Tag: Google

Wearable tech shipments to reach 64 million in 2017

Posted on October 4, 2013 by - News

wearable-techIn spite of what can only be described as copious amounts of hype, the wearable tech boom won’t materialise anytime soon, at least if Berg Insight is to be believed.

The research firm estimates sales of wearable technology devices will reach just 64 million in 2017. Worldwide shipments in 2012 reached 8.3 million, so the compound annual growth rate through 2017 should be rather impressive, over 50 percent. However, all that glitters is not gold.

Smart watches are already on sale and they are failing to gain much traction. Even Samsung’s Gear doesn’t appear to be getting a lot of attention. Google’s Glass is still not on the market, but with a very high price tag and numerous questions about privacy and good taste, it doesn’t look too promising.

Smart glasses, watches and fitness trackers still face huge technical challenges that will persist for years to come.

“A perfect storm of innovation within low power wireless connectivity, sensor technology, big data, cloud services, voice user interfaces and mobile computing power is coming together and paves the way for connected wearable technology,” said Johan Svanberg, Senior Analyst, Berg Insight. “However, today’s devices need to evolve into something more than single purpose fitness trackers or external smartphone notification centres in order to be truly successful” continues Mr. Svanberg.

That’s the second challenge. Wearable gear needs to be, well, useful – otherwise it will never gain mass market appeal. The ultimate problem with smart watches isn’t battery life or price, it’s the fact that they don’t offer much functionality. At this point they are basically a second screen for smartphones and due to limited battery life they aren’t very practical, either.

Quanta to miss tablet forecast on poor Nexus sales

Posted on September 17, 2013 by - News

nexus7Quanta Computer could miss its tablet target due to weaker than expected sales of Google’s new Nexus 7 tablet. Quanta was hoping to ship 20 million tablets this year, but Digitimes reports it is already having trouble keeping up with the plan.

As a result, Quanta could revise its tablet shipment target for 2013 by as much as 40 percent, to just 12 to 13 million units. In addition to the Nexus 7, Quanta also has orders for Amazon Kindle tablets. Although Nexus and Kindle Fire tablets were originally conceived to target the low-end, but the market evolved. Today, $200 tablets aren’t really low end, as there are plenty of cheaper white-box products priced closer to $100.

On the other hand, people who are willing to pay a bit more tend to go for Apple’s iPad mini, which is pricier still. Rumour has it that Google will not tap Asustek for the next generation Nexus 7, which means Quanta could lose the Nexus deal altogether in mid-2014. In addition, Compal has already grabbed part of the Amazon contract.

Intel becomes irrelevant

Posted on September 12, 2013 by - News, Opinions

The mighty dinosaur IntelIt was formerly a chip giant but pretty soon now some archaeologist will uncover the bones of Chipzilla as the lumbering dinosaur nears the end of its existence.

At the Intel Developer Forum this year, Intel’s newly hatched CEO, Brian Krzanich, attempted to breathe new life into the diplodocus he tends by warbling on about healthcare and tablets. He must realise, of course, that to somewhat mix metaphors, Chipzilla has missed the boat.

The writing was on the wall for Intel some years ago but because the company is such a giant, the tiny brain wasn’t getting messages from its extremities that it was slowly dying.

It is a climate change in the egosystem that will spell the end for Intel because, in the marketing babble of the present age, its business model is clearly “unsustainable”.

Intel could only continue to churn out new processes and chips as long as it had a virtual monopoly in the market.  A new fab costs billions to produce and profit is predicated on the fact that it essentially controlled the market.

The giant appears to have missed the fact that handset manufacturers didn’t and don’t want to be locked into the same model as the PC industry.  Now, anyone with a smartphone or tablet is toting around an extremely sophisticated computer and no-one in their right minds wants to spend thousands on a PC unless they’re forced to.  As recent market research has shown, the days of PCs are pretty much numbered and, of course, like its evil twin Microsoft, Intel forgot about the mantra it used to chant, that mantra called convergence.

It will take a while for Intel to die because it is such a lumbering creature, but a model that requires billions to develop new processes simply based on PC sales just won’t work anymore. And if Intel thinks that tablets or smartphones will save its bacon, then it is living in cloud cuckoo land.

