The war between Google and Microsoft is clearly heating up.

After being accused of copying Google’s search results on Tuesday, Microsoft is now going after Google, accusing it of injecting inconsistency and legal uncertainty into the Web video arena by natively supporting only the newly open-sourced WebM video format in its Chrome browser, rather than the H.264 format preferred by Microsoft and Apple.

In response, Microsoft said it will build a Chrome plug-in that will restore support for H.264, an older and more commonly used video format. Microsoft said it plans to support H.264 in the next version of Internet Explorer, although it will also allow plug-ins that enable WebM support.

“Our point of view is totally clear,” Internet Explorer head Dean Hachamovitch writes in a blog post being posted on Wednesday. “Our support for H.264 results from our views about a robust web and video ecosystem that provides a rich level of functionality, is the product of an open standards process like the W3C’s HTML5 specification, and has been free from legal attacks. Microsoft is agnostic and impartial about the actual underlying video format for HTML5 video as long as this freedom continues.”

For its part, Google has said its decision to base its HTML5 video support around WebM is due to the royalties associated with H.264.

“We acknowledge that H.264 has broader support in the publisher, developer, and hardware community today (though support across the ecosystem for WebM is growing rapidly),” Google said in a blog post in mid-January.

However, it said, “To use and distribute H.264, browser and OS vendors, hardware manufacturers, and publishers who charge for content must pay significant royalties–with no guarantee the fees won’t increase in the future.”

Google added that, to companies like itself “the license fees may not be material, but to the next great video startup and those in emerging markets these fees stifle innovation.”

Hachamovitch, meanwhile, encouraged more discussion on the topic.

“Web video is still, in many ways, in its infancy,” he said. “Working through these questions is part of moving the web forward. The web is a product of consensus and open dialog. This post is meant to be part of the dialog.”

Your move, Google.

A scathing appraisal, but Blair has his reasons.

• The PlayBook’s lack of native calendar and email applications, a core RIM strength that has oddly been left out of the device’s first iteration.
• The need to tether it to a BlackBerry to access those applications, a feature intended to appeal to enterprise by obviating the need for additional security measures, but one that will inevitably alientate non-BlackBerry users.
• A profound lack of applications and a sub-par application storefront.
• No easy mechanism for content delivery and consumption. “How will users get music or movies on there?” Blair asks. “Through the BlackBerry Desktop download manager? Well, we have tried this and it isn’t easy.”

(Considered drag-and-drop, Brian? Not the most elegant solution, I know, but a solution nonetheless).

These are the makings of a sharply inferior tablet, Blair argues. To launch it in a market alongside the likes of the iPad and its successor, as well as with forthcoming offerings from HP’s Palm unit and Motorola, is folly.

“The PlayBook demo impresses many people, including many tech writers, and we believe it’s because of the outstanding multitasking capability that is showcased in a coverflow manner,” Blair concludes. “This slickly shows apps running in the background while a main app runs in the foreground. While we agree this is a leap over what other tablet operating systems can do, we see it as a visual ‘smoke and mirrors’ because of the aforementioned shortfalls in getting content onto the device, offering limited applications, and excluding a native email application. In short, the PlayBook’s screen and hardware specs and multitasking capability look excellent on paper, but without the other pieces to the puzzle, it feels in many ways like an expensive web browser.”

With tablets running the Google mobile OS beginning to proliferate now, those days of Apple’s easy dominace of the market are winding down. Shipments of Android devices in the quarter, for example, leapt to 2.1 million units from about 100,000. “Apple’s volumes will continue to go up, but market share will inevitably go down,” Strategy Analytics’ director Neil Mawston told Bloomberg . “Even at $500 retail, based on some of the research we’ve done, that’s probably two or three times more than what most mass market consumers are expecting to pay….If you were to ask me in two years time will Apple have less than 50 percent of the global tablet market, I think that’s a certainty.”

Perhaps. Depends on how the competition shakes out, I suppose. And just how high Apple raises the bar for its rivals with the iPad 2.

UPDATE: It also depends on the manner in which the competition reports sales numbers. To wit, it turns out that those 2 million Galaxy Tabs Samsung sold were actually sold into the channel and not necessarily to consumers, suggesting that this spike in Android growth may not be quite what it seems.

