Darteco: News Blog

Windows Phone development, part 1

Darteco — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 08:53:56 +0000

Now I have gained some experience on the Windows Phone platform and the related tools. First, it took longer than expected before the SDK for Windows Phone 8 came out, so I did the development using Windows Phone 7 and Visual Studio 2010 Express. My initial reaction on the device seemed to be correct: I still like it a lot, especially the simplified design of the UI. As always with Microsoft, the development API and the toolset in general are well-made; I could, however, name a few details where I don't quite understand the decisions made in the planning phase. These sometimes slow down the development considerably, when one needs to look for ways to work around the issues. One example is the application bar: though it works nicely from the user experience perspective, tasks like localization are not very straightforward as it does not support the same programming model as the rest of the UI view. What works very well with the tools is the complete build – deploy – debug cycle, especially using a real device as the target. Now, after the public launch of Windows 8, I have switched to Visual Studio 2012 that supports the development for Windows Phones 7 and 8 alike.

One particular challenge in the development has been the use of social media services (in this case, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn) for signing in. Windows Phone 7 does not support any application-to-application integration here, so opening up a browser view for social media sign-in is required. This as such is not that complicated, but the difficulties start when one wants to sign out from the application: without an explicit social media service sign-out, the browser view remembers the sign-in status, and uses that during the next sign-in. Not quite the way it should work. And, to complicate things further, there is no way to clear the sign-in cookies from the browser view. The solution I used was to create an automated sign-out process for these services: First, LinkedIn is easy as it happily signs the user out when redirecting to a static URL. Second, Facebook has an (undocumented?) API that permits the sign out, though it also requires the user's access token to perform this. Third, Twitter does not seem to have any automatic sign-out mechanism – one just should not select the "remember me" tick box when signing in (in which case, Twitter automatically signs the user out when the session expires).

Image © Nokia

Three amigos and a gal on tour

Darteco — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 10:08:16 +0000

Yesterday the three Microsoft amigos and one gal were on tour in Tampere. Plus, they had one extra amigo, Pekka Sivonen from AppCampus, with them. I attended the event at Uusi Tehdas, with the aim to get the latest update on Windows 8, and Windows Phone 8 in particular. The topic is interesting in many ways: First, the whole future of the Finnish mobile giant Nokia is tied to the success of this platform. Second, Microsoft has failed to get traction (in the mobile ecosystem) a few times in the past, so I am sure they have learned their lesson. And third, as AppCampus is supporting – both financially as well as providing coaching – app development for the Windows Phone platform, the Finnish developer and software startup network is expected to get a strong extra boost. AppCampus itself is operated by Aalto University, and backed by Nokia and MS.

To be very honest, I must say I have not been a great fan of Microsoft products in the past. There is nothing fundamental in this, I have just noticed using Apple products takes less time on the IT admin side (and gives me more time to run my business). Now, I believe MS has really made a quantum leap: the tablet UI looks really good. The design is pretty (much less engineering-style as earlier), there are many carefully considered small details, and the development tools include a lot of automated elements. How much time will be needed on the IT admin side still remains to be seen, though. I am right now downloading the VS 2012 Express tools to my PC to evaluate things in real life. I will get back to the topic when I have gained more practical insight; this includes also the Windows Phone 8 SDK that will be available later.

Image © AppCampus

Long time no see…

Darteco — Tue, 28 Aug 2012 12:15:44 +0000

I just noticed it was more than a year ago, when I wrote the previous blog entry. My sincere apologies, my dear readers. I have been very busy with one large project and a bunch of smaller ones – good for the business, bad for the blog. Now it is time to dive back to hot topics in the mobile ecosystem.

As you all remember, I am especially keen on Web-based mobile development. Mobile browsers have had a few design issues in the past – most notably, the earlier iOS and Android webkit-based browsers lacked the support for fixed positioning, which made certain user interface styles very tricky. Also, there was no native support for scrollable content areas. Now those have been fixed, making mobile Web development a whole bunch easier. Some peculiarities still remain, though, particularly in the area of touch, swipe and scroll events. That means some extra work and testing for apps that rely on e.g. the onscroll event.

So far, the Windows Phone world has been a fairly unknown land to me. We still do not have the developer SDK for the new Windows Phone 8 (well, the platform has not been launched yet either), but the Net rumors say we should get it pretty soon. That launch will certainly be an interesting one: we will see how the new browser measures against the competition from Apple and Android. An even more interesting topic will be the development environment itself, and how that will reflect the paradigms and techniques of Web development. Again, several blogs have provided educated guesses how the development environment will look like – but let's wait and see when the real thing comes out. I will go and attend an AppCampus event at New Factory, Tampere, tomorrow, so let's see what is the most up-to-date information they will provide.

In the Plex

Darteco — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 07:18:16 +0000

During the summer, I was crawling through the book "In the Plex – How Google Thinks, Works and Shapes Our Lives", by Steven Levy (Simon & Schuster, 2011). As one might guess, the book covers the complete history of Google, starting from the two Silicon Valley nerds founding the company. Yes, I did like the book, it had plenty of stories I was unaware of, and many details that made me think. Particularly, I would like to take up two topics that one could and should consider in many other businesses as well. First, there is the overall lack of trust on traditional marketing by the founders (and many other key persons). To gain users for many of the services, Google used methods like buying ad space – and donating that to early partners, still keeping also the revenue share structure that was fundamental to the service itself. While I am not saying that one should not use traditional marketing methods, I recommend performing some out-of-the-box thinking while planning the campaings. There could well be methods that provide an excellent fit to a particular product or service, effectively resonating with the inner values of the concept or business model itself.

Second, there are the corporate values. The book provides a nice insight into the famous "Don't be Evil". In general, it also shows how difficult it actually is to have values that work both within the company, as well as outside. "Don't be Evil" turned out to be excellent internally, providing a clear and easy-to-remember anchor point for Googlers (many of whom are engineers in background). You may compare this to the fluffy values jargon presented by many other large companies. However, it also made a target which the press easily attacked, especially in the case of negative incidents. Is it so that the values only really matter internally? After all, every company wants to be one that serves the customers well and shows respect to the employees, among things they typically tell to the public.

Image © Google

Facebook Project Spartan?

Darteco — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 12:57:15 +0000

According to TechCrunch, Facebook is working on a secret Project Spartan. We should see within a few weeks whether this is true or just a rumour, but Facebook's targets are so interesting this deserves a few comments. Project Spartan aims to create a mobile HTML5 platform for Web-based apps. As a plus, the Spartan apps will include a Facebook wrapper: this wrapper links the app to Facebook's discovery mechanism, allows easy sharing and recommending, and also supports Facebook Credits to implement an in-app payment system. Effectively, this will make Facebook a distributed mobile app store, with special emphasis on social networking and locating the most interesting apps based on friends' recommendations.

