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Time as a Resource
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On Managing Time
Peter Drucker a well known management consultant of the twentieth century, had this to say about time:
Time is also a unique resource. Of the other major resources, money is actually quite plentiful. We long ago should have learned that it is the demand for capital, rather than the supply thereof, which sets the limit to economic growth and activity. People—the third limiting resources—one can hire, though one can rarely hire enough good people. But one cannot rent, hire, buy, or otherwise obtain more time.
The supply of time is totally inelastic. No matter how high the demand, the supply will not go up. There is no price for it and no marginal utility curve for it. Moreover, time is totally perishable and cannot be stored. Yesterday’s time is gone forever and will never come back. Time is, therefore always in exceedingly short supply.
Time is totally irreplaceable. Within limits we can substitute one resource for another, copper for aluminum, for instance. We can substitute capital for human labor. We can use more knowledge or more brawn. But there is no substitute for time.
Everything requires time. It is the only truly universal condition. All work takes place in time and uses up time. Yet most people take for granted this unique irreplaceable, and necessary resource. Nothing else, perhaps distinguishes effective executives as much as their tender loving care of time.
Man is ill-equipped to manage his time.
I have commented before that one business strategy is to let someone else do the heavy lifting with a new product and then copy them. This saves on research and development costs and enables one to learn from someone else?s mistakes. It works well if the technology is well known and the new product is easy to copy. Adding a camera to a cell phone or making a new thinner phone (the RAZR), are two examples. It doesn?t take much time to do that, and it doesn?t take much time to copy it. They give the originator a short head start but the lead doesn?t last long.
This point of view is central to much, if not most of today?s business strategies. Because time is inelastic you have to get your profits as quickly as possible. Push, push, push to meet the numbers, get the product out the door, get that new product to market even if it is not ready.
Apple is in the business of developing complex products with a large technological content. To do it right it takes a lot of time and patience. When they come to market the product, though not perfect, it is heads and shoulders above all others out there. It is not easy to copy. A lot of time has gone into its development and it takes a lot of time to copy it. This gives Apple a lead time. They use this lead time to make a lot of money, develop product improvements and lower manufacturing costs. A key element is to keep their competitors in the dark until the last minute. Apple?s security ?fetish? is well known, but it helps to extend their lead time. Compare it to Microsoft. We always know what they are doing because Steve Balmer is always talking about future products, which they rarely attain.
I believe that Apple took ten years to develop the iPad. Now that they have shown the way, everybody is rushing to market with inadequate products. I believe that Apple had a five year lead time when they introduced it, and their competitors just don?t have enough time to develop a truly equivalent product that they can afford to sell even by appropriating Apple?s proprietary intellectual property.
We are unhappy because the iPhone 5 is later than we would have liked. Apple is clearly going to lose some current quarter sales because of this, but most are just being deferred to the next quarter. The extra time that Apple takes will just make it harder for the competition to catch up. My hunch is that Apple wants to make sure that iOS 5 is really ready. This will generate another leap forward that will leave the competitors wondering what happened.
I am quite sure that Apple prefers to release a new product as early as possible provided that it is really ready. I am just pointing out that making sure the product is ready before release increases their edge because it is not easy to copy.
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The measure of the worth of a product is how much people are willing to pay for it, not how many people will buy it if the price is low enough.
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True.
My hope is that iOS 5 makes upgrading to future iOS versions a completely drama-free exercise. And that Apple won’t feel compelled (though I suspect that they might still be) to tie iPhone to new iOS releases. Sarb-Ox compliance already allows them to get away with “vaporware” (hey, it does happen even to Apple - iPod at Home, AirPrint, etc.?) and iOS 5 theoretically frees Apple to ship hardware and software whenever they damn well please because any and all updates and fixes are an OTA update away (or maybe even a quick plug-in/Wi-Fi wardrive at an Apple Store away, if you must).
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True.
