Product Matters

There's been a lot of hooplah and unrest over Apple's recent decision to take 30% off the top of all subscriptions to digital content (the language of their T&C implies that it's not restricted to "print" media, but also music, movies, etc.) purchased via iOS Apps. Google promptly countered with OnePass , a move that will certainly appeal to content providers. Of course, Google doesn't have Apple's footprint in the tablet market (although Android currently ranks #1 in terms of smartphone operating systems ), but if any of the budding hardware manufacturers can hit the market with a good device that doesn't cost more than the iPad, things could get interesting. A friend of mine recently took a job as a Product Manager at Redbox , the company that puts those giant red  machines ("red boxes") in grocery stores that vend DVD rentals at $1 each. It's the alternative for people who either don't know about Netflix or who prefer p...

About 2 years ago, I was in the middle of a Project Management sequence at UC Berkeley Extension when I got the news. My employer would no longer be sponsoring employee education. While I understood the rationale; we needed to run a tighter ship and offering tuition reimbursement was deemed a luxury the company could no longer afford. Fortunately for me, employees already enrolled in a program/course were eligible to complete them; the policy change would only affect requests to reimburse new programs and/or courses. During one of my SVPMA meetings last year, a 5-day Product Management course was advertised for the UC Berkeley Center for Executive Education. It sounded great, except for the $6,000 price tag. If only I was still eligible for reimbursement. Alas, you can't catch every ship that sails; you can only try to catch the ones available to you. I now have two Product Managers reporting to me, and I often wish that our reimbursement policy was still in place so that I c...

In case you haven't noticed,  Chatter.com  went live (strange, considering that they took out an ad on the front page of Monday's WSJ with a date that indicated February 6, 2011). This is Yammer's Page This is Chatter's Page Notice how similar it is to Yammer? I even read in an article today about Chatter and how they are calling it "Facebook for Business" ; a ripoff of Yammer's claim of being "Facebook for the Enterprise" (which itself is just a marketing piggybacking on Facebook's name). Yammer, not sitting idly, launched a very clever Youtube video in retaliation: I haven't seen this much of a direct assault since the " No Jive Talkin' " camaign. OK, that was a shameless plug for Clearvale , I know.