Google's New "Kindle Crusher", the Nexus 7

Google’s Nexus 7 Tablet Crushes Kindle

[...] Google (GOOG)’s new Nexus 7 is aimed directly at the Kindle Fire, the seven-inch color tablet that was the runaway hit of the last holiday season. The Nexus 7 obliterates every reason for buying the current Kindle, and sets a high bar for whatever Amazon comes up with to replace it.

The Nexus 7 is Google’s first foray into selling a tablet under its own brand. It’s currently available for pre-order from Google Play, the company’s online store, with customer deliveries expected to begin next week. It costs $199 for a model with eight gigabytes of storage, same as the Kindle, or $249 for 16 gigabytes.

The device is manufactured by Taiwan-based Asustek (2357), and Google chose its partner wisely. Asus makes some of the prettiest tablets and personal computers this side of Apple, and the Nexus 7 is as attractive and smooth as the Kindle Fire is chunky and clunky.

At 7.8 inches tall and 4.7 inches wide, the Nexus 7 is compact enough to slide into a jacket pocket. A rubbery, textured back makes it easy to grip. Like the Kindle Fire, it works only over a Wi-Fi connection; while the screens are the same size, the Nexus 7’s has a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels, compared to the Kindle Fire’s 1024 x 600.

More and Better

The Google tablet also has a more powerful, quad-core processor from Nvidia (NVDA), twice the internal memory and better battery. At four-tenths of an inch thick and 12 ounces, it’s also thinner and 18 percent lighter.

Go down the list of standard tablet features, and the Nexus 7 wins every one. Camera? None for the Kindle; the Nexus has a front-facing camera and microphone for video calls.

Bluetooth? The Kindle doesn’t have it; the Nexus 7 does.

GPS? Yes on the Nexus, along with a newly-enhanced Google app that lets you save maps for use even when you’re offline. The Kindle has nothing like it. [...]

Read the whole thing for more details.

I had considered getting a Kindle, but many of the reader reviews I've read on Amazon.com have said that the latest Kindle model has been plagued by "Freezes", making it unreliable. I was really put off by the customer complaints.

The Nexus 7 sounds interesting, but I think I'll wait for more reviews. Thank goodness for competition.
     

Will "Windows 8" save the PC? & Microsoft?

Sounds like they are banking on it:


Can Windows 8 save the PC from extinction?

ANAHEIM, Calif. (CNNMoney) -- There's no question that Microsoft got the message: Mobile devices and tablets are the future of computing. Here's the next quandary: Is Windows 8 enough to salvage the PC, or is it too late?

Love it or hate it, Microsoft made a bold bet with its radically redesigned, re-engineered Windows 8. It rejected Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) chairman Steve Jobs' declaration in March that the post-PC era has begun.

Rather than simply putting its Windows Phone software on a tablet to try to compete with the iPad, a battle all other rivals are currently losing, Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500) gambled that people want more out of their tablet experience. It believes that buyers -- including home users, not just office workers -- are still clamoring for storage, processing power, and robust content creation tools.

Yet consumers have been voting "no" with their pocketbooks. PC sales growth has tumbled in the United States and have even come to a screeching halt globally. The unstable economy has contributed significantly to that, but the iPad has also chomped away at the PC. When Hewlett-Packard (HPQ, Fortune 500) decided to exit the PC business, CEO Leo Apotheker cited as a prime reason that "the tablet effect is real."

With Windows 8, Microsoft is in a sense betting the house on form factor. The company believes that when people buy an iPad, what they really want is a PC on the go that's just not available to them yet.

"It looks like Microsoft is finally on the right track, writing the evolution of the Windows PC on its own terms," said Al Hilwa, analyst with IDC.

Time is not on Microsoft's side. It's still very early on in the Windows 8 development cycle, with the developer preview just launched on Tuesday. Microsoft wouldn't say when Windows 8 will be ready for a test release, never mind general availability. Meanwhile, the iPad is already five months into its second-generation device.

[...]

"I don't think Windows 8 can save the PC market," said Zeus Kerravala, analyst at Yankee Group. "The simplicity and portability of a tablet makes them ideal for what most people want to do with computers."

Still, others say that the PC, though fading, is far from dead. IPads are great complimentary devices, but the PC is the only serious content creation device on the market. With Windows 8 could be the missing bridge between the desktop and mobile worlds. [...]

