iPod Touch.
iPhone on a diet or a PDA on steroids?
Whatever your answer, this device (especially when taken together with it's cousin iPhone) puts the final nail in the coffin of Palm's long slow death. After all, which would you rather own?
In the late 1990s, Palm was at the top of its game. It seemed like everyone was talking about HotSync and Graffiti and PIM and all the rest. For its time, the Palm device was ultra-cool. So how could you go from ultra-cool to ultra-dull? Simple...a complete lack of innovation over a prolonged period of time.
Between 1998 and 2001, I had a front row seat to the battle for palm-top dominance as VP of Marketing at a mobile startup called AvantGo. And I've been watching the industry ever since. To give you an idea of how hot Palm was at the time... let me tell you about how fast we were able to penetrate the market as a fledgling Palm software provider.
Back in 1998, in order to grab some publicity and viral marketing, we at AvantGo signed up some top-tier publications to syndicate their content via our platform on all Palm devices. The New York Times, Excite, The Wall Street Journal, Yahoo, Wired and CNET were among our early content partners. Within a couple of years, we had 1800 content providers and 8 million users.... That's how hot the Palm platform was at the time. By 2001 Palm was pretty much the only game in town and, in any case, had a huge lead on every other challenger for the market.
The only problem is that the Palm device has only barely evolved since then. In fact, all the major innovation (to the extent you could call it major) came from their acquisition of Handspring. As you can see above, the picture of the Palm TX above looks pretty much the same as it would have looked in 1999 (including the Yahoo page) which was possible via AvantGo back then. What's more, I sat in meetings with Palm executives during the late 1990s where they kicked around and eventually barfed on all kinds of cool ideas to innovate on the platform. I even remember one discussion that outlined an idea quite similar to what iTunes is today.
Palm was an expensive calendar then -- and that's basically what it has remained. They owned the market, they were the most innovative, they had it all figured out... or did they?
Innovative ideas that can disrupt or impact business models, form factors, user interfaces, and so on are the life blood of high technology companies... innovation sells. It's sad to see now -- that having spoiled every opportunity to innovate -- we now have the Motley Fool calling for the resignation of the Palm CEO. It didn't have to end that way.
Ironically, we have Apple, a player that failed at its first attempt for palm-top innovation (the Newton) and had essentially zero market share a few years ago now taking the pole position in a multi-billion dollar industry. This is a case study on how a new player in a market can break new ground in an existing market and unseat a cast of seemingly unbeatable incumbent industry leaders.
So, can innovation disrupt the incumbent players in desktop management software, server management software or, more broadly speaking, systems management software? I think so. In fact, we're betting our company that KACE can unseat players/products like Altiris, LANDesk, Microsoft SMS, HP/Opsware, BladeLogic and others with some innovation of our own. And, our recent "Most Innovative Product Award" from Windows IT Pro shows that we're drawing some attention along the way.
Let's look at just one example of where innovation really counts in the systems management software market (and there are many areas that we could choose from). Most companies can save time and money by automating manual systems administration tasks. And, yet, many have not taken the plunge. Why not? Because, historically, server management software and desktop management software has been too difficult to install -- much less configure and train to a level of competence. In particular, the initial deployment process for a product like Altiris can take months if not years. KBOX has driven down initial deployment of the management software to a day or two.
When a customer goes to deploy Altiris, they're facing a relatively complex architecture (as illustrated at far left). What's hidden from view in the diagram is that there are extensive hardware and software prerequisites. And, an installation could include 5 or more different Altiris Servers and an even longer list of unique Altiris Agents (source: Altiris 6.0 Getting Started Guide). Check out the extensive software prerequisites for installing a single Altiris Server -- and you'd need several servers (as illustrated at near left).
In fact listen to Altiris' own description of what Altiris Infrastructure is:
“Altiris Infrastructure” is a generic term for all the installed Altiris components which may include a Notification System (comprised of the web-based Altiris Console, one or more Notification Servers, Notification Databases, Package Servers, and Altiris Agents) a Deployment System (comprised of one or more Deployment Servers, a Deployment Database, a PXE Server, and related Altiris Agents) a Recovery System (comprised of one or more Recovery Servers, Recovery Database, and related Altiris Agents) and Altiris solutions.
Sounds complicated because it is complicated. Our customers who have switched from Altiris to KBOX tell us the process to deploy can take months versus days with KBOX.
KACE is working to bring innovation to the archaic world of systems management software. Ease of deployment, ease of use, affordability are all key calling cards. But, to keep with the theme, I'll stay focused on ease of deployment. The architecture for a KBOX deployment is really self contained in one KBOX appliance. It is one server packed and ready to go with everything that you need. No assembly required. All you need is the KBOX pictured at left, a power cord and some simple installation instructions on the back of an included poster. As for training and services, KACE provides those over the phone... so there are no heavy-weight hidden costs. Typically, our customers report that they can deploy in about a day at a third the cost of these incumbent players.
Innovation changes the game.
