On Google's move in navigation

It's been announced a couple of days ago that turn-by-turn GPS navigation would be supported soon on devices based on Android 2.0 platform. Free of charge. The new Google Maps Navigation offers free turn-by-turn navigation garnished with Google's core business (search by voice and in plain English, search along route) and existing services (traffic, satellite and street views) for Android devices.

I was shocked to hear this news. The two biggest map data providers, Tele Atlas and Navteq, have been acquired a few years ago, former for $2.9bn by TomTom latter for $8.1bn by Nokia. Their main revenue sources were licensed map data and value added services e.g. turn-by-turn navigation. Since Google uses either its own map data or one that is freely available, I think I told everything: they do whatever they want. It is still unknown how Google will monetize on the new service - other than ruining competitors -, but advertisement seems to be a very likely option.

On a related note, I found Bill Gurley's article on Less than free business model quite interesting. Briefly, Google offers Android to OEMs free of royalty, even more, they pay ad split to them. In other words, it's not only that OEMs don't have to pay, but on the contrary, they will get paid. One of the commenters of this article gave a hint on another business model that Google may try to follow: don't bother with ads, but offer a package to navigation device makers, news agencies, automakers, roadside advertisers, etc. A package that is based on continuously updated traffic data that can be used to provide always optimal routing information.

How can competitors react on Google's move? Without own map data it's very difficult to compete with someone who's giving away the same service that we are selling.

• Stefan from IntoMobile suggested that Nokia should make map data free and wait for the flood of new mapping services - let's see what innovation will result in. Not a bad idea, but would leave Nokia in a bit of passive role, wouldn't it?
• The other option could be to do the same as Google may do in the future: sell a package instead of showing ads (see above). Why Nokia? Because it has maps data. Which platform? It's rather Maemo than Symbian - we're talking not only about mobile phones, but other embedded devices, too.
• Finally, the third option is advertising and provide free service. Who? Microsoft doesn't have own map data, but has Bing and Yahoo! search, which is a good basis for advertising. Whereas Nokia doesn't have search, but has maps data (I told you that Nokia should have bought Yahoo!). Perhaps these companies should form an alliance?

Looking forward to your comments,

Tote

Predictions for 2009

I'm only a little bit more experienced in predicting future trends than I was last year, still I'd like to continue what I started a year ago. Who knows, maybe I'll be at least as right as I was last year?

Let's start with reviewing what I wrote previously and what really happened in 2008:

• I commented on ad-driven content and how much e.g. Google depends on operators in allowing their users to use the Internet at a fair price on their mobile. Well, it was only a concern that I raised, but Google's (and Apple's) move was brilliant: they showed that it is not impossible to change the rules. What I really mean is that both companies have their phones offered by network operators with a flat-rate data tariff (it's according to the agreement between the handset vendors and operators), which is really the way for free Internet usage.
• As to NFC, I disagreed with the statement of one of my fellow champions, Paul Coulton, that 2008 would be the year for the rise of this technology. I now think that I was right in this question: this technology had so many challenges (let it be technical or political between banks and operators, for example) that 2008 would have been too early for the rise.
• Touch - I have only seen the hype around Apple's new phone at the time of writing my previous prediction, but even the early signs were enough to predict that other manufacturers will try to copy Apple's success. I was right in this, but of course, having only this new feature is not enough for success, though obviously is a mandatory component in the recipe of success.
• As for Java and that it would be becoming more popular again on mobile platforms, to be honest I can't see any measurable change today. Okay, Android development environment requires mostly this knowledge (not to mention Brew), however, this platform is yet too young to have significant influence on Java's success.
• Awakening of North-America to smartphones: it DID happen. People on that continent has finally realized that there are other features that a mobile phone can offer, there are other services that they can use with their favourite gadget, and in general there is much more that they can do with their cell phone that they could ever imagine. And since North-America is in a very strong position when it comes to technology, the awakening of people living there will surely give a boost to innovation and further spread of smartphones.
• Finally, I wrote that manufacturers who really think in big will not only sell phones, but also provide Internet services to users. This has also become true, although this will be a never-ending process currently with two-kinds of players: one that has already proven on service-front (e.g. Apple, Google) and the other which is already a recognized brand in mobile (e.g. Nokia).

What will happen in 2009?

