Category: India

Thoughts on OTT

~ michael_msft ~ 6 Comments

Update to the post::

I said as much in my list below – get ready for the VPN to stop working when it comes to gaming Netflix content libraries.

First, let me start off with a shameless plug for a podcast I was a guest of:

Now that we got that out of the way we can continue on. Also – my shameless plus is so we make this AA’s #1 podcast to ensure I get invited back. 😉

Let me disclose that I work at hooq.tv and used to work at spuul.com . I do have some sense of this world I am talking about. I don’t have a crystal ball and I also think that in the emerging markets it will take years to declare a winner. Years I say!

That being said I think it is important to note some things for the pedestrians:

    – In many markets, say Taxis or car booking services, I can agree with the winner take all or winner take most, especially in the USA or China. FYI Om covered this topic well here :: http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/in-silicon-valley-now-its-almost-always-winner-takes-all. However in large regional area or emerging markets I am not sure if it is true and it also has to be that pricing almost equalizes. In the case of this specific subject if we are talking about Netflix dominating in India I struggle to see how a company that charges 3x its emerging markets brethren can own the market. Maybe it will own the high end but how would it own the market that does not pay that much for entertainment?

    – Let no one kid you. None of these players are currently fighting over a paid customer base – we are all fighting to convert a pirate over to a paying subscriber. That will take years and there are plenty of pirates to share at this moment.

    – Local content is a big deal and no one player owns it all nor can sell it all to one OTT player. Also many of the local content players are building or have built their own OTT services.

    – There can never be just one service for all. Take me for example. I share my mom’s Netflix account but I buy my own HBO account. I value HBO way more than Netflix and nothing they did last week changed that equation for me.

    – Payment models in the emerging markets are hard. For Netflix it very well could be that the only customer they care about has a credit card. That still lives 100’s of millions of customers for companies like HOOQ who think there are others way to take money from users.

    – Not only are payment models hard but so are subscription types. Is a monthly recurring subscription going to work in the emerging markets? For some folks it might. For others maybe weekly subscriptions is better? Maybe a subscription tied to a data balance makes more sense. No one knows yet.

    – Content rights are super hard. I love seeing all the people baffled as to why they log into Netflix Singapore and it doesn’t look like the USA catalog. Netflix didn’t buy all the rights for Singapore because they know it is a small market. It may not be worth it and chances are some of it is not available. Also, Netflix being a capitalist, sold some of their shows to services in Singapore already so they can’t just take it back. Over time as they grow they will fix this but again Netflix could never own everything you want to see.

    – As OTT takes off some of the big players will try to work around Netflix and other services to go direct. One good read on this :: http://bgr.com/2015/11/05/netflix-streaming-time-warner/

    – The all powerful VPN. Currently lots of folks are signing up for Netflix Singapore and then using a VPN or anonymous IP to get the USA catalog. All good but keep in mind they way content rights work. They are bought and sold for a region – they are not tied to what credit card you use. Lots of folks talk about Apple TV or iTunes as the model where I can use my use a credit card to buy a show. And I can watch it in Singapore but note I am paying US prices so the content guys don’t care. Apple is not a subscription service and notice it they planned on doing this with TV and backed down. Netflix is getting away with murder right now. Pay Singapore prices but watch a USA catalog. At some point the content owners may ask Netflix to enforce geo specific rule or to simply not support VPN usage. Most content owners ask companies like HOOQ to try to block VPN’s or similar tools. As global content streaming takes off, I expect this to be an ongoing discussion.

    – To summarize I would like to say this is going to take time to all play out. As I like to remind my team regularly – it’s a marathon – not a sprint.

I’ll add to this is if I think I missed something.

VOD – here come Asia!

~ michael_msft ~ Leave a comment

We all know VOD is big. Just check Netflix for reference. I pretty much never watch actual TV or cable – except for the news.

Normally I am watching HOOQ, HBO Now, or Netflix. Plus a lot of iTunes video.

Given all that it is no wonder that global VOD growth is gonna keep growing.

