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Microsoft: Services Everywhere (not Windows Everywhere)
I came across two interesting pieces of Microsoft news today. Firstly, Microsoft have bought the company behind a Visual Studio plugin called UnityVS which enables developers using the cross platform game engine, Unity, to write and debug their Unity programs directly within Visual Studio. Unity has support for all the major mobile operating systems, and…
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Amazon Dash is another great example of un-bundling the smartphone
The newly launched Amazon Dash device (link) is a single-purpose hardware device that allows users to scan the items in their fridge or pantry that they’re running low on, and an order is automatically sent to Amazon’s fresh grocery service. I find it very interesting because it is representative of how you can now build…
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What the Whatsapp deal can teach all Product Managers
There are lots of lessons behind the curtains of the $19 BN Whatsapp acquisition by Facebook. There’s lessons about the scale and value of social, about the continually evolving mobile platform. There’s of course the rags-to-riches story of the founders going from food stamps to being billionaires in just a few short years, and a…
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A Very Simple Model for expressing a Customer Value Proposition
There are many frameworks available to help product teams develop and express a customer value proposition. One of my favourites is this Value Proposition Canvas, which was based on the canvas from the creators of the Business Model Canvas. Expressing the proposition on this canvas is a great way of forcing you to think through…
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The unbundling of Facebook and the evolution of mobile
Last week Facebook announced the new Paper app – an app that turns your Facebook news feed into your own personal newspaper. At the same time they announced Facebook Creative Labs and promised further small, single-purpose apps. This is all part of a growing trend from Facebook to un-bundle their core mobile product/service into smaller,…
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Location-Based Services in 2014
I’ve been thinking a lot about the future of location-based services lately. The first thing that occurs to me: nobody talks about location-based services anymore. There are just ‘services’. It occurs to me that Location, in and of itself, is not an ‘experience’, per se. It is an enabler of experiences. Allow me to explain.…
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Mobile strategy in a rapidly evolving industry
Benedict Evans, the well-known mobile industry analyst, has posited that we actually have no idea what it will mean in five years to “install an app on my smartphone”. The market and the technology that powers it is changing and evolving so fast that there is no way to know how the industry will look…
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Why you should love your computer and your phone
My father, in his younger years, was an interstate trucker. As was common in those days, he owned his own truck, instead of leasing one or driving one that belongs to a company. His truck, the trailer, the tarps and ropes and chains, were all the tools of his trade. During the week he was…
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Are you in love with making software, or making products?
Software is a solution to a problem. Or rather, it is a part of a solution to a problem. A product is more than just the software, and it’s more than the solution. A complete product encompasses an entire product business: a consumer value proposition, a profit model, resources, processes and tools. Marketing and channels.…
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Validation of the freemium model for mobile apps
Here’s an interesting statistic. The top 20 grossing apps in the iOS App Store are all free apps, according to online app analytics platform Distimo. In fact, from the top 100 grossing apps, only 9 of them are paid apps, with prices ranging from $0.99 to $8.99, but most hovering around the $2.99 mark. Source:…