Insights and musings about customer service and managing a SaaS software company.
Archive for the ‘innovation’ Category
February 6, 2012 by Yuval Brisker
A recent article in the NYTimes asked the question – do GPS devices reduce our ability to self orient? I have asked myself this same question many times as I’ve travelled the world, relying on and marveling at how my Google Maps has helped me navigate unknown places with ease…but with no sense of where I really am in the more traditional geo-spatial sense.
In order to definitively answer that question all you need to do is to get stuck without any connection to GPS in a foreign city on your way to a meeting when you had completely counted on it in advance or worse be in the middle of a GPS navigation and lose connection.
That’s exactly what happened to me a while back in Cologne, Germany. I had arrived there for an important dinner meeting and got off the train at the main railway station. I had my Android with built-in turn-by-turn Google Maps directions with me – this has been a reliable, effective and cheap (i.e. free) provider of voice-activated directions for me since it was launched. I loved that exclusive Android application and used it a lot.
Upon my arrival in Cologne, I set off in the direction of my meeting (as I had last identified it on GMaps) and wandered into the maze of winding cobblestone streets before I realized that I was not connected to 3G and the map was not working.
It was night and there was no one in the street, I could not find any cabs and there I was…standing in the middle of the city without a mental map of the place and lost. It was an amazing moment for me when I realized just how much I had become dependent on the connectivity and the app on my phone. No sense of place or location…contrasted with a time that I used to know cities by heart after a day.
I finally found someone to ask and they gave me direction to where I needed to go…but it had a lasting impact on my sense of place and convinced me that I should always consult with or have a real map in my back pocket when I set out on a trip to a place I don’t know – so that I can again be really truly independent.
January 16, 2012 by Yuval Brisker
Last week Google announced a milestone deal with BBVA that should have people at Microsoft even more worried than they probably already are, and pure Cloud enthusiasts like my colleagues at TOA and I ever more excited and confident about the future of pure-play Cloud-based software.
BBVA is a major employer with over one hundred thousands employees. But this is significant not just because of the sheer number of new Google Docs and Gmail users – but mostly because of the network effect.
At TOA we have always ‘practiced what we preached’ and that means that we not only sell Cloud-based enterprise software (SaaS), we also buy and use only Cloud-based software. What that means for us is that we only look for SaaS solutions for our internal needs. We believe firmly that in order to understand the benefits, as well as the limitations of what we sell, we have to experience it like our clients do: as real bon-fide users. So we have been Google Apps users from the moment that these were available for the enterprise and moved our whole mail infrastructure to Google about two years ago. We have followed the evolution of the Google Docs Suite from the moment that Google bought Writely and watch closely as these applications have become more and more deep and more and more sophisticated and complete. In fact, from a classic enterprise users’ point of view , someone who is not crunching numbers or doing intense graphics and a lot of offline work, there is very little difference today creating text, presentation or spreadsheet documents on Google Docs in comparison to Microsoft Office. In fact, the most amazing aspect of the GDocs Suite is the strong native collaboration capabilities that make it absolutely a killer app for this purpose.
Only one serious gap remains that has kept us from adopting the GDocs Suite as our one and only productivity tool and that is robust, easy to use offline capability, access and storage –(full disclosure: I am writing this very post on Word – to be transferred later - because of that…I’m on a plane with no Wi-Fi).
The only other serious hindrance is people’s mindset.
Office is the standard and people are afraid of deserting the standard. But that’s where the network effect comes in. With companies like GM and BBVA adopting the G-Suite as their mail app and G-Docs as their primary productivity tool (even if for now for internal communications) we will begin to see the conversion of the masses and the tipping point will get ever closer.
December 15, 2011 by Yuval Brisker
I blogged about this a few weeks ago and it seems that Google’s Siri headache is not going away….
Here’s more fascinating stuff about what might be an even bigger battle than Android vs. iOS.
I’d be interested to read your thoughts and comments on this, so use that comments button!
November 9, 2011 by Yuval Brisker
I’ve been waiting for someone to shine a light on the fact that Siri is actually a hidden alternative to search, and that for the first time in 13 years – Google could actually be seeing some serious competition. Siri is, of course, Apple’s integrated iPhone app that’s deemed a ‘personal assistant’ but is really a form of sophisticated voice search…
Then I saw this article in Fortune…which spelled it out: Siri has the potential to be better than current search technology from Google because…:
“…Siri is more than voice recognition. It’s a form of AI that takes a few more steps closer to an app that could pass the Turing test. People are still uncomfortable with any AI application that could be mistaken for a human, but the Easter-egg answers Apple has snuck into the app defuses any potential discomfort, and in fact gives Siri a conversational interface that feels far more personal that Google’s spartan home page. It’s that conversational interface that poses the threat to Google.”
And there’s more in that article. Recommended.
What’s interesting is the fact that even when we think a company is unbeatable there is indeed always a path to beating the competition – even when that competition is a leader with the scale, breadth and depth of Google.
Now – I am not saying that Google is in any way ‘over’, but there is indeed something very different, friendly and smart about Siri that takes search to another level AND it also comes pre-installed in every iPhone 4S, which gives it instant market reach and captive users that give it the potential to be the first serious contender.
From the 50,000 foot view – Apple continues to amaze – continuously using the mind in a focused and determined way to outrun, outthink, outsmart, out-strategize the competition and never giving up an inch.
