Apple and The Cult of Personality

There are a couple of facts about Apple today that may or may not be related.

• Charismatic and dynamic Apple founder and CEO Steve Jobs died a little over a year ago.
• Apple's stock has taken a dramatic downward turn over the past few months.

If Apple was really a cult of personality centered around Steve Jobs, then these two things are directly related. But I think this is an overly simplistic view of what is happening.

Apple's dramatic rise to become the most valuable company in the world was based on it creating entirely new markets with high margin products and then dominating those markets for many years afterwards even as competitors entered with less expensive options.  This was true with the iPod, iPhone, and iPad.

Without an entirely new market or category being created by Apple in the last couple of years, the  rate of growth has slowed.  While still dominant in it's existing markets, there are no new products on the horizon that would warrant the continued growth rate in the stock.

There is also the law of really big numbers at play with Apple.  It is has reached the point in size where it becomes very difficult to continue to grow at the same rate it did when it was smaller.  At some point growth slows.

It is possible that Steve Jobs would have been able to keep the growth up a little bit longer, but not too much longer.  This was no cult of personality, but it was and still is a great company.  It will continue on and while there are surely things that Steve would have done differently, it is difficult to believe that Apple would not have performed about the same.

SpamBot Gets It Write About Storage

The lengths that spammers will go through to try and get comments added to blogs has become pretty sophisticated over the years.

They started with just mass blanket efforts to put the same comment on every blog they could find.  These messages typically just contained a crass message and link to some not so credible website.

A more recent strategy was to cleverly write a generic message that could be applied to just about any blog post ever written, but to then contain a link to some not so credible website.  Something about how this is a very informative blog post and please continue to share you wisdom - link to random site that has nothing to do with anything.

They have finally progressed to the point where the spam is so targeted they actually are on topic and, at least in a recent case on my blog, topical and funny.

I recently wrote about the future of storage in a couple of blog posts, and a spammer blogged that the mini-storage units down the street were very nice and came highly recommended.  How could I have written a story about storage and not mentioned storage units?

Now if we can just figure out how to virtualize the mini storage place down the street, we can truly bring virtualization to the masses.

Hopping Over CNET

Everything that is written, produced, or created is influenced by the person or team that originates it.  In the press there are many very good people that do their best to report things in a fair and unbiased way, but even in deciding to write one story over another - a judgement has been made.  The order of facts that are presented represent an opportunity for bias.  Good editors and writers are able to make the best decisions on issues like these and give readers the full story.

Part of the identity of any news organization or publication is the types of stories and articles that it chooses to write.  This is a conscious decision on the part of editors and writers.  Readers learn to expect a certain type of story from different sources.  Over time, a website or publication gains a reputation and readers feel they can trust that source for certain types of information.

In the case of CNET, they have spent years developing a reputation for technology news and tech product reviews.  I often found myself reading reviews of products on CNET before making purchasing decisions or before advising friends and family on decisions.  I trusted their reputation as a knowledgeable and fair source of information.

That relationship changed last week.  The CNET editorial staff had voted the Dish Hopper DVR as the best in show product for this year's CES show, but was forced to pick something else because the executive office of CBS (parent company of CNET) decided that they didn't like the choice.  There is an ongoing legal battle between CBS and Dish over this Hopper DVR, but that doesn't mean that CBS should attempt to control the media as a result.  Additionally, CBS forced CNET to go out with a bogus official statement initially that didn't own up to the Hopper winning the vote.

I have been a very longtime reader of CNET, but this has broken the relationship and I don't see them as a trusted source any longer.

Winning On The Last Turn

I just wanted to post this quick blog to let everyone know that I beat Jay (@aus_effendi) at the K1 racing event at DellWorld - on the last turn.  The Tech Center guys put on a great event and invited the Dell TechCenter Rockstars out to do high speed indoor go-cart racing. 

The course has a couple of hairpin turns and a few spots where you can let the car get up to full speed. Which means plenty of great spots for passing and some great racing.  The cars themselves are electric, which means you get this almost Zen like racing experience that is near silent but still pretty intense.  Every once in a while a small piece of tire will fly up and hit your visor just to remind you how cool this is.

