Mobile Forward

  • Home
  • About
  • Contact
  • Sign Up
  • Support MF
    • RSS
    • Twitter

Windows Laptops Need Better Engineering, Not Better Marketing

October 16, 2015

Vlad Savov, for The Verge:

The chief marketing officers of Microsoft, Intel, Dell, Lenovo, and HP will gather to host a webcast introducing a major new advertising campaign for the PC. It will mark the first time that the five biggest names in the PC industry have come together around a single, unified message to the consumer. […]

The PC industry really needs saving from itself, because its recent history has been one of either price wars that lead everyone to cut corners or, alternatively, the pursuit of high-margin gimmicks with low chance of success.

Apple gets the fundamentals right in a very serious and rigorous way, and then it gets fancy with its marketing spiel. PC vendors have tended to do the opposite, going for outlandish and gimmicky ideas in their designs, but presenting them in boring and clichéd ways. […]

Except for Apple, personal computer vendors use a common OS, common parts, and have a common approach and speed to computer innovation. It’s no wonder they can’t differentiate themselves. And now, it’s to the point that they’re desperate enough to use common advertising. Will one more “commonality” help? Unlikely.

The irony: PC makers have avoided custom R&D to, essentially, save money. Instead, it’s cost them so much that they’re doing this common marketing campaign. And this brings us full-circle to Savov’s title. Great title. Great point.

Share:Tweet about this on Twitter
Twitter
Share on Facebook
Facebook
Share on LinkedIn
Linkedin
Email this to someone
email

Filed Under: Innovation, Microsoft, Personal Computer, Windows

A Leading Indicator of Success

October 12, 2015

We no longer talk about the lagging indicators of success, right, which is revenue, profit. What are the leading indicators of success? Customer love.

Satya Nadella, in an interview with The Verge. Excerpt found by Matt Weinberger, at Business Insider.

Share:Tweet about this on Twitter
Twitter
Share on Facebook
Facebook
Share on LinkedIn
Linkedin
Email this to someone
email

Filed Under: Microsoft, Product Development

Microsoft Pushes Deeper Into Hardware

October 7, 2015

Shira Ovide, for The Wall Street Journal:

The string of announcements underscores Microsoft’s accelerating push into computing hardware over the past three years, starting with the first Surface tablet model in 2012. Mr. Nadella has said developing hardware would be crucial to Microsoft’s ability to keep pace with rapid changes in consumer technology.

The best work Microsoft (and ex-Nokia staff) has done in years. I’m really happy for Microsoft and its employees.

Share:Tweet about this on Twitter
Twitter
Share on Facebook
Facebook
Share on LinkedIn
Linkedin
Email this to someone
email

Filed Under: Microsoft, Smartphones, Tablets, Wearables - Other, Windows

Good Words by Microsoft’s Leaders

October 7, 2015

Good words by Microsoft executives at Tuesday’s Microsoft Windows 10 event:

We design our Microsoft devices to create and re-invent categories.

— Terry Myerson, EVP of the Windows and Devices Group

We’re making great progress towards our aspiration we shared in January: to move people from needing Windows, to choosing Windows, to loving Windows. […]

What matters most is the mobility of your experience, not the mobility of any single device. Because as devices come and go, and evolve, you persist. And the journey of personal computing has taught us this single lesson: No single device will be a hub of activity forever. The hub is you. […]

The concept of building a new device for an application experience is best brought to life by Surface*. […]

Every successful company has a soul, a unique sensibility that is the soul of its inspiration and its creativity.

— Satya Nadella, CEO

Regarding Myerson’s comments: good reasons. By the way, while I didn’t pick out any particularly exciting, stand-alone comments from Panos Panay, the CVP of Surface Computing and the head of the hardware division, he was the best presenter. When he introduced the new Lumia smartphones and the Surface products, he spoke authentically, with energy, and went beyond “what”, to explain “how” and “why”.

