Michael Hart, a Pioneer of E-Books, Dies at 64
By WILLIAM GRIMES
Michael Hart, who was widely credited with creating the first e-book when he typed the Declaration of Independence into a computer on July 4, 1971, and in so doing laid the foundations for Project Gutenberg, the oldest and largest digital library, was found dead on Tuesday at his home in Urbana, Ill. He was 64.
His death was confirmed by Gregory B. Newby, the chief executive and director of Project Gutenberg, who said that the cause had not yet been determined.
Mr. Hart found his life’s mission when the University of Illinois, where he was a student, gave him a user’s account on a Xerox Sigma V mainframe computer at the school’s Materials Research Lab.
Estimating that the computer time in his possession was worth $100 million, Mr. Hart began thinking of a project that might justify that figure. Data processing, the principal application of computers at the time, did not capture his imagination. Information sharing did.
After attending a July 4 fireworks display, he stopped in at a grocery store and received, with his purchase, a copy of the Declaration of Independence printed on parchment. He typed the text, intending to send it as an e-mail to the users of Arpanet, the government-sponsored precursor to today’s Internet, but was dissuaded by a colleague who warned that the message would crash the system. Instead, he posted a notice that the text could be downloaded, and Project Gutenberg was born.
Its goal, formulated by Mr. Hart, was “to encourage the creation and distribution of e-books” and, by making books available to computer users at no cost, “to help break down the bars of ignorance and illiteracy.”
Over the next decade, working alone, Mr. Hart typed the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, the King James Bible and “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” into the project database, the first tentative steps in a revolution that would usher in what he liked to call the fifth information age, a world of e-books, hand-held electronic devices like the Nook and Kindle, and unprecedented individual access to texts on a vast array of Internet archives.
Today, Project Gutenberg lists more than 30,000 books in 60 languages, with the emphasis on titles of interest to the general reader in three categories: “light literature,” “heavy literature” and reference works. In a 2006 e-mail to the technology writer Glyn Moody, he predicted that there would be a billion e-books in 2021, Project Gutenberg’s 50th anniversary, and that, thanks to advances in memory chips, “you will be able to carry all billion e-books in one hand.”
Nearly all the books are in the public domain, although a relatively small number of copyrighted books are reproduced with the permission of the copyright owner. The library includes two books by Mr. Hart: “A Brief History of the Internet” and “Poems and Tales from Romania.”
“It’s a paradigm shift,” he told Searcher magazine in 2002. “It’s the power of one person, alone in their basement, being able to type in their favorite books and give it to millions or billions of people. It just wasn’t even remotely possible before; not even the Gideons can say they have given away a billion Bibles in the past year.”
Michael Stern Hart was born on March 8, 1947, in Tacoma, Wash. His father was an accountant; his mother, a cryptanalyst during World War II, was the business manager for a high-end women’s store. The couple retrained to become university teachers and in 1958 found posts at the University of Illinois, in Urbana, where his father taught Shakespeare and his mother taught mathematics.
Michael began attending lectures at the university before entering high school and, following a course of individual study on human-machine interfaces, earned a bachelor of science degree in 1973.
Work on Project Gutenberg proceeded slowly at first. Adding perhaps a book a month, Mr. Hart had created only 313 e-books by 1997. “I was just waiting for the world to realize I’d knocked it over,” he told Searcher. “You’ve heard of ‘cow-tipping’? The cow had been tipped over, but it took it 17 years for it to wake up and say, ‘Moo.’ ”
The pace picked up when he and Mark Zinzow, a programmer at the University of Illinois, recruited volunteers through the school’s PC User Group and set up mirror sites to provide multiple sources for the project.
Shrewdly, Mr. Hart included books like “Zen and the Art of the Internet” and “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Internet” to expand the audience for the project’s books.
Today, relying on the work of volunteers who scan and proofread without pay, the project adds to its list at the rate of hundreds of books each month.
Even in the project’s early stages, Mr. Hart envisioned it in revolutionary terms. Borrowing a term from “Star Wars,” he referred to e-books as just one form of replicator technology that would, in the future, allow for the infinite reproduction of things as well as words, overturning all established power structures and ushering in an age of universal abundance.
One hurdle on the road to the diffusion of knowledge was the Copyright Term Extension Act, passed in 1998. The act, sponsored by the California congressman and former pop singer Sonny Bono, removed a million e-books from the public domain by extending the copyright by 20 years. Under United States law, the average copyright now lasts for 95.5 years.
Lawrence Lessig, then a law professor at Stanford University (and now at Harvard), approached Mr. Hart to see if he would be interested in taking part in a constitutional challenge to the law.
He met Mr. Hart in a pizza parlor in Urbana, where, Mr. Lessig recalled in a telephone conversation on Thursday, Mr. Hart added a thick layer of sugar to his pizza while explaining that he saw the case as much more than a test of copyright law. It offered, as he saw it, a way to challenge the entire social and economic system of the United States.
Mr. Lessig, looking for a somewhat less visionary lead plaintiff, eventually enlisted Eric Eldred, the owner of Eldritch Press, a Web site that reprints work in the public domain. In 2003, in Eldred v. Ashcroft, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the copyright extension act.
Mr. Hart is survived by his mother, Alice, of Fort Belvoir, Va., and a brother, Bennett, of Manassas, Va.
Friday, September 9, 2011
How-to: Travel with your Roku Player
Ever thought about taking your Roku player along on your getaway or family vacation? Traveling with your Roku can be a snap with a little bit of forethought; we’ll show you how you can bring your favorite black box along to some of your favorite destinations.
Planning:
Broadband Internet is relatively common these days, but you should still consider the following questions:
Will there be sufficient Internet bandwidth at the place I am staying?
How will Roku connect to the Internet? Will I need a router or laptop?
What type of TV will there be?
If you are staying at a friend’s or family member’s home, you can usually rely on a stable Internet connection and the ability to plug into a router or connect over a wireless network. You should let them know ahead of time that you will be using your Roku player –then tease them for not having one already *wink.
image courtesy of MoToMo on Flickr
Most hotels offer free Wi-Fi and it’s just a matter of plugging in your Roku and connecting to the wireless network.There are some however that require authentication beyond a password–like your room number and name, etc…. To share an Internet connection, even with the authentication, I use my laptop and an older Netgear wireless travel router (a travel router is just a smaller version of a typical router, and any brand should get the job done).
You will need to clone the MAC address from your computer to your router. It sounds scary, but it’s typically a check box that you select in the router settings menu, which tells the router to use the same address as your computer. As every router is different, you should refer to the proper documentation.
If you have a Wi-Fi hot-spot, your golden wherever you go. Just make sure you have a solid connection, and connect your Roku player as you would if you were at home.
What to bring:
It’s wise to pack HDMI, component, power and Ethernet cables–and don’t forget the remote. Left your remote behind? No worries, you can find a quick fix using your iPhone (or other iOS device) or Android device here.
Made by Waterfield Designs, this travel case should do the trick.
If you travel quite a bit and don’t feel like unplugging cables from the back of the TV every time you travel, you can find spare cables in our accessory shop and create a dedicated travel pack.
A few takeaways:
Internet usage at some hotels may require authentication, but once enabled, it’s usually good for a few hours.
You can use a travel router to share the Internet connection with your Roku.
Find smartphone apps to control your Roku on our blog.
Planning:
Broadband Internet is relatively common these days, but you should still consider the following questions:
Will there be sufficient Internet bandwidth at the place I am staying?
How will Roku connect to the Internet? Will I need a router or laptop?
What type of TV will there be?
If you are staying at a friend’s or family member’s home, you can usually rely on a stable Internet connection and the ability to plug into a router or connect over a wireless network. You should let them know ahead of time that you will be using your Roku player –then tease them for not having one already *wink.
image courtesy of MoToMo on Flickr
Most hotels offer free Wi-Fi and it’s just a matter of plugging in your Roku and connecting to the wireless network.There are some however that require authentication beyond a password–like your room number and name, etc…. To share an Internet connection, even with the authentication, I use my laptop and an older Netgear wireless travel router (a travel router is just a smaller version of a typical router, and any brand should get the job done).
You will need to clone the MAC address from your computer to your router. It sounds scary, but it’s typically a check box that you select in the router settings menu, which tells the router to use the same address as your computer. As every router is different, you should refer to the proper documentation.
If you have a Wi-Fi hot-spot, your golden wherever you go. Just make sure you have a solid connection, and connect your Roku player as you would if you were at home.
