Can Microsoft Balance Win 8 & RT? Uh ...

Windows 8 holds a lot of promise for the PC business. Paired with sexy ultra-thin laptops and all-in-one desktops, it has the potential to inject some sorely-needed excitement into the market. But Windows RT, which looks a whole lot like Windows 8 but doesn’t act like it, could confuse buyers and derail sales. Can Microsoft effectively navigate this marketing minefield? Don’t bet on it.

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No Ultrabook Pep Rally at IDF? What?

This is normally a nerve-wracking time of year for PC makers, because they have to place bets on the upcoming holiday selling season. Bet too much, and they'll have to shed the overstock after New Year's with profit-bleeding promotions. Bet too little, and their competitors will gladly fill the orders.

The Windows 8-based ultrabooks they'll be offering are pretty cool - cool enough that the PC vendors should be betting big. But after a year of losing sales to tablets, they're not. Their pre-season jitters are on steroids. 

With that as a backdrop, you would have expected Intel CEO Paul Otellini to deliver the pep talk of his career at this year's Intel Developer Forum (IDF). Maybe something like this: "Now, finally, we've got systems that address many of the shortcomings that the tablet phenomenon has exposed. So let's go out there and take back our market!"

But he didn't. In fact, he didn't even speak this year. Why not?

Read the entire column on InformationWeek.com.

Microsoft's Windows of Opportunity

It’s a two-horse race right now in the smartphone market: Android on Samsung and iOS on Apple. But on the next turn, Microsoft will have a golden opportunity to nudge its thoroughbred into the pack. To achieve that, Windows Phone 8 needs to be good, but it doesn’t have to be the best platform out there. 

To move the market-share needle, Microsoft will have to fix something that bothers us about the platforms we’re carrying around today. They’ll also have to solve something the carriers don’t like about Android and iOS. 

If Microsoft understands those hurdles – and I sense that it does – then we’ll see Windows Phone snag share in the coming quarters.

Read the entire column on InformationWeek.com.

Why Siri Can't Read (Your Mind)

 Think your smartphone's smart now? Sure, it can tap the resources of the internet to answer virtually anything you ask. But what if it could predict what information you needed? Better yet, what if your phone understood you well enough that it could offer up information you didn't even know you needed. Now that would be a smart phone! You'll have one someday--and sooner than you might think.

Consider this: There's arguably no single person, no one thing that spends more time with you than your smartphone. Because of all our time together, these devices have a unique opportunity to get to know us better--maybe even better than we know ourselves. Up to now, though, they haven't really tried.

Why not? 

What our phones lack is contextual awareness, an ability to identify and filter the salient information from that data storm and present it to us, unprompted, at a time we'll find it useful. Give our smartphones a way to track all that data and a set of tools to analyze it and we'll be well on the way to realizing the dream of truly smart phones. 

A slew of companies are laser-focused to enable context awareness. Your smartphone will be context aware - and sooner than you might think.

Read the entire column on InformationWeek.com.

Making Laptops Sexy Again

When people are on the go, they don't want to carry more than two personal electronic devices: one in the pocket and one in the bag. When a third device crops up, it's because it addresses a shortcoming in one or both primary devices.

I've been saying this for more than a decade, as InformationWeek's Patrick Houston noted in his recent ode to the not-dead-yet PC. I believed in the two-device maxim when PDAs thrust their way onto the scene. I believed it when portable navigation devices began selling. And I still believed it as Apple prepared to bring the first media tablet to market.

These days, though, amidst the persistent flood of tablet shipments and pessimistic PC forecasts, I've had to defend my little two-device maxim like never before. Are we temporarily out of balance? Or is this the start of a new normal?

Read the entire column on InformationWeek.com