Phone, Tablet and Gizmo Thread #0x02

suryag · Post by **suryag** » 14 Jul 2013 11:26

chipz==intel ?

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 14 Jul 2013 13:02

Anujan wrote:Yes Surface is profitable, but what is the opportunity cost? How many hardware OEMs would now try to make a windows tablet, and if they hesitate, what about the market penetration?

Actually that's the interesting part - unlike what anal-e-cysts predicted doing Surface didn't lose them any HW OEM support while opening up a new type of business and profitable revenue stream for them. Its internal effects are wide reaching becoz Mickey was and still largely is a SW-onlee company. But to build the Surface, that too by becoming its own ODM led to setting up of product processes which will stand them in good stead as the industry gets more vertical and integrated in the future. The only external effect it has had till now was kick the OEMs' collective mushes to get competitive. Becoz the simple question is what else will those same HW OEMs make? Android tablets? Well they already do that and Takla is kicking their collective mushes there without playing with them in OHA.

Anujan wrote: FruitCo flushed windows mobile down the Pakistan not because hardware partners were churning out bad hardware.

uh, that would be Symbian which did the last rites during early 2000s - there was no Mahdi phone back then. People forget that there is a world outside Amrika.

Anujan wrote: Remember Zune anyone? Its integration was tight like a Paki's musharraf. The UI was innovative, the hardware was gorgeous. They even gave their VP a haircuit, a nice shave, some weight reduction and good clothes. It had FM radio. Why did it fail? The zune desktop software was crap, sync was a nightmare.

If that were the true reason then FruitCo's iPodwa would be a flop too becoz the iTunes software was a complete pile of crap on the desktop. The real reason for failure of Zune was it failed to answer a simple question: Why would I buy Zune over the iPod? That is the very same question which those hordes of Android music players which tried to challenge the iPod Touch failed to answer and most of them have already died quiet deaths. In fact I wonder if Sammy is still gamely plugging on with their offerings.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 14 Jul 2013 13:07

Anujan wrote: If you are hinting that not knowing tech and somehow "strategizing" is what will save tech companies, I find it hard to believe. I would actually find it surprising that someone who doesnt understand a company's products or the process by which those products are produced would make a good CEO. In Tech industry where the cycles are short, it needs an understanding of tech. That doesnt mean an engineering degree (Mahdi or Billu didnt have one), but it does require an understanding of where the industry is going and what is possible.

Lots of YumBeeAyes especially McKinsey types think that ppt-giri and strat-e-jee is the main work and implementing the darn thing all happens automagically (there is even a famous Dilbert cartoon for this).

The truth is that all successful ITvity companies whether it is old ones like ChipZ or Mickey or new ones like Chacha and Takla or born again ones like FruitCo have top management who are technologists and injineers first then strat-e-jee experts. Just doing strat-e-jee without having the capability to manage strong execution is like Pakistani plans to fly green flag on Red Fort. And just doing execution without having the strat-e-jee is like Paki attack at Khem Karan sector.

That is one thing which worries me about FB - their top is loaded with a lot of these consultant YumBeeAye types.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 14 Jul 2013 18:53

I like cos who have very hard technology barriers to entry for the chipanda types or just new "next-gen clones" floated by VCs . the types who make optronics for satellites, GE/UTRC/RR aero engines, semicondictor process and lithography eqpt types, special medical equipments, factory automation equipment, radars ...

"next gen" VC funding seems to have been a spectacular failure in the realm of batteries. after a lot of hype that "silicon valley smarts" could make better batteries that had been missed by the old dinosaurs, people realized that vertical progress aint happening and decades of sustained r&d will give the increments needed not a 2-3 yr hype cycle.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 14 Jul 2013 20:40

^^^same with solar...

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 14 Jul 2013 20:51

I recently challenged a ppt-giri-let with questions, architecture and the end objective. In what would have been a one week exercise of even implementing a solution, they have created a whole brand of workers spending millions of moolah, without even understanding the usefulness of the approach. I am still waiting for answers.. I am thinking I have created an awareness, but it might be detrimental to my career as well. But, I always make sure, the communication is written down.

