4 screens platform strategies

As I was building the slick graphic for my last post, I started thinking about the fact that Apple plays in 3 of the 4 categories - laptops, smartphones, and tablets - and it made me realize that there are 2 potential platform strategies that you can go with to gain an advantage (and a boost in sales):

1. Hardware - have offerings in multiple categories 
2. Software - have a way to deliver content in multiple categories (e.g. iTunes, Amazon.com, Google Music store, etc)

In the hardware platform scenario, the boost comes from capturing sales in one category based on experience with products in a different category. For example, if you have an iPhone, and you've been very happy with it, you would be more willing to consider an Apple laptop or iPad.

In the software platform scenario, the boost comes from capturing content sales in one category based on experience in a different category (very similar to HW). In this scenario, someone that has bought a song through iTunes on an iPhone and had a good experience with it is more likely to then buy a movie through iTunes to watch on their laptop, regardless of if it is an Apple laptop or not.

Although you should be able to realize benefits pursuing either strategy independently, there are positive interaction effects that favor building a HW and SW platform together, a la Apple (and to a less successful extent, Sony). If my theory from the last post that consumers go through the hierarchy from the ground up for each potential purchase holds, then having a HW platform, which again means offerings in the different categories built around a consistent brand, increases your chances of capturing a sale the next time around. Furthermore, if you have a SW platform that covers the 4 screens, it provides an additional reason for the consumer to purchase your product in the alternate category (because they are already familiar with the software, have a library of purchased items, are too lazy to switch over, etc). And I bet that every time a consumer chooses your company's products, their lifetime value increases as they get locked in to the platforms.

I did a quick scan of major consumer electronics companies to determine where they stand in terms of having a HW and/or SW platform, which is shown below in a 2-by-2 matrix, and there were 2 companies that stood out as having strong HW and SW platforms: Apple and Sony.


 Figure. Platform reach across major consumer electronics companies

Apples competes across 3 of the 4 screens with HW offerings (I know they have Apple TV, but that's not technically a TV), and they have a SW platform that enables them to deliver content to all 4 screens (via Apple TV for TV).

Sony competes across 4 of the 4 screens, and I think they also have a way to deliver content to all 4 (or are working on it).

The fact that Apple is doing so much better than Sony implies that it is not necessarily easy to capture the benefits of the platforms. My guess is that this has to do with the coherence of the strategy. Sony still hasn't built a very uniform experience on their platforms, and they may have trouble doing so given that they are traditionally more HW focused.

Looking at the matrix, I imagine that Google and Microsoft, who have strong SW platforms, will continue to partner with companies that have strong HW platforms but lack the SW/content-delivery side of the equation (like Dell and Samsung). Amazon is a wild card right now, but I have a feeling that Bezos will try his best to move to the top right, where the highest potential profit lies. Finally, it isn't surprising that there are rumors of Apple working on a TV right now, since that would allow them to leverage the strength of iTunes on the screen that probably captures the most eyeball-time.

Theory on 4 screens adoption process

Just want to lay out an idea on the consumer adoption process for the 4 screens that dominate our eyes: TV, laptop, smartphone, and tablet. It isn't based on any data outside of anecdotal evidence and my own thoughts, and it isn't fully baked, so thoughts and comments are very much appreciated.


Figure. Adoption Process for 4 Screens
Sources: None really

My hypothesis is that consumers move through a "hierarchy of needs" (à la Maslow's hierarchy) when considering the purchase of any one of the screens, and they won't move up to the higher levels until the ones below it have been addressed (either by purchasing or explicitly deciding not to purchase the associated device). Therefore, if you don't own a TV, you probably won't consider buying a tablet.

The TV sits at the bottom of the hierarchy as the first device that a consumer considers purchasing; tablet PCs sit at the top as the last "need" to be fulfilled. At each level in the hierarchy, the consumer also has some substitutes that they consider. For example, a person considering a smartphone might instead opt to buy an iPod Touch and stick with a feature phone.

This process is then repeated starting at the base level for each additional purchase.  That implies that someone that has purchased the first 3 levels would first consider upgrading those devices before purchasing a tablet. If there are no worthy upgrades available, then they'd go for the tablet. Or maybe someone considered a TV but then settled on a tablet; before upgrading the tablet, they would first consider buying a TV again.

