It has been a long time in arriving, but WM6.5 the latest release from the Windows Mobile team is here, or is it? Announced to the world during MWC in February, MW6.5 has undergone a branding change and rather than appearing as an operating system, we have a collection of devices under the brand of “Windows Phone”. With all the media and industry attention given over to open source mobile operating systems, it has been easy to overlook WM devices. However, the Windows Phone branding and features within WM6.5 is intended to make Microsoft powered phones more appealing to the consumer rather than corporate customer.

The appeal to the consumer market starts with the user interface, Microsoft has updated its software to sit more comfortably alongside competing platforms that have for some time boasted a richer user experience through touch screen interfaces. OEMs have the option of customization, but the standard Microsoft home screen is now the “today screen” which...
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Having just chalked up another MWC, I am left with a couple of overall impressions from the show. Firstly, there was definitely a buzz back in the event and despite the absence from the show floor of a couple handset vendors, the official number of attendees over the four days was 49,000. But in addition to the atmosphere, there were a couple of other overriding themes and technologies that were evident.

Trends in Smartphones

Firstly, the sheer volume of the high performance mobile platforms from many semiconductor vendors was impressive, so expect a noticeable step change progress in smartphones over the next one to two years. 1080p HD video & graphics along with multiprocessor cores at 1GHz and above for high end platforms were evident on many stands. These were consuming every possible bit of data which seemed to be causing headaches for many exhibitors reliant on outside communication or internet connectivity...so spare a thought for the network planners when these...
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Coming back from CES and MWC, I found that Android is not a handset OS any more; I have seen Android in so many different form factors: handset , eReader, tablet, smartbook , STB etc. Since Android is an open source platform, anyone can customize it based on their own needs. Some of our software partners are providing Android customization service to the device manufacturers.

ThunderSoft spoke with me at MWC about their work with an Android tablet:


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China may become the largest market for Android

When I talk to many Chinese companies, they are all are very excited about Android because they have been suffering from lack of a software stack for a long time. It costs too much to maintain their own version of Linux and applications are always an issue. Android just fills the gap. Google maintains the whole system, so that many application developers are...

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In preparing for my very first MWC, I was thinking: is this just going to be a mini CES? I started by looking into the number of attendees and who the exhibitors are and saw that this is a much more targeted show focused on mobile phones. Then I really started to dig and realized I couldn’t have been more wrong, there is so much more to it than the term “mobile phones.” Looking at session topics and the news in the mobile space today, it became clear that maybe we should be thinking of MWC as the up and coming computer show of the new decade. Yesterday’s mobile phone ecosystem is tomorrow’s computer ecosystem.

Today, the fastest growing segment of the mobile phone market is the smartphone. What seems to be some of the most compelling features to consumers are the instant access to their email, the ability to get to the web wherever they are, and the huge availability of applications addressing specific individual needs. Aren’t these the things we used to do on our...
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CES has always been where future ideas are tested and the impact of well placed bets becoming a reality. At 2006, people starting talking about HDTVs connected to the internet, ARM realized that to become a leader in these devices we must support the internet. This kicked-off internal discussions that were initially focused on getting ARM into computing, but very quickly it boiled down to “it’s the internet stupid” and that the internet would be critical for ARM’s success in the future. This initiated engineering efforts by ARM and our Partners to make this a reality. Fast forward four years and I can say the bet paid off in spades and in ways, we did not imagine. Let me show you what impressed me …

eBooks/Readers explosion … this was the year of the eBook/eReader at CES, they were everywhere and a couple received best of show in their categories. The Barnes and Noble nook, Alex by Spring Design, and Entourage edge; all integrated a second screen and...
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Seven years ago I was working in a small company where we based our entire existence (and our investors’ money) on one single fact; that 2004 would be the year when hardware accelerated graphics took off in mobile phones. Every major handset vendor would ship devices with performance & features going beyond current handheld consoles. Accelerated mobile gaming, ranging from high-end 3D action to 2D casual games, was going to be the main driving factor, and would soon be followed by animated greeting cards, 3D mascots and real-time advertisements.

Six years after that important breakthrough, which, by the way, didn't quite arrive as planned, I'm now rather happy that we adjusted our direction a couple of times during the early 00's. Not just because I still have a company to work for, although that is nice, but also because the market is now finally ready for the kind of GPU capabilities we were planning for back then.

Different forms of graphics acceleration have...
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When I started out in the industry, I worked for Intel as they were transitioning from 386 to 486 and then onto Pentium; all guided by the hand of the great Andy Grove. In his book Only the Paranoid Survive, he described this time as an inflection point in the PC industry. This was because of the innovation, diversity and growth of this new industry. From my point of view, CES this year also marked a major point of inflection in the industry, but this time not in the PC world but in the consumer electronics world. Three major trends are clearly happening:

Glass is becoming connected - If you went to the Sony, Samsung, Panasonic stands you were struck by the amount, size, shape, diversity of DTVs that are being produced. From 3D images to ultrathin devices this show was a coming out party of all that’s good in the DTV area, but the most over riding memory is how many of them have Ethernet, wifi or some other connection being built in. The TV is going to be connected...
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This is a traditional time of year as I prepare for 2010 Mobile World Congress to think about what we are going to see in the mobile world in 2010, and start the office sweepstake on how many phones and laptops we will have stolen this year.

If you are reading this at the end of 2010 and totally impressed with my forecasting skills, well thank you, if you are bent double with laughter then this is proof on how dynamic the mobile market is.

So as I’m an old tech guy I will give you my 10 (octal) predictions for 2010, or should I say 3732?

Consumers Just Want to Do More with More ARM Processors

As Smartphones become an integral part of the consumer’s digital life they expect their Smartphone to handle that many tasks without having to wait. In response to this demand expect Smartphones to increase their multitasking capacity through software/UI enhancements, and through the hardware with the adoption of dual core Cortex-A9. Expect Apple to...
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I was travelling in Japan a few weeks ago attending the Embedded Technology Trade Show. There were two things that impressed me - what little the girls wear in winter and how many partners support Android…And I was pleased to find out that within these Android partners, many of them have ARM solutions too. So I invited them to join the ARM Solution Center for Android (SCA) which is a resource for designers and developers of ARM technology-based products running on Android. Today we have more than 45 Partners of the ARM Connected Community that have joined this initiative since it was launched in November. More than 10 Partners have already posted their Android resources such as whitepapers, videos and solutions slides on our SCA homepage. Below, I’ve highlighted some of my favorites.

Below is an Android videos from VisualOn which highlights the performance difference between the default multimedia framework shipped with the Android software stack and VisualOn’s...
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It’s hard to believe that almost a year ago I joined ARM, as a new graduate…what a world spin it has been! With limited knowledge of what ARM did, let alone how a microprocessor works, joining this team has brought me to a whole new understanding of what technology is and can be. Purchasing an electronic device no longer is what color does it come in or how small can it be, rather “How does the limited size affect the battery life and connectivity?” or “What type of user interface and customizations will best fit my needs?” What I have learned is that, what’s behind all the plastic and visual appeal is what actually enables my always connected and highly digital life to function. So keeping that in mind, these are the products that I want to give my family as long as I don’t keep them for myself.

Amazon Kindle 2
Freescale i.MX31 Processor
Qualcomm MSM6801
ARM1136JF-S & ARM9 Processors

This upgraded version of the Kindle 2 has a 9.7”...
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