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With Android and forked Android smartphones as the industry standard Nokia relegated to a niche market status while Apple should radically alter its previous premium strategy for long term

August 17, 2013 2:55 pm / 4 Comments on With Android and forked Android smartphones as the industry standard Nokia relegated to a niche market status while Apple should radically alter its previous premium strategy for long term

Here is the chart reflecting the performance of the market-leading mobile phones upto Q2’13:

From this the most visible things are:

  • Android and Android-forked (Xiaomi etc.) smartphones are the undisputed industry standards to dominate the market in years to come
  • Both the Symbian to Windows Phone and S40 to Asha Full Touch smartphone platform transition strategies from Nokia could survive the continued Android onslaught but only in a niche market status
  • There is no room for Apple’s further growth, and both the platform and the company could face a gradual decline in the smartphone market

My other observations about the state of the smartphone market after Q2’13 were already presented in the following posts:

In essence we came to a point when the superphone market came down in price to as low as $110 and up, while the entry-level segment of good quality came down to a $65+ price level. Also the smartphone market became saturated in all segments which brings an end to Samsung’s ability to base its premium profitability ambitions on smartphones alone (almost), as it was reflected in 20 years of Samsung “New Management” as manifested by the latest, June 20th GALAXY & ATIV innovations [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, July 2-26, 2013]:

… innovations in the broadest sense of the world: technology, hardware and software engineering and design, marketing in general and branding in particular etc.

Updates: Q2 record-high operating profit + smartphone worries deepen + overall business situation + nonproportionally high capex of the semiconductor business +  the #2 capex beneficiary, the Display Panel Segment

These observations also led to much greater conclusions about the upcoming changes:

Below I will assess the ‘Nokia Q2’13 market situation and changes’ as well as include ‘Gartner’s own assessment of the Q2’13 overall market situation and the changes’ to complete the picture.

Nokia Q2’13 market situation and changes:

Looking at the progress of Nokia Symbian to Windows Phone transformation Q2’13 was a straight continuation of the trends noted for Q1’13 in Nokia: Continued moderate progress with Lumia, urgent Asha Touch refresh and new innovations to come against the onslaught of unbranded Android and forked Android players in China and India [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, April 18, 2013] as you could also well observe from the chart included here as well:

Nokia was extensively discussing its Windows Phone transition in Nokia Corporation Interim Report for Q2 2013 and January-June 2013 [press release, July 18, 2013]:

    • Lumia Q2 volumes increased 32% quarter-on-quarter to 7.4 million units, reflecting strong demand from customers for a broadened Lumia product range.
    • Commenting on the second quarter results, Stephen Elop, Nokia CEO, said: “ … In our Smart Devices business unit, we continue to focus on delivering meaningful differentiation to consumers around the world. We are very proud of the recent creations by our Lumia team, from the Lumia 520 – our most affordable Windows Phone 8 product which has enjoyed a strong start in markets like China, France, India, Thailand, the UK, the US and Vietnam – to the Lumia 1020, our star imaging product which we unveiled to the world last week. Overall, Lumia volumes grew to 7.4 million in the second quarter, the highest for any quarter so far and showing increasing momentum for the ecosystem. During the third quarter, we expect that our new Lumia products will drive a significant part of our Smart Devices revenue.”
    • In the third quarter 2013, supported by the wider availability of recently announced Lumia products as well as recently announced Mobile Phones products, Nokia expects higher Devices & Services net sales, compared to the second quarter 2013.
    • The year-on-year decline in our Smart Devices volumes in the second quarter 2013 continued to be driven by the strong momentum of competing smartphone platforms and our portfolio transition from Symbian products to Lumia products. The decline was primarily due to lower Symbian volumes, partially offset by higher Lumia volumes. Our Symbian volumes decreased from 6 million units in the second quarter 2012 to approximately zero in the second quarter 2013. Our Lumia volumes increased from 4.0 million in the second quarter 2012 to 7.4 million in the second quarter 2013.
    • On a sequential basis, the increase in our Smart Devices volumes in the second quarter 2013 was due to higher Lumia volumes, as we started shipping the Lumia 520 and 720 in significant volumes. In the second quarter 2013, the vast majority of Smart Devices volumes were from Windows Phone 8-based Lumia products.
    • The year-on-year increase in our Smart Devices ASP in the second quarter 2013 was primarily due to a positive mix shift towards sales of our Lumia products which carry a higher ASP than our Symbian products, partially offset by our pricing actions. Sequentially, the decrease in our Smart Devices ASP in the second quarter 2013 was primarily due to a negative mix shift towards sales of our lower priced Windows Phone 8-based Lumia products as well as our pricing actions.
    • Nokia announced and started shipments in select markets of the Nokia Lumia 925, a new interpretation of its award-winning flagship, the Nokia Lumia 920. The Nokia Lumia 925 introduces metal for the first time to the Nokia Lumia range and includes the most advanced lens technology and next-generation imaging software to capture clearer and sharper pictures and video even in low light conditions. The Nokia Lumia 925 offers a variety of exclusive services such as Nokia Music for unlimited streaming of free playlists, integrated HERE services, and the option to add wireless charging with a snap-on wireless charging cover.
    • Nokia announced the Nokia Lumia 928 smartphone, exclusive to Verizon Wireless. With a 8.7MP camera and Nokia’s PureView imaging innovation, the Nokia Lumia 928 delivers superior imaging and video performance that enables people to capture bright, blur free photos and videos, even in low light conditions. The sleek and stylish smartphone comes with the latest high-end Nokia Lumia experiences, including Nokia Music, HERE services, and built-in wireless charging.
    • Nokia started shipping in volumes the Nokia Lumia 520, its most affordable Windows Phone 8 smartphone, delivering experiences normally found only in high-end smartphones, such as the same digital camera lenses found on the Nokia Lumia 920, Nokia Music for free music out of the box and even offline, and HERE services.
    • Nokia’s Lumia range of smartphones continued to attract businesses, including Miele & Cie. KG, a global leader in domestic appliances and commercial machinery, which has chosen the Nokia Lumia range as the smartphone of choice for its global employees.
    • The Windows Phone Store continued to strengthen in terms of the quantity and quality of applications. The Windows Phone Store today offers more than 165 000 applications and games.

The Q2’13-related improvements mentioned above and influencing the below chart were even more extensively discussed in my earlier posts:

while the Q3’13-related actions of improvements in these posts:

Now look again at the performance chart for the reflections:

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From the further decline of Asha Full Touch you could see that the Temporary Nokia setback in India [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, April 28, 2013] continued into the Q2’13 as well as the result of entry-level local brand Android smartphones being in heavy price competition with Nokia Asha Full Touch during Q2 while having superior hardware specifications. Even Samsung’s REX 70 competed in price with Asha Full Touch.

Nokia was talking in his Nokia Corporation Interim Report for Q2 2013 and January-June 2013 [press release, July 18, 2013] only about the following future-oriented actions that were introduced in Q2 in order to remedy this situation:

  • In Devices & Services, our Mobile Phones business unit started to demonstrate some signs of recovery in the latter part of the second quarter following a difficult start to the year. Also, towards the end of the second quarter, we started to ship the Asha 501, which brings a new design and user experience to the highly competitive sub-100 USD market. While we are very encouraged by the consumer response to our innovations in this price category, our Mobile Phones business unit is planning to take actions to focus its product offering and improve product competitiveness.
  • On a year-on-year basis, our Mobile Phones volumes in the second quarter 2013 were negatively affected by competitive industry dynamics, including intense smartphone competition at increasingly lower price points and intense competition at the low end of our product portfolio. Compared to the second quarter 2012, our Mobile Phones volumes declined across our portfolio, most notably for our non-full-touch devices that we sell to our customers for above EUR 30, partially offset by higher sales volumes of Asha full-touch smartphones.
  • Nokia started production at its new manufacturing facility in Hanoi, Vietnam. The new site has been established to produce our most affordable Asha smartphones and feature phones.
  • Nokia announced and started shipments of the Nokia Asha 501, the first of a new generation of smartphones to run on the new Asha platform. Retailing at a suggested price of USD 99, the Nokia Asha 501 offers users affordable smartphone design with bold color, a high-quality build and an innovative user interface. The new Asha platform also allows developers who write applications for the Nokia Asha 501 to reach all smartphones based on the new Asha platform without having to re-write code.

These things were already extensively discussed in my earlier posts:

And here is how Gartner was assessing the Q2’13 overall market situation and the changes:

Gartner Says Smartphone Sales Grew 46.5 Percent in Second Quarter of 2013 and Exceeded Feature Phone Sales for First Time [press release, Aug 14, 2013]

  • Worldwide Mobile Phone Sales Grew 3.6 Percent in Second Quarter of 2013
  • Microsoft Has Become the No. 3 Smartphone OS Overtaking BlackBerry

Worldwide mobile phone sales to end users totaled 435 million units in the second quarter of 2013, an increase of 3.6 percent from the same period last year, according to Gartner, Inc. Worldwide smartphone sales to end users reached 225 million units, up 46.5 percent from the second quarter of 2012. Sales of feature phones to end users totaled 210 million units and declined 21 percent year-over-year. 

“Smartphones accounted for 51.8 percent of mobile phone sales in the second quarter of 2013, resulting in smartphone sales surpassing feature phone sales for the first time,” said Anshul Gupta, principal research analyst at Gartner. Asia/Pacific, Latin America and Eastern Europe exhibited the highest smartphone growth rates of 74.1 percent, 55.7 percent and 31.6 percent respectively, as smartphone sales grew in all regions.

Samsung maintained the No. 1 position in the global smartphone market, as its share of smartphone sales reached 31.7 percent, up from 29.7 percent in the second quarter of 2012 (see Table 1). Apple’s smartphone sales reached 32 million units in the second quarter of 2013, up 10.2 percent from a year ago. 

Table 1

Worldwide Smartphone Sales to End Users by Vendor in 2Q13 (Thousands of Units)

Company

2Q13 Units

2Q13 Market Share (%)

2Q12 Units

2Q12 Market Share (%)

Samsung

71,380.9

31.7

45,603.8

29.7

Apple

31,899.7

14.2

28,935.0

18.8

LG Electronics

11,473.0

5.1

5,827.8

3.8

Lenovo

10,671.4

4.7

4,370.9

2.8

ZTE

9,687.6

4.3

6,331.4

4.1

Others

90,213.6

40.0

62,704.0

40.8

Total

225,326.2

100.0

153,772.9

100.0

Source: Gartner (August 2013)

In the smartphone operating system (OS) market (see Table 2), Microsoft took over BlackBerry for the first time, taking the No. 3 spot with 3.3 percent market share in the second quarter of 2013. “While Microsoft has managed to increase share and volume in the quarter, Microsoft should continue to focus on growing interest from app developers to help grow its appeal among users,” said Mr. Gupta. Android continued to increase its lead, garnering 79 percent of the market in the second quarter. 

Table 2

Worldwide Smartphone Sales to End Users by Operating System in 2Q13 (Thousands of Units)

Operating System

2Q13 Units

2Q13 Market Share (%)

2Q12  Units

2Q12 Market Share (%)

Android

177,898.2

79.0

98,664.0

64.2

iOS

31,899.7

14.2

28,935.0

18.8

Microsoft

7,407.6

3.3

4,039.1

2.6

BlackBerry

6,180.0

2.7

7,991.2

5.2

Bada

838.2

0.4

4,208.8

2.7

Symbian

630.8

0.3

9,071.5

5.9

Others

471.7

0.2

863.3

0.6

Total

225,326.2

100.0

153,772.9

100.0

Source: Gartner (August 2013)

Mobile Phone Vendor Perspective

Samsung: Samsung remained in the No. 1 position in the overall mobile phone market, with sales to end users growing 19 percent in the second quarter of 2013 (see Table 3). “We see demand in the premium smartphone market come mainly from the lower end of this segment in the $400-and-below ASP mark. It will be critical for Samsung to step up its game in the mid-tier and also be more aggressive in emerging markets. Innovation cannot be limited to the high end,” said Mr. Gupta. 

Nokia: Slowing demand of feature phone sales across many markets worldwide, and fierce competition in the smartphone segment, affected Nokia’s mobile phone sales in the second quarter of 2013. Nokia’s mobile phone sales totaled 61 million units, down from 83 million units a year ago. Nokia’s Lumia sales grew 112.7 percent in the second quarter of 2013 thanks to its expanded Lumia portfolio, which now include Lumia 520 and Lumia 720. “With the recent announcement of the Lumia 1020, Nokia has built a wide portfolio of devices at multiple price points, which should boost Lumia sales in the second half of 2013,” said Mr. Gupta. “However, Nokia is facing tough competition from Android devices, especially from regional and Chinese manufacturers which are more aggressive in terms of price points.” 

Apple: While sales continued to grow, the company faced a significant drop in the ASP of its smartphones. Despite the iPhone 5 being the most popular model, its ASP declined to the lowest figure registered by Apple since the iPhone’s launch in 2007. The ASP reduction is due to strong sales of the iPhone 4, which is sold at a strongly discounted price. “While Apple’s ASP demonstrates the need for a new flagship model, it is risky for Apple to introduce a new lower-priced model too,” said Mr. Gupta. “Although the possible new lower-priced device may be priced similarly to the iPhone 4 at $300 to $400, the potential for cannibalization will be much greater than what is seen today with the iPhone 4. Despite being seen as the less expensive sibling of the flagship product, it would represent a new device with the hype of the marketing associated with it.” 

Lenovo: Lenovo’s mobile phone sales grew 60.6 percent to reach 11 million units in the second quarter of 2013. Lenovo’s quarter performance was bolstered by smartphone sales. Its smartphone sales grew 144 percent year-over-year and helped it rise to the No. 4 spot in the worldwide smartphone market for the first time. Lenovo continues to rely heavily on its home market in China, which represents more than 95 percent of its sales. It remains challenging for Lenovo to expand outside China as it has to strengthen its direct channel as well as its relationships with communications service providers. 

Table 3

Worldwide Mobile Phone Sales to End Users by Vendor in 2Q13 (Thousands of Units)

Company

2Q13 Units

2Q13 Market Share (%)

2Q12 Units

2Q12 Market Share (%)

Samsung

107,526.0

24.7

90,432.1

21.5

Nokia

60,953.7

14.0

83,420.1

19.9

Apple

31,899.7

7.3

28,935.0

6.9

LG Electronics

17,016.4

3.9

14,345.4

3.4

ZTE

15,280.7

3.5

17,198.2

4.1

Huawei

11,275.1

2.6

10,894.2

2.6

Lenovo

10,954.8

2.5

6,821.7

1.6

TCL Communi-cation [Alcatel]

10,134.3

2.3

9,355.7

2.2

Sony Mobile Communications

9,504.7

2.2

7,346.8

1.7

Yulong [Coolpad]

7,911.5

1.8

4,016.2

1.0

Others

152,701.5

35.1

147,354.60

35.1

Total

435,158.4

100.0

420,120.0

100.0

Source: Gartner (August 2013)

“With second quarter of 2013 sales broadly on track, we see little need to adjust our expectations for worldwide mobile phone sales forecast to total 1.82 billion units this year. Flagship devices brought to market in time for the holidays, and the continued price reduction of smartphones will drive consumer adoption in the second half of the year,” said Mr. Gupta. 

Additional information is in the Gartner report “Market Share Analysis: Mobile Phones, Worldwide, 2Q13.” The report is available on Gartner’s website at http://www.gartner.com/document/2573119.

Google Play catchup with iOS App Store and its way of assuring compatibility across Android 1.6 to 4.3

August 15, 2013 8:00 pm / 2 Comments on Google Play catchup with iOS App Store and its way of assuring compatibility across Android 1.6 to 4.3

OR Google Play, a digital application distribution platform for Android (the former Android Market) and an online electronics and digital media store, is still to catch up with the Apple iOS App Store in terms of top apps and revenue but coming on par with it in terms of downloads

Half of top iPad apps either unavailable or not optimized on Android [Canalys press release, Aug 14, 2013] – 30% of the top 50 free and paid iPad apps in the US are absent from Google Play

image 
The top 20 app lists referenced in the Canalys press release, ‘Half of top iPad apps either unavailable or not optimized on Android’ (published 14 August 2013). You can dowload the full top 50 app lists HERE.
New Canalys’ App Interrogator research highlights one of the deficiencies of the Android ecosystem: limited availability of high-quality, tablet-optimized apps in the Google Play store. Of the top 50 paid and free iPad apps in Apple’s US App Store, based on aggregated daily rankings in the first half of 2013, 30% were absent from Google Play. A further 18% were available, but not optimized for tablet users, offering no more than a smart phone app blown up to the size of a tablet screen.
Just 52% of apps had Android versions both available through Google Play and optimized (if only a little) for tablet use. ‘Quite simply, building high-quality app experiences for Android tablets has not been among many developers’ top priorities to date,’ said Canalys Senior Analyst Tim Shepherd. ‘That there are over 375,000 apps in the Apple App Store that are designed with iPad users in mind, versus just a fraction of this – in the low tens of thousands – available through Google Play, underscores this point.’
Canalys expects this to change as the addressable base of devices continues to soar and Google brings improvements to the Play store, but points out that Google needs to do more to encourage greater numbers of developers to invest in delivering high-quality Android tablet apps quickly, else it risks disappointing consumers with weak app experiences in the short term.
The 52% of top apps available through Google Play and optimized for tablets also includes six titles that appear as top paid titles on iOS, but are only available as free, ad-supported versions on Android. ‘While nominally free, set against a paid version of the app, ad-supported offerings typically deliver a poorer and often more limited user experience, sometimes taking a considerable toll on device battery life and often subjecting users to unskippable videos or other unpopular intrusions,’ said Canalys Analyst Daniel Matte.
It is important that Google wins consumers’ trust and encourages them to register credit cards and billing details, so that the barrier to them spending money on apps – and other content – is reduced at the point of purchase. ‘Improved consumer willingness to spend will increase developers’ monetization potential and options, and help to reduce their reliance on in-app ads, leading over time to an increase in app quality,’ said Matte.
It will also make the Android tablet opportunity more enticing for developers and increase the revenue potential of the Play store and ecosystem for Google. ‘To take the Play ecosystem to the next level, Google needs more than just a large addressable base of devices. App developers need to see clear potential to build robust and sustainable business models around apps built for the platform, so increasing monetization potential must be a priority,’ said Shepherd. ‘And for tablet apps in particular, Google should go further with changes to the Play store to ensure more rigorously managed, high-quality, optimized experiences are highlighted, to the benefit of consumers, and to reward those developers who invest the time and resources in building them with improved discoverability.’

The top 50 lists [of both the “Top 50 paid tablet apps (Apple App Store, H1 2013)” and the “Top 50 free tablet apps (Apple App Store, H1 2013)”]referenced in this release can be viewed here.

About Canalys
Canalys is an independent analyst firm that strives to guide clients on the future of the technology industry and to think beyond the business models of the past. We deliver smart market insights to IT, channel and service provider professionals around the world. Our customer-driven analysis and consulting services empower businesses to make informed decisions and generate sales. We stake our reputation on the quality of our data, our innovative use of technology, and our high level of customer service.

App Store Market Q2 2013: Google Play Exceeds iOS App Store in App Downloads by 10% 

Riding strong performances in India and Brazil, Google Play’s total app downloads were higher than those in the iOS App Store in Q2 2013.
Though Google Play had more downloads, the iOS App Store still generated 2.3x the revenue.
image

Bertrand Schmitt Interview – GigaOM Mobilize 2012 [AppAnnieTV YouTube channel, Oct 10, 2012]

App Annie CEO Bertrand Schmitt talks about The Math Behind The App Stores. App Annie is the industry leader in app store analytics and market intelligence supporting iOS, Mac and Google Android Market. Annie takes care of all the Math Behind The App Stores keeping you up-to-date with your own app’s metrics and the latest app store trends. Annie provides three fabulous products for her fans: APP ANNIE ANALYTICS A free web-service that automatically retrieves, visualizes and stores your app’s download, revenue, ranking and review data. APP ANNIE STORE STATS The most comprehensive free app store database on the Internet today. It provides you with detailed ranking charts, historical data, Featured placements and international app store matrices. APP ANNIE INTELLIGENCE Introducing our newest premium product – it allows our advanced customers to access the most accurate market intelligence data available for app stores today.
App Annie Reports Google Play Exceeds iOS App Store in App Downloads by 10% in Q2 2013

App Annie has released its 2nd quarter mobile platform analysis and reports that Google Play has exceeded the iOS App Store downloads by 10%. While iOS is behind Android in downloads, still generates 2.3 times the revenue.
For iOS, the top countries by number of downloads were: (1) – United States; (2) China; (3) Japan; (4) United Kingdom; and (5) Russia, with the US and China making up around 40% of the market. The top countries by revenue were: (1)United States; (2) Japan; (3) United Kingdom; (4) Australia; and (5)China, with Australia moving to #4 and China dropping to #5 compared to Q1.
For Android, the top countries by download were: (1) United States; (2) South Korea; (3) India; (4) Russia; and (5) Brazil putting three emerging markets (South Korea, Russia, and Brazil) into the top 5. The top countries for revenue were: (1) Japan; (2) South Korea; (3) United States; (4) Germany; and (5) United Kingdom with Germany and the UK swapping spots.
Games have not slowed down and are still at the top of revenue and download charts for both iOS and Android.
For iOS, the top countries by app category downloads were: (1) Games; (2) Entertainment; (3) Photo & Video: (4) Lifestyle and (5) Utilities with games garnering 40% of downloads. The top iOS revenue by category were: (1) Games; (2) Social Networking; (3) Music; (4) Productivity; and (5) Entertainment with games taking almost a 75% share.
For Android, the top countries by app category downloads were: (1) Games; (2) Communication; (3) Tools; (4) Entertainment and (5) Social with communication apps moving up one. The top Android revenue by category were: (1) Games: (2) Communication; (3) Social; (4) Travel and Local; and (5) Tools with games accounting for over 80% of revenue.

The Global App Store Economy – Olivier Bernard, App Annie [Welcome to Nevosoft.Ru YouTube channel, April 4, 2013]

The Global App Store Economy — Olivier Bernard, VP of Europe, App Annie, on February 8, 2013 (on Day 1 of The Winter Nights: Mobile Games Conference: http://www.wnconf.com/en). Presentation slides: http://www.slideshare.net/anastasiaalikova/the-global-app-store-economy
Google Play Now Generates More Downloads Than iOS App Store
The latest App Annie statistics show that Google GOOG -1.38% has already overtaken iOS in app downloads. This has happened far faster than anyone would have expected even one year ago. One factor here was the massive surge in Android app downloads in Japan and South Korea in 1Q 2013. What finally pushed Google into lead was another surge in India and Russia during 2Q 2013. Russia and Brazil have become Top Five countries for Google Play app download volume, which bodes well for future growth of the platform.
On app revenue front, iOS still leads Google Play by 130%. Yet even this lead has been shrinking rapidly – less than two years ago, the iOS lead was more than 400%. It now seems that it will be only a matter of time before Google will overtake iOS in revenue generation. The key here is the flood of cheap Android models that have started dominating the smartphone markets of China, India, Russia and Brazil, the most important growth engines of the global smartphone industry.
Much now depends on h0w low Apple AAPL +2.42% will price the new budget iPhone. Apple may value its hardware margins highly, but app market leadership is exceptionally important in attracting the best app developer talent and thus ensuring long term success of the entire OS ecosystem. Apple clearly needs to hit Google hard in Latin America, India and China before Android app market takes over these regions decisively.

More at: http://blog.appannie.com/app-annie-index-market-q2-2013/ [July 31, 2013]

Global Trends in App Store Monetization | Junde YU [CasualConnect YouTube channel, June 5, 2013]

Using App Annie Intelligence, the most accurate market data on the app stores, Junde will deliver the most unique insights on Global Trends in App Store Monetization. – What are the highest countries for revenue, downloads and ARPU? – Just how significant is the growth of the app stores in Asia? – Where are the growth opportunities for publishers across different categories and regions? Delivered at Casual Connect Asia, May 2013. For slides, visit: http://gamesauce.org/news/2013/06/05/junde-yu-on-the-increasing-opportunities-in-asia-casual-connect-video/

Month Report Webinar: A Granular App Level Look at Revenues: Google Play vs Apple App Store [distimo YouTube channel, June 7, 2013]

On Thursday June 6th, we hosted our Monthly Publication Webinar. The topic of this webinar was ‘A Granular App Level Look at Revenues: Google Play versus App Apple Store’, which follows the findings in the Monthly Publication of May. We also demonstrated the most important examples from the publication by using our AppIQ (http://www.distimo.com/appiq).

Google Play Revenue Up 67% Over Past 6 Months, Fueled By Japan & S. Korea [TechCrunch, Aug 12, 2013]

image
Google’s Android app marketplace, Google Play, has seen significant revenue growth this year, fueled in large part by Japan and South Korea. In a new report released today by app store analytics firm Distimo, the company found that Google Play’s revenue grew by 67 percent over the past six months, while Apple’s App Store revenue grew by just 15 percent during the same time frame.
While these numbers reflect the impact Android’s massive market share is having on the app industry, it’s worth noting that of the two app stores, the Apple App Store’s market is still the largest, and continues to see more than two times the revenue of Google Play.
That latter figure varies a bit from an earlier report put out by competing analytics firm App Annie in April, which found that Apple’s App Store earned around 2.6 times more revenue in the preceding quarter. But not only do the firms’ methodologies differ in general, Distimo looked at the earnings of all ranked apps in the 18 largest countries over 6 months, while App Annie’s data was, as noted above, for the quarter.
That being said, Google Play’s revenue growth is notable. While only 25 percent of the revenue from the two stores combined came from Google Play in February 2013, this went up 8 percentage points to reach 33 percent by July.

…

Tanisha Gupta Discusses Distimo’s Mobile Conversion Tracking Technology [TheMailDotCom1 YouTube channel, Aug 2, 2013]

Murray Newlands interviews Tanisha Gupta from Distimo at the Casual Connect conference in San Francisco for TheMail.com

Celebrating Google Play’s first birthday [Official Android Blog, March 6, 2013]

Accessing digital entertainment should be simple, whether you like to read books on your tablet, listen to music on your phone and computer, or watch movies on all three. That’s why one year ago today we launched Google Play, where you can find and enjoy your favorite music, movies, books and apps on your Android phone and tablet, or on the web.
Google Play has grown rapidly in the last year, bringing you more content in more languages and places around the globe. In addition to offering more than 700,000 apps and games, we’ve partnered with all of the major music companies, movie studios and publishers to bring you the music, movies, TV shows, books and magazines you love. And we’ve added more ways for you to buy them, including paying through your phone bill and gift cards, which we’re beginning to roll out in the U.K. this week.
Since no birthday is complete without presents, we’re celebrating with a bunch of special offers across the store on songs, TV shows, movies and books. We’re even offering a collection of games with some fun birthday surprises created by developers.
It’s been a busy year, but we’re just getting started. We look forward to many more years of bringing you the best in entertainment!

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Introducing Google Play: All your entertainment, anywhere you go [Google Official Blog, March 6, 2012]

Entertainment is supposed to be fun. But in reality, getting everything to work can be the exact opposite—moving files between your computers, endless syncing across your devices, and wires…lots of wires. Today we’re eliminating all that hassle with Google Play, a digital entertainment destination where you can find, enjoy and share your favorite music, movies, books and apps on the web and on your Android phone or tablet. Google Play is entirely cloud-based so all your music, movies, books and apps are stored online, always available to you, and you never have to worry about losing them or moving them again.
Introducing Google Play [googleplay YouTube channel, March 6, 2012]
Your favorite entertainment is now all in one place, always accessible on the web and across your Android devices.

With Google Play you can:

  • Store up to 20,000 songs for free and buy millions of new tracks
  • Download more than 450,000 Android apps and games
  • Browse the world’s largest selection of eBooks
  • Rent thousands of your favorite movies, including new releases and HD titles
Starting today, Android Market, Google Music and the Google eBookstore will become part of Google Play. On your Android phone or tablet, we’ll be upgrading the Android Market app to the Google Play Store app over the coming days. Your videos, books and music apps (in countries where they are available) will also be upgraded to Google Play Movies, Google Play Books and Google Play Music apps. The music, movies, books and apps you’ve purchased will continue to be available to you through Google Play—simply log in with your Google account like always.
To celebrate, we’ll be offering a different album, book, video rental and Android app at a special price each day for the next week in our “7 Days to Play” sale. In the U.S., today’s titles include the collection of top 40 hits Now That’s What I Call Music 41, the popular game Where’s My Water, the novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and the movie Puncture for just 25 cents each. In addition, you’ll find great collections of hip-hop, rock and country albums for $3.99 all week, detective novels from $2.99, some of our editorial team’s favorite movies from 99 cents, and our favorite apps from 49 cents.
In the U.S., music, movies, books and Android apps are available in Google Play. In Canada and the U.K., we’ll offer movies, books and Android apps; in Australia, books and apps; and in Japan, movies and apps. Everywhere else, Google Play will be the new home for Android apps. Our long-term goal is to roll out as many different types of content as possible to people around the world, and we’ll keep adding new content to keep it fresh.
To learn more, head over to play.google.com/about or keep up with the latest on our Google+ page. If you’re headed to Austin later this week for South by Southwest, come to the Google Village to see Google Play in action. We can’t wait for you to try Google Play and experience a simpler way to manage your entertainment.
Posted by Jamie Rosenberg, Director of Digital Content
Android Apps on Google Play [googleplay YouTube channel, March 6, 2012]
With Apps on Google Play download more than 450,000 Android apps and games and begin enjoying them instantly on your Android phone or tablet. Experience all the entertainment you love, anywhere you go. Discover more athttp://play.google.com/store/apps.

Supported devices [Android Developer Help, Aug 5, 2013]

The following is a list of devices that are supported for use with Google Play. This list is sorted alphabetically by manufacturer. You can also search within this page to find your device (PC: Ctrl + F, Mac: Command + F).
If you’re experiencing issues with the Google Play website or the Google Play app, please verify that your device is included on the list below. If your device isn’t listed, it’s possible that your device is newly released or may not be listed for other reasons. If you need further information on whether your device is supported for use with Google Play, please contact your device manufacturer for further support.
Note: Some devices are listed by their official model number. To find your model number, go to Settings > About Phone > Model Number on your device.
This list was last updated on 8/5/2013.
A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z

…

Google Apps on Android [GApps] [Google site, created on June 27, 2012]

image

… [Google Keyboard    Hangouts   Keep]

Featured Apps

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Google Search
Quickly & easily find what you need on the web & your phone or tablet.
Download App
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Chrome for Android
Browse fast & bring your personalized Chrome with you.
Download App
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Google Maps for Android
Never get lost as you go to new places & old favorites.
Download App
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Google+
Stay connected and share life as it happens.
Download App
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Google Play Books
Read the books you love, everywhere you are.
Download App
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Google Play Magazines
Read your favorite magazines, everywhere you are.
Download App
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Google Play Music
Play your music instantly, anywhere.
Download App
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Google Play Movies & TV
Watch movies & TV shows instantly, anywhere.
Download App
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YouTube
Millions of videos at your fingertips, available on the go.
Download App
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Google Drive
One place to create, share, collaborate & keep your stuff, available on all your devices.
Download App
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Gmail
Get smarter email wherever you are.
Download App
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Google Wallet
Make your phone your wallet.
Download App
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Google Offers
Discover, buy and redeem great deals with your Android device.
Download App
  
… [ Voice Search   Google Translate   Google Earth   Google Goggles   Google Currents   Google Voice   Google Shopper   Schemer   My Tracks   Google Finance   Blogger   Orkut   Authenticator ]

A Note on Google Apps for Android [Android Developers Blog, Sept 25, 2009]

Lately we’ve been busy bees in Mountain View, as you can see from the recent release of Android 1.6 to the open-source tree, not to mention some devices we’re working on with partners that we think you’ll really like. Of course, the community isn’t sitting around either, and we’ve been seeing some really cool and impressive things, such as the custom Android builds that are popular with many enthusiasts. Recently there’s been some discussion about an exchange we had with the developer of one of those builds, and I’ve noticed some confusion around what is and isn’t part of Android’s open source code. I want to take a few moments to clear up some of those misconceptions, and explain how Google’s apps for Android fit in.
Everyone knows that mobile is a big deal, but for a long time it was hard to be a mobile app developer. Competing interests and the slow pace of platform innovation made it hard to create innovative apps. For our part, Google offers a lot of services — such as Google Search, Google Maps, and so on — and we found delivering those services to users’ phones to be a very frustrating experience. But we also found that we weren’t alone, so we formed the Open Handset Alliance, a group of like-minded partners, and created Android to be the platform that we all wished we had. To encourage broad adoption, we arranged for Android to be open-source. Google also created and operates Android Market as a service for developers to distribute their apps to Android users. In other words, we created Android because the industry needed an injection of openness. Today, we’re thrilled to see all the enthusiasm that developers, users, and others in the mobile industry have shown toward Android.
With a high-quality open platform in hand, we then returned to our goal of making our services available on users’ phones. That’s why we developed Android apps for many of our services like YouTube, Gmail, Google Voice, and so on. These apps are Google’s way of benefiting from Android in the same way that any other developer can, but the apps are not part of the Android platform itself. We make some of these apps available to users of any Android-powered device via Android Market, and others are pre-installed on some phones through business deals. Either way, these apps aren’t open source, and that’s why they aren’t included in the Android source code repository. Unauthorized distribution of this software harms us just like it would any other business, even if it’s done with the best of intentions.
I hope that clears up some of the confusion around Google’s apps for Android. We always love seeing novel uses of Android, including custom Android builds from developers who see a need. I look forward to seeing what comes next!

Compatibility Test Suite [Frequently Asked Questions | Android Open Source, created on May 24, 2010; excerpted on Aug 15, 2013]

Compatibility Test Suite

What is the purpose of the CTS?
The Compatibility Test Suite is a tool used by device manufacturers to help ensure their devices are compatible, and to report test results for validations. The CTS is intended to be run frequently by OEMs throughout the engineering process to catch compatibility issues early.
What kinds of things does the CTS test?
The CTS currently tests that all of the supported Android strong-typed APIs are present and behave correctly. It also tests other non-API system behaviors such as application lifecycle and performance. We plan to add support in future CTS versions to test “soft” APIs such as Intents as well.
Will the CTS reports be made public?
Yes. While not currently implemented, Google intends to provide web-based self-service tools for OEMs to publish CTS reports so that they can be viewed by anyone. CTS reports can be shared as widely as manufacturers prefer.
How is the CTS licensed?
The CTS is licensed under the same Apache Software License 2.0 that the bulk of Android uses.
Does the CTS accept contributions?
Yes please! The Android Open-Source Project accepts contributions to improve the CTS in the same way as for any other component. In fact, improving the coverage and quality of the CTS test cases is one of the best ways to help out Android.
Can anyone use the CTS on existing devices?
The Compatibility Definition Document requires that compatible devices implement the ‘adb’ debugging utility. This means that any compatible device — including ones available at retail — must be able to run the CTS tests.

Compatibility [Frequently Asked Questions | Android Open Source, created on May 24, 2010; excerpted on Aug 15, 2013]

Compatibility

What does “compatibility” mean?
We define an “Android compatible” device as one that can run any application written by third-party developers using the Android SDK and NDK. We use this as a filter to separate devices that can participate in the Android app ecosystem, and those that cannot. Devices that are properly compatible can seek approval to use the Android trademark. Devices that are not compatible are merely derived from the Android source code and may not use the Android trademark.
In other words, compatibility is a prerequisite to participate in the Android apps ecosystem. Anyone is welcome to use the Android source code, but if the device isn’t compatible, it’s not considered part of the Android ecosystem.
What is the role of Google Play in compatibility?
Devices that are Android compatible may seek to license the Google Play client software. This allows them to become part of the Android app ecosystem, by allowing users to download developers’ apps from a catalog shared by all compatible devices. This option isn’t available to devices that aren’t compatible.
What kinds of devices can be Android compatible?
The Android software can be ported to a lot of different kinds of devices, including some on which third-party apps won’t run properly. The Android Compatibility Definition Document (CDD) spells out the specific device configurations that will be considered compatible.
For example, though the Android source code could be ported to run on a phone that doesn’t have a camera, the CDD requires that in order to be compatible, all phones must have a camera. This allows developers to rely on a consistent set of capabilities when writing their apps.
The CDD will evolve over time to reflect market realities. For instance, the 1.6 CDD only allows cell phones, but the 2.1 CDD allows devices to omit telephony hardware, allowing for non-phone devices such as tablet-style music players to be compatible. As we make these changes, we will also augment Google Play to allow developers to retain control over where their apps are available. To continue the telephony example, an app that manages SMS text messages would not be useful on a media player, so Google Play allows the developer to restrict that app exclusively to phone devices.

If my device is compatible, does it automatically have access to Google Play and branding?

Google Play is a service operated by Google. Achieving compatibility is a prerequisite for obtaining access to the Google Play software and branding. Device manufacturers should contact Google to obtain access to Google Play.

If I am not a manufacturer, how can I get Google Play?

Google Play is only licensed to handset manufacturers shipping devices. For questions about specific cases, contact android-partnerships@google.com.

How can I get access to the Google apps for Android, such as Maps?

The Google apps for Android, such as YouTube, Google Maps and Navigation, Gmail, and so on are Google properties that are not part of Android, and are licensed separately. Contact android-partnerships@google.com for inquiries related to those apps.

Is compatibility mandatory?
No. The Android Compatibility Program is optional. Since the Android source code is open, anyone can use it to build any kind of device. However, if a manufacturer wishes to use the Android name with their product, or wants access to Google Play, they must first demonstrate that the device is compatible.
How much does compatibility certification cost?
There is no cost to obtain Android compatibility for a device. The Compatibility Test Suite is open-source and available to anyone to use to test a device.
How long does compatibility take?
The process is automated. The Compatibility Test Suite generates a report that can be provided to Google to verify compatibility. Eventually we intend to provide self-service tools to upload these reports to a public database.
Who determines what will be part of the compatibility definition?
Since Google is responsible for the overall direction of Android as a platform and product, Google maintains the Compatibility Definition Document for each release. We draft the CDD for a new Android version in consultation with a number of OEMs, who provide input on its contents.
How long will each Android version be supported for new devices?
Since Android’s code is open-source, we can’t prevent someone from using an old version to launch a device. Instead, Google chooses not to license the Google Play client software for use on versions that are considered obsolete. This allows anyone to continue to ship old versions of Android, but those devices won’t use the Android name and will exist outside the Android apps ecosystem, just as if they were non-compatible.
Can a device have a different user interface and still be compatible?
The Android Compatibility Program focuses on whether a device can run third-party applications. The user interface components shipped with a device (such as home screen, dialer, color scheme, and so on) does not generally have much effect on third-party apps. As such, device builders are free to customize the user interface as much as they like. The Compatibility Definition Document does restrict the degree to which OEMs may alter the system user interface for areas that do impact third-party apps.
When are compatibility definitions released for new Android versions?
Our goal is to release new versions of Android Compatibility Definition Documents (CDDs) once the corresponding Android platform version has converged enough to permit it. While we can’t release a final draft of a CDD for an Android software version before the first flagship device ships with that software, final CDDs will always be released after the first device. However, wherever practical we will make draft versions of CDDs available.
How are device manufacturers’ compatibility claims validated?
There is no validation process for Android device compatibility. However, if the device is to include Google Play, Google will typically validate the device for compatibility before agreeing to license the Google Play client software.
What happens if a device that claims compatibility is later found to have compatibility problems?
Typically, Google’s relationships with Google Play licensees allow us to ask them to release updated system images that fix the problems.

The Benefits & Importance of Compatibility [Official Android Blog, Sept 15, 2012]

We built Android to be an open source mobile platform freely available to anyone wishing to use it. In 2008, Android was released under the Apache open source license and we continue to develop and innovate the platform under the same open source license — it is available to everyone at: http://source.android.com. This openness allows device manufacturers to customize Android and enable new user experiences, driving innovation and consumer choice.
As the lead developer and shepherd of the open platform, we realize that we have a responsibility to app developers — those who invested in the platform by adopting it and building applications specifically for Android. These developers each contribute to making the platform better — because when developers support a platform with their applications, the platform becomes better and more attractive to consumers. As more developers build great apps for Android, more consumers are likely to buy Android devices because of the availability of great software content (app titles like Fruit Ninja or Google Maps). As more delighted consumers adopt Android phones and tablets, it creates a larger audience for app developers to sell more apps. The result is a strategy that is good for developers (they sell more apps), good for device manufacturers (they sell more devices) and good for consumers (they get more features and innovation).
In biological terms, this is sometimes referred to as an ecosystem. In economic terms, this is known as a virtuous cycle — a set of events that reinforces itself through a feedback loop. Each iteration of the cycle positively reinforces the previous one. These cycles will continue in the direction of their momentum until an external factor intervenes and breaks the cycle.
When we first contemplated Android and formed the Open Handset Alliance, we wanted to create an open virtuous cycle where all members of the ecosystem would benefit. We thought hard about what types of external factors could intervene to weaken the ecosystem as a whole. One important external factor we knew could do this was incompatibilities between implementations of Android. Let me explain:
Imagine a hypothetical situation where the platform on each phone sold was just a little bit different. Different enough where Google Maps would run normally on one phone but run terribly slow on another. Let’s say, for sake of example, that Android implemented an API that put the phone to sleep for a fraction of a second to conserve battery life when nothing was moving on the screen. The API prototype for such a function might look like SystemClock.sleep(millis) where the parameter “millis” is the number of milliseconds to put the device to sleep for.
If one phone manufacturer implemented SystemClock.sleep() incorrectly, and interpreted the parameter as Seconds instead of Milliseconds, the phone would be put to sleep a thousand times longer than intended! This manufacturer’s phone would have a terrible time running Google Maps. If apps don’t run well across devices due to incompatibilities, consumers would leave the ecosystem, followed by developers. The end of the virtuous cycle.
We have never believed in a “one size fits all” strategy, so we found a way to enable differentiation for device manufactures while protecting developers and consumers from incompatibilities by offering a free “compatibility test suite” (CTS). CTS is a set of software tools that tests and exercises the platform to make sure that (for example) SystemClock.sleep(millis) actually puts the device to sleep for only milliseconds. Like Android, the test suite is freely available to everyone under the Apache open source license: http://source.android.com/compatibility/cts-intro.html
While Android remains free for anyone to use as they would like, only Android compatible devices benefit from the full Android ecosystem. By joining the Open Handset Alliance, each member contributes to and builds one Android platform — not a bunch of incompatible versions. We’re grateful to the over 85 Open Handset Alliance members who have helped us build the Android ecosystem and continue to drive innovation at an incredible pace. Thanks to their support the Android ecosystem now has over 500 million Android-compatible devices and counting!
Posted by Andy Rubin, Senior Vice President of Mobile and Digital Content

On Android Compatibility [Android Developers Blog, May 31, 2010]

[This post is by Dan Morrill, Open Source & Compatibility Program Manager. — Tim Bray]
At Google I/O 2010, we announced that there are over 60 Android models now, selling 100,000 units a day. When I wear my open-source hat, this is exciting: every day the equivalent of the entire population of my old home city starts using open-source software, possibly for the first time. When I put on my hat for Android Compatibility, this is humbling: that’s a whole lotta phones that can all share the same apps.
Another thing we launched at Google I/O was an upgraded and expanded source.android.com. The new version has refreshed info on the Android Open-Source Project, and some new tips and tools for device manufacturers — useful if you’re an OEM. However, it also has details on the Android compatibility program, now. This is also aimed mostly at OEMs, but Tim Bray suggested that developers might be interested in a peek at how we keep those 100,000 devices marching to the same beat, every day. So here I am, back on the blog.
The F-word, or, Remember remember the fifth of November
I remember sitting with my colleagues in a conference room in Building 44 on November 5, 2007, listening to Andy Rubin and Eric Schmidt announce Android to the world. I remember a lot of the press stories, too. For instance, Android was “just words on paper” which was especially entertaining since I knew we were getting ready to launch the first early-look SDK a mere week later.
Another meme I remember is… yes, “fragmentation”. Literally before the close of business on the same day we announced Android (4:46pm to be precise), I saw the first article about Android “fragmentation.” The first day wasn’t even over yet, and the press had already decided that Android would have a “fragmentation” problem.
The thing is, nobody ever defined “fragmentation” — or rather, everybody has a different definition. Some people use it to mean too many mobile operating systems; others to refer to optional APIs causing inconsistent platform implementations; still others use it to refer to “locked down” devices, or even to the existence of multiple versions of the software at the same time. I’ve even seen it used to refer to the existence of different UI skins. Most of these definitions don’t even have any impact on whether apps can run!
Because it means everything, it actually means nothing, so the term is useless. Stories on “fragmentation” are dramatic and they drive traffic to pundits’ blogs, but they have little to do with reality. “Fragmentation” is a bogeyman, a red herring, a story you tell to frighten junior developers. Yawn.
Compatibility
Now, that’s not to say that there aren’t real challenges in making sure that Android devices are compatible with each other, or that there aren’t very real concerns that keep app developers awake at night. There definitely are, and I spend a great deal of time indeed thinking about them and addressing them. The trick is to define them clearly.
We define “Android compatibility” to be the ability of a device to properly run apps written with the Android SDK. This is a deceptively simple way to frame it, because there are a number of things that can go wrong. Here are a few:

  • Bugs – devices might simply have bugs, such as a buggy Bluetooth driver or an incorrectly implemented GPS API.

