Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Space Between Smartphone and Laptop Still in Flux

Suppliers have been trying to figure out the demand for, and requirements of, devices somewhere between high-end phones and lower-end PCs for some time, using the general "mobile internet devices" moniker.

In January 2010 much attention was focused on "smartbooks," positioned somewhere below "netbooks" at the low end of the PC category. Those devices tend to feature keyboards.

Post-iPad, the attention has turned squarely to tablet devices, using touchscreen interfaces only. Still, the ultimate shape of end user demand remains unsettled enough that a variety of form factors, operating systems and processor approaches will continue to be tested.

“This market between the phone and the laptop is an area that is undefined,” says Steve Mollenkopf, a Qualcomm executive vice president who is also president of its chip unit. “You will see a proliferation of different devices.”

Some devices will use smartphone processors or operating systems and move up. Other devices might take PC processors and operating systems and move them down into the tablet space. But application use cases are ultimately likely to matter more.

Touchscreen devices likely will prove to be accepted for some uses, but not for others.  Content consumption might be the key use case for some users, while simple email and web browsing might emerge as the key application for others.

4G Confusion Coming as iPhone "4G" Launches

Things are about to get a bit confusing. Apple's next version of the iPhone is being called "4G," though that is not related to fourth-generation mobile networks such as WiMAX and Long Term Evolution. Maybe Apple won't release it with a retail moniker of "4G," but if it does, the term is likely to cause a bit of consumer confusion about 4G.

The other issue is what people will discover 4G means, even when they do start buying, and using devices built for 4G networks.

But there's less to 4G than meets the eye, at least initially. It does support higher bandwidth, but that is more like the difference between a 3 Mbps connection and a 6 Mbps connection. More, but possibly not qualitatively a distinct experience.

Google's Wi-Fi Gaffe

As Google prepares to defend itself against allegations of Wi-Fi spying, it has said very little about exactly what kind of personal data it gathered as part of its Street View project.

Last week, Google also declined to provide executives willing to speak on the record about how one of the most monumental oversights in its history occurred: the inadvertent gathering of 'payload' data by Wi-Fi sniffers mapping hotspots while recording street scenes for Google Street View.

Google admitted on May 14 that it had been "mistakenly collecting samples of payload data from open (i.e. non-password-protected) Wi-Fi networks" for three years. Payload data is distinct from a "header," which contains mostly benign information about the network itself: The payload is the actual data that is being transmitted over the network.

However, Google's store of personal data might not be quite the treasure trove it may seem. Data sent back and forth between encrypted Web sites (password logins, online banking, credit-card transactions, or anything with https:// in the URL) would not be collected. Mobile workers signed into VPNs would also not be affected.

In addition, it's not totally clear how much data Google would be able to capture with a Street View car moving at about 25 miles per hour along the streets of cities and towns around the world. Google said the data was "fragmented," implying that piecing together any coherent image from that data would be difficult.

Monday, May 31, 2010

Social E-Commerce is More Marketing Than Commerce

It isn't clear yet whether social commerce sites such as Groupon.com, Buywithme.com, Lifebooker.com and livingsocial.com are a fad or a permanent trend in e-commerce. These sites offer discounts to groups of buyers that may or may not depend on how many people respond to a specific offer.

Typically, a group coupon site operates in multiple cities and features one merchant's discount per day per city in an e-mail to subscribers.

Merchants set a minimum number of customers who must sign up for an offer to work.

If the deal doesn't get enough interest in the allotted period, would-be buyers get their money back. But some 90 percent of Groupon deals do go through. So shoppers may feel they need to rush to sign up before the quota fills, which generates a marketing buzz for the stores and sites.

But the social commerce deals might be seen primarily as marketing campaigns, more than a way to move merchandise. The websites typically give retailers half the money they get selling the deals. That means there is little to no profit from a deal.

What the deals succeed in doing is creating an opportunity to attract new customes, though.

A half-off coupon, for instance, typically brings the retailer just one-fourth the price it usually charges for a given item and could end up costing the business money.

Real Heroes

We thank you.

Sunday, May 30, 2010

Bandwidth and Revenue: Something's Gotta Give

Fully 73 percent of industry executives surveyed by Telcordia expect to see either network-enforced hard limits, tiered services or a combination of both to manage data traffic.

The survey of industry professionals across more than 75 countries by Telcordia simply confirms that data traffic, and therefore network cost, is increasing faster than revenue to pay for supplying that bandwidth.

"CSPs need to insert themselves in the mobile broadband value chain and leverage billing and charging assets to manage network costs and to add innovative value-added offers and services to both subscribers and over-the-top content third parties," says Pat McCarthy, Telcordia VP.

"All-you-can-eat data plans are not a sustainable business model, and policy-based bandwidth management and real-time charging provide CSPs and their subscribers with the necessary flexibility to try new services while keeping costs in line," says McCarthy.

link

HTC Evo Running Android 2.2

Some people are going to find the HTC Evo's "massive screen" annoying, to the extent that it makes the device bigger (slightly bigger than the comparable Verizon HTC Incredible, but it has some advantages.

The Evo doesn't use the OLED screen found on the Nexus One, but instead uses a TFT display which means the Evo will be easier to use in daylight.

more here

The Roots of our Discontent

Political disagreements these days seem particularly intractable for all sorts of reasons, but among them are radically conflicting ideas ab...