Phone, Tablet and Gizmo Thread #0x02

Nandu · Post by **Nandu** » 04 Sep 2013 05:21

From twitter:

anmol · Post by **anmol** » 04 Sep 2013 05:32

^ WP's worldwide market share is right now at 3.7% so whoever made that have old data.

>Also why is MSFT going down after buying Elop along with the Nokia mobile division? Isn't it a good thing for MSFT?

Because it looks more and more like a deal that Microsoft was forced into.

Here is my theory:

Microsoft-Nokia's original deal where Nokia would only sell WP was from 2011-2014. Also I think according to original deal, starting 2014 Nokia was supposed to pay Microsoft for using WP instead of getting "platform support payment" from MS.

So next year Nokia had to decide whether to recommit itself to WP.

Considering that Nokia accounted for pretty much all of WP marketshare, if they would have left WP for Android then that would have been disastrous for Microsoft(basically death of WP).

So Microsoft had no option to spend even more money, but unlike Google which paid ~12 Billion for lot of technical patents all that Microsoft got for its 8 Billion was:-

1) Brand name such as Asha and Lumia.
2) 30,000 more employees around the would.
3) "Design" patents (see how useful were Apple's rounded corner patents).
5) License for Nokia's technical patents.
6) License to use Here.

This is TERRIBLE deal for Microsoft, as they can already make good hardware on their own and already had license for mapping data. Also this is the reason why Ballmer decided to retire as many shareholders were already asking for another CEO. This was the price Microsoft had to pay.. (announcement of Ballmer's retirement and deal with the noisiest shareholderValueact).

Now CT: Nokia's hedgefund owners saw how badly MS wanted to be relevant in this market and how many billions it was having overseas........

Anujan · Post by **Anujan** » 04 Sep 2013 06:37

nachiket wrote: Also why is MSFT going down after buying Elop along with the Nokia mobile division? Isn't it a good thing for MSFT?

Three reasons.

1. Nokia makes ~80% of WP phones. If M$ didnt buy Nokia and they went under, WP is dead as a platform. So M$'s hand was forced to buy Nokia. Which leads to...

2. Opportunity cost. If you had 7.5 Billion $ and if Nokia was healthy, would you invest it in a business of making phones or would you invest it in some business which has a potential to grow and make more money? M$ sinking money into Nok leads to...

3. It is slowly sinking into people that Big B was serious about making the company into devices and services company. There are risks with this. M$ online services division was leaking cash. Nokia's devices business was hemorrhaging money. Microsoft's surface division is/was leaking cash too. So if you created a devices+services division merging everything, they are leaking cash like a torrent. Ofcourse the bet is that it can be turned around and made profitable -- but there is risk associated with it.

M$ bought Skype for 8.5 Billion $. A innovative handset maker with ~30,000 employees, umpteen agreements with carriers, and boatloads of patents goes for a billion $ less. Such is the tech industry.

PS> Big B in his letter to employees says: http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/3/468880 ... rosoft-fte

our strategy to create a family of devices and services for individuals and businesses that empower people around the globe at home, at work and on the go, for the activities they value most.

M$ is consistent with its messaging, reusing the phrase over and over again. I found the choice of words odd and funny. Many posts back, I had suggested this instead:

devices and services company that empowers people for the activities they value the most, delivering its products and services which provide profit and value to the shareholders, conducted as a lawful activity while providing the most value to consumers while not losing sight of disruptive innovations in technology to embrace such disruptions while leading people and businesses towards that disruption with legacy support so that their current activities are not disrupted which does not imply a solely business focussed set of products and services because people do not cease to become people when they come home from work which means that we will also have a strong consumer focus not just in software but also in devices and services because consumers want an integrated set of experiences.

anmol · Post by **anmol** » 04 Sep 2013 07:14

Yup, Ballmer's argument is that one cant remain relevant in enterprise if one is not relevant in consumer market because of BYOD.

