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Nokia CEO: salespeople to deliver true WP7 retail experience supported by improved product management, marketing and accelerated global coverage with a full breadth of products

January 29, 2012 2:15 pm / 2 Comments on Nokia CEO: salespeople to deliver true WP7 retail experience supported by improved product management, marketing and accelerated global coverage with a full breadth of products

Nokia Quarter 4 results 2011 webcast [Nokia, Jan 26, 2012]:

prepared remarks by Stephen Elop, President & CEO

[02:00] … Lumia …

In Q4 2012 Lumia was introduced to:

a number of European countries

Hong Kong, India, Russia, Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea

… [remarks on January US introduction already covered by me in detail: Nokia’s Lumia strategy is capitalizing on platform enhancement opportunities with location-based services, better photographic experience etc. [Jan 12, 2012]]

China and Latin America in this half

Current situation:

to date well over 1 million Lumia devices sold

since mid November from zero markets to 15 markets, from zero devices to well over a million devices, from no presence in the US to being in lead in the AT&T’s LTE launch

From this beachhead you will see us to push forward with the sales, marketing and successive product introductions necessary to be successfull.

Our performance with Lumia on a country by country basis varies. Often [it] is a combination of relative brand strength and retail execution capabilities.

For example, in the United Kingdom, where competitive ecosystems are firmly entrenched, we have seen mixed retail execution around Lumia devices with a range of results among different locations, different chains, different stores and so on.

Contrarily in Germany and Spain we have seen steady, weak on weak improvement in Lumia device activations up to the Holiday season followed by a small expected dip in the last week of the year, and then a continued weak on weak growth in January.

…

.. we are in the heart of our transition, which means as we bring the first of our new devices to market there are areas we are learning and areas where we must adjust:

We are learning more about the variations in our store by store retail execution related to Lumia. Our consumer research indicates and response at CES validates that once a consumers use a Lumia device their responses are positive. Where we’ve secured strong support from the operators we need to increase the engagement of the retail sales associates in the stores, because it is the retail associate who speaks with our consumersand puts the Lumia device in their hands. As a result we are adjusting, we are adjusting our retail tactics by increasing the quantity and quality of our retail associate traning programs, seeding more Lumia devices into the market, and increasing point of sales activities.

With the continued focus on consumer net promoter scores we are also learning about the areas where consumers are most favorable towards the specific capabilities of Lumia and those areas upon which we need to focus. For example, we’ve received very positive feedback on the elegance of design, ease of use, and absolute performance of the products. On the other hand, consumers initially reported that battery performance needed focus. Thus we immediately adjusted to improve battery performance with software updates which are now in the market. This rapid cycle of consumer learning and Nokia response is a critical part of our improved approach to product management.

We are learning that awareness of Lumia is steadily growing, assisted by each of the successive product and country launches that continue. As awareness grows we are adjusting the focus of our marketing efforts from an aspirational aspect of a new launch towards an emphasis on a differentiated experiences and capabilitiesof the Lumia products.

We are learning about the importance of truly breaking through. Thus we are adjusting our plans to increase the rate at which we enter new markets during the course of 2012. We also are increasing the focus of our corporate resources on continued marketing campaigns, and we are working to accelerate the introduction of a full breadth of products.

Overall we’re pursuing this pattern. We’ll take each step up the ladder one running at a time recognizing that the competitive dynamics vary country by country. This underscores the large amount of work immidiately ahead of us to break through as the third ecosystem, to capture the attention of retail sales associates, to convert the increasing awareness around Lumia and the purchase intent, and ultimately to delight our consumers. [09:12]

the essence of the answers to some questions:

on carriers’ motivation:

… motivation on third ecosystem is very strong … consistency on user experience on behalf of Microsoft … it is in our favor but we need earn their respect …

on Lumia sell-through:

… different [retail] experiences and so forth … focus on when and how those [retail] experiences are different … we do see different [retail] experiences and patterns in different countries … some are related to competitive dynamics, brand strengths, retail capabilities and so forth … for example, a lot of those reports tend to focus on UK, which in the context of Europe is the hardest market in terms of breaking through the strength of the competing ecosystems and so forth … you’ll see a lot of ballance in that direction … what’s really interesting is, and this is we’re so much in very early days that you have to really dig into the details … even when you’re in the UK. I was there a couple of days ago, and as you can imagine, I went to store, to store, to store, and asking: tell me about smartphones, what’s new and all that type of thing. You’ll see a great variability of in-store performance in terms of retail experience. .. in certain stores the retail presentation is great, the associates are well trained, everything is right, and of course it correlates very closely with the success that we’re seeing in certain chains of stores, in certain areas and so forth. Very good performance. … In other areas we are not as far along as we need to be. We need better retail execution, associates are not as well prepared, or there are other dynamics that are at play. The reason I tell you about this variability is because, first of all, how people report depend very much on the experience they have, this mix from location to location in some countries. But also as you assess, OK, as we apply more resource, as we make sure that we are very focussed on getting everyone upto the base level, if not the excellent level of retail execution, we can clearly see our way through the work that need to be done in order to deliver the results that we want to continue to deliver. …

on China dynamics:

… The Chinese operators are increasingly, on accellerated basis entering into structures where there’s effectively retail rate plan bundling is going on at the store. The operators are driving very hard for the volume of 3G data subscribers. And this is not necessary an economic measure as it is driving volume on certain networks for certain technologies. I think those targets are probably set more broadly for all of the operators [he could mean: by the state, as all three operators are majority owned by the state]. And the impact of that is that they are discovering that with very low priced devices on certain radio technologies they can drive a lot of volume at those levels. And so we are seeing, for example, a very significant uptake in a number of low-priced devices that are on CDMA, there’s also a very significant focus on the Chinese technology TD-SCDMA, again all of the low levels ought to drive those volumes. My comment in the prepared remarks is that Symbian is not well positioned today against that. We do not have Symbian CDMA products at all, so we are not participating in that part of the market. So as that part of the market grows our addressable market has gone down because of that. In TD-SCDMA we do have some products in that space but not at the price points and configurations that is the real focus of this market. …

… We have not yet announced our specific products for the Chinese market but I will say that when we first announced our launch plans, I think all the way back in October, we did highlight that we would have CDMA based Windows Phone products and TD-SCDMA Windows Phone products. That thing said it is the case that we have work to do to successively drive the prices down further and further and further. That will take a bit of time but this is clearly the pattern you are going to see us on the months ahead. …

[I have a couple of deep and current analysis on that:
– The new, high-volume market in China is ready to define the 2012 smartphone war [Jan 6, 2012]
– China TD-SCDMA and W-CDMA 3G subscribers by the end of 2011: China Mobile lost its original growth momentum [Jan 21, 2012]
– China becoming the lead market for mobile Internet in 2012/13 [Dec 1, 2011]]

on differentiating the Windows Phone:

… the overall user experience is differentiated against Android … good response from the customers on Music service included, location services (Map and Drive) … partnerships: e.g. ESPN … in addition we have to ensure that the retail experience is differentiated … even price, e.g. in US/T-Mobile case already …

[I have a couple of deep and current analysis on that:
– Nokia’s Lumia strategy is capitalizing on platform enhancement opportunities with location-based services, better photographic experience etc. [Jan 12, 2012]
– The precursor of 2012 smartphone war: Nokia Lumia vs. Samsung Omnia W in India [Jan 3, 2012]
– The leading ClearBlack display technology from Nokia [Dec 18, 2011]
– Nokia Lumia (Windows Phone 7) value proposition [Oct 26, 2011]]

on rapid scalability for lower prices of Chinese market:

… a critical consideration for us … work is under way with Microsoft … you will see a stepwise progress in that direction in the periods ahead.

on the mobile phones business:

… feature phones and how that market is perceived is less about the collection of features and what it does and doesn’t do, but it is more about the price span, the opportunity to drive, increase sales in that area, to serve consumers who don’t want to spend the money, or don’t have the money to spend on what we would today consider smartphone and so forth. …

[I have a deep and more current information on that:
– Smarterphone end-to-end software solution for “the next billion” Nokia users [Jan 9, 2012]]

– Nokia Lumia Momentum Map [Nokia Maps Blog, Jan 15, 2012]

If a picture is worth a thousand words, an interactive map is at least worth ten thousand words! To coincide with the launch of Nokia Lumia in USA; we launched the Nokia Lumia Momentum Map – an interactive way to check out the countries where Nokia Lumia smart phones are either available or will be coming soon. You can also check out the tweets, videos and photos from users about the Lumia series.

The content of the Momentum Map as of Jan 15, 2012:

Country	Lumia 710	Lumia 800
Germany	Now	Now
Netherlands	Now	Now
Italy	Now	Now
Russia	Now	Now
India	Now	Now
Hong Kong	Now	Now
Taiwan	Now	Now
Singapore	Now	Now
Spain	Jan 11, 2012	Now
United Kingdom	Feb 1, 2012	Now
USA (+ Lumia 900 “in coming months”)	Jan 11, 2012	Coming Soon
France	n.a.	Now
Austria	Coming Soon	Now
Hungary	Jan 20, 2012	Jan 20, 2012
Greece	Jan 21, 2012	Jan 20, 2012
Portugal	Feb 2, 2012	Jan 26, 2012
Switzerland	n.a.	Jan 13, 2012
Denmark	n.a.	Jan 20, 2012
Sweden	n.a.	Jan 23, 2012
Norway	Feb 1, 2012	Feb 1, 2012
Canada	Feb, 2012	Feb, 2012
Belgium	Mar 1, 2012	Feb 1, 2012

More information:
– Nokia Q4 2011 net sales EUR 10.0 billion, non-IFRS EPS EUR 0.06 (reported EPS EUR -0.29) Nokia 2011 net sales EUR 38.7 billion, non-IFRS EPS EUR 0.29 (reported EPS EUR -0.31) [Nokia press release, Jan 26, 2012]
– Quarter 4 report tables in xls [Jan 26, 2012]
– Nokia Names Siilasmaa as Chairman to Replace Retiring Ollila – BusinessWeek

… Nokia investors lost more than 60 billion euros ($79 billion) in share value after Apple Inc. leapfrogged it with the iPhone. Siilasmaa will oversee Chief Executive Officer Stephen Elop’s efforts to win customers as Apple and Google Inc. expand into new markets. … An investor in Finnish startups, Siilasmaa may also broker more tie-ups with new companies such as “Angry Birds” maker Rovio Entertainment Ltd.
“I don’t want to leave a fortune to my kids,” Siilasmaa told a panel on startup investment …

– Nordic Chairman of the Year 2009: Speech of thanks by Risto Siilasmaa, F-Secure Oyj. [Feb 18, 2010]

Relative to that media reports are very narrow focused as you could even see from the below entries considered the best among them:

Nokia Posts Huge Loss [The Wall Street Journal, Jan 27, 2011]

…

Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi said Nokia’s shipments were in line with expectations. ‘Overall, what we have been looking for is an improvement over the third quarter, and we got that. But while it seems Nokia is on track, there is still a lot more to do,’ she said.

…

Nokia CEO taps salesmen to assure Lumia push [SlashGear, Jan 27, 2012]

Over the last year when it came to Windows Phone, we saw a lovely looking user interface fall victim to less than stellar engagement and interest on the part of the public – Stephen Elop this week says that it’s the work of the salesmen, not the manufacturer, to make the final drop of the device into the hands on the consumer. Without a doubt there’s a certain flair to the Lumia line of smartphones being released both here in the USA and abroad this year, but without the folks in the stores actually pointing people to the hands-on equipment, there’s certainly no chance of a big hit in the engagement environment. Elop let the world know in Nokia’s sales call what he expects from store employees in the very near future.

Without that final point-of-sale touch, all else will certainly fail, at least that’s what Nokia’s top minds seem to be saying this week. Though the devices are perfectly legitimate in their build and execution, and the advertisements surrounding them may be lovely, there’s always a third step that must be taken. Elop said thusly this week in Nokia’s sales call:

“We need to increase the engagement of the retail sales associates in the stores, because it is the retail associate who speaks with our consumers and puts the Lumia device in their hands. For example, in the United Kingdom, where competitive ecosystems are firmly entrenched, we have seen mixed retail execution around Lumia devices with a range of results among different locations, different chains, different stores and so on.” – Elop

…

And the comments were mostly supportive of that:

…

Joseph Paradis1 day ago

I think he has a good point. I had known about WP7 for quite some time before the launch and had already chosen the phone I wanted. The last step for me was going to the store and getting a little hands-on to seal the deal. I had 3 sales reps (from 3 different stores) tell me to check out the Android phones instead (?!). One told me that the Windows OS is no good because its buggy, the other two were just astounded that I was interested in a WP7. I knew way more about the specs of those phones (and a good count of Android phones) than the sales rep. There are a lot of people who I think would like Nokia WP7 phones and other WP7 phones, but kind of go to the store without much knowledge and get carted around by these reps who may have ulterior motives.

…

Stephens_Eloped1 day ago

I think anyone who is reading a website like SlashGear is the kind of person who probably knows more than the average salesperson in a mobile phone store. Definitely. I’ve had the experience of being “too knowledgeable” myself on many occasion. You stand there listening to false information and you’re either tempted to let it fly, (poor guy didn’t any training) or if they’re douches, you just say, “No, you’re wrong, the N9/L800/L910 isn’t all aluminum, it’s all poly-carbonate, which is a plastic.”

I think salespeople in the States are the worst – they’re so entrenched with Android and iPhone (and also any OEM + WP that ISN’T Nokia), that unless Nokia say, “ok salesteam, here’s a much, much bigger commission for you if you sell a Lumia”, then they haven’t got much chance of changing the mindset of the average American consumer. It’s not a Nokia friendly world here, so they’ve got to up their game. TV ads ain’t nowhere near enough.

…

Clever22 hours ago

It’s definitely the salespeople who make it hard for WP7 to take off. Phone carriers make their biggest profits from sales of Android handsets and are able to load the Android phones with their bloatware, therefore the sales staff are trained to push these phones over iPhone and WP7 handsets.
Here in Australia our stores are all Android themed and one store in Melbourne has a whole floor called “Android Land”, where phone shoppers can explore and learn all about the Android ecosystem. Now that there are some decent WP7 handsets coming out, I think Microsoft really needs to do three things to get their OS to take off:

1 – Get some handsets out to carriers and stores. Only 1 carrier out of 4 in Australia even sells WP7 devices and they are outdated and you’d be lucky to even find them on display in stores. I think a lot of people would like to by a Nokia N900 but if it takes another 12 months before they even hit our shelves I’m sure we will have lost interest.

2 – Work with carriers to not only sell WP7 devices but to actually push them. Make the devices resonably priced and give carriers incentives in the way of good subsidies to entice them to get their staff to actually push WP7 devices.

3 – Market WP7 so people actually know it exists and know to look for it when they do walk into a phone store. Apart from us tech heads I would bet that half of the population doesn’t even know that WP7 exists. People who don’t know about something are a lot less likely to purchase it. Where are the TV ads telling us why we should be buying a WP7 device?

Dumb salesmen are hurting us – Nokia CEO [The Register, Jan 27, 2012]

Incentivising the McJobs

Analysis Stephen Elop got a pretty indulgent reception from analysts, and most of the press yesterday, after delivering some shocking results. Nokia turned a profit of €2bn into a loss of €1bn in the new boss’s first full year; volumes are down by 29 per cent; sales of the new Windows phone are unremarkable (to put it generously); and Elop has scrapped guidance for the rest of the year. [Summary] News like this would normally have analysts reaching for the panic button – but not today. Why would this be?

Well, obviously, much can be explained by the appreciation that Nokia is in rapid transition – it isn’t even a full year since the Elopcalypse. Elop got the bad news out of the way in his (still) remarkable Burning Platforms memo. But it’s also because he was quite unexpectedly frank and forthcoming about why Nokia isn’t making more headway with its shiny new platform – the one that isn’t burning. Elop explained that Nokia has a very stiff learning curve ahead of it in consumer retail. He also said that sales staff in the channel weren’t helping. He even detailed this country-by-country. I’m surprised more Nokia-watchers haven’t remarked on this – or why Elop dwelled on retail in such detail.

Nokia staff should be glad he did, because of a forlorn sight I saw last November. Just as the Christmas shopping season was getting underway on London’s Oxford Street, I saw a quite ominous sight. The flagship West End Carphone Warehouse store, next to John Lewis, had large posters in the window announcing the arrival of the Lumia 800. There were two live Lumia 800s available for curious punters to play with – of around half a dozen such working retail models from rivals. Except they weren’t live. They were completely dead. And although Nokia had secured the prime corner spot for its devices, it may as well have hidden them on some remote industrial wasteland. The shop was very busy, but nobody came and asked if they could see the Lumia working.

If Nokia is to claw its way back into contention, this won’t do. Getting one million Lumias stocked really isn’t a terrific achievement considering that the six largest European markets had the 800, and some pretty significant Asian markets had the 710. The needle hasn’t moved.

“There are areas where we are learning and areas where we must adjust. First, we are learning more about the variations in our store-by-store retail execution related to Lumia,” said Elop yesterday.

He then re-emphasised how important it was to show people the Windows UI, and suggested that quality of the sales droids was very variable:

“We need to increase the engagement of the retail sales associates in the stores, because it is the retail associate who speaks with our consumers and puts the Lumia device in their hands,” he added, correctly. And he singled out some of the domestic channel here, suggesting he hadn’t been impressed by what he saw:

“For example, in the United Kingdom, where competitive ecosystems are firmly entrenched, we have seen mixed retail execution around Lumia devices with a range of results among different locations, different chains, different stores and so on.”

I know several first-time smartphone buyers and Windows Phone wasn’t even on the radar. People don’t know it exists. In the UK, Android gained an early and enthusiastic foothold, which two years on translates into a mature and knowledgeable market. The Samsung Galaxy SII was the best-selling phonein the UK at Christmas, by some distance. For the average punter a buying decision begins with a binary choice between Apple and BlackBerry, and if it’s a touchscreen then it’s between the iPhone and “one of the other lot”. The other lot is Android. Sales staff in stores like Carphone aren’t uniquely thick – they’re like all savvy retail staff – they want their commission, and they know there’s a huge appetite for Android out there.

It’s a sign of how things have changed. Nokia can no longer play hardball with its channel partners – today, it really needs their help. Windows has made no impression on the market and gaining people’s attention – which includes aligning the incentives of the channel – is going to be much more expensive than analysts realise.

I’m onto my second Lumia, and I like the UI very much indeed. But I still haven’t seen a civilian – someone who isn’t an analyst, journalist or Nokia industry partner – carrying a Lumia in the wild. Have you?

Intel 2011: a year of records, milestones and breakthroughs

January 21, 2012 12:23 pm / 2 Comments on Intel 2011: a year of records, milestones and breakthroughs

Intel’s CEO Discusses Q4 2011 Results – Earnings Call Transcript [Seeking Alpha, Jan 19, 2012] + Q&A

–> Intel’s industry position and prospects for years ahead [Dec 9, 2010 – March 21, 2011]

reinvented the transistor with our 3-D Tri-Gate technology

–> Intel’s SoC strategy strengthened by 22nm Tri-Gate technology [May 10 – Nov 30, 2011]
unveiled a new generation of personal computers, the Ultrabook
- The industry will bring more than 70 new Ultrabook designs to market this year.
- I’m not seeing this level of excitement in our customer base since, even before Centrino, which is 2003. People are very excited about the feature set and having the PC reenergized.
- I think initially … this will be replacement of existing notebook sales and customers and so forth.
- As we go through the course of 2012, particularly as — and into ’13, as Windows 8 machines rollout, you have the possibility [of cannibalizing notebook sales], and then as I look at our design wins, the probability of many of those machines incorporating touch. At that point, it’s hard to tell what the market impact is going to be because the PC now has the characteristics of the best of all tablets and very high performance-capable machine — notebooks.
- … our goal this year will be to exit the year at about 40% of consumer notebooks being Ultrabook.
  
  –> Intel’s SoC strategy strengthened by 22nm Tri-Gate technology [May 10 – Nov 30, 2011]
  –> Supply chain battles for much improved levels of price/performance competitiveness [Aug 16, 2011]
  –> More on supply chain battles for … [Aug 31, 2011]
  –> VIZIO’s two pronged strategy: Android based V.I.A. Plus device ecosystem + Windows based premium PC entertainment [Jan 11, 2012]
And
when Windows 8 launches, we’ll be ready with both PCs and tablets.

–> Windows 8 Metro style Apps + initial dev reactions [Sept 15, 2011]
–> Windows 8: the first 12 hours headlines and reports [Sept 14, 2011]
–> Windows 8 gaining smartphone like “connected standby” capability [Nov 23, 2011]
–> A too early assesment of the emerging ‘Windows 8’ dev & UX functionality [June 24 – Aug 19, 2011]
–> Microsoft’s next step in SoC level slot management [May 27 – June 2, 2011]
–> Microsoft on five key technology areas and Windows 8 [May 24, 2011]
–> Acer’s decision of restructuring: a clear sign of accepting the inevitable disintegration of the old PC (Wintel) ecosystem and the need for joining one of the new ecosystems under formation [April 1 – Aug 2, 2011]
–> CES 2011 presence with Microsoft moving to SoC & screen level slot management that is not understood by analysts/observers at all [Jan 7, 2011]
- Our intention is to participate broadly … from day one, as you see the Android tablets coming out and Windows 8 tablets coming out.
- And you’ll see us well-positioned in multiple price point on those. And who knows where those prices go over time, but our intention would be to use the advanced silicon integration capability we have to be able to drive the build material cost down, integration up in tablet space, which I think is going to be a sweet spot for Intel.
- [regarding much lower Android tablet sales than most expected for 2011:] actually, they were about where I thought they would be, but I was well below what many of you had. I think the thing is, tablets are a little bit about hardware and an awful lot about software. And I think that until you get to Ice Cream Sandwich, the offering isn’t as powerful as what’s out there with Apple. And as the Ice Cream Sandwich tablets start shipping, I think you’ll start seeing a little bit better receptivity, Google just added the music store, the videos are better, everything got a little bit better bit ICS. And so I think the better test is year 2 here, in terms of is there anyone that can compete with the iPad?
  
  –> “A new tablet from Vizio will come with Intel’s upcoming Atom chip, code-named Medfield, and will run Google’s Android operating system” –> VIZIO’s two pronged strategy: Android based V.I.A. Plus device ecosystem + Windows based premium PC entertainment [Jan 11, 2012]
  –> Intel: accelerated Atom SoC roadmap down to 22nm in 2 years and a “new netbook experience” for tablet/mobile PC market [April 17, 2011]
- And then the other part of that test, of course, is the Windows 8 tablets that are being queued up for production. So I don’t know that the whole tablet thing is settled down by any stretch, and I do have a lot of interest in, if you heard me at CES about these hybrid and convertible designs as they apply to clamshells, where there’s a significant blurring between what people do with tablets and what people do with PCs. So the jury is out on I think the long-term segmentation by form factor.
- But I do think you’ll see more progress on the Android side as a result of ICS.
closed 2 large acquisitions: Together, McAfee and IMC added $3.6 billion in revenue and new strategic capabilities in security and connectivity that will allow us to extend our strategies across the continuum of computing.
- McAfee: has already announced the Deep Safe platform, around which we are building a family of products to take advantage of the combination of McAfee software and Intel silicon to deliver first-of-its-kind protection against day 0 threats.
  and
- Infineon Wireless Solutions: the Infineon acquisition has given us a very strong position in basic phones and feature phones. They shipped 400 million modems this year into the cell phone business.
  
  –> New Mobile and Communications Group (MCG) at Intel [Dec 16 – 30, 2011]
in the fourth quarter, we announced the acquisition of Telmap, whose location-based search and navigation expertise will allow us to add differentiated services to Intel architecture-based devices from Ultrabooks to smartphones
broke ground on the world’s first 14-nanometer fabs, D1X in Oregon and Fab 42 in Arizona:

–> Be aware of ZTE et al. and white-box (Shanzhai) vendors: Wake up call now for Nokia, soon for Microsoft, Intel, RIM and even Apple! [Feb 21 – March 25, 2011]
–> mentioning that in 3 years down to 14nm: Intel: accelerated Atom SoC roadmap down to 22nm in 2 years and a “new netbook experience” for tablet/mobile PC market [April 17, 2011]
- Turning to 2012 … We are forecasting an increase in capital spending to $12.5 billion as we build the world’s first high-volume manufacturing factories for 14-nanometer process technology.
- In terms of the makeup of the specific capital in ’12, it’s more heavily weighted than what we’ve historically seen to building buildings. … it’s a 2-year cycle and we’re building buildings. So we’re seeing that it’s more than 1/3 of the total capital in ’12. I think that piece starts to come down in ’13. The equipment piece actually comes down from ’11 to ’12, and that’s a little more — it’s heavily weighted towards 14-nanometer equipment that we’re putting in place.
2011 revenue and earnings were the best in Intel’s history
- surpassed $50 billion in revenue for the first time, after crossing $40 billion for the first time just last year
  - a fantastic year for our Data Center Group, with revenue up 17% on record microprocessor units, exceeding $10 billion for the first time
  - storage revenue was up 42% to a new record high
  - Embedded Communications Infrastructure business was up 18%, also to a new record high
  - record notebook microprocessor units in 2011, as the PC Client Group grew 17%, fueled by demand in the enterprise and emerging markets
    - China, now the largest PC market in the world, represents 20% of all PC demand, and grew a remarkable 15%. Even with that, China has a household penetration rate of just 35%, versus almost 90% in the U.S
  - Sandy Bridge microprocessors accounted for approximately 40% of the company’s total revenue
    
    –> Intel’s SoC strategy strengthened by 22nm Tri-Gate technology [May 10 – Nov 30, 2011]
  - We’ll launch Ivy Bridge, our first 22-nanometer product, in early spring. Ivy Bridge will improve on the graphics performance of Sandy Bridge by more than 70%. We have a very fast ramp of Ivy Bridge, strong demand …
  - In terms of utilizations, we’re running full out today. We’re just at the beginning edge of 22-nanometer [with the ramping 4 big 22-nanometer factories]. Every unit that we can get out there, we can sell. So we’re running the new stuff full out. … those first wafers that come off the line for 22-nanometer, these are big factories, the very first products are coming off the line now. Those tend to be pretty expensive [therefore Q1 gross margin forecast is 63% vs 64% for the full year on a high 9 — high single-digit revenue growth] and that cost comes down over the course of the year as well.
- this was our second consecutive year of more than 20% revenue growth
volume shipments of our Sandy Bridge server product, code-named Romley, have begun: We’ll launch Romley for servers in the first quarter. We’re seeing right now, stronger demand for Romley than we did from the Nehalem at the same point of its life sort of 2 years ago. The product is in high-volume production now getting ready for our customers assistance launches later this quarter and into early Q2.
- … the Data Center business we have today is not your grandmother Server business that we had for many years, right? There’s other elements in there around storage and networking equipment.
- And the other big element of that is the sales to the large Internet data centers that are being built up around the world. … They tend to be a function of when Facebook or Google or Amazon decides to turn on a new Data Center and they buy x 100,000 units. Or there’s a new generation and they want to have a quick complete swap out.
- And as a result, we’re seeing a change to the historical linearity that we saw in this — in the enterprise Data Center business for many years. So I think you should probably get used to a little bit more lumpiness here and look at the overall year-on-year growth, which is what we’ve been trying to discuss at the last couple of analyst meetings.
we also demonstrated Knights Corner, the first single-chip coprocessor capable of delivering a teraflop of computing power

–> “Knights Corner, the first commercial Intel MIC (many integrated core) architecture product, will be manufactured using Intel’s latest 3-D Tri-Gate 22nm transistor process and will feature more than 50 cores. Furthermore, Intel promises compatibility with existing x86 programming model and tools.” –> Intel’s Knights Corner: 50+ Core 22nm Co-processor [tom’s hardware, Nov 16, 2011]
China is the world’s largest market for mobile phones with more than 950 million subscribers. It’s also at the forefront of the smartphone boom and will be the home of the world’s first 32-nanometer smartphone.
Last week at CES, Lenovo announced the K800 smartphone based on our Medfield SoC. The K800 will be available on the China Unicom network in Q2, and will showcase Intel architecture in a phone with very competitive battery life and outstanding performance.

–> New Mobile and Communications Group (MCG) at Intel [Dec 16 – 30, 2011]
–> “A new tablet from Vizio will come with Intel’s upcoming Atom chip, code-named Medfield, and will run Google’s Android operating system. … Intel’s Medfield & Atom Z2460 Arrive for Smartphones: It’s Finally Here [AnandTech, Jan 11, 2012] …” –> VIZIO’s two pronged strategy: Android based V.I.A. Plus device ecosystem + Windows based premium PC entertainment [Jan 11, 2012]
–> Intel SoC for Cloud Clients [June 27 – Aug 23, 2010]

[Also] announced the Medfield-based smartphone reference design that boasts a sleek form factor, 8 hours of talk time, 6 hours of 1080p video playback and 14 days of standby power, clearly demonstrating the low-power, high-performance capabilities of Intel architecture. Yet as the performance of this device that really showcases what’s possible when you combine advanced process technology and the world’s most popular computer architecture. Though Medfield is our very first smartphone SoC, independent testers appointed to benchmarks to place Medfield reference design among the very best in the markets.
It was this differentiated performance and exceptional roadmap and exciting new usage models that led to our multiyear, multi-device strategic relationship with Motorola Mobility. The first of these Intel architecture-based devices will go through carrier certification this summer with commercial availability shortly thereafter. And while the Lenovo and Motorola designs are exciting first steps, we’re not done making announcements in the smartphone space.
On phones, our strategy is a little bit different [from those of PC’s and tablet’s]. We’re coming in at the top of the smartphone market. Our value proposition initially is aimed at best performance and very competitive feature sets and very good battery life. Over — and then let me say on the other end of the market, the Infineon acquisition has given us a very strong position in basic phones and feature phones. They shipped 400 million modems this year into the cell phone business. So over time, what we’ll want to do is grow that capability up by integrating the apps processor and the comm processors onto the same chip, while we drive our initial positions in apps processors from the top down.
[regarding: given that all the smartphones also have Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS and … . Do you have that capability today internally? ] Yes, we’ve got the multi-comm capability in-house. A lot of that came with the acquisition from the Infineon group. And that’s got 2G, 3G, they have an LTE solution underway. We’ve had Wi-Fi forever, and we’ve had Bluetooth for many years. So all of those are being integrated into our comms capabilities. In fact, we’ve integrated those business units now into a single unit to be able to accelerate that.
I did not say, I want to be very clear, I did not say that our intent would be to integrate Medfield to baseband. I said over time, you’ll see us move from the low-end baseband-only business in the feature phones and value phones to having it a more integrated capability. I didn’t say when and what generation. I’m really not at liberty to discuss that. But the major thrust over the next year or 2 is going to be to have very high-performance modems as a comps processor and the best-of-class apps processors for smartphones.

