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Lowest H2’12 device cost SoCs from Spreadtrum will redefine the entry level smartphone and feature phone markets
And this is not a speculation but already a reality as the new Lenovo A288t came to market this month for ¥ 569 in retail [US$ 89] and as low as ¥ 479 in wholesale [US$ 75]. Such a breakthrough was enabled by Spreadtrum’s SC8810 SoC and Lenovo Mobile’s ability to exploit such an opportunity in only 5 months. Lenovo Mobile BTW became #2 behind Samsung on China’s smartphone market in June (just thanks to an earlier Mediatek based opportunity), aiming to become #1 in one or two years. So it is safe to say that with a number of other 1st tier vendors and even a kind of revitalised whitebox ecosystem soon joining the Spreadtrum (展讯处在) SoC opportunity, the H2’12 market in China will radically be redefined, with “earthquake-like” consequences for the global smartphone market as a whole. In this way the process indicated earlier in China becoming the lead market for mobile Internet in 2012/13 [this Experiencing the Cloud blog, Dec 1, 2011] will become even more dramatic.
SIGNIFICANT NEW UPDATE: Yes, indeed the revitalised whitebox ecosystem is doing the job, and in the most wonderful way, see $48 Mogu M0 “peoplephone”, i.e. an Android smartphone for everybody to hit the Chinese market on November 15 [Nov 9, 2012], which is the first “lead post” on my trend tracking blog because of such enormous significance.
Updates: Haier Adopts Spreadtrum’s Smartphone Platform [Spreadtrum press release, Aug 16, 2012]
Spreadtrum Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: SPRD; “Spreadtrum” or the “Company”), a leading fabless semiconductor provider in China with advanced technology in 2G, 3G and 4G wireless communications standards, today announced that Haier, one of the global leaders in home appliances, has adopted Spreadtrum’s 1GHz TD-SCDMA Android platform, the SC8810. The Haier HT-I617, a smartphone designed to address the needs of the mass-market consumer, has completed China Mobile’s certification testing, paving the way for commercial launch through China Mobile channels.
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Spreadtrum’s SC8810 integrates a 1GHz Cortex A5 processor, 3D/2D Mali graphics accelerator, a 5 megapixel camera sub-system and supports resolution up to WVGA and wireless connectivity including Bluetooth, WiFi and GPS. The SC8810 delivers low power multimode TD-SCDMA/EDGE/GPRS/GSM operations with dual-mode automatic switching and supports TD-HSDPA at 2.8Mbps and TD-HSUPA at 2.2 Mbps. The SC8810 is delivered with turnkey Android and systems software.
Counterfeiters rebrand themselves in China’s smartphone market [Want China Times, Aug 5, 2012]
THL, the new face of a man who once sold counterfeit Samsung phones and decided to starting producing his own brand of smart phone.
After experiencing a major drop-off in sales, the makers of counterfeit cell phones in China, known commonly as “shanzhai” phones, are now breaking back into the market under their own brand names.
Previously reliant on co-opting the names of top leading to sell their bootleg products, the new generation of cell phone manufacturers are focusing on producing budget smartphones under their own brand names.
Stores for these new brands are proliferating in Huaqiangbei, a well-known consumer electronics market in Shenzhen. These new “shanzhai” smartphone producers mostly rely on supplies of chips from MediaTek in Taiwan.
After some initial mishaps, MediaTek belatedly rolled out its first-generation smartphone chip 6513T in the second half of 2011. The move has prompted many shanzhai phone manufacturers to switch to the production of smartphones, some with their own brands.
Shanzhai smartphone makers target mainly the lower and middle end of the market for products priced at around 1,000 yuan (US$156). Huang Jixian, a shanzhai cell phone producer in Shenzhen, opened 210 stores for his new “THL” smartphones throughout China in the first four months of this year. Huang plans to increase the number of his stores to over 300 to bolster the brand image of his products.
In addition to directly owned and franchise stores, Huang has also opened online franchise stores on the platforms Taobao and 360buy. Wang Xuekai, sales manager for THL, says that the different stores play a critical role in the company’s operations, since the shopping and user experience is essential in attracting business. Online sales channels play a supplementary role, Wang said.
Spreadtrum Communications’ CEO Discusses Q2 2012 Results – Earnings Call Transcript [Seeking Alpha, Aug 10, 2012]
Leo Li – Chairman and CEO
In the second quarter of 2012, we achieved revenue of $173.1 million, which is in line with the guidance we gave previously and 7.5% increase over the first quarter. I am very pleased to update you on the progress we have made with our smartphone products.
This quarter we achieved a strong volume ramp-up of our 1 Ghz TD-SCDMA Edge smartphone chipset, shipping more than 1 million units as expected. Customers such as Huawei, Lenovo, [Pryor], Hisense and others have completed China Mobile’s certification test, launched low-cost smartphones based on our products. Many are targeting a new [ratio] price in the range of RMB500 to RMB700 [US$ 79 – US$ 110], which is making TD-SCDMA smartphone even more affordable and attractive for mass market consumers.
We are seeing very strong demand for our smartphone products and are raising our shipment focus. We now expect to ship more than 10 million smartphone chipsets in the third quarter alone. In the high end of TD-SCDMA market, we expanded our business with the first-tier OEMs, growing shipment of our best-in-class TD-SCDMA-based modems. In our customers, our customers use these modems in very high-end smartphone designs.
Our baseband and RF transceivers are shipping in flagship handsets, that is recently launched, including Samsung’s Galaxy S3, HTC One XT and the other devices from first-tier China OEMs.
With the continuing growth in our smartphone chipsets and modem business, we have firmly established our leadership position in TD-SCDMA smartphone market. Our best-in-class modems are designed into top-of-line handsets and our smartphone chipsets are in neighboring 1 Ghz devices at a price of as we low as RMB500 [US$ 79].
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Recently, China Mobile has taken steps to speed up TD-SCDMA handset sales in the second half of this year. At a recent conference, China Mobile discussed a plan or plans to increase their investment in TD-SCDMA. In addition, they also encouraged handset makers to sell their TD-SCDMA product through open market with China Mobile providing support with the quality monitoring.
With the China Mobile’s handset replacement market now approaching 100 million units per year, this shift in distribution model will make the TD-SCDMA devices even more broadly available and help speed up the 3G adoption in China.
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Looking ahead to the remainder of 2012, we have some exciting product introduction on that. We will be introducing our 1.2 Ghz single-core and dual-core smartphone platforms, our new WCDMA and connectivity products. These products will increase our total addressable market in China and overseas regions and position us for continuing business expansion in 2013.
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Randy Abrams – Credit Suisse
Okay. My second question is on your outlook for TD-SCDMA. I think, one, from just a market perspective, volume, maybe what you expect smartphone and feature phones, and how you expect your market share. And I think you did well on recent tenders, maybe how you expect your product positioning. [Marvel] has been talking about a new platform for early next year and with MediaTek and MStar, how you see your market churn positioning and then overall market.
Leo Li – Chairman and CEO
I feel very confident that the TD overall volume for this year, I think what I said before in the last earnings call, is around 80 million to 90 million total units, both including the so-called central procurement, which you mentioned, and open market, which is the non-mentioned. I think the open market in particular next year, I can see a stronger and stronger demand for TD-SCDMA market in China.
So I certainly know for sure or I think next will be well above 100 million units for the total TD demand. So we at the moment, I think we’re about more than 55% market share in TD-SCDMA business. We hope with the technology leadership and also with the business model and then the quality of the products and everything else, we hope that we’ll maintain the leadership position in the future.
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Mike Walkley – Canaccord Genuity
Okay, thanks. One question for Leo. Leo, with the MobilePeak hitting the milestone, can you just update us on your WCDMA progress and how you see the competitive landscape as you’re coming to market with that product later in the year?
Leo Li – Chairman and CEO
Sure. Yeah, they’re making nice progress there. I think it’s mostly [inaudible] type of the milestones for their WCDMA. I think also combine the 40nm technology and some other 2.5G product rolls, EDGE, GPRS and GSM, I think we’re making the progress for both modem and smartphone products towards the end of the year. So I think at this moment all the development are on track, so I’m pretty happy.
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Jack Lu – RBS
Yeah, hi, Leo. One question for you. Can you talk about your 2012 smartphone full-year target? Because I think last call you mentioned a figure of 15 million to 20 million. Now, given that you are shipping more than 10 million alone in Q3, what’s your thought on that number for this year?
Leo Li – Chairman and CEO
This is a kind of — yeah, we usually only predict for the next quarter, which I did, right, around more than 10 million unit smartphones. If you really put me in a corner, so if I have to say anything to that question, I would like to say at least 25 million units for the whole year. So, yeah, it’s up number from 10 million to 15 million, what I said in early Q2.
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Jack Lu – RBS
Okay. One last question if I may, can you talk about expectations for ASPs going to Q3 for both TD feature phones and smartphone products?
Leo Li – Chairman and CEO
Yeah, feature phones, unfortunately the volume dropped sharply. I mean this is unexpected a little bit. The switching from feature phone to smartphone is so quick. It’s quicker than most people expected. But as the pricing there stabilizes, the volume drops very sharply. And at this moment actually for the ASP for smartphones, it’s there quite nicely. We — actually it’s not the pricing pressure issue, rather it’s a whole [inaudible]. There’s a huge demand there. It’s just so strong that it really surprised many of us.
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Andrew Lu – BarCap Research
Thank you. Earlier you also mentioned WCDMA smartphone solution will be introduced next year. Did you say Q1 next year?
Leo Li – Chairman and CEO
Actually we will try to introduce production small customers first. You know that, right? With big customers, takes longer time. So, Q1, maybe it could be the right time, and then Q2, something, yes.
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Donald Lu – Goldman Sachs
Good morning. Leo, can you give us more color on how can China Mobile help the open market? By open market, I mean mobile probably is not going to subsidize, but can mobile help with distribution or marketing or anything like that?
Leo Li – Chairman and CEO
Sure. Recently there are high-level executives went to Shenzhen, the headquarter [inaudible] right, several times. And then recent one is a very high level China executive went there, had meetings with — we don’t call them free market or [inaudible] anymore, we call them a small brand, right? And actually the meeting, the result is very encouraging, because down the road, you know that year over year subsidies will be reduced and reduced, not increased and increased. So the China Mobile very much encouraging the vendors and the makers of the handsets to engage with open market. Like I said, someone asked me the question, and then, some of my customers already shipping their products in open market without any subsidies. So this is encouraging.
But I think the reason it has been now, not only encouraged by China Mobile, also because the quality of the products and the price of the smartphones, more importantly, we are facing the major trend that the smartphone is replacing the features phones in big way, in such a big way in China that we very much encourage open market people to engage.
Donald Lu – Goldman Sachs
I mean, how — I man, can China Mobile really help? Because China Mobile really is the biggest carrier in China, but can — I mean, let’s say, China Unicom and China Mobile all are encouraging open market. I mean —
Leo Li – Chairman and CEO
Remember, China Mobile was not very encouraging, remember. I mean, like last year, it was totally you had to go through, any product go through the central procurement program, passing quality acceptance test and with the subsidies and this and that, and then whatever type of handset has been determined selected by China Mobile. And now actually I think with the leadership change and then with the new kind of a thinking, I think it’s really helpful that China Mobile has this open market engagement. So they are encouraging this to — okay. And also they say that TD-SCDMA over WCDMA, very much over 2.75G for that matter actually is making a lot of sense because, one, it’s cheaper than WCDMA; two, you don’t need to pay the royalties to the WCDMA. I like that, obviously many folks, right? So they are cheaper price, high quality, and the networks are much improved, and the products much more varieties and more attractive, and the pricing obviously much more affordable.
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Leo Li – Chairman and CEO
… EDGE type of smartphone is important for emerging markets. What you said is true. However, for their shipments of other company, I think the majority unfortunately is still in China, not in emerging markets. For the emerging markets, take India and Africa for example, I think at this moment the huge majority is still the low-end feature phone, not even middle-end feature phones.
So that I agree with the statement that EDGE smartphones are very much needed for emerging market, and even Qualcomm come up with the so-called platform, that means the rest of the [inaudible]. However, the volume ramp-up may not be as high as people expected. Only in China that the smartphone demand is so strong. There are other countries, I’m talking about emerging countries, there’s a demand but not as strong as this. Still majority — even the economic situation in some of the emerging countries, they’re actually deteriorating, it’s not improving. In that regard, actually putting pressure to reduce the high-end handsets actually going towards the low end. And then the demand for smartphones is there but not as strong. And then I think it will be — need maybe a couple of years to see the stronger demand, yeah.
Hao Guo – CICC
Okay, thank you. So if I may, follow up two questions. I heard from the industry that Qualcomm going to launch very low-end 3.5G solution in Q3, maybe Q4. Maybe it’s targeting for MTK and for low-end competition. So do you heard about — something about this? And can you comment on this? …
Leo Li – Chairman and CEO
The first one, I don’t comment on other people’s the product introduction. But the thing is I heard a similar type of thing and that means this EDGE smartphone is kind of important. And then as I said, I think most of that type of things being shipped in China, not necessarily shipped in overseas markets. So I think — but also I said in my opening statement and then in my Q&A that in China I think with the TD-SCDMA, to compete with the 2.5G, 2.75G type of smartphones, at least the TD-SCDMA offers some kind of [inaudible] still offer some kind of better connectivity than 2.75G, compared with WCDMA, yes, it’s cheaper and without paying the royalty, right?
End of updates
Note: MediaTek has definitely something going against Spreadtrum in this newly opening space. See: this very online (www.veryol.com) article of July 17, 2012:
– Cottage “big change in the situation (translation by Google)
– 山寨”大变局 (Chinese original)
For Cheng Rainbow Mobile general manager Wang Zhongcheng, really hard over the past 12 months. As one of the hundreds of small and medium-sized mobile phone manufacturer in Shenzhen, Wang Zhongcheng these eight characters of the “dire straits, lean” to describe his current situation.
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Wang Zhongcheng company an area of about seventy to eighty square meters, about 10 young people in this office, mostly for sales staff. … Sitting in the office of Wang Zhongcheng, he showed reporters the company’s newly developed intelligent machines. These new MediaTek 6513T chip, more than 800 frequency, 3.5-inch capacitive screen, Android 2.3.5 operating system, ex-factory price of 400 yuan [US$ 63]. The target consumer groups positioned second and third tier cities in the country. …
Spreadtrum strengthening cooperation with Samsung, threatening MediaTek market position [DIGITIMES, July 23, 2012]
China-based handset solution vendor Spreatrum Communications has stepped up its cooperation with Samsung Electronics and may double its shipments by the fourth quarter of 2012, threatening MediaTek’s leading market position in China, according to industry sources.
Spreadtrum, through the cooperation with Samsung, won a number of TD-SCDMA solution orders from China Mobile in the first half of 2012, while MediaTek secured only one order, the sources revealed.
Spreadtrum has expanded its cooperation with Samsung to include 2.5G/2.75G/3G solutions, and Samsung’s handset shipments to China in the fourth quarter of 2012 will nearly all adopt chipset solutions from Spreadtrum, the sources indicated.
Samsung is expected to ship 70 million handsets to China in 2012, the sources estimated.
Meanwhile, Spreadtrum’s development and trial production of quad-core and 4G solutions is also ahead of MediaTek’s by over six months, indicating Spreadtrum’s improving capability, the sources added.
Note that this Spreadtrum’s cooperation with now world #1 Samsung may have an even bigger impact on Windows Phone. According to a latest report Windows Phone shipments in June were just less than 200,000 units in China which accounting for only 1.6% share of the smartphone market there.
See this it.sohu.com article of July 24, 2012:
– Acclimatized! Microsoft Windows Phone Chinese Long Way (translation by Google)
– 微软Windows Phone中国路漫漫 (Chinese original)
Spreadtrum Smartphone Chipset Undercuts MTK by USD 1 [Marbridge Daily, July 5, 2012]
Adopted from National Business Daily article of June 29, 2012:
– Cost of smart phones “counter-attack” the chip manufacturers to bring down program costs to ¥ 300 (translation by Google)
– 智能手机成本“逆袭” 芯片厂商拉低方案成本至300元 (Chinese original)
Chinese baseband chipset vendor Spreadtrum (Nasdaq: SPRD) has announced that its 8810 chipset is priced at USD 7-8, approximately USD 1 less than MediaTek’s 6573 solution, lowering the price of a 3.5-inch smartphone chipset solution to RMB 450-500 [US$ 70-78]. Spreadtrum currently supplies the 8810 to several major brands, including Samsung, HTC, Lenovo (0992.HK), ZTE, Huawei, and Tianyu (K-Touch). Spreadtrum estimates that its smartphone chipset shipments will exceed 20 mln in 2012.
Taiwanese chipmaker MediaTek received orders from major brands such as Huawei and ZTE (0763.HK; 000063.SZ) in early 2012. MediaTek aims to capture 50% of mainland China’s smartphone chipset market, and expects 60% of business to come from brand clients, while independent handset design firms will account for the remaining 40%.
Qualcomm senior VP Jeff Lorbeck disclosed that many handset vendors, including Lenovo, TCL, and Longcheer, have begun offering 3.5-inch HVGA smartphones using the Qualcomm Reference Design platform priced at USD 50.
MediaTek and Qualcomm have signed an agreement to offer chipsets at market prices, not below cost, according to an industry source. China’s three major domestic chipmakers produce solutions for entry-level smartphones costing under RMB 300 [US$ 50] to produce and sold at a retail price of RMB 600 [US$ 94].
Indeed a week ago came official information on SC8810-based Lenovo A288t becoming available through online channels and retail stores at 599 RMB [US$ 94] list price:
Lenovo Smartphone Based on Spreadtrum’s 1GHz TD-SCDMA Android Platform Completes China Mobile Certification Testing [Spreadtrum press release, July 19, 2012]
Spreadtrum Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: SPRD; “Spreadtrum” or the “Company”), a leading fabless semiconductor provider in China with advanced technology in 2G, 3G and 4G wireless communications standards, today announced that the Lenovo A288t, which is a Lenovo TD-SCDMA smartphone based on Spreadtrum’s 1GHz Android smartphone platform, the SC8810, has completed China Mobile’s certification testing and is expected to achieve sales of more than one million units in the third quarter.
China Mobile’s certification test is a required step and important milestone in the operator’s procurement process and is used to confirm the maturity and stability of TD-SCDMA mobile terminal products. Lenovo’s completion of China Mobile’s certification process with its Lenovo A288tsmartphone validates Spreadtrum’s 1GHz low-cost smartphone platform as fully compliant with China Mobile’s commercial requirements.
“China Mobile’s certification testing is a key milestone for manufacturers and a prerequisite for mobile phone purchasing by its provincial offices,” said Dr. Leo Li, Spreadtrum’s president and CEO. “The certification of the Lenovo A288t demonstrates its commercial readiness by China Mobile. China Mobile will kick off the purchase of TD-SCDMA phones after completing its certification testing, and this will build the confidence of handset manufacturers in the open market to design the Spreadtrum SC8810 platform into more low-cost smartphones.”
“Lenovo is committed to promoting China’s 3G terminal development.” said Feng Xing, vice president of Lenovo. “We recently completed China Mobile’s certification testing with the Lenovo A288t, which is based on Spreadtrum’s SC8810, and expect to achieve sales of more than one million units of this model in the third quarter, underscoring the popularity of low-cost smartphone devices. This is a milestone in our strategy of vigorously promoting 3G uptake in China by bringing Chinese consumers cost-effective mobiles that are comparable to the world’s top smartphones. The Lenovo A288t is commercially available to consumers now through online channels and retail stores at 599 RMB [US$ 94].”
Spreadtrum’s SC8810 integrates a 1GHz Cortex A5 processor, 3D/2D Mali graphics accelerator, 5 megapixel camera sub-system and supports resolution up to WVGA and wireless connectivity including Bluetooth, WiFi and GPS. The SC8810 delivers low power multimode TD-SCDMA/EDGE/GPRS/GSM operations with dual-mode automatic switching and supports TD-HSDPA at 2.8Mbps and TD-HSUPA at 2.2 Mbps. The SC8810 is delivered with turnkey Android and systems software that reduces the design time and resources required to deliver new handsets to market.
Currently Lenovo A288t is sold for ¥ 569 in retail [US$ 89/94] and as low as ¥ 479 in wholesale [US$ 75]. It has quite impressive parameters:
- Network type: Mobile TD-SCDMA, GSM
- Designs: straight
- Screen Size: 3.5 inches
- Resolution: (HVGA) 320 x 480 pixels
- Touch ways: capacitive screen (multi-touch)
- Pixels: 3.2 million pixels
- Operating System: Android the OS 2.3
- Memory: 256MB RAM
- Body[?ROM?] size: 512MB
- Type: Lithium battery, 1500mAh
- Weight: 105.0g
- GPS Module: Built-in GPS support A-GPS
Such aggressive exploitation of the SC8810 opportunity is no surprise as today came the report that China market: Lenovo takes up No. 2 in smartphone ranking, says Sino [DIGITIMES, July 26, 2012]:
Lenovo outperformed Huawei, ZTE, and Coolpad to capture the second-rank title in China’s smartphone phone market in June with a 13% share, trailing after only Samsung Electronics which took up a 15-16%share, according data compiled by Sino Market Research.
The launch of low-priced Android-based smartphones and cooperation with the top-three China-based telecom carriers contributed to Lenovo’s success in the smartphone segment, according to industry sources.
Lenovo’s capability to roll out a wide range of smartphone models targeting different price segments is also credited for its prevailing smartphone business, said the sources, adding that Lenovo plans to launch as many as 40 models of its Lephone lineup in 2012.
Following the steps of Lenovo, Acer has recently teamed up with China Mobile and China Unicom to promote its smartphones in China.
Note that Lenovo was probably the most successful vendor to adopt Mediatek’s MT6575 SoC that was leading the H1’12 smartphone market, see the Lenovo A60 related information in Boosting the MediaTek MT6575 success story with the MT6577 announcement [this Experiencing the Cloud blog, June 27, 2012] such as “China Unicom’s top selling handset in the sub-RMB 1000 [sub-US$ 157] smartphone category”. Today’s it.sohu.com article (of July 26, 2012) is providing further interesting details on that:
– Lenovo mobile phone whether a flash in the pan? Liu [Jun] said that sustainable success (translation by Google)
– 联想手机第二是否昙花一现？刘军称可持续成功 (Chinese original)
In 2010, the company launched the “Music Fund”, support for native application development business growth. “Music Fund” first phase of investment of 100 million yuan, managed by Legend Holdings, the company’s professional investment team operations. “Music Fund”, as the angel investors will focus on the development of start-up and early business support in the mobile Internet applications and services.
Liu [Jun, senior vice president of Lenovo Group, MIDH (Lenovo Mobile Internet and Digital Home Business Group) president] said in the dialogue with the Sohu IT, app store has more than 70,000 applications, nearly ten million monthly downloads, the latest data is Lenovo music application store has been downloaded more than 100 million times. Referring to the strategy to build a music store, Liu stressed, Lenovo insisted Android+ strategy on top of the native system in Android, plus Lenovo’s own software.
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Liu predicted that Lenovo Mobile [climb up to the market] will be completed within a year or two beyond, to become the leader of the domestic market share. “Speed has become the core competitiveness of Lenovo Mobile, one of R & D speed. First, the speed of the supply chain.” Said Liu Jun, “smart phones than traditional mobile phones more like PCs, therefore, the product delivery time became particularly important, who first to enter the market who will have a head start. “
… Introduced, according to Liu Jun, Lenovo’s first best-selling models A60 color using MTK solution, from design to development to market in just five months, in accordance with the normal process, the same configuration of intelligent models often require 9-12 months of preparation time, Lenovo ahead of competitors in three or four months, in order to grab the opportunity, and accounted for the thousand Yuan machine market.
… Liu said Lenovo Mobile is already considering international expansion, and has taken a number of footsteps, such as Lenovo launched a smart phone in the Russian market. Accordance with the planning of the Lenovo Group, Lenovo will take the first emerging markets, after mature market strategy, the focus of this year, Russia, India, Indonesia and Vietnam.
At the end of the interview, Liu stressed that our primary task is to do the domestic market into the international market, Lenovo does not rule out in the interview a mergers and acquisitions strategy.
Previously, Lenovo executives repeatedly claimed that M & A has become the core competitiveness of the Lenovo Group. Look at the history of mergers and acquisitions from Lenovo, Lenovo has successfully completed and the integration of the United States IBM, NEC of Japan and Germany, Medion. Of course, the above integration is built around the PC expanded.
In the First Quarter 2012 Results Presentation[May 4, 2012] from Spreadtrum we could find the following slide:
and in the Q1 2012 Spreadtrum Communications, Inc Earnings Conference Call Transcript [May 4, 2012] (available via) the following remarks by Dr Leo Li – Spreadtrum Communications, Inc – Chairman and CEO: [in]
I just came back from meeting yesterday from China Mobile. … Actually I was told by the Chairman of China Mobile that more than 60 million [will be] centrally procured — actually that’s a minimum number. The actual number will be much higher. So I am very confident my take from China Mobile for recent meetings, executives, yes they are expanded the activities into TD-SCDMA and then they will resume the phase five or phase six type of development, further invested into infrastructure of TD-SCDMA, they will ramp up a much, much higher volume.
Actually next year they — I was told by both China Mobile and other experts in the industry that there will be more than 100 million units expected for TD-SCDMA. This year 80 million to 90 million. So this volume is — I think it’s real and I am very confident that the China Mobile — I was told by China Mobile people, by the way. It’s not that I just say that. It is — TD — it’s here to stay and it will grow very fast.
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I think for open channel [i.e. whitebox vendors] will be 20 million-ish or 30 million-ish, will be actually more than 50% of smartphones and for centrally procured — according to China Mobile — I mean, today there is 50-50. So smartphones actually is at or more than 50% of the total TD shipment.
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The reason open market [i.e. whitebox vendors] wants TD-SCDMA, you will understand why they want EDGE but TD is very interesting because remember China Mobile has more than 600 million subscribers and then the TD market actually — if you want to use the smartphones obviously you want to have some kind of connectivity, Internet communication and then you have only two choices.
One is W, the other is TD and then the W[CDMA] is more expensive, TD is cheaper. So that’s why — and also TD has this clear advantage over W[CDMA], is that you do not need to change the SIM card. You only change your hand set. You keep your same 2.5G SIM card and then purchase a TD smartphone or TD feature phone. You can enjoy, utilize TD, the wideband or faster data service.
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To some extent, even I was told that in the Shenzhen market, maybe it’s kind of like revitalized by the TD-SCDMA or EDGE smartphone type of product, maybe help them to regain so-called strength to engage with the domestic market. Remember in the second half of last year it very rapidly went down — collapsing of (inaudible) market, right. I think I we’ve been asked by many of our Shenzhen customers, asking for both TD products and EDGE smartphone products.
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I think [in] the second half the ramp up will be very robust. … both through the carriers … and open channels in the second half of the year, in particular third or fourth quarter, maybe more towards fourth quarter for the open market because people are preparing for the design right now.
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… the 8810 and the 6820, those are our so–called single core. I think by the end of Q3 or early Q4 we will offer the dual core 1.2 GHz type of product and then by the end of this year or early next year we will offer quad core, again 1.5 GHz products both of which will be based on 40–nanometers product.
Also it was mentioned in the previous, Q4 2011 Spreadtrum Communications, Inc Earnings Conference Call Transcript [Feb 29, 2012] (available via) that:
… from what we’ve seen, that the open market segment starts growing in volumes or demand is obviously there. I’ll give you examples. There was the WCDMA type of smartphones, right, in China. However, when we go into detail for the WCDMA users, smartphone users, we’ve found that 70% of them are actually China Mobile users, meaning they actually cannot even use the 3G features, WCDMA features for those smartphones.
So obviously there is a natural demand for TD-SCDMA type of low-end smartphones, because for the same China Mobile users they can enable the 3G high-speed data type of applications. So both for feature phones and for smartphones, we’ve seen — from our customer we’ve seen a demand for TD-SCDMA type of products.
…
… we launched the — I think [in] Q4 of the — excuse me, 600 megahertz type of Android [see: World’s lowest cost, US$40-50 Android smartphones — sub-$100 retail — are enabled by Spreadtrum [in this Experiencing the Cloud blog, Dec 11, 2011 – Feb 27, 2012]]. One thing we didn’t anticipate was the market really don’t — they want the higher frequency one. I think we’ve seen an unusually fast market shift. I can tell you this. November, even October/November last year, even October, right, 600 megahertz type of Android smartphone was selling like hotcake. However, by November and then early December, all of a sudden the market demand for 1 gigahertz type of thing, because you want to have some kind of user experience with smartphones.
…
TD smartphones hasve become very attractive to general consumers and users of the TD type of — the TD market. For our TD-SCDMA 1 gigahertz Android, either Android 2.3 or later 4.0 type of things, ours are highly — maybe the highest level of integration. And like I said, maybe we are lowest cost structure in this segment.
That is Spreadtrum was able readjust its December 2011 strategy for the quickly changed market demand as is clearly visible from the following press releases as well:
Spreadtrum Introduces 1GHz Low-Cost Smartphone Platform For TD-SCDMA & EDGE/WiFi[Spreadtrum press release, Jan 4, 2012]
Spreadtrum Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: SPRD; “Spreadtrum” or the “Company”), a leading fabless semiconductor provider in China with advanced technology in 2G and 3G wireless communications standards, today introduced a 1GHz Android smartphone platform for TD-SCDMA (SC8810) and EDGE/WiFi (SC6820) and announced that both products are now samplingwith customers. With these two new solutions, Spreadtrum is redefining the performance standard for low-cost smartphones, enabling OEMs to deliver 1GHz performance at US$100 retail prices.
“Our 1GHz Android platform sets a new bar for low-cost smartphone performance,” said Dr. Leo Li, Spreadtrum’s president and CEO. “The graphics and web browsing performance of the SC8810 and SC6820 compares favorably to one of the most popular smartphone models globally, delivering a high performance applications and gaming experience for consumers. This type of experience has previously been available only in mid- to high-end handset models and can now be delivered by OEMs in US$100 smartphone models. This will reshape the definition of and consumer expectations for a low-cost handset.”
Spreadtrum’s 1GHz platform is the most highly integrated, lowest power smartphone platform for the TD-SCDMA market. The solution delivers the lowest chip count with a multimode single-chip RF transceiver supporting TD-SCDMA, EDGE, GPRS and GSM and integrates power management. The platform’s Cortex A5 processor architecture delivers more than 40% lower power consumption compared to ARM11-based products and more than 70% lower power consumption than Cortex A9 products, delivering differentiated standby and talk time performance relative to other smartphone models.
Designed with 40nm CMOS silicon technology, the SC8810 and SC6820 baseband platforms are powered by a Cortex A5 1GHz processor and incorporate an advanced multimedia subsystem which includes a Mali GPU with 3D/2D graphics acceleration and supports high definition video playback, a 5 megapixel camera, a WVGA [800×480] touch panel and connectivity features including Bluetooth, WiFi and GPS. The SC8810 supports TD-SCDMA with HSDPA at 2.8Mbps, HSUPA at 2.2Mbps as well as quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE with dual-mode auto handover, while the SC6820 supports quad-band EDGE/GPRS/GSM. Both products combine silicon hardware with turnkey Android software that reduce both the design time and design resources required to deliver new handsets to market.
Spreadtrum’s expansion of its smartphone platform coincides with rapidly increasing demand in China for smartphone products. Industry analysts expect the smartphone market in China to exceed 100 million units in 2012, leading global demand for smartphone products.
Spreadtrum Announces Commercial Availability of its 1GHz TD-SCDMA and EDGE Android 2.3/4.0 Platforms [Spreadtrum press release, April 26, 2012]
More than 200 Smartphone Design Wins Lay Foundation for Second Quarter Volume Shipment
SHANGHAI, April 26, 2012 — Spreadtrum Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: SPRD; “Spreadtrum” or the “Company”), a leading fabless semiconductor provider in China with advanced technology in 2G, 3G and 4G wireless communications standards, today announced the commercial availability of the SC8810, Spreadtrum’s 1GHz TD-SCDMA Android platform, and the SC6820, Spreadtrum’s 1GHz EDGE/Wifi Android platform. Both the SC8810 and the SC6820 support Android 2.3 and Android 4.0 designs.
“We have now secured more than 200 design wins for our 1GHz TD-SCDMA and EDGE/WiFi Android platforms, and we are expecting to see volume shipments of more than one million units during the second quarter,” said Dr. Leo Li, president and CEO of Spreadtrum Communications. “With these designs, our customers are targeting a $50-100 retailsegment, unsubsidized.”
The SC8810 and SC6820 have been adopted by China and global OEMs on large scale to address the growing demand for low-cost smartphones in China and emerging markets. Both products support both Android 2.3 and Android 4.0 platforms, deliver best-in-class power consumption and demonstrate graphics/web performance on par with globally popular premium smartphone models, while supporting sub-$100 unsubsidized retail price points. The solutions are designed into handsets that are expected to launch commercially starting in May.
The company was also quick to rearrange its 2.5 offering for the feature phone market as there were quick changes as well:
Spreadtrum launches industry’s first 40nm 2.5G baseband [April 26, 2012]
SHANGHAI, CHINA: Spreadtrum Communications Inc. announced commercial availability of the SC6530, the industry’s first 2.5G baseband designed in 40nm CMOS silicon.
“The SC6530 is an industry first for the 2.5G market,” said Dr. Leo Li, president and CEO of Spreadtrum. “By leveraging the most advanced process node in the 2.5G segment, we are able to achieve higher performance at lower cost relative to competitive alternatives.”
The SC6530, in addition to its 40nm design, is the first 2.5G product from Spreadtrum to integrate its leading-edge baseband and RF transceiver technology into a single-chip, simplifying design and reducing overall solution footprint. The chip incorporates an ARM9 processor for high performance on a low-cost platform, and supports quad-band GSM/GPRS, triple-SIM function, HVGA display, H.264 decode and integrates an audio PA. The SC6530 couples its advances in performance, cost and integration with Spreadtrum’s mature, proven turnkey software.
The SC6530 is commercially available now. Spreadtrum expects to achieve volume shipments in May.
Spreadtrum’s three leading SoCs for the second half of 2012 products have the following parameters:
Source: the following Spreadtrum product pages
– SC8810 TD-HSPA/TD-SCDMA/EDGE/GPRS/GSM 1GHz Low-Cost Smartphone Platform
– SC6820 EDGE/GPRS/GSM 1GHz Low-Cost Smartphone Platform
– SC6530 GSM/GPRS Single-Chip Baseband/RF Transceiver for Multimedia Feature Phones
Notes:
1. WiFi and location technologies for SC8810 and SC6820 are according to Spreadtrum selects CSR connectivity and Location for Smartphone reference designs [CSR press release, Feb 27, 2012]. This is particularly relevant for SC6820-based EDGE/WiFi smartphones.
2. The ARM Cortex-A5 core has 1.57 DMIPS/MHz performance, while the ARM9EJ-S core 1.1 DMIPS/MHz performance. The former can be used in multicore SoCs as well with upto 4 Cortex-A5 cores (which Spreadtrum will exploit in its upcoming SoCs as well).
3. Dual-SIM Dual Standby solution became available as an option on Spreadtrum’s SC88xx series of TD-SCDMA basebands as well as future products, beginning in 4Q11. See: Spreadtrum Introduces First TD-Dual-SIM Dual-Standby Solution for TD-SCDMA [Spreadtrum press release, Oct 11, 2011]
Just this week came also the announcement of the – probably – highest end smartphone built on SC8810: Spreadtrum Powers Dual-SIM Dual-active TD-SCDMA Smartphone from Huawei [Spreadtrum press release, July 23, 2012]
Huawei T8808D completes China Mobile certification testing
Spreadtrum Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: SPRD; “Spreadtrum” or the “Company”), a leading fabless semiconductor provider in China with advanced technology in 2G, 3G and 4G wireless communications standards, today announced that Spreadtrum’s SC8810 1GHz TD-SCDMA smartphone platform is powering the Huawei T8808D, a dual-SIM dual-active smartphone for China Mobile consumers.
Huawei’s dual-SIM dual-activefeature provides consumers with maximum flexibility in how they manage operator service fees. The dual-SIM function allows consumers to choose the SIM that offers the lowest rate or the best network coverage given their location to make or receive calls, send text messages, or use data. Dual-active capability allows both SIMs to be used at the same time, enabling users to switch back and forth between two calls and use voice and data functions simultaneously.
Mr. Wang Weijun, Huawei Device’s president of its Chinese division, said, “T8808D, as Huawei’s first dual-SIM dual-active mobile phone, delivers experience innovation to China’s 3G TD-SCDMA market. In collaboration with Spreadtrum, Huawei will continue to promote popularization and development of smartphones to meet the diverse needs of Chinese consumers with a variety of high quality terminal products.”
“Spreadtrum is driving technology innovation with 2.5G/3G single-chip dual-card dual-standby technology,” said Dr. Leo Li, Spreadtrum’s president and CEO. “In cooperation with Huawei, we have enabled the first TD-SCDMA device based on Spreadtrum’s SC8810 smartphone platform with dual-SIM dual-active capability. This feature will enable consumers to select attractive 3G services while maintaining their original operator service packages. We believe that this flexibility provided to the consumer will help further promote the rapid development of China’s TD-SCDMA market.”
Note that Spreadtrum’s early December 2011 flagship SoCs were clearly inferior to its current flagships:
Additional source: the following Spreadtrum product pages
– SC8805G TD-HSPA/TD-SCDMA/EDGE/GPRS/GSM 600MHz Entry-Level Smartphone Platform
– SC6810 EDGE/GPRS/GSM 600MHz Entry-Level Smartphone Platform
Spreadtrum is also investigating alternative software platforms as shown by:
Spreadtrum Low-Cost Smartphone with HTML5 Operating System Demonstrated at Mobile Asia Congress 2012 [Spreadtrum press release, July 16, 2012]
Mozilla showcases Spreadtrum smartphone running Firefox OS, highlighting potential of HTML5 on low-cost smartphones
Spreadtrum Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: SPRD; “Spreadtrum” or the “Company”), a leading fabless semiconductor provider in China with advanced technology in 2G, 3G and 4G wireless communications standards, today announced that Spreadtrum’s SC8810 smartphone platform was selected by Mozilla to showcase its HTML5 operating system, Firefox OS, running on low-cost smartphone devices. Mozilla demonstrated the handset, based on Spreadtrum’s 1GHz SC8810 smartphone chip and running Mozilla’s Firefox OS, at its booth during Mobile Asia Congress 2012 held last month in Shanghai, China.
Firefox OS for mobile devices is built on Mozilla’s “Boot to Gecko project” which allows HTML5 applications to access the underlying capabilities of a phone, previously only available to native applications. “Firefox OS is another major step at Mozilla to bring its core values — openness, innovation and opportunity on the web — to users and developers on smartphone platforms,” said Dr. Li Gong, CEO of Mozilla Online Ltd and Mozilla Taiwan. “Our collaboration with Spreadtrum will help enable the power of this truly-open operating system to reach the billions of consumers in emerging markets who will be coming online as first-time smartphone users as well as existing smartphone users who are looking for greater value at lower cost.”
“We have been closely tracking the progress of the “Boot to Gecko project” since its inception and are very excited about Firefox OS as a concrete realization,” said Mr. Yi Kang, vice president of marketing at Spreadtrum Communications. “This type of solution has generated a lot of interest from operators, as the open-source HTML5 platform can provide them with complete control over the handset experience. We expect that the appeal of this platform to our customers will grow as the HTML5 application ecosystem expands.”
This is leading to speculations like: The Feature phone rises (again?) [EE Times, July 24, 2012]
…
Is it plausible? You bet. I already see signs that make such plots believable.
First is the emergence of Firefox OS. While the jury’s still out on yet another new mobile OS, this HTML5-based mobile operating system may have enough power to stir the debate.
$40 smartphone
Second, there is mounting market pressure (from handset vendors and operators alike) for low, low-cost smartphones. In an interview with EE Times in early June, Spreadtrum’s CEO Leo Li was on the record by saying that “our customers are ready to roll out $40 ‘real’ smartphones this year.”Every chip company and handset vendor is in the market for a solution that makes all levels of smartphones possible at low cost.Third, operators are hatching a plot to retain full control of the billing relationship with subscribers. “Currently, operator billing is available for Android for only a handful of operators, all in developed countries,” according to Daniel Gleeson, an analyst on Mobile at IHS Screen Digest. “Otherwise payments for apps, games etc. go through credit card companies. Obviously operators would prefer that this goes through them as they would get a small slice of that pie as well.”
Fourth, as legal wrangling escalates on Apple iOS vs. Google’s Android IP front, handset vendors are surreptitiously looking for an alternative system – possibly something available for free.
Fifth, let’s not forget about a huge global market — beyond the United States and Europe — that hasn’t embraced smartphones yet. This creates big openings for developers of new technologies and new players on the mobile market.
Above all, I’m convinced that feature phones (OK, “entry-level smartphones”) are not going away, largely because the definition of smartphones vs. feature phones, in my opinion, is fundamentally phony. At best, it’s based on a self-serving marketing pitch by smartphone proponents.
…
Smartphone-like Asha Touch from Nokia: targeting the next billion users with superior UX created for ultra low-cost and full touch S40 devices
Updates: Nokia Asha 310 debuts with Dual SIM and Wi-Fi [Nokia press release, Feb 12, 2013]
Nokia Asha 310: $102 (list) – a dual SIM enhanced version of the Asha 309: $99 (list)
+ Both Asha 309 and 310 are WiFi enabled, EGPRS and GPRS based versions with modest camera (2 MP), video (176 x 144 pixels H.263 only recording at 13 fps, playback at 15 fps) and processing power (800 MHz as indicated in India) capabilities. The top Asha 311 ($115 list price in India) is a 3.5G phone with 3MP camera, 640 x 480 pixels H.263 and MPEG-4 recording at 25 fps, playback at 30 fps, and a 1 GHz ARM11 processor. The best retail price on the major Asha market, India: Asha 309 is Rs. 4349 [$US 80.5] and Asha 311 is Rs. 5349 [$US 99]. You can download a detailed comparison of these top Asha devices from here (PDF).
…
Swap SIM cards to suit your lifestyle
With Nokia’s built-in Easy Swap Dual SIM technology, consumers can use the external slot on the Nokia Asha 310 to insert a secondary SIM card, while keeping their principal SIM card in place behind the battery. The Nokia Asha 310 puts the user in control, with the ability to shift between SIM cards for personal or work use without turning off the phone. They can also swap SIM cards while on-the-go, to get the best available tariffs when commuting. Nokia Easy Swap Dual SIM makes it possible to assign and store unique profiles for up to five SIM cards. Users can designate SIM cards for text, voice and data and switch between them at their convenience.
Freedom to do more online with Wi-Fi
The addition of Wi-Fi in the Nokia Asha 310 gives users a fast and easy way to enjoy more online, including streaming videos from YouTube or downloading the 40 free EA Games from Nokia Store. The ability to connect to free Wi-Fi hotspots whether at home or on the go means users aren’t constrained by their data plan.
The Nokia Asha 310 comes pre-loaded with Nokia Xpress Browser, which delivers a fast and fluid browsing experience and support for thousands of web apps. Nokia Xpress Browser compresses Internet data by up to 90%, saving consumers money.
…
“The Nokia Asha 310 is the first-ever Nokia smartphone to offer both Easy Swap Dual SIM and Wi-Fi in the same device. It gives consumers the best of both worlds, allowing them to separate work and play, or speak with friends on other mobile networks more affordably,” said Timo Toikkanen, executive vice president, Mobile Phones, Nokia. “The addition of Wi-Fi support gives users the freedom to enjoy much more of the Internet compared to competitive devices at this price point.”
The newest addition to the Asha Touch family of smartphones, the Nokia Asha 310 features a 3″ scratch-proof, capacitive touchscreen that complements the sophisticated design. It features a 2 megapixel camera and comes with a 4GB* memory card included, with support for a further 32GB of external memory.
The Nokia Asha 310 will be available to purchase in Asia, India, the Middle East, Africa and Brazil starting Q1 2013. Suggested pricing is 102 USD before taxes and subsidies. Available colors include black, white and golden light.
*In Brazil, The Nokia Asha 310 will have a 2GB memory card included
How Asha got smart [Nokia Conversations, Jan 24, 2013]
… We talked to Jussi Nevanlinna, VP product marketing, to find out more. …
Nokia Xpress Browser – More browsing, less waiting [nokia YouTube channel, Jan 15, 2013]
…
Sometimes particular components in the Asha range are actually ahead of the curve. Take battery life, for example. People who use a smartphone have been taught not to expect a particularly great battery life – a day or two, perhaps. So a phone like the Nokia Asha 309 comes as a real revelation to them. This phone has a standby time of 42 days. You could leave it on the kitchen table, go off sailing round the world for a month, come back and still have several days’ work left in it.
…
And lastly, how is the Series 40 operating system holding up into the 21st Century?
Pretty well, we think. Again, we have to base this on what our customers tell us. The OS has an extremely high Net Promoter score – that’s a measure of how likely people are to recommend something to other people. They describe the user experience as “rich” and say that it “performs quickly”.
And, of course, while Series 40 was first conceived quite some time ago, it’s in a continual process of evolution. When we moved to touch, that demanded a whole host of technical improvements and redesigns for the interface and user experience.
Asha Touch devices are actually the leading smartphones in a number of markets. In China and Indonesia, the Nokia Asha 305 is the top-selling smartphone in its price band. In India and Pakistan, in fact, across the IMEA (India, Middle-East and Asia) region, it’s the top-selling smartphone overall.
One reason for this is the way we go about creating them. We don’t just take an expensive design and then shrink it down or chop things off until it hits the price point. Some of our competitors do this, and it can lead to phones that feel ‘cheap’. Our phones are built from the ground-up to deliver a particular set of user experiences. They are purpose-built, not cut-down.
Diwali Offer with Nokia Asha Smartphones TVC [NokiaIndiaOfficial YouTube channel, Oct 16, 2012], remark from Wikipedia: Diwali … known as the “festival of lights,” … observed by Hindus, Jains, Buddhists, Sikhs …
The Story of my Nokia Asha – Aditya in Jakarta [Sept 26, 2012]
Nokia Corporation Q3 2012 Interim Report [press release, Oct 18, 2012]
… Mobile Phones Q3 volumes increased quarter-on-quarter to 77 million units; strong sales start for new Asha full touch smartphones, with volumes of 6.5 million units. …
…
Commenting on the Q3 results, Stephen Elop, Nokia CEO, said:
… In our mobile phones business, the positive consumer response to our new Asha full touch smartphones translated into strong sales. And in Q3, our mobile phones business delivered a solid quarter with sequential sales growth and improved contribution margin. …
…
Mobile Phones
Q3/2012
Q3/2011
YoY
ChangeQ2/2012
QoQ
Changevolume(mn units)
76.6
89.8
-15%
73.5
4%
ASP
31
32
-3%
31
0%
… On a year-on-year basis, the decrease in our Mobile Phones volumes in the third quarter 2012 was primarily due to the decline in volumes of our lower priced devices that we sell to our customers for below EUR 30. Volumes of our higher priced devices also declined, partially offset by volumes of our newly launched Asha full touch smartphones.
On a sequential basis, the increase in our Mobile Phones volumes in the third quarter 2012 was primarily due to volumes of our Asha full touch smartphones. In addition, volumes of our devices that we sell to our customers for below EUR 30 increased sequentially, whereas volumes of our QWERTY devices declined sequentially.
… On a sequential basis, our Mobile Phones ASP was approximately flat in the third quarter 2012 as higher sales of our lower priced devices that we sell to our customers for below EUR 30 were offset by higher sales of our Asha full touch smartphones which carry higher ASPs.
…
THIRD QUARTER 2012 OPERATING HIGHLIGHT
…
– Nokia announced the Nokia Asha 308 and Asha 309, new additions to the Asha Touch family. The dual SIM Nokia Asha 308 and single SIM Nokia Asha 309 give consumers fast web access at low cost. Nokia also released a new version of Nokia Xpress Browser, which enables up to 90% more efficient mobile browsing and faster access to rich web applications compared to conventional browsers. The Asha 308 and Asha 309 offer a fluid ‘swipe’ user interface and an open environment for third-party application development, characteristics that have earned the complete Asha Touch range full smartphone classification from global market research companies and analysts such as GfK.
– Nokia unveiled Nokia Life+, the latest evolution of its widely-used Nokia Life service. Nokia Life+ is a Web application, which will provide millions of people with valuable information on education, health and “infotainment” topics. Nokia Life+ will be supported by the Nokia Asha 308 and Nokia Asha 309 smartphones alongside a wide range of Nokia mobile phones.
…
Nokia Asha 308 – Ready for everything [nokia YouTube channel, Sept 27, 2012]
Nokia expands Asha Touch range to offer consumers smarter Internet experiences [press release, Sept 22, 2012]
… Nokia estimates the retail price for the Nokia Asha 308 and Nokia Asha 309 to be about USD 99, excluding taxes and subsidies, with shipping expected to start in the fourth quarter 2012. …
… In addition … Nokia introduced a new web-based tool that makes it even easier to build new applications. With Nokia Xpress Web App Builder, publishers can create appealing web apps for Asha Touch devices, and even novices can turn their web content into a fun and sophisticated web app for Nokia consumers. … Xpress Web App Builder is available at xpresswebapps.nokia.com
Introducing the Nokia Asha 309 [nokia YouTube channel, Sept 24, 2012]
Major improvements over the previous Asha Touch 305 and 306 as per the detailed specifications comparison:
- Capacitive Multipoint-Touch vs Resistive Multipoint-Touch
- 64 MB RAM / 128 MB ROM vs. 32 MB RAM / 64 MB ROM
allowing max user storage of 20 MB vs. 10 MB - Camera focus range of 60 cm to infinity vs. 100 cm to infinity
- Video recording frame rate of 13 fps vs. 10 fps
- Bluetooth 3.0 +A2DP vs. Bluetooth 2.1 +EDR
while in some specification offering less, the most important one is:
- GSM talk time is up to 9 hours vs. 14 hours
(with the same BL-4U 3.7V 1110 mAh battery)
Came to India: Nokia Launches Asha 308 And 309; Prices Start From Rs 6200 [US$ 116] [TechTree, Oct 18, 2012]
Asha positioning vs. Lumia and Android, see: The BGR Show – Nokia’s Smartphones Guru [iamOTHER YouTube channel, Aug 9, 2012]:
[3:19] First of all what we’re working on with Windows Phone is to take it as low end price point as we possibly can. Having said that, the Nokia Asha devices have really been developed with the emerging market consumer in mind. We’ve brought a lot of smartphone like features to the user interface, as well as investing in making access to the Internet possible for consumers who have real affordability constraints, for data compression in our browser etc. We are working to continue to invest there so that Asha is a relevant competitor to the lowest end Android devices. [4:05]
Nokia Feature Phone To Dominate While Smart Phone To Fade: India Key [analysis by Seeking Alpha, Aug 12, 2012]
With the second largest population of any country in the world and the fastest growing mobile device market over the last year; India provides a vast amount of opportunities for Nokia (NOK). While The Microsoft (MSFT) partnership and its subsequent offspring, the Lumina smart-phone, keep garnering all the headlines, the “feature-phone,” will lead this stock out of the abyss!
…
First a little historical background; facing international pressure to liberalize the country’s telecom industry, the Indian government passed the National Telecom Policy of 1994. This resulted in the country being divided into 20 (There are currently 23) telecommunication circles for basic telephony and 18 circles for mobile services; each circle represented a geographic region in which a particular telecom operator would provide service. An auction was held to determine which telecom operator would receive a spectrum license for each circle; the license gave them the exclusive right to provide service for that spectrum within the specified area. A similar spectrum auction has been held each time a new wireless spectrum (2G/3G/4G) was introduced over the past two decades. To this end, on May 2010, an auction was held for 3G spectrum licenses and resulted in exorbitant prices being paid by a majority of the country’s largest operators, “The Indian 3G spectrum auctions ended after 34 days, 183 rounds and prices close to $15 billion.”
…
Having spent such a significant amount for the licenses, these 7 operators were left with little additional capital to invest in 3G infrastructures; instead the majority focused their efforts on extracting revenue from the established 3G circles. As a result, many of the largest towns and significant pockets of the largest cities are still void of 3G coverage and this spotty service is greatly hindering the willingness of people to adopt 3G technology.
…
In a country with a very low per capita income and arguably the most cost-conscious consumers in the world, most are unwilling to pay significantly more for 3G services.
Nokia Asha 305 Price in India 2012 14th August valid in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai,Mumbai and Delhi: Best Price: Rs. 4350 [US$ 78]
The Asha 305 was recently compared (Nokia’s masquerade [BGR, Aug 13, 2012]) to S Mobility’s (Spice Mobility’s) entry-level Android phone Mi355 “Stellar Craze” because of:
Spice is one of the new crop of Nokia’s lethal rivals in Asia, a nimble Indian upstart vendor that blindsided Nokia with its broad selection of dual-SIM phones in 2011 when Nokia still relied on a single-SIM product range.
Stellar Craze Asha 305 Weight 120g 98g Thickness 13mm 13mm 3G support Yes No Camera 5 Mp 2 Mp Display size 3.5″ 3″ Pixel count 480×800 240×400 Pixel density 266 155 Screen type Capacitive Resistant Dual-SIM Yes Yes Price in India Rs 6,600 [US$ 119] Rs 4,600
Nokia’s Asha 305 is in most ways far cruder device than the Stellar Craze. But it weighs less, looks sleek and has a snappy new UI. And in most parts of India, the lack of 3G support is not a problem.
Over the next four quarters, Nokia’s battle for survival is going to be waged in the streets of Rio De Janeiro and Mumbai, where blue-collar consumers will compare the Asha 305 to devices like Stellar Craze. Will they accept a sleek feature phone with a 3-inch screen and a low price that represents a big improvement in display and software quality over the previous budget phones? Or will they spend 40% more to reach for an Android device like the Stellar Craze, with four times the pixel count, 3.5G support and a fancy 5-megapixel camera?
