Microsoft rumored to be planning Low-Cost Tablet
According to Bloomberg, Microsoft is rumored to be planning to add a low-end model to its Surface line. The new tablet line will feature a 10-inch screen and will be priced around $400. The tablets are expected to be about 20 percent lighter than the high-end models but will have around four hours fewer of battery life. Intel will supply the main processor and graphics chips for the devices, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the plans aren’t public.
- If this is true, I think it is a good idea for Microsoft to try in this price point again. The market has changed a lot since 2012 when Surface RT was introduced and the Surface team has also learned a lot since then.
- Surface has established itself as the leading 2in1 PC. This is how most buyers see it rather than a tablet despite the tablet form factor. iPad Pro shares a very similar addressable market even though, mostly due to its OS, it is seen more as a tablet than a PC. A study we conducted earlier this year across the US, clearly showed the strong brand share Surface has gained among Windows users as well as Mac users.
- When Surface RT came to market, Surface had yet to establish itself as a premium brand. The combination of that plus an inferior experience with touch and a much smaller ecosystem made it impossible for Surface RT to compete with iPad.
- While still nowhere near the iPad ecosystem, Windows 10 delivers a much more competitive proposition today, mostly thanks to Microsoft primary apps. It is interesting that we have not seen much interest in this space from Microsoft partners which are concentrating their 2in1 efforts in the high-end segment where the Surface Pro sits.
- It will be interesting to hear the pricing for the Surface Pen and Surface Type Cover but I doubt that it will be much different from current pricing despite the smaller size of the Cover. From a consumer perspective while these two accessories are not key to the experience they would certainly add to it. Hence why some promotional bundles would be good.
- Talking as someone who has been using the 10.5” iPad Pro together with the Surface Pro as my on the go devices I am excited about the 10” Surface. While you feel like you are sacrificing a little screen real estate when producing content you are benefitting from a much more portable form factor for consuming content, from books to video.
- The form factor also calls for integrated LTE which might give Microsoft some flexibility on price point if they are able to strike some deals with the carriers.
YouTube Music
Next week, YouTube is launching YouTube Music — a revamped version of its existing music service that adds some new features like personalized playlists based on your YouTube history and other usage patterns. That service, which is supposed to soft-launch on Tuesday, will cost $10 a month after a trial period. YouTube Music’s $10 a month removes ads from music videos – but not the rest of YouTube. It also allows you to download music for offline listening, and to play music in the background while you do other things.
With the launch of YouTube Music, the current YouTube Red will be renamed YouTube Premium and it will require a subscription to YouTube Music and an extra $2 subscription. So for $12 a month, you will get YouTube Music and YouTube Premium.
- Launched in October 2015, YouTube Red has always been positioned by YouTube as three services in one: It offers ad-free access to all of YouTube; it’s a music streaming service that also gives access to Google Play Music; and it’s consistently releasing original movies and TV shows, starring Hollywood talent and homegrown stars that users already subscribe to.
- With the launch of YouTube Music, Google Play Music will no longer exist in its current form. It will be a cloud locker service, to which users can upload their music for portable streaming.
- It seems to me that this new name comes to end an identity problem the service has had for some time. Back in February, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki referred to the services as a music streaming service. This was quite far from how the head of content Susanne Daniels had come to describe the service in the past: a premium subscription streaming service that offers Hollywood-quality shows and movies
- When looking at the new pricing structure it seems clear that the value is put on the music service rather than the video service. This might reflect Wojcicki’s position on not wanting to compete with Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon on producing original content.
- It is unclear how many paying subscribers YouTube Red has. About a year from launch the service was said to have around 1.5 million subscribers with another million on a free trial. Subscribers numbers are of course limited by the geographical coverage of the service which currently includes US, Mexico, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.
- The new service will roll out on May 22 to those same countries but it will add another 14 countries soon.
- YouTube Premium looks to be closer to Apple Music than Spotify as it will blend music and video. It seems however that Apple has much stronger aspirations when it comes to original content. The reason might simply be that while Apple is thinking more about Apple TV when thinking about content, YouTube is thinking more about the smaller screens with an embedded Google Assistants that Google introduced at Google i/o. The kind of content would have to be much more disposable than the big productions we see coming out of Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu.
ZTE: from being punished to being used as a Bargaining Chip
After being banned from buying irreplaceable US components for seven years which caused to cease operations, ZTE finds itself in the middle of commercial negotiations between China and the United States. Earlier this week, President Trump tweeted: “President Xi of China, and I, are working together to give massive Chinese phone company, ZTE, a way to get back into business, fast. Too many jobs in China lost. Commerce Department has been instructed to get it done!” After some strong reactions, this was followed later in the week by another Tweet “The Washington Post and CNN have typically written false stories about our trade negotiations with China. Nothing has happened with ZTE except as it pertains to the larger trade deal. Our country has been losing hundreds of billions of dollars a year with China…”
- Earlier in the week Politico also reported that the FBI chief said to be concerned about telecom companies like ZTE, which is closely tied to the Chinese government, being granted access to the US market.
- The ZTE ban, however, had nothing to do with security, contrary to what the case was for Huawei. Yet such a grey line of the reasons why ZTE and other Chinese companies should not operate in the US seems to confirm my initial feeling that the ban had more to do with the current political climate between US and China than actual security concerns.
- There is no question that China is making huge progress in many of the technologies that will shape the course of the world. From 5G to AI, China is investing heavily and growing a strong talent pool.
- The ZTE case might have made Chinese officials more determined to achieve self-sufficiency in key high-tech sectors. This however is not a good enough reason for going back on the initial ban as lightening ZTE’s punishment would actually come across as a sign of weakness at this point.
- What I struggle to understand is why the ramifications of the ban were not obvious and therefore were not considered beforehand. I am not suggesting for a minute that ZTE should have gone scot-free but I am sure the government could have come up with a punishment which would not have resulted in going out of business.
