Utah Open Source Planet

Most organizations believe that Customer Service contacts are what needs to be fixed or eliminated.  On the surface, that might be true.  But, when approached as a Lean Thinker, Customer Service contacts are truly only symptoms, the root causes of which are not yet fully known.  In what follows, I’ll explain the role of Customer Service in the overall business value chain, and how the business can better meet the needs of the customer through the effective use of the Customer Service function.

To do this, I’ll take a hypothetical iPhone defect case and show how customer service in this example plays a pivotal role in the overall iPhone supply chain — a key player in the overall product value chain.

Strategic Fit of Customer Service in the Supply Chain

In a supply chain network, the Strategic Fit of Customer Service is often the voice-of-the-customer post-release of the service or product. The phrase “start with the customer and work backwards” is really a misnomer. Why? Well, in most products or services, it really starts with the customer and ends with the customer — that is, the customer’s voice is heard at the level of product design and then the voice-of-the-customer is heard at the market monitoring level, post-release of the product or service.

We know — through pretty accurate anecdotal evidence — that the supply chain of the iPhone looks like the following:

From a high-level, we speculate that the following are the material suppliers of the Apple iPhone:

1. Samsung: The Singapore facility manufactures CPU and Video processing chips.
2. Infineon: The Singapore facility manufactures Baseband Communications hardware.
3. Primax Electronics: The Taiwan facility manufactures Digital Camera Modules.
4. Foxconn International: The Taiwan facility manufactures internal circuitry.
5. Entery Industrial: The Taiwan facility manufactures connectors.
6. Cambridge Silicon: The Taiwan facility manufactures bluetooth chipsets.
7. Umicron Technology: The Taiwan facility manufactures printed circuit boards.
8. Catcher Technology: The Taiwan facility manufactures stainless metal casings.
9. Broadcomm: The U.S. based facility builds touch screen controllers.
10. Marvell: The U.S. based facility builds 802.11 specific parts.
11. The Apple Shenzhen, China facility assembles the hardware, holds inventory, and handles the pick, pack, and ship steps of the fulfillment process.

If I am correct in any of my research and assertions above, it’s easy to see that if there is any disruption in material flow of any supplier into the Apple Shenzhen, China facility, then production either slows or halts altogether.

We also know that the Austin, Texas Apple Operation is largely where Apple Care physically sits, with another office just outside of Sacramento, California. So, for any contacts into their Call Center, then that is most likely where the contacts will enter (they also have, we understand, outsourcing partners, but Texas Apple Care is the headquarters).

So, more completely, then, the high-level iphone supply chain may represented like this:

Market Monitoring, Defect Data

When a product is released into the market, there can be many channels of market monitoring of the health of the product. In the medical device or pharmaceutical industry, where I once worked, the Market Monitoring phase of the product lifecycle represents a large portion of the product, especially in how it meets regulatory concerns, etc. Marketing and Public Relations also have an especial interest in market monitoring since the voice-of-the-customer post-release can and, usually does, help the firm improve their product or service.

Let us assume the following:

1. Apple Care (Apple iPhone Customer Service) has a program for collecting product health, post-release, of the product. These can be from inbound contacts to the Apple Customer Service or through blogs or through message boards.
2. In this program, Apple has a simple and elegant way of making that information actionable, involving collecting data, stratifying of the data, root cause analysis, then practical countermeasures to improve the iPhone through upcoming releases of the product.

iPhone Defect Data

Extending this hypothetical iPhone case, let’s say that Apple Customer Service collects inbound iPhone Defect Data using a very simple check sheet, like the following:

The first column shows very broad defects as reported by the iPhone customers. On the right column are the simple counts. This is called a check sheet. Other variants of this simple quality tool are to collect by day, time, shift, product color, version, etc.

The next step to make this data actionable is to visually render it in a way that points to an healthy area of opprotunity. Below might be a picture that can help us — an iPhone Pareto of Defects:

The above picture is a Pareto Chart, showing the check sheet data, in visual format. As a consumer of this data, the Apple Customer Service folks might want to pay closer attention to the first and second bars of the Pareto, because those two bars represent “iPhone Touch Screen” defects.

The Pareto above naturally leads the consumer of this data to ask “Why?” — “What’s going on with the Apple iPhone Touch Screen?”

The next step, then, in the lifecycle of product monitoring and improvement is to conduct a Root Cause Analysis, focused on areas where the opportunity trade-off is good. In other words, to truly get-to-the-heart of Touch Screen defects, Apple must meet with the suppliers of the iPhone Touch Screen technologies. Based on the Supply Chain network drawn above, Apple should meet with BroadComm, the supplier of the iPhone Touch Screen technologies.

In that meeting, both Apple and the supplier can look over the data, go to the Gemba, and conduct root cause analysis on what’s going on with the Touch Screen.

iPhone Defects Root Cause Analysis

There are several tools that can aid in the process of Root Cause Analysis. Basically, it is a simple approach of asking “why” several times until you arrive at an atomic but actionable item. To visually view the process of the “5-why’s”, a tool called an (Ishikawa Diagram) or a (Cause-and-Effect Diagram) or a (Fishbone Diagram) is often helpful — this tool is referred by either of these names.

Main Components of an Ishikawa Diagram

1. At the head of the Fishbone is the defect or effect, stated in the form of a question.
2. The major bones are the capstones, or main groupings of causes.
3. The minor bones are detailed items under each capstone.
4. There are common capstones, but they may or may not apply to your specific problem. The common ones are:

• People
• Equipment
• Material
• Information
• Methods/Procedures
• Measurement
• Environment

After completing your Fishbone Diagram excercise as a group, it is helpful to test your logic by working the bones: top-down OR bottom-up like:

this happens because of g; g happens because of f; f happens because of e; e happens because of d; d happens because of c; c happens because of b; b happens because of a.

The excercise above is crucially important — you must test your logic so that it makes pragmatic sense and that the atomic root cause is actionable — that is, you can do something to correct it, reduce it, or eliminate the root cause.

Once you or your team arrive at a root cause for a specific capstone, then you typically “cloud” it to identify it as a root cause. A good rule is that there is typically *NOT* 1 root cause for a problem, but potentially several. Below is a diagram of one fishbone, decomposed:

Once the Apple folks and the Apple iPhone Touch Screen supplier arrive at the root causes of the iPhone Touch Screen defects, then the supplier needs to put-in-place countermeasures so that the next shipment of the Touch Screen — perhaps in the next version of the iPhone — won’t have this defect anymore.