______
*I would preface this sentence with “At Microsoft”, because clearly Apple excels at this.

Share:Tweet about this on Twitter
Twitter
Share on Facebook
Facebook
Share on LinkedIn
Linkedin
Email this to someone
email

Filed Under: Microsoft, Windows

Microsoft Research: Different Batteries for Different Tasks

October 7, 2015

JC Torres, for SlashGear:

The battery that Microsoft researchers are working on is in fact not a single battery. It is a battery system, made up of different kids of batteries, with different capacities and different output rates. The theory is that the OS will dictate which kind of battery is used. If a task requires more power, it will switch to using the high rate batteries. Menial tasks can be relegated to lower outputs that also have longer lives. In effect, it is almost like ARM’s big.LITTLE CPU architecture in wide use in mobile chips these days. These are composed of two sets of high-performance but energy-hungry cores and energy-efficient but low-performance cores.

Microsoft also sees a possible application of machine learning here. The operating system can observe user habits and determine how to best schedule and allocate battery consumption in the future based on these.

I can’t comment on the effectiveness, but it’s always interesting to see how one can find new ways to advance: in this case, analyze the intensity and nature of a workload, and see if it makes sense (for efficiency, in this case) to offer different capability for different purposes. A “micro-segmentation” of sorts, but in a technology context.

Share:Tweet about this on Twitter
Twitter
Share on Facebook
Facebook
Share on LinkedIn
Linkedin
Email this to someone
email

Filed Under: Microsoft, Power

Satya Nadella Demonstrates Microsoft’s New Attitude

September 17, 2015

Julie Bort, for Business Insider, reports on Satya Nadella’s demo, where he used an iPhone. Three quick things:

1. A CEO doing a product demo. We need more of that.

2. A CEO using a competitor’s product. (Admittedly, he doesn’t own that iPhone.) In my experience, the more secure a CEO felt about his/her ideas and market reality, the more comfortable they felt mentioning or using a competitor’s product.

3. Microsoft apps for iOS. Pretty amazing how many productivity apps they’ve done, and many are well received. I know it’s not a new story, but it’s still cool. Take a look at the screenshot from Nadella’s phone to see the extent. Julie Bort offers a nice summary of each.

So, again: here we had a CEO using a competitor’s product and developing for it. Did the world come to an end? Did this, in itself, cause that CEO’s company any issues? No; quite the opposite. Refreshing to see Nadella’s attitude. More broadly, note that the Mac Office team in Redmond have essentially been loyal Apple supporters (in deeds) for years. All good stuff.

Share:Tweet about this on Twitter
Twitter
Share on Facebook
Facebook
Share on LinkedIn
Linkedin
Email this to someone
email

Filed Under: Microsoft, Productivity

Monday Assorted Links

September 14, 2015

1. Microsoft to launch Surface Pro 4 and new phones at October 6th event Looking forward to this.

2. Microsoft Cortana May Come to Cyanogen

[Cyanogen CEO] McMaster revealed that Cyanogen is working with Microsoft to deeply integrate Cortana into the next version of Cyanogen OS. This is key to catapulting Cyanogen into the mass market, he asserts […].

3. Xiaomi teases upcoming news or products which will “Solve the most important problem in Life”

In the comments for that post, many users are guessing that Xiaomi might be launching “Xiaomi Loans”.

4. Obstacles Xiaomi Needs to Overcome Decent list.

Share:Tweet about this on Twitter
Twitter
Share on Facebook
Facebook
Share on LinkedIn
Linkedin
Email this to someone
email

Filed Under: Assorted Links, Cyanogen, Microsoft, OS, Smartphones, Tablets, Xiaomi

Saturday Assorted Links

August 29, 2015

1. On Amazon’s Plans for a Low Cost Smartphone

At one point, the company planned a stripped-down Fire phone, but Amazon has stretched out its timeline for smartphone development indefinitely, people familiar with the matter said.

2. You can download Cortana for your Android device right now – here’s how Just interesting to see Microsoft’s cross-platform strategy evolve.

3. Xiaomi Will Launch In Africa In Sept Through Distributor

4. Xiaomi to release two chipsets for in-house use next year Focus appears to be cost. See my prior related post.

5. Huawei brings online smartphone brand Honor to Europe “Handsets would be mainly promoted and sold on-line […].”

6. Revealed: the first hydrogen-powered battery that will charge your Apple iPhone for a week Note: most small companies use an iPhone to demonstrate their capability. Primarily because it makes the invention look ready for prime time. And — as you can see — it increases the odds of generating a click-bait headline. Plus, yes, they’re hoping someone at Apple notices and sees “how well it fits in”, so to speak. Or that another potential acquirer thinks “Oh – I wouldn’t want Apple to buy them”.

Share:Tweet about this on Twitter
Twitter
Share on Facebook
Facebook
Share on LinkedIn
Linkedin
Email this to someone
email

Filed Under: Amazon, Assorted Links, Distribution, Huawei, Intelligent Assistance, Microsoft, Power, Processors, Smartphones, Xiaomi

Digital Assistants: Perspective on Google and Microsoft

August 25, 2015

Good perspective from Richard Windsor, writing on his site, Radio Free Mobile:

  • Unfortunately, Google is struggling with a number of issues that will limit its ability to keep Google Now far ahead of its competitors unless it moves fast.
    • First. Its latest innovation Now on Tap (see here) which has the potential to meaningfully improve Google’s data collection, requires Android M to work.
    • Google’s inability to update the software on its devices means that it could be 2017 or 2018 before Android M will be mainstream (see here).
    • Second. Many of the core team who developed Google Now have left the company after their creation was folded into the core search business against their wishes.

and

  • Cortana on Android is another move by Microsoft to make its ecosystem operating system agnostic, aiming instead to encourage users to like and spend time with its services.
  • This is exactly the right strategy for Microsoft to become an ecosystem company but […] there is still an awful lot of work ahead.
Share:Tweet about this on Twitter
Twitter
Share on Facebook
Facebook
Share on LinkedIn
Linkedin
Email this to someone
email

Filed Under: Google, Intelligent Assistance, Machine Learning, Microsoft, Smartphones

Sunday Assorted Links

August 9, 2015

Still digging out from vacation. Lot of interesting developments.

1. Huawei, Xiaomi to hike adoption of in-house-developed smartphone APs. I think they’re focused on reducing their component costs, and on diversifying or securing supply, rather than on any sort of performance boost. An interesting excerpt, however:

Xiaomi and Huawei’s strategy is expected to directly impact AP providers such as MediaTek and Qualcomm. Within the global top-5 smartphone vendors, Apple, Samsung, Huawei, Xiaomi and LG, which together contribute over 60% of worldwide shipments, four of them have already adopted in-house developed APs or have been aggressively increasing their adoption, which could seriously damage independent ARM-AP suppliers as well as x86-based solution supplier Intel.

Note, however, that Leadcore, the AP manufacturer working win Xiaomi claims that “Xiaomi wants its own custom-designed processors to differentiate its products and control its destiny“. I think that’s a bunch of marketing spin, and the “differentiation” is really a cost focus.

2. Microsoft Launches ‘Translator’ Free Apple Watch App. I haven’t tried it yet. In principle, sounds like a good idea; a good fit with the fact that a smartwatch is, in my view, essentially a tool. And it’s not surprising that Microsoft has a team(s) working to quickly deliver apps for Apple Watch.

3. Big Android Makers Will Now Push Monthly Security Updates. … because there’s something magical and comforting about the nice, round 30-day number?

4. Michael Lopp (Rands in Repose): “Busy is a bug, not a feature.” I suppose it depends on the role. I agree that for a leader to be continuously busy, or “too busy”, is not a good sign. Though it is more complicated than that (“war time” vs. “peace time”, etc.). Michael is now at Pinterest. Another interesting part:

“It’s gonna sound like I’m lazy but I swear I’m not lazy,” he says. “My job is to get myself out of a job. I’m aggressively pushing things I think I could be really good at and should actually maybe own to someone else who’s gonna get a ‘B’ at it. But they’re gonna get the opportunity to go do that [and continue to learn in the process]. My job is to — it sounds like I just want to sit here and drink coffee and talk about bread — but it’s about pushing it down, so these things, which naturally come to me [go to others in the company].”

