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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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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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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Android Market Share 28%, Google 10% and iPhone 21%. Should Google continue on its mobile path or change?

This week NPD released a report which had some encouraging report for Google’s Android which had 28% market share this quarter with iPhone’s 21% and Google’s Nexus One with 10% in the US. Finally, Android powered phones like Droid from Motorola and Droid Incredible from HTC are making inroads into Apple’s iPhone market because of the combined effect of good phones and a good network. Many iPhone enthusiasts will argue that these comparisons are not real since one phone is being pitted against 18 Android phones but that is the topic for a different blog.  The topic that I want to tackle in this blog is  – Can Android do even better and if so what should Google do before it is too late? I have owned and played with Nokia N series phones, Blackberry, Google’s G1, N1, Droid Incredible and iPhone.

Here are things I think Google should do if it wants to be a true leader in this space

1)   Reduce Fragmentation of Android

2)   Build phone for the masses and not just for tech savvy consumers

3)   Improve App Store Experience

4)   Leave hardware sales to OEMs

Reduce Fragmentation

Fragmentation = Too many versions, no defined minimum hardware spec, no defined minimum app set and incompatibilities across versions and vendors. Nokia is a prime example of a vendor whose customers and developers suffer everyday because of this issue while Apple enjoys almost zero fragmentation. Yes there is Linux but even that was organized by Redhat and couple of other vendors.

So, Google, please take a leadership role and put some discipline into various licensees, define and force some standards for the OEMs but maintain its open source, freely available advantages.

Build phone for the masses and not just for tech savvy consumers

I have used three generations of Android phones – G1, N1 and now HTC’s Incredible. Yes these phones are getting better with every release but Google needs to be improve Android’s usability for everyone. For doing most tasks, Android requires at least 2-3 times the number of clicks compared to an iPhone.  Being a tech savvy consumer, it didn’t take me long to get used to Android phone and get almost spoiled by the customization it offers.

So, Google, please hire some great UI folks who can mask the complexity for average user while keeping the customization advantages.

Improve App Store Experience

With the sales of Android going up, developers are happy and ready to look over many of the disadvantages of App Store. Monetization possibilities brings developers but actual easy monetization will keep them there. There are many forums just discussing issues after issues like mobile only availability, currency issues, poor discovery, lack of ability to send app links in blogs and others.

So, Google, please improve usability of App Store and make it easier to discover content and monetize while keeping control to the minimum.

Leave hardware sales to OEMs

After looking at what amazing additions HTC has done with its new Incredible phone and how OEMs have managed to make Android phones available through all operators in the US and abroad, it is high time Google abandons its own hardware sales and instead concentrate on doing the best in software that it is capable of. Yes, it should promote all OEMs and especially ones that are most innovative.

So, Google, please leave the hardware sales and manufacturing to your OEMs while you promote them and help them be successful.

Conclusion

Google has built an incredible software platform in Android which can be exploited fully by various handset manufacturers. Google should exercise some control in reducing fragmentation, improving usability, improving App store experience and leave hardware innovation to the handset vendors.

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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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Vertical Integration by VMWare – Acquisition of Zimbra good for them and the industry?

Computing Industry is moving from specialization to vertical integration and consolidation. There are numerous examples of this including Oracle buying Siebel and then Sun (Database to Applications to Hardware), Cisco getting into Computing and Applications besides Networking, HP buying EDS and 3Com and now VMWare buying Zimbra after Springsource. Is this good for the industry in general or are we in a phase which will end with disintegration in few years? Is VMWare move a good one for its customers, shareholders, employees or just for the acquired companies?

Quick overview of Cloud Computing – IAAS, PAAS, SAAS

Just to clarify an often confused term Cloud Computing, here is a diagram from www.openadc.org that captures its meaning for me.

Various Layers of Cloud Computing

Its components are:

• Infrastructure that includes Virtualization; an area VMWare leads today
• Infrastructure as a Service IAAS; a service offering to provide elastic renting of computing resources; an area Amazon leads today
• Platform as a Service PAAS; a service offering to provide an application development and hosting platform; an area where there is no clear cut leader today but many contenders
• Software as a Service SAAS; a service offering to provide various software applications offered as a monthly service; an area where Salesforce is the leader today

VMWare is a leader in the infrastructure market which has a good growth prospect but with renewed focus from Microsoft and commoditization of the area, it is a smart move for VMWare to look elsewhere for growth while continuing to defend its leadership position.

Industry Leaders in Infrastructure, IAAS, PAAS & SAAS

In the area of IAAS, VMWare is losing the battle as companies like Amazon and Rackspace are adopting alternate software.  VMWare has some wins with Terremark and Saavis but nothing significant in terms of installed base to justify a leadership position.

Regarding PAAS, the criteria for developers to pick one PAAS over another includes marketing help and ease of development. Most software developers also want independence and so selecting any one PAAS limits freedom for developers and that is why PAAS won’t be a big market any time soon. In the area of PAAS, there are many contenders including Salesforce’s force.com, Google’s less than stellar attempt at AppEngine  and Microsoft’s Azure and VMWare’s purchase of Springsource.

SAAS is the brightest spot of this market and the fastest growing segment not just for SMB but now is being adopted by larger enterprises as well. So, VMWare buying anyone in that space makes sense from a segment perspective. Why Zimbra?  It is true that most corporate customers want to adopt a hosted communication solution but Zimbra has only one leg of it while its competitors like Cisco, IBM, Microsoft and Google have a much bigger piece and vision.

Zimbra and VMWare – Entry into Unified Communications?

Zimbra already owns a piece of the market, has a good email product and will probably get more attention at the hands of VMWare whose focus, unlike Yahoo, is business customers. However that market is moving to Unified Communication an area where voice and email merge and require a different mindset. Moreover that will put VMWare’s Zimbra products in competition with its partners IBM and Cisco. VMWare will achieve initial success in this business as Zimbra had been a stepchild at Yahoo but can it really make a long-term success of this business?

Conclusion

VMWare virtualization customers are worried if this new move will defocus the company. Needless to say executive attention at VMWare will get divided but considering VMWare’s current lead in virtualization, they have very little danger of being displaced short term. However, longer term, virtualization is heading down the path to commoditization and so VMWare has no choice but to go up the stack. However, the issue remains whether VMWare can manage to lead at all these layers like Microsoft or will just be an “also ran” at other layers while endangering its current lead in virtualization with defocusing and inviting new competitors who are its current partners.

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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