What the heck’s happening with this Android stuff? All was peachy with the Android 1.0, Android 1.1, Android 1.5 Cupcake, and even Android 1.6 Donut releases.

Google will make OS available, cellphone vendors will take the package and make cool smartphones with it. Everyone gets the same version and releases handsets with it, accordingly.

Then came the announcement of Android 2.0 running Verizon/Motorola Droid, release of Android 2.0 SDK to developers, and things started getting really confusing.

With much more advanced and visually appealing Android 2.0 available, and already running on one phone, one would expect other vendors to jump on the bandwagon, and announce Eclair running handsets as soon as they can.

But no, all others, announcing their Android smartphones, for some mysterious reason, are using the old 1.6 Donut version of the OS.  Even for the high end models, that will ship only next year, like Sony Ericsson Xperia X10, or other Verizon Droid series handsets, like HTC Eris.

And I think,  I know what this reason is.

There simply is no 2.0 version of Android operating system yet. At least in a way, we usually consider a software package to be ready for a version X.0 number.

What we do have as an OS, Google, Motorola and Verizon call Android 2.0 for marketing purposes, is a pre-release/beta version of the software, optimized to run on a single device by a single vendor.

If you think it’s unlikely that Google will give one vendor such a strong preference, to launch a competing device, with a more advanced version of OS, think again.

This is exactly the same thing Google did last year, when they really wanted to get their OS into the market, before the year/holiday season was over. Google worked directly with HTC, optimizing the unfinished operating system to run on a single handset. Then they called it Android 1.0, and launched HTC G1/Dream handset running on it. With tons of unfinished/absent features, bugs and all.

Even Andy Rubin himself admitted, that Android 1.0 wasn’t really a software package worthy of 1.0 tag. Android reached that level only with the release of the Cupcake 1.5/Donut 1.6 updates. That’s when all other vendors felt that the software was actually ready for their phones, and got busy releasing them.

The launch of Motorola Droid, is sort of a deja vu of the things that happened last year.

Close integration work exclusively for a single handset, from a single vendor. Advanced version of the OS, not available to other vendors. The feeling of a rushed job, manifesting in illogically unfinished/absent features (see the dismal multimedia/sync experience, camera issues, universal search limitations, laginess of basic UI elements, etc;  that Gizmodo found on Droid).

All are the mirror thing of the problems the original G1 faced in November 2008.

So, to anyone waiting for another Android 2.0 handset to be released anytime soon, sorry. You won’t be seeing any of them this year. If ever.

My guess is, that Android 2.0 will remain exclusive to Motorola Droid/Milestone. Just like Android 1.0 was exclusive to HTC Dream/G1.

The rest of us, who will not pick up Droid, will have to wait for the release of Android 2.1/Flan, to get our hands on the next generation Android goodness. The handsets with which should be announced in February 2010, and start shipping sometime in March/April.

• Samsung Spica and BigFoot Android 2.0/ Donut phone details leaked
• Motorola Milestone (Droid) officially launched in Europe. Gets multi-touch, loses free navigation
• Verizon and Google officially promise several Android phones
• Verizon’s HTC Desire shows up in the… dark
• GSM Motorola Droid caught on video

Starting in late 2007, with the release of Samsung Armani and F490 touchphones, they’ve got touch screen as religion. And started churning out touchscreen phones like crazy.

I tried to do a quick count in my head, how many touch phones  Samsung has at the moment, but quickly got lost. As a result of this touch binge, Samsung now is the biggest producer of touch screen phones in the world, selling millions of them every month.

Right now Samsung also has the thing for AMOLED displays. And no other handset vendor can come even close in number of AMOLED equipped handset models, or units shipped.

Before the touch thing, Samsung also had the RAZR inspired thin phone mania. And did quite well with their Ultra Thin series.

And now, it seems that Samsung is starting to get hooked up on the QWERTY/messaging phones. At least that’s my impression from the visit to Samsung’s IFA stand.

Here are some of them:

Samsung B3410  QWERTY touchphone

Samsung B3410 is a side slider with QWERTY keyboard and a touch screen.

When closed, Samsung B3410 differs very little from any other full touchscreen Samsung phone. It comes with the native Samsung OS and has familiar Samsung TouchWiz 2 user interface.

While not the cheapest among Samsung touch phones (that place belongs to Samsung Corby), the build and specs of Samsung B3410 indicate, that this will be one of the cheaper, lower mid  end messaging handsets.

Samsung B3310 QWERTY messaging slider

Samsung B3310 is another messaging slider, we’ve seen pop up on some Samsung sites two weeks ago, targeted towards the youth market.

It does not have a touchscreen, just a simple side slide QWERTY keyboard, and an interesting, one line numeric keypad on the side. And it comes in many colors, though for now, we’ve got to play only with blue model.

The two phones above were not the only QWERTY messaging handsets on display. We just wrote about the Corby like Samsung B3210 candybar (Corby Pro, anyone?), with  colorful back covers and QWERTY keypad, which is destined to be the cheapest Samsung QWERTY feature phone.

And there were those expensive QWERTY smartphones we all know and love – Samsung Omnia Pro B7610 and B7320 on display too.

Samsung’s bid to take over QWERTY messaging phone market

Notice something interesting?

5 QWERTY messaging phones, all of them launched within last 3 months. And there are more of them still to come this year.

Just like with touchphones, it seems that Samsung is now getting real serious about QWERTY messaging phone category.

There’s nothing very surprising here. With the explosion of online social services like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, etc;, which are now moving from Internet to mobile phone, the need for the handsets that allow for fast and comfortable typing has been growing for a while now.

QWERTY phones are moving from a niche market into mainstream, and their growth will only accelerate as mobile internet takes off.

And Samsung, having fully internalized this trend, is jumping into category the usual Samsung way. By flooding it with every variation of QWERTY handset imaginable, and watching which ones will catch on.

