Innovation Management

Google and Apple continue to find themselves on opposite sides of the world, as Google has apparently agreed to buy a chip-design start-up populated by former Apple employees. Agnilux, a stealth chip start-up in San Jose, Calif., is Google's latest acquisition. A company spokesman confirmed the parties had reached a deal but provided no further details on one of Google's more curious acquisitions in recent memory. Little is known about Agnilux other than the fact that it was founded by former employees of P.A. Semi, the chip start-up Apple bought in 2008. The New York Times attempted to track down details about the company in February and didn't get very far, but was able to confirm that several former P.A. Semi and Apple employees were among the co-founders, as well as Scott Redman, a former software architect at TiVo.

What is going to be the next TV generation? Searching for the new paradigm and after revealing the 3D line, Sharp launches the new RGBY QUATTRON model. The technology utilizes a fourth color pixel, yellow,and enhances the RGB-technology. RGBY is the abbreviation for Red Green Blue Yellow used in some LCD high-tech screens, so not LED. Sharp is investing a lot in the launch of this new product as they really believe in the technology.

BusinessWeek has compiled its annual list of the most innovative companies in the world and, as in 2009, winning is just Apple. This ranking takes into account several parameters, including innovation capacity of a company, but also the sales of the previous three years, increasing the profit margin and value of the stock market. Apple is thus confirmed as the company invests more in innovation and produces all products "revolutionary". Followed by Google and Microsoft in second place for the first time on the podium. The only Italian company Fiat is present in the Top50, which ranks at 43 th place.

In an interview with PC Pro, the deputy president of Sony's VAIO Business Group, Ryosuke Akahane, has revealed that the company will soon be effectively splitting its laptop business into two distinct groups. The first, called "division one," will continue with laptops designed and built by Sony as before, but the second, or "division two," will rely on laptops built by other manufacturers. Those behind-the-scenes changes may not be readily apparent to consumers, however, as the so-called division two laptops will still carry the VAIO name, and will apparently have the same "taste of VAIO" and "style of VAIO," with Sony naturally first approving all third-party designs. "We need a certain market share. And if we don't have a certain market share, it's tough to survive"

USB 3.0, a revolution? No, not really but it is a substantial improvement of the popular and indispensable interface that opens the door to a quick and easy management of large files in the home. It's a clear type of incremental innovation, and it's going to became the new connect standard for pcs and all the other devices. The competence enhancing content comes out from the compatibility properties with the current standard 2.0. The third generation of USB is promoted in performance even if the old 2.0, ten times slower in normal usage, have much to say to all those users, and the vast majority, who must manage large volumes of data .

Some examples of how tecnology could help groups of employees make better collaborative decisions, in terms of information channel's improvement.

in the last few years the strategic advantage due to business intelligence has increased a lot; so the firm that use those supports to take better decisions is growing. The article explains how there has already been significant consolidation in the market of BI software.

Sharp has developed a small 3D display that does not require users to wear special glasses: this innovation will become a new standard on mobile devices or customers are not so interested in 3D video on their mobile device?

In a statement, RIM President and co-CEO Mike Lazaridis said: "RIM is excited about the planned acquisition of QNX Software Systems and we look forward to ongoing collaboration between Harman, QNX and RIM to further integrate and enhance the user experience between smartphones and in-vehicle audio and infotainment systems. In addition to our interests in expanding the opportunities for QNX in the automotive sector and other markets, we believe the planned acquisition of QNX will also bring other value to RIM in terms of supporting certain unannounced product plans for intelligent peripherals, adding valuable intellectual property to RIM's portfolio and providing long-term synergies for the companies based on the significant and complementary OS expertise that exists within the RIM and QNX teams today."

