TamsWMS – the Windows Mobile Smartphone Blog

I’d file this report straight into the under-reported but interesting category. When it came to CPU’s, QualComm was a nobody a few years ago – in the last two years, it became hard to find a non-Qualcomm mobile device.

The CEO of the company now stated the following according to Mobile Business:

Qualcomm’s chief executive Paul Jacobs said he sees the number of wireless chip providers shrinking either through consolidation or players disappearing, reports Dow Jones Newswires. “Consolidation will happen or people will leave the market,” he said.”We’re trying to make that happen sooner.” He also appeared to rule out the prospect of buying rival ARM.

Given that ARM is a fabless IP core vendor, and that Samsung has already all but left the market, this essentially targets one vendor: Marvell.

They bought up Intel’s assets a few years ago, and never got much out of it – Intel’s XScale CPU’s dominated the market, whereas Marvell’s new processors are almost invisible.

QualComm buying up ARM, on the other hand, would be a total GAU scenario. As ARM holds tons and tons of patents for ARM processors, it would allow QualComm to effectively stop competing chip vendors from creating ARM-based processors…

Roaming has recently caused quite a bit of headlines due to EU intervention – the EU commission used its power to topple over free-market prices on roaming (info for US readers: the EU has powers which significantly exceed those of the federal government).

While I am not against this in any way, I think that it will not solve the problem. The solution will IMHO come from another side – traditional, former governmental carriers.

If you look at Austria, you see our former governmental carrier is in a terrible mess. Outdated Ericsson transmitters consume insane amounts of electrical power, and over 4000 employees who can’t be fired make operations unaffordable. Small and agile carriers like Hutchison have fun f##king them over here and over again…

But: A1 also has some strengths. For example, a law required by the carrier was passed by the government within 7 days – Hutchison was lobbying for the same law for ages. Furthermore, A1 is a member of a large global alliance similar to the Star Alliance in airlining.

Hutchison has offered free roaming in its networks for ages – but as it has but 7 countries covered, the offering is of limited value. A1’s alliance, on the other hand…you get the idea…

Thus, I see the solution coming from somewhere else. If legacy carriers are pressured enough in their home market, they will look offshore in an attempt to find value.

For A1, offering “global roaming” is a question of an email or two (they already do it for governments and large entities). This would then lead to closer cooperation between smaller carriers (see Airberlin and Hainan)…

What do you think?

P.S. Orange has already started the trend by giving its customers complimentary free minutes to call phones all over Europe…

Microsoft’s announcement of Windows Mobile 7 left quite a few of us scratching their heads: what should we do with this crappy platform? Windows Mobile 6.5.3 was an “antithesis” to WM7: with Palm OS gone, which business platform should we flee to when our boxen break down?

istartedsomething now reports the following:

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Going forward, Windows Mobile 6.5 (and Windows Mobile 6.5.3) will be rebranded as Windows Phones Classic, and presumably the devices as Windows Phones Classic Series. Although this will not be reflected in retail until the release of WP7S, it does signify that Microsoft is committed to not just sustaining but potentially growing the current platform for some time to come.

To compliment WP7S’ focus on consumers, Windows Phones Classic will shift its focus to emerging markets and enterprise solutions. Notably one of the important reasons for this is to provide legacy support to all the existing investments made by OEMs and third-party developers to this platform.

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I personally consider this a strike of genius: iPhone heads get their fix, while business heads and geeks can continue to use their favorite OS. Two types of customer need two types of platform – and Microsoft seems to understand that better than most. They had “split operating systems” for ages: what worked for Windows NT and 9x should also work in mobile.

For them, WM7 seems to be the “premium” service for media-centric handsets – business boxen will continue to use Windows Mobile 6.5.x. This means that two customer groups get tailor-made solutions; which sounds lovely to me.

What do you think?

In the mobile industry, all things go in waves: things are cool, get forgotten about and come back again. Apple’s iPhone made stylusless touchscreens cool – come the winter, the coolness stops.

The image below hits us via kottke.org:

According to him, more and more South Koreans now use sausages to allow them to tap on their iPhone’s screen without undressing their gloves. Insane, but true…

The point is this: a stylus is better in various usage scenarios ranging from hitting small targets to on-screen writing and note taking. After all, humans don’t dip their fingers into ink when it comes to writing…

Various editors have recently received a “bullet-point” list of features and statements about the upcoming version of Windows Mobile. At Tamoggemon’s, we don’t just post them – but also embed some analysis for yours truly.

