It is a fantastic gig – we’re working with developers, designers, and IT pros from across the industry – from the consumer to enterprise to startups to hobbyists – helping them create amazing next generation apps, build the frameworks that make all this easier, and share our experiences with the community.

[John Shewchuk, Technical Fellow at Microsoft, Chief Technology Officer for the Microsoft Developer Platform]

Source: My New Gig [JohnShew's MSDN Blog, May 12, 2013] from which the following excerpts will add more information to the above mission statement:

To do this work I have an incredible team with people like Eric Schmidt, who leads our consumer applications efforts and has done ground-breaking work on projects like [NBC’s] Sunday Night Football (which is up for a Sports Emmy for Outstanding Live Sports Series).

[In fact on May 7 the Sports Emmy was awarded, already 5th time from which the last four awards were won with the program using technology started with Silverlight 3.0 and IIS Smooth Streaming in 2009 for Sunday Night Football live streaming with highly advanced and customized viewing experience. This lead to a continously evolving and expanding cooperation which culminated on April 9th 2013 in the announcement that Microsoft Corp. and NBC Sports Group are partnering to use Windows Azure Media Services across NBC Sports’ digital platforms, including NBCSports.com, NBCOlympics.com and GolfChannel.com. The new alliance aims to deliver live and on-demand programming of more than 5,000 hours of sporting events plus Sochi 2014 Olympic Games for NBC Sports’ digital platforms. More details about that see later on.]

Patrick Chanezon just joined us from VMware where he was driving their cloud and tools developer relations – he has a ton of expertise in the open source space which will be increasingly important given our new Azure IaaS support for Linux.

… we also get to play with all the newest and coolest technologies we’re delivering to developers these days – everything from Windows to Xbox to Windows Phone – and we connect it to the latest cloud services from Azure, Office, and Bing.

James Whittaker [now as Partner Technical Evangelist at Microsoft] – a known industry disruptor and incredible speaker joins us from Bing where he has been leading the development team making Bing knowledge available programmatically – many people may know him from his viral blog post on why he left Google for Microsoft.

As far as John Shewchuk himself is concerned he is describing his latest achievement in the same post as:

As many of you know, for the last few years I’ve been plugging away deep in the plumbing of enterprise identity and Reimagining Active Directory for the cloud.  It’s been a great experience and I couldn’t be more proud of all the cool stuff that has gone on across the industry to enable the world of claims-based identity and identity as a service.  Over the years I’ve gotten to know many identity leaders including Kim Cameron, Craig Burton, and Andre Durand and have worked with many other great people at companies like Shell, Sun, IBM, Google, and Facebook.

Building on all this collaboration, just a few weeks ago here at Microsoft we reached a major milestone with the official release of Windows Azure Active Directory (AAD). Today all of Microsoft’s major organizational cloud services build on AAD – this includes Azure, Office 365, and Dynamics. AAD supports almost 3 million organizations through 14 global data centers with 99.97% availability.  This level of scale and availability is unprecedented for a turnkey identity management service – it’s a huge accomplishment.  Although I love the SaaS and scale aspects of AAD, I’ve spent my career working with developers – so I’m stoked that we have made all this available to developers through new technologies like the AAD Graph API.

It is always sad to move on from a great project, but with the release of AAD it is an ideal time to transition and start a new role.  So I’m happy to announce that I’m headed to Microsoft’s Developer & Platform Evangelism (DPE) team, working for Steve Guggenheimer.  My role is to lead the team doing the deep technical evangelism and development here in DPE.

If one adds to that John Shewchuk’s all contributions from his Experience profile on LinkedIn:

Technical Fellow
Microsoft
March 2008 – Present (5 years 2 months)

Current responsibilities include delivering Windows Azure Identity, Access, and Directory Services and defining platform strategy for Microsoft’s Business Productivity Online Services (BPOS).

Recent deliverables include Windows Azure Access Control and Application Messaging / Service Bus Services, SQL Azure, and Active Directory.

Member of the Server and Tools Business (STB) Technical Leadership Team. Key participant in the definition of overall technical and business strategy for several divisions across STB.

Distinguished Engineer
Microsoft
2005 – 2008 (3 years)

Delivered Windows Communication Foundation (WCF).

Responsible for Active Directory technical strategy. Worked to unify Active Directory product suite. Released Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS).

Software Engineer
Microsoft
1996 – 2005 (9 years)

Member of architecture team that drove the first and subsequent releases of .NET.

Drove transformation of Visual Studio to enable web development.

Authored and drove technical strategy for Web standards. Responsible for key cross-industry collaborations with IBM, Sun, and many others. Key participant in defining strategy for enterprise development

Group Program Manager
Microsoft
1993 – 1996 (3 years)

Drove the first release of Visual Studio.

Delivered web development tools including Visual InterDev. Later these became the basis for Visual Studio web tools and web execution platform.

Delivered advanced browser features including 2D layout and progressive rendering. Broad range of patents covering many core web technologies.

Vice President and Founder
Daily Planet Software
1990 – 1993 (3 years)

Microsoft acquired Daily Planet Software in Q4CY93 [and morphed it into "Blackbird," the online-content authoring system for MSN].

so after adding all those contributions, not only to Microsoft but to software engineering in general, only then one can really understand how much John Shewchuk is a true larger than life figure. Also note that Microsoft’s DPE unit never had such an outstanding contributor on its staff, not even the units organisationally preceding it (DRG (Developer Relations Group) formed in 1984, ADCU (Application Developer Customer Unit) introduced in 1997, evolved into DPE in October 2011). It is also the first time as Microsoft DPE has a developer related CTO organization properly staffed with excellent contributors. The size of this central to DPE team could be over 100 people and growing, this is the unofficial information. At the moment we know only the leadership figures of the CTO organization:
- James Whittaker for the partner activities (as coming from his new LinkdIn title given above)
- Patrick Chanezon “initially focused on the enterprise market” (as described by Chanezon in the below details)
- Eric Schmidt leading the consumer applications efforts (as explicitly stated by Shewchuk above)

So at this point we can understand this extremely important, we might say strategic addition to the DPE unit only via the professional stance of its leadership figures, including the leader of the team Shewchuk himself. This is why instead of the details sections I am providing here the following one:

More light on the leaders of the new the deep technical evangelism and development team:

- James Whittaker’s Quality Software Crusade from Academia to Microsoft, then Google and now back to Microsoft [this same ‘Experiencing the Cloud’ blog, March 14 – April 12, 2012]
- James Whittaker‏ @docjamesw 8:19 AM – 8 Apr 13

I gave a blunt, incendiary talk at MS. My punishment: they made it my day job. Watch out world, Microsoft just gave me a speaking role.

- James Whittaker‏ @docjamesw 3:54 PM – 8 May 13

I finally “met” the famous @maryjofoley …nice talking to you today.

from which Mary Jo Foley published the following in her Microsoft builds a deep-tech team to attract next-gen developers [ZDNet, May 13, 2013]

Whittaker’s most recent gig at Microsoft was development manager for the Microsoft knowledge platform as part of the Bing team. 

“When Microsoft talks about devices and services, that’s a two-legged stool,” said Whittaker. The third leg is knowledge. We’re embedding knowledge into everything from Xbox, to Office, to third-party products.”

Whittaker said “dev platform” is no longer simply the operating system and related application programming interfaces (APIs). It’s the whole ecosystem, he said, including information that Bing extracts from the Web, like catalogs, weather, and maps. The goal is to make this available inside applications built by both Microsoft and third-party developers. 

“Actions can be performed on these entities. We have hundreds of millions of things we can provide that go beyond the blue links (in search engines),” Whittaker said.

- A New Era of Computing [Channel 9 video of the ALM Summit 3 plenary session by James Whittaker, Jan 30, 2013], click on the image to watch (highly recommended)

History will look back and identify September 2012 as the dawn of a new computing paradigm and the official end of the “Search-and-Browse” era [of the 2000s] that Google dominated. James Whittaker talks about this momentous event, shares some history about prior eras, and looks ahead to what this new era brings.

Explanation from the video:

[19:58] September 2012 is “when total search volume went down first. We don’t need to search anymore. It turns out that if you search long enough you find a bunch of stuff, and you hav’nt to search for it anymore.”

[21:00] “Apps are ingesting the web too. Apps are better at searching than browsers and search engines.”

[22:08] “Apps are fundamentally a better way to search because they’re only looking at the part of the web you’ve been interested in. How do we know you are interested in? Because you are using the app.

So our habits are changing and this era has ended.”

In more than the middle [38:26 – 40:00] he is emphasizing the 3 “Experiences” out of Google’s current Top 10 revenue earners rather than “Apps” in the era “when the web goes away” as leading to “Data is currency” for the new era:

…

In the very end of his presentation (from [46:09] to [52:20]), as forward looking “Know & Do” experience, he is describing and a kind of “screenshot demonstrating” the “I need a vacation” experience which should naturally start in one’s calendar and ending there as well.

- Hello Microsoft! [Patrick Chanezon’s blog, May 13, 2013]

On april 29th 2013, I joined Microsoft’s legendary Developer and Platform Evangelism team, where I will initially focus on the Enterprise market. I will report to Technical Fellow John Shewchuk, joining his new team of top-notch technical evangelists, like Xoogler James Whittaker and Microsoft veteran Eric Schmidt. Mary Jo Foley wrote a nice piece about our team on ZDNet today. I will be based in theMicrosoft San Francisco office.

How did it happen?

I spent most of my career competing with Microsoft, at Netscape, Sun, Google and VMware. Competition builds respect, competitors force you to question your assumptions and to constantly evolve. For many of my friends, this move came as a total shock. What made me open to the idea of joining Microsoft is a presentation from Scott Guthrie about Windows Azure at NodeConf 2012 last summer. He presented from a Mac laptop, launched Google Chrome, went to the Cloud9 IDE, edited a Node app pulled from Github, and pushed it to Azure from the cloud IDE: to me this indicated a real change of mentality at Microsoft, and a new openness. Clearly they had listened to what developers ask from a cloud platform. Later on, when my friend Srikanth Satyanarayana pinged me to start conversations with Microsoft, I was open to it. I met with Satya Nadella, and realized that our visions for where the cloud was going were very aligned. Further conversations with Scott Guthrie about Azure, John Shewchuk and Steve Guggenheimer about developer evangelism convinced me this was an adventure I had to take!

Why Microsoft?

Joining Microsoft boils down to 4 reasons: People, Learning, Technology, Impact.

People: in my late 30′s I realized that the people you work with, for and around are as important as what you’re working on. Microsoft has many people I have admired from the outside, like Dare Obasanjo, Eric Meijer, Scott Guthrie, Jon Udell, Scott Hanselman, Jeff Sandquist, Andrew Shuman or Anders Hejlsberg. The team I join has a fantastic roster of A-players with whom I’ll have fun and from whom I will learn.

Learning: I’m a learner at heart. I am curious, I read a lot, and I like to learn from people I work with. I also love to share what I learned with others. My kids loved this book called My Friends, by Taro Gomi, which goes like this: “I learned to walk from my friend the cat, I learned to jump from my friend the dog…”.

In my career it worked the same way: I learned algorithmic from my teacher Christian Vial, I learned internet protocols from my friend Nicolas Pioch, I learned open source from my friend Alejandro Abdelnur, I learned social media from my friend Loic Lemeur, I learned developer relations from my friend Vic Gundotra, I learned platform strategy and storytelling from my friend Charles Fitzgerald… I love doing developer relations, and my two mentors in this area over the past 8 years, Vic and Charles, both came from the Microsoft DPE team. I’m coming to the source for more learning. This team is more than a 1000 people worldwide, and over the past 10 years they defined what tech evangelism is about: they operate at a larger scale and cover a wider scope than any of the teams I worked with. I am very excited to join them.

Technology: Windows Azure is Enterprise ready, more open than people think, and is a complete platform, from infrastructure to services, mobile and Big Data. Azure has matured a lot in the past few years, it covers IaaS, PaaS and Saas, their Paas service is multi-framework and multi-service, with a marketplace of add-ons, it has a mobile backend as a service for Windows Phone, iOS, Android and HTML5, and includes Hadoop and Big Data services. It is in production today, has been battle tested for years as the base for many Microsoft first party apps and services, and is ready for the Enterprise, with a true public/private/hybrid solution: with Windows Server 2013, System Center and Azure you can start building your hybrid cloud today.. The team ships important new features regularly, my favorite being the point to site and software vpn features announced a few weeks ago, which will drastically lower the barrier to create hybrid clouds. Azure is not a Windows/.NET only platform, it is more open than people give it credit for: you can provision Linux VMs, and the PaaS supports .NET, Java, PHP, Node, Python, Ruby, with open source (Apache 2 license) SDKs on Githuband an Eclipse plugin, built by the Microsoft Open Technologies team. Scott Guthrie gives a very good overview of Windows Azure in this video from the Windows Azure Conf 3 weeks ago.

Impact: as a kid, I was reading a lot of science fiction, and got my first computer (a TRS-80) when I was 10 years old. As I explain in many of my presentations (like Portrait of the developer as The Artist), my childhood dreams were to change the world through technology, and more specifically computers. My dreams are far from being fulfilled today: it is true that we have more powerful machines and software tools, and technology changed the world in many aspects, but machines are still hard to program, and software engineering needs to evolve to let us work at a higher level of abstraction.

The move to a devices and services world is an important architecture change like we see every 20 years in the software industry. Cloud platforms have the potential to help developers build smarter applications faster, and change entire areas of the human experience. It has started to happen in the consumer applications space, but the next big wave of change is the consumerization of Enterprise IT, where developers and IT professionals can completely transform the way enterprises work, driving business value faster, enabling new capabilities and business models. My goal is to help them in this transformation, and Microsoft is the place where I can have the most impact.

Here’s a quick video to summarize it all: developers, developers, developers, think big and look up at the sky, its color is Azure!

Developers, Developers, Developers A homage to you, developers I interacted with around the world, in the past 8 years doing developer relations at Google and VMware. http://wordpress.chanezon.com/2013/05/10/goodbye-vmware/

If you have never tried Azure, or have tried it a year ago, sign up for a free trial and give it a go! I hope to see many of you at the Build conference in June in San Francisco.

- Mary Jo Foley published the following about Chanezon in her Microsoft builds a deep-tech team to attract next-gen developers [ZDNet, May 13, 2013]:

“We’re at a deep architectural inflection point right now in the enterprise,” said Chanezon. “Devs need new ways of working, new apps and new frameworks. There’s the whole dev-ops movement, plus the move to become more agile.”

Chanezon said he joined Microsoft because he felt the company’s new devices plus services strategy really embraces these changes. He said while Google had devices and services, too, it didn’t have the private/hybrid cloud component which Microsoft also brings to the enterprise-dev table. As a big believer in the power and potential contribution of open source, he said he was encouraged to see that Azure has become a very open-source-friendly platform.

- Mary Jo Foley published the following about Schmidt in her Microsoft builds a deep-tech team to attract next-gen developers [ZDNet, May 13, 2013]:

Schmidt joined DPE six years ago [as director of DPE's Media and Advertising Initiatives team], bringing his media specialization to the media and entertainment, social and gaming verticals. These are “where people are thinking about attaching devices to a lifestyle,” he said. 

A big target for Schmidt is mobile developers, specifically those writing for iOS and Android who may not know how their skills can be transferred to Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8. “We’re showing them how what they already know is correlated,” he said, while playing up the message that the iOS and Android gold mines are drying up.

- Silverlight delivers online viewing experience for Sunday Night Football [Silverlight and Windows Phone SDK blog, Sept 10, 2009]

The NFL and NBC will be delivering the entire Sunday Night Football season by using Silverlight 3.0 and IIS Smooth Streaming. The first game of the season will be broadcast tonight, with the Tennessee Titans vs. the Pittsburg Steelers. Game starts at 5:00pm PST and you can watch online for free: http://snfextra.nbcsports.com/.

Here are a few of the benefits Silverlight delivers:

• A full screen video player that is capable of delivering 720p HD video. TV quality on the web.
• A main HD video feed, plus 4 user-selectable alternate synchronized camera feeds that allows users to switch camera angles themselves. Your TV can’t do that.
• Adaptive smooth streaming of live HD video, which enables the video player to automatically switch bitrates on the fly depending on networking/CPU conditions. No buffering/stuttering experience.
• DVR support of the live video, including Pause, Instant Replay, Slow Motion, Skip Forward/Back. You can pause and rewind on live video.
• Play-by-play data (touchdowns, fumbles, etc) inserted as tooltip chapter markers on the scrubber at the bottom allowing you to quickly seek to key moments. A smarter, contextual DVR.
• Highlights of major plays created within minutes of the play. NBC is cutting on-demand highlights and publishing them on-the-fly with Smooth Streaming.
• Sideline interviews with the players. No more channel surfing, you are one click away from additional content.
• Game statistics. These are live stats coming directly in real-time from the NFL.
• Game commentary and Q&A with the SNF hosts. Chat with the live TV broadcasters.

Enjoy! http://snfextra.nbcsports.com/

- Microsoft Silverlight and NBC Bring Winter Games to the Web in High Definition [Microsoft feature story, Feb 12, 2010]

Microsoft Silverlight is the player of choice for NBC’s online viewing experience of the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver.

REDMOND, Wash. —Feb. 12, 2010 — NBC and Silverlight have once again teamed up to bring Winter Games coverage to the Web – this time in high definition.

For the next 16 days, people all over the world will watch the Winter Games on television. Increasingly, they’ll be tuning in online as the world’s top athletes compete for gold and glory.

NBC will once again use Silverlight, Microsoft’s fast-growing, smooth-streaming video and animation plug-in for browsers, to bring full coverage and highlights to NBCOlympics.com. In 2008 for Beijing, the NBC-Silverlight partnership yielded not only revolutionary Web coverage of a sporting event, but a record number of viewers: 52.1 million people logged on to watch 9.9 million hours of video.

At that time the Silverlight platform was so new that NBC also offered Windows Media Player alongside it. After the success of Beijing and with nearly 50 percent of Internet-connected devices running Silverlight, NBC decided to consolidate on Silverlight for the Vancouver Games.

Microsoft employees Jason Suess (left) and Eric Schmidt take
a break in an NBC production studio.

In addition, NBC and Silverlight teams are working together on other major sporting events such as Wimbledon and NFL Sunday Night Football.

“It’s really been amazing to see that partnership and friendship with NBC grow over the last year and a half,” says Jason Suess, principal technical evangelist for Silverlight. “I expect many more events as our partnership gets tighter and tighter.”

With Silverlight, viewers can rewind and fast forward the action, or use pause and slow-motion. The player also scales the quality of the video to whatever a user’s machine can handle, delivering up to 720p – the highest resolution possible under current digital television standards.

“After Beijing, what we heard loud and clear was if you can provide a higher quality experience, users will definitely spend more time in that experience,” Suess says.

The Silverlight team also worked with NBC to provide special behind-the-scenes tools for the network, including the ability to insert mid-stream advertising, and a rough cut editor that allows NBC personnel to quickly edit and post highlights on the Web.

“With Michael Phelps going for eight gold medals in Beijing, every time he’d win there would be a massive rush to the site to see him winning the latest gold,” Suess says. “The challenge there was for NBC to have the content on the site in time to meet the demand. Now editors can go in literally while a (video) stream is happening and cut a highlight.”

Suess said the Winter Games are at a different scale from the massive Summer Games, with far fewer events and more niche sports. Still, Microsoft has worked hard to provide the most engaging photo and video experience possible, he says.

- Silverlight Powered Emmy Nominated Sunday Night Football [Silverlight Team on Silverlight Blog, April 19, 2010]

This NFL season, NBC thrilled football fans by broadcasting Sunday Night Football on 2 screens – television and online. And now, as a result of this great work, Sunday Night Football Extra and NBC Sports have been nominated for a 2010 Sports Emmy® Nomination! NBC Sports teamed with Microsoft Silverlight and Vertigo to design and develop a visual stunning, interactive online video experience. The Sunday Night Football Extra Player featured Microsoft Smooth Streaming technology providing a customized viewing experience that smoothly and automatically adjusted to individual users’ bandwidth and computer’s performance in real time. The SNF Extra Player also touted an interactive user experience featuring an unprecedented five synchronized camera angles all in true 720p HD, slow-motion replay, full DVR controls, real time key plays integration, real-time statistics, and live interaction with commentators.

The Sports Emmy® Awards will be held in New York City on Monday, April 26, 2010, and will recognize outstanding achievement in sports television coverage. This nomination is really the culmination of the innovative thinking, hard work and dedication demonstrated by the team that NBC Sports, Vertigo and a select team of key partners brought together for Sunday Night Football Extra — and Silverlight is the engine that made it possible. If you want to learn more about the nomination, you can also visit Vertigo’s site at http://bit.ly/vertigo-snf.

The Result?

• Number of Games: 17 football games streamed via Silverlight
• Average time tuned in: 29 minutes (about 24 minutes longer than average time spent tuning in on broadcast TV)
• Number of Viewers: Over 2.2 million football fans tuned in on NBCSports.com to watch the Season live and in full HD
• Hours of Video: Approximately 1 million hours of video streamed
• Peak users: 38,500 total peak concurrent users
• What technology made this possible IIS 7, IIS Media Services and Silverlight Rough Cut Editor

Tons of great information about how SNF came together online can be found in the case study and whitepaper live on Microsoft.com.

The Sports Emmy® Awards will be held in New York City on Monday, April 26, 2010, and will recognize outstanding achievement in sports television coverage. This nomination is really the culmination of the innovative thinking, hard work and dedication demonstrated by the team that NBC Sports, Vertigo and a select team of key partners brought together for Sunday Night Football Extra — and Silverlight is the engine that made it possible. If you want to learn more about the nomination, you can also visit Vertigo’s site at http://bit.ly/vertigo-snf.

- Interactive Media Player to Bring PDC to Developers Worldwide [Microsoft feature story, Oct 27, 2010]

A new interactive media player will enable developers worldwide to virtually attend this week’s Professional Developers Conference at microsoftpdc.com. Using Silverlight and Windows Azure, Microsoft is providing many of the features NBC used when broadcasting the Olympics online.

…

With the player, Microsoft is introducing a new way of bringing a live, in-person event to a much broader audience, said Eric Schmidt, Microsoft’s senior director of Developer Platform Evangelism. “The goal is to narrow the gap between audience and speaker,” he said.

Schmidt heads up the team that has helped stream a number of major events recently, including the 2010 U.S. Open Golf Championship, the 2010 Wimbledon Championship, and NBC’s Sunday Night Football. The team’s objective has been to reach large online audiences with immersive and interactive experiences. Along the way, they developed new ways of delivering multi-camera video and built new interactive models inside what has traditionally been just a video player. The team also built out frameworks so that customers and partners can create similar experiences leveraging Microsoft’s platform technologies in a turnkey manner.

With the PDC10 virtual player, Microsoft is doing things it couldn’t have done just a few years ago, said Schmidt. All session content will be available live and on-demand in HD quality, and viewers will have the ability to pause and rewind the video at any point. They also can toggle back and forth between different camera feeds, allowing a viewer to cut between a presenter and the presentation material.

The PDC player has a number of built-in interactive features. Real-time polling will enable speakers to query both the online and in-person audience for live feedback. Live Q&A will help the audience interact with the presenters while they’re delivering a session. And an inline Twitter feed will extend the conversation beyond the online player and into the Twitter domain.

…

- NBC SPORTS GROUP COLLECTS 11 SPORTS EMMY AWARDS, MOST OF ANY SPORTS MEDIA COMPANY [press release, May 7, 2013]

London Olympics Garners Five Awards, Including Outstanding Live Event Turnaround

Sunday Night Football Wins Fifth Consecutive Emmy for Outstanding Live Sports Series; Super Bowl XLVI Wins for Outstanding Live Sports Special

Bob Costas, Al Michaels, Cris Collinsworth and Pierre McGuire Honored

NEW YORK – May 7, 2013 – NBC Sports Group won 11 Sports Emmy Awards, the most of any sports media company for the third straight year; the London Olympics received five Emmys, including Outstanding Live Event Turnaround; Super Bowl XLVII won for Outstanding Live Sports Special; Sunday Night Football won its fifth consecutive award for Outstanding Live Sports Series; and Bob Costas, Al Michaels, Cris Collinsworth and Pierre McGuire were all honored in their respective categories at the 34^th Annual Sports Emmy Awards, presented tonight by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences at Frederick P. Rose Hall, Home of Jazz at Lincoln Center.

MARK LAZARUS, NBC SPORTS GROUP CHAIRMAN: “We could not be more proud of our dedicated team. Tonight is particularly special because we were recognized for our coverage of the London Olympics and the NFL, two properties that touch virtually everyone in the NBC Sports Group – and our on-air commentators. It’s rewarding to know that our talent continues to be recognized year in and year out by our peers.”

Formed in January, 2011, the NBC Sports Group consists of NBC Sports, NBC Sports Network, Golf Channel, NBC Olympics, 11 NBC Sports Regional Networks, two regional news networks, NBC Sports Radio and NBCSports.com.

NBCUniversal’s coverage of the London Olympics was honored with a total of five Emmy Awards in the following categories:

• Outstanding Live Event Turnaround;

• The George Wensel Technical Achievement Award – NBC, NBC Sports Network, NBCOlympics.com, Bravo, CNBC, MSNBC, Telemundo;

• Outstanding Technical Team Studio;

• The Dick Schaap Outstanding Writing Award;

• Outstanding New Approaches, Sports Programming – NBCOlympics.com.

For the fifth consecutive year, NBC Sports won Outstanding Live Sports Series for Sunday Night Football. NBC Sports has now won the award in six of the last seven years, also winning in 2007 for its NASCAR coverage.

NBC Sports was also honored with the Emmy for Outstanding Live Sports Special for its coverage of Super Bowl XLVI. NBC Sports also received the Emmy in this category for its coverage of Super Bowl XLIII.

Bob Costas was awarded his 25^th career Emmy and fifth consecutive for Outstanding Sports Personality-Studio Host. Costas hosted the London Olympics, is the host Football Night in America, NBC Sports’ acclaimed NFL studio show, and Costas Tonight, which airs on NBC Sports Network. He won the Emmy in the same category last year for his work on Football Night.

Al Michaels was awarded the Emmy Award for Outstanding Sports Personality – Play-by-Play, for his work on Sunday Night Football. For Michaels, who received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 32^ndAnnual Sports Emmy Awards in 2011, this marks his seventh career Emmy Award.

Cris Collinsworth was awarded his fifth consecutive Emmy for Outstanding Sports Personality-Sports Event Analyst. This marks Collinsworth’s 14^th career Emmy, which includes wins in 2007 and 2008 in the Studio Analyst category for work on Football Night in America.

Pierre McGuire, NBC Sports Group’s “Inside the Glass” analyst for its NHL coverage, was awarded his first career Emmy for Outstanding Sports Personality – Sports Reporter.

- Microsoft Teams Up With NBC Sports Group to Deliver Compelling Sports Programming Across Digital Platforms Using Windows Azure [press release, April 9, 2013]

New alliance aims to deliver live and on-demand programming of more than 5,000 hours of sporting events plus Sochi 2014 Olympic Games for NBC Sports’ digital platforms.

LAS VEGAS — April 9, 2013 — Today at the National Association of Broadcasters Show, Microsoft Corp. and NBC Sports Group announced they are partnering to use Windows Azure Media Services across NBC Sports’ digital platforms, including NBCSports.com, NBCOlympics.com and GolfChannel.com.

Through the agreement, which rolls out this summer, Microsoft will provide both live-streaming and on-demand viewing services for more than 5,000 hours of games and events on devices, such as smartphones, tablets and PCs. These services will allow sports fans to be able to relive or catch up on their favorite events and highlights that aired on NBC Sports Group platforms.

“NBC Sports Group is thrilled to be working with Microsoft,” said Rick Cordella, senior vice president and general manager of digital media at NBC Sports Group. “More and more of our audience is viewing our programming on Internet-enabled devices, so quality of service is important. Also, our programming reaches a national audience and needs to be available under challenging network conditions. We chose Microsoft because of its reputation for delivering an end-to-end experience that allows for seamless, high-quality video for both live and video-on-demand streaming.”

NBC Sports Group’s unique portfolio of properties includes the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympic Games, “Sunday Night Football,” Notre Dame Football, Premier League soccer, Major League Soccer, Formula One and IndyCar racing, PGA TOUR, U.S. Open golf, French Open tennis, Triple Crown horse racing, and more.

“Microsoft is constantly looking for innovative ways to utilize the power of the cloud, and we see Windows Azure Media Services as a high-demand offering,” said Scott Guthrie, corporate vice president at Microsoft. “As consumer demand for viewing media online on any available device grows, our partnership with NBC Sports Group gives us the opportunity to provide the best of cloud technology and bring world-class sporting events to audiences when and where they want them.”

Microsoft has a broad partner ecosystem, which extends to the cloud. To bring the NBC Sports Group viewing experience to life, Microsoft is working with iStreamPlanet Co. and its live video workflow management product Aventus. Aventus will integrate with Windows Azure Media Services to provide a scalable, reliable, live video workflow solution to help bring NBC Sports Group programming to the cloud.

NBC Sports Group and iStreamPlanet join a growing list of companies, including European Tour, deltatre, Dolby Laboratories Inc. and Digital Rapids Corp., which are working with Windows Azure to bring their broadcasting audiences or technologies to the cloud.

In addition to Media Services, Windows Azure core services include Mobile Services, Cloud Services, Virtual Machines, Websites and Big Data. Customers can go tohttp://www.windowsazure.com for more information and to start their free trial.

- Mary Jo Foley published the following about Shewchuk, the head of the team in her Microsoft builds a deep-tech team to attract next-gen developers [ZDNet, May 13, 2013]:

“‘The platform’ is now a collection of capabilities across all of our products,” said John Shewchuk, the head of the recently formed technical evangelism and dev team. Our job is “helping devs stitch together solutions with these technologies.”

“Devs” also is a much broader target audience for Microsoft than it once was. Back in the early DPE days, devs meant professional, full-time programmers. The target audience for Microsoft’s new deep-tech team includes anyone who writes a consumer, business or hybrid application. That means startups, enterprise customers and top consumer and business independent software vendors (ISVs).

The Microsoft toolbox from which devs can choose to mix and match includes many technologies that didn’t exist a decade, or even just a few years, ago. They include everything from Windows Azure technologies, to Bing programming interfaces and datasets, to the WinRT framework underlying Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012. Microsoft’s next Xbox, Kinect, Windows Phones, Surfaces, Perceptive Pixel multitouch displays are among the targets for these technologies.

“This is a playground. We get to work with stuff from all the different Microsoft business groups,” said Shewchuk. “It’s like geek heaven.”

The idea of creating this kind of deep-tech team has been percolating since October 2012, when Microsoft veteran Steve Guggenheimer returned to Microsoft to head up DPE, according to Microsoft execs. Guggenheimer, in conjunction with Server and Tools Business chief Satya Nadella and with the blessing of CEO Steve Ballmer, set out to recruit some deeply technical evangelists with far-flung specializations.

Shewchuk, a 20-year Microsoft veteran and one of the company’s Technical Fellows, agreed to spearhead the team. (Microsoft isn’t saying how large the new team is, but I’ve heard it could be over 100 people in size and growing.) Shewchuk, who is now the Chief Technology Officer for the Microsoft Developer Platform, was working for the last several years on Windows Azure, where he helped the company build Windows Azure Active Directory, Service Bus and SQL services. Shewchuk also was a key contributor to a number of other Microsoft dev technologies, including .Net, Visual Studio, Windows Communication Foundation and the WIndows Identity Foundation.

“The idea is to bridge our inside developers to outside developers,” Shewchuk said. “We want to get the top developers to adopt our platform.”

Shewchuk described the new deep-tech team as a place where Microsoft pulls together its own “world-class” developers to exchange ideas among themselves and with the outside world. Because Microsoft’s new stack of technologies are all at different places, in terms of their maturity cycle, the Microsoft tech team will do everything from build new frameworks; develop code to tie together disparate products; and make available code and templates for external use using services like GitHub or CodePlex. In some cases, the “developers” who take advantage of these pieces may be Microsoft’s own product teams who may want to incorporate code (and even the developers who wrote it) directly into their units.

More information:
- John Shewchuk’s Profile [MSDN, May 2013]

John Shewchuk is a Technical Fellow and the CTO for the Microsoft Developer Platform. John leads the team responsible for technical evangelism and development in DPE; his team partners with developers, designers, and IT pros to build next gen applications using Microsoft’s devices and services and they share those experiences with the developer community. John has been with Microsoft for almost 20 years. Most recently John focused on Azure developing key platform services including Windows Azure Active Directory, Service Bus, and SQL services. He has been a key contributor on wide range of technologies including; Visual Studio, .NET, WCF, WIF, IE, and AD. John is an advocate and contributor to open source and Web standards – most recently he drove many of the contributions Microsoft made to OAuth 2. John has BS in Electrical Engineering from Union College and an MS in Computer Science from Brown University. He lives in Redmond with his wife and four children.

- Microsoft Big Brains: John Shewchuk [Mary Jo Foley for All About Microsoft blog of ZDNet, Nov 20, 2008]

Claim to Fame: One of the masterminds behind “Zurich,” a key component of Microsoft’s Azure cloud infrastructure, and a key player in Microsoft’s Federated Identity work [see also: Ozzie foreshadows 'Zurich,' Microsoft's elastic cloud [same author, same place, July 24, 2008]

- Bytes by MSDN: John Shewchuk and Rob Bagby discuss “Project Dallas” [on YouTube MrAbdoul9 channel, Jan 29, 2010; on Channel 9, Aug 29, 2010] this is where OAuth is first mentioned

- Microsoft unveils AD Azure strategy, ID management reset [John Fontana for Identity Matters blog of ZDNet, May 25, 2012]

After two years of work, Microsoft has unveiled details and its strategy around Active Directory for the cloud, anointing it the centerpiece of a comprehensive online identity management services strategy it thinks will profoundly alter the ID landscape.

The company said changes to the current concepts around identity management need a “reset” to handle the “social enterprise.” Microsoft says it is “reimagining” how its Windows Azure Active Directory (WAAD) service helps developers create apps that connect the directory to SaaS apps and cloud platforms, corporate customers and social networks.

“The term ‘identity management’ will be redefined to include everything needed to provide and consume identity in our increasingly networked and federated world,” Kim Cameron, an icon in the identity field and now a distinguished engineer working on identity at Microsoft, said on his blog. “This is so profound that it constitutes a ‘reset’.”

