Way to go Tringers!!
Lets take pride in our “Trending Sessions” and have more of them every month. Our predictions were spot on Nokia strategy to rebound from the gallows. Indeed Mind melting does work. What excited me the most was our trainees coming up with insightful predictions and being spot on.
As for Nokia, It would have been nice if they had given the consumers some more option .. why chose one when you can have both (MS and Android)? Maybe the story inside is more ugly than what meets the eye. Maybe they needed the money more than the platform putting MS in the driver’s seat. None the less, good for the industry.
Moral of the story: If you keep your eyes and ears open (with mind chugging along), its not difficult to predict trends. As an SI and a growing tech. services/solutions company, being able to understand technology trends gives us a unique perspective on how to plan our growth.
Hopefully, at Tringapps, we have created an environment that encourages people to think beyond the status quo and build innovative products and solutions. Understanding trending is an integral part of making the most out of paradigm shifts.
Let me also take this opportunity to announce a $5000 dollars prize (Open to all tringers in US, India and Philippines for anyone who gets the maximum number of “spot on” tech. predictions right.
The areas are:
Cloud Computing, Mobile Processors, Graphics and display screens, Mobile Platforms, Smart Phones, Tablets, HTML5, Gaming Consoles, Internet TV.. and anything that is cool for tringapps to watch out for!
Coming back to Nokia … This paragraph from Nokia sums it up! Going forward, Nokia is going to produce smartphones running Windows Phone 7, freeing the company from having to develop its own operating systems. As Nokia CEO Stephen Elop said in a press conference at MWC, ”We are paying them for the software. But we won’t have to develop the software. And there will be some very apparent operating savings from doing this.” The goal is to create a partnership that can stand up to the Apple iPhone and Google Android OS. As Elop also said tonight, “Wireless operators very much want a third ecosystem. They want customer choice and they want choices for themselves. And now they have that third choice.”
Wow, I feel this one interesting partnership IT industry has recently seen. I believe Nokia will turn out to be one of the most important partners for Microsoft and vice-versa. I can’t help but think about the revolutionary change this marriage may bring for both these IT giants. Nokia’s robust relationships with two prominent mobiel operators in China – China Mobile and China Unicom are for sure going to bring some added value to Microsoft. It might be very interesting to see how Microsoft leverages Nokia’s localized services & offerings specially for Asian markets. It sure does look promising!
Nokia + Microsoft. Hmm… This collaboration, to me at least, is predicted but yet surprising. Predicted is because we all know that Nokia’s efforts had been going downhill since the introduction of iOS and then it hit big time when Android OS came into play. So we all know that in order for Nokia to jump back into action, they either have to create another OS that re-revolutionize the mobile industry, or just teaming up with some other OS out there. The surprising part was where Nokia join forces with Windows Mobile 7. This is because iOS and Android OS are doing so well in the market. Why not choose them? Yes Tarun maybe there is more than meets the eye. Maybe there’s some unforeseen circumstances that cause Nokia to team up with Microsoft. For all that is worth, the job has been done.
From what I have observed, this will be a good strategic plan for both Microsoft and Nokia. For Nokia, they hope that with WM7(Windows Mobile 7), they can yet again take back their crown for selling the most devices that was recently overtaken by Android. Sales goes up, and more employees can be hired. So everyone is happy! As for Microsoft, as we all know, they enter the mobile world a little late than desired, so with the help of Nokia, maybe they can stabilize their OS and introduce to more people that Android and iOS can ever do. Both Nokia and Microsoft have the potential of penetration their technology to even the poorest town in the world.
As far as I know, Microsoft is still the leading OS in the world and Nokia used to have big device sales world wide. Who knows, which this collaborations that they have, Nokia could even enter US market and regain it’s crown that was now lost. And Microsoft to regain its reputation the world over!
All I know is, the future is going to be a world full of potential and unending possibilities!
