Nokia: delusion, Android and China style

Editorials No Responses »
Jan 202012

An article from Forbes – inaccurately titled How China Ate Android – is currently making circles all over Nokia employee’s Twitter streams.

It contains the following passage, which is highlighted by the Nokia folks:

How is it possible the mid-tier Android vendors cannot eke out revenue growth with that kind of global Android unit explosion still going on?

The most likely explanation is the rapid expansion of the low-cost Android phone vendors, particularly ZTE and Huawei. I

Sadly, they fail to read on – as it contains the following passage, also:

… they are also eyeing other device segments. ZTE’s Windows model Tania is debuting in the UK at the monthly contract rate of 10 pounds – half of what the Nokia 710 will cost.

If you ask me, Nokia would have fared best with a proper version of Symbian – with Android being the second best. The reason for this has been outlined here before: while Windows Phone 7 is a nice platform, it is, by design, unsuitable for creating high end phones.

However, all the eeking and squeaking mainly takes place in the mid-range area. High-end Android devices such as the Samsung Galaxy Note have little to fear from Chinese manufactutrers – they prefer the cushier mid- and low-range markets to the cold winds faced in the profitable, but challenging high-end market.

Let’s quote Winston Churchill: “I am not a person to be prodded. If anything, I am the prod”.

Sadly, Nokia has all but given up that position. So, better invest in impact dampers – and get aquainted to that prod…

Posted by Tam Hanna at 11:27 pm

Brand Trust Report 2012 declares Nokia as most trusted Indian brand

News No Responses »
Jan 182012

The Brand Trust Report 2012 has named Nokia the most trusted brand in India, surpassing giants like Tata, Bharti ad Reliance Industries. According to The Economic Times

Nokia, Tata and LG are amongst most trusted brands in India, said a survey Tuesday.

The revelation was made by ‘Brand Trust Report 2012′ which lists India’s 1,000 most trusted brands.

Nokia, Tata and LG were followed by Samsung, Sony, Maruti Suzuki, Bajaj, LIC and Airtel on the list of the most trusted brands.

"The research is conducted with 2,718 ‘influencer’ respondents from 15 cities, generating more than two million data-points from 12,000 hours of research," Trust Research Advisory firm which conducted the survey said in a statement.

Nothing much  to add here other than this news brings a sigh of relief to Nokia. With Nokia Lumia failing miserably, the silver lining of the Nokia Microsoft deal is almost turning black.

Posted by Jatinder Singh at 7:59 pm Tagged with: ,

mHealth applications market reached $US 718 million in 2011

Metrics Maid No Responses »
Jan 182012

mHealth applications are proving to be a boon for patients and doctors alike. With smartphones coming to “everyman’s reach”, mHealth apps have seen a spurt in growth.

Research2Guidance, the ever number crunching firm, has released a report  which gives an insight into the mHealth app market.

2011 was the first year of substantial business in the market for mobile health services delivered via smartphone applications.

The smartphone application market for mobile healthcare increased by a factor of 7 to reach $US 718 million in 2011. Nevertheless, the mHealth market is still in an embryonic state. Theoretically the market potential is enormous given the overall worldwide healthcare market size of US$ 6 trillion (WHO estimate) and the potential use cases and benefits for mobile patient healthcare support.

Within the last year, the growth in the mobile healthcare market has greatly accelerated. The main drivers for this growth have been the increase in the smartphone user base on the demand side, and the doubling of the number of mHealth applications on the supply side. These findings are part of research2guidance’s new Mobile Health Market Report 2011-2016.

A majority of the big healthcare companies have discovered mHealth applications as an innovative way to promote and deliver healthcare services and products. A testament to this is that a number of these large players published mHealth apps in 2011 that go far beyond a simple allergy tracker or pill reminder, e.g. Sanofi Aventis’ sensor-based iBGStar Diabetis monitoring app.

chart mHealth 1.2012 mHealth applications market reached $US 718 million in 2011

We are undoubtedly witnessing a transition phase, and mHealth apps will surely become a “must have” for doctors and patients alike.

Posted by Jatinder Singh at 7:45 pm Tagged with: ,

We’ve been hacked – but are alive

Internal No Responses »
Jan 182012

Dear Readers,
I am unhappy to inform you that we have had a minor break-in into our systems – an attacker of unknown provinience exploited the software used to host the Tamoggemon Content Network, as to insert content to “spam” the Google search engine with ads for his own products.

As this was a purely Google-targeted attack, no post data was damaged and no user data was stolen. We have been able to remove the hack fully from all sites already.

This disclosure is made only to satisfy our legal obligations. The following sites were affected:

  • TamsS60
  • TamsBlackBerry
  • TamsIJungle

Should you recognize any oddities, please let us know immediately!

