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Andrew Grove, a co-founder of Intel and the man who coined one of my favorite concepts, the strategic inflection point (SIP), is rallying corporate and government support for electric cars in the US. He realizes that Americans are reluctant to buy an all-electric vehicle, however:

While car makers have been developing plug-ins, Grove says the nation should consider ways of retrofitting the 80 million low-mileage pickups, sport utility vehicles and vans on the road to make them capable of running on both gasoline and electric power.

Giving these vehicles “dual fuel” functions would be similar to changes made in other technologies. DVD players, for example, were often combined with VCR tape players when they were first introduced to help consumers make the transition.

See this Associated Press article titled Ex-Intel head pushes electric cars for more details.

Related articles and pages on billso.com

• Strategic inflection point
• 12 November 2007: I want a better television - but it’s not ready yet
• 7 March 2007: Microsoft vs. Google

A concept developed by Andy Grove to describe the point in time when a company’s competitive environment undergoes a major change that requires a fundamental change in business strategy. See Grove’s 1998 speech at the Academy of Management meeting in San Diego for more details.

I often abbreviate strategic inflection point as SIP.when I’m grading papers or writing on a whiteboard.

Related articles and pages on billso.com

• IS 7010/6700 Technology Strategy
• 1 July 2008: Andy Grove wants more electric cars
• 12 November 2007: I want a better television - but it’s not ready yet
• 7 March 2007: Microsoft vs. Google

Here’s a great BusinessWeek article about the current state of television.

If you’re willing to buy and integrate several different pieces of software and hardware, you can have a television that:

1. Finds and records the programs you want to see, based on previous viewing habits and keyword searches
2. Finds and shows video from cable, satellite, NetFlix, YouTube, and other sources
3. Provides an easy way to schedule and watch programs
4. Use a stable, DRM-free file format that works on different computer systems
5. Saves video for long-term storage

However, there’s nothing available that will satisfy all of these requirements. Sure, there’s MythTV – but most consumers don’t want to build their own television.

Apple has its own solution, while Microsoft continues to sell its Media Center software. But both products trap video and audio into one of several formats, complete with a healthy dose of DRM.

If I’m going to save video, I’d like to save it forever, not until next month.

Sometimes the publishers and copyright owners are to blame. Major League Baseball example is a good example. Last month, MLB switched off its DRM server for its Digital Download service. Fans could buy and download digital video of old baseball games and documentaries. However, MLB now maintains that fans did not have a perpetual license to view these programs. These purchases were “one-time sales”, and when MLB dropped its contract with its DRM provider, no one could watch the video files.

Is Major League Baseball “evil”?

Google made a similar change a few months ago when Google Video’s store was discontinued. After a few days, Google decided to give purchases full refunds.

Some exexutives seem to understand the problems. Viacom’s Sumner Redstone may be one of them, based on this brief New York Times article.

As more viewers stop watching live television, we’re starting to see another strategic inflection point. An earlier strategic inflection point occurred in the 1980s, when the VCR and tape rentals let people watch movies and record television programs at home. In the late 1990s, TiVO and the DVR gave viewers much more control in their time-shifting.

The advent of YouTube and devices like the SlingBox have overturned the basic assumptions that built the television industry. The computer and the Internet have forced US broadcast networks to offer more news, sports and reality shows - real-time programs that have immediate entertainment value and may offer long-term revenue from clips and licensing.

The current writers’ strike has just made these problems worse, by taking scripted television shows off the production schedule during a prime viewing month in the US calendar. It’s ironic that a major point of contention in these strikes is DVD revenue. Studios and broadcast networks had relied on box set sales to offset decreasing advertising revenues.

Ina Fried of ZDNet wrote about Microsoft’s attitude towards Google. Ray Ozzie, the company’s Chief Software Architect, noted that Microsoft is trying to catch up to Google in several areas, such as search engine usability and advertising sales. As usual, Microsoft is buying small, innovative firms and rolling their products and services into Microsoft’s value chain and offerings.

My IS 7010 students should note Ozzie’s comments regarding a strategic inflection point. It’s quite typical for CXOs to use hindsight to find a SIP that they should have identified as it happened. Grove’s comments in our textbook are excellent in that regard, and they are highly recommended reading.