The Nokia – Microsoft partnership does put the the war of the mobile ( which Google and Apple were running away with) in balance. Its a known fact that Nokia has a huge penetration in the Asian markets which automatically gives Microsoft an entry into these markets. The CEO clearly says that he wants the partnership to stand up against iPhone and Android OS which makes me think that this partnership decision was taken more with the rivalry towards Google and Apple in mind rather than worrying about how to bring Nokia back on the grid. The fact that Google openly admitted that they tried hard to get a deal in place with Nokia, strengthens my thinking. Though obviously there could be more to it than what meets the eye.
The partnership itself works wonderfully for Microsoft who otherwise would have found it really difficult to challenge their competitors after being so late. I cant say the same about Nokia though. They could have gone with both MS and Google and reduced the possibility of one company taking over them and completely eliminating them . As you rightly mention, “In IT its never good to take sides”.
Coming to predicting trends, I feel HTML5 is going to be big. With powerful concepts like Canvas, OpenGL, WebGL, Webhooks, Webworkers etc. I dont see why developers wont want to develop mobile apps on HTML5 considering that it gives them a chance to port it across all platforms. Ads would act as microapps resulting in more user engagements.
Currently many of the individuals have a laptop, cell phone and a tv, desktops. If we look closely at these 3 devices we realize, all of these devices have persistent storage and a processor. Where these devices differ is the method in which they do IO.
I predict that devices which can provide storage and processing power to any device that it is connected to – something like the Motorola Atrix will gradually become popular as primarily means of providing computational power to laptops and TV’s. These type of devices have an input – output system but the primary function of the devices will be focused on providing computation power and storage. When this device is connected to a tv the device will defer to the io system of the device, when it is connected to a laptop it will defer to the io system of the laptop.
Nokia happens to be the leader in the mobile industry and the recent short falls of the mobiles produced in the recent times has raised the question as to whether they still rule the mobile world. Nokia is now facing a head-on competition with Apple and Google releasing their smart phones into the market. That time Nokia didn’t have any smartphone released in the market. They had come up with N8 and Meego which were very late and hit the market late when the phones from Apple, Motorola, HTC, Samsung and LG had a few variations in the smart phones they provided ahead of Nokia in the recent times. Users wanted to try those interesting smart phones which were keeping people connected better than Nokia.
If not for Apple and Google producing their smart-phones Nokia would have still found their way in the market. Now that they have realized that they have not been “a roman in rome” and failed to produce smart phones, they have wisely put forward their foot in acquiring the Windows Mobile 7 OS to their phones.
Now that the tie up has been made between Nokia and Windows, Hope they give Apple and Google a run for their money, since Nokia had produced a large variety of good phones and Windows have provided the best OS for desktop and mobile computers, and has done good in the gaming world too with their Xbox. Both were looking for the other, Windows – A proper phone manufacturer who could do the best of smart phones for WM7
Nokia – A good OS for their phones to make them smart phones.
As a user, now he will be having more OS’s to play with and decide which will be needed by him better. As a techie, wake up there is more coming on your way, and the opportunity is right here.
Nokia comes back to Lime light with Windows 7, can’t get better! Felt really awesome when this news became official. With the popular phone hardware and omnipresent OS joining hands all i can say is that mobile industry is up for some exciting products, starting Q3/Q4 this year.
Virtualization is something that has been creeping up slowly since last year and with cloud growing big it would be the next big thing to watch out for.
Nokia and Microsoft’s partnership is more than a deal, it is a strategic game that will free Nokia from spending money and power behind developing their own Mobile OS. On the other hand it will deliver Microsoft a time tested supply chain to tap the markets in almost all of the second and third world countries.
Here, saying the second and the third world might cause some people to question. But If they have to counter attack the sales benefit that iPhone and Android are getting in US, they have to go and conquer the world.
Market trends have shifted a lot in the past few years. Trends that have greatly affected the way we use mobile phones are:
1999 – 2003 Era of the color display JAVA enabled phone. This era marked the start of app development. The phones went from just phones to devices that were used to surf the internet in a color display screen and to play games that could be downloaded.
2003 – 2007 Era of the MP3 player and media additions to the mobile device. Sony and Nokia started this era. This era increased the capability of the normal cell phone to a complete media device. Some of the major phones to have success in this era were due to the fact that they had replaced the camera and a portable audio player with mobile phones. The phones launched in this era brought the notion of external SD card storage to the Mobile phones.
