Author Archives: Jean-Louis Gassée

iTV: Where’s The Money?

November 13, 2011 – 5:58 pm

TweetIn reaction to last week’s technical speculation on the putative iTV, several commenters raised questions about content providers, distributors, and “pipes”. Does iTV help or harm NBC, Netflix, and Comcast? How does the [one last time: “putative”] iTV make money, and for whom? Indeed, the column ignored an important – perhaps the most important — [...]

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From Heaven: iTV

November 6, 2011 – 9:14 pm

TweetSearch for the word ‘‘cracked’’ in Walt Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs (or flip to page 555 if you have the bricks-and-mortar version). The second hit yields the following: It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it. “It” is the mythical Apple iTV. Even though Walt’s report of the [...]

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Steve’s Bio: A Personal Perspective

October 30, 2011 – 9:19 pm

TweetLet me jump to the conclusion: This is an extraordinary book on many levels: informative, entertaining often, insightful, sympathetic but not indulgent; it rises to its unusual subject and manages to render its complexity in a straightforward manner that attests to the biographer’s talent. Get thee to a physical bookstore, if you can find one, [...]

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Mobile + Cloud + Social

October 24, 2011 – 3:28 am

TweetThese are the three interdependent forces that power the biggest wave of growth, change, and destruction I’ve seen since I have been allowed to take part in the high-tech industry. In the beginning (or mine, anyway), back in 1968 when I was, miraculously, offered a salary to be part of HP France there was the [...]

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Premature Evaluation: The iPhone 5 Introduction

October 16, 2011 – 11:08 pm

TweetOn October 4th, after months of speculation, Apple finally introduces the iPhone 5. The kommentariat are ecstatic and approvingly list the new smartphone’s strongest points: Twice the processor speed; seven times the graphics oomph; a new camera with an Apple-designed lens, 8 megapixels and improved image processing; the power of the new iOS 5; iCloud [...]

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Too soon…

October 9, 2011 – 7:48 pm

Tweet‘Humor is the politeness of despair’, an approximate, googlish translation of l’humour est la politesse du désespoir, a saying attributed to noted post-WWII Left Bank jazzman, writer, and engineer, Boris Vian, So, let’s start with the reverent, despairing humor of Chris Calloway in Wired Magazine’s memorial to Steve Jobs: “Heaven got a major upgrade today…” [...]

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Google’s “Interesting” Week

October 2, 2011 – 9:48 pm

TweetLet’s start gingerly, with Nokia. You’ll recall the indignation when Nokia threw Symbian under the Windows Phone 7 bus and osborned its existing product line. Nokia dead-ended Symbian handsets, causing sales to plunge while everyone waited for the new MicroNokia smartphones. The company didn’t stop there. It then presented Meego, the offspring of Intel’s Moblin [...]

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How Bad Boards Kill Companies: HP

September 25, 2011 – 8:58 pm

Tweet‘A good Board can’t make a company, but a bad one will inevitably kill it.‘ Thus spake Barry Weinman, the Gentleman Capitalist, when I joined the VC brotherhood. He meant to tell me to watch out for co-investors on the Board of companies in our portfolio of investments. And he was right. We, Vulture Capitalists, [...]

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Windows 8: BFD — Big Forking Decision

September 18, 2011 – 7:44 pm

TweetWhether we’re living in a post-PC world, as many think today when they look at growth rates and profits, or it’s PC-Plus, For Ever, as Microsoft’s very literate chief ideologue staunchly maintains, it doesn’t really matter. When the Redmond giant comes up with a new version of Windows, it’s a Big Festive Deal that will [...]

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Crazy Patent Wars

September 11, 2011 – 7:18 pm

TweetEvery week we see more companies filing more lawsuits over patents. Microsoft and Oracle sue Google, Apple sues a long list of companies…and they all countersue in a new kind of circular firing squad, a real MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) conflagration. Soon, high-tech companies will have more lawyers than engineers. First, a word on the [...]

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