Much is made of the word “innovation” in today’s world, but very few seem to know anything about it. Let’s stipulate that creativity, innovation, drives the creation of Intellectual Property, and let’s further suggest that IP is the core economic value structure in an Information Society, the civilization model most of the world enjoys today.

IP may be created and owned by individuals, nonprofits, or universities and research laboratories, but the preponderance of IP is created under, and owned by, corporations. Hundreds of billions of dollars – perhaps even trillions – are invested annually by corporations to create new IP. Shareholders demand a return on this investment.

I will note here, and come back to, a shifting level of international organization: company, country, civilization/society. We will want to pay attention to the changing role of corporate IP control vis-a-vis these other structures.

When we look at the modern mercantilist model, or what China calls the “East Asian Socialist” model, we see recent histories of strong success, and evolving models, ranging from Japan to South Korea to China. Their past histories and politics, dramatically different, matter little compared with the similarities of their economic models in the 20th and 21st centuries.

In each case, we have a relatively simple, and very successful, story: steal or appropriate IP from the countries creating it; use top-down controls to favor government-selected industries; and create an export-based economy, funded by high domestic prices and low (often WTO-illegally low) export pricing, usually supported by forex currency manipulations. Discourage or prohibit imports, particularly in targeted export industries, favor your internal “champion” companies in all deals, and ultimately create large trade imbalances with so-called trading “partners.”

In the case of China, the evolved model includes encouraging huge amounts of foreign direct investment, but generally disallowing majority ownership by foreign companies, and prioritizing market success in targeted industries (wind and solar energy, Internet search, wireless infrastructure, social networks, etc.). Government policy favors local firms, locally owned, using Chinese-owned IP (now, that’s ironic; where could it have come from?), under Chinese brands, and often – another specialty – only if the products themselves are made with Chinese equipment. In Chinese law, this is called “Indigenous Innovation.” 

Can you imagine your own country (assuming it is not China) having such a publicly stated policy of preference? It is offensive to the most basic concepts of free trade.

Finally, as partner countries are gutted of jobs, targeted industry companies, and money, the mercantilist country starts moving plants inside partner borders (Japan did this with Toyota, and China has just begun with solar energy fabs) so that they are immune to tariff laws, and to the inevitable adverse World Trade Organization outcomes.

We’ll come back to this theme shortly, but first, let’s update our views on security.

» Security Until Now

In recent times, computer security has been a subject of interest by many different parties, often for similar reasons. Those reasons, stated generally, would include:

1. Avoiding spam. This problem persists today.

2. Avoiding viruses. Ditto.

3. Avoiding worms, Trojans, etc. Ditto.

4. Avoiding Personal ID Theft. Still a problem today.

5. Avoiding ID Theft of employees and customers. More a problem now than yesterday.

6. Avoiding your computer becoming part of a Botnet and wreaking havoc on others on the Net. Still a problem.

7. Avoiding other forms of malware, changing daily. Lots of new problems.

8. Experiencing Denial of Service attacks and other misbehaviors and sources for extortion and criminal behavior against corporations and groups.

9. Avoiding privacy invasion, generally the result of legal or quasi-legal malware installed without permission on systems, often for “ad-tracking” purposes. These issues are multiplying daily.

10. Avoiding the Unknown, dodging future hacks that will disable, publicly embarrass, or somehow compromise business operations in the short term, at least.

Although, as you can see, not one of these security motivations has been successfully removed from today’s CIO nightmares, they all now pale in comparison to something new. Whatever your reasons for investing in security up to now, you will have to create a new line item of expenditures for this new issue.

» IP-Based Trade Wars

Two weeks ago, I was visited by two people speaking for China, representing a new company whose job would be to – well, they described it, but it was a bit vague. During this description, we talked about IP and China, and they pointed to the new high-speed trains China is building everywhere.

Indeed, China has laid more high-speed rail, and plans for more of these showcase trains, than any other country in the world.

My visitors pointed to these trains as examples of how China was now developing its own IP, and not just depending on IP theft or forced disclosure from others.

Last week I learned the rest of the story: how Japan (Kawasaki Heavy Industries and others) brought this technology to China, hoping to make money, and now are watching as their IP reappears in Chinese products owned by Chinese companies, and the Japanese get little or nothing.

