Randy Arnold's Blog

I wrote in May of last year asking, only partially rhetorically, if this would be a make-or-break year for consumer electronics giant Nokia.  And like many other pundits, I’ve offered my previous employer sound survival advice on more than one occasion [1][2][3] .  Based on recent financial reports, nobody listened.

All facetiousness aside, here around the halfway point of this year it makes sense to look at the company’s situation again and see if any of Nokia’s remaining strengths can lift it up and turn it around.  

Capacity and Reach

The one thing I was constantly impressed by when working for Nokia was the company’s manufacturing and distribution prowess.  Its supply chain depth and expertise is second to none.  Bottom line, Nokia can build and deliver like nobody’s business.

If that was all it took to put out the world’s most desired and respected consumer products then Nokia has the deal sewn up.  But the best logistics in the world don’t make up for shortcomings elsewhere.  It just means you can ship more of what nobody wants than anyone else.

Mechanics and Innovation

One of my complaints as an employee was that there didn’t appear to be a clear Nokia product identity.  Yes, there were certain shared characteristics within product families but nothing that ever shouted “Nokia!”.  I heard colleagues and customers express the same concern but somehow word wasn’t getting where it was needed.

While I’m discouraged by some Nokia moves the past few years, I’m thrilled to see the branding part coming together.  I can look at an N8 and E7 and see the relative DNA.  I can see Symbian Anna and MeeGo 1.2 Harmattan interfaces and know that, despite significantly different underpinnings, the user interfaces are produced by a design team with a cohesive vision.  Love those squircles!

Some other peeves are being addressed, like pentaband capability on high-end models.  Combine these progressions with Nokia’s winning camera and display technologies and you have a really compelling offering.  In fact as far as I can see Nokia has failed to capitalize on what it does better than most.  Yes Symbian was too slow to evolve, and still has some quirks, but customers will ignore some annoyances IF the device does certain, expected  things Very Well.  Apple proved that with the first iPhone iterations, omitting features that other smartphones already had but creating a highly-compelling user experience that led zealots to not only overlook but even defend iPhone shortcomings.

Nokia needs to cultivate zealots of its own, and actually had a powerful contingent until touchscreen devices became de rigueur.  I’ve been harping on the company to improve its outreach efforts, and see promising signs here and there, but still no heavy PR push as is needed.  But that may well be largely device-driven; Nokia’s best product, the upcoming N9, doesn’t run the Windows Phone 7 OS on which Nokia has pinned its future.  Outreach campaigns may well be waiting, understandably so, for those Microsoft-powered phones.

Conventional Wisdom

The analysts, however, are already writing Nokia’s epitaph.  Many believe Nokia has already passed that make-or-break point.  Tomi Ahonen has been especially critical, which is interesting given his more favorable assessments in the past.

And when you read glowing reviews that pick the N9 over iPhone, you wonder if there isn’t a sort of self-defeating insanity infecting Nokia’s upper ranks– given that CEO Stephen Elop has hinted that the amazing MeeGo-capable N9 will be a one-off product.

Reinvention

But the reality is that no company is dead until it’s, well, completely nonfunctioning.  Nokia is hurting now, hunkered down and licking its wounds.  It may well not survive long enough to be a power player again, especially if the stock keeps declining.  Its prospects certainly haven’t been helped by Elop’s original provocative statements about impending product endings.  But… the company still has a wealth of resources, and I believe it can pull itself together and succeed again.

When I was a Nokia employee (2005 through 2009) it was easy to get caught up in unrealistic expectations.  Say what you will from the outside, within the company there was an energy, a living spirit of Can-Do that could have led to greater things– had it not been squandered by executive arrogance.

That focus on possibilities served the company well in the past, as it morphed from one distinct industry to another, and can again.  A fog of complacency settled over the upper ranks during the late 2000s, and maybe the resulting rapid market loss was necessary to shock them out of it.  Some analysts believe that Windows Phone may well be the vehicle to launch it out of the ashes.  And there are also interesting things going on with S40!

Assuming Nokia can hold on through the next year or so, it also has some exciting technologies in the wings.  Like solar charging and haptics on steroids.  I’m cautiously optimistic my favorite employer can fly again!  As a stockholder I need to be.

I’m going to confess something that’s likely to cost me Twitter followers, kill future career prospects and launch a mild Comment war:

I’m not much of an app user.

And I can’t understand those who are, either.  Well, I can align with the casual user.  The few utilitarians out there.  Those discriminating sorts who reserve their precious device storage space for more valuable content.  Like songs, photos and LOLcats.  

But there’s a whole world out there just begging for more cute and clever applications it seems.  And forget fart apps; enter cool apps into Google and you’re rewarded with 165,000,000 results, with mostly gas-free iPhone goodies bubbling up to the surface.  That’s a LOT of interest.

The race to claim the biggest app repository is reaching mind-numbing numbers, with Apple’s trademark-protected App Store still possessing a commanding lead of over 400,000 little software blobs in its clutches (and has actually breached 500,000 including inactive apps).  And if that doesn’t boggle your brain, rapidly-expanding Android is on track to beat Apple’s bragging rights by July or August of this year.

I’m usually happy with the basic pre-installed stuff and a few extras here and there.  Load me up with maps, weather, geek utilities, some games and a full-blown web browser and I’m happy.

The last bit says it all.  Forget local apps stealing precious finite device resources– I’ll take the internet, thank you, and everything on it.  With relish.

That means high octane HTML5, naturally, and even proprietary technologies like Adobe’s Flash.  Yes, I agree with most of the complaints but just think of the number of Flash games out there.  No application store necessary.  The internet is increasingly the way to go.

Which is why I rolled my eyes every time I heard someone complain that Nokia’s Maemo “didn’t have any/many apps”.  So what.  Maemo had a killer Mozilla-based browser.  And are you really going to dig your way through 400,000+ listings in someone’s virtual store?  There’s no search engine good enough, nor time in the world.  Assuming you were so curious, the only way you would ever see what’s on the bottom is by inverting the listing.  But then, rank hacking notwithstanding, the more useful blobs bob to the top anyway.  So most shoppers will sift through the more obvious offerings and anything floating just below the cream line can only dream of daylight.

Interestingly, Microsoft’s mobile app count is growing faster than device adoption, leading to a software top-heavy situation.  That will in turn dilute their value unless and until phone sales take off.  For a saturated market of products heading toward free, that’s not good.

Web apps make sense in many ways.  They tend to be cheaper to develop, cover more platforms, and are easier to maintain.  Monetization, though, can be more of a challenge.  But if you’re reaching more people, then you’re increasing the chance of alternatives like voluntary donations… so turning a profit with mobile web sites can be simply a matter of the model.  There’s even room for subscription solutions as long as the price is below the typical user’s pain threshold.

Multi-platform app stores like AppCentral, Appia and Intel’s AppUp are a good compromise.  Even Amazon says it intends to go that way with its service.  What this could mean to single-platform servicers like Apple remains to be seen.  Would the company so eager to protect the term “App Store” (failed) go so far as to prevent others from selling software for its products?

Who cares.  Give me an open ecosystem powered by MeeGo, Mozilla and the internet and I’m good.

Want to stop productive bug reporting in its tracks? Want to get the trolling rolling? Toss a flaming “Works for me!” into the mix and stand back.  

I’ve often described the title of this piece as the most devastating insult one techie can inflict on another.  It’s surely one of the more popular. And while in many (maybe most) cases it’s dropped in perfect innocence, this little innocuous phrase tends to land with the force of a nuclear bomb.

Bug triage is a progressive process.  After the initial report, others join in to share their experience and a living, breathing, sometimes-viral organism develops.  Those afflicted with the bug take co-ownership of the report, as do those working to resolve it.  They may see anyone poking in to coo a cavalier “works for me!” as an affront.  A theft of discourse and productivity.  And a blatant example of trolling.

It’s especially an issue in open source communities, where much if not all of the work involved is strictly volunteer.  Pointless infringements on precious time are not taken lightly.  And unless the poster is a sociopath, they surely don’t want to develop a troll’s reputation.

But what if the alleged agent provocateur really is innocent?  There’s actually value in the remark if it’s sincere.  A valid “works for me” becomes a control, an example of an environment or set of conditions where the bug has failed to manifest.  A bug-free control can aid in troubleshooting by enabling investigators to better identify critical environmental differences.  In fact the more “works for me” contributions there are, the quicker the culprit can be identified.  It lurks in the unique shadows of the bug originator’s domain… and can often be something really simple.

Obviously bug triage depends on collaboration and, to some extent, healthy competition.  But successful bug resolution is best accomplished by avoiding ego-driven contributions on either side.  That means no taunting, and no rash assumptions.  Consider your words carefully.  If you have no stake in the bug, just observe from the sidelines if at all.  And if personality conflicts emerge, they’re best taken out of the bug stream and handled between the adversaries.

Keep on (de)bugging!

source: http://www.cellfanatic.com/

Nokia’s S40 operating system has long been relegated to non-multitasking offerings in its stable of devices.  Simple to implement and use, it’s the ammunition for Nokia’s carpet-bomb-the-developing-world-with-cellphones strategy. Symbian, and then Maemo, and then MeeGo and now Windows Phone 7 have been touted as the operating system(s) for the rich high end (excluding Vertu and some other exceptions).

The thinking seems to have been, “Get low-end Nokia devices into the hands of those who can’t/won’t yet use or afford smartphones, and then migrate them upward when the time is right”.

Great tactic in theory, but it has so far failed to succeed as needed.  For Nokia, anyway.  

Background

Understanding why is not difficult.  After joining Nokia’s US operations in 2005, I was astounded to newly discover N- and E-series devices. To my limited American experience, Nokia was the majority owner of the grocery store end cap, devoting its energies solely to cheap cell phones… especially pay-as-you go products for companies like Tracfone.  So in my mind, Nokia was synonymous with the low end.

If I had been alone in that assumption, Nokia would have been fine.  But history clearly illustrates that as America’s desire for smartphones ramped up, Nokia lost out.  So I can only imagine I’m not so alone.

The reasons for Nokia’s US decline are more complex than simple purchaser  perception, but that one is key.  If Nokia had succeeded in educating US citizens about its high end offerings, and how the company was about much more than “disposable” phones, then service providers would have surely been besieged by irresistible demands that Nokia smartphones be made available as subsidized options.  But because purchasers saw Nokia in a  single low light, that didn’t happen.  Handset manufacturers who did a better job of promoting their high end succeeded instead.  And ultimately, a consumer electronics company with no low-end handset legacy at all came out of left field to dominate with its iPhone.

This wasn’t limited to the United States, either.  Nokia worked the low and mid ranges in India, too, hoping to get the upgrade action going there.  Despite initial success, though, as observers suspected Nokia has recently seen competitors move in to capture many customers.  Retention, again, has been a problem.

Foreground

So we’ve covered the past.  Let’s talk about the future.

Nokia dropped some strong hints about its plans for “the next billion” at its Nokia Connection 2011 event.  Development framework Qt, HTML5 and operating system S40 have been recently discussed in such semantic proximity lately that the only reasonable conclusion is that Nokia is taking a new tack:  rather than pulling handset owners up to the world of smartphones, it will instead push that rich functionality down into price points that a few years ago would have been unfathomable.

Let that process for a minute.

As much as Nokia has stumbled during the past few years, it very well could make this work!  They have the expertise, the logistics, and surely the desperation required to change the smartphone game in a way that most competitors will be unable to meet or beat.  Beef up the power on low end devices and use Qt to create a truly breathtaking experience for users unused to smartphone niceties.  CEO Stephen Elop has already declared that a full touch UI is coming to S40.

Of course this comes with a caveat: these users don’t want complex.  Not all of them choose S40 for cost; many select it for its simplicity and responsiveness.  Both come courtesy of avoiding multitasking and third-party applications.  Now, putting high-powered CPUs into these handsets will certainly mitigate performance hits– but if Nokia is going to utilize Qt for UX/UI solutions, then they will have to expect pressure from third-party developers.  Clear, strong guidelines and a rigorous test/approval process should help.

Bottom Line

Before such a bold initiative could work, however, Nokia still has to battle ongoing perception problems.  Its strategy for the past several months has been flexible to the point of chaos.  Consumers, developers and service providers are confused, frustrated and as angry as Rovio’s birds.

Mobile pundits have long urged Nokia to start taking PR seriously.  Rethink retreats such as the closing of consumer-friendly flagship stores.  Ratchet up the advertising.  Improve outreach to bloggers like me.  Work like never before for that next billion.

If they don’t, they’ll be seen as disposable as those end cap phones.

My third Nokia N900 lost the ability to recognize a SIM card recently.  And the usual home repair tactics (bending the SIM, adding padding between the SIM slot and battery) had no effect.  I tried a cold reflash to no avail.

So I went back to my previously-trusty Nokia E61x only to find that the infrequent odd behavior it had been exhibiting (mainly going unresponsive when I needed it most) has now become the norm.  The little thing spends most of its time now in a coma and requires measures just short of serious abuse to awaken.  Factory reset didn’t help there, either.  It’s also not a mobile computer.  

I’ve been blessed with Nokia N8 and E7 devices thanks to Nokia’s Developer Champion (formerly Forum Nokia) program, but those ended up in the hands of my two young sons and good luck getting either back.  Despite adult reviews to the contrary, my teenagers love the things (their friends are actually jealous).

So I need a new phone.  Fast.

As I wrote yesterday I am (almost completely) enthralled with the MeeGo-ready Nokia N9.  Not the drama developing around it, for sure, but the device itself.

But it’s not out yet, and even if/when it’s made available I don’t expect to see it in the US any time soon.  Nokia apparently has a similar handset in the wings meant for Windows Phone 7, and it’s clear now that the two products will be launched in mutually-exclusive markets.  Even if the N9 makes it to the US, I won’t be able to afford it thanks to a severe reduction in salary since falling out of the Nokia nest and I doubt I’ll see this subsidized (although there are rumors of an AT&T offering at some point).

I’m tempted to turn to the AT&T store to grab something there.  In fact I even went so far recently as to purchase an HTC device, but the server choked on my order.  There’s some karmic irony in that, no doubt.

There are still some legacy Nokia phones gathering dust in my house.  My oldest son has an N93 that was never used since Nokia inexplicably chose to support T-Mobile bands but not AT&T’s.  I also have an E70, which I believe Nokia should resurrect with some modernization.  I think we have an old candy bar or two lurking somewhere as well.

I really, really miss using my N900 though.  Regardless of its faults, toting a mobile computer with cell radio capability worked best for me.  Hmmm… maybe what I really need is one of those N950 developer devices…

source: http://swipe.nokia.com

Unlike many friends and former Nokia colleagues, I have not had the pleasure of fondling a sexy new N9 so this won’t be a product review as much as a process and philosophy review.  That means something a little less structured than usual and loaded with unabashed opinion, pontificating and ranting.

So buckle up, this should be a ride that would do Tomi Ahonen proud.  

We have ignition…

Maemo and MeeGo community advocates didn’t begin with high expectations for the Nokia Connection 2011 event in Singapore on June 21.  Lacking the presentation pizzazz of Apple or even Microsoft, Nokia has a mixed history with this sort of thing and has too often bombed when it needed to blow something up.  So when we were bored with a Symbian Anna demo followed by an even more tiresome spiel on S40, the peanut gallery in a freenode.net IRC webchat augmented Nokia’s endless warm-up with the usual locker room antics.  CEO Steven Elop had promised a disruption; we were just distracted.