S Mobility Q4 & FY12 Investor/Analyst Conference Call Transcript [May 16, 2012] is providing more insight into the entry-level Android smartphone market in India:
Pranav Kshatriya, Brics Securities, India
Big players like Samsung and LG are focusing lower end of smart phones pricing their Android phone in the Rs. 6,000 and Rs. 7000 [US$ 108 and US$ 126] category and is it really possible to give good quality handsets at a price which is lesser than that? Or how do you see the valid proposition for your smart phone as against the multinationals that are collaborating with Google and then launching their handset?
Sanjeev Mahajan, CEO of Spice retail
I think we can answer this in 2 parts, one we can try and give a retail perspective to it. I ask my colleagues to add their perspective from a Spice Mobile point of view.
The market is moving towards the price point that you talked about. So now you have a wide series of offerings for android phones in the range of Rs. 5,500 to Rs.6000 [US$ 99 to US$ 108]. In India, if value is at the bottom of the pyramid, over time you will find the shift on the smart phone category towards a lower price point. Now having said that, I don’t think there will be a drastic change. You would find smart phones at Rs.6,000 or so but in my assessment you will not find smart phones at about Rs.
More about that:
– Spice Mobility Launches Stellar, Stellar Horizon and Stellar Craze, Ice Cream Sandwich to boot [June 7, 2012]
– Spice to Launch India’s First ‘Secure Android’ Handset Range [May 16, 2012]
End of updates
This quite remarkable achievement is coming amongst the deepest drop in Nokia devices quarterly performance, as well illustrated by the diagram below. Compare the YoY numbers over the last two years, and read the official Nokia explanations given for the last Q2 quarter (shown in red):
Source: Nokia Corporation, Quartely results as of July 19, 2012
Source: YCharts as of July 23, 2012
The related financial higlights for the last Q2 quarter (reported on July 19, 2012) were as follows:
– Net sales were 4.0 billion Euro, down 5 percent sequentially and 26 percent year over year
– Non-IFRS gross margin in Q2 was 18.1 percent, down 630 basis points sequentially primarily due to the recognition of approximately 220 million EURO of inventoryrelated allowances* in Smart Devices
– Non-IFRS OPEX was 1.1 billion Euro, down 3 percent on a sequential basis and 14 percent year over year
– Non-IFRS operating margin was negative 9.1 percent in Q2 down sequentially from a negative 3.0 percent in Q1
* Nokia: “In Q2, we recognized approximately EUR 220 million of allowances in Smart Devices related to excess component inventory, future purchase commitments and an inventory revaluation. These allowances relate to our Smart Devices product, that is, Lumia, Symbian as well as MeeGo. Because our internal sales outlook is now lower, we believe we will not be able to use some of the components which we already have on our books, as well as components we have committed to purchase. In addition, we have reduced the carrying value of some of our inventory.”
Note: There is a simultaneous substantial reduction in the Mobile Device segment. The whole next gen operating system effort, code-named Meltemi has been killed. See: Nokia scraps phone software to conserve cash: sources [Reuters, July 26, 2012]. It goes as far as Nokia Beijing Institute began layoffs [First Financial Daily, Shanghai, July 26, 2011]. But it is an important remark in that article, that “layoffs mainly involved in the forward-looking technology departments and R & D personnel, and is not responsible for the outside world said S30 and S40 mobile phone R & D and assume Windows Phone Handset R & D tasks of R & D center in China.”
Regarding Nokia’s long-term competitiveness Stephen A. Elop, Nokia CEO made the following remarks to the analysts [July 19, 2012]:
During the second quarter, we demonstrated stability in our feature phone business. Our Mobile Phones Q2 volumes of more than 73 million were up quarter-on-quarter. During the quarter, we introduced new innovations to our feature phones such as Mail for Exchange, low-end full touch devices and very affordable multi-SIM devices. The feature phone market remains an attractive market, and we plan to improve our competitiveness and profitability in this space by further developing Series 40 and Series 30 devices.
In our Smart Devices business, we continue to see increased consumer support for Lumia and the Windows Phone ecosystem. Last week, a Nielsen survey confirmed how satisfied Nokia Lumia 900 owners in the U.S. are with their devices. The Lumia 900 earned a Net Promoter Score of 63 with 96% of owners extremely or somewhat satisfied and 95% willing to recommend the device to others. Through all of this, we are learning about new feature requirements that we plan to bring the market to improve our global consumer satisfaction. These results are no doubt enhanced by the progress that developers are making with applications. We were pleased to announce that the Windows Phone ecosystem has exceeded 100,000 applications.
Most importantly, we are seeing progress in our Lumia numbers. We sold 4 million Lumia devices in Q2, which is up from about 2 million in Q1, with growth driven by the expanded availability of the Lumia 900 and the Lumia 610 across markets. As we look ahead, we expect the launch of Windows 8 for PCs and tablets, plus the launch of Windows Phone 8, to be a catalyst for Lumia. Windows Phone 8 will share the same Metro user experience and the core operating system technologies as Windows 8, providing a similar platform for developer applications across devices. As Microsoft shared, the look and feel of the Lumia interface is to become familiar to millions of people through PCs, tablets and Xbox consoles. Plus, we anticipate that Microsoft will launch a bold and aggressive marketing campaign for Windows 8, which we believe will have a halo effect for Lumia. And as the lead mobile partner for Microsoft, we plan to deliver competitive smartphones with Windows Phone. We intend to broaden the price point range of Lumia devices to price points both higher for better gross margins and lower for volume. Additionally, we are investing in new materials, new technologies and location-based services for a great consumer experience.
For existing Lumia devices, we have already started the pattern of updates including WiFi tethering, flip to silence, media content streaming and exclusive applications like some from Zynga. As we anticipate the upcoming release of Windows Phone 8, we have worked with Microsoft on a release for existing devices. We are planning for all 4 Lumia devices to receive an update with some Windows Phone 8 features like the new start screen, like core camera experiences and updates to Nokia Drive, Nokia Transport and Nokia Music. This is one example of our continued commitment to enhance the existing Lumia products over time even after Windows Phone 8 ships.
However, to prepare developers for the new Windows Phone platform, Microsoft announced the Windows Phone 8 platform in June. As a result, we anticipate some impact to our Lumia business in Q3, although Lumia activations have been flat to up in the weeks following the announcement of Windows Phone 8. Thus, leading up to the introduction of the Windows Phone 8 products, we plan to introduce tactical measures and promotional campaigns. As we do throughout any product life cycle, we plan to pursue traditional marketing and promotional activities to encourage the adoption of Lumia devices.
We are committed to Windows Phone as our primary smartphone strategy. We have learned that it takes tremendous amount of work to break through as the third ecosystem, and we are viewing the launch of Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 as an important moment in this journey.
These remarks show clearly (look even at the difference in the amount of remarks that are devoted to Asha vs Lumia in the above) that there is change now, with Less focus on feature phones while extending the smartphones effort: further readjustments at Nokia[on this Experiencing the Cloud blog, June 25, 2012] which had the following topics discussed:
- Speculations about Nokia
- Nokia and the Windows Phone Summit
- Nokia Q&A conference for financial analysts and investors, June 14, 2012
- Nokia announcements, June 14, 2012
- Scalado acquisition
- Asha Touch family of mobile devices
The last one gave detailed information about the new Asha Touch products from which I will highlight the following here:
These latest phones have been designed to provide an incredibly rich, smartphone-like experience to consumers who want to be set free from excessive data consumption costs and short battery life.
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The new devices take full advantage of the Nokia Browser 2.0, a major recent update which uses Nokia’s cloud technology to reduce data consumption by up to 90%, meaning that consumers can enjoy faster and cheaper internet access. Web sites load up to three times faster in comparison to devices without cloud-accelerated browsing, making it simple for users to find and select from more than 10,000 web apps available for download. They deliver a richer and more interactive consumer experience whilst using less data than a stand-alone internet connected app.
Consumers can easily stay connected with friends and family at the touch of a button as well as share files and links across their social networks. Furthermore, the Nokia Browser’s Download Manager feature helps consumers to manage external content easily, saving music, video or pictures on a memory card, while surfing the internet.
The Asha family is also getting positive support from developers and consumers. Nokia Store has just broken the 5 billion downloads landmark. From January to April, 42% of all content downloaded from Nokia Store was delivered to Asha and other Nokia devices based on the Java ecosystem. Just one year ago, that number was 10%. Also, there are 410 Nokia developers with apps which have achieved more than 1 million downloads. India Games and Pico Brothers just passed 100 million [each].
As well as providing a great, social online experience, the Nokia Asha 305, Asha 306 and Asha 311 have been created with entertainment in mind. All users will receive an exclusive gift of 40 EA games to download for free* and keep forever. These games range across action, arcade and sports, and include titles such as Tetris®, Bejeweled®, Need for Speed(TM) The Run and EA SPORTS(TM) FIFA 12. The Nokia Asha 311 also comes with 15 levels of Angry Birds pre-loaded onto the phone, perfect for making the most of the touchscreen and 1GHz processor.
*Data costs may apply.
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The estimated retail price for Nokia Asha 305 is EUR 63 [US$ 79] and it’s expected to start shipping in the second quarter of 2012. The estimated retail price for Nokia Asha 306 is EUR 68 [US$ 85]. The Nokia Asha 311 has an estimated retail price of EUR 92 [US$ 115]. Both devices are expected to start shipping in the third quarter of 2012. Above mentioned prices exclude taxes and subsidies.
From this should be quite obvious that the Less focus on feature phones while extending the smartphones effort: further readjustments at Nokia [on this Experiencing the Cloud blog, June 25, 2012] statement in the title of that previous post should not be interpreted in a kind of simplistic way. Let’s quote Elop on that from the analyst call yesterday:
Sandeep Deshpande – JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division
Could you possibly talk about the products that you plan and when the new products will be launched for this, the low end market, which is where you’re seeing some of the problems in China for instance? And how do you see yourself positioning in that market? Is it on price? Or is it the difference with Windows Phone 8that you’re going to position yourself on?
Stephen A. Elop
So thanks. I can’t give you comments on specific products and announcement dates and so forth. But we have signaled very clearly that it is our intention to introduce products at lower and lower price points, and the plans are well advanced in that direction.
In terms of positioning in those lower-priced markets, it is the case that Windows Phone itself, as well as what we contribute as Nokia, are the principal source of differentiation. We do intend to present them as a different experience that we believe is superior, particularly on some of the topics that are of interest, not only all over the world but very heavily an emerging markets, things like social networking. And that doesn’t necessarily mean Facebook in a number of these markets. There’s a number of other environments or social environments that people are using. And clearly, we’ve demonstrated some of that with the early launch of products into countries like China, but you’ll see a lot more of that going forward.
The other thing I’d highlight as well here is on the Mobile Phones side, it is the case that just at the end of Q2, we introduced a new family of Asha full touch products. Too early to call sales results because they’re just moving into channels and so forth, just beginning the sales process. But for a number of people in those emerging markets, at the right price point, which may be below what a smartphone is selling for traditionally, they’re getting smartphone-like capability including Internet access, social networking access and a variety of other capabilities like our proxy browser [see explanation for that further down, related to the MWL topic], all designed to reduce total cost of ownership for those devices.
So it’s partially about Lumia devices coming down but also recognizing in what we traditionally call the feature phones space smartphone-like capability being introduced more and more.
… [much later, in response to a question about “too much and ‘asymetric’ reliance on Microsoft”] … as it relates to shaping our own destiny, we have substantial ability to shape what we’re doing, what devices, what incremental software we build in and around Windows Phone, as well as other platforms, including our Mobile Phones platform, including our location-based assets and so forth. …
And indeed as early as in the first half of July the first Asha Touch device, Asha 305 came to the market: second week of July to Pakistan, third week to India etc. (also available almost everywhere now, including Europe). The market of crucial importance for Nokia now is obviously India, where the brand new product is sold already as low as US$ 72 (INR 3,967) while on Nokia India on-line shop it is advertised for US$ 85 (INR 4668) vs. US$ 91 (INR 5,029) of list price. This is showing clearly that Nokia has quite a big price elasticity potential for the new Asha Touch products!
Stephen Elop made it quite obvious in his remarks yesterday that:
For Q3, with limited near-term visibility, we are providing guidance that has a conservatively broad range. We believe there are several drivers that could move us into the upper part of the expected range. As noted in our press release today, these include: continued improvements in Mobile Phones including strong sales of our Asha full touch products, which were just introduced to market at the end of Q2; lesser impact on Lumia sales during the transition to Windows Phone 8, which would lead to more normal demand for products; and better-than-expected progress against our structural cost savings actions.
On the cost side of the new Asha Touch devices I will further elaborate in a companion post (specifically investigating the “ultra low, manufacturing cost” aspect of them), and will only go through the “superior” User Experience (UX) question in detail here. For that let’s see first a video demonstration:
Nokia Asha 311 touchscreen phone [TheBestOfUppropfdr YouTube channel, July 12, 2012]
Then is the first detailed review from Pakistan as well. This is worth to watch because also showing that people used to review Android smartphones could quite underestimate the power of this new user experience: Nokia Asha 305 – Full Review (Most Indepth) [DrTech0logy YouTube channel, July 12, 2012]
What this reviewer is right:
Nokia Asha 305 and 306 are not worth buying, the touch screen is awful, as it is a resistive touch screen, Nokia X2 is the best in this price.
Referring to the question put on her facebook site:
Can you tell me which is a good phone in the price 8,000 to 8,500???
She is also noting in the same thread that:
… we can’t play youtube videos we can only download them …
how’s the video quality and max length of video you can shoot? Wait for Nokia Asha 311 to come out..
[Indeed, before making premature product conclusions wait for the significantly better in those, and even other respects Asha 311 with a capacitive touch screen, Gorilla glass, 1 GHz processor, 3.5G instead of 2.75G of the 305/306, VGA video etc.!]
These are also told in her review video, where the general conclusion, nevertheless, is that this entry Asha Touch device is a good one for that price. [Plus consider the quite large price elasticity aspect (mentioned earlier) Nokia built into as well!] Nowhere, however, she is reviewing the device from the overall user experience point of view.
So let’s examine that in more detail, first with another video from the next to the previous source which is clearly evaluating the UX aspect aspect as well:
Nokia Asha 311 [TheBestOfUppropfdr YouTube channel, July 12, 2012]
It is worth to add to that some technical documentation evidence:
UX overview [a section in the Essentials part of Series 40 Full Touch Design Guidelines, June 8, 2012]
Series 40 Full Touch UI
- Intuitive, fast, and enjoyable to use.
- Flexible and relevant personalisation to fit your style; have your favourite apps on My page.
- Visually appealing; clear and eye-catching graphics and transitions in compact size.
- Familiar and trustworthy UI, building on Series 40 UI heritage.
The lock [or title] screen is the topmost layer of the UI that people first see when the screen has been waken up. Lock screen is visible when the phone is in locked mode. Its main purpose is to prevent any accidental interactions with the phone while it’s not being used. A swipe gesture from any edge of the screen unlocks the phone and moves to the screen that was active before the phone was locked. On lock screen, people see the current time and date, the status of the phone, and notifications about incoming events at a glance. Lock screen is only displayed in portrait mode.
Figure 1. Unlocking the screenHome screens
There are three home screens: My page, App launcher, and My app. People can swap between home screens by swiping or flicking horizontally.
Figure 2. Home screens: My page, App launcher,
and My app (in this case, dialler)My page:
- Can be personalised by the user.
- Contains favourite contacts and shortcuts to apps.
- Editing the content can be triggered with a long press on the screen.
- Time and date is always visible on My page.
- Tapping on the time opens Alarm clock.
- Tapping on the date opens the Calendar.
- My page can be scrolled vertically.
App launcher:
- Shown at the end of the start-up process.
- Shown when the user has exited an app by pressing end key.
- Contains all phone apps, on one single page.
- Also downloaded apps are placed here.
- The user can reorder the icons by pressing and holding the screen to activate the edit mode.
My app:
- Three possible apps to have here; dialler, music player, or radio.
Opening and closing apps
On home screen, apps can be simply tapped to open.
The notification baris accessible throughout the UI, but only in portrait orientation. The notification bar is a dynamic zone from which people can always access shortcuts, core functions, ongoing events and missed events. Any new notification takes the top position of the list as the most recent one. When open, the bar accommodates 3 rows of information with notifications and direct links to apps.
Figure 3. Notification bar with new activity, notification bar
after time-out, and open notification barApps are closed with the back navigation path, or by pressing the endkey.
Figure 4. Open an app with a tap. Close it from the Back icon.
Return to the home screen where you opened it from.
More information:
other sections in the Essentials part of Series 40 Full Touch Design Guidelines:
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other parts of Series 40 Full Touch Design Guidelines:
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Series 40 UI Component Demos [Nokia Developer project summary, July 20, 2012]
This simple example application demonstrates the basic use of LCDUI [Limited Connected Device User Interface] components. The example is meant for both designers and developers: designers get an impression of how the components actually look on the device and developers learn how to use the LCDUI UI components. The application does not have an engine or further meaning. The texts are “lorem ipsum” and icons are simple thumbnails or images.
Please check the Series 40 Full Touch Design Guidelinesfor more information.
Considering Metro UI or Panorama Style on Series 40 Full touch devices for designing UI [wiki article of a Nokia Developer project, started on July 16, 2012, not finished as of July 20]
Introduction
Above picture shows an abstract panorama page. I guess you all used panorama applications on Windows Phone, Nokia Lumia. We use the same concept, but we need to consider the limitations of device like memory, processing power and optimization should be kept in mind.
Designing
UI Components
You need to create all these UI components in canvas on your own, using images and drawing on them. How about painting button on mobile, doesn’t sounds good.LCDUI Canvas
You can think of an instance of canvas as an artist’s canvas on which you draw images that might include text.
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Nothing is Impossible with S40 Full touch UI API
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Get Inspired and Start Working
UI components [a section in the Essentials part of Series 40 Full Touch Design Guidelines, June 12, 2012]
The UI components listed below are the Java components available with full touch styling. Please read the LCDUI Overviewfor a structural overview of the offering.
UI stencils
Series 40 full touch visual design stencils are a collection of realistic user interface views and components. The stencils can be used to create mockups which are close to the final visual result. With this set you can create more refined concepts for presentations to stakeholders. The set contains Nokia fonts and drawing files representing the Java components for Series 40 full touch. The visual design stencils are available for Adobe Illustrator CS5, Adobe Fireworks CS5, and Inkscape version 0.48 or above.
DOWNLOAD: Series 40 full touch visual design stencils
When creating icons for your application, please see theicon creation guidelines and the Nokia icon toolkit.
Java UI components
With such a superior UX design foundation comes an advanced SDK and a full fledged IDE for Java developers:
Introduction to the Nokia SDK 2.0 for Java [nokiadevforum YoTube channel, June 25, 2011]
Introduction to the Nokia IDE (Beta) for Java ME [nokiadevforum YoTube channel, June 25, 2011]
New tools unleash the potential of Nokia Asha Touch phones [Nokia Developer News, June 25, 2012]
Beta releases of Nokia SDK 2.0 for Java and Nokia Web Tools 2.0 are now available. These new Series 40 development tools are your route to realising the extended Series 40 opportunity created by the introduction of the Asha Touch phones.
Nokia SDK 2.0 for Java
In addition to the usual tools — documentation, APIs, and an emulator — the Nokia SDK 2.0 for Java contains our first full featured, customised IDE. Based on the Eclipse platform, Nokia IDE for Java will streamline your development activities, with features such as the Device SDK Manager, Nokia specific JAD attribute editor, and a range of code templates.Listening to user feedback we know that in the past developers have been frustrated with trying to find the right SDK for Series 40 development. With Nokia SDK 2.0 for Java, we are introducing the Nokia SDK Manager. From within the Nokia IDE for Java you can now specify a phone, screen size, form factor, or feature and instantly get a list of the SDKs supporting your choice. The SDK or SDKs can then be installed immediately, right from within the IDE.
Among the code templates you will find one with everything you need to implement an app with in-app purchasing capabilitiesand the JAR attribute editor makes targeting you app package at Series 40 phones simple and straightforward.
Finally, there are a number of updates to the SDK that are designed to take advantage of new features being introduced in Series 40 Touch. There is an updated Nokia UI API that gives you features such as multi-point touch and an implementation of the Mobile Sensor API (JSR-234). The emulator has been updated too with an orientation simulator, the integration of Nokia Mapsinto the location simulator, and useful links built into the emulators menu.
Nokia Web Tools 2.0
Series 40 web apps are the best way to deliver great experiences to Series 40 users that leverage your existing web assets. With the release of Nokia Web Tools 2.0 you now have the ability to enhance those experiences with features such as file upload and download, password management, and the addition of in-app advertising to your web apps. In addition, there are several improvements in HTML and CSS support, enabling you to deliver richer UIs.Nokia Web Tools 2.0 enables you to code web apps that take full advantage of these features, and test them on your computer — Nokia Web Tools 2.0 is available for Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac OS X and Ubuntu Linux. The Web App Simulator offers support for the full-touch screen resolution and has been updated to provide a more phone-accurate rendering of web apps.
Within the Web Developer Environment there have been a range of improvements such as enhanced validation — which is now tailored to Series 40 supported HTML, CSS, and JavaScript APIs. There is also a wider range of templates, examples, and code snippets to get you started with common web app content layouts and interaction paradigms, such as sharing on social networks and file transfers. While small, improvements such as keyboard shortcuts and incremental uploads will help speed up your development.
Series 40 represents the single largest opportunity for you to deliver Java and web apps to mobile consumers worldwide. The introduction of Nokia Asha Touch phones delivers these users a near smartphone experience and the updated tools enable you to take full advantage of this in your apps. With accelerating download rates, there has never been a better time to target Series 40.
Indiagames, Psiloc and Liverpool FC have already used these tools to create apps for the new Asha Touch phones and share their experiences in this video:
This video provides an insight into how developers from around the world are taking advantages of the Java and web apps technology in the Nokia Asha Touch phones to deliver great experiences to their users. Hear Indiagames, Psiloc, and Liverpool FC and InfoMedia explain the benefits of developing for the Series 40 Developer Platform and the success they have achieved. Also discover how the latest tools — Nokia SDK 2.0 for Java and Nokia Web Tools 2.0 — have aided with development. Create your Java and web apps for Asha Touch phones:http://www.developer.nokia.com/series40
Psiloc create World Traveler for Asha Touch using the latest Java tools from Nokia Developer [nokiadevforum YoTube channel, June 25, 2011]
In addition to the support given to the Java developers the opportunity is a great now to web developers as well. They can develop rich and responsive, true smartphone-like web applications for the new Asha Touch devices:
MinesFinder [wiki article of a Nokia Developer project, July 19, 2012]
This article explains how to write a highly responsive Series40 WebApp. It uses a Minesweeper clone as example.
Note: This is an entry in the Asha Touch Competition 2012Q3
Introduction
If you are writing a Series 40 Web App, you are prepared to cater for the low end of mobile phones. Knowing that the devices which will run your app are very basic should not stop you from trying to deliver a high-end user experience. It is more the other way around, knowing that those phones have limited capabilities should encourage you to use every trick to provide your user with a premium feeling.
In my eyes user experience (UX) has three big topics:
- Function – what does the app do, how bug-free is it, etc…
- Design – how does the app, and the UI, look
- Responsiveness – how does it feel using the app, how fast is it
Of course, there fields have no 100% hard borders. They affect each other and you have to think about all aspects, but I will concentrate on number 3, the responsiveness. And within this part, I concentrate on the speed of the application. To be even more concrete, I’ll talk about reducing these so called “browser round-trips”.
Reducing those round-trips has the highest priority if you try to speed up your app. A round-trip takes almost as much time as opening the app. If the user has to wait 2-3 seconds after every single click the does, he won’t be very satisfied with the experience. In addition, every round-trip is a possible point of error. If the user has a bad internet connection, a round-trip can break the app.
To make sure that this is not only gray theory, I created a Minesweeper clone, MinesFinder. You can find the source in the Nokia Project . I try to get it into the Nokia Store. Until then you can visit [[1]] with your Nokia Browser to play it.
You can play the game without a single round-trip. You can flag fields, dig for mines, get a “You Loose” message if you hit a mine and a “You Win” message if you have flagged all mines correctly. In addition there is a counter, showing how many flags you have already planted.
1. Use MWL [Mobile Web Library, explanation see below] where ever you can.
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2. Use JavaScript like a server-side scripting language.
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3. Use CSS instead of program logic.
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Summary
The Nokia Web Tools, the Mobile Web Library and the Nokia Browser are highly capable tools which enable you to create very responsive apps for a very big audience. But you have to master MWL and you have to think sometimes outside of the box.Using MWL where ever you can, using JavaScript like a server-side scripting language and moving on-demand logic into CSS and the app start will reduce your server round-trips and increase the responsiveness of your application.
Gallery
Main game view.
Settings and info screen.
Cheat mode activated.
You loose.
You win.
Overview – Web Developer’s Library [Nokia Developer library page, June 19, 2012]
This topic contains the information you need to develop web applications on the Series 40 platform. Web apps for Series 40 run on mobile phones that lack the processing power and memory to run a conventional browser directly on the device. Therefore, the web browser for Series 40 devices, known as the Nokia Browser for Series 40, has two parts: the web app client and the proxy server.
Developers can create interactive applications using web standards such as XHTML, cascading style sheets (CSS), W3C widgets, and the JavaScript™ programming language. You can easily make rich, interactive pages that run well even on devices with limited resources.
Nokia Browser for Series 40 is a distributed (or proxy-based) web browser that supports full web page rendering on devices with limited processing power and memory, such as some Series 40 devices. On the phone, there is a small browser called the Nokia Browser for Series 40 Client. On a Nokia server, a larger browser application (called the Nokia Browser for Series 40 Proxy server, or simply the server) processes browsed web pages and runs web apps. The server does most of the processing for the handset client, and it communicates with websites on behalf of the client. The server sends the client optimised web page data, reduced in size to be easier to transmit to and process on the phone. The client has a JavaScript library called MWL (Mobile Web Library), which contains code to support application-like interaction on the device. MWL processing should normally be the only JavaScript that executes on the handset.
The following figure shows the Nokia Browser for Series 40 environment.
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Liverpool FC Match & News Centre app: web apps for Asha Touch [nokiadevforum YoTube channel, June 25, 2011]
This is really showing that Nokia’s strategy for “the next billion” based on software and web optimization with super low-cost 2.5/2.75G SoCs [this Experiencing the Cloud post, Feb 14 – April 23, 2012] had already been technically implemented with these Asha Touch devices. A couple of relevant excerpts from that post showing clearly the company’s new direction which have already been in works during the last 17 months:
Historically, feature phones have been primarily used for calling and text messaging, while smartphones – with the aid of their more capable operating systems and greater computing power – have provided opportunities to access the Internet, navigate, record high-definition video, take high-resolution photographs, share media, play video games and more. Today, however, the distinction between these two classes of products is blurring. Increasingly, basic feature phone models, supported by innovations in both hardware and software, are also providing people with the opportunity to access the Internet and applications and, on the whole, offering them a more smartphone-like experience.
… some competitors’ offerings based on Android are available for purchase by consumers for below EUR 100, excluding taxes and subsidies, and thus address a portion of the market which has been traditionally dominated by feature phone offerings, including those offered by Nokia. Accordingly, lower-priced smartphones are increasingly reducing the addressable market and lowering the price points for feature phone.
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In Mobile Phones, we have renewed our strategy to focus on capturing volume and value growth by leveraging our innovation and strength in growth markets to provide people with an affordable Internet experience on their mobile device – in many cases, their first ever Internet experience with any computing device. Almost 90% of the world’s population lives within range of a mobile signal, yet there are around three billion people who do not own a mobile device. Of those who do own a mobile device, fewer than half use it to access the Internet for a number of reasons ranging from personal choice and affordability to the lack of an available Internet connection. We recognize that there is a significant opportunity to bring people everywhere affordable mobile products which enable simple and efficient web browsing, as well as give access to maps and other applications and innovations.
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We acquired Smarterphone, a Norwegian company that brings new user interface technology and expertise to Nokia. We’ve increased download rates from feature phones to more than 4 million a day by improving store access and payment schemes and adding new apps like Whatsapp, Foursquare and EA. … And we delivered a new proxy browser, and we’re now bringing the browser and web apps down to super low-end devices.
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Cavaiani is talking about technology Nokia bought from his former firm, Novarra, and is now using in the browsers of the company’s four new Series 40 (S40) Asha phones. The new S40 browser, like Silk and Opera Mini, is a proxy browser: it uses servers around the world to download content and compress it before the content gets sent to your phone.
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Nokia’s approach is a bit different from both Opera’s and Amazon’s. Opera’s servers ingest entire Web pages and send them to phones as static documents in Opera’s own markup language, OBML.v
From what we know of Amazon Silk, the browser on Amazon’s as-yet-unreleased Kindle Fire tablet, it combines a full browser on the Fire with algorithms that pre-fetch pages on Amazon’s cloud servers, and also compresses images and stores them at Amazon.
Nokia’s new browser starts with a basic HTML browser on the Series 40 phones. Nokia’s servers look at desktop Web pages and boil down or remove more complex content, for instance parsing and executing JavaScript and resolving CSS into more basic HTML, Cavaiani said. They also reduce the quality (and the size) of images. There’s no Flash support.
The browser is able to handle dynamic pages that only reload part of the page at a time when the user presses a button. The browser also has deep access to the phone’s hardware, which is different from Opera Mini.
“We can also inject services into the browser. The latest browser introduces a geo-location API, so now that’s open to developers to create geo-location apps,” he said.
The browser even supports widgets, dynamic overlays that can perform actions on Web pages like sharing them on Twitter or translating them into a different language.
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”Traditionally, proxy-based browsing has offered users a very limited experience, because such browsers typically do nothing more than paint content provided by a proxy. This has changed, with Nokia Browser for Series 40 support for Series 40 web apps. Using Mobile Web Library, the Nokia Browser for Series 40 client can execute JavaScript code in web apps. This code makes it possible to create interactive user interfaces and graphical transitions to deliver users beautiful web experiences. Now web designers and developers can deliver compelling application experiences to users at low cost — both in terms of development effort and user data charges.
With the latest version of the Series 40 browser, Series 40 web apps can now go even further by offering users location aware web apps and the ability to send SMS messages. Location features leverage the network-based location capabilities of Series 40 phones for accurate and timely location information. In addition, performance has been enhanced further with images embedded in a web app now cached on the user’s phone for faster page loads and refreshes. ”
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Web apps are small games and applications that you can purchase, or download for free using Ovi Store on your mobile phone. With web apps you can access content from well-known global brands, or the local brands you know and love. Once downloaded, apps are permanently saved within Nokia Browser, so they’re always easy to find and super fast to load. And because web apps are specially optimised for your phone, they provide a beautifully clear and simple way to access your favourite content.
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Nokia Browser 2.0 makes use of cloud-based servers which adapt standard web pages so that they perform better on Nokia Series 40 devices. Since web pages are compressed and cached in the cloud, end users can access web sites in a manner which is faster and requires significantly less data to be sent over their mobile network. For pay-per-use contracts this will result in more cost-effective browsing, while users on an operator data plan will be able to do more web surfing without exceeding their monthly usage limits.
The new version reduces data consumption by up to 90%, meaning that consumers can enjoy faster and cheaper internet access. Web sites load up to three times faster in comparison to devices without cloud-accelerated browsing and consumers will also benefit from a number of other enhanced capabilities.
From the first look, consumers are easily able to discover new web content and enjoy one-click access to top, local sites via the Nokia Browser’s inviting and intuitive start page. We have optimized the browser to enable users to easily stay connected with friends and family at the touch of a button as well as to share files and links across social networks. The new and improved Download Manager helps consumers to manage external content easily, saving music, video or pictures on a memory card, while surfing the internet.
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The browser includes a revamped, modern user experience that makes it simple to find, install and use interesting web apps that offer a richer, more desktop-like internet experience. Launched in mid-2011, the Nokia Browser is the first browser of its kind to support web apps, and now boasts a catalogue of more than 10,000 of the latest apps. Several publishers have experienced over a million downloads in a matter of months, demonstrating strong consumer demand.
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Last year, while media attention focused on the launch of the new Nokia Lumia phones, McDowell was laying the groundwork for the expansion of Nokia’s next billion strategy.
A major part of McDowell’s strategy has been moving away from the idea that Series 40 devices were a “low-end business cash cow” towards smarter, aspirational, phones for everyone:
“We’ve planted the seeds for Series 40. These are not the dumb phones…they are as smart as possible. In reality, the distinction between a smart phone and a feature phone is fairly technical, and when a consumer thinks about a smart phone they think about accessing the internet, downloading apps, anice display… and these are all things we can, and do, deliver with Series 40,” says McDowell.
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“In Europe and the US we download data without thinking very much about the cost, but in growing economies it is a huge issue. With the Nokia Browser you can get a full internet experience, with very clever cloud compression technology to make that experience affordable.”
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Nokia is celebrating selling 1.5 billion phones by looking to the future. … “What we are trying to do is a radical thing. We sometimes forget that half the world’s population does not have a phone. So, celebrating 1.5 billion is great, but it’s backward looking. What we want to say is – we are only half way to where we are going.”
…
“For a lot of people Series 40 is the first time they’ve ever had access to the internet or a computer. And the story of connecting those people is a huge story, because it will change the world.”
Series 40 began in the late 1990s in flagship devices [first was the Nokia 7110, developed in 1999], sold at fairly high prices to western customers, Vasara said. That has now been transformed into a range that is now selling in huge numbers in high growth economies, at a fraction of the cost.
“The people who buy these phones – and who will be buying these phones – are ambitious, and very aware of technology. They’re young, urban and what we call ‘hyper-social’. In other words, they know what the best of the best is – and we have to deliver a product that is state of the art and affordable.”
…
The future of Series 40 will be more about the services that you want in your “neighbourhood” – in your own language, delivering information that “feels very local.” Part of that will be working with developers to develop more Series 40 apps.
With all that Nokia had been turbocharging the aging S40 platform for developers in terms of expressiveness, power and development efficiency. The company had already indicated the strategic importance of it in Nokia 2011 fiscal year report [looong PDF, March 8, 2012] in the following way:
In the Mobile Phones business … we plan to drive third party innovation through working with our partners to engage in building strong, local ecosystems. [p. 90, as part of the strategy for the trend: Increasing Importance of Competing on an Ecosystem to Ecosystem Basis]
In support of our Mobile Phones business, we also plan to drive third party innovation through working with our partners to engage in building strong, local ecosystems. [p. 91, as part of the strategy for the trend: Increased Pervasiveness of Smartphones and Smartphone-like Experiences Across the Price Spectrum]
In the Mobile Phones business, we believe our competitive advantages – including our scale, brand, quality, manufacturing and logistics, strategic sourcing and partnering, distribution, research and development andsoftware platforms and intellectual property – continue to be important to our competitive position. Additionally, we plan to extend our Mobile Phones offerings and capabilities during 2012 in order to bring a modern mobile experience – software, services and applications – to aspirational consumersin key growth markets as part of our strategy to bring the Internet and information to the next billion people. At the same time, we plan to drive third party innovation through working with our partners to engage in building strong, local ecosystems. [p. 91, as part of the strategy for the trend: Increasing Challenges of Achieving Sustained Differentiation and Impact on Overall Industry Gross Margin Trends]
By … focusing on driving operator data plan adoption in lower price points with our feature phone offering, we believe we will be able to create a greater balance for operators and provide attractive opportunities to share the economic benefits from services and applications sales compared to other competing ecosystems, thereby improving our long-standing relationships with operators around the world. [p. 93, as part of the strategy for the trends in: Supply Chain, Distribution and Operator Relationships]
Creating a winning ecosystem around our Location & Commerce’s services offering will be critical for the success of this business. The longer-term success of the Location & Commerce business will be determined by our ability to attract strategic partners and developers to support our ecosystem. Location & Commerce is aiming to support its ecosystem by enabling strategic partners and independent developers to foster innovation on top of their location platform. We believe that making it possible for other vendors to innovate on top of Location & Commerce’s high quality location-based assets will further strengthen the overall experience and make our offering stronger and more attractive. [p. 97, as part of the strategy for the trend: Increasing Importance of Creating an Ecosystem around Location-Based Services Offering]
Therefore, such a local partnering strategy had already been in the works some time and quite successfully, as proven by the testimony from probably the largest and most successful local S40 development partner (with 800 million subscribers, mostly in India):
Indiagames talks about their experience developing Java games for Asha Touch [nokiadevforum YoTube channel, June 25, 2012]
And quoting Gondal:
[2:46] The one piece of advice I can give developers is that content and platforms are very-very local. And while there might be certain pieces of content which may suddenly be global hits, it’s very important for you to look at each market individually, and design and develop for that content. [3:05]
Such an advice is well supported by the strategies and achievements of the company:
Indiagames achieve 100 Million Downloads on Nokia Store with games content focused on India [nokiadevforum YoTube channel, June 25, 2012]
More information on leading Nokia developers:
– Pico Brothers, an only two-people Finish company, are the second developers to achieve 100,000,000 downloads, reaching the milestone just two weeks after UTV Indiagames. The company’s strategy for success has involved delivering simple, clever apps that provide short bursts of entertainment. Apps like ‘Milk the Cow’, ‘Talking Hamster’ and ‘Flashlight Extreme’ are Pico Brothers apps that deliver instant fun and utility. They mostly monetize their applications in UK, France and Germany. See: Pico Brothers join the 100 million club [Nokia Developer News, May 4, 2012]
– Inode Entertainment, a 10 people Mexican company, is the third developer to achieve the one hundred million download milestone via Nokia Store. It was one of the first publishers in the Nokia Store, has been developing games since 2006, and its portfolio spans Symbian, Series 40, S60, and Symbian 3 (and soon Windows Phone). Most of Inode’s apps are free, but if it feels it needs to price them, it aims for the 99-cent mark. It is developing for several markets exploiting the potential for that in the Nokia Store. See: Gaming for the Masses: Inode Entertainment Joins the One Hundred Million Download Club [Nokia Developer News, June 25, 2012] as well as Inode Entertainment passes 100 million downloads in Nokia Store [Nokia Conversations, June 26, 2012] and Inode Marketing Videos [inodeEntertainment YouTube channel, May 6, 2011]:
Recently Inode began targeting the latest Asha Touch phones as well [nokiadevforum YouTube channel, July 23, 2012]:
Current (June 28, 2012) Nokia Store Data (note that Lumia apps are in the Windows Phone Marketplace):
– Globally, there more than 120 million registered Nokia Store customers
– Nokia Store offers more than 120,000 apps, and currently drives more than 15 million download requests per day
– Nokia Store has over 100,000 content items available for Series 40 devices, and nearly 25,000 content items targeting Nokia Asha devices specifically, which take advantage of Asha’s more advanced features.
– To date, Nokia Store has driven more than 5 billion cumulative downloads (Series 40 devices accounted for 13% of the first billion, and 42% of the last billion)
– Nokia Store offers operator billing supported by 145 operators, across 52 markets
– 80% of Nokia Store traffic converts to a download
– Apps are No. 1 among paid-for and free downloads
– Nokia Store available in 190+ countries, of which 90% in local language
– 411 developers have achieved more than 1M downloads through Nokia Store, while 63 have achieved 10M or more, 28 with 25M or more, 9 with 50M or more, and 3 developers have now passed the 100M downloads milestone – namely UTV IndiaGames (IN), Pico Brothers (FL) and Inode (MX)
– See: Nokia Developer – Global reach statistics
Apple’s Consumer Computing System: 5 years of “revolutionary” iPhone and “magical” iPad
Updates: The real threat that Samsung poses to Apple [ASYMCO, Dec 7, 2012]
– iPhone 3GS Prices Lowered Down To Rs 9,999 [US$ 179] in India [iPhone Help, July 20, 2012]
– Fighting Android, The Apple iPhone Strategy [Only Gizmos, July 21, 2012]
There was a 5 years anniversary of iPhone on June 29. This product and the adjacent iPad (called “revolutionary” and “magical”, subsequently, by the vendor itself) skyrocketed Apple to previously unbelievable heights in company valuations by the stock market:
Apple Stock Price Reaches All-Time High [NewsyHub YouTube channel, April 12, 2012]
Transcript by http://www.newsy.comBY VICTORIA CRAIGANCHOR JIM FLINKAll three major stock indeces fell triple digits by the end of Tuesday’s trading day. But one individual stock price surged — reaching a mark only one other stock has managed to do…ever. Phoenix’s KNXV has the details.“The world’s most valuable company is now worth even more. Apple computers’ value is now more than $600 billion based on its stock price. Its shares are up almost 60% since the beginning of the year.”Apple’s price hit a daytime high of $644 in the morning. PC Advisor explains why this mark is nearly unprecedented.“The stock price rose to $644 in the morning, and then fell back to $629 by midday. Only one other company has reached the $600 billion value: Microsoft on Dec. 30, 1999, was valued at $619 billion. Today, its value is $260 billion..”Adjusting for inflation, Microsoft’s 1999 total would be today’s equivalent of about $800 billion. In total, Apple stock has risen 58 percent on the year…and it didn’t take long for the stock to cross the threshold from $500 billion to $600 billion. The Wall Street Journal explains the stock’s journey to the top and what it means for the NASDAQ. |
“To put the rally in perspective, it took Apple only 28 trading days to add $100 billion in value as Apple first crossed $500 billion on Feb. 29. In comparison, only 24 members of the S&P 500 have market capitalizations above $100 billion.”So what’s the reason behind the rally? A writer for Pad Gadget.com explains it’s more than just it’s mobile devices, citing…“… Apple’s intentions to initiate a dividend and share repurchase program starting later this year plus the usual anticipation over potential new products. Most consumers and investors alike are waiting on the edg[e] of their seats to see what television-related product Apple has waiting in the wings, with the expectations all quite high that it will be equal parts amazing and marketable.”Nifty new gadgets aside, what’s next for Apple? Will it continue its climb or fall back…retracing the steps of its biggest competitor? A contributor for CNBC says Apple’s stock is overbought and growth from here will likely slow. But another analyst disagrees and speculates big movement for the stock.“Some of the analysts are saying that we could see a trillion dollar market cap figure in a calendar year 2014. I think we might actually see that a little earlier. For me, I think there are still some very positive catalysts around this stock. Expecting the iPhone 5 during the summer.”Early in the trading day Wednesday, Apple’s stock price was up almost 7 points, reaching a value of $635. |
There were several articles about that fundamental change, most importantly:
Business Insider articles:
– Apple Stock vs Google Stock Since The Launch Of The iPhone [June 30, 2012]
– 9 Fascinating Facts About Apple’s Stock [May 21, 2012]
– THE EXPERTS SPEAK: Here’s What People Predicted Would Happen When The iPhone Came Out… [June 29, 2012]
– 10 Things You Didn’t Know About The Birth Of The iPhone [June 27, 2012]
– Yes, You Should Be Astonished By Apple … [April 25, 2012]
Other noteworthy articles:
– The Untold Story: How the iPhone Blew Up the Wireless Industry [Wired Magazine, Jan 9, 2008]
– Apple’s stock is getting creamed by Verizon and AT&T [CNNMoney, May 9, 2012]
– I declare independence from Apple [BetaNews, July 4, 2012]
– Apple’s injunction stopping Galaxy Nexus sales is shameful [BetaNews, June 29, 2012]
– Appeals court delays Galaxy Nexus ban [Android Central, July 6, 2012]
– Nine Reasons You Should Boycott Apple [David Amerland, July 7, 2012]
– Android vs. iOS: A Developer’s Perspective [July 5, 2012]: The architecture of Android is just plain BETTER. They don’t restrict what you can do and there always seems to be a good tutorial to follow telling you exactly how to do the exact crazy thing that you want to do. As far as the languages go, I don’t really have a preference for Obj-C vs. Java. They both do the job pretty well. I still don’t quite have my head wrapped around ARC, but that’s a post for another day.
– China’s smartphone market grows 164%, Apple’s iOS takes 17.3% share [Apple Insider, July 9, 2012]: Even without availability on China’s largest mobile provider, the iPhone’s market share in China has grown form 9.9 percent a year ago to 17.3 percent in the June quarter. … stems from the launch of the iPhone on China Telecom this year. … the company has yet to forge a partnership with China Mobile, the largest wireless provider in the world with more than 650 million subscribers. Reports have suggested that Apple’s next iPhone will add compatibility with China Mobile’s proprietary wireless network. Apple’s 17.3 percent share in China was well behind Google’s Android platform, which dominated with 69.5 percent of smartphones sold in the country. Apple took second place, while Nokia finished in third with an 11.2 percent share.
– Building and dismantling the Windows advantage [the Asymco blog, July 2, 2012]
…
If we consider all the devices Apple sells, the whittling becomes even more significant and the multiple drops to below 2. Seen this way, Post-PC devices wiped out of leverage faster than it was originally built. They not only reversed the advantage but cancelled it altogether.Considering the near future, it’s safe to expect a “parity” of iOS+OS X vs. Windows within one or two years. The install base may remain larger for some time longer but the sales rate of alternatives will swamp it in due course.
The consequences are dire for Microsoft. The wiping out of any platform advantage around Windows will render it vulnerable to direct competition. This is not something it had to worry about before. Windows will have to compete not only for users, but for developer talent, investment by enterprises and the implicit goodwill it has had for more than a decade.
It will, most importantly, have a psychological effect. Realizing that Windows is not a hegemony will unleash market forces that nobody can predict.
Now let’s see how that has come about in terms of market volume and technological improvements:
– 6/29/2007: iPhone, iPod touch (ARM 1176JZ(F)-S @412 MHz, 128MB, PowerVR MBX Lite, GPRS/EDGE 2.5G for iPhone, 3.5” display of 480 × 320 pixels, 2MP)
– 7/11/2008: iPhone 3G (the same except 3.6 Mbps UMTS/HSDPA) & App Store
– 6/19/2009: iPhone 3GS (the same except ARM Cortex-A8 @600 MHz, 256MB, PowerVR SGX535, 7.2 Mbps UMTS HSDPA, 3MP camera)
– 4/03/2010: iPad (ARM Cortex-A8 @1 GHz, 256MB, PowerVR SGX535, 9.7” display of 1024×768 pixels, WiFi [+3G])
Currently marketed devices (all use iOS 5.x which cannot be used on earlier iPhone and iPhone 3G, so those are not iCloud capable), in addition to iPhone 3GS ($330+ unlocked in US, but $179+ in India since July 20, 2012) which is also marketed:
– 6/24/2010: iPhone 4 (ARM Cortex-A8 @800 MHz, 512MB, PowerVR SGX535, 3.5G 5.76 Mbps HSUPA, 3.5” Retina display of 960 x 640 pixels, 5MP camera), $550+ unlocked
– 3/25/2011: iPad 2 (ARM Cortex-A9 @1 GHz, 512MB, PowerVR SGX543MP2, 9.7” display of 1024 x 768 pixels, WiFi [+3.5G HSUPA]), $350+
– 10/24/2011: iPhone 4S (dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 @800 MHz, 512MB, PowerVR SGX543MP2, 4G LTE, 3.5” Retina display of 960 x 640 pixels, 8MP camera), IOS 5 (Notification Center, iMessage and Newsstand … 1,500 new APIs) & iCloud (store music, photos, apps, contacts, calendars, documents and more in the cloud, keeping them up to date across all your devices via the cloud), $790+ unlocked
– 3/16/2012: New, 3d generation iPad (dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 @1 GHz, 1GB, PowerVR SGX543MP4, WiFi [+4G LTE], 9.7” Retina display of 2048 × 1536 pixels), $500+
Note that in April 2012 the under $200 (unlocked) Android smartphones came quite close to the capabilities of the iPhone 4S thanks to Boosting the MediaTek MT6575 success story with the MT6577 announcement [June 27, 2012]. Only the SGX531 GPU of MT6577 is a significant deficiency against that of SGX543MP2 used in the iPhone 4S. As a consumer computing system Google was also able to match Apple with the Nexus 7: Google wanted it in 4 months for $199/$245, ASUS delivered + Nexus Q (of Google’s own design and manufacturing) added for social streaming from Google Play to speakers and screen in home under Android device control [June 28, 2012].
Wikipedia is the best source of detailed technical and other information (by far), except that of iCloud currently (so find a better source of information on that given in sections of this post):
List of iOS devices |
iPhone |
iPad |
iPod touch |
iOS |
iCloud |
iTunes |
iTunes Store |
iBooks |
iTunes Ping |
AirPlay |
AirPort |
Apple TV |
App Store (iOS) |
FairPlay |
Book:Apple Inc. |
iLife |
iWork |
Safari |
History of the iPhone |
In addition I compiled a 5 years of “revolutionary” iPhone and “magical” iPad [June 29, 2012] PDF document from all related Apple press releases for that period. In it there are the following sections:
– Product ramp-up and momentum
– The strongly related iTunes Store momentum during these 5 years
– Essential Device Announcements
– All related Apple press releases
In addition there are document bookmarks included everywhere for easy navigation around the whole 129 pages long compound document.
Note: Official specifications for iPhone, iPad, iPod touch and Apple TV you can find under the URLs just given.
Finally I have further information in this blogpost specifically compiled in order to represent the Apple iOS based consumer computing solution as a system since, in my view, that is one of the most important aspects of this 5 years anniversary which is not represented anywhere else at the moment:
1. Overall picture at the moment (video-based)
2. Current iPhone and iPad products (video-based)
3. Earlier products (video-based)
4. iCloud
5. iTunes
6. App Store
1. Overall picture at the moment:
Apple — Special Event — June 11, 2012 [Apple YouTube channel, June 30, 2012]
2. Current iPhone and iPad products:
Apple – iPhone 4S – TV Ad – Joke [Apple YouTube channel, May 23, 2012]
Apple – Introducing iPhone 4S [Apple YouTube channel, Oct 6, 2011]
Apple – Introducing iOS 5 [Apple YouTube channel, June 6, 2011]
Apple – The new iPad – TV Ad – Do It All [Apple YouTube channel, June 18, 2012]
Apple – Introducing the new iPad [Apple YouTube channel, March 8, 2012]
Apple – Introducing the iPad Smart Cover [Apple YouTube channel, March 2, 2011]
3. Earlier products:
Official Apple iPhone 4 Video [June 7, 2010]
iPhone 3GS ads all in one. Official Apple Commercials spots HQ [Glarand YouTube channel, Sept 29, 2011]
HQ Apple WWDC 2009 Keynote – NEW iPhone 3GS [MicrositeSolutions YouTube channel]
Talking Tech: Apple’s new iPhone 3GS [USATODAY, June 17, 2009]
ALL iPhone 3G official Ads… Collected&Edited in One Video HQ [hsmmgg YouTube channel, March 21, 2009]
WWDC 2008 News: iPhone 3G makes its debut [CNETTV YouTube channel, June 9, 2008]
[HD] Steve Jobs – 2007 iPhone Presentation ( Part 1 of 2 ) [UG3Genki YouTube Channel]
[HD] Steve Jobs – 2007 iPhone Presentation ( Part 2 of 2 ) [UG3Genki YouTube Channel]
iPad 2 Official Introduction Video [March 2, 2011]
Apple iPad: First TV Commercial [March 8, 2010]
Apple iPad Official Video [1080p HD] [Jan 27, 2010]
4. iCloud [Apple microsite, June 6, 2011]:
It’s the easiest way to manage your content. Because now you don’t have to.