Someone once described this approach as “throwing spaghetti at the wall, to see what sticks”. Very few companies are able to do that successfully. But, if history is any guide, Samsung is one of them.

And, I’d bet dollars to donuts, that in a couple of years Samsung will be one of the three biggest QWERTY messaging phone vendors around.

• Samsung S3650 Corby and M2520 in live photos
• #IFA09: Corby-like Samsung B3210 QWERTY phone – hands-on
• Samsung B3310 launched as Corby Mate in India
• Samsung Corby S3650 gets previewed
• Samsung S3650 Corby touchscreen phone to cost only €200

Which looks pretty strange, if you consider what was announced – just another product – Wintel PC –  in a tiny (albeit fast growing) Netbook market.

So now, that we’ve had some time to think about it, let’s try to figure out what yesterday’s announcement of Nokia Booklet 3G means. What it is? What it isn’t? And why the heck Nokia even bothered to make one?

What is Nokia Booklet 3G?

This one is pretty easy. It’s a Netbook. A small, relatively cheap, limited functionality portable computer running on Intel Atom CPU and Windows OS.

Officially known specs for Nokia Netbook 3G include: Atom CPU, Windows OS, 3G/HSPA, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth radios, A-GPS, HD ready 10.1” display, SD-card reader, HDMI port, 12hrs battery life, dimensions of 185×264×19.99 mm, weight: 1.125 kg.

Additional, unofficial,  Nokia Booklet 3G specs, courtesy Eldar Murtazin, are – fanless Intel Atom Chipset (Z530 running at 1.6 Ghz), 120 GB HDD, 1 x HDMI port (for HD video out), 1 x integarted SD card reader, 3 x USB ports, 1 x audio port. Possible price: EUR 399 or more.

If you look just at the hardware side, probably  except for the A-GPS, Nokia’s Booklet 3G is exactly the same as any other run of the mill Netbook made by Asus, Del, Acer or anyone else.

Well, one could argue, that some specs like HD ready thing, HDMI, 12 hrs battery life, are better then netbooks out there have now. Sure. But by the time Nokia Booklet ships, sometime in Q4 2009, other PC vendors will surely catch  up specwise.

The only difference between Nokia Booklet 3G and any other next generation netbook, is it’s tight integration with Nokia software & services. It means that Nokia Booklet 3G will come with a preinstalled Nokia Ovi Suite 2.0 (I hope non-beta version is ready by then), Ovi maps and probably some other Ovi gadgets on your desktop, plus easy access to all Nokia OVI online services. And, probably, easy syncing and connectivity with your Nokia phone, out of the box.

But nothing of that will be exclusive to your Nokia Booklet 3G. With a bit of tinkering and a few downloads, you’ll be able to replicate (almost) the same functionality with any other new high end netbook out there.

What Nokia Booklet 3G isn’t?

First,  Nokia Booklet 3G isn’t the device to bring true internet and PC use experience to the masses in developing world/emerging markets. Or a truly mass market device in the rest of the world.

You simply do not make a device from carved aluminum chassis and HD bells&whistles for that market. You go for barely adequate specs and materials to make the thing as cheap as you can. And why would Nokia do that, also creating competition to it’s main product lines? They are pretty happy getting people over there connected via their cheap S30/S40 and soon S60 handsets, without any need of PC.

Nokia Booklet 3G is not the first step in some secret, cunning and ultra smart plan by Nokia to conquer the laptop PC market. Actually, it is not even an attempt to become a player in laptop PC  market. Most likely, it’s not even a serious attempt to become a major player in a Netbook market.

And, it seems, that  Nokia Booklet 3G is not even made or designed by Nokia.

The rumors way back in February, reporting that Nokia is planning to launch Netbook this fall,  insisted that Nokia was talking about Joint Design Manufacturing approach with  Taiwanese OEMs. Now that we know, that the first part of the rumor is true, I’m pretty sure the second part is too. Especially, seeing just how little in the new device comes from Nokia side, and how much of it is just plain simple netbook.

Yes, Nokia had some involvement in Booklet design.  It is a Joint Design Manufacturing after all. But that involvement was pretty limited. Probably to the inclusion of A-GPS, HSPA connectivity and integration of Nokia software and services. Maybe some energy saving tricks, to get to that promised 12 hrs battery life, though I really doubt that.

What this amounted as a resource investment from Nokia, were a few, maybe several tens, of Nokia engineers working with Compal,  Quanta, Foxconn or some other OEM they contracted to produce the thing, making sure everything  runs smoothly.

So, though I’m curious to see all the details about Booklet 3G made public, come Nokia World next week, I do not expect any big surprises. There won’t be any new technology breakthroughs, next generation chips others don’t have, or mind blowing software/user interface innovations on Booklet 3G.

Nokia simply does not have enough clout with the PC chip makers to get them to make something exclusive, while keeping the likes of Acer, Dell and Asus locked out. And it also does not have enough resources, will and belief in the device category, to create the next generation user experience on yet another platform.

So why did Nokia make Booklet 3G?

Well, actually, more correct question will be – Why Not?

Back in April we told you about Nokia’s plans in small mobile computer market. Now, that we’ve seen the actual products, it’s seems that those plans are evolving more or less along the lines we described.

According to Nokia VP Anssi Vanjoki:

[netbooks] today have a pretty strong demand due to their compact nature and possibility to use some standard applications, e.g. during travel. So due to these market opportunities we are looking into this segment as a tactical possibility. It is possible that we will have some devices of this type in the future.

But I want to emphasize that this direction is not a strategic one for us. We are aiming at a different type of mobile devices.

Translated from corporate speak, netbooks are nothing more then a sideshow for Nokia. A way to make a quick buck, while the market demand is hot. And, probably, to buy some insurance, in case there is something bigger then they now see in this category of devices.