My hope is that iOS 5 makes upgrading to future iOS versions a completely drama-free exercise. And that Apple won’t feel compelled (though I suspect that they might still be) to tie iPhone to new iOS releases. Sarb-Ox compliance already allows them to get away with “vaporware” (hey, it does happen even to Apple - iPod at Home, AirPrint, etc.?) and iOS 5 theoretically frees Apple to ship hardware and software whenever they damn well please because any and all updates and fixes are an OTA update away (or maybe even a quick plug-in/Wi-Fi wardrive at an Apple Store away, if you must).
I think the marketing people like the big bang software release with enough new features to make a nice sales presentation or commercial. The smaller incremental updates work if your testing requirements are not too severe. I think for feature releases you want to match up with what folks wallets can absorb additionally, you don’t what folks to continually have to update their systems and provide testing and training for their users. Since the new device would tend to include new hardware you would need to write software to take advantage of this capability. Why add a multicore multithreaded CPU/GPU if you don’t include things like Open CL and Grand Central Dispatch. So I think the interdependencies result in a major build to support the new hardware wether it is a fork or the main code line. Apple seems better then most at managing their software/hardware release cycles but I think the addition of iCloud and some of the Backend stuff at NC along with updates for iOS and OS X made the annual cycle unrealistic. Apple probably knew this quite awhile ago but their secretive nature resulted in many of their partners being unaware of the schedule.
[ Edited: 05 September 2011 04:34 PM by pats ] -
Yes, but will it continue?
Let’s be honest here - an October release, without a powerful launch effort and a magnificent production ramp, carries a large risk of not satisfying enough of the demand available in the holiday season.
Of course Apple can’t make enough iPhone 5s to satisfy demand in the holiday quarter. This is pretty much a given. So, what would I define as “failure”? Anything under 30 million units for fiscal Q1, and I think I’m being a little generous. And if Apple waited so long that the world is scared into not buying stuff due to external events, Apple has only itself to blame for trying to get things “perfect”, understandable as that selective “mania” (note the quotes) of theirs is. And it _is_ selective - iPad and iPad 2 launched with an “older” iOS, and so I rest my case.
iOS has some likelihood of having a slower release schedule over time. Just look at OS X. Does this mean Apple will unveil iPhone 6 in December 2012? 2013? Because iOS 6 isn’t perfect? I know a lot of “holiday season” adherents here (hey, I’m kinda one of ‘em now) who would be apoplectic if Apple didn’t have a new iPhone available for next year’s holiday quarter.
I’m not saying it’ll happen, or that Apple wouldn’t have legitimate reasons for launching iPhone 6 later than October 2012. But most all of us agree that June 2012 is now out the window. And even as Apple keeps switching things up on us, we’d be foolish not to try and discern the underlying trends.
[ Edited: 05 September 2011 04:41 PM by Mav ]Signature
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True.
Apple probably knew this quite awhile ago but their secretive nature resulted in many of their partners being unaware of the schedule.[/quoteMore importantly it kept their competitors in the dark, too.
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The measure of the worth of a product is how much people are willing to pay for it, not how many people will buy it if the price is low enough.
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You can’t argue that Apple’s relationship with carriers is a little…abusive? that way, but the pain of trying to hook up miles and miles of customers with a new iPhone and a high ARPU plan just hurts so good.
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DawnTreader
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In my work the time of customers and clients is an increasingly precious commodity. Time as a finite resource must be acknowledged and a person’s time availability must be honored and respected.
Move quickly, make the most of a person’s time and respect what time they allocate to conversation and commerce are essentials for success in today’s economy.
Personally, I’m increasingly relying on my iOS-based devices to make the most of my time and to communicate effectively and efficiently with those with whom I contact and conduct business. If you watch Apple’s recent iPhone and iPad ads, time and ease-of-use are important components of the messages being delivered.
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This topic’s already branching out in interesting ways.
