Nokia Android “X” is real and among us

After several rumors the Android Nokia, know also as “Normandy Project”, is a real stuff.
Yes, the Android Nokia is real device. Stephen Elop some minutes ago, during Nokia Conference at Barcelona Mobile World Congress, presented three variants of first Android Nokia device.
Nokia X, X+ and XL.

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Stephen Elop presents “X” series, thanks to http://www.engadget.com press live

Elop said in MWC that with AOSP (Android Open Source Project they use on such device family) they -Windows more than Nokia I suppose- benefit from the Android app ecosystem, but with added their own differentiated experience and, in fact, Here Maps, MixRadio, Skype and Outlook will be offered. Nokia (Microsoft) intention is that “Nokia X gives people a gateway to Microsoft.” As first marketing program for “X” customers MS will give for Skype 1 month free call to landlines and mobiles, and 10GB free One Drive storage.
The shape is quite similar to Asha and there are a certain degree of personalization.
The availability for X is immediate for 89 euros, X+ will be in Q2 for 99 euros and XL will be early Q2 for 109 euros. The focued initial markets will be the growth ones.
The most advanced “X” device, the XL offers a WVGA IPS 5-inch display, 5MP camera with LED and a 2MP front camera.

Such devices presentation is in line with we supposed some times ago “ the introduction of a well know OS even if with a huge customization could allow to replicate and continue the success made by Asha devices and so assuring to Microsoft to continue its presence in such market”. Elope said that such device family is in the middle between Asha and WP, but personally I think that the future of such project, if it will be welcome by customers is to swap the old Asha OS devices.

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Is the Chinese Smartphone Market already mature?

From an IDC press release we can see, through the figure below, that after 9 consecutive quarters of impressive growth, making China one of the top smartphone market in the world in 2013 Q4 we can see the first slow down. The numbers say that in such Quarter 90.8 million units has been shipped compared to 94.8 million in 2013 Q3, declining by 4.3% quarter on quarter. As we can see, these are still huge numbers, considering for example that India Market that is the number three in the World in 2013 and sees 15.06 Million of Smartphones shipped, but it is anyway a signal that even if is too early to warn it is interesting follows in the next months.

Capture

From Engadget’s guys and still IDC we can see that the Chinese Market is dominated by Android (it is not explicited but we can consider this as a reasonable assumption) from OS point of view and in detail by Samsung with 19% if we consider the Manufacturers. Lenovo in Q4 2013 has a good second place with 13% and after the acquisition of Motorola Mobile it is interesting to see in future if this will impact in market share. Coolpad, not so much known in Europe but the 3rd largest smartphone company in China and sixth-largest worldwide, has a good 11% of such big Market, and Huawei, that it is now an important player also in Europe, has the 10%. Apple with its 7% is waiting for the result of the launch with China Mobile.

Xiaomi, that in my opinion is one of the most interesting Manufacturer in Android environment is in the “other” sector considering PRC market and with a 3% considering Taiwan.

IDC-China-and-Taiwan-Q4-2013

Last, let’s see the lack of Nokia in the pie graph and Nokia in the past was a very important vendor in China. We’ll see if the Normandy/Nokia X that is expected to be presented in MWC, Barcelona in the next week will move the market in the near future.

Nokia Android not only for Low End Devices?

Rumors about the possibility to see a forked Android not only in the “famous” Normandy phones but also in high end devices.

Andorid@Nokia as from @evleaks on 8th January 2014

Andorid@Nokia as from @evleaks on 8th January 2014

Gforgames mentioning an article from Chinese tech.qq.com reports that “inside sources” from Artesyn Technologies, claiming that Nokia will release multiple Android devices in the foreseeable future. Such rumors is quite strange after Microsoft acquisition and I have some perplexity but remembering that Artesyn is a world leader in design, manufacture and sale of embedded board solutions and power conversion for networking, wireless and telecommunication systems with Nokia among its customers, I would give a chance to such news.
With Normandy (aka Nokia X) only a possible hypothesis is the Windows Phone OS used in high-mid range of devices and the forked Android in low-end devices replacing current Asha OS, but after such rumor, if the multiple devices include also high-end I could image a market segmentation in this way:

1. Geographical segmentation , meaning WP focused in Europe and probably North-America and Australia, Andorid for Asia and rest of the world.
2. End-user focused segmentation, i.e. WP focused on business and probably camera segment, Android for the rest.
3. A certain mix of previous two points.
We’ll see if in the near future new rumors will be available on such strange story.

