Tablet devices like the Apple iPad, Samsung Galaxy Tab  and Motorola XOOM are changing our world in ways that people are now just beginning to realize. The rise of the tablet and the apps that run on them is causing a shift to occur that will affect the things people buy and how they access content.  Products that had unique hardware for enabling common tasks or conveying information are about to be replaced.Applications (called Apps), running on a tablet computer, are going to become the defacto way to access content  (news, tv, movies) and to control devices (TVs, PCs, game consoles and more). The Cable service that used to give you a remote control, will now give way to an app that runs on a tablet. Xfinity, Time Warner Cable and others are leading the charge here with their respective cable tv apps. With these apps,  and others from Slingbox, and Netflix, the remote is built-in. The Tablet just became your new all-in-one and it will go much further than just controlling your TV.Regarding content (news, tv, games and movies), the publishing industry is still figuring out the eBook/eMagazine business model and distribution strategy (see prior Ebooks post). Clearly, tablets will play a huge role in how we consume news. News Corp is jumping at the opportunity with The Daily, a paid application that gives you daily news for $39.99 for a two year subscription.It doesn't stop there. Last week, I used my iPhone to advance a PowerPoint presentation on my PC, more as a way to demonstrate how change is occurring than anything else. Car companies like Hyundai Motors are now offering the owners manual for their Hyundai Equus car in a digital format - they provide an iPad as the actual owners manual.Look for much more than just owners manuals, magazines, movies and remote controls going forward.  Tablet apps are going to explode and the demise of consumer electronics dedicated hardware has begun. Look for more and more games to be tailored for tablets. How much money will game controller firms throw at hardware in the future?So in a way, the tablet and their affiliated Apps becomes the new All-in-One. Going forward, it will be less about the tablet itself, and more about the Apps that run on the tablet that becomes the consumer selection criteria. The race for tablet App development has already started, but it is about to explode.

Microsoft needs a shot of Mojo and Skype could be part of the answer. In an Internet era where Facebook, Android, iOS, iPhone, iPad and Skype are uttered hundreds of thousands of times a day on Twitter and the blogosphere, getting a brand called Skype certainly should help Microsoft's brand recognition in the consumer space.Of course, that assumes this deal goes down as reported in the online edition of the Wall Street Journal.  Assuming it does, Microsoft gets a hot consumer brand that it should be able to leverage its Bing Search engine against (advertising revenue).For enterprises, the question could quickly become: Should I (pay for) Lync or should I Skype. Clearly the spin will say you can do both, but for many Skype is an attractive easy to use alternative to a Microsoft Lync, whether it be Lync on-premise or Lync Online.Of course, the problem with acquisitions these days at Microsoft is that resistance is futile. The big divisions at Microsoft don't take kindly to threats to their dominance, so the question is, what happens to Skype after the deal goes down? Does Skype remain somewhat independent or will they be absorbed.Either way, this deal will give some pricing leverage to enterprises on the Unified Communications and Collaboration (UCC) front. Skype is good enough on many fronts so that Lync doesn't have to be licensed for all users in the enterprise and that could mean a big savings for both the CIO and Business Unit GMs. Just as in Content Management, it is time for enterprises to start segmenting users and their UCC needs vs a one size fits all approach.So overall, this deal will be viewed as more of a  Microsoft tries to get their (Internet) Mojo back than anything else. Microsoft needed to do something in UCC and this deal is far cheaper what they were looking at paying for purchasing Yahoo as recently as 2008. Whether Microsoft really leverages this Sykpe acquisition with the rest of its products remains to be seen.

