ChiaTown

By now you’ve probably heard of Google Android even if you aren’t some alpha geek. Have you sat down and thought much about it? It’s just a minor player, isn’t it? How can it compete with the iPhone, with the Symbian-based phones (Nokia) of the world, with Palm (especially with the release of the Palm Pre and Palm Pixie), with the Windows Mobile phones, Linux, and so forth? Despite a very slow start (one phone on one carrier, the G-1 on T-Mobile), Google’s Android is about to gain some big chunks of market share in the upcoming months. Let’s look at a few reasons why.

1. Multiple phones on multiple carriers – Plain and simple, having more options for consumers makes it easier for Android to grab market share. Apple’s iPhone certainly made a splash but it is just one OS on one carrier. Imagine the market share the iPhone’s OS would have it was also available on Sprint, Verizon, and T-Mobile. Same goes for the Palm Pre. As great as the phone is, some people still aren’t willing to break their contracts with AT&T or Verizon simply to get the Pre. However, with Android-based phones being made on by multiple manufacturers and available on all the major networks, everyone will have an opportunity to buy one without switching.
2. Application availability - This has been Apple’s strength, and Palm’s weakness, in the smartphone market. People LOVE their apps. The phone isn’t just a phone anymore. It’s a mobile device, capable of surfing the net, locating a restaurant, tuning your guitar, keeping you entertained at the airport, translating a phrase to Spanish, giving you the recipe for a Surfer on Acid, ordering coffee, checking your bank account, and so forth. Comparing hardware and the base OS, the Palm Pre beats the iPhone in a number of categories and is rather close in others. However, it’s the iPhone’s bevy of app choices that gives it a hands-down clear victory over other smartphones compelling reasons to buy one over the other. There are already a whole slew of apps available for the Android and it’s app catalog will only grow larger.
3. App development - Many mobile app developers would rather develop on Android’s open source platform than deal with iPhone development rules, with the headaches that Blackberry development poses, and so forth. Having people WANT to develop apps on one platform over another certainly helps the cause.
4. Google backing - Google is loaded, no doubt about it. When they want something, they throw their genius at it and if that’s not enough then they dig into their enormous war chest to get the desired results.

Ultimately it’s up to the consumer to buy Android-based phones which will obviously determine the market share that it gains. Will it be big enough to overtake the iPhone? Not anytime soon. However, there are many compelling reasons for consumers to want an Android phone, from not leaving their current network to seeing what the next new thing is. Only time will tell, but given Google’s track record with new projects and the reasons given above, it’s simply just a matter of time.

After a rather long hiatus (3 months or so since anything substantial?) I am about to get back to the grind. The past three months of my life have been spent spending as much time with my mother as possible after she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Last week she passed away with dignity and grace and since then I’ve slowly been getting back to who I am…an entrepreneur, a tech freak, a business freak.

Here’s what we have to look forward to in the next few upcoming posts. I started a comparison of two different virtualization apps, Sun’s open source VirtualBox and the non-open source VMWare Fusion. I started testing these two side-by-side on a MacBook Pro with both Windows XP and the Ubuntu distro of Linux. My initial notes and thoughts will be posted and I’ll let you know what I eventually ended up using and why.

I’ll also be setting up a new social networking site or two. I had started to set up one site using BuddyPress but eventually nixed that. Stay tuned and you’ll see why. Next up will be me evaluating other social networking frameworks such as Elgg, Dolphin 6 from Boonex, and possibly PHPibazi. If anyone has any thoughts on those solutions or others let me know and I’ll take a look into them.

I’ve also picked up a few side projects toying around with concrete5. I had tried it out maybe a year or so ago but didn’t stick with it. However, after trying it out again a couple months ago I must admit I like what I see. Dubbed as CMS by some and a “website builder” by others (that’s how it is labeled by some ISPs and they even have SimpleScripts installations on various ISPs). I will of course report on my findings, likes, dislikes, and the such.

What’s going on with Sprint?!? I know, I know, you’re all used to me reporting and commenting on Sprint Nextel’s latest news. I will once again be getting back to my analysis of the number 3 cellular carrier in the US.

Can the Palm Pre survive? Who knows. It’s a pretty damn good phone but…where the hell are the apps? If Apple has taught us anything with the iPhone, it’s that apps are key to the next successful smartphone. There are plenty of smartphones out there. How many can you name? Coincidence? I think not.