“There are clearly some gems upon we will build Nokia’s strategy,” Elop said. At the same time, he said the company must move faster than it has if it hopes to regain lost ground. In particular, Elop said the company must have a better strategy around operating systems.

“The game has changed from battle of devices to war of ecosystems,” Elop said, adding later that “Our industry has changed and we have to change faster.”

Elop hinted at a change in the company’s strategy for the high end, which has focused on the Symbian operating system with a planned shift to the mobile Linux-based MeeGo operating system. He didn’t give specifics, but did draw a distinction between the low and high ends of the markets, suggesting a dual-OS strategy may still be the plan.

At the high end, he talked about the importance of developers and services, while at the low end, he said, the key characteristics are brand, scale, price, distribution and speed. Elop also noted that because of different chipsets, it doesn’t always make sense to serve the lower end of the market with the same operating system as is used for top-end smartphones.

Although Elop didn’t name any names, he did talk about the need for the company to “build or join a competitive ecosystem,” suggesting that it might be open to shifting to a competing platform. And while he wouldn’t confirm such a move, he said that the company could pull off such a switch because of its strong brand and relationship with operators.

Among the possibilities that have been suggested are Android and Windows Phone 7. The company has also canceled or delayed plans for two U.S. smartphones, suggesting that a change may be afoot.

“We made a decision to not proceed as people thought we would proceed,” Elop said.

It has also suffered delays of its E7 smartphone, which was to ship last quarter and now isn’t expected to contribute meaningfully to the bottom line until the second quarter.

The new strategy, Elop said, must be one that can “re-open doors” in markets such as the United States, where the company is weak.

“Clearly there is a pattern of disappointments in the United States,” Elop said.

Earlier in the day, Nokia reported that December quarter profits fell 20 percent as the company “faced significant challenges” and lower margins.

Should Stephen Elop, Nokia’s new CEO, continue executing the strategy established by his ousted predecessor, strengthening it by improving execution and operating costs? Or should he map out an entirely new strategy, perhaps one based on a third-party operating system. Canaccord Genuity analyst T. Michael Walkley favors the latter, suggesting Nokia make the jump to Android or Windows Phone 7. And interestingly, he feels WP7 is the better option of the two.

Why?

Well, for one thing, Elop is a Microsoft veteran. He seems to have left the company on good terms and presumably still has close ties to it. For another, Microsoft and Nokia are a better cultural fit than Google and Nokia. And finally, the two companies need each other to succeed in the mobile market long term.

“We believe Microsoft needs more support from a leading device OEM to compete with Android longer term and Nokia likely needs to adopt a new high-end smartphone strategy to stem smartphone share losses,” Walkley says. “Further, Microsoft could create a differentiated tablet strategy with stronger enterprise support and Nokia could clearly benefit with a tablet and smartphone combined strategy that is offered by competitors….We believe the combination of Microsoft’s marketing muscle and software expertise with WP7 and Nokia’s global brand, distribution and scale advantages could drive solid sales of WP7-based devices worldwide. Additionally, it would provide Nokia a much-needed re-entry into the North American market, where its market share has stagnated at low-single-digit levels for multiple years.”

In other words, a Nokia-Microsoft alliance could bolster the WP7 ecosystem to the point where WP7 becomes a third dominant mobile OS alongside Android and iOS.

That would suit Microsoft–which has been struggling with mobile for years–just fine. But what about Nokia, which still makes quite a bit of money selling feature phones in the BRIC countries?

However, added sources, Google is fighting hard to counter the Twitter offer, so Pichai could easily stay with his current employer. At Google, which he joined in April 2004, Pichai is a VP of Product Management.

If successful, the hiring of Pichai would be a major raid for Twitter, and mark its place next to Facebook as an up-and-comer in the race to entice away top Google executives.

More importantly, Twitter could use the product help.

The San Francisco microblogging company, which just raised a massive funding, has done relatively little product development recently, in large part because its focus has been absorbed by overwhelming growth and infrastructure problems.