What to bring:
It’s wise to pack HDMI, component, power and Ethernet cables–and don’t forget the remote. Left your remote behind? No worries, you can find a quick fix using your iPhone (or other iOS device) or Android device here.
Made by Waterfield Designs, this travel case should do the trick.
If you travel quite a bit and don’t feel like unplugging cables from the back of the TV every time you travel, you can find spare cables in our accessory shop and create a dedicated travel pack.
A few takeaways:
Internet usage at some hotels may require authentication, but once enabled, it’s usually good for a few hours.
You can use a travel router to share the Internet connection with your Roku.
Find smartphone apps to control your Roku on our blog.
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Certificate cleanup for most personal computers
Certificate cleanup for most personal computers
Susan Bradley By Susan Bradley
A little Dutch company potentially lets a flood of problems into our Windows machines.
The company manages digital certificates; after its recent break-in by hackers, security certificates for Mozilla, Yahoo, WordPress, and other sites are now suspect.
On a daily basis, no matter what our level of paranoia, we trust the companies we work with. … Well, at least our browsers and computers do. Inside all computers, both Windows and Mac, is a collection of digital certificates that everyone on the Net has agreed to trust. On Vista and Windows 7 systems, these root certificates (definition) are updated by the issuer automatically. But on Windows XP machines, they're updated manually.
Companies doing business on the Internet buy certificates linked to a root certificate and automatically become part of the chain of trust. Because your computer trusts the vendor who provided the root certificate, it automatically trusts all online businesses with associated certificates.
This process is the foundation for secure Web transactions such as shopping on Amazon, online-banking, and e-mail.
Many updates after breaks in the chain of trust
Typically, this system works well. But on the rare occasions it fails — when the chain of trust is broken — it can instantly affect thousands of PCs.
Such is the case with that small company in the Netherlands, DigiNotar. Reports from various sites indicate that hackers compromised the firm's servers and generated rogue certificates. In a Kaspersky Lab Securelist blog, lab expert Roel speculates that as many as 200 rogue certificates were generated before the hack was discovered.
With a rogue certificate in place, a hacker can make your system think it's using a legitimate, trusted certificate from well-known companies such as Google and Yahoo. The hacker can then intercept your Internet connection with the site you intended to use and redirect you to a fake site, where you are tricked into entering personal information such as your user name and password. Your computer still thinks it's connected to a trusted site.
Fortunately for most of us, this particular attack appears to have targeted Internet users in Iran — it's the only country where these rogue certificates were spotted.
Soon after the breach, browser vendors offered updates that removed the Dutch root-certificate holder from their browsers' list of trusted certificate issuers. An August 29 Chrome Online Security blog reported that Google had disabled the DigiNotar certificate authority in Chrome 13.0.782.218.
The next day, Firefox followed suit in a Mozilla Security blog, announcing the release of numerous updates for Firefox (versions 3.6.21, 6.0.1, 7, 8, and 9), Thunderbird (3.1.13 and 6.0.1), and SeaMonkey (2.3.2) that revoked the DigiNotar root certificate.
On September 6, Microsoft released an out-of-cycle update — KB 2607712 — for Windows 2003, XP, Vista, Windows 7, and Server 2008 that not only removed all DigiNotar root certificates from the trusted list but also moved them to the untrusted-certificate store. If you find any DigiNotar certificates in the Trusted Root Certification Authorities list, I recommend you install KB 2607712.
If you do not see these certificates in your trusted-root store, you probably ignored all previous root-certificate updates. You can safely wait until the next Patch Tuesday to install the patch.
Manually removing the certificates from XP systems
Windows XP users have the option of deleting the certificates manually or merely looking over the list of certificates installed to see whether the DigiNotar cert. is there. Here's how:
Start out by clicking on the start button and typing mmc.exe. into the Run box, as shown in Figure 1. You'll see a window pop up typically labeled Console1.
Launching MMC
Figure 1. Opening up the mmc snapin
Click File, then Add/Remove Snap-in. In the Add/Remove Snap-in box, click the Add button, select Certificates (see Figure 2), and then click Add again.
Add Standalone Snap-in
Figure 2. Adding the certificate snap in
Yet another dialog box will open, with three choices. Select Computer account and click Next. Select Local computer (the computer this console is running on) and click Finish. Now close the Add Standalone Snap-in box. In the Add/Remove Snap-in box, click Okay. That returns you to the certificate-management console.
In the left-hand pane of the console, you should now see Certificates (Local Computer) with a small + next to it. Click on the + to expand your selection. You'll now see numerous folders, starting with Personal and including Third-Party Root Certification Authorities, as shown in Figure 3.
For more information on what folders you might typically see, check out the superuser post, "What are the Windows system certificate stores?" (In my example, the Windows XP system is a client of Windows Home Server and thus has a WHS certificate folder you probably will not see on your XP machine.)
Console Root certificates
Figure 3. Reviewing the list of certificate types
Now expand the Trusted Root Certificate Authorities folder and click on the certificates folder underneath. You should now see a list of certificates in alphabetical order (see Figure 4). Find any DigiNotar Root CA certificates and remove them from your computer.
An alternative way to remove certificates is through Internet Explorer. In IE, click Tools/Internet Options/Content and then Certificates. Click Trusted Root Certificates. Find the listings for DigiNotar Root CA (there are two in Figure 4) and remove them by clicking the Remove button. Click Yes to the warning that removing these certificates may prevent Windows from working properly. Then click Close and Okay.
Removing the DigiNotar root certificate
Figure 4. Removing the DigiNotar certificate.
If you don't see these two certificates in your trusted-certificate store, it's because you've probably used the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" rule of updating and thus ignored previous root-certificate updates. (I found one system without the DigiNotar certificate, and when I installed the latest root certificate — KB 931125 — the rogue certificate appeared.)
Think you're safer running the Apple platform? Guess again! Apple also included DigiNotar in its trusted root certificate program. In Apple it's a little more complicated to remove this rogue cert — a FairerPlatform blog has the details. Apple will most likely release a patch for its platform soon.
This issue exposes the vulnerable underbelly of trust of certificates, a process we may really need to start questioning. The listing of certificate authorities includes companies from countries that aren't always friendly to one another — and companies that have already been in the news for security breaches. If one small certificate authority in the Netherlands can be used in this type of potential spoofing attack, I hate to imagine what mischief can be done with a larger organization.
Needless to say, I may recommend holding off on future root-certificate updates until they have been examined more closely. In some cases you might be better off editing your existing root certificates rather than blindly adding updates.
Bottom line. If you have the DigiNotar certificate in your trusted-root certificate store, I recommend installing KB 2607712. On XP and Server 2003 systems, this will force a reboot — so plan accordingly. If you do not have the DigiNotar certificate in your trusted-root certificate store, simply wait for the next Patch Tuesday and apply it then.
Susan Bradley By Susan Bradley
A little Dutch company potentially lets a flood of problems into our Windows machines.
The company manages digital certificates; after its recent break-in by hackers, security certificates for Mozilla, Yahoo, WordPress, and other sites are now suspect.
On a daily basis, no matter what our level of paranoia, we trust the companies we work with. … Well, at least our browsers and computers do. Inside all computers, both Windows and Mac, is a collection of digital certificates that everyone on the Net has agreed to trust. On Vista and Windows 7 systems, these root certificates (definition) are updated by the issuer automatically. But on Windows XP machines, they're updated manually.
Companies doing business on the Internet buy certificates linked to a root certificate and automatically become part of the chain of trust. Because your computer trusts the vendor who provided the root certificate, it automatically trusts all online businesses with associated certificates.
This process is the foundation for secure Web transactions such as shopping on Amazon, online-banking, and e-mail.
Many updates after breaks in the chain of trust
Typically, this system works well. But on the rare occasions it fails — when the chain of trust is broken — it can instantly affect thousands of PCs.
Such is the case with that small company in the Netherlands, DigiNotar. Reports from various sites indicate that hackers compromised the firm's servers and generated rogue certificates. In a Kaspersky Lab Securelist blog, lab expert Roel speculates that as many as 200 rogue certificates were generated before the hack was discovered.
With a rogue certificate in place, a hacker can make your system think it's using a legitimate, trusted certificate from well-known companies such as Google and Yahoo. The hacker can then intercept your Internet connection with the site you intended to use and redirect you to a fake site, where you are tricked into entering personal information such as your user name and password. Your computer still thinks it's connected to a trusted site.
Fortunately for most of us, this particular attack appears to have targeted Internet users in Iran — it's the only country where these rogue certificates were spotted.