That dilbert show of being pregnant (pregbert) having a baby made of alien billionair hill-billy cow robot matches for all thoughts these gen gadgetmen are trying at things.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 15 Jul 2013 05:09

From L&M dhaaga, thanks to sushupti:

Nearly 20 Percent Of Young Adults Use Their Smartphones During Sex: Survey
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/1 ... lp00000003

I wonder what the OS distribution is by straight and LGBT?

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 15 Jul 2013 08:57

okay, let me take a wag stab at it:

iphone looks gay! [actually, the reverse may be true - gays use iphone].. similar to cars for gay.. saab, beetle, etc.

vina · Post by **vina** » 15 Jul 2013 09:34

Raja Bose wrote:That is why you do it when your mush is protected with steady cash flow from other boring stuff not when you are gasping for air with patloon in tatters. That's what Mickey did with XBox and Azure and it pays them pretty rich dividends now. Surface is a profitable business for Mickey and had no impact till now on pissing off its partners except getting them to scramble and bring out proper products instead of turd - this is what most anal-e-cysts forget. But if you stay put happy in your status quo (Windoze, Apphice) - you will be dead, period. This is a credit which is due to Uncle Fester and not Billu Dada.

Read up Clayton Christensen and his Innovator's Dilemma when you get the chance during some free time as just a a time pass. What you said is organizationally very difficult to do. As a company, you will tend to invest largely in what works well (very well in fact now), pour more R&D, sales, marketing and management focus in it . Trying to create a break out product/project that will have peanuts or returns , visibility and stuff is a dead end for most career folks in the org.

Uncle Fester has done diddly squat than try to fend off attacks from outside the business and/or try to follow trailblazers and has done a terrible job of it until now. Microsoft Azure is just an extension of their Enterprise (and tools) franchise into cloud, and XBox is dead on arrival (will people play games on consoles or on tablets ?), really hasn't moved the needle for mickey, the rest of it is just a sink hole for cash.

Which company doesn't want to be immortal?? In fact if some company CEO came up during a shareholder meeting and said, my company has lived a long life and now it will take sanyaas and die quietly, would your YumBeeAye types on Wall Street spare that company and say "Oh they have given us so much returns, they deserve a quiet retirement and death"??? Look at what the Street dalals are doing to FruitCo - the apple of their eye

Whether you want to immortal or whatever at the first signs of buaapa, your valuations tank, you are not hot anymore and you go out to die. Nothing can change that, unless there is a fundamental rejuvenation like what happened at Fruit. Doing a Fruit requires a Mahdi and Mahdis by definition are extremely rare.

vina · Post by **vina** » 15 Jul 2013 09:43

Anujan wrote:The guy who led IBM to ruin, John Fellows Akers, was no techie either. He was from Sales division in IBM. And I will tell you what happened to Hickory Pork. The classic YumBeeYea like Carly Fiorina happened to it . She sold off Agilent and bought Compaq when FruitCo was busy developing the iPhone and iPad. HP's PC division now has 3% margin and falling. They dont have a decent tablet or a phone. Nice job that! for a CEO to not see making and selling PCs is a doomed business. She could have atleast got a clue from IBM which sold off lenovo at about the same time. She was fit to become the CEO of coca-cola, with the classic strategy of buying out the competition and optimizing supply chain. Thats what she attempted with Compaq merger. Except this works only if the underlying product is profitable and people still want to buy it

Remember, the opposition that Carly Fiorina had when she attempted the Compaq merger. It was just pure hubris, pig headed and dumb. A lot of people called that out and said it was doomed right then. She went ahead all the same! That woman did not have the smarts to be the CEO, a terrible choice Lew E Platt made in getting a successor. She is really not the kind of YumBeeYea with the strategic smarts and execution record to get the helm ususally, but rather a sales type from a 3rd rung school who got lucky. I wouldn't put Carly as the archetypical YumBeeYea with so-piss-ticated thinking of a top 10 YumBeeYea.

If you are hinting that not knowing tech and somehow "strategizing" is what will save tech companies, I find it hard to believe. I would actually find it surprising that someone who doesnt understand a company's products or the process by which those products are produced would make a good CEO. In Tech industry where the cycles are short, it needs an understanding of tech. That doesnt mean an engineering degree (Mahdi or Billu didnt have one), but it does require an understanding of where the industry is going and what is possible.

