News That Caught My Eyes: Week of October 19, 2018

Samsung Launches First Always On, Always Connected PC

On Thursday at a low key event in New York City, Samsung launched the Galaxy Book 2 running on Windows 10 and powered by Qualcomm on ARM. The device will be available on November 2 from AT&T and later in the month from Sprint and Verizon. Prince point starts at $999 keyboard and pen included in the box.

Via Samsung 

  • I had the chance to host a panel at the event with Allana Cotton SVP at Samsung Samsung, Don McGuire VP of Marketing at Qualcomm and Carlos de Torres VP of Devices Sales at Microsoft as part of the event and discuss some of the market trends in the PC market.
  • While it would have been unkind to ask the tough questions I was able to point out what I think the big challenges for this category are and have the panel comment from their perspective.
  • It is very clear to me that one of the big issues with the always-on always-connected PCs that we have seen thus far is that PC OEMs treat mobility as a feature. They do not look at this category as the next wave of computing. This means that the designs of the devices are not necessarily optimized for higher mobility.
  • You can accuse Samsung to have opted for a design that is very very similar to Surface but you cannot really fault them for it, as when it comes to this category many have done the same.
  • The other problem the first devices had was that PC OEMs do not understand the carrier business and have little appreciation of what it takes to place a connected PC into a carrier channel across multiple markets. Samsung knows that. They have the relationship with the carriers and understand the complexity of closing deals one carrier at the time, one country at the time. They are also more familiar with the installments models that are so popular with phones and they might help carriers position these devices in a similar way.
  • While Samsung does not have a huge presence in the PC market they seem to have become more interested in this segment over the past couple of years and I have been warning PC OEMs that Samsung has also been getting close to Microsoft over this time collaborating on PCs, Mixed Reality headsets and even offering some Galaxy S skews through the Microsoft Stores. In this particular segment of the connected PC, I see Samsung has a big advantage over traditional PC OEMs as long as the carriers believe there is money to be made and they become the biggest channel.
  • It will also be interesting to see how many marketing Dollars Samsung will be prepared to put behind this product to help drive consumers curiosity.
  • While some complained that the Galaxy Book 2 does not have enough horsepower, the sAMOLED 12-inch screen and the inclusion of the pen and keyboard for a $999 price point makes it quite compelling.
  • Samsung’s strategy in the smartphone market has always been to offer more for a similar price of their competitors and I think with PCs they might be happy to be a little more aggressive as they build their share and brand trust.

Sonos Might Add Roku’s Assistant to Its Devices

In a scoop story, not officially confirmed by the two companies, CNET reveals that Sonos is in early talks with Roku to add their Assistant to their speakers.

Via CNET 

  • Sonos has already proven that they are quite happy to play Switzerland when it comes to Digital Assistants so one more is not going to hurt.
  • I would imagine that they might also choose specific product lines to add the Roku Assistant to. Soundbars and more affordable speakers would make the most sense.
  • For Roku this makes a lot of sense as it is about offering choice to customers and while they have their own soundbar some customers might feel more comfortable going with a brand that is renown for sound.
  • For Sonos, the risk is minimal both from an investment perspective, this is all software support, and from a business perspective. Roku does not have “conquer the world” ambitions for their assistant such that would seem like a threat to Amazon and Google.
  • Of course, this might never materialize but if it didn’t I would expect that to be because they two companies did not reach a financial agreement rather than because there was no business sense in coming together.

Yet Another World Thinnest Phone  

The “card phone” KY-O1L is made by Kyocera and is coming to NTT Docomo next month. It’s about the same footprint as a credit card, and not all that much heftier at 5.3mm thick and 47g — Docomo calls it the thinnest and lightest phone in the world. It has a 2.8-inch monochrome e-paper screen, LTE connectivity, and a 380mAh battery. There’s no camera or app store, but you do at least get a web browser that I’m sure will be a lot of fun to use on that screen.

Via The Verge

  • Two small phones in a week! Two very different approaches between the new Palm and this Kyocera device but the shared trend of moving to the right opposite of where the flagship devices are going which is bigger.
  • This is not the first credit card size phone, ZTE had a concept many years ago
  • I find fascinating that history is repeating itself at this time. Not just with the credit card phones but with a trend we saw about 5 years ago when phone markers were bringing to market a smaller and a larger variant of the same model. The first time this happened was when phones were going over the 5.5inch screen size. Vendors were giving options for a 4.6inch device. Now the screen sizes and getting larger thanks to edge to edge displays but the overall footprint of the devices is not growing.
  • It seems however that the driver for a smaller phone now it is not really about size per se but rather about the fact that a smaller phone would not be as attractive as a larger one so you will do less and you might also end up spending less money.
  • It might just be me, but, as I said on Twitter, I think that especially the Palm device is counting on consumers having quite a weak willpower and not being able to either just turn off their devices or limit their time on them.
  • I personally doubt any of these devices will be more than a fad because of two things: first their price is still high. If I wanted to do less on my phone I could easily by a low-cost Android device or a featurephone for much less than the cost of the Palm or the KY-1OL. Second, I am still not convinced that, despite the fact that people say they want to disconnect they really want to do it.
  • Many companies are investing in tools to monitor and manage people’s time on phones. If there was a real concern with addiction people could start from there. And if there was an addiction, I hear you say, people would not do that. True, but then they would not even go and spend money on a different gadget.

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Carolina Milanesi

Carolina is a Principal Analyst at Creative Strategies, Inc, a market intelligence and strategy consulting firm based in Silicon Valley and recognized as one of the premier sources of quantitative and qualitative research and insights in tech. At Creative Strategies, Carolina focuses on consumer tech across the board. From hardware to services, she analyzes today to help predict and shape tomorrow. In her prior role as Chief of Research at Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, she drove thought leadership research by marrying her deep understanding of global market dynamics with the wealth of data coming from ComTech’s longitudinal studies on smartphones and tablets. Prior to her ComTech role, Carolina spent 14 years at Gartner, most recently as their Consumer Devices Research VP and Agenda Manager. In this role, she led the forecast and market share teams on smartphones, tablets, and PCs. She spent most of her time advising clients from VC firms, to technology providers, to traditional enterprise clients. Carolina is often quoted as an industry expert and commentator in publications such as The Financial Times, Bloomberg, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. She regularly appears on BBC, Bloomberg TV, Fox, NBC News and other networks. Her Twitter account was recently listed in the “101 accounts to follow to make Twitter more interesting” by Wired Italy.

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