Assuming this will happen, Facebook is likely to challenge many of the existing (mainly platform-specific) mobile app stores. The primary target seems to be Apple App Store, though Android Market and others will obviously also be on the list. In the same way as the recently launched Yahoo AppSpot app finder, Spartan is trying to solve the app discovery dilemma of the steadily expanding app store universe: how to locate the personally relevant apps. However, Project Spartan also adds the social networking aspect to the game. Not totally unlike the ideas I had in mind when I created one of my earlier pet projects, Apzaar (see my blog entry on October 5th, 2010)!

jQuery Mobile

Darteco — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 08:37:36 +0000

When preparing my presentation for a training session (see previous blog), I briefly checked the progress on various mobile Web development frameworks. Overall, the tools still require more engineering knowledge than typical tools on the desktop side do. I have been experimenting with my own framework, Hydra, and focusing specifically on improving usability and perfecting visual outlook. Of all the different frameworks, I find jQuery Mobile the most interesting one. Not only does it build on the widely used jQuery foundation, but it also aims to reach a very important target: provide support for a broad range of mobile devices, operating systems and browsers. Among other platforms, it should work seamlessly on iPhones, Android devices, recent Symbian phones as well as the upcoming Windows7 phones. And, it includes several fallback modes for browsers that do not include sufficient capabilities for all the functionality and visual effects.

Digging deeper into the features of jQuery Mobile, it includes a nicely defined HTML DOM architecture to help structuring an app-like mobile Web site. The iPhone browser may have been the first high-quality mobile browser, but it also includes some irritating details, especially in the handling of fixed positioning and touch events. jQuery Mobile includes a new abstraction layer to cover mouse and touch events in a consistent and portable way. It also provides a theming framework (using many CSS3 features in order to reduce the need to use images for buttons and background patterns), and mobile-optimized form elements such as check boxes and radio buttons. Implementing perfect select tags in mobile context has been somewhat challenging; I'll need to check if they have found a better solution than the one I have used with Hydra.

jQuery Mobile is currently in feature-complete Alpha phase. Though it may still take some time before it gets finalized, I'll give it a closer look to see how it behaves in a real-world task. Stay tuned for more analysis in the coming blogs!

How to Reach Mobile Customers?

Darteco — Wed, 04 May 2011 07:51:11 +0000

As part of a local eBuusti coaching program for small and medium-size companies, I'll provide a training session titled "How to Reach Mobile Customers?" on May 10th. The eBuusti program is hosted by the public sector and the Federation of Finnish Enterprises in cooperation. The training session will cover the mobile market, commonly used business models, implementation options, and guidance what can be done within a predefined budget - including zero investment. The target is to provide an overview of the mobile ecosystem, and catalyst thinking along the lines "how could our company best serve mobile customers, or could we further expand our business to the mobile ecosystem?" The session will be held in Finnish. For more information and attendance fee, go to training page. The last day to sign in is May 5th.

Darteco Forecasts for 2011

Darteco — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 07:20:44 +0000

Before making a forecast for 2011, it makes sense to look to past and see what actually did happen in 2010. I will walk through my earlier forecasts in the three categories - Product, Business and Technology - and provide my thinking and opinions regarding what I believe will happen during this year.

Product: Last year, I forecasted that a new phone will take the position of the iconic iPhone. Well, I am not quite sure this actually happened. The new iPhone 4 (despite of the 'antennagate') is still a very good smartphone. Android as a platform has been gaining market share extremely fast, and there are now many excellent Android-powered phones. In the Mobile World Congress 2011, the most visible mobile product trend were phones with dual-core processors. Although I trust a dual-core will enhance the user experience (by providing faster and smoother operation), my golden art deco award goes to LG Optimus 3D. Why? Because I believe a phone, being a very personal device, is an excellent platform for 3D content. Unlike 3D televisions that (at least today) require inconvenient glasses, in order to reach a wide viewing angle, a phone can provide a full 3D experience without any special gadgets. Regarding year 2011, I will simply repeat my challenge: make a phone that is clearly superior to the current iPhone. I hope it will not be simply a better clone, but something more innovative.

Business: Last year, I reviewed the development that had taken place within the mobile apps ecosystem, and forecasted a new business model for phones. It seems that the most successful one during year 2010 turned out to be in-app purchasing. Different subcategories within this business model have proven to be viable from the developers and content publishers perspective alike, and have left simple mobile in-app advertising behind. Apple's App Store as well as Android Market have now been enhanced to support these business models. While this trend will obviously further advance and expand during this year, I foresee also a new trend starting: payments and purchasing using mobile phones and near-field communication (NFC). The building blocks are being distributed to the markets, and there are several industry heavy weights investing marketing money in order to make this happen. It will probably not be a big business yet, but something where a lot of actions will take place.

Technology: Last year, I emphasized the importance of cloud-based mobile apps. This trend will continue during 2011. Based on my own development exercises, I have learned that iPhone as well as Android phones include an excellent browser, capable of delivering a good mobile cloud app user experience. The Webkit browser engine today incorporates many HTML5 and CSS3 features, and more is scheduled for the new platform releases. The next release of Mobile Windows (expected during 4Q) is said to include support for HTML5 as well - so the next-generation Nokia phones using MS platform will potentially include a very good browser as well. As I said earlier, there are many app categories where the Web technologies do not make sense. However, there are also many reasons, most notably cross-platform portability, seamless update cycles, and new pay-per-use techniques, that will fuel the Web app market.

Image © LG

Salesforce buys Heroku

Darteco — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 09:57:37 +0000

Salesforce has purchased a leading Ruby cloud platform provider Heroku for $212m. Heroku provides a scalable cloud environment to run Web apps written using Ruby – compared to Web hosting providers that offer Ruby on Rails as one development option (like the provider that Darteco uses; as you may recall, these pages as well as most Darteco-created Web apps use Ruby on Rails), Heroku is a true cloud system with full-featured scaling. It also uses the cloud business model, charging per usage. The announcement came only one day after Salesforce had acquired Database.com, a cloud database provider. There is a very clear synergy between the two deals: Most Ruby on Rails Web apps use databases heavily, enabling a straightforward cross-selling business model for Salesforce. With these deals, Salesforce is further strengthening its grip on the cloud computing business. Note that many of the competitors do not currently offer Ruby support, giving Salesforce a unique selling point at least for the time being.

RIM buys TAT

Darteco — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 09:45:53 +0000

Research in Motion has purchased the Swedish UX company The Astonishing Tribe (TAT) for an undisclosed sum. For a cool user experience, TAT has always been one of my favorites. TAT started with a graphical UI widget library already long time ago, and later extended its offering to include a full-blown declarative UI framework. During the past years, TAT has been working in close partnerships with many of the top-10 handset vendors, and participated in creating the original Android UI. Today, many of their design ideas still look fresh, and fit well to the large touch screens of smart phones and tablets alike. Not surprisingly, competitors have also emerged: most recently, Nokia's (Trolltech-originating) Qt framework with QML language addresses pretty much the same targets.

This move further emphasizes RIM's commitment to operate in the mobile platform market. HP's ex-Palm chief Jon Rubinstein just commented that the mobile OS race will be unlike the (Windows-dominated) PC OS race – hoping also that HP could be #3 in this race. iOS and especially Android are progressing steadily, Symbian still has a very strong position due to the large installed base, WebOS remains a bit question mark, and Windows Mobile and MeeGo will show their potential during 2011. With the TAT acquisition, RIM is definitely able and ready to play in this league.

Image © TAT

Hydra: Challenges

Darteco — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 15:41:49 +0000

This is the second part of the blog, focusing on the technology behind the Hydra framework. I know there are still many bugs and areas for improvement, so I'll get back to the topic later with more learning points. From the very beginning, I knew that writing a cross-browser framework without jQuery or other similar libraries is a hard task. One function these libraries provide is, after all, to abstract away the browser peculiarities. However, as I left out IE from the supported browsers (the market share is currently small in the mobile context), the task became somewhat easier. Right now, Hydra works reasonably well on iPhone and different versions of Android; with Nokia browsers, I still have some work to do. And, with desktop browsers (Safari, Chrome and Firefox) there were very little challenges, indicating that things will get better over time, when desktop technology is adopted by the mobile community.

Overall, most challenges are currently related to placeholder handling. Placeholders are like labels which are shown within text input fields when no text is entered; some modern browsers support these natively, but Hydra provides emulation for those browsers that don't. The difficult part is password entry: As the placeholder needs to be shown in plain text, I first tried using input field type modification. This I quickly found to be subject to errors in many browsers, so the correct way is to use two input fields, and switch between these. Then, the next problem turned out to be a focus()-method bug in Nokia's Webkit engine; This I have not fixed yet. Another challenge currently is the lack of opacity support in some browsers: The styled version of select box relies on this, and I am looking for a good workaround – one which does not lead to the focus()-method bug mentioned above.

So if you haven't tried it out yourself, do it today. Remember to get always the latest version, as the package is continuously updated. And, remember to send me all feedback you have on Hydra!

Hydra: Targets

Darteco — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 13:12:29 +0000

After having created a number of mobile-optimized Web sites, I decided to invest some serious thinking and work on the underlying framework itself. In most cases, I had divided the system into two parts: an iPhone-optimized version, and a generic version. There exist several good frameworks for iPhone: I have mainly used jQTouch, an extension of jQuery, as outlined in my earlier blogs. Frameworks such as jQuery and Script.aculo.us work great on the desktop environment, and offer useful functionality for mobile implementations as well; however, they are fairly heavy, adding plenty of kilobytes on top of the actual Web app payload. I decided to go the hard route, and write a generic mobile-optimized Web app framework by myself. The result is Hydra; in this blog entry, I will go through my initial target setting. I will return to the technology part in my next blog.

The first target was to make the complete framework small. I set the target to 32kB, including all the JavaScript code, stylesheets and graphical files – everything except for the actual Web app payload. The second target was to make the framework generic, yet not to go for the lowest common denominator. This requires a bit more explanation: Although the global share of smartphones is only around 20% (of all new phones sold, meaning the installed base has a much lower percentage), a substantially large portion on mobile Web access takes place from these devices. iPhone, phones running Android OS, and new Nokia phones, among others – these all include a browser that provides a good user experience. The third target was to focus on usability and graphical outlook. This means the layout and individual graphical elements, particularly in menus and forms. And finally, the fourth target was to make the framework as simple as possible to integrate into various Web apps. Have a look and see how I succeeded – and do not forget to send me your feedback!

Tablets and Wireless Contracts

Darteco — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 08:30:13 +0000

Netbook is dead, long live the tablet! An article in FierceWireless summarized what we have seen during the past year: global sales forecast for tablets looks very promising, whereas the Netbook has almost disappeared as a product category. Particularly badly Netbooks have been selling with wireless plans – and the article asks what would be different with tablets. Indeed, the sales figures by AT&T are very low, compared to the global sales reported by Apple, just to take one example (well, iPad has around 95% market share). The potential reason is interesting: users' attitude towards multiple wireless plans. Some time ago, it looked like many people will have more than one contract and SIM card. On the opposite path, there were devices like Nokia's Maemo tablets (prior to N900) that heavily relied on wireless LAN – and a cellular connection using a Bluetooth-connected phone. Now, users find it difficult to justify just another wireless plan; They may have an unlimited data plan, or at least the capping limit is sufficiently high, so that it makes sense to have multiple devices sharing the same cellular connection. Some tablets manufacturers such as RIM are therefore focusing on the combination of Bluetooth and WLAN, instead of a cellular radio. Of course, carriers may change the rules of the game if they so decide, by providing simple but flexible multi-device data plans.

Second Pet Project: apzaar

Darteco — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 09:34:13 +0000

Today is the launch date of my second pet project: apzaar, the cloud-based mobile Web app bazaar. Just like the mobile app stores, apzaar presents a list of mobile-optimized Web apps, tailored according to criteria such as popularity and locality. Each mobile Web app that has been registered to apzaar has a small plus-sign on the top left-hand corner of the front page; this button opens up a mobile-optimized sharing dialogue, enabling single-click sharing of interesting mobile Web apps with friends. The sharing system is based on user-defined sharing profiles: these profiles define sharing through Email and sharing in social networking apps. Within the apzaar-registered apps, the user also gets the single-sign-on functionality: The app may request the username of the user (but nothing else) from apzaar and use that to tailor the presentation and content. For mobile Web app creators, integrating apzaar means adding a single line of code to their page; in addition to plain HTML content, apzaar can also handle DOM-manipulating libraries such as JQuery.

So, you may freely go and try it out - note that the whole package is very early Beta, so I am not too surprised if you will find a bug or two. I would be more than happy if you try and add your mobile Web app to apzaar. In case you later want to take it out for some reason, just drop me an Email and I will remove it. In the first version, not everything is finished yet: sharing works using either Email or Facebook, but expect to see one or two more options soon. The only supported JavaScript library is currently jQuery (including jQTouch plugin); again, there will be more in the coming versions. The implementation uses Ruby on Rails on the server side, and JavaScript combined with iFrames on the client side. I have tested apzaar so far with iPhone, Android emulator, selected Nokia phones, as well as Safari, Chrome and Firefox browsers, so all feedback is highly appreciated!

Oracle vs Google

Darteco — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 06:28:41 +0000

The dispute regarding the Java-like technology in Android's Dalvik virtual machine is still ongoing, and it will presumably take some time before it gets settled - one way or another. What is the real motivation behind the case? I find it rather unlikely that this would be primarily about licensing fees. Most if not all handset vendors have a Java license, but the total license revenue Oracle receives from this market segment cannot be much more than a rounding error at their bottom line. Also, it looks to me that Google has been careful not to tie Dalvik to Java branding - another potential source of trouble.