I am not suggesting a total moron who cannot think on his feet and without the smarts to understand the industry and it's dynamics can be a hit, far from it. You need it, in fact, it is a hygiene factor.

But on the other hand, a industry veteran with either a sales or engineering background from within without a good strat-e-jee mind (either learned at work or at school, or if you have have it from just instinct) is vital. It is too dangerous to have it otherwise (think Carly and Akers)

vina · Post by **vina** » 15 Jul 2013 12:22

Lo Ji. Another death spiral and impending crash at one of Micky S* 's "new initiative".

Microsoft Cuts Surface Table Prices Amid Weak Demand

And folks here were saying that Surface was "profitable" ? I doubt there will be a flood of red ink after these price cuts (doubt the Surface tablet's volumes are going anywhere but down)

suryag · Post by **suryag** » 15 Jul 2013 12:36

Vinaji couple of things - the article says the demand for the RT variant is less, which was expected because of the reduced set of applications it could run. This was more or less expected. However, the link says it sold 9,00,000/Quarter(for first two quarters) which could either refer to the RTs or all types of surfaces. If we consider the worst case that the number is of RT and non-Rt then 3.6 million(extrapolating for the other two quarters) units to start with is not all that bad assuming Mickey made 100$ profit this adds 360million$ of revenue that was non-existent the previous year. I dont think Mickey would ahve put 360million to develop it so the first year might still be revenue positive as far as Surface is concerned. We also know that unless someone is super lucky like Apple the first products always open to a lukewarm reception and if they are able to sustain it will start picking up over the next 2-3 years.

Best bet for Mickey would be to continue with surface(non RT model) and capture a significant share in the tablet market

Sorry i am not an MBA and dont know any finance am a poor labourer

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 15 Jul 2013 12:41

vina wrote:Lo Ji. Another death spiral and impending crash at one of Micky S* 's "new initiative".

Microsoft Cuts Surface Table Prices Amid Weak Demand

And folks here were saying that Surface was "profitable" ? I doubt there will be a flood of red ink after these price cuts (doubt the Surface tablet's volumes are going anywhere but down)

Phir se padho ji.

They are cutting Surface RT prices (you do know they sell something way more expensive called the PRO). Yes Mickey's Surface division is actually profitable by a pretty healthy margin (let's say more than certain companies even) - in fact its their first profitable CE product which is not a keyboard or a mouse (XBox is currently sold at cost).

vina wrote:XBox is dead on arrival (will people play games on consoles or on tablets ?), really hasn't moved the needle for mickey , the rest of it is just a sink hole for cash.

Are you sure we are talking about the same XBox? If so think again (& research the gaming market opportunities while you are at it).

On another note, don't be surprised to see FruitCo and Chacha follow the lead and pack in gaming console functionality into their set top boxes. Mickey is doing the opposite (packing a set top box into a console).

nachiket · Post by **nachiket** » 15 Jul 2013 13:08

and XBox is dead on arrival (will people play games on consoles or on tablets ?)

That is ridiculous. XBox/PS type consoles were never meant for or sold to casual gamers who just need something to while away their time. The market is different and still quite large in developed countries (and even China). None of the most popular games on the XBox/PS are appearing on Tablets (how the hell would you play an FPS on a tablet for instance? So there go COD,Battlefield,GTA etc. which sell in the millions). The Graphics are also too much for tablets to handle. Add to that the new possibility of using the XBox as a set top box, which Tablets cannot be used for.

On the other hand the portable gaming devices like PSP, GameBoy etc. may be on their way out thanks to Tablets.

member_20292 · Post by **member_20292** » 15 Jul 2013 13:17

I'm having a dilemma.

Should I buy a Xolo 900 {1GB ram, 4gb internal memory} good screen, UI, responsive touch etc.
at Rs. 8800 OR

an HTC One {2GB ram, 32GB internal memory), award winning phone at Rs 36000

Deal is. I can afford both. But I am not sure that high technology is REQUIRED. See....lots of times...this tends to become a toy more than it is useful. I mostly use the phone for gmail, maps, texting, talking, some facebook. So, I can use either. I dont game too much. I do read ebooks and listen to music.

vina · Post by **vina** » 15 Jul 2013 15:08

Raja Bose wrote:(XBox is currently sold at cost).

