huibert-aalbers.com

I love Plaxo. This is the first social network that actually solves a real problem for me. That is probably because it is not really social network in the same sense as FoceBook or MySpace. Plaxo allows me to have an up-to-date agenda by delegating to each of them the responsibility to maintain their current information accurate. Ever tried to call someone just to find out that he changed his/her phone number? Lost contact with someone after he/she moved to a new job? The promise of Plaxo is that this will never happen again. On the Mac, using the Plaxo plug-in any changes your contact make on the site are automatically synched to your Address Book and from there to your cell phone. This is a great simple idea that will make my life so much easier. I encourage everyone to give it a try. Most of my contacts are already using Plaxo, but the site will be totally useful once everyone gets on board.

But then, is it really such a great idea to join Plaxo or any other social network? The more I think about it, the more I am concerned about privacy issues. The data that social networks store is extremely valuable to all kind of people. Marketers want to understand who you can influence. Political parties want to look for blue persons surrounded by red friends (they are much easier to convince) or vice-versa. And then there is the government and law enforcement agencies.

The truth is that I wasn’t really scared by Facebook or MySpace. On those sites, the term friend doesn’t have any meaning. Popular Internet figures like Leo Laporte or Jason Calacanis have thousands of so-called online friends they have probably never met. Plaxo is different. These persons are on your agenda. When you call someone a friend he really is a friend, you are giving him or her your personal home address and phone number. That is not something you want to do to a total stranger, there are too many risks involved. Imagine the value of this information for those looking for criminals and or terrorists. Yes I know, it is unlikely that Osama Bin Laden will ever join Plaxo and list all his friends on the site. But even Osama had a normal life before becoming a terrorist. Knowing who his friends were back then could still prove extremely valuable. That information is so valuable in fact that I sincerely doubt that they will erase it. Once it is recorded that you know someone that information sticks to you. This information can potentially cause a lot of trouble. What if one of my customers becomes a criminal? What if one of my employees is a terrorist? I know, Plaxo offers a privacy policy but the simple fact that the data exists and that it can easily be used to reach many conclusions is scary.

Government agencies around the world are eager to understand social graphs. At IBM we sell solutions that help uncover hidden relationships. Using customer data from banks, airlines, utilities or even magazine subscriptions it is possible to find those relationships. It is known that the use of these products could have thwarted the 9/11 attacks using existing intelligence data. Unfortunately, at the time casinos were the main customers for these solutions in order to avoid gambling fraud, not governments. However, Plaxo takes this to a whole new level. If the idea really catches on, people who are not on that site will eventually look suspicious. Don’t get me wrong, I am all for helping law enforcement but I do not feel quite comfortable about the negative effects I may suffer if some of my acquaintances go astray. Of course I am assuming that the government of the country I happen to live in is democratic and doesn’t turn on its citizens (or foreign residents). What happens if that proves not to be true?

As a Dutchman I know all too well what can happen when sensible information falls in the wrong hands. When nazi Germany invaded The Netherlands in 1940, they used the religious information collected by the government for statistical purposes to exterminate the Jews. We do not want something similar to happen again. I will probably uninstall Plaxo from my computer. Too bad, it seemed such a great idea.

When Steve Jobs announced the iPhone, he said that Apple expected to sell 10 million units by the end of 2008. By January 2007 Apple had already sold 40% of its self imposed goal. So, why are analysts increasingly doubtful that Apple will be successful?

On the surface it seems that Apple has been very successful in the U.S. Market data shows that right now Apple is the number 2 smartphone maker, just behind RIM (the makers of the Blackberry phones). However, in Europe initial numbers aren’t as impressive. In France, for example, Orange sold 90,000 units in December, short of their 100,000 target. All in all, only between 300,000 and 400,000 were sold in Europe. Analysts also expected Apple to sign deals in more European counties. Europe is much more than just the UK, Germany and France. The EU has a population of nearly 500 million and those three countries represent just over 41% of the total. This number clearly shows that Apple still has much work to do in Europe if they really want to be successful on that continent.

However, we all know that these numbers are clearly wrong. Since AT&T claims to have activated only slightly over 2 millions iPhones, that leaves about 1.3 million devices unaccounted for which have been very likely activated on cellular networks not approved by Apple (some in the U.S. but most overseas). We already know for example that about 400,000 iPhones are in use in China. That means that the iPhone is not as successful in the U.S. as Apple would like us to believe. It also means that about 30% of all iPhones are sold to customers who would not buy the device if it couldn’t be unlocked.

Until now, Apple has been very active fighting the grey market. In November they released firmware 1.1.2. It broke all known exploits but the enhanced security could still be circumvented through the use of a Turbo SIM (which was relatively expensive and hard to obtain). On January 15, Apple released firmware 1.1.3 which plugged that hole. In my experience, Apple was very successful slowing down the gray market during the second half of Q4 and they must have felt the results on their balance sheet. Now that Zibri has released an easy to use tool to unlock the iPhone, gray market sales are soaring again (based on anecdotal evidence observed in Mexico and other LA countries).

