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The EU commission wants to end Microsoft's bundling of a browser with the operating system. But can you really force a split between the two? And can you force Microsoft to carry competing products as well? In the end, it depends on product architecture

One of the interesting elements in Apple's new product line - the iPad tablets - is the fact that the processor is not sourced from suppliers. Developing a microprocessor in-house is not a trivial thing at all, but the integrated nature of the product evidently suggested Apple to make this step in order to optimize performance and - possibly - to keep a stronger grip over a key component, thus avoiding commoditization.

The Tata Nano was thought to be a groundbreaking product, able to revolutionize carmaking both in the developing and in the developed world. Pity that nothing of the sort happened. Customer choice still remains difficult to foresee and - in this case - the product simply was not attractive to any customer segment

Mr. Joshi (the head of Hewlett-Packard's $24 billion printing empire) has spent years disputing the notion that people will print less as they do more on their hand-held devices. This week, he will see his ideas put into action as H.P. introduces a fleet of printers with Web access, their own e-mail addresses and touch screens. These products should open up new ways for people to print from Web services like Google Docs, and from smartphones and devices like the iPad from Apple. Mr. Joshi is going back to his roots as an engineer - as a young H.P. researcher, he figured out a way to make ink cartridges fire 45 million drops - and relying on new technologies, not slick marketing. But still, he will have to prove that customers will change their behavior and print more if given the right tools. That, Mr. Reitzes said, is crucial to how investors will evaluate the long-term prospects of H.P. "Investors are worried about printing," he said. "It's really important that they get this right." As the world's largest technology company, H.P. sells a wide variety of products but got much of its profit from printers and their pricey ink. More recently, H.P. has built up a large technology services arm as well, which has helped round out its business. But the printing division accounts for about a fifth of its revenue and a third of its profits. The new printers - which build on a limited experiment last year - will range in price from $99 to about $400. Every one will come with what H.P. executives billed as a breakthrough feature - its very own e-mail address. H.P.'s engineers hit on the e-mail address as an easy, familiar way for people to send print jobs to the Web-ready printers. You can, for example, take a photo with a phone, e-mail it to your printer's address and have the printout waiting for you at home. Or, you can share the printer's e-mail address with family and friends. This means that someone can buy Grandma a Web-ready printe

An article on competition in the smartphone industry. Nokia is the market leader thanks to its brand and grip on the Symbian OS, but competitors like Apple and RIM are growing quickly thanks to superior product concepts. It is interesting that Nokia is teaming up with Microsoft in the area of Office applications, in order to increase the appeal of its products.

The emerging BRICs are partially changing the "demand" side of innovation. Instead of simply producing (or engineering) products targeted to the needs of developed countries, Indian companies are now rolling out a number of products targeted to the needs of the country. Journalists have come up with the term "Indovation". Scholars and managers might start questioning whether this might change the way technological trajectories emerge.

Smartphones are about to overcome traditional "feature phones" in the US. When inovation happens so fast, with new product generations emerging at intervals that are roughly twice the average replacement lifetime of a product, it becomes difficult to understand whether we are operating within a broad s-curve (mobile phones) or within a succession of s-curves. Could be an interesting topic for research.

The iPad has finally been launched. It will be interesting to see whether this new type of product will carve itself a niche along to existing products (smartphones on the one side, PCs on the other) or whether it will become a substitute to them. Of course, this doesn't only depend on its own merits, but on features like connectivity, availability of applications and content and - not to be neglected - performance of the supply chain.

An interesting article on the social impact of technology diffusion. In this case it is the way with which (mostly young) Chinese are behaving when they become adopters of motor cars and enjoy the freedom of individual mobility. The business implication is that the way with which a product is used creates demand for complementary goods that are specific to the same behavior. So, understanding such behavior can provide interesting guidance for new products and services

New-product development challenges are especially acute in the communications industry. Companies in this sector are struggling to cope with falling margins from traditional products, rising consumer expectations and a marketplace in which they are increasingly competing head-to-head with high-tech, software and content players much more highly skilled at the product development game.

IT-driven productivity is making a comeback. According to Erik Brynjolfsson, who worked on this topic since the last decade, this time it will be analytics and data-driven decision-making who will define the phenomenon. It will be interesting to see how this will translate in different industries.

Product liability issues are always quite tricky for companies. Even though child buggies are not really high-tech products, and safety problems should not come out unexpected, even established companies often mismanage the process.

The field of navigation devices is interesting, because it is focused on product-services, which makes it difficult to apply the usual concept of "dominant design", and also because the business model can by quite tricky. This is especially true when a pureplay like TomTom must confront itself with competitors who have a much wider range of services and who can easily subsidize free navigation apps through its other businesses, such as Nokia and Google. In any case, TomTom made a smart move in 2007 by acquiring a critical and potentially monopolistic supplier of mapping data such as TeleAtlas.