In some ways, we must lament the coming death of Chipzilla.  It had some fine people working for it and its process technology was next to none.  But greed and its virtual monopoly meant that it was viewing the world wearing blinkers and its own momentum and size prevented it from taking vital decisions.

Nexus 7 out, Nexus 4’s price cut

Posted on August 28, 2013 by - News, Products

nexus4-ceGoogle’s Nexus 7 has gone on sale in Britain. Prices start at £199 for the 16GB version, while the 32GB one costs £239. In addition to Google’s Play Store, it is also available at Currys, Tesco, Argos, Amazon and John Lewis.

It is competitively priced. Although it’s based on a  Qualcomm chip which is also used in the Nexus 4, the Nexus 7 features a 1920×1200 screen and as it is a Nexus device, software support is second to none. In many respects, it renders other cheap 7-inch tablets rather pointless, which is hardly great news for Google hardware partners. The Nexus 7 is now available in France, Germany and Spain, too. However, smaller markets will have to wait.

The Nexus 4 has been around for a while, but it is still a very competitive product. It might not have a 1080p screen or the latest greatest processor, but it’s a great workhorse and its build quality is still superior to any Samsung phone out there. Now it’s an even better deal, as Google slashed the price for the 8GB model to just £159, while the 16GB version now costs £239. If LTE isn’t a must have, the Nexus 4 is truly a steal for anyone who does not want to get bogged down in a two-year carrier deal.

Google is also expected to roll out a new Nexus 10 later this year and rumours of a Nexus 5 superphone are rampant. Let’s not forget the Moto X, either, although it is limited to the US market.

It’s all good news for Android fans and Google, but Google hardware partners are probably not amused. With such low prices, Nexus products are disruptive and they are hard to keep up with. They always get the latest updates and on the hardware front they offer great value, although they don’t tend feature the latest tech out there.

The only good bit news for other Android peddlers is that Google doesn’t appear to be trying too hard. Geeks love Nexus gear, but average people have no idea that it exists at all. Google is simply not marketing Nexus products properly, but this might be about to change. Googlerola recently announced that it would spend a few hundred million dollars on Moto X marketing and if Google starts marketing Nexus products just as aggressively, well then,  anything could happen.

Deal could kill any hope of Dell Chromebooks

Posted on August 21, 2013 by - News, Opinions

Dell logoChromebooks are the new netbooks, but not the in the sense that they’ll go extinct over the next couple of years. They are dirt cheap, making them ideal for some niches and recent surveys indicate that Chromebook deployment in SMBs and even some bigger organisations makes a lot of financial sense.

On the other hand, Chromebooks could help PC vendors weather the storm as they complement proper laptops and to some extent tablets. HP, Lenovo, Samsung and Acer are already on board. Asus is rumoured to be working on Chromebooks as well, but what about Dell?

Dell doesn’t do Chromebooks and The VAR Guy reckons that there’s a good chance it won’t do any in the future, either. Dell is trying to go private, some shareholders don’t like the idea one bit and one particular detail could end all hope of Dell Chromebooks. If Dell does indeed go private, it will have to accept a $2 billion loan from Microsoft.

It is speculation at this point, but a $2 billion loan tends to come with some strings attached. Needless to say Microsoft has a vested interest in keeping Chromebooks away from mainstream markets and it already has a great relationship with Dell. In fact, Dell is one of the few PC vendors that did not try to expand into Android tablets. It does make tablets, but they run Windows RT and Windows 8 rather than Android. Its only foray into Android waters was the Ophelia, a thumb drive PC based on Android.

It’s quite a conundrum and it might get even worse. Chromebooks are just getting started and if HP, Lenovo and the rest of the gang start reporting positive sales figures over the next few months, pitchfork wielding shareholders could start demanding Chromebooks and Android gear from Dell. Lenovo is already making a killing on Android smartphones and tablets, Acer and Asus are also doing quite well, so why should Dell shareholders settle for anything less?

Cloud Industry Forum slams Google over .cloud gTLD

Posted on August 19, 2013 by - News

cloud 1Industry group the Cloud Industry Forum has slammed Google for what it calls the company’s attempt to control the future of the .cloud generic top level domain (gTLD).

