Answer Guy Central

It’s almost here. 4G cell phone networks and the way-faster data transfer speeds that come with them are about to get switched on. Now, your Smartphone will feel . . . even smarter.

And Verizon will be making you pay for that.

Presumably all carriers will be doing the same, so Verizon only deserves credit for opening the floodgates. But Verizon Wireless CEO Lowell McAdam is on record: fixed-cost all-you-can-eat data plans will be going away for 4G SmartPhone users.

Telecommunications companies have a rich history of charging more for things that actually cost them less; how else can you explain the 20-cents-per-message charge for text messages for those of us who don’t buy bundles? And Mr McAdam had acknowledged that it will actually cost Verizon less to deliver data over their new 4G network than it does on the current one.

So is the rationale that when you use a 4G phone you’ll be pulling so much more data that Verizon needs to cover their big corporate backside?

Possibly, but as a fairly heavy user of a 3G Droid SmartPhone I’m skeptical. This is all about getting more money.

That’s OK; Verizon is in business to make money. My issue with them on this is that in enacting this business change they’re treating their customers like we’re all too stupid to see through them.

And today’s lesson is this . . . Don’t Ever Do That.

Forgive me for lack of speed; I needed to let this one roll around in my head for a few days:

Motorola is enjoying a business resurgence. Owing to their decision to start making SmartPhones based on the Google Android operating system, Motorola has become profitable after many quarters of moving in the wrong direction. Palm, on the other hand, is no more, having been acquired by Hewlett Packard for reasons that HP has thus far kept close to the vest.

This article in the New York Times compares the fate of the two companies, and I wasn’t sure what the real point of the comparison was until I gave it some thought.

Palm all but created the market for Personal Digital Assistants when they released the Palm Pilot back in 1996. Sure, there were other PDAs that came earlier, but the Palm Pilot was the first one to gain any traction. Since then, Palm has floundered, being sold a couple of times and going through a couple of business change cycles when they weren’t sure if they were a hardware company or a software company . . . and even splitting the two.

Nobody says “PDA” any more. The things that PDAs did are now done by SmartPhones.

Motorola was at one time a phone manufacturer. Of course, Motorola makes many other things, too, but they created some of the most important cell phone technologies and were the runaway leader in that market for years. And cell phones need software, which Motorola wrote themselves. And the software was . . . well, who cares? It was phone software.

Now, Motorola has hitched its wagon to the Google Android star. In short, Motorola has enacted business change by acknowledging that they’re better off concentrating on the hardware and using someone else’s (free!) software. The Verizon (Motorola / Google) Droid sold many millions of units. Motorola is back, baby!

Or are they?

I’m not a stock prognosticator, but if I was I wouldn’t be so excited about Motorola’s future chances based on their recent success in the SmartPhone market using Android. Verizon released a second Droid model last November; the HTC (Verizon / Google ) Droid Eris came out at the same time, but Verizon didn’t give it the marketing boost that Motorola’s Droid received. And now, Verizon’s Droid Incredible is on the street. It also uses  Google Android. It’s also made by HTC. And Verizon has moved on; it’s the HTC Droid Incredible that’s now Verizon’s Droid Baby.

Wither, Motorola?

Motorola has all but remade themselves as a software company, but Google Android software is available to anyone who wants it. Companies like Verizon are marketing Android-based hardware from other companies. And Google has already shown that they have no intention of being part of this fight; their foray into the hardware and phone businesses with Nexus One was nothing more than a giant smoke screen to get companies like Motorola and Verizon to adopt Android.

And Verizon, by the way, is at is again; they’re about to release a tablet computer based on Google Android.

Don’t get too excited about the business change at Motorola; it’s going to be a short-lived success. And you do better: when planning your business change, make sure you look long-term.

Once upon a time, I spent a few years working for Verizon. It was an amazing and eye-opening professional experience for me, and although I ultimately came back to the world of small business development I learned quite a bit in my time working for one of the world’s largest companies.

While I was there, Verizon and their large telecommunications brethren managed to convince the US government—specifically the FCC—to deregulate data. At the time, this was presented as  a matter of fairness; telcos were (and still are) obligated to allow “alternative carriers” to provide switched voice service over the lines that they built under government protection, but because advanced systems like Verizon’s all-fiber optic FIOS service weren’t built with government help the Verizons of the world argued successfully that the rules applying to the old copper lines shouldn’t apply to new lines. Fair enough.