2007 – till Now This is were things get accelerated. I mean really accelerated. This era started with the launch of iPhone and Android. iPhone made the mobile phone not just a mobile phone but an eco-system. It created a revolution were a application developer did not have to use these small web-sites for making his app available to the masses. It proved more beneficial to the customers, as they could now download the apps from a trusted source, the mobile manufacturers eco-system itself. This revolution brought the domination of RIM down and made the mobile phone as powerful as a net book. At the end of this era we have already seen the start of a completely new and grand era… The Era of Tablets.
What do we understand from the above highlights? Its simple, Mobile is not just a device that can be used to place calls. It is a device that has threatened the very existence of net books. It has gradually turned into a device that gives its user a means to do magnitude of things. A convergence device truly.
The mobile revolution has made the us see things differently now. E.g.
Cloud Computing: Cloud… yes cloud gives us a lot of remote processing and storage power. But is it the future. Yes it could be. Look at the google docs, a powerful tool, and you just require a browser to edit a text, spreadsheet, or a presentation, or create a form that you can use to get others opinion, or create a drawing. All hosted on a cloud, and made available through the internet. For the success of cloud technology, its the internet that has to be a success first. With the current predictions about the 4G and WiMax technology, and the increase in the internet bandwidth and availability, it sure that cloud might redefine the way applications are used and hosted.
A good example could be the Google Crome OS.
Mobile Processors: Processor the brain that does the processing for you. I still remember my first media enabled phone. It was Nokia 6610. The phone that offered me limited capability for surfing the net, making calls and listening to radio. Now, after using a few smart phones when I look back I can realize how slow it was.
Yes slow. In todays world speed is the most important thing. What sense would it make to have a phone with all the hi-tec features and the slowest processor available.
Processor technology for the mobile phones has gone through a lot of modification. Now a days the processors for the mobile phones are as powerful as that of the normal desktop. It is clear to many processor companies that, if they have to survive they have to have a play in the mobile space.
Graphics and display screens:
Now that I have already introduced the phone as a media device, graphics and screens have to be good.
With the media houses and entertainment industry giving a great interest in the mobile space, user expectation increasing in the things that a mobile phone can see on their device, screens and graphic technology has started to increasingly get more and more advance around the mobile phone. The screen resolution and display technology has gone from VGA to retinal.
All the serious players are now trying to make their mark on the mobile space. Companies like PIXAR and AMD have started to come up with special display chips for the mobile phones.
With the tablet, display is going to hit the next level. It is not far, to have a tab or a mobile phone that supports display and graphic technology that can be compared to any advance computer or a home entertainment technology.
Mobile Platforms: Mobile platforms, more need to come. With the current advancement in the platform technology, advancement and availability of more faster processor, and more memory, we could soon see more complex and extensive operating platforms being released for the mobile phones.
Smart Phones: The era of smart phones is about to come to an end…. and the era of more smarter phones is about to start. With the evolution in technologies like AI and pervasive computing, the phones will get smarter, and more powerful.
Tablets: Its a wrong thing to call a tablet, a tablet. It is practically a computer with all the basic software, that can fit into your hand, and you can carry it around with ease. The era of tablets marked a new way in which how the a mobile phone with a big screen. The main feature of the tablet that has proved of immense use for many people is the screen size.
Tablets if explored properly could redefine a lot of things that we see around. They could redefine the way books are used, the portable TV unit present in a car is used, the Screen present for personal entertainment in the plane is used, and so on…..
HTML5:
HTML5, a thing that will bring the internet and the web back into the game. But not just back into the game, it could redefine all other games in mobile, and the IT as a whole. It could bridge the gab between developing independent application for all the platforms, and could help in creating apps that can run every where.
With device aware browsers and HTML 5 we could see the next generation of websites, that customize according to the device and its display.
Gaming Consoles and Internet TV:
According to me, these two things are meant to be together. If we combine them, and create a device that can act as a gaming console and a internet TV, it could be really use full.
With the current technology, people have now started to truly believe the relation between technology and imagination.
