Positioning: Qualcomm Ventures Beyond...

A few days ago, Qualcomm paper-launched their "Zeroth" processor. Designed to emulate the neural networks of the brain, Qualcomm says this product will improve machine learning and computer perception problems. But are they straying too far from their core competency in wireless and digital communication?

Neural networks and "feedforward" systems have been a growing buzzword lately. IBM has been at it for a while now with their SyNAPSE hardware and plenty of other software companies have added it as a tool for data analysis. The basic mechanism is to create a system that models biological neurons and can learn over time. Typically, a human will train the system by telling it which behavior is "right" and "wrong," although there are some tasks which are done without any human intervention. It's just like training your dog, only now your dog can answer things like "How many different types of objects are there in this picture?"

Why is neural networking a big deal?  Because despite their talent for arithmetic, typical computers don't "think" the way that we do, and computers have to expend a lot of energy to emulate easy "human" tasks. If you want a great example, look up how much computing power and camera work goes into painting the first down line for NFL games on TV.

Yeah, that one line takes 7 computers...

Qualcomm's press release seems to indicate that they want this product to become part of their fabulously successful SoCs. The company claims that it will help users train their devices for more human-like behavior. And while that sounds great on paper, I can't help but think that this is a great idea with horrible business implications. Qualcomm rode the smartphone wave due to their wireless communication products which made their offerings more appealing than any competitor's. Meanwhile, the Zeroth initiative aims to allocate space on a chip (in chip manufacturing, space=$$) dedicated to a task which would typically be performed in a centralized server. In other words, Qualcomm wants to integrate a device which will help users care less about Qualcomm's differentiating feature - the wireless radio. Finally, these learning devices should generally be able to leverage data from lots of users to improve their learning. Learning from only the local user might take longer to generate good results.

How will this Zeroeth product fare for Qualcomm? We'll have to wait and find out. Certainly I'd love to see more accurate individualized learning  in my smartphone, but I do have my reservations on this particular strategy. On the other hand, the company has been on a tear lately, introducing new products in all kinds of spaces. The next few years will either redefine Qualcomm as a broad silicon IP company, or solidify them as the big fish in mobile SoCs.

Tech Battles: Intel and ARM Trading Blows

Three weeks ago, Apple and Intel both announced big changes to their product lines that were somewhat dwarfed by other buzz.

Apple's town-hall iPhone event saw the introduction of two iPhones and iOS7, a group of solidly designed successors for the iPhone ecosystem. Unfortunately analysts (especially those on Wall St) had a rather tepid reaction to Apple's conference, largely due to their own inflated expectations. Despite rather solid products, AAPL saw about a 5% slide in after hours trading following the event.

What Apple also announced was a brand new A7 processor that will be powering the 5S. The key takeaway here is that this SoC will be a fully 64-bit ARM architecture. This is big news, as virtually all smartphones on the market right now use ARM's architecture, but exactly 0 of them are 64-bit. Until the iPhone 5s hit the market, that is.

Meanwhile, up north in San Francisco's Moscone Center, Intel was busy making the exact opposite announcement. The tech giant proudly unveiled a new family of processors called Quark, which is to say that it's smaller than Atom. They are targeting it at ultra-low power implementations that can help enable ubiquitous computing or the "internet of things." This processor is - yep, you guessed it - 32 bit. Like Atom before it, Intel cuts down to 32-bit to save power, while their normal PC and Server chips are 64-bit. The street liked what they saw, bumping INTC up 3% after the 11th.

Intel and ARM-licensees have been chomping at the bit to try and enter each other's markets. Intel dominates the high-end server and PC industry, while ARM users are running virtually uncontested in the smartphone and mobile computing world. ARM licensees have been busy trying to bring up the "microservers" market, but Intel made a deft play in launching Atom for microservers before ARM equivalents were ready. Yet, ARM continues to launch higher performance architectures and sign on interesting new licensees. Many pundits have taken the performance numbers of Apple's A7 as a hint to A* powered Mac devices in the  future. That is still a dream, but there is no question that Apple blows current SoCs out of the water.

On the flip-side, Intel has tried unsuccessfully for years now to break into the mobile market. There were a number of partnerships (see 2010 Nokia and Meego) and a mobile chipset that didn't even make it to market. The $50 billion dollar giant keeps fighting though, this year launching an interesting albeit unfortunately named smartphone. While they're still playing the long game on smartphones, Intel has shown that it means business in tablets right now.