Google adding a style guide (design guidelines) to Android (4 years late)

January 13, 2012 6:08 pm / 1 Comment on Google adding a style guide (design guidelines) to Android (4 years late)

While it is still quite distant from Microsoft’s achievements in design, and taken together with Nokia even more so, it is better to be late than never come to that discipline at all. And Google is definitely here by any accounts now. A couple of quite impressive illustrations:

– “Pure Android” dialer, action bar and settings design solutions in the upper row vs. the corresponding iOS designs:

– “Pure Android” sampling of UI elements from Android, iOS and Windows Phone 7:

– “Pure Android” sampling of icons from Android, iOS and Windows Phone 7:

Introducing the Android Design site [Android developers, Jan 12, 2012]

[This post is by Christian Robertson, who leads the Android visual design group. He is also the designer of the Roboto font family. —Tim Bray]

Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0) is our biggest redesign yet — both for users and developers. We’ve enhanced the UI framework with new interactions and styles that will let you create Android apps that are simpler and more beautiful than ever before.

To help you in that mission, we’re introducing Android Design: the place to learn about principles, building blocks, and patterns for creating world-class Android user interfaces. Whether you’re a UI professional or a developer playing that role, these docs show you how to make good design decisions, big and small.

The Android User Experience Team is committed to helping you design amazing apps that people love, and this is just the beginning. In the coming months, we’ll expand Android Designwith more in-depth content. And watch this blog for a series of posts about design, and invitations to Google+ hangouts on the topics you care about most.

So head on over to Android Design, and make something amazing!

Matias Duarte interview: Android Design guidelines announcement [TheVerge, Jan 12, 2012]

Google’s Matias Duarte dropped by our trailer today to talk a little about Android, including the announcement that his team is introducing a new Android Design website and style guide.

Four essential twitter reflections on that:

mjeppsen Matt Jeppsen
4 yrs after Android was released. Brilliant. RT @verge: Google introducing UI & style guidelines for Ice Cream Sandwich http://bit.ly/zfgXSF

razvanpetru Razvan
Reading the Android UI guidelines, one thing’s clear – they’re not in the same league as iOS/WP7 yet.

JCDunn Jonathan Dunn
I like the intent behind the Android design guidelines. Content too. Adoption’s the nut. Especially w. an uncurated app ecosystem.

nickheer Nick Heer
“Please stop making iOS-style apps” is a good call from Google: http://developer.android.com/design/patterns/pure-android.html

Please note that before Android had only rudimentary User Interface Guidelines [June 1, 2009]:

Icon Design Guidelines and Android Icon Templates Pack»

Your applications need a wide variety of icons, from a launcher icon to icons in menus, dialogs, tabs, the status bar, and lists. The Icon Guidelines describe each kind of icon in detail, with specifications for the size, color, shading, and other details for making all your icons fit in the Android system. The Icon Templates Pack is an archive of Photoshop and Illustrator templates and filters that make it much simpler to create conforming icons.

Widget Design Guidelines

A widget displays an application’s most important or timely information at a glance, on a user’s Home screen. These design guidelines describe how to design widgets that fit with others on the Home screen. They include links to graphics files and templates that will make your designer’s life easier.

Activity and Task Design Guidelines

Activities are the basic, independent building blocks of applications. As you design your application’s UI and feature set, you are free to re-use activities from other applications as if they were yours, to enrich and extend your application. These guidelines describe how activities work, illustrates them with examples, and describes important underlying principles and mechanisms, such as multitasking, activity reuse, intents, the activity stack, and tasks. It covers this all from a high-level design perspective.

Menu Design Guidelines

Android applications make use of Option menus and Context menus that enable users to perform operations and navigate to other parts of your application or to other applications. These guidelines describe the difference between Options anontext menus, how to arrange menu items, when to put commands on-screen, and other details about menu design.

This is in sharp contrast to the other platforms as per:
UI Guidelines for mobile and tablet web app design [Mobile Web Programming, Oct 15-20, 2010]

Official user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) guidelines from the manufacturers, links to which you can find below, are a source of inspiration for mobile web and app design. Here, you will find guidelines, samples, tips, and descriptions of common mistakes. Many of the guidelines focus on native application development, but we can apply most parts of them to mobile web design too.

Remember to provide the best possible experience on each platform. Do not deliver an iPhone experience to a BlackBerry user. Every platform has its own UI and usability guidelines that every user is expecting on your app.

iOS Human Interface Guidelines (iPhone, iPod and iPad) – PDF version

~~iPad Human Interface Guidelines~~iPad HIG was merged with iPhone in iOS HIG (see above)

UI Guidelines for BlackBerry 6.0 Smartphones – PDF version

UI Guidelines for BlackBerry 4.x, 5.x Smartphones – PDF version

Android User Interface Guidelines

Nokia N9 & Meego 1.2 Harmattan UX Guidelines

UI Guildelines for BlackBerry PlayBook – PDF version

BlackBerry Browser Content Design Guidelines (PDF)

Motorola’s Best Practices for Android UI

Nokia Design & User Experience Library

Symbian^3 UI Style Guidelines (PDF)

Nokia Developer Design Portal (PDF)

Symbian UI Wiki

Nokia Series 40 UI Style Guide

Bada Application UI Guide

Sony Ericsson UI Rulebook

UI Guidelines for Windows Mobile

Windows Touch UI Guideline

UI Design & Interaction Guide for Windows Phone 7 (PDF)

webOS UI Guidelines

Hildon UI Guidelines for Nokia Maemo

MeeGo UI Design Guidelines (shared by Mark Jones)

More tips on mobile web design on the Programming the Mobile Web book.

Do you know any other UI Guideline? Insert the link on the comment area.

Now a verdict on the new Android Design Guideline from the maturity point of view:
Half-Assed [Nick Heer, Jan 12, 2012]

On one hand:

Android OEMs and app developers will be provided with a set of in-depth guidelines on how to build atop of Android.

The initial version of the guide includes information like typography, color palettes, and other stylistic advice, as well as a breakdown of the components making up the Android UI.

That’s great for everyone. Developers get a clear idea of what an Android app should look like, and how it should behave. Users get a consistent, reliable experience.

On the other hand, though:

Matias stresses that what we’re seeing today is a purely optional aid for Android designers, not something that Google will seek to enforce.

Half-assed.

The Pure Android page is a wise attempt to note Android conventions and to try to convince developers not to adopt iOS conventions. It’s a good guide throughout, but without more direct intervention from Google, Android will remain a convoluted and fragmented platform.

Exclusive: Google Launches Style Guide for Android Developers [WIRED, Jan 12, 2012]

Matias Duarte, the head of user experience at Android, aims to change the way developers design for the platform.
…

On Thursday, Google launched Android Design, a web site created specifically to help aid developers in the creation of applications for ICS [version 4.0, also known as ‘Ice Cream Sandwich’]. The site offers a comprehensive visual to third-party application developers, giving suggestions on everything from how to implement different visual elements to overall back-end patterns for the OS itself.

In theory, it will help developers better understand just how the Android team thinks about layout and implementation, while simultaneously giving suggestions to interaction designers on how to maintain visual integrity. Basically, it will help both first-time developers and Android veterans make apps look less crappy.

“We haven’t really had a style guide,” Duarte says. “We haven’t really given you a lot of guidance on how to migrate your application from a phone, perhaps, to a tablet. We’ve done so only by example.”

Which has been a chief complaint of developers whenever another version of the OS is released. Developers are forced to reverse engineer the code from the new version and translate that to the previous version of Android to figure out how to move their app to the new software environment. What’s more, Android averages a new version launch about twice a year. It’s an incredibly fast pace in the mobile world, not to mention a pain in the ass for mobile developers who just want to keep their apps up to speed.
…
“This is the second part of our Ice Cream Sandwich launch,” he says. As this site goes up, I can feel like it’s finished. Like ICS is truly complete.”

Continuing with some more twitter reflections on the style guidelines:

gameshints Erik
Will crappy android apps be a thing of the past? New style guidelines from the android team: http://developer.android.com/design/index.htmlandroid.com/design/index.h…

Godzilla07 Jacob
Another thing for Android porters to ignore “@verge: Google introducing UI and style guidelines for Ice Cream Sandwich http://bit.ly/zfgXSF”

PANCAKESo Terry
#Android #Design site. Finally a good resource for patterns, style guidelines and building blocks of android UI design. http://developer.android.com/design/index.htmlandroid.com/design/index.h…

A few other twitter reflections on the style guide:

tsuki_chama Ian Renton
Wow, Android finally has a UI style guide. Shame that didn’t arrive four years ago!

noscope Joen
From the Android style guide (http://moc.co/8b): “Don’t mimic UI elements from other platforms” — Amen!

Meza Meirion Williams
Android’s UI grows up: A decent style guide for UI, UX and designers of Android applications http://developer.android.com/designandroid.com/design

Developer_Tech Developer Tech News
Developers get design help from #Android, thanks to new style guide http://bit.ly/ylxLSg #Dtech #appdev #google #design

Nokia’s Lumia strategy is capitalizing on platform enhancement opportunities with location-based services, better photographic experience etc.

January 12, 2012 6:46 pm / 4 Comments on Nokia’s Lumia strategy is capitalizing on platform enhancement opportunities with location-based services, better photographic experience etc.

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Updates: – Bing Translator on Nokia Lumia [Nokia Conversations, April 27, 2012]

When travelling overseas there are sometimes barriers that get in the way of having fun, or just being able to survive in far-away lands. The main one is often the language. Bin that old dog-eared phrase book and instead step into the future, with the Bing Translator app – your very own personal assistant when it comes to understanding what’s being said, or what’s the menu.

Gone are the days of looking blankly at the menu in a foreign restaurant and relying on the pictures for reassurance. No longer do we need to thumb our way through an out-of-date travel guide for something that resembles a translation of “Which way to the train station?”. With the Bing Translator app for your Nokia Lumia 610, Nokia Lumia 710, Nokia Lumia 800 and Nokia Lumia 900, you’ll be able to spend more of your holiday-time with your feet up, relaxing.

…

As useful as that is, sometimes you need to get your point across using the spoken word rather than a written one. This is when thevoice function comes in very handy.

If you need to ask somebody where the nearest public toilet is, for example, just say it into the phone and you’ll be presented with a written version along with a speaker icon. When pressed this will read out your translated phrase in the language you’ve selected.

Alternatively, if you just want to quickly translate something, it may be easier to type the words in manually. You can do this using the keyboard function. Select what language you’re translating from and to, type in your text and voilà! The text has been deciphered.

…

Bing Translator is free and is available for your Nokia Lumia 610,Nokia Lumia 710, Nokia Lumia 800 and Nokia Lumia 900.

– Lumia 900 Introduction to Trigger Smartphone Renaissance for Nokia and Microsoft [IHS iSuppli’s press release, Jan 18, 2012]

With the introduction of its critically acclaimed Lumia 900, Nokia Corp. has set the stage to regain some of its lost smartphone market share—and to re-establish Microsoft Corp.’s Windows Phone as a leading contender in the cellphone operating system (OS) business.Largely based on Nokia’s strong support, Windows Phone is set to regain the No. 2 rank in the smartphone operating system in 2015. Finnish-based Nokia in 2009 lost its second-place worldwide ranking because of rising competition from Google Inc.’s Android and Apple Inc.’s iOS.In 2015, however, Windows Phone will account for 16.7 percent of the smartphones shipped, up from less than 2 percent in 2011, according to the IHS iSuppli Mobile & Wireless Communications Serviceat information and analysis provider IHS (NYSE: IHS). This will allow Windows Phone to slightly surpass Apple’s iOS to retake the market’s second rank behind Android, as presented in the table below.Meanwhile, Nokia stands to stem its plunge in smartphone market share.

Once the perennial leader in global smartphone shipments, Nokia by the second quarter of 2011 had fallen to the third rank in the market behind Samsung and Apple.

“One of the hottest new products unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show was the Lumia 900, a Windows Phone-based smartphone sporting a flashy set of features that makes it competitive with the best alternatives offered by the Android camp,” said Wayne Lam, senior analyst for wireless communications at IHS. “This hot product represents Nokia’s first step to reclaim its market share. Combined with Nokia’s efforts to drive the development of the Windows Phone ecosystem, the Lumia 900 and its successors will help Microsoft to reclaim its No. 2 ranking in smartphone operating system market share in 2015.”

Coming to America
The Lumia 900’s flashy feature set, along with Nokia’s strategy for selling the product, shows that the company is targeting the North American region, a market that, even in the height of Nokia’s dominance, historically had been an Achilles’ heel for the company.

“The introduction of the Lumia 900 shows that Nokia believes the road back to smartphone dominance runs through North America,” said Francis Sideco, senior principal analyst for consumer and communications at IHS. “And the way to win North America is through its operator channels.”

The Lumia 900 was developed with North American market dynamics and smartphone users in mind, with the product having been designed in and launched first in the region—another departure from Nokia’s historical approach of repurposing devices designed in and for other parts of the world. The smartphone’s large 4.3-inch organic light-emitting diode (AMOLED) touch screen display, 12-megapixel camera as well as partnerships with Rogers, Telus, AT&T and T-Mobile are concrete examples of Nokia executing on this strategy.

LTE to the Party
Another feature of the Lumia 900 also illustrates how serious Nokia is about addressing the North American market: its support of the high-speed Long Term Evolution (LTE) 4G standard.

“In the past, Nokia always introduced new technologies in its home European market first,” Sideco said. “However, for the Lumia 900—Nokia’s first LTE phone—the company initially is rolling it out in North America. This demonstrates Nokia’s commitment to re-enter the region.”

Furthermore, Nokia is targeting the mobile network operator (MNO) channel to sell its phones in North America. Nokia previously eschewed the MNO approach, limiting its penetration into the region.

The company likewise is leveraging Microsoft’s business/enterprise sales channels to appeal to corporate customers in the region, offering value-added services in a play for the enterprise sector. Such moves will position Nokia to compete with Research In Motion Ltd., whose Blackberry phones are popular among corporate users.

Opening Windows of Opportunity
Although Nokia is not the only seller of Windows Phone smartphones, the company is expected to dominate the market, accounting for 50 percent of all Microsoft OS-based handsets sold in 2012, IHS iSuppli predicts. The company’s share then is set to rise to 62 percent in 2013. Nokia’s portion of the market will begin to decline in 2014, as other companies increase their sales of Windows Phone products.

Nonetheless, Nokia will drive the development and expansion of the Windows Phone market, opening up opportunities for other players, Lam said. “Because of Nokia’s support, apps developers will eagerly shore up the Windows platform. This will cause other makers of Windows Phone devices, such as Samsung and HTC, to offer more products supporting the OS—further expanding the market.”

Read More > Apple Leads with Mixed 3G Technology Adoption in Mobile Handsets

– Windows Phone will overtake iPhone in just three years’ time, say respected tech analysts [Daily Mail, Jan 20, 2012]

Windows Phone will become the number two smartphone operating system in the world by 2015, predict analysts iSuppli.

The analysts say that Android will remain the top operating system – as it is now – but Windows Phone will steadily rise until it overtakes iOS, the operating system used in Apple’s iPhones and iPads.

The key to the revival will be Nokia – and in particular its U.S.-focused Lumia 900 handset, which launched at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

…

End of Updates

Congratulations, Nokia, now get to work [c|net, Jan 12, 2012]

On Monday, during an afternoon crowded with other press conferences, Nokia pulled in a packed house to introduce the Lumia 900 for AT&T. Given the leaks that preceded the announcement, the news wasn’t surprising. But that didn’t stop the Lumia from taking CNET’s Best of CES award in the smartphones category.
…

The Lumia 900 won because it’s a great device (I’ll get to why in a moment), but there’s more to it than that. It’s also exciting because it marks the first clear and strong collaboration between a manufacturer, carrier, and Microsoft. And that’s something that the OS has missed for a long time.

Consider that unless you actually turned them on, it wasn’t clear that the earlier devices even had WP7. For the most part, it was almost as if the OEMs just took an Android phone, cleared the memory, and installed the new OS. Indeed, there was little unique about them beyond what was inside.
…

Two other authorative appraisals:
– Why Windows Phones Are the Most Exciting Handsets at CES [Wired, Jan 12, 2012]
– Best phone of CES 2012: Nokia Lumia 900 [ZDNet, Jan 12, 2012]

And finally the company itself Interview: Chris Weber of Nokia [TheVerge, Jan 12, 2012]

Chris Weber is President of Nokia for North America.

With Nokia’s second announcement “milestone”, now for the North American market I was astonished to find quite another article even subtitled as NEWS ANALYSIS: Nokia has its sights set on becoming the most important company in the Windows Phone 7 ecosystem. The only trouble is its strategy will fall short for a number of reasons. [eWEEK, Jan 11, 2012]. Since the title goes as “Nokia’s Windows Phone Strategy Will Fail: 10 Reasons” I need to only list the reasons here and let people to read the article itself:

The product designs are subpar
Nokia’s brand loyalty is waning
Microsoft has lost mobile customer trust
Windows Phone 7 can’t attract enterprise customers
Consumers would rather go with Android
The price is cheap (but that’s not a good thing)
The marketing is off
The first device should have been the winner
There’s no fanfare
There’s a general lack of market understanding

Then I suggest an indeed in-depth analysis of Nokia’s strategy which should go as far as clear understanding of Nokia’s differentiators both within the Windows Phone offerings and outside of them. As a result of that the reader him/herself could decide what is the truth about the Nokia smartphone strategy.

Before looking into Nokia’s key differentiators for Windows Phone based Lumias here is a good presentation of the company’s latest overall approach with Lumias, especially for North America which is the lead market for them in the developed countries space:

Chris Weber on Nokia Lumia 900, Lumia 710 and North America [nokia, Jan 10, 2012]

Chris Weber is President of Nokia for North America, and in this interview with Nokia Conversations at the CES 2012 show in Las Vegas he talks about the new Nokia Lumia 900, Lumia 710 and Nokia’s re-entry into North America.

Here “beautiful design” is mentioned as one of the most important differentiators for Lumias. We have already discussed this extensively in a separate post: Best practice industrial and user experience design – Nokia and Microsoft [Dec 17, 2011]. The second thing mentioned specifically here is the screen technology. Again, this has already been discussed quite extensively in The leading ClearBlack display technology from Nokia [Dec 18, 2011].

Although not specifically mentioned in the above video interview there were three unique differentiators already introduced with Lumia announcement in October:
– Free Nokia Music and MixRadio
– Free Navigation (i.e. location-based services, Nokia Drive and Nokia Maps)
– Free ESPN Sports Hub
which were described as part of the Nokia Lumia (Windows Phone 7) value proposition [Oct 26 – Nov 2, 2011] post.

Then we had an extensive post on Nokia’s North America centric approach for Windows Phone 7 [Aug 11 – Dec 20, 2011] from which a specific positioning information should be highlighted here as well: “Nokia and T-Mobile deliver a leading entry-level Windows Phone experience to the nearly 150 million Americans still to make the transition to smartphones.” Chris Weber is just mentioning that in the interview above so you could quite easily come by that if not included here.

So please keep in mind all those things when getting familiar with this next step in Nokia’s Windows Phone based smartphone strategy!

Nokia Lumia 900 [press.nokia.com, Jan 10, 2012]

Coming exclusively to AT&T in the coming months in cyan and matte black, the Nokia Lumia 900 has a 4.3-inch AMOLED ClearBlack Display for rich, bright images both indoors and out, faster connection speeds based on cutting-edge 4G LTE technology, and a long-lasting 1830 mAH battery for enjoying content all day.

The primary camera includes Nokia’s exclusive Carl Zeiss optics, with large aperture (F2.2) and wide angle focal length (28mm) for high-quality, uncropped images even in low-light conditions. In addition, the Nokia Lumia 900 includes a front-facing camera boasting a large aperture and a wide angle lens that ensures sharp, bright images for high-quality video calling, right out of the box

Lumia 900’s unique “dual wide mode function” based on large aperture (F2.2) and wide angle focal length (28mm) camera for high-quality, uncropped images as was demonstrated by Nokia SVP, Kevin Shields on the Nokia CES press conference: Nokia Lumia 900 [Jan 9, 2012] from [11:26] on:

… typical smartphone which will have 35mm focal length … most smartphones today when put into wide mode, in 16:9, they chop-off the top and bottom … Cameras with the 28mm focal length [and wider aperture] like Lumia 900 … that gives you the idea what the same scene would look like taken from the same position [see the image above the embedded video] … [from immediately preceding “industrial design” part: … 20 years of investments in polycarbonate … color inherent in the material …]

First Nokia smartphone designed specifically for the US features LTE, large display and exclusive applications [Nokia press release, Jan 9, 2012]

Las Vegas, US – Today at the 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Nokia and AT&T announced the Nokia Lumia 900, the first of Nokia’s Windows® Phone-based range to feature high-speed LTE* connectivity. With Nokia’s largest display, the Nokia Lumia 900 delivers a rich content experience from a phone that still fits easily in your hand.

…

Nokia’s third Lumia smartphone, the Nokia Lumia 900 builds on Lumia’s head-turning design on the outside and a rich social and Internet experience on the inside. People Hub is the quickest way to connect with friends with Live Tiles for real-time updates and a fast Web browsing experience with Internet Explorer Mobile.

“The introduction of the Nokia Lumia 900 with AT&T is another significant milestone in the ongoing rollout of Nokia’s global smartphone strategy,” said Chris Weber, president of Nokia Americas. “The Nokia Lumia 900 is designed specifically with the US in mind and the announcement of this collaboration with AT&T, in addition to other recent announcements, signifies a new dawn for Nokia in the US.”

The Nokia Lumia 900 benefits from a range of leading content experiences:

– The AT&T U-verse Mobile** app lets U-verse TV subscribers browse the U-verse TV program guide, schedule and manage their DVR recordings, and watch hit TV shows while on the go. The U-verse Mobile library includes more than 100 TV series and more than 700 TV shows from a variety of genres.

– Nokia Drive, available to download from Windows Phone Marketplace, provides free voice-guided, turn-by-turn navigation with a dedicated in-car user interface that turns the Nokia Lumia 900into a GPS navigation device.

– The exclusive ESPN sports hub is pre-loaded on Nokia Lumia smartphones, and provides a one-stop sports application for news, videos and scores.

– The CNN App for Windows Phonesprovides the latest news and video from CNN’s reporting around the globe and direct access to iReport, CNN’s participatory news community. Launching globally for free in the next month, the CNN App will be exclusive to Nokia users for 90 days.

– The Univision App will be exclusive to Nokia Lumia users in the U.S. and Puerto Rico for 18 months, delivering unique and exclusive Spanish-language content experiences, including Univision entertainment, sports and soccer coverage, plus news, cooking and local content for different U.S. markets – all in one App.

– A partnership with EA to bring over 20 of the world’s most popular games to the Windows Phone marketplace, coming first to Nokia Lumia devices.

“Nokia and AT&T worked hand in hand to bring the Nokia Lumia 900 to market. Our powerful 4G networkreally amplifies the benefits of the Nokia Lumia 900. Sharing high quality images and videos with its integrated social networking functions is faster than ever; content from U-verse Mobile is more enjoyable on the crisp 4.3-inch screen, and with its huge battery people can do more without worrying about recharging,” said Jeff Bradley, senior vice president of devices for AT&T. “Together, we are working to supercharge the ecosystem around the Nokia Lumia 900 and the Windows Phone platform.”

*Limited 4G LTE availability in select markets. 4G speeds delivered by LTE or HSPA+ with enhanced backhaul, where available. Deployment ongoing. Compatible data plan required. LTE is a trademark of ETSI. Learn more at att.com/network.

**U-Verse Mobile: Access to select content requires qualifying U-verse TV plan or monthly subscription fee, and WiFi connection and/or cellular data connection. Available content may vary by device and/or U-verse TV subscription and is subject to change. Data charges may apply.

Read more about the Nokia Lumia 900 on Nokia Conversations.
http://conversations.nokia.com/2012/01/09/nokia-lumia-900-born-for-the-usa

From the above listing of services you may miss the Free Nokia Music and MixRadio announced in October. In fact you shoul look into Lumia 900 US specification to find the equal (or even better) replacements:

Music Services

Zune

AT&T Radio

The Verge noticed a quite important hardware differentiator not mentioned anywhere:
Lumia 900 doesn’t have a Pentile Matrix display, Nokia confirms [The Verge, Jan 11, 2012]

Nokia’s official US Twitter stream and our own photos have confirmed a commonly held suspicion: the Lumia 900 doesn’t have a Pentile Matrix subpixel layout. Unlike the Lumia 800, its AMOLED display has its subpixels in an RGB arrangement instead of RGBG. The effect of this change is that you’ll get better fine-grain detail on the 900 while also avoiding the subtle color-fringing that the Lumia 800 exhibits on high-contrast edges (such as between black and white). Nokia has been somewhat evasive about this issue up until that tweet, perhaps in an effort not to diminish its other AMOLED displays. Still, we’d say this is easily the best undocumented upgrade of CES 2012.

Edward @mobile_ed 11 Jan 12

@NokiaUS is the Lumia 900’s display PenTile? No one has been able to get a straight answer so far.

Nokia US @NokiaUS 11 Jan 12

@mobile_ed No, the display isn’t Pentile.

Although Nokia calls the displays on all three of its Lumia devices ClearBlack — with that branding referring to the anti-reflective polarizer — the underlying display tech differs. See below for a comparison.

More information

On differentiation strategy:

The best report in my view is The Engadget Interview: Nokia CEO Stephen Elop at CES 2012 (video) [Myriam Joire, Jan 11, 2012]. Suggest to watch on the linked page since there is no possibility to embedd that here. Some quite important answers:

– Photography, cameras and that all experience is core part where we intend to differentiate in the future.

– A large amount of software development [is] happenning at Nokia to support our efforts on Windows Phone because we build on that platform. Something like Nokia Drive, as an example of location based services. Even in the are of photography, one can imagine that even (sic!) all Windows Phones have cameras, all will take pictures and all will have gallery, you can imagine an environment where unique software included in a Nokia environment, a Lumia product, to make sure the quality of photographic experience is better than evrybody else’s.

– So when you have a platform you can do a lot of things in and around of that.

– Differentiation with location based services, such as Nokia Drive, is just the beginning. There is so much more to come.

– Nokia specific APIs are possible later because Nokia has reserved the rigth to have such, although very much aware of the dangers of [platform] fragmentation.

– Lumia 900 will be available in a couple of months. Nokia will be very aggressive with the price. Even for the first time smartphone purchasers will be introduced.

The next on the list of best reports is PC Magazine’s Nokia CEO: MS Purchase Rumors Bogus [Jan 11, 2012]. Some exerpts from that written report which add information to all that given above:

PCMAG: How should we expect to see promotion and marketing for Windows Phone here in North America?

Elop:I think what you will see, and you’ll see us emphasize, is the most important thing for us to do is to introduce people to the concept that defines the Lumia experience, including the Windows Phone elements. What our work shows is that when someone has a Lumia device in their hand…their overall willingness to recommend the device to a friend goes up very high. People really enjoy the experience. But they have to see it to experience it.

We’ll take the steps in stores to make sure that sales associates understand how the products are differentiated. We’re seeding a large number of devices into the markets where we introduce the products, so large numbers of sales people and sales managers in stores have the devices in their hands…you’ll see us really try and connect the consumer with that first experience of Windows Phone, and any step that we need to take or any barrier that needs to be knocked over between those two points is what we’ll focus on in our marketing.

PCMAG: Within the Windows Phone ecosystem, there are other vendors who are putting out other phones with fancier specs.

Elop:I’m going to differentiate on “fancier specs,” because the specs that I appreciate are who takes the best picture, who has the best video-conferencing imagery and so forth. What we’ve done with the Lumia 900 is we’ve done a lot of work around the optics of the camera. We demonstrated this during our press conference; for example, with the primary camera, we showed how with a variation in focal length and wide aperture, our pictures…get a much wider collection of the information, regardless of pixel count or anything like that.

Part of this is part of our marketing opportunity, to help show people the results. Where is the best picture? And that is the spec I’m most interested in.

PCMAG: How do you communicate quality, as opposed to just “higher numbers are better?”

Elop: It’s the same argument on many different functional specs. You’ve got N+2 of these, we have N; is that better? Often it doesn’t matter, or it’s even worse. Part of our marketing opportunity is to help explain and show the experience, so when you pull out a Lumia and see the experience with that processor, with that screen and say, wow, this is fast, it doesn’t matter that someone else has something that appears to have more of something.

Then cnet’s Nokia CEO talks of Windows Phone foothold in U.S. [Jan 10, 2012] comes on the list. The notable excerpts giving additional information are:

The Lumia 900 was supposedly designed specifically for the U.S. market, but what does that mean? Which features were more critical to U.S. consumers versus others around the world?

Elop: For one, LTE is really important in the U.S. And it’s not as relevant right now in Europe, because there aren’t as many commercial LTE networks deployed. But here in the U.S. LTE is the centerpiece. But adding LTE costs more, and it also impacts the design of the product. You need a bigger battery, which drives the size and thickness of the device.

But larger screens are also much more popular here in the U.S. than in other parts of the world.

Years ago, Europe and Japan were much more advanced than the U.S. But that’s changed in the last 4 or 5 years. The U.S. is where we see much of the innovation and application development.

We also want to move the emphasis away from feeds and speeds. That’s what we were trying to show during the event yesterday when we showed the camera. There are a lot of things you can do to improve the camera on a cell phone through the science of photography with focal length and aperture.

…

How important is the U.S. market to Nokia?

The U.S. is very important. This is where the innovation and app development is happening, and it’s being echoed around the world. So it’s very important for us to participate and be right in the middle of the innovation. We need to compete here so that when the innovations developed here land elsewhere we aren’t a step behind.

You’ve mentioned that LTE is very important in the U.S. market, and it will eventually be important elsewhere. But the frequencies that U.S. carriers are using for LTE are different than the frequencies used in other other parts of the world. And there was a recent report from the GSM Association that warned of a fragmentation issue. How does that affect Nokia as a device maker?

A similar thing happened when 3G was first deployed, and over time carriers around the world became more aligned. It’s to their benefit to get commonality. But for us it’s not an impossible technical problem. It creates more work for us. And it may be more expensive to build devices. But it can be done.

The bigger problem is around spectrum shortages. This is a problem that varies dramatically region to region. And different countries are handling it in different ways. I don’t know how to solve the problem, but it does land in the price of products.

Following that there is The Wall Street Journal with Nokia’s Chief Takes Aim at U.S. Market [Jan 10, 2012] with the following excerpt here:

…
WSJ: Nokia has been a failure in the U.S. for years. What’s changed this time?

Mr. Elop: The very specific approach we’ve taken—and this does represent a shift in strategy for Nokia—is we’ve been more deliberate in the introduction of a device that’s specifically targeted at U.S. consumers. Start with the work we have done jointly with AT&T to ensure that it’s a 4G device, taking advantage of high-speed networks. That’s a crucial requirement for the U.S.