I believe the deal seems to be more advantageous for Microsoft, them being able to sell their OS on Nokia smart phones (currently not so smart but can’t ignore the fact that they have been the leading mobile phone manufacturer). Allying with Nokia has given them a huge opportunity to wade into Asian markets. This way, they could put up a strong fight against iPhone and Google Android.
As for Nokia, I hope this time, an alliance would help them. Their previous attempts MeeGo (Intel must be feeling betrayed by the Nokia-Microsoft alliance) and Symbian were big failures. For them, the deal is definitely a big relief. Currently, with their condition in the market, opting for money (if the decision was based on money) seemed to be the only practical choice for them to regain their lost empire in the world of smart phones.
It would be interesting to see how Google Android and iPhone are affected by this strategic step.
Nobody knows the impact of this alliance but for we, consumers it simply means another smartphone platform to play with.
Personally I hold positive prediction on Nokia. I think the most valuable thing for Nokia is the brand loyalty. As it was once dominating other peers in the cellphone industry, some people just fall in love with this brand and follow it all the time. And as the history tells, industry giants with a certain brand loyalty can fight back, once they adjust the market strategy. For example, Apple was once falling sharply on the Macbook sales in last century, after it adjust its strategy, it release a series of products like iPod, iTouch, iPhone, iPad, which are based on but a little bit different from cocoa, and creates and leads the personal digital entertainment industry. And this domination, in turn, stimulate the sales of Macbook to some extent. Another example is IBM, who only reserves the super computer department in the hardware manufacturing industry, and turn to software industry, when its debt was once reaching a maximum of, as I know, 6 billion dollars.
So just welcome the coming of the period of Winokia(Which is win+nokia, hope this makes sense), and see what we can do for it.
As for the “spot on” tech prediction, my points are listed below:
1. Folded tablet is expected. As users are always greedy, they need big screen when watching movies or reading emails, on the other hand they need the devices portable enough to fit into the pocket of their jeans. The changes in hardware architecture will definitely bring in some changes in the OS, or even the programming model.
2. New Mobile Processors. Power supply is critical for portable devices. Two most power consuming activities for cellphones are network detection/connection and complex graphic computing, especially for online video games. So processors with instruction set particularly for these two activities might appear, which saves power while providing high quality connectivity and fine-grain, dynamic graphic objects. Corresponding programming interface will appear immediately in varieties of mobile platforms.
3. Cloud Computing features in varieties of manner.
Actually when I was in graduate school my tutor works on this: next generation programming model. I do not know much about that. What I know is what we think previously that high performance matters only with mainframes or super computers might change in the near future. I guess new language will create this trend, and change the programming practice.
4. Customized mobile platform within some regions. Just recently a chinese company release a new mobile platform, Tarpus. It has almost the same programming interface, namely the app framework with Android, but as per the CEO of the company said, the core libraries and the hardware level will be customized for local cellphone manufacturers who sign contracts with them. Existing Android app can migrate to the platform with little or no changes. Hopefully the customization makes a perfect suit for particular devices. As it is supported by a world famous IT guy, right before its release announcement many local cellphone manufacturers say they are willing to sign with the company, and build a GreatWall for China`s mobile industry. This makes money quickly for regions with strong desire to support local brand. For tringers, to know the internals of varieties of platforms if they are open source, the ability to customize components, build corresponding libraries after figuring out the potential needs of the platform, or the future trends of the platform might be necessary.
5. Last but not Least, now everyone targets Android as a platform for personal entertainment or daily use. Based on the compatibility of the hardware abstraction layer, I think some day in the future Android will head for some industry like healthcare equipments, automatic controlling system. Orders from governments and military force is definitely a big bill, and of course it would be some variation of Android to do the trick.
