Not a great start for the end of summer: last week Sony announced that it would be cutting 1000 jobs from its Sony Mobile unit and moving Sony Mobile's headquarters from Lund, Sweden to Tokyo. While Sony Mobile will continue to have a large presence in Lund, this downward spiral is making a large sucking sound.
This is certainly sad news for the many who will be losing their jobs. And very sad news for the continent that was once the center of the mobile world. There was a time when most key mobile developments such as standardization, design, and even advanced manufacturing took place in Europe first. Companies such as Nokia, Ericsson, Siemens, Alcatel, and Philips led the way.
But like the Ten Little Indians, these leaders disappeared one by one along the way. Some were careless, some were unlucky. But in the end, they were all gone.
The "East-West" trend continuing. Most hardware development has gone East. Most software and services development has gone West. And in the middle, nothing but a big, ugly hole in the ground remains.
This gap will hurt for years to come. The mobile business is still a baby in many ways, and the European economies stand to lose out in the coming decades. The real advancements the industry has been talking about for the past 10 years is only starting to materialize now. There's NFC and mobile payment. There's mobile healthcare and well-being.
There are exceptions and there is hope. Ericsson and Nokia Siemens are still top players in the mobile infrastructure market. Spotify and Skype (now owned by Microsoft) are great examples of top services coming out of Europe. And there are many small, interesting startups.
The good news is that shifts happen both ways and there is plenty of room for everybody. There are large pools of mobile talent in many European hotspots, and many innovative mind.
European leaders would be wise to get mobile again, or risk simply watching the game from the stands.
Sony Mobile's current HQ in Lund, Sweden. Is the sun setting on mobile Europe?
Looking a bit like a lonely Oldsmobile dealership before closure, one Microsoft mall store I visited a few days ago had a pitiful melancholy feel to it. It stood in contrast to the bustling Apple store a few doors down. If this level of disinterest is indicative of things to come, Microsoft and its partners are in for a hard fall during the coming years.
The Microsoft store opened very recently, but was not enjoying much of a honeymoon period. Although Microsoft was practically giving away $25 gift certificates in a Pepsi-Challenge like mobile OS competition, I didn't see anyone buy a single item at the store, and most Windows Phones being displayed went completely untouched.
I calculated what I'll call the "employee-to-patron ratio" at both the Microsoft store and the Apple store. Even during the busiest of times, there were always more Microsoft employees on the floor than visitors, and this included teenagers who just stopped in to play Xbox games. The average ratio I came up with was 13-9, that is, 13 Microsoft floor employees to each potential customer in the store. And there were times the store had only two patrons.
Compare this to the Apple store which consistently was filled with engaged patrons and real customers. I counted 18 floor employees at this particular Apple store and never less than 38 patrons. And many of these were really purchasing products.
Perhaps it's not fair to read too much into this anecdotal observation. Things might be significantly different at Microsoft stores in other parts of the country. Or during other days of the week. Or perhaps this is just a teething period for Microsoft's brick-and-mortar retail push as it builds awareness. There is obvious potential for the stores to become great arcades, marketing Xbox and Kinect.
One thing is for sure: Microsoft and its partners must begin to monitor market conditions very closely and take any feedback (or lack of feedback) very seriously. Microsoft isn't the near monopoly it once was, and we've learned over and over again that giants can fall hard and fast.
There might be more below the surface here to Microsoft's retail strategy, but I'd say it's time for Microsoft to learn how to be hip. And it's not hip to be bare.
The Microsoft store: room for contraptions
At the Microsoft store: standing room lonely.
So go to the mall, today, to visit the Microsoft store.
Should Nokia expect the Xbox model for the Windows Phone market?
With friends like this, who needs competitors?
Back in the year 1995, Apple began a short-lived Macintosh clone program by licensing the required ROMs, Macintosh operating system and other software to a series of ambitious hardware makers. These included Motorola, Tatung, APS, and Power Computing. When Steve Jobs rejoined Apple in 1997, he quickly ramped down this cloning program in order to pull hardware profits back in-house and maintain tight software-hardware integration.
