Author: Paul Wallbank

Paul Wallbank is a speaker and writer charting how technology is changing society and business. Paul has four regular technology advice radio programs on ABC, a weekly column on the smartcompany.com.au website and has published seven books.

The advertising revolution still awaits

Mary Meeker flags big changes for the mobile phone industry but advertising still remains stuck in the broadcasting past

As usual Mary Meeker’s internet trends report lays out the current state of the online world.

Two things that stand out in the mass of statistics are how the smartphone market is now commoditised and that the advertising funded media model is redundant on mobile with adblockers proliferating in China, India and Indonesia – the world’s three biggest emerging markets.

While Mary Meeker flags those changes, she also continues to point out how broadcasting still gets a disproportionate spend of advertising revenue, something she’s been flagging for five years.

For advertisers sticking with the media they know is understandable but it does open some opportunities for a great disruptions.

The design of Meeker’s slides leave some people unimpressed though.

California dreaming – why the world’s startups are going to San Francisco

Why are the world’s startups flocking to San Francisco

Why are the world’s startups flocking to San Francisco? In a five part series for The Australian I look at the motivations for Australian entrepreneurs heading to the Bay Area.

The reasons for the moves are varied, as are the experiences, and it’s an interesting snapshot of a historical industrial shift as Silicon Valley evolves.

China ramps up support for the tech sector

Faced with a transitioning economy, China looks to boost the tech sector

China’s President Xi pledges increased support for technology firms reports Reuters.

While that will be welcome for Chinese tech and manufacturing companies, the question is just how effective top down initiatives like this are in building a vibrant industry.

As the country’s debt balloons and state owned corporations find themselves trapped with legacy businesses and massive inventories, the pressure is on the PRC’s government to find new ways to stimulate the economy, this is a start but it’s hard not think the Politburo will have to find ways to boost small business investment and startups.

Switzerland debates giving away money

Switzerland debates the merits of a unified guaranteed income

Staid, conservative Switzerland is one of the first developed countries to seriously discuss a universal guaranteed income.

While it appears the proposition will fail, the fact it is being debated indicates an acknowledgement of changing attitudes towards income and social security.

In many respects governments – particularly in the English speaking world – have ignored the personal social consequences of their economic policies over the last thirty years that have seen working people’s and increasingly the middle classes’ incomes fall and become more precarious.

Now those costs are being acknowledged in the face of increasing concentration of wealth with politicians and business leaders being forced to confront far less stable and cohesive societies.

It may be that the discussion of a universal guaranteed income forms the foundations of a new social compact that defined the mid Twentieth Century, increasingly it looks like something is needed in increasingly divided economies.

While a unified guaranteed income may not be the solution to addressing the economic and social needs of a substantial proportion of a workforce that is under employed and poorly paid, a discussion on what we can do needs to be had. At least the Swiss have started this.

Goodbye Moto

The Motorola brand disappoints Lenovo as it looks to diversify beyond the computer and tablet

It appears faded mobile phone brand Motorola has proved disappointing for Chinese computer giant Lenovo reports TechCrunch.

For Lenovo, this is concern as the company explores ways to diversify away from the shrinking PC and tablet marketplaces although the smartphone market which itself suffers from poor  margins doesn’t seem to be the opportunity the company is looking for.

It does however show that Google is often right in casting off companies it doesn’t see a future in.

Robots replace Chinese factory workers

Taiwan’s Foxcomm, the world’s biggest electronics manufacturer, has announced it will replace 60,000 Chinese workers with robots.

Taiwan’s Foxcomm, the world’s biggest electronics manufacturer, has announced it will replace 60,000 Chinese workers with robots.

As the cost of robotics falls and the price of Chinese labour increases, the economics of automating low skilled work increasingly looks attractive.

While automating manual work is process that’s been familiar for three centuries, this automation is now heading into the management suite as artificial intelligence increasingly becomes a viable alternative for lower level supervisory roles.

