Robert Pogson

Samsung has radically altered the appearance and layout of the Galaxy Tab for Germany calling the new model Tab 10.1N and putting a different bezel and speaker location on it. Still this does not satisfy Apple and it has demanded another injunction. This time the courts should tell Apple to go away and quit bothering people. If I were on the court, I would refer the matter for anti-competitive examination. It’s just silly what Apple is doing. There’s no way it’s making any friends in the world doing this and when the world stands up to Apple, it will be selling iThingies from a cart in Shanghai.

For years I have taught paperlessness in schools. My labs usually had a printer which was used only enough to teach students how to use it. External users of the lab got the most use of it. I am happy to see the US government determine to use electronic record-keeping systematically. Not only will this be an opportunity to reduce paper/printing costs but it will also be a great opportunity to switch to FLOSS for record-keeping. A standard open file format should be the basis of any system-wide plan for paperlessness. That’s what other governments have done just for archiving. Adding operations to that should only increase the necessity of open formats. Continue reading ‘Paperlessness’

A court decided Apple had a weak case and was unlikely to succeed in a full trial and so the injunction will be removed shortly unless Apple can get a higher court to play their game.

see The Register – Samsung gets a win in Oz patent battle

I expect more such decisions as Apple’s case is very weak IMHO. Judges who have issued the injunctions have only glanced at the devices rather than examined closely the details. Further the ITC in the USA is looking at the issue of importation of devices violating patents and other matters. Apple is gambling with their reputation and is about to lose in a big way. In a mud-slinging contest, some will stick.

M$ is verging on irrelevance according to a recent survey. Asked early in 2011 what consumers thought of that other OS on a tablet, 45% were interested. Now, the number is 25%. At that rate of decline, interest will be ~10% by the time M$ moves its bowels to deliver “8″.

Chuckle. M$ cannot even sell vapourware these days.

Alun Taylor has a review of ICS on The Register. His bottom line:
“With Ice Cream Sandwich Android moves it’s game on by the greatest degree yet. In terms of look and feel it’s now hard on the heels of iOS and well ahead of WinPho 7.5 and BlackBerry 7. The new look will also raise the question of do we need third-party overlays anymore? I’d argue 4.0 has made them redundant. The web browser, keyboard, camera app and media players have all been given a thorough brush up and are now not only nicer to look at but faster and easier to use. My only complaint is that migratory menu button and nailed-on Google search widget but I suspect I’ll learn to live with both.”

So, in his opinion ICS is competitive with iOS, the standard by which all mobile OS are compared. Considering the range of hardware for which Android/Linux is available and the features/functions of ICS this should bring continued growth and a further lead over that other OS in mindshare. The question remains whether Apple can stay ahead of Android/Linux on tablets in 2012. They didn’t in smart phones. Probably the diversity of Android’s ecosystem is sufficient to bring the same result in tablets. When it comes to x86 or ARMed PCs, Android/Linux will be a great option. When it comes to the geographic coverage and diversity of manufacturers using Android/Linux it should be no contest. iPad is doing well but ICS should grow at a faster rate and catch up sometimes near the end of 2012 if price/performance matters to enough consumers.

In the recent Black Friday sales, iPad was the most popular gadget but the lower prices and diversity of models with Android attracted a lot of attention. Even before ICS became available, Android/Linux had taken 20% share away from iPad. By November, iPad was down to 70% share of tablets. I estimate (linearly from these two pre-ICS points) that while iPad may still be the most popular it will be down to 50% share by mid-2012 at the latest. iPad cannot outship products running at half the price or less.

Global HDD supply to be 35% short in 4Q11, say PC makers according to Digitimes.

The consequences of this are very interesting:

• When ARMed smart thingies are increasingly attractive to consumers with lowering prices, Wintel with rising prices may become less attractive.
• The Christmas season when a lot of retailers ship huge volumes and make their annual profits will be hit hard.
• This situation could take 9 months or longer to correct by increasing production.
• This will increase interest in server-centric computing where few hard drives can serve many.
• Wintel, which depends on every-increasing volumes to pay for extravagant life-styles will take a serious hit. What will M$’s client division’s bottom line look like with 35% fewer hard drives to license?

So, if there weren’t already enough good reasons to switch to GNU/Linux and thin clients, necessity may be the final push. I expect M$ will have to dip into cash reserves to keep paying off its “partners”. I expect more partners will look for smarter ways of doing things. I expect more consumers will find alternatives to Wintel. Since “8″ is nowhere in site, M$’s empire will be negatively affected for months. It’s all good unless you need more storage… but at least you have the option to put that storage on a server.