Soon after the breach, browser vendors offered updates that removed the Dutch root-certificate holder from their browsers' list of trusted certificate issuers. An August 29 Chrome Online Security blog reported that Google had disabled the DigiNotar certificate authority in Chrome 13.0.782.218.
The next day, Firefox followed suit in a Mozilla Security blog, announcing the release of numerous updates for Firefox (versions 3.6.21, 6.0.1, 7, 8, and 9), Thunderbird (3.1.13 and 6.0.1), and SeaMonkey (2.3.2) that revoked the DigiNotar root certificate.
On September 6, Microsoft released an out-of-cycle update — KB 2607712 — for Windows 2003, XP, Vista, Windows 7, and Server 2008 that not only removed all DigiNotar root certificates from the trusted list but also moved them to the untrusted-certificate store. If you find any DigiNotar certificates in the Trusted Root Certification Authorities list, I recommend you install KB 2607712.
If you do not see these certificates in your trusted-root store, you probably ignored all previous root-certificate updates. You can safely wait until the next Patch Tuesday to install the patch.
Manually removing the certificates from XP systems
Windows XP users have the option of deleting the certificates manually or merely looking over the list of certificates installed to see whether the DigiNotar cert. is there. Here's how:
Start out by clicking on the start button and typing mmc.exe. into the Run box, as shown in Figure 1. You'll see a window pop up typically labeled Console1.
Launching MMC
Figure 1. Opening up the mmc snapin
Click File, then Add/Remove Snap-in. In the Add/Remove Snap-in box, click the Add button, select Certificates (see Figure 2), and then click Add again.
Add Standalone Snap-in
Figure 2. Adding the certificate snap in
Yet another dialog box will open, with three choices. Select Computer account and click Next. Select Local computer (the computer this console is running on) and click Finish. Now close the Add Standalone Snap-in box. In the Add/Remove Snap-in box, click Okay. That returns you to the certificate-management console.
In the left-hand pane of the console, you should now see Certificates (Local Computer) with a small + next to it. Click on the + to expand your selection. You'll now see numerous folders, starting with Personal and including Third-Party Root Certification Authorities, as shown in Figure 3.
For more information on what folders you might typically see, check out the superuser post, "What are the Windows system certificate stores?" (In my example, the Windows XP system is a client of Windows Home Server and thus has a WHS certificate folder you probably will not see on your XP machine.)
Console Root certificates
Figure 3. Reviewing the list of certificate types
Now expand the Trusted Root Certificate Authorities folder and click on the certificates folder underneath. You should now see a list of certificates in alphabetical order (see Figure 4). Find any DigiNotar Root CA certificates and remove them from your computer.
An alternative way to remove certificates is through Internet Explorer. In IE, click Tools/Internet Options/Content and then Certificates. Click Trusted Root Certificates. Find the listings for DigiNotar Root CA (there are two in Figure 4) and remove them by clicking the Remove button. Click Yes to the warning that removing these certificates may prevent Windows from working properly. Then click Close and Okay.
Removing the DigiNotar root certificate
Figure 4. Removing the DigiNotar certificate.
If you don't see these two certificates in your trusted-certificate store, it's because you've probably used the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" rule of updating and thus ignored previous root-certificate updates. (I found one system without the DigiNotar certificate, and when I installed the latest root certificate — KB 931125 — the rogue certificate appeared.)
Think you're safer running the Apple platform? Guess again! Apple also included DigiNotar in its trusted root certificate program. In Apple it's a little more complicated to remove this rogue cert — a FairerPlatform blog has the details. Apple will most likely release a patch for its platform soon.
This issue exposes the vulnerable underbelly of trust of certificates, a process we may really need to start questioning. The listing of certificate authorities includes companies from countries that aren't always friendly to one another — and companies that have already been in the news for security breaches. If one small certificate authority in the Netherlands can be used in this type of potential spoofing attack, I hate to imagine what mischief can be done with a larger organization.
Needless to say, I may recommend holding off on future root-certificate updates until they have been examined more closely. In some cases you might be better off editing your existing root certificates rather than blindly adding updates.
Bottom line. If you have the DigiNotar certificate in your trusted-root certificate store, I recommend installing KB 2607712. On XP and Server 2003 systems, this will force a reboot — so plan accordingly. If you do not have the DigiNotar certificate in your trusted-root certificate store, simply wait for the next Patch Tuesday and apply it then.
Sunday, August 14, 2011
PlayOn Thoughts Four Weeks Later
PlayOn Thoughts Four Weeks Later
Posted by mike on July 12, 2011
It’s been about 4 weeks since I used PlayOn to get my Daily Show fix. Since then, I’ve signed up for a month more of PlayOn service to keep getting this and a few other shows like Burn Notice and White Collar without paying for Amazon Instant Video. My feelings about the service have shifted some in that time.
PlayOn Better With Tweaking
I’m still finding that PlayOn gets the job done. With some tweaks to the various providers, it seems to get the job done quite admirably most of the time. It’s been a delightful bridge to get Hulu on my TV via my Roku box and has brought some unexpected benefits like closed caps on the Roku box. A few tweaks that have proven quite nice:
Turn on Hulu closed caps: In Hulu, go to Privacy & Settings and click the “Automatically turn on closed captions if available.” checkbox
Use the Hulu queue: To avoid navigating the crazy-large menus, use the Hulu website to queue up shows then go directly to your Hulu queue for quick viewing
Places To Improve
It’s not all roses, however. The interface, in general, is still clunky. For channels that don’t have queues, it’s downright painful to navigate on my Roku. I’ve used the PlayOn iPad app, and that is manageable. I’m holding out hope that the upcoming Roku refresh will give PlayOn both the motivation and the technical ability to make a more robust Roku interface. I’ve also, on occasion, had playback issues. PlayOn will spontaneously reset the video feed to the beginning of the show (yes, before the first advertisement) during some Hulu viewings. I blame my increasingly erratic internet connection (AT&T, your number’s up), but I’ll still be sending in a support request to see how PlayOn responds.
PlayOn Is A Recommend
After a month of use, PlayOn has a place in my setup. I’ll finish out my current month subscription and, if we get this Hulu video reset under control, pick up a year of service for $39.99.
I do have one aside on the PlayOn pricing. I like a good deal, but I think that the annual subscription is the best deal in the package. Because of how MediaMall structured the annual service, with each extra year costing $19.99, I have a hard time recommending the lifetime subscription. Looking at the pricing:
8 Months 1 Year 2 Years 3 Years 5 Years
Monthly Rate
($4.99 / mo) $39.92 $59.88 $119.76 $179.64 $299.40
Annual Rate
($39.99 first year)
($19.99 second+) $39.99 $39.99 $59.98 $79.97 $119.95
Lifetime Rate
($79.99) $79.99 $79.99 $79.99 $79.99 $79.99
If you’re going to use the service beyond dabbling with it, the breakeven point for the annual service is around 8 months. Subscribing to the annual pass and getting 33% off after 1 year seems like a no-brainer to me when I like the service. It takes more than 3 years to break even on the lifetime rate and, in this industry, that is a lifetime. In the end, pick what works for your household budget and run with it.
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Posted by mike on July 12, 2011
It’s been about 4 weeks since I used PlayOn to get my Daily Show fix. Since then, I’ve signed up for a month more of PlayOn service to keep getting this and a few other shows like Burn Notice and White Collar without paying for Amazon Instant Video. My feelings about the service have shifted some in that time.
PlayOn Better With Tweaking
I’m still finding that PlayOn gets the job done. With some tweaks to the various providers, it seems to get the job done quite admirably most of the time. It’s been a delightful bridge to get Hulu on my TV via my Roku box and has brought some unexpected benefits like closed caps on the Roku box. A few tweaks that have proven quite nice:
Turn on Hulu closed caps: In Hulu, go to Privacy & Settings and click the “Automatically turn on closed captions if available.” checkbox
Use the Hulu queue: To avoid navigating the crazy-large menus, use the Hulu website to queue up shows then go directly to your Hulu queue for quick viewing
Places To Improve
It’s not all roses, however. The interface, in general, is still clunky. For channels that don’t have queues, it’s downright painful to navigate on my Roku. I’ve used the PlayOn iPad app, and that is manageable. I’m holding out hope that the upcoming Roku refresh will give PlayOn both the motivation and the technical ability to make a more robust Roku interface. I’ve also, on occasion, had playback issues. PlayOn will spontaneously reset the video feed to the beginning of the show (yes, before the first advertisement) during some Hulu viewings. I blame my increasingly erratic internet connection (AT&T, your number’s up), but I’ll still be sending in a support request to see how PlayOn responds.