We shall see. Read the whole thing for embedded links, and a brief demo video of Windows 8. It's supposed to provide full PC functionality, but with a user interface providing a "tablet-like experience", optimized for use with a touch screen, but also with an option to use a more traditional desktop with a mouse. Apparently, the user interface looks a lot like the user interface on Microsoft's Smart Phone.

I think the PC market will continue, but it will be smaller than before, because tablets and other internet devices will satisfy the needs of many people, who just don't want or need a full size PC. Microsoft may get a part of the device market, but may not be able to establish a monopoly there, like they have in the PC market. Time will tell.


Also see:

Windows 8 at BUILD, IE10, Financial Analyst Briefing Marked Microsoft's Week

Windows 8 aims for tablets and more

Windows 8 and your office furniture

     

Why 2010 was the "Year of the Linux Desktop"

This is probably the best argument I've read for it:

The Linux Desktop Came on Little Cat Feet

Somehow, some way, the year 2010 may have finally been the year of the Linux desktop -- but no one noticed. Maybe no one needed to. In 2010, smartphones got hot, and Android OS smartphones collectively overtook the iPhone in units sold. At the same time, Android tablets gained traction as popular alternatives to the iPad.

A subtle shift in the notion of what defines "desktop," and suddenly Linux emerges in anonymous glory -- leaving Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) playing the silly (but familiar and perhaps a bit dangerous) role of catch-up. Looking back, could 2010 really be the year when Linux, in the form of Android, became the desktop?

What is a desktop anyway?

A distinction may be necessary. While I may make a case that 2010 was the year of the Linux desktop, I realize the form factor is different, and it's a little new. But computers evolve, and the point -- that the Linux-based Android is a major player in the user-interface world -- is not lost or any less relevant. More important is that in smartphones, Linux trumps Windows. (More data to follow when next of kin have been notified.)

Naysayers may argue that Android as a desktop is a stretch but, really, what does define a desktop? In the first place, "desktop" has always been a muddy metaphor. Seriously, who puts "wallpaper" on a desktop? Distilled to its essence, the computer desktop is an infrastructure providing end-user computing. In that context, smartphones (iOS and Android based) capably provide just that, and in some ways more than traditional desktops do.

Android and Desktop computing

Traditional desktop computing let users do their banking online, make travel arrangements, play games, listen to music, and communicate with friends and family. Android does too, but with some obvious and some nuanced benefits. [...]

The article goes on to take a detailed look at those benefits. Read the whole thing and have a look at what Linux success looks like.


Also see:

Has "Wintel" been replaced by "Quadroid"?

     

Has "Wintel" been replaced by "Quadroid"?

A case can be made for it. First, the Wintel monopoly is dying off, ironically from it's own practices:

HP is Wintel's latest victim

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- For nearly three decades, personal computer makers thrived by building their PCs around two key ingredients: Intel chips and Microsoft Windows.

It's an unprecedented success streak in the fast-changing tech market, where new technologies displace old ones in an eyeblink. But now, it looks like the "Wintel" party is finally winding down.

[...]

"The tablet effect is real," HP CEO Leo Apotheker said Thursday on a conference call with analysts. "Consumers are changing how they use PCs."

In the new "post-PC" era, razor-thin profits are no longer attractive.

"The PC business only returns a few points of margin. HP is really good, and they only return 5%," said Martin Reynolds, analyst at Gartner. "Staying in the PC business is relatively risky. Who knows where these things will go over the next few years?"

[...]

"I think what we're seeing -- what HP's move is really about -- is the aftermath of the Wintel strategy, in which you give all the profits to Intel and Microsoft," said Carl Howe, analyst at Yankee Group.

While companies like HP and Dell are getting by with single-digit margins in their PC businesses, Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500) is the fourth-most profitable company in the Fortune 500. Intel (INTC, Fortune 500) is 14th.

"Guess what? That model is driving them all out of business," Howe continued. "It has made companies like Apple look really smart. Wintel is falling apart."

HP would follow IBM's exit of the PC market -- albeit seven years later.

IBM's move is looking more and more prescient: When it sold its iconic PC business to Lenovo in 2004, IBM (IBM, Fortune 500) said it believed the PC market was commoditizing. It didn't want to play in a market with so little upside.

Even Microsoft appreciates the changing tide. It's planning for the post-PC era by developing a new version of Windows for tablet PCs, running on mobile chips designed by British company ARM (ARMH). That's also why it's fighting so hard to make Windows Phone work: Microsoft realizes it can't afford to be left out of the computing platform of the future.