• Most importantly: the trend will continue for smartphones to become a commodity. Despite the financial crisis more and more people buy smartphones as they become more affordable (mostly due to binding contracts, though prices get lower, too) and once users get used to advanced features they'll be reluctant to give up using them.
• As to advanced smartphones with binding contracts, the two newcomers, Apple and Google, managed to achieve that their devices are sold in a contract with flat-rate data tariff. The obvious effect of this is that users will use the internet much more and will be online for much longer.
• More services will become available, their integration is a key factor for handset vendors (Nokia: Life Tools, Comes With Music, Mobile e-mail and mail on Ovi, etc.; iTunes & MobileMe for Apple; Zune for Microsoft; GMail, Calendar, Docs, etc. for Android-powered phones, etc.). Thanks to these services network operators will be in a worse position to fight for users who not only purchase phones and pay monthly subscription-fee, but also willing to pay for additional services.
• Touch still rules with such innovative ideas as gloves, multiple devices to share their resources, etc. Even more, touch display will not remain a smartphone-only feature, but other devices in the lower-segments will also be equipped with it (e.g. Nokia's first feature phone on Chinese market: http://www.mobilemonday.net/news/nokia-announces-shows-chinese-touchscreen-phone).
• 3^rd-party apps and app stores: we'll see the introduction of new and re-newed application stores with client integration. Commercial software can be downloaded as well as freeware, revenue share will be more advantageous for developers than it's been so far. The fact that handset vendors are providing their application stores, too, will cause hard times for such independent players as Handango, for example. On the other hand, the obvious advantage of these regular providers will not really disappear: the variety of mobile handsets for which they offer content is much bigger than the coverage of any of the new stores will ever be.
• NFC - it seems the time has come for this buzzword to become more popular. In last November, GSM Association called for Pay-Buy-Mobile handsets so that NFC technology be built into commercially available mobile handsets from mid-2009.
• Android phones spread all over the world: we have already heard about the second handset that Kogan, an Australian company will ship this January, but rumours have been told about HTC, Huawei and other companies, too, that there will be other phones based on this platform.
• Nokia finally to gain more market share in North-America thanks to AT&T for seeing lots of potential in Symbian to become the main smartphone OS in their portfolio
• Use of mobile phones in new areas: Nokia Life Tools for users at the bottom of the pyramid (mid-range, low-end phones mainly), Nokia Home Control Center for advanced users who wish their smart home to be controlled by their smartphone, etc.
• Transforming smartphone market shares: Motorola, Palm getting weaker (former betting on Android, latter introducing yet another proprietary system), RIM, Sony Ericsson "to survive" (RIM closed a surprisingly good 3th quarter in 2008; Sony Ericsson is also giving a try to Android), Apple getting strong (iPhone Nano in the queue), Samsung remaining strong (very innovative company challenging Nokia, the leader, all the time), although Nokia's position gets slightly weaker, it still remains the most dominant player (one of the most versatile players in this arena with lots of innovation in different areas of mobile space), Microsoft to struggle (has any one of you heard anything about them lately?).
• Open-source model to gain ground - license-free handsets, free development environments, high inspiration for developers & tech companies to help each other, etc.
• LTE - let's return to 4G and LTE next year, okay?
• WiMAX - don't expect mass adoption of this technology in mobile phones yet (though pioneers have already appeared in 2008)
• Mobile TV - the future is still foggy: which standard to follow (DVB-H or DVB-T?), will people buy this service at all, etc.
  

Did I miss something? Sure. Can you correct me in anything I wrote? Anything to add? Please do! Thanks!

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Nokia should buy Yahoo?

It's already known to most people that Yahoo! is in big financial trouble. Even worse, they were tried to be bought by a company (Microsoft) they didn't want to sell themselves to. They successfully fought against that attempt, however, their value was much higher at that time than what it is today. They were even "helped" to survive by a company that they normally call a competitor (Google). But this help didn't last long as Google was afraid of the consequences of a deeper relationship with Yahoo! (i.e. antitrust).

Now Yahoo! has an even bigger problem with much lower valuation. That, among others, inspired telecoms.com to speculate on whether it would be worth for Nokia to buy Yahoo!. Besides the fact that financially it would be a good deal for Nokia, they would even win a very popular brand (especially in the US!) for themselves. And all this along with that Yahoo! is very strong in (web) services would make their position much stronger against Google, Microsoft, Apple and the likes.

Putting aside the negligible fact that there's a world-wide financial crisis lately is this option not worth considering?

Tote

Update: El Reg reported that Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo had answered this question during MWC 2008 saying 'no' to a possible acquisition of Yahoo!.

Mobile Monday in Hungary

I don't know if you've ever heard of the event, Mobile Monday, but if you visit their site you can see that it's a global community of mobile industry visionaries, developers and influentials fostering cooperation and cross-border business development through virtual and live networking events to share ideas, best practices and trends from global markets.

Now it has finally arrived to Budapest, Hungary! I attended the very first event last evening and I was surprised to see how many people are involved and interested in mobility in this small country! It wasn't a very long event and there were only two presentations, but hey, it's the first one, right?

Actually I was interested in Torsti Tenhunen's presentation (Mobile Media – connecting and consuming everywhere) and was also wondering how many people have ever heard of Ovi, for example. Not too much as I could see in the audience. There was a Q&A session at the end of the presentation and since the audience didn't dare to ask anything (including me ... sigh), some people were randomly picked up to ask questions. I was picked up, too, and managed to ask a tough question. At least, even the presenter admitted that it was tough.

