Why Google might be part of a group bidding for Yahoo

There was this long article about why Google might be bidding for Yahoo

Wonder if the authors thought that Google might just want to bid up the price to squeeze more dollars out of MS or whoever actually buys it?

An unfortunate, but true statement.....

Great post http://theunderstatement.com/post/11982112928/android-orphans-visualizing-a-sad-history-of-support

Talks about how manufacturers don't support their Android phones much past the OS they release with. It needs people to root their phone and run something like CyanogenMod to get to the current OS....

Why don't manufacturers focus on making great hardware and just run stock Android? I am sure Motorola will start doing so once they get acquired by Google. How long is it going to take the others to understand that we buy their phones because of the hardware performance/features they can provide - not their silly UI modifications....

Google Acquisition of Motorola

Google announced today that it was going to acquire Motorola for $12B+. I am reading a lot of speculation about why Google was interested and the future of Android, some of which appeared quite dumb, so let me, for the record, put in my predictions:

- Google mainly acquired Motorola for its patents and to stop Apple and Microsoft from slowing down the spread of Android.
- Google has no real interest in making its own phones/hardware devices. They benefit if a lot of hardware manufacturers adopt Android and have no interest in jeopardizing that. If they could have got the patents without the hardware business, they would have taken that route, but I am sure Motorola refused that deal.

Predictions
- After some futzing, the acquisition will be approved by the regulators. Google will be required to build a wall between the Android group and the Motorola group (a wall that already exists between Android and the rest of Google, just because Android is so hot (and snooty ;-) )!).
- Google will be happy to leave the Motorola group to its own devices. In a year or two after the acquisition, Google will try to sell off the Motorola part of the business to someone who might want it.
- Google will work hard to keep Samsung and HTC happy - it is more likely the the next few Nexus devices post merger will not come from Motorola at all.
- Google might use Motorola to design other, more experimental Android devices that it has a hard time getting other manufacturers to develop - e.g. Google TV players, Chromebooks, etc.

Comments?

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G+ and Blogger

Interesting that my posts on Blogger (which is a Google company) appear on FaceBook, but not on G+.

Come on Google

3G/4G Tablets

If I were Verizon, I would offer a customer 100MB of data for free per month on their Verizon 4G tablets. This gets customers hooked onto using their tablets when they are roaming - and then Verizon can charge for any overages (by allowing the customer to pay for more data).

Feels like this fits in nicely with the freemium model that is so popular on the Internet.

Verizon isn't/doesn't need to subsidize the tablet itself (the ones with 3G cost more). Hopefully it earns something for retailing the tablet. It creates a new customer base of people who will use more of Verizon's data services....

Todays model, where a consumer spends more on a 3G tablet and doesn't get any benefit while roaming outside his WiFi area doesn't make much sense to me.

Any thoughts?

G+me

Ok - this is not Android related, but is cool anyway!

Just found a great G+ plugin that runs on Chrome called G+me

Gives you a GoogleReader kind of interface with G+, so that you can quickly glance at your stream and look at the items you want to.

It allows G+ to serve as a Twitter stream very nicely!

Love it!

Getting NetFlix on your Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1

Finally Netflix came out with a version that runs on the Samsung Galaxy Tab. However (possibly for marketing reasons), they don't claim to officially support it - they only support the Lenovo tablets.

There were a few posts about where you could download the Netflix apk from, but being a paranoid security guy, I didn't want to pick up an apk from an unknown source. So here is what I did:

Downloaded the Netflix app on my NexusOne. Then connected it to my laptop and pulled the apk off the phone and then installed it on my Galaxy Tab.

Manual steps:
1. Download Netflix on your supported Android phone
2. Connect phone to your laptop via USB (I assume you already have adb working correctly - to verify, run adb devices and make sure your phone shows up)
3. On a command line, run:
    adb pull /data/app/com.netflix.mediaclient-1.apk
4. Disconnect phone and connect the tablet (again, verify with adb devices)
5. On the command line, run:
    adb install com.netflix.mediaclient-1.apk

If you do download the apk from another place, verify that the sum (using the cygwin sum command) is:
33864 7206

Enjoy!
A

Somebody else's post on what RIM should do

Check the last 2 paragraphs from this article:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2388432,00.asp

Mike Abramsky, a long-time supporter of RIM at Canadian financial firm RBC Capital Markets, suggests breaking RIM up into two companies; I think the result would be similar. One RIM would diversify into business software and servers to support multiple mobile platforms. The other would make powerful, enterprise-oriented Android phones.

Why don't phone manufacturers add real value?

For the life of me, I can't figure out the logic that makes phone manufacturers put their own semi-crappy UI on top on Android phones.

Phone manufacturers are generally pretty bad at software development. HTC Sense, Motoblur, etc don't really add a lot of value to Android phones - they just delay our ability to get updates quickly.

Why don't device makers do what they do best - make great hardware. Let Google do the fancy features (unless are adding hardware that Google can't use).

And this whole discussion about Motorola developing its own OS to try and hedge their bets. That only makes sense if their OS is going to be dramatically better than Android. Not sure I see a huge chance of that happening...

What RIM should do

Nokia just announced that they are moving to WinMo - which I think was absolutely the wrong decision (as, I guess does a lot of the rest of the web).

Big question is: What should RIM do?

I think the 3 huge strengths and one minor strength of RIM are:
- Outstanding exchange integration
- Great enterprise management app
- Phenomenal international roaming agreements, where you get unlimited international data roaming for ~$10 per month

The minor strength is BB Messenger, which for some strange reason my niece's just love.

The big problems they have are:
- Their developer environment sucks
- Hard to develop code that works across their phones
- Poor APIs

What I think RIM needs to do, is get out of the mobile OS business. If they think they are great at manufacturing (which isn't clear to me), then make hardware. Otherwise, let Samsung, HTC, Motorola fight that battle. Instead,  get your phone make by somebody in China/Taiwan, slap Android on it and add the BB pixie-dust on top - the exchange integration, the enterprise app management and the roaming agreements. Call these the new Blackberries and sell them like crazy.

About BB Messenger: Not sure why some people love them, but since they do have a loyal following, port BB Messenger to iPhone and Android and sell them before somebody else does that (thinking Kik here).

Comments?