Are you sure we are talking about the same XBox?

Indeed we are Ji. The XBOX has spent the greater part of it's life going head to head with the sony PS2 and got into a price war where it never made much money. Not too much of a "Killer App" that would move the needle for MickeySoft that it was ballyhooed to be , was it ?

Now with competition heating up from the tablets and upcoming TV from Fruit and others (yes, bet big on gaming platform with games being available on the app store built in, along with a tight as a Paki's Musharraf integration with iThings ), XBox is going to have it very tough.

The personal gaming market has probably already gone to Tablets /handhelds.

vina · Post by **vina** » 15 Jul 2013 15:17

suryag wrote:Vinaji couple of things - the article says the demand for the RT variant is less, which was expected because of the reduced set of applications it could run. This was more or less expected. However, the link says it sold 9,00,000/Quarter(for first two quarters) which could either refer to the RTs or all types of surfaces. If we consider the worst case that the number is of RT and non-Rt then 3.6 million(extrapolating for the other two quarters) units to start with is not all that bad assuming Mickey made 100$ profit this adds 360million$ of revenue that was non-existent the previous year. I dont think Mickey would ahve put 360million to develop it so the first year might still be revenue positive as far as Surface is concerned. We also know that unless someone is super lucky like Apple the first products always open to a lukewarm reception and if they are able to sustain it will start picking up over the next 2-3 years.

Best bet for Mickey would be to continue with surface(non RT model) and capture a significant share in the tablet market

Sorry i am not an MBA and dont know any finance am a poor labourer

The YumbeeYea giri of this works like this. Consider's Mickey S$t's existing business. It takes something which has the marginal cost of next to nothing (less than 5 cents if distributed on optical media, a minuscule amount if downloaded online) and gains a fat $75 to $90 margin on dabbas that sell in tens of millions !

Now trouble is that dabbas are not selling , and Mickey S*t doesn't get that $75 to $90. The way to Anal - yse Mickey is to realize that for Mickey, it is a ZERO SUM game. Every tablet sale is a sale LOSS for a Notebook and there goes the $75 to $90.

So your $100 * 3.6M is not a new profit for mickey , but actually a big cannibalization of it's existing sales. In fact that $100 per device profit that (if your numbers are correct) that M$ makes with a Surface is highly margin dilutive to Mickey. (see, it had to do next to nothing to collect it in the old world, and now has to do hard work like actually make, ship and put it in stores and sell it to collect the same $100) . It now has to sell something for $500 to make the $100 now!

And now with the price cuts, even that goes poof! So even with surface PRO, every sale is margin dilutive for Mickey!

alexis · Post by **alexis** » 15 Jul 2013 18:49

^
Beg to disagree, vinaji. Tablets are cannibalising notepads irrespective of presence of surface in tablet market. You are anyway losing that sales; why not get some or more of it back thru surface?

The strategy is correct; don't know abt the execution.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 15 Jul 2013 19:27

The Surface RT/Pro is a flawed product. It cannot compete with most laptops due to the limited viewing area and is ergonomically difficult to use, so it is not ideal for a tablet. It is a nice toy though. Lenovo, HP and others have (or will have this year) touchscreen Ultrabooks that function as well as the Surface, but are more useful and more importantly offer the same, if not better, UX at lower prices.

WP is a case where MSFT is not supporting Nokia in getting the phone out to most carriers. The Lumia 920 was great, but exclusive to ATT. More than 6 months later it comes to VZW as the 928 and TMO as the 925. By now though the flagship is the Lumia 1020, but it is again only exclusive to ATT. When companies like HTC, MOTO, and Samsung can get devices out on all carriers, why can't MSFT and Nokia? Also, why doesn't MSFT sell the the 920 and 1020 unlocked online at the MSFT Store for full price of $650-$750? Isn't that a great way of getting devices in to the hands of developers. GOOG seemed to have learned their lesson on this, so why can't MSFT. Nokia is going to be dragged down by MSFT and needs to diversify with ASHA. Make ASHA smart phones available world wide.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 15 Jul 2013 20:36

vina wrote: Indeed we are Ji. The XBOX has spent the greater part of it's life going head to head with the sony PS2 and got into a price war where it never made much money. Not too much of a "Killer App" that would move the needle for MickeySoft that it was ballyhooed to be , was it ?