What was my question? Well, relating to Ovi I always wondered what Nokia's view on entering a competition with such big names as Apple and Google who have already proven in (web) services. My question was something like "How does Nokia intend to compete with those popular services that people have already got used to (iTunes and Google's bunch of services) and in general how do they see their position in the new devices + services setup where manufacturers are rolling out their own services, too"? Well, I admit that it's not a question that's easy to answer. As I mentioned even the presenter admitted that. Of course. I like to ask tough questions. Anyone can ask easy questions, but not so many people can point out things that are behind a presentation. This was the first full presentation that I saw about Ovi (of course, I had already known a lot of things about it beforehand) and although it was a new concept to most people I wanted to know more.

To be honest, my question was only partially answered. Some marketing hype was included in the answer (we're good at services, people will buy the idea, because they're gonna be very good, we have our brand name, etc.) in addition to pointing out the fact that Nokia has nice programs for emerging markets (think of Nokia Life Tools). This argument is valid, indeed, I've even already discussed about it lately. On the other hand, my addition to this list would have been something like:

• the coverage of offerings these companies offer (including Nokia) varies and that gives users the freedom to pick up their choice of service provider,
• Nokia plans to set up its own MVNO in Japan (read about the consequences and how it's supposed to affect e.g. Ovi here).

Anyway, I'm happy to attend upcoming MoMo events in Budapest in the hope of stiring up the "local" water. With unpleasant questions if necessary. :)

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Ridiculous strict control in Apple AppStore

One of the most useful applications mobile users could ever use is Opera Mini. This freely downloadable tiny mobile browser relies on a remote server to do the "dirty job" and let the thin mobile client display the result and handle user interactions. It's available on most mobile phones, not only smartphones, but feature-phones, too.

But not on iPhone. As Unwired View reports Apple will never allow Opera Mini to be available in AppStore, because it would be a competitor to the built-in web browser (which performs very well, btw). What the hell? What kind of attitude is it? It's definitely not the one that drives innovation! Anyway, I have already heard it in the news that there were other applications that were rejected, too, due to competing with the features of built-in iPhone applications or not adding too much value to them. It's ridiculous all I can tell.

Anyone can see how does it compares to Android Market where anyone can upload any applications and it's the community that rates them - just like movies in YouTube. I'm not saying that such an openness cannot be dangerous sometimes (since no control means widespread of malware, too), but this tight control from the manufacturer side is not acceptable for me in the 21^st century. And I think it applies to most of us, too.

Tote

Update: Just read it on PCWorld that officially it's not confirmed that Apple would reject Opera's request for submitting Opera Mini to AppStore. In fact, the application hasn't been submitted yet. It's just so confusing to find out the truth from what different directors say ... :(

Update2: Rethink Wireless reported that there are some ISVs that are more equal than the others. For example, it seems that Google could gain access to some sensitive APIs that others didn't manage to. This makes Apple's situation even worse.

Transforming mobile industry

I read the following quote from Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, Nokia CEO, in InformationWeek:

"The industry as whole is in the middle of a transformation, and it's a very exciting time," said Kallasvuo. "It's moving from a device industry to an experience industry, and we're making a conscious long-term effort to capitalize on that."

It is so true that it inspired me to write a summary on how things have changed in the "smarter" segment of mobile sector (read: smartphones) lately. Let me recap what was the situation in the near past and then talk about how things are changing recently.

In the classic device manufacturer - network operator - user triangle the roles were as follows (simplified version): user purchases mobile phone from network operator (or elsewhere) and uses those services that are primarily provided by the network operator. The manufacturer never gets any money after purchase and the user  is often unhappy with the content/quality of provided (value-added) services.

This is now about to change. The two most important changes (as I see it) are that 1: the above triangle is "rectangularized" by an old/new member of the value chain, a separate content/service provider and 2: that device manufacturers such as Nokia and Apple OR operating system vendors such as Microsoft and Google want to get money after sales, too: they'd like to enter services business. As to point #1, not as if content providers hadn't been present so far, however, the means to access content and the capabilities of devices have not been ideal so far to say the least. As for point #2, there are two reasons why manufacturers would like to enter services business (take it over from operators?): first, there's a great demand from users to consume content that operators have not been good at providing and second, there's great money in it. Apple and Google are very good at providing services now they'd like to be involved in adding new means (i.e. phones) to accessing their services. Whereas Nokia and Microsoft are both in a strong position in smartphone market and naturally they'd like to get more money out of the whole business.

Another aspect in the new business model is whether or not shall mobile OS vendors require license fee for their software to be included in shipping devices. I'm talking about free and open-source mobile OSes, like mobile Linux. Although mobile Linux stacks have not gained so much popularity in the past years, they still do attract manufacturers wishing to lower their bill-of-materials (BOM). Google Android and the new Symbian (Foundation) OS are another two good examples for "license-fee-free software stacks" and Windows Mobile is for fee-based. iPhone's Mac OS X cannot be mentioned here, since Apple doesn't allow anyone to license their software stack, but make everything on their own.

How do mobile OS vendors pamper their developers?