I’m sure by now you’ve heard the rumor of T-Mobile looking into gobbling up Sprint. It’s certainly an interesting though…number four in the US buying up number three. However, given the additional info that T-Mobile is also wanting to merge with Orange over there in the UK, things become quite a bit more interesting. That merger would make T-Mobile the largest carrier in the UK, giving Verizon (which has ties with Vodafone…which interestingly enough has raised speculation that it may sell its Verizon stake) a run for its money. Another interesting thought is that with T-Mobile merging with Orange they could become the largest carrier around thus making it look like an irresistible carrier for Apple to go with to sell more iPhones (currently Apple has an exclusive relationship with O2 in the UK).

Are you dizzy yet? Abroad, T-Mobile is big and looking to be gigantic. In the US, that’s not the case. However, with their majority market share overseas, they could use that for aggressive expansion in the US.

Ah, but there’s more. T-Mobile is running on a GSM network while Sprint Nextel runs on the CDMA network. What gives? Hasn’t T-Mobile seen just how messy trying to merge networks can be with the Sprint/Nextel merger? Hmmmm…perhaps they have something else in mind. Maybe they won’t merge the entire user base and networks but rather keep them separate. Sprint has a good lead on location tracking using their network (think GPS but without needing the satellites). Maybe T-Mobile wants that strategic resource while also being able to say “we have this giant user base”. They could have both a big cellular consumer base and also the tracking user base suited more for enterprise.

This is all speculation on my part but it does make one ponder. It’s certainly got me wondering. Thoughts?

Hello my fellow Chia Town readers, those techies and business folks who hopefully work to improve life.

I apologize for the long drought of posts. A wonderful woman currently holds my attention. This woman being my mother, my best friend. She’s recently been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and we’re doing what we can to keep things good with her so she can kick that thing to the curb.

My mother has been my best friend for a long time. I feel quite lucky to have such a wonderful woman as my best friend and have told her many times over the years that I think she did a great job raising me and that I feel very fortunate to have such a rockin’ mother.

A new site has been set up as a tribute to all the good mothers out there. “My Mom Is My Best Friend” (www.MyMomIsMyBestFriend.com) is where you can read about the woman who made me who I am and hopefully we will have submissions and stories of other great women out there who have had such a positive influence on the lives of people around them.

Peace, love, and health to you all out there!

By now I’m sure you all know the Palm Pre is finally out on the shelves. It’s been reported to have sold 100,000 units on the first weekend with sellouts at many locations. Not bad…not bad. Mere mortals have finally had a chance to get their hands on them and play with them. I too finally got to toy around with one last week. I must say I was quite impressed. Quite impressed indeed. It’s a great design, has a great new OS…it’s just nice. There are a bazillion or two reviews on how it works, on the apps it has, on how seamless the apps work with each other and so forth so I’ll spare you the attempt at any sort of review when I really haven’t been able to review in depth how it is as a mobile device.

What I WILL say however is that I’m sorely disappointed in Palm’s decision to “introduce” the Pre half a year ago, to tell all the competition what features this phone will have, to let the competition go “oh shit” and then build those features into the next release of their own phones, and then finally…FINALLY sell this phone to the public. Great job Palm. The huge technological lead you could have had on the competition was clearly wiped away just a couple days later when Apple introduced the iPhone’s next OS and the new iPhone 3GS. I must admit I am quite annoyed with this.

So…here I am. I shunned the iPhone because they were on AT&T’s network. My SERO plan with Sprint absolutely rocks and I was willing to forgo a phone (the iPhone) for my phone (Treo 755p) because the plan was that much better. However, the iPhone kept getting better and yes, I had iPhone envy. But alas! Palm “introduces” the Pre and this phone appears to have many features that made me crave it more than the iPhone. Hurray! Sweet! I can wait a few months for that! Except, well, Palm screwed the pooch and let everyone know what it planned on doing and now the iPhone is right up there with the Pre.

I have not pulled the trigger either way now. Yes, the new iPhone looks damn nice. I still think AT&T sucks though. I will have to upgrade my plan with Sprint if I get the Pre but it will still be cheaper than AT&T’s plan. But is the Pre still the game changer we all thought it would be? Nope. Don’t get me wrong…it’s a great phone. It just isn’t leaps and bounds better than everything else out there and that’s a shame.

I can’t help but wonder what Palm execs were thinking. I mean c’mon guys…telling your competition what your advantage will be? Dumb. Just plan dumb. I can just see the Pittsburgh Steelers telling the Baltimore Ravens that the first play will be a hand-off to Willy Parker, the second play will be a 20 yard post to Santonio Holmes, the third play a five-and-out to Hines Ward…I think you get my drift. Palm had a chance to be THE talk of the town and they clearly gave it away. So so frustrating…

Give Me a Mac (www.GiveMeAMac.com) is a new venture that just launched their website yesterday. What started out as a plea for a new Mac from any generous donor is already morphing into a non-profit organization that will help underprivileged people everywhere that also need a computer. The lofty goals of Give Me a Mac will enable children to receive these gifts to help with school work, adults to receive the Macs to help with their job searches, college students with computers to work on their projects without having to hit the computer lab or any other person or organization that shows a need.