Ballmer and the board have claimed and continue to claim that Microsoft needs to be in both the consumer and enterprise markets because of the bring your own device/consumerization of IT trends. The official stance is growth in enterprise is untenable without a strong consumer/device presence.

source: http://www.zdnet.com/does-its-nokia-buy ... 000020158/

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 04 Sep 2013 07:26

my employer provides a choice of thinkpads and mac. employees demanded mac as a choice. but full internal support and even a inhouse crew of lenovo 1st level repair guys only for thinkpad. mac are "community based support" and gradually people have found workarounds and options for whatever is lacking and most younger employees obviously go for the retina mac despite a slightly longer wait period. new college hires are not given mac option because that would hike demand hugely, they have to wait for first refresh cycle 3 yrs.
so apple is penetrating the enterprise due to employee demand even in non-BYOD scenarios.

Anujan · Post by **Anujan** » 04 Sep 2013 08:43

Munnas come up with phrases like BYOD and "consumerization of enterprise" which are all new words coined by current crop of YumBeeYaes who as usual are ignorant of the computer industry.

People generally forget the era when enterprises used to use "mini computers" and people used "personal computers". There was even something called a "departmental supercomputer " which an entire division used to share*. Stalwarts like DEC etc got their mush handed to them when companies figured out PCs were powerful and cheap for office use and workers were familiar with them which made training easier and the bottom fell out of the "enterprise minicomputer" market. They were all replaced by .... You guessed it: consumer class computers. Surely Ballmer remembers it, he was there and was very much a part of the revolution.

Now people dole out sagely advice about BYOD and "consumerization of the enterprise"

*One of the guys who made a departmental supercomputer was a company called cydrome. Started by Ramakrishna Rau. Went on to work in HP labs along with top notch compiler talent in the industry that came to HP from cydrome. Cydrome's cydra 5 ... Now that was a real piece of injineering. All headed by a SDRE, before itvity days.

Anujan · Post by **Anujan** » 04 Sep 2013 09:06

Singha-ji
Why are macs interchangeable with thinkpads? I suspect most of employee tools run just fine between these platforms (macs and presumably windows based thinkpads). Most probably the services are web based or standards based like email. So if you think about it, portable services which can be accessed from any device is what is breaking into windows dominance in the workplace. Consumers wanting a particular device is just one aspect of it. If your company software ran only on windows, macs in the workplace wouldnt be possible. This is why M$ fought tooth and nail against netscape and web based services.

anmol · Post by **anmol** » 04 Sep 2013 09:29

Nokia confirms: Patent attacks may continue after Microsoft purchase
by Joe Mullin, arstechnica.com
September 3rd 2013 9:52 PM

There's something notable thing missing from Microsoft's $7.1 billion purchase of Nokia's phone business yesterday—the company's giant patent portfolio.

As Nokia's cell phone business declined, it started filing patent lawsuits. Nokia was unafraid to sue giant competitors like RIM and Apple. The Finnish company's aggression was one of the key factors that ended the detente between tech companies who used to avoid patent spats for fear it would only lead to "mutually assured destruction."

Microsoft paid billions for a license to Nokia's patents, but the company has made explicit that Nokia still owns the patents. The genius of this move is that it allows Microsoft to double down on its patent war with Android. Microsoft boasts that the majority of Android phones sold worldwide have already paid for a license to Microsoft patents. By 2011, patent licensing revenue exceeded Microsoft's revenue from Windows Phone.

Now, Nokia can go after Android phone makers for royalties—even ones that have already paid Microsoft.

When pressed on the issue today, a Nokia spokesman confirmed that more patent licensing is indeed part of the plan.

"Once we no longer have our own mobile devices business, following the close of the (Microsoft) transaction, we would be able to explore licensing some of those technologies," a company spokesman told Reuters.

IP experts who spoke to Reuters said that Nokia's unusual decision to not sell the patents along with the business mean that it has other plans for recouping value from those patents. While Nokia is not a "patent troll," because it will continue to have an operating business; yet it is effectively embracing a similar strategy. The combination of a powerful patent portfolio and no operating phone business to counter-sue will make Nokia a formidable opponent in court.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 04 Sep 2013 09:47

Anujan wrote:Munnas come up with phrases like BYOD and "consumerization of enterprise" which are all new words coined by current crop of YumBeeYaes who as usual are ignorant of the computer industry.

There is however, one difference between BYOD and the introduction of PCs into the workplace. Workers didn't bring their personal PCs or laptops into their workplace to do their work. Rather they did work on similar machines, but owned by their KB. The iPad has changed that and that is what BYOD essentially means, rather than the transition from mainframes or mini computers to desktop PCs or from desktop PCs to KB owned tablets.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 04 Sep 2013 09:51

Anujan wrote:Singha-ji
Why are macs interchangeable with thinkpads? I suspect most of employee tools run just fine between these platforms (macs and presumably windows based thinkpads). Most probably the services are web based or standards based like email. So if you think about it, portable services which can be accessed from any device is what is breaking into windows dominance in the workplace. Consumers wanting a particular device is just one aspect of it. If your company software ran only on windows, macs in the workplace wouldnt be possible. This is why M$ fought tooth and nail against netscape and web based services.

The key word here is most, rather than all. The problem is Windows is so engrained in the enterprise desktop PC market that enterprise IT departments pretty much set up all their intranet to cater first to Windows PCs and if Macs work then fine and good, if not, hack it out yourself. Mickey's own services are now all web-based so I doubt they care.

Lilo · Post by **Lilo** » 04 Sep 2013 11:25

SaiK wrote:before google gets to indic names, someone patent all generic indic sweet names.

Saik ji,

No.
Google will never use Indic names.

<RANT>Although its filled with desis in their ranks one never finds a Google doodle on their main website Google.com (not the country specific google.in) anything to do with Indic or non western cultures in general.

However Indians are daily bombarded with little known Western personalities, explaining primacy of western cultural meme's in painting,architecture and other assorted liberal arts and science and their role in establishing the "current" "globalized" "culture" especially on the Google.in site.
More funnier is news outlets like TOIlet HT etc going to town bragging like idiots about a rare Indian specific doodle on Google's Indian specific google.in site (which is anyway absent on their main site).</RANT>

So RB ji can rest easy on trademarking his Rosogulla OS name.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 04 Sep 2013 11:38

Don't know if this was posted before, but Window NT 3.1 is 20 years old now. I remember working on it in the mid 1990s. It was different from anything else also named Windows, even Win 95. Everything about it seemed so alien and on a completely different level from all the consumer Win variants, until Win 2K and XP came along.

negi · Post by **negi** » 04 Sep 2013 11:52

Macs are also penetrating the workspace due to virtualization and memory becoming cheaper by the day; if one's product is meant to run only on enterprise linux , solaris or say even widnows 2003 server one can run it on Mac book pro inside a VM.

BhairavP · Post by **BhairavP** » 04 Sep 2013 11:54

Apparently Google has negotiated with Kraft for usage of the KitKat name. Hiroshi Lockheimer is said to be a huge fan of KitKat, where the employees there even decorated his cabin door with KitKats.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 04 Sep 2013 12:03

does google still provide all sorts of chocolates,biscuits,sodas conveniently placed no more than 100ft from every employee per the legend?

corporate IT depts have a lot of MSFT certified experts, who have learnt the ins and outs of large windows deployments the hard way. vendors like lenovo often depute 1st line staff to big clients to troubleshoot and ease the paperwork of moving stuff in and out SEZ for warranty repair, so they sit inside the box. I am not aware of any such apple training or service support in corporate world. normally it doesnt break but when it does.....with thinkpads, all they do is swap out the HDD into a temp laptop, do a few security config to make ur laptop go live and you are good to go until original one comes back.

have to say the whole thing works pretty fluidly like the WP8 live tiles....

any given day, netz has around 50,000+ thinkpads in the wild inside corporate network. they used to have toshiba more than a decade ago but then came T41 and it became a thinkpad monopoly....compared to the laptops of the era, T41 was a piece of MBT steel and perfect for carrying around to meetings, labs, rugged.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 04 Sep 2013 12:23

I have to say FruitCo probably takes the cake for some of the most unhealthiest snacks for employees...tons of chips and crap. Though the worst tasting has to be the Salmiakki candy and Koskenkorva vodka provided in GB offices.

prahaar · Post by **prahaar** » 04 Sep 2013 12:32

Raja Bose wrote:I have to say FruitCo probably takes the cake for some of the most unhealthiest snacks for employees...tons of chips and crap. Though the worst tasting has to be the Salmiakki candy and Koskenkorva vodka provided in GB offices.

But at least these are not unhealthy

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 04 Sep 2013 12:47

I just googled salmiakki

I can't believe people eat something like that, and have the nerve to call it candy. And that too, from first world Scandinavian countries. They ought to be summarily demoted to turd world status just for inventing such nonsense. I thought the Taiwanese plumbed the bottom of the scale with their stinky tofu, but this sounds worse.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 04 Sep 2013 13:06

well whats wrong with it. it occupies a niche just as 85% coco ghirardelli chocos from SF are not everyone's taste(it is with me). its not disgusting in any way imo.
disgusting would be cheese with live maggots inside from italy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casu_marzu
Because the larvae in the cheese can launch themselves for distances up to 15 centimetres (6 in) when disturbed,[1][8] diners hold their hands above the sandwich to prevent the maggots from leaping. Some who eat the cheese prefer not to ingest the maggots. Those who do not wish to do so place the cheese in a sealed paper bag. The maggots, starved for oxygen, writhe and jump in the bag, creating a "pitter-patter" sound. When the sounds subside, the maggots are dead and the cheese can be eaten

negi · Post by **negi** » 04 Sep 2013 14:35

The best food in kampany premises which I have ever tasted was in Kolkata; our lunch menu used to be a lavish affair with stuff like chicken dahiwala/methi chicken/mughlai for chicken lovers , rohu or pabda for fish lovers and at least 2 subzis for veggies. Snacks were free and it was again a deep fried bong affair stuff like egg cutlets, begun bhaja were provided. The chai stall just outside our building used to serve usual lemon tea in clay pots and hot dhania pattar bhaja or jhaal moori to go along with it for just INR 10.

Crap like CCD , Costa coffee cannot even hold a candle to the Monginis chain in Kolkata their puffs and sandwiches were so much better.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 04 Sep 2013 17:41

htc butterfly in desh for 53k !! wow... does desh plan cover any free phone on service agreement like in massa?

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 04 Sep 2013 17:48

I have never seen a single person in india using a htc phone! I wonder how they continue to run their sales operation here!

abhischekcc · Post by **abhischekcc** » 04 Sep 2013 18:02

Singha liar liar.

When you met me in BLR many years ago, I was using an HTC phone.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 04 Sep 2013 18:03

well congrats on your unique status then! whos next ?

their marketshare in india must make LG and sony look like giants.

BhairavP · Post by **BhairavP** » 04 Sep 2013 18:18

I have a Desire Z, old Android 2.x phone upgraded to 4.0.4
Works just fine, with a physical keyboard. Give it to unsuspecting relatives to use when they come "down" to desh.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 04 Sep 2013 19:41

Panasonic quits consumer smartphone business

One by one the weak fall by the wayside...

Lilo · Post by **Lilo** » 04 Sep 2013 19:48

So what are the phonewas that Japanese are buying?
Must be the soko ones and Sony ?

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 04 Sep 2013 19:50

^^^Now we wait for BB, LG, and HTC in the next year.

Lilo · Post by **Lilo** » 04 Sep 2013 19:53

Why can't an Indian handset maker find some stashed gold and aquire one of these brands ?

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 04 Sep 2013 19:54

LG is making the new Nexus as per the SDRE in the KitKat video....Thank God its not another plastic Galaxy Nexus nightmare from Sammy! The LG Nexus4 was the best designed Android phone I have seen till date.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 04 Sep 2013 19:57

Lilo wrote:Why can't an Indian handset maker find some stashed gold and aquire one of these brands ?

Becoz all they care about is money onlee and how to fleece the customer out of the last paisa, yet have no vision, no passion for consumer products and no clue why making one's own products is so important for them and for the Indian economy. Just look at the ITvity billionaires from Bengaluru. Now with Rupee going for a toss, all we need is the outsourcing ITvity industry to shift to China/Vietnam/Philippines completely and the disaster will be complete. Then who will R2I, hain ji? And who will buy those crore kamandu bungalows in Bengaluru which are more expensive than the ones in the Bay Area?

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 04 Sep 2013 19:57

^^^I respectfully disagree. The best Android phone is the SGS4 GPE IMHO. Having used the LG Nex 4, it suffers from poor battery life and heating as I've observed on 4 separate units.
I was hoping the Nexus 5 would be from Sony or Googarola.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 04 Sep 2013 19:59

Raja Bose wrote:
Lilo wrote:Why can't an Indian handset maker find some stashed gold and aquire one of these brands ?
Becoz all they care about is money onlee and how to fleece the customer out of the last paisa, yet have no vision, no passion for consumer products and no clue why making one's own products is so important for them and for the Indian economy. Just look at the ITvity billionaires from Bengaluru. Now with Rupee going for a toss, all we need is the outsourcing ITvity industry to shift to China/Vietnam/Philippines completely and the disaster will be complete. Then who will R2I, hain ji? And who will buy those crore kamandu bungalows in Bengaluru which are more expensive than the ones in the Bay Area?

I'll be happy if private Indian industry can make the Kaveri in production.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 04 Sep 2013 20:10

Mort Walker wrote:^^^I respectfully disagree. The best Android phone is the SGS4 GPE IMHO. Having used the LG Nex 4, it suffers from poor battery life and heating as I've observed on 4 separate units.
I was hoping the Nexus 5 would be from Sony or Googarola.

I meant from ID/visual design perspective. SGS4 is plasticky cheapo looking/feeling.

I have used 2 N4s till date and haven't noticed anything weird about its thermal management. Yes it gets warm but so do the Droids when you play some GPU heavy games.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 04 Sep 2013 20:23

I think it is a human thing to assume all things glass & matte finish metal is expensive and plastic is cheap.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 04 Sep 2013 20:28

Yes it is. It has to do with our perception of touch.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 04 Sep 2013 20:34

there are many types of plastic - lumia and HTC plastic feels good. sony has good matt finish plastic. samsung is well ok type but doesnt feel so premium. very resilient to damage though.

and then theres the pandaphone plastic most of you NRI munnas have never felt first hand. the bad ones use the kind of material used in buckets and bathroom mugs!

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 04 Sep 2013 20:37

RB,

Yes. I agree. The HTC One is also another which has great ID. It is my current "daily driver". I just hope it gets Android 4.3 by the end of the month as promised.

See Nexus 4 lacks a proper heat sink
Hopefully LG has fixed this on the Nexus 5. The Nexus 5 will probably behave much like the LG G2 that just released.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 04 Sep 2013 20:51

perhaps they need to add more weight to the plastic.. make it composite space material perhaps.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 04 Sep 2013 20:55

^^Motor Oil tried that with the Kevlar BS....it feels like crap.

HTC One designer and team is right now enjoying free hospitality for trying to steal company IP and also transmitting secret information to Chipanda govt.