Yesterday in Cupertino, CA, the Apple's CEO unveiled at the developers the new iPhone OS 4.0. The new OS is available to iPhone developers today, while the general public will get the update sometime this summer. Apple uses innovators and then early adopters to improve the product, leveraging on their enthusiasm. "We are not the first to offer this service, but we are the best" : Steve Jobs doesn't know moderation and understatement. Some of the OS 4.0 features, as the multitasking, doesn't represents that kind of radical innovation, just because Google did it first. But Apple is aware about giving those features to its product in the right time, according to Jobs. By the way, multitasking is only 1 of the 100 new user features announced and thanks to the early market the OS 4.0 could potentially represent the birth of new paradigms in the operating software market.

Advertising agencies and software developers also welcomed Apple's new iAd network as a potential breakthrough that could give an important boost to the small but fast-growing mobile advertising market. iAd is an OS 4.0 built-in app, which could be the starting point of a new generation of mobile adverts that would be far more engaging than current formats, which Jobs said "suck". Thanks to his company's control Apple's network would be able to serve up more creative forms of advertising to run inside the "apps" users download on to these devices. Advertising inside apps, although still small, has become the hottest corner of the mobile advertising business, prompting a race between Google and Apple. In fact, earlier this year Apple bought Quattro Wireless for $270 million signaling its intention to enter the advertising network space. Quattro is an ad network that spans both mobile websites and smartphone applications. It seems to develop a new strategy and paradigm for the advertisement and a new battle field for the two giants Apple and Google. Which will emerge?

Daimler and Renault signed a strategic alliance sharing competencies and technologies. The alliance is about creating platform projects for components of the new cars. Each company has its components to realize. With this alliance Daimler is changing its traditional business model: the company decided to swicht to the production of small car, where Renault has its core busines competencies. This partnership can also bring the German company in contact with the field of the new electric cars, in which Reanult is well advanced. 

In order to provide a better communication between the corporate seat and the foreign branches in Germany, and to manage the whole organisation and data, FIAT adopted a new Corporate Planner. The strengths of this application are the compatibility with the older ones, the flexibility of the system and the real time management. Actually, this can be a starting point to solve the huge internal communication problems of the Fiat Group Automobiles, created by the new alliance with Chrysler. If it works correctly,it will be extended to the whole company.

The Xelsis leads the way into a new fully automatic coffee machine era. 6 one-touch beverages can be personalised by 6 user profiles. The wide and easy-to-read display allows one-touchfunctionality and intuitive handling. This is a typical example of how electronics are being integrated into any household product, making the use of these machines more intuitive and customizable. I personally expect to become affordable, so to make me a nice present!

The new bet of Steve Jobs is to create a new need in the customers. iPad, in the middle between an iPhone and an iBook, is traying to create a new market and to change the relationship between men and computers.

IEEE's report "Patent Power" lists the top companies ranked by number of patents: is it really the best way to measure innovation? Shouldn't be better to measure the introduction of new products, and rank them by novelty and by widespread acceptance, in some way that reflects a more substantial measure of innovation and its impact on the economy?

This an example of a business model change. The innovation is in the change of the way to make money. Deutsche-Bahn entered with its new business model in the market of another country, where the competitors are going in a completely different way.  But is the way to make money adopted by Deutsche-Bahn really innovative, or is Trenitalia going in the wrong way, allowing so  the German competitor to realize its strategy?

SAP, the dominant player in the corporate information systems industry, is apparently hitting a wall in face of radical innovation. First, the shift towards cloud computing seems to be very difficult to the company, although this slow transition could actually help its huge customer base move towards more modern systems without too many shock waves. Second, and probably more profound, SAP is finding it very difficult to change its internal routines and processes by embracing "agile" approaches to product development.

A short summary of Jeremy Rifkin's new book. An interesting perspective that we might consider meta-paradigmatic. In other words, the position is that changes we are observing in a number of fields (i.e. distributed energy generation and smart grids, social networking, open source innovation, etc.) are symptoms of a more radical change at societal level, from individualistic self-interest to collective "shared interest",from the pursuit of wealth and property rights to a broader concept of "quality of life". 

Cloud computing is quickly becoming the dominant design for IT systems and could do the same to games consoles. This is quite striking, given that the trajectory followed by Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft has up to now been the opposite, with huge computing power distributed in users' living rooms, instead of concentrating it in providers' data centers