That’s the story of modern mercantilism, and of the so-called China Miracle. (For a more detailed description, Premium Members, see the “SNS: What Is China?” issue in the website archives, January 6, 2010).

As nations enter into predatory trade practices that lead inevitably to win/lose outcomes, the world will increasingly recognize these efforts not as free trade, but as trade wars. At the same time, those countries with the most at stake – that is, those which create the most innovation value – will be likely to show preference in trade for countries which protect IP interests. 

The result is almost certainly going to be consideration of IP in the formation of future global trade alliances and policies. This is the one event that mercantilist model countries cannot tolerate or allow. Watching China implement its Indigenous Innovation national preference policies, while hounding the U.S. and Europe to maintain their open trade practices, is one case in point.

» The New Mandate: Economic Survival

This brings us to today, and to the next level of security concerns for CIOs and CEOs.

What if one country, or more, were so focused on the above model, based on IP theft, that it mounted a prolonged, concerted effort, using multiple layers of activity to obtain the “crown jewels” of all targeted companies, in all targeted industries?

These levels might include, and not be limited to: outright physical theft; industrial espionage; political, business, and trade pressures/requirements to disclose IP; espionage by state agencies; recruitment of students, grad students, tourists, and business people into the espionage effort; and cyber espionage. Levels of attack would include the Net, company networks, company employees and contractors, and the computing and storage devices (and communications) of traveling executives.

(In China, for instance, all communications contents are the property of the State. Better not call the Home Office and tell them how it’s going during a negotiations session.)

What if your industry and company were one of the targets?

Last quarter, a letter was reportedly sent from the Prime Minister’s office in the U.K., to the country’s top 300 CEOs, informing them that they should consider all of their current IP crown jewels to have been compromised.

All of them.

This brings the level of security concern to a level not yet anticipated by most executives: what if the cost of broachable security is your company’s future ability to compete and survive?

Ask Boeing, Cisco, Kawasaki, Qualcomm, 3Com, Sony, Google, General Electric, BASF, or Microsoft how they feel about all this. Most will dissemble in public, but tell you the truth offline; and many are rapidly coming clean, even in their public comments, as GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt did not long ago.

You are now CEO of a 50-year-old global corporation with, say, 60,000 employees. And the PM’s letter sits open on your desk.

You call in your CIO, close the door, show him the letter. Have we been hacked? you ask. He goes into geekspeak, describing various levels of difficulties, generally safe behavior, all seems well today, no guarantees or ways to tell.

What? You ask. There are no ways to tell if our crown jewels have been stolen by some competitor?

Here are some of the crown jewels obtained by China in the last couple of decades: the top U.S. nuclear warhead design, from Livermore Labs; wing fabrication machinery and blueprints, from Lockheed-Martin; selected Boeing airframe designs; navigation and rocket design for Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (specifically, the Long March series), from both Boeing and Lockheed; high-speed router designs from Cisco; the source code to Windows, from Microsoft; complete car designs from Chevy and Ford; advanced chip and fab designs, from IBM; high-speed rail systems from Japan; etc.

And you think your company’s IP is somehow safe?

What we are watching, currently, is the largest theft in global history, happening in front of our own eyes. And while one group is busy exclaiming at the wonder of China (and South Korea and Japan) making all that progress and money in their turn, another group is now recognizing the mercantilist model in its third iteration.

When someone breaks into the bank and steals all the money, do you compliment him later on his brand-new car?

All of which brings us to the here and now.

Is there a way to protect your company’s crown jewels – starting now and going forward, as the British prime minister suggested at the end of his letter? I’ve been talking with people more versed in this question than I am, and I am convinced that the answer is a qualified Yes.

The first, and most important, step is to get out of denial mode. Accept that your current IP has been compromised.

Steps Two and beyond have to do with physically isolating your next generation of Intellectual Property, restricting employee access all over again by new and more stringent policies. Don’t take company laptops overseas, but instead use reserved, cleaned machines just for this purpose. Assume all communications with any office overseas is completely compromised. Do not count on encoding or encrypting.

Ultimately, you will be heading your firm toward increased spending on a brand-new level of mandated security, not much different from that of the Pentagon. The Department of Defense’s job, which they take very seriously, is to survive the thousands of cyber attacks they experience every single day. As of now, that is your job, too.