DT, I’d be curious what you think of iOS 5’s Reminders and geo-fencing capabilities (should you try them), since you may be a prime candidate to get the most benefit out of these kinds of time-management/productivity apps. I find the current iOS calendar, while useful, mildly infuriating because I’m the type of person who finds a calendar event without a built-in pop-up reminder of some kind (read: default alert) pretty useless. Reminders has some interesting things to make up for the deficiencies, yet seems less powerful (you just have the checklist), and, as a separate app, adds its own complexity (having to set geofences and transition from/dual-use Calendar).
Reminders could be much more powerful if it straight-up ASKS you what’s coming up each day. Software should work for you - so, why should you have to remember to open the app every day, when Reminders could prompt you with the aid of that snazzy new Notifications Center? Hopefully, Reminders will or will eventually be able to do that.
[ Edited: 05 September 2011 05:19 PM by Mav ]Signature
The Summer of AAPL is here. Enjoy it (responsibly) while it lasts.
AFB Night Owl Team™
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Apple is in the business of developing complex products with a large technological content. To do it right it takes a lot of time and patience. When they come to market the product, though not perfect, it is heads and shoulders above all others out there. It is not easy to copy. A lot of time has gone into its development and it takes a lot of time to copy it…
I am quite sure that Apple prefers to release a new product as early as possible provided that it is really ready. I am just pointing out that making sure the product is ready before release increases their edge because it is not easy to copy.
This recent HBR article claims that:
...Apple produces 10 pixel-perfect prototypes for each feature. They compete ? and are winnowed down to three, then one, resulting in a highly evolved winner. Because Apple knows the more you compete inside, the less you’ll have to compete outside.
We are all mesmerized by Apple’s beautiful design, from device to screen, to the packaging itself. We see what the magicians want us to see. What we don’t see is the 18 months of negotiating with the music companies. Nor the three years of teaching the supply chain that the Macbook Air had to be really thin, really light, and really enduring (10-hour battery). When those improvements intersected with the iPhone’s great screen technology, the iPad (that glorious Air/iPhone hybrid) exploded.
Compare this with Samsung’s latest splattering of tablets: 5.3”, 7.7”, 8.9” and 10.1”. They would argue that consumers want choice. Apple might say that consumers will end up wasting time discovering that at least two of those choices are not suited for the tablet UI or the smartphone use cases.
The two larger units are half-baked because the OS is basically still in beta and developers won’t create apps optimized for them. Honeycomb will essentially never leave beta and skip directly to Ice Cream Sandwich. Do Android fans really think the first iteration of Android 4.0 will be anything but another beta release?
Business customers recognize what is happening and are not waiting around to experiment with beta after beta. The iPad with iOS have been ready to go for well over a year and they are deploying the device accordingly.
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This topic’s already branching out in interesting ways.
DT, I’d be curious what you think of iOS 5’s Reminders and geo-fencing capabilities (should you try them), since you may be a prime candidate to get the most benefit out of these kinds of time-management/productivity apps. I find the current iOS calendar, while useful, mildly infuriating because I’m the type of person who finds a calendar event without a built-in pop-up reminder of some kind (read: default alert) pretty useless. Reminders has some interesting things to make up for the deficiencies, yet seems less powerful (you just have the checklist), and, as a separate app, adds its own complexity (having to set geofences and transition from/dual-use Calendar).
Reminders could be much more powerful if it straight-up ASKS you what’s coming up each day. Software should work for you - so, why should you have to remember to open the app every day, when Reminders could prompt you with the aid of that snazzy new Notifications Center? Hopefully, Reminders will or will eventually be able to do that.