Actually it did, in quite a big way actually - funny that you don't know that or weirdly seem to think otherwise. As for tight mush app store integration, you do realize XBox has an app store since the days of XBox 360 and Mickey makes a lot of money off it too. Tablet gaming is a totally different animal - expect PSP, Wii U or whatever to go for a toss, not top of the line gaming consoles. To give you an idea of just how profitable console gaming is for Mickey - just one game (forget everything else) which they make, makes enough money that it could technically standalone as a separate business unit fiscally which by Mickey's standards needs to be some serious cash earning machine. Check your facts again vina mullah, koi aapki chain kheench raha hai

Mort Walker wrote:Also, why doesn't MSFT sell the the 920 and 1020 unlocked online at the MSFT Store for full price of $650-$750? Isn't that a great way of getting devices in to the hands of developers. GOOG seemed to have learned their lesson on this, so why can't MSFT.

Who is buying those unlocked phones full price in US? Almost nobody. Rest of the world they are available unlocked at full prices anyways. Its fashionable for geekdom to crow about "PHREEEDOOMMMMM" of unlocked full price phones and may be their pet passion but guess what?....the larger buying public doesn't give 2 $hits, they are happy to hand over their b@lls to the carriers for 2 years for a phone subsidy of few 100 dollars.

BTW you don't get phones into hands of devs by selling it at $700/pop unless you want to drive them away, you do it by giving them away for free plus you provide them financial incentives to publish apps. Chacha does that, Mickey does that, FruitCo does that but for a very curated set of devs, Bibi does that, Sammy is doing that now for Tizen. This is a well known tactic going back to days of Mickey's old WinMo and later GB's Symbian.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 15 Jul 2013 20:55

^^^You get it into the hands of smaller or part-time developers. Getting "free" devices to developers is limited. The larger public does not care, that is why they can take or leave ATT's offerings, but there are no alternatives especially since ATT's policy is not to unlock. Actually, eBay and Expansys sells a lot of unlocked devices since they are still cheaper at full price new than compared to what they cost in various countries. Do you have any statistics as to how many unlocked phones are sold through official or unofficial sales channels? From what I understand, the international version of the Lumia 1020 may not support all bands for HSPA+. It appears Nokia, MSFT & ATT are being jerks about this.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 15 Jul 2013 21:12

pandyan wrote:4.5 stars for the expensive variants of surface pro. 169 reviews. it is not as grim as it is painted here. win8 has its quirks..I am hoping that 8.1 fixes/makes the os more palatable. on my non-touch laptop, win8 is very stable and exceptionally fast. RT is a different animal though. It is a good science project.

http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Surface ... urface+pro

Considering the life of the Surface is comparable to a tablet, since it's held together with glue and tape, it is NOT a good deal. With heavy use, I get 3-4 years out of laptop and 2 years out of tablet. If anyone is going to spend $1200 for a tablet and expect 4 years out of it, they've got rude shock coming their way. Given its physical size, the battery is going to be small and sealed. Good luck on replacing it after 18 months when it goes to sh1t and doesn't hold a charge. Tablet devices have a sweet spot at $300. Apple is seeing that with the iPad Mini eating the sales of the regular iPad. The novelty of the tablet has worn off and is becoming a commodity like other CE of the past. MSFT is late to the game by over a year. They would have been better served to have made a touchscreen Ultrabook running Win8 and a cheaper tablet like the Surface RT for $349.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 15 Jul 2013 21:17

^^^if the larger public doesn't care for unlocked devices, why are device manufacturers going to spend 10s of millions of dollars in setting up the infra to produce, sell and maintain those devices? That makes poor business sense.

Dev programs for all mobile platforms are pretty well established.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 15 Jul 2013 21:31

^^^For the casual or part time developer person. Also there is a market in the US for unlocked phones or businesses like Expansys wouldn't be around, nor would all the new unlocked phones be available on eBay as well. What would you do if you had a friend or relative from India come over next month and wanted to pick up the Lumia 1020? Pick up a Sammy S4 from the Google Play store instead?