Last September, the FCC made rules controlling “Net Neutrality”. On the surface, these rules are designed to stop Verizon and the other owners of physical lines over which Internet traffic moves from providing preferential treatment to the traffic they deem important. Again, fair; I suspect that like me you don’t want your Internet Service Provider slowing down things they think aren’t important and speeding up the things that they think are. There are censorship issues in that, and also issues surrounding your favorite sites being slowed by your connection provider if they have a competing service or do business with someone who does.

Well. OOPS! The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has decided that the FCC had no right to issue Net Neutrality rules because the Internet lines were deregulated as I explained above.

Don’t you love business change? And government bureaucrats? And lawyers? Now, the FCC has decided that they can get their way by re-regulating the lines. I don’t know it they’ll be able to pull that off, but either way, my head hurts just thinking about the years of legal wrangling ahead, the money that will be spent, and the outcome that will ultimately do . . . nothing.

Make your business decisions with an eye to the future. Hedge your bets when necessary. And if you have a preference for which way this issue should be decided, make some noise.

Nice choices: greater government regulation, or someone else controlling how you use the Internet. Stay tuned. For years.

Remember back when Google launched the Nexus One SmartPhone and told us we should expect to see “their” phone on every major phone network? I commented at the time that the Google Phone looked like way less business change than Google wanted us to believe they were creating, and later told you that Google’s fragmentation of the Android Operating System might kill phones they were less attached to, like the Verizon Droid.

Now it looks like the entire Google Phone movement and creating the Nexus One was nothing more than a red herring to get carriers to develop Android devices.

Last week, Google basically abandoned the Nexus One. This morning, Google told Verizon customers to buy the upcoming Droid Incredible instead of waiting for the Nexus One.

Let’s examine:

Any phone running Android is a “Google Phone”. Google launched the Nexus One amidst much anticipation and with great fanfare, showed us a road map for a time when we’d be able to buy phones and take them to any carrier, telling us they were changing the entire phone business, selling the Nexus One using a business model that made no sense and charging incredibly high Early Termination Fees.

And three months later they want people to buy a non-Google-branded-or-distributed phone that is very much like the Nexus One from the one US carrier that could never use the Nexus One.

But Android is now huge.

Looks like Google never really meant to be in or change the phone business, other than to promote Android.

Google lied. It’s the kind of thing that happens every day in business, and as “don’t be evil” is no longer an official Google slogan there’s not even a joke to append here; Google has become the evil empire.

I’m off to use my Google Docs account now . . .

FOLLOWUP May 14 2010:

It’s official. The Nexus One is dead, and Google is shutting down their phone store

Wondering what ever happened to the Android 2.1 upgrade for Droid that Verizon promised on January 6 when Google’s Nexus One was released? Remember when they said they’d start rolling it out on March 18, only to change their minds at the last minute?

It’s Here. I’ve installed it. It’s very fast in places that Android 2.01 on the Droid was slow. And maybe, just maybe, it’s broken again.

Actually, I’ve seen only one report of Android 2.1 for Droid being broken, and it might well be an April Fools joke.  I pay attention mostly because that report suggests that Wi-Fi is the problem. Again. But I’ll say that Android 2.1 is running on my Droid, my Wi-Fi works a little better than it did before, and lots of people seem to be installing Android 2.1 on their Droids with no issues.

If there’s a problem with this latest release of the Google SmartPhone operating system do we blame Google, Verizon, or Motorola? Probably a little bit of all three.

Carry on . . .

Think Customer Service is an oxymoron? Turns out you’re right.

I’ve written on this topic before. From the supposed communications expert who told me that she didn’t want to hear my opinion, to the software company that thought a good way of doing support might be to go for sympathy by telling me that software development is hard, to the company that just couldn’t communicate, the theme recurs anecdotally for me, you, and just about everyone.

And now Contact Center Industry Analyst ContactBabel has made it official: in the USA, in 2009, looking at 6.6 billion call center interactions, consumers felt overwhelmingly that the centers failed to actually provide support.