ICANN had been looking at reviewing thousands of gLTDs, and one of the most disputed was .cloud – with three top brands, Google, Symantec, and Amazon, applying for it as a closed registry. This would make the bid winner the sole registrar of the domain and would exercise all control over it.

An open letter to ICANN, penned by Cloud Industry Forum founder Andy Burton, says none of these companies should have the right over a domain that could represent an entire industry. “Clearly none had the right to exercise ownership over the phrase, and indeed none could ever dream to achieve it in a comparative activity such as registering a trademark,” Burton said.

The CIF thinks Google’s moves to convert the closed .cloud application to a “restricted” one has done “little to allay industry fears, and is likely to compound competition concerns and give Google an unfair advantage over everyone else in the industry”.

The threat is that, by controlling the .cloud domain, other players will be relegated to third level domains and, as a result, will give Google an unfair ability to promote, categorise and develop cloud services.

“As one of the largest and most powerful cloud services companies in the world, Google would have both the incentive and ability to undermine its rivals’ ability to innovate and promote their own cloud services via this gTLD,” Burton writes. “A situation we believe, that no matter what the positive motive of Google’s application may have been, should not be allowed to arise in the first place”.

“We cannot allow market size and funding to win over common sense and fairness in matters such as the control of a generic term,” Burton said.

The letter is available to read in full here.

Although Google does its best to distance itself from anticompetitive claims, the company has been under the eye of both the US FTC and, now, the European Commission. Critics have alleged Google used its market leading position to redirect search results to its own services, and away from those of rivals.

Android tablets still lack tons of iPad apps

Posted on August 15, 2013 by - News, Products

NexusSales of Android smartphones and cheap tablets are skyrocketing, but the same isn’t true of high-end Android tablets. While many models feature impressive hardware that could easily go toe to toe with the iPad, the app ecosystem just isn’t there yet. 

According to Canalys, out of the top 50 paid and free iPad apps in Apple’s US App Store, 30 percent are nowhere to be found on Google’s Play Store. Another 18 percent were available, but they were not optimized for tablets, which means they look and feel like oversized phone apps. Just 52 percent were available through the Play Store, optimized and ready for tablets.

“Quite simply, building high-quality app experiences for Android tablets has not been among many developers’ top priorities to date,” said Canalys senior analyst Tim Shepherd. “That there are over 375,000 apps in the Apple App Store that are designed with iPad users in mind, versus just a fraction of this – in the low tens of thousands – available through Google Play, underscores this point.”

Canalys expects all this to change, as the user base grows and Google introduces improvements to the Play Store. However, Google simply has to do more to support developers to invest time and money in high-quality Android apps for tablets. Since pricey Android tablets don’t sell well, the user base will remain limited. Most people who buy Android tablets go for cheap and small models, hence it is safe to assume that they are not willing to invest in premium apps and services, either.

The other problem facing Android developers is fragmentation. Apple developers need to design tablet apps for just two screen resolutions and form factors, both of which use the same aspect ratio. They don’t face nearly as many as many challenges as Android developers, who have to deal with dozens of different resolutions, form factors, Android versions, APIs and application processors.

Worse, at the end of the day Android developers have a very limited market for bespoke tablet apps, as the user base is still small and it’s growing from the ground up, i.e. growth is coming from low-end tablets that weren’t designed with anything serious in mind.

Google: Pets are most popular passwords

Posted on August 1, 2013 by - News

google-ICGoogle commissioned a survey of 2,000 adults – and one in ten said they could accurately guess a colleague’s password. Probably because the most popular passwords are, according to the research, easy guesses.

Wedding anniversaries, birthdays and kids’ names were all top choices for passwords, while football teams and the word ‘password’ also appeared a fair few times. Indeed – ‘password’ was tenth most popular.

Shockingly, half of web users surveyed admitted to sharing their passwords with other people. Women, the survey found, were more likely than men to share their password, and twice as likely to share it with their children.

But the most chosen password was the name of a pet. Favourite holidays or place of birth were also frequently chosen – the kind of passwords that would also be answers to security questions.

Given that it is often social engineering tricks or the simple human gaffe that leads to compromised security, this is a security nightmare.