• Of course, with a free SDK to develop on. Most of them can be used only on Windows (except iPhone on Mac OS X), true emulation is available on Windows Mobile and iPhone, where development is done on the same platform as the target platform,
• Free tools for development. Unfortunately not everything can be done with these tools, but you have to pay for their fee-based version should you need to use more advanced features (e.g. on-device debugging in Carbide.C++),
• Signing your own installation package is mandatory for both iPhone and Nokia S60 phones, but not on Windows Mobile and Android. Latter advocates that the user is always capable of making proper decisions on security-related questions and it does not restrict the availability of 3rd-party applications by requiring signature. As Symbian's David Wood put it: let's see what operators will say on it.
• As to developer support, old players are in the best position here: there's a great community support for Windows Mobile developers as well as materials to train themselves. The same is true for people who are developing for Nokia phones. Whereas the first non-beta Android SDK has just been introduced (you can imagine the level of support Google provides at such an early stage), not to mention Apple who wanted developers to sign an NDA that essentially prevents free information flow, writing books on development, etc. This has changed recently, since Apple finally scrapped their iPhone NDA and promised a new contract with less restrictions. Note: if Apple hadn't made this step they would have lost the majority of their developers.
  
• Developers reward programs (MVP from Microsoft, Forum Nokia Champion program from Nokia), fee-based support for ISVs willing to pay for advanced services, webinars, trainings, books, etc.
• Stores to capitalize on applications, themes, etc.

As to the stores mentioned above,

• Apple's (in)famous App Store acts as a central distribution channel for 3rd-party applications. Unfortunately, Apple keeps this place under such a strict control that bitters lots of developers' life who simply don't understand why their programs can't be sold just because they're similar to the built-in applications. On the other hand, Apple keeps only 30% of revenue making App Store more compelling than lots of rival portals, such as Handango.
  
• Having introduced T-Mobile G1 a few weeks ago, Google has also thought that it was a wise idea to create their own Android Market, a market place for downloading Android applications. What is surprising, though, is that Google is not planning to capitalize on sold applications, but expects mainly freebies to populate this place. It wouldn't be Handango if they didn't make the best out of this situation: why not use Handango to get some money for your Android app? It's also worth noting that Google, similarly to Apple, will be able to remove any 3rd-party applications (downloaded from Android Market) from Android-powered handsets if those applications turn out to violate developer distribution agreement.
• Nokia already has their Software Market, however, things might change with the start of Symbian Foundation next year: as Antony Edwards from Symbian put it "[they're]  pushing hard for a ensuring a zero, or a close as possible to zero, cost to the software vendor: so no cut of revenue for the Foundation".
• Finally, Microsoft hasn't maintained their own single portal that ISVs could use for selling their 3rd-party applications, but people had to (and still have to!) use other providers. This article shows what one can conclude from job postings: with the coming of new devices based on Windows Mobile 7 a new portal, SkyMarket will also come in Q1 2009.

Nokia is very keen on transforming from being a device manufacturer to an "internet company". Their Ovi and Mosh are two examples of already launched services, which they just want to further improve with Instant Messaging (by buying OZ Communications) and Comes with Music. On the other hand, whilst strengthening their services portfolio they restructure their businesses so that they focus less on own product development (selling Nokia IntelliSync). Sometimes lowering the prices raises the revenue - wonder how the recent price cut will work out. It's especially important that since  more and more people own Nokia devices, it increases after-sales revenue, too.

I've been already thinking on what Microsoft's reaction will be to open source and then found the answer: Steve Ballmer doesn't understand what's good in open source for Symbian and Google and anyway they won't get into handset business as long as they can make a lot of money from software only.

What they've started to work on lately, which you might have already heard of in the news, is 'Windows Cloud' OS. This idea is not new at all, however, it might affect the way how people use their mobile phones today: all you need is a portable device with a tiny display, some computing power and a good browser (you can call it 'smartphone') plus a good connection to the "cloud". Data, business logic, resource intensive heavy computation - all done on remote server(s) and you get only the result to your handset. I wrote 'this idea' was not new, however, what is new is Microsoft's patent on sharing device resources. Now this one is really new, but I don't know how much I can expect from it in real life - what it shows you, though, that it would be too early to write Microsoft off. Side-note: let me recommend you Ajit Jaokar's thought-provoking blog on how network operators could make use of cloud computing.

One more point to add to why M$ is not to enter the handset business today: HTC, designer & manufacturer of feature-rich phones, says that although they can see the potential in Android devices they do belive that Android and Windows Mobile complements each other.

As to Android, it's amazing to read about the ambitious plan to reach 4% US market share by the end of 2008. If that's so easy with a single device, a not perfect software and hardware AND suppose that they will achieve it - may I ask how on Earth Nokia could not do the same?

Anyway, I found a great analysis over at Telco 2.0 on the strategic impact of Google's first handset on the mobile industry. I especially liked the statements, such as "increasingly intense competition with new entrants who are willing to change the rules" and "the world in which handset manufacturers crammed the latest technology into devices simply for the sake of having the best specification sheet and operators flogged them to consumers on the basis of megapixels and memory is changing" and finally "it has been fascinating to watch ‘old school’ industry commentators pick apart the technicalities of the G1 spec sheet and Android platform, all the while forgeting to look at this announcement through the customer’s eyes".