5. Smartphones are hurting our children – but the real culprit is bad parenting. The headline says it all.

Share:Tweet about this on Twitter
Twitter
Share on Facebook
Facebook
Share on LinkedIn
Linkedin
Email this to someone
email

Filed Under: Android, Assorted Links, Huawei, Leadership, Microsoft, Processors, Security & Privacy, Smartphones, Smartwatches, Xiaomi

Saturday Assorted Links

August 8, 2015

I’m digging out after being on a great vacation in Maui, Hawaii with extended family. It’s also good to be back, though. Below are some interesting articles or sentences that caught my eye recently.

1. Xiaomi rumored to launch a Windows 10 tablet in the upcoming months. I believe it’s possible. Largely because of this.

2. With Some Work, Cortana Could Be Windows 10’s Killer Application.

I have some travel coming up, and within seconds—literally—of asking Cortana some questions, I was able to check the weather forecast for my destination, find a handful of restaurants around my hotel, and find out what kind of facilities are offered there. I also quickly found a couple of specific recipes online, search for some images, launched some applications, and added a handful of reminders to my calendar. I even had Cortana remind me to get up and walk around every couple of hours, so I wasn’t glued to my office chair for too long each day.

I’m looking forward to trying it out. The first system-wide assistant on a large-scale OS.

3. Tiny sensor tells you when your favorite places are crowded.

The tiny infrared detector is effectively a smarter, more connected pedestrian traffic sensor: it tells apps how many people are entering or leaving a building at any moment, giving you a good sense of whether that restaurant is packed or blissfully empty.

It’s going to be a sensor-filled world. It’s just a question of when.

4. Why the ‘ruthlessly efficient’ editor-in-chief of The New Yorker never tweets.

“I don’t tweet, mainly because I’ve noticed that some of the other people with jobs like mine have either ended up doing all promotional tweets, which is boring, or writing something half-thought-out that would be better used in a more considered piece of writing,” he told Business Insider.

Words to ponder.

5. You Need More than ‘Natural Talent’ to Make it as a Photographer.

Mr. Turlington: Any dips**t can take pictures […] Art, that’s special. What can you bring to it that nobody else can?

Applies to many things in work and life.

Share:Tweet about this on Twitter
Twitter
Share on Facebook
Facebook
Share on LinkedIn
Linkedin
Email this to someone
email

Filed Under: Assorted Links, Innovation, Intelligent Assistance, Leadership, Microsoft, Productivity, Sensors, Tablets, Windows, Xiaomi

Microsoft, Capitulation and the End of Windows Everywhere

July 30, 2015

Good words by Benedict Evans, from Andreessen Horowitz, on his own blog, ben-evans.com:

Though a big part of Microsoft’s mobile strategy has been to push towards common code across Windows on the desktop and on mobile, so that it’s easy to write apps for both at the same time, in practice that’s largely irrelevant. The apps that people want on smartphones are not being written for desktop Windows anyway. Uber doesn’t have a desktop Windows app, and neither does Instacart, Pinterest or Instagram. […] You can’t tempt developers to support Windows Phone by saying ‘it’s easy to deploy your desktop app to mobile’ if there is no desktop app. So Windows is not a point of leverage for Microsoft in mobile. […]

So, Microsoft has missed mobile […]. […]

The smartphone is the sun and everything else orbits it […]. […]

Microsoft has two huge, profitable businesses in Windows and Office: they will slowly go away, so how do you use them to create something new? Instead of every new project having in some way to support Office and Windows, how do you use Office and Windows to support the future? […]

I don’t have a complete sense of what that looks like, but admitting defeat [as Microsoft has done by drastically scaling back its smartphone efforts] is the first step to working it out.

Share:Tweet about this on Twitter
Twitter
Share on Facebook
Facebook
Share on LinkedIn
Linkedin
Email this to someone
email

Filed Under: Microsoft, Smartphones, Windows

Microsoft’s Likely Path Forward with Smartphones

July 8, 2015

I’m sure you’ve heard: Microsoft is laying off approximately 7,800 employees, mostly in the handset division, which is primarily comprised of former Nokia employees.

Certainly a sad day for many good men and women from Nokia. I hope they take some comfort in knowing they’ve made a lot people’s lives better.

