Marty Manley on economics, politics, technology, and culture

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Draw This…

Henry Blodget is the former head of Internet research at Merrill Lynch. (Background: once upon a time there was something called Internet research. And once upon a time there was something called Merrill Lynch).  NY Attorney General Eliot Spitzer convicted Blodget of touting stocks in public while sending emails disparaging those same securities. Spitzer was [...]

Peak Apple: Understanding the Foxconn Deal

Apple has quickly raised worker wages to address the highly publicized problems with working conditions in its supplier network. The decision protects Apple’s pristine brand and costs the company next to nothing. It cleverly exploits the high-minded principles and low-level economic literacy of those of us who are its devoted customers. A series of well-researched [...]

One more thing: Real artists ship.

In preparation for landing at SFO, I had closed the MacBook Air and turned off the iPad, but as I touched down, my iPhone beeped. The text from my son made my heart sink: Steve Jobs died . At least three people left the plane in tears. I felt like someone had unplugged my compass. Steve Jobs [...]

Toujour L’Audace

In early 1997, Steve Jobs spoke at Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference. At the time, he was an advisor to Apple CEO Gil Amelio, who had just bought Next from Jobs. (That July, Jobs pushed Amelio out in a boardroom coup and regained control of the company he had founded). I embed Jobs’ fascinating talk [...]

Cory Booker: Tweet Theater or the Politics of Engagement?

In September of 1965, Hurricane Betsy devastated New Orleans. The damage was not as bad as Katrina forty years later, but large bits of Lake Pontchartrain again ended up in the poor and largely black Ninth Ward. Residents fled to the George Washington Elementary School on St. Claude Avenue, which had been hastily converted into a [...]

Wave Goodbye to Traditional Telcos

A third wave is about to hit the telecommunications industry. It is very unlikely to damage the industry, but it will force some of its biggest players to once again become dull and regulated. Consumers will celebrate because telcos that provide only dumb pipes are not a problem, they are a solution.  The first wave to [...]

A Tribute to Our New Apple Masters

I praised Steve Jobs for his presentations, his products, and his audacity. I have criticized him for his imperiousness, his meglomania, and his high control business strategy. Like you, I shoulda bought the stock when it fell to $80 during the crash (“Apple is trading for it’s friggin’ CASH!” I yelled at my wife and myself at the [...]

In Praise of Dumb Pipes

“Net neutrality” is a confusing term that describes an important debate over the rights of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) like cable, mobile, satellite, and telephone companies. At its simplest, the issue is will we force ISPs to be “dumb pipes” by law or can they “add value”? To a first approximation, the right answer turns [...]

The Kindle: Dead, Deadly, and Dominant

Just before the launch of the iPad, I ventured the safe prediction that Amazon’s ebook reader, the Kindle, was kindling. It was doomed to  be crushed by Apple’s reactionary, if magical, iPad. As hardware, the Kindle is history, but as software it is brilliant, with enduring advantages over Apple’s iBook. During the last four months, Amazon has [...]

Visa, Mastercard, or iPhone?

Google and Apple will soon compete with Visa and Mastercard to process your payments in stores, restaurants, and online. Both companies will be pulled into payment processing because both  have built two valuable networks: one of developers who build apps, the other of consumers who buy them. But the developer network has diminishing returns, whereas [...]

WhyPad?

Apple’s iPad has been subject to two prevailing narratives: one sycophantic (“a magical and revolutionary device”), the other scornful (“an overgrown iPod Touch”). Here is a fast first reaction that reconciles the two and argues that for many if not most people, a tablet is in your future.  1. Well, it is revolutionary. And as close [...]

The Empire Strikes Back: iPhone 4.0

In one year Apple and Google have gone from allies to antagonists to epic combatants. The contest is really just beginning — and it is shaping up as a replay of the battle fought 30 years ago between Apple and Microsoft.  At today's release of iPhone OS 4.0, Steve Jobs took a swipe at Amazon, Adobe, [...]

The People's Republic of Apple

Apple, Google, and Microsoft are the three most important technology companies in the world and they  now mirror the world's three most important economies. Apple is China, booming but autocratic. Microsoft is Europe, wealthy, stagnant, and declining. Google is the USA, an immature but powerful force for freedom prone to arrogance and to fighting too many wars at [...]

How Amazon Can Compete with Apple

At the moment, Amazon's best selling Kindle is the king of the eBook readers. But the impending launch of Apple's iPad means that unless Amazon changes its direction and its mindset, the Kindle is kindling.  Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has a tough habit to break. It started when he built the Kindle and he deliberately [...]

Why the iPad Matters — even if you are already sick of it.

The PR was stunning, the product impressive, and the strategy tiresome. Apple stoked rumors of a dreamy tablet for either two years old or thirteen, depending on how you count. For six months, the leading tech blogs have been quivering with speculation about the “Jesus tablet”. One blog, Gizmodo, offered $100,000 cash for an hour [...]

The Death of the Desktop?

Google today revealed details of its operating system: Chrome OS. There is a reason that they named their operating system after their browser: their operating system IS a browser. Your computer boots in seconds and up comes a browser. Take more than a cursory look at Chrome OS and you realize that Google is offering [...]

The Apple Squeeze

Have your noticed that Apple is getting squeezed? Consider these recent developments: 1. With Windows 7, Microsoft has substantially closed the performance gap with the Mac OS, thus quietly removing the major reason to switch to a Mac. Both professional reviews and personal experience confirm that with Windows 7, Microsoft got it right. In a [...]

Reinventing and Rediscovering Music

The traditional music industry is dead and likely to be more studied than missed.  Every label is in trouble, mainly because CD sales decline every year, with 2009 likely to be a free fall. Every dedicated music retail chain is out of business. Only the #1 retailer matters –  Apple’s iTunes. The rest, including Walmart [...]

iBrain

On two recent flights the person sitting next to me had an Apple iPhone. I asked them both "is your iPhone  taking over your brain?" Both times, my seatmate looked slightly embarrassed before confessing, "actually, yes". My iPhone has been taking over my brain — or at least the digital part of it. When I [...]

A Brilliant Flashback

Saturday night I took a trip back to the 1970s and found two groups of people. One remains unchanged — seemingly frozen in time. Another group has taken what they learned in the seventies and used it to change the world. The occasion was a benefit concert for the Seva Foundation at Oakland’s beautiful Paramount [...]