  • Missing components – devices might omit hardware (such as a camera) that apps expect, and attempt to “fake” or stub out the corresponding API.

  • Added or altered APIs – devices might add or alter APIs that aren’t part of standard Android. Done correctly this is innovation; done poorly and it’s “embrace and extend”.

Each of these is an example of something that can make an app not run properly on a device. They might run, but they won’t runproperly. These are the things that I spend my time preventing.
How It Works
As stewards of the platform we realize that it’s vital to allow only compatible devices to participate in the Android ecosystem. So, we make compatibility a strict prerequisite for access to Android Market and the right to use the Android name. This means that developers can rely on the fact that Android Market — the keystone of the Android ecosystem — will only allow their apps to run on compatible devices. It’s pretty self-evident that a single app ecosystem is better than many small ones, so OEMs are generally pretty motivated to ship compatible devices.
But motivation alone doesn’t get us very far without tools to actually ensure compatibility, which is where the Android compatibility program [page created on May 20, 2010] comes in. This program is like a stool with three legs: the Android source code, the Compatibility Definition Document, and the Compatibility Test Suite.
It all starts with the Android source code. Android is not a specification, or a distribution in the traditional Linux sense. It’s not a collection of replaceable components. Android is a chunk of software that you port to a device. For the most part, Android devices are running the same code. The fact that all Android devices run the same core Android code goes a long way toward making sure those devices all work the same way.
However, this doesn’t solve the problems of missing components or altered APIs, because the source code can always be tweaked. This is where the Compatibility Definition Document (or CDD) comes in. The CDD defines in gory detail exactly what is expected of Android devices. It clearly states, for example, that devices may not omit most components, and that the official Android APIs may not be altered. In a nutshell, the CDD exists to remove ambiguities around what’s required of an Android device.
Of course, none of that overcomes the simple reality of human error — bugs. This is where the Compatibility Test Suite comes in. The CTS is a collection of more than 20,000 test cases that check Android device implementations for known issues. Device makers run the CTS on their devices throughout the development process, and use it to identify and fix bugs early. This helps ensure that the builds they finally ship are as bug-free as possible.
Keeping Up with the Times
We’ve been operating this compatibility process with our OEM partners for over a year now, and it’s largely responsible for those 60+ device models being interoperable. However no process is ever perfect and no test suite is ever 100% comprehensive, and sometimes bugs get through. What happens then?
Well, we have great relationships with our OEMs, and like I said, they’re motivated to be compatible. Whenever we hear about a serious bug affecting apps, we report it to our partners, and they typically prepare a bugfix release and get it out to end users. We will also typically add a test case to the CTS to catch that problem for future devices. It’s an ongoing process, but generally our partners are as interested as we are in the user experience of the devices they sell.
The mobile industry today is “very exciting”, which is code for “changes painfully fast”. We believe that the only way Android will be a success is to keep up with that change, and ultimately drive that change. This means that over time, the CDD will also change. We’ll add new text to handle problem cases we encounter, and the actual requirements will change to accommodate the innovations happening in the field. For example, in the 2.1/Eclair CDD, we tweaked the CDD slightly to make telephony optional, which allows Android to ship compatibly on non-phone handheld devices. Whenever we do this, of course, we’ll make corresponding changes to the Android APIs and Android Market to make sure that your apps are protected from ill effects.
On a somewhat related note, a lot of ink has been spilled on the fact that there are multiple versions of Android out there in users’ hands at the same time. While it’s true that devices without the latest software can’t run some of the latest apps, Android is 100% forward compatible — apps written properly for older versions also run on the newest versions. The choice is in app developers’ hands as to whether they want to live on the bleeding edge for the flashiest features, or stay on older versions for the largest possible audience. And in the long term, as the mobile industry gets more accustomed to the idea of upgradeable phone software, more and more devices will be be upgraded.
What It Means for You
All that is great — but what does it mean for developers? Well, we put together a page in the SDK Documentation to explain this, so you should take a look there. But really it boils down to this:

  1. As a developer, you simply decide what features your app requires, and list them in your app’s AndroidManifest.xml.

  2. The Android compatibility program ensures that only compatible devices have access to Android Market.

  3. Android Market makes sure your app is only visible to those devices where it will run correctly, by filtering your app from devices which don’t have the features you listed.

That’s all!
There almost certainly will be devices that have access to Android Market that probably weren’t quite what you had in mind when you wrote your app. But this is a very good thing — it increases the size of the potential audience for your app. As long as you accurately list your app’s requirements, we’ll do the rest and make sure that your app won’t be accessible to a device where it won’t run properly. After all, we’re app developers ourselves, and we know how painful it is to deal with users upset about an app not working on a device it wasn’t designed for.
Now, that’s not to say that we think our current solution is perfect — no solution is. But we’re continuously working on improvements to the SDK tools and Android Market to make your life as an Android developer even easier. Keep an eye on this blog and on the Android Market itself for the latest info.
Thanks for reading, and happy coding!

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Android Compatibility Downloads [page created on May 19, 2010; content excerpted on Aug 15, 2013]

Thanks for your interest in Android Compatibility! The links below allow you to access the key documents and information.

Thanks for your interest in Android Compatibility! The links below allow you to access the key documents and information.

Android 4.3

Android 4.3 is the release of the development milestone code-named Jelly Bean-MR2 [July 24, 2013]. Source code for Android 4.3 is found in the ‘android-4.3_r1’ branch in the open-source tree.

Android 4.2

Android 4.2 is the release of the development milestone code-named Jelly Bean-MR1 [Oct 29, 2012]. Source code for Android 4.2 is found in the ‘android-4.2.2_r1’ branch in the open-source tree.

Android 4.1

Android 4.1.1 is the release of the development milestone code-named Jelly Bean [July 23, 2012]. Source code for Android 4.1.1 is found in the ‘android-4.1.1_r1’ branch in the open-source tree.

Android 4.0.3

Android 4.0.3 is the release of the development milestone code-named Ice Cream Sandwich [Dec 16, 2011]. Android 4.0.3 is the current version of Android. Source code for Android 4.0.3 is found in the ‘android-4.0.3_r1’ branch in the open-source tree.

Android 2.3

Android 2.3 is the release of the development milestone code-named Gingerbread [Dec 6, 2010]. Source code for Android 2.3 is found in the ‘gingerbread’ branch in the open-source tree.

Android 2.2

Android 2.2 is the release of the development milestone code-named FroYo [May 20, 2010]. Source code for Android 2.2 is found in the ‘froyo’ branch in the open-source tree.

Android 2.1

Android 2.1 is the release of the development milestone code-named Eclair [Jan 12, 2010]. Source code for Android 2.1 is found in the ‘eclair’ branch in the open-source tree. Note that for technical reasons, there is no compatibility program for Android 2.0 or 2.0.1, and new devices must use Android 2.1.

Android 1.6

Android 1.6 was the release of the development milestone code-named Donut [Sept 15, 2009]. Android 1.6 was obsoleted by Android 2.1. Source code for Android 1.6 is found in the ‘donut’ branch in the open-source tree.

Compatibility Test Suite Manual

The CTS user manual is applicable to any CTS version, but CTS 2.1 R2 and beyond require additional steps to run the accessibility tests.

CTS Media Files

These media files are required for the CTS media stress tests.

Older Android Versions

There is no Compatibility Program for older versions of Android, such as Android 1.5 (known in development as Cupcake). New devices intended to be Android compatible must ship with Android 1.6 or later.

Superphones turning point: segment satured with Tier 1 globals while the Chinese locals are at less than 40% of the Samsung price

August 3, 2013 12:53 pm / 5 Comments on Superphones turning point: segment satured with Tier 1 globals while the Chinese locals are at less than 405 of the Samsung price

OR Samsung is leapfrogging Apple while the Chinese local brands are coming close to Samsung but at less than 40% price. Meanwhile the superphone segment of the market becomes saturated.

This is even more important as coinciding with:
– Eight-core MT6592 for superphones and big.LITTLE MT8135 for tablets implemented in 28nm HKMG are coming from MediaTek to further disrupt the operations of Qualcomm and Samsung [‘Experiencing the cloud’, July 20-29, 2013]
– GiONEE (金立), the emerging global competitor on the smartphone market [‘Experiencing the cloud’, July 22, 2013]
– Xiaomi, OPPO and Meizu–top Chinese brands of smartphone innovation [‘Experiencing the cloud’, Aug 1, 2013]
– UPDATE Aug’13: Xiaomi $130 Hongmi superphone END MediaTek MT6589 quad-core Cortex-A7 SoC with HSPA+ and TD-SCDMA is available for Android smartphones and tablets of Q1 delivery [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Dec 12, 2012; Aug 1, 2013]

Now the following things are coming in addition to that:

  1. [Samsung is] Leapfrogging Apple while regaining only some high-end SoC supply to it
  2. Chinese local brands are coming close to Samsung but at less than 40% price
  3. The superphone segment of the market becomes saturated
  4. Previous (pre-saturation) milestones according to Samsung

This will be the organization of the ‘DETAILS for the assesment of upcoming changes’ part of this post.

To appreciate the real significance of the sudden change characterized above let’s first get acquainted with the current state of the lead market as described in China Report: Device and App Trends in the #1 Mobile Market [by Mary Ellen Gordon on Flurry Blog, July 23, 2013]

Smartphones and tablets have gone from being the latest gadgets for relatively affluent people in relatively affluent countries to ubiquitous devices in mainstream use in many countries around the world. In fact, as we reported in February of this year China surpassed the US to become the country with the largest installed base of connected devices as measured by Flurry Analytics. As we also reported, a second wave of countries around the world is now experiencing the type of growth mobile pioneer countries experienced previously. For example, the mobile markets in the BRIC countries are now all growing faster than the mobile markets in the U.S., U.K., and South Korea.
Knowing that the landscape is constantly shifting, we are beginning a series of blog posts reporting on the use of smartphones, tablets, and apps in particular countries and geographic regions around the world. Given China’s world-leading installed base and considering the China Joy conference (China’s largest digital conference) is this week we thought we would begin there.
In June of this year Flurry Analytics measured 261,333,271 active smartphones and tablets in China. That represented a whopping 24% of the entire worldwide connected device installed base measured by Flurry. The chart below documents the growth in the installed base. The left axis and blue line show China’s growth over the years. The right axis and red line show growth in the world as a whole (including China) a basis of comparison. As can be seen from the gap between the two lines growing through 2010 and much of 2011, growth in smartphones and tablets in China lagged the world as a whole through that period. But starting toward the end of 2011, the installed base in China began a period of exponential growth. During this period it surpassed the growth rate for the world as a whole, as shown by the blue line catching the red line in the graph. We expect China to maintain its leadership (in terms of active installed base) for the foreseeable future because device penetration rate is still relatively low and much opportunity remains, as we reported in a previous post.

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Xiaomi Is A Local Manufacturer To Watch
Examining a random sample of 18,310 of the devices in our system in China that run iOS or Android apps revealed that Apple and Samsung are the top two device manufacturers, as they are most everywhere. China’s own Xiaomi was a strong third, with a 6% share of the market, ahead of HTC, Lenovo and a multitude of others. As we noted in a previous post, Xiaomi has been successful in accumulating a large number of active users for each device model it releases. Worldwide, only Apple, Amazon, and Samsung have more active users for each device model released.

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It will be interesting to see if Xiaomi can continue to gain share in China – possibly by mopping up share from smaller manufacturers of Android devices – and also if they can begin making gains in other markets outside of China to become more of a global player. With rumors of a Xiaomi tablet circulating, we will also be watching to see if their entry into the tablet market will increase the use of Android tablets in China. Currently 21% of the iOS devices in our randomly drawn sample were tablets compared to only 4% of the Android devices.
Chinese Users Over Index in Reading, Utility, Productivity
In looking at how Chinese people use their connected devices we see similarities and differences compared to the rest of the world. As a general rule worldwide, games dominate time spent in apps measured by Flurry Analytics, and China is no exception. On average, Chinese owners of iOS devices spent 47% of their app in games. The percentage of app time devoted to games was even greater for Android at 56%.

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Smartphones and tablets are not just about fun and games in China. Compared to iOS device owners elsewhere, the average time Chinese owners spend using Books, Newsstand, Utility, and Productivity apps is greater than the rest of the world (1.8x, 1.7x, 2.3x, and 2.1x respectively). On average Chinese owners of Android devices spend more than seven times as much time in Finance apps (7.4x) than Android owners elsewhere spend in Finance apps, but they also spend more time in Entertainment apps (1.7x).

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Will China’s Exponential Growth Change The Device And App Markets?
It will be interesting to see how China now having leadership in terms of its installed base will impact the device and app markets elsewhere. Given Xiaomi’s success at building a large number of users for each model it releases, it might try to add further scale by expanding internationally – particularly to the other rapidly-growing BRIC markets where brand preferences are not already well-entrenched.
Within China itself, Chinese competitors may have an even greater advantage in the app market since cultural influences and differences are likely to be even more important in the app market than in the device market. There are already strong Chinese app companies such as Baidu and Tencent and clusters of app developers emerging in places like Chengdu. At first they are likely to concentrate on apps for the large local market, but that may eventually lead to growing app exports. For example, the fact that Chinese consumers over-index on some more work and educational-oriented apps may encourage Chinese developers to focus on those areas and innovate, and that could lead to creation of apps that end up being adopted elsewhere in the world. We’re looking forward to discovering what app is to China what Angry Birds was to Finland.

And it is also important to understand that as far as the current situation is concerned Samsung’s China magic upstages Apple [Reuters TV, July 25, 2013]

Tim Cook may be scratching his head over slumping China sales, but smartphone competitor Samsung is raking in the cash. Here’s how the South Korean tech giant is doing it.

Insight: How Samsung is beating Apple in China [Reuters, July 26, 2013]

Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook believes that “over the arc of time” China is a huge opportunity for his pathbreaking company. But time looks to be on the side of rival Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, which has been around far longer and penetrated much deeper into the world’s most populous country.
Apple Inc this week said its revenue in Greater China, which also includes Hong Kong and Taiwan, slumped 43 percent to $4.65 billion from the previous quarter. That was also 14 percent lower from the year-ago quarter. Sales were weighed down by a sharp drop in revenues from Hong Kong. “It’s not totally clear why that occurred,” Cook said on a conference call with analysts.
Neither is it totally clear what Apple’s strategy is to deal with Samsung – not to mention a host of smaller, nimbler Chinese challengers.
Today, in the war for what both sides acknowledge is the 21st century’s most important market, Samsung is whipping its American rival. The South Korean giant now has a 19 percent share of the $80 billion smartphone market in China, a market expected to surge to $117 billion by 2017, according to International Data Corp (IDC). That’s 10 percentage points ahead of Apple, which has fallen to 5th in terms of China market share.
Cook said Apple planned to double the number of its retail stores over the next two years – it currently has 8 flagship stores in China and 3 in Hong Kong. But, he added, Apple will invest in distribution “very cautiously because we want to do it with great quality.”
Samsung, with a longer history in China, now has three times the number of retail stores as Apple, and has been more aggressive in courting consumers and creating partnerships with phone operators. It also appears to be in better position, over an arc of time, to fend off the growing assault of homegrown competitors such as Lenovo Group Ltd, Huawei Technologies Co Ltd and ZTE Corp, former company executives, analysts and industry sources say.
Apple declined requests for comment for this article.
VARIED MODELS
Samsung’s history and corporate culture could hardly be more different than Apple’s, the iconic Silicon Valley start-up founded by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in 1976. Lee Byung-Chull started Samsung in 1938 as a noodle and sugar maker. It grew over the decades into an industrial powerhouse, or chaebol as Koreans call the family owned conglomerates that dominate the nation’s economy and are run with military-like discipline.
Apple, by contrast, became the epitome of Californian cool, an image the company revels in. That hip image translates in China – its stores are routinely packed – but hasn’t been enough to overcome the more entrenched Samsung.
A stuffy electronics bazaar in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen illustrates part of the reason why.
Samsung Galaxys and Apple iPhones of different generations sit side by side, glinting under bright display lights as vendors call out to get customers’ attention. With its varied models, Samsung smartphones outnumber iPhones at least four to one.
While Apple releases only one smartphone a year, priced at the premium end of the market, Samsung brings out multiple models annually with different specifications and at different price points in China.
And those models, analysts say, are loaded with features tailored specifically for the local market: apps such POCO.cn, the most popular photo sharing site in China, or the two slots for SIM cards (Apple offers one), which allows service from multiple cell carriers, either at home or abroad.
“The Chinese just love features. They want their phone to have 50 different things that they’re never going to use,” said Michael Clendenin, managing director of technology consultancy RedTech Advisors. “Apple just doesn’t play that game. Unfortunately, if you want to hit the mainstream market in China, and you want a lot of market share percentage points, you have to offer the Swiss army knife of cellphones.”
“SETTING THE PACE”
Analysts believe Samsung’s increasing strength in China is a critical reason behind its rival’s possible intention to introduce globally a new and cheaper iPhone model, as well as one with bigger screens – a staple of Samsung’s offerings.
Said a Samsung executive with experience in China: “We definitely think we’re setting the pace there. They are having to respond to us.”
Most audaciously, Samsung has gone after Apple not simply by offering lower priced smartphones, but by attacking its rival directly in the pricier end of the market. “We put a lot of emphasis on the high end market in China,” co-CEO J.K. Shin told Reuters in an interview.
Samsung launched a China-only luxury smartphone together with China Telecom marketed by actor Jackie Chan that retails for about 12,000 yuan ($2,000). The flip phone, named “heart to the world,” is encased in a slim black and rose gold metal body. The sleek look – called “da qi” (elegantly grand) – is coveted by Chinese when they shop for cars, sofas or phones.
“There are a lot of ‘VVIP’s’ in China, and for them we launched luxury phones promoted by Jackie Chan. This helps target niche customers and build brand equity,” said Lee Young-hee, executive vice president of Samsung’s mobile business.
While Samsung won’t sell millions of these smartphones, the creation of the phone in conjunction with a carrier reinforces Samsung’s willingness to go local – and tap into niche markets.
“The key point is that Samsung consistently adapts to the local market,” said TZ Wong, a Singapore-based technology analyst with IDC.
Apple’s latest mobile operating system offers links to popular Chinese applications like Sina’s microblogging platform Weibo, but the application itself must be downloaded onto the phone. On all of Samsung’s entries, it’s already there.
“People know intellectually that Samsung is from Korea, but when it comes to the messaging there is always a local face,” Wong said.
RETAIL PRESENCE
Samsung opened its first office in China in 1985 in Beijing – an era in which it was all but inconceivable that Apple and Samsung would end up in one of the world’s most intense corporate grudge matches. Like other South Korean chaebols, Samsung was a first mover in China, using the market primarily as a base to produce electronics for the world.
In contrast, Apple’s big push in China came only recently, with the advent of the smartphone age roughly five years ago.
The early entry gave Samsung an undeniable edge, and it adapted fast to a rapidly changing environment. By the mid-1990s, with the economy booming, Samsung made the strategic decision to treat the Chinese market not just as a production base, but to start marketing to China higher-priced electronics, said Nomura researcher Choi Chang-hee, who wrote a history of Samsung’s experience in China.
That shift has meant Samsung’s retail presence in China far outstrips Apple’s. Aside from selling via the distribution outlets of the three major telecom carriers, Samsung also has a strong retail presence through its partners Gome Electrical Appliances and Suning Commerce Group, as well as its own “Experience” stores and small retailers all over the country.
Apple works through the same channels, but its relatively late entry means it has a significantly smaller presence. Samsung, for example, has more than 200 official distributors and resellers in Guangzhou province, while Apple lists 95.
Over the last two decades, Samsung has also taken pains to build relationships with Chinese government officials and -perhaps more critically – the three major telecom carriers.
The notion of the importance of connections – or “guanxi” – in China is occasionally overrated in business. Not, according to Samsung’s Shin, in this case. “It’s our core policy to keep friendly relationships with the operators,” he said. In China, each carrier uses a different technology and that requires Samsung “to tweak our smartphones to their request.”
“It’s not easy,” Shin said, “but we do this to be more operator friendly.”
Contrast that with the ongoing negotiations Apple has had with China Mobile, the largest cellphone operator. For years the two sides have been unable to come to an agreement on revenue sharing, effectively precluding Apple from hundreds of millions of potential customers.
SCRUTINY FROM THE TOP
Samsung’s reach extends higher than just the CEOs of the top state-owned telecom companies. Top executives have met each of the last several Chinese leaders, most recently Xi Jinping, who spent time in April with vice chairman Jay Y. Lee, son of K.H. Lee, Samsung Electronics chairman.
“What surprised me most,” said Lee later, “was that they (Chinese leadership) know very well about Samsung. They even have a group studying us.”
The Chinese government has also made clear it’s well aware of Apple – though not always in a good way. In April, state media bashed Apple for its “arrogance,” protesting among other things that its current 1-year service warranty was insufficient. Apple initially dismissed those criticisms, but Cook later apologized to Chinese consumers.
Samsung’s success in China has its roots, one former executive said, in a previous obsession for the company: its desire not to replicate the mistakes made by Japanese rivals.
“Samsung spent a lot of time benchmarking Sony, Toshiba and Panasonic,” said Mark Newman, who spent six years in Samsung’s global strategy group and is now an industry analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein in Hong Kong.
“One of the things that came out of that is the realization that the insular approach has its drawbacks, and so Samsung has made an effort over the last 10 years to be much more global.”
This strategy of decentralization is plainly evident in China, he said, home now to more Samsung employees than any country outside South Korea.
FIGHTING HIGH AND LOW
Samsung now leads in both low-end and high-end segments in China, according to IDC, and its logic of going after both ends of the market is straightforward. In China, where the average wage is roughly $640 per month, many users looking to upgrade from feature phones to smartphones cannot afford Apple.
By bracketing the market with multiple models, Samsung can breed deep relationships with customers, many of whom, market research shows, trade up to more expensive models as they get older. Playing high and low also positions Samsung to fend off the intensifying competition from Chinese firms such as Lenovo and Huawei and literally hundreds of smaller local players.
“That’s where the next battle for Samsung will be fought,” said Newman. “We’ll have to see if Apple does introduce a new, cheaper model for China – and the world.”

DETAILS for the assesment of upcoming changes

1. Leapfrogging Apple while regaining only some high-end SoC supply to it:

Samsung sells 76 mln smartphones in Q2, boosting market share-report [Reuters, July 26, 2013]

Samsung Electronics Co Ltd sold 76 million smartphones in the second quarter, expanding its market share to 33.1 percent, Strategy Analytics said on Friday.

Overall, the global smartphone market grew 47 percent to a record 229.6 million, the research firm said.

Second-ranked Apple Inc saw its market share shrink to 13.6 percent after selling 31.2 million iPhones, as smaller rivals such as LG Electronics Inc, ZTE Corp and Huawei Technologies Co Ltd seized larger slices.

Strategy Analytics: Samsung Becomes World’s Most Profitable Handset Vendor in Q2 2013 [PRNewswire, July 26, 2013]

According to the latest research from Strategy Analytics, Samsung became the world’s most profitable handset vendor in Q2 2013. Apple slipped into second position, as margins have been hit by lackluster iPhone 5 volumes and tougher competition in China.

Neil Shah, Senior Analyst at Strategy Analytics, said, “We estimate Samsung’s operating profit for its handset division stood at US$5.2 billion [61% of the overall, see below] in the second quarter of 2013. Samsung overtook Apple for the first time, which recorded an estimated iPhone operating profit of US$4.6 billion. With strong volumes, high wholesale prices and tight cost controls, Samsung has finally succeeded in becoming the handset industry’s largest and most profitable vendor.”

Neil Mawston, Executive Director at Strategy Analytics, added, “Apple’s reign as the world’s most profitable handset vendor lasted almost four years, from Q3 2009 to Q1 2013. Apple’s profit margin for its handset division has been fading recently due to lackluster iPhone 5 volumes and tougher competition from rivals. Samsung is performing well in the US market, while Huawei, ZTE and other local brands are growing vigorously in China. Apple is now under intense pressure to launch more iPhone models at cheaper price-points or with larger screens to fend off the surging competition and recapture lost profits in the second half of 2013.”

Exhibit 1: Global Handset Operating Profits in Q2 2013  [1]

Global Handset Operating Profits (US$ Billions)

Q2 ’13

Samsung

$5.2

Apple

$4.6

Source: Strategy Analytics

The full report, Samsung Becomes World’s Most Profitable Handset Vendor in Q2 2013, is published by the Strategy Analytics Wireless Device Strategies (WDS) service, details of which can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/cr7fhmb.

But: while handset revenue was up by 9% the operating profit for handsets and network products together were down by 3%. Considering that 97.3% of the IM (IT & Mobile Communications) revenue is for handsets that essentially means a similar operating profit drop of ~3% for handsets alone. Note as well that while the margin was 17.7% a year ago (in 2Q ’12) now (in 2Q ‘13) it was the same 17.7%, so with that 3% drop there was no fundamental problem (yet).
From: Earnings Release Q2 2013, Samsung Electronics, July 2013 presentation [July 26, 2013]

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Samsung explains that by “marginal profit decline due to increased costs of new product launches, R&D and retail channels investments, etc.” as you could see below:

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Fundamental problem could well be with the market share outlook, as neither for 2Q ‘13, nor for the outlook market share was talked about at all.

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Samsung Electronics Announces Earnings for Q2 in 2013 [press release, July 26, 2013]

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. today announced revenues of 57.46 trillion won [$51.6B] on a consolidated basis for the second quarter ended June 30, 2013, a 9-percent increase from the previous quarter. Consolidated operating profit for the quarter reached 9.53 trillion won [$8.53B, ~61% of which is estimated for its handset division, see above], representing a 9-percent increase on quarter, while consolidated net profit for the same quarter was 7.77 trillion won [$6.98B].

In its earnings guidance disclosed on July 5, Samsung estimated second quarter consolidated revenues would reach approximately 57 trillion won [$51.2B] with consolidated operating profit of approximately 9.5 trillion won [$8.53B].

Samsung Regains Its Biggest Client Apple [The Korea Economic Daily, July 15, 2013]

Samsung Electronics will supply mobile application processor (AP) to Apple Inc. from 2015. The mobile AP is a brain of Apple’s iPhone. Samsung Electronics will supply 14 nano A9 chips that will be used for Apple’s iPhone 7.
Samsung Electronics had supplied the AP to Apple since 2007 but lost the contract to supply 20 nano AP A8 chips [for iPhone6] to Apple to Taiwan’s TSMC last year when it was engaged in patent disputes with Apple. Samsung Electronics developed state-of-the-art 14 nano models ahead of its rival TSMC, regaining the order from Apple.

According to industry sources on July 14, Samsung Electronics signed an agreement with Apple to supply the next-generation AP that it will produce in 2015. The AP that will be produced using 14 nano FinFET technology is mounted on Apple’s iPhone 7 to be released in the second half of 2015.

Since its relations with Samsung Electronics worsened due to patent disputes, Apple has refrained from using Samsung parts since the second half of last year. Apple excluded Samsung memory chips, including mobile DRAMs, from iPhone 5 that it released in September 2012. Apple also decided to procure iPhone 6 APs from TSMC, the world’s No. 1 foundry company.

TSMC reaches deal with Apple to supply 20nm, 16nm and 10nm chips, sources claim [DIGITIMES, June 24, 2013]

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) and its IC design service partner Global UniChip have secured a three-year agreement with Apple to supply foundry services for the next A-series chips built using 20nm, 16nm and 10nm process nodes, according to industry sources.
In response, both TSMC and Global Unichip said they do not comment on customer orders and statuses.
TSMC will start to manufacture Apple’s A8 chips in small volume in July 2013, and substantially ramp up its 20nm production capacity after December, the sources revealed. The foundry will complete installing a batch of new 20nm fab equipment, which is capable of processing 50,000 wafers, in the first quarter of 2014, the sources said.
A portion of the upcoming production capacity, estimated at 20,000 wafers, can later be upgraded to process wafers used to build 16nm chips, the sources continued. TSMC is scheduled to volume produce the Apple A9 and A9X processors starting the end of third-quarter 2014, the sources said.
The upcoming Apple A8 processor will be found in a new iPhone [iPhone 6] slated for release in early 2014, and the A9/A9X chips will be used in the newer-generation iPhone and iPad products, the sources claimed.
The sources did not identify whether TSMC will be the sole supplier of these Apple-designed chips.
TSMC’s phase-4, -5 and -6 facilities of Fab 14, its 12-inch fab located in southern Taiwan, will be dedicated to making Apple’s A-series processors, the sources further noted. The foundry will initially allocate a capacity of 6,000-10,000 12-inch wafers for the manufacture of those chips, and output will rise gradually starting 2014, the sources said.
TSMC chairman and CEO Morris Chang remarked previously that the foundry’s 16nm FinFET process would enter mass production in less than one year after ramping up production of 20nm chips. Risk production for its 20nm process kicked off in the first quarter of 2013.

Samsung Electronics is the Biggest Beneficiary of LTE-A [Korea IT News, July 15, 2013]

Samsung Electronics has emerged as the biggest beneficiary of the commercialization of LTE-A services by all of the three South Korean telecom operators. This is because the Samsung Galaxy S4 LTE-A is the only LTE-A smartphone put on the market at the moment. Thus, sales of the Galaxy S4 LTE-A has a good chance of making up for slower than expected domestic sales of the Galaxy S4. LG Electronics and Pantech plan to launch their LTE-A smartphones sometime next month.

150,000 Galaxy S4 LTE-A smartphones were activated in 14 days with SK Telecom alone. In other words, an average of 10,000 Galaxy S4 LTE-A smartphones went into service a day. Sales of the Galaxy S4 LTE-A is much faster than the Galaxy S4, propped up by Samsung-SK Telecom joint marketing campaigns and growing expectations of LTE-A’s twice faster speeds [LTE=75Mbps –> LTE-A=150Mbps] than LTE.

Sales of the Galaxy S4 LTE-A is projected to surge in the weeks to come since LG and Pantech’s LTE-A smartphones are scheduled to come out as early as next month.

The world’s first LTE-A [SK telecom YouTube channel, June 25, 2013]

More information:
– SK Telecom Launches World`s First LTE-Advanced Network [press release, June 26, 2013]
– World’s First Mobile Device with LTE Advanced Carrier Aggregation Powered by the Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 800 Processor [OnQ Blog, June 26, 2013]
– Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 Processors Power World’s First LTE-Advanced Smartphone [press release, June 26, 2013]
– Samsung LTE Leadership and Future-Focused Innovation Produces World’s First LTE-Advanced Smartphone [press release, June 26, 2013]
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From: 25 things my new Android phone does that makes my iPhone feel like it comes from the 1990s [ZDNet, July 11, 2013]

A few weeks ago, I told you about my plans to ditch my old iPhone 4S and get a brand-new Samsung S4 Android phone. Well, a few days later, I did just that.

  1. You can replace the battery
  2. You can add an memory card to your phone
  3. You can replace the back cover
  4. It supports wireless inductive charging without a bulky sled
  5. Wonder-of-wonders: you can actually plug a USB cable into it and drag and drop files from your computer
  6. It’s got a full 1080p HD display
  7. You don’t have to use iTunes
  8. You can completely replace your launcher
  9. Your home screen can be alive
  10. You can replace your unlock screen with a customized version
  11. It’s a frickin’ tricorder
  12. It supports near field communications (NFC)
  13. It has an IR emitter
  14. You can turn your phone into a stealthy TV-B-Gone
  15. The thing senses hand gestures above it
  16. It watches your eyes
  17. It has a 13 megapixel camera
  18. Its camera can remove objects that don’t belong in the image
  19. Its camera can take multiple images and composite them together automatically
  20. You can install apps from a browser on your PC
  21. It can show two apps on-screen at once
  22. You can automate almost everything
  23. When you buy something on the Google Play store, you get an email receipt within minutes, not weeks
  24. It integrates (mostly) nicely with Google Voice
  25. You can have a new hobby (whether you want it or not)
  • Samsung Galaxy S4 GT-I9500 [16GB] Factory Unlocked: $618 on Amazon ($700 list)
    – Exynos 5 Octa 5410 SoC with 2GB RAM
    – Quad-core 1.6 GHz Cortex-A15 & quad-core 1.2 GHz Cortex-A7 CPU with tri-core 533MHz PowerVR SGX544 GPU
  • Samsung Galaxy S4 GT-I9505 16GB 4G/LTE Factory Unlocked: $611 on Amazon($999 list)
    – Snapdragon 600 SoC with 2GB RAM
    – Quad-core 1.9GHz Krait 300 CPU with 450MHz Adreno 320 GPU

2. Chinese local brands are coming close to Samsung but at less than 40% price

Let’s take Jiayu* quad-core smartphone offerings as of July 15, 2013 in China (as they are the price leaders among the MT6589/MT6589T-based devices in China):
– Jiayu G3 Quad Edition (G3s) is from $110 in retail shops throughout the country
(Note that this price is even lower than the spec-wise similar Xiaomi $130 Hongmi superphone.)
– Jiayu G4 Standard (on sale for $155 (thin) and $163 (thick) list price since April 10) now with summer offer is from $130 in retail shops throughout the country
– 1.5GHz Jiayu G4 Advanced (G4s) is $216 since July 6 with 7 working days delivery
– 1.5GHz Jiayu G4 thin version is $160 since July 13 with not later than July 24 delivery

* About Jiayu (佳域)

Baoji Jiayuyutong Electronic Co., Ltd was established in April 2009, is one of the high-tech enterprises, committed to the mobile communication product, research and development, manufacturing, sales and service. The company has more than 800 employees, including more than 30 R & D personnel and 60 engineering and technical people. At present, the company has 10 complete product lines, 2 laboratory rooms, a variety of advanced testing equipment.
Brand interpretation: “good domain”, the Chinese word for pioneering domestic smart phone “Best of the Realm”; “JIAYU” to “good domain” Chinese spelling.

Jiayu G3S quick review [nikchris69 YouTube channel, July 13, 2013]

Index: 0:00 : quick look on the external 0:52 : quick look at smoothness 1:30 : quick look at general settings, ram, etc 5:28 : quick look at camera settings 8:10 : quick look at lockscreen Jiayu G3S is my new phone, it comes from China. I bought that very cheap (200$/150€) and it also came with hands-free and a case. Here it is with the paid version of Nova Launcher. More videos of this phone will come soon.

Jiayu Store links: Jiayu S1, Jiayu G4 and Jiayu G3s (other link: Mobile Dad, July 13)image

Update: JiaYu S1 CNC machining process [Gizchina YouTube channel, Aug 6, 2013]

The JiaYu S1 is JiaYu’s first Snapdragon powered phone with a 1080 display. While we have seen this before from Chinese manufacturers it is nice to see that JiaYu are not only concentrating on the performance of the phone but are also ensuring the manufacturing quality is also spot on. In this video from the JiaYu factory we get to see the CNC manufacturing process of the S1’s stainless steel chassis.

imageYiayu S1 (see above) at 1.7GHz is on par with Samsung Galaxy S4 in performance:
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according to the Antutu benchmark results at http://www.jiayu-store.com/blog/

Update: JiaYu S1 wireless charging demo Video [Gizchina YouTube channel, Aug 6, 2013]

The JiaYu S1 is nearing a launch date and as expected the company are releasing videos of the phone showing off some of the great built in functions. In this quick video we get to see the JiaYu S1’s wireless charging in action.

JiaYu G4 Hands On [Gizchina YouTube channel, May 13, 2013]

Here is a hands on video with the JiaYu G4 Basic [Standard]. The phone has a quad-core MT6589 1.2Ghz CPU, 1GB RAM, large 3000mAh battery [there is also a thinner version with 1850mAh battery], 13 mega-pixel rear camera and Android 4.2 Jelly Bean. In this video you will get a good look at the phone along with examples of video streaming, gaming and Antutu results.

3. The superphone segment of the market becomes saturated:

Smartphone slowdown could spell trouble in Taiwan [Reuters TV YouTube channel, July 9, 2013]

July 10 – With signs the high-end smartphone market in the developed world is at a near-term saturation point, Taiwanese chipmakers like TSMC may find once-assured profits are more fleeting than expected.

Samsung’s smartphone champ braves a tough crowd [Reuters TV YouTube channel, July 4, 2013]

July 5 – It’s not easy being J.K. Shin. The Samsung Electronics co-CEO has driven record quarterly profits and handset shipments, and yet investors are still displeased. Reuters’ Jon Gordon reports.

Samsung Confronts Saturated Smartphone Market [Bloomberg YouTube channel, July 5, 2013]

July 05 (Bloomberg) — Howard Lindzon, CEO and Co-Founder of Stocktwits, discusses the size of both Samsung and Apple, and the ability to move beyond the Smartphone. He speaks on Bloomberg Television’s “Bloomberg Surveillance.” (Source: Bloomberg)

Has Apple lost its cool factor? [CNNInternational YouTube channel, June 10, 2013]

A look at Apple’s declining fortune and what they need to do to regain luster. CNN’s Dan Simon reports.

China smartphone aims to rival Apple [Financial Times YouTube channel, Jun 25, 2013]

Chinese consumers have been clamouring to get their hands on a Xiaomi smartphone since its launch in 2011. Known as a Chinese rival to Apple, the low-cost phone has been held up as a model of Chinese innovation. The FT’s Leslie Hook talks the Xiaomi’s founder, Lei Jun, about investing in start-ups and growing his business.

China’s Huawei launches world’s slimmest smartphone [AFP YouTube channel, June 18, 2013]

Chinese telecoms giant Huawei launches what it says is the world’s thinnest smartphone, which it hopes will take on high-end rivals like Apple and Samsung in the global market. Duration:00:53

Huawei Ascend P6 — 2-Minute Encounter [HuaweiDeviceCo YouTube, June 18, 2013]

Meet beauty from outside in.

The rise of Chinese smartphones [CNN YouTube channel, May 30, 2013]

Kristie Lu Stout vistis Huawei’s headquarters for a look at how the company’s trying to take on Apple and Samsung. For more CNN videos, visit our site at http://www.cnn.com/video/

Google and Motorola’s Moto X (hands-on) [The Verge YouTube channel, Aug 1, 2013]

David Pierce takes an early look at the new Moto X and speaks with Motorola brass about the philosophies that went into the design of the phone and the company’s relationship with Google.

More information:
– Moto X. All Yours. [The Official Motorola Blog, Aug 1, 2013]
– Motorola Moto X vs. Samsung Galaxy S4 [Gizmag, Aug 2, 2013]
– 16GB Motorola Moto X to cost $575 SIM-free [GSMarena.com, Aug 2, 2013]

Motorola Moto X was unveiled yesterday and the smartphone will soon be available from the top 5 carriers in the USA. The 16 GB variant of the Moto X is priced at $200 and the 32 GB unit costs you $250 with a two-year contract.

At the announcement event Motorola did not announce the pricing details of the SIM-free editions, but they are no longer a mystery as AT&T has confirmed the pricing of the device without a contract. At launch, the 16 GB model of the Moto X will cost you $575, while the 32 GB is priced at $629.

Moto X – Motomaker [motorola YouTube channel, Aug 1, 2013]

Design your own Moto X. Over 2,000 ways to customize.

BBC News – Can Moto X revive Motorola’s fortunes? [BBCWorldNewsWatch YouTube channel, May 30, 2013]

Motorola has struggled to keep up in the fast-paced smartphone market, but now the company has announced that it will take on its rivals with a new handset named the Moto X. Can the company really compete against the likes of Apple, Samsung and HTC? The BBC’s Aaron Heslehurst spoke tech expert Stuart Miles, from Pocket-lint, to find out more about Motorola’s plans.

Moto X Phone release date, news and rumours [TechRadar YouTube channel, July 2, 2013] “could be landing in installs in October”,  and “to undercut the big players of the market such as the Samsung Galaxy S4 and the HTC One –meaning we might see some very competitive pricing”

All the latest rumours surrounding the highly-anticipated Motorola X Phone.

From: Samsung Electronics 2Q13 review: Fading growth momentum vs improving valuations [The Korea Economic Daily, July 8, 2013]

Samsung Electronics (Samsung) announced 2Q13 preliminary sales of W57trn [$51B] and OP of W9.5trn [$8.5B], a record quarterly high. However, OP fell short of the consensus (W10.2trn) by 6.5% and our estimate (W10trn) by 5%. Despite strong memory prices due to supply shortages and higher OLED sales and margins, OP disappointed on lower smartphone ASP and IM margins due to increased marketing costs.
As the growth of the smartphone market slows due to commoditization, concerns are mounting over eroding ASP and margins. In fact, we estimate OP at the IM division eroded from W6.51trn with an OPM of 19.8% in 1Q13 to W6.23trn [$5.6B] with an OPM of 18.4%. Considering Apple lawsuit provisions were booked in 1Q13, the effective decline in OPM is over 3% as sales of the Galaxy S3 and Note 2 deteriorated.

We revise down our earnings forecasts to reflect lower handset OPM. Specifically, we estimate 3Q13 OP at W10.1trn [$9B] (previously W11.0trn) and full-year 2013 OP at W38.1trn [$34.2B] (previously W40.3trn). We cut Galaxy S4 3Q13 sales to 20mn units (previously 23mn) to reflect the poor sales; however, we maintain OP and OPM at 2Q13 levels given the global launch of the Galaxy S4 Mini and Note 3.

*Source: Korea Investment & Securities Co.

From: Galaxy S4, 20 million sales in just two months … 40 days faster than the previous [ChosunBiz, July 3, 2013] as traslated from Korean by Google and Bing with manual edits

Samsung Electronics (005930) launched the Galaxy S4 20 million sales in two months (on the carrier supply basis) of the fastest selling Samsung smartphones ever, according to industry.
The Galaxy S4  was released only two months ago by the end of June, and the carrier supply sales exceeded 20 million.
When this morning president JK Shin of Samsung Mobile met with reporters in Samsung Electronics Seocho building in response to a question whether the amount of Galaxy S4 sales would be 20 million he told “You know, there are”, and this is a 20 million breakthrough.
Since the official launch of the Galaxy S4 on the 26th of April  in 60 countries 4 million were sold in just five days, then went on to sell 10 million units in a month.

… On the other hand a Samsung official said, “as regards the Galaxy S4 sales numbers there is no answer”.

From: Analyst: Samsung Galaxy S4 Sales vs. Apple iPhone 5 Sales [Wall St. Cheat Sheet, July 7, 2013]

Although the Galaxy S4 has sold faster than any other Samsung device, it appears that it still couldn’t surpass the sales rate for the iPhone 5. Citing the slowing demand for the Galaxy S4, a mid-June report from J.P. Morgan lowered the 2013 earnings estimate for Samsung by 9 percent. After the report was released, Samsung lost $12.4 billion in market capitalization, falling to $187.8 billion.

Samsung analysts ask hard questions as S4 marketing charm wears off [Reuters, June 16, 2013]

(Reuters) – Analysts fell under Samsung Electronics Co Ltd’s marketing spell when they made what they now admit were hopelessly optimistic forecasts for its smartphone sales.