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Is it worth for Sony selling Vaio brand? And for Lenovo buying it? (update)

Rumors about the sales of PC sector by Sony are crowding internet in the last days. The brand owned by Japanese Company, the well known Vaio, is one of the most respected and appreciated in the World but recently it has been afflicted by the general weakness of PC Market.

As already analysed, the PC market is in transformation more than in decline and this transformation means that more of the common tasks done on a PC (e-mail, browsing, …) are now done in the device part of Mobile sectors (tablets, phablets and also smartphones). Sony is also present in Mobile Market with its brand Xperia that, contrary to PCs sector, is growing in the last time after buying the remaining part of what was Sony-Ericsson.

Market trends from Gartners Data elaboration

Market trends from Gartners Data elaboration

Vaio series already presented some tablet (or tablet-like) alternatives as Sony Vaio Duo, that really are well done devices, but it also has some tablet and phablets from Xperia brand.

Up to now, the approach that seems taken by Sony is to focusing the Xperia brand on Android OS and the Vaio on Windows OS. This approach in principle could be good also in case of announce of Windows Phone Smartphones, as some rumors. But is it worth having two main brands, meaning marketing, R&D effort,…? Probably not, especially when you can still sell Vaio brand for about 500 Million USD. Of course this will mean to refocus Xperia brand also on Windows Phone, but this is more feasible than having two brands partially overlapped.

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Is it worth for Lenovo buying Sony Vaio? At a first glance, I would say no. Lenovo already have a well known brand in laptop business sector (probably the most known), the famous ThinkPad (formerly IBM) and recently it bought also the IBM server sector. The consumer PCs is taken with IdeaPad and Yoga series and even if not, at least in Europe, known as Vaio, it has a good success in the last year. Of course Vaio brand could add value and market share to Lenovo, but typically in such acquisition 1+1 < 2, so I expect that Lenovo simply buy the brand for avoiding a competitor and use the brand itself for some kind of rebranding of products without spend too much in R&D.

Anyway we’ll see soon, and in the meantime Sony shares this morning saw a god +4.58% also for such rumors.

Update: Reuters reports: ” Sony Corp is in talks with investment fund Japan Industrial Partners to sell its loss-making Vaio personal computer division, a source familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.

A new company would be set up by Japan Industrial Partners to take over the Vaio brand’s operations in Japan, according to the plan under consideration, the source said. Financial details and stakeholdings in the new entity were still being discussed.

Sony shares 5th Feb 2014

Sony shares, 5th Feb 2014

Again Normandy leaks? The strange Microsoft-Nokia’s bet (Update Asha 501 with Bing)

Dual SIM Nokia device from @evleaks

Dual SIM Nokia device from @evleaks

Some hours ago @evleaks tweets a picture of a dual SIM Nokia device.

UPDATE: @shadez replies to @evleaks on Twitter and highlights that the device is a well known Asha 501 with Bing. Good finding by him. The considerations about Normandy anyway are still valid and we’ll see if something of absolutely new will be announces in Barcelona @MWC.

As already said in the blog the strage things are:
1. Is a full Nokia device or something by Microsoft, as very probably because of the contract between Microsoft and Nokia?
2. Assuming it is Microsoft, even if under Nokia brand (and this is possible under the term of Microsoft Nokia for some years), why Microsoft is interested in an Android device, that in some way is a sort of enemy in own home? I analysed this here.

What is sure, is the huge number of leaks in the last time about this device that if confirmed will be probably the founder of a new Asha category.
Really if we see the contract it seems that the possibility to use the Nokia brand is in a certain way limited:

“Microsoft has agreed to a 10 year license arrangement with Nokia to use the Nokia brand on current Mobile Phones products. Nokia will continue to own and maintain the Nokia brand.  Under the terms of the transaction, Microsoft has agreed to a 10 year license arrangement with Nokia to use the Nokia brand on current and subsequently developed products based on the Series 30 and Series 40 operating systems.  Upon the closing of the transaction, Nokia would be restricted from licensing the Nokia brand for use in connection with mobile device sales for 30 months and from using the Nokia brand on Nokia’s own mobile devices until December 31, 2015

So Microsoft could be the inspirer of such device if:

  1. the product is part of current Mobile Phones products, and assuming that is not a Lumia -dedicated to Windows Phone- it will be an Asha in order to be a “current Mobile Phone product”
  2. Such product is not Android but a product based on Series30 or Series40 OS, but I think to exclude this case
  3. a very Nokia product, but it is very difficult to think about it because of is too early (restriction until December 31, 2015).

