In Dubai talking to agencies and brands about “digital velcro”. How linking content seamlessly between one screen plus other consumer screen equals a multiple of value for a brand. 20 mins – view here.
Tag Archives: Android
Samsung Abandoning Android? Tis Tizen?
The elephant in the room at the Galaxy S4 launch in New York last week was Android. Not one word about the Google OS. Is all well in Camelot?
Some industry pundits such as ABI Research analyst Aapo Markkanen say there is a clear and intentional distancing of Samsung from its existing OS partner, Android. Does Samsung want to reduce its almost total dependence on the platform over the next few years? Samsung seems to quietly be building independently on top of the Android OS and may make a jump to a more neutral industry partner by 2016.
Window’s has not offered a compelling alternative to Android. What are other options?
Mozilla (Firefox) and Linux (Tizen) are going head to head to capture next generation developers with their web-based operating system. The Firefox and Tizen SDK and API allow developers to use web-based HTML5.
Tis Tizen
Tizen (a Linux Foundation initiative) may have the edge. Tizen is an open source, standards-based software platform for multiscreen devices (smartphones, tablets, netbooks, in-vehicle devices, and smart TVs). Like Firefox, it provides a cross-screen environment for application developers, based on HTML5.
Samsung abandoned its homegrown smartphone OS, Bada, early this year and announced that it would start developing Tizen-based devices: ”We plan to release new, competitive Tizen devices within this year and will keep expanding the lineup depending on market conditions.”
The implications are significant to the connected screen economy and place application development in a more mature web main-frame on the device. The application store now can exist in a more manageable web environment with bookmark apps and not get lost in widget-design interface promoted by Apple.
Premature Technology Arousal (PTA) in Barcelona
To sum up Mobile World Congress 2013, I will borrow from Peter Marx, head of business development at Qualcomm Labs. Peter talks about a tendency for PTA or (for those in the know) Premature Technology Arousal in the mobile industry.
Much of the MWC 2013 floor area at the new Fira Gran Via venue exhibited PTA or Premature Technology Arousal. Solutions that are excited about being solutions. Solutions that are too early. Solutions that are missing reach and frequency. Things that are just not simple enough to drive adoption.
Even before 70 thousand executives hit the show floor, there were signs of “PTA”. From the Near Field Communications (NFC) show name tags that tried to emulated plastic (but that few used because you still needed to show the plastic) to tapping on Coke dispensers with cloud-base wallets that are many quarters away for mainstream adoption.
Booth after booth in this 1.01 million square feet techno-playground displayed incredible solutions and screens. But the real story to follow was how each solution quietly added value to a given business ecosystem. There was an invisible hand playing connect the dots. Here are a few examples:
The Invisible Google Hand
Google was almost absent – unlike the MWC of 2011 and 2012 where Google groupies ran from partner booth to partner booth in search of cute Android pins. But Google was most definitely on the floor. This year the company is wisely playing “powered by Google”. They are the dark silent type. Turn left or right in every hall, Android is the fuel this industry is consuming.
The same holds for Qualcomm. They are the chip manufacture that is quietly taking the lion’s share of the revenue on each global handset. (Intel just cannot seem to create a competitive landscape.) Qualcomm Labs is building in consumer identity and credentials onto its “platform” hoping to not only power the connected device but also own the big data behind the user. When Qualcomm demos a vision of a home of the near future, they power many of the moving pieces.
The Samsung Show
While Qualcomm’s chip and Google’s OS were the main stories in Barcelona, another key and not so silent player is Samsung. (So much so that my hotel concierge asked me if I was attending that “Samsung” show that was in town.) The word that floated above the white new-age Samsung booth was “innovation” but the innovation is not just the 3D camera or the ubiquity of the new S-Pen. The innovation was in their business model connecting their screen across the consumer journey. The 3D camera sells their tablet and television. The S-Pen and its SDK allows for ergonomic continuity across their new tablets and fablets.
Mozilla is other important story in Barcelona. Using the Firefox browser on lower-end ZTE devices to run the camera, map and . . . oh ya the browser was a definite tech-turn on. Moving the developer and more importantly the consumer out of the (Apple-invented and dominated) app store into the real world super-app is an inevitable step and fundamental to our mobile evolution. The quicker the industry can move away for relying exclusively on industrial design and the app storefront as the sales tool, the faster we will grow.
2014 Screen Wars
The most important leitmotif was the screen. Not only the proliferation of devices with new form factor and appliance, but the realization that it is in the connecting of these screen that the we can accelerate business models. Samsung, ZTE, Motorola, Nokia all address the consumer journey across all screens and throughout their day. Nearly all marketing VPs had spent their last few months and budget trying to tell this consumer story.
Again while many products had indecent “PTA”, the most important insight was not what was happening on the screen but what companies were doing to connect them seamlessly. The new battle ground this year moving into MWC 2014 will be centered around who can best manage big data, wallet credentials and identity between the screens.
2012 “Top 10″ MOBILE trends & rankings
In a season where every second tweet and Google+ post is a look-back or forward at the “mobile” year, it is sometimes difficult to navigate all the insights. Just Google “Mobile Top 10 . . .” and you will find every blogger, publication and pundit providing their vision of what is newsworthy, trendworthy or simply rankable in mobile.
The proliferation of mobile “Top 10s” is a good thing. It is proof of all the many verticals areas that mobile has intersected. Health, IT, gaming, banking, retail, social, payment, fraud, security, privacy, patent trolling – all now have some form of a top 10 mobile list.
