Google’s buyout of Motorola – Winners and Losers

My company socialnuggets scoured through social media data to see who the winners and losers were in Google’s acquisition of Motorola. Some of them are very obvious. Motorola and Microsoft in the winners section, and Android OEMs such as HTC, Samsung and LG in the losers section. However, it is unclear whether Apple, Nokia, RIM and Mobile operators are winners or losers in this race. Here are some of our thoughts. Please add your comments:

Clear Winners

Motorola is a winner since it got an excessive premium over its current share price. Microsoft is a winner since all of Android licenses now want to at least invest some portion of their resources on Microsoft’s Windows Phone and its latest Mango version of Windows Phone is making progress in the market. PC Mag’s article has done a good job in explaining this.

But how will Nokia, RIM and Apple  fare from Googorola?

Clear Losers

Google’s Android, which has been gaining in popularity, may see some defensive moves from its OEMs such as HTC, Samsung and LG who feel threatened by Google- Motorola phone despite Google’s assurance to the contrary. Google is a loser since it has overpaid for a patent portfolio that may not have the same level of relevance today as when these patents were developed. To quote Dan Ravicher, the executive director of the Public Patent Foundation from this Huffington Post article” There’s a patent bubble — a lot of speculation and bidding up. This reminds me of the housing bubble, the dot-com bubble. Five years from now, people will realize that they have overbid.”

What about Apple, Nokia, RIM and others?

Is Apple a loser in this? If OEM’s jump the Android boat, Apple will see less competition from Android. In that case, Google will put its energy in Motorola phone and in creating an end-to-end experience like Apple which may be more of a threat to Apple in the long term.

Is it a win for RIM, the makers of Blackberry phones? RIM has been losing market share and this may accelerate it. However, it also has a rich set of patents which will now be overvalued like that of Motorola’s thereby helping increase the valuation of the company if someone were to acquire it.

Is it a win for Nokia? Nokia had a choice of betting on either Android or Windows Phone and it chose the later and now must be happy with its decision. If Google indeed becomes an end-to-end supplier that will put Nokia at a disadvantage. Like RIM, it also has a very rich patent portfolio that may be overvalued if Microsoft were to pull the trigger on buying Nokia.

This may reduce the choice for both the consumer and mobile operators and when that happens prices go up and innovation suffers. So no matter which company wins, the consumer loses.

Conclusion

With this deal of Google buying Motorola, Microsoft and Motorola seem to be clear winners while Google and most of Android OEMs seem to be clear losers. Apple may benefit or lose depending on how Google handles this acquisition. RIM and Nokia may benefit or lose depending on what Microsoft may decide to do. This may also affect consumer and mobile operator choices when it comes to smartphones.

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Why we created SocialNuggets.Net? Technology behind our analytics on smartphones

SocialNuggets delivers real time market intelligence for fast moving industries by analyzing data from various social media sources. Our mission is to liberate social media data and sentiment analysis for use in real time research of brands, products and features.

This blog post discusses the following:

• Changing landscape of marketing research
• Current approach
• Technology requirements
• How does SocialNuggets work?
• Summary

Changing landscape of market research

In the fast moving markets like smartphones, tablets, apparel and entertainment, traditional market research techniques like surveys and focus groups are just too slow and can’t be relied upon exclusively to make effective business decisions.  Today, most consumers express their opinions voluntarily on various forums, blogs, review sites and social networking sites. This data, if mined correctly, is a goldmine of consumer sentiments and opinions and can serve as a source of real time market intelligence and that  has been a missing piece in the market research area despite many advances in technology.

Current Approach

There are many enterprise software packages available that can be customized with lots of efforts and resources to get the right answers for a particular industry/company. Needless to say, this is expensive, time consuming, generally offered as an enterprise software behind firewall and not affordable even for many large companies.