I think the reminders App points to interesting capabilities. During my life in the military, timing was extremely critical to the point of needing multiple rehearsals and such. Time is extremely valuable and I think Apple is working hard on the iOS to deliver on efficiency. There are a lot of efficiency improvements possible if we can tie a notification system to a smart reminder application. I worked on one of the major databases during a stint at the Military HQ and one of the areas we spent a huge amount of brainpower on was automating notifications. Some of these were event based plane X just departed so we have room to park plane y or the fighter aircraft you are scheduled to refuel did not take off so do you delay your take off. We also looked at intermodal scheduling between aircraft, trucks, trains and ships trying to enhance the scheduling algorithms to deal with the problem of things not going according to plan and near real time notification was a key task to solve. I think the folks from the SIRI acquisition are behind some of the ideas incorporated in reminders and agree it is pretty basic stuff on the surface, but you can rapidly increase the complexity once the basic system works, send a reminder to my air conditioner to lower the temp in the house when I’m 30 minutes from home. -
Yes, but will it continue?
Let’s be honest here - an October release, without a powerful launch effort and a magnificent production ramp, carries a large risk of not satisfying enough of the demand available in the holiday season.
Of course Apple can’t make enough iPhone 5s to satisfy demand in the holiday quarter. This is pretty much a given. So, what would I define as “failure”? Anything under 30 million units for fiscal Q1, and I think I’m being a little generous. And if Apple waited so long that the world is scared into not buying stuff due to external events, Apple has only itself to blame for trying to get things “perfect”, understandable as that selective “mania” (note the quotes) of theirs is. And it _is_ selective - iPad and iPad 2 launched with an “older” iOS, and so I rest my case.
iOS has some likelihood of having a slower release schedule over time. Just look at OS X. Does this mean Apple will unveil iPhone 6 in December 2012? 2013? Because iOS 6 isn’t perfect? I know a lot of “holiday season” adherents here (hey, I’m kinda one of ‘em now) who would be apoplectic if Apple didn’t have a new iPhone available for next year’s holiday quarter.
I’m not saying it’ll happen, or that Apple wouldn’t have legitimate reasons for launching iPhone 6 later than October 2012. But most all of us agree that June 2012 is now out the window. And even as Apple keeps switching things up on us, we’d be foolish not to try and discern the underlying trends.
iOS 5 is a big deal because it interacts with Lion and iCloud. This is not a case of getting it perfect, but rather making sure that it works as promised. It is complicated and takes time )(which is inelastic) to complete.
The Christmas quarter will take care of itself. Will they be able to satisfy all the demand? Probably not. They will still break all records for the quarter.
iPhone 6 will be announced on Apple’s schedule, when it is ready and/or needed. I don’t know that June 2012 is out the window. This waas the kind of argument that the iPad 2 wouldn’t be released until this fall. Hah. And I am sure that Apple is more aware of the underlying trends than any of us.
Finally, Apple can’t control external events. They can’t do anything about a major economic down turn; it’s out of their control. Their business will suffer but they will still do much better than the competition. They will manage manufacturing throughput and inventory to match business conditions better than anyone else. And they do have a few billion dollars inreserve, just in case.
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The measure of the worth of a product is how much people are willing to pay for it, not how many people will buy it if the price is low enough.
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Different, westech! iPad matched (actually, kinda bettered) the then-“expected” 12-month iOS device product cadence. That whole 18 months from iPad to iPad 2 thing was unmitigated FUD because there was zero history on the FUDsters’ side.
This time, we have iPhone 5 which broke the 12-month release cycle, and not by a little either. Unless Apple flat out tells us all the reasons for the iPhone 5 “delay”, we can’t rule out hardware as one of them.
I’d love to see an iPhone 6 in June 2012. IMHO, you’d be in the extreme minority on that one, though, because Apple will almost certainly milk its iPhone/iPod touch-sized A5 production for all its worth, which means at least a 12-month run. Then there’s iOS 6 almost certainly not being ready by then. Then there’s the problem of early adopters like me not being all that willing to pay full price for iPhone 6 in June (I “only” have to pay $250 more, given what I know at the moment, because I’ve had my iPhone more than a year though less than the subsidy period.) That and following up a dual-core chip in a smartphone (Go faster dual-core? Quad-Core?) is probably not the easiest engineering challenge on earth by any means.
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The Summer of AAPL is here. Enjoy it (responsibly) while it lasts.