So, take a look at the items below – italics is the leak, our answer is in normal next:
· WP7 will be announced at MWC, and there will be a demo, but this will be just the UX
What else should they show? Devices?

· MIX will have specific developement focus sessions on WP7
· WP7 supports both Sliverlight (out of browser) and XNA
· Silverlight is version 3.0, with elements of 4.0 plus mobile specific features such as sensors etc
· XNA apps can be developed using XNA GameStudio 3.1
· SL apps developed using Expression Blend 3.x and VS2010
· MS will release a mobile version of VS / Expression which will be free, and VS2010 / Expression Pro will have a free add-on

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· WP7 will have an equivalent of .NET CF embedded into SL, but no SQL.
· WP7 will have isolated storage which is accessible using LINQ
· The UX of WP7 is based upon a theme called “METRO” and is similar to Zune HD, but with a completely new “Start” screen.

Doesn’t look good for business apps, which is a core feature of WM.

· No multi-tasking (applications will pause when in the background, however they will support notifications using the MS Push Notifications environment)

Plain stupid. I don’t think they are dumb enough to give up on the main benefit of their platform.

· No .NET CF backwards compatibility, however a proportion of the data and business logic in .NET CF could be ported

See above.

· MS were confident to have devices ready for Sep 2010
· No MS manufactured device, however much tighter control of manufactring process, so as an example each device has a 3D processing chipset, and MS provide all of the device drivers. So no platform builder. This enables OTA updates and simplified model for ODM’s
· Marketplace will support buy and try before you buy, as well as an API
· ODM / OEM will not be able to modify the “Start” screen, so no more HTC Sense / TouchFlo etc.

While I understand this – many at Microsoft’s are extremely pissed at the diversification, I don’t think OEMs will have one bit of that.

· MS are actually ahead of schedule which will surprise the analysts / journalists
· Browsing experience is currently faster / better than iPhone 3G, and they are aiming towards 3GS.
· Browser is based upon desktop IE7 codebase, but with some IE8 functionality
· No in browser Flash or SL
· WP7 has full integration with XBOX Live, and ability to purchase games
· WP7 will use the Zune software for music, videos, photos sync
· WP7 only supports app installation through service based delivery i.e. marketplace, so no side-loading
· MS will provide a hosted push notifications environment

Peanuts.

To be honest: I dare to speculate that at least part of this information is bogus. If it isn’t, Microsoft really seems to want to fulfill its promise of “dual platforms”: one of tzhem for entertainment (WM7), and the other one (WM 6.5.3) for business.

Just in case anyone of you has still been living under a rock: the Apple tablet has just been released, and it will be called iPad (not iSlate). Those of you needing a bit of technical information can find it below – the rest of this piece will look at the reasoning behind the box.

Hands-on with the iPad
Price information

First of all: the folks at Palm’s will likely jump over their house door backwards three times. The iPad is no danger whatsoever to their new devices – no multitasking and no keyboard mean that the device is almost unusable for business. Other manufacturers don’t have to worry either…

Apple’s iPad also doesn’t target the existing tablet PC crowd: these devices also cater to a completely different audience. Business folks and note takers are not the target here…

When it comes to mobile usage, the box also can’t achieve much: it is too big to be truly portable, and offers too little to replace a notebook. So no cheese here, either.

Instead, the iPad is a passive media consumption box. It is a large personal media player more than anything else – users are expected to take the critter to bed or to the couch and look at TV, do some casual web surfing or listen to music. Active input will take place someplace else.

The device thus ties in perfectly into Apple’s existing ecosystem, and will likely sell like the AppleTV did. But it IMHO won’t have much of a lasting impact on the mobile world as whole…

What do you think?

Oh my god – some things in the mobile space are simply not understandable (and thus tend to get ignored on this site). Rumors which claim that Windows Mobile 7 belong into this sector – but as they seem to get out of control, a bit of “comment” is important.

First of all: Microsoft has no other OS core for ARM chips. While rumors about a Windows 7 base are nice and fine, ARM CPUs can’t do much with code intended for x86 processors. The Zune HD is very likely using a version of Windows CE as well…and why shouldn’t it. Scratch one.

So, Windows Mobile 7 is based on Windows CE. But what does that say about apps?