Finally, a comment is in order here regarding the hierarchy of corporations, country allegiance, and civilization and society. In past generations, “what was good for GM was good for America” – i.e., corporations were national assets. While this remains true when they are state-owned (part of GM, all of France Telecom, and most Chinese companies), it is not true of modern capitalist and socialist country companies.

These firms have been guilty of trading IP across borders, and into the hands of their competitors, making the (provably incorrect) assumption that access to sales inside China would justify this forced disclosure. (It turns out that only a small percentage of foreign firms operating in China have made a profit, perhaps in the 5%-20% range.)

Here is the real deal, after more than a decade of effort: if you lose your company’s crown jewels, you lose your shareholders’ money, too.

If the sustained ability to invest in – and get a return on – IP is the cornerstone of modern civilization, then corporations have unwittingly compromised society’s well-being.

We live today in an Information Society, whose future is driven by innovation and Intellectual Property. Those of us creating it have an obligation, to our shareholders and to the system itself, to protect that investment. If the value of IP is repeatedly degraded or destroyed, we’ll enter a world that no one – not even the mercantilists – desires.

After all, those Somali pirates drive pretty nice cars these days.

Your comments are always welcome.

Sincerely,

Mark R. Anderson

CEO
Strategic News Service LLC                Tel. 360-378-3431
P.O. Box 1969                                       Fax. 360-378-7041
Friday Harbor, WA  98250  U.S.A       Email: mark@stratnews.com

   “This is a subject that speaks not just to Brazil but to all emerging markets.” – Fernando Pimentel, Brazil’s Trade and Industry minister; on removing China’s dollar peg.

   “China may be more sensitive to what the other major emerging market countries think about its currency. It undermines their moral high ground when it’s Brazil criticizing them, instead of the U.S.” – William Cline, Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics; quoted in the Wall Street Journal

   “Indeed, Premier Wen Jiabao sees China’s growth as ‘unstable, unbalanced, uncoordinated and ultimately unsustainable.’ --- China’s progress over the past three decades is a successful variation on the East Asian Growth Model that stems from the initial conditions created by a planned Socialist economy.

“That growth pattern has now almost exhausted its potential. So China has reached a crucial juncture: without painful structural adjustments, the momentum of its economic growth could be suddenly lost. China’s rapid growth has been achieved at an extremely high cost. Only future generations will know the true price. The country’s investment rate now stands at more than 50% – a clear reflection of China’s low capital efficiency.” – Yu Yongding, president of the China Society of World Economics; writing in the China Daily.

   The watchdog also identified “possible operational abuses, whereby the search engine apparently imposes exorbitant conditions on its partners or customers, treats them in a discriminatory manner, or refuses to guarantee a minimum of transparency in the contractual relations it establishes with them.” – The French Autorite de la Concurrence, regarding Google’s practices; quoted in the Financial Times.

   “I don’t want to live in a world where everyone is watched all the time. I want to be left alone as much as possible. I don’t want a data trail to tell a story that isn’t true.” – Jacob Applebaum, hacker working for Julian Assange and WikiLeaks.

   “Our long-term goal is to collaborate with a broad community of consumer electronics manufacturers to help drive the next-generation TV watching experience, and we look forward to working with other partners to bring more devices to the market in coming years.” – Gina Weakley, Google spokeswoman.

   The FCC will “fulfill its historic role as a cop on the beat.” – FCC Chair Julius Genachowski. Actually, as predicted, Julius buckled on Net Neutrality, not declaring data to be communications, and not including wireless communications in the regulatory domain, while  allowing carriers differential charging for packets.

Totally caved, Julius.

   “It is extremely important to probe the moon --- as we now see the dawn of ‘the age of great voyages’ in the solar system.” – Expert panel advising the minister for Space Development, in Japan; quoted in the Vancouver Sun.

» What If Dell Prospers in China?

There are two bets an investor might make that would favor DELL Computer after their blowout third quarter report.  The first is that the U.S. economy is on the upswing.  The second is that the company’s $25B per year new investment in China will lead to profits and serious market share growth, without intervention by the Chinese government. 