At the center is WAAD, which is in use today mostly with Office 365 and Windows Intune customers. WAAD is a multitenant service designed for high availability and Internet scale.

In a companion blog post to Cameron’s, John Shewchuk [see also Part 2 of that], a Microsoft Technical Fellow and key cog in the company’s cloud identity engineering, provided some details on WAAD, including new Internet-focused connectivity, mobility and collaboration features to support applications that run in the cloud.

Shewchuk said the aim is to support technologies such as Java, and apps running on mobile devices including the iPhone or other cloud platforms such as Amazon’s AWS.

Shewchuk said WAAD will be the cloud extension to on-premises Active Directory deployments enterprises have already made. The two are married using identity federation and directory synchronization.

He said Microsoft made “significant changes to the internal architecture of Active Directory” in order to create WAAD.

As an example, he said, “Instead of having an individual server operate as the Active Directory store and issue credentials, we split these capabilities into independent roles. We made issuing tokens a scale-out role in Windows Azure, and we partitioned the Active Directory store to operate across many servers and between data centers.”

Some analysts are already noting the challenges Microsoft will have with its cloud directory.

Mark Diodati, a research vice president at Gartner focusing on identity issues, told me in a conversation about changes the cloud is forcing on enterprise ID management that, “the addition of tablets and smartphones into the enterprise device mix exceeds Active Directory’s management capabilities and there is an impedance mismatch using Kerberos across the cloud.”

While Shewchuk laid out the set-up for a Part 2 [see here: Part 2 where OAuth 2 is first mentioned as: “we currently support WS-Federation to enable SSO between the application and the directory. We also see the SAML/P, OAuth 2, and OpenID Connect protocols as a strategic focus and will be increasing support for these protocols”] of his blog that will focus on enhancements to WAAD, Kim Cameron painted the bigger picture on cloud identity going forward.

He said companies adopting cloud technology will see dramatic changes over the next decade in the way identity management is delivered. “We all need to understand this change,” he stressed.

Cameron said identity management as a service “will use the cloud to master the cloud”, and will provide the most reliable and cost-effective options.

“Enterprises will use these services to manage authentication and authorization of internal employees, the supply chain, and customers (including individuals), leads and prospects. Governments will use them when interacting with other government agencies, enterprises and citizens.”

And he added that enterprises will have to move beyond concepts that have guided their thinking to date.

Identity & Access [MSFTws2012 YouTube channel, Nov 20, 2012]

Current state-of-the-art:
- Welcome to the Active Directory Team Blog [MSDN blogs, April 15, 2013]
- Announcing some new capabilities in Azure Active Directory Graph Service [Windows Azure Active Directory Graph Team blog on MSDN, May 15, 2013]

- BUILD 2013, Windows 8.1, and Microsoft’s Deep-Tech Team: Hopeful News for Devs [Tim Huckaby on DevPro, May 16, 2013]

It’s hard to change a culture. Having worked for or with Microsoft for over 20 years, I can tell you that I have a myriad of colleagues that are Microsoft employees, most of whom I call my friends and respect very much. Over the last several months, I’ve had several discouraging private conversations about where the developer goals, mission, and strategy were headed for Microsoft. I could see the problems and mistakes. Microsoft employees could see them, too. You probably saw them, too. It’s been frustrating. When the head guy in charge of Microsoft development ignores feedback that includes internal feedback from Microsoft and external feedback from folks such as me and you, then that builds a culture of secrecy and fear. Although that head guy is gone now [obvious reference to Steven Sinofsky, ex Microsoft: The victim of an extremely complex web of the “western world” high-tech interests [‘Experiencing the Cloud, Nov 13-20, 2012], it’s still taken a long time to change that culture back to where it should be.

In all honesty, I can tell you that I haven’t been encouraged about the developer platform at Microsoft in a while. However, today I’m encouraged for the first time in a long time. I see the culture changing. I hear people at Microsoft saying that the culture is changing. And there’s several encouraging announcements that are emerging. Suddenly, I’m now excited about the Microsoft’s BUILD 2013 developer conference that’s being held in San Francisco from June 26 to June 28, and I’m not the old guy saying, “Get off my lawn!” However, I’d first like to present you all with some background that made me discouraged in the first place.

Microsoft’s Development Woes

I painfully read a recent blog post about Microsoft’s developer issues. I don’t even know who wrote it. This guy or gal didn’t put his or her name on the blog post. It’s painful because this person makes a ton of good points. Within this blog post, the author goes far enough back to put Win16 into perspective. It’s a very interesting read if you want to talk about the context of Microsoft’s developer problems through time and the speculation surrounding those problems. One of the main points in this article is that Microsoft has hung onto an obsolete Win32 API even though, a decade ago Intel took a completely different tact with the GPU and multi-core processors when it could have picked several versions of Windows over time to start over. However, Microsoft didn’t choose to do this, which has caused developers a lot of pain.

Related: “Windows 8 Start Button Shenanigans“

Most recently that developer pain has manifested with the introduction of the modern API in Windows 8. The modern API has many developers so confused and angered. A lot of these developers are experiencing anger because the most successfully adopted and beloved developer technology in Microsoft history was seemingly killed by this new modern API: Silverlight. Also seemingly killed was XNA. Several developers are also confused because Microsoft seems to be pushing the message to get users to build enterprise applications in HTML5 and deliver them through the Windows Store.

But, alas, there is hope! Recent announcements and speculations have me really encouraged.

Encouraging Announcements from Microsoft

On May 14, Microsoft officially announced the long rumored Windows Blue, which is officially called Windows 8.1. It will be a free update to Windows 8. Windows 8.1 promises to fix several different problems that folks have been complaining about. It’s important to note that Windows 8.1 isn’t a service pack. It’s a full blown upgrade to the OS. Microsoft promises several exciting things for the developer to be announced at BUILD, which includes the public release of Windows 8.1.

This month a minor Internet hysteria phenomena occurred with the revelation of the Microsoft deep-tech team. Mary Jo Foley wrote it best describing it as Microsoft’s new plan for reaching out to top-tier developers of all sizes to get them to take a look at the new and expanded Microsoft toolbox. There’s several “big guns” who will be leading the effort.

John Shewchuk is one of those “big guns.” I know John from a prior life at Microsoft. He’s a 20-year Microsoft veteran and one of the company’s Technical Fellows. He’s leading the team and serving as the Chief Technology Officer for the Microsoft Developer Platform. This is good news.

My guess is that the deep-tech team was the brainchild of Microsoft veteran Steve Guggenheimer, who took the reins of heading the Developer and Platform Evangelism (DPE) team in October 2012. Affectionately known as “Guggs,” Steve Guggenheimer has a long and storied career at Microsoft.

Patrick Chanezon is a new hire to Microsoft who will lead the enterprise evangelism efforts in Microsoft’s DPE unit from San Francisco. He joined Microsoft from VMware just weeks ago. This is a key hire that also seems to be really good news.

More about those Microsoft people I respect; the people who get it; the people who affect change.  Scott Guthrie is one of them. But everyone knows who knows the Microsoft Platform knows who Scott Guthrie is. Another one of them is Gabor Fari. You probably don’t know his name. But Gabor is one of the many Microsoft folks who “gets it.” Internally, he’s willing to criticize the company he works for and loves when it deserves it. He’s also the first to garner praise where Microsoft deserves it. Gabor’s title is Director of Life Sciences Solutions, and his grasp of the developer platform at Microsoft is his passion. When discussing the problems of the past and the excitement of the future with Gabor he left me with this, and I believe it’s the perfect way to end this article:

“I am very excited about the latest developments and news that has been released, and I am eagerly anticipating additional news from the BUILD conference. The slumbering lion still has spectacular fangs and teeth; and now he has woken up and is ready to roar.”

Regarding Gabor Fari I will include here the following link:
- Sanofi: Global Healthcare Leader Deploys Intelligent Content Framework, Speeds Time-to-Market [Microsoft Case Study, April 16, 2013] from which the following excerpts describe Fari’s involvement and role in strategic developments the best:

In January 2011, Sanofi launched a program called CRUISE—Content Re-Use Information System for Electronic Health. Through CRUISE, the company set out to develop a content management solution that transverses the company’s research and development efforts. The program charter of CRUISE is to implement processes and tools that enable stakeholders to author, assemble, review, approve, reuse, publish, and deliver high-quality, consistent, and compliant content and documentation throughout the product development life cycle—aiding the submission to regulatory agencies and other industry audiences. “The idea is to find ways to intelligently and seamlessly manage content authoring and production,” says Bhanu Bahl, Senior Manager of Clinical Sciences and Operation Platform at Sanofi. “The key business objective is to reduce the effort required to prepare documents through a synergy of optimized processes and enabling technologies.”

CRUISE has three pillars. One pillar involves simplifying the documentation process in a way that makes it possible to reuse content in various materials. Another pillar revolves around services that involve the many different documentation deliverables. The third pillar focuses on the technology solution, which is designed as a content library that tags and classifies information so that it can be easily assembled and searched. “With CRUISE, we are not doing a process redesign,” says Bahl. “We’re building something more tangible, more simplified, and more standardized.”

To address the CRUISE mandate, Sanofi worked closely with Microsoft as well as two members of the Microsoft Partner Network, DITA Exchange and the ArborSys Group. Microsoft provided the Intelligent Content Framework (ICF) and underlying technologies based on Microsoft SharePoint Server and Microsoft Office. DITA Exchange delivered a solution that enables organizations to establish and maintain a “single source of truth” for their strategic content, and to deliver that content consistently across outputs. The ArborSys Group consulted on the tool and process redesign and helped achieve an end-to-end business and technology implementation for regulated industries.

…

Gabor Fari, Director of Life Sciences Solutions at Microsoft, served as an evangelist in helping to put together the CRUISE team. DITA Exchange had been working closely with Microsoft since 2008 to develop the ICF for regulated industries. It completed the first version of the XML-based solution in February 2009.

As the technology pillar of CRUISE and the engine of EnCORE, DITA Exchange software elevates SharePoint to an XML-based component content management and single-source publishing solution. It enables its customers to comply with regulatory requirements with tools for reusing content in a consistent and accurate way throughout the product development life cycle in the life sciences space. “Microsoft promoted our work to several pharmaceutical companies,” says Andersen. “It led the way in terms of bringing innovative ideas around SCM solutions.”

DITA Exchange began working on the CRUISE implementation in April 2011. The partner participated in planning and supplied the solution used to manage the document output maps, topics, and linking of topics to the maps. “DITA Exchange helped us with content design and the governance structures of information design,” says Allred. “The people at DITA Exchange are masters of their technological domain. They have experience in regulated industries and the knowledge required to get our vision into an operational model.”

The ArborSys Group joined the effort in April 2011. This partner provides business consultancy and technical implementation and helped Sanofi achieve measurable and sustainable results through the implementation of flexible IT solutions that can be adapted for change in a dynamic business climate.

The two partners collaborated on developing the EnCORE platform. The ArborSys Group scoped processes, integrated service management roles and extensions, and trained internal resources.

“Microsoft, DITA Exchange, and the ArborSys Group all provided expertise and leadership in terms of how we define processes and address the three pillars of CRUISE,” says Bahl. “The various disciplines they provided really helped us strategize our best opportunity in terms of development. We share a common vision that has resulted in a very rich, cutting-edge offering that other pharmaceutical companies will probably adopt three to five years from now.”

While many other regulated industries have embraced SCM in recent years, life science organizations have lagged. “It’s no secret that the pharmaceutical industry is conservative,” says Andersen. “People think very carefully before they start anything. Sanofi is absolutely the leader in innovating in the pharmaceutical content management space.”

…

See also: BOOX on 2013 HK Electronics Fair [Onyx news report, April 15, 2013]

Imagine what kind of e-paper renaissance may come with this: E INK INTRODUCES MOBIUS, THE FIRST LARGE FORMAT FLEXIBLE DISPLAY TECHNOLOGY TO GO INTO MASS PRODUCTION [press release, May 13, 2013]

May 13, 2013 – Cambridge, MA — E Ink® Holdings, “E Ink” (8069.TW), a digital signage and display visionary, today announced the upcoming release of E Ink Mobius, a new flexible electronic paper display (EPD) technology. E Ink Mobius will be the first flexible display technology that will go into mass production for a large format digital paper product based on flexible Thin Film Transistor (TFT) technology developed by Sony.

Mobius uses a TFT technology that will enable the development of much lighter and rugged products. Mobius displays can weigh less than 50% of the weight of an equivalent glass based TFT. This is particularly important for mobile products requiring larger display areas. A 13.3″ display weighs approximately 60 grams.

The ruggedness and lightweight characteristics of Mobius are due to the TFT being constructed on a plastic substrate rather than traditional glass. The technology was developed by Sony specifically for use with EPDs in cooperation with E Ink. Sony has now transferred the technology to E Ink for mass production. E Ink will start mass production of the world’s first 13.3 flexible EPD display in 2013.

“We have been working with Sony for over 10 years, and we are extremely happy to bring this technology to mass production,” said Giovanni Mancini, director of product management for E Ink Holdings. “Development of this new digital paper product by Sony confirms our belief that the ePaper market is still strong.”

Learn more about E Ink’s Mobius display technology and Sony’s digital paper product, which is the first prototype to use Mobius, by visiting the Sony booth during the 4th Educational IT Solutions Expo (EDIX) from May 15-17, 2013 in Tokyo, Japan; or by visiting the E Ink booth at the upcoming Society for Information Display (SID)’s Display Week 2013 International Symposium and Exhibition from May 21-23 in Vancouver, Canada.

About E Ink Holdings
Founded in 1992 by Taiwan’s leading papermaking and printing group YFY (1907.TW), E Ink Holdings Inc. (8069.TW) is the pioneer of TFT and ePaper business in Taiwan. Its corporate philosophy aims to deliver revolutionary products, user experiences, and environmental benefits through advanced technology development. This vision has led to its continuous investments in the field of ePaper display as well as its 2008 acquisition of Hydis Technologies, manufacturer of the world’s best wide viewing angle LCDs and its 2009 acquisition of E Ink Corporation, the worldwide leader in ePaper. Listed in Taiwan’s GreTai Securities Market and the Luxembourg market, E Ink Holdings is now the world’s largest supplier of displays to the eReader market. For corporate information, please visit www.einkgroup.com; for EPD information, please visit www.eink.com / tw.eink.com; and for FFS information, please visit www.hydis.com.

The development of a 13.3-inch “digital paper” aims to achieve “digital paper solutions” [Sony Corporation Japan press release, May 13, 2013] as translated by Google and Bing with manual edits

Sony aims to deliver the digital paper solution for “digitization of documents and materials, including paper” which helps in field offices and universities that use large amounts of paper in order to improve productivity and learning effectiveness by the means of a newly developed 13.3-inch^*1 “digital paper” terminal equivalent to A4 size .

Due to delivery, storage, writing and sharing of electronic files that take advantage of the “digital paper” terminal through the network, Sony proposes a new work and learning style.

Easy to write, easy to read digital paper terminal

The newly developed display for the digital paper terminal adopts the latest type of 13.3” and 1200 x 1600 dots resolution flexible electronic paper^*2 technology using Sony’s original technique of forming a high precision thin film transistor (TFT) on a plastic substrate. It is as easy to read the fine print on it clearly as on the paper because of the sufficiently large screen while you can carry it easily as well (6.8mm^*3 thickness and light body, yet large screen for a mass of 358g). Moreover you can also read in layout and size of a 13.3-inch paper document since it corresponds to A4 size. Furthermore, with adoption of electromagnetic induction method and the optical touch panel technology an accompanying pen can also be applied to the operation of the paging and menus by touching the screen, to write as smoothly as on the paper.

With the file format corresponds to PDF you can save highlights, sticky notes and handwriting with the documents.

In addition, since it is equipped with Wi-Fi function, it is planned to support applications to share files across a network. Furthermore, because it is equipped with a microSD memory card slot^*4, you can cope with keeping and utilizing a large amount of documents.

Despite the large screen flexible electronic paper is available for about up to 3 weeks^*5 on a single charge because of its low power consumption.

Sony aims to commercialize this new terminal in the 2013 fiscal year[ending March 2014].

*1: 13.3-inch is equivalent to the size of an A4 paper excluding the margin size.

*2: Flexible electronic paper, has adopted E Ink ®’s “E Ink Mobius” technology.

*3: When excluding the pen holder section.

*4: It is not supported to microSDXC copyright protection and function (CPRM).

*5: With Wi-Fi feature off, if you are viewing PDF files (text) for one hour a day and using handwriting features for less than 5 minutes.

Actual operational duration of the rechargeable battery depends on the state of equipment configuration and the environment of usage.

With the aim to achieve “digital paper solutions” late 2013 field trials are planned with three universities

Sony and Sony Business Solutions plan to start experimental implementation of “digital paper solutions” in the field of education by providing “digital paper” terminals to be utilized in the classrooms of Waseda University, Ritsumeikan University, and Hosei University during the fall semester of 2013. The aim is to enhance learning efficiency with the “digital paper” terminal replacing paper and teaching materials used in the university, as well as streamline the process of teaching.

The August 2012 report of the Central Education Council titled “Toward a qualitative transformation of university education in order to build a new future” shows the need for conversion to active learning with interactive discussions and debates, lectures, seminars, experiments and practice.

Sony aims to achieve early implementation of effective active learning by “digital paper solutions” through experiments utilizing the “digital paper” terminal.

Exhibited at the “4th Educational IT Solutions EXPO”

A prototype of “digital paper” terminal will be exhibited at the Sony booth during the 4th Educational IT Solutions Expo (EDIX) from May 15-17, 2013 in Tokyo, Japan.

* Please visit the event website.

Main specifications of the prototype of the “digital paper” terminal

Display	Flexible electronic paper with 13.3-inch and 1,200 × 1,600 dots 16-level gray scale
Touch panel	Electromagnetic induction type pen input for touch screen Cleartouch Panel (optical)
Built-in memory capacity	4GB
Interface	microSD memory card slot*4, micro USB port
Support file format (extension)	Complies with the PDF 1.7 specification (. Pdf)
Wireless LAN	IEEE 802.11b/g/n (2.4GHz) compliant
Rechargeable battery	Built-in lithium-ion rechargeable battery
Rechargeable battery duration	Up to 3 weeks (when the Wi-Fi feature off)*5
Dimensions (height × depth × width)	233 × 310 × 6.8mm*3 (display unit 4.8mm)
Weight (including battery)	358g

3d party reports of Sony announcement:
- Sony reveals prototype 13.3-inch e-ink slate with stylus, aims to put it in students’ bags [Engadget, May 13, 2013]
- Sony’s Got A 13.3-Inch E-Reader With Pen Input, Which Is Sort Of Like A Dodo With Antlers [TechCrunch, May 13, 2013]
- Sony Unveils 13.3-inch Flexible Digital Paper E-reader [Laptopmag.com, May 13, 2013]
- Sony unveils 13.3-inch e-reader destined for students [Gizmag, May 13, 2013]
- Sony’s 13.3-inch digital paper prototype lets you scribble on e-books [Geek.com, May 13, 2013]
- Sony announces ‘digital paper’: Ultra-thin 13.3-inch flexible e-reader for universities [Digital Trends, May 13, 2013]
- Sony ‘trialling e-ink slate as textbook alternative’ [digital spy, May 13, 2013]

Sony will trial the device at three Japanese universities later this year and plans to bring it to market before the current fiscal year ends in March 2014.

It is yet to be confirmed whether the slate will be commercially released in the West.

And these are only the reports in English. There is a surprisingly large number of reports in other languages as well when one does the corresponding image based Google search on the web. Quite remarkable considering a late view that e-ink is going to die. This is definitely not the view of E Ink, as you could see from their A Tale of Two eReaders [EInkSeeMore YouTube channel, Nov 12, 2012] video:

Can’t decide between an eReader and a Tablet? See the difference an E Ink enabled device can bring to your reading experience. Created by the company that makes the paper-like display in the Kindle Paperwhite, Nook GlowLight, KoboGlo and Sony Reader.

And don’t forget the company already achieved “roll to roll” production, so with new plastic substrate technology they will be able to further increase their manufacturing efficiency:

Your E Ink eReader screen is actually made in long rolls before being cut into eReader size pieces. One day, we took a roll into Boston, and laid it along the Charles River…

Filed under: consumer computing, consumer devices, E-readers, Geopolitics, tablets Tagged: 13.3” e-paper, 4th Educational IT Solutions Expo, A4 format e-paper, Android, Android based E Ink solutions, “roll to roll” production, conversion to active learning, digital paper solutions, digital paper terminal, E Ink Mobius, E-Ink, E-Ink-Holdings, e-paper, e-paper renaissance, EDIX, education, EPD, eReaders, flexible electronic paper, flexible electronic paper display, flexible EPD, flexible TFT technology, flexible Thin Film Transistor technology, Hosei University, learning efficiency, Onyx E430, Onyx E430 E Ink phone, Onyx International, Ritsumeikan University, Sony, Sony “digital paper” terminal, university trials, Waseda University ]]>

Preliminary reading:
- The New Asha Range [global Nokia microsite, May 9, 2013] with separate Fastlane, Design and Browsing pages
- The Asha Apps Revolution [Nokia Conversations post, May 9, 2013]
- New Asha platform and ecosystem to deliver a breakthrough category of affordable smartphone from Nokia [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, May 9, 2013] my composite post of the all relevant launch information
- Nokia’s non-Windows crossroad [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, May 2, 2013] my composite post analyzing the technologies which are provided now with the new Asha platform

Nokia Asha — Platform overview [May 9, 2013]

…

The key features of the platform are:

• Platformised in software and hardware — complementing the Nokia Asha software platform is an increased focus on platformising the phone hardware, developers will now have greater certainty that a hardware feature they want to exploit in an app will be available across the new Nokia Asha family.
• Firmware updating — smartphone users expect regular firmware update to bring new features and functions to their phones, the Nokia Asha platform has been built with this demand in mind and updates are already in development.
• User experience — a engaging, sophisticated UI, optimised for 3″ (61.0 x 45.7 mm [unlike 66.0 x 40.0 mm on the previous Asha Full Touch devices]) QVGA (240 x 320 pixels [unlike the 240 x 400 pixels on the previous Asha Full Touch devices]) displays. The UI employs a swiping style for navigation between apps and the home screen, and within the home screen. It also enables apps to use the whole screen by hiding the status and menu bars until they are swiped into view.
• More advanced, fully featured apps are easier with Java. Harness features such as 2D and 3D graphic, accelerometers, and location information among others giving you more options to deliver the quality of apps consumers expect on a smartphone.
• With web apps online, content is delivered using up to 90% less data, while offering users an interactive, engaging UI because, unlike other proxy browser system, Nokia Asha web apps can update their UI locally on the phone.

…

Java highlights All new Oracle VM. JAR files up to 5Mb and up to 3Mb heap memory (recommended). New Asha UI for intuitive, fast interaction. Mobile Internationalization API (JSR-238) and new Nokia specific APIs for features such as image scaling and network state. Earn from you apps with paid downloads, advertising, and in-app payments. Updated tools, with updated emulator and WiFi based on-device debugger. Comprehensive documentation, training, code examples and more.

Web app highlights Powered by the latest Gecko rendering engine. Rich UIs with dynamic list and fixed and scrollable regions. API to build hardware back-button navigation into your app. Ability to capture photos and videos. Discovery through the Nokia Store. Earn from you apps with paid downloads and advertising. Updated tools with new simulator and code examples. Comprehensive documentation, training, code examples and more.

UX Overview – Nokia Asha Design Guidelines [April 17, 2013]

Nokia Asha is built around the concept of stacked layers that can be directly manipulated by the user.

…

Base layout – Nokia Asha Design Guidelines [May 9, 2013]

Nokia Asha UI combines the use of the swipe gesture and back hardware key for navigation, and therefore apps have no mandatory control areas on screen. Each app view can be easily designed for its main purpose, maximising the amount of relevant content on the UI. The base layout in Nokia Asha has two main areas: status bar and content area.

In addition to using the content area for app content, apps can add optional controls, Category bar (with tabs or actions) and Header bar. When the view offers few, rarely used options only, placing them under the Options menu is possible. The Options menu is accessed by swiping from the bottom of the screen. When the Options menu is available, the screen shows an Options menu indicator at the bottom.

NOTE: When using LCDUI List, TextBox, Alert, or Form, the Header bar will be automatically added to the top of the view. When drawing on Canvas, the Header bar can be left out.

…

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Developing applications with Java – Nokia Asha Design Guidelines [May 9, 2013]

Nokia Asha provides a few alternatives for developing Java applications. The following information can be used to select the best approach for designing and developing your application.

CHOOSING YOUR APPROACH

Custom UI on Canvas	Using LCDUI high-level components	Using LWUIT components
Full screen apps or apps with chrome (Status bar and Header). Everything drawn on Canvas pixel by pixel. Good approach for game development.	LCDUI high-level components and Nokia UI API’s are in use. Components are styled with Asha look & feel. Custom components can be created with CustomItem.	Offers a more comprehensive component set with many customisation options. Components are styled with Asha look and feel, but also custom theming is easy for branded look and feel.

Custom UI on Canvas

Canvas class is the main template for customised MIDlet functions. Using Canvas, the MIDlet can use any drawing primitives provided by the LCDUI Graphics interface and can receive key events. The drawback is that the MIDlet will not be as portable as ones created using only high-level APIs.

A common example of a MIDlet that uses Canvas is a mobile game that requires pixel-accurate drawing and access to low-level keypad events. Read more information about Canvas from the Java Developer’s Library.

Using LCDUI high-level components

Limited Connected Device User Interface (LCDUI) is the base of any Graphical User Interface (GUI) created in Java™ ME (Java Platform, Micro Edition). It has a similar role to the Abstract Windowing Toolkit (AWT) and Swing APIs, which are used in Java SE (Java Platform, Standard Edition) and Java EE (Java Platform, Enterprise Edition), but offers a more restricted and resource-efficient approach to UI development.

LCDUI has a simple screen-based approach, where a single Displayable is always active in the display area of the application user interface. This Displayable can contain predefined screen elements, or be manipulated in more specific ways.

On a logical level, the MIDP (Mobile Information Device Profile) UI is divided into two levels: high and low. In general, the choice is made between the easy, quick and portable high-level APIs and the more customisable low-level APIs.

Figure 1. LCDUI overview

Read more about the LCDUI from the Java Developer’s library.

Using LWUIT components

LWUIT (LightWeight UI Toolkit) is an open source alternative that provides a comprehensive selection of customisable UI components, layouts, and effects. Use of the ready-made Nokia Asha theme for the components is recommended, but developers can also easily create their own custom themes for branded look and feel. LWUIT is highly portable, as it scales to different screen resolutions and orientations, and has built-in support for touch and non-touch UI.

LWUIT applications are created on top of LCDUI Canvas. Though LWUIT has been optimised for Nokia Asha phones, LCDUI is a better option for performance critical applications, especially on phones with cost-optimised hardware. Also, when a compact application binary size is crucial, LCDUI should be considered instead, because the LWUIT library is added to every LWUIT application and it increases the application size by 200-800 kB (depending on the application features).

Figure 2. LWUIT overview

Nokia Asha — Java — Tools [May 9, 2013]

Nokia Asha SDK 1.0 (beta)

Create apps for the Nokia Asha family on Nokia Asha software platform using the Nokia Asha SDK 1.0 (beta). Then test your apps in an emulator based on the Nokia Asha 501. The Nokia Asha SDK 1.0 (beta) offers:

Nokia Asha UI emulation The Nokia Asha SDK 1.0 contains an emulator based on the Nokia Asha 501, providing mouse based emulation of the phone’s touch features making testing easy.	LWUIT for richer Uis A Nokia Asha platform optimised implementation of the LWUIT is included as a plug-in. Delivering rich UIs has never been easier.
Integrated HERE Maps API It’s now even easier to add rich maps to your location based apps, as the HERE Maps API for Java ME is integrated into the SDK.	Enhanced location features The emulator delivers updated location details from the integrated Route Editor to your Java apps, enabling richer testing of your location based apps.
Multiple-touch simulation The Pinch-to-zoom simulator enables multipoint-touch gestures to be recorded and sent to the emulator.	Sensor emulation You can simulate fully the orientation of a Nokia Asha phone in the emulator, enabling the testing of apps and games using the Mobile Sensor API (JSR-256).
Enhanced media playback The emulator offers accurate media playback enabling complete testing of media delivered through your apps.	Keyboard input Enter text directly from your PC keyboard into fields in the emulator, to speed up testing.
Emulator tools Simplify and speed up your testing with the diagnostic window, MIDP speed simulator, configurable MIDP monitoring, and events generator among other tools.	Java API emulation The emulator provides full support for MIDP and CDLC, along with the APIs provided in the Nokia Asha platform.
Real phone emulation As the emulator is based on the Nokia Asha 501, it provides you with a realistic implementation of UI, user apps, messaging, and network communication features. Now you can accurately and conveniently test your apps on a PC.	Selecting your SDK made easy The exclusive Device SDK Selector makes it easy to locate and install the SDKs you need to target earlier Series 40 phones. Pick SDKs by platform or phone model, download and install to get coding.

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Nokia IDE 2.0 for Java ME (beta)

While the Nokia Asha SDK 1.0 (beta) is designed to work with the NetBeans and Eclipse IDEs, for the easiest and most straightforward development experience, the SDK includes the Nokia IDE 2.0 for Java ME (beta). Building on the power of the Eclipse platform for Java development, the Nokia IDE for Java ME delivers exclusive features for your Nokia Asha platform and Series 40 Java apps.

Welcome to your new IDE A comprehensive welcome screen provides details on developing Java apps for the Nokia Asha platform and Series 40, available APIs, links to key Nokia Developer resources, and more.	Selecting your SDK made easy The integrated Device SDK Selector makes it easy to locate and install the SDKs you need to target Nokia Asha and Series 40 phones. Pick SDKs by platform or phone model, download and install to get coding.
Nokia specific JAD editor A customised JAD attributes editor makes it easy to add the information you need to effectively target your apps’ build to the Nokia Asha and Series 40 platforms.	In-app purchase and location templates Get started quickly with your apps that take advantage of in-app advertising or location with new templates that includes everything you need.
Access to examples Load any of over 40 example apps straight into your workspace. Covering many aspects of the Java APIs on the Nokia Asha platform, these examples can kick-start your development.	Nokia Hub Quickly find more information on publishing apps, remote access to phones for testing, Nokia Developer news, and code examples though the Nokia Hub menu.

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Remote Device Access

Test on a range of Nokia Asha and Series 40 phones

With the Nokia Developer Remote Device Access Service you can connect to a comprehensive range of Nokia Asha platform and Series 40 phones over the internet. Install your app then run it, just as you would on your own phone, to check out its behaviour on different hardware and UI form factors.

Learn more ›

And don’t forget that Nokia Premium Developer Program for Asha membership give you access to more phones, so you won’t have to wait to start testing.

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Nokia Asha — Web apps [May 9, 2013]

The Nokia Asha software platform provides a powerful, data efficient web apps environment. Targeting this environment, you leverage your web development skills to create connected apps that deliver web content with an engaging, interactive UX that’ll appeal to consumers globally or can be targeted at specific local markets.

• New user experience — the Nokia Asha UI builds on the popular Series 40 UI. Delivered through a 3.0’’ (61.0 x 45.7 mm [unlike 66.0 x 40.0 mm on the previous Asha Full Touch devices]) QVGA capacitive touch screen (240 x 320 pixels [unlike the 240 x 400 pixels on the previous Asha Full Touch devices]), it supports two touch points for pinch-to-zoom and similar gestures. The UI swipe paradigm has been extended to include the Options Menu and fast access to the Home screen. A hardware back-button enables consumers to easily navigate an app’s hierarchy.
• New APIs — so you to make most of the Nokia Asha UI, web apps include an API to listen for the hardware back-button. In addition, enhanced HTML tag support also means you can add image and video capture to your web apps.
• New tools — the Nokia Asha web app tools deliver a Nokia Asha software platform option to the simulator and fresh examples that show you how to use the latest APIs.

Start with the Nokia Asha web app tools 3.0 See how to create, test, package, and deploy to a phone your first Nokia Asha web app. Follow the step-by-step guide ›

Start with Xpress Web App Builder Xpress Web App Builder offers a no-code approach to creating Nokia Asha web apps and delivering them directly to your Nokia Publish account. Watch the video ›

When Nokia Asha web app tools 3.0 graduates beta you will be able to use it to target all the phones that support Xpress Browser. During the beta phase the ability to capture images and video will only be available on the Nokia Asha 501. You can target all other features at Series 40 phones with Nokia Asha web app tools 3.0 or download Nokia Web Tools 2.3.

…

Nokia Asha web apps UI [May 4, 2013]

Nokia Asha web apps UIs benefit from the features of the Nokia Asha UI, such as its swipe interaction to reveal the Options Menu, which enable web apps to focus the entire phone screen on content. When designing a web app UI, you have the freedom offered by web technologies coupled with the dynamic UI features offered by the Nokia Asha web apps runtime, such as the ability to dynamically update lists or set fixed and scrollable areas within your apps. Web apps can also make use of the hardware back-button to offer users safe and simple navigation of an app’s hierarchy.

A great UX is about more than simply implementing a UI style; whether you are new to design or a seasoned pro, access a range of resources to help you create the best and most engaging experience in your apps and games. To get started check out the Nokia Asha web app design library before discovering other useful resources, such as design guidelines, UI stencils, and icon templates in the Design and User Experience Library.

What’s new in web app UX design [May 4, 2013]

The Nokia Asha software platform 1.0 offers a significantly updated UI compared to its predecessor, the full-touch UI on Series 40. This section describes the key UX changes that effect web apps:

• screen size – the New Nokia Asha UI on the Nokia Asha software platform 1.0 supports 240 x 320 pixel screens. For more information, see the Displays topic.
• multiple page support – the Nokia Xpress Browser 3.0 supports up to four active browser windows, enabling up to four web app to be run at once.
• touch gestures – the New Nokia Asha UI extends the platform wide mechanism for accessing key features using a swipe from the edge of the screen. As this mechanism overrides application behaviour, care needs to be taken in the design of web apps to ensure gestures within the web app aren’t confused with the system wide gestures. Ffor more information, see the Touch Gestures topic.
• back button behaviour – the New Nokia Asha UI employs a physical back button, this back button implements back-stepping in platform and Java apps. For web apps a new Mobile Web Library method addBackNavListener() enables the key to be captured so that web apps can implement the same back-stepping behaviour. For more information, see the Navigation Controls topic.
• Options menu – the Options menu is opened with a swipe gesture from the bottom of the screen in the New Nokia Asha UI. The menu by default contains the Data counter item, but no longer includes an exit item. For more information, see the Options Menu topic.
• launching web apps – from within the Nokia Xpress browser web apps will be launched from the Featured Apps option. For more information, see the Launching web apps topic.
• file upload and download – the Nokia Xpress Browser Download Manager is available from within web apps. For more information, see File uploads and downloads topic.
• passwords – web app passwords can now be cleared from the phone’s Settings feature. For more information see Passwords topic.
• Data Usage option – web apps can now access a report on their data use. For more information see the Data Usage topic.

