you want to start something?

Hot on the tail of Orange announcing they have secured the iPhone onto their network, Vodafone have also announced they’ll be joining the Apple tsunami.

Vittorio Colao, Vodafone’s chief executive, has said that not having the iPhone was a key reason why the operator lost 159,000 customers in its latest quarter.

O2 dropped the ball by keeping the iPhone pricing high and seems to have hinged it’s hopes on the Palm Pre which it unleashes on the network on October 16th. The Pre has awareness in probably 1% of the UK and their App Catalog policy seems to be as bad, if not worse, than Apple’s.

It’s going to be a tough battle for the Pre in the UK, of course, with Apple holding 3 of the top 5 brands (according to CoolBrands) and iPhone being currently the #1 brand in the UK. Certainly the iPhone has penetrated suburbia – at a house party at the weekend, nearly half the attendees had iPhones and the rest were a mix of Nokia and Blackberry devices (and a smattering of lesser manufacturer fashionphones). And this was not a geek party – it was a party of bankers, firemen, teachers, HR personnel and homemakers (and I was the only geek there).

The investment that people put into their apps is an anchor to a platform. This worked well for Windows back in the day as people couldn’t do without certain apps and it was hard to convince them to re-buy their apps on the Mac (or just do without on Linux or BSD). The same goes for the iPhone. Some people have hundreds (or even thousands) of pounds worth of apps on their iPod touch and iPhone devices – it’s going to be hard to convince them to move to another platform and their loyalty to iPhone will now start to convince hold-outs who resisted the iPhone due to the networks it was available on. After that – once they’ve bought one Apple device, it won’t be long until they buy another. That’s the halo effect in operation.

Tags: Commentary, iPhone by mj
No Comments »

Richard Tyler of The Telegraph writes how “Public venture funds make very little difference”. This is based upon a report by the British Venture Capital Association and NESTA and it states the following points:

Britain has no untapped reservoir of high-growth companies starved of venture capital

This is a contentious point at best. Does this mean that either there is overfunding or, as is my opinion, there is no supply chain of deal flow to provide venture funds with suitable startups?

…when companies receive investment from one of various publicly backed venture funds, the change in their performance is only “modest” compared with the step change seen when a private fund invests.

This speaks volumes about the sort of folk who are hired to manage public venture funds. Either they’re not very good investment managers or they don’t treat public-backed venture funds with the same attention or respect as private money. So – examine what the problem is there.

The report says: “Companies that are recipients of funding under one or more of the government hybrid funding schemes examined do not yet exhibit significantly better performance. This suggests that the UK does not posses an untapped resource of high potential firms whose (greater) performance will be unleashed by simply making available more equity finance within the ‘equity gap’.

Or alternatively, the way that government funds are managed is not suitable for young startups. The equity gap exists for the average startup at several positions in their life – initial seed, business growth, market share expansion. It is my opinion that the earliest stage equity gap means that many companies are unable to take advantage of venture funding due to poor engagement from the VC market and, frankly, red tape barriers for access to public funds. Understanding that we, the people, are responsible for this red tape is important but a small percentage of wasted funds if placed in the hands of a blame-averse (as opposed to a risk-averse) seed capital, would reap significant rewards.

The report also confirms the anecdotal impression that venture funding is a poor way for Government and the regional development agencies to create jobs.

Is this really all about jobs? I would have hoped that this would seriously be about generating wealth – not just making sure that people are sitting in offices. Northern Ireland has had a disastrous history of selling itself short as a cheap place for a call centre. We don’t need to inspire people to take low level internships – we need people to think bigger.

Tags: Commentary by mj
1 Comment »

Paul Graham at TechCrunch50:

“How does it all work, what’s the insides like. And so you have to ask a lot of questions.

People never seem to answer all the questions pre-emptivey in the presentation so you gotta ask a lot of questions.”

I’ve been following Paul and Y-Combinator for a while. There’s parts of their business model that I really admire – something I’d like to steal for businesses in Northern Ireland.

One of the things I admire about Y-Combinator is that they haven’t had any major successes but they still plug on. Paul reckons justin.tv or Loopt might have that global potential but the point is, they’re willing to take a chance even on projects which might not immediately have world-conquering potential. That said – a heap of their companies have been heavily funded or acquired which, by any stretch of the imagination would be a success for indigenous companies. Companies like reddit, Scribd, Dropbox, Posterous or others from their portfolio show they’re simply willing to give startups a chance.

Tags: Commentary, Startup by mj
No Comments »

From Vinny Coyne, loyal member of XCake, an announcement of his new iPhone Course:

Just a quick announcement that I will be teaching a beginners course in iPhone Development in Newlands Cross, Dublin from 21st to 25th September inclusive. We are also running a competition for two places in the course.

The course will be a healthy mix of theory and lab coding exercises. I’ll be going into the fundamentals of Objective-C and the iPhone SDK, as well as a peek at some of the more complex aspects of iPhone apps.

By the end of the course, candidates will be able to create their own iPhone apps which make the most of the platform’s features (such as location-based services, Google Maps integration, accelerometer functions, web-connectivity, etc) and sell them on the Apple App Store to millions of iPhone & iPod touch users.

Candidates should have experience with at least one object-oriented programming language before attending. Also, an Intel-based MacBook with the iPhone SDK installed will be required. MacBooks can also be rented for the week for an additional fee.

For more information, see iPhone Apps Ireland or download the PDF brochure here.

We’re also running a competition to give away two places at the course for two people currently unemployed.

Register ASAP before you miss your opportunity.

I’ve also been speaking to Vinny about the need for an iPhone course in Belfast. Who’s up for attending that?

Tags: Code, iPhone by mj
No Comments »

Sony on Games Development for the PSP Mini

One of the first things we tried to do with our new approach is lower the barrier to entry by bringing down the kit prices to about 80 per cent.

The second thing we’ve done is take an approach on how people applied to be part of the PSP development program – it’s a very open approach, definitely, but there’s still a [selection] process because you do need a dev kit.
…
On that website, all developers really have to do is explain their game and their company and very quickly we give them accessibility to the platform. That includes access to technology sites before they even commit to buying a development kit, so they can spec what they want to do.
So, incentive-wise, this is more a case of Sony reducing the barriers to entry more than anything else.
…
Right now, we’re looking for a good portfolio of games. Unlike with the App Store, we’re looking to support everyone that develops for us, instead of leaving developers out in the wilderness. We’re not immediately interested in giving developers free access and no help.

There are dangers in having total open access; having six thousand applications where probably only thirty are discovered by the consumer. Some of the developers working on the App Store and PSP Minis tell us that they prefer our approach because they get more visibility.

So, this is about reducing the barriers. If you’re one of the chosen few. So you get increased visibility. Among others of the chosen few. Who get barriers reduced. And because of this we’re better than the AppStore.

I think you’ve been very clear, Mister Sony Man.

Tags: Commentary, Games by mj
No Comments »