Technology Requirements

In order to analyze this vast amount of Internet data we call social data, one needs the following tools and technologies

• Focused Harvesting
• Text Analytics
• Natural Language Processing
• Sentiment Analysis

As an example, we analyze over 1M conversations quarterly on the web related to smartphones, get rid of spam using our technology and then extract sentiments by

• Features (like long battery life is positive while long charging time is negative)
• Phone models (like HTC EVO, Apple iPhone 4)
• Brands (like HTC, RIM, Samsung, Sony Ericsson)
• Category (Android, Blackberry, iPhone, Windows Phone)

Our technology, developed over 20 man-years of effort, has been used by many companies for marketing research, customer service, lead generation and brand management.

How does SocialNuggets work?

In order to make our technology accessible to companies of all sizes with least amount of upfront investment, we have started SocialNuggets.net that provides detailed research from social media in various forms as following:

Individual nuggets that anyone can consume by embedding inside of their websites or forwarding to their friends and colleagues – this is free so long as you maintain attribution to SocialNuggets and/or Our partners

Monthly and Quarterly SocialNuggets Index for various markets which can also be used to make purchasing decisions

Data behind individual nuggets that can be purchased for internal analysis

Full data warehouse for internal analysis by companies’ internal business analytics package

Reports and Customized research reports created by our staff/our partners

Summary

We have started this site with research on smartphones and are adding new nuggets daily for anyone in this industry to consume, enjoy, share and engage in making fast but smarter business decisions.

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Mobile, Social & Cloud – How will these three trends of 2010 do in 2011? Part-I Mobile

Mobile Computing, Social Networking and Cloud Computing have been driving tech industry for 2010 and will likely continue to be the driver for this year. What differences, if any, will be felt in evolution of these trends this year. Here are some of my opinions and I sure would like to hear yours on these topics. Part-I of this blog deals with Mobile issues while Part-II will deal with Social Networking issues while Part-III will deal with Cloud Computing.

Mobile Computing Trends

The three big trends in Mobile Computing are:

• Android and Mobile Phones
• Tablets and iPad
• Apps Apps

Android and Mobile Phones

Android was the big news of 2010 and will continue its march into mobile dominance. However, as Android moves more into the mainstream, battery life, fragmentation, usability and app store issues will come in its way of total domination. Apple will innovate again this time improving speech interface and competing with Google on replacing our remotes, wallets and keys with mobile phone. In the mobile industry, the dominance for No.3 spot will be fought hard between Microsoft, Nokia and RIM. Who do you think will be the winner in the end?

Tablets and iPad

Tablet was the big news of 2010 but competition to iPad only arrives this year. Android may take the second spot and battle for third spot will be fought between HP’s Palmtop, RIM’s Playbook and a player we don’t know about yet? Having used iPad for the last few months, I think Tablets have the potential to replace laptops for many users. What are your experiences?

Apps Apps

Apps was the big news of 2010 with limited monetization but new business models will emerge making monetization easier. HTML5 will become viable for many content applications and start to become the trend of 2011. In fact, that is the only way Microsoft, Nokia and RIM can neutralize some of the momentum of Android and iOS applications. You can see over 70 conversations on Linkedin at http://linkd.in/h7hhr5 about this topic

Conclusion

Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS will continue its dominance for mobile phone and tablets but battle for No.3 spot will be fought between HP, Microsoft, Nokia and RIM.

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What is iPad good for? How does it compare to smartphones and laptops?

After reading Wall Street Journal’s Walter Mossberg and a Microsoft diehard on how great Apple’s iPad is and then other influencers like Vivek Wadhwa deciding to craigslist their iPad, I decided to find for myself and share my experiences with other prospective buyers and customers of iPad.

Let us first understand few key differences or killer features of iPad before understanding its usage

• Orientation – The mere fact that laptop creates screen as a barrier between two people while iPad allows you to be at the same level as the other person, iPad is a better media consumption device for individual and a co-worker.
• Instant On and Connectivity – Brooke Crothers, in his CNET article about Four Killer Features identifies this as a key one and I fully agree that it changes everything.
• Battery Life – Being able to watch movies throughout the intercontinental flight and still have battery left over is an achievement that makes iPad ideal for media consumption of all kinds.
• Size and Weight – Weighing a mere 1.5 Pounds and the size of a standard notebook, it is much more portable than a laptop but not as tiny as a phone.

iPad is a media consumption device and most of us are consumers of media most of the time with occasional commenting and replies. However, if you are a media creator like a writer, movie creator or database entry person then iPad is a wrong device for you. Once we agree it is a media consumption device, let us compare it with other devices for different media types so that you can make a more informed decision on whether iPad is the best device for you or not. When I hear stories like my 3-year old and my grandfather who have never been comfortable with a laptop are now enjoying the company of iPad, it just confirms my assertion that it is a good media consumption device even for non techies.