PlayOn Is A Recommend
After a month of use, PlayOn has a place in my setup. I’ll finish out my current month subscription and, if we get this Hulu video reset under control, pick up a year of service for $39.99.
I do have one aside on the PlayOn pricing. I like a good deal, but I think that the annual subscription is the best deal in the package. Because of how MediaMall structured the annual service, with each extra year costing $19.99, I have a hard time recommending the lifetime subscription. Looking at the pricing:
8 Months 1 Year 2 Years 3 Years 5 Years
Monthly Rate
($4.99 / mo) $39.92 $59.88 $119.76 $179.64 $299.40
Annual Rate
($39.99 first year)
($19.99 second+) $39.99 $39.99 $59.98 $79.97 $119.95
Lifetime Rate
($79.99) $79.99 $79.99 $79.99 $79.99 $79.99
If you’re going to use the service beyond dabbling with it, the breakeven point for the annual service is around 8 months. Subscribing to the annual pass and getting 33% off after 1 year seems like a no-brainer to me when I like the service. It takes more than 3 years to break even on the lifetime rate and, in this industry, that is a lifetime. In the end, pick what works for your household budget and run with it.
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PlayLater Beta DVR on your computer
PlayLater: Cool, But Why Do I Want It?
by mike
A little while ago, I got a chance to take MediaMall Technology’s PlayLater for a spin as part of their public Beta. PlayLater reuses the PlayOn technology (of which I’m a huge fan) to DVR online TV shows and movies, recording them on a computer for later playback. Let’s take a look at it.
PlayLater Basics
PlayLater allows users to record streaming video from a variety of internet sources like Hulu, Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, and many others. Users can then watch the video at their convenience, even if the internet is down. From the PlayLater website:
PlayLater is groundbreaking new technology that gives you the freedom to record your favorite online videos and enjoy them on your schedule, even if you aren’t connected to the internet. As more and more of you are getting your favorite shows online, we felt that it was time the rest of your entertainment technology caught up. After all, the same reasons that apply to recording TV shows and movies in the old world apply to the new world, right? Convenience, access, and frankly — sometimes you don’t have an Internet connection available and that shouldn’t bar you from watching your favorite shows. The future of entertainment is online and now you can record the future.
The PlayLater installation is quite painless and went without a hitch. I was quickly hunting for the Daily Show and downloading videos. I was able get some downloading going. One thing that quickly caught my attention was that PlayLater really was a DVR platform. After living with the internet a while, it didn’t even cross my mind that PlayLater would take 30 minutes to record a 30 minute TV shows. It could download it faster, right?! Unfortunately, not so much. The technology under the hood re-encodes the video as it plays, so it’s just like my TV in that the show has to play in real-time to record it.
The 30 minutes aside, PlayLater delivered on what they claimed. I managed to record and later watch a Daily Show on my PC. At the time of my review work, PlayLater could only play back on a PC. They have since merged the technology with their PlayOn platform to allow videos to stream to any PlayOn compatible device.
Although PlayLater did deliver on the main claim, this is obviously a beta product. It seems like a lot of careful thought has been put into the DVR technology, but the user interface is less than ideal. This is definitely not a Tivo. Resizing the main window causes visual artifacts. A list view of shows where the description would seem when I hovers over the name would be great to allow fast queuing.
All little things, but Apple has shown that polish matters. These are user interface issues that can easily be squeezed out before the beta closes. The core technology appears solid and is ripe for building up upon. All of this doesn’t answer the more fundamental question: why do I want it?
But Why Would I Want PlayLater?
I have yet to understand what niche PlayLater is serving. It’s cool technology, but what problem are they solving? Their stated reason for bringing this out is summed up by:
After all, the same reasons that apply to recording TV shows and movies in the old world apply to the new world, right?
The problem is that the same reasons don’t apply. I originally got a DVR because my favorite TV shows came on at a specific time that was inconvenient for me. I was tired that night, or my daughter wasn’t going to sleep and I was in her room, or it’s a daytime show and I’m at work. None of these apply to streaming video. Daily Show episodes two weeks back are available on Hulu at my whim. I can watch them when I want. Anything on Netflix is available when I want it. The only reasons I’ve come up with to justify PlayLater are:
I’m about to travel or take my computer somewhere without the internet and I want to watch a show. This seems legitimate but strikes me as a very small market.
The streaming channel is about to drop the show and I want to record it for later. This requires a lot of foresight for the instant gratification crowd.
I can’t help but think that MediaMall is dangling this out there to see if something emerges.
Conclusions on PlayLater
PlayLater delivered on what they set out to do. They created a DVR system for online videos. The technology has potential once the rough edges are sanded down. What’s missing is PlayLater’s reason for existence. Streaming video is based on the “cloud” holding the videos until I’m ready to watch, and that’s in place right now.
I can’t wait to see what the PlayLater team will do as they exit beta and put a polished product into the market.
by mike
A little while ago, I got a chance to take MediaMall Technology’s PlayLater for a spin as part of their public Beta. PlayLater reuses the PlayOn technology (of which I’m a huge fan) to DVR online TV shows and movies, recording them on a computer for later playback. Let’s take a look at it.
PlayLater Basics
PlayLater allows users to record streaming video from a variety of internet sources like Hulu, Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, and many others. Users can then watch the video at their convenience, even if the internet is down. From the PlayLater website:
PlayLater is groundbreaking new technology that gives you the freedom to record your favorite online videos and enjoy them on your schedule, even if you aren’t connected to the internet. As more and more of you are getting your favorite shows online, we felt that it was time the rest of your entertainment technology caught up. After all, the same reasons that apply to recording TV shows and movies in the old world apply to the new world, right? Convenience, access, and frankly — sometimes you don’t have an Internet connection available and that shouldn’t bar you from watching your favorite shows. The future of entertainment is online and now you can record the future.
The PlayLater installation is quite painless and went without a hitch. I was quickly hunting for the Daily Show and downloading videos. I was able get some downloading going. One thing that quickly caught my attention was that PlayLater really was a DVR platform. After living with the internet a while, it didn’t even cross my mind that PlayLater would take 30 minutes to record a 30 minute TV shows. It could download it faster, right?! Unfortunately, not so much. The technology under the hood re-encodes the video as it plays, so it’s just like my TV in that the show has to play in real-time to record it.
The 30 minutes aside, PlayLater delivered on what they claimed. I managed to record and later watch a Daily Show on my PC. At the time of my review work, PlayLater could only play back on a PC. They have since merged the technology with their PlayOn platform to allow videos to stream to any PlayOn compatible device.
Although PlayLater did deliver on the main claim, this is obviously a beta product. It seems like a lot of careful thought has been put into the DVR technology, but the user interface is less than ideal. This is definitely not a Tivo. Resizing the main window causes visual artifacts. A list view of shows where the description would seem when I hovers over the name would be great to allow fast queuing.
All little things, but Apple has shown that polish matters. These are user interface issues that can easily be squeezed out before the beta closes. The core technology appears solid and is ripe for building up upon. All of this doesn’t answer the more fundamental question: why do I want it?
But Why Would I Want PlayLater?
I have yet to understand what niche PlayLater is serving. It’s cool technology, but what problem are they solving? Their stated reason for bringing this out is summed up by:
After all, the same reasons that apply to recording TV shows and movies in the old world apply to the new world, right?
The problem is that the same reasons don’t apply. I originally got a DVR because my favorite TV shows came on at a specific time that was inconvenient for me. I was tired that night, or my daughter wasn’t going to sleep and I was in her room, or it’s a daytime show and I’m at work. None of these apply to streaming video. Daily Show episodes two weeks back are available on Hulu at my whim. I can watch them when I want. Anything on Netflix is available when I want it. The only reasons I’ve come up with to justify PlayLater are:
I’m about to travel or take my computer somewhere without the internet and I want to watch a show. This seems legitimate but strikes me as a very small market.
The streaming channel is about to drop the show and I want to record it for later. This requires a lot of foresight for the instant gratification crowd.
I can’t help but think that MediaMall is dangling this out there to see if something emerges.
Conclusions on PlayLater
PlayLater delivered on what they set out to do. They created a DVR system for online videos. The technology has potential once the rough edges are sanded down. What’s missing is PlayLater’s reason for existence. Streaming video is based on the “cloud” holding the videos until I’m ready to watch, and that’s in place right now.
I can’t wait to see what the PlayLater team will do as they exit beta and put a polished product into the market.