So. until new information, we can expect to see an Asha Android device in Barcelona at the end of this month.

Nokia’s troubles seem not ended yet after 2013 Q4 results

Nokia’s 2013 Q4 result shows that the situation is not good as expected, and in fact Nokia shares decline of more than 9% vs.  Dow Jones Industrial decline of about 1.2% (12:30PM EST).

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In detail Phone division now is stated as “Discontinued operations “ (how the World changes…) after the acquisition by Microsoft shows a decline of 29% YoY respect to 2012. This is for sure one of the reason of shares slow down but it will be soon a Microsoft business rather than Nokia’s one.

NSN (Nokia Solution System) shows a decline of 22% in net sales in Q4 2013 respect Q42012 but a -18% in net sales in YoY 2013-2012 for the full year but it also shows an interesting +39% in Operating profit (non-IFRS) in YoY 2013-2012 full year result.

The situation is no good neither in HERE division nor in the new division “Advanced Technologies” –that are roughly the IPRs- but I would wait a bit more to understand how they could evolve in future. Anyway the +20% QoQ respect Q3 2013 for HERE seems encouraging because net sales was primarily due to higher sales to vehicle customers, partially offset by lower sales to personal navigation device (PND) customers consistent with declines in the PND industry, and the increment in automotive, after the highlighted interest shown by Nokia in this field I see as a good start.

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What is important, apart the obvious financial figures, in such report is that is the first Quarter in which Mobile are no more considered as the Core of the business and NSN is at the moment the focus of the Company. About the -22% in net sales Nokia highlights that “The year-on-year decrease of 22% in NSN net sales in the fourth quarter 2013 was partially due to divestments of businesses not consistent with its strategic focus, as well as the exiting of certain customer contracts and countries. Excluding these two factors, NSN net sales in the fourth quarter 2013 declined by approximately 15% primarily due to reduced wireless infrastructure deployment activity”, anyway the result is not so brilliant.

My two cents is that, because of the dismissal of Mobile Phones and Smartphone confirmed and approved in the Nokia’s Extraordinary General Meeting held on November 19, 2013, today market feedback seems too severe because some interesting aspects could be found in NSN and HERE. As I said above.

Regarding Mobile phones and Smartphones we’ll see in future, and this from Microsoft point of view. In these days, the strange story of Nokia Normandy continues. In the last hours it was possible see in Postel site a certification in Indonesia for a Nokia RM-980 that could be such forked Android Normandy based on KitKat 4.4.1 . If the Android  approach will be confirmed Microsoft would make a severe change in low end market.

Nokia-RM-980 as in Postel Certification

Nokia-RM-980 as in Postel Certification

In the meantime Nokia team has sent invitation for the next MWC 2014 for February 24th with rumors of Lumia high end devices 1520V, 1525 and 1820 and the question is if such Normandy will see the light under Spaniard sky.

Barcelona invitation sent by Nokia Team

Barcelona Mobile World Congress invitation sent by Nokia Team

Again on Nokia Normandy and rumors about Microsoft Money NOT for NOTHING.

An update regarding yesterday post.
@evleaks again on Normandy twitting new possible UI screenshots with a description saying “Two ways to interact with Normandy”; such sentence seems related to the fact that Normandy UI has one interaction mode similar to the one that you can experience with Lumia and the other similar to the one you can have with Asha Fastlane.

Possible Nokia Normandy UI

Possible Nokia Normandy UI from @evleaks

What for sure is strange, remembering that such Nokia Normandy will be anyway a Microsoft product, is the twitter from the Mobile-Review.com editor-in-chief Analyst Eldar Murtazin typically well informed especially on Samsung and Nokia stuff that claims the possibility of money “support” from MS to relevant manufacturers, i.e.:

Samsung         1.2 Bln USD
Sony                0.5 Bln USD
Huawei            0.6 Bln USD
others              0.3 Bln USD

Eldar Murtazin's tweets

Eldar Murtazin’s tweets

If such rumors are correct, it could mean that MS will play on two tables at least, in one betting on an Android device with MS store, and in the other betting on WP high-end phones made not only by Nokia (… opss… Microsoft) but also by Samsung, Sony,…

Whatever you see the above story, what is real is that the future market will be dominated by Mobile, as highlighted by Gartner.

Why Google’s Nest acquisition could be so important for the Mountain View Company

Some hours ago Google acquisition of Nest Lab Company has been announced. The price is in the order of about 3.2 Billion $, that is a huge amount of money if you simply think about the fact that Microsoft in September 2013 announced that it bought Nokia’s phone business for 7.2 Bln $.

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Google bought Nest

What is Nest? In principle from rough numbers point of view, it could be defined as a small-medium company located in Palo Alto, California with 130 employees by the end of 2012 (Wikipedia source) that has its business in home automation designing and manufactures sensor-driven, Wi-Fi-enabled, self-learning, programmable thermostats and smoke detectors, so not so much respect a lot of other companies that you can see in US, Europe and Asia selling some very technical devices that the interior design usually try to hide in the modern houses or that try to integrate in a sort of display panel shape.
But sometimes the rough numbers doesn’t explain the potentiality about a product that in such case I would define a business more than a simple product. For example, think about iPod (this example is not accidental, as we see soon); the first portable MP3 player was launched in 1997 and sold in Asia by Saehan Information Systems with  “MPMan” player and some good players from technical point of view were released in the years after as Diamond Rio, Creative Nomad and so on, but what was a revolution in the mp3 music was the iPod that put in a same device high technology, fashion design and the use of an ecosystem as iTunes, and the iPod was the first step in a positive business turnaround for Apple.

Nest Logo

Nest Logo

I said that the iPod example isn’t a casuality, this because Nest Labs has been co-founded by former Apple engineers Tony Fadell and Matt Rogers in 2010, Fadell known as “one of the fathers of the iPod” and so it is quite clear that Google see in Nest Lab not only a manufacturer of devices that in some way could be categorized in Domotic Area but a trend setter company highly focused on the “Smart world” revolution.

Let see what Nest offers up to now: it has two devices in its portfolio and both of them are “fashion”  with a design that could easily integrated in quite all homes.

The first one is the thermostat with a quite small form factor that offer a self-programming with auto-learning feature and the Company claims that “the Nest Thermostat learns what temperatures you like and builds a personalized schedule. Teach it efficient temperatures for a few days and, within a week, it’ll start setting them on its own” and promising that such auto-learned programming allows to save about 20% of heating and cooking bill.

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Nest Thermostat

The above features jointly with the very important one that is a nice “toy” make it as an object that someone doesn’t buy for himself but also for a gift giving so a very important added value to such object.

The other device sold by Nest Lab is a smoke and carbon monoxide (CO) alarm that also gives you an earlier warning if there’s an emergency, or allows you to silence Nest Protect if it’s just a nuisance alarm. Also in this case we could say that is an object that is some way is innovative and integrated in a home WLAN, but also it is a nice object and… let tell me if the product details below and the two colours don’t remember something other?

Smoke and CO Alarm screenshot from Nest web site

Smoke and CO Alarm screenshot from Nest web site

Of course, but is quite obvious, both Nest Lab products have a good integration with smartphones with appropriate Nest App.

The Google choice to leave the Nest brand as it is without Google re-branding is in my opinion important because it allows to separate such devices from the “too geek devices” smell that Google and Android brand have, allowing to create a real new business.

Such acquisition is in the line that Google had in the last times, i.e. to be not only a Web Company but a Company with different and “concrete” business sectors, think about Nexus products, Chrome computers – that are rising their sales in US -, the Google Glass business, Motorola smartphones (this business bought, I suppose, mainly for its IPR) and not forgetting its recent interest in Automotive with Android and OAA (Open Automotive Alliance) and  Robotics with Boston Dynamics, with this last business that could also see some interesting overlap with Nest itself.

So, are worth 3 Bln $ for a small company producing two devices for Co/smog alarms and temperature measurements? The first answer could be that is a crazy purchasing but if we see the added value of Nest, the interest on Domotics with IoT -Internet of Things- and “Smart Integration” seen at Las Vegas CES 2014, the effort spent by Google could be justified and why not … part of the money spent could be considered a sort of advertising and the hype created by this acquisition is in the right way to focus media and market attention to “smart domestic appliances”.

Let’s see in the next future if Google’s choice will be winning or not.

Nest Thermostat

Google presents Open Automotive Alliance (OAA)

autoA further confirmation of the Car World interest on the smart application and telco is the introduction by Google of the Open Automotive Alliance (OAA).
OAA is shown as a global alliance of technology and auto industry leaders committed to bringing the Android platform to cars starting in 2014. Focus of the alliance is accelerating annovation an the Car using a Open Ecosystem approach. The focus and interest from Audi is well known and now are “on-board” also GM, Honda, Hyunday, Nvidia and of course Google itself. It is quite interesting that all the important Car Makers countries are represented; Audi from Europe, GM from America/US, Honda from Japan, Hyunday from Korea (Hyunday is one of the most important realta of the last year with a relevant market penetration also in the Europe market that is afflicted from economical and financial crisis. Partecipation of Nvidia in the OAA is important for its solution for its automotive innovation and the such Company is already on track with its Tegra solutions.

OAA

So, 2014 seems starting well for Automotive World!

It’s rumors time for Flagship Smartphones: can HTC overcome 2013 problems?

Ok, it’s January and the rumors for the smartphone flagship models begin to crowd the technology sites. One of the most interesting is in my opinion the HTC One (model M7) successor.

HTC-ProductDetail-Overview-Container1-01-bg

HTC One

The Model M8, this is the internal name, has a double difficult task.

1. First is to replicate the success made by the HTC One that has been a device well done, with premium materials, with an excellent SW customization with the Sense now in its version 5.5, astonishing audio spec with HTC BoomSound™ for what HTC had a sort of Ping-Pong property of Beats Electronics. What for someone wasn’t in line with the other specs was the camera part because of UltraPixel solution that didn’t satisfied all the reviewers.
2. Second task is to try or continue to save HTC from the recent financial problems  that are still afflicting HTC even if with some light in the tunnel, and in the meantime is facing also some patent infringement disputes with Nokia highlighting that Germany has ruled that any HTC product using Bluetooth or NFC connections infringes Nokia’s patent EP 1 148 681 and Nokia stated that “HTC’s first New Year’s resolution for 2014 should be to stop this free riding and compete fairly in the market”.

Anyway the rumors about such One successor are, following the well-informed XDA developer  Mike1986  very good facing probably the criticism about camera with am enhancement of UltraPixel with a double lent (it will interesting to see it) and boosting battery, one of the main problem in quite all current smartphones, and expecially, if confirmed, use the new SoC from Qualcomm, the Snapdragon 805.
This last part is not so obvious because the 805 is a very new product and in the last One Plus HTC still used a quite old Snapdragon 600. Snapdragon 805 shows impressive enhancement in term e.g. of graphics as reporte by Engadget adding hardware tessellation to the Adreno 420 GPU and performance solution for 4K using the 4K HEVC (high efficiency video coding) allowing decoding and stream high-quality video with a possible reduction in used power.

Snapdragon 805 in ONE+?

Summarized specs by Mike86 that of course will see in the next future if they will be confirmed:

1. Name: HTC One+ (HTC M8)
2. Screen: 5″ FullHD 1080p covered by Gorilla Glass 3
3. Battery: 2900mAh
4. Camera: 6MP or 8MP with UltraPixel™ technology and double lens
5. SoC: Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 805
6. RAM: 2GB LPDDR3
7. Buttons: no capacitive buttons
8. OS: Android KitKat with HTC Sense™ 6.0
9. SIM: micro-SIM
10. Front camera: 2.1MP
11. NFC: yes

I think that the computational power offered by such One+ jointly with the upcoming Sense 6.0 (Sense is problably the current UI with the best user experience) will play a good job.

What is for sure still uncertain, and probably  this is the most relevant part for HTC,  is if this flagship will be sufficient for HTC financial part.