A failed experiment: How LG screwed up its webOS acquisition
gigaom.com
gigaom.com
LG had a policy in place to reward managers with
bonuses or even promotions if their features were
part of the final product. The result was a constant
feature bloat, as everyone tried to add on one more
thing.
You're inevitably going to incentivize their behavior somehow. I think it ends up simply being a matter of mitigating the worst possible outcomes, while angling for something that seems reasonably decent.
* Incentivize number of bugs fixed, and you'll get shitty code up front
* Incentivize number of features shipped, and you'll get a hodgepodge of features jammed into a product
* Incentivize peer reviews, and maybe you'll end up with a culture of glad-handers and politicians (I don't actually know about this one...I've never been in a corporate culture that embraced this)
Hopefully they're tying the incentive not
to the act of shipping, but the outcome
of shipping
cf. Microsoft.
However, when push came to shove, no one was really interested in changing anything. The systems that exist are there due to a complex interaction between the various stakeholders in the product, least of which are the actual customers. There are huge challenges in sourcing components that: run as advertised, are priced competitively and will continue to be available into the future. Software is generally an after-thought, even if it's what the public sees.
The story of the WebOS team fighting tooth and nail to avoid the awful old menu system rings very true. Good luck to the people to stayed.
It's a standard that all DLNA providers implement and everyone does a little bit differently. Between devices from the same company it can work alright, but any time you need to connect up devices between manufacturers it's a crap shoot.
It's not really a bad standard, it's just an old standard, designed for use cases that already have pretty ok solutions (plug your computer into your TV, copy the files to whatever device you want them on, etc). It doesn't address the use cases most people have for their media now (i.e. can I play spotify on my TV).
BOM: Bill of material
CE: Consumer Electronic
DLNA: "Digital Living Network Alliance", some cumbersome standard for finding and accessing media content in local networks
Acquire a company, then do everything you can to sabotage it or ignore their expertise
Remind them they are just little guys now in the might corp empire.
Demand they launch a product whilst micromanaging them from a distant location that is already filled with people proven to be incompetent in product design.
Despite all this the WebOS team managed to launch a great product. Why? Probably because they love the product and want to share great work with the world.
Acquire a company, then do everything you can to ignore them. Integrate them technically, but not socially leaving them completely unaware of the rest of the company.
Demand they launch a product while decisions are made from a distant location filled with people that don't know anything about what they are doing, and don't care because they have enough of their own work to do.
Next Stage -
Technically the company is integrated with many hiccups, the servers are on the correct domain, and the network moves have happened. Still nothing feels different except that they know they have some decision making that feels almost random.
Next Stage - Product Release
Product is released, and doesn't match any of the assumed standards from big corp. Everything is ripped a part for not meeting unknown and unknownable objectives. It is easy to do because the other development teams HAD to follow the objectives, and they didn't, so it can't even be CONSIDERED!
The remote company also can't defend themselves in discussions as most of them happen without them physically there.
- Next Stage
Team starts losing people rapidly. They aren't rehired locally, and are instead backfilled at big corp. Since there are fewer people, they can't do the full thing, and are then integrated with other development teams. The ideas together help build a product that can launch and reach acceptance, because the teams from remote know how to do it.
- Next Stage
The remote teams start going to conferences meeting people, they've had enough meetings with people remote they start to know who to go for. The big corp has just acquired a new even bigger company, so now you start to feel like more a real part of the company than even they are.
Your product was fine, and you start to move through the normal processes, just with everything driven by people who have done it before remotely. Some of the team members even move on to other parts of remote corp because they did particularly well.
Next Step -
Total integration has happened, most of the teams are different people, but there are a few guys that remember the good old days. You're now just another random development unit, you might not even be working on what you initially were acquired for. You're now a remote office, a fully integrated part of remote corp. You're just a development group, and you're more expensive at that. But hey, you still have jobs.
... That sound about right?...
[1] http://en.kiosko.net/jp/np/asahi_shimbun.html
The main problem developers had, even up to the HP acquisition was the lack of direct hardware APIs (access to the camera, etc...) and a late arrival for native development.