After a 16 lap qualifying round, I was seeded just behind Jay in the 6^th spot for the final.  After about four laps, it was Jay and I battling for 2^nd place.  (The guy in first was ahead of us by a good bit.)  Jay was in second and I was literally riding his bumper in 3^rd.  It stayed this way until the final turn of the final lap, where I was able to turn inside of Jay and get a half car lead on him as we crossed the finish line.

You end up with this picture of us on the podium.  Yes – they have a winners podium at the place.  And yes I’m one place higher than Jay.  Congrats to Tom (@hypervfan) on first place.

Just wanted to give Jay a hard time about this and share a little bit about how fun this whole thing was.  I'm actually wearing this medal different places around town.

The Hobbit Walks Through Dell World

Bilbo Baggins was middle aged and a bit rebellious for a hobbit, but had never been more than a few miles from his home.  His life completely changes when he begins an unexpected and transformational journey across Middle Earth.  The movie comes out this week, I would guess that most people reading this blog read the book many years ago.

I attended a panel session of Dell executives at Dell World earlier this week.  They took questions for half an hour and there were a few recurring questions or themes.  One theme was - How far along is Dell on it's transformational journey?

Bilbo had never been beyond the Shire (his neighborhood in Middle Earth) and never seen or done anything like this journey before.  If somebody had asked him along the way - How far along are you on your Journey?  I suspect that his answer would have been specific to his own expectations and experience  thus far into his journey.  When he set out he only knew vaguely was he was going to do.  Only near the end would have appreciated how far he had to go when he first left.

Michael Dell answered these questions about Dell's (the company) journey as well as could be expected.  He basically said that Dell is in a continual state of change and that their transformational journey is a constant.  He said that they are embracing change and will continue to change over time.  They realize that the endpoint is not clear while they know that they must do many things to get there.

After Bilbo's journey is complete he writes a book about his adventure and calls it There and Back Again.  No doubt a completely changed person from his Journey, Bilbo writes about the great things he saw and did.  The key events in his life are what happened on this adventure and he wouldn't be the same person without these experiences.  He also couldn't have even started on the book until the Journey was over, he wouldn't have had the context to understand what was the beginning, middle, and end.

Dell has entered into a key phase in it's corporate life.  It is working to become more than just a maker of hardware.  At the end of this phase it will still most likely make hardware in many forms, but it will also be other aspects of the IT business.  It will be interesting to see how it turns out.

Seems like some people at Dell World had the Hobbit on their minds this week.

A Bunch of Suits and a Guy In Jeans

I've always been impressed with Jeff Clarke of Dell for a variety of reasons.  He is an organically grown Dell executive.  He started out as an entry level guy and has worked his way up to reporting directly to Michael Dell.  He always seemed to give talks and presentations that were straightforward and easy to understand.  He also would answer questions directly.  He is one of the longest tenured Dell executives and understands the company and it's history very well.

So what's up with the jeans?

A distinguished panel of executives was presented before the press at the kick-off of DellWorld 2012 this afternoon in Austin.   Michael Dell was of course there as the CEO, Chairman of the Board, and former wunderkind who started a multi-billion dollar business from his dorm room.

Steve Felice was kind of the moderator of the panel and served to kick things off and introduce everyone.  Steve is a long time Dell executive that has essentially been successful at all of his posts at the company for the past decade.

The new guys in the form of Marius Haas and John Swainson were on stage as well as Suresh Vaswani who has been with Dell for about 5 years but was just last week moved to be the head of Dell Services in the wake of Steve Shuckenbrock's announced departure.

All of these guys are wearing sports coats, button down shirts, and slacks.  Jeff Clarke is also on stage, but he is wearing jeans and a casual button down blue checkered shirt.  Very relaxed.

What's the message with the jeans?

He definitely stood out from the panel on the stage.  Everybody will remember Jeff Clarke, Michael Dell, and some other guys in suits.  The reason for the jeans and relaxed shirt is probably at partly that he just like to wear that kind of stuff, but I think he also knows that he it puts him at an advantage.

The Q and A session goes by and nobody asks about the jeans. Too bad.

Technology Retro

On So Say SMEs Kong and I discussed retro trends and technology.  Yes, we managed to combine OS/2, the Pittsburgh Steelers, and Bruce Lee in one video.

And here are the referenced Steelers throwback uniforms:

And the Bruce Lee playing ping pong with nunchucks video: