The Orange View

On hiatus

Aaron Pressman — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 20:28:50 +0000

The Orange View is offline.

What’s left after you sell your future?

Aaron Pressman — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 17:50:14 +0000

News from struggling book store chain Barnes & Noble today indicates they may split off their Nook ebook reader. CEO William Lynch, via Reuters, says: "We see substantial value in what we've built with our Nook business in only two years, and we believe it's the right time to investigate our options to unlock that value."

This seems totally nuts for at least two reasons. First, the Nook is sucking money from B&N's more profitable ventures. If they spin it off, where does the capital come from? With Apple and Amazon as the main competition, doesn't the Nook need the largest possible backing? Going independent seems totally wrong.

Second, Lynch et al have been touting the Nook as the company's future, the key reason why the overbuilt megastore chain won't suffer the same fate as Borders. They just rejiggered all their stores to focus more on the Nook. What's the fate of Barnes & Noble without a viable electronic book strategy? Kind of like Kodak without digital cameras?

Expand your mind, Harvard MBA style

Aaron Pressman — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 23:32:29 +0000

Harvard Business School's journal, the Harvard Business Review, has turned its web site into quite a useful and thought-provoking blogging center. They put up a list of their most popular posts of 2011 and they're almost all worth reading. The best challenge widely held assumptions in business or career development. I particularly liked Bill Taylor's "Great People Are Overrated" and Dan Pallotta's "I Don't Understand What Anyone Is Saying Anymore."

The platinum age of tech blogging

Aaron Pressman — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 23:14:19 +0000

Sarah Lacy, late of Techcrunch, fires back at web analyst Jeremiah Owyang's contention that the "Golden Age" of tech blogging has come to an end:

In many ways, professional blogging is just getting started. It's a time when new entrants are jumping into the field with bold, fresh ideas, standing on the shoulders of the blogging giants that came before, taking a second stab at reinventing the new media landscape. Look at what Bleacher Report has built in the long-neglected sports world, and what SB Nation is doing. Look at how the Verge (owned by SB Nation) is reinventing one of the oldest and most successful niches in blogging-- the gadget blog. And if you believe what you read, more new entrants are coming in the tech news category.

-Sarahlacy.com, December 28, 2011

Apple still failing on Internet reliability

Aaron Pressman — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 23:07:17 +0000

Drew Schuster on another unreliable Apple Internet service, iMessage:

OK, so sending a text and claiming it failed isn’t that bad. What would be really bad is if a “Delivered” text was never actually received. That happens too. All the time. I sent my dad an iMessage yesterday that he never received, even though my phone claimed that it had been delivered. He handed me his phone later that day to show that he never got it. I tried turning off wi-fi, data, killing the messages application, and restarting the phone, and was still unable to receive that text. That is unacceptable given the simple requirements of a messaging system.

-NuncaMind blog, December 28, 2011

Weighing Apple’s patent war gains and losses

Aaron Pressman — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 15:00:09 +0000

Excellent overview of the benefits Apple has won in its smart phone patent war so far. While the experts cited were divided on how far Apple should take the fight, I'm in agreement with Chris Marlett, who co-founded an investment bank specializing in patents:

"Apple has the patents, the money and the expertise to go to war," Marlett said. "I just don't see why Apple would seek détente, since they're the clear leader. Until they're hit with an injunction by Google or Samsung, they don't need to get serious about licensing."

-San Francisco Chronicle, December 28, 2011

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Apple’s Thunderbolt hoarding hurt users

Aaron Pressman — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 17:05:55 +0000

It's been about 10 months since Apple added the super fast Thunderbolt port via an exclusive deal with Intel. And in all that time, besides Apple, almost no peripherals makers have offered Thunderbolt compatible add ons. There is a grand total of one external hard drive available and it costs over $500.

The reason is obvious -- Apple's exclusive deal opened the door for more and more PC makers to opt for the competing USB 3 connection, leading to a much larger potential audience for USB 3 stuff. There are tons of hard drives and other gadgets available for USB 3 users.

Now comes news Intel is supposedly loosening the exclusive. Odd how this news comes just before the originally rumored one year exclusive was set to expire. But, regardless, it's very good news for Apple users who have been stuck with Thunderbolt and denied USB 3.

Dropbox in your TV?

Aaron Pressman — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 16:37:18 +0000

Long (and kind of long winded) profile of cloud data service Dropbox and its co-founders, Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi, posted over at Wired.com. The most interesting bit to me was at the very end:

And even further in the future, they hope to expand the pool of devices that can talk to each other — basically eliminating your computer as the middle man. A point-and-shoot, they think, could ship pictures directly to your television and family for big-screen viewing — even before you board the flight back home. “Soon you’ll walk into a Best Buy or Fry’s and you’ll see that little box everywhere,” says Houston. “This is the first time I will see my photos or play my music in my living room and it’s not going to be a science project.”

-Wired.com, December 22, 2011

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Apple patent suits land where the iPhone is weakest

Aaron Pressman — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 16:27:51 +0000

Apple's anti-competitive patent war seems most focused on markets where the iPhone is weakest, Zach Epstein points out:

Whether or not competing products do in fact infringe on Apple’s patents, Apple may have another reason to attack its rivals so aggressively in France and Germany: the company is losing ground. New data from Kantar Worldpanel released on Thursday shows that while the launch of the iPhone 4S was a huge hit in the United States and the United Kingdom, smartphone users in key markets like France and Germany were seemingly not as impressed with the handset.

-BGR , December 22, 2011

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Where ebook prices are heading

Aaron Pressman — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 22:39:04 +0000

Seth Godin consults his Economics 101 crystal ball to see where ebook prices are really headed. He is assuming rational behavior by publishers to maximize revenue -- I'm not sure that's a certainty.

In a market where the marginal cost is close to zero, prices tend to race to zero as well. Except…

Except when there are no substitutes. If you want Elvis Costello to call you on the phone and wish you a happy birthday, he can charge you whatever he wants, because even though it costs him very little, you have no alternatives. If you want Elvis, well, there’s only one. Take it or leave it.

So our analysis begins with the notion that there will be at least two price points for ebooks.

-Domino Project blog, December 20, 2011