Gus · Post by **Gus** » 15 Jul 2013 21:49

nachiket wrote:
and XBox is dead on arrival (will people play games on consoles or on tablets ?)
That is ridiculous. XBox/PS type consoles were never meant for or sold to casual gamers who just need something to while away their time. The market is different and still quite large in developed countries (and even China). None of the most popular games on the XBox/PS are appearing on Tablets (how the hell would you play an FPS on a tablet for instance? So there go COD,Battlefield,GTA etc. which sell in the millions). The Graphics are also too much for tablets to handle. Add to that the new possibility of using the XBox as a set top box, which Tablets cannot be used for.

exactamente.

i've had xbox, wii, and PS3. ipad and adam. and iphone. and a gaming rig.

yes, you can play games at all four of these things. that's where the similarity ends.

you cannot play console games on handhelds.

handhelds eating consoles is like bikes eating cars. you get both and maybe the usage on each gets bumped around a bit. only very people who want both, can live with only one of them.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 15 Jul 2013 22:04

Mort Walker wrote:^^^For the casual or part time developer person. Also there is a market in the US for unlocked phones or businesses like Expansys wouldn't be around, nor would all the new unlocked phones be available on eBay as well. What would you do if you had a friend or relative from India come over next month and wanted to pick up the Lumia 1020? Pick up a Sammy S4 from the Google Play store instead?

The market is there and a very small one - you are talking max < 0.5 million units here, thats peanuts in CE device context. And how many 'relatives' from India come over to massa to pick up an unlocked phone?

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 15 Jul 2013 22:24

^^^Less than 0.5 million sold is still more than the 0.4 million Surface Pro sold.

I have big big family, so relatives and friends are coming over all the time. They mostly pick up cheaper unlocked phones that I order from eBay, Amazon or Expansys, although they did want to pick up an iPhone at one time. They may not be cheaper anymore after the recent Rupee decline though.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 15 Jul 2013 22:36

Mort Walker wrote:^^^Less than 0.5 million sold is still more than the 0.4 million Surface Pro sold.

Mortu tau chashma laga ke dekho

Who told you that only 0.4 million Surface Pro were sold?

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 15 Jul 2013 22:43

Gus wrote: exactamente.

i've had xbox, wii, and PS3. ipad and adam. and iphone. and a gaming rig.

yes, you can play games at all four of these things. that's where the similarity ends.

you cannot play console games on handhelds.

handhelds eating consoles is like bikes eating cars. you get both and maybe the usage on each gets bumped around a bit. only very people who want both, can live with only one of them.

From what I understand, the PS3 has now sold more than XBox. However, both MSFT and Sony are selling at or below cost. I have a PS2/3, XBox 360, Wii, iPad, IPod Touch, which are used by my four children and although Halo4 is their favorite console game, they spend most of their time with iPad and iPod Touch games. They won't miss the console. Even though one day it will be a STB and GPU is much much better, the initial cost and games are so expensive, consoles will decline with the current generation of kids that are 10 and younger.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 15 Jul 2013 22:47

Raja Bose wrote:
Mort Walker wrote:^^^Less than 0.5 million sold is still more than the 0.4 million Surface Pro sold.
Mortu tau chashma laga ke dekho Who told you that only 0.4 million Surface Pro were sold?

Whatever it is, it is still less than a million.
Surface sales reportedly at 1.5 million, with 400,000 for Pro alone

Did they sell more units than the MBA? Did it sell more units than the iPad regular or mini? Probably comparable to the Nexus 10.

prahaar · Post by **prahaar** » 15 Jul 2013 23:05

Mort Walker wrote:
Gus wrote: exactamente.

i've had xbox, wii, and PS3. ipad and adam. and iphone. and a gaming rig.

yes, you can play games at all four of these things. that's where the similarity ends.

you cannot play console games on handhelds.

handhelds eating consoles is like bikes eating cars. you get both and maybe the usage on each gets bumped around a bit. only very people who want both, can live with only one of them.
From what I understand, the PS3 has now sold more than XBox. However, both MSFT and Sony are selling at or below cost. I have a PS2/3, XBox 360, Wii, iPad, IPod Touch, which are used by my four children and although Halo4 is their favorite console game, they spend most of their time with iPad and iPod Touch games. They won't miss the console. Even though one day it will be a STB and GPU is much much better, the initial cost and games are so expensive, consoles will decline with the current generation of kids that are 10 and younger.