Samsung’s huge share of the high-end smartphone market also persuaded some analysts to downplay industry data pointing to a fast-saturating segment, a reality that is already eating into sales of Apple Inc’s iPhone 5.
Woori Investment & Securities, one of South Korea’s largest securities firms, cut its outlook for Samsung’s earnings and target share price on June 5. It was the first to adjust its view.
A massive wave of downgrades has since followed, with forecasters including JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs taking a harder look at their assumptions of how well the S4, Samsung’s latest Galaxy smartphone, would actually do.
Sales estimates for the S4 were slashed by as much as 30 percent, stirring investor concerns over Samsung’s mobile devices division – the company’s biggest profit generator.
Investors in the South Korean IT giant have paid dearly. Samsung lost nearly $20 billion in market value in a week as shares plunged following the downgrades.
“I’d say most forecasters including myself had this conviction that they’ll outperform again – because it’s Samsung,” said Byun Hanjoon, an analyst at KB Investment & Securities. “They had beaten expectations before, which led many to believe they are bound to excel again with the S4.”
The S4 sold 10 million sets in just one month of its debut in late April, outperforming its predecessor, the S3.
Yet analysts now say the high-end smartphone segment is slowing, citing lacklustre prospects in Europe and South Korea in particular.
The S4, in reality, also lacks any real wow factor, they say.
“The Street, including Goldman Sachs, admittedly extrapolated the first-quarter earnings momentum through the year,” Goldman Sachs analyst Michael Bang said in a report. “This resulted in very optimistic earnings expectations.”
Most analysts have reduced their estimates for S4 shipments to around 7 million units a month from their previous average expectation of 10 million.
Bank of America Merrill Lynch has lowered its S4 sales estimate for this year by 5 million to 65 million units.
Some analysts say a loss in potential sales of 5 million S4 units would cut around $1 billion of Samsung’s operating profit.
“S4 sales are solid. It’s just that some analysts had higher expectations and then they lowered them,” J.K. Shin, head of Samsung’s mobile devices division, told reporters last week.
Over the past month, 17 out of 43 analysts have downgraded their earnings estimates for Samsung, leading to a 0.6 percent drop in their average forecast for the company’s April-to-June earnings to 10.4 trillion won ($9 billion), according to Thomson Reuters StarMine.
The lowered forecast, however, would still be a quarterly record.
Many analysts say weaker-than-expected S4 sales will not necessarily stop Samsung from posting record quarterly profits. The company has diversified into many segments of the smartphone market, Merrill Lynch says.
MID-TIER PHONES
Still, the scale of the downgrades has cast a shadow on Samsung’s dominance in the $250 billion smartphone market.
Doing it no favour, Chinese rivals are aggressively growing their market share, aided by strong sales of mid-tier models – a segment in which Samsung has relatively weak positioning, according to analysts.
The mid-tier segment accounted for less than 15 percent of Samsung’s total shipments last year.
Analysts say Samsung has to focus on this lower tier in the medium term.
The high-end segment is losing momentum, with manufacturers struggling to differentiate themselves and consumers calling for a leap in innovation, they say.
To be sure, Samsung has not sat idle.
It has gradually expanded its offerings. Among four varieties of the S4 introduced in recent weeks, there was one stripped-down version called the Galaxy Mini.
By comparison, Apple has had no new offerings since the iPhone 5 hit the market in September last year.
Samsung bulls are also pinning their hopes on product launches later this year including the Galaxy Note 3, a phone-tablet hybrid.
Some analysts say conservative forecasts will prevail.
“Expectations for innovation have been lowered, and I don’t think there’ll be as much buzz surrounding new product launches as it used to be,” said Byun at KB.
Samsung’s stock, which slumped to a six-month low on Thursday, inched up 0.9 percent on Friday.
($1 = 1134.4000 Korean won)
(Reporting by Miyoung Kim; Editing by Ryan Woo)

Samsung GALAXY S4 Hits 10 Million Milestone in First Month [Samsung Mobile Press, May 23, 2013]

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. today announced that global channel sales of its GALAXY S4, a life companion for a richer, fuller, simpler life, has surpassed 10 million units sold in less than one month after its commercial debut. Launched globally on April 27, the phone is estimated to be selling at a rate of four units per second.

The GALAXY S4 sets a new record for Samsung, generating sales quicker than any of its predecessors. Sales of the GALAXY S III reached the 10-million mark 50 days after its launch in 2012, while the GALAXY S II took five months and the GALAXY S seven months to reach the same milestone.

“On behalf of Samsung, I would like to thank the millions of customers around the world who have chosen the Samsung GALAXY S4. At Samsung we’ll continue to pursue innovation inspired by and for people,” said JK Shin, CEO and President of the IT & Mobile Communications Division at Samsung Electronics.
The GALAXY S4 was developed to enhance the meaningful moments in our lives through its innovative features and superior hardware. It has the world’s first Full HD Super AMOLED display that showcases images at their very best on a 5-inch screen with 441ppi. Equipped with a powerful rear 13MP camera, the GALAXY S4 also boasts a Dual Camera function that allows simultaneous use of both front and rear cameras. The GALAXY S4’s new and innovative software features include Air View and Air Gesture for effortless tasks, while it also keeps users up-to-date with information about their health and wellbeing using S Health.
Samsung GALAXY S4 is available in more than 110 countries and will gradually be rolled out to a total of 155 countries in cooperation with 327 partners.
Samsung is planning to introduce more color variations to meet various consumer tastes and preferences. In addition to the currently available Black Mist and White Forest, new color iterations will be added this summer, including Blue Arctic and Red Aurora, followed by Purple Mirage and Brown Autumn.
＊ All functionality, features, specifications and other product information provided in this document including, but not limited to, the benefits, design, pricing, components, performance, availability and capabilities of the product are subject to change without notice or obligation.
＊＊ Availability of colors will vary depending on the country and carrier/retailer.

Is Samsung’s Growth at the Expense of Apple? [Bloomberg YouTube channel, April 26, 2013]

April 26 (Bloomberg) — Samsung captured a third of the global smartphone market in the first quarter as growth for Apple’s iPhone dropped to its slowest pace ever, according to data released by Strategy Analytics. Strategic Analytics Senior Strategist Neil Shah speaks with Emily Chang reports on Bloomberg Television’s “Bloomberg West.” (Source: Bloomberg) — For more “Bloomberg West” videos: http://bloom.bg/LIZpfr

4. Previous (pre-saturation) milestones according to Samsung Mobile Press (with relevant video inserts from other sources):

See: Samsung GALAXY S II reaches 3 Million global sales [July 3, 2011]

From: Samsung GALAXY S II reaches new heights with 5 million global sales [July 28, 2011]

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd, a global leader in digital media and digital convergence technologies, today announced that the Samsung GALAXY S II (Model: GT-I9100) has passed the 5 million global sales milestone.
The GALAXY S II is Samsung’s flagship smartphone device; a beautifully thin, (8.49mm) and lightweight dual-core smartphone that combines an unmatched Super AMOLED Plus viewing experience with incredible performance, all on Android – the world’s fastest-growing mobile operating system. The next generation smartphone also includes exclusive access to Samsung’s four new content and entertainment hubs, seamlessly integrated to provide instant access to music, games, e-reading and social networking services.
The 5 million mark has been reached in just 85 days, a rate which is 40 days faster than the original GALAXY S took to reach the same sales mark. This rate is set to accelerate as Samsung has just launched GALAXY S II in China, the world’s largest market.
…

image

From: Samsung GALAXY S II continues success reaching 10 Million in global sales [Sept 26, 2011]

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd, a global leader in digital media and digital convergence technologies, today announced that the Samsung GALAXY S II (Model: GT-I9100) has achieved 10 million global channel sales, doubling from five million in just eight weeks.

The GALAXY S II is Samsung’s flagship smartphone device – a beautifully thin (8.49mm) and lightweight dual-core smartphone that combines an unmatched SuperAMOLED Plus viewing experience with powerful performance, all on Android, the world’s fastest-growing mobile operating system. The next generation smartphone also includes Samsung’s four content and entertainment hubs, seamlessly integrated to provide instant access to music, games, e-reading and social networking services.

Samsung celebrates 30 million global sales of GALAXY S and GALAXY S II [Oct 17, 2011]

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd, a leading mobile handset provider, today announced that its Samsung GALAXY S and GALAXY SII smartphones have achieved a combined total of 30 million global sales.
GALAXY SII has set a new record for Samsung, generating more than 10 million sales – quicker than any device in Samsung’s history. The device also recently received five out of the total ten Mobile Choice Consumer Awards 2011 in the UK as well as 2011 Gadget Award for being chosen as the best smartphone of the year by T3, confirming it as a run-away favorite smartphone with consumers this year. It continues to gain traction as Samsung’s flagship smartphone – a stylishly designed, slim and ultra-portable device combining an unrivalled viewing experience with powerful dual-core processor performance.
Launched in 2010, Samsung GALAXY S reached almost 20 million unit sales, making it the highest-selling mobile device in Samsung’s portfolio to date, and another record-breaker for the company and the mobile market.
Since launching to high critical acclaim two years ago, the GALAXY S range has continued to gain popularity among consumers and propelled the GALAXY brand to one of the most recognized mobile brands in the world, with Samsung now the largest Android smartphone vendor and the second largest phone vendor overall worldwide (IDC).
“Since its launch only five months ago, GALAXY SII has seen tremendous sales success and garnered enthusiastic reviews from consumers and mobile industry watchers across the globe. This is in addition to the continued sales momentum behind GALAXY S, which we launched at Mobile World Congress 2010 as continues to be a run-away success with consumers,” said JK Shin, President and Head of Samsung’s Mobile Communications Business.
“The phenomenal success of these smartphones once again demonstrates how the GALAXY S smartphones is setting the standard for smart mobile technology around the world.”

From: Samsung GALAXY S II awarded “Best Smartphone” by GSMA at Mobile World Congress 2012 [Feb 29, 2012]

This honor comes in recognition of the device’s powerful performance and overwhelming response from consumers. GALAXY S II, Samsung’s flagship smartphone, achieved worldwide sales of over 10 million units in only 5 months, quicker than any device in Samsung’s history and surpassed over 20 million sales in 10 months.

With SIII, Samsung makes smartphone duopoly official – Tech Tonic [Reuters TV YouTube channel, June 21, 2012]

From: Samsung GALAXY S III Reaches 20 Million Sales Milestone in Record Time [Sept 6, 2012]

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd, a global leader in digital media and digital convergence technologies, today announced that the GALAXY S III smartphone has achieved 20 million unit sales in just 100 days since its debut in May 2012. As Samsung’s most successful smartphone to date, the GALAXY S III has set a new record, generating sales quicker than any of its predecessors.

From: The Samsung GALAXY S III achieves 30 million sales in five months [Nov 4, 2012]

Putting this number into perspective, during a similar selling period (150 days), the acclaimed GALAXY S II, launched in 2011, globally sold 10 million devices.

Now upgradable to Android™ 4.1 (Jelly Bean)＊, the nature-inspired GALAXY S III is a revolutionary smartphone packed with intelligent features that make everyday life easier. Its expansive 4.8-inch HD Super AMOLED display lets users view multimedia and web content in brilliant color and clarity; and its camera understands human gestures to make using the phone incredibly natural and intuitive. A powerful hardware ensures blazing-fast performance and seamless multi-tasking.

…
＊ Availability and timing of the Jelly Bean upgrade will vary depending on the country and mobile carrier.

Samsung GALAXY S Series Surpasses 100 Million Unit Sales [Jan 14, 2013]

    • Samsung has announced that global channel sales of the company’s flagship smartphone, GALAXY S III and its two predecessors GALAXY S and GALAXY S II have surpassed 100 million units sales as of January 13, 2013.
    • Samsung GALAXY smartphones are intuitive and easy to use, display photos and videos on dazzling screens, and deliver a premium user experience with a design that is elegant and feels natural.
    • The GALAXY S, has reached over 24 million global channel shipments, achieving 10 million of these during the first seven months after its launch in June 2010.
    • Building on this success Samsung launched the GALAXY S II in April 2011. This smartphone reached around 40 million shipments, achieving 10 million global channel sales in just five months.
    • In May 2012, Samsung unveiled the GALAXY S III – a smartphone designed for humans and inspired by nature. It revolutionized the user experience, and was critically acclaimed, achieving 20 million global channel sales in just 100 days – which made it Samsung’s fastest selling smartphone yet.
    • GALAXY S III has now passed the mark of 40 million unit channel sales.

How Did Samsung Come to Rule Smartphones? [Bloomberg YouTube channel, March 14, 2013]

March 14 (Bloomberg) — Bloomberg West Editor-at-Large Cory Johnson examines how Samsung came to build its smartphone business as it takes aim at Apple’s iPhone with today’s launch of the Galaxy S4. He speaks on Bloomberg Television’s “In The Loop.” — Related Story: http://bloom.bg/ZNshKu — For more “In the Loop” videos: http://bloom.bg/LbOTQk

Eight-core MT6592 for superphones and big.LITTLE MT8135 for tablets implemented in 28nm HKMG are coming from MediaTek to further disrupt the operations of Qualcomm and Samsung

July 20, 2013 6:29 pm / 10 Comments on Eight-core MT6592 for superphones and big.LITTLE MT8135 for tablets implemented in 28nm HKMG are coming from MediaTek to further disrupt the operations of Qualcomm and Samsung

Updates

Update: The Power of 8: MediaTek True Octa-Core [mediateklab YouTube channel, July 29, 2013]

MediaTek is the first in the world to optimize and adopt True Octa-Core technology for the perfect balance of power and performance. Unlike existing octa-core solutions in the market, which can only activate half of their CPU cores at once, MediaTek True Octa-Core allows for all eight of its cores to run simultaneously, offering the ultimate combination of performance and power-efficiency. *Learn about MediaTek True Octa-Core Solution: http://www.mediatek.com/_en/Event/201307_TrueOctaCore/tureOcta.php

Update:  MT6592—The world’s first true octa-core SOC with scalable eight-core processing [product page, March 13, 2014]

Overview

MediaTek MT6592 is the world’s first heterogeneous computing SOC with scalable eight-core processing for superior multi-tasking, industry-leading multimedia features and excellent performance-per-watt. Based on 28nm HPM (High-Performance Mobile) process technology, MT6592 has eight CPU cores, each capable of clock speeds up to 2GHz.

Features

  • ARM® Cortex®-A7 processor (1.7GHz or 2GHz)
  • 28nm HPM process technology
  • MAGE 3D graphics engine
  • UMTS / HSPA+ R8 / TD-SCDMA / EDGE / LTE
  • 801.11a/b/g/n, Bluetooth, GPS, FM tuner
  • 16MP camera image signal processor
  • Full HD H.265 / VP9 and Ultra HD H.264 video playback
  • ARM Mali™ GPU (700MHz)
  • MediaTek ClearMotion™ video enhancement

Update: [€147.18] Cubot X6 OctaCore MT6592 Phone Ultimate Slim Design 5″ OGS HD Retina [arif rachman YouTube channel, March 1, 2014]

Cubot X6 OctaCore MT6592 Ultimate Slim Design
Please follow the link below to see the full specification
http://bit.ly/CubotX6
This is the latest phone from Cubot. Well.. the phone has the latest MT6592 1.7GHz processor. 28nm process, with quad core mali 450 GPU. Frequency is up to 700MHz. It supports full HD video with wide screen decoding format.
The true eight core processor can run simultaneously through advanced scheduling algorithm, dynamic temperature control and power management technology to optimize workload distribution to each core. When handling multiple tasks and heavy duty needs, achieve the peak performance of full eight core. At light load, you can turn off the core, the ultimate energy saving idle. It means substantial increase in cell phone battery life.
The Mali 450 graphics processor, overall performance is up to twice of the previous Mali 400. It supports full-HD 60fps. The triangles per second and render is 152M 2.8G pixels. Should be easy to run 3D games, smooth playback of 1080 HD videos. It also has a built in powerful MAGE 3D engine.
The front camera is 5 mega pixels while the back camera is 8 mega pixels. The camera is equipped with five pieces of high precision glass structure, which can effectively filter infrared blue glass. This is to achieve the level of professional SLR camera. Far better than ordinary lenses. The phone uses Sony sensor with latest 13Mega-Pixel CMOS Image Sensor.
In a week, the phone will be available at banggood for only $184.99 with free shipping worldwide! That’s an octa core phone below 200$ price tag! Not cheap enough?
Leave your email to get referred and get 10$ discount! Cheapest price out there!
Please follow the link below to see the full specification
http://bit.ly/CubotX6

IllusionMage [Wikipedia, excerpted on March 15, 2014]

IllusionMage is a paid for 3D modeling, animation, and rendering software packages comprising the core engine of Blender, an open-source, 3D software suite, and bundled with materials related to Blender.

Other names this bundle has gone under are IllusionMage3D, 3DMagix, and 3DMagixPro.[1]

All materials and software included are freely available from other sources. The marketing of this program includes images that were stolen from other sources, often created with competing 3D applications. The image of the alleged creator of the software, Seth Avery, is a random stock photo.[2]

Criticism

IllusionMage has come under fire by many prominent Blender news sites and figures, including Ton Roosendaal, the founder of the Blender Foundation[3][4]

Related

References

  1. “Illusion Mage & 3D Magix Pro (affiliate) domain names” Topic: Illusion Mage & 3D Magix Pro *is* a scam. KatsBits Forum. Retrieved 2 October 2011.
  2. “Handsome young man isolated over white”. Laflor Photography via iStockPhoto. Retrieved 8 May 2012.
  3. January 2011 Blender Foundation Press Release
  4. “3DMagix and IllusionMage, scam or open source leeches?”. BlenderNation. Retrieved 30 September 2011.

Update: 联发科平板四核心MT8135 官方成绩曝光 (MediaTek MT8135 quad-core tablet exposure Official Results) [ 驱动之家 (MyDrivers.com), July 29, 2013]

image

Update: MediaTek’s Quad-core Tablet SoC MT8135 : Performance Benchmark [mediateklab YouTube channel, July 19, 2013]

MediaTek introduces industry leading tablet SoC -MT8135, which integrates ARM’s big.LITTLE™ processing subsystem and a PowerVR™ Series6 GPU from Imagination Technologies. MediaTek MT8135 fulfills the most demanding CPU and GPU usage scenarios, whether it is heavy web downloading, hardcore gaming, high-quality premium video viewing or rigorous multitasking, while maintaining the utmost power efficiency. In this video, you’ll see how MediaTek MT8135 outperforms today’s tablet solutions.
Update: MediaTek Introduces Industry Leading Tablet SoC, MT8135 [press release, July 29, 2013]
TAIWAN, Hsinchu – July 29, 2013 – MediaTek Inc., (2454: TT), a leading fabless semiconductor company for wireless communications and digital multimedia solutions, today announced its breakthrough MT8135 system-on-chip (SoC) for high-end tablets. The quad-core solution incorporates two high-performance ARM Cortex™-A15 and two ultra-efficient ARM Cortex™-A7 processors, and the latest GPU from Imagination Technologies, the PowerVR™ Series6. Complemented by a highly optimized ARM® big.LITTLE™ processing subsystem that allows for heterogeneous multi-processing, the resulting solution is primed to deliver premium user experiences. This includes the ability to seamlessly engage in a range of processor-intensive applications, including heavy web-downloading, hardcore gaming, high-quality video viewing and rigorous multitasking – all while maintaining the utmost power efficiency.
In line with its reputation for creating innovative, market-leading platform solutions, MediaTek has deployed an advanced scheduler algorithm, combined with adaptive thermal and interactive power management to maximize the performance and energy efficiency benefits of the ARM big.LITTLE™ architecture. This technology enables application software to access all of the processors in the big.LITTLE cluster simultaneously for a true heterogeneous experience. As the first company to enable heterogeneous multi-processing on a mobile SoC, MediaTek has uniquely positioned the MT8135 to support the next generation of tablet and mobile device designs.
“ARM big.LITTLE™ technology reduces processor energy consumption by up to 70 percent on common workloads, which is critical in the drive towards all-day battery life for mobile platforms,” said Noel Hurley, vice president, Strategy and Marketing, Processor Division, ARM. “We are pleased to see MediaTek’s MT8135 seizing on the opportunity offered by the big.LITTLE architecture to enable new services on a heterogeneous processing platform.”
“The move towards multi-tasking devices requires increased performance while creating greater power efficiency that can only be achieved through an optimized multi-core system approach. This means that multi-core processing capability is fast becoming a vital feature of mobile SoC solutions. The MT8135 is the first implementation of ARM’s big.LITTLE architecture to offer simultaneous heterogeneous multi-processing.  As such, MediaTek is taking the lead to improve battery life in next-generation tablet and mobile device designs by providing more flexibility to match tasks with the right-size core for better computational, graphical and multimedia performance,” said Mike Demler, Senior Analyst with The Linley Group.
The MT8135 features a MediaTek-developed four-in-one connectivity combination that includes Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS and FM, designed to bring highly integrated wireless technologies and expanded functionality to market-leading multimedia tablets. The MT8135 also supports Wi-Fi certified Miracast™ which makes multimedia content sharing between devices remarkably easier.
In addition, the tablet SoC boasts unprecedented graphics performance enabled by its PowerVR™ Series6 GPU from Imagination Technologies. “We are proud to have partnered with MediaTek on their latest generation of tablet SoCs” says Tony King-Smith, EVP of marketing, Imagination. “PowerVR™ Series6 GPUs build on Imagination’s success in mobile and embedded markets to deliver the industry’s highest performance and efficient solutions for graphics-and-compute GPUs. MediaTek is a key lead partner for Imagination and its PowerVR™ Series6 GPU cores, so we expect the MT8135 to set an important benchmark for high-end gaming, smooth UIs and advanced browser-based graphics-rich applications in smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices. Thanks to our PowerVR™ Series6 GPU, we believe the MT8135 will deliver five-times or more the GPU-compute-performance of the previous generation of tablet processors.”
“At MediaTek, our goal is to enable each user to take maximum advantage of his or her mobile device.  The implementation and availability of the MT8135 brings an enjoyable multitasking experience to life without requiring users to sacrifice on quality or energy. As the leader in multi-core processing solutions, we are constantly optimizing these capabilities to bring them into the mainstream, so as to make them accessible to every user around the world,” said Joe Chen, GM of the Home Entertainment Business Unit at MediaTek.
The MT8135 is the latest SoC in MediaTek’s highly successful line of quad-core processors, which since its launch last December has given rise to more than 350 projects and over 150 mobile device models across the world. This latest solution, along with its comprehensive accompanying Reference Design, will like their predecessors fast become industry standards, particularly in the high-end tablet space.
Update: Optimized big. LITTLE – MediaTek [MediaTek, July 29, 2013]
Multi-core system-on-chip (SoC) design has brought tremendous benefits to mobile device users by offering seamless engagement in rigorous multitasking. To overcome the issue with high energy consumption and thermal readings, MediaTek is deploying an advanced scheduler algorithm, combined with adaptive thermal and interactive power management to maximize the performance and energy efficiency benefits of the ARM big.LITTLE™ architecture. The technology will allow applications software to simultaneously access all the processors in the big.LITTLE™ cluster for a true heterogeneous experience, activating both of its CPU clusters concurrently for extreme performance.
Optimized big. LITTLE™
ARM big.LITTLE™ processing is designed to address the energy and thermal issues associated with multi-core system-on-chip (SoC) solutions. It allows for the creation of dual-cluster SoCs, with one more powerful (big) cluster for processing intensive tasks and a less powerful (LITTLE) cluster for executing routine functions. MediaTek is among the first SoC designers to have adopted this ground-breaking technology. Unlike its counterparts, however, the company has done so in a manner that affords device users the utmost energy and thermal efficiency rates.
Enabling Heterogeneous Multi-Processing
imageOf the three big.LITTLE™ software models that can be integrated, for example, MediaTek chose the Heterogeneous Multi-Processing [developed and named by ARM as Global Task Scheduling (GTS), also known earlier as big.LITTLE MP, see in the last section of this post in detail] approach, which unlike the other two methods – Cluster- [as was implemented in Galaxy S4 by Samsung with Exynos 5 SoC having 4xA7+4xA15 configuration] and CPU-Migration [IKS (In Kernel Switcher) developed by Linaro, see in the last section of this post in detail] – allows for individual cores to be activated as and when needed for maximum efficiency.
However, use of the most versatile model isn’t MediaTek’s only advantage. In line with its reputation for creating innovative, market-leading platform solutions, MediaTek has deployed an advanced scheduler algorithm, combined with adaptive thermal and interactive power management to maximize the performance and energy efficiency benefits of the ARM big.LITTLE™ architecture.
The technology will allow applications software to simultaneously access all the processors in the big.LITTLE™ cluster for a true heterogeneous experience, activating both of its CPU clusters concurrently for extreme performance.
imageIn comparison, the current octa-core SoC solution, utilizes one of the more inferior big.LITTLE™ software models. As a result, the processor is not as efficient as it otherwise might be.
As the first company to enable Heterogeneous Multi-Processing on a mobile SoC in the form of its MT8135 Reference Design, MediaTek is uniquely positioned to support the next wave of tablet and mobile devices.
Update: Optimized ARM big.LITTLETM – MediaTek Enables ARM big.LITTLETM Heterogeneous Multi-Processing Technology in Mobile SoCs [MediaTek Position Paper in PDF, July 29, 2013]

MediaTek MT8135 brings PowerVR Series6 GPUs to a mobile device near you [With Imagination Blog, July 29, 2013]

Over the years, our close partnership with MediaTek has resulted in the release of some very innovative platforms that have set important benchmarks for high-end gaming, smooth UIs and advanced browser-based graphics-rich applications in smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices. Two recent examples include:

MediaTek has been steadily establishing itself as an important global player for consumer products like smartphones, tablets and smart TVs, with a strong foothold in Latin America and Asia, and a rapidly growing presence in Europe and North America. Earlier this year, MediaTek introduced MT8125, one of their most successful tablet chipsets for high-end multimedia capabilities.

image

While MT8125 has been extremely popular with OEMs including Asus, Acer or Lenovo, MT8135 has the potential to consolidate Mediatek’s existing customer base and open up exciting new opportunities thanks to the advanced feature set provided by Imagination’s PowerVR ‘Rogue’ architecture.

MT8135 is a quad-core SoC that aims for the middle- to high-end tier of the tablet OEM market. It supports a 4-in-1 connectivity package that includes Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS and FM radio, all developed in-house by MediaTek. Miracast is another important addition to the multimedia package, enabling devices using MT8135 to stream high-resolution content more easily to compatible displays, over wireless networks.

image

MT8135 incorporates a PowerVR G6200 GPU [from the block diagram corresponds to the PowerVR G6230] from Imagination that enables advanced mobile graphics and compute applications for the mainstream consumer market, including fast gaming, 3D navigation and location-based services, camera vision, image processing, augmented reality applications, and smooth, high-resolution user interfaces.

image

As MT8135-powered mobile devices start appearing in the market, developers will have access to new technologies and features introduced by our PowerVR Series6 family such as:

  • our latest-generation tile based deferred rendering (TBDR) architecture implemented on universal scalable clusters (USC)
  • high-efficiency compression technologies that reduce memory bandwidth requirements, including lossless geometry compression and PVRTC/PVRTC2 texture compression
  • scalar processing to guarantee highest ALU utilization and easy programming

Thanks to the PowerVR G6200 GPU inside the MT8135 application processor, MediaTek brings high-quality, low-power graphics to unprecedented levels by delivering up to four times more ALU horsepower compared to MT8125, its PowerVR Series5XT-based predecessor. PowerVR G6200 fully supports a wide range of graphics APIs including OpenGL ES 1.1, 2.0 and 3.0, OpenGL 3.x, 4.x and DirectX 10_1, along with compute programming interfaces such as OpenCL 1.x, Renderscript and Filterscript.

image

By partnering up with Imagination, MediaTek has access to our industry-leading PowerVR graphics, worldwide technical support, and a strong ecosystem of Android developers capable of making the most of our technology. We look forward to shortly seeing our brand-new PowerVR Series6 GPUs in the hands of millions of consumers, and see MediaTek as one of our strategic partners for our latest generation PowerVR GPUs moving forward.

End of Updates

This report consists of the following parts:

  • The latest MediaTek roadmap, high-end and OS strategy
  • News reports about MT6592 and its first application

  • Update: MediaTek True Octa [MediaTek, July 23, 2013] imageEfficient video playback:
    When on decoding mode, the battery used for decoding HEVC (H.265) FHD video
    can be reduced by up to 18 percent compared to current quad-core solutions
    (from MediaTek True Octa-Core Position Paper [MediaTek, July 23, 2013])
  • What is new vs. my earlier The state of big.LITTLE processing [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, April 7, 2013] report
For the preceding smartphone SoC in the current roadmap see MediaTek MT6589 quad-core Cortex-A7 SoC with HSPA+ and TD-SCDMA is available for Android smartphones and tablets of Q1 delivery [‘Experiencing the cloud’, Dec 12, 2012]. For smartphone SoCs before that  see Boosting the MediaTek MT6575 success story with the MT6577 announcement  – UPDATED with MT6588/83 coming early 2013 in Q42012 and 8-core MT6599 in 2013 [‘Experiencing the cloud’, June 27, July 27, Sept 11-13, Sept 26, Oct 2, 2012]. Note that MT6588 was renamed MT6589 when was launched, as MT6599 would be renamed MT6592 now.

The latest MediaTek roadmap, high-end and OS strategy

Maybank Kim Eng just published in its MediaTek Closing In Fast [July 17, 2013] report the following two SoC roadmaps:

image

GPU for MT6592 smartphone SoCs (and presumably for MT6588 as well) will be Mali according to Zhu Shangzu (朱尚祖), MediaTek Global Smartphone General Manager in the [Part 2] MediaTek to push 8 small cores, the mystery [ESM 国际电子商情 (International Electronic Business), July 18, 2013] exclusive interview.
According to 28nm Technology [TSMC, June 21, 2011] description: The 28nm technology node of the TSMC foundry (which is used for manufacturing by MediaTek) has a high performance (HP) process as the first option to use high-k metal gate (HKMG) process technology. The 28nm low power with high-k metal gates (HPL) technology, as the second option, adopts the same gate stack as HP technology while meeting more stringent low leakage requirements with a trade of performance speed. Explanation: From about 10 µm (1971) to below 0.1 µm (100 nm) conventional silicon oxynitride as the gate insulator with polysilicon gate, so called poly/SiON gate stack, was used for CMOS technology. It was typically possible to scale down to 45 nm (2008), only TSMC was able to scale it down further to 28 nm in which most of the current 28nm SoCs from TSMC are produced. imageWhile Intel (and IBM) had to introduce high-K dielectric as the gate insulator with metal gate, so called High-k / Metal Gate stack,  for the performance of their 45 nm products in 2008 (in order to continue with the Moore’s law in their realm) as you could see on the right (taken from Life With “Penryn” [DailyTech, Jan 27, 2007] interview with Mark Bohr, Intel Senior Fellow, and Steve Smith, Intel Vice President DEG Group Operations), TMSC could introduce that only on the 28nm node as described above. The HKMG based 28nm SoCs are much higher performance (or higher performance still with low power by HPL) as you could see from the 2GHz clockrate of the MT6592 (above) or MT8315 (below) vs. that of the convential poly/SiON counterparts, MT6589 and MT8389 with 1.2GHz.

image

Complementary post reminder: H2CY13: Upcoming next-gen Nexus 7, the ASUS MeMO Pad HD 7 “re-incarnation” at reduced by $50 price, dual/quad-core mid-range tablets from white-box vendors starting from $65 [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, July 5, 2013] in which there is plenty of information regarding the non high-end tablet SoCs, from MediaTek (MediaTek MT8125, MediaTek MT8377 and MediaTek MT8389) as well as competition from Allwinner and Rockchip. The pre-eminent ASUS MeMO Pad™ HD 7 described in detail there is using the MT8125 SoC, while the new Nexus 7 (to be announced before the ending of July) the  Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 Quad Core SoC. In that sense we got with that post not only a complete H2 competitive tablet market picture for mid-range but some information regarding the new Qualcomm high-end as well.
For the upcoming MT8135 tablet SoC it is known from the part 3 of the Zhu Shangzu interview that the quad-core configuration will be 2xA15+2xA7, which means a big.LITTLE architecture and quite probably the already mature ‘In Kernel Switcher’ (IKS) scheduler initially GTS with MediaTek’s “advanced scheduler algorithm, combined with adaptive thermal and interactive power management” and called Heterogeneous Multi-Processing (HMP) by MediaTek (see in the updates in front of the original post). But as As ARM already decided on the architecture of the other, more general ‘Global Task Scheduling’ (GTS) solution (see much below) I would assume that the proper hardware underpinnings for GTS will already be built in (unlike in the Samsung’s Exynos 5 SoC released before), so when the scheduler software will be mature enough it will run well on MT8135. The inclusion of just two cores of each (unlike in Exynos 5) is a very strong proof-point of that. As far as the GPU is concerned we know from Zhu Shangzu interview that an Imagination GPU will be used, therefore I will leave the next-generation SGX6XX (PowerVR Series6 or ‘Rogue’) indication in the above table. Update: It is the PowerVR G6200 GPU [from the block diagram corresponds to the PowerVR G6230] as you could see from Imagination block post published on the MT8135 announcement (July 29), and included here in front of the original post.

with the following commentary:

Strong fundamentals intact. Having exceeded its 2Q13 guidance so significantly, we believe MTK will continue to ride the strong momentum in 3Q13, perhaps growing its revenue by low-to-mid-teens QoQ or 30% YoY to chalk up another record high of TWD36-38b [US$1.2-1.27B]. Importantly, a better product mix and cost structure would help lift its profitability to ±44%. We expect MTK to ship 70-72m units of smart devices, up 25-30% QoQ, with quad-core APs and tablets making up nearly 50% of total shipment. The benefits of operating leverage should drive OPM past 20%, the highest since 3Q10. MTK is set to report its 2Q13 results in late July or early August and we forecast net profit of TWD6.8b [US$227M] (EPS: TWD5.02; Street: TWD6.3b), up over 80% QoQ and 100% YoY. GM is also likely to meet the high end of its guidance, ie, 43.5%, on richer mix and improved cost structure. Reported revenue of TWD33.3b, up almost 40% QoQ and 42%YoY, is already well ahead of guidance (TWD30-32b). However, we cut our FY13/14 earnings forecasts by 3% each to factor in the delay in merger with MStar and potential inventory correction in 4Q13/1Q14. MTK remains a key BUY in our tech space.

Closing in fast on QCOM. MTK has spared no efforts to enhance its smart device portfolio since 2H12 and further signs of acceleration are evident. It is introducing two high-end APs in 4Q13 – MT6588 and MT6592 – using 28nm HKMG and advanced graphic features. While the former is a quad-core AP operating at 1.7GHz, the latter is capable of running at 2GHz (when all eight core engines are turned on). In the absence of full details, we estimate MT6592 may perform closer to Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 AP (used in Galaxy S4 and HTC One), while MT6588 should outshine Snapdragon 400. MTK has won several international OEMs with MT6589 and with MT6588/6592, its chances of penetrating tier-1 OEMs have increased significantly. In addition, it will sample its high-end 4G/LTE/LTE-TDSCDMA modem chipset in anticipation of the launch of 4G network in China later this year. As for tablets, MTK’s latest APs MT8125/8389 were well-received and it is set to deliver the high-end MT8135 (big.Little design) in 3Q13. We expect its smartphone/tablet shipments to reach 200-225m/25m units in 2013.

In the same part of the interview Zhu Shangzu explained MediaTek’s high-end strategy as follows (as translated by Google and Bing with manual edits):

image

… I think the future of high-end smartphones innovation will focus on the expansion of big screen multimedia applications, and this is our direction. …

Judging from the current situation, customers of high-end flagship phones are still using the products of the competitors, but there is flagship in our quad-core case as well, and OPPO, Vivo and GiONEE and other quad-core phones are also very popular. Our next goal is to get the customers of flagship machines using our platform via helping customers to achieve stronger performance on the big screen multimedia.

Therefore, the 8-core MT6592 can be regarded as our first bugle call for moving towards the high-end market. Our mission is that one day customers can also recognize MediaTek as doing high-end flagship products. MT6592 is the first step, strictly speaking, it is not the most high-end platform, next we will move step by step towards the higher end.

Q: Why will MediaTek use eight small A7 cores as a generation of high-end platform, but did not choose to use four large A15 cores or four big and four small ones as a way to achieve the goal? This is also a question for the industry as there are many controversial issues with this.  

For power, or performance per watt, we did a lot of investigation. Eight A7 cores is currently the best solution, and as through a process we designed to boost peak frequency of the A7 to 1.9-2Ghz, performance is also very strong.

Currently we chose a small core, because under the existing process, the larger the chip die size, the larger is the standby leakage, resulting in higher standby power consumption. For example, the A15 is the strongest core currently, but not in run-time power cosumption. Even if its frequency is pushed down to very low levels, there is still a larger leakage. Therefore, the larger is the area of a ​​single-core, the larger is the overhead energy efficiency, and as long as the poweris on, there will be a greater leakage.

In addition, the 8-core CPU is just one aspect of improving the mobile multimedia experience. In fact, as we have been doing MediaTek digital TV for a long time, we will extend that digital TV competency here – some strong move for the smartphones. This is what other platform vendors can not do. In the 6592, for example, the latest HEVC codec will be integrated. [HEVC is a video compression standard, a successor to H.264/MPEG-4 AVC]

…

Although our MT6592 GPU is also using a ‘Deluxe’ Mali quad-core GPU, but in order for content developers to achieve better compatibility, our HEVC is a software solution via the 8-core CPU, it is not using a GPU- based software solution. Because there are some strong content developers who will use their own HEVC decode. Currently the ‘Deluxe’ quad-core GPU on 6592 is mainly used to perform large-scale games and to do some advanced UI.

[Part 3] How to plan the future in the tablet market?

Q: I do note that the MT6592 is now using a quad-core Mali GPU, while before the MediaTek mainstream used Imagination GPU. How would you rate these two companies’ products?

The Imagination company has been doing GPUs long time in its history, the architecture design is beautiful, more artistic. The initial architecture of Mali [from ARM] would be more rough, and therefore area and power consumption will be worse. But after nearly three years of time, Mali has made a lot of progress, both are learning from each other, and by now the levels of these two are equal. The future perspective is that ARM’s overall resources are somewhat more fully available.

Q: This year we have seen MediaTek  to attack the tablet market, what is the plan for the future in the tablet market?

A: Our current strategy is to carry out a mobile phone product line extension.

At the end of July the launch of a tablet chip is expected: the MT8135, with 2xA15 +2xA7, still using an Imagination GPU [Update: It is the PowerVR G6200 GPU (from the block diagram corresponds to the PowerVR G6230) as you could see from Imagination block post published on the MT8135 announcement (July 29), and included here in front of the original post], and mainly targeting the high-end tablet market. A small reminder, our MT6572 is not suitable for tablet computers as the original definition did not take into account the application of flat-screen.

…

[Part 6] If Google Android OS will be converged how MediaTek will respond?

Q: There is also a very large concern, as the industry is worried that after doing their own hardware next year (e.g. Xphone, watches, glasses, etc.) whether Google will close the Android OS, i.e. to do a Pure Android later on, and don’t let OEMs to change it? MTK will also have a very big impact, what do you think? What is the MTK attitude on other free OS’s?

A: If Google OS will be closed and converged that will have a huge impact on us. But from what we observe and communicate with Google, they will not close the OS or converge it. Google’s profitability does not depend on OS, he is relying on the service for profit. By doing hardware Google also aims to promote his services, he is very happy to use someone else’s machine on their home services.

Of course, we will also be prepared, as we comprehesively examine and take into account the prevailing factors. We will use Windows as a second priority, while using Firefox [OS] and HTML5 as a secondary backup, by keeping track of them. Because we judge that the [Android] OS convergence from Google profitability point of view is very low, therefore our vote for these two emerging open OS’s is in the ‘not so urgent’ category, in addition to and outside of Android. The other focus is again on Windows Phone 8.  For the moment, however, WP8 hardware configuration requirements are still higher (mainly memory), power consumption – after optimizing the gap with Android – is not too large.

…

News reports about MT6592 and its first application
Update: MediaTek True Octa [MediaTek, July 23, 2013]

Efficient video playback:
When on decoding mode, the battery used for decoding HEVC (H.265) FHD video
can be reduced by up to 18 percent compared to current quad-core solutions
(from MediaTek True Octa-Core Position Paper [MediaTek, July 23, 2013])

July 18 this information appeared on the English http://en.v5zn.com/ website of the related smartphone vendor as well: MediaTek MT6592’s first eight-core mobile phone exposure makes you believe [July 15, 2013] as translated by Google and Bing with manual edits

MediaTek so-called true eight-core processor MT6592 was announced not long ago, it is expected the first models equipped with processors to surface. It broke the news, that the domestic mobile phone manufacturer brand named after the 19th-century French writer Jules Verne [凡尔纳] has been determined to launch a flagship model “V8” quipped with the MT6592 processor.

Verne’s current main product is the “V5” model, equipped with a quad-core MediaTek MT6589, and a 5-inch 720p OGS full lamination screen, 1GB of RAM, 4GB storage, 8-megapixel back-illuminated camera, 2400 mAh Battery, with a list price of 999 yuan [$166].

V8 has not yet announced the exact configuration bit it is estimated to have about 5.5 inch 1080p screen, 2GB RAM, 32GB storage, 13 million pixels Sony stacked camera, higher capacity battery, etc., without these natural shot himself embarrassed flagship.

It looks like that cooperation between MediaTek and the domestic Shanzhai vendors remains close. As MT6589 has rocked the Main Street, MT6592 will soon become a standard, and “an eight-core” promotion will be overwhelming.

Incidentally recap: MT6592 uses eight Cortex-A7 architecture cores, clocked at up to 2.0GHz, with TSMC 28nm manufacturing, Antutu run is known as close to 30,000, but the graphics core has not been confirmed, PowerVR SGX 544MP4/554MP4 are likely [it will be Mali, as communicated by MediaTek, see above].

The marketing of the processor has begun to customers, but mass production will be in November, so if recent high profile publicity is to be fulfilled, certainly we will have a large sale early next year.

Company introduction [Jules Verne mobile phone, January 16, 2013] as translated by Google and Bing with manual edits

Shenzhen MINDRAY Platinum Communication Technology Ltd. is is specialized in products development, production, sales and service of intelligent mobile terminals of high-tech companies. Under the “Jules Verne VOWNEY” brand the company is to create a mobile intelligent terminal brand.
MINDRAY Platinum company with “intelligent life” as the brand mission, is to “enhance the user experience, to help people grasp the development opportunities” as the goal, trying to make Jules Verne a trustworthy, continuous innovation and smart moves life guide. Every effort, just as long as you!
Jules Verne mobile phone network direct sales, stripping agents layers, increases direct benefits to consumers. We are committed to allow more consumers to have a better quality of life with an intelligent terminal.
The “Jules Verne VOWNEY ” brand aspires to be able to improve the quality of life for mobile users intelligent terminal INITIATIVE persons.
is to become quality of life can improve the user moves Smart The Terminal Guide. Lead you into “Slide 5.0”.
“Verne VOWNEY “brand aspires to be able to improve the quality of life for mobile users intelligent terminal INITIATIVE persons. I lead you into the “Slide 5.0″era.
Brand interpretation
Jules Verne: a derivative of intelligent life???
English explanation ： VOWNEY
V ： value— Value
O ： opportunity— Opportunity
W ： worth— It is worth
N ： new— New
E ： e— Mobile Internet
Y ： you— You
Jules Verne is to ” create a new life guided smart” as the goal, and strive to become a trusted, sustainable and innovative mobile phone brand, all efforts, just because of you!

Mediatek MT6592 8 core processors coming by the end of July! [Gizchina.com]

Reports out of Taiwan state that Mediatek will launch the MT6592 8-core processor by the end of July.

There was word that Mediatek were working on an 8 core chipset late last year, but like many we believed it had been placed on the back burner while they prepared their LTE chip. This seems to be wrong though as sources in Taiwan claim that Mediatek’s 8-core processor will arrive before the end of this month!

The MT6592 chip will be made up of 8 Cortex-A7, 28nm processor clocked at a frequency of up to 2Ghz! Early tests have the 8 core MT6592 scoring up to 30,000 points in Antutu which is more than Samsung’s 8 core Exynos 5410 processor.

The first batch of these new processors will be ready for manufacturers to begin development by the end of July, while Mediatek are preparing full-scale manufacture for November!

If everything goes to plan we can expect powerful 8 core phones from Tier 1 Chinese phone manufacturers by December!

MediaTek to launch true 8-core, 2GHz MT6592 chipset in November? [Engadget, July 2, 2013]

Samsung may already have its 8-core Exynos 5 Octa offering, but the original “big.LITTLE” implementation means only up to four cores work together at any time — either the Cortex-A15 quartet or its lesser Cortex-A7 counterpart. In other words, we’d rather rename the chipset range to something like “Exynos 5 Quad Dual.” But according to recent intel coming from Taipei and Shenzhen, it looks like Taiwan’s MediaTek is well on its way to ship a true 8-core mobile chipset in Q4 this year.

The first mention of this 2GHz, Cortex-A7 MT6592 chip came from UDN earlier today. The Taiwanese publication claims MediaTek started introducing its first octa-core product to clients last week, and it’s expected to enter mass production using TSMC’s 28nm process in November. The first mobile devices to carry this hot piece of silicon may hit the market in early 2014 — hopefully just in time for the Chinese New Year shopping rush.

UDN adds that the MT6592 scored close to 30,000 on AnTuTu, which is pretty high but still some distance behind Qualcomm’s 2.2GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800. Of course, chances are MediaTek’s offering will be much cheaper, as evidenced by all the affordable MediaTek-powered devices in China these days.

In a separate article from last week, UDN pointed out that judging by over a hundred job openings released by MediaTek last month, the company is clearly putting an emphasis on 4G LTE technology, alongside GPU and Android development. The publication also quoted chairman Tsai Ming-kai saying he will launch an LTE solution in Q4 this year, by which point MediaTek will only be one or two years behind its competitors.

