Disruption – how smartphones and Facebook are hurting HP’s printer business
Internet, Smartphones, Web 2.0, we live in times of disruption. Disruption is one of today’s most used buzzwords in technology, and blogger-analysts like Horace Dediu have found a way to make a living popularizing the concept, and measuring the unexpected consequences of the introduction of new technologies on established businesses. I will not paraphrase him. Read his columns to learn more.
Another recent example of disruption: one of HP’s cash cows until recently was its printing business, but it’s now shrinking rapidly (by 10% year over year according to HP’s CEO, Meg Witman). There has never been much money to make manufacturing inkjet printers for the consumer market, but once they had bought the printer, consumers printed photos, and they had to purchase proprietary and very expensive ink jet cartridges pretty frequently to keep on doing so. And that’s where HP’s profits were coming from, of course.
Interestingly, picture printing at home was disruptive in its hey day (it drove the traditional minilabs and photo finishers to extinction) but it was based on a trifecta – digital camera, home PC, inkjet printer which required a relatively large initial investment and a significant effort from the consumer. It was an indirect and imperfect answer to the underlying request of the customer “give me a cheap and effortless way to show and share pictures with my family and friends”.
The latest generation smartphones with their 8 Mega Pixel imaging modules and their high resolution displays are good enough to take casual pictures and to show them to the people around you in most of the situations, and coupled with Web 2.0 sites like Facebook or Instagram, they provide a much cheaper and almost effortless way to share photos with relatives or friends, wherever they are in the world.
Venice – Plazza San Marco – Shot with an iPhone 4. The picture was shown and shared, but to the best of my knowledge, it was never printed.
It is very telling that iOS or Android have not really addressed the issue of printing so far – the solutions they’re proposing are convoluted at best, but that it does not seem to have impacted their adoption rate so far.
HP’s worries with its printing and imaging business are not caused entirely by smartphones and Facebook. There are many other reasons, as explained by Dean Takahashi in Venturebeat.com. Tablets like the iPad, in combination with apps like Goodreader and with services like Dropbox, could also seriously impact HP’s office laser printing business, in environments where people have to work and collaborate on large documents. More about Goodreader’s disruptive power in a next post.
Goodreader – print copy of a demo: how PDF documents can be annotated.
Would you rather text than drive, or why Google is spending money on self-driven cars
If you buy a phone from AT&T, it comes with this sticker:
But is it sincere – At&t are still making a lot of money from text messages – and has it any chance of changing the behavior of the texting-drivers?
I doubt it.
In fact, I’m afraid that most people aren’t that interested in driving anymore. They would rather be texting, updating their status on Facebook, pining pictures on Pinterest, or even watching ad sponsored shows. Anything but watching the road and being focused on driving.
For them, self driven cars would be a god-send. The convenience of individual transportation, without the pain of actually driving a car.
For Google also, self-driven cars make a lot of sense. Google make 90% of their money serving ads to the users of their Internet services. So far, from their point of view, the hours that people spend driving their cars and not watching their on-line ads are a lost opportunity. Freeing the drivers from the chore of actually driving their cars would immediately translate into more eyeballs for advertisers, and more revenue for them.
For a car nut like me, that’s too bad. It means that 5 years from now, driving may be more like this (left) than that (right).
 The dashboard of an early prototype of Google’s self driven car |
 Porsche 911 (1968) |
And maybe ten years from now, windshields will become obsolete, replaced by some new form of wide screen Google TV. Paid for by the ads.
For those who love cars, check this review of a magnificent Porsche 911 (1968) at DRIVEN.urbandaddy.com.
More about the Pantech Breeze III – fixing issues with the PC Suite on Windows 7
Pantech Breeze III (AT&T).
In another post, “where have the feature phones gone”, I briefly presented Pantech’s Breeze III, the feature phone sold by AT&T to its Enterprise customers. It’s not sexy but it works – and if you’re looking for a really cheap GSM feature phone you don’t have much choice anyway. It comes with a very conventional Windows only application whose primary purpose is to let you synchronize the contacts list and JPG files between the phone and your PC.
There are three issues worth noting with the PC Suite:
Configuring the Pantech PC Suite for Windows 7 (64 bit)
“Unfortunately the reason why this is not working is because this software is not fully supported on the ‘Windows 7 OS’ which also goes for ‘64-Bit OS’. This is the reason why you are having this issue with your PC Suite software recognizing your phone on your PC.”
A contributor named MobileKing on a RadioShack forum proposed this solution which worked for me, and also solved the problem for other people, apparently.
“You might still be able to get it to work though, try these steps:
- Right-click on the PC Suite icon, and click on Properties.
