Ballmer Disses Andoird

So Steve Ballmer thinks that Android is cheap and complex.

Lets cast our minds back a few years when Ballmer gave us his opinion on the iPhone.

So now Ballmer is telling us that Android is no good. Based on his other prognostications I guess that Android’s going to go like gangbusters at the expense of Microsoft.

I seem to remember Ballmer telling us that the Kin - remember that one? - was going to set the world alight. By the time of its merciful death it is rumoured to have sold less than 10000 units. What was left are supposed to have been buried in an unmarked mass grave somewhere.

Then there was the rumoured Zune phone, that Ballmer dismissed as impossible and against the company’s mobile product philosophy.

Its starting to look like you could do worse than betting against Monkey Boy and his tech pronouncements.

Nokia thinks WinMoPho's are great. Imagine my surprise...

During a break on a big project I’m working on I was catching up on some reading.

I ran across this piece on the Boy Genius Report - Nokia’s Jo Harlow: Windows Phone is ‘easier, faster and a hell of a lot more fun’

Imagine my surprise!

Nokia’s product boss says something like this about the product that Nokia has bet the farm on.

I’m sure if Jo worked for a company that sold bovine manure there would be some way to tell us that their bovine manure is a hell of a lot more fun that the oppositions bovine manure.

Given Nokia haven’t sold a single unit yet and Microsoft’s share of the mobile market is so small that it would represent a massive reduction of Nokia’s already shrinking market share you’d have to hope everything Jo Harlow is saying is true otherwise the bovine manure manufacturing sector may start looking good.

Lets play Whack-a-Mole with location services

Time to take a bat to Microsoft. Ever since Balmer became the head honcho there the number of missteps made by this company have been breathtaking.

I noticed this article on BGR the other day - Developer says Microsoft lied to government about Windows Phone location tracking

The latest is their claim to the U.S House of Representatives that WinMoPho doesn’t:

“collect information to determine the approximate location of a device unless a user has expressly allowed an application to collect location information” and that “Microsoft only collects information to help determine a phone’s approximate location if (a) the user has allowed an application to access and use location data, and (b) that application actually requests the location data”.

Turns out some WinMoPho developer who initially believed that Microsoft does no wrong discovered that WinMoPho actually does rat you out to Redmond without your permission. He was able to isolate the data traffic between his handset and Microsoft servers and this was before he gave his permission to his WinMoPho to collect and send that data.

Ooops...

After Apple and Google having this sort of infantile upchuck fall in their laps you’d think that Microsoft would have seen it coming. They didn’t because, like everyone else, they see torrents of cash coming from location based advertising and providing geolocation data to advertisers.
Sadly their execution was about as hamfisted as we’ve come to expect.

Random Thoughts II

The PC is Dead! IBM says so.

I’ve been wondering, now that the tablet has become a mainstay in computing what’s the future for the PC as we know it?

IBM’s CTO says the PC has seen it day.

I wonder of this is really the case though? Will people really want to walk away from the box on the desk?

I’m not so sure this will come to pass as easily as some people might think.


Will Samsung buy webOS from HP.

This is an interesting rumour. Samsung are obviously not happy about the creation of Googorola. Add the lawsuits that are coming at them from Apple that have effectively halted sales of the Galaxy S II and the Galaxy Tab in different parts of the world - this may not be so far fetched.

Samsung said to be considering webOS acquisition from HP

Its not out of the realms of possibility.


A Torch, a torch, my kingdom for a torch!

Lately I’ve noticed a bit of a furore (tizz in a teacup really) about the fact that the latest version of the WinMoPho operating system, Mango, doesn’t have a native API to turn on the LED to use as a torch.

No real LED torch apps for Windows Phone 7 Mango

I dunno, it strikes me as a bit absurd that with everything else out there that may be interesting to talk about, the lack of an ability to turn your phone into a torch rates, nay demands, column inches.

White Light: Brings a LED Flashlight to non-HTC users running Mango

I never thought not being able to turn a complex piece of communications technology into an axe simple tool would cause such consternation.


Nokia makes Minority Report a sort of Reality

NFC technology scares me. Its not the tech so much, rather its the lack of consideration of the practical implications.

In the rush to be the first to bring NFC to market to grab “mindshare” security invariably gets overlooked.

Nokia: "From now on, all our products will have an NFC chip inside"

There’s lots of evidence that RFID chips can be skimmed from a distance. NFC chips are really just low power RFID chips that Nokia are so considerately putting into all of their doodads.

