Take-offs From Barcelona

The 2010 GSMA MWC show was smaller than it used to be in the previous years. And there were not many surprises either. Shows are no longer calendar marking events for vendors, rather get-together places to meet and discuss. With two exceptions, most of the already present trends continue to evolve. Let me expand the most important ones a little.

There seems to be no more money and innovation in voice. People use voice to talk and want to do everything else mobile using the data channel. Yes, Orange + Ericsson were running live HD Voice - a business class service based on wideband AMR-WB codec. But MNOs generally do not want this service. First it consumes more resources on their networks oversubscribed with data packets. And second - their marketing departments have no clue how to sell this service as most of them claim to have the best call quality already... So they are afraid of competitors pointing fingers at them "you see - to have a quality conversation you have to pay more"... So for the moment we are stuck with Bell (Alexander Graham that is...) - like quality of conversation...

Data is on the rise. But MNOs will not benefit much from that. Despite talking a lot, there are not many signs of them being successful smart pipes. Pay by use mobile navigation is probably the only application based on the smart pipe / DPI (Deep Packet Inspection) approach. Other than that everybody wants them to be dumb pipes. Albeit good. You see and hear the LTE (the "even faster" mobile data) everywhere. Along with LTE comes EPC or Evolved Packet Core, where Cisco with its recent acquisition of Starent becomes a leader. After all Cisco was always an IP company and now everything goes IP. On the personal front this is music to my ears. I am significantly invested in EzChip Semiconductor, the leading vendor of wirespeed (up to 100G) network processors. The new Cisco boxes, with the flagship ASR9000 are based on the EzChip NPUs and so are Starent (now renamed as Cisco) products. This has been somehow cryptically, but unambiguously confirmed by EzChip's CEO during the Q3'2009 earnings conference call:

"Several of the recent acquisitions in the carrier Ethernet market included our customers that were acquired by our tier1 customers, this too, in turn further expand our business with our tier-1 customer base as this acquires companies to become additional business unit.".

You have to learn how to read these NDA-bound conference call statements... The one above says "Starent has been a customer of EzChip and will continue to be after being acquired by Cisco". It just means the wireless backhaul / core driven by LTE upgrades will be a significant market for NPUs in general and for EzChip in particular. LTE and exploding mobile data consumption will be a driver to other complementing NPU vendors... like the NetLogic. MNOs will be differentiating mobile data service class based on variety of rules... customer status... local congestion... destination of packets... content... Put simply, rich Layer 7 packet processing will be done at every base station.

Snapdragons are everywhere. Qualcomm, with the current 1GHz chip finally is the platform of choice for phone and netbook (sorry: smartbook) manufacturers. Microsoft says "we worked with Qualcomm on Windows Phone 7". And even Nokia, the fiercest enemy of Qualcomm prepares to launch a Snapdragon - based phone. This speaks for itself... The chip must be way ahead of anything else on the market.

And speaking of Microsoft... The empire strikes back. Windows Phone 7 Series has been a real surprise to me... like the Fenix from ashes...! BTW: they should take that Windows Phone 7 (what a narrow minded name!), sit it on the upcoming new dual core 1.5GHz Snapdragon (the QSD8672), and kill the iPad for good. I tell you - I see the Windows Phone 7 mPad powered by the dual core Snapdragon in my mind's eyes. It is the iPad killer. It unbelievable how the not yet shipping iPad is already sooo passee...

The second surprise was the absence of both Nokia and Intel. They only had a press conference announcing joining forces on mobile Linux distribution. Nokia seems to be searching for a new direction, while Intel plays a catch-up with Arm, especially in the light of the Qualcomm's Snapdragon pervasiveness... Both X86 and WiMax, the cown jewels of Intel are fading in the light of continuously rising powers of Arm - based Qualcomm CPUs and Qualcomm - driven 4G standards known as LTE.

The third surprise was Verizon announcing partnership with Skype to allow subscribers make VoIP calls on their network. What a change of direction! But somehow in line with what others have been doing too... Think JahJah was acquired by O2... Probably they will install some preference DPI policies to make the legitimate VoIP traffic higher priority for a fee...

Garmin has finally dropped their old software base and selected Android for the Nuvi Phone. But then there is a question - where is Garmin's value in the chain? Asus makes the hardware... Google the OS... Navteq supplies maps... And all that when all major software platform suppliers (Apple, Google, Nokia, Microsoft) say navigation is built in the platform at no extra cost... There surely will be a meltdown among the incumbent personal navigation vendors... In the years to come personal GPS units will give way to smartphones... and companies adding value between map providers and phone / OS vendors, like Navigon, will thrive. Navigon makes probably the best software navigation suite, very popular on iPhone. It seems somehow constrained by the lack of multitasking on the iPhone, but surely will shine on other platforms (Android, Windows) too... These guys are thinking forward - opening their API. I talked to Garmin asking "how can I make an addon to your software?" and they just said "you can't".

BlackBerry announced the new WebKit - based browser. It is about time, as their current browser is very weak. "This time we've made it right" - surely yes, by acquiring the Torch Mobile. Speaking of BlackBerry - you see them everywhere. People talk about iPhones and Androids and Windows and buy BlackBerries. Mr Lazaridis, the CEO, claims in Q4 2009 alone they captured 42% share of smartphones in the USA, leaving Apple in dust with only 24%. Another bold (pun intended) move by BlackBerry has been to start offering the Enterprise Server Expreess for free (available as a download in April). Now think of all those small and medium businesses running Microsoft Exchange. Suddenly they will go out and buy BlackBerries! BlackBerry can be perceived as a meta - carrier for messaging and notifications. Notifications is what MNOs in their vision of becoming smart pipes should be offering to customers and 3rd party application vendors for a fee. Now that potential lunch is being quickly eaten by Blackberry...

Finally something that probably went unnoticed to most of the audience following the Mobile World Congress. Toshiba announced the TG02, an upgraded version of the original TG01 Windows - based, Snapdragon - powered smartphone. Among other features, there were focusing on innovation aspects, with "Regza" LCD control being one of them. LCD control dynamically adjusts contrast mapping of graphic content displayed on the device, depending on lighting conditions. This improves readability in sunlight and reduces battery drain. This really sounds like what Apical has been doing for years. Considering that the TG02 is based on the Snapdragon, it really sounds and smells like there is a QuickLogic CSSP chip inside implementing the Apical algorithms. It is great Toshiba finally speaks up loud about the necessity of clever LCD control. This technology really should be present in every smartphone. May be Microsoft will have it in the reference Phone 7 Series design? After all the QuickLogic chip that implements this functionality costs less than $5, improving both readability and battery life... At the same time it may add other benefits like accelerated storage access with the SideLoading technology...