Well, OK, so customer service is bad. We knew that. The question is . . . why?

It’s difficult to do good customer service even when a company WANTS to. Finding the right people to staff a call center, training them to communicate the way you want them to, and then keeping them trained as both your product/service offering and general business surroundings change over time is a juggling act that even the dedicated and well-intentioned find challenging.  Once the support center becomes viewed as an expense item . . . or even worse, an expendable expense item, it’s over. And sadly, that seems to happen . . . every time.

Customer Service starts out as a way to win and keep business. Usually, as a company becomes successful, and certainly once it starts “answering to its shareholders” customer service goes into the toilet.

Walk into a Verizon Wireless store. Do you want to buy a phone? a Verizon Wireless employee will help you. Do you need service or repair? The less-cheery people in the back wearing what look like Verizon Wireless uniforms have an extra patch on their sleeves telling you what company they actually work for. That’s right: Verizon Wireless won’t trust their sales to anyone but their own employees, but service? Outsourced, right in their own stores, to people intentionally masqueraded as employees.

I’m a business guy. I understand the need to turn a profit and I know how to massage the resources. When business change becomes about that at the expense of doing the things that made your company successful, you’re missing the point. And it doesn’t need to be that way: like preventive health care contributing to overall wellness, real customer service adds to a business’ bottom line.

Next time you’re thinking about your customer service, remember: it’s the most important function in your company. 6.6 billion phone calls can’t be wrong.

Wow. And just when we had declared the Google Nexus One to represent no real business change.

While I’ll be standing by that statement for the most part, in not reading the contracts I missed one huge business change that folks who opt to take the Google / T-Mobile subsidy and get their Nexus One phones inexpensively could run up against:

Cancel early, and you owe not just T-Mobile, but also Google an early termination fee.

And it’s a fee that would make Verizon proud: $350 to Google, $200 to T-Mobile.

What ever happened to Google and their “Don’t Be Evil” motto? The little company that’s become more influential than any other has created the first fee to a phone manufacturer for early plan termination, which would be fine if in doing so they had eliminated your liability to the carrier. They’ve not. The Google Nexus One, as cool as it is, is feeling more and more like a giant rip-off.

When I bought my Droid from Verizon one of the things that made me jump when I did was the knowledge that Verizon was getting ready to raise their ETF from $175 to $350. Verizon’s caught grief from the FTC for this, but next to the $550 you might pay to back out of a Nexus One contract that’s looking pretty tame.

I’m all about business change. I was disappointed when I thought the Nexus One looked like no business change at all. Now, I wish that had been correct.

What if AT&T, Verizon, and the other traditional “phone companies” no longer had to provide phone service?

It’s a tough predicament.

CLECs (AT&T, Verizon, et.al.) have a bunch of rules they have to follow that were made at a time when they held a different position. And let’s be honest: holding them to a standard that took into account a position they no longer hold really isn’t fair.

On the other hand: there are a significant number of people who still use CLECs in the same way they used them once upon a time, and dinosaur references notwithstanding it really isn’t fair to just cut them off.

On the OTHER other hand: the elimination of analog TV broadcasts was a similar issue when viewed from that last perspective, and the solution was simple: offer a converter box, and even subsidize it.

So maybe the solution is to provide a DSL converter free to anyone who asks for it, thereby dragging them into the digital age without really making them change anything. It would be a simple matter to augment that device with a very cheap router with telephone IP capabilities built in.

Problem solved.

Your business change issues can be solved the same way; all you need to do is think. Or hire someone to think for you.

I Love My Droid. It truly simplifies my life and makes me more productive. As mentioned before I don’t love SplashID for Android, but I use it.

Err . . . or at least I did, until the Android 2.0.1 software update arrived and broke WEP-encrypted Wi-Fi.

Oddly, neither Verizon nor Motorola seems to understand this problem exists, nearly a week after the software update was rolled out. Google wrote the operating system, so . . . well, I don’t even know who to ask for help!

When does the spirit of business coopetition break? When no-one is in charge.