Pichai certainly fits the bill as a head of product for Twitter, given his job at Google. The well-regarded tech exec heads the Silicon Valley search giant’s high-profile Chrome browser and Chrome OS efforts.

Pichai was front and center at an unveiling of Chrome OS plans in November, and touted the Chrome browser’s 40 million users only a year after its debut in 2009.

But not everyone is so sanguine. Paul Buchheit, founder of Gmail (and FriendFeed) predicted a very short life for Google’s still-in-beta Chrome OS, noting–on Twitter in December–that he thought the product would be axed or fused with Android in 2011.

As Mobilized’s Ina Fried wrote at the time:

Google originally hoped to have Chrome OS-based computers for sale this year, but has run into some delays. Last week, the company released a beta version of the software and distributed to testers an unbranded laptop running the operating system. However, it’s worth noting that in doing so, Google has hardly made the strongest hardware case for the operating system, using a relatively bulky netbook with a reliable, but hardly power-sipping Intel Atom processor.

The idea of merging the two operating systems has some merit. Doing so would pair a top-notch browser with an ecosystem that already has a lot of applications and developers.

For now, the operating systems are distinct, with Android running hundreds of thousands of applications and used largely on phones, along with a few tablets, such as Samsung’s Galaxy Tab. However, Google VP Andy Rubin confirmed after his appearance at last week’s D: Dive Into Mobile that the company is working on a new version of Android, known as Honeycomb, that is geared exclusively to tablets. (The full video of Rubin’s onstage appearance was posted on our site earlier today.)

Acer and a couple of other hardware makers have said they plan to do Chrome OS netbooks next year once the software is ready.

If hired, Pichai would fill an open spot left by the departure of longtime Twitter VP of Product Jason Goldman, who stepped down at the beginning of December.

The attempt to bring on Pichai to lead product brings into question former CEO Evan Williams’s role at the company. When he stepped down as CEO, Williams said it was in order to focus on product strategy, and when Goldman gave up his position, many assumed Williams was the natural substitute.

While Pichai would be a strong choice for the job, he has not been an active user of the product.

Until recently, that is.

Pichai’s own Twitter account has a grand total of 118 tweets, with about a third of them posted in the last month.

Yesterday, in an interview with BoomTown’s Kara Swisher at D@CES, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo said some product goals for Twitter included a better experience for passive users and a more “agnostic” experience across platforms.

Costolo also mentioned a new zero tolerance policy for infrastructure problems, and said that Twitter does not consider itself a “platform company,” but rather one that has APIs.

The Google-Twitter connection is strong, and not just on the we-want-to-buy-you front–Google has often cast its acquisitive eyes at Twitter and still does.

And many Twitter employees were formerly Googlers, although not all in the same era or area.

Costolo himself came to Twitter after being at Google, which had acquired his last start-up, FeedBurner.

Other former Googlers include many on Twitter’s product team, such as Othman Laraki and Elad Gil, who were product managers at Google Mobile Maps and Google Toolbar before joining Twitter through its acquisition of their geo start-up Mixer Labs.

In addition, last year, Twitter nabbed Google lawyer Alexander Macgillivray as its general counsel.

And, of course, Twitter co-founders Williams and Biz Stone had worked at Google after it bought Blogger. They created Twitter after they left the company.

It’s possible that Pichai leaving Google might have something to do with the company favoring the Android mobile operating system over Chrome OS, but seems more likely that the Twitter role would just be a compelling opportunity for him.

Twitter declined comment, and Google has not responded to an inquiry about Pichai.

Until this nail-biting talent raid has a resolution, here’s a video of Pichai talking at the Web 2.0 Summit in 2009:

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser is still the world’s most popular, but its dominance is being steadily eroded by competition from Mozilla, Google and Apple. Can a new, aggressive approach to privacy change that? Can Microsoft really protect users from tracking across the Web–and do users really care?

Dean Hachamovitch, who oversees IE for Microsoft as a corporate VP, gives Walt Mossberg an update on the browser wars.