AFB Night Owl Team™
Thanks, Steve. -
capablanca
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“Time is nature’s way of keeping everything from happening at once”
-John Gotts
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Different, westech! iPad matched (actually, kinda bettered) the then-“expected” 12-month iOS device product cadence. That whole 18 months from iPad to iPad 2 thing was unmitigated FUD because there was zero history on the FUDsters’ side.
This time, we have iPhone 5 which broke the 12-month release cycle, and not by a little either. Unless Apple flat out tells us all the reasons for the iPhone 5 “delay”, we can’t rule out hardware as one of them.
I’d love to see an iPhone 6 in June 2012. IMHO, you’d be in the extreme minority on that one, though, because Apple will almost certainly milk its iPhone/iPod touch-sized A5 production for all its worth, which means at least a 12-month run. Then there’s iOS 6 almost certainly not being ready by then. Then there’s the problem of early adopters like me not being all that willing to pay full price for iPhone 6 in June (I “only” have to pay $250 more, given what I know at the moment, because I’ve had my iPhone more than a year though less than the subsidy period.) That and following up a dual-core chip in a smartphone (Go faster dual-core? Quad-Core?) is probably not the easiest engineering challenge on earth by any means.
There is nothing magic about a yearly iPhone release cycle. Apple has made no commitment to it. You have come to expect it based on a very short history. Apple’s release cycle is based on their schedule, not yours.
Going forward I would not expect changes to be so revolutionary because the iPhone 5 will be a very, very good product.
There is probably no reason to tie the iOS 6 release to the iPhone 6.
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The measure of the worth of a product is how much people are willing to pay for it, not how many people will buy it if the price is low enough.
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“Time is nature’s way of keeping everything from happening at once”
-John Gotts
LOVE IT!
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The measure of the worth of a product is how much people are willing to pay for it, not how many people will buy it if the price is low enough.
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danthemason
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So it’s raining in Va. today….....
What’s Time?
Leroy Jr was always in his dad’s shadow around the farm. Going off to Texas A&M was like being released from confinement. Leroy saw education as a ticket away from his father’s domination. His senior year dad died and left Leroy enough to get himself started anywhere he chose and he chose Arkansas. There he could put his ag education to work.
Before the first year was out Leroy’s hogs were winning county fares across the state. Seems this unnerved some of the locals because he had bought his stock from farms in the area. Some of the locals watched Leroy’s place with binoculars and others conned the feed store owner to look at his purchases. All the while Leroy’s reputation grew.
Billy Ray, a local who had some success at the local fair before Leroy came along, decided to take the bull by the horns and have a sit down with the newcomer. Maybe he could learn a trick or two. Billy put a case of Shiner in an ice chest and off to Leroy’s he drove.
Our two hog farmers were into the third six pack when Billy just up and asked Leroy what it was that he was doing different with those animals to get such splendid results.
Leroy thought all along this was the reason for Billy’s visit. Leroy admitted he was surprised by the level of his recent success given that most all his stock was purchased from Billy and his family. Leroy also admitted to Billy that he was aware of being watched and having his feed bills scrutinized.
” I got to tell ya Billy I’m as surprised at all this myself and I can’t figure it out.” said Leroy
Draining another long neck Leroy said ” You don’t think it could be those apples do ya?”
“Apples. What apples ?” Billy quizzed.
“Well you know the Anderson farm behind mine. He died right after I moved in and those boys he had are all working in the city, letting the whole place go to seed. The apple orchard there is in good shape and I couldn’t see wasting all that fruit so every day I leash up each of these hogs and walk them up the hill to get their fill of those apples. I don’t let them get the brown ones off the ground only those hanging on the trees. I pull the branches down so they can reach”
“You take them one at a time? All of them?” Billy asked in disbelief.
“Ya, all of em.”
“Well my God man doesn’t that take a lot of time?”
Leroy pushed back the brim of his baseball cap and replied ” Well, damn, Billy Ray, what’s time to a pig?”
I