The workplace of the future is going to look very different to today’s, all of us need to be asking if we have the skills that will be needed by it.

ABC Nightlife: Beyond the ideas boom

Is Australia facing a brain drain as the Ideas Boom dries up? That’s one of the topics we’ll be covering in this month’s Nightlife.

While Australia talks about innovation, some of our most exciting tech companies are moving to Silicon Valley. For the May 2016 ABC Nightlife we asked why are they moving and what can we do to encourage them to stay down under?

Along with discussing why Australian startups are moving to the United States we also looked at some of the announcements out of the recent Google I/O conference. If you missed the show it’s available for download from the ABC website.

If you’re in Sydney, we’re also debating whether innovation really exists in Australia in a Cloud Crowd debate on June 9. Tickets are free.

Some of the questions Tony and I looked at included;

  • Who is making the move over the US?
  • What reasons do they have for going over?
  • Why aren’t they going to Europe, the UK or SE Asia?
  • Is Australia having a brain drain?
  • It seems the much vaunted Ideas Boom has been lost in the election, is it over?
  • One of the things Google announced at Google I/O was their new Google Home device which listens to your spoken commands to control the house. Doesn’t Amazon already have one of these?
  • Another thing Google announced was they are looking at putting intelligence into every device. How far away is that?

Cloudcrowd innovation debate

On June 9 in Sydney we’ll be debating whether innovation is a myth in Australia, tickets are free and you can sign up through Eventbrite.

Join us

Tune in on your local ABC radio station from 10pm Australian Eastern Summer time or listen online at www.abc.net.au/nightlife.

We’d love to hear your views so join the conversation with your on-air questions, ideas or comments; phone in on 1300 800 222 within Australia or +61 2 8333 1000 from outside Australia.

You can SMS Nightlife’s talkback on 19922702, or through twitter to @paulwallbank using the #abcnightlife hashtag or visit the Nightlife Facebook page.

Rolling out innovation on 5G mobile networks

5G networks could be the catalyst for a new breed of online innovation says John Smee, the Senior Director of Engineering at Qualcomm Research

“We’re in the flip phone era of 5G networks, people don’t realise today’s 4G mobile standards were written for the era of the flip phone,” says John Smee, the Senior Director of Engineering at Qualcomm Research

John was speaking to me at chipset manufacturer Qualcomm’s San Diego head office to discuss the next generation of mobile phone services.

Putting together communications standards isn’t a simple thing, as John says “what we’re discussing now is what today’s five year olds will be using when they turn fifteen.”

John sees the new standard as giving the next generation of internet giants their market opening, pointing out companies such as Facebook and Uber benefitted from the rollout of 4G networks and some of today’s startups will get a similar boost from 5G services. “A few clicks and you’ve ordered a ride. That wouldn’t have been possible without 3G connectivity, high powered smartphones and networks that are scalable.”

“What are going to be some interesting new startups that become huge multibillion dollar industries from 2030,” he asks. “By definition we don’t understand the future.”

For telco executives being a ‘dumb pipe’ is one of their nightmares and John believes they can avoid that fate in a 5G world by concentrating on their advantages with licensed spectrum. “If they are looking a high reliability and low latency services then the quality of the connectivity they can offer becomes essential,” he says.

While the standards groups continue to work on the 5G standards, the technologies continue to evolve. John Smee’s message is that these new products are going to offer opportunities for new companies.

The trick is to figure out which of today’s startup companies will be the Uber or Facebook of 2025.

Voice technology and the generosity wars

In the upcoming voice technology wars, the most open and generous player could be the winner

The winner of the upcoming fight over voice technologies will come down to who is the most open and provides the best utility believes Tad Toulis, VP for design at smart speaker manufacturer Sonos.

A struggle is looming between the different voice systems believes Tad Toulis, VP of Design at smart speaker manufacturer Sonos.