Greetings! We’ll be starting shortly. If you were in the room right now with our select crowd, you would have just heard some Aerosmith. And now, one of my favorite Van Morrison songs : “Jackie Wilson Said.” Also, we’re not using the classic red D interview chairs for this one. Going with a kind of teal blue. Now you know!

Some Isley Brothers now.

Some Elvis Costello. Don’t know this one, though.

And…here’s Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher.

Kara is wearing something that might have been bedazzled. Walt’s wearing Waltwear.

An update on the state of the ATD empire, which is getting much bigger.

Walt brings on Dean Hachamovitch.

Dean, by the way, is wearing a black long-sleeve shirt that says “private” in big white letters. Hope someone asks him about it.

Ah, and Dean has a “private” shirt for Walt, too. We’ll get to privacy in a bit, it seems.

DEAN: Working on IE 9, in beta, downloaded over 20 million times. Most important is its performance. It’s amazingly fast. Also, it blurs the boundary between Web sites and apps. And also, some talk about privacy.

WALT: Okay, that was a nice ad. But please talk about reports that you’ve been eclipsed in Europe by Firefox.

DEAN: Yes, we used to have 90 percent market share back in the ’90s. But now we look at how many people choose to use our most recent versions. “We are delighted that IE 6 market share is going down. We are delighted that IE 7 market share is going down.”

DEAN: And bear in mind how much the Internet is growing. “There are a lot of different factors. It’s a very complex situation.”

WALT: Okay, on to privacy. Safari used to have some kind of privacy feature, but that’s old. Then in IE 8, you introduced a new feature, not by default, which tried to extend that protection to other sites on the Web you traveled to.

DEAN: You were describing “over the shoulder privacy.” But we’re also concerned about tracking. There are two kinds of tracking: “Expected tracking” and “creepy stalking.”

Pandora and Amazon are expected tracking. You want them to know what you’re doing. But the important thing is that you have visibility and control, and you get benefits.

For instance, when I go to Amazon, they know that I bought Spice Girls and Fergie, and they tell me other stuff I should get.

WALT: Some of that tracking isn’t sophisticated enough.

DEAN: Anyway, creepy stalking is bad. Because consumers aren’t aware of what’s going on, and they don’t have control of it.

WALT: We don’t allow slides at our conferences usually, but we’re going to make an exception. Please show us some slides!

Dean is showing people a monitor that shows you what cookies were attached to a certain NPR page, which includes tracking info that comes from Facebook integration.

Now a Fox News page with similar info.

A reminder that cookies, by the way, aren’t the only tracking info involved here. Also pixels, etc.

But even once you root around and look at the pixels and tracking info, you might not really understand what you’re looking at or who is behind them.

WALT: Microsoft is a big Internet advertiser and publisher. Don’t you do some of this stuff?

DEAN: Yes, and in addition to us and Google, etc, there is an amazing ecosystem of information brokers. There’s a huge industry around this.

WALT: So what’s coming?

DEAN: With the new rev of IE 9, first quarter of 2011, you’ll be able to “go to a Web page, click on a button and you’ll be protected from tracking.” Any Web page can do this.

It will block content on that page. It will be an open publishing platform.

WALT: Why would a publisher want to do this? They have a legitmate need to want to know things about you, to serve you better ads, right?

DEAN: We have a lot of interest from a lot of different organizations that want to make lists. Publishers, government agencies, consumer advocacy, etc.

WALT: So, I have to download a list from someone I trust to make this work. Will you maintain this list?

DEAN: No. People will find these lists the same way that they find other things on the Web they like. From Facebook, or friends, or wherever.

We think it’s important to have people exercise judgment in making these lists. The most important thing is that you go off to the Web and find one you have confidence in.

WALT: But why do I have to hope that I go to sites that have these buttons?

WALT and DEAN are trying to explain how the list and button combination will work. Frankly, I’m confused. We’ll have to circle back to this.

WALT: A cynical journalist might suggest that you’re embracing privacy and wearing a shirt because Firefox et al are eating your lunch.

DEAN: Paying Windows customers want a great experience that includes privacy, including through their browser. But another way to view people who use browsers is that they’re objects to be boxed and sold. We don’t believe that. We believe Windows customers should have a great experience with their browser.

WALT: As opposed to?