This topic is not very different from demise of P&S Cameras versus DSLRs. DSLRs are here to stay just like game consoles. Low-end games on consoles will disappear just like fading away of P&S cameras. IMHO.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 15 Jul 2013 23:13

Mort Walker wrote:
Whatever it is, it is still less than a million.
Surface sales reportedly at 1.5 million, with 400,000 for Pro alone

Did they sell more units than the MBA? Did it sell more units than the iPad regular or mini? Probably comparable to the Nexus 10.

Phir se chashma lagao, tau. Do you even know which dates those guesstimates are from and that too how many markets was it being sold in at that point in time?

Statistics are meaningless unless you know when/how and in which context they were gathered in. Otherwise they are only useful for mijjile maalish as per the target audience's wet dreams.

Nexus 10 pretty much flopped by all accounts (it sold much less than even the Surface RT, leave alone the PRO) - so much for its TFTA display. The whole package matters, not just one tech spec.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 15 Jul 2013 23:15

Mort Walker wrote: From what I understand, the PS3 has now sold more than XBox. However, both MSFT and Sony are selling at or below cost. I have a PS2/3, XBox 360, Wii, iPad, IPod Touch, which are used by my four children and although Halo4 is their favorite console game, they spend most of their time with iPad and iPod Touch games. They won't miss the console. Even though one day it will be a STB and GPU is much much better, the initial cost and games are so expensive, consoles will decline with the current generation of kids that are 10 and younger.

Except the console is no longer a console - its literally a war for your living room.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 15 Jul 2013 23:30

Raja Bose wrote: Phir se chashma lagao, tau. Do you even know which dates those guesstimates are from and that too how many markets was it being sold in at that point in time? Statistics are meaningless unless you know when/how and in which context they were gathered in. Otherwise they are only useful for mijjile maalish as per the target audience's wet dreams.

Nexus 10 pretty much flopped by all accounts (it sold much less than even the Surface RT, leave alone the PRO) - so much for its TFTA display. The whole package matters, not just one tech spec.

Phir batau kitna sales hua? Reports are the general public's only reference. I doubt the sales of the Pro were anywhere near the MBA in any given quarter. The Pro is suppose to compete with the MBA, hain jee?

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 15 Jul 2013 23:32

Raja Bose wrote:Except the console is no longer a console - its literally a war for your living room.

Yes, it will be bought by people who buy hifi sets and DSLRs.

Not 10 year olds asking for one from their parents.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 16 Jul 2013 00:55

Mort Walker wrote:
Raja Bose wrote:Except the console is no longer a console - its literally a war for your living room.
Yes, it will be bought by people who buy hifi sets and DSLRs. Not 10 year olds asking for one from their parents.

Actually the fastest growing demographic among purchasers/purchasing decision makers there is females.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 16 Jul 2013 00:57

How do you that my 10 year old isn't a female?

She's already bossing me around after following SHQ!

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 16 Jul 2013 01:01

Mort Walker wrote:How do you that my 10 year old isn't a female? She's already bossing me around after following SHQ!

I meant adult females. Anyhow regardless of age, females are born to lead and boss around - best is not to compete against them in such matters

Both my nieces now gang up on me to boss me around but unfortunately I am made of sterner stuff hence only surrender 99% of the time.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 16 Jul 2013 01:07

Hamaare Pyaare, samjah nai aap ne? Aaj hum aap ki taang kyon kheech rai hain? Hum ne dehka ke Vinaji ne Yum-Bee-Yaa giri aur MSFT buriya kia aur aap fool phorce me aagay. Tho hum ne socha ki thori se namak mirch aur dal de is dhaaga meh!

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 16 Jul 2013 01:11

MORT WILL NOW CEASE FIRE. Udaas hoga hum ki dost ka Lumia 1020 ki liya rukna paare ga. Aap Lumia 1020 discount meh dila sak thay?