Droid, the first SmartPhone good enough to garner a recommendation from The Computer Answer Guy, includes Wi-Fi for those times when you can’t get a decent cell signal, or just want a faster connection. Or, as in the case with SplashID, when the only way to make the software work is by connecting through a network you control. So really the Wi-Fi isn’t that important and the Verizon / Motorola / Google triumvirate can be forgiven for not knowing about this problem for so long. Nevertheless, it went out, and there’s no fix. Yet.

By the way: if you’re using a Droid and the update comes down, by all means install it; the improvements far outweigh the problems, and I’ll bet that if you use Wi-Fi at all it’s under conditions that aren’t effected by this problem. But . . . there’s really no excuse for something as careless as this; Big thumbs down to . . . someone.

A story of business change gone wrong:

I’ve recently started using a Google/Verizon Droid SmartPhone. Running the Google Android operating system, it is one slick toy, and having waited as long as I could to make the jump I believe I’ve made the right choice.

Part of getting the device to work the way I need it to has involved finding the right software to install on it. One of my needs is a password manager, and for me SplashID from SplashData is the best choice out there. I’ve used it for almost ten years, first on a Palm Pilot, and then on a WindowsMobile PDA. So I was really happy to find it available on Android.

The software consists of both a phone-based component and software you run on your computer, and under both Palm and WindowsMobile they spoke to each other automatically; any changes you made on one appeared on the other almost by magic. And to their credit, the folks at SplashData didn’t make me pay for a new version of the desktop software. I only had to spend $9.95 on the Android software.

And now, the story gets very, very bad.

With Android, the synchronization process doesn’t happen over a wire as it did with the other versions. Sounds great. But then it turns out that I have to use Wi-Fi instead of the phone network to make the two pieces of software talk to each other. It’s a bit annoying and could have been avoided, but I can live with this requirement. Wait . . . and I have to have both pieces of software connected to the same Wi-Fi network to make them sync. And it’s a manual process, not automatic as in the other versions. And I can only initiate the process from the Android side, but it won’t work unless the software is also active on the computer. Oh, and one more problem: I have to know and type the IP address of the computer into my Droid for the two devices to talk.

If you don’t quite understand the issues I’ve just listed, or how easy it would have been to address them, that’s OK. The point is that Splashdata has taken a great piece of software and turned it into something I wish I hadn’t bought from them for a third time.

So strike that “great customer service” comment, because just being nice isn’t good enough. They’ve chased off a loyal customer. Oh, and by the way, I pointed out the issues I had experienced to them and their response was basically “yeah, software development is hard”.

Business change is a complicated thing; had Splashdata come to The Answer Guy, we would have steered them through this before it became a mess. Instead, they’ve ruined their software, and alienated a loyal customer who regularly sold their software for them.

So file it under “don’t let this happen to you”.

UPDATE 4 June 2010 : OK . . . so . . . SplashData has just upgraded The SplashID software to a 5.x version that “Works with Android”. Stay tuned . . .

Update #2 for 4 June 2010: The folks at SplashData sent me a key to upgrade to Version 5 desktop. I’ve done it. Here’s what I’ve found.

OK, folks, let’s be clear: I Hate Texting. Nothing has changed, got it?

And although I use them and tell you regularly that failing to do so carries tremendous peril to your business, I’m still not a big fan of either Facebook or Twitter, either. Again . . . no change.

But I’m in. I’ve started using a Verizon / Google Droid, and it’s amazingly good.

This isn’t a product review. I used to do them, both for IYM Software Review and as The Computer Answer Guy, but this is not one. I’m just saying that business change can be managed, and the Droid is the best way of managing the changing communications landscape that I’ve seen. As I said a few weeks ago, it won’t kill the iPhone, but it’s so good that it should.

That’s it . . . I wanted you to know that I drink my own Kool Aid, and was just waiting for the right tool to come along so that my business change could be managed the way it needs to be . . . carefully.

Now go manage yours.

Did you hear the one about the company that sued its competitor for telling the truth?

AT&T has sued Verizon. No big deal; these guys slug it out in court on a regular basis. This time, it’s about the advertising Verizon is doing for their 3G network, which is the faster set of connections that make doing things like surfing the internet on your smartphone a tolerable experience. Verizon’s 3G network is quite a bit larger than AT&T’s 3G network. The ads are actually pretty clever, playing off how much fun using an iPhone isn’t when you’re in the wrong location.