DEAN: Well, Chrome, for instance, is funded by advertising.

WALT: So is The Wall Street Journal.

DEAN: I think advertising is great. But be careful about connecting advertising with tracking. We have advertising customers, and we want them to be delighted. And we have Windows customers, and we want them to be delighted. We have a unique position on this that gives us an opporunity to lead.

WALT: All the other browsers have a privacy mode.

DEAN: But that’s for “over the shoulder” privacy, not tracking.

WALT: Some of this tracking stuff is very hard to block. Can you really protect a user from all of it?

DEAN: Good question. Flash, for instance, enables tracking “Flash cookies” and they’re inherent in Flash. Only way to turn them off is to turn Flash off.

WALT: So this won’t block Flash cookies?

DEAN: It will if you tell it to.

WALT: But that’s pretty extreme.

DEAN: Yes. We’re touching on the ambiguity to the consumer about what actually is important and worthwhile tracking, and what isn’t.

We want to help consumers make progress being in control, but it’s a work in progress. It’s happening in Berkeley and in Brussels.

WALT: Let’s switch gears. Some people, not mainstream people, are debating whether the future of entertainment and progress and productivity will be on the browser and in the cloud. Google is pushing that via Chrome OS, and they also have Android apps that store local cloud on the device. Where do you come down on that?

DEAN: It’s a great case of “and”–you’ll have local apps and cloud versions. Like with Office mail, etc. We’re doing work on speed and safety so you can feel more comfortable in the cloud. “I think it’s the best of both worlds.”

WALT: So not a religious issue? Just practicality?

DEAN: Yes.

Questions and Answers

Q: What do you think of what the FTC says about privacy?

DEAN: The paper they put out in December is a good framework. And they’ve responded positively to what we’ve put out. They’re in favor of self-regulation, and we’re eager to work with them. I’ve had conversations with them, and what they say makes sense.

WALT: You’ve been talking to competitors about working together on this?

DEAN: We’ve been talking across the industry.

Q: Who is supposed to make banking, etc., more secure? This isn’t just about someone saying something on Facebook, but opening up the wrong window and having your bank account drained.

DEAN: We take it very seriously. “Security is an industry issue. I have to say it that way, because anything that we can talk about here has multiple parties involved.” if your Facebook is hacked, was it using your banking password?

Q: I’m talking about a national security issue.

DEAN: There’s a lot of working going on within the industry, working with law enformecement, to make things more secure.

WALT: But since you have the biggest market share, there’s a lot of responsibility on you. What do you do about that?

DEAN: Well, one thing we do is put out updates every eight weeks, because things change.

But really, “the best thing you can do to remain secure is to keep all your bits updated….That would make such a difference.”

Q: Firefox has plug-ins like AdBlock, that let you block ads. They seem to be effective at blocking things like beacons, too. Are they effective and can you do something analogous?

DEAN: Add-ins require installation, etc. You need a list, too. But we’re building that functionality into IE, so you don’t need to download anything else. We’re also working with people who make lists for AdBlock Plus, and they’re eager to work with IE 9 as well.

WALT: But AdBlock blocks ads, too. You’re not going to do that, right?

DEAN: It comes down to the list. If a list author lists sites that involve ads, then they’ll go away, too.

WALT: So you could surf the Web without seeing ads?

DEAN: It depends on the list.

WALT: I do think ads are good, by the way. [Me too!]

DEAN: Right. “Ads are great!”

But this is one of the reasons the ad industry wants to create lists for this. So they can distinguish tracking from nontracking.

Q: You’ve been talking about desktop browsers. Will these features come to mobile as well?

DEAN: “We’ll be talking about our mobile browser very soon, and I’ll just smile, and you can infer from that.”

Q: How much more value does tracking really add to advertising?

DEAN: Hard for me to answer that. Maybe the next time you have one of these things, you could have someone from the ad industry.

WALT: Good idea.

And we’re done.