With best regards
Tam Hanna / Jatinder Singh

Posted by Tam Hanna at 12:03 am

Meet /me at Mobile Developer Conference

Internal No Responses »
Jan 162012

This one goes out to all true Tam Hanna fans who happen to be in Germany in February – you can meet yours truly at the Mobile Developer Conference.
mdc europe Meet /me at Mobile Developer Conference

I will be speaking about data persistance on Windows Phone 7 – and most definitely, attendants can expect a few surprises!

Find out more via the URL below:
http://www.mobile-developer-conference.de/

Posted by Tam Hanna at 10:08 pm

Lumia 900 – or – Windows Phone 7 is unsuitable for Nokia’s needs

Editorials No Responses »
Jan 122012

Even though I know that it is a sign of bad taste to kick a looser, Nokia’s recent announcement re the Lumia 900 was too surreal – had I read it three years ago using a fortune teller, I would have wanted my money back.

But, well…after X lines of blah blah describing ‘yet another WP7′, we get this:

- A partnership with EA to bring over 20 of the world’s most popular games to the Windows Phone marketplace, coming first to Nokia Lumia devices.

The comedy of this becomes clearly visible if you think about past hit devices like the N95…tbat device managed to truly stand out from the crowd with advanced hardware and software.

Such devices could also be built with with Windows Mobile…but Windows Phone 7 is not intended as a platform for market defining products.

Right from the start, Microsoft promised its developers ‘a level platform’, one where all devices behave the same. This policy is enforced aggressively towards developers who, for example, are banned from selling typing trainers which would require a specific hardware QWERTY keyboard.

And, in a world of desktop Linux, Microsoft is well advised not to suck up too much to a manufacturer. Keep in mind that convergence is pushed forcibly in the TV space by Samsung, LG and – probably – soon Panasonic, who are now starting to produce smartphones again in order to complete the offering portfolio.

If Microsoft would coddle up to Nokia too much, I could very well envision aggressive reactions from LG or Samsung. So, no exclusivities for you…

P.S. This is NOT an Anti WP7 rant. WP7 is a great operating system…the concept of “unified platform” is great. But this is not what Nokia needs – a Boeing 747 is not a bad aeroplane because it cannot drop nuclear bombs, it just isnt a nuclear bomber…

Posted by Tam Hanna at 11:42 am

Research: Market for mobile app development services reached $US 20.5 billion in 2011

Development, Metrics Maid No Responses »
Jan 102012

Research2guidance, the ever number crunching company has produced it’s latest report concerning development for smartphones.

In 2011 publishers created $US 6.8 billion in application download revenues while app development revenues reached $US 20.5 billion. The development service became a mass market almost 3 times of the size of the application download market today.

chart 1.2012 Research: Market for mobile app development services reached $US 20.5 billion in 2011

The market for mobile application development services, including application creation, management, distribution and extension services, has reached $US 20.5 billion vs. $US 6.8 billion in app downloads in 2011. Thus the development market surpassed the content market by the factor of 3.

Today most app project revenue is generated from “classical” app creation services (concept creation, design and coding). New service types like app libraries, white label solutions and multi platform app development tools have become more and more popular, but do not yet take a major share of the market.

Prices for application development services vary significantly between regions. UK developers charge $US 626 per day whereas competitors from India charge, on average, $US 138 per working day.

App development partners using price as the main criteria for selection will not be lead to an optimal solution as most of the price differences are offset by the additional time needed by offshore app developers.

App developers can get a copy of the 98 page report from http://www.research2guidance.com/the-market-for-mobile-app-development-services-reached-us-20.5-billion-in-2011/

Posted by Jatinder Singh at 7:09 pm Tagged with: , ,

Windows Phone advertising networks: A comparison

Development, Metrics Maid No Responses »
Jan 102012

 

Xeno bits, the developer for Windows Phone, took a look at in-app advertising on the platform. The comparison between Pubcenter, Inneractive and Smaato was made for the revenue from advertisement loaded within their app.

image thumb3 Windows Phone advertising networks: A comparison

  • “Google’s AdMo received no attention and stood last among them due to issue with SDK”
  • “Smaato is best in terms of analytics with good SDK. Although it does not let you earn much”
  • “Inneractive tools are easy to use and solve issues through their technical support”
  • “The Pubcenter SDK is the best. Although the limited availability is as issue for many developers”

What’s interesting to note is how low eCPM is on the smaller networks.

  • Smaato reported just $0.075,
  • Inneractive at $0.2, while
  • Microsoft was at a reasonable $0.56

Although there have been several points of comparison. Yet, only you can decide the best for you.

Good luck!

Posted by Jatinder Singh at 6:05 pm Tagged with: ,

Microsoft reassures WP7 users regarding updates

News No Responses »
Jan 102012

Microsoft had earlier stated that the updates for Windows Phones will depend on the carrier requests rather than user need for bug fixes, security and features. This created a ruckus among the Windows Phone 7 users. Mary Jo Foley denied the statement and assured the worried folks.