So if we're really witnessing the "final collapse of the Silicon Valley PC era," as Howe suggested, who's next to go? [...]

Read the whole thing to find out. But don't just look at who's next to go; consider also, perhaps more importantly, who's next to come, and why:

Android and Qualcomm are the new Wintel

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Google's Android mobile operating system has been credited with saving struggling handset manufacturers, but it may ultimately be the thing that kills a number of them off.

Before Android came around, mobile devices typically had hardware integrated with custom operating software, which differentiated LG phones from Samsung phones from Motorola phones, and so on. No two devices from rival manufacturers were at all alike.

But now, for the first time ever in the wireless ecosystem, a standard platform is emerging: At least a dozen handset makers have brought to market more than 90 different smartphones that run Android, and more than three quarters of those handsets have Qualcomm chips embedded in them, according to a new study by consultancy PRTM.

The Qualcomm-Android standard, or "Quadroid" as PRTM calls it, is becoming a parallel to the Windows-Intel, or "Wintel," standard that developed in the 1990s.

Like with Wintel PCs, Quadroid devices' software and hardware is essentially a commodity -- they're very similar on every phone, making differentiation a difficult task. Form factor is still a battleground -- some people want keyboards, some don't -- but drop past the top-tier of the very newest devices and the distinctions are tiny. Kickstands, dual screens, very high resolution cameras and OLED touchscreens are among the features Quadroid smartphone makers are using to set themselves apart.

It was a problem that Wintel PC companies tried to solve -- mostly unsuccessfully -- with customizability (Dell), unique design (Alienware), and cow-print boxes (Gateway).

But Quadroid has an added wrinkle: Android is open source, meaning it's free for device manufacturers to use and manipulate. That makes the barrier to entry almost nil, opening the door to a number of no-name manufacturers to produce smartphones that compete with the big guys. Two years ago, no one had heard of HTC or Kyocera, LG had virtually no smartphone presence, and Motorola (MOT, Fortune 500) had been left for dead. Now they're at the industry's vanguard. [...]

So a whole bunch of new players have jumped in and are at the head of the new trends, where Microsoft and Intel have not been able to go... yet. They are rushing to catch up and cash in. Will they make it? Will the competition they face produce better products? And will it all end up again being just a few major companies dominating everything in the end? We shall see.
     

Is Google's Android OS the "Linux Desktop" that will challenge Microsoft?

There is a case to be made for it:

Android the real Linux desktop threat to Windows

[...] Aside from being an open source Linux distribution, which is already starting to gain traction in the mobile phones space, Android has the backing of Google. And as Microsoft well knows Google is no Canonical, Novell or Red Hat. Google is a heavyweight - it's a powerful company with considerable resources.

[...]

From most accounts and my own experience Android is intuitive and user friendly on mobile hardware such as the HTC Dream. However, there is no doubt that Android compared to full blown operating systems like Windows, Mac OSX or Ubuntu Linux is still very much a lightweight.

It is also true, however, that the trend of desktop computing is toward mobility - notebooks and netbooks. In the era of hotspots and ubiquitous Internet, consumers and business users alike want something they can take on the road with them.

The trend to netbooks and low-power consumption mobile devices favours lightweight operating systems. Users - particularly sub-notebook users - want to do much if not most of their work in the cloud. They may not be able to do everything, such as watch DVDs or play games, but they can still accomplish most of what's required to run their part of the business they work in.

Likening Android to Windows is like comparing Google Apps to Microsoft Office - it's not quite there yet. Steve Ballmer is wrong when he says Google Docs can't even do a footnote, but his point that Microsoft Word is much more powerful is well taken - for now. However, for many, myself included, Google Docs, Calendar and Gmail are more than good enough.

The critical success factors behind operating systems are device drivers and applications. More than anything else, this has been the downfall of Ubuntu and the other Linux distribution hopefuls.

Starting from the mobile phones environment and working upward, Android, backed by Google, is likely to succeed where other Linux distributions have failed. It is likely to garner support from both device manufacturers and applications vendors.

It's early days and there's a long way to go but if a Linux desktop is ever to make an impact in the mainstream, then it is likely to be Android. Ironically, by the time it takes the mantle of market leader from Microsoft, the cloud may well have made the desktop a thing of the past.

