Phone, Tablet and Gizmo Thread #0x02

[Mort Walker]

Where is the KLP/Nexus HD announcement which was supposed to happen during Google I/O? This Google I/O was a big disappointment in terms of new stuff getting revealed (exact opposite of 2012 Google I/O) though I liked the Glass hacking session.

I too was disappointed, but Sundar Pichai did state before the event that this I/O would be more about development and less about new hardware. Typically GOOG puts up a dessert prop on their campus in Mountain View several days prior to release. It didn't happen this time, so it was an indicator that 4.3 would come later. If you drive past the GOOG HQ in Mountain View and see workers setting up a prop, please send me an MMS. That said, GOOG did do work on the their apps and pushed them out on Tuesday afternoon. Position information in maps is more accurate and UI on the Google Play Music app is very nice. I always thought that the iTunes UI on iOS devices was nice, but this is really good. I was hoping for some improvements on Google Drive (Docs), but unfortunately nothing there.

Nexus is as much a showcase for Android as Surface is for Win8. Chacha had real strong ambitions behind launching the Nexus One namely, breaking the carriers' dictatorship in massa. But when those plans failed in a face saving move it was spun off as a reference/showcase since it became clear to Chacha why such endeavors would fail in carrier-dominated massa market. In retrospect, its funny how Chacha's move to sell an unlocked phone was applauded as being revolutionary and magical by the anal-e-cysts who conveniently forgot that GB had been doing that for a decade and did not succeed. So it was hardly a surprise when Chacha's plans to break the carriers' stranglehold in massa failed in 2010 (1st time it failed was during negotiations in 2008-9 when Chacha had to GUBO to VZW). They should have studied GB's experience and tried to evolve a strat-e-jee from its shortcomings but apparently they didn't.

Not really. You get the same showcase UX from OEMs, if not better, and updates are available to OEMs at the same time. Additionally, MSFT's Store doesn't sell the WP unlocked. If it's a showcase for MSFT, shouldn't they sell it to enthusiasts who want an unadulterated one without the carrier getting in the way? AAPL and GOOG do. MSFT had the chance to buy a few hundred thousand from Nokia and put them on their store front which would have gotten to early adopters, who in turn would have put out positive spin. Perhaps MSFT realized there was no positive spin to WP?

It was MOTO and VZW that negotiated the exclusive to the DROID. The reason carriers in the US have strangle hold is the forced subsidy. After you pay out the value of the phone on your contract, you continue paying high prices, and the carriers either don't let you bring your own device or give you a discount on your monthly plan if you do. TMO has broken this rule, but at this time TMO's network isn't as extensive as ATT & VZW. However the situation is fluid, since more spectrum is becoming available and all mobile voice comms will become VoIP with the implementation of LTE. It is already happening in the EU, the US will be next and Asia will follow.

On another note, Nexus Q is getting spun off as an experiment when in reality it was supposed to be a consumer product. ChromeBook Pixel will probably meet the same fate (my spider sense tells me it does have stamp of the Nexus Q design team on it going by the ridiculous BOM). Making one's own CE devices and getting people to buy them is not a trivial task and requires certain culture changes in the product design and development process vs doing pure software or web/cloud services. Pricing matters, BOM matters (both price and functionality-wise) and there is no concept of shipping beta HW to mass market consumers so there are drop-dead deadlines for freezing design, manufacturing specs etc. way before product ever comes to market. That is why when Chacha partners with device OEMs like Asus it succeeds but its own homegrown devices have always failed to take off. The only reason Mickey has been somewhat successful in its homegrown HW efforts is becoz it is an old school SW manufacturer which actually used to sell physically boxed software in floppies and CDs (vs web-based stuff which can be updated/fixed at will by vendor) which required conceptually similar design and development processes/deadlines as selling HW.

The Nexus Q was DoA since it was never really available. The ChromeBook is a ripoff netbook, but with a nice touch display and h/w. GOOG will have to seriously update it and bring the price down to $800 if they expect it to sell. Maybe it's another showcase type device never intending to be sold in any significant numbers.

[Raja Bose]

I too was disappointed, but Sundar Pichai did state before the event that this I/O would be more about development and less about new hardware. Position information in maps is more accurate and UI on the Google Play Music app is very nice. I always thought that the iTunes UI on iOS devices was nice, but this is really good.

Sundar Babu really ruined it when he made that announcement. Or perhaps it was better from Chacha's perspective since it didn't set unrealistic expectations/hype. The Play Music stuff's UI is good but to be competitive they really need to ramp up on content licensing - that's the Achilles heel of the Play Store vs iTunes/Takla.

Nexus is as much a showcase for Android as Surface is for Win8.

If it's a showcase for MSFT, shouldn't they sell it to enthusiasts who want an unadulterated one without the carrier getting in the way?

They sell Surface in unadulterated, pure virgin form onlee. Where is the carrier in all this? Speaking of WP, in terms of carrier crud and consistency of offering its somewhere between iOS and Android. Its look-and-feel is consistent across all manufacturers, all carriers, all price points unlike Android and in terms of carrier crapware its not zero like iOS and its not bazillion like Android. One area where WP has succeeded and Android hasn't is the UX on their low-end phones is as good as their high-end phones. Since FruitCo which has an equivalent UX doesn't dirty its feet with such low caste waters, that segment is ripe for exploitation. GB has leveraged this now and this has resulted in driving their sales high in EMEA at present.

It was MOTO and VZW that negotiated the exclusive to the DROID.

It was Chacha all along behind the scenes, MOTO merely posed for the public document signing and photo op after end of the La-whore Bus Yatra. You might curse Verizon but it is they who put Android squarely on the route to smartphone dominance. The value proposition that Chacha made for VZW was in the same vein as the one it made for recruiting phone manufacturers for OHA before that except the enemy target was different. In fact this was also the start of the love affair between MOTO and Rubin which led to MOTO's $12b acquisition and ended in Rubin's ouster as Android chief - I guess Larry Babu is not amused that our Bihari Babu sold him a bill of goods instead of real maal.

The Nexus Q was DoA since it was never really available. The ChromeBook is a ripoff netbook, but with a nice touch display and h/w. GOOG will have to seriously update it and bring the price down to $800 if they expect it to sell. Maybe it's another showcase type device never intending to be sold in any significant numbers.

How long will they spin hardware product failures as experiments? They can't price it down to $800 without eating a majority of the manufacturing costs. Tech bloggers and anal-e-cysts were going JEEEHAAARDDD about Surface Pro's $1000 pricing when Chacha coolly launched a $1300.- web browser with lower storage/lower memory and they got stunned into silence. Too bad Chacha still doesn't have the same level of mindshare amongst the anal-e-cysts like FruitCo does otherwise many more of them would try to spin the Pixel as magical and revolutionary (well some tried).

[Mort Walker]

^^^I was referring to the carrier for WP not Surface. Sorry for the confusion. My point is the Surface user gets all the same benefits from an OEM, who have better products than the Surface (and lower price), so why should anyone buy the Surface?

The MOTO Droid was launched in Oct. 2009. MOTO was one company at that time and GOOG had not entered in to any discussions to buy MOTO until it planned to split in to Mobility and Solutions in 2011. VZW turned down AAPL for the iPhone and was looking for a new smartphone to push their services. MOTO was looking to get back to prominence in to the mobile phone industry and Android was the best bet along with VZW. I disagree that VZW put Android on the route to dominance, but it did help in the US. There was also the Droid GSM version sold outside of the US known as the Milestone. It was the HTC Dream that went out world wide in late 2008 early 2009 that was the sleeper hit. From 2009-2010, Eric Scmidt did work with all Android OEMs and VZW to promote Android.

In the mean time, your favorite turd is doing well. SAMSUNG GALAXY S4 TO REACH 10 MILLION SALES NEXT WEEK

[Raja Bose]

My point is the Surface user gets all the same benefits from an OEM, who have better products than the Surface (and lower price), so why should anyone buy the Surface?

You should ask the consumer becoz they buy the Surface more than competing offerings from other OEMs. Consumers rarely purchase based on a clipboard checklist of benefits - FruitCo understands this the best.

The MOTO Droid was launched in Oct. 2009. MOTO was one company at that time and GOOG had not entered in to any discussions to buy MOTO until it planned to split in to Mobility and Solutions in 2011.

The impetus for the split and what bubbled up into Chacha's acquisition of Moto can be traced to that partnership between Moto, Chacha and VZW. When Moto initially approached VZW they got creamed and Chacha stepped in and essentially hammered out the agreement lock stock and barrel - this info is from some very good chaiwalla sources who did the hammering, not PR stuff put out for public consumption.

I disagree that VZW put Android on the route to dominance, but it did help in the US. There was also the Droid GSM version sold outside of the US known as the Milestone. It was the HTC Dream that went out world wide in late 2008 early 2009 that was the sleeper hit.

That must be the understatement of the week. Most consumers had no clue about the HTC Dream or TMo G1 - it was no even marketed properly. Calling it a sleeper hit puts it in the same category as Pakistan's democracy loving silent majority. It was VZW's relentless buy-one-get-one-free campaign for almost 2 years which put Android into the path which led to its dominance - it literally resulted in flooding the market with Android phones at all price points especially the mid-range. It wasn't due to one single crappy phone from some manufacturer which did the trick - remember Android does not follow the iPhone model, its all about volume and variance.

In the mean time, your favorite turd is doing well. SAMSUNG GALAXY S4 TO REACH 10 MILLION SALES NEXT WEEK

Sammy quotes units shipped to retailers, rather than sold to consumers unlike others, such as GB. Anyhow its still a turd, albeit a high volume turd (aka diarrhea ) Reminds me of when GB used to sell really crappy stuff like N82 which sold in 10s of millions and people pointed to the volume sold as proof that it wasn't a turd.

[Mort Walker]

^^^Well, then get ready to swim in the diarrhea, because its going to be ubiquitous.

[Mort Walker]

You should ask the consumer becoz they buy the Surface more than competing offerings from other OEMs. Consumers rarely purchase based on a clipboard checklist of benefits - FruitCo understands this the best.

Really? What category is the Surface in? Laptop, tablet or both? I don't see the evidence for consumers buying the Surface, it appears the hobbyist and fanbois are picking it up. I had the chance to buy one through corporate channels and turned it down for a Windows 8 (downgrade to Windows 7) Lenovo Carbon X1. Then I bought a nice bag to hold it and my iPad3.

[Prem]

Samsung’s marketing Death Star isn’t just hovering over the United States — it has designs on conquering the entire world. Per Barron’s, Global Equities Research analyst Trip Chowdhry thinks that Apple may have a tougher time in India than other markets because BlackBerry and especially Samsung have already blanketed the country with ads touting their smartphones as elite products that consumers simply see as less expensive versions of the iPhone. Because of this, he says that the companies have created ”an environment where they tend to mentally enslave the consumer to buy their products.” Chowdhry says this is particularly true of Samsung, which he says airs TV ads once every 15 minutes in India.

Samsung advertising barrage said to ‘mentally enslave’ Indian consumers
http://news.yahoo.com/samsung-advertisi ... 33807.html

[Raja Bose]

^^^Well, then get ready to swim in the diarrhea, because its going to be ubiquitous.

That's what they said about Ericsson, Sony, GB, Palm, Motor Oil.....history repeats itself

[Raja Bose]

Really? What category is the Surface in? Laptop, tablet or both? I don't see the evidence for consumers buying the Surface, it appears the hobbyist and fanbois are picking it up. I had the chance to buy one through corporate channels and turned it down for a Windows 8 (downgrade to Windows 7) Lenovo Carbon X1. Then I bought a nice bag to hold it and my iPad3.

It is not an entirely new category but I see the laptop folding into this category down the line - it is essentially the next evolution of the laptop (what the netbook should have been but wasn't). Actually the fanbois and ubergeeks stay away from the Surface - most people buying it are regular Joes and Janes who don't want to lug around 2 devices but want the convenience of both (examples in one of my previous posts). Going by the revenue calculations, it looks to be Mickey's next profitable revenue stream (last one was XBox and that started in 2011 iirc). There are many improvements which should be done on Surface so it will be a evolutionary product rather than revolutionary. Only FruitCo could do revolutionary products and after the Mahdi got his 72 I doubt even they can do it like before till I see them launch a next big thing (if they do at all). Rest of the mortal companies are stuck to improving their products in an evolutionary way.

[Vayutuvan]

In light of our extended bac-and-forth on patentability of SW...

Canada Courts, Patent Office Warns Against Trying To Patent Mathematics

Mort, about the patent for CD read/write software using a particular frequency - it is not pure software as it is connected to process and hardware and a particular frequency has been standardized. Now everyone has to use that same frequency or be not compatible. Standardization and patentability are not same but are interrelated in that if a patent holder is able to make their patent as the standard, everyone has to buy a license from that entity. Obviously there is a lot of politics in standards bodies.

[Raja Bose]

Well looks like Chacha is working on platform convergence as well....hardly surprising.

http://mobile.theverge.com/2013/5/17/43 ... t-i-o-2013

[Raja Bose]

bhy did sammy sell their display division to forest? bhat is the parpas?

Are you kidding me? Sammy will sell one of its most profitable divisions to Takla?! They only sold some e-paper division.

regarding internet TV, youtube has a very good chance to succeed as most of the devices already have a youtube app/channel. so, distribution is not a problem. All they need to figure out is close the licensing

When Google launched GoogleTV it struck me as the most logical and chankian thing they could do given they own YouTube and kick mush in TV beating FruitCo/Mickey to the punch. Yet somehow they bungled it multiple times and now GoogleTV is languishing while Mickey/FruitCo are surging ahead.

[Mort Walker]

It is not an entirely new category but I see the laptop folding into this category down the line - it is essentially the next evolution of the laptop (what the netbook should have been but wasn't). Actually the fanbois and ubergeeks stay away from the Surface - most people buying it are regular Joes and Janes who don't want to lug around 2 devices but want the convenience of both (examples in one of my previous posts). Going by the revenue calculations, it looks to be Mickey's next profitable revenue stream (last one was XBox and that started in 2011 iirc). There are many improvements which should be done on Surface so it will be a evolutionary product rather than revolutionary. Only FruitCo could do revolutionary products and after the Mahdi got his 72 I doubt even they can do it like before till I see them launch a next big thing (if they do at all). Rest of the mortal companies are stuck to improving their products in an evolutionary way.

The problem here is that every one of the OEMs can, do or will make a Surface like device. Right now there is only one XBoX and that is from MSFT. The OEMs aren't allowed to make an XBoX. If the touchscreen laptop is successful, everyone will jump on it including your favorite turd company and prices will come down to $700. The Joe Six Pack (JSP) and family are buying cheap Windows laptops and iPad Minis in this economy.

[Mort Walker]

In light of our extended bac-and-forth on patentability of SW...

Canada Courts, Patent Office Warns Against Trying To Patent Mathematics

Mort, about the patent for CD read/write software using a particular frequency - it is not pure software as it is connected to process and hardware and a particular frequency has been standardized. Now everyone has to use that same frequency or be not compatible. Standardization and patentability are not same but are interrelated in that if a patent holder is able to make their patent as the standard, everyone has to buy a license from that entity. Obviously there is a lot of politics in standards bodies.

The Red Book standard states 44.1 KHz because that was the sampling rate of the ADCs/DACs for the application at the time when it was developed. You can use a different sampling frequency read/write CDs, but it must drop down to a minimum 44.1 KHz for the media to be compatible on all devices. Now days you can find ADCs/DACs that will sample at 100 MHz, but that doesn't mean they can't sample at lower frequency.

[Mort Walker]

That's what they said about Ericsson, Sony, GB, Palm, Motor Oil.....history repeats itself

That was true because Apple came out with the revolutionary iPhone which turned everything on its head. Right now all the same players are competing for the same market share and it will take another revolutionary product, but don't expect that to come from Uncle Fester's company.

[Vayutuvan]

The Red Book standard states 44.1 KHz because that was the sampling rate of the ADCs/DACs for the application at the time when it was developed. You can use a different sampling frequency read/write CDs, but it must drop down to a minimum 44.1 KHz for the media to be compatible on all devices. Now days you can find ADCs/DACs that will sample at 100 MHz, but that doesn't mean they can't sample at lower frequency.

I vaguely remember red book, blue book?, high sierra (or something related to some mountain), etc. But ADC/DAC pairs, though can be implemented in SW, are simple enough that they can be implemented in HW to be faster (for multiplexing lots of channels, am I right?). The latter is definitely patentable and since the former is usually on a ucontroller it is also patentable.

I am talking about things like compilers/interpreters (Lisp, Scheme, GCC, LLVM, Python, Ruby, Perl, Haskell, and I don't know whether you tried OCaml which is very nice), OSses(various flavors of BSD, Linux), DBMSs(Postgresql, Ingres - which still lives, MYSQL), Networking stacks, and now a days all the rage - search engines - whose basic ideas are well understood. None of these can be pantented today.

[Raja Bose]

That's what they said about Ericsson, Sony, GB, Palm, Motor Oil.....history repeats itself

That was true because Apple came out with the revolutionary iPhone which turned everything on its head. Right now all the same players are competing for the same market share and it will take another revolutionary product, but don't expect that to come from Uncle Fester's company.

Only GB's demise was directly due to the iPhone's rise+establishment of US as the primary smartphone trendsetter market. Rest were all victims of an industry where change is the only thing constant as history has shown us. And it is a misconception that revolution happens in device onlee. Motor Oil's demise happened when they lost the advantage of iDen PTT with introduction of QChat with optimized connect times. Don't expect revolutionary CE stuff with slam-dunk mass market appeal from Uncle Fester's company or any other engineering-centric company - only FruitCo under Mahdi could do slam-dunk revolution in CE, not even Takla can do that. Uncle Fester's company is just shrewd in business and execution but rarely will be 1st to market. That weakness is also its strength and the reason why it is going strong after 3 decades+. FruitCo OTOH needs a next big thing every few years (like a pulse jet rakkit engine) otherwise it will perish. Such companies gain the headlines but also die out faster (in a way it mimics the Mahdi's personal life).

The problem here is that every one of the OEMs can, do or will make a Surface like device.

So? Every OEM can make a iPad like tablet device - we can see how well that went. There is a big gap between 'can' and 'does' and then selling it to the consumer successfully. Every Android device maker can make a large screen Galaxy Note like device and folks like YellJee have done so too, yet only the Galaxy Note devices sell while YellJee flounders. Sorry, logic mein dum nahin hai saar.

Right now there is only one XBoX and that is from MSFT. The OEMs aren't allowed to make an XBoX.

They can make a game console running Windoze, nothing is stopping them (in fact Windoze OEM licensing terms do not prohibit it).

The Joe Six Pack (JSP) and family are buying cheap Windows laptops and iPad Minis in this economy.

If the economy is so bad how come JSP is buying the iPad Mini in majority and not the Nexus 7? The whole strat-e-jee of "If I make it cheap enough, people will buy it regardless" is a typical blinkered YumBeeAye giri funda which has led plenty of HW companies to their death or near-death becoz that strat-e-jee is essentially a race to the bottom. Even FruitCo was victim to it once before the Mahdi came back, kicked some mush and set things right. GB was a victim to it and almost died. As for TurdCo entering some market, the BOM won't magically come down. If the TurdCo makes a Surface Pro like device today, it will cost the same (~$900.-) becoz the BOM is dominated by the display, processor, touch sensor and battery but probably will have a crappy plastic housing and look and feel like a turd....hardly an attractive proposition. That is the reason why the ChromeBook Pixel costs $1300.- despite running a web browser onlee. The only place TurdCo has shown itself to be successful is where it was allowed to enter the market right at the beginning (example, Android). Whether it can be successful in a crowded market already dominated by a strong incumbent is an open question whose answer I am curious to find out.

[Raja Bose]

I am talking about things like compilers/interpreters (Lisp, Scheme, GCC, LLVM, Python, Ruby, Perl, Haskell, and I don't know whether you tried OCaml which is very nice), OSses(various flavors of BSD, Linux), DBMSs(Postgresql, Ingres - which still lives, MYSQL), Networking stacks, and now a days all the rage - search engines - whose basic ideas are well understood. None of these can be pantented today.

If you read the language of claims in patents, they never attempt to protect the algorithm or logic itself. It is always the "apparatus" implementing that algorithm/logic which is protected becoz patents can be used to protect implementations onlee. Now in pharma there is a concept of product and process patents. Massa has the former where you can patent a molecule or a specific formulation whereas India has fought long and hard to retain the latter where you cannot patent a molecule/formulation but only the process of making that molecule/formulation. This has ensured that companies like Ranbaxy/Cipla can modify the process, circumvent the patent and produce cheaper drugs including LSDs since they dont have to pay royalty to the pharma who originally created the molecule/formulation. This has been a big bone of contention between US and Indian govts. but due to strong stand taken by the Indian govt despite US govt getting royally pissed off and threating to boycott trade, millions of AIDS victims today in India and Africa got a new lease of life.

[Vayutuvan]

SW is not as crucial as pharma in a way. Latter is a matter of survival and even a starving cur when pushed into a corner will become a lion.

[member_20292]

i particularly enjoyed the gleevec case. big pharma sons of so and sos.

[Mort Walker]

So? Every OEM can make a iPad like tablet device - we can see how well that went.

It's just getting started. Asus, Lenovo, and Sony offer Windows 8 touchscreen Ultrabooks in different sizes and prices and there are several more variations coming. The Surface is not a unique item like the iPad and there is choice for the same UX.

[Mort Walker]

If the economy is so bad how come JSP is buying the iPad Mini in majority and not the Nexus 7? <snip>

JSP walks into a Walmart to pick up some beer and buy a computer for his kids to do their home work, but mama wants a new iPad to run all those "cool" apps that her co-workers are using. What does JSP do? Here lies a dial-e-lemma for JSP. He picks up a 15.6" $399 Windows Acer laptop and a $329 iPad Mini, along with a 12-pack of Budweiser, and is out of there for under $800. Later that night, the kids setup the new laptop, mama gets her iPad Mini going and and after the kids go to bed JSP gets a nice BJ from mama.

[Raja Bose]

^^^^Most likely mama is too engrossed in the iPad mini and JSP has to outsource his BJ.

[Mort Walker]

^^^AAPL took the "Bang With Friends" off the iTunes Store, so mama may have some time.

Of course, I need a "Bang with Mama" app.

[Raja Bose]

Do you need a "Bang with Mama" app or "Bang with Mami" app? Otherwise KJo might object.

[Mort Walker]

^^^Mama in the western sense, not mamiji!

I'm tired of entering data in to .xls file, and wish there was an app that would quickly graph it using different time windows.

[Raja Bose]

^^^Why are you indulging in babu-giri? And if this is for injineering anal-e-sys then which self-respecting injineer uses Excel for such stuff?

[Raja Bose]

Are you kidding me? Sammy will sell one of its most profitable divisions to Takla?! They only sold some e-paper division.

are joo saying that sammy doesnt want to take over epaper market? I thought they have the urge to be number 1 in everything from toilet paper (number 1 in number 2 ) to heavy engineering. bhat if epapers start ruling the world? what will sammy do?

E-Paper turned out to be a niche market with low RoI - never took off the way anal-e-cysts touted it would. Sammy didn't sell the IP afaik, only licensed them so they are good.

Meanwhile, How two Valve engineers walked away with the company's augmented reality glasses Jerri Ellsworth is epic!

[Mort Walker]

^^^Why are you indulging in babu-giri? And if this is for injineering anal-e-sys then which self-respecting injineer uses Excel for such stuff?

Because it's easy to enter using Google Drive (docs).

[Anujan]

^^^^^
Every time I hear "I worked for a year, 16 hours a day, six days a week!! Zomg!!" I go

If you are passionate about something, working like that is a god-given gift not sacrifice. There have been periods in my life when I did that, I am thankful for the experience, and do not think it was sacrifice on my part. I just count myself lucky for having stumbled upon something like that.

I am sad that these days I dont/cant work like that.

[RamaY]

^+108. Last time I worked like that was in 2003, before that 1996 both times 2-6 months period, max.

[Vayutuvan]

E-Paper turned out to be a niche market with low RoI - never took off the way anal-e-cysts touted it would. Sammy didn't sell the IP afaik, only licensed them so they are good.

I think the real problem is two-fold. Firstly, takla never came out with a larger form factor for reading PDFs (adding insult to injury they withdrew the large screen kindle) and lack of color. Even if they came out with half decent color and larger say 7" length wise. This will allow a semblance of comfort for letter size PDFs even though one may have to zoom out to 80-85% and read in landscape mode. Unfortunately the "old media wallas" were holding out for a device where people can read newspapers/glossys (khel bachha which would have costed a lot to make and takla and others never took the bite. The other of course half eaten fruit's entry with iPad with the mini form factors becoming popular. So e-Ink lost the same old same old economies of scale game to pads.

[Anujan]

All consumer business aside, M$ can thrive only if they become a cloud services company double quick.

Their productivity app offering on the cloud and their cloud services like Azure, if it takes off, will make M$ a tech behemoth again. Yes it is super unsexy, but thats where the money is. The company DNA is also aligned along these lines. They always had excellent APIs and developer relations, OTOH they never gave any Sh1t about their users or tried to project themselves as consumer friendly company. When I say M$, people think "mediocre mean spirited masters of lock in".

But being successful as a cloud services company means that they need to shed some of their past habits. Their services should reach all devices, that means FruitCo, their own mobile/desktop efforts and Android. On top of that they need to enable people to put in and take out their data easily -- giving people the confidence that they can always leave. Their partnership cannot be established by arm twisting, and they need to compete on price and features in a world that offers choice.

They have the talent for this, lets see how they execute. We will revisit this post in 3 years.

[Raja Bose]

^^^Why are you indulging in babu-giri? And if this is for injineering anal-e-sys then which self-respecting injineer uses Excel for such stuff?

Because it's easy to enter using Google Drive (docs).

Even worse - Google Docs?!

^+108. Last time I worked like that was in 2003, before that 1996 both times 2-6 months period, max.

I don't work like that (16 hr/day for a year or two), period. Its inefficient and hits law of diminishing returns.

[Raja Bose]

E-Paper turned out to be a niche market with low RoI - never took off the way anal-e-cysts touted it would. Sammy didn't sell the IP afaik, only licensed them so they are good.

I think the real problem is two-fold. Firstly, takla never came out with a larger form factor for reading PDFs (adding insult to injury they withdrew the large screen kindle) and lack of color. Even if they came out with half decent color and larger say 7" length wise. This will allow a semblance of comfort for letter size PDFs even though one may have to zoom out to 80-85% and read in landscape mode. Unfortunately the "old media wallas" were holding out for a device where people can read newspapers/glossys (khel bachha which would have costed a lot to make and takla and others never took the bite. The other of course half eaten fruit's entry with iPad with the mini form factors becoming popular. So e-Ink lost the same old same old economies of scale game to pads.

The fundamental problem is also the E-Ink technology itself. It is great for reading static documents, in bright sunlight etc. but it sucks at everything else. So people naturally gravitated towards solutions which are not-so-great for reading static documents but also do video/colour etc. Something like Mirasol on paper looks like the best of both worlds but suffers from poor colour saturation and QCOM's step-fatherly treatment.

[Raja Bose]

All consumer business aside, M$ can thrive only if they become a cloud services company double quick.

Their productivity app offering on the cloud and their cloud services like Azure, if it takes off, will make M$ a tech behemoth again. Yes it is super unsexy, but thats where the money is. The company DNA is also aligned along these lines. They always had excellent APIs and developer relations, OTOH they never gave any Sh1t about their users or tried to project themselves as consumer friendly company. When I say M$, people think "mediocre mean spirited masters of lock in".

But being successful as a cloud services company means that they need to shed some of their past habits. Their services should reach all devices, that means FruitCo, their own mobile/desktop efforts and Android. On top of that they need to enable people to put in and take out their data easily -- giving people the confidence that they can always leave. Their partnership cannot be established by arm twisting, and they need to compete on price and features in a world that offers choice.

They have the talent for this, lets see how they execute. We will revisit this post in 3 years.

I doubt Mickey will ever become a cloud services company exclusively becoz they make significant direct and in-direct revenue off a number of things across the spectrum unlike more pure web/cloud companies like Takla or Chacha. Mickey can afford to do consumer devices vertically while going horizontal on services - so its somewhere between FruitCo, Takla and Chacha in that approach. How well that works in the long-term remains to be seen. In the short-term it appears to work well for them. In terms of their offerings for cloud, pretty much everything related to enterprise/office/remote collaboration/sharing (not to mention Azure) is already cloud-based so its all accessible from any HTML5 compliant browser. So iPad/Android all work as long as their browsers are good and actually work quite well. Overall UX incld UI is very similar to the native apps which is what makes them attractive vs a lot of the competition. As for Azure, it is probably their fastest growing business or one of the fastest anyhow. Meanwhile, one of their other acquisitions which may turn out to be a big money spinner is Yammer - it never gets the press yet looks like it might lock out the likes of FB from a very lucrative revenue source for social networks and FB is not helping its cause by not having a tiger team or two working on breaking into that segment given the huge leverage they already have.

[Mort Walker]

^^^We'll wait and see.

1. This doesn't mean their fab in Austin will be producing Intel SoCs, but Sammy will buy them. It is rumored the Austin plant will be a fab for NVIDIA Tegra after AAPL's production ramps up.
2. I doubt TSMC can produce more volume than Sammy at 28nm.
3. From the Exynos 4 onward, performance is very good on these SoCs, but QCOM is better for power management especially for LTE implementation when battery capacity is limited.

[Raja Bose]

After having spent a bunch of hours yesterday playing with pretty much entire massa carrier lineup of smartphunwas from Android, iOS, WindowsPhone and BB during an anal-e-cyst boozefest, I observed:

Design & Build
=========
1) Nothing approaches the design and build of the iPhone5. It does feel crafted like a jewel with beveled glass edges and all and is a pleasure to hold and fondle. Just goes to show how non-trivial it is to design a well made device in terms of look and feel.

2) The Lumias come close but they are still ways off with the exception of the Lumia 925 which looks and feels great - as good as the iPhone5. The Lumia 928's camera really rocks (BhairavP mian take note) but Verizon's insistence on a non-unibody shell makes it feel a little cheap plus I didn't like the HTC EVO-esque back.

3) Android camp is still full of cheap plasticky phones and cannot shake off the tag of "poor man's iPhunwa" in terms of look and feel. Surprisingly Moto's Droid Razr line-up look better than most but in true Moto fashion they effed it up by adding a real cheap & toxic looking plastic trim around the sides. The exception is the LG Nexus4 - beautifully designed and built. All it needs is a LTE modem and good distribution/marketing and it will be a winner - the price is already awesome since Chacha is subsidizing it directly. That is the only phone from Android camp which can come close to iPhone5 in terms of look and feel and I would argue is better than the WP phones except Lumia 925 especially in the way LG used the 2.5D glass here.

4) As for BB, if that's what Ketchup wala is looking to save RIMM, then good luck becoz he will need it by the truckloads While the look is OK design-wise, the feel is absolutely horrible. In a nutshell, it is a hotch-potch mess.

User Experience
==========
1) iPhone5 just feels dated, period. What were touted as its strengths are now dragging it down. But still the smoothest UX out there though addition of new features is beginning to make it bulge at the seams slightly.

2) WP matches the iPhone in terms of smooth UX but is too radically different so people either love it or hate it especially ones who listen to tech blogs. What it needs most is a unified notification center which both iOS/Android have done quite well.

3) Android is still the Symbian of the lot with the widest range of devices but plagued with inconsistent UX and too much jerky UI and mysterious crashes across the lineup with the exception of Nexus4. Here again the Nexus4 shines becoz unlike the other Android phones, everything ran super smooth with no hiccups and matched the excellent UX quality of iOS and WP.

4) As for BB, the new interface looks dated, the UI lags (almost feels like Gingerbread era of Android) and it feels very retro - not a good thing for smartphones today. It also has no differentiators left now that BBM is getting pushed to other platforms as well.

[member_20292]

^^

you did not get your hands on an HTC one...

[member_20292]

All consumer business aside, M$ can thrive only if they become a cloud services company double quick.

Bose babu

Anujan is right. I would pay an arm and a leg for someone to sync all my stuff across multiple devices, phone + two laptops, and make it accessible to me all the time.

I believe on MS can do that. If it does that. Great.

Right now, the only way to do something approaching that, is to load MS Skydrive and manually drag and drop folders into it and load it on a Windows phone, and hope that it syncs.

But but but. If , say, I have paid 40$ for a WIn8 upgrade, and MS somehow makes it, that wherever I login, I get Win 8, and if I have bought office on my PC, I dont have to buy it again here and there, and removes the 5GB cap on skydrive, and focuses hugely on the SYNC...

then...

drool drool drool !