Friday, January 12. 2007
- The CES show came and - as we expected - went by without any major new announcements. The bigger news came instead not from Las Vegas but from San Francisco (anyway closer to the high-tech action) when Steve Jobs announced Apple's entry into the cellphone market. Product managers from the established mobile phone vendors (such as e.g. Nokia) gave quite funny interviews in response to that news. They were e.g. surprised about the fact that Apple will not support 3G networks with its iPhone. For us this was not a surprise at all but simply shows once more that Apple concentrates on the things that truly make sense for end users and does not blindly follow some wishful thinking - in this case mobile broadband via 3G networks, which clearly does NOT exist. Let's face it: they are still impractically slow: simply try to download e-mail attachments and you are up for a long waiting time. So simply 2G and Wifi support is what Apple offers, plus of course something you cannot have enough of in my opinion: largest possible display in an otherwise still small, slim and light device. Once more they have hit the mark - it seems. Now the sky is not all blue for Steve Jobs/Apple for other reasons: there's still the stock option issue being further investigated and then Cisco sued Apple for using the name IPhone which has been trademarked by Cisco since 2000. But will it have an impact on the iPhone success? No.
- Now what could one still see at the CES show that was noteworthy? Looks like HD ready is OUT and simply providing 1080p HD quality is what folks are looking for while prices come down for both large LCDs and Plasma screens as well. The latter can also be used to heat your living room due its still extensive heat energy dissipation. Nokia announced an improved Internet mobile phone with its N800, althogh we were not impressed by it at all, see Francis' comments below. The N95 with built-in GPS and a 5 megapixel camera has been touted the "super phone", of course looking pretty pale compared with Apple's iPhone.
- Back in Europe there are not many hot news items other than the fact that there is good hope for some BenQ Mobile employees again since talks with a few truly interested investors seem to be coming to some conclusions.
- The German Funkwerk AG continues its acquisition efforts, adding the security gateway vendor VarySys Technologies GmbH to its product portfolio.
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