Microsoft's unveiling of the Surface tablet earlier this week was certainly not significant from a technology point of view. However, it does have the potential to make some significant ripples across the tablet, laptop, and PC markets, and very likely, the smartphone market as well.
Microsoft's Surface is the tangent point between tablet and laptop. And between mobile platforms and PC operating systems. And between hardware and software. It is not a technology shift. It is a business model shift.
It appears that Microsoft's tablet announcement truly caught many PC makers unaware. As the once profitable laptop market is shifting towards tablets, phablets, and smartphones, companies such as Dell, HP and ASUS must feel slighted. Microsoft is playing Windows 8 close to the chest. If the company discovers advantages of tighter software-hardware integration, they can be expected to follow Apple's 40-year lead in taking control of hardware across the board.
Given the modest installed user base of Windows Phone devices, Microsoft might decide they don't have much to lose and pull a similar stunt with smartphones, taking control of hardware design at some point, using their own sales channels to push the products. This would cause a significant shock to Nokia, the vendor that went all in with Windows Phone. While the details of the agreement between Microsoft and Nokia aren't known, it can be assumed there is some sort of expiration date written in. Anyway, history has taught us that partnerships are made to be broken.
Apple continues to make life miserable for so many companies in so many ways.
Do bigger business-model shifts lie below the Surface?
Note to Microsoft: esoteric doesn't make up for lack of wow.
For Microsoft's sake, I really hope that there's more below the surface. At least I was hoping for something a bit more special. More amazing. More appealing. More, more, more.
But instead, this is what one would expect. A big Windows Phone with a splash of Apple inspiration. Where's the built-in Kinect? Where's the leap-frog effect?
Yes, it's true: IKEA is entering the world of home electronics. It's a competitive market, so this can get messy. Hopefully their plan will come together in the end.
What's next from IKEA? Perhaps the IKEA smärtphöne?
Yes, from the designer of the original iPod comes Nest, the thermostat for the iPhone generation. It learns as it burns, it knows as it grows. It's well connected, and auto corrected.
I'd say this is exactly how straight forward devices of the new age should be. A device that senses people... and their needs. It gives advice, but doesn't get bossy. And it even looks and sounds good. UI people, watch and learn.
At $250, Nest is at least twice the price of more ordinary thermostats. Nonetheless, Nest is hot. And cool. And it could quickly earn its keep.
So, companies are really getting to know us know. What we search for. Who we write. Where we are. And now, it appears, how we feel. Put this altogether and it creates an interesting formula for targeted advertising.
Microsoft has patented the idea of serving up mood-related ads to users. By combining information about historic online activities together the user’s current attitude, presumably based on data gathered from sensors such as Microsoft’s Kinect or a smartphone’s microphone, in theory advertisers can address very immediate needs.
Whether this sort of behavior fusion collection is a positive or simply creepy is a matter of opinion. But the fact is it can be done.
For game makers or broadcasters, the potential to target advertisements down to specific individual moods could feel rather satisfying.
Without offline maps, imagine the mobile bandwidth crunch during rush-hour traffic in iPhone-heavy markets like San Fran and Stockholm.
As part of Apple’s iOS 6 announcement yesterday came some expected news of a new Maps application. As expected, Apple turned away from Google for its mapping data. As a replacement, Apple is using mapping data from TomTom/Tele Atlas. While the business model behind the switch wasn’t disclosed, it’s easy to think ahead a bit and imagine an ads-on-maps revenue sharing model.
OpenStreetMap could be one of the losers in this game of maps chess. OpenStreetMap received a great deal of publicity from Apple’s use of OSM map data.
Apple be will be offering some smooth features in Maps in iOS 6 including turn-by-turn navigation, crowd-sourced live traffic feeds, 3D mode, and voice UI via Siri.
All-in-all, Apple is rolling out some fancy navigation features in iOS6. But, unless I have completely missed something, maps cannot be downloaded for offline use. This means users will have to stream map data along the way, eating up data, taking bites out of data plans. For users roaming outside of their home countries, this can lead to some phone-bill sticker shock upon their return.