In fact, there can be much Public Relations and Marketing campaigns from this effort: Apple can show the public that it has listened the concerns of the market; Apple has done this by fixing the defects that most pains that market, in relation to the iPhone product. There can be much branding from an effort like this.

Conclusion

Customer Service plays a key role in the value chain of a product or service. Some firms view and, consequently behave, as if Customer Service were simply a cost center. These firms miss the point altogether: Customer Service is a major vehicle for hearing and learning about what the market is perceiving and feeling and experiencing from our products or services. This data and information can be made actionable through the strategic and smart utilization of Customer Service.

Disclosure

The data above is only hypothetical. The process above works and, if done strategically and with an eye toward the customer, then Customer Service can be a major player in how our products and services can be improved and how we can shape the signals we send to the market and, consequently, how the market can begin to perceive the firm.

I love Apple, but I don’t own an iPhone. I would love an iPhone and would gladly accept a free iPhone from Apple and/or other free Apple products. Apple can join the other companies that have sent me free stuff here.

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Articles on Ethnography and Design:

1. Feature? What Feature?
   
2. Simplify The Product
3. Ask Aza Raskin
4. Aza Raskin on Poka-Yoke & The Humane Interface
5. Aza Raskin on Quasimodal Design and The ATM
6. Aza on Feature-Bloat and Site Clutter
7. Aza on Google Search Results Page
8. Aza on Cooperation and Team Size
9. Design Thinking in Medicine
10. On Designing a Watering Can for Little Hands
11. Queueing Theory and Visual Management
12. An Interview with the Inventor of “Clocky”
13. Bad Breath but Good Design
14. What is Ethnography

Articles on Leadership:

1. Overmanaged and Underled
2. Colin Powell on Leadership
3. Team or Staff?
4. Tipping-Point Leadership
5. Abraham Lincoln on Leadership
6. How to transform an Organization: Chime-in Before Buy-in

Articles on Queueing Theory:

• Queueing Theory: Part 1
• Queueing Theory: Part 2
• Queueing Theory: Part 3
• Queueing Theory: Part 4
• What is Waste?
• On Time-Traps and Waste
• Call Centers as Queueing Systems
• Travel Time & Waste
• Little’s Law for Product Development
• YouTube’s Queueing Properties
• Psychology of Queueing and Disneyland
• Queueing, Disneyland, and FastPass
• Multi-Tasking Leads to Lower Productivity
• Queueing Theory and Terrorism
• On Queueing Theory and Elevator Mirrors
• Psychology of Queueing, Haunted Houses, and Halloween
• The Variability Tree
• Attitude and the Psychology of Waiting - The Psychology of Queueing

Articles on Operations, lean and six sigma:

• Managing Constraints Under Peak Volumes
• Order Pipeline of Events
• On Game Theory
• Applied Regression Analysis
• 5S
• Click-to-Ship Processes
• Kanban Sizing and “Pull”
• Lean at Krispy Kreme
• Theory of Constraints and Camping
• Lean for Software Development
• Don’t Waste the Customer’s Time
• Featuritis and the Focus on the Customer

I’m way excited about the Utah Mobile Developers user group that is forming. Their first activity is on the schedule for Wednesday, October 29 and will discuss both iPhone and Android development. Here’s the agenda and RVSP:

6:00pm Doors open, pizza, networking
6:30 Opening, recognize sponsors, review agenda, review door prizes
6:40 Presentation 1 - iPhone Development
7:40 Presentation 2 - Android (Google Phone) Development
8:40 Door prizes
9:00 Meeting over
Afterward - trip to someplace local for pie, drinks, fries, whatever

Please rsvp by sending an email to glen@glenlewis.com.

I’ve already added it to the Utah Tech Events Calendar. If you’re a nerdy Utahn who loves mobile phones you should come. This is going to be an area of explosive growth and opportunity.

For those who didn’t know, I’m working on a tech business that’s very mobile-phone related, so I’m very excited to see this group forming in Utah.

The latest version of iTunes has something called Genius which automatically creates playlists from a single song. When I downloaded the new version, I turned off the genius sidebar and figured it was something I'd just ignore. I was turned off by the need to genius to upload information about my songs to Apple and the idea that it has such strong tie-ins to iTMS.

But yesterday Steve Fulling was raving about it, so I decided to give it a try. In less than 12 hours, I'm a convert. I still hide the sidebar because that's where all the music suggestions are and I don't need to buy any more music right now. The playlists it puts together are incredible. I can hardly wait for one to finish so I can pick another song and listen to the next set that iTunes puts together for me.

I often find songs I like but haven't listened to much on the list and the selections are always diverse and yet somehow hang together. Just one thing--I can't figure out why almost every playlist has "Brandy" (Looking Glass) in it. What's iTunes trying to tell me?

Here's an example of the playlist that Genius created for me when I selected "Melissa" (The Allman Brothers Band):

Repeating the same selection and hitting the genius button results in a new, but similar playlist. Don't like the list? Just change the selection or hit refresh and you've got a brand new set of songs. As a bonus, Genius is also available on the iPhone and iPod Touch if you've enabled it in iTunes.

So is Apple mining my music listening? Probably. But they're also giving me value. I'm willing to make that trade. My music is now more valuable to me and more enjoyable and that's not something I can say for the dusty CDs sitting on my shelf.

Tags: apple itunes music iphone

I mentioned earlier I was going to announce a big change this week. I’m “on the move“, as Jeremiah Owyang would put it. Today was my first day working full time at a new Silicon Valley startup with offices here in Utah, where I will be leading their Social Product strategy moving forward. I am phasing off my regular consulting, and moving to this new Entrepreneurial effort in helping them grow.

At the moment, I can’t reveal much more, other than the fact that we’re building the next era in Interactive Entertainment on the iPhone. The company I’m working with right now started out as a client of mine, and I liked their product so much I decided it would be worth helping them out full time. I believe fully that we are going to change much of the way you watch TV today. We will be launching most likely next week, and you can follow the Twitter account @MediaMyWay to catch our launch announcement and follow our updates (I’ll also point you there from my Twitter account when we launch - we’ll announce it there first!). Other Twitter accounts you can follow for updates and “clues” are @JustintheWhitt, @Romay, and our CEO, @BradPelo.

How will this affect the other stuff I do? In reality, not much is changing, other than what I do full time. I have received permission to keep SocialToo.com going part-time, as it has, unless it takes off. Expect some very cool things to come from SocialToo in the near future - we’re working on a completely new design and a really cool new feature that will be released in the next couple weeks.

