Things are about to get tougher for Apple. Google late Wednesday made an unexpected announcement that it's selling Motorola Mobility to Chinese PC giant Lenovo for $2.91 billion, or less than a quarter of what it paid for the handset vendor just a couple of years ago. During the years Google owned it, Motorola lost money and market share, and the relationship caused tension between Google and the other Android vendors, particularly Samsung. It also led those other phone makers to develop their own software and services, rather than push those from Google. That amplified Android's fragmentation in the market. Overall, Google's purchase of Motorola turned out much better for iPhone maker Apple than for Google. That's now going to change. Related stories: Google sells Motorola unit to Lenovo for $2.9B With Motorola out, can Samsung, Google be BFFs again? Apple's higher standard: How 51M iPhones is somehow disappointing Apple's iPhone 5C misses the low-cost mark By ditching Motorola, Google frees Android from distractions Behind Samsung's push to rule the world Google, sans Motorola, can go back to focusing on what it does best -- making a really great operating system and apps. It can mend its relationship with Android leader Samsung and the other vendors. And it can concentrate on unifying and streamlining the Android experience, rather than worry about bolstering its own hardware operations. All of those factors mean that Apple may not be able to win over customers as easily as it has in the past. "Getting rid of Motorola helps Google, and anything that Google can do to create a more cohesive user experience across vendors is competitive to Apple," Current Analysis analyst Avi Greengart said. But Google isn't all Apple should be worried about. Up to this point, only Samsung has posed a real threat to Apple in smartphones. A combined Lenovo and Motorola, however, has the potential to take a large chunk of the market. It won't be easy or quick, but Lenovo has a strong track record for dominating markets it enters. Less than a decade after buying IBM's PC operations, Lenovo became the world's biggest PC maker . Already, Lenovo is one of the fastest-growing smartphone makers in China, a market that's also getting a lot of attention from Apple. Last year, Lenovo was the second largest smartphone vendor in mainland China by volume, up from eighth place in 2011, according to Strategy Analytics. That boosted its position in the global market in 2013 to fifth place behind Samsung, Apple, Huawei, and LG. At the same time Lenovo's market share has risen in China, Apple's has fallen. In 2011, Apple was the third largest smartphone vendor in the country. By last year, it had dropped to sixth place, according to Strategy Analytics. "Apple's lack of presence in the lower end of the smartphone market has cost it sizable volumes in China in recent years," said Neil Mawston, executive director of Strategy Analytics. Apple, predictably, has offered no public reaction to the Lenovo- Motorola news. We've contacted the company for comment and will update the report when we have more information. The iPhone maker doesn't have device pricing that touches the lower end of the market . So far, it hasn't needed or wanted to, but that will need to change if it doesn't want to be relegated to niche status. Already, the low end of the smartphone market is growing much faster than the high end. Strategy Analytics expects Apple's deal with China Mobile to boost it to fifth place in the Chinese market this year, but that's nowhere near the position of Samsung or Lenovo. And Apple's less expensive, more colorful iPhone 5C has failed to catch on with users. Apple positioned the device as more of a mainstream product, but it's still too pricey for developing countries. And it turns out that most people are buying the higher-end iPhone 5S that includes a fingerprint sensor, Apple CEO Tim Cook acknowledged during the company's earnings conference call earlier this week. Apple won't just face Lenovo in China. The company also will use Motorola to break into the US market. Lenovo gains not only a well-known brand with Motorola but also closer relationships with US carriers and retailers. The company wants to become the world's biggest seller of smart devices -- which includes PCs, tablets, smartphones, and smart TVs -- and it won't be able to do that without addressing the US market. Lenovo won't become Apple's biggest threat overnight. It will take awhile for the Chinese company to figure out its strategy with Motorola, and Lenovo also will have to invest heavily to get Motorola back on its feet. In the meantime, Apple and Samsung won't be slowing down in their efforts to dominate the market. But a few years down the line, it may be Samsung and Lenovo jockeying for the top mobile spot, not Samsung and Apple.