Which team will be able to move into enemy territory first? It's anyone's guess so far, but be sure that by the end of 2014, we will have real data on what the first earnest product launches say about this battle.

Corporate Strategy: Microsoft buys Nokia's Devices and Services Business

Yesterday, Microsoft announced its intention to purchase Nokia's handset business group for an unprecedented 7.2 Billion US Dollars. Three years ago, in an equally surprising and even more confusing move, Stephen Elop was announced as the next CEO of Nokia. The handset maker, whose brick-like 3XXX series phones were as indestructible as they were ubiquitous, was starting to show signs of slowing down despite holding market share leadership. Their Symbian OS, a pioneering system in its own right, was beginning to feel dated next it's iOS, Android, and Blackberry competitors. A joint development scheme with Intel on the open source Meego OS hadn't borne any fruit yet and investors were getting antsy.

Across the globe, mobile skies were equally gloomy in Redmond. Windows Phone 7 had debuted earlier that year to great reviews from users and the press. Unfortunately, great design and reviews don't necessarily translate market success. Windows Phone was suffering from a late start in the market and general apathy from app developers. Both companies needed a shot in the arm, and Microsoft was willing to write the check.

Backroom Deals - Nokia gets a new CEO

Enter Elop, former head of Microsoft's Office business group. Pundits and bloggers alike speculated over this unorthodox move. Why would a manager at a software company transition to CEO at a hardware/devices company. The prevailing theory: dollars, and lots of them. Nokia would go on to announce a strategic (read exclusive) partnership with Windows that following February, which many speculated was motivated by a little cash reward. Some sources even suggested that Microsoft suggested the move a little more forcefully than it had first seemed. Either way, there was a lot of evidence pointing to Nokia's new blind faith in Windows Phone, including the bizarre decision to limit distribution of the hailed and long-awaited N9, a great handset whose Meego operating system didn't align with the company's new direction. 

Fruits of the Past Three Years

For all the confusion regarding the CEO decision and the criticism that Nokia has endured during the past few years, these two companies have indeed come out with some great products. The aforementioned N9 was one of Nokia's first products to restate its commitment and show that it still had that industrial design magic. The most recent example though, has to be the Lumia 1020. With an industry leading 41 megapixel camera stuffed into a remarkably slim chassis, it differentiated itself and provided real customer value. I wish I could say the same about Windows Phone OS though. Sure, it's kept pace with the competition and still maintains the solid and clean UI, but it still just can't shake that also-ran feeling. They can't kick the app developer problem either, though it has improved over the years. 

Going Forward

The implications of today's announcement for Nokia are grim at best. Microsoft isn't merging with the Nokia outright, it's instead buying the business group that makes up the vast majority of the company. Sadly, what will probably remain for Nokia is disorganized group of leftovers that will slowly fade away. This merger will see the destruction of one of the few internationally recognizable Finnish companies. Worse yet, Microsoft is only able to stomach this buyout after a three year long slide of Nokia's stock price, arguably helped by their buddy Elop's actions at the company.

What does this mean for a Microsoft that is going through a rocky transition? All the cool kids are going vertical; Apple always has been, Google has Motorola, and now Microsoft has Nokia. It has to feel awfully lonely to be a Windows OEM right now. But this is the new vision for Microsoft, the transition to which Ballmer said he couldn't be the one to lead. That begs the question though, who will? Is it possible to really merge these two businesses in any effective way in the near term? Elop, the only one to have played on both sides, is suddenly looking like a very good candidate with his new mobile and device-focused resume. Are we nearing the final strokes of a plan that was assembled many years ago? We'll have to wait and find out...

Sources:
Nokia/MS press release
BSN Elop announcement
wiki

Market Dynamics: Windows RT

At the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show, Microsoft officially announced what would later become Windows RT. Two years later, CES 2013 came and went without a single Windows RT product announcement. Much to the chagrin of Microsoft, RT is still sputtering on the launchpad as ASUS formally announces its divorce from the platform. Today we'll look at why Nvidia and Redmond have doubled down on their investment.

Nvidia has made a name for itself in discrete computer graphics over the years, and has recently made inroads into the High Performance Computing market with its Titan cards. The winds of change are blowing though and like many of the entrenched PC players, Nvidia is tightening its belt as its traditional market slowly shrinks. Though their Tegra 3 chip featured prominently in the popular 2012 spin of ASUS/Google's Nexus 7, the green team was snubbed when ASUS decided to transition to Qualcomm for the 2013 edition. Unfortunately this has left Tegra 4 as a pretty good solution to no problem. This, no doubt, weighs as heavily on Jen Hsun's mind as it does his pocketbook. It's no wonder then, that Nvidia is shopping Tegra 4 around to anyone in earshot, including Steve Ballmer's crew. Tegra represents new growth and fresh markets for Nvidia, and it can't afford to let any opportunity slip through its fingers.

