Category: Uncategorized

I had to do some digging to find this to contrast to the recent Gartner prediction that Symbian will be the market share leader in 2014.

The following article appeared in 2003:

Symbian will lose smartphone battle

By Rob Jones at Gartner Symposium ITxpo, Cannes [07-11-2003]

Microsoft’s standardised handsets will win the day, says Gartner

Analyst Gartner has warned that, without a concerted effort by Symbian and its backers, Microsoft will sweep them aside in the smartphone business.

Redmond’s ability to offer standardised handsets which are easier for businesses to support and use will help the software giant win corporate approval, the market watcher predicted.

Nick Jones, vice president and research fellow at Gartner, said that, while Microsoft did not have a good corporate smartphone today, he believed it would do by the end of 2004.

The analyst predicted that Microsoft will ship a phone boasting strong integration of a range of packages, such as Exchange and Outlook.

Symbian, he added, needed to resolve a number of issues to be a credible, corporate alternative. Its platform and menus differ slightly on various handsets, which means that they often do not have the same user interface.

“Symbian is not very committed to fixing this problem. So Microsoft is getting stronger and Symbian is not addressing the corporate market,” explained Jones.

“This is unattractive for chief information officers. They need standard systems and that’s what Microsoft will provide.

“If by the end of next year Symbian hasn’t solved its problems, Microsoft will be a very strong competitor for a standard corporate smartphone.

“Symbian could lose the battle and at the moment I’d have to say it will probably happen.”

Android is an open platform. We saw at IFA 2010 all sorts of devices running Android, so it already running on tablets. But the way Android Market works is it’s not going to be available on devices that don’t allow applications to run correctly. Which devices do, and which don’t will be unit specific, but Froyo is not optimised for use on tablets. If you want Android market on that platform, the apps just wouldn’t run, [Froyo] is just not designed for that form factor.

via Google’s Hugo Barra: Android 2.2 ‘not optimized for tablets’ – Google 24/7 – Fortune Tech.

How appealing are tablets that don’t run any apps? Or content?

It still amazes me that a Google exec would say that it’s acceptable that consumers are led to make purchasing mistakes with his product.  Apparently any malfeasance is excusable in the name of openness.

That means no seamless integration with Gmail. No Google Latitude. No multitouch in the map app, either. And in place of the free and fantastic turn-by-turn Google Navigator app, Verizon installed its VZ Navigator service — a feature which costs $10 a month to use.

It would be one thing for Verizon to set the default search and map app to Bing with the option to switch back to Google. But it’s utterly inexcusable for Verizon to destroy the possibility of a switch without the user having to root the device and, under Verizon’s company policies, void their warranty. And on top of that, repeatedly charge you for a sub-par service instead of keeping the gold standard of navigation apps for free.

And as bad as that is, there’s now a rumor that Verizon will be doing this again. On every single one of its Android devices.

After speaking with a Verizon representative about the Bing debacle on the Fascinate — who also lied about the existence of a search alternative — The Droid Guy contacted two Verizon tipsters who told him that the carrier “is dropping the Google Search from all future Android Devices and offering Bing in it’s [sic] place.”

via Verizon Rumored To Replace Google With Bing On All Android Devices | Markets | Minyanville.com.

Lots more in the linked article.

This story just keeps getting better and better.

Regardless of motivations, the restriction if broadly applied would have Verizon reneging on its pledge to support the openness of Android and reflects a wider trend of the OS being artificially restricted by carriers. Most US providers are disabling Android 2.2’s tethering support in favor of their own, and AT&T has banned non-Market Android apps under the pretext of security. The moves paradoxically leave Apple’s iPhone more open in some areas, as its users can choose Google, Bing or Yahoo for search and don’t have first-party apps deliberately hidden or broken.

Read more: Electronista

Apple’s continuing valuation struggle continues to fascinate. While underperforming on a multiple basis both the S&P 500 and its own historic value, Apple is nearing bargain bin pricing.