We were speaking at Sonos’ Santa Barbara office the day after Google launched its Google Home voice activated hub to compete with Amazon’s and Apple’s Siri systems.

“There’s a little bit of syntax difference with every device we use, so we’re about to re-enter this environment where we have competing formats.” states Toulis, hinting at the days of competing network types operating systems and file types.

For Sonos, that fight between formats is an opportunity believes Toulis. “Sonos was very early into this space, so much so that it’s had a few lives. The original proposition was a way to get people who were into music to have access to their digital music and enliven their home with that music.”

“At a certain point in that arc, that category started to shrink a little bit and streaming started to emerge. Now streaming has become mainstream and we’re facing another cycle.”

Generous systems

Voice though is a social thing and that changes how we interact with devices Toulis believes, “we want to talk out loud in generous way to a generous system.”

“What people want is a supportive, powerful experience that creates good options day to day,” says Toulis. “The technology is fast approaching a tipping point where it’s very human centric.”

“The promise is to figure who can do that in the most natural way so you’re not thinking about the syntax and more about the experience.”

Finding a place at the table

Like most smaller players in the marketplace, Toulis sees Sonos as being a nuetral intermediary between with the various technology empires.

“Sonos offers a place in that conversation. We also approach it in a different way because it’s not one of our businesses, it is our business.”

“I assume we’ll do what we’ve done with the music services. We’ve always believed that we do well when there are many players.”

Winning the voice wars

When asked who is likely to win the voice wars, Toulis is quite rightly guarded, “what I’ve seen over my career in technology is what wins is what works for people, it’s not always the best technologies that win. What wins is the technology value proposition, here’s a need that hasn’t been satisfied and here’s a way of doing it that is sticky.”

“The one that creates the solution with the least resistance will win,” says Toulis. “The best solutions are usually pretty obvious. The problem is you have a bunch of specialists looking at it, they can’t see how obvious it is because they are looking past the target. They’re either very close up.”

While Toulis’ view is attractive, the risk for companies like Sonos is the technology empires find their business models aren’t suited to being open or generous and controlling access to their services is more compelling for their managers and shareholders.

Hopefully open web and data will prove to be the market’s driving forces and certainly Ted Toulis’ and Sonos’ views are what users would prefer, the giants though may not prove to be so generous.

Managing the circular firing squad

How Netsuite manages conflicting roles among its senior executives and directors

Earlier this week I had the opportunity to interview Evan Goldberg, the founder of Netsuite at the company’s Suiteworld conference in San Jose.

While one of the topics we covered was Goldberg’s support of the BRAC Foundation, I was also keen to discuss the company’s complex senior management and board dynamics.

Along with being the CTO, Goldberg is also Chairman of the Board which means CEO Zac Nelson answers to him on board matters but the roles are reversed in their executive management roles.

To make matters even more complex, Chief Operating Officer Jim McGeever is also the board’s President so he also answers to Nelson in executive matters while presiding over both of the others as a director.

“We call it the circular firing squad,” laughed Goldberg when I asked him about it. “We are all incredibly committed to the company and we get along really well. We get our egos out of the way and we just want to do the right thing.”

“Humour is a very important part of it,” Goldberg observes. “Fundamentally it has to be the right people for that to work. Three is a good number as you get to vote on the matter.”

So Goldberg’s view is Netsuite’s arrangement works because the three are friends and leave their egos out of decision making.

Goldberg’s observation is true of any successful business relationship – like a succesful personal relationship a thriving business partnership relies on respect and the individuals being able to give a little, or a lot, without bruising their egos.

Ultimately though, it’s interesting to observe how tolerant investors are towards such arrangements. As an independent, outside investor having too many Executive Directors on the board dilutes the critical management supervisory role of the board and that can’t be encouraging for shareholders.

Tech companies though get some slack from investors given their relative youth and market dynamics so it’s not surprising Netsuite gets away with this. The bond between the senior executives must also count as well.