It's no secret that the market response to Windows Phone OS has been decidedly tepid. The frustrating part is that MS hasn't made any big blunders, in fact its been on point more often than it has missed the mark. Unfortunately, good enough execution isn't good enough when you're the third player to enter a market, especially one as sticky as smartphone OSes. Even Microsoft's old friend Intel left the sandbox long ago to play with it's new mobile friends at Google and Samsung (a story for another post). Win RT represents a second chance at the mobile market and an opportunity to fill the tablet-sized gap in Windows' lineup.

Unfortunately for Microsoft, where Windows Phone OS was mediocre, Windows RT was an unmitigated disaster. Between OEMs pulling out after Mirosoft's decision to release its own Surface tablets and the general lack of availability of "traditional" MS products on Win RT (Outlook anyone?), Microsoft just couldn't catch a break. The product has improved over it's 9 month lifetime, but first impressions are hard to overcome. Microsoft now finds itself in the fight of its life with two major products on which it has to iterate fast and hard. Microsoft has irons in the fire, but it has to show that it can put together a compelling platform that will take market share.

Now the true story of this partnership emerges; Nvidia and Microsoft are huddled in the same boat, though to neither party's great pleasure. Both companies have real opportunities to make something novel and the assets to bring to bear on the problem, it just hasn't come together yet. I think that's the most frustrating part about the state of this platform. I hope they pull it together and create something compelling. Either way, we'd better find out soon or the opportunity will be gone.

Design Analysis: Acer Aspire R7

Meet the Acer Aspire R7, an unconventional but purposeful Windows 8 tablet which reflects the changing consumer-computing landscape. It seems that creativity at traditional PC OEMs has given rise to a tablet/convertible Cambrian Explosion of sorts. From the exotic-looking (yet surprisingly intuitive) Dell XPS 12 to the no-frills workhorse, Lenovo Ideapad Yoga, not all species can survive to the next generation. Instead the best will remain as the world gets a better handle on how to build and use a Windows 8 device. How will Acer's new entry into the fray hold up? Lets look at some of its standout features!

Farewell, Trackpad

The Aspire R7 has taken a refreshing new look at the interface requirements for a Windows 8 convertible. While other companies have been content to slap on the traditional keyboard and trackpad from yesteryear, Acer has opted to make the trackpad optional and the keyboard the main event. In theory, I am all for this decision. The trackpad has been feeling a bit liked chopped liver as of late, thanks to the rise of touchscreen laptops & convertibles. Acer didn't fully commit to dropping the trackpad though, as you can still fold the screen in such a way that the it is accessible (albeit above the keyboard). My guess is that this awkward halfway mode will be used next to never, which begs the question of why Acer included it at all. Still, I have to applaud Acer for having the stones to make such a radical change and I hope that this orientation feels as good as it looks on paper
The next decision which jumps out at you is the unique hinging mechanism. The Aspire R7 features what Acer is calling the "Ezel" hinge, which enables traditional laptop mode, a more compact laptop which hides the trackpad (pictured), normal tablet mode, and a few other niche modes in between (for showing the person across from you that great new GIF). Laptop and tablet modes look solid, although the thickness and potential weight of this device may limit its usefulness as a daily tablet. The "compact" mode is really innovative though. By bringing the screen that much closer to the user, Acer encourages them to reach up and use the screen to navigate instead of relying on a trackpad. This is smart and in my opinion helps the user intuitively transition to Windows 8 which is not very anything-other-than-touchscreen friendly. Another benefit is that in "compact" mode, the device occupies less depth which should help users (myself included) who have found 15" displays historically difficult to work with in cramped spaces like airline seats. ArsTechnica points out the very real question of "What do I do with my wrists?" This is definitely a major downside to this approach and something that we'll have to see how users react to in the future.
The remainder of the spec sheet reads like your garden variety Ultrabook, sporting Intel Ivybridge CPU and Graphics and a standard HDD, though I hope this is user upgradeable to an SSD when it hits the market. All things considered, I can't wait to get my hands on an Aspire R7 and see how this bolder approach works out for Acer.
Sources:
Engadget
ArsTechnica
Photo used from All Things D