This seemed to really cripple webOS and I imagine that there was something about the architecture that made it hard to work with and move to new platforms, but I don't know.
It's pretty sad that almost everything about webOS starts with: "webOS was supposed to..." :(
After they replaced google- with bing-maps i had to put it down for good :(
I don't. Mine had a nifty "feature" whereby one times out of five, sliding it shut would actually turn off the phone itself. As in, it would lose power completely and die.
I went through probably a hundred power-on sequences on that thing during the two weeks I owned it. I finally returned it to the store and bought an iPhone. Haven't looked back since.
http://static.trustedreviews.com/94/00002a829/6614/LG77EC980...
Exactly, only the mentally challenged watch TV in the 21st century.
Sure, the road there may not have been pretty at all, but it's the end result that matters.
I know nothing about this and I'm just guessing, but I'd imagine that after Palm sold to HP and then at various times under HP's reign, a lot of people left. Perhaps a few stuck around that were handcuffed, in fact I'm sure some did but I'd guess a lot of high quality probably left.
Then when LG stepped up, it seems like it must have made for a somewhat difficult situation, HP's handcuffs would normally be paid out, right? So it's up to LG to renew as part of the sale, right? So I'd have expected another exodus but I'd also expect maybe some nice reasons for key people to stick around, no idea what these numbers would look like but I'd expect bigger than HP offered. Then as things under LG went on maybe those incentives didn't seem as appealing or something. Perhaps HP paid too much and the new incentives weren't as appealing.
Ironically, I'd think as for putting the product in front of people, the LG situation would be as good as the WebOS team has ever had, LG sells a lot of well made hardware products, they're serious. What I'd really think happened is WebOS's core team was depleted under HP, they sold it to LG, never reloaded and now there are gigantic demands on them that they simply cannot satisfy. That's rough, LG should double down and help them get some new talent that's hungry.
The idea that WebOS was going to "change LG" seems interesting...
However, from LGs advertising it seems like they are very aware that the simplicity is webOS' biggest asset. I don't see any reason why that focus would change, even with a Korean team.
I would think that anyone who cares at all about watching Internet video on their TV would just shell out the $35-$100 to get a Chromecast, Roku, or AppleTV, if they don't already get the same functionality from a game console that they already own. I have yet to see any SmartTV which is remotely competitive with these devices, and they have the added benefit of not being baked into your display so you can upgrade or replace them as needed.
There is something very satisfying in having the Internet video services naturally integrated into the remote and just one button away.
Not to say that LG can't screw it up, but what they have today is a great product.
webOS as a concept, way ahead, as an implementation, it had lots of prickly bits. Mojo (the UI SDK) was great to work with but only went so far. Palm and then HP tried to move forward with Enyo but came way too late, and they never delivered on promises of hardware access APIs.
Once it started changing hands, it was a lost cause, you just lose a lot of knowledge and passion when entire code bases get handed around to new teams. For a mobile platform to really do something good, it needs to be a few years ahead of the hardware it lands on. webOS was until HP acquired it, they had video recording before the iPhone (just barely) and the gesture area was perfect. The stuff Palm was working on right when HP grabbed them was also really amazing (synergy between devices among other things). But that overhead of transferring ownership made all these projects basically obsolete and in turn the OS :(
I do own a Samsung 'Smart' TV. I connected it once to the network and won't ever do that again. That leads to
- a forced software update
- gazillion 'apps' being forcefully installed
All of these
- aren't on the machine when you buy it
- cannot be removed without a firmware reset after a disconnect [1]
- are SO. CRAPPY. Really. Like the scum of the web. The worst of the worst. Think yellow press newspaper app, but lower
- are prominently displayed on your TV, even if you choose to install 'other things' (YouTube? Yeah, less important than, say, BILD. A despicable and ugly illusion of a newspaper in Germany). You cannot even _hide_ the crap.
So .. anyone copying Samsung for TVs is a moron in my world. There's no worse way that first 'smart TV' experience could've gone that I could imagine. You cannot, even if you try, make that experience worse.
