Been too busy to blog. Also did not feel like I had anything to say really but I am really intrigued by what is happening in the mobile ecosystem.

I think a lot of what I said in this post still applies: http://www.nokpis.com/2010/05/08/the-mobile-web/

I was mostly not thinking about this until a few recent articles. It started with this one:

http://eliainsider.com/2010/09/14/fighting-the-wrong-fight/

But this pipe dream is being crushed quickly. The carriers, after giving up ground initially, are fighting back. They are using Android’s openness against the company. The carriers refuse to carry the Nexus. Verizon cuts exclusive deals with Skype. Slowness in “approving” new Android OS releases. AT&T locked devices from side-loading and the removal of the Google Marketplace. Secret (and ridiculous) deals on net neutrality. And now, insult to injury to Google who expected to make most of their money from selling ads like they do on the web, removing Google Search in favor of Microsoft Bing as the only and default search option on certain Android-based smartphones.

My goal here is to re-focus the conversation, put the attention back where it belongs. This is war. And this war will go nothing like Apple v. Microsoft. This is about who controls the experience; who gets to interact with the customer.

The stakes are a lot higher.

What I don’t get is why people don’t see some of these symptoms as being the way it is in America or Europe where carriers are allowed to play with consumers. In Singapore if I buy an iPhone it is unlocked. I plug in any service provider or any SIM and go. The service providers compete on prices, features and speed. As it should be. The reality is the regulatory environment is calling all the shots.

So when you read this you think that Android or Google is trying to save the planet but in my opinion they have moved from do no evil to actually being evil – http://daringfireball.net/2010/09/the_welcome_to_android . Google seems to be doing what MSFT did in the PC days and pretending they are not doing it at the same time. It is nuts – they are protecting their turf by playing hardball – I can get that but when they try to say they are being open or helping the world – who believes that bullshit?

I am not sure where all this is going but the war is real and the consumer is at stake. I am not sure who to side with or who to support. Would love to see HP make a play with Palm – Nokia was so lame for not buying Palm. They needed a real OS and it would have provided that. If Nokia thinks Windoze mobile will help that is well, shocking but maybe they just want MSFT to buy them.

Carriers are going to come out swinging soon – but who can fight them?

Nokia:

Nokia converged mobile device (smartphone and mobile computer) volumes came in at 24 million units, a bit more than a quarter of total devices volume, up 42% year-on-year and 12% sequentially.

Maybe Nokia is improving or maybe all boats rise with the tide.

However:

A recent developer survey from Open-First reveals that Nokia’s Ovi Store is lagging in several key areas with nearly 20 percent of the participants unlikely to use Nokia’s app store in the future. Although the majority of developers surveyed will continue to support Nokia’s ecosystem, more than 42 percent said Ovi is below average when compared to other app stores, such as those from Apple and Google. These responses indicate that Nokia doesn’t only have to play catch up with its smartphone operating system strategy, but also with the marketplace that’s helping to power device sales.

Ovi is not pretty. Nokia Symbian code and tools are not that nice and developers don’t make much money focusing on Ovi. Nokia’s market share is so massive in some areas that developers will keep coming but the trend line looks not too great.

This is the scary part:

And now consider the next shocking chart.  Apple will generate 2X as much handset profit as the rest of the industry combined this year DESPITE SELLING ONLY 3% OF THE HANDSETS BY UNIT VOLUME.

Apple comes out of nowhere and destroys the incumbents at their own game but I would proffer that Nokia should be the most embarrassed. The bottom line is Apple focuses – something Nokia does not seem to be able to do.

I didn’t realize so many people were after Palm. Nokia, RIM and MSFT could have used it. Nokia more than any of them.

Urinals:

Krug scrambled to counter the plumbers’ public health claims. He hired Charles Gerba, a professor of environmental microbiology at the University of Arizona. Gerba studies “filth, pestilence, and disease,” with an emphasis on the bathroom, and says he has done more field studies on the toilet than anyone else in academia. From his point of view, there was a clear explanation for the plumbers’ resistance: It drained their wallets. “Plumbers don’t like the waterless urinal because it cuts down on their work tremendously,” he says. “There’s no more piping to install, and the urinals have no moving parts to repair.”

To test the plumbers’ assertions, Gerba compared a traditional flush urinal with the Falcon waterless. He found that the Falcon urinal presented a less hospitable environment for germs than constantly moistened conventional bowls. The process of flushing could actually eject those germs into the air. “If it’s a traditional urinal, you should flush and run,” Gerba says.

I had no idea it was so complicated. However I can envision all sorts of stuff hitting the air every time I flush. It is like when someone farts – smelling it means you ingested it. Pleasant.

Another reference to the Shallows.

These guys are amazing:

Penn says we should compare their relationship not to a loveless marriage but to that of “two guys manning a 7/11 down the street. If they aren’t best buddies what do they care, as long as the coffee machine is working and the shelves are stacked? Teller and I work together every day, but socially we go out together maybe only once a year.”

Super strange brew but these guys are amazing. I love how deep they are about life, magic and the ability to astound people.

I talked about AVH last time and now his company is picked up by Flipboard:

The first version of Flipboard just hit the Apple app store tonight, but the next version will be even more interesting, as it will be powered by the relevance engine built by Ellerdale. In recent weeks, Flipboard acquired Ellerdale, which had developed a set of real-time search and discovery tools based on Twitter. Ellerdale co-founder and CTO Arthur van Hoff has joined Flipboard as CTO.

Thought this was funny – what people search for that is KPI related…

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