Samsung Galaxy a worthy iPhone rival

Walt Mossberg, the most popular gadget reviewer for Wallstreet journal reviews Samsungs Galaxy series which is built on top of android platform.

Please find the video below:



Competition is good and iam happy Android is steadily gaining the ground. Also the number of apps available on android platform is increasing. It’s good news to consumers. Expect to see more innovation in the Smartphone space.

Mobile Video services to make $2 billion

According to ABI research , Mobile video services is expected to generate revenue of $2 billion worldwide in 2013. This should be good news to all the Mobile video players like Skype, Fring, Apple etc. The mobile video includes Video Telephony, Video Messaging, P2P and Web 2.0 video sharing and live streaming. Apple recently launched its ambitious Mobile Video calling via FaceTime with iPhone 4. Though I don’t have an iPhone 4, I had the privilege to watch the FaceTime demo from one of my colleague and it was awesome. Already lots of folks are raving about FaceTime. Mobile Video calling is still in its infant stage and needs a big push from one of the Big Carrier/Mobile Vendor. Looks like Apple is pretty serious about mobile video and iam sure they will play a pivotal role in making this feature popular. Iam glad Apple is driving the technology.

The uptake of Mobile video service also depends on the wireless bandwidth availability, and this is one of the reasons most of the operators are moving towards LTE. Consumer’s appetite for mobile entertainment is increasing and thanks to iPhone’s and the droids. The mobile handset which was originally used for basic calling and messaging is now used as a primary entertainment device. In addition, consumers are willing to pay for the bandwidth usage. Web 2.0 services have definitely changed the Mobile industry. Information is Real-time. Be it Location, News, weather etc.

On a flip side, availability of mobile video capable handset and bandwidth can derail the growth of this service. The recent policy change of AT&T to charge for data based on usage is definitely going to hurt users while help operators make some more buck. If the service is compelling, consumers might be willing to pay some extra bucks and that might be a new avenue for operators to make money.

Some interesting tidbits from the article:

“Video services revenue will only amount to about $121 million this year,” says senior analyst Mark Beccue. “But the growth curve is very steep indeed, and will only continue to accelerate through the end of our forecast period in 2015.”

“MNOs mustn’t settle for the role of undifferentiated mobile ISPs that manage ‘dumb pipes’,” Beccue advises. “They should provide a variety of mobile video services and leverage strategic ecosystems until they upgrade their networks to provide quality video services. Partnering with device OEMs and software solution providers will help to optimize mobile devices. This will contribute to an already significant investment, but the rewards will be great.”

Though some folks are skeptical about Mobile Video calling, iam upbeat about the product and definitely think it has a bright future.

Apple’s Dream run with a Hiccup

Looks like Apple’s dream run with iPhone,iPad is going through some hiccups in the form of iPhone 4 antenna issues. Though the issue was observed immediately after the launch of iPhone 4, Apple ignored it saying it was not a big deal. And the man( Steve Jobs) of the era said consumers need to learn how to hold the phone. The irony is that during the iPhone 4 launch, he was holding the phone in the wrong way. After some more hue and cry by iPhone critics and users, Apple PR came up with some cooked up story of how a software glitch was causing these antenna signal bar issues and how a new software update would solve all the problem. So far so good. The latest report from Consumer report blog was the last nail in the coffin. This was picked up by almost all the media and blogosphere and exposed the arrogance of Apple. The impact was pretty big and it tanked Apple shares by 2%. Yes 2% of the shares were down and definitely not good news to the shareholders.

So here is my personal opinion about the whole fiasco. If Apple expects me to pay a premium price for their product, iam willing to pay as long as I get what is promised. But if there is a problem with the phone and iam asked to change my behavior or use some shit hack to make it work, Now that is ridiculous and arrogance beyond imagination. If the shit you manufacture has issue, go fix it rather than asking people to fix it. I hope the man I admire the most comes out with a common sense solution instead of stupid gimmicks.

There is lot of speculation on what could be a potential fix. A simple duct tape or an iPhone Bumper case . Some folks even suggest a recall is inevitable, which would cost Apple around $1.5 billion. In addition, every week delay would cost them $200 million dollars more.

The impact of iPhone antenna signal issue has reached its peak. Tonight show David letterman has fun at iPhone 4 expense:
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Android Gaining Momentum, Apple and RIM lose

According to ComScore’s data on Smartphone market for the three month average period ending May 2010, Google’s Android platform is making steady progress with a 4% increase in the Smartphone market share. Apple lost 1% of the market share for the same period. Google Android platform stands at number 4 with 13% of the market share. Though android is gaining momentum, it is still a long way for it to catch up with RIM and Apple. The overall gain of 4% comes from RIM, Apple and Microsoft. No wonder Microsoft lost 1.9% of the market in the same period. A total of 49.1 million people in the U.S owned Smartphone’s. Iam happy that Android is making steady progress and could become one of the biggest competitors to Apple’s iPhone. Though iam an iPhone freak, I think competition will keep Apple’s momentum in check. We don’t want to see another Motorola (Razr) story repeated from Apple.

From a manufacturer shares, Samsung is leading the pack with 22.4 percent market share followed by LG (21.5 percent), Motorola (21.2 percent), RIM (8.7 percent) and Nokia (8.1 percent).

Smartphone Platform Market Share:

OEM Market Share:

Mobile Content Usage:

More info Here.

Microsoft’s Kin debacle, big embarrassment

It’s sad to see Microsoft’s Kin’s failure. It has become a big embarrassment to Microsoft . Everyone has started trashing the management for the Kin’s failure. With Kin, Microsoft ventured into making a kiddie phone, which would be enjoyed by teenage girls and boys. Alas, they failed miserably. It spent over billion dollars on Kin, which includes the acquisition of Danger (Sidekick). I had a chance to look at both Kin1 and Kin2. The phones UI was cluttered and the form factor was very small. The whole unified view of social networking was a bit complicated. What’s disheartening is the fact that only 500 Kin phones were sold after the launch. Some even say that they could not even recoup the money spent on the launch party.

I have always been critical about Microsoft’s mobile phones and their OS. I tried couple of Smartphone’s that had windows OS and it sucked. For someone who was there from the early days in the Mobile space, I expected lot more innovation than the new crop of companies like Google, Apple or HTC. What a disappointment. I guess they have lost the battle. The iPhones or droids are way better compared to crappy windows mobile. Iam not sure if there are still developers out there working on the Windows Phone 7 train wreck. Stay away! Run, Run, Run. Oh worthy of mention is those TV commercial which sucked bug time. Sometime I feel Microsoft needs to get their act together on the marketing front. In addition, Mobile consumer market is very competitive compared to the Enterprise market. If people have choice, they will buy superior product even if they have to pay the premium (iPhone, iPad etc). No wonder apple is ruling the Mobile Smartphone space.

An unknown Microsoft source talks to Jay Yarrow:

"We had a huge launch party on campus and I bet that party cost more than the amount of revenues we took in on the product. As an employee, I am embarrassed. As a shareholder, I am pissed. It's one thing to incubate products and bring them to a proof-of-concept to see what works, but it's something else to launch. I suspect we launched because we felt like we HAD to so we could save face because we were trying to build buzz, but overall - HUGE fail."

Here are some interesting comments by former and current Microsoft employees including Danger folks on minimsft:

All I can say as a former Windows Mobile employee who is now working for a competitor in the phone space is that this is good news for the rest of us. [...] Personally I quit because of the frustrating management and autocratic decision style of Terry Myerson and Andrew Lees. The only exec in the team myself and other folks respcted was Tom Gibbons who is now sidelined. Lees and Myerson don't know consumer products or phones. Gibbons at least knows consumer product development. We often talk about how Andrew Lees still has a job but Microsoft's loss is a gain for the rest of us.

And

And now Kin is killed *after* it has shipped in June 2010. You can bet Andy was involved in the development of Kin, the partnership agreements with the OEM, Verizon and most importantly the "ship it" approvals all along the way. And Microsoft discovers its a bad idea after it blows up in the broad market. Absolutely no thanks to any pro-active decision making on Andy's part.
Now there is spin that Andy killed kin to put all the wood behind Windows Phone 7. Er, the guy was in charge for two years of Kin development. He could have made this decision far earlier.
Similarly Windows Phone 7 has two years of development under his watch. Based on his past performance, 99% chance this is also going to be a total catastrophe. It further doesn't help that much of the Windows Phone 7 leadership team was kicked out of Windows when they screwed up Vista.