Thursday, 30 January 2014
10 years from now it’s Google’s world: we’ll just be living in it
I don't have a crystal ball, so it's hard for me to see into the future like some. But the writing appears to be on the wall in the technology industry: Google, the company that made a name for itself in search, will go on to become the most influential and important company in the world within the next decade. Moreover, the company's efforts will turn us all into citizens of a world we'll call Google.
Yes, I know this sounds a bit extreme, and I can appreciate that some people who don't like what the search giant is doing find that more than a little disconcerting. The truth is, though, Google is the only company that I can point to right now in the industry that is committed to not just sticking to iterative updates to its products. No, Google is in it to innovate. And there's something to be said for that.
Looking beyond the more well-known Google services, one will find an awful lot of reasons to think that, eventually, Google will be dominating the world.
The company has acquired nearly 10 companies in the last year to start a robotics program headed up by Andy Rubin that could very well turn our lives on their heads. Moreover, the search company has invested heavily in green technology, it's funding another rover to go to the Moon, it's trying to bring the Web to areas that have historically not had access to the Internet, and it's even trying to make us live longer.
And with tens of billions of dollars of cash on hand, it's entirely possible that the company's recent spending spree into other areas only continues. After all, why not buy up companies with promising technologies?
I can see a future where we're so overrun with Google products that it'll be hard to view it as anything other than another GE. We'll be wearing Google-branded prescription glasses that can give us directions and surf the Web. We'll be going to space on an elevator that lets us see what looking at Earth from up-top is all about. We'll even be using Google's medical equipment and insight to determine how we can see our great- great- great-grandchildren grow up.
Now, while this might all come off sounding somewhat "fanboy-ish” on my part, I should point out that the idea of a single company playing such a major role in our lives scares me. But, at the same time, it excites me. I'm happy to see that at least one company wants to do something special and above and beyond what we're used to, though I'd prefer to see multiple companies doing the same.
Where has vision gone in the industry? Where has the desire to do great things gone in the industry? Right now, Google is the only major company trying to change our lives in a huge way. And unless someone else comes along to compete on that, Google will soon run the world we're living in.
The Motorola gambit: what Google really got by selling an American icon
Google’s romance with Motorola was star-crossed from the start. With the $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola it wasn’t just taking on an ailing manufacturer — challenge enough — but simultaneously competing with Google’s own hardware partners in the Android ecosystem, meaning it had to tread carefully. The payoff for all that heartache? Motorola’s impressive collection of 24,000 patents and patent applications. Unfortunately for Google, the much-ballyhooed war chest of intellectual property didn’t hold up in the courtroom.
Google’s initial motivation for buying Motorola was extremely simple: Motorola’s patent portfolio included core pieces of standard technologies like Wi-Fi and GSM. At the height of the patent battles between Apple and Android phone manufacturers like Samsung,governments around the world were undecided on whether those "standards-essential" patents could be used to completely block products from the market — and Motorola had already filed several lawsuits attempting to block the iPhone from sale in courts across the US.
IF GOOGLE HAD SUCCEEDED IN BLOCKING THE IPHONE IT WOULD HAVE BEEN THE SMARTEST $12.5 BILLION EVER SPENT
If Google had succeeded in using Motorola’s patents to block the iPhone, gain Congressional interest, and force Apple to the negotiating table, it would have been the smartest $12.5 billion ever spent.
Unfortunately, it didn’t quite work that way. Court after court rejected Motorola’s patent claims — the influential Judge Richard Posner of the 7th Circuit completely threw out the case after deciding neither Apple nor Motorola had even demonstrated any reason to be in court — and trade agencies in the US and Europe took a hard line against using standards patents to block products. In the US, Google settled a Federal Trade Commission investigation into its improper use of standards patents by agreeing that those patents would not be used to block products from market but instead be licensed fairly. And the value of a fair license plummeted: the court in Motorola’s case against Microsoft’s Xbox 360 found that Microsoft owed just $1.7M in royalties per year, far less than the $4 billion Motorola had demanded.
