Facebook and Opera?

Greg Leave a comment

[sc:internet-category ]A few weeks ago the rumors around Opera Software being purchased by Facebook started to make the round.  Here’s why I think it would be a bad thing.

Opera has had a long history of being small and fast and a very standards based browser.  Facebook is known for being a bloated waste of time 😉

Opera has had the opportunity to create an independent browser, pretty much every other browser is tied tightly to some other agenda:

  • Internet Explorer, while better then it once was, is still there to promote Microsoft’s agenda.
  • Chrome is there to promote Google’s agenda.
  • Safari is there to promote Apple’s agenda.
  • Firefox, while not directly tied to anyone, is financially tied to Google in a big way, most of their funding comes from Google.

Firefox’s agenda is perhaps the best, they are not overtly promoting someone else’s agenda, but you have to wonder what would happen if Google asked them to make a change and threaten to pull the advertising deal.  Hasn’t happened yet and I don’t think it is likely, but you never know…

So really, all that’s left is Opera, which has always fought above its weight class when it comes to browser standards and innovation.

If Facebook did buy it, wouldn’t they look to make Opera yet another deliver platform for Facebook more than anything else?  Is Opera Mini/Mobile the defining asset they would want out of the deal to help them gain in mobile adverstising?

If so would they drop the desktop browser altogether?

There’s pretty much no scenario I can think of that Facebook’s purchase of Opera is good for end users, they all suck pretty badly.

So if your reading Mark, just leave Opera alone, you don’t really need them and with your share price down, perhaps you would be better to spend your time fixing that.

Windows Phone 8!

Greg Leave a comment

[sc:mobile-category ]So I made some predictions on Monday about what would be unveiled today and so now it’s time to see how close I was.

First off, you can go here to get the highlights of the announcement.

What I got right, which includes anything that had a probability of less than 40%:

  • New home screen details (more types of live tiles, maybe a horizontal view and groups) – 100%
  • Demo of some Skype Integration – 80%
  • Demo of FULL Skype Integration – 30%
  • Dual core support – 100%
  • multiple resolutions – 100%
  • New hardware demo unit – %100
  • Release date of Q4 – 80%
  • Release date of Q3 – 19%
  • Release date of Q1/13 – 1%
  • New maps functionality – 75%
  • New voice functionality – 60%
  • Game demo – 100%
  • NT Kernel in Apollo – 100%
  • New camera functionality – 20%
  • Upgradeability announcement for all WP7 devices – 0%
  • Upgradeability announcement for most WP7 devices – 30%

What I got wrong:

  • Quad core support – 5%
  • Developers tools preview/beta/rc – 90%

What I was not right or wrong about:

  • Upgradeability announcement for some Wp7 devices – 60%
  • No upgradeability announcement – 30%

I’m including the “upgradability for some” in the not right/wrong category as they did announce no upgrades for Windows Phone 7 hardware but did announce Windows Phone 7.8 which will bring a lot of the features of WP8 to WP7 devices.

Overall, I was pretty close 🙂

I was very surprised they didn’t announce some developers tools, but I guess those are coming later in the summer so we’ll have to wait to see them.

They also announcement  a few other items that I didn’t predict, here are some of my first thoughts on them as well as on some of the ones I did predict:

  • SD Card support: About friken time!  The didn’t say, but hopefully it will include cards greater than 32g.
  • NFC Support: Meh, my phone won’t replace my wallet until government agencies accept it as ID and that doesn’t appear likely any time soon.
  • IE10:10 better than 9!
  • Wallet: See NFC above.
  • Map upgrades: Turn by turn will be nice as well as offline support.
  • New Start screen: My first impression was “My that looks busy!”.  I’m sure there were a lot of internal discussions on this as the simplistic design aesthetic of WP7 has given way to a much busier screen.
  • WP 7.8: This should keep most 7.5 users happy and I expect a lot of the user experience improvements in WP8 that haven’t been announced but aren’t hardware/os dependent to be included in the update as well (like whatever changes they make to mail and messaging, etc.).
  • Native Code: ’bout time MS.  Good move.
  • In-app payments: Meh, just making developers lives easier so it’s a good thing.
  • Integrated VOIP: YES! YES! YES! I want my SIP number to ring through to my WP and be able to make calls with it!
  • Multitasking: Makes everything better.
  • WP@Work: These upgrades are nice, bringing these features will make a definite difference to enterprise adoption.
  • Languages: Good to have, no impact to me thought.
  • OTA Updates: I know lots of people see this as important, but no one I know doesn’t have a PC of some kind…

 

Microsoft Surface

Greg Leave a comment

[sc:windows-category ]Ok, first things first, we’re talking tablets, not big touchscreens.

I kind of have to question the decision to go with Surface when they already had a product named that, but I guess as a niche product the old Surface didn’t have consumer awareness.

Now I’ve been a pretty harsh critic of crossover devices over the years, things like the ASUS Transformer convertibles just didn’t get me excited as they added far too much bulk to the device to be truly useful.

However, Microsoft seems to have known this and agreed, the new Surface Touch Cover is on 3mm think and that’s impressive in its self, but paired with the tablets it’s really a nice looking package.