And why not? They do not need to invest a lot of money and resources to produce the thing. Most of the development work has been done by OEMs and Microsoft. Just slap on your own software&service suite, add some gimmicks so your marketing department has a way to fool the average Joe that it’s something special differentiate a product, push it out there and see what happens.

Especially, when potentially biggest netbook distribution channel is ready, eager and waiting. I am talking about Mobile Operators, which are just starting to promote subsidized netbooks to their clients.

This latent operator demand might be the biggest reason Nokia even considered producing it’s own Netbook at all. This is the only competitive advantage Nokia has over the likes of Dell, Acer, Asustek and other players in the PC market. But it’s a real one nonetheless. While PC makers are only starting to find a ways to get their subsidized netbooks on mobile networks, Nokia has been successfully nurturing  these relationships for years (I’m not talking about U.S. market here).

Heck, Nokia reps are probably talking to the network operator reps about Booklet 3G right now. When it is finally ready to ship, Booklet 3G might launch worldwide, with the promotion campaigns from tens of mobile carriers, at an attractive, subsidized price.

And what if the market does not take off, or the device itself flops?

So what? Nokia writes-off a few million $$ in losses, forgets the darn thing, and merrily continues to conquer the world with it’s Maemo based “true mobile computers” like N900 and hundreds of millions of  cheap Symbian smartphones.

And don’t forget the perverse pleasure at least someone at Nokia should feel for the opportunity of biting all those pesky PC makers where it might hurt. After all, they’ve been giving  Nokia so much grief these last few years, with their inroads into a smartphone market Nokia considers it’s own, should feel sweet to able return  the favor…

• Nokia Booklet 3G netbook pre-announced
• Nokia Booklet 3G comes on Oct. 22 to O2 Germany for €249 on contract
• #nw09: Nokia World preview. Part 1: Things officially (pre)announced
• Nokia Netbooks may be jointly developed with Taiwanese partners
• Nokia orders 100,000 Booklet 3G netbooks from Compal

It was buried in the official statement from the Quickoffice about their views of Nokia Microsoft deal.

It said: “We’re shipping on over 100M smartphones and our next version, which includes many of these announced features by Microsoft, will ship on 200M Symbian phones before Microsoft’s product comes out in the marketplace.”

Well, anyone familiar with Symbian knows that Quickoffice is the dominant office app there. And we know that that there are tons of Symbian devices out there. So the figure of 100 million installed base is not a big surprise. But the next one – that Quickoffice will ship on 200 Symbian phones before the Microsoft version even comes out, is much more interesting, as someone else has already noted.

Now, while it was never mentioned specifically, the general consensus is that Microsoft will launch Mobile Office for Symbian in the next 18 months. This means that in the next 18 months,  at least 200 million Symbian handsets will be shipped, too.

Let’s do some quick math here. According to Gartner, in 2008 139 million smartphones, 72 million of them Symbian based,  were sold worldwide. First half of 2009 has seen 77.4 million smartphones, 38.83  million of them with Symbian, sold. Overall Symbian market share in first half of   2009, was a little above 50%. So, this is where we are today.

Now let’s take a look at  the next 18 months.

Again, according to Gartner, there will be 27% YoY growth in smartphone shipments in 2009. That’s about 176.5 million smartphones. And about 99.1 million of smartphones, yet to be sold in 2H, 2009. Even if Symbian market share holds steady at 50% (which quite a few people are skeptical about), that will mean 45.55 million Symbian smartphones shipped in the second half of 2009. And that’s the first 1/3 of the period we are looking into.

Now to  2010. And assume even more generous 30% YoY growth. That’s about  229.45 million smartphones. Then, again, let’s assume that Symbian keeps on 50% market share (which, many will say, is even more far fetched ). That translates into 114.72 million of Symbian handsets shipped in 2010. About the time Mobile Microsoft office is ready.

Let’s add it all up. 45.55 million Symbian handsets in 2H 2009, plus 114.72 in 2010 gives us 160.27 million Symbian phones sold in the next 18 months.

Almost 40 million short of what Quickoffice tells us will ship in the same period. And that’s with  the assumptions that industry pundits, predicting inevitable demise of Symbian, Nokia and everything else that is on the wrong side of the Atlantic (i.e. not iPhone, Android, RIM or WebOS), will dismiss as widely optimistic.

Well, there is one assumption here, that needs to be addressed. It’s that Quckoffice actually knows what it is talking about and that their forecasts are grounded in reality. But, knowing the importance and experience of Quickoffice in Symbian ecosystem and mobile app industry as a whole, their close cooperation with Nokia, and that partners are usually privy to at least general platform development plans for the next year or so, I think it’s a quite believable forecast.

All this points to the conclusion, that, contrary to some sensationalist headlines about how Symbian is obsolete, Nokia is dropping it, and the OS is doomed, Symbian might be getting even stronger soon. Only in different places then it was strong before.

Up until 2008, most of the smartphones were high end, expensive top of the line devices. And they needed to be, because hardware able to run smartphone OS well, was more expensive then the things that made mid-range feature phone. But not anymore.

So Symbian is starting to move down the pricing chain, towards mid range, mass market devices.  The niche, were high volume feature phones used to rule. And it’s a good thing too. Despite all the advanced and highly efficient things that Symbian is able to do under the hood of the device (battery management, multi-tasking, graphics capabilities, network compatibility, etc;), due to the old T9 optimized Avkon based legacy interface, Symbian is simply unable to compete in high end full touch smartphone arena. And will not be ready until QT based Symbian^4 UI comes out at the end of 2010.

But it’s a whole different story at the lower price points. The competitive landscape hasn’t changed much there. Despite the OEM commitments, Android still has to prove it is able to power competitive mass market device. Apple isn’t even looking there yet. And others, like RIM or Windows Mobile are quite well known quantities.