When it comes to offline maps, searching, and navigation, Nokia still leads the way with Google chipping away with incremental offline features.
Enabling offline maps for navigation could conflict with Apple’s business plans: requiring live map streaming creates a much more fertile environment for up-to-the-moment, location-based interactions. But for the consumer and operator, this can be very costly under some circumstances.
Apple’s competitors here would be wise to drive home the potential costs of this model. For mobile customers under more limited data plans or for those who roam often (which is more common in Europe), navigation could be very costly with Apple. And for operators already struggling with spectrum shortages, potential rush-hour bandwidth crunches could be another reason to thrown more support behind other mobile platforms.
Gestures, voice, eyeput, thinkput. Is touch about to get company.
Yes, the head games keep on coming. Here are some more cool examples of the potential of brain-computer interface.
For those of you in the audience old enough to do so, think back to the days when you first saw Pong and think how far computer games have come. Now let's think ahead 30 years or so and wonder how far mind-controlled input can go. Imagine how it can help the disabled. Prevent auto accidents. Exercise the mind.
If you haven't had a chance to try any BCI devices, please do so. It will make your head spin.
Think about the possibilities with such new user interfaces. How could games interact with users when they aren't concentrating? How would navigation applications react when the user is sleepy?
Here's an inspiring video of what could be in store a decade or so down the line. Perhaps "a cellphone that could text what you're thinking."
This announcement is significant news for some handset vendors and more bad news for makers of personal navigation devices. The ability to conveniently pre-load maps onto an Android device means that no connection is required to stream map data while navigating. And map data can gobble up bandwidth very quickly.
Android devices did already have the ability to cache map data, but the intention was for a smoother map viewing experience. Google has also announced some improved aesthetic features for Maps and Earth such as a series of impressive 3D Fly-overs and expanded Street View.
While this might appear to be a marginal category improvement from Google and has been expected, it is meaningful to most industry players such as Apple, Microsoft, Nokia, Garmin and TomTom.
Free, high-quality offline navigation from Google has altered the playing field. Mapping has become on the of key mobile battle grounds, and no vendor can afford to get lost along the way.
As some point out, the use case isn't amazing and it isn't new. Wireless electricity doesn't mean mobile electricity, at least not yet. But here we have one small added convenience. One less cable to carry.
I believe that 2013 will be the year wireless charging becomes a rather standard feature in devices.
Power efficiency is a concern though, as it takes power to transmit power with such solutions. So cutting that last cord has its costs.
Is this some wow opportunity for some device vendor?
This tactile display stuff on touch looks pretty amazing, but it's nothing spanking new. Concepts have been around for years. The idea is great: a touch device that can create keys when needed. Want a QWERTY to text, a numeric keyboard to calculate?
Many of us miss real physical keys. But they are becoming an endangered species on smart devices. Could they begin to make an occasional appearance on touch devices of tomorrow?
It will be interesting to see how well solutions like that from Tactus Technology work in the field. But some component vendor is bound to get this right at some point. Then get ready for the touchtile form factor. (Sorry, couldn't help but use another hybrid word.)
In a world that has brought us “stagflagation,” “brunch” and “Brangelina,” comes the latest portmanteau. It’s the “phablet.” It’s too big to be a phone, too small to be a tablet. And now we have to wonder if phablets are a real phabnomenon?
Suddenly I've been coming across the hybrid word “phablet” very often. I suppose it’s an obvious combo addition to the lexicon. But what the heck is a phablet? One definition I’ve found is it’s a touch device with a screen size between 4.6 and 5.5 inches. Any smaller, it’s a phone. Any larger, it’s a tablet.
Samsung’s Galaxy Note is the device that probably started the species. The Note has a 5.3-inch touch display and even comes with a stylus (so it’s a “stouch” device... or a “stablet”). And Samsung’s new Galaxy SIII could very well become the best-selling phablet in history. With a 4.8-inch display, please don’t confuse it with being a smartphone.
Other vendors such as HTC, LG, and Huawei either have or will soon be shipping phablets as well.
Is it time for all device vendors to get their phabet acts together? Phobviously it is, so make a note of it and don’t phall behind.