As far as my blogging and book-writing is concerned, I see nothing changing, and I intend fully to continue blogging regular, unbiased articles that I feel inspire and educate. I will disclose where necessary if I feel my current employment has any influence in what I am writing. I still hope to continue writing in other capacities as well, as long as speak as I’m asked to do (I’m speaking in Dallas next week to the Dallas Chamber of Commerce, in fact - come see me speak!).

So, keep watching the @MediaMyWay Twitter account, and you can also follow this blog and I’ll be sure you’re aware of the latest of our happenings (we’ll have a company blog here shortly, which I’ll let you know about). In the meantime I’ll keep posting regular, educational, and original content as I always have and always will. “Stay” Tuned!

We just finished upgrading our home server. The migration, while it took time, was rather easy. I combined our separate blogs all under a Wordpress MU install to simplfy maintenance. One thing that I am happy about with the upgrade, besides improved performance, is that the iPhone wordpress app now works. I had errors connecting before. One thing that helped in configuring the app is improved error handling in the latest version. The initial release would always just die when trying to connect with no errors. I tried sniffing the connection, but unsuccesfully.

As I contiunue to use the app, I’ll update you on to what I like and don’t like. For now I’m happy!

I'm stil catching up on my IT Conversations listening after being gone on vacation for 10 days. This morning I listened to Mark Rolston's talk from the Emerging Communications conference entitled The New Singularity. Contrary to what you might think from the title, this isn't about "the" Singularity, but rather the idea that we typically have one concept about what a product should and the phone belies that. I really enjoyed the thinking about products and designs. I found myself wishing I could ask a few questions!

Tags: itconversations design phones iphone

I’ve been tracking the iPhone app store pretty closely, as I have been really interested to see what people are developing.  The first day it was available (the Thursday before the iPhone 3G was released), there were quite a few interesting apps, but most were trivial proof of concept apps that were released just to show what could be done.  

But now, we see more useful apps coming to the Store, and many of them are free (the economics of the iPhone apps are an interesting discussion on their own).  While I don’t have an iPhone yet (I’m waiting until September when AT&T indicates I can get the subsidized price), I’ve already started to collect some apps: 

eBay Mobile:  Yes, I use eBay.  I’ve used eBay ever since I worked there, and I still like to check it out as a way to price objects.  

PayPal:  I use PayPal rather extensively when billing clients.  It’s convenient for me, and convenient for them to make the payment through PayPal.  I also pay for my items in iTunes and Second Life through PayPal.  

eReader:  I’ve always loved eReaders, though I would like to see a free app that will include text files.  But, in the mean time, I’ll stick with the eBooks that I have gathered over the years.  

Evernote:  I’ve never used Evernote, but I do like the idea of having notes to myself available everywhere I am.  Perhaps I’ll start to remember things.  

Last.fm:  An internet radio on a mobile platform.  Do I really need to explain it?  ^_^

Mocha VNC Lite:  Not that I would use it on an iPhone on a regular basis, but having a VNC client available should I ever need to use it, that’s just good preparation. 

Palringo IM:  Instant Messenger, much like GAIM and Adium.  It covers all the main messenger protocols out there, which makes it really useful.  

Remote:  Turns your iPhone/iPod Touch into a WiFi Remote for your iTunes and Apple TV.  So should you lose your tiny remote…

Twinkle:  A twitter app that doesn’t have ads.

WordPress:  App for blogging from your iPhone.  Not sure how it works quite yet, but I’m pretty excited to find out! 

WritingPad:  A text editor.  It would be handy for those quick spells of inspiration that comes at the oddest moments.  

So, from my wishlist, only a few things have not been realized…yet.

Presentation Software:  I haven’t seen any presentation software show up on the iPhone App Store.  If I just haven’t seen it, please post the app in the comments.  I would even be willing to pay for that app.

Bluetooth Keyboard Support:  Still no bluetooth tethering available.  For this I’m still holding out for the iPod Slate.  ^_^

Terminal:  A lot of people have said that a terminal would just not be available for the iPhone because it would open up a whole can of worms for Apple.  I don’t agree, but until the app comes I’m not going to hold my breath.  But until then, I think I could get by.  ^_^

iCal:  As I haven’t purchased the iPhone yet, I don’t know if iCal on the iPhone is any better.  For those of you who do have an iPhone, can you view multiple calendars at once, and add an event to a specific calendar (without it creating a whole new calendar just for that one entry)?

Second Life Client:  I know this probably sounds silly, but wouldn’t it be nice to be able to access Second Life from any location, particularly if you were teaching/attending a college class in Second Life?  Well, for now you can’t with the iPhone, but it’s coming!  Vollee is developing their handset Second Life client for the iPhone, and hope to have it available soon.  Needless to say, I hope to see it in the App store before the end of September.  ^_^

DOS Emulator:  I haven’t seen one yet, but it may be possible to port DOSBox over to the iPhone.  Perhaps a project to get to know Objective-C…

VoIP:  Yes, there is a VoIP app (TruPhone), but it requires using their system with their rates.  I would prefer to have a VoIP client that could be configured to use my own system.  Of  course, it seems to be a Skype competitor, and in that arena they look very promising.  

So that’s my list, and what the market has done to fulfill it.  I’m still waiting for a couple of features, but all in all there are enough apps out there to make getting an iPhone worthwhile.

I've been reading various responses to the iPhone 3G activation issues. These range from "my phone is a brick," "the store won't sell any that aren't activated," to "the line barely moves." I had a different experience yesterday morning out here in California.

I went to the smaller local Apple store in the Stanford Shopping Center. The line started at 5 AM (mall rules) and my friend and I got there at 7 AM. We were around the 100th in line. Around 9 AM the Apple employees started to alert people that if they had a business discount on their phone they needed to call AT&T and get it removed. So I called and in 5 minutes I got the PLU number removed from my account. I got into the store at 9:45 AM, and quickly bought my 8 GB. The employee helping me told me that the activation system was having problems so they'd send me home with my phone to try there.

It didn't fully work at home, though I did manage to get the phone activated, but not syncing. So I had a working phone with no personal data on it for the day. Once I got home from work around 6:30 PM I tried again and it worked with no delays.

The store line was moving slowly, but the employees here managed it well. They also dealt with the activation issues a lot better than many other stories I've heard. I will say that I didn't expect to wait quite that long in line, and I'm surprised about the PLU issue. The AT&T website certainly wasn't clear about that fact, but I'll just re-associate the number Monday at work.

