A Few Quick Thoughts on the New Amazon Fire

Posted on September 28, 2011 by TechnologEase
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Not a lot of time to fully elaborate on this, but a few quick thoughts on the new Amazon Fire.

(1) This device will be hacked within a week of it’s release to run plain vanilla Android, essentially providing an Android tablet at the already desired sub-$200 price point. (See my post here on how the other non-iPad tablet makers just don’t get it on price point, especially producing sub-par products. Is it really this hard to figure out?) The only obstacle to overcome will be the really thin 512mb memory in the Fire which I can’t help but think Amazon did somewhat on purpose for the very reason I am stating here — it will be hacked within a week to run plain vanilla Android. But it will be a tight squeeze. My thought is… Amazon crammed the memory on this thing on purpose to leverage their behind-the-scenes “power of the cloud” and this is more of a UI device. Which makes it less desirable as a hacked device. Cleaver. But someone even more cleaver is going to come along and hack it anyway and make it usable. Boom… A usable tablet device at $200.

(2) I’m really curious to see what Amazon rolls out in the area of developer support and an SDK. I think without a doubt there are going to be additional UI considerations so plain Jane Android apps won’t be able to work on this device. Consider this a major Android fork — more like a right hand turn — in the development path of “Android” in a sea of device fragmentation that is already driving developers crazy. A lot of your underlying Android logic may still work, but almost everything in Android development stems from what are called “Activities” which essentially drive the UI and all that will change for Fire development. I can’t imagine that Amazon is going to consider itself the sole producer of Fire apps, and if the device takes off, which I Predict it will for a lot of reasons, including #1 above, there will be a clamoring for the ability to design and build apps for the device. Present Android developers will have a head start, but I’m looking for an Amazon SDK for this that will be significantly different from the existing Android SDK.

(Meanwhile, check out the Corona SDK, which claims to be fully compatible.)

(3) I totally agree with this article from ZDNet: Amazon Kindle Fire – Winners and Losers. There will be no more middle ground. I see people predicting the death of iPad. I agree with the ZDNet article. That will not be. There will be (as there already has been, as I and other consumers have been saying), only a iPad market and a non-iPad market. Amazon, just carved their own niche and in that move, carved everyone else out of the picture.

That’s all for now — it’ll be interesting to see how this plays out. :-)

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Attention Tablet Makers… Really?

Posted on August 28, 2011 by TechnologEase
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So, I’m WAY behind on updates here at TechnologEase and there’s a lot to discuss and get caught up on. But all in good time. (Side note: One thing I’m finding, especially in light of the recent news about Steve Jobs is… either you are reading the news, or you are making it; there isn’t time to do both. You think Steve Jobs had time for a blog and updating a blog and reading industry news all the time? Think again. He was the news and still is. Food for thought.)

But, breaking the are-news-or-reading-news axiom for a moment… I just have to write about the following… Wanna be tablet makers take notice; I’m just blown away that no one in the I’m-not-an-iPad tablet business seems to be getting this:

So the wife and I head out to pick up a couple of New York strips and fixins. The “children” (my four mostly grown) are all out of the house visiting the Minnesota State Fair and since I can cook as well as most chefs in 3-4 star restaurants, why drop $100 for an evening out when I can recreate for $10 a plate? So we’re in this unnamed retail outlet to pick up the fixins and I run across the new Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet.

I pick it up. Feels great. Feels like an iPad 2, maybe even slightly thinner. I turn it on. Looks impressive. I start trying to run some applications. Not impressive. My wife was standing beside me and she’s got absolutely NO technical sense of direction — north is south is east is west. Immediately we both look at each other. It’s noticeably sluggish. The next question out of our mouths, as just simple consumers is… “Why would I buy this over the iPad 2??!!”
Continue reading →

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CBA: The Future of Medicine is Doc-In-A-Phone

Posted on July 16, 2011 by TechnologEase
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More Crystal Ball Analysis from TechnologEase: A recent McKinsey report states that: The future of medicine is Doc-In-A-Phone. Hmmm, “could be.”

Just highlighting for you more ways in which wireless and cloud can and probably are going to impact our lives. TechnologEase can get mobile application development done for you. Either we can do it (Android only) or we can “PM” it for you (eg. find a reliable developer, gather your requirements, hand them off to the developer, manage the developer, do reviews, etc.) This is the direction. Some estimates are already out which predict that right now mobile access to technology stores (internet, pictures, etc.) already outstrips desktop access. If you want greater market exposure, consider a mobile application for your business.