It was a busy week in Tech and May is usually that way, spanning back all the way to May of 1990,  when Microsoft introduced Windows 3.0 to the world. Things changed.This week Microsoft was at it again and they announced that they were buying Skype, which at 8.5 Billion is a steep price to pay to get your Mojo back. See my take on the deal here.Of course Google was at it too and the shot that hasn't yet been heard around the world is their new Chromebook. A nifty way to shift people from buying to renting a PC (prices are roughly US $20-28 per device/month) and more importantly some clever security and a new way of isolating of apps from the OS to stop intrusion attacks. Google still needs to show that it is committed to this approach with its partners, but this week it certainly showed it is dedicated to Chrome. The progress Google showed with Chrome in just twelve months is impressive and it also shows that Google's development teams are maturing.The last item probably would have never showed up at all had it not been for a smart reporter that wasn't about to be duped and it has to do with the whisper campaign Facebook tried to launch against Google. While this has been widely reported and widely tweeted about, what is interesting is that this represents an epic shift of the clash of the titans.I used to discuss Microsoft vs IBM as the big titan clashes. Now that the battle is in the cloud, it is Google facing off against Facebook. This time it is really all about Ad revenue. Google has it and now Facebook does too. I'll certainly be talking about Facebook in the future, but suffice to say, Facebook is pretty vulnerable to the same type of PR attack it launched on Google. Even more worrisome, Facebook is also an effective tool to use as part of a cyber-attack on an enterprise (see As Facebook Grows, so does Cyber Warfare).So a busy week in tech and it doesn't show any sign of slowing down.

Today, I wrapped up a great 19 months at Saba Software. I worked with some incredible people and we launched some award winning products that lots of customers are taking advantage of. I'm proud of what I did at Saba....now it is time for my next move.Since I left Gartner, many of you have told me that there is a lack of choice in technology research today. Next week, my co-founder, Mike Anderson, and I are going to be unveiling the next generation of Technology Research firms, Aragon Research Inc.Aragon Research is going to offer you that choice by providing high quality technology research and trusted advisory services.  Our initial focus is going to be on everything involved with work - people, collaboration, mobile, social, content, portal and knowledge. We have a powerful agenda and can't wait to share our story with you.In fact, tune in on Monday, 8/15,  and visit our new website, AragonResearch.com.  In the meantime, check out our fan page on Facebook and  and give us a Like!Stay tuned for more and feel free to reach out to me at JLundy@Aragonresearch.comJim LundyFounder and CEOAragon Research Inc.

The battles we are now witnessing among tech giants for patents are not new. What is new is the realization that mobile is the new battle ground and the stakes are high.  In patent wars, it is a chess game and one of the objectives can be to stop the other vendor from succeeding. Often this can be mitigated by a cross-licensing arrangement that users rarely hear about.In mobile, Microsoft  has been racing to catch-up and it is working hard to make sure it has plenty of armor (patents). Apple has been surging and it has been filing patents in droves for years. They learned the hard way (from all the Microsoft battles in the early years) that patents help sustain and protect the business. Apple has also been working very hard on doing the right patent acquisitions (note that Apple won the bid for the Nortel patents because it partnered with EMC, Ericsson, Microsoft, RIM, and Sony).Much of the talk has been around Google, its failed bid for the Nortel patents and this week, its hefty purchase of Motorola Mobility. Given that it failed on the Nortel bid, it didn't have much choice to buy Motorola and gain access to its 17,000 issued patents. What was ominous for Google was that Microsoft was one of the other bidders. That said, while Google is getting abused in the press about the Motorola price tag, it is getting 17,000 patents (Microsoft has over 18,000).IBM has one of the biggest patent portfolios in High Tech, it is very good at creating patents and it has made a business out of licensing them. IBM plays the game very well and it is professional about it. It can get a little nasty with some of the others. Google could certainly learn from IBM and it looks like it has, since they just cut a deal with IBM to license 1,000 of its patents.An example of patent licensing that many don't know about occurred in the copier market. Years ago, Canon had invented a new way of applying toner to paper and later a modular system for packaging toner cartridges. It brought Xerox to the table and a cross licensing deal was cut way back in 1978. However, while Xerox got access to the Canon patent portfolio, Canon gained access to Xerox's high speed paper handling patents and 20 years later, Canon eventually crept up into the departmental copier space where Xerox made a large majority of its profits.  There are always trade-offs to patent licensing deals.In mobile, the battle it isn't just about patents on the core technologies, it is about the entire mobile ecosystem. More about that in some of our upcoming research. If you haven't checked out the newest research firm, Aragon Research, please stop by our site.

We're heading into week three of the launch of Aragon Research and it wouldn't be right if we didn't leverage all possible channels to get the word out. I have spoken with a great number of people in the short time we've been in existence. The reaction and receptivity to Aragon Research has been great.Attention spans are short, especially this week, with both VMWorld and Dreamforce going on. So in that spirit, the intro video, Introducing Aragon Research is short and to the point.I'll be up at Dreamforce this week and hope to catch up with many of you.  We'll also be announcing some upcoming webinars, so stay tuned!

