08 3 / 2011

"

Alain Mutricy, a senior vice president for mobile devices at Motorola, defended the pricing of the Xoom, pointing to the tablet’s extensive memory, high-resolution display and compatibility with Verizon’s 4G LTE network, to which Xoom owners will be able to upgrade free, as justification for the price tag.

“The Xoom is priced exactly where it has to be,” he said.

"

NYTimes article

BTW, the Xoom costs $800, which is $70 dollars higher than the equivalent iPad 2. Clearly Motorola has hired some consultants to do a pricing study for them and arrived at the “optimal” pricing. I bet it was based on some kind of relative value approach. This is one of those MBA facepalm moments.

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20 2 / 2011

The Moto Atrix: the return of the consumer thin clients

Compaq EVO T20 thin client
Image via Wikipedia

Over half a year ago, when I first joined Quora, I answered a question titled: What is the future of mobile?

My prediction was:

Ten years from now, there will be no more PCs.

You’ll have a thin client mobile device that connects to your services and data over super high speed Internet access that is always on. The thin client can be your principle means of interacting with your services.

When you’re at home or at work, you’ll be able to dock your mobile thin client into a work station which will have a more expansive user configuration. Definitely a bigger screen, but it might not be a mouse or keyboard. Again, your key apps, services, and data would be connected from the cloud, through the thin client, to the workstation.
…
Who knows if the future will be supplied by Apple, Google, or some undreamed new enterprise.

Surprise, suprise. A glimpse of the future is actually supplied (not by Apple or Google), but my Motorola.

I remember talking about this up in a cab ride in Beijing, thinking this would likely be at least 3 to 5 years away, mainly because of the constraints of processor power, battery life, and even just the willpower to go ahead and do something like this.

But I was wrong. The Atrix smartphone package has 1Ghz dual core, coupled with an Nvidia Tegra 2 in the thin client. That’s not superpowerful, but it is a spoiler for what’s ahead. In a year or two, we are going to see devices powered by Qualcomm’s quad core chips with 2.5Ghz for each core.

And the Atrix essentially solves the problem of battery life since the thin client packs a battery as well. The thin client is essentially an extended life battery pack that recharges your phone while you work. As David Pogue puts it: “you’ll finally be able to get off of the plane with more battery life than when you got on!”

Right now, the Atrix is nowhere near a laptop nor a netbook. And I am willing to bet it will not even compare to an iPad in terms of usability. Indeed, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Atrix gets a lukewarm reception upon arrival. What I am excited about, is the possibilities. Sure, the thin clients have never gotten much love, but I think that was largely due to the limited connectivity options available. With an always tethered device, and the mobile computing ecosystem of 2010 vs. 2007, what always felt like 5 to 10 years away, may be here by the time I graduate business school.

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11 2 / 2011

Nokia has its Sanjay Jha moment: to phase out Symbian & MeeGo, but what about Series 40?

Image representing Nokia as depicted in CrunchBase
Image via CrunchBase

So it looks like Nokia is going thru its own Sanjay Jha moment.

  • An outside executive (from Redmond vs. San Diego) comes in to shake up the company.
  • A Linux based platform bows out. In Motorola’s case, it was the end of its Linux Java platform, and for Nokia, it will be the end of its investments into MeeGo. Will it be the end of MeeGo? Not sure, as Intel will likely continue to invest and sell it into their tablet, netbook, and UMPC OEM partners.
  • A new promising smartphone operating system (now it’s Redmond vs. Mountain View) is ascendant.
  • And Symbian bows out…

But as I was looking thru the news on Nokia’s plans, one slide really stood out for me:

source: Engadget posted from the Nokia Capital Markets event

Symbian is out, Meego is out, Windows Phone is in, but wait a minute, what is going on in “Mobile Phones platforms?”

While Nokia has always been known in the news as the House of Symbian, people don’t really realize just how dominant it has been in the lower end feature phone segment. That’s what the “Mobile Phones platform” segment is.

I think it is interesting that, in the midst of the huge reorg, that there is going to be increased investment into Series 40.

I actually personally think this is great. Nokia’s S40 devices are not often acknowledged in the press, but definitely a core strength of Nokia.

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