I won't be far off the mark if I say that this decade clearly belonged to XP. Windows XP was first launched in 2001, and as far as I can recall, it took a while for people to give up their love for Windows 98, and move up to XP. Though the product at launch was unstable and buggy, Microsoft improved the stability and performance over time (matching Bill Gates's philosphy in 'Business@Speed of Thought'). Windows Vista, released worldwide in 2007, received a lukewarm response from the corporate world (though it sold twice as many copies as XP in the first month itself). The terrible initial reviews, gazillions of compatibility issues, licensing costs, very short life span etc., all fueled the corporate world's hesitation towards Vista. It even managed to get #2 spot on Tech's all time top 25 flops. Now that Windows 7 release date is around the corner, corporate world should get ready for the migration journey and start thinking about making some investments in IT again. While the extended support for XP won't end till 2014, I am not sure if it'll be possible for organizations to procure new copies and licenses after an year or two. Gartner is suggesting companies to move over to Windows 7 by 2011 / 2012. I guess, you really have to work in a large company to appreciate the time and money it takes to make this journey. There are countless internal / customized softwares and applications, all of which need to be tested for security and compatibility. That's apart from validating the OS itself. Then, the licensing costs for the OS, and other third part apps come into the picture. This time however, no matter how much it costs the companies, they will have to migrate to Windows 7! Though companies succeeded in avoiding Vista, thanks to XP's extended availability and support, this time around, that won't be the case. I guess the good news is, the initial reviews of windows 7 are very encouraging. The OS is supposed to be a lot faster, and also a lot less annoying ( as compared to Vista) Only time will tell how successful Windows 7 will be, but if I had to bet, I'll put all my money on Windows 7!Speaking of money, I think, as the economy gets back on the track by mid 2010, and companies get ready to invest in IT, it might be a good time to buy stocks like Intel (NASDAQ: INTC), Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), HP (NYSE: HPQ), and Dell (NASDAQ: DELL) My prediction about Windows 7's success should in NO way undermine my loyalty towards Apple. I remain as always, a loyal fan! :) It's just that the premium price tag and a totally different architecture keeps most of the corporate world away from the awesomeness that is APPLE!
I used to be an avid Nokia fan till about 3 years back. I knew all the Nokia phones and model numbers by heart, and it was my favourite hobby to identify the phones whenever I saw them. Around that time I was using Nokia 6620, and I was absolutely in love with its design. But eventually, I got a feeling that Nokia had stopped innovating. They had started to come up with run of the mill phones with exact same software. I parted my way with Nokia, and eventually shifted to Sony Ericsson W810, Motorola Q, Treo, Blackberry and Samsung Instinct.
Now, that I needed a phone again, I decided to give Nokia another shot. I went to a store and it didn’t take very long for me to pick Nokia 5130 out of the crowd. It’s one of the phones in the XpressMusic series.
Nokia XpressMusic 5130
Here's what I really like about this phone:
1. It looks very elegant. It's hip and classy at the same time...if that's actually possible.
2. The music player is mind blowingly awesome. It is dead simple to use, and the in-built speakers are surprisingly good and LOUD. I don't think the walkman series phones like W810 stand any chance, atleast as far as speaker sound quality is concerned. The interface is a whole different story, and I am noti going there.
3. The screen resolution isn't the best ofcourse, but it's satisfactory.
4. I was impressed by the inbuilt Opera mini browser. Haven't used this phone for browsing much, but I have nothing but praise to shower upon the Opera browser!
5. Then some small things like ambient light sensor, bluetooth stereo are always nice to have.
p.s. I am not comparing this phone to the Treos, Blackberries et all. All I am saying is , it's good to be back in Nokia's world! and this phone most definitely gives a good bang for the buck!
Microsoft has been investing heavily on its Surface product for some time now. Microsoft believes that the product will be embedded in all aspects of life, right from bedroom, kitchen and closet, to bars and restaurants. Right now the price is probably one of the main factors that's preventing Surface from telling what I can do with the flour (lol!, see the video below), but eventually the price is going to come down, or hopefully a lot of scaled down versions will hit the market.
Though, I think talking to the kitchen part in the video above is very unnatural and somewhat creepy, the rest of the ideas are super cool. (Especially, extending the phone's desktop to Surface and pushing data to the Cloud) While, I can think of hundreds of uses and applications, I particularly like the idea of implementing Surface at the restaurants. Consider the scenarios... Once you get seated, you bring up the menu on Surface and browse through all the options. Selecting an item brings up pictures, ingredients, user rating/reviews and other useful information. To order, you just press the 'order button', and even enter special notes for the Chef. When the Iced Tea starts running low, the waiter automatically gets notified, and you don't have to wait for the waiter to look at you to get more drinks! Once you are done with the food, you could split the check with friends any way you want, and just tap the card on the table to make the payment... So much more efficient. I am sure this will be a big turnoff for a lot of people who prefer the personal touch, and the special treatment at nice cozy restaurants, but this doesn't necessarily have to be an 'either/or' thing. A picture is worth a thousand words, and a cool video still some more, so here's another one showing the implementation in restaurants. Like I said in the beginning, the price has to come down significantly before the main stream deployment even starts!
