Articles by Rob Enderle

Every once in a while I run into a little company that comes at an existing market as if the folks already in it are idiots -- and sometimes they are right. Here's the thing: What often happens is a company breaks out in a segment, and everyone groups around that company's ideas and emulates them Few initially stand up and say, "Wait a minute -- wh...

We live in an unprecedented age of information and computing power -- yet whether publicly or privately, we still make decisions largely on how we feel rather than based on hard information. With this massive influx of data and computing power, when it comes to issues like global warming or gun control -- andmuch of what is being shown as data is...

Larry Page is rumored to be building a flying car, apparently dropping a whopping US$100M into the effort. Surprisingly, this actually makes more sense to me than a self-driving car does, because it potentially solves two problems at once: You won't have to fly the thing yourself; and it eliminates the need for roads for those who commute to work. ...

There were a lot of interesting announcements last week, ranging from cool new devices to what was basically an Amazon Echo on wheels from Asus. Such is the nature of Computex -- arguably one of the most powerful technology shows in the world. However, one of the most fascinating was Windows Holographic, which goes far beyond Hololens to redefine...

I joined a bunch of analysts in discussing Hewlett Packard Enterprise's next move at a secret conclave last week. The company had just announced the sale of its IT services, which basically undid much of Mark Hurd's work as CEO. (It already had sold off PCs and printers, more than undoing Carly Fiorina's earlier efforts.) Granted, HPE spun it like it was an acquisition (I'll get to that later) but this move leaves the firm even more crippled, suggesting there's more to come. ...

Smartphones appear to be losing their luster, and the king of smartphones -- Apple -- clearly is not having a good year. Suddenly, I'm hearing that there is an upswing in flip phones, making this feel a bit like a Game of Thrones episode, when a believed-dead king returns to seize the throne by surprise. (We are still talking small numbers, so you Apple folks don't have to jump out of windows yet.) ...

I spent last week at EMC World -- the last EMC World, by the way -- talking to customers and both Dell and EMC employees, on the lookout for interesting stories that others hadn't picked up. I got a bunch that I think are fascinating -- stories about women in technology, billions of dollars of currently untapped revenue, and why every EMC and Dell sales rep effectively will have a dartboard with Meg Whitman's picture on it. ...

One of the frustrating things for me during Steve Jobs' time was that most of the folks who watched Apple go from nearly dead to the most valuable company in the world didn't seem to see anything really unusual. It was more like they were watching a great tennis player win match after match and seemingly concluding, "damn, what luck!" As Liam Neeso...

Every time the "PC is dead" topic comes up, an old Monty Python movie comes to mind, and I'll bet you can guess which one. PCs are on almost every desk, and the installed base is measured not in the hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands -- it is measured in the hundred millions. Brian Krzanich, Intel's latest CEO, last week announced a ...

Two interesting events took place this month. Tesla announced its Model 3, a relatively affordable electric car, and it attracted around 180K preorders on the same day. That was before the company actually revealed the car. There were more than 250K preorders in the first 36 hours. Oh, and the run rate is about 1,500 per hour of preorders for this car right now. ...

At Nvidia's GTC, GPU Technology Conference last week, I saw a variety of new technologies showcased. From deep learning systems -- computers that arguably are smarter than we are -- to self-driving cars that can drive better than we can, the technological advances on display made me feel just a tad inadequate. One way to get over my sudden concer...

At last week's Microsoft Build conference, I attended the Hololens Academy -- a whirlwind effort to turn me into a master programmer able to create things out of thin air. It failed. Apparently it takes longer than an hour to teach someone who hasn't coded in decades to be a master programmer -- go figure. However, by the end of the class I was g...

Following Apple's announcement last week, I noticed a number of reports on how disappointed customers were that there was nothing they wanted to wait in line for hours to buy. I personally thought they should have been excited about that, because I hate to stand in lines. I've never really figured out an Apple fanatic's penchant for pain. Still, ...

Much of the analysis that I've seen regarding the U.S. presidential election season concludes that it is progressing like the Goldwater vs. Johnson election in the 1960s, when the Republican Party torpedoed its own candidate, ensuring a Democratic Party win. This is happening despite statistics that suggest Hillary Clinton is an extremely weak c...

There's an old rather funny movie called The Mouse That Roared. Basically, it is about a little no-name country that decides to go to war with the U.S. and lose, so that the U.S. will pay it reparations. Only it somehow wins, to everyone's surprise. It isn't clear whether Donald Trump declared war on Silicon Valley or the other way around -- it...

Amazon launched two new versions of Echo last week: the Echo Dot and the Amazon Tap. I've actually had the chance to look at both, and they flesh out the line nicely -- but I think the Dot actually could outshine the original Echo. I'll share some of my reactions to both devices and speculate about what could come next as Amazon expands this prod...

Anyone who went to business school recognizes the basic tenet that you use marketing to build demand in order to sell products. Through the 1990s, there was impressive marketing surrounding laptops -- Intel's iconic Bunny People come to mind. Apple aggressively marketed this class, as did Microsoft, and it seemed every other brand on TV was trying to convince us we needed a new PC. ...

I'm an ex-sheriff, and I've been in and out of security jobs for much of my life, so I've got some familiarity with the issues underlying the drama between the FBI and Apple. FBI officials -- and likely those in every other three-letter agency and their counterparts all over the world -- would like an easier way to do their jobs. Wouldn't we all? ...

I attended IBM Connect last week, where I checked out one of the most interesting products you've likely never heard of -- a new email offering called "IBM Verse." While there was a lot of discussion about how it better integrated social networking, what really intrigued me was the idea of putting cognitive computing inside an email client. "Cogn...

One of the fascinating things about the NRA is that buyers of guns think the organization represents them, when in fact its mission is to represent gun sellers -- not gun buyers -- and certainly never gun buyers against gun sellers. Guns for consumers largely have been banned in most of the world, with the exception of the U.S., which uniquely ha...