So when Nokia speeds up the replacement of their home brewed S40 OS on a high volume feature phones with open smartphone OS, and Samsung decides that it needs Symbian not only for it’s flagships like Omnia HD or INNOV8, Symbian phone unit volumes should see significant boost, that alone might account for the volume discrepancy above.  And if Sony Ericsson decides that it might need Symbian to help them produce some of the “smash-hits” new CEO is thinking about, and LG finally gets serious about the smartphones, the forecasts might even prove rather pessimistic.

These things should carry Symbian quite well through the rough patch of versions ^2 and ^3, until it finally gets a modern user interface, and becomes a truly open, and easy to work with, mobile OS. Where other companies, that have had no previous experience with the OS, can start considering adding it to their own handsets.

And for those Nokia fans that a craving for something really advanced and cool from Nokia, there’s some good news too. The upcoming Maemo based Nokia N900/RX51 Rover smartphone/internet tablet is real, and it is awesome. At least that’s the opinion of a guy who tested hundreds of mobile devices, and routinely get’s his hands on new models, months before their official release.

Last few months he had a chance to play with Nokia N900, and was blown away by it. At least, if such phrases as “the most impressive device in 2009, all the others, mildly put, are not so (impressive)”, “compared to this, S60 looks like an old crap”, “I look at Nokia N97 in one hand, this device in another, and understand that..wow”,  “after living with it a few months, I can say that this smart(phone) has me drooling with wonder. And already pretty fast and stable” means anything. And coming from that source, it means quite a lot.

Here’s a couple of screen shots with from the new device to wet your appetite:

And be sure to check back later, because more info about new Nokia Rover is coming here tomorrow, or even, maybe, a bit later today.

• Nokia, Microsoft sign deal to bring Office Mobile to Symbian smartphones
• Nokia and Motorola have 90% of the Chinese smartphone market
• Nokia’s market share shrank to 37% in Q4 2008
• Worldwide phone sales declined 9.4% in Q1 2009, says Gartner
• Android shipments to grow 900% this year? No. I say it’s 1800%!

The current management team at SE, lead by Hideki (Dick) Komiyama, consumer electronics sales veteran from Sony, totally screwed up in mobile market.

They haven’t been able to come up with a single hit product in years, missing industry trends, losing sales (down 40%+ in a year), market share (now at 4.7% worldwide)and tons of money (500 mil.+ EUR in 2009 so far) in the process. The current Sony Ericsson balance sheet shows that they have about 965 million Euro in cash and short term cash investments on hand, which, at current burn rate, will not last even a year.

I guess, making and selling mobile phones is really a very different thing then selling TV’s, media players and camcorders.

With their joint venture teetering on the brink of irrelevance, and even insolvency, the powers that be at SE decided that it’s time for the telecom industry  insiders to take over from CE salesmen, and try  to turn around of  what’s left of Sony Ericsson. Enter Bert Nordberg, currently Executive Vice President of the Ericsson Group and Head of Ericsson Silicon Valley, who becomes SE co-president on 1st of September, and will completely replace Komiyama on Oct. 15th.

I’m sure more replacements in key SE positions are soon to come.

With Ericsson side of joint venture taking over day to day operations of Sony Ericsson, Sony’s Chairman, CEO and President Sir Howard Stringer get’s the supervisory Chairman of the Board spot at SE, replacing current Ericsson CEO Carl-Henric Svanberg.

All the corporate pleasantries and PR speak about current successful transformation aside, the current SE product line-up shows that Mr. Nordberg has a pretty daunting task ahead of him.

While Sony Ericsson has some pretty impressive products like Symbian based Satio, Android based Rachael/Xperia and Windows Mobile Xperia X2 in the pipeline, at a price points of above 500 or even 600 Euro, none of them are likely to become “smash-hits” Mr. Nordberg is looking for. And, with all the people that already left the company, plus turmoil the management shake-up will produce there, it can be more then a year until anything really new and “smashy” comes out.

The good news is, that it looks that the company and it’s shareholders now understand and are prepared to do what is needed. Which, according to one person who has seen some internal SE strategy papers, include the shareholder loan of around 450 million Euro to keep the company running through 2010, until the revenues from new products in the end of 2010/ beginning of 2011 kick-in.

• Sony Ericsson’s Q3 2009 results show “positive trend”
• Sony Ericsson extends deal with Wayfinder, new GPS-enabled phones on the way
• Sony Ericsson P10, G702, F305, S302, and C905 product pages leaked
• Sony PSP phone is coming, won’t have anything to do with Sony Ericsson
• Sony Ericsson will have to raise 100mil EUR to keep going

By now  all major handset manufacturers, except Nokia, have joined the Open Handset Alliance, set up to push forward the new operating system. As did some of the world’s biggest mobile operators, hardware, software and service companies. Promising us a plethora of new, innovative handsets running on a new open Linux based mobile OS, abundance of services and mobile software apps.

Yet here we are now, 19 months later, with a single device, from a single vendor, with  little above 1 million units sold. Another  device is just hitting the streets, and one more is promised in a few weeks. Kind of a lame result for all the hype that’s been raging about the new OS this past year and a half.

So what happened and what’s to come?

Well, it looks like making a new open mobile OS, ready to run on multiple devices and multiple networks is a pretty hard, labor and time intensive task, that very few of us appreciate.

Heck, making a closed mobile OS, for a single device, to run on your own hardware, is a pretty hard thing to do. Just ask Apple, which spent 2.5 years until it was able to give the iPhone something to resemble standard smartphone functionality. (Unless you believe Apple’s Kool-Aid, and think that things that are missing until iPhone OS 3.0 ships – Bluetooh, MMS, copy/paste, etc;–  were actually features that made the device better. ) Add-in different processors, display resolutions, hardware configurations and network technologies, and the whole task becomes immensely harder.