It’s funny how companies can change…sometimes it happens immediately (Give Me a Mac went from a “please help I need a new computer” concept to this new vision within half a week of inception) and sometimes it takes decades (remember when IBM made typewriters…moved into the computer hardware arena and now they are a software and services company).

Change is good. Helping out the needy is good. It’s good to see that entrepreneurs still care about the community (yes, I’m talking about myself here but mad props also go to the Woz and, as much as I’m not a fan of Microsoft business practices, I’m fairly pleased with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation).

Go check out Give Me a Mac, donate your old Mac if you can (not looking for money…just computers), and ponder how we can use technology to improve the lives of others. Once you’ve looked it all over and pondered it all shoot some comments and ideas on over and we’ll continue to teach the ways of being a computer geek to those that need it.

It’s official! No more rumors or speculation as to when the Palm Pre will be released. Sprint will begin selling the Palm Pre on June 6th. It’s about time!

Palm Pre goes on sale June 6, 2009

The details of such glorious event are as follows

• When: June 6, 2009
• Where: Sprint stores, Sprint.com, Best Buy, Radio Shack, some Wal-Mart stores
• Cost: $199.99 with a two-year agreement and after $100 rebate

When the Palm Pre was announced at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) back in January we were told it would be released in the “first half of 2009″. Well, I guess they managed to make it in under that deadline. My personal thoughts on having a nearly six month wait for this device is rather dumb. Why give Apple and Research in Motion a chance to see what the Pre will be offering and then ramp up the iPhone and Blackberries so they can have similar features? I’m sure it was all marketing…trying to generate loads of buzz but you don’t need half a year of buzz. In this day and age technology changes at such a rapid pace so holding off for so long could be very detrimental. What once took years for a major tech change to take place can now happen in a matter of months.

The interesting thing about the June 6 date is that it is two days before Apple’s Worldwide Developer’s Conference (WWDC), a time Apple sometimes uses to showcase new products and services. Gotta give Palm some credit for being so ballsy about that. I do appreciate good competition and hopefully this will create better iPhones, Blackberries, and Pres for us all.

June 6th! The Palm Pre will finally be here and we can actually talk about how it REALLY is instead of what we think it is.

*Additional comment – Hopefully Sprint plays this right and doesn’t screw current SERO plan users and require them to upgrade to the Simply Everything plan. The Simply Everything plan obviously costs more money and may piss off current SERO users enough to say “Screw you Sprint” and move to AT&T for the iPhone since they’ll be forced to “upgrade” to a new plan anyway. The cost of losing current SERO users greatly outweighs the extra money pulled in from the few that “upgrade” to the Simply Everything plan.

Ford vs Chevy. Mac vs PC. Coke vs Pepsi. All classic examples of product battles that have somehow turn into holy wars by the people that feel very passionate about their product. I’ll admit I’ve been in some of these battles as I’ve extolled the virtues of one platform over another. However, just recently I somehow got involved in the next holy war…that of the mobile carriers.

Rewind to yesterday. We were walking around taking care of business. Pick up some energy bars for our training rides here, get a new shirt for soccer there, might as well pop into the Sprint store and see if I can weasel any info on the Palm Pre out of them (nope…either they were clueless or they played clueless very well). My partner in crime was there with me…a Verizon user. She was spending roughly $150/month for the unlimited voice plan and whatever else she had going on with her Blackberry. We all know I’m a Sprint lover and user so I told her to check out the cost savings. $99 for the Simply Everything plan which gives her unlimited data, voice, and texts to use with her Blackberry. Plus a $100 rebate. And then another $100 credited to her account for porting over from another company. Thus, she actually got paid to make the switch (then again Verizon charged her to cancel her plan with them). The customer service? Amazing. Our guy was super helpful with everything, explained everything, set up her new phone in the store, activated it, set up her email account…just very very helpful to get her up and running with no fuss, no muss. After she was up and running she posted to Facebook (from her new Blackberry of course) that she is now saving nearly $500 a year from switching over to Sprint from Verizon.