To illustrate this further, get the new Asymco Data Download for the iPhone.

You can now use an iPhone to visualize how the owners of the company that created it are being punished.

A few years ago I read a book called “Breaking Windows” which was the story of the DOJ investigation into Microsoft’s abuse of monopoly. The book was written by a journalist who tried to summarize some of the findings from the published internal emails.

One of the takeaways was the logic of Microsoft’s entry into the Office market. The main internal justification was not that it would be a hugely lucrative new business, but that it was a necessity to the maintenance of the Windows business.

The story was that Lotus, having a huge installed base, could (and did) arbitrarily refuse to upgrade their software to the latest Windows version and in so doing, could kill the franchise. Lotus owned the “killer app” and Continue reading “Breaking Android: How Google's lack of control affects their value chain”

Frequent readers of this blog know they’re in good company. There have been over 1000 comments in but a few months and, without any qualification, they have all been valuable.

I’ve been delighted that contributing readers are not only civil and polite, but that they almost always move the intellectual level of the blog higher. That’s very gratifying because although one major consideration when publishing is creating a large audience, a high quality audience is much more important. Especially to a site dedicated to elevating analytical discourse.

So, being analytical, I wanted to find out how to characterize the audience and understand the attributes of the readers. Naturally, where appropriate I would like to share that information. I hope to share some stats, perhaps with some interesting highlight, every month.

To kick off, here is a snapshot of one month’s worth of visits to www.asymco.com ranked by operating system.

What is perhaps unexpected is that mobile platforms (iPhone, iPad, Android etc.) generated more views than Windows. When comparing browsers, I also observed that Internet Explorer makes up only about 5% of views. (If that’s not a leading indicator of the intellect of the readers, I don’t know what is.)

Time will tell whether these ratios persist, but so far, it seems that Asymco readers are at least eating their own dogfood.

There is a rush to market a whole new batch of tablets. Here’s another one.

They all bear an outward resemblance to another tablet that was widely panned.

So what strikes me about all of these designs is that they’re basically just shiny rectangular things. There is very little you can do as a vendor to stand out with any particular rendition of a rectangle.

This is also becoming obvious with the mechanical design of smartphones. They are all smaller rectangles with shiny black screens.

Which begs the question: as they are all just screens, shouldn’t what’s on the screen matter more than the screen itself?

It seems only one vendor shows what’s on their screen.

Much of what is published here relies on data, lots of data. It’s important that data be published along with conclusions, but data in spreadsheets is often difficult to read. Spreadsheets are not “productized” so they are hard to explain and therefore impossible to share.

However, I am considering sharing the data I have in a format that is easier to read than a spreadsheet but richer than a screen shot of a chart.

To that end I’ve begun experimenting with a solution based on a service called Roambi. Interested readers can download Asymco authored “roambi” files which I call ADDs (Asymco Data Downloads) will display rich data sets on iOS devices. These representations are interactive and easy on the eyes.

Rather than bore with details, the following images should be sufficiently descriptive.

Continue reading “Announcing Asymco Data Downloads”

Shipping delays have shrunk from 5-to-7 business days to 3-to-5 days which is great because now Apple will run more ads.

Apple – iPad – View photos and images of iPad.

But seriously, how long has it been? Five months with no iPads on hand? Now if only they had enough iPhone 4’s.

Here is the situation in Korea:

SEOUL (AFP)–South Korea’s KT Corp. (KT) said tens of thousands of people jammed its website Wednesday, as it began to take pre-orders for Apple Inc.’s (AAPL) iPhone 4.

KT Corp., the country’s sole distributor for the gadget, said in just four hours more than 70,000 people put their names down for the popular smartphone after its online shop opened.

“Our online shop server was jammed instantly as too many clients placed orders simultaneously,” KT spokesman Jin Byung-kwon said.

“So far, the number of orders for the iPhone 4 exceeds well beyond that of the iPhone 3GS,” he said.

See also: Apple’s supply problem