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The Value of Infrastructure

Posted on July 15, 2011 by TechnologEase
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Here at TechnologEase, we can’t over-emphasize the value of a solid company infrastructure. Google can’t either it seems. One of the most successful companies in the world is successful partially because it invests so heavily in infrastructure. That’s something they feel they can’t ever over-emphasize (almost $1 billion in Q2 alone — that’s Gi-normous!!), as we can’t either.

This is one of our specialties is infrastructure. One of the puzzles to solve in the infrastructure space is which direction to go — what kind of servers, what operating systems, what middleware tier, how should it be architected out, where does it sit, how many/what kind of environments to construct, etc. Let us help you figure it all out through  Small Business Internet Consulting or, coming soon, through our TechnologEase Labs where we will actually do your R&D or Hardware POCing for you. Soup to nuts, from conception to handling our vendors for you to final build out, plan for Operational Readiness and handover to real operational support.

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Four Ways To Put Yourself In The Cloud

Posted on July 15, 2011 by TechnologEase
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From Time Magazine, delivered via Pulse — how to put yourself in the cloud. Run of the mill stuff for a lot of folks, but since we have a huge cloud focus here at TechnologEase, we can’t assume what we know, everyone else out there does. That’s kinda the point, isn’t it? This is what we do — it may not be what everyone else in small or medium business is doing (yet). In fact, by day our Principle Consultant works for a company that is entirely in the cloud and he says it’s still rare these days for a company to be entirely cloud-based. And how refreshing it’s been as it’s extremely powerful and enabling technology.

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How 9 Food Trucks Use Mobile Tech

Posted on July 15, 2011 by TechnologEase
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This is what were talkin’ ’bout peeps. This is what we do. String it and sing it: http://on.mash.to/rfK2Fy

Groovy stuff. :-) We can show you how or just do it for you.

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Unofficial Review: New TechCrunch Logo

Posted on July 13, 2011 by TechnologEase
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Hey TechCrunch… Here’s our unofficial review of your new logo: Yuck-ola.

(We thinks they are actually serious!? There’s opportunity out there for some aspiring graphic artist, we thinks. Let us give you their number… Seriously!?)

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TechnologEase Labs Coming!

Posted on July 11, 2011 by TechnologEase
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We’re getting ready to launch TechnologEase Labs where you can pick up and outsource your own Business Invention, hire out your own point-in-time Research & Development team, or have us do your Hardware Lab/POCing for you. This is where our free Technical HOWTOs will live as well. You’re gonna love the options. :-) Stay tuned!

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MBA: The Server Architecture Debate Rages On

Posted on July 11, 2011 by TechnologEase
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More Bingo Analysis: This is exactly the kind of debate TechnologEase is talking about: http://tiny.cc/34tc0 (RT GigaCOM)

With so many options, how do you choose? What’s right in one situation, isn’t always right in another. It takes some professional architecting, some serious POC’ing, and often times some performance engineering and professional benchmarking to figure out exactly what is best in any given situation. The Oracle Exadata versus Open Source solution? Brilliant. The pieces are out there. You just gotta know how to put it together.

This story is another example of what we call “the commodity internet.” Even if those “commodities” have million dollar price tags associated with them. It’s still, commodity, off-the-shelf, “parts is parts.” With the cloud in the picture, who said 2000 was the “hay day” of internet computing, huh?! Hey baby, it’s NOW.

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TechnologEase Goes Paperless!

Posted on July 11, 2011 by TechnologEase
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In addition to moving part of our infrastructure into the cloud this week, TechnologEase has also gone near 100% paperless. Going paperless isn’t as easy as it sounds and in addition to having the right technology to do it, there are all kinds of other things to think about in going paperless. Having a good, sound backup and disaster recovery strategy lays the foundation for being able to go paperless, for instance. If you haven’t done that, including having an off-site backup and recovery strategy, then you aren’t ready for it. But the benefits are well worth it.

Hang tight and we’ll have the Technical HOWTO on this posted to our web site soon! Meanwhile, if you are interested, start thinking about some of the underlying things you’ll need to address in your business before you even consider going paperless. Give us a buzz at sales@TechnologEase.com and our Small Business Internet Consulting services can help get you going in the right direction in an affordable way.

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