And then it began.
The following are all comments to her post:

• Ranter A – Good luck w/ all of those dropped calls. Sprint blows!
• Ranter B – Sprint bites. <Ranter A> is so right. Dropped calls here they come. I just saved a ton of money on my car insurance.
• NEW CUSTOMER – Well been using it all day with no dropped calls so we shall see – good thing they offer a 30 day trial period
• Ranter C – watch out for Sprint. They overcharged me while under contract and customer no-service is the worst!
• ME – I don’t know when all you haters were with Sprint but I’m loving it. I place calls while my AT&T and Verizon friends are complaining about no service. The network is a hell of a lot faster (I even tether my phone to my laptop and use it as a modem…I can stream music and video…it’s that fast). Customer service kicks butt (it was one of Dan Hesse’s…the new CEO…priorities). The reason I don’t have an iPhone (oh trust me I want one) is because I can’t fathom leaving Sprint (great service and awesome price) for AT&T (crappy service and overpriced).
• Ranter C – There are a lot of us out there. Sprint has the lowest customer retention rate in the industry.
• Ranter D – we no longer can talk for free. Don’t text me anymore.
• Supporter A – I would LOVE to be back with Sprint, so much cheaper. But me and <person> need to be on the same network and he needs the Verizon “network”
• NEW CUSTOMER – Ok will call landline then from now on!
• Supporter B – I use to work for Sprint. They were pretty bad then but I hear they are getting better. They had to cut prices because they were doing so poorly.
• NEW CUSTOMER – Yah apparently got a new CEO who is really trying to turn things around. Figure I will give it a shot.
• Supporter A – Hey, <New Customer>, just so ya know…I NEVER had any problems with Sprint. Only when I was up in the mountains and I have some probs with Verizon there too!
• NEW CUSTOMER – Cool thanks <Supporter A>! As I said for almost $40/month savings I will try anything – so far so good!
• Ranter E – I had a TON of dropped calls with them too. I have AT&T now and it happens rarely. I also HATED their customer no-service… Good luck.
• ME – Just to clarify…I had Sprint many years ago. Left them for Verizon because of dropped calls. After a few years of Verizon raping me (and disabling features on their phones so they could charge me more) I dropped them and back to Sprint almost two years ago. Never looked back. My service is better, cheaper, faster. Customer service rocks. So…if you haven’t been with Sprint for a while, I hear ya…but it’s an age old debate. Might as well compare a ‘77 Tercel to an ‘05 Accord. Work with CURRENT models and services.

I feel like I’m back in the mix of the Mac vs PC wars that I’ve been involved in. You get tired of hearing the same old arguments even though they aren’t valid anymore. Sure, at one point A that this feature and B didn’t. B was more reliable. B was more expensive. Blah blah blah. Half a decade later though things can be fixed. Often times they ARE fixed.

It’s just interesting to see. Being a tech, mobile, and business watcher I keep tabs on what’s going on. Sprint botched their merger with Nextel. Their service suffered because of that and their customer service sucked. Customers were defecting in droves. It was quite frankly a scary place to be. Props to Dan Hesse for coming in and doing what he’s done already. The guy has nads of steel for coming aboard a sinking ship and attempting to make things right. It’s not going to be an overnight transformation but from what I’ve seen so far he’s doing a damn good job.

Ultimately it all breaks down to what makes people happy but I think people fall into their comfort zones and don’t bother to see what new thing is out there, or to see if the old thing has been fixed. It’s this kind of behavior that holds people back (I’m speaking in a general sense now).

I’m looking forward to seeing how this all plays out. My new customer friend has already noticed a faster network while surfing the web on her Blackberry. Let a few more weeks go by and we’ll see if she has all these dropped calls that everyone is ranting about (I sure don’t see them with my Sprint service).

Now to wait for Sprint or Palm to send me the Palm Pre. I’ve been signing up for every drawing I can find. It’s hard to evaluate new hardware when you don’t have it. D’oh!

Twitter? What’s that? For most of the faithful Chia Town readers Twitter is old news. Oddly enough Twitter is still not known by some and not understood by others. This post will be mostly for people that have heard about Twitter, know what it is (a quick way to send quick updates as to what you’re up to or what you’re thinking) but still haven’t fully grasped what it is. It MUST be good though…rumors of Apple and of Google buying it have been flying around now so huh…it’s gotta be worth something, right?

So there you are, you’ve set up your Twitter account. You’re still not sure why yet. Who cares if you’re eating a ham sandwich right now? I sure don’t. When Twitter first started that’s pretty much what it was. “I’m taking a crap” and “I just got back from the grocery store” were fairly prevalent posts. After I initially signed up I quickly got bored with it and abandoned it for a while. As I saw more of my friends hopping on I decided to give it another try and see if I missed something the first time. After spending some time figuring out just what I wanted to do with it and what it was useful for I found myself becoming a Twitter junkie. I find it to be a great way to stay up to date with friends and business news.

