When will Apple sell OS X for PCs?

Any bets on when Apple will start shipping OS X for PCs to compete directly with Windows Vista for PCs? Microsoft sold 88 Million copies of Vista in three quarters this year. That is almost 30 Million per quarter. If Apple sold a third of that or 10 Million copies per quarter at $139 per copy, their potential market is an additional $4.1 Billion revenue per quarter. This doesn’t include the inevitable increase in demand for their other products. It also doesn’t include the potential negative of selling less hardware to people who just want OS X.

I bet they will do it.

Microsoft should be worried.

I learned something about innovation today

I am proud to say the AIM team is pretty good at innovation and have lead the pack at AOL and in the world of Instant Messaging. Innovation is very important to me and my team. It is one of the things that makes work fun. So when I heard Tom Kelley, the GM of Ideo, was coming to AOL to speak to us about innovation, I quickly signed up. Tom is the author of “The Art of Innovation” and “The Ten Faces of Innovation“. His company, Ideo, has made a great business out of helping others innovate. He said there are 500 people at Ideo and they have worked with hundreds of companies. They have learned what works and what doesn’t. While we have done well within our environment, Ideo has done well across many industries.

Tom mainly spoke about his new book, “The Ten Faces of Innovation”. He made a few points to emphasize the importance of innovation. Then he spoke about the roles or “faces” such as experimenter, cross-pollinator, hurdler, and more. In his opinion, the most important role is the Anthropologist. I’ll bet it has been a long time since you heard of that profession.

According to Tom, the Anthropologist…

“… is the person who ventures into the field to observe how people interact with products, services, and experiences in order to come up with new innovations. The Anthropologist is extremely good at re-framing a problem in a new way, humanizing the scientific method to apply it to daily life. Anthropologists share such distinguishing characteristics as the wisdom to observe with a truly open mind; empathy; intuition; the ability to “see” things that have gone unnoticed”.

He made the point that you can’t expect to get innovative ideas from customers. They may have incremental ideas but not the big innovations. You have to observe your customers and find the hidden opportunities.

Where can I find an Anthropologist?

UN weighs in on passwords

Over the last few days, I’ve seen several articles and posts such as this one about password security. Someone realized people use the same password across many web sites (gasp!). I hope this isn’t really news to anyone:

“The number of passwords and logins web users need makes it inevitable they will re-use phrases, warned the International Telecommunications Union.”

How much do those people make? Two easy solutions come to mind, one mentioned in the article and one is my very own invention (I think…don’t we all hear things and then later recall it believing it is an original thought?).

Solution 1: Develop your own system for generating passwords by combining your password with the name of the web site. Here is what I mean…take your standard web password, insert the first and last letters of the web site you are viewing and insert them as the second and fourth letters or your password. Viola! You have a new unguessable password.

Need an example? Let’s say your standard password is “alan” and I am registering for journals.aol.com. My password for becomes “ajlsan”. I used the “j” and “s” from journals. Try cracking that!

OK, maybe you can. But if I started with something other than my name such as str8tobed, it would be pretty hard.

Solution 2: Use Roboform or 1password on Mac. I did a pretty comprehensive evaluation of password and identity managers for Windows earlier this year. Roboform is the best by far. There are a number of password managers that have the same features but Roboform is the most convenient by far and we all know . It can auto-generate random passwords and then remember them for you for each web site. It can make it easy to fill out forms when you shop or register for a site. It remembers your multiple identities (you have real and fake personas, right?). It is one of a very small number of products where I have paid for the full version.

P.S. Sorry if you have seen this already. I am reposting from my old blog.