Posted by: Olga Kharif on August 21
Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) technology has been a thorn in the side of landline carriers for years now. Verizon, AT&T and others have lost millions of their traditional landline subscribers to VoIP providers like Comcast. Could this same migration happen in mobile?
For a long time now, analysts have expected mobile VoIP to ramp up. So far, it hasn't, at least not in the U.S. Why do you think that's the case? I'd also love to hear from people who are currently using VoIP applications on their mobile phones. Could you please e-mail me at olga_kharif@businessweek.com? I'd love to hear about your experience with the application.
Posted by: Cliff Edwards on August 20
Ever heard of a little handheld company called Palm?
The company that helped popularize smartphones with the executive set even before the word smartphone was born is trying to get back in the game with its new Treo Pro device. The first major design revamp of their business-class devices in a couple of years, the Treo Pro comes with Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.1 software to make it fairly easy for companies to connect their workers to the mother ship.
Though a little company in Cupertino not too far from Palm seems to be getting all the buzz these days with the iPhone, Palm execs say the Treo Pro won't really compete with Apple because it's aimed a business people who still want built-in QWERTY keyboards to do their messaging.
Not surprisingly, then, Research in Motion's Blackberry Bold is squarely in their sights.
Trouble is, Palm's high-end, $549 GSM device isn't getting a lot of love, at least initially, from AT&T and T-Mobile in the United States. The company plans to sell it beginning this fall only from its own website and kiosks around the country.
It could simply be that Palm didn't have enough time to get fully certified for AT&T's network. Or, more dire, there might be no room on the shelf, with AT&T offering competing products from Apple, RIM, Samsung and others for the important upcoming holiday period.
A Palm exec was quick to note that the Treo Pro is getting widespread support in Europe, where carriers plan to subsidize the device to lock in customers to new contracts.
Palm could use all the help it can get. Its market share has dwindled despite the relative popularity of the consumer-friendly Centro with younger cell phone purchasers.
The company, under relatively new management, promises big things to come in the next year. Here's hoping it can deliver before the competition steals enough application developers to make moot all the shiny new devices it excels at creating.
Posted by: Cliff Edwards on August 20
Has Intel finally come up with a winning formula for conquering the digital living room?
The magic eight ball says maybe. The company's announcement Wednesday of a partnership with Yahoo! could vastly simplify development of Intel-based hardware with consumer electronics makers. And it finally makes good on the promise of delivering the Internet to the big screen in a user-friendly way.
Intel aims to muscle aside Broadcom, Conexant Systems and other chipmakers with a package of chips costing about $35 each that could dramatically lower costs for makers of HDTVs, set-top boxes and other consumer electronics gear. By combining applications and graphics processors, and memory onto a single hand-sized card, CE makers should save money and be able to design ever-thinner sets.
Anyone who follows Intel has heard this spiel many times before. But the thing that makes it compelling this go-around is the chipmaker's substantive partnership with Yahoo. I spoke with Intel's digital home czar Eric Kim and Yahoo! connected TV exec Patrick Barry, who say the two companies have been working for two years to optimize software that would deliver Internet applications like Flickr and Netflix to the television at the touch of a button the remote--and without the cumbersome pc-like interfaces that dominate the market today.
Like blogs, consumers not already in the know soon will become intimately familiar with the word "widgets." Essentially, Yahoo has created a platform that lets developers easily create portals, or channels, to content sitting on the Web. In human-speak, that means instead of trying to shoehorn a clunky pc into your TV, you could be able to download a movie from Blockbuster, or talk to buddies on Facebook all from the comfort of your sofa.
Intel and Yahoo say the widgets program is optimized to work best using Intel's chips, but add that TV manufacturers will be able to use rival chips as well. The execs say the first products, likely set-top boxes such as digital video recorders and DVD players, should be hitting store shelves by March 2009, with both the chips and software being built into televisions and cable boxes later.
There are hurdles. CE makers hate offering me-too products, and the level of standardization that Intel is proposing could put them into the same situation that pc makers began to face upon adopting the Wintel standard.