Makes feel feel all nice and safe knowing that Nokia, the company that so spectacularly gave away the mobile phone market due to blind arrogance has decided that they’re on top of all of this NFC/RFID security stuff.

Can RIM pull of a Lazarus like resurrection?

Boy Genius Report recently had a piece on RIM and whether Blackberrys with the QNX Operating System will turn their fortunes around.

I’m not going to regurgitate the article here, but, I’m not so sure.

While I have a soft spot for Blackberry and their platform I don’t think that some new, well built hardware and a new OS is going to change the tide for them. Neither is an ‘Android layer’ that lets a Blackberry run Android apps.

Here are some of the practicalities, that I think, get in the way of a resurrected RIM.

The Cool Factor.

The Blackberry isn’t cool any more. I don’t hear of executives lining up at the door to their IT department demanding a Blackberry. An iPhone or an Android phone, yes, but a Blackberry, not so much.

The BES

More and more of the functionality that required a BES is now being found as native features in a wider and wider range of handsets. So why need a BES? If you don’t need a BES what’s the compelling story for a Blackberry over something else?

Blackberry Messenger

This was an awesome tool. Its becoming replicated functionality in other handsets. iOS is looking like its going to have something like it and you can bet that Android and WinMoPho devices will have something very similar as well.

I suppose the question is “if there was no real difference in features and functionality would you buy a Blackberry if you could choose from all the other smartphones out there”?

Sadly, I don’t think I would and I’m not so sure that I’m alone in that thinking.

Dilbert Loves WinMoPho

It turns out that Dilbert’s creator, Scott Adams, loves his WinMoPho, or at least acording to the spin on the story from another blog site.

Normally I’d leave this sort of drivel alone, but, it kind of makes me think of the bleats you’d get from Apple fanbois, back in the day when you had to defend your choice of Apple gear.

Here’s the paragraph that got my attention, “Scott Adams after accepting the challenge from Brandon Watson on using Windows Phone just published his results. In short, Windows Phone emerged as Winner. He actually compared Windows Phone on Samsung Focus on AT&T, iPhone 3Gs on AT&T and HTC Evo 3D on Sprint. Even though he didn’t use every single feature of all these devices, he just used the way he wants and found Windows Phone as the winner.”

Now most people when they hear the word winner they think of gold medal on the top step of the podium I was so good you barely deserve to live in my shadow type winner.

Here’s what Scott Adams said in his blog post “However, the intangible coolness factor is impossible to ignore. Even the names Microsoft and Windows feel dated. And the home screen of the Windows phone is great from a usability standpoint, but lacks sizzle. I’d be lying if I said that didn’t matter to me.”

This doesn’t sound like a clear winner to me.

In fact Scott Adams has hit on the real issue. WinMoPho’s just aren’t cool.

Its like you’re being given a choice between three cars. One is a high performance machine that, for every hour of driving needs an hour of tuning but is cool and lets face it, kinda fun. The second is a high performance machine that’s been built by an engineer without a lot of thought for ergonomics or fuel economy. The third is your father’s Volvo.

Hmmm.

So then you find ways to justify the Volvo as being the new up and coming thing.

It’ll be there. It’ll have market share, but, its not going to set anyone’s world alight.

R.I.P Microsoft Reader. What? I thought it died years ago?

I came across an article talking about this the other day. They claimed that the product was too ahead of its time.

This just sounds like the blatherings of a fanboi.

To be sure, over the years there have been a lot of technically brilliant products that have stumbled and failed. VHS Vs. Beta anyone?

Microsoft Reader failed because it was just created as yet another way to drive sales of Windows. There was never going to be a Kindle-like device from Redmond and that was always going to be the problem.

I mean who the hell was going to snuggle up in bed with one of those original and insanely expensive Windows Tablet PC’s (all 3+ Kgs of it) to read their favourite book, while connected to power because the battery life was so crappy?

Wake up to yourselves! That was never going to happen!

The great thing about Amazon’s solution is that I can read my books on any doohickey I’ve got - iOS, Android even WinMoPho as well as a real honest to goodness Kindle. That was never going to happen with the Microsoft Reader.

And that’s the whole problem with Microsoft, they’re a one trick pony and that trick is Windows. Everything they do is built on the credo of “sell more Windows” and that’s going to be the reason for their ultimate failure. I mean if people didn’t really want choice then every car would be a Ford.

Sometimes people just want to buy a Kindle.

More Thoughts on Googorola

I was talking to a friend of mine in the United States last night.

He was telling me that he thinks that Googorola is going to end up as a colossal corporate folly.

His take on the whole deal is that Google rushed the deal. They rushed the deal because they didn’t have the patent pool to defend Android and they were under pressure to find some way to defend it. So they zeroed in on the grandaddy of cellular technology, the guys that invented the thing and made them an offer they couldn’t sensibly refuse.

They rushed the deal because they crapped out with the Nortel patent portfolio auction a little while ago.

If the stories that this deal was put together in the last five or six weeks are true then Google was desperately seeking patents which puts the comments by Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha from about a week ago into perspective. He was playing brinksmanship with the Gnomes of Mountain View and they blinked, paying $12.5 billion for a company that lost $85 million last quarter!

Basically he said we’re gong to look at WinMoPho and sue the pants off all the other Android vendors.

And you can bet that Carl Ichan (one of Motorola’s largest shareholders) was happily wringing his hands in the corner wondering if Hanukah had come early.

The real question is, how many patents do Motorola have that will really help Google defend Android?

Its not going to help them in their fight against Oracle and I doubt its really going to help them in their fight with Apple over UI look and feel and its questionable if its going to help them in their arguments with Microsoft.

So if these Motorola patents aren’t going to help them in these three major battles then why?

I mean Redmond is asking Samsung for $15 per Android doohickey and I doubt that is going to change and they got General Dynamics, the granddaddy weapons of death and destruction globocorp to shell out a licence fee per Android doohickey.

This tells me that there may be something to the patents they’re showing everyone to get them to agree to paying the royalty.

Could it be the fact that Motorola were suing Microsoft for patent infringement as a reaction to Microsoft suing them “In October 2010, Microsoft sued Motorola for allegedly violating nine patents with its Android smartphones. “The patents at issue relate to a range of functionality embodied in Motorola’s Android smartphone devices that are essential to the smartphone experience,” Gutierrez wrote in an Oct. 1 statement. Motorola later retaliated with an intellectual-property complaint of its own.”

This might be nothing more than posturing to negotiate a better “per doohickey” royalty fee.

I just wonder if Motorola just saw Google as desperate to wave a pile of patents at everyone and say “look at us…if you don’t play nice with us we’ll hit you with our patent portfolio”, especially after their debacle with the Nortel patents.

I also wonder if Motorola realise that their patent portfolio won’t help Google all that much which is why Google have to pay $2.5 billion if the deal DOESN’T go through. Like after they do their due diligence and find out that the patent pool of around 25,000 patents actually don’t help them all that much?

I really wonder how this is going to pan out for all concerned...

Google buys Motorola Mobile

Lawyers all over the United States woke up happy this morning on hearing the news that Google has splashed out cash, to the tune of $12.5 billion to acquire Motorola Mobile and its portfolio of around 25,000 patents.

Googorola? Motorogle?

I like Googorola personally. It sounds like something that would go on a rampage and flatten Tokyo for our matinee entertainment.

I’m guessing that Google plans to unleash their mutant matinee monster in Redmond and Cupertino hoping for a Godzilla meets Tokyo like result and with such a large patent portfolio you’ve got to start wondering how long it’ll be before their army of lawyers will end up rolling into action like London teens looking for a night of looting and pillaging.

The really interesting story here is the effect on LG, Samsung and, especially, HTC.

HTC is now between the devil and the deep blue sea. On one side their wildly successful Android based business and on the other their not so much Windows MoPho based products.

The good news for them (!?), now, is that they’re going to be competing directly against their key suppliers. Microsoft and Nokia, who have recently announced that they’re going to drop prices to buy marketshare in the US for the good of Finland, Redmond and the WinMoPho way. Googorola who have now got a hardware/software end to end experience and they control Android too. Unless it now somehow forks.

Publicly HTC, Samsung and LG aren’t going to be too vocal about this. They won’t want to piss off the Gnomes of Mountain View, but you’ve got to wonder about the long term effects on their businesses.

If the Gnomes really wanted to go for a scorched earth policy they should have bought Nokia, I mean with their share price it wouldn’t cost a whole lot, and then move the whole company to Android and leave Ballmer standing with his WinMoPho in his hand.

As for Samsung, between their problems with Apple and now facing down Googorola, Tokyo’s not all that far from Seoul after all, they’ve got some real problems especially since they’re only just starting to make serious inroads into the market place with the Galaxy S II.

LG look like they’re going to be the big losers in this one because they don’t really have major market penetration outside Korea.

I’ll talk a bit more about this over the next couple of weeks because this is a landscape mover.

I wonder if any IP Law Firms have floated? That’s where I’d be putting my money.