Apple – Introducing iCloud [Apple YouTube channel, Oct 4, 2011]
iTunes in the CloudYour music, movies, and TV shows. Wherever you want them.You never know when you’ll suddenly be in the mood to listen to a favorite song, rewatch a classic movie, or share that hilarious sitcom episode with a friend. With iCloud, you can have iTunes automatically download new music purchases to all your devices the moment you tap Buy. You can also access past music, movie, and TV show purchases from any of your devices — wirelessly and without syncing.1Learn more about iTunes in the Cloud1.Automatic downloads and downloading previous purchases require iOS 4.3.3 or later on iPhone 3GS or later, iPod touch (3rd and 4th generation), or iPad; iOS 5 on iPhone 4 (CDMA model); or a Mac or PC with iTunes 10.3.1 or later. Previous purchases may be unavailable if they are no longer in the iTunes Store, App Store, or iBookstore. Downloading previous movie purchases requires iTunes 10.6, iOS 5 or later, or Apple TV software 4.3 or later. Not all previously purchased movies are available for downloading to your other devices. Download iTunes 10.6 free.iTunes MatchIf you want the benefits of iTunes in the Cloud for music you haven’t purchased from iTunes, iTunes Match is the perfect solution. It lets you store your entire collection, including music you’ve imported from CDs. For just $24.99 a year.2Learn more about iTunes Match2.iTunes Match requires iOS 5.0.1 on iPhone 3GS or later, iPod touch (3rd and 4th generation), or iPad, or a Mac or PC with iTunes 10.5.1. Limit 25,000 songs. iTunes purchases do not count against limit. Access to some services is limited to 10 devices. |
Photo StreamSnap. And it’s everywhere.With Photo Stream, you can take a photo on one iOS device and it automatically appears on all your other devices, including your Mac or PC. Import new pictures to your computer from a digital camera, and iCloud sends copies over Wi-Fi to your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. You can even view recent photos on your big-screen TV via Apple TV. There’s no syncing, no email attachments, no file transfers. Your pictures are just there — on whichever device you happen to have handy.Learn more about Photo StreamDocuments in the CloudStart here. Finish there.You can create amazing documents and presentations on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. And now with iCloud, you can keep your work up to date across all your iOS devices. You don’t have to save your work or transfer any files. Your documents — with all your latest edits — automatically appear everywhere. iCloud is already built into Apple iOS apps like Keynote, Pages, and Numbers. It can also work with other iCloud-enabled apps. So you can do things like create a spreadsheet on your iPad and make edits to it on your iPhone. Or start sketching on your iPod touch and add the finishing touches on your iPad at home.Learn more about Documents in the Cloud |
AppsAll your apps. Always at hand.If you have an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, you have apps. And you probably download new ones all the time. iCloud lets you automatically download new app purchases to all your devices at once. So the app you need is always right where you need it. If an app you bought previously isn’t on one of your devices, not to worry. You can download it again from your purchase history — at no additional charge.1Learn more about apps |
iBooksAll your devices are on the same page.Buy a new book from the iBookstore, and iCloud makes sure it appears everywhere — your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. So if you have to put it down, you can pick it back up on another device, in exactly the same place. In addition to the best seller you’re glued to at the moment, the iBooks app keeps a list of titles you’ve read before. And just like with apps, you can download them again to any of your devices.1 |
Calendar, Mail, and ContactsUp-to-date everything.iCloud stores all the stuff you can’t live without — your calendars, email, and contacts — and keeps it up to date across all your devices. Say you delete an email, add a calendar event, or change some settings. iCloud makes all your changes everywhere. Same with your notes, reminders, and Safari bookmarks.Learn more about Calendar, Contacts, and Mail |
BackupiCloud saves the day.iCloud backs up your iOS device daily over Wi-Fi when it’s connected to a power source. From your Camera Roll and messages to your device settings and ringtones, everything is backed up quickly and efficiently. And since iCloud is built into iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch, you can restore your personal data on a new iOS device or one you already have without using a single cable.3iCloud does it all for you over Wi-Fi. |
Find My FriendsFriend-spotting.For finding your way to the party, keeping track of family at a crowded amusement park, or getting picked up at the airport, Find My Friends is your app.4 You can give friends and family permission to see your whereabouts. And vice versa. When you don’t want to be found, a single switch takes you off the grid. Simple as that.Learn more about Find My Friends |
Find My iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and MacLost. And found.If checking all the usual spots hasn’t turned up your missing iOS device, Find My iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and Mac can help.4Just sign in at icloud.com or use the Find My iPhone app on another device to locate yours on a map, display a message on its screen, remotely set a passcode lock, or initiate a remote wipe to delete your data.Learn more about Find My iPad |
3. Backup of purchased music is not available in all countries. Previous purchases may not be restored if they are no longer in the iTunes Store, App Store, or iBookstore. |
4.Find My Friends and Find My iPhone enable you to locate iOS devices only when they are on and connected to a registered Wi-Fi network or have an active data plan. |
iCloud requires iOS 5 on iPhone 3GS or later, iPod touch (3rd and 4th generation), or iPad; a Mac computer with OS X Lion; or a PC with Windows Vista or Windows 7 (Outlook 2007 or 2010 or an up-to-date browser is required for accessing email, contacts, and calendars). Some features require a Wi-Fi connection. Some features are not available in all countries. Access to some services is limited to 10 devices. Map data © 2012 Google. © 2012 Google. Map data © 2012 Google.
Apple – iCloud – Coming Soon [page on the iCloud microsite, June 11., 2012]:
iCloud is about to get even better. With the launch of Mountain Lion this July and iOS 6 in the fall, iCloud gets brand-new features for iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac, and PC.
Safari. Keeps tabs on your web pages.
iCloud Tabs show the web pages you have open on all your other devices, so you can see all your pages on your iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, and Mac, and pick up browsing wherever you left off. Safari now saves web pages — not just links — in your Reading List. So you can get caught up on any device, even when you can’t connect to the Internet. 11. Offline Reading List will be available on iPhone 4 or later and iPad 2 or later.2. Shared Photo Streams requires iOS 6 on iPhone 4 or later or iPad 2 or later, or a Mac computer with OS X Mountain Lion. An up-to-date browser is required for accessing shared photo streams on the web. |
Shared Photo Streams. Share select photos with a select audience.
Now you can share just the photos you want, with just the people you choose. Simply select photos from the Photos app, tap the Share button, choose who you want to share your photos with, and they’re on their way. Friends using iCloud on an iOS 6 device or a Mac running Mountain Lion get the photos delivered immediately in the Photos app or iPhoto. You can even view shared photo streams on Apple TV. If the folks you’re sharing with aren’t using an Apple device, they can view your photos on the web. People can like individual photos and make comments. And you can share as much as you want: Your shared photo streams don’t count against your iCloud storage, and they work over Wi-Fi and cellular.2 |
Find My Phone. Stay on the trail of your iPhone.
It happens. You misplace your iPhone, or your iPad, or your iPod touch. Luckily, iOS 6 and iCloud now offer Lost mode, making it even easier to use Find My iPhone to locate and protect a missing device. Immediately lock your missing device with a four-digit passcode and send it a message displaying a contact number. That way a good Samaritan can call you right from your Lock screen without accessing the rest of the information on your device. And while in Lost mode, your device will keep track of where it’s been and report back to you any time you check in with the Find My iPhone app.3 |
Find My Friends. Good friends aren’t hard to find.
Find My Friends is a great way to share your location with people who are important to you. Family and friends who share their locations with you appear on a map so you can quickly see where they are and what they’re up to. And with iOS 6, you can get location-based alerts — like when your kids leave school or arrive home. Find My Friends can also notify others about your location, so you can stay connected or keep track of the ones you love.3.Find My iPhone and Find My Friends enable you to locate iOS devices only when they are on and connected to a registered Wi-Fi network or have an active data plan. |
5. iTunes [Apple microsite, Oct 4, 2011]:
Apple – iTunes – Your media on your Mac, PC, iPod, iPhone, and iPad.
Apple iPhone 4 TV Ad iPod + iTunes [Apple YouTube channel, Aug 2, 2011]
[iTunes app]Play, buy, and end enjoy your music, movies, TV shows, apps, and more. Everywhere.iTunes is a free application for your Mac or PC. It lets you organize and play digital music and video on your computer. It can automatically download new music, app, and book purchases across all your devices and computers. And it’s a store that has everything you need to be entertained. Anywhere. Anytime. |
iTunes PlayerWhere listening, watching, and playing start.iTunes lets you enjoy all your music, movies, videos, and TV shows on your Mac or PC. When you want to watch or listen to something, you no longer have to look through your CDs or flip through channels — just go to your computer and open iTunes. With your entire media collection in your iTunes library, you can browse everything faster, organize it all more easily, and play anything whenever the mood strikes.Learn more about the iTunes player |
iTunes StoreThe world’s #1 music store. And more.Music is just the beginning. You can also rent or buy blockbuster movies, buy HD episodes of your favorite TV shows, shop for books, and download apps for your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad. Subscribe to free podcasts about anything and everything. For further enlightenment, visit iTunes U and download free lectures, discussions, and lessons from universities and cultural institutions around the globe. You’ll find thousands of hours of entertainment on the iTunes Store.Learn more about the iTunes Store |
iTunes EverywhereiTunes in the Cloud.With iTunes in the Cloud, you can wirelessly download your content to all your devices, regardless of which device you used to purchase it. Your new music, apps, and books just appear — automatically. And you can view your purchase history to choose the TV shows you want to download.1 Effortlessly. Learn more1. Automatic downloads and downloading previous purchases require iOS 4.3.3 or later on iPhone 3GS or later, iPod touch (3rd and 4th generation), iPad, or iPad 2; iOS 5 on iPhone 4 (CDMA model); or a Mac or PC with iTunes 10.3.1 or later. Previous purchases may be unavailable if they are no longer in the iTunes Store, App Store, or iBookstore. Download iTunes 10.6 free. |
Learn more about iTunes everywhereA match made in iCloud.With iTunes Match, you can store your music collection in iCloud, including songs you’ve imported from CDs. And you can play them on any iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Apple TV, Mac, or PC — all for just $24.99 a year.2 Learn more2. iTunes Match requires iOS 5.0.1 on iPhone 3GS or later, iPod touch (3rd and 4th generation), iPad, or iPad 2, or a Mac or PC with iTunes 10.5.1. Limit 25,000 songs. iTunes purchases do not count against limit. Access to some services is limited to 10 devices. |
Music’s in the house.AirPlay lets you stream music throughout your whole house — wirelessly. AirPlay wireless technology is integrated into many speaker docks, AV receivers, and stereo systems. So you can enjoy your entire iTunes library. Every song and every playlist. In any room, anytime. [Learn more][Remote is a free, fun, and easy-to-use app that turns your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch into a remote control. So wherever you are in your house, you can control your computer’s iTunes library and your Apple TV with a tap or flick of a finger. Learn more] |
Features are subject to change. Access to some services is limited to 10 devices. See www.apple.com/legal/itunes/ww/ for more information.
The iTunes Store is available only to persons age 13 or older in the U.S. Requires compatible hardware and software and Internet access (fees may apply). Terms apply. See www.apple.com/itunes/what-is/store.html for more information.
Available on iTunes. Title availability is subject to change.
More information:
– iTunes Match puts your whole music library in iCloud. [Apple’s Inside iTunes blog, Jan 16, 2012]
– Get Books On iTunes, the iBookstore, and the App Store [Apple’s Inside iTunes blog, April 18, 2011]
– iTunes 10.3 Now Includes iBookstore [Apple’s Inside iTunes blog, June 8, 2011]
– iBooks 2 brings new Multi-Touch textbooks to iPad [Apple’s Inside iTunes blog, Jan 30, 2012]
– New features in iBooks 2.1. [Apple’s Inside iTunes blog, March 26, 2012]
– New iTunes U app delivers online courses to mobile devices. [Apple’s Inside iTunes blog, Feb 6, 2012]
– Movies now available on iCloud. [Apple’s Inside iTunes blog, March 19, 2012]
– New Categories make browsing Newsstand’s offerings easier. [Apple’s Inside iTunes blog, May 25, 2012]
Apple – iPhone 4S – Keep yourself entertained at the iTunes Store. [Apple product page, Oct 3, 2011]
iTunes
Millions of ways to stay entertainedYou’re in a coffee shop and you hear a song you just have to have. Or you’re at the airport, wishing you had a good movie to watch. Just go to iTunes. Find all the new music, movies, TV shows, and podcasts you want. Then download it all wirelessly, right to your iPhone. Wherever you happen to be. |
Explore the store.Browse New Releases, Top Tens, and Genres. If you know exactly what you’re looking for, type in a quick search. Play a preview of any song or video, then tap to buy it.1 With millions of songs and thousands of movies, TV episodes, and music videos in the iTunes Store — and a huge selection in HD — you’re sure to find something you’ll love.1. Downloads over 50MB require a Wi-Fi connection. |
The Tone Store.
|
iTunes Ping. Stay in the know.Follow friends to find out what music they’re listening to, buying, and recommending. Catch up with your favorite artists and see if they’re playing near you. That way, you’ll never miss another show. You can even see which of your friends are planning on going, too.Learn more about Ping |
iTunes in the Cloud.When you buy music from iTunes, iCloud automatically downloads it to all your devices over Wi-Fi or a cellular network. So everything new appears everywhere — on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. You can also browse your purchase history and choose specific songs, albums, movies, or TV shows to download again at no additional cost.2 Sign up for iTunes Match and you can access all your other music from iCloud — including music you’ve imported from CDs. For just $24.99 a year.32. Automatic downloads and downloading previous purchases require iOS 4.3.3 or later on iPhone 3GS or later, iPod touch (3rd and 4th generation), or iPad; iOS 5 on iPhone 4 (CDMA model); or a Mac or PC with iTunes 10.3.1 or later. Previous purchases may be unavailable if they are no longer in the iTunes Store, App Store, or iBookstore. Downloading previous movie purchases requires iTunes 10.6, iOS 5 or later, or Apple TV software 4.3 or later. Not all previously purchased movies are available for downloading to your other devices. Download iTunes 10.6 free.3. iTunes Match requires iOS 5.0.1 or later on iPhone 3GS or later, iPod touch (3rd and 4th generation), or iPad, or a Mac or PC with iTunes 10.5.1 or later. Limit 25,000 songs. iTunes purchases do not count against limit. Access to some services is limited to 10 devices. |
Apple – iPod touch – Browse and buy anytime you want with iTunes.[Apple product page, Oct 3, 2011]
iTunes
Your DJ-slash-cineplex-slash-TV and more.You could be anywhere — in line for your “fixes everything” fruit smoothie or just lounging in the quad — when it hits you. There’s a song you need by a band you love, a TV show you missed, or a movie you just have to see, right then and there. Enter iTunes on iPod touch. |
Get your entertainment fix on the fly.Access the iTunes Store over Wi-Fi and you can discover new music from millions of songs. Buy or rent movies. Buy TV shows. Or find free podcasts. Browse New Releases, Top Tens, and Genres. If you know exactly what you’re looking for, type in a quick search. Play a preview of any song or video, then tap to buy it. It downloads right to your iPod touch, making you the master of long waits. |
iTunes in the Cloud.When you buy music from iTunes, iCloud automatically downloads it to your other devices over Wi-Fi or a cellular network. So everything new appears everywhere — on your iPod touch, iPhone, iPad, Mac, or PC. You can also browse your purchase history and choose songs, albums, movies, or TV shows to download again at no additional cost.1 Sign up for iTunes Match and you can access all your other music from iCloud — including music you’ve imported from CDs. For just $24.99 a year.2 Learn more about iCloud |
1. Automatic downloads and downloading previous purchases require iOS 4.3.3 or later on iPhone 3GS or later, iPod touch (3rd and 4th generation), or iPad; iOS 5 on iPhone 4 (CDMA model); or a Mac or PC with iTunes 10.3.1 or later. Previous purchases may be unavailable if they are no longer in the iTunes Store, App Store, or iBookstore. Downloading previous movie purchases requires iTunes 10.6, iOS 5 or later, or Apple TV software 4.3 or later. Not all previously purchased movies are available for downloading to your other devices. Download iTunes 10.6 free.2. iTunes Match requires iOS 5.0.1 or later on iPhone 3GS or later, iPod touch (3rd and 4th generation), or iPad, or a Mac or PC with iTunes 10.5.1 or later. Limit 25,000 songs. iTunes purchases do not count against limit. Access to some services is limited to 10 devices. |
Now you have a following.Ping your friends and follow each other to find out what music everyone loves, buys, and recommends. You can even follow your favorite artists and see who they follow. And when they’re playing a show near you, Ping tells you which friends are up for going. |
iTunes U hones your know-it-all skills.Discover iTunes U on your iPod touch and download some knowledge. You’ll find lectures, discussions, language lessons, audiobooks, podcasts, and more from top universities, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. |
Genius recommends.With millions of songs and thousands of movies, TV episodes, and music videos in the iTunes Store — and a huge selection in HD — you might need some help finding new favorites. Genius keeps track of what you love and recommends more of the same. |
Shop the new Tone Store.You hear an alert go off — like a new text message or Facebook update — and think, “Is that me?” You check your iPod touch, and it turns out it’s not. It’s the guy with the iPhone across from you. Now you can make your alerts a lot more individual thanks to the Tone Store and iOS 5. Part of the iTunes Store, the Tone Store is where you can download alert tones for just 99¢. Here’s to your supreme uniqueness. |
iCloud requires iOS 5 on iPhone 3GS or later, iPod touch (3rd and 4th generation), or iPad; a Mac computer with OS X Lion; or a PC with Windows Vista or Windows 7 (Outlook 2007 or 2010 or an up-to-date browser is required for accessing email, contacts, and calendars). Some features require a Wi-Fi connection. Some features are not available in all countries. Access to some services is limited to 10 devices.
The iTunes Store is available only to persons age 13 or older in the U.S. and many other countries; see www.apple.com/support/itunes/ww for a list of countries. Requires iTunes, compatible hardware and software, and Internet access; broadband recommended (fees may apply). See www.apple.com/itunes/whats-on/ for more information. Terms apply.
Apple – The new iPad – Amazing iPad apps, built right in. [Apple product page, March 7, 2012]
…
iTunes
Open the iTunes app to shop for thousands of HD movies and TV shows (up to 1080p HD, to be exact) 24/7/365.5 While you’re there, pick up a song or two. There are over 20 million to choose from. And iCloud lets you access your iTunes purchases from every device you use — iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, Mac, or PC.1
…
1. Automatic downloads and downloading previous purchases require iOS 4.3.3 or later on iPhone 3GS or later, iPod touch (3rd and 4th generation), or iPad; iOS 5 on iPhone 4 (CDMA model); or a Mac or PC with iTunes 10.3.1 or later. Previous purchases may be unavailable if they are no longer in the iTunes Store, App Store, or iBookstore. Downloading previous movie purchases requires iTunes 10.6, iOS 5 or later, or Apple TV software 4.3 or later. Not all previously purchased movies are available for downloading to your other devices.Download iTunes 10.6 free.
…
5. Not all purchased movies are available in 1080p HD.
That is for iPad there is no product specific iTunes page!
6. App Store
Apple Answers the FCC’s Questions [Apple, Aug 21, 2009]
We are pleased to respond to the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau’s inquiry dated July 31, 2009, requesting information regarding Apple’s App Store and its application approval process. In order to give the Bureau some context for our responses, we begin with some background information about the iPhone and the App Store.
Apple’s goal is to provide our customers with the best possible user experience. We have been able to do this by designing the hardware and software in our products to work together seamlessly. The iPhone is a great example of this. It has established a new standard for what a mobile device can be—an integrated device with a phone, a full web browser, HTML email, an iPod, and more, all delivered with Apple’s revolutionary multi-touch user interface.
Apple then introduced something altogether new—the App Store—to give consumers additional functionality and benefits from the iPhone’s revolutionary technology. The App Store has been more successful than anyone could have ever imagined. Today, just over a year since opening, the App Store offers over 65,000 iPhone applications, and customers have downloaded over 1.5 billion applications.
The App Store provides a frictionless distribution network that levels the playing field for individual and large developers of mobile applications. We provide every developer with the same software that we use to create our own iPhone applications. The App Store offers an innovative business model that allows developers to set their own price and keep more (far more in most cases) of the revenue than traditional business models. In little more than a year, we have raised the bar for consumers’ rich mobile experience beyond what we or anyone else ever imagined in both scale and quality. Apple’s innovation has also fostered competition as other companies (e.g., Nokia, Microsoft, RIM, Palm and Verizon) seek to develop their own mobile platforms and launch their own application stores.
Apple works with network providers around the world so that iPhone users have access to a cellular network. In the United States, we struck a groundbreaking deal with AT&T in 2006 that gives Apple the freedom to decide which software to make available for the iPhone. This was an industry first.
We created an approval process that reviews every application submitted to Apple for the App Store in order to protect consumer privacy, safeguard children from inappropriate content, and avoid applications that degrade the core experience of the iPhone. Some types of content such as pornography are rejected outright from the App Store, while others such as graphic combat scenes in action games may be approved but with an appropriate age rating. Most rejections are based on bugs found in the applications. When there is an issue, we try to provide the developer with helpful feedback so they can modify the application in order for us to approve it. 95% of applications are approved within 14 days of their submission.
We’re covering new ground and doing things that had never been done before. Many of the issues we face are difficult and new, and while we may make occasional mistakes, we try to learn from them and continually improve.
<then answers to the specific questions>
… Question 5. What other applications have been rejected for use on the iPhone and for what reasons? Is there a list of prohibited applications or of categories of applications that is provided to potential vendors/developers?
If so, is this posted on the iTunes website or otherwise disclosed to consumers?In a little more than a year, the App Store has grown to become the world’s largest wireless applications store, with over 65,000 applications. We’ve rejected applications for a variety of reasons. Most rejections are based on the application containing quality issues or software bugs, while other rejections involve protecting consumer privacy, safeguarding children from inappropriate content, and avoiding applications that degrade the core experience of the iPhone. Given the volume and variety of technical issues, most of the review process is consumed with quality issues and software bugs, and providing feedback to developers so they can fix applications. Applications that are fixed and resubmitted are approved.
The following is a list of representative applications that have been rejected as originally submitted and their current status:
- Twittelator, by Stone Design Corp., was initially rejected because it crashed during loading, but the developer subsequently fixed the application and it has been approved;
- iLoveWiFi!, by iCloseBy LLC, was rejected because it used undocumented application protocols (it has not been resubmitted as of the date of this letter);
- SlingPlayer Mobile, by Sling Media, was initially rejected because redirecting a TV signal to an iPhone using AT&T’s cellular network is prohibited by AT&T’s customer Terms of Service, but the developer subsequently fixed the application to use WiFi only and it has been approved; and
- Lingerie Fantasy Video (Lite), by On The Go Girls, LLC, was initially rejected because it displayed nudity and explicit sexual content, but the developer subsequently fixed the application and it has been approved with the use of a 17+ age rating.
Apple provides explicit language in its agreement with iPhone developers regarding prohibited categories of applications, for example:
- “Applications may be rejected if they contain content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, sounds, etc.) that in Apple’s reasonable judgment may be found objectionable, for example, materials that may be considered obscene, pornographic, or defamatory; and
- Applications must not contain any malware, malicious or harmful code, program, or other internal component (e.g. computer viruses, trojan horses, ‘backdoors’) which could damage, destroy, or adversely affect other software, firmware, hardware, data, systems, services, or networks.”
And we also provide a reference library that can be accessed by members of the iPhone Developer Program that lists helpful information such as Best Practices and How To Get Started.
Question 6. What are the standards for considering and approving iPhone applications? What is the approval process for such applications (timing, reasons for rejection, appeal process, etc.)? What is the percentage of applications that are rejected? What are the major reasons for rejecting an application?
As discussed in the response to Question 5, Apple provides guidelines to developers in our developer agreement as well as on its web site regarding prohibited categories of applications. These materials also contain numerous other provisions regarding technical and legal requirements that applications must comply with, and Apple uses these standards in considering whether or not to approve applications.
Apple developed a comprehensive review process that looks at every iPhone application that is submitted to Apple. Applications and marketing text are submitted through a web interface. Submitted applications undergo a rigorous review process that tests for vulnerabilities such as software bugs, instability on the iPhone platform, and the use of unauthorized protocols. Applications are also reviewed to try to prevent privacy issues, safeguard children from exposure to inappropriate content, and avoid applications that degrade the core experience of the iPhone. There are more than 40 full-time trained reviewers, and at least two different reviewers study each application so that the review process is applied uniformly. Apple also established an App Store executive review board that determines procedures and sets policy for the review process, as well as reviews applications that are escalated to the board because they raise new or complex issues. The review board meets weekly and is comprised of senior management with responsibilities for the App Store. 95% of applications are approved within 14 days of being submitted.
If we find that an application has a problem, for example, a software bug that crashes the application, we send the developer a note describing the reason why the application will not be approved as submitted. In many cases we are able to provide specific guidance about how the developer can fix the application. We also let them know they can contact the app review team or technical support, or they can write to us for further guidance.
Apple generally spends most of the review period making sure that the applications function properly, and working with developers to fix quality issues and software bugs in applications. We receive about 8,500 new applications and updates every week, and roughly 20% of them are not approved as originally submitted. In little more than a year, we have reviewed more than 250,000 applications and updates.
[Visit the App Store] App Store Downloads on iTunes [Apple microsite, Jan 4, 2011]
See also: Apple – iTunes – iTunes Store – Charts [Apple microsite, Sept 1, 2005]
iTunes Store Charts
Music Charts
Choose and Album Chart Choose a Song Chart Top 10 Albums
Top 10 Alternative Albums
Top 10 Blues Albums
Top 10 Classical Albums
Top 10 Children’s Albums
Top 10 Comedy Albums
Top 10 Country Albums
Top 10 Dance Albums
Top 10 Electronic Albums
Top 10 Folk Albums
Top 10 Hip-Hop Albums
Top 10 Jazz Albums
Top 10 New Age Albums
[Top 10 Opera Albums]
Top 10 Pop Albums
Top 10 Reggae Albums
Top 10 Rock Albums
Top 10 R&B/Soul Albums
Top 10 Soundtrack Albums
Top 10 Vocal Albums
Top 10 World AlbumsTop 10 Songs
Top 10 Alternative Songs
Top 10 Blues Songs
Top 10 Classical Songs
Top 10 Children’s Songs
Top 10 Comedy Songs
Top 10 Country Songs
Top 10 Dance Songs
Top 10 Electronic Songs
Top 10 Folk Songs
Top 10 Hip-Hop Songs
Top 10 Jazz Songs
Top 10 New Age Songs
Top 10 Pop Songs
Top 10 Reggae Songs
Top 10 Rock Songs
Top 10 R&B/Soul Songs
Top 10 Soundtrack Songs
Top 10 Vocal Songs
Top 10 World SongsApp Store Charts [Dec 27, 2008]
Choose an App Store Chart Top 10 Apps – Paid
Top 10 Apps – Free
Top 10 Apps – New
Top 10 Apps – Books
Top 10 Apps – Business
Top 10 Apps – Education
Top 10 Apps – Entertainment
Top 10 Apps – Finance
Top 10 Apps – Games
Top 10 Apps – Healthcare & Fitness
Top 10 Apps – Lifestyle
Top 10 Apps – Medical
Top 10 Apps – Music
Top 10 Apps – Navigation
Top 10 Apps – News
Top 10 Apps – Photography
Top 10 Apps – Productivity
Top 10 Apps – Reference
Top 10 Apps – Social Networking
Top 10 Apps – Sports
Top 10 Apps – Travel
Top 10 Apps – Utilities
Top 10 Apps – WeatherAudiobooks Charts [Dec 26, 2008]
…
Movies Charts
…
TV Shows Charts
…
Podcasts Charts [Jan 25, 2007 for Health; July 4, 2009 for others]
…
Note that there is a separate microsite for Apple – Web apps – All Categories [Oct 10, 2007 – Dec 3, 2010] where there are only 5106 apps, and the most recent one is dated back to Dec 3, 2010. These apps are described as:
Apple – Web apps [Jan 15, 2008]
Part fun. Part function
Flick through movie time. Tap on a train route. Scroll thropugh sports scores. Web apps and Multi-Touch make it possible.
The Internet meets Multi-Touch
Web applications — or web apps — combine the power of the Internet with the simplicity of Multi-Touch technology, all on a 3.5-inch screen. iPhone and iPod touch let you easily flick through news on Digg, play Sudoku or Bejeweled with a finger tap, and quickly check movie times, train schedules, and favorite blogs.
Browsing web apps is easy. Just visit www.apple.com/webapps on your iPhone or iPod touch. You’ll find a growing list of over 1700 web apps to flick and scroll through. Browse now
One tap web apps.
When you find a web app you like, you can put it front and center on your Home screen. Just open the web app on your iPhone or iPod touch, tap the plus sign, and then tap “Add to Home screen.” A Web Clip will be added to your Home screen automatically for easy, one-tap access. You have up to nine Home screen pages for all your Web Clips and you can organize them however you like.
[Learn more about apps on iPhone] Apple – iPhone 4S – See apps and games from the App Store. [Apple product page, Oct 4, 2011]
Over 500,000 apps.
For work, play, and everything in between.The apps that come with your iPhone are just the beginning. Browse the App Store to find hundreds of thousands more. The more apps you download, the more you realize there’s almost no limit to what your iPhone can do.
Learn more about the App Store
Apps by Apple
Create and send letterpress cards. Shoot and edit HD movies. Make presentations and spreadsheets.
Learn moreBusiness
Follow the market, pay your bills, and track everything from your time to your gas mileage.
Learn moreTravel
Book that overdue vacation and find the best spots to see before you get there.
Learn moreSports & Fitness
Tone those muscles, drop those extra pounds, and get fit with the help of these apps.
Learn moreSocial Networking
Update your status, share photos and video, and let the world know what you’re up to.
Learn moreNews
Stay in the know as you tap into weather forecasts and breaking news from all over the planet.
Learn moreLifestyle
Find great deals in your neighborhood, cook up the perfect dish, and control everything in your house with iPhone. Learn more
Games
Soar through the air, take the checkered flag, and save the universe from aliens. It’s all in a day’s work.
Learn moreEntertainment
Catch a good movie or shoot one of your own — these apps offer endless hours of satisfaction.
Learn moreEducation
See the world. See the universe. And make it back in time to get your homework done. Learn more
Family & Kids
Read along together, complete puzzles, and make every night family night.
Learn moreMusic
Discover new music, make your own, and turn iPhone into your mobile recording studio.
Learn moreTop iPhone Apps Visit the App Store
Top Paid Apps Top Free Apps Top Grossing Apps 1. …
2. …
3. …
4. …
5. …1. …
2. …
3. …
4. …
5. …1. …
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5. …View all Paid Apps View all Free Apps View all Top Grossing Apps
[Learn more about the App Store] Apple – iPhone 4S – Find over 500,000 apps on the App Store. [Apple product page, Oct 3, 2011]
Every app you download from the App Store makes your iPhone do even more. And with hundreds of thousands of apps to choose from, we mean a whole lot more.
Browse, buy, and
even give apps.Enter the App Store to shop for amazing apps in almost every category: games, lifestyle, social networking, and education, for starters. Many apps are even free. If you’re just browsing, the App Store makes it easy. You can see what’s new in Featured, check out the Top 25, and flick through a few screenshots. Find apps by doing a quick search, then download them from wherever you are.1 Or purchase apps to send as gifts to friends and family. Just use the same Apple ID on the App Store that you use to buy anything on iTunes. It’s that easy. And it’s always safe and secure.
Learn more about apps on iPhoneYour apps in iCloud.
When you buy and download apps from the App Store, you always have access to them, no matter which device you’re using. Because the App Store keeps them in the cloud. So if you bought an app on your iPhone, it can automatically download straight to your iPad over Wi-Fi or 3G and vice versa.2 And if you delete an app from your device, you can always download it again.
Stay up to date.
Developers are constantly improving their apps. When you visit the App Store, the Update icon shows you when an update is available for an app you have. With a tap, you can download the updates either one at a time or all at once. Then you’ll always have the latest versions.
Get recommendations.
With so many apps available, you need an easy way to find new ones to enjoy. That’s where Genius comes in. With just a tap, Genius gives you personalized recommendations for apps you might like based on apps you and others have downloaded. You can also read reviews from other app users and see their ratings, and even add your own.
iCloud keeps the stuff you use every day up to date on all your devices. Like all the amazing apps you download from the App Store. Learn more about iCloud
Camera
HD Video Recording
FaceTime
Messages
Reminders
Phone
Safari
Music
Videos
Photos
App Store
iTunes
Maps + Compass
Game Center
Calendar
Contacts
Find My
iPhoneMore
Built-in Apps
Apple – The new iPad– Explore a world of apps made just for iPad. [Apple product page, Dec 8, 2011]
An app made for iPad is an app like no other. That’s because apps for iPad are designed specifically to take advantage of all the technology built into iPad. And with over 225,000 apps to choose from, there’s no telling where the next tap will take you.
Apps by Apple
Incredible apps designed by the people who designed iPad. Learn more
Business
Manage projects, tap into industry news, and get real-time market quotes. Learn more
Productivity
Stay productive with powerful apps that get the job done in style. Learn more
Education
From learning math to understanding science, iPad apps offer fun, interactive ways to learn. Learn more
Entertainment
Discover great movies and TV shows or create art with a few swipes of your finger. Learn more
Music
Turn iPad into a mobile recording studio or rock any party, anytime. Learn more
Games
Rule the skies, explore worlds unknown, or kick back and solve a puzzle. Learn more
Social Networking
Update your status, share photos and video, and let the world know what you’re up to. Learn more
News
Interact with breaking news from around the world through iPad apps that keep you current. Learn more
Sports
Improve your game, track your team, and discover new ways to stay fit. Learn more
Travel
Find the best deals wherever you’re going. And know the best sights to see before you arrive. Learn more
Newsstand
Enjoy your favorite subscriptions — newspapers, magazines, and more — like never before. Learn more
Lifestyle
Get interior design tips, find new recipes, and get even more out of your favorite hobbies. Learn more
Top iPad Apps Visit the App Store
Top Paid Apps Top Free Apps Top Grossing Apps 1. …
2. …
3. …
4. …
5. …1. …
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3. …
4. …
5. …1. …
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5. …View all Paid Apps View all Free Apps View all Top Grossing Apps
Apple – iPod touch – See games and apps from the App Store. [Apple product page, Oct 4, 2011]
The App Store features over 500,000 apps, many of which are free. That includes over 100,000 game and entertainment titles — more than any other platform. And you can go head-to-head with millions of other gamers on Game Center. No wonder iPod touch is the world’s most popular portable game player. You’ll wish you had more fingers.
Apps by Apple
Get one-tap access to podcasts. Create and send letterpress cards. Shoot and edit HD movies. And more. Learn more
Music
Make your own radio station, create your own beats, and turn iPod touch into your personal recording studio. Learn more
Games for Gamers
Explore fantasy worlds, battle fierce competition, or take your team to the championship game. Learn more
Casual Games
Kick back and relax as you slice through fruit, launch an airborne attack, and rule your own island. Learn more
Strategy Games
Test your skills by safely landing aircraft, maneuvering through enemy territory, and outsmarting the opposition. Learn more
Action Games
Conduct secret missions, fight your way to the finish line, or take to the skies for intense aerial combat. Learn more
Sports Games
Run the table, rule the ring, and control the court. You were born to perform with these games. Learn more
Lifestyle
Buy and sell on the go, discover new recipes, and find the best deals on everything from fashion to travel. Learn more
Entertainment
See what movies are playing tonight, watch trailers, read reviews, or stay home and make your own mini-movies. Learn more
Social Networking
Update your status, share photos and video, and let the world know what you’re up to. Learn more
Education
Organize homework assignments, learn a new language, and study up with iPod touch. Learn more
Family & Kids
Read along together, complete puzzles, and make every night family night. Learn more
Top iPod touch Apps Visit the App Store
Top Games Top Paid Apps Top Free Apps 1. …
2. …
3. …
4. …
5. …1. …
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5. …1. …
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5. …View all Games View all Paid Apps View all Free Apps
Apple – Business – App Store Volume Purchasing for Business [June 12, 2012]
Unleash the App Store to your entire workforce.
Whether you’re providing apps to ten employees or ten thousand, the Volume Purchase Program makes it simple to find, buy, and distribute the apps your business needs.
The Volume Purchase Program also provides a way to get custom B2B apps built by third-party developers to meet the unique needs of your business.
The Volume Purchase Program is currently available in the US only.
Get started. Enroll in the US Program
Learn more. Download the Guide
Coming Soon. The App Store Volume Purchase Program is expanding to the following countries: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Spain, and United Kingdom.
Buy apps in volume.
Streamline your purchasing process and put more power and productivity in the hands of your workforce. Every paid app in the App Store is available for businesses to buy in volume through the program website. Simply search for the apps you need, enter the quantity you want to buy, and complete the transaction with your corporate credit card. Apps are available for purchase at the same price listed in the App Store.
Discover great apps for business: iPad | iPhone
Get custom B2B apps.
Custom B2B apps are built just for you by third-party developers and business partners to address a specific business process, integrate with a unique back-office environment, or deliver a custom interface for your users. Using the Volume Purchase Program you can securely and privately download custom B2B apps that make your business even more effective. Pricing for custom B2B apps is set by the developer and can be either free or paid.
If you are a developer who is enrolled in the iOS Developer program you can create custom B2B apps for customers who are enrolled in the Volume Purchase Program.
Learn more about developing custom B2B apps
Easily distribute apps.
The Volume Purchase Program makes it easy to distribute apps within your organization. When you buy apps in volume or custom B2B apps, you will receive redemption codes for each app. You can control who gets the apps by providing these codes to users via email or an internal website. You can also use third-party Mobile Device Management (MDM) solutions or Apple Configurator for OS X to centrally manage redemption codes.
Learn more about Mobile Device Management
Learn more about Apple Configurator for OS X
Open for business.
Any business in the US can participate in the Volume Purchasing Program. To start buying apps in volume for your business, you’ll need to enroll and create a volume purchasing account with Apple. Enrolling in the program is simple. Here’s what you’ll need:
- Basic contact information to verify your business
- Dun & Bradstreet number (D-U-N-S)
- Corporate credit card or PCard to purchase apps
Get started. Enroll in the US Program
Learn more. Download the Guide
@Work Collection
Discover great apps for your business at the App Store. There you’ll find apps across a range of categories for your business.
View in iTunes: iPad | iPhone
iPad and iPhone Apps for Business
Put iPad and iPhone to work for your business. Visit the iPad in Business or iPhone in Business websites to explore how to transform business activities you do everyday. iPad | iPhone
Getting Started Guide
Choose great apps to purchase for your employees and help them get started with this self-paced discovery guide of business apps from the App Store. Download the Guide
Apple – Education – Volume Purchase Program [Jan 19, 2012]
The Volume Purchase Program allows educational institutions to purchase iOS apps and books in volume and distribute them to students, teachers, administrators, and employees.*
How to Enroll
It’s quick and easy to set up your organization for volume purchasing. First, designate yourself or someone else in your organization as the Program Manager. Then you can sign up Program Facilitators, which will allow them to make purchases.
If your institution is tax exempt, you will not be charged sales tax. The program also allows app developers to offer special pricing for purchases of 20 apps or more.
Enroll Now Frequently Asked Questions
*Subject to Apple Volume Purchase Program terms and conditions. Any K-12 institution or district or any accredited, degree-granting higher education institution in the U.S. is eligible to participate. Note: Apple reserves the right to determine eligibility. Campus bookstores and other retail institutions are not eligible. Volume Vouchers cannot be resold.
Coming Soon. The Apple Volume Purchase Program is expanding to the following countries: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Spain, and United Kingdom.
How It Works
Buy apps and books
Through the Volume Purchase Program Education Store, your institution’s Program Facilitators can purchase apps and books in volume, using a credit card, PCard, or Apple Volume Vouchers.
- Shop for K-12
- Shop for higher education
- Or call 1-800-800-2775 .
Get and distribute codes
After making a purchase, Program Facilitators receive a unique code for each app or book. Codes can then be distributed to students, teachers, administrators, or anyone at the institution who will be using the apps or books.
Visit the Volume Purchase Program
Education Store
Redeem codes
Once they have their codes, end users go to the iTunes Store to redeem them. They just enter the code and download the apps or books to their devices.
Apple Education Pricing
Faculty, staff, and students or their parents can get special pricing on Mac computers and more. And institutions can get in touch with an Apple representative to learn more about volume purchasing.
How to buy
Nexus 7: Google wanted it in 4 months for $199/$245, ASUS delivered + Nexus Q (of Google’s own design and manufacturing) added for social streaming from Google Play to speakers and screen in home under Android device control
+ the whole Android-centric story is getting even more interesting when Chrome, Google Drive, Chrome OS and the apps related to that are added. So the latest updates on that are included here as well (in fact from the Day 2 of the Google I/O). Pretty impressive alltogether.
Introducing Nexus 7 [Google Nexus channel on YouTube, June 27, 2012]
Milestones leading to the Nexus 7:
- November 5, 2007: Google launches Android, an Open Mobile Platform
- November 12, 2007: “early look” Android SDK releases (with Android version m3-rc20a)
- August 28, 2008: Android Market announced
- September 23, 2008: Android makes its debut in the T-Mobile (US) G1 smartphone (HTC Dream)with Android 1.0. This came next to UK (in November), as well as to Germany, Austria, Czech Republic and the Netherlands (in Q1 2009).
- This was based on a brand new, 2008 class Qualcomm MSM 7201a SoC (528 MHz single ARM1136EJ-S core of just 1.06 DMIPS/MHz, Adreno 130 GPU, HSPA etc.), had 192MB RAM and 256MB Flash, and came with a 3.2″ 320×480 resolution screen.
- September 23, 2008: Announcing the Android 1.0 SDK, release 1
- October 22, 2008: the Android Market is available for users
- February 13, 2009: Support for priced applications introduced on the Android Market (US and UK developers only)
- April 30, 2009: Android 1.5 (Cupcake), the next version after 1.0, released for Android-powered handsets
(The history of early Android releases upto version 1.6, Donut is provided by Google here.) - January 5, 2010: Nexus One (HTC Passion), the newest Android-powered phone running the latest Android 2.1 (Eclair) software introduced (dogfooding was in Dec 2009)
- This was based on Qualcomm’s next-generation Qualcomm QSD8250 SoC (1 GHz single Scorpion ARM core of 2.1 DMIPS/MHz — essentially of Cortex-A8 class but architectured and designed by Qualcomm, Adreno 200 GPU, HSPA etc.), had 512MB RAM and 512MB ROM, was expandable with a microSD card, and came with a 3.7″ 480×800 resolution AMOLED screen. Note that HTC was working with Qualcomm on that at least since November 2007 when the QSD8250 was announced.
- September 30, 2010: Support for paid application sales expanded to developers in 29 countries + users from 32 countries could buy apps from the Android Market
- December 6, 2010: Google eBookstore launched
- Dec 6, 2010: Introducing Nexus S with Android 2.3 (Gingerbread).
- It was co-developed with Samsung. The hallmarks here were Samsung’s own 1 GHz Hummingbird processor (used by Apple as well, and later becoming Exynos), 16GB of memory and a 4″ state-of-the-art AMOLED screen. The starting point for this device was the Samsung Galaxy S, released 4 months earlier with Android 2.1 (see also the Galaxy S: A New Era in AMOLED Technology article from Samsung). AT&T had the first announcement of a Galaxy S class device under the name of Samsung Captivate in the summer.
- Detailed information about Hummingbird and the SoCs of that time are provided in the Marvell ARMADA beats Qualcomm Snapdragon, NVIDIA Tegra and Samsung/Apple Hummingbird in the SoC market [again] [Sept 23, 2010 – Jan 17, 2011] post on this blog.
- February 22, 2011: Final Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) Platform and Updated SDK Tools
- The Motorola XOOM tablet device, developed an designed for 3.0, was announced earlier on Jan 5 as a 3G/Wi-Fi-enabled device in Q1 2011 with an upgrade to 4G LTE in Q2.
- Due to closeness of 2.3 and 3.0 releases detailed information about them was provided in the Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) and 3.0 (Honeycomb) [Dec 30, 2010 – Feb 4, 2011] post on this blog.
- October 18, 2011: Android 4.0, “Ice Cream Sandwich” (ICS) announced
- October 19, 2011: Samsung and Google introduce GALAXY Nexus
- Detailed information about that is provided in the TI’s OMAP4460 in Samsung GALAXY Nexus with Android 4.0 [Oct 21, 2011 – Feb 7, 2012] post on this blog. That will show very meticulously the current SoC state-of-the-art relative to the Qualcomm SoCs used in earlier G1 and Nexus smartphones.
- November 16, 2011: Google Music with a music store introduced
- March 6, 2012: Google Play digital entertainment distribution service in the cloud introduced for Android phones and tablets announced. Android Market, Google Music and the Google eBookstore became part of Google Play. So music, books, magazines, movies, TV shows, apps, and games are all become available from a single destinationon the web.
- April 12, 2012: Czech Republic, Israel, Poland, and Mexico are added to the 29 seller countries in Google Play.
400 million Android activations! [GoogleMobile YouTube channel, June 27, 2012]
2012 Google I/O Keynote – Google Nexus 7 Tablet Announcement (HD, June 27th, 2012) [Hexydes YouTube channel, June 27, 2012]
#1 of Android @ I/O: the playground is open [on Official Google Blog by Andy Rubin, Senior Vice President of Mobile and Digital Content, June 27, 2012]
…
Google Play: more entertainment
Google Play is your digital entertainment destination, with more than 600,000 apps and games plus music, movies and books. It’s entirely cloud-based, which means all of your content is always available across all of your devices. Today our store is expanding to include magazines. We’ve been working with leading publishers Condé Nast, Hearst, Meredith and more to offer magazines like House Beautiful, Men’s Health, Shape and WIRED.Now, you can also purchase movies in addition to renting them. And we’re adding television shows on Google Play—in fact, we’re adding thousands of episodes of broadcast and cable TV shows, like “Revenge,” “Parks & Recreation” and “Breaking Bad,” from some of the top studios, like ABC Studios, NBCUniversal and Sony Pictures. You can play back movies and TV shows on all your Android devices, through Google Play on the web, and on YouTube, and soon we’ll bring the experience to Google TV devices.
Movie purchases, TV shows and magazines are available today on play.google.com, and will roll out to Google Play on devices over the coming days.
Nexus 7: powerful, portable and designed for Google Play
All of this great Google Play content comes to life on Nexus 7, a powerful new tablet with a vibrant, 7” 1280×800 HD display. The Tegra-3 chipset, with a quad-core CPU and 12-core GPU, makes everything, including games, extremely fast. And best of all, it’s only 340 grams, lighter than most tablets out there. Nexus 7 was built to bring you the best of Google in the palm of your hand. Hang out with up to 10 friends on Google+ using the front-facing camera, browse the web blazingly fast with Chrome and, of course, crank through your emails with Gmail.Nexus 7 comes preloaded with some great entertainment, including the movie “Transformers: Dark of the Moon,” the book “The Bourne Dominion,” magazines likeCondé Nast Traveler and Popular Science, and songs from bands like Coldplay and the Rolling Stones. We’ve also included a $25 credit to purchase your favorite movies, books and more from Google Play, for a limited time. Nexus 7 is available for preorder today from Google Play in the U.S., U.K., Canada and Australia, and starts at $199 in the U.S. It will start shipping mid-July.
…
Google I/O 2012 – Google Play Developers : Live from the Sandbox [GoogleDevelopers YouTube channel, June 27, 2012]
Exclusive: Google’s Andy Rubin and Asus’ Jonney Shih on How They Cooked Up the Nexus 7 [AllThingsD, June 27, 2012]
Building the Nexus 7 tablet was no easy task, says Asus Chairman Jonney Shih.
First off, Google gave the company only four months to build the product. Then there was the task of building a high-end tablet that could sell for just $200. Plus, he said, Google can be kind of demanding.
“Our engineers told me it is like torture,” Shih said
…
Rubin admits that he was upset a year ago that Android tablets just weren’t selling. After looking into some of the reasons, Rubin learned that while hardware really matters on phones, consumers are buying into a content ecosystem with tablets. Or, in Google’s case, not buying into an ecosystem.
…
On the hardware side, Shih and Rubin feel they have something that can serve as a full-fledged tablet computer while competing on price with the Kindle Fire. Despite its bargain-basement price, Shih notes that the device packs a high-end laminated display, quad-core chip and other high-end features.
One way the companies managed that is through razor-thin margins. Google is selling the device through its Google Play store, essentially at cost, and also absorbing the marketing costs associated with the device.
…
Google to unveil Nexus 7 at Google I/O 2012, say sources [DIGITIMES, June 28, 2012]
… Market sources indicate that Google will outsource production of the Nexus 7 to Asustek Computer, and purchase LCD panels for the model from Chunghwa Picture Tubes (CPT).
The displays will have a resolution of 1280 by 800 pixels with CPT serving as the primary supplier, the sources indicated.
Buoyed by the new orders, CPT has ramped up its tablet panels to 700,000-800,000 units a month and may further push output to one million units in the third quarter, the sources estimated.
CPT is currently also shipping 10,000-20,000 panels a month for notebooks, added the sources.
Amazon to start shipping new Kindle Fire in August, sources claim [DIGITIMES, June 28, 2012]
Amazon’s new 7.85-inch Kindle Fire is reported to have an August release date this year at a price of US$199, according to upstream industry sources.
The new Kindle Fire will be thinner than the current version because it adopts full lamination to get rid of the air gap between the LCD and touch panels, the sources said.
But the sources said that as the full lamination process will add an extra US$10 in production cost, it will be a great challenge for the device maker’s cost control if Amazon keeps the new Kindle Fire’s price at US$199.
Amazon hopes to maintain competitive pricing as it has seen major declines in shipments for the Kindle Fire. Market observers have noted that the company shipped only 750,000 units of the tablet in the first quarter this year, down from 4.8 million units in the fourth quarter of 2011.
Amazon reportedly may drop 7-inch Kindle Fire price to welcome new models [DIGITIMES, June 15, 2012]
As Amazon is said to be considering launching new e-book readers and 7-inch tablet PC products at the beginning of the third quarter, the company is expected to have a chance to reduce its existing 7-inch Kindle Fire pricing to US$149 to help transition to the upcoming new tablet PC products, according to sources from the upstream supply chain.
To expand its market share, the sources believe that Amazon has a high chance of adopting a similar product strategy to Apple, in addition to a new iPad product, Apple continues to sell its previous model at a cheaper price to expand market share into the lower-end segment.
Therefore, the sources expect Amazon to release a new 7-inch tablet PC with a screen resolution of 1280 by 800 and a price of US$199, in the third quarter, targeting the higher-end segment, while releasing another 7-inch model with similar specifications as the existing Kindle Fire, featuring a screen resolution of 1024 by 600 and a price of US$149. This model will be mainly pushed into the entry-level segment to expand the company’s market share, noted the sources.
Kindle Fire’s consumer-friendly price and functions allowed Amazon to achieve sales of 4.5-5 million units in the fourth quarter of 2011; however, because the device is mainly targeted at the US market, sales quickly dropped to only 700,000-800,000 units in the first quarter of 2012.
In addition to 7-inch tablet PCs, Amazon is also said planning 8.9-inch and 10.1-inch models; however, the latest information shows that the company has already halted the development of the 8.9-inch model with the 10.1-inch set to be released in the fourth quarter of 2012 or the first quarter of 2013.
As for e-book readers, Amazon is currently developing a 6-inch backlight-unit-module-integrated model that is set to launch in the third quarter at the earliest, noted the sources, adding that Amazon will also release e-book readers with other sizes in the second half of the year.
E Ink expected to ship 12 million display panels in 2H12 [DIGITIMES, June 26, 2012]
E Ink Holdings, a Taiwan-based maker of e-paper displays, is expected to ship 12 million display panels in the second half of 2012, decreasing by 14.3-20% from 2011, according to industry sources in Taiwan.
The company declined to comment on the news.
The sources indicated E Ink has obtained orders from Amazon for display panels used in 6.0 million Kindle Fire tablet PCs, with shipments to begin in the second half of 2012. In addition, E Ink has landed orders for FFS (fringe field switching) panels for use in 3.0 million Google tablet PCs expected to be unveiled at the 2012 Google I/O during June 27-29.
E Ink will also start shipments of e-paper displays for use in Amazon and Barnes & Noble e-book readers in the third quarter of 2012, the sources noted.
E Ink’s wholly owned subsidiary maker of TFT-LCD panels and e-paper modules Transcend Optronics has set up several affiliated makers in a self-use industrial park of over 50 hectares (123.6 acres) in land area located in Yangzhou, eastern China, the sources indicated.
Fast & Smooth – Android 4.1, Jelly Bean [GoogleMobile YouTube channel, June 27, 2012]
SCREEN
7” 1280×800 HD display (216 ppi)
Back-lit IPS display
Scratch-resistant Corning glass
1.2MP front-facing camera
WEIGHT
340 grams
MEMORY
8 or 16 GB internal storage
1 GB RAM
BATTERY
4325 mAh (Up to 8 hours of active use)
CPU
Quad-core Tegra 3 processor
SIZE
198.5 x 120 x 10.45mm
WIRELESS
WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
Bluetooth
USB
Micro USB
OS
Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean)
FEATURES
Microphone
NFC (Android Beam)
Accelerometer
GPS
Magnetometer
Gyroscope
#2 of Android @ I/O: the playground is open [on Official Google Blog by Andy Rubin, Senior Vice President of Mobile and Digital Content, June 27, 2012]
…
Jelly Bean: simple, beautiful and beyond smart
Jelly Bean builds on top of Ice Cream Sandwich. It makes everything smoother, faster and more fluid. For example, notifications are now more dynamic: if you’re late for a meeting or missed a call, you can email or call directly from notifications. The keyboard is smarter and more accurate, and can predict your next word. And voice typing is faster, working even when you don’t have a data connection.We’ve redesigned search from the ground up in Jelly Bean, with a new user interface and faster, more natural Voice Search. You can type your query or simply ask Google a question. Google can speak back to you, delivering a precise answer, powered by the Knowledge Graph, if it knows one, in addition to a list of search results.
Today’s smart devices still rely on you to do pretty much everything—that is, until now. Google Now is a new feature that gets you just the right information at just the right time. It tells you today’s weather before you start your day, how much traffic to expect before you leave for work, or your favorite team’s score as they’re playing. There’s no digging required: cards appear at the moment you need them most.
Introducing Google Now [GoogleMobile YouTube channel, June 27, 2012]
Google I/O 2012 – What’s New in Android? [GoogleDevelopers YouTube channel, June 27, 2012]
Introducing Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) preview platform, and more [Android Developers blog, June 27, 2012]
At Google I/O today we announced the latest version of the Android platform, Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean). With Jelly Bean, we’ve made the great things about Android even better with improved system performance and enhanced user features.
Improvements include a smoother and more responsive UI across the system, a home screen that automatically adapts to fit your content, a powerful predictive keyboard, richer and more interactive notifications, larger payload sizes for Android Beam sharing and much more. For a lowdown on what’s new, head over to the Jelly Bean platform highlights.
Of course, Jelly Bean wouldn’t be complete without a healthy serving of new APIs for app developers. Here are some of the new APIs that Jelly Bean introduces:
Expandable notifications
: Android 4.1 brings a major update to the Android notifications framework. Apps can now display larger, richer notifications to users that can be expanded and collapsed with a pinch. Users can now take actions directly from the notification shade, and notifications support new types of content, including photos.
Android Beam
: In Android 4.1, Android Beam makes it easier to share images, videos, or other payloads by leveraging Bluetooth for the data transfer.
Bi-directional text support
: Android 4.1 helps you to reach more users through support for for bi-directional text in TextView and EditText elements.
Gesture mode
: New APIs for accessibility services let you handle gestures and manage accessibility focus. Now you can traverse any element on the screen using gestures, accessories, you name it.
Media codec access
: Provides low-level access to platform hardware and software codecs.
Wi-Fi Direct service discoverability
: New API provides pre-associated service discovery letting apps get more information from nearby devices about the services they support, before they attempt to connect.
Network bandwidth management
: New API provides ability to detect metered networks, including tethering to a mobile hotspot.
For a complete overview of new APIs in Jelly Bean, please read the API highlights document. Note that this is a preview of the Jelly Bean platform. While we’re still finalizing the API implementations we wanted to give developers a look at the new API to begin planning app updates. We’ll be releasing a final platform in a few weeks that you should use to build and publish applications for Android 4.1.
