Kindle Fire

Kindle Fire is not the champion for Android tablets, but it is the right product for Amazon.

I watched review and comparison videos on YouTube as I have not bought a Kindle Fire yet.  From those videos I had the impression that Kindle Fire is not as fast as Apple's iPad 2.  The page loading and refresh speed is slower than that on iPad 2. The touch response does not seems to be as smooth.  By most measures for a web browsing device and a game console, I doubt it can compete with iPad 2.  Nevertheless, I still think it is a good and smart product.

I have complained about last generation's Kindle reader earlier this year. This new generation of Kindle answered my complaints. The touch screen takes away the clumsiness for users to interact with contents. Compared with the previous generation, Kindle Fire provides all the needed improvements in terms of color display, faster page flipping and rendering. It also provides a comparable video experience as iPad 2. Given its price, it is an adequate tablet but an outstanding content viewer. It is exactly right up Amazon's alley for all the digital contents it wants to sell.

Kindle Fire is a smart product with a right compromise and feature focus. I may buy one for my daughter to read on. But I am sure she will ask for my iPad when it comes to Angry Birds and Fruit Ninja. Young users do not settle for their game experiences.

No more mobile Flash

Adobe gave up on mobile Flash.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/09/us-adobe-apple-idUSTRE7A84NO20111109

Now it is even more obvious that HTML5 is the technology of choice.  HTML5 originated from the grudge of companies that wanted to break free from a dysfunctional consortium, W3C.  It is not every day that an open standard comes out winning.  Nokia/Symbian used to be the major licensee of mobile Flash.  But Symbian is no longer a viable platform. Windows Mobile is going with Silverlight.  Google has been a major champion for HTML5.  It is up to Adobe to work on various hardware compositions with Android licensees.   I don't know whether Adobe had planned for all the factors or whether Adobe has done its best to meet the challenges head on.  The consequence of the announcement is that Adobe has not just given up on mobile Flash, it also sent a disturbing signal to its developer community.

Developers invest in technologies that they can leverage upon.  When Adobe stopped the development of mobile Flash, it means all the technical know-how and the digital assets invested in Flash are not going to be applicable on mobile devices.  Mobile devices are the new frontier.  If developers have no Flash but HTML5 on mobile devices, the future investment of their money, time, and brain power will go to HTML5. The death of mobile Flash is not just the end of Flash on mobile devices.  It will soon drag down the desktop Flash with it.

HP's next tablet is Windows 8

HP's new CEO, Mrs. Whitman, said the next tablet product from HP will use Windows 8.

http://moconews.net/article/419-hps-whitman-were-going-to-make-windows-8-tablets/

Two features caught my attention when I took a look at those Windows 8 introduction videos for the Metro Interface, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihcIlg37QKU and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHrcz7zcm_8. One is the touch area outside the visible part of screen and the other is the support of the original windows interface.  A touch area outside the screen requires the same high density touch sensory to be integrated beyond the viewing portion of display. The desktop Windows user interface requires more memory.  Both add to the BOM cost.  

Based on the iPad 2 3G tear down, the BOM cost is around $326.  This number came with the fact of Apple's own A5 processor and the low memory usage enjoyed by iOS.  A WiFi-only iPad 2 would cost even less. Enough hand-held Windows devices had suffered under-provisioned hardware and failed so far.  HP's decision of adapting Windows 8 will put itself between the choice of higher cost per unit or unsatisfactory user experience.  Mrs. Whitman has one shot on this one.  A decision of using Windows 8 may seem to be a no-brainer.  It may turn out to be an ill-thought decision because it seemed to be such a no-brainer.

Will HTC have its own OS

Rumor has it that HTC is contemplating on buying an OS for itself.
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/50859.php

"We have given it thought and we have discussed it internally, but we will not do it on impulse." HTC Chairwoman, Cher Wang said in an interview.  She went further on, "Our strength lies in understanding an OS, but it does not mean that we have to produce an OS."

It takes approximately 40 to 50 million dollars annually to maintain a team of 200 for mobile OS R&D.  It is quite affordable to today's HTC.  But what will be the strategic position for this OS? If the new OS is to replace Windows Mobile OS, an annual operating cost of $40 million can justify some $70 to $100 million royalty paid yearly for Windows Mobile licenses.  But Windows Mobile OS is not the one making HTC feel naked.  It is Google's Android, which does not have a royalty based license.

Maybe the whole thing is just some psychological response to Google's buying Motorola Mobile. Or maybe it is because HP's webOS is available at this inopportune time. HTC did not express this idea in such a way as "We'd like to build our own team and our own OS". HTC actually had an small Linux team before. Without a strategy in mind and a concise goal to develop OS in a culture dominated by hardware business, acquisition will not add value. The interesting part is that, though everyone in the mobile industry thinks OS makes a difference, not many companies got it right or even bother to approach it.  If Google is to build its own hardware business, what can HTC do? Without an alternative, what HTC should keep an eye on is companies like ZTE, not Google's Moto.

Steve Jobs resigned

Steve Jobs announced his resignation as CEO of Apple.
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2011/08/24Steve-Jobs-Resigns-as-CEO-of-Apple.html
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2011/08/24Letter-from-Steve-Jobs.html

Jobs turned Apple around from the brink of bankruptcy.  It was no small feast to say the least.  What he and Apple impressed me most was the way Apple jumped in and woke up a very competitive and already booming cell phone industry by introducing iPhone.  In 2007, more than 1.1 billion units of cell phones were shipped, while there were only 271 million units of PC shipped in 2007.  Among those, more than 110 million units were smart phones. The number one cell phone vendor in 2007, Nokia, owned at least 36% of the overall cell phone market and over 50% of the smart phone market.  Nokia had a record revenue in 2007 at €51 billion, which was approximately $80 billion dollars on an average exchange rate of 1 EUR to 1.5 dollar.  While the whole electronic-hardware industry looked at the cell phone industry as the main source of demand, Apple walked in with iPhone and told everyone the king has no clothes on.  Given an average lead time of two years for a brand new cell phone, the iPhone project might have started in early 2005.  In 2005, North America was only a barren field for smart phones.

Apple's stock fell only slightly to $373.72, a drop of $2.46 or 0.65% today.  It seems that the market believes Apple now stands firm on the ground, not on Jobs' shoulder.  No matter it is an impression or a reality, Apple will eventually out-grow Jobs.  Some people in the Valley refer Jobs as "micro-management". That is an expression of their own preferences.  After all, Jobs delivered products, revenue and profit to underscore his leadership style.  Not many CEOs on earth can say the same, no matter what their preference in leadership styles is.