We have added capabilities like front-facing cameras, a long-lasting battery and a larger screen. In the U.S. that is an important part of consumer consideration.

WSJ: How can you expect to compete against Apple and Google in the U.S.?

Mr. Elop: Yes, there are some strong contenders on the field. But a key part of the reason behind selecting the Windows Phone platform for our smartphones was that we felt there was a fresh and different and contemporary user experience that stood apart from what has become common across both Apple and Android.

WSJ: Why would anyone buy this phone instead of an iPhone?

Mr. Elop: People are selecting these products [with the Windows operating system] because of ease of use. What you’re able to get is that complete experience without going into an application and coming out and then going into another. Instead, things like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are integrated deeply into the experience. People look at that and see that’s a far smoother experience. There are people who are looking to make switches. I won’t say whether it’s specifically [from] iPhone or Android.

WSJ: Why not just forget the U.S. market altogether?

Mr. Elop: The first and primary battlefront is in the U.S. It’s in that market where a lot of the new thoughts are being delivered, where new applications are being generated. It allows us to take advantage of some of the innovation starting first in the U.S., for example the 4G networks.
…

Finally a video Interview: Nokia CEO Stephen Elop [TheVerge, Jan 10, 2012]:

On the current Microsoft thinking alongside the increased market presence thanks to Nokia:

Interview: Joe Belfiore of Microsoft [TheVerge, Jan 11, 2012]

A “must to watch” for every serious person. Therefore no excerpts are possible. A “fundamental” interview with information not available before.

Interview: Microsoft’s Aaron Woodman talks Windows Phone [TheVerge, Jan 11, 2012]

Josh sits down with Microsoft director [in the Windows Phone marketing group] Aaron Woodman for a frank conversation about Windows Phone at CES 2012.

Notable remark by Aaron Woodman about the business approach (not exact transcript):

1. Great products, because if not there will be no more excuses for sure

2. Retail, in …some places like US via carriers, because without it actual customers won’t meet Windows Phone

3. General market awareness, including the extension of general Windows brand awareness to the phone as well, since without as large as only possible the first two efforts could not succeed either, and also because this is the task Microsoft is expected to do (while the previous two are with partners)

Finally on “beautiful design”:
The Nokia Lumia 900 is simply better by design [Conversations by Nokia, Jan 10, 2012]

An in-depth look at the design of the world’s greatest Windows Phone with Jamie Langford from Nokia Design

LAS VEGAS, USA – The Nokia Lumia 900is designed with people in the United States in mind and Nokia Conversations has a unique insight into how it was crafted for one of the world’s most discerning mobile markets.

Jamie Langford explains how the Nokia Design team met the brief for the latest addition to the Lumia range of phones – which includes the Nokia Lumia 710 and Nokia Lumia 800.

“It’s all about media, with the large screen and sleek unibody, delivering a powerful statement.”

Jamie, who leads the industrial design team working on Symbian and Windows Phone products, says the Nokia Lumia 900 is a phone which puts content first, making it “instantaneous, responsive, and intuitive”.

“With faster network access, Nokia Lumia 900provides consumers noticeably faster Internet browsing and better video streaming,” he says.

“The large display is fantastic for any number of experiences from imaging to gaming to video chatting.”

He is talking about the Nokia Lumia 900′s stunning 4.3-inch AMOLED ClearBlack screen, which not only delivers superior viewing and touch experiences, but is also designed to reduce reflections. So you get crystal clear images, indoors and out.

“US consumers seek convenient access to multimedia content, so the combination of 4G LTE and the large display is very compelling.”

“As a matter of fact, Nokia Lumia 900 comes preloaded with AT&T’s U-verse Mobile which allows U-verse subscribers to browse TV program guide, schedule and manage their DVR recordings, and watch TV shows.

“And Nokia Lumia 900 has been designed with a large customized 1830 mAh battery in support of all-day usage.”

The blueprint is even more impressive when you realize that the advanced hardware which powers the mobile phone sits in a unibody case not much bigger than the display itself. The shape is cleverly crafted to sit comfortably in the hand.

This harmonious fusion of design and technology has all been achieved in a very short time.

Jamie continues:

“Our design team started work on Nokia Lumia 900 about a year ago. The challenge was to take the Nokia Lumia 800 to a larger display size with LTE architecture and re-enter the US market with AT&T.”

Luckily the potentially most challenging aspects of the joint venture were already taken care of, he says.

“When we started the collaboration with the Windows Phone design team, we discovered amazing similarity in the principles and approach with Nokia design.

“Reduction and simplicity drove the design of both the user interface and the hardware. The first result was the Nokia Lumia 800, and Nokia Lumia 900 extends this approach to a larger display.”

It’s a powerful combination. The Nokia Lumia 900 represents the full potential of these great brands working together. With AT&T’s high performance LTE network, that potential will now be experienced broadly in the US market.

And the Windows Phone user interface is a fantastic experience on the larger screen. With bold graphics, clear typography, and fast navigation, the phone allows people to spend less time figuring out what to do with it, and more time using it.

The success of previous Nokia designs has helped to achieve the seamless experience offered by the Nokia Lumia 900, says Jamie.

“The lineage from the Nokia N9 and Nokia Lumia 800 is evident in the Lumia 900. We continue to challenge how we make products – just like the Nokia N9 did.

“We are in a continuous learning and refinement mode, so we took lessons from both these previous devices.

“We spent lots of time with the program team to solve the physics of packaging a 33 per cent larger display with a larger battery and complex antenna architecture while meeting the product requirements of the US market. To do this in less than a year is a significant achievement.”

It’s the same approach, insisting on a human minimalist design, which has worked so well for Nokia giving their handsets a purity that others fail to match. And, it’s this incredible attention to detail which has resulted in a product that is beautifully balanced and easy to use.

“The Nokia N9 and Lumia 800 were derived from the same approach of extreme product making based on the principle of reduction and simplicity,” says Jamie, who joined Nokia in 1999. “The learnings and discoveries will continue to influence the way we design going forward.”

When you see the Nokia Lumia 900, you can’t resist picking it up and touching it. The unibody is a single piece of injection-molded polycarbonate plastic which somehow feels like metal. That’s because the premium plastic has been worked on by using machining techniques used for metals. And it provides a killer property not open to phones with metal cases. The specially-developed plastic allows outstanding antenna performance, resulting in fewer dropped calls and lost data connections.

The attention to detail is impressive. Even the product specs are printed on the internal SIM drawer to avoid any visual clutter on the external surface. The speaker holes have been individually milled to make them as small as possible, so they are less likely to collect fluff from a pocket.

And the audio jack is perfectly concentric to the form, and has been custom-made so it can be in the best place for use.

The framing around the active display minimizes any “dead banding” to give the highest area of visual screen in the most compact space possible.

The polycarbonate material gives the Nokia Lumia 900 yet another design advantage. Color. Color has always been at the heart of the Nokia brand. It has been taken to a new level. The unibody case is dyed all the way through, so it can never scratch off or wear away. It looks newer longer.

Early versions come in a stealthy matte-black and a bright cyan, or blue as most people call it. More colors will follow later in the year.

And the color thread runs through the accessories including Nokia speakers, Bluetooth headsets, even the protective soft covers; creating an end-to-end story that is coherent and consistent.

The signs are already good that people will love Nokia Lumia 900.

“Based on early customer reactions in the US, the design is considered very sleek and modern,”

“The LTE, 8 megapixel camera, and noise cancelation resonates well with people. Strong battery life was particularly appealing as well. And everyone appreciates the front-facing camera for video chatting.”

The Nokia Lumia 900 is simply better by design.

VIZIO’s two pronged strategy: Android based V.I.A. Plus device ecosystem + Windows based premium PC entertainment

January 11, 2012 3:54 pm / 3 Comments on VIZIO’s two pronged strategy: Android based V.I.A. Plus device ecosystem + Windows based premium PC entertainment

The VIZIO Internet Apps® Plus (“V.I.A. Plus”) ecosystem of devices was launched on June 28, 2011 with the introduction of VIZIO’s first tablet. Each VIZIO V.I.A. Plus product features a VIZIO-designed user interface that is not only intuitive but also consistent across screens, for superior ease-of-use for the casual, non-technical user. It is built on the Android™ platform. All the information about that innovative ecosystem is available in an earlier “collection post” on this blog: Innovative entertainment class [Android] tablet from VIZIO plus a unified UX for all cloud based CE devices, from TVs to smartphones [Aug 21, 2011].

We will look into the essential expansion of V.I.A. Plus announced at CES 2012 later. Here is sufficient to include just a short piece from the above mentioned collection in order to make the concept of V.I.A. Plus ecosystem absolutely clear (before we will go into the details of the brand new Windows based premium PC entertainment from VIZIO):

VIZIO Tablet [VIZIO video, Aug 1, 2011]: the value proposition video from the vendor which is extremely well demonstrating not only the VIZIO-specific V.I.A. Plus UI but the whole new user experience:

– [0:04] Listen to music – [0:19] Get social – [0:51] Read books – [1:10] View pictures and watch videos – [1:33] VIZIO’s Theater 3D. Leave behind the expensive battery powered glasses, the screen flicker, the darkened picture. – [1:46] Browse the web – [2:28] Control of your entertainment at your fingertips [i.e. the software based remote control] … [Watch at the end how easy is in the V.I.A. Plus user interface to switch over from your tablet to a Theater 3D TV set when viewing a 3D video on YouTube! See also the Theatre 3D related indormation further down in this post.]

This week Vizio has added the alternative, Windows based PC entertainment to its portfolio as well: VIZIO Bursts Into the Computing Realm with Five Innovative and Sleek PCs Set to Redefine Consumer Entertainment [VIZIO press release, Jan 9, 2011]

CES — VIZIO, America’s #1 LCD HDTV Company*, announced today an innovative line of five premium personal computers designed to turn the PC market upside down and accommodate the entertainment needs and wants demanded by consumers. Set to launch with Windows 7 in spring 2012, the elegantly designed PCs will provide an entertainment experience only VIZIO can deliver, complete with top notch 2.1 audio and video quality. The personal computing line consists of two all-in-one computers, two thin + light notebooks and one notebook. VIZIO’s line was developed to raise the bar in personal and home entertainment while also keeping powerful performance at the forefront.

Much like its entrance into the HDTV category nearly a decade ago, VIZIO believes it has identified a need in the PC world for a device that addresses a recent change in consumer behavior. Growing popularity in video streaming services has resulted in the need for personal computers that can stream content for a family movie night and put together an important business presentation the following day. The VIZIO PCs address this change by meeting both the entertainment and productivity demands.

VIZIO PCs will be a continued progression of the VIZIO Internet Apps (V.I.A.) Ecosystem, which provides a seamless, cohesive entertainment experience across multiple screens. As the V.I.A. experience spans across the brand’s HDTVs, Blu-Ray players, tablets and more, today’s announcement represents a natural extension of the experience over to the PC as well. Together with Windows, VIZIO’s PCs will deliver power, mobility and familiar ease of use, ensuring a fast, fluid and immersive user experience that distinguishes them from devices that function and those that are truly entertaining.

“PCs are often associated with productivity and the workplace, routinely lacking the excitement that would be expected with what and how consumers want to use their PCs today – as an extension of their entertainment experience,” said Matt McRae, Chief Technology Officer. “VIZIO wanted to change that. Our new line of VIZIO PCs are truly high quality and consumer focused, delivering enhanced multimedia capabilities while upholding our high standards of performance, style and design.”

Complete with high-performance hardware, the VIZIO PCs boast a clean system image optimized by Microsoft and an elegant industrial design incorporating authentic, high-quality materials that is sure to turn heads both on-the-go and in the living room. Known for HDTVs that boast stunning high-definition pictures, VIZIO engineered its new line of PCs to meet the same high-quality standards.

Always committed to pushing the envelope, VIZIO believes their groundbreaking PCs will alter the way consumers view computing. With entertainment at the heart of the VIZIO PCs, users will find that consuming content will be just as desirable as on their HDTV. With an already high demand for devices that are able to multitask between work and play, the consumer’s choices are limited. VIZIO accepted the challenge and has elegantly bridged both worlds to provide a Windows-based PC that offers a rich entertainment experience alongside tools needed for getting work done.

“We’re excited to see VIZIO enter the PC market and the positive impact they will have on the Windows ecosystem,” said Steven Guggenheimer, CVP OEM Division, Microsoft. “With their expertise in providing connected entertainment experiences and an innovative go-to-market approach, we look forward to working with VIZIO to bring premium consumer PCs to market.”

VIZIO anticipates its entry into the PC category will challenge consumers to expect more from their computers enabling them to play as hard as they work. Discover more at http://www.vizio.com/CES.

*Source: IHS iSuppli Corporation Research Q4 2011 Market Tracker Report of Q4 2010 – Q3 2011.

About VIZIO
VIZIO, Inc., “Entertainment Freedom For All,” headquartered in Irvine, California, is America’s #1 LCD HDTV Company. In Q2 2007, VIZIO skyrocketed to the top by becoming the #1 shipping brand of flat panel HDTVs in North America and in Q3 2007 became the first American brand in over a decade to lead in U.S. LCD HDTV shipments. Since 2007 VIZIO LCD HDTV shipments remain in the top ranks in the U.S. and were #1 for the total year in 2009 and 2010. VIZIO is committed to bringing feature-rich consumer electronics to market at a value through practical innovation. VIZIO offers a broad range of award winning consumer electronics. VIZIO’s products are found at Costco Wholesale, Sam’s Club, Walmart, Target, BJ’s Wholesale, and other retailers nationwide along with authorized online partners. VIZIO has won numerous awards including a #1 ranking in the Inc. 500 for Top Companies in Computers and Electronics, Fast Company’s 6th Most Innovative CE Company of 2009, and made the lists of Ad Age’s Hottest Brands, CNET’s Editor’s Choice, CNET Best of CES 2011 – Television, IGN Best of CES – Television, Bluetooth.org Best of CES, Good Housekeeping’s Best Big-Screens, PC World’s Best Buy, Popular Mechanics Editor’s Choice and OC Metro’s 10 Most Trustworthy Brands among many other prestigious honors. For more information, please call 888-VIZIOCE or visit on the web at www.VIZIO.com.

The V, VIZIO, VIZIO Internet Apps, Theater 3D, CinemaWide HDTV, Full Array TruLED, Edge Lit Razor LED, 240Hz SPS, 480Hz SPS, Entertainment Freedom and Entertainment Freedom for All names, logos and phrase are registered or unregistered trademarks of VIZIO, Inc. All other trademarks may be the property of their respective holders.

SOURCE VIZIO, Inc.

Brand New Line of Gorgeous Vizio Products from CES 2012! [TEKHD, Jan 10, 2012]

Veronica Belmont talks to the CTO of Vizio, Matt McRae, to get the newest and unreleased info on the latest line of products including the All-In-One, complete with the highest performance processors in the world!

CES 2012: Vizio takes on the iMac [IGNentertainment, Jan 9, 2012]

Get a first look at Vizio’s slick all-in-one computer, recorded from this year’s CES event! While it takes its visual cues from Apple’s iMac line, Vizio’s all-in-one line features not one but two HDMI inputs which will work regardless of whether or not the computer is running. This makes it an intriguing solution for gamers who have limited space to work with. Watch the video then leave us a comment telling us what you think!

Note that there is certainly an outstanding design professional behind these products: Scott McManigal, Senior Director of Global Design who has been with VIZIO since June 2009. Before he had been with OpenPeak, Herbst LaZar Bell, BMW Group DesignworksUSA (10 years!), Mattel Toys and Patton Design. It is no wonder that the new PCs got immediate recognition from media with headlines like:
– The New Vizio PCs and Notebooks Are Worthy of Apple [Gizmodo, Jan 9, 2012]
– Vizio PCs and Laptops are the closest to Apple when it comes to style [Newlaunches.com, Jan 9, 2012]

A First Look at Vizio’s new line of ultrabooks [CNETTV, Jan 10, 2012]

Sharon Vaknin gets the lowdown on Vizio’s new line of ultrabooks.

CES 2012: Vizio Takes On the MacBook Air [IGNentertainment, Jan 9, 2012]

HDTV manufacturer Vizio is branching out with a line of ultra thin and light notebooks! The sleek line of notebooks have design cues which remind us of the shiny products from Apple, which is definitely a good thing. Details are scarce but IGN Senior Producer Ty Root and Executive Editor of IGN Gear Scott Lowe got an early peek, so take a look and leave us a comment telling us what you think!

So far there are no tablets among these premium PC entertainment offerings. VIZIO will introduce them surely when Windows 8 will be launched late summer as the earliest.

The CES 2012 expansion of the V.I.A. Plus

From the V.I.A. Plus related press release (see later): Among the V.I.A. Plus products to be included in VIZIO’s Las Vegas showcase are the 65-inch, 55-inch and 47-inch V.I.A. Plus HDTVs with Theater 3D™, the VBR430 Blu-ray Player and the VAP430 Stream Player, all of which incorporate the latest Google TV experience. VIZIO will also show two V.I.A. Plus enabled [Android] tablets—the current VTAB1008 and the new 10″ VTAB3010. [The tablets are Android based (as all of the V.I.A. Plus system). Detailed information on that: Innovative entertainment class [Android] tablet from VIZIO plus a unified UX for all cloud based CE devices, from TVs to smartphones [Aug 21, 2011].]

Vizio 10 inch tablet hands on [AndroidCentral, Jan 10, 2012]

Vizio 10-inch tablet preview [TheVerge, Jan 10, 2012]

Vizio’s New 10-inch Tablet to Have Intel Chip, Android [IDG News, Jan 10, 2012]

A new tablet from Vizio will come with Intel’s upcoming Atom chip, code-named Medfield, and will run Google’s Android operating system, a source with knowledge of the product plans said.

The M-Series tablet with a 10-inch screen was announced by Vizio at the Consumer Electronics Show, and the device will be “coming soon,” according to Vizio’s website. The tablet is being shown at the trade show in Las Vegas this week.

Vizio has not shared further details on the tablet, saying it is “powerful” and has Wi-Fi. The tablet provides “a world of entertainment right at your fingertips,” according to the company’s website.

The Vizio tablet could be the launching pad for Intel’s Medfield chip, which is not yet available in devices. The Medfield chip has been designed for smartphones and tablets, and Intel later this week is also expected to announce its first smartphone customers for the chip.

Intel’s Medfield & Atom Z2460 Arrive for Smartphones: It’s Finally Here [AnandTech, Jan 11, 2012]

It’s here. Intel’s first smartphone SoC that you’ll actually be able to buy in a device before the end of the year. The platform is called Medfield and Paul Otellini just announced its first device partners.

Medfield starts out as a bonafide mobile SoC. Whereas Moorestown was a “two-chip” solution, Medfield is just one – the Penwell SoC:

…

There’s only a single version of Medfield being announced today: the Intel Atom Z2460. The Z2460 features a single Atom core with a 512KB L2 cache, a PowerVR SGX 540 GPU and a dual-channel LPDDR2 memory interface. In a world where talking about four Cortex A9s and PowerVR SGX 544MP2s isn’t uncommon, Medfield starts out almost sounding a bit…tame. But then you see its performance:

Although running what appears to be a stock Gingerbread browser, Intel’s Medfield reference platform posts SunSpider performance better than any other smartphone we’ve tested – including the Galaxy Nexus running Ice Cream Sandwich. Intel promises that Medfield’s performance will scale on ICS as well – the gap should be maintained. We’ve seen high results from reference designs in the past, but the Medfield platform is a little different as you’ll soon see – it’s a complete smartphone design that should be representative of handsets that hit the market later this year.

Medfield isn’t a one trick pony either, performance is similarly dominating under BrowserMark:

These are tablet-like scores. Here the Galaxy Nexus running ICS comes close, but once again Intel expects that on the same OS Medfield should be faster than any of the currently available SoCs.

I asked Intel where its SunSpider and BrowserMark performance advantages came from, especially considering we’ve typically only seen huge gains with new browsers and not new SoCs. Their response pointed to a bunch of factors, but one stand out issue was the A9 has a great execution core but seems to be more limited on the memory interface. Atom can support far more outstanding misses in L2 than the Cortex A9, which chokes bandwidth to the processor for anything not already in the L2 cache. This may be one of the reasons why we’ve never been able to get really high bandwidth numbers out of A9 based SoCs. It’s probably safe to assume that things will be different with the Cortex A15, but for now it’s little things like this that give Medfield a performance advantage.

GPU performance is understandably not as impressive. We couldn’t get offscreen numbers of GLBenchmark 2.1 but we did get results at the device’s native resolution (1024 x 600):

3D performance is better than the OMAP 4460 due to Medfield’s 400MHz GPU clock compared to ~300MHz in most OMAP4 devices.

Performance without power considerations is meaningless, especially in the smartphone world. Luckily for Intel, Medfield seems very competitive there as well. …

…

Medfield, at least in Intel’s reference platform, looks very good.

The actual values are pretty astonishing as well. Sub 20mW idle, sub 750mW during a call on 3G and although not pictured here, Intel’s internal data suggests ~1W power consumption while browsing the web compared to ~1.3W on the iPhone 4S and Galaxy S 2. I’ve done my own measurements on 4S web browsing and came up with a very similar value.

Intel Measured Smartphone Power Consumption
(Identical Display Brightness)

Standby (3G) Talk (3G) Browsing (3G) Video Playback 720p

Apple iPhone 4S ~38mW ~800mW ~1.3W ~500mW

Intel Medfield Reference ~18mW ~700mW ~1.0W ~850mW

Samsung Galaxy S II ~19mW ~675mW ~1.2W ~650mW

The performance and power data both look great for Medfield. You would think that this data, assuming there’s nothing fundamentally wrong, would be enough to convince a handset maker to actually give Intel a shot. You’d be right.

In addition to disclosing Medfield performance data, Intel is also announcing partnerships with both Motorola and Lenovo. The former is a broad, multi-year agreement stating that Motorola plans on creating many devices based on Intel silicon – the first of which will be a smartphone due out before the end of the year. Tablets will follow at some point as well.

Lenovo on the other hand will actually be taking and tweaking Intel’s own Medfield reference platform, and releasing it in China in Q2.

All of this is exactly what Intel needed: a start.

The CPU
…
The GPU, Process & Roadmap
…
What’s Different This Time Around: Google & A Sweet Reference Platform
…
ARM Compatibility: Binary Translation
…
Final Words
…
Medfield and the Atom Z2460 are a solid starting point. Intel finally has a chip that they can deliver to the market and partners to carry it in. Intel also built a very impressive reference platform that could lead to some very interesting disruptions in the market.
…

VIZIO and Google TV Join Forces to Create a State of the Art Stream Player [VIZIO press release, Jan 10, 2011]

– New stream player turns any HDTV into an enhanced smart TV with access to countless entertainment content and online services as well as powerful search and web browsing capabilities
– Part of the VIZIO Internet Apps Plus ecosystem, the new VIZIO Stream Player incorporates the power of the latest Google TV in combination with premium setup experience and included Bluetooth universal remote with touchpad control
– Integrated app and TV watching experiencelet users multitask seamlessly and access photos, audio and video stored on networked computers, hard drives and smart phones

VIZIO and Google today jointly announced the introduction of the VIZIO VAP430 Stream Player, an innovative stream player that turns any HDTV into an enhanced VIZIO Internet Apps Plus® (V.I.A. Plus) smart TV that incorporates the latest Google TV. The Stream Player allows consumers to access countless entertainment content and online services with web access through a fully capable Chrome browser, and to also enjoy photos, music and video stored on any computer, hard drive or smart phoneconnected to a local network and/or the cloud.*

With the VAP430 connected to an HDTV over an HDMI cable, users can quickly and seamlessly access content and services from their favorite apps and websites using the included Bluetooth premium universal remote control with integrated touchpad. In addition to movies, TV shows and music on demand, the VAP430 lets users search the web for even more entertainment options using the Flash-capable Chrome browser.

“We’re excited about what Google TV brings to our new VAP430 Stream Player,” says Matthew McRae, VIZIO’s Chief Technology Officer. “This isn’t just an ordinary streaming box that accesses a few predetermined video services. It’s a true entertainment portal that opens up everything the Web has to offer, as well as all the content consumers already have stored on computers and hard drives. And the incorporation of Google TV and our V.I.A. Plus interfacemakes it all incredibly easy to setup and a joy to use.”

Using the included premium remote with QWERTY keypad and integrated touchpad, viewers can easily search for any program or content they want from their favorite apps or the Internet. Users can also check out new apps from an ever-expanding Android Market, or access personal medialike videos, photos and music that are stored on devices connected to the same home network as the stream player. Images are displayed right on a connected TV set, and sound plays through the TV or a connected audio system.

“We’re thrilled to partner with VIZIO on the launch of their Stream Player,” said Mario Queiroz, head of Google TV. “VIZIO has established itself as a leader in the consumer electronics market. Combining Google TV with VIZIO’s innovative, easy-to-use consumer electronic products will bring more great entertainment and Android apps to the living room.”

Painless Setup, Powerful Capabilities

Part of the V.I.A. Plus ecosystem, the slick yet discreet VAP430 can easily compliment any HDTV using an HDMI cable. Installing the VAP430 and connecting it to the Internet is blazingly fast and simple to do with the built-in setup experience and 802.11n WiFi connection.

The VAP430 also has an HDMI pass-through that lets the user connect a cable or satellite box to the stream player and pass the signal over to the TV for a truly integrated TV watching experience. The smart TV interfaceoverlays the live TV signal so multitaskers can search for the next thing to watch without completely stepping away from what they’re currently watching.

Bluetooth capability also makes it simple to enjoy content from smart phones through the connected TV wirelessly. And with the USB input, connecting any USB drive directly to the VAP430 takes only seconds.

VAP430 is the first V.I.A. Plus device to launch this year, followed by the VBR430 3D Blu-ray player, which combines the features of the VAP430 with Blu-ray’s state-of-the-art high-definition video and audio playback capabilities.

Preorders for the VAP430 will begin this spring 2012. Find out more and sign up to be the first at www.vizio.com/ces

* The VIZIO Internet Apps® (V.I.A.) platform requires Internet access, equipment and subscription services that are not provided.

See also (especially because VAP430 is likely based on Marvell’s platform): Google’s revitalization of its Android-based TV effort via Marvell SoC and reference design[Jan 5, 2012]

VIZIO Expands the Next-Generation VIZIO Internet Apps Plus® (V.I.A. Plus) Ecosystem, Announcing New HDTV, Blu-ray Player, Stream Player and Tablet Products That Share a Unified User Experience Across All Screens [VIZIO press release, Jan 10, 2011]

– V.I.A. Plus provides access to a world of apps on each device with attention to details that optimize the entertainment experience on each and every screen
– V.I.A. Plus offers today’s most advanced and functional smart TV user experience, with an intuitive, app-centric interface optimized for the 10-foot viewing experience
– New V.I.A. partners to include iHeartRadio®, The Wall Street Journal® and M-GO®
– VIZIO’s expanded line-up incorporating the Google TV platform include the 65-inch, 55-inch and 47-inch HDTVs with Theater 3D, the VBR430 Blu-ray player, and the VAP430 Stream Player

VIZIO, America’s #1 HDTV Company*, announces the continued expansion of its next generation of the award-winning VIZIO Internet Apps® platform: VIZIO Internet Apps Plus (V.I.A. Plus). V.I.A. Plus brings a unified user experience to a wide range of devices that include HDTVs, Tablets, Blu-ray players, Media Players and more. From the big screen to mobile devices, V.I.A. Plus bridges the worlds of entertainment, content and services with one sophisticated and intuitive interface. V.I.A. Plus accesses a world of apps on each device, with attention to details that optimize the entertainment experience on each screen.

Among the V.I.A. Plus products to be included in VIZIO’s Las Vegas showcase are the 65-inch, 55-inch and 47-inch V.I.A. Plus HDTVs with Theater 3D™, the VBR430 Blu-ray Player and the VAP430 Stream Player, all of which incorporate the latest Google TV experience. VIZIO will also show two V.I.A. Plus enabled tablets—the current VTAB1008 and the new 10″ VTAB3010.

“The way users consume content has changed drastically over recent years. Technology has enabled nearly every device with a screen to connect to some form of delivery platform, each with its own mechanism for searching, browsing and viewing content.” said Matthew McRae, Chief Technology Officer, VIZIO. “V.I.A. Plus focuses entirely on what users care about – their content. By delivering a seamless, intuitive experience that is consistent across multiple screens, V.I.A. Plus products distinguish themselves from devices that function and those that are truly entertaining.”

The V.I.A. Plus experience features an intuitive, app-centric interface on every device, making it easy for consumers to understand and navigate as they move between devices. Users can also access thousands of apps from the Android Market™ for even more entertainment options.

“We’re thrilled to partner with VIZIO on the launch of the Stream Player,” said Mario Queiroz, head of Google TV. “VIZIO has established itself as a leader in the consumer electronics market. Combining Google TV with VIZIO’s innovative, easy-to-use consumer electronic products will bring more great entertainment and Android apps to the living room.”

In addition, VIZIO is announcing new partners who are collaborating to bring their content and services to the V.I.A. Platform, including:

iHeart Radio– iHeartRadio, Clear Channel’s industry-leading digital radio service, brings users a best-in-class customizable digital listening experience, one which combines the best of both worlds to deliver everything listeners want in one free, fully-integrated service: More than 800 of the nation’s most popular live broadcast and digital-only radio stations from 150 cities, plus user-created Custom Stations which provide listeners more songs, better music intelligence, more user control and deeper social media integration.

The Wall Street Journal®– WSJ Live from The Wall Street Journal offers up to four total hours of live video programming each business day from across The Wall Street Journal Digital Network, including the Journal, Dow Jones® Newswires, Barron’s™, MarketWatch®, SmartMoney® and AllThingsD.com. Users can access seven half-hour live shows, breaking news updates, exclusive interviews, and special events coverage. The service also offers more than 2,000 videos per month from an extensive library of on-demand content.

M-GO™ video-on-demand– M-GO from Technicolor is a next-generation app that combines all of your media including movies, music, apps, live TV, and more. M-GO will come pre-loaded on VIZIO HDTVs and Blu-ray Players with VIZIO Internet Apps or VIZIO Internet Apps Plus. The app will help consumers find the content they’re looking for through its extensive content library and state-of-the-art discovery engine, while also providing a unique second screen functionality for searching additional content.

“We are extremely excited to be partnering with VIZIO to bring consumers all of their media anywhere, anytime, and anyway they want it,” said John Batter, CEO of M-GO. “As consumers continue to access digital media at home and on the go, it is even more important to provide them with a consistent experience that is easy to navigate and convenient to use. VIZIO’s technology combined with our accessibility to content does just that.”

On V.I.A. Plus enabled HDTVs, Blu-ray players and Media Players, users can multitask between apps and traditional TV content through an interface designed for the 10-foot viewing experience, created specifically for situations where users want to sit back and enjoy the ultimate in channel and web surfing. Users can also complement their entertainment experience with VIZIO tablets for seamless access to their favorite apps and content in any room in the home or on the road.