Finally, some words about other members of the mobile industry whom we don't hear much about (well, at least I haven't lately).

• Sony Ericsson has rationalised their R&D investment recently. This move, however, didn't prevent them from announcing a new run-time environment, called Capuchin, mixing Java ME and Adobe Flash Lite technologies. SE is eyed-up on Android, too, not only Windows Mobile (Xperia X1) and Symbian so this along with Capuchin will make their way to follow Nokia's approach by offering lots of alternatives for mobile software development.
• Motorola is also interested in Android, so much that they are building-up a team of 350 people to develop on Android.
• Samsung is not interested in anything else but manufacturing. This will not make their position stronger in today's competing market.
  

That's all for now about mobile industry news, thanks for reading so far!

All comments are welcome,

Tote

Brief status report about smartphone market, mid-2008

Having followed the news of mobile industry in the past week, I thought it would be worth collecting some articles in a single post to see things from a bird's view, thus having a better overview on what's been going on lately on smartphone market.

RIM has been getting stronger in US market and Palm is unhappy with that. Although Palm's popularity had started to fall even before Apple entered mobile phone market, the new iPhone has just "helped" to boost the process. As to Apple, new countries have confirmed August launch enabling iPhone (3G) to gain bigger popularity and increasing its market share in other countries than US. In addition, the name of iPhone Nano has appeared again whispering words about the introduction of this device still this year. Apple is on its way to become stronger and stronger, but they're still in the "Other" segment of mobile devices according to ABI Research. And if Apple is making tsunami "from the bottom", Nokia is doing the same from the top with their price cut - I wouldn't like to be the stuffing in this sandwich.

It seems that we're living the time of foundations: this time it's LiMo that has picked up 11 new members to become stronger in the fight against Google OHA and Symbian Foundation. With the first LiMo handsets out, I wonder how they can catch up with industry leader Symbian, the also very powerful Windows Mobile and the likes. I did not mention Android deliberately, because to me it still exists only on "paper".

As to the creator of Windows Mobile, it's already well-known that Microsoft's Silverlight will come to S60. What is rumoured now, though, that Zune would also be available on Nokia devices. Zune clearly a competitor to Nokia's Ovi - will M$ and Nokia ever join their forces to fight against their newest pretender? I bet Apple will never open MobileMe to non-Mac device owners.

A new feature has been introduced on Ovi.com, namely file sharing, a fee-based storage option. Files on Ovi is a similar service to MobileMe's iDisk. As to MobileMe, the transition from .Mac to MobileMe was not as smooth as Apple had hoped. As Apple CEO, Steve Jobs, said "It was a mistake to launch MobileMe at the same time as iPhone 3G, iPhone 2.0 software and the App Store". Well, although lots of people already think that Apple can only teach things to other players in mobile arena, I stronly believe that the opposite is also true.

Finally, let me recommend an article that well-deserved the title of post of the week at Carnival of Mobilists. The great post written by Andreas Constantinou from Vision Mobile was definitely a very useful foundation of this article.

Interesting times we're living,

Tote

Collection of great materials on Symbian going open-source

My regular readers may wonder why I've been silent on the great news of the mobile industry: Symbian is going open-source. The reason is simple: I was so shocked to hear it in the news that I just sat back watching the flood of new blogs and comments trying to digest this new information. But I've been digesting it, too. Other people whom I respect and think knowledgeable in this area have written their opinion and I'm now about to collect some of them in a blog and share it with you.

Andreas Constantinou from Vision Mobile was one of the fastests in commenting the news. He concluded that it was a logical move from Nokia (and Symbian, etc.) both from technical and business point of view:

• " ... [Symbian] was crippled without control of the UI, application stack and the core OS under the same entity"
• Eclipse (EPL) license is a weak one, which will make it desirable for OEMs to choose it.

He was also the first to point out that this move would cause lay-offs and some hard times for the following industry players:

• SonyEricsson and Motorola: they will eventually have to give up with UIQ, since S60 will be the dominant UI and ecosystem and S60 will basically swallow both UIQ and MOAP(S).
• Android's royalty-free, open source business model is not the only compelling alternative for OEMs, operators, etc. On the contrary, Symbian has already proved whereas Android has not yet.
  

Simon Judge over at Mobile Phone Development comments that " ... full access to the platform code allows for much more innovative applications using facilities that are currently hidden" and all this "only" for $1.500 is definitely a step forward.
He also cleverly notes that "Nokia and Symbian now see licensing the OS as a dead end" - I wonder what Microsoft will comment on it?
Finally, he raises his concerns on a technical question, backward compatibility: "... [the announcement] doesn’t explain whether this is source code, binary or application compatibility" - we wouldn't like to face with such a big break as what we did with the introduction of Platform Security, would we?