Motorola’s patent portfolio was essentially rendered worthless; an anemic licensing business compared to Google’s other massive revenue streams.
WHILE THE PATENT PLAY BLEW UP, THE HARDWARE SIDE MAY HAVE PAID OFF
But while the patent play blew up spectacularly, the hardware side of the Motorola acquisition may have actually paid off: by building its own phones, Google gained valuable leverage over the Android partners, particularly Samsung.
Motorola actually made some nice phones during its run at Google. The flagship Moto X was well-received by critics, including our own. "The additions to the software that Motorola has made are legitimately useful and really quite impressive," wrote Joshua Topolsky. "They add to the experience of Android without removing what is most vital in Google's software, unlike the competition, which seems intent on obscuring what's already a sophisticated and beautiful operating system." The Moto X never sold well, but it increased the pressure on Google's partners to build great products by showing what was possible.
The problem was that Google’s Motorola lacked the marketing and distribution power needed to actually sell enough phones. Despite a warm welcome from critics, Motorola’s losses widened to $248 million during the first quarter when the Moto X was on sale. "Motorola needs to build tighter relationships with other carriers after a long tie-up with Verizon on the Droid line," said Ross Rubin, principal analyst at Reticle Research.
Overall, Motorola had burned through $600 million since the acquisition and was on pace to bleed about $1 billion a year. To turn things around Google would have had to pour hundreds of millions into expanding marketing and distribution, upping the competition with its partners. Rather than doubling down on making its own phones, Google used Motorola as leverage to secure the Android ecosystem against a painful and expensive patent battle and to prod its partners into accepting its version of Android.
A FEW DAYS AFTER BRINGING SAMSUNG IN MORE TIGHTLY, GOOGLE LET GO OF MOTOROLA
Earlier this week it reached an interesting détente with Samsung: the two companiesagreed to share patents, helping each other defensively and not litigating against one another. At the same time, Samsung reportedly made concessions about what Androidwill look like on its future devices, agreeing to tone down the extensive customization and duplication of apps and services that characterize its most popular phones and tablets. It’s hardly a coincidence that a few days after bringing Samsung more tightly into the fold, Google let go of Motorola.
How long will this balance hold? The purchase of Nest indicates that Google has rethought its hardware strategy, preferring to avoid competition with its Android partners and instead invest in the wide-open world of connected devices and smart homes instead. Larry Page said as much in an email to staffers about the Motorola sale. "As a side note, this does not signal a larger shift for our other hardware efforts. The dynamics and maturity of the wearable and home markets, for example, are very different from that of the mobile industry. We’re excited by the opportunities to build amazing new products for users within these emerging ecosystems."
Of course, Samsung has plenty of interest in building a smart home of its own. The delicate dance goes on.
Google has another privacy snafu, is fined in South Korea
Google has been bumping into pockets of privacy violations across the globe recently, the latest of which has taken place in South Korea. This follows a recent issue in Canada, which arose from issues with advertisements and was resolved with an agreement, and abigger issue in France that surfaced last year and culminated in a big (except for Google) fine.
In a writeup on The Korea Herald this week, it was revealed Korea's communications regulator has elected to slap Google with a fine for the collection of personal data from residents while taking pictures for Street View. This is similar to past instances related to privacy and Street View that have arisen, and is followed with a $196,000 fine.
This is the first fine of this sort issued by the Korea Communications Commission against a global company for privacy law violations, said KCC chairman Lee Kyung-jae. He followed this up with a warning for other companies, as well. "This commission will punish those who collect information of the Korean public without exception."
Google is said to have collected information that spans several categories, incluing passwords and usernames, registration numbers for locals, MAC addresses, and what sounds like IP addresses (the KH isn't entirely clear). Google hasn't issued a statement on the matter yet.
VIA: BGR
SOURCE: The Korea Herald
Image via Carlos Luna
Android 4.3 Jelly Bean update for Sony Xperia M to arrive soon?