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]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110107/live-microsoft-browser-boss-dean-hachamovitch-at-dces/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110107/mac-app-store-downloads-hit-1-million/ http://allthingsd.com/20110107/mac-app-store-downloads-hit-1-million/#comments Fri, 07 Jan 2011 14:55:13 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=55341 Apple’s Mac App Store is off to an impressive start. It racked up one million downloads in its first 24 hours of business (the top selling app: Angry Birds).That’s a strong showing by any measure–particularly for a brand-new service with limited offerings that relies on an OS update for activation. That said, it’s not nearly as strong as the one put on by the iTunes App Store, its best reference point. That service racked up 10 million downloads its first weekend.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110107/mac-app-store-downloads-hit-1-million/feed/ 7 http://allthingsd.com/20110104/analyst-flash-could-be-hogging-playbook-battery-life/ http://allthingsd.com/20110104/analyst-flash-could-be-hogging-playbook-battery-life/#comments Tue, 04 Jan 2011 12:02:45 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=55011 Despite Research in Motion’s best efforts to silence them, questions about the battery life of its forthcoming PlayBook tablet have followed the company into the new year.

In a sequel to his original research note suggesting the PlayBook’s battery life is “relatively poor” compared to rivals’, Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu reiterates that claim, saying he would be “very surprised if PlayBook matches anywhere near the battery life of the iPad at 10 hours unless it uses a larger battery.”

The reasons for this are threefold:

1. The PlayBook supports Flash, and Flash is a resource hog. Says Wu, “As seen in recent tests for the new MacBook Air, use of Flash can cut battery life in half….From our understanding, the poor battery life of early PlayBook units may be due to its incorporation of Adobe Flash.”
2. QNX, the operating system on which PlayBook is to run, wasn’t designed for it. It was intended for devices drawing power from a wall socket or car battery, not mobile platforms whose power sources are necessarily limited by their own mobility.
3. RIM’s implementation of power management is not as well-integrated as that of its rivals–particularly Apple, whose homegrown A4 system-on-chip enables the company to deliver superior battery life.

Obviously further work is needed to optimize the device’s battery life; RIM admitted as much in its rebuttal to Wu’s first note and, to be fair, this is a pre-release device–a work in progress. RIM still has a few months left to optimize the PlayBook’s battery and get it to that “comparable” level it claims.

But even fully optimized, Wu doesn’t see it matching the iPad.

“Our sources indicate that the best that PlayBook can probably deliver is six hours as offered by the Samsung Galaxy Tab, which is nearly half of that offered by iPad,” he concludes. “And that is with significant re-engineering.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110104/analyst-flash-could-be-hogging-playbook-battery-life/feed/ 23 http://allthingsd.com/20101230/rim-playbook-battery-life-will-be-comparable/ http://allthingsd.com/20101230/rim-playbook-battery-life-will-be-comparable/#comments Thu, 30 Dec 2010 15:55:13 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=54849 Research in Motion’s BlackBerry PlayBook does not suffer from poor battery life. Or, rather, if it does now it won’t when it finally ships.

That’s RIM’s rebuttal to Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu’s suggestion that the PlayBook’s battery life is “relatively poor” compared to rivals–a claim the company says is based on the observation of a pre-beta version of the device.

“Any testing of battery life to date by anyone outside of RIM would have been performed using pre-beta units that were built without power management implemented,” RIM said in a statement. “RIM is on track with its schedule to optimize the BlackBerry PlayBook’s battery life and looks forward to providing customers with a professional grade tablet that offers superior performance with comparable battery life.”

Ah, but comparable to what? And speaking of “comparable,” what happened to “way ahead”? Wasn’t that what RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie said of the PlayBook’s performance during the company’s last earnings call? “I think there’s going to be a rapid desire for high performance. And I think we’re way ahead on that. And I think CIO friendliness, we’re way ahead on that.”

And what does RIM have to say about Wu’s suggestion that it may be forced to delay the PlayBook’s launch to optimize its battery life? Nothing beyond the oblique assertion that it’s on track with an undisclosed internal schedule. Question is, is that schedule still based on an early 2011 launch or one in the May quarter as Wu suggested. Because if it’s the latter, that means the PlayBook could conceivably arrive at market after the next-generation iPad.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101230/rim-playbook-battery-life-will-be-comparable/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101229/whats-in-store-for-technology-in-2011/ http://allthingsd.com/20101229/whats-in-store-for-technology-in-2011/#comments Thu, 30 Dec 2010 02:03:49 +0000 Walter S. Mossberg http://ptech.allthingsd.com/?p=1707 It has been a big year in personal technology, from the debut and early success of Apple’s iPad, to the rise and continuous improvement of Google’s Android smart phone platform, to the continued surge in social services led by Facebook and Twitter.