Mobile Opportunity's Michael Mace hails Nokia for their courage. He suspects, though, that "... the announcement is actually half cleanup and half power move: ... The power move is that it challenges Android ... The cleanup is that the ownership situation of Symbian was unstable and had to be changed eventually, and SonyEricsson clearly wanted to get out of the UIQ business".
He also asks what will drive Symbian developers after this change? While he believes that developers "respond to user excitement and the chance to make lots of money", he fails to see how the new Symbian strategy drives either one.
Finally, Michael points out that the longer it will take for Symbian Foundation to kick off, the bigger the advantage for Apple and Android. What about Microsoft? "This is Microsoft's ultimate open source nightmare, becoming real.

Rafe Blanford from AllAboutSymbian has written about Symbian Foundation unwrapped. He says that the tranformation of Symbian OS to a royalty-free, open-source system is according to today's industry philosophy and whilst it's a logical move forward it would not have been possible 10 years ago, since "...companies would have been unwilling to let Nokia or anyone else have such a dominant position". The new Symbian OS will challenge LiMo, Android and the likes on their own strength and "negates their key advantage". Apple's iPhone might be not affected, according to Rafe, since "it is difficult to see how Apple will expand to become a significant overall player in mobile space (rather than an individual niche player with lots of press attention)".

The hypothetical ("10 years old") problem Rafe was referring to is supported by The Register, too. They say, "the most damaging problem is that Symbian's licensees may have no desire to make Nokia stronger now that it owns the operation 100 per cent".
They also worry about that "the 'Foundation' may also prove to be an expensive liability for Nokia".
Finally they write that "it's largely Nokia that must be blamed for failing to make Symbian phones remotely 'enchanting' ..." and "... today it's the iPhone which has the enchantment factor. ... Symbian has done everything its original designers asked of it - a twenty year lifespan is not bad at all. But it's now Apple's business to lose."

Apple and world dominance. What about Microsoft? They're still bigger than Apple at least in terms of mobile OS market share, aren't they? Well, we've already got used to the style Microsoft comments similar announcements, thus it must not have come as a surprise that they have welcomed this move. To be more accurate, they have "welcomed the transformation of the Symbian mobile-phone platform into an open source project, because the software giant contends the change will create a host of new problems for the Symbian community." Sweet, isn't it? They use FUD referring mainly to the big 'F', fragmentation, saying that "there are more Linux consortiums that come and go than there are Linux phones".

Which might be true, actually. But don't lump Symbian and mobile Linux together. David Wood, EVP of Research at Symbian, has written a lengthy article about how he (and Symbian) sees this problem. He argues that 1: fragmentation really is a problem, 2: Symbian has the experience and ability to handle it. As opposed to Google, for example, says the side-note. :)

Finally, it's worth paying attention to Ajit Jaokar's article, who warns that "it is not possible to compare Symbian vs. Android; or Symbian vs. iPhone .. because it is not possible to mix operating systems with ecosystems". These are like "apples and oranges" in terms of "iPhone, Ovi and Android are ecosystems. In contrast, Symbian and Limo are operating systems or Operating system consortia". It's another lengthy article that is worth reading.

So I've been silent and haven't commented this news yet. Why? Because there are so many people to listen to ...

What about you?

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Browser as an application platform

I've read the following analysis from ARCchart with great interest. I'm already familiar with the idea of writing applications for mobile browsers and that it can be considered as a real alternative for mobile software development. WidSets and Widgets are all around us, not to mention Flash Lite, Silverlight, two cross-platform solutions used for delivering (multimedia) content to more and more people.

The main point of ARCchart's article was to point out that the whole problem of fragmented mobile development could be solved by developing to a single run-time environment: the browser. The browser, which is today's most widely used applications on desktop and mobile computing devices alike.

What is this fragmentation thing, one could ask? Well, let's have a quick look at various mobile platforms, development environments:

• It's a known fact that Symbian/C++ opens the door to the wide variety of native features of S60 and UIQ devices, however, it still has a steep learning curve and its programming environment is not too developer-friendly, either, compared to e.g. Java. The vast majority of smartphones are running on Symbian operating system (whether iPhone-fans admit it or not), however, development is often more (cost-)efficient for other platforms. Portability is a serious issue in Symbian.
  
• Windows Mobile devices are very popular in North-America, especially among business users. However, its popularity is way behind Symbian phones' anywhere else in the world and don't forget the fact that there are much more consumers than prosumers. On this platform, you can write native applications in Win32/MFC/.Net, however, these applications are rarely portable across other platforms.
• Java? Hell, it's the king of fragmentation in terms of supported (or rather unsupported) features, so-called JSRs. Even though it was supposed to bring the Paradise to mobile software developers, it's still suffering from severe problems.
• What else? Linux? Show me some popular Linux-powered phones first and how people are making cross-platform, backward compatible programs for them.
• iPhone? Mac OS X with its Objective C just increases variation. Even though C++ can also be used for programming and there are, for example, attempts to port JME programs to Obj-C, as I said: it just increases variation, which is the nightmare of programers.
  