“People often leave their information open to online security breaches without even realising it,” director of security for Google Apps, Eran Feigenbaum, told the Telegraph. “Lax attitudes to online security can lead to serious consequences
if strangers access your information.”

Speaking with ChannelEye, security expert Graham Cluley said it’d sadly be no surprise if the research was accurate.

“It never ceases to amaze me how – despite all the high profile hacks and data breaches – people still haven’t learnt the most basic lesson about passwords,” Cluley said. “Of if they have, they’ve decided to ignore it because it’s ‘too difficult’ to remember tricky passwords, let alone different passwords for different websites”.

As with other calls from the UK’s security pundits, companies, consumer action groups, and Cluley himself, he said it’s easy to imagine the positive impact  of a public education campaign.

It could explain that “password management software exists, often for free, which will remember all your passwords for you, and generate new, complex passwords so you don’t end up using ‘Tiddles’ over and over again,” Cluley said.

Forrester thinks Chromebooks

Posted on July 31, 2013 by - News, Products

chromebookChromebooks are relatively new devices and they have yet to make their mark, but Forrester Research believes they have what it takes to make their presence felt in enterprise markets.

Although sales are still relatively low, bear in mind that Chromebooks are going after a limited niche market and that market does not include businesses, at least not for the time being.

However, Forrester’s latest Chromebook report concluded that businesses should rethink their approach to Chromebooks. At the moment only 28 percent of enterprises have some interest in Chromebooks, while 82 percent are interested in laptops. Despite the not-so-encouraging figures, Forrester’s research shows that there are a number of circumstances where Chromebooks may trump PCs, Macs and tablets in a business setting.

First of all Chromebooks are relatively cheap and they could be offered to specific classes of workers in a mixed environment with PCs and tablets, all at a relatively low cost. They are also a good fit for organizations that have adopted Gmail and other Google apps and services. Lastly, organizations that plan to deploy devices in a customer-facing think kiosk setting should be interested in Chromebooks.

Analyst J.P. Gownder argues that Chromebooks offer the prospect of radically reducing the amount of time IT staff spends keeping the devices going. Instead of wasting time on installing software and creating images on laptops, the techies could be freed up to do something a bit more productive. Due to their simplicity and reliance on Google’s cloud-based services, Chromebooks offer high uptime, low service costs and scalable deployment.

Windows and Microsoft Office have been a staple of businesses for decades, but Chromebooks might have what it takes to disrupt Redmond’s (strangle) hold on the market. They are cheap to procure, easy to deploy and even easier to maintain. Although many punters still view Chromebooks as a cosumerish replacement for netbooks, these advantages could transform them into a viable alternative to proper laptops in a number of settings.

iPad market share at an all-time low

Posted on July 29, 2013 by - News

cheap-tabletsApple’s share of the tablet market appears to be at an all-time low, thanks to strong competition from cheap and cheerful Android tablets.

Despite the slump, Apple still remains the biggest player in the tablet market, but it is no longer the only outfit in town.

According to Trend Force, iPad sales dipped from 17 million to 14.6 million units last quarter. It ended the quarter with a 35.5 percent market share. Samsung ranked second with 8.8 million units and a 21.4 percent share. This is rather surprising, since Samsung’s tablets tend to be overpriced and overhyped.

Asus wound up in a distant third spot, with shipments of 1.6 million and a 3.9 percent market share. Acer wasn’t far behind, with 1.5 million units and a 3.6 percent share. Amazon ranked fifth with 1.1 million units and a 2.7 percent share.

Microsoft and Google in next, at 0.9 million and 0.7 million respectively and the figures are surprising to say the least. Google’s Nexus 7 was supposed to be a cheap, high volume device, but it seems it was outpaced even by Microsoft’s Surface tablets.

It should be noted that Apple is gearing up to introduce the fifth generation iPad and the second generation iPad mini. It current line-up is rather dated and the new iPads could turn things around. Google introduced the new Nexus 7 last week and it is getting some very positive reviews as we speak.

However, we believe the most interesting number in the report has nothing to do with Apple, Samsung or Google. Makers of white-box tablets sipped 9.7 million units last quarter, for a combined market share of 23.5% percent. In other words for every Surface RT or Nexus 7 tablet sold last quarter, nameless Chinese manufacturers sold ten of their equally nameless tablets.

