moses choi

I came across the website of RTKL and this company’s slogan kinda struck me.  This has been something I’ve been thinking of for the last few weeks.   This website also reminded me of all those IBM ads I’ve been seeing about a “smarter planet” and how IBM can help solve problems through its engineering and science.

In a way, great engineering, wonderful code and elegant mathematics is a form of design.

How important is design to you and what role does it have in society?

First of all, I love the fact that I can blog from my BlackBerry.

Today was a good day. It was a good day at work for me and a good day for tech geeks out there. Apple finally held its product announcement event and to nobody’s surprise, a tablet was presented to the public.

Here are my thoughts on the iPad in point form.

- Most significant factor is the pricing. $499 starting price is awesome!

- The Apple cool factor. There is no denying the impact Apple’s brand and industrial design has on people’s purchasing decision. It is what allows perfectly rational people to pay more for products that otherwise might be sold for less by other manufacturers.

- The iPad allows Apple to capture part of the growing netbook market without bringing its Macbook line downmarket. The challenge is really convincing people that an iPad is really all you need if you’re looking for a netbook (even if you’re one of those people looking at the new netbooks out with Intel’s “Pine Trail” atom processor).

- Along with a surprisingly low price, the other significant factor may be revealed in the coming weeks in the form of additional content deals. Apple has shown that it can help content providers and publishers stay relevant in the digital age.

- I feel that typing might be an issue on this device. I can see typing being a bit cumbersome.

- The smaller than expected flash hard drive capacity was a disappointment.

- Battery life could be better.

- Lack of USB ports.

- Flash support and multi-tasking capabilities yet to be confirmed.

Overall, I feel that the device will be successful. It will likely impact netbook manufacturers, but not as negatively as the impact the iPod has had on all the MP3 makers last decade. For smartphone makers, it might cause some people to opt not to get a smartphone and get an iPad while keeping their regular feature phone a bit longer. I can see some people delaying their smartphone purchase, but the iPad will not replace the smartphone.

It looks like Apple did a good job of making sure the iPad isn’t a do-it-all device to prevent cannibalization. Their ideal consumer is someone who uses an iPhone for everyday mobility, an iPod nano for the gym, an iPad for light browsing and multimedia, and a Macbook Pro/iMac for heavy computer use. In other words, this is a complementary device that perhaps completes someone’s consumer mobile needs.

The other day at work, I was reading the Globe and Mail and came across this article about Professor Paul Beamish at the Richard Ivey School of Business and how he gives a pop quiz to his EMBA students on the first day of class designed to show the salience of emerging markets for businesses looking to succeed in today’s global economy. Basically in a nutshell, he asks his students to rank the top ten countries by purchasing power parity, gross national income, and population. In all the years he has taught, no student has gotten a perfect score on his test. This test shows two things: Firstly, the future direction of economic influence, and thus political power is shifting to up and coming countries like China, India, Brazil, Russia and etc and secondly, the test shows the general unfamiliarity of many people who are in business to the rapid changes happening around the world. In fact, I would argue that anyone who seeks to be globally competitive needs to understand the geopolitical, historical and economic changes happening all over, and not just be a great contributor at work. It is hard and time consuming, but it’s so essential to success. It comes as no surprise to me that Bill Gates devours every issue of The Economist cover to cover every week (according to my old boss at Edelman who has worked for him). Maybe what I’m trying to say is that many of us need to widen our perspective and try to see how everything interconnects.

What are the essential elements required for a country or a company to be globally competitive? This is a discussion that has probably been beaten to death by many think tanks, consultants and people wanting to have a great discussion but something that I’d really like to learn more about.