Tomorrow won't be about Samsung v. Apple any more than the present is about Microsoft v. Nokia

Over the past weeks, Samsung buried the hatchet with Ericsson, before signing cross-license agreements with Google, and then Cisco, days after a similar deal between the last two (note that Google sold Motorola to Lenovo in almost the same breath, but this is not about hardware - Big G keeps the bulk of the patent portfolio).

Samsung and Google concluded in their press release ("Samsung and Google Sign Global Patent License Agreement" - 20140127) that "there is more to gain from cooperating than engaging in unnecessary patent disputes". A clear memo to Apple, and food for thought - and juries - ahead of the next bouts in court between Suwon and Cupertino.

"Samsung and Google are showing the rest of the industry that there is more to gain from cooperating than engaging in unnecessary patent disputes". Follow my eyes...

Again*, I'm not taking sides here. It's just that I'm interested in innovation dynamics, and that I don't like to see lawyers or finance people set the agenda in that field. Such partnerships don't put them out of the equation, but allow innovators to keep their eyes on the ball.

And key players to prepare for what comes next. 5G standardization, for instance, or the still open internet of things, domains where Google and Samsung don't want to become the Microsoft and Nokia of yesterday, leaders who were supposedly the best positioned for convergence and pervasive internet...

Samsung outqualcommed the Americans for 4G but now, the Korean needs to build a common platform with them and what's left of Europe before China Inc or other players try to claim their own time slot.

Tomorrow won't be about Samsung v. Apple any more than the present is about Microsoft v. Nokia

mot-bile 2014

* see "Apple - the end of the affair" or "Omnipatent v. Impatent"

Supercharging Whom ? Google to Acquire Motorola Mobility

"Our acquisition of Motorola will increase competition by strengthening Google's patent portfolio, which will enable us to better protect Android from anti-competitive threats from Microsoft, Apple and other companies." That's how Larry Page explains the twelve billion purchase in the official Google blog.

The blog is titled "Supercharging Android: Google to Acquire Motorola Mobility"*, but one could wonder who will be supercharged in the end. Third parties and endusers may start asking themselves what will come out of a landscape where former archrivals Microsoft and Nokia tie the knot, or where the mother of all netcos swallows a former giant manufacturer. SonyEricsson theoretically went even further on the value chain, but the union was celebrated in completely different times, when networks were not precisely clogged with mobile internet traffic.

More moves are expected. Apple has been rumored to be in a mega purchasing mood for quite awhile, and I wouldn't be surprised to see Samsung making something big. Lee Kun-hee just pointed out the necessity for the company to evolve, an evidence we recently repeated (see "Huawei Vision : a view from the cloud"). This should go beyond such acquisition as Grandis, a specialist in memory wolfed down earlier this month by the South Korean chaebol.

Anyway, the Motorola episode reassesses the importance of patents in the legal war raging worldwide. Apple claimed a few significant victories : a big chunk of Nortel patents, plus a suspension of Galaxy Tab 10.1 sales in key markets.

The problem is Apple is not John Grisham, an entity that makes money with legal stuff. Being the next NTP is not exactly "cool".

And the consumer is not likely to beg "supercharge me".

mot-bile 2011

* where the king of the 80s is kindly put at the same level as bankrupt Nortel : an empty shell with a collection of patents

Motorola's Android Tablet : Focus On TV (Apple, Amazon, Others Watching)

Motorola and Android have already met, but Motorola and tablets are a new item.

The 10 inch screen device would be bundled with Verizon FiOS TV (pay-TV) service, which makes perfect sense. Much more sense than say Nokia, to name a fabled marketing counter-example... Let's see how rivals will move, for instance how Samsung will position its own Android tablet, smaller in size but with a screen of potentially much better quality, and a better grasp at personal computing.

But this is first about entertainment, and Verizon takes and interesting shot in the convergence barnum. Most quadplay operators across the World have necessarily been, if not working on, at least thinking about a "tabletish" gizmo to complete the set of home / away screens, and if people start (for instance) massively and legally downloading and watching movies with an Android 3.0 / 3G ticket on their tablet this November, xmas season looks fine...

