3GSM 2004 news: Keynote Session: Nokia and Ericsson grilled by us (Symbian in FUD) + future of wireless + Microsoft presents bar code solution for smartphone
February 25, 2004 [General]
Today in the morning we participated in the Keynote Session at 3GSM World Congress 2004. This session comprised of presentations of bosses of Nokia, Ericsson, Intel, Texas Instruments (TI), Microsoft and short FAQ sessions (questions were sent from the audience through SMS) in between these presentations.
In summary: Microsoft rocks big time, shows new bar code application for Microsoft Smartphone and explains why it is better to buy software for smartphones from Microsoft and not from Symbian (=Nokia). Apart from that, Session Chairman - Walter Mossberg from Wall Street Journal picked 2 questions that we have sent through SMS and CEOs of Nokia and Ericsson were forced to answer them... causing FUD in Symbian ranks (fear, uncertainty, and doubt).
On this picture you can observe CEO of Nokia - Jorma Ollila - answering our question delivered through SMS, question that Session Chairman picked:
Read on...
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At the very beginning Walter Mossberg (Session Chairman), who is Personal Technology Columnist at wall Street Journal was boosting his ego and bragging by saying that he is just a meer journalist, not wireless industry leader, but his texts have "millions of readers" and are "most widely read". He also was attacking GSM (remember: this congress is about GSM after all) by saying that in USA users prefer CDMA because it is better and provides faster transfer rates. For picture of Walter Mossberg scroll to the bottom of this page to see him grilling Pieter from Microsoft (Walter hates Microsoft and he reviewed negatively the Motorola MPx200 in his column at wall Street Journal) - scroll down to the bottom of this page to read more about this grilling.
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The first real speaker, who was showing presentation of his own company, was Jorma Ollila - CEO of Nokia (see picture above). Jorma presentation was very lame and he was reading the text from the paper (not from his head as other speakers). In his presentation Jorma has not even mentioned the word "Symbian" but was just bragging - typicall for Nokia - that they invented "seamless convergence" in last century and only now this convergence (Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and cellular in one) becomes reality. If somebody doesn´t know history, due to excessive bragging of Jorma, one couuld get impresion that Nokia invented cell phone but in reality it was Motorola that did it!
Then there was short FAQ session with Jorma Ollila where he answered, among others, a question sent by us by SMS and picked by Session Chairman. The question was "Nokia wants to overtake Symbian. Isn´t it contrary to ´openness´ mentioned in one of your slides?". Jorma answered that it was Psion that approached Nokia to sell shares in Symbian, not the other way around. He said that Psion´s motivation was to pursue other interests. As you maybe know the real motivation was that Psion wanted to bring Symbian to the stock market (so that it could go public) but Nokia rejected this proposition. You can see therefore clearly that Jorma Ollila lied.
The next speaker was Carl-Henric Svanberg, President and CEO of Ericsson (not SonyEricsson but the whole Ericsson - the company that has 50% in SonyEricsson):
Svanberg was telling about offering Ericsson for cell phone industry, including cell phones - nothing special here. However, during FAQ session after his presentation he also was forced to answer a question that we have sent by SMS and that Session Chairman picked: "now, when Nokia overtakes Symbian, could it be possible that ERICSSON wold decide ot use also Microsoft´s software in smart phones?". In the answer Svanberg didn´t even use the word "Microsoft" but said that it is unclear to Ericsson why Nokia wants to overtake the Symbian but Ericsson is sure that it will work out any problems. It was however very clear that he was confused with this question and turning his eyes down when answering. From the answer of Svanberg it was clear that FUD in Symbian ranks (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) is widespread by the arrogant actions of Nokia.
The next speaker was Paul Otellini, President and COO of Intel:
As you can observe on the picture above, the screen shot of Microsoft smartphone was clearly visible in his presentation.
Otellini and another guy from Intel presented 2 new platforms: ZOAR for smartphones (without touch screen):
... and CARBONADO for wireless PDAs (with touch screens). During the presentation. On the slide showing ZOAR refernce design there was a picture of smartphone that had buttons typical for MS Smartphone (Home, Back) - although the platform itself is designed to work fine not only with Microsoft software but also with Linux, Symbian and Palm. The main point of Intel´s presentation was to underline importance of the successor to Wi-Fi - the Wi-Max technology, that Intel strongly supports. Then there was a short movie showed where it was presented how widespread broadband wireless is nowadays in New Zealand. At the end of this movie there was a scene with plenty of sheeps that were shouting, in typical sheep-like voice, the word "broaaaaaaaaaaaadbaaaaaaaaaand" (broadband).
The next speaker was Rich Templeton, EVP & COO of Texas Instruments (TI):
It is worth noticing that as of now, most MS Smartphones, including SPV and Motorola MPx200 and MPx are powered by chipsets from TI. Templeton mentioned also Motorola MPx (Pocket PC phone from Motorola) and showed it shortly. Apart from that he was telling about OMAP2 (the next generaiton of OMAP) and about it that they have a reference design for EDGE smartphone. The most impressive part of his presentation (as sheeps in Intel´s presentation) was a cell phone with fingerprint recognition that he was showing: he showed that his worker (some other guy from TI) cannot use this phone because his fingerprints are wrong, but then he used his finger to authenticate and the cell phone was unblocked.
Last speaker in the Keynote Session was Pieter Knook, Senior Vice-President, Mobile & Embedded Devices Division:
We must admit that he speaks English better than his predecessor - Juha Christansen - he uses fluent "native speaker-style" English and not "foreigner English".
Knook was telling in his presentation about the benefits of Microsoft software both for operators and for users.
Then he switched to a presentation of new software for Microsoft smartphone: bar code reading in combination with web service from Amazon. Firstly Knook, with Orange SPV E200 smartphone, took a photo of the bar code of the book "Lord of the Rings":
... and then he has sent this photo as attachment by e-mail to Amazon. Then he received back from Amazon an email that he opened and that contained link to Amazon´s mobile web page with informatin about this book (it was the same book as he hold in hand - "Lord of the Rings"). He opened that web page:
... and showed some reviews and showed that it is possible to buy this book right from the Microsoft smartphone. The idea is simple: you take a photo of a bar code of the product of interest to you and then you can get through Amazon an information about this item and possibility to buy it.
Later he was showing some cell phones powered by Microsoft software, among others Voq (MS Smartphone) and Motorola MPx (Pocket PC phone):
At the end Knook was answering questions from the audience sent by SMS to the Session Chairman (Mossberg):
Knook, when answering questions regarding the fact that people are afraid of Microsoft, said "we do not compete with our partners" and that Microsoft delivers just software, not hardware. It was clear indication towards Nokia/Symbian, that proves the fact that the best software for smart phones - from the point of view of hardware vendors - is clearly made by Microsoft, not by Nokia that is also offering hardware and thus directly competing with their Symbian partners! Hardware vendors, that use Symbian in cell phones can never ever trust Nokia because it directly competes with them and having majority in Symbian is totally uncredible. with Microsoft there are no such problems and thus hardware vendors can trust Microsoft, but can´t trust in Symbian (and thus also can´t trust Nokia)!