According to Vodafone Australia, Sony’s Xperia M smartphone could be updated to Android 4.3 Jelly Bean in the (near?) future. The carrier posted a list of upcoming updates for some of the smartphones that it’s selling, saying that the Xperia M should receive Android 4.3, as testing for this OS build has been already "scheduled."
Vodafone Australia’s Xperia M is the C190x model - the single SIM version of the handset, which at the moment runs Android 4.1.2. The dual SIM model, C200x, is already running Android 4.2, and we’re assuming that it, too, will get 4.3 at some point.
Vodafone also seems to confirm that 4.3 Jelly Bean updates for the Sony Xperia SP and TX are coming soon - just as we reported not long ago.
The Xperia M is currently widely available around the world. You can even buy it in the US, via the official Sony Store, where it costs $229.99 (unlocked, available in four color versions: black, white, purple and yellow).
source: Vodafone Australia via Xperia Blog
Lenovo CEO Yang certain that Motorola can turn a profit
After the announcement on Wednesday thatLenovo is buying Motorola from Google for $2.91 billion, Lenovo's Chief Executive Yang Yuanqing and Chief Financial Officer Wong Wai Ming answered some questions about the acquisition. Lenovo has yet to enter the U.S. market although it earlier stated its intentions to do so. According to Yang, purchasing Motorola gives Lenovo an instant entry into the states.
The executive calls Motorola a very good brand with plenty of intellectual property and a good relationship with carriers. He adds that his company will keep both the Motorola and Lenovo brands. The latter is strong in China and in emerging markets while Motorola is strong in the U.S. and Latin America. The CEO says that Lenovo might try using the Motorola name in China. He added that the company might go with something like "Motorola by Lenovo".
While Motorola was losing money under Google, Yang says that he believes that Lenovo can help Motorola turn a profit. The year after the deal closes, Lenovo expects to sell 100 million smartphones globally. As far as the deal is concerned, the executive expects no U.S. regulatory issues seeing as the handset business is a consumer business.
source: WSJ
Tesco Mobile introduces free 4G for new and existing customers
Tesco Mobile has today launched the UK's most competitively priced 4G, which will be free for new and existing customers using its already bargain-basement tariffs.
Starting today, the deal will apply to Tesco Mobile's pay-monthly and SIM-only Tesco Mobile contracts. Customers paying as little as £7.50 per month will be able to get speedier data on a SIM-only contract that includes 250 minutes, 5,000 texts and 500MB of data. That's a rather measly data allowance to pair with super-speedy internet, but it's still pretty much the cheapest way to have 4G at your fingertips.
Tesco Mobile has also said it will be launching 4G data bundles for pay-as-you-go customers and will be adding to the range of 4G-enabled devices it offers with phones such as the magnificent Moto X and the superb Sony Xperia Z1 Compact.
"After giving customers the chance to try 4G at their own pace with our flexible 4G tariffs, we've seen people really benefit from what it has to offer. Customers should be able to expect more from their mobile network, so as we see demand for 4G become more widespread, we wanted to take a different approach, said Simon Groves, Tesco Mobile's chief marketing officer in a statement.
"As a network we hope that this move will challenge others in the market and encourage the industry to follow suit. We want to see 4G with no extra cost become the norm and networks making the very latest technologies accessible for all."
So far Three is the only operator to offer free upgrades to 4G data, although it has been slow to roll it out and has so far only offered a limited number of customers the opportunity to upgrade. EE has led the charge, being nearly a year ahead of all the other operators in launching its 4G network, meaning it has good coverage, but it doesn't come cheap. Vodafone and O2's 4G rollouts have helped to make pricing more competitive across the board and there are decent deals to be found, but 4G still remains an unjustifiable expense for many.
Tesco Mobile is the first one of the cheaper mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) to offer 4G. MNVOs use another operator's network infrastructure -- in this case O2's -- to provide their services at a reduced cost.