The first bet is easier to make for the long term; the second, if at all, only in the short term.

Here are the charts.

MAXIMUM YEARS:

5 YEARS:

2 YEARS:

1 YEAR:

6 MONTHS:

3 MONTHS:

Re: SNS: “Predictions for 2011”

Mark,

The below article captures the true power and magic of the iPad:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Fathers-app-lets-disabled-son-apf-2793436543.html?x=0

I believe that this life-changing app represents just the tip of the iceberg of what’s to come. Whoever would have thought such a compact computing device -- combined with affordable Internet access – would serve to unshackle the disabled, uneducated, and Government suppressed! Steve Jobs will find a spot in U.S. history books for generations to come.

Exciting times ahead in IT.

John Petote

CEO / Angel Investor

Santa Barbara, CA

John,

Every day there seem to be new apps available for the iPad, many of them really innovative.  Last week I saw a very cool video of a small band, playing nothing but iPads, to a large audience, onstage ---

The beauty of the CarryAlong format is the combination of portability, fit for the human body (ergonomics), and screen data throughput to the human brain.

As we get ready for a year dominated by CarryAlongs (indeed, 2011 might be called the CarryAlong Year, and no doubt the CES show this week will prove it), we should also be prepared for an onslaught of very cool new user-centric applications. We are back to having fun with computers again.

Mark Anderson

Subject: Idea for a FiRe 2011 topic

Mark,

Season’s greetings. I hope all is well. I just read your predictions for 2011; thought provoking as usual. Number 5 will be particularly interesting. I agree that Google will necessarily run out of resources to allocate inefficiently eventually. I’m not sure it will happen in 2011, though.

Anyway, that is not why I write. I want to suggest that you consider the relationship between online privacy and targeted advertising/marketing as a topic for FiRe in May. With all the attention this topic is getting – FTC, IAB, all the big web properties come to mind – 2011 may be the year to dig into the forces at play and give your perspective on how it will sort out.

Just a thought. I have been spending some time thinking about it and would be happy to help if you think it will be interesting to the membership.

Ho, ho, ho. Enjoy the holidays.

Tom Malloy

CTO

Adobe Systems

San Jose, CA

Tom,

This is right in track with our planning vis-a-vis security and economics, one of the core themes of this year’s FiRe, as you might guess from today’s issue.

I hope others interested in these themes will join our conversation, and help us make this again the best FiRe yet.

Mark Anderson

Mark,

Merry Christmas to you. My wife and I have recently moved to California, to be closer to Grandchildren.

In your predictions you said Mexico will become a failed state. If that happens the implications for the U.S. are great. Borders make no sense for ideas, perhaps not for people either. Drugs are purchased by Americans, so we are contributors to Mexican unrest. The Hispanic people I meet in California are nice people wanting to have a better life. Will technology save America given our loss of manufacturing jobs?

You deal with the brightest people in America, so your reports cause me to think and I appreciate that. Life is good for us and I hope for you. ---

Best wishes to you for the New Year.

Richard Guy

[Past Chief Justice

Supreme Court

Washington State]

Richard,

It’s great to hear from you. I imagine that life in your new home will be quite enjoyable, and I have no doubt that you have earned it. Having grandkids around – I am told – would just add to the benefits.

I think borders are necessary for the proper management of resources, and the application of rule of law. I certainly don’t want China’s laws, and probably not Mexico’s, either.

The same problem exists for social services, and budget: without borders, there is no head count, and so no control over expenditures, and no way to project revenues. Welcome to the current state of California.

I hope we have a chance to meet again soon. Perhaps you would like to join us at our next FiRe Conference, May 24-27, at the Montage Laguna Beach Hotel. We will be addressing privacy issues, and this might be something you find of interest from a judicial perspective.

My best to you and the family in this coming year,

Mark Anderson

» Disposable Apps: The Next Step in Car Computing

Since we first began looking at Car Computing, back in around 1997, there was a vitally important set of distinguishing characteristics that attached to this market.

First in line was driver attention: we have learned, with the advent of smartphones and texting, that driver attention is the rare commodity, and flowline checkpoint, when it comes to driving safety. It is not only at a premium; it is also now limited by law in many states and countries.