For Android devices with the Google Play, we launched the following at Google I/O today:
Smart app updates
: For Android 2.3, Gingerbread devices and up,
when there is a new version of an app in Google Play, only the parts of the app that changed are downloaded to users’ devices
. On average, a smart app update is a third the size of a full apk update. This means your users save bandwidth and battery and the best part? You don’t have to do a thing. This is automatically enabled for all apps downloaded from Google Play.
App encryption
: From Jelly Bean and forward,
paid apps in Google Play are encrypted with a device-specific key
before they are delivered and stored on the device. We know you work hard building your apps. We work hard to protect your investment.
Google Cloud Messaging for Android
: This is the next version of C2DM and goes back to Froyo. Getting started is easy and has a whole bunch of new APIs than C2DM has to offer. If you sign-up for GCM, you will be able to see C2DM and GCM stats in the Android developer console. Most importantly, the service is free and there are no quotas. [
Learn more.]Starting from today, over 20 Android sessions at Google I/O will deep-dive in many of these areas. Join us in-person or follow us live.
#3 of Android @ I/O: the playground is open [on Official Google Blog by Andy Rubin, Senior Vice President of Mobile and Digital Content, June 27, 2012]
…
Nexus Q: It’s a sphere!
It’s great to be able to take your entertainment with you wherever you go, but sometimes you want to ditch the headphones and enjoy music with friends and family. So we’re introducing Nexus Q, which combines the power of Android and Google Play to easily stream music and video in your home—all controlled by an Android phone or tablet. Designed and engineered by Google [the first such device as mentioned in the Google I/O 2012 – Google Play Developers : Live from the Sandbox video embedded above], Nexus Q is a small sphere that plugs into the best speakers and TV in your house. It’s the first-ever social streaming device—like a cloud-connected jukebox where everyone brings their own music to the party. Available first in the U.S., you can preorder Nexus Q today from Google Play for $299, and it will ship mid-July.
Introducing Nexus Q [Google Nexus channel on YouTube, June 27, 2012]
SIZE
Diameter: 4.6 inches (116mm)
WEIGHT
2 pounds (923 grams)
FINISH
Die-cast, precision machined zinc bottom housing
Injection-molded, interactive balanced top dome with precision bearing and satin touch coating
HARDWARE CONTROLS
Rotating top dome volume control
Capacitive touch sensor for mute
LIGHTING
32 RGB perimeter LEDs
1 RGB LED for mute indicator
CPU SoC
OMAP4460 (dual ARM Cortex-A9 CPUs and SGX540 GPU)
MEMORY
1GB LPDDR RAM
16GB NAND flash memory
OS
Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich)
SUPPORTING APPLICATIONS
Google Play Music
Google Play Movies and TV
YouTube
CONNECTORS AND PORTS
Micro HDMI (Type D)
TOSLink Optical audio (S/PDIF)
10/100BASE-T Ethernet (RJ45)
Micro AB USB (for service and support)
Banana jack speaker outputs
WIRELESS
Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/n
Bluetooth
NFC
AMPLIFIER
25W class D (12.5 watt per channel)
POWER
Integrated 35W switching power supply
World-ready 50/60Hz 85-265V AC input
Automatic shutdown for audio amp supply when not in use
How Nexus Q Works [Google Nexus channel on YouTube, June 27, 2012]
Google Tries Something Retro: Made in the U.S.A. – Page 2[The New York Times, June 27, 2012]
The Nexus Q, which links a TV or home sound system to the Internet cloud to play video and audio content, contains almost all American-made parts. The engineers who led the effort to build the device, which is based on the same microprocessor used in Android smartphones [see: TI’s OMAP4460 in Samsung GALAXY Nexus with Android 4.0 [this Experiencing the Cloud blog, Oct 21, 2011 – Feb 7, 2012]] and contains seven printed circuit boards, found the maker of the zinc metal base in the Midwest and a supplier for the molded plastic components in Southern California.
Semiconductor chips are more of a challenge. In some cases, the chips are made in the United States and shipped to Asia to be packaged with other electronic components.
Google did not take the easy route and encase the Q in a black box. The dome of the Magic-8-ball-shaped case is the volume control — the user twists it — a feature that required painstaking engineering and a prolonged hunt for just the right bearing, said Matt Hershenson, an engineer who helped design the Q.
At $299, the device costs significantly more than competing systems from companies like Apple and Roku. Google says this is in part because of the higher costs of manufacturing in the United States, but the company expects to bring the price down as it increases volume. The company is hoping that consumers will be willing to pay more, though it is unlikely that the “Made in America” lineage will be part of any marketing campaign.
Google uses a contract manufacturer to make the Q. Last week it was being assembled in a large factory 15 minutes from Google headquarters. The company declined to say how many people were employed at the plant, which can run as many as three shifts each day. However, during a brief tour, made with the understanding that the exact location would not be disclosed, it was clear that hundreds of workers were involved in making the Q.
It is the kind of building that was once common across Silicon Valley during the 1980s and even the 1990s. More recently, former semiconductor fabrication and assembly factories have given way to large office campuses that house the programmers who design software and support Web sites.
Chrome & Apps @ Google I/O: Your web, everywhere [on Official Google Blog by Sundar Pichai, SVP, Chrome & Apps, June 28, 2012]
This morning we kicked off day 2 at I/O to talk about the open web—one of the most amazing platforms we have seen. To put things in perspective, today there are more than 2.3 billion users on the web—a staggering number, but it only represents one-third of the world’s population. There’s still a lot of opportunity for growth.
Chrome, which we built from the ground up as a browser for the modern web, has seen tremendous adoption. Thanks to many of you, Chrome has nearly doubled since last year’s I/O—from 160 million to 310 million active users around the world. As more and more of you live your lives online, we want to to help make it easy for you to live in the cloud…seamlessly.
A better web to your web
One of the most exciting shifts is the explosion of the mobile web. When Chrome first launched, many people were tethered to a single computer. Today most people use multiple computers, smartphones and tablets. With that trend in mind, our goal is to offer you a consistent, personalized web experience across all devices. In February, we released Chrome for Android, which exited beta this week and is the standard browser on Nexus 7, a powerful new tablet.Starting today, Chrome is also available for your iPhone and iPad. That means you can enjoy the same speedy and simple Chrome experience across your devices. Also, by signing in to Chrome, you can easily move from your desktop, laptop, smartphone and tablet and have all of your stuff with you.
Sign-in and seamlessly experience your personalized web across desktops, phones, and tablets with Chrome for Mobile.Living in the cloud
A modern browser is just one ingredient of living online seamlessly. We continue to invest in building cloud apps, which many people rely on daily. Gmail, which launched in 2004, has evolved from a simple email service to the primary mode of communication for more than 425 million active users globally. We’ve also built a suite of apps to help users live in the cloud, including Google Documents, Spreadsheets, Calendar and more.At the hub of this cloud experience is Google Drive—a place where you can create, share, collaborate and keep all your stuff. Ten weeks ago we launched Drive and in 10 weeks, more than 10 million users have signed up. Today we introduced more capabilities, including offline editing for Google documents and a Drive app for your iPhone and iPad. Drive is also seamlessly integrated into Chrome OS. With Drive available across Mac, Windows, Chrome OS, Android and iOS, it’s even easier to get things done in the cloud from anywhere.
Going Google
With the help of Chrome and and the growth of Google apps, people are discovering new ways to get things done faster, connect with others, and access their information no matter what device they’re using. This is what we call “going Google.” And it’s not just individual people. Schools, government institutions and businesses—big and small—are also “going Google.” Sixty-six of the top 100 universities in the U.S., government institutions in 45 out of 50 U.S. states, and a total of 5 million business are using Google Apps to live and work in the cloud.It’s an exciting time to be living online. To celebrate this ongoing journey, here’s a quick look back at the evolution of Chrome:
Chrome launched in September 2008, and its journey has been filled with inspiring & beautiful achievements of developers using the modern web. We’re just getting started though, and we can’t wait to see where you take things next!
[signing in to Chrome]
Get your personal Chrome experience on all your devices [on Google Chrome blog by Tim Steele, Software Engineer, Dec 13, 2011]
If you’ve used Chrome for awhile, you know that it fits you better and better over time—it just wouldn’t be yourChrome without your favorite bookmarks, apps, extensions, history, and other settings.
Signing in to Chrome lets you take your Chrome stuff with you, so you can always have your personal Chrome experience on all of your devices.
Signing in to Chrome brings your bookmarks, history, and settings to all of your devices. Just go to the Wrench menu and select “Sign in to Chrome.” Learn more at http://www.google.com/chrome/signinginWhen you’re signed in to Chrome, changing something on one device instantly changes it on all your other devices. For example, add a bookmark on your laptop, and it automatically appears on your desktop, so you can always pick up right where you left off.
Signing in to Chrome is also helpful if you only have one computer, because it securely backs up your Chrome stuff online. That way, your Chrome stuff is safe, even if a truck runs over your laptop.
To sign in to Chrome, just go to the Wrench menu and select “Sign in to Chrome.”
But what if you share a computer with other people? You don’t want your bookmarks, apps, and extensions getting mixed up with everyone else’s, and you don’t want your Chrome stuff syncing to all their devices.With today’s Stable channel release, you can now add new users to Chrome. Adding new users lets you each have your own personal Chrome experience, and lets you each sign in to Chrome to sync your stuff. To add a new user to Chrome, go to Options (Preferences on a Mac), click “Personal Stuff,” and click “Add new user.” Check out our latest Beta blog post for a few quick tips.
Keep in mind that adding new users to Chrome isn’t intended to secure your data against other people using your computer, since it just takes a few clicks to switch between users. We’re providing this functionality as a quick and simple user interface convenience for people who are already sharing Chrome on the same computer today. To truly protect your data from being seen by others, please use the built-in user accounts on your operating system of choice.
That wraps up our last Stable channel release for the year. If you haven’t taken Chrome for a spin yet, try it out and see what you think!
Update: You can learn more about signing in to Chrome at google.com/chrome/signingin.
[Google Drive]
Introducing Google Drive… yes, really [on Official Google Blog by Sundar Pichai, SVP, Chrome & Apps, April 24, 2012]
Just like the Loch Ness Monster, you may have heard the rumors about Google Drive. It turns out, one of the two actually does exist.
Today, we’re introducing Google Drive—a place where you can create, share, collaborate, and keep all of your stuff. Whether you’re working with a friend on a joint research project, planning a wedding with your fiancé or tracking a budget with roommates, you can do it in Drive. You can upload and access all of your files, including videos, photos, Google Docs, PDFs and beyond.
With Google Drive, you can:
- Create and collaborate. Google Docs is built right into Google Drive, so you can work with others in real time on documents, spreadsheets and presentations. Once you choose to share content with others, you can add and reply to comments on anything(PDF, image, video file, etc.) and receive notifications when other people comment on shared items.
- Store everything safely and access it anywhere (especially while on the go). All your stuff is just… there. You can access your stuff from anywhere—on the web, in your home, at the office, while running errands and from all of your devices. You can install Drive on your Mac or PC and can download the Drive appto your Android phone or tablet. We’re also working hard on a Drive app for your iOS devices. And regardless of platform, blind users can access Drive with a screen reader.
- Search everything. Search by keyword and filter by file type, owner and more. Drive can even recognize text in scanned documents using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology. Let’s say you upload a scanned image of an old newspaper clipping. You can search for a word from the text of the actual article. We also use image recognition so that if you drag and drop photos from your Grand Canyon trip into Drive, you can later search for [grand canyon] and photos of its gorges should pop up. This technology is still in its early stages, and we expect it to get better over time.
You can get started with 5GB of storage for free—that’s enough to store the high-res photos of your trip to the Mt. Everest, scanned copies of your grandparents’ love letters or a career’s worth of business proposals, and still have space for the novel you’re working on. You can choose to upgrade to 25GB for $2.49/month, 100GB for $4.99/month or even 1TB for $49.99/month. When you upgrade to a paid account, your Gmail account storage will also expand to 25GB.
Introducing the all-new Google Drive. Now access your files, even the big ones, from wherever you are. Share them with whomever you want, and edit them together in real time. Learn more at http://drive.google.com/startDrive is built to work seamlessly with your overall Google experience. You can attach photos from Drive to posts in Google+, and soon you’ll be able to attach stuff from Drive directly to emails in Gmail. Drive is also an open platform, so we’re working with many third-party developers so you can do things like send faxes, edit videos and create website mockups directly from Drive. To install these apps, visit the Chrome Web Store—and look out for even more useful apps in the future.
This is just the beginning for Google Drive; there’s a lot more to come.
Get started with Drive today at drive.google.com/start—and keep looking for Nessie…
[Today we introduced more capabilities]
Announcing your two most requested features: offline document editing and Drive for iOS [on Google Docs blog by Clay Bavor, Product Management Director, June 28, 2012]
In April, we introduced Google Drive, a place where you can create, share, and keep all your stuff. Today at the Google I/O conference we announced two new ways to get things done in the cloud: offline editing for Google documents and a Drive app for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.
Offline document editing
No internet connection? No big deal. With offline editing, you can create and edit Google documents and leave comments. Any changes you make will be automatically synced when you get back online.You can enable offline editing from the gear icon in Google Drive and find more detailed instructions for getting set up in the Help Center. Note that you’ll need the latest versions ofChrome or ChromeOS to edit offline. We’re also working hard to make offline editing for spreadsheets and presentations available in the future.
Google Drive for iOS
We launched the Drive app for Android phones and tablets a few weeks ago, and starting today, Google Drive is available for your iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.
With the Drive app, you can open PDFs, photos, videos, documents and anything else stored in your Drive while you’re on the go. You can also search all your files, add collaborators to documents, and make files available offline to view them even without an internet connection. For blind and low-vision users, the app also works great in VoiceOver mode. Learn more about what you can do with the app in our Help Center.
Get Drive in the App Store for your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch running iOS 5.0+ and visit the Play Store to get the latest on your Android phone or tablet.
To learn more about Google Drive, visit drive.google.com/start.
[Chrome OS]
Next step in the Chrome OS journey [on Official Google Blog by Linus Upson, Vice President, Engineering and Caesar Sengupta, Director of Product Management, May 29, 2012]
All of you haiku fans (like many of us on the Chrome team) can stop here; the rest can read on for more details.
A year ago we introduced a new model of computing with the launch of Chromebooks. We’ve heard from many of you who’ve enjoyed the speed, simplicity and security of your Chromebooks at home, at school or at work. (Thanks for all the wonderful feedback and stories!) Today, we wanted to share some developments with you—new hardware, a major software update and many more robust apps—as we continue on our journey to make computers much better.
Next-generation devices
Our partner Samsung has just announced a new Chromebook and the industry’s first Chromebox. Like its predecessor, the newest Chromebook is a fast and portable laptop for everyday users. The Chromebox is a compact, powerful and versatile desktop perfect for the home or office.
Speed
Speed is integral to the Chrome experience. The new Chromebook and Chromebox, based on Intel Core processors, are nearly three times as fast as the first-generation Chromebooks. And support for hardware-accelerated graphics, a built-from-scratch multi-touch trackpad and an open-source firmware stack provide a much faster and more responsive computing experience. The new Chromebook boots in less than seven seconds and resumes instantly. With the Chromebox, you can be on a video conference while continuing to play your favorite role-playing game on the side.An app-centric user interface
With the new user interface you can easily find and launch apps, and use them alongside your browser or other apps. You can pin commonly-used apps for quick access, display multiple windows side-by-side or experience your favorite apps in full-screen mode without any distractions.
Be much more productive…or not
- Get more stuff done, online or offline: With the built-in ability to view Microsoft Office files and dozens of the most common file formats, you can access all your content without the hassle of installing additional software. Google Drive makes it easy to create, store and share with just one click. Drive will be seamlessly integrated with the File Manager and support offline access with the next release of Chrome OS in six weeks. With Google Docs offline support (rolling out over the next few weeks), you can keep working on your documents even when offline and seamlessly sync back up when you re-connect. In addition, there are hundreds of offline-capable web apps in the Chrome Web Store.
- Have more fun: The revamped media player and a built-in photo editor and uploader enable you to easily play and manage your personal media collections. Through the Chrome Web Store, you can access entertainment apps such as Google Play, Netflix, Kindle Cloud Reader and Pandora, and thousands of games including popular games like Angry Birds and console titles such as Bastion.
- Carry your other computers…inside your Chromebook: With Chrome Remote Desktop Beta, you can now securely connect to your PC or Mac from your Chromebook or Chromebox. With the underlying VP8 technology, it’s almost like you’re in front of your other computers in real time.
The (always) new computer
We’ve released eight stable updates over the past year, adding a number of major features and hundreds of improvements to all Chromebooks through our seamless auto-update mechanism. There’s a lot more on the way, so all you need to do is sit back and enjoy the benefits of the (always) new computer.For those who want to try the Chromebook and Chromebox first-hand, we’re expanding the Chrome Zone experience centers. In the U.S., Chromebooks will be available to try out in select Best Buy stores in the coming weeks. In the U.K., they’re now available in a growing list of PC World and Currys stores.
Starting today, you can get the new Chromebook and Chromebox from our online retail partners in the U.S. and U.K., and in other select countries over the coming weeks.
The Chromebook is a new, faster computer that starts in seconds, offers thousands of apps, and keeps getting better and better with free, automatic updates. Learn more at http://www.google.com/chromebook.
[the next release of Chrome OS in six weeks]
Yet another Chrome release [on Google Chrome Blog by Dharani Govindan, Technical Program Manager, June 28, 2012]
We know you’re probably tired of hearing about new Chrome releases every six weeks. Well, the good news is you don’t have to worry about updating—we’ll take care of that with automatic updates. Please enjoy the hundreds of bug fixes we’ve batched up in this release. OK, OK, that’s all. Carry on.
Less focus on feature phones while extending the smartphones effort: further readjustments at Nokia
Update as of Aug 9, 2012: … Lumia direction … camera direction …
… Asha positioning vs. Lumia and Android:
[3:19] First of all what we’re working on with Windows Phone is to take it as low end price point as we possibly can. Having said that, the Nokia Asha devices have really been developed with the emerging market consumer in mind. We’ve brought a lot of smartphone like features to the user interface, as well as investing in making access to the Internet possible for consumers who have real affordability constraints, for data compression in our browser etc. We are working to continue to invest there so that Asha is a relevant competitor to the lowest end Android devices. [4:05]
see: The BGR Show – Nokia’s Smartphones Guru [iamOTHER YouTube channel, Aug 9, 2012]
- Speculations about Nokia
- Nokia and the Windows Phone Summit
- Nokia Q&A conference for financial analysts and investors, June 14, 2012
- Nokia announcements, June 14, 2012
- Scalado acquisition
- Asha Touch family of mobile devices
Closely related information:
– Windows Phone 8 software architecture vs. that of Windows Phone 7, 7.5 and the upcoming 7.8 [June 22, 2012]
– The new, high-volume market in China is ready to define the 2012 smartphone war [Jan 6 – Feb 17, 2012]
– Tech investment banking expertise to strengthen the unique value focus of growing the HTC brand and to achieve high growth again [April 18 – 25, 2012]
Other related information:
– The Where Platform from Nokia: a company move to taking data as a raw material to build products [April 7, 2012]
– Nokia under transition (as reported by the company) [March 11-30, 2012]
– Nokia’s strategy for “the next billion” based on software and web optimization with super low-cost 2.5/2.75G SoCs [Feb 14 – April 23, 2012]
– Nokia trying the first Lumia month in China with China Telecom exclusive [March 28, 2012]
– MWC 2012 day 1 news [Feb 27, 2012]: Samsung and Nokia [Feb 28 – March 1, 2012]
– China-based second-tier and white-boxed handset makers targeting the emerging markets [Feb 13, 2012]
–Nokia CEO: salespeople to deliver true WP7 retail experience supported by improved product management, marketing and accelerated global coverage with a full breadth of products [Jan 29, 2012]
– Nokia’s Lumia strategy is capitalizing on platform enhancement opportunities with location-based services, better photographic experience etc. [Jan 12 – April 27, 2012]
– Smarterphone end-to-end software solution for “the next billion” Nokia users [Jan 9, 2012]
– The precursor of 2012 smartphone war: Nokia Lumia vs. Samsung Omnia W in India [Jan 3 – 23, 2012]
– Be aware of ZTE et al. and white-box (Shanzhai) vendors: Wake up call now for Nokia, soon for Microsoft, Intel, RIM and even Apple! [Feb 21 – March 25, 2011 ]
Speculations about Nokia
A “short-term surprise” technology speculation: Nokia Air [s60betalabs YouTube channel, June 24, 2012]
A “short-term” investors’ speculation: Nokia Takeover Seen As Collapsing Shares Signal Bottom: Real M&A [Bloomberg, June 15, 2012]
… Nokia plunged 18 percent yesterday after forecasting a wider second-quarter operating loss from handsets and saying it will cut as many as 10,000 jobs as it cedes market share to Apple Inc. (AAPL)’s iPhone and Samsung Electronics Co. devices. After wiping out about $100 billion in market value, Espoo, Finland- based Nokia trades at a 38 percent discount to its net assets, the least expensive on record, according to data compiled by Bloomberg dating back to 1995.
…
Nokia started out as a wood-pulp and paper company in 1865 before expanding into rubber, electronics and eventually telecommunications. The company’s market capitalization, which was more than 300 billion euros in 2000, has tumbled more than 90 percent since the iPhone was introduced five years ago, valuing it at 6.8 billion euros ($8.6 billion) as of yesterday.
…
Nokia had $12.4 billion in cash and short-term investments as of March 31, topping its market value of $8.6 billion yesterday, the data show. After accounting for debt, Nokia’s net cash position of $5.9 billion is still the equivalent of 68 percent of its market capitalization.
“Close to half of the market cap is cash — that’s cheap no matter what’s going on,” Falcon Point’s Mahoney said. For private-equity firms, “it’s cheap enough. When you are at this type of level, you don’t even need to cut costs that much to get value out of the transaction.”
…
“Who would buy them at this point?” Lars Soederfjell, a Stockholm-based analyst with Bank of Aaland, said in a telephone interview. “You need to stabilize the business. There’s too much uncertainty. It’s more like buying a lottery ticket than anything else.”
Still, industry analysts at Gartner and Framingham, Massachusetts-based IDC say they expect the Windows Phone platform will make inroads as Microsoft develops it further.
Carolina Milanesi, an analyst at Gartner, said the firm forecasts Windows Phone will be the second-biggest smartphone ecosystem after Android in 2015. IDC expects Windows Phone to pass Apple’s iOS in 2016.
…
Nokia seen to be running out of money and time [Helsingin Sanomat, June 15, 2012]
A result warning and the decision to cut 10,000 jobs by the end of next year is a stark indication of how badly Nokia’s business activities and financial position have weakened this year. Furthermore, there are no indications of improvement any time soon.
The Finnish mobile telephone manufacturer expects its operating loss to increase in April-June, and the complicated turns of phrase in the result warning suggest that the spiral will not end in the third quarter either.
…
Nokia is cutting 3,700 jobs in Finland. A mobile phone factory in Salo, which employs 850 people, is to be shut down, and the research and development unit in Oulu is to be scaled back. In addition, a research and development unit in the German city of Ulm, which has 730 employees, is to be shut down.
Job cuts are also likely to affect locations in Finland other than Salo and Oulu, but Nokia gave no further details on the matter on Thursday.
The aim is to reduce the operational costs of the mobile phones unit to EUR 3 billion by the end of next year. In 2010 the costs were EUR 5.4 billion.…
By the end of March Nokia’s net assets (liquid assets minus debts with interest) had declined by more than EUR 2.1 billion. In the present quarter this trend has probably accelerated.
The depletion of assets and the significant reduction in sales could eventually lead to insolvency and possibly even bankruptcy. To avoid this, costs need to be reduced to better correspond to shrunken business activities.
After the reductions in jobs, Nokia has about 44,000 employees at work around the world [sans Nokia-Siemens obviously]. The last time that the company had such a small work force was in 1998. The serious problems are attributed to miscalculations by the management and the board of directors that have been made since 2005.
The company lost competitiveness because it held on too long to the antiquated Symbian operating system.
Nokia and the Windows Phone Summit
Closely related information:
– Windows Phone 8 software architecture vs. that of Windows Phone 7, 7.5 and the upcoming 7.8 [June 22, 2012]
Nokia at Windows Phone 8 Microsoft Dev Summit 2012 [Camb078 YouTube channel, June 21, 2012]
Nokia at the Windows Phone 8 unveiling [Nokia Conversations, June 20, 2012]
Today, Nokia’s Kevin Shields – who leads product development for Lumia smartphones – joined Microsoft representatives on stage at the Windows Phone Summit in San Francisco to outline how we’re working together to build a winning Windows Phone ecosystem and bring new experiences to Lumia phones.
Microsoft’s Terry Myerson, Kevin Gallo and Joe Belfiore started the morning by previewing Windows Phone 8, which will come out later this year, and unveiled new hardware specs like NFC, multi-core processors and improved screen resolutions.
With years of experience building NFC experiences on Symbian, the Nokia N9 and most recently the Nokia Lumia 610 NFC with Orange, we’re excited about what we can do with NFC across the whole of Windows Phone. Just take another lookat the Nokia Play360 NFC speakers if you have any doubts.
Microsoft also revealed that Nokia would continue bringing unique innovations to Windows Phone 8 through our hardware, services and apps.
Nokia Lumia owners to get new Windows Phone 8 experience
But the news doesn’t stop there. For those who already have Lumia devices with Windows Phone 7.5, you’ll be able to update your phones with some of the new Windows Phone 8 features like the start screenand download new apps from companies like Zynga, whose Words with Friends and Draw Something will be available in Autumn.
Microsoft also announced today that the Windows Phone Marketplace has reached 100,000 apps, and with Windows Phone 8 sharing the Windows 8 core, millions of Windows developers will also be able to develop for Windows Phone ecosystem. Lumia customers can expect thousands more apps to be introduced across Windows Phone platform.
The announcements underline the progress Nokia is making with the Lumia family of smartphones and in building a winning ecosystem with Microsoft. It shows how the Windows Phone experience continues to evolve at a faster pace than the competition and how Nokia’s continued investments in great location-based services benefit partners, developers and consumers.
New apps and functionality for Lumia owners
Finally, Kevin revealed that Nokia will deliver existing Lumia customers exclusive new Marketplace apps like digital Camera Extras to bring new possibilities to your Lumia including panorama shots, a self-timer, Action Shot for capturing movement and Smart Group Shot for creating the perfect group shot from several different images; new features for Nokia Drive and Nokia Transport; and also distributing a pattern of updates like WiFi tethering and flip-to-silence.
To learn more about those updates and when you can expect to see the new apps in Marketplace, check out this dedicated post. There’s a lot of exciting new stuff coming to Lumia now and in the future and we’ll keep you posted.
Camera Extras for Nokia Lumia — More Options for Capturing Great Pictures [Nokia YouTube channel, June 20, 2012]
Nokia Drive for all Windows Phone 8 smartphones [Nokia Conversations, June 20, 2012]
Location-based services, as Nokia announced last week, are becoming more and more core to our strategy. We’re focusing on location-based services, not just at Nokia, but bring our extending our services across many industries.
Today, we are making Nokia Drive available to other Windows Phone 8 partners to offer a turn-by-turn navigation experience for people in over 110 countries. Nokia Driveis one of the key experiences on Nokia Lumia smartphones, thanks to its ease of use and the experience that has gone into developing our location-based services. With Nokia Drive on Windows Phone 8, we will make drive navigation effortless.
Nokia Drive is one of the major apps that on Nokia’s location platform. Today, we are also making this platform and its unrivalled quality of data and richness of features available on Windows Phone 8 for all partners. This means that Nokia’s Location platform will be central to the Windows Phone 8 experience, with the intention of developing smartphones that bring advanced location experiences. Windows Phone 8 partners and developers will be able to use our location assets to build location-based apps and experiences of superior quality.
Nokia has more quality location data than any smartphone manufacturer in the market. Our platform is the most advanced mobile location platform in the world because it offers true offline functionality (for the past six years), fast client-side map rendering (50 fps) and only requires 10 per cent of the bandwidth when compared to traditional server-side map platforms.
The Nokia location platform is the biggest in the world:
We have maps data for more than 190 countries in more than 50 languages and navigation in more than 110 countries
We collect information from Nokia Drive users and local authorities to provide traffic alerts in 26 countries, and also allow dynamic rerouting
We have venue maps in over 5,000 shopping malls, train stations, airport, sports venues, etc. in 35 countries
We support multi-modal routing: by car, on foot (including footpaths, shortcuts, etc. in over 400 cities) and by public transportation (over 100 cities)
Also, Nokia’s location data is not confined to smartphones and computers. Our data already powers four out of five cars with in-car navigation and our customer list includes top brands in the tech and auto industries: Bing, Yahoo!, BMW and Ford.
All of these elements are coming together to form the ultimateWhere experience, connecting individuals with the world around them. At Nokia, we are working on constantly improving that experience, and striving to deliver novel and meaningful customer interactions with our location platform, content and apps.
*Image credits: Samsung and HTC respectively. This is a mockup of what Nokia Drive might look like on different Windows Phone 8 devices.
Nokia Q&A conference for financial analysts and investors, June 14, 2012
Nokia’s Elop: Lumia price cuts will help us take on Android in retail war [ZDNet, June 14, 2012]
Consumers do actually like Nokia’s Windows Phone Lumia device, but retailers are proving harder nut to crack, according to Nokia chief exec Steven Elop – as he set the scene for a price war with Android.
For the relatively small number of consumers the Lumia has reached in its short existence, the phone has been “well received”, Elop told analysts on a conference call Thursday.
…
With “specific support from Microsoft”Nokia will aim to increase its appeal by pushing the price of the Lumia line below the entry level Lumia 610 as part of its “low end price point war” with Android.
The real challenge, Elop said, is convincing retailers to bring the device out of the shadows.
“How do you get a preferred position on a shelf, how do you make sure the lights on your device are brighter than the ones from down the road?” asked Elop.
While the aim is to get more Lumia devices into the hands of consumers, Nokia will in fact narrow its direct sales and marketing efforts to select markets, palming off less significant ones to distributors to be managed through a central hub.
The US, UK, China and “certain” Asian and European nations would remain in focus with more effort placed on carrier partnerships, said Elop.
“We’re deliberately going through a cycle of concentrating on some markets at the expense of others.”
…
While mapping and navigation have become commoditised, Elop said, Nokia’s location-based services would give it an edge over rivals, pointing to Nokia City Lens, its augmented reality application, and its public transport mappingsystem.
Elop blamed Nokia’s inability to differentiate the Nokia experience on Windows Phone to date on its late entry on the platform but added that Windows Phone 8 (Apollo) and Windows 8, both expected to be released by the end of summer or thereabouts, will be “key milestones” for Nokia.
Nokia to End “Meltemi” Effort for Low-End Smartphones [AllThingsD, June 14, 2012]
One of the casualties of Nokia’s latest cuts is Meltemi, the company’s effort to create a new Linux-based operating system for low-end smartphones.
…
Nokia never officially confirmed the existence of Meltemi, so it likewise isn’t confirming its demise. However, sources tell AllThingsD that the project has been shelved, though elements of it may live on in other efforts.
…
Asked about Meltemi on a conference call Thursday, Nokia CEO Stephen Elop said that he had never talked publicly about a development project by that name, but noted that Nokia was ending some development projects.
In its press release, Nokia also took pains to note its continued focus on its current low-end smartphone platforms, known as Series 30 and Series 40. Last week, the company announced new all-touch phones in its Series 40-based Asha line.
…
Richard Kerris, who helps lead Nokia’s efforts with developers, said that Thursday’s moves, while difficult, should allow the company to put more resources into its key projects.
“We have awesome products in the pipeline, and our developers are going to love them,” Kerris said.
Nokia is also exploring alternatives for another of its development environments, known as Qt, which today is used largely in embedded devices.
“We’re fans of Qt, and we’ll continue to support it in the near term, but are being open about looking for opportunities which may be best for this developer framework,” Kerris said.
More information:
– Nokia Meltemi survivors suggest axed OS was nearly ready [SlashGear, June 21, 2012]
– No Meltemi, what about Smarterphone? What is there beyond S40? What of Qt? [My Nokia Blog]:
According to TheRegister, the Smarterphone team will work on S40 instead.
– MediaTek lands 2.5G handset solution orders from Nokia, say sources [DIGITIMES, May 21, 2012]
MediaTek reportedly has landed orders for 2.5G handset solutions from Nokia with shipments to begin in the third quarter of 2012, according to industry sources. MediaTek declined to comment.
Given that global demand for 2.5G handset solutions still reaches one billion units a year, there is room for MediaTek to further expand sales in the segment although the company’s sales of 2.5G solutions have been turning weak recently, indicated the sources. MediaTek shipped 550 million 2.5G solutions in 2011.
With a revised goal of shipping 75 million 3G solutions in 2012, mostly to first-tier handset makers in China, MediaTek is expected to post strong revenue growth in the second half of the year, the sources noted.
Nokia announcements, June 14, 2012
- Nokia sharpens strategy and provides updates to its targets and outlook [Nokia press release, June 14, 2012]
- Nokia announces executive changes; renews Leadership Team [Nokia press release, June 14, 2012]
Nokia’s own diagnosis:
During the second quarter 2012, competitive industry dynamics are negatively affecting the Smart Devices business unit to a somewhat greater extent than previously expected. Furthermore, while visibility remains limited, Nokia expects competitive industry dynamics to continue to negatively impact Devices & Services in the third quarter 2012. Nokia now expects its non-IFRS Devices & Services operating margin in the second quarter 2012 to be below the first quarter 2012 level of negative 3.0%. This compares to the previous outlook of similar to or below the first quarter level of negative 3.0%.
Nokia’s strategic changes:
Nokia plans to:
- Invest strongly in products and experiences that make Lumia smartphones stand out and available to more consumers;
- Invest in location-based services as an area of competitive differentiation for Nokia products and extend its location-based platform to new industries; and
- Improve the competitiveness and profitability of its feature phone business.
Nokia City Lens for Nokia Lumia: Augmented Reality Browser (Beta) [Nokia YouTube channel, May 8, 2012]
In Smart Devices:
Nokia plans to extend its strategy by
- broadening the price range of Lumia; and
- continuing to differentiate with:
– the Windows Phone platform,
– new materials,
– new technologies and
– location-based services, including navigation and visual search applications such as the recently announced Nokia City Lens- acquisition of assets from Sweden-based Scalado, which currently has imaging technology on more than 1 billion devices. This acquisition is aimed at strengthening Nokia’s imaging assets.
Scalado’s Vision [ScaladoInc YouTube channel, June 1, 2012]
In Mobile Phones:
Nokia aims to
- further develop its Series 40 and Series 30 devices, and
- invest in key feature phone technologies like the Nokia Browser, aiming to be the world’s most data efficient mobile browser. Early results of this innovation can be found in Nokia’s latest Asha feature phones which offer a full-touch screen experience at lower prices.
Additional reductions in Devices & Services:
Nokia plans to pursue a range of planned measures including:
- Reductions within certain research and development projects, resulting in the planned closure of its facilities in Ulm, Germany and Burnaby, Canada;
- Consolidation of certain manufacturing operations, resulting in the planned closure of its manufacturing facility in Salo, Finland. Research and Development efforts in Salo to continue;
- Focusing of marketing and sales activities, including prioritizing key markets;
- Streamlining of IT, corporate and support functions; and
- Reductions related to non-core assets, including possible divestments.
Nokia plans to reduce up to 10,000 positions globally by the end of 2013.
Taking into account these planned measures the company now targets to reduce its Devices & Services non-IFRS operating expenses to an annualized run rate of approximately EUR 3.0 billion by the end of 2013. This is an update to Nokia’s target to reduce Devices & Services non-IFRS operating expenses by more than EUR 1.0 billion for the full year 2013, compared to the full year 2010 Devices & Services non-IFRS operating expenses of EUR 5.35 billion. This means that in addition to the already achieved annualized run rate saving of approximately EUR 700 million at the end of first quarter 2012, the company targets to implement approximately EUR 1.6 billion of additional cost reductions by the end of 2013.
Joining the Nokia Leadership Team effective July 1, 2012:
- Juha Putkiranta as executive vice president of operations
In place of Niklas Savander, executive vice president of Markets who led Nokia’s sales, marketing, supply chain, manufacturing operations and information technology teams
Formerly, Putkiranta was senior vice president, supply chain. “Juha has demonstrated exceptionally strong leadership in leading our supply chain operations,” said Stephen Elop. “His breadth of experience at Nokia will help with our focus.”
- Timo Toikkanen as executive vice president of Mobile Phones
In place of Mary McDowell, executive vice president of Mobile Phones, who is leaving to pursue other opportunities outside of Nokia
Formerly, Toikkanen was vice president, business development, programs and special projects. “Timo is well known as an engaging leader with valuable business acumen and keen insights into delivering customer satisfaction,” said Stephen Elop. “These attributes will be key as we progress through our transformation.”
- Chris Weber as executive vice president of sales and marketing
In place of:
– Jerri DeVard, executive vice president and chief marketing officer [joining Nokia just in January 2011] who led Nokia’s marketing and brand management as a member of the Nokia Leadership Team, and who is leaving to pursue other opportunities outside of Nokia
– Niklas Savander, executive vice president of Markets who led Nokia’s sales, marketing, supply chain, manufacturing operations and information technology teams [Note that Savander had sales duties just for the last two months, taking over from the long-term Nokia veteran Colin Giles who decided “to leave the company to be closer to his family”]Formerly, Weber was senior vice president Markets, Americas. “Chris has made tremendous strides in kick starting our re-entry into the US and his track record of driving results will serve Nokia well,” said Stephen Elop.
In addition to that there were two additional new appointments:
Tuula Rytila as senior vice president and chief marketing officer
In place of Jerri DeVard, executive vice president and chief marketing officer [joining Nokia just in January 2011] who is leaving to pursue other opportunities outside of Nokia. Rytila, who will report to Weber, was formerly senior vice president of portfolio and business management.
Susan Sheehan as senior vice president of communications
Sheehan, who reports to Elop, was formerly vice president of communications.
There were new single word expressions of the executives’ views on the second day of a meeting considering the options, according to Helsingin Sanomat:
Exhausting week for Nokia CEO
Difficult decisions made late Wednesday…
- love – “Love for design and love for future products”: Marko Ahtisaari, Design
- passion: Henri Tirri, Chief Technology Officer
- purpose: Michael Halbherr, Location and Commerce
- consumer: Chris Weber, Sales and Marketing
- consumer: Tuula Rytilä, Chief Marketing Officer
- commitment: Jo Harlow, Smartphones
- result: Timo Toikkanen, Mobile Phones
- result: Juha Äkräs, Human Resources
- success: Stephen Elop
Scalado acquisition
Scalado Remove – Capture a clear view [ScaladoInc YouTube channel, Feb 13, 2012]
Nokia to acquire developers, technologies and intellectual property for imaging from Scalado [Nokia press release, June 14, 2012]
Acquisition aimed at enhancing imaging experiences for Nokia Lumia devices
Espoo, Finland and Lund, Sweden: Nokia is announcing plans to acquire world-class imaging specialists as well as all technologies and intellectual property from Scalado AB.
“Nokia has been working with Scalado for more than ten years and they’ve contributed to many of our leading imaging applications,” said Jo Harlow, executive vice president, Smart Devices at Nokia. “This transaction would enable us to combine our leadership in camera devices with their expertise in imaging, helping people move beyond taking pictures to capturing moments and emotions and then reliving them in many different ways.”
The Lund site is planned to become a key site for Nokia’s imaging software for smartphones, in addition to Nokia’s existing locations in Espoo and Tampere, Finland.
“This is a great opportunity for many of our people to show their leadership in imaging and to continue to build its future,” said Håkan Persson, chief executive officer of Scalado AB. “Doing this as part of Nokia, already a leader in mobile imaging, will reinforce the strength of the technologies and competences developed at Scalado. We are very excited about this opportunity, which is a natural next step in our longstanding relationship with Nokia.”
The transaction, which is subject to customary closing conditions, is expected to close during the third quarter of 2012. The terms of the transaction are confidential.
Scalado Rewind – The perfect group shot 3 [ScaladoInc YouTube channel, July 15, 2011]
Nokia to acquire developers, technologies and intellectual property for imaging from Scalado [Sacalado press release, June 14, 2012]
Lund, Sweden: Scalado is announcing plans under which Nokia would acquire world-class imaging specialists as well as all technologies and intellectual property from Scalado
“This is a great opportunity for many of our people to show their leadership in imaging and to continue to build its future,” said Håkan Persson, chief executive officer of Scalado AB. “Doing this as part of Nokia, already a leader in mobile imaging, will reinforce the strength of the technologies and competences developed at Scalado. We are very excited about this opportunity, which is a natural next step in our longstanding relationship with Nokia.”
The Lund site is planned to become a key site for Nokia’s imaging software for smartphones.
Scalado AB will continue to exist. All present customer agreements and obligations will remain with Scalado AB. The main task of Scalado AB will be to continue to work with our customers honoring our delivery and support obligations and fulfill any and all obligations in relation to its existing customers.
“We are very pleased to have signed an agreement with Nokia” said Anders Lidbeck, Chairman of the Board of Scalado AB. “We believe that this not only creates value for Scalado employees and shareholders but also ensures the future development and use of the Scalado heritage and technology”
The transaction, which is subject to customary closing conditions, is expected to close during the third quarter of 2012. The terms of the transaction are confidential.
Home /ABOUT US
Scalado is a world leader in the mobile imaging industry, with a long history of developing innovative platform-independent imaging solutions. Based on Scalado’s unique Random Access JPEG and more than 50 patent and patent pending technologies, these innovations are currently being used by the world’s leading global telecom and platform players in over 1 billion mobile devices, a figure that is growing with over 500 million devices each year.
Since the start, the company’s mission has been to help camera and mobile phone manufacturers to significantly improve their imaging solutions in order to deliver an optimal end-user experience. Scalado helps companies shorten their time-to-market and differentiate their products through imaging solutions that offer top of the line advantages in editing, enhancing, viewing and sending images.
Scalado’s technology has gained worldwide recognition by all of the major players in the IT industry. The company already licenses its solutions to the top five tier 1 mobile phone manufacturers, top 10 ISP/Sensor companies, and most leading platform providers. As a result, when someone is using a camera phone, it’s very likely that Scalado’s patented imaging platform is onboard.
Through the years, the company has received several awards for innovation and excellence in export. In 2010, Scalado was bestowed the Hermes Export Award by the Swedish Chamber of Commerce on World Trade Day, and listed as one of the fastest growing companies in EMEA.
Scalado has offices in Sweden (HQ), Korea, China, Taiwan, Singapore and the United States. The company employs around 110 people, most of them working at its Swedish HQ in Lund. Scalado has been doubling its revenues year on year since 2007.
Introducing PhotoBeamer [ScaladoInc YouTube channel, May 29, 2012]
The first product from Scalado was the imaging web tool Scalado™ ImageZoom™. Today we still work with imaging but have changed our focus to benefit the telecom industry and hand held devices.
2012
- Scalado™ now included in more than 1 billion mobile devices (over 500 million/year)
- Scalado™ Remove showcased live at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona
- Scalado™ will co-host 6Sight, Future of Imaging Conference, in June in New York City
2011
- Scalado™ now included in more than 900 million camera phones
- Scalado™ releases Camera & Album application
- Scalado™ expands into China and Singapore
- Scalado™ is one of the fastest growing companies in EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) according to Deloitte
2010
- Scalado™ is awarded with the prestigious prize “Export Hermes”
- Scalado™ now included in more than 500 million camera phones
- Scalado™ relocates to new and larger head office
- Scalado™ employs a new CEO, Håkan Persson
- Scalado™ changes logotype and graphic profile
- Scalado™ expands into Japan and Taiwan
- Scalado™ starts collaboration with Qualcomm Incorporated
- Scalado™ opens regional office in USA
- Scalado™ nominated for the Great Export Prize 2010 (Sweden)
- Scalado is nominated at the “Mobile Gala” for “Innovative Technology of the Year”
2009
- Scalado™ shows its financial strength with highly-prized “triple-A” credit rating
- Scalado™ now included in more than 400 million camera phones
- Scalado™ featured in the 100 million club (published by Vision Mobile)
- Scalado™ nominated in GSMA’s Mobile Innovation Grand Prix EMEA Tournament
- Scalado™ expands into North America
- Red Herring names Scalado™ as winner in the Europe 100 awards
- Scalado™ and Kodak join forces to enhance next-generation imaging solutions
- Scalado™ optimizes new imaging solution for Windows Mobile® 6.5
- Scalado™ SpeedTags™ technology in Fujitsu Microelectronics’s products
2008
- Scalado™ launch the Scalado™ PhotoFlow™ application plug-in
- Scalado™ registers several patents for Scalado™ PhotoFlow™
- Scalado™ launch Camera Solution including Scalado™ SpeedTags™
- Scalado™ registers Scalado™ SpeedView™ as registered trademark
- Scalado™ signs a Scalado™ CAPS™ licensing agreement with Symbian
2007
- Scalado™ signs major agreement on Scalado™ CAPS™ with Sony Ericsson and Motorola
- Scalado™ launch Scalado™ SpeedView™ and registers patents for its technology
- Scalado™ signs agreements with LG and HTC
2006
- Scalado™ signs a strategic agreement with Teleca Mobile for global sales and customer services
- Scalado™ launches a new release of its Camera Phone Solution, CAPS™ 3.1
- Scalado™ signs a global agreement with a Korean Mobile Phone manufacturer licensing Scalado™ CAPS™
- Scalado™ opens regional office in Korea
- Scalado™ signs an agreement with a leading Taiwan Mobile Phone manufacturer licensing Scalado™ CAPS™
2005
- Scalado™ celebrates its 5th Anniversary
- Scalado™ attracts a new investor: the Danish VC firm, IVS A/S
- Scalado™ delivers imaging solutions to several tier1 manufacturers of camera phones
- Anders Cedervall becomes chairman of the board of directors
- Scalado™ wins the Series 60 Challenge Awards with PhotoTwister™
2004
- Scalado™ licenses mobile imaging technology to Sony Ericsson
- Launch of imaging application Scalado™ PhotoTwister™
- Scalado™ attracts new investors
- Scalado™ gains access to advanced Nokia technical and marketing support
- Scalado™ changes strategy, and focuses only on imaging solutions for the telecom industry
- Scalado™ launches Scalado™ CAPS™: an enhanced imaging software platform for mobile phones
2003
- Launch of Scalado™ ImageZoom™ Generator
- Scalado™ signs OEM agreement with Axis Communications
- Scalado™ signs of license agreement with CNN.com
- Scalado™ signs of exclusive distribution agreement with Macromedia for ImagePilot™
- Launch of first camera phone application, AutoRama™
- Scalado™ enters partnership with Symbian
- Scalado™ signs of license agreement with Sony Ericsson
- Awarded Prize for Scalado ImageZoom™ by the European IST
Prize evaluation group2002
- Launch of ImageZoom™ 1.0
- Registration of the Scalado™ ImageZoom™ patent
2001
- Development of the web tool Scalado™ ImageZoom™
2000
- Scalado™ is founded by Fadi Abbas, Maziar Jahanshahi, Sami Niemi and Pierre Elzouki
Scalado SpeedTags Camera Solution Latest Version [scal99 YouTube channel, May 29, 2009]
Home /ABOUT US /Innovations
Over the years Scalado has developed a wide range of imaging technology solutions, all with the aim of making imaging fun, fast, and efficient. A selection of Scalado’s innovative technology is presented below.
Scalado Remove solves common photographic problems with unwanted objects in captured images, such as people getting in the way of our camera shot. Remove detects and selects the unwanted object and simply removes them automatically or by touching the selections on the screen after capturing the image.
Scalado has continued its research around effective image capturing, and has lately released the Scalado Camera Framework, which makes it both effective and simple to achieve the same performance as SpeedTags on any platform.
This technology deals with a problem that photographers have been struggling with since the first group picture was taken: to get everyone to look their best at the same time. With Rewind, users can take the best facial expressions from several shots and combine them in the same picture.
TimeWarp takes a bust of images, where the capturing starts even before the user presses the button! The user can then decide which picture to use, by browsing back and forth in time.
2008–1st zero shutter lag capturing device
Zero Shutter Lag is the only software-based innovation that enables the user to capture photos instantly. Zero Shutter Lag is the first of many innovations based on the SpeedTags-technology. Its follow-on products include Rewind, Shot-to-shot, Burst, HDR and several others.
2007–SpeedTags: Revolutionizing capturing
SpeedTags is one of the innovations that really make a difference in the mobile camera industry. Its introduction changed the way images are captured on a mobile device, and greatly enhanced the user experience and quality of a digital imaging. The top 10 world players in the Sensor/ISP industries already integrate SpeedTags in their devices, and the technology is now available in 450 million new sensors and SOC’s (System-on-a chip) every year.
2005–The 1st super-fast album viewing for mobile phones
Image viewing technology has never been easy, but in 2005 Scalado introduced a technology that made it faster and easier to view, search and organize images. The market was impressed and inclined to ask the question that Scalado is frequently asked – how can you do this on a mobile device? This early technology has been further developed and more advanced solutions have been released through the years.
2004–The 1st advanced mobile editor
This product is unique; not only because it was the first advanced image editor on a mobile phone, but also because it was the first time that a mobile handset manufacturer used imaging in its marketing campaigns. During the campaign for N90, Nokia marketed the phone and the image editor using the sentence: “Editing on-the-fly? I could not believe it either”.
2004–CAPS™–Making imaging faster and more efficient
CAPS™ is Scalado’s flagship product and with its unique features, it has made imaging in mobile devices faster and more efficient since its launch in 2004. CAPS™ is a software development kit that enables developers to produce imaging solutions that are extremely CPU and memory efficient and that drastically decrease processing time when managing multi-megapixel images.
2003–The 1st panoramic images on a phone
Scalado created the first imaging technology in the world for capturing and viewing panoramic images on a mobile phone. It is based on the random access technology and Scalado managed to integrate this tool in Sony Ericsson’s T610.
Scalado has several patents for random access technology. The best known is Random Access JPEG (RAJPEG), which is a very effective way to process images. RAJPEG saves a huge amount of working memory and increases performance significantly. It enables an astonishing user experience on any device, independent of the existing memory and CPU performance.
This was Scalado’s first innovation. Regardless of the size of the image, ImageZoom makes it possible for the user to access – using any internet connection – and zoom into a specific part (or parts) of a megapixel image, without having to download the entire image.
Asha Touch family of mobile devices
Nokia Asha 311: fun, fast and always connected [Nokia YouTube chnnel, June 5, 2012]
Nokia accelerates the journey to mobile internet with the introduction of Asha Touch device range [Nokia press release, June 6, 2012] [3″ WQVGA, i.e. 240×400]
Fun, colorful range of touch screen phones will bring fast mobile web browsing, social networks and gaming to millions
Bangkok, Thailand – Nokia has today taken another step towards connecting the next billion consumers by unveiling the Asha Touch family of mobile devices, taking the full touch experience to new price points. The three new phone models – the Nokia Asha 305, Nokia Asha 306 and Nokia Asha 311– further expand the successful Asha family, first introduced in October 2011. Today, there are 10 Asha devices available in more than 130 markets, providing young, social consumers with a choice of phones to match their own lifestyle.
These latest phones have been designed to provide an incredibly rich, smartphone-like experience to consumers who want to be set free from excessive data consumption costs and short battery life. The Nokia Asha 305, Asha 306 and Asha 311offer a new, fully re-designed touch user interface, combining the proven ease-of-use from Nokia’s heritage with digital design innovations specifically fit for the purpose.
The beautifully crafted Nokia Asha 311 is a fast and fluid 3.5G capacitive touchscreen [3″ WQVGA, i.e. 240×400] device, powered by a 1GHz processor to provide a great internet experience. The bright and edgy Nokia Asha 305 is a fun and affordable phone, featuring the exclusive Easy Swap dual SIM. Its sister, the Nokia Asha 306, is a single SIM model, and becomes Nokia’s most affordable Wi-Fi handset to date.
“By introducing the Asha Touch phones to the market, we’re accelerating our commitment to connect the next billion consumers,” said Mary T. McDowell, Nokia’s executive vice president for Mobile Phones. “These phones deliver on what young, urban people value most — a great-looking device; and an intuitive and affordable experience for connecting to the internet, to their friends, and to a world of entertainment, web apps and content.”
Great for fast, affordable mobile internet and gaming entertainment
The new devices take full advantage of the Nokia Browser 2.0, a major recent updatewhich uses Nokia’s cloud technology to reduce data consumption by up to 90%, meaning that consumers can enjoy faster and cheaper internet access. Web sites load up to three times faster in comparison to devices without cloud-accelerated browsing, making it simple for users to find and select from more than 10,000 web apps available for download. They deliver a richer and more interactive consumer experience whilst using less data than a stand-alone internet connected app.
Consumers can easily stay connected with friends and family at the touch of a button as well as share files and links across their social networks. Furthermore, the Nokia Browser’s Download Manager feature helps consumers to manage external content easily, saving music, video or pictures on a memory card, while surfing the internet.
The Asha family is also getting positive support from developers and consumers. Nokia Store has just broken the 5 billion downloads landmark. From January to April, 42% of all content downloaded from Nokia Store was delivered to Asha and other Nokia devices based on the Java ecosystem. Just one year ago, that number was 10%. Also, there are 410 Nokia developers with apps which have achieved more than 1 million downloads. India Games and Pico Brothers just passed 100 million.
As well as providing a great, social online experience, the Nokia Asha 305, Asha 306 and Asha 311 have been created with entertainment in mind. All users will receive an exclusive gift of 40 EA games to download for free* and keep forever. These games range across action, arcade and sports, and include titles such as Tetris®, Bejeweled®, Need for Speed(TM) The Run and EA SPORTS(TM) FIFA 12. The Nokia Asha 311also comes with 15 levels of Angry Birds pre-loaded onto the phone, perfect for making the most of the touchscreen and 1GHz processor.