- On the new window that opens, click on the Compatibility tab.
- Click on “Run this program in compatibility mode for:” and select your version of Windows.
Make sure the checkbox for “Run this program in compatibility mode for:” is checked. Also make sure to check the “Run as Administrator” box, then click on “Apply” and “OK”.”
Thank you Mobile King.
Thank you Donaldle.
Do it by batches of 30 contacts and it will work.
Those issues are not a big deal for an IT person who can find his or her way in the forums of phone users. I doubt the target audience of this phone – people who want simplified menus and a pill reminder – would be willing to go through such a hassle.
Pantech’s Pill Reminder Application (Pantech Breeze III) – Source: www.phonearena.com
Where have the feature phones gone?
Lucky Luke – a very famous comic book character in Europe.
Carrying two smartphones all the time? I had enough
I work for a company operating in a regulated industry. Even if I never touch the data of our customers, there is a very remote risk that I enter in contact with protected information and inadvertantly make it public.
All sorts of rules and restrictions have been edicted by the company to reduce the risks and its potential liability. We’re not permitted to connect our personal smartphones to the corporate Exchange server. And we’re not supposed to configure a personal email account on the company’s smart phone either.
Therefore, people like me have been carrying two smartphones for years. The company’s Blackberry, for company business, and an iPhone , for private activities. One on the left hip, one on the right one. Like a cow-boy ready for a gun fight.
The lust for a feature phone
Since I don’t travel that much anymore (thanks to the proliferation of audio or video conferences, and to budget restrictions) I’ve become more of a corridor warrior than a road warrior. I decided to retire my 5 year old Blackberry, and replace it with two devices: a company owned iPad (connected to Exchange and Sharepoint), and a company owned feature phone.
Pantech Breeze III
The feature phone of my dreams had to be as small and light as possible – to fit in trousers’ pockets, it had to support Bluetooth, and it had to let me import my most useful professional contacts from Outlook. That was it.
I was in for a shock. The 3 main US carriers don’t really propose feature phones anymore. They limit their offering to one or two very basic phones, and they hide them in the darkest corners of their online stores. I did my due diligence, and picked AT&T’s Pantech Breeze III, not for its intrinsic qualities, but simply because it was a GSM phone. The line of thought being that if the phone was too bad, I could always put the SIM in something a bit better.
AT&T’s Pantech Breeze III (full list of characteristics on GSM Arena) is a flip phone with a shiny plasticky grey shell, which shouts “cheap stuff”. It has large and very visible keys, simplified menus, and a unique “Pill Reminder” feature. You clearly see which age class is targeted.
Did it meet my requirements? Not quite. It’s not exactly small (3.90 (H) x 2.02 (W) x 0.74 (D)) or light (3.6 oz.) – some Sony Android phones are smaller and lighter). It is Bluetooth compatible. And it ships with a Windows only (sorry, no Mac for you) PC Suite for address book synchronization.
The Pantech PC Suite is a mixed bag. Once installed, it works relatively well. Installation is a challenge, though. The PC Suite is not directly compatible with Windows 7 64 bit. I had to explore the forums (the documentation and the support FAQ provided by AT&T and Pantech are useless at best), until I found out that it was in fact a 32 bit app and that I had to configure it in the Windows 7 32 bit compatibility mode.
Sony Ericsson w910 – one of last great feature phones (source: cnet.co.uk)
Do I use the Breeze? No. Not that it does not work. But it’s just a bit too bulky, and far too ugly.
After looking at a few exotic options (made in China by unknown Chinese brands) and at one of the products of a company named Blu, I simply bought an old Sony-Ericsson from 2006 on eBay for a few peanuts.
The W910 is really small, really light, it receives and sends new contact cards over Bluetooth, and it can import songs and playlists directly from iTunes (on a Mac). Sony never updated its PC Suite – it is not Windows 7 compatible – or it involves some wizardy I’m not familiar with, but battery life is incredible (compared to a smartphone), it’s cute, and all in all, it meets my requirements.
Why don’t they make very small and sexy feature phones anymore?
The obvious answer – because the market, if it exists, is not large enough. People want smartphones, and large ones at that.
Arkon’s tablet handgrip for the iPad (source: arkon).
The handgrip was designed for people using the iPad as a data entry tool in warehousing applications. But smartphones grow regularly in size, so be prepared.
Only laggards who can’t cope with the technology look for feature phones. But maybe in 12 months, when 75% of the subscribers will be tired of carrying their almost-a-tablet 5in smart phones, a brilliant product manager will decide that the times are ready for something really small and simple. An iPhone Nano of sorts.