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Blockbuster Wants Unhappy Netflix Subscribers to Switch – But is it a Good Idea?
Blockbuster began rescuing upset Netflix customers by launching a limited time, nationwide promotion for all Netflix customers who switch to Blockbuster Total Access™.
Blockbuster Total Access provides benefits Netflix doesn’t offer: availability of many new releases 28 days before Netflix; unlimited in-store exchanges; games for XBOX 360®, Playstation3™, and Nintendo Wii™, and no additional charge for Blu-ray™ movies.
As part of Blockbuster’s ongoing efforts to provide the ultimate in convenience, choice and value, Netflix customers who switch to one of Blockbuster’s two most popular Total Access plans will receive a 30-day free trial. After the free trial, customers will continue to receive Total Access for a new everyday price of only $9.99 per month for “1 Disc” at a time or $14.99 per month for “2 Discs” at a time.
“Blockbuster quickly responded to the cries of Netflix customers,” said Michael Kelly, president of Blockbuster. “Blockbuster Total Access is Netflix ‘without the wait.’ The combination of DVDs by mail and unlimited in-store exchanges provides more than 100 million people living near Blockbuster stores immediate convenience and unparalleled choice.“
Many Netflix customers have voiced their frustration about the Netflix price increase on Twitter by posting “Goodbye Netflix, Hello Blockbuster!”
“We find it shocking that anyone would raise rates as high as 60 percent,” Kelly added. “In contrast, Blockbuster has worked hard over the past few months to deliver value in entertainment to consumers in this economy and has even reduced in-store movie rentals to as low as 49 cents.”
This special offer for Netflix customers is available through Sept. 15, 2011, in participating stores and at Blockbuster’s website (http://ww.blockbuster.com/helloblockbuster) or bring in the tear-off from their Netflix mailer to a participating Blockbuster store.
Blockbuster Plans Netflix Plans
Blockbuster offer 3 different subscription plans with low monthly prices to meet your entertainment needs and your budget:
1-out Unlimited - 5 Free Exchanges – $11.99 per month
2-out Unlimited - 5 Free Exchanges – $16.99 per month
3-out Unlimited – 5 Free Exchanges – $19.99 per month
Selection Includes:
Movies
Games
Purchase pre-owned movies
Rent by Mail without a Subscription
You don’t need a subscription to rent movies and games by mail from Blockbuster.You can order from more than 100,000 titles online or in store.
See available devices
Return rentals in the postage-paid mailer or to a participating store.
Blockbuster doesn’t offer a streaming plan. Its On Demand movies are charged per use, with variable pricing ranging from $1 to $5 per rental.
You can also purchase On Demand movies from Blockbuster, which are then kept in a digital locker from which you can re-stream the movie at any time.
Unlimited Streaming
For only $7.99 a month, you get unlimited movies & TV episodes instantly over the Internet to your TV or computer. There are no commercials, and you can pause, rewind, fast forward or rewatch as often as you like. It’s really that easy! (see available devices – my suggestion is Roku Player)
Monthly DVD Rentals via Mail
1 DVD out at-a-time $7.99
2 DVDs out at-a-time $11.99
3 DVDs out at-a-time $15.99
4 DVDs out at-a-time $21.99
5 DVDs out at-a-time $27.99
6 DVDs out at-a-time $32.99
7 DVDs out at-a-time $37.99
8 DVDs out at-a-time $43.99
Monthly Unlimited Streaming Plus DVD Rentals via Mail
Unlimited Streaming + 1 DVD out at-a-time $15.98
Unlimited Streaming + 2 DVDs out at-a-time $19.98
Unlimited Streaming + 3 DVDs out at-a-time $23.98
Unlimited Streaming + 4 DVDs out at-a-time $29.98
Unlimited Streaming + 5 DVDs out at-a-time $35.98
Unlimited Streaming + 6 DVDs out at-a-time $40.98
Unlimited Streaming + 7 DVDs out at-a-time $45.98
Unlimited Streaming + 8 DVDs out at-a-time $51.98
Monthly Limited Plans
1 DVD out at-a-time (limit 2 rentals a month) $4.99
Starz Play Only (no DVDs) $6.99 a month
Blu-ray movies and are adding more as they are released by the studios. You can add access to Blu-ray discs to your account at any time for an additional $2 a month.
Bottom Line
Netflix is still a better choice with the added feature of Netflix Instant at only $7.99 a month, but, it is not the cheapest. If you have a Blockbuster or another video store nearby just get the Netflix streaming plan for $7.99 a month and rent your movies from your local retailer.
Blockbuster Total Access provides benefits Netflix doesn’t offer: availability of many new releases 28 days before Netflix; unlimited in-store exchanges; games for XBOX 360®, Playstation3™, and Nintendo Wii™, and no additional charge for Blu-ray™ movies.
As part of Blockbuster’s ongoing efforts to provide the ultimate in convenience, choice and value, Netflix customers who switch to one of Blockbuster’s two most popular Total Access plans will receive a 30-day free trial. After the free trial, customers will continue to receive Total Access for a new everyday price of only $9.99 per month for “1 Disc” at a time or $14.99 per month for “2 Discs” at a time.
“Blockbuster quickly responded to the cries of Netflix customers,” said Michael Kelly, president of Blockbuster. “Blockbuster Total Access is Netflix ‘without the wait.’ The combination of DVDs by mail and unlimited in-store exchanges provides more than 100 million people living near Blockbuster stores immediate convenience and unparalleled choice.“
Many Netflix customers have voiced their frustration about the Netflix price increase on Twitter by posting “Goodbye Netflix, Hello Blockbuster!”
“We find it shocking that anyone would raise rates as high as 60 percent,” Kelly added. “In contrast, Blockbuster has worked hard over the past few months to deliver value in entertainment to consumers in this economy and has even reduced in-store movie rentals to as low as 49 cents.”
This special offer for Netflix customers is available through Sept. 15, 2011, in participating stores and at Blockbuster’s website (http://ww.blockbuster.com/helloblockbuster) or bring in the tear-off from their Netflix mailer to a participating Blockbuster store.
Blockbuster Plans Netflix Plans
Blockbuster offer 3 different subscription plans with low monthly prices to meet your entertainment needs and your budget:
1-out Unlimited - 5 Free Exchanges – $11.99 per month
2-out Unlimited - 5 Free Exchanges – $16.99 per month
3-out Unlimited – 5 Free Exchanges – $19.99 per month
Selection Includes:
Movies
Games
Purchase pre-owned movies
Rent by Mail without a Subscription
You don’t need a subscription to rent movies and games by mail from Blockbuster.You can order from more than 100,000 titles online or in store.
See available devices
Return rentals in the postage-paid mailer or to a participating store.
Blockbuster doesn’t offer a streaming plan. Its On Demand movies are charged per use, with variable pricing ranging from $1 to $5 per rental.
You can also purchase On Demand movies from Blockbuster, which are then kept in a digital locker from which you can re-stream the movie at any time.
Unlimited Streaming
For only $7.99 a month, you get unlimited movies & TV episodes instantly over the Internet to your TV or computer. There are no commercials, and you can pause, rewind, fast forward or rewatch as often as you like. It’s really that easy! (see available devices – my suggestion is Roku Player)
Monthly DVD Rentals via Mail
1 DVD out at-a-time $7.99
2 DVDs out at-a-time $11.99
3 DVDs out at-a-time $15.99
4 DVDs out at-a-time $21.99
5 DVDs out at-a-time $27.99
6 DVDs out at-a-time $32.99
7 DVDs out at-a-time $37.99
8 DVDs out at-a-time $43.99
Monthly Unlimited Streaming Plus DVD Rentals via Mail
Unlimited Streaming + 1 DVD out at-a-time $15.98
Unlimited Streaming + 2 DVDs out at-a-time $19.98
Unlimited Streaming + 3 DVDs out at-a-time $23.98
Unlimited Streaming + 4 DVDs out at-a-time $29.98
Unlimited Streaming + 5 DVDs out at-a-time $35.98
Unlimited Streaming + 6 DVDs out at-a-time $40.98
Unlimited Streaming + 7 DVDs out at-a-time $45.98
Unlimited Streaming + 8 DVDs out at-a-time $51.98
Monthly Limited Plans
1 DVD out at-a-time (limit 2 rentals a month) $4.99
Starz Play Only (no DVDs) $6.99 a month
Blu-ray movies and are adding more as they are released by the studios. You can add access to Blu-ray discs to your account at any time for an additional $2 a month.