The second piece of info came from HQ Research analyst Pan Jiutang, who posted an alleged spy shot of MediaTek’s upcoming roadmap (pictured left). There the octa-core MT6592 is listed with a clock speed of 1.7GHz to 2GHz, along with 1080p 30fps video decoding support. There’s also a quad-core 1.7GHz MT6588 accompanying its octa-core sibling in the same period on the timeline, though it appears to be just a faster version of the current 1.2GHz MT6589.

For the sake of phone manufacturers, both new chipsets will apparently be pin-to-pin compatible with the quad-core 1.3GHz MT6582 due Q3 this year, thus lowering R&D costs. Better yet, the roadmap also states that the MT6290 LTE modem — as teased by Tsai above — will be compatible with these three chipsets.

With MediaTek quickly catching up ahead of China’s eventual TD-LTE launch, Qualcomm will need to tread carefully to keep its Chinese QRD partners happy.

[Thanks, Ryan!]

Update: It’s worth noting that ARM’s eventual “big.LITTLE MP” implementation will allow all eight cores to run simultaneously, but the Exynos 5 Octa currently doesn’t support this. Thanks, UncleAlbert!

SOURCE: Sina Weibo (login required), UDN (1), (2)

What is new vs. my earlier
The state of big.LITTLE processing [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, April 7, 2013] report

Power scheduler design proposal [by Morten Rasmussen from ARM on Linux kernel mailing list, July 9, 2013]

This patch set is an initial prototype aiming at the overall power-aware scheduler design proposal that I previously described <http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/1508480>.

The patch set introduces a cpu capacity managing ‘power scheduler’ which lives by the side of the existing (process) scheduler. Its role is to monitor the system load and decide which cpus that should be available to the process scheduler. Long term the power scheduler is intended to replace the currently distributed uncoordinated power management policies and will interface a unified platform specific power driver obtain power topology information and handle idle and P-states. The power driver interface should be made flexible enough to support multiple platforms including Intel and ARM.

This prototype supports very simple task packing and adds cpufreq wrapper governor that allows the power scheduler to drive P-state selection. The prototype policy is absolutely untuned, but this will be addressed in the future. Scalability improvements, such as avoid iterating over all cpus, will also be addressed in the future.

Thanks,
Morten

From <http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/1508480>

…

                        +-----------------+
                         |                 |     +----------+
         current load    | Power scheduler |<----+ cpufreq  |
              +--------->| sched/power.c   +---->| driver   |
              |          |                 |     +----------+
              |          +-------+---------+
              |             ^    |
        +-----+---------+   |    |
        |               |   |    | available capacity
        | Scheduler     |<--+----+ (e.g. cpu_power)
        | sched/fair.c  |   |
        |               +--+|
        +---------------+  ||
           ^               ||
           |               v|
 +---------+--------+  +----------+
 | task load metric |  | cpuidle  |
 | arch/*           |  | driver   |
 +------------------+  +----------+

…

Linux Kernel News – June 2013 [by Shuah Khan in Linux Journal , July 9, 2013]

As always the Linux kernel community has been busy moving the Linux mainline to another finish line and the stable and extended releases to the next bump in their revisions to fix security and bug fixes. It is a steady and methodical evolution process which is intriguing to follow. Here is my take on the happenings in the Linux kernel world during June 2013.
Mainline Release (Linus’s tree) News
Linus Torvalds released Linux 3.10. You can read what Linus Torvalds had to say about this release in his release announcement athttp://lkml.indiana.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/1306.3/04336.html
Two notable features in this release are improved SSD caching and better Radeon graphics driver Power Management.

…

Power efficient scheduling design
Ingo Molnar (Red Hat, x86 maintainer), Morten Rasmussen (ARM, power mgmt.), Priti Murthy (IBM, scheduler), Rafael Wysocki (Intel, Linux PM, and Linux ACPI maintainer) and Arjan van de Ven discussed the proposed power-aware or power-efficient scheduler design and what’s the best way to integrate it into the kernel.
Power management and the ability to balance performance and power efficiency is important and complex. It is not just about scheduler or cpus. It spans I/O devices that transition into lower-power states and how costly it is to bring them back to fully active state when needed. There is latency involved in these transitions. As always, Linux developers reach consensus to solve complex problems such as these and come up with path to get to the goal taking small steps towards that goal. Here is another example of that process at work.

Power-efficient scheduler work has been active for a few months now. Several RFC patches have been floated and discussed. This work is being pursued very actively in x86 space by IBM and in ARM space by ARM. The premise is that, if scheduler could pack tasks on a few cores and keep these cores fully utilized and, transition other cores to low power states, when the scheduling goal is power savings over performance. In other words, instead of keeping all the cores active, scheduler could consolidate tasks on a few cores and transition other cores to low-power states for better power efficiency.

It is easier said than done. Scheduler is at a higher level and would not be the best judge of making decisions on transitioning CPUs to idle states and deciding on the ideal frequency they should be running at. These decisions are better left to platform drivers that have the specific knowledge of the platform and architecture as they are complex and very hardware specific. In other words, power aware scheduler tuned to run well on x86 platforms will not work as well or could fail miserably on ARM platforms.
Scheduler has to accomplish load balancing as well as power balancing in a way to meet performance and power goals and do it well on all platforms. A generic scheduler doesn’t have to control and drive low-power state decisions on a platform. However, the goal of power-efficient scheduler is to set higher level abstracted policies that would work on all platforms. After a long and productive discussion, there is a consensus and here is the summary:
  • A new kernel configuration option CONFIG_SCHED_POWER to enable/disable the power scheduler feature. Power scheduler is totally inactive, when CONFIG_SCHED_POWER is disabled, and fully active when CONFIG_SCHED_POWER is enabled. The important goal is evolving the power scheduler feature without disrupting and destabilizing the current scheduler.
  • Work on a generic power scheduler with hardware and platform abstractions that will work well on big little ARM, x86, and other platforms. Avoid platform specific power policies that could lead to duplication of functionality in platform specific power drivers.

Please check the Linux Foundation site for presentations made at the Linux Collaboration Summit back in April 2013 on this topic. Here is the link to Jonathan Corbet’s blog on this topic.
http://www.linux.com/news/featured-blogs/200-libby-clark/715486-boosting…

…

From: big.LITTLE Software Update [by George Grey on Linaro Blog, July 10, 2013]

There are also two software models now available, that ARM and Linaro have developed to enable control of workloads, performance, and power management on big.LITTLE SoCs.

The first is the IKS [In Kernel Switcher, also known as CPU Migration]software, developed by Linaro, that treats each pair of Cortex-A7 and Cortex-A15 cores as a single ‘virtual’ core. On a multicore SoC each pair is treated as 1 of n virtual symmetric cores by the Linux kernel.

Core Software Configuration for IKS (4+4)

image

Using existing mechanisms in the Linux kernel for each pair the cpufreq driver controls whether the Cortex-A7 is active (for low power) or the Cortex-A15 is active (for maximum performance). Overall maximum performance and throughput on a 4+4 core SoC is from 4 Cortex-A15s. The key attribute of IKS is that it relies on existing well-understood mechanisms in the Linux kernel and it is easy to implement, test and characterize in a production environment.

The second is the Global Task Scheduling (GTS) [also known as big.LITTLE MP or Heterogeneous Multi-Processing (HMP)] software developed (and now named) by ARM. This is known in Linaro as big.LITTLE MP. Using GTS all of the big and LITTLE cores are available to the Linux kernel for scheduling tasks. We are very proud that Linaro has contributed to ARM’s development of the GTS software, and that it is now publicly available in Linaro builds. ARM and Linaro recommend GTS for new products, and Linaro members are actively planning product deployments using this solution.

Core Software Configuration for GTS (4+4)

image

…

The big.LITTLE MP patch set creates a list of Cortex-A15 and Cortex-A7 cores that is used to pick the target core for a particular task. Then, using runnable load average statistics, the Linux scheduler is modified to track the average load of each task, and to migrate tasks to the best core. High intensity tasks are migrated to the Cortex-A15 core(s) and are also marked as high intensity tasks for more efficient future allocations. Low intensity tasks remain resident on the Cortex-A7 core(s).

IKS and GTS are now publicly available in Linaro monthly engineering releases for the ARM TC2 Versatile Express hardware, and in Linaro’s interim Long Term Supported Kernel (LSK) build. Both will also be incorporated into the first full Linaro LSK, which will be based on the next Linux Foundation, Greg Kroah-Hartman designated, Long Term Supported (LTS) kernel.

…

Until GTS functionality is fully upstream, ARM is supporting the big.LITTLE MP patch set for its licensees, leveraging Linaro’s public monthly and Linaro LSK builds, so that it is available to all ARM licensees for product integration and deployment. Linaro also expect to provide a topic branch for the latest work available on the upstream GTS implementation for interested developers.

… ARM and Linaro now recommend product development and deployment to be based on the GTS solution. However, there are some cases where hardware limitations or a requirement for the traditional Linux scheduler (for example in some embedded applications) may lead to IKS still being required.

Future Work

Power management software in Linaro is worked on by the Power Management Working Group. Other activities within the Group will enable additional power savings on ARM multi-core devices. One current project worth highlighting is the work being done by Vincent Guittot on small-task packing. Normally the Linux kernel will spread running tasks over all the available CPU cores. On a handset in standby, or even when being used with low activity, there may be a number of housekeeping and other small tasks that run in the background or relatively infrequently and therefore keep cores active unnecessarily. If “small” tasks can be migrated to one core, then the other cores could be made idle or even turned off completely, potentially resulting in significant power savings. This feature is expected to offer improved power management to systems based on symmetric multi-core SoCs (for example dual or quad-core Cortex-A7 or Cortex-A15 parts), as well as big.LITTLE SoCs.

While the current big.LITTLE efforts are focused on Cortex-A15 and Cortex-A7, the techniques being implemented today for 32-bit systems are already being run on 64-bit models. We therefore expect to see the GTS software running on 64-bit Cortex-A57 and Cortex-A53 based big.LITTLE SoCs as soon as they become available.

Real Life Results

ARM has published further information on big.LITTLE configurations and performance in a blog entry here [Ten Things to Know About big.LITTLE [Brian Jeff on SoC Design blog of ARM, June 18, 2013]].

The first commercial products based on big.LITTLE are certain international versions of the latest Galaxy S4 phone from Linaro member, Samsung. Samsung-LSI provide an ‘Octa-core’ 4+4 big.LITTLE chip for this phone. As has been publicly noted, the current generation of hardware cannot yet take full advantage of the IKS or the GTS designs because the hardware power-saving core switching feature is implemented on a cluster basis rather than on a per-core or a per-pair basis. Even so, the first big.LITTLE implementation produces performance and power consumption on a par with the latest Qualcomm multi-core Snapdragon processor according to reviews from Engadget, PocketNow and others. Often first implementations of new technology never see the light of day – it is a tribute to Samsung’s engineers that the Exynos 5 is already seeing the Cortex-A15 level of performance with the power saving of the Cortex-A7s in a mass market handset in the very first big.LITTLE iteration.

We look forward to seeing what improvements full use of GTS will bring when used on future production devices from Samsung and others.

More information: Power Management with big.LITTLE: A technical overview [by Steven Willis in SoC blog of ARM, June 20, 2013]

Why all this sudden attention on the Linux Scheduler? [LCE13, Linaro Connect Europe]

12:00 PM – 13:00 PM on Monday, Jul 8, 2013 (IST)

Description

The Linux scheduler is getting a lot of attention in the ARM ecosystem these days. Come to this discussion to find out why.

Several people working on the scheduler or interested in changes to the scheduler will be invited to talk about their requirements, what is the state of their work, who will benefit from it, etc.

Video record of the Why all this sudden attention on the Linux Scheduler? dscussion

Minutes of the above discussion

Determinism: problems
———————
* Preemption: interrupts, locking
* Latency
* Scheduling overhead
* Realtime processing
Most of the requirements are coming from LEG/LNG.
Solutions:
    – PREEMPT_RT
    – Adaptive NO_HZ (merged in 3.10)
        Came out of high-performance computing. When there is just one
        task, the scheduler is switched off for that CPU. Results in
        zero scheduler overhead. When the only task finishes – the CPU
        will get into scheduling/idle again.
        There is still once-per-second tick for scheduling. There
        is a patch removing that last remaining bit to make it fully
        tickless.
        We’re not sure yet if all the possible limitations are found –
        there still might be some scheduler overhead left.
        If interrupt handling is offloaded to other cores, caching
        related issues will still affect performance (e.g. serving IO
        interrupts for the task on a different core will require the
        dedicated core to cache the date once again).
    – Deadline
Physical process isolation: none addresses
    – Needed for KVM.
Temporal isolation: all three (with some limitations)
No scheduling overhead: ADAPTIVE NO_HZ only.
Firm/Hard Real-time PREEMPT_RT only
Complexity:
    high for PREEMPT_RT
    low for the rest
Requirements:
all of the above
Power efficiency: history
————————-
* sched-mc (got removed)
* big.LITTLE MP patches implementing GTS (ARM)
* Packing Small Tasks (Linaro/ARM)
    Pack all small background tasks on as little number of small cores
    as possible to conserve power.
    Intel approach does not care about which core is selected as the
    best one (Turbo Mode is effectively converting the core into a BIG
    core, while all the other cores are becoming little ones). Task
    migration is expensive – this approach helps avoiding it.
* Power aware scheduling (Intel)
    Discussions were lasting for a while and then Ingo Molnar requested
    an integral solution (not a set of independent bits).
    He made a good point. What we have an SMP legacy implementation.
    Are we starting from scratch because of that?
    It is going to be a significal change. We need to re-think as it’s
    not SMP case anymore. b.L is not a new architecture – Intel already
    does that but differently.
    The task is to find the most efficient way of performing the work
    needed. The best place to make those decisions is the scheduler.
    Power officiency – proposal (from ARM)
    ————————————–
    Separate process and power scheduler (ARM). This is the first step
    to get to the fully integral scheduler in the future. Helps fighting
    with the complexity at hand. In this case there are certain
    limitations – one of the schedulers will be leading while the second
    one will be limited.
    That doesn’t work well for Intel CPUs (no pre-configured small/BIG
    cores).
    Issues:
    – Topology
        Missing:
        – Frequency domains, which CPUs are affected. That would be
          useful for the scheduler.
    – Idle + DVFS
        Missing:
        – information about the cost of using a certain core at certain
          DVFS operation point to perform a certain amount of work.
    – Thermal
        The idea is to keep an eye on the temperature trend to avoid
        cases when whole cores are needed to be temporarily shut down to
        cool them down.
        GPU contribution into the thermal budget should also be
        considered.
    Trying to control DVFS from the scheduler. Patches are expected very
    soon.
Q: How much of the improvements are we looking for (power wise)?
A: Something that will get upstream. 😀

Linux 3.10 [by Linus Torvalds on Linux kernel mailing list, June 30, 2013]
Linux kernel 3.10 arrives with ARM big.LITTLE support [Engadget, July 1, 2013]

Thanks to Linus Torvalds’ figurative stroke of the pen, the Linux kernel 3.10 is now final — paving the way for its inclusion in a bevy of Linux distributions, and even offshoots such as Android and Chrome OS. The fresh kernel brings a good number of changes, such as timerless multitasking, a new caching implementation and support for the ARM big.LITTLE architecture. In simplistic terms, the new multitasking method should help improve performance and latency by firing the system timer only once per second — rather than 1,000 times — when tasks are running. Meanwhile, users with both traditional hard drives and SSDs will find performance benefits from bcache, which brings writeback caching and a filesystem agnostic approach to leveraging the SSD for caching operations. Also of significance, Linux kernel 3.10 enhances ARM supportby including the big.LITTLE architecture, which combines multiple cores of different types — commonly the Cortex-A7 and Cortex-A15 — that focus on either power savings or performance. The full list of improvements is rather lengthy, but if you feel like nerding out with the changelog, just grab a caffeinated beverage and get to it.

Linaro 13.06 Released! [by Amber Graner on Linaro Blog, June 27, 2013]

The Linaro 13.06 release is now available for download!

…

It’s been a very active cycle for the Builds and Baselines team, reporting that the Continuous Integration (CI) loop for the Linaro Stable Kernel (LSK) Android proof of concept which is based on 3.9.6 kernel version was set up and includes the big.LITTLE IKS and MP patches (also called beta patchset). Support for Kernel CI loop with Android filesystem was added to android-build and CI loop was set up to track the ARM Landing Team (LT) integration tree. The HiSilicon member build with complete CI loop was set up and now tracks the LT kernel tree.

…

Windows Azure becoming an unbeatable offering on the cloud computing market

June 28, 2013 2:40 pm / 4 Comments on Windows Azure becoming an unbeatable offering on the cloud computing market

Almost a year ago, when –among others– the Windows Azure Mobile Services Preview came out, it became evident that Microsoft has a quite old heritage in cloud computing as it is the case that The cloud experience vision of .NET by Microsoft 12 years ago and its delivery now with Windows Azure, Windows 8/RT, Windows Phone, iOS and Android among others [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Sept 16-20, 2012]. Next, with Windows Azure Media Services, an interesting question came up: Windows Azure Media Services OR Intel & Microsoft going together in the consumer space (again)? [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Feb 13, 2013]. Then  just in the beginning of this month it was possible to conclude that “Cloud first” from Microsoft is ready to change enterprise computing in all of its facets [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, June 4, 2013]. The understanding of importance of the cloud for the company was further enhanced by finding a few days later that Windows Embedded is an enterprise business now, like the whole Windows business, with Handheld and Compact versions to lead in the overall Internet of Things market as well [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, June 8, 2013]. Finally we had a quite vivid example of the fact that Windows Azure is a huge ecosystem effort as well with: Proper Oracle Java, Database and WebLogic support in Windows Azure including pay-per-use licensing via Microsoft + the same Oracle software supported on Microsoft Hyper-V as well [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, June 20, 2013].

Now we have general availability of Windows Azure Mobile Services, Windows Azure Web Sites, as well as previews of improved auto-scaling, alerting and notifications, and tooling support for Windows Azure through Visual Studio. This made me conclude that Windows Azure is becoming an unbeatable offering on the cloud computing market.

Let’s see now the details which I will base not only on the Microsoft materials but on the first media reactions (also in order to have consistency with my post of yesterday on Windows 8.1: Mind boggling opportunities, finally some appreciation by the media [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, June 27, 2013]) as well:

Media reactions in the first 15 hours:

Specific reactions:

Windows Azure Mobile Services, Windows Azure Web Sites – general availability:

Using Azure Mobile Services and Web Sites for a Mobile Contest pt. 1 [windowsazure YouTube channel, June 27, 2013]

This 2-part video is a walk-through of a Mobile Contest project. It demonstrates how to Azure Mobile Services and Web Sites can be used to create a consistent set of services used as a back-end for an iOS mobile app and a .NET web admin portal. Part 1 covers: Using multiple authentication providers, Reading/Writing data with tables and Interacting with Azure storage for BLOBs

Using Azure Mobile Services and Web Sites for a Mobile Contest pt. 2 [windowsazure YouTube channel, June 27, 2013]

Part 2 covers: Using Azure Web Sites for the admin portal, Integrating with Custom API with cross-platform Push notifications and using Scheduler with 3rd Party add-ons for scripting admin tasks.

Partner support:

Xamarin with Craig Dunn [windowsazure YouTube channel, June 27, 2013]

Xamarin provides a frameword that lets developers buildiOS and Android applicatinos in C#. With Windows Azure Mobile Services, developers can connect those mobile apps by hosting the backend in Window Azure. Mobile Services provides a turnkey way to store data in the cloud, authenticate users and send push notifications. Get started at http://www.windowsazure.com/mobile

Building a Comprehensive Enterprise Cloud Ecosystem [Windows Azure blog, June 20, 2013]

Over the past two decades, Microsoft has worked with OEMs, Systems Integrators, ISVs, CSVs, Distributors and VARs to build one of the largest enterprise partner ecosystems in the world.  We’ve done this because customers – and the industry – need solutions that just work together.  With our partners we built the most comprehensive enterprise technology ecosystem – and, now, we’re focused on the enterprise cloud.
That’s why you’ve seen us work with Amazon, to bring Windows Server, SQL Server and the entire Microsoft stack to Amazon Web Services, and with EMC who owns VMware and Pivotal – key competitors in their respective areas.  We also work with innovative companies like Emotive, with Systems Integrators like Accenture and Capgemini and a host of other partners – large, small and non-commercial – around the world and across the industry.
The need for diverse technologies and companies to work together is clear – and that means competitors are often partners.  To many in the industry that is a given – and it really should be.  The need for technologies to work together is particularly clear in cloud computing – where platforms and services are so incredibly connected they must work together to deliver cloud computing benefits when and how customers want it.
So, it should not be a surprise when we partner with technology leaders who are also competitors.  We partner with these companies (and plan to partner with more) to bring our products & services to as many customers as possible.  We will continue to work across the industry to ensure our products & services work with the many platforms, business apps, services and clouds our customers use.
As you may have heard me say, it’s been an exciting year for Windows Azure – and we are just 6 months in.  Stay tuned – there’s more to come!
Steven Martin
General Manager
Windows Azure

All other:

Overall reactions:

Windows Azure Now Stores 8.5 Trillion Data Objects, Manages 900K Transactions Per Second [TechCrunch, June 27, 2013]

Microsoft announced at the Build conference today that Windows Azure now has 8.5 trillion objects stored on its infrastructure.

The company also announced the following:

  • Customers do 900,000 storage transactions per second.
  • The service is doubling its compute and storage every six months.
  • 3.2 million organizations have Active Directory accounts with 68 million users.
  • More than 50 percent of the world’s Fortune 500 companies are using Windows Azure.

In comparison, Amazon Web Services said at its AWS Summit in New York earlier this year that its S3 storage service now holds more than 2 trillion objects. According to a post by Frederic Lardinois, that’s up from 1 trillion last June and 1.3 trillion in November, when the company last updated these numbers at its re:Invent conference.

So what accounts for the differene between Azure and AWS? It all has to do with how each company counts the objects it stores. With that in consideration, it’s likely Azure’s numbers are far different if the same metrics were used as AWS.

Nevertheless, the news highlights the importance of Windows Azure for Microsoft, especially as the enterprise moves its infrastructure, shedding data centers to consolidate and reduce their costs.

Build 2013 Keynote Day 2 Highlights [InfoQ, June 27, 2013]

Server & Tools Business President Satya Nadella opened the keynote this morning with some statistics about Windows Azure and the major Microsoft cloud services.
Windows Azure
    – 50% of Fortune 500 companies are using Windows Azure
    – 3.2 Million organizations with active directory accounts
    – 2 X compute + storage every 6 months
    – 100+ major service releases since Build 2012 to Windows Azure
      Major Microsoft Cloud Services
        – XBox Live 48 million subscribers
        – Skype 299 Million connected users
        – Outlook.com 1 million users gained in 24 hours
        – Office 365 Nearly 50 million Office web apps users
        – SkyDriver 250 million accounts
        – Bing 1 billion mobile notifications a month
        – XBox Live 1.5 Billion games of Halo
          Nadella noted the wide variety of first party cloud services that Microsoft supports, and says it is important that they support them as well as provides good learning experience.  In his words, “We build for the first party and make available for the third party.”
          Scott Hanselman arrived on stage to discuss the latest for ASP.NET on VS2013.  A big change is the simplification of starting an ASP.NET application in VS2013.  The project types have been reduced to one, “ASP.NET”, and from there the new project wizard lets developers customize their project based on what they would like to create: web forms, MVC, etc.
          VS2013 will ship with Twitter’s open source project Bootstrap, and it will be Microsoft supported just like jQuery is now.
          An important debugging achievement was demonstrated where browsers can be associated with Visual Studio, allowing for real-time debugging and developing.  Edit code in VS2013, and the browser(s) will reflect the updates.  In this case the demo showed Hanselman editing cshtml, and via SignalR the updates were shown on the his selected web browsers of IE and Chorme.
          In another example, Hanselman went to www.bootswatch.com to obtain a new CSS template which he used to overwrite his current file.  Pressing CTRL-ENTER, the browsers reflected this update.
          Then Hansleman opened a CSS file to show some new editor tricks.  Hovering over CSS statements, VS has a hover window appear that indicates which browser a particular statement applies to.  Another ability allows VS to trace and view live streaming trace logs from Azure.
          Then Hanselman demonstrated his sample website producing a QR Code of a deep link.  He then scanned this on his phone which allowed him to jump into his existing authenticated session, moving from his desktop session to the same screen on his phone.
          Satya returned to the stage to announce the general availability of Windows Azure Web Sites, which habe been in preview since Build 2012.  Now it is available with full SLA and enterprise support.
          Josh Twist from Microsoft’s Mobile Services came on stage to demonstrate using a Mac to add Azure support to an iOS app.  Twist noted that developers looking to explore Azure can now create a free 20 meg SQL database which in addition to the 10 free web services allowed.
          In Twist’s demo, Azure was used to create a custom XCode project that was preloaded with the appropriate Azure URLs for the project being worked on.  This simplifies getting up to speed with Azure development on Mac.  Related to this convenience, Windows Azure Mobile Services now enables git source control so that you do not need to edit code on the web portal.  So if you would rather develop with a locally (VS, Sublime, etc) you can do by pulling the files down from Azure and the push them back when edits are complete.  Twist demonstrated this functionality using Sublime to edit a JavaScript file, and then using a Git push back into Azure.
          VS2013 has a new Server Explorer, which is used to browse all of the Mobile Services on Windows Azure for your site/installation.  A new wizard has been added which simplifies adding Push Notification for Windows Store based applications.
          Satya Returns to Introduce Scott Guthrie.
          The big news is the new auto-scaling on Windows Azure for billing.  Developers can manage the instance count, target CPU, VMs, No billing when a machine is stopped (only pay when the machine is working.)
          Per minute billing has been added, for greater granularity.  Preview of Windows Azure AutoScale is now live
          Windows Azure
            – Active Directory for the Cloud
            – Integrate with on-premises Active Directory
            – Enable single sign-on within your cloud Apps
            – Supports SAML, WS-Fed, and OAuth 2.0
              Applications tab shows all apps registered with the current Active directory.  Manage Application to integrate (external) app with Active Directory.  For example, developers can Use Windows Azure AD to enable user access to Amazon Web Services.
              Satya describes Office 365 as “…a programmable surface area”
              Jay Schmelzer to demonstrated the changes being made to allow/promote Office 365 as a platform.
                – Rich Office Model
                – Use Web APIs to access
                – Extend with Azure
                – First class tools support in VS2013
                – Office 365 Apps + Windows Azure
                  Increasing promotion of Windows Azure, MSDN subscribers receive greater discounts and incentives to use the Azure platform.
                    1. Use your MSDN Dev/Test licenses on Windows Azure
                    2. Reduced rates for Dev/test licenses up to 97% discounts
                    3. No Credit card required for MSDN members

                    Microsoft showcases developer opportunity on Windows Azure, Windows devices [press release, June 27, 2013]

                    …
                    Increasing importance of cloud services
                    Developers today are building multidevice, multiscreen, cloud-connected experiences. Windows Azure spans infrastructure and platform capabilities to provide them with a comprehensive set of services to easily and quickly build modern applications, using the tools and languages familiar to them.
                    “Developers are increasingly demanding a flexible, comprehensive platform that helps them build and manage apps in a cloud- and mobile-driven world,” [Satya] Nadella [, president, Server and Tools Business] said. “To meet these demands, Microsoft has been doubling down on Windows Azure. Nearly 1,000 new businesses are betting on Windows Azure daily, and as momentum for Azure grows, so too does the developer opportunity to build applications that power modern businesses.”
                    Delivering on its commitment to provide developers with the most comprehensive cloud platform, Microsoft announced the general availability of Windows Azure Mobile Services. Mobile Services enables developers building Windows, Windows Phone, iOS and Android apps to store data in the cloud, authenticate users and send push notifications. TalkTalk Business, a leading business telecommunications provider in the United Kingdom, chose Windows Azure Mobile Services to create new ways to engage with its customers and serve demand for mobile access.
                    Microsoft also announced the general availability of Windows Azure Web Sites, which allows developers to create websites on a flexible, secure and scalable platform to reach new customers. With the investments Microsoft has made in ASP.NET and Web tools, Web developers can now create scalable experiences easier than ever. Dutch brewer Heineken is using Windows Azure to power a social pinball game for the UEFA Champions League Road to the Final campaign, with the expectations of millions of interactions scaled on Windows Azure. Heineken exceeded its usage metrics by a wide margin yet experienced no scalability issues with Windows Azure.
                    [Scott] Guthrie[, Corporate Vice President, Windows Azure] also highlighted Microsoft’s continued enterprise cloud momentum by demonstrating several platform advancements, including previews of improved auto-scaling, alerting and notifications, and tooling support for Windows Azure through Visual Studio. In addition, he previewed how Windows Azure Active Directory provides organizations and ISVs, such as Box, with a single sign-on experience to access cloud-based applications.
                    Developers can go to the Windows Azure site today for a free trial:http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/pricing/free-trial/?WT.mc_id=AE37323DE.
                    …

                    Windows Azure: General Availability of Web Sites + Mobile Services, New AutoScale + Alerts Support, No Credit Card Needed for MSDN [ScottGu’s Blog, June 27, 2013 at 10:41 AM]

                    This morning we released a major set of updates to Windows Azure.  These updates included:

                    • Web Sites: General Availability Release of Windows Azure Web Sites with SLA
                    • Mobile Services: General Availability Release of Windows Azure Mobile Services with SLA
                    • Auto-Scale: New automatic scaling support for Web Sites, Cloud Services and Virtual Machines
                    • Alerts/Notifications: New email alerting support for all Compute Services (Web Sites, Mobile Services, Cloud Services, and Virtual Machines)
                    • MSDN: No more credit card requirement for sign-up

                    All of these improvements are now available to use immediately (note: some are still in preview).  Below are more details about them.

                    …

                    Windows Azure: Major Updates for Mobile Backend Development [ScottGu’s Blog, June 14, 2013]

                    This week we released some great updates to Windows Azure that make it significantly easier to develop mobile applications that use the cloud. These new capabilities include:
                    – Mobile Services: Custom API support
                    – Mobile Services: Git Source Control support
                    – Mobile Services: Node.js NPM Module support
                    – Mobile Services: A .NET API via NuGet
                    – Mobile Services and Web Sites: Free 20MB SQL Database Option for Mobile Services and Web Sites
                    – Mobile Notification Hubs: Android Broadcast Push Notification Support
                      All of these improvements are now available to use immediately (note: some are still in preview).  Below are more details about them.

                      Windows Azure: Announcing New Dev/Test Offering, BizTalk Services, SSL Support with Web Sites, AD Improvements, Per Minute Billing [ScottGu’s Blog, June 3, 2013]

                      This morning we released some fantastic enhancements to Windows Azure:

                      • Dev/Test in the Cloud: MSDN Use Rights, Unbeatable MSDN Discount Rates, MSDN Monetary Credits
                      • BizTalk Services: Great new service for Windows Azure that enables EDI and EAI integration in the cloud
                      • Per-Minute Billing and No Charge for Stopped VMs: Now only get charged for the exact minutes of compute you use, no compute charges for stopped VMs
                      • SSL Support with Web Sites: Support for both IP Address and SNI based SSL bindings on custom web-site domains
                      • Active Directory: Updated directory sync utility, ability to manage Office 365 directory tenants from Windows Azure Management Portal
                      • Free Trial: More flexible Free Trial offer

                      There are so many improvements that I’m going to have to write multiple blog posts to cover all of them!  Below is a quick summary of today’s updates at a high-level:

                      …

                      From Announcing LightSwitch in Visual Studio 2013 Preview [Visual Studio LightSwitch Team Blog, June 27, 2013]

                      …

                      Sneak Peek into the Future

                      At this point, I’d like to shift focus and provide a glimpse of a key part of our future roadmap. During this morning’s Build 2013 Day 2 keynote in San Francisco, an early preview was provided into how Visual Studio will enable the next generation of line-of-business applications in the cloud (you can check out the recording via Channel 9). A sample app was built during the keynote that highlighted some of the capabilities of what it means to be a modern business application; applications that run in the cloud, that are available to a myriad of devices, that aggregate data and services from in and out of an enterprise, that integrate user identities and social graphs, that are powered by a breadth of collaboration capabilities, and that continuously integrate with operations.

                      Folks familiar with LightSwitch will quickly notice that the demo was deeply anchored in LightSwitch’s unique RAD experience and took advantage of the rich platform capabilities exposed by Windows Azure and Office 365. We believe this platform+tools combination will take productivity to a whole new level and will best help developers meet the rising challenges and expectations for building and managing modern business applications. If you’re using LightSwitch today, you will be well positioned to take advantage of these future enhancements and leverage your existing skills to quickly create the next generation of business applications across Office 365 and Windows Azure. You can read more about this on Soma’s blog.

                      …

                      Additional information:
                      – Announcing the General Availability of Windows Azure Mobile Services, Web Sites and continued Service innovation [Windows Azure blog, June 27, 2013]
                      – 50 Percent of Fortune 500 Using Windows Azure [Windows Azure blog, June 14, 2013]
                      – Azure WebSites is now Generally Available [Enabling Digital Society blog of Microsoft, June 27, 2013]
                      – New features for Windows Azure Mobile Services [Enabling Digital Society blog of Microsoft, June 14, 2013]
                      – Lots of Azure Goodness Revealed [Enabling Digital Society blog of Microsoft, June 3, 2013]
                      – BizTalk Services is LIVE! [To BizTalk and Beyond! blog of Microsoft, June 3, 2013]
                      – Hello Windows Azure BizTalk Services! [BizTalk Server Team Blog, June 4, 2013]
                      – Windows Azure BizTalk Services – Preview [The Enterprise Integration Space blog of Microsoft, June 4, 2013]
                      – Business Apps, Cloud Apps, and More at Build 2013 [Somasegar’s blog, June 27, 2013]

                      Day 2 Keynote [Channel 9 video, June 27, 2013] Windows Azure related part up to [01:31:12], click on the link or the image to watch the video

                      image

                      Speech transcript: Satya Nadella and Scott Guthrie: Build 2013 Keynote

                      Remarks by Satya Nadella, President, Server & Tools Business; and Scott Guthrie, Corporate Vice President, Windows Azure; San Francisco, Calif., June 27, 2013

                      ANNOUNCER: Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome President, Server and Tools Business, Satya Nadella. (Applause.)

                      SATYA NADELLA: Good morning. Good morning, and welcome back to day two of Build. Hope all of you had a fantastic time yesterday. From what I gather, there were half a trillion megabytes of downloads as far as the show goes in terms of show net, so we really saturated the show net with all the downloads of Windows 8.1. So that’s just tremendous to see that all of you took Steve’s guidance and said, “Let’s just download it now and play with it.” Hopefully you had fun with it, also had a chance to get Visual Studio and maybe hack some of those Bing controls last night after the party.

                      But welcome back today, and we have some fantastic stuff to show. There’s going to be a lot more code onscreen as part of this keynote.

                      Yesterday, we talked about our devices, and we’re going to switch gears this morning to talk about the backend.

                      The context for the backend is the apps, the technology, as well as the devices, experiences that all of us collectively are building. We’re for sure well and truly into the world of devices and services. There is not an embedded system, not a sensor, not a device experience that’s not connected back to our cloud service. And that’s what we’re going to talk about.

                      And we see this momentum today in how we are seeing the backend evolve. If you look at Windows Azure, we have over 50 percent of the Fortune 500 companies already using Windows Azure. We have over 250,000 customers. We’re adding 1,000 customers a day.

                      We have 3.2 million distinct organizations inside of Azure AD representing something like 65 million users active. That’s a fantastic opportunity, and we’ll come back to that a couple of different times during this keynote.

                      Our storage and compute resources are doubling every six months. Our storage, in fact, is 8.5 trillion storage objects today, doing around 900K transactions per second. Something like 2 trillion transactions a month.

                      The last point, which is around the hypervisor growth, where we’re seeing tremendous hypervisor share growth is interesting. Because we are unique in that we not only are building an at-scale public cloud service, but we’re also taking all of the software technology that is underneath our public cloud service and making it available as part of our server products for service providers and enterprises to stand up their own cloud. That’s something pretty unique to us.

                      Given that, we’re seeing tremendous growth for the high-end servers that people are buying and the high-end server software people are buying from us to deploy their own cloud infrastructure in support of the applications that you all are building.

                      Now, of course at the end of the day, all that momentum has to be backed up by some product. And in that case, Steve talked a lot about our cadence and increased cadence across our devices. But when it comes to Windows Azure and our public cloud service, that cadence takes on a different hyper drive, if you will, because we are every day, every week, every month doing major updates. We’ve done over 100-plus major updates to our services from the last Build to now.

                      In fact, this is even translating into a much faster cadence for our server. We now have the R2 updates to our 2012 that were made available yesterday. So all around, when it comes to server technology and cloud technology, we have some of the fastest cadences, but very targeted on the new scenarios and applications and technologies that you’re building to run these cloud services.

                      Now, one of the other things that drives us and is at play for us on a daily basis is the feedback cycle of our first-party workloads. We have perhaps the most diverse set of first-party workloads at Microsoft. You know, these are SaaS applications that we run ourselves.

                      image

                      Now, these applications keep us honest, especially if you’re in the infrastructure business, you’ve got to live this live site availability day in and day out. And the diversity also keeps us honest because you build out your storage compute network, the application containers, to meet the needs of the diversity these applications represent.

                      Take Xbox. When they started Xbox Live in 2002, they had around 500 servers. Now, they use something like 300,000 servers, which are all part of our public cloud to be able to really drive their experiences. Halo itself has had over a billion games played, and something like 270 million hours of gameplay. And Halo uses the cloud in very interesting ways for pre-production, rendering support, gameplay, post-production analytics, the amount of real-time analytics that’s driving the continuous programming of Halo is pretty stunning.

                      Take SkyDrive. We have over 250 million accounts. You combine SkyDrive with the usage of Office Web Apps, where we have more than 50 million users of Office Web Apps, you can see a very different set of things that are happening with storage, collaboration, productivity.

                      Skype is re-architecting their core architecture to take advantage of the cloud for their 190-plus million users.

                      Bing apps that you saw many of them yesterday as part of Windows 8.1 are using the Azure backend to do a lot of things like notifications, which is one of the core scenarios for any mobile apps. And it’s going to send something like a billion notifications a month.

                      So all of these diverse needs that we have been building infrastructure for, we have this one simple mantra where “first party equals third party.” That means we build for our first party and make all of that available for our third party. And that feedback cycle is a fantastic cycle for us.

                      Now, when you put it all together, you put what we’re building, what you’re building, we see the activity on Azure, we listen to our customers, and you sort of distill it and say, “What are the key patterns of the modern business for cloud? What are the applications people are building?”

                      Three things emerge: People are building Web-centric applications. People are building mobile-centric applications. And what we call cloud-scale and enterprise-grade applications. So the rest of the presentation is all about getting into the depth of each of these patterns.

                      Now, in support of these applications, we’re building a very robust Windows Azure app model. Now, of course, at the bottom of the app model is our infrastructure. We run 18-plus datacenters on our own, 100-plus co-locations. We have an edge network. And so that is the physical plant. But the key thing is it’s the fabric, the operating system that we build to manage all of those resources.

                      At the compute-storage-network level, at the datacenter scale and multi-datacenter scale. And that really is the operating system that is Windows at the backend, at this point, which in fact shipped even in Windows Server for a different scale unit.

                      But that infrastructure management or resource management is one part of the operating system.

                      Then about that, you have all the application containers. And we’re unique in providing a complete IaaS plus PaaS, which is infrastructure as a service and platform as a service capability when it comes to application containers. Everything from virtual machines with full persistence to websites to mobile to media services to cloud services. So that capability is what allows you to build these rich applications and very capable applications.

                      Now, beyond that, we also believe that we can completely change the economics of what complex applications have needed in the past. We can take both productivity around development and continuous deployment and cycling through your code of any complex application and reduce it by orders of magnitude.

                      image

                      Take identity. We are going to change the nature of how people set up your applications to be able to accept multiple identities, have strong authentication and authorization, how to have a directory with rich people schema underneath it that you can use for authorization.

                      Integration, take all of the complex business-to-business or EI type of project that you have to write a lot of setup before you even write the core logic; we want to change the very nature of how you go about that with our integration services.

                      And when it comes to data, there is not a single application now that doesn’t have a diverse set of needs when it comes to the data from everything from SQL to NoSQL, all types of processing from transactional to streaming to interactive BI to MapReduce. And we have a full portfolio of storage technologies all provided as platform services so that your application development can be that much richer and that much easier.

                      Now, obviously, the story will not be complete without great tooling and great programming model. What we are doing with Visual Studio, we will see a lot of it throughout the demos. .NET, as well as our support for some of the cloud services around continuous development — everything from source code control, project management, build, monitoring — all of that technology pulled together, really take everything underneath it to a next level from an application development perspective.

                      But also supporting all the other frameworks. In fact, just this week we announced with Oracle that we will have even more first-class support for Java on Windows Azure. And so we have support for node, we have support for PHP and so on. So we have a fantastic set of language bindings to all of our platform support and a first-class support for Visual Studio .NET, as well as TFS with Git when it comes to application development.

                      So that’s really the app model. And the rest of the presentation is really for us to see a lot of this in action.

                      Let me just start with our IaaS and PaaS and virtual machines. We launched our IaaS service just in April. In fact, we have tremendous momentum. Something like 20 percent of all of Azure compute already is IaaS capacity. So that’s tremendous growth.

                      The gallery of images is constantly improving and increasing in size, in depth, breadth, and variety. In fact, if you want to spin up Windows Server 2012 R2, I would encourage you to go off to the Azure gallery and spin it up because it’s available as of yesterday there, and so that will be a fantastic use of the Azure IaaS, and test that out.

                      imageSo what I want to talk about is websites. We’ve made a lot of investments in websites. And when we say “websites” we mean enterprise-grade Web infrastructure for your most mission-critical applications. Because if you think about it, your website is your front door to your business. It could be a SaaS business, it could be an enterprise business, but it’s the front door to your business. And you want the most robust enterprise-scale infrastructure for it. And we’ve invested to build the best Web stack with the best performance, load balancing built in, elasticity built in, and from a development perspective, integrated all the way into Visual Studio.

                      So we think that what we have in our website technology is the best-in-class Web for the enterprise-grade applications you want to build.

                      Now, you can also start up for free, and you can scale up. So maybe even the starting process with our Web, very, very easy.

                      imageNow, of course having Web technology is one, but it’s also very important for us to have a lot of framework support. And we have a lot of frameworks. But the one framework that we hold close and dear to our heart is ASP.NET. This is something that we have continued to innovate in significant ways. One of the things that we’ve done with the new version of ASP.NET, which is in preview as part of .NET 4.5.1. is the one ASP.NET. Which means that you can have one project where you can bring all of the technologies from Web forms to MVCs to Web APIs to signal all together.

                      We also improved our tooling from a scaffolding perspective across all of these frameworks.

                      You’re all building even these rich Web applications. So these single-page Web applications. And for that, you need new frameworks. We have Bootstrap. You also want to be able to call into the server side, we made that easy with OLAP support, we made it easy with Web APIs. So this makes it much easier for you now to be able to build these rich Web apps.

                      And Entity Framework. We’ve now plumbed async all the way back into the server. So now, you can imagine if you’re building one of those social media applications with lots of operations on the client, as well as needing the same async capabilities on the backend, you now have async end to end.

                      So a lot of this innovation is, I think, in combination with our Web is going to completely change how you could go about building your Web applications and your Web technologies.

                      To show you some of this in action, I wanted to invite up onstage Scott Hanselman from our Web team. Scott? (Applause.)

