Mobile Solutions CI

Amazon's tablet as indicator of Android fragmentation

The issue of what is fragementation on Android was a hot topic a year ago. Today the Android ecosystem is under such stress and strain that you really have to look at it from the broader perspective of a Linux platform to even see how quickly events are running past Google and the Android Open Source Project (AOSP).

Today's launch of the Kindle Fire, an Android-powered tablet from Amazon, is the latest example. Amazon is laying bare the fact that the most important elements of Android derive from its embedded linux foundation and not the UI or backing of Google.

Handset manufacturers will be forced to follow suit and begin building their smartphone brands more on content and pricing models.

Android is at risk

Have you been paying attention to the Oracle lawsuit against Google? If you are in mobile, you should be.

Oracle sued Google for copyright violation claiming the linux kernel within Android contains unlicensed elements of java code now owned by Oracle. While receiving little attention from the general media this case has rapidly escalated risk associated with Android both due to the case itself and the information it is providing Apple with regards to Google’s specific weaknesses within Android.

Apple is using the exposed weaknesses of Google’s arguments to lay a roadmap for litigation against Android licensees.

The case went to mediation on September 19^th—an in-person settlement conference with CEO’s Page and Ellison attending. “The judge warned Google that if the company is found guilty of infringement, the court may issue a permanent injunction against the sale of Android-based devices going forward.” However these mediation talks have resulted in no progress, showing Google doesn't grasp or doesn't care about the risk it's distribution partners are facing.

Discovery in this case has revealed several very damaging documents from Google. An internal email from an engineer to Rubin admits that some engineers did use java code to test the Dalvik branch for compatibility to the relevant java libraries. Before Google had said they never used the code. Now Google claims this was within their rights (Oracle obviously disagrees and says this represents copying of java architecture). More here: http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_18525231

Google has also lost arguments which expose it to Apple claims when Apple sues Android directly, as well as providing Apple direction and evidence in building claims against Android licensees.

We're still likely to see a settlement here as ultimate outcome. However it matters a lot to everyone involved in Android when that happens and what the terms are.

Summary article here:

http://www.zacks.com/stock/news/60586/Oracle,+Google+Set+to+Settle+Claims+

 

Is quad play the future for wireless operators?

Slim is making a long term bet on future demand for quad play services, which could affect all his Latin American footprint. Jorge Lagunas of Grupo Financiero Interacciones in Mexico told Bloomberg: "In some point in its history, we could see news about quadruple play from Telmex, or something like that, that could help boost profit at America Movil itself." Mexico is not the first country to indicate the trend - America Movil has already started to offer fixed/mobile bundles in other territories, notably Colombia, where it bought fixed networks last year.

via www.rethink-wireless.com

Carlos Slim has been ahead of the curve for most trends in the industry. Is he right that this form of integration is required for scale? Or will we see a more vertical integration--think an Apple offering wireless services where the main focus is a content library instead of the device hardware?

Contrast this with Huawei's stated intent to use Google as a platform to offer cloud services on devices. Given Huawei's strength as an infrastructure provider that makes perfect sense--offer an end to end device to platform proposition to consumers which follows Google's intent. However, I'd argue that is actually a better path for operators to take as their cloud efforts have more opportunity as B2B within the mobile value chain as opposed to priced-to-consumer offerings.

Will we see a Carlos Slim or an APAC player lead with this model? And will developed regions pay attention if it works?

Blogs | Wireless Week

Leap/Cricket, along with MetroPCS, often have been thought of as “bottom feeders,” as Bernstein Research analysts said in a research note released today,but they’re emerging as the new middle market. Nearly all of the industry’s subscriber growth is now coming from the prepaid segment. Prepaid and reseller net adds accounted for an all-time high of 91 percent of the industry’s total net additions in the first quarter, according to Bernstein. In fact, the analysts figure that excluding “connected devices” – laptop cards, MiFi devices and others – it’s likely that the postpaid industry actually lost traditional subscribers in Q1 for the first time ever.

 

At the very bottom, the low-end prepaid subscribers are trading down to USF-assisted SafeLink (TracFone) and Assurance Wireless (Sprint) plans for low-income people who qualify, Bernstein says. At the high end are AT&T and Verizon Wireless, with Sprint (postpaid) and T-Mobile USA getting caught in the middle.

via www.wirelessweek.com

Here is the US wireless industry in a nutshell...

When you look at the structure of the value added content service deal mentioned (Muve) in that context it signals a huge opportunity for someone who recognizes Apple's (and Google's) dependency on consumers basing their activity on a PC and using mobile devices secondarily. Increasingly the middle and bottom thirds of the US market look like EMEA and APAC regions where internet growth happens off PC.

The (Somewhat) Sunny Side of the AT&T, T-Mobile Deal | Wireless Week

There's been a lot of griping about AT&T's $39 billion acquisition of T-Mobile USA, and for good reason. The deal will give AT&T and Verizon Wireless a near-duopoly hold on the U.S. wireless market; make it more difficult for smaller carriers – especially Sprint – to compete; and has raised fears that the merger may limit choice and raise prices for consumers.

via www.wirelessweek.com

This article points out that T-Mobile subscribers may fuel a resurgence of Cricket, Metro PCS, and smaller carriers. I think a more interesting possibility raised by this acquisition is the scenario of innovation outside of carriers accelerating.

More and more service and application --maybe handset?-- innovation will be forced outside of the traditional subsidy OEM + carrier approach.

That has brought us the iPhone and Android in the past three years. It is time for similar innovations to come from over-the-top services, and further constricting the potential for that at carriers may accelerate it overall in the market.

AT&T to retire Video Share service later this year | BGR

BGR is reporting ATT is killing it's Video Share service. It's hard to think of a consumer cloud service which has been successful for an operator. In this case YouTube does everything easier and better than the ATT alternative. Are there any examples of services offered by carriers which are better than pure-plays or from web companies?

http://www.bgr.com/2011/04/08/att-to-retire-video-share-service-later-this-year/

RIM goes off the platform -- BBM as roadmap strategy

The past week or so has been a busy news period for RIM. Their CMO resigned just before playbook hits the market, a key supplier earnings support (Marvel) has started speculation about a low-cost move in the handset portfolio, and lost amidst all of this comes speculation published on long-time Blackberry leak newsite BGR that Blackberry Messenger (BBM) will go cross platform.

This last piece is the smartest thing RIM has done in years! I'm so curious how the person driving that product got the buy-off to do this as I've been unsuccessfully trying to implement a similar strategy for several years now. Neither from the OEM side or carrier side can I get buy-off to actually do it so hat's off to RIM for pulling the trigger.

Now they will be extending a core use case off their devices to expand their customer base. Best of all they get to use license fees, which pay for NOC traffic, to have carriers and enterprises pay the cost of delivering over the top. Brilliant!

In the future I hope to see many device companies follow this model. First build the user experience, propagate it through Facebook and Android and iPhone apps, iterate as it builds, then once you have a living community build the physical platform/product to optimize the experience based on actual usage information--UX traffic paths, day/time/place/intensity/frequency stats, support feedback, time on page analysis, and perhaps most importantly studying where people are falling out of the experience. 

For RIM this allows them to extend their customer base off of Blackberry OS as it is today, onto the application layer (both on and off device), then bring those customers back to the QNX platform within a familiar UX. What a great platform migration roadmap to solve the problem of an active user base--and what a great way to incent current device owners to upgrade to new QNX devices.

CES 2011 starts early with processor, tablet, android news

CES this year is making me reflect upon the evolution of the event over the past few years. As the recession has turned into the new now the event has become more and more of a hype fest. It started out as a consumer-focused trade show for electronics vendors. It has turned into a technology fetish event which is a perfect parallel world to the other big trade show which happens, non-accidentally, also during this week.

The LTE and WiMAX announcements are rolling out today. Once the show gets going there will be a tablet launch every hour to keep track of time. 3D announcement will mark the half-hours.

Another announcement thread catching my eye is from the chipset vendors. Freescale has a release out this morning saying they have commercial-ready quad core available: "The dual-core and quad-core versions of i.MX6 also include three separate graphics cores - a 3D and 2D core and a bit-blip engine to offload the 3D graphics core for gaming. They can both handle simultaneous playback and recording of 1080p stereoscopic 3D video, and complex augmented reality apps, which can dedicate one core to location calculations, one to processing live video and a third to overlaying the tactical information on the live video feed". 

Wow. Get ready for more sloppy programming as OEMs race to take advantage of the spec war. I've yet to see the manufacturer taking the time to get good--or even better than the crowd at xda developers--at making wise choices on optimizing read/write blocks, write software for multi-threading/multi-core, etc. Raw computing needs, mostly encoding and rendering, will be the only aspects to really benefit but overall performance as perceived by consumers will as likely suffer as benefit. 

Each of the main topic areas of CES make me think this is not the consumer electronics show, it is the vendors electronics show where a huge echo chamber attempts to generate enough frantic energy to convince actual consumers they want products which have no meaningful benefit to them.

Not sure how this post turned so cranky. I guess I should go back home and have some excellent coffee until my optimism returns.

Why Android's app store will never rival Apple's

IDC released a report on mobile advertising that is receiving a lot of commentary. IDC estimates that Google’s $1 billion in mobile ad revenues is mostly coming from mobile web display and search ads. It's not rocket science given Google's last earnings call; here is what Google told us:

"Mobile is on an annualized run rate of over $1 billion. This means the people who are accessing our products and services through their mobile phones are adding a $1 billion annually to our existing revenue streams. Clearly, this is the future of search in the Internet, more people in more countries coming online from these smartphones. Our mobile search queries have grown five times over the past couple of years. And of course, a lot more of those queries are now coming from Android phones."

Apple's app store revenue has come mostly from their role as billing platform provider, which is an interesting distinction to think about. I'll write more about the differences between these two models later.

What caught my attention about IDC's report is what it implies for the many Android ecosystem partners who have been anxious for Google to pay more attention to developing and fostering android marketplace. Google has no incentive, and possibly a counter-incentive, to improve the marketplace and the app store model according to this report. Look at the last round of updates Google rolled out and consider what level of progress the marketplace has seen in two years. Not much.

Think about what that means for the Android UI and where it will evolve.

Apple will continue to be an app-driven experience, but Google is driving Android to be a browser-based experience. If you deliver content or services through an application you need a plan for how that will work in a browser-based UI. Where will discovery come from? How will cross promotion work?

These are big questions to unravel for service providers, OEMs, and content players.

The false choice of mobile apps versus mobile browser

GigaOm has an article up arguing that mobile app uptake will be balanced in the coming months or years with mobile browser uptake. This is such a meaningless discussion that I have a hard time understanding why it remains such a popular meme.

To begin with there is this comment: "Eventually, a spot on the home screens of smartphones will become like beachfront property in Monte Carlo –- highly coveted real estate."

If you develop and deliver mobile content you are already laughing. A spot on a device home will BECOME high coveted? Really? Consider for just a moment how incredibly constrained and fought over this real estate has been in mobile content ecosystem over the last ten years. And is now. Anyone in mobile can tell you the mobile home screen has been a Manhattan penthouse always and the iPhone introduced a boardwalk square but that filled up pretty damn quick.

Even if we ignored all of that I would point out that mobile browser usage has always gone hand in glove with mobile app uptake. Look at any reporting numbers from any provider and you will see that people who use mobile apps use mobile web equivalently.

Let's stop arguing over the channel for information and realize that we need to solve what information and how it is discovered. This is true across and within channels. The old "browser versus app" argument just says you have no revenue model, no strategy, and no clue.