And finally, one Danger-employee's point of view of why they became demotivated:

To the person who talked about the unprofessional behavior of the Palo Alto Kin (former Danger team), I need to respond because I was one of them.
You are correct, the remaining Danger team was not professional nor did we show off the amazing stuff we had that made Danger such a great place. But the reason for that was our collective disbelief that we were working in such a screwed up place. Yes, we took long lunches and we sat in conference rooms and went on coffee breaks and the conversations always went something like this..."Can you believe that want us to do this?" Or "Did you hear that IM was cut, YouTube was cut? The App store was cut?" "Can you believe how mismanaged this place is?" "Why is this place to dysfunctional??"

Please understand that we went from being a high functioning, extremely passionate and driven organization to a dysfunctional organization where decisions were made by politics rather than logic.
Consider this, in less than 10 years with 1/10 of the budget Microsoft had for PMX, we created a fully multitasking operating system, a powerful service to support it, 12 different device models, and obsessed and supportive fans of our product. While I will grant that we did not shake up the entire wireless world (ala iPhone) we made a really good product and were rewarded by the incredible support of our userbase and our own feelings of accomplishment. If we had had more time and resources, we would of come out with newer versions, supporting touch screens and revamping our UI. But we ran out of time and were acquired and look at the results. A phone that was a complete and total failure. We all knew (Microsoft employees included) that is was a lackluster device, lacked the features the market wanted and was buggy with performance problems on top of it all.

When we were first acquired, we were not taking long lunches and coffee breaks. We were committed to help this Pink project out and show our stuff. But when our best ideas were knocked down over and over and it began to dawn on us that we were not going to have any real affect on the product, we gave up. We began counting down to the 2 year point so we could get our retention bonuses and get out.

I am sorry you had to witness that amazing group behave so poorly. Trust me, they were (and still are) the best group of people ever assembled to fight the cellular battle. But when the leaders are all incompetent, we just wanted out.

Hilarious EVO 4G salesman vs iPhone 4 shopper video

These two videos below are hilarious.

Best acquisition employee mail from CEO,woot

Today Amazon acquired woot, a online web startup that is famous for selling one item a day. We have all read/seen many acquisitions in the past. However what's cool about this one is the mail that the CEO sent to his employees. It’s funny, cool, satirical and very well written. I guarantee it will be worth your time reading this mail.

My favorites:

Several months ago, when we were all sitting on Jeff Bezos’s bumper drinking orange Mad Dog and trying not to be noticed, we heard a voice in the distance yelling “You kids better not scratch my Mercedes or I’m calling the cops!” We ran.

Amazon's hoping our nutty Woot steez continues to grow and develop (and perhaps even rubs off on them a little). They’re not looking to have their folks come in and run Woot unless we ask them to, which incidentally you can do by turning off the bathroom lights and saying the word “Kindle” three times; a helpful Amazon employee will appear in the mirror.

Date: Weds, 30 June 2010
From: Matt Rutledge (CEO – Woot.com)
To: All Woot Employees
Subject: Woot and Amazon

I know I say this every time I find a picture of an adorable kitten, but please set aside 20 minutes to carefully read this entire email. Today is a big day in Woot history. This morning, I woke up to find Jeff Bezos the Mighty had seized our magic sword. Using the Arthurian model as a corporate structure was something our CFO had warned against from the very beginning, but now that’s water under the bridge. What is important is that our company is on the verge of becoming a part of the Amazon.com dynasty. And our plans for Grail.Woot are on indefinite hold.

Over the next few days, you will probably read headlines that say “Matt Rutledge revealed to be monstrous pseudo-human creation of Jeff Bezos.” You might even see this photo making the rounds. Rest assured that these rumors have nothing to do with our final decision. We think now is the right time to join with Amazon because, quite simply, every company that becomes a subsidiary gets two free downloads until the end of July, and we very much need that new thing with Trent Reznor’s wife on our iPods.