“Nokia is taking another interesting step forward in connecting consumers to the Internet, seeking to improve their experience through a new touch user-interface that is allowing the company to compete in new mass-market price bands. The mass-market is a competitive segment, but we believe Nokia’s upgraded Asha portfolio has included an attractive package that can enable consumers to have lower running costs, taking advantage of things like its compressed browser and a long-life battery”, says Neil Mawston, Executive Director of devices research at Strategy Analytics. “It is also interesting to see how Nokia is promoting its Asha strategy with global launches taking place in important high-growth markets such as Asia. Nokia resonates well there and the response from local consumers is likely to be positive”.
Product details
The Nokia Asha 311 is a colourful, compact touch screen device that comes
with all the features you’d expect for a fun and easy mobile experience. It boasts a bright and colourful, scratch resistant capacitive glass screen with polarization filters ensuring users get the best experience from the unique and visually entertaining user interface. The Nokia Asha 311also features a 3.2MP camera and pre-installed Nokia Maps, in addition to the 15 level pre-bundled version of Angry Birds.
The pre-loaded social client makes accessing Facebook, Twitter and many other global social networks simple while Nokia Browser makes using mobile internet fast and affordable. It also includes the most popular messaging services. “WhatsApp has a clear vision of creating a reliable and easy to use cross-platform messaging application that enables people to stay in touch with their family and friends from all around the world,” said, Brian Acton, Co-Founder of WhatsApp Inc. “By partnering with Nokia whose worldwide reach in mobile is well established, WhatsApp becoming available for the Asha Touch devices will enable us to further realize our core mission”.
The Nokia Asha 305 is a fun and entertaining Easy Swap dual SIM phone, helping users make the most of their phone while retaining control of their costs. The phone features a bright and colorful 3″ WQVGA resistivetouch screen along with Bluetooth and Dual Band connectivity. Forty EA games are available for download with every phone as well as a 2MP camera, Nokia Maps and the revolutionary Nokia Browser which helps significantly lower data costs.
The Nokia Asha 306 is the sister device to the Nokia Asha 305. Along with all
the great features that come with its sister, such as bright and colorful, 3″ WQVGA resistive touch screen and 40 EA games for download – a Nokia exclusive offer, the Nokia Asha 306 also provides WLAN, enabling users to stay connected while on the move. It also supports video streamingthrough both GPRS and WLAN, meaning this handset truly is a fun way to stay in touch.
The estimated retail price for Nokia Asha 305 is EUR 63 [US$ 79] and it’s expected to start shipping in the second quarter of 2012. The estimated retail price for Nokia Asha 306 is EUR 68 [US$ 85]. The Nokia Asha 311 has an estimated retail price of EUR 92 [US$ 115]. Both devices are expected to start shipping in the third quarter of 2012. Above mentioned prices exclude taxes and subsidies.
The new devices images are available at Nokia.com/press.
*Data costs may apply.
Nokia Asha 306: discover a fun way to stay in touch [Nokia YouTube chnnel, June 5, 2012]
Have a Touch: Nokia’s new Asha phones [Nokia Conversations blog, June 6, 2012]
A great new touch screen experience, fast web browsing, games and social networks lie at the heart of three new mobiles phones being launched today by Nokia.
The Nokia Asha 305, Nokia Asha 306 and Nokia Asha 311are a colourful range of mobile phones designed for young, urban and social people to get online faster, better and cheaper.
The devices will run on Asha Touch, which is a new, fun and playful touch screen interface that builds on Nokia’s swipe heritage.
Asha Touch will provide aspirational young people a first ‘smartphone-like’ experience, for example, through the notification bar and the 10,000 web applications that are available. This is on top of more than 25,000 regular apps already in the Nokia Store.
Nokia Browser 2.0
All the phones also feature a major update of the Nokia Browser, which uses cloud technology to reduce data usage by up to 90%. The benefits are numerous: web pages will load faster, battery life is improved and mobile Internet access becomes much more affordable.
Keeping in touch with friends on social networks is also central to the three new members of Nokia’s Asha family. They all come pre-loaded with applications for Facebook and Twitter, and there is also email and instant messaging.
People who want great games will not be disappointed either. Each phone will come with a gift of 40 free games from EA to download and keep forever. The games will include Tetris®, Bejeweled®, Need for Speed™ The Run and EA SPORTS™FIFA 12.
So, now we know that the Nokia Asha 305, Nokia Asha 306 andNokia Asha 311come with great features and dozens of free games.
What are the differences between the phones themselves?
The Nokia Asha 305 and the Nokia Asha 306:
- 3.0” WQVGA resistive touch screen
- 2 MP camera
- Music player and FM radio
- Built-in speaker
- Plug and Play, easy PC connection and file transfer
- GPRS/EDGE connectivity
- Nokia Mapsand Nokia Life (in selected markets)
- Colours: Silver White, Red, Mid Blue and Dark Grey (varies by market)
In addition, the Nokia Asha 305will benefit from Nokia’s Easy Swap Dual SIM technology, which allows SIM cards to be swapped without opening up or turning the phone off. This is useful for storing different numbers on your SIMs and for taking advantage of different operator rates.
The unique feature of the Nokia Asha 306is its Wi-Fi capability. Indeed, it is set to be Nokia’s most affordable Wi-Fi handset device.
The Nokia Asha 311
- 3.0” scratch resistant, capacitive glass screen
- Polarised display filters for better usability in direct sunlight
- WLAN
- 3.2 MP camera
- 1GHz processor
- Music Player, FM Radio and Internet Radio
- Plug and Play, easy PC connection and file transfer
- HSPA connectivity
- Nokia Mapsand Nokia Life (in selected markets)
- Colours: Dark Grey, Rose Red, Blue, Brown and Sand White (colours will vary by market)
The Nokia Asha 311 … is a 3.5G mobile phone powered by 1GHz processor to make for a speedy online and gaming experience. As well as the 40 free EA games, the Nokia Asha 311 will also include 15 preloaded levels of Angry Birdsfor you to enjoy.
Taken together, these new mobile phones, the Nokia Asha 305,Nokia Asha 306 and the Nokia Asha 311are another big step in the quest to connect the next billion.
For approximate costs, before local taxes or operator subsidies:
Nokia Asha 305 – 63 euros / 85 USD, available in Q2 2012
Nokia Asha 306 – 68 euros / 93 USD, available in Q3 2012
Nokia Asha 311 – 92 euros / 121 USD, available in Q3 2012Nokia Asha 305 will be available in the second quarter of 2012. Nokia Asha 306 and Nokia Asha 311 are arriving in the third quarter of 2012.
Infographic: How Nokia Browser saves you time and money [Nokia Conversations blog, June 7, 2012]
Searching for content on the Internet from your mobile phone is now faster and cheaper, with the Nokia Browser.
It uses Nokia’s unique compression technology, which means the pages that you visit are reduced by up to 90%, making surfing the Web faster, and more importantly, cheaper.
Check out our Nokia Browser infographic for more reasons as to why you should all be using Nokia Browser.
Initially, Nokia Browser was created to help the next billion internet users connect for the first time to the Netwithout compromises.
While it’s still vitally important for people in emerging markets to have a great, affordable browsing experience, Nokia Browser is also great for everybody else, too, proving to be up to three times faster then other browsers.
As you can see by the infographic, this means that when you use your Nokia Browser, you would be saving a day every year. This has to be good news for everyone.
To save yourself some money, and browsing time, be sure to check out the latest Nokia Browser 2.0 which is already preloaded on your Asha phones as the recently launched Nokia Asha 305, Asha 306 and Asha 311. Nokia Browser is available in 87 languages and in 250 countries.
If you have a Series 40 phone you can update to the latest version of the Browser. Check it out!
Nokia Browser 2.0 update available now [Nokia Conversations blog, April 23, 2012]
Getting online fast, and affordably, is crucial for Internet users everywhere. Now that experience is about to get even faster and easier with an update for all existing Nokia Browser users, covering phones across the Nokia Asha range and Series 40 devices.
We know Nokia Browser is often the first, and main, way of accessing the Internet for millions of you in dynamic fast-growing parts of the world. Since the Browser launched last yearyou’ve been able to access all the information you need, without the headache of worrying about your data bill.
Nokia Browser condenses data by up to 90%. That makes loading web sites faster, and cheaper – in fact, our cloud-accelerated browsing makes loading web sites up to three times faster. If you’re on a pay-per-use contract you’ll enjoy cheaper browsing, or if you’re on an operator data plan you’ll be able to do more web surfing without exceeding your monthly usage limits.
Download Manager
As well as needing less data to show the same web pages you also want to do different things at the time. We know you are busy. Using the new Download Manager you can save music, video or pictures on a memory card, while you’re surfing the Internet.
The update also includes a host of new features to make searching, discovering and sharing content even easier…
Better searching and sharing
The Browser now has a new, more intuitive, user interface with one-click access to top local sites from the start page. A new feature enables multitasking while browsing, meaning that you can switch between text messages and the web.
Nokia Browser 2.0 makes it even easier to share content across social media: You can post any page URL via Facebook or Twitter from within the browser, including a comment directly from the options menu. If you’re in China, you’ll be able to do the same for Sina Weibo and RenRen.
The Browser makes it simple to find, install and use Web Apps, which provide you with a more desktop-like internet experience. Launched in mid-2011, the Nokia Browser is the first browser of its kind to support Web Apps, and now boasts a catalogue of more than 10,000 apps. Nokia Series 40 users have downloaded more than 35 million Web Apps in total, with the most-downloaded app – ‘Free Wi-Fi Locator’ – having been downloaded more than 2 million times alone.
The update supports all forms of Nokia Series 40: Touch, QWERTY and Non-Touch, including the Nokia Asha range, as well as popular devices such as the Nokia C3-00, Nokia C2-03 and Nokia X3-02. The update will be pre-loaded on some current and all future Nokia Series 40 devices, while for existing users the update arrives as a free, optional over-the-air download. New users can download it from the Nokia Store.
image credit: webwizzard
Nokia makes internet access faster and easier with new browser for Series 40 devices [Nokia press release, April 23, 2012]
– Nokia Browser 2.0 delivers enhanced speeds and a new user interface for a faster, better way to explore the web
– Powered by cloud-based servers, it delivers accelerated browsing and reduces data consumption by up to 90%, without compromising the internet experience
– Web apps from the expanding catalog are easier than ever to explore and install right in the browserEspoo, Finland – Nokia has today announced the availability of Nokia Browser 2.0, a major update dedicated to Nokia Series 40 devices. The new version reduces data consumption by up to 90%, meaning that consumers can enjoy faster and cheaper internet access. Web sites load up to three times fasterin comparison to devices without cloud-accelerated browsing and consumers will also benefit from a number of other enhanced capabilities.
From the first look, consumers are easily able to discover new web content and enjoy one-click access to top, local sites via the Nokia Browser’s inviting and intuitive start page. We have optimized the browser to enable users to easily stay connected with friends and family at the touch of a button as well as to share files and links across social networks. The new and improved Download Manager helps consumers to manage external content easily, saving music, video or pictures on a memory card, while surfing the internet.
Free Wi-Fi Locator – Smartphone-like web app on an Asha device – consumer don’t have to compromise
An app that showcases many features of the platform is this Movie Review app.
The browser includes a revamped, modern user experience that makes it simple to find, install and use interesting web apps that offer a richer, more desktop-like internet experience. Launched in mid-2011, the Nokia Browser is the first browser of its kind to support web apps, and now boasts a catalogue of more than 10,000 of the latest apps. Several publishers have experienced over a million downloads in a matter of months, demonstrating strong consumer demand.
With this update, developers will find new monetization capabilities, more extensive user interface options for their web apps and productivity improvements for Nokia Web Tools so they can continue delivering engaging, connected experiences to the ‘Next Billion’ consumers.
The update supports all forms of Series 40: Touch, QWERTY and Non-Touch, including the Nokia Asha range, as well as popular devices such as the Nokia C3-00, Nokia C2-03 and Nokia X3-02. The update will be pre-loaded on some current and all future Nokia Series 40 devices, while for existing users the update arrives as a free, optional over-the-air download. New users can download it from the Nokia Store. The browser is available in 87 languages in over 200 countries and territories.
Nokia Browser 2.0 makes use of cloud-based servers which adapt standard web pages so that they perform better on Nokia Series 40 devices. Since web pages are compressed and cached in the cloud, end users can access web sites in a manner which is faster and requires significantly less data to be sent over their mobile network. For pay-per-use contracts this will result in more cost-effective browsing, while users on an operator data plan will be able to do more web surfing without exceeding their monthly usage limits.
“With our new version, we’ve created a newer, faster, better browsing experience. As many consumers around the world will experience the internet for the first time through a mobile phone, this is a great step towards our goal to connect the ‘Next Billion’,” explains Dieter May, senior vice president of mobile phones services, Nokia.
New in the Nokia Browser 2.0
- Faster browsing with speed improvements throughout the experience.
- Easier access to new and popular Web apps to enable a richer and more engaging internet experience.
- New, intuitive user interface offers one click access to search, most popular content and most valuable features.
- Media handling enhancements provide an easier way to enjoy video, audio and images. Users can download in background mode while continuing to browse the web or queue downloads for later when performance or rates are better. Downloads can be saved to memory cards or phone memory for later offline viewing or listening.
- One-click share on Social Networks by remembering Facebook and/or Twitter login to easily share any page URL and comments from your browser.
Developers can find out more about how the updated browser will enable them to build rich standards-based web apps at: http://www.developer.nokia.com/Develop/Series_40/Series_40_web_apps/.
Consumers can download the Nokia Browser 2.0 at: http://store.nokia.com/content/51924
Windows Phone 8 software architecture vs. that of Windows Phone 7, 7.5 and the upcoming 7.8
Announcing Windows Phone 8 [Joe Belfiore on Windows Phone blog, June 20, 2012]
Many of Windows Phone 8’s new capabilities come from a surprising source: Windows, the most successful and powerful operating system on the planet, and one used by more than a billion people.
Yes, you read that right: Windows Phone 8 is based on the same core technologies that power Windows 8. As a result, Windows Phone 8 will unleash a new wave of features for consumers, developers, and businesses.
…
We’ve based the next release of Windows Phone on the rock-solid technology core of Windows 8. It means Windows Phone and its bigger sibling will share common networking, security, media and web browser technology, and a common file system.
…
Windows Phone…7.8!
The new Start screen is so useful and emblematic of what Windows Phone is about that we want everybody to enjoy it. So we’ll be delivering it to existing phones as a software update sometime after Window Phone 8 is released. Let me repeat: If you currently own a Windows Phone 7.5 handset, Microsoft is planning to release an update with the new Windows Phone 8 Start screen. We’re calling it “Windows Phone 7.8.”
Some of you have been wondering, “Will we also get Windows Phone 8 as an update?” The answer, unfortunately, is no.
Windows Phone 8 is a generation shift in technology, which means that it will not run on existing hardware. BUT we care deeply about our existing customers and want to keep their phones fresh, so we’re providing the new Start screen in this new update.
…
Developers, developers, developers
Since we’re talking about apps, I want to tell developers a little bit about what they can expect in Windows Phone 8. Some of the exciting changes on the way include:
- Native code support: Windows Phone 8 has full C and C++ support, making it easier to write apps for multiple platforms more quickly. It also means Windows Phone 8 supports popular gaming middleware such as Havok Vision Engine, Autodesk Scaleform, Audiokinetic Wwise, and Firelight FMOD, as well as native DirectX-based game development.
- In-app payments: In Windows Phone 8 we make it possible for app makers to sell virtual and digital goods within their apps.
- Integrated Internet calling: In Windows Phone 8, developers can create VoIP apps that plug into our existing calling feature so Internet calls can be answered like traditional phone calls, using the same calling interface.
- Multitasking enhancements. Windows Phone 8 now allows location-based apps like exercise trackers or navigation aids to run in the background, so they keep working even when you’re doing other things on your phone.
This is just a taste. Later this summer, we’ll have much more for developers on the Windows Phone 8 Software Development Kit (SDK) and the new Visual Studio 11-based development tools. So stay tuned.
…
The first wave of devices for Windows Phone 8 will come from Nokia, Huawei, Samsung, and HTC, all built on next-generation chips from Qualcomm. …
Introducing the New Windows Phone Start Screen [Windows Phone YouTube channel, June 20, 2012]
Watch Microsoft introduce Windows Phone 8, Windows Phone Summit video [YouTube copy of the MS recorded summit session, June 20, 2012]
From the whole presentation for the subject of this post the most important is this:
- Shared Windows Core: Technical Overview
- Developer Platform Early Preview
which is available in the following parts of the whole video:
1. Microsoft Windows Phone 8 Summit Complete Video – Part 6 Developer Features
[00:40]: KERNEL
– State-of-the-art Windows 8 Kernel
– Increased scalability
– Proven robustness
Drivers
– Established driver ecosystem
– Focus on optimized driver
– Better devices, faster
Security
– Hardware-based security of Windows
– Never regret installing an app
– Your content under your control
Networking
– IPV6
– NFC, tap to share
– Improved Bluetooth
Graphics & Media
– Built on hardware accelerated Direct3D
– Media Playback and Record
– High-fidelity experiences
Developer Platform
– Share more code (both native code and .NET code) because the same builiding blocks are shared
– Native code: C/C++ [especially for games because the same DirectX componentry between Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8, even the same gaming middleware, like Havok could be used making porting easier]
Use the same native code to make it easier to port applications to Windows Phone 8
– Same .NET engine that runs on the Windows desktop
– Compile in the Cloud enabled as part of taking that .NET engine
Basically what happens is, when developers publish their applications to the Marketplace we will compile them in the cloud to machine code, and then when the end user installs that application it will start faster and run faster.
[04:15]
2. Microsoft Windows Phone 8 Summit Complete Video – Part 7 Developer Features
[08:55] Focus on developers … [09:15] Maximizing Developer Investments: Windows Phone 7 and 7.5 applications will run on Windows Phone 8. Also this technology I talked about, compiled manipulation in the cloud, will go to compile every existing Windows Phone application in our Marketplace, so that Windows Phone 8 end-users get the benefit of every application being faster, and developers will not have to do anything beyond that of having supplied their applications, do any work. It will just be done for them. Also Visual Studio 2012 will support development for both Windows Phone 7.5 and Windows Phone 8 applications, and of course they already support Windows 8 applications. This means that as a developer you can use one tool to build for all the platforms that matter to you. [10:06]
Windows Phone Application Platform Architecture
[between 7:17 and 8:15]
We created a brand new, organized OS. It is based on [Windows] CE* [renamed Windows Embedded Compact] kernel, but it has virtual memory support, paging, security, networking, just like Windows. It’s a modern OS. One of the key functionality we added also, when we are writing device drivers it used to be a big issue, that for OEMs had to do a lot of heavy lifting to interact with the hardware and write device drivers. We changed the game there as well. We are writing most of the device driver software, and so hardware vendors need to write only the very silicon specific part of the device drivers. And we write a lot of the software ourselves, which of course also have established a common foundation across all devices.
Note: Because the first “partner only and confidential” information of February 2010 was that the WP7 OS is based on Windows CE 6.0 kernel you can still find such misleading information even in wikipedia (althought stated as of “Kernel type: Windows CE 6/7.0”). The reality was nevertheless that it was based on CE 7.0 (Chelan) kernel code base, more precisely both the Chelan derived Windows Embedded Compact 7 and the Windows Phone 7 were based on the same Chelan kernel with the Compact 7 product having more resamblance to Chelan kernel than the Windows Phone one:
Olivier Bloch (Microsoft) on Windows Phone 7 Series announced at MWC, 02-18-2010 10:26 PM
Windows Phone 7 and Windows Embedded Compact 7 are based on the same kernel.
Olivier Bloch (Microsoft) on Windows CE is NOT dead!, 05-03-2010 9:54 PM
By the Way, Windows Phone 7 is based on the Windows Embedded Compact 7 core
Background:
Discussion with analysts on 2012 Mobile World Congress [Terry Myerson, Corporate Vice President, Windows Phone Division, Feb 29, 2012]
I joined Windows Phone in October 2008, and that was right about the time Android launched, the iPhone had been out a little over a year, and our product was Windows Mobile 6.1, which was a product that really was optimized for what we call the QWERTY monoblock form factor. It had a hardware keyboard, a small QVG screen, sort of the canonical products at the time, were the Blackberry ‑‑ I’m sorry, the Samsung Blackjack, and the T-Mobile Dash. So, that was the products of October 2008, and we had the iPhone out for over a year.
You know, at that time, we decided to commit to a new vision for a consumer mobile experience, and we developed Metro, and we shipped Windows Phone 7 approximately two years later. And so, from there, now we need to get the message out to consumers, and here we are today.
More information on that history is in the:
– Tackling the Android tide [Experiencing the Cloud blog, July 16 – Aug 17, 2011]
Experiment 19: Re-imagining the Windows Phone OS [MS Research video, recorded on June 25, 2009]
Experiment 19 [Microsoft Research, June 21, 2012]
A skunkworks project in 2008/2009 to re-imagine the OS platform for Windows Phone. The prototype proved that Windows NT and the CLR could deliver better performance than Windows CE and the .NET Compact Framework on identical hardware. Within months of the completion of Experiment 19, Microsoft launched efforts to build what would become Windows Phone 8 and Windows RT for ARM tablets.
Re-imagining the Windows Phone Platform
In the fall of 2008, our Operating Systems Group was participating in the Menlo project to explore new phone-related experiences. At the time, Windows Phone 7 was in early development using the Windows CE kernel and .NET Compact Framework. We had been experimenting with these “legacy” platform components for over a year. While they performed well, we were frustrated by their lack of compatibility with the Windows NT system and .NET Framework Common Language Runtime (CLR) used on PCs. We realized the time had come for a bold experiment: could we replace CE with NT and replace the Compact Framework with the CLR?
We undertook a skunkworks project, codename “Experiment 19”, to re-imagine the software platforms used by Windows Phone. We started with a core set of windows system components (called MinWin) and a port of the Windows NT kernel to the ARM processor. Working closely with MinWin pioneers—Adam Glass, Mark Russinovich, Richard Pletcher, Richard Neves and Bryce Cogswell—and with partners at NVIDIA, we created the device drivers and firmware necessary to boot and run MinWin on our prototype phones. We created an ARM JIT compiler for the CLR and ported the CLR runtime to ARM. To complete the system, we ported the phone implementation of Silverlight to run with our ARM implementation of the CLR.
The resulting system proved that the “desktop” code bases actually performed better on modern phone hardware than the legacy mobile systems. Why? Because mobile chips now provide advanced features and capabilities, such as multiple cores, rivaling PCs of just a few years ago. The Windows NT and the CLR code bases had long since learned to exploit those capabilities to maximum benefit. With Experiment 19, we proved that Microsoft could build mobile devices using the desktop code bases (NT & the CLR). Within months, Microsoft began efforts to build the systems that would become Windows RT for ARM tablets and Window Phone 8.
People
Barry Bond
Chris Hawblitzel
Galen Hunt
Reuben Olinsky
Note: Samuel Phung, ICOP Technology, Inc. described Windows Embedded Compact 7 Advantages [Oct 26, 2011] (this also gave a glimpse into it) after it was released in March, 2011:
- Small-Footprint, Modular, Scalable and Optimized for Embedded Device
- Platform Builder: Efficient Tool to Develop Custom OS Image
- Visual Studio: Efficient Environment to Develop Embedded Application
- Silverlight for Windows Embedded: Enables Designer and Developer to Jointly Develop Compact 7 Application
- Compact 7 Advantage: The Development Environment
- Develop Compact 7 OS Run-time Image
- Develop Silverlight for Windows Embedded Application
Microsoft’s own description in History of Windows Embedded Compact 7 is:
Windows Embedded Compact 7 is the latest release of the componentized, hard real-time operating system for small footprint devices. Compact continues the history of embedded innovationwith:
- Silverlight for Windows Embedded, a UI framework included with Compact, combines the flexibility of declarative UIs with the performance of native code. Silverlight for Windows Embedded is based on Silverlight v3.0 and allows developers and designers to create and update device UIs using Microsoft Expression Blend.
- Compact also includes an updated Internet Explorer, built on the same core as IE in Microsoft Windows Phone 7 and includes support for Flash 10.1, panning and zooming, multi-touch, and viewing bookmarks using thumbnails.
More information:
– product microsite: Windows Embedded Compact 7 (Formerly CE)
– a new product blog (since May 15, 2012): Approaching Embedded Intelligently / Windows Embedded Compact
– What are the differences between Silverlight and Silverlight for Windows Embedded [Olivier Bloch from the Windows Embedded Compact team, Dec 13, 2010]
– Maximizing Internet Explorer in Windows Embedded Compact 7 [the new product blog, June 11, 2012]
In Microsoft Drives Agile Approach to Intelligent Systems [Nov 14, 2011] press release Microsoft announced the following changes for the next release:
According to [Ben] Smith [director of Program Management for Windows Embedded], the power and complexity of tomorrow’s distributed computing, such as intelligent systems, will require a shift from less frequent, full-scale software upgrades, often the industry standard, to ones that are more frequent and incremental.
“The industry has reached a point where successful companies are those that can iterate the smartest and drive value in terms of the customer experience,” says Smith.
With that in mind, Microsoft has made the following specific changes:
- Combining the development teams for each of the Windows Embedded solutions — Windows Embedded Standard, Windows Embedded Enterprise, Windows Embedded Compact 7 — into one larger team focused on creating many products with a common platform
- Adopting agile methodologies that help developers avoid last-minute feature cuts and respond to customer feedback with midstream course adjustments
- Creating more focused and frequent code release cycles
In the adjacent Microsoft Unveils Product Road Map Delivering on Intelligent Systems Vision [Nov 14, 2011] feature story the following information was given about the roadmap:
[Kevin] Dallas [general manager of Windows Embedded] also confirmed that Microsoft updated Windows Embedded Compact 7, the current generation of the Windows Embedded CE platform, in October 2011, and Windows Embedded Compact v.Next will follow in the second half of 2012, introducing support for Visual Studio 2010.
Windows Embedded Standard v.Next will support the ARM architecture, in addition to continuing support for the Intel x86 and x64 architectures. Windows Embedded Compact will continue to provide a proven, real-time operating system and a full tools suite for a streamlined development experience on small-footprint, specialized devices. Windows Embedded Standard v.Next will deliver technologies for customized, rich user interfaces, enhanced always-on connectivity, and all of the management and security functionality provided by Windows 8.
“Windows Embedded Compact and Windows Embedded Standard represent Microsoft’s platforms for intelligent systems.” Dallas says. “We need Windows Embedded Standard v.Next to take the lead around application-rich devices, and Windows Embedded Compact v.Next to take the lead around real-time, small form-factor devices. Both are critical to the success of our partners and enterprise customers building intelligent systems.”
Giving up the total OEM reliance strategy: the Microsoft Surface tablet
Follow ups:
– Microsoft Surface: its premium quality/price vs. even iPad3 [Oct 26, 2012]
– Microsoft Surface: First media reflections after the New-York press launch [Oct 26, 2012]
Updates #2: As the result of this sudden turn of direction 9 months ago, the previously closely cooperating with Microsoft OEMs are now (March’13) working with the company in the most cautious way:
Brand vendors cautious about Microsoft when it comes to hardware design [DIGITIMES, March 25, 2013]
Notebook brand vendors have turned cautious about revealing their new products’ industrial designs for next-generation Windows as they are concerned that Microsoft may use their designs for the benefit of its new Surface products, according to sources from the upstream supply chain.
The sources noted that the brand vendors have already lost their trust in Microsoft and the software giant’s strategy of pushing Surface tablets is starting to impact itself.
Although Microsoft only had sales of about 1.5 million Surface tablets so far, the company continues to expand into the retail channel with its branded products and has even established an online store for ordering the devices.
To avoid from design leakage, many brand vendors have hidden their important designs and will only showcase the prototype of the new mobile devices during Computex 2013 to minimize the risk.
China market: Microsoft to launch Surface Pro, say Taiwan makers [DIGITIMES, March 29, 2013]
Microsoft, following the launch of the10.6-inch Surface RT in the China market, will launch the 10.6-inch Windows 8 Surface Pro there on April 2 at a retail price of CNY6,500 (US$1,045) for the 64GB version and CNY7,300 for 128GB, according to sources with Taiwan’s supply chain.
Surface RT is priced at CNY3,688-4,488 plus CNY800 for a touch cover, the source indicated.
According to previous estimation by market observers, Surface RT and Surface Pro shipments to the global market would have reached one million units and 500,000 units respectively so far since their launch, but the actual volume for the two models so far is estimated at about one million units in total, the sources said.
Viewing that Microsoft has not placed additional orders for Surface RT, an estimated one million units of Surface RT remain in the inventory, the sources indicated.
Microsoft has talked with partners about developing second-generation Surface models, but those partners have generally been conservative, the sources noted, adding that Microsoft is inviting notebook and chip vendors to co-develop tablets based on Windows-ARM platform but those vendors have been reluctant.
Updates #1:
Microsoft Surface : Assembly in China [NIDA ISM YouTube channel, June 23, 2012]
Annual Report for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 2012 [Microsoft Corporation, July 19, 2012]
ITEM 1A. RISK FACTORS [p. 14]… our Surface devices will compete with products made by our OEM partners, which may affect their commitment to our platform. …
Microsoft’s radical new business plan is hidden in plain sight [Ed Bott on ZDNet, July 30, 2012]
Microsoft is reimagining its entire business model, and they’ve laid out the details for anyone to inspect. You just have to read between the boilerplate sections in the company’s most recent 10-K.
…
In the Sinofsky regime, Microsoft isn’t interested in hobbies or side projects. The company’s motto is “Go big or go home.” Earn a billion dollars. Get a billion users. Don’t think small.
I expect a massive marketing push behind Surface, and I would be shocked if we don’t see more PC hardware from Microsoft in the next 12 months.
Deal with it, OEMs.
Microsoft plans to pick up the pace. Dramatically.
Microsoft has a reputation for being too slow to respond. This year’s 10-K contains a new section that suggests that’s all about to change:
Many of the areas in which we compete evolve rapidly with changing and disruptive technologies, shifting user needs, and frequent introductions of new products and services. Our ability to remain competitive depends on our success in making innovative products that appeal to businesses and consumers. [emphasis added]
…
Microsoft unveils Windows 8 OEM licensing charges [DIGITIMES, July 11, 2012]
Microsoft has released licensing rates for OEM Windows 8, including US$60-80 for Windows 8, US$80-100 for Windows 8 Pro (with Office) and US$50-65 for Windows RT (with Office), according to Taiwan-based notebook supply chain makers.
Microsoft also confirmed the launch schedule of Windows 8 at the end of October with the RTM version of Windows 8 to be released in the first week of August for testing.
Sources from notebook players pointed out that the supply chain is placing high hopes on Windows 8 and expect the operating system to help resurrect consumer demand for traditional notebooks; however, due to remaining uncertainties, most players are still taking a conservative attitude about the launch.
Sources also noted that Windows 8 is unlikely to help significantly boost PC demand before 2013 since the new operating system will increase hardware costs due to some components needing to feature additional functions such as touchscreens to allow the operating system to perform fully, while the addition of the operating system’s licensing costs, the increasing expenses are expected to boost Windows 8-based products’ end prices to a rather unfriendly level.
However, as the notebook supply chain will gradually shift their production to touchscreen models with costs to start to see drops, the sources expect demand for Windows 8-based products will see an obvious increase starting mid-second quarter 2013.
Steve Ballmer, Jon Roskill, Kurt DelBene, and Tami Reller: Worldwide Partner Conference 2012 Day 1 Keynote [Microsoft, July 9, 2012]
Steve Ballmer: …
… there’s over 1.3 billion Windows systems on the planet. We’ve sold over 630 million Windows 7 licenses. … In the next 12 months, most forecasts would be for 375 million — 375 million new Windows PCs to be sold. That’s bigger than any phone or any other single device ecosystem. It is a stunning number. And all of those represent new opportunities as they move to Windows 8. …
But Surface is just a design point. It will have a distinct place in what’s a broad Windows ecosystem. And the importance of the thousands of partners that we have that design and produce Windows computers will not diminish. We have a mutual goal with our OEM partners to bring a diversity of solutions, Windows PCs, phones, tablets, servers, to market. And what we seek to have is a spectrum of stunning devices, stunning Windows devices. So, every consumer, every business customer can say, “I have the perfect PC for me.”
And we’re excited about the work from our OEMs. We may sell a few million, I don’t know how many, of the 375 million, but we need partners to have that diversity of devices. We’re excited about the work our OEM partners are doing on Windows 8, and we’d really like to show more of that today to you and everybody collected here, Rich. …
Tami Reller, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Marketing Officer, Windows and Windows Live Division: …
Today, as we sit here, more than 50 percent of enterprise desktops are running Windows 7. …
Windows 8 is on track to RTM, or release to manufacturing, the first week of August. (Applause.) And Windows 8 will reach general availability at the end of October. (Applause.)
General availability means that new Windows 8 PCs will be available to buy and upgrades will also be available starting late October. …
Microsoft OEM head change related to Surface, say Taiwan makers [DIGITIMES, July 4, 2012]
Microsoft has announced the replacement of Steven Guggenheimer with Nick Parker, originally vice president of OEM Sales and Marketing, for the position of corporate vice president for OEM Division. The personnel shuffle is related to Microsoft’s plans to launch Surface tablet PCs, representing Microsoft’s long-term business model of stepping into hardware, Taiwan-based supply chain makers have guessed.
The personnel change has caused worries among Taiwan-based PC vendors and ODMs, because it signals that Microsoft’s launch of Surface is not a short-term promotion for Windows 8 but marks a new “software + hardware” business model which is expected to bring troubles for hardware partners, the sources analyzed.
As Microsoft will step into the hardware business, it is naturally no longer concerned about the long-term close relations established by Guggenheimer with hardware partners and therefore has decided to change his position, the sources claimed.
Microsoft Surface chassis suffers low yields [DIGITIMES, July 9, 2012]
Microsoft reportedly planned to adopt unibody magnesium-aluminum chassis for its Surface tablet PCs originally, but affected by chassis makers’ limited capacity, the company has instead turned to adopt a magnesium chassis and use MegVapor technology for surface treatment to allow the device to feature a similar exterior to traditional metal chassis; however, due to the method having a rather low yield rate, is has greatly affected Microsoft in trying to mass produce its new tablet PCs, according to sources from the upstream supply chain.
Microsoft has not confirmed the rumors.
The sources pointed out that before Microsoft launched Surface, the company has inquired at several metal chassis makers about their available capacity and revealed to these makers that its orders for Surface tablet PCs will go as high as five million units before the end of 2012; however, the chassis makers were forced to give up because of lack of capacity.
Although Microsoft’s current chassis design for Surface allows the device to feature a similar exterior and sturdiness as traditional magnesium-aluminum, while having several color choices, the drawback of the design is that the device will be heavier.
The sources also pointed out that the chassis is supplied by a China-based supplier, but since the company is a second-tier maker, its low yield rates are causing Microsoft to pay a lot of attention to the supplier’s manufacturing process hoping for improvements.
Samsung Said To Plan Windows RT Tablet For October Debut [Bloomberg, July 7, 2012]
… The decision to support Windows RT follows Samsung’s earlier announcement that it will back another version of Windows. … Samsung’s Windows RT tablet will feature Qualcomm Inc. (QCOM)’s Snapdragon processor …
Apple led the tablet market at the end of the first quarter, with 11.8 million units shipped, or a 58 percent share, according researcher IHS ISuppli Inc. Samsung was second, with 11 percent, followed by Amazon.com Inc., which had 5.8 percent. …
HP, Dell to launch 10.1-inch Windows RT tablet PCs in 4Q12 [DIGITIMES, July 6, 2012]
Hewlett-Packard (HP) and Dell will launch 10.1-inch Windows RT tablet PCs equipped with processors developed by Texas Instruments and Qualcomm respectively in the fourth quarter of 2012, according to supply chain makers.
In addition to the two US-based brand vendors, Lenovo, Toshiba and Asustek Computer are all preparing to release Windows RT-based tablet PCs.
Meanwhile, although Acer is preparing to release Windows 8-based tablet PCs, the company currently has no plans to launch Windows RT-based models in 2012, while Sony and Samsung Electronics are turning conservative about developing Windows RT-based tablet PCs, according to the two firms’ current component supply status.
The sources pointed out that both Windows 8- and Windows RT-based tablet PCs are expected to be priced starting from US$599 and could go as high as US$1,000, while the machines’ major competition will be Apple; however, the sources hope the tablet PC competition will no longer revolve around price and instead attract demand from enterprise users and consumers that are used to the Windows operating system and its strong software compatibility.
End of updates
Surface by Microsoft [surface YouTube channel, June 19, 2012]
#1 excerpt:
Microsoft Announces Surface: New Family of PCs for Windows [Microsoft press release, June 18, 2012]
Two models of Surface will be available: one running an ARM processor featuring Windows RT, and one with a third-generation Intel Core processor featuring Windows 8 Pro. From the fast and fluid interface, to the ease of connecting you to the people, information and apps that users care about most, Surface will be a premium way to experience all that Windows has to offer. Surface for Windows RT will release with the general availability of Windows 8, and the Windows 8 Pro model will be available about 90 days later. Both will be sold in the Microsoft Store locations in the U.S. and available through select online Microsoft Stores.
…
Contributing to an Expanded Ecosystem
One of the strengths of Windows is its extensive ecosystem of software and hardware partners, delivering selection and choice that makes a customer’s Windows experience uniquely their own. This continues with Surface. Microsoft is delivering a unique contribution to an already strong and growing ecosystemof functional and stylish devices delivered by original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to bring the experience of Windows to consumers and businesses around the globe.
…
Suggested retail pricing will be announced closer to availability and is expected to be competitive with a comparable ARM tablet or Intel Ultrabook-class PC. OEMs will have cost and feature parity on Windows 8 and Windows RT.
Microsoft’s unique contribution to an already strong and growing ecosystem is well demonstrated by the following images provided by Microsoft (the accompanying text was also provided by Microsoft):
Conceived, designed and engineered entirely by Microsoft employees, and building on the company’s 30-year history manufacturing hardware, Surface is designed to seamlessly transition between consumption and creation, without compromise.
Surface features a built-in kickstand that lets you transition Surface from active use to passive consumption.
The 3 mm Touch Cover represents a step forward in human-computer interface. Using a unique pressure-sensitive technology, the Touch Cover senses keystrokes as gestures, enabling you to touch type significantly faster than with an on-screen keyboard. It will be available in a selection of vibrant colors.
#2 excerpt:
Microsoft Announces Surface: New Family of PCs for Windows [Microsoft press release, June 18, 2012] (data higlights are mine to denote the essential differences)
Surface for Windows RT Surface for Windows 8 Pro OS: Windows RT Windows 8 Pro Light(1): 676 g 903 g Thin(2): 9.3 mm 13.5 mm Clear: 10.6” ClearType HD Display 10.6” ClearType Full HD Display Energized: 31.5 W-h 42 W-h Connected: microSD,USB 2.0, Micro HD Video, 2×2 MIMO antennae microSDXC,USB 3.0, Mini DisplayPort Video, 2×2 MIMO antennae Productive: Office ‘15’ Apps, Touch Cover, Type Cover Touch Cover, Type Cover, Pen with Palm Block Practical: VaporMg Case & Stand VaporMg Case & Stand Configurable: 32 GB, 64 GB 64 GB, 128 GB
(1), (2). Actual size and weight of the device may vary due to configuration and manufacturing process.
The product introduction/overview part of the event keynote:
Steven Sinofsky
[President, Windows and Windows Live Division]Today when you have your tablet, you want to be entertained, you have to hold it. You’re always sitting in an awkward position or perhaps you have to choose from a seemingly endless variety of add on stands and cases that solve a relatively simple problem but by adding weight, adding fitness.
What if I just want to watch movie or listen to music and do something else. We think that this should be an integral part of the design. We think that a stand should be integral. So we built a stand into the device.
This stand is made of the same VaporMg as the rest of the case. And it’s completely integrated into the device. The hinge design is like that of the finest luxury car and when not in use it just fades away. No extra weight, no extra thickness, no separate add on. It’s integrated just like the software and the hardware integrated into Surface.
And then once you have this kickstand you can sit back and enjoy a truly hands free experience. You could go and just put the Surface on a table, lay back and watch a movie. And that’s really what entertainment should be about with the Surface. But you know Surface is designed to be mobile. We designed Surface to be rugged and move around but with VaporMg and Corning Gorilla Glass 2.0 you do not need to worry at all, but we know many people preferred to have some sort of cover. A cover that helps to just act like an easy on/off switch at least.
So Surface has a cover. We designed the cover to be an integral element of the PC. We built a magnetic connector into the device to hold it very securely.
So let me attach the cover, click — you heard that it’s solid — click, close the cover it’s integrated into the device. It’s made from a fine northwest pola? tech. Feels great in your hand like a book, it just fits there. And when we looked at the whole Surface on the cover, we challenged ourselves to do more. This cover is just 3 mm. Combined with Surface they are just over 12 millimeters that’s less than 0.5 inch. And we said why not do something with this Surface. Why shouldn’t we just take this Surface and make it a full multi touch keyboard.
This Touch Cover is not just a full multi touch keyboard, but it’s a modern track pad with left and right buttons. It even has the keys for the Windows 8 Metro Style UI. This keyboard combined with the kickstand form the hallmark of just hands on creativity. On average typing is twice as efficient as typing on glass. And it’s certainly more comfortable. Now of course the innovative on screen keyboard in Windows is still there and you can mix and match. The choice is really going to be yours. Just put them on the table and you’ve got a great stand.
Let me go over here and show you a different Surface. This Surface is connected to external HDMI. That’s built into the device. I’m going to go here and now I’ve got the Touch Cover connected. Now with front and rear facing cameras on this device, I can record videos. I’m going to start the camera application. So now I can go here and I could tilt this around and angle it, so I could see it. This camera is angled at 22 degrees, but angling at 22 degrees everybody at the table their head is perfectly framed into the picture or when I’m sitting at the seat, I can do a Skype call and I am perfectly framed. But this device also has Windows on it or Office on it. So I go into the desktop and I see here is Word running.
Now what is really neat, as I could also have using the multitasking capabilities I could dark the camera out there and now I can record a video or a interview and take notes, I could record my self and read from my notes. And that integration is really cool, in fact I could even use the USB port and plug in an external speaker and microphone even though it has dual array mics and dual speakers built in, and I could get super high quality recording. And so that’s a quick look at Surface.
Now there is so much more to show you today. Now imagine if you will that we took all of those capabilities of Surface and we build them so that you could use all the applications that you’re familiar with. You could use Photoshop or you could use other applications. Those applications would be built using the latest of the Intel Core Processor. Now that in addition to the Surface that we’re releasing today for Windows RT, we also have a Surface that’s designed with these latest Intel processors. So, in addition to working on the NVIDIA ARM processor we’re also working with on a Surface for Windows 8 Professional. I would like to introduce Mike Angiulo now, who’s going to come up on stage and show us a little bit of the next generation of Surface.
Mike Angiulo
[corporate vice president of Windows Planning, Hardware and PC Ecosystem]Thank you very much Steven. I’m proud to introduce you to another member of the Surface family. This is Surface for Windows 8 Pro. The Windows ecosystem has always been about choice. And for the millions of professional desktop users out there, people who use their PC everyday to design and to create things, this is a great choice for you. It shares the same design principles that Steven was talking about. It’s a stage for Windows. It shows the same pride in craftsmanship. It’s less than 2 pounds and less than 14 millimeters, it’s a full PC.
Now this also has a ClearType display. Steven’s PC had a ClearType HD. This is a ClearType full HD display, and what that means is three things. It’s a combination of a very specific pixel geometry, rendering and an optical bonding process that together create the effect that your eye can’t distinguish between the individual pixels at normal viewing distances, in this case 17 inches, less than ARMs length.
This ClearType display also reduces Z-height [alternate term for X-height] and conserves battery power. It has some of the other high performance features you saw too. It’s got that 2×2 antenna technology. This is the first in tablets. It has dual high performance antennas and receivers so that you get the best Wi-Fi performance possible no matter how you hold it. It also has a chassis that’s build out of that same durable and elegant VaporMg that enables features like the 0.7 millimeter thin kick stand less than a millimeter. It’s got the same compatible accessory spine that Steven had, so if you take a Touch Cover like he had, it just clicks in, it clicks in the same. It has that same design and feeling because the entire Surface family of products was designed together. Even close like this, this is still less than 17 millimeters, this PC has specs that rival those of the finest Ultrabooks that have ever been announced. And it delivers the power and the flexibility that you would expect of a high end PC. This PC is powered by Intel’s third generation Core i5 processor, the Ivy Bridge processor.
This is their 22 nanometer process that results in a CPU that’s faster, a GPU that has double the 3D graphics throughput, all while using less power than today’s Core i5s. With that power comes a unique design challenge, how do you design a PC that you might be holding in any different way or have a cover in the front and the back to integrate active cooling. There is no obvious place to put a vent, so here is our solution. This is called perimeter venting. You see this groove that goes all the way around the outside of the case. There is a good shot of it up on the screen. This allows air to be uniformly distributed across the entire PC when necessary in a way, that you never block it with your hands. In fact you never even feel it, which makes the PC really comfortable to hold which is really helpful in doing things like flipping back your keyboard and taking notes with digital ink.
Surface for Windows 8 Pro supports digital inking. Windows apps of all kinds can support inking. So here what I’ve done is, I can go back for the desktop and show you what I launched. I launched the Windows Reader and this is a PDF file of one of Steven’s blog posts. So you could see I can pan and zoom. What I can really do here is I can come and I could do ink. I’m going to come and say this is great.
Now what you’ll notice when I ink and I zoom in, as I zoom in that ink stay smooth. That’s because it’s being sampled at 600 GPI, that sub-pixel accuracy for ink. What that does is that keeps your hand writing very smooth and hopefully yours is a little better than mine.
One of the neat things about this too is, as I’m inking from here I can see the tip of the pen almost feels like it’s writing exactly on the screen. Since this screen is optically bonded, we eliminated the layers in between the thin covered glass in the screen. So it feels like you’re inking write on the page. The distance between the stylus and where I see the ink is only 0.7 millimeters. That’s the thinnest and closest distance of any tablet PC, any inking tablet ever.
Now one of the other things that’s going on here is as I am moving my hand, you see the page is not moving underneath my hand. That’s because Windows has palm block technology. This Surface has two digitizers. It has one for touch and a separate one for digital ink.
And what happens is as when I bring the pen close to the screen, Windows sees the proximity of the pen, and stops taking touch input. So my hand doesn’t mess up what I’m waiting. And when I’m done with the pen, you can see the little magnetic charging connector there. It just clicks in. So that’s one of the cool things on Surface for Windows 8 Pro and inking.
The apps that I’d be showing you, they look really great in the native resolution of the screen, the 1080 resolution. But if you want to unlock the highest possible resolutions that Ivy Bridge supports. Even higher resolutions that are possible on via HDMI out. We have DisplayPort. So now with DisplayPort, I can take this PC. I can docket and I basically have a full professional workstation with the power of a desktop PC.
I have one here that’s plugged in and synced up to the show monitor and this kind of a PC is powerful enough to run big applications. Applications like Photoshop, Autodesks, Solidworks, enterprise applications that require a TPM [Trusted Platform Module] chip. In this case, I’m going to copy some higher res photos on to the PC and edit them in Adobe’s Lightroom. So on copying on to the desktop and what you’ll see here, this is the five-second copy. That’s a whole gigabyte. That’s a whole gigabyte of pictures. They just copied in five seconds.
Surface has support for really fast USB 3.0 and the new USB SuperSpeed drives, a gigabyte file copy in five seconds is five times faster than USB 2.0, which makes sense with this PC because they will be using it to do big jobs whether you’re editing big photos like this, and – or you’re dealing with big video files or you’re doing in Steven’s case a big job might be typing a super-long blog-post that you may have read. Surface is up for the tasks.
Now let’s say you are in fact doing one of those big typing jobs. You’ve seen already, Steven talked a little bit about Touch Cover and the improvements it makes for typing. Let’s say you’re really fast touch typist or maybe you just prefer the feel of tactile keys.
Well, we’ve got another Surface choice for you. This is Surface Type Cover. It shares the same full-pitch layout as Touch Cover. But what we’ve done is we’ve taken a key switch that has a 1.5-millimeter travel and we built it into the thinnest possible package. So you can touch type – I can touch type on this as fast as I can touch type on any keyboard. Fully compatible with Windows; you see the shortcut keys here. It has a full modern trackpad with clicking buttons and this completes the Surface family of products. I’d like to pull all the Surface family together, all at one point.
Panos, would you join us with the colors of Touch Cover Surface for Windows RT, Surface for Windows 8 Pro and a handful of the Touch Cover colors that we’re going to have it launched. That’s the complete Surface family.
Thanks Steven. Now that’s how we feel to in Panos especially, Panos Panay is the leader of the team that created Surface and has some great stories in some more detail about the product and how it came to be. It’s all yours.
Panos Panay
[General Manager, Microsoft Surface] Thank you.
Super cool – super cool. Thank you. Thank you for having me. I’m unbelievably humbled right now and flattered to be up here. But truthfully I’m recognizing an entire team that’s back in Redmond right now waiting to see your blog posts, to see what you have to say. We have a team full of designers, development engineers, manufacturing engineers, hardware testers, all working on these products right now as we speak.
Before I get into what I’m going to talk about today, I’m just going to show you a little [bit more about the design,] …
#3 excerpt:
Microsoft Announces Surface: New Family of PCs for Windows [Microsoft press release, June 18, 2012]: the 1st image was provided ny Microsoft, the next two are from the Microsoft provided video record
Advances in Industrial Design
Conceived, designed and engineered entirely by Microsoft employees, and building on the company’s 30-year history manufacturing hardware, Surface represents a unique vision for the seamless expression of entertainment and creativity. Extensive investment in industrial design and real user experience includes the following highlights:
- Software takes center stage: Surface sports a full-sized USB port and a 16:9 aspect ratio – the industry standard for HD. It has edges angled at 22 degrees, a natural position for the PC at rest or in active use, letting the hardware fade into the background and the software stand out.
- VaporMg: The casing of Surface is created using a unique approach called VaporMg (pronounced Vapor-Mag), a combination of material selection and process to mold metal and deposit particles that creates a finish akin to a luxury watch. Starting with magnesium, parts can be molded as thin as .65 mm, thinner than the typical credit card, to create a product that is thin, light and rigid/strong.
- Integrated Kickstand: The unique VaporMg approach also enables a built-in kickstand that lets you transition Surface from active use to passive consumption – watching a movie or even using the HD front- or rear-facing video cameras. The kickstand is there when needed, and disappears when not in use, with no extra weight or thickness.
- Touch Cover: The 3 mm Touch Cover represents a step forward in human-computer interface. Using a unique pressure-sensitive technology, Touch Cover senses keystrokes as gestures, enabling you to touch type significantly faster than with an on-screen keyboard. It will be available in a selection of vibrant colors. Touch Cover clicks into Surface via a built-in magnetic connector, forming a natural spine like you find on a book, and works as a protective cover. You can also click in a 5 mm-thin Type Cover that adds moving keys for a more traditional typing feel.
The product design part of the event keynote:
Panos Panay
[General Manager, Microsoft Surface]… [I’m just going to] show you a little bit more about the design, show you a little bit more about the culture of how these products were build. So I think it might be interesting for you to hear that. I really want to share with you more of our team. So just watch this video really quick and I’ll be right back.
[Video Playback]
You’re going to get to meet a lot of the people you just saw on the video in just a few minutes. They’re actually backstage right now, preparing to show you more details of the product and give you a few minutes to put your hands on it, talk a little bit about the design.
Let me start by doing that to just give you a quick preview of what you might see backstage in just a few minutes. You’ve heard Steven and Mike both said this was build as the stage for Windows 8. That was part of our core vision for the product. It is very important for us that we had the hardware fade to the background for this product. It was important, so the Windows software could rise to the Surface. It gives you the best experience possible. When the hardware fades away and what comes to the Surface is that entertainment PC one when you’re using the device. Note the chamfered angles on the side of this product either chamfered at 22 degrees. That’s two things. One, it’s a physical manifestation of the actual stage itself. You can see as it falls away, just as we intended for the hardware to do. But two, it actually sits perfectly comfortable in your hands.
And let me call it by something. I’d say perfectly a lot. I’d say perfect a lot. As part of our team culture, what was really important for us as we had so many parts of the design that had to be in detail and be simple and be right that we always tried for perfection on every sub-component of this product, it includes this chamfered angle.
What it does is, it sits in your hand very comfortably, in a way that when you hold it, it feels like, it’s feels airy. Most importantly, you can use it all day in comfort. It’s really important when you talk about the hardware fading to the background that the hardware is not in your way to accomplish what you want to do. It’s meant to move you forward, which you think this product does.
Now when we talk about hardware fading to that back, another thing that’s super important is a seamless lines throughout the product. When you look at this product, you’ll see lines going throughout it, every line calculated, every line built, formed perfectly on the device.
But there is one challenge. Our vision for the product beyond being a stage for Windows was also that we had to bring creativity and productivity to folks such as yourselves.
The opportunity to transform this device well, to transition it to the state of getting things done. Putting this kickstand in the product, flies right in the face seamless lines and getting it perfect. But we really spent a lot of time here. We knew that if we do not get the kickstand perfect, this device would not work. We could not take any chances. Take a look at the three hinges that you see within this device. This is a really simple example of the details of the product. These are three custom-made hinges, mind you there are over 200 custom parts built from the inside out of this product to make it come to life.
But these hinges, they respect just as Steven told you. They respect to feel and sound like a high-end car door. When you close the device, the kickstand just goes away. It’s not in your way. When you needed the device, it’s there, just in time. You want to get something done, just open it and it feels great.
The spec we created was around sound. We iterated over and over again in our anechoic chamber. This is a critical point. We’ve really wanted to get the sound rights. So you get that – this full feeling, that emotional attachment to your product when you open this kickstand and close it. It makes it yours, it goes away when you don’t need it and it’s there when you do.
Now, we talked about VaporMg a few times. Now let me bring VaporMg to life just a little bit here. So you can understand a little bit more about what we did. VaporMg essentially becomes what lets us, get our product design and create life out of it. You can see the break up behind me, let me just explain a few things that we have going on.
I’m holding up my room key, it feels weird to hold at my room key. But if you look at this quickly, what you’ll see is 0.77 millimeters of thickness. This is an important point. If you can’t see it, that’s all right, same as a credit card, pull it out, your credit cards likely somewhere between 0.75 or 0.85 millimeters thick. It’s just a illustrated point. VaporMg is a process where we start with an ingot of magnesium and we melt it down to a molten state. Within injection mold the magnesium, there are some tools and we’re able to actually mold the intricate details that are needed for Surface. We mold down to 0.65 millimeters of thickness in any given part. 0.75 … [he means the credit card thinkness just mentioned], we mold to 0.65, this is important to understand, because for us to get to the design we needed for this product, to get the kick stand, integrated seamlessly and hold this line throughout the product we had to be able to mold to those tolerances.
Every micron matters within Microsoft Surface. we’ve actually stacked up every part from designing from the inside out, so tightly in the product and so cleanly that even if you stuck a piece of tape in the middle of the device, it would bulge, it would bulge out. That tells you how strong this product is, how much strength comes with it, how light it feels in your hands, all those parts play into each other.
The best part about VaporMg is not just that we can mold a 0.65 and get the intricate details like the 0.65 millimeters angles that go around the product this radial. The best part is the smoothness of the finish that comes out of the tools. After approximately 152 steps to get the VaporMg looking just like you see now, you find that the Surface finish on this product and as Mike says, bright in craftsmanship is perfect, it’s seamless. It screens watch quality finish and when you put it in your hands, it feels elegant, when you touch it, you’re going to want to hold it, I promise you.
Now I’m proud of VaporMg and I’m proud of the team for the product that they’ve done, but nothing, nothing stirs me more, nothing gets me more excited than Touch Cover. I really want to walk you through Touch Cover for just a few moments. This is an important technology that came out of our group. I’m going to walk you through it in two ways, the first way is through the experience and the second way I’m going to talk about is the technology.
Let’s do the experience first, we explained you what we try to do with Touch Cover from the get go, you notice I’m going to connect it now to my blue Touch Cover. So I just click it in, as you would expect. The Surface turns blue along with my Touch Cover and you have a beautiful integration of hardware and software. My Surface knows what is connected to it. I can now bring to life the vision that is Touch Cover for this product. The vision that lets you produce content when you want it, how you want it as fast as you’ve always done it, that’s what this product was designed for.
Let me give you one more second on this, on a little bit of the experience. The thing that was so critical for us in creating Touch Cover was that it had to be 3 millimeters thin. This essentially is at odds of any other keyboard you’ve used and still have a great typing experience. It also had to be a cover you wanted to connect, something you always had with you, something that gave you confidence just like the kick stand to bring this product to life.
We designed flex magnets in this product, that’s a combination of alignment in clamping magnets. You could actually never miss connecting this device, you can’t miss, we force you to not miss. We do that to give you confidence. You close it, it feels like a book, we design this organically like a book; we wanted it to feel just like that. What has more covers on it than books themselves? This spine feels like a book. When you put it in your hand and you walk away with your product, you’ll hold it like a book. When you carry it against your books, it will feel like it’s another book, it’s just light enough and it feels just perfect.
Now that said, I think you’re going to fall in love with Touch Cover. I know I have. I mean I’m seriously in love with it outside of my wife, Touch Cover is number two. It’s very important to me. Now, I never want to take Touch Cover off, and I’d argue that you don’t need to and you never have to.
You saw Mike move his Touch Cover to the back. Now when he did that I’m sure every single one of you thought like wait a minute, how do you move it to the back? Well, Touch Cover is pretty smart; it has an accelerometer built into it. The moment you fold it back, we know you fold it back, we know when you’re not using it and it’s turned off for you.
So you never have to take it off and underneath your fingertips, it feels great. So now you’ve got a comfortable device with Touch Cover that’s yours, it’s personalized to you. You saw the beautiful colors that we have coming to market and essentially what’s brought to you is an experience like none other with Touch Cover and Surface together.
Now I showed you the experience, but I wanted to show you the technology, because it really is important that you understand it and quite frankly, we have a bit of a mad scientist, who many of you know, named Stevie Bathiche. Stevie actually invented Touch Cover, the fact that we have 30 years of input experience using mice and 15 years creating keyboards, we really understand how to create a great typing experience. We also knew that if we brought you Touch Cover, and Touch Cover wasn’t any good, boy, what a breaking moment. But we’ve actually evolved this technology to a point through Stevie and his work to come to a place where we’ve brought you an experience that’s amazing at typing. There’s actually seven layers squeezed in, pressed right into Touch Cover to keep it 3 millimeters thin. Now that’s super thin, but critical for you to have a great experience when folding it back.
Let me explain to you how the technology works just ever so slightly and quickly. So what you’re going to see is I’m going to put my hands down on this machine here and, what you’re seeing is this is Surface for Windows RT, and my hands are down on Touch Cover. You’ll notice that my hands are laying flat on Touch Cover right now yet nothing is happening. If this was in fact a capacitive screen or the phone you might have in your pocket or some other device you might have, the keyboard would take up off the screen and you put your fingers down and it would look something like that.
Now that’s me actually pressing on Touch Cover, and it knows the grams of force coming off my fingertips, on to Touch Cover. Why is this critical? When you type in touch type speed, you have to find your home position and rest your hands. To do that, your keyboard can’t fire when you put your hands down, it’s comfortable, you can rest your hands and note as I put pressure on the J key, how the pressure goes up as I push harder and as I release, the pressure comes off.
It’s actually measuring every gram of force coming off my fingertips and as I start to type, it knows how many keys I’ve hit. This keyboard actually measures 10 times faster in scanning from a keyboard matrix than any keyboard, guarantee that you use today. It is super fast and brings great, great opportunity for you to be productive and get stuff done.
Obviously, I have a lot of pride in this product. I hope you’ll love it. I can’t wait for you to get your hands on it back there, and I really mean that. Steven, thanks for having me up here today.
Steven Sinofsky
That was a moment for our team for sure. I do want to talk a little bit about some availability and pricing information and things like that I know people want to know. Surface for Windows RT, I still say that there will be much more information available on the web and available shortly. So Surface for Windows RT will be available in both a 32 and a 64-gigabyte model and will be priced like comparable tablets that are based on ARM. Surface for Windows 8 Professional will come in 64-gigabyte and 128-gigabyte storage models and will have a retail price comparable with competitive Ultrabook-class PCs. Additional specifics on pricing and packaging will be announced as we get closer to retail availability.
Now of course, retail availability for the Surface PCs will be around the time of – for the Windows RT PC, will be at the time of the Windows 8 general availability and for Windows 8 Pro about three months later. Surface will be available through the Microsoft’s physical stores here in the U.S. and will be available through the select online outlets of the Microsoft store as well.
So welcome everybody to Surface. I just want to invite Steve Ballmer back up on stage one more time and thank you, thank you very much.
Steve Ballmer
I want to thank Steven and Mike and Panos and their team. This has been an unbelievable journey. We’ve invested significantly as you can see in talent, in time, in capital to bring the Surface to market. I was asked in the last few days here why now, why now? We took the time to really get Surface in Windows 8 right to do something that was really different and really special.
We’re very proud; very, very proud of the Surface just like we’re very proud of Windows 8. Because of Windows 8, because of Windows 8 the Surface is a PC, the Surface is a tablet, and the Surface is something new that we think people will absolutely love. We really want those of you here to have a chance to see and touch the Surface and talk with some of the people who are involved in designing the product.
We have several stations set up next-door where you can see the work that went into the creation of the Surface, and we hope you’ll stay and join us for that. Today has been the fun for us to put on for you very, very exciting and I want to thank you all for being part of today’s event. Thanks.
The justification part of the event keynote (was the general introduction, i.e. the first part of the event): i.e. how and why Microsoft decades long hardware innovation history has now been expanded by PC/tablet level innovation, why after Windows 8 innovation Microsoft needed a matching innovation in hardware as well?
Steve Ballmer
Well, good afternoon and welcome, I certainly want to thank everybody for joining us for today’s event. The past several years have seen great change in the industry and great innovations coming from Microsoft. We’ve helped usher in the new era of cloud computing, we’ve embraced mobility, we are redefining communications and attempting to transform entertainment. In all that we have done Windows is the heart and soul of Microsoft from Windows PCs to Windows Servers to Windows Phones and Windows Azure. Windows is proven to be the most flexible general-purpose software ever created spurring on an ecosystem of unrivaled success.
When Microsoft was founded our vision was odd and broad: a computer on every desk and in every home. And while certainly we are optimists to the core Windows has exceeded even our most optimistic predictions. It now powers well over 1 billion PCs from desktops to laptops to ATMs to NASA workstations and more: in homes, in businesses, in schools and in governments literally around the world.
With Windows 8 we’ve re-imagined the Windows product. We re-imagine Windows from the chipset to the user experience, to power a new generation of PCs that enable new capabilities and new scenarios. We approached the Windows 8 product design in a forward-looking way. We designed Windows 8 for the world we know, in which most PCs are mobile and people want access to information and the ability to create content from anywhere anytime.
People want to do all of that without compromising the productivity that PCs are uniquely known for: from personal productivity applications, to technical applications, business software and literally millions of other applications that are written for Windows that work perfectly on Windows 8. We are incredibly gratified by the enthusiastic response to Windows 8 from our partners, our OEM partners, thousands of developers and literally millions of people consumers who’ve downloaded our previews.
Excitement is high with the new X86 and ARM SoC support. The new Metro User Interface and the new Store all getting very broad interest.
Today, we want to add another piece, another bit of excitement and another piece to that Windows 8 story.
At our foundation Bill Gates and Paul Allen made a bet, a bet on software, at the same time it was always clear that our unique view of what software could do would require us to push hardware sometimes in ways that even the makers of the hardware themselves had yet to envision. That’s the nature of the dynamic between hardware and software pushing each other and pulling each other forward. In fact, our number one revenue product actually the year I joined Microsoft 1980 was a hardware product, something known as the SoftCard. Let’s just take a little bit of a look back at the role of hardware at Microsoft.
[Video Playback]
We believe that any intersection between human and machine can be made better when all aspects of the experience hardware and software are considered in working together. Just let’s take the mouse as an example.
To be successful Windows 1.0 really needed a mouse so we built one. Early reviews of mice were not very positive as people struggled to understand the real value. In fact actually it was so new the Canadian Customs quarantined the Microsoft mouse at the border for four weeks thinking that it was alive.
Our most successful hardware product has been the Xbox and with Kinect we’ve created a whole new user experience. And now developers are pushing Kinect, viewing more exciting and even cooler things for both the game console and for Windows PCs. This combination of hardware, software and peripherals in the Xbox case work together to deliver an absolutely amazing experience.
We see that sort of combination working also today in our PC ecosystem. We believe in the strength of that ecosystem, of software and hardware companies that work together to deliver selection and choice that makes your Windows experience uniquely your own. Those partnerships are essential to the re-imagination of Windows. We’ve worked with the component companies, Intel, AMD, NVIDIA, Qualcomm and Texas Instruments.
Of course the ultimate landing point of this PC experience is through our partnerships with OEMs: HP, Dell, Asus, Acer, Samsung, Sony, Lenovo, Toshiba and many, many more. They will deliver more PCs to market in the year 2013 than in any previous year. IDC estimates that number at over 375 million Windows PCs. That will ensure that software developers and content creators have a larger number of new systems to target with their Windows 8 applications than any other non-phone platform.
However, with Windows 8 we did not want to leave any scene uncovered. Much like Windows 1.0 needed the mouse to complete the experience, we wanted to give Windows 8 its own companion hardware innovation. What is this innovation? It’s something new, it’s something different, it’s a whole new family of computing devices from Microsoft.
[Video Playback]
This is the new Microsoft Surface. It embodies the notion of hardware and software really pushing each other. People do want to create and consume, they want to work and they want to play, they want to be on their couch, they want to be at their desk and they want to be on the go. Surface fulfills that dream. It is a tool to surface your passion, to surface your ideas, to surface your creativity and to surface your enjoyment. I really want you to take the time today to get to know Microsoft Surface. So let’s now learn more from Steven Sinofsky and the Microsoft Surface team.
Steven Sinofsky
Just as we’ve re-imagined Windows we also have a vision for re-imagining the tablet.
We see a tablet that is designed the way that Windows has been designed. We see a tablet that represents a unique vision with a seamless expression of entertainment and creativity. A tablet that works and plays the way that you want to, a tablet that’s a great PC, a PC that’s a great tablet, a new type of computing, Surface.
Surface is a stage for Windows. Surface is designed for the software experience to take it, have it take centre stage. Surface is super thin at 9.3 millimeters. It’s just thin enough for this full size USB port for peripherals or just charging your phone while you are at the hotel. The edges are bevelled away at 22 degrees, so the PC itself fades into the background. It feels natural in your hands.
Surface is the first PC with a full magnesium case. Through unique process the liquid metal is formed into an ultra rigid, yet ultra light frame. It is incredibly in strong and it’s airy at under 1.5 pounds, just 676 grams, and it’s finely balanced. We didn’t stop there, the case is one of a kind. It’s made from a physical vapor deposition process. It results in a permanent scratch and wear resistance for Surface. This VaporMg case is a first of a kind, and it accentuates the unique feel of Surface.
Surface is of course great for entertainment. It has access to all of the Windows apps for music, for video, for Xbox and gaming. We can see here I’m running Internet Explorer. I can browse smoothly, use see great pages using ClearType and have a great experience just with all the – with browsing. It’s 10.6 inch optically bonded, wide screen display, is custom designed for Surface. And of course people play games. I can go and play any of the interesting games that are on – in the Windows Store and I can use Surface for using all the sensors that are within Windows as well. Surface works for all of those games.
Movies and entertainment look great as well. Excuse me just a second. Surface looks great for entertainment as well. In fact I’m going to show here for the first time a very exciting new application. This is the Netflix application designed specifically for Windows 8. Now with the wide screen you get 30% more viewing area and no banding or letter boxing like you traditionally see.
I’m happy to show this new Netflix application … [, give you an early look how it’s designed specifically for Windows 8 with semantic zoom. And Netflix will have this ready at the Windows 8 launch. I can go here and start a movie and see it stream straight to my Surface PC. Just like you would expect.
Now to stream so well Surface needs great Wi-Fi. Surface is the first tablet to incorporate dual 2×2 MIMO antennas. That means it provides the very best Wi-Fi reception of any tablet today. Surface is incredibly great for Windows and for entertainment PC. And we are just getting started.] …
More information:
– Surface Website
– On-Demand Keynote: Microsoft Surface Event
– Broll: Product imagery of Microsoft Surface
– Broll: Images from Microsoft Surface Event
– Product & Event Images
– See it in Action
And remember this leading edge Microsoft Surface family, leading edge even against Apple’s market leading offerings, so this product is definitely just the tip of the iceberg. Consider this Channel 4 report which is showing the kind of the future which could come from Microsoft as seen back to the beginning of last year:
– Touching, waving at and talking to the future with Microsoft [Channel 4 News YouTube channel, Feb 8, 2011]
(Note towards the end of the video, Panos Panay to appear as simply from Microsoft Surface.) Additional infomation:
– Benjamin Cohen, the reporter in the video, had this detailed blog post about that visit
– Steve Clayton, the Microsoft’s not that long ago initiated, ‘Next at Microsoft’ storyteller, had also this detailed blog post about that visit
Note that Microsoft shares started to raise already last Friday (obviously based on expectation when the invitations to a ‘mistery event’ were sent out). Nevertheless from $29.34 to this Tuesday’s closing price of $30.71 that was only a 1% growth. Interestingly during the same period Apple’s share price had a 1% growth as well, although Apple made its series of announcements a week earlier, on Monday last week (June 11th, 2012):
– Apple Introduces All New MacBook Pro with Retina Display
– Apple Updates MacBook Air and Current Generation MacBook Pro with Latest Processors and New Graphics
– Mountain Lion Available in July From Mac App Store
– Apple Previews iOS 6 With All New Maps, Siri Features, Facebook Integration, Shared Photo Streams & New Passbook App
which resulted in 0.5% growth only.
So the stock market evaluated the Microsoft Surface against the above Apple introductions, and found that on equal level from business growth perspective, although Apple’s closing price yesterday was $587.31, i.e. 19x higher. In terms of market capitalisation Microsoft remains on the same 47% of Apple’s, so from business competition point of view the announcement of Microsoft Surface is not changing the positions as far as the opinion of the overall business world is concerned. INTERESTING!
Meanwhile the earlier Microsoft Surface product has been renamed as Microsoft PixelSense in order to avoid confusion:
About Microsoft PixelSense [Microsoft page for the press on the PixelSense microsite, June 18, 2012]
The Samsung SUR40 with Microsoft PixelSense is an innovative product that responds to touch, natural hand gestures and real world objects placed on the display, providing effortless interaction with information and digital content in a simple and intuitive way. With a large, 360-degree, 4-inch thin horizontal user interface, the Samsung SUR40 offers a unique gathering place where multiple users can collaboratively and simultaneously interact with content and each other. In addition, the SUR40 provides businesses with unique value in delivering information and services in a more friendly way allowing better engagement with their customers. The Samsung SUR40 with Microsoft PixelSense is targeted for companies across a variety of industries including retail, hospitality, health care, and public sector.
The Samsung SUR40 with Microsoft PixelSense is a major advancement in computing that moves beyond the traditional user interface to a more natural way of interacting with information. The four key attributes that make this experience unique are:
Multiuser experience.The horizontal form factor makes it easy for several people to gather together, providing a collaborative, face-to-face computing experience.
Massive multitouch contact. The Samsung SUR40 with Microsoft PixelSense recognizes many points of contact simultaneously, not just from one finger, as with a typical touch screen, but up to dozens and dozens of items at once.
Direct interaction.Users can actually “grab” digital information with their hands and interact with content through touch and gesture, without the use of a mouse or keyboard.
Object recognition. Users can place physical objects on the display to trigger different types of digital responses, including the transfer of digital content.
At CES 2011, Microsoft unveiled the designed for touch experience featuring Microsoft PixelSense technology, which gives LCD panels the power to see without the use of cameras.
This experience comes to life in the Samsung SUR40 with Microsoft PixelSense, which incorporates significant technological advancements designed to enhance the user experience.
The Samsung SUR40 with Microsoft PixelSense features key hardware and software technology advancements informed by feedback from users around the world.
Microsoft PixelSense™.Microsoft PixelSense allows a display to recognize fingers, hands, and objects placed on the screen, enabling vision-based interaction without the use of cameras. The individual pixels in the display see what’s touching the screen and that information is immediately processed and interpreted.
PixelSense technologydelivers an innovative user experience built on the principles of direct interaction using touch and objects. The Microsoft Surface 2.0 SDK allows application developers to take advantage of capabilities of PixelSense technology.
Thin form factor with multiple configuration options.The Samsung SUR40 is four inches thin, which makes it easy to use as a table, hang on the wall with the VESA mount, or embed in walls or custom enclosures. There are standard leg supports available or customers can design and attach their own leg supports.
High definition large format display. The 40-inch, stunning high-definition screen (1920 x 1080 resolution) enables enhanced multiuser and multitouch experiences.
Microsoft PixelSense activities are available on the Microsoft PixelSense blog and Microsoft PixelSense on Twitter.
For more information, press only: PixelSense PR team
Also these two videos appeared on a new Microsoft® PixelSense™ YouTube channel [June 18, 2012]:
The Power of Microsoft® PixelSense™
Samsung SUR40 with Microsoft® PixelSense™
Now some first reactions from the event attendees:
Microsoft Surface: a closer look [TheVerge YouTube channel, June 18, 2012]
See also this article: Microsoft Surface with Windows RT hands-on pictures and video [Joshua Topolsky from The Verge, June 18, 2012]
Microsoft Surface tablet demo June 18, 2012 Event in SF [SlashGear YouTube channel, June 18, 2012]
See also these articles, same date, on SlashGear (the first ones are kind of liveblogging):
– Microsoft Surface Tablet Hands-on by Vincent Nguyen
– Microsoft Surface re-introduced as a handheld tablet by Chris Burns
– Microsoft Surface cover doubles as built-in keyboard by Cory Gunther
– Microsoft Surface for Windows 8 Pro revealed by Chris Burns:
This tablet introduced its own “Perimeter Venting” so as not to get too hot [in fact to solve the problem of cooling with a tablet which can be used in both portrait and landscape modes], works with Pen input (with digital ink, explained in a different post), and has a display that’s just 0.7mm from the glass that covers it. The Microsoft Surface for Windows 8 Pro has two digitizers, one for ink, one for touch, and has a bit of magnetization for its pen so no holes or clips are needed.
– Microsoft Surface to feature digital ink stylus support by Cory Gunther
At the event live they said it best by stating, “This surface has two digitizers. One for touch, one for digital ink.” All stylus or pen input is converted into digital ink and the new Surface tablet is extremely responsive and accurate.
The distance between the screen (digitizer) and the stylus is only .7mm thick, and allows for it to be highly accurate, making you feel like the ballpoint of a pen is actually writing on the “surface”. Surface will see the proximity of a stylus and stop recognizing hand inputs.
– Microsoft Surface Windows RT confirmed with NVIDIA’s Tegra processor by Cory Gunther
NVIDIA has just issued a rather short note confirming that their Tegra processor will be under the hood and powering the smooth and fluid Windows 8 RT model. They didn’t specify which Tegra processor as expected, but we are speculating it will be the quad-core Tegra 3 KAI platform, or the Tegra 3+ that was detailed as coming soon [… an upgraded Tegra 3 called T3+, with code-names Wayne and Grey splitting off in the third quarter of 2012 with LTE. Grey specifically will have access to LTE data speeds, with Tegra and Icera hardware being part of this sector for NVIDIA] in a lot more than just Android devices.
Microsoft Surface Touch Cover vs Type Cover hands-on by Chris Burns
These keyboards bring on a fair stab at what 3rd party manufacturers have been attempting for the iPad and a host of Android tablets now for several years. The keyboards on both units aren’t going to bring you a perfect replacement for a notebook computer if you’re attempting to match the laptop-bit of the equation, but if you’re the sort of person to work on a desk, you might be in business.
Microsoft Surface could debut MagSafe-data hybrid hook-up by Chris Davies
The four-pin port is on the right lower edge of the new tablets, and seemingly matches up with the MagSafe-like connector detailed in a patent application from the company. If so, that could mean a single hook-up for recharging the Surface and synchronizing it with other devices.
Microsoft’s patent application followed in the footsteps of Apple’s magnetic charger system – which allows the cord to break away easily if someone trips over it, rather than yanking your laptop off the desk – but added in a data connection. With just one port, the Surface could be hooked up to both a charger and other external hardware, with an optical data link used for maximum speed potential.
…
The potential for such a connection is vast. Microsoft has been coy about external device support for Surface, only mentioning the USB and video-output ports, but with this proprietary port it could be used with a docking station to add in an optical drive, wired network connection and more.
We’ve been waiting for just such a strategy from Apple for some time, and indeed the Cupertino company has an optical data MagSafe patent application of its own. More on Microsoft Surface in our hands-on here.
Microsoft Surface Tablet: Hands-on [laptopmag YouTube channel, June 18, 2012]
See also these articles:
– Microsoft Surface Tablet Hands-on: The Future of Windows is Here [Video] [Michael A. Prospero from LAPTOP Magazine, June 18, 2012]
– iPad vs Microsoft Surface: Tablet Specs Compared [Kenneth Butler from LAPTOP Magazine, June 18, 2012] (data higlights are mine to denote the essential differences)
Device
iPad 3
Surface (Windows RT)
Surface (Windows Pro)
Price
$399
TBA
TBA
CPU
Apple A5X dual-core
Nvidia Tegra 3 [simply Tegra]
Intel Core i5
OS
iOS 5
Windows 8 RT
Windows 8 Pro
Display
9.7 inches
(1024 x 768)10.6 inches
(Resolution unknown)10.6 inches
(Resolution unknown)Size
(inches)9.5 x 7.31 x 0.37
.37 inches thick
.53 inches thick
Weight (pounds)
1.44
1.49
1.99
Storage
(Built-In)16GB, 32GB,
64GB32GB, 64GB
64GB, 128GB
Ports
10-pin
microSD, USB 2.0, Micro HD Video, 2×2 MiMO Antenne
microSDXC, USB 3.0, Mini DisplayPort, 2×2 MiMO Antenae
Microsoft to Unveil a New Tablet – Good or Bad Idea? [The Wall Street Journal YouTube channel, June 18, 2012]
See also this article: Microsoft Unveils Surface Tablet to Rival iPad [Shira Ovide from The Wall Street Journal, June 18, 2012]
… Al Hilwa, an analyst at IDC, said the combination of PC and tablet features makes surface a “true converged” device. “A Swiss Army knife of a tablet?” …
The computer makers‘ business is dependent on Microsoft, so they may not express annoyance publicly at Microsoft’s trading on the hardware makers’ turf. But at least some hardware executives are fuming privatelyat Microsoft’s decision.
Microsoft’s move to make its own tablet “comes with consequences, which is complicating choices for consumers and complicating relations with third-party manufacturers,” said Sarah Rotman Epps, an analyst with Forrester Research Inc.
Microsoft “Surface” Tablet Announced, Powered by Windows 8 [Eric Savitz for ForbesVideo YouTube channel, June 18, 2012]
See also these articles:
– Microsoft: Live From Hollywood! Introducing Microsoft Surface Tablet (Updated) [Eric Savitz from Forbes, June 18, 2012]: a live blog of the event
– Microsoft Announces Surface, Its New Windows 8 Tablet [Kelly Clay from Forbes, June 18, 2012]
…
As no one does keyboards better than Microsoft, yet another keyboard is also available for Surface that features a full trackpad with clicking buttons. Though Surface is slightly heavier than the iPad and has 25% less battery life (31.5 Watt hours compared to the iPad’s 42.5 Watt hours), Surface is truly one of the most powerful and lightweight mobile PCs we have seen.
It’s clear that Surface is designed for current Windows users, and according to NetMarketshare, Windows XP, Vista, and 7 combine for 93% of all desktops. For these users – especially those in the corporate environment – there is a hesitation to switch to another platform, even just for mobile use. As a result, Surface could be a game-changer in the tablet industry. Not only does it feature key capabilities that Apple has yet to ever integrate (such as a keyboard), but Surface will undoubtedly make it easier for curent Windows users to transition from home to office and in-between. While a price has yet to be set, it’s expected to be extremely competitive compared to other tablets, ensuring that Surface is a device that many current Windows users will want to own.
Other notable first reports:
1. WIRED magazine [June 18, 2012]:
– Liveblog: Meet ‘Surface,’ Microsoft’s New Windows 8 Tablet
– Microsoft May Be Late to Tablet Fight, But Has the Cash to Keep Sparring
– Microsoft Dives Head-First Into Mobile Hardware With Two 10.6-Inch Tablets
…
Surface is much, much more than a new tablet platform. It’s also Microsoft’s first fully branded computing device — an ambitious new development direction after years of making only simple computer peripherals. And Surface is also a challenge to every hardware partner in Microsoft’s OEM stable.
“Its a bold move on the part of Microsoft,” says Gartner analyst Michael Gartenberg. “This is a real change in strategy for them, and it’s certainly a vote of no confidence for their partners. This shows how high the stakes are. There is competitive pressure from Apple that is clearly a threat to their business. Steve Ballmer seemed to be channeling Steve Jobs on stage, saying hardware and software have to be designed to together.”
…
As for pricing, Microsoft isn’t saying, but Gartenberg weighs in:
“I’m guessing somewhere between $600 and $1000 — Microsoft was very vague. This the problem you encounter when you launch something so far ahead of delivery,” he said. “For a launch like this, it’s all about the details. Everything about this event, the mysterious invitations, the presentation — Microsoft is trying to be Apple. But the only company that has successfully been like Apple, is Apple.”
2. engadget [June 18, 2012]:
– Live from Microsoft’s mystery press conference in Los Angeles! by Dana Wollman
– Hands-on with Microsoft Surface for Windows RT, Touch Cover and Type Cover (update: video!) by Dana Wollman:
… (Microsoft has only said that the ARM chip is made by NVIDIA. No one ever said it’s a Tegra 3 SoC, but that is naturally our best bet.) …
Based on remarks by Steve Ballmer and others during the presentation, it sounds like a lot of thought went into the two keyboards, so we wouldn’t be surprised if a large focus group of touch typists were able to prove Redmond’s engineers right. But having played with both, we don’t imagine this being like settling in with a new laptop or Transformer-style dock. You might have to re-learn how to type (or at least teach your brain to fuhgeddaboutit and trust your fingers to land where they’re supposed to.) …
Even after some brief handling, we feel impressed, almost sobered by what Microsoft’s managed to produce after vowing to take the Windows 8 hardware-software package into its own hands. Surface for Windows RT is well-made, polished, durable and carefully engineered. And yes, that’s sobering news: Microsoft’s own OEM partners, everyone from ASUS to Acer to HP, should feel a tinge of defensiveness. If Redmond’s mission until now has been to showcase all the possible form factors for Windows 8, it may have just taken a step in the opposite direction by upstaging everybody else.
– Microsoft reveals its own Windows 8 tablet: meet the new Surface for Windows RT by Jon Fingas:
Not unlike Apple’s last two generations, there’s a magnetically attached cover, but it’s more than just a protector: here, it includes a full multi-touch keyboard and trackpad.
– Microsoft one ups other tablet ‘smart’ covers with Surface’s Touch Cover and Type Cover by Terrence O’Brien:
… right now we’re pretty enamored with Microsoft’s Touch Cover for the newly announced Surface. See, it works almost exactly like that other “smart” tablet shield, but this one actually earns it’s smart moniker. When you peel the plastic shroud back it turns into a fully functional keyboard and touchpad. Obviously, being a thin plastic sheet, the cover is relying on touch for key presses, not the actual depression of mechanical switches. …
Perhaps one of the more interesting features though, is their ability to force Win 8 to color coordinate with your chosen shade of folio. Click the blue Touch Cover on to the Surface and the background switches to a soothing shade azure. There’s even an accelerometer inside those 3mm-thin softer covers — which is an impressive feat of engineering. The Touch Covers can easily distinguish between you simply resting your hands on the keyboard and actually typing, which should help minimize accidental key presses.
– Microsoft announces Surface for Windows 8 Pro: Intel inside, optional pen input by Donald Melanson
– Microsoft Surface tablets: the differences between Windows RT and Windows 8 Pro models by Darren Murph
3. CNET [June 18, 2012]:
– Microsoft breaks tradition with Microsoft Surface tablets
– Surface touches the right keys, but not a complete picture
– Who is the Microsoft Surface for, exactly?
– Five key takeaways from Microsoft’s Surface event:
… 1. Don’t confuse this with the table thing [i.e. the old Surface now called Microsoft PixelSense]. … 2. This isn’t just aimed at the iPad and Android tablets [as it can work like a PC, complete with a full version of Windows]. … 3. This thing is high-tech. … 5. This is just the start [as Microsoft is positioning Surface as the beginning of a family]. …
– Why Microsoft built its own tablet — think Apple and Xbox
…
The tablet and ultraportable form factors are especially fertile ground in terms of growth and innovation. A recent Online Publishers Association studyfound that 31 percent of the U.S. Internet population (74.1 million users) own tablets, up from 12 percent in 2011. By 2013, the study projected that 47 percent of the U.S. Internet population (117.4 million users) would own tablets.
At this juncture, Google’s Android platform (including Amazon’s Kindle) and Apple’s iOS are splitting the market. Apple’s continuation of its firm grip on hardware and software integration is working exceedingly well, as evidenced by the company’s incredible financial success.
…
Google gives its Android platform to partners for free, which leads to some fragmentation and a fraction of the profits Apple is generating. Like Microsoft, Google plans to introduce its own branded tablet this month. Microsoft expects that it can generate some buzz and give Windows users a legitimate alternative to Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android, as well as incent its developer community to build native apps for its platform.
Note: In the above argumentation CNET relied on the released the same day “A Portrait of Today’s Tablet User – Wave II” U.S. findings from the Online Publishers Association (OPA), particularly the one represented on the following slide:
for which the accompanying OPA press release stated the following:
… Tablet adoption has significantly increased in the past year; 2012 saw 31% of the U.S. internet population owning tablets (74.1M users), up from 12% (28.3M users) in 2011. Furthermore, by the year 2013 this figure is expected to increase with a projected 47% of the U.S. internet population (117.4M users) owning tablets.
Of these tablet users, the Android platform has drawn level with iOS, largely in part because of the strong sales of the Kindle. 52% of tablet owners have an iOS operating system, while 51% use an Android powered tablet (percentages do not add up to 100% because tablet owners own/use more than one type of tablet). This is a drastic change from 2011, which saw 72% of tablet owners use some form of the iPad while only 32% used an Android tablet. …
4. AllThingsD [June 18, 2012]:
– Microsoft’s Surface Tablet Takes On Apple’s iPad liveblog by Ina Fried
– Microsoft Launches New Surface Tablets With Windows 8 by Bonnie Cha
– Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer on Where Microsoft’s New Surface Tablet Fits in PC Ecosystem by Ina Fried
In a brief chat after the event, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said that PC makers have known for an unspecified period of time that Microsoft would be doing its own hardware.
Ballmer noted that there will be a lot of PCs sold that will be made by companies other than Microsoft.
“If you look at the bulk of the 375 million machines that get sold (next year), they probably aren’t going to be Surfaces,” Ballmer said. “On the other hand, we could have a sizeable business.”
“It’s an important companion to the whole Windows 8 story,” Ballmer said. “It’s an important piece. It’s not the only piece.”
While Microsoft kept the details of Surface tightly limited to a small group of Microsoft employees working on the project, Ballmer said PC makers weren’t totally taken by surprise.
“Our PC partners knew in advance we were announcing something today in this space,” Ballmer said.
So how did they feel about it? “No comment.”
Ballmer said Microsoft’s goal is that Surface “gives people a full range of things to think about, sort of primes the pump for more innovation around Windows 8, (and) brings new technology to the Windows PC platform.”
Just how closely to the vest has Microsoft been keeping Surface? Ballmer said he has not personally been using a prototype on a regular basis.
“We wanted to keep things under wraps,” Ballmer said. “I’m out in public a lot.”
5. Boy Genius Report (BGR) [June 18, 2012]:
– Live from Microsoft’s tablet event! by Brad Reed
– Microsoft unveils Surface tablet by Zach Epstein
– Microsoft Surface tablet hands-on by Brad Reed
I have to admit that the Touch Cover felt somewhat alien to me at first when I was playing around with it, but that could be due to the fact that I didn’t have a lot of time to play around with it — Microsoft was really herding reporters quickly through the line. The Type Cover did feel quite natural as a keyboard should, however, so at the very least, there should be one strong option for people who prefer traditional keyboards.
The tablet’s 10.6-inch display screen looked gorgeous, although Microsoft was being weirdly evasive when asked what the exact screen resolution was. The tablet’s “VaporMg” casing is extremely solid, and the tablet feels very strong in your hands. Despite being 9.3 millimeters thick, the Windows RT version of the Surface is in no danger of bending under pressure.
In terms of software, Windows RT brings some cool new capabilities to the tablet form factor, including the ability to run two apps on the same screen simultaneously. One Microsoft rep, for instance, demonstrated how to have Outlook email on one half of the screen while having sports scores on the other half. And of course, the home screen on both versions of the Surface tablet features Windows 8′s Metro UI that is significantly more intuitive, colorful and user-friendly than past editions of Windows.
Thin/Zero Client and Virtual Desktop Futures
26 years of Wyse and Citrix collaboration resulted in an advanced infrastructure solution bringing the Windows desktop into a virtualised cloud environment and accessible from any cloud computing client device, including even thin client and zero client devices, or ones presenting a HTML5 browser functionality only. The infrastructure is getting a universal device management capability as well. And the most important hallmark of this infrastructure solution is complete security meaning immunity from viruses et al. In addition to the Windows desktop applications the next wave of web applications as well as SaaS applications (such as those provided by Salesforce.com) are made easily accessible and usable from any of those device and access points. The hallmark here is the possibility of continuing usage at the point where it has been left off from another device and access point. True flexibility from the user point of view.
For more introductory information please watch these two videos:
Jeff McNaught Interview One [CitrixTV YouTube channel, May 24, 2012]
Zenith2 – The Product that Changes Evertyhing [CitrixTV YouTube channel, May 24, 2012]
The detailed elaboration of the “Thin/Zero Client and Virtual Desktop Futures” topic will go through the following sections of the post:
- Wyse entry-level solution for education
- A glimpse into the Wyse portfolio and their large public / enterprise markets
- Essential technology and market information
A highly important preview from it:
XenDesktop and Metro Receiver [CitrixTV YouTube channel, May 9, 2012]
- Note: following that video it is absolutely important to watch the SYN229: What’s new with Citrix Receiver for desktop users video next to it because of the need to understand the Virtual Desktop Future assured by the upcoming Citrix Receiver universal client as represented best by the following image:
delivered in the [18:53 – 23:05] timeframe of the video.
Finally to understand the whole picture from/through a very practical demonstration of the whole range of possibilities watch these videos:
– The Future is Now (17 minutes – part 1 of 2)
– The Future is Now (28 minutes – part 2 of 2)
– Citrix Receiver on the Wyse Xenith, connecting to a XenDesktop virtual desktop - Wyse Product/Technology Details
- Dell Wyse (i.e. the Dell acquisition of Wyse)
– for introduction to that see: Dell Completes Acquisition of Cloud Client Computing Leader Wyse Technology [Dell press release, May 25, 2012]
Before going into those detailed sections here is a highly important introduction as well (in order to understand the future potential of this advanced infrastructure solution):
Wyse Technology’s President and CEO Tarkan Maner speaks with Edie Lush at Hub Davos [hubculture YouTube channel, Jan 26, 2012]
Notes:
– [00:40] Presumably the entry-level zero (which has no OS – see much below) client, Wyse E01 is shown as “working on only 2 watts” (the spec much below says upto 3 watts) and “costing less than $50, start at $35” (the current single unit retail price of E01 is $76 however, while the list price is $99 – see much below).
– That device is even presented as needing only the data center. Currently however entry-level zero client devices such as E01 (and the latest E02) require Microsoft MultiPoint Server (see much belo). So he is definitely pointing to an upcoming solution.
– [03:00] He mentions South-Africa with “10 million devices this year” as an educational example. So that kind of upcoming solution could definitely be in the works already. The power consumption difference might also indicate such a new entry-level device.
Management team [Wyse webpage, April 2, 2012]:
President, CEO and Chief Customer Advocate, Tarkan Maner
Tarkan Maner is the President and CEO at Wyse Technology, the global leader in Cloud Client Computing. Cloud Client Computing is the ultimate end user computing solution for our time, replacing the outdated, unsecure, unreliable, un-green and expensive client/server-centric systems. Cloud Client Computing delivers the security, manageability, availability, reliability, scalability, flexibility, and user experience with the lowest energy usage and total cost of ownership. Cloud Client Computing simply connects all the dots: Cloud client software, hardware and services.
Wyse provides its customers and partners with the broadest and deepest portfolio of Cloud Clients, including Thin, Zero and Cloud PC clients, supported by the leading cloud-centric firmware, virtualization, management and mobility software in the industry. Wyse independently partners with the leading data center, networking and collaboration solution providers within its global partner ecosystem to help organizations and people reach the clouds – in a private, public, government or, even in a personal cloud. Wyse’s mission is to enable any user, anywhere, to connect to any content via any app in any work environment without constraints, conflicts or compromises.
Tarkan believes that Cloud Client Computing not only drives better economic and productivity results for organizations, but, also drives societal change throughout the world. Cloud Client Computing reduces the cost, eliminates the complexity and enables the reach of computing to the next six billion users via billions of devices pervasive in every aspect of our lives.
…
Tarkan in the news
- Forbes OpEd – Cloud Computing for Public Sector
- Top Five Cloud Myths, Trends, and Recommendations
- How to Succeed at Innovation and Differentiation
- Opinion: Seeking ‘game changers’ that will create jobs
- Tarkan at WEF 2011 in Davos – Future of Manufacturing
- Tarkan at WEF 2012 in Davos – Cloud Client Computing for a New World
- Voices from the New Generation: The Explorer
…
Wyse entry-level solution for education
Post-PC Era Expands as Wyse and Serbian Government Partner for Nation-wide Cloud Client Computing Deployment in Education [Wyse press release, Sept 28, 2011]
More than 30,000 Students Gain Access to Latest Learning Technology with Wyse and Microsoft Solutions in Schools across Serbia
LONDON, UK and SAN JOSE, Calif. – 09/28/2011 – Wyse Technology, the global leader in cloud client computing, today announced a major implementation of its zero client technology in the Digital School project to transform classroom teaching in Serbia. In one of the largest projects of its kind in Europe, all elementary schools in Serbia will be outfitted with a new IT infrastructure based on Wyse zero clients and Microsoft Windows MultiPoint Server 2010, enabling every student to have access to the latest computing software, educational applications and online resources.
Committed to modernizing the country’s educational system, among other reforms, the Ministry of Telecommunications and Information Society, identified the need for a better information technology and communications infrastructure to support teaching and learning in classrooms.
Working with its technology partner company ComTrade, the solution is based on Windows MultiPoint Server 2010 and enables multiple users to simultaneously share a single computer while each using their own monitor, keyboard and mouse. This is an ideal solution for educational customers that want to extend IT access to more students, easily and affordably. The solution is designed for simple implementation and ease-of-use for teachers, provides the familiar Windows 7 desktop experience, and requires no advanced IT expertise.
The ministry selected Wyse E01 zero clients because they maximize the advantages of Windows MultiPoint Server. The zero clients simply plug into the host computer which automatically configures and enables a student to start work immediately. Unlike comparable devices for Windows MultiPoint Server, the Wyse E01 zero client supports USB peripherals such as, webcams, and USB flash drives, allowing a more flexible computer-based teaching and learning experience.
Jasna Matic State Secretary for Digital Agenda, former Minister for Telecommunications and Information Society said , “Enhancing ICT for education is a major goal of the Government with this programme delivering on our promise to give every student access to their own computer at school. With cutting edge technology from Microsoft and Wyse, our schools have a solid foundation for delivering education to the highest standards.”
…
Deployment of the Microsoft and Wyse education solution started in December 2010 and will be completed this year.
For more information about Wyse E01 zero clients, please visit, http://www.wyse.com/products/hardware/zeroclients/E01/index.asp
Windows MultiPoint Server 2011 Overview [msmultipoint YouTube channel, May 25, 2011]
Windows MultiPoint Server 2011 is a low-cost computing solution that creates a 1:1 user to computer experience built on Windows Server. With MultiPoint Server 2011, one PC can provide up to 20 computing sessions at a fraction of the cost.
Wyse® E class™ – Affordable computing for education [Wyse brochure, Jan 23, 2012]
…
1. One Windows Multipoint server shares its operating system and applications with up to 20 users at a time.
2. Features Wyse E class zero clients, one per desktop and each one linked by a USB [E01] or Ethernet [E02] cable.
3. Low cost, fast and simple to set up delivery of Windows desktops.
Windows MultiPoint Server 2011 Quick configuration guide
4 ~ 6 users 8 ~ 20 users CPU Intel CPU i5/i7 Intel CPU i5/i7 Memory 4 GB 8 GB Hard drive 250 GB 500 GB Graphics/1 On board Intel HD Graphics 2000 or similar same Graphics/2 PCI-Express Card ATI Radeon™ HD 4600 / 4770 / 5750 nVidia GeForce 8x, 9x Series / GT220,GT240 same
Software Microsoft Windows Multipoint Server 2011 Zero client Wyse E01 [retail: $76+] and E02 [$99] Zero Client Licenses (Microsoft Academic VL) Microsoft MultiPoint Server License [$115]Microsoft MultiPoint CAL License per device [$29]
…
Technical specifications Wyse E01
[E02 difference is Ethernet networking + 2 USB 2.0 port instead of 4 with E01 + 98 x 98 x 20 millimeters dimensions and 128g + standing position]
Server OS Windows MultiPoint Server 2011 I/O peripheral support One VGA (DB-15)
Four USB 2.0 ports (1 on left side, 3 on right side)
One Mic In / One Line Out
USB keyboard (not included)
USB mouse (not included)Networking One USB in to connect to host computer (cable included)
Maximum distance between each Wyse E01 zero client and the host computer is 5 meters (16 feet 5 inches)Display Up to 1680 x 1050 @ 60Hz / 32bits or 1600 x 1200 @ 60Hz / 32bits Audio Output: 1/8-inch mini jack, full 16 bit stereo
Input: 1/8-inch mini jack, 8 bit microphonePhysical characteristics Height: 21.5mm (0.85 inches)
Width: 132mm (5.20 inches)
Depth: 87mm (3.43 inches)Shipping Weight 145g (0.32 lbs) Power Worldwide auto-sensing 100-240 VAC, 50/60 Hz. power supply
Average power usage with device connected to 1 keyboard with 1 mouse and 1 monitor:
less than 3 WattsTemperature Range Vertical position: 50° to 104° F (10° to 40° C) Humidity 20% to 80% condensing
10% to 95% non-condensing
…
Announcement information:
- Wyse Extends Client Virtualization Leadership in Education Market with the Introduction of a New Zero Client for Schools [Wyse press release, Feb 24, 2010]
$99 Wyse E01 Zero Client and Windows MultiPoint Server 2010 Optimize IT and Financial Resources for Schools in Tough Economy
…
“We’re happy to be launching with strong support from Wyse, which has committed to developing innovative and effective solutions like the Wyse E01 Zero Client for the MultiPoint platform,” said Ira Snyder, general manager, Windows MultiPoint Server at Microsoft Corp. “MultiPoint Server can deliver a familiar Windows computing experience to educational institutions around the world, helping them get the best value out of technology investments while providing the very best education for their students.”
…
- The New $99 Wyse Zero Client Provides Simple and Cost-Effective Computing Access for Education and SMBs Worldwide [Wyse press release, Jan 11, 2012]
Wyse Expands E Class Zero Client Offering for Windows MultiPoint Server
Wyse Technology … today announced the introduction of the Wyse E02 zero client in support of Microsoft’s Shape the Future program
…
The Wyse E01 zero client and the Wyse E02 zero client work with Windows MultiPoint Server 2011 to enable multiple students or SMB users to share a single server. The E02 is easy for teachers to set up and use in the classroom, providing an excellent Windows 7 desktop experience for their students. While the Wyse E01 zero client provides students access to the shared server via USB cabling up to 5 meters, the E02 goes a step further to provide access via Ethernet, at a distance of up to 100 metersfrom the Windows MultiPoint Server.“Providing students with affordable access to technology is one way Microsoft is helping to ultimately create greater opportunities and more enriched lives for youth around the world. The Wyse E02 zero client, combined with Windows MultiPoint Server, is an excellent example of how we are working to deliver on this mission,” said Microsoft’s Shape the Future Senior Director, Joice Fernandes.
…
Appropriate and sustainable technology solutions for education in Africa [in The eLearning Africa 2012 Report (p. 17), May 23, 2012]
Widening access to reliable information technology is key to how we can help our children develop educationally. This is especially true in the fast developing economies of Africa where the expectation for access to ICT in the school has increased as more citizens use information technology like mobile phones in their everyday lives.
However, in our view, the ambitious eLearning goals in Africa can only be achieved with classroom technology that is intrinsically sustainable. But, in the African context, what do I mean by sustainability? First of all this is not about ticking the box of some green IT policy set by a government. The reality of extending digital classrooms into urban or rural Africa is that IT provision must take account of the absence of reliable power supplies. Any interruptions can be managed with novel solutions around battery back-ups or solar energy to power a classroom in a remote setting.
Even when reliable power supplies are available, low power consumption is going to remain important in how schools manage their budgets. This makes thin or zero client computers very attractive as they typically only use between 3 and 15 watts of power.
Sustainability in African eLearning is much more than about energy efficiency. It also refers to how IT in schools needs to be easy to set up and manage because it is unrealistic to expect a school to always have access to IT management skills on the ground. As African educators plan their expansion of eLearning, they need to ensure the classroom technology is largely self-sufficient and simple to set up, manage and use in the classroom. The centralised management and robust plug-and-play functionality of classroom labs that use virtualisation technology answers this requirement, ensuring that investments in school classroom labs deliver the maximum educational benefit over a long period of time.
In investing in digital classrooms African educators are demonstrating incredible foresight in what new generations of Africans need to improve their lives. They need to guard against making ICT decisions that trap them in the past. While budgets are always going to be tight, African educators must be ambitious about ICT in education and take advantage of the latest 21st century thinking on virtualised and cloud computing.
Another important dimension of sustainability is the degree to which the ICT is future-proofed in how it can keep pace with future developments in applications and data. Educators are already using solutions like this to transform ICT in their schools and colleges. In South Africa more than 1.5 million students already have ICT access thanks to classroom labs that utilise Wyse cloud computing technology.
Sustainability in African eLearning is vitally important in making ICT widely accessible to students across the Continent. Indeed, African countries look set to trail-blaze other economies in their innovative use of cloud client computing on a massive scale.
David Angwin is Vice President, Field Marketing for Wyse Technology,
and based in the United Kingdom
Wyse Cloud Client Computing Highlights Sustainable E-Learning for Students at eLearning Africa 2012 [Wyse press release, May 23, 2012]
Showcases Latest Digital Classroom Solutions to Widen Availability of School Labs and One-to-One Computing for High Quality IT Enhanced Teaching and Learning in African Schools and Colleges
SAN JOSE, CA and COTONOU, Benin – 05/23/2012 – Wyse, the global leader in cloud client computing, today announced its participation in the eLearning Africaconference and exhibition. As the event’s platinum sponsor for the second year running, Wyse will discuss how advanced cloud client computing can help African educators meet their goals for widening access to technology-enhanced education, development and training. eLearning Africa runs from 23rd – 25th May 2012 in Cotonou, Benin, under the patronage of the Government of Benin.
Working across the continent with its local technology partners, Wyse has developed and deployed a range of solutions that are ideally suited to widening access to IT-enhanced education and training in Africa. The technologies involved are tailored to the continent’s requirements for classroom ICT that is exceptionally reliable, affordable and energy efficient while not compromising on access to the latest applications and data for teaching and learning.
Delegates to eLearning Africa will have the opportunity to see the latest in digital classroom solutions co-developed by Wyse and Microsoft. This includes an entry level shared computing solution for school IT labs that combines Wyse E01 and Wyse E02 zero clients with Microsoft Windows MultiPoint Server 2011; and the Wyse WSM cloud software solution, which offers a centrally-managed, scalable one-to-one computing environment for students that scales across classrooms, labs and schools. Both solutions address the requirement for classroom IT that is secure and easy to set up and run, while delivering a great desktop experience for the students.
Mark Jordan, vice president and general manager, EMEA Sales, Wyse Technology will be delivering a keynote in the opening plenary session on 23rd May 2012. He will address how cloud solutions can play a pivotal role in helping IT enhanced education transform the prospects of African students. Tarkan will be speaking alongside S.E. Max Ahouêkê, Ministère de la Communication et des Technologies de l’Information et de la Communication (MCTIC), Benin; and Prof Sugata Mitra, Professor of Educational Technology, Newcastle University, UK and Visiting Professor, MIT Media Lab, Cambridge, USA.
The event will be ideal opportunity to be updated on how African customers are advancing their e-learning strategies with Wyse cloud client computing solutions. For example in South Africa more than 1.5 million students already have ICT access thanks to classroom labs that utilize Wyse cloud computing technology. In Nigeria, a new network of examination centers relies on a Wyse cloud client computing infrastructure to enable examinations to be delivered, taken and scored entirely electronically, saving time and money while also improving reliability and service with accurate results delivered in hours rather than months.
Education is Wyse’s second largest market, with ten of the world’s top fifteen universities using Wyse solutions to reduce costs and improve learning. They and other educational institutions benefit from Wyse’s position as the only cloud vendor to offer desktop virtualization solutions for every budget and scale of implementation, ranging from ten to upwards of ten thousand units.
A glimpse into the Wyse portfolio
and their large public / enterprise markets
Health care with Citrix and Wyse Xenith next-generation zero-client devices at Seattle Children’s Hospital [WyseTechnology YouTube Channel, May 23, 2011]
Microsoft HIMSS 2011 – Interview with Andre Beuchat of Wyse Technology [WyseTechnology YouTube Channel, May 10, 2011]
Japan’s Largest Bank Turns to Wyse for VDI and Mobility [Wyse blog, April 10, 2012]
Today, Wyse announced that Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi is deploying 50,000 Wyse devices. The combination of Wyse’s desktop and mobile hardware, virtualization software and overall Wyse domain expertise in cloud and virtualization is the reason why the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi selected Wyse for its VDI implementation. Bank of Tokyo executive Mizuhiko Tokunaga commented that “… the deciding points were the technological edge of their unique software, Wyse ThinOS, their specialization in VDI, and the sense of trust we felt toward Wyse as a company. Wyse has been a global market leader for a long time, and it shows.”
The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, the largest bank in Japan and eighth largest in the world, began what was considered the largest systems integration project in the world in 2008 when it started this ambitious project to strengthen security across all 773 branches in Japan and 73 abroad. For more information on this initiative and how Bank of Tokyo is using Wyse, visit: http://www.wyse.com/about/press/release/1917
Cloud Computing involves using information technology as a service over the network.
- Services with an API accessible over the Internet
- Using compute and storage resources as a service
- Built on the notion of efficiency above all
- Using your own datacenter servers, or renting someone else?s in granular increments, or a combination
We at Wyse believe cloud computing has the potential to change how we invent, develop, deploy, scale, update, maintain, and pay for applications and the infrastructure on which they run.
Essential technology and market information
XenDesktop and Metro Receiver [CitrixTV YouTube channel, May 9, 2012]
SYN229: What’s new with Citrix Receiver for desktop users [CitrixTV YouTube channel, May 10, 2012] — absolutely important to watch in order to understand how the virtual desktop future would be assured by the upcoming Citrix Receiver universal client experience across different end-user access points (PC, Mac, tablets, smartphones, thin clients and web browsers) for Windows, web and SaaS applications (at least go forward to the [18:53 – 23:05] timeframe in the video) !!!
Wyse, Marvell, and the Citrix System-on-Chip Initiative [Wyse blog, May 10, 2012]
Yesterday Marvell announced participation in the Citrix System-on-Chip (SoC) initiative with the Marvell® ARMADA® 510 SoC for seamless integration with Citrix HDX in a complete silicon solution. The SoC combines a high-performance, low-power SoC with a hardware graphics processing unit and video decoding acceleration hardware. The end result is excellent processing power for high-end apps like HD multimedia in a very efficient, cost-effective footprint.
Wyse already uses the Marvell ARM SoC in our industry-leading T class thin clients. Combining Marvell’s high performance SoC with software optimized for Citrix HDX enables Wyse to offer compact, efficient, and powerful thin clients like the Linux-based T50 thin client and the super-secure T10 thin client based on Wyse ThinOS. In addition, our newly announced Xenith 2 zero client for Citrix XenDesktop and HDX is also based on the ARM SoC, and sets a new price/performance standard for Citrix zero clients in its class.
Zenith2 – The Product that Changes Evertyhing [CitrixTV YouTube channel, May 24, 2012]
Wyse Zero [Engine] and Wyse ThinOS [Wyse webpage, Feb 24, 2012]
Built for VDI Optimized for Citrix XenApp, Citrix XenDesktop, Microsoft Terminal Server and VMware View virtual desktop environments Lightning fast Super-fast start-up provides access to virtual desktops in under 20 seconds Super Secure No attack surface provides immunity to viruses and malware Easy-to-manage Hands-off, scalable device management with Wyse Device Manager; easy FTP-based configuration and automatic updates Smart card support Seamless smart-card roaming ideal for workstation-based environments Rich user experience Integrated Wyse TCX Suite for enhanced audio, video and multimedia
Overview
Wyse ThinOS
Wyse ThinOS is the most optimized, management-free solution for Citrix XenApp, Citrix XenDesktop, Microsoft Terminal Server and VMware Viewvirtual desktop environments. With an unpublished API and no attack surface, Wyse ThinOS is immune to malware and viruses that make other operating systems vulnerable to attack. This super-fast, purpose-built thin computing OS boots up in seconds, updates itself automatically and delivers simple, scalable administration to eliminate time-consuming maintenance tasks related to configuration, management and updates. With full support for Wyse Virtual Desktop Accelerator (VDA), ThinOS neutralizes the effects of network latency and packet loss, even in remote-branch and field-based applications.
Related link
- What’s new in Wyse ThinOS with David Angwin, Wyse Technology Watch video »
Wyse Zero [Engine]
Already used in millions of thin clients, zero clients, and handheld smart devices, Wyse Zero [Engine] simplifies the development of cloud-connected smart devices, enabling seamless user access to cloud computing services and virtual desktops. Wyse Zero [Engine] addresses limitations with current embedded options, such as the typical security vulnerabilities of Windows and Linux-based operating systems, and slow initialization due to their large size. With a rich array of networking, management and protocol technology packaged in an engine less than 4MB in size, Wyse Zero reduces costs and simplifies management and updates. With no underlying OS to slow it down, it starts up instantly for a more satisfying user experience. And unlike Windows or Linux-based embedded products that require extensive protection, Wyse Zero [Engine] is original technology and therefore virtually immune to malware, viruses and hackers.
Wyse Stratus Overview [WyseTechnology YouTube channel, Feb 24, 2012]
Wyse Announces Private Beta of Cloud-Based Service to Secure and Simplify Corporate Access for Users Across All Devices [Wyse press release, May 8, 2012]
Project Stratus Directly Tackles Consumerization of IT Challenges with Intelligent, Integrated and Cross-Platform User and Device Management
05/08/2012 – Wyse Technology, the global leader in cloud client computing, today announced the Project Stratus private beta program. Project Stratus provides IT administrators with an intelligent and dynamic cloud-based console to securely manage and enable corporate access to any device, regardless if that device is owned by the company or by the individual. Initial support will focus on securing and provisioning corporate access to smartphones, tablets, thin clients, and zero clients with plans to quickly expand support to additional devices used in the workplace.
Project Stratus delivers a unified console that goes beyond standard device management solutions by providing a complete view of the IT infrastructure serving end-users. The console provides visibility not only into users and their devices, but also into their relationship with the IT ecosystem. The result for IT is valuable insight into usage models, trends, and the means to identify areas of investment to more securely and effectively provide corporate services to end users.
“The biggest challenges to IT in a BYOD world has to do with the securing of corporate access to all devices being used by employees. With Project Stratus, our goal is to eliminate the need to have a separate, silo’ed console for each device type and instead allow IT admins to set an access policy for a user that will apply regardless of what device they are using—providing for the first time a one-stop shop for device and access management,” said Hector Angulo, Product Manager at Wyse.
“For a company such as ours that relies on a distributed and mobile workforce, the means to simplify and secure our mobile devices is very appealing,” according to Adam Bari, Managing Director at IPM. “We are very much looking forward to deploying Project Stratus to better manage our mobile computing infrastructure.”
Wyse will be showcasing Project Stratus at Citrix Synergy™ 2012 in San Francisco, May 9th – 11th in Wyse Booth #206 at the Moscone Center. Companies interested in taking part of the private beta can sign-up by going to http://www.wyse.com/stratus
Key features of Project Stratus include:
• Simplicity. Streamlined, discoverable interface with user-centric policy management to help automate user access regardless of what device they are using, including easy exception handling– natural and intuitive management for today’s dynamic IT world
• TCO Reduction. Cloud-hosted service eliminates costly on-premise servers and enables instant deployment and scaling — drastically reduces the total cost of operations and ownership
• Real-time Analytics. Dynamic and instantly personalized data feeds always present admins with the most relevant insight to help expedite the task at hand – powerful analytic engine exposes most important activities, events, and trends
• Actionable. Pro-active alerts notify admins about compliance violations and other potential issues with option to take contextual actions in-place (i.e. warn user, block, ignore) or automate future mitigation (i.e. automatically approve roaming exception request for all members of ‘executive’ group)
• Time-Saving. User and device pages that provide instant visibility into any managed asset, including who is using the device, what it is interacting with, and any potential performance or security issues in order to expedite issue identification and resolution
• Unified Console. Visibility and management of all devices used in the enterprise, with support for smartphones, tablets, thin clients, and zero clients — one-stop shop for all devices, no more hassle of dealing with many consoles
• Security. Enterprise-ready, multi-tenant architecture with fully encrypted communication ensures only you have access to your data
HDX Ready Software-on-Chip with TI and NComputing [CitrixTV YouTube channel, Nov 8, 2011]
HDX Ready Thin Clients [Citrix microsite, May 9, 2012]
The HDX Ready designation is reserved for thin client devices that have been verified to work with all of the XenDesktop and XenApp HDX features. HDX refers to High Definition User eXperience – a term coined by Citrix to describe capabilities in XenDesktop that optimize the user experience when accessing hosted virtual desktops and applications. The HDX Ready category assists IT managers to easily identify thin client devices that deliver the best possible high definition user experience with XenDesktop and XenApp.
There is a trade-off between a thin client’s cost and its capabilities. Not all users require the functionality of all of HDX features of XenDesktop or XenApp. Devices that are not deemed HDX Ready may still be useful for certain user types and use cases, generally at a lower price point than HDX Ready devices. The Citrix Ready thin client designation exists for those devices that support connectivity to XenDesktop or XenApp but only a subset of HDX functionality. Information regarding HDX feature coverage by a particular thin client device is available on the Citrix Ready website
HDX Ready Device Features Feature Citrix Ready Thin Clients HDX Ready Thin Clients HDX Broadcast Out of the Box XenDesktop Integration HDX Plug-n-Play:USB 2.0 HDX Plug-n-Play:Printing HDX Plug-n-Play:True Multi Monitor Support HDX Plug-n-Play:Smartcard Support HDX Plug-n-Play:Webcam Support HDX RealTime:VOIP on LAN HDX RealTime:Client Audio Recording HDX MediaStream:CD Quality Audio on LAN (Server Rendered) HDX MediaStream:Adaptive Display (Server Rendered): Minimum 15 Frames Per Second on LAN HDX MediaStream: 1280*720 Quality Windows Media Redirection (Client Rendered) on LAN HDX MediaStream: 1280*720 Quality Flash Redirection (Client Rendered; for Windows x86, Ubuntu x86, and Fedora x86) on LAN
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Citrix HDX SoC spurs innovation and cuts the cost of thin clients in half [The Citrix Blog, May 9, 2012]
Today Citrix celebrates with our partners the unveiling of exciting new client computing devices that leverage the HDX SoC initiative.
Thousands of Citrix customers are already using thin client devices to access virtual desktops and apps delivered by Citrix infrastructure. These customers who have successfully deployed thin clients are getting the benefits of reducing or even eliminating their device management footprint, decreased their dependency on lifecycle management, and have reduced their power consumption by efficiently leveraging computing resources in the datacenter or server room.
There are also many customers who look at the cost of desktop virtualization and can easily justify supporting mobile workers and BYO programs. However, when it comes to replacing desktops in their offices, they may find it harder to justify purchasing a thin client when the price of the endpoint also, after all the dust settles, might be close to the replacement cost of a PC.
Delivering cost reduction
Last October, at Synergy Barcelona 2011, Citrix announced the HDX System on Chip initiative in partnership with Texas Instruments and NComputing, to create new SoC reference designs based on ARM chipsets to accelerate HDX user experience technologies in silicon. By using optimized hardware-based acceleration rather than decoding and rendering virtual desktop traffic on a general purpose processors in software, these SoCs can deliver the user experience of thin client devices costing twice as much or more while reducing power consumption, heat, and footprint. However, don’t mistake hardware-acceleration for “all-hardware.” Devices built on the HDX SoC initiative still run a Citrix Receiver in an embedded OS that permits updates to provide devices new functionality over time, further extending the expected lifecycle.
Taking cues from the living room
This direction of optimized delivery of high definition experience is no different than what many of us are seeing play out in our living rooms. Instead of collecting massive collections of videos to store in cabinets or home servers, cloud providers like NetFlix, Amazon, Apple, Hulu, Pandora, and others store media for us, allowing us us to stream in many cases real time content to our homes. This media can be displayed from TV’s using integrated “internet streaming,” from most any smartphone, tablet, or computer, or through the addition of a $50 appliance from companies like Roku that we plug into our TVs. It is this revolution in cloud entertainment services and the drive for low-cost, low-powered – long battery life devices overtaking the consumer electronics industry that Citrix can now leverage to optimize end point devices for desktop virtualization.
To learn more about these exciting, market-changing, transformative new devices being unveiled by HP, Atrust, Centerm, NComputing, and ThinLinX, please check out the HDX SoC 2012 partner page here.
Dell Wyse: acqusition of Wyse Technologies by Dell
(a summary of the many original materials compiled in the closing part of this post)
- Wyse – a leader in Desktop Virtualization
- Wyse – ranking number one worldwide in thin clientunit share in the fourth quarter of 2011
- Differentiated IP and device management, thin client operating systems, and mobility software that is customized to offer the best user experience with Microsoft, Citrix and VMware virtual desktop infrastructures.
- Much of their software value is captured in the hardware itself. Their ThinOS and the IP around the ThinOS has allowed them to drive greater performance using less memory. So Wyse solutions require less memory and processing power than other comparable thin client solutions, making them more cost competitive and effective for customers.
- Wyse as an independent entity has really been gaining momentum to grow into a number one market share position. In fact, they are growth accelerated in their last fiscal year to 45 percent
- Dell’s view on that:
– The momentum around alternative computing is a trend that they see many customers continuing to experiment with and in many cases, beginning to deploy, although the adoption rates are still relatively low for desktop virtualization.
– They don’t see the entire world going to thin clients. They still think there’s a healthy PC demand in the industry and there’s a balance of alternative computing that allows people to take advantage of securing their information, managing the assets in a very differentiated way. Even a common thin client deployment today is on a standard PC that’s been virtualized.
– This is an opportunity particularly in the verticals around financial services, government healthcare, and the financial services sector to really take a leadership position. This is really specific use cases. For example, in regulated industries like healthcare and financial services, the value of centralizing your data to better have access and control is a specific use case that this thin client desktop virtualization lends itself to.
– They needed it because it is also a different workload to move forward their cloud computing strategy.
– Again, they don’t think a zero client or a thin client is an answer for all customers. They think in their mind that the bigger message here is they now have a range of devices, an incredibly strong portfolio of thin client devices and zero client devices from Wyse, the standard Dell set of PCs, which do virtualization, and now the ability to manage those in a very differentiated way with the key software assets that they’re bringing on board that expand themselves to tablets, expands itself to mobile phones.
- Wyse portfolio includes a wide selection of industry leading thin and zero client devices designed easily to integrate into a virtualized or web based infrastructure
- It compliments and extends the desktop virtualization capabilities that Dell has today.
- Also a big part of this transaction is the synergy that Dell would get from their datacenter solutions business, including servers, storage, networking services, and software. For every thin client hardware dollar that exists in the IT industry, there’s $5 of enterprise servers, storage, networking services that go along with that.
- This could also remove the barrier for some companies that did not have the right level of datacenter portfolio and datacenter ecosystem to exploit the thin client alternative of enterprise computing: i.e. deploying desktop virtualization centric cloud client portfolios and platforms.
- Wyse is a company that has 31 years of experience. They have the intellectual property, they have the software and 150 R&D engineers which 140 are in software. Wyse and one other competitor basically had almost 50 percent of the market. Wyse are pretty close partners with Microsoft, and they do a lot of work with VMware, with Citrix as well. As these providers provide desktop virtualization methodology and technology between the datacenter and end use computing platforms Wyse add to that value and they partner heavily with them and obviously that’s going to continue.
- [Wyse:] And also, one other piece to add, we provide some of the software we provide is differentiated in the marketplace, is the leader in this space also from the cloud, both on the infrastructure management side from the cloud, with a product called Wyse Stratus. So, many of you on the phone are using today, Wyse PocketCloud, the market leading product for content management from the cloud on any mobile device and also from your web browser, connecting your apps and content inside the content voice data video from your choice of your cloud, private or public.
- The software stack that brings together the edge device, the management software that manages that, that sits into the cloud or sits into the datacenter, and the ability to build that software from essentially ground zero to being able to acquire those capabilities and that experience and the technology with it, puts Dell in a leadership position. The differentiated technology that they are getting with the integration of Brad Anderson’s [Dell president, Enterprise Solutions] and Steve Schuckenbrock’s [Dell president of Services] businesses, allow them a unique position to do this for their customers. All this allows them to move quite quickly in the marketplace, much quicker than they could have done it on their own.
- IDC: worldwide thin client demand will grow 15 percent per year to approximately 3 billion by 2015
- IDC: the overall end to end solutions market with thin clients is expected to exceed 15 billion by 2015
Wyse Cloud Client Computing [WyseTechnology YouTube channel, April 1, 2012]
Citrix Announces New Innovations in Desktop Virtualization Lowering Cost and Accelerating the Transformation to Virtual Desktops [Citrix press release, May 9, 2012]
New XenDesktop, VDI-in-a-Box & AppDNA capabilities drive adoption
San Francisco, CA » 5/9/2012 » Today, at Citrix Synergy™, the conference where mobile workstyles and cloud services meet, Citrix announced a set of new innovations that help organizations transform their Windows desktops and apps into a cloud-like service that can be managed centrally and delivered to any device in any location. New releases of Citrix desktop virtualization products and new game-changing Citrix HDX Ready SoC-based endpoint devices from key partners are helping to ease the transition to virtual desktops, drive down the acquisition costs and provide expanded capabilities targeting broad use cases from the call center, to high-end engineering and mobile workers in enterprises, the public sector and SMBs, enabling organizations of all sizes to deliver anywhere, anytime access to desktops, applications and data to users.
With the tremendous explosion of new devices, operating systems and applications, organizations are struggling to keep up with the challenge of managing desktops and applications in this new highly mobile world. At the same time, trends such as consumerization and bring your own device (BYOD) programs are putting added strain on IT resources. Citrix is raising the bar once again delivering new innovations across its desktop virtualization products and working with partners to drive down the costs of virtual desktops.
Easier On-ramp to Desktop Virtualization
- New Remote PC Option in XenDesktop FlexCast– The new RemotePC option is part of the FlexCast® delivery technology in the Citrix XenDesktop® product line. Using the new RemotePC capability, XenDesktop customers will be able to quickly turn existing office PCs into distributed VDI hubs without setting up additional servers and storage in the datacenter. This innovative new solution makes it easy for IT to give end users fast, secure remote access to all the apps and data on their office PC from any device. Once IT is ready to move to a more full-service VDI implementation, these distributed RemotePC images can be easily moved into the datacenter to run in a traditional hosted VDI model for better consolidation, security and management efficiency. Remote PC functionality will be included in XenDesktop 5.6 Feature Pack 1, which will ship in June, 2012.
- New AppDNA Software Release – To ease the transition to Windows 7 and a virtual desktop infrastructure, the new release of Citrix AppDNA software brings a simplified overall installation, setup and user environment to accommodate a broader range of enterprises, the channel and global SIs. Citrix AppDNA also provides even more in-depth application details so enterprises can accurately assess, rationalize and act on applications before a project begins. The AppDNA 6.1 software will be available in Q2, 2012. (see announcement blog for more detail)
Reducing the Acquisition Costs of Virtual Desktops
- First Wave of Game-changing Endpoints Arrives – The first results of the Citrix HDX System-on-Chip initiative that was announced at Citrix Synergy Barcelona are being delivered to the market. The initiative was designed to enable an entirely new generation of devices that deliver high-definition virtual desktops and apps at game-changing price points and form factors. These devices reduce the cost of high-performance HDX Ready thin clients by more than half, further driving down the cost of desktop virtualization. New devices from ATrust, Centerm, HP, NComputingand ThinLinx are being announced today at Citrix Synergy San Francisco and are built for Citrix XenDesktop, and Citrix VDI-in-a-Box. (See announcement blog for more detail)
- Personalized VDI for Less than the Cost of PCs – The Project Aruba technology preview delivers a cost-efficient yet complete VDI solution by extending the simple affordable Citrix VDI-in-a-Box™ with layering technology using personal vDisks to deliver highly personalized virtual desktops that retain the cost-efficiencies of pooled desktops. Project Aruba also provides a validated blueprint for service providers looking to deliver cost-effective VDI-based Desktops-as-a-Service.
Citrix has also made available a license migration path from VDI-in-a-Box to XenDesktop for customers that want to extend beyond VDI to leverage the full flexibility of XenDesktop while preserving their investment. The end-user experience is consistent across both products as both VDI-in-a-Box and XenDesktop use the same HDX stack and Citrix Receiver. (See announcement blog for more detail)
Delivering Expanded Functionality for Broad Use Cases
Citrix is delivering new innovations that create a very seamless experience for end-users, delivering a more complete solution than other alternatives on the market.
- Empowering Point-to-Point Unified Communications for Cisco and Microsoft– With the introduction of HDX Real Time technologies for voice and video collaboration, industry-leading unified communications (UC) solutions including Cisco VXI Unified Communications and Microsoft Lync 2010 can process voice and video locally and create a peer-to-peer connection for the ultimate user experience while taking the load off datacenter processing and bandwidth resources. XenDesktop delivers new levels of efficiency and quality of service for the most demanding use cases. HDX Real Time will be available with XenDesktop 5.6 Feature Pack 1 in June, 2012. – Support for HDX Real-Time with select Cisco VXI clients was recently announced in April, 2012 representing the first optimized UC solution for desktop virtualization on the market. This solution represents one of the first deliverables from the recent collaboration agreement between Cisco and Citrix to optimize HDX for Cisco networks.- The new Optimization Pack for Microsoft Lync 2010 will be included in XenDesktop 5.6 Feature Pack 1. This pack supports Microsoft Lync 2010 for point to point voice and video communications to Windows and Linux devices and will extend across all Citrix Receiver™-enabled devices over the coming months.- Beyond traditional unified communications support, XenDesktop also optimizes voice and video collaboration for cloud-based solutions including Citrix GoToMeeting® by compressing voice and video traffic on the client before transmission over the network.
- Cutting Network Bandwidth for Demanding 3D Engineering Environments – Whether collaborating with design engineers across oceans using advanced CAD/CAM or GIS apps or consulting medical imaging at a patient’s bedside with an iPad, the secure, high performance delivery of GPU accelerated 3D applications and desktops with XenDesktop has never been more powerful or efficient. Using new deep compression codec technology that reduces bandwidth requirements by 50 percent, XenDesktop with HDX 3D Pro technologies secures sensitive intellectual property and privacy-sensitive data while improving collaboration and performance eliminating the need to synchronize and transfer massive data files. Meanwhile, users leverage state-of-the-art graphics processing hardware in the datacenter to access designs and images from any device, anywhere. HDX 3D Pro will be available with XenDesktop 5.6 Feature Pack 1 in June, 2012. (See the announcement blog for more detail)
- New XenClient Enterprise and Acquisition of Virtual Computer – Citrix announced the acquisition of Virtual Computer, provider of enterprise-scale management solutions for client-side virtualization. Citrix will combine the newly-acquired Virtual Computer technology with its market-leading XenClient® hypervisor to create the new Citrix XenClient Enterprise edition. The new XenClient Enterprise, available in Q2, 2012, will combine all the power of the XenClient hypervisor with a rich set of management functionality designed to help enterprise customers manage large fleets of corporate laptops across a distributed enterprise. The combined solution will give corporate laptop users the power of virtual desktops “to go”, while making it far more secure and cost-effective for IT to manage thousands of corporate laptops across today’s increasingly mobile enterprise.
- Simplifying Printing with New HDX Universal Print Server – Now, Citrix desktop virtualization products tame the complexity of printing by completing a universal printing architecture with the Citrix HDX Universal Print Server. Combined with the previously available Universal Print Driver, administrators may now install a single driver in the virtual desktop image or application server to permit local or network printing from any device, including thin clients and tablets, leveraging HDX optimization technology to reduce bandwidth load over wide area networks and manage printing communications outside of the virtual desktop channel for enhanced quality of service. HDX Universal Print server will be available with XenDesktop 5.6 Feature Pack 1 in June, 2012. (See the announcement blog for more details)
Quote
“Citrix is helping to drive down the costs of virtual desktops, and advancing technology around user experience and manageability to move desktop virtualization adoption forward at a rapid pace. Though product innovation and strong partner ecosystems we are addressing barriers on all fronts including acquisition costs, migration complexity and delivering complete solutions for all customer segments from large enterprises to SMBs.”
– John Fanelli, Vice President of Product Marketing, Enterprise Desktops and Applications at Citrix
Related Links
- Announcement: New XenDesktop Release Accelerates Migration to Windows 7 and Beyond
- Announcement: Dell and Citrix Deliver a Simple VDI Appliance for the Mass Market
Follow Us Online
- Citrix XenDesktoppage
- Citrix AppDNApage
- Citrix VDI-in-a-Boxpage
- Twitter: @Citrix, @XenDesktop, @VDIinaBox, @AppDNA
- Citrix on Facebook
NOW to understand the whole picture from/through a very practical demonstration of the whole range of possibilities watch these videos:
The Future is Now (17 minutes – part 1 of 2) [citrixvideos YouTube channel, April 11, 2011]
The Future is Now (28 minutes – part 2 of 2) [citrixvideos YouTube channel, April 11, 2011]
Citrix Receiver on the Wyse Xenith, connecting to a XenDesktop virtual desktop [citrixvideos YouTube channel, April 10, 2011]
Wyse Product/Technology Details
Wyse Changes Everything with Announcement of Xenith 2 Zero Client for Citrix VDI-Based Deployments [[Dell] Wyse press release, May 9, 2012]
Leading Zero Client Improves Performance for VDI Installations Using Citrix Desktop Virtualization Solutions
SAN JOSE, CA – 05/09/2012 –
Wyse Technology, the global leader in cloud client computing, today announced the Wyse Xenith 2, based on the ultra-secure Wyse zero framework. This breakthrough zero client was revealed today at Citrix Synergy™ 2012, the premier event on cloud computing, virtualization and networking. Wyse, the leading shipper of fixed and mobile desktop zero clients in the world, will be demonstrating the Xenith 2 at Wyse Booth #206 from May 9-10, 2012.
Following on the success of the Wyse Xenith and Wyse Xenith Pro, the Wyse Xenith 2 is the ideal Citrix zero client solution for both enterprise and SMB organizations. The Wyse Xenith 2 zero client is purpose-built for Citrix XenDesktop® blending the amazing cost benefits of the ARM System-on-Chip (SoC) architecture, with a non-Windows Citrix Receiver compatible client, developed in cooperation with Citrix. Improving on the success of the Xenith, with 30% faster performance and lower power consumption, the result is a super secure, very affordable, true high-fidelity desktop experience. For users requiring a diverse variety of applications, including HD multimedia, the Wyse Xenith 2 delivers a new standard in price and performance in a compact zero client and delivers an unprecedented combination of simplicity, performance and security for office-based workers.
The Wyse Xenith 2 requires no local configuration or management and can offer customers of all sizes a more secure client while helping reduce management and overall client cost. Full AES 128 bit encryption enables encryption of network certificates on the client, which is a truly ironclad level of security. Leveraging the Wyse zero framework, the Wyse Xenith 2 is able to provide a secure, ‘instant on’ experience for end users—booting up and logging into a Citrix XenDesktop® in less than 10 seconds. With no exposed API’s and no attack surface, the Wyse Xenith 2 zero client is malware and virus immune, removing client security concerns.
“Wyse Xenith has been a game-changer for us,” according to Wes Wright, Chief Technology Officer at Seattle Children’s Hospital. “Not only are we saving $6 million in hardware replacement costs, more than $1 million in staff time, and $300,000 per year in energy savings, we also have devices that are faster, more secure and more reliable than anything we had before. With Xenith 2, Wyse is simply adding more appeal to an endpoint device family that makes Citrix XenDesktop a great end-to-end VDI solution.”
Like the Wyse Xenith and Wyse Xenith Pro, the Wyse Xenith 2 changes everything, including the economics of desktop computing. Wyse Xenith 2 eliminates the complications of management and security issues associated with traditional client devices, while ensuring an unparalleled high-definition user experience, further lowering the barriers for mainstream adoption of desktop virtualization.
“As customers look to the flexibility of desktop virtualization, Citrix is enabling these enterprises to transform their traditional Windows computing environments into a cloud-like service, delivering anywhere, anytime access to desktops, applications and data. Through collaborative relationships like the one with Wyse, we are further driving down the costs of virtual desktop deployments and accelerating adoption. The Xenith 2 achieves this goal by providing a secure, affordable solution that is optimized to deliver a high-definition virtual desktop experience through Citrix Receiver,” said Sumit Dhawan, group vice president and general manager, Receiver and Gateways at Citrix Systems.
“By tightly-integrating with Citrix, we’re delivering a zero client that is second to none in performance, security, manageability, and ease of use for this class of VDI endpoint,” according to Param Desai, VP, Product Management at Wyse Technology. “All of this plus it is more affordable than ever before.”
“Vendors like Wyse continue to push the envelope in zero client technology,” according to Bob O’Donnell, Program VP, Clients and Displays at IDC. “The ability to improve device performance while adding additional functionality and reducing cost bodes well for future zero client customers.”
Top Product Benefits
• Secure. Stateless zero client has zero attack surface for viruses & malware; no local disk and no APIs. Xenith 2 also offers single sign-on and is integrated with Imprivata support. Full AES 128 bit encryption enables encryption of network certificates on the device.
• Powerful. The Wyse Xenith 2 includes a Citrix Receiver client and achieves unparalleled user experience, great graphics performance and high fidelity multimedia due to Wyse’s innovative performance optimizations for ARM SoC and available only on Xenith 2 and T10. Xenith 2 starts up in 6 seconds.
• Affordable. Sets a new level of price / performance.
• Easy to manage. Integrated out of the box with XenDesktop management console in addition to also being managed by Wyse Stratus as part of a comprehensive device management from the cloud. Xenith 2 also comes with auto detection of server and configuration and is a completely stateless device, always using the latest zero engine delivered directly from a central configuration file server and the XenDesktop server.
• Compact. Requires very little space or none — includes VESA mount for back of display mounting. Xenith 2 is 30 percent smaller than original Xenith and utilizes only 7 watts in full operation.
• Zero-compromise user experience. Network-based QoS ensures quality (HDX multi-stream). Devices offers true 720P 25+ fps HD for wmv and H.264 with HW decoding engines. Dual display with rotation and l-shaped [which is unique and essential for financial services environments with an additional screen for spreadsheet viewing in vertical] display capabilities. New WAN support with local echo and bandwidth reporting allowing remote and at home users greater flexibility and performance..
Pricing and Availability
The Wyse Xenith 2 will be available soon with an estimated customer price TBD. For more information, please visit:
http://www.wyse.com/products/cloud-clients/zero-clients/Xenith2
Overview
Establishing a new price/performance standard for zero clients for Citrix, the new Wyse Xenith 2 provides an exceptional user experience at a highly affordable price for Citrix XenDesktop and XenApp environments. With zero attack surface, the ultra-secureXenith 2 offers network-borne viruses and malware zero target for attacks. Xenith 2 boots up in just seconds and delivers exceptional performance for Citrix XenDesktop and XenApp users while offering usability and management features found in premium Wyse cloud client devices. Xenith 2 delivers outstanding performance based on its system-on-chip (SoC) design optimized with its Wyse Zero architecture, and a built-in media processor delivers smooth multimedia, bi-directional audio and Flash playback. Flexible mounting options let you position Xenith 2 vertically or horizontally on your desk, on the wall or behind your display. Using about 7 watts of power in full operation, the Xenith 2 creates very little heat for a greener, more comfortable working environment.
Specifications
| Operating System: | Wyse Zero™ Engine |
| Processor: | Marvell® ARMADA™ PXA 510 v7 1.0 GHz system-on-chip (SoC) |
| Memory: | 0MB Flash / 1GB RAM DDR3 |
| I/O peripheral support: | • One DVI-I port, DVI to VGA (DB-15) adapter included • Dual display support with optional DVI-I to DVI-D plus VGA-monitor splitter cable (sold separately) • Four USB 2.0 |
| Networking: | • 10/100/1000 Base-T Gigabit Ethernet • Optional internal wireless 802.11 b/g |
| Display: | • VESA monitor support with Display Data Control (DDC) for automatic setting of resolution and refresh rate • Dual monitor supported with ‘L shaped’ display rotation • Single: 1920×1200@60Hz; color depth: 32 bpp • Dual: Up To 1920×1080@60Hz; color depth: 32 bpp |
| Audio: | • Output: 1/8-inch mini jack, full 16-bit stereo, 48KHz sample rate • Input: 1/8-inch mini jack, 8-bit microphone |
| Included: | • Enhanced USB keyboard with PS/2 mouse port and Windows keys • PS/2 mouse |
| Power: | • Worldwide auto-sensing 100-240 VAC, 50/60 Hz. • Energy Star V5.0 • Phase V external and EuP compliant power adapter |
| Power consumption: | Under 7.2 Watts (average) |
| Dimensions: | • Height: 1 inch (25mm) • Width: 6.9 inches (177mm) • Depth: 4.69 inches (119mm) Weight: 1 lb (450g) |
| Shipping Weight: | 1.003 lbs. (.455kg) |
| Mountings: | • Stand for horizontal use and VESA/wall mounting (included) • Optional vertical stand |
| Temperature Range: | • Operating • Horizontal position: 50° to 95° F (10° to 35° C) • Vertical position: Power button up: 50° to 104° F (10° to 40° C) • Storage: 14° to 140° F (-10° to 60° C) |
| Humidity: | • 20% to 80% condensing • 10% to 95% non-condensing |
| Security: | Built-in Kensington security slot (cable sold separately) |
| Safety Certifications: | • Ergonomics: German EKI-ITB 2000, ISO 9241-3/-8 • Safety: cULus 60950, TÜV-GS, EN 60950 • RF Interference: FCC Class B, CE, VCCI, C-Tick • Environmental: WEEE, RoHS Compliant |
| Warranty: | 3-year limited hardware warranty |
Jeff McNaught Interview One [CitrixTV YouTube channel, May 24, 2012]
Marvell Joins Citrix System-on-Chip Initiative to Bring Citrix HDX Technology for Thin Clients to Market [Marvell press release, May 9, 2012]
Santa Clara, California (May 9, 2012) – Marvell (Nasdaq: MRVL) today announced participation in the Citrix System-on-Chip (SoC) initiative to enable an entirely new generation of thin clients for high-definition virtual applications and desktops at a low cost. The Marvell® ARMADA® 510 SoC seamlessly integrates Citrix HDX capabilities into a complete silicon solution. The first of many ARMADA chips to be verified as part of the Citrix SoC initiative, the ARMADA 510 is a high-performance, highly integrated, low-power SoC comprised of an ARM v6/v7-compliant superscalar processor core, a hardware graphics processing unit, video decoding acceleration hardware and a broad range of peripherals, answering the need for fast processing and a rich multimedia user experience.
“The future of enterprise computing is in the convergence between mobile devices and digital content – it’s imperative that end users have access to the content they need from any device, whether it’s a thin client, tablet or smartphone. Citrix has been abreast of this monumental shift in the computing landscape for years – and now the Citrix SoC initiative makes it even easier for companies to deliver a new category of mobile-enterprise friendly devices to users quickly and affordably,” said Jack Kang, director of marketing for mobile at Marvell Semiconductor, Inc. “Working closely with Wyse, Marvell is proud to integrate the performance enhancements from Citrix SoC initiative onto Wyse’s performance rich Citrix HDX Ready T50 device based on Marvell’s ARMADA 510. Marvell is also working closely with Citrix to verify its full portfolio of highly scalable enterprise silicon solutions, from cloud servers to mobile and consumer end point devices, and we look forward to further collaborations with Citrix Ready partners to deliver new and exciting products throughout the enterprise.”
“Citrix XenDesktop delivers the capabilities to enable enterprise customers to begin or accelerate their migration to Windows 7 and beyond, while gaining the mobility, flexibility, and management benefits of desktop virtualization.” said Ankur Shah, principal product manager at Citrix Systems. “We welcome Marvell to the Citrix System-on-Chip initiative. Marvell’s broad portfolio of technology will enable a wide variety of devices to leverage the benefits of Citrix desktop virtualization technology.”
”Wyse is excited about Marvell’s partnership with Citrix on the Citrix SoC initiative,” said Kiran Rao, director of product management at Wyse Technology. “The end-to-end approach, incorporating Marvell’s high performance hardware with software optimized for HDX technology, enables Wyse to quickly bring innovative devices to market that provide a superior end user experience. Wyse’s compact, affordable Citrix HDX Ready T50 and T10 thin clients, as well as the new Xenith 2 zero client, powered by Marvell’s ARMADA 510 SoC will further expand access to cloud-based desktop virtualization using Citrix XenDesktop in the enterprise and beyond.”
Wyse and Microsoft discuss cloud PCs and OS licensing [WyseTechnology YouTube channel, May 19, 2011]
Wyse Z Class Thin Client [WyseTechnology YouTube channel, Jan 31, 2011]
Comparison of the current Z class products: Wyse Z90DE7, Wyse Z90D7, Wyse Z90S7, Wyse Z50D, Wyse Z50S, Wyse Z90DW
All with dual-core AMD G-T56N. The 4 Windows® Embedded Standard 7 based ones at 1.6 or 1.65 GHz while the 2 Wyse-enhanced SUSE Linux based ones at 1.5 and 1.6 GHz respectively. Memory is 2/4/8GB Flash + 2/4GB RAM, DDR3, depending on the model. Memory on 3 models is expandable, and on 3 Windows® Embedded Standard 7 based ones SSD storage is also supported. Power consumption is under 15 Watts (average) for all. Dimensions are 200 x 47 x 225 millimeters. Weight is 1.1kg.
Wyse Introduces World’s Fastest Thin Client Family [Wyse press release, Aug 29, 2011]
Wyse, Cloud Client Computing, Z class, World, Fastest, Available, VMworld 2011
SAN JOSE, Calif. – 08/29/2011 – Today at VMworld® 2011, Wyse Technology, the global leader in cloud client computing, today announced that its fastest thin clients ever, the [Windows® Embedded Standard 7 based] Wyse Z90D7 and Z90DW are now shipping. In addition, Wyse today introduced two new Linux-based members of its Z class family – the Wyse Z50S and Wyse Z50D. The Wyse Z50 is the high performance thin client family based on Wyse Enhanced SUSE Linux Enterprise, the industry’s only enterprise-quality Linux operating system that combines the security, flexibility, and market-leading usability of SUSE Linux Enterprise from Novell, with Wyse’s thin computing optimizations in management and user experience.
In connection with the availability of these breakthrough thin clients, Wyse also announced the results of independent testing, recently conducted by The Tolly Group, of the Wyse Z class versus the competition. Wyse made this announcement in connection with VMworld® 2011, the global conference for virtualization and cloud computing held in Las Vegas, August 29th through September 1st at The Venetian. As part of VMworld 2011, Wyse is demonstrating their award-winning virtualization, management, and cloud software and a wide range of thin, zero, mobile and cloud PC client hardware at Booth #1111.
At the heart of the Wyse Z class thin clients lie an entirely new engine, one where all the major system elements – CPU cores, vector engines, and a unified video decoder for HD decoding tasks – live on the same piece of silicon. This design concept eliminates one of the fundamental constraints that limit performance.
The Wyse Z class delivers a combination of performance, simplicity, and connectivity never before seen in a thin client. With available dual-core AMD G-series Fusion accelerated processing units, the Wyse Z class is the world’s best-performing thin client, able to support the most processing-intensive applications including 3D solids modeling, HD graphics simulation, and unified communications with ease. They also include the first SuperSpeed USB 3.0 connectivity in a thin client, enabling the newest peripherals and speeds up to 10 times faster than USB 2.0. With Wyse Z class thin clients, users have more display options than ever before including DisplayPort and DVI.
The Wyse Z class also includes advanced networking capabilities, with support for gigabit Ethernet, and available integrated A/B/G/N dual band Wi-Fi. They are compliant with the ENERGY STAR Version 5.0 Thin Client specification.
Independent testing by The Tolly Group recently confirmed the Z90D7s substantial leadership position in thin client performance compared to rival products. In support of rich video-based Web applications, for example, the Z90D7 boasted a clear advantage in video playback quality while using just a fraction of its processing and memory capability. That equates to a clearly superior user experience on a much more energy-efficient platform. In addition, the Z90D7 scored up to five times higher in industry-standard performance ratings (CPU Mark, 3D Graphics Mark, and PassMark ratings) than the competition. Among secure, cost-effective, yet powerful thin clients, these independent tests confirmed that the Wyse Z class is the clear winner.
“Being able to combine power and performance in such an easily-managed device is something we are extremely proud of,” said Param Desai, Sr. Director, Product Management, with Wyse Technology. “With the availability of Wyse Z class we’ve more than doubled the performance capabilities of competing top-of-the-line thin clients with similar energy requirements.”
Built on the same exact advanced single and dual core processor hardware platform as the Wyse Z90 thin clients, the upcoming Linux-based Wyse Z50 promises more of the same industry leading power and capability on an enterprise-class Linux operating system.
“We are very familiar with the performance of Wyse products having deployed several Z90 devices throughout our campus,” according to Ryan Foster, Network Engineer at Montgomery County Community College in Southeast Pennsylvania. “We were particularly impressed with the improvements to our desktop security, and by the capabilities of these devices handling multimedia files such as audio, video and Flash.”
Supporting Quotes
“The Wyse Z Class and VMware View™ combine to take advantage of PCoIP® in ways that will enhance the end-user experience,” said Vittorio Viarengo, vice president, End-User Computing, VMware. “Better security, easier management and significant energy savings all combine in a high-performance thin client that will benefit both IT and end users.”
“Wyse has made innovative use of the AMD G-Series Accelerated Processing Unit which combines a multi-core CPU, a discrete-class DirectX® 11 capable GPU and HD video decoding in one tiny piece of silicon,” said Buddy Broeker, director of embedded solutions at Advanced Micro Devices “The Wyse Z class takes full advantage of the processor’s unprecedented level of graphics integration that delivers a unique combination of performance and efficiency.”
Availability
For more information on Wyse Z90 including independent report results, please visit:http://www.wyse.com/products/hardware/thinclients/Z90The Wyse Z50 will be available later this year.
Wyse PocketCloud Family Overview [WyseTechnology YouTube channel, Feb 21, 2012]
Wyse PocketCloud Personal Cloud [WyseTechnology YouTube channel, Sept 21, 2011]
More videos about the PocketCloud:
- Wyse PocketCloud wins 2011 Appy Award for Productivity category [WyseTechnologyYouTube channel, March 3, 2011]
- Wyse PocketCloud 2.0 Features for iOS Devices [WyseTechnologyYouTube channel, Oct 13, 2010]
- Wyse PocketCloud demo on an iPad [WyseTechnologyYouTube channel, Dec 14, 2010]
- Wyse PocketCloud Features for Android Devices [WyseTechnologyYouTube channel, Dec 8, 2010]
- Introducing Wyse PocketCloud [WyseTechnologyYouTube channel, Sept 15, 2009]
- Wyse PocketCloud [WyseTechnology YouTube channel, Sept 15, 2009]
Dell Wyse
Focus on Dell [May 24, 2012]
Dell Completes Acquisition of Cloud Client Computing Leader Wyse Technology [Dell press release, May 25, 2012]
- With Wyse, Dell assumes a leadership position in Thin Clients[1]
- Dell’s new Desktop Virtualization capabilities combined by Dell’s leadership position in Server, Storage and Networking solutions successfully positions the company as true end-to-end IT vendor
Dell today announced it has completed its acquisition of Wyse Technology, the global leader in cloud client computing. The combination of Wyse’s capabilities with Dell’s existing desktop virtualization offerings position the company as the leader in the desktop virtualization, enabling it to offer true end-to-end IT solutions for customers and partners.
Dell has made significant strategic investments over the past three years to expand its enterprise technology and services capabilities. The Dell Wyse portfolio with current Dell desktop virtualization offerings, leading data center products such as servers and storage, and Dell’s services division, provides customers and partners with a single vendor that can match the full range of their cloud computing and desktop virtualization needs.
The Dell Wyse solution portfolio includes industry-leading thin, zero and cloud client computing solutions with advanced management, desktop virtualization and cloud software supporting desktops, laptops and next generation mobile devices. Dell Wyse has more than 180 patents, both issued and pending, covering its solutions, software and differentiated intellectual property. Dell’s existing offerings include Desktop Virtualization Solution Simplified and Desktop Virtualization Solution Enterprise.
Dell recognizes it’s critical for the desktop virtualization solutions strategy to embrace simple device management, enhance security, scale, and boost user productivity, while providing the flexibility to support anytime, anywhere access on any device.
Dell plans to preserve Wyse’s channel offerings and all existing Wyse channel partners will be eligible for our PartnerDirect Program. Dell will combine the best of both companies’ channel deal registration programs, extend this new deal registration program to all partners, and introduce a program in which partners can grow and nurture a customer relationship.
Quotes
“We’re excited to officially welcome Wyse to Dell and help extend its industry-leading efforts to a broader range of customers and partners,” said Jeff Clarke, Dell vice chairman and president, Global Operations and End User Computing Solutions. “We believe the Dell Wyse capabilities, combined with our previous desktop virtualization offerings and the strength of the Dell enterprise portfolio, provides the most comprehensive and competitive DVS solution available today.”“Wyse and Dell share the vision and passion in helping our customers and partners create a frictionless user experience via the cloud,” said Tarkan Maner, Vice President and General Manager Dell Wyse, Cloud Client Computing. “Combining our relentless IP innovation and tight operational skills, and most importantly our laser focus on customer and partner advocacy, Dell cloud client computing will develop and deliver the most advanced solutions globally, from the data center to the end user. We are and will be completely focused on the best user experience for any user, for any content, using any app, on any device, anytime, anywhere; without any conflict, compromise and constraint.”
“As a current customer who has deployed Wyse cloud client computing solutions with Dell PowerEdge servers and Dell EqualLogic storage, Western Wayne School District is excited about the combination of Dell and Wyse,” said Brian Seaman, Network Administrator at Western Wayne School District in Pennsylvania. “Like most school districts, Western Wayne operates in a budget constrained environment and our move to desktop virtualization technologies supported with strong enterprise infrastructure has enabled us to do more with less in service of our students and community. In working with Dell and Wyse to scope and deploy our computing environment, Western Wayne now has the right technology to help us achieve our vision of educating our students of today to become the productive citizens of tomorrow.”
“End point computing models continue to evolve and are accelerating tremendous innovation and efficiencies across enterprise desktop and personal computing,” said Bob O’Donnell, vice president, Clients and Displays, IDC. “One area of strong customer growth is in the desktop virtualization space and we expect to see adoption rates continue to grow over the next several years. As use models continue to mature, so do the vendors who offer solutions in this product space. Dell’s acquisition of Wyse results in an industry-leading solutions and services provider with a formidable end-to-end technology stack from the end point to the datacenter to the cloud.”
Dell to Acquire Wyse Technology Conference Call This slideshow could not be started. Try refreshing the page or viewing it in another browser.
James Whittaker’s Quality Software Crusade from Academia to Microsoft, then Google and now back to Microsoft
Updates: Why I joined Microsoft [published: March 21, 2012; written: March 13, 2012]
– James Whittaker @docjamesw 7:06 AM – 20 Mar 12 via web · Details
A web futurist is someone who hates the web as it is now and envisions a better future for it.
– Why I hate search [MSDN Blogs > JW on Tech , March 15, 2012]
…
We start from scratch each time. We search for things we’ve already found.
The problem with Internet search is that being stupid about it is profitable. The more ugly blue links you serve up, the more time users have to click on ads. Serve up bad results and the user must search again and this doubles the number of sponsored links you get paid for. Why be part of the solution when being part of the problem pays so damn well? It’s 2012 and we are still typing search queries into a text box. Now you know why, a ‘find engine’ swims in the shallow end of the profit pool. Is it any surprise that technology such as Siri came from a company that doesn’t specialize in search? (Where do you place an ad in a Siri use case?)
There’s no more reason to expect search breakthroughs from Google than there is to expect electric car batteries to be made by Exxon.
We can do better. We’ve been searching for over a decade. We know every place possible where the online equivalent of car keys are found. We know where our online pet is, always. We know so many things about the world that no longer need to be served up as search “results.” (Results indeed! If users ever wake up and divorce their search engine, the “results” page is likely to be exhibit A in the separation hearing.)
Search, my friends, is broken. Finding things has become secondary to monetizing the search process. Fixing this situation is not in the best interest of the incumbents. Which, actually, is all well and good because the fix will need a more web-wide effort anyway. The companies that own the data sources, the companies that ingest, store and conflate that data, the myriad small development shops that do interesting things with the data, the cleverness of the people who curate the data and the power of crowdsourced know-how need to come together and make search … better? No, not better, irrelevant.
Search is dead. The web doesn’t need it and neither do we.
– Now you see it, in 20 years you won’t [MSDN Blogs > JW on Tech , April 12, 2012]
Google’s Marissa Mayer gave a Flintstonian glimpse at what search might look like in 20 years including “predicting what restaurant you might like in a new city” and “connecting you with strangers based on common interests.” Things that take entire seconds today will take … entire seconds in 2032. Thankfully, for Mayer at least, violating Moore’s Law carries no actual criminal or civil penalties.
In a nutshell, what Mayer (and I assume Google) is proposing is that in twenty years Google and the web will still be standing between knowledge and its consumption. Google has 40 billion reasons to be patient regarding the future.
…
You want a prediction of the future? The trend of disappearing search will continue. The web will melt into the background and humans will progressively be removed from their labor intensive and frustrating present by automation. In five years the web is likely to be completely invisible. You will simply express your intent and the knowledge you seek will be yours. Users will be seamlessly routed to apps capable of fulfilling their intent. Apps won’t need to be installed by a user; they will be able to find opportunities to be useful all by themselves, matching their capabilities with a user’s intent. You need driving directions? Travel reservations? Takeout? Tickets to a show? Groceries? Tell your phone, it will spare you the ugly links. It will spare you the landing page. It will spare you the ads. It will simply give you what you asked for. This is already happening today, expect it to accelerate.
…
End of Updates
James Whittaker @docjamesw 8:03 PM – 29 Feb 12 via web · Details
I got my team today. Hmm…what shall I do with 300 developers? You won’t have to wait long to find out.
About JW on Tech [MSDN Blogs > JW on Tech > About James Whittaker, March 13, 2012]
James Whittaker is a technology executive with a career that spans academia, start-ups and top tech companies. He is known for being a creative and passionate leader and in technical contributions in testing, security and developer tools. He’s published dozens of peer reviewed papers, five books and has won best speaker awards at a number of international conferences. During his time at Google he led teams working on Chrome, Google Maps and Google+. He is currently at Microsoft reinventing the web [in a Partner Development Manager role as per LinkedIn, and as a web futurist at Microsoft according to his twitter account].
Want to read more? James wrote How to Break Software, How to Break Software Security (with Hugh Thompson), and How to Break Web Software (with Mike Andrews). While at Microsoft, James transformed many of his testing ideas into tools and techniques for developers and testers, and wrote the book Exploratory Software Testing [Sept 4, 2009]. His current book was written when he was a test engineering director at Google and is called How Google Tests Software (with Jason Arbon and Jeff Carollo) [Whittaker’s twitter: getting close to end of printing, otherwise April 8, 2012].
How Google Tests Software [Google Testing Blog, May 26, 2011]:
Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Interlude – Part 4 – Part 5 – Part 6 – Q&A – Part 7
Large-scale Exploratory Testing: Let’s Take a Tour [SQEVideo, published on Oct 2, 2011]
[James Whittaker’s Google+ post, Feb 13, 2012]
Signing off of Google+
This will be my last post on Google+. Anyone interested in my post-Google career can follow me on Twitter (@docjamesw).
[James Whittaker’s Google+ post, Feb 3, 2012]
There comes a time when all good things must end and my time at Google is one of them. This is not one of those “Google let me down” rants, nor is it a “I love this company, keep up the good work” farewell … just a realization that even as my perf scores and profile within the company has risen my ability to lead has diminished. It’s time to stop being part of a team changing the world and time to go lead one. Unfortunately, the place to do that is elsewhere. Today is my last day.
Keep in touch with me on Twitter @docjamesw. Or not.
James Whittaker interview [TCLGroupLimited, Dec 3, 2011]
James Whittaker’s testing blog posts while with Google [Google Testing Blog, June 8, 2009 – Nov 15, 2011]
James Whittaker joins Google [Google Testing Blog, June 2, 2009]
By Patrick Copeland
I’m excited to announce that James Whittaker has joined us as our newest Test Director at Google.
James comes to us most recently from Microsoft. He has spent his career focusing on testing, building high quality products, and designing tools and process at the industrial scale. In the not so distant past, he was a professor of computer science at Florida Tech where he taught an entire software testing curriculum and issued computer science degrees with a minor in testing (something we need more schools to do). Following that , he started a consulting practice that spanned 33 countries. Apparently, fashion is not high on his list as he he has collected soccer jerseys from many of these countries and wears those during major tournaments. At Microsoft he wrote a popular blog,and in the near future you can expect him to startcontributing here.
He has trained thousands of testers worldwide. He’s also written set of books in the How to Break Softwareseries. They have won awards and achieved best seller status. His most recent book is on exploratory testing is coming out this summer. It is not a stretch to say that he is one of the most recognizable names in the industry and has had a deep impact on the field of testing. If you have a chance, strike up a conversation with James about the future of testing. His vision for what we’ll be doing and how our profession will change is interesting, compelling and not just a little bit scary.
Join me in welcoming James to Google!
James Whittaker’s testing blog posts while with Microsoft 1st time [posted between July 8, 2008 and May 21, 2009]
tour of the month: the exit-stage-right tour [MSDN Blogs > JW on Test, May 21, 2009]
All tours much eventually come to an end and thus it is with my tour with Microsoft. I have resigned my position and am leaving the company. It was a great ride.
But the tours will continue. My book Exploratory Software Testing: Tips, Tricks, Tours and Techniques to Guide Manual Testers is in press and will appear through Addison-Wesley sometime this summer. I am truly thankful for the many wonderful testers at Microsoft who contributed wisdom, thoughts and even case studies to the effort. Special thanks go to Nicole Haugen, Geoff Staneff, David Gorena Elizondo, Shawn Brown and Bola Agbonile. Microsoft is full of great testers and even here, these guys manage to stand out.
I imagine that I will not be long in setting up a new blog as I have very much enjoyed this experience and being the only tester in Developer Division’s top ten bloggers was quite an honor. For that I thank you.
In case you are interested in my landing place, I can imagine that one or two of the more popular testing blogs around town will be talking about it.
Wish me luck …
before we begin [MSDN Blogs > JW on Test, July 8, 2008]
For those of you familiar with my writing I plan to update some of my more dated work (history of testing, testing’s ten commandments, and so forth) and preview some of the information that I will be publishing in paper and book form in the future. Specifically, I now (finally) have enough notes to revise my tutorial on manual exploratory testing: How to Break Software and will be embarking on that effort soon. This blog is where I’ll solicit feedback and report on my progress.
For now, here’s an update on what’s happening, testing-wise, for me at Microsoft:
- I am the Architect for Visual Studio Team System – Test Edition. That’s right, Microsoft is upping the ante in the test tools business and I find myself at the center of it. What can you expect? We’ll be shipping more than just modern replacements for tired old testing tools. We’ll be shipping tools to help testers to test: automated assistance for the manual tester; bug reporting that brings developers and testers together instead of driving them apart; and tools that make testers a far more central player in the software development process. I can’t wait!
- I am the Chair of the Quality and Testing Experts Community at Microsoft. This is an internal community of the most senior testing and quality thought leaders in the company. We kicked off the community with record-breaking attendance (the most of any of Microsoft’s technical network communities) at our inaugural event this past spring where some of our longest-tenured testers shared a retrospective of the history of testing at Microsoft followed by my own predictions for the future of the discipline. It was a lively discussion and underscored the passion for testing that exists at this company. In this quarter’s meeting we’re doing communal deep dives into the testing-related work that is coming out of Microsoft Research. MSR, the division responsible for Virtual Earth and the Worldwide Telescope also builds test tools! I can’t wait to ship some of this stuff!
- I am representing my division (DevDiv) on a joint project with Windows called aQuality Quest. Our quest is concerned with quality, specifically, what we need to do to ensure that our next generation of platforms and services are so reliable that users take quality for granted. Sounds like I took the blue pill, doesn’t it? Well, you won’t find us dancing around acting like our software is perfect. Anyone who has ever heard me speak (either before or after I joined Microsoft) has seen me break our apps with abandon. In this Quest, we’ll leave no stone unturned to get to the bottom of why our systems fail and what processes or technology can serve to correct the situation.
New hire into our group – James Whittaker [MSDN Blogs > Michael Howard’s Web Log, May 5, 2006]
I’m pleased to announce, actually I’m *thrilled* to announce, that James Whittaker has joined our group [SDL – Security Development Lifecycle]. James is a well-known author and speaker on software testing and security. He most recently worked as a professor of computer science at Florida Tech where he ran a huge software security research team. James created the “How to Break…” book series with Addison Wesley. He wrote How to Break Software [May 19, 2002], How to Break Software Security [May 19, 2003] and How to Break Web Software [Feb 12, 2006].
He’s also one of the folks behind the Holodeck testing tool.
He’s a cool guy, sharp as a tack, with a very dry sense of humor, so we should get along just fine! He’ll be a peer of mine, reporting to Steve Lipner [Trustworthy Computing Initiative chief], and is initially focused on our internal security and privacy training.ne of the folks behind the Holodecktesting tool.
As I’m sure most of you will agree, hiring good security people takes time, and hiring talent like James is rare indeed.
Welcome, James!
[Michael Howard is now the chief security officer for Microsoft as a so called Principal Cybersecurity Architect working with customers and partners. Before that he was a long-time member of the Security Development Lifecycle team, in fact a co-founder of that in 2001, the SDL being also closely related to the now 12 years old Trustworthy Computing Initiative by Microsoft. ]
GTAC 2008 Keynote Address: The Future of Testing by James Whittaker of Microsoft [GoogleTechTalks, published on Apr 7, 2009]
An Interview with James Whittaker [Dr.Dobb’s Journal, Sept 26, 2006]
Michael Hunter interviews James Whittaker, noted testing guru and author, to shed some light on his testing philosophy.
James Whittakeris, I dare say, one of the celebrities of the testing world. He was long a professor of computer science at the Florida Institute of Technology, where he became well-known for his efforts to find ways to make testing a teachable skill. He and his research group there created innovative testing technologies and tools, including the popular runtime fault injection tool Holodeck, and became highly skilled at breaking software security. James founded Security Innovation to productize his work, but recently he has left both that company and teaching to join Microsoft as a Security Architect, where he is working to integrate testing into the Security Development Lifecycle (SDL).
James wrote How To Break Software – one of my favorite books on testing, co-wrote How To Break Software Security (also very good) with Hugh Thompson, and co-wrote How To Break Web Software(haven’t read it yet) with Mike Andrews. James’ talks at Microsoft are always standing room only; this interview will give you a taste of why.
DDJ: What was your first introduction to testing? What did that leave you thinking about the act and/or concept of testing?
JW: I was in graduate school in a software engineering group studying high assurance software engineering methodologies (cleanroom to be specific) and the bloody dev group met at 7:30 on Saturday mornings! I missed the first three meetings (dude, in grad school the nerd act doesn’t happen that early on a weekend) so the professor put me in charge of the independent test team (which I discovered was just me). So that left me with the idea that testers get more sleep than devs but that we need it because we are woefully outnumbered.
And that perception remains, sans the sleep part.
DDJ: What has most surprised you as you have learned about testing/in your experiences with’ testing?
JW: The sheer number of people *passionate* about testing, particularly at Microsoft. It gives me a great deal of confidence in the future knowing that such skill and talent is being applied to the hardest problem the discipline has to offerwhich is quality.
DDJ: What is the most interesting bug you have seen?
JW: The most interesting bug is always the latest bug. Just today everyone in our group was surprised at an Inbox with thousands of recall status messages. Someone sent a mail from an alias of 1275 members, then recalled it. The recall then sent success/failure notices to EVERYONE on the alias. That’s 1275 x 1275 (about 1.6 million) emails! How’s that for exploiting a design flaw!
DDJ: How would you describe your testing philosophy?
JW: Eyes open, brain on, test! Or the longer explanation covered in How to Break Software. Thanks for the chance to plug one of my books!
DDJ: What do you see as the biggest challenge for testers/the test discipline for the next five years?
JW: There are a number of trends that testers are going to have to grapple with. The first is that software is getting better. The result of this is that bugs are going to become harder and harder to find and the weaker testers will be relegated to Darwinian insignificance. Keeping sharp, building skills and maintaining a cutting edge testing knowledge has never been more important.
The second is that software process is finally taking over. For years processes haven’t much affected the way software is built (which doesn’t say much for legacy processes). But here at Microsoft the SDL is revolutionizing the way software is constructed. Testers have to figure out their role in this process. We have to be there, working, at project initiation and play a key role in every single phase of the lifecycle. Testing is not a task for the latter stages of the ship cycle. Testers who realize this and customize their work accordingly will rise in prominence within their product group and be able to influence the growth of the SDL rather than be steamrolled by it.
[See my Table Of Contents post for more details about this interview series.]
“if Microsoft is so good at testing, why does your software suck?” [MSDN Blogs > JW on Test, Aug 11, 2008]
What a question! I only wish I could convey the waythat question is normally asked. The tone of voice is either partially apologetic (because many people remember that I was a major ask-er of that same question long before I became an ask-ee) or it’s condescending to the point that I find myself smiling as I fantasize about the ask-er’s computer blue-screening right before that crucial save. (Ok, so I took an extra hit of the kool-aid today. It was lime and I like lime.)
After 27 months on the inside I have a few insights. The first few are, I readily concede, downright defensive. But as I’ve come to experience firsthand, true nonetheless. The last one though is really at the heart of the matter: that, talent notwithstanding, testers at Microsoft do have some work to do.
I’m not going down the obvious path: that testing isn’t responsible for quality and to direct the question to a developer/designer/architect instead. (I hatethe phrase ‘you can’t test quality in,’ it’s a deflection of blame and as a tester, I take quality directly as my responsibility.)
But I am getting ahead of myself. I’ll take up that baton at the end of this post. Let’s begin with the defensive points:
- Microsoft builds applications that are among the world’s most complex. No one is going to argue that Windows, SQL Server, Exchange and so forth aren’t complex and the fact that they are in such widespread use means that our biggest competitors are often our own prior versions. We end up doing what we call “brown field” development (as opposed to ‘green field’ or version 1 development) in that we are building on top of existing functionality. That means that testers have to deal with existing features, formats, protocols along with all the new functionality and integration scenarios that make it very difficult to build a big picture test plan that is actually do-able. Testing real end-to-end scenarios must share the stage with integration and compatibility tests. Legacy sucks and functionality is only part of it…as testers, we all know what is really making that field brown! Be careful where you step. Dealing with yesterday’s bugs keeps part of our attention away from today’s bugs.
(Aside: Have you heard that old CS creationist joke: “why did it take god only seven days to create the universe?” The answer: “No installed base.” There’s nothing to screw up, no existing users to piss off or prior functionality and crappy design decisions to tiptoe around. God got lucky, us…not so much.)
- Our user-to-tester ratio sucks, leaving us hopelessly outnumbered. How many testers does it take to run the same number of test cases that the user base of, say, Microsoft Word can run in the first hour after it is released? The answer: far more than we have or could hire even if we could find enough qualified applicants. There are enough users to virtually ensure that every feature gets used in every way imaginable within the first hour (day, week, fortnight, month, pick any timescale you want and it’s still scary) after release. This is a lot of stress to put our testers under. It’s one thing to know you are testing software that is important. It’s quite another to know that your failure to do so well will be mercilessly exposed soon after release. Testing our software is hard, only the brave need apply.
- On a related point, our installed base makes us a target. Our bugs affect so many people that they are newsworthy. There are a lot of people watching for us to fail. If David Beckham wears plaid with stripes to fetch his morning paper, it’s scandalous; if I wore my underpants on the outside of my jeans for a week few people would even notice (in their defense though, my fashion sense is obtuse enough that they could be readily forgiven for overlooking it). Becks is a successful man, but when it comes to the ‘bad with the good’ I’m betting he’s liking the good a whole lot more. You’re in good company David.
But none of that matters. We’ll take our installed base and our market position any day. No trades offered. But still, we always ready to improve. I think testers should step up and do a better job of testing quality in. That’s my fourth point.
- Our testers don’t play a strong enough role in the design of our apps. We have this “problem” at Microsoft that we have a whole lot of wicked smart people. We have these creatures called Technical Fellows and Distinguished Engineers who have really big brains and use them to dream really big dreams. Then they take these big dreams of theirs and convince General Managers and VPs (in addition to being smart they are also articulate and passionate) that they should build this thing they dreamt about. Then another group of wicked smart people called Program Managers start designing the hell out of these dreams and Developers start developing the hell out of them and a few dozen geniuses later this thing has a life of its own and then someone asks ‘how are we going to test this thing’ and of course it’s A LITTLE LATE TO BE ASKING THAT QUESTION NOW ISN’T IT?
Smart people who dream big inspire me. Smart people who don’t understand testing and dream big scare the hell out of me. We need to do a better job of getting the word out. There’s another group of wicked smart people at Microsoft and we’re getting involved a wee bit late in the process. We’ve got things to say and contributions to make, not to mention posteriors to save. There’s a part of our job we aren’t doing as well as we should: pushing testing forward into the design and development process and educating the rest of the company on what quality means and how it is attained.
We can test quality in; we just have to start testing a lot sooner. That means that everyone from TF/DE through the entire pipeline needs to have test as part of their job. We have to show them how to do that. We have to educate these smart people about what quality means and take what we know about testing and apply it not only to just binaries/assemblies, but to designs, user stories, specs and every other artifact we generate. How can it be the case that what we know about quality doesn’t apply to these early stage artifacts? It does apply. We need to lead the way in applying it.
I think that ask-ers of the good-tester/crappy-software question would be surprised to learn exactly how we are doing this right now. Fortunately, you’ll get a chance because Tara Roth, one of the Directors of Test for Office is speaking at STAR West in November. Office has led the way in pushing testing forward and she’s enjoyed a spot as a leader of that effort. I think you’ll enjoy hearing what she has to say.
Test Talk with James Whittaker [Oct 3, 2011]
James Whittaker is in software testing as long as he can remember. During his study he wrote his graduation paper about Model Based Testing. He made fame at Microsoft and recently he ´joined the enemy´ by going over to Google. His books “how to break software” are bestsellers and the presentation in which he is hacking websites live in front of the audience are fantastic. His last book about Exploratory Software Testing is released last year. I was in the opportunity to ask him the questions below.
1. Can you introduce yourself and explain how you already became a tester during college at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, judging the name of your dissertation.
My name is James Whittaker and I am a Director of Engineering at Google. I own Test for a bunch of Google products including Chrome browser, Chrome operating system, Google Toolbar as well as some Search and Geo products and a bunch of back-end data center infrastructure applications. I also own Development of engineering tools including both developers and testing tools.I got into test when I was a grad student. Mostly it was by default as my software engineering research team met on Saturday mornings and I had better things to do early Saturday than spend it with a bunch of coding nerds. My professor gave me two choices: get fired or be a tester. Neither he or I knew what a favor he did for me at the time. I really hit the ground running and did a lot of innovative work in model-based testing. In fact, I got my PhD two years before any of those developers. Testing was a great career move for me even back then.
2. How hard was it to change from a Microsoft employee towards a Google employee, and is testing very different at these two companies?
Not hard at all difficult. Microsoft was great preparation for Google. Culturally they are polar opposites with Microsoft being more top down whereas Google is more engineering driven. At Microsoft the high ratio of testers to developers is a case in point. The numbers of people on a project is made by execs and managers. At Google it is made by engineers and no engineer at Google believes a 1:1 ratio is necessary or even healthy. The fewer testers on a project means more involvement by developers for QA. I had a meeting yesterday with the development director for Chrome OS and the entire subject was what they could do to make our job easier. The director was genuinely concerned that his developers were engaging deeply enough on testing issues. A culture like that makes the 1:1 ratio irrelevant … everyone on the project is a tester.3. I read somewhere that you are busy at Google with forging a future in which software just works. Is that possible, a world without software bugs?
Not in my lifetime. However we are getting closer. Even a few years ago I had to pull the battery on my smart phone every week or so. I’ve not even turned my current one off for 3 months and it works fine. Quality assurance for software is much like health care for humans. Humans will always get sick but with good prevention, good hygiene and regular maintenance our bodies do ok. We need to make testing like this: continuous and ongoing. One of the things that annoys me is the whole “push quality upstream” movement. Some people seem to believe that we can rig it so we just write perfect code. That’s like taking all your vitamins when you are a baby and then expecting a long healthy life. Obviously upfront debugging is good, but quality is an ongoing endeavor. It starts at the beginning and is a constant activity throughout the life of a product.4. Patrick Copeland said that your vision on the future of testing is interesting, compelling and not just a little bit scary. Can you shortly tell us your vision, so we don’t get scared?
I am happy that it scares people and honored that it scares smart people like Patrick who thinks deeply on these matters. Too many people are dogmatic about testing. Some say “avoid rigor and do only exploratory testing” and they say it with a fervor that reminds me of religious fundamentalist who see only black and white. Others say the same of automation with the same amount of self righteousness. One thing I do know is that when you think your world view is the only view, there is a problem. People like this have stopped thinking about alternatives. They’ve stopped being open minded. They’ve definitely stopped being right.I am also not going to stand in the middle and start every answer with ‘it depends.’ It turns out that there are some absolutes. There are some testing problems that can be driven to extinction with automation. There are some problems where exploratory testing is exactly the opposite of a good idea. I think it is smart to be problem-oriented and not solution-oriented. The latter is the proverbial hammer solution where every problem looks like a nail because you sell hammers for a living. I’ve laid out my full vision for software testing in my latest book but let me just say here that the part people find scary is that my vision requires far fewer testers than the world currently employs.
5. Your last book is about Exploratory Testing. Can you explain how taking the supermodel tour will improve our testing skills?
All the tours focus a tester’s attention. The idea is to test on purpose. Exploratory testing does not have to lack rigor and it does not have to encompass endless wandering hoping that you find a bug. It also should be about finding important bugs. I find myself endlessly annoyed by speakers who show bugs that no one would care about. Any exploratory method can find easy bugs; what about the hard ones?Many of the tours focus on a general class of bug. The Supermodel Tour as a specific case focuses on presentation layer bugs. It asks you to first identify important properties of the UI and then choose paths that force those properties to change and then be displayed on the UI. We called it the Supermodel Tour to get the idea across that we are looking only skin-deep for bugs (only at the UI level). The tour gives both general guidance in terms of focusing on displayable properties and specific guidance about what part of the application should be visited during an exploratory session (the functions that allow you to change and then display those values). So you see that it requires some pre-work and planning but then allows for exploration once that planning is done. For example, in Maps we run the Supermodel Tour on our classification of landmarks. We make a list of all the landmarks (national parks, places of interest and so forth) in advance and explore the UI to find each location. We (actually Brendan Dhein) found a bug where Arlington National Cemetery was classified as a restaurant! It’s a subtle bug if you are just exploring. But if you are running the Supermodel Tour is jumps out at you. The idea is that a good tester can become a great tester with the right focus and by testing on purpose.
6. What will your next book be about?
I’m writing a book called How Google Test Chrome which details our testing process start to finish on Chrome OS. It’s a totally open kimono assessment of everything that we are going. Right, wrong, false starts, great ideas, cool innovation, new tools and every test artifact we generate from plans to test cases to open source automation. I am psyched about this as I don’t believe anyone has every fully documented and published a complete project before, particularly one of the complexity of an operating system.I plan to include the browser too in this but as I have only written the first chapter on the test plan I do not want to over commit!
7. How is testing managed at Google? From one place or per country or per application or … ?
It’s divided by product lines or what we call “Focus Areas.” In my case I own the Client Focus Area. However since I am in a remote site I also have authority over all the work that goes on in Kirkland and Seattle Washington. I’m a busy boy but I like it that way. A single product would bore me.It’s funny that on the Dev side each product has a Director in charge of it. Whereas I am the Director over many products. I have Test Managers over each product who have to interact with a Director on the dev side. So if you match us up one to one, you might have a Test Manager matching wits on a daily basis with Development Director three levels above them in rank. You talk about character building, this is the place for that. Google test managers are a breed apart. Cream of the crop.
8. Are you still collecting soccer jerseys? And if so, is there one you really want to add to your collection?
Yes and I cannot wait to wear them during the World Cup. By tradition I never wear anything else during that tournament (sorry for the visual). When people invite me to speak I often get them as gifts and I have dozens. I am hoping I get a Swiss one this trip (hint, hint) and I lost my Australian one (please don’t ask) and am looking for a replacement. But I have a lot of club jerseys too and will relish the chance to wear different colors. Send me a jersey and I’ll send you some signed books!9. I hear you will giving a keynote at the Swiss Testing Day. Can you give us a sneak preview on what it will be about?
“Testing On Purpose” is the title. I am talking in far more depth about how we are testing Chrome at Google. I hope to see you there.
All that testing is getting in the way of quality by James Whittaker, Part One [TCLGroupLimited, Dec 8, 2011]
All that testing is getting in the way of quality by James Whittaker, Part Two [TCLGroupLimited, Dec 8, 2011]
A Brave New World of Testing? An Interview with Google’s James Whittaker by Forrest Shull [IEEE Software, March/April 2012 pp. 4-7]
… In their introduction, the guest editors have compiled a list of questions related to what our future, cloud-intensive world is going to look like—many of which I’ve heard myself from colleagues in government and commercial positions. The one that I hear most often is this: How should organizations leverage the power of this approach to improve testing and quality assurance of software? To get an answer, I turned to James Whittaker, an engineering director at Google, which has been at the forefront of leveraging the cloud. James is a noted expert and author on software testing, whose team has been managing Google’s cloud computing testing. Some excerpts of our conversation:
What is it like right now, looking across cloud computing testing at Google? It sounds like a pretty major undertaking.
…
In one of your previous interviews, I came across a statement of yours that has become one of my favorite thought-provoking quotes. You said, “Anyone who says that testing is getting harder is doing it wrong.” Could you expand on this a bit?
…
In the cloud, all the machines automatically work together; there’s monitoring software available, and one test case will run anywhere. There’s not even a test lab. There’s just a section of the datacenter that works for you from a testing point of view. You put a test case there and it runs. And all of the different scheduling software that any datacenter uses to schedule tasks can be used to schedule tests. So, a lot of the stuff that we used to have to write and customize for our test labs, we just don’t need anymore.
…
The other thing the cloud has done is brought us closer to our users. Think of Google Maps: it’s really impossible to hire a group of testers to exhaustively test it. It’s literally a piece of software of planetary proportions. If there’s a bug in my address on Google Maps, I’m likely to be the only one who will find it. But the cloud also enables us to reach out to users who are early adopters to get better and richer bug feedback than we were ever able to do back in the client-server days, when once software got to the field it was very difficult to update and instrument. Now, it’s easy to update a datacenter, it’s easy to instrument a datacenter. If a customer finds a bug, it’s easy for them to tell us about it, and it’s easy for us to fix it and push that fix to all our users, by just refreshing a browser.
So the cloud really does change things. It’s a different model of development; it’s a different model of testing; it’s a different model of usage.
Regarding testers and the skill sets that they’ve traditionally been applying on the job, does the same skill set still apply? Or are people being asked to develop new skills to take advantage of all these cloud features?
…
So, if I can paraphrase what you’ve been saying, the cloud is changing the whole underlying economics of software development and software testing. It’s easier and quicker for a company to try something, push it out to users, hear from the users what the problems are, and fix them, than it is to follow the traditional path of getting the requirements right up front, then getting the architecture right and nailed down, then getting the coding done well ….
Absolutely. By the time you do all that stuff, you’re too late. Your competitor’s beaten you to the market. On the cloud, you can really release and iterate—that’s much more the development model of modern times.
But you have to be careful: Google’s not pushing software out to its users saying, “Hey, is this any good? We’re not sure!” There are a lot of intermediate steps. We have an internal process we call dogfooding, as in, if you’re trying to sell dog food, you should eat your own product first to make sure it’s okay. All our software is used internally first by Googlers before we push it out to the world. If you look at something like Google+, which we released last year, we used that internally among Googlers for many months before we released it. In that process of dogfooding Google+, we found far more bugs and far richer bugs than the test team associated with Google+.
The points you’re making, about having representative users from the beginning who are able to use the product and help mature it, represents a much bigger paradigm shift than I had originally realized.
To me, that is just one of the most crucial things that companies absolutely have to get good at. In the past, if you found a bug in, say, your browser, you didn’t know how to report it. You’d have to find some bug-reporting page on the vendor’s site, and it would ask you what operating system you were using and what version of the browser you were using, and what other plug-ins you had installed…. But the machine knows all that stuff! So the idea is that once you crash, or once a user finds a bug, you just grab that machine state and send it back to the vendor so that they can understand the state the user was in exactly.
This seems like a very concrete model to use for functional testing. But does the same paradigm work if I’m worried about things like reliability, performance, or throughput?
Or better yet, security, privacy, and so on. I agree with you completely. I think the idea of paying top dollar for engineers to do functional testing really is an artifact of the 1990s and 2000s, and shouldn’t be something that companies invest in heavily in the future. But things like security, privacy, and performance are very technical in nature. You don’t do security testing without understanding a lot about protocols, machine states, or how the Web works; a lot of a priori knowledge is required. You can’t replace that. So when I give advice to functional testers who say that I’m predicting the end of their job, specialization is one of the things I recommend. Specialization is crucially important.
…
How does the simplistic testing model that we all learned in school—where you go first through unit testing, then integration testing, then system testing—adapt to the new paradigm?
We do integration testing, but we call it something different. People always say that Google just likes to change the names of things, but we did this one on purpose. We don’t have to integrate it from environment to environment, but we do have to integrate it across developers. So developer A writes one module, developer B writes another module; to us, integration testing hits both developer A’s anzsoftware that you simply do not have to run on the cloud: any sort of configuration test, and any sort of load testing, just isn’t necessary in this new modern environment. Load is taken care of for you; if it slows down, new cells in the datacenter are spun off automatically.
When you hire new testers for your teams at Google, is there something in particular that you’re looking for? You mentioned specialization as being important, but is there anything else that makes a good cloud tester versus just a good tester?
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For folks who are trying to move legacy systems onto the cloud, does their development and testing process look a lot different from what they’d use when trying to do something more greenfield?
…
Where are things going in the future? Will abstractions allow developers and testers to worry about even fewer issues over time, or will there be new things that we do need to worry about as more and more people go on the cloud?
There are definitely some new things that we’ll need to worry about. First and foremost, connecting to customers is going to be really important. As much as we have the server side of it down (instead of having a massively complex server, we just have this cloud that takes care of itself), there’s still a lot of variation on the device/user side. If you look at the number of Android devices that are out there, and the number of operating systems and apps that people have configured onto them, that is still a hard testing problem.
The cloud actually makes that easier, too. Crowdsourcing companies are now connecting certain specific people with specific devices to people who are writing apps on those devices. So the idea of leveraging the crowd through the cloud is definitely something that hasn’t been done before, and is a new phenomenon that we’re watching really carefully here.
One thing is for sure, we’re never going to settle on a single platform. Humankind doesn’t seem to be capable of doing that, and I don’t think it would be a good thing to eliminate competition among platforms. The Linux/Windows competition has always been healthy, and the same thing is happening in the mobile space now. So we’re always going to have to develop for multiple platforms, and those platform owners are going to want to innovate as quickly as they can and they’re not always going to be checking with you or each other on those innovations, so the developers are just going to have to be on their toes.
Learn More
My conversation with James touched on many more issues than I could note here. If you’re interested in hearing more of the conversation we had, which ranged over additional issues such as cloud testing tools and handling privacy and robustness, then check out our half-hour audio interview at http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/MS.2012.23.
More than anything else, my conversation with James made me aware again of the significant changes to the way we do business that accompany the cloud, and the new skills that are becoming important. Perhaps the best summary was James’ comments that “People really need to take the cloud seriously and rethink testing from the ground up. There are a lot of sacred cows in testing that just go away with the transition to the cloud. Keeping an open mind and taking advantage of the efficiencies of the cloud are going to be really important.” I certainly hope the remainder of this special issue on cloud computing will help give you useful food for thought in doing so.
Why I left Google [MSDN Blogs > JW on Tech, March 13, 2012]
Ok, I relent. Everyone wants to know why I left and answering individually isn’t scaling so here it is, laid out in its long form. Read a little (I get to the punch line in the 3rdparagraph) or read it all. But a warning in advance: there is no drama here, no tell-all, no former colleagues bashed and nothing more than you couldn’t already surmise from what’s happening in the press these days surrounding Google and its attitudes toward user privacy and software developers. This is simply a more personal telling.
It wasn’t an easy decision to leave Google. During my time there I became fairly passionate about the company. I keynoted four Google Developer Day events, two Google Test Automation Conferences and was a prolific contributor to the Google testing blog. Recruiters often asked me to help sell high priority candidates on the company. No one had to ask me twice to promote Google and no one was more surprised than me when I could no longer do so. In fact, my last three months working for Google was a whirlwind of desperation, trying in vain to get my passion back.
The Google I was passionate about was a technology company that empowered its employees to innovate. The Google I left was an advertising company with a single corporate-mandated focus.
Technically I suppose Google has always been an advertising company, but for the better part of the last three years, it didn’t feel like one. Google was an ad company only in the sense that a good TV show is an ad company: having great content attracts advertisers.
Under Eric Schmidt ads were always in the background. Google was run like an innovation factory, empowering employees to be entrepreneurial through founder’s awards, peer bonuses and 20% time. Our advertising revenue gave us the headroom to think, innovate and create. Forums like App Engine, Google Labs and open source served as staging grounds for our inventions. The fact that all this was paid for by a cash machine stuffed full of advertising loot was lost on most of us. Maybe the engineers who actually worked on ads felt it, but the rest of us were convinced that Google was a technology company first and foremost; a company that hired smart people and placed a big bet on their ability to innovate.
From this innovation machine came strategically important products like Gmail and Chrome, products that were the result of entrepreneurship at the lowest levels of the company. Of course, such runaway innovative spirit creates some duds, and Google has had their share of those, but Google has always known how to fail fast and learn from it.
In such an environment you don’t have to be part of some executive’s inner circle to succeed. You don’t have to get lucky and land on a sexy project to have a great career. Anyone with ideas or the skills to contribute could get involved. I had any number of opportunities to leave Google during this period, but it was hard to imagine a better place to work.
But that was then, as the saying goes, and this is now.
It turns out that there was one place where the Google innovation machine faltered and that one place mattered a lot: competing with Facebook. Informal efforts produced a couple of antisocial dogs in Wave and Buzz. Orkut never caught on outside Brazil. Like the proverbial hare confident enough in its lead to risk a brief nap, Google awoke from its social dreaming to find its front runner status in ads threatened.
Google could still put ads in front of more people than Facebook, but Facebook knows so much more about those people. Advertisers and publishers cherish this kind of personal information, so much so that they are willing to put the Facebook brand before their own. Exhibit A: http://www.facebook.com/nike, a company with the power and clout of Nike putting their own brand afterFacebook’s? No company has ever done that for Google and Google took it personally.
Larry Page himself assumed command to right this wrong. Social became state-owned, a corporate mandate called Google+. It was an ominous name invoking the feeling that Google alone wasn’t enough. Search had to be social. Android had to be social. You Tube, once joyous in their independence, had to be … well, you get the point. Even worse was that innovation had to be social. Ideas that failed to put Google+ at the center of the universe were a distraction.
Suddenly, 20% meant half-assed. Google Labs was shut down. App Engine fees were raised. APIs that had been free for years were deprecated or provided for a fee.As the trappings of entrepreneurship were dismantled, derisive talk of the “old Google” and its feeble attempts at competing with Facebook surfaced to justify a “new Google” that promised “more wood behind fewer arrows.”
The days of old Google hiring smart people and empowering them to invent the future was gone. The new Google knew beyond doubt what the future should look like. Employees had gotten it wrong and corporate intervention would set it right again.
Officially, Google declared that “sharing is broken on the web” and nothing but the full force of our collective minds around Google+ could fix it. You have to admire a company willing to sacrifice sacred cows and rally its talent behind a threat to its business. Had Google been right, the effort would have been heroic and clearly many of us wanted to be part of that outcome. I bought into it. I worked on Google+ as a development director and shipped a bunch of code. But the world never changed; sharing never changed. It’s arguable that we made Facebook better, but all I had to show for it was higher review scores.
As it turned out, sharing was not broken. Sharing was working fine and dandy, Google just wasn’t part of it. People were sharing all around us and seemed quite happy. A user exodus from Facebook never materialized. I couldn’t even get my own teenage daughter to look at Google+ twice, “social isn’t a product,” she told me after I gave her a demo, “social is peopleand the people are on Facebook.” Google was the rich kid who, after having discovered he wasn’t invited to the party, built his own party in retaliation. The fact that no one came to Google’s party became the elephant in the room.
Google+ and me, we were simply never meant to be. Truth is I’ve never been much on advertising. I don’t click on ads. When Gmail displays ads based on things I type into my email message it creeps me out. I don’t want my search results to contain the rants of Google+ posters (or Facebook’s or Twitter’s for that matter). When I search for “London pub walks” I want better than the sponsored suggestion to “Buy a London pub walk at Wal-Mart.”
The old Google made a fortune on ads because they had good content. It was like TV used to be: make the best show and you get the most ad revenue from commercials. The new Google seems more focused on the commercials themselves.
Perhaps Google is right. Perhaps the future lies in learning as much about people’s personal lives as possible. Perhaps Google is a better judge of when I should call my mom and that my life would be better if I shopped that Nordstrom sale. Perhaps if they nag me enough about all that open time on my calendar I’ll work out more often. Perhaps if they offer an ad for a divorce lawyer because I am writing an email about my 14 year old son breaking up with his girlfriend I’ll appreciate that ad enough to end my own marriage. Or perhaps I’ll figure all this stuff out on my own.
The old Google was a great place to work. The new one?
MWC 2012 day 1 news [Feb 27, 2012]: Samsung and Nokia
Samsung had a number of enhanced GALAXY products (see them in the “Details for Samsung” section below). The really strong message from innovation point of view from them has, however, been (considered by them as “hidden gems”):
Samsung Mobile – Beyond Product [SAMSUNGmobile YouTube Channel]
Tour the Samsung Mobile booth at Mobile World Congress 2012 in Barcelona. Find out more about our new innovations, from AllShare Play and Control through Smart Driving and Smart School to NFC mobile payments.
UPDATE: for Nokia the major competition is the overall Android ecosystem, and not only in the proper smartphone market as:
– repeatedly stressed by Stephen Elop, the CEO of Nokia:
Our number-one focus is competing with Android. [see here and here]
The principal competition is Android, and then Apple. [see here]
– indicated in relevant excerpts from the Nokia 2011 fiscal year report [March 8, 2012] as:
Market overview
… Today, however, the distinction between these two classes of products is blurring. Increasingly, basic feature phone models, supported by innovations in both hardware and software, are also providing people with the opportunity to access the Internet and applications and, on the whole, offering them a more smartphone-like experience.
Whether smartphones or feature phones, mobile devices geared for Internet access and their accompanying Internet data plans are also becoming increasingly affordable and, consequently, they are becoming attractive to a broader range of consumer groups and geographic markets. A notable recent development has been the increased affordability of devices based on the Android platform, which has enabled some vendors to offer smartphones for below EUR 100, excluding taxes and subsidies, and thus address a portion of the market which has been dominated by more basic feature phone offerings.
….
Competition
… some competitors’ offerings based on Android are available for purchase by consumers for below EUR 100, excluding taxes and subsidies, and thus address a portion of the market which has been traditionally dominated by feature phone offerings, including those offered by Nokia. Accordingly, lower-priced smartphones are increasingly reducing the addressable market and lowering the price points for feature phone. …
Principal Factors & Trends Affecting our Results of Operations
Devices & Service
…
Increased Pervasiveness of Smartphones and Smartphone-like Experiences Across the Price Spectrum
During the past year, we saw the increasing availability of more affordable smartphones, particularly Android-based smartphones, connected devices and related services which were able to reach lower price points contributing to a decline in the average selling prices of smartphones in our industry.
This trend affects us in two ways. First, it puts pressure on the price of our smartphones and potentially our profitability, as we need to price our smartphones competitively. We currently partially address this with our Symbian device offering in specific regions and distribution channels, and we plan to introduce and bring to markets new and more affordable Nokia products with Windows Phone in 2012, such as the Nokia Lumia 610 announced in February 2012. Second, lower-priced smartphones put pressure on our higher-end feature phone offering from our Mobile Phones unit. We are addressing this with our planned introductions in 2012 ofsmarter, competitively priced feature phones with more modern user experiences, including software, services and application experiences. In support of our Mobile Phones business, we also plan to drive third party innovation through working with our partners to engage in building strong, local ecosystems.
…
Full information is in the Nokia’s strategy for “the next billion” based on software and web optimization with super low-cost 2.5/2.75G SoCs [Feb 14 – March 8, 2012] post on this blog.
END OF UPDATE
For Nokia, accordingly, a number of innovations have already been introduced on the MWC 2012, from the hardware level up to the services which surround all that. So for Nokia I will provide a video-based overview here well before going into the “Details for Nokia” section in the very end:
Nokia Press Conference Highlights from MWC 2012 [nokia YouTube channel]
Key points: Nokia Lumia 610 is announced. Award-winning Nokia Lumia 900 will become available in various markets outside the US. Nokia PureView elevates industry standard in smartphone imaging. New Asha feature phones and services grow increasingly ‘smarter’.
Nokia Lumia 610 Hands-On Video [nokia YouTube channel]
The funky Nokia Lumia 610 http://nokia.ly/AztJvZ is the most affordable Lumia phone yet, but it delivers everything you need in a smartphone. The People Hub pulls family and friends’ contact details in one place, along with Facebook and Twitter feeds. A choice of colours, with metallic trim, makes the phone an individual style statement. [$254 (€189). Has a 3.7” 800 x 480 WVGA LCD display.]
The Windows Phone Xbox tie-in and 5-megapixel camera add to the funky package. And Nokia Music, with Mix Radio (availability may vary by market), Nokia Maps, Nokia Drive, Nokia Transport and Nokia Reading – make this phone unbeatable value.
UPDATE: the Nokia Lumia 610 won Tom’s Hardware Best in show and Best Budget Smartphone from Laptop. See here.
Introducing the White Nokia Lumia 900 – Live Large [nokia YouTube channel]
Meet the new Nokia Lumia 900 with Windows Phone http://nokia.ly/zoyq6L Find out how fast amazing can be. And social. And beautiful. With its award winning design including front facing camera and Live Tiles, keeping in touch with friends, and the entire Internet, has never been so easy. [$645 (€480). Has a 4.3” 800 x 480 WVGA AMOLED ClearBlack display with Gorilla Glass.]
Experience The Amazing Everyday.
First Look at Nokia Reading on Nokia Lumia [nokia YouTube channel]
In this hands on video, Rhidian from Nokia talks about Nokia Reading, a premium e-book and audio experience service announced at Mobile World Congress 2012, and shows how it works on Nokia Lumia.
Nokia Reading will be available for Nokia Lumia handsets from April and will first launch in six markets (UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Russia) with more to follow.
UPDATE: Nokia Reading: Get gripped by a great book [Nokia Coversations blog, Feb 28, 2012]
Nokia Reading follows the same simple and elegant panorama design we’ve become used to with other services, delivering the whole experience through a beautifully designed “reading hub.”
Nokia is working with some of the world’s biggest publishers, including Penguin and Hachette, and Pearson to launch a world class e-book and audiobook experience that’s been designed specifically for the Nokia Lumia.
Using a single, simple app you can choose your own favourite authors, or select bestselling novels and the top local books in your own language. If you’re not sure that you’ll like a book, Nokia Reading lets you browse some sample pages before you buy. Or you can download and read one of the thousands of classic works of literature that will be available for free.
Once you have chosen a book, large, clear, smartphone screens like those on the Nokia Lumia make reading an enjoyable experience – and you can switch to ‘night mode,’ change the font or adjust brightness, if your eyes get tired in the evening. It’s also great on an underground train or plane, because you can read everything offline after downloading beforehand over WiFi or mobile network
In coming months you’ll also be able to create a personalized magazine page (called “news stream”) that updates content across the most popular categories, and adds web content from your chosen sites.
Nokia 808 PureView – The next breakthrough in photography [nokia YouTube channel]
The game changer! Nokia 808 PureView http://nokia.ly/xz6mhS takes every bit of image goodness captured by a 41MP sensor and Carl Zeiss lens and turns it into beautifully detailed images and Full HD videos. Be ready to shoot and share with friends in an instant. [$605 (€450). Has a 4” 640 x 360 16:9 nHD AMOLED display.]
The Nokia 808 PureView also features exclusive Dolby Headphone technology, transforming stereo content into a personal surround sound experience over any headphones and Dolby Digital Plus for 5.1 channel surround sound playback.
UPDATE: Zooming in on Nokia PureView [article on the Nokia Conversations blog, Feb 29, 2012]: meet the brains behind Nokia PureView Eero Salmelin and Juha Alakarhu, and also learn the history of this 5 years long journey that lead to the delivery on MWC 2012
UPDATE: Nokia 808 PureView partner makes it unbeatable [Nokia Conversations blog, March 1, 2012]
Dolby reveals audio secret of new phone’s success
…
Taking pride of place at their stand, the world’s best camera phone owes much to Dolby technologies for helping to make it an HD mobile entertainment device.
For the PureView is also about pure audio thanks to its high-definition Dolby Digital Plus 5.1-channel surround sound which plays on HD TVs, and home theatre systems, and when combined with Dolby Headphone technology – also built into the PureView – provides a personal 5.1 surround experience over any headphones.
Nokia is also bringing the Dolby experience to other smartphones with Nokia Belle Feature Pack 1 software upgrade for the Nokia 700, Nokia 701, and Nokia 603, also displayed on the Dolby stand.
Mobile Sales Director Shawn Richards talked us through the tech on a Nokia 700 with a demo from Batman movie The Dark Knight.
He explained that the Dolby Headphone upgrade transforms stereo content into a personal surround sound.
“You get a more natural, engaging, and authentic sound,” he said. “Good audio is even more important when you are watching a movie on a small screen. And Dolby Headphone creates a totally immersive feel.”
…
UPDATE: Nokia 808 Pureview – Best New Mobile Handset, Device or Tablet at Mobile World Congress 2012 [nokia YouTube channel, March 1, 2012]
Nokia 808 PureView wins top MWC award!
Our awesome camera phone scoops the top award from Mobile World Congress 2012 judges.
UPDATE: Damian Dinning explains Nokia PureView technology [nokia YouTube channel, Feb 29, 2012]
Nokia’s imaging expert Damian Dinning explains the breakthrough camera technology behind Nokia 808 PureView.
You could also check out the gorgeous photos taken with Nokia 808 PureView from the flickr.
UPDATE: Nokia PureView Q&A with Damian Dinning [interview on the Nokia Conversations blog, March 1, 2012]
Nokia Stereo Bluetooth Headset BH-221 – See what you hear [nokia YouTube channel]
The new Nokia Stereo Bluetooth Headset BH-221 comes with an integrated FM radio and OLED display. It as excellent audio quality and NFC for easy pairing with your phone. Learn more at: www.accessories.nokia.com
Nokia Asha 302: Meet the designer [nokia YouTube channel]
Nokia Asha 302 http://nokia.ly/xXK4kV was designed with one simple goal in mind – to design the best looking QWERTY phone for today’s urban professionals. The metallic touch points, bold and sophisticated colors and smooth edges help users stand out and project success giving the phone a great premium feel. [$128 (€95). Has a 2.4” 320 x 240 QVGA TFT display.]
UPDATE: The Nokia C3-00 won Best Feature Phone or Entry Level Phone at the GSMA Awards 2012 in Barcelona. Blanca Juti, VP for Mobile Phones Product Marketing said to Nokia Conversations after collecting the prize: “It’s great for our products going forward, because the Nokia Asha 302 we launched yesterday is pretty much the successor to C3 which has had an amazing run in the market.” See here.
Nokia Asha 302: Premium All Round QWERTY [nokia YouTube channel]
Nokia Asha 302 http://nokia.ly/x5m2zm is a QWERTY phone with great value for money. It is packed with a 1 Ghz processor and is great for social networking, Email, Instant messaging, supports Mail for Exchange and has a premium design with stunning looks.
Nokia Asha 203: Simply touch, connect and play [nokia YouTube channel]
The Nokia Asha 203 http://nokia.ly/x78ZBe is a touch phone with a traditional keypad, offering fast and affordable access to the internet, easy access to email and social networks as well as a 40 EA games gift offering. [$81 (€60). Has a 2.4” QVGA display.]
Nokia Asha 202 Dual SIM: Simply touch, connect and play [nokia YouTube channel]
The Nokia Asha 202 http://nokia.ly/yOGbDA is a touch phone with a traditional keypad, offering fast and affordable access to the internet, easy access to email and social networks as well as a 40 EA games gift offering. Plus it comes with Easy Swap Dual SIM. [$81 (€60). Has a 2.4” QVGA display.]
After exactly a year from the announcement of their new strategic set-up and direction it is quite obvious from all that above that Nokia is well on to realizing the corresponding transition. In fact they are redefining themselves which is well described by this video just published 2 days before the start of MWC 2012:
The New Essence of Nokia [nokia YouTube channel]
We believe that everybody can have a richer, fuller life every day, everywhere. That means upgrading an ordinary moment to an exciting one or finding an unexpected experience to share with others. Intuitively, fast and easy. This is Nokia’s new mantra, this is the new essence of Nokia.
I see this overall brand message fitting rather well with their new and enhanced portfolio as you could judge for yourself from the above video presentations. In this way they have proceeded quite well from the disastrous situation they were a year ago, and which had been described quite extensively in the following post on this blog: Be aware of ZTE et al. and white-box (Shanzhai) vendors: Wake up call now for Nokia, soon for Microsoft, Intel, RIM and even Apple! [Feb 21 – March 25, 2011].
Details for Samsung
- Samsung’s new GALAXY Tab 2 (7.0) offers optimal multimedia experiences in life[Samsung global news, !! on Samsung Forum 2012 in Europe, Feb 13, 2012 !!]
- Samsung’s new GALAXY Tab 2 series offers optimal multimedia experiences in life[Samsung Mobile Press release on MWC 2012]: the content is different, with detailed product specifications
- Samsung GALAXY Beam [global Samsung microsite]: “Beam Projector Smartphone”
- Share the Fun with Samsung GALAXY Beam[Samsung Mobile Press release on MWC 2012 with product specification included]
- Game On With Samsung GALAXY S WiFi 4.2 [Samsung Mobile Press release on MWC 2012]: “Samsung introduces GALAXY S WiFi 4.2, the best of Android experiences with powerful gaming on the go. This experience is further enhanced with the device’s superior SoundAlive audio system, offering great sound either through a front stereo speaker or headphones. A gyroscope sensor enables the user to control the device by moving it, providing truly engaging and intuitive gaming.”
- Boost your Creativity and Productivity with GALAXY Note 10.1 [Samsung global news, on MWC 2012], also as a Samsung Mobile press release
- Samsung Enriches SAP’s Mobile Offerings with Android Devices [Samsung Mobile Press release on MWC 2012]: “Samsung today announced that SAP AG has selected Samsung’s GALAXY S II and Galaxy Tab 10.1 for internal use. Today’s announcement marks the first time that Android-based smartphones and tablets have been deployed by SAP to help enhance employee productivity.”
- Related new product pages on Samsung Mobile Press:
– GALAXY Tab 2 (7.0)
– GALAXY Tab 2 (10.1)
– GALAXY Beam
– GALAXY S WiFi 4.2
– GALAXY Note 10.1 - MWC 2012: The Android arms race is heating up: Case in point, Samsung
- Samsung Galaxy S III full specs [leaked]: 1.5GHz quad-core, 1080p display, ceramic case
- UPDATE: Chinese closing gap in hardware [Korea JoongAng Daily, Feb 29, 2012]: “Samsung decided not to reveal its third-generation Galaxy S smartphone at this year’s MWC due to fears it could give Chinese handset makers an advantage, insiders say. Samsung showcased its Galaxy S II smartphone at last year’s event, and launched it commercially three months later. Chinese companies are believed to have taken cues from the device, and they subsequently made strides in developing their own gadgets. To avoid a repeat this time round, Samsung plans on revealing the latest Galaxy S smartphone at the same time that it drops it on the market.”
- MWC 2012: Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 2, Galaxy Beam, Galaxy Note 10.1
- MWC 2012: Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 unveiled
- Video: [GALAXY Beam] First Hands-on Video [SAMSUNGmobile YouTube Channel]
- all 1080+ news items for Feb 27-28 on: Samsung “Galaxy S III”»
- all 879+ news items for Feb 27-28 on: Samsung “Galaxy Tab 2″»
- all 720+ news items for Feb 27-28 on: Samsung “Galaxy Beam”»
- all 651+ news items for Feb 27-28 on: Samsung “Galaxy Note 10.1″»
Details for Nokia
All the launches: Nokia at Mobile World Congress [Nokia Conversations blog]
BARCELONA, Spain – Nokia announces six new phones and an array of new and updated services, advancing its new strategy and setting the pace for 2012.
Here’s our star-studded line-up for Barcelona 2012.
Nokia Lumia 610
The Nokia Lumia 610 is our most affordable Windows Phone to date – and the fourth we’ve brought to market. It’s aimed at young people who want access to a smartphone experience at the right price. Offering access to social networking, games, Nokia Maps and navigation, web-browsing and Nokia Music, the Lumia 610 comes in four bright colours. It will cost just €189 [$254] before taxes and subsidies, and starts shipping in April.
Nokia Lumia 900
First announced in January for AT&T’s LTE network in the US, the Nokia Lumia 900 will now be available worldwide in an HSPA+ edition. The Dual Carrier HSPA phone will allow for downloads up 42.2 Mbps. With a 4.3-inch ClearBlack AMOLED display, mobile media never looked so good, while an upgraded battery means there’s no compromise on longevity.
[Lumia 900 [DC-HSPA variant] $645 (€480) according to the press release]
Nokia 808 PureView
The Nokia 808 PureView extends our leadership in camera phones, with an amazing 41-megapixel sensor, Carl Zeiss optics and brand new pixel over-sampling technology. This means pin-sharp pictures, great low-light performance, yet with the ability to save your images in a suitable file size for social media, MMS and email. Also watch out for full 1080p video recording and exclusive Dolby Headphone technology to enrich the sound of any stereo content.
[The Nokia 808 PureView has a current price of €450 [$605]. It will be hitting stores in Q2 2012. – according to a press report]Nokia Asha 302, 202 and 203
We’re also introducing three new Nokia Asha mobile phones with new capabilities to bring them to smarter heights than ever. Aimed at urban consumers across the world, the Nokia Asha 302, 202 and 203 offer more than ever in terms of work and play. The Asha 302 is a QWERTY phone with support for Microsoft Exchange synchronisation, a first for Series 40 phones. The Asha 202 and 203 bring touch screens to a lower price point than ever and come with a massive entertainment bundle.
[Asha 202/203 $81 (€60), Asha 302 $128 (€95) according to the press release]
Super Services
Not satisfied with six new phones, there’s a whole raft of new and improved services. Nokia Drive for Windows Phone will now offer full, offline maps and turn-by-turn navigation. In addition, there’s Nokia Reading, the best e-book experience for Nokia Lumia. And Nokia Life bringing life skills, parenting, education, agriculture and entertainment services to Series 30 and 50 phones in India, China, Indonesia and Nigeria.
Click through for all the in-depth stories from today’s press conference. We’ll be bringing you even more detail, hands-on experiences and interviews with the brains behind these beauties over the course of the week.
Nokia 808 PureView
- Nokia 808 PureView – revolutionary camera technology; great smartphone[Nokia Conversations blog]
- Nokia 808 PureView ushers in a revolution in smartphone imaging[Nokia press release]
- Nokia PureView imaging technology [Nokia whitepaper, 10 pp.]
- Nokia 808 PureView creates a stir at MWC[Nokia Conversations blog]
- Nokia 808 PureView is star of the booth[Nokia Conversations blog]
- Nokia 808 PureView – The next breakthrough in photography [Nokia Europe microsite]: How it works – It’s a smart smartphone – link to the Product page
- MWC 2012: Nokia’s surprising 41MP Symbian phone
- MWC 2012: Nokia unveils “PureView”, stunning 41-megapixel smartphone
- Nokia 808 PureView tech specs and official photos: “The Nokia 808 PureView has a current price of €450 [$605]. It will be hitting stores in Q2 2012.”
- Video: Nokia 808 PureView [Hands-on][41-Megapixel Camera][MWC 2012][HD]
- MWC 2012: Nokia 808 PureView Ushers in a Revolution in Smartphone Imaging with 41MP Camera (VIDEO)
- all 128+ news items for Feb 27-28 on: Nokia Symbian “41 Megapixel” Camera »
Nokia Lumia 610 and 900 [DC-HSPA variant]
- New Nokia Lumia 610 and Nokia Lumia 900 [DC-HSPA variant] for all[Nokia Conversations blog]
- Nokia expands Lumia experience to new price points and geographies [Nokia press release] Lumia 610 $254 (€189), Lumia 900 [DC-HSPA variant] $645(€480)
- Nokia and Microsoft: 12 months on[Nokia Conversations blog]
- Product pages [Nokia Europe]:
– Lumia 900
– Lumia 610 - Data sheet: Lumia 900
- MWC 2012: Nokia Shows Low-Cost Lumia 610 Smartphone
- MWC 2012: Nokia Lumia 610, Skype Beta for Windows Phone, Tango
- Video: Nokia Lumia 610 demo
- all 1640+ news items for Feb 27-28 on: Nokia “Lumia 610” »
- all 2250+ news items for Feb 27-28 on: Nokia “Lumia 900” »
Nokia Asha 302, 202 and 203
- Asha Monday at Mobile World Congress[Nokia Conversations blog]
- Nokia expands its Asha range with smarter feature phones that improve ways to work, learn and play [Nokia press release]: Asha 202/203 $81 (€60), Asha 302 $128(€95)
- Product pages [Nokia Europe]:
– Asha 202 with dual SIM and touch screen [2.75G connectivity]
– Asha 203 with easy web browsing on an intuitive touchscreen [2.75G connectivity]
– Asha 302with fast 3.5G connectivity in an elegant design - Nokia Browser for Series 40 [Nokia data sheet]: “Even faster and better for more affordable access to the internet. Now available on Nokia Asha 202, Nokia Asha 203 and Nokia Asha 303”
- Nokia Asha for business [Nokia UK page]: “Mail for Exchange … compatible phones include the Nokia Asha 302 and Nokia Asha 303”
- Nokia launches three new Asha phones
- MWC 2012: Nokia Focuses on Developing World
- Hands-on: Nokia Asha 202, 203 and 302 at MWC 2012
- Video: Nokia Asha 302 Hands-on Review
Super Services
- New Nokia Services at Mobile World Congress [Nokia Conversations blog]:
– [Nokia Maps updated for Windows Phone: make the experience simpler, with fewer intrusive objects and signs to get in the way of where you want to go – and a reduced colour palette to allow the brain to process information more easily]
– Nokia Drive for Windows Phone: full, offline maps and turn-by-turn navigation
– [Nokia Public Transport now available as an app on the Nokia Lumia: to plan fast inner-city routes from point to point, and work out your time of arrival]
– Nokia Reading: the best e-book experience for Nokia Lumia
– Nokia Life: life skills, parenting, education, agriculture and entertainment services to Series 30 and 50 phones in India, China, Indonesia and Nigeria - UPDATE: New Maps, Drive and Transport in depth [Nokia Conversations blog, March 1, 2012]
- UPDATE: Mapping the new digital world [Nokia Conversations blog, Feb 28, 2012]
UPDATE: Bing Maps and Nokia Release Unified Map Design [Bing Maps Blog, Feb 28, 2012] - UPDATE: Nokia Transport Beta [NokiaBetaLabs, Feb 29, 2012]
- Nokia Services debut at MWC 2012
- MWC 2012: Nokia Reading, Nokia Transport, Nokia Maps and Nokia Drive 2.0/3.0 demoed
- Nokia updates Drive app, intros Nokia Reading and Nokia Transport
- Nokia Drive upgrade, new Nokia Reading and Groupon deal announced
- Nokia announces Reading, Transport and Life services
- Nokia Reading: Get gripped by a great book[Nokia Conversations blog]:
- Nokia announces Reading app for Lumia phones
- Nokia Drive 2.0, Reading, and Transport apps coming to Lumia range
- Nokia Drive 3.0: first look at future features
- all 518+ news items for Feb 27-28 on: Nokia Drive »
- all 315+ news items for Feb 27-28 on: Nokia Reading »
- all 812+ news items for Feb 27-28 on: Nokia Life »
- all 323+ news items for Feb 27-28 on: Nokia Maps »
- all 258+ news items for Feb 27-28 on: Nokia Transport »