So I thought I’d take a look at the challenges and opportunities facing some major players in consumer tech in 2011. As with all my columns, this one is focused only on products and services provided directly to consumers, rather than to businesses. Also, as usual, this column isn’t meant to offer investment advice or to evaluate the management skills or financial condition of companies. It is a look at the products and competitive positions of the key contenders as they enter the new year.

Apple: Coming off a highly successful 2010, in which it introduced a new category of portable computer—the multitouch tablet—and sold millions of the product, Apple will have to withstand an onslaught of competitors by wowing consumers again with the second version of the iPad. At the same time, it will have to make a widely expected transition for the iPhone from a single carrier in the U.S., AT&T, to a second, likely Verizon. This could present a new opportunity to reach lots of new customers, but the sleek phone will have to work well on different network technology. At the same time, Apple will be hoping its planned new Macintosh operating system, Lion, can preserve the surprising momentum of the high-priced Mac, which the company is trying to enhance with certain iPad-like features, such as an app store and longer battery life.

Apple’s iPad will face an onslaught of competition in the coming year.

In 2011, Apple also is likely to try to address two areas where it has been weak: cloud computing and social networking. Both its MobileMe cloud service and its Ping social network had rough starts, and MobileMe charges $100 a year for services others give away. Apple is so popular, it has a huge opportunity to link users of its family of devices and of iTunes via the cloud and social networks, but it will have to aim higher and execute better. The second area where it likely hopes to improve is in the living room. The new, cheaper Apple TV is selling better than its predecessor but still lacks much Internet content. To break through, Apple will have to strike landmark deals with media companies.

Google: The search giant, also riding high, is now in so many product areas it competes with nearly everyone. In its core search business, it must focus on fending off a surprisingly strong challenge from Microsoft’s Bing by giving consumers more attractive, actionable results. Its Android operating system is a big hit, but still isn’t as polished or easy to use as the iPhone’s software, and even a Google official admitted it is still “an enthusiast product for early adopters.” One big test will be the forthcoming Honeycomb version of Android, meant for tablets that challenge the iPad.

A separate group at Google will try in 2011 to revolutionize the PC operating-system business and muscle in on incumbents Microsoft and Apple. Its new Chrome OS will power notebooks that essentially act as Web browsers, and run programs stored in the cloud, not on a hard disk. They also store all your files in the cloud. We’ll learn in 2011 how many consumers are comfortable with that approach.

Google also may take another whack at social networking, where it hasn’t made much of a dent after its Buzz service failed to take off. And it will have to rework its overly complex Google TV effort to bring Internet video to the living room.

Microsoft: The software giant still generates strong consumer loyalty with its older products, like Windows and Office and Xbox, all of which have had updates in the past year or two. But it faces big challenges in two hot areas: smart phones and tablets. Its new Windows Phone 7 platform has some nice design features, but also some missing capabilities that need to be addressed. Initial sales seem respectable, but will have to accelerate to get Microsoft back in a game it once led. The company also is a long way from the 300,000 apps available for the iPhone or the 100,000 for Android.

In tablets, Microsoft is hinting that a new version of Windows is being designed with a tablet focus to complement its PC focus. That product can’t be too late, given the rapid rise of the iPad and the many planned Android and other tablets for 2011. One golden opportunity Microsoft has is to expand the reach of its brilliant Kinect technology for games to other forms of computing. This system can recognize individual users and interpret gestures without the use of a controller device.

Meanwhile, Microsoft hopes to seize on a surge in concern about privacy to help keep its diminishing lead in browsers by building new privacy features, unavailable so far in other browsers, into the 2011 version of Internet Explorer.