When Google announced Android in Nov. 2007, they did not have anything remotely ready to put out there on the street, not even for testing. What they had at the time was a PC emulator, SDK for developers of Android apps and, probably, a few prototype devices and software that Googlers could show their potential partners in OHA.

And it took Google  almost another year of hard work, together with HTC, to get the first, advanced prototype level Android device on the  market. And that’s what HTC G1/Dream actually was, as Andy Rubin admitted recently:

What we wanted to do for our market entry was make sure that we had one successful showcase product to prove that the product was reliable and robust and ready to go. We chose HTC as our partner for that… and … learned that (Android) 1.5 was the product I wished was 1.0.

Yes, HTC G1 with Android 1.0 had some cool features and innovations, but it was basically a showcase/prototype product, put out there to get some real life experiences and generate the interest among mobile developers and hard core users. And this is what it quite successfully achieved.

But Android 1.0 still wasn’t an OS that any other serious smartphone vendor would consider putting in any of his own devices. Even the new Android 1.5 Cupcake release isn’t. In software numbering tradition I would call what Google had in November of 2007 an early alpha version of the OS, Android 1.0 – a beta version, and the Cupcake/1.5 – Android Release Candidate.

Only a single other major manufacturer – Samsung – has braved Android 1.5, with a single handset – i7500 Galaxy. But, IMHO,  even this phone is more for the bragging rights and publicity, rather than being a serious attempt to make an Android phone. Yes, the specs on Samsung i7500 are impressive, except for HVGA resolution, which is all Android 1.5 could support.  Samsung will sell a nice number of them – somewhere in high five or low six figures in the next 2-3 months, depending on how hard they push it.  But, I bet that after the first production run, the OS inside Galaxy i7500 will be promptly updated with Android 2.0/Donut and probably even with a new TouchWiz UI, as soon as that software becomes available this fall.

And that’s where it gets interesting. Because Android 2.0/ Donut, due in September,  is the first real market-ready version of the OS that all other OHA members have been creating their handsets for from the beginning.

What we have seen so far – HTC G1/Dream, HTC Magic, Samsung i7500 Magic -  they are just a warm-up, test exercises and publicity tools. The opening shots in a great mobile OS showdown will be fired this fall, with the release of Android 2.0 and those additional 15-17 new phones running on it. This is the first time when Android based smartphones will have to start slugging it out for the pockets of real users with real competitors, outside of the realm of geek’o’sphere.

During Q4 2009 there will be a lot of excitement, interest and Android handset sales to the early adopter crowd craving for the latest and greatest handset in their pocket. But competition is not  sleeping too. With the new Symbian^2 smartphones, Maemo based Nokia devices, OS 3.0 based iPhones, Storm 2 Blackberries, Palm Pre/WebOS and WM 6.5 handsets – there will be a lot of goodness to choose from.

When the numbers come in the beginning of the next year, there will probably be huge headlines about how Android handset sales grew staggering hundreds or even thousands of percent and how Android’s smartphone market share increased several or even tens of times. But, due to a very low initial base, those numbers won’t really mean much . Though the absolute number  of millions Android handsets sold  would provide some indication of the level of interest in the new OS.

But the real showdown will start in the end of 2010/ beginning of 2011,  when mobile  devices on Android 3.0, Symbian^4, Maemo 6/Harmattan, Windows Mobile 7, next generation of iPhone OS, WebOS and Blackberry come out. All these players are now moving in the same direction – ironing out the kinks in device usability, especially touch; integrating PC, cloud service and always connected mobile device experiences; and wooing the developers to their platforms.  The releases I mentioned above will show us what they have come up with.

How will Android fair in this mobile OS/platform showdown?  Well, the early signs are promising. Android has generated a lot of interest among hardware makers, software developers and mobile operators. And it has a very good chance of becoming an important player in mobile OS market.

But it will be a far cry from the world domination that some hardcore Android believers are preaching about. Even if Android was the single best mobile OS out there, light years ahead of competition (which it is not), neither mobile vendors nor mobile operators will allow it.

Just look at the way current OHA members are doing things. Yes, they have committed to have one or several Android devices this year and will have even more next year. But only Motorola went (kind-of) exclusively Android, and, most likely, just because it couldn’t afford more. Spec-wise  Samsung, LG, HTC, Sony Ericsson – the most important Android players out there -  have at least equivalent and often better offerings with Symbian or Windows Mobile inside. And I’m not even talking about their “dumb” feature phones that, with the new Web Runtime/Widget layer are becoming smarter by the day.

Nokia also, with it’s 30%+ smartphone  market share isn’t going anywhere.

As you see, there are quite a few very strong players here, each has it’s own set of strengths and weaknesses. Google is one of them.

But with more and more dumbphones becoming smart over the next few years, there is plenty of room for everyone for a while in a smartphone market. The smart always-on mobile device is a truly new, emerging market category. Old experiences and strengths in mobile phones, PC or wired Internet does not give any of the incumbents in one field a lot of significant advantages. The key question here is how you merge all three for the best overall end user experience. And nobody has figured the right answer yet.

So yes, Google Android has a very good shot to become a serious player in this new market. Will it live up to the hype? Well, we are about half way through the beginning and will probably know at least a part of the answer in the next 18 months.

• Google assures us Android-powered Gphone is coming this year
• WAT: Why there ain’t more phones with Android 2.0. And there won’t be soon, if ever
• Google’s own slider smartphone patent app
• Google launches Finance for Android
• Google and Baidu to fight over China’s mobile search market

Now that is some impressive growth. If it continues just for a little while, soon all other mobile OSes will be left far behind and Google will have the same dominant market share in smartphones as currently has in search.

Wow….

Except for one smallish thingie. The one data point that you don’t see in these 900% growth headlines – are the actual numbers. And, without these numbers, the “900% growth” headline is virtually meaningless. Especially when you consider other factors at play here.