With a wide range of apps on each device, V.I.A. Plus enables consumers to choose from a new universe of entertainment options, redefining the TV experience with multi-screen access, gaming, full browsing and enhanced search capabilities, and the ability to view live events streamed over the Internet.

Navigating V.I.A. Plus is simple and intuitive, using the QWERTY keypad and integrated touchpadthat’s built into the premium Bluetooth remote control included with every V.I.A. Plus product. Users need no technical know-how to get their new devices online, thanks to the advanced wireless Internet access and simplified onscreen setup.

Smart Blu-ray

The VBR430 Blu-ray player is the most advanced on the market today. Not only does it offer the incomparable entertainment power of V.I.A. Plus with Google TV, the player comes with a touchpad universal remote with QWERTY keypad that makes it easy to control apps, content and other functions. As part of the VIZIO Internet Apps Plus ecosystem, the VBR430 also lets users access video, audio and photos stored on any DLNA-compatible computer, network-connected hard drive or cell phone connected to a home network. Built-in WiFi makes network connection easy, and Bluetooth capability provides yet another conduit for streaming media from cell phones and computers.

Smart TV Plus 3D

VIZIO’s V.I.A. Plus products will also include Theater 3D technology, for crystal clear, brighter and flicker-free 3D, viewable with lightweight, comfortable, battery-free 3D glasses. The TVs feature LED backlighting with smart dimming technology to achieve dynamic contrast ratios of 1,000,000:1 or greater.

The Ultimate Stream Player

The VAP430 Stream Player with Google TV is an innovative media player that turns any HDTV into an enhanced VIZIO Internet Apps Plus (V.I.A. Plus) smart TV. As sales of stream players are poised to pass Blu-ray players in unit volume sales (by 2013, according the CEA U.S. Unit Shipment Forecast of January 2011), the VAP430 is the perfect solution for media multitaskers who consume most of their media over the Internet. The VAP430 is the one of the most advanced Stream Players with built-in HDMI ports that lets users connect existing components like gaming consoles or set-top boxes for unified access to all media sources through the VI.A. Plus touchpad remote. It even supports 3D content and 3D streaming.

Many of the new VIZIO V.I.A. Plus products will be on display at the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas during the Consumer Electronics Show, January 10 – 13, 2012. For more information, please visit www.vizio.com/ces

* Source: IHS iSuppli Corporation Research Q4 2011 Market Tracker Report of Q4 2010 – Q3 2011.

Vizio’s Google TV delayed until early fall, now edge-lit [C|net, Jan 10, 2012]
LAS VEGAS–Google TV has a way of disappointing expectations, and one strong case in point is the Vizio’s VIA Plus platform for TVs.

At CES 2011 we named the VIA Plus models as our favorite TV product of CES. They used Google TV to deliver what the company described as interoperability between the TV and Android-equipped phones and tablets. Among other features, Via Plus was also said to support the OnLive gaming service. Those extras, along with the same kind of full-array local-dimming backlightwe know and love, was enough to convince us that the so-equipped TVs were going to be pretty awesome.

Unfortunately, because of what Vizio describes as Google TV-related issues beyond its control, they never came out.

We asked about the VIA Plus sets during a pre-CES briefing with Vizio and were told they were still on the company’s product release roadmap. The new release date is “early fall.” They will have different model numbers and at least one change for the worse: that backlight is now an edge-lit affair. Vizio further specified that the new VIA Plus models would have a 240Hz refresh rate, passive 3D, and three screen sizes: 47-, 55-, and a new 65-inch option.

On the bright side, maybe having all that extra time to perfect VIA Plus will allow Vizio to do something really special with Google TV’s Honeycomb customizations. We’ll see.

Strong business backings from Taiwan that enable such bold strategy expansion for VIZIO

Vizio sees 2012 with optimism [Nov 2, 2011]

TV brand Vizio has indicated sales of Japan-based brands such as Sony, Panasonic and Sharp have been weak. However, South Korea-based brands such as Samsung and LG have been growing becoming Vizio’s biggest competitors. Vizio estimates 2011 shipments of LCD TVs to reach over six million units.

According to William Wang, CEO and founder of Vizio, the strategy to face the South Korea-based players is to improve products, such as by providing customers with the best 3D TV. If products can be sold with cheaper retail prices, then do it.

Wang indicated Vizio’s biggest partner is still Taiwan-based Amtran Technology, which accounts for 70-80% of Vizio’s OEM orders. Foxconn is responsible for small-size products. Wang complimented Taiwan’s technology, innovation and product quality.

The recent weak demand in the TV market has been causing panel makers to suffer huge losses, Vizio stated. Except for shipments in the first quarter 2011 which were comparable to those of 2010, the rest of the quarters in 2011 have all seen declining shipments.

Wang concluded that panel makers have been suffering due to oversupply and lack of consumer confidence due to weak economic conditions in Europe and the US. However, 2011 should be the year when the industry hits rock bottom, which means firms should face 2012 with optimism.

CES: Value Outweighs Price, AmTran Says [excerpt on the VIZIO site, Jan 6, 2010]

Behind Vizio’s success is a partnership with Taipei-based AmTran Technology, a contract manufacturer that specializes in computer monitors and televisions. The company, which owns a 23% stake [i.e. majority] in Vizio, now makes annual revenue of about $2 billion, more than quadruple the $428 million it reported in 2004.

To read more about this article please click here.

[Hon Hai/Foxconn is said to be the 2nd largest shareholder ov VIZIO as well as having 10% of shares of AmTran]

[click here >> WSJ Blogs, Jan 7, 2010]

In a rare interview, its chief executive and chairman Alpha Wu spoke to The Wall Street Journal about his views on the fast-changing industry at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas

The Wall Street Journal: Why have your products been so successful?

Mr. Wu: We think very simply about how we can provide the best value to customers world-wide. I have pretty good relationships with key component makers in Japan, Taiwan, China and now Korea, and I make sure we get high-quality components, so we can provide high-quality displays. We try to have attractive prices, but that can’t be the only reason for customers to buy. Value is more important than anything. We try to provide attractive prices, but that can’t be the only reason for customers to buy.

We also keep very tight production schedules. We learned from our customers that we must meet schedules. As long as we have discipline over our schedule, we can compete against anybodybecause when a rival announces a new technology, we can develop similar products quickly and take the market.

WSJ: Why do you think the traditional television makers in Japan are having such a hard time in the television market, particularly in the U.S.?

Mr. Wu: To be a pure original equipment manufacturer is a tough business. That’s why we teamed up with Vizio. The Japanese engineers work hard and demand perfect products, but they don’t know the market very much. In the U.S., people don’t want very high-end products especially in the current economic situation. Japanese consumers, however, are more willing to invest in expensive products.

Products that are made in Japan with Japanese components by Japanese suppliers are very important to them, but their factories aren’t as advanced as ours because they’re old. An older managementalso makes them less able to accept new technologies and innovation.

WSJ: 3D televisions are expected to be big news at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show. How soon do you expect this technology to take off?

Mr. Wu:3D movies are absolutely coming. 3D televisions might take two or three years. One big problem that has to be overcome is glasses. No one wants to wear glasses to watch TV. Plus if you have five people in the family you need five pairs of glasses. The technology is also not mature yet.

WSJ: What is your vision for AmTran’s future?

Mr. Wu: We want to support the best brand with the best technology products. We are trying to do it in different regions, step by step. We’re trying in Taiwan, Japan and China. Maybe someday we’ll try in Europe.

One of our customers, Bang & Olufsen, has a remote control that I use at home every day to control the curtains, lighting, television and audio. That’s our dream too, but to provide it to the mass market.

WSJ: What kind of opportunity do you see in the Chinese market?

Mr. Wu: By 2011, China’s market for televisions will be bigger than the U.S. From our point of view, we have some advantages — we know China better than people in other countries. Whoever can become No. 1 in China and in the U.S. will be No. 1 in the world.

Amtran Technology Co Ltd (2489.TW) – Overview – Full Description [Reuters, excerpted on Jan 10, 2012]

AMTRAN TECHNOLOGY CO., LTD. is principally engaged in the manufacture and distribution of monitors and digital televisions. The Company provides liquid crystal display (LCD) monitors, which are applied in personal computers (PCs), workstations, automobile instruments, point of sale (POS) equipment and automatic teller machines (ATMs), among others, as well as LCD televisions. During the year ended December 31, 2010, the Company obtained approximately 94.89% of its total revenue from digital televisions. The Company distributes its products primarily in Japan, Europe and the Americas.
» Full Overview of 2489.TW

Amtran sees increased 4Q11 revenues [Jan 10, 2012]

Taiwan-based TV OEM firm Amtran reported December revenues of NT$6.44 billion (US$214 million). Fourth quarter revenues reached NT$19.66 billion, the highest quarterly revenues in 2011, accounting for 35% of 2011 total revenues.

Due to sales during the year-end holiday season in the North America market, total shipments in December reached 660,000 units while total shipments in fourth quarter reached 1.94 million units, outperforming the previous three quarters in 2011. According to Amtran, total shipments in 2011 reached 5.35 million units. Shipments of products in the range of 32-37 inch accounted for 54% of the firm’s total flat TV shipments. Amtran noted that sales of large-size products (42-, 47-, 55-, and 65-inch) LCD TVs accounted for 46% of total revenues.

Amtran expects LCD TV shipments to increase as the firm develops products such as internet TV, smart TV and 3D TV.

Amtran faces challenge to attain 2011 LCD TV goal [Aug 17, 2011]

Taiwan-based Amtran Technology’s LCD TV shipments reached nearly two million units in the first half of 2011, according to industry sources. But the maker may have difficulties achieving its shipment goal of five million units for the entire 2011 given that its major market, North America, has been weak.

Amtran, the chief manufacturer for Vizio, shipped a total 4.2 million units of LCD TVs worldwide in 2010.

The precursor of 2012 smartphone war: Nokia Lumia vs. Samsung Omnia W in India

January 3, 2012 6:04 pm / 4 Comments on The precursor of 2012 smartphone war: Nokia Lumia vs. Samsung Omnia W in India

Updates:

Lumia 520 is the second bestseller on Flipkart, India’s Amazon.com (April 2, 2013)

$385

$193

$129

$267

$105

$27

$250

$28

but still Samsung’s entry level Andoid phone (Galaxy Y) is leading in price ($105) and #5.

– More than 221 million mobile handsets shipped in India during CY 2012, a Y-o-Y growth of 20.8%; Nokia retains overall leadership [CyberMedia Research, India press release, April 1, 2013]

Smartphone shipments cross 15 million units, 2H numbers grow 75.2% HY-o-HY; Samsung still the favourite but Sony and Indian players make their mark through differentiated offerings

According to CMR’s India Mobile Handsets Market Review, CY 2012, March 2013 release, India registered 221.6 million mobile handset shipments for CY (January-December) 2012. During the same period, 15.2 million smartphones were shipped in the country.

Table 1. India Mobile Handsets Market: CY 2012 versus CY 2011 (in terms of unit shipments)

Form Factor

Mobile Handsets

Featurephones

Smartphones

Shipments
(CY 2011)

183.4

172.2

11.2

Shipments
(CY 2012)

221.6

206.4

15.2

Year-on-Year Growth, CY 2012 over
CY 2011 (%)

20.80%

19.90%

35.70%

Half Year-on-Half Year Growth, 2H 2012 over
1H 2012 (%)

16.40%

11.30%

75.20%

Source: CMR’s India Mobile Handsets Market Review, CY 2012, March 2013 release

A comparison of overall mobile handset shipments and featurephone shipments shows a direct correlation for the India mobile handsets market rankings. Market shares are somewhat similar for the top three players across the overall market and the featurephones segment, as shown in Table 2.

Table 2. India Mobile Handsets Market: Leading Players, CY 2012 (% of unit shipments)

Player

Nokia

Samsung

Micromax

Rank – Overall

#1

#2

#3

Share – Overall (% of unit shipments)

21.80%
[~45M]

13.70%
[~28.3M]

6.60%
[~13.6M]

Rank – Featurephones segment

#1

#2

#3

Share – Featurephones segment (% of unit shipments of featurephones)

22.50%

11.50%

6.50%

Source: CMR’s India Mobile Handsets Market Review, CY 2012, March 2013 release

Commenting on the results, Faisal Kawoosa, Lead Analyst, CMR Telecoms Practice said, “Although we see a huge market ‘hype’ around smartphones, the fact remains that the India Mobile Handsets market is still dominated by shipments of featurephones. On the other hand smartphone shipments are growing fast. This indicates India is still a ‘new phone’ market, where featurephones contribute to the bulk of shipments compared to replacements or upgrades.”

“This propensity on the part of Indian subscribers of mobile telephony services to purchase large numbers of featurephones has paved the way for the establishment of Indian brands, which are largely focused on this segment.”

India Smartphones Market

The India smartphones market during 2H 2012 saw a rise in shipments by 75.2% over and above the 1H 2012 number, taking the overall contribution of smartphones to 6.8% for the full year. In fact, during 2H 2012, smartphone shipments stood at 8.1% of the country’s total mobile handset shipments. While BlackBerry was at third spot during 1H 2012, Sony Mobiles displaced the former if we examine numbers for the full CY 2012.

Table 3. India Mobile Handsets Market: Leading Smartphone Players, CY 2012 (in terms of % of unit shipments)

Player

Rank

Share (% of unit shipments of smartphones)

Samsung*

#1

43.1% [~6.5M]

Nokia

#2

13.3% [~ 2M]

Sony Mobiles

#3

8.2% [~1.25M]

* Smartphone shipments reported here for Samsung for CY 2011 and CY 2012 do not include shipments of ‘phablet’ (> 5″ screen size) models such as the Samsung Galaxy Note and the Samsung Galaxy Note II.

Source: CMR’s India Mobile Handsets Market Review, CY 2012, March 2013

Commenting on these results, Tarun Pathak, Analyst, CMR Telecoms Practice said, “The India smartphones segment has very distinct characteristics vis-à-vis the overall market. We believe the struggle for leadership in the India smartphones market is going to intensify through 2013 as vendors bring new form factors to market.”

“Players such as Samsung, HTC and Sony Mobiles will increasingly try to establish leadership through differentiated offerings and by promising a ‘seamless’ experience across the four consumer screens – smartphone, tablet, PC and TV. At the same time, home grown vendors such as Micromax, Karbonn and Lava will try to make a mark against their global competitors, by bringing to market powerful, yet attractively priced smartphones in an attempt to widen their appeal and grow the overall smartphone user base”, Tarun added.

Notes for Editors

This release is a part of the CyberMedia Research (CMR) Smart Mobility Market Programme.

CyberMedia Research (CMR) uses the term “shipments” to describe the number of handsets leaving the factory premises for OEM sales or stocking by distributors and retailers. For the convenience of media, the term shipments has been replaced by ‘sales’ in the press release, but this reflects the market size in terms of units of mobile handsets and not their absolute value. In the case of handsets imported into the country it represents the number leaving the first warehouse to OEMs, distributors and retailers. CyberMedia Research does not track the number of handsets brought on their person by individual passengers landing on Indian soil from overseas destinations or ‘grey market’ handsets. These are, therefore, not part of the CyberMedia Research numbers reported here.

CyberMedia Research (CMR) tracks shipments of mobile handsets on a monthly basis. However, as per convention, the market size is reported on a calendar quarter basis where appropriate to the context; in all such cases this refers to an aggregated number for the three calendar months in the quarter to which the press release refers.

Note that the Nokia smartphone numbers by CMR given above most probably do not include the Nokia Asha Touch “smartphones”. See their opinion about that:
Nokia Asha: Not yet a smartphone, yet is it Nokia’s “asha” for better times ahead [by Tarun Pathak from CyberMedia Research, India, Dec 18, 2012]

Almost a year ago Nokia launched its Lumia range of smartphones based on the Windows Mobile OS, alongside the Asha series. The market scenario at the time was different – Nokia was still the global market leader, despite its declining smartphones share and was banking on the Microsoft Windows Mobile OS for its new range of Lumia smartphones to reverse the declining trend in smartphones and stop, or at least slow down, the ever increasing dominance of Android and Apple iOS. But then things didn’t go as expected. Nokia continued to lose its global market share and eventually lost it mobile handsets market dominance of 14 years to Samsung in April 2012. There were two trends in the Nokia Quarterly results starting from 1Q 2012 – volume shipments of smart devices mainly dependent on the Lumia range continued to decline, whereas the shipments of featurephones led by Asha range of handsets started to show an increase.

Quarterly Performance of Nokia Devices Business

3Q 2011

4Q 2011

1Q 2012

2Q 2012

3Q 2012

Smart devices

16.8

19.6

11.9

10.2

6.3

Mobile Phones

89.8

93.9

70.8

73.5

76.6

Source: Nokia Quarterly Results,October 18, 2012

Nokia Lumia initially positioned as ‘more than a smartphone’ has received a lukewarm response from customers, when compared with the high decibel launch of Samsung’s Galaxy SIII and Galaxy Note 2, Apple’s iPhone 5, HTC’s One X etc.

On the other hand, Nokia Asha, initially positioned as ‘a cross between a featurephone and smartphone’ is receiving positive customer response globally.

In recent days, we have heard talk about the full-touch Asha series of devices being positioned as ‘smart featurephones’, but before going into the reasons for this rethinking, let us understand how exactly is a smartphone different from a featurephone. Smartphones are devices which run on evolved operating systems (Symbian S60, Windows Mobile, Linux, BlackBerry OS, WebOS, Android, iOS etc.), and have the ability to download and run applications and store user data beyond their required personal information management (PIM) capabilities. Featurephones run on a Real Time Operating System (RTOS) such as Java or BREW, and can download only Java apps without access to Android or iPhone apps.

So technically Nokia Asha doesn’t fit into the definition of a smartphone and responding to my question during a recent Nokia Talks webcast, a Nokia official confirmed the same. However, if we compare feature-to-feature, the capabilities of Asha phones can give smartphones a run for their money. Full touchscreen, cloud-accelerated Nokia browser for providing a fast and affordable internet experience, Nokia’s location based platform, online games, social networking integration and powerful processor etc., they have almost all the features a smartphone should have at an affordable price point ranging between INR 4,000-7,500.

Therefore, it is only natural for Nokia to position the full-touch range of Asha phones as smartphones. One may term it as a marketing tactic, especially in view of Nokia having a tough time in the smartphones market. Since 43% of smartphone sales in India are under the INR 10,000 price point (Source: CMR, 2012), it makes eminent sense for Nokia to push the full touch Asha devices as smartphones. So, while technically the Asha series might not qualify as a smartphone, they are smarter than many devices in the price range and may well be the lifeline that Nokia is looking for, to shore up its fortunes in the long road to recovery.

– Lumia 800 US$ 389 (INR 21,799) [July 9, 2012]
– Lumia 710 US$ 248 (INR 13,899) [July 9, 2012]

– India mobile phone sales cross 50 million mark in Jan-Mar 2012; up 9.1% YoY [CyberMedia Research, India press release, July 3, 2012]

Smartphones make up 5.3% of units sold and almost a quarter of total handset revenues

Multi-SIM handsets account for two-thirds of total sales; 3G phone sales still below 10 per cent of total sales

New Delhi / Gurgaon, July 3, 2012: The overall India mobile handsets market registered sales of 50.2 million units during January-March 2012. This was reported in the CyberMedia Research India Monthly Mobile Handsets Market Review for 1Q 2012 released today.

In the overall India mobile handsets market, Nokia retained leadership position with 23% share, followed by Samsung at second position with 14.1% and Micromax at third position with 5.8%, in terms of sales (unit shipments) during January-March 2012.

Table 1. India Monthly Mobile Handset Shipments (millions of units),
January-March 2012*

*Source: CyberMedia Research India Monthly Mobile Handsets Market Review for 1Q 2012,
June 2012 release

Overall India Mobile Handsets Market by PriceBand

Figure 1. India Mobile Handsets Market by Price Band

* Source: CyberMedia Research, 2012

<INR 5000: <US$ 89 INR 5001-10000: US$ 89-179
INR 10001-15000: US$ 179-268
INR 15001-20000: US$ 268-357
INR 20001-25000: US$ 357-447
INR 25001-30000: US$ 447-536 >INR 30000: >US$ 536

India Smartphones Market: The Shape of Things to Come

Total India smartphone sales touched 2.7 million units during January-March 2012. Samsung emerged as the leader in the smartphone segment with a 40.4% share, followed at No. 2 and No. 3 by Nokia with 25.5% and RIM with 12.3% share respectively.

Table 3. India Mobile Handsets Market: Shares of leading Vendors in Smartphones*

* Source: CyberMedia Research India Monthly Mobile Handsets Market Review for 1Q 2012, June 2012 release

In 1Q 2012, Samsung launched seven new smartphone models in India, further tightening its grip on sales in different price bands between INR 7,500 [$134] to INR 27,000 [$482]. This is the range in which the company sells its portfolio of smartphones currently. It excludes products like the Samsung Galaxy Note, which, with a 5″ screen is categorized under the category of media tablets / tablet PCs. Indian mobile handset vendors have also started aggressively widening their Android-based smartphones portfolio.

Figure 2. India Mobile Handsets Market
by Price Band in 1Q 2012:
Converging Towards Two ‘Poles’

*Source: CyberMedia Research, 2012

“As the India mobile handsets market grows in maturity, the needs of users are clearly seen to be converging around two major form factors – high-power, high-speed smartphones vis-à-vis value-plus, content-enabled featurephones. While most players are strong in a particular category, Samsung and others have been able to maintain a strong presence across the spectrum, driven mainly by innovation, quick time-to-market and a segmented approach”, stated Anirban Banerjee, Associate Vice President, Research and Advisory Services, CyberMedia Research.

“Players like Motorola and Sony have clearly chosen to stay in the ‘high value’ smartphones segment, which accounts for just 5.3% of shipments but added up to as much as 23.4% of the market value in 1Q 2012. Currently, large, international players like Nokia and RIM, as well as relatively new entrants like Micromax, Karbonn, Lava and Spice are faced with the challenge to enhance their portfolio of products, models and services, to stay relevant and profitable in the long run”, added Naveen Mishra, Lead Analyst, CMR Telecoms Practice.

India 3G Phones Market: Decline in Data Tariffs to Trigger Increase in Shipments?

Shipments of multi-SIM handset category continued its rise, accounting for as much as 67.7% of total shipments in 1Q 2012. However, even more significantly, total shipments of 3G-enabled mobile handsets in the country touched 4.7 million units during 1Q 2012 (January-March 2012). While this was a decline of (-)7.8% over the 4Q 2011 (October-December 2011) ‘festival quarter’, it was a growth of 34.3% over 1Q 2011 (January-March 2011).

“With the recently announced reduction in tariffs of 3G services by as much as 70% by leading India telecom service providers, the market for both 3G-enabled devices and mobile broadband-driven content is likely to see an upward trend in adoption in the forthcoming quarters”, stated Tarun Pathak, Analyst, CMR Telecoms Practice.

Notes to Editors

CyberMedia Research, India uses the term “shipments” to describe the number of handsets leaving the factory premises for OEM sales or stocking by distributors and retailers. For the convenience of media, the term shipments has been replaced by ‘sales’ in the press release, but this reflects the market size in terms of units of mobile handsets and not their absolute value. In the case of handsets imported into the country it represents the number leaving the first warehouse to OEMs, distributors and retailers. CyberMedia Research does not track the number of handsets brought on their person by individual passengers landing on Indian soil from overseas destinations or ‘grey market’ handsets. These are, therefore, not part of the CyberMedia Research numbers reported here.
CyberMedia Research, India tracks shipments of mobile handsets on a monthly basis. However, as per convention, the market size may be reported on a calendar quarter basis where appropriate to the context; in all such cases this refers to an aggregated number for the three calendar months in the quarter to which the press release refers.

– Lumia 800 price lowered by Nokia more than 20% to as low as US$ 471 (INR 23,490) in retail. This is said to be for the preparation of the Lumia 900 launch there. [March 3, 2012]

– Lumia 710 US$ 309 (INR 15,490) [Jan. 23, 2012]

– Nokia Lumia Momentum Map [Nokia Maps Blog, Jan 15, 2012]

If a picture is worth a thousand words, an interactive map is at least worth ten thousand words! To coincide with the launch of Nokia Lumia in USA; we launched the Nokia Lumia Momentum Map – an interactive way to check out the countries where Nokia Lumia smart phones are either available or will be coming soon. You can also check out the tweets, videos and photos from users about the Lumia series.

The content of the Momentum Map as of Jan 15, 2012:

Country	Lumia 710	Lumia 800
Germany	Now	Now
Netherlands	Now	Now
Italy	Now	Now
Russia	Now	Now
India	Now	Now
Hong Kong	Now	Now
Taiwan	Now	Now
Singapore	Now	Now
Spain	Jan 11, 2012	Now
United Kingdom	Feb 1, 2012	Now
USA (+ Lumia 900 “in coming months”)	Jan 11, 2012	Coming Soon
France	n.a.	Now
Austria	Coming Soon	Now
Hungary	Jan 20, 2012	Jan 20, 2012
Greece	Jan 21, 2012	Jan 20, 2012
Portugal	Feb 2, 2012	Jan 26, 2012
Switzerland	n.a.	Jan 13, 2012
Denmark	n.a.	Jan 20, 2012
Sweden	n.a.	Jan 23, 2012
Norway	Feb 1, 2012	Feb 1, 2012
Canada	Feb, 2012	Feb, 2012
Belgium	Mar 1, 2012	Feb 1, 2012

End of Updates

Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango) smartphones are already in heavy competition between Nokia and Samsung on the Indian market. The current mid-range retail price is ~$340 for both companies as shown below, while the lower end premium Lumia 800 is without competitive offering from Samsung side, yet it already costs only $526 and up. Note that in the first half of 2012 even these offerings will likely to go down with Lumia 710 (and Samsung Omina W) becoming a mass market smartphone in the range of $200-250, while the Lumia 800 a higher end mid-range smartphone with a price tag of $400-450. This is also proven by a companion post The new, high-volume market in China is ready to define the 2012 smartphone war [Jan 6, 2012].

(After the details about the specifics of Nokia Lumia offerings please find as well two recent article excerpts about the ongoing fight between the two companies on the Indian market. Product information is from corresponding company product sites in India: Lumia 800, Lumia 710 and Omnia W. Lumia 800 is currently sold for $529 [listed for $899] on Amazon in USA, while in Germany for € 398 ($520) [listed for € 499 ($652)]. Lumia 710 price on Amazon in Germany is € 315 ($411) [listed for € 319 ($417)]. All Euro prices are inclusive German VAT! Note as well that Omina W is available as Focus Flash in the USA for $199 [listed for $299] unlocked as the lowest retail price.)

While all the advantages are shown in red ink above, the biggest advantages for Lumias are:
– The leading ClearBlack display technology from Nokia [Dec 18, 2011]
– Corning Gorilla Glass (wikipedia article)
– Best practice industrial and user experience design – Nokia and Microsoft [Dec 17, 2011] where an absolutely leading edge industrial design achievement of “seamless design with curved glass and one-piece body made of polycarbonate plastic“ of Nokia N9 has been re-applied by Nokia for Lumia 800 as well. More understanding of that you could see in this Nokia N9 Journey [nokia, Oct 24, 2011] video:

A story about the making of the most beautifully simple smartphone.

– Nokia Lumia 800 Uncovered: Battery Life [nokia, Nov 16, 2011]

In this film, we see how great the Nokia Lumia 800 battery is and see how simple it is not only to check the status of the battery but also how to prolong its life with “battery saver.” The phone offers over 10 hours of talk time and over 50 hours of music play back time. You won’t miss a moment either on social or on a call! A big thanks to the presenter: Aditya from http://worldofphones.net/ Follow us on Twitter here – http://nokia.ly/j7zixs Or connect with us on Facebook here – http://nokia.ly/hWCnbn

There is also significant advantage in the bundled cloud services described in Nokia Lumia (Windows Phone 7) value proposition [Oct 26, 2011] as the “Three Unique Differentiators”:
– Free Nokia Music and MixRadio
– Free Navigation
– Free ESPN Sports Hub
The latter is not available in India (obviously) but something similar may be introduced later, designed especially for India’s sport fans.

Music and Entertainment – Nokia Lumia 710 [nokia, Jan 2, 2012]

Experience the amazing everyday and see just why the Nokia Lumia 710 http://nokia.ly/s04wrf is not your everyday, everyday phone. With access to millions of songs in Nokia Music and Mix Radio, your ears need never be bored again. The best in mobile phone entertainment gives you more than just click and play. You can create your own channels based on the artists you like, or let Mix Radio create a personalised experience based on the music you already have in your library. Throw in the ability to record and watch HD video wherever you are, and you’ll be entertained for hours. Music and Entertainment is one in a series of 6 quick introduction demos to the wonderful world of Nokia Lumia. Each video highlights different hubs and features, letting you dive deeper into the world of Nokia with Windows Phone. Follow us on Twitter here – http://nokia.ly/j7zixs Connect with us on Facebook here – http://nokia.ly/hWCnbn

Nokia Lumia Presents: Little Amazing Show – Episode 6: India [nokia, Jan 3, 2012]

Four Indian cities, one synchronized flash mob. Find other little ideas to make the everyday more amazing on our Facebook page: http://nokia.ly/sYguNx

Also check out our other Little Amazing Shows:
Episode 1: Berlin http://nokia.ly/vTphrR
Episode 2: London http://nokia.ly/u8uj0G
Episode 3: Madrid http://nokia.ly/uWAYMy
Episode 4: Night http://nokia.ly/uzwtJq
Episode 5: Paris http://nokia.ly/uwWYCv
For more information on Nokia Lumia visit http://nokia.ly/rZWC93

Nokia banks on Lumia to be game changer in smartphone mkt [Jan 3, 2011]

Over the last year, Nokia’s fortunes took a turn for the worse, with its market share sliding downwards, losing its number one position in smartphones to Samsung, both, globally and in India. CNBC-TV18’s Anuradha Sengupta met Nokia’s managing director D Shivakumar and got him talking on why its newest phone, its first in collaboration with Microsoft – the Lumia will be a game changer for the Finnish company.

Q: What makes the Lumia a game changer?

A: When we made this announcement most people thought it was a defensive kind of a move, but in the last nine months it has completely realigned the ecosystem in telecom. So it has been a big game changer, not just for Nokia, but for everybody out there in the ecosystem. Nokia is giving it’s very best in terms of promoting it, in terms of the look and feel of the product, in terms of what’s available on it and more importantly in terms of the local apps that we have in India for the Lumia 800 and 710.

Q: Will the Lumia’s success be a make or break for Nokia’s future leadership position in the smartphone category?

A: I would say making Nokia Lumia work is plan A. Plan B is making Nokia Lumia work.

Q: I have been hearing statements that you have made a reaction to comments that when it came to this end of the market, the dual SIM card phone was a game changer and that is where you have admitted in interviews and conversations that it was a mistake, that Nokia did not cotton on to it. Why was this?

