Four publications. One view of the technology stack.

There are numerous challenges facing Meta’s vision and ambition for AR/VR/XR, whatever term you prefer. The most important thing from Meta’s posture is their recognition of how difficult AR/XR will be from both a technological standpoint and a user adoption standpoint. And the reality they have embr

Creative Strategies October 19, 2022

Three Fundamental Problems Still Plaguing Meta’s Enterprise XR Ambitions

Olivier Blanchard

Meta’s goal to build a scalable on-ramp for XR and the metaverse in the enterprise would be hard to pull off without Microsoft’s help, which is why neither last week’s announcement that both companies had renewed their Metaverse-focused partnership, nor the announcement’s timing, should have come as

Creative Strategies October 14, 2022

Ten Years On, Surface Becomes The Best Stage For Microsoft

This week, Microsoft held its Microsoft Ignite conference and just before kicking that off, it held what has become the traditional Surface Fall event. This year, Surface turns ten, and it is fascinating to see how far it has come in this time, not so much on the hardware, which was already ahead of

Creative Strategies October 14, 2022

Microsoft Surface Pro 9: A Tale of Two Chipsets

Microsoft has been embarking on a multi-year strategy to enable Windows OEMs to have silicon diversity. It has been within Microsoft’s best interests to help OEMs embrace multiple silicon partners, not just Intel, to leverage each unique solution for what is has to offer. Microsoft did this a few ye

Creative Strategies October 11, 2022

Amazon and Made By Google’s Intelligent Marketing

The commentary on the latest Made by Google launch has been primarily on hardware. Still, I thought it would be more interesting to share some considerations on the overall strategy that transpired from the actual presentation, especially around Artificial Intelligence (AI) and how it compares to wh

Creative Strategies October 5, 2022

The Silicon Big Five: Intel

What is Intel’s fate? Curiously, this is not a question that has much grey area in the public arena, even though it should. Commentary, at least the discord I monitor and read, seems to either think Intel is on the right track or a dead company walking. Investors on the sell-side I chat with agree…

Creative Strategies September 8, 2022

Apple Watch’s Evolving Pillars

Before I dig into a few product-specific observations about Apple Watch Series 8 and Apple Watch Ultra, I want to make a broader point. Apple Watch has been one of the more fascinating product evolutions I have seen from Apple. I say that because since it came to market, it has evolved well beyond w

Creative Strategies September 8, 2022

Apple Blurs The Lines Of Hardware and Software with iPhone14 Pro

This week, we were back in person at Apple Park for the traditional September iPhone launch. This year three products were on stage: iPhone14, Apple Watch and AirPods Pro. From the opening, Tim Cook made it clear why these products take the stage together, and their updates hit the market at the sam

Creative Strategies August 25, 2022

What the EU’s DMA can teach us about proposed U.S. legislative action targeting “Big Tech”

Olivier Blanchard

In light of upcoming debates in Washington, D.C. on proposed new U.S. legislation that takes aim at the U.S. technology sector, today seems like a good day to start addressing growing concerns about the potentially harmful impact that these bills could have on U.S. innovation, global competitiveness

Creative Strategies August 11, 2022

Unpacking The Foldables’ Opportunity

This week, at its August Unpacked event, Samsung launched its foldable smartphones: Galaxy Z Flip4 and Galaxy Z Fold4, together with two new smartwatches, the Galaxy Watch 5 and the Galaxy Watch 5 Pro, and the new Galaxy Buds Pro 2. While the smartwatches and earbuds are exciting upgrades, the show’

Creative Strategies June 15, 2022

MediaTek had a very good 2021. Now what?

Olivier Blanchard

I have been thinking even more than usual about chipmakers lately. Between ongoing global supply chain constraints, our growing reliance on microchips to power everything from our phones to our thermostats and our vehicles, and the likelihood that inflationary pressures will impact discretionary spe

Creative Strategies June 8, 2022

Better Together Adds Value to Apple’s Portfolio

No, I did not get the events confused, this was Apple’s WWDC and not Google i/o, but the mantra we have been hearing from Google about its software and devices coming together to deliver a better experience to its users was actually delivered on the keynote stage by Apple. What is interesting to me