The explosion of the Mobile Top Ten list shows both how disruptive mobile has become and, also, what a massive audience it commands. Top 10-related news headlines seem to drive more hits and be retweeted more than other items.
(Twitter even tweets its top 10 most retweeted tweets. No. 2 being @LilTunechi Lil Wayne WEEZY F “aaaaaaahhhhhhmmmmm baaaaakkkkkkkkkk.” The 2011 top of the top 10 retweets was by Wendy’s restaurants “RT for a good cause. Each retweet sends 50c to help kids in foster care. #TreatItFwd.” Wendy’s raised $1.8 million.)
We seem to all need, what Perry Hoekstra in his blog calls an “Obligatory 2011 Top Ten Mobile Story List.” I presume it helps us simplify this expanding, complex world of mobile. If we can prioritize importance and cut off the discussion at ten, the list can help us make sense of mobile.
Lists also keep us honest. We never are right on half our predictions. Remember our 2010 trends and forecasts? They are out there in the blogosphere for all those with 20/20 hindsight to chuckle.
In December 2010, we all had an opinion on HP webOS-powered tablet plans – that never happened. And where on the list was Google’s purchase of Motorola, ostensibly as fodder for their IP wars against Apple? Missed that one.
But the biggest problem with these lists is their length. In the wasteland of eggnog and turkey dinners, I ask, where are the mobile Clifs Notes? Where is the super-list? Where is the list of lists?
Steve Yankovich, head of mobile for eBay, tells us that the mobile consumer’s attention span is roughly 15 seconds, nose-to-phone. EBay designs its mobile pages for the dwell time at an elevator or the time idling at the red light. Perhaps, in the spirit of mobile efficiency, we better design our year-end prognostications for this small attention-deficit window.
This holiday season, I add to the litany of lists my retrospect and forecast of mobile, but below in 100 words or less.
2011
- Facebook timeline set it back in history
- Google+ builds circle of trust
- Symbian sang swansong
- Apple continued to make data a free commodity
- Spectrum war showed its dark side
- All screens called mobile
- Amazon cloud disrupts the mall
- Consumer data became jewel in the crown
- CarrierIQ poster-child of privacy angst
- NFC wallet traded press, not payment
2012
- NFC proximity marketing, not proximity payment – yet
- X9 (ISO) delivers mobile security recommendations
- Apple says “I Do” to NFC
- Research In Motion exits stage right
- Cloud checkout is optimized and mainstream
- Super App = HTML5 browser
- Focus on prepaid market services
- LTE networks and spectrum become big issues
- Mobile privacy hype continues
- Microsoft and Nokia enter stage left
Not quite 100 words, but near enough.
Happy Mobile New Year.
Thank Google-ness, it’s Windows?
Mobility is a treacherous business. Cell phones are only used for an average of 18 months before dropping down toilets, falling off tables and general m-wear and tear drives the consumer back into the buyers’ market. For fashion and trend conscious consumer this cycle is probably shorter.
And mobile folk are a fickle bunch. While some may be diehard Apple or Android loyalist, the masses swap out the old for the new in rapid succession. Every time a screen smashes, a phone drops down a manhole or domiciles in a taxi (without you), there is a fresh opportunity for a handset manufacturer and an operating platform to woo the new shopper.
Of course, there is some stickiness. Consumers may be faithful to their Blackberry Messenger group, or the slick screen design of their iPhone, or the price point of their Android.
But when shoppers are back on the market they tend to be unchaste.
It is not just the device. Apple has made sure that the consumer is well aware that if you want APPs there is only one show in town. Developers worldwide are working hard to make sure that Apple and Android operating systems can market themselves and sell based on access to this wealth of content. RIM’s Playbook and Hewlett-Packard’s webOS never stood a chance without a preexisting content library.
Apple’s marketing genius continues to position the iPhone as the aspirational handheld, while Google’s open-android operating system on Samsung, HTC and Motorola continues to drive the bulk of smartphone sales. With Hewlett-Packard declaring defeat and Blackberry (RIM) and Nokia under siege, it looks like a two-horse race.
But recently things have become a little difficult to track.
Apple starts an IP war, litigating against Samsung and winning a stay of the release of its new TAB in Europe. Google’s purchase of Motorola, ostensibly for IP, suddenly makes the giant of the cloud a retail-bound cell phone manufacture. This forces Samsung and HTC Android loyal hardware partners to reevaluate their strategy and possibly further diversify their operating systems.
The pressure of the looming patent war and Google’s unsettling role in the device market is opening the door for Windows reenter the market.
With the salvo of recent litigation, the Android operating system is turning into a liability. Open-Android does not come bundled with an indemnification for the hardware vendors. Windows Phone’s does! This is becoming an expensive problem for handset manufacturers. Samsung and HTC have found themselves paying for their own legal defense and paying on any ensuing royalty settlement.
In the background, Windows has been quietly enforcing its IP rights globally. Goldman Sachs analysts estimated that Microsoft will make nearly half a billion dollars in 2012 on royalties of $3 to $6 per Android device from vendors like Samsung and HTC.
Microsoft’s “Android” royalties is estimated to be TRIPLE the revenue earned on Windows Phone licenses.
With all these mobile machinations, Windows 8 may be powering your new device pick on the shelf next year. Microsoft may allow for light computing with more robust utility than Apple or Android.
Next time your phone-du-jour falls down the stairwell or is left at the bus station, a phone powered by a Windows operating system maybe the new flavor of the day.