                      SCOTT HANSELMAN: Hello, friends. I’m going to show you some of the great, new stuff that we’ve got in ASP.NET and Visual Studio 2013.
                      I’m going to go here and hit file, new, project. And you’ll notice right off the bat that we’ve got just one ASP.NET Web application choice. This is delivering on that promise of one ASP.NET. (Applause.)
                      Awesome, I’m glad you dig that. And this is not the final dialog, but there is no MVC project or Web forms project anymore. I can go and say I want MVC with Web API or I want Web forms plus MVC. But there is, at its core, just one ASP.NET.
                      We’ve got an all-new authentication system. I can go in here and pick organizational accounts, use Active Directory or Azure Active Directory, do Windows auth.
                      For this application, I’m going to use an individual user account. I’m going to make a geek trivia app. So I’ll hit create project.
                      Now, of course when you’re targeting for the Web, it’s not realistic to target just one browser. We’re not going to use just Internet Explorer; we’re going to use every browser and try to make this have as much reach as possible.
                      So up here, I’m going to click “browse with” and then pick both Internet Explorer and Google Chrome and set them both as the default browser. (Applause.)
                      Now, we’ll go ahead and run our application. And I’ll snap Visual Studio off to the side here. You notice Visual Studio just launched IE and Chrome.
                      You can see that we’re using Twitter Bootstrap. We’re shipping Bootstrap with ASP.NET; you get a nice, responsive template. We’ve got the great icons, grid system, works on mobile. And that’s going to ship just like we shipped jQuery, as a fully supported item within ASP.NET, even though it’s open source.
                      I’m going to open up my index.cs HTML over here. You can see we’ve got ASP.NET as my H1. Notice next to multiple browsers, we’ve got a new present for you. You see this button right here? We’re running SignalR in process inside of Visual Studio, and there’s now a real-time connection between Visual Studio and any number of browsers that are running.
                      So now I can type in the new geek quiz application and hit this button. And using Web standards and Web sockets, we’ve just talked to any number of browsers. (Applause.)
                      Now, this is just scratching the surface of what we’re going to be able to do. What’s important isn’t the live reload example I’ve just shown you, but rather the idea that there’s a fundamental two-directional link now between any browser, including mobile browsers or browser simulators and Visual Studio.
                      Now, this is using the Bootstrap default template, which is kind of default. So I’m going to go up to Bootswatch, which is a great website that saves us from the tyranny of the default template.
                      And I’m going to pick — this looks appropriately garish. I’m going to pick this one here. And I’m going to just right click and say “save target as” and then download a different CSS, and I’m going to save that right over the top of the one that came with ASP.NET.
                      And then I’ll come back over here and use the hotkey control/alt/enter and update the linked browsers. And you’ll see that right there, the hotdog theme is back today, and this is the kind of high-quality design and attention to — I can’t do that with a straight face — attention to detail and design that you’ve come to expect from us at Microsoft. That’s beautiful, isn’t it? You’ve got to feel good about that, everybody.
                      I’m going to head over into Azure. And I’m going to say “new website.” You know, creating websites is really, really easy from within the portal. I’ll say geek quiz. Blah, blah, blah, and I’m going to make a new website.
                      And this is going to fire up in the cloud right now. You can see it’s going and creating that. And that’s going to be ready and waiting to go when it’s time for me to publish from Visual Studio.
                      Now, I’m going to fast forward in time here and close down this application and then do a little Julia Child action and switch into an application that’s a little bit farther along.
                      So we’re going to write a geek quiz or a geek trivia app. And it’s going to have Model View Controller and Web API on the server. And it’s going to send JSON across the wire over to the client side. This trivia controller, which is ASP.NET, Web API is going to be feeding that.
                      This is code that I’m not really familiar with. I can spend a lot of time scrolling around, or I could right click on the scroll bar, hit scroll bar options, and some of you fans may remember this guy. It’s back. And now you’ve got map mode inside of the scroll bar. I can move around, find my code really, really easily. Here is the GET method. Notice that this GET method is going to return the trivia questions into my application here. And it’s marked as async. We’ve got async and await all the way through. So this asynchronous Web API method is then going to call this service call, next question async.
                      Now, I could right click and say “go to definition.” But I could also say “peek definition.” And without actually opening the source code, see what’s going on in that file. (Applause.)
                      I could promote that if I wanted to. You notice, of course, I’m using Entity Framework 6, I’ve got async and await from clients to servers to services all the way down into the database non-blocking I/O, async and await all the way down. I just hit escape to drop out of there. So it makes it really, really easy to move around my code.
                      So this is going to serve the trivial questions. I’m just going to hit control comma, go get my index.cs HTML.
                      Now, in this HTML editor that’s been completely rewritten in Visual Studio 2013, you notice that I’ve got a couple of things you may not have seen before in an ASP.NET app. I’ve got Handlebars, which is a templating engine, and I’ve got Ember. So we’ve got model view controller on the server and model view controller on the client. So we can start making those rich, single-page applications.
                      Now, this Ember application here has some JavaScript. And on the client, we’ve got a next question method. This is going to go and get that next question, and I’ve got that Web API call. So this is how the trivia app is going to get its information. And then when I answer the question, I’m going to go and send that and post that same RESTful service. So you’ve got really nice experience for front-end Web developers. That’s the Ember stuff.
                      Here, I’ve got the Handlebars. This is a client-side template. You can see right off the bat that I’ve got syntax highlighting for my Handlebars or my Moustache templating. And I’m going to go ahead and fire this up, and I’ll put IE off to the side there, and I’ll put VS over here.
                      And I’m going to log into my geek quiz app. See if I can type my own name a few times here, friends. There we go. And this is going to go and fetch a trivia question. See, it said, “loading question.” And then it says, “How many Scotts work on the Azure team?” Which is a lot, believe me.
                      You’ll see that that’s coming from this bound question tile. So we’ve got client-side data binding right there.
                      Now, I need to figure out what the buttons are going to look like. I’ve got the question, but I don’t have the buttons. I could start typing the HTML; that’s kind of boring. But I could use Visual Studio Web Essentials, which takes the extensibility points in Visual Studio and extends them even further.
                      And I could say something like hash fu dot bar and hit tab. And now I’ve got Zen Coding, also known as Emmet, built in with Web Essentials.
                      So that means I could go and say, you know, I need a button. And button has a button trivia class, but I need four of those buttons.
                      And then, again, I hit — you like that, kids? (Applause.) Then I hit refresh, and you’ll notice that my browser is updating as I’m going.
                      But that’s not really good. I need more information. I really want the text there that says “answer,” and I want to have answer one, answer two, answer three. So I’ll go like that. And then hit refresh, and then we’re seeing it automatically update.
                      So that looks like what I want it to look like. But I want to do that client-side data binding. So I’m going to take this here, and I’m going to spin through that JSON that came across the wire. So I’m going to go open Moustache, and I’m going to say for each, and again, syntax highlighting, great experience for the client-side developer.
                      I’m going to say for each option, and then we’ll close up each here. And answer one, just like question title is going to be bound. So I’m going to open that up, and I’m going to say option.title. And then when a user clicks on that button, we’re going to have an Ember action. I’m going to say the action is call that send answer passing in the question and then passing in the option that the user chose.
                      I just did an update with the hotkey, how many Scotts work on Azure? 42. How old is Guthrie? He is zero XFF because he’s quite old. What color is his favorite polo? Goldenrod, in fact, is my — no? I’m sorry, Goldenrod is the next version of Windows, Windows Goldenrod. So my mistake there.
                      That’s a pretty nice flip animation. Let’s take a look at that. I’m going to go ahead and hit control comma again and type in “flip.” Go right into the flip CSS. You’ll see that that animation actually used no JavaScript at all. That, in fact, was done entirely in CSS, which can sometimes be hard to figure out, but with Web Essentials, I can actually hover over a rule, and it’ll tell me which version of which browser which vendor prefix supports. (Applause.)
                      So that’s pretty hot. I’m going to go ahead and right click and hit publish. And because I’ve got the Azure SDK installed, I can do my publish directly from Visual Studio. We’re going to go and load our Azure website. Hit OK. It brings the publish settings right down into Visual Studio. And I can go and publish directly from here.
                      So now I’m doing a live publish out to Azure directly from Visual Studio. It goes and launches the browser for me.
                      And I can click over here on the Server Explorer, and Windows Azure actually appears on the side now. I can start and stop virtual machines, start and stop websites; they’re all integrated inside of the Server Explorer.
                      That’s my website. I can double click on it, and again, while I can go to the management portal, I can change my settings, my .NET version and my application logging without having to enter the portal.
                      So back over into my app, when I sign in, I know that people are going to be pushing buttons and answering questions backstage. I want to see that. I put in some tracing. So what I’m going to do is right click and say view streaming logs in the output window.
                      This is the Visual Studio output window. And I’m just going to pin that off to the side. And then as I’m answering questions, and it looks like someone backstage is answering questions as well. I’m getting live streaming trace logs from Azure fed directly into Visual Studio. (Applause.)
                      Now, you know that we’ve also rewritten the entire authentication infrastructure and made it based on OWIN, which is the Open Web Interface for .NET. It’s an open source framework that lets you have pluggable middleware. So identity and authorization has been rewritten in a really, really clean way. And it allows us to do stuff that we really couldn’t do before and extend it in a pretty funny way.
                      And I think that every good sample involves a QR code, right? Don’t you think? This will bring the number of times that you’ve seen a QR code scanned in public to three. (Laughter.)
                      So what I want to do is I want to install this QR sample because I know people are going and checking out these trivia stats. And I’ve got SVG and SignalR giving me real-time updates as people are answering trivia questions.
                      I’m logged in right now as CHanselman. I want to take this session and I want to deep link into an authenticated session on a phone and then view these samples and take them with me.
                      So I’ve gone and used NuGet to bring in the QR sample. And now I’m going to go and publish that again to the same site. This is an incremental publish now. So this is going to go and send that new stuff up to Azure.
                      And then I’ll bring up my phone here. I’ve got my phone. And my camera guy, he follows me around. And I’m going to click on trivia stats. And here are the real-time trivia stats.
                      And then I’m going to click on transfer to mobile up here in the auth area. And we’re going to do is we’re going to generate a QR code. I’m going to then scan that code, and we get a deep link that pops up generated by ASP.NET that’s then going to bring me in IE, and now I’ve got SingnalR, SVG, and Flot all running inside of my browser and I’ve jumped into my authenticated session using OWIN, ASP.NET, and HTML5. It’s pretty fabulous stuff. (Applause.)
                      So we’ve got the promise of one ASP.NET; we’ve got browser link, bringing all of those browsers together with Web standards using SignalR. You saw Web Essentials as our playground that we’re adding new features to Visual Studio 2013. We can make Azure websites easily in the portal, publish directly from VS, logging, SignalR everywhere. Thanks very much, I hope you guys have fun. (Applause.)

                      SATYA NADELLA: So I hope you got a great feel for how we’re going to completely change or revolutionize Web development by innovation in tools, in the framework, and in the Web server in Windows Azure. And round-tripping across all three such that you can really do unimaginable things in a much more productive way.

                      We have over 130,000 active websites or Web applications today using Azure websites. Some big-name brands — Heineken, 3M, Toyota, Trek Bicycle — doing some very, very cool stuff using some of this technology.

                      I’m very, very pleased that we’re using all of that feedback to announce the general availability of Windows Azure Websites. This has been in preview now since last Build, and we’ve had some tremendous amount of feedback from all of the customers who have been using it. Many of them, obviously, in production. But now you can start using it for full SLA and enterprise support from us. So we’re really, really pleased to reach this milestone. Hope you get a chance to start using it as well. (Applause.)

                      I’m also pleased to announce the preview of Visual Studio 2013. You got to see it yesterday, today, and you’ll see a lot more of it. It’s just pretty stunning improvements in the tool itself. And combined with the .NET 4.5.1 framework update, you now have the previews of both the framework and the tools, and we really encourage you to give us feedback like you did the last time in your app development, and we’ll be watching for that.

                      imageSo now I want to switch to mobile. Now, when you think about mobile-centric application development, the key consideration perhaps more than anything else is how do you build these mobile apps fast? And since there’s not a single mobile experience or application you’re building which doesn’t have a cloud backend, then the natural question is: What can we do to really speed up the building of these cloud backends?

                      And that’s exactly what Azure Mobile Services does, which is we provide a very easy way for you to build out a backend for your mobile experiences and applications. We provide a rich set of services from identity to data to push notification, as well as background scripting.

                      imageAnd then, of course, we support all of the platforms, Windows, Windows Phone, Android, IOS, as well as HTML5.

                      To show you this in action, I wanted to invite up onstage Josh Twist from our Windows Azure Mobile Services team. Josh? (Applause, music.)

                      JOSH TWIST: Thanks. We launched Windows Azure Mobile Services into preview in August last year. And in case you weren’t familiar, mobile services makes it incredibly easy to add the power of Windows Azure to your Windows Store, Windows Phone, IOS, Android, and even Web and HTML applications.
                      To prove this to you, I’m going to give you a demo now of how easy it is to add the cloud services you need to an IOS application using this map.
                      Here we are in the gorgeous Azure portal, and creating a new mobile service couldn’t be easier. I click, new, compute, mobile service, create. I enter the name of my mobile service, and then I choose a database option.
                      And I want to point out, look at this new option we have here. You can now create a free 20-megabyte SQL database. Which means it’s now completely free for developers to work against Mobile Services with the 10 free services and that free 20-megabyte SQL database.
                      Now, I’ve already created a service we have here today that we’re going to use called My Lists. If I click on the name, I’m greeted by our quick start, which is a short tutorial that shows me how to build a to-do list application.
                      Now, I selected IOS, but this same mobile service could simultaneously power all of these platforms.
                      We’re going to create a new IOS application. And since it’s a to-do list app, I need a table to hold my to-do list items.
                      And then I’m going to download a personalized starter project. So here it comes. That’s a little zip file. And inside that zip file I’m downloading from the portal is an Xcode project. So if I double click this, it’ll open up in Xcode, and then we’re going to take a look at the source. Because what we’ve done is we’ve pre-bootstrapped the application to be ready to talk to Mobile Services. You’ll see it already contains the URL for my new mobile service.
                      So what I’m going to do is launch this in the simulator. And what we’ll see here is a little to-do list application that inserts, updates, and reads data from Windows Azure with each operation being a single line of code, even in Objective-C.
                      So I’m going to create a little to-do list item here to add to my tasks. Let’s just save that. So now that’s saved in Windows Azure. To prove that to you, I’m going to switch over to the portal. We take a look at the data tabs, and you’ll see I can drill into the table, view all of my data right here, and there’s the item I just added saved safely into a SQL database in Windows Azure.
                      Now, we have so many cool features in Mobile Services. Here’s another one. I can actually add a script that executes securely on the server and intercepts those CRUD operations.
                      So what I’m going to do here, just to give you a quick example, is I’m going to add a time stamp to items that are being inserted. So I simply say item dot created equals new date. I’m going to save that. And right here from the portal, that’s going to go live into Windows Azure and be updated in just a few seconds. So it’s done.
                      Switch back to the app. Let’s insert a new item. That’s now saved. So if I switch back to browse, we’ll see that data again, but notice how we’ve automatically created a new column, and we’ve got that extra piece of data in there that executed on the server.
                      Now, we have this amazing script editing experience here in the browser, but not everybody wants to edit code in the portal. And so we’ve added a new feature to Windows Azure Mobile Services that allows you to manage all of your source assets using Git Source Control.
                      So I’m going to show you how to enable that. We go to the dashboard. Just down here under quick glance, we’ll get an option to set up source controls. So I’m going to click on that and kick it off.
                      Now, this can take a minute or two. So while that’s running, I’m going to give you a tour of some of the other new features we’ve added to Mobile Services recently.
                      One of our most-requested features was the ability to have service scripts for execute on the server but not in conjunction with HTTP CRUD operations where I can create an arbitrary REST API.
                      We’ve added that feature, and it’s called Custom API. So I can now create a completely arbitrary REST API in a matter of minutes with Mobile Services.
                      We also have a scheduler that allows me to execute scripts on a scheduled basis. So I can execute these every 15 minutes, every night at 2 a.m., whatever I prefer. And we also make it incredibly easy for you to authenticate your users with Microsoft Accounts, Facebook, Twitter, and Google. It’s just a single line of code in your applications.
                      Now, our source control’s still running here. So what I’m going to do actually is switch to another service, not make you guys wait.
                      So we have one here where I pre-configured Git. So if we go to the configure tab, you’ll see what we have here is a Git URL. So I’m going to copy this to the clipboard and then switch the terminal. And we’re now going to pull all of the source files down from the server repo onto my local machine.
                      That’s going to take just a few seconds. It’s going to pull those files down so I can now work on them locally with my favorite tools.
                      So I’m going to just drive into this directory here and show you what the tree looks like. So you can see we can see all of the API files, the scheduler files, and my table files including that insert script that we just edited in the portal.
                      Let’s take a look at that in Sublime. And you can see there’s that change. Now, we can make more changes here. I’m just going to comment this out and save it. And then I’m going to do a Git push to push that back up. So let’s commit it to the tree. And then Git push, and in a matter of seconds, that change will go live into Windows Azure.
                      So enough with the Mac. Let’s talk about what’s happened since preview. We’re now supporting tens of thousands of services in production on Mobile Services to all kinds of scenarios from games to business applications and consumer engagement applications.
                      I want to talk to you today about one of my favorite applications that we have in the store. And it’s from a company called TalkTalk Business. TalkTalk Business are one of the U.K.’s leading telephony providers for businesses. And these guys have a serious focus on customer service. So they’ve created a Windows Phone app and a Windows Store app.
                      Let me show you the phone application now. So here’s the app on my Start screen. If we launch it, you’ll see we get an instant at-a-glance view of my billing activity, my account balance. I can see all of the services I can use with TalkTalk Business, and I get real-time delivery of up-to-the-minute service alerts.
                      Now, it should come as no surprise that best-in-class applications like this need best-in-class services. And this is actually built using Mobile Services and is live in the U.K. stores today.
                      Now, they also have a Windows Store application. And I actually have a replica of that project here on my Windows machine.
                      And you can see the project’s open in the next version of Visual Studio 2013. One of the capabilities this app has is it lets me manage my user profile.
                      Now, let me show you some of the code that does that. So over here in this file, you can see where we upload the user profile when we make a save. Notice how that’s just a single line of code to write that data all the way through to my database.
                      And here we load a user profile into the UI, again, with a single line of code.
                      Now, these guys also have tables and scripts. And I want to show you those, but instead of switching out to the portal, let’s do it using the new Server Explorer in Visual Studio 2013.
                      So I can open up the Server Explorer here, dive into Windows Azure, notice the new Mobile Services tab, expand that, and we’ll see enumerated all of our Mobile Services.
                      There’s my TalkTalk service. And if we open this, we’ll see all of the tables that are backing that service, including my user profiles table down here.
                      If we look in that, we’ll be able to see all of my scripts. The best thing is I can now edit them here in Visual Studio.
                      So I launched the script editor. I can make a change. And then when I hit save, this is going to deploy live to Windows Azure directly from Visual Studio in a matter of seconds. It’s done. (Applause.)
                      So the next thing I want to do is app push notifications for this application.
                      Now, setting up push traditionally is quite a few steps. I have to register my application with the Windows Store. I have to configure Mobile Services with my credentials to call Windows Notification Services. I have to require a channel URI on my client and upload that to Mobile Services so it’s ready to send the push.
                      Let me show you just how easy we’ve made this in the next version of Visual Studio.
                      I simply right click, add push notification, and this wizard is going to guide me through all of the steps necessary. So I’m just entering my credentials there for the Windows Store. And then it’s going to ask me to choose which application I want to associate. So I’m going to choose this one.
                      The next step, I’ll be asked to choose which mobile service I want to configure. I’m going to choose TalkTalk, and we’re done.
                      What’s going to happen now is this is going to make some changes to my mobile service and to my client application. In fact, it’s going to prewire a test notification so I can be superbly confident that everything is wired correctly and going to work. And to try that out, all I have to do is launch the application.
                      Let’s try that now. It’s going to take a second to deploy. And then what we should see is a push notification arrive in the top-right corner. And there we go. So that’s how easy we’ve made it now to add a push notification to your application with Mobile Services and Visual Studio 2013. (Applause.)
                      The next thing I want to do is create an ability for the administrators at TalkTalk Business to actually send these service alerts. And these guys use a Web portal. So let’s switch over to their Web project.
                      So here it is in Visual Studio. And you’ll see we have an index HTML file. Let’s open that up.
                      Now, notice how we pre-configured this with the Mobile Services JavaScript SDK that we added recently. It now means it’s super easy to add Mobile Services to your Web and HTML hybrid applications.
                      We’ve already added the client. So all I need to do now is add the code to invoke the service API that sends those messages. So let’s try that. So I start client dot invoke API. I need the name of the API I’m calling, which is send alert, in this case. And then since I’m doing a post, I need to specify the body. Body is service alert. And we’re done.
                      So I’m going to save that and launch it in the local browser. Now, since we’ve already pre-configured the client to receive push notifications, we can actually test this whole scenario end to end right here on this machine.
                      So what I’m going to do is send out a service alert for email in the midlands and western region that says SMTP upgrade complete. And when I hit send notification I should get a push notification in the top-right corner that was initiated from a website. And there we go. (Applause.) Thank you.
                      You can see just how easy it is to add some incredible capabilities to your apps using Windows Azure Mobile Services. I really can’t wait to see what you guys do with this. I’ll see you at 2:00. (Applause.)

                      SATYA NADELLA: Thanks, Josh.

                      As Josh was saying, we’ve been in preview, and we’ve got some tremendous feedback. We’ve had over 20,000 active apps on Azure Mobile Services to date, and TalkTalk Business is something that Josh showed. There’s a cool app written by Aviva, which is an application that collects telematic data from a mobile app and gives you a real-time quote based on your driving habits for your car insurance, which is a fascinating application, and there are many, many applications like that, which are getting written on top of Azure Mobile Services.

                      So I’m really, really pleased to announce the general availability of Azure Mobile Services today. We think that this is going to really help in your mobile development efforts across all devices, and we look forward to seeing what kind of applications you go build.

                      So now to take you to the next section, which is all around cloud scale and enterprise grade, let me invite up onstage Scott Guthrie. Scott? (Applause.)

                      SCOTT GUTHRIE: Well, this morning we looked at how you can use Windows Azure to build Web and mobile applications and host them in the cloud.

                      I’m now going to walk through how we’re making it even easier to scale these apps, as well as integrate them within enterprise environments.

                      Let’s start by talking about scale. Specifically, I’m going to use a real-world example, which is Skype.

                      Now, Skype is one of the largest Internet services in the world. And over the last year, they’ve been working to migrate that service to run on top of Windows Azure.

                      One of the benefits they get from moving to Windows Azure is that they can avoid having to buy and provision their own servers, and instead leverage a dynamic cloud environment.

                      Like most apps, Skype sees fluctuations in terms of load throughout the day, the week, even different parts of the year. And in a traditional datacenter environment, they need to deploy a thick set of servers in order to handle their peak load.

                      image

                      The downside with this, though, is that you end up having a lot of expensive, unused compute capacity during non-peak times.

                      Moving to a cloud environment like Windows Azure allows them to, instead, dynamically scale their compute capacity based on just what their service needs at any given point in time. And this can yield enormous cost savings to both small and especially to very large services.

                      Now, with Windows Azure, you’ve always been able to dynamically scale up and scale down your apps, but you had to typically write custom scripts or use other tools in order to enable that. What we’re excited to announce today is that we’re going to make this a lot easier by baking in auto-scale capability directly into Windows Azure. And this is going to make it easy for anyone to start taking advantage of these kind of dynamic scale environments and yield the same cost savings.

                      I’d like to invite Charles Lemanna onstage to show it off in action. (Applause.)

                      CHARLES LEMANNA: I’ll be giving a quick demo of the brand-new autoscale feature that supports Windows Azure Compute Services.
                      First, I’ll cover the website autoscale, then the cloud services, and then the virtual machine.
                      So if I navigate to the website you saw earlier from Scott Hanselman’s demo, the geek quiz website, we see all the normal metric information that Windows Azure is collecting for his deployment. In this case, CPU time, response time, and network traffic.
                      But now there’s a new prompt to configure autoscale for this particular website. In the past, when the website would get lots of traffic, people would come in and take the quiz. Scott would have to go in and manually drag the slider to increase his capacity so his response time is not impacted.
                      However with autoscale, I’m able to now configure a basic set of rules that will manage the capacity from my website automatically.
                      I can configure an instance count range with a minimum value that we’ll always honor, as well as a maximum value. In this case, we’ll never go above six instances, so you can be sure you won’t get a giant bill.
                      Next, you can also configure a target CPU range. In this case, I say choose 40 to 54 percent, and what that means is the autoscale engine for Azure in the background we’ll be turning off and turning on website instances so your CPU always stays in that range. In other words, if you go below 40 percent, we’ll turn off the machine to save you money, and if you go above 54 percent, we’ll turn on a new machine so none of your users are impacted.
                      And just like that, I click save, and Windows Azure will manage my website, scale, and capacity entirely on its own. (Applause.)
                      Next, I’ll hop over to the cloud service autoscale. I just have a simple deployment here with a Web front end where my customers can come and, say, place T-shirt orders or other memorabilia. And this front end puts items into a queue, which I have a background worker role, which will go and pull items from this queue and process them for billing or shipping.
                      For the Web role, I’ve already configured autoscale based on CPU, just like you saw for websites with an instance range and a CPU range. But I also can configure a scale up button, which impacts the velocity by which I increase my capacity. I’ve chosen to scale up by two instances with only a five-minute cool down because I want to respond immediately and quickly to spikes in customer demand.
                      For my background worker role, it’s a little bit different. I don’t care as much about CPU; I care about how many items are waiting in the queue to be processed, how many orders I have to go through.
                      In this case, I’ve already configured autoscale based on queue depth by selecting a storage count and queue name, as well as the target number of items in that queue per machine.
                      In this case, as the queue gets bigger, we’ll add more machines. Imagine it’s the holidays and a bunch of new orders come in; we’ll make sure you have enough capacity to process it in real time.
                      And imagine it’s a Sunday night and not as many people are coming to your website and placing orders. We’ll go down to your minimum to save you even more money on your monthly Azure bill.
                      Lastly, I’ll hop over to virtual machines. Virtual machines are just like cloud services in that you configure autoscale for a set of virtual machines based on either CPU or queue.
                      For the virtual machines, you can choose minimum-maximum instances, and we’ll move you up and down within that range by turning on and turning off those machines. And with the recent announcement of no billing while the machine’s stopped, you don’t have to worry about being charged in this case.
                      As you can see, it just took a few minutes to configure autoscale across all these different compute resources. And that’s what the power of autoscale brings to Windows Azure. In just a few minutes, you can make sure your cloud application runs, stays up and running for the lowest possible cost. Thank you. (Applause.)

                      SCOTT GUTHRIE: So as Charles showed you, it’s super easy to configure autoscale and set it up so you can really take advantage of some great savings. He also mentioned, two of the improvements that we made earlier this month is the ability now to stop VMs without incurring any billing compute charge, as well as the ability to now bill per minute. This means that if you run your site or you run your VM for only 20 minutes, we’re only going to bill you for the 20 minutes that you actually run it instead of the full hour.

                      And when you combine all these features together, it really yields a massive cost savings over what you can do today in the cloud, but in particular, also over what you can do in an on-premises environment.

                      We’re really excited to announce that the preview of Windows Azure Autoscale is now live. And you can actually all try it out for free and start taking advantage of it today. (Applause.)

                      So let’s switch gears now and talk a little bit about enterprise integration and some of the things that we’re doing to make it even easier for you to build cloud apps and integrate them within your corporate or enterprise environment. Whether you’re an enterprise building your own apps or you also hear a little bit about how we’re enabling ISVs that are building SaaS-based solutions to sell into an enterprise environment and monetize even more effectively.

                      imageThere are a whole bunch of services that we have built into Windows Azure in the identity space that makes it really easy to do this kind of enterprise identity integration so that you can define an Active Directory in the cloud using a service we call Windows Azure Active Directory.

                      You can basically have a cloud-only directory, meaning you only have one directory, and it’s in the cloud, and you put all your users in it.

                      imageWhat’s nice about Windows Azure Active Directory though is it also supports the ability where you can synchronize it with an on-premises Active Directory that you’re running on Windows Server. And this is great for enterprises or corporates that already have Active Directory installed. And it allows them to very easily synchronize all their users into the cloud and allow cloud-based applications to start using that directory very easily to authenticate and enable single sign-on for all their customers.

                      And what’s nice about Windows Azure Active Directory is it’s built using open standards. So we support SAML, OAuth, as well as WS Federation, which makes it really easy for you as developers to start authenticating and enabling single sign-on within all your apps using existing libraries and protocols that you already use.

                      So what I thought I’d do is actually walk through a simple example of how this week we’re making it even easier in order to take advantage of that.
                      So what I’m going to show here is just a simple example where we have a company called Contoso that has an Active Directory on premises. And they’re going to basically spin up an Azure Active Directory running inside Windows Azure. And they can synchronize their directory up into the cloud. That means all their users are now available there.
                      And what they can then do is they can start to build apps, whether they’re mobile apps, Web apps, or any other type of app, deploy them in the cloud, and now any of their employees when they go ahead and access that application can enable single sign-on using their existing enterprise credentials and be able to securely login and start using that app. Let’s go ahead and walk through some code on how we do that.
                      So what I’m standing in front of here is the Windows Azure Management Portal, which you already seen Scott and Josh and Charles walk through earlier today.
                      What I’m going to do is click on this Active Directory tab that’s within the portal, which allows me to control and configure my Windows Azure Active Directory.
                      And what you can see here is the Contoso directory has already been created. I’m creating directories inside Windows Azure; it’s actually free; it doesn’t cost anything. So every developer they want can create their own directory, and companies can very easily go ahead and populate their directory with their information.
                      You can see here this directory; I already have a number of users that are stored within it. If I want to, I could directly inside the admin tool create new users and manage them through the admin console.
                      I could also click that directory integration tab and then set up a sync relationship with my on-premises Active Directory. That means every time a user is added or updated inside my on-premises Active Directory, it’ll be automatically reflected inside Windows Azure as well.
                      So once I have this, I basically have a directory that I can use within my applications to authenticate users.
                      So let’s build a simple app using the new Visual Studio 2013 and the new ASP.NET release coming out this week and show how I could basically integrate that within a Web app.
                      So I’m going to use the same Web application template that Scott showed earlier. Call this Simple App.
                      I can choose whatever frameworks I want within it. I can also click this change authentication dialog box that Scott touched on briefly in his talk.
                      And what I’m going to do is I’m going to click this organizational accounts tab. And I can go ahead now and enter in the name of the domain of my company. You’ll notice inside this dropdown we’ve added support so that both for internal apps within an enterprise that want to target a single company, they can do it. We also support the ability if you want to develop a SaaS application and target multiple enterprise customers, you can go ahead and select that as well. (Applause.)
                      I can then go ahead and just enter the password here. What I’m doing here is just registering this application with Windows Azure. And I just hit create project, and what this is literally going to go ahead and do now is create for me an ASP.NET project using whatever framework that I wanted to specify as registering that application with Windows Azure. So it’s basically saying I’m going to do secure sign-on with it.
                      And now if I go ahead and run this application in the browser, it’s going to launch, and one of the first things you’ll see it do is because I’ve enabled Active Directory single sign-on, it’s just going to automatically show me a single sign-on screen. And right now, I’m on the Internet, so that’s why it’s going to prompt me with this in HTML. I can also set it up if I was in an intranet environment where I wouldn’t have to explicitly sign in.
                      But right now, I can sign in. And I’m just going to say Contoso Build.com. If I do this now, I’m logged into this ASP.NET. I’m logged in using my Active Directory account that the employee has. And I’ve literally in a matter of moments set this thing up where I’m actually now using the cloud in order to actually use a single sign-on provider.
                      What this means is not only can I run this thing locally, but I can now just right click and hit publish, and I can publish this as a website, I can publish this as a virtual machine or in a cloud service. And now any of the employees within my organization that access it are integrated with their existing enterprise security credentials and can do single sign-on within the application. (Applause.)

                      So this makes it really, really easy for you now to build your own custom applications, host them in the cloud, and enable enterprise security throughout.

                      What we’re also doing with Windows Azure Active Directory is making sure that not only can you host your own applications, but we also want to make it really easy for enterprises to be able to consume and integrate existing SaaS-based solutions and have the same type of single sign-on support with Active Directory as well.

                      This is great for enterprises because it suddenly means that they can go ahead and take advantage of all the great SaaS solutions that are out there, and they can start to integrate more and more apps with less friction into their enterprise environment. And it’s really great from an ISV and developer perspective because it now means that you can go ahead and build SaaS solutions and sell them to enterprises at a fraction of the friction that was required today. That makes it much easier to go ahead and show the value quickly, makes it much easier to onboard your enterprise customers, and at the end of the day, enables you to make a lot more money.

                      So what I’m going to do is walk through an example of how this works. So we’re going back to the Windows Azure portal. And we’ve got our users, like we had before here. I’m now going to click this applications tab as well. And what the applications tab does is it’s going to show me all of the apps that have been registered with this directory. So any of the custom apps that I would build would show up here.
                      You’ll notice also inside this list, we have a bunch of popular SaaS-based solutions that have already been registered with Contoso as well. So we’ve got Box, Basecamp, and many others.
                      What I can do now inside the Windows Azure portal if I’m an administrator of the directory is I can go ahead and just click add. Click this manage access to an application link. And what we’re integrating is SaaS-based directory of existing SaaS-based solutions that this organization can now seamlessly integrate as part of their Windows Azure Active Directory system.
                      So, for example, I could do popular ones like DocuSign or Dropbox or Evernote.
                      We’ve got ones you might not expect at a Microsoft conference. We’ve got Google Apps. We’ve got Salesforce.com. We even just for giggles enabled Amazon Web Services. (Laughter.) Some of these we’d like you to use more than others. (Laughter.) But regardless, you can add any of these, and basically once you just click add, they’ll show up in this list. And then all you need to do in order to integrate your single sign-on with one of these apps is drill into it.
                      So in this case here, I’m going to drill into Box. Basically, I can just hit configure. I can say I want to enable my users to authenticate the Box using my Windows Azure Active Directory. Just paste in my Box tenant URL, which is the URL I get from Box. And I just download and upload a cert in order to make sure that we have a secure connection.
                      And once I do that, I then basically have integrated my Active Directory with Box. I can then go ahead and hit configure user access. This will bring up my list of all the users within my Windows Azure Active Directory. I can then go ahead and click on any of them, click enable access.
                      You’ll notice we’ve even integrated if the SaaS provider has roles defined within their application, I cannot only give this user access to Box, but I can actually map which roles within the Box applications they should have access to. And then hit OK and then literally in a matter of seconds, that user is now provisioned on Box and they can now use their Active Directory credentials in order to do single sign-on to that SaaS application. (Applause.)
                      So I’m going to switch gears now and go to another machine. So I was showing you kind of the administrator experience for how an administrator would login or enable that. I’m now going to kind of show you the end-user experience of what this translates into. And once we set up that relationship with that particular employee, that employee can go ahead and just go to Box directly and use their Active Directory credentials to sign in.
                      Or one of the other things that we’ve done which we think is kind of cool is integrated the ability so that the company can expose the single dashboard of all the SaaS applications that they’ve configured that employees can just go ahead and bookmark.
                      So in this case here, going ahead and logging into this. So this is kind of an end-user experience. All of the apps, SaaS solutions, or custom apps that the administrator of Active Directory has gone ahead and said you have access to will show up in this list. So you can see the Box app that we’ve just provisioned shows up here now. And as more get added, we’ll just dynamically show up.
                      And then what the user can do is just go ahead and click on any of them in order to initiate a single sign-on relationship. And that’s how easy now our Contoso employee is now logged into Box. And they can now do all the standard Box operations now using their Active Directory against it. (Applause.)

                      The beauty about this model is not only is it super easy to set up, you saw both on the administrator side, as well as on the developer side, it’s really, really easy to integrate. But it also means from an enterprise perspective, they feel a lot more secure. It means that if the employee ever leaves the organization or their account is ever suspended, they basically lose all access to the SaaS applications that they’ve been using on the company’s behalf. So the company doesn’t have to worry about the data leaving or the employee still able to kind of login and make changes to their data. So it enables a very nice model there.

                      And I think from a developer perspective, you know, one of the things to think about in terms of what we’re enabling here is not only is it easy, but it’s going to enable you to reach a lot of customers. We have more than 3.2 million businesses that have already synced their on-premises Active Directory to the cloud and more than 68 million active users that login regularly using that system.

                      That basically means as a developer, as a company that wants to sell to enterprises, you’ve got an awesome market that you’re now able to go ahead and sell to and makes it real easy for you to monetize.

                      And what I thought I’d do is actually invite Aaron Levie, who is the co-founder and CEO of Box to actually come onstage and talk a little bit about what this means to Box and some of the kind of possibilities this opens up for them.

                      AARON LEVIE: Hey, how you doing? (Applause.) How’s it going? So I’m really excited to be here. At Box, we help businesses store, share, manage, and access information from anywhere. And we’re big supporters of Microsoft. We build for the Windows desktop, we build on Windows 8, build on Windows 8 Phone. We love to integrate our work with SharePoint. Unfortunately, they haven’t returned our email yet, but maybe spam filter, we don’t know what’s going on there.

                      But it’s really exciting to see sort of an all-new Microsoft. I think the amount of support for openness and heterogeneity is incredibly amazing. I think you normally wouldn’t have seen a development preview on top of a Mac or whatever. I was actually afraid that Bill Gates was going to drop down from the ceiling and rip it off. So that was really exciting to see.

                      So we’re really excited to be supporting Windows Azure Active Directory. It helps reduce the friction for customers to be able to deploy cloud solutions, and we think it’s going to be great for developers. We think that’s going to be great for startups and the ecosystem broadly.

                      SCOTT GUTHRIE: Yeah, we were talking a little bit earlier about some of the friction that it reduces. I don’t know maybe you could talk as an enterprise SaaS solution what that friction is like, and how does something like this help?

                      AARON LEVIE: Yeah, I mean, if you think about how the enterprise software industry for decades basically if you wanted to deploy software or technology in your enterprise, you had to build this sort of massive competency in managing infrastructure and managing services and managing new software that you want to deploy. And there was so much friction for implementing new solutions into your business. So any new problem that you wanted to solve, you had to have the exact same amount of technology that you had to implement per solution.

                      Even harder was getting things like the identity to integrate and getting the technology to actually talk to each other. The power of the cloud is that any business anywhere in the world — and we’re talking millions of businesses that now have access to these solutions — can instantly on-demand light up new tools.

                      And so what that means is when you have lower friction, when you have more openness, we’re going to see way more innovation. And that creates an environment where startups can be much more competitive, where we can build much better solutions, and I think the ecosystem broadly can actually expand. And the $290 billion that is spent every year on enterprise software today on-premises can massively move to the cloud, and we can actually expand the amount of market potential that there is between the ecosystem.

                      SCOTT GUTHRIE: That’s awesome. You know, we’re kind of excited on our side in terms of the opportunity both kind of to enable that kind of shift. How we can use Windows Azure, how we can use the cloud in order to provide sort of this great opportunity for developers to basically build solutions that really can reach everyone.

                      You know, I think one of the other things that’s just nice is sort of how we can actually interoperate and integrate with systems all over the place. And that’s across protocols, that’s across operating systems, that’s devices, that’s even across languages. And I think as Aaron mentioned, it’s going to open up a ton of possibilities. And at the end of the day, I think really provide a lot of economic opportunity out there, hopefully for everyone in the audience.

                      AARON LEVIE: Cool.

                      SCOTT GUTHRIE: So thanks so much, Aaron.

                      AARON LEVIE: Thanks a lot, appreciate it. See you. (Applause.)

                      SCOTT GUTHRIE: I’m really excited to say that everything that we just showed here from a developer API perspective, you can start plugging into and taking advantage of this week. We’ve got a lot of great sessions on Windows Azure Active Directory where you can learn more, and you can start taking advantage of all the tools that we are providing in ASP.NET and with the new version of .NET and VS to get started and make it really easy to do it.

                      We’re then going to go ahead and soon have a preview of the SaaS app management gallery that you can also start loading your applications into, and we’ll start taking advantage of as an enterprise. So we’re pretty excited about that, and we think, again, it’s going to offer a ton of opportunity.

                      imageSo let’s switch gears now. We’ve talked a little bit about identity and how we’re trying to make it really easy for you to integrate that within an enterprise environment. I’m going to talk a little bit about the integration space more broadly, and in particular talk about how we’re also making it really easy to integrate data, as well as operations in a secure way into your enterprise environment as well.

                      And we’ve got a number of great services with Windows Azure that make it really easy to do so.

                      One of them is something that we first launched this month called Windows Azure BizTalk Services. And I’m pretty excited about this one in that it really allows me to dramatically simplify the integration process. For people that haven’t ever tried to integrate, say, an SAP system with one of their existing apps, or ever tried to integrate an SAP system with an existing SaaS-based solution, there’s an awful lot of work involved in terms of doing that both in terms of code, but also in terms of monitoring and making sure everything is secure. And these types of integration efforts can often go on for months or years as you integrate complex line-of-business systems across your enterprise.

                      What we’re trying to do with Windows Azure BizTalk Services is just dramatically lower that cost in a really quantum way. And basically with Windows Azure BizTalk services, you can stand up an integration hub in a matter of minutes inside the cloud. You can do full B2B EDI processing in the cloud so you can process orders and manage supply chains across your organization.

                      We’re also enabling enterprise application integration support so that you can very easily integrate lots of different disparate apps within your environment, as well as integrate them with cloud-based apps, both your own custom solutions, as well as SaaS-based apps that your enterprise wants to go ahead and take advantage of.

                      You know, we think the end result really is going to be a game-changer in the integration space and opens up a bunch of possibilities.

                      So what I thought I’d like to do is walk through just sort of a simple example of how you can use it. So I’m going to go back to our little Contoso company.

                      And they want to be able to consume and use a SaaS-based app that does travel management. We’ll call it Tailspin Travel. And they want to be able to do single sign-on with their employees so that their employees can login using their Active Directory credentials.

                      But to really make it useful, they also want to be able to tie in their travel information and policies with their existing ERP system on premises, and that poses a challenge, which is how do you securely open up your ERP system and enable a third party to have access to it? How do you monitor it? How do you make sure it’s really secure?

                      And so that’s where BizTalk services comes into play. So with BizTalk services, you can go to Windows Azure, you can very easily and very quickly stand up a Windows Azure BizTalk service. And then we have a number of adapters that you can go ahead and download and run on-premises to connect it up.

                      In particular, we have an SAP adapter. We also have Oracle adapters, Siebel adapters, JD Edwards adapters, and a whole bunch more. So, basically, without you having to write any code, you can actually just define what we call bridges, which make it really easy and secure for you to go ahead and expose just the functionality you want.

                      That SaaS app or your own custom app can then go ahead and call endpoints within Windows Azure BizTalk Services using just standard JSON or REST APIs, and then basically securely go through that bridge and execute and retrieve the appropriate data.

                      Again, it’s really simple to set this up. What I’d like to do is just walk through a simple example of how to do it in action.
                      So what I have here is kind of the end-user app that our Contoso employees will use. It’s a Web-based application. Again, our Tailspin Travel. You’ll notice that the users are already logged in using the Windows Azure Active Directory already within the app. So this app could be hosted anywhere on the Internet.
                      I could then create new trips as an employee, or I could go ahead and look at existing ones that I’ve already booked. So here’s one, this is the return trip from Build. Right now, I’m flying in economy. I don’t know, maybe it would be nice to get upgraded. So I can go ahead and try to enter that.
                      But you’ll notice here at the top when I do it, a few seconds later, I’ve got a policy violation that was surfaced directly inside the Tailspin Travel app. And basically it just was saying I can’t just do this myself; my manager actually has to go ahead and approve it. And it’s coming directly out of the SAP system of Contoso.
                      So how did this happen? Well, on the Tailspin Travel side, this is the SaaS app, they’re building it in .NET. This is basically a simple piece of code that they have, which allows them on the SaaS side to actually check whether or not this trip is in policy.
                      Basically, the way they’ve implemented it is they’re just making a standard REST call to some endpoint that’s configured for the Contoso tenant. And this doesn’t have to be implemented with Azure, doesn’t have to be implemented with .NET, it can be implemented anywhere. And it’s just making a standard REST call. And depending on that action, the SaaS app then goes ahead and does something.
                      So how do we implement this REST call? Well, we could implement it in a variety of different ways on Windows Azure. We could write our own custom REST endpoint and process the code and handle it that way. We have lots of great ways to do that. Now, the downside, though. The tricky part of this is not going to be so much implementing the REST API; it’s actually implementing all the logic to flow that call to an on-premises SAP system, get the information validated, and return it.
                      Again, that would typically require an awful lot of code if you needed to do that from scratch.
                      What I’m going to do here is switch here to the other machine. And walk through how we can use BizTalk services to dramatically simplify it.
                      So you can create a new BizTalk service. Go ahead and just say new app service, BizTalk service custom create. I could say Contoso endpoint. And literally just by walking through a couple wizards here and hitting OK, I can basically stand up my own BizTalk service inside the cloud hosted in a high-availability environment literally in a matter of minutes.
                      And for anyone who’s ever installed BizTalk Server or an integration hub themselves, they’ll know that typically that does not take a couple minutes. And the nice thing about the cloud is we can really kind of make this almost instantaneous.
                      Once the service is created, you get the same kind of nice dashboard view and quick start view that you saw Josh with Mobile Services. And so there are ways that you download the SDK. You can also monitor and scale up and scale down the service dynamically.
                      And then as a developer, I can just launch Visual Studio. I can say new project. I can say I want to create a new BizTalk service, which will define all the mapping rules and the bridge logic that I want to use.
                      This is one I’ve created earlier. You’ll notice here on the left in the Server Explorer we have a number of LOB adapters that are automatically loaded inside the Server Explorer, so I can connect through my SAP system directly and do that.
                      Add it to the design surface, and then I can create these bridges that I can either define declaratively; I can also write custom code using .NET in order to customize. Basically, I can just double-click it. This little WYSIWYG designer here lets me actually map the REST calls that I’m getting from that Tailspin Travel SaaS app, transform it, and then I can basically map it to my SAP system.
                      And you can see here in our schema designer, we basically allow you to do fairly complex mapping rules between any two formats. So here on the right-hand side, I have my SAP schema that’s stored in my on-premises environment; the left-hand side here, there’s that REST endpoint. This is a very simple example with a lot of these integration workflows. You might have literally thousands of fields that you’re mapping back and forth.
                      Once I do the mapping, though, all I need to do is just go ahead and hit deploy, and this will immediately upload it into my BizTalk Azure service and at that point, it’s live on the Web. I can then choose who do I want to give access to this bridge? And I can now securely start transferring just the information I want into and out of my enterprise.
                      For an IT professional, they can then go ahead and open up our admin tool. They can see all the bridges that have been defined. And then one of the things that we also build directly into Windows Azure BizTalk Services is automatic tracking support. And what this means is now the IT professional can actually see all of the calls that are going in and out of the enterprise. It’s all logged; it’s all audited so it’s fully compliant, and they can basically now keep track of exactly all the communication that’s going on to make sure that it’s in policy.
                      Literally, you saw all of this sort of a simple example here, but this really starts to open up tons of possibilities where you can integrate either with other SaaS out there that your organization wants to use, or as you want to start building your own custom business application and host within Windows Azure, you can now securely get access to your on-premises line-of-business capabilities and very securely manage it. (Applause.)

                      And I’m excited to announce that everything we just showed here, as well as everything I showed when I created that Active Directory app, is now available for you to start using. You can go to WindowsAzure.com, and you can start taking advantage of Windows Azure BizTalk Services today. (Applause.)

                      imageSo I talked a little bit about how we’re making it easy to integrate enterprise systems with the cloud, both on the identity side as well as the integration side. The other side of enterprise grade services that we’re delivering fall into the data space. And here we’re really trying to make it easy for you to store any data you want in the cloud, any amount of data you want in the cloud, and be able to perform really rich analysis on top of it. And so with Windows Azure storage, we have a really powerful storage system that lets you store hundreds of terabytes, or even petabytes, of storage in any format that you want. We have NoSQL capabilities that are provided as part of that as well as raw block capability. With our SQL database support, we now have a relational engine in the cloud that you can use. You can very easily spin up relational databases literally in a matter of seconds and start using the same ADO.NET and SQL syntax features that you are familiar with today.

                      We also a few months ago launched a new service that we call HD Insight. This makes it really easy for you to spin up your own Hadoop cluster in the cloud, and that you can then go ahead and access any of this data that’s being stored and perform map reduce jobs on it. And what’s nice about how we’re doing HD Insight, like you’ve seen with a lot of the openness things that we’ve talked about throughout the day, is it’s built using the same Hadoop open source framework that you can download and use elsewhere. We’re actually contributors into the project now.

                      And with Windows Azure, it’s now trivially easy for you to spin up your own Hadoop cluster, be able to point at the data and immediately start getting insights from it, and starting to integrate it with your environment. And so I think in the next keynote later today, you’re actually going to see a demo of that in action. So I’ll save some of that for them.

                      But the key takeaway here is just sort of the combination of all these capabilities in identity integration and data space really we think are game-changers for the enterprise, really enable you to build modern business applications in the cloud. I think they’re going to be a lot of fun to use. So we look forward to seeing what you build.

                      Thank you very much.

                      (Applause.)

                      SATYA NADELLA: Thanks, Scott.

                      So one last thing I want to talk about is Office and Office 365 as a programmable surface area. We talked a lot about building SaaS applications using services, Scott talked about it. But what if you were a large developer, line-of-business application developer, or a SaaS application developer and could use all of the power of Office as part of your application? And that’s what we’re enabling with the programming surface area of Office.

                      What that means is the rich object model of Office, everything from the social graph, the identity, presence information, document workflows, document libraries, all of that is available for you to use using modern Web APIs within your application. You can, in fact, have the chrome either in the Office client or in SharePoint, and you can have the full power of the backend in Azure. And, of course, the idea is here is to be able to do all of that with first-class tool support.

                      To show you some of this in action, I wanted to invite up onstage Jay Schmelzer from our Visual Studio team to show you some of the rapid application development in Office.

                      Jay, come on in.

                      JAY SCHMELZER: Thank you. The requirements and expectations and importance of business applications has never been greater than it is today. Modern business applications need to access data available inside and outside the organization. They need to enable individuals across the organization to connect and easily collaborate with each other in rich and interesting ways. And the applications themselves need to be available on multiple different types of devices and form factors.
                      As developers, we need a platform that provides a set of services that meet the core requirements of these applications. And we need a toolset that allows us to productively build those applications while also integrating in with our existing dev ops processes across the organization.
                      What I want to show you this morning is a quick look at some things we’re still working on inside of Visual Studio to enable developers to build these modern business applications that extend the Office 365 experience leveraging those services available both from Office 365 and the Windows Azure platform.
                      And, of course, doing it inside of a Visual Studio experience that allows the developer to focus on unique aspects of their business, and their application, not spending as much time in boilerplate code.
                      To do that, we’re going to focus on the human resources department at Contoso, who has been using Office 365 to manage the active job positions across the organization. And we want to create a new application that allows individuals in the company to submit potential candidates for open positions from within their Office 365 site using whichever device they happen to have available at the time.
                      To do that, we’ll switch over to Visual Studio, and we’ll see that we have a new Office 365 Cloud Business app project template available to us. This project goes and builds on the existing apps for Office and apps for SharePoint capabilities that are surfaced as part of that new cloud app model Satya was talking about. And it provides us a prescriptive solution structure for building a modern business application.
                      I mentioned data is a core part of this, and you see we’ve already started creating the definition for a new table that we’ll use to store our potential candidates. What Office 365 Cloud Business apps does for us is surface additional data types that provide access to these core capabilities of the Office 365 and Windows Azure platform.
                      Some examples of that we see here that the referred by is typed as a person, giving us access to all the capabilities in Office 365 associated with that Office 365 or Azure Active Directory user. The document, their resume, is stored as a typed document. So we can store it in a document library, and it leverages the rich content management and workflow capabilities associated with Office documents.
                      We also need to be able to go and pull in data from elsewhere. In our case, we want to go and grab data from that existing SharePoint list the human resources team is using to manage active positions, so that our users can choose a potential position they think those candidates are appropriate for. You see, I’ve already added that, so it’s in my project.
                      We’ll just go and connect it up between the candidate and our job postings, specify the relationship, and say OK. And now we have this virtual relationship between our Office 365 list and our SQL Azure Database.
                      OK, the next thing we want to do, though, is really enable that people interaction. If you notice, when I look over here at the candidate, if I select this, you’ll see right from here I have the ability to have the application interact with my corporate social network on my behalf as I’m doing interesting things in the application.
                      So we have the data model defined. The next thing we need to do is create the UI model. Users of business applications today expect a modern look and feel, a modern experience, but they also want it to be consistent. Visual Studio gives you great ways of doing this for providing a set of patterns that are going to be consistent across your applications. We’ll select a browse pattern, just choose, or the default pattern, choose the table we care about, and now let Visual Studio go and create for us a set of experiences for browsing, viewing, editing and updating that candidate information.
                      So we have our data model. We have our UI model. The last thing we want to do is go in and actually write some business logic. In this case, back on the entity designer, we’ll go in, and we’ll leverage the data pipeline where we can interact with data moving in and out of the application. In this case, we’ll use our validate. And what we’ll do is, we’ll just go in and make sure that the only folks that can go and actually set or modify the interview date are members of the HR department. And here’s another example where we see the power of surfacing those underlying platform capabilities. I’m able to reach in to the current user, into their Azure Active Directory settings, and grab the current department and validate it against the checks we want to make.
                      Let’s go ahead and set a breakpoint here. I think we’re probably in good shape. Anyway, so we’re going to launch the application, and Visual Studio is going to go package this up, send the manifest off to our remote Office 365 developer site, and then launch our application. We have no candidates yet, so we’ll create a new one. Last night when we were talking about this stuff, Scott seemed pretty excited about what we’re doing. So maybe he would be an interesting person for us to work with.
                      When I go in and actually start specifying who it is that’s going to refer this person, you see I’m by default getting the list of the users available on this Office 365 site because I typed that it’s a person. So we’ll select Jim there, one of our team members, go ahead and upload a document that is Scott’s resume. And we’ll specify an interview date, maybe we’ll go out here into September.
                      The last thing we want to do is go choose which of the positions we think is appropriate to Scott. He’s going to be new to the team, so we’ll maybe choose a little more junior role for him so that he can be successful. We hit save. If we’d actually set that breakpoint, we would see our business logic would have been executed, and we would be able to get that rich debugging experience you’ve come to know and expect from Visual Studio.
                      We now see we have our candidate. When I drill in and look at it, you see that we’re getting that consistency of experience. I’m getting presence information for the person. When I hover over it, we see the contact card. A little misplaced, but if I want to have a conversation with Jim right now, I can go ahead and do that right from within the application just because we’ve leveraged those underlying capabilities. Of course, in the document we can see the properties of the document. We can view it in the Web application right from the site, or we can follow it if we want to do that as well.
                      I noticed one thing here; I’ve got this extra ID showing up. So let me go flip over to Visual Studio, and we’ll look at the View Candidate page. And just like we can with any other Web development, we can just go in here and while the application is running we’ll just remove that. We’ll save those changes, flip back over here, just kind of do a little quick refresh, and now when I go in you’ll see that, hey, that extraneous value is no longer there.
                      The other thing you’ll notice is that in addition to the values we specified for our SQL data, we also have built in the ability to do the basic tracking of, hey, who was the last person who created or modified this record, just core requirements of a business application.
                      The last thing we’ll look at is on the newsfeed we’re going to click over to that, and you’ll see that the application has gone and interacted on my behalf, right, and entered things into our internal social network, letting people know that, hey, I just submitted somebody as a potential new candidate. So if you folks want to follow them, and so forth.
                      OK. Our application is looking good. It’s time to go get it integrated with our existing dev ops processes. To do that, we’ll just go over here to the solution explorer, we’ll right click on the solution, and we’ll start by adding this to source code control. In this case, we’ll add it to our Team Foundation Service instance. We’ll go right click; we’ll go check in all these changes that we just made, and while that’s happening I’m going to switch over and take a look at some of the build environments we have established in our Team Foundation Service.
                      In this case. we’ll see that we have an existing build definition for HR jobs. If I look at that definition, we’ll see that the things I can do is I can switch it to now be continuous, so that as we check in code we can go move on. The other interesting thing is here we’ve got a custom process template that understands how to take the output of the build and deploy it into our Office 365 test site. So this is all just basic power, and this is all built on the underlying technologies and capabilities inside of Visual Studio. That also means we can extend this beyond the SharePoint experience into the Office client experiences, as well.
                      So here I’ve also built a mail app that allows me to go and prepopulate information in the application from the content of the mail and shove it right into creating a new user, without having to go directly into the application. Hopefully with that, you got a really quick look at some things we’re still working on in Visual Studio, to enable developers to build modern business applications, extending the Office 365 experience, building on the capabilities of Office 365 and the Windows Azure platform.
                      Thank you very much.

                      SATYA NADELLA: Thanks, Jay. Thank you.

                      So hopefully, you got a feel for how you can rapidly build these Office applications, but more importantly, how you could compose these applications you build with, in fact, your full line of business application on Azure and enrich your SAS app, or your line of business enterprise app. I’m very, very pleased to announce that there is a subscription of my Office 365 Home Premium for 12 months that’s going to come to you via email later this afternoon. We hope you enjoy that subscription. (Applause.)

                      And I know everyone in the room is also perhaps an MSDN subscriber. So we are continuing to improve MSDN benefits. One of the things that we are doing with Windows Azure is to make it very, very easy for you to be able to do dev tests. So now you can use your dev test licenses on Windows Azure. In fact, the cost and the pricing for that is such that you can probably share something like 97 percent of your dev test expenses. We’re also going to give you credits based on your various levels of MSDN. So if you’re a premium subscriber, you get $100, which you can use across your VMs, databases, as well as doing things like load testing. So fantastic benefits I would encourage everyone to go take advantage of it. And also to reduce the friction even further, we have now made it possible for any MSDN subscriber to be able to sign up to Azure without any credit card. I know this is something that many of you have asked for. We’re really pleased to do that. (Applause.)

                      We had a whirlwind tour of the backend technologies. Really with Windows Azure, we think we now have a robust platform for you to be able to do your modern application development for a modern business. It could be Web, mobile, or this cloud scale and enterprise grade. So hope you get a chance to play with it. We welcome all the feedback, and have a great rest of the Build.

                      Thank you very, very much.

                      END

                      Deep technical evangelism and development team inside the DPE (Developer and Platform Evangelism) unit of Microsoft

                      May 17, 2013 11:22 am / 3 Comments on Deep technical evangelism and development team inside the DPE (Developer and Platform Evangelism) unit of Microsoft

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                      As many of you know, for the last few years I’ve been plugging away deep in the plumbing of enterprise identity and Reimagining Active Directory for the cloud.  It’s been a great experience and I couldn’t be more proud of all the cool stuff that has gone on across the industry to enable the world of claims-based identity and identity as a service.  Over the years I’ve gotten to know many identity leaders including Kim Cameron, Craig Burton, and Andre Durand and have worked with many other great people at companies like Shell, Sun, IBM, Google, and Facebook.
                      Building on all this collaboration, just a few weeks ago here at Microsoft we reached a major milestone with the official release of Windows Azure Active Directory (AAD). Today all of Microsoft’s major organizational cloud services build on AAD – this includes Azure, Office 365, and Dynamics. AAD supports almost 3 million organizations through 14 global data centers with 99.97% availability.  This level of scale and availability is unprecedented for a turnkey identity management service – it’s a huge accomplishment.  Although I love the SaaS and scale aspects of AAD, I’ve spent my career working with developers – so I’m stoked that we have made all this available to developers through new technologies like the AAD Graph API.
                      It is always sad to move on from a great project, but with the release of AAD it is an ideal time to transition and start a new role.  So I’m happy to announce that I’m headed to Microsoft’s Developer & Platform Evangelism (DPE) team, working for Steve Guggenheimer.  My role is to lead the team doing the deep technical evangelism and development here in DPE.

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

                      Technical Fellow
                      Microsoft
                      March 2008 – Present (5 years 2 months)
                      Current responsibilities include delivering Windows Azure Identity, Access, and Directory Services and defining platform strategy for Microsoft’s Business Productivity Online Services (BPOS).
                      Recent deliverables include Windows Azure Access Control and Application Messaging / Service Bus Services, SQL Azure, and Active Directory.
                      Member of the Server and Tools Business (STB) Technical Leadership Team. Key participant in the definition of overall technical and business strategy for several divisions across STB.
                      Distinguished Engineer
                      Microsoft
                      2005 – 2008 (3 years)
                      Delivered Windows Communication Foundation (WCF).
                      Responsible for Active Directory technical strategy. Worked to unify Active Directory product suite. Released Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS).
                      Software Engineer
                      Microsoft
                      1996 – 2005 (9 years)
                      Member of architecture team that drove the first and subsequent releases of .NET.
                      Drove transformation of Visual Studio to enable web development.
                      Authored and drove technical strategy for Web standards. Responsible for key cross-industry collaborations with IBM, Sun, and many others. Key participant in defining strategy for enterprise development
                      Group Program Manager
                      Microsoft
                      1993 – 1996 (3 years)
                      Drove the first release of Visual Studio.
                      Delivered web development tools including Visual InterDev. Later these became the basis for Visual Studio web tools and web execution platform.
                      Delivered advanced browser features including 2D layout and progressive rendering. Broad range of patents covering many core web technologies.
                      Vice President and Founder
                      Daily Planet Software
                      1990 – 1993 (3 years)
                      Microsoft acquired Daily Planet Software in Q4CY93 [and morphed it into “Blackbird,” the online-content authoring system for MSN].

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                      image

                      Explanation from the video:

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

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

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

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

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

                      image

                      …

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

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

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

                      How did it happen?
                      I spent most of my career competing with Microsoft, at Netscape, Sun, Google and VMware. Competition builds respect, competitors force you to question your assumptions and to constantly evolve. For many of my friends, this move came as a total shock. What made me open to the idea of joining Microsoft is a presentation from Scott Guthrie about Windows Azure at NodeConf 2012 last summer. He presented from a Mac laptop, launched Google Chrome, went to the Cloud9 IDE, edited a Node app pulled from Github, and pushed it to Azure from the cloud IDE: to me this indicated a real change of mentality at Microsoft, and a new openness. Clearly they had listened to what developers ask from a cloud platform. Later on, when my friend Srikanth Satyanarayana pinged me to start conversations with Microsoft, I was open to it. I met with Satya Nadella, and realized that our visions for where the cloud was going were very aligned. Further conversations with Scott Guthrie about Azure, John Shewchuk and Steve Guggenheimer about developer evangelism convinced me this was an adventure I had to take!
                      Why Microsoft?
                      Joining Microsoft boils down to 4 reasons: People, Learning, Technology, Impact.
                      People: in my late 30′s I realized that the people you work with, for and around are as important as what you’re working on. Microsoft has many people I have admired from the outside, like Dare Obasanjo, Eric Meijer, Scott Guthrie, Jon Udell, Scott Hanselman, Jeff Sandquist, Andrew Shuman or Anders Hejlsberg. The team I join has a fantastic roster of A-players with whom I’ll have fun and from whom I will learn.

                      image

                      Learning: I’m a learner at heart. I am curious, I read a lot, and I like to learn from people I work with. I also love to share what I learned with others. My kids loved this book called My Friends, by Taro Gomi, which goes like this: “I learned to walk from my friend the cat, I learned to jump from my friend the dog…”.
                      In my career it worked the same way: I learned algorithmic from my teacher Christian Vial, I learned internet protocols from my friend Nicolas Pioch, I learned open source from my friend Alejandro Abdelnur, I learned social media from my friend Loic Lemeur, I learned developer relations from my friend Vic Gundotra, I learned platform strategy and storytelling from my friend Charles Fitzgerald… I love doing developer relations, and my two mentors in this area over the past 8 years, Vic and Charles, both came from the Microsoft DPE team. I’m coming to the source for more learning. This team is more than a 1000 people worldwide, and over the past 10 years they defined what tech evangelism is about: they operate at a larger scale and cover a wider scope than any of the teams I worked with. I am very excited to join them.
                      Technology: Windows Azure is Enterprise ready, more open than people think, and is a complete platform, from infrastructure to services, mobile and Big Data. Azure has matured a lot in the past few years, it covers IaaS, PaaS and Saas, their Paas service is multi-framework and multi-service, with a marketplace of add-ons, it has a mobile backend as a service for Windows Phone, iOS, Android and HTML5, and includes Hadoop and Big Data services. It is in production today, has been battle tested for years as the base for many Microsoft first party apps and services, and is ready for the Enterprise, with a true public/private/hybrid solution: with Windows Server 2013, System Center and Azure you can start building your hybrid cloud today.. The team ships important new features regularly, my favorite being the point to site and software vpn features announced a few weeks ago, which will drastically lower the barrier to create hybrid clouds. Azure is not a Windows/.NET only platform, it is more open than people give it credit for: you can provision Linux VMs, and the PaaS supports .NET, Java, PHP, Node, Python, Ruby, with open source (Apache 2 license) SDKs on Githuband an Eclipse plugin, built by the Microsoft Open Technologies team. Scott Guthrie gives a very good overview of Windows Azure in this video from the Windows Azure Conf 3 weeks ago.

                      image

                      Impact: as a kid, I was reading a lot of science fiction, and got my first computer (a TRS-80) when I was 10 years old. As I explain in many of my presentations (like Portrait of the developer as The Artist), my childhood dreams were to change the world through technology, and more specifically computers. My dreams are far from being fulfilled today: it is true that we have more powerful machines and software tools, and technology changed the world in many aspects, but machines are still hard to program, and software engineering needs to evolve to let us work at a higher level of abstraction.
                      The move to a devices and services world is an important architecture change like we see every 20 years in the software industry. Cloud platforms have the potential to help developers build smarter applications faster, and change entire areas of the human experience. It has started to happen in the consumer applications space, but the next big wave of change is the consumerization of Enterprise IT, where developers and IT professionals can completely transform the way enterprises work, driving business value faster, enabling new capabilities and business models. My goal is to help them in this transformation, and Microsoft is the place where I can have the most impact.
                      Here’s a quick video to summarize it all: developers, developers, developers, think big and look up at the sky, its color is Azure!
                      Developers, Developers, Developers A homage to you, developers I interacted with around the world, in the past 8 years doing developer relations at Google and VMware. http://wordpress.chanezon.com/2013/05/10/goodbye-vmware/
                      If you have never tried Azure, or have tried it a year ago, sign up for a free trial and give it a go! I hope to see many of you at the Build conference in June in San Francisco.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                      image

                      Here are a few of the benefits Silverlight delivers:

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

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

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

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

                      REDMOND, Wash. —Feb. 12, 2010 — NBC and Silverlight have once again teamed up to bring Winter Games coverage to the Web – this time in high definition.
                      For the next 16 days, people all over the world will watch the Winter Games on television. Increasingly, they’ll be tuning in online as the world’s top athletes compete for gold and glory.
                      NBC will once again use Silverlight, Microsoft’s fast-growing, smooth-streaming video and animation plug-in for browsers, to bring full coverage and highlights to NBCOlympics.com. In 2008 for Beijing, the NBC-Silverlight partnership yielded not only revolutionary Web coverage of a sporting event, but a record number of viewers: 52.1 million people logged on to watch 9.9 million hours of video.
                      At that time the Silverlight platform was so new that NBC also offered Windows Media Player alongside it. After the success of Beijing and with nearly 50 percent of Internet-connected devices running Silverlight, NBC decided to consolidate on Silverlight for the Vancouver Games.

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

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

                      “It’s really been amazing to see that partnership and friendship with NBC grow over the last year and a half,” says Jason Suess, principal technical evangelist for Silverlight. “I expect many more events as our partnership gets tighter and tighter.”
                      With Silverlight, viewers can rewind and fast forward the action, or use pause and slow-motion. The player also scales the quality of the video to whatever a user’s machine can handle, delivering up to 720p – the highest resolution possible under current digital television standards.
                      “After Beijing, what we heard loud and clear was if you can provide a higher quality experience, users will definitely spend more time in that experience,” Suess says.
                      The Silverlight team also worked with NBC to provide special behind-the-scenes tools for the network, including the ability to insert mid-stream advertising, and a rough cut editor that allows NBC personnel to quickly edit and post highlights on the Web.
                      “With Michael Phelps going for eight gold medals in Beijing, every time he’d win there would be a massive rush to the site to see him winning the latest gold,” Suess says. “The challenge there was for NBC to have the content on the site in time to meet the demand. Now editors can go in literally while a (video) stream is happening and cut a highlight.”
                      Suess said the Winter Games are at a different scale from the massive Summer Games, with far fewer events and more niche sports. Still, Microsoft has worked hard to provide the most engaging photo and video experience possible, he says.

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

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

                      The Sports Emmy® Awards will be held in New York City on Monday, April 26, 2010, and will recognize outstanding achievement in sports television coverage. This nomination is really the culmination of the innovative thinking, hard work and dedication demonstrated by the team that NBC Sports, Vertigo and a select team of key partners brought together for Sunday Night Football Extra — and Silverlight is the engine that made it possible. If you want to learn more about the nomination, you can also visit Vertigo’s site at http://bit.ly/vertigo-snf.
                      The Result?
                      • Number of Games: 17 football games streamed via Silverlight
                      • Average time tuned in: 29 minutes (about 24 minutes longer than average time spent tuning in on broadcast TV)
                      • Number of Viewers: Over 2.2 million football fans tuned in on NBCSports.com to watch the Season live and in full HD
                      • Hours of Video: Approximately 1 million hours of video streamed
                      • Peak users: 38,500 total peak concurrent users
                      • What technology made this possible😕 IIS 7, IIS Media Services and Silverlight Rough Cut Editor
                      Tons of great information about how SNF came together online can be found in the case study and whitepaper live on Microsoft.com.
                      The Sports Emmy® Awards will be held in New York City on Monday, April 26, 2010, and will recognize outstanding achievement in sports television coverage. This nomination is really the culmination of the innovative thinking, hard work and dedication demonstrated by the team that NBC Sports, Vertigo and a select team of key partners brought together for Sunday Night Football Extra — and Silverlight is the engine that made it possible. If you want to learn more about the nomination, you can also visit Vertigo’s site at http://bit.ly/vertigo-snf.

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

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

                      …

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

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

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

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

                      …

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

                      London Olympics Garners Five Awards, Including Outstanding Live Event Turnaround

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

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

                      NEW YORK – May 7, 2013 – NBC Sports Group won 11 Sports Emmy Awards, the most of any sports media company for the third straight year; the London Olympics received five Emmys, including Outstanding Live Event Turnaround; Super Bowl XLVII won for Outstanding Live Sports Special; Sunday Night Football won its fifth consecutive award for Outstanding Live Sports Series; and Bob Costas, Al Michaels, Cris Collinsworth and Pierre McGuire were all honored in their respective categories at the 34th Annual Sports Emmy Awards, presented tonight by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences at Frederick P. Rose Hall, Home of Jazz at Lincoln Center.
                      MARK LAZARUS, NBC SPORTS GROUP CHAIRMAN: “We could not be more proud of our dedicated team. Tonight is particularly special because we were recognized for our coverage of the London Olympics and the NFL, two properties that touch virtually everyone in the NBC Sports Group – and our on-air commentators. It’s rewarding to know that our talent continues to be recognized year in and year out by our peers.”
                      Formed in January, 2011, the NBC Sports Group consists of NBC Sports, NBC Sports Network, Golf Channel, NBC Olympics, 11 NBC Sports Regional Networks, two regional news networks, NBC Sports Radio and NBCSports.com.
                      NBCUniversal’s coverage of the London Olympics was honored with a total of five Emmy Awards in the following categories:
                      • Outstanding Live Event Turnaround;
                      • The George Wensel Technical Achievement Award – NBC, NBC Sports Network, NBCOlympics.com, Bravo, CNBC, MSNBC, Telemundo;
                      • Outstanding Technical Team Studio;
                      • The Dick Schaap Outstanding Writing Award;
                      • Outstanding New Approaches, Sports Programming – NBCOlympics.com.

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

                      NBC Sports was also honored with the Emmy for Outstanding Live Sports Special for its coverage of Super Bowl XLVI. NBC Sports also received the Emmy in this category for its coverage of Super Bowl XLIII.
                      Bob Costas was awarded his 25th career Emmy and fifth consecutive for Outstanding Sports Personality-Studio Host. Costas hosted the London Olympics, is the host Football Night in America, NBC Sports’ acclaimed NFL studio show, and Costas Tonight, which airs on NBC Sports Network. He won the Emmy in the same category last year for his work on Football Night.

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

                      Cris Collinsworth was awarded his fifth consecutive Emmy for Outstanding Sports Personality-Sports Event Analyst. This marks Collinsworth’s 14th career Emmy, which includes wins in 2007 and 2008 in the Studio Analyst category for work on Football Night in America.
                      Pierre McGuire, NBC Sports Group’s “Inside the Glass” analyst for its NHL coverage, was awarded his first career Emmy for Outstanding Sports Personality – Sports Reporter.

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

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

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

                      Through the agreement, which rolls out this summer, Microsoft will provide both live-streaming and on-demand viewing services for more than 5,000 hours of games and events on devices, such as smartphones, tablets and PCs. These services will allow sports fans to be able to relive or catch up on their favorite events and highlights that aired on NBC Sports Group platforms.
                      Rick Cordella, senior vice president and general manager of digital media at NBC Sports Group discusses how they use Windows Azure across their digital platforms.
                      “NBC Sports Group is thrilled to be working with Microsoft,” said Rick Cordella, senior vice president and general manager of digital media at NBC Sports Group. “More and more of our audience is viewing our programming on Internet-enabled devices, so quality of service is important. Also, our programming reaches a national audience and needs to be available under challenging network conditions. We chose Microsoft because of its reputation for delivering an end-to-end experience that allows for seamless, high-quality video for both live and video-on-demand streaming.”
                      NBC Sports Group’s unique portfolio of properties includes the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympic Games, “Sunday Night Football,” Notre Dame Football, Premier League soccer, Major League Soccer, Formula One and IndyCar racing, PGA TOUR, U.S. Open golf, French Open tennis, Triple Crown horse racing, and more.
                      “Microsoft is constantly looking for innovative ways to utilize the power of the cloud, and we see Windows Azure Media Services as a high-demand offering,” said Scott Guthrie, corporate vice president at Microsoft. “As consumer demand for viewing media online on any available device grows, our partnership with NBC Sports Group gives us the opportunity to provide the best of cloud technology and bring world-class sporting events to audiences when and where they want them.”
                      Microsoft has a broad partner ecosystem, which extends to the cloud. To bring the NBC Sports Group viewing experience to life, Microsoft is working with iStreamPlanet Co. and its live video workflow management product Aventus. Aventus will integrate with Windows Azure Media Services to provide a scalable, reliable, live video workflow solution to help bring NBC Sports Group programming to the cloud.
                      NBC Sports Group and iStreamPlanet join a growing list of companies, including European Tour, deltatre, Dolby Laboratories Inc. and Digital Rapids Corp., which are working with Windows Azure to bring their broadcasting audiences or technologies to the cloud.
                      In addition to Media Services, Windows Azure core services include Mobile Services, Cloud Services, Virtual Machines, Websites and Big Data. Customers can go tohttp://www.windowsazure.com for more information and to start their free trial.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                      John Shewchuk, a Microsoft Technical Fellow, leads the Project Zurich architecture and strategy teams, which are focused on extending Microsoft’s .NET application development technologies to the Internet “cloud.” Shewchuk works in Microsoft’s Connected Systems Division (CSD) where he leads the technical strategy team. Over the last several years Shewchuk and his team have developed a wide range of Internet-based application messaging and identity federation technologies. Additionally, he was a co-founder of the Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) team and has been a key contributor to cross-industry interoperability initiatives. Working in conjunction with others on his team, Shewchuk developed Web services specifications and managed technical collaborations with IBM, Sun, SAP, and many others. He also has been a key leader and contributor to Microsoft’s efforts in federated identity, access control, and privacy. Previously, Shewchuk worked on Microsoft’s development tools and runtimes and played a key role in the development of Visual Studio and .NET. Earlier in his career, he played a role in the development of many Internet technologies including stylesheets, browser behaviors, and Web server controls.

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

                      After two years of work, Microsoft has unveiled details and its strategy around Active Directory for the cloud, anointing it the centerpiece of a comprehensive online identity management services strategy it thinks will profoundly alter the ID landscape.
                      The company said changes to the current concepts around identity management need a “reset” to handle the “social enterprise.” Microsoft says it is “reimagining” how its Windows Azure Active Directory (WAAD) service helps developers create apps that connect the directory to SaaS apps and cloud platforms, corporate customers and social networks.
                      “The term ‘identity management’ will be redefined to include everything needed to provide and consume identity in our increasingly networked and federated world,” Kim Cameron, an icon in the identity field and now a distinguished engineer working on identity at Microsoft, said on his blog. “This is so profound that it constitutes a ‘reset’.”
                      At the center is WAAD, which is in use today mostly with Office 365 and Windows Intune customers. WAAD is a multitenant service designed for high availability and Internet scale.
                      In a companion blog post to Cameron’s, John Shewchuk [see also Part 2 of that], a Microsoft Technical Fellow and key cog in the company’s cloud identity engineering, provided some details on WAAD, including new Internet-focused connectivity, mobility and collaboration features to support applications that run in the cloud.
                      Shewchuk said the aim is to support technologies such as Java, and apps running on mobile devices including the iPhone or other cloud platforms such as Amazon’s AWS.
                      Shewchuk said WAAD will be the cloud extension to on-premises Active Directory deployments enterprises have already made. The two are married using identity federation and directory synchronization.
                      He said Microsoft made “significant changes to the internal architecture of Active Directory” in order to create WAAD.
                      As an example, he said, “Instead of having an individual server operate as the Active Directory store and issue credentials, we split these capabilities into independent roles. We made issuing tokens a scale-out role in Windows Azure, and we partitioned the Active Directory store to operate across many servers and between data centers.”
                      Some analysts are already noting the challenges Microsoft will have with its cloud directory.
                      Mark Diodati, a research vice president at Gartner focusing on identity issues, told me in a conversation about changes the cloud is forcing on enterprise ID management that, “the addition of tablets and smartphones into the enterprise device mix exceeds Active Directory’s management capabilities and there is an impedance mismatch using Kerberos across the cloud.”
                      While Shewchuk laid out the set-up for a Part 2 [see here: Part 2 where OAuth 2 is first mentioned as: “we currently support WS-Federation to enable SSO between the application and the directory. We also see the SAML/P, OAuth 2, and OpenID Connect protocols as a strategic focus and will be increasing support for these protocols”] of his blog that will focus on enhancements to WAAD, Kim Cameron painted the bigger picture on cloud identity going forward.
                      He said companies adopting cloud technology will see dramatic changes over the next decade in the way identity management is delivered. “We all need to understand this change,” he stressed.
                      Cameron said identity management as a service “will use the cloud to master the cloud”, and will provide the most reliable and cost-effective options.
                      “Enterprises will use these services to manage authentication and authorization of internal employees, the supply chain, and customers (including individuals), leads and prospects. Governments will use them when interacting with other government agencies, enterprises and citizens.”
                      And he added that enterprises will have to move beyond concepts that have guided their thinking to date.

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

                      John Shewchuk talks about how to overcome identity and access challenges brought about by continuous services and connected devices. Learn more about Active Directory, Direct Access, and Dynamic Access Control at http://aka.ms/Ytidentity
                      Current state-of-the-art:
                      – Welcome to the Active Directory Team Blog [MSDN blogs, April 15, 2013]
                      – Announcing some new capabilities in Azure Active Directory Graph Service [Windows Azure Active Directory Graph Team blog on MSDN, May 15, 2013]

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

                      It’s hard to change a culture. Having worked for or with Microsoft for over 20 years, I can tell you that I have a myriad of colleagues that are Microsoft employees, most of whom I call my friends and respect very much. Over the last several months, I’ve had several discouraging private conversations about where the developer goals, mission, and strategy were headed for Microsoft. I could see the problems and mistakes. Microsoft employees could see them, too. You probably saw them, too. It’s been frustrating. When the head guy in charge of Microsoft development ignores feedback that includes internal feedback from Microsoft and external feedback from folks such as me and you, then that builds a culture of secrecy and fear. Although that head guy is gone now [obvious reference to Steven Sinofsky, ex Microsoft: The victim of an extremely complex web of the “western world” high-tech interests [‘Experiencing the Cloud, Nov 13-20, 2012], it’s still taken a long time to change that culture back to where it should be.
                      In all honesty, I can tell you that I haven’t been encouraged about the developer platform at Microsoft in a while. However, today I’m encouraged for the first time in a long time. I see the culture changing. I hear people at Microsoft saying that the culture is changing. And there’s several encouraging announcements that are emerging. Suddenly, I’m now excited about the Microsoft’s BUILD 2013 developer conference that’s being held in San Francisco from June 26 to June 28, and I’m not the old guy saying, “Get off my lawn!” However, I’d first like to present you all with some background that made me discouraged in the first place.
                      Microsoft’s Development Woes
                      I painfully read a recent blog post about Microsoft’s developer issues. I don’t even know who wrote it. This guy or gal didn’t put his or her name on the blog post. It’s painful because this person makes a ton of good points. Within this blog post, the author goes far enough back to put Win16 into perspective. It’s a very interesting read if you want to talk about the context of Microsoft’s developer problems through time and the speculation surrounding those problems. One of the main points in this article is that Microsoft has hung onto an obsolete Win32 API even though, a decade ago Intel took a completely different tact with the GPU and multi-core processors when it could have picked several versions of Windows over time to start over. However, Microsoft didn’t choose to do this, which has caused developers a lot of pain.
                      Related: “Windows 8 Start Button Shenanigans“
                      Most recently that developer pain has manifested with the introduction of the modern API in Windows 8. The modern API has many developers so confused and angered. A lot of these developers are experiencing anger because the most successfully adopted and beloved developer technology in Microsoft history was seemingly killed by this new modern API: Silverlight. Also seemingly killed was XNA. Several developers are also confused because Microsoft seems to be pushing the message to get users to build enterprise applications in HTML5 and deliver them through the Windows Store.
                      But, alas, there is hope! Recent announcements and speculations have me really encouraged.
                      Encouraging Announcements from Microsoft
                      On May 14, Microsoft officially announced the long rumored Windows Blue, which is officially called Windows 8.1. It will be a free update to Windows 8. Windows 8.1 promises to fix several different problems that folks have been complaining about. It’s important to note that Windows 8.1 isn’t a service pack. It’s a full blown upgrade to the OS. Microsoft promises several exciting things for the developer to be announced at BUILD, which includes the public release of Windows 8.1.
                      This month a minor Internet hysteria phenomena occurred with the revelation of the Microsoft deep-tech team. Mary Jo Foley wrote it best describing it as Microsoft’s new plan for reaching out to top-tier developers of all sizes to get them to take a look at the new and expanded Microsoft toolbox. There’s several “big guns” who will be leading the effort.
                      John Shewchuk is one of those “big guns.” I know John from a prior life at Microsoft. He’s a 20-year Microsoft veteran and one of the company’s Technical Fellows. He’s leading the team and serving as the Chief Technology Officer for the Microsoft Developer Platform. This is good news.
                      My guess is that the deep-tech team was the brainchild of Microsoft veteran Steve Guggenheimer, who took the reins of heading the Developer and Platform Evangelism (DPE) team in October 2012. Affectionately known as “Guggs,” Steve Guggenheimer has a long and storied career at Microsoft.
                      Patrick Chanezon is a new hire to Microsoft who will lead the enterprise evangelism efforts in Microsoft’s DPE unit from San Francisco. He joined Microsoft from VMware just weeks ago. This is a key hire that also seems to be really good news.
                      More about those Microsoft people I respect; the people who get it; the people who affect change.  Scott Guthrie is one of them. But everyone knows who knows the Microsoft Platform knows who Scott Guthrie is. Another one of them is Gabor Fari. You probably don’t know his name. But Gabor is one of the many Microsoft folks who “gets it.” Internally, he’s willing to criticize the company he works for and loves when it deserves it. He’s also the first to garner praise where Microsoft deserves it. Gabor’s title is Director of Life Sciences Solutions, and his grasp of the developer platform at Microsoft is his passion. When discussing the problems of the past and the excitement of the future with Gabor he left me with this, and I believe it’s the perfect way to end this article:
                      “I am very excited about the latest developments and news that has been released, and I am eagerly anticipating additional news from the BUILD conference. The slumbering lion still has spectacular fangs and teeth; and now he has woken up and is ready to roar.”

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

                      In January 2011, Sanofi launched a program called CRUISE—Content Re-Use Information System for Electronic Health. Through CRUISE, the company set out to develop a content management solution that transverses the company’s research and development efforts. The program charter of CRUISE is to implement processes and tools that enable stakeholders to author, assemble, review, approve, reuse, publish, and deliver high-quality, consistent, and compliant content and documentation throughout the product development life cycle—aiding the submission to regulatory agencies and other industry audiences. “The idea is to find ways to intelligently and seamlessly manage content authoring and production,” says Bhanu Bahl, Senior Manager of Clinical Sciences and Operation Platform at Sanofi. “The key business objective is to reduce the effort required to prepare documents through a synergy of optimized processes and enabling technologies.”
                      CRUISE has three pillars. One pillar involves simplifying the documentation process in a way that makes it possible to reuse content in various materials. Another pillar revolves around services that involve the many different documentation deliverables. The third pillar focuses on the technology solution, which is designed as a content library that tags and classifies information so that it can be easily assembled and searched. “With CRUISE, we are not doing a process redesign,” says Bahl. “We’re building something more tangible, more simplified, and more standardized.”
                      To address the CRUISE mandate, Sanofi worked closely with Microsoft as well as two members of the Microsoft Partner Network, DITA Exchange and the ArborSys Group. Microsoft provided the Intelligent Content Framework (ICF) and underlying technologies based on Microsoft SharePoint Server and Microsoft Office. DITA Exchange delivered a solution that enables organizations to establish and maintain a “single source of truth” for their strategic content, and to deliver that content consistently across outputs. The ArborSys Group consulted on the tool and process redesign and helped achieve an end-to-end business and technology implementation for regulated industries.

                      …

                      Gabor Fari, Director of Life Sciences Solutions at Microsoft, served as an evangelist in helping to put together the CRUISE team. DITA Exchange had been working closely with Microsoft since 2008 to develop the ICF for regulated industries. It completed the first version of the XML-based solution in February 2009.
                      As the technology pillar of CRUISE and the engine of EnCORE, DITA Exchange software elevates SharePoint to an XML-based component content management and single-source publishing solution. It enables its customers to comply with regulatory requirements with tools for reusing content in a consistent and accurate way throughout the product development life cycle in the life sciences space. “Microsoft promoted our work to several pharmaceutical companies,” says Andersen. “It led the way in terms of bringing innovative ideas around SCM solutions.”
                      DITA Exchange began working on the CRUISE implementation in April 2011. The partner participated in planning and supplied the solution used to manage the document output maps, topics, and linking of topics to the maps. “DITA Exchange helped us with content design and the governance structures of information design,” says Allred. “The people at DITA Exchange are masters of their technological domain. They have experience in regulated industries and the knowledge required to get our vision into an operational model.”
                      The ArborSys Group joined the effort in April 2011. This partner provides business consultancy and technical implementation and helped Sanofi achieve measurable and sustainable results through the implementation of flexible IT solutions that can be adapted for change in a dynamic business climate.
                      The two partners collaborated on developing the EnCORE platform. The ArborSys Group scoped processes, integrated service management roles and extensions, and trained internal resources.
                      “Microsoft, DITA Exchange, and the ArborSys Group all provided expertise and leadership in terms of how we define processes and address the three pillars of CRUISE,” says Bahl. “The various disciplines they provided really helped us strategize our best opportunity in terms of development. We share a common vision that has resulted in a very rich, cutting-edge offering that other pharmaceutical companies will probably adopt three to five years from now.”
                      While many other regulated industries have embraced SCM in recent years, life science organizations have lagged. “It’s no secret that the pharmaceutical industry is conservative,” says Andersen. “People think very carefully before they start anything. Sanofi is absolutely the leader in innovating in the pharmaceutical content management space.”

                      …

                      E-paper renaissance because of A4 format on a lighter, plastic substrate?

                      May 15, 2013 1:52 pm / 1 Comment on E-paper renaissance because of A4 format on a lighter, plastic substrate?

                      There is a nascent e-paper potential even with Onyx E430 Android 4.3″ E Ink phone [Charbax YouTube channel, May 13, 2013] promised for July 2013 delivery from Onyx International (with a 1GHz Cortex-A8 based SoC) having all of its 15+ engineering staff working on Android based E Ink solutions (including the 6” tablet shown in the video as well, although they have no idea yet what demand they could have on the market for that):

                      [recorded on April 15, 2013 at the Hong Kong Electronics Fair] 6 months ago, I filmed Onyx showing the first Android E Ink e-reader prototype (http://armdevices.net/2012/10/16/e-ink-android-phone-by-onyx-international/). Now Onyx International shows their new 4.3″ E Ink Android phone with a front light. Onyx also shows their first 6″ Android based E Ink e-reader also with a front light. Onyx is thus now fully focusing on Android on E Ink, for Android E Ink phones and Android E Ink e-readers. Check back soon at http://ARMdevices.net for more news from Onyx on their latest and upcoming Android E Ink devices!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                      Easy to write, easy to read digital paper terminal

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

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

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

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

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

                      image

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

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

                      *3: When excluding the pen holder section.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                      Exhibited at the “4th Educational IT Solutions EXPO”

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

                      * Please visit the event website.