Then Marko Ahtisaari calmly and quietly claimed the stage.

Speculation had run rampant over who would more likely stun us with the allegedly disruptive device, but the consensus had correctly pinned Marko as the man.  He sealed the deal by very quickly getting down to business.

A presenter’s presenter, the well-spoken Ahtisaari peeled away layers of the slick N9 with the deftness of a professional magician.  I can’t speak for anyone else but our little web gathering was enthralled.  The catcalls and comic relief abruptly ceded to what amounted to geek sexting.  That’s the magic of what Nokia has pulled off here, with impeccable industrial design and a clever UI just begging to be swiped.

That’s also the problem.

The MeeGo Mambo

When Elop announced Nokia’s head-scratching new strategy (and I use that last term extremely loosely) back in February of this year, there was the promise of an undescribed MeeGo device to be produced at some point, to be followed by an anticlimactic year-long ramp-down of the project once hailed as Nokia’s high-end salvation.   Never mind that the N9 isn’t running pure MeeGo (but rather a mish-mash of Maemo 6 and MeeGo parts now curiously labeled as MeeGo 1.2 Harmattan).  To any end user, it’s MeeGo enough.

But the question becomes: why?

Why release something designed to run what is, for Nokia, a dead-end OS?  Elop says this otherwise-seductive N9 is intended as a test-bed for future Windows Phone 7 devices.  But how many consumers tolerate being tested?  Those few who fell in with Nokia’s steps 1 through 4 with Maemo can be forgiven for feeling too defeated to step up for number 5.  That would make the N9 a profit sink at a time when Nokia’s stock (NOK) is severely depressed.

Is this just a stopgap until Windows Phone 7 graces similar Nokia hardware?  If so, will enough purchasers succumb in the meantime to this obviously alluring work of art to at least cover its costs?

Conspiracy theorists are having a field day with this, pointing to admittedly mind-boggling statements and steps that, like the pieces from different puzzle sets, do not fit together.  One of the more prevailing and extreme speculations is that the N9′s strange release is actually a deliberate move by Microsoft-via-Nokia to torpedo the prospects of MeeGo– not just within Nokia’s domain, but in toto.  The old Fear/Uncertainty/Doubt (FUD) machine grinding up another competitor.  I’m resisting this line of thought, but… but…

The Maemo Legacy

Nokia struggled with its last Maemo device, the N900 mobile computer, both in terms of consumer adoption and reliability issues.  Can the company afford to repeat that with the N9?  And will the life of the typical N9 exceed Nokia’s willingness to support it?  The track record isn’t good there.

It’s all… bewildering.

Back to the device unveiling.  Again, Elop referred to this little beauty as disruptive.  He even went so far as to invoke his favorite word, ecosystem, although the N9 doesn’t appear to come with one.

So what could the N9 disrupt?  Well, so far it’s done a number on the MeeGo and Maemo communities, particularly the latter.  maemo.org members are largely polarized on included or excluded features like hardware keyboards, Adobe Flash support and HDMI.  Nothing new there.  But this is likely the last time the Maemo community could survive a foundation-fracturing device.  It’s already on shaky ground as legacy Maemo devices and long-standing community leaders run out of steam or just plain run out.

Long Limbs, Thin Ice

Many Maemo/MeeGo fans are looking at the glossy N9 with a glint of hope.  Maybe, just maybe goes the logic,  success for the N9 could change Elop’s mind on MeeGo.  Maybe the Linux-based operating system really is a Plan B– one that advances to Plan A under the right circumstances.  If Windows Phone 7 falters, and that’s a reasonable conjecture based on current sales, what else is Nokia going to do?  Stay with Symbian, which it tossed over to Accenture?  Elevate S40?  I don’t think even bringing Qt to S40 could happen fast enough.  If the N9 sells out completely, or close enough, will that trigger a slow-down in Nokia’s ramp-down?  If so, does Nokia have the ready staff for it, or have too many abandoned the wayward ship?

Detractors are saying this is all pointless, that there’s no room for MeeGo in a two-horse Android-plus-iOS world.  How selective amnesia can be; there wasn’t room for them, either, a few years ago when Symbian owned the playing field.

MeeGo could actually succeed with a similar approach to Apple’s: highly target a select demographic comprised of, say, fifteen to twenty percent of a given population and please them to no end.  But instead of the same demographic, cater to those at the complete opposite end of the open-closed spectrum.  In other words, the Maemo/MeeGo crowd in addition to those largely invested in Android because it isn’t iOS.  Then let Android, WP7, and the rest battle for the middle.  Select markets generate higher margins than mass markets, as Nokia has learned the hard way.

Summing Up

I found the Singapore event a crude juxtaposition of a lethargic Singapore (and similar) market address awkwardly combined with a brief, exciting N9 reveal.  This was the wrong venue to introduce this device.  The better one would have been the MeeGo Conference 2011, which sorely needed it.

Those who read here regularly will expect me to be completely candid, so I won’t disappoint.  There are aspects of the N9 I don’t like.  Sealed-in battery, lack of memory card slot, last year’s CPU, and a few others.  But I’m not the type to lose the forest for the trees.  From a big picture perspective, I love the Nokia N9.  Yes I drooled over its renderings.  Yes I find that uniquely-curved screen to be cool enough to touch.  Yes I want one NOW.  I will forgive the known shortcomings.  Heck, even Engadget likes it.

And as for MeeGo: it still enjoys strong support from Intel and partners.  It just needs a high-profile, lust-inducing handset to improve its consumer recognition prospects.  The N9 shows it can be done in spades, despite Elop’s disputable claims to the contrary.

I fully intend to explore this further.  Probably in many directions.  Where that goes might well be determined by you readers.  I am expecting an interesting mix of comments on this article.  Don’t disappoint!

Yet another post before getting into actual MeeGo Conference coverage.  I’ll share some logistics lessons in the hope that some will find them helpful,  along with some related details.  I’ve written on this subject before but there’s more and newer stuff to cover now.  

Expenses

Lack of a personal credit card tends to trip me up when it comes to purchasing airline tickets.  This time good friend and conference roommate Jens Wiik stepped up and covered the upfront cost.  As it turns out, though, roundtrip airfare from DFW to SFO and back was just under $240 USD, and we wound up having enough to cover it after all.  Still, many thanks to Jens for the help!  Moral: one can never have too many friends.

One of my biggest out-of-pocket expenses tends to be food, so I try to limit this as much as possible.  That means bringing some cheap breakfast bars and similar snacks, and taking advantage of every free meal.  Of course, no price can be put on the value of socializing so outings can be unavoidable.  Just make sure to expect higher-then-home costs and budget accordingly.

Reference

Past device failures and access issues have led me to print out all logistics info ahead of time.  Plane tickets, hotel info, maps, event stuff, whatever.  If I’m taking 2 separate bags then that’s two copies.  I’ll also leave my wife with printouts of air and hotel arrangements, tacked prominently to the refrigerator.

Packing

I find that I forget one item when attending events, so I get religious about preparations.  For this trip I started a week in advance, setting up a staging area in our living room much to the dismay of my wife.  After all these years and trips she has not yet adjusted to my peculiar habits and coping mechanisms.  Maybe we just need a bigger house, with a room I can mess up without her ever seeing.  Anyway, as it turns out, I only forgot my Nokia “barrel” connector adapter, which adapts chargers from the old larger size to the more recent narrower diameter.  That was a minor inconvenience, as I made sure to have more than one mode of charging devices.  A hard lesson learned before!