In my opinion, Table 1 below is a comparison of how each of the three devices compare for various media consumption functions. A is the best with C being the worst and B in the middle. I will expand on these points in subsequent blogs and look forward to hearing your feedback on these.

Conclusion

iPad is not a media creation device but is a media consumption device. As a media consumption device, it sure beats a laptop or a smartphone. It is not a replacement for either of these devices but an attempt by Apple to create a new category that will soon be imitated by many vendors.

However, iPad needs some major changes like inclusion of Flash (unless Apple can hire Harry Porter to use his wand and have all of the Flash sites converted to HTML5 overnight), new applications written for iPad like multimedia textbooks beyond just PDF version of books and inclusion of camera and facetime like application.

Table 1 – Rating of Media Consumption for Laptop, Smartphone and iPad

Type of Media	Laptop	Smartphone	iPad	Comments
Web Surfing	A	C	B	iPad’s lack of Flash limits its use on many sites
Reading Newspaper & Magazines	B	C	A	Reading Newspapers & Magazines is really pleasant on iPad apps – consistent with Cooper Murphy
Reading Non-Text Books	B	C	B	Kindle beats iPad here for its size and screen type
Reading Text Books	B	C	A	Lack of multimedia content is limiting iPad here
Enjoying Music	C	A	B	Smartphone smaller size better for music listening
Sharing Pictures in person	B	C	A	Great screen and orientation of iPad makes it the best portable Photo frame
Watching Movies	B	C	A	Excellent battery life and great screen makes iPad the best in its class
Using Social Networking like Facebok, Twitter & Linkedin	B	B	A	Using these apps from a couch or bed is just so much better on iPad
Playing Casual Games	C	A	B	Depends on the type of game
Running Enterprise Apps	A	C	B	VDI makes it easy to remotely run Windows Apps on iPad
Using on Airplane	B	C	A	Finally you can watch a movie even in economy

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Saving money on Wireless Roaming with Android, Blackberry and iPhone from USA to UK

I was planning to go on vacation to the UK for about 10 days and so looked for various articles to point me to the most economical way to roam in the UK for three of our family phones running on Android, Blackberry and iPhone. I didn’t find a lot of useful information before going there but learnt some useful information on my trip that I want to share in this blog and hope anyone traveling from the USA to UK will find it useful. I also think the same information will apply to other European countries as well.

So, here are various considerations in making the right decision on selecting your roaming service provider.

• US Mobile Operator’s Roaming Pricing
• Is your handset capable of Roaming?
• Is your handset Carrier Locked?
• Duration of trip
• Voice Roaming
• Data Roaming – Android and iPhone
• Data Roaming – Blackberry

US Mobile Operator’s Roaming Pricing

AT&T, Sprint , T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless all offer international voice roaming and their rates vary from $1 to $2/minute.  Additionally, data roaming charges are in the range of $1-$1.50/MB. AT&T used to offer $69/Month unlimited data roaming for Blackberry but it not available anymore on its web site.

Is your handset capable of Roaming?

Most of handsets sold by AT&T and T-Mobile are capable of roaming on most of the networks in the UK and the rest of Europe. For handsets sold by Sprint and Verizon, only quadband 3G handsets are capable of roaming on the European networks.  Both Sprint and Verizon offer some Blackberry handsets that are quadband but none of the Android handsets on Sprint and Verizon websites are quadband and so unlikely to be suitable for roaming on GSM networks in Europe.

Is your handset Carrier Locked?

