Roku plans Chromecast-like features, disses Chromecast

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Ballmer departure could disrupt Microsoft's fragile transition plans

Microsoft would have you believe that it’s created a framework that bridges our work lives and social lives, linking together the PC, phone, tablet and console with a comprehensive suite of software and services. In fact, the company has created this framework—but the bolts and girders connecting everything together are more fragile than you might think, and the departure of Steve Ballmer will stress Microsoft’s ecosystem at precisely the wrong time.

Last Friday, Ballmer said he would step down in a year’s time, prompting examination of his leadership mistakes, predictions of who might replace him, and, well, silly GIFs. There are also reports that his exit from Microsoft might not have been entirely voluntary.

“My original thoughts on timing would have had my retirement happen in the middle of our transformation to a devices and services company...”

But all this discussion is just background noise that’s drowning out a bigger issue: A company with Microsoft’s problems doesn’t easily embrace new leadership midstream. Ballmer himself awkwardly addressed the problem, saying in one breath that “now was the right time,” then in the next breath suggesting that it wasn’t:

”There is never a perfect time for this type of transition, but now is the right time,” he told Microsoft employees in a memo. “My original thoughts on timing would have had my retirement happen in the middle of our transformation to a devices and services company focused on empowering customers in the activities they value most. We need a CEO who will be here longer term for this new direction.”

Ballmer’s right about the last point. And both Microsoft leadership transition and mission transformation need to be very carefully managed.

image: MicrosoftFrank X. Shaw, Microsoft communications director

In a blog post, Microsoft communications director Frank X. Shaw took aim at critics who either myopically focused on Microsoft’s consumer business, or else identified some product area that Microsoft had ignored to its detriment. After dipping his toe into hippy-dippy spiritualism (Microsoft is “unlocking human potential in all its forms”? Really?), Shaw began laying out the fundamental tenets of Microsoft’s new vision: bridging work and play; creating as well as watching, playing, and sharing content; and targeting the intersection of hardware, software, and the cloud.

Of course, Microsoft’s path toward facillitating work and play began many years ago: Customers could spend their day working on Office, then come home and play Microsoft Flight Simulator or the Xbox. Microsoft learned that by controlling an entire platform—both hardware or software—it could own your entire user experience.

But we can also make the argument that Ballmer and Microsoft applied these lessons much later than they should have. For example, Microsoft launched the Zune as Apple was already transitioning from the iPod to the iPhone. And only recently has Microsoft launched a music and movie store for the Xbox. And, of course, Microsoft’s Windows and Windows Phone app environment is still woefully poor, as is its Windows 8 store.

Moving forward, the balancing act that Microsoft must walk is perhaps best summed up by this quote from a fund manager quoted by Bloomberg: “Someone starting near the first of the year would be able to make some decisions in time for the next holiday season,” Pat Becker Jr. said. “Then again maybe that’s too much to expect—expecting someone to turn around a company like this that quickly.”

Hey, at least Microsoft had the right idea (if not execution) with the Zune.

Now that Windows 8, the Xbox One, and new versions of Office and Windows Server have either been released or announced, Microsoft’s board of directors obviously feels that the company is steady enough to maintain its balance while a new head is put in place. But I disagree: While Microsoft’s enterprise businesses are on stable footing, Windows 8.1 and its follow-ups still need a steady hand guiding them forward (if not fixing their biggest mistakes).

And that’s just the tip of Microsoft’s problematic iceberg. Windows Phone apps are struggling. Windows 8 apps are struggling. The Xbox One isn’t even out yet, but it almost lost the battle of public opinion to Sony’s console. And if Microsoft is committed to all of these platforms, the teams working on them need to know they’re headed down the right path.

Meanwhile, Ballmer just flattened the entire company’s organization, orienting it around technologies, not products. Executives of key, strategic importance have been only been in their new roles on the order of weeks.

Ugh. What a mess. It’s hard not to look at how hard Ballmer shoved Microsoft in the direction of a cohesive, unfied experience, and then wonder, “OK, what now?” Either Microsoft continues down its path—and if it does, why isn’t Ballmer still running the ship?—or it heads off on a tangent, essentially writing off years of product development.

Chance are, someone on this org chart will be upset when he or she isn't named as Ballmer's successor.

It’s been a rough few months for Wintel: AMD, Intel, and now Microsoft have recently weathered CEO transitions. On the outside, at least, Intel has appeared to have negotiated those seas the smoothest. However, CTO Justin Rattner said he would retire, and processor chief Dadi Perlmutter moved into a specialist role. “They’re both gone,” one Intel exec commented this week. (Though it must be noted that an Intel spokesman says both are still employed by the company.)

Inevitably, someone at Microsoft who thinks he or she deserves the top job is going to be passed over. So who leaves then?

Microsoft may indeed have a bright future ahead of it, as Shaw opines. But looking back, it certainly seems like Microsoft could have paved the way for an orderly CEO transition during the Windows 7 years. Yeah, hindsight’s 20/20 and all that. Let’s just hope Microsoft’s board sees just as clearly, looking ahead.

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Nissan plans to offer affordable self-driving cars by 2020

Nissan announced today that it expects to begin selling multiple models of self-driving cars by 2020.

Self-driving cars, also known as autonomous drive vehicles, use cameras and sensors to detect roadway lanes and objects around them in order to guide themselves without human intervention.

Among others, GM plans to introduce a semi-automated Cadillac driving system in 2015. Google was among the first tech companies to announce plans to produce a self-driving car for “ordinary people” in less than five years.

Nissan said it’s already building an autonomous-drive proving ground in Japan. Its goal is availability across the model range within two vehicle generations.

Nissan is currently working with top universities, including MIT, Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, Oxford and The University of Tokyo, to develop its self-drive technology.

“Nissan’s autonomous driving will be achieved at realistic prices for consumers. The goal is availability across the model range within two vehicle generations,” Nissan said in a statement.

According to one new report by Navigant Research, by 2035, more than 95 million self-driving cars will be sold worldwide every year. By that year, autonomous cars will represent 75% of all light-duty vehicle sales, according to Navigant.

“In 2007 I pledged that - by 2010 - Nissan would mass market a zero-emission vehicle. Today, the Nissan LEAF is the best-selling electric vehicle in history,” said CEO Carlos Ghosn. “Now, I am committing to be ready to introduce a new ground-breaking technology, Autonomous Drive, by 2020, and we are on track to realize it.”

Nissan plans to demonstrate autonomous driving technologies later this year using an all-electric LEAF.

Nissan said it plans to demonstrate its autonomous drive technology for the first time at Nissan 360, an invitation-only test drive event being held later this year at the former El Toro Marine Corps Air Station as well as on the streets of Orange County, Calif.

Among the technologies the company plans to demo are laser scanners, “Around View Monitor” cameras, and advanced artificial intelligence and actuators. The technologies have been installed in Nissan LEAFs to enable them to negotiate what Nissan called “real-world driving scenarios.”

Nissan’s autonomous driving technology is an extension of its Safety Shield, which monitors a 360-degree view around a vehicle for risks, offers warnings to the driver and takes action, if necessary.

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NASA plans to test laser communications link with upcoming lunar mission

An upcoming NASA mission will test a new laser communications system that could one day deliver high-definition 3D video signals from Mars and beyond.

The lunar laser communications demonstration will be part of the agency's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) mission, which is scheduled to launch on Sept. 6. The LADEE spacecraft will orbit the moon and collect information on the lunar atmosphere—technically an exosphere—for around 100 days. A laser communications module is built into the satellite.

"NASA has a need for faster download speeds for data from space and that grows everyday, just like it does for the rest of us at home and also from work," said Don Cornwell, mission manager for the lunar laser communications demonstration. He was speaking at a televised NASA news conference on Thursday.

"We'd like to be able to send high-resolution images and movies and 3D even from satellites that not only orbit the Earth but also from probes that will go to the moon and beyond. Communicating with radio waves has served us well for the last 50 years but we now have the technology to use light waves to communicate more data," he said.

NASA Ames / Dana Berry

Here's how the system will work: When the satellite is in orbit around the moon and visible from Earth, one of three ground stations will shoot a laser towards its approximate location. The laser beam from Earth will scan a patch of sky and should illuminate the spacecraft at some point. When that happens, the spacecraft will begin transmitting its own laser towards the ground station and the two will lock on to each other. Once that happens, communications can begin.

The ground stations are at White Sands in New Mexico, at a NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory site in Wrightwood, California, and a European Space Agency site in Tenerife, Spain.

The technology should allow an upstream data rate, from the Earth to the spacecraft, of around 20Mbps and a much faster downstream rate of 622Mbps. Home Internet speeds typically run from several megabits per second to several tens of megabits per second.

That's roughly six times the speed that's currently possible with radio-based transmission, said Cornwell. As a bonus, the laser communications equipment also weighs half that of a radio transmitter and costs about a quarter less, he said.

(See a video version of this story on YouTube.)

Cornwell said he hopes the test is the first step in demonstrating the usefulness of laser communications and building confidence in its use in future missions, including those that go deeper into space. He said laser communications systems get more attractive compared to radio the further the spacecraft travels from Earth because the communications beam can be better focused.

"As you go further out into the solar system, it's a much more efficient way to get high bandwidth at low power," said John Grunsfeld, NASA's associate administrator for science and a former astronaut.

"We've already been having discussions about how you could do laser communications on a rover on the surface of Mars," he said, referencing a NASA mission to Mars planned for 2020.

"This is just the beginning of what will be replacing some of the radio frequency communication in the future," said Grunsfeld. "I think there is no question that as we send humans further out into the solar system, certainly to Mars, that if we want to have high-def 3D video, we're going to have laser communications sending that information back."

Martyn Williams covers mobile telecoms, Silicon Valley and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service.
More by Martyn Williams, IDG News Service

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NASA plans to test laser communications link with upcoming lunar mission

An upcoming NASA mission will test a new laser communications system that could one day deliver high-definition 3D video signals from Mars and beyond.

The lunar laser communications demonstration will be part of the agency's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) mission, which is scheduled to launch on Sept. 6. The LADEE spacecraft will orbit the moon and collect information on the lunar atmosphere—technically an exosphere—for around 100 days. A laser communications module is built into the satellite.

"NASA has a need for faster download speeds for data from space and that grows everyday, just like it does for the rest of us at home and also from work," said Don Cornwell, mission manager for the lunar laser communications demonstration. He was speaking at a televised NASA news conference on Thursday.

"We'd like to be able to send high-resolution images and movies and 3D even from satellites that not only orbit the Earth but also from probes that will go to the moon and beyond. Communicating with radio waves has served us well for the last 50 years but we now have the technology to use light waves to communicate more data," he said.

NASA Ames / Dana Berry

Here's how the system will work: When the satellite is in orbit around the moon and visible from Earth, one of three ground stations will shoot a laser towards its approximate location. The laser beam from Earth will scan a patch of sky and should illuminate the spacecraft at some point. When that happens, the spacecraft will begin transmitting its own laser towards the ground station and the two will lock on to each other. Once that happens, communications can begin.

The ground stations are at White Sands in New Mexico, at a NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory site in Wrightwood, California, and a European Space Agency site in Tenerife, Spain.

The technology should allow an upstream data rate, from the Earth to the spacecraft, of around 20Mbps and a much faster downstream rate of 622Mbps. Home Internet speeds typically run from several megabits per second to several tens of megabits per second.

That's roughly six times the speed that's currently possible with radio-based transmission, said Cornwell. As a bonus, the laser communications equipment also weighs half that of a radio transmitter and costs about a quarter less, he said.

(See a video version of this story on YouTube.)

Cornwell said he hopes the test is the first step in demonstrating the usefulness of laser communications and building confidence in its use in future missions, including those that go deeper into space. He said laser communications systems get more attractive compared to radio the further the spacecraft travels from Earth because the communications beam can be better focused.

"As you go further out into the solar system, it's a much more efficient way to get high bandwidth at low power," said John Grunsfeld, NASA's associate administrator for science and a former astronaut.

"We've already been having discussions about how you could do laser communications on a rover on the surface of Mars," he said, referencing a NASA mission to Mars planned for 2020.

"This is just the beginning of what will be replacing some of the radio frequency communication in the future," said Grunsfeld. "I think there is no question that as we send humans further out into the solar system, certainly to Mars, that if we want to have high-def 3D video, we're going to have laser communications sending that information back."

Martyn Williams covers mobile telecoms, Silicon Valley and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service.
More by Martyn Williams, IDG News Service

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Box rolls out new cloud storage plans catering to small and medium businesses

Box has big news today for small companies and individuals. It is launching new, more affordable pricing plans to attract small and medium businesses to its cloud data storage and file sharing service, and it is doubling the amount of storage it provides for free personal accounts.

Cloud data storage today is like instant-messaging services used to be. Everyone has a favorite, but they also have an account set up with virtually every service available to allow them to share files with co-workers, customers, or friends and family who prefer a different service. Because the services offer free storage plans, many people have a Box, Dropbox, SugarSync, Google Drive, Microsoft SkyDrive, and other accounts.

Box has doubled space for the free Personal account, and added a new Starter tier for SMBs.

For those people, Box is increasing the amount of storage available with the free Personal plan from 5GB to 10GB. Box also frequently runs promotions that add storage for customers, such as the campaign earlier this year that rewarded Dell customers with 50GB of free storage for life. It might still be beneficial to maintain accounts on other services in certain scenarios, but for general personal use it would be much better to have data consolidated in one place than trying to juggle four or five different services.

The increased storage is great for individuals, but a business can’t—or at least shouldn’t—have employees running around sharing business data across their own personal cloud storage services. From a number of perspectives—protecting intellectual property, securing data from unauthorized exposure, and regulatory compliance to name a few—it’s just a bad idea. The company has no ability to limit or control access to the data once it leaves the internal network, and there is no way for the company to know which data is being stored where, or who it’s being shared with.

This makes the new Box plans particularly attractive for SMBs. The Starter plan offers customers 100GB of pooled storage for teams up to 10 users for $5 per user per month. As a business grows and its needs exceed what the Starter plan has to offer, they can step up to the Business plan which provides 1TB of pooled storage for more users and enterprise application integration (such as Active Directory or Salesforce.com), along with more robust administrative tools for $15 per user per month.

In a blog post about the changes, Box CEO Aaron Levie, says “Whether you’re a boutique financial services firm, a construction company, a small medical practice, or a startup working with manufacturers in China, Box can make your business more competitive. We want to help big businesses be as nimble as small ones, and small businesses be as scalable and global as giants.”

Box isn’t cheap, but the old adage “you get what you pay for” applies. Box offers better administrative controls and business tools and works with a variety of developers and services to provide a complete ecosystem that integrates seamlessly with the data stored in Box.

The new Starter plan lets small and medium businesses step up from using rogue personal storage services and manage and protect cloud data the way a business should. Box now gives SMBs a way to affordably dip a toe in the water, and a path to evolve and scale up as needs change.

Tony is principal analyst with the Bradley Strategy Group, providing analysis and insight on tech trends. He is a prolific writer on a range of technology topics, has authored a number of books, and is a frequent speaker at industry events.
More by Tony Bradley

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