Europe's Semiconductor Relief Fund

European Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton announced a joint declaration from 17 EU members on "A European Initiative on Processors and semiconductor technologies 'to strengthen Europe’s capabilities to design and eventually fabricate the next generation of trusted, low-power processors'. 

Why now? 

In spite of the pandemic, the global market is expected to grow by 5.1% in 2020 (+8.4% next year*), but thanks to Asia Pacific and the Americas, who are clearly driving it. NXP (Netherlands-USA) and Infineon (Germany) are no match for the big guns from the States or South Korea, and Europe's biggest player, STMicroelectronics, doesn't even belong to the EU (Switzerland). 6G looms on the horizon, and China is all the more ambitious that solutions are urgently needed for Huawei and ZTE, even after Trump leaves the White House. 

Semiconductor supply is critical for global competitivity, and the joint declaration stresses some of its strengths and weaknesses:

"Today Europe has notable strengths in specific areas of the semiconductor industry, such as power electronics, RF technologies, smart sensors for embedded AI, microcontrollers, low-power technologies, secure components and semiconductor manufacturing equipment. European chipmakers enjoy a strong global presence in vertical markets such as embedded systems for automotive and industrial manufacturing. Europe also has a strong technological position in mobile networks including current 5G and emerging 6G technologies. However, Europe’s share of the 440 B€ global semiconductor market is around 10%, well below its economic standing. Europe is increasingly dependent on chips produced in other regions of the world - notably those used for electronic communications, data-processing and compute tasks, including processors."

So it looks more than a defensive move than clear and immediate danger for Samsung and Co. The memo clearly identifies an opportunity: 'some of the $145bn 20% of the European Recovery and Resilience plans should go to digital transition; this is up to 145B€ over the next 2 to 3 years.'

The local ecosystem obviously lobbied efficiently to get 17 members on board at a significant moment. And they found a powerful voice in Thierry Breton, a former Mr Turnaround for Bull, France Telecom, Thomson, and Atos,

Will it be enough? It certainly won't hurt.

mot-bile 2020

* $ 433 bn in total for 2020 ('WSTS Semiconductor Market Forecast Autumn 2020', a recent report by World Semiconductor Trade Statistics)

Omnipatent v. Impatent

The Samsung-Apple patent war saw Samsung claim a minor half victory in Korea and Apple a major win in the US. The difference in rulings between the USA and Korea rulings may be the difference between carrying a case and carrying a suitcase.

Samsung lawyers are used to rule the show at home: this army of Seoul University Law School alumnis and former judges know all the tricks of the trade. I don't think there was much jury vetting nor adequate preparation ahead of the US trial, but Apple might have won anyway.

This is not about innovation, but about Intellectual Property management, property meaning that you own the rights, not necessarily that you invented something. Particularly in a system where the date of the patent makes all the difference, regardless of market realities.

As everybody well knows, Apple was built on infrigements: from stealing the Beatles logo to stealing Xerox inventions (no need to remind this audience of Steve Job quoting Picasso about great artists). The iPhone's round square icons mentioned in the trial? We saw them more than ten years ago in early mobile internet portal prototypes. When the iPod, the iPad, and the iPhone hit the shelves, Job's genius was as always in selecting the right existing bricks at the right time more than about inventing something new.

I'm sad to see that what matters now is not anymore to have the best Research and Developpment center and the best inventors anymore, but to have the quickest vultures and to snatch the best patent portfolios. The best product? Look at nowaday's rush for Samsung Galaxy. And anyway, the commoditization of smartphones is already well advanced. Apple is only gaining time*.

I'm interested in innovation. The NTP-RIM farce was not about innovation. Interval Licensing suing Microsoft rivals** was not about innovation. Google purchasing Motorola was not about innovation. This Samsung-Apple war is certainly not about innovation.

mot-bile 2012

* see "Apple - the end of the affair"
** see "Paul Allen v. Rest Of The Web : NTP Redux ?"

Big Fun v. Big Data (Seoul Digital Forum 2012 - Day I)

Over the past quarter of a century, I've survived countless seminars and conferences on innovation, most often as an attendee, sometimes in a different role (organizer, speaker, moderator...), but never with a "Press" badge hanging from my neck. I did just that yesterday. Just for a change, and for fun. What I didn't expect was a trip down memory lane.

First of all, let's set things straight:
0) (to those who knew me in my previous lives) I'm not missing the old times, simply enjoying it, as I've always done ever since I was a teenager. When you're into innovation, you always learn from such fora. And as usual I'm not as much interested in new gizmos (SDF is not the kind of vehicle for that anyway) as in the evolution of the ecosystem, and particularly how it is perceived by its key players, by newcomers, by outsiders.
1) I didn't steal that badge. This is the 9th Annual Seoul Digital Forum, and I happen to blog about Seoul (SeoulVillage.com) as well/poorly as about innovation (mot-bile)*. Besides, ever the caring city for its own diverse ecosystem, Seoul Metropolitan Government recently appointed me as a friendly neighborhood media. For good measure I even brought my old camera (I spared you the press-card-in-the-fedora-hat-band part).
2) I'm an author and a conceptor, not a journalist. I'm not covering an event, just feeding my poor brain with stimulating bits that, at the other end of the system, usually come out as junk as silly and useless as K-pop, only less entertaining, and with more traces of biased opinions in it. If you happen to read it, that's your problem. And if you like it, that's a problem for your shrink to solve.
3) As it turns out, when you have a "Press" badge, your body is also fed with stimulating bits in a cosy Press Room. But you quickly burn the said bits between levels B1 (Vista Hall, Keynotes) and 4F (Art Hall, Press Conferences). And perks are balanced by the fact that if you want to get a good spot, you apparently have to wake up in the middle of the night. My initial spot was really really bad: believe me, you don't want to have Steve Ballmer so close to you.

Seoul Digital Forum 2012 delivered the goods, kicking off with an impressive roster**. Day I started with a guest star who, for a reason that still baffles me, was dubbed a "visionary". Of course, Steve Ballmer is by no means a visionary: this hulk of a boasting salesman is more into products, functionalities and business management than into human beings and vision. Not even convincing as an industry (ex)leader. But life is unfair: nowadays, targeting 450 million devices doesn't sound that sexy when 900 million people are already familiar with the Facebook interface.

Steve B. left to a certain Brad McCabe the Steve J. part of his sales pitch for Windows 8. Tough Jobs, even if Android and Google are the main competitor, not Apple. Brad sounded very happy when he mentioned brand new apps "right out of the box"... but that's precisely a vocabulary Microsoft should ban in places like this. You're not supposed to be shipping boxes anymore, and you don't want people to visualize Skydrive as a UPS truck navigating the cloud (with Google Sky or Google MistView?). That said, Windows n does propose interesting features that Windows n-1 didn't have, starting with the 'blue screen' part of the demo (now a classy grey signals the usual glitch). That was my first stop down memory lane.

I certainly didn't expect disruptive points of view from Warren EAST (ARM) or Mike HARRIS (Gartner) either, only a fair and balanced appreciation of a very wide array of sectors where both maintain a now exoticly limited role in the chain. Both specialists confirmed the obvious market trends (did I mention the cloud?), except of course their own shrinking businesses. For this second station along memory lane, I thought about all those players who managed to survive in such an evolutive environment without really evolving themselves.

Bell Labs also lost some of their luster over the past decade, narrowing their scope to remain competitive in key areas in spite of a struggling mother company (Alcatel-Lucent). But Bell Labs remain a very special player in RD, with a focus on vision and values. And here, at a time when pure research is sacrificed on the altar of short term profits, talent is still measured by surprise more than results. This may sound like happy hypey talk from a Silicon Valley youngster, but Jeong KIM is a bashful, soft spoken leader, truly willing to promote well being at all levels (physical, mental, societal). Yes, technology does save lives, but it's also becoming ever more pervasive (and even intrusive, for instance with somatic network implants), and generating an ever increasing volume of information. All this means a bigger impact zone, higher stakes, higher risks of privacy breaches at the micro level, or massive destruction at the macro level. As an echo to the Big Data promise of managing the unfathomable, KIM quoted Asimov: 'science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom'. In that context more than ever, a sound education proves crucial. Memory lane station 3: in the eyes of Mr KIM, I saw the wisdom I met in so many researchers who really care.

On a lighter note, Phil LIBIN announced that he'd just signed the lease for Evernote's Seoul office, and that new talents were welcome. His 4 year old start-up keeps gaining new fundings and new users (32 millions as we speak), and the founder himself seems to have gained a few kilos in the process. Can LIBIN's "second brain" (that's how he describes Evernote) keep growing at a faster pace than his body? I was almost wondering when I heard him disregard competition as something he should not worry about - a diplodocus kind of reasoning if I ever heard one (and boy did I hear some as a former strategic intelligence nerd - memo lane station 4). But Evernote's CEO seems to be developping new synapses and neurons (or, as he puts it, A.I. as in "Augmented Intelligence") all right, and particularly in Korea, where a local cellco could soon follow NTT DoCoMo, and where a partnership with a major manufacturer covering a wide array of devices could help him develop an even sexier and more seamless user experience. When I asked him up to where he wanted his second brain to grow, LIBIN answered that Evernote would help users think smarter, that soon suggestions would come to them. And as I pointed out the risk of giving in to Big Data, he said, in substance, that it was not compatible with Evernote's DNA. Let's see how Evernote evolves, evolution being a process relying most heavily on genetic mutations.

Speaking of a major Korean manufacturer covering a wide array of devices, Samsung was represented yesterday by CHANG Donghoon: the head of the design team that delivered the Haptic or Galaxy series is confirming the user-centric approach of a company willing to make the most of foldable displays (remember flexible AMOLED?), sensors, context awareness, invisible and transparent technologies, seamless transitions, natural interactions... That brought me further down memory lane: we'll always be staring at exciting stuff, like what Pranav Mistry does at the MIT Media Lab with his Sixth Sense prototype, and for the magic to work and the engine to rock and roll, there must always be some level of reality we've not quite reached yet.

Reality hit home a long time ago for mobile operators, so I was surprised to hear SK Telecom CTO BYUN Jae-woan mention as something new the fact that cellcos were not at the center anymore, and that they had to abandon their telco mindsets, to reconsider their environment, the way they defined themselves. Memory lane, continued: I really enjoyed working on it in the late 90s for a major player, and was saddened to see SKT waste their considerable advance in the middle of the noughties when they forgot to adapt to a more open environment.

Yesterday, the moment I really felt home was when Ben CERVENY (frog design) pleaded guilty: yes, plays and games are major drivers for innovation. Yes, tech design IS game design, and yes, futility can lead to utility (and yes, to achieve that it takes a lot of work and energy). Memory lane: the first start-up I survived (back in 1993-94) was the French leader in online gaming, and the ultimate lab that got me ready for everything that came after. As it turned out, the same company popped up a few stations later: our marketing used to rely on both Big Data and anthropology, and here was Intel's Genevieve BELL, an enthusiastic anthropologist, showing pictures of both the idealized and the actual home environment of TV viewers. One one side, an impossibly neatly sitted Ingals family smiling from their sofa, on the other a pot-bellied couch potato staring from a jungle of a room. Genevieve commented on the way electronic devices were treated very much the same way our anthropologist pointed out the location of the Minitel in a customer's messy living room.

A good forum on innovation must be spectacular and entertaining, and we had the right people for that:
- Hiroshi ISHIGURO and his more or less humanoids (Geminoid, Telenoid, Elfoid, and, as the ultimate alien, Ishiguroid himself),
- Aaron KOBLIN (Google Creative Lab) and his worldwide web of artworks,
- Marc ABRAHAMS (Ig Nobel Prize) and his Miss Sweetie Poo. Note that all forum organizers should use this major innovation: have a 8 year old girl come to the speakers each time she thinks they talk too much, repeating "please stop, I'm bored" until they give up. Low tech, but kawaiily efficient.

Even more spectacular?
- Josh NESBIT's low tech smart(and caring)phones,
- Mikel MARON's grassroot initiatives to put marginalized communities not only on the map*** but behind and all around it (Groundtruth Initiative, Open StreetMap...). Note how, on this photo, Mikel's body language speaks volumes the above mentioned Steve will never read.





Empowering people, making a fair democracy possible, filling all kind of gaps... that's what smart networks should be all about.

mot-bile 2012 / SeoulVillage 2012
* among other nonsensical and poorly written blogules (nothing serious, it simply has to come out of my system).

** program of Day I:
Opening Ceremony and Keynote Address: WOO Wongil (Chief Executive Secretary, Seoul Digital Forum / President and CEO, SBS)
Congratulatory Remarks: LEE Kye Cheol (Chairman, Korea Communications Commission)
Keynote Address:
-"A New Era of Opportunity" - Steve BALLMER (CEO, Microsoft)
-"Technology and the Opportunities for a Better Society" - Jeong H KIM (President, Bell Labs / Chief Strategy Officer, Alcatel-Lucent)
-"The Future of IT: Learning from Coexistence Leadership"
- Warren EAST (CEO, ARM Holdings)
-"Enabling Equal Information Access to All Users" - T.V. RAMAN (Research Scientist, Google)
-"Technology, Film, and the Future" - Chris COOKSON (President, Sony Pictures Technologies)
-"Personal Cloud: The 'PC' of Tomorrow" - Mike HARRIS (Group Vice President, Gartner)
-"Shaping New Hopes in the Smart Era" - PYO Hyun-Myung (President, Mobile Business Group, KT Corporation)
-Special Address - PARK Won Soon (Mayor, Seoul Metropolitan Government)
-"Appropriate Technology: Simplicity brings hope to the digital age" - Paul POLAK (CEO, Windhorse International / Founder, International Development Enterprises - IDE), YOO Youngje (Professor, School of Chemical Engineering, Seoul National University / President, Scientists and Engineers Without Borders) - moderator CHANG Soo Y (Professor, Department of Industrial and Management Engineering, POSTECH / Codirector, Sharing and Technologies Incorporated)
-"Smart life enabled by mobile technology: an industry ecosystem will enable user experience" - BYUN Jae-woan (Head of Technology Innovation Center and CTO, SK Telecom)
-"Big Data and our future"
."The key to popular understanding of data is play" - Ben CERVENY (Founder and President, Bloom Studio / Founder, Experience Design Lab, frog design)
."Extending Humanity with technology" - Aaron KOBLIN (Creative Director, Data Arts Team, Google Creative Lab)
."Making one world through Big Data" - LEE Bong-gyou (Professor, Graduate School of Information and Director of the Communications Policy Research Center, Yonsei University)
."Interface: the window that changes the world" - CHANG Donghoon (Senior VP, Head of Design Group of Mobile Communications Division / Head of Design Strategy team at Corporate Design Center, Samsung Electronics)
-"Interface and Humanity":
."Genealogies of anxiety and wonder: our past and future with computing" - Genevieve BELL (Director, Interactions and Experience Research, Intel Labs, Intel)
."Devices, platforms, and a new way of life" - Phil LIBIN (Founder and CEO, Evernote)
.Initially scheduled: "User Interface Designed to Fix Personal Health" (Aza RASKIN)
-"Robots, games, and humor"
."The future life supported by robotic avatars" - Hiroshi ISHIGURO (Director, Intelligent Robotics Laboratory, Osaka University)
."Behavior-change Games and Habit Design" - Michael KIM (Founder and CEO, Kairos Labs)
."Research that makes people laugh, then think" - Marc ABRAHAMS (Founder, Ig Nobel Prize / Editor, Improbable Research / Columnist, The Guardian)
-"Technology, Humanity, and Collaboration":
."Expanding the reach of technology" - Josh NESBIT (CEO, Medic Mobile)
."Mapping the invisible: Open Source Mapping and Visible Communities" - Mikel MARON (President, Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team / Codirector, Ground Truth Initiative)

*** note that yesterday, Seoul Mayor PARK Won-soon also mentioned a collaborative use of the map (on trial before the monsoon season): citizens spot problems, locate and report them on the map to shorten delays and improve accuracy.

---
UPDATE 20120524 (photos) ---
UPDATE 20120525 (dang, forgot Phil's pix as well)

Did you slap your PaperPhone on ? Snaplet

Foldable screens and e-ink technologies have fueled our imaginations for years (remember the downloadable newspaper ?), and teams of North American researchers* added the logical next next step, with a PaperPhone prototype to be on display next Tuesday at the Computer Human Interaction conference in Vancouver. They went one notch further with the Snaplet, a wristband which becomes "a watch when convex, a PDA when flat and a phone when concave"**.

The Snaplet is a really interesting concept because it adds a human touch and provides a wearable solution for the rollscreen (call it a tablet or a phone depending on the circumstances). Of course, it won't be that simple (consider sweat, thefts, or shocks, for instance), but that's a nice upgrade for the snappable watch, and a perfect support for promotional gifts : I don't see people paying fortunes for a rugged version, but couple this with the disposable phone...

mot-bile 2011

* from Human Media Lab, Queen's University / Motivational Environments Research, Arizona State University
** both unveiled by the Beeb, see BBC's "Flexible phone made from electronic paper to debut"

Korea Semicon United v. Chaiwan Reunited

Recently LG and Samsung have been enjoying spectacular sales overseas as the Korean Won slumped against other currencies. But Wisely, Korea Inc. has also been massively investing in R&D during the downturn.

The Government wants to go even faster and seize the opportunity to diminish dependence on foreign components key to the IT sector. Yesterday, the Ministry of Knowledge Economy announced that it would contribute to 51% of a KRW 13.3 bn (USD 10.7 M) project in semiconductors which, down the line, may turn KRW 300 bn yearly imports into KRW 300 bn yearly exports*... and whatever the outcome, will result in the creation of new jobs at a most crucial moment.

More than money, the Government seems to be providing a new R&D ecosystem with a set of fair play rules : the most spectacular dimension of the project is the unprecedented alliance of IT rivals Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics on "global digital TV receiver chips", LG developping the core chips and Samsung testing and producing them. Burying the hatchet in this most strategic field could speed up innovation and boost the tandem's overall global sales for many key devices.

The State will also finance 58% (KRW 2.8 bn / 4.8 bn) of a project where SK Telecom shall develop a wireless connectivity SoC for smartphones (WiFi, GPS...) with local chipmakers and system-on-chip expert Xronet.

Korea cannot afford to waste time and energy as China is de facto absorbing Taiwan's industry. They can't compete in volumes in the long term, but need the capacity in order to remain one step ahead in innovation.

This may not sound disruptive, but it's a giant leap since the times when Korea invested in a company called Qualcomm...

Bringing speed and decisiveness, now that's good politics.


* see "Samsung, LG, SK Telecom to develop advanced semiconductors" (20090727 Yonhap)

Orange Hello, is it me you're looking for ?

Orange Hello is an internet computer for dummies, the word "dummies" covering the minority of techno- / PCphobes who never considered purchasing nor using a computer, and people ready to pay EUR 1 + EUR 39.9 per month for a simple play (internet access) instead of the standard EUR 29.9 per month for a full triple play... Ideally, seniors with a comfortable pension but lacking the courage to join their kids and grandkids in the internet age. Grandkids who mock at their absence of smart screens at home. Grandkids who may even not enjoy staying overnight simply because here, they can't browse the web on a bigger screen than their own smartphone.

Hello is expensive, granted, but delivers, installs, and maintains at your place a PC with an almost iMacish look : a thick 15 inch- screen connected to a keyboard and including a 120 Go hardrive, a webcam, and a broadband modem. Orange makes sure Kids can get their daily fix : features include messenging, video, music, games, web TV... (plus text to speech for their myopic dinosaur ancestors).

A little sexier than Jean-Louis Constanza's first device meant as an entry point to French households : a no-frills fixed phone that would automatically compose the 4 prefix for Tele2 France customers.

Now CEO of Orange Vallee, Constanza (who after the Swede category killer moved on to Ten MVNO) is still working on pedagogy and simplicity for new usages in daily communications, only with smarter technologies, and different budget constraints for the operator... and obviously the customer.

Hello can be considered as the big brother of another Orange Vallee device* : Tabbee, an always on, family friendly, stand alone web terminal featuring a 7 inch touch screen.

But Hello doesn't have a touch screen. So don't even dream about smearing your Hello screen while imitating John King with your greasy fingers. All you may ruin is the supposedly more intuitive and user friendly keyboard. Because believe it or not, even French dummies know how to use a keyboard.

Orange can thank mother company France Telecom for this miracle : most post Y2K seniors are former Minitel users.


* While I'm at it : "Orange Vallee"'s 2009 Summer Collection include mobile platforms (WorMee music platform, Application Shop, TV d'Orange for iPhone, Orange 24/24 news engine), entertainment accessories (Hi-Fi Adapter, Media Remote Control), business / messenging solutions (Instant Messenger for all, Visual Voicemail, Teleconference, Medical Office)... see Orange Innovation TV for details.

Cisco Takes Over Songdo

Last February*, Cisco and Incheon government signed a MOU for the new Songdo city within IFEZ (Incheon Free Economic Zone). And yesterday, John Chambers met with Korean President Lee Myung-bak, disclosing some details on Cisco's $ 2 bn investment : Songdo will host a major R&D center, but furthermore become a testbed for Cisco's convergent solutions.

From the beginning, the self-proclaimed "U City" / "Ubiquitous City" was to promote new technologies up to a bigbrotherian point, claiming the ultimate convergence, merging all private and professional databases, monitoring everything via CCTVs, RFId, and other tracking systems**... so Cisco seemed the perfect pervasive partner.

Lee Myung-bak appears to open the gates even wider towards the rest of the country, and one cannot help but think about how dramatically times have changed : not so long ago, Korea was doing its best to claim its technological independence from other US Inc. giants (Intel, Microsoft).

But even if Korea Inc. is also investing massively in R&D by itself (ie SK Telecom just announced a 18% hike for 2009 to KRW 1.3 tn / USD 1 bn), the country needs foreign investments more than ever, and Songdo International Business District (a POSCO-Gale International JV) undoubtedly needed some good news following recent defections most damaging to its international ambitions (a few foreign investors cancelling their plans, the international school folding...). Up to now, appartment sales have been a success because individuals speculated on a high ROI. But real estate is a tricky bet these days, and most foreigners prefer to wait and see : OK, this land claimed on the Yellow Sea will soon be directly connected to Incheon Airport***, and the plans look impressive, but you just don't decree the presence of international companies and people.

In the long run, this partnership could prove a turning point for Songdo.

Cisco is making a reasonable bet. Its R&D center will at least draw many companies from the local ecosystem, and with or without foreign newcomers, putting a lock on such an entry point is priceless.


* "Cisco and Incheon Metropolitan City to Open New Chapter in Globalisation" (20090219)
** Latest "innovation" in home networking ? Samsung connects your automatic vacuum cleaner to your mobile phone : you just invited a friend home for tonight or need to check if grandma's flat is OK ? Open your vacuum's eyes and set it in motion if needed.
*** The bridge is almost completed. Besides, Gyeonggi Province, which surrounds Seoul and connects the Capital to Incheon, chose also yesterday to unveil its projected lines for the GTX (Great Train Express), a new underground commuting system : Ilsan-Suseo (46.3 km), Uijongbu-Geumjeong (49.3),... and Songdo-Seoul (Cheongnyangni - 49.9 km).

One Stop Selling

Sony and Samsung are showing us how major players are bracing up for tougher times. This could be the final call for big players to simplify market interfaces.

Sony Pictures Entertainment decided to organize itself around one global platform. The US and international divisions will merge to address more efficiently a market that demands swiftness and reactivity.

Samsung will regroup all its local mobile and nomadic brands around the samsungmobile.com hub. At home, the brand needed some taming : Samsung being ubiquitous from real estate to life insurance, most business units had to develop specific brands for each line of products (ie Hauzen for air-con, Raemian for appartments). And it was not only a matter of branding : Samsung Electronics managed specific CRMs for its mp3 players (Yepp), laptops (Zaigen), and mobile phones (Anycall). Synergies seem obvious, to the point of scaring competitors : getting a share of a Samsung customer will get even tougher.

But Korea has reached the point where choices had to be made in favor of convergence instead of competition. The country wasted too much time and money in sterile IPTV wars between telcos, cablecos, and broadcasters, threatening Korea Inc.'s overseas (see "IPTV in Korea", "IPTV wars and WiBro truce ?"). Korea could display its technological know-how in convergence, but no commercial offers.

A converged broadcasting-telecom regulator was created last year (the KCC - Korea Communications Commission), and a few months after mobile leader SKT wolfed down #2 fixed broadband operator Hanaro, landline leader KT is merging with #2 mobile operator KTF. At last, triple play offers and VoIP are taking off. Korea Telecom is advertising massively for QOOK, its new brand for convergence.

The current crisis will accelerate concentration, and a few ambitious players will emerge stronger in both size and R&D. Korean, Japanese, European, or American players cannot afford keeping a defensive profile for long : after stimulating R&D and investments (TD-SCDMA, stimulus plans), China will probably force mergers among telecom manufacturers the way it is pushing carmakers to join forces.

Reed Richards follows Sue in Korea

Korean researchers are not only making giant leaps towards invisibility¹: they're also going for thinness and flexibility.

A Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT) - Sungkyunkwan University (Pr. Hong Byung-hee) team found a way of mass producing graphene nanofilms via Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD).

I know, this doesn't sound like the sexiest piece of news ever, and it isn't.

But it could mean the end of the silicon, and major disruptions in micro-electronics as we know them.

Not to mention endless applications for silicon semicon giant Samsung (the S in SAIT) : "the wafer-scale graphene is expected to be used in flexible displays, wearable computers and advanced transistors and electrodes. It can also replace indium tin oxide, used extensively in the production of touch-screen panels and solar cells". And as one could have guessed, this team intends "to develop next-generation ultra high-speed nano memory chips, transparent flexible displays and solar cells." (AsiaPulse / COMTEX).

Of course, Invisible Woman and Mr Fantastic will not be available right away. And nowadays, IT are under the spell of other members of the Fantastic Four... The Bear Market Thing and The Bottomline Human Torch ?

But now is the time for leaders to make the difference. Now is the time to invest in R&D. We all know major innovations will come out of this Not-So-Great Depression. And the so called "new technologies" need Change as badly as the rest of us.

Live from Korea's Graphene Valley...



1 - I already mentioned the KAIST and its Transparent Resistive Random Access Memory ("TRRAM : don't miss this one !" - 20081215) but last autumn, the SAIT developped "a fully transparent non-volatile memory with a conventional sandwich gate insulators structure based on a wide band gap semi-conductive oxide of amorphous gallium indium zinc oxide", a.k.a. amorphous GaInZnO or a-GIZO. Even if it's closer to 80% than actually "fully" transparent, that's something. The beauty of it : whether it works or not, a-GIZO GIZMOs are not to be seen.

KT-NTT Venture Forum

Announced last May, the first KT-NTT Venture Forum took place yesterday in Palo Alto, CA.

What's in a name ? This is a forum, it features Venture issues, and is led by KT and NTT, the fixed counterparts to KTF and NTT DoCoMo, whose partnership has been already blooming for a while. The brand KT appears first in this new venture, but NTT is a much bigger player.

What's in a location ? Initially planned to host the premiere, Seoul will organize the next round this September. How "neutral" can the Sillicon Valley be ? Both NTT America, Inc. (nttamerica.com) and NTT DoCoMo USA, Inc. (docomo-usa.com) are based in NYC, while KT America's HQ are in L.A. (ktamerica.com). But Palo Alto is home to DoCoMo Communications Laboratories USA, Inc. (docomolabs-usa.com), and NTT serves customers in the US far beyond the national expat community (ie Verio).

What's in a program ? 12 start-ups showed up and off at the Four Seasons Hotel Silicon Valley. 76 avid investors (VCs, Qualcomm, Sony, Samsung, Cisco, Intel & co) attended speeches by CTOs CHOI Doo-wan and Noritaka UJI. Each operator came with staff from 15 BUs. This was obviously meant to go beyond name-card trading and to let the Sillicon Valley take notice : we may not be the new sheriff in town, but we are no small fish either. And we are willing to invest, to make new things happen.

A few days earlier, SK Telecom confirmed the sale of Helio to Virgin*. To go to Hollywood from Palo Alto, you do have to go South...

Both Korean heavyweights are intensifying the competition at home, where KT and KTF will unite and where SKT purchases his way into the home broadband market. The former PTT is becoming more customer oriented and considering bundles (broadband at home with Megapass, IPTV with MegaTV, VoIP with KT, broadband on the go with KT Wibro...).

On the mobile turf, there seems to be a cultural shift these days :

- KTF found its mojo and developped a taste for marketing entertainment**.
- SKT keeps the overall lead (50%+ market share), but seems to be losing some of its cool factor. It is lagging behind his rival in the WCDMA frenzy : 27.4% of the market have been converted at the end of June 2008 and despite a better month by SKT, KTF holds 51.1% of these 12.3M subs.

SHOW succeeded the old SKT way : massive advertising, devoted shops, an aura of fun and buzz. "T" did enjoy the same treatment but with a rather "Deutsche Telecom" flavor : somehow less fun and less buzz. Actually, this zero-affect-non-brand sounds too techno-oriented and not very sexy, while the Show brand is clearly a hit : just compare "show-time" with "T-time" and it jumps at your face.

The leader is putting all its weight on the new USIM-based solutions (that's "T" and "USIM", not a new brand) including contactless payments. The loyalty strategy lies at the core of mobility, in a tiny little fortress of technology, at the very moment the competitor is embracing a more pervasive kind of ambition.


* see "Helio lands on Virgin island" (20080509)
** ditto Voda : Vodafone Music Reporter is to rock and roll with MySpace

FT, Telia, Sonera - back to the nineties

Didier Lombard clearly prefers dealing with former CNET coopetitors rather than coping with entertainers or content providers, especially after the departure of Quillot for Lagardere Group.

The Telia-Sonera opportunity looks much prettier than Alitalia for Air France - KLM. Of course, Scandinavia is no more leading innovation in mobile as it did in the early nineties. And Nokia's favorite lab Sonera didn't survive the change of scale of the industry. And overall this deal doesn't look like a major disruption for FT which recently claimed such emerging markets as Africa were priorities.

Telia-Sonera will strengthten FT in Northern Europe and open new East Block opportunities. It's also an interesting entry point for Scandinavian silicon valleys, but FT already owns centers in the region, local start-ups don't need local MNOs to go international, and the Orange brand doesn't necessarily need Orange as a MNO. The fact is competition is much tougher in the Asia Pacific region where FT also owns R&D centers but no networks.

This deal would only make FT an even more powerful European and "tech / IT" player, retarding the overall evolution of its business model, whilst Orange World needs contents. Orange did invest a lot in digital rights and multiaccess contents in France, but the strategy demands a lot of money, especially when you intend to have a global reach.

Canal+ can made fun of this new "mini TPS" (deals with Warner and the French Soccer Federation), Orange is a small national competitor on its core business, but the Canal+ part of Orange is only a side dish for that major multiaccess multiservice provider.

Vivendi is feeling the heat and starting to leverage on Streamezzo, its JV with Vodafone : neuf cegetel (now back to SFR, another Streamezzo platform user) just launched everyworld.fr. As the name tells us, it is suppose to bring you a less monochromous world Orange World. There, you can hand pick your apps and follow them on any device. Which reminds me of BLOKKS and BRIKKS. A nice looking system where a friendly UI... but back then there was no broadband access on one end and no content on the other. Framfab Labs did that and guess what ? They were from Sweden... and the late nineties (definitely pre-9/11).

Next thing you know, Orange will get the exclusivity for Bjorn Borg's games.

CES 2007 - a cup of T before China-To-The-Home

Another year, another light bulb show on The Strip. The 2007 International Consumer Electronics Show shouldn't bring major disruptions, only display the ability of some players to deliver more goods after Christmas.
Sin City ? Forget the booze and take a cup of T : the time has come for the mass market to hear about terabytes more often. Massive hard drives on one end, heavy entertainment on the other, and FTTH in between, the dice are rolling.
Spin City ? From "Let It Snow" to "Get It Now®", Verizon Wireless adds V CAST Mobile TV to V CAST Music, V CAST Video (YouTube ? YouBet !), Mobile Web 2.0(SM) and co. Yet, VZW won't be the star this year. Qualcomm ? He'll try to fool the paparazzis with his former Korean proteges (Samsung SCH-u620, LG VX9400), but Samsung and LG already displayed MediaFLO handset last CES 2006 and both are openly courting DMB and DVB*. Besides, Qualcomm is still being sued in Korea, where Microsoft is strictly monitored and Intel just decided to cancel a promising R&D center.
Sim City ? Is K-Pop still ruling the show ? LG's Points Of Presence also include dual format Blu-Ray / HD-DVD players and drives, and as far as content (with himself) is concerned, Bae Yong-jun just listed part of his company in Japan, where Yonsama on mobile keeps selling (there, this utterly corny hallyuwood fake is still considered a great actor)... put Helio On Top of it and you may think Korea holds a full house. Except China's massive investments in R&D and entertainment start showing. If not this year, on time for CES 2008.


* speaking of T, DVB-H and Las Vegas : I didn't hear any bird sing on the Hiwire / T-mobile trial.

Belle Labs and niche marketing

Nature remains the best innovator.
In Florida, Belle, a 3 year-old and well trained bitch, saved her 34 year-old diabetic master thanks to two disrupting technologies : licking (her master's arm to check the level of sugar in his blood) and toothing (punching "9" on her master's handset to call emergencies - not with the paw but with a not-even-blue tooth).
Try doing this to your girlfriend if she faints on the beach this summer : the baywatch squad will knock you rabid you flat in a second - besides, your insurance doesn't cover handset bites.
We thought we knew everything about canine mobile connectivity*, but now we've got to get ready for SMS spamming from Lassie herself... niche marketing indeed.
Bunny tip of the day : don't you dare activate Playboy Mobile in the UK unless you can outrun greyhounds.

* in Japan, you can communicate with your dog and know where it is without leaving your office - hell, there are even dog-human translators out there !

Alcatel - Lucent : the swiftness of paper

5 years ago, Lucent would refuse a merger with Alcatel because it wasn't a merger of equals. I'm not sure it is this time either, but do Lucent shareholders have a choice ?
This non-event simply epitomizes the end of Ma Bell as we knew her. AT&T, the born again brand, seems to enjoy a new life from Plano, TX... but whatever happened to those prestigious labs ?
It's no more about the creativity of human beings, the ability to cope with new environments, to face the future. It's about the swiftness of paper, the ability to purchase evolutivity, to buy a few months.
Today's R&D does require a pervasive networking approach, but beyond the imperialistic / Cisco model. At the end of the day, you can waste a few months if you gain a beautiful mind.

CeBIT unnovations

More than ever, the wireless circus focused on Barcelona rather than Hannover. That was Barcelona's first year and the CeBIT goes far beyond mobility, but still.
Samsung's 10 megapixel picturephone is no more a disruption than Sony Ericsson's 4 GB W950. xandros added UMTS to their Linux laptops but the technology was already a commodity. Microsoft eventually unfolded their Origami* but the UMPC (Ultra Mobile Personal Computer*) looks so much like the PDA all Samsung employees have been carrying everywhere in Korea for a couple of years. At the government's level, UK goes NGN and the EU goes RFID, but that's about time. I don't know how DVB-H is doing up there but France Telecom R&D seem to bet on Far East Asia (especially Korea and China) for mobile TV. What else ? Samsung will deliver DMB handsets in Germany on time for the World Cup, as expected**. With debitel as the entry point ; quite a disappointment. The industry eventually realize genuine VoIP over mobile requires HSUPA and a more mobile world requires more fiber. That was CeBIT CeLEBRATING 20 years of innovation.

Europe may remain the heart of GSM / 3GSM but for the rest, everything is being decided somewhere between Asia and America.


* see "Origami Project - a crush for paper tigers ?" (20060302). Before the take off, MS decided to nest their UMPC in the Windows XP environment : http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/umpc.
** see "Play it again, Samsung ?" (20060216).

Eurasia Inc - Linux with China, DMB and WiBro with Korea

Korean players eventually made a DMB scenario feasible in Europe (despite the preference of SKT and co for their own S-DMB instead of the free T-DMB - which badly irritates the MIC). Now they're also making a case for WiBro : TIM picked Samsung for their 2006 trials during the Torino Winter Olympics.
France Telecom have been courting Korea Inc for a few years and it starts showing. Yet, they're not forgetting the rest of the world, thanks to their impressive R&D network. Much has been said regarding their partnership with China's ZTE about Linux over 3G, but don't forget India...
How about the US ? They're doing fine on their own, thank you : Cingular Wireless launched HSDPA with Sierra Wireless AC860 and Novatel U730 PC cards (unlimited usage for $59.99 / month - data rates : 400-700 K uplink and over 1M downlink - handover guaranteed ???).

Bridging T-DMB & DAB, Hallyuwood & Bollywood, Korea and the UK

April 2006 : digital broadcasting trials will start in the UK with an explosive DAB-Combo bringing together an impressive crowd from Europe's leading media country and the world's leading broadband country :

• From the UK : Orange, BT Livetime, Ariqva, Frontier Silicon, the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Virgin Radio, GCap Media, Emap, Celador, and even SMG Television (producers vith a Bollywood flavor)...


• From Korea : the twin towers (Samsung Electronics Co. and LG Electronics Inc.), the ETRI (Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute), a few start-ups specialized in DMB / video solutions (Perstel Inc.*, Timetek Inc. / WithUSTech, Pixtree Technologies Inc)...

UK logically brings a key MNO (whose interest in DMB seems consistent with France Telecom R&D's vision as exposed last January), but no European manufacturer. I'm not so sure Nokia are enjoying this after the T-DMB trials announced in France (this year) or Germany (next year).

Diplomatically and smartly** enough, T-DMB is presented as an application of the WorldDAB Eureka 147 standard, the DAB designed by UK researchers. So the trial users will receive European "DAB" digital radio and video on their mobile handsets.

Food for thought for those who considered the UK and Korea as traditional entry points for US technologies in Europe and Asia...

* sponsored by Samsung Venture Investment Company and STIC Ventures, established a UK subsidiary 3 years ago
** nothing to do with Ireland's new entrant Smart Mobile (UMTS 'B' license - 53% coverage by October 2011 - the equivalent of the country's top five cities).

Voice Discounted, data embedded, TV Finnished

18 eurocents per mn, Alles Klar. klarmobil.de is mobilcom's latest vehicle to claim more customers and lower even more their revenues. Because subscriptions are up (4.55M end of June) but overall turnover down (-8% vs Q2 2004). So the operator communicates on a growing EBITDA per customer... New owners Texas Pacific Group obviously wanted to add sexier assets to their kolossales spectrum... up for sale but when and to whom ?

At last, 3G starts being embedded in laptops : Dell are working with Cingular on UMTS and should add HSDPA Q1 2006, and in the cdma2000 family, with Verizon on EV-DO (along with HP & IBM-Lenovo). W-CDMA and EV-DO proved their reliability and MNOs shouldn't miss the window of opportunity before the WiMAX - WiBro wave.

Nokia waited for the 2bn mobile sub mark to announce handset #1,000,000,000, so that stupid analysts can praise their 50% market share. Less stupid : the choice of Taiwan for a new R&D center devoted to 3G. The Mobile Services Development Center (MSDC) is a JV with the Institute for Information Industry and the perfect bridge with mainland China. This side of the Thames, Nok-Nok are about to start their Oxford DVB-H trial with Ariqva (see Row vs wideband), but 02 customers won't pay for the TV service... the aim of the game remains to duplicate an easy experiment everywhere across Europe and lobby regulators, not to validate the potential of a commercial service. And working with Microsoft definitely changed the way Nokia annouce future products : I cultivate the buzz far in advance (i.e. 4Gb Nokia N91 will combine W-CDMA and WiFi and laminate iPods) and I postpone the launch because of Redmond's embedded bug-and-glitches function.

Scott Summers and French Blockbuster Seasons

X-men 3 isn't shot yet but when she's back as Phoenix, Jean Grey may have some trouble spotting the original Cyclops among Orange World customers.
One month after France Telecom R&D (press release + buzz at the European Research and Innovation Exhibition), MicroOptical / Essilor International & Kopin CyberDisplays (self-proclaimed The NanoSemiconductor Company) announced a more commercial way the launch of innovative binocular video eyewear next october.
Connected to Samsung's SGH-D600, this 70g device similar to Scott Summers' protective glasses brings interesting superpowers to its user : unbeatable stereo sound and a virtual 12' screen 2 m away. Thus, our superhero can avoid Paris' much acclaimed dognuments but can't tell whether the person coming towards him is smiling or carrying a shotgun (or both, who knows with these nutty supervillains).
Well. I've tried this kind of marvels but they were designed for actual fighters and the screen would appear at the bottom corner of your visual field. More likely, our Orange Cyclops will comfortably seat in a chair to enjoy the show on the go. Not as glamour, but it definitely beats the portable DVD player... provided the power allows the viewer to watch more than a few short mobisodes... which is made possible by the cable connection between the glasses and the handset. The "wirefree" vision may take some more time...

At the edges of the middle

NTT DoCoMo know 4G will take off in Asia but they also know they can't do it on their own. They failed last time but for the next gen they decided to invest massively where size matters. China. Putting $2.5 bn a year on 3G+ / 4G R&D in Beijing will not solve the diplomatic quagmire caused by the surge of nippon revisionism but it may help DoCoMo take a lead in standardization.
On the other hand, investing massively in AT&T Wireless didn't prove to be the best way of reaching the US market. Chinese developpers can as well take the money and run, rock, roll and roll out without caring much for their once powerful neighbors.