Bottom Line
Netflix is still a better choice with the added feature of Netflix Instant at only $7.99 a month, but, it is not the cheapest. If you have a Blockbuster or another video store nearby just get the Netflix streaming plan for $7.99 a month and rent your movies from your local retailer.
Friday, July 15, 2011
The Rise & Fall of RIM
Research In Motion is in the midst of a major transition in every sense of the word. Publicly, the company is portraying a very defensive image — one that is very dismissive, as if RIM is profitable and class-leading, and the media is out of line to criticize its business, as are investors. Internally, however, there’s a different story to be told. It’s a story filled with attitude, cockiness, heated arguments among the executive team and Co-CEOs, and paranoia. We’ve spoken to multiple ex-RIM executives at length about their experiences with the company over the past few years. While most speak highly of RIM and their time in Waterloo, they also each left the company due mainly to RIM’s lack of vision and leadership. Read on for an exclusive inside look at a company teetering on the edge between greatness and collapse.
Lightning in a bottle.
“Lightning in a bottle.” That is how one former executive described Research In Motion in its early days. “This came together at the right time, the right place, with the right technology, and Jim and Mike are extremely brilliant individuals.” Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis are two irreplaceable leaders who were largely responsible for RIM’s success, our source continued. But as time progressed, Mike did not listen to the marketplace. This is obvious from the outside view, though the details surrounding why RIM is no longer a market leader — and why RIM will most likely not be able to regain its leadership position in the near future — are most interesting.
Let’s rewind a few years. Picture yourself sitting in an executive briefing at Research In Motion. You’d hear Mike Lazaridis unequivocally state time and time again that BlackBerry smartphones would never have MP3 players or cameras in them because it just does not make sense when the company’s primary customers were the government and enterprise. “BlackBerry smartphones will never have cameras because the No. 1 customer of ours is the U.S. government,” Mike Lazaridis would say in meetings. “There will never be a BlackBerry with an MP3 player or camera.”
There will never be a BlackBerry with an MP3 player or camera.
The fact is, that RIM didn’t only miss the boat in terms of product features and device trends as we now know, but the underpinnings of the company’s consumer failure began all the way back in 2005 with bold statements like these, combined with a lack of research and development in numerous key areas.
Mike Lazaridis would say that the most ridiculous idea was to name a phone with a marketing-derived name, like the Motorola RAZR. “BlackBerry will never do that, it will always be a model number,” he said to executives. “A BlackBerry with a name is ridiculous.”
“Here we are, as young, brazen people, and we’re just like, ‘Mike, you’re missing out. There’s a trend here; it’s a social and collaborative scene in certain media circles’,” one former executive said, describing the general feeling among other executives at the company. “Now look at what’s happened 4 or 5 years later — an MP3 player, camera, name, all done reluctantly.”
“When I would work with our major carriers, I would have to go to Mike’s product development team, and ask what are we going to bring to [redacted],” and it was never a cutting edge product, one former executive told me. There wasn’t ever a three-year roadmap. Mike was always focused on small, granular features like how to make the speakerphone in a BlackBerry the best speakerphone on the market. Mike would say that people were going to buy a BlackBerry because of the speakerphone… “because they wouldn’t need a Polycom anymore.”
The three-year roadmap for RIM products focused on refining the technology in phones had already been released, rather than looking at where to add major new componentry or trying to identify or even shape future trends. “One of the main reasons RIM missed the mark with the browser was because
they were always proud of how little data usage a user would use,” a former executive said. “There was no three-year plan at RIM.” RIM would be proud of the fact that someone would only use 1MB of data in a month in 2005, and as a result, there wasn’t ever any extensive R&D done within the browser space. Over time, that misstep affected BlackBerry tremendously as competing devices began to deliver desktop-like Web experiences. “Mike Lazaridis couldn’t imagine that consumers would be spending hours watching and streaming video to their devices, he couldn’t understand it,” the former exec continued. This is why we don’t see RIM excelling in spaces like camera technology, or displays — because the company never even attempted to anticipate the smartphone trends we’re seeing today. “RIM is a reactionary company.”
A BlackBerry with a name is ridiculous.
I remember going to sit with the CMO of one of the largest wireless carriers, and we would deliver features like “increase battery life by 40%” in the next model, and we would get a blank look on the other side of the conference room. The executives would think, ‘so your telling me with this device I am going to sell 40% less car chargers’, there was a blank stare. “They want the flavor of the week, and the carrier’s loyalty is to their customers and what their customers want. Then try and delivery that.”
“Mike is really brilliant, and superior beyond his years, and what he’s doing with Stephen Hawking and the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics is compelling,” he continued. “There are hundreds of millions he’s put into it, but that doesn’t have anything to do with what RIM’s facing, and what’s in front of them, and the market is asking for them to change their ways.”
“Back a handful of years ago, if someone had a phone at work that wasn’t a BlackBerry they paid for it,” another executive who no longer works at Research In Motion said. “I was at a Fortune 500 organization a few weeks ago, and people were carrying a corporate issued BlackBerry in their left pocket and their own personal iPhone in the right pocket.” He continued, “The fact that people are spending their own money to buy the iPhone, when their company is giving them a ‘free BlackBerry’ sends quite a message to RIM,” says one of our sources.”
The market is asking for them to change their ways.
They were both stunned that someone could have a corporate-issued phone that could handle some consumer needs, but still walk around with two devices. There were and are many paradigms at RIM. In the corporate world, especially at large companies, the senior executives would buy a BlackBerry as soon as it came out. They would then give their old devices to employees beneath them, and these BlackBerry phones would eventually make their way down through the corporation. This isn’t the case anymore, and now those people that used to receive the hand-me-down BlackBerry devices are asking for shiny new phones.
Jim and Mike got along very well, I was told by multiple current and former RIM employees. The interesting thing, however, is that when they have disagreements, Mike wins all of the internal arguments. “Jim, given his background, doesn’t have the pedigree to compete with Mike on an academic level.” As a result, perhaps, I was told that things have slowly deteriorated between the two co-CEOs. Jim and Mike have “titanic” arguments in the halls of RIM headquarters on various subjects, and we’re told it’s quite open. Stories of explosive fights bleeding out into the hallways and even lunch spots in Waterloo have filled Research In Motion. It used to be that only vice presidents or above would get the privilege of listening to Mike and Jim debate — behind closed doors or in the boardroom. Regular employees now hear the arguments as well, and “they aren’t insulated for that. It’s unnerving. It makes for a nervous environment, and many employees are looking to jump ship. Most people are just uncertain as to what the future holds [for RIM].”
Most people are just uncertain as to what the future holds for RIM.
“When you hear Mike talk about the latest and greatest, it’s been the same thing for ten years: security, battery performance, and network performance. RIM has positioned battery life and network performance for years. People are not concerned with iPhone battery life,” one source told me. Network performance, to Mike, trumps any innovation a device like the iPhone offers. “Mike is convinced people won’t buy an iPhone because battery life isn’t as good as a BlackBerry,” a different source said. Mike apparently is in disbelief that people can use over 15GB of data on their iPhone and Android devices, and he feels that people will buy smartphones based on network efficiency, even though carriers with tiered data plans in developed markets love customers who use monstrous amounts of data.
While RIM has always viewed carriers as customers rather than end users, carriers have long been trying to find a different partner that doesn’t charge network fees. Since all BlackBerry devices use the BlackBerry NOC, RIM gets a piece of the data plan users pay on their bills each month. And RIM is the only manufacturer whose products are configured in such a way. “Carriers have always tried to negotiate the fees they pay RIM. They try everything to get that dropped or lowered, but that has been the one holy grail of RIM that has not been touched. ”
An ex-executive who had been responsible for a number of carrier partners for RIM recently told me that the data network fees paid to RIM were definitely the number one cause of heartburn from carriers, and a big point of contention.
There was no three- year plan at RIM.
If you look at RIM’s global revenue today, the story it paints isn’t a good one as far as driving new business and revenue channels. “They essentially just channel stuff,” a former exec said. For instance, when RIM wants to sell to a new market, it will go to two or three primary carriers and make those carriers purchase a set amount of devices up front to stock the channel for what is typically the remainder of the calendar year. Then RIM will sell those devices at full margin. It’s a great quick and easy profit from the channel. So RIM has now opened up three new carriers in a new country, let’s say, and it had them each purchase “X” thousand units each. Now, RIM can report to the Street that it shipped 700,000 devices at full market value.