Other than that, we plan to continue to run Woot the way we have always run Woot – with a wall of ideas and a dartboard. From a practical point of view, it will be as if we are simply adding one person to the organizational hierarchy, except that one person will just happen to be a billion-dollar company that could buy and sell each and every one of you like you were office furniture. Nevertheless, don’t worry that our culture will suddenly take a leap forward and become cutting-edge. We’re still going to be the same old bottom-feeders our customers and readers have come to know and love, and each and every one of their pre-written insult macros will still be just as valid in a week, two weeks, or even next year. For Woot, our vision remains the same: somehow earning a living on snarky commentary and junk.

We are excited about doing this for all sorts of reasons. One, our business model is so vague that there’s no way Amazon can possibly change what it is we’re truly doing: preparing the way for the rise of the Lava Men in 2012. Also, our deal means that Jason Toon will finally be released from that Mexican jail owned by Zappos honcho Tony Hsieh. No, don’t lie, Tony, we’ve seen the paperwork. And we need a powerful ally in case Steve Jobs finally breaks down and comes after us for all our Apple jokes over the years. Don’t think of it as a buyout; think of it as NATO!
I will go through each of the above points in more detail later, but first, let me get to the top 5 burning questions that I’m guessing many of you will have.

TOP 5 BURNING QUESTIONS:
Q: F1RST!!!!
A: Okay, that’s not a question, but it is a good place to mention that our forums will still be policed by a team of moderators, as before. And also, Woot’s previous and always-in-effect privacy policy will still be just as always-in-effect, so don’t worry, there are no plans to suddenly give up or merge your forum data.

Q: Is Snapster leaving?
A: Are you kidding? He’s out the door about ten seconds after that check clea- that is to say, Snapster will continue as Woot.com CEO, just like before, and the rest of our staff’s not going anywhere either. Woot and all our various sites will continue to be an independently operated company full of horrible, useless products and an untalented jerkface writing staff, same as it ever was.

Q: Will the Woot culture change?
A: Amazon is interested in us because they recognize the value of our people, our brand, and our unique style of deep-tissue, toxin-releasing massage. And they don't want to start changing things now. Amazon's hoping our nutty Woot steez continues to grow and develop (and perhaps even rubs off on them a little). They’re not looking to have their folks come in and run Woot unless we ask them to, which incidentally you can do by turning off the bathroom lights and saying the word “Kindle” three times; a helpful Amazon employee will appear in the mirror. That said, Amazon clearly knows what they're doing in a lot of areas, so we’re geeked about the opportunities to tap into that knowledge and those resources, especially on the technology side. This is about making the Woot brand, culture, and business even stronger than it is today, and we expect that any changes will be for the better or we wouldn't bother with this endless paperwork.

Q: Where can I get one of those vuvuzelas?
A: Are you even paying attention?
Several months ago, when we were all sitting on Jeff Bezos’s bumper drinking orange Mad Dog and trying not to be noticed, we heard a voice in the distance yelling “You kids better not scratch my Mercedes or I’m calling the cops!” We ran. It was later that night when Amazon came by the house and said they liked our style and also wanted to get that money we owed them for messing up the chrome. We like to think that our relationship with Amazon will continue at this level for many, many, many years to come.

But we here at Woot are still a thoughtful company, so, at the end of the day, I watched the sunset, and its golden-hued glory made me think about two questions:

1) Is there really a universal deity?
2) Does such a thing preclude free will or are we humans in control of our own destiny?

After spending a lot of time falling asleep at the library while facing the philosophy books, I determined that the concept of destiny is a construct that allows man a gentle release from facing the terror of his existence, and that a Hyundai full of twenties would pretty much offer the same benefits. And so, I ultimately said YES!
This is definitely an emotional day for me. The feelings I’m experiencing are similar to what I felt in college on graduation day: excitement about getting a check from my folks combined with nausea from a hellacious bender the night before. I remember fondly that time when an RA turned on the lights and yelled “WHO OWNS THESE PANTS?” Except this time, the pants are a company, and the RA is you, and the sixty five hours of community service is a deal that will ensure the Woot.com experience can continue to grow for years and years and years, like a black mold behind the Gold Box. Join us, because together, we can rule the galaxy as father and son. Also, there will be six muffins waiting in the company break room, courtesy of the nice folks at Amazon.com. Welcome to the family!
Matt Rutledge
CEO, Woot

Google Voice for everyone

Finally Google opened up its sign-ups for Google Voice service to all USA residents. This should be good news to all the folks who were waiting for a Google Voice invite. So looks like the competition is heating up in this space. There are so many areas that Google Voice competes with other apps like Skype and Service Providers. I’m sure service providers will be looking at this news with caution. With the money and resource power, Google has the potential to enter Service provider arena and scare the hell out of incumbent providers. It might be a stretch for Google to truly compete with service providers considering the infrastructure advantage the latter has. However, they can tout themselves as a new type of service providers with major web presence. Anyway too early to predict the verdict. Don’t waste your time, go ahead and grab your Google Voice account here.