Except maybe for Amazon : expect even more push marketing until then... unless of course Jeff Bezos manages to stevejobs a new Kindle feature high up into the buzzosphere.


mot-bile 2010

Google and Verizon eye a pad - or at least a patch

In interviews to the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg*, two Verizon Wireless execs confirmed the carrier's discussions with Google to launch a tablet running on Android OS.

The absence of such discussions would have been surprising.

Verizon and Google will probably accelerate TTM for one manufacturer, very much the way they did with Motorola for Android handsets, and together they have enough power and motivation to close the gap.

Close the gap ? For Verizon Wireless, tablet TTM is definitely less important than LTE TTM, and recent LTE trials in Boston seem to confirm this sense of emergency. VZW can not only remove its CDMA-GSM handicap vs AT&T, but also enjoy a temporary competitive edge when its Texan rivals struggle with capacity issues (partly courtesy Apple). Likewise, tablets and other devices will be less critical than the ecosystems behind : AT&T may or may not keep its exclusivity with Apple for the iPhone until 2012, it still managed to open up to both the Kindle and the iPad. V wants more control on the value chain than pipe filling, and on a more sustainable basis ? Time to prove it.

Close the gap ? I never considered the key race to be between Apple and Google. Mountain View is more aiming at Redmond's throat than at Cupertino's. Yes, Apple the manufacturer is succeeding where Nokia the manufacturer failed, in trade diversification**, but Apple will never enjoy Nokia's record market shares. Yes, Apple played the role of an accelerator for existing usages and business models (ie didn't invent smartphones nor app stores), but Google can go much further and not just because, as expected, it's pushing Android ahead on handsets : Google can literally become a category killer for the wealthiest players around in the telecom and software industries. Operators know it, Microsoft knows it. A success of Google's instant cloud scratchers on bigger screens represent a much bigger disruption than the iPad itself (not really a game changer in the global ecosystem).


mot-bile 2010

* "Verizon, Google Developing iPad Rival" (WSJ) / "Google, Verizon in Talks About a Rival to Apple's iPad" (Bloomberg)
** OK, Nokia has gone a long way from timber

Microsoft Pink Phone : sexing up Windows Mobile 7

A fun handset with an innovative ergonomy and an app store ? Before Apple came Danger, who remained below the radar after Microsoft purchased it.

Granted. The Hiptop has a vintage look of a Minitel II, but what matters is the platform, and the industry has been bracing for the Danger + Zune + WM7 combo for months.

What's in a (code)name ? Pink stresses the need to sex up the Windows Mobile platform against iPhone and Android.

WM performed well in Korea against the iPhone (Samsung Omnia)... but only for lack of an alternative before the arrival of Android (see "SK Telecom pushes Android"). Motorola's Motoroi has just been introduced on a market suddenly converted to smartphones, and Samsung and LG are working double time on Google's platform.

Microsoft, Apple, Google... sooner or later telecom "incumbents" will raise their voices, and leader Nokia will have to do what it does worst : look cool, not cold.

mot-bile 2010

SK Telecom pushes Android

It's CES time again and ahead of the show, Google and Apple have warmed up the audience*, Palm afficionados braced themselves for a new Pre-view, and HDTV confirmed it's dispositions to grow smarter and 3D.

But I'd like to get back to what's happening in Korea right now. Following iPhone's successful launch ("iPhone rocks Seoul and sacred cows"), both SK Telecom and KT are left without decent app stores of their own. We saw how SKT relied too timidly on the Samsung Omnia, but KT didn't play it smart either, stuck in the iPhone trap : on one hand you want to optimize your ROI in the Apple partnership, on the other you need to grow you own ecosystem and avoid the iPhone dependence. And which model do you think KT proposed as a plan B ? The same Omnia.**

SK Telecom started the new year with a higher profile : it's both high time to turn the WIPI page and the best moment to build Korea's leading platform against Apple. Android got the regulatory nod and ahead of the commercial launch, SKT proposed a "T-Store Application Contest" to developpers (reward : KRW 40 M or about USD 35.3 k).