(Don't buy Samsung Smart TVs, unless you don't plan to use the so-called Smart feature. They suck [2])
1: As confirmed by their customer service. That's "by design" and there's nothing you can do about it. I learned that from the hotline and unfortunately too late to return the TV (I .. didn't connect it for the first 3 weeks due to cable issues/a lack of a wifi adapter)
2: Disclaimer: Lots of the "I force shit down your throat" behavior seems localized. So .. that I can actually enjoy the crappiest content that the German language can offer in this particular case. Maybe it's a little better elsewhere, but the attitude still supports that Samsung, as a TV manufacturer, sucks balls. That is all.
Besides, showing BILD in a prominent place and making that unchangeable shows that they really have not the slightest idea of german society. You can do that with the three million (normally uneducated) people who can stand this crap, but for everyone else that will cause an allergic reaction -> they did not even bother to do the slightest user acceptance study.
Often our kid would ask me: "Daddy when is this (update) going to finish? I'm gonna miss..."
Oh, and I'm still waiting for Netflix / captions on it. For now the workaround for us, either the PS3 (noise & heat) or the ChromeCast (much easier to control from the phone).
....
I bought 'Yatse' on Android and I can only recommend it (if you're into xbmc). I can not only remotely control the xbmc stuff, I can stream a lot of content (video, pictures, music) to the xbmc/TV as well.
Why yes, I did want the shitty antivirus software whose vendor placed the highest bid to be so tightly pseudo-integrated with windows that it gives you free file corruption and nearly requires a re-install to remove! What other things could you shovel into my new laptop?
As mentioned by mirkules, the waterfall model coming from our hardware divisions is transposed to pretty much everything. And if it were like the old-school 3 year development cycle waterfall model, it could be fine, but it's obviously not. Software and services are just seen as value add to our product line, that is renewed every year (or even every six months).
This why a project like Tizen has been such a disaster so far. You can acquire and hire all the talent you want, in the end decisions are made by VPs who only care about not being fired next year. Building a platform is impossible in such conditions. Add some conflict of interest into the mix and you have a Tizen phone being constantly delayed for no technical reason.
10 years ago in startups, it seemed a lot like bootstrapping. Paying newish guys to fill in the ranks to not spend money. Now, more and more enterprise PHD guys are being hired by startups draining the talent pool. Will be interesting to see 10 years from now if that continues to play out, or if it corrects itself in some way.
I'd assume that has to do with the influx of capitol in startups. I used to think startups couldn't pay for Enterprise guys, but in the 2 years that's changed. Would be interesting to hear more thoughts from VC perspective if they see this as well.
http://www.engadget.com/2014/09/02/webos-port-renamed-luneos...
Had the best picture, best reputation, and their simple and intuitive webOS was the selling point. If the Korean managers would have had their way, I wouldn't have bought an LG.
Side discussion: is this an eastern vs western culture difference? Every Samsung device I try to use seems bloated to me too. Maybe it's just coincidence.
My favorite UI gripe is having to get the idea to click on the folder icon on this screen to disable the front panel audio detection for a RealTek sound chip.
http://cdn.windows7themes.net/pics/enable_front_audio_jack_w...
1) Hardware companies have to employ the waterfall model. Agile is not even a word in their vocabulary. This is because once a product is on the shelves or in the customers' hands, it is infinitely more expensive to recall and fix products. When all you have is the waterfall hammer, everything looks like a nail.
2) Culture plays a huge part. Senior management "knows best" despite your best efforts to convince them otherwise.
My boss once described it as "a huge ship that sails down the river. Once the ship is on its way, it is really hard to change direction or stop it".
Although telecommunications always had a very close relationship with the software industry, they see the customers in a different way.
Since the early days they would rather ship new phones than offer upgrades. Nokia was probably the only exception, in the models that weren't tainted with mobile operator firmware.
It only works for Apple, because they managed to get those guys out of the way. But they got their lesson and surely will not let others get away with it.
BRB, raging out