What is exciting is the Asia numbers:

The VOD market in Asia Pacific Excluding Japan (APEJ) is expanding at a robust pace and by 2020, the market is expected to reach $80.5 billion.

How do you like them apples?

Good times.

India!

~ michael_msft ~ Leave a comment

india_me//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

25 years ago I first arrived in India.

I have been coming here ever since I moved to Hong Kong in 1999 – then with BEA Systems, actually Weblogic. Then when I moved to Singapore working for Yahoo I would hit India about every other month.

Then with Spuul I would hit Mumbai from time to time but now I am in Delhi with HOOQ. Delhi is one of the centers for all the Telcos. BizDev time.

I amazes me how much, just like me, stuff has changed. The place is busier than ever. I was in a lift yesterday full of ZTE engineers selling stuff to an India telco. Globalization in full effect. Love it.

Mobile is HUGE here. Just HUGE. The opportunities are massive.

Get in there.

Is Apple all about China?

~ michael_msft ~ Leave a comment

My brother sent me this link :: http://om.co/2015/03/16/apple-is-all-about-china/

Actually I don’t think they are all about China although they are emphasizing it more and more but somehow I don’t think they will always do that. I think they used the last keynote to highlight how far they have come in China since everyone always talks about how the valley tech companies get hosed in China. And mostly they do. Look at Google, Yahoo, Tesla and many others who have tried and have failed to go big in China. Now look at Apple. Killing it in China.

I think from here on out it will just be the norm for them. I don’t think it will have to be continually highlighted.

However I would add that the focus on China is really just a pivot to Asia in general and that is the right pivot. I find it comical when people say oh the Chinese will love that gold iPhone. Or that gold macbook. Sometimes I think the people saying this crap are the same people pontificating about Asian trends just because they eat at Panda Express a few times a week.

Folks – all of Asia is quite similar to China. I suspect more than a few rich Indonesian, Thai and Singaporean folks will be doing all they can to order a gold Apple watch to go with their gold iPhone and iPads. It just comes with the territory.

So yes – China is huge for Apple. But I know they are working hard to crack India and to make a thorough dent in SEA region as well. My guess is they only get more dominant for the time being.

From a developer POV

~ michael_msft

Clearly Ben is on a roll. I don’t agree with all his monologues and tweets but I think this one is pretty good :: http://ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2014/12/9/mobile-platforms-and-technical-debt

People tend to get too religious about their phones, OS’s and all things associated with them. The fanboy thing starts to take over, Xiaomi as an example, but this stuff boils down to pure business. There are ONLY two mobile ecosystems right now. 2. Apple and Google. The China thing is another topic in that the rules are very different. However Apple seems to be doing better with their model in China than Google is. Enter Xiaomi though to see what can happen when one combines some of the essence of both players to make a go. It’s magic and it is working. However it remains to be seen if this is only going to be big in China. For the record it is only happening in China right now. I think Xiaomi will struggle outside of China.

Let’s talk about the impact more once they make bigger waves outside of China.

Microsoft is trying their hardest. Still doesn’t seem to be working. This still applies :: http://www.nokpis.com/2014/10/26/microsoft-is-only-missing-the-apps/

So Ben gets to the essence of all of this. Apple had a vision and Google had another. Take away the marketing, the religious arguments, the open versus closed jargon and what you are left with is two very similar platforms:

One way to look at this is that iOS and Android have been converging – they arrived with more or less the same capabilities despite starting from opposite ends. Apple has given up control where Google has taken it. And of course Google has had to add lots to Android just as Apple had to add lots to iOS (and they’ve generally ‘inspired’ each other on the way), and just as Apple has added cloud services Google has redesigned the user interface (twice, so far). 

