if connected

Jump down to the bullets if you want the really good stuff.

Background – I signed up for a trial of a hosted calendar/contacts/email service a little over a month ago. It was a 30 day trial. We’re very busy at work due to the time of year (economy has had no impact on work load yet) so I tend to have time to do chores at weekends but not in between them. On a Sunday I recalled the trial was due to end in the next week or so. I liked the service and wanted to take out a subscription. I logged in, checked the trial expiry, which was that day.

Things to do if you want to have no sales:

1. Don’t send a reminder “your trial is about to end, here’s how to buy” email.
2. Offer a calendar app with a trial, but don’t put a reminder in the calendar about  the end date.
3. Don’t have working links to the online ecommerce system for users to buy the product.
4. Don’t have support working on a Sunday.
5. Do lock the customer’s account on a Sunday so they can’t access the service that they’ve tried and failed to pay you for.
6. Don’t tell your support staff how to take payment details over the phone.
7. Forget to ask which card type it is and what the cardholder’s address is.

As of today, it’s nine days since the Sunday in question, and they’ve still not taken my money.

This may become a regular series. O2 is likely to be next up.

A colleague read the Zachary story yesterday (Baby + Nokia = fail. Google = fix) and suggested a technique for distracting babies: Have a second keyboard on your lap when using a computer. Baby plays with it and thinks s/he’s back seat driving.

Phones are different, apparently. Old handsets don’t work. Babies can tell the difference. They’re growing up mobile. The way Zachary eyes my shiny iPhone, I think my other half’s Nokia is already safe.

Please suggest other decoy ideas in the comments. I’ll take ideas that work temporarilly as a ‘win’, in the same spirit that there’s no such thing as baby-proof, only baby resistant. Even the best decoys will only work for a time.

London’s flagship Apple store has new model MacBook Airs in stock — an assistant confirmed to me earlier — but not on display. The three Air’s visible on a corner counter were the old one. Apple is clearly trying to shift old stock. I’m assuming that the pr-driven desire to announce all the new Mac laptops at the same time has made it impossible for Apple to clear old stock of all of them first. The Air is the one that had left over boxes unsold.

Two weeks ago, I was told by a retailer on Tottenham Court Road, that the UK availability of the Lenovo X200 had been delayed due to unsold stock of old (different model number) laptops. I, like most other tcr shoppers, knew about the new model from the web.

I can’t see how either of the above approaches will actually shift stock once a manufacturer has made an announcement of new models anywhere in the world. Even if not on display, most consumers — especially on tcr — will know about the new ones. A retailer may as well offer both for sale.

As a consumer, only steep discounts of the old models would persuade me to buy them, after news of a replacement. If steep enough, the pricing will work regardless. And, from what I’ve seen at the Apple store and on tcr, the old models are simply not being discounted enough.

Today, Vodafone announced first half results. Unsurprisingly, mobile broadband was a key part of their strategy to maintain revenues as mobile voice and sms increasingly head towards becoming free.
They reported very fast mobile broadband growth, built upon aggressive pricing by other operators in European markets. Vodafone — not aiming to be the cheapest priced — reported an 84% increase in mobile PC connectivity devices and reckons about half of those are consumer buys. Given the early stage of the consumer mobile broadband market, that’s an impressive result. Data-related revenues will be harder to secure: they rose by just 27%.
In the UK alone, Vodafone reported >500k mobile PC devices. This would place Vodafone among the leading ISPs if compared with home broadband, and with growth levels that only Sky could approach (but not match).
Note to non-European readers, pricing for mobile broadband is as low as 10ukp for one months’ use on a pre-pay SIM, or 5ukp if an add-on to an existing contract plan. This isn’t in every country, but in some where low prices exist, the market is moving extremely quickly.
There will be much more mobile broadband adoption to come as data spreads into emerging markets. Both Vodafone, and all of the operators I heard speak at last weeks’ FT Telecoms conference, were sure this would happen very soon. Most, thought the opportunity is even greater than in Europe.
Vodafone’s CEO: “In emerging markets: The Internet will be mobile.”
Given the strength of some of the early mobile broadband take-up and of the arrival of numerous laptop-mobile subsidy sale models in retail, I think that’s too narrow a statement, should read:
Ian: “The Internet will be mobile.”
By that I mean that everyone, retailers, PC makers, home broadband providers, website owners, everyone… will have to adjust to the arrival of mobile/cellular in their businesses. Increasing numbers of consumers will go online using laptop PCs on relatively slow mobile broadband connections — including very small netbooks — leading to website design tweaks. Where and when people go online will change. Operators, retailers and device makers will have to embrace mobile industry pricing and packaging with subsidies and tight contract lock-ins. Additionally, and in parallel, phone handset Internet access is on the rise too.
I see any attempt to write about fixed and mobile Internet in isolation, or home broadband and mobile broadband on their own, as doomed to failure. Strategies must embrace both.
There is now one Internet, although with a few different flavours.
Exciting times.