AT&T thinks Verizon is being mean unfair. Verizon, responding to that claim, has actually altered their ads to be specific about what their map comparisons mean.

As a technology guy AND a one-time-and-somewhat-unappreciative-of-the-way-that-company-works Verizon employee, I’m actually impressed that they bothered changing the words they were using in the early versions of the ad.

Let’s be clear: the maps say what Verizon wants them to say, and conveniently leave out some facts. But the facts that are depicted are accurate. So AT&T decides the best way to get at them is a LAWSUIT?

Preposterous. And one more example of what happens when people try to resist business change.

Fight war with every weapon you have. And make no mistake; business is war. But don’t fight when you’re wrong; it just makes you  look bad. And helps the other guy.

In a word, No.

The USA’s larget mobile phone carrier and the world’s largest  . . . whatever Google is have announced that two new phones featuring Google’s Android operating system are about to go on sale at Verizon. It’s exciting news. It goes a long way to explain recent information suggesting that Verizon has given up on its efforts to get a version of the iPhone for their network.

But It DOESN’T mean, as is being suggested, that Apple’s dominance of the smart phone market is in trouble. At all. Sadly, the analysis is flawed.

Verizon/Google is no more going to squash iPhone than any media player has squashed iPod/iTunes.

Apple, for better or worse, owns some piece of our souls. I’m not being flip; this is their main strategy, and they’ve delivered upon it.

Sure, a better network and a more open platform is where this all needs to go—and will eventually. But Verizon will not know how to sell this against the iPhone and the mere connection with Google won’t be enough to matter unless the devices somehow manage to capture the world’s imagination.

And there will be two of them. Oops. Classic Verizon move; it’s the opposite of business change, actually . . . WHICH ONE DO I BUY?

Guess I’ll get an iPhone.

And so it Begins. Or Ends. Or Begins to End . . .

Does the company from which you get your internet access have the right to decide what you get or how fast certain things get to you? Maybe. In the USA, though, that right may be about to come to an end.

In today’s Wall Street Journal, an FCC proposal limiting the way that your favorite bit purveyor moves your information gets outlined. Business Change, indeed! Now, the way your stuff gets to you might become set in stone.

Let’s back up: the Verizons and AT&Ts of the world have been threatening to control our web browsing habits for a few years now. Their rationale is that certain things take up more bandwidth, thereby changing both the economies of scale for their businesses and the overall experience that their customers have. So besides charging more for higher-bandwidth customers (an idea I can get behind as long as there are clear and flexible options), your provider wants to be able to exert some control over what you do/say/see/etc. on-line.

Umm . . . NO!

I could pull out a freedom of speech argument here, but I’ll go even lower than that: I don’t want Time Warner, Cablevision, or anyone else telling me what they think is “right”, even if they have a business case. And that doesn’t even touch the real issue: if telecommunications companies control the prioritization of traffic, they will become the ultimate advertising gatekeepers.

Tell your Congressman, Senator, and any other government figure you can reach that this is not OK. Tell them that stopping this business change is what you want. Tell them today.

from consumerist.com 4/5/07

(http://consumerist.com/consumer/verizon/verizon-unlimited-access-plan-is-extremely-limited-249873.php#viewcomments)

C’mon, guys . . .

Yeah, the wording of their agreement gives the “the right” to terminate you at any time. But what tehy’re really trying to do is stop you from running a server using your PDA or wireless card as a pass-through. Kinda like your ISP limiting your bandwidth.

I have this plan. I use it for all kinds of things, all over the US and Europe (where believe me, it saves me BIG bucks). I use it to Skype, even, meaning I get free phone calls through my cell carrier, without using their minutes. And I’ve asked quite a few people at VZW about the limits and all but one (and he seemed pretty darned uninformed across the board) told me the same thing: they aren’t watching what you do w/ the plan. Just the volume of data you push.

Oh and by the way (shameless plug alert):

http://pc-vip.com has gone live

And we have an amazing income stream program for your readers.

Oh: and seriously . . . we’re really all about people not getting ripped off any longer, too.

Like This Article?  Digg It!