Most US mobile operators lock handsets in such a way that these subsidized handsets only work on their network. However, many operators offer unlock codes with AT&T and T-Mobile providing it free after 3 months of service except on iPhone. The good news for iPhone users is the availability of many public domain and paid tools to do carrier unlock which is not the same as jailbreak. In London, we could get this service from any of the  shops selling SIM cards for less than $10.

Duration of trip

If you are going on a business trip for a couple of days and not likely to visit the same country anytime soon, go with the plan offered by your mobile operator as the hassle of going on a pre paid plan is not worth the trouble unless you are going to be on the phone constantly.

Voice Roaming

If you only care about voice roaming then the best thing to do is to buy any local SIM card. Insert it into your unlocked GSM phone and you are in business. There are many voice plans with calls within UK costing over 25cents/min but offering less than 5cents/min calls to any international location including the US. The only downside is that you will have a new number but for the savings offered, it was worth taking the chance.

Data Roaming – Android and iPhone

I found T-Mobile SIM cards offering data services at a very reasonable price and configured automatically on all three phones I tried it on. On the other hand, O2 card didn’t work on my Android or Blackberry and every time I called the O2 operator, more money was taken out of my pre-paid account.The pre-paid T-Mobile SIM offered almost unlimited weekly data plan for less than $7.

Data Roaming – Blackberry

Most operators in the UK don’t support Blackberry on prepaid and if Blackberry/Outlook integrated email is needed, you have no choice but to stick with your US SIM card and pay for data roaming. However, I could get Internet connectivity on Blackberry and was able to access my Gmail and do browsing on it with T-Mobile SIM card.

Conclusion

If you are going to be roaming in the UK for more than couple of days, it is much more economical to use pre paid SIM than to pay large roaming fees to the US operators with only disadvantage being a new number. For Blackberry users, you can get voice and data roaming but not Blackberry messaging connectivity on a pre-paid SIM. For Android and iPhone users, pre paid SIM is the best economical option and gives you full connectivity at a very reasonable price.

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Can you survive going back to Blackberry after iPhone?

I liked my iPhone, but for reasons that belong in a different blog, I switched back to Blackberry after almost a year. First, it was difficult but having been used to Applications, I started discovery of app store on Blackberry and was pleasantly surprised and somewhat disappointed. This blog is about my journey back to Blackberry for now.

Gmail Integration

First positive change was recognition of Gmail by Blackberry in the form of a Gmail connector that made it easier to use. On the other hand, native Gmail app from Google still doesn’t work well on Blackberry as delete keys don’t work, it is slow, doesn’t do push and consumes more battery. Similarly, contact and calendar sync work fairly well.

User Interface

Lots of nice icons have been created on Blackberry Curve but their usability is poor especially after working with beautifully designed icons of iPhone. Most of the time you have to read the description of the icons to understand what they mean – case in point Application, Games, Downloads, Setup just look so similar. Finding App Store on your Blackberry is a challenge – It has Applications and then Downloads menus. App Store is hidden under Downloads and that is where Apps come before you decide to move it elsewhere.  I just wish Blackberry pays attention to these details as much as it has paid attention to Email and the curves on its keyboard.

How many Apps does one need?

Coming from Apple iPhone experience, one needs lots and lots of apps and I had over 30 when I switched. However, Blackberry made me realize that I only really used less than 10 apps and so I came looking for applications that I really needed.

Communication/Social Applications

Besides Email, IM, and Facebook, Twitter was the missing piece and Blackberry just released a native app for Twitter that takes advantage of its push technology. It crashes sometimes but does work very well.

Navigation Applications

Google Maps is available and works well except that it drains battery if left on for a long time. Needless to say it is not as intuitive as Google Maps on iPhone. There is a good new app called Poynt that gives you neighborhood restaurants, movie theatres, gas stations and white/yellow pages.

Games Applications

Needless to say, there is no match here between iPhone and Blackberry and a lot of it has to do with the touch interface, developers’ focus and the target users. Blackberry now has many more native games besides Brick Breaker and a whole lot of third party apps are also available in their store.