So: what one could put in front of a driver, and when, was extremely limited. Early emergency aid services were high on the list, but the general assumption was that the car would not be moving. This was extended as GPS became omnipresent, and sound-system controls came in behind, perhaps led by Sirius.

The success of Microsoft’s SYNC over the last five years has not gone unnoticed by Ford competitors, nor Microsoft’s, and the question of what else the computing and communications industries can do for and with cars and occupants has had growing promise. This has happened in spite of legal constraints on smartphones, and perhaps, in a cynical sense, because of them. (There are no laws against looking at your in-dash screen.)

While most of the players have been trying to improve interface interaction, particularly with voice commands, a second set of constraints has, until now, kept the development growth rates to a minimum. Broadly stated, those constraints, in apposition  to PC constraints, were:

Because it involves drivers, and is tasked with life-threatening tasks, software in a car can never fail. In other words: give me the velocity and the usual dashboard data, some radio, weather, a map, and we are done.

Guess what? That is all about to change.

And what is the change agent this time? Again, we can thank wireless (which prevailed in most states under the hands-free clauses) and smartphones 

To really get how this all works, SNS members might hark back (or search archives on) what we first called the T-phone, or transfer phone: your cellphone will act as a data transfer agent, with the display residing in the dash of your car.

This solves two problems at once: crummy micro apps are in the phone domain, technically, rather than the car domain; and technical updates of hardware and software are not limited by being welded to the chassis of your auto.

A good example of this radical shift is the newly announced Entune multimedia system from Toyota. The system is entirely voice-driven (an arena Microsoft looks ready to dominate – members take note) and involves MS Bing searches and maps, Pandora music, restaurant reservations through OpenTable, movie ticket purchasing, etc.

The system is available now for most smartphones and featurephones, linked via Bluetooth.

In my view, this is not additive, but a breakthrough, allowing software developers and content providers access to a huge new platform base of cars, under unconstrained conditions, and without any serious legal limits.

In other words, this is the gating event in Car Computing that all of us have been waiting for for decades.

We should applaud GM first (OnStar), then Ford (SYNC), and now Toyota (Entune) for taking this new industry ecosystem forward. No wonder Johnson Controls’ Prince Division just bought more market share. Haven’t traveled to Milwaukee lately?

How about Redmond?

FiRe 2011         Register now for the 9th annual Future in Review conference, May 24-27, 2011, at the Montage Laguna Beach Hotel, California:   www.futureinreview.com

 Hear the Latest NPR Interview with Mark Anderson:

“Technology Predictions for 2011”: http://www.kplunews.org/post/technology-predictions-2011

To arrange for a speech by Mark Anderson on subjects in technology and economics, or to schedule a strategic review of your company, email mark@stratnews.com.

If SNS is a competitive weapon, shouldn’t all of your employees have it? Email mark@stratnews.com for details on SNS Site Licenses.

» SNS Media

• SNS Interactive News™

“SNS iNews is a terrific idea.”

– Peter Petre, Author and Past Sr. Editor, FORTUNE magazine

Are you an AORTA (Always On RealTime Access) member of SNS? Use SNS iNews™ to stay in touch, in real time, with what your fellow members and FiRe Thought Leaders are achieving – and then help them get there.

Click here for the current iNews digest: www.snsinews.com

(For ID and password assistance, email scott@stratnews.com)

• FiRe 2010 Photo Gallery: See over 1,000 photos of FiRe 2010, at http://futureinreview.smugmug.com/FiRe-2010 – linked to galleries from FiRe conferences since 2007.

• FiReGlobal : West Coast 2010 Photo Gallery: Hundreds of photos of sessions and attendees at FiReGlobal 2010 in Seattle, taken by Dan Lamont: http://futureinreview.smugmug.com/FiReGlobal/Seattle-2010.

• SNS Members’ Book Lists: SNS Library 2.0 – Here are your favorite books, including who has proposed them, whether they’re fiction or nonfiction, and ready clicks to Amazon: www.tapsns.com/members/books.php

• SNS TV on YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/stratnews

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• SNS in the News: Announcements, press, and A/V links: www.tapsns.com/news.php

• FiRe in the News: www.futureinreview.com/press.php

• SNS Blog, “A Bright Fire”: Join Mark in this SNS forum and add your own comments: www.abrightfire.com. If you’re a blogger, you’re welcome to email sally@stratnews.com if you’d like to be added to our blogroll.