Tablets to outsell PCs by year end

Posted on July 26, 2013 by - News

cheap-tabletsIt appears that worldwide shipments of media tablets will outpace PCs by the end of the year. Speaking at Google’s breakfast event on Thursday, head of Android and Chrome Sundar Pichai shed light on some impressive tablet shipment figures. His claims are backed up by IDC’s latest reports.

Pichai said tablet sales by the end of the year should hit 225 million, with a total of 70 million Android tablet activations, up from 40 million last year, reports Slashgear.

However, Android is gaining ground on iOS and Pichai claims one in two new tablets is based on Android, not iOS.

This basically means tablets will start outselling PCs soon. Sales of corporate PCs won’t be as affected as sales of consumer PCs. Many consumers are apparently shunning their PCs and using tablets to perform basic tasks. Of course this doesn’t apply to users who use productivity applications on their computers.

tablet-pc-forecast-2013a

However, the PC market seems to be bottoming out. Tablet shipments should hit 300 million units by 2015 and 400 million units by 400, but PC sales should stabilise at current levels and start recovering next year.

Although tablets are disrupting the PC industry, the trend can’t go on for much longer. Over the next couple of years anyone who could completely replace their notebook with a tablet would have done so, hence PC shipments should remain relatively stable, although they’ll still be short of 2011’s record.

tablet-pc-sales-2013b

Interestingly, the forecasts don’t show any slowdown in tablet sales through 2017. As tablets mature, sales should start cooling down, but as things stand now, tablets still have a lot of potential for long-term growth.

The real question is how many tablets in 2015 and 2017 will be hybrids. Intel is pitching its 2-in-1 concept and PC vendors will be eager to embrace them. Hybrid tablets will effectively blur the line between tablets and ultraportable notebooks. If Intel has its way, much of that 400 million figure forecasted for 2017 will belong to hybrids.

However, we are not entirely convinced Intel and Microsoft can pull it off without sacrificing a few sacred cows in the process.

Tablet retail searches are soaring

Posted on July 22, 2013 by - News

Keep taking the tabletsYe ancient Tablet has already taken a toll on PC sales and now they appear to be changing the online retail landscape as well.

According to the British Retail Consortium and Google, retail search volumes grew by 15 percent in the second quarter, but tablet search volumes were up a staggering 132 percent. Smartphone growth was 66 percent.

So what are mobile users searching for? It appears many of them enjoy DIY and gardening, as mobile searches for the two categories were up 170 percent and 81 percent year-on-year. Obviously, much of the growth is seasonal. Clothing is also popular and unsurprisingly it appears that most mobile searches are coming from consumers making their purchases while soaking in the sun, or tinkering around the shed.

Helen Dickinson, Director General, British Retail Consortium, said the results also show the changes the internet is bringing to the international retail market.

“The considerable increase this month in the number of UK consumers searching overseas retailers show that barriers are increasingly being broken down. UK retailers are already responding well to these changes and will be keen to continue seeing equivalent increases in overseas customers searching them out,” she said.

Peter Fitzgerald, Retail Director, Google, said the new data merely backs up seasonal trends seen in previous editions of BRC’s Retail Sales Monitor.

“Pureplay retailers in particular regained their growth, responding to the pressure of multichannel retailers in the online space. International interest remains a strong lever for our homegrown retailers,” he said. “UK interest in overseas brands however, has really peaked this quarter driven in particular by interest in US brands.”

Total search volumes from UK consumers searching overseas retailers increased by 51 percent in Q2 compared with the previous year.

Mobile payments explosion might be a damp squib

Posted on July 12, 2013 by - News

google-walletFor months now we’ve been reading very optimistic reports on the future of mobile payments and m-commerce, but one outfit is apparently looking beyond the hype. Research firm eMarketer has slashed its growth estimate for proximity mobile payments in half.

Last October eMarketer forecasted that mobile payments would hit $2.13 billion this year, but in its latest note it puts the figure at $1 billion. Although the number of mobile transactions has more than tripled over the past two years, growth is apparently slowing down, plagued by a multitude of issues.