Here’s an excerpt of Satya Nadella’s email to employees:

In the near term, we will run a more effective phone portfolio, with better products and speed to market given the recently formed Windows and Devices Group. We plan to narrow our focus to three customer segments where we can make unique contributions and where we can differentiate through the combination of our hardware and software. We’ll bring business customers the best management, security and productivity experiences they need; value phone buyers the communications services they want; and Windows fans the flagship devices they’ll love.

Not sure why Nadella didn’t include more detail. Perhaps, at this moment, it would be a distraction from communicating the main decision. But then, again, the detail would have helped to convey the decision with far greater clarity.

In terms of the likely path forward with smartphones, here’s my initial take:

  • “Business customers” = One or two Surface smartphone models, intended for enterprise users.
    • Also intended to set a high bar in terms of mainstream specs and quality, but without the broad distribution and marketing that would threaten OEMs. Basically, it’s there if a consumer wants it, and if OEMs make crappy products. But if an OEM has a better product, sharper marketing, or wider distribution, they won’t lose consumer business to Microsoft.
    • Microsoft might be thinking that business customers will demand less hardware and software innovation, easing the pressure on Microsoft to out-do Apple. It sounds like, for now, Microsoft will be happy with Surface-like results (low unit sales, at a decent profit on a product basis).
  • “Value phone buyers” = Low-priced Lumia smartphones.
  • “Windows fans” = Choose your brand: Lenovo, other OEMs.
    • More likely to carry leading-edge components: “riskier” cameras, displays, sensors, materials, batteries, sizes, and forms than a Surface model.
    • More likely to carry lower prices than what Microsoft will offer with Surface. Reminds me of Xiaomi’s recent experiment with Microsoft. Basically — Xiaomi or not — imagine Xiaomi-like or Oppo-like quality (I’m not saying it’s great), but with Windows, at a competitive price.

Microsoft’s calculation is that it can rely on the Surface team and remaining handset employees to satisfy the first two sets of users. And rely on OEMs to attract anybody else, via: no license fee for Windows; no competition from Microsoft; “inspiration” on reference designs / capabilities from the Surface models.

Will it work? While I support the idea of a third major mobile OS, at this point it’s difficult to anticipate more than – to use the phrase I used above – “Surface-like results”.

Share:Tweet about this on Twitter
Twitter
Share on Facebook
Facebook
Share on LinkedIn
Linkedin
Email this to someone
email

Filed Under: Microsoft, Nokia, Smartphones, Windows

Former Nokia CEO Elop Leaving Microsoft

June 17, 2015

Shira Ovide and Chelsey Dulaney, writing for the WSJ:

The departure of Mr. Elop along with one of his closest deputies, Jo Harlow, is the latest sign Microsoft is hitting the reset button on its struggling smartphone hardware business. The more than $9 billion purchase of Nokia’s handset business—a deal struck by Mr. Nadella’s predecessor Steve Ballmer in late 2013—was supposed to make Microsoft a relevant player in smartphones.

What I don’t understand is what changed between when Satya Nadella took over as Microsoft CEO and now? Meaning, what factors did he consider when he *didn’t* make this decision during the past year. I don’t mean that critically, either. Perhaps Satay Nadella, too, wanted to believe Microsoft smartphones might succeed, and decided to wait a year. Unfortunately, we are at a point in the smartphone and tablet market where a decent product, or even a good product, isn’t enough to succeed.

Basically, there are two sets of factors1 that drive product success:

Product factors: Superior performance, features, ease of use, design, etc. Or superior price.

Business system factors: Having a consumer installed base, a developer base, a brand, distribution channels, and marketing spend.

At this point, Apple and Samsung have scale and high performance in both sets. And no one else comes close. (Notably, Microsoft’s installed base of Windows and Office users, its developers, and its brand don’t matter when it comes to handsets.) Even if you have a good product – say a Moto X or a recent Lumia model – if you don’t have the business system behind it, you won’t succeed. You simply have less access to the market.