Entertainment Applications

Pandora and Stitcher radio applications are both available on Blackberry and work well. The missing piece is an ability to have Apple’ iPod like functionality that can play the music from my iTunes library.

Conclusion

I am comfortable using Blackberry with my repertoire of  applications but just wish that browser experience was better on Blackberry; a feature I sorely missed in switching from iPhone.

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Twitterization of our culture – Its Pluses and Minus and Lessons for Businesses

We all know what Twitter is but I couldn’t find a clear cut definition of Twitterization – a phenomena that is permeating cultures everywhere especially among the younger population. Twitterization, like Twitter, is real time but rather than just being limited to 140 characters (VoIP pioneer Jeff Pulver even has a conference dedicated to that), I would call it a byte sized communication whether it is 140 words or a short message or a picture or a video. Most dieticians recommend smaller but more frequent meals for weight loss kind of like what happens in twitter land.

Therefore, Twitterization is

• Real Time Communication
• Byte Sized Communication
• More frequent Communication
• Communication whose purpose is to build & support community

So let us see its impact on various segments of business and share your opinions:

• Twitterization of Media
• Twitterization of Marketing
• Twitterization of Customer Support
• Twitterization of Software Development

Twitterization of Media – Getting to news is fast and seeing the same article many times in your twitter feeds in a matter of seconds is common. We are well informed at least on the headlines, if not on the details. Media has adopted that culture very fast but in a race to be real time, the quality of communication has suffered. Grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, and lack of fact checking have become commonplace; these problems are sometimes corrected but often aggravated by crowd sourcing. How has this affected our consumption of different types of media?

Twitterization of Marketing – Product development for companies can be done much more efficiently, but the down side is that people participating in your twitterization efforts will be self-selected. Therefore, one has to apply the right filters in selecting the right group in order to attract the most intended audiences. A product or company can rise fast but can easily fall faster too. So what are your experiences in twitterization of marketing at your companies?

Twitterization of Customer Support – This is one area that can be revolutionized for good if the companies are honest and supportive of these efforts; Comcast and Southwest serve as good examples. I have seen many a company fail at it or adopt it too late in the game. What is your experience with twitterization of customer support at places you used to call for support?

Twitterization of Software Development – The rise of Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android apps stores is creating a culture of software development that calls for churning out quick applications with ephemeral popularity. Just as developers are quick to churn out new applications, users are just as quick to use and toss them as well. Vivek Wadhwa wrote an article on “What’s better – Saving the world or Building another facebook app” and this may provide one of the answers to his questions.

While Twitterization undoubtedly has its benefits, one of the main concerns I have about it is the current and future impacts on the younger generation. The new byte-sized real-time culture that they are embracing with increasing frequency may have the effect of upsetting advancements in science and research, as these are avenues that require extended focus and concentration (the antithesis of twitterization).  Tell me what you think?

R. Paul Singh

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10 Equations to describe Apple’s new iPad

I have been sifting through Apple’s web site and many of the news and blogging sites to learn more about iPad. Needless to say now that hype is reality, there are more negative comments than positive. There are lots of

• Will you buy it?
• How will you justify it?
• Which device is it most similar to?
• What are its advantage and disadvantage over other equivalent devices?

So, I have put together 10 equations comparing it to equivalent devices along with its major pluses and major negatives over the device. Tell me what you think?

• iPad = iPhone + bigger size – phone – camera

• iPad = iPod Touch + bigger screen – mobility

• iPad = iMac + personal touch screen – multi-tasking – hard drive

• iPad = Kindle + multimedia + interactivity – price

• iPad = Netbooks + personal touch screen – multi-tasking

• iPad = TV + interactivity + personalization – price – smaller size

• iPad = PS3 + touch screen + better UI – Blue ray

• iPad = Car entertainment system + portability + interactivity – one to a person – integration

I know these are only eight while I promised ten in the title. Now that you have read these, I am sure you have your list and so add it here and help make this list complete to ten. Thanks in advance.