After multiple sequential quarters of opening up new countries, there’s obviously a lot of volume there. Though the consensus of many is that RIM is nearing capacity with this strategy. The company now has to rely on the old school model of growth within these existing channels, and just as we’re seeing in North America with the tide changing now that long-standing BlackBerry customers are moving to other platforms and devices, that will happen in countries outside of the U.S. and Canada that have been stuffed with BlackBerry phones. Growth will slow to a stall in these markets, one source told me, and the problems will be compounded by the fact that a lot of these devices are not being sold through to end users. “They’re selling a screen with a giant calculator attached to it. It’s not a cool device anymore.”
As far as the PlayBook is concerned, RIM’s initial 500,000 shipments weren’t even sold at full margin. “RIM’s thought process was that they hoped if they put a product in a carrier’s hands that was less than full margin, it would entice the carriers to apply whatever number of discounts against that to bring it to market at an even lower price — a subsidy on the tablet. RIM isn’t making any money on the PlayBook.” To complicate matters, however, Jim Balsillie told the carriers at the 11th hour that the PlayBook wouldn’t have native email and would require the Bridge app in order to receive emails and provide calendar functions. “RIM is notorious for dropping these bombshells at the 11th hour on the carriers, and the PlayBook not having native email was a shock to the carriers.” They were all expecting a BlackBerry with a bigger screen. RIM was hoping to blow through the 500,000 units and have carriers take orders for millions of additional PlayBooks, but that has not happened yet. Mike Lazaridis looks at it as, why aren’t people buying this tablet when it has the most powerful engine with respect to multitasking, and supports Flash? But consumers have spoken pretty loudly a number of times, and Mike unfortunately leads the product side and continues to miss the mark with the masses, a former RIM executive told me. “I don’t even see anyone in Waterloo walking around with a PlayBook that doesn’t work for RIM,” another former RIM employee said.
Mike is convinced people won’t buy an iPhone because it doesn’t have a battery as good as a BlackBerry
“People really think Mike has lost his touch and vision. He’s paranoid. It’s not uncommon to see him walking around campus with bodyguards in tow,” one source told me. “This is a small community of folks in Waterloo. There’s what? 100,000 people and 30,000 of them are students, and it’s an understated place. Sure there are millionaires but no one drives anything fancier than a 5-series BMW. For Mike to be on campus with bodyguards is very peculiar. It’s very Orson Wells-like.” Another former employee I spoke with doesn’t find the fact that Lazaridis has bodyguards to be odd at all due to his stature. RIM’s other Co-CEO, however, is a completely different person.
“Every year, Jim Balsillie and COO Dennis Kavelman would take all the executives to Redtail golf course for a day of R&R with great meals, great VIP service, and every year one executive would not ever go.” Mike could not understand why everyone would go and have a golf day. In fact, he supposedly hated it and he never showed up on purpose, I was told.
“Jim chasing the NHL teams, that caused some separation between Mike and Jim,” one former executive stated. When Jim was in the midst of buying an NHL team, the NHL hired a large group to work on the project, and it had countless former RIM executives called for testimony on what Jim Balsillie was really like — all of the “TMZ dirt,” as one source described it. One executive BGR spoke to refused to talk to the NHL when they reached out, however many others were happy to open up. While this former exec did not have an issue with Jim, it was hypothesized that those with an axe to grind lobbed some dirt at the NHL and it’s most likely one of the reasons they didn’t allow him to proceed with a purchase.
They’re selling a screen with a giant calculator attached to it. It’s not a cool device anymore.
Multiple former executives also spoke of a notable divide between Mike, an internal product guy, and Jim, who focuses more on external partner relationships, in how they each react to leaks from inside the company. “I remember this one time when we had a new device coming out and it leaked to BGR.” Mike lost his mind for a few weeks. He couldn’t fathom how something like this would happen, and he constantly threatened to fire any employees who leaked any information. “He had this ‘you’re either with us or against us’ attitude, and he went off the rails. Every product is Mike’s baby”. On the other hand, Jim would try and spin things, I was told. He would get everyone excited, “you know, here it comes, he’d roll with it and have the attitude that they’re boosting the hype of the device, they’re pre-selling it for us, and so on. That was the message Jim would take.”
RIM seems to be doing damage control in a bunch of areas right now. One such area is the PlayBook and trying to mitigate the negative response to that product, and I was told the company is even going so far as to selectively block different media and even social networking sites from being accessed by employees. One of my sources said he anticipates RIM always having a niche market in the enterprise and government spaces, but he doesn’t think RIM has the potential to become a true market leader with consumers due to several shortfalls. “You’d honestly think RIM is more than a year or two behind in [the consumer market],” one source told me. “There will most likely be another heavy reduction in the workplace later this year or early next year. I don’t see the stock getting back to where it was. There are no real market impact executives coming into RIM, times have changed since Robin came in from Motorola, that ‘stock’ incentive isn’t there any more.”
Lightning in a bottle.
“Lightning in a bottle.” That is how one former executive described Research In Motion in its early days. “This came together at the right time, the right place, with the right technology, and Jim and Mike are extremely brilliant individuals.” Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis are two irreplaceable leaders who were largely responsible for RIM’s success, our source continued. But as time progressed, Mike did not listen to the marketplace. This is obvious from the outside view, though the details surrounding why RIM is no longer a market leader — and why RIM will most likely not be able to regain its leadership position in the near future — are most interesting.
Let’s rewind a few years. Picture yourself sitting in an executive briefing at Research In Motion. You’d hear Mike Lazaridis unequivocally state time and time again that BlackBerry smartphones would never have MP3 players or cameras in them because it just does not make sense when the company’s primary customers were the government and enterprise. “BlackBerry smartphones will never have cameras because the No. 1 customer of ours is the U.S. government,” Mike Lazaridis would say in meetings. “There will never be a BlackBerry with an MP3 player or camera.”
There will never be a BlackBerry with an MP3 player or camera.
The fact is, that RIM didn’t only miss the boat in terms of product features and device trends as we now know, but the underpinnings of the company’s consumer failure began all the way back in 2005 with bold statements like these, combined with a lack of research and development in numerous key areas.
Mike Lazaridis would say that the most ridiculous idea was to name a phone with a marketing-derived name, like the Motorola RAZR. “BlackBerry will never do that, it will always be a model number,” he said to executives. “A BlackBerry with a name is ridiculous.”
“Here we are, as young, brazen people, and we’re just like, ‘Mike, you’re missing out. There’s a trend here; it’s a social and collaborative scene in certain media circles’,” one former executive said, describing the general feeling among other executives at the company. “Now look at what’s happened 4 or 5 years later — an MP3 player, camera, name, all done reluctantly.”
“When I would work with our major carriers, I would have to go to Mike’s product development team, and ask what are we going to bring to [redacted],” and it was never a cutting edge product, one former executive told me. There wasn’t ever a three-year roadmap. Mike was always focused on small, granular features like how to make the speakerphone in a BlackBerry the best speakerphone on the market. Mike would say that people were going to buy a BlackBerry because of the speakerphone… “because they wouldn’t need a Polycom anymore.”
The three-year roadmap for RIM products focused on refining the technology in phones had already been released, rather than looking at where to add major new componentry or trying to identify or even shape future trends. “One of the main reasons RIM missed the mark with the browser was because
they were always proud of how little data usage a user would use,” a former executive said. “There was no three-year plan at RIM.” RIM would be proud of the fact that someone would only use 1MB of data in a month in 2005, and as a result, there wasn’t ever any extensive R&D done within the browser space. Over time, that misstep affected BlackBerry tremendously as competing devices began to deliver desktop-like Web experiences. “Mike Lazaridis couldn’t imagine that consumers would be spending hours watching and streaming video to their devices, he couldn’t understand it,” the former exec continued. This is why we don’t see RIM excelling in spaces like camera technology, or displays — because the company never even attempted to anticipate the smartphone trends we’re seeing today. “RIM is a reactionary company.”
A BlackBerry with a name is ridiculous.
I remember going to sit with the CMO of one of the largest wireless carriers, and we would deliver features like “increase battery life by 40%” in the next model, and we would get a blank look on the other side of the conference room. The executives would think, ‘so your telling me with this device I am going to sell 40% less car chargers’, there was a blank stare. “They want the flavor of the week, and the carrier’s loyalty is to their customers and what their customers want. Then try and delivery that.”
“Mike is really brilliant, and superior beyond his years, and what he’s doing with Stephen Hawking and the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics is compelling,” he continued. “There are hundreds of millions he’s put into it, but that doesn’t have anything to do with what RIM’s facing, and what’s in front of them, and the market is asking for them to change their ways.”