168 Hours is back up in the app store

Check it out if you are interested in tracking how you spend your time. It took less than a week to go from submitted to approved and in the app store this time. That's a 1-day improvement from last April.

DST cost me 15 hours

On Sunday, I slept an extra hour because of daylight saving time. On Monday and Tuesday, I spent 15 hours debugging and rewriting my time tracking iOS app, 168 Hours, because of daylight saving time.

The fun began on Monday morning when I opened the app to log my meditation session and noticed that the dates and times were wrong. It didn't take long for me to realize that it was probably tied to going back an hour for DST. I opened up Xcode and quickly confirmed that DST was breaking all my logic before heading in to work.

I spent most of Monday evening familiarizing myself with the two main iOS date classes that I was using (NSDate and NSCalendar) and attempting to fix the bugs in my code. After 9 or so hours, I had made some progress, but I was still a long ways off from having it all sorted out. I decided to pull the app from the app store given the problem, and I toyed with just giving up on the app completely because of how frustrated I was at that point. Who knew that something as simple as a time tracker could be so complicated?

The next day, something inexplicably "clicked," and I felt motivated to tackle the problem again (in part because I love programming...). I upgraded my laptop to Lion, downloaded the newest version of Xcode, and started to systematically correct all of the issues, testing it on my laptop and phone (where I could easily change the date).

Although it took much longer than expected, I was able to submit a DST-friendly app update to the app store and update the code on GitHub before going to sleep. And I now understand why iOS separates out date functionality into NSDate and NSCalendar.

2011 BCG Ethnic Diversity Retreat

I got back last night from BCG's annual Ethnic Diversity Retreat (it's more like a mini-conference) in Chicago. The retreat is part of the firm's diversity initiatives - in particular the Black/African American Initiative and Hispanic/Latino Initiative - that in a nutshell are meant to improve diversity across a variety of dimensions within the firm.

It was great to see how important the initiatives are to BCG and that the firm is interested in doing more than just talking the talk. That much was obvious given the resources that went into the event, from a planning, execution, and participation standpoint. There were a number of senior leaders who attended and participated, including Rich Lesser, the Chairman of the Americas, and Hans-Paul Bürkner, the CEO. And it wasn't token participation...you could literally walk up to any of them and start up a conversation.

 A few of the highlights of the event for me were:

• The opportunity to build relationships with a lot of nice folks from different offices in the firm, informally and during the "team building" competition
• An externally-led workshop on developing your professional image and personal branding (a favorite topic of mine)
• The discussions that took place on how to build on and improve the diversity initiatives (that got me pumped to help out more)

I'm really glad that I got the opportunity to participate in the retreat and contribute some thoughts on how to move the initiatives forward. And I'm glad that the company is so committed to doing the same. That is just one in a long list of reasons that I'm grateful to be a part of Henderson and Friends.

Add features...but protect the core

When a new product gets released, it has a core set of functions that define the "experience" that the product delivers. Ideally, that core works flawlessly and intuitively, delivering the best possible experience to users. If you don't have a good core, you don't have a good product. It's as simple as that.

Over time, as you develop the product, you build new functionality on top of the core, and with each iteration, the product grows more complex (think of an inverted pyramid, with the core set of function being the narrowest segment at the bottom).

Eventually, you arrive at the point where most users only use 20% of the functionality (mostly in the core), and the remaining 80% is there for the power users and more adventurous folks. For example, I bet most people never touch a majority of the options on their iPhone. And heaven help it if my mom ever accidentally triple-clicks the home button on her iPod touch.

The challenge is how do you build on top of the core without ever compromising it, because as my friend Ben once said to me while I was working on a problem with my iPhone app, "you don't want to make the majority of users suffer on account of the minority" (paraphrased like crazy).

One common way to do so in software is to have a "Beginner" mode and an "Advanced" mode, which makes all of the advanced functionality more accessible. I think this is a dumb way to do it because you are giving your product developers a backdoor out of having to do good design while creating two divergent experiences. When a suboptimal option is considered for the "advanced" functionality, it is too easy to justify it by saying that it is in the "Advanced" mode.

Instead, developers should be forced to find a way to integrate the advanced functionality into the product without:

• Compromising the core experience
• Creating a separate "advanced" experience