And media stalwarts such as Google and Rupert Murdoch might keep their Facebook, YouTube and MySpace applications to themselves for fear of losing control of potentially lucrative advertising dollars or revenue-sharing deals.
The good news is that Yahoo is making the software customizable for both consumers and CE makers. Like HP's the computer is personal again, sets then may look the same on the outside but offer a vastly different channel lineup depending on who's home you're in. And because the TV business has become so brutally cutthroat, if Intel makes good on delivering a solid, low-cost chip platform, CE makers are sure to bite.
The odd man out here appears to be Microsoft. After years of stubbornly clinging to its symbiotic relationship with the folks in Redmond, Wash., Intel is acknowledging that most consumers interact very differently with their televisions than they do with their pcs (and they certainly want the boob tube to crash a lot less often).
After years of complaining about the slow pace of connected device deployments, things seem finally to be heating up.
Posted by: Stephen Wildstrom on August 20
If Rockville, Md.-based Hillcrest Labs has its way, the Nintendo Wii will soon be off the market in the U.S. Hillcrest has designed a motion-sensitive remote control and accompanying user interface designed to make it easier for consumers to choose among ever-growing offerings on their TV set top boxes. The company claims that the heart of the Wii system, the motion-sensitive Wiimote controller, infringes on a web of patents it owns. It has asked the U.S. International Trade Commission to bar importation of the Wii. Hillcrest also field a patent infringement suit in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.
It probably won't come to a Wii crisis. Requesting an ITC ban is a standard legal technique in cases involving alleged patent infringement in imported goods. Recently, Nokia won an order barring importation of wireless handsets containing Qualcomm chips that infringed on Nokia patents. The Nokia-Qualcomm case ended, as these matters nearly always do, with a negotiated settlement between the companies.
If Hillcrest's patent claims hold up, the privately held company could be in for a nice payday. It has not found a lot of success in getting its technology adopted by by consumer electronics companies. But Logitech's MX Air mouse is based on technology licensed from Hillcrest.
Posted by: Rob Hof on August 19
Short answer: No. Not even close. Not for a long time, anyway.
But it's sure trying hard, and it would be dangerous for anyone to write off Microsoft. Its determination was on display today at the Search Engine Strategies conference in San Jose. Satya Nadella, Microsoft's senior VP of search, portal, and advertising platform group, told the crowd that he sees searchers moving from merely typing keywords into Google to getting tasks done.
Not coincidentally, getting tasks done is essentially Microsoft's main business, so that sounds a little too convenient. But in fact, searchers are already doing that to varying degrees. Nardella cited an interesting figure: About half the queries on Microsoft's Live Search site are part of search sessions that extend over 30 minutes.
At the same time, Microsoft is trying some interesting new things in search, from paying searchers through its new Live Search cashback to buying startups such as Powerset and Farecast for new features to search distribution deals with Hewlett-Packard and Facebook.
Not least, I don't think--as some folks do--that Google inevitably will keep getting more share of queries forever. When you get to around 70% share, with margins as fat as an Olympic shot putter, the market ecosystem gets out of whack and everyone in the pond works to get it back to some equilibrium. Even Google probably can't stop that in the long run.
For all that, though, I still don't see a killer strategy from Microsoft to really take on Google. Except maybe one, and it's risky: time. Right now, Nadella told me and my colleague Peter Burrows in an interview afterwards, search is mostly text-based. "But that will change," he said. "We just have to keep at it." Essentially, he's saying, Microsoft has time to keep chipping away at its archrival and pounce at the first signs of weakness or a market disruption.
Despite many missteps, including the handling of its attempted Yahoo acquisition--still its best chance to jumpstart its online ad strategy--Microsoft's pretty good at that game. It has the money to both spend on startups and new search features and wait watchfully for search to evolve beyond Google's iconic "ten blue links." If and when there's a shift to new modes of searching, as there inevitably will be, Microsoft may have an opening.
Problem for Microsoft and everyone else is that Google isn't standing still. Arguably, it's in the best position to revolutionize search before anyone else. Time may be Microsoft's best hope, but only if it doesn't run out of it first.
(Update: Spelling corrected on Nadella's name, sorry Satya!)