It makes some good points. But the "cloud" may not be embraced by everyone, for everything; it's a concept that's still evolving.

One of the comments left at the end of the article made a few good points on that:

[...] As for netbooks, they are such incapable pieces of hardware that the only way to get any real work done on any of them is to use them as dumb terminals, or slow-witted terminals, for the cloud. But, as Richard Stallman, one of the founding fathers of the open-source movement, has railed about, the cloud surrenders control to a corporate third party and promises a vassal-ship to corporate authority that will be, if anything, more subjugating than the rein of Microsoft has wrought. The cloud not only presents problems of reliability; it also will, I think, prove in many cases to be more expensive than shrink-wrapped software, and it gives a corporation, almost certainly a powerful one like Google or Amazon, possession and control of your data and your applications and, through the use of proprietary APIs, will lock your data and applications to that corporation.

Servers and networks get more expensive and more prone to failure as they scale and the intensity of use increases, and, thus, comes a dramatic increase the price of the service. And because the could will consists at best of an oligopoly of few corporations and because users' data and apps will be locked to that corporation's particular cloud, i.e., network, servers, and OS, users, who foolishly surrender their independence to the some corporation's cloud, will be able to do nothing but pay the price that their could vendor demands. And for that king's ransom, users will get a cloud that becomes less reliable as it becomes more popular.

But the main tenor of Stallman's criticism, which is related to oligopolistic control, is that once your rely on a cloud for your data and applications, you're owned. As tough as it is or is perceived to be to switch from Windows to OS X, Unix, or Linux, that is nothing compared to trying switch when all your data and your business critical apps are in a cloud. When you are completely in the cloud, you don't have anything left to switch. And for consumers, they may be spared paying the full costs of cloud computing, but they will pay instead with their personal information and by ceding the right to access them with advertisements 24/7, I am with Dr. Stallman: This rush towards cloud-computing is foolishness and the greatest hidden form of slavery to be foisted on users of computers since, well, Windows.

If the cloud is what netbooks shall bring, I suggest that we all take a pass.

The cloud could have some uses, but I doubt it will be all things to all people. There will always be people who, quite sensibly IMO, want direct access to and control of their own data, without relying on a 3rd party's infrastructure to provide that access and control.


Also see:

Google: Android is “the Linux Desktop Dream Come True”

The Linux Desktop Came on Little Cat Feet
     

Is the PC about to become Obsolete?

One of the designers of the first PC seems to think so:

IBM PC daddy: 'The PC era is over'
Chucks own invention into vinyl record bin

One of the dozen engineers who designed the original IBM PC, which celebrates its 30th anniversary on Friday, says that the reign of the personal computer is coming to an end.

"They're going the way of the vacuum tube, typewriter, vinyl records, CRT and incandescent light bulbs," writes IBM's Middle East and Africa CTO Mark Dean in a company blog post.

"When I helped design the PC," Dean writes, "I didn't think I'd live long enough to witness its decline. But, while PCs will continue to be much-used devices, they're no longer at the leading edge of computing."

Dean, who now uses a tablet as his "primary computer", believes that computing is no longer centered around devices, but instead on people's interaction with them.

"These days," he writes, "it's becoming clear that innovation flourishes best not on devices but in the social spaces between them, where people and ideas meet and interact."

It is, of course, to be noted that Dean is toeing the company line. IBM is extricating itself from making devices, and through its Smarter Planet initiative is focusing more on outcomes and usage models than mere hardware. [...]

I got a close look at an Acer A500 tablet the other day, when I was helping one of our customers connect it to our wi-fi. He was a 31 year old, and quite enthusiastic about it and it's features.

It only has 1 gig of memory. It can do most things like internet browsing, email, social media, etc. He says he can even pay bills on-line with it.

Still, I doubt it can run QuickBooks yet, and even if it could, I want a real keyboard and a large screen, not a touch pad. I think you can plug a larger screen into it, and perhaps a real keyboard too.

Anyhow, it seems to be mostly about portability and the touchpad, two things I don't need. It seems almost like a cross between a smart phone and a netbook. I don't see how a serious computer user could use it as their "primary" computing device.

But of course, this is only the beginning. I've already read about more powerful versions in the works; I don't doubt that their popularity will continue to grow, along with their capabilities. But in the end, won't they just be PC's that are lighter, more portable, and easier to use? More like the next step in the evolution of the PC, rather than the end of it.