R. Paul Singh

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5 missed opportunities by Google in launching Nexus One

It is no secret that Google’s launch of Nexus One phone was less than stellar. Google had so many opportunities to become a game changer in the mobile phone market but missed most of it either because it was in a hurry to launch or just didn’t think hard enough to be different from Apple’s iPhone and others. Here is a list of my Top5 opportunities they missed. Let me know what do you think?

1)   New Data only Phone – Google was Industry’s only hope for creating a data only phone i.e. a mobile phone that worked exclusively on the data network wherein voice was just a data service running on VOIP (voice over Internet protocol). With Google Voice it had a chance to do so but failed to deliver a new experience and instead chose to just add Google Voice this as another application something Skype has been doing on many phones for a long time.

2)   Worldwide Launch – No mobile phone manufacturer, except RIM in a limited way, has ever succeeded in launching a phone globally on the same day. Google came very close with availability on its web site but missed a part of US, China, India and Korea by not having all GSM and CDMA support at the same time.

3)   Pricing Model – Google had a great opportunity to create a low price smart phone and break the mobile operator’s hold on multi-year contracts in the western world where mobile phone is subsidized by the operator. It could have subsidized the phone for a while and create a new pricing model. It could have become an MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) if that is what it took to pay for the phone. Instead Google did whatever everyone else did but settled on taking smaller margin between itself and its partner HTC.

4)   Speech as a New Interface – Google came close but only got to a beta or alpha stage for using Speech as a new interface on Mobile. Another missed opportunity!

5)   Getting rid of Bluetooth Headsets – Despite various new styles, very few people like their Bluetooth headset but are forced to use it due to various handsfree driving laws. Google seems to be getting close to eliminating them with a better audio design but wait -  it does need a Car Kit that according to Google is still not available. Again in a hurry to launch!

Bottomline, Google missed an opportunity to change the mobile industry and just became a me too player challenging Apple’s iPhone. What do you think?

R. Paul Singh

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Should RIMM buy PALM or adopt Android like Motorola or Apple?

RIMM had a great quarter – a time after which companies usually forget to do the right things. On the contrary this is really the best time for RIMM to react now before it is too late. So here goes my thinking on what they should do and soon…

It is very clear that RIMM’s unique advantage of Blackberry push email is not sufficient for it to retain the market leadership. First Apple’s iPhone, then PALM Pre and now Verizon’s Droid are eating at its market share slowly and RIMM has to respond to stay relevant. One thing is clear that current OS of Blackberry has reached its limit and that is one area RIMM has to find an alternative while retaining its unique advantages. It needs developer community and a great web experience to compete – getting to new customer segments will be a nice bonus.

It has four possible choices

• Build a new OS
• Buy PALM
• Google surrender strategy
• Google enhancement strategy

Build a new OS

Building a new OS will not bring developers easily to Blackberry and so that choice seems impractical. Yes I know Samsung went against the common wisdom and introduced Bada its new OS but got a big yawn from the market so far.

Buy Palm Inc.

Buy PALM which is currently at a market cap of $1.65B and would probably cost close to $2B. What would RIMM gain is WebOS, a great Web experience but not necessarily developers. Yes it will get access to a younger market segment that PALM manage to penetrate but RIMM could put the $2B elsewhere for a better return.

Adopt Google’s Android

RIMM can finally eat its pride and make the right business decision by adopting Google’s Android. There are two ways to adopt this strategy

• Follow Motorola’s Lead or Google surrender strategy wherein the handset vendor just builds the hardware and adopt Android as is  – kind of like what Motorola did with Droid for Verizon Wireless ( In all fairness, Motorola did some work on its Cliq for T-Mobile)
• Follow Apple’s Lead or Google enhancement strategy wherein the handset vendor not only builds hardware but adds its unique values and controls the end to end user experience. This is similar to what Apple did with BSD UNIX and created Mac OS X.

Conclusion

RIMM should adopt Google Android and add its unique push email, sync, security and other goodies while continuing to control end to end user experience.  This will give RIMM a better OS, developers and continue to maintain its unique advantages.

What do you think RIMM should do? Share your opinions here.

R. Paul Singh

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