There are a few things you should ask yourself when setting up an account:

1. Why are you setting it up? Personal reasons? Professional?
2. How active do you plan on being?
3. What do you plan on getting out of it?

These are important questions as you figure out how to configure your account. For example, if you want it to be more professional in nature you’ll want to connect to more businesses and people that are more business-oriented (ie, steer clear of the “I’m so drunk right now” posters). Conversely, if it’s going to be more personal in nature then connect with your friends and avoid the barrage of advertisements and other business-oriented tweets that come from the business people.

There are also some key etiquette points to keep in mind. Please please PLEASE be mindful of these as it can get really annoying for people following your tweets.

1. DON’T post what is happening on TV shows that you happen to be watching live. Many people nowadays record shows with their DVRs to watch later. Do NOT give away what happens. Not cool man…just not cool.
2. Try to keep your posts down to a max of 10 a day or so. There are people that post a couple hundred times a day and I’ve had to drop them from my list because their flood kept me from seeing posts from other people.
3. If someone sends something cool, retweet it and give them credit.

There are also some tools out there to make Twitter more useful to you. For example, I use the “mobile devices” feature so that I am able to send tweets from my cell phone and I am also able to receive tweets from selected people to my cell phone. This can be handy for personal things (“dude! So-and-so is at Brewhouse…let’s go meet them there”) or professional reasons (companies send out coupons or special treats via Twitter and you don’t need to be at the computer to get them. Very handy when a restaurant posts a deal and you are already out looking for food). I myself use TweetDeck to keep things organized as it puts all tweets in one pane, direct messages in another, and replies in yet another. Other utilities that serve similar purposes are Seesmic and Nambu.

Twitter can be fun. Embrace it. Enjoy it. Follow friends. Follow celebs if you want (I was receiving mobile updates from Lance Armstrong during the Amgen Tour of California…cool insights!). Follow businesses. Prove yourself to be a guru in one business or another as you tweet cool stuff. It’s yet another tool that can help you in one endeavor or another if you allow it to be and use it correctly. Interested parties can find me at (@ChiaTown). Other Twitter accounts that have been set up (yes, you can have more than one) are for WaxPorhetoric.com (@waxporhetoric) and TheSocialBeast.com (@thesocialbeast).

Remember when you are out and about that you can find opportunities left and right to help your business out. Many people think you have to go to scheduled networking events and formal networking events to meet the people you need. However I must admit as an entrepreneur that I’ve had more success meeting people out and about being myself and then talking business and realizing we can help each other out.

I’ve touted the goodness of networking before but sometimes feel I must reiterate the power of proper networking and that it can happen at any time, at any place. The following events are from this past weekend (and a more social spin on it can be seen at TheSocialBeast.com) and had this entrepreneur giddier than hell.

It all started with what was supposed to be a quick meeting with a friend who also does promotions who was going to help with setting up the festival and help with getting a local beer distributor involved. We were going to discuss the upcoming Jakestock Festival (June 20 and 21 in Atlanta, celebrating Jake’s Ice Cream’s 10 year anniversary with bands, food, art and other goodness) and what to do. We met at a local bar and started chatting away. He got in touch with a friend that represents Sweetwater Brewery (he’s also a decent music producer if anyone needs that) and I got some insights there. Suddenly I’ve got a couple other friends showing up, one of whom is darn good at doing video work. I started getting everyone tied together and now we’ve got my video guy partnering up with Brass Knuckle Surfer to do a music video. Soon I was talking to another guy who popped up to say hi to my friends and he was telling me about his new venture of offering a culinary treat of Persian/Southern fusion. I totally enjoyed chatting with my new acquaintance and am looking forward to adding him to the list of Jakestock vendors. Awww yeah! And to think…this was just my first stop…

After that we headed to a couple other places…another bar, a BBQ place, chilling with managers, meeting owners, talking about the festival, getting insights on running successful campaigns…all good stuff to know as I take on my first festival.

The networking goodness continued on Sunday evening. While hanging out at a local bar for happy hour I met someone who I found out was a fellow Carnegie Mellon Alumn like myself. We talked about CMU for a while and then ended up talking shop as he was telling me of his company, an open source CRM company. We talked shop about his company, the industry, and everything in between. As I was speaking with him I saw my Persian acquaintance from Friday slide in the bar with his business partner. We talked more about the upcoming festival and then about how his business and my business could help each other out. I live for this!

Let that be a lesson (or a reminder) to us all. You never know who you’ll meet out and about. Keep plenty of business cards handy, be open to discussing anything and everything, never judge a book by its cover, and network your ass off while enjoying yourself with friends. The results can be extraordinary.