If we consider that the iPhone has been available for six months, that means that Apple has achieved weekly sales of approximately 190,000 a week, with 57,000 units going to the gray market. By improving their device security, Apple has lost at least eight weeks of gray market sales which accounts to more than 225,000 units. If Apple were able to produce an unlock-able device by early March, they would lose the opportunity of selling 2,500,000 units during 2008. Can Apple reach their goal of selling 10 million units by December 2008 without the help of the gray market? Maybe, but not just by maintaining their current course. Apple would have to significantly increase legal sales to compensate for that loss. The easiest way to achieve that result is by lowering unit prices as some recent rumors have been pointing to, but that would seriously harm the company margins and investors wouldn’t be pleased. There must be some serious debate inside Apple going on as to what their attitude toward this market should be.

The real question though is wether Apple will be scared enough by the prospect of not achieving their stated goal to tolerate the gray market or if they will continue cracking down on hackers, presumably with the release of firmware 1.1.4 which is expected to support third-party applications and was expected before the end of February.

My opinion is that Apple has no choice and will have to continue plugging the iPhone security holes in order to try to make the iPhone impenetrable. The reason is simple and has nothing to do with AT&T. If the iPhone can easily be hacked, it won’t be long before the cripto key used to digitally sign applications is found and everyone can start creating iPhone homebrew applications, defeating the whole purpose of signing applications. That is something that Apple has to avoid by any means if they are serious about security (or if they plan on making money by selling apps through the iTunes store, which is much more likely). That means that a price cut will come along the release of firmware version 1.1.4.

Meanwhile, each week that goes by with no firmware update Zibri can be credited with the sale of an additional 57,000 iPhones. That probably means that there isn’t much pressure on Apple engineers to release the SDK as planned and that a delay of a couple of months (say until WWDC) could have some nice side effects like increased unit sales with healthy margins and renewed interest for their developer’s conference. But then, I am sure that Apple will claim that they needed the additional time to polish their code.

[updated on February 26th: Apple has just released firmware 1.1.4. This new release doesn’t seem to break unlock phones and ZiPhone seems to work fine, although some additional tweaking will be required in order to tune the tool for 1.1.4. Is this an indication that Apple is willing to compromise in order to achieve its sales target? Maybe, we will see.]

I just read a nice article on Yahoo about a programmer, Jonathan Coulton, turned songwriter. It is an interesting article and I encourage everyone to read it.

I haven’t listened to all his songs, but one of them, Code Monkey, really catched my attention. It is about a programmer, his life and his dreams. Not only is this a great song, I think that we geeks can all relate to it (here are the lyrics).

As for me and my life, I am a very happy monkey. I feel I have it all, pretty girl included. As the song says, I am a very simple man with big warm fuzzy secret heart. I just wish my single daughters could find themselves a geeky boyfriend each. They deserve to be as happy as their mom and I.

Actor Roy Scheider died a week ago, on February 10. Although I do not write much about movies and actors, in this case I felt compelled to write something about him.

Everyone seems to remember Roy from is role as police chief Martin Brody in Jaws. I am not sure that the producers of that movie understood what kind of hit that movie would turn out to be. What I am totally sure about is that nobody could have predicted it by just reading the script. The story line is pretty much in the same league as Die Hard 2 or Speed 2 in terms of credibility (hint: absolutely unbelievable). Sure, nobody will ever forget the initial scene when the shark approaches his prey, but there wasn’t much else in that movie.

However, Roy Scheider participated in many other movies, often as a supporting character (that is how he received his single Oscar nomination). His performance in Marathon Man as Dustin Hoffman’s tough older brother was memorable as it highlighted just how vulnerable Dustin’s character, Thomas Levy, was.

In my case, I remember Roy for his principal role in Blue Thunder a John Badham movie from the eighties. The movie script and dialogues were not remarkable, but somehow the movie worked.

That is what really makes Roy’s work stand out. He wasn’t only a great actor, he made the movies he participated in better. Scheider belonged to a small category of great actors (Brian Dennehy comes also quickly to mind) that while not being major movie stars could improve a scene just by being part of it. The movie industry really needs more strong supporting characters like them as they can often turn a B-Movie into a really memorable flick.

Rest In Peace, Roy.

Today Toshiba announced what everyone in the industry had predicted since Warner decided to withdraw support for their high-definition DVD format, HD-DVD is dead. The decision to discontinue this technology will cost Toshiba hundreds of millions of dollars. They are not the only losers, though. About a million customers had bet on HD-DVD and now they are stuck with obsolete players (that fortunately can still be used as upscaling DVD players) and media. However, beyond all those abandoned customers, there are some companies that stand to lose big time from Blu-ray‘s victory.