I am not sure what the sales of Android devices were at the end of 2008, but I am sure that they were pretty small. Let’s do some quick, “back of the envelope” calculations.

The only Android device on sale in 2008 was HTC G1. It was available in U.S. since 0ct. 22. That’s only a bit more than 2 months of sales  in 2008. Considering that it took T-Mobile 6 months (until April 2009) to sell 1 mil. of G1s, let’s generously assume that 45 % of them were sold during the first two. After all there was some launch hype, then there was Christmas… And then let’s even more generously assume 50K of G1s sold in the other market it was available in 2008 – the U.K. (it was launched there on Oct.30, 2008).

That gives us a whopping total of 500 000 of Android phones sold in 2008. And that 10x growth? 5 million phones?

Then consider the following:

• In  2009 HTC G1/Dream  has started shipping with multiple carriers in five major (France, Germany , Spain, Italy, Australia) and a number of smaller markets. And is coming to many more soon
• Another HTC Android phone is launching just about now and has already gained major carrier acceptance in major markets. Some more HTC Android handsets are rumored
• Samsung has already announced and will soon start shipping a very attractive and well specc’ed Android device -i7500. And there will probably be several more Samsung Android phones launched soon afterwards.
• LG said they will have one as well.
• Motorola is betting it’s whole mobile device future on Android smartphones and officially confirmed the launch of several Android devices this year.
• Sony Ericsson has also indicated that it will have Android phone this year.

That’s 4 of the 5 biggest handset makers promising Android phone for 2009. Some of them will be putting all (or at least very significant part) of their marketing muscle and sales machine behind these handsets. And don’t forget HTC. They alone might ship a couple of million of Android handsets this year.

Taking into account all of the above, how hard this 5 million number is to achieve? I’d say not at all. If anything, this 10x growth figure should be too low. HTC Dream G1 and, from June HTC  Magic and Samsung i7500 – the only official Android phones for now-  alone are able to beat that 5 mil. unit number easily.

All other phones would just add to a nice bonus. Or, I’d say, another 5 mil.

So what? Sure,  it’s a nice figure and very impressive growth. But, from such low initial base it doesn’t tell us anything. It’s  still only about 5% of total smartphone market and less than 1% of global handset market.

And it certainly does not tell us how Android will do against competition from Symbian, Windows Mobile, Blackberry, iPhone, Palm  or even upcoming Nokia Maemo/Linux devices. That story will start unfolding in 2010.

In the meantime, that 900% a year Android growth figure sounds very cool, but not cool enough. I think it’s too low. I say Android sales will grow 1800% this year! (And you don’t have to pay $7K for this report).

Any takers for more?

• Samsung’s mobile market share to top 20% by the end of 2009
• Samsung Spica and BigFoot Android 2.0/ Donut phone details leaked
• Google assures us Android-powered Gphone is coming this year
• Sales of GPS handsets to grow up to 10% in China by 2012
• Nokia’s market share shrank to 37% in Q4 2008

Only yesterday we reported about upcoming Linux (Maemo) based  Nokia MID and Nautilus devices.

Then there was a recent report by TheStreet.com that Nokia is nearing a deal with Foxconn to produce it’s first netbooks. It seems to be a  continuation of February rumor that Nokia is considering joint development of netbooks with some Taiwanese companies.

And then we got that Nokia Sparrow device that they showed to partners during MWC. Which may or may not be the same Nokia Nautilus.

Also various Nokia execs are hinting for months now that Nokia is strongly interested in a small mobile computer/netbook opportunity and will use Linux Maemo OS on them. Here are some of these hints:

• Back in December Ukko Lappalainen, VP of Nokia markets unit stated that Nokia will start using Linux OS in it’s high end devices instead of Symbian S60 OS.
• In February Nokia’s CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo said that they are looking very seriously at a netbook opportunity for Nokia.
• But probably the best outline of Nokia plans in this field was given by Nokia VP Anssi Vanjoki in a roundtable discussion he had in Moscow few weeks ago. When asked whether Nokia has any plans to enter netbook market, he replied:

“It is important to understand that today we have three classes of mobile devices – ordinary mobile phones, personal computers, and also the third class, which are devices designed for a very wide range of functions that are always-on.

This last point (always-on) bears particular attention. They are different from personal computers, which are designed for use in sessions. These devices have a different architecture, and from that (always-on) perspective have nothing in common with those mini-notebooks that you were talking about (EeePC, etc;). In the end, the netbooks are based on the same PC software, have the same shortcomings, and, basically, are just less functional versions of a full fledged PC. So the area of their use is pretty limited. We do not think that this paradigm will be the main one in future mobile devices.

You noted correctly that these inexpensive and not very powerful computers today have a pretty strong demand due to their compact nature and possibility to use some standard applications, e.g. during travel. So due to these market opportunities we are looking into this segment as a tactical possibility. It is possible that we will have some devices of this type in the future.

But I want to emphasize that this direction is not a strategic one for us. We are aiming at a different type of mobile devices. “

(The quote is probably not very exact. It was translated by Mobile-Review.com from English to Russian and then by me from Russian back to English, so some things were lost in translation. However the general meaning remains).

So what can we tell about Nokia plans from all the above?

Nokia tends to make most of it’s important high end stuff itself, probably outsourcing things that it does not consider to be very important to other OEM’s.

So the tactical approach to netbook type of devices jibes very well with these rumors about joint netbook development and outsourced manufacture we are hearing now.

Nokia does not deem traditional netbooks really important and does not want to commit to the development effort that such independently made device would require of them. So they are working with some of their traditional OEM’s to make one and are outsourcing the production to them.

We will probably see some of these Nokia netbooks by the end of the year. But they will not be considered as something very important to Nokia and, unless there’s some unexpected demand, would not be strongly promoted or developed in the future.

And then there are those always on mobile computers designed for continuous use.