An interesting interview with Dr Robert Cooper, senior consultant to Fortune 500 firms and top scholar in the field of innovation management. Today markets in many countries and industries are flat and increasingly commoditized, gains in market shares are expensive and acquisitions often don't work. In addiction, even traditional product development (for most companies, this means line extensions, improvements and product modifications) seems depleted, and only serves to maintain market share. For R. Cooper, the answer is "true innovation - breakthrough products, services and solutions - that create growth engines for the future and some examples, such as Apple's IPod, are often cited."

In India, where two-wheelers represent the most common transportation means, Tata Motors saw the need to come up with a safer kind of transportation. In addition to this safety issue, personal transport is also problematic because of the rare availability of public transportation . Therefore, Tata Motors introduced the People's Car, called the Nano. This disruptive product innovation will surely have significant effects on the small-car segment.

Lo scorso mese è stato presentato il Product Plan di Fiat. Alcune interessanti informazioni che si possono ricavare dalle slides della presentazione sono le seguenti: - nel corso degli ultimi anni il tempo di sviluppo di una nuova vettura è notevolmente diminuito, passando dai 26 mesi della Stilo (2003), ai 18 mesi della Grande Punto (2005) ai soli 15 mesi delle recenti Mito e Giulietta, grazie ai risparmi temporali nelle fasi di "Tecnological Development" e "Pre-series". - il tempo di sviluppo è notevolmente sceso anche nel campo della movimentazione terra (trattori in primis), passando dai 24 ai 18 mesi - il tempo di sviluppo nel campo dello sviluppo di nuovi motori si attesta in 30 mesi, in grande calo. - il numero di modelli è aumentato, pur basandosi su un sempre minor numero di architetture, passate da 19 (2006) ai soli 5 ipotizzati per il 2014. - il numero di modelli basati su un'architettura cresce da 1,7 ai futuri 7,6. - il volume di vendite di vetture basate su un'architettura aumenta da 150.000 a 800.000. - le sinergie sono diventate sempre più rilevanti, tra vetture del gruppo FGA, sia tra vetture con la stessa architettura, sia tra automobili con differente architettura. - si tende ad un aumento considerevole della standadizzazione dei componenti, in modo da ottenere significativi risparmi di scala. - le vetture sono diventate sempre più leggere, passando da una generazione all'altra.

Riguardo il Product Plan Fiat è interessante notare anche: - la modularità delle architetture di prodotto utilizzate, che comprendono parti in comune (parte del pianale, vano motore), parti intercambiabili (sospensioni, pianale) e parti modulari (sospensioni). In tal modo è possibile ottenere rilevanti risparmi; - FTA ha deciso di sviluppare 3 sole architetture di prodotto, realizzate, entro il 2014, in oltre 1 milione di pezzi ciascuna; - riguardo i sistemi telematici c'è stato lo stesso approccio, attraverso il quale si è giunti all'utilizzo di medesimi sistemi per vetture di stesso e/o simile segmento di appartenenza; - l'elevata standardizzazione, la diminuizione di architetture e famiglie di componenti ha permesso elevati risparmi, con una riduzione di costi variabili, costi di investimenti e costi di R&D; - la standardizzazione delle architetture ha comportato chiaramente una riduzione di costi, ma spesso anche del peso dei componenti, e conseguentemente delle vetture, raggiungendo una dimuzione di consumi ed emissioni; - le sinergie con il Gruppo Chrysler permetterà di scambiare know-how ed aumentare le vendite per le architetture, permettendo un'ulteriore risparmio.

Intel's acquisition of McAfee is puzzling. Beyond the financial motivation are there technical and business ones? Are we going to see a higher degree of integration, with security algorithms built in microprocessors? What is the impact going to be on the product and the value chain?

Modularity in cars is increasing. It used to be a relatively simple approach for making assembly easier and exploiting economies of scope. Now it is becoming a transformational technical approach that will change product architecture and business models

Boeing is suffering more than two years delay in launching its new composite-material 787 airliner and order cancellations are coming in. The reasons are interesting. First, Boeing has not only severely forfeited the product development capability it has always shown (e.g. in the 777 program) by shifting its attention and top management culture from engineering to sales. Second, it has inappropriately increased the degree of outsourcing, given the type of innovation involved. Using composite materials instead of alluminum for the airframe clearly is a radical innovation. Given that airplanes have an integral architecture, Boeing should have just done the opposite and developed competencies internally.

Defence suppliers have shifted their business model from simply selling products to ensuring the avaialibility of the related functionality (or "outcomes"). The article provides an overview and a few examples of this change.