Nothing! Applications are tied to the Windows Mobile runtime, which is a layer above the kernel. Plain Windows CE devices can’t run most Windows Mobile apps, as they simply lack the required libraries.

So, for once and all: the base kernel used in Windows 7 is likely CE. But this doesn’t say anything about compatibility.

Any feedback?

P.S. Finally, WMPowerUser claims that all Windows CE is dead rumors are junk. They furthermore claim the following feature list for Windows CE 7:

Chelan is to support the following key features.
– Dual Core Support (SMP, ARMv6)
– Visual Studio 2008 Plug in
– WIFI Positioning System
– Bluetooth 2.1
– Cellcore
– DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance)
-DRM
– Media Transfer Protocol
– IE7 Rendering Rich Media Plug-Ins
– NDIS 6.1 support
– UX C ++ XAML API using technologies like Windows Presentation Foundation and Silverlight for attractive and functional user interfaces
– Touch Input

Newspapers all over Austria have gone bonkers about Google’s decision to pull out of China. The company got loads of good press for one reason: they care about human rights.

Even though human rights are not per se something bad, they most definitely are not the real reason for Google’s retreat plans. Instead, they are IMHO used as a cover-up for the real reason, which has but five letters: Baidu.

While the rest of the world is still firmly in the hands of the boys with the G, the Chinese market is all but out of control: recent numbers state that Baidu has a market share of about 60%, with Google struggling to stay around the 35% margin. And the situation is getting worse for Google every day.

So, why risk “getting run out of the country” wearing the donkey hat if you can also “call it quits” and get loads of good press in the west. As the downward trend is clearly visible, Google most probably doesn’t have much to loose in terms of revenue.

On the other hand, getting run out of a country would have intolerable and unfixable effects on Google’s reputation as “search giant”.

What do you think?

Editor’s note: please consider yourself made aware of our “no political comments” policy!

It’s this part of the year yet again: a stupid, boring New Year’s eve party straight ahead, and loads and loads of thoughts rotting in the brain of yours truly. As usual, this is the time for our “New Year’s eve” post series – what has happened in the industry this year?

Looking at the market in general, we see little except for stagnation: except for Palm, nobody really did anything of significance this year.

In the beginning of the year, Microsoft seemed to be hell-bent on killing itself: stunts like the Nokia gang-up, these Pink phones and the Zune HD can easily be considered the single largest threat to the ecosystem – after all, no hardware manufacturer wants to compete directly with the OS vendor.

However, Steve Ballmer is not dumb. He now seems to be aware of the situation, and – what I hear – is hard at work improving it. By cleverly merging the departments in the company, he can create a kickass behemoth much more powerful than Apple…it’s all a question of management and governmental regulations.

For the WMS, the future IMHO looks bad – as Symbian has given up on non-touchscreen devices, Microsoft (whose stake in the market is much smaller) is very likely to follow suite.

For WM, on the other hand, well – not much to worry about…

P.S. If you are interested in other platforms, hit the links below – our sister sites contain similar editorials:
2009@TamsPalm – from a Palm head’s point of view
2009@TamsS60 – will openness prevail?
2009@TamsIJungle – in an Apple’s peel
2009@TamsBlackBerry – on the RIM of destruction due to boredom?

Network issues have plagued carriers all over the world. After AT&T made headlines, the issue is now more or less universal.

An FT.com interview now quoted a O2 head as follows:

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The head of O2 has apologised to customers who could not make phone calls because the mobile operator’s London network was overwhelmed by bandwidth-hungry smartphones.

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O 2 ran into difficulties in the capital during the second half of 2009 as customers with smartphones such as Apple’s iPhone ramped up use of applications that repeatedly pull data off the internet at short intervals.

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Even though the iPhone definitely is a bandwidth hog, reports of O2 bandwidth issues were covered by industry journals like Mobile ever since 2008.

IMHO, the iPhone is not to blame – instead, blame the overselling of mobile broadband. Today, many households are sold mobile bandwidth rather than wired service and a WiFi router without actually needing it.

This causes large-style network loads (think Windows updates) which are completely unneeded – and much more significant than one or two iPhones.

IMHO, the iPhone is used as a scapegoat here – what do you think?

Image: Wikimedia Commons / HMRC

Microsoft’s Windows Mobile platform lives and dies with its hardware partners: if the hardware partners stop producing Windows Mobile phones, the platform dies.

