Phone, Tablet and Gizmo Thread #0x02

anmol · Post by **anmol** » 22 Feb 2013 08:51

Satya_anveshi wrote:If cloud vendors offer a VM with office and productivity apps then chromebook can be a viable option for both consumer and commercial use cases. Better yet, a good vision to have is to have a phonua connected to bigger display and access your VM over cloud.

Once done with work, you can simply disconnect the display and walk out with phonua in pocket.

Due to ill management of canabalization, companies tend to make a mince meat of their company strategy and company altogether.

So Cost of Chromebook + Microsoft Royalty + Cost of VM running Windows + Cost of Bandwidth > USD 300 Notebook running Windows (that can run Chrome) ?

----

I wonder how many would whine about USD 1000 Chromebook Pixel lacking proper bios which makes any OS other than Chorome pain to install. In fact I doubt if there is any way one can install Windows on this thing.

Lastly... Ballmer was right.

Anujan · Post by **Anujan** » 22 Feb 2013 08:55

anmol wrote:Lastly... Ballmer was right.

About iPhone being a flop? Zune being a hit?

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 22 Feb 2013 08:58

^^^^

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 22 Feb 2013 09:02

Problem with the Chromebook is it falls prey to the "what-if" mindset which most consumers have. What if I need xyz software in the future, what if I need to do ABC in the future.....etc. In most such cases thr consumer will play safe and go with a windows machine at similar or slightly higher price point. Chromebook marketing needs to figure out a better message for why consumers should buy Chromebook and not Windows. Simply competing on price wont work becoz windows vendors leverage massive volumes to bring down BOM costs.

One thing some hands-on reports are complaining about the Pixel is that its display has poor viewing angles. Given that the nexus 10 suffers from the same issue and both went in for ultra high res displays...it might be the case that Chacha has the same display vendor for both. In that case they need to kick mush of the display vendor to upgrade their display design.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 22 Feb 2013 09:06

Mort Walker wrote:
Raja Bose wrote:Chacha announces ChromeBook Pixel with 2560x1700 12.9" touchscreen display, Intel i5, 5 hours battery life and 32/64GB SSD

Here's the deal-breaker: It costs $1300.- Now the Surface PRO 128GB feels reasonably priced!

I wonder who built it or is this a pure Chacha manufactured device? The design cues on the housing curiously look very "ODM-ish" (every similar to certain Foxconn templates).

Added later: I guess Mickey started a trend here (for a change) of touch-screen enabled ultra-books/laptops. I bet Bawarchi is now bellowing for a touch-screen enabled Retina MacBook Air.

At that price it's DoA. That said, it does have 12.9" (4:3) screen vs. the Surface 10.6" (16:9) screen giving the Surface far less surface area (pun intended).

It looks like all it did was unwittingly convince people that the Surface PRO 128GB is a better value proposition. Perhaps unrelated but Mickeys online store got sold out of the 128 gb versions again.

Satya_anveshi · Post by **Satya_anveshi** » 22 Feb 2013 09:07

anmol wrote:So Cost of Chromebook + Microsoft Royalty + Cost of VM running Windows + Cost of Bandwidth > USD 300 Notebook running Windows (that can run Chrome) ?

Well..I believe very large scale deployment should not cost a lot per VM running windows. At least not more than a managed app hosting some folks are offering.

Secondly, I thought AUPs are higher than $300 especially so on the commercial side.

Lastly... Ballmer was right.

can you elaborate?

anmol · Post by **anmol** » 22 Feb 2013 09:16

Anujan wrote:
anmol wrote:Lastly... Ballmer was right.
About iPhone being a flop? Zune being a hit?

Who said that ?

Ballmer was right about notebooks with touch screen, about convergence of devices meant for production and consumption, about making premium device under its own brand while partners make cheaper / crappier alternatives, and selling those devices in own stores.

People can laugh, but Google agrees with this vision and are basically moving in that same direction.

Code: Select all

 
Microsoft           |      Google
winrt               |      chrome OS
trident+chakra      |      webkit+v8
ModernUI            |      That new GoogleNow-sh UX
Start Screen        |      Google Now
Surface             |      Pixel
Devices from OEMs   |      Devices from OEMs
Touch input         |      Touch input
Skydrive            |      Google Drive
Microsoft Store     |      Google Store

Speaking of iPhone and Zune... one is a phone and other PMP. Microsoft entered very late in the PMP market and when they saw declining sales of all PMPs.. they left the market. If one would just take a look at iPod sales... one would notice that sales have been declining for years. This is the case when there is no good competitor at all. So Zune isn't a flop... its just that PMP are obsolete.

OTOH, Zune and WMC are pretty significant and even successful in other ways(just like iPod)... because their DNA lives on in Windows 8 / Windows Phone / Xbox / Office... almost all news Microsoft products(and iPod's dna lives on almost all Apples products).

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 22 Feb 2013 09:27

anmol wrote:Hehe http://www.pcworld.com/article/2024196/ ... ds-on.html

Ji too heavy weighing in at 5.2lb

Anujan · Post by **Anujan** » 22 Feb 2013 09:40

I mean, when you said Ballmer was right without any context, I was wondering what you were talking about.

Look, Point is, there should be choices. If there are choices and people choose what works for them, the world moves forward.

Microsoft had a particular approach to computing. This involved ignoring phones (for a super long time they had that awful abomination on phones). At that time, if you wanted email on your phone or wanted to back up your contacts or wanted to see a map on your phone, you had no choice but to use BS of an OS from Microsoft. FruitCo came and blew them out of the water. That was a model of a well-made OS with few well made Phones. Android is now toe-to-toe with FruitCo OS. That is a free/Opensource OS which brings together chacha's cloud services in maps, email etc with many different hardware partners.

You might argue who is right FruitCo or Chacha -- point is phones have come a long way from 2007 in 5 short years. To give a context about the timeframe, Windows 2000 wasnt that radical a change from Windows 95 as far as consumers were concerned.

Now apparently Ballmer has said some deep gyan about notebooks with touch screen and about convergence of devices. To me that is uninteresting. I just want computers, tablets, smartphones with many different capabilities, price points, distribution models. The best among them will win and again computing will move forward.

If one would just take a look at iPod sales... one would notice that sales have been declining for years. So Zune isn't a flop... its just that PMP are obsolete.

Spoken like a true fanboy

You can talk about declining iPod sales and all that. They sold about 40 million in 2011 and about 35 million in 2012. More than Windows *Phone* maybe? M$ would kill for that kind of sales numbers on its Phones.

Anujan · Post by **Anujan** » 22 Feb 2013 09:55

Each company has a vision on what they want to do and how they will accomplish it.

FruitCo wants to make beautifully designed devices that will delight consumers. They charge a premium for that experience, they believe in walled gardens. That has worked for them very well.

Chacha in its enterprise strategy wants to sell the idea that companies can cut their IT staff and hassle of maintaining/administering machines. They offer cloud services and devices to go along with it. The devices main selling point is that they are robust and require minimal support and administration and it is easy to move from one device to another because everything is in the cloud. Obviously the device itself is "crippled" in a few ways. Point is, whether the set of things it can do/cant do compensates for pricing, usage scenario etc. They are rolling out online services and (chrome) devices at several price points which they might "rent" as a bundle.

M$ strategy is to convince everyone that Ballmer is correct

Kidding Kidding. They want to make sure that they have OEMs who can run their OS and charge licensing fee for software. They are trying to enter into services market by hosting things on the cloud. If Ballmer was so right, why are they compromising on their fundamental model of selling software? Office pricing and install restrictions seem to indicate M$ wants to shepherd everyone to the cloud and "rent" software rather than sell it? So was Ballmer right when he claimed just last year that cloud services and cloud hosted software was a risk to enterprise and a passing fad?

And Was Ballmer the first one to come up with the idea of Making premium hardware and selling it in their own stores? I thought FruitCo showed them the way? What is this deep gyan you speak of?

anmol · Post by **anmol** » 22 Feb 2013 09:57

Anujan wrote:Microsoft had a particular approach to computing. This involved ignoring phones (for a super long them they had that awful abomination on phones). At that time, if you wanted email on your phone or wanted to back up your contacts or wanted to see a map on your phone, you had no choice but to use BS of an OS from Microsoft. FruitCo came and blew them out of the water. That was a model of a well-made OS with few well made Phones. Android is now toe-to-toe with FruitCo OS. That is a free/Opensource OS with many different hardware partners.

a) They didn't ignore phones, they were probably first with "Smartphones"
b) So you don't use Android or iOS etc for email / contacts backup / maps ? Do you have any choice other than to use iOS or Android on iPhone or S3 ?
c) Apple blew everyone out of the water... more than Microsoft.. Nokia / Motorola / Blackberry / SonyEricsson / Samsung etc.

Microsoft is ultimately a Software company, in terms of software... what Apple did was to have a completely HW accelerated OS which allocated most of resources in making sure touch worked really well. Even original Android didn't had that....

So I dont see how they Ballmer can be blamed for that, and if one is blaming Ballmer for his statement on iPhone... then people need to understand that this what even Apple would do.

For example, take Tim Cook's Fridge and Toaster statement. With pressure from Pixel and Surface, they too would be forced to mash "Toaster and the Fridge"

M$ strategy is to convince everyone that Ballmer is correct Kidding Kidding. They want to make sure that they have OEMs who can run their OS and charge licensing fee for software. They are trying to enter into services market by hosting things on the cloud. If Ballmer was so right, why are they compromising on their fundamental model of selling software?

How is entering new business == "compromising on their fundamental model of selling software?" ?

Office pricing and install restrictions seem to indicate M$ wants to shepherd everyone to the cloud and "rent" software rather than sell it?

"Cloud" involves storing document on Skydrive, and installing Office (not web app) within minutes off internet. The reason why they are forcing people into that direction is the same reason Apple's stock went down, same reason Dell is trying to delist the company.

Subscription model makes it possible to easily achieve targets like selling 20 million Windows licenses month... without too much effort. This would free Microsoft to focus on other areas. Stock market likes gradual income, and that is why Microsoft is doing this.

So was Ballmer right when he claimed just last year that cloud services and cloud hosted software was a risk to enterprise and a passing fad?

I don't know when he said that, but how hard is it do understand that he is a businessman and running a business ? When traders and hedgefunders are listening, no smart businessman would say that competing product is good.

And Was Ballmer the first one to come up with the idea of Making premium hardware and selling it in their own stores? I thought FruitCo showed them the way? What is this deep gyan you speak of?

Ballmer is one of the first to come up with idea of selling own devices and partner devices running own OS - Software - Services etc.

Spoken like a true fanboy

You can talk about declining iPod sales and all that. They sold about 40 million in 2011 and about 35 million in 2012. More than Windows *Phone* maybe? M$ would kill for that kind of sales numbers on its Phones.

So _this_ makes me a fanboy ?

Then I guess I am a fanboy of business logic: to not waste time in a market that is shrinking. Also, vast majority of those 35 Million iPods are nanos and other dump devices... companies that would care about that are Transcend Kingston Corsair etc... and even they are not too excited about those things.

Anujan · Post by **Anujan** » 22 Feb 2013 10:03

kenop wrote:So much talk of social networks and time sink on gizmo thread.
I am desperately trying to get out of time sinks too (reading twitter, news sites, brf). Please provide your strategies/experiences with attempts at improving the situation.

There is no option but cold turkey. I also have a discipline of not reading news or pee aref on my office machine. That means when I am at work, I work.

Beyond that, whenever I see that I am wasting time, usually the reason is that work is uninteresting or stressful. Hasnt happened lately.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 22 Feb 2013 10:30

Anujan wrote:FruitCo came and blew them out of the water.

Slight correction, Fruit Co came and blew Symbian and BB out of the water - Mickey had been long blown out by Symbian back in early 2000s (Mickey was the reason for Symbian foundation's birth just like Android was born to challenge GB's hegemony in Symbian). To be fair, Mickey is going thru a major culture change as we speak. In fact, that is a reason why they survived so long while most of their contemporary companies are either dead or had near-death experiences (like FruitCo). They are paranoid as hell and not dogmatic in their beliefs (something correct in 90s may not be correct now - its all contextual so adaptation is key). They realize that times are changing where vertical plays rule and they are moving in that direction. Chacha is going to do the same overtly sooner or later (right now its more coy about it publicly). One thing doesn't change however - the incumbent always gets blindsided. Mickey had that on multiple fronts since it has its finger in pretty much every pie, GB had it with touchscreen, app-store centric phones, Chacha had it with social.

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 22 Feb 2013 10:43

How so re. Social? FB is 4 billion and LinkedIn nothing co. and they are at saturation.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 22 Feb 2013 11:07

Just going by market cap is misleading in this case. And its not always the case where one is threatened due to a competitor's ability to make money (or make more money) off the same thing. One can also be threatened due to lack of access to certain data or lack of ability to monetize something just becoz a competitor is incumbent there. if you look at Chacha's strategy a few years after it IPO'ed, it primarily consisted of ensuring the latter for its competitors (both real and perceived). At its core Chacha thrives on data and its ability to process that data on a massive scale in a meaningful manner. To thrive more it needs more data - anybody blocking that flow or delaying that flow is a cause of concern for Chacha.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 22 Feb 2013 11:11

and what happened to chacha's caching strategy? not all are cached.. perhaps due to certain legal issues. now, we still do not know as many business plans and designs are not tested in courts.

Yogi_G · Post by **Yogi_G** » 22 Feb 2013 11:27

Gulp, 1500$ and no USB3.0 ports at least?

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 22 Feb 2013 12:51

5 hrs battery life for what is supposed to be a highly mobile lifestyle "show off" device is not going to sit well.
they need to up that to 10 hrs...maybe use fuel cell batteries from some japanese protos for the wow NG factor.

Anujan · Post by **Anujan** » 22 Feb 2013 20:37

Raja Bose wrote:One thing doesn't change however - the incumbent always gets blindsided. Mickey had that on multiple fronts since it has its finger in pretty much every pie, GB had it with touchscreen, app-store centric phones, Chacha had it with social.

This is 400% true. And that is the raisin dieter of startups. To succeed you have to do something that the big boys don't do or do badly. It is also the dilemma in big companies. Do you allocate more money and resources to something that is successful or something that is unproven and seeks to replace the successful product?

Take M$ for example. They were the first ones to come up with beautiful and useful cloud hosted app. Outlook web access was the first app to be comparable to installed apps. And they were the ones to invent XMLHTTP, make AJAX powerful enough to write decent cloud hosted apps and those apps are competitive with installed apps (at least for a slice of significant and meaningful apps) and then .... Nothing. Why not make an office suite online and rent it out instead of sell it? Well it would cannibalize the boxed software market. Also would mean people don't need windows to run office. Except now, they are scrambling to make that option available.

Remember that the company that revolutionized music distribution wasnt the one which owned a music label *and* a consumer electronics division (Sony). It was a computer company that owned neither. Made Sony look like idiots didn't they?

And then obviously companies adapt. Ultimately they are made of smart people who are on the average smarter than random selection of abduls in some way (else they wouldn't have succeeded in building a big and viable company) but claiming that to be the proof that Ballmer was a prescient sage or he gets to run Microsoft as a Gates-Ballmer personal club because they own the max shares is what annoys my goat.

Also one must resist doing a pakistan*. To acknowledge that iPod was and is a massive hit which couldn't be unseated by anyone except apple itself by introducing a phone to cannibalize it, and continues to be massive hit by any standard except apple, does not detract what M$ can or will do.

*Doing a Pakistan is defined as follows. Imagine that Saudi Barbaria appoints a committee to look into appointing a panel to decide on whether women should drive. You get news articles in Pakistan "GREAT PHREEDOM FOR WIMMENS IN SAUDI BARBARIA!!!" And now imagine Switzerland passed a law that minarets like other building structures need to adhere to building codes and need to get a building permit: you get a news article "OUTRAGE!!! OPPRESHUN OF MOMEEN IN SWITZERLAND". Which is all ridiculous because we are talking about different scales here. Countries and companies don't get lower standard because they are retarded.

I found "Ipod sold 40 million year before last and only 35 million last year so its not really a success. OTOH zune sold all of three units (of which two were given away free and two were stolen, but the stolen ones subsequently returned) and since they did strategic redeployment, they aren't really a failure " argument similar to that.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 22 Feb 2013 21:42

Ballmer is no sage, he is just a shrewd operator albeit with a loud personality. I just hope Eric Schimdt is the same and doesn't believe his own spin/trash talk. There are no sages in ITvity - anybody who tried to sound like a sage got his chaddi utaar'ed, right from the days of ol' Tom Watson.

After a company crosses a certain threshold in size (not necessarily # of employees) one cannot run any large company as a clique of select individuals regardless of how powerful they are within the organization. Chacha used to be run that way but now they can't do it either. Only Mahdi could do that and that was a result of how Apple was formed back in the 1970s and his role/personality in it. The closest who can come to that model of running a company is Takla and even he is nowhere in the same ballpark.

---
Speaking of ChromeBook Pixel, I hear whispers of Compal being the ODM for it. While it may suck as a device/value proposition perspective, it is a very important milestone in Chacha's history (if management doesn't panic and thrash around). It is the first mainstream consumer electronics device which is entirely designed and built by Chacha and solely carries its branding (no 'partnering' with Asus, HTC, Samsung etc.). It is the first tangible proof of Chacha going vertical. That being said whoever in his right mind OK'ed the pricing on this, needs to get a 1000 stribes - it feels too strongly of the same flawed thinking which went behind the pricing of the Nexus Q and caused its failure.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 22 Feb 2013 22:13

What about andrew grove and gordon moore?

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 22 Feb 2013 23:04

Grove wrote the book - only paranoids survive.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 23 Feb 2013 00:35

No they are not sages - in fact they are wise enough not to be sages (esp. Grove). In that book above, Grove talks about inflexion points and getting blindsided. Moore is off working for Mickey and doing some crazy life journal stuff....and once in a while donating mainframes to the computer history museum.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 23 Feb 2013 00:44

^^^^hmmm......haven't really looked at good qwerty smartphones in a while - that category is pretty much consolidated in BB right now I would guess.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 23 Feb 2013 01:01

Just get one of those touch-type qwerty phunwas from GB - they are rugged.

negi · Post by **negi** » 23 Feb 2013 03:28

My Nokia E71 has been snagged away by my matashri ; I think that was the last in the line of battleship class phones made by Nokia. I was using it in Unkil land until COY gave me a free 4S . It has survived a lot of falls and bumps in the tennis court.

hanumadu · Post by **hanumadu** » 23 Feb 2013 05:04

negi wrote:My Nokia E71 has been snagged away by my matashri ; I think that was the last in the line of battleship class phones made by Nokia. I was using it in Unkil land until COY gave me a free 4S . It has survived a lot of falls and bumps in the tennis court.

Nokia continues to make battleship class phones

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 23 Feb 2013 05:52

Good Article on Google Glass and what an early proto looked like

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 23 Feb 2013 06:35

Very impressive build q on that lumia...are the more affordable 620 of same roughness. I like it.

Wags say smart watches is next battleground and apple has put 100 people working on it. Shud feature network integration, app store, bp, pulse, mapper , gps, timers, stopwatches and many more for sure.

Finnish co suunto makes such product and folks like nike also get it made somewhere but focussed on fitness only. A more full featured app store model will blow these out of water.

anmol · Post by **anmol** » 23 Feb 2013 08:11

Lumia 720

Lumia 520

hanumadu · Post by **hanumadu** » 23 Feb 2013 09:52

Singha wrote:Very impressive build q on that lumia...are the more affordable 620 of same roughness. I like it.

Wags say smart watches is next battleground and apple has put 100 people working on it. Shud feature network integration, app store, bp, pulse, mapper , gps, timers, stopwatches and many more for sure.

Finnish co suunto makes such product and folks like nike also get it made somewhere but focussed on fitness only. A more full featured app store model will blow these out of water.

The 620 back cover is made of the same poly carbonate material as the 920 casing. The 620 reviews generally praised the build quality.

--Added Later--
MSFT is failing to step up to the plate in terms of the eco system. Where are the promised 46 of the top 50 apps? Where is Instagram?

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 23 Feb 2013 12:01

ChromeBook Pixel Hands-on

Looks like some over-enthusiastic designer fond of minimalism got put in charge of the design - none of the ports have labels, I wonder how one differentiates between the headphone jack and the microphone jack?!

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 23 Feb 2013 12:16

A good short documentary on User Experience and Interaction Design

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 23 Feb 2013 14:21

Went to a store today to check out latest in tablets nd phones
The cheap android tablets in the 5 to 15k range looked poor in build q
The ipad mini though pricey exuded quality and was as fast as his big bro which i have. My kid played some flight simu game on it and was so pleased he wanted one ...ofcourse i couldnt afford.
The galaxy grand 5" screen is indeed huge..the galaxy s3 looked sleeker and more manageable
The galaxy note was humongous..it wouldnt fit properly in my xl size paw..one handed use is almost impossible
The galaxy s2 looked square and more like a lg or sony phone
The ipone5 looked tiny and suited for a womans paws only..the icons looked too squeezed together..just not enough real estate in that tall but narrow screen

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 23 Feb 2013 14:54

Yeah yeah...these low end grey puppies have no support worth the name and once out of stock means the vendors 300,000 piece order is done and wont be made anymore.
Justmwait and watch if the canvas2 comes back in stock again or not...if it does, you can pencil me in as a believer.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 23 Feb 2013 22:05

Both the Lumia 520 and 720 look nice, now the MS Store should put these up for sale unlocked for $249 and $349 respectively. Since very few people are using Windows Phone, this might help them.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 23 Feb 2013 22:41

Singha wrote:Went to a store today to check out latest in tablets nd phones

...
The ipone5 looked tiny and suited for a womans paws only..the icons looked too squeezed together..just not enough real estate in that tall but narrow screen

Singha saar, reality check - today as we speak, in all developed countries, in the target demographic which buy these type of devices, wimmens have 1.5x the spending capacity than abduls and that gap is widening. So they are the main customers who are increasingly being wooed rather than men....its no coincidence that Fruit co started designing its iThings to look like jewellery.

Anujan · Post by **Anujan** » 24 Feb 2013 00:11

Companies still want to close their eyes and pretend competition doesn't exist. Sony talked about PS4 didn't mention handheld gaming at all. No integration with their phunwa. Probably don't want to cannibalize PS vita.

Everyone else is doing it.

rahul_r · Post by **rahul_r** » 24 Feb 2013 00:45

My Macbook Pro's battery finally gave away 5 years after I bought it (still last for a good 45 mins without being plugged in). Gotta say, these things are built to last.....have dropped it multiple times, scratched and dented all over, but still works like a charm. Am sure I can make it last another 5 years once I upgrade to a SSD later this year.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 24 Feb 2013 01:58

Its not about ignoring competition. In Sony's case it has a lot to do with Sony culture where each division competes with each other and cannibalizing is a strict no-no. It just ends up hurting their case. Convergence & interoperability is what needs to be driven across the board and anybody who doesn't follow that pill-o-soppy should get booted out - Sinofsky got booted out of Mickey for that reason.