I’ve just read a very good article on the Linuxdevices.com website written by David Wood, co-founder and executive vice president of research at Symbian. David talks about convergance and how the migration of applications is tending towards smartphones and why smartphones have been a success. David is obviously somewhat biased being a leading figure in Smartphone OS developement but I concur with pretty much all he says and dont class the article as just propoganda.
In the Carrypad journal, I have already written about a lot of what David has said in the (pdf) convergance diagram and journal entry I made back in Feb. So the reason for this journal entry is not just to link and promote Davids and my ideas, but to learn from some of the important things that David has written and try to apply them to the ultra mobile PC market.
Important points to consider.
There are 4 points in his article that are very relevant.
Smartphones are an evolution of an existing device that is already highly popular
What can we say about the UMPC? There’s two angles. Firstly, we could assume that the ultra mobile PC is a new device in a new segment. In that case, the ultra mobile PC needs to have a lot of developement and evolution. Secondly, we could assume that theultra mobile PC is the evolution of a not-too-popular tablet PC or PocketPC/PDA. On this point, i’m afraid the ultra mobile PC fails. We need to consider the ultra mobile PC as a new device in a new segment for it to move forward.
Mobile phones have been steadily improving in functionality, while (on the whole) retaining their core simplicity and utility.
UMPCs devices are in their early stages and so the improvement still needs to happen. However, the important point here is that mobile phones have core simplicity and utility. This is where I believe that Microsoft made a big mistake with their UMPC. They took a complex operating system, with all it’s hardware requirements and heavyweight do-it-all user interface and squeezed it into a consumer marketed package. That, in my eyes, was very wrong. Not only becuase they committed themselves to a tough hardware spec. but also becuase simplicity is key to consumer success. Microsoft should know that by now. They’ve been burned before and they don’t seem to be learning. A half-hearted touch-pack software layer is not the answer.
Simplicity is a nut that still needs to be cracked with UMPC’s. It won’t be done with a desktop-version of XP and it won’t be done with a desktop version of Linux. In fact, it won’t be done with any desktop operating system at all. It needs someone to take a core system and build a dedicated user interface around it. Microsoft have done it with Windows Mobile 5 and maybe they should have come in from that direction by re-developing it and offering native Word and Excel document support. They could have sat it on top of an Xscale processor architecture and ended up with a far more efficient platform. Nokia seem to be doing the right thing. They’ve taken a core Linux kernel and reduced distribution and are wrapping a dedicated user interface around it. Its not perfect by a long shot yet but look at the price point they have achieved by using that method. Here in Europe I can buy 4 Nokia internet tablets for the price of a UMPC! That gives Nokia a lot of price headroom in wich to bring out an updated product.
David uses the failed Apple Newton as an example in his next point. He says that the Newton was too expensive (I’ve heard this comment somewhere else recently!) and that smartphones used a price subsidy model to help get over this problem.
The lower purchase cost of mobile phones to end users means they are much more affordable than the Newton. One reason for the lower cost price is a business model that was never feasible for a device such as the Newton: operators frequently subsidise part of the purchase price
Subsidising the cost of these pieces of leading edge technology (they’re not running at high Ghz but the thermodynamic problems associated with ultra mobile PC requires leading edge technology.) is an option that needs to be considered and is, in-fact, possible. Origami’s have a screen-size advantage over smartphones which means that they’re able to offer video/tv capabilities that can not, because of current physical constraints, be migrated to smartphones. The Newton had no feature that allowed a subsidy model to work but with UMPC’s we have Video and TV content available to us. Can you imagine the ad targeting that can be done by a TV/IP provider knowing the location of its end device and its google profile? Its an advertisiers dream. Actually its probably Googles dream. The biggest hurdle here however is content rights. The distribution technology (internet) is pretty much in place but its only the real heavyweight players that will be able to offer the content and if they do, they’ll have a business model that no-one else will be able to match. Apple are sitting in a very comfortable position right now with regard to UMPC’s and content.
The huge size of the mobile phone industry means that strong learning effects and economies of scale operate, driving down costs even further
This is a simple one. Once, the device starts getting good market momentum, research momentum increases, the sales predictions rise and production volumes go up resulting in good economies. At this point in time, a few other factors also contribute to cost reductions. Competition, consumer education and content availability. The whole machine starts to turn at a very fast pace and not much more effort is required to oil it.
The rest of the article is also worth reading. David goes on to talk about Ipod functionality being migrated to the smartphone and lists a number of other migrating applications. Ipod fans won’t like that bit and although its technology possible, the ipod is a not just a device, its a technology, software and content suite that needs to be replicated with mobile phone carriers before it happens.
A message to marketing managers!
I’m not a marketing expert so I could be missing important points here but taking what Daivd has highlighted and adding my interpretations, here are some ultra mobile PC marketing tips to help achieve mass-market consumer success.
(1) UMPC’s need constant development. Don’t give up at the first hurdle. (2) UMPC’s need to be simple – Don’t build them on top of desktop operating systems. To help achieve the critical mass, a subsidy model is needed. Sell through channels that will add video/TV content to the mix and subsidise the purchase cost.
You won’t see smartphone levels of sales (there’s only one device format that you can take everyhere!) but you could reach that important critical mass.
Thanks to David Wood for some good pointers. I hope someone is listening to him (or me!) out there and David, if you’re reading this, i’d love to hear your views on the ultra mobile PC market. How about enhancing the Symbian plaform to cover the requirements of a ultra mobile PC device? Maybe Nokia will use it for their next tablet device!
Steve / Chippy.