A: The early signals we picked were more than three years ago and we didn’t even say dual SIM, we actually talked of triple SIM. We could see it coming. Technology is global in nature, especially in this category. No one country can give you sufficient volume to build your own variant because of 17 operators, because of the price war between the operators led to the concept of dual SIM, it was not seen in most other places.

Doing a dual SIM phone for an operator buying anywhere else in the world would be like waving a red flag. It’s a host of factors. It has nothing to do with not reading the market or not seeing the consumer.

Samsung ambushes Nokia in smartphone war [The Economic Times [India], Jan 2, 2011]

In a packed theatre, scores of excited movie buffs sat through a long march of commercials patiently, but the organisers were dismayed. It was an exclusive premier of SRK-starrer Ra.One for mobile phone maker Nokia’s premium users at PVR Select City Walk mall in Delhi, but the advertisements that had been running for the previous few minutes were of Samsung mobile!

That was in October. Two months later, when Nokia rolled out Lumia cabs in Bangalore as part of its biggest marketing drive in the country to promote its first Windows smartphone, Samsung brought out its own Omnia cab and stationed it outside the Lumia showroom for a few days.

Analysts call it ambush marketing, Samsung says it’s not. Whatever, but the cut-throat competition between the country’s top two mobile handset players looks like the old Cola War between Coca-Cola and PepsiCo and refreshes memories of Pepsi’s ‘Nothing official about it’ campaign during the 1996 cricket World Cup that introduced the concept of ambush marketing in India.

“We do not acknowledge, react or engage in ambush marketing,” a Nokia spokesperson says. “We believe in responsible marketing, where we will disclose more than what is required to our consumers, as we did in the case of the minor software glitch in Lumia 800.”

Samsung denies ambushing Nokia, and says both the examples were part of independent marketing initiatives. “We were running a media innovation in October for tablets wherein all screens at Ambience Mall PVR and Inox in Mumbai showed the ads,” a Samsung spokeswoman says.

ALL IS FAIR IN LOVE & WAR

Samsung has emerged the most aggressive mobile handset maker over the past couple of years. It pipped Apple as the world’s top smartphone player during the July-September quarter last year and in India, GfK data suggests Samsung may have already overtaken Nokia as the largest smartphone vendor in value terms, thanks to the rising popularity of its Google Android phones led by the Galaxy range.

The marketing war in India has intensified after Nokia rolled out its first Windows-based smartphone, Lumia, last month. Samsung has started pushing its own Windows smartphone Omnia, launched more than a year ago, harder.

An email comparing Lumia 800 and Omnia W features and concluding ‘Why donate 9,000 extra to Nokia’ is in circulation. While Samsung denies any connection with the mail, Nokia says ambush marketing is not about deriding the other brand. “Ambush marketing, if done in a creative manner, appeals to the consumers,” says a Nokia spokesperson. “It’s not a crude attack on the rival.”

Some marketing experts believe Samsung is playing it smart. “Competition is all about being opportunistic and scoring a goal when the rival is least prepared. And that’s where Samsung has proved to be a better player,” says Saurabh Uboweja, director of brand consulting and design firm Brands of Desire.

Even if customers think Samsung played the smart Alec, it won’t hurt the brand as the ambush creates the perception of a smart, witty and on-the-go brand, says Uboweja.

“It’s much like the customers today who don’t feel guilty about pulling a leg or playing a prank on their peers,” he adds.

RULES OF AMBUSH

Former advertising professional and chick lit writer Anuja Chauhan says focused ambushing is better than rapid-fire ambushing. “It makes more sense to keep it (ambush) more informative and publicise it,” says Chauhan, who came up with the ‘Nothing official about it’ tagline for Pepsi in 1996.

The aim of the ambush is to leverage the strength of the competitor. It has to be smart and not say derogatory things about the competitor, she says. An independent analyst says Samsung’s strategy won’t affect Nokia.

“Even in a war, ambush is the recourse of an upstart, and not of the ruler,” says the analyst, requesting anonymity. “At best, ambush can be a tactical move. But it won’t hurt Nokia.”

YLR Moorthi, professor (marketing), IIM-Bangalore, says ambush marketing somehow speaks of a company not confident of holding out in the open. “Samsung is a challenger in the mobile market in India. So, they might be seeking out opportunities to hurt Nokia,” he says.

And it has managed to bridge the gap with Nokia considerably in the smartphone segment, which accounts for some 8% of the 213-million Indian handset market. According to latest IDC figures, Nokia accounted for 35.3% of all smartphone shipments in the country during the July-September quarter last year, followed by Samsung at 26%.

In the overall mobile phone market, the market shares are 31.8% and 17.5%, respectively, for Nokia and Samsung. Deepak Kumar, research director (telecommunications & mobile phones) at IDC India, says the smartphone landscape in India will remain fluid for the next couple of quarters.

“The picture would start becoming clear in the second half of 2012, when the various operating system platforms would have mostly unfolded their plays across a variety of hardware,” says Kumar.

Nokia to launch Windows-based Lumia in India today [The Times of India, Dec 16, 2011]

Nokia has unleashed its biggest-ever marketing campaign in India for the launch of its Windows-based smartphone Lumia on Friday, so as to keep itself relevant in a market being swarmed by Google Android phones such as Samsung Galaxyrange.Called The Amazing Everyday, the campaign includes impromptu dance performance by a foreign troupe in Mumbai; a luxury helicopter ride for consumers in Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai; exclusive premiere for pre-bookers with tennis star Sania Mirza at Ambience Mall in Gurgaon late on Thursday; a mega musical event in Delhi on Friday, and toll exemption for more than 15,000 cars at DND Freeway connecting Delhi and Noida on Friday, among several others including aggressive advertisement across different media platforms, to connect with the young consumers across top cities.”It’s a gamechanger for us,” says Nokia India Marketing Director Viral Oza. “We have redefined what we mean to the consumers.” Analysts call it a desperate attempt to reclaim ground in the smartphone market. “Nokia is desperate to make Lumia work,” says Saurabh Uboweja, director of brand consulting and design firm Brands of Desire.”If Lumia flops, Nokia is likely to become conservative in marketing.” Lumia is Nokia’s first serious offering in smartphones comparable to Apple iPhone and top Android phones of Samsung, HTC and Motorola. And the Finnish firm, which still dominates the Indian handset market with a 30% share, is leaving no stone unturned in its bid to make Lumia a success.Apart from an extensive experiential marketing, the handset major rolled out an internal campaign for its employees from December 12-16. So, it was WOW Monday for Nokia staff, who discovered a giant life-size Lumia in office and were asked to tap on it to get gifts such as chocolates, laptop stickers and Rubik cubes.On Kinetic Tuesday, scooties were placed around office for employees to have fun rides; on Surprise Wednesday, employees went around office hunting for magic boxes; and they put on their dancing shoes on Foottapping Thursday.On Friday, the officewill remain closed and all employees will be in the market to attend the big launch events. Abhishek Chauhan, senior consultant (ICT practice) at Frost & Sullivan, says Nokia’s first Windows-based smartphone will get a momentum from the extensive marketing campaign.”But the momentum can be sustained only if the product works,” he says. And, not many experts see Lumia as a game changer. “Lumia might pose serious competition, but it’s definitely not a game changer,” says Uboweja of Brands of Desire.”There is nothing so exciting in the product that is way beyond or different from other smartphones.” Experts are particularly critical of Nokia’s decision to use only Symbian and Windows platforms for its phones, and leave the world’s most popular Android OS out.This is the first product under the Nokia-Microsoft partnership and the stakes are high for Nokia. “Nokia may get the knockout punch if Lumia fails to inspire consumer imagination,” says Uboweja.

India Handset Shipments, Vendor Market Share, Strategies and Key Trends Q3’2011 [Research and Markets report release announcement, Jan 4, 2012]

This report provides an in-depth assessment of handset shipments, vendor market share, strategies and key trends in Q3’2011 for the mobile handsets industry in India. Mobile handset shipments in India have been increasing and they were highest in 2010 with 146.93 million units. The shipments in 2011 are expected to reach all time high as the shipment for 3 quarters in 2011 is 125.32 million units. By the end of Q4’2011, a yearly figure of 162 million units is expected.

India has been one of the major players in the Asia Pacific handset shipments and since 2009 India has been able to capture more than 20% of the overall Asia Pacific shipments, with a market share of over There has been quarter on quarter growth in the handset shipments in India barring a few exceptions in two quarters.

Local manufacturing has been very beneficial for mobile handset makers in India and many Indian players are manufacturing the product locally. All the other players, who do not have the local manufacturing, are planning to start the manufacturing to get away with the problems of currency exchange rates and supply side spikes.

Nokia has been the top player in the Indian mobile handset market and it has achieved a market share of 29.44% in 2011 for all the three quarters. Nokia has been losing its share to new entrants and local players in the Indian market. Samsung is coming strongly and it is in the second place with 14.34% market share. The share of Samsung is up by 14.63% from 2010. Though all the players are trying to gain market share but still Nokia is way above all of them and it will take a long time before anyone else can take the lead position. Local playersMicromax, Maxx, Lava and Videocon are gaining market share and most of them have launched low cost phones with features such as dual-SIM, long battery life etc. Local players also have the advantage of local manufacturing.

Smartphone sales to double in 2012 [The Times of India, Jan 5, 2012]

… smartphones are expected to double sales this year from nearly nine million units, and lead the growth in the segment.

Smartphones have grown from a 2% share to 6% of the overall mobile market, estimated at 150 million units. Priced in the range Rs 6,000 to Rs 40,000, smartphones have witnessed a deep penetration not only among business executives, but also among youth for on-the-go entertainment and functional use.

“Smartphones and convergence devices like the Galaxy Note and tablets are showing a strong adoption in the market linked with the growing consumer need for staying connected with their friends /family /work, while being on the move as well as personalizing them by downloading applications”, says Ranjit Yadav, country head, Samsung Mobile & IT.

Samsung, which has a portfolio of 13 smartphones across platforms, emerged as the leader with the largest value and volume market share in November.

Factors which have spurred growth in these devices are affordability and availability across operating platforms – Windows, Android and bada. Industries are increasingly applying mobile services in banking, manufacturing, retail, hospitality and healthcare, while automotive, logistics and consumer goods companies are using them to streamline inventory management, track demand, and manage shelf space.

The market dominated by Samsung, Nokia and RIM is expected to get more crowded with the entry of Chinese and other domestic companies this year.

Best practice industrial and user experience design – Nokia and Microsoft

December 17, 2011 9:10 pm / 6 Comments on Best practice industrial and user experience design – Nokia and Microsoft

Major updates: Marko Ahtisaari: smartphone evolution is only just beginning [The Guardian, Jan 31, 2012]

…

“There’s a point of view about design that all innovation in the interaction with the phone has been done,” Ahtisaari says. “Nothing could be further from the truth. The phase we’re in now is like the 1880s in the car industry. Back then, cars had tillers – you would steer them like boats, with a wheel at the back. It took 15 years to settle on the steering wheel at the front controlling the front wheels. And we’re in the middle of that part of the evolution of interaction.”

“Look at iOS. Multiple pages of apps, and folder, with a physical home key. It’s very elegant; it was a great innovation five years ago. But the core interaction hasn’t evolved much. It’s simple but constant. It’s like a house where you know that you can always get to the kitchen from the living room – but you have to go through the front door.”He adds quickly, “OK, so there’s been some changes. Now you can get there if you skip on one leg” – referring to the double tap’ introduced by Apple in iOS 4 for fast switching between apps via a “drawer” at the bottom of the screen. “The other model, of Android and Symbian, is multiple, personalisable home screens with widgets. There’s some fragmentation in button layouts where different devices have them in different ways. The hope is that having personalisable screens is so organic that you end up using it via the home screen.”

In the past year we have seen a different way to do it – Live Tiles [as used in Microsoft’s Windows Phone interface] – they’re abstractions of data, a panoramic view of your data. It’s a different approach – ‘glanceability’, such as in the People Hub.” He explains that “our goal in the studio is to design so that people can have their head up again. Touchscreen designs are often immersive; we’ll often see couples in a restaurant pinching and zooming, but not interacting with each other. And there’s a trend of having smaller and smaller targets on screen so you have to get closer and closer. If we can make the interfaces more direct, so you can have your head up again – this is something that, while it would never come up in a focus group, is deeply appreciated by people, because the most important things are happening not only in the vessel of your phone, but also with the people and the environment around you.”

That element of “glance-and-go” is one that has been emphasised by Microsoft, and now Nokia too.

His theme is that we shouldn’t think that iOS or Android (or Symbian) has ended user-interface evolution. The sun’s just coming up on that. “I think there will be more diversity in user interfaces rather than less. In automotive, you need to have some standardisation for safety reasons – you can’t have wheels in some and tillers in others. So you want a standard, or standards.” That doesn’t apply in phones: “Here, they will be more diversity in user interface because you can design more ways to use a phone. Some people would say that the iPhone is the new generic form. My point is more about competitive diversity. What’s really important is that this isn’t styling.” He becomes emphatic. “This aesthetic come from the way that we build the product.”

…

[More on that: Nokia to enter design pattern competition for 2011 smartphones with MeeGo [Dec 9, 2010]]

– Nokia appoints Marko Ahtisaari to Nokia Leadership Team [Jan 26, 2012]

Nokia today announced that Marko Ahtisaari has been appointed Executive Vice President, Design, and a member of the Nokia Leadership Team, effective February 1, 2012. He reports directly to President and CEO Stephen Elop.

Ahtisaari will continue to lead the Nokia design team, responsible for the industrial design and user experience design of all Nokia products. He has led the team since 2009 during which time Nokia Design has created critically acclaimed products such as the Nokia N9, the Nokia Lumia 800 and the Nokia Lumia 900.

Previously, Ahtisaari was an entrepreneur, as CEO and co-founder of Dopplr, a social network for international travelers, and Head of Brand and Design at Blyk, an advertising-funded mobile network. Prior to this he was Director of Design Strategy at Nokia, and held roles in corporate strategy and venturing. Ahtisaari was also a Fellow of the Faculty and lecturer at the Graduate School of Arts and Science at Columbia University, and a composer and professional musician. He serves on the Board of Directors of Artek and WITNESS.

“One of the key differentiators of Nokia is the elegant and head-turning design of our products,” said Stephen Elop, president and CEO of Nokia. “As we have charted our new course, Marko Ahtisaari has ensured that we elevate the importance of distinctive design, which is evident in the industry’s response to our award-winning Lumia and Asha products. By appointing Marko to the Nokia Leadership Team, we believe his influence will ensure that design leadership becomes part of everything we make and also everything we do.”

End of major updates

A week ago (Dec. 9) Nokia elevated to the company level the design and innovation synergy with Microsoft which is promising to change consumer IT for the years ahead. In fact the change could be far more spectacular than the previous one by Apple in the last decade or so. Windows Phone 7 is just the beginning as design unification throughout Microsoft has been started two years ago. Considering that Windows Phone 7 won the equivalent of an Oscar by the professional designer community just a few months ago (unfortunately a little known fact), and that Nokia got a very high acclaim for its N9 and Lumia 800 industrial designs (both from the professional designers and the consumer audience), such a synergy could indeed deliver spectular results in the future (as Nokia is also going to enter the Windows 8 tablet business). Below you will find all the current information about the best industrial and user experience design practices of both companies.

An unlikely meeting of minds [“Design & Innovation” page of “About Nokia”/”Our Company”, Dec 9, 2011]

When Nokia and Microsoft designed the Nokia Lumia 800, there was no clash of cultures – more a shared vision based on purity and simplicity.

Sometimes pairing two unlikely things produces unexpected results. When Nokia and Microsoft began designing their first phone together, they were surprised to discover they had much in common. From its light form and smooth body to its uncluttered interface, the Nokia Lumia 800 embodies a shared belief in keeping things simple and pushing the boundaries of conventional design.

Two halves of one mind

In order of appearance: Axel Meyer, Head of Industrial Design – Nokia (N9 & Lumia 800); Anton Fahlgren, Principal Industrial Designer – Nokia (N9 & Lumia 800); Nicolás Lylyk, Senior Industrial Design Specialist – Nokia (N9 & Lumia 800); Mika Nenonen, Senior Industrial Design Specialist – Nokia (N9 & Lumia 800); Jeff Fong, Principal User Experience Design Lead, Microsoft; Amy Alberts, Senior Design Researcher Lead, Microsoft; Michael Smuga, Studio Manager, Microsoft.

The Metro Design Language, the inspiration (Part 1) [Jeff Fong on Windows Phone Design Day, Summer 2010]

Jeff Fong, the Design lead for Windows Phone kicks-off Windows Phone design day with his overview of Metro.

The Metro Design Language, the inspiration (Part 2) [Jeff Fong on Windows Phone Design Day, Summer 2010]

Original video (for both YouTube ones embedded here) from: http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Jaime+Rodriguez/Windows-Phone-Design-Days-Metro

If interested in other subjects as well see:
Windows Phone Design Day Recordings [Aug 13, 2010]

Nokia Lumia 800. The designer’s story. (From Anton-Olof Fahlgren) [Oct 25, 2011]

An insider’s view on the design principles for the new Nokia Lumia 800 with Anton-Olof Fahlgren, the Principal Industrial Designer in Axel Meyer’s team.

Nokia World 2011 Panel Discussion: Designing smarter phones [Nov 8, 2011]

Panel Discussion at Nokia World 2011: http://events.nokia.com/nokiaworld/ titled “Designing smarter phones” with Marko Ahtisaari from Nokia and Albert Shum from Microsoft

See the detailed elaboration of that (with a lot of included text) in a separate post on this blog: Designing smarter phones–Marko Ahtisaari (Nokia) and Albert Shum (Microsoft) [Nov 23, 2011]

Steve Kaneko – Microsoft design unification [TheVerge , Dec 15, 2011]

Joshua Topolsky and Steve Kaneko discuss the unification of Microsoft design among several product families. WATCH THE FULL INTERVIEW AT THE VERY END OF THIS POST WITH A BRIEF ARTICLE FROM THE VERGE AS WELL.

[2:09] … It was about two years ago that I recall an event where we, as some of design directors in charge of different divisions, … we called it LTE, leadership teams, went offsite for a day and a half, and we have actually stepped back for the first time, put up all the work using screenshots, hard copies, not visual shots, and we filled the wall twenty feet long, top and bottom, and tried to parse … let’s call it information work for consumer. Really took a look from server and tools all the way with what’s going on, in some cases what’s happening at MSR with Windows, Xbox at the time, Zune, and start to look for commonality amongst all this. And you know we saw an awful lot of it. We were very disappointed what we were seeing as well. … [2:55]

[a summary of the is from The Verge brief article:] He says that “as designers, we knew way before we actually executed that we did have a mixed message to consumers,” and that the Microsoft brand was fragmented because of an inconsistent design language. Now, he says that Microsoft’s design community feels more confident, and that “we’re not looking over our shoulders as much as we used to.” (Presumably because designers may have been wary of skeptical Microsoft executives.)

Technology Preview: Windows Phone and Kinect for XBox 360 [Broll by Microsoft, Feb 13, 2011]

A technology preview from Microsoft Games Studios showing the connection of Windows Phone 7 and Kinect for XBox 360

Xbox already got a new Metro style user experience this month (BTW Steve Kaneko was User Experience Director of the Entertainment and Devices Division till summer of 2011): The Future of Living Room Entertainment [Broll by Microsoft, Dec 6, 2011]

Footage of the new features and services available in the Dec. 6 update for Xbox 360, including voice recognition, Bing integration, new dashboard interface, TV & movie apps and more.

See the detailed elaboration of that (with a lot of included text) in a separate post on this blog: The future of TV via a new Metro-styled Xbox 360 dashboard plus a plethora of new content partners [Dec 7, 2011]

And finally (also most importantly) the upcoming Windows 8 is showing great design unification as well:

Microsoft’s Windows 8 Comes Alive with Fast and Fluid New UI [WindowsVideos, Sept 13, 2011]

Julie Larson-Green, Corporate Vice President Windows Experience at Microsoft, unveiled a fast and fluid new user interface for the upcoming Windows 8 at the company’s Build conference earlier today in Anaheim. Larson-Green previewed the new “Metro style” UI including the Start screen.

Windows 8 Metro Style Communications Apps [windowslive, Sept 13, 2011]

Get the first look at the Metro style communications apps in Windows 8, including Photos, Mail, People, Calendar, and Messaging.

IDSA Unveils Best in Shows at IDEA Ceremony [IDSA press release, Sept 24, 2011]

Bespoke, Boeing and Microsoft Capture Top Honors for Design Excellence

On Sept. 17, the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) unveiled the Best in Shows for the 2011 International Design Excellence Awards® (IDEA) at its annual international conference in New Orleans. Bespoke Fairings, Boeing Dreamliner 787 and Windows Phone 7 each claimed a Best in Shownod.

Designed by Scott Summit and Chris Campbell of Bespoke Innovations, Bespoke Fairings is an assembly of up to 30 manufactured pieces that restores symmetry and natural contours to an amputee’s body. The process starts with a 3-D scan of the surviving leg. With input from the amputee, the parts are customized from an assortment of colors, materials and finish options. Once applied to existing prosthetic limbs, the fairing communicates the users’ sense of style and taste, allowing them to connect with the artificial limb in a personal and emotional way.

Designed by The Boeing Co. design team and Teague’s design team, the Boeing 787 Dreamliner features an expansive inner architecture as well as dynamic LED lighting that replicates day-to-night light patterns, dimmable windows 65 percent larger than other airplanes and larger stow bins. It has been one of the most successful commercial airplane launches with more than 800 orders valued at $164 billion.

Designed by Microsoft’s Windows phone design team, the Windows Phone 7 brings a new experience to the smartphone market, one that connects with end users and makes the phone a recognizable brand that users take interest in. The designers sought a better user experience, one that revolves around who the users are rather than what they do.

“While vastly different products, all three of this year’s Best in Show designs excelled in improving the human experience with a technology product,” said IDSA’s CEO Clive Roux. “The Windows 7 Phone improves on the iPhone interface; the Boeing 787 improves the experience of flying through a combination of larger windows, improved cabin pressure stability and careful attention to lighting to ease transitions between time zones. The Bespoke Fairing speaks for itself. It humanizes and adds sensitivity to a prosthetic unlike any I’ve seen before.”

“The three Best in Shows demonstrated that great design begins and ends with a deep understanding of people’s innermost needs and desires with a responsibility to society,” said Smart Design’s CEO Davin Stowell. “When designers are successful at this, it creates tremendous economic value and makes life and the world a better place.”

In addition to winning a Best in Show, Windows Phone 7 took home the People’s Choice Award. The Hydropack Self-Hydrating Drink Pouch received the Curator’s Choice Award, which was given by The Henry Ford.

…

Put people first with Windows Phone 7.5 [windowsphone , Aug 29, 2011]

Windows Phone 7.5 makes it easier to connect and share with the people who matter most. Check out the People Hub, Groups and Threads. With Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter built in to your smartphone, Windows Phone the next release of Windows Phone delivers truly modern communications.

Joe Belfiore shows off Windows Phone Mango [May 23, 2011]

Joe Belfiore, corporate vice president of Windows Phone responsible for product definition & design, shows off some of the new features coming to Windows Phone Mango.

The Industrial Designers Society of America Reveals Hottest Designs [IDSA press release, June 30, 2011]:

[the press release text comes after the Windows Phone awards inserted here from elsewhere]

– Gold in the Interactive Product Experience category

Windows Phone 7

The Windows Phone 7 was built around the idea that the end user is king. The design team began by defining and understanding the people who would use this phone. It was convinced that there could be a better user experience for a phone, one that revolves more around who the users arerather than what they do. The Windows Phone 7 lets users quickly get in, get out and back to their lives.

“The innovation here is the fluidity of experience and focus on the data, without using tradition user interface conventions of windows and frames. Data becomes the visual elements and controls. Simple gestures and transitions guide the user deeper into content. A truly elegant and unique experience.” – Isabel Ancona, User Experience Consultant

Credit: Windows Phone Design Team

– Silver in the Research category

Windows Phone 7

One of the core approaches in the development of the Windows Phone 7 was to evaluate the product at all stages of development. From concept to code, the design team measured the efficacy of the designs and users’ emotional response to them. Using a traditional scorecard approach, the results helped generate new designs for future milestones and kept the team grounded around designs that were resonating with users.

Credits: Rive Citron, Donna Flynn, Tracy Lovejoy, Amy Alberts, Steve Herbst, CMG Research of Microsoft

– Bronze in the Design Strategy category

Windows Phone 7

The design goals for the Windows Phone 7 were to bring a radically new experience to the smartphone market, one that connects with end users, and to make the phone a recognizable brand that users are interested in. The designers sought a better user experience, one that revolves around who the users are rather than what they do.

Credits: Jeff Fong, Bill Flora, Jae Pum Park, Jeff Arnold, Greg Melander, Joe Belfiore, Ryan Bickel, Alfred Astort, Kat Holmes, Albert Shum, Mike Guss, Mark Gibson, Lori Kratzer of Microsoft

[here is the press release text]
The Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) unveiled the winners of the 2011 International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA®) program—a celebration of design excellence in products, sustainability, interaction design, packaging, strategy, research and concepts. This year the competition received a record amount of entries breaking the 2,000 mark since it began 31 years ago. Out of 524 finalists, 27 were honored with the Gold Award, while 68 received the Silver Award and 96 won the Bronze Award.

…

The top corporate winners were Samsung of South Korea and Microsoft claiming sevenawards and Belkin and GE Healthcare claiming three.

“The IDEA program is considered by many as the ‘Oscars’ of design competitions because the judging process is rigorous and judged by the experts in their field,” said IDSA’s CEO Clive Roux. “This year our Best in Show award reveals another powerful story about the growing link between design and responsibility.”

“The rigor of selecting the best of over 2,000 entries culminated in three days of intense dialogue and debate that was stimulating and rewarding for the 20 expert jurors—we are proud of the work we have chosen to represent the best from our profession,” said IDEA’s Jury Chair Davin Stowell, founder and CEO of Smart Design.

The 2011 IDEA jury, made up of 20 international design experts coming from design consultancies, corporations and universities, spent weeks previewing entries online and two-and-a-half days of face-to-face evaluation and debate at The Henry Ford. Judging criteria focused on eight areas of industrial design excellence: innovation; benefit to the user; benefit to society; benefit to the client; visual appeal and appropriate aesthetics; usability, emotional factors and unmet needs for the design research category; and internal factors, methods, strategic value and implementation for the design strategy category.

The awards were chosen from the following industry and design categories: commercial and industrial products, communication tools, computer equipment, design strategy, entertainment, environments, home living, interactive product experiences, leisure and recreation, medical and scientific products, office and productivity, packaging and graphics, personal accessories, research, service design, student designs and transportation. Entries came from 39 countries, including Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Botswana, Canada, Chile, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Iran, Israel, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, United Kingdom and the United States.

…

For detailed descriptions, photos and contact information on this year’s IDEA winners, visit http://www.idsa.org/idea-2011-gallery.

About IDEA

Started in 1980 by IDSA, the International Design Excellence Awards program (IDEA®) fosters business and public understanding about the impact of design excellence on the quality of life and the economy. The IDEA program is considered one of the most preeminent design competitions in the nation with its scope and influence reaching far beyond U.S. boundaries.

About IDSA

Founded in 1965, the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) is one of the world’s oldest, largest, member-driven societies for product design, industrial design, interaction design, human factors, ergonomics, design research, design management, universal design and related design fields. IDSA produces the renowned International Design Excellence Award® (IDEA) competition annually; hosts the International Design Conference and five regional conferences each year; and publishes Innovation, a quarterly journal on design, and designBytes, a weekly e-newsletter highlighting the latest headlines in the design world. IDSA’s charitable arm, the Design Foundation, supports the dissemination of undergraduate scholarships annually to further industrial design education. The organization has more than 3,000 members in 27 chapters in the U.S. and internationally. For more information, visit http://www.idsa.org.

Note about the other 4 Microsoft IDEA 2011 awards: Microsoft Arc Touch Mouse got the Gold in the Computer Equipment category, Technology Heirlooms got the Silver in the Research category as well, and although no longer with Microsoft, the design work around KIN was recognized as well: KIN Packaging and Quick Start Guide Graphics got the Silver in the Packaging category and KIN One the Bronze in the Communication category.

Additional information

Nokia N9: the designer’s story (interview with the Nokia N9′s lead designer, Anton Fahlgren) [Conversations by Nokia, June 22, 2011]

I love sitting down with Nokia’s designers. There’s not one square millimetre of each phone that doesn’t get refined and revised a hundred times. They always have a mind-blowing story to tell about each aspect of the design. It’s never, “We chose blue cause that would be cool”; it’s always like, “We chose cyan, not blue, because the design is pure, so colours need to be pure, and…” at which point, my head explodes. I sat down with the Nokia N9′s lead designer, Anton Fahlgren, for a chat about his epic two-year project…

How did the Nokia N9 begin?

I headed up a team in Copenhagen during the summer of 2009, and that’s where it began. The brief was to evolve the story from the previous Nokia Nseries/Eseries devices, and define it moving forward. We chose to work with an Nseries product as it was interesting times at Nokia – things were bumpy in the high-end market. Extreme numbers on a spec sheet was not the way to win. We knew we needed innovation at every level.

I’ve had the option to do this before, but those occasions didn’t feel so very exciting: here we had a blank canvas. I wanted to define what high-end means today and take a more software-driven approach, and show people it’s not just the hardware that makes a great phone: it’s the UI and platform and how it all works together.

Did you know you’d be creating for something other than Symbian?

The MeeGo stuff had started bubbling, but we hadn’t seen it. We tried to simplify and distil the existing story, because there was a lot of good in the work that was done. That was the starting point – no compromises. We tried different styles; we did a range of devices like slide-and-tilt; we did a couple different sizes, but they were all based on the same design family. But the one that made it to the market was the Nokia N9.

What makes the Nokia N9 unique?

Above all, it’s the continuity that you feel from the shape of the glass continuing to the side profile. It just feels right. The basic concept is that seamless continuity of the form, and I think it was something we refined with the UI. It’s just something nice about interacting with a device that has a gentle curvature. Once you have something that’s more continuous in your hand, it’s just more pleasant to interact with it, all the way to the edges. Try to swipe stuff on other phones, and you’ll soon see that the edges will bother you.

When you see it in three dimensions, there’s not a single straight surface on the product. It’s actually really difficult to model in CAD. It’s almost like a pillow. In concept, a pillow is a simple form. It’s not hard to understand. But if you have to build those surfaces on a computer, you’ll realize how complicated they are. So the concept is simple, but as a piece of geometry, it’s quite elaborate.

No buttons! Just swipe!

Once you’ve got a flavour of life without buttons, it’s hard to go back. I find myself with other devices trying to swipe, but I can’t. Phones with keys feel old now, in some respects.

What’s so cool about a uni-body design?