I've had mixed feelings about whether to upgrade my iPhone to the new 3G model. Ultimately, I get three things: 3G, GPS, and 8G more RAM than I have now. None of those alone were enough to tip me and together, they were marginal. Consequently I wasn't all in a tizzy over today's iPhone availability. Still, since I had a few friends who were excited to get one and were coming up to the Apple store in Salt Lake to get one, I figured I'd tag along and maybe pick on up. What I wasn't ready for was 7 or 8 hour lines.

I figured that iPhones would be plentiful. Beside, it wasn't the launch of a 1.0 product (and hence less excitement). On top of all that, after the doors opened last June the lines went so fast that I figured you'd be able to show up anytime today and waltz in and get one. Wrong.

What changed between last year and this one was the in-store activation. Last year, you bought your phone and took it home to activate it. Yeah! That was a heavenly experience. This year--to curb people buying phones so and then unlocking them--in-store activation is required. It's taking, according to some of the Apple Store employees working the line, 20-30 minutes.

That's when the activation system is working at all. There have been, according to reports, frequent break downs. Consequently, the line moves in fits and starts; lurching toward the door.

The whole experience, as a result, has been much more frustrating than last year. People waited in line last year and this year. But that's where the similarity ends. People aren't anxiously waiting for the doors to open and then rushing in to buy the product they've been lusting for. Instead, the doors have been open for 7 hours and hundreds of people are still lined up waiting for the machine to serve them because of IT problems. Big difference Apple.

Tags: iphone apple gear

When the first iPhone was released, I got all excited, just like everyone else.  I thought it would be the perfect phone for me, until I saw what it didn’t come with, i.e. apps.  The price was high, but my euphoric response didn’t see that.  But the 2 year contract with AT&T did slap me into real life.  It just became too impractical for me to own, and so I let go of the dream.  Much like Nick in GPF Comics, I walked away.  It was just too impractical for what I was hoping it would be:  a replacement for my laptop.  

Now the new iPhone 3G has been announced, with the release on July 11th.  I can honestly say I am excited for the release.  This time the price for the device is lower, and I already have a 2 year contract with AT&T (when my wife and I found out we were expecting, we thought cell phones would be a good idea).  And I hate my current phone.  Why do I hate it?  Because it has a blasted camera button on the side of it, and I keep taking pictures of my pocket when I pull it out.  I need a new phone. 

So, I’m seriously looking at the iPhone 3G.  The data price hasn’t gone up for my Business account, but it’s still pretty steep.  That’s one strike against it.  The other will be determined entirely by the application offerings that are available for the iPhone.  The teaser pictures are encouraging, but there are some pretty specific applications I would like to see for the new iPhone.  

Also, I’m still holding out for a UMPC from Apple.  I want an iPod Slate, and there is some evidence that it will be happening in the next quarter, just in time for Christmas.  So instead of both my wife and I getting an iPhone, we are getting one, and hopefully the Slate will be released on time. 

So, my over all impression:  the new iPhone is a definite buy, but with some reservations.  Look for September to at least have a refreshed version of the iPod Touch, and perhaps have the iPod Slate.  If not, then I may get another iPhone.  After all, with 10.6 not supporting PPC processors, I need a new laptop anyway.

Motorola (MOT), the inventor of Six Sigma, is in big trouble. Even though it invented Six Sigma, this is a clear example that shows how Lean or Six Sigma are not a cure-all for corporate woes, but that good leadership and a winning strategy are key in a competitive world — Lean or Six Sigma is necessary, but not sufficient.

The Art of Exclusion

Michael Porter (Porter’s Five Forces) argues — I believe correctly –, in his seminal work, What is Strategy, that Operational Excellence is necessary but not sufficient. What is needed — even still and always — is a winning strategy. In his article, he argues that the essence of strategy consist of two related propositions:

1. strategy is engaging in activities that are different than the competition
2. strategy is engaging in activities that are similar than the competition, but perform better than the competition

Regarding (1), Porter argues that, regarding (1), the firm must choose a position — one that sets the firm apart from its competitors; a position that makes the firm and its products or services uniquely and competitively different and leads to a sustainable and profitable competitive advantage. Porter then claims that an important aspect of strategy is deciding what NOT to do — the art of exclusion.

Regarding (2), a firm will undoubtedly engage in activities that are similar than the competition. For example, take a traditional internet retailer — a firm in that space will usually have a front-end store and a fulfillment back-end. To set the firm apart on similar activities from its competitors requires that the firm perform those activities better — with better quality, lower costs, with better service, and deliver quicker than the competition.

Deploying a Lean or Six Sigma culture within your firm is essentially an activity borne from (2) — but it is not a panacea; by itself, a culture of Operational Excellence will find itself lacking in a hyper-competitive world.

Necessary but Insufficient

While Motorola might remain one of the hallmarks of Operational Excellence, it has, over the years, essentially failed to engage in activities that are uniquely and competitively different than the competition. Speaking as an outsider, it appears that Motorola has continued to run an efficient business, producing products and services with few defects and delivering on-time, but products and services in a market that has changed to demand less and less of Motorola products, in favor of competitors products, such as the Apple (AAPL) iPhone.

The Need for Leadership

The theme, I see, with most corporate problems, overwhelmingly points to Leadership. The OPPOSITE of long-term thinking, inspiring, visionary, humane, collaborative, reflective, selfless, nurturing, interested, responsible, and mobilizing is what seems to be what most companies elevate to the Chief Executive position.

Emulating Gary Convis

Gary Convis was recently brought in to be the CEO of Dana Corporation (DAN), an $8.7 Billion manufacturer of auto parts. Convis is a 40 year veteran of the auto industry and a former executive at Toyota. Dana Corporation is a struggling giant, currently in bankruptcy. When asked what words of wisdom he has to impart to his new team members at Dana Corporation, he said this:

“manage as if you have no power”

For me, that statement elegantly summarizes the the essence of Leadership — the type of Leadership that is capable of satisfying both (1) and (2) above.

