Tag Archives: Motorola
Chrome OS, Android 3.0 in Q4 – Is There Room For Both?
Posted on 05. Jul, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 
2 Comments
It’s being reported that Android 3.0 will be available during the fourth quarter and most likely in November smartphones with the Google’s newest version of their mobile OS will be released by major wireless carriers. Also coming at the end of the year is Google’s Music service, which was shown off to some degree at Google I/O with a demonstration of a wireless device streaming songs from a computer to a phone through App Engine, the company’s cloud API.
One interesting thing to note about Android 3.0: it will have support for tablet devices that have screens larger than 4″. That makes it hard to determine where a Chrome OS tablet will fit in to the mix, as we have seen on Chromium.org evidence that there will be touch capability available to the manufacturers of the computer-based operating system.
It’s starting to look like although Google will spend huge amounts of resources on developing both Android and Chrome OS, the level of adoption for computer devices using each individual operating system will be left to device manufacturers. While mobile phone companies such as HTC and Motorola have seen enormous success with Android, there’s no stopping the deep pocketed PC manufacturers from developing innovative devices loaded with Chrome OS.
There’s still a deep separation between computers and smartphones, so at this point having a division of the two makes sense. Also, having consumer electronics manufacturer’s battle it out in terms of who can make the best hardware products loaded with Google’s OSs makes total sense, and is a very smart move for the company.
The bottom line is that Google will stay on the sidelines for any type of Nexus One-branded product of their own, providing its support for both OS platforms and if the two eventually merge into one in a matter of years – with perhaps Android the underlying system and Chrome on top for complex web applications – then so be it.
Does Nexus One’s Poor Numbers Mean a Strategy Change?
Posted on 16. Mar, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 2 Comments
Gizmodo is reporting today that the Nexus One, released in early January as Google’s flagship Android smartphone product has had very poor sales numbers when compared to its competitors. Counting the seventy-four days since the Nexus One has been released, and then comparing the Droid and iPhone the numbers are paltry for Google. While the iPhone and Motorola Droid tallied a million and 1.05 million respectively, the Nexus One has only shipped 135,000 phones.At that number, the highly touted iPad tablet already has more pre-orders than Google’s official phone has sold.
But let’s go back to highly touted. Although the tablet from Apple was never really a for sure thing, there were plenty of news stories about it long before it was unveiled, one of the biggest was the fact that Apple already owned the domain name for iSlate – the supposed name for the device at the time. So what about the publicity for the Nexus One? Pretty slim, and it almost seemed like and afterthought once Motorola hit it big with the Droid that Google felt they almost had to release their own phone.
On the subject of Motorola, keep in mind that the marketing campaign for the Droid was in excess of $100 million dollars. There wasn’t a time you could turn on the TV and hear a robot saying “Droid” in the commercial blitz that commenced at the phone’s launch. By contrast, I’ve never seen a Nexus One commercial – the only ads that I have seen are on Google pages and some ads sprinkled here and there on the internet.
Just because the numbers are not that good for Google doesn’t mean that they haven’t learned a lot from this exercise. Remember, this was the first actual product that Google has released. And they decided to do it differently than any other mobile phone manufacturer on the market by selling it themselves. Even though in reality it was made by HTC, it has the Google brand on it.
Now they will sell the Nexus One for AT&T, competing directly with Apple – but you have to pay the full $529 for the privilege.
When it comes time for Google to sell their own computing device, what path will they take? I have a feeling that they will sell one themselves, but they may opt to also get the backing of a large manufacturer as well for mass marketing purposes. Remember, Acer as of late has been doing a lot of posturing about being the first to market with a Chrome OS netbook, that they will sell millions of them this year and so on.
Whatever the choice may be, it’s clear that the Nexus One was a trial run that required very little marketing expense for the company, which is where things could have got expensive. After all, it seems as if HTC is rolling out new phones all the time anyway, why not help Google out since incidentally, the search engine giant lent a hand with the G1 smartphone?
And don’t forget, the Nexus One has received favorable reviews, some calling it the best Android phone yet – even Gizmodo. Google doesn’t care about popularity for its branded devices yet; it’s more concerned with providing the best user experience possible.
Apple’s Strategy: iPad the Bottom Line – Before the Competition
Posted on 30. Jan, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 1 Comments
There is no speculation at this point that Apple’s tablet has been way overhyped – but it’s been some great free marketing. Plus, the iPad has a leg up on its rivals in that it does not have any solid competition right now in this segment. Many are saying that at $499 ($130 if you want wireless 3G) for the entry level 16GB iPad that this tablet is a good price. But the reality is that it’s a good price because there are not many tablet products out there as well as the fact that it’s a pretty cheap Apple product.
The only other tablet products that are out now are made by PC manufacturers such as HP and Lenovo, but these devices usually come with Windows 7, have swivel keyboards and cost over $1,500. Those products are tagerted toward businesses, and that’s a totally different market altogether than what the iPad is currently focusing on.
What you’re getting is essentially a larger iPhone – without the phone. There’s no camera, you cannot multitask and typing anything other than short texts are going to be difficult unless Apple has some really groundbreaking technology in this product. And did I mention that the operating system for the iPad is closed source?
Apple still doesn’t offer a product in the netbook genre. Instead, they are releasing a tablet. This may be a good idea for them – but I have a feeling once the competition heats up that only those who are Apple diehards are going to want an iPad. In fact, at a recent presentation at Google’ London headquarters, Senior Product Manager of Search Anders Sandholm basically had to go the “no comment” route when asked about whether Chrome OS will have a multitouch tablet product.
Final thought? Apple is going to have a cash cow on their hands – until Google gets a product from a manufacturer like HTC or maybe even an MSI product running Android. Also Motorola has announced plans to bring out a product that is cheaper and has more capabilities. And there’s no doubt that many other companies are going to announce their plans as well.
Don’t believe that Apple is just using this tablet to pad the bottom line from slower iPod sales? Look at this bill of materials report on the iPad by Computerworld. Interpretation? Apple has room to drop this price when competitors arrive, but they will try to keep their healthy margins as long as they can.