One of the important features that Google should think of adding is Number Portability. This feature will help consumers port their existing numbers to Google Voice.

What is Google Voice Video?


Interesting Modern Human communication picture that depicts Google Voice role:

IMS, is it just a Hype?

The hype surrounding the IMS (IP Multimedia subsystem) deployment is slowly fading away. In reality, IMS deployments are moving in snails pace. I have been hearing about IMS for more than a decade now with no sight of any concrete deployment from operators. There are very few operators around the globe who have deployed or promised to deploy IMS in their network. Some of the big operators in North America are focusing on LTE/WIMAX and there is no mention of IMS. According to TM forum’s yearbook , more than 100 operators acknowledge they will convert their network to IMS in the next five years. Alas I have been hearing this for a long time now.

Why do we need IMS? IMS was touted to be a service agnostic platform using which third-party applications can run on operator network. It was a bridge between web 2.0, messaging 2.0 and voice 2.0 and the Telco platform. Service creation and execution using IMS framework was supposed to seamless and easy. It had lot of promise from a platform perspective. Infact it was an answer from Telco to the growing popularity of Web 2.0. The layered architecture of IMS addressed all technical challenges that exist in today’s Legacy Circuit switched networks. IMS was originally designed for mobile but was extended to cover Wi-Fi and fixed line services as well. What was lacking with IMS was a good business case for Operators to justify the investment in the platform.

According to Ibrahim Gedeon, TELUS CTO, IMS was “a waste of seven years” by wireless industry that was trying to bring its voice service into the IP realm. One of the reports published late last year by Alan Quayle of Mind Commerce, IMS still remains niche. Even in the year 2014, only 32% will commence IMS deployment.

Here are some reasons I can think of why IMS is not getting its share of limelight:
• Lack of Compelling business case to justify the investment
• No IMS killer app to drive the requirement of IMS. Most of the promise by IMS can achieved without an IMS network.
• Lack of standards compliance including billing and Operational support system
• Service providers are still not convinced that implementation of IMS would translate into reducing costs and complexity.
• IMS brings in lot of promise and innovation. However service providers do not understand how to address and embrace innovation from a platform standpoint.
• Lack of understanding between IMS vendors and Service providers.

There is still some hope for IMS. Rich Communication Suite (RCS) another standard from GSMA aims to unify the communications experience by tying together presence, voice, chat and multimedia services over IMS. RCS holds a lot of promise, and we are already seeing operators (Orange, SFR etc) deploying RCS compliant handsets in the market. By 2011, there will be 7.3 million RCS subscribers mostly in Western Europe and Asia Pacific. If RCS does well, there will be strong push for IMS network.

iPhone 4 Pre-Orders Unbelievable!

iPhone 4 pre-order sales yesterday were 10-times higher than the previous iPhone 3GS pre-order last year. A total of 600,000 pre-orders were processed yesterday. I think AT&T’s new data plan combined with awesome features of iPhone 4 has made consumers go crazy for iPhone 4. AT&T has officially suspending pre-ordering today. It had more than 13 million visitors to its website checking for upgrade eligibility. No wonder Nokia lowered its forecast for Q2. Sorry Nokia we understand your pain.

The significant amount of traffic to AT&T and Apple brought massive failure to both the systems.

Below is the statement released by Apple apologizing for the system failure:

CUPERTINO, Calif., June 16 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Yesterday Apple and its carrier partners took pre-orders for more than 600,000 of Apple’s new iPhone 4. It was the largest number of pre-orders Apple has ever taken in a single day and was far higher than we anticipated, resulting in many order and approval system malfunctions. Many customers were turned away or abandoned the process in frustration. We apologize to everyone who encountered difficulties, and hope that they will try again or visit an Apple or carrier store once the iPhone 4 is in stock.