There must be a raging debate at HP over its Touchpad, a product that was cancelled on August 18th (see Aragon Research First Cut Note).Now various news outlets are quoting HP's Todd Bradley that it might have been premature to cancel the product. So, while HP is discovering that consumers do react positively to low prices, the world will wait to see what HP does next. The bigger question is around the future of its PC Unit.Stay tuned.

Greetings. I'm pleased to announce that Aragon Research is hosting its very first Webinar  on Wednesday, September 28th from 1-2 EDT (10-11 pacific).  We're going to be discussing a hot topic: Tablet Computing and Mobile Ecosystems. Our take is that there is more to mobile than just the devices. We're talking about a concept called Mobile Ecosystems, what they are and why they matter to you and your enterprise.Here is the Webinar Agenda for this event that you don't want to miss:Key Trends in Mobile Mobile Ecosystems - what you need to know Emerging Use Cases for Tablet Computing The timing couldn't be better either. With iOS 5 nearly complete (and the accompanying roll out of the iPhone 5) and with Microsoft gearing up for its Windows 8 support for Tablets, there are big things at stake.We also have a special offer for those that join our webinar.  Each attendee will receive one of our hard hitting Research Notes. These research notes provide you with the kind of information and detailed analysis that helps you stay informed and make better technology and business decisions. Of course Aragon Research clients get access to our complete set of research. Go to AragonResearch.com for our topics and research agenda.Sign-up for our inaugural webinar here and we look forward to your participation in a great event.

Tuesday, September 13th is the big unveiling of Windows 8 and with ARM support, it is widely expected that Microsoft will support a variety of hardware platforms, including Slates - their term for Tablets.A new user interface is fine and good, but there are other things at work in the Mobile Ecosystem world in 2011. Within a few weeks after the announcement by Microsoft, Apple is due to ship both the iPhone 5 and iOS 5, which in itself will feature a host of new capabilities, including over-the-air updates and iCloud support. Additionally, Google will be shipping a brand new version of its Android OS this fall - code name is Ice Cream.Windows 8 is taking shape in a world in which mobile product life refresh rates occur at least every 12 months, and consumers and enterprises have gotten used to this new, faster cadence (note, Windows 7 shipped in October, 2009).In the second half of 2012, the world that Windows 8 will launch into will include a different set of products than we are about to have this fall. In less than 12 months, we expect to see launches of the iPhone 6, iOS 6, a new version of Android OS (rumored to be called Jelly Bean), new Android Phones, Android Tablets and a strong possibility of the release of the Apple iPad 4.Will Microsoft surprise us with a quicker release date? History would indicate that answer as most likely no. How should enterprises deal with all of this? Tune into the Aragon Research Webinar on September 28th and we'll cover all this in detail.We'll also be publishing our formal First Cut on the Microsoft Windows 8 announcement on AragonResearch.com

If 2011 was the year of the Like button for Facebook, 2012 could be called the return of the app. Today at their annual Developer Conference (D8) in San Francisco, Facebook unveiled new capabilities that increasingly are focused on allowing Facebook to monetize the nearly 800 million users that visit their site each month.Facebook unveiled a new profile feature called Timeline that allows the history of your posts and activities to be displayed in chronological order (by year). More importantly, they added verbs (watch, read, listen, hike) to actions so that users can be listening to music, and that action (and the song you are listening to) is automatically shared with others via the music application (e.g. Spotify).While digital natives will clearly enjoy this new way to show off their lives via Timeline, it also, at the same time, offers up a level of privacy infiltration that some may find undesirable. Friends and future employers can now get to know you in ways that they didn't before. Of course, users now have control over what they allow to be seen on their timeline, but over time, we expect that users, especially younger ones, will become less sensitive to what is there.On the applications (apps) that so badly want to access your Timeline (and sell something), once an app has access to your profile, it doesn't have to ask permission ever again. It is clear that what is at work by Facebook is the continued expansion of its ability to grow revenues, which are estimated to be around $4.2 Billion for this year.A friend that I worked with at Saba once said to me that her goal was to have zero information about her available on the internet. She is not a Facebook user. For those that are, with the coming launch of  Facebook Timeline, your life, at least what is visible, is basically for sale.Author's Note: We'll be covering Facebook (and the implications for Enterprises) in more detail in our premium research that is at AragonResearch.com