The first Android device will be a Motorola (in February), but 11 other handsets are planned by EOY 2010, mostly from Korean manufacturers, who cannot afford lagging behind any longer : beyond Korea, they target China, where a big chunk of 2010-2011 smartphone market shares will be taken (even in case of a probable second dip). US (Motorola) and Taiwan (HTC) won't wait for Korea Inc.

It's not just about Samsung and LG : the whole ecosystem needs to catch up, and the future of many Taehangno service providers and start-ups depends on their ability to ride the next wave. SK Telecom can recover its mojo if it acts as a smart and swift leader. Again.

mot-bile 2010

* the former going at iPhone's throat with his Nexus One, the latter preparing a counteroffensive into Big G's mobile advertising dreamland (Quattro Wireless will fill a gap in Cupertino's portfolio).

** note that the iPhone-Omnia battle has recently shifted in favor of Samsung : if more than 240,000 iPhones have been sold so far, Omnia is now leading in daily sales. Very much like the lack of 3G played against Apple during its 2007 launch, rivals pointed out the lack of connectivity (WiFi but moreover and as expected DMB), but also dramatized the fact that you cannot replace batteries with an iPhone. Seeding doubt in consumer minds done, more positive messages could start passing. For instance, Omnia's DivX player more often mentioned.

LiMo - stretching Linux Mobile

Launched mid-June 2006 and operational since January, LiMo, the Linux for Mobile Foundation, happens to be a non-for-profit initiative launched by notorious philanthropists : Motorola, NEC, NTT DoCoMo, Panasonic Mobile Communications, Samsung Electronics, and Vodafone all have in common the envy to reshape the mobile internet paradygm beyond the old Nokia-Microsoft rift.

The Foundation Platform, "a Linux-based, open mobile communication device software platform", also reaches beyond Nokia's Open Mobile Architecture (OMA). Opening is definitely in the air : Orange changed its moto for a sober Orange open, and even Redmond has its Microsoft Open License (hey, that's Microsoft, there's to be a license with it).
But true opening has a cost : the ODP / DMOZ recently hiccuped after troubles with its generous patron Sun / AOL, and Wikipedia desperately needs cash to survive because of its growing success. So let's not spit on the hand that feeds the ecosystem - provided the ecosystem remains clean.

Anyway, Linux over mobile is good news for consumers, operators and manufacturers who focus on hardware. Cellcos decide to remain involved in their own future : they let 3G to Nokia, Ericsson and Qualcomm who didn't do the best of jobs, they don't want to miss the next steps at the OS as well as at the network level (ie LTE).

* limofoundation.org - soon to lose its fully open DNA : the homepage's title reads "LiMo Foundation: Welcome" but if you google the foundation, it still appears as "SourceForge: Welcome".

Pervasive Korea in US, China, Vietnam...

SK Telecom seems to speed up its internationalization process, more than doubling its subscriber base in Vietnam within one year to reach the 1M mark and targeting 4M by the end of 2008, which would at last sound like a significant position overseas.
But investors tend to be more impressed by less spectacular moves on more demanding markets and Helio doesn't seem to claim many customers in the US. Yet, SKT's UI, T-PAK, is coming up on some Motorola handsets soon. And NATE just locked interesting deals on mobile search engines with Google, and on telematics and in-car entertainment with GM Daewoo cars (TTM 2008) : telematics through NATE Drive, movies through Cizle, music through MelOn... Korea's leading cellco is eventually leveraging on its Jeju Telematics trials*.
Middleware, content and enablers are a surer bet than airwaves, even if Korea Inc keeps pushing its own technos : strong presence during the 2006 China Int’l DAB/DMB Forum & Expo in Beijing, recent deal clinched on WiBro in the US**...
Airwaves do cross the seas, but the other way : W-CDMA / HSDPA were already gaining momentum thanks to SKT and KTF, and now LG Telecom announces GSM-enabled phones by the end of the year. Of course, LGT will invest KRW 400 bn in EV-DO rA over 3 years (including 170 BS in Seoul), but only 15 will be spent by the end of 2006 instead of the 40 planned earlier.


* see "Jeju Telematics celebrates the wedding of GPS and DMB" (20060510)
** Neupara from Columbia, MD (neupara.com), chose POSDATA for its 2.3GHz WiBro trial in the US. Posco's subsidiary joins Samsung in the US market and Neupara keeps pushing Korean technologies after T-DMB in India. Its CEO, Mr John J. Shin, happens to be a Korean-American.

SK-Earthlink - postponing and smartcasting

Gustavo Cisneros elected MIPCOM Personality Of The Year 2005 ? Great news, but it doesn't make for the lack of data from Movida Communications (still "strong" of a "potential" of 40M Hispanics. period).
MIPCOM Personality Of The Year 2006 ? He/she could have something to do with wireless as well.
Why not with SK-Earthlink ? After settling near Beverly Hills, CA (see "From Hallyuwood to Hollywood"), the M-VNO-to-go seems to have learned the basic tips from great filmmakers : a flashy casting can compensate deviant TTMs.
TTM : now we're talking spring 2006 instead of Q42005, which could lead to a clash with another blockbuster, ESPN Mobile (also on Sprint). I'm not so sure such M-VNOs as Amp'd Mobile can make it, even if they start earlier (and especially with online subscriptions only on time for Xmas).
Casting : SK-Earthlink built a strong roster with experience in the wireless field as well as beyond (Nike, NewsCorp...) :
- Michael Grossi (VP, Business Development) brought some pieces of advice to VirginMobile, Boost or OnStar (through Adventis). I'm not sure SKE can reach 3M subs within 3 years like a Virgin, but it wouldn't be Grossi's very first time.
- Sky Dayton (CEO) brought Skype to Boingo. What on Earth can he do with a 3G EV-DO / WiFi combo ?
- Mathias Duarte (VP, Experience Design) brought the hiptop to Danger. He can bring danger to the competition, and fun to the market.
- Robert Gelick (Head of Music Strategy) brought i-Tunes to Motorola (and came with Moto's Stuart Redsun, now executive VP, Marketing). What on Earth can he do with a 3G EV-DO / WiFi / MelOn combo ?
But the best part of the casting could be Korean : beyond the COO (Sul Won-hee), expect Lee Jae-hwan (VP, Products and Services) and Shin In-ho (VP, Technology) to deliver the goods.

RockR's mTunes and the March of the Emperor

Steve Jobs had to pull out of his pocket a new and slender iPod Nano to compensate for Moto's RockR, the ugliest tribute to Meat Loaf one designer could dream of. To survive, iTunes needs much more Cingular moves.
More disruptive news for the industry came from Cellon : the manufacturer will use Trolltech's Qtopia Linux software on its triband GSM/GPRS C8000 series. Cellon may not be a giant and its partner may be a troll*, but that could prove to be the tip of the iceberg for our dearest penguin. The Chinese don't care about greenhouse effect gases but Cellon happens to be respected there, working for Siemens, Alcatel or Philips. And China happens to seek alternative solutions to Europe's Symbian or USA's Windows Mobile.
Yet, the March of the Emperor will require the involvement of a new kind of player between manufacturers and operators, more efficient than a simple OMA spinoff. Some kind of a mobile Red Hat with a safe but cool suite. Neither expensive nor sophisticated : you don't want to need air-con on your handset just to help your penguin survive.

* a troll with a powerful ring : index ventures supported MySQL and Skype

Mobile Real TV - LG and the H-free handset

Nokia are to duplicate in the Netherlands their Finnish Mobile TV experience, with KPN starring as Telia-Sonera and Nozema Services + Digitenne as Elisa. In this RealMobileTV* show, you don't care where the customers come from : whatever the casting, everybody ends up telling how great the experience was. Plus PR people can relieve themselves in public (in Dutch for Nozema or in English for Nok-Nok).
This time, the plot is about mixing broadcasting and mobile with as many users as possible and in a truly mobile environment (thus the coverage of railways and motorways). The Finns provide the already vintage DVB-H 7110 plus a IPDC solution (sounds like the heavy metal version of IP), the Dutch their bad taste for programming (remember where Endemol and Big Brother came from ?). Nozema already confessed an affair with the Wi-Fi - WiMAX - Mobile-Fi (802.20) family.
But guess which manufacturer could make mobile TV on handsets a true hit in Europe ? The inventors of DVB-H, Nokia ? Nah... LG decided to launch their 3G - T-DMB phone next year in Europe and China. LG-V9000 will be up for grabs Q1 2006, on time for the 2006 World Cup in Germany : LG happens to be a top sponsor and intends to become a top lobbyist for the Korean norm. Even if the Chinese team didn't make it through the qualifiers. Even if T-DMB competes more directly with DVB-T (already commercialized in many European countries) than with DVB-H. Even if no DMB network has been announced yet in Europe.
Well. LG are also into bigger TV screens, and you don't have to be a mobile operator to roll out DMB. Consumers shouldn't give a hyphen provided the service works. They might even dig the motto used to sell this rolla : "personal mobile (digital) TV".

* guess what : realmobiletv.com is available but mobilerealtv.com has already been locked by some guy living on Sunset Bvd. If he sells Palms, I gather they're not of the tree kind.

Flux your muscles, watch your wallet - music for a song ?

Viacom's MTV selected Japan and KDDI for their first subscription based music video service over 3G (Vids over 3G EVDO, then). I don't care if it raps, rocks or rolls but this rather sounds like classical music to my ears.
The other side of the East / West Sea, Korea's Daum are about to offer music for free to all their customers. Well, you can LISTEN to up to 3 songs a day within Musiccity's 400,000 song library, but the service usually costs W3,000 per month. All you have to do is being one of Daum's 35+ million subs. Obviously, the former leading portal seems allergic to MelOn, a key factor of success of SKT's Nate nowadays, along with Cyworld, the leader in homepages, a serious competitor to the Bank of Korea thanks to their quasi-currency loyalty program, and one of Musiccity's big customers. Because Musiccity is into "background music" and this kind of music seems likely to be heard far beyond its original mobile devices (elevators) : even if you can't podcast it, you can have people hear it wherever you post things (personal pages, blogs, e-mail ?). You don't even have to buy the latest 2.5 Gb-mp3-7-megapixel-4WD-phone to enjoy it*.
And what do the music majors think of this ? The Korea Music Copyright Association just gave their blessing, considering Daum already pays W125 / month / user.
Well. Once again, Korea's leading major is now a 60% SKT subsidiary.
A smarter combo ? Amp'd offers more than background music : back-uped content. I like the "safe haven" approach (for each download on your mobile phone - including mobisodes shot at Amp'd's brand new studios or your own content-, the US 3G EVDO MVNO will provide a simultaneous remote download), but I wonder if Amp'd can deliver before the big league players tune in, especially when they also envision ambitious multiplayer experiences with InfoSpace. Anyway : more hype announcements for Motorola and Kyocera, the suppliers supposed to release nice new handsets for Amp'd this fall. Remember lads : the word "fall" is zweideutig, and Moto have also been supposed to deliver ipod phones soon for a while... Verizon could hold the best spot for a takeover, being Amp'd's host through Verizon Wireless, but also a major US LLO.
Whatever the outcome, at the age of many-stop-storing and collaborative purchasing, at the age of Snocap and Mercora, you need a considerable reach by yourself and through your partners, but also more and more through not so loyal endusers.

Stephane

* You'd better invest on iRiver's latest player for your kid (ReingCom are now targeting the babies - I guess they'd better diversify beyond portable multimedia players). Anyway, any device will be more fun than Movida's : even in Puerto Rico you can't make people believe a Nokia 2270 will mobile-ize their life ("Moviliza tu vida" / "Get moving with Movida"). Talking about a revolution and an innovation... heard about Virgin Mobile's "disruptive" new service with BT Livetime ? TV over radio and an exciting EPG (Electronic Program Guide). That's DAB and SMS alerts... Radio Definitely Killed The Video Stars.

Folly came from Miami F.l.a., HIJACKED her way across USA

Far from New Orleans and P. Daddy, Motorola enjoys the eternal sunshine of the spotless Cirque du Soleil in Miami, FL, introducing at the M3 Miami Music Multimedia summit a couple of novelties :

• HIJACKED by MTV International
• iRadio (but no iPod, no iTunes)
• a couple of new musical handsets branded like artificial colorants (E725, E685, E780i)
• the first NFC gizmo

Here is how they market the techno : "Near Field Communications (NFC) - For consumers looking to expand their own personal music collection, Motorola’s is showcasing a Near Field Communications (NFC) solution. At M3, users will be able to use a NFC-enabled Motorola mobile phone to read a smart tag embedded in a concert poster to download information about the artist to their mobile phone, purchase songs or order tickets to an upcoming concert from the Web. This is just another way Motorola is changing the mobile music scene." Well. Such applications were performed about four to five years ago with barcode solutions but with much less glamour. At "the only gathering in the United States to merge modern music, technology, fashion and multimedia art as an integrated lifestyle", conferences are presented a non-sensical way : this is about "sunset sessions", "poolside networking parties", befores and afters... Hell, you have to convince your former-rockstar-always-pothead-manager you're working hard to sell your damn tunes.

Neil Gershenfeld - Potent pending

A few years ago alcatel would invent the manufacturer without factories. Then came MIT's Neil Gershenfeld with his disruptive personal fabrication concept. Well guess who's on board his "Things That Think Consortium" ? Lego (now that was a must), Steelcase (they should know about designing offices), Ricoh (Canon followed suit shortly after), and such newbies as Nokia and Motorola (LG Electronics are joining too). Oh, and a telco / cellco too. Guess which one ? Telmex. Not a neighbor of Massachussets for all I know but one of their execs must attend interesting meetings and have the intelligence of making something out of them. To be continued...

Report bad link - Meshed Potatoes.org

The good thing about updating your favorites is you check every now and then how a techno is doing. Take Near Field Communication for example : the NFC Forum website's last press release is dated march 2004 and working groups remain to be seen (anyway, who would buy a technology labeled with such approximation ?). Elsewhere, the rebranding around the UWB (Ultra Wide Band) family obviously brought some confusion : launching the WiMedia Alliance sounded like surfing on the WiFi-WiMAX wave but in the meanwhile the tsunami took the UWB WG's url away. uwb.org now leads to a commercial site for radar products which would be very much needed in the war of standards between MB-OFDM (supported by the Multiband OFDM Alliance, about the same players as for WiMedia) and DS-UWB (Direct Sequence UWB), supported by the UWB Forum. Judging by how that forum allows a chinese spin-off, I wouldn't be surprised if China decided to build their own standard. Motorola seems to bet on it. For all I now, the rest of the UWB Forum can turn into meshed potatoes, squeezed between this MBOA and the WUSB initiative, a.k.a. wireless USB, a likely Bluetooth-killer if the Viking keeps wasting time and opportunities. You can watch the one year old WUSB toddling somewhere on USB.org, under the nose of mighty naughty fairy godmothers : some board members of the USB Implementation Forum (intel, Microsoft, HP, NEC, Philips) plus Samsung... who decided to bet on all horses (also a UWB Forum member).
As a matter of fact, WUSB is already working. And focusing on a major and demanding application : broadcasting live music. That's on WUSB.org. That's also on 90.1 fm, live from the University of Sonny Brook, NY. And guess what, WUSB's sister station is none other than the WPKN I used to tune to back in '86.