I often use an exaggerated example to illustrate this: you could give Samsung any mobile company’s flagship smartphone — Moto X, LG G4 or, in this case, a Microsoft Lumia 830 — and Samsung could push it thru its business system to sell 30M – 50M units. Done. In contrast, those brands struggle to sell a fraction of that many flagships. And if you’re Microsoft, you’re not only trying to sell product, you’re also trying to grow your platform, Windows Mobile.

This has multiple implications but, to keep this post short, let me just introduce one, in the form of a question: If you’re a smaller smartphone maker, and you stumble upon a killer feature (or offer a 3rd platform, like Windows Phone), what do you do? Meaning, you could launch it, get some modest uplift in sales, and then watch your (larger) competitors copy its best elements. And then what? Or you could sit on it. And then what? (Assume licensing is not an option; and it basically wasn’t a viable one for Windows Phone, with Microsoft making hardware.)

You’re almost better off treading water with your product and focusing on building up your business system – your distribution, customer service, marketing, etc. Meaning, keep your powder dry until you have the market reach to benefit from your innovation. …If you can ever reach that point… There’s really no good answer.

Back to licensing (mentioned above): If you *are* making a platform, like Windows Phone, and if you don’t have a good hardware business of your own, then you’re better off increasing the odds that others use it… obviously… For Microsoft, that means 1) Lower the price, to zero and 2) Stop competing with the mobile device makers that you want using your platform. #1 is done. #2 just happened, and it means you don’t need a smartphone hardware business and, hence, a leader for it.

This is one way to frame the situation that Microsoft faced. Add this to the fact that cloud computing is key to Microsoft’s future, and it probably became even harder for Mr. Elop and others to defend the investment that Microsoft would have needed to even have a shot at succeeding with smartphone hardware. Basically, it was too much of a drag or distraction for Microsoft, with a very low odds of success. Let’s see what Microsoft actually does with Windows Phone and Lumia models in the next few months.

______

1. As much as I love R&D, I’m not calling it out specifically here because it’s represented by the product factors, and because I want to focus on aspects that directly touch the buying consumer.

Share:Tweet about this on Twitter
Twitter
Share on Facebook
Facebook
Share on LinkedIn
Linkedin
Email this to someone
email

Filed Under: Microsoft, Nokia, R&D, Smartphones, Windows

SDKs are Signs of the Times

May 30, 2015

I couldn’t resist. These are all great companies, but they wield different degrees of influence, depending on the area. It’s also a reminder: The order of influence wasn’t always the same. Things change.

Apple: We have SDKs for iOS. Google: We have SDKs for iOS & Android. Microsoft: We have SDKs for iOS, Android & Windows. #io15 #ioxnj

— Nick Landry (@ActiveNick) May 28, 2015

Share:Tweet about this on Twitter
Twitter
Share on Facebook
Facebook
Share on LinkedIn
Linkedin
Email this to someone
email

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Google, iOS, Microsoft, OS, Windows

  • 1
  • 2
  • Next Page »

MOBILE FORWARD POSTS

Popular Posts

   Go to Complete List  ››

Latest Posts

  • The PC is Passé. What Now?
  • Google RankBrain: AI in Search
  • Tim Cook on Cars
  • Foxconn Makes About 30% of the Components in a Tesla
  • A Search for Another Run-Time Model
  • How Tesla is Ushering in the Age of the Learning Car
  • Nobody Can Override the Director
  • Apple’s Bold Platform Risk
  • Toyota Executive: “Toyota has to change its ways” to Move Forward
  • Intel Working on an iPhone Modem: New Chatter
  • On Product Names
  • Windows Laptops Need Better Engineering, Not Better Marketing
  • On Robot Creativity and Imagination
  • Perfecting Pixar’s Movies Takes a Crazy Amount of Research
  • A Leading Indicator of Success

Categories

Archives

  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015

Mobile Forward

About
A
Contact

Categories

Recent Posts

  • The PC is Passé. What Now?
  • Google RankBrain: AI in Search
  • Tim Cook on Cars
  • Foxconn Makes About 30% of the Components in a Tesla
  • A Search for Another Run-Time Model

Support MF

Subscribe

Follow MF

Twitter
A
RSS
A
By Email

Search

Copyright © 2021 · News Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in