"Much like its supermarket sibling, Tesco Mobile has carved a niche for itself as offering good value service at rock bottom prices -- so it's not surprising it's the first to drop the cost of 4G. These are entry-level prices -- a win for those mobile customers who, until now, have been priced out of super-fast mobile internet," says Rob Kerr, mobile expert at uSwitch.com.
Indeed, if you've been holding off upgrading to a 4G tariff due to price, now might be the perfect time, although we recommend using Tesco Mobile's coverage checker first to make sure you'll get decent 4G signal in your area.
IDC warns of US tablet market saturation as Kindle Fire shipments fall
While Apple shipped 26 million iPads in its latest quarter and Samsung shipped 14.5 million tablets, both up from last year, IDC is warning that the overall tablet market in the US appears to be reaching saturation. "It's becoming increasingly clear that markets such as the US are reaching high levels of consumer saturation and while emerging markets continue to show strong growth this has not been enough to sustain the dramatic worldwide growth rates of years past," warns IDC’s Tom Mainelli.
Worldwide tablet shipments grew to 76.9 million during the all important holiday season quarter according to IDC, 28.2 percent more than the same period last year. However, the growth appears to be slowing. Apple shipped 74.2 million iPads during 2013 compared to 65.7 million iPads during 2012, just a 12 percent increase. That may change throughout 2014 thanks to the new iPad Air and iPad mini with Retina display, but IDC warns of "a more challenging environment for tablets in 2014 and beyond." Those challenges include high penetration rates and increased competition for consumer spending.
AMAZON'S KINDLE FIRE SHIPMENTS DROPPED IN THE HOLIDAY QUARTER
Amazon’s tablet shipments appear to highlight some of the slow down in growth during the recent quarter. IDC says Kindle Fire shipments dropped from 5.9 million in the holiday period in 2012 to 5.8 million in the same period last year. That’s a decrease of 1.7 percent, and the figures come just hours before Amazon is due to report its latest financial results. While iPad growth has slowed and Kindle Fire sales have decreased, Samsung’s 14.5 million shipments during the holiday quarter were almost double the 7.8 million it shipped during the same period in 2012.
Meanwhile, Lenovo may have just acquired Motorola’s phone business from Google, but it’s also starting to ship more tablets worldwide. After shipping just 800,000 during the 2012 holiday quarter, shipments grew to 3.4 million during the latest holiday quarter. Despite the PC market decline, Lenovo has managed to grow its share of PCs and is the top manufacturer worldwide. With tablet saturation in the US, and the PC market declinestarting to stabilize, 2014 could be the year where we start to see less dramatic shifts in PC and tablet sales.
Android app will warn you when your other apps snoop on your location
Researchers have found a way to warn users every time when Android applications are tracking their location. A dedicated app is being developed for the Android platform that will warn you when apps snoop on your whereabouts, and it will pop up a warning to let you know that you are being spied on. The new app, said to be coming on Android’s Google Play store within the next two months, has found a novel way to detect app spying without requiring you to root your device.
The new app aims to help ordinary users understand when their location is being accessed by third party applications. It will display a large and easy to understand banner saying “Your location is accessed by [name of app]”. Currently, Android does show a small crosshair icon in the upper taskbar that appears every time an app accesses your location, but researchers have concluded that the meaning of this icon is obscure to the regular user. In fact, a field study led by Rutgers University’s Janne Lindqvist, concluded that users were shocked to learn just how frequently apps use their location data, after dealing with a prototype of the new notification app.
“People were really surprised that some apps were accessing their location, or how often some apps were accessing their location,” Lindqvist said.
The end goal of the upcoming app is first, to raise awareness among people that they are being tracked very often, and second, to put pressure on Google and app developers to be more conservative with location queries.
Interestingly, Google’s has already flip-flopped positions on the location permission issue. First, with Android 4.3 Jelly Bean it allowed users to disable permissions for specific apps, and then, shortly after, removed the newly introduced feature in Android 4.4 KitKat.
It’s also interesting how Lindqvist’s team had to use a function within the Android location application programming interface (API) to get a signal for every access to location. “People have previously done this with platform-level changes—meaning you would need to ‘root’ the phone,” says Lindqvist. “But nobody has used an app to do this.”
source: MIT Technology Review
Apple launches iOS 7.0.5 iPhone update in several regions
Apple has just launched iOS 7.0.5 update for the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c. It makes some minor bugs go away and fixes network provisioning for Chinese models.
According to user reports the new update is rolling out in China, Croatia, Germany and the UK with the rest of the world seemingly missing on it. It seems the update targets specific model iPhones and won't be available for all iDevices.
Meanwhile Apple is working hard on the upcoming iOS 7.1 update that should hit all compatible iGadgets worldwide very soon.
Source
According to user reports the new update is rolling out in China, Croatia, Germany and the UK with the rest of the world seemingly missing on it. It seems the update targets specific model iPhones and won't be available for all iDevices.
Meanwhile Apple is working hard on the upcoming iOS 7.1 update that should hit all compatible iGadgets worldwide very soon.
Source
Samsung escapes penalty after its lawyers leaked secret Apple documents
Late last year, Samsung found itself in trouble over claims it had secretly spied on Apple and Nokia documents to gain a better position in patent deals. It denied any wrongdoing, saying it hadn't done so wilfully, and now US judge Paul S. Grewal has finally drawn the same conclusion. PCWorld reports that the US District Court for the Northern District of California ruled Wednesday that the Korean company could not have used confidential information for its patent licensing talks with Nokia, a deal that was extended in November, because it already knew all of the terms ahead of the leak.
The court considered sanctions against Samsung after the company's legal negotiator, Dr. Seungho Ahn, had reportedly told Nokia that its terms with Apple "were known to him," even though they were marked "highly confidential -- attorneys' eyes only." Up to 50 Samsung employees were said to have been given non-redacted copies of Apple documents by its external counsel Quinn Emanuel, which included patent deals with Nokia, but also Ericsson, Sharp and Philips. While Samsung has escaped further action, the court will force its legal representatives to cover both Apple and Nokia's legal fees, effectively making the "junior associate working late one night" pay for underusing that big black marker.
SOURCE: PCWorld
Samsung SM-Z9005 Tizen phone put for sale on eBay, first photos emerge
Images of what is claimed to be one of Samsung's upcoming Tizen handsets have emerged when the SM-Z9005 phone appeared for sale on eBay, of all places. Someone jumped the gun prematurely, it seems, as the listing has been taken off, but the two pictures have been scooped up, and the styling jibes with the render of the Z9000 "Zeke" that we saw leaked not long ago.
Frankly, the alleged Tizen handset doesn't differ much from the typical Samsung style of phone-building, but we'll wait for the official unveiling on February 23rd, before we pass any opinions on the design. The important thing on it is the operating system, of course, though seeing how important backers like Intel are hesitant to pour resources in it, Samsung might have an uphill battle to fire up the platform basically on its own.
Lenovo ThinkPad Yoga 11e and ThinkPad 11e aim at education
Lenovo has rolled out some new ThinkPad machines that are aimed at use in schools. Since they are designed to be used by kids in the education environment, they are designed to be rugged. The new machines include the ThinkPad Yoga 11e and the ThinkPad 11e.
Both machines are optimized for K-12 students and are the same device in different form factors. The Yoga is a multimode device that can be used in four positions for comfort including laptop, tablet, tent, and stand. Both machines share the same hardware including an 11.6-inch LED backlit screen.
The screen has an anti-glare coating and the Yoga 11e also has touch capability. Both of the devices are powered by Intel processors and have LEDs to indicate connectivity, power, and sleep. The ThinkPad devices run the Windows operating system.
Lenovo isn't giving up some of the details on the machines. For instance, we don’t know how much RAM or storage space are inside. Since these are to be machines for education use, they likely have modest specs with some level of customization of hardware available. The price also suggests modest specs with the machines starting at $449. There will also be Chromebook versions of both models starting at $349.
SOURCE: Lenovo
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