My own theory is that this is all about platform leadership. In the mobile context, Java has been losing market significance during the last couple of years. Although it can be found in most phones, apps - even games that used to be a Java stronghold - are increasingly developed on top of the native API's; Alternatively, they run in the browser and are based on Web technologies. With Android steadily gaining market share (18% of all open-OS phones now, and almost 30% in 2014, according to Gartner), it may lead Dalvik becoming the Java (without being branded as such). This would effectively bring the de-facto Java out of Oracle's control. Operators have been traditionally favoring Java, as it has provided a (relatively) uniform app environment across different handset vendors and models. Today, operators are more focusing their initiatives around Web technologies. If Oracle wants to keep the official mobile Java alive, they must act now: in addition to the Google case, they also need to create a positive spin around the brand and revitalize the technology, in order to make it a winner.

Image © BMW AG

Mobile Web App Framework: Sencha

Darteco — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 11:27:11 +0000

A Palo Alto, CA -based startup has released a beta version of a HTML/CSS/JavaScript framework, dubbed Sencha Touch. The framework enables developers to create native-like Web apps for the iPhone and phones based on the Google Android platform. If you have been following my blog or listening to my presentations, this presumably sounds familiar. In fact, Sencha Inc. was formed by renaming Ext JS Inc. and getting onboard couple of experts and their products: jQTouch by David Kaneda, and Rapha*ël by Dmitry Baranovskiy. The latter one I haven't personally used, but the former one I am very familiar with. jQTouch is a Web app framework, comprising of iPhone-optimized CSS libraries and jQuery JavaScript extensions to support development of iPhone-flavored Web apps. Similarly to jQTouch, Sencha Touch includes API's to access selected phone features and peripherals such as the GPS location info.

Sencha Touch also signals the starting commercialization of mobile Web app frameworks: Unlike jQTouch which is available under MIT license, Sencha uses a dual-licensing scheme where you either purchase a commercial license for your products, or make the source code for your app available under a corresponding open source license. As I think the framework and the new team behind it are very interesting, I'll keep an eye on the development here. Let's see if any of the big vendors steps in and acquires the startup - it would definitely help them getting into the forefront of mobile Web app development.

Smart Phone Race

Darteco — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 07:04:00 +0000

Despite the fact that a very large part of business is within the lower product categories, smart phones continue to attract the largest media attention. Apple provided no real surprises with the launch of their latest iPhone; they have a product strategy of incremental innovation and improvement, much like the Japanese manufacturers had in the earlier days of digital cellular. Now the race is heating up especially in the enterprise market, following HP's Palm-acquisition and RIM's announcements and rumors regarding their next phone and OS generation. Microsoft's Ballmer openly admitted that they are now clearly behind the competition - but obviously also said that they will be back. In the past, MS's strongest asset in the mobile race has been the excellent integration with office back-end; this will still be needed, but I believe they will also have to excel in some other fields (like usability or third-party app development) in order to regain the lost market share.

A smallish but interesting data bit is the launch of Facebook lite version. Facebook has an agreement with a bunch of operators that when the user stays within the lite version, no network data charges apply. If the user, however, wants to access the full content, she is redirected to the standard version, with normal data rates. The business deal is a very simple partnership, involving no revenue share model. Instead, the operators are expected to attract new users for wireless data (many of the deals are in developing markets) - and get their pay-back when the user wants to get the full Facebook experience. Sounds familiar? The same model we have had in the Internet for many years, getting basic services and content for free, but paying for premium membership. Also, numerous apps in Apple's store and others have a simplified free version, as well as a non-free premium version. I'm sure we will see this same model applied to network charges as well - but including also some innovative revenue share models, in addition to this type of partnership deals.

Image © RIM

Business with Tablets?

Darteco — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 09:33:30 +0000

Apple's iPad has started shipping, and all news feeds are filled with articles on the new product. I will not discuss this particular gadget now; instead, I will take a helicopter view on the more generic topic. Tablet concept itself is not a new invention: various manufacturers have come up with the same idea in the past. So far, none of these products has been a success - though Amazon's Kindle has been selling reasonably well, especially for such a specific-purpose product. The technology itself has advanced somewhat, making the screens easier to read, and shrinking the overall size of the tablets. These improvements, however, are not sufficient alone to make a difference. So, providing we trust the market forecasts indicating strong sales in the coming years, what has actually changed?

First, the use case of eBooks is a new one. A traditional paper book has been perfected as a concept since the days of Johannes Gutenberg. Compared to paper books, eBooks still sell in small volumes - but this market is getting large enough to partially fuel the growth of the tablet market. In the same way as music and videos have been driving the small media player ("iPods") market, eBooks and videos will be content formats for the tablets. But I believe a bigger change is yet to come: advertisements. When Steve Jobs launched the iPhone OS 4.0, he showed a preview of the iAd platform. iAd (and other similar systems) permits developers to include ads within their applications, implemented in such a way that they should create a positive user experience. The platform owner takes care of selling the ads, sharing the revenue with the app developer. I can easily believe there will be loads of smart phone apps that use ads to collect revenue - but actually the tablet format is much more suitable for these. In a tablet device with the larger screen, the ads may either take more space and employ stunning visual content; or, they may select the other option and steal only part of the screen real estate, effectively embedding the ad content to the app content. Either way, the ad platforms are likely to accelerate the creation of third-party apps for tablet products, and become a major revenue generator and market catalyst in this product category.

Image © Apple

Mobile.Darteco.com

Darteco — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 14:44:15 +0000

Now I had time to update the mobile site of Darteco. The two versions, standard and iPhone-optimized, are combined so that the single URL mobile.darteco.com works for both. Each version uses a unique approach in the implementation: whereas the standard version minimizes the amount of extra code on top of the actual payload (there are just a few lines of JavaScript to steer the operation), the iPhone version utilizes jQTouch and jQuery libraries to achieve all the visual eye-candy and native-like application look-and-feel. In a similar manner, the mobile implementation of Kylansaitti.fi now has a version specifically for iPhone, in addition to the standard version. It is worth mentioning that I haven't performed any wide compatibility testing on the standard versions - therefore, I would highly appreciate any feedback, in case you run into incompatibilities with these Web apps.

Some years ago, the motivation for mobile-optimizing sites was not the same as today. Like in the era of WAP, mobile phones had small screens with limited display resolution. Now, the screens are somewhat bigger, and the display resolution is sufficient for most cases. Also, the amount of data to be transferred is seldom a major problem. However, the usability can be greatly improved by creating mobile-specific versions. Especially with touch-screen operation, standard Web sites tend to have far too small link tags; these can be scaled up by tapping, but the usability still falls behind a site that has full-width buttons, and application logic that is optimized for mobile usage. The increasing demand for mobile versions is also supported by market statistics; According to a study released by a mobile analytics firm Taptu earlier this month, there are 326 000 Web sites optimized for touch mobile usage. This can be compared to 200 000 mobile apps that are currently available from iPhone, Android, Ovi and Blackberry app stores.