We are almost halfway through the year, and so far the year has been flooded with run of the mill touch screen phones (and smart phones). I am going to try and avoid writing about them, and instead I’ll try and focus on some of the phones I am looking forward to.
Palm Pre (Sprint): I actually debated and had to struggle somewhat to not mention Iphone at the top spot. While I DON’T think Palm Pre will be the next “Iphone Killer”, the excitement and the press coverage this phone is receiving is amazing. At this point, we sort of have a rough Idea about what the Iphone is going to have (Better CPU, better camera, improved OS and other evolutionary features). While it’s still going to be the coolest phone without any doubt, I am just more excited about the Palm Pre. Palm seems to have worked very hard to build a new OS from scratch, and the WebOS is certainly going to have a few surprises and new features under its belt. June 7 (the rumored date) can’t come soon enough!
Palm Pre
The wireless charging is truly revolutionary (Though it’s sad that Palm/Sprint might charge a premium for that), The phone is supposed to be a lot more social networking friendly, and is going to offer greatly improved LBS applications
Apple Iphone (AT&T): Let’s just face it… Apple knows how to keep innovating! It manages to introduce both revolutionary and evolutionary devices year after year, and rest of the industry just stays busy catching up! I wish June 8th could be declared some sort of a national holiday! Actually, as of this morning, I am a bit disappointed since Steve Jobs won’t be presenting the keynote, but nevertheless, the event is going to be full of excitement.
Iphone
While Apple already gave an early preview of what the OS 3.0 is going to look like, I am sure all the Apple diehard fans (including me) are hoping that Phil Schiller will bring his magic hat along and pull out a few surprises! I personally would settle for an OLED screen (it’s probably not happening this year), flash support, and apps that cook food for you, earn gazillions of dollars, and let you rule the world! (lol just kidding, maybe I am expecting a bit too much!)
Lots of Android love (multiple carriers) While HTC won the race with G1 last year, multiple vendors including Samsung, LG, Motorola and Sony have announced their plans to launch Android based devices by the end of this year. Last year, Sprint’s CEO said that Android needed a lot of work. Google actually has been working very hard to improve the OS and introduce a lot of new features. I am excited about Android, because I use Google for everything, and they just seem to know how to integrate their products to make everything extremely simple. So, expect a lot of love from Google this year!
Blackberry Storm 2 (Verizon?) RIM’s CEO has announced that a new Blackberry Storm will be available before the end of this year. While Blackberry has been releasing a lot of ‘regular’ devices (which are pretty good too by the way), their second attempt at touch screen phones should be interesting to watch!
Garmin Nuvifone (Carrier unknown) Ok, to tell you the truth, I am not really excited about this one at all! I just wanted to mention it here because they have been working on it for so long now… I hope they release it while touch screen phones are still in fashion! When they announced the phone in 2008 (or was it 2007), it would have been a pretty cool device, but now it’ll just be another run of the mill touch screen phone. Well, it’ll have a solid GPS, but at this point it’s nothing new!
Garmin Nuvifone
Apart from all these, there have been way too many rumors about Dell entering the smart phone market, and lately, even Microsoft’s Zune phone has been making some rounds (I just don’t see this one happening!)
Windows 6.5 / 7 based phones didn’t make it to my most anticipated list. It’s an ok OS I guess, but I really don’t think it will have a lot of innovative features! (I didn’t really like their Honeycomb interface either)
So let’s see which phones sell like hot cakes (or Cupcakes, eh?) and which phones fall short of expectations. For me, June 7th and 8th can’t come soon enough!
When Amazon launched a new model of Kindle last week, it created a lot of buzz on how it’ll revive the newspaper industry which is desperately seeking new areas of revenues. (See here)
In my post last week on Kindle, I mentioned that newspapers really need to work on the content they deliver if they expect to generate any significant revenues:
“The newspaper partnership still needs to be improved. I mean getting the morning edition of the paper on kindle is great, but I don’t want to be stuck with the news for the whole day that gets old in an hour!”
While searching the net, I came across this cool video which showcases the next generation E-ink technology which might just make the newspapers(on Kindle) a little more interesting with short video clips, animated images and more (hey, how about animated Dilbert, huh?).