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Articles on Leadership:

1. Overmanaged and Underled
2. Colin Power on Leadership
3. Team or Staff?
4. Tipping-Point Leadership
5. Abraham Lincoln on Leadership
6. How to transform an Organization: Chime-in Before Buy-in

Please articles on Queueing Theory below:

• Queueing Theory: Part 1
• Queueing Theory: Part 2
• Queueing Theory: Part 3
• Queueing Theory: Part 4
• What is Waste?
• On Time-Traps and Waste
• Call Centers as Queueing Systems
• Travel Time & Waste
• Little’s Law for Product Development
• YouTube’s Queueing Properties
• Psychology of Queueing and Disneyland
• Queueing, Disneyland, and FastPass
• Multi-Tasking Leads to Lower Productivity
• Queueing Theory and Terrorism
• On Queueing Theory and Elevator Mirrors
• Psychology of Queueing, Haunted Houses, and Halloween
• The Variability Tree
• Attitude and the Psychology of Waiting - The Psychology of Queueing

Articles on Operations, lean and six sigma, please visit the links below:

• Managing Constraints Under Peak Volumes
• Order Pipeline of Events
• On Game Theory
• Applied Regression Analysis
• 5S
• Click-to-Ship Processes
• Kanban Sizing and “Pull”
• Lean at Krispy Kreme
• Theory of Constraints and Camping
• Lean for Software Development
• Don’t Waste the Customer’s Time
• Featuritis and the Focus on the Customer

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Yes, it’s started.  So many bloggers, “news” sites, and rumor mills are talking about the expected 3G iPhone, and how it will change the world.  Lots of sources “close to the 3G iPhone project” have been touting the appearance of the new Wunderkind of the Smart Phone genre, and the many bells and whistles that they will be sporting.  But one aspect of the new iPhone has been oddly silent:  the up and coming applications that everyone is expecting.  

Now, as I’m sure comes as no surprise to those who follow my blog (thanks you two! ^_^), I’m very pro-Mac.  I like the Mac platform, I like the fact that it’s now 100% UNIX compatible as of 10.5, and I like the fact that it’s simple to use.  Part of that has to do with the design of the hardware, but most of it has to do with the applications that are available for the Mac.  That’s what really makes a Mac a Mac.  You can change a windowing system on either Vista or even Linux to look like a Mac, but it still doesn’t have the same applications running.  

Well, we know that Apple already has released various beta versions of the iPhone OS SDK in order to encourage developers to write programs.  This is great, but we haven’t heard much from developers as to the applications they are writing.  Many have speculated, but none confirmed the release of a Microsoft Office suite (surely watered down if not just a viewer) for the iPhone, and some other apps like a version of Flash from Adobe.  But nothing concrete.  

Well, if I were calling the shots, or at least if I were looking for Apps that would appeal to me, here would be my list: 

1. Presentation Software:  I want to be able to show a Keynote from my iPhone.  This could be either something built into iTunes sharing (like photo albums), or an actual Keynote viewer and basic editor.  Either way, I would like to see an app that will let me present Keynotes.  Then I would just need to have a way to hook up the iPhone to a projector.  
2. Text Editing:  This could be as simple as a plugin for Google Docs (which didn’t work well on the first gen iPhone), or a separate application that is more than just a note taker, but could be less then a full fledged version of Pages or Word.  But typing on the software keyboard?  let’s talk about: 
3. Bluetooth Keyboard Support:  Yes!  Let us tether a bluetooth keyboard to the blasted thing!  It would be convenient on so many levels.  And it’s one major requirement I have for the rumored iPod Slate. 
4. Spreadsheet Viewing:  This could be just as simple as adding the Preview option from Leopard into the iPhone OS.  I’m not thinking about using a spreadsheet program on the iPhone, that’s something to do on a real computer.  But it would be nice to be able to read a spreadsheet that is sent to you, or review it before a presentation. 
5. Terminal:  Yes, I want a terminal on my Mac.  Why?  Because I use it constantly while checking connections, servers, ports, and running various apps.  It would be invaluable for any IT professional to be able to SSH into a remote machine while traveling, check on a server status, restart services, etc. all while away from a real computer.  
6. Full Version of iCal:  I want something more robust than the current iCal software on the iPhone.  All new events created on the thing shouldn’t create a new calendar.  It should also be able to subscribe to new calendars, and color-code them.  That would be nice. 

In some organizations, the Customer Service function is largely viewed as a cost center, draining resources of the firm. I maintain that this perspective is what less mature companies support. More mature companies and, subsequently the more successful ones, understand the strategic fit of Customer Service in the overall value chain and it’s functional role in the supply chain.

In what follows, I’ll take a hypothetical iPhone defect case and show how customer service in this example plays a pivotal role in the overall iPhone supply chain — a key player in the overall product value chain.

Strategic Fit of Customer Service in the Supply Chain

In a supply chain network, the Strategic Fit of Customer Service is often the voice-of-the-customer post-release of the service or product. The phrase “start with the customer and work backwards” is really a misnomer. Why? Well, in most products or services, it really starts with the customer and ends with the customer — that is, the customer’s voice is heard at the level of product design and then the voice-of-the-customer is heard at the market monitoring level, post-release of the product or service.

We know — through pretty accurate anecdotal evidence — that the supply chain of the iPhone looks like the following:

From a high-level, we speculate that the following are the material suppliers of the Apple iPhone:

1. Samsung: The Singapore facility manufactures CPU and Video processing chips.
2. Infineon: The Singapore facility manufactures Baseband Communications hardware.
3. Primax Electronics: The Taiwan facility manufactures Digital Camera Modules.
4. Foxconn International: The Taiwan facility manufactures internal circuitry.
5. Entery Industrial: The Taiwan facility manufactures connectors.
6. Cambridge Silicon: The Taiwan facility manufactures bluetooth chipsets.
7. Umicron Technology: The Taiwan facility manufactures printed circuit boards.
8. Catcher Technology: The Taiwan facility manufactures stainless metal casings.
9. Broadcomm: The U.S. based facility builds touch screen controllers.
10. Marvell: The U.S. based facility builds 802.11 specific parts.
11. The Apple Shenzhen, China facility assembles the hardware, holds inventory, and handles the pick, pack, and ship steps of the fulfillment process.

If I am correct in any of my research and assertions above, it’s easy to see that if there is any disruption in material flow of any supplier into the Apple Shenzhen, China facility, then production either slows or halts altogether.

We also know that the Austin, Texas Apple Operation is largely where Apple Care physically sits, with another office just outside of Sacramento, California. So, for any contacts into their Call Center, then that is most likely where the contacts will enter (they also have, we understand, outsourcing partners, but Texas Apple Care is the headquarters).

So, more completely, then, the high-level iphone supply chain may represented like this:

Market Monitoring, Defect Data

When a product is released into the market, there can be many channels of market monitoring of the health of the product. In the medical device or pharmaceutical industry, where I once worked, the Market Monitoring phase of the product lifecycle represents a large portion of the product, especially in how it meets regulatory concerns, etc. Marketing and Public Relations also have an especial interest in market monitoring since the voice-of-the-customer post-release can and, usually does, help the firm improve their product or service.