Mobile World Congress

Darteco — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 07:02:54 +0000

2010 has certainly had a fast start. After a decline in shipping volumes in 2009 - that at the end turned out to be smaller than originally anticipated - this year is forecasted to provide a 5-10% rebound. More interesting than these numbers was the results round by Nokia and Apple: Steve Jobs started his iPad launch by digging into the figures, and proudly announced that Apple is now the biggest player in the mobile arena, bigger that even Nokia. Nokia responded later that according to the standard definition of mobile devices they are bigger. Hmm. I understand the need to be able to say that "we are #1, not #2", but something more interesting than this actual race is behind the numbers. The recent development has shown that you can make awesome profits by either focusing on the mass market (Nokia is very big in the developing markets), or focusing on the absolute top of the smartphone market (Apple's average selling price is very high). Many of the required tools and elements are different, but a high brand recognition is needed in both cases.

Of all the announcements of Barcelona MWC, two have particularly got a wide media coverage. First, Nokia and Intel joined forces to create MeeGo, a mix of Maemo and Moblin. This is a sign of some platform consolidation, and guarantees the position of MeeGo as the other serious global Linux platform (Android is naturally the other one - I don't count some other consortia having a truly global platform). The device categories will cover a wide spectrum from smartphones to tablets and netbooks, similarly to what Google targets with Android and Chrome OS. This is yet one more attempt by Intel to get into the mobile chip market they have largely failed to address in the past; actually, Intel is now in the both Linux camps, as they entered Android with the acquisition of Wind River last year. And, in a typical LG style, we saw today the announcement of the world's first MeeGo phone (GW990) coming from this vendor.

The other interesting announcement was by a group of leading operators, when they launched the "Wholesale Applications Initiative, WAI" (what a name!) The group certainly has the heavyweights supporting it, and a very large actual customer base to address. I have a bit of skepticism knowing that big consortia easily get slowed down by different business, political or geographical interests. But the underlying key promise seems to be in the app architecture and app store concept itself: WAI aims to create a universal support for Web apps (or cloud apps, whichever name you prefer). After a long fight on the mobile OS's and platforms, the operators are now focusing on the Web technologies and browser-based runtime systems. This is a rather obvious choice, and should also enable apps business models that fit well with the operators' billing relationship with the consumer. I hope the operators follow the market trends when setting the revenue share basics - 70/30 seems to be today a reasonable starting point accepted by the developers.

Image © MWC 2010 / GSMA

Darteco Forecasts for 2010

Darteco — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 08:22:18 +0000

In the last blog of the year, I'll share my thoughts regarding the new year. As the overall market is expected to return to a growth path after a recession period, we are likely to see an interesting year ahead of us. I have divided the analysis into three main areas: product, business and technology. After publishing this blog entry, I am also starting my Christmas holiday (see the picture on the right how it looks outside). Therefore, I would like to wish you all a very relaxing Christmas time, and all the best for the new year!

Product: Although a very large part of the mobile business is in the low-end products, the high-end phones always tend to get the largest publicity. There is no question what the single most iconic mobile phone is: the Apple iPhone. Many "iPhone killers" have emerged during this year, but none of those has quite reached the same level of user experience. Now, my crystal ball says that we will see a new iconic product during 2010. It is very unlikely that someone would take over by simply copying; therefore, the next iconic product will not be a copy of the iPhone, but it will provide some other functionality that truly separates it from the crowd. There exist already numerous ideas and concepts, mainly related to location-based services and social networking; what is missing is clever user-centric design to implement these in a cool and highly usable fashion.

Business: App stores have clearly been a big trend in 2009, and some top-notch developers have also gained respectable profits. Apple's App Store has passed the 2 B download milestone, and many analysts believe the business is getting close to $ 1 B mark. We have witnessed the first success stories of ad-based business models - but also shifts in strategic direction like the ad-funded MVNO Blyk did. My expectation for 2010 is that we will see the first example of a totally new business model for phones. Nothing large-scale yet, but a serious start. Google is a usual suspect for this: they have developed or acquired many important building blocks during this year. My own guess for such a business model is a new type of revenue share deal to combine operator subsidy and ad-funded content and applications.

Technology: If you have been following my blog during 2009, it is probably not a big surprise that my favorite technology for 2010 is mobile cloud computing. It will replace many stand-alone apps in the mobile phone, especially those that use heavily other cloud resources - like location-based services and remote teamwork do. The base technology is here today, although some extensions could easily enhance the capabilities further. Simple updates and bug fixes will speed up the innovation cycle. Not all apps will move to the cloud, though. Also, providing non-free apps is conceptually more challenging than with the stand-alone apps model. Here, one solution is to tie the services to an operator-hosted app store, and use operator billing as the payment method.

Darteco Web Site for iPhone

Darteco — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 10:45:36 +0000

Continuing in the spirit of my previous blogs, I decided to write an iPhone-optimized version of the Darteco site. My target was to make it look as much as possible like a native iPhone app. I went through a set of libraries, and found jQTouch. This is a jQuery extension, using a combination of CSS styling and JavaScript actions to "iphonize" web apps. JQTouch turned out to be very easy to use, and to integrate with my application framework based on Ruby on Rails. It took just one day of work to create the iphone.darteco.com site (I'll need to tune the whole system later so that iPhone users will be automatically redirected to this site). And yes, I think it looks very much like an iPhone app, with similar menus and sliding navigation. You can also create an iPhone desktop icon; with that, the native app-like feeling is even stronger, the only difference being that the app is downloaded from the cloud every time it is being used.

So, what were the learnings? With this type of architecture and high-quality developer libraries, we are already entering the era of mobile cloud apps. A user will hardly notice the difference between the cloud approach and a native app. Of course, which alternative is better, depends fully on the type of the app; large local apps do not benefit from this approach, whereas apps that use cloud-based data and are likely to get regular updates gain the biggest advantage. In the case of iPhone, there is also an interesting issue regarding the app store process: mobile cloud apps are totally separate from the process, meaning that they do not need to go through the approval process - obviously, they do not get to be distributed through iTunes, either. An item to monitor is what type of status the mobile cloud apps will gain in the various app stores; will they stay outsize, or will they also get integrated in.

Cloud Apps for Mobile, Part 2

Darteco — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 10:52:40 +0000

In order to give an introduction to the technology part, I'll divide the client-side implementations into three main categories: browser-based, other common app -based, and dedicated apps. In all cases, the technology for the server-side implementation can be (almost) freely selected from the available platforms such as J2EE, .NET or Ruby on Rails. Before you read further, try out a demo: with your mobile phone browser, go to mobile.darteco.com, the brand-new mobile-optimized version of this site. Make sure you have JavaScript enabled in your phone - and the site should behave as a very simple cloud app (it works also without JavaScript, but behaves then like a 'normal' web site).