This is where Nokia will be putting most of it’s mobile device development efforts and pushing the limits for the next several years. We will also be seeing at least one of them within next few months, probably already in September. 4.2” Nokia MID and Nautilus are probably the first results of this approach.

These new devices will most likely be based on Linux Maemo 5 platform (*.pdf). They will have well animated and finger touch optimized user interface. Which, unhindered by the legacy of Symbian S60,  should work much better then UI on current Nokia touchphones like 5800 and N97. And we will be seeing quite a few of them in 2010/11.

Getting back to tradition Nokia/OEM netbooks, I wonder what OS they will be running on? Android or Microsoft Windows seems to be an unlikely choice for Nokia. The new Maemo is optimized for a pocket sized devices/handhelds, so might not be a very good thing for a bigger 8-11” traditional netbook screen. And then there’s that capability to run some traditional PC apps Mr. Vanjoki mentioned. Another version of Maemo? Some other Linux flavor?

What do you think?

• Nokia Netbooks may be jointly developed with Taiwanese partners
• 12 new NVIDIA Tegra devices announced at Computex
• High-end Nokia Maemo phone to be announced at Nokia World?
• Nokia orders Netbooks from Compal, Quanta
• Nokia’s Maemo 6 to support capacitive displays, multi-touch

T-Mobile, which has the iPhone rights for many European countries, has confirmed the release but expressed doubts about the patch being the sure shot solution for the iPhone 3G problems. It should take a couple more days to confirm if the software update has accomplished the job for which it has been released.

The only U.S. iPhone provider AT&T has also confirmed that software update is ready for download for users to their iPhones. In a nutshell, everyone is talking about the latest software update by Apple which might reduce the 3G signal reception problems except Apple itself. There are no statements about the details of the release from Apple.

People around the globe have been facing the connection problem where their iPhone would switch to slower Edge technology even in areas where the faster 3G was available and the software update will aim to overcome the connection problem if it is software related and not a hardware issue.

[via Yahoo!]

• iPhone 3G to receive firmware fix on September
• Mac OS X 10.5.6 software update breaks DFU mode for iPhone, iPod Touch
• iPhone 2.0 software coming free to iPhone in July, $9.95 for iPod Touch
• HTC: T-Mobile G1 to get OTA Cupcake updates
• ZOMG iPhone 2.0.2 software update adds copy/paste functionality! We’re kidding!

Here’s what Tim Cook, Apple’s COO, had to say:

“We are thrilled to be working with Bharti Airtel, India’s leading integrated telecom company, to bring iPhone 3G to millions of mobile customers in India. We can’t wait to get this revolutionary product in the hands of even more people around the world.”

There is no doubt that the iPhone will be welcomed with open arms but it remains to be seen how well the 3G version will be received in India, given the nonexistent 3G service in the country. Moreover, with the original iPhone’s suggested price of about Rs. 28000 ($655), the iPhone 3G will definitely be costlier, which could push away some interested but cash-wary customers. Nevertheless, we only have wait till “later this year” to find out!

Via

• HTC Touch Diamond coming to India through Bharti Airtel
• Bharti Airtel announces Equal Monthly Installment (EMI) plans for iPhone 3G
• India’s Bharti Airtel to Africa’s MTN: No, thanks.
• Vodafone brings down iPhone 3G price in India by $47
• iPhone coming to Asia via SingTel and associates

As I already told you, we can expect well over 200 new handsets this year. The number is pretty impressive by itself, but much more important is what’s gonna be inside all these these new devices.

I do not expect any major breakthroughs in mobile phone technologies. 2008 will be about consolidation and integration of the things we first tried, and got really excited about in 2007.

Technology wise, 4 big new trends that emerged 2007 and will continue to shape the development of mobile phones in 2008 and beyond:

• introduction of Multi-touch User Interface
• 5+ megapixel cameraphones
• location awareness and GPS sensors in mobile handsets
• growth of high speed HSPA data networks with all the new services enabled by them

Touch UI

The explosion of interest in touch-interface can be attributed solely to the introduction of Apple’s iPhone. While most cellphone makers were dabbling with Touch prior to 2007, none of them really believed in it and put any serious thought how to make it work. iPhone certainly changed all that and made all others shift significant resources into Touch.

In the second half of 2007 we started seeing first results of these efforts – e.g. TouchFlo interface in HTC Touch line-up, Croix interface in Samsung F700 and Samsung P520 Armani phones, LG Viewty KU990 cameraphone, Google Android interface, S60 Touch and others. But all of them failed to produce any noticeable impact yet.

That is set to change next year, as all the investments into development of Touch start bearing first fruits and a great number of Touch optimized user interface technologies and devices hits the stores in the second half of 2008.

Cameraphones

2007 was also the year when cameraphones became almost good enough to replace digital still camera for taking quick pictures on the road. But the operative word here is “almost”.

Despite the integration of 5 megapixel sensors, 3x optical zoom, autofocus, red-eye reduction, face recognition and other gimmicks, none of the phones launched in 2007 were as good as a year or two old mid-to-low-range “point-and-shoot” camera in my pocket.

But that will also change in 2008. As phone vendors polish cameraphone features and technologies introduced during last 12 months, add even more megapixels, functionality and improved multimedia editing tools with seamless uploads to the online service of your choice, the cameraphone will become “good enough”.

2008 will be a year, when a lot of users, upgrading their devices, will decide that they don’t need one more portable device in their pocket. Good quality camera phone will cover all their quick photo taking, “point-and-shoot” needs, while hybrids and D-SRL cameras will be used for better quality pictures.

Location aware handsets

In 2007 GPS Navigation sensor chips finally got cheap, energy efficient and small enough, to be added to mobile phones. But beyond giving the capabilities of a low end stand-alone GPS navigation system to your smartphone, the new chips did not have much impact of how we use the mobile handset.