Unfortunately, Microsoft has not been too kind to its hardware partners recently: things like the Nokia partnership or the usage of a HTC handset to demo Windows Mobile 6.5 were likely to annoy other manufacturers. These birds have now come home to roost.

InformationWeek reports a Motorola manager as follows:

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Today, during a closed roundtable discussion with the press, Motorola’s Christy Wyatt said that the company does not plan to support the current generation of Windows Mobile software at all. Instead, it is waiting for the next generation before it chooses to begin making Windows Mobile devices again.

When pushed for a clarification, Wyatt indicated that Windows Mobile 6.5 is not on Motorola’s road map at all.

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However, Microsoft is well aware of the problem. A stunned Engadget reporter stated the following:

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An HTC HD2 is doing the rounds at the show (though it’s in someone’s pocket) — when we asked why the company hasn’t highlighted the device (which is pretty darn slick, by the way), Robbie seemed to glaze over the presence of the device. The line was “we want to work with all our partners.” Why they wouldn’t call out what is a groundbreaking device for Windows Mobile is somewhat perplexing.

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All stabs at the competition left aside, I am not sure whether Microsoft is still able to fix the problem. OK, they can keep Samsung in line via desktop Windows pricing…but manufacturers like Motorola are free to do as they please…

The blogosphere has been abuzz about a recently-discovered vulnerability in HTC’s bluetooth FTP service. The vulnerability indeed is there – but is it as severe as it looks?

First of all: we are looking at a rather uncommon service. Some devices allow you to access their file system remotely via Bluetooth in an FTPesque fashion. Microsoft itself never supported the protocol, but some HP and HTC devices did so via custom software.

The software in HTC’s devices now has a somewhat annoying issue: it allows attackers who have been permitted to connect to it to break out of the specified folder, and traverse the entire file system of the device.

Sounds dangerous – but it is no cause for concern. The reason is that authentication is handled by Microsoft’s underlying bluetooth stack. Untrusted devices are not allowed to connect to the service, and thus can not do any harm.

You are vulnerable in but one situation: when allowing untrusted users to access your FTP service. As long as you don’t pair with random devices, you should be safe and set…

Microsoft has long been known as the home of a process called dogfooding or “eating one’s own dog food“: it involves using your own products for productivity purposes whereever possible. This (obviously) has its merits and benefits, but was not done so far for Windows Mobile.

Fortunately, this has now changed – the quote below hits us via BusinessInsider:

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Microsoft won’t pay for its employees’ Apple iPhone data service plans anymore, even if they’re used significantly for work purposes. Nor will it pay for Research In Motion BlackBerry service, or a new Palm Pre. Instead, it will only reimburse data plans for Microsoft Windows Mobile-powered smartphones.

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While this measure may not have too many short-term benefits, the long-term implications are clear: as more and more Microsoft folks become acquainted with Windows Mobile, they will also become aware of the possibilities offered. This might lead to better integration in the future (think Visio-to-Go, and so on) – and definitely is a very smart step…

Microsoft’s recently-uncovered content guidelines for their Markeplace for Mobile immediately came under fire from analysts all over the world: too strict, too stringent…and no VOIP. Oh, the horror – Microsoft has gone Apple.

Even though I can fully understand the dissatisfaction from an users point of view, I have to hold Microsoft largely blameless: most of these restrictions probably didn’t grow on their home turf.

Keep in mind that the Marketplace client will be in the start menu of each and every WM 6.5 box peddled. Carriers and licensees are not allowed to remove it from there either (AFAIK)….which means that a partner who can’t live with the Marketplace being where it is and what it is will not be able to deploy WM 6.5 handsets.

This explains the conditions about VoIP and other carrier’s plans. Nokia had huge issues trying to get rid of its N97 due to its Skype client…now imagine how happy carriers will be about 50 different VoIP applications which are but one click away.

But the show doesn’t end here. Today plug-ins, for example, are a very common culprit for device slowdowns…and device slowdowns are a common cause for complaints about WM devicess.

These complaints obviously need to get handled somewhere….and this somewhere often is at carriers or device manufacturers. For them, giving users access to today plugins is similar to inviting a kleptomanic to a Palm User Group meeting – problems are guranteed.

In the end, Microsoft had to take a judgement call: either open up the platform for most developers at the expense of a few – or leave the market closed for everybody. Microsoft has IMHO done the right thing…what do you think?