I also make sure to pack an extra phone.  That has proven to be a lifesaver at so many events (including this one, where my N900′s SIM connection failed) that I might as well just leave one in my backpack.  For this trip I brought along my E71x, the AT&T variant of Nokia’s slick little business phone.

Speaking of backpacks, on my trip to MIX11 I was informed by American Airlines that my smallest roll-around luggage was just a bit too big to fit in overhead storage on the way to Las Vegas.  That was confirmed on the trip back, where they let me carry it on only to find it had to be jammed into the compartment.  In addition, I tend to add a backpack or computer bag and lugging both can get awkward.

So prior to flying out this time I ordered the ideal luggage for my domestic trips. It’s a combination 22-inch roll-around plus daypack from High Sierra; the latter can be zipped onto the main bag for easy hauling.  It wound up being almost perfect.  You can find my review on it at Amazon.com.

Contacts

Another area of preparation is making sure I provide and retrieve contact info with necessary parties beforehand.  That meant starting with co-presenters of the local community talk and extending to many other MeeGo community members.   One helpful trick is to go through the attendee list and enable Twitter’s “tweet-to-SMS”.   See the first round green icon just to the right of the Following button?  That enables the feature.  Makes it easy to keep track of friends at the event.  When you return home, just unselect those you no longer need echoed to your SMS list.

Getting Around

It’s always a good idea to know the destination transportation options before traveling.  San Francisco is one of the better-equipped US cities with its extensive Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system.  BART rail can get visitors from either of the two major airports (SFO, OAK) to many of the major sites in San Francisco, including hotels.  I printed out the main route and marked my stops before leaving DFW.  The ride was only $8 and very convenient, delivering myself and friend Arek within a short distance of our hotel.  Kudos to the city for maintaining such an excellent resource!

Long Walk, Short Pier

But you can’t take the train everywhere.  On my last trip to California my good friend Henri Bergius put my poor feet through the wringer on the crazy-steep streets of San Francisco.  So this time I was determined to be prepared for his wickedness.  I spent weeks searching and researching the best shoe for the occasion.  Just before flying out, I believed I had found it: the Propét Summit Walker.

This shoe has everything.  Support, protection, laces to the toe and a convenient zipper just perfect for quick removal at airports.  I decided to place an order and have them shipped to my hotel, where they were scheduled to arrive the same day I did.  I wore some old, tight shoes there with the intent of donating them to a local charity.

Unfortunately there was an inventory feed count error from the distributor to Amazon, and there were no shoes to ship.  Result: one unhappy customer.  I ended up buying some Skecher Flex tennis shoes at a local SF discount store (and of course leaving the old ones behind for donation) but I still want a pair of those Propéts.

The Event

I’ll cover the MeeGo Conference itself in more detail in my next article.  Yes, I’m a bit late but I had intended to do it in retrospect anyway.  But in summary, the venue was perfect for the size and nature of the conference.  Suffice to say for now that the organizers got the important details right.

image source: http://creattica.com

In this age of electronic identification, paper stock business cards may seem a little passé, but they’re still the most common mode of contact exchange as far as I can see.  But they need not be “dumb”: even lowly paper media can be enhanced with smart elements, such as 2D (matrix) barcodes and, some day, electronic ink.  

I’ve been designing and printing my own cards for years now, usually because I only need a handful at any given time.  But it occurred to me that I was not taking full advantage of this habit when I was once handed a card with printing on both sides.  My new contact had merely thought to add a large logo on the back side, and I realized that this was real estate I had completely ignored by thinking too traditionally.

The face of the card is the default location for contact information, of course, so other than graphics, catch phrases or the like, what can the back be used for?

Context is Everything

I’ve seen some place their photo on the back side, and that’s a great idea.  It adds to the connection between card presenter and recipient, and aids in recognition and recollection.  But that can go a step further.  When you hand out cards at specific events, you want the new contact to leave with something that helps him remember where he met you and why he should care.  Including content relevant to the event itself is the key.  I’ve taken to adding text like “You met me at:” followed by graphics designed for the event.  Such design elements are easy to find at the event website or, failing that, via a web search on relevant images.  Here are examples of some I’ve done for Maemo and MeeGo activities as well as a visit to South by Southwest earlier this year:

my typical business card face

card back for South by Southwest 2011

card back for MeeGo Network DFW

card back for MeeGo Conference Spring 2011

When I first passed out cards like this, I was amazed at the response.  The consensus has been unanimous: this is a useful addition to business cards handed out at such occasions.

Going Further

Some of the most compelling cards I’ve seen incorporate aspects of the presenter’s business, usually in the design elements.  If you are challenged in this area, enlisting the aid of a gifted graphics designer might be worth the expense.  To keep cost down, try to find a student or newly-minted professional who could use the exposure and allow them to include a “designed by” tag on the card.  Hiring someone with expertise in card design would be particularly helpful, since there is a special talent in getting an idea across in such a small format (I admit to still being an amateur here).

When I was planning this article I had only my own examples in mind to share.  But then twitter friend and business card fan Charlene Jaszewski of TheRedHeadSaid fame pointed me toward ILoveBusinessCards.  Wow!  My own advice is for anyone stuck on card ideas to spend some time browsing the images there for inspiration.  I especially love the vintage passport and hand-stamped versions.  Unusual shapes can be quick eyeball grabbers, too, especially if the shape magnifies the card motif.

Other Suggestions

Charlene also advises using non-gloss card stock (at least on one side) so that the cards make a good writing surface for notes.  Including reasonable white space will help there, too.  Cluttered cards tend to be a no-go anyway.

And while printing contact info on unique form factors like drink coasters is a great attention-getter, I would only recommend going above the usual sizes and shapes in very specific cases.  You want your cards to slide easily into pockets and of course card holders.

The Future

I suspect we’ll continue to see increased use of mobile devices as a means to quickly share personal and business data, mainly via bluetooth and near-field communication (NFC).  Apps that use close contact or “bumping” to facilitate such transfers are rapidly gaining in popularity.

But I doubt we’ll ever witness the complete death of the paper business card.  Exciting developments like electronic ink promise to bridge the modern and traditional, adding intelligence and dynamics to an otherwise conventional format.  And even without going that far, simple customizations as I’ve shared here can go a long way toward grabbing the immediate attention of your audience or customer.  Keep the lessons of this article in mind when you prepare for your next conference or presentation and you’ll strengthen the connection between you and your new contacts.

source: maemo.nokia.com

Smartphones (aka “converged mobile devices“) have been around in one form or another since 1992.  The moniker itself has elicited snickers and outright derision, but the mobile industry grasped for a good description of where cell phones were headed and this is what stuck.  It still sounds silly, but has defied reason by surviving… but probably only due to lack of a clear competitor.  

Nokia tried breaking out of the smartphone mold with its internet tablets.  ”Internet” was prefixed to illustrate the fundamental difference between these devices and their cell radio-enabled brethren: the wide open web was the intended domain.  Freed of the restrictions of cell service providers, and limited only by the availability of wifi.

But those zealous providers protected their turf, at least in the US, by attacking “munifi” as unfair competition.  The law took their side, and the necessary pilot infrastructure for internet tablets vanished in the blink of an eye.

Nokia reduced the product size, plugged in a GSM radio, and the N900 was born.  Its predecessors were left to languish unsupported in a shrinking niche.  Apple’s iPhone, however, proved to be more compelling than the N900 and the rest is history.

Not so fast though.

The first half of “internet tablet” was meant to signify increased freedom of use, but as it turns out, “tablet” alone became the standard nomenclature.  Even the popular iPad is referred to as a tablet.  Consumers want things nice and simple, even if somewhat nondescriptive.  But then, how best to summarize what today’s computing tablets do?