The two big benefits of a browser-based implementation are easy app downloading (one just goes to a web site and the app downloads and starts) and cross-platform compatibility (only browser with JavaScript support is required). The technology base is AJAX (again, a new name for an old thing...), denoting a combination of HTML content, CSS styling, and JavaScript actions and control, operating in an asynchronous manner. In the case of this demo, all the site content is downloaded in one go, and the navigation is done with a couple of lines of JavaScript. After the download, there is actually no communication between the client and the server - a more complex app would obviously use some protocol to move updated content between them. The drawbacks of browser-based implementation are related to the overall software architecture in a mobile phone: often, only one such app can be simultaneously active, and it does not run in the background. Also, more complex apps can be rather slow - this depends on the rendering and JavaScript engines (see my blog on Google OS).

A good example of using a common app for a cloud service is the mobile RSS reader. RSS feeds use a standardized protocol between the client and the server, and as the total size of download content is typically limited by the service, the technology is well suited for mobile cloud apps. Darteco's web site (the main site, not the mobile version) provides the blog entries as an RSS feed, so one can use the RSS reader in the mobile phone to access those. Again, the pros are easy start-up process and compatibility - many phones have an RSS reader, in addition to the browser. The major drawback is the lack of flexibility; RSS feeds are only suitable for certain types of content, such as blog entries or news clips. However, the limits can be stretched a bit: if you go to www.kylansaitti.fi, my Pet Project, you will see that it provides also calendar entries as an RSS feed.

The third option is to use a dedicated client app: services such as Skype or Google Earth use this approach. A dedicated app gives a lot of flexibility in the design, and potentially offers the best user experience. The obvious cons are the same as the pros for the other two options: one needs to find and download the correct app, and a developer needs to port the app for a number of incompatible platforms. Note that the AJAX technology can be used for these apps as well, like e.g. the new Palm WebOS platform does (see my earlier blog) - this is more familiar to developers coming from the Internet world. My forecast is that the installed base of web programming environments (with extensions and libraries to access phone features and peripherals) will start to grow in new phones and platform, effectively blurring the difference between a browser-based implementation and a dedicated app. However, the main decision factor is not the underlying technology; it will be the quality of the development and deployment tools, greatly affecting the time-to-market and the overall cost side of a cloud services business plan.

Cloud Apps for Mobile, Part 1

Darteco — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 08:20:40 +0000

This business domain seems to be full of new names that have been invented to describe 'old' things; I recall Larry Ellison saying that "I've always been doing cloud computing" - and giving Salesforce.com and NetSuite as typical examples that have been around for a long time. Yet, more and more apps actually move to the cloud, or at least they get a (limited) cloud version. With the pressure by Google Docs, Microsoft just announced that Office 2010 suite will be available also as a free cloud version, in addition to the traditional installable package.

I can imagine at least three reasons why this paradigm shift is taking place: First, the new apps are different in the sense that the capability to communicate, collect and share distributed data, and co-work has become an integral part of the application concept itself. Second, moving apps to the cloud enables smooth version updates; a good fit with the modern development processes. And third, it is a 'Blue Ocean strategy': cloud has been selected as the medium to challenge existing leaders (Google Docs vs. MS Office is a good example). Thinking in the mobile context, there is also a fourth motivation: mobile platform space is highly fragmented, forcing the developer either to focus on only a subset of the total market, or to invest on costly cross-platform porting. Depending on the application split between device and cloud (more of this in the second part that focuses on technology), the platform-specific part becomes non-existent, or at least smaller.

Are these four reasons relevant to drive the change in the mobile ecosystem? Number one certainly is, as the cloud is required as part of the concept. Number two and four can potentially make the user experience more seamless: less need to worry about finding and downloading the correct software version (this is trivial with single-product platforms such as iPhone but seems to be less trivial for all others), and a service that stays always up-to-date. This, however, also depends on how the device-side of the solution is implemented. Number three we are witnessing e.g. in the competition between Google services and Android, versus Nokia phones and Ovi. From the software development perspective, my own forecast is that we will see more and more mobile apps that have a strong cloud component. The client-side platforms and apps will not diminish, but they will change in nature: user experience - including things like good usability and cool graphics - will continue to be important, but end-to-end integration and web programming environments will replace monolithic implementations in many areas.

The Future of Leadership

Darteco — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 11:01:09 +0000

In my earlier blog, presenting the leadership book by Anne-Liisa Palmu-Joronen, I promised to get back to the topic. I spent a few interesting evenings with Gary Hamel's The Future of Management, trying to see if I could find some new matches between that and my own recent thinking. Although I have liked many of the ideas spotted by Palmu-Joronen and a couple of other new books and articles, I must also say that I haven't got the feeling that I truly believe they will solve the challenges faced by today's business leaders; the reason is that they tend to isolate the leadership challenge, without going holistically deep into the companies themselves (like Hamel does). The main theme of The Future of Management is how to re-invent the company and liberate the existing innovation capacity by removing the obstacles created by old-fashioned management style. Here, I will extend this by sharing my vision how to build a future high-tech company - companies based on the vision presented here are certainly not very common today, so let me know if you have seen one.

The vision starts with a small start-up, possessing a novel business idea, and great passion to implement it. Now, what typically happens next (assuming the business idea makes sense), is a VC providing financing (and optionally help to refine the strategy), or a large company acquiring and integrating the small start-up (which many entrepreneurs regard as a nice exit point). Why not having something between these two extremes: a host company providing A) seed financing, B) existing brand, C) global account management, and D) financial and administration services to the start-up, without performing a true integration? This would help the start-up to strengthen and speed up their sales process, and provide it with the crucial financial data and peer comparison, yet it would be able to run the operations with the original small-company feeling and passion. What should not be included in the "host-company services portfolio" are things like strategy, operational processes or HR. When the start-up grows, it gains a larger share of the total revenue over years - or it gets divested as a separate business. In both cases, the key is the original mission and passion, carefully nurtured in the heart of the small company. In this vision, leadership and motivation come from the origins of the start-up, and they should rather be preserved, not re-created later.

Consolidation in Finnish Outsourcing

Darteco — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 09:04:47 +0000

During the last month, two interesting acquisitions or mergers have taken place within the Finnish mobile software outsourcing industry. First, a leading Chinese IT solutions and service company Neusoft Ltd acquired the mobile arm of Finnish Sesca Group, including close to 300 people in Finland and Romania. The remaining part of Sesca Group, employing 300 people, will continue focusing on outsourcing for energy production and process industries. Second, two Finnish companies, Flander and Ardites, joined forces with Chinese Symbio Group. The new company, Symbio, will be have global headquarters in Beijing, San Jose and Tampere (Finland), and a presence in 22 global locations, including five off-shore development centers in mainland China, Taiwan and Bangladesh.