The tablets themselves look quite nice as well, the hardware looks to be current spec and while they were a little short on details, it looks like they’ve spent quite a bit of time and effort to get it right.  The only concern I have is the screen size/ratio.  I really like the 4:3 aspect ratio on the HP TouchPad, I’m not sure a wide screen tablet works, but just about everyone has moved to 16:9.

There has been a lot of speculation around the net on how little MS must trust its hardware partners (like HP/Dell/ASUS/etc) to make a tablet to have had to do it themselves, but really is that a surprise?  They’ve all been floundering around for the last couple of years trying to make an Android tablet to complete with the iPad and have been failing pretty well.

I’ve been thinking about it a bit and what I belive the real problem is that the big PC guys (HP/Dell/etc) don’t get consumer electronics as they have been building beige boxes for the last 3 decades with a speed of innovation (while impressive in the greater world) could be described as glacier like in the new mobile world.  Likewise the mobile guys (Samsung/HTC/etc) have an ethos of scorched earth on every iteration of their products, they don’t worry about backwards compatibility they only drive towards smaller, faster, longer lasting, cheaper.

Microsoft doesn’t have a partner that has the right mix of goals to create better/different hardware (this actually includes PC and phones too, though it looks like Nokia solves at least the phone issue) and so they have headed out on their own.

And it’s not the first time either.  Few probably remember that the Sega Genesis had an MS OS under its hood, when that failed, MS built the Xbox.

Microsoft isn’t quite abandoning their hardware partners though, more like showing them the way.  With limited distribution of the Surface to just the MS stores, mass market penetration is unlikely to happen.  However MS can always expand distribution if their hardware partners don’t bring up the bar with Windows 8.

I think this is a good move on MS’s part, it let’s them lead by example.  In fact they may want to do something similar in the PC space, Apple has had a free hand for too long in leading change in the laptop space and MS could shake that up.

So the question is, will I buy one?  Yes and probably on of each.  The Surface RT is going to come out first and while I have reservations about the RT variant of Windows 8 (will it run everything I want) I expect it will still be functional enough.  The Surface Pro version will of course run everything I want as it’s a full-blown PC.

 

Apollo on June 20th?

Greg Leave a comment

[sc:mobile-category ]There has been a lot of speculation around Windows Phone 8 and it looks like we might be getting some actual details this week!

Microsoft has schedule it’s Windows Phone Summit for June 20th and included the tag line “A sneak peek at the future of Windows Phone.”

Now what this means is open for debate, but in general the consensus seems to be Apollo will get unveiled.  But might that be expecting too much from a “sneak peek”?  I think it is more likely we’ll see a quick demo of Apollo, some general new hardware details and then a general timeframe for release.

So here are my predictions on what we’ll get out of the sneak peek and their likelyhoods predicated on Apollo being what they are talking about:

  • New home screen details (more types of live tiles, maybe a horizontal view and groups) – 100%
  • Demo of some Skype Integration – 80%
  • Demo of FULL Skype Integration – 30%
  • Dual core support – 100%
  • Quad core support – 5%
  • multiple resolutions – 100%
  • New hardware demo unit – %100
  • Release date of Q4 – 80%
  • Release date of Q3 – 19%
  • Release date of Q1/13 – 1%
  • Developers tools preview/beta/rc – 90%
  • New maps functionality – 75%
  • New camera functionality – 20%
  • New voice functionality – 60%
  • Game demo – 100%
  • Upgradeability announcement for all WP7 devices – 0%
  • Upgradeability announcement for most WP7 devices – 30%
  • Upgradeability announcement for some Wp7 devices – 60%
  • No upgradeability announcement – 30%
  • NT Kernel in Apollo – 100%

 

Xbox 360

Greg Leave a comment

[sc:entertainment-category ]Way back in this post, I mentioned I had picked up and Xbox Gold membership and that I would eventually write a post about it, well, eventually has arrived 😉

At the end of last year, the big retail electronics chains here put up the 4g Xbox 360 on sale for $130, so I bit the bullet and picked one up.  Mostly to see how Microsoft had implemented the Metro design in the fall 2011 update.

In general the Xbox has a really nice interface to it, better than the PS3 and Microsoft continues to extend the 360 in to other areas.  This really underscores the difference in philosophy between Sony and Microsoft in this generation of game consoles.

The good side of those design choices is the better interface and the extended support for applications etc.  The downside is the Xbox Gold membership.  Without forking over the cash for a gold membership, the Xbox is virtually useless.

Microsoft’s MSRP is something like $99 on a 12 month membership, which seems high until you realize nobody actually pays that.  Every retailer has a $59.99 12 month membership and they go on sale once in a while as well.  I found one for $49.99 that included a copy of Lego Star Wars, so effectively free.

Once you activate the gold membership pretty much everything becomes available, from the apps to on-line saves and game play.

I’m impressed with the 360, it’s a nice piece of hardware with a great interface, I think Sony really needs to re-think its strategy on the Playstation, Microsoft has a vision of what living room entertainment should be and Sony is still thinking of only gaming.

Having said that, I still use my PS3 most of the time and honestly since I acquired the gold membership I think I’ve turned on the Xbox maybe half a dozen times tops, but when the next generation of consoles comes out, it’s going to be a hard choice as to which one I pick up.