A free landline alternative – configuring the OBI device and Google Voice
Configuring the OBI device
If you have decided to use Google Voice as a substitute to your landline, the easiest path is to buy an Ethernet to telephony adapter from Obihai. The ATA adapters from Obihai come into multiple flavors. I picked the simplest, the OBI 100.
The main difference between Obihai and the other ATA adapters available on the marketplace is that it’s really simple to install and configure. You don’t need to be a Cisco certified engineer or a geek familiar with the VoIP forums like this one.
Once the adapter is connected to the Ethernet and powered on, the configuration is driven from the Web site of Obihai.
I just took a few screen shots of the setup screens:
The device registration screen: you just have to give it a name and pick a time zone
After the device has been registered, the second step is to pair it with your VoIP service (in our case, Google Voice). First have a look at the disclaimer. Remember that officially, Google Voice is a chat service. It does not support 911 services. If you absolutely want (or need) your IP land line to be tied to E911, there are specialzed third party E911 services providers.
The disclaimer – Google Voice is a Chat application, not a true telephony service
The last step is to tie your OBI device with your Google Voice account.
Just enter your Gmail address and password
Once the adapter is configured, it is a good idea to check the setup your home router and to associate permanently the Mac address of the OBI device with a particular IP address (using DHCP address reservation, not static IPs, please). It will limit the risks of conflict when the router has to be rebooted.
Test you new line, and call all your friends to share the good news – for free.
Transferring your landline number to your Google Voice line
If you’ve followed this guide step by step, you’ve been using the phone number provided by Google when you signed in for Google Voice. But you may want to port your old land line number to your new Google Voice service. It’s possible, and it’s going to cost you approximately $ 45.00.
Before you start the process, check the Google Voice Support Forum. Scary, isn’t it? Even if you have faith in Google and are not easily discouraged, consider this:
Firstly, Google Voice is a free service with no real SLA (service level agreement) and no support. Porting your number will probably work, but if it does not, it may be difficult to have it fixed.
Secondly, Google Voice can only transfer mobile numbers. You will have first to transfer your old land line number to a cell phone service (a pay as you go service such as ATT GoPhone is the simplest option), and the service will have to be active (a Google robot will call that number during the verification process, and the transfer process won’t start until the verification is complete). The cheapest pay as you go subscription (with its limited quota of minutes) will cost you approximately $25.
Thirdly, Google’s verification process (I don’t know if it’s by design or just the result of a poor implementation) is highly unreliable. It took me multiple attempts over quite a few weeks to finally go through. Once the verification process is complete, the transfer process in itself is uneventful, but getting through “verification” is an ordeal.
Let’s follow the steps. Supposing your Google Voice number is 404-001-0001 and that the old land line number you want to port 404-999-9999.
Click the Change/Port link, and then ob Port the Mobile Number button
Google will verify that your old number – which is now your mobile number – can be ported. I used an ATT GoPhone and had no problem.
Checking whether your mobile number (404-999-9999) can be ported to Google Voice.
Suspense!
Good news. It’s possible
Another screen
You will only have to pay at the end of the process, after the verification has been completed
The tricky part now – Google’s verification process. A robot will call your cell phone, and you will have to dial the two digits showing on the screen. For whatever reason, this step failed repeatedly when I was trying to port my number. I tried all the GSM phones I could find, I tried all the tricks recommended by the forums. To no avail. It was always rejected. Until one day I went through.
To this date, I don’t know whether it was simply a bug, or the result of quotas imposed by the carriers.
The dreaded verification screen
Once you’ve passed the verification, you have one last hurdle to jump. Google will ask you the account number of your cell phone. Which is nowhere to be found if you’re using ATT’s GoPhone service. And the automated help line did not have that option in its menus (no customer service center for GoPhone customers). I had to go to an ATT store and ask for it. It took an attendant 20 seconds to find the contract number on his terminal. Of course, I had to re-iniate the whole process again with Google, but the verification went like a breeze that time. I paid the $20 transfer fee, and two or three days later, the number was transferred. And it’s been working ever since.
6 months later
It’s still free. At the end of last year, Google confirmed that Google Voice would remain free for another year. In my experience, the Google Voice service has been 100% reliable. I had to reconfigure the wireless LAN at home once (I now have a primary Wifi LAN (802.11n at 5GHz), and a secondary LAN (802.11G at 2.4GHz) for a few slower devices. The call quality has been very good, and I can stay on line for hours (on conference calls) without any problem. All in all, converting my landline to Google Voice cost me less than $100 (Obi adapter, GoPhone subscription and minutes, Google Voice fee for porting the number) and is saving me $50 per month. I wish all my home improvement projects had a two months pay-back.