After “internet tablet” failed to resonate, Nokia switched to “mobile computer” with the N900.  This made a lot of sense.  The N900 is a computer first, phone second.  Distant second by some counts.  And despite its keyboard-laden thickness it’s certainly mobile.  The N900 was, for me, the first computer I could absolutely take anywhere.  Yes, there have been bumps due to one quality issue or another but the product got mobile computing right.

But again we’re faced with a two-part, slightly misleading descriptor.  Nowhere does “mobile computer” give you the sense there’s a cell phone inside.  And other names for this class, like MID or UMPC, don’t cover enough ground, either.

“Tablet” however is working for many people, and at some point we may see some convergent term like “tabphone” emerge in a customery lexical evolution.  I see the touchscreen cell phone form factor settling into a 5-inch-or-so face size with little or no actual edge, replacing checkbooks as the bulkiest common item on our person.  At that point checkbooks will be passé anyway.

And it isn’t just electronic devices suffering the name game.  Operating systems play it too.  The latest reports for Windows 8 suggest that it’s leaving a long windowing legacy behind, to be replaced by similar yet different paradigms like pages, strips and really big icons.

Linux-powered MeeGo looked to have storybook potential when Intel and Nokia threw a big party for it in Dublin.  But months later, Nokia’s retreat from MeeGo was followed by dismay amongst the faithful and abandonment by the casually interested.  Many were put off by the name “MeeGo” and are now left to wonder if the childish-sounding appellation has some involvement in the operating system’s recognition problem.  While the commonly-deployed default UI may lack sophistication, the OS itself is no less capable than Android.  But Android has a cool name.  It’s the sort of thing that members of the tech news media can latch onto.  That marketeers can wrap slick ads around.  That fans will spread virally.

I’m a diehard supporter of the community, but even I’m still put off by the name MeeGo.  Others seem to accept it with a wince or a shrug.  Bounce it off the uninitiated– and you’ll likely see bemusement or even scorn.  The sum of its parts don’t add up to a sound that says “cool technology”.  More along the lines of “cartoon character”.  And in that vein, MeeGo has its engaging critters, but stand one beside the Android mascot and ask the average customer what they are.  I’m betting only Android’s get recognized the vast majority of the time.

Could MeeGo’s name be hurting its chances?  I know it sounds trivial, but at some point adoption and acceptance are driven by marketing more than anything else.  When consumers are faced with dozens of products that really aren’t differentiated at a meaningful level, then buy-in comes down to presentation.  The best-looking of the bunch.  The most clever commercial.  The coolest name.

Nokia shifted its hardware identification strategy when it became obvious that its cumbersome,  conservative conventions found no home in the hearts of typical consumers.  Yet when it became time to identify a successor to the cool-sounding Symbian, the quirky name Maemo was crafted.  Then Maemo married Intel’s Moblin to produce MeeGo.  The derided operating system.

It’s late in the game for the Linux Foundation to try a rename… but a relaunch of the operating system with a shiny new name might actually help.  But I don’t see it happening.  Instead I see MeeGo in desperate need of cool campaigns to generate interest around what we have.  Lacking any commercial entity driving that, maybe the effort will be borne by the community.  First, we need a slogan…

Source: http://www.maemoit.org

Before I launch into coverage of the MeeGo Conference in San Francisco this past week, I’d like to touch on a touchy and related issue:  the future of Maemo.

As most readers here are already aware, Maemo was Nokia’s enigmatic attempt at a Linux operating system for mobile devices.  I don’t want to go into the history in this article; it’s easy enough to find on this blog and elsewhere and I want to focus clearly on the future.  

That future is clouded by a variety of issues.  One is the various proprietary parts supporting protected features of Nokia’s devices, such as power management.  Nokia sees these as value-added aspects necessary for revenue under its current business model, so despite the pleas of the Maemo community I don’t see significant changes forthcoming.  Another, even bigger elephant in the room is MeeGo– the former joint venture between Nokia and Intel that is now supported largely by Intel alone since Nokia’s drastic overture to Microsoft.

MeeGo is a mix of Intel’s Moblin and Nokia’s Maemo.  That said, the open source operating system is mostly Moblin with Maemo’s mobility bits blended in.  Ever since its announcement, there have existed two related-but-distant communities with some crossover between them.  For the most part, those bridging the two efforts have been looking to migrate Maemo users over to MeeGo, as the former can only be heading toward the end of its lifecycle.  But this has been a hard reality to accept for those still wringing use out of Maemo devices.  As software advancements gradually orphan those still-usable products, what are frustrated owners to do?

Despite earlier fatal assumptions, the N900 at least is receiving some MeeGo love.  Thanks to the tireless efforts of Jukka Eklund, Carsten Munk and many others too numerous to mention here, the MeeGo OS is being adapted to the N900.  The current release is a bit rough around the edges but project leaders promise that current glitches can and will be ironed out over time.  Ultimately, the goal is to extend the life of the N900s and embrace ARM devices in general.

As excited as I am at this project, I have to toss a pint or so of cold water on the enthusiasm of N900 owners.  While I write this, the N900 products are showing their age and fragility.  Note that out of 2184 respondents to my poll on micro usb port damage:

• 11.9% are experiencing charging and/or data issues with their N900′s usb port;
• 3.53% have lost their usb connector due to some force;
• 22.02% have lost their N900′s usb connector through normal usage

Altogether that’s 37.45% of N900s with significantly reduced usability.  And, that doesn’t include anyone who suffered a failure after they initially responded to the poll with no problems (votes cannot be changed).

In addition, other hardware failures are being reported.  I just lost usage of my SIM card after months of deteriorating performance.  I would reflash the device every time the SIM failed to be found, and regain usage for a while– those periods grew progressively shorter with each flash until the SIM is now completely unreadable (despite cold flashing).

What does this mean?

It says that, eventually, the majority of N900s are doomed to fail.  It may take a year or three, but they are obviously not robust enough to last as long as hardcore adherents would like.

But as long as there are N900s in use, there’s another way to extend their viability specific to the wants of Maemo fans.  A mature MeeGo build for the handset coupled with a Maemo-flavored UX/UI gets them part of the way there.  The rest is up to the community: recode and repackage existing open source applications into Qt.  Not exactly a simple task, but surely more attainable than prying Maemo completely free from Nokia.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to see if installing MeeGo DE on my N900 might revive the SIM functionality again…

Image from Wikipedia

In a press release yesterday, Nokia informed its customers that its Ovi services would be folded back into the Nokia brand.  Is this simply an admission of brand evangelism failure, or the prelude to further, more significant business changes?

Ovi History

Publicly launched as a brand in late 2007, Ovi was intended to be a comprehensive collection of web and device services/applications with an emphasis on mobility.  Nokia at the time began referring to itself as an “Internet company” although some, including employees such as myself, were never clear on just what that meant.

Perhaps Nokia executives weren’t, either.  Ovi services have been in perpetual beta and never seemed to enjoy the level of support the solution set needed in order to compete.  But who was Ovi competing against?  In some ways, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and even cell phone service carriers.  The chimeric Ovi struggled to find acceptance as a unified brand because too many customers and partners only wanted certain pieces of it, unwilling to give up their own equivalent offerings.

Crack in the Door

First to fall in the Ovi stable was Ovi Files, the web-hosted file replication part.  This is certainly a compelling service for mobile and desktop customers, and cloud-based solutions are steadily gaining traction (despite the occasional major outage) so it wasn’t as if Nokia erred in putting it out there.  But monetizing consumer web storage has been tricky, at least partly due to figuring out a reasonable subscription fee.  After its acquisition from Avvenu, the Ovi Files service went from a paid premium to free model, perhaps to position Files as a loss-leader to draw customers in to other premium services.  Why was it discontinued?  Shane McLaughlin of Nokia stated that Files was at some point evaluated as not fitting in with their evolving business model.  Given that they also offer dedicated media storage solutions, this can be understood.