Let us assume the following:

1. Apple Care (Apple iPhone Customer Service) has a program for collecting product health, post-release, of the product. These can be from inbound contacts to the Apple Customer Service or through blogs or through message boards.
2. In this program, Apple has a simple and elegant way of making that information actionable, involving collecting data, stratifying of the data, root cause analysis, then practical countermeasures to improve the iPhone through upcoming releases of the product.

iPhone Defect Data

Extending this hypothetical iPhone case, let’s say that Apple Customer Service collects inbound iPhone Defect Data using a very simple check sheet, like the following:

The first column shows very broad defects as reported by the iPhone customers. On the right column are the simple counts. This is called a check sheet. Other variants of this simple quality tool are to collect by day, time, shift, product color, version, etc.

The next step to make this data actionable is to visually render it in a way that points to an healthy area of opprotunity. Below might be a picture that can help us — an iPhone Pareto of Defects:

The above picture is a Pareto Chart, showing the check sheet data, in visual format. As a consumer of this data, the Apple Customer Service folks might want to pay closer attention to the first and second bars of the Pareto, because those two bars represent “iPhone Touch Screen” defects.

The Pareto above naturally leads the consumer of this data to ask “Why?” — “What’s going on with the Apple iPhone Touch Screen?”

The next step, then, in the lifecycle of product monitoring and improvement is to conduct a Root Cause Analysis, focused on areas where the opportunity trade-off is good. In other words, to truly get-to-the-heart of Touch Screen defects, Apple must meet with the suppliers of the iPhone Touch Screen technologies. Based on the Supply Chain network drawn above, Apple should meet with BroadComm, the supplier of the iPhone Touch Screen technologies.

In that meeting, both Apple and the supplier can look over the data, go to the Gemba, and conduct root cause analysis on what’s going on with the Touch Screen.

iPhone Defects Root Cause Analysis

There are several tools that can aid in the process of Root Cause Analysis. Basically, it is a simple approach of asking “why” several times until you arrive at an atomic but actionable item. To visually view the process of the “5-why’s”, a tool called an (Ishikawa Diagram) or a (Cause-and-Effect Diagram) or a (Fishbone Diagram) is often helpful — this tool is referred by either of these names.

Main Components of an Ishikawa Diagram

1. At the head of the Fishbone is the defect or effect, stated in the form of a question.
2. The major bones are the capstones, or main groupings of causes.
3. The minor bones are detailed items under each capstone.
4. There are common capstones, but they may or may not apply to your specific problem. The common ones are:

• People
• Equipment
• Material
• Information
• Methods/Procedures
• Measurement
• Environment

After completing your Fishbone Diagram excercise as a group, it is helpful to test your logic by working the bones: top-down OR bottom-up like:

this happens because of g; g happens because of f; f happens because of e; e happens because of d; d happens because of c; c happens because of b; b happens because of a.

The excercise above is crucially important — you must test your logic so that it makes pragmatic sense and that the atomic root cause is actionable — that is, you can do something to correct it, reduce it, or eliminate the root cause.

Once you or your team arrive at a root cause for a specific capstone, then you typically “cloud” it to identify it as a root cause. A good rule is that there is typically *NOT* 1 root cause for a problem, but potentially several. Below is a diagram of one fishbone, decomposed:

Once the Apple folks and the Apple iPhone Touch Screen supplier arrive at the root causes of the iPhone Touch Screen defects, then the supplier needs to put-in-place countermeasures so that the next shipment of the Touch Screen — perhaps in the next version of the iPhone — won’t have this defect anymore.

In fact, there can be much Public Relations and Marketing campaigns from this effort: Apple can show the public that it has listened the concerns of the market; Apple has done this by fixing the defects that most pains that market, in relation to the iPhone product. There can be much branding from an effort like this.

Conclusion

Customer Service plays a key role in the value chain of a product or service. Some firms view and, consequently behave, as if Customer Service were simply a cost center. These firms miss the point altogether: Customer Service is a major vehicle for hearing and learning about what the market is perceiving and feeling and experiencing from our products or services. This data and information can be made actionable through the strategic and smart utilization of Customer Service.

Disclosure

The data above is only hypothetical. The process above works and, if done strategically and with an eye toward the customer, then Customer Service can be a major player in how our products and services can be improved and how we can shape the signals we send to the market and, consequently, how the market can begin to perceive the firm.

I love Apple, but I don’t own an iPhone. I would love an iPhone and would gladly accept a free iPhone from Apple and/or other free Apple products. Apple can join the other companies that have sent me free stuff here.

+++++

Please find originally-written articles on Queueing Theory below:

• Queueing Theory: Part 1
• Queueing Theory: Part 2
• Queueing Theory: Part 3
• Queueing Theory: Part 4
• What is Waste?
• On Time-Traps and Waste
• Call Centers as Queueing Systems
• Travel Time & Waste
• Little’s Law for Product Development
• YouTube’s Queueing Properties
• Psychology of Queueing and Disneyland
• Queueing, Disneyland, and FastPass
• Multi-Tasking Leads to Lower Productivity
• Queueing Theory and Terrorism
• On Queueing Theory and Elevator Mirrors
• Psychology of Queueing, Haunted Houses, and Halloween
• The Variability Tree
• Attitude and the Psychology of Waiting - The Psychology of Queueing

For a few articles on Operations, lean and six sigma, please visit the links below:

• Managing Constraints Under Peak Volumes

• Order Pipeline of Events

• On Game Theory

• Series on Queueing Theory

• Applied Regression Analysis

• 5S

• Click-to-Ship Processes

• Kanban Sizing and “Pull”

• Lean at Krispy Kreme

• Theory of Constraints and Camping

• Lean for Software Development

• Don’t Waste the Customer’s Time

• Featuritis and the Focus on the Customer

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Not too long ago I was fortunate enough to pick up an iPod Touch (bonus had come in from last year's work). The device has been remarkable, smaller than it looks and packing a nice little portable media punch. It also happens to be a fairly robust mobile computing platform, as evidenced by the strength of community development for the device even prior to the release of the official SDK. Being

Abilene Christian University has a program to give all students an iPhone. They've also got a video that shows how the iPhone might be used on campus (the video is conceptual, not factual). I found some of the ideas to be pretty interesting, but wonder how much IT support would be needed to pull them off. For example, in one sequence the students type things into an application running on the iPhone and a tag cloud is built on the projected screen in real time. Slick.