If Kindle can manage to offer this technology at an affordable price sometime soon, more readers might jump in the digital wagon feeling rewarded by a whole new level of experience that it might provide. Well, to put it another way, have you watched the movie Harry Potter and observed their newspaper, The Daily Prophet? Ever wished your newspaper had all those interesting animated/video clips? Well, thanks to devices like Amazon Kindle, it might just happen soon!
Roadblocks:
1.Affordability: The technology certainly looks very promising, but will it be affordable enough? In the end, affordability is one of the main reasons why some technologies click, and others don’t!
2.Data Limitations: Right now, Sprint provides Kindle the 3G connectivity that it needs for free. Once you start including short video clips etc., the data consumption skyrockets. Will Amazon/Sprint be able to support the huge increase in data needs? (especially for free?)
3. Interactive Content: Its true…a picture is worth a thousand words, and a short video clip even more! But, will newspapers be able to provide interesting interactive material for articles that manages to engage the readers and enhance their newspaper reading experience?
FYI, I took a class under the Professor who is featured in the video above ( Prof. David Janes). Awesome, right?
Another FYI, If you were spread betting or investingin Amazon on the news regarding Kindle, you likely made out very well.
Is it really a surprise that T-mobile wins best customer service awards, year after year?
I came across this on engadget.. Recently a few Iphone owners were experiencing minor problems on T-mobile. T-mobile didn't really have to do anything because they don't officially support the phone in US. However, they went out of their way to resolve the problem and even gave customer's free service for 1 whole month! Kudos to T-mobile! (See here: http://www.engadget.com/2009/05/09/t-mobile-provides-support-good-vibes-to-its-iphone-using-client/)
Netbooks seem to be the hottest pie in the market, and all the major players are cringing to get a piece of the market share. Though it’s currently dominated by Windows and Linux, several new players have announced the plans to launch their own version of netbooks and the OS very soon.
The netbook market was born when Asus released the first netbook in 2007 and it was a huge success right out of the door selling more than 1 million units by the end of 2007. While the Asus netbooks were mainly Linux based and caught Microsoft off the guard, Microsoft strategized quickly, and thanks to their efforts, more than 90% of Netbooks now being sold operate on Windows! However, this might soon change too. Since, the rumor mill is working with full speed these days, and “people familiar with the matter” are slipping up a lot of information, please take all this with a pinch of salt.
News sites and blogs have reported that Android based netbook is in the works and several major players including Dell, HP, Acer and HTC are working on bringing one out. Reports are that Palm too is going to revive its Foleo product (that was never launched) with WebOS, and try to capture a share of the market for itself.
The only company to denounce the netbooks so publically is Apple. However, that hasn’t stopped the analysts from predicting that Apple still might be working on one (or some similar product like a bigger Ipod Touch etc.).
There is another trend that’s quickly gaining a lot of popularity. Telecom service providers faced with the near saturation in mobile market, are luring customers with great incentives and subsidies for netbooks, in an effort to generate additional data revenue.
No matter which companies launch their products and which don’t, one thing is for sure… This holiday season, the market will be flooded with a variety of netbooks, and customers will have a lot more to choose from!
First let me say this, the kind of coverage that kindle launch today received is just amazing! I wasn’t there in person, but I was busy refreshing my engadget live coverage page every few seconds to follow the keynote.
Amazon launched a new kindle reader today with a gorgeous 9.7 inch screen, native pdf support etc etc. Even though the features are great, I don’t know if the price of about 500 dollars is worth it.
Kindle Hits:
1.The screen is absolutely amazing. The pages look so real! It doesn’t feel like you are reading the book on an e-reader at all.
2.NYT bestsellers for just $9.99 isn’t a bad deal at all, especially considering how expensive some of them can be
3.Kindle might hit a homerun with college students if they can get books for a greatly subsidized price @ Kindle. Books for a semester or two alone can sometimes cost as much, so I can totally imagine buying it if I was getting e-books at a great discount.
Kindle Misses:
1.489 dollars for an e-reader? WOW! I guess I’ll pass.
2.I don’t think the device is touchscreen, may be they could implement something where you could flick the pages, just like a real book?
3.The newspaper partnership still needs to be improved. I mean getting the morning edition of the paper on kindle is great, but I don’t want to be stuck with the news for the whole day that gets old in an hour!
Before I finish, I just have one wish for Amazon…Make it possible for me to highlight the lines that I like, that’s really how I like reading my books! The search feature does partially substitute for it, but how good is a textbook if you can’t highlight the important passages in a chapter?
