Issue #42
October 14, 2016

This Week's 3 Bells

Two tech giants evolve, one implodes

Facebook at work, for work

Back in January the 3 Bells alerted you to Facebook's trial of a new product for the workplace. So here it is: Workplace by Facebook. Facebook says 1000 organisations are already using it, from multinationals to government agencies. It is similar to the familiar social network, and allows you to create workgroups and chatrooms, do video calls and even stream the CEO's presentation live. It has been designed to be simple to use and mobile first. Facebook hopes it will revolutionise corporate communications by replacing email, newsletters and intranets. Workplace accounts relate to companies, and are separate from personal accounts. Pricing is at $1-3 per user per month.
How will enterprise leaders like Slack and Microsoft respond? A fascinating battle is coming.
Photo credit: Facebook (adjusted)
Tech behemoths like Facebook and Google want to be present in every aspect of your life, in work and in play. Do you want them to be? Your life, your call.

Google becomes a hardware company

Google, a software king, just announced a bunch of hardware products. A high-end Android smartphone; a virtual-reality cradle; a home speaker-assistant; and a home wifi router.
Why would Google do this? For one thing, it may have finally cottoned on that Apple's approach -  controlling both hardware and software - does indeed deliver superior user experience. For another, this is yet another evolutionary move away from the smartphone to smart devices, all powered by voice and a digital assistant. As Google boss Sundar Pichai put it, we are moving from a mobile-first world to an AI-first one. Artificial intelligence is the new battleground for the tech giants. Can Google pull it off? It may represent a huge internal cultural change for the tech giant.
Photo credit: Google (adjusted)
Tech strategy is all about pivots. Google is in the middle of one, as its former business model as a search-engine-centred advertising company starts to fade. When the music changes, you will also need to learn new dances.

The Galaxy Note 7 is officially cremated

After launching to rave reviews and quickly selling a massive 2.5 million units worldwide, Samsung's flagship Note 7 smartphone was recalled after widespread reports that the batteries were catching fire. Samsung confidently gave out replacement handsets. Except that the replacements also started catching fire. This week, Samsung announced that the Note 7 is officially dead. Production is halted. This cost Samsung $20 billion in market value over two days as its share price plunged; and a huge hit on operating profit is expected.
The damage to the brand is considerably worse. This is not just a poor user experience - it's a dangerous one. Will consumers trust the brand again? By rushing the Note 7 to market ahead of Apple's iPhone 7 launch, and then rushing to market with replacement sets without being sure the cause of the fires was ascertained, Samsung has rushed itself to a very bad place. The Note 8 may now need to be the saviour - but I hope Samsung will not rush that one out too.
Photo credit: CNN (adjusted)
Samsung is one of the world's premier brands, rated higher than the likes of Mercedes-Benz. Brands take forever to build, but can be undone very quickly. Samsung needs to learn some very deep lessons about the internal practices and pressures that took its top phone to the crematorium.
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