The current standard in teaching IT support is Blackboard and anyone who watches this video and then thinks about what Blackboard can do will be sorely disappointed that our capabilities are so thoroughly limited by this dinosaur from the 90's. Schools pay a lot of money for Blackboard and its one of the worst Web applications you can imagine. If I worked there, I'd be embarrassed to admit it.

All this just goes to show that there's still plenty of blue ocean in the educational and instructional software market if someone were willing to crack that nut.

Tags: academics byu apple gear iphone

Yesterday, quietly, AT&T; announced a plan for corporate users to get an iPhone with their corporate account discounts. This is something that has been asked for, sought after, and finally won by the business users that wanted to utilize the iPhone (and one more step for Apple in the business market). Since the University has a corporate account with AT&T;, I thought I would check it out and see what the discount looks like.

Well, it looks like the discount for the plan saves you around $9.00 per month for any plan with any phone (sans one). So you are probably thinking, "Great! I'm all over it!" Well, before you get too excited, you have to look at the iPhone Enterprise Data plan. For the basic plan (everything, with only 200 SMS messages), it's $45.00 a month. Compare that with the iPhone individual upgrade of only $20.00 a month for the same plan. So, you are being charged an extra $25.00, just because you have a corporate account.

I suppose they assume that corporate users are going to integrate more applications and utilize the data bandwidth more, so that's why the price is higher. Unfortunately, since there is no discount for the iPhone itself, this means that it would be cheaper for a business user to get a private account for the iPhone, instead of the corporate account.

Needless to say, I am disappointed. Perhaps, should the iPod Slate be announced sometime soon, or a 3G iPhone even sooner, I will rethink it.

Some people wonder why I love my iPhone. I'll give you one simple reason: In all the years I've owned mobile phones, not one ever got better as it aged. The iPhone has gotten better three times now and promises to do so in the future. Today's bump added pseudo-GPS capability (which seems to work surprisingly well), a user-manageable home page, and multiple SMS recipients.

As an aside, my update wasn't seamless. After it tried the first time, it told me I had to do a restore. That worked fine, restoring the software to the latest version and then syncing my contacts, music, and so on from iTunes. Be sure you sync before you upgrade. If you have, then a restore is no big deal--just takes a little longer.

Tags: iphone apple mobile

Apple iPhone (click to enlarge)

Since yesterday's announcement that Google had released an iPhone-ready look and feel for it's Google Apps, I've been playing with GMail and Google Reader quite a bit on the iPhone. This is a much improved experience. I'm impressed. The apps are responsive and function well on the reduced real estate of the iPhone screen.

Because GMail pre-loads recent messages, clicking on a message to read it brings it up nearly instantaneously. The address fields also auto-complete. I could see myself using GMail on the iPhone instead of the built in Mail application and getting along very nicely.

Reader still isn't my favorite way to read news. I've used NetNewsWire on the Mac for a long time and have a style of reading news that Reader just doesn't seem to support. Still, it's snappy and clean on the iPhone and that's a real plus.

Tags: iphone apple google

Well, the speculation is over, the rumor and anticipation is done, Steve's Keynote has been delivered. There were a number of updates, and two new products, that were announced. Let me go over them one by one, and give you my reaction to each of them.

Time Capsule
Time Capsule is a new device that Apple has that combines the Airport Extreme with a backup drive already on board. So, instead of getting another drive and adding it to your Airport Extreme, you have just the one device. Very handy, very popular, very much in need when using Time Machine to back up your data. If you don't already have a server running at home that will let you back up your machine, this is a great idea.

At the time of the announcement, I was rather luke-warm about this device, since it is kind of a watered down home SAN, but it didn't really grab me. Now, I think it's something that I would like to have. It integrates with Time Machine well, so there isn't a lot of configuration and thought that needs to go into backing up your system. It just does it for you. Of course, you can save a lot of space if you only back up your Users folder, which backs up all the user folders and configuration files. ^_^

iPhone Updates
Great idea, adding a lot of functionality to the already popular phone. But I don't have a phone, and I'm not sure I will ever get a phone. Why wasn't there an option to tether a Bluetooth keyboard? That, in my mind, would have been a much needed/wanted ability for the iPhone. Perhaps in future, as new software becomes more popular and functional with the SDK.

iPod Touch Updates
This was very much needed. It's about time! The update will be welcome for everyone that want's to have the functionality of the iPhone without wanting an actual phone. For the first time, I am seriously thinking of getting an iPod Touch. Course, if you already have one, the extra $20.00 seems a bit steep. Why charge for the upgrade?

iTunes Movie Rentals
We all knew this was coming, particularly since a lot of studios have been rather loose-lipped about the whole thing. It's a good move, in my mind. There are a lot of movies I have ripped into MP4 format that sit on a DVD somewhere, never to be watched. All the DVD's that we have purchased and have only watched once... It's a good move. And the price is about what I expected. The HD rental idea was pretty cool, though I wonder what the download rate would be.

Do I think it will change the industry? Not really. I think it will be more popular, easier to manage, and more natural for people because of their current use of iTunes, but ultimately the industry is too young to say that it will be changed forever by this announcement. But it does make using the current industry more simple to use. ^_^

Apple TV Take 2
Yes! It stores it's own media! Yes! The upgrade is free! Yes! This was the real announcement for me. The Apple TV had so much potential, but it felt like those of us using it for so long had been pretty much left out of the loop. It was great for sharing media from my wife's Mac, and still will be. But now we can rent movies to it easily, watch them, and have the movie automatically delete once we've watched it. Also, video podcasts can be downloaded and watched without having to use another machine. This was a great idea, and I'm glad Apple went with it. ^_^

The price drop was also nice, though not significant enough to warrant another purchase of the 160 GB model (yet). Yet again, price begins to drag on my wants, reminding me of the needs that are more pressing. Oh well, perhaps soon.

Macbook Air
The rumor was pretty strong on this one, and I thought it would be something similar to the Eee PC by ASUS. The devil was in the details, depending on the type of drive, size, and features it carried. It turned out to be the same, much the same way a Honda Civic is the same thing as a Mercedes Benz. Here are the points:

1. Size: It's perfect for what I want. I need something small, easy to carry around in either a backpack, briefcase, or even a portfolio. That's why I wanted an iPod Slate to begin with. Something like that would have been perfect, and they have given me basically a Slate with the keyboard attached. It's nice and compact, if wider than I would have wanted (in comparison to my 12" Powerbook).