Greg Sullivan, Senior Product Manager on Windows Phone maintained that:

“Nothing has changed in regard to how we work with carriers to deliver Windows Phone updates to our customers”.

He confirmed to Mary Jo Foley that if a carrier skips an update the next one will still include the fixes from the first. Mary was quick to note no change in the Microsoft policies and procedures to update and deliver to carriers and customers. She also pointed out the mysterious removal of “Where is my phone update” page.

But the bigger question was: If nothing has changed, why there is confusion due to poor communication by Microsoft before their major CES Nokia announcement?

Posted by Jatinder Singh at 6:02 pm Tagged with: ,

Windows Phone to hit 13% in 2013

Metrics Maid No Responses »
Jan 102012

The growth for Windows Phone surely looks promising (at least) as far as Credit Suisse is concerned.

Credit Suisse analyst Kulbinder Garchahe predicted WP7 to hit the 13% market share in 2013 and 80 million WP handsets to be sold in 2012.

He quoted:

“We fundamentally believe that Nokia’s focus on Windows will allow the company to drive a recovery through 2012 in both its top-line and earnings”.

The reason is based on three key factors:

“First, we see sensible and aggressive pricing from the outset with initial Lumia devices priced between €180 to €300 to carriers. Second, we see decent support for Windows ecosystem as confirmed by our recent survey of carriers. Third, we believe that the quality of Windows platform is quite good, which, combined with Nokia’s brand, distribution, scale and [intellectual property] should enable it to capture smartphone share making it the third ecosystem behind Android and Apple.”

He surveyed 27 key executives at global carriers and reasoned:

“We found that 85% of carrier respondents believe that there is a need for a third ecosystem, with 77% noting that it will be Windows Phone/Nokia,” he writes. “Our survey also showed that both subsidy and volume share is expected to be markedly higher for Windows Phone over the next 12 months.”

He even researched the market before concluding that Windows has a bright future because of a committed OEM, a good product being sold at low prices and carriers who are willing to sell the phones to carriers.

We keep our fingers crossed…!!!

Posted by Jatinder Singh at 5:57 pm Tagged with:

Windows Phone roadmap to success leaked

News No Responses »
Jan 102012

Since New Year, Nokia has been surprising us with its new policies and decisions. This leaked roadmap reflects the success chart of Nokia this year. Windows Phone 7 release has already paved the way to success.

  • MANGO followed in Q4 2011 with new features, languages and countries.
  • TANGO in Q2 2012 will however be a low-end headset challenging the “best prices”.
  • APOLLO in Q4 2012 will feature high-end super phones that address almost all needs of the business. The phones will presumably have dual core processor and HD screens.

image thumb2 Windows Phone roadmap to success leaked

Nokia has planned its future with the slow launch of the Windows Phone. But, this roadmap has raised our expectation of what and when to expect the smart, smarter and the super-smart phones in 2012.

Nothing much to add here…!!

Source

Posted by Jatinder Singh at 5:52 pm Tagged with: , ,

High end smartphones to be manufactured by Nokia

News No Responses »
Jan 102012

Nokia has decided to manufacture high end smartphones like Lumia 900. This news has been confirmed according to the reports from Digitimes. Mid-range and lower end models will be outsourced. While manufacturing the Nokia Lumia 710 and 800, the ASP of Compal Communications ODM almost doubled in the last quarter of 2011.

Thus, Nokia wishes to make the most from the manufacturing of the smartphones. Nokia is going to release several low range based smartphones in Q2 of 2012.

Nothing much to add here…!!

Posted by Jatinder Singh at 5:49 pm Tagged with: ,

Microsoft expanding marketplace for Windows Phone

Development No Responses »
Jan 102012

Microsoft has announced the expansion of the marketplace for the Windows phone in six different countries: Argentina, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Peru and the Philippines.

image thumb1 Microsoft expanding marketplace for Windows Phone

However, these markets are not available to the Windows Phone 7 users before they pass the Application requirement Certification. These markets can be selected for the distribution in the App Hub.

The additional requirement: norms, regulations and the local laws is suggested before the applications are submitted to three of these six countries: China, Indonesia and Malaysia.

Source

Posted by Jatinder Singh at 5:48 pm Tagged with: ,

How To Manually Update Windows Phone To Build 8170

News No Responses »
Jan 052012

For those who have not updated the Windows Phone to build 8170 update yet, its time you get paid for being patient. XDA-developers have developed the process for those who can’t wait anymore to have Windows Phone update process completed. The only advice: “Update your phone… at your own risk!!”

The tutorial can be found at http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1306415

Posted by Jatinder Singh at 7:37 pm Tagged with:
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