No designer likes split lines. Split lines mean imperfection, parts and colours that may not match perfectly. It feels bad. It’s noise. You don’t want that. At the same time, most designers like metals. The Nokia N9 has many antennas, and that meant we knew we could never do a metal device. If you use plastic, the antennas would work better. But that leads to other challenges. Consumers may perceive plastic as of lower value than metal. But plastic is transparent to radio waves, metal is not.

The one piece polycarbonate plastic allows for really great antennas but it also feels expensive in the hand. You need great performance from your antennas, of course, for fast download speeds and quick connections with satellites. So it’s all about a good user experience from that point of view. The challenge was that when creating something that feels like high-end quality design with plastic, the material alone won’t carry that story.

It’s great to see another smartphone with colour, not just a “black rectangle”.

We started off looking at a plastic bar without paint, it gives us a chance to almost think in any colour we would like – eventually, it came back to essentially the basic colours. Cyan, magenta, black.

Plastic is all about offering colours. So we really wanted colours where people could express themselves. Brown and grey is almost an excuse for a colour with plastic. If you’re going to offer a colour, offer a real colour.

Last question, how would you like consumers to feel when they first pick up a Nokia N9?

That’s a good question. What’s important for us is that if this becomes a hardware story, we’ve failed. It needs to be in context with the UI. I hope the first point of delight will be about the interface, the button-less navigation. I hope it’s not only about the hardware design. The idea was to create a canvas for the UI and the user to shine. When you watch TV, you don’t want a frame, you just want the content.

Here’s Nokia’s Marko Ahtisaari, SVP Design and User Experience, announcing the Nokia N9 and talking about the design.

The Nokia N9 Announcement by Marko Ahtisaari at Nokia Connection 2011 [NokiaConversations, June 22, 2011]

In this video, Marko Ahtisaari, Nokia’s SVP of Design (responsible for user experience and industrial design), announces Nokia N9 http://nokia.ly/iGrtvJ. It only takes a swipe to get to what you want with the Nokia N9, and it all floats beautifully on the large, curved display. Stay in touch with people, news and events. And browse the web. Quickly. Get around with free maps and navigation. And take great pictures with the 8MP camera. The Nokia N9 makes it all smooth, effortless and gorgeously stylish. Learn more about the new Nokia N9, visit: http://nokia.ly/jUnOCP Nokia Connection 2011 is an annual event held in conjunction with CommunicAsia 2011. The event is an exciting platform for Nokia to showcase the latest and newest devices and services to customers, operators, media and analysts from the region: http://bit.ly/NokiaCnxn

Axel Meyer introducing Nokia N9 [Sept 25, 2011]

Axel Meyer is the Head of Industrial Design at Nokia and tells us in this video why he loves the N9.

Inside design – The Nokia N9 [Nokia N-Series post, July 7, 2011] it is not available at the Nokia Connects anymore (but you could see a copy on Dion Guillaume’s blog started April 15, 2011 or on the Symbian Freak)

The Nokia N9 is the world’s hottest new smartphone. And so, to find out where this beautiful creation came from, we caught up with Axel Meyer – Head of Industrial Design at Nokia. Axel has the enviable task of managing one of the world’s leading design teams – Anton Fahlgren, Nicolás Lylyk, Mika Nenonen and Tiina Aarras (Colours & Materials) – on the daily task of producing the ultimate smartphone.

Hi Axel. When setting out to design the Nokia N9 what did the team have in mind?

We really wanted to design a product that would be more natural when people communicated, simplifying the way they touch and navigate
through the phone. But designing to make things simple can be and is complicated.

We started by designing inside-out. The inside of the phone is like the architecture of a building – it’s the stability and core. For example, decisions have to be made about the number of antennae used, where each individual component sits and how the body fits seamlessly around them.

For us, Nokia N9 had to be the balance of making something that not only looked beautiful, but was executed perfectly at every stage.

There’s been a lot of attention given to the unibody design of Nokia N9. Can you give us more insight into the inspiration for this approach?

Sure… The magic of a material like plastic is that it’s extremely connectivity-friendly, so we started to explore the possibilities of that. We focused on engineering this material in an unbelievable way.

The polycarbonate body of the N9 is injection-moulded, but all of the openings are machined. This allows the curved-glass screen to sit perfectly
flush in the body. There is no edge. And that gives the seamless swipe interaction we wanted to achieve. It needed to be an unobtrusive
experience without buttons or complicated gestures.

And the beauty of the product is clearly a chief reason for this design too?

Absolutely. My team found a way of evolving what had gone before into developing something pure. Nokia N9 is a design that is fluid and organic. We wanted to make it look like a pillow – soft and inviting. You want to hold it. It’s natural for it to sit in your palm and for you to swipe.

And we didn’t want to follow trends in design either. We wanted to make something that could be timeless by not relying on a button for this or
an opening for that. And I think we’ve achieved it – its purity will be its longevity.

Nokia N9 will be launched in 3 cool colours. What inspired those choices?

Colour has always been important to the Nokia brand. Black, Cyan and Magenta were chosen as colours that are already familiar to people in their
everyday lives. They are the colours from your printer and other places in your world.

And we wanted colours that would last. We coloured the raw material so it’s inherent to the plastic. This way, if it scratches, it’s still the same colour. Again, this adds to the purity at the heart of the N9’s design.

Swipe is such a natural gesture – do you think it can be improved upon and will it set the bar for smartphone interaction?

Definitely to both! Swipe is a natural movement, but we always believe we can go better. There are things we can always try. Our technologists and
developers are continually innovating and that influences our future designs. We have to find new ways of bringing them together, so I definitely think we can improve upon Nokia N9.

And swipe is just the beginning of finding a new way to interact. It will inform what we see in other models and designs going forward, but will no
doubt improve further. Think about it like this – we are a baby that has just learnt to crawl, and we’ve still got to learn to walk before we can run.
Getting back to basics can be the best way to move forwards.

I can’t lie – my favourite is the seamless glass and body design. It feels so smooth to the touch, and makes everything else work. I also love the
Multitasking screen where you can see your open apps and windows. For me, these are like memories that trigger the future… you’re moving forwards even when you swipe ‘backawards’. And the camera is amazing. We haven’t given it the biggest megapixels, but we have made the
world’s best smartphone camera sensor. With wide-angled Carl Zeiss optics, the picture quality is superb.

Finally, if you had to choose one Nokia N9, which colour would you choose?

Ahhh, that’s tough question. It was cyan, but now it’s magenta. I love this colour. But let’s see next month, it will probably change again!

Thanks to Axel and the Industrial Design team for their time, and for creating such a beauty in the Nokia N9. If it’s anything to go by, we’d say the future is looking very exciting.

His biography on press.nokia.com [Feb 25, 2011]

Name: Axel Meyer
Title: Head of Design for Explore, Nseries
Nokia Design Studio: Espoo, Finland
Lives: Helsinki
Nationality: Argentine
Age: 40

What attracted you to design?

I always wanted to be an archaeologist and investigate things from the past civilizations. When I was young, my father-in-law was designing a car and then realized that by designing products I could be the archaeologist of the future. I thought this was really beautiful.

What is your background?

I graduated as a product designer from Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina, then started a small studio studio with two friends. In those times we didn’t have much of a design culture in Argentina and we were doing it all, so I got experience in designing packaging, products, user experience, visual communications and so on. I started very early with a holistic approach to understanding products. In innovation design you need a multidisciplinary approach so you can make one plus one equal to three and create that “wow” unique factor.

How much of your design aesthetic stems from your own culture or experiences? How does your background come through in your design ideas?

My experiences have made me a broad thinking person and given me the drive to push forward my design vision and strategy to the next phase where we can implement and execute the solution. And along the way I work to have communications so that the story reaches the people. But before all of that, I think that we as designers need to explore and observe constantly. As I design, it cannot be based only on my ideas or experiences. I am always scrutinizing everyday situations, and at Nokia we have many people and partners around the globe feeding us with lots of input and inspiration so that we can translate everyday needs and desires and ideas into practical and beautiful solutions.

What is it like to work in such a dynamic industry and what are the challenges you currently face as a designer?

I think it is super nice and entertaining to work in such a dynamic industry. The pace can be incredibly hectic, but it is so interesting to design for humanity which is constantly evolving. We are always looking for new ways to simplify design so that it is understandable to all and at the same time delivering solutions that make people feel superhuman. It is almost like being an alchemist. We are constantly pushing our own boundaries. The challenge is that you are designing for people, but you never know how well you are doing until you see people living a better and more interesting life, having a more natural dialog with their communities.

Where do you look for inspiration?

I look for inspiration everywhere, but specially in the everyday little moments of life. How do we wake up? How do we go to sleep? The whole idea that the moment you leave the home, you can have your whole life with you and be connected to your friends and family no matter wherever you are. You almost wonder if at some point in the near future we will need physical addresses anymore.

How would you describe your design aesthetic?

For me design is more about an approach rather than an aesthetic. I see design as how can I solve a problem and deliver to people something that is relevant to their life; and if it can simplify things. I am trying to make not so much the object, but the experience. And I think that from an aesthetic perceptive simplicity is the way to amplify that. To overload it is to lose the focus. I also think of the design as a whole. But most of all it definitely has a social aspect because at the end of the day it is all about people, and we design for people.

How would you define good design?

Good design is relevant and solves a moment in peoples’ lives. Good design brings something new to people so they can amplify their experiences, and it is something that brings them happiness. In some cases, it is practical and in others it is about the emotional experience. But I think that truly good design elevates the emotional rather than the rational side of things. I also think that good design should be simple and easy, and fast and nice, and ubiquitous. At the end of the day, good design should be judged by the people for whom it is relevant. For me, good design mostly means that moves peolple emotionally or it contributes to a real improvement in their lives.

What do you think people look for in design of mobile devices today?

I think that people are looking for a new platform on which they can start to communicate with one another within their communities. This is why I always try to design new, human ways for communicating and sharing. I think that the solutions we offer should make people feel superhuman. There should be some familiarity in those interactions, but it should be faster and nicer and at the same time more natural.

How is the internet changing or influencing what and how you design?

The internet is a platform for how we communicate. We don’t think about it anymore when we are on the web, but we are constantly sharing and connected. Also with the internet, the way you manage your spaces is different. You can define those areas where you want to be seen and heard, or more private. We live connected to the web. Technology is an enabler and brings benefits to people to meet social needs.

Favorite Nokia design and why?

I always like the best the Nokia design coming next. As designers in Nokia, we are non-conformist. We always think we can innovate in the future.

Favorite Nokia icon and why?

I like all of the Nokia icons because you can overlay the different experiences. I like to access media through my Contacts. And I like Sports Tracker because you can use it to compare and share with your friends in a really fun way.

Which device do you use today and why?

I use the Nokia N97 because it is so adaptable and transforms to different situations. I can use it with only one hand, with two hands, or rest it on my stomach while I watch a movie. It adapts to your context and not visa versa.

Steve Kaneko on Microsoft Design – Full interview [Dec 15, 2011]

Joshua Topolsky talks with Microsoft Design Director Steve Kaneko about Microsoft Design, past, present, and future.

Microsoft’s design lead Steve Kaneko on unification and Metro: ‘We’re not looking over our shoulders’ [The Verge, Dec 16, 2011]

While Windows 8’s Metro overhaul goes a long way towards completely reinventing the OS, in some ways it hasn’t gone far enough — there are still places where the classic Windows interface resurfaces. So why hasn’t Microsoft fully adopted Metro yet? Microsoft design director Steve Kaneko sat down with our own Joshua Topolsky for an interview (see the full video at the bottom), and he says that while the company is committed to Metro’s design principles, there are challenges that have made the transition difficult — he says that the large Metro style interface, designed for touch interaction, doesn’t scale in an obvious way to software like Office that has a lot of dense information. While Metro attempts to eliminate what Microsoft calls “chrome” (superfluous design elements), he says that chrome has traditionally served a functional purpose in crowded applications, and the design team now has to express grouping and visual hierarchy with composition, layout, font scaling, and contrast ratios.

Kaneko also shares that Microsoft is becoming a more design-oriented company, and that it’s working consciously toward unifying the look and feel of its products — something that some Windows users have pined for over the years. He says that “as designers, we knew way before we actually executed that we did have a mixed message to consumers,” and that the Microsoft brand was fragmented because of an inconsistent design language. Now, he says that Microsoft’s design community feels more confident, and that “we’re not looking over our shoulders as much as we used to.” (Presumably because designers may have been wary of skeptical Microsoft executives.)

Steve Ballmer hinted at the possibility of a Metro-style version of the next Office suite back in September, but we’re still not sure when, if, and to what extent Microsoft’s legacy software will be upgraded with the new UI. And while Kineko says the company is certainly thinking hard about how to implement Metro, just having the vision is not enough — by his own admission, it’s all about execution now.

Steve Kaneko, Partner Director of Design, Office at Microsoft Corporation [Linked In, excerpted on Dec 17, 2011]

Experience

Partner Director of Design, Office   Microsoft Corporation

Public Company; 10,001+ employees; MSFT; Computer Software industry
May 2011 – Present (8 months)

User Experience Director   Microsoft – Entertainment and Devices Division

Public Company; 10,001+ employees; MSFT; Computer Software industry
February 2006 – June 2011 (5 years 5 months)

Design Director   Microsoft/Windows Hardware Innovation

Public Company; 10,001+ employees; MSFT; Computer Software industry
February 2003 – February 2006 (3 years 1 month)

Design Director    Microsoft Windows Division

Public Company; 10,001+ employees; MSFT; Computer Software industry
June 2000 – September 2003 (3 years 4 months)

Windows Design Director orchestrating the integration between Windows product design and Windows Brand architecture.

Design Manager Microsoft Hardware Group

Public Company; 10,001+ employees; MSFT; Computer Software industry
September 1991 – June 2000 (8 years 10 months)

Design manager of Industrial Design, Interface, User Assistance, and Usability for Microsoft’s hardware peripherals devision. Product lines cinsists of computer mice, keyboards, gaming devices, speakers, phones, and misc.

Senior Industrial Designer Fluke Corporation

Privately Held; 501-1000 employees; DHR; Computer Networking industry
May 1988 – September 1991 (3 years 5 months)

Lead Industrial Designer on low cost handheld digital multimeter line of products. Developed and designed company brand identity system.

Product Designer Technology Design (Sole Proprietorship) February 1984 – September 1988 (4 years 8 months)

Staff industrial designer in product design consultancy. Products ranging from recreational equipment, electronic test and measurement, consumer, and furntiture products.

Education

University of Washington BFA, Industrial Design
1980 – 1985

Kindle Fire with its $200 price pushing everybody up, down or out of the Android tablet market

December 8, 2011 2:57 pm / 3 Comments on Kindle Fire with its $200 price pushing everybody up, down or out of the Android tablet market

Suggested preliminary reading: $199 Kindle Fire: Android 2.3 with specific UI layer and cloud services [Sept 29 – Nov 13, 2011]

Update (when neither up or down the market is an option for the company):
Acer Likely to Withdraw From Tablet PC Market [Dec 28, 2011]

Routed by Apple Inc. in the tablet PC competition, the Taiwan-based Acer Inc., one of the world’s top five PC suppliers by market shares, has intended to disband its touch business group in January, 2012, indicating its withdrawal from the competitive landscape to follow the footsteps of HP and Research In Motion.

Headed by Acer’s corporate president Jim Wong, the touch business group was set up in April 2011 to develop and promote tablet PCs and smartphones, regarded as the company’s best promising business unit then.

However, the momentary impression has proven unable to secure the business unit an expected success, as the company, after struggling with the sluggishness of tablet PC sales in the past months, is determined to dissolve the unit starting in January, 2012. Of over 300 workers of the touch business unit, 150, mostly R&D engineers, will be transferred to other business divisions, and only 100 will be retained, with the remainder likely to be laid off, according to industry insiders.

Although the disbandment has yet to be publicized, Acer directors have confirmed that the company has recently merged its Android tablet business, which originally belonged to the touch business group, into its global logistics center management, saying that the once-promising division now exists in name only.

With the touch division to be streamlined, market observers believe that Acer, which just halved its tablet PC sales projection to the range of only 2.5 million to 3 million units from 5 million units optimistically set right after the division was established, is likely to leave the challenging market that has been dominated by Apple with its iPad.

Although global PC makers have eagerly ventured into tablet PC business in the wake of iPad’s success over the past year, many of them, however, have proven unmatchable with Apple in the competition, with HP and RIM already out of the market. Taiwanese contract manufacturers, such as Quanta Computer Inc. and Inventect Corp., have also been jeopardized by customer’s withdrawal from the segment, forced to cut their employees as a result.

The Kindle Fire Is On Fire: Amazon Expected To Ship 3.9 Million This Quarter [Seeking Alpha, Dec 2, 2011]

The Kindle Fire looks like a bona fide hit right out of the gate. New estimates from IHS iSuppli have Amazon.com (AMZN) shipping 3.9 million Kindle Fires this quarter, which would make it the No. 2 tablet after the iPad 2 (with an estimated 18.6 million shipments). The Kindle Fire will become the No. 1 Android tablet by a wide margin (the Samsung (SSNLF.PK) Galaxy Tab is the next biggest, with an estimated 1.4 million shipments).

To put this 3.9 million number in context, just remember that the very first quarter Apple sold the iPad back in the September quarter of 2010, it sold 3.3 million. So the Kindle Fire sold more in its first quarter than the iPad did in its first quarter on the market. Of course, Apple sold 7.3 million iPads the second quarter it was on the market, which was the 2010 holiday quarter.

Quanta shipments of Kindle Fire reach 3-4 million units [Dec 2, 2011]

Shipments of 7-inch Kindle Fire tablet PCs from Quanta Computer to Amazon have reached 3-4 million units, according to industry watchers. However, Quanta declined to comment.

The sources said Amazon has continued to increase its orders for Kindle Fire and aims to see total OEM Kindle Fire shipments reach five million units by the end of December or early January.

Wintek, a major supplier of touch panels for Kindle Fire, has recently raised its internal forecast of shipments to Amazon. Industry sources have estimated that Wintek will ship about 3-3.5 million touch panels for Kindle Fire before January.

However, some makers in the supply chain have built up inventory of needed parts and components steadily, and OEM Quanta has also kept its shipments regular, for the sake of avoiding over stockpiling inventory in case there is a reverse in order visibility, the sources pointed out.

The out-of-the-market case #1: White-box players in China quitting tablet PC market [Dec 8, 2011]

As non-Apple tablet PC players are dropping their tablet PC prices to compete against Kindle Fire, white-box players in China are starting to quit the tablet PC market and can only wait for the rise of the next innovative device to appear in the market.

Since China-based Lenovo is offering its tablet PCs at a price of CNY1,000 (US$158), several large white-box players have quickly dropped their tablet PC prices to help clear their inventory, while several white-box players that offer tablet PCs at below CNY800 are even preparing to sell their devices at cost and then quit the market.

With the launch of Android 4.0 and Nvidia Tegra 3, first-tier brand vendors have been dropping their tablet PC prices to compete for market share, especially Lenovo, which has recently dropped its 7-inch 16GB LaPad A1 from CNY2,500 [$US393] originally to less than CNY1,400 [$US220] and its entry-level 2GB model is offered at CNY1,000 [$US157], cheaper than most of the large white-box players’ models.

Since Lenovo is stronger in the retail channel, while offering warranty and its products have basic quality, these advantages are all piling strong pressure upon white-box players.

Some China-based ODMs pointed out that their orders from white-box players have dropped sharply by about 30-50% with several clients clearing their inventory by dropping prices; however, since they still cannot outmatch first-tier players, some of them have already decided to temporary quit the tablet PC market.

As the situation may become worse, the ODMs expect that more than 70% of the existing white-box players could quit the market by the first quarter of 2012.

Note: White-box is a term often used to describe computer makers who are not the well-known name brands, but rather B- or C-tier players.

The down-the-market case #1: Players drop tablet PC prices to compete against Kindle Fire [Nov 24, 2011]

Several tablet PC players including RIM, High Tech Computer (HTC), Lenovo, and ViewSonic, have dropped their 7-inch tablet PC prices to compete against Amazon’s Kindle Fire, priced at US$199, according to sources from channel retailers.

The sources pointed out that RIM has recently cooperated with Best Buy to offer its 7-inch 16GB PlayBook at a price of US$199, down from US$499 originally. Meanwhile, the price of HTC’s 7-inch Android 2.3-based Flyer tablet PC has dropped to US$299, Lenovo’s 7-inch A1 tablet PC to US$199, and ViewSonic’s 7-inch Viewbook 730 to US$169.

Meanwhile, several China-based white-box players are also offering their 7-inch tablet at prices as low as US$75.

In addition to the 16GB model, RIM also dropped its 32GB model from US$599 to US$299.

Since part of the reason consumers buy Kindle Fire is because of its strong content support, even though other brand vendors are trying to attract consumers by lowering their prices, they may not be able to achieve the same sales results as Amazon.

The sources also revealed that several vendors are already in talking with upstream suppliers hoping to develop a tablet PC that costs less than US$199, but since there is still not yet a suitable solution to accomplish such a goal, most of the brand vendors are halting their 7-inch tablet PC projects.

The out-of-the-market case #2: Dell kills off its last Android tablet in the US [Dec 6, 2011]

Dell has taken its 7-inch Streak Android tablet out of commission, according to its website. While some retail sites still have stock, the company no longer offers the Streak for sale from its own website and will no longer produce it. The Dell Android tablet species is officially extinct in the US.

The fadeout of the 7-inch Streak follows the disappearance of the 5-inch Streak in August, when it failed to corner (read: create) the 5-inch tablet market. The 7-inch Streak went on sale in January and was priced at $200 with a T-Mobile contract, but has failed to generate any significant interest in the last year. The only Dell tablet still in production is the 10-inch Streak, sold in China.

From here, Dell will move on to making Windows 8 tablets when the operating system launches next year. Speaking at the Dell World 2011 conference, Michael Dell, the company’s CEO, said that “the Android market has not developed the expectations [Dell] would have had.”

Lenovo Reaffirms Android Commitment In Wake Of Dell Streak 7 Demise [Dec 7, 2011]

Lenovo is reaffirming its commitment to its Android-based tablets – at least for now – in the wake of the demise of Dell (NSDQ:Dell)’s Streak 7 Android tablet. Dell nixed the 7-inch tablet on Tuesday, posting a note on the Streak 7’s landing page saying that the product, unfortunately, is “no longer available for sale.”

Dell declined to comment on exactly why it discontinued the tablet, which was its last Android-based device on the U.S. market.

Many reports, however, are suggesting that Dell pulled the reins on the Streak 7 to start transitioning from Android-based tablets to Windows 8-based tablets, upon the new OS’ release next year. Dell declined to confirm the move, but other PC makers, such as Lenovo, have expressed their commitment to Google’s OS – even if just for now.

“Our tablet strategy today is an Android operating system,” said Chris Frey, vice president of North America Commercial Channels at Lenovo in an interview with CRN. “As operating systems evolve next year and new operating systems become available, we’ll make decisions on the hardware and the operating system that will go on that hardware as we get closer. Right now [Android] is the operating system we have and are driving in the market.”

Lenovo’s ThinkPad Tablet: An Android Business Slate [Review] [Dec 7, 2011]

Conclusion

Lenovo designed the ThinkPad Tablet with business users in mind. The optional pen accessory and the preloaded software are options business users may appreciate. During our tests, we felt the ThinkPad tablet was great for taking notes, surfing the web, checking email, and many other daily tasks that are typical of a business user.

Battery life with the ThinkPad Tablet is a bit of a mixed bag. Although the tablet is rated at up to five days of use, this longevity is dependent upon the user putting the tablet into suspend mode each time he or she is finished using the tablet. Even then, battery life is sure to vary greatly depending on how much you use the tablet. We would expect that many users may place the tablet on their desk to take a phone call or deal with another interruption and forget to press the power button. In doing so, you’ll suffer a considerable hit in terms of battery life.

In terms of connectivity, the ThinkPad Tablet has a lot going for it. Not only does the ThinkPad Tablet have a full-size USB port, but it also offers a card reader, microUSB port, mini HDMI port, a ThinkPad Tablet dock connector, and headphone jack. Most tablets on the market today offer considerably fewer ports, so this is an area where the ThinkPad Tablet really shines.

IT departments will also appreciate the encryption and remote wipe capabilities of the ThinkPad Tablet. The optional pen accessory is definitely a nice add on that gives the tablet some additional functionality, and we found ourselves using it often during our evaluation process. The biggest drawback to this tablet is its battery managment. Assuming you’re religious about pressing the power button each time you’re finished using the tablet, it won’t be a problem. If you’re like us and tend to forget however, you’ll want to keep a charging cord nearby at all times. Regardless, we feel the ThinkPad Tablet is a great tablet for business users who want some of the added capabilities and software that Lenovo includes. It’s a full-featured device that offers a tablet experience not found in many others on the market right now.

Hot

NVIDIA Tegra 2 dual-core 1GHz ARM SoC w/ NVIDIA graphics

1GB of RAM, 16 – 64GB Storage

Lots of ports: mini HDMI, USB 2.0, micro USB, dock connector

Full size media card reader

Not

Relatively short battery life in idle mode

Pen is not included (costs $30)

[Price: 16GB: $499, 32GB: $569, 64GB: $669]

Apple iPad Sales Slowing as Amazon Lights Kindle Fire [Dec 7, 2011]

Since launching in 2010, Apple’s iPad has been the global leader in tablets. But since Amazon’s first table, the all-new low-priced Kindle Fire came out in November Apple’s dominance may be sagging. In a new analyst note, Shaw Wu of the brokerage firm Stern Ageesees iPad sales as a “little light” in the current quarter.

Wu assigns the blame for light iPad sales to stiff competition, namely from Amazon’s Kindle Fire, priced at $199 while the starting price for the Apple iPad is $499. He also notes that some Apple customers are buying the MacBook Air instead of an iPad, but in lowering his estimate for iPad sales in the quarter from to 13.5 million units from 15 million units, it’s clear the Kindle Fire is the leading culprit.

[from: Apple’s iPad sales look light amid Kindle Fire, MacBook Air popularity [Dec 7, 2011]

Wu wrote in a research note:

In the Mac business, we are seeing particular strength in the MacBook Air, arguably the best ultra-mobile PC on the market. Last but not least, iPads appear a little light of expectations due in part to competition from Amazon’s Kindle Fire but also as some users opt for a more full-featured MacBook Air.]

IHS iSuppli estimates Amazon will sell nearly four million Kindle Fire tablets by the end of the year— not bad for a product that didn’t ship until mid-November. Reviewers note that the Kindle Fire isn’t the Apple iPad — it is short on apps and isn’t known for content creation abilities. Yet it seems to serve at a low price what most tablet buyers want — a handy device good for watching videos and Web browsing and content reading on the go.

It’s not like Apple’s iPad dominance is going away, either. If the company sells 13.5 million tablets in the quarter as Wu estimates, the Cupertino, Ca.-based company still has a global leader on its hands. But the Kindle Fire has shown out of the gate that a device can ably compete with the iPad after others like the HP TouchPad and the BlackBerryPlayBook failed.

Wu isn’t the only analyst who thinks the Amazon Kindle Fire is dipping into Apple iPad dominance, either. Another new report from Michael Walkley of Canaccord Genuitysees the same trend.

“With our expectations for a new iPad launch during the March quarter leading to potentially lower inventory levels combined with increased competition from the $200 Kindle Fire,” Walkley said in a note, “we have slightly lowered our December quarter iPad estimates from 14M to 13M units.”

But it’s interesting to note that some analysts don’t think Apple is overly concerned with the low-priced Kindle.

“If anything, we believe that Apple is not too concerned about the low-priced entrants,” wrote Mark Moskowitz, an analyst with J.P. Morgan, in a Dec. 2 research note. “Recall, it has been our view that low-priced, reduced feature-set entrants, such as the Kindle Fire, are soap box derby devices stuck between a tablet and an e-reader.”

iPad feeling some heat from Amazon’s Kindle Fire [Dec 1, 2011]

Apple’s iPad seems to have run into the one Android tabletthat could knock it down a peg or two.

After hitting retailers on November 15 at $199, Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablet is already outselling the iPad at Best Buy. Sorting tablets by the top sellers at the Best Buy Web Siteshows the Fire in first place followed by the 16GB Wi-Fi-only iPad 2 at $499 coming in second. A range of other iPad flavors from different carriers are scattered throughout the top 40 tablets.

Amazon itself shows the Kindle Fire as the top-selling tableton its site, with the 16GB iPad further down the list. But that seems a less accurate gauge of popularity since Fire buyers may be more likely to pick up the tablet directly from Amazon.

Even before the Fire launched a little more than two weeks ago, the tablet was proving to be a big seller, racking up a huge number of preorders. Pegging the Fire as one of the hottest consumer devices among holiday buyers, research firm DisplaySearch recently increased its shipment projectionsfor the current quarter.

DisplaySearch analyst Richard Shim now expects Amazon to ship up to 6 million Fire tablets this season, up from 4 million previously.

Another analyst also sees the Fire giving the iPad some competition, but to a lesser degree.

In an investor note out today, J.P. Morgan analyst Mark Moskowitz said he’d trimmed his fourth-quarter sales estimates for Apple’s tablet to 13 million from 13.3 million previously. Moskowitz attributed the lower forecast mostly to more limited growth in production but also pointed to the Fire.

“To a lesser extent, the Amazon Kindle Fire’s better-than-expected momentum with more price sensitive consumers is a factor, too,” the analyst wrote.

Of course, Apple is certainly in no danger of losing its current dominance in the tablet market. Moskowitz believes that over time the iPad will actually gain more traction in the business and educational markets. And despite the hot holiday demand for the Fire, the analyst doesn’t see Amazon’s current version of its tablet as a strong enough competitor over the long haul.

“We think that for any vendor to wrestle momentum longer-term from Apple, a fully loaded offering is a must, and here, the current revision of the Kindle Fire falls short,” Moskowitz wrote. “We think that, over time, consumers may come away disappointed with the Kindle Fire’s lack of functionality and smaller screen size. In our view, the Kindle Fire is the current Netbook of the media tablet market. The bigger question is whether the Fire evolves into a bona fide tablet in its next-generation release.”

As a consequence of the above two articles one observer dares to note that:
Not even Apple understands the tablet market [Dec 7, 2011]

Just last quarter, iPhone sales took a big dip. Apple (AAPL) was fine as iPads saved the day. This quarter could turn out to be the complete opposite.

If Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu is right, iPad sales will be lower than expected because of the popularity of both Amazon’s (AMZN) Kindle Fire table and Apple’s own MacBook Air, as ZDNet’s Larry Dignon notes. It’s a competition sandwich that underscores how little, still, anyone in the tablet market, including Apple, thoroughly understands the dynamics and what people ultimately want to do with the devices.

…

Initial trials are over

Not that the iPad — or other tablets — will whimper and crawl to a corner. Far from it. But given what products that Wu thinks are drawing attention, Kindle Fire and MacBook Air, you have to question whether anyone knows, yet, what consumers want from tablets, particularly as we’ve yet to see any solid numbers (and are unlikely to) for Kindle sales.

The presumption is that Kindle Fire snags the price-sensitive and Amazon fans. The MacBook Air switch is by people who need a lot more than what the iPad can deliver. That throws open a lot of assumptions. What percentage of buyers expected a tablet to be a media access device only? How many realized that they needed more than an on-screen keyboard? What price points will maximize sales?

For most of the Android tablet vendors, the answer to “What do consumers want?” has been, “Something other than what you sell.” Maybe Apple has all the answers, but even that seems pretty unlikely. Last quarter, unit sales were up. This month, maybe down. Steve Jobs was certain that a 7-inch tablet couldn’t see any success, but Amazon seems to be disproving that.

It’s time for everyone to take a step back and reconsider the basic questions. Maybe talk to a lot of customers, do some usability studies, and follow individuals around (with their permission) to better understand how they use the devices. Only some determined research is going to get beyond the seat-of-the-pants navigation that the tech industry seems to heartily embrace so often.

Evercore: Amazon will own 50% of Android tablet market in ’12 [Dec 5, 2011]

The Kindle Fire may “vaporize” the market for every for-profit tablet maker except Apple

In a note to clients Monday about Apple (AAPL), Evercore Partners’ Robert Cihra summarizes the impact of Amazon’s (AMZN) Kindle Fire on the tablet market in stark terms:

While Amazon’s Kindle Fire has come out of the gates strong, as expected, we see Apple maintaining its competitive lead, if anything accentuated by what now looks like the only tablet to so far mount any credible iPad challenge apparently needing to do so by selling at cost; not to mention Amazon’s success may just vaporize other “for profit” Android tablet OEM roadmaps (e.g., we est Amazon 50% of all Android tablets in CY12). Meanwhile Apple goes on as the only vendor able to cream off the most profitable segment of each market it targets, whether tablet, smartphone or PC. (emphasis ours)

The up-the-market case #1: Asustek sets shipment goal for 2012 [Dec 6]

Asustek Computer, at its global sales meeting on December 5, has set the shipment goals for its four major product lines for 2012 with notebooks and netbooks together to surpass 22 million units and the company internally expecting shipments to reach 23.8 million units, while tablet PCs will reach at least three million units with the company internally expecting the volume to reach six million units, surpassing Samsung Electronics.
…

for tablet PCs, Asustek expects its shipments will reach about 1.8 million units in 2011.

…

As for the recent report that Asustek was not invited into the Windows on ARM (WOA) development project, Asustek noted that it has the strongest R&D ability among notebook vendors and is the largest client of Nvidia; therefore, the company will continue to have tight partnership with ARM-based processor makers over development of the WOA platform.

See also: NVIDIA Tegra 3 and ASUS Eee Pad Transformer Prime [Nov 10 – Dec 2, 2011]
for all related information + Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime: The Rolls-Royce of Android tablets [Dec 2, 2011] as one of the first reviews

Note: Wistron Enters Asustek’s Tablet PC Supply Chain [Dec 8, 2011]

Aimed at becoming the largest brand for the Android- and Windows8-enabled tablet PCs, Asustek has aimed to challenge a goal of six million tablet PCs in 2012, three times that of this year’s 1.8 million units.

Asustek Unveils Transformer Prime Amid Aggressive Goal for Tablet Market [Dec 5, 2011]

Asustek Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Jerry Shen … vowed that his company will become one of the top tablet brands, next only to Apple (iPad) and Amazon (Kindle Fire). His pledge is considered by some industry executives as a challenge against Samsung, which is now the most popular brand name supplier of tablets only trailing Apple and Amazon.

Demo: Ice Cream Sandwich on Asus Transformer Prime [nvidia, Nov 17, 2011]

A quick demo showing Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0 OS) running on an Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime.

The up-the-market case #2: Acer, Lenovo to launch quad-core tablet PCs [Nov 29, 2011]

Acer and Lenovo are set to launch quad-core tablet PCs featuring Google’s Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) and Nvidia’s Tegra 3 in the first quarterto compete against Asustek Computer, which has already launched its latest Eee Pad Transformer Prime with Tegra 3 and Samsung Electronics, according to sources from notebook players.

The sources pointed out that the competition over the quad-core tablet PCs will be difficult as these quad-core devices will only see improvements over their performance and design, but will still feature the same concept as their dual-core predecessors.

Therefore, these players may need to battle it out before being able to enter competition against players such as Amazon or Apple, the sources noted.

The sources noted that although these players’ performance in the dual-core tablet PC competition were not as good as expected, they will continue to advance and launch new quad-core devices to defend their brands.

The new quad-core tablet PCs from Acer and Lenovo are expected to be priced between US$459-599.

Since non-Apple players’ machines have no advantage to compete against Amazon or Apple’s tablet PC devices, the sources believe non-Apple players will together account for only 10-15% of the total tablet PC market.

The real up-the-market case: Amazing Screen Technology: Samsung Flexible AMOLED [Dec 4, 2012]

This is CF [Concept Formation?] of Samsung Mobile Display & AMOLED. I’ts amazing and wonderful technology!!!

Some time earlier this year there were concept drawings of a Samsung phone with a flexible OLED display. This was a rather intriguing concept that we didn’t think would be happening anytime soon, but we were then proved wrong as Samsung stepped forward and said that flexible display smartphones were in the works and would be introduced some time in 2012.

Now Samsung’s Mobile Display Division has released a new concept video of what a transparent and flexible tablet of the future could look like and what it could accomplish. We’re guessing that Samsung’s flexible smartphone for 2012 won’t be anything like the concept video, but we definitely like where Samsung’s ideas are headed.

It showcases a tablet that can be shrunk and expanded according to our needs, augmented reality translation, and what appears to be 3D imagery as well that seems to literally leap off your screen.

From: Samsung shows off flexible display concept tablet in video [Dec 5, 2011]

In its quarterly earnings call, Samsung’s vice president of investor relations, Robert Yi, told investors, analysts and press, “The flexible display we are looking to introduce sometime in 2012, hopefully the earlier part. The application probably will start from the handset side.”

After flexible-screen mobile phones roll out, the company plans to introduce the same technology for tabletsand other devices.

In January 2011, Samsung purchased Liquivista, a strategic acquisition that will allow it to produce the kinds of displays that were announced today. Liquivista made electrowetting display technology, which is used to create mobile and other consumer electronic displays that are bright, low-power, flexible and transparent.

Flexible screen technology was also a focus of Samsung’s in March, when Yongsuk Choi, director of Samsung Mobile Display, gave an overview of the company’s future mobile device plans. At that time, Choi said most of the flexible-display technology Samsung was working on was still in very early stages.

From: Samsung’s new phones will have flexible screens [Oct 28, 2011]

See also on Samsung Mobile Display site:
– Future Display Used : Flexible Display – Foldable Display – Dual Display – 3D Display – Paper Thin Display: “Flexible Display: AMOLED products that are still fully functional when they are folded or rolled can be expanded and applied to full-color and mobile market as digital signage and e-book markets and technologies are developed.” …
– SMD History: … “Nov 2010: Developed WVGA [Wide VGA 800×480 resolution] Flexible AMOLED for the first time in the world” … “May 2009: Developed the world’s biggest 6.5” of Flexible AMOLED” …

HP, Dell, Acer to expand R&D investments [Nov 24, 2011]

Seeing that the PC industry is going through a slowdown, PC players Hewlett-Packard (HP), Dell and Acer have all expanded their investments in R&D and as the PC industry will enter an atmosphere that is filled with multiple platformsin 2012, each vendor’s R&D, branding and marketing abilities will become important drivers to increase their competitiveness in the future, according to sources from PC players.

HP is set to increase its investment in R&D and to strengthen the related resources. The company also changed its policy to have senior vice president of research, and director of HP Labs Prith Banerjee directly report to company CEO Meg Whitman.

Meanwhile, Dell is set to expand its R&D funding to US$1 billion each year, up 51.28% from US$661 million, that was reported a year ago. Dell also noted that the company will continue to acquire companies in the future and will need more funding to integrate the acquired firms.

Furthermore, Acer’s first R&D center is also expected to increase its total engineers from 600 in the middle of the year to 1,000 by year-end with executives of brand vendors and ODMs all major targets for headhunting.

An Acer executive also pointed out that the PC industry is experiencing a significant change, transitioning from Wintel system dominated to competition between several different platforms. Therefore, to the ability to develop devices based on Google’s Android system or ARM will become important.

AMD helping Android fans port to x86 [Dec 6, 2011]

A team of developers working privately to port the next version of Android to the x86 platform has been receiving a lot of support from AMD, but less from other key players.

The project is seeking to port the Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) android-4.0.1_r1 release build to the x86 platform, and Chih-Wei Huang, one of the enthusiasts involved, told The Register that AMD had not only donated two tablets to the cause, but also has a couple of engineers helping out. As a result, the porting to AMD’s Brazos platform is now largely complete and the source code has been made available.

The first porting of Android to the x86 platform was actually done by Google engineers, but he explained that the Google team had not been continuing with the project since Android version 1.5, aka Cupcake. While the developers submit patches to Google, they seldom hear back, although some Google engineers are helping out privately with the project. Intel, too, hasn’t been keen.

“Generally speaking, Google didn’t care for the x86, at least before ICS,” he told The Registerin an email conversation. “Intel doesn’t care, either. They don’t want to help us. I’ve tried to contact Intel in different ways, but the replies were negative.”

Intel’s position has caused the team considerable problems, not least in getting Android to work with the video chipsets, and particularly the hardware acceleration added to Chipzilla’s kit. Work is still continuing, but since this is a voluntary project by people who have day jobs, then Android users might have a while before they can plaster an Intel Inside sticker on their systems.

Chih-Wei Huang, an open source advocate based in Taiwan, started the project with a former colleague in June 2009, and it has morphed to the point where the scheme has 2,600 subscribers to the project forum. He said that while he tried to keep the porting process up to date, it was a lot of work and some people weren’t sharing data.

“Now ICS is more mature for x86 tablet or netbook, so there are more practical reasons to do that,” he said. “Actually, I know some vendors like Bluestack, Viewsonic, and Insyde have already shipped Android-x86.org based products. However, they never contribute back. That usually makes us feel bad and angry.”

Supplementary information: Android: A visual history [Dec 7, 2011]

1st W3C conference for Web developers and designers

November 26, 2011 3:02 pm / 2 Comments on 1st W3C conference for Web developers and designers

14 Sep: W3C is holding its 1st web developer conference in Seattle! Nov 15-16

19 Sep: We may talk a bit about semantic web and metadata, such as RDFa, microdata, and microformats, but the focus is on client-side tech @zaythar

7 Oct: Registration for W3Conf opens today. Only $199 for 2 days of Web tech awesomeness. Limited to 250 seats, so register early! #w3conf #HTML5

As referred by Jeff Jaffe on Successes and Challenges slides at TPAC 2011 (31 Oct to 4 Nov 2011 in Santa Clara, California)

If you are a developer or designer wanting to hear the latest news on HTML5 and the open web platform, and your place in it, save the date.

http://www.w3.org/conf/
W3Conf: Practical Standards for Web Professionals
2011: HTML5 and the Open Web Platform

…

W3Conf has industry leaders speaking on a wide variety of topics that every developer needs to know: HTML5, APIs and Javascript, graphics, accessibility, CSS, and much more.

We have selected speakers on an invitation-only basis to deliver the most educational and entertaining experience for our audience on the topics we felt were the most pressing for Web developers and designers today.

http://www.w3.org/conf/#presentations [downloads and video recordings]

Below is a rearranged for reading and highlighted copy of the live blog of the conference by Manu Sporny:

W3Conf LiveBlog – Day One [Manu Sporny, Digital Bazaar, Nov 15, 2011]

Ian Jacobs (W3C): Welcome: Contributing to Open Standards

Focus on why developers are key to W3C and the future of the Web. W3C doing standards since mid 1990s – learned a great deal in that time: You have to have the right people involved. Who the right people are changes over time. Consensus building takes a lot of time, but you can’t let it go on forever – there is a balance. Royalty-free patent policy is important. Use cases and real-world developer stories are needed. Tests are needed for proper implementation. Developer buy-in is very important.

Continuing improvements at W3C is important – HTML5 logo, community groups, Unicorn testing framework, training material – useful documentation for developers/designers.

Community groups – important for bringing new work to W3C. This conference is a call for action – for web developers to get more involved in W3C.

Video of Tim Berners Lee (W3C):

Asks people here to have fun. Keep the Web open – use open standards. Do really exciting things – HTML5 and Web Apps – the platform allows you to do things that were only possible via native apps before.

Try to focus on Web Apps – not native apps. Being part of the Web is more powerful than creating siloed apps. Bit by bit – everything that you can do on a native app, you will be able to do via a Web Apps. By making Web Apps – you are helping to keep the Web open.

Keeping the Web open has always been a battle – we have to fight for openness.

Philippe Le Hégaret (W3C): Testing to Perfection

Asks audience to raise their hand if somebody has ever logged a browser bug (very few people raise their hands). “How many of you expect the web to work?”. Laughs from the audience.

Shows a testing example on CSS – asks audience what’s going to happen. Nobody seems to know. Different browsers show a different result… 25% of browsers will not work. This is what we would like to improve. Replaces test DIV elements with SPAN elements… invalid document, but will still render, but not exactly the same.

When testing, you find yourself in a lot of situations where it’s difficult to tell what should happen. We are not testing one spec with HTML5 – we are testing CSS, HTML5, JavaScript APIs, lots of things. Different levels of stability – difficult to synchronize between specs. Need web developers to participate.

Is testing to perfection possible? No. Testing is an approximation.

Lots of it can be automated, but a lot of it cannot. We need help testing plenty of combinations – HTML, HTML+SVG, DOm manipulation, CSS combinations. We’ll never get 100% coverage – but we still need to set a goal. Who are we testing for?

We are testing for the people that use this technology – manufacturers, spec editors, content providers, people using the Web… etc.

Manu Sporny (Digital Bazaar): Community Groups: A case study with Web Payments

Doug Schepers (W3C): Shortcuts: Developer Documentation

We’re back with Doug Schepers, SVG, Web Apps, Audio, that will be talking about Web Education. “Who here has used the Web?”… “How many have programmed for the Web?”.

“How many people learned the Web via ‘view source’”? Just about everyone raised their hands. “How many of you still do that?” Most dropped their hands.

The Document Web was pretty easy to learn. In 2000, we started to get the application Web. Media Web, Social Web… you have to learn a lot in order to be able to do these things. People can’t read standards – they’re really difficult to read.

WebMoney came early on. W3Schools, W3Fools.com is a good site. Opera Web Standards Cirriculum, SitePoint, MDN, Google’s “Ground Up” Videos. Tons of other sites – not just HOW-TOs, but help more.

At universities you learn serious programming languages like “lisp”. Laughs from the audience. Web Standards Project is great, InterAct Cirriculum is great – teachers can take these cirriculumns and plug them into their classrooms.

W3C has tutorials and primers, podcasts and videos. The W3C wiki has a bunch of resources, HTML5 reference guide, CSS reference guide. The problem with W3C’s documentation is that it’s scattered everywhere. Internationalization documents on W3C site.

Web Education Community Groups – launched to focus on learning material, curriculum, outreach, training, international resources. Trying to improve teaching resources at W3C. Why should people get involved in Web Education? Many eyes, pay it forward, reap what you sow.

How to help: write articles, review articles, help write curricula, help translate.

We started the Web as a hobby. We need to change it from a hobby to a craft. Make it easy to learn the basics, need smooth transition from casual development to career. Web developers learn throughout their lives – we hope these resources will persist and keep getting better.

Divya Manian (Opera): 5 CSS Magic Potions for your Layout Troubles from the Future

Divya is a Web Opener for Opera – contributes to HTML5 boilerplate, member of the CSS WG. Arsonist of the Semantic Web. Current state of CSS layout – what to look forward to in the future.

Many people use ‘floats’ for layout – absolute positioning. Problems with floats – they’re not content agnostic – floats require clearing. So, what can we look forward to in the future?

Paged media layout – “@media paged” – allows you to tread HTML as paged content.

Multiple columns – “css3-multicol – column-width: 12em;” – allows you to setup column sizes. Column spans allow you to say that a particular item can span multiple columns.

Regions allow you to flow text content from one region to another, even if they are separated by a large distance.

Exclusions – allow text to flow around the outline of irregularly shaped objects. For example – a large rock with text around it. Lots of options on how to wrap text via CSS.

Grids – standardize a way to do grids inside CSS. Grid templates look simple to start – very complex.

Flexbox – very much in flux – allows you to distribute layouts in a more flexible box layout.

Make sure to use feature detection via modernizr. Subbornella’s tutorials are great. Isotope jquery plugin is great – isotope.metafizzy.io – if you have complicated layouts, use Isotope.

More discussion on the www-style mailing list at W3C. Lots of traffic on the mailing list. Help by submitting bug reports. Divya can be found on Twitter at @divya

Vincent Hardy (Adobe): Web Graphics – a large creative palette

Vincent talking about passions – Web and Graphics. Formal education in distributed computing – worked at Sun on 2D APIs. Worked on SVG. Worked at Oracle on Data Visualizations.

Towards a more graphical, fluid Web. Shows graphical clock via Raphael. Amazing WebGL demo showing shader-use and cool artistic effects.

You have lots of tools – canvas, WebGL, CSS Animations, imperative vs. declarative programming for graphics. Very nice visual effects in canvas/SVG.

Canvas – imperative model – big array of pixels. SVG – declarative model – looks more like the HTML/DOM.

SVG – graphical elements w/ attributes that control how content gets rendered.

Canvas – pixel-based, you write scripts to draw what you want. You create a context, set it to 2D or 3D, then you specify drawing commands (draw an arc, fill with color, etc)

Canvas – more difficult to detect where events happen in your object – you have to write that code. SVG – events are tied to graphical objects. Easier to do event inputs via SVG – but both allow you to have very fine grained control over your graphics with either.

Scripted animation is still in the works – but you have scripting APIs today. Canvas uses scripts for animations. With SVG you can use CSS animation, scripts, and declarative animation with SMIL. All browsers except IE support SMIL. Declarative animation allows you to morph geometry between objects.

Timing – you can time animation events and chain them together via SMIL pretty easily. You can style SVG using CSS, just like any other HTML document.

Multimedia integration –

You can also do video in SVG – Video element embedded in SVG document, you can apply filter effects to SVG – filter effects apply in real-time. Foreground decorations with SVG – looks really nice.

Why two different models? Canvas is low-level, pixel access. SVG is very high-level, nice API, DOM events, etc… but no pixel access, can be limiting. There are good reasons to have both. Graffiti Markup Language – uses SVG and Canvas together.

Frameworks that can help: Raphael.js, Paper.js, Easle.js, D3.js, Canvg.

Canvas support is very good – supported in all recent browsers. SVG is supported in all major browsers, except for SMIL animation and font stuff in IE.

WebGL support is coming, but not quite there yet. Issues with in-line SVG.

What’s coming: Better 2d/3d integration, improved integration w/ canvas/SVG, additional features for SVG 2.0, filter effects and CSS shaders, video integration, etc. Presentation was created with HTML5.

Arvind Jain (Google): Web Perfomance: Making the Web Faster

Arvind is the Chair of the W3C Performance Working group – try to make web page performance better. Web Timing API – “If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.” — Lord Kelvin.

Web Timing API allows web pages to get detailed information about how long it takes pages to load. Web Timing API has four areas – navigation, resource, user and performance.

Navigation Timing API allows developers to create a complete picture of how long it takes for a page to load in very accurate detail. Supported in IE9, Chrome, Firefox and Android.

Resource Timing API – timing info related to individual resources on a page like images, scripts, objects, etc.

UserTiming API allows high precision (1 ms accuracy) to measure the execution time of their code.

Performance Timeline API – single interface for accessing all timing attributes.

Resource, user and performance implementations are not entirely implemented yet, but coming soon, around March 2012.

Security and Privacy implications – trying to ensure that people can’t be easily tracked with these new features.

Web Timing stuff is in use – Google Analytics Speed Report, WebPageTest.org, Dynatrace UEM, Boomerang.

Page Visibility API – helps you figure out of the page is visible or not – helpful to know if you need to keep running animations/etc. Ready in March 2012. In use on Google Analytics (count impressions correctly – page isn’t counted if page is opened in a tab that is never looked at), YUI Idle Timer, Google.com Instant Pages loads pages if it can predict if you’re going to click on a link (loads in the background).

Question on Usability Testing and improving the browsing experience. Yes, the Timing APIs can be used to figure out how long it takes for someone to click on a piece of a page.

Question on using image bundles or not. Google performance testing has shown that it depends on the types of images – large image bundling is bad. Tiny image bundling is good.

John Allsopp (Web Directions): Shortcuts: Getting off (line) with the HTML5 appcache [his slides on the web]

Great criticisms of the Web – it only works when you’re online. Not necessarily true.

For Appcache to work – create an appcache manifest file and link it to your HTML file. You have a file with a .appcache extension – appcache file has sections for cache, fallback and network.

Cache section – which resources must be cached.

Network section – which resources must NOT be cached.

Fallback section – which resources should be used for anything that is not cached and when you’re offline.

Gotchas: Appcache manifest must be served with text/cache-manifest. New-ish technology. Cache failure if one resource is not available – must verify your cache. Appcache is cached forever – when developing, don’t use appcache. Only things that are explicitly cached are available – must be explicitly included. There is lazy-caching, other cache controls in use in the browser may cache other files.

Do not develop with app-cache turned on.

If you change the contents of the appcache, it will be refreshed. Use #version 1.0. Some browsers limit to 5MB-10MB.

Appcache is supported in all modern browsers.

ManifestR creates a manifest file for any web page you visit – helpful for starting with AppCache development.

Rajesh Lal (Nokia): The N-Screens Problem: Building Apps in a World of TV and Mobiles [YouTube video]

7 Key challenges for the N-Screens problem.

Four screens – mobile smartphone, PC, tablet, Internet-connected TV.

Design Problem – N Screens – Mobiles, screen size 2-4″, viewed from a distance of one foot. Not reliable, finger input, highly interruptible. Very dynamic environment. Tablet – 7-14″ screen size, input touch, not as interruptible. PC – screen size 12-27″, very focused use. TV – screen size 25-65″ screen size, 10′ viewing area, total immersion, D-pad remote.

Native vs. Web App

Native, pros: each screen has an SDK, great for a specific device, robust, device APIs. cons: steep learning curve, not scalable. Winner: WebApp solution.

WebApp is an application created using HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Two types – in-browser, or WebApp in a native container(Hybrid).

History: Old HTML, Server-side web apps and CGI, Rich Interactive Apps – Flash, Silverlight, HTML5 and now WebApps.

[see between 7:35 and 9:48 of the YouTube video]

Seven key challenges

How do you detect features? Device detection (bad) vs. Feature detection (good). Modernizr and jquery.support help with feature detection.

How do you detect screen layout/orientation? Media queriesare great – you can query based on resolution, based on device aspect ratio and based on orientation.

Graceful degredation? moz-* ms-* o-* etc… you can use CSS graceful degredationfor this.

How do you Animation? WebGL is best, followed by CSS3 animation, followed by Canvas and JavaScript and then SVG and JavaScript.

Audio? Web Audio in order of preference – OpenAL, Audio Data, RIA Audio HTML5 audio.

AJAX? CORS is best, followed by a proxy, JSONP, then a hybrid app.

Fallback for HTML5 APIs? polyfills and shims. Use HTML5 APIs, then polyfills and shims, then JavaScript code.

Rey Bango (Microsoft): The Great HTML5 Divide: How Polyfills and Shims Let You Light Up Your Sites in Non-Modern Browsers

Up now, the Great HTML5 Divide by Ray Bango of Microsoft. Works on jQuery, HTML evangelist. HTML5 is great, it’s definitely the future, but there is a divide. Talking about browser fragmentation today, feature detection, polyfills and shims. How do you leverage HTML5 and CSS today? Solutions will be provided.

Biggest problem now is non-modern browsers. caniuse.comis a good resource for figuring out which browsers support. Lot of browser fragmentation, across browsers, within the same browser, different versions.

Feature detection is a good thing – do it. Don’t do browser-based detection.

Modernizris great for feature detection – detects all major features for CSS3, HTML5, etc.

Polyfills and shims – polyfills are used to fill in cracks – shims fill in cracks. SVG support, Web Storage, WebSQL, WebSockets, etc. Consider 3rd party library– developers may not want to support it anymore.

Take-aways: avoid browser detection, use polyfills, do smart fallbacks.

Christopher Slye (Adobe Systems, Inc.): Shortcuts: Web Typography

Next up, Christopher Slye from Adobe to talk about Web Typography. Involved in WOFF standards group. Two real font formats – TrueType and PostScript. Going forward, quality will be about the same. EOT is Microsoft’s font container – been exclusively for Internet Explorer. WOFF is new Web font format – will be the first interoperable Web Font Format.

WOFF is a compressed font container, has font metadata. CSS3 Fonts Module – contains entries for properties size, weight, style. OpenType has nothing to do with the Web. Kerning, ligatures and alternates.

CSS font spec allows you to “optimize readability”, which uses ligatures. Discretionary layout features. Good typography on the Web requires font designers to be able to specify font choices on a per-character, per-stroke basis – let’s typographers add case shifting, kerning, alternates, small caps, oldstyle features, etc. – all help readability.

Paul Irish (Google): HTML5: The Foundation of the Web Platform [see also his blog post about it]

Next up, Paul Irish from Google talking about The Foundation of the Web Platform – HTML5. Talking about HTML5 underpinnings – on the jQuery team.

Explains that came about because browsers don’t really care about all of the variations and that all of the variations are difficult to understand for Web developers. was introduced because of a security vulnerability in UTF-7 and script tags.

Browsers used to parse broken markup in a different way. Now they all parse broken markup in the same way. There are optional tags – html, head, body, etc.

You can not use quotes in HTML5 attribute IDs, you can use many UTF-8 characters (like hearts and the unicode value for a snowman).

The HTML5 spec is a repository of valuable browser knowledge – acquired through copious reverse engineering.

W3Conf LiveBlog – Day Two [Manu Sporny, Digital Bazaar, Nov 16, 2011]

Giorgio Sardo (Microsoft): HTML5 Demo Fest: the Best from the Web

Some amazing SVG demos happening on screen at W3Conf. An SVG music video, amazing filter effects with SVG, CSS applied to SVG, etc.

Amazing HTML5-based demos. BMW using canvas to preview cars interactively using open standards. The Killers (the band) launches a pure HTML5 and canvas page. Amazing TRON interactive comic book done in pure HTML5.

CSS3 demos showing off animation. Amazing font work showing off WOFF (new font stuff in HTML5). Associated Press showing interactive news demo showing top stories in an interactive way, using Local Storage to save stories for offline viewing.

Demos showing that pen-based input, touch inputs, motion inputs on HTML5 pages – no plugins necessary. Showing smooth transitions between HTML5 video and page content, giving a very smooth website experience.

Current presenter is Giorgio Sardo, doing a great job showing off the power of HTML5 today. Showing off the need for multi-touch events – talking about mobile phones or large screens shared among different people, running HTML5 Apps.

Moving on to WebApps and the File API. Showing drag-drop of files from the desktop to the browser window. Drag-Drop API allows you to take files from the desktop and drop them into a web page – file information and the byte stream is made available to the browser. Web Performance API allows you to know when someone isn’t viewing a page and allows you to shut down processor intensive or battery draining portions of Web Apps.

HTML5 games being demoed now – Angry Birds in pure HTML5, 65,000 PacMan mazes in pure canvas, high speed, smooth interoperation.

See @gisardo on twitter for a link to all of the amazing HTML5 demos.

Mike Bostock (Square): Shortcuts: Data Visualization with Web Standards

Mike Bostock is up now, talking about Data Visualization with Web Standards. We should not put a focus on charts and graphs, but rather visualizing information in a way that is closer matched to the data we’re trying to understand. D3.js – Data Driven Documents.

D3.js looks at data visualization as a document. Map a quantity/value to a symbol then render. decoupling data from visualization. D3 mixes SVG, CSS and HTML togetherto build beautiful visualizations – for example hierarchical data sets can be visualized as hierarchical bar charts, or bubble graphics, and smooth transitions between them.

Showing off how D3 also allows you to do interactive visualization – select part of the data set, see highlights elsewhere in the data set. The tools we create don’t exist in isolation – combining SVG + Canvas + CSS allow us to create very compelling visualizations.

Becky Gibson (IBM): Making Accessibility Mainstream

Becky Gibson, from IBM – Senior Technical Staff Member, on stage now.

Issues with Accessibility – Vision issues, Mobility issues (not everyone is able to use a mouse), temporary disability, learning disabilities, hearing disabilities, age. Eventually all of us age – every one of us will have accessibility issues.

Why care about Accessibility? Government/legal reasons, monetary reasons (1.75B of disposable income from people with accessability issues), independence, altruism – it’s the right thing to do. People with disabilities don’t want a hand out, they want your respect.

Enabling Accessibility. Use semantic HTML, use alt-text on images, label form elements, add keyboard support, use tabindexes, support high contrast mode (all background images are removed).

Assistive Technology Support – WAI-ARIA – uses role attribute and aria-* attributes to enable accessible applications. Multiple roles – tree, spinner, grid, many more. States and properties – required, expanded, checked, owns, many more.

ARIA Roles landmark the main roles on the page – banner, main, navigation, search, form. Popular screen readers support landmarks. ARIA Presentation role – preferred way to say that something is being used to present some information?

ARIA states and properties. ARIA allows one to specify that a region of the page has been updated and how one should be notified that it’s been updated. For example: “aria-live=”assertive” aria-atomic=”true”. aria-required indicates that a field is required. aria-invalid tells us that something someone has entered is invalid.

The future – mobile – VoiceOver screen reader and ARIA support is in Safari – iOS has the accessibility advantage right now. Intent-based Events – how do you do generic events?

Brad Hill (PayPal), Scott Stender (iSEC Partners): Securing the Next Generation of Web Apps

Up on stage now – Brad Hill from PayPal and Scott Stender (iSEC Partners) talking about Web App Security. We need a way to protect information from prying eyes on the Web. New threats are client-based – Cross-Site Scripting and Cross-Site Request Forgery.

Same-origin policy guards against most attacks. Most attacks can be prevented on the Server-side. Conventional wisdom: Never trust the client – Defend the server, at the server. Web Security 1.0 puts up defenses at the server. Client Code Injection – DOM Cross-Site Scripting – you can use fragment identifiers to attack sites now because of JavaScript running on a page.

Big security vulnerabilities are now showing up in native apps that wrap HTML containers. When there are no servers, and you have stuff running on your local system, a script-injection attack can take files on your hard drive and send them across the network without your knowledge. Demo of Skype window sending passwords to attackers based on a JavaScript attack.

Old clever tricks – like script tags, iframe elements, JSONP are mature, but you have to understand what security model you’re signing up for– you’re effectively giving the source of a JSONP data/iframe check-in rights to the code on your page. So, if you use these clever hacks, be careful how you do it and who you do it with.

New features coming up that help web security – CORS, XHR2, WebSockets – powerful tools. Auditing is more difficult with these new technologies. postMessage (communication between two tabs in the same browser) and Web RTC (real-time data/media streams). These technologies, while very cool, open up the attack surface on the Web App.

Assets and attack surface are moving to the client, but the focus is still on securing the servers. Future of Web App Security is in the client, not the server. We are falling behind on making sure we’re securing our Web Apps.

What can we do to mitigate these threats? Comprehensive testing/verification, do tests on production code. Get rid of built-in “Game Over” security threats – JSONP is bad, plaintext HTTP is bad. Create code that is designed to be securable– compartmentalize the code, decouple the code, be explicit, do test-driven design.

More specific thingsyou can do: Use HTML5+ Mashup APIs, use HTTPS (and authenticate your origins), secure design – compartmentalize and sandbox origins, do good client-side testing.

For compartmentalization: use credential state isolated from the DOM, minimize foreign origins, create unique origins to isolate apps and sandbox dangerous or active content.

You can sandbox bad JSONP code using postMessage.

Implementation validation is also important. Test using security tools – DOMinator, DOM Snitch, WebDriver and Selenium for testing. Start using them, contribute bugs, make the tools better.

Content Security Policy – pioneering work at Mozilla/Google– Least-Privilege environment. Let’s you say: “No in-line script, no code from strings via eval(), no data URIs, code must come from libraries with origins specified in a whitelist, origin whitelist for images, media, frames, fonts, plugins, etc.”

Click-jacking and UI Redressing is still a problem with Mashups. DOM is still a mess – lots of browser-specific quirks.

Grant Goodale (Massively Fun): Shortcuts: Touch Events

Grant Goodale up now from Massively Fun (@ggoodale) to talk about touch events. First touch API appeared in iOS 2.0, now a part of the HTML5 spec.

Many differences still exist between vendors – many of the browsers don’t support it yet, but there are lots of mobile browsers that do support touch events. Many different types of input, you want native-like behavior. Firefox supports touch events.

Cross-platform multi-touch webapp checklist – disable standard gesture handling, handle rendering in a loop outside of the touch event handler, support single-touch devices (like Android phones), handle mouse events (phones w/ a physical pointer, phones with no touch events, desktop browsers).

Grant Skinner (gskinner.com): Hello. Games. HTML5 Gaming Today.

… by Grant Skinner (gskinner.com) – creator of Eazel.jsand Pirates Love Daisies.

Traditionally worked with Flash – moved to working with HTML5. Games on the Open Web today and in the future.

What do you need to make a great game? An idea – you can be inspired by the technology you have available to you. Can we design games designed for the Web? Loading – critical piece, how do you get the game onto the client? Monitoring progress is difficult in games (no clear standards to see how long it’ll take to load everything).

XHR2 is great because it has progress events – ability to load in binary assets. caching – minimizes bandwidth/connections – cache manifest is good, but it’s an all-or-nothing solution. If you change the cache manifest, everything downloads again. HTML5 local storage is good, tricky to store non-text assets, low-level way of supporting cached data – lots of custom implementation work.

Graphics – lots of options. DOM and SVG is good – interaction model is good, ubiquitous, hardware accelerated… but high overhead (can be a performance killer). Hardware acceleration works really well for Canvas, not so great for SVG and the HTML DOM. WebGL (based on OpenGL ES2) – fast, low-level hardware graphics, 3D vertex shaders, extremely sharp learning curve – Three.jsmay help, but still very difficult to use. Canvas 2D is broadly available, including mobile, consistently implemented, easy to get started with, increasingly performant.

Combining surfaces is good– combine Canvas and SVG and DOM. HTML DOM does the UI very well – all UI in their games is done with HTML – use Canvas/SVG for graphics. Using pluggable renderers – you can switch between three.js, EaselJS based on your platform – write the content once, pick the renderer based on the device.

Sound is a little more challenging in games right now– audio tag is broadly supported, but suffers from browser-specific issues, latency, codec support, maximum number of audio elements (arbitrary). Using solutions like Flash, SoundJS, SoundManager2 allow you to launch with good audio today. Sound sprites, like image sprites – one very long audio clip with gaps, use JavaScript to see and play different parts of the audio track.

The Web Audio API is coming– very powerful API for real-time audio manipulation, runs at native speed, synthesis, analysis, mixing – limited support now, but will solve a ton of problems.

Basic interaction – keyboard capture is incomplete, but mostly adequate. Mouse interaction is fine for point and click games. WebGL and Canvas require custom handling of mouse events. Full-screen and interaction API is a bit quirky. mouse lock and synthetic mouse events are necessary when you want the cursor to go off-screen and still generate mouse events (which you need to do in first-person games when walking, running, navigating).

Upcoming device APIs – touch events, orientation change API, device orientation API, nothing for orientation lock yet (don’t change the orientation when playing a game).

Communication – XHR (http requests and polling), WebSockets (text only for now, but binary coming soon). WebRTC / Peer Connection API – peer-to-peer audio, video and data. Network Status API – is the device online or offline.

Code authoring – JavaScript performance has gotten faster, IE has improved the most, but many browsers are doing great work with JavaScript performance. ECMAScript 5 is good – strict mode should be used. New features in ECMA5 – seal, freeze, prevent extension for objects, property descriptors allow you to specify when a property should be writable, readable, etc. There are still challenges: no type safety, no interfaces, limited inheritance, no super() – difficult to write a big game engine w/ JavaScript. JS is great for hacking together a game. Some solutions – Google Closure is neat and a good IDE, cross-compilers – Haxe, CoffeeScript, Jangaroo– compile down to JavaScript.

Tools – good dev tools – WebStorm, debugging tools are good, profiling is good for JavaScript – not so good for profiling graphical processes. WebGL inspectoris really neat, lets you see where a single pixel came from in the code.

Asset preparation (for designers) 3D – Inka3D exports to WebGL. Sprite sheets – Flash, Zoe, TexturePacker. 2D – Wallaby, SVG to Canvas, EaselJS.

Marketing and Monetization – Web games are great because you’re already in a social medium.

Flash is more ubiquitous, it has more tooling, building a game is cheaper in Flash… but it doesn’t run in iOS, probably won’t run in mobiles, Windows 8 Metro won’t run it either.

Exciting times for Games in HTML5 – still some rough edges, but technology is maturing quickly.

Faruk Ateş : Shortcuts: Modernizr

Design for the browser of the future by detecting features instead of browser versions – useful for progressive enhancement, graceful degradation, regressive enhancement.

Modernizr allows you to test a feature and then conditionally load code that expects the feature or code that uses a polyfill.

People arrive at your site for the content, but will leave very quickly if the site isn’t fast. Showing demo of progressive enhancement.

How to use modernizr? Go to http://www.modernizr.com

Development and production version. Good for CDN distribution.

Art Barstow (Nokia), Paul Cotton (Microsoft), Tantek Çelik (Mozilla), Charles McCathieNevile (Opera), Chris Wilson (Google), Peter Vosshall (Amazon):
PANEL: Browsers and Standards: Where the Rubber Hits the Road

What’s interesting about the browsers?

Nokia has shipped millions of browser installs – written from the ground-up in some cases – shipped browsers from Opera – also shipping Windows Phone browsers – large swath.

Microsoft – IE9 and IE10 – driving home the message about all web developers using the Web Platform – picking stable specs, moving it into the browser.

Mozilla – we’re a non-profit, our focus is a bit different – mission driven focus– we’re concerned about SOPA and censorship over profits.

Opera – we’re a commercial company, we are out of Norway, we are product focusedfor our customers.

Google – focus on making the Web platform better.

Amazon – just got into the browser game, built from the ground-up to use Amazon web services infrastructure – browser running on a mobile device.

What do you think about DART and SPDY and how they were brought to market?

Paul Cotton (Microsoft) – innovation is good, we should have more of it but we need to coordinateon those things.

Paul (Amazon) SPDY is great, we ship it, it reflects what’s happening in the real world today.

Chaals (Opera) browser vendors are just one part of the puzzle, developers need to take part in it, security folks need to take part in it.

Tantek (Mozilla) – the problem is delayed open – for a fair look on the problem search for “delayed open google microsoft”.
[ 20 Nov: @t Tantek Çelik also @ #W3Conf: fight “delayed open” tactics per Eran’s post: Open vs. Fast, Good vs. Evil, Google vs. Facebook: ttk.me/t4Ex4]

Vendor prefixes, are they outmoded?

Chris Wilson (Google), vendor prefixes are not that good.

Chaals (Opera) bad authoring is worse, so is bad Web teaching, we need a mechanism for innovation – vendor prefixes are terrible, except for all of the other things we tried, which are worse – sunset the vendor prefixes.

Paul Cotton (Microsoft) we want vendor prefixes to be taken out when we go to Candidate Recommendation status – we need to get to CR faster, we need to do our specs in a much more modular fashion. Part of the standards process is at fault here – standards need to move faster.

Tantek (Mozilla) The better that we can get about dropping vendor prefixes, the better. Vendor prefixes suck, but it’s the best we’ve come up with so far– we could do better – we’re all open to suggestions on this point.

Paul (Amazon) Vendor prefixes are a form of technical debt, you have to pay it down eventually.

Tantek asks why VIDEO element didn’t have a vendor prefix – but it still worked… why?

Chaals: It was easy to understand what Video should do.

John Allsopp: It had a good fallback.

Tantek: Video wasn’t easy, but we got it right – why was that? Arguing on stage

What about operating system integration, like with Chromebook?

Tantek: it’s bad – robs the user of choice. iPhone, no choice – Chromebook – no choice.

Chris (Google) – Chromebook is just the Web layer, you can replace the OS if you want to– there is choice there.

Paul (Amazon) having HTML5, creating a true application environment – maybe the model of using the OS as the browser is terrible.

How do most of the regular web developers know what should be used and what shouldn’t?

Chaals (Opera) All of us building the Web need to go out and learn and teach other people. There is nobody spoon feeding information to you – this field changes so quickly – look around to your peers, they will help you.

Paul (Microsoft) Browser vendors need to hang out with one another – we need to work together, get things done. Community Groups at W3C are going to be key – get groups going with least amount of overhead, understand what minimum required to get a spec done is needed. The way we’re dealing with the HTML5 spec is bad – it’s a flawed way of working on a standard. We will continue to work together at W3C. We have a real obligation to the community here.

Tantek (Mozilla) – it’s not sufficient for browser vendors to work together – we need to work together IN THE OPEN.

Is there any plans to replace JavaScript?

Chris (Google) One of the goals behind DARTwas to provide something simpler.

Chaals (Opera) it would be terrible if the solution was not interoperable.

Paul (Microsoft) JavaScript will become “copper pipe” in 5-6 years… it’ll be what we use just like we don’t think about processors and compilers today.

Privacy –

Chaals (Opera) different societies define privacy differently, difficult to start the work when you don’t know where you’re going.

Chris (Google) people should have the tools to control their own privacy, you can’t just leave it to the end user.

Doug (W3C) Good work on do not track, cryptography going on at W3C.

What about internationalization?

Paul (Microsoft) We need to be able to ship browsers worldwide – how to bring rest of the world into the conversation.

Tantek (Mozilla) There are 70 versions of localized Firefox browsers – built by the international community. Customized for specific locales and markets.

Women in browsers, why are they not represented?

Paul (Microsoft) I work with 2 women on my team, 3 men. More women attending at TPAC, this is a good sign.

Chaals (Opera) different societies have different levels of participation.

Paul (Microsoft) Women are certainly welcome here – we want much broader participation than we have now. I think some of the problem is societal, it’s not a social norm in the USA – we need to get better about teaching science and math to he smarter of the genders.

Windows 8 gaining smartphone like “connected standby” capability

November 23, 2011 10:56 pm / 5 Comments on Windows 8 gaining smartphone like “connected standby” capability

New power state called “Connected Standby”

Windows coalesces all the timer and network requests, turns the radio on periodically to satisfy them, then goes back to very low power consumption.

But because app requests are getting satisfied they are up to date as soon as you press “ON”

8 ways Windows 8 benefits the retail industry [MSDN Blogs, Oct 5, 2011]

…

7. Energy friendly – The tradeoff between instant-on for customer service and the constant consumption of power has been minimized. Now retail environments with any number of client machines can use the Windows 8 “Connected Standby” mode to ensure that devices are available for use instantly while using the least amount of power possible. This feature will even allow enterprise software updates to machines that are in a low power state.

…

Dr. Paul Jacobs, CEO of Qualcomm on the Wireless Future [Global Technology Leadership Conference at the University of California Berkeley’s College of Engineering, Nov 18, 2011]

[24:10] Up to this point – I would say – tablets predominantly have been an iPad story. The Android tablets are out there. They haven’t been quite as successfull. But I think that will change, not just with the Android but also with Microsoft working on having Windows. So they are porting big Windows onto mobile phone chips.

And the interesting thing about that is now your Windows computer will act much more like a smartphone. So Microsoft spent a lot of effort implementing a feature that’s called ‘Connected Standby’ which means that when your PC goes to sleep it will go to sleep like a smartphone – meaning that power consumption goes down to very low and every so often it will blip up, collect your e-mail and your Facebook notifications, and whatever else it is that needs to update, and it goes back to sleep at very, very low power. And when you touch the screen, boom it comes on right away.

And that is going to be interesting because now you have a tablet with a full computing environment, on a full web, all the stuff that you would expect. So I think that’s going to be a very, very interesting thing. I’ve seen the form factors. There are extremely, extremely aggressive form factors that are going to be coming out when these Windows 8 launches happen. [25:30]

Steven Sinofsky, Julie Larson-Green, Antoine Leblond, Michael Angiulo, and Chris Jones: BUILD Keynote – Day 1 [Microsoft transcript for the press, Sept 13, 2011]

…

MIKE ANGIULO: ARM and SOC hardware combined. This is a Qualcomm ARM reference design, this is the one we showed at Computex, this is an 8660 Snapdragon. It’s hooked up to this debugging system here that’s measuring power really accurately. And what’s going on on this monitor is you can actually see the amount of power being used. It’s very low. The system is not off, it’s in a new power state called “connected standby” which is a really low-power idle state. You can see these little spikes that show up here. What’s going on is Windows is coalescing all of the timer requests and all of the network requests, turning the radio on briefly, updating the apps, and then shutting the radio back down. So, when I turn the system on, it turns on with one click — or two depending on if you have demo gremlins.

The system is on. You can see the power jumps right up. It’s an instant-on type scenariobecause it was never off. I can interact with the system here and you can see the power kind of changes as we’re rendering and we’re drawing on the screen. And then when I go to turn it off, I click it, immediately the power drops down. What’s going on right there is the apps get a chance to pack up their data and then it’s shutting down and it immediately drops back to idle. That’s the kind of system — yeah. (Applause.)

STEVEN SINOFSKY: I mean, when we talk about fundamental performance, that’s what we’re talking about. We’re actually taking the things that you’d experience like in phones, and we’re bringing that to the PC architecture at the base kernel level.

MIKE ANGIULO: And it’s one of the things that all of these SOC systems will be able to do. If you’re good to the understanding connected standby session, you’ll see the same power demo running on the Nvidia Tegra 3, we showed — it was nine months ago at CES was the first time we showed ARM booting at all. And all it could do is just boot Windows 8 up to the desktop in one touch.

…

Understanding Connected Standby [Microsoft Channel 9 video, Sept 14, 2011]

Your PC in a year: how Windows 8 will change hardware [TechRadar, Nov 16, 2011]

…

Connected Standby

Microsoft uses words like ‘fresh’ and ‘alive’ to describe the future of the PC, especially when it’s talking about the Connected Standby mode that PCs using both ARM and low-power System On Chip (SoC) x86 processors will have. “It’s about the application experience,” says principal program manager Pat Stemen; “You want an app that’s fresh, that has connected content.

I don’t want to wait for it to download and I want it to show that fresh information when I turn on.” In fact the official name of PCs that support this is Always On Always Connected.

It’s also about consistent, consistently long battery life, he says; no more guessing how long the battery will last – you’ll know how much power the PC uses when it’s on and when it’s in Connected Standby, so you can accurately predict battery life.

Connected Standby is an “ultra-low power idle mode” implemented as a new level 5 ACPI modein the processor and it needs new hardware throughout the PC as well.

You need low-power memory (the kind of DRAM that’s been going into servers to save money because it doesn’t generate as much heat), low-power buses and devices and flash storagerather than a hard drive; that’s for speed as well as power saving, because the system can’t predict when the drive will be in use.

LIKE A PHONE:
Connected Standby stops using power much faster than today’s PCs

The Wi-Fi in Connected Standby PCs has to be much smarterbecause it’s on all the time, checking whether any of the network traffic matches the patterns of notifications that can wake the PC up – incoming VOIP calls or SMS and instant messages, for example.

That turns the whole PC back on so you can answer the call. Otherwise, the Wi-Fi connection periodically wakes itself up and collects data for the Metro apps that are on the Start screen.

That means putting a small processor in the Wi-Fi chipset and supporting NDIS 6.3, which lets the chipset do in hardware some of the network processing the PC would usually do in software; it also makes networking faster when the PC is on as well.

With Wi-Fi so important for Connected Standbyit has to get connected quickly; expect to get onto a hotspot or access point in about a second rather than the 12 seconds common now, even if you turn a PC off at work and turn it back on at home.

Tablets and a lot of notebooks will have built-in 3G next year. That’s going to use less power because new 3G connections will let Windows tell them when to turn off the transmitting radio because the PC is idle and just listen for incoming traffic, so the 3G card can go into ‘fast dormancy’ rather than keeping the radio on just in case (because turning the radio off saves power but turning it off and on again can use more power than leaving it on).

LOW-POWER 3G:
Knowing when to turn the radio off will stop 3G eating your battery

USB 3 will be on all these PCs too, not just for the faster speeds but because “it works better at low power,” according to Dennis Flanagan, who runs the team implementing Connected Standby for Windows 8. “It uses much less steady-state power when there’s nothing being used on the bus.”

But the two main ways of connecting peripherals will be peer-to-peer Wi-Fi, using the Wi-Fi Direct standard which lets your notebook get online and connect to a Wi-Fi-enabled device at the same time, and the lower-power Bluetooth LE.

Flanagan calls that “low-power wireless connectivity for longer battery life and for a new class of low power devices that can last two or four years on a couple of batteries”. Having NFC that’s cheap enough to put into all PCs helps here as well, because you’ll be able to tap Wi-Fi and Bluetooth devices against your PC to pair them instead of following on-screen prompts.

Smarter than Smart Connect

Intel’s Smart Connect mode, coming in second-generation ultrabooks and netbooks with Cedar Trail Atom CPUs next year, also aims to keep new PCs up to date when they’re in standby but it’s not as sophisticated as Connected Standby– and doesn’t need as much new hardware to work. “It keeps your PC always updated,” Intel’s John Wallace told us.

“When the device is in a sleep state it wakes up and pings network so it can download email and update content. Windows 8 is push, this is pull; we’re waking up periodically and pulling content.” The problem with that is the PC will wake up and connect even if there’s no new content to download.

“We’ll have true connected standby on next generation hardware that gets push notifications and wakes up,” Wallace predicted; that could be the Haswell chip that will be used in third-generation ultrabooks, if it’s delivered as a SoC.

With ACPI 5 and Connected Standby, Wallace says Windows 8 PCs will have “weeks of battery life” in standby. In 16 hours in Connected Standby a Windows 8 PC will use up no more than 5% of battery life; if that sounds an odd amount of time to measure, it’s what you get if you put your PC into Connected Standby at 5pm and pick it up again at 9am next morning.

Initially Connected Standby and Smart Connection are only aimed at tablets and notebooks. “Over time, Connected Standby may also scale to all-in-on systems and desktop PCs as well, although we’re not really focused on that right now,” Stemen explained.

Rapid Start and fast boot

The improvements we’ll see in all PCs next year are include faster boot and better security. Again, the Microsoft approach to starting up faster is more aggressive than Intel’s Rapid Start, which aims at taking less than seven seconds to resume from hibernation; PCs with Connected Standby will wake in less than 300ms and all PCs with UEFI BIOS will boot in six seconds(and Windows 8 will actively warn you of any software you install that slows that down).

That includes checking that no malware has tampered with Windows and turning on your anti-virus software before you bootto avoid malware lurking on any USB sticks you have plugged in.

AV SOONER:
UEFI means PCs can start checking for viruses before they start Windows

Building a power-smart general-purpose Windows [Pat Stemen, program manager, Windows 8 Kernel team, MSDN Blogs: Building Windows 8, Nov 8, 2011]

…

Our goals

We have 3 goals in mind when engineering Windows 8 power management:

Let the hardware shine. We built Windows 8 such that the power efficiency of the hardware platform shines through, regardless of whether the system is a SoC-based Windows tablet or an SLI-equipped gaming PC. We designed our power management interfaces in a consistent, standardized way across all platforms. This allows our hardware partners and application developers to focus on their unique innovations and experiences instead of the differences in platform hardware and power management.

Continue to deliver great battery life. Windows 7 delivered a significant reduction in power consumption and increase in energy efficiency, particularly mobile PC battery life. (In fact, you can read how we thought about it in this e7 blog post.) In Windows 8, we want to maintain that same level of efficiency on existing PCs even as we re-imagine the rest of Windows.

Enable the smartphone power model. One of the coolest things about the System-on-Chip (SoC) platforms you’ve seen us talk about at CES and //BUILD/ is their capability to quickly enter very low-power idle states. We want to leverage that ultra-low idle power to bring the constant connectivity and instant-on features of the smartphone power model to capable Windows 8 PCs.

…

How software influences power consumption

Software can influence power consumption by consuming resources—CPU, disk, memory, etc.–as each of those resources has a power cost associated. Software also influences power consumption through the OS and driver software responsible for managing hardware power states.

Windows 8 features 3 key innovationsto improve how software influences power consumption—the Metro style app model, idle hygiene, and a new runtime device power management framework. We will give you a brief overview of how these innovations improve power consumption in this blog post.

The Metro style application model

Most of us have experienced the influence of software on power consumption first-hand. It might be that you have an app on your phone that goes through battery quickly or you’ve heard the fan turn on in your laptop when playing a game or computing a spreadsheet. These are all examples of applications directly consuming CPU, GPU, network time, disk and/or memory.

One of the new power management innovations in Windows 8 isn’t a power management infrastructure feature; it is the Metro style application model itself. The Metro style application model is designed from the beginning to be power-friendly. The power management benefit is that the model makes it easy for developers to ensure their application is running only at the right time—applications in the background are suspended such that they do not consume resources and power when not in use.

Of course, we recognize that background activity is a critical component of apps that are always connected and responsive. The Metro style application model and the underlying WinRT support background activity through a new set of capabilities called background tasks. (See this Introduction to Background Tasks for more details.) Background tasks make it easy to perform background activity in a power-friendly fashion. They also enable developers to continue to deliver responsiveness and “freshness” in their applications, but the mechanisms are different than the existing Win32 model because of the desire for a fast-and-fluid interface and the other key attributes of Metro style apps (see 8 traits of great Metro style apps).

We’ve engineered background tasks and the overall Metro style application model to enable a new level of app responsiveness, while at the same time considering overall system attributes including power and memory consumption.

Task Manager showing suspended Metro style apps

Idle hygiene

Software can have dramatic influence on power consumption even without consuming a lot of resources through intermittent idle activity. We refer to improvements to idle activity as idle hygiene.

Most PC platforms feature processor and chipset idle states that allow the hardware platform to stop the clock or completely turn off power to parts of the silicon when they are unused. These idle states are absolutely critical to enabling long battery life, but they require a minimal residency duration—that is, you have to be idle for long enough to make the transition in and out of the idle state worthwhile in terms of power used. This is because some power is consumed on the way into and out of the idle state. Software most effectively uses these idle states when there are as few exits from the idle state as possible, and the duration of the idle state is as long as possible.

We track the idle efficiency of Windows 8 using built-in ETW Tracing, some additions to the Windows Performance Analyzer, and a basic histogram. Below, you can see the difference in idle durations between Windows 7 and Windows 8. When the screen is on, we’ve already moved the bar significantly from a maximum idle duration of 15.6ms in Windows 7 to 35% of our durations longer than 100ms in Windows 8! With the screen off and during Connected Standby, our idle durations are even longer, currently in the tens of seconds.

Runtime device power management

PCs attain their longest battery life when all devices, including the processor, storage, and peripheral devices enter low-power modes. Almost every device in the modern PC has some kind of power management technology, and runtime device power managementdetermines how we use those technologies seamlessly without impact to the user experience. A really good example of runtime device power management is dimming the automatic display after a timeout in Windows 7.

Just to underscore how important device power management is, we have seen many systems where not enabling a single device’s power management features can easily reduce total battery life by up to 25%! (It’s worth noting here that disabling a device in Device Manager is almost equally bad—most devices are initialized by firmware at their highest power modes and require a device driver to get them to a more nominal power consumption.) You can diagnose some device power management problems using the built-in powercfg.exeutility in Windows 7 with the /ENERGY parameter. The output of /ENERGY is an HTML file that gives you a view of which devices and software are potentially running in a power-consuming state. Of course, using the factory image for your PC that came loaded with OEM and vendor-supplied drivers is almost always the best way to ensure the devices in your PC are well-behaved for power management.

Efficient power management of devices is performed by the driver for the device, in conjunction with the Windows kernel power manager and platform firmware. The power manager makes it easy for the drivers of these devices to implement their power management routines and coordinate any power state transitions with other devices on the platform.

For Windows 8, we’ve built a new device power framework that allows all devices to advertise their power management capabilities and integrate them with a special driver called the Power Engine Plug-in or PEP, designed for SoC systems. The PEP is provided by the silicon manufacturer and knows all of the SoC-specific power management requirements. This allows device drivers like our USB host controller or a keyboard driver to be built once, and still deliver optimal power management on all platforms from SoC-based PCs to datacenter servers.

We are hard at work with all of our ecosystem partners to deliver the low-power and long battery life technologies we all want in our Windows 8 PCs.

	Standby (3G)	Talk (3G)	Browsing (3G)	Video Playback 720p
Apple iPhone 4S	~38mW	~800mW	~1.3W	~500mW
Intel Medfield Reference	~18mW	~700mW	~1.0W	~850mW
Samsung Galaxy S II	~19mW	~675mW	~1.2W	~650mW

Form Factor	Mobile Handsets	Featurephones	Smartphones
Shipments (CY 2011)	183.4	172.2	11.2
Shipments (CY 2012)	221.6	206.4	15.2
Year-on-Year Growth, CY 2012 over CY 2011 (%)	20.80%	19.90%	35.70%
Half Year-on-Half Year Growth, 2H 2012 over 1H 2012 (%)	16.40%	11.30%	75.20%

Player	Nokia	Samsung	Micromax
Rank – Overall	#1	#2	#3
Share – Overall (% of unit shipments)	21.80% [~45M]	13.70% [~28.3M]	6.60% [~13.6M]
Rank – Featurephones segment	#1	#2	#3
Share – Featurephones segment (% of unit shipments of featurephones)	22.50%	11.50%	6.50%

Player	Rank	Share (% of unit shipments of smartphones)
Samsung*	#1	43.1% [~6.5M]
Nokia	#2	13.3% [~ 2M]
Sony Mobiles	#3	8.2% [~1.25M]

	3Q 2011	4Q 2011	1Q 2012	2Q 2012	3Q 2012
Smart devices	16.8	19.6	11.9	10.2	6.3
Mobile Phones	89.8	93.9	70.8	73.5	76.6

Tag Archives: Microsoft

prepared remarks by Stephen Elop, President & CEO

the essence of the answers to some questions:

Relative to that media reports are very narrow focused as you could even see from the below entries considered the best among them:

–> Intel’s industry position and prospects for years ahead [Dec 9, 2010 – March 21, 2011]

–> Intel’s SoC strategy strengthened by 22nm Tri-Gate technology [May 10 – Nov 30, 2011]

–> New Mobile and Communications Group (MCG) at Intel [Dec 16 – 30, 2011]

–> Intel’s SoC strategy strengthened by 22nm Tri-Gate technology [May 10 – Nov 30, 2011]

More information

The CES 2012 expansion of the V.I.A. Plus

Strong business backings from Taiwan that enable such bold strategy expansion for VIZIO

Smartphone shipments cross 15 million units, 2H numbers grow 75.2% HY-o-HY; Samsung still the favourite but Sony and Indian players make their mark through differentiated offerings

Form Factor

Mobile Handsets

Featurephones

Smartphones

Shipments (CY 2011)

183.4

172.2

11.2

Shipments (CY 2012)

221.6

206.4

15.2

Year-on-Year Growth, CY 2012 over CY 2011 (%)

20.80%

19.90%

35.70%

Half Year-on-Half Year Growth, 2H 2012 over 1H 2012 (%)

16.40%

11.30%

75.20%

Notes for Editors

This release is a part of the CyberMedia Research (CMR) Smart Mobility Market Programme.

Quarterly Performance of Nokia Devices Business

3Q 2011

4Q 2011

1Q 2012

2Q 2012

3Q 2012

Smart devices

16.8

19.6

11.9

10.2

6.3

Mobile Phones

89.8

93.9

70.8

73.5

76.6

Source: Nokia Quarterly Results,October 18, 2012

Nokia Lumia initially positioned as ‘more than a smartphone’ has received a lukewarm response from customers, when compared with the high decibel launch of Samsung’s Galaxy SIII and Galaxy Note 2, Apple’s iPhone 5, HTC’s One X etc.

On the other hand, Nokia Asha, initially positioned as ‘a cross between a featurephone and smartphone’ is receiving positive customer response globally.

Smartphones make up 5.3% of units sold and almost a quarter of total handset revenues

Multi-SIM handsets account for two-thirds of total sales; 3G phone sales still below 10 per cent of total sales

<INR 5000: <US$ 89 INR 5001-10000: US$ 89-179INR 10001-15000: US$ 179-268INR 15001-20000: US$ 268-357INR 20001-25000: US$ 357-447INR 25001-30000: US$ 447-536 >INR 30000: >US$ 536

Additional information

Experience

Education

W3Conf LiveBlog – Day Two [Manu Sporny, Digital Bazaar, Nov 16, 2011]

How software influences power consumption

Post navigation

Shipments
(CY 2011)

Shipments
(CY 2012)

Year-on-Year Growth, CY 2012 over
CY 2011 (%)

Half Year-on-Half Year Growth, 2H 2012 over
1H 2012 (%)

<INR 5000: <US$ 89 INR 5001-10000: US$ 89-179
INR 10001-15000: US$ 179-268
INR 15001-20000: US$ 268-357
INR 20001-25000: US$ 357-447
INR 25001-30000: US$ 447-536 >INR 30000: >US$ 536