Articles by Rob Enderle

We're coming up on another school year, so it's about time to start shopping for school supplies. I love summer but walking around on what feels like a frying pan has made me wish for the coolness of air-conditioned classrooms Let's talk about what tech devices to consider before returning to what I hope is cooler comfort in a few weeks when school...

Last week I listened to a podcast from Lucid Motors SVP Mike Bell (ex-Apple, ex-Rivian) on what makes the Lucid Air and the coming Lucid SUV code-named Gravity, due in 2024, so very different from every other car on the road, including Tesla Given Tesla was heavily influenced by Apple, as well, it will be interesting to see the differences Apple br...

Last week was crazier than usual in the tech world -- which says a lot Elon Musk was sued by Twitter to complete a deal it didn't want initially; some influential folks are falsely blaming Qualcomm for Apple's inability to execute on 5G; and Netflix partnered with Microsoft instead of Google or Comcast for ad-generated content....

One of the stories told in management classes as an example of a recurring mistake companies make when their industry is transitioning focuses on buggy makers at the turn of the last century Those that figured out they were in the personal transportation business pivoted to cars. Most of the others that thought they were only in the buggy business ...

For most of us, the metaverse is mostly hype about the promise of a new internet that we could explore virtually. As it's currently implemented, the metaverse is reminiscent of the networked world pre-internet. It is represented by a bunch of very different and unique attempts to create what seems much like a walled garden approach, more like AOL and CompuServe than the post-Netscape internet that we enjoy today...

One of the big news items last week was that a leading AI researcher, Blake Lemoine, had been suspended after going public that he believed that one of Google's more advanced AIs had attained sentience Most experts agree that it hadn't, but that would likely be true regardless of whether it had because we tend to connect sentience to being human an...

During the last few weeks we've had two developers' conferences. First, there was Microsoft Build, and last week was Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). You'd think both events would be similar and focused on developers If you watch Satya Nadella's keynote at Build, you'll see a textbook example of how to do a developers' conference key...

The typical path for a new tech company is to hire someone experienced to run it in the early years, have them train the founders, and then have the company transition to being run by the people that created it The reason behind this approach is that the typical creator will be good at understanding the technology behind the product they have creat...

Microsoft Build is Microsoft's most interesting event because it focuses on the people that build stuff, mostly code, but often, as is the case this year, hardware Last week, Microsoft held its latest Build event and I'm pretty sure it caused most of the PC OEMs to freak out. This is because Microsoft announced a new focused workstation for develop...

Last week was BlackBerry's annual analyst summit. Since BlackBerry's tools and QNX operating system are expected to be heavily used in the next generation of cars, this event often provides a view into the future of automobiles. That future is coming very quickly, and it promises to change most everything we currently define as an automobile, from who drives it, to how it behaves while you own it. These changes are also expected to dramatically reduce automobile ownership by individuals...

Recently there was a fun story about how John Deere used their tractor kill switch to turn $5 million tractors stolen by the Russians into junk. I'm good with what they did to those thieves, but the fact that a "kill switch" exists and how John Deere and others use technology like this isn't good news Instead, it raises a problem with the industry'...

I was at Dell Technologies World 2022 last week. Often, I'm not very excited about anything on the showcase floor at events like this, but DTW has been the exception One year they had robotic baristas that made better coffee than Starbucks, and they've had cars from customers that I've wanted to buy. Which leads me to the one thing that should have...

With last week's announcement that the Varjo Reality Cloud had exited beta and is now in full release, we basically have two metaverse camps: Meta's, which is focused on the consumer and revenue and is defined by performance limitations associated with its wireless Oculus headset; and the Varjo-Nvidia approach where performance is king, business is the primary focus, and the result is far closer to the Star Trek Holodeck goal that is anticipated to be the eventual metaverse photorealistic experience the market has been primed to want...

I've been working with home automation offerings since the 1970s when I first installed X-10 switches in my apartment -- which I'm sure my landlord really appreciated when I moved out. Back then, there was only X-10, and while it was anything but secure, the fact there was no internet pretty much prevented me from being hacked Then in the early 200...

Elon Musk presents himself as a free-speech absolutist. In other words, he believes everyone should have a voice He has certainly had issues with critics, brutally going after a whistleblower and a first responder, among others. So, like a lot of people in power, he feels strongly no one should take away his voice or someone that he agrees with, bu...

Qualcomm went to Washington, D.C., last week to host an event focused on preserving and protecting the United States' unique leadership position in the technology market The keynote and panel were populated by ex-government officials and experts on trade and technology who pointed out that, regardless of which party is in power, the government is i...

Up until last week, discrete graphics, the high-end parts you would use if you were into gaming, CAD/CAM, AI development, metaverse creation, picture and movie editing, architecture, animation, or any other field (like engineering) that required high-performance graphics, you had a choice of two vendors: AMD which was the leader in value and more bang for the buck, and Nvidia which tended to lead in absolute performance...

Nvidia's GTC conference last week was amazing. What Nvidia does that no other vendor seems to get is use their technology to craft the keynote. Instead of watching a boring talking head, you get to see the benefits of their latest technology used and demonstrated virtually Given that Nvidia makes the leading metaverse platform, Omniverse, and uses ...

If you are like me, it's hard to focus on work given what is going on in Ukraine. I'm afraid doom scrolling has become far too addictive for many of us. But while the pain and suffering we are seeing is clearly tragic, the result could be a far more powerful Ukraine funded by captured Russian funds This week is Nvidia's GTC conference. The show wil...

The last few years have been one heck of roller coaster ride. The pandemic and the recent war between Ukraine and Russia bracket the events for now, but suddenly a lot of companies are rethinking aggressively global resourcing and divesting manufacturing as bad ideas The result is some interesting dynamics which should lead to higher prices than be...