of a leading indicator as a young indicator. Secondly, it shows April is a good time for job hunting as employers are more active. What else can this index show us? We will find out as the US economy unfolds in the next twelve months.

Mac Experience on Windows PC

For the quarter ended on March 29, 2008, Apple shipped 2,289,000 Macs. It is a 51 percent unit growth and 54 percent year-over-year revenue growth.

A random thought occurred to me upon reading this news. On my Windows PC, I am using applications that are native to Apple's Macintosh platform, like iTuen, QuickTime, and Safari web browser. That is a Mac experience on my Windows PC. When Microsoft resumed its Microsoft Office for Mac in 1997, it is a clone of the Windows user experience on Mac. It did not attract people back to Mac. If I really need to use Office applications, I would turn on a PC and work from there. When people use iPhone, iPod, and iTune more often, they will eventually ask why not just have a Mac computer.

There are more and more people using Apple's products and even more people talking about them. There are reports claiming Mac computers are coming back to the office. The Motley Fool said Apple should go after the enterprise market. Well, it is, just in a very different way. It is easier when employees ask for Mac than taking it head-on with those IT departments.

Another interesting observation is that lately some analysts started to compare the iPhone with RIM's BlackBerry. Isn't iPhones for consumers and BlackBerry for the enterprise, in the typical definition for product segments? Then why compare these two? It has much less to do with the fact of RIM coming to the consumer market but that most consumers also work for living. If a consumer likes to use an iPhone, he or she would not bother with the definition. There were so many mobile email providers tried to be the RIM number two but failed. Look who is the vendor making RIM's life harder. It is Apple and its iPhone. It is the iPhone user experience, not its email story. And iPhone does not even have a complete story for the enterprise email yet. Isn't that blue ocean of what?