The firm pointed out that delays and adoption issues are hampering growth. The fact that there are already several competing platforms isn’t helping, either. However, it is still looking good in the long run. By 2016 mobile transactions should hit 2016, roughly a year behind the previous eMarketer schedule. Just a year later, in 2017, mobile payments should hit $58 billion.

Aside from the usual hardware teething problems, mobile payment outfits need to address security concerns and streamline the process itself. At the moment, the user experience still involves too much friction, according to PayPal CTO James Barrese. The ultimate goal is to come up with a one-touch payment scheme that would be a lot simpler and quicker than the good old card swipe. That probably won’t come about soon, and maintaining a level of security deemed acceptable by consumers might be very challenging.

In addition, the fact that there are several players vying for their slice of the pie, using their own systems and infrastructure, means that there is plenty of room for consolidation, reckons Venture Beat. However, big players aren’t very open to consolidation, or even cooperation, hence it is very unlikely that a single platform can break out of the pack and transform itself into an industry standard.

Chromebooks defy slow PC market with strong growth

Posted on July 12, 2013 by - News, Products

chromebookDemand for traditional desktops and laptops has been waning for years and the last two quarters saw the biggest slump in PC shipments in decades, but Google’s Chromebooks have bucked the trend.

Envisioned as cheap alternatives to Windows based laptops and netbooks, Chromebooks are cheap and cheerful, usually priced between $199 and $299. Although the market is still on a tablet binge, consumers seem to be quite interested in Chromebooks as well.

NPD estimates that Chromebooks have already managed to seize 20 to 25 percent of the sub-$300 laptop market in the Land of the Free. Overall, Chromebooks had a 4 to 5 percent market share in the first quarter, up from one to two percent a year ago.

That is a pretty impressive share for a category of products that practically didn’t exist a year ago and even today many consumers have no idea what a Chromebook actually is. NPD analyst Stephen Baker told Bloomberg that he was initially sceptical, but he now believes Chrombooks have managed to find a niche in the marketplace.

“The entire computing ecosystem is undergoing some radical change, and I think Google has its part in that change,” he said.

The untimely demise of the netbook also played a role in the Chromebook surge. Although netbooks weren’t that big among average consumers, they were essentially a good way of getting very cheap yet fully functional computers to schools and other institutions on a budget.

Chromebooks are just more of the same, but their success beckons the question – couldn’t have Intel and Microsoft played their netbook cards a bit better five years ago? After all, Google seems to be proving that there is still enough room for dirt cheap laptops, in spite of the tablet juggernaut. It seems Intel made a terrible strategic miscalculation with Atom cores.

Five years ago Chipzilla didn’t want to peddle high-volume low-margin chips, yet now it is struggling to come up with competitive mobile SoCs, which are basically an evolution of the original Atom concept. Maintaining higher margins and appeasing the Street with good quarterly results seems to have been more important than a comprehensive long-term mobile strategy.

Mobile wallet market worth billions by 2018

Posted on July 1, 2013 by - News, Products

google-walletThe mobile wallet market is about to get big, huge even. According to a new report published by Transparency Market Research, the global mobile wallet market will reach $1,602.4 billion by 2018. In EMEA it will grow at a CAGR of 30.7 percent from 2012 to 2018 and EMEA will be the largest mobile wallet market in the world by 2018.

EMEA accounted for about 40 percent of the global mobile wallet share in 2011, but the Asia Pacific region is expected to see the fastest growth over the next five years.

The staggering figures sound optimistic to say the least, but Transparency Market Research is basing them on a few emerging trends that hold a lot of promise. The outfit found that affordable NFC enabled phones and POS (point of sale) systems will be the main drivers of growth over the next few years.

Retail is currently the biggest application for mobile wallet services and the trend is set to continue, due to ease of payment using smartphones and initiatives to introduce new POS terminals in convenience stores. Vending machines are also a potent market. Mobile network operators are expected to play a pivotal role in future mobile wallet adoption.

Unsurprisingly, the key players in the market will be Visa, MasterCard, American Express, PayPal, Google and others from the list of usual suspects.

However, it won’t be just smooth sailing. Quite a few consumers still don’t know how mobile wallets actually work and we’re pretty sure that many aren’t even aware of their existence. Security and privacy remain sources of concern, too.