• Android? Although the whole system is based on mobile Linux, the primary development language will be Java. But which Java? Google's own. And although it's said to be a solid foundation for Google OHA members, it's still only a recommendation for them to choose whether various features will be supported in their devices or not. You can imagine how it affects fragmentation in the Java world - it will just make it even more complex.

Now how does a browser come into play? I'm sure that most readers of this blog have already heard of WebKit, an open source browser engine enabling mobile browsers to show and handle full-web content. It is used in Mac OS X's Safari (iPhone browser), Nokia's S60 browser, the built-in browser of Google's Android will also be WebKit-based, not to mention Digia's @Web, a recently announced port of WebKit for UIQ phones. Although there are other good browsers, too, such as Opera Mobile and IE in Windows Mobile, WebKit seems to be becoming the de facto standard in mobile devices (which is not necessarily a bad thing). It's also worth mentioning Opera Mini and TeaShark at this point, two Java-based browsers, both using remote back-end servers for pre-processing full-web content and showing only the digested content formatted for resource-constrained devices. Side-note: it's also WebKit that is running on TeaShark's back-end servers. :)

So is ARCchart right or not? Is the browser the ultimate solution for mobile software development? In my opinion yes and no. They're right that mobile browsers and complementing technologies (such as Flash Lite) are becoming more and more powerful, capable of rendering extremely complex web pages, performing surprisingly smart functions, letting the user interact with active content, exchanging data with remote servers, etc. However, whilst "older" web technologies (e.g. JavaScript) are not powerful enough to compete with the power of real programming languages, newer ones (e.g. Flash Lite) have not been widely adopted yet. For example, for a quick and very brief reference as to what the different versions of Flash Lite can and cannot do, visit this link. And even though there's not too much variation here yet, there will be: newer versions of Flash Lite will require developers to keep track of which mobile phone supports which version, how to distinguish between Silverlight and Flash Lite applications, etc. I'm afraid it won't be any different in the end.

In my opinion, web-based technologies will open up new alternatives (they've already done so, actually) for mobile software: not necessarily too complex ones, but at least enjoyable. And this is exactly what most people are looking for: they'd like to enjoy using these programs. These new kind of programs that complete the whole picture, add to it, but will NOT replace yet older but still powerful technologies.

Can hardly wait for your comments,

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Google, the ultimate savior of mobile

That's why I like Russel Beattie. Definitely the post of the week for me. :)

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Nokia to acquire Trolltech

Of course, I read the press release from Nokia. I even noticed that my fellow FN Champion, Paul Todd, was faster than me to write about it. Never mind, I knew it in advance that I can't be faster than AAS, nor Simon Judge, either.

What comes as a surprise to me, though, that no-one has pointed out to an important aspect of this announcement: am I alone to think that this is Nokia's answer to Google OHA?

Nokia already had a mobile Linux platform, called Maemo, but with this $153M acquisition it has now joined LiMo, too. See brief comparison between LiMo and OHA here. It's interesting to see how mobile phone manufacturers are committing themselves to different "open" mobile operating systems (e.g. Nokia to Symbian/S60, Maemo, LiMo; Motorola to LiMo, OHA, Symbian/UIQ) just to find the ultimate revenue source. If there is such, since who said that multiple mobile OSes cannot happily co-exist? Anyway, for us, developers, it might easily become the ultimate hell.

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Predictions for smartphone industry in 2008

I've read the recent blog of my fellow Forum Nokia Champion, Paul Coulton, with great interest. Similarly to Paul, I'm not an experienced fortuneteller, but after reading his article I thought I would give it a try, too. You know, what can I lose other than being not right? :)

Let me comment some of his findings, first. Although I can't foretell how ad-driven content will work out in mobile space (since it's simply not trivial how to advertise on mobile devices), I can say the biggest supporter of this model (their name starts with G if somebody didn't know) largely depends on operators' support. If operators (aka carriers) do not make it cheaper for customers to download data from the Internet than it is today, then the success of this model is very questionable. And actually this mostly applies to widgets as well: although they can work with local data, too, the most popular use case of widgets will still involve transferring data over the net.

As to NFC (short for Near Field Communication), although I strongly believe in the future of this technology, it's still in its infancy and I don't think 2008 would bring the break-through in this area. NFC-enabled mobile devices might appear in people's hands in 2008, however, it would only be one part of a larger ecosystem: the wide-spread use of RFID tags in various places (movie posters, business cards, etc.) + the introduction of accompanying services (such as a bus ticketing service) will still be the question of later years. I think.