Nokia Asha — Web apps — Tools [May 9, 2013]

Nokia Asha web app tools 3.0 (beta)

Nokia Asha web app tools 3.0 (beta) delivers a suite of applications that assist in the development, testing, packaging, and deployment of Nokia Asha web apps, including preparing them for distribution through Nokia Store. The key components of Nokia Asha web app tools are Web Developer Environment (WDE) and Web App Simulator (WAS).

Download Nokia Asha web app tools 3.0 (beta)

During the beta release the features to provide the capture of images and video from within web apps won’t be available on earlier Series 40 platform phones supporting Xpress Browser.

Web Developer Environment [WDE]

Built on the Eclipse platform, Web Developer Environment delivers the code creation tools needed to efficiently create and package web apps.

Extensive templates for new projects Nokia Asha web app tools 3.0 offers wider variety of templates for common web apps styles, which you can use to quick-start the development of your web apps. Import existing projects to take advantage of enhanced editing features.	UI Designer With the UI Designer you can build web app interfaces by dragging and dropping UI component snippets and laying them out visually, enabling you to create web apps UIs faster.
Powerful code editing With code completion and full validation, your coding will be quicker and more accurate, enabling you to build Nokia Asha web apps faster.	Comprehensive range of examples The range of web app examples has been further expanded in Nokia Asha web app tools 3.0, to illustrate use of the hard back-key and media capture. You can now easily access more examples of how to code common web app APIs and features.
Targeted HTML/CSS validation Validation of HTML and CSS includes specific Nokia Asha web apps rules. You get better feedback to ensure your web app will work optimally on Nokia Asha platform and Series 40 phones.	Partial web app upload When uploading a web app to the preview server, the Web Developer Environment only uploads changed content. This makes starting a cloud preview fast, minimising the time needed to test your web apps.
Packaging Your web apps are automatically packed by the tool and delivered in the format required for distribution through Nokia Store.	Published web apps’ JAR Once your web app has been published to Nokia Store you can request a copy of the deployment JAR. This enables you to distribute your web app on websites and through other app stores.
Deploy for phone testing Completed Nokia Asha web apps can be deployed directly from the Web Developer Environment over a USB connection for testing on a Nokia Asha platform or Series 40 phone, while for Series 40 phones deployment over Bluetooth is also available.

Web App Simulator

Run your Nokia Asha web apps on a computer during development using the Web App Simulator. It simplifies functional testing and final design validation.

Phone simulation Preview your Nokia Asha web apps to see how they’ll look and behave on Nokia Asha platform and Series 40 phones, and interact with the web.	Control phone features Take control of your simulation and test your web apps against all the UI variations available on the phones that support Nokia Asha web apps.
Automatic reloading Local preview are automatically reloaded as code edits are made — speeding up testing by ensuring Web App Simulator always show the latest changes.	Location simulation built-in Web App Simulator enables you to define location information to your simulated Nokia Asha web app, making testing of location-aware apps a breeze.
Debugging made easy Web App Simulator includes a custom version of Web Inspector for the easy debugging and performance analysis of your Nokia Asha web apps.

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Xpress Web App Builder

Xpress Web App Builder is an online tool that guides you through the process of creating rich web apps, with no coding required. Select from a variety of templates, customise your theme, and then add clipped web content, RSS feeds, and social media information. The key features of the tool are:

• layout templates to present content, including single pane, tabbed view, and accordion view, as well as focused templates for news, pictures, and video content.
• a wide range of content widgets for clipped web content; RSS feeds; video from YouTube; pictures from Flickr, Picasa, and other photo sharing sites; and blogs from Tumblr and WordPress.
• the ability to add SMS and call capabilities, static HERE Maps, and in-app advertising from Nokia Ad Exchange.
• the option to customise your app’s colour scheme, including header and font colours.
• static and dynamic previews of your app, for all supported screen resolutions.

When you’ve completed your web app, the tool provides a short URL for testing the app on your phone, and lets you submit the app to Nokia Publish to start the process of publication in Nokia store. However, if you want to customise your web app further, you can download the source code and import it into Nokia Asha web app tools.

Launch Xpress Web App Builder

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Remote Device Access

Test on a range of Nokia Asha and Series 40 phones

With the Nokia Developer Remote Device Access Service you can connect to a comprehensive range of Nokia Asha platform and Series 40 phones over the internet. Use your web app’s short URL to launch it in the Xpress Browser then run it, just as you would on your own phone, to check out its behaviour on different hardware and UI form factors.
Learn more ›
And don’t forget that Nokia Premium Developer Program for Nokai Asha membership give you access to more phones, so you won’t have to wait to start testing.

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… Nokia In-App Payment [May 9, 2013]

We have also introduced the new Nokia In-App Payment tool, designed to make it easier for you to sell content from within your apps. It provides a simple and secure purchase experience for consumers and transparent payments for developers. Nokia In-App Payment will also be available for existing Asha and Series 40 phones*(from 6^th edition platform and above, except C1-01 and C1-02. Nokia will release a public beta of Nokia In-App Payment in the coming weeks, and you can sign up for the beta here.

Nokia In-App Payment invitation-only beta program [May 9, 2013]

In-App Payment is one of the dominant monetization models in the mobile app industry. This model also referred to as ‘Freemium’ model, helps you build apps with higher and recurring revenue opportunity.

The model enables you to attract a larger user base with a free baseline experience and then extend this experience by offering digital content for sale. Nokia In-App Payment marks Nokia’s renewed approach to In-App Payment. The solution has been designed afresh with several new features and it enables you to sell digital content to Asha consumers from within your application.

• The best payout in the industry
• Easy to integrate and maintain
• Single click payment
• Nokia brand adds credibility to the transaction
• Unparalleled coverage of devices

Sign up to invite beta          
Frequently Asked Questions

This translates to more consumers, more purchases after download and higher payout per purchase – all leading to more recurring revenue for you!

We are pleased to announce the Nokia In-App Payment invitation-only beta program. With a beta invitation, you will get to:

• Try the Nokia In-App Payment Beta library
• Publish apps with Nokia In-App Payment
• Share your feedback

Please sign up to be eligible to join the Nokia In-App Payment invitation-only beta program. We will start sending out invitations starting May 10th 2013.

Integration of Nokia In-App Payment in your app is easy!

• Download and install Java Development Environment for Asha and Nokia In-App Payment library
• Implement in-app payment feature in your application using the test product IDs
• Test your app in the emulator or on device with the test purchase flow
• Register in-app purchase products, declare price points with Nokia Publish
• Update your application using the product IDs
• Test your app using the in-app purchase flow
• Submit your final app to Nokia Publish and be ready to generate revenue!

The Nokia In-App Payment includes several improvements

• Access to a larger consumer base through Series 40 backward compatibility**
• Simpler consumer purchase experience through single click payment
• Support for faster development and testing.

The introduction of Nokia In-App Payment means that the current in-app purchasing solution will be deprecated. In the near term, the intake of new apps using the deprecated in-app purchasing solution will be closed on June 10th 2013. However, published apps that use the deprecated in-app purchasing solution will continue to be available on Nokia Store until 2016. Please refer to the ‘Frequently Asked Questions’ for more information.

** For more detailed device coverage during the invitation-only beta, please refer to the Frequently Asked Questions.

Peter Skillman (Head of Ux Design for Mobile Phones & HERE at Nokia) demonstrating
Swipe and Fastlane experiences on a greatly enlarged touchscreen,
actually from a ladder, at the launch in New-Delhi, India

• At its heart is a landmark new feature called Fastlane which was inspired by the much-loved swipe motion gestures on the iconic Nokia N9. Fastlane is designed so that you’re never more than a swipe away.
• Fastlane was inspired by how people really use their phone. Recently accessed contacts, social networks and apps, unique to each person, are stored and presented in Fastlane.
• Fastlane is an interactive second home screen which tracks your past, present and future, showing up to 50 of your most recent activities. It brings all the different elements of your smartphone experience together.
• It continues Nokia’s focus on the ‘smarter Internet’ with an updated version of the Nokia Xpress browser with a fresh new user experience
• There is Nokia Xpress Now, a new Web application that recommends content based on location, preferences and trending topics.
• Fully leverages Nokia’s investments in Smarterphone, which it acquired in 2012 and builds on the best aspects of Series 40 to create something fresh and innovative. It also comes with design cues from Lumia.
• Nokia gives developers the chance to make more money through the global reach of Nokia Store and tools like Nokia In-App Payment and Nokia Advertising Exchange (NAX), as well as Nokia’s unparalleled operator billing network. So developers will be incentivized to deliver quality apps, previously found only on high-end smartphones.

At the launch in New-Delhi, India there were the following notable remarks as well:

• ~80M people are using the Nokia Xpress browser now
• 20M Asha Touch devices were sold since its launch 10 months ago
• Nokia expects to sell 100 million of the new generation Asha smartphones over the coming years, beginning with the Nokia Asha 501
• Nokia expects to sell 100 million of the new generation Asha smartphones over the coming years, beginning with the Nokia Asha 501
• Nokia gives developers the chance to make more money through the global reach of Nokia Store and tools like Nokia In-App Payment and Nokia Advertising Exchange (NAX), as well as Nokia’s unparalleled operator billing network.
• There are 120 ad agencies involved in NAX in 200+ countries
• There are 158 operators involved in Nokia’s operator billing network in 59 markets
• All that will provide a 2.5X increase in terms of developers’ revenue
• Nokia is the first manufacturer to bundle Facebook for free with Nokia Asha 501
• Such partnership is quite important to Facebook as the company sees its biggest opportunity in getting 5B billion people on-line who were not before (so far “only” 750M people access Facebook from their mobile devices)

Happy Nokia presenters posing for photos
at the end of the launch in India

Making of the New Nokia Asha [nokia YouTube channel, May 9, 2013]

First hands-on with the Nokia Asha 501 [nokia YouTube channel, May 9, 2013]

The best thing is to watch The Nokia Asha 501 – Peter Skillman, Nokia Design Team [nokia YouTube channel, May 9, 2013]

Meet the next generation: Nokia Asha 501 [Nokia Conversations, May 9, 2013]

The aspirational meets the affordable in Nokia’s beautiful new touchscreen smartphone with social networking and a smarter Internet at its very core

The Nokia Asha 501 is set to break down a lot of barriers and smash people’s expectations of just how much ‘smartphone’ their money can buy.

It’s a touchscreen experience with social networks, content sharing and connectivity deeply integrated into a wonderful, responsive and revamped operating system.

Design and Colours

However, the first thing you will notice about the trail-blazing Nokia Asha 501 is the gorgeous design. Its lines and shapes are streamlined, compact and clean.

The seamless look and feel is of a premium product that is part of a unified modern design family, from the Lumia 920 to the Nokia 105.

After you’ve admired the durable two-part construction with the removable monobody, the next thing you’ll have to do is make a choice.

The Asha 501 is available in bright red, bright green, cyan, yellow, white and black.

The colour story continues with the red headphones that are included in the box. It’s sure to become a signature look!

Nokia Asha platform

The Asha 501 is powered by a new software platform, which fully leverages Nokia’s investments in Smarterphone, which it acquired in 2012 and builds on the best aspects of Series 40 to create something fresh and innovative.

The result is an evolutionary operating system that is fast, responsive and easy to use.

The Asha platform is faster, more responsive and more flexible too. This means new features and functionalities can be anticipated with future updates.

Developers will be able to create apps for the Nokia Asha 501 that will also be compatible with future Asha platform-based devices.

Living in the Fastlane

The forward-thinking approach to the Asha 501 extends to the user experience.

At its heart is a landmark new feature called Fastlane. Inspired by the much-loved swipe motion gestures on the iconic Nokia N9, Fastlane makes it faster and easier to access whatever is most important to you.

Whether it is the applications you use the most, the latest images you’ve captured or your social network updates, Fastlane is designed so that you’re never more than a swipe away.

Think of it as intelligent multitasking, or think of it as an interactive second home screen. Either way, Fastlane tracks your past, present and future, showing up to 50 of your most recent activities. It brings all the different elements of your smartphone experience together.

Smarter Internet

In just a few short years, more people will be accessing the Internet on a mobile phone than any other kind of electronic device.

This is why the Asha 501 continues Nokia’s focus on the ‘smarter Internet’ with an updated version of the Nokia Xpress browser with a fresh new user experience.

Of course, it still uses cloud-compression technology to reduce data by up to 90 per cent, making it both faster and cheaper for people to get online.

Hardware matters

Straight out of the box, there will be Facebook, Twitter, instant messaging and Weather Channel apps installed, together with premium games from Gameloft, such as Big Little City and Real Football 2013.

There’s also the now-legendary offer of 40 Free EA Games for you to download and keep forever from the Nokia Store.

The Asha 501 will be the first Nokia device at such a low price point to use a micro-SIM. Furthermore, it will come in a single-SIM variant and a Dual-SIM version with Nokia’s unique Easy-Swap SIM technology, which allows people to switch SIM cards without having to power off the device.

It features a 3.2-megapixel camera, WiFi, a lock screen with a glanceable clock and the 3-inch capacitive screen is made out of hardened glass. There’s 4GB of internal memory and support for a micro-SD card up to 32GB.

The battery life offers an incredible 48 days in standby and 17 hours of talk time – that means you could talk from 7am to midnight non-stop!

The Nokia Asha 501 will cost $99 before taxes and subsidies. It’ll be available in more than 90 countries worldwide from Q2.

See also: Nokia Asha 501: exclusive photos [Nokia Conversations, May 9, 2013]

Nokia Asha Platform Unlocks Sub-100 USD Smartphone Opportunity for Developers [press release, May 9, 2013]

New Asha platform delivers developers a consistent quality application experience in the world’s fastest growing smartphone category

New Delhi, India and Espoo, Finland – Nokia today announced a global initiative to unlock the sub-100 USD smartphone market for developers with the release of its Nokia Asha platform. Nokia also announced the Nokia Asha 501, the first smartphone built for the new platform.

Developers who write applications for the Nokia Asha 501 will reach all smartphones based on the new Asha platform without having to re-write code. Nokia expects to sell 100 million of the new generation Asha smartphones over the coming years, beginning with the Nokia Asha 501.

“We’ve seen a tremendous increase in consumer demand for apps for our Asha smartphones, as witnessed by the growth of downloads in Nokia Store,” said Marco Argenti, head of Developer Experiences at Nokia. “Consumers expect quality apps at every price point. With the new Asha platform, developers will be incentivized to deliver those quality apps, previously found only on high-end smartphones, thanks to unprecedented volumes and reach opportunities through one distribution channel and a single platform.”

Many of the most popular applications are already available or in development for the Nokia Asha platform, including CNN, eBuddy, ESPN, Facebook, Foursquare, Line, LinkedIn, Nimbuzz, Pictelligent, The Weather Channel, Twitter, WeChat, World of Red Bull and games from Electronic Arts, Gameloft, Indiagames, Namco-Bandai and Reliance Games. WhatsApp and other key partners continue to explore new Asha.

Developers will also get easy-to-use development tools and more ways to sell and promote apps, including the new Nokia In-App Payment tool.

New Nokia Asha SDK 1.0 and Nokia Asha web app tools

The new Nokia Asha Software Development Kit 1.0 is a suite of tools that support the development, testing, packaging and deployment of Java apps on the Nokia Asha platform.

The new Nokia Asha web app tools include a Web Development Environment (WDE), an integrated development environment (IDE) that developers can use to create and edit their Nokia Asha web apps; Web Inspector to help developers to debug and inspect elements in their web apps; and a new Web Designer Tool for creating great user experience for their web apps.

Nokia In-App Payment

Nokia also announced the new Nokia In-App Payment tool, designed to make it easier for developers to sell content from within their apps. It provides a simple and secure purchase experience for consumers and transparent payments for developers. Nokia In-App Payment will also be available for existing Asha and Series 40 phones, such as the Nokia 301. Nokia will release a public beta of Nokia In-App Payment in the coming weeks. Developers can sign-up for the beta at www.developer.nokia.com/inapppayment.

Developers voice support for new Nokia Asha platform

Dennis Crowley, CEO and co-founder of Foursquare: “Nokia continues to be a valued partner for Foursquare. The new Foursquare app on Asha delivers a fantastic search and discovery experience to help people make the most of where they are. As we head into the next wave of new Asha smartphones, we look forward to making Foursquare available for millions of Asha customers around the world.”

Michael Fisher, Director of Mobile Business Development, Twitter: “Twitter’s integration into the new Asha platform, along with preloaded Twitter application that ships on Nokia devices, offers people a richer Twitter experience. Whether you want to share a photo or news article, connect with people or find out what’s happening around the world, it’s now easier than ever to use Twitter on this family of devices.”

Sebastien Thevenet, General Manager SEA-Pacific, Gameloft: “As Nokia’s long term partner, with to date 200 million downloads recorded on Nokia Store, Gameloft is thrilled to offer four preloaded high quality games on the Nokia Asha 501 at launch (Assassin’s Creed 3, Bubble Bash 3, Real Football 2013, Little Big City) and overall more than 30 games to download on Nokia Store down the track. Those innovative titles are Try and Buy and Free to Play games making the most of Asha Full Touch capabilities and unique user interface, truly bringing a smartphone gaming experience at your fingertips.”

Akira Morikawa, CEO of Line Corporation: “Line’s partnership with Nokia is very important and it will continue on new Asha. Delivering Line on new Asha represents our commitment of ensuring that people around the world will experience the joy of communication through Line on Asha smartphones.”

Manish Agarwal, CEO, Reliance Games: “Reliance Games and Nokia have together demonstrated the combined power of localized content and a distribution platform in India. Our partnership with Nokia is a very cherished partnership for us to demonstrate the power of GoLocal. Reliance Games is committed to develop games on localized themes on the new Asha platform and entertain millions of people around the world by working closely with local Nokia teams in India, Asia Pacific, Latin America and other growth markets.”

Keshav Bajaj, VP Business Development, Nimbuzz: “Most of the 150 million and counting Nimbuzz users are from markets where Nokia Asha continues to gain momentum, including India, South East Asia, Middle East and Africa. We are very excited to have an application exclusively built for the new Asha platform to ensure the best user experience. This is yet another initiative from Nimbuzz for one of its most exclusive partners, Nokia.”

Alex Adjadj, Director of Strategic Development, Mobile Sales & Marketing, Namco-Bandai: “NAMCO BANDAI has been developing mobile games for over 10 years but there are still regions of the world where users haven’t seen or played PAC-MAN. Our 22 titles available in 13 languages for the Nokia Asha 501 is a testament to our commitment to Nokia to bring a great experience to mobile users of all demographics and budgets.”

Ramesh Kumar, Head of ESPNcricinfo and ESPN Digital Media India: “Given the popularity of Asha devices, the ESPNcricinfo app on the Asha 2013 platform is a dynamic way to reach growing numbers of mobile users in emerging markets. It is a rich platform where the ESPNcricinfo app can provide comprehensive cricket coverage tailored to suit on-the-go consumption of today’s passionate fans, including its famed match coverage, the latest news stories, insightful editorial pieces covering International & domestic cricket – all tailor-made for mobile consumption.”

New Nokia Asha 501 Dual SIM – One swipe to access everything you love [nokia YouTube channel, May 9, 2013]

Nokia introduces the Nokia Asha 501 [press release, May 9, 2013]

Nokia Asha 501 and Asha platform reinvent the affordable smartphone category

New Delhi, India and Espoo, Finland – Nokia today unveiled the first of a new family of Asha smartphones with the introduction of the Nokia Asha 501. The handset pushes the boundaries of affordable smartphone design with bold color, a high-quality build and an innovative user interface. The Nokia Asha 501 is the first device to run on the new Asha platform, which is designed to make the experience faster and more responsive. The Asha platform also helps developers to create, publish and make more money from apps made specifically for the new generation of Asha devices.

Standout design, innovative user interface

The Nokia Asha 501 makes high-end design and quality accessible to more people. The device is available in a choice of six striking colours that complement the elegant design. It comes in just two parts: a durable, removable casing and the scratch-resistant glass display, which features a three-inch, capacitive touchscreen and a single ‘back’ button. The compact new Asha weighs only 98 grams, for the ultimate portability.

The Nokia Asha 501 is built to make it easier for people to access everything they love, with a simple swipe and a choice of two main screens: Home and Fastlane. Home is a traditional, icon-based view for launching individual apps or accessing a specific feature, like the dialler or phone settings. The new Fastlane view was inspired by how people really use their phone. Recently accessed contacts, social networks and apps, unique to each person, are stored and presented in Fastlane. It provides a record of how the phone is used, giving people a glimpse of their past, present and future activity, and helping them multi-task by providing easy access to their favorite features.

Smarter and more personal Internet experiences

The new Asha comes with Nokia Xpress Browser pre-loaded, which compresses Internet data by up to 90%. This is aimed at making mobile browsing faster and more affordable. Nokia also announced the availability of Nokia Xpress Now, a new Web application that recommends content based on location, preferences and trending topics. It will be available via the Browser homepage or as a download from Nokia Store.

“Nokia has surpassed expectations of what’s achievable in the sub-100 USD phone category with a new Asha handset that is unlike any other, with design cues from Lumia and a mix of features, services and affordability that is valued by price-conscious buyers,” said Neil Mawston, executive director, Global Wireless Practice, Strategy Analytics. “This is a welcome addition to the market and a refreshing option for consumers looking to upgrade from feature phones.”

Asha platform for next-generation family of devices

The new Nokia Asha 501 was purpose-built to give people the best possible mobile experiences at an affordable price. It is highly efficient, with an industry-leading standby time of up to 48 days*. The Asha 501 is the first smartphone built on the new Asha platform, which leverages Nokia’s investments in Smarterphone, a company which Nokia acquired in 2012.

The new Asha platform provides developers with an open, standards-based environment for creating quality apps for consumers. Developers can create apps for the Nokia Asha 501 that will be compatible with future Asha platform-based devices. Nokia gives developers the chance to make more money through the global reach of Nokia Store and tools like Nokia In-App Payment and Nokia Advertising Exchange (NAX), as well as Nokia’s unparalleled operator billing network.

Many of the most popular applications are already available or in development for the Nokia Asha platform, including CNN, eBuddy, ESPN, Facebook, Foursquare, Line, LinkedIn, Nimbuzz, Pictelligent, The Weather Channel, Twitter, WeChat, World of Red Bull and games from Electronic Arts, Gameloft, Indiagames, Namco-Bandai and Reliance Games. WhatsApp and other key partners continue to explore new Asha.

The HERE experience, based on Nokia’s leading location-based platform, will also be available as a download for the Nokia Asha 501, starting in Q3 2013 and will initially include basic mapping services.

“The new Nokia Asha 501 raises the bar for what is possible in affordable smartphone design and optimization,” said Timo Toikkanen, executive vice president, Mobile Phones, Nokia. “The synergy between the physical design and the engine that is the new Asha platform has created a smartphone with both style and substance at a great price.”

Facebook and global operators to support Nokia Asha 501 with free data plans

The Nokia Asha 501 is expected to start shipping in June 2013. It is expected to be available through approximately 60 operators and distributors in more than 90 countries worldwide.

“We are very happy to offer the new Nokia Asha 501 through our subsidiaries in the continent. We are certain that this innovative device will follow the successful footprint of the Nokia Asha family, combining affordability with the best communication and Internet browsing capabilities,” said Marco Quatorze, Value Added Services Director for America Movil.

A leading operator in the Asia-Pacific region, Telkomsel is also supporting the arrival of the new Nokia Asha. “The Nokia Asha 501 will help us to boost the mobile Internet in Indonesia. It is powered by innovations like the Nokia Xpress Browser, based on a very efficient data consumption technology which allow us to offer best data plan tariff for people,” said Alistair Johnston, Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) of Telkomsel. “We have a billing agreement with Nokia that supports the creation of local applications absolutely relevant to Indonesian consumers.”

The popularity of the Nokia Asha family has also prompted innovative approaches to bundled mobile services. Nokia, Facebook and mobile network operator Airtel announced they have joined forces to offer data-free access to the standalone Facebook app, as well as the mobile site m.facebook.com. By the end of second quarter, current Airtel subscribers in Africa and India** will be able to enjoy unlimited, data-free access to Facebook from their Nokia Asha 501 for a limited period of time.

Commenting on the partnership, Andre Beyers, Chief Marketing Officer for Airtel Africa, said: “The collaboration with Nokia is in line with our strategy of enabling people to access data in Africa as we seek to bridge the digital divide across the continent. We’re already witnessing tremendous growth in data use across the 17 countries where we operate. The provision of free Facebook access is an excellent proposition to the millions of Airtel consumers. We are extremely delighted to partner with Nokia to give our consumers an even better mobile experience.” 

Telkomsel will provide a specific Nokia Telkomsel Asha data plan that offers up to 500 MB of data use and includes 60 minutes of calls and 60 SMS. The company will also provide a one month free data plan to consumers using Nokia Asha 501 that can be used for all mobile Internet activities including access to Facebook or downloading apps.

“This bundle is a great way to discover Facebook on your Nokia Asha and enjoy the experience for longer without worrying about data charges,” said Vaughn Smith, VP mobile partnerships, Facebook. “Working in close partnership with Nokia and global operators made this offer possible and we’re excited to help connect the world on Facebook.”

MTN, a leading operator across Africa, said it will also offer the Nokia Asha 501 and ease access to Facebook. “We are excited to support this initiative with Facebook in Nigeria and Zambia and we are looking forward to expand it to other markets,” says Pieter Verkade, group chief commercial officer at MTN.

Product specifications and availability

The Nokia Asha 501 is available in single or EasySwap Dual SIM models. All come with WiFi and Bluetooth. Other specifications:
- Dimensions:  99.2 x 58 x 12.1 mm; 98 grams
- Camera: 3.2 MP
- Single SIM standby time: up to 48 days***
- Dual SIM standby time: up to 26 days***
- Talk time: up to 17 hours
- Additional memory of 4GB (card included in box), expandable up to 32GB
- Forty free EA Games worth €75 downloadable from Nokia Store
- Available colours: Bright Red, Bright Green, Cyan, Yellow, White and Black
- Suggested pricing is 99 USD before taxes and subsidies.

Read more about the Nokia Asha 501 on Nokia Conversations: http://conversations.nokia.com/?p=120951.

* when using the single SIM model
**Under test conditions; actual results may vary, depending on use.
** *Time implementation differs by country

Andy D. Bryant – Chairman of the Board:

In his most recent role as Chief Operating Officer, Brian [Krzanich] led an organization of more than 50,000 people. This included Intel’s technology and manufacturing group, its foundry and memory businesses, its human resources and information technology groups, and its China strategy.

Brian M. Krzanich – Chief Executive Officer:

I thought I would start off our conversation this morning talking about three main topics. First, I thought I give just a brief update on our business conditions, just a quick financial look at the company, and really what it returns to shareholders.

The next topic I thought I would talk about are what is really the mega trends that are driving our industry and technology. And that really will lead into the final section, I’ll try and talk about, which is, what are our imperatives for growth as a company and what’s the response from these mega trends? So hopefully today, you’ll get a picture of a great foundation, how we see the trends driving where we’re headed, and what it takes for us to grow moving forward.

Let’s start with just where are we as a business. And as you probably saw in our earnings announcement and as we’ve been watching the company over the last couple of years, we really had a solid foundation. We had net income of over $53 billion, excuse me, net revenue of over $53 billion, 62% margin, and an operating profit of over almost $15 billion. That puts us in the top 15 of the S&P 500 for net income.

….  So this foundation, this financial picture is what we will use now to move forward and really drive additional growth. And so I’d like to transition now to what are these mega trends? Where is the industry headed? And as a result, how does that drive our imperatives for growth moving forward?

I don’t think we can start a discussion like that without first, having a quick discussion about one of the key real trends that have occurred over the last couple of years. And that’s really this ultra-mobile and move to tablets and phones that has occurred in our industry. We see that we’ve been a bit slow to move into that space, but what I want to show you today is that, we see the movement, we’re well positioned already and the base of assets that we have will allow us to really grow in this area at a much faster rate moving forward.

So let’s start with mega trend number one, which is just that, it’s about ultra-mobile. We see the is becoming more and more a connected computing environment. The people want their computing next to them. They want to carry it with them. And that really means you have to have connectivity, you have to have more power, you have to have integration, and you have to be in these new markets and new devices that are moving towards more and more connectivity, we see it. We believe we are well positioned. We have 15 phones in 22 countries already, excuse me, 12 phones in 22 countries, 15 tablets both Android and Windows, and so we’ve got a good base. We see this trend, and I’ll show you in a little bit with our imperatives, we’re well positioned to move forward.

The next one is one that I think is really driving great growth and is a great opportunity, in some place we’ve really established well, is really that the Datacenter is continuing to grow at phenomenal rates. It’s growing because of the move to cloud and tied to that connective computing environment, people want to keep more and more and have more and more access to the cloud.

And then you’re also seeing a move in the Datacenter around big data, that as all of these connective devices continue to grow, it provides a relative information that companies can now use to offer better services and better understanding of what consumers want, and that’s really what big data is about. It’s about providing answers as you increase the data rate that’s available to you. We see that, again, we believe our products and our services are well positioned for this, and we’ll talk a little bit about that in our imperatives moving forward.

And the third trend is really around the foundation of Intel. It’s around integration and innovation, and I believe this is really what Intel does best. When you look at our name and where we came from, Intel is Integrated Electronics, that’s what the name stands for and this is what we’ve always done best. This allows us to combine our silicon technology, our architecture, our software and services to really drive the SOC or the System-On-A-Chip environment to levels that nobody has seen before we believe moving forward.

It means really going out and bringing in new innovations, new technologies, new communication capabilities, bringing those into silicon and using that more as long leading edge technology to allow us to drive these in a way faster than anybody else on the planet can. So those are the three big mega trends that we see driving technology and the industry moving forward.

And what I’m going to show you now is that, we have the assets that we can apply towards these mega trends and then how those drive the imperatives for the company moving forward. Let’s first take a look at the assets. And I believe this is an asset base that any company in the world would be end user.

We have our manufacturing assets, something that’s been near and dear to my heart over the years, 4 million square feet of manufacturing clean room. We have leading edge technology. We have 22-nanometers in production, the world’s only Tri-Gate FinFET technology is our third generation of High-k Metal Gate. We’re in the final stages of development prior to production or 14-nanometers, our second generation of Tri-Gate transistors, our fourth generation of High-k Metal Gate, that’s an asset that everybody on the planet would love to have at – to apply towards those mega trends that we just talked about.

We have our architecture, which really ranges from the Xeon architecture for data center and servers all the way down to the Atom Architecture, which allows us into microservers, but into that connected computing, and what you will see is a move more and more as we go forward to continue to drive that continuum of computing capability into more and more markets. That’s really an asset, again, very few companies if any have.

And the last is to tie it all together, software and services, we’ve talked – you’ve seen our acquisition of McAfee and Wind River, we’ve built a services business. What this allows us to do is take all of those assets and apply into each one of those markets that I talked about in the mega trend. And what it allows us to do is provide more than just silicon. It allows us to provide a platform and a user experience that nobody else can, and that’s a secure and user-friendly experience that allows us to provide everything to the OEM, who wants to bring a product to market.

All of those are surrounded by the 105,000 employees that are always Intel’s greatest asset. The ability of these employees is to have, when we apply them towards these markets and these imperatives that you will see in a second here, is by far the greatest asset Intel has and we will continue to be moving forward. So I’ve shown you our base, I’ve shown you the mega trends, I’ve shown you what I believe is the greatest assets of the world to apply to those, and so let’s talk about what the imperatives are then moving forward.

The first one is to drive PC innovation. We’ve talked a bit about this. It’s the foundation of that financial picture that I showed you at the beginning. With Haswell coming out this year, it’s launching actually right now and throughout the year as the Haswell products come out, with ultrabooks, we have the greatest level of innovation in the PC in its history. You’re going to see ultrabooks, you see two in ones, which are convertibles, which are bringing that tablet and a PC together.

And with Haswell, you see the largest improvement in battery life and continuing capability that Intel has ever brought to production. So we believe that we are well positioned for what will be truly the PCs greatest time of innovation that we’ve all seen in our life.

The next imperative is that aggressively move into this ultra-mobile space. As I said at the beginning, we’re well positioned. We’re already shipping 12 phones in 22 countries. We have 15 tablets out there both windows and Android. We’ve got products that are specifically designed for this ultra-mobile space that have been in the works for a couple of years, now you saw the Silvermont announcement [SEE SECTION 6. ON 'Low-Power, High-Performance Silvermont Microarchitecture' IN THE DETAILS PART BELOW] earlier this week.

You are going to see, you see the Bay Trail will come out in the fourth quarter, which is really a product targeted towards tablets and low-power CRAM [C-RAN: Cloud Radio Access Network] cells and convertible devices. You can see Merrifield, which is our next generation phone device. And just as important is our LTE technology, which is critical for that second part of connecting computing, which is the communication. We have data-based LTE coming out this summer, and we have multi-mode LTE, which allows voice, data, and voice over data at the end of this year, and that really opens up all the rest to the markets to our phones and our connected devices.

So we believe we’re well positioned. We’ve made the move, but we believe also that our architecture and the moves we’ve made allow us to move even quicker into this market down moving forward.

The third one again tied to the trends I showed you at the beginning is to accelerate growth in the Datacenter. We have a great position in the Datacenter already. We believe that real trends like big data, movement to the cloud, software to find networks, all of those things allow for phenomenal growth in this space, and we believe our product line is well positioned to let us lead there.

We have the Haswell, which I talked about, our second generation of 22-nanometer architecture, we’ll be shipping Xeon level or server level class product in mid-2013. We have Avoton, which is Atom from microservers. We’ll be the first to this microserver trend. You hear a lot about it. You hear a lot of people talking about it. You should know that Intel was first to this space. We didn’t wait for it to be created. We’re going to go move that space.

We’re going to go define that microserver space, and we have Rangeley, which is product for network in comps infrastructure, which really allows us to move into the other sides of the Datacenter, where communications and that networking infrastructure occur. So those products combined, we believe we are well positioned to accelerate this growth into the Datacenter.

And then lastly, is to continue our silicon leadership, talked early on about 22-nanometers, the first technology to bring out the target transistor, but more importantly as we have a roadmap of Morris Law that continues, that we see us growing further in along the Morris Law transitions. We have 14-nanometer in its final stages of development, ready for production at the end of this year and moving into next year.

We understand what is beyond 14-nanometers for Morris Law. That silicon leadership allows us to drive the innovation in every one of these other areas and really bring it together in tri-sector of cost, battery, and performance that allows us to bring products to anyone of these markets that’s required.

So to bring this to closure, as my – this is my first presentation as CEO I guess. I’ve shown you that we have a great basis from which to grow on, but financially the company is sound in a very strong position. I’ve shown you that, we understand the mega trends and then we understand exactly how the market is moving into these data center areas, the connected computing and ultra-mobility, and I try to show you we have laid out the imperatives and assets to really allow these as to move into these new areas.

And so with that, I would just like to bring this to closure to show you that, I believe we’re well positioned. I believe that we have the best position in Intel’s history and a long last while to grow into these areas, and we really look forward to the coming years.

And with that, I would like to call back up Andy and Renée for Q&A.

Q: Question one, it has been two years since we purchased McAfee. How has McAfee contributed to the bottom line? What is the long-term plan with this company?

A: from Renée James – President
When McAfee and the acquisition of McAfee is hot of a broader strategy that we’ve had to increase the overall security not only of our products, but as we move into cloud-based computing, and into ultra-mobility that Brian talked about. We believe that one of the opportunities faces for Intel is to provide a more secure solution, more secure platforms around your data, around the devices that we build, and around your own personal identity and privacy.

So McAfee is one of many assets that we have acquired, they have been doing a very good job, and you may have read that we’ve added two McAfee over the course of the last two years. We’ve recently announced a week ago that we made an additional acquisition, which was always part of our strategy to grow what McAfee offered around the network and the cloud, and we continued to evolve their product line and this week we made an announcement around a personal identity and data security products for consumers that is bundled with our new platforms. So we’re very happy with them. It is part of a much broader strategy that’s consistent with what Brian just talked about, and we should look for more in that area.

Q: Over the last decade, our stock has been flat. It’s more or less tracked Microsoft has underperformed S&P 500 compared to QUALCOMM. QUALCOMM is up 300%; Apple, up 6,000%. QUALCOMM, for example, is now worth as much as Intel. Apple and QUALCOMM focus on communication products and mobile products, whereas we mostly use the market.

What’s worse is that we have the huge manufacturing capability that you talked about, maybe 3.5-year lead on competitors. So if weren’t just now coming out with Haswell, sophomore products et cetera, our design side of the house must be behind by 3.5 years or so, and that’s not good, because now we’re in catchup mode, and that’s risky. And this isn’t the first time in the last dozen years I missed the industry trend. So I’m very concerned about the product design side of the house. This company has been very focused on manufacturing from pub noise aren’t down, the microprocessor, the 4004 was afterthought.

The products mattered to this company. So I’m wondering if you think that the Board, the top management and the comp packages focus on product development well enough and if you’ve seen any improvements in last few years to improve the effectiveness of product design likely to be true?

A: from Brian M. Krzanich – Chief Executive Officer
So I started my presentation with an acknowledgment that we were slow to the mobile market. And I wanted to do that purposely to let the shareholders know we saw, but they were moving much more aggressively now moving forward, and we believe we have the right products. What we have to do is really make some decisions around; you see we bought assets to allow us to get into the LTE space. We’ve made transitions in what we design for Atom, and we’ve looked at how do we design our silicon technologies to allow integration of those, because COMs and the CPU are a little bit different in the silicon technologies they require.

So we do believe we are positioned well moving forward. But you are asking a more fundamental question about how do we see market trends and how do we really make sure that we understand how the market is moving. And actually we spent a lot of time with the board over the last several months, partly in just the normal discussions with the board, and partly in this process of selection. And both Renée and I talked about how we’re going to build a much more outward sensing environment for Intel, so that we understand where our architecture needs to move first.

We actually understand that integration is occurring more and more, that it’s important more about integration than almost anything else right now, and that’s really how these new devices are occurring. We have plans to build a structure that allows us to have consultants and people from the outside to help us look at these trends and look at our architectural choices and make sure we’re making the right decisions. And we’re trying to build a much closer relationship with our customers, so that we understand where they want to go. We spent, actually Renée and I over the last week, a lot of time with and they are all showing us here is where the market is moving and here is where we need Intel to move.

We are going to make adjustments in our architecture, and our product choices to align to those much, much closure moving forward. So we do believe, we see what you’re talking about how we made those choices, but we believe we’ve made the right decisions and we have the right process moving forward to make sure, I wish they are aligned.

Q: … question is about the Software and Services Group as compared to the PC Client Group. The Software and Services is certainly expected to grow and I’m particularly interested in the gross margin contribution not just today, I’m interested in your vision three to five years from now, how you see the gross margin contribution of the Software Group, comparing and either increasing or decreasing relative to the PCCG Group?

A: from Renée James – President
The Software and Services Group as you know is a new reportable segment in the last several years for us. Software business, in general, are good opportunities for growth and once that are aligned with the market segments that we’re going to provide products into or provide products into today is a good opportunity for us to enhance our offering to our customers.

In general, we have a very, very good business. Brian talked about the margin profile business we have today. The businesses that we are pursuing in Software and Services are equally good opportunities, and we expect that those businesses will continue to contribute as software companies do in the market and about the same way that they do in the market today.

Q: For the first time as a shareholder of Intel, I’m kind of wondering and curious about and look forward a decade from now, and here is a context to the question.

The CapEx spending has more than doubled in the last two years. R&D has gone up by 53%, you are making a really significant investment in the future that you talked about CEO Brian, okay. And you’ve made a transition over the FinFET, last week as preparation for the meeting, I looked at the ITRS road map and about 2020, it indicates that gate lines would be running around 10-nanometers.

When I look realistically of that, the question I have is one, what device architecture would you be using there more than likely? And number two, isn’t it time for a transition, an inflection point as Andy might have said to either switching photons or quantum computing or something else. So maybe part of the question is directed towards you Brian, and the other part could we possibly hear from your CTO or Head of TD?

A: from Brian M. Krzanich – Chief Executive Officer
I’ll start. It was a pretty long question, so I’m going to see if I can get most of your points. Your first point was CapEx has gone up, we’re spending a lot more on technology and is there a time for a transition in that technology, and I would tell you that we are the – we typically have about a 10-year view of Moore’s Law and we’ve always had a 10-year view. If you went back 10 years ago, we had a 10-year view. If you went back five years ago, we have a 10-year view, that’s about as far out as you can see, and we believe that we have the right architectures to continue to grow Moore’s Law in a silicon environment for at least that period of time.

That’s not to say we don’t have efforts in photonics, we actually have efforts in photonics and we’re going to bring products to markets in photonics, more about switching in the datacenter [SEE SECTION 7. ON 'PHOTONIC ARCHITECTURES' IN THE DETAILS PART BELOW], but the fundamental silicon technology and our ability to continue to drive it beyond 10 nanometers, to be honest with you, we plan to be on 10 nanometers much earlier than 2020, I can tell you that, is we believe sound and fundamental and it’s why we made investments you saw us make an investment in ASML last year for almost $4 billion in total. That was really to drive EV technology for lithography to allow to keep pushing well below 10 nanometers from the Moore’s Law standpoint. So we think we are pretty well positioned to keep moving at least for the next decade in the current technologies. I don’t know if Bill…

A: from William M. Holt – Executive Vice President
General Manager, Technology and Manufacturing Group [“semiconductor CTO”]

But if you look back at the last three or four generation each one has come with a substantial innovation or change, there is no simple scaling in our business anymore. And that will continue, and so each time we plan to advance the technology, we have to make changes relative to photonics and our quantum computing. We do have – Brian said, have efforts in those, but those are clearly not something that are anytime in the near horizon. There is lots of interesting work going on there, but none of it really is practical to turn into a real computing devices.

Q: How do you expect the foundry market to impact margins short and long-term?

A: from Brian M. Krzanich – Chief Executive Officer
So I think Stacy has talked in some of the earnings calls that we currently see margins to be in the range looking forward to 55% to, I believe, 65% was the range she gave. Those were inclusive of our foundry business. So I would tell you that we’ve already built the foundry growth into our current projections for margin, and we actually believe we are being selective, we’re not going into the general foundry business, we’re not opening up to anybody. We’re really looking for partners that can utilize and make it take advantage of our leading edge silicon and that’s why we are able to stay in that range we believe moving forward.

Q: I agree with the President’s vision of future is the customer interface and have LTE and good processing that all make sense. [SEE ‘TRANSPARENT COMPUTING’ AS THE OVERALL VISION, AND PERCEPTUAL COMPUTING AS AN ADDITIONAL ONE IN THE BELOW DETAILS, PARTICULARLY SECTIONS 5.+8. AND SECTION 4. RESPECTIVELY.] I would rather usher with these executions. If you look at the mobile world right now the ARMs Holdings, they have 95% of the market share. I understand Intel has 1,000, I think 1,000 researchers I think they are doing purely basic research.

And how come interference see this mobile way coming and that the ARM Holdings taking maybe 5% market share. On top of that, Microsoft going to RT, it’s high this Windows RT, which are ARM Holding and HP just announced a new tablet with NVIDIA tablet processor, also based on ARM. So everybody is trying to take the CPU share away from you. And I understand Intel is having this Haswell should coming out in June, some questions, are you confident this Haswell can hold ARMs Holding back?

A: from Brian M. Krzanich – Chief Executive Officer

First, I’d say, in my presentation I talked about the fact that yes, we missed it. We were slow to tablets and some of the mobile computing. We do believe we have a good base right, 12 phones, 20 countries, 15 tablets, Android and Windows 8, it gets important that we’ve looked at both of those, and then we have these products moving forward. I would tell you that it’s more than just Haswell.

Haswell is a key product. It’s going to extend quorum much further on both ends from a high performance Xeon space to the low power space. You are going to see single digit power levels on a core product, which will allow it move into very mobile spaces, but that alone would not go beat ARM or go beat the competition into those spaces you talked about. What you really have to do is extend into that Atom space as well, and that’s where you see products like Clover Trail and Clover Trail+ today, Silvermont [SEE SECTION 6. ON 'Low-Power, High-Performance Silvermont Microarchitecture' IN THE DETAILS PART BELOW] and then moving into the rest of this year you see, Bay Trail.

Bay Trail will be one of the biggest advances we made in Atom that allows us to move into the mobile space much stronger.

And then thirdly, with the assets we purchased a few years back, which was the Infineon mobile group, which gave us the comp side of this. And I told you that we have comps’ LTE data in the middle of this summer and multimode at the end of this year. We’ll actually be the next meeting person in LTE space and that’s critical to get into those markets. You don’t want to have to dependent on others to provide that comp and then as we move into next year, you’ll see us integrating that, which we believe allow us to move back on to that leading edge. So stitch back to that, do we have a good product roadmap to allow us to go, win share in that space, we believe we do.

Next question is do we have a good ability to view that space moving forward because whatever it is today won’t be what it is five years from now, and that’s what Renée and I are committed to go, put in together because we absolutely believe this connected computing will continue to move down and we’ll continue on the products going forward.

End of [May 17, 2013] update

Intel Chairman Interview on New Intel CEO Brian Krzanich [SBARTSTV YouTube channel, May 2, 2013] 

Intel’s CEO Pick Is Predictable, but Not Its No. 2 [The Wall Street Journal, May 2, 2013]

The selection of Mr. Krzanich, who is 52 and joined Intel in 1982, suggests that Intel will continue to try to use its manufacturing muscle to play a broader role in mobile chips.

But he said that the board was mainly convinced by a new strategy—devised with Ms. James—to help take Intel chips into new devices.

“That is absolutely what won them the job,” said Andy Bryant, the Intel chairman and former finance chief who led the search. “Brian and Renee delivered a strategy for Intel that is pretty dramatic.”

…

While Mr. Krzanich doesn’t expect the “full strategy” to become visible until later this year, he said it would help move Intel chips beyond computers and mobile devices into more novel fields, including wearable technology.

The strategy “went from the very low end of computing to the very top end of computing,” Mr. Bryant said.

…

Intel directors met last weekend for a final round of interviews and then vote on Mr. Krzanich’s selection, the person close to the situation said.

On Tuesday, Mr. Krzanich suggested to Mr. Bryant the appointment of Ms. James, which the board approved Wednesday, the Intel spokesman said.

Mr. Bryant, who is 63 years old, said he has helped mentor both executives and agreed to stay on in his position for an indefinite period to help them in their new roles.

What already available from recently accepted by Intel board strategy is detailed in the below sections of this post, namely:

1. Intel® XDK (cross platform development kit) with the Intel® Cloud Services Platform (CSP)
2. Porting native code into HTML5 JavaScript
3. Parallel JavaScript (the River Trail project)
4. Perceptual Computing
5. HTML5 and transparent computing
6. Low-Power, High-Performance Silvermont Microarchitecture
7. Photonic achitectures to drive the future of computing
8. The two-person Executive Office and Intel’s transparent computing strategy as presented so far

I am quite impressed with all of those pieces, just to give my conclusion ahead.

There is, however, a huge challenge for the management as the new two-person Executive Office of Brian M. Krzanich as CEO and Renée J. James as president is to lead the company:
- out of Intel’s biggest flop: at least 3-month delay in delivering the power management solution for its first tablet SoC [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Dec 20, 2012]
- then Saving Intel: next-gen Intel ultrabooks for enterprise and professional markets from $500; next-gen Intel notebooks, other value devices and tablets for entry level computing and consumer markets from $300 [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, April 17, 2013] in short-term
- also capitalising on Intel Media: 10-20 year leap in television this year [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Feb 16, 2013] as a huge mid-term opportunity (with Windows Azure Media Services OR Intel & Microsoft going together in the consumer space (again)? [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Feb 17, 2013] or not)
- as well as further strengthening its position in the Software defined server without Microsoft: HP Moonshot [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, April 10, 2013] effort
- but first and foremost proving that the Urgent search for an Intel savior [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Nov 21 – Dec 11, 2012] did indeed end with this decision by the Intel board
- for which the litmus test is the company success against the phenomenon of the $99 Android 4.0.3 7” IPS tablet with an Allwinner SoC capable of 2160p Quad HD and built-in HDMI–another inflection point, from China again [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Dec 3, 2012] which is based on The future of the semiconductor IP ecosystem [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Dec 13, 2012] being a more and more viable alternative to the closed Intel system of design and manufacturing.

Indeed, Intel completely missed the huge opportunities presented by the explosion in the mobile computing end of the market during the last 3 years resulting in entry level smartphone prices as low as $72+, only 77% higher than Intel’s latest available in products Atom Z2760 processor chip for smartphones and tablets at $41, and 71% lower than Intel’s latest available Core™ i3-3229Y processor chip for lowest power consumption ultrabooks at $250, so by now Intel’s whole business model is in jeopardy:
despite sufficiently early warnings by:
More information: Apple’s Consumer Computing System: 5 years of “revolutionary” iPhone and “magical” iPad[‘Experiencing the Cloud’, July 9, 2012]:
1. Overall picture at the moment
2. Current iPhone and iPad products
3. Earlier products
4. iCloud
5. iTunes
6. App Store

Let’s see now in detail how the Intel Board decision could be the right one based on deep analysis of the available information so far:

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1. Intel® XDK (cross platform development kit) with the Intel® Cloud Services Platform (CSP)

The Intel® XDK (cross platform development kit) can be used to create applications using HTML5 and web services. One such set of services are the Intel® Cloud Services Platform (CSP). The Intel® XDK  supports the full spectrum of HTML5 mobile development strategies, including:

• Classic Web Apps – No device interface, no on-device caching (only works online)
• Mobile Web Apps – HTML5 Caching (works online/offline), some device interface (GPS, Accelerometer)
• Hybrid Native Apps – Full device interface, identical to native apps

Each of these strategies has pros and cons – Intel makes it easy to develop using HTML5 and JavaScript, regardless of the precise deployment strategy you choose. Intel’s App Dev Center makes it easy to build and manage deployments to all popular app stores.

With the Intel® XDK, developers really can “write it once, deploy to many.” Currently build for iOS Tablets, iOS Smartphones, Android Tablets, Android Smartphones, Google Play Store, Amazon App Store, Mozilla App Store, Facebook App Center, and the Google Chrome store.

Intel® HTML5 XDK Demo [intelswnetwork YouTube channel, March 25, 2013]

More information:
- Create World Class HTML5 Apps & Web Apps with the XDK [Intel’s App Learning Center, March 1, 2013]
- The XDK turbocharges PhoneGap [Intel’s App Learning Center, March 1, 2013]
- Developing Applications for Multiple Devices [Intel HTML5 development documentation, March 15, 2013]

It is likely that any of your apps fall into one of two broad categories. The first category of apps includes fixed position apps, like a game or interactive app where the layout is fixed and all the assets are placed in a static position. The second app category is a dynamic layout app, like an RSS reader or similar app where you may have content that is in a long list and viewing a specific item just shows a scrolling view to acommodate varying content size. For the second category, positioning and scrolling can usually be handled by simple CSS. Setting your div and body widths to “width=100%” instead of “width=768px” is  an example of an approach that should help you use the entire screen regardless of resolution and aspect ratio.

The first category is a lot more complicated and we have added some functions to help you deal with this issue. It should be noted that there is no magic “silver bullet” solution. However, if you design your app with certain things in mind and have a plan for other resolutions, we can take care of some complicated calculations and make sure things are scaled for the best user experience possible.

Before we explain how to use our functions to help with these issues, let’s look at some real devices and their resolutions to get a clearer picture of the issues.

…

Conclusion

Scaling a single codebase for use on multiple devices and resolutions is a formidable challenge, particularly if your app is in the category of apps that are fixed position apps rather than an app that uses a dynamic layout. By designing your app’s layout for the smallest screen ratio expected, you can rely on us to help by performing proper scaling and letting you know the new virtual available screen size. From there you can easily pad your app’s background or reset your application’s world bounds to adapt to different screens on the fly.

For more information, documentation is available at http://www.html5devsoftware.intel.com/documentation. Please email html5tools@intel.com with any questions or post on our forums at http://forums.html5dev-software.intel.com .

App Game Interfaces is a JavaScript execution environment that includes a minimal DOM, primarily to provide access to a partial implementation of HTML5 canvas that is optimized for the Apple iOS and Google Android platforms. The App Game Interfaces augment the Canvas object with multi-channel sound, accelerated physics, and accelerated canvas to provide more realistic modeling and smoother gameplay, more like native capabilities and performance – with HTML5!

The Intel® HTML5 Game Development Experience at GDC 2013 [intelswnetwork YouTube channel, April 5, 2013]

More information:
- HTML5 and Mobile are the Future of Gaming [Intel’s App Learning Center, March 1, 2013]
- Graphics Acceleration for HTML5 and Java Script Engine JIT Optimization for Mobile Devices [Intel Developer Zone article, Jan 4, 2013]
- Convert an App Using HTML5 Canvas to Use App Game Interfaces [Intel HTML5 development documentation, March 4, 2013]
- Application Game Interfaces [Intel HTML5 development Readme, March 1, 2013]

App Game Interfaces uses:

1. Ejecta - Dominic Szablewski - MIT X11 license 
(http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT)
2. Box2D - Erin Catto - Box2D License
3. JavaScriptCore - The WebKit Open Source Project - GNU LGPL 2.1 
(http://opensource.org/licenses/LGPL-2.1)
4. V8 JavaScript Engine - Google - New BSD license 
(http://opensource.org/licenses/BSD-3-Clause)
5. IJG JPEG - Independent JPEG Group – None 
(http://www.ijg.org/files/README)
6. libpng - PNG Development Group - zlib/libpng License 
(http://opensource.org/licenses/Zlib)
7. FreeType - The FreeType Project - The FreeType License 
(http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/freetype/freetype2.git/tree/docs/FTL.TXT)
8. v8 build script - Appcelerator Inc - Apache License 2.0 
(http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0)

The Intel Cloud Services Platform beta provides a set of identity-based services designed for rich interoperability and seamless experiences that cut across devices, operating systems, and platforms. The initial set of services accessed via RESTful APIs provide key capabilities such as identity, location, and context to developers for use in server, desktop, and mobile applications aimed at both consumers and businesses.

For more information, please visit the Intel Cloud Services Platform beta.

Intel® Developer Zone Cloud Services Platform [intelswnetwork YouTube channel, March 26, 2013]

Plucky rebels: Being agile in an un-agile place – Peter Biddle at TED@Intel [TEDInstitute YouTube channel, published May 6, 2013, filmed March 2013]

Intel® Cloud Services Platform Demo at GDC 2013 [intelswnetwork YouTube channel, April 5, 2013]

Intel® Cloud Services Platform [CSP] Technical Overview [intelswnetwork YouTube channel, May 3, 2013]

More information:
- Intel® Cloud Services Platform Overview (video by Norman Chou on Intel Developer Zone, March 19, 2013)
- Intel® Cloud Service Platform beta Overview (presentation by Norman Chou on GSMA OneAPI Developer Day, Feb 26, 2013), see the GSMA page as well

Build apps that seamlessly span devices, operating systems, and platforms.

Learn how you can easily build apps with this collection of identity-based, affiliated services.  Services available include Intel Identity Services, Location Based Services, Context Services and Commerce Services.  This session will cover the RESTful APIs available for each service, walk you through the easy sign up process and answer your questions.  Want to know more?  Visit http://software.intel.com/en-us/cloud-services-platform.

2. Porting native code into HTML5 JavaScript

Currently porting native iOS code to HTML5 is supported but via an abstract format which potentially will allow portinf from other OS code in the futures as well:

This app porting relies (or would soon rely, see later) on App Framework (formerly jqMobi) as the “definitive JS library for HTML5 app development” for which Intel is stating:

Create the mobile apps you want with the tools you are comfortable with. Build hybrid mobile apps and web apps using the App Framework and App UI Library, a jQuery-compatible framework that gives you developers all the UX you want in a tight, fast package.

The Intel® HTML5 App Porter Tool Demo at GDC 2013 [intelswnetwork YouTube channel, April 5, 2013]

More information: Intel HTML5 Porter Tool Introduction for Android Developer [Intel Developer Zone blog post, April 5, 2013] which presents the tool as:

and adds the following important information (note here that instead of App Framework/jqMobi that version relies on the less suitable jQuery Mobile):

The next release is expected to have better integration with Intel® XDK (Intel’s HTML5 cross platform development kit) and have more iOS API coverage in terms of planned features.

2. Porting translated application to different OSs

A translated HTML5 project has a jsproj file for Visual Studio 2012 JavaScript project in Windows Store  apps which you are able to open on Windows* 8 in order to run in case of successfully translated application (100% translated API) or continue development in case of placeholders in the code.

While in the associated Technical Reference – Intel® HTML5 App Porter Tool – BETA [Intel Developer Zone article, Jan 17, 2013] you will find all the relevant additional details, from which it is important to add here the following section:

About target HTML5 APIs and libraries

The Intel® HTML5 App Porter Tool – BETA both translates the syntax and semantics of the source language (Objective-C*) into JavaScript and maps the iOS* SDK API calls into an equivalent functionality in HTML5. In order to map iOS* API types and calls into HTML5, we use the following libraries and APIs:

• 
  

  The standard HTML5 API: The tool maps iOS* types and calls into plain standard objects and functions of HTML5 API as its main target. Most notably, considerable portions of supported Foundation framework APIs are mapped directly into standard HTML5. When that is not possible, the tool provides a small adaptation layer as part of its library.

• The jQuery Mobile library: Most of the UIKit widgets are mapped jQuery Mobile widgets or a composite of them and standard HTML5 markup. Layouts from XIB files are also mapped to jQuery Mobile widgets or other standard HTML5 markup.
• 
  

  The Intel® HTML5 App Porter Tool – BETA library: This is a ‘thin-layer’ library build on top of jQuery Mobile and HTML5 APIs and implements functionality that is no directly available in those libraries, including Controller objects, Delegates, and logic to encapsulate jQuery Mobile widgets. The library provides a facade very similar to the original APIs that should be familiar to iOS* developers. This library is distributed with the tool and included as part of the translated code in the lib folder.

You should expect that future versions of the tool will incrementally add more support for API mapping, based on further statistical analysis and user feedback.

---

3. Parallel JavaScript (the River Trail project)

RiverTrail Wiki [on GitHub edited by Stephan Herhut, April 2313, 2013 version] [April 23]

Background

The goal of Intel Lab’s River Trail project is to enable data-parallelism in web applications. In a world where the web browser is the user’s window into computing, browser applications must leverage all available computing resources to provide the best possible user experience. Today web applications do not take full advantage of parallel client hardware due to the lack of appropriate programming models. River Trail puts the parallel compute power of client’s hardware into the hands of the web developer while staying within the safe and secure boundaries of the familiar JavaScript programming paradigm. River Trail gently extends JavaScript with simple deterministic data-parallel constructs that are translated at runtime into a low-level hardware abstraction layer. By leveraging multiple CPU cores and vector instructions, River Trail achieves significant speedup over sequential JavaScript.

Getting Started

To get a feeling for the programming model and experiment with the API, take a look at our interactive River Trail shell. The shell runs in any current version of Firefox, Chrome and Safari. If you are using Firefox and have installed the River Trail extension (see below on how to), your code will be executed in parallel. If you are using other browsers or have not installed the extension for Firefox, the shell will use a sequential library implementation and you won’t see any speedup.

You need to install our Firefox extension to use our prototype compiler that enables execution of River Trail on parallel hardware. You can download a prebuilt version for Firefox 20.x [April 23] running on Windows and MacOS (older versions for older browsers can be found here). We no longer provide a prebuilt Linux version. However, you can easily build it yourself. We have written a README that explains the process. If you are running Firefox on Windows or Linux, you additionally need to install Intel’s OpenCL SDK (Please note the SDK’s hardware requirements.).

…

River Trail – Parallel Computing in JavaScript [by Stephan Herhut from Intel Labs, delivered on April 2, 2012 at JSConf 2012, published on JSConf EU YouTube channel on Jan 20, 2013]

River Trail Demos at IDF 2012 [intelswnetwork YouTube channel, Sept 24, 2012]

More information:
- River Trail – Parallel Programming in JavaScript [Stephan Herhut on InfoQ, March 29, 2013] a collection which is based on his latest recorded presentation (embedded there) that was delivered at Strange Loop 2012 on Sept 24, 2012 (you can follow his Twitter for further information)
- River Trail: Bringing Parallel JavaScript* to the Web [Intel Developer Zone article by Stephan Herhut, Oct 17, 2012]
- Tour de Blocks: Preview the Benefits of Parallel JavaScript* Technology by Intel Labs [Intel Developer Zone article by Stephan Herhut, Oct 17, 2012]
- Parallel JS Lands [Baby Steps blog by Niko Matsakis at Mozilla, March 20, 2013], see all of his posts in PJs category since January 2009, particularly ‘A Tour of the Parallel JS Implementation’ Part 1 [March 20] and Part 2 [April 4], while from the announcement:

The first version of our work on ParallelJS has just been promoted to mozilla-central and thus will soon be appearing in a Nightly Firefox build near you. … Once Nightly builds are available, users will be able to run what is essentially a “first draft” of Parallel JS. The code that will be landing first is not really ready for general use yet. It supports a limited set of JavaScript and there is no good feedback mechanism to tell you whether you got parallel execution and, if not, why not. Moreover, it is not heavily optimized, and the performance can be uneven. Sometimes we see linear speedups and zero overhead, but in other cases the overhead can be substantial, meaning that it takes several cores to gain from parallelism. …

…

Looking at the medium term, the main focus is on ensuring that there is a large, usable subset of JavaScript that can be reliably parallelized. Moreover, there should be a good feedback mechanism to tell you when you are not getting parallel execution and why not.

…

The code we are landing now is a very significant step in that direction, though there is a long road ahead.

I want to see a day where there are a variety of parallel APIs for a variety of situations. I want to see a day where you can write arbitrary JS and know that it will parallelize and run efficiently across all browsers.

- Parallel javascript (River Trail) combine is not a function [Stack Overflow, April 16-25, 2013] from which it is important to include Stephan Herhut’s answer:

There are actually two APIs:

1. the River Trail API as described in the GitHub prototype documentation

2. the Parallel JavaScript API described in the ECMAScript proposal

The two differ slightly, one difference being that the ECMAScript proposal no longer has a combine method but uses a flavor of map that offers the same functionality. Another difference is that the GitHub prototype uses index vectors whereas the proposal version uses multiple scalar indices. Your example, for the prototype, would be written as

var par_A = new ParallelArray([3,3], function(iv) {return iv[1]}); par_A.combine(2, function(i) {return this.get(i) + 1} );

In the proposal version, you instead would need to write

var par_A = new ParallelArray([3,3], function(i,j) {return j}); par_A.map(2, function(e, i) { return this.get(i) + 1; });

Unfortunately, multi-dimensional map is not yet implemented in Firefox, yet. You can watch bug 862897 on Mozilla’s bug tracker for progress on that front.

Although we believe that the API in the proposal is the overall nicer design, we cannot implement that API in the prototype for technical reasons. So, instead of evolving the prototype half way, we have decided to keep its API stable.

One important thing to note: the web console in Firefox seems to always use the builtin version of ParallelArray and not the one used by a particular website. As a result, if you want to play with the GitHub prototype, you best use the interactive shell from our GitHub website.

Hope this clears up the confusion.

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4. Perceptual Computing

Intel is supporting developers interested in adding perceptual computing to their apps with theIntel® Perceptual Computing SDK 2013 Beta. This allows developers to use perceptual computing to create immersive applications that incorporate close-range hand and finger tracking, speech recognition, facial analysis, and 2D/3D object tracking on 2nd and 3rd generation Intel® Core™ processor-powered Ultrabook devices and PCs. Intel has also released the Creative Interactive Gesture Camera as part of the SDK, which allows developers to create the next generation of natural, immersive, innovative software applications on Intel Core processor-powered Ultrabook devices, laptops, and PCs.

How to drive experience with perceptual computing – Achin Bhowmik at TED@Intel [TEDInstitute YouTube channel, published May 6, 2013, filmed March 2013]

Head Coupled Perspective with the Intel® Perceptual Computing SDK [intelswnetwork YouTube channel, March 25, 2013]

Perceptual Computing Challenge Phase 1 Trailer [IntelPerceptual YouTube channel, March 28, 2013]

More information:
- GDC 2013: Perceptual Computing, HTML5, Havok, and More [Intel Developer Zone blog post, April 2, 2013]
- Introducing the Intel® Perceptual Computing SDK 2013 [Intel Developer Zone blog post, April 5, 2013]
- Perceptual Computing: Ten Top Resources for Developers [Intel Developer Zone blog post, Jan 4, 2013]

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5. HTML5 and transparent computing

Why Intel Loves HTML5 [intelswnetwork YouTube channel, Dec 20, 2012]

App Development Without Boundaries [Intel Software Adrenaline article, April 1, 2013]

HTML5 Reaches More Devices and More Users, More Effectively

There are a lot of reasons to like HTML5.  It’s advanced.  It’s open.  It’s everywhere.  And, it’s versatile.

But Intel loves HTML5 because our vision for the future is a world where developers can create amazing cross-platform experiences that flow freely from device to device, and screen to screen—a world where apps can reach more customers and get to market faster, without boundaries.

HTML5 helps make that world possible.

…

Many Devices, One Platform [Intel Software Adrenaline article, Dec 11, 2012]

The Three Design Pillars of Transparent Computing

Welcome to the new, transparent future, where users expect software apps to work equally well no matter what device they run on, whether on an Ultrabook™ device or an Android* phone, a netbook or a tablet. This is the concept of transparent computing: with the assumed level of mobility expected, today’s consumers demand seamless transitions for a single app on multiple platforms. Developers must deliver code that works just about everywhere, with standard usability, and with strong security measures.

It’s a tall order, but help is available. As long as teams understand some of the simple design considerations and usability frameworks, which are outlined in this article, they can expand their app appeal across many profitable niches and embrace transparent computing.

There are three key design principles that comprise the transparent computing development model:

• Cross-platform support

• Standard usability themes

• Enhanced security features

If developers can think in these broad strokes and plan accordingly, the enhanced effect of multiple platform revenues and word-of-mouth marketing can result in the income streams that your entire app portfolio will appreciate.

…

More information:
- Transparent Computing: One Platform to Develop Them All [Intel Developer Zone blog post, Sept 13, 2012]
- Transparent Computing with Freedom Engine – HTML5 and Beyond [Intel Developer Zone blog post, Oct 15, 2012]
- Intel Cloud Services Platform Private Beta [Intel Developer Zone blog post, Oct 18, 2012]
- App Show 33: A Recap of Day Two at IDF 2012 [Intel Developer Zone blog post, Nov 9, 2012]
- Cross-Platform Development: What The Stats Say [Intel Developer Zone blog post, March 7, 2013]
- Intel’s Industry Expert Examines Cross-platform Challenges and Solutions [Intel Software Adrenaline article, April 16, 2013]
- Security Lets You Make the Most of the Cloud [Intel Software Adrenaline infographic, April 10, 2013]
- Mechanisms to Protect Data in the Open Cloud [Intel Software Adrenaline whitepaper, April 10, 2013]
- Intel and VMware security solutions for business computing in the cloud [Intel Software Adrenaline solution brief, April 10, 2013]
- The Intel® HTML5 Game Development Experience at GDC 2013 [Intel Developer Zone blog post, April 5, 2013]
- Intel Developer Forum 2012 Keynote, Renée James Transcript (PDF 190KB)

… transparent computing is really about allowing experiences to seamlessly cross across different platforms, both architectures and operating system platform boundaries. It makes extensive use of technologies like HTML5 – which we’re going to talk a lot more about in a second – and in house cloud services. It represents for us the direction that we believe we need to go as an industry. And it’s the next step really beyond ubiquitous computing.

…

We need three things. We need a programming environment that crosses across platforms and architectures and the boundaries. We need a flexible and secure cloud infrastructure. And we need a more robust security architecture from client to the data center.

…

We believe that HTML5 as the application programming language is what can deliver a seamless and consistent environment across the different platforms – across PCs, tablets, telephones, and into the car.

… transparent computing obviously relies on the cloud to provide the developer and the application transparent services that move across platforms and ecosystem boundaries.

…

Intel is working on an integrated set of cloud services for developers that we would host that would give some of the core elements required to really realize our vision around transparent computing. Some of them would be location services, like Peter demonstrated this morning; digital storefronts, federated identity attestation, some of the things that are required to know who’s where on which device, sensor and context APIs for our platforms, and, of course, business analytics and business intelligence.

We will continue to roll these things out over the course of the year, so you should look for more from us on that. And as I said, these will be predominantly developer services, backend services for developers as they create application.

…

For the cloud, as we migrate resources across these different datacenters and different environments, as we move applications and workloads, we have to do it in a secure way. And one of the ways that you can do that on our platforms, on Intel’s servers, is using Trusted Execution, or TXT. TXT allows data operations to occur isolated in their own execution environment from the rest of the system and safe from malware.

…

In transparent computing, the security of the device is going to be largely around identity management. In addition to device management and application and software security, which we’ve been working on for a while, we have a lot of work to do in the area of identity and how we protect people – not only their data, but who they are at transactions, as they move these experiences across these different devices.

Identity and attestation we believe will become key underpinnings for all mobile transparent computing across different platforms and the cloud. Underneath it all, we’re going to have to have a very robust set of hardware features, which we plan to have, to secure that information. It’s going to be even more critical especially as we think about mobile devices and we think about identity and attestation that we’re able to truly secure and know that it is as safe and as known good as possible.

…

We will continue to provide direct distribution support for your applications and services through AppUp, and those of you that know about it, fabulous. If you don’t, AppUp is the opportunity to distribute through a digital storefront across 45 countries, around Intel platforms. We support Windows and Tizen and HTML5, both native and other apps.

In addition to all of that, we will be revitalizing the software business network, which we’ve used to pair you up with other Intel distributors and Intel hardware partners for exclusive offers and bundles. As we see more and more solutions in our industry, we want to make sure our developers are able to connect with people building on Intel platforms. And other additional marketing programs and that kind of thing are all going to be in the same place.

And in Q4, we will have a specific program launched on HTML5. That program will help you write applications across multiple environments. We’ll be doing training, we’ll have SDKs, there will be tools. We will be working on how you run across IOS, Android, Windows, Linux, and Tizen. So, please stay tuned and go to the developer’s center for that.

Finally, today is just the start of our discussion on transparent computing. In the era of ubiquitous computing, we had that industry vision for a decade, and now that’s become a reality. And just like when we first predicted there was going to be a billion connected computers – I still remember it, it sounded so farfetched at that point in time decades ago – transparent computing seems pretty far away from where we stand today, but we have always believed that the future of computing is what we make it. And we believe that the developers, our developers around our platform, can embrace a new paradigm for computing, a paradigm that users want us to go solve. And we look forward to being your partner for the next era of computing, and delivering it transparently.

Chip Shot: Intel Extends HTML5 Capabilities for App Developers [Intel Newsroom, Feb 25, 2013]

To complement and grow its HTML5 capabilities, Intel has acquired the developer tools and build system from appMobi. Intel also hired the tool-related technical staff to help extend Intel’s existing HTML5 capabilities and accelerate innovation and delivery of HTML5 tools for cross platform app developers. Software developers continue to embrace HTML5 as an easy to use language to create cross platform apps. Evans Data finds 43 percent of all mobile developers indicate current use of HTML5 and an additional 38 percent plan to use HTML5 in the coming year.  App developers can get started building HTML5 cross-platform apps today at: software.intel.com/html5. Visit the Intel Extends HTML5 Capabilities blog post for more information.

Intel extends HTML5 capabilities [Intel Developer Zone, Feb 22, 2013]

Developers continue to tell Intel they are looking to HTML5 to help improve time to market and reduce cost for developing and deploying cross-platform apps. At the same time, app developers want to maximize reach to customers and put their apps into multiple stores. Intel is dedicated to delivering software development tools and services that can assist these developers. I am pleased to let you know that Intel recently acquired the developer tools and build system from appMobi. While we’ve changed the names of the tools, the same capabilities will be there for you. You can check these tools out and get started writing your own cross platform apps now by visiting http://software.intel.com/html5 and registering to access the tools. Developers already using the appMobi tools will be able to access their work and files as well. If you weren’t already using appMobi development tools, I invite you to try them out and see if they fit your HTML5 app development needs. You will find no usage or licensing fees for using the tools.

We are also excited to bring many of the engineers who created these tools to Intel. These talented tool engineers complement Intel’s existing HTML5 capabilities and accelerate innovation and delivery of HTML5 tools for cross platform app developers.

I hope you will visit http://software.intel.com/html5 soon to check out the tools and return often to learn about the latest HTML5 developments from Intel.  

One Code Base to Rule Them All: Intel’s HTML5 Development Environment [Intel Developer Zone, March 12, 2013]

If you’re a developer searching for a great tool to add to your repertoire, you’ll want to check out Intel’s HTML5 Development Environment, an HTML5-based development platform that enables developers to create one code base and port it to multiple platforms. Intel recently purchased the developer tools and build system from appMobi:

“While we’ve changed the names of the tools, the same capabilities will be there for you. You can check these tools out and get started writing your own cross platform apps now by visiting http://software.intel.com/html5 and registering to access the tools. Developers already using the appMobi tools will be able to access their work and files as well. If you weren’t already using appMobi development tools, I invite you to try them out and see if they fit your HTML5 app development needs. You will find no usage or licensing fees for using the tools.”

You can view the video below to see what this purchase means for developers who have previously used AppMobi’s tools:

For appMobi Developers: How Does Intel’s Acquisition Affect Me? [appMobi YouTube channel, Feb 22, 2013]

What is the HTML5 Development Environment?

Intel’s HTML5 Development Environment is a cloud-based, cross-platform HTML5 application development interface that makes it as easy as possible to build an app and get it out quickly to a wide variety of software platforms. It’s easy to use, free to get started, and everything is based right within the Web browser. Developers can create their apps, test functions, and debug their projects easily, putting apps through their virtual paces in the XDK which mimics real world functionality from within the Web browser.

This environment makes it as simple as possible to develop with HTML5, but by far the biggest advantage of using this service is the ability to build one app on whatever platform that developers are comfortable with and then deploy that app across multiple platforms to all major app stores.  The same code foundation can be built for iOS, Web apps, Android, etc. using just one tool to create, debug, and deploy.

As appMobi is also the most popular HTML5 application development tool on the market with over 55,000 active developers using it every month to create, debug, and deploy, this tool is especially welcome. The HTML5 Development Environment makes it easy to create one set of code and seed it across multiple cross-platforms, making the process of development – including getting apps to market – more efficient for developers.

HTML5 is quickly becoming a unifying code platform for both mobile and desktop development. Because of this, Intel and appMobi have teamed up to support quick HTML5 app development for both PCs and Ultrabook™ devices. The XDK makes developing apps as easy as possible, but the best part about it is how fast apps can go from the drawing board to consumer-facing stores. Developers can also employ the XDK to reach an ever-growing base of Ultrabook users with new apps that utilize such features as touch, accelerometer, and GPS.

The Intel HTML5 XDK tools can be used to create apps for a whole new market of consumers looking to access all the best features that an HTML5-based app for Ultrabook devices has to offer. For example, every 16 seconds, an app is downloaded via Intel’s AppUp store, and there are over 2.6 billion potential PCs reachable from this platform. Many potential monetization opportunities exist for developers by utilizing Intel Ultrabook-specific features in their apps such as touch, accelerometer, and GPS, features traditionally seen only in mobile and tablet devices. Intel’s HTML5 development tools give developers the tools to quickly create, test, and deploy HTML5-based apps that in turn can be easily funneled right into app stores and thus into the hands of PC and Ultrabook device users. 

Easy build process

The App Starter offers an interactive wizard to guide developers gently through the entire build process. This includes giving developers a list of the required plugins, any certificates that might be lacking, and any assets that might need to be pulled together. It will generate the App Framework code for you.

Developers can upload their own projects; a default template is also available. A demo app is automatically generated. Once an app is ready to build, developers are given an array of different services to choose from. Click on “build now”, supply a title, description and icon in advance, and the App Starter creates an app bundle that can then be submitted to different app stores/platforms.

The XDK

One of the HTML5 Development Environment’s most appealing features is the XDK (cross-platform development kit). This powerful interface supports robust HTML5 mobile development, which includes hybrid native apps, enhanced Web apps, mobile Web apps, and classic Web apps to give developers the full range of options.

The XDK makes testing HTML5 apps as easy as possible. Various form factors – phones, tablets, laptops, etc. – can be framed around an app to simulate how it would function on a variety of devices. In addition to tablet, phone, and PC emulations, there is also a full screen simulation of different Ultrabook device displays within the XDK. This is an incredibly useful way to test specific Ultrabook features in order to make sure that they are at maximum usability for consumers. The XDK for Ultrabook apps enables testing for mouse, keyboard, and touch-enabled input, which takes the guesswork out of developing for touch-based Ultrabook devices.

One tool, multiple uses

Intel’s HTML5 Development Environment is a cross-platform development service and packaging tool. It enables HTML5 developers to package their applications, optimize those applications, test with features, and deploy to multiple services.

Rather than building separate applications for all the different platforms out there, this framework makes it possible to build just one with HTML5 and port an app to multiple platforms. This is a major timesaver, to say the very least. Developers looking for ways to streamline their work flow and get their apps quickly to end users will appreciate the user-friendly interface, rich features, and in-browser feature testing. However, the most appealing benefit is the ability to build one app instead of several different versions of one app and deploy it across multiple platforms for maximum market exposure. 

Chip Shot: Intel Expands Support of HTML5 with Launch of App Development Environment [Intel Newsroom, April 10, 2013]

At IDF Beijing, Intel launched the Intel® HTML5 Development Environment that provides a cross-platform environment to develop, test and deploy applications that can run across multiple device types and operating system environments as well as be available in various application stores. Based on web standards and supported by W3C, HTML5 makes it easier for software developers to create applications once to run across multiple platforms. Intel continues to invest in HTML5 to help mobile application developers lower total costs and improve time-to-market for cross-platform app development and deployment. Developers can access the Intel HTML5 Development Environment from the Intel® Developer Zone at no cost.

Intel Cloud Services Platform Open beta [Intel Developer Zone blog post, Dec 13, 2012]

Doors to our beta open today. Welcome! For those who participated in our private beta, thank you. Your feedback and ideas were awesome and will clearly make our services more useful for other developers. We are continuing to work out the kinks in our Wave 1 Services (Identity, Location and Context) and your ideas help us build what you want to use. We are at a point where we feel ready to invite others to try our services. So, today we open the doors to the broader developer community.

Our enduring mission with the Intel Cloud Services Platform beta is to give you key building blocks to deliver transparent computing experiences that seamlessly span devices, operating systems, stores and even ecosystems. With this release, “Wave 2”, we introduce a collection of Commerce Services that provide a common billing provider for apps and services deployed on the Intel Cloud Services Platform. Other cool stuff we’ve added includes Geo Messaging and Geo Fencing to Location Based Services and Behavioral Models for cuisine preferences and destination probability to Context Services.

For the open beta, we are introducing a Technical Preview of Curation, Catalog and Security. These are early releases, so some features may change, but we want to get you coding around these, so you can tell us what you think. We know building apps that provide users with a high degree of personalization often means spending WEEKS of valuable development time. Also, developing apps that are truly cross platform, cross domain and cross industry is still extremely difficult to do. So, our objective with Curation and Catalog Services is to make it really easy for you to create complex functionalities such as schemaless catalogs, developer- or user-curated lists, and secure client-side storage of data at rest. Play around with these services and give us feedback.

In addition to new services, we have invested heavily in a scalable and robust infrastructure. You need to be able to trust that our services will just work. To help you out, we have created a support team that you’ll want to call and talk to. We have 24×7 support and various ways you can reach out to us. You can contact us by phone (1-800-257-5404, option 4), email or our community forums.

To get the latest on what’s new and useful, check out our community. If you haven’t checked out our Services – remember the door is open. Try them. If you have thoughts about our platform, I want to hear them. Find me on twitter (@PNBLive).

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6. Low-Power, High-Performance Silvermont Microarchitecture

Intel’s new Atom chips peak on performance, power consumption [computerworld YouTube channel, May 7, 2013]

Intel Launches Low-Power, High-Performance Silvermont Microarchitecture [press release, May 6, 2013]

NEWS HIGHLIGHTS:

• Intel announces Silvermont microarchitecture, a new design in Intel’s 22nm Tri-Gate SoC process delivering significant increases in performance and energy efficiency.
• Silvermont microarchitecture delivers ~3x more peak performance or the same performance at ~5x lower power over current-generation Intel® Atom™ processor core.¹
• Silvermont to serve as the foundation for a breadth of 22nm products targeted at tablets, smartphones, microservers, network infrastructure, storage and other market segments including entry laptops and in-vehicle infotainment.

SANTA CLARA, Calif., May 6, 2013 – Intel Corporation today took the wraps off its brand new, low-power, high-performance microarchitecture named Silvermont.

The technology is aimed squarely at low-power requirements in market segments from smartphones to the data center. Silvermont will be the foundation for a range of innovative products beginning to come to market later this year, and will also be manufactured using the company’s leading-edge, 22nm Tri-Gate SoC manufacturing process, which brings significant performance increases and improved energy efficiency.

“Silvermont is a leap forward and an entirely new technology foundation for the future that will address a broad range of products and market segments,” said Dadi Perlmutter, Intel executive vice president and chief product officer. “Early sampling of our 22nm SoCs, including “Bay Trail” and “Avoton” is already garnering positive feedback from our customers. Going forward, we will accelerate future generations of this low-power microarchitecture on a yearly cadence.”

The Silvermont microarchitecture delivers industry-leading performance-per-watt efficiency.² The highly balanced design brings increased support for a wider dynamic range and seamlessly scales up and down in performance and power efficiency. On a variety of standard metrics, Silvermont also enables ~3x peak performance or the same performance at ~5x lower power over the current-generation Intel® Atom™ processor core.¹

Silvermont: Next-Generation Microarchitecture

Intel’s Silvermont microarchitecture was designed and co-optimized with Intel’s 22nm SoC process using revolutionary 3-D Tri-gate transistors. By taking advantage of this industry-leading technology, Intel is able to provide a significant performance increase and improved energy efficiency.

Additional highlights of the Silvermont microarchitecture include:

• A new out-of-order execution engine enables best-in-class, single-threaded performance.¹

• A new multi-core and system fabric architecture scalable up to eight cores and enabling greater performance for higher bandwidth, lower latency and more efficient out-of-order support for a more balanced and responsive system.

• New IA instructions and technologies bringing enhanced performance, virtualization and security management capabilities to support a wide range of products. These instructions build on Intel’s existing support for 64-bit and the breadth of the IA software installed base.

• Enhanced power management capabilities including a new intelligent burst technology, low- power C states and a wider dynamic range of operation taking advantage of Intel’s 3-D transistors. Intel® Burst Technology 2.0 support for single- and multi-core offers great responsiveness scaled for power efficiency.

“Through our design and process technology co-optimization we exceeded our goals for Silvermont,” said Belli Kuttanna, Intel Fellow and chief architect. “By taking advantage of our strengths in microarchitecture development and leading-edge process technology, we delivered a technology package that enables significantly improved performance and power efficiency – all while delivering higher frequencies. We’re proud of this accomplishment and believe that Silvermont will offer a strong and flexible foundation for a range of new, low-power Intel SoCs.”

Architecting Across a Spectrum of Computing

Silvermont will serve as the foundation for a breadth of 22nm products expected in market later this year. The performance-per-watt improvements with the new microarchitecture will enable a significant difference in performance and responsiveness for the compute devices built around these products.

Intel’s quad-core “Bay Trail” SoC is scheduled for holiday 2013 tablets and will more than double the compute performance capability of Intel’s current-generation tablet offering¹. Due to the flexibility of Silvermont, variants of the “Bay Trail” platform will also be used in market segments including entry laptop and desktop computers in innovative form factors.

Intel’s “Merrifield” [aimed at high-end smartphones, successor to Medfield] is scheduled to ship to customers by the end of this year. It will enable increased performance and battery life over current-generation products¹ and brings support for context aware and personal services, ultra-fast connections for Web streaming, and increased data, device and privacy protection.

Intel’s “Avoton” will enable industry-leading energy efficiency and performance-per-watt for microservers², storage and scale out workloads in the data center. “Avoton” is Intel’s second-generation Intel® Atom™ processor SoC to provide full server product capability that customers require including 64-bit, integrated fabric, error code correction, Intel virtualization technologies and software compatibility. “Rangeley” is aimed at the network and communication infrastructure, specifically for entry-level to mid-range routers, switches and security appliances. Both products are scheduled for the second half of this year.

Concurrently, Intel is delivering industry-leading advancements on its next-generation, 22nm Haswell microarchitecture for Intel® Core™ processors to enable full-PC performance at lower power levels for innovative “2-in-1″ form factors, and other mobile devices available later this year. Intel also plans to refresh its line of Intel® Xeon® processor families across the data center on 22nm technology, delivering better performance-per-watt and other features.

“By taking advantage of both the Silvermont and Haswell microarchitectures, Intel is well positioned to enable great products and experiences across the full spectrum of computing,” Perlmutter said.

1 Based on the geometric mean of a variety of power and performance measurements across various benchmarks. Benchmarks included in this geomean are measurements on browsing benchmarks and workloads including SunSpider* and page load tests on Internet Explorer*, FireFox*, & Chrome*; Dhrystone*; EEMBC* workloads including CoreMark*; Android* workloads including CaffineMark*, AnTutu*, Linpack* and Quadrant* as well as measured estimates on SPECint* rate_base2000 & SPECfp* rate_base2000; on Silvermont preproduction systems compared to Atom processor Z2580. Individual results will vary. SPEC* CPU2000* is a retired benchmark. *Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.

2 Based on a geometric mean of the measured and projected power and performance of SPECint* rate_base2000 on Silvermont compared to expected configurations of main ARM*-based mobile competitors using descriptions of the architectures; assumes similar configurations. Numbers may be subject to change once verified with the actual parts. Individual results will vary. SPEC* CPU2000* is a retired benchmark; results are estimates. *Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.

Software and workloads used in performance tests may have been optimized for performance only on Intel microprocessors. Performance tests, such as SYSmark and MobileMark, are measured using specific computer systems, components, software, operations and functions. Any change to any of those factors may cause the results to vary. You should consult other information and performance tests to assist you in fully evaluating your contemplated purchases, including the performance of that product when combined with other products. For more information go to: www.intel.com/performance.

For more information see the “Intel Atom Silvermont” Google search between May 6 and 8. From the accompanying Intel Next Generation Low Power Micro-Architecture webcast presentation I will include here the following slide only:

about which it was noted in the Deep inside Intel’s new ARM killer: Silvermont [The Register, May 8, 203] report that:

Now that Intel has created an implementation of the Tri-Gate transistor technology specifically designed for low-power system-on-chip (SoC) use – and not just using the Tri-Gate process it employs for big boys such as Core and Xeon – it’s ready to rumble.

Tri-Gate has a number of significant advantages over tried-and-true planar transistors, but the one that’s of particular significance to Silvermont is that when it’s coupled with clever power management, Tri-Gate can be used to create chips that exhibit an exceptionally wide dynamic range – meaning that they can be turned waaay down to low power when performance needs aren’t great, then cranked back up when heavy lifting is required.

This wide dynamic range, Kuttanna said, obviates the need for what ARM has dubbed a big.LITTLE architecture, in which a low-power core handles low-performance tasks, then hands off processing to a more powerful core – or cores – when the need arises for more oomph.

“In our case,” he said, “because of the combination of architecture techniques as well as the process technology, we don’t really need to do that. We can go up and down the range and cover the entire performance range.” In addition, he said, Silvermont doesn’t need to crank up its power as high as some of those competitors to achieve the same amount of performance.

Or, as Perlmutter put it more succinctly, “We do big and small in one shot.”

Equally important is the fact that a wide dynamic range allows for a seamless transition from low-power, low-performance operation to high-power, high-performance operation without the need to hand off processing between core types. “That requires the state that you have been operating on in one of the cores to be transferred between the two cores,” Kuttanna said. “That requires extra time. And the long switching time translates to either a loss in performance … or it translates to lower battery life.”

Intel’s 1h20m long Intel Next Generation Low Power Micro-Architecture – Webcast is available online for further details about Silvermont. The technical overview starts at [21:50] (Slide 15) and you can also read a summary of some of the most interesting points by CNXSoft.

TED and Intel microdocumentary – Mission (Im)possible: Silicon photonics featuring Mario Paniccia [TEDInstitute YouTube channel, published May 6, 2013; first shown publicly in March 2013]

[2:14] You can do now a 100 gig, you can do 200 gig. You can imagine doing a terabit per second in the next couple of years. At a terabit per second you’re talking about transferring or downloading a season of HDTV from one device to another in less than a second. It’s going to allow us to keep up with Moore’s law, and allow us to move information and constantly feed Moore’s law in our processors and so we will not be limited anymore by the interconnect, or the connectivity. [2:44]

Intel considered this innovation an inflection point already back in 2010, see:
Justin Rattner, Mario Paniccia and John Bowers describe the impact and significance of the 50G Silicon Photonics Link [channelintel YouTube channel, July 26, 2010]

Now as the technology is ready for commercialisation this year Intel is even more enthuasiastic: Justin Rattner IDF Beijing 2013 Keynote-Excerpt: Silicon Photonics [channelintel YouTube channel, May 6, 2013]

Silicon photonics uses light (photons) to move huge amounts of data at extremely high speeds over a thin optical fiber rather than using electrical signals over a copper cable. But that is not all: Silicon Photonics: Disrupting Server Design [DataCenterVideos YouTube channel, Jan 22, 2013, Recorded at the Open Compute Summit, Jan 17, 2013, Santa Clara, California]

More information:
- Intel, Facebook Collaborate on Future Data Center Rack Technologies [press release, Jan 16, 2013]

New Photonic Architecture Promises to Dramatically Change Next Decade of Disaggregated, Rack-Scale Server Designs

• Intel and Facebook* are collaborating to define the next generation of rack technologies that enables the disaggregation of compute, network and storage resources.

• Quanta Computer* unveiled a mechanical prototype of the rack architecture to show the total cost, design and reliability improvement potential of disaggregation.

• The mechanical prototype includes Intel Silicon Photonics Technology, distributed input/output using Intel Ethernet switch silicon, and supports the Intel® Xeon® processor and the next-generation system-on-chip Intel® Atom™ processor code named “Avoton.”

• Intel has moved its silicon photonics efforts beyond research and development, and the company has produced engineering samples that run at speeds of up to 100 gigabits per second (Gbps).

- Silicon Photonics Research [Intel Labs microsite]
- The Facebook Special: How Intel Builds Custom Chips for Giants of the Web [Wired, May 6, 2013]
- Meet the Future of Data Center Rack Technologies [Data Center Knowledge, Feb 20, 2013] by Raejeanne Skillern, Intel’s director of marketing for cloud computing

… Let’s now drill down into some of all-important details that shed light on what this announcement means in terms of the future of data center rack technologies.

What is Rack Disaggregation and Why is It Important?

Rack disaggregation refers to the separation of resources that currently exist in a rack, including compute, storage, networking and power distribution, into discrete modules. Traditionally, a server within a rack would each have its own group of resources. When disaggregated, resource types can then be grouped together, distributed throughout the rack, and upgraded on their own cadence without being coupled to the others. This provides increased lifespan for each resource and enables IT managers to replace individual resources instead of the entire system. This increased serviceability and flexibility drives improved total cost for infrastructure investments as well as higher levels of resiliency. There are also thermal efficiency opportunities by allowing more optimal component placement within a rack.

Intel’s photonic rack architecture, and the underlying Intel silicon photonics technologies, will be used for interconnecting the various computing resources within the rack. We expect these innovations to be a key enabler of rack disaggregation.

Why Design a New Connector?

Today’s optical interconnects typically use an optical connector called MTP. The MTP connector was designed in the mid-1980s for telecommunications and not optimized for data communications applications. At the time, it was designed with state-of-the-art materials manufacturing techniques and know-how. However, it includes many parts, is expensive, and is prone to contamination from dust.

The industry has seen significant changes over the last 25 years in terms of manufacturing and materials science. Building on these advances, Intel teamed up with Corning, a leader in optical fiber and cables, to design a totally new connector that includes state-of-the-art manufacturing techniques and abilities; a telescoping lens feature to make dust contamination much less likely; with up to 64 fibers in a smaller form factor; fewer parts – all at less cost.

What Specific Innovations Were Unveiled?

The mechanical prototype includes not only Intel silicon photonics technology, but also distributed input/output (I/O) using Intel Ethernet switch silicon, and supports Intel Xeon processor and next-generation system-on-chip Intel Atom processors code named “Avoton.” …

In fact this will lead to a CPU – Memory – Storage … disaggregation as shown by the following Intel slide:which will lead to new “Photonic Architectures”, or more precisely “Photonic Many-Core Architectures” (or later on even “Photonic/Optical Computing”), much more efficient than anything so far. For possibilities see these starting documents in academic architecture research:
- Photonic Many-Core Architecture Study Abstract [HPEC 2008, May 29, 2008]
- Photonic Many-Core Architecture Study Presentation [HPEC 2008, Sept 23, 2008]
- Building Manycore Processor-to-DRAM Networks Using Monolithic Silicon Photonics Abstract [HPEC 2008, Sept 23, 2008]
- Building Manycore Processor-to-DRAM Networks Using Monolithic Silicon Photonics Presentation [HPEC 2008, Sept 23, 2008]

Intel made available the following Design Guide for Photonic Architecture Draft Document v 0.5 [Jan 16, 2013] where we can find the following three architectures:

3.2 Interconnect Topology with a ToR [Top of Rack] Switch

One particular implementation of the Photonically Enabled Architecture which is supported by the New Photonic Connector is shown below in Figure 3.1. In this implementation the New Photonic Connector cables are used to connect the compute systems arrayed throughout the rack to a Top of Rack switch. These intra-rack connections are currently made through electrical cabling, often using Ethernet signaling protocols at various line rates. The Photonically Enabled Architecture envisions a system where the bandwidth density, line rate scalability and easier cable routing provide value in this implementation model. One key feature of this architecture is that the line rate and optical technology are not dictated; rather the lowest cost technology which can support the bandwidth demands and provide the functionality required to support future high speed and dense applications can be deployed in this model consistent with the physical implementation model. This scalability of the architecture is a key value proposition of the design. Not only is the architecture scalable for data rate in the optical cable, but scalability of port count in each connection is also possible by altering the physical cabling and optical modules.

Figure 3.1: Open Rack with Optical Interconnect.
In this architectural concept the green lines represent optical fiber cables terminated with the New Photonic Connector. They connect the various compute systems within the rack to the Top of Rack (TOR) switch. The optical fibers could contain up to 64 fibers and still support the described New Photonic Connector mechanical guidelines.

One key advantage of the optically enabled architecture is that it supports disaggregation in the rack based design of the various system functionality, which means separate and discrete portions of the system resources may be brought together. One approach to disaggregation is shown below in Figure 3.2; in the design shown here the New Photonic Connector optical cables are still connecting a computing platform to a Top of Rack switch, but the configuration of the components has been altered to allow for a more modular approach to system upgrade and serviceability. In this design the computing systems have been configured in ‘trays’ containing a single CPU die and the associated memory and control, while communication is aggregated between three of these trays through a Silicon Photonics module to a Top of Rack switch. The Top of Rack switch now communicates to the individual compute elements through a Network Interface Chip (NIC) while also supporting an array of Solid State Disk Drives (SSD’s) and potentially additional computing hardware to support the networking interfaces. This approach would allow for the modular upgrade of the computing and memory infrastructure without burdening the user with the cost of upgrading the SSD infrastructure simultaneously provided the IO infrastructure remains constant. Other options for the disaggregated system architecture are of course also possible, potentially leading to the disaggregation of the memory system as well.

Figure 3-2: Disaggregated Photonic Architecture Topology
with a ToR Switch.
This design shows 3 compute trays connected through a single New Photonic Connector enabled optical cable to a Top of Rack (TOR) switch supporting Network Interface Chip (NIC) elements, Solid State Disk Drives (SSD’s), Switching functionality and additional compute resources.

3.3 Interconnect Topology with Distributed Switch Functionality

The Photonically Enabled Architecture which is supported by the New Photonic Connector cable and connector concept can support several different types of architectures, each with specific advantages. One particular type of architecture, which also takes advantage of the functionality of another Intel component, an Intel Switch Chip, is shown in Figure 3.3, shown below. In this architecture the Intel Switch Chip is configured in such a way as to support both aggregation of data streams to reduce overall fiber and cabling burden as well as a distributed switching functionality.

The distributed switch functionality supports the modular architecture which was discussed in previous sections. This concept allows for a very granular approach to the deployment of resources throughout the data center infrastructure which supports greater resiliency through a smaller impact from a failure event. The concept also supports a more granular approach to upgradability and potentially could enable re-partitioning of the architecture in such a way that system resources can be better shared between different compute elements.

In Figure 3.3 an example is shown of 100Gbps links between compute systems and a remote storage node. Both PCIe and Ethernet networking protocols may be used in the same rack system, all enabled by the functionality of the Intel Switch Chip (or Device). It should be understood that the components in this vision could be swapped dynamically and asymmetrically so that improvements in bandwidth between particular nodes could be upgraded individually or new functionality could be incorporated as it becomes available.

Figure 3.3: An example of a Photonically Enabled Architecture
relying upon the New Photonic Connector concept, Silicon Photonics
and the Intel Switch Chip (or Device).
In this example the switching between the rack nodes is accomplished in a distributed manner through the use of these switch chips.

Note that there is very little information about Kranich’s manufacturing technology winning cards. I found only this one although there might be several others as well.

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8. The two-person Executive Office and Intel’s transparent computing strategy as presented so far

Newly Elected Intel CEO, Brian Krzanich Talks About His New Job [channelintel YouTube channel, May 2, 2013]

Intel Board Elects Brian Krzanich as CEO [Intel Newsroom, May 2, 2013]

SANTA CLARA, Calif., May 2, 2013 – Intel Corporation announced today that the board of directors has unanimously elected Brian Krzanich as its next chief executive officer (CEO), succeeding Paul Otellini. Krzanich will assume his new role at the company’s annual stockholders’ meeting on May 16.

Krzanich, Intel’s chief operating officer since January 2012, will become the sixth CEO in Intel’s history. As previously announced, Otellini will step down as CEO and from the board of directors on May 16.

“After a thorough and deliberate selection process, the board of directors is delighted that Krzanich will lead Intel as we define and invent the next generation of technology that will shape the future of computing,” said Andy Bryant, chairman of Intel.

“Brian is a strong leader with a passion for technology and deep understanding of the business,” Bryant added. “His track record of execution and strategic leadership, combined with his open-minded approach to problem solving has earned him the respect of employees, customers and partners worldwide. He has the right combination of knowledge, depth and experience to lead the company during this period of rapid technology and industry change.”

Krzanich, 52, has progressed through a series of technical and leadership roles since joining Intel in 1982.

“I am deeply honored by the opportunity to lead Intel,” said Krzanich. “We have amazing assets, tremendous talent, and an unmatched legacy of innovation and execution. I look forward to working with our leadership team and employees worldwide to continue our proud legacy, while moving even faster into ultra-mobility, to lead Intel into the next era.”

The board of directors elected Renée James, 48, to be president of Intel. She will also assume her new role on May 16, joining Krzanich in Intel’s executive office.

“I look forward to partnering with Renée as we begin a new chapter in Intel’s history,” said Krzanich. “Her deep understanding and vision for the future of computing architecture, combined with her broad experience running product R&D and one of the world’s largest software organizations, are extraordinary assets for Intel.”

As chief operating officer, Krzanich led an organization of more than 50,000 employees spanning Intel’s Technology and Manufacturing Group, Intel Custom Foundry, NAND Solutions group, Human Resources, Information Technology and Intel’s China strategy.

James, 48, has broad knowledge of the computing industry, spanning hardware, security, software and services, which she developed through leadership positions at Intel and as chairman of Intel’s software subsidiaries — Havok, McAfee and Wind River. She also currently serves on the board of directors of Vodafone Group Plc and VMware Inc. and was chief of staff for former Intel CEO Andy Grove.

Additional career background on both executives is available at newsroom.intel.com.

The prominent first external reaction to that: Intel Promotes From Within, Naming Brian Krzanich CEO [Bloomberg YouTube channel, May 2, 2013]

Intel’s Krzanich the 6th Inside Man to Be CEO [Bloomberg YouTube channel, May 2, 2013]

Can Intel Reinvent Itself… Again? [Bloomberg YouTube channel, May 3, 2013]

Brian M. Krzanich, Chief Executive Officer (Elect), Executive Office

Brian M. Krzanich will become the chief executive officer of Intel Corporation on May 16. He will be the sixth CEO in the company’s history, succeeding Paul S. Otellini.

Krzanich has progressed through a series of technical and leadership roles at Intel, most recently serving as the chief operating officer (COO) since January 2012. As COO, his responsibilities included leading an organization of more than 50,000 employees spanning Intel’s Technology and Manufacturing Group, Intel Custom Foundry, supply chain operations, the NAND Solutions group, human resources, information technology and Intel’s China strategy.

His open-minded approach to problem solving and listening to customers’ needs has extended the company’s product and technology leadership and created billions of dollars in value for the company. In 2006, he drove a broad transformation of Intel’s factories and supply chain, improving factory velocity by more than 60 percent and doubling customer responsiveness. Krzanich is also involved in advancing the industry’s transition to lower cost 450mm wafer manufacturing through the Global 450 Consortium as well as leading Intel’s strategic investment in lithography supplier ASML.

Prior to becoming COO, Krzanich held senior leadership positions within Intel’s manufacturing organization. He was responsible for Fab/Sort Manufacturing from 2007-2011 and Assembly and Test from 2003 to 2007. From 2001 to 2003, he was responsible for the implementation of the 0.13-micron logic process technology across Intel’s global factory network. From 1997 to 2001, Krzanich served as the Fab 17 plant manager, where he oversaw the integration of Digital Equipment Corporation’s semiconductor manufacturing operations into Intel’s manufacturing network. The assignment included building updated facilities as well as initiating and ramping 0.18-micron and 0.13-micron process technologies. Prior to this role, Krzanich held plant and manufacturing manager roles at multiple Intel factories.

Krzanich began his career at Intel in 1982 in New Mexico as a process engineer. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from San Jose State University and has one patent for semiconductor processing. Krzanich is also a member of the Board of Directors of Lilliputian Corporation and the Semiconductor Industry Association.

Renée J. James, President (Elect), Executive Office

Renée J. James is president of Intel Corporation and, with the CEO, is part of the company’s two-person Executive Office.

James has broad knowledge of the computing industry, spanning hardware, security, software and services, which she developed through product R&D leadership positions at Intel and as chairman of Intel’s software subsidiaries — Havok, McAfee and Wind River.

During her 25-year career at Intel, James has spearheaded the company’s strategic expansion into providing proprietary and open source software and services for applications in security, cloud-based computing, and importantly, smartphones. In her most recent role as executive vice president and general manager of the Software and Services Group, she was responsible for Intel’s global software and services strategy, revenue, profit, and product R&D. In this role, James led Intel’s strategic relationships with the world’s leading device and enterprise operating systems companies. Previously, she was the director and COO of Intel Online Services, Intel’s datacenter services business. James was also part of the pioneering team working with independent software vendors to port applications to Intel Architecture and served as chief of staff for former Intel CEO Andy Grove.

James began her career with Intel through the company’s acquisition of Bell Technologies. She holds a bachelor’s degree and master’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Oregon.

James also serves as a non-executive director on the Vodafone Group Plc Board of Directors and is a member of the Remuneration Committee. She is an independent director on the VMware Inc. Board of Directors and is a member of the Audit Committee. She is also a member of the C200.

Chip Shot: Renée James Selected as Recipient of C200′s STEM Innovator Luminary Award [IntelPR in Intel Newsroom, April 13, 2013]

Renée J. James, Intel executive vice president and general manager of the Software and Services Group, has earned the prestigious honor of being the recipient of the STEM Innovator Luminary Award, presented by the Committee of 200 (C200). C200 is an international, non-profit organization of the most powerful women who own or run companies, or who lead major divisions of large corporations. A STEM Innovator is the leader of a technology-based business who has exemplified unique vision and success in science, technology, engineering or math-based industries, which James has continually demonstrated throughout her career at Intel. This includes growing Intel’s software and services business worldwide, driving open standards within the software ecosystem and providing leadership as chairman for both McAfee and Wind River Systems, Intel wholly owned subsidiaries.

Renée James keynote delivering Intel’s new strategy called ‘Transparent Computing’ at the IDF 2012 [TomsHardwareItalia YouTube channel, Sept 13, 2012]

IDF 2012 Day 2:
- Intel Developer Forum 2012 Keynote, Renée James Transcript (PDF 190KB)
- Intel Developer Forum 2012 Keynote, Renée James Presentation (PDF 7MB)

Intel to Software Developers: Embrace Era of Transparent Computing [press release, Sept 12, 2012]

NEWS HIGHLIGHTS

• Intel reinforces commitment to ensuring HTML5 adoption accelerates and remains an open standard, providing developers a robust application environment that will run best on Intel^® architecture.
• New McAfee Anti-Theft product is designed to protect consumers’ property and personal information on Ultrabook™ devices.
• The Intel® Developer Zone is a new program designed to provide software developers and businesses with a single point of access to tools, communities and resources to help them engage with peers.

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INTEL DEVELOPER FORUM, San Francisco, Sept. 12, 2012 – Today at the Intel Developer Forum (IDF), Renée James, senior vice president and general manager of the Software and Services Group at Intel Corporation, outlined her vision for transparent computing. This concept is made possible only through an “open” development ecosystem where software developers write code that will run across multiple environments and devices. This approach will lessen the financial and technical compromises developers make today.

“With transparent computing, software developers no longer must choose one environment over another in order to maintain profitability and continue to innovate,” said James. “Consumers and businesses are challenged with the multitude of wonderful, yet incompatible devices and environments available today. It’s not about just mobility, the cloud or the PC. What really matters is when all of these elements come together in a compelling and transparent cross-platform user experience that spans environments and hardware architectures. Developers who embrace this reality are the ones who will remain relevant.”

Software developers are currently forced to choose between market reach, delivering innovation or staying profitable. By delivering the best performance with Intel’s cross-platform tools, security solutions and economically favorable distribution channels, the company continues to take a leadership position in defining and driving the open software ecosystem.

Develop to Run Many Places

While developers regularly express their desire to write once and run on multiple platforms, currently there is little incentive for any of the curators of these environments to provide cross-platform support. Central to Intel’s operating system of choice strategy, the company believes a solution to the cross-platform challenge is HTML5. With it, developers no longer have to make trade-offs between profitability, market participation or delivering innovation in their products. Consumers benefit by enabling their data, applications and identity to seamlessly transition from one operating system or device environment to another.

During her keynote, James emphasized the importance of HTML5 and related standards and that the implementation of this technology by developers should remain open to provide a robust application development environment. James reinforced Intel’s commitment to HTML5 and JavaScript by announcing that Mozilla, in collaboration with Intel, is working on a native implementation of River Trail technology. It is available now for download as a plug-in and will become native in Firefox browsers to bring the power of parallel computing to Web applications in 2013.

Security at Intel Provides an Inherent Advantage

Security at Intel provides an inherent advantage in terms of its approach. For over a decade, Intel has applied its technology leadership to security platform features aimed at keeping computing safe, from devices and networks to the data center. Today, the company extends the efficacy of security by combining hardware and software security solutions and co-designing products with McAfee. James invited McAfee Co-President Michael DeCesare to join her onstage to emphasize the important role security takes as the threat landscape continues to become more complex both in terms of volume and sophistication. DeCesare also highlighted the opportunity for developers to participate in securing the industry.

Touching on where McAfee is heading with Intel, DeCesare discussed the importance of understanding where computing is going overall. He noted examples including applications moving to the cloud, as well as IT seeking ways to reduce power consumption and wrestling with challenges associated with big data and the consumerization of IT. DeCesare also highlighted the value of maintaining the user experience and introduced McAfee Anti-Theft security software. Designed to protect consumers’ property and personal information for Ultrabook™ devices, this latest product enhancement is a collaborative effort with Intel to develop anti-theft software using Intel technologies that provide device and data protection.

DeCesare reiterated the opportunity for developers through the McAfee Security Innovation Alliance (SIA). The technology partnering program helps accelerate development of interoperable- security products, simplify integration of these products and delivers solutions to maximize the value of existing customer investments. The program also is intended to reduce both time-to-problem resolution and operational costs.

Developers’ Access to Resources Made Easy

James also announced the Intel® Developer Zone, a program designed to provide software developers and businesses with a single point of access to tools, communities and resources to help them engage with peers. Today’s software ecosystem is full of challenges and opportunities in such areas as technology powering new user experiences, expectations from touchscreens, battery life requirements, data security and cloud accessibility. The program is focused on providing resources to help developers learn and embrace these evolving market shifts and maximize development efforts across many form factors, platforms and operating systems.

• 
  

  Development Resources: Software tools, training, developer guides, sample code and support will help developers create new user experiences across many platforms. In the fourth quarter of this year, Intel Developer Zone will introduce an HTML5 Developer Zone focused on cross-platform apps, guiding developers through actual deployments of HTML5 apps on Apple* iOS*, Google* Android*, Microsoft* Windows* and Tizen*.

• Business Resources: Global software distribution and sales opportunities will be available via the Intel AppUp® center and co-marketing resources. Developers can submit and publish apps to multiple Intel AppUp center affiliate stores for Ultrabook devices, tablets and desktop systems. The Intel Developer Zone also provides opportunities for increased awareness and discoverability through the Software Business Network, product showcases and marketing programs.

• Active Communities: With Intel Developer Zone, developers can engage with experts in their field – both from Intel and the industry – to share knowledge, get support and build relationships. In the Ultrabook community, users will find leading developers sharing ideas and recommendations on how to create compelling Microsoft* Windows* 8 apps for the latest touch- and sensor-enabled Ultrabook devices.

Mobile Insights: Emerging Technologies [channelintel YouTube channel, Feb 26, 2013]

Mobile Insights: Software Development in Africa [channelintel YouTube channel, March 5, 2013]

Intel Developer Forum: Executives Talk Evolution of Computing with Devices that Touch People’s Daily Lives [press release, April 11, 2011]

…

Renée James: Creating the Ultimate User Experience
During her keynote, James discussed Intel’s transition from a semiconductor company to a personal computing company, and emphasized the importance of delivering compelling user experiences across a range of personal computing devices. To develop and enable the best experiences, James announced a strategic relationship with Tencent*, China’s largest Internet company, to create a joint innovation center dedicated to delivering best-in-class mobile Internet experiences. Engineers from both companies will work together to further the mobile computing platforms and other technologies.

James also announced new collaborations for the Intel AppUp^SM center and the Intel AppUp Developer Program in China to help assist in the creation of innovative applications for Intel Atom processor-based devices. Chinese partners supporting this effort include Neusoft*, Haier* and Hasee* and Shenzhen Software Park*.

…

Related presentation: Renee James: The Intel User Experience (English PDF 9.1MB)

How Intel’s new president Renee James learned the ropes from the legendary Andy Grove [VentureBeat, May 2, 2013]

Renee James became the president of Intel today. That’s the highest position a woman has ever held at the world’s largest chip maker. Alongside new CEO Brian Krzanich, James will be part of the two-person executive office running Intel. She rose to that position through tenacity and leadership during a career at Intel, but she was also part of a very exclusive club.

The 25-year Intel veteran was one of the early young employees who served as “technical assistant ” to former chief executive Andy Grove, the hard-charging leader who went by the motto “Only the Paranoid Survive.” In that position, she was not just an executive assistant. Rather, her job was to make sure that Grove always looked good and was up-to-speed on his personal use of technology. She helped him prepare his PowerPoint presentations and orchestrated his speeches. As a close confidant, she had close access to one of the most brilliant leaders of the tech industry.

Intel’s executives needed technical assistants in the way that contemporaries like Bill Gates, who grew up as a programmer, did not. Intel’s leaders were technically savvy manufacturing and chip experts, but they were not born as masters of the ins and outs of operating PowerPoint. So the company developed the technical assistant as a formal position, and each top executive had one. That position has turned out to be an important one; executives mentored younger, more promising employees. These employees then moved on to positions of great authority within Intel.

What makes James’s career so interesting — and a stand out — is that unlike Intel’s early leaders, she wasn’t a chip engineer or manufacturing executive. She has an MBA from the University of Oregon, and she pitched no-chip businesses for Intel to enter and became chief operating officer of Intel Online Services.

James will start her new position on May 16 and will report to Krzanich.

James served under Grove for a longer time than most technical assistants did, as she proved indispensable to him. James said that she learned a huge amount from Grove, and she took lots of notes on the things that he said that made an impression on her. Paul Otellini, the retiring CEO of Intel, also served as a technical assistant for Grove. The technical assistant job was one of those unsung positions that required a lot of wits. James had to pull together lots of Intel resources to set up, rehearse, and execute Grove’s major keynote speeches.

She was eventually given the more impressive title of “chief of staff.” During the dotcom era, she moved out on her own to set up an ill-fated business. She was in charge of Intel’s move into operating data centers that could be outsourced to other companies.

Under James’ plan, Intel would set up data centers with the same discipline and precision that it did with its chip manufacturing plants. It would build out the huge server rooms in giant warehouses and then rent the computing power to smaller companies. The business was much like Amazon’s huge web services business today. But Intel was too early and on the wrong side of the dotcom crash. When things fell apart in 2001, so did Intel’s appetite for noncore businesses. Intel shut down James’ baby.

But she went on to manage a variety of other businsses, including Intel’s security, software, services, and other nonchip businesses that have become more important as Intel takes on its mantle as a leader of the technology industry rather than just a component maker. That’s one of the legacies of Grove, who saw that Intel had to do a lot of the fundamental research and development in the computer industry, in part because nobody except Microsoft had the profits to invest in R&D.

As executive vice president of software and services, James managed Intel software businesses, including Havok, McAfee, and Wind River. During her tenure over software, Intel struggled in its alliance with Nokia to create the Meego mobile operating system, and it eventually gave up on it.

Among the other technical assistants at Intel were Sean Maloney, a rising star who retired last year after having a a stroke in 2010; venture capitalist Alex Wong; and Anand Chandrasekher, who left Intel and is now the chief marketing officer at rival Qualcomm.

There was a question why I was so affirmative with the headline of Temporary Nokia setback in India [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, April 28, 2013]. The quite remarkable cross-platform development story for Nokia Asha current and future devices is the major part of my affirmative approach. Take a look and convince yourself as well!

Nokia’s cross-platform strategy is aimed at the following value proposition to developers (see in the “Nokia’s own Asha cross-platform efforts for developers (so far)” section):

Consider Co-Development, instead of classic “porting”

As the Category:Silverlight [Nokia Developer Wiki, April 22, 2013] is stating:

Deprecated Category. Please move any articles across to Category:XAML.

the below rumor about the upcoming on May 9th Asha 501, that its design will be like the Nokia Lumias, would mean that programatically the same XAML interface would be delivered by Nokia for a further enhanced Nokia Asha Touch S40 operating system. It is even more likely as the J2ME platform of the Nokia Asha Touch S40 operating system was a few days ago enhanced by the Lightweight User Interface Toolkit (LWUIT) in Nokia SDK 2.0 for Java™, and this is supported by the full cross-platform Codename One development kit from the same name 3d party company, who is also preparing a XAML based 1.1 version of this toolkit for Windows Phone 8/7 (and presumably for Windows 8 as well), thus allowing the same standard Java programming by providing (see in the “Codename One cross-platform offerings for Java developers” section):

1 Java API which is the same for J2ME, Android, iOS, RIM and Win8.

It could also be quite probable that Nokia’s own Asha cross-platform offerings will extended by C#/XAML oriented cross-platform toolkit[s] on May 9th. Then we will have a complete cross-platform story for Nokia’s non-Windows offerings. We’ll see.

Nokia launching Asha 501 on 9th May? [mobile indian, May 1, 2013]

Nokia has sent out press invites for an event on May 9, which could possibly be about Asha 501 launch, and we have strong reasons to believe so.

Nokia may probably launch new phone(s) in the Asha series lineup on May 9th, on which day Nokia has organized an event and has sent out invites to various media organisations. And while the invitation does not specify the subject of the launch, we are pretty sure about it being an Asha series phone as it has been sent by a team that looks after Asha lineup.

Probably, Nokia would launch the Asha 501 which has been in the news off late.

According to rumors, Nokia Asha 501 is to come with design like the Nokia Lumia phones.

Further the Asha 501 is said to come with a 5 megapixel camera with LED flash, and a slightly larger display than Asha 311 which has a 3 inch touchscreen. Most likely this handset will have at least a 1 GHz processor.

Nokia is reemphasizing on its Asha series of phones to strengthen its market hold. Recently Stephen Elop, Nokia’s chief executive officer, had also emphasized that saying, “We have to make sure the product portfolio is as competitive as possible. We are due for a significant refresh.”

#Breaking “Nokia 501″ & “Nokia 210″ Passed Testing Process by Directorate Post & Telecommunication Indonesia [nokianesia blog, April 9, 2013]

Today, April 09, 2013 Directorate Post & Telecommunication Indonesia publish 2 New Nokia devices which are already passed the testing process to get certification.

There are Nokia 501 RM-902 that should be (Maybe) The next generation of Nokia Asha and Nokia 210 RM 924 that Should be Nokia Asha 210.

Right know, we still don’t have any information about specification and information. We will post if there are any information about Nokia 501 and Nokia Asha 210.

Source postel.go.id

Compare Nokia Asha 501 vs Micromax A51 Bolt [91mobiles, March 16, 2013]

Sections of this post:
- Codename One cross-platform offerings for Java developers
- Nokia’s own Asha cross-platform efforts for developers (so far)

Developers Guide [Version 1.0.1, Jan 24, 2013]

Introduction

Codename One is a set of tools for mobile application development that derive a great deal of its architecture from Java. It stands both as the name of the startup that created the set of tools and as a prefix to the distinct tools that make up the Codename One product.

The goal of the Codename One project is to take the complex and fragmented task of mobile device programming and unify it under a single set of tools, APIs and services to create a more manageable approach to mobile application development without sacrificing development power/control.

History

Codename One was started by Chen Fishbein & Shai Almog who authored the Open Source LWUIT project at Sun Microsystems starting at 2007. The LWUIT project aimed at solving the fragmentation within J2ME/Blackberry devices by targeting a higher standard of user interface than the common baseline at the time. LWUIT received critical acclaim and traction within multiple industries but was limited by the declining feature phone market.

In 2012 the Codename One project has taken many of the basic concepts developed within the LWUIT project and adapted them to the smartphone world which is experiencing similar issues to the device fragmentation of the old J2ME phones.

How Does It Work

Codename One has 4 major parts: API, Designer, Simulator, Build/Cloud server.

• API – abstracts platform specific functionality

• Designer – allows developers/designers to design the GUI/theme and package various resources required by the application

• Simulator – allows previewing and debugging applications within the IDE

• Build/Cloud server – the server performs the build of the native application, removing the need to install additional software stacks.

Limitations & Capabilities

J2ME & RIM are very limited platforms to achieve partial Java 5 compatibility Codename One automatically strips the Java 5 language requirements from bytecode and injects its own implementation of Java 5 classes. Not everything is supported so consult the Codename One JavaDoc when you get a compiler error to see what is available.

Due to the implementation of the NetBeans IDE it is very difficult to properly replace and annotate the supported Java API’s so the completion and error marking might not represent correctly what is actually working and implemented on the devices. However, the compilation phase will not succeed if you used classes that are unsupported.

Lightweight UI

The biggest differentiation for Codename One is the lightweight architecture which allows for a great deal of the capabilities within Codename One. A Lightweight component is a component which is written entirely in Java, it draws its own interface and handles its own events/states.

This has huge portability advantages since the same code executes on all platforms, but it carries many additional advantages.

The components are infinitely customizable just by using standard inheritance and overriding paint/event handling. Theming and the GUI builder allow for live preview and accurate reproduction across platforms since the same code executes everywhere.

…

Codename One Benchmarked With Amazing Results [Codename One – Reinventing the Mobile Development blog, Dec 7, 2012]

Steve Hannah who ported Codename One to Avian has just completed a set of benchmarks on Codename One’s iOS performance putting Codename One’s at 33% slower performance than native C and faster performance than Objective-C!

I won’t spoil his research results so please read his full post here.
A small disclaimer is that the Objective-C benchmark is a bit heavy on the method/message calls which biases the benchmark in our favor. Method invocations in Codename One are naturally much faster than the equivalent Objective-C code due to the semantics of that language.

With 100,000 SDK Downloads, Mobile Development Platform Codename One Comes Out of Beta With 1.0 Launch [Codename One – Reinventing the Mobile Development blog, Jan 29, 2013]

Tel Aviv, Israel – Mobile development platform Codename One is announcing the launch of its 1.0 version on Tuesday, January 29. After releasing in beta last June, Codename One – the first software development kit that allows Java developers to create true high performance native mobile applications across multiple mobile operating systems using a single code base – has garnered over 100,000 downloads and emerged as one of the fastest toolkits of its kind, on par with native OS toolkits.

The platform to date has been used to build over 1,000 native mobile applications and has been touted by mobile developers and enthusiasts as the best write-once-run-everywhere solution for building native mobile apps.

“I have been developing with Codename One for a couple of months now. When you line up all of the other options for development, whether native SDKs, Appcelerator, ADF or others, Codename One wins on almost every front,” said software developer Steve Hannah.

Codename One has received widespread, viral acclaim in technology and business media including InfoWorld, Slashdot, Hacker News, VentureBeat, Business Insider, The Next Web, Dr. Dobbs and Forbes, which named the company one of the 10 greatest industry disrupting startups of 2012.

“We have been thrilled with the success of our beta launch and are very excited to release the much-awaited 1.0 version,” said co-founder and CEO Shai Almog.

Almog, along with co-founder Chen Fishbein, decided to launch the venture after noticing a growing inefficiency within mobile application development. By enabling developers to significantly cut time and costs in developing native applications for iOS, Android, Blackberry, Windows 7 Phone and other devices, Almog and Fishbein hope to make mobile application development increasingly feasible.

The Java-based platform is open-source and utilizes lightweight technology, allowing it to produce unique native interfaces highly differentiated from competitive cross-platform mobile development toolkits, which typically use HTML5 or heavyweight technology.

By drawing all components from scratch rather than utilizing native widgets, Codename One enables developers to avoid fragmentation – a major hindrance found in the majority of competitors – and additionally allows accurate desktop simulation of mobile apps.

The startup’s founders are recognized for engineering Sun Microsystems’s famous Lightweight User Interface Toolkit, a mobile platform used by leading mobile carriers and industry leaders to this date.

Codename One is available for download free of charge.

About Codename One

Codename One, named by Forbes as “one of the 10 greatest industry disrupting startups of 2012,” is an Israel-based technology company that has created a powerful cross-platform software development kit for mobile applications. The technology enables developers to create native applications across multiple operating systems using a single code base. Codename One was founded by renowned software engineers Shai Almog and Chen Fishbein in 2012.

Windows Phone 8 And The State Of 7 [Codename One – Reinventing the Mobile Development blog, April 2, 2013]

Codename One’s windows phone port is close to a public release.

A preliminary Windows Phone 8 build has been available on our servers for the past couple of days. We differentiate between a Windows Phone 7 and 8 version by a build argument that indicates the version (win.ver=8) this will be exposed by the GUI in the next update of the plugin. But now I would like to discuss the architecture and logic behind this port which will help you understand how to optimize the port and maybe even help us with the actual port.

The Windows Phone 7 and 8 ports are both based on the XMLVM translation to C# code, we picked this approach because all other automated approaches proved to be duds. iKVM which seems like the most promising option, isn’t supported on mobile so that only left the XMLVM option.

The Windows Phone 7 port was based on XNA (3d C# based API) which has its share of problems but was more appropriate to our needs in Codename One. Unfortunately Microsoft chose to kill off XNA for Windows Phone 8 which put us in a bit of a bind when trying to build the Windows Phone 8 port.

While externally Windows Phone 8 and 7 look very similar, their underlying architecture is completely different and very incompatible. You cannot compile a universal binary that will work on all of Microsoft’s platforms, so just to make order within this mess:

• Windows Phone 7 – based on the old Windows CE kernel. Allows only managed runtimes (e.g. C# not C++), graphics can be done using XAML or XNA (more on that later.
• Windows Phone 8 – based on an ARM port of Windows 8 kernel. Allows unmanaged apps (C# or C++) graphics can be done in XAML or Direct3D when using C++ (but not silverlight).
• Windows RT/Desktop – the full windows 8 kernel either for ARM or for PC. They are partially compatible to one another so I’m putting them together. This is actually pretty similar to the Windows Phone 8 port, but incompatible so a different build is needed and slightly different API usage.

As you understand we can’t use XNA since it isn’t supported by the new platforms, we toyed a bit with the idea of using Direct3D but integrating it with text input, fonts etc. seemed like a nightmare. Furthermore, doing another C++ port would mean a HUGE amount of work!

So Codename One is based on the XAML API. Most people would think of XAML as an XML based API, but you can use it from C# and just ignore most of the XML aspects of it which is what we need since our UI is constructed dynamically. However, this is more complicated than it seems.

To understand the complexity you need to understand the idea of a Scene Graph. If you used Codename One you are using a more immediate mode graphics API, where the paint method is invoked and just paints the component whenever its needed. This is the simplest most portable way of doing graphics and is pretty common, its used natively by Android, OpenGL, Direct3D etc. and is very familiar to developers.

In recent years many Scene Graph API’s sprung up, XAML is one of them and so is JavaFX, Flash, SVG and many others. In a Scene Graph world you construct a graphics hierarchy and then let it be rendered, the whole paint() sequence is hidden from the developer. The best way to explain it is that our components in Codename One are really a scene graph, only at a higher abstraction level. Windows/Flash placed the scene graph on the graphics as well, so to draw a rectangle you would just add it to the tree (and remove it when you no longer need it).

This is actually pretty powerful, you can do animations just by changing component values in trees and performance can be pretty spectacular since the paint loop can be GPU optimized.

However, the reality of this is that most developers find these API’s harder to work with (since they need to keep track of a rather complex unintuitive tree), the API’s aren’t portable at all since the hierarchies are so different. Performance is also very hard to tune since so much is hidden by the underlying hidden paint logic.

For Codename One this is a huge problem, we need our API to act as if its painting in immediate mode while constructing/updating a scene! When we initially built this the performance was indeed as bad as you might imagine. While we are not in the clear yet, the performance is much improved…

How did we solve this?

There are several different issues involved, the first is the number of elements on the screen. We noticed that if we have more than 200 elements on the screen performance quickly degraded. This was a HUGE problem since we have thousands of paint operations happening just in the process of transitioning into a new form. To solve this we associate every graphics component with a component and when the component is repainted we remove all operations related to it, we also try to reuse graphics resources such as images from the previous paint operation.

When painting a component in Codename One we normally traverse up the component tree and paint the first opaque component forward (known as painters algorithm) however, since the scene already has the parent component painting it again would result in many copies of the image being within the scene graph. E.g. I have a background image on a form, when painting a translucent label I have to paint the background image within a clipping region matching the label…. In the Windows Phone port we have a special hook that just disables this functionality, this hook alone pushed us over the top to reasonable graphics performance!

We are working on getting additional performance oriented features into place and fixing some issues related to this approach, its not a simple task since the API wasn’t designed with this in mind but it is doable. We would appreciate you taking the time to review the port

Build Java Application for Mobile Devices [Shai Almog YouTube channel, Jan 10, 2013]

Codename One Executive Overview [Shai Almog YouTube channel, Jan 6, 2013]

Developer Introduction To Codename One [Shai Almog YouTube channel, Jan 6, 2013]

Series 40 Webinar: LWUIT for Nokia Asha app development [nokiadevforum YouTube channel, April 16, 2013]

More information:
- Swing into Mobile – Use the Lightweight UI Toolkit on Nokia Series 40 phones [pp. 81–84 of Java Magazine, January/February 2013]
- LWUIT for Series 40 out of beta [Nokia Developer News, Feb 26, 2013]

Great news for those of you wanting to deliver superior UIs in your Series 40 apps— Lightweight UI Toolkit (LWUIT) for Series 40 has graduated from beta to a full initial release.

LWUIT is an open source Java ME toolkit that supports a comprehensive range of visual UI components, and other user interface elements such as theming, transitions, and animation among others. It helps you create applications with appealing UIs that closely follow the native Series 40 UIs. It also helps speed up development by significantly reducing the need to create custom UI components, which might be needed when creating an app’s UI using LCDUI. LWUIT for Series 40 can be used in combination with selected Nokia UI APIs and all the JSR APIs available on the platform.

Since the last LWUIT for Series 40 release made available in the Nokia SDK 2.0 for Java, development of the toolkit has been continuing at a rapid pace. A number of new APIs have been introduced, including PopUpChoiceGroup, ContextMenu, NokiaListCellRenderer, theme selection, and full-screen mode. There have also been significant improvements in performance, particularly in lists, themes loading, and HTMLComponent. Compatibility with the native full-touch UI has been fine-tuned and many bugs fixed, particularly in command handling and text input.

The toolkit also includes all the new examples created since the last release. These include code examples that provide demonstrations of the Category bar, gestures, and lists. There are also new application examples for birthdays, showing use of the calendar component and PIM API; a slide puzzle; tourist attractions, showing the use of HERE maps and in-app purchasing APIs; and a Reddit client showing the use of a custom theme and JSON. In addition, updated version of two of the original LWUIT examples applications, LWUITDemo and LWUITBrowser, are also included.

The final component in the full release of LWUIT for Series 40 is the inclusion of comprehensive documentation in the toolkit. This is based on the LWUIT Developer’s Library, a library consisting of:

• Developer’s Guide, which is based on the original LWUIT Developer Guide and provides technical information about using the LWUIT components

• LWUIT UX overview, which is a new section providing a guide to designing app UIs with LWUIT for Series 40 components

If you have the Nokia SDK 2.0 for Java installed, you will receive an automatic notification of the availability of LWUIT for Series 40 1.0. You can then simply follow the instructions to install the update. If you are using LWUIT with the Nokia SDK 1.1 for Java, you can download the update from LWUIT for Series 40 project.

J2ME, Feature Phones & Nokia Devices [Codename One – Reinventing the Mobile Development blog, April 24, 2013]

Is J2ME dead or dying?

How many times have we heard this for the past 3 years or so? Sadly the answer is: Yes!

Unfortunately there is no active owner for the J2ME standard and thus no new innovation around J2ME for quite some time (MIDP 2.0 came out in 2004, 3.0 never really materialized). Android is/was the biggest innovation since and became the unofficial successor to J2ME.

Well, if J2ME is dead what about Feature Phones? Should we care about them?

The answer is: Yes! very much so!

Features Phones are still selling in millions and still beats Android sales in the developing world. Recently Nokia shipped the Asha series devices which are quite powerful and capable pieces of hardware, they are very impressive. Nokia’s revenue is driven mainly by the Feature Phone market.

There is a real battle in the developing countries between Feature Phones and Android devices, Feature Phones are still cheaper and more efficient where Android has more/better content (apps & games).

How long will it take Android to catch up? we will see…

In the meantime there is money on the table and a real opportunity for developers to make some money (and gain loyal users who will migrate to Android or other platform at some point)

To win over the competition or at least to maintain its dominate player position Nokia must bring new quality content to the devices, it’s not enough to ship cool new feature phones, the new phone needs to connect to facebook, twitter, gmail, whatsapp and have all the new cool games/apps Android has and more.

So how should you write your apps for the cool new Nokia Feature Phone if J2ME is dead? Luckily there is an option Codename One .

In Codename One You have 1 Java API which is the same for J2ME, Android, iOS, RIM and Win8.

Below are some of the J2ME highlights:

1. Facebook Connect – did you noticed there aren’t many social apps on OVI?

   There is a reason Facebook uses oauth2 which is a huge pain without a browser API, this is solved and working in Codename One.

2. Java 5 features – You can use generics and other Java 5 features in your app and it will work on your J2ME/RIM devices. You don’t have to limit yourself to CLDC.

3. Rich UI – If you know or knew LWUIT (Swing like API), well Codename One UI is effectively LWUIT 2.0.

4. Built in Asha skins and themes

The most important thing is the fact that your skills are not wasted on an old/dying J2ME API, by joining our growing community and writing the next amazing app your skills can target the emerging platforms of the present/future.

Codename One JavaOne Session Screencast [Shai Almog YouTube channel, Oct 25, 2012]

Series 40 Webinar: How to develop cool apps for Nokia Asha smartphones [nokiadevforum YouTube channel, April 5, 2013]

[25:01] Porting Resources at Nokia Developer
- Porting and Guide for Android Developers:
>>> http://www.developer.nokia.com/Develop/Porting/ [27:46]

Related to the porting vis-à-vis Android & cross-platform slides:
[27:46 > 28:50 > 29:40 > 30:20 > 30:50 > 31:15 > 31:40 > 32:25 > 33:20 Demo: Android porting Frozen Bubble: see https://projects.developer.nokia.com/frozenbubble and the video coming below > 34:24]

Tantalum Mobile [January 1, 2013] Summary

Tantalum is mobile Java tools for high performance and development speed on Android and J2ME. The focus is on practical use cases which can be included in a project to solve frequent needs in an elegant manner.

---

Life is many asynchronous tasks chained together and running concurrently on background threads with UI callbacks. The result may look like black magic or star wars, but as you become one with the source, the patterns emerge as ecstatic moments of clarity.

Tantalum Cross Platform Library

Tantalum 5 is nearing beta release

As the Tantalum team works hard on the new Tantalum 5 release and increasing support to the Android community, you can track that and possibly help at ​https://github.com/TantalumMobile/ More on that and the great support Nokia is giving to this open source effort as we release- happy changes and momentum.

* NEW 4.0 RELEASE January 1, 2013 *

New release 4.0 including cross-platform Android and J2ME app development support, simple fork-join concurrency, simple 3 layer caching and Android AsyncTask and more is now available!

Quick Start Guide and JAVADOC: ​Tanalum4_doc.zip

Source code and examples: ​Tantalum4.zip

Cross platform Series40-Android example using Tantalum4: ​Picasa_Viewer

JavaOne San Francisco talk and demos of Tantalum4: ​JavaOne_Extreme_Mobile_Java_Performance.mp4

Tantalum is a light-weight metal used used to keep mobile phone electronics compact and powerful. Tantalum4 is the 4th major release of a very light and elegant back end utility library for mobile java. With mobile applications, less is more.

This is _not_ a framework. It is a clean and light tool set which at 8-40kB it will _not_ bloat your application. Obfuscation of your release build automatically removes those features you do not use. We do just a few things really well:

• The exact same JAR library runs on J2ME and Android- save time and money by reusing your code and add a native UI for each platform

• Clean, fast utility model threading with Java7 fork-join-cancel and Android Java5 AsyncTask patterns

• Unique async task chaining to feed the output of one Task to the input of the next is easier than overriding existing classes

• WeakReference heap and persistent flash memory caching to easily make online-offlne apps which start fast and run reliably in real world mobile networks

• Async HTTP GET and POST with automatic retry

• Simplified async XML parsing directly into model objects

• Simplified async JSON parsing directly into model objects

• Logging convenience classes including J2ME USB debug and app profile from phone

The above capabilities work cleanly together to simplify your development. There is no UI assumption in Tantalum4- pick what works best for you on each platform. The bundled example applications are an RSS reader for

• Forms

• Nokia Series40 Asha touch devices

• LWUIT 1.5

Download the sample apps and give a try. We hope you are amazed at the results and speed with which you can achieve them.

Apache 2 license. Please return your fixes and suggestions to the community here.

* NEW 3.0 RELEASE June 18, 2012 *

WHAT IS NEW

• Many, many stability improvements, especially to caching and flash memory usage

• Shutdown work tasks and low-priority work tasks are now supported

• Support for Nokia LWUIT in the example applications

• Support for Nokia full touch phones in the example applications.

• Speed. Tantalum3 is wired and optimized even more than before to run well also on slower devices.

• You can find a series of nice, short training videos covering Tantalum3 at​https://projects.developer.nokia.com/videotraining

CONTENTS OF THE ARCHIVE (Download link on right side of this page)

/prebuilt_examples

Pre-built example applications, run to test on various devices. Testing is mostly on Nokia SDK 1.1 and 2.0 with profiling of the S40 example tested in Oracle SDK.

/lib

Pre-built libraries you can include in your application if you don’t want to mess with the source code. There are three flavors: debug including unit tests and verbose errors, usb-debug, and release optimized. To use the usb-debug variant, connect your phone by USB and open a terminal emulator such as puttytel to the serial port you find in Window Device Manager. Use max baud rate and hardware flow control RTS/CTS.

/src

Everything you need to build the libraries and examples yourself

/doc

Javadoc for Tantalum3 library

/json_doc

Javadoc for the optional JSON suppliment

* NEW 2.2 RELEASE February 7 2012 *

Example updates with minor bug fix, reorganization of the source into 3 projects make release builds easier, added unit tests.

* NEW 2.1 RELEASE January 24 2012 *

---

Latest announcements

• Tantalum 4 is out! - January 7th, 2013 by paul.houghton

• Tantalum 4, almost ready… - December 11th, 2012 by paul.houghton

• 
  

  See all announcements >

Related videos:
- Series 40 Webinar: Porting Android apps to the Series 40 platform [nokiadevforum YouTube channel, Dec 17, 2012]

- Porting Android and Blackberry apps to Series 40 [Nokia Developer News, Nov 30, 2012]

If you’ve got an application for Android or BlackBerry (up to BlackBerry OS 7.1), your existing Java code puts you in a great position to take advantage of the growing demand for apps from Series 40 phone owners.

To help you take advantage of this opportunity, we’ve started to gather a collection of resources to guide you through the porting process in the Porting to Series 40 library section.

If you are starting with an Android app, the wiki provides basic information on the tools and technology needed, platform comparisons, porting considerations, code snippets, and example porting cases along with the all-important guidelines you need for an efficient port.

For your future apps, you can even consider creating a Series 40 and Android version at the same time, our Picasa Viewer example application will show you how.

If a little hands-on guidance could help even more, why not check out the Android porting webinar sessions we have on 4 December at 8 a.m. San Francisco; 10 a.m. Mexico City; 4 p.m. London and 13 December, 8 a.m. London; 1:30 p.m. New Delhi; 4 p.m. Singapore.

Life could be even easier if you have a BlackBerry app. Most generic Java ME MIDlets can be deployed to both BlackBerry and Series 40 with little more than platform-specific repackaging. However, you might want to adapt the user interface and the look & feel of the app to fit to Series 40 screen-size and UI style. Again, the wiki gives you a pointer to the porting article with code samples that will be enhanced for the later updates of the library.

You can also get practical guidance from an expert, check out our BlackBerry porting webinar on 18 December, 8 a.m. London; 1:30 p.m. New Delhi; 4 p.m. Singapore or view a recording of one of the earlier sessions on our webinars page.

Using our latest Nokia SDK 2.0 for Java, and its integrated Nokia IDE for Java ME, combined with the guidance of the updated porting library, we think you’ll find porting your app easier than you ever imagined.

We’re looking forward to welcoming you to the family of developers who have found success on the Series 40 platform.

- Designing & Optimising Graphics for your Series 40 app [nokiadevforum YouTube channel, Nov 8, 2012] https://projects.developer.nokia.com/frozenbubble

- UI Clinic – Series 40 full touch, April 2013 [nokiadevforum YouTube channel, April 24, 2013]

- Introduction to the Nokia Premium Developer Program for Asha [nokiadevforum YouTube channel, April 19, 2013]

Asha Premium Developer Program introduced [Nokia Developer News, March 26, 2013]

We’ve been having a lot of fun lately—we launched the Nokia Premium Developer Program for Lumia back in October, and it proved to be our most successful developer program ever. Our rewards program, DVLUP, has also proven extremely popular with developers, and we recently expanded it to include developers in the UK.

So we decided it was time to bring some “Premium goodness” to Asha development. Today we are excited to introduce the Nokia Premium Developer Program for Asha.

The Asha Opportunity

The Asha ecosystem has a growing installed base of superior but affordable smartphones (such as the Nokia Asha 308, 310, and 311), and with these great devices comes an increased demand for apps. The Asha Premium Developer Program is designed to provide you with tools and services to make developing for Asha faster and easier, increase the discoverability of your apps, and bring you closer to the millions of Nokia Asha users around the world.

By providing you with high-value support and tools beyond what’s provided by your standard registration with Nokia Developer, the Asha Premium Developer Program will help you fast-track your success.

The Nokia Premium Developer Program for Asha comprises two levels: enhanced productivity tools and app promotion opportunities. We know that it’s easier not only to be inspired but also to develop and test when you have a great device in hand, so the productivity tools start with a free Nokia Asha 310 smartphone. To help you with testing, we’re also offering expanded Remote Device Access with more Nokia Asha devices available to you. Finally, you’ll get two free tech tickets for Asha development support, a value of $198 (USD).

Program members who submit a new, high quality full touch Asha app to Nokia Store can apply for app promotional opportunities: greater visibility on Nokia Store, or a $500 (USD) credit to run paid ad campaigns on Nokia Ad Exchange.

Best of all membership in the Nokia Premium Developer Program for Asha is free, although you’ll need to meet certain criteria.

Explore the Nokia Premium Developer Program for Asha, and apply for membership today.

While such headlines are in minority by far and had been market balanced by Qualcomm’s media wide Snapdragon 800 communication (“Snapdragon 800 to enter mass production in late May”) we are witnessing first time that Qualcomm’s SoC future had been questioned for very first time. So it is worth to examine this abrupt change in a little more detail than the articles behind those worries:

First of all China: Entry-level dual core IPS WVGA (480×800) smartphones $65+ now, quad-core $70+ in June [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, April 29, 2013] behind of which there is a very said turn of events from Qualcomm’s point of view that:

Qualcomm recently quoted its quad-core solutions at less than US$10, slightly cheaper than MediaTek’s offerings, the sources indicated. Meanwhile, Spreadtrum has lowered its quad-core processor prices to similar levels. Both firms are trying to gain market share through aggressive pricing, the sources said.

That is Qualcomm has no other way against its market dominant entry-level rival MediaTek as start an outright price competition. In fact it is an even bigger problem as its hastily reworked new SoC product line setup:
was meant to be a very broad offensive move as it was noted in Qualcomm moving ahead of Allwinner et al. in CPU and GPU while trying to catch up with Allwinner in Ultra HD [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Jan 12 -Feb 27, 2013]

Even more, in China: Entry-level dual core IPS WVGA (480×800) smartphones $65+ now, quad-core $70+ in June [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, April 29, 2013] we already had the following slide from yet another Chinese rival Spreadtrum:

So while Qualcomm is trying to undercut MediaTek prices in the quad-core entry-level SoC segment its another rival had been pushed to do the same, and now Qualcomm has another very potent rival, already much better established in the entry-level segment than Qualcomm, even outside China as was shown by Temporary Nokia setback in India [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, April 28, 2013]. Should Qualcomm drop its quad-core entry level price further? Hardly, as those $10 SoC prices are at the very bottom from the point of view of deterring additional entry-level quad-core rivals like Allwinner to enter that segment at large.

The competition between these three parties in terms of the entry level functionality looks like as follows (availability data is suggesting Q3 2013 entry level smartphone devices with extremely high volume production from Tier 1 international vendors down to a large number of white-box Chinese vendors):

Block diagrams of the MT6572 entry level SoC from MediaTek, the quad-core MT6582 will differ from that only in the number of cores:

From: Mediatek “Wu Song” [MT6572] uphill [product], against the Spreadtrum “Tiger” [SC8825] / 联发科武松上山，展讯猛虎迎战 [52RD, March 8, 2013]

and

from 28-nanometer dual-core MT6572 WCDMA version is first to debut / 28纳米双核MT6572临近 WCDMA版本率先登场 [MTK手机网/MTK Mobile Phone Network, March 23, 2013] based on which a brief English report was the Mediatek MT6572 Chipset Details [Quazmo, April 6, 2013]

Meanwhile the first MT6572-based products are already launched:
MTK6572 mobile phone, Sunspan [天迈] D18/D28X first appearance [China Unlocked Phone Review, April 26, 2013] which is the rough English translation (therefore I made some manual edits to it) of MTK6572手机来了 天迈D18/D28X率先亮相 [MTK手机网/MTK Mobile Phone Network, April 26, 2013] article

MediaTek MT6572 dual-core processor was adopted some time ago by the majority of mobile solution providers. Informed sources said MT6572 began mass production, in addition to the dual-core MT6572, quad-core chip MT6582 coming soon. There is no quad-core version of the specific information of MT6582 chip, but to guess from the naming of the quad-core chip may be rumors it is MT6572 quad core version .

Description of MT6572

MediaTek MTK/MT6572 is a low-power highly integrated single-chip phone processor. The chip is based on Cortex-A7 architecture, using the 28-nanometer process. a single core’s clocked at 1.xGHz, it also has built-in Mali-400MP graphics processor, support for TD-SCDMA, WCDMA and EDGE 2.75G network, integrated 4-in-1 wireless chip. In addition to that it has been listed dual-core and quad-core chip versions. The MT6572 product line also has speed and price advantages. It is learned that old Spreadtrum customers, including WingTech (闻泰) etc. will be launching MTK6572 products, but the end product equipped with MT6572 chip will be officially listed in May.

T-SMART D28X/D26X

T-Smart Sunspan Communication, operating in the field of TD for many years and in good cooperation with China Mobile and other operators, signed a 600,000 full year supply agreement with D.Phone [who claims to be China’s largest retailer of mobile phones and accessories, with over 1300 stores, more than 800 of which are directly owned stores, see its TMall store for current offerings]. In this year’s upcoming new machine, Sunspan D28X/D26X and D18/D96X, several new machines will be using MTK6572 program, the listing of these models has been formed, will soon be listed.

Sunspan D28X/D26X

The two Sunspan D28X/D26X machines have the same appearance. Body size is 132 * 68 * 10.5 mm, which is equipped with MTK6572 dual-core processor, clock frequency is 1GHz, the screen size is 4.5 inches with 5MP camera, and running Android 4.2 version of the system. Another standard capacity of 1600 mAh battery, built-in commonly used sensor. The D28X/D26X both support different network standards, the D28X will provide the China Mobile’s customized one, i.e. can support the TD-SCDMA network, while the D26X has the Unicom [W-CDMA] version.

T-SMART D18/D96X

In addition to the Sunspan D28X/D26X, there are also new D18/D96X machines which to be powered by the MTK6572 dual-core processor. The D18/D96X models also differ in supported networks. D18 is the China Mobile version and D96X is the Unicom version. In addition to that the D18 will run Android 4.2 system, equipped with a 2MP camera, while the the D96X using system version 4.1, the camera pixel is higher, 3MP. D18/D96X body style is more upright, while the color is much richer, the machine size is 126 * 64 * 10.9 mm.

Hardware parameters of both are also consistent: with a 4-inch screen, the battery capacity of 1500 mAh, supports common sensors.

MT6572 is primarily intended for [so called] one thousand yuan [~$150] mobile terminal products, so the MTK6572 phone sells are worth of the wait, as several new machines with lower to Sunspan hardware specifications, maybe the same, will have a friendly price. After May a large number of MTK6572 dual-core processor models will become available, the choice available to users will be more and more, and we look forward to the MT6572′s performance.

And those first Sunspan products were produced by the largest cellphone ODM in mainland China, WingTech [闻泰] Communications:
From the feature to quickly switch your Smartphone / 从功能机到智能机的快速切换 [Jiaxing Daily, March 22, 2013] as traslated by Bing and Google, with manual edits:

Decoding the “top ten 2012 to take a new road to industrialization enterprises”: WingTech Communications Review

“Sales of only 640 million yuan [$104M] in the first half of last year, while in the second half, sales more than doubled over the first half, jumped to 1.2 billion yuan [$195M]. In January to February period of this year, sales have exceeded 600 million yuan [$97M], an increase of 140%.” At the time of describing the achievement WingTech Communications Vice Chairman Xiao Xuebing [肖学兵] conceals his excitement inside: benefit from timely adjustment, increased research and development, decisiveness in the transformation and upgrading.

… From the first half of 2012 Xiao Xuebing introduced in Wingtech a timely transformation and upgrading, increased investment in the development of 3G smart phones in order to gradually force new products onto the market in the second half of the year, and quickly switch from the feature phone market to the most popular smart phone market.

… WingTech has large scale, low-cost advantage, which thanks to ODM orders from Huawei [华为], Haier [海尔], Sunspan [天迈], TCL and other domestic brands, as well as a powerful combination with carriers and falling smartphone prices lead to rapid sales growth and rapid adoption in the market. Now WingTech is still mass recruiting the staff, nevertheless it is expected that the whole production would exceed 3 million units in March, again hitting an all-time record.

Even in the worst economic situation of the winter of 2008 the 1000 people strong R&D team of WingTech Communications, under the leadership of CEO Zhang Xuezheng [张学政], still advocated a “while others are ‘dormant’ we need to have ‘winter’ “ approach – a gathering of its hundreds of elite “retreats” hundred days focus research and development. This spirit of innovation remains to this day – still coming down.

“After the 4-inch dual-core smartphones, we will soon launch 5-inch and 6-inch quad-core smart phones, as well as 7-inch, 8-inch and 10-inch PAD tablets, for which WingTech will use its own core technology, building more ordinary people affordable smart electronic products.” said Xiao Xuebing “The new products apply a lot of new technologies from the latest R&D. In the upcoming smartphones we’ve designed in a dual microphone, one for sound recording and the other for filtering the background noise. In the dual camera space, as distinct from the existing front camera, the light rear camera consists in fact two cameras, so as to achieve a 3D effect shooting.”

Outside of research and innovation, during the manufacturing process, WingTech is also vigorously promoting technological innovation, introducing more robots and constantly increasing automation. Automation can not only rapidly increase productivity, but also can help with the stability of product quality. “Product testing was done by manual inspection in the past, only one at a time, and now with automated tools, we can have a simultaneous inspection, measuring eight mobile phones at once” – young workers of the company are saying.

Meanwhile, thanks to the technology innovation, there are cost savings to the WingTech. “Circuit boards used to have a border. Now with a free border process, as long as the increase in the tray, the circuit board does not require a border.” For businesses less materials, for society reduced energy consumption and reduced waste generation.

“Last year we had less than 2000 people working for us, of which 500 were short-term employed, but at full horsepower we may take up to 3000 employees.” Xiao Xuebing told reporters that: “In March this year, the unit sales of cell phones would reach 3 million units and sales volume will reach 500 million yuan [$81M]. WingTech Communications’ annual target for the year 2013 is to exceed unit sales of 40 million and the value of production to be over 4 billion yuan [$649M], up to 6 billion yuan [$973M].”

Automation was indeed a primary direction when moving to the smartphone production, as evidenced by Wingtech Chooses LitePoint IQ2010 to Calibrate and Test Smartphones [LitePoint press release, Feb 5, 2013]

/PRNewswire/ — LitePoint( http://www.litepoint.com )(R) announced today that Wingtech Electronics Tech( http://www.wingtech.com/EngLish ), one of China’s leading providers of mobile phone design and manufacturing services, has chosen LitePoint’s IQ2010 for production calibration and verification of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth functionality in its new line of smartphones.

With the surge in the use of high-end smartphones and the increasing complexity of technology built into these devices, Wi-Fi testing is expected—and often mandated by the cellular service provider. Being at the forefront of smartphone design and development, Wingtech recognized the need for a fast, accurate and cost-effective production test solution. YeHua, Director of Research and Development at Wingtech, said, “We looked into a variety of solutions to test our products and chose the IQ2010 because of the system’s overall performance, as well as the confidence we have in LitePoint as a total solution provider. The IQ2010 addresses our need for a high-quality, turn-key test solution, so it was the obvious choice for us.”

Manufacturing cost-effective mobile devices requires a comprehensive wireless test solution that provides complete functional verification while maximizing unit throughput—the deployment of which typically occurs under intense time-to-market pressure. “Cost considerations in setting up a production line, coupled with demanding quality assurance requirements, mandate high-speed wireless test without sacrificing test coverage,” said Gary Wang, general manager of LitePoint, China. “The IQ2010 is well suited for the growing China smartphone market and designed to meet rigorous production test requirements while optimizing the total cost of ownership.”

Availability

LitePoint’s IQ2010 solution is available today.

About Wingtech

Wingtech ( http://www.wingtech.com/EngLish ) is a new technology enterprise group in the China wireless network communication market that provides mobile phone design services, manufacturing services and value-added services based on wireless terminal series. Wingtech is mainly dedicated to product customization, research and development, production and sales of wireless terminals. It also focuses on providing solutions using new business models with vertical integration of cell phone design and manufacturing of integrated terminal, brand, mobile Internet solutions for the Internet of things.

About LitePoint

LitePoint( http://www.litepoint.com ), a wholly owned subsidiary of Teradyne, Inc.(http://www.teradyne.com ) (TER), is based in Sunnyvale, California. The company designs, develops and supports advanced wireless test solutions( http://www.litepoint.com/Solutions.html ) for developers of wireless devices and consumer electronics, contract manufacturers and wireless integrated circuit designers. LitePoint solutions( http://www.litepoint.com/Solutions.html ) have enabled optimization and verification of the operation of more than one billion wireless devices worldwide. LitePoint products( http://www.litepoint.com/Products.html ) are used in development and high-volume manufacturing, providing its customers with improved ROI, time-to-market, manufacturing yields, and product quality. For more, go to www.litepoint.com.

Previously WingTech was supported by the state and party to becomer the largest feature phone maker in China, as evidenced by: Party Secretary and Chief Executive of Huangpu District in Shanghai Zhou Wei Inspected Industrialized Base for Wingtech Cell Phones [WingTech press release]

On June 18, 2009, accompanied by … <a long list of people> … Zhou Wei, deputy party secretary and chief executive of Huangpu District paid a visit to the industrialized base for Wingtech cell phones.

Zhou Wei and his companions toured the showroom, test room and production lines of Wenxun and Wendi. After that, the leaders and Zhang Xuezheng, the CSO of Wingtech Group, held a symposium, where Mr. Zhang reported in details the company’s history and achievements since its establishment, and current situations.

Zhou Wei, deputy party secretary and chief executive of Huangpu District, said that it was not easy for Wingtech to be developed into the largest cell phone maker in China within less than two years. As a leading enterprise in the communication industry, Wingtech has made its great contributions in terms of fiscal revenue, personnel introduction, protection of intellectual property rights and technological innovation. He also added that the District Government of Huangpu should pay closer attentions on caring about and supporting high-tech groups like Wingtech so as to support its sustainable development.

With regards to patent application and protection, leaders from the Science Committee of Huangpu District expressed that more supports would be provided to enterprise like Wingtech in protecting the intellectual property rights, and the smooth transfer should be ensured in executing the policies of the state, municipality and the district and the enterprise, so as to promote Wingtech to make new progresses in technological innovation and application and protection of intellectual property rights.

With respect to finance and taxes, the leader from the Finance Bureau of Huangpu said special funds invested in Wingtech would increase and preferential tax policies supporting Wingtech and other high-tech enterprises be implemented so as to reduce their burdens and enhance their strength for development.

For the issue of personnel indraught, the leaders concerned expressed that Shanghai may need a large number of highly qualified personnel in the field of communication to satisfy the economic development, whereas Wingtech, as a leading enterprise in the sector, can serve as a cradle to attract and foster the communication personnel. In order to support enterprises like Wingtech to attract and retain personnel, the government of Huangpu District will further study and discuss such matters as household registration policies, individual income tax and education of children so as to figure out a practical preference scheme as soon as possible. In addition, as Wingtech Group develops rapidly, its office space becomes over crowded due to the suddenly increased number of personnel. Leaders from Huangpu said they would solve this issue as soon as possible.

During the meeting, Zhou Wei, the deputy secretary and chief executive of Huangpu District, presented on behalf of Huangpu District Government a gift—Hangguang Porcelain to Wingtech Group. The gift indicates that Wingtech Group could develop stably, maintain its foundation permanently and make innovations and breakthroughs continuously so as to be the model enterprise in the communication industry in both China and the world.

More information of the above kind is in the Wingtech Group honored with “outstanding performance prize of China mobile phone industry 2010 [press release, Dec 21, 2010]

The still old company profile About Wingtech [闻泰] Group [集团] [LinkedIn, originally created on July 23, 2009], the corrections in square brackets are from the WingTech profile page in Chinese (http://www.wingtech.com/Chinese/Company-Content-ID-8.html) in the hope that it contains later information

As a high-tech company, Wingtech Group mainly provides clients with the integrated cell phones program design, production, and wireless terminal-based value-added service, and is committed to the customized service, R&D, production, sales, after-sales service of wireless terminal products.

Founded in 2006, Wingtech Group consists of Shanghai R&D Center, Shenzhen Operation Center, and Jiaxing Production Center. Currently, Wingtech has a team of nearly 2000 [4000] employees. Its products cover PHS, GSM(GPRS), CDMA(1X), EDGE, TD-SCDMA[, EVDO] and all handheld device series ranging from 2G to 4G, with an annual turnover of hundreds of millions of US dollars.

Since its foundation, Wingtech has always persisted in the independent technical innovation, and make a lot of efforts in development and application of new technology of wireless communication. So far, Wingtech has owned nearly one thousand technical patents, a number of the world leading technologies, and is increasing 500 patents every year. Meanwhile, Wingtech has been in possession of perfect sales networks and under total process control systems (ISO9001:2000, ISO14001, QC080000).

Wingtech puts focus on local strengths while eyeing the world. Due to strong innovation, reliable quality, and high cost performance, Wingtech products have been very popular with customers at home and abroad. Currently, Wingtech products have been exported to over 30 countries, and over 50 [80] million consumers around the world are enjoying happy wireless mobile experience through Wingtech products and services.

Website: http://www.wingtech.com

Industry: Telecommunications

Type: Privately Held

Company Size: 1001-5000 employees

The latest external to China (actually for India) Overview [Callbar, July 15, 2011]

Callbar is a world leading mobile phone brand owned by WINGTECH GROUP LIMITED. Registered in HK with operation center in Shenzhen, manufacture base in Jiaxing and R&D center in Shanghai & Xi’an, we directly or indirectly employ over 4,000 people in China and other countries worldwide. Since establishment in 2006, we’ve evolved into a leading ODM supplier serving customers including MOTOROLA, LG, Philips and HUAWEI. In last 2 years we successfully extended our business into Wireless Terminal Internet Service and international distribution with our own brand WING. Our annual turnover reached USD 600million in 2009. Consumers around the world are enjoying Callbar mobile phones which features innovation, quality and cost effectiveness.

Better Quality, Better Price.

And the latest external to China milestone descriptions (actually for India):
History [Callbar, July 15, 2011]

2006 Y

In 2006,Wingtech Telecom was registered in Hong Kong and marched into cell phone PCBA industrial.

2007 Y

In May 2007, Zhejiang Communication Industry (Jiaxing) Base and Wingtech Cell Phone Industrialization Base started to be built.

In May 2007, Wingtech Telecom cooperated with SpreadTrum in the field of 3G industry in order to promote the development of 3G industry

In November 2007, Wingtech Telecom joined TD-SCDMA industry alliance, focusing on development and application of TD technique.

In December 2007, Wingtech Telecom sold 20 million sets of cell phones in total, which made Wingtech to be NO.1 of iSuppli.

2008 Y

In April 2008, Wingtech Telecom ranked the top one in the Chinese IDH industry.

In April 2008, Wingtech and Indian famous cell phone company-FRIWO cooperated to establish a mobile terminal product showroom in New Delhi, which is a totally new mode of cooperation between China and India.

In November 2008, Wingtech held the “Wireless Communication New Tech Summit”.

In November 2008, Zhejiang Communication Industry (Jiaxing) Base and the Wingtech Cell Phone Industrialization Base were put into production.

2009 Y

In March 2009, Wingtech and China Telecommunication Technology Labs entered into the cooperative agreement to establish the strategic cooperative relationship.

In May 2009, Xi’an R&D centre established, which further enhances Wingtech telecom R&D capability.

2011 Y

Wingtech launches its Callbar brand strategy all over the world so as to make more people to be serviced by Wingtech.

While the latest external to China (actually for India) Structure [Callbar, July 15, 2011], with geographical inserts added as required

Shanghai R&D centre

Shanghai R&D Center has a team of over one thousand R&D staff members, with R&D achievement covering the whole series of mobile terminal products of GSM, CDMA, EDGE, TD-SCDMA, EVDO etc, ranging from 2G to 3G. So far, the R&D Center has owned nearly one thousand national patents.

With strong R&D strength and firm technical foundation, the R&D Center has been rewarded many titles by Shanghai Government.Meanwhile, Wingtech joins the TD-SCDMA industrial alliance to actively conduct the R&D and application of TD products so as to speed up the Chinese industrialization.

Jiaxing production centre

In addition to the cell phone design service, Wingtech can provide customers with the high-efficiency and high-quality production service.Wingtech invested $70 million in building a cell phone industrial base of over 140 000 square meters in Jiaxing,in which Wingtech produces mobile phones of first class for world famous brands.

Wingtech Cell Phone Industrial Base has given an impetus to the development of the local communications industry.  And with this impetus, a world-class cell phone industrial cluster with an output of more than 30,000,000 sets, and an annual turnover of RMB 10 billion formed around this Cell Phone Industrial Base.

More information: Jiaxing [Wikipedia article]

Shenzhen operation centre

To better serve market and customers, Wingtech Telecom establishes the Operation Center in Shenzhen which is responsible for the procurement, sales and technical support. And with the help of its reliable supply chain system, professional marketing team, the world-class ERP and logistics guarantee system, Shenzhen Operation Centre provides first class service to our local and worldwide customers.

At present, over 70 million consumers around the world are enjoying happy wireless mobile experience through Wingtech products and services.

Xi’an R&D Centre

Founded in 2009, Xi’an R&D Centre is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Wingtech Group. It is mainly engaged in R&D and application of wireless communication new technology for providing 2G-4G GSM, CDMA and TD-SCDMA full system mobile terminal devices.

Xi’an Wingtech enjoys an internationally top grade R&D team and powerful R&D capacity. Among the over 100 R&D engineers, above 60% of them are doctoral degree holders and master degree holders. As for quality control, Xi’an Wingtech has introduced whole process quality control system (ISO9001:200, ISO14001, QC080000), and performs Six Sigma Management following quality control standards of internationally top grade enterprises for developing and providing stable and reliable products to customers.

Xi’an is on the far left of this map, Jiaxing and Shanghai are on the far right
More information: Xi’an [Wikipedia article]

Note that in Xi’an another cellphone industrial cluster has been created, as evidenced by World’s biggest wireless semiconductor producer establishes branch in N.W China city [Xinhua, Dec 23, 2011] news article

Qualcomm, the world’s largest wireless semiconductor company, has announced it will set up a branch in Xi’an, capital of northwest Shaanxi province, according to the management committee of the city’s high-tech area on Friday.

In the past years, the U.S.-based global leader in 3G and next generation wireless telecommunication technologies has established cooperative relationships with Chinese counterparts such as Huawei, ZTE, Yulong Coolpad and Wingtech.

Qualcomm’s branch in Xi’an is a strategic option and also a good beginning, said Zhao Hongzhuan, director of the Xi’an high-tech area management committee, adding that the area will provide “big support and quality service” to Qualcomm, and said he hopes the company will expand its investment in Xi’an.

China has already become one of the fastest growing markets for Qualcomm, said Wang Xiang, president of Qualcomm greater China. “Qualcomm decided to set up its branch in Xi’an because of the city’s complete industrial chain, strong technical strengths and rich talent,” Wang said.

Qualcomm entered the Chinese market in the late 1990s and already has branches in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen.

Note as well that Wingtech’s engagement with Spreadtrum goes much older:
Spreadtrum and WingTech Enter Strategic Partnership [joint press release, April 24, 2008]

JIAXING, China, April 24 /Xinhua-PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Spreadtrum Communications, Inc. (Nasdaq: SPRD), one of China’s leading wireless baseband chipset providers, today announced during the “International Handset Supply Chain Summit 2008″ that Spreadtrum and WingTech Group have entered into a strategic partnership aimed at leveraging their respective leading edge chip and handset design technologies. This two-day summit, sponsored by Jiaxing Communication Industry Association and organized by WingTech Communication Science and Technology Co. Ltd., promotes the theme of “Developing hand in hand for mutual benefits in the future.”

The announced Spreadtrum-WingTech partnership is expected to benefit both companies and their customers as it is intended to capitalize on Spreadtrum’s technology expertise in developing chipsets and WingTech’s strengths in handset design for the industry. With the establishment of this new strategic partnership, WingTech will deploy Spreadtrum’s SC6600W chip in its handsets. The SC6600W is a single chip quad-band GSM/GPRS multimedia baseband intended for WingTech handsets targeted at feature rich entry-level phones that include features such as MP3 playback, stereo output, voice recording, and Bluetooth interface for wireless data transmissions. Like Spreadtrum’s other highly integrated basebands, the SC6600W features an integrated multimedia processor and built-in power management circuits on a single chip, which should reduce production costs, while enabling customers such as WingTech to develop new, differentiated products within a quick time-to-market threshold.

Referring to this strategic partnership, president of WingTech Group, Zhang Xueying said, “WingTech and Spreadtrum have a long history of close and steady partnership. Spreadtrum’s advanced technologies and products are one of the important factors that account for WingTech’s rapid growth. By entering this partnership, we believe we will be in the best possible position to win additional market share through use of the customized SC6600W chip, since it may greatly reduce the time-to-market and overall cost while improving core competitiveness of our products. This announcement further strengthens the strategic alliance between our two companies, but also starts a new mode of business collaboration in the industry to push the differentiation of the terminal products. WingTech will commit itself to unite all the segments in the industry to develop hand in hand for mutual benefits in the future.”

Dr. Ping Wu, President and CEO of Spreadtrum, expressed, “By establishing this strategic partnership, we hope to expand and deepen the cooperation with WingTech in technology, marketing and other aspects to further expand our markets and accelerate our respective technology innovation. We believe that closer cooperation between the handset design solution provider and chip designer will be in everyone’s interest to further improve the features and diversity of future handset products. We look forward to a sustained, close partnership with WingTech and to driving a new round of development in China’s communication industry.”

About Spreadtrum:

Spreadtrum Communications, Inc. (Nasdaq: SPRD; “Spreadtrum”) is a fabless semiconductor company that designs, develops, and markets baseband processor solutions for the mobile wireless communications market. Spreadtrum combines its semiconductor design expertise with its software development capabilities to deliver highly-integrated baseband processors with multimedia functionality and power management. Spreadtrum has developed its solutions based on an open development platform, enabling its customers to develop customized wireless products that are feature-rich and meet their cost and time-to-market requirements.

For more information, please check: http://www.spreadtrum.com

About WingTech:

WingTech group was founded in Hong Kong at the end of 2005 and ever since then, it has been devoting to R&D, manufacturing and marketing of mobile terminals. The main business scope includes complete design solution for mobile phones and value-added services based on mobile terminals. With technological strength and excellent products, after only two years from its establishment, WingTech has risen to be one of the top Chinese mobile companies

Meanwhile WingTech has well established itself in India:
- originally as a feature phone ODM for a number of leading local brands in India, as evidenced by: Wingtech Group [microsite on Importers.com, May 31, 2010]:

Company already designing mobiles for Lava, Karbon, Spice, Intex, Videocon, Micromax, G-five. Now plannig to launch their own brand”WING”. Looking for importers.

- in addition indeed introducing its first own brand, WING in 2010, as evidenced by the History page of a separate http://www.wingtele.com/ site
- then by the already referenced Callbar brand a year later, as evidenced by another separate site http://www.callbar.in
- then becoming available under the Wingtech brand itself, evidenced by Wingtech Mobile Phones in India [Sulekha.com] microsite

Background: MediaTek: Ready For Prime Time [stock analysis report from Maybank, April 25, 2013]

…

With smartphones hitting the mainstream market, the replacement cycle for feature phones seems to be accelerating and tablet adoption in the emerging markets (in particular China) is gathering momentum. Against this backdrop, we think MTK may have to raise its target unit shipments of 400-450m smartphones and 100m tablets for 2013.

Best positioned to benefit from new secular trend. MTK is stepping up efforts to diversify its product portfolio to capture the proliferation of smart devices. It will have all its application processors (APs) on 28nm node this year, with designs based on the latest Cortex-A7 and/or Cortex-A15. By mid-year, it will introduce several low-cost models (MT6572/6582/6589M) to consolidate its position in the white-box market and enhance its cost structure. Also, MTK will foray into tablet markets (MT8389/8135 [big.Little design]), a new addressable market. By 4Q13, it will sample its high-end 4G/LTE/LTE-TDSCDMA modem chipset. Importantly, the ongoing consolidation of the AP industry and recent hiring of high-profile executives from Qualcomm could spur MTK to become a major force in the global smart device industry.

…

We note that MTK’s shipments include the white-box market, which is not captured by third-party research firms such as IDC. As such, analysing the change in MTK’s handset types may offer a clue to the dynamics of the handset industry, especially in the global emerging markets. We estimate MTK may ship close to 90m smartphones in 1H13 and its full-year target of 200m units (400-450m for global emerging markets) thus seems too conservative to us. An official upgrade in shipment per se and industry revisions should be expected. We currently forecast MTK to ship 235-240m smartphones in 2013. Back in November last year, our industry forecast of 500-550m unit shipments sounded aggressive, but now, it might look realistic given the speed of the replacement cycle and the popularity of smartphones in the global emerging countries.

…

Best positioned to benefit from new secular trend. MTK is stepping up efforts to diversify its product portfolio to capture the proliferation of smart devices. It will have all its APs on 28nm node this year, with designs based on the latest CortexA7 and/or Cortex-A15. In this section, we provide an update on MTK’s new products and compare them to some of the solutions offered by its peers. Figures 7-8 illustrate the timeline of product introduction and specifications.

1. MT6572 enters mass production in 2Q13 with the first shipment expected between late-May and June. MT6572 (dual-core, Cortex A7) is designed to replace MT6515 (single-core, Cortex A9) with significant cost savings and battery life enhancement. The die size of MT6572 is significantly smaller (than MT6515) and this AP comes with an integrated WiFi chipset – the first for MTK. Coupled with 28nm node and requiring only four layers of PCB board, we believe MT6572 offers significant cost savings for handset OEMs. MT6572 will also be a significant volume runner for MTK as it comes with various connectivity such as MT6572E (for 2.75G), MT6572T (TD-SCDMA) and MT6572W (WCDMA). The W-version targets smartphones with ASP of CNY1,000 (USD160) while the E-and-T-versions will go well-below CNY1,000 (USD100-125), and both should be well-received by the white-box market. We believe MT6572T can hold its own against Spreadtrum’s latest SC8825 (dual-core Cortex A5, TD-SCDMA on 40nm node and without integrated WiFi).

2. The MT6582 has features similar to those of the MT6572 but the former comes with Quad-core, Cortex A7 engines as opposed to the latter’s dualcore engine. Like the MT6572, MT6582 targets the white-box market for better system performance. We expect volume shipments to commence in 3Q13. We believe the MT6582W will compete well with Qualcomm’s MSM8225Q, the low-end Quad-core Cortex A5 AP which only supports WCDMA networks.

3. MT6589M is a cost-down version of the currently leading quad-core MT6589, which began shipment in March and has found favour among OEM customers (60-70 clients) in China. MT6589M shares most of the features and design architecture of MT6589. But it comes with HD and 8MP camera compared with full HD and 13MP camera for the latter. In addition, we estimate MTK could achieve 15-20% cost savings on MT6589M by tweaking some foundry and back-end processes. As such, MT6589M offers a lower cost solution for handset OEMs who do not wish to equip their smartphones with similar high-end features as MT6589. With a lower ASP, MTK could narrow the price gap between MT6589M and Qualcomm’s MSM8225Q by 10-15% and yet offer better features. We estimate the price gap between MT6589 and MSM8225Q currently is at least 30-40%. That being said, we note that MSM8225Q is a quad-core using Cortex A5 and 40nm node, and does not support TD-SCDMA network.

Qualcomm and Spreadtrum Communications have both cut prices for their quad-core products to better compete against MediaTek, which controls half of the smartphone-chip market in China, according to industry sources.

Qualcomm recently quoted its quad-core solutions at less than US$10, slightly cheaper than MediaTek’s offerings, the sources indicated. Meanwhile, Spreadtrum has lowered its quad-core processor prices to similar levels. Both firms are trying to gain market share through aggressive pricing, the sources said.

Monthly shipments of MediaTek’s smartphone chips have topped 15 million units recently, and even approached the 20 million level, the sources revealed. The booming shipments already lifted MediaTek’s share of China’s smartphone-IC market to 50%, the sources said.

MediaTek’s quad-core solutions reportedly have attracted orders from Coolpad, Huawei, Lenovo and ZTE.

In other news, MediaTek has reported higher-than-expected sales for the first quarter of 2013. The firm has scheduled an investors meeting on May 6 to discuss its performance in the first quarter, and business outlook.

Remark: the inserted slides are from 1Q13 Investor Roadshow Presentation [Feb 26, 2013] from Spreadtrum

And as $48 Mogu M0 “peoplephone”, i.e. an Android smartphone for everybody to hit the Chinese market on November 15 [Nov 9, 2012]
now Mogu S2 went on sale today [China Smartphones, April 22, 2013]

A leader in the production of super cheap smart phones, the Chinese company Mogu, today held a preliminary sales of its new budget smartphone Mogu S2. The official price of the unit is 399 yuan, or about $65. Today, the sale was put on a limited batch of 5000 smartphones at the price of 299 yuan ($48).

Mogu S2 is running the 2-core processor with a clock speed of 1.2 Ghz, and used 4-inch screen with a resolution of WVGA [480x800] to display the information. In addition there is 512 MB RAM, 4GB of ROM and a 5-megapixel camera. A nice addition is its support for two SIM cards, modules, WIFI, Bluetooth, and GPS. The operating system is installed MOGO OS (Android 2.3 Gingerbread).

Additional key information from the company’s product page [MOGU蘑菇手机, April 20, 2013]: i.e. IPS display and the Spreadtrum SC8825 or SC6825 SoC

We’ve seen the effect of the earlier SC6820 SoC leading to Temporary Nokia setback in India [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, April 28, 2013]. This is how Spreadtrum presented this situtation recently:

The two new SoCs are the same to the maximum as SC8825 has only the following additional functionality:

TD-SCDMA standards (3GPP R7), 2010~2025MHz / 1880~1920MHz/2300~2400MHz

and prospects for that additional functionality (internal to China) were presented as exceptionally bright by the company: 

Spreadtrum Announces Commercial Launch of Dual-Core Smartphone Chipsets for TD-SCDMA and EDGE [press release, April 2, 2013]

SC8825 (TD-SCDMA) and SC6825 (EDGE) set new standard for dual-core smartphone chipset cost and performance with high level of integration, standout graphics performance and best-in-class TD-SCDMA technology

Spreadtrum Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: SPRD; “Spreadtrum” or the “Company”), a leading fabless semiconductor provider inChina with advanced technology in 2G, 3G and 4G wireless communications standards, today announced the commercial availability of its dual-core 1.2GHz smartphone chipsets for TD-SCDMA (SC8825) and EDGE (SC6825), following the successful qualification of its platform by China Mobile.

“With our new dual-core chipsets, Spreadtrum has leveraged our expertise in system design to deliver the lowest-cost dual-core platform in combination with high end graphics performance for the TD-SCDMA and EDGE markets,” said Dr. Leo Li, chairman and CEO of Spreadtrum. “This combination of low-cost architecture, standout graphics performance, and best-in-class TD-SCDMA technology provides smartphone designers with unprecedented value in bringing high end features to low-cost devices.”

Spreadtrum’s SC8825, which supports dual-mode TD-SCDMA/HSPA & EDGE/GPRS/GSM and the SC6825, which supports EDGE/GPRS/GSM, are based on a highly efficient multi-core architecture delivering the lowest cost platform available for dual-core TD-SCDMA and EDGE smartphone products. The single-chip chipsets integrate a dual-core 1.2GHz Cortex-A5 core processor, a dual-core Mali 400 graphics processor and multimedia and hardware accelerators for differentiated performance and user experience. Both chipsets are further paired with a single-chip mutimode RF transceiver for a high level of integration and are pin-to-pin compatible, enabling handset makers to leverage a common handset development effort for products shipping to China as well as to emerging markets.

In addition to their high level of integration and low-cost architecture, Spreadtrum’s chipsets further deliver standout graphics performance. The solutions’ powerful graphics processing capability enhances the user experience for games and other graphics-rich applications, and enables Spreadtrum to bring high end features such as the larger screen sizes more commonly found in premium smartphones to low-cost devices.

“The benchmark results we are achieving for our dual-core solution, measured by popular benchmark programs such as AnTuTu and GLBenchmark 2.5, significantly outperform other commercial dual-core products,” added Dr. Li. “This powerful processing capability provides our customers with an even more cost-effective and power-efficient way to deliver high end features in low-cost smartphones.”

Other features of Spreadtrum’s SC8825 and SC6825 chipsets include support for HD 1280×720 LCD display, H.264 720p video playback, up to 8 megapixel RGB camera and dual-SIM, dual-standby capability. The chipsets ship with turnkey Android and systems software, reducing the engineering time and resources required by handset makers to bring devices to market, with reference implementations available for both 4-layer and 6-layer PCB layouts.

The SC8825 and SC6825 are commercially available now. The chipsets have already been incorporated by leading China handset makers into smartphone models that are expected to ship commercially during 2Q 2013.

About Spreadtrum Communications, Inc.

Spreadtrum Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ:SPRD; “Spreadtrum”) is a fabless semiconductor company that develops mobile chipset platforms for smartphones, feature phones and other consumer electronics products, supporting 2G, 3G and 4G wireless communications standards. Spreadtrum’s solutions combine its highly integrated, power-efficient chipsets with customizable software and reference designs in a complete turnkey platform, enabling customers to achieve faster design cycles with a lower development cost. Spreadtrum’s customers include global and China-based manufacturers developing mobile products for consumers in China and emerging markets around the world. For more information, visit www.spreadtrum.com.

SC8825 TD-HSPA+/TD-SCDMA/GSM/GPRS/EDGE Baseband Chip [product site, April 2, 2013]

Spreadtrum’s SC8825 is a highly integrated mixed signal baseband processor for dual-mode TD-SCDMA/HSDPA/HSUPA/HSPA+ and GSM/GPRS/EDGE applications. SC8825 integrates a dual-core 1.2GHz ARM Cortex-A5 processor, a dual-core Mali 400 graphics processor and multimedia and hardware accelerators in a highly efficient system architecture that brings differentiated performance and user experience to low-cost smartphones. SC8825 is coupled with Spreadtrum’s single-chip tri-band TD-SCDMA/quad-band EDGE/GPRS/GSM RF transceiver for small footprint, and ships with turnkey Android systems software for rapid time to market and efficiency in handset design.

SC8825 Baseband Chip Diagram

SC8825 Key Features

Core Description	ARM Cortex-A5 dual-core, clock speeds up to 1.2GHz 32KB I-Cache, 32KB D-Cache 32KB I-Cache, 32KB D-Cache 128bit FP data path
Communication Features	GSM/GPRS/EDGE standards, GSM850/EGSM900/DCS1800/PCS1900 EGPRS Class 12 TD-SCDMA standards (3GPP R7), 2010~2025MHz / 1880~1920MHz/2300~2400MHz HR, FR, EFR, AMR-NB HSPA+ 4.2 Mbps，HSUPA 2.2 Mbps
Multimedia Support For	Mali 400 GPU MP2, 40MTri/s, 700Mpix/s, OpenGL ES 1.1/2.0 Decoder: MPEG4/H.263 720p@30fps; H.264 720p@30fps ; VP8 720p@30fps Encoder:H.263/H.264/MPEG4 D1@30fps Video Streaming: MPEG4/H.263/H.264 720p@30fps 3G-324M Video Telephony 8 MP Camera Sub-system JPEG decoder/encoder Support MP3/AAC/AAC+/MIDI/AMR-NB/WAV format Audio codec included
LCD Display Features	Support up to HD resolution Built-in LCD Controller，touch panel controller MIPI and RGB @60fps Support OSD / Rotation / Scaling
Memory I/F Support For	NAND flash(8bit and 16 bit devices) HW ECC, multi-bit ECC 2G byte SDR/LPDDR1/LPDDR2 (16bit and 32bit devices) eMMC(4.4.1) boot
Peripheral I/F Support For	HS USB 2.0 4 x UART 3 x SPI interface , 3-wire SPI,4-wire SPI, synchronous SPI 4 x I2C interfaces 2 x I2S and PCM interface 3 x SDIO interfaces 1 x eMMC interfaces 2 x SIM/USIM interfaces 4 x PWM outputs ETM port More than 100 GPIO pins 8*8 keyboard interfaces
Other Features	Operating ambient temperature range: -45 to +95 degrees centigrade 12.1mm×12.1mm 517-ball, 0.4mm ball pitch

SC6825 GSM/GPRS/EDGE Baseband Chip [product site, April 2, 2013]

Spreadtrum’s SC6825 is a highly integrated mixed signal baseband processor for GSM/GPRS/EDGE applications. SC6825 integrates a dual-core 1.2GHz ARM Cortex-A5 core processor, a dual-core Mali 400 graphics processor and multimedia and hardware accelerators in a highly efficient system architecture that brings differentiated performance and user experience to low-cost smartphones. SC6825 is coupled with Spreadtrum’s single-chip quad-band EDGE/GPRS/GSM RF transceiver for small footprint, and ships with turnkey Android systems software for rapid time to market and efficiency in handset design.

SC6825 Baseband Chip Diagram

SC6825 Key Features

Core Description	ARM Cortex-A5 dual-core, clock speeds up to 1.2GHz 32KB I-Cache, 32KB D-Cache 256KB L2 Cache 128bit FP data path
Communication Features	GSM/GPRS/EDGE standards, GSM850/EGSM900/DCS1800/PCS1900 EGPRS Class 12 HR, FR, EFR, AMR-NB
Multimedia Support For	Mali 400 GPU MP2, 40MTri/s, 700Mpix/s, OpenGL ES 1.1/2.0 Decoder:MPEG4/H.263 720p@30fps; H.264 720p@30fps ; VP8 720p@30fps Encoder:H.263/H.264/MPEG4 D1@30fps Video Streaming: MPEG4/H.263/H.264 720p@30fps 3G-324M Video Telephony 8 MP Camera Sub-system JPEG decoder/encoder Support MP3/AAC/AAC+/MIDI/AMR-NB/WAV format Audio codec included
LCD Display Features	Support up to HD resolution Built-in LCD Controller，touch panel controller MIPI and RGB @60fps Support OSD / Rotation / Scaling
Memory I/F Support For	NAND flash(8bit and 16 bit devices) HW ECC, multi-bit ECC 2G byte SDR/LPDDR1/LPDDR2 (16bit and 32bit devices) eMMC(4.4.1) boot
Peripheral I/F Support For	HS USB 2.0 4 x UART 3 x SPI interface , 3-wire SPI,4-wire SPI, synchronous SPI 4 x I2C interfaces 2 x I2S and PCM interface 3 x SDIO interfaces 1 x eMMC interfaces 2 x SIM/USIM interfaces 4 x PWM outputs ETM port More than 100 GPIO pins 8*8 keyboard interfaces
Other Features	Operating ambient temperature range: -45 to +95 degrees centigrade 12.1mm×12.1mm 517-ball, 0.4mm ball pitch

Indeed Nokia has sold only 5 million Asha full touch smartphones during the quarter, registering a 46% decline QoQ. CEO Stephen Elop noted that Asha Full Touch smartphone series is currently into its 9 month, and that Nokia would “in the very near term” refresh the product line. See: Nokia: Continued moderate progress with Lumia, urgent Asha Touch refresh and new innovations to come against the onslaught of unbranded Android and forked Android players in China and India [‘Experiencing the Cloud, April 18, 2013]

Remark: The above ones were The Hottest Selling Handsets in India Below Rs 5000 [$92] [Gizbot, April 19, 2013]. Their prices are as of April 28, 2013. They are only 2.75G but with dual SIM support. The Micromax Bolt A35 is using the Spreadtrum SC6820 SoC for which it was already indicated that:
- $48 Mogu M0 “peoplephone”, i.e. an Android smartphone for everybody to hit the Chinese market on November 15 [‘Experiencing the Cloud, Nov 9, 2012]
-  Lowest H2’12 device cost SoCs from Spreadtrum will redefine the entry level smartphone and feature phone markets [‘Experiencing the Cloud, July 26 – Aug 16, 2012]
- World’s lowest cost, US$40-50 Android smartphones — sub-$100 retail — are enabled by Spreadtrum [‘Experiencing the Cloud, Dec 11, 2011 – Feb 27, 2012]
Note that the XMM 2250m is the latest incarnation of the XMM 2250 SoC from Infineon (now Intel).

Note, however, that the upcoming “in the very near term” refresh of the Asha Full Touch product line will continue with Nokia’s strategy for “the next billion” based on software and web optimization with super low-cost 2.5/2.75G SoCs [‘Experiencing the Cloud, Feb 14 – April 23, 2012] which was well proven in H2’12 as seen on the above diagram. As described in the post its software optimization is based on the unique Smarterphone end-to-end software solution for “the next billion” Nokia users [‘Experiencing the Cloud, Jan 9-11, 2012], while its web optimization on an even more unique browser technology which “reduces data consumption by up to 90%”.

In fact Nokia “just” needs to improve its value proposition against the entry level Android phones of the local brands (like Micromax and Karbonn) because its stance against the competing Samsung REX model is not bad at all (and the optimisations were even not taken into the account):

Nokia Asha 305 “6” vs “5” Samsung Rex 70 S3802 [MoreCellPhone, March 11, 2013]

And the Mobile Phone chosen is…

The choice of the MoreCellPhone is Nokia Asha 305

18 Items in common between the devices

More internal storage for photos and files	10MB user available
More external storage with the use of memory cards	Until 32GB
This device has a TFT LCD screen, which are brighter and more vivid	TFT LCD
More colors on the screen is better quality images and videos	65 thousand
Larger screen	3″
Higher resolution camera	2 MegaPixels (1.92)
The zoom allows for better focus and approach to take pictures	Only digital zoom
The 2G EDGE network is newer and faster	2G EDGE
Faster for surfing the internet and download files	0.236 Mbps
Better touch type. Multitouch allows to use more fingers at the same time	Multitouch
Headsets with 3.5mm Jack size are more common and easy to find in stores	3.5mm plug
Sensors help you use the device	Accelerometer / Proximity
Removable battery can be replaced easily	Lithium-ion – Removable
Speakerphone is useful when you are driving and on other occasions	Supported
The vibration of the device aids in the use of several features	Supported
With more SIM card slots you can have more operators and choose which one to use	2 slots DualSIM
The radio lets you listen to your songs and sports in general	FM with RDS / FM
More speed data transfer as mp3 and photos via USB	USB 2.0 Micro-B (Micro-USB)

In detail: Samsung overthrows Nokia to become the largest seller of mobile phones in [urban] India [The Economic Times, April 26, 2013]

KOLKATA: Samsung has overtaken Nokia to become the largest seller of mobilephones in the country’s major markets, as consumers lap up its new feature phones and its smartphones continue to do brisk business.

According to market tracker GfK-Nielsen’s data, Samsung‘s volume market share in urban areas in March rose to 31.4%, surpassing Nokia‘s 30.1%. GfK-Nielsen urban panel tracks sales in 793 cities and towns with a population of over 50,000, which account for more than 70% of India’s total handset sales.

This is the first time the Korean company’s volume market share has crossed that of Nokia’s in the GfK-Nielsen survey. The all-India figures, which will include rural sales, will be released shortly.

Some months ago, Samsung’s market share, measured in value terms, had exceeded that of Nokia’s, and there is now a considerable gap between the two due to growing demand for the Korean firm’s smartphones.

NEW MODELS PUSH SALES

Last month, Samsung‘s value market share in urban markets stood at 42.2% compared with Nokia‘s 20.7%. Analysts say Samsung’s gain in volume market share last month is led by the recent introduction of the Rex feature phone series and strong demand for smartphones such as Galaxy Grand and Note 2, the top-selling models at multi-brand retail outlets. Its newest premium smartphone, Galaxy S4, will be launched in India on Friday.

A Nokia India spokesperson said the company did not comment on country-specific market data, and added that it was executing its strategy with ‘urgency and at a new clock speed’. The spokesperson said at the higher end of the price spectrum, the company had launched ten Nokia Lumia devices in the past 16 months and claimed that Asha 305 was the best-selling smartphone in India.

“We are competing at every price point with better mobile experience. Nokia will continue to deliver new and innovative solutions to consumers,” she said.

Notwithstanding these initiatives, analysts and experts feel that Nokia’s more than a decade-long leadership in the Indian handset market is under threat. The company, which once enjoyed a dominant 80% market share, has never completely recovered from its failure to anticipate and react to the dual-SIM handset boom a few years ago.

“It’s truly unbelievable the way Nokia fell in India in the past six years. The brand failed to rejuvenate itself and fell prey to customer fatigue. Add to that the speed of execution – while Samsung was taking six months to launch a new model from the drawing board to retail store, Nokia was taking more than a year,” said former BlackBerry India head Sunil Dutt, who was Nokia’s head of sales till 2007. A Samsung India spokeswoman declined comment on the market share data. But Samsung India’s Country Head (mobile phone & digital imaging) Vineet Taneja said the company has gained market share.

“Samsung has created new segments, such as the Note series or the Rex series, which was developed in India. We have developed a strong product portfolio straddling across entry-level smartphones till the premium segment,” said Taneja. The Korean company has been the leader in the smartphones segment since end-2011, even as it trailed Nokia in the overall handset market.

Are smartphones in India at a tipping point with 10% overall mobile shares? [The Economic Times, April 23, 2013]

Ten per cent. It’s a number that has come to mean much for smartphones — the category of phones with computing prowess. It’s the point where a critical mass of buyers meets a pool of sellers to create the perfect storm. This phenomenon — 10% share as a tipping point — played out in Western economies. It played out in China, where the share of smartphones in total phone shipments rocketed from 9% to 59% in two years. And it’s playing out in Brazil and Russia, where the corresponding number surged to 32% and 46%, respectively, in the same period.

Will India, where smartphones hit 10% earlier this year, follow suit? A sustained build-up is underway to add charge to that figure. The price of entry-level smartphones has dropped to around Rs 4,000 [$74], from Rs 15,000 [$276] two years ago. “It’s compelling buyers to opt for fancier phones,” says Anshul Gupta, principal research analyst of Gartner India, who feels something fundamentally changed for the Indian market in the last quarter of 2012. “We are at the tipping point.” However, Sashi Shankar, chief marketing officer of Idea Cellular, says handset prices have to fall further.

“The market is expanding fast, but a tipping point is still about a year away,” he says. “We need smartphones for around Rs 3,000 [$55].” Even that new floor may not be far away. During his visit to India last month, Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google, hinted at a $50 ( Rs 2,700) smartphone powered by its Android operating system. At the other end of the price spectrum, Apple and Samsung are in the midst of a blitz to package affordability through financing schemes and replacement offers. And the number of sellers has hit 30, with recent entrants including a Chinese computer company (Lenovo), a Chinese phone company (Gionee) and consumer durable manufacturers (Videocon and Salora).

They are all looking to add to the pool of 50 million smartphone owners in India. The challenge for them is to coax India’s 700 million users, 70% of whom have handsets that cost below Rs 2,000, to switch. “The replacement market is driving the bulk of sales,” says Amar Babu, MD of Lenovo India. IDC, a technology consultancy, projects smartphone sales growing at a compounded 57% in the next five years, against 10% for feature phones. “About 20% of the phones that Samsung sells are smartphones, and this has doubled in the past one year,” says Asim Warsi, VP, Samsung Mobile, which has a dozen smartphones priced from Rs 7,000 to Rs 42,000.

“By 2015, about a third of shipments will be smartphones, 67 million out of an expected market of 230 million,” adds Vipul Mehrotra, director, smart devices, Nokia India. Although that is phenomenal growth by any yardstick, it might still not translate into the hockey-stick trajectory that other markets witnessed because of the way the Indian mobile ecosystem is set up and its inherent weaknesses.

No Carrier-Based Model

While handset makers say the tipping point is here, analysts feel the real tipping point is still 18-24 months away. “It will come when users see value in it beyond a fashion accessory — like use it for mcommerce, m-banking and even entertainment,” says Mohammad Chowdhury, leader, telecom, PricewaterhouseCoopers. “Mobile will be the main mode of internet access, but we need cheaper data plans, better phones at lower costs, and content in Indian languages.” According to Chowdhury, China and western markets took off at 10% as, unlike India, theirs is a carrier-based model. “Phones came bundled with the internet and were sold by operators,” he says.

In India people buy a phone independent of the carrier. “About 95% of the mobile base in India is pre-paid,” he adds. “They don’t have credit cards, debit cards or e-payment services, essential for a carrier-based model.” A carrier-based model requires a telecom company to buy handsets and manage inventory. “The cost is higher for telcos and they have to enter into revenue share agreements with device makers,” says Arvind Vohra, director of Gionee India. “In a market where margins are low, a carrier-based model won’t work.” Instead, at the lower end, sellers are playing the price card.

“It’s beginning to pick up,” says Warsi. “Smartphone makers are able to push a dearer phone, where the margins are better, for a monthly instalment no more than a cost of a family dinner outing.” Features and Data Plans Although prices are falling, the value for a user at the lower-end centres more around the feel and an initial experience of a smartphone, rather than an expanding engagement. According to Vohra, entry-level devices currently account for 30% to 35% of the market.

“Location based services or high-definition gaming apps may not run on them,” says Saurav Singh, founder-CEO, AppStudioz, a mobile app developer. But, adds Shashin Devsare, executive director of Karbonn Mobiles: “For a new smartphone buyer opting for an entry-level phone, being able to browse, chat with friends on Facebook or send emails is a new thing. He can then upgrade.” Data is the other hurdle towards a speedy transition. Device makers blame operators, who are exhausting their spectrum capacity and have limited money to buy more, for not upgrading their networks to 3G, compromising the internet experience.

“One-third of the smartphones sold are not 3G, but 2.75G,” says Jerold Pereira, business head, handset division, Videocon. “And in remote areas, 3G is still not there. So, users won’t get value out of their top-end smart device.” For example, of its subscriber base of 117 million, Idea Cellular had 4.7 million 3G users. Shankar of Idea argues that prices of data plans have dropped by half to Rs 250 [$4.5]per month for 1GB, and that it’s the content and devices that need to improve. Despite teething troubles, the mobile is gaining traction in data transactions.

According to Reserve Bank of India, mobile banking transactions in January 2013 doubled to 5.6 million and trebled in value to Rs 625 crore, from a year ago. Elsewhere, Flipkart reports a three-fold increase in transactions via handsets. Gupta of Gartner believes such usage will accelerate the migration to smartphones, which offer a better experience. Pereira of Videocon points to falling prices and doubling sales across industry to drive home the point that, despite hiccups, mobile phones are set for a upgrade. “In 2011, 10 million smartphones were sold and all were at least Rs 10,000 [$184] or higher,” he says.

“In 2012, the market doubled to 20 million, at Rs 8,000- Rs 10,000 [$147-184]. This year, 45-50 million devices will be sold and prices have dropped below Rs 6,000 [$110].” Even if this is not the tipping point, it’s formidable by numbers. And the real tipping point is not far away.

Samsung’s REX series aims to take on Nokia’s Asha but misses the point [BGR India, Feb 14, 2013]

Samsung today announced its REX series of feature phones, which intend to take on Nokia’s Asha range. Unlike Nokia, which calls its Asha full-touch devices smartphones, Samsung correctly calls its REX series as smart feature phones, considering it is based entirely on Java. While some of the phones in the series, especially the REX 90, share design cues with Samsung’s Galaxy S III and feel very premium for its price, there is no real reason for the products to exist apart from having something in the portfolio to counter Nokia’s Asha series.

Unlike Nokia, which seems to be investing both time and R&D dollars on taking the S40 platform a few steps further than what it was originally built for, the Java-based REX phones have no future path. “As far as S40 goes, think of it as if it had been sleeping all this while and has just woken up. We are working to make it even better and there is lot more to come. We are also getting many big developers to make apps for Asha series,” Calin Turcanu, the head of Nokia’s mobile phone division for Middle East and Africa, told me earlier this week at the global launch of the Asha 310.

The REX series, on the other hand is severely limited by its operating system and there is very little Samsung can do to improve the experience. Samsung also does not have a content story in place – it does not have a huge music store (Samsung typically ties up wih Hungama for its music offering in India) and it does not have any navigation or location play either. In other words, I don’t see these REX phones any different from Samsung’s Star and Pop series, which it introduced a few years ago. And there is nothing that app developers can do to give users a better experience, which is close to smartphones.

Considering how far Samsung was able to go with creating an ecosystem with its Bada operating system, which was more scalable and had more scope for apps and services, I don’t see any way that the Korean vendor can take the REX series’ experience a few notches above its current state.

Samsung knows a Rs 5,000 Android smartphone cannot give the same experience as Nokia’s Asha and it did not have any other in-house platform that could do what Nokia’s ageing but still alive S40 did with the Asha phones. I don’t see the REX series surviving very long, though it would do well initially if we consider Samsung’s marketing muscle and the push it would give to counter Asha full-touch phones. But it certainly has no future when it comes to addressing the needs of the consumer or taking them to the next level.

[REX 70] Introducing Samsung REX 70 [SAMSUNGmobile YouTube channel, Feb 25, 2013]

More information: Samsung REX [company microsite]

Samsung Introduces the New REX Series Smart Feature Phones [press release, Feb 13, 2013]

Samsung aims to evolve mobile communications in emerging markets through easily accessible smart feature phones

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd, a global leader in digital media and digital convergence technologies, today announced the launch of REX, a new series of smart feature phones that combine intelligence and capability to deliver an accessible, next-generation mobile experience for all.

“As the number one mobile leader and innovator, we are committed to developing the best possible mobile solutions to suit all lifestyles and budgets, which is why we are so excited to launch the REX series across a number of the world’s fastest growing markets,” said JK Shin, President and Head of IT & Mobile Communications Division at Samsung Electronics. “REX devices are designed to seamlessly prioritize and consolidate essential mobile functions that matter most to customers across diverse markets. The result is an extraordinary end-to-end mobile experience with the best value for money.”

The Samsung REX series consists of four devices: REX 90, REX 80, REX 70, and REX 60. Each device has been tailored to give users access to a variety of unique features that have been developed to enhance their day-to-day needs and lifestyles at a highly affordable budget. Merging advanced functionality and intuitive usability, the REX series delivers practical solutions to complement daily mobile needs. Its responsive QVGA touch-screen user interface with intelligent features is designed to deliver a simpler, intelligent user experience for those who value the essentials.

Other features include:

- Intuitive and easy full touch UX : The simple, user-friendly Touchwiz interface makes it easier to navigate your mobile phone. Menu choices are organized into icons arranged 4×4 on the large display for easy viewing. Access to social networking services is just a click away, and practical widgets offer easy access to weather and other frequently-used  applications.

- Stylish and compact design : The curved design of the Samsung REX series is inspired by the aesthetics of nature. Its compact size gives users a comfortable grip and allows convenient one-hand operation. The brushed metal frame, organic nature-inspired design, and delicate back cover create a modern, sophisticated look that will fit perfectly with your personal life.

- Dual SIM Always-On : Customers who want to keep their personal and work calls separate will enjoy the convenience of Dual SIM on the Samsung REX series, offering the functionality of having two phones with just one mobile unit. To ensure no calls are missed, Dual SIM Always On allows you to receive calls on one SIM even when you are on the phone using the other. The Samsung REX series allows you to switch between a maximum of five SIM cards without rebooting your mobile. Ideal for business trips to different coverage areas or for those wanting more flexibility between calling plans, the Dual SIM feature puts you in control of your mobile experience.

- Essential mobile intelligence : Featuring all the essentials for an intelligent mobile experience, the Samsung REX series guarantees fast web-browsing and app support through the Opera Mini. By doing so, the REX series enables seamless communication through social networking and messaging services, including the cross-platform ChatOn, which means users can remain connected with their friends at all times.

“Feature phones continue to represent a large opportunity for mobile handset makers, especially in price-constrained emerging markets,” said Ian Fogg, senior principal analyst, mobile and telecommunications research at IHS. “IHS estimates that there will be 653 million feature and entry-level mobile phones shipped globally in 2013. Entry-level smartphones must compete with ever smarter touch screen feature phones that offer many of the same social network, games, and mobile Internet benefits as smartphones but at an even more compelling price.”

A clear indication of Samsung’s commitment to pioneering mobile communication growth across the emerging markets, the REX series devices will drive the “new normal” in future full-touch feature phone development.

Product Specifications

[Rex 90]

…

[Rex 80]

…

[Rex 70]

Network	EDGE (850/900/1800/1900MHz)
Display	3.0” QVGA TFT LCD, C[apacitive]-Type
Camera	2.0 Megapixel Camera
Video	H.263＋AMR , MPEG4＋AMR
Audio	AAC, AAC＋, AMR, MP3, i-Melody, MIDI, Polyphonic, WAV
SIM	Dual SIM with hot swap (option)
Contents  &  Services	Samsung TouchWiz Samsung ChatOn mobile communication service Yahoo Messenger (Push IM), Gtalk, Facebook chat Enhanced SNS (Java Facebook, Twitter)
Web Browser	Opera Mini, Access NF
Connectivity	USB 2.0 Host Bluetooth® v 3.0 HS WiFi 802/11(b/g/n)
Sensor	Proximity
Memory	10MB User Memory microSD Slot (up to 32GB)
Dimension	104.9 x 57.2 x 11.99 mm
Battery	1,000mAh

[Rex 60]

…

Nexus 10 numbers are from Evans, who takes the relatively unique screen size of the Nexus 10 tablet, identified as ‘xlarge XHDPI’ in the development data that Google provides. Take these numbers, exclude China, and apply it equally to the Google Play user base (which Google now use for all their Android usage numbers) and Evans comes out with an initial figure, albeit with caveats, of 680,000 Nexus 10 tablets in use.

Microsoft Surface slaes numbers are also hard to come by, but Bloomberg’s call of 1.5 million Surface RT and Surface Pro devices is in line with many analysts, so let’s run with that number. Even allowing for some give and take in the calculations, Microsoft’s Surface is doing better than the Nexus 10.

…

Certainly Surface as a brand is nowhere close to the sales of the iPad (over 23 million units sold). But if you take the Surface Pro (which Bloomberg reckons makes up around 400,000 of those sold units, and that’s with just one month of availability in the quarter), and give Microsoft a healthy margin on the unit of around $500 on the Pro, that gives Redmond’s Surface division a potential revenue of $200 million.

…

Yes the volumes are low, and the Surface range is not as attractive as the iOS choices available. But if Microsoft can build up the sales of the Surface Pro in 2013 and reach four to five million unit sales a year, they will have a healthy income stream from their Surface range. Much like sales estimates, there is conjecture and assumption in making a jump from 400,000 sales in one month and extrapolating a similar sales level throughout the whole year, but it’s not an impossible jump to make. It’s certainly within Redmond’s reach.

For Google, the Nexus 10 is almost a technology demonstrator. But Microsoft’s Surface is a key part of the companies future, and sales of the hardware are a key part of their strategy. The advantage to out-selling the Nexus 10 is that Microsoft are reaching more than the developers, hackers, and geekerati that the Nexus 10 reaches… but they need to keep reaching out and selling to create a place in the new mobile computing era.

The chain which lead to the above mentioned “680,000 Nexus 10 tablets” estimation is:
- Nexus tablet sales: not many [Benedict Evans, April 17, 2013]
- Nexus 7 maths [Benedict Evans, Feb 19, 2013 with update on March 6, 2013]
- Issue 2: Condé Nast, Nexus 7 sales, Chinese Android, Lonely Planet, Tumblr, Verizon & Vodafone [Benedict Evans, March 10, 2013]

Given that now we know from Microsoft: With cloud services investments starting to pay off Windows 8 and Windows Blue will bring more competitive devices particularly in new smaller form factors targeting the tablet market [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, April 19, 2013]

… we are expanding both the product set and distribution, and that is broadly, all devices, inclusive of Surface. We are expanding distribution of Surface. We are now in 22 countries, 70 retailers. And we’ll continue to look to expand that. Not only just expanding, but improving the experience. And that’s true not just for Surface, but for broadly Windows 8 devices. And sowe’ll be investing against that for both Surface and a broader array of Windows 8 devices at multiple price points, including lower price pointsgoing forward.

….

Over the last couple of months, we’ve started seeing devices that take full advantage of Windows 8, and we expect to see more devices across more attractive price points over the coming months. As part of this, we are also working closely with OEMs on a new suite of small touch devices powered by Windows. These devices will have competitive price points, partly enabled by our latest OEM offerings designed specifically for these smaller devices, and will be available in the coming months.

so, given that we may predict that there could be as much as up to 10 million of these new small touch Surface devices sold in H2 2013 (as according to Nexus tablet sales: not many [Benedict Evans, April 17, 2013] there were “5.35m [Nexus 7 tablets sold] in the second half of 2012”).