It is a very good news to hear that Nokia and Microsoft collaboration to rule in this competitive mobile world. Thanks to Stephen Elop for his good job. Microsoft can reach each and every rural and urban areas in the Asian market, especially in India just by tieing up with nokia. It is a good choice for Microsoft too to establish its Windows Mobile os to the world. What I predict is, Nokia will come up with some cool tablet devices with the combination of Windows os in future to compete with the ios and android. Anyways we are very happy since we will get more number of cool devices to work with
In Software every year a technology lives another dies. ‘Change’ is the word that best suits the IT industry. In short if your technology doesn’t change as per time it is going to be killed over by other new technologies. Nokia is no exception to it. Though Nokia had plans to improve their technology it did not happen as per expectation. MeeGo was one such technology that they failed to deliver on time. In the end they were forced to carry brand Microsoft on their Mobile Phones. Hmmm…Let us see as how many devices Nokia will roll out with WM 7 and how successful will it be on market. Having said that i never underestimate these companies. Consider Apple now and a few years back. A company that was about to be bankrupt was born again under a good leadership and now they rule the smart phone market with a definite edge over others. Good leaders are born in tough situations and let us see whether this strategic move would benefit Nokia to regain their lost empire.
My Predictions for 2011
Cloud Computing
Well Microsoft, Google, Amazon a few big players are battling it out in the world of cloud computing. Virtualization and cloud computing can add real time value for a selected set of clients though some raise questions about posing highly secured data on a cloud. Improvement in technology can answer them all. 2011 might see improvement in cloud as a technology and expansion in resources. I am not sure if this technology would make any big time change by this year.
Mobile Processors, Graphics and display screens
2010 saw some vast improvements in bringing a powerful processor within a handheld device and I am sure this good run will continue into 2011 as well. Improvement in processing power can bring in better graphics as well. Graphic cards were initially added on a PC but the current generation Smartphone’s supports both software and hardware acceleration for graphics. With advancement in technology this should improvement further.
Mobile Platforms
Once could see that the list of new mobile platforms being launched increases year by year. This shows the tremendous potential that Mobile Platforms really have. Some companies develop their platforms and its related ecosystems completely on their own. It is understandable that this requires a lot of effort, time and resources and not every company can afford it. Many just take an open source operating system customize it to their requirement and use it. In either case competition to develop a good operating system for mobile is still open but could get really tough this year.
Smart Phones
With increase in the number of mobile platforms the proportional ratio in the number of Smartphone’s being released into the market increases. Most mobile companies do not manufacture a complete set of hardware for their phones on their own. They either outsource the parts to increase the profit ratio or to increase the efficiency. They just design it. Mid level Smartphone sales got boosted in Mid 2010 after the phones started coming in affordable prices to the end users. With the competition being high the price tag of these mobiles can further come down. 2011 might tempt many end users to switch over to a Smartphone this year.
Tablets
Though the word tablet is nothing new for an IT enthusiastic it never got moving until companies like Apple, Amazon jumped in. A few reasons for the tablet sale to be low might be due to its cost and feature parity with a Smartphone and a PC. We did not have a real time operating system for tablet until apple took the lead and customized one from their iOS. Now other Mobile platforms like Android, WebOS and Blackberry have added support for tablets as well. We will see tablets rolling out of all these mobile platforms this year. Nevertheless to say this year might be a revolution for tablets with so many players coming into play.
HTML5
A powerful technology but less used till 2010. This year with HTML 5 support being planned to be bought within different type of mobile and tablet devices the competition would increase here. One advantage of HTML5 over others is that it can just be like java – ‘Write once run anywhere’. Not a tough guess watch out for HTML 5 this year!
Gaming Consoles and Internet TV:
Gaming consoles and its popularity is predicted to increase with Microsoft bringing Xbox Live on Windows Phone 7. This might make developers easy to create gaming application for mobiles as well as Xbox. Internet TV is another revolution that is waiting to happen. I suspect whether this might really create an impact this year. Some people might prefer using Smartphone’s or tablets to watch TV since it can serve a purpose of a internet TV and has some added advantages as well. Users might just require a dock or a cable to connect their Smartphone’s to their conventional TV’s and watch the programs there if required.
Anything that is cool for tringapps to watch out for
How about developing an AD Sdk that can support multiple platforms. That can really add value this year with tablets and smart phones coming in. We can analyze the probability of using HTML 5 to develop it this since it can easily be made a cross platform stuff.