Not sure this old Apple slogan really represents my experience with Google Voice; “Keep trying, it will work ultimately” is closer to reality
A Free Landline Alternative: Planning the Migration to Google Voice
Google Voice is a great alternative to a conventional land line. It’s free for the most part, and if correctly deployed, it works very reliably.
For more information about other alternatives to a landline, check this post.
But Google Voice has some limitations, and, like any Voice over IP service, it depends on the solidity of its weakest point: the broadband connection of the subscriber.
The limitations
Google Voice is not a true telephony service. It’s currently presented by Google as a Chat service offered in addition to GMail. As such, it does not support 911 or e911 services. There is no service level agreement. If your line goes down, Google is under no obligation to fix it. And Google never said it would remain free forever. Every year, in December, Google announce that they’re going to keep Google Voice free for one more year. But it could stop being free at the end of this year. Who knows?
Planning: the overall design
The drawing below shows how to deploy Google Voice at home. Please note that the Obihai servers are only represented here because they generate the configuration of the Obi device during the initial setup process. For the rest of the time, you will only have to deal with Google, and with your broadband service provider.
How to deploy Google Voice as a substitute to a conventional telephony service.
Planning: the broadband connection
Like competing VoIP services, Google Voice is very dependent on the quality of the network used to transport the IP packets. The Internet is ubiquitous and robust, but it was not designed originally to support voice services. The core of the Internet is so big and so fast that there is no performance issue to fear, but at the edge, the broadband connections are much smaller, and they share oversubscribed uplinks. As a result, they are very sensitive to congestion (after 5pm, you’re competing for bandwidth with the kids of the neighborhood playing World of Warcraft, and during the week-ends, with their parents watching movies on Netflix).
Google Voice is not very demanding (it requires far less than 100 kbits/sec in both directions), but getting 100 kbps upstream can be difficult with poorly engineered or massively oversubscribed broadband connections. In theory, DSL performs better in that regard than the cable, but as they say, your mileage may vary.
Test your broadband connection. If you don’t get at least 100 kbits/sec upstream, upgrade it or have it fixed.
 Good. |
 Not so good |
If you’re currently using a DSL circuit configured at the top of your conventional telephony subscription, be aware that it will be cancelled by the carrier when you cancel the telephony service. Plan for the future – order a dry DSL connection now (a broadband connection not associated with your telephony service). You will use it to bring up Google Voice. Specify to the Telco that you want your Dry DSL circuit on the second copper pair (the first pair being the one supporting your current telephone subscription and the DSL service bundled with it).
Telcos being Telcos, they probably won’t do it right the first time, but if you asked explicitly for “a dry DSL service on the second copper pair”, they will ultimately make it work. With all the people cutting the cord, they’re used to it.
Planning: ordering the Obi device
That’s the easy part. Obihai is currently selling three models. The simplest (Obi 100) costs less than $50.00, and does the job.
Devices from other vendors could probably work too, but the guys at Obihai have developed configuration templates that work very well with Google Voice, and their setup utilities are Web based and very simple to use. You don’t need to be worried about a potential lock in: the OBI devices are not dedicated to Google Voice, and can be used with many other VoIP services.
Planning: ensuring that our LAN is VoIP capable
After the broadband connection, the LAN is the second weakest point in a VoIP installation. In large multi-storey homes with large wireless LANs in particular. If possible, place the Obihai device next to the broadband router, and the broadband router as close as possible from the network termination unit of the carrier (for DSL).
The plain old telephony network has its own source of power – which explains why a basic touchtone phone still works during local power outages. But without an independent source of power, your broadband modem, your router, your OBI device and the base of your cordless phone won’t. If keeping your phone number always active is important to you, you can connect all the devices involved in the delivery of VoIP to a UPS with a small battery. Alternatively, you can consider that your cell phone will still be up and running during the brownout, and that no extra precaution is needed.
Planning: signing up for Google Voice
A Google Voice account is tied to a GMail account. In order to keep your new telephony service as stable as possible (and minimize the impact of changes regularly introduced by Google to other services), it is wise to configure a new and specific GMail account just for Google Voice, and use it only for that purpose. During the Google Voice configuration process, you will have the ability to choose your new telephone number. Porting your current phone number to Google Voice is possible, but the process is cumbersome and I strongly recommend you only do it at the very end, after you are sure that everything is in place and working.
As mentioned multiple times, Google Voice is free, as long as you only need to call correspondents in the US (supposing you’re US based, of course). If you want to place calls abroad, you have to buy credits before you place your calls.
Planning: when is it the right time to port your current phone number to your Google Voice service?
Not at this stage. Wait until everything has been installed, tested and proven stable.