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

                      Display

                      Flexible electronic paper with 13.3-inch and 1,200 × 1,600 dots
                      16-level gray scale

                      Touch panel

                      Electromagnetic induction type pen input for touch screen
                      Cleartouch Panel (optical)

                      Built-in memory capacity

                      4GB

                      Interface

                      microSD memory card slot*4, micro USB port

                      Support file format (extension)

                      Complies with the PDF 1.7 specification (. Pdf)

                      Wireless LAN

                      IEEE 802.11b/g/n (2.4GHz) compliant

                      Rechargeable battery

                      Built-in lithium-ion rechargeable battery

                      Rechargeable battery duration

                      Up to 3 weeks (when the Wi-Fi feature off)*5

                      Dimensions (height × depth × width)

                      233 × 310 × 6.8mm*3 (display unit 4.8mm)

                      Weight (including battery)

                      358g

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                      Nokia’s non-Windows crossroad

                      May 2, 2013 4:59 pm / 3 Comments on Nokia’s non-Windows crossroad

                      Update: 3” display with 240 x 320 pixels, not AMOLED screen, 3.2 MP camera. More information:
                      – New Asha platform and ecosystem to deliver a breakthrough category of affordable smartphone from Nokia [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, May 9, 2013] my composite post of the all relevant launch information
                      – New Nokia Asha platform for developers [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, May 9, 2013] my composite post of the all relevant development platform information End of update

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

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

                      Consider Co-Development, instead of classic “porting”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                      image

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

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

                      Today, April 09, 2013 Directorate Post & Telecommunication Indonesia publish 2 New Nokia devices which are already passed the testing process to get certification.
                      There are Nokia 501 RM-902 that should be (Maybe) The next generation of Nokia Asha and Nokia 210 RM 924 that Should be Nokia Asha 210.

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

                      imageimage

                      Source postel.go.id

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

                      Nokia Asha 501
                      – 3.5”, AMOLED capacitive touchscreen
                      – 320 x 480 pixels
                      – 1 GHz Processor
                      – 512 MB RAM
                      – 5MP rear camera with LED Flash
                      – front camera
                      – video recording
                      – video playback
                      – GPRS, EDGE, HSDPA/HSUPA, WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth, USB
                      – Nokia Asha Touch OS                      		 Micromax A51 Bolt [$79+]
                      – 3.5” , TFT LCD capacitive Touchscreen, 262K Colors
                      – 320 x 480 pixels
                      – 832 MHz, BCM21552 [ARM11]
                      – 512 MB ROM, 256 MB RAM
                      – 2MP rear camera with Flash
                      – 0.2MP front camera
                      – video recording: VGA @30fps
                      – video playback: 720×486
                      – 3G/Bluetooth/Wi-Fi/USB

                      – Android V2.3.7 (Gingerbread)

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

                      Codename One cross-platform offerings for Java developers

                      Developers Guide [Version 1.0.1, Jan 24, 2013]

                      Introduction

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

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

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

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

                      How Does It Work

                      Codename One has 4 major parts: API, Designer, Simulator, Build/Cloud server.
                        • API – abstracts platform specific functionality
                        • Designer – allows developers/designers to design the GUI/theme and package various resources required by the application
                        • Simulator – allows previewing and debugging applications within the IDE
                        • Build/Cloud server – the server performs the build of the native application, removing the need to install additional software stacks.
                        Limitations & Capabilities
                        J2ME & RIM are very limited platforms to achieve partial Java 5 compatibility Codename One automatically strips the Java 5 language requirements from bytecode and injects its own implementation of Java 5 classes. Not everything is supported so consult the Codename One JavaDoc when you get a compiler error to see what is available.
                        Due to the implementation of the NetBeans IDE it is very difficult to properly replace and annotate the supported Java API’s so the completion and error marking might not represent correctly what is actually working and implemented on the devices. However, the compilation phase will not succeed if you used classes that are unsupported.
                        Lightweight UI
                        The biggest differentiation for Codename One is the lightweight architecture which allows for a great deal of the capabilities within Codename One. A Lightweight component is a component which is written entirely in Java, it draws its own interface and handles its own events/states.
                        This has huge portability advantages since the same code executes on all platforms, but it carries many additional advantages.
                        The components are infinitely customizable just by using standard inheritance and overriding paint/event handling. Theming and the GUI builder allow for live preview and accurate reproduction across platforms since the same code executes everywhere.

                        …

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

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

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

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

                        Tel Aviv, Israel – Mobile development platform Codename One is announcing the launch of its 1.0 version on Tuesday, January 29. After releasing in beta last June, Codename One – the first software development kit that allows Java developers to create true high performance native mobile applications across multiple mobile operating systems using a single code base – has garnered over 100,000 downloads and emerged as one of the fastest toolkits of its kind, on par with native OS toolkits.
                        The platform to date has been used to build over 1,000 native mobile applications and has been touted by mobile developers and enthusiasts as the best write-once-run-everywhere solution for building native mobile apps.
                        “I have been developing with Codename One for a couple of months now. When you line up all of the other options for development, whether native SDKs, Appcelerator, ADF or others, Codename One wins on almost every front,” said software developer Steve Hannah.
                        Codename One has received widespread, viral acclaim in technology and business media including InfoWorld, Slashdot, Hacker News, VentureBeat, Business Insider, The Next Web, Dr. Dobbs and Forbes, which named the company one of the 10 greatest industry disrupting startups of 2012.
                        “We have been thrilled with the success of our beta launch and are very excited to release the much-awaited 1.0 version,” said co-founder and CEO Shai Almog.
                        Almog, along with co-founder Chen Fishbein, decided to launch the venture after noticing a growing inefficiency within mobile application development. By enabling developers to significantly cut time and costs in developing native applications for iOS, Android, Blackberry, Windows 7 Phone and other devices, Almog and Fishbein hope to make mobile application development increasingly feasible.
                        The Java-based platform is open-source and utilizes lightweight technology, allowing it to produce unique native interfaces highly differentiated from competitive cross-platform mobile development toolkits, which typically use HTML5 or heavyweight technology.
                        By drawing all components from scratch rather than utilizing native widgets, Codename One enables developers to avoid fragmentation – a major hindrance found in the majority of competitors – and additionally allows accurate desktop simulation of mobile apps.
                        The startup’s founders are recognized for engineering Sun Microsystems’s famous Lightweight User Interface Toolkit, a mobile platform used by leading mobile carriers and industry leaders to this date.
                        Codename One is available for download free of charge.
                        About Codename One
                        Codename One, named by Forbes as “one of the 10 greatest industry disrupting startups of 2012,” is an Israel-based technology company that has created a powerful cross-platform software development kit for mobile applications. The technology enables developers to create native applications across multiple operating systems using a single code base. Codename One was founded by renowned software engineers Shai Almog and Chen Fishbein in 2012.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                        How did we solve this?

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

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

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

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

                        Build native applications using Java and Netbeans for all mobile devices.

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

                        Introduction to the ideas behind Codename One without getting too technical. For more information on Codename One check outhttp://www.codenameone.com/

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

                        An introduction to Codename One to developers who don’t necessarily have prior experience in Swing or Android.

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

                        his webinar introduces the Lightweight User Interface Toolkit (LWUIT) as optimised for Nokia SDK 2.0 for Java™, which is designed for Series 40 app development. LWUIT makes it very easy to create compelling UIs for Series 40 phones, using a programming paradigm similar to Swing. If you don’t know what Swing means, don’t worry; it’s cover in the presentation. Java expert Michael Samarin from Futurice walks you through LWUIT features such as transitions, animations, comprehensive UI components, layout management, and support for Series 40 themes. In coding sessions, he demonstrates the LWUIT Resource Editor and show you the development tasks associated with making LWUIT-based Java ME applications. You can download the slides from this session at:http://www.slideshare.net/nokia-devel&#8230; More information about LWUIT for Series 40 can be found in the following resources: * LWUIT for Series 40 Project Home: https://projects.developer.nokia.com/LWUIT_for_Series_40 * LWUIT Developer Library and UX Guide: http://www.developer.nokia.com/Resources/Library/LWUIT/#!index.html * Short demonstration video: http://youtu.be/xu0UNJJPdYU

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

                        Great news for those of you wanting to deliver superior UIs in your Series 40 apps— Lightweight UI Toolkit (LWUIT) for Series 40 has graduated from beta to a full initial release.
                        LWUIT is an open source Java ME toolkit that supports a comprehensive range of visual UI components, and other user interface elements such as theming, transitions, and animation among others. It helps you create applications with appealing UIs that closely follow the native Series 40 UIs. It also helps speed up development by significantly reducing the need to create custom UI components, which might be needed when creating an app’s UI using LCDUI. LWUIT for Series 40 can be used in combination with selected Nokia UI APIs and all the JSR APIs available on the platform.
                        Since the last LWUIT for Series 40 release made available in the Nokia SDK 2.0 for Java, development of the toolkit has been continuing at a rapid pace. A number of new APIs have been introduced, including PopUpChoiceGroup, ContextMenu, NokiaListCellRenderer, theme selection, and full-screen mode. There have also been significant improvements in performance, particularly in lists, themes loading, and HTMLComponent. Compatibility with the native full-touch UI has been fine-tuned and many bugs fixed, particularly in command handling and text input.
                        The toolkit also includes all the new examples created since the last release. These include code examples that provide demonstrations of the Category bar, gestures, and lists. There are also new application examples for birthdays, showing use of the calendar component and PIM API; a slide puzzle; tourist attractions, showing the use of HERE maps and in-app purchasing APIs; and a Reddit client showing the use of a custom theme and JSON. In addition, updated version of two of the original LWUIT examples applications, LWUITDemo and LWUITBrowser, are also included.
                        The final component in the full release of LWUIT for Series 40 is the inclusion of comprehensive documentation in the toolkit. This is based on the LWUIT Developer’s Library, a library consisting of:
                        • Developer’s Guide, which is based on the original LWUIT Developer Guide and provides technical information about using the LWUIT components
                        • LWUIT UX overview, which is a new section providing a guide to designing app UIs with LWUIT for Series 40 components
                        If you have the Nokia SDK 2.0 for Java installed, you will receive an automatic notification of the availability of LWUIT for Series 40 1.0. You can then simply follow the instructions to install the update. If you are using LWUIT with the Nokia SDK 1.1 for Java, you can download the update from LWUIT for Series 40 project.

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

                        imageIs J2ME dead or dying?

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

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

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

                        The answer is: Yes! very much so!
                        Features Phones are still selling in millions and still beats Android sales in the developing world. Recently Nokia shipped the Asha series devices which are quite powerful and capable pieces of hardware, they are very impressive. Nokia’s revenue is driven mainly by the Feature Phone market.
                        There is a real battle in the developing countries between Feature Phones and Android devices, Feature Phones are still cheaper and more efficient where Android has more/better content (apps & games).
                        How long will it take Android to catch up? we will see…
                        In the meantime there is money on the table and a real opportunity for developers to make some money (and gain loyal users who will migrate to Android or other platform at some point)
                        image
                        To win over the competition or at least to maintain its dominate player position Nokia must bring new quality content to the devices, it’s not enough to ship cool new feature phones, the new phone needs to connect to facebook, twitter, gmail, whatsapp and have all the new cool games/apps Android has and more.
                        So how should you write your apps for the cool new Nokia Feature Phone if J2ME is dead? Luckily there is an option Codename One ;-).

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

                        Below are some of the J2ME highlights:
                          1. Facebook Connect – did you noticed there aren’t many social apps on OVI?
                            There is a reason Facebook uses oauth2 which is a huge pain without a browser API, this is solved and working in Codename One.
                          2. Java 5 features – You can use generics and other Java 5 features in your app and it will work on your J2ME/RIM devices. You don’t have to limit yourself to CLDC.

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

                          4. Built in Asha skins and themes

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

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

                            Screen capture of the Codename One Java One session. Codename One is an open source platform allowing Java developers to write applications that work on all mobile devices (iPhone/iPad, Android, Blackberry, Windows Phone etc.)

                            Nokia’s own Asha cross-platform efforts for developers (so far)

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

                            This webinar takes you through the features of the Series 40 platform for Asha smartphones, which enable the coolest apps to be developed. To start, the features of the UI based on either LCDUI or LWUIT for Java are reviewed. Then there is a discussion on how you port apps from Android — looking at the key issues you need to consider. The presentation then concludes by reviewing the options for 2D and 3D graphics, in particular how they help develop outstanding games. Numerous demonstrations are included, along with links (see the slides) to the source code and installation files, so you can try the apps yourself and use the code in your own apps. You can download the slides from this session at: http://www.slideshare.net/nokia-developer/developing-cool-asha-apps

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

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

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                            Tantalum Mobile [January 1, 2013] Summary

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

                            Life is many asynchronous tasks chained together and running concurrently on background threads with UI callbacks. The result may look like black magic or star wars, but as you become one with the source, the patterns emerge as ecstatic moments of clarity.
                            Tantalum Cross Platform Library
                            Tantalum 5 is nearing beta release
                            As the Tantalum team works hard on the new Tantalum 5 release and increasing support to the Android community, you can track that and possibly help at ​https://github.com/TantalumMobile/ More on that and the great support Nokia is giving to this open source effort as we release- happy changes and momentum.
                            * NEW 4.0 RELEASE January 1, 2013 *
                            New release 4.0 including cross-platform Android and J2ME app development support, simple fork-join concurrency, simple 3 layer caching and Android AsyncTask and more is now available!
                            Quick Start Guide and JAVADOC: ​Tanalum4_doc.zip
                            Source code and examples: ​Tantalum4.zip
                            Cross platform Series40-Android example using Tantalum4: ​Picasa_Viewer
                            JavaOne San Francisco talk and demos of Tantalum4: ​JavaOne_Extreme_Mobile_Java_Performance.mp4
                            Tantalum is a light-weight metal used used to keep mobile phone electronics compact and powerful. Tantalum4 is the 4th major release of a very light and elegant back end utility library for mobile java. With mobile applications, less is more.
                            This is _not_ a framework. It is a clean and light tool set which at 8-40kB it will _not_ bloat your application. Obfuscation of your release build automatically removes those features you do not use. We do just a few things really well:
                              • The exact same JAR library runs on J2ME and Android– save time and money by reusing your code and add a native UI for each platform
                              • Clean, fast utility model threading with Java7 fork-join-cancel and Android Java5 AsyncTask patterns
                              • Unique async task chaining to feed the output of one Task to the input of the next is easier than overriding existing classes
                              • WeakReference heap and persistent flash memory caching to easily make online-offlne apps which start fast and run reliably in real world mobile networks
                              • Async HTTP GET and POST with automatic retry
                              • Simplified async XML parsing directly into model objects
                              • Simplified async JSON parsing directly into model objects
                              • Logging convenience classes including J2ME USB debug and app profile from phone
                                The above capabilities work cleanly together to simplify your development. There is no UI assumption in Tantalum4– pick what works best for you on each platform. The bundled example applications are an RSS reader for
                                  • Forms
                                  • Nokia Series40 Asha touch devices
                                  • LWUIT 1.5
                                    Download the sample apps and give a try. We hope you are amazed at the results and speed with which you can achieve them.
                                    Apache 2 license. Please return your fixes and suggestions to the community here.
                                    * NEW 3.0 RELEASE June 18, 2012 *
                                    WHAT IS NEW
                                      • Many, many stability improvements, especially to caching and flash memory usage
                                      • Shutdown work tasks and low-priority work tasks are now supported
                                      • Support for Nokia LWUIT in the example applications
                                      • Support for Nokia full touch phones in the example applications.
                                      • Speed. Tantalum3 is wired and optimized even more than before to run well also on slower devices.
                                      • You can find a series of nice, short training videos covering Tantalum3 at​https://projects.developer.nokia.com/videotraining
                                        CONTENTS OF THE ARCHIVE (Download link on right side of this page)
                                        /prebuilt_examples
                                        Pre-built example applications, run to test on various devices. Testing is mostly on Nokia SDK 1.1 and 2.0 with profiling of the S40 example tested in Oracle SDK.
                                        /lib
                                        Pre-built libraries you can include in your application if you don’t want to mess with the source code. There are three flavors: debug including unit tests and verbose errors, usb-debug, and release optimized. To use the usb-debug variant, connect your phone by USB and open a terminal emulator such as puttytel to the serial port you find in Window Device Manager. Use max baud rate and hardware flow control RTS/CTS.
                                        /src
                                        Everything you need to build the libraries and examples yourself
                                        /doc
                                        Javadoc for Tantalum3 library
                                        /json_doc
                                        Javadoc for the optional JSON suppliment
                                        * NEW 2.2 RELEASE February 7 2012 *
                                        Example updates with minor bug fix, reorganization of the source into 3 projects make release builds easier, added unit tests.
                                        * NEW 2.1 RELEASE January 24 2012 *

                                        Latest announcements

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

                                        This webinar offers an overview to the process of porting various types of Android applications to the Series 40 platform. Michael Samarin of Futurice walks you through the basic porting tasks involved and shows you how to map Android APIs to corresponding Series 40 APIs. He also pays special attention to UI portability and creating a consistent user experience on Series 40 phones. You can download the slides from this session at: http://www.slideshare.net/nokia-developer/porting-android-applications-to-nokia-series-40 Find out more about porting apps to Series 40 at:http://www.developer.nokia.com/porting Find out more about developing for Series 40 at:http://www.developer.nokia.com/Series40 Discover more Nokia Developer webinars at:http://www.developer.nokia.com/webinars

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

                                        If you’ve got an application for Android or BlackBerry (up to BlackBerry OS 7.1), your existing Java code puts you in a great position to take advantage of the growing demand for apps from Series 40 phone owners.
                                        To help you take advantage of this opportunity, we’ve started to gather a collection of resources to guide you through the porting process in the Porting to Series 40 library section.
                                        If you are starting with an Android app, the wiki provides basic information on the tools and technology needed, platform comparisons, porting considerations, code snippets, and example porting cases along with the all-important guidelines you need for an efficient port.
                                        For your future apps, you can even consider creating a Series 40 and Android version at the same time, our Picasa Viewer example application will show you how.
                                        If a little hands-on guidance could help even more, why not check out the Android porting webinar sessions we have on 4 December at 8 a.m. San Francisco; 10 a.m. Mexico City; 4 p.m. London and 13 December, 8 a.m. London; 1:30 p.m. New Delhi; 4 p.m. Singapore.
                                        Life could be even easier if you have a BlackBerry app. Most generic Java ME MIDlets can be deployed to both BlackBerry and Series 40 with little more than platform-specific repackaging. However, you might want to adapt the user interface and the look & feel of the app to fit to Series 40 screen-size and UI style. Again, the wiki gives you a pointer to the porting article with code samples that will be enhanced for the later updates of the library.
                                        You can also get practical guidance from an expert, check out our BlackBerry porting webinar on 18 December, 8 a.m. London; 1:30 p.m. New Delhi; 4 p.m. Singapore or view a recording of one of the earlier sessions on our webinars page.
                                        Using our latest Nokia SDK 2.0 for Java, and its integrated Nokia IDE for Java ME, combined with the guidance of the updated porting library, we think you’ll find porting your app easier than you ever imagined.
                                        We’re looking forward to welcoming you to the family of developers who have found success on the Series 40 platform.

                                        – Designing & Optimising Graphics for your Series 40 app [nokiadevforum YouTube channel, Nov 8, 2012] https://projects.developer.nokia.com/frozenbubble

                                        Are you wondering what to consider when designing and optimising graphics for your Series 40 application? Mikko Kaipio, Senior UX Designer, provides you with tips and best practices for handling graphics in your Series 40 applications. He also explains the key items to take into account when porting your Android application graphics to the successful Nokia Asha family of Series 40 phones. More information about Series 40 UX resources can be found here:http://bit.ly/Qx757l Explore the app examples used in this video: FrozenBubble:https://projects.developer.nokia.com/frozenbubble WeatherApp:https://projects.developer.nokia.com/JMEWeatherApp aMaze:https://projects.developer.nokia.com/amaze Explonoid:https://projects.developer.nokia.com/JMEExplonoid SudokuMaster:https://projects.developer.nokia.com/JMESudokumaster

                                        – UI Clinic – Series 40 full touch, April 2013 [nokiadevforum YouTube channel, April 24, 2013]

                                        Our UI expert Jan Krebber reviews two apps submitted by Nokia Developer members: Know your phone by Mustafa Mansour Hassanien and Package Tracker by Shai Ifrach of Futuresoft. Jan shares the app reviews and provides details on how the UX of these applications might be improved, as well as providing general guidance that will help with the design of any app. In addition, Jan takes a quick look into where to place ads in an app, based on a request from last month’s UI Clinic. You can download the slides from this session at: http://www.slideshare.net/nokia-developer/ui-clinic-series-40-full-touch-april-2013

                                        – Introduction to the Nokia Premium Developer Program for Asha [nokiadevforum YouTube channel, April 19, 2013]

                                        The Nokia Premium Developer Program for Asha helps developers succeed with Nokia Asha phones, Nokia’s most affordable smartphones. The programme provides developers who qualify with high-value support and tools that optimise and enhance their development efforts and that improve the discoverability of their quality apps. In this webinar, we show you what benefits the Nokia Premium Developer Program for Asha delivers beyond those that come with standard Nokia Developer registration. We describe the productivity tools that come with programme membership, including a free Nokia Asha 310 phone, expanded remote device access when you’re ready to test, and free tech support tickets when you need help. We also explain the app-promotion opportunities, including promotion in Nokia Store or $500 in Nokia Ad Exchange (NAX) credits. Best of all, membership is absolutely free. You can download the slides from this session at: http://www.slideshare.net/nokia-developer/introduction-to-the-nokia-premium-developer-program-for-asha Find out more about the Premium Developer Program for Asha at: http://www.developer.nokia.com/Developer_Programs/Asha_developer_program.xhtml

                                        Asha Premium Developer Program introduced [Nokia Developer News, March 26, 2013]

                                        We’ve been having a lot of fun lately—we launched the Nokia Premium Developer Program for Lumia back in October, and it proved to be our most successful developer program ever. Our rewards program, DVLUP, has also proven extremely popular with developers, and we recently expanded it to include developers in the UK.
                                        So we decided it was time to bring some “Premium goodness” to Asha development. Today we are excited to introduce the Nokia Premium Developer Program for Asha.
                                        The Asha Opportunity
                                        The Asha ecosystem has a growing installed base of superior but affordable smartphones (such as the Nokia Asha 308, 310, and 311), and with these great devices comes an increased demand for apps. The Asha Premium Developer Program is designed to provide you with tools and services to make developing for Asha faster and easier, increase the discoverability of your apps, and bring you closer to the millions of Nokia Asha users around the world.
                                        By providing you with high-value support and tools beyond what’s provided by your standard registration with Nokia Developer, the Asha Premium Developer Program will help you fast-track your success.

                                        image

                                        The Nokia Premium Developer Program for Asha comprises two levels: enhanced productivity tools and app promotion opportunities. We know that it’s easier not only to be inspired but also to develop and test when you have a great device in hand, so the productivity tools start with a free Nokia Asha 310 smartphone. To help you with testing, we’re also offering expanded Remote Device Access with more Nokia Asha devices available to you. Finally, you’ll get two free tech tickets for Asha development support, a value of $198 (USD).
                                        Program members who submit a new, high quality full touch Asha app to Nokia Store can apply for app promotional opportunities: greater visibility on Nokia Store, or a $500 (USD) credit to run paid ad campaigns on Nokia Ad Exchange.
                                        Best of all membership in the Nokia Premium Developer Program for Asha is free, although you’ll need to meet certain criteria.
                                        Explore the Nokia Premium Developer Program for Asha, and apply for membership today.

                                        China: Entry-level dual core IPS WVGA (480×800) smartphones $65+ now, quad-core $70+ in June

                                        April 29, 2013 7:26 pm / 6 Comments on China: Entry-level dual core IPS WVGA (480×800) smartphones $65+ now, quad-core $70+ in June

                                        China market: Qualcomm, Spreadtrum cutting quad-core processor prices [DIGITIMES, April 25, 2013]

                                        Qualcomm and Spreadtrum Communications have both cut prices for their quad-core products to better compete against MediaTek, which controls half of the smartphone-chip market in China, according to industry sources.

                                        Qualcomm recently quoted its quad-core solutions at less than US$10, slightly cheaper than MediaTek’s offerings, the sources indicated. Meanwhile, Spreadtrum has lowered its quad-core processor prices to similar levels. Both firms are trying to gain market share through aggressive pricing, the sources said.

                                        Monthly shipments of MediaTek’s smartphone chips have topped 15 million units recently, and even approached the 20 million level, the sources revealed. The booming shipments already lifted MediaTek’s share of China’s smartphone-IC market to 50%, the sources said.

                                        MediaTek’s quad-core solutions reportedly have attracted orders from Coolpad, Huawei, Lenovo and ZTE.

                                        In other news, MediaTek has reported higher-than-expected sales for the first quarter of 2013. The firm has scheduled an investors meeting on May 6 to discuss its performance in the first quarter, and business outlook.

                                        Remark: the inserted slides are from 1Q13 Investor Roadshow Presentation [Feb 26, 2013] from Spreadtrum

                                        image

                                        And as $48 Mogu M0 “peoplephone”, i.e. an Android smartphone for everybody to hit the Chinese market on November 15 [Nov 9, 2012]
                                        now Mogu S2 went on sale today [China Smartphones, April 22, 2013]

                                        A leader in the production of super cheap smart phones, the Chinese company Mogu, today held a preliminary sales of its new budget smartphone Mogu S2. The official price of the unit is 399 yuan, or about $65. Today, the sale was put on a limited batch of 5000 smartphones at the price of 299 yuan ($48).

                                        image

                                        Mogu S2 is running the 2-core processor with a clock speed of 1.2 Ghz, and used 4-inch screen with a resolution of WVGA [480×800] to display the information. In addition there is 512 MB RAM, 4GB of ROM and a 5-megapixel camera. A nice addition is its support for two SIM cards, modules, WIFI, Bluetooth, and GPS. The operating system is installed MOGO OS (Android 2.3 Gingerbread).

                                        Additional key information from the company’s product page [MOGU蘑菇手机, April 20, 2013]: i.e. IPS display and the Spreadtrum SC8825 or SC6825 SoC

                                        imageimage

                                        We’ve seen the effect of the earlier SC6820 SoC leading to Temporary Nokia setback in India [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, April 28, 2013]. This is how Spreadtrum presented this situtation recently:

                                        image

                                        The two new SoCs are the same to the maximum as SC8825 has only the following additional functionality:

                                        TD-SCDMA standards (3GPP R7), 2010~2025MHz / 1880~1920MHz/2300~2400MHz

                                        and prospects for that additional functionality (internal to China) were presented as exceptionally bright by the company: 

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                                        Spreadtrum Announces Commercial Launch of Dual-Core Smartphone Chipsets for TD-SCDMA and EDGE [press release, April 2, 2013]

                                        SC8825 (TD-SCDMA) and SC6825 (EDGE) set new standard for dual-core smartphone chipset cost and performance with high level of integration, standout graphics performance and best-in-class TD-SCDMA technology
                                        Spreadtrum Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: SPRD; “Spreadtrum” or the “Company”), a leading fabless semiconductor provider inChina with advanced technology in 2G, 3G and 4G wireless communications standards, today announced the commercial availability of its dual-core 1.2GHz smartphone chipsets for TD-SCDMA (SC8825) and EDGE (SC6825), following the successful qualification of its platform by China Mobile.
                                        “With our new dual-core chipsets, Spreadtrum has leveraged our expertise in system design to deliver the lowest-cost dual-core platform in combination with high end graphics performance for the TD-SCDMA and EDGE markets,” said Dr. Leo Li, chairman and CEO of Spreadtrum. “This combination of low-cost architecture, standout graphics performance, and best-in-class TD-SCDMA technology provides smartphone designers with unprecedented value in bringing high end features to low-cost devices.”
                                        Spreadtrum’s SC8825, which supports dual-mode TD-SCDMA/HSPA & EDGE/GPRS/GSM and the SC6825, which supports EDGE/GPRS/GSM, are based on a highly efficient multi-core architecture delivering the lowest cost platform available for dual-core TD-SCDMA and EDGE smartphone products. The single-chip chipsets integrate a dual-core 1.2GHz Cortex-A5 core processor, a dual-core Mali 400 graphics processor and multimedia and hardware accelerators for differentiated performance and user experience. Both chipsets are further paired with a single-chip mutimode RF transceiver for a high level of integration and are pin-to-pin compatible, enabling handset makers to leverage a common handset development effort for products shipping to China as well as to emerging markets.
                                        In addition to their high level of integration and low-cost architecture, Spreadtrum’s chipsets further deliver standout graphics performance. The solutions’ powerful graphics processing capability enhances the user experience for games and other graphics-rich applications, and enables Spreadtrum to bring high end features such as the larger screen sizes more commonly found in premium smartphones to low-cost devices.
                                        “The benchmark results we are achieving for our dual-core solution, measured by popular benchmark programs such as AnTuTu and GLBenchmark 2.5, significantly outperform other commercial dual-core products,” added Dr. Li. “This powerful processing capability provides our customers with an even more cost-effective and power-efficient way to deliver high end features in low-cost smartphones.”
                                        Other features of Spreadtrum’s SC8825 and SC6825 chipsets include support for HD 1280×720 LCD display, H.264 720p video playback, up to 8 megapixel RGB camera and dual-SIM, dual-standby capability. The chipsets ship with turnkey Android and systems software, reducing the engineering time and resources required by handset makers to bring devices to market, with reference implementations available for both 4-layer and 6-layer PCB layouts.
                                        The SC8825 and SC6825 are commercially available now. The chipsets have already been incorporated by leading China handset makers into smartphone models that are expected to ship commercially during 2Q 2013.
                                        About Spreadtrum Communications, Inc.
                                        Spreadtrum Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ:SPRD; “Spreadtrum”) is a fabless semiconductor company that develops mobile chipset platforms for smartphones, feature phones and other consumer electronics products, supporting 2G, 3G and 4G wireless communications standards. Spreadtrum’s solutions combine its highly integrated, power-efficient chipsets with customizable software and reference designs in a complete turnkey platform, enabling customers to achieve faster design cycles with a lower development cost. Spreadtrum’s customers include global and China-based manufacturers developing mobile products for consumers in China and emerging markets around the world. For more information, visit www.spreadtrum.com.

                                        image

                                        SC8825 TD-HSPA+/TD-SCDMA/GSM/GPRS/EDGE Baseband Chip [product site, April 2, 2013]

                                        Spreadtrum’s SC8825 is a highly integrated mixed signal baseband processor for dual-mode TD-SCDMA/HSDPA/HSUPA/HSPA+ and GSM/GPRS/EDGE applications. SC8825 integrates a dual-core 1.2GHz ARM Cortex-A5 processor, a dual-core Mali 400 graphics processor and multimedia and hardware accelerators in a highly efficient system architecture that brings differentiated performance and user experience to low-cost smartphones. SC8825 is coupled with Spreadtrum’s single-chip tri-band TD-SCDMA/quad-band EDGE/GPRS/GSM RF transceiver for small footprint, and ships with turnkey Android systems software for rapid time to market and efficiency in handset design.

                                        SC8825 Baseband Chip Diagram

                                        image

                                        SC8825 Key Features

                                        Core Description
                                        • ARM Cortex-A5 dual-core, clock speeds up to 1.2GHz
                                        • 32KB I-Cache, 32KB D-Cache
                                        • 32KB I-Cache, 32KB D-Cache
                                        • 128bit FP data path

                                        Communication Features
                                        • GSM/GPRS/EDGE standards, GSM850/EGSM900/DCS1800/PCS1900
                                        • EGPRS Class 12
                                        • TD-SCDMA standards (3GPP R7), 2010~2025MHz / 1880~1920MHz/2300~2400MHz
                                        • HR, FR, EFR, AMR-NB
                                        • HSPA+ 4.2 Mbps，HSUPA 2.2 Mbps

                                        Multimedia Support For
                                        • Mali 400 GPU MP2, 40MTri/s, 700Mpix/s, OpenGL ES 1.1/2.0
                                        • Decoder: MPEG4/H.263 720p@30fps; H.264 720p@30fps ; VP8 720p@30fps
                                        • Encoder:H.263/H.264/MPEG4 D1@30fps
                                        • Video Streaming: MPEG4/H.263/H.264 720p@30fps
                                        • 3G-324M Video Telephony
                                        • 8 MP Camera Sub-system JPEG decoder/encoder
                                        • Support MP3/AAC/AAC+/MIDI/AMR-NB/WAV format
                                        • Audio codec included

                                        LCD Display Features
                                        • Support up to HD resolution
                                        • Built-in LCD Controller，touch panel controller
                                        • MIPI and RGB @60fps
                                        • Support OSD / Rotation / Scaling

                                        Memory I/F Support For
                                        • NAND flash(8bit and 16 bit devices)
                                        • HW ECC, multi-bit ECC
                                        • 2G byte SDR/LPDDR1/LPDDR2 (16bit and 32bit devices)
                                        • eMMC(4.4.1) boot

                                        Peripheral I/F Support For
                                        • HS USB 2.0
                                        • 4 x UART
                                        • 3 x SPI interface , 3-wire SPI,4-wire SPI, synchronous SPI
                                        • 4 x I2C interfaces
                                        • 2 x I2S and PCM interface
                                        • 3 x SDIO interfaces
                                        • 1 x eMMC interfaces
                                        • 2 x SIM/USIM interfaces
                                        • 4 x PWM outputs
                                        • ETM port
                                        • More than 100 GPIO pins
                                        • 8*8 keyboard interfaces

                                        Other Features
                                        • Operating ambient temperature range: -45 to +95 degrees centigrade
                                        • 12.1mm×12.1mm 517-ball, 0.4mm ball pitch

                                        SC6825 GSM/GPRS/EDGE Baseband Chip [product site, April 2, 2013]

                                        Spreadtrum’s SC6825 is a highly integrated mixed signal baseband processor for GSM/GPRS/EDGE applications. SC6825 integrates a dual-core 1.2GHz ARM Cortex-A5 core processor, a dual-core Mali 400 graphics processor and multimedia and hardware accelerators in a highly efficient system architecture that brings differentiated performance and user experience to low-cost smartphones. SC6825 is coupled with Spreadtrum’s single-chip quad-band EDGE/GPRS/GSM RF transceiver for small footprint, and ships with turnkey Android systems software for rapid time to market and efficiency in handset design.

                                        SC6825 Baseband Chip Diagram

                                        image

                                        SC6825 Key Features

                                        Core Description
                                        • ARM Cortex-A5 dual-core, clock speeds up to 1.2GHz
                                        • 32KB I-Cache, 32KB D-Cache
                                        • 256KB L2 Cache
                                        • 128bit FP data path

                                        Communication Features
                                        • GSM/GPRS/EDGE standards, GSM850/EGSM900/DCS1800/PCS1900
                                        • EGPRS Class 12
                                        • HR, FR, EFR, AMR-NB

                                        Multimedia Support For
                                        • Mali 400 GPU MP2, 40MTri/s, 700Mpix/s, OpenGL ES 1.1/2.0
                                        • Decoder:MPEG4/H.263 720p@30fps; H.264 720p@30fps ; VP8 720p@30fps
                                        • Encoder:H.263/H.264/MPEG4 D1@30fps
                                        • Video Streaming: MPEG4/H.263/H.264 720p@30fps
                                        • 3G-324M Video Telephony
                                        • 8 MP Camera Sub-system JPEG decoder/encoder
                                        • Support MP3/AAC/AAC+/MIDI/AMR-NB/WAV format
                                        • Audio codec included

                                        LCD Display Features
                                        • Support up to HD resolution
                                        • Built-in LCD Controller，touch panel controller
                                        • MIPI and RGB @60fps
                                        • Support OSD / Rotation / Scaling

                                        Memory I/F Support For
                                        • NAND flash(8bit and 16 bit devices)
                                        • HW ECC, multi-bit ECC
                                        • 2G byte SDR/LPDDR1/LPDDR2 (16bit and 32bit devices)
                                        • eMMC(4.4.1) boot

                                        Peripheral I/F Support For
                                        • HS USB 2.0
                                        • 4 x UART
                                        • 3 x SPI interface , 3-wire SPI,4-wire SPI, synchronous SPI
                                        • 4 x I2C interfaces
                                        • 2 x I2S and PCM interface
                                        • 3 x SDIO interfaces
                                        • 1 x eMMC interfaces
                                        • 2 x SIM/USIM interfaces
                                        • 4 x PWM outputs
                                        • ETM port
                                        • More than 100 GPIO pins
                                        • 8*8 keyboard interfaces

                                        Other Features
                                        • Operating ambient temperature range: -45 to +95 degrees centigrade
                                        • 12.1mm×12.1mm 517-ball, 0.4mm ball pitch

                                        Saving Intel: next-gen Intel ultrabooks for enterprise and professional markets from $500; next-gen Intel notebooks, other value devices and tablets for entry level computing and consumer markets from $300

                                        April 17, 2013 1:35 pm / 1 Comment on Saving Intel: next-gen Intel ultrabooks for enterprise and professional markets from $500; next-gen Intel notebooks, other value devices and tablets for entry level computing and consumer markets from $300

                                        imageimageOR “2 for 1” (or “two-for-one”) touch and voice enabled ultrabooks of convertible and detachable form factors with Haswell / 4th generation Intel Core processor family (shipping now and on track for Q2’13 launch) starting as low as $500.

                                        Touch-enabled notebooks [other value devices and tablets]
                                        with Bay Trail                                         down to the $300 to $400 range
                                        in Q4’13, and as low as $200 later.

                                        OR after Intel’s biggest flop: at least 3-month delay in delivering the power management solution for its first tablet SoC [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Dec 20, 2012] AND Urgent search for an Intel savior [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Nov 21 – Dec 11, 2012] Intel is finally ready to drop entry level prices to competitive levels in both enterprise/professional and entry level computing /consumer markets

                                        Updates: a young Seeking Alpha investment research contributor reflected on it as Intel Just Made A Huge Decision [April 14, 2013] with the following reasoning to close his article which I wholeheartedly agree with:

                                        …
                                        Intel’s “Atom” chips command margins roughly in line with the corporate average. This makes sense given that Nvidia recently disclosed that its “Tegra” mobile SoC business carried roughly 50% gross margins. Given that Intel owns its own fabs (and doesn’t pay royalties to ARM), gross margins in the 60%+ range are completely plausible. The problem is that raw ASPs for the chips are much lower than that of the traditional notebook and desktop chips.
                                        Selling a $25 – $30 processor isn’t going to give you the raw margin dollars that a $100 processor will, even if the gross margin percentage is the same. If we start seeing a trend where people are simply going with the Atom based solutions rather than the Core solutions, then this will of course be a problem for Intel at the top and bottom lines. But if we see the “Core” solutions staying mostly flat with the rejuvenated Atom helping to gain back market share from the ARM vendors, then this is pure upside for Intel.
                                        My guess is that the “truth” is going to be somewhere in the middle. The people who need performance, will always need performance, and the people who generally bought low cost, would have bought the cheaper “Celeron” and “Pentium” products (these aren’t too much more expensive than an Atom/ARM SoC) anyway. I expect that the difference is that while today’s “Celeron” and “Pentium” products generally end up in crappy systems with bad screens, slow hard disks, and lousy battery life, the “Atom” products will end up in much more compelling systems, as the PC OEMs/Intel can’t really afford to keep the good stuff confined to expensive systems that people may not be buying anyway.
                                        Conclusion
                                        Intel made the right move to unleash Atom and to grin and bear the potential blended ASP erosion that is sure to happen. The key, then, is to focus not on blended ASPs, but to keep an eye on total revenue and gross margin dollars. If these grow as a result of Atom, then great – Intel gets rewarded with a higher multiple as it will have proven its viability going forward, and increased revenues/earnings will only further serve to amplify the share price. If revenues stagnate, then Intel still made the right decision (because it is likely that without Atom being competitive, ARM based chips would have caused continued negative growth), but will need to really focus on increasing the total # of devices that it serves.
                                        In no way is making Atom more competitive a “mistake”, and Intel would rather cannibalize itself than let the other chip vendors do it. The big question mark is how total sales are going to be, and whether a competitive Atom at the low end PC + tablet spaces is going to be enough. My bet is “yes”, but nothing is ever sure when it comes to business.

                                        Don’t forget meawhile that Intel promotes Android convertible notebooks, say vendors [DIGITIMES, April 19, 2013]

                                        Viewing that Windows 8 has been unable to stimulate global demand for notebooks, and global sales of Android tablets have been increasing, Intel has begun to promote Android tablet-convertible notebooks, and China-based vendor Lenovo has taken the initiative to launch initial models in May while Hewlett-Packard (HP), Toshiba, Acer and Asustek Computer will launch models in the third quarter, according to sources from notebook vendors.
                                        Lenovo’s Android-based Yoga notebook [see: Lenovo Yoga 11S ultrabook tablet-convertible [Notebookitalia YouTube channel, Jan 7, 2013] and the IDF Bejing slide inserted on the left in a smaller format, both embedded much below in this post], set for release in May, is expected to feature an 11-inch display, the sources noted.
                                        Intel has estimated that the price sweet spot of Android-based notebooks is around US$500, and the machines will also need to feature detachable keyboard designs to allow transformation into a tablet, the sources said.
                                        Since most consumers are familiar with Android, with the addition of document processing applications, the sources believe Android-based notebooks should be able to attract strong demand.

                                        At the same time Some China-based white-box vendors plan to develop Windows 8 tablets [DIGITIMES, April 17, 2013]

                                        Viewing that Android tablets, especially 7-inch models, have been under intense price competition and therefore profitability is thinning, some China-based white-box vendors are considering developing Windows 8 tablets equipped with Intel processors for market segmentation, according to industry sources at the 2013 China Sourcing Fair: Electronics and Components taking place in Hong Kong during April 12-15.
                                        The products are expected to show up at the beginning of the third quarter, at the soonest.
                                        The sources believe that since the volume of tablets using a Windows operating system is still low, if they are able to enter the market ahead of others, there may be a chance of gaining profits.
                                        Although related costs are expected to increase by using Intel’s platform and Microsoft’s operating system, the sources pointed out that the advantage as an early mover will allow them to achieve better gross margins than for Android-based models. The fees from the operating system are not really a huge concern, the sources added.

                                        End of updates

                                        Sections of this post:

                                        1. Touch-enabled notebooks [other value devices and tablets] with Bay Trail down to the $300 to $400 range in Q4’13, and as low as $200 later.
                                        2. “2 for 1” (or “two-for-one”) touch and voice enabled ultrabooks of convertible and detachable form factors with Haswell/4th generation Intel Core processor family (shipping now and on track for Q2’13 launch) starting as low as $500.
                                        3. Intel’s CEO Discusses Q1 2013 Results – Earnings Call Transcript [Seeking Alpha, April 16, 2013]
                                        4. Earlier information from Intel

                                        1. Touch-enabled notebooks [other value devices and tablets] with Bay Trail down to the $300 to $400 range in Q4’13, and as low as $200 later.

                                        image
                                        Note that on this slide demoed on the screen of Bay Trail prototype (see the video embedded below) the targeted launch is set for “HR’13”, meaning “Holiday Revenue 2013”. Note as well that the Bail Trail SoC is both for entry desktop (i.e. Celeron) and entry notebook (i.e. current Atom) replacement. This why in the video below both an entry desktop motherboard prototype (from Gigabyte) and an entry notebook (from ASUS) is demoed. The range of devices with Bay Trail SoC is going to be however much wider than that, as is communicated already by Intel in the below excerpts. More exact information will be available later.

                                        From: Intel’s CEO Discusses Q1 2013 Results – Earnings Call Transcript [Seeking Alpha, April 16, 2013]

                                        … as we get into the Christmas selling season … we’ll see, because of Bay Trail coming into the marketplace, you’ll see touch-enabled thin notebooks with really good performance that are hitting kind of $300 price points. And then with our Android tablets, you’ll see things that are significantly …

                                        … If you look at touch-enabled Intel based notebooks that are ultrathin and light using non-Core processors, those prices are going to be down to as low as $200 probably. …

                                        Intel Bay Trail Prototype Hands On & HD Video Demo [minipcpro YouTube channel, April 9, 2013]

                                        Intel Bay Trail http://www.mobilegeeks.com. At IDF Beijing Intel took the opportunity to quietly announce Bay Trail, this new processor line up will be aimed at entry level computing. The new product line will feature Baytrail M for Mobile and Baytrail D for desktop. The 22nm chipset will be aimed at smartphones and tablets and in desktop think All in One systems. Bay Trail will be the most powerful Atom processor to date as it will be offering a Quad Core SoC, it should double the computing performance on Intel’s current generation of tablet processors.

                                        From: Intel Developer Forum: Transforming Computing Experiences from the Device to the Cloud [press release, April 10, 2013] Images are inserted from:
                                        – Reinventing the Computing Experience presentation at IDF 2013 by Kirk Skaugen, Intel senior vice president and general manager of the PC Client Group
                                        – Mobile Inside at IDF 2013 by Tan Weng Kuan, vice president and general manager of the Mobile Communications Group, Intel China
                                        – Developing on Innovative Intel® Atom™ Processor Based Tablet Platforms [April 11, 2013 presentation by Intel at the IDF Beijing]

                                        Augmenting the company’s offerings for computing at a variety of price points, Skaugen announced plans for new market variants of its “Bay Trail” 22nm SoC with PC feature sets specifically designed for value convertibles, clamshell laptops, desktops and value all-in-one computers to ship later this year.