• SNS Media Page: www.tapsns.com/media.php

» New Members’ Welcome

I would like to welcome, among others, these new members to the SNS family: Emily Rains, Founder, Rains Law Group, Seattle, WA; Pier Paolo Boccadamo, Marketing Director, Microsoft, Milan, Italy; Doug Rowan, Founder, ZoomAlbum, Kirkland, WA; Carl Livingston, Manager, CyberSpot, Adeje, Spain; Robert Martin, Partner & Chief Investment Officer, Summit Capital Management LLC, Seattle, WA; John Holliday, President, SharePoint Architects Inc., Fernandina Beach, FL.

» SNS Positions Open

Circulation Sales by Commission. This person (or company) will continue our nearly 100% success rate in offering site licenses for the SNS newsletter to large companies. Current license holders include: Deloitte, Accenture, Deutsche Telekom, and Internode. Generous commissions available. Please send a cover letter and bio/resume to Sharon Anderson-Morris at sam@stratnews.com.

» How to Subscribe

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If you are not currently an SNS subscriber, the SNS newsletter has been sent to you for a one-month trial. If you would like a one-year subscription to SNS, the current rate is $595, which includes approximately 48 issues per year, plus special industry alerts and related materials; two years are $995. Premium Subscriptions, which include passworded access to additional materials on the SNS website, are $895 per year. Subscriptions can be purchased, upgraded, or renewed at our secure website, at www.stratnews.com. Contact Jennifer Lee, jenny@stratnews.com, for subscription assistance.

UPGRADE YOUR SUBSCRIPTION TO PREMIUM LEVEL for $300 per year, and enjoy email access to our FiRe Conference speakers through our new service, SNS Interactive News (SNS iNews™), along with other Premium benefits. After logging in to your Account, go to: www.tapsns.com/orders/?page=account.

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» About the Strategic News Service

SNS is the most accurate predictive letter covering the computer and telecom industries. It is personally read by the top managers at companies such as Intel, Microsoft, Dell, HP, Cisco, Sun, Google, Yahoo!, Ericsson, Telstra, and China Mobile, as well as by leading financial analysts at the world’s top investment banks and venture capital funds, including Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Kleiner Perkins, Venrock, Warburg Pincus, and 3i. It is regularly quoted in top industry publications such as BusinessWeek, WIRED, Barron’s, Fortune, PC Magazine, ZDNet, Business 2.0, the Financial Times, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere.

Email sent to SNS may be reprinted, unless you indicate that it is not to be.

» About the Publisher

Mark Anderson is CEO of the Strategic News Service. He is the founder of two software companies and of the Washington Technology Industry Association “Fast Pitch” Forum, Washington’s premier software investment conference; and has participated in the launch of many software startups. He regularly appears on the CNN World News, CNBC and CNBC Europe, Reuters TV, the BBC, Wall Street Review/KSDO, and National Public Radio programs. He is a member of the Merrill Lynch Technology Advisory Board, and is an advisor and/or investor in OVP Ventures, Ignition Partners, Mohr Davidow Ventures, the UCSD Calit2 Laboratory, the Global Advisory Council of the mPedigree Network (Ghana), SwedeTrade, The Family Circle (Europe), and the Australian American Leadership Dialogue.

Mark serves as chair of the Future in Review Conferences, SNS Project Inkwell, The Foresight Foundation, and Orca Relief Citizens Alliance.

» Where’s Mark?

* This week, Mark will be at the CES in Las Vegas, Nevada; feel free to email him if you would like to meet during the Show. * On January 21st, he will share his predictions at the annual Technology Alliance Group Predictions Event in Bellingham, Washington, at Whatcom College. * And May 24th-27th, he will be hosting FiRe 2011 at the Montage Laguna Beach Hotel, California.

In between times, he will be wandering the halls of a town called “The Stars,” wondering why, and finding new CarryAlong PCs at every turn. CES: The CarryAlong Excitement Show?

“Strategic News Service,” “SNS,” “Future in Review,” “FiRe,” and “SNS Project Inkwell” are all registered service marks of Strategic News Service LLC.

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