A look at the 2007 power generation numbers for US (taken from http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epa/epat1p1.html) suggests that more than 70% of the electric power comes from non-renewable sources like coal, petroleum & natural gas. So, the question is, are we really becoming a whole lot greener if we charge our cars using electricity coming from coal and natural gas?
I guess the answer is not all that bad. We might not be going green entirely, but it certainly is a step in the right direction. I was taking a look at Chevy Volt’s numbers, & looks like it will go up to 40 miles on a single charge, & for longer trips the mileage might vary from as 50 MPG to as much as 150 MPG depending on a variety of conditions. So, a single tank of gas could potentially last for up to 640 miles.
We’ll only reach the goal for a much greener world only in baby steps. The environmental savings will become more evident as cars with better efficiency & hybrid technologies are built. Ultimately, I still feel that hydrogen fuel is probably going to be the greenest way possible, but till then, we need to keep striving for greener ways & reduce our reliance on non renewable resources as much as possible. As the oil prices skyrocket again & the alternative options become more economically viable, one thing is for sure, the gas guzzlers will slowly fade out from the market ( & for good!). Who knows, may be Prius’s mileage today (~55 MPG) sound like a gas guzzler in 10-15 years from now!
Ever since Iphone came out in Summer 2007, each & every device that can be barely filed under ‘phone’ category has been compared with it in one way or the other. While there is nothing wrong with healthy competition, it just gets overwhelming at times when all the phones right from the likes of Moto Q, blackberry pearl to phones like G1, & Storm are termed at the next ‘Iphone killer’. I am not at all saying these are bad phones. I have used & tested most of them at some point or the other, & almost all of them are excellent phones. It’s just weird to see every smart phone & touch-screen phone that comes out being termed as the next Iphone killer. Anyway, I digress, this is really not what I want to discuss in detail.
I just want to take a tally of how some of the phones that were termed as the Iphone killers have performed in the market. I’ll start with HTC touch, the first touch screen device to be touted as Iphone killer that came out in October 2007 (with Sprint in US).
After AT&T launched the Iphone in summer, Sprint came out with the first Iphone killer a few months later. Verizon later launched its very own version of HTC touch. While the actual sales numbers are hard to predict, I feel safe in saying that the number will be south of 1 million, atleast as far as US is concerned.
A great phone? SURE. Iphone killer? No way…Enough said!
Samsung (F700) & LG( Prada KF900)were quick too in coming up with several touch screen phones, but with limited carrier support, I am not sure if they met a lot of success. (Atleast Stateside)
Oh boy! The buzz that this phone created when it was announced at CTIA in 2008! It won the CTIA phone of the year award, & blogs & news sites termed it as the next Iphone killer. Don’t get me wrong, it actually is a decent phone. I am using it right now, & for 129 bucks it’s great.
While the sales numbers haven’t been made public…a few hundred thousand at the very max, right?
This one didn’t manage to kill the Iphone as well.
Between Instinct & G1, a lot of other touch phones / smart phones came, but I am just going to talk about the main ones.
The first Android phone.. It was announced after months & months of speculation on how Google was going to enter the handset world. It again generated a lot of buzz, & I used the first opportunity I could find to play with the phone @ a T-mobile store. Definitely a cool phone.
T-mobile recently announced that G1 crossed the 1 million mark. Very impressive I must say. But it too falls way short of Iphone sales number.
Again, this phone created a lot of buzz, first touch screen phone by blackberry…first touch screen phone with AWESOME email support etc. To be honest, their ‘tactile’ interface is so simple, & yet socool…kind of those ‘why didn’t I think of it’ moments. Again the latest numbers aren’t available, may be a little more than a million? No Iphone killer here either.
Now, let’s see some Iphone sales numbers. Apple of-course makes sure that it releases the sales figures in each & every keynote (which is very nice for investors!). Apple sold more than 250,000 phones within the first 30 hours of the launch in 2007. It reached the 1 million mark in a matter of few weeks.When Iphone 3G was launched last year, it reached the 1 million mark within the first 3 days! (To be fair, I think this included several other countries..). Apple has sold more than 17 million Iphones till date, putting it way ahead of all the other ‘Iphone killers’ combined! & the most interesting part is, that even after 2 years of release, the numbers aren’t slowing down at all. AT&T is still seeing amazingly strong numbers quarter after quarter, thanks in large part to Iphone.
Ok, enough of praise for Iphone. Now the next Iphone killer is going to be Palm Pre. While it certainly has a lot of promising features, only time will tell how it does in the market!
I left out many other great phones like Nokia N95, Nokia 5800 etc, Sony Ericsson Xperia etc. because with limited/no carrier support, I am not sure how they stack up in the US market.
DISCLAIMER: The author is a HUGE fan of apple, & anything you say against it can be & will be used against you in the Icourt :D
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