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Thoughts on 2014 and 2015

So I’m starting to see end-of-year wrap-ups and predictions for 2015.  It’s always good to take a look a back on what is happening in the industry, epecially at Kobo. Largely, a lot of the stuff I am citing is predicated on Mary Meeker’s “State of the Internet, 2014 ed” that she puts together for […]

HP T620 thin client

[UPDATE – 2014/11/26: Made a few updates on the hardware.] [UPDATE – 2015/12/23: I ended up taking the Wireless N / Bluetooth combo card from the T610 and putting it in the T620] I’ve been fascinated with repurposing PC thin clients.  I like them because they are  virtually silent and very energy efficient1.  I’ve used […]

What it boils down to is the fact that one technology is designed for the users (Apple) and the other is designed for the merchants (CurrentC). Normally I’d say that the product with the most user appeal will win but the power and size behind the CurrentC group is too big to ignore. People aren’t reliant on mobile payments at this point so stopping Apple Pay out of the gate is a strong move as almost nobody will miss it.

CurrentC requires an app, password and QR Code to be scanned.  It works for pre-paid, cash accounts.  This is a solution to a business problem (lower transaction fees, better customer tracking) that is being touted as addressing a customer need.  People like using their credit cards.  The US economy (and Canada to a lesser extent) are built on easy access to credit.  They’ll be shocked to find out that people don’t have positive balances in their bank accounts.

I’m not even sure if the CurrentC group of retailers (really big retailers with over 110,000 storefronts in North America) are even serious about deploying it.  It strikes me as a competitive wedge to negotiate lower transaction fees with Credit Card companies. They are probably also using it to extract better terms (customer info) from Apple and Google with their competing wallet technologies.

Apple Pay: Addressing a customer problem

A lot of people think that Apple is about selling more hardware, creating lust for their products, but deep down, I feel that they are trying to address real problems and pain points for their customers. It’s remarkably simple, but often times, the tension between business needs and customer needs leads to a blurred product vision.  I’ve […]

pfSense on Watchguard Firebox x550e

[UPDATED – 2014-11-24]: I noticed that I had gotten the model wrong in the title of the article.  Fixed that. One of the odd things as I have moved up the food chain into (product) management is that I don’t have the opportunity to work directly on the products that teams build. Keeping a software […]

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Pixels & Widgets

A blog by Tai Toh