The thing is, I don't really need a 13" screen. I can deal with a 8" screen (I did with my NEC 120LT for a couple years, and it was great!). So the screen size isn't actually a benefit for me. It could be, if I needed to see something that big, and the resolution is right where I would want it to be. But a small screen I can live with.

2. Weight: Great weight. I like small laptops that are lightweight. My 120LT that I had for years was 2.2 pounds. That was perfect for running around. This gives me the ability to write documents, show presentations, carry my movies/TV shows with me, and having a full OS that will work with the classes I teach. And it's all in a small form device that is about the same size and width of a 30 page document (estimate only). That I like. It's perfect particularly for any instructor in Distance Education, who want's to have the power of a full-sized laptop, but save on space while traveling.

But how does it compare to the Eee PC? The Eee PC is lighter by a full pound. So even though the weight is great for the Macbook Air, it's still not the lightest option out there.

3. Drive: This is what concerned me the most. Solid State drives have a limited number of writes before it fails. Granted, pretty much everything could have the same, but a solid state drive is more limited. With a full OS writing to it constantly (log files, caching, deleting, etc.), it can fail rather quickly.

I had mentioned before in a previous post that if such a thing were to be developed, it would be nice to have an iPod Classic drive in the machine. And that's what they did. It's not really fast (4200 RPM), so don't expect to be gaming heavily on it, or producing video with Final Cut Pro. But it will do the job, and potentially last longer than a Solid State Drive.

Course, if you want speed, the 64 GB (compared to the Eee PC's max of 8 GB) will definitely give it to you...at a cost. That cost? $999. yep, the 4200 RPM PATA drive was a good choice. ^_^

One thing it can't do is boot from a USB drive, unlike the Eee PC. Of course, I could be wrong about that, but that is a huge bonus with the Eee PC. Sure the SSD drive may die on it after a few years, but you can still boot from either a USB drive, or an SD card. Therefore, you have a device that can outlast the SSD drive installed, as well as have multiple versions of the OS for the machine.

4. Peripherals: The Macbook Air was built to be wireless, and use wireless devices. Sure, you can have an external, USB powered Superdrive ($99 extra), or another USB device, but that's it. It doesn't even have a Firewire port, as you might expect. The Micro-DVI port looks interesting (almost like a 400 Firewire port??), but if you lose your adapter you are sunk. No one else will have one that will work with it, unless they have the same machine.

The wireless technology is what you would expect from Apple: 802.11n and Bluetooth 2.1. There was a guess that it would include either UTMS or WiMAXX, but neither came about. I wouldn't mind WiMAXX... I like the idea and the technology. Perhaps in future incarnations of the Macbook Air as the technology begins to catch on. We will see.

The Eee PC has three USB ports, and an SD card slot. Great idea, but SD cards are easily lost (particularly if you are as disorganized as I am). But then, the USB ports could easily make up for that. Wireless is the standard 802.11g, which most people support.

5. Design: Quite frankly, the Macbook Air has a killer design. It's sleek, it's fancy, it's impressive. It will turn heads, and be the kind of tech status symbol that many people feel they need in their lives. Personally, it's not as important as a number of other features, but then I still like to have something that looks as good as it performs. The key there is as good as. I don't want something that looks fabulous, but totally bomb in performance. It still needs to do what I want it to do.

The Eee PC doesn't look as nice, but the ability to boot from any Linux distro at any time, while keeping your home folders on the main drive is pretty slick. The geek factor goes up pretty high at that point. Of course you can always tri-boot the Macbook Air, you just don't have the flexibility to move based on new storage.

6. Price: For those (two) of you who have followed my blog, you know that I pride myself on my Scottish heritage. It's in my Blog's name, I show it every April 6th (national Tartan Day!), and I try to show it in my purchasing of devices. I'm very wary of paying a load of money for a new thing just because it is "shiny". I want to have made an informed decision, and gone with the lowest bid.

Now, that doesn't mean that I automatically look at price! I look at quality, life expectancy, and multi-tasking my purchases. if it does one thing really well, but I can't do anything else with it, then I generally leave it be (unless it's under a dollar ^_^). So with high prices comes high expectations. If I can do the same thing with a lesser-priced device, I will go with the lesser priced device. It's simple rules of economics.

The Macbook Air is priced at $1,799.00, with an Education discount of $100. Good price? It hurt my wallet. I want the thing, but that's a bit much for me to muster. I need a new laptop, and I really would like it to be a Mac. It makes a $999.00 Macbook look a lot better. After all, it's just a little thicker, has more features, and weighs just two more pounds. I just can't put it in a Portfolio while on the go.

Course, the Eee PC is priced around $400.00, which makes it a much better purchase. I could purchase two and still have it be less than a Macbook.

Anyway, that's what I thought of today's MacWorld Keynote. All in all, they were all really neat. But I don't think I will be getting a Macbook Air today. Perhaps, if more is known on how it performs with Target Disk Mode, and other support features, I may change my mind and try to talk my wife into letting me get one. Perhaps...

These Pink iPhones are all over Bebo.com. Is this a sign of things to come at MacWorld, or did I miss the announcement?:

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Apple iPhone (click to enlarge)

The latest issue of Wired Magazine has a great article on the iPhone: The Untold Story: How the iPhone Blew Up the Wireless Industry. Very interesting behind the scenes details and analysis. Here's the summary:

The hosannas greeting the iPhone were so overwhelming it was easy to ignore its imperfections. The initial price of $599 was too high (it has been lowered to $399). The phone runs on AT&T;'s poky EDGE network. Users can't perform email searches or record video. The browser won't run programs written in Java or Flash.

But none of that mattered. The iPhone cracked open the carrier-centric structure of the wireless industry and unlocked a host of benefits for consumers, developers, manufacturers --- and potentially the carriers themselves. Consumers get an easy-to-use handheld computer. And, as with the advent of the PC, the iPhone is sparking a wave of development that will make it even more powerful. In February, Jobs will release a developer's kit so that anyone can write programs for the device.

From The Untold Story: How the iPhone Blew Up the Wireless Industry
Referenced Thu Jan 10 2008 08:53:16 GMT-0700 (MST)

Last month a Net Applications survey put iPhone browsing share--that is, how many pageviews on the 'Net are from an iPhone--is at 0.09%. That may seem like a small number, but keep in mind that that means that almost one our of every thousand pages viewed on the 'Net is seen on an iPhone. That's 50% more than all Windows CE devices combined--which have been on sale for a decade.

A ComputerWorld blog by Seth Weintraub put it this way: