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

WACking Apple's App Store : United Colors of MNOs or WAP redux ?

The Wholesale Applications Community (WAC) chose the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona to announce its foundation. The aim it to make application standards transparent, and services available on as many platforms as possible, or as the association puts it from the customer's point of view : to offer "a broader choice of innovative applications and services available on a wider choice of devices than ever before". From the application developers' point of views it goes like this : "a single gateway (...) to access a vast potential customer base".

How big ? Among the 27 founding members of the WAC, 24 operators claiming 3 bn subs : America Movil, AT&T, Bharti Airtel, China Mobile, China Unicom, Deutsche Telekom, KT, Mobilkom Austria Group, MTN Group, NTT DoCoMo, Orange, Orascom Telecom, Softbank Mobile, Telecom Italia, Telefónica, Telenor Group, Telia Sonera, SingTel, SK Telecom, Sprint, Verizon Wireless, VimpelCom, Vodafone, Wind.

The casting is less impressive for manufacturers : Samsung, LG, Sony Ericsson. Significant players, but all losers in the smartphone standards. Yeah, Samsung is showing off its Samsung Bada OS in Barcelona but come on, that one is not going to become number one. Even Nokia and Intel combined can't make it with their brand new Meego.

Anyway, here's the deal for developers : on one hand, become one of the billion plus apps available in the App Store reserved to iPhone users... and on the other, tap into the 3 billion plus market opened by this elite of haves and havemores.

Tired of the multiplication of proprietary platforms ? The WAC intends to make that layer transparent for you. And when the WAC writes "developers will only have to create one version of their application and this can be used on multiple types of devices and operating systems (such as Symbian, Android, Windows etc)", it's up to every potential "etc" to decide : keep playing it solo or join the party.

Some developers may remember how WAP struggled in its early stages. Will this WAC work ? Fool me once, shame on... shame on you. Fool me... you can't get fooled again'.

Can you ?

I think Vodafone, Orange & co remember perfectly the WAP episode. Since then MNOs proved they could work on common platforms to boost the ecosystem (ie Gallery in France). And if they fight against each other, they would love to commoditize markets they cannot rule anyway.

I'm not worried about technology roadmaps and paths.

But the editorial line... believe me, that one is gonna be a long and winding one.

mot-bile 2010

* see "Leading Operators Unite to Unleash Global Apps potential" (20100215 - on wholesaleappcommunity.com, the association's website)

In Google times, where are the operators ?

Google and Verizon Wireless will release several Android devices every year, starting with two in 2009 (courtesy HTC and Motorola), contributing to a global roaster of 18 gizmos for this OS.

Microsoft announced 30 Windows Mobile 6.5 devices by EOY 2009. It speaks volumes of Redmond's intentions to remain ahead of Apple in smartphones. Or to remain in smartphones altogether.

Ever the sexier BlackBerry announced the Storm of the century and new Curves.

Meanwhile, Kindle goes global : Amazon intends to become the worldwide cultural leader before Apple makes its splash in the ebook reader / app space.

We're talking platforms and OS but Amazon is into grocery, Google into advertising, Microsoft into healthcare (a cash cow for antivirus labs). BlackBerry ? A "manufactoperator" which somehow succeeded in opening itself without losing its consistency.

Nokia "pushes" Symbian as a Wikipedia style fundation, Palm "WebOS" as a more or less open platform (open as in up for grabs ?)... but the mojo seems to belong to the Open Handset Alliance, the movement supporting Android. Verizon Wireless is not even a member, and SonyEricsson could be jumping on board anytime soon, along with other nondescript manufacturers and operators.

The OS wars are not over. They're simply getting more boring. Differenciation will at last converge towards that forsaken player, the user.

Sony Aino, Satio, Yari : PlayNow, twist, tilt, turn, smash... buzz ?

May 28, 2009 : Sony Ericsson decides to wake up, launch a new campaign, and issue a series of emphatic press clips announcing 3 new devices and one proprietary movie download platform. The message : believe it or not, we've got some Sony in our DNA and we ain't gonna let competitors claim the entertainment arena for themselves.

PlayNow™ arena intends to do with movies what iTunes did for iPod and iPhone with music. The user experience does seem as un-seamless as with the Apple platform in its early stage... but with a very small and short-lived catalogue :

"- Download movies to your computer from www.playnow-arena.com/movies
- Transfer them to your Sony Ericsson phone by ‘side loading’ them from your computer to your phone using your USB device
- Watch them as often as you like for up to 90 days. The specially formatted movies are not playable on any other device
- Choose from a selection of around 15 movies at any one time, with approximately four additional titles being added to the catalogue each month to replace outgoing content
- A total of up to 60 movies can be downloaded during a twelve month period
- The available movie catalogue will be a country-specific mix of classics and newer titles" ("PlayNow™ arena with movies brings feature films to mobile phones" - SonyEricsson PR 20090528)

Kick off : this June across Europe (UK, Germany, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands) with the W995 Walkman™. Besides, two of the tree devices introduced the same day support the new platform : the Aino and the Satio.


The Sony Ericsson Satio replaces the Sony Ericsson Idou exposed in Barcelona (a doomed brand if I ever saw one). It focuses on image : a 12 M pixel camera and a big fat memory.("Visual communication like never before with the Sony Ericsson Satio" - SonyEricsson PR 20090528)



The Sony Ericsson Aino focuses on "sound and vision". Don't misinterpret the "Remote Play for PLAYSTATION®3" feature as a Nintendo Wii remote copycat : you can mostly pair it with your console. PSP next gen becomes PSP Go, and Media Go™ / Media Home "helps you transfer, play and organise all your music, photos, videos and podcasts from your PC simply and effortlessly to enjoy directly on Aino via Wi-Fi™. No more wires, no more searching – always the latest fun." ("Sound and vision set free with the Sony Ericsson Aino" - SonyEricsson PR 20090528)



The Sony Ericsson Yari goes beyond the Aino, more into Wii territory : "Yari debuts Gesture gaming – forget about pushing buttons, with Gesture gaming you make the moves in front of the screen to get right in the middle of the action!" ("Twist, tilt, turn, smash - gesture gaming is here with the Sony Ericsson Yari" - SonyEricsson PR 20090528)


I can't see much disruption there. Except maybe for my eardrums.

Tetris turning 25... now that's distressing.

Windows of opportunity

Nokia merged their S40 and S60 platforms with Symbian, and their destiny with NTT DoCoMo and SonyEricsson in the open source race against Google and the Linux family. But the Symbian Foundation is not competing with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation ; it's only inviting people to stop throwing money out of the Windows, and to put Apple in the same (waste ?) basket. The aim is not to become the sexiest techno on the market, but to make sure the bulk of the value remains in familiar hands.

Which could be a moto for Qualcomm. The San Diego Chargers want to surf on ip.access' success in femtocells, and their strategy is to purchase the joint and collect the royalties. Business as usual, but will ip.access remain as popular ? Will Qualcomm succeed in closing the door to competitors or in motivating them to enter through the windows ?

Virgin Mobile USA decided to open wide both in a Totally Unlimited move : get all you can spit voice for $79.99 / mo, and add 10 bucks for a data combo. Some commuters may prefer working from home to spending a little bit less than a hundred a month for a little bit more than 20 gallons of oil.

Samsung SDI Co designs windows that generate solar power. This BIPV (Building Integrated PhotoVoltalic) technology could help Korean buildings become more energy efficient. Or Korean mobile phones to charge while catching a sun tan ? Uh. Not such a brilliant idea. My deduction is that induction will do this at a quicklier and safer pace (more "electric Wifi" demos are expected this August at the IFA / Internationale Funkausstellung in Berlin).

Social networking for social networks

With Yahoo!'s oneConnect, mobile users will enjoy one interface to synchronise all their social networking services (Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace).

Except for the "contacts" part of the services.

What a shame. Imagine Steve Balmer wants to become your friend while you're on the go...

Talking about Stevie Nowonder : he's daring to buy Danger. So Microsoft's idea of innovation is to purchase a netco that used to be hype in the mid 90s and a small manufacturer that happened to make one hype device in the early 2000s ? Danger is my middle name, but I just use the initial : D as in "Dfence"... at least SonyEricsson is joining the Windows Mobile wagon.

Social networking again : Orange and T-Mobile will launch mobile TV in the UK using TDtv technology from NextWave Wireless (formerly known as IP Wireless). No spectrum hassles here, unlike with DVB-H. And as we recently saw*, Orange will soon be able to put satellite on the top of it.

Qualcomm is fuming : no one wants its MediaFLO, nor its UMB, nor its 4G (key CDMA players, including Verizon Wireless, are going for LTE).

Maybe Qualcomm should have tried social networking instead of asocial pervasive licensing.

* see "Orange has its rights, Orange has it right" (20080210)