While the overall amount of GPS enabled mobile phones in 2008 will remain rather small, they will be complemented by improved cell tower and Wi-Fi geolocation technologies, like those offered by Google Maps, Navizon and SkyHook wireless.

Mobile phones will start competing with low end stand alone GPS navigators. But the overall impact will go well beyond maps.

A number of new applications and services enabled by location aware handsets will be introduced in 2008 and some of them will capture the attention of a lot of early adopters. They will discover new, interesting and useful ways to use their handsets and set the stage for location based services to become mainstream in 2009.

Improved data networks

2007 was also the year that the deployment of HSDPA mobile data networks, the number of HSDPA capable devices and affordable mobile data plans finally brought the promise of 3G to the masses. This facilitated significant growth of mobile data services use, led by increased mobile net surfing and occasional song or video downloads from the Net.

Expect this trend to significantly accelerate even more. This will be enabled by further rollout and upgrade of HSDPA data networks to up 7.2 Mbps throughput. It will be fueled by the new data services like Nokia OVI, similar ones offered by carriers directly and opening of Apple iTunes for the direct downloads to the mobile devices (iPhone first , but other devices to follow soon).

Improved user interface features, like bigger device screens, improved full HTML browsers, Flash Lite 3 for video will help a lot as well. Oh, and we may even have an official decision by some major carriers to officially allow mobile VoIP over their networks, too.

In 2008, mobile data won’t remain a one way/download activity too. Carriers will need their newly rolled out HSUPA networks, with significantly improved data upload capabilities, to be used for something. Improved cameras, multimedia editing tools and seamless upload capabilities to various social networking/blogging/entertainment services will see to that.

Other tech

And, of course, the improvements in other components of mobile phones will continue to follow the Moore’s law. Next year we’ll see mobile handsets with 1GHz chips, dedicated mobile graphics processors, 16-32 GB of flash memory, 256-512 MB of RAM and bigger VGA resolution displays.

Unfortunately, all the developments will continue to be limited by the power requirements. Although the chips will continue to become smaller , faster and more energy efficient, the amount of battery power that you can have in the handset will remain the same, somewhere between 1000 to 1500 mAh.

However it ain’t all bad. It means that mobile phone makers will have to work hard integrating all the chips, creating ever more efficient software, power saving technologies and finding interesting trade-offs between operating time, richness of features and usability.

And that will inevitably lead to increased pace of innovation and better, more useful and interesting mobile handsets.

____

This is the second  article of “Mobiles in 2008″  series. You can find the introduction here:  “More then 200 new phones will launch next year”

Be sure to check later this week for more in “Mobiles in 2008″ series:

• 2008 – The year of Touch
• 2008 – The year cameraphone took over
• GPS Navigation & Location based services in 2008
• Multimedia, entertainment and user created content in 2008

• Mobiles in 2008. Introduction – more then 200 new phones will launch next year
• Telia Friendfinder: Find where your friends are, when in Sweden
• The first Windows Mobile 6.5 phones coming on October 6
• HTC prepares about 10 new handsets for 2009
• More Than 50% of Nokia Phones to Have GPS by 2010-2012

Overall, more then 150 new mobile devices, for every conceivable market segment, price category or feature set have been launched in 2007. However, there were two devices, that clearly stood out among this huge pile of offerings, and can be “the called mobile handsets of the year” – Nokia N95 and Apple iPhone.

The iPhone – for it’s revolutionary multi-touch user interface that captured press and public attention to an unprecedented degree. And left every other mobile phone manufacturer scrambling and failing to produce a device that was at least comparable in the ease of use and “coolness” factor.

Nokia N95 - for the amount of sheer power and features, that no one, except Nokia itself (with Nokia N82) was able to beat during last 12 months.

These two phones were a benchmark, according to whitch user interface usability (iPhone) and features (Nokia N95) for the every new high end handset were measured against. And all of the competition failed to measure-up.

For now, I have no idea what will be the defining mobile handsets for 2008, but I already can tell you that there will be even bigger variety and more mobile phones launched in 2008, then there was in 2007.

By my current estimate, there should be well over 200 New mobile phones in 2008. That’s at least one new mobile phone model for every single working day.

We already have indications that more then 100 new handsets will come from just 4 mobile players next year:

• Samsung plans to launch at least 2 handsets per month, or at least 24 new phones next year (source: DigiTimes)
• Nokia will have 30 new mobile phones in first half of 2008 (source: Reuters, via IntoMobile)
• Asus will have 20-25 new handsets in 2008 (source Digitimes)
• Motorola plans 30 new mobile phone models next year (source Digitimes)

(Unfortunately the original articles from both Reuters and Digitimes has disappeared behind the archives paywall and I’m not able to link directly to them. But I have made image clippings from most of them and can vouch for the accuracy of the reported figures)

So, that’s already over 100 new mobile phones promised from 3 major (Nokia, Samsung, Motorola) and one minor player (Asustek). And we did not even mention such biggies as Sony Ericsson, LG; major niche players like RIM Blackberry and HTC; or up’n'commmers like E-Ten, Gigabyte, BenQ Siemens, Pantech, etc.

So I feel pretty safe predicting more then 200 mobile phones models for 2008.

Be sure to check later this week for more in “Mobiles in 2008″ series:

• 2008. Technology overview
• 2008 – The year of Touch
• 2008 – The year cameraphone took over
• GPS Navigation & Location based services in 2008
• Multimedia, entertainment and user created content in 2008

• Samsung, LG may release LTE phones in 2010
• Softbank will start selling Casio phones by year’s end
• MotoZine ZN5 5 megapixel phone, Moto Q10 and Motoming 2 A1600 confirmed. Almost
• Nokia E90 Communicator launch this week, entirely new type of mobile next year
• Nokia intros new services and 7 new phones under €100 – 7100 Supernova and 5130 XpressMusic included