The strategy of Neusoft Ltd looks similar to what several Indian IT outsourcing companies have pursued earlier: expand the business scope from traditional IT outsourcing to mobile domain, and acquire on-shore and near-shore presence and talent to get closer to customers. With more than 15 000 employees, Neusoft already has off-shore scale. As the operations in Finland closely resemble those of Wipro and Sasken, it will be interesting to see how smoothly the integration will proceed in this case.

On the other hand, the new Symbio seems to have higher ambitions what comes to strategic value network. The new company will have special focus in services and solutions for the enterprise domain. With talent pool in mobile development and user experience, and existing enterprise customers such as IBM and Microsoft, Symbio aims to become a leader within this area. It also looks like the on-shore vs off-shore ratio will be higher than with e.g. Neusoft, although Symbio also has a footprint in Bangladesh, one of those potential countries for next-cycle major off-shore expansion. As a summary, Symbio will likely be competing more directly with companies like Digia, Elektrobit and Teleca.

Pet Project: Kylänsaitti

Darteco — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 09:20:59 +0000

In my previous blog, I shared some learnings from the development time. Now, have a look at the Internet service itself: www.kylansaitti.fi. As the service is - at least right now - only available in Finnish, I'll give a bit more insight into what it offers, and what the targets are. As I noted earlier, the service may later turn to become a business of its own, but that will be a different story.

For business-oriented people, the simplest description could be "Intranet for real communities". First, it aims to serve non-virtual communities that exist in the real world as well. Typical such communities are small towns or villages, parts of bigger ones, as well as associations and clubs. As small local companies have typically a tight link to their surrounding communities, they are part of the target group as well. Kylänsaitti is mainly serving people who live in the area; However, also other groups are likely to find it useful. These include summer-time visitors, people who consider moving to the area, or people who have moved away and wish to preserve the link to their earlier community. For individual communities, the service offers Intranet-like features such as calendars, event lists, two-way email system, maps, news, discussion forums, and guest books, in addition to static content. As people are often members of multiple communities, they may also utilize the index-page services to easily find all relevant events and news from all of them.

One of the main targets of Kylänsaitti as a service is to find ways to enhance and enlighten the life of real communities. The administrator of a community site may set the edit rights for individual pages, so that the whole community can join in to create the content. Ease of use has been one of the key design criteria, as not many of the users are expected to be experts in Internet applications. The application itself integrates with other open-interface services: Google Calendar for calendar services and Google Maps for mapping and geotagging.

When you go the list of communities in the service, you will see it is very short: we are in the very beginning. Therefore, you will have a chance to witness how this type of service evolves. Will it attract more users and communities? How will the interaction between communities look like? Will the system continue working, if the number of communities keeps growing? Come and visit the site every now and then, and you will see how the pet project progresses forward.

Pet Project Getting Ready for Launch

Darteco — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 13:29:23 +0000

Since the beginning of Darteco, I have also been working on a personal pet project. My aim is to create an Internet service from scratch, using Ruby on Rails (RoR) as the development platform. My target has been to get a good insight into one of the most modern and versatile web development systems - and to establish a fully functional, professional-looking and useful Internet service in a pilot form. The service itself may later turn to become a business of its own, but that will be a different story. I'll tell more about the service in my next blog; in this one, I'll focus on the project part.

So, let me share with you some of my findings and learning points during the project: Quite some time ago, I used to write lot of code, but that was before the era of web apps and web programming. So when I started my RoR app, I had to get into the fundamentals. Luckily, I came across a book called RailsSpace (by Michael Hartl and Aurelius Prochazka, Addison-Wesley Professional Ruby Series). This book is mainly about the Rails part, yet providing a sufficient level of Ruby language intro as well. I can highly recommend the book: it is easy to follow, and it gives plenty of practical examples on how a typical social networking app works.

I am a long-time user of Apple Mac, so I was happy to discover that Mac's OS X comes with the Rails framework pre-installed. That required just some straightforward updating. The next thing I needed was a code editor or IDE (integrated development environment). I first took Aptana Studio, an Eclipse-based open source environment into use. However, after some time, I found the Mac implementation unnecessarily heavy and somewhat unstable, and I switched to a rather simple Rails editor called TextMate (available for Mac from macromates.com). It's not free, but I think it's well worth the price tag. And with these equipment I started my project - The result, as it looks like right now, you will see within a week.

New Google OS

Darteco — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 13:20:39 +0000

Google announced mid-July that they are working on a new lightweight OS, to be bundled with their Chrome browser. The main target product segment is netbook PC, where browsing is a major usage scenario. With an open source -based new OS, Google aims to reduce the cost of netbooks, thus increasing the potential user base for Google services and cloud apps. According to Google, the Android OS will stay on the current trajectory and continue focusing on mobile phones.

When the Chrome browser was released, one of the new key architectural elements was the high-performance JavaScript engine called V8. Chrome also offered better integration with cloud apps, effectively blurring the boundary between locally installed traditional apps and cloud apps - at least from the user experience point of view. Therefore, the new OS announcement seems very logical, emphasizing Google apps strategy based on cloud-hosted apps and data. I would assume Google will continue optimizing the rendering and JavaScript performance of the Chrome & OS combination, as well as further developing the system libraries to improve asynchronous operation (for occasions where a network connection is not available). As Google's Vic Gundotra also stated that the current mobile apps model is a dead end, expect to see the same type of architecture coming later to Android as well - making the development environment similar to that of Palm Pre (see my previous blog).

Web Applications in Palm Pre

Darteco — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 09:21:34 +0000

The new Palm Pre smartphone has an interesting development platform on top of the Linux-based OS. The core piece is Mojo™ application framework that executes the webOS applications. A webOS application is strikingly similar to any standard web app written using a combination of HTML, CSS and JavaScript - therefore, the potential developer base is very large, compared to platforms that require native programming. The webOS apps run locally (although they may call e.g. cloud services), as opposed to web apps that use the web server - browser paradigm.

The apps themselves follow the popular MVC (model-view-controller) paradigm, providing a separation of app logic, data and visual presentation. In addition to the runtime environment, the Mojo™ app framework includes UI widgets and services that help writing functional and eye-catching apps: The UI widgets are included by simply calling a JavaScript library from the HTML file, and the widget set covers all standard UI elements from simple buttons to more complex widgets such as data pickers. Services are either local phone functions exposed to webOS apps, or remote services accessed through web services interface. On-device storage is provided by high-level HTML functions that access an underlying SQLite database engine. The simplest webOS app contains just three files: appinfo.json file that holds the app metadata, index.html file that holds the actual app, and icon.png that holds the graphical icon for the app launcher.

Palm is currently providing only a limited and controlled access to the SDK, signaling that some parts may still be under development. The tool chain seems to follow a fairly standard approach, including an Eclipse-based plugin. Overall, based on the available information, the architecture and implementation of the framework look clean, solid and expandable; I will therefore eagerly wait to see how the system performs in the finalized form.

Image © Palm Inc.

Netbook Can Be Called Netbook

Darteco — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 07:57:19 +0000

Approximately ten years ago, Psion made a conceptually (though certainly not business-wise) revolutionary miniature laptop that they called Netbook. The device had an 8-inch VGA screen, and it was running the EPOC operating system - the baseline-to-come for the Symbian OS. The same name, Netbook, became the synonym for all those small mobile-oriented laptop PCs that started to emerge during last year. As a result, Psion made a claim that the term is a registered trademark they still own, and therefore it cannot be used as a generic marketing term.

What happened next is interesting: instead of the case going to an official court process, it went to a "Google process". Google investigated the claim, and determined that the term Netbook is indeed a protected trademark. Google then informed their advertising customers that the term can no longer be used in the ads. Of course, the effect was not that dramatic, as consumers could still search for "Netbook" and got directed to the respective pages, even though the term was not used in the ads. In this particular case, the trademark owner was a real company with real products - would the case have been different if the trademark owner had been a patent troll or similar? Will this case create a baseline how to handle certain IPR-related disputes in the Internet era?

At the end, the whole case was solved by Psion and Intel entering an agreement early June which allowed the term Netbook being used in marketing, and stopped any further court actions.

New Book on Nokia and Leadership

Darteco — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 06:16:02 +0000

Several ex-Nokians have decided to write a book. A recent entry to this category comes from Anne-Liisa Palmu-Joronen, who worked as Head of Legal Affairs and member of the Management Team in Nokia Mobile Phones EMEA (1988-2005). The book, written in Finnish, is called "Nokia-vuodet, mitä johtamisesta voi oppia" (could be translated as "My years at Nokia; learnings regarding management and leadership". Translation is mine - the same applies to the rest of the blog as well).

The book heavily criticizes the management by objectives in the form where it tries to create an illusion of infinite growth of performance. As Palmu-Joronen says, the whole system turns to be like "trying to run excellent 100 meters races, one right after another". While the management processes in many companies are highly optimized, there are still huge gaps when it comes to the leadership side. As a solution, the author proposes a concept of "Leadership through trust" ("Luottamusjohtaminen"). The foundation is a two-way agreement between the employee and the superior, creating the ethical promise they both agree to pursue in all their actions. Growing into the new level of leadership requires strong personal self-awareness; The key ingredients of leadership through trust are virtues, and the ethics built on them. Leadership is the primary theme of the book - The part covering Nokia gives little new to the public picture.

In many aspects, I tend to agree with the author: too often, we sincerely believe that our busy calendars prove our efficiency. I believe that human performance is a very complicated thing, and the true maximum potential (with respect to both quality and quantity) of great individuals and teams is seldom reached. What I personally plan to do is to go back to one of my favorite books, Gary Hamel's "The Future of Management", in order to see if the "softer" touch provided by Palmu-Joronen helps to get something new out of that; Hamel talks a lot about trust as well, though the context is slightly different. Therefore, I expect to return to the topic later.

Image © A-L Palmu-Joronen

Intel to Acquire Wind River

Darteco — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 12:29:15 +0000

Yesterday, Intel announced a definite agreement to acquire Wind River, for approximately $884 M, representing a premium of 44%. The two companies have already worked in partnerships, jointly developing e.g. the Moblin Linux platform for embedded devices. The announcement states that Wind River will continue serving their existing customers and hardware architectures: this means that they will be developing embedded software for many other platform providers than just Intel. Wind River is an active Android partner, helping e.g. Kyocera to develop Android-based phones for CDMA networks. As the announcement also states that the deal "will boost Wind River’s Intel-architecture focused sales", one could guess there will be a shift of strategy regarding the various platforms and platform vendors.

What are the potential implications of the deal? Both Wind River as well as Intel are members of the Open Handset Alliance (the consortium behind Android), so they will supposedly advance the use of Android on Intel platforms - whether this will in certain device segments compete directly with Moblin, remains to be seen. Wind River is also a core member of LiMo Foundation, whereas Intel is not; as this is one more Linux-based embedded platform, we will see whether the deal will lead to any change of strategy in this area. With these Linux consortiums pursuing the fast-growing Netbook market (in addition to phones and MID products), there will be an interesting competition emerging also against the MS Windows platforms.

Image © Wind River

Mobile App Stores

Darteco — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 06:52:05 +0000

Mobile app store is not a new innovation - several stores have been active, but prior to Apple iTunes store launch last year, they never enjoyed a wide-spread success. Difficulties in finding and purchasing apps, together with the obvious challenges in interoperability, have greatly limited the customer base. Apple changed all this: With only one device platform (the iPhone and iPod Touch) to support, the latter problem was solved. And then Apple provided the same level of user experience they offer with their other products and services, making the purchasing process a simple task. The total download volume has now passed the 1 B mark, so the other entrants need to get their machinery well oiled in order to catch up.

During this year, other players have attacked the same market: Google with Android App Market, Microsoft with Windows Marketplace, RIM with BlackBerry App World, Nokia with Ovi Store, Palm with App Catalog, and finally, Sony Ericsson, who joined the race yesterday. The developer common business terms seem to be 30% revenue share to the store owner (RIM is happy with just 20%), plus a fixed annual fee in most cases. With the store fee, developers get the marketing and sales support, as well as certain level of testing and validation performed by the store owner. Especially Nokia has the advantage of a very large installed base of devices, compared to Apple; however, this is certainly not a single unified platform, effectively requiring multiple versions of an app that should run across the whole product range. The same applies to all the other stores - together with volume and variation, comes the fragmentation.

During May, Jonathan Schwartz announced Sun's plans to open a Java Store, containing Java and JavaFX applications. Again, Sun has a very large installed base of devices as a potential market: alone within the mobile scope, there are roughly 2.6 B devices running Java applications. Unfortunately, this does not mean all those phones would run identical Java apps; due to evolving standards, hardware limitations, and time-to-market reasons, device and platform vendors have created a widely fragmented product base. As for most of the stores, this will be one of the main challenges for the Java Store as well: How to make sure a customer receives an application that will happily run in her phone, without the need to crawl through unnecessary technical details?

Image © Apple Inc.

The Beginning

Darteco — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 05:37:51 +0000

As this is the first Darteco blog entry, I'll give a quick outlook, regarding the targeted audience and planned content. With the background that I have, there will be strategic, business and technology content alike - though I don't intent to dig too deep into the technology content, keeping the material palatable for a wide audience. With the exception of cited references, all comments and opinions are solely my own, reflecting my reactions on various topics within and around the mobile industry. Sometimes, I expect to go back in time and bring up an example from the past experience; However, the intent is always to help understand the current state and potential next steps. I also expect to include management and leadership aspects, as they often are such a key to make the difference between high and average performance in the mobile world. When writing comments, please keep in mind the normal blog etiquette. I'll reserve the right to delete spam-like content.

With this, I warmly welcome you to read and actively comment the Darteco blog! You'll also find my Email address on the Contact section, in case you opt for that channel to deliver your feedback.