Google only transfers cell phone numbers. In order to transfer your land line number to Google Voice, you will have first to transfer it to a cell phone subscription, and from there, to Google Voice. Pay as you go cell phone plans are a good option. With AT&T’s GoPhone plans (or their equivalents from other carriers), you can simply buy $25 worth of communications minutes, and transfer your land line number to your new cell phone plan. Simply remember that when you transfer a phone number for Service A to Service B, Service A is automatically cancelled. So plan carefully.
Planning : everything is in place: bring up the service
The broadband connection is ready, the OBI device has been ordered and delivered, the home LAN is robust, your new GMail account and its associated Google Voice account have been configured.
You just have to connect the OBI device to the network and configure it. And you will soon enjoy the pleasure of unlimited free calls…
Stay tuned.
A Free Landline Alternative – cutting the cord on the telephone company with Google Voice
In the US, more than 25% of the households don’t have a landline anymore. That’s a national average, and the percentage of people without the plain old telephony service is higher in the South and amongst the younger generations.
"Line has been disconnected" Cropped from a picture published by "Dooley" on Flickr. 2009
There are valid reasons to want to keep a landline however – provided it’s free or really inexpensive: hundreds of people or organizations may have your phone number in their address books, and you don’t want to have to contact every one of them to inform them of that you cut the cord. Cordless phones are more comfortable to use than cell phones. And for people who spend hours per day on the phone, or have family abroad, landline alternatives can be far cheaper than cell phones.
Landline alternatives
Generally speaking, people who cut the cord but still want the user experience of a land line use Voice over IP telephony services. A VoIP solution is primarily an IT application running on a server hosted by a service provider. The application is in charge of the call control functions and the Internet is used to transport the voice traffic. The service provider is also in charge of interconnecting its VoIP service subscribers to the plain old telephony network, so that they can communicate with the rest of the world, and eventually place calls to 911 services.
Service providers like Vonage and cable companies like Comcast have developed VoIP services that provide a user experience very similar to the plain old telephony service (they support 911 functions, for instance). But because they’re a close substitute to conventional telephony services, they have to comply with all sorts of regulations which add to the bill. Add corporate greed to the mix, and the subscription cost is uncomfortably close to the cost of conventional landlines.
Comcast VoIP service offering - plus fees, charges and taxes - not cheap
Hundreds of smaller companies provide “a la carte” VoIP services. They target primarily small business owners, but also count geeks and hobbyists as their customers. Their VoIP applications are extremely configurable, the service is generally cheap (less than $10 per month), but is also relatively complex to deploy: the customer has to select, buy and configure the adapter which is going to connect the conventional telephones of the office or the home to the Internet. The FCC considers that VoIP services are equivalent to conventional telephony services, and the subscribers have to pay some of the fees and taxes that a legacy carrier would charge.
A third option is to fool popular messaging services like Skype or Google Voice into behaving as more conventional VoIP services. Originally, Skype, Google Voice and their many equivalents were created as PC based messaging applications. Which meant that the service was unavalaible when the PC was turned off, or rebooting, or behaving erratically, or slowing to a crawl. A work around was to configure an old PC as a dedicated telephony gateway and run Skype or Google Voice on it. Not very convenient.
Obi-110 from Obihai
Instead of targeting the usual crowd of geeks and hobbyists, Obihai decided to please the people who did not really want to know about the technology. The tiny boxes were delivered pre-configured with the most popular VoIP services, and the on-line documentation and tutorials were pretty good. But the ultimate differentiator, of course, was the support of Google Voice. The reviews were good, and the product started selling like hot-cakes. I did the math, and started planning my conversion to VoIP.
Why Google Voice?
Google Voice is presented by Google as a Chat service tied to one’s Gmail account. Google Voice can do lots of things (like simultaneously relay a phone call to all the registered phone numbers of a subscriber) but we’ll focus here on configuring Google Voice as a VoIP service.
Google Voice has a huge advantage over all other VoIP services: it’s free. No monthly subscription fees, free calls in the US and in Canada, very low rates to the rest of the world ($0.02 per minute generally). It has a few drawbacks, though. The support is very limited to begin with – just an on-line forum and a blog. No help desk, not even an email address. And even though transferring a landline number to Google Voice is feasible, the process is cumbersome and unreliable.
The other services (Skype included) all charge for communications to a landline per minute, or require monthly subscriptions. Google Voice does not and got my vote.
Cutting the cord: planning, and execution
Subscribing to Google Voice is easy. Getting it to work reliably as a perfect substitute to a land line is a bit more complex, and requires some planning. We’ll go through the steps in the next posting. Stay tuned.