RIM: The BlackBerry maker had a good 2010 in some ways, though sales were propped up by two-for-one giveaways, and consumer surveys show enthusiasm fading for the iconic smart phone. It needs a radically new user interface to keep up with iPhone and Android, and a lot more third-party apps. But it can’t afford to alienate its fan base. The company has an answer: a new software platform called QNX, but is vague on when that will show up on the BlackBerry. For 2011, RIM’s big move will be a new QNX-based tablet, the PlayBook, which looks speedy and highly attractive in the limited demos RIM has provided. What isn’t clear is how much the PlayBook will be aimed at consumers, as company officials have consistently stressed its appeal to businesses.

HP: The technology behemoth’s laptops and printers have proved popular with consumers. But it hasn’t had any real presence in smart-phones, tablets or consumer cloud services. To solve the problems, in 2010 HP bought innovative but struggling Palm, whose smart-phone operating system, webOS, and phones, the Pre and Pixi, got good reviews but sold poorly and didn’t attract many third-party apps. In 2011, HP hopes to use its ample money and talent to revive webOS with new phones and tablets to challenge Apple and Android. A successful Palm re-launch, with the new initiatives from RIM and Microsoft, would be good for consumers by providing more choice and competition. HP also hopes to boost home printing with a new line of printers that can print anything emailed across the Internet and wirelessly print from Apple’s hand-held devices.

Facebook and Twitter: The twin leaders in social networking were red-hot in 2010, attracting vast numbers of users. They have huge opportunities for further success, but face challenges. Smaller services, like social-coupon company Groupon, continue to emerge with new social and community ideas consumers like. Apple and Google could be big headaches if they get social right in 2011. Facebook must continue its recent initiative to let members share personal details with more limited groups of friends, and to find ways to make money while offering more privacy, which has been a thorn in its side. Twitter is on a mission to get more than an active minority to post, while convincing people it is a valuable way to keep up with news and opinion even if you never post.

Despite the poor economy, the consumer-tech companies continue to show vibrancy, innovation and success. But every year brings challenges and surprises, and 2011 promises to be another fascinating ride.

For all of Walt’s columns and videos, go to the All Things Digital site, walt.allthingsd.com.

Write to Walter S. Mossberg at walt.mossberg@wsj.com

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101229/whats-in-store-for-technology-in-2011/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101228/blackberry-playbook-car-battery-not-included/ http://allthingsd.com/20101228/blackberry-playbook-car-battery-not-included/#comments Tue, 28 Dec 2010 18:38:44 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=54714 If Research in Motion’s BlackBerry PlayBook is to succeed at market the way the company hopes, there are a few engineering hurdles to overcome. The most significant, according to Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu, is the pre-release device’s relatively poor battery life.

Sources tell him the tablet currently lasts just a few hours per charge, compared with rivals like Samsung’s Galaxy Tab, which lasts about six, and the iPad, which lasts upward of 10. If true, that’s an untenable situation for RIM, which really needs to hit the mark with the PlayBook, and it may cause a delay of the launch–if only for a bit (to be fair, Wu is talking about an unreleased device that’s still in development and months away from market).

“From our understanding, this [is] likely why RIMM pushed out its launch to the May 2011 quarter,” Wu writes. “Keep in mind that QNX (the OS on which PlayBook runs) wasn’t originally designed for mobile environments but rather for devices like network equipment and automobiles where battery life isn’t as much a constraint.”

In other words, as promising as plugging QNX into a tablet form factor with a dual-core processor and a gig of RAM sounds, it’s proving to be a bit of a challenge. So what’s the solution? Most likely a bigger battery. But obviously that will add to the heft of the device and perhaps require a design concession or two.

Given that, Wu takes a conservative view of PlayBook’s prospects; he figures RIM will sell 700,000 units in 2011, far less than the one million to eight million that other analysts have been calling for. “As we have said before, we are not convinced that tablets outside of the iPad will see high volume success,” he concludes.

UPDATE: RIM finally got back to me with a comment: “Any testing or observation of battery life to date by anyone outside of RIM would have been performed using pre-beta units that were built without power management implemented. RIM is on track with its schedule to optimize the BlackBerry PlayBook’s battery life and looks forