Category: Mobile

Kenny Sahr

Game over. Google is now the master of the consumer cloud. The knockout punch was the successful deployment of Google Drive. Barely two years old, Google Drive has revolutionized the consumer and small-business cloud beyond recognition.

The Dropbox Cloud

Dropbox was the first reigning champion of the consumer cloud. Launched in 2008, Dropbox was an incredible leap forward. Just this past November, Dropbox announced that it hit 200 million users. There will always be a need to store data files in the cloud, and Dropbox has a proven track record.

But Dropbox never took the consumer cloud to the next level. They never became a Software as a Service (SaaS); they remained a virtual drop box for most people, no matter what features they’ve recently added.

When I used Dropbox in my last job, I thought it was an advantage being able to use Microsoft Word in a shared environment, until two of us opened the same file at the same time and things got tricky. Even if Dropbox fixed this issue, it allowed tens of millions of people to check out Google Drive and see how things worked on the other side.

The Move To Google Drive

When I moved to Google Drive last summer, it was a bit of shock. I hadn’t used any word processor besides Word since WordPerfect in the 1980s. The Google Docs editor gets right to the point. It doesn’t pretend to be capable of servicing law firms and advertising agencies. To paraphrase the old Miller Lite commercial, Google Docs is everything you always wanted in an editor. And less.

My spreadsheet needs are even more basic than my document-editing needs, and Google Docs does it fine. I just don’t need 99 percent of Microsoft Excel’s features. Microsoft Office costs $69.99 to $99.99 for personal and family editions. With Google, $9.99 a month gets you 1 terabyte, and their SaaS software is free.

Every Road Leads To The Google Cloud

Every Gmail user is a potential Google consumer cloud user. Unless you live in a cave, you probably have a Gmail account. Gmail and every Google service are like items on display at a store window. In ancient times, every road led to Rome; in modern times, every online road leads to the Google cloud. Google offers too many free services to count, and they are all ways to hop onboard.

Eventually, Gmail might just woo you into other Google apps. I myself made the move from Dropbox to Google Drive. Sure, Dropbox uploads might be a little bit faster. But the appeal of having everything in the same ecosystem won out.

The GB Threshold For Cloud Moves

The more gigabytes of data you upload to the Google cloud, the higher your threshold for moving to another consumer cloud. That’s why Google recently raised the free limit from 5GB to 15GB. It’s one thing to re-upload 4GB of data to a competing cloud, and another to re-upload 15GB.

Think of the 20-minute form you fill out on a new social network. When you’re done, you can spend an evening uploading photos and filling out endless text boxes. When I read about “the next big social network,” I think of the time it will take me to migrate my life info to it, and I usually pass.

The Google marketing team knows exactly what they’re doing by giving away free cloud space. Expect them to raise it every so often. Like the Hotel California, you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.

Game, Set, Match: Google

There will always be competitors to the Google consumer cloud, but it will be nearly impossible to beat it. An investor with a few hundred million dollars will have an easier time building a fleet of cruise ships to compete with Carnival and Royal Caribbean. If you thought it was dangerous for Google to control our Internet search habits, today Google owns our online lives. And they will for the foreseeable future.

This article was written on an Acer C720 Chromebook.

Kenny Sahr

Chromebooks are the Rodney Dangerfield of laptops; they get no respect. They are the best selling laptops in the US yet no one dares write about their rise. The consumer cloud revolution is now in 5th gear and major changes are afoot.

Let’s take a quick look back before we look forward.

The CR-48, designed by Google and manufactured by Inventec, was the first Chromebook. It sported an Intel Atom Processor 1.66GHz, 2 GB of RAM and a 16 GB hard drive, courtesy of SanDisk. Only 60,000 CR-48s were ever manufactured and most found their way to card carrying geeks. With its pure black color, the CR-48 looked like a prop from The Matrix.

The Acer C7 and the Samsung Chromebook were among the earliest commercial Chromebooks. The Acer C7 had a 320 GB hard drive and a short battery life of 2-4 hours. A November 2012 review of the Acer C7 prophesized, “either way, I’d have second and third thoughts about buying a Chromebook.” The current best selling Acer C720 has a miniscule 16 GB hard drive and 8.5 hours of battery life. While the C7 took 18 seconds to boot, the C720 boots in 7 seconds.

In 2011, MIT Technology Review offered “6 reasons why Chromebooks are a bad idea.” The writer goes onto say they won’t work with your iPod, they’re too expensive, people aren’t ready to trust the cloud, they’re a goldmine for hackers, Google can’t do hardware and support and finally, Google gets too much control.

The early Chromebook reviews remind me of Rolling Stone Magazine’s Led Zeppelin album reviews from the 1970s. They “waste their considerable talent on unworthy material,” the original reviewer of Led Zeppelin I wrote. It sounds like a Chromebook reviewer lamenting why a billion dollar company would waste their resources designing a $199 laptop. Rolling Stone eventually had to rewrite the reviews in a nod to Led Zeppelin’s over 130 million in certified sales and the same will happen in 3 years to Chromebook reviews. Here’s why and what to expect:

The streets of the consumer cloud revolution are lined with plastic and lithium, not gold. Chromebooks have cheap screens, loud trackpads and some of them look like reincarnated Commodore 64s. Chromebooks aren’t durable goods like your laptop, refrigerator and washing machine; they have more in common with your $29.88 Home Depot Multi-Purpose Tool Set than the $1,499 Alienware 17 laptop.

Future consumer cloud marketing will resemble gimmicky retail marketing. Today’s Chromebooks typically come with 100 GB of Google Drive space and 12 free Gogo in-air internet passes (wifi while flying in the real clouds). The Chromebooks of tomorrow will include dinner for 2 at IHOP, a Target gift card and a one month subscription to Netflix. The consumer cloud marketing gurus will quickly align themselves with their newfound customers.

In the consumer cloud revolution, the new boss will not be the same as the old boss.The trendsetters in the consumer cloud are Walmart shoppers and not 6 digit earning early adopters, who will be dethroned. (They will continue to set enterprise and 5 star digital trends.) 2014 will be the year that Joe Schmo ascends to the cloud and the Chromebook is his vehicle.

7 of the top 20 selling laptops on Amazon are Chromebooks, including the #1 and #3 spots. Where are the headlines? Something huge is happening; consumers are embracing Chromebooks and the cloud like never before.

Google may have been first, but as you read this, a handful of dividend paying high tech companies and a startup or two are designing consumer cloud hardware. Remember the old retail rule of thumb? A lot more companies make the cheaper stuff than the high-end stuff.

The sky is the limit in the consumer cloud revolution. The consumer cloud revolution will be crazier and more earth-shattering than the analysts predict. After we hit the $99 Chromebook on Black Friday 2014, I expect we will see the $50 advertiser supported Chromebook. The student Chromebook of 2015 will be bundled with ads and free offers. The $49.99 Chromebook may not self-destruct when Johnnie moves out of the dorms, but it will be disposable.

I leave you with the most exciting aspect of the consumer cloud revolution. Unlike the enterprise cloud revolution, which is evolving at the speed of caution, the consumer cloud revolution, and with it, the Chromebook, will unfold at the speed of light.

This article was written on an Acer C720 Chromebook.

Asi Mugrabi

I know they’re following me, so I run. I run like hell. I got to the point where I can easily outpace the slower zombies; it’s the fast ones that scare me.

If you come across a terrified face running with headphones, don’t be alarmed. It’s called “Zombies, Run!” – an app that motivates better than the toughest talking nutritionist. My workout was boring and I needed something to push me harder than a gym coach with a six pack on his chest. Zombie, Run transforms my workout into a fantasy story. It’s the perfect mix of two great things – RPG (role playing games) and exercise. It tracks my progress as I level up and keep my distance from gruesome looking zombies. The soundtrack is amazing – when I hear them closing in on me, my adrenaline kicks in and I set a new personal best. The expression on my face is haunting. I wonder what the old lady walking her dog thinks.

Zombie, Run! costs $3.99 on Google Play (Android) and the App Store (iOS).

Not all of my friends are into the zombie thing. At Nubo, a few of us use RunKeeper, another great exercise app. We share a leaderboard and chat about our progress at work. When I try a new route, RunKeeper remembers it so I can do it again. RunKeeper is free on both Google Play and the App Store.

MyFitnessPal has helped me to get rid of extra calories. It comes with a calorie counter so I know how much a tempting chocolate cake is worth. The more I run, the more it “lets” me eat. MyFitnessPal is also free for Android and iOS.

Exercise apps are much more motivating than self-help books and boring lectures. Adding a social aspect and fear factor have done wonders for my health. I love trying out the latest apps and it’s fun to share these experiences with friends. What will they think of next?

Gotta go, a pack of blood dripping zombies are grabbing my Nikes!