“Back a handful of years ago, if someone had a phone at work that wasn’t a BlackBerry they paid for it,” another executive who no longer works at Research In Motion said. “I was at a Fortune 500 organization a few weeks ago, and people were carrying a corporate issued BlackBerry in their left pocket and their own personal iPhone in the right pocket.” He continued, “The fact that people are spending their own money to buy the iPhone, when their company is giving them a ‘free BlackBerry’ sends quite a message to RIM,” says one of our sources.”
The market is asking for them to change their ways.
They were both stunned that someone could have a corporate-issued phone that could handle some consumer needs, but still walk around with two devices. There were and are many paradigms at RIM. In the corporate world, especially at large companies, the senior executives would buy a BlackBerry as soon as it came out. They would then give their old devices to employees beneath them, and these BlackBerry phones would eventually make their way down through the corporation. This isn’t the case anymore, and now those people that used to receive the hand-me-down BlackBerry devices are asking for shiny new phones.
Jim and Mike got along very well, I was told by multiple current and former RIM employees. The interesting thing, however, is that when they have disagreements, Mike wins all of the internal arguments. “Jim, given his background, doesn’t have the pedigree to compete with Mike on an academic level.” As a result, perhaps, I was told that things have slowly deteriorated between the two co-CEOs. Jim and Mike have “titanic” arguments in the halls of RIM headquarters on various subjects, and we’re told it’s quite open. Stories of explosive fights bleeding out into the hallways and even lunch spots in Waterloo have filled Research In Motion. It used to be that only vice presidents or above would get the privilege of listening to Mike and Jim debate — behind closed doors or in the boardroom. Regular employees now hear the arguments as well, and “they aren’t insulated for that. It’s unnerving. It makes for a nervous environment, and many employees are looking to jump ship. Most people are just uncertain as to what the future holds [for RIM].”
Most people are just uncertain as to what the future holds for RIM.
“When you hear Mike talk about the latest and greatest, it’s been the same thing for ten years: security, battery performance, and network performance. RIM has positioned battery life and network performance for years. People are not concerned with iPhone battery life,” one source told me. Network performance, to Mike, trumps any innovation a device like the iPhone offers. “Mike is convinced people won’t buy an iPhone because battery life isn’t as good as a BlackBerry,” a different source said. Mike apparently is in disbelief that people can use over 15GB of data on their iPhone and Android devices, and he feels that people will buy smartphones based on network efficiency, even though carriers with tiered data plans in developed markets love customers who use monstrous amounts of data.
While RIM has always viewed carriers as customers rather than end users, carriers have long been trying to find a different partner that doesn’t charge network fees. Since all BlackBerry devices use the BlackBerry NOC, RIM gets a piece of the data plan users pay on their bills each month. And RIM is the only manufacturer whose products are configured in such a way. “Carriers have always tried to negotiate the fees they pay RIM. They try everything to get that dropped or lowered, but that has been the one holy grail of RIM that has not been touched. ”
An ex-executive who had been responsible for a number of carrier partners for RIM recently told me that the data network fees paid to RIM were definitely the number one cause of heartburn from carriers, and a big point of contention.
There was no three- year plan at RIM.
If you look at RIM’s global revenue today, the story it paints isn’t a good one as far as driving new business and revenue channels. “They essentially just channel stuff,” a former exec said. For instance, when RIM wants to sell to a new market, it will go to two or three primary carriers and make those carriers purchase a set amount of devices up front to stock the channel for what is typically the remainder of the calendar year. Then RIM will sell those devices at full margin. It’s a great quick and easy profit from the channel. So RIM has now opened up three new carriers in a new country, let’s say, and it had them each purchase “X” thousand units each. Now, RIM can report to the Street that it shipped 700,000 devices at full market value.
After multiple sequential quarters of opening up new countries, there’s obviously a lot of volume there. Though the consensus of many is that RIM is nearing capacity with this strategy. The company now has to rely on the old school model of growth within these existing channels, and just as we’re seeing in North America with the tide changing now that long-standing BlackBerry customers are moving to other platforms and devices, that will happen in countries outside of the U.S. and Canada that have been stuffed with BlackBerry phones. Growth will slow to a stall in these markets, one source told me, and the problems will be compounded by the fact that a lot of these devices are not being sold through to end users. “They’re selling a screen with a giant calculator attached to it. It’s not a cool device anymore.”
As far as the PlayBook is concerned, RIM’s initial 500,000 shipments weren’t even sold at full margin. “RIM’s thought process was that they hoped if they put a product in a carrier’s hands that was less than full margin, it would entice the carriers to apply whatever number of discounts against that to bring it to market at an even lower price — a subsidy on the tablet. RIM isn’t making any money on the PlayBook.” To complicate matters, however, Jim Balsillie told the carriers at the 11th hour that the PlayBook wouldn’t have native email and would require the Bridge app in order to receive emails and provide calendar functions. “RIM is notorious for dropping these bombshells at the 11th hour on the carriers, and the PlayBook not having native email was a shock to the carriers.” They were all expecting a BlackBerry with a bigger screen. RIM was hoping to blow through the 500,000 units and have carriers take orders for millions of additional PlayBooks, but that has not happened yet. Mike Lazaridis looks at it as, why aren’t people buying this tablet when it has the most powerful engine with respect to multitasking, and supports Flash? But consumers have spoken pretty loudly a number of times, and Mike unfortunately leads the product side and continues to miss the mark with the masses, a former RIM executive told me. “I don’t even see anyone in Waterloo walking around with a PlayBook that doesn’t work for RIM,” another former RIM employee said.
Mike is convinced people won’t buy an iPhone because it doesn’t have a battery as good as a BlackBerry
“People really think Mike has lost his touch and vision. He’s paranoid. It’s not uncommon to see him walking around campus with bodyguards in tow,” one source told me. “This is a small community of folks in Waterloo. There’s what? 100,000 people and 30,000 of them are students, and it’s an understated place. Sure there are millionaires but no one drives anything fancier than a 5-series BMW. For Mike to be on campus with bodyguards is very peculiar. It’s very Orson Wells-like.” Another former employee I spoke with doesn’t find the fact that Lazaridis has bodyguards to be odd at all due to his stature. RIM’s other Co-CEO, however, is a completely different person.
“Every year, Jim Balsillie and COO Dennis Kavelman would take all the executives to Redtail golf course for a day of R&R with great meals, great VIP service, and every year one executive would not ever go.” Mike could not understand why everyone would go and have a golf day. In fact, he supposedly hated it and he never showed up on purpose, I was told.
“Jim chasing the NHL teams, that caused some separation between Mike and Jim,” one former executive stated. When Jim was in the midst of buying an NHL team, the NHL hired a large group to work on the project, and it had countless former RIM executives called for testimony on what Jim Balsillie was really like — all of the “TMZ dirt,” as one source described it. One executive BGR spoke to refused to talk to the NHL when they reached out, however many others were happy to open up. While this former exec did not have an issue with Jim, it was hypothesized that those with an axe to grind lobbed some dirt at the NHL and it’s most likely one of the reasons they didn’t allow him to proceed with a purchase.
They’re selling a screen with a giant calculator attached to it. It’s not a cool device anymore.
Multiple former executives also spoke of a notable divide between Mike, an internal product guy, and Jim, who focuses more on external partner relationships, in how they each react to leaks from inside the company. “I remember this one time when we had a new device coming out and it leaked to BGR.” Mike lost his mind for a few weeks. He couldn’t fathom how something like this would happen, and he constantly threatened to fire any employees who leaked any information. “He had this ‘you’re either with us or against us’ attitude, and he went off the rails. Every product is Mike’s baby”. On the other hand, Jim would try and spin things, I was told. He would get everyone excited, “you know, here it comes, he’d roll with it and have the attitude that they’re boosting the hype of the device, they’re pre-selling it for us, and so on. That was the message Jim would take.”
RIM seems to be doing damage control in a bunch of areas right now. One such area is the PlayBook and trying to mitigate the negative response to that product, and I was told the company is even going so far as to selectively block different media and even social networking sites from being accessed by employees. One of my sources said he anticipates RIM always having a niche market in the enterprise and government spaces, but he doesn’t think RIM has the potential to become a true market leader with consumers due to several shortfalls. “You’d honestly think RIM is more than a year or two behind in [the consumer market],” one source told me. “There will most likely be another heavy reduction in the workplace later this year or early next year. I don’t see the stock getting back to where it was. There are no real market impact executives coming into RIM, times have changed since Robin came in from Motorola, that ‘stock’ incentive isn’t there any more.”
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