I am not purporting that the environments are the same or that they arrived at the same point using the same methods. It is just that if one looks closely at the model. Google started open and is starting to lock it down now. Apple started very locked down and is slowly opening. Both stances created some benefits and negatives in the early days and now the resultant evolution has created some benefits and negatives. Google is better at the old fragmentation issues and overall quality has improved. Tool wise I think Apple has a better product for developers though. Apple is making it easier to do some things but their software quality has slipped. That cannot be disputed. http://www.nokpis.com/2015/01/06/thanks-marco/

One could also discuss that Apple makes better hardware since they actually sell their own stuff. Google is still not really in the hardware business. However let’s not get into this.

The part I still find that NO ONE writes about is the difference in the view from the folks grinding out apps everyday and shipping them. How do we ship these apps? Via the App Store and the Play Store. This is where the huge differences are but there is also some evolution there. I would safely say, much to my dismay, that Google has evolved way more than Apple. Where Apple has made great strides for opening up iOS, there is literally no progress in the App Store when it comes to search, discovery or the App Store developer view. We still wait too long for app reviews, there are too many reviewer mistakes and too many features are tied to actually releases. We cannot modify pricing without releases or even update things like images or text without releases. So 3 years in with a stable app I still wait like everyone else to change some copy or update an image. Comical.

With Google a developer can update copy, bits, images and pricing at any point. Or just ship a new app whenever we want. Granted Google has issues with not policing apps enough or letting any app release (pirate or copy app) but they actually have improved some. I still think both Apple and Google should converge stances. Google needs approvals or review for first apps and Apple needs to let people update apps without approvals.

Where I think the big divide is though is around emerging markets. Apple is somewhat behind in that everything one must do around purchases is tied to Apple payments which need credit cards. I can’t use gift cards for subscriptions since everyone always mentions gift cards. I focus on India a lot and the big reason Apple is not as big as Android is about device cost but more importantly the payment problem. Google implements telco billing or at least does not stop us from putting in our own telco billing. With Apple I am stuck with Apple. This has to change for Apple to succeed. I personally think this is the biggest headwind Apple has in some regions – it just can’t function without a credit card backing. If Apple had some sort of regional telco billing I think the flood gates would open around the iOS ecosystem.

All that being said I think Ben ends on an interesting note that is also where emerging and non-emerging markets differ. Messaging:

But the underlying philosophies remain very different – for Apple the device is smart and the cloud is dumb storage, while for Google the cloud is smart and the device is dumb glass. Those assumptions and trade-offs remain very strongly entrenched.  Meanwhile, the next phases of smartphones (messaging apps as platforms and watches as a dominant interface?) will test all the assumptions again.

Can anyone run Yahoo?

~ michael_msft ~ Leave a comment

Adding this for everyone :: http://thomasdiong.com/post/105578350652/marissa-mayer-is-doing-a-fine-job

The internet is all on fire with the latest article about Yahoo and the forthcoming book. It is too juicy of a subject not to talk about it. Here I go.

In case you are wondering I have written about Yahoo before – and normally these posts always make my top 10.

Starting from the most popular on down:

Fuck you, I’m the ‘D’ on this

What the hell happened to Yahoo! Messenger

Thinking about Koprol 2.0

Koprol – The Inside Story. Part 1

Koprol – The Inside Story. Part 2

Koprol – The Inside Story. Part 3

Koprol – The Inside Story. Part 4

Koprol – The Inside Story. Part 5

Fuck you, I’m the ‘D’ on this – part 2 (#marissadidit)

What is happening with Yahoo?

That is my core 10 posts regarding Yahoo and they make up most of my blog traffic. I actually had another post on how Carol Bartz was the worst pick as a Yahoo CEO but I erased it one day, actually my first day at Yahoo, thinking that someone might read it and fire me. The rest of the posts were all written after I left Yahoo.

I get emails from people saying I like to bash Yahoo but I don’t. I loved working there, I loved Yahoo before I worked there and I still love Yahoo. I write about it cause I think about it. I do not intend to cause any harm to people working there even if I am sometimes accused of that.

Here is the new article on Yahoo :: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/21/magazine/what-happened-when-marissa-mayer-tried-to-be-steve-jobs.html . It is a riveting read and of course the book will be a must read.

Nothing in the article is really news apart from the fact that it seems Marissa thinks a lot of herself and likes to be late to everything. I heard about the Ross story first hand and of course everyone knew Ross would quit right away. I personally think Ross should have had a shot at running Yahoo. He would have massively cut staff, it NEEDS to be cut, and he would have focused on the right bits. That would be a better course of action than doing nothing or trying to acquire everything. Yahoo could make money as a smaller, more nimble entity. Ross also wanted to buy Hulu but not sure that would have worked but I think trying a big acquisition is smarter than a bunch of small ones for the purposes of recruiting.

At first I was excited about the Marissa news but I had so many current and ex Google friends tell me what a mistake it was. In hindsight a lot of what they were saying was right. She is out of touch with reality, is not a great manager and is not the right fit for Yahoo. As I am in the States right now hanging with my folks, who use Yahoo religiously, I realize that people like my folks are Yahoo’s current target user base for the USA. Yahoo may not like that fact but it is true. They use Yahoo mail, front page, news, weather and the yahoo news digest app. They used to use messenger but let’s be honest – no one uses messenger anymore. It’s dead. Huge, huge mistake for Yahoo to lose out on the messaging craze. Huge.

Enter Marissa, a CEO who knows little about my parents. Marissa is too wealthy, sheltered and full of herself to ever understand my parents. Yes – I know a lot of tech CEOs are out of touch with my mom and dad but the difference is Yahoo needs turing around, Yahoo’s strength is folks like my mom and dad and it will take knowing them to serve them. I know Yahoo wants the young ones but that ain’t happening. In fact, I am not my parents or a young one but I don’t use Yahoo anymore either. That’s the problem really – no one is really waking up everyday and checking Yahoo like they used to.

On this point one has to hand it to Gruber for somewhat nailing the decline of Yahoo :: http://daringfireball.net/2014/12/yahoo_decline . I don’t disagree with him on what happened but I don’t think those mistakes spelt the end of Yahoo. What cooked Yahoo was years and years of not changing course.

Yahoo knew the old stuff was dying and the new web was taking over – but they didn’t respond to it at all.

They missed mobile, then they missed apps, they missed the emerging markets and they blew their Asian deals. Let me be clear here – Yahoo made money on both their Alibaba and their Softbank deal but what they never did is take advantage of those deals. They should have learned how to import stuff from Japan and China back into the States. They should have worked closely with Alibaba and Softbank on Southeast Asia, India and North Asia. Yahoo had huge leads in these markets and now they have virtually nothing. Korea closed. Yahoo Japan is not Yahoo. There is no Yahoo in China. They are dying in Southeast Asia. Properly executing in Asia could have done a lot for Yahoo in the big picture. They let it all die.

I agree with Gruber that a comeback is highly unlikely but along the way they could have fallen less farther than they did. As to now – I don’t know if it can bounce back. It may just be too late. Apart from Flickr I use nothing from Yahoo and they could spin that off if it were up to me. Their mail sucks. Their messenger sucks. I never hit the front page. The new digest thing was interesting but too fluffy and not customizable enough for my tastes. There is just nothing interesting about Yahoo and to top it off – I live in Asia – Yahoo in Asia is even worse than Yahoo in the States. 

Yahoo makes money. They have too many people. They still need to cut back and focus. Then they would make even more money.

As to a Yahoo/AOL thing. Kill me if this happens.

Maybe Alibaba or Softbank might try to buy them. At least that would be interesting.

 

India Time!

~ michael_msft ~ Leave a comment

Warning – I am biased here to some extent but I am always a harsh critic.

Looking around Asia we can all see that China has had it’s time – Alibaba going public is huge evidence of that. Not saying China is over but mostly pointing out that a lot of focus has been there. Now it looks like India is coming into focus. Startup funding is going nuts, lots of VIPs are going to India, and Modi is getting the world interested again. I am pretty fired up about it all and of course bodes well for my main project – Spuul.

http://fortune.com/2014/09/27/why-investors-should-bet-on-india/