There have been various misfires, delays and other frustrations involving every piece of Ovi, but none likely more aggravating to users than the Nokia-to-Yahoo Ovi mail migration.  Some disruption was to be expected, and Nokia did a great job keeping customers notified of the impending change and then its progress.  I had no problem with being unable to access legacy Inbox contents and was well-prepared for it.  What I wasn’t ready for was that email would be completely inaccessible via the web client for two weeks.  Let me clarify: emails would load, but I could do nothing with them– not even read.  When that was finally resolved, I received another rude awakening: full IMAP support was removed once the mail service moved to Yahoo.  This meant going to POP, which typically cleans emails off of the server once they are downloaded to a local reader.  POP doesn’t cut it for mobile email; users need to feel confident that they can access the same content via smartphone, laptop, desktop or what-have-you.  It doesn’t help that Ovi site documentation is out of date.  On a positive note, the web client has been behaving the past few days as if full IMAP is there again, but I need to confirm.

Another plus is that Ovi Maps has been, for the most part, a stellar success.  Even as other parts of Ovi struggled and stumbled to escape the beta black hole, Maps consistently added feature after feature.  True, the N900 implementation came up short, contrary to some puzzling, glowing reviews– but I’m focusing on the main line.

Name or Game Change?

Now Nokia shifts gears once again, rebranding Ovi services with the Nokia name.  This seems to be a concession that “Ovi by Nokia” failed to resonate as a sub-brand.  One can argue the value of pulling service branding closer to the core, but sub-branding has been either an outright success or a non-issue at least for many other consumer brands.  Consider for example US-based General Motors, which for decades had no problem managing several sub-brands under its umbrella.  But perhaps this is easier to pull off for hard goods than for services… especially if the owning brand seeks to sell those services beyond its own borders.

To make matters more interesting, technology gadfly Eldar Murtazin is at his rumor-pushing best again, this time claiming that the recent Microsoft-Nokia partnership is a first step to something more astounding.  With the signature ink still wet on the device-contracting agreement, the two companies are supposedly negotiating the sale of Nokia’s handset business, in whole or part.

Such a move could conceivably pare Nokia down to little more than a service, or Internet, company after all.  Thus, more closely identifying services with the company name would make sense, especially to trade customers.  Would, say, T-Mobile really want to put out something like “the T-Mobile Model XXX phone with Ovi by Nokia”?  Too much for consumers to chew on.  Cropping off “Ovi” tidies things up immediately.

IF Eldar is correct on this one, the move would be profound.  In essence, it would signal a monumental sea change for both companies, each shifting dramatically from one core business toward its polar opposite.  Microsoft would be extending its Xbox and peripheral businesses to become more of a hardware company, while Nokia could become a more virtual version of itself.  Nothing new in Nokia’s case, but for Microsoft it would be another acknowledgement that its desktop consumer and business software segment are falling victim to consumer mobilization.

Door Half Open or Half Closed?

I tried as both a Nokia employee and later as pure consumer to support and offer feedback on Ovi services.  I was a hardcore user of Ovi Mail especially but the Yahoo debacle left a sour taste in my mouth.  I’m in the process presently of migrating over to a new email address associated with my skimpy vanity site.

I still want to see the original idea succeed, but I’m thinking more and more that it will do so in a very different way than first presented.  Will that be due to another revolutionary business change at Nokia, or something more evolutionary?  And how will the changes enabled by HTML5 play into Nokia’s web service plans?  Right now all anyone outside Nokia House can do is speculate, but I guess we’ll know something by the end of this year.  Stay tuned!

I have a confession to make that might not sit well in the AppUp World:

I’m a longtime AMD system builder.

I have to qualify that though.  Eons ago, when I first started assembling my own personal computers, CPU competition was fairly open.  Intel could not keep up with the demand at the time, so they licensed x86 production to various foundries– many that aren’t even around now.  I was a hardware opportunist, scavenging and cannibalizing and repurposing any part I could.  So it didn’t matter if a CPU was made by Intel or AMD or Cyrix or whoever… as long as I could use it, I did.

But over time competitors died or withdrew from that business, and for a while it was pretty much an Intel and AMD world for desktops.  

For the builder on a budget, AMD was the default choice price/performance-wise.  You could typically get 90% of Intel’s power for 80% of the price.  Yes, there were occasional software compatibility issues, but AMD was usually quick to solve them.  So over the years I have happily constructed system-after-AMD-driven-system, and am to this day still enjoying a 4-core 64-bit Opteron beast that takes everything I throw at it.

I also find myself embedded in Intel’s MeeGo venture after Nokia has reduced its involvement.  Over the past year, I’ve come to realize that “Chipzilla’s” CPU and operating system businesses are a universe apart.  Where Intel gets into occasional trouble for alleged monopolist practices on the hardware side, its software efforts are solidly open source.  In fact, its Open Source Technology Center (OTC) is a major contributor to the Linux kernel.

From my perspective, Intel looks bipolar.

But I’m perfectly content focusing on Chipzilla’s soft side.  After all, I’m still dreaming of an open mobile device ecosystem, and Intel may well be the best-suited corporate behemoth to pull such a thing off.  Whereas handset manufacturers like Nokia may struggle to monetize MeeGo, Intel faces no such dilemma.  As a core component supplier, it’s in Intel’s best interests to get into as many channels, and thus end products, as possible.  Open markets serve those interests well.  Cell phone service providers have expressed a preference for open mobile ecosystems, so they can plug in their own services rather then be shut out by device manufacturers, like Apple, who prefer to control the entire user experience.  And even if MeeGo fails to gain traction in the glorious world of mobile handsets, it supports so many other platforms that it should still find success.

Intel’s main challenge has been in getting the power demands of mobile CPUs into reasonable ranges, and new developments like their 3D transistor technology should go far in solving that.

I’m hoping that, if nothing else, Intel’s sheer size and presence will enable and empower a rich, open MeeGo ecosystem.  One where any service provider can find a foothold, and customers can decide who survives based on quality and depth of service rather than be stuck with the results of paranoid, protectionist behaviors.  As things look now, with Google asserting more control over Android, MeeGo may well be the sole solution in that regard.  And as more manufacturers plug into Intel’s vision, the possibilities will just increase.

Like many high-tech companies, Nokia’s success depends not only on its vast assembly of internal talent, but also on the numerous volunteer advocates and ambassadors of its solutions in the wild.  To that end, Nokia formalizes recognition of top volunteers with its Forum Nokia Champion program.  Since 2006, hundreds of hard-working community leaders have been awarded this 1-year designation… which brings with it free devices, training and occasional travel to events.

As I wrote recently, it was under these auspices that along with several others I recently enjoyed sponsored travel to Microsoft’s MIX11 conference.  This came as a virtue of Nokia and Microsoft’s new close partnership around Windows Phone 7.  It’s a given that Microsoft MVPs would be represented at a MIX event, but this was a first for Forum Nokia and travel arrangements were made almost at the last minute.  

That would explain why, outside of our initial meetup, there was no real agenda for Champions at the event.  On one hand it was nice to have the freedom to do as I pleased with my time there… but the professional in me felt twinges of guilt (due to Nokia’s expense) and some bit of awkwardness.  Probably residue of Maemo and MeeGo conferences, where I always had some role.

Finding Further Purpose

To that point, it would have been nice to have had a defined role at MIX11… no matter how small.  I can’t speak for every Champion in attendance but I did talk with several who agreed having a specific purpose at the event would have been ideal.  After all, Microsoft’s MVPs were highly visible and involved… and they can be considered a Forum Nokia Champion analog.

So it was very helpful to spend a lunch with Ashley Walker of Nokia, along with a few other Champions, and kick ideas around.  The general consensus was that we were recognized for past and potential contributions– why not take further advantage of that?

True, Champions are wearing that badge because they’ve already stepped up.  But some of us can and will do more.  We can certainly aid at events like MIX11 in some capacities.  In addition to traditional event volunteer roles, many of us have already been teaching or presenting and could fill in for last-minute speaker vacancies or even provide ad hoc talks.  We could also participate in cross-pollination activities, helping partners like Microsoft better understand the needs of Nokia developers and customers for instance.  I would have especially liked a Champion-MVP social mixer.

My Involvement

I was accepted as a Forum Nokia Champion for Maemo/MeeGo community involvement.  As Nokia distances itself from both platforms, I have to wonder where I can contribute.  As long as MeeGo is viable I intend to support it, and I once again find myself on the Maemo community council in the hope that we can still find usefulness in what has been an interesting and rewarding experiment in open source.

What’s funny for me personally is that I have many years of Microsoft Visual Studio (and zero Qt so far) development experience, and at MIX11 it was confirmed that I could easily move to WP7 app coding based on that.  The question is, could I easily live in both worlds?  Do I even have the time and energy?  Would it be a problem for Forum Nokia?

The Future?

One persistent theme amongst Forum Nokia Champions since the Nokia-Microsoft announcement in February 2011 is “where do we go now?”.  Questions about Symbian and Qt resound.  Some Champions are immediately ready to move into the WP7 world but others are still heavily invested in Qt and reluctant to leave that ecosystem.  It doesn’t help that Nokia has not identified a satisfactory migration path for them.

Then, too, questions have arisen about the future of Forum Nokia itself as Nokia undergoes significant organization changes.  Microsoft once cancelled its MVP program (only to relent a few days later after a huge outcry)– hopefully Nokia has no such plans.  But I do expect some sort of changes as the Nokia-Microsoft partnership develops further.  Hopefully current (and even past) Champions will be approached to help define the future of the program.  Ashley at least was very open to our input.

As for me, I’ve decided I’m going to make an effort and code up at least one Windows Phone 7 application.  I hope to have more on that in a future article.  For now, I’m interested in hearing everyone’s thoughts on what’s been covered here… especially those of Forum Nokia Champions past and present.  Well?

Me in the Pictage booth

Sorry for the delay– here’s the MIX11 wrap-up!

Keynotes

Wednesday MIX11 keynotes opened with a video that turned out to have been developed by 24-year old Brandon Foy, by request of Microsoft after being made aware of a fan video he had made.  Microsoft VP Joe Belfiore told the audience that if the Youtube video gets 200000 views, then Brandon’s video will be made an actual Microsoft commercial.  So support crowdsourcing and help the guy out (he’s at 83890 as of this writing)!

Joe went on with a lengthy apology/explanation for the latest WP7 update delay.  Their goal, he continued, is ‘more, clearer, disclosure’.  The complexities of the mobile phone world seem to have caught Microsoft by surprise… something perhaps Nokia can help them with (Joe is excited at the prospects, and at one point invited Nokia’s Marko Argenti onstage to present on their behalf).  

Joe thanked the community for a rapid embrace of WP7.  MS is seeing great support from both community and commercial developers. MS intends to do more to improve developer opportunities and help them improve the quality of their products.  IDC and Gartner see WP as the second largest ecosystem by 2015.  This means embracing more languages and enabling app acquisition in more countries– the latter increasing from 16 to 35 by end of 2011.

Discoverability is of course on the minds of many developers, especially small and independent developer organizations.  This encompasses launching apps already installed as well as finding new ones.  Joe demoed solutions on an Asus phone running the Mango build of WP7.  Digging through thousands of apps is not fun.  Joe showed how organization, integration and relationships are used to help users get at what they want.

Joe ran a mobile IE9 shootout between a Windows phone, an iPhone 4 and a Nexus S.  Of course the Windows phone won, but given the the browsers are natively-compiled, I have to wonder if the builds were fully optimized for their platforms.

Joe certainly won crowd approval by announcing better API support for device sensors.  He demonstrated a book barcode scanning example that got to Amazon.com quickly and easily.  Motion-oriented apps were addressed with a feature that could scan an audience and depict the tweets and tweeters.  Next Fast-app switching was covered (new: 3rd party multitasking).  The goal is an “instant resume experience” depending on available memory.  The app used for example was the client for the Spotify music service, just announced for WP7.  Angry Birds coming May 25!

The demos were certainly cool, and some twitterers were quick to applaud the features mentioned… while others noted that Microsoft was announcing the addition of abilities that competitors have had for some time.  Developer tools available within one month.

Scott Guthrie returned to talk about the WP7 developer experience.  One new cool feature coming in the next update for developers is accelerometer support in the emulator.  That announcement went over well! Location awareness emulation (via xml maps) was another plus.

New analytics tools in Visual Studio 2010 help developers identify where and why their code may be bogging down.  Performance differences between the current release and Mango build of WP7 were highlighted next.  The demos promised significant improvement.  The Mango update will contain over 1500 new APIs!

For those disappointed that Silverlight was ignored on Tuesday, Scott stepped up today.  Hardware decoding is being added for better video and general graphics rendering Remote control support also added.  A new highly-interactive and immersive Blue Angels website was used to demo HTML5 and Silverlight features.  I have to admit the site demo was really cool.  The combination of crazy camera angles and and Silverlight 3D simulation worked well to draw viewers in.

The next demo built a 3D house, again using Silverlight in a program called 3D House Builder.  The interface was very clean and easy to understand, and interactivity was extremely responsive, even with lighting and shading.  John Papa announced the the app’s source would soon be released for developers to examine and play with (and now is).

Jeff Sandquist hit the stage next to share his excitement over Kinect being the fastest-selling electronic device ever.  He announced the Kinect for Windows SDK, with support for C++, C# and VB.  The worldwide telescope demo was one of the coolest I’ve ever seen.  Closer to home was a ‘navigation for people with visual impairment’ using Kinect.  A very fun Wall Panic 3000 demo followed (youtube video? Images).

To cap things off in a big way: free Kinects for all attendees!  I’m not an Xbox player but my teenage sons are, so this was a great gift (it was of course installed and in action soon after I arrived home).  I’m not complaining by any means, but now I have to wonder at the interruption during the Tuesday keynotes when a new laptop was introduced.  Maybe it was just a live ad.

Winding down

I wasn’t able to spend much time there Wednesday due to flying out fairly early, and I wasn’t overwhelmed by the sessions available that day, so I spent most of my time talking with exhibitors and attendees.  I was a bit stunned when someone on the Internet Explorer team expressed surprise that Nokia developed operating systems (!!!).  I would have expected they would be well-versed in Nokia’s history by now…

In addition to loitering in the exhibit I had the great fortune of chatting with Nokia’s Ashley Walker and a few other Forum Nokia Champions.  We shared a nice lunch and interesting talk, which I’ll cover in another article very soon.

Overall it was a valuable experience for me, with some caveats.  The main concern was that there was no agenda for us Champions.  We arrived, had one get-together, and then we were on our own.  That’s not bad in and of itself– there was definitely plenty to do!  But it would have been useful for us to spend as much time as possible together.  In addition to after-hours socializing (which I missed out on, inexplicably) it would have been useful to have hooked up with Microsoft MVPs in attendance.  There’s some common ground between them and Forum Nokia Champions, and it would be cool see where that could lead.  Of course, it’s entirely possible there may be changes coming in one or both programs…

Finalé

Ultimately, I want to thank Nokia and Microsoft for the opportunity to attend MIX11.  It’s been quite a while since I have attended one of these massive Microsoft extravaganzas and in many ways mixing it up with their devotees brought back fond memories.  And while I’m still uncertain about the Microsoft-Nokia alliance, but if nothing else I was assured that there’s a great deal of interest out there…

source: microsoft.com

Warning: those with tl;dr allergy may want to skip this article.

Tuesday morning at MIX11 began with a nice continental breakfast courtesy of Infragistics.  During the meal I chatted with various people about Nokia and the mobile world in general.   Listening to the thoughts of those outside the MeeGo world is really helping me formulate messages to help them understand what’s going on but even better, to communicate the skeptical view to the MeeGo community in ways that they will find challenging instead of threatening.  

Keynotes

Moving on to the event itself.  The 9 AM keynotes kicked off a few minutes late with a nifty video highlighting past Mix events and punctuated by pundit observations of the web’s future.   Then Microsoft’s Dean Hachomovitch drew us into the Internet Explorer 9 web vision.   The interactive 3d Foursquare solution was certainly cool, but I really perked up when he demonstrated an SVG-based animation.   I’ve been lamenting the low browser support for SVG over the years, and given Microsoft’s own emphasis on Silverlight, this was surprising.  Silverlight was not mentioned much, to the dismay of some attendees, but I’d personally like to know more about their strategy for SVG.

The HTML5-based Pac-man demo was pretty cool too.   Given recent analysis that HTML5 could very well disrupt the app market as we know it today, I’m still trying to figure out how this sort of native web development will be monetized.   Most likely the dead-horse-beaten dream of a services-driven internet economy is verging on realization.  If so, we can expect a sigfnificant change to the virtual landscape.   Is Microsoft hedging its bets with IE9 and future technologies?

Hachomovitch stressed that IE9′s development was heavily-guided by community input and feedback. He also pointed out that browser optimization per platform is the way to go… which means deprecation of support for prior Windows versions is necessary for compelling user experience.  He then addressed the subject of product lifecycles.   Breaking with prior platforms is one thing– but support for still-going standards is a natural consumer expectation.   An amusing video lampooning rapid websocket updates (and thus breaking existing websites) drove the point home and got a great audience response.   Saying “there is a difference between cadence and progress”, Hachomovitch noted that increased solution release cadence can easily get out of sync with developer and thus consumer demands.   This realization gets into an area I want to cover more in a later article: that “the cycles are too damned fast!”

Next up was Steven Sinofsky who ran a shootout between IE9 and Chrome 12, using a css/html5 fishbowl simulation. Assuming no smoke and mirrors, the demo handily showed IE9 as the performance champion.   As one would expect, the same held true for additional demos.   I’m eager to try some real-life examples to see for myself, as I’ve been very impressed so far with Chrome’s responsiveness.  A personal note: the keynote presentation up to this point convinced me that focusing on HTML5 as a development platform might just be the way to go.   It could very well be the foundation of a successful open mobile device ecosystem.

The keynote moved back to Dean Hachomovitch, who showed that IE10 would take much better advantage of hardware acceleration (the platform preview, with feedback tools, is ready for download).  The demo again used SVG video, which makes one wonder: is a serious Youtube competitor in the future?   Would the average user leave Youtube for a solution with better performance and interesting css effects?

Following next was Scott Guthrie, who made a point of mentioning the open source nature of the NuGet .NET tool.   He continued to emphasize Microsoft’s forays into open source, which the regular reader here will of course take with a grain of salt.   I’m trying to be objective here but can’t help but wonder if Microsoft isn’t still trying to redefine what open source means.  When I see an open release of Visual Studio (in some form or fashion) I’ll be more convinced. Guthrie then invited Scott Hanselman onstage to build an ASP.NET app in the latest release of Visual Studio Ultimate.   It was cool to see pure HTML5 code generated alongside the MVC code.   Has Microsoft moved away from the injection of proprietary elements into web standards?   If so, it’s about time!

Scott’s demo app required a database, and for this he brought in SQL Server compact (which conveniently and automatically added necessary dependencies to the project).   Note to self: how does this compare to SQLite (footprint, performance, etc)?  One cool feature was the use of metadata in the code to drive data validation for the app.   A simple [Required] tag on one field definition automagically generated user notification when the form field was left null. Features like that are the sort of thing that pull in lazy, time-constrained developers like me!   Qt program managers, take note!

I won’t go into full detail of Scott’s tutorial (the result can be found here), but I was ultimately amazed at how quickly and easy his media management/playing site was to create using NuGet, especially in areas like twitter integration and still cooler, desktop integration (via IE9 “pinning”).   Definitely need to look into that some more.  For me the compelling case is simple: I want my final product to be built on broadly-accepted standards (i.e., HTML5) and I will gladly latch onto whatever tool gets me there fastest and with the least amount of sweat.   Can Microsoft use this approach to protect its current turf, and more importantly, cut into Android and Apple territory?   The potential certainly seems to be there.

After Scott, Drew Robbins was up to talk about Orchard.   I got the impression that this open source content management solution was aimed squarely at the also open-sourced WordPress– with a web shopping twist.   Stealing content and product providers will of course come down to low barriers, ease-of-use and useful features.   Here is where Orchard can really shine, as it looks simple-yet-powerful and supports seamless, simple and direct Amazon.com (and other) web service integration.   It seems to be the grown-up version of a mashup tool I tested for Microsoft some time back.   I could also see aspects of Sharepoint in its design and functionality… maybe some common code base?

Mention Amazon.com these days and the talk quickly turns to clouds. Along those lines, Neils Hartviq of Umbraco came up to enlighten us on Windows Azure.   In his view, Azure’s on-demand, intelligent scalability has been a very useful feature for Umbraco solutions (which tend to be very media-oriented).  Random Scott Guthrie point afterward: everything demoed today is new since MIX10, and everything is shipping now.

Oh, and the MeeGo community may be interested to hear that the presentation was running (quickly and cleanly) on an Arm7 device!

Session 1: XNA Game Studio on Windows 7 Phones

This lively talk was conducted by the gregarious and funny Rob Miles, who peppered his presentation with smelly puns of cheese and rewarded those who bravely acknowledged the references with autographed copies of his book on XNA development.  Rob flew us through the construction of a simple touchscreen-based mobile game in Visual Studio 2010, and watching him at work was a real treat.  One of the absolute best dev-type tutorials I have ever attended… and it actually made me want to code something up on a WP7 device!

Session 2: Microformats and Microdata

I had a hard time deciding what to catch in this time slot and when I overheard another attendee say “metadata” after mentioning this session, I knew I had to attend.  Regular readers know of my perverse love for data modeling and information management (when it isn’t an oxymoron) so no surprise there, right?

The speaker, Emily Lewis, seemed to be having problems with a dry throat but once she got rolling it wasn’t a real distraction.  She knows her subject well and addressed it with confidence.  About two-thirds of the way in I realized I had been missing an opportunity with my occasional web work to take advantage of contextual semantics.  The use of microformats enables web page content to “describe itself”, a valuable feature that search engines and other web tools can leverage for a richer user experience.  I encourage everyone, though, not just web developers, to look deeper into the subject.  There’s something of value for bloggers to be sure.

Session 3: Inspiring UX

This was a series of several 10-minute lightning talks oriented around the creation of innovative, delightful, and relevant user experiences.  I can’t do these great talks justice in a paragraph or two here so I won’t even try.  Instead, if I remember, I’ll post links to the presentations if/when I have them.  Feel free to harass me if i forget.  Those fortunate few who follow me on twitter already saw some snippets.

Wrap-up

As you can tell I enjoyed the sessions.  The keynotes were, well, keynotes and they hit on most of the points one would expect… but I didn’t walk out with a sense of anything grand.  There also didn’t seem to me to be an overarching theme, unless it was that Microsoft covers a lot of territory and we already knew that.  But maybe I just missed it?

Anyway unfortunately I have to leave early tomorrow so at this point I’m not sure how much I’ll attend and cover for Wednesday.  Lucky you, no matter what, the result will be a shorter blog post.  ;)