                                        …

                                        imageTaking full advantage of the broad spectrum of capabilities enabled by Intel® architecture, processor technology leadership, manufacturing and multi OS support across Windows* 8 and Android*, Tan discussed the company’s forthcoming smartphone and tablet products based on Intel’s leading-edge 22nm process and an entirely new Atom microarchitecture. Intel’s quad-core Atom SoC (“Bay Trail“) will be the most powerful Atom processor to-date, doubling the computing performance of Intel’s current-generation tablet offering1. Scheduled for holiday 2013 tablets [in market Q4’13], “Bay Trail” will help enable new experiences and designs as thin as 8mm that have all-day battery life and weeks of standby.

                                        image

                                        What’s New in Tablets? Intel Powers Android & Windows 8 [channelintel YouTube channel, Feb 27, 2013]

                                        Intel continues its tablet expansion, now powering both Android and Windows 8 devices.

                                        2. “2 for 1” (or “two-for-one”) touch and voice enabled ultrabooks of convertible and detachable form factors with Haswell / 4th generation Intel Core processor family (shipping now and on track for Q2’13 launch) starting as low as $500.

                                        From: Intel’s CEO Discusses Q1 2013 Results – Earnings Call Transcript [Seeking Alpha, April 16, 2013]

                                        … as we get into the Christmas selling season, your expectation is you will see touch-enabled ultrabooks that are $499 and $599 pretty commonly out there. $599 commonly, and $499 as kind of special SKUs.

                                        From: Intel Developer Forum: Transforming Computing Experiences from the Device to the Cloud [press release, April 10, 2013]
                                        Images are inserted from Reinventing the Computing Experience presentation at IDF2013 by Kirk Skaugen, Intel senior vice president and general manager of the PC Client Group

                                        Reinventing the Computing Experience

                                        During his keynote, Kirk Skaugen, Intel senior vice president and general manager of the PC Client Group, provided a deeper look at the forthcoming 4th generation Intel Core processor family, which he said is now shipping to OEM customers and will launch later this quarter.

                                        “Ultrabooks based on the 4th generation Intel Core processor family will enable exciting, new computing experiences and all-day battery life delivering the most significant battery life capability improvement in Intel’s history,” said Skaugen. “It will also bring to consumers a new wave of ‘two-for-one‘ convertible and detachable systems that combine the best of a full PC experience with the best of a tablet in amazing new form factors.”

                                        NEW Architecture on 22nm Tri Gate

                                        NEW Intel Power Optimizer: 20x Power Reduction
                                        vs. 2nd gen Intel® Core™ Processors

                                        NEW Integrated on package PCH [Platform Controller Hub]
                                        for amazing form factors

                                        NEW Integrated Audio DSP: more battery life, higher quality

                                        Shipping Now and On Track for Q2 2013 Launch

                                        The new Intel Core microarchitecture will allow the company to deliver up to double the graphics performance over the previous generation. In addition, the new graphics solution will have high levels of integration to enable new form factors and designs with excellent visual quality built in. Skaugen demonstrated these graphics improvements on the 4th generation Intel Core processor-based Ultrabook reference design called “Harris Beach.” The demo featured Dirt 3*, a popular gaming title, showing the same visual experience and game play as a discrete graphics card that users would otherwise have to add separately. He also showed the 4th generation Intel Core processor-based concept, codenamed “Niagara,” a premium notebook with the ability to play the unreleased enthusiast title Grid 2* from CodeMasters* without the aid of a discrete graphics card.

                                        Along with touch capability, Intel® Wireless Display (Intel WiDi) will be enabled on all 4th generation Intel Core processor-based Ultrabook devices to allow people to quickly and securely stream content and apps from devices to the big screen, free from the burden of cables. Skaugen said the China ecosystem is taking the lead on integrating Intel WiDi into systems, and announced that the leading television manufacturer in China, TCL*, has a new model with the Intel WiDi technology built in. He also announced new receivers certified for Intel WiDi from QVOD* and Lenovo* and a set-top box from Gehua*.

                                        Where the idea of “2 for 1” (or “two-for-one”) was already demonstrated in 
                                        Convertible Ultrabook™ Features [channelintel YouTube channel, Feb 7, 2013]

                                        A complimentary piece to the “Best of Both World’s” Live-action video. This animation is intended to educate the viewer on the specific features and details surrounding convertible Ultrabook™. Many different form factors are shown as well as several usage models to give the user an idea for the many different ways that a user can take advantage of a convertible Ultrabook™.

                                        and here is The Best of Both Worlds, a Convertible Ultrabook™ Story (Long Version) [channelintel YouTube channel, Feb 27, 2013] live–action video for that

                                        A day in the life of our favorite PC user, Alysha Nett. Watch as she uses her Intel-based Convertible Ultrabook™ for both work and play — follow the two sides of her story as she uses the Ultrabook™ by day in her interior design job and by night out with friends watching her favorite band, “We Will Be Lions”. A shorter version of this video is also available.

                                        Shown first at CES 2013 for May’13 delivery: Lenovo Yoga 11S ultrabook tablet-convertible [Notebookitalia YouTube channel, Jan 7, 2013]

                                        Lenovo unveiled the IdeaPad Yoga 11S at CES 2013, highlighting the ability of this 11.6-inch notebook to turn into an 11.6-inch tablet.

                                        As well as a detachable form factor ultrabook reference design: IDF Beijing 2013 Keynote Demo – North Cape [channelintel YouTube channel, April 17, 2013]

                                        Kirk Skaugen showcases the North Cape reference design at the Intel Developer Forum in Beijing.

                                        Kirk Skaugen:

                                        [0:17] This is a full 17 mm clamshell ultrabook. In this configuration it actually has 13 hours of battery life, and it is a full Core i5 computer. But what I can do here, as I can just very simply push in an electronic eject button, and lift it out very simply with one hand. About 3 hours of battery life comes from a battery that sits under the keyboard. But here then I have an amazing notebook that gives me a less than 3 pound tablet with 10 hours of battery life. [0:51]

                                        At CeBIT 2013 in Hannover, Germany (March 5-9) North Cape was demonstrated as:
                                        Haswell Ultrabook – North Cape Reference Design Hands-On [Steve Chippy Paine YouTube channel, March 5, 2013]

                                        and in the companion article it was reported:

                                        In a chat with one of the marketing managers I confirmed that there will be COnnected Standby and non-Connected Standby Ultrabooks on Haswell. The CS Ultrabooks are likely to be the cream of the crop and will be more expensive but will have lower power profiles. Clearly the hybrid designs are the perfect fit for CS-capable Ultrabooks but I’ wouldn’t be surprised to see Samsung have a CS-capable Series 9. Remember, CS is not just about being up-to-date with emails, it means apps can run when the Ultrabook is in your bag, without a fan, on an SSD, for days. It’s the mark of extreme battery life, it’s very exciting technology and likely to be exclusive to Ultrabooks.

                                        then immediately before IDF the same source delivered the news that Haswell Ultrabooks could achieve Tablet-like 100mW Connected-Idle [April 9, 2013]

                                        imageIn a presentation due to go out at the Intel Developer Forum over the next two days Intel will outline best practices for low-power idle on Ultrabooks. Today you’ll be lucky to see an Ultrabook idle to less than 3000mW (3 Watts) which is a background drain that’s always there. On Haswell, Intel says that you could get to a screen-off idle state of 100mW.
                                        By effectively removing nearly 3W of background drain, all operations are going to benefit, not just idle. Where Internet browsing was a 9W operation, expect to see that go down to around 6W for a big increase in battery life.
                                        The 100mW target requires both system designers and software engineers to build to the best standards but when it comes to laptops, it’s the Ultrabooks that have the best chance of getting the best engineers working on them. Low-power DDR3 memory, SSD storage, high-quality power components and tight board design mean the best systems won’t be cheap systems but all the ingredients and skills are now available to make laptops that idle like tablets.
                                        Intel also want’s to see engineers using configurable TDP and other features to create systems in the 10W (fanless) range. High Density Interconnects on motherboards could also bring advantages. By reducing the mainboard size, space is created for more battery. Intel says there’s a chance to fit 20-45% more battery inside when motherboard sizes are reduced using HDI techniques.
                                        imageWhile the ingredients and techniques might be on the shelf, it’s up to the OEMS to decide how they use them. Pricing pressures often lead to compromises so don’t expect all of the new engineering techniques to appear on anything but the high-end Ultrabooks.

                                         

                                        More information: Form Factor and Average Power Innovations for Ultrabooks™
                                        [April 10, 2013 presentation by Intel at the IDF Beijing] with the following abstract:

                                        Intended Audience: OEMs and ODMs – Motherboard Layout Designers, Power Delivery, and Power Management Architects
                                        In this session we propose methods to improve, form factor, battery capacity, and power consumption for Ultrabook™ devices. We show how High Density Interconnects (HDI) Printed Circuit Boards could free up considerable space for more battery and other features, especially in thinner Ultrabooks. We show current practices with HDI and propose better ways to achieve higher mother board area reduction to close the cost gap between type 3 and type 4 (HDI) designs. For power consumption, we also show design methods to reduce average power, especially by reducing platform idle power.

                                        and agenda:

                                          • What is HDI?
                                          • Benefits of HDI in Form Factor Constrained Systems
                                          • Reducing the Cost of HDI
                                          • Reducing Platform Power
                                          • Thermal management an Power Configurability

                                        North Cape was first shown at CES 2013, so OEMs had pretty much time to work on Haswell based offerings to be unveiled in Q2’13:
                                        Intel Delivers Broad Range of New Mobile Experiences [press release, Jan 7, 2013]

                                            • 4th generation Intel® Core™ processor family (formerly codenamed “Haswell“) will enable a broad new range of Ultrabook convertibles, detachables and tablets with all-day battery life; the biggest battery life gain over a previous generation in company’s history3.
                                        3 4th Generation Intel Core processors provide 3-5 hours of additional battery life when compared to 3rd Generation Intel Core processors, based on measurement of 1080p HD video playback.

                                        Low Power Fuels Ultrabook Innovation

                                        Since mid-2011, Intel has led the industry in enabling Ultrabook devices aimed at providing new, richer mobile computing experiences in thin, elegant and increasingly convertible and detachable designs. To enable these innovative designs, Intel announced last September that it added a new line of processors to its forthcoming 4th generation Intel Core processor family targeted at about 10 watt design power, while still delivering the excellent performance people want and need.

                                        Skaugen announced today that the company is bringing the low-power line of processors into its existing 3rd generation Intel Core processor family. Available now, these chips will operate as low as 7 watts, allowing manufacturers greater flexibility in thinner, lighter convertible designs. Currently there are more than a dozen designs in development based on this new low-power offering and they are expected to enable a full PC experience in innovative mobile form factors including tablets and Ultrabook convertibles. The Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga* 11S Ultrabook and a future Ultrabook detachable from Acer will be among the first to market this spring based on the new Intel processors and were demonstrated by Skaugen on stage.

                                        The 4th generation Intel Core processor family enables true all-day battery life — representing the most significant battery life capability improvement in Intel history. Skaugen disclosed that new systems are expected to deliver up to 9 hours of continuous battery life, freeing people from some of the wires and bulky power bricks typically toted around.
                                        “The 4th generation Core processors are the first Intel chips built from the ground up with the Ultrabook in mind,” Skaugen said. “We expect the tremendous advancements in lower-power Core processors, and the significant ramp of touch-based systems will lead to a significant new wave of convertible Ultrabooks and tablets that are thinner, lighter and, at the same time, have the performance required for more human-like interaction such as touch, voice and gesture controls.”

                                        To demonstrate the impact of the 4th generation Intel Core processor family, Skaugen showed a new form factor Ultrabook detachable reference design (codenamed “North Cape“) that converts into a 10mm tablet and can run on battery for up to 13 hours while docked.

                                        Advancements made in the way consumers will interact with their computing devices were also demonstrated, including natural and more immersive interaction experiences using a 3-D depth camera. Intel showed applications running on an Ultrabook in which objects can be manipulated naturally with free movements of the hands, fingers, face and voice. One application that was demonstrated can be used for enabling new and immersive video collaboration and blogging experiences. These were all enabled using the Intel® Perceptual Computing SDK Beta. This year, Intel expects more Ultrabooks and all-in-one (AIO) systems to offer applications for voice control (Dragon Assistant*) and facial recognition (Fast Access*) for convenience and freedom from passwords.

                                        So this was first shown at CES 2013 as well: IDF Beijing 2013 Keynote Demo — Perceptual Computing SDK [channelintel YouTube channel, April 17, 2013]

                                        New gesture and voice capabilities shown during Doug Fisher’s keynote at the Intel Developer Forum in Beijing

                                        which was used in the IDF Beijing 2013 Keynote Demo – Personified Chat [channelintel YouTube channel, April 17, 2013]

                                        The latest in perceptual computing demonstrated using an example of personified chat at the Intel Developer Forum Beijing.

                                        IDF 2013 Beijing Highlights Day One [channelintel YouTube channel, April 16, 2013]

                                        Intel® Ultrabook™ Convertible SBA v1 [channelintel YouTube channel, April 2, 2013]

                                        Get the flexibility to move your business forward with the ultra versatile, ultra sleek, Ultrabook™. Inspired by Intel®

                                        Intel® Ultrabook™ Performance SBA v2 [channelintel YouTube channel, April 2, 2013]

                                        You have big business goals. Reaching them requires the right tools. The ultra responsive, ultra sleek Ultrabook™. Inspired by Intel®.

                                        3. Intel’s CEO Discusses Q1 2013 Results – Earnings Call Transcript [Seeking Alpha, April 16, 2013]

                                        Paul Otellini for the second half of the year for sales:

                                        … as the OEMs start looking at new form factors that they can design around our new chips, Haswell in particular, and maybe Bay Trail, and Windows 8, enabling touch, the explosion in form factors and the competitiveness of that platform is going to be substantially different, at price points down into the $300 to $400 range enabling touch. We didn’t have that last year. So you go into the prime selling season with new products, new technologies, new form factors, and new capabilities that, up to now, were unapproachable price points.

                                        Paul Otellini regarding his current view on Haswell’s potential to revitalize the PC market with Windows 8:

                                        With Haswell, there’s a number of things. First of all, the overall performance goes up, graphics performance goes up, as well as the integer performance. So it’s a better punch in the package than we’ve had with Ivy Bridge. Point one. Point two, the power envelope, or the batter life for that level of performance, is exceptionally better than Ivy Bridge.

                                        Third, it gets into the form factor innovation and the integration with touch as I spoke about earlier, which I think is really part of the recipe required for Win 8 adoption. I’ve recently converted personally to Windows 8 with touch, and it is a better Windows than Windows 7 in the desktop mode, when you implement the touch and the touch-based applications and operating environment. It’s just a lot easier to use.

                                        There is an adoption curve, and once you get over that adoption curve, I don’t think you go back. And we didn’t quite have that same kind of adoption curve in Windows 7 versus XP before it. This requires a little bit of training. And I think people are attracted to touch, and the touch price points today are still fairly high, and they’re coming down very rapidly over the next couple of quarters.

                                        Paul Otellini about technology transitions:

                                        We’ve also got the technology transition to the 14 nanometers. [unintelligible] a first order, all of our spending is focused on 14 nanometers , which gives us a fairly significant ramp capability. If demand for older products exceeds what we could build on 14, we could still build 22 for quite some time. So I really think it depends on whatever demand scenario you see out there. In any event, the most important thing for us is to make that transition to 14 and continue to have the leading edge.

                                        Lenovo Talks Tablets [detachable ultrabooks] at HIMSS 13 [channelintel YouTube channel, April 16, 2013]

                                        At HIMSS 13, Lenovo Ambassador Ashley Rodrigue showed off the company’s new health IT convertible devices that feature the best of both worlds for clinicians—a detachable tablet and an Ultrabook laptop for more robust activity. The benefit for health IT professionals? Just one device to manage. Find out more information and read the latest blog posts on health IT in the Intel Healthcare Community: http://communities.intel.com/community/healthcare

                                        Paul Ottelini on what Intel can do to help the PC ecosystem to become healthy again:

                                        I think continue to give them the tools to innovate. And I wouldn’t paint the entire customer base with the same brush that you just did. Certainly if you looked at the last quarter, even inside the PC space, Lenovo outperformed everybody else, and actually had a very good year on year set of numbers, in a down year. Apple continues to do well.

                                        Subsets of customers in different segments are also doing very well in terms of, say, those. Those providing products into the internet data centers. What I see when we look out is a tremendous amount of innovation, particularly at the ODM and Taiwanese OEM side, where the ability to miniaturize and bring things into extremely thin form factors is as revolutionary as the amount of changes I’ve seen in my time in this industry.

                                        And so I think what we can do is give them the products, like Haswell and Bay Trail to innovate around. We can help them with other feature sets like voice and speech that go around them, and just help them build better products.

                                        Paul Ottelini on Intel efforts to invest in things outside of what could called core PC, such as the set top box or in the foundry efforts or other areas of revenue that the company is seeking:

                                        I don’t look at things with quite that level of granularity. The foundry thing, the investment is really going to be taking advantage, at least near term, with the current customer base, of capacity that we’re already putting in place. That doesn’t mean that at some point we won’t have to actually build extra capacity for a foundry customer or a foundry business, but today, up to this point, it’s certainly within our ability to absorb.

                                        The set top box spending, or the stuff we’re doing in Intel Media, in the grand scheme of things, is not a lot of spending. So the real issue is inside of our core microprocessor and platform development, and we’re at the point now where roughly half of our spending is focused on System on Chip, inside the microprocessor world.

                                        And the System on Chip environment is really a lot of the ultramobile products. It’s the phones, it’s the tablets. It’s embedded systems. It’s automotive, etc. Where we have fairly strong growth opportunities. So it’s not the same monolithic Tick-Tock model that we put in place eight years ago.

                                        Paul Otellini on the proper interpretation of the new price points mentioned earlier in the earnings call:

                                        We have a certain spec for ultrabooks, and that is the product that Stacy said is going to be centered at as low as $599 with some [diverse] SKUs to $499. If you look at touch-enabled Intel based notebooks that are ultrathin and light using non-Core processors, those prices are going to be down to as low as $200 probably.

                                        Re: Stacy Smith (Chief Financial Officer, Executive Vice President) about the sources of increased confidence now in versus where Intel was three months ago talking earlier in the earnings call as follows:

                                        First of all, just to make sure I’m not oversoaking things here, you really just need seasonal from where we are in order to achieve the low single digit revenue growth. So I don’t think we have a hugely high bar out there, and I went through a dissection of where I think the revenue comes from.

                                        In terms of the things that give me confidence, or at least I personally believe it could be better than seasonal, it’s the things we talked about, improving macroeconomic environment, the fact that we now are participating across a range of compute devices, and so the mix between those don’t impact us nearly as much.

                                        And then third, as Paul said, you have innovative form factors coming out in ultrabooks, in convertibles, and in detachables, that are hitting these really compelling mainstream price points that are touch enabled. And as we get into the Christmas selling season, your expectation is you will see touch-enabled ultrabooks that are $499 and $599 pretty commonly out there. $599 commonly, and $499 as kind of special SKUs.

                                        And then we’ll see, because of Bay Trail coming into the marketplace, you’ll see touch-enabled thin notebooks with really good performance that are hitting kind of $300 price points. And then with our Android tablets, you’ll see things that are significantly, [hey, I have that]. So we’ll be participating across a broad range of compute devices as we get into the back half of this year.

                                        4. Earlier information from Intel:

                                        Intel Accelerates Mobile Computing Push [press release, Feb 24, 2012]

                                        NEWS HIGHLIGHTS

                                        • Launches dual-core Intel® Atom™ Processor-based platform (formerly “Clover Trail+”) aimed at performance and mainstream smartphone market segments, and providing double the compute performance and 3x graphics capabilities1 with competitive battery life. Product to also debut in Android* tablets.
                                        • Reveals one of the world’s smallest2 and lowest-power multimode-multiband LTE solutions for global roaming in one SKU with envelope tracking and antenna tuning. Shipping single mode now with multimode shipments beginning first half of 2013.
                                        • Demonstrates continued momentum in emerging markets with Intel® Atom™ Z2420 processor, including new smartphone engagement with Etisalat* in Egypt. ASUS* to also debut a new Android* tablet based on the Atom Z2420 processor.
                                        • Announces support from leading ODMs for next-generation quad-core Atom SoC (“Bay Trail”), scheduled to be available for holiday 2013.
                                        • Extends mobile device enabling efforts to tablets, followed by phones.
                                        MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS, Barcelona, Spain, Feb. 25, 2013 – Intel Corporation today announced a range of new products, ecosystem and enabling efforts that will further accelerate the company’s presence in mobile and help usher in new devices and richer experiences with Intel Inside®.
                                        The announcements include a new dual-core Atom™ SoC (“Clover Trail+“) platform for smartphones and Android* tablets, and the company’s first global, multimode-multiband LTE solution that will ship in the first half of this year. Other disclosures included “Bay Trail” momentum, mobile device enabling efforts, and continued smartphone momentum in emerging markets with the Intel® Atom™ Z2420 processor-based platform.
                                        “Today’s announcements build on Intel’s growing device portfolio across a range of mobile market segments,” said Hermann Eul, Intel vice president and co-general manager of the Mobile and Communications Group. “In less than a year’s time we have worked closely with our customers to bring Intel-based smartphones to market in more than 20 countries around the world, and have also delivered an industry-leading low-power Atom™ SoC tablet solution running Windows* 8, and shipping with leading OEM customers today. Looking forward, we will build upon this foundation and work closely with our ecosystem partners, across operating systems, to deliver the best mobile products and experiences for consumers with Intel Inside.”
                                        New, Efficient Atom™ SoC Platform
                                        Intel’s new Atom™ processor platform (“Clover Trail+“) and smartphone reference design delivers industry-leading performance with low-power and long battery life that rivals today’s most popular Android* phones. The product brings Intel’s classic product strengths, including high performance that lets you enjoy smooth Web browsing,  vibrant, glitch-free, full HD movies, and an Android* applications experience that launches fast and runs great.
                                        The platform’s 32nm dual core Intel® Atom™ Processors — Z2580, Z2560, Z2520 — are available in speeds up to 2.0 GHz, 1.6 GHz and 1.2GHz, respectively. The processor also features support for Intel® Hyper-Threading Technology, supporting four simultaneous application threads and further enhancing the overall efficiency of the Atom cores.
                                        The integrated platform also includes an Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator engine with a graphics core supporting up to 533MHz with boost mode, and delivering up to three times the graphics performance1 for rich 3-D visuals, lifelike gaming and smooth, full 1080P hardware-accelerated video encode and decode at 30fps.
                                        “Our second-generation product delivers double the compute performance and up to three times the graphics capabilities1, all while maintaining competitive low power,” Eul said. “As we transition to 22nm Atom SoCs later this year, we will take full advantage of the broad spectrum of capabilities enabled by our design, architecture, 22nm tri-gate transistor technology, and leading-edge manufacturing to further accelerate our position.”
                                        The new Atom platform also brings advanced imaging capabilities, including support for two cameras, with a primary camera sensor up to 16 megapixels. The imaging system also enables panorama capture, a 15 frame-per-second burst mode for 8 megapixel photos, real-time facial detection and recognition, and mobile HDR image capture with de-ghosting for clearer pictures in flight.
                                        The platform is also equipped with Intel® Identity Protection Technology (Intel IPT), helping to enable strong, two-factor authentication for protecting cloud services such as remote banking, e-commerce, online gaming and social networking from unauthorized access. Since Intel IPT is embedded at chip-level, unlike hardware or phone-based tokens, it can enable more secure, yet user-friendly cloud access protection. Intel is working with partners including Feitian*, Garanti Bank*, MasterCard*, McAfee*, SecureKey* Technologies Inc., Symantec*, Vasco Data Security International* Inc. and Visa* Inc. to incorporate this technology into their services.
                                        With WUXGA display support of 1920×12003, the platform will also enable larger-screen Android* tablet designs. It also includes support for Android* 4.2 (Jelly Bean), Intel Wireless Display Technology, HSPA+ at 42Mbps with the Intel® XMM 6360 slim modem solution, and the new industry-standard UltraViolet™ Common File Format.
                                        Customers announcing support for “Clover Trail+” platform for phones and tablets include ASUS*, Lenovo*, and ZTE*.
                                        Debuting at CES last month, the Lenovo* IdeaPhone K900* is based on the Intel® Atom™ processor Z2580 and delivers rich video, graphics and Web content at fantastic speeds. The IdeaPhone is 6.9mm thin and also features the world’s first 5.5-inch full high-definition 400+ PPI screen for increased clarity of text and images. The K900 will be the first product to market based on the Atom processor Z2580. Lenovo plans to introduce the smartphone in the second quarter of 2013 in China, followed soon by select international markets.
                                        Building on the Atom processor platform (“Clover Trail+”), Intel also highlighted its forthcoming 22nm smartphone Atom™ SoC (“Merrifield“). The product is based on Intel’s leading-edge 22nm process and an entirely new Atom microarchitecture that will help enable increased smartphone performance, power efficiency and battery life.
                                        Long-Term Evolution (4G LTE)
                                        Intel’s strategy is to deliver a leading low-power, global modem solution that works across multiple bands, modes, regions and devices.
                                        The Intel XMM 7160 is one of the world’s smallest2 and lowest-power multimode-multiband LTE solutions (LTE / DC-HSPA+ / EDGE), supporting multiple devices including smartphones, tablets and Ultrabooks™.  The 7160 global modem supports 15 LTE bands simultaneously, more than any other in-market solution. It also includes a highly configurable RF architecture running real time algorithms for envelope tracking and antenna tuning that enables cost-efficient multiband configurations, extended battery life, and global roaming in a single SKU.
                                        “The 7160 is a well-timed and highly competitive 4G LTE solution that we expect will meet the growing needs of the emerging global 4G market,” Eul said. “Independent analysts have shown our solution to be world class and I’m confident that our offerings will lead Intel into new multi-comm solutions. With LTE connections projected to double over the next 12 months to more than 120 million connections, we believe our solution will give developers and service providers a single competitive offering while delivering to consumers the best global 4G experience. Building on this, Intel will also accelerate the delivery of new advanced features to be timed with future advanced 4G network deployments.”
                                        Intel is currently shipping its single mode 4G LTE data solution and will begin multimode shipments later in the first half of this year. The company is also optimizing its LTE solutions concurrently with its SoC roadmap to ensure the delivery of leading-edge low-power combined solutions to the marketplace.
                                        Intel® Atom™ Platform Z2420
                                        As Intel expands its geographic presence, the company sees tremendous opportunity in delivering rich Intel-based mobile experiences to consumers across emerging markets.
                                        As part of its strategy to take advantage of the fast growing market for value smartphones in emerging markets, which some analysts expect to reach 500 million units by 2015, Intel highlighted continuing momentum with the Intel Atom Processor Z2420 platform (formerly “Lexington“). Since it was first announced at CES, Acer* (Thailand, Malaysia), Lava* (India) and Safaricom* (Kenya) have all announced new handsets.
                                        Etisalat Misr*, a leading telco operator based in Egypt and a subsidiary of Etisalat group UAE, in collaboration with Intel today announced plans for the Etisalat E-20 Smartphone with Intel Inside®. Set to debut in Egypt in April, the Intel-based handset will be the first in the Middle East and North Africa region, and the second introduction in Africa to-date, building on the recent launch of Safaricom* in Kenya.
                                        Demonstrating the flexibility of the Atom SoC platform to accommodate a range of device and market segment needs, ASUS* later today will announce a new Android* tablet based on the Intel® Atom™ Processor Z2420.

                                        Tablets with Intel Inside®

                                        Building on the device momentum and industry-leading power-efficiency of the award-winning Atom processor Z2760, Intel’s first quad-core Atom SoC (“Bay Trail“), will be the most powerful Atom processor to-date — doubling the computing performance of Intel’s current- generation tablet offering and providing the ecosystem with a strong technology foundation and feature set from which to innovate. The “Bay Trail” platform, scheduled to be available for holiday 2013, is already up and running on Windows* and Android* and will help enable new experiences in designs as thin as 8mm that have all-day battery life and weeks of standby.

                                        Intel is currently working with Compal*, ECS*, Pegatron*, Quanta* and Wistron* to accelerate “Bay Trail” tablets to the market. Intel is also extending its work with leading OEM partners globally, building on the strong foundation of  Intel Atom processor Z2760-based tablet designs in market from Acer*, ASUS*, Dell*, Fujitsu*, HP*, Lenovo*, LG Electronics and Samsung*.

                                        Enabling Mobile Devices with Intel Inside®

                                        Intel today announced an expansion of its ecosystem enabling efforts to deliver new device and market innovations across a range of Windows*- and Android*-based mobile devices.

                                        Intel platform and enabling programs have been the foundation of OEM and ODM innovation for decades. The new program will focus on accelerating time to market for leading-edge mobile devices based on Intel® architecture with top OEMs and ODMs. The program will focus first on tablets, followed by phones, providing pre-qualified solutions with simplified building blocks to scale designs quickly for mature and emerging markets. The Atom Processor Z2760 and the company’s forthcoming 22nm Atom SoC, codenamed “Bay Trail,” will be the starting foundation for the effort.

                                        1 Compared to the Intel Atom Processor Z2460 platform; Graphics clock will vary based on SKU: Z2580, Z2560, Z2520.
                                        2 Compared with competitive solutions shipping in market today.
                                        3 Corrected from misprinted ‘1900×1200’ to ‘1920×1200’ – Feb. 27,21013

                                        Intel Developer Forum: Transforming Computing Experiences  from the Device to the Cloud [press release, April 10, 2013]
                                        Images are inserted from Reinventing the Computing Experience presentation at IDF2013 by Kirk Skaugen, Intel senior vice president and general manager of the PC Client Group

                                        Company Accelerates Expansion of 22nm Data Center Processor Families; Graphics Innovations, Intel® Wireless Display Coming to Next-Generation Ultrabooks

                                        NEWS HIGHLIGHTS

                                        • Accelerates expansion of offerings across the data center processor product lines based on Intel’s innovative 22nm manufacturing technology.
                                        • Aims to revolutionize the server rack design by delivering an Intel rack scale architecture for increased flexibility, density and utilization of servers leading to lower total cost of ownership.
                                        • Next-generation, 64-bit Intel® Atom™ processor for microservers, codenamed “Avoton,” is being sampled to customers with broad availability expected in the second half of this year.
                                        • 4th generation Intel® Core™ processors are now shipping to customers and will launch later this quarter.
                                        INTEL DEVELOPER FORUM, Beijing, April 10, 2013 – During Intel Corporation’s annual developer forum this week, company executives announced new technologies and partnerships aimed at transforming how people experience technology from the device to the cloud. The announcements included details on new data center product lines based on the 22-nanometer (nm) process technology and the new Intel rack scale architecture, along with details on the forthcoming 4th generation Intel® Core™ processor family.
                                        During her keynote, Diane Bryant, Intel senior vice president and general manager of the Datacenter and Connected Systems Group, underscored the importance of the data center in enabling amazing personal computing experiences to deliver real-time information and services. She also outlined the steps Intel is taking to provide the hardware and software needed for data analytics to improve the capabilities of intelligent devices and data center infrastructure.
                                        “People are increasingly demanding more from their devices through applications and services whether at home, at work or wherever they may be,” Bryant said. “Intel is delivering a powerful portfolio of hardware and software computing technologies from the device to the data center that can improve experiences and enable new services.”
                                        Bryant outlined plans to accelerate the expansion of Intel’s offerings across the data center processor product lines based on its innovative 22nm manufacturing technology before the end of the year, thereby enabling a more cost-effective and efficient data center infrastructure. Intel’s broad portfolio of data center intellectual property enables Intel to quickly integrate features into new products and bring them to market. For example, Intel is launching the new Intel® Atom™ S12x9 processor family customized for storage today, just four months after the debut of the Intel Atom S1200 processor for microservers.
                                        Intel plans to deliver two more Intel Atom processor-based products this year that promise to deliver new architectures, improved performance-per-watt and an expanded feature set. Bryant demonstrated for the first time the next-generation Intel Atom processor family for microservers, codenamed “Avoton,” and confirmed it is currently shipping samples to customers for evaluation. Avoton will feature an integrated Ethernet controller and is expected to deliver industry-leading energy efficiency and performance-per-watt for microservers and scale out workloads.
                                        Re-Architecting the Data Center
                                        Bryant also revealed details on Intel’s plans to develop a reference design for rack scale architecture that uses a suite of Intel technologies optimized for deployment as a full rack. Hyper-scale data centers run by companies that maintain thousands of servers and store vast amounts of data require continued advancements in rack designs that make it easier and more cost effective to deal with major growth in users, data and devices. Traditional rack systems are designed to handle a wide variety of application workloads and may not always achieve the highest efficiency under all hyper-scale usages. The reference design will help re-architect a rack level solution that is modular at the subsystem level (storage, CPU, memory, network) while providing the ability to provision and refresh or logically allocate resources based on application specific workload requirements. Benefits include increased flexibility, higher density and higher utilization leading to a lower total cost of ownership.
                                        Additional information on these announcements as well as the new Intel Atom processor S12x9 product family for storage servers, Intel® Xeon® processor E3v3 product family, Intel Xeon processor E7v2 product family and Intel Atom processor for communication and networking devices codenamed “Rangeley” is available in the news fact sheet.

                                        Reinventing the Computing Experience

                                        During his keynote, Kirk Skaugen, Intel senior vice president and general manager of the PC Client Group, provided a deeper look at the forthcoming 4th generation Intel Core processor family, which he said is now shipping to OEM customers and will launch later this quarter.

                                        “Ultrabooks based on the 4th generation Intel Core processor family will enable exciting, new computing experiences and all-day battery life delivering the most significant battery life capability improvement in Intel’s history,” said Skaugen. “It will also bring to consumers a new wave of ‘two-for-one‘ convertible and detachable systems that combine the best of a full PC experience with the best of a tablet in amazing new form factors.”

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                                        NEW Architecture on 22nm Tri Gate

                                        NEW Intel Power Optimizer: 20x Power Reduction
                                        vs. 2nd gen Intel® Core™ Processors

                                        NEW Integrated on package PCH [Platform Controller Hub]
                                        for amazing form factors

                                        NEW Integrated Audio DSP: more battery life, higher quality

                                        Shipping Now and On Track for Q2 2013 Launch

                                        The new Intel Core microarchitecture will allow the company to deliver up to double the graphics performance over the previous generation. In addition, the new graphics solution will have high levels of integration to enable new form factors and designs with excellent visual quality built in. Skaugen demonstrated these graphics improvements on the 4th generation Intel Core processor-based Ultrabook reference design called “Harris Beach.” The demo featured Dirt 3*, a popular gaming title, showing the same visual experience and game play as a discrete graphics card that users would otherwise have to add separately. He also showed the 4th generation Intel Core processor-based concept, codenamed “Niagara,” a premium notebook with the ability to play the unreleased enthusiast title Grid 2* from CodeMasters* without the aid of a discrete graphics card.

                                        Along with touch capability, Intel® Wireless Display (Intel WiDi) will be enabled on all 4th generation Intel Core processor-based Ultrabook devices to allow people to quickly and securely stream content and apps from devices to the big screen, free from the burden of cables. Skaugen said the China ecosystem is taking the lead on integrating Intel WiDi into systems, and announced that the leading television manufacturer in China, TCL*, has a new model with the Intel WiDi technology built in. He also announced new receivers certified for Intel WiDi from QVOD* and Lenovo* and a set-top box from Gehua*.

                                        Illustrating the low-power advances in Ultrabook devices, Skaugen showed off the new Toshiba Portege* Ultrabook detachable, based on the new low-power line of the 3rd generation Intel® Core™ processors.

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                                        Furthermore, Skaugen revealed that voice interaction in Mandarin is now available on Ultrabook devices from Intel through Nuance*.

                                        Augmenting the company’s offerings for computing at a variety of price points, Skaugen announced plans for new market variants of its “Bay Trail” 22nm SoC with PC feature sets specifically designed for value convertibles, clamshell laptops, desktops and value all-in-one computers to ship later this year.

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                                        Mobile Inside
                                        Tan Weng Kuan, vice president and general manager of the Mobile Communications Group, Intel China, highlighted how the company is working with ecosystem partners to deliver the best smartphone and tablet experiences with Intel inside. Tan discussed the company’s progress with the new Intel® Atom™ processor Z2580 (“Clover Trail+“) for smartphones and the Intel Atom Processor Z2760 (“Clover Trail“) for tablets, both of which are helping to usher in a range of new devices and user experiences.

                                        image

                                        Taking full advantage of the broad spectrum of capabilities enabled by Intel® architecture, processor technology leadership, manufacturing and multi OS support across Windows* 8 and Android*, Tan discussed the company’s forthcoming smartphone and tablet products based on Intel’s leading-edge 22nm process and an entirely new Atom microarchitecture. Intel’s quad-core Atom SoC (“Bay Trail“) will be the most powerful Atom processor to-date, doubling the computing performance of Intel’s current-generation tablet offering1. Scheduled for holiday 2013 tablets [in market Q4’13], “Bay Trail” will help enable new experiences and designs as thin as 8mm that have all-day battery life and weeks of standby.

                                        Tan also highlighted Intel’s Atom SoC, codenamed “Merrifield,” which is scheduled to ship to customers by the end of this year [in market Q1’14]. The product will deliver increased smartphone performance, power efficiency and battery life over the current-generation offering.
                                        Tan closed his remarks by calling upon China developers for collective innovation in helping to accelerate and grow the mobile market together. He announced the creation of a China-specific expansion of the company’s platform and ecosystem enabling efforts, focused initially on Atom processor-based tablets running Android*, and designed to speed time-to-market of leading-edge mobile devices based on Intel technology. He added that China developers are instrumental to this effort and will bring speed, scale and ingenuity that will drive new innovation globally.
                                        Day 2 IDF Preview
                                        Doug Fisher, vice president and general manager of Intel’s System Software Division, will open the second day of IDF, addressing several myths surrounding the industry and providing a vision on the vast opportunities that await developers. Specifically, he will showcase Intel’s transformation of the PC experience and advances in device segments, support of multiple operating environments and efforts to help developers scale and modernize computing with new hardware features and software advancements for more compelling user experiences. He will discuss how developers can utilize HTML5 to help lower total costs and improve time-to-market for cross-platform applications development and deployment, incorporate touch and sensor interfaces to modernize applications, and use perceptual compute technologies to enable consumers to interact with PCs via voice control, gesture recognition and more.
                                        Intel Chief Technology Officer Justin Rattner will also take the stage to discuss how Intel Labs is drawing up plans for a bright future. He will reveal a vision for connected and sustainable cities where information technology helps to address challenges of clean air, clean water, better health and improved safety. He will also explain how today’s mobile, urban lifestyle is demanding faster and cheaper wireless broadband communications. Forecasting a move beyond the information age, Rattner will describe a new era coined “the data society” and show how information in the cloud will work on everyone’s behalf, collaboratively and safely, by analyzing and relating different data to deliver new value to individuals, enterprises and society as a whole. Rattner plans to surprise the audience with an exclusive first look at Intel® Silicon Photonics Technology.

                                        This was summarized by Intel in a New Ultrabook™ experiences unveiled at IDF Beijing 2013 [Intel Developer Zone blog, April 16, 2013] post as follows:

                                        Last week at the Intel® Developer Forum held April 10-11, 2013 in Beijing, China, Ultrabooks™ were in the spotlight as new experiences based on the 4th generation Intel® Core™ processor family were announced:

                                        “Ultrabooks based on the 4th generation Intel Core processor family will enable exciting, new computing experiences and all-day battery life delivering the most significant battery life capability improvement in Intel’s history,” said Skaugen. “It will also bring to consumers a new wave of ‘two-for-one’ convertible and detachable systems that combine the best of a full PC experience with the best of a tablet in amazing new form factors.” – Kirk Skaugen, Intel senior vice president and general manager of the PC Client Group

                                        There are three major factors in this new announcement: amazing graphics, even more Ultrabook form factor designs, and low-power advances creating longer battery life. Touch capability will also be part of this new generation of devices, along with Intel® Wireless Display (Intel WiDi) enabled on all on all 4th generation Intel Core processor-based Ultrabook devices to allow people to quickly and securely stream content and apps from devices to the big screen.

                                        4th generation Intel® Core™ processors

                                        The Ultrabook computing category was first introduced in 2011 with a 2nd generation Intel® Core™ processor. This was ramped up greatly in 2012 with the addition of touch and mainstream price points, along with the 3rdgeneration Intel core processor. In 2013, we get to experience a 4th generation Intel Core processor and the concept of “2 for 1” computing; basically, we get to experience a table and a PC experience in one machine:

                                        “The new Intel Core microarchitecture will allow the company to deliver up to double the graphics performance over the previous generation. In addition, the new graphics solution will have high levels of integration to enable new form factors and designs with excellent visual quality built in. Skaugen demonstrated these graphics improvements on the 4th generation Intel Core processor-based Ultrabook reference design called “Harris Beach.” The demo featured Dirt 3*, a popular gaming title, showing the same visual experience and game play as a discrete graphics card that users would otherwise have to add separately. He also showed the 4th generation Intel Core processor-based concept, codenamed “Niagara,” a premium notebook with the ability to play the unreleased enthusiast title Grid 2* from CodeMasters* without the aid of a discrete graphics card.” –Intel Newsroom

                                        These new processors will include:

                                        • new architecture on 22nm Tri Gate
                                        • Intel Power Optimizer: 20x power reduction vs. 2nd gen Intel Core Processors
                                        • integrated on package PCH for amazing form factors
                                        • integrated audio DSP which means more battery life and higher quality

                                        Graphics

                                        With this new generation of processors comes increasingly higher level graphics support, including:

                                        • 3D graphics with up to 2x performance
                                        • integrated on-package EDRAM memory
                                        • API support
                                        • Display with new 3-screen collage display
                                        • enhanced 4k x 2k support
                                        • 2x bandwidth with display port 1.2
                                        • Media with new faster Intel Quick Sync Video
                                        • faster JPEG and MPEG decode
                                        • new OpenCL 1.2 support

                                        (Source: IDF Keynote)

                                        Touch

                                        Touch is becoming more mainstream, and more consumers than ever before are expecting touch as a standard addition to their devices. In an Intel study of touch carried out in December of 2011, users chose touch nearly 80% of the time when given the choice between touch, keyboard, mouse, and track pad. These findings were echoed in another touch study by UX Innovation Manager Daria Loi:

                                        “With touch capability becoming available in more and more Ultrabook devices, Intel undertook a research program to better understand if and how people might use touch capabilities in more traditional, notebook form-factor devices…… To spoil the ending, the results were positive-very positive, in fact. Users who were presented with a way to interact with their computers via touch, keyboard, and mouse found it an extremely natural and fluid way of working. One user described it using the Italian word simpatico-literally, that her computer was in tune with her and sympathetic to her demands.” – “The Human Touch: Building Ultrabook™ Applications in a Post-PC Age” [Intel Developer Zone blog, July 11, 2012]

                                        Touch designs in Ultrabook form factors continue to ramp up, especially with the October 2012 launch of Windows*8, and this trend is expected to continue.

                                        Power

                                        One of the most intriguing announcements to come out of Beijing was the idea of heightened power consumption for the Ultrabook. Chips for notebooks, phones, and tablets are going to be greatly enhanced, boosting both runtime and standby power:

                                        “By effectively removing nearly 3W of background drain, all operations are going to benefit, not just idle. Where Internet browsing was a 9W operation, expect to see that go down to around 6W for a big increase in battery life….. By reducing the mainboard size, space is created for more battery. Intel says there’s a chance to fit 20-45% more battery inside when motherboard sizes are reduced using HDI techniques.” – Ultrabooknews.com

                                        Higher power expectations ties in with the announcement of 4th generation Intel Core processor Ultrabook systems that are coming out as early as June 2013 and on track for Q2 2013 launch.

                                        Ultrabooks: just getting started

                                        The experience you can expect from an Ultrabook with the new 4th generation core processor is, in a word, superior. These are extremely responsive machines that offer amazing performance, a natural UI with touch and voice, and AOAC (always on always connected) as a given. You also get to take advantage of Intel Identity Protection, anti-virus, facial log-in, vPro, and Small Business Advantage so your data is always safe. The machine itself is meant to be mobile, with all-day battery life, thinner lighter designs, and Intel Wireless Display. And let’s not forget that it just looks cool; great visuals, 2 in 1 convertibles and detachable form factors, not to mention a high res display.

                                        Ultrabook as a PC category is continuing to drive market innovation; we’re seeing thinner form factors, intriguing designs (convertibles, detachable, etc.), and more natural human/computer interaction, such as voice control integration. Ultrabooks are able to deliver what is essentially a mobile computing experience; we’re looking at consumption usages similar to that of a smartphone or a tablet, with the productivity potential and sheer computing power of that of a full-blown PC. Is it a notebook or is it a tablet? The beauty of an Ultrabook is that it’s both.

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