Paul's list could be completed by the following things in my opinion:

• Touch UI: it's a MUST HAVE feature for every serious phone manufacturer in 2008. We have seen lots of patents from various manufacturers that had something to do with screens, how they will look like and we can guess how they will work. There's already lots of effort put into working out the ultimate touch-based user interface and the success of iPhone has already shown us that it's not something in vain.
• Java: the language and its development environment will be more and more popular again thanks to the introduction of Google-phones. As we all know, the programming language and libraries used in Google's public SDK is not Java (neither ME, nor SE), but something else that allows Java developer to re-use their existing knowledge in a slightly different environment. Anyway, I believe Java will only profit from this thing.
• Awakening of (North-)America to the world of smartphones thanks to iPhone + gPhone. It seems that American companies can convince American people more easily that they need smartphones. And you know the reason why Nokia is happy seeing the huge success of iPhone? That's why.
• Most innovative players in mobile phone industry (Nokia, Apple, Google, others?) will introduce their internet services designed for (their) mobile phones. Google is an internet company and just about to enter the mobile market (700 MHz frequency auction, gPhone, etc.). Apple has had very popular internet services (e.g. iTunes) for years by now and they now feel the taste of success on mobile area as well. Nokia has always been a mobile company, but they've decided to open to internet services and have already introduced a few popular services (MOSH, Ovi, etc.). Why do they do this? Because pulling money out of customers' pocket once (i.e. when they purchase mobile phones) is not enough - why not getting more money from them? Who will suck from this? Of course, the operators. I would even call it "double-suck", since not only will they suck thanks to people using e.g. VoIP over WiFi (in other words, not using operators' network), but they will suck because people will turn to internet services provided by others (e.g. Nokia, Apple), not their operators.
  

I'm sure that I've missed a few things that could have been added to the list. Could you help me?

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Android SDK is out - first impressions

After watching the video about the introduction of Android for developers, I'm convinced that the new phone will generally be as useful and user-friendly as e.g. the-also-newcomer iPhone. Well, it came as no surprise to me, I'm just expecting a lot of innovation from the new player in mobile space. I don't expect that the new platform will offer as many features as traditional Symbian-powered devices and I can even dare to say that it's not going to be as stable, either ... yet. However, I'm pretty sure that they will catch up soon and offer real alternatives for users, phone manufacturers, operators, etc.

What has totally escaped my attention, though, was that the programming language for this platform would be Java. Based on the fact that it's going to be a Linux-based OS I kind of anticipated that the programming language would be C/C++. I don't know the rationale behind this decision, but it will definitely give a boost to the otherwise stagnating JME programming environment.

I wonder, though, how Google is planning to solve the infamous Java fragmantation problem for mobile phones. What is that? Well, even though Java is a very popular and platform-independent (aka portable) programming language, it's just the set of Java core services that is available on every mobile device. The presence of additional features, such as advanced mobile graphics, security, etc. depend on phone manufacturers' decision, whether it's worth adding them. Which makes Java mobile applications market very fragmanted (some features are available, some are not) and development very frustrating. You know, I have heard an example that a mobile Java game programmer had to make 100(!) variants of his game "just" to be able to distribute it to as many phones as possible.

Another thing about mobile Java development is that most mobile phones are running on another operating system than Java. In fact, Java is not an operating system at all, even though there have been attempts to make Java-based mobile platforms, see e.g. SaveJe for more details. But Symbian OS is similar to Android platform in that they both have their native platform (Symbian OS and Linux, respectively) meaning that platform features are usually available in native programming language first and then some JNI layer added on the top and there you are, it's ready for Java programmers. So far so good. However, it introduces some latency in the equation as it requires some time to write features in native environment first and wrap it in the second round. Will Android suffer from the same problem?

My regular readers already know that I was involved in S60 Browser development and it was very challenging and I really liked it. For that reason, I'm happy to see that Google chose WebKit for their mobile browser (S60 Browser is also based on this rendering engine) and in the demonstration it worked well. I was wondering which display method they would choose for web pages:

• S60 approach that displays the web page in its entirety without scaling
  
• or iPhone approach that scales down the web page to so that it fits to display dimensions, though it's hardly readable, but lets the user zoom it very conveniently (e.g. by double-tapping on screen)

They actually chose both: they first display the page without scaling and then user can scale it down for better navigation. I'm pretty sure that Nokia has their own IPR on MiniMap (i.e. the zooming interface) so that might be one of the reasons why Google didn't choose that option. However, what surprised me that they use the same visual history for page navigation as in S60 Browser.

So these are my first impressions after spending half an hour with Android after midnight. I'm really keen to hear your comments - just as usual! :)

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[Update]: I'm shocked, check this out: Dalvik: how Google routed around Sun's IP-based licensing restrictions on Java ME. It basically says that Android phones will NOT be JME-powered, but you can write JSE programs to them. With Android, Google has introduced their own VM, Dalvik, which eventually does not make use of Java bytecode, but their own Dalvik format. It's all to get rid of Sun being involved in licensing.
It's another question how good or bad will it be to the community. It means a new variant on the horizon, a VM incapable of running so-far-standard Java bytecode, thus your midlets will have to be re-compiled. I can see why Google is happy to have their own solution to this problem, but I can also see why developers would be unhappy due to that they'll have to take just another Java variant into consideration. Even if their pockets will be full with (Google's) money.