The first victim is certainly Microsoft’s XBox 360. In January, for the first time since it was launched, Sony’s Playstation 3 outsold the former console by a comfortable margin n the U.S. I expect this to happen again at least over the next few months as many gamers who are now realizing the value of the PS3 as a next generation DVD player are moving in flocks to buy the console. Just look at what regular users are posting on the Internet and you will see that the mood over the PS3 has clearly changed. Microsoft is mulling a Blu-ray external player for the XBox 360 but that could not be enough to reverse the trend, unless they reduce the cost of their Elite console significantly.

Other victims include online video providers such as Microsoft (through XBox and Media Centre PCs) and Apple. Until now, most customers compared the quality of digital downloads to DVDs, mainly because high-definition DVDs had failed to catch on due to the lack of a unique standard. That is now going to change, and even though it is now possible to purchase and rent 720p movies over the Internet, this media is no match to Blu-ray movies. That really means that wide adoption of Internet movie downloads will be delayed. Don’t get me wrong, it will happen, but physical media will still reign for a few more years until faster and cheaper Internet connections become available. This is certainly not bad news for those of us not living in the U.S. There are still many legal and distribution issues that need to be sorted out before all countries in the world can have access to Hollywood and other dream factories media from around the world through the Internet, legally. Knowing that in the meantime there will be a physical alternative is tranquilizing. I would hate to be stuck for another decade with DVDs on high-resolution screens.

So, the results are in. On the Democrat side, Hillary Clinton fared well among Hispanics while Barak Obama got the support of the Black Community. That is what most analysts will tell you. What is missing is the explanations as to why there is such bad blood and mistrust between these communities. When we hear about Iraq we want to know why Kurds, Shiites and Sunni cannot get along. The same happens with the old Yugoslavia, we want to know why there is such hatred between Serbs and Albanians. However, if a comparable problem happens in the U.S. everyone chooses to ignore it, that is the politically correct way to behave. Is that the way to solve a problem? Frankly I do not know what to say, you figure it out.

As I wrote in a previous port I am currently in Vegas on holidays. Yesterday I went to see “Mamma Mia” a fun musical comedy based on music by ABBA. I really enjoyed the show, but that isn’t what I want to write about. You see, in the play three mature women who used to be best friends reunite and have a lot of fun remembering the good old days, behaving as if they still were young girls.

This situation isn’t unique to the play, it happens all the time. You can go to any cafe anywhere in the world and you will see groups of women having much fun and laughing. This rarely happens with men. We are much more serious, we feel silly if we behave foolishly. We have to be strong, in control. In many ways that is sad. I am sure that we would enjoy having fun like children again, but we refuse ourselves that luxury. I still remember the last time I felt like a child. A couple of friends and I had traveled to Xalapa to visit a customer. Suddenly, someone shouted “the last one to get to restaurant pays the bill” and we all started to run, pushing the others to avoid arriving last. We had a lot of fun but it made me think about all the time during which I hadn’t felt being a kid again.

There is a great French song, “Évidemment” performed by France Gall but composed by her late husband Michel Berger that summarizes the situation quite nicely, “We still laugh at silly things, obviously, but not like before”.

Women do not seem to suffer this problem. They are not as afraid of ridicule as most men are and as a result they have more fun. Good for them! This is something we men should learn from.

Yesteday I wrote about rude people. The problem extends well beyond discussion groups and forums. Until his show disappeared a couple of weeks ago, I used to watch religiously Robert Scoble‘s technology interviews on PodTech.net. It was a great way to learn about emerging technologies and companies. In most cases I was really shocked at how little interest those interviewed had in what Robert had to say. They just wanted to send their message out. It was all about them. They probably did not realize that by not entering in a true conversation with him they were really hurting themselves. By the way, this is not something that I want PR people to learn, this should be something natural. No matter how interesting your message, in order to be successful you need to be able to listen with a good degree of empathy.

I am currently in Vegas, resting a couple of days after a very hard end of year and an even more complex year start. I had the opportunity to play a couple of minutes with the new Mac Book Air at the Fashion Mall Apple Store. It definitively is a sexy machine. I would love to have one at work to replace my IBM laptop. This is a great machine for e-mail, Internet browsing and customer presentations. It will not replace my MacBook Pro any time soon, but it is a great addition to the portable Mac line of products. Judging from the crowds the new laptop was drawing and the number of inquiries , I don’t expect it to be the failure many have predicted.

I get a lot of questions about SOA. It turns out that my white paper “Successful SOA Implementation” has been quite popular and I get questions from all over the world. What I find surprising is that a large majority of those who contacted me don’t even bother to thank me once they get their answer. Do they think it is my job to reply to SOA questions? Is it the medium? I am not sure. What is evident though is that the Internet is not the best place to learn good manners. No matter what site you go to, discussions are rarely civilized. Most posters seem to believe they are geniuses and those who disagree are dumbasses at best.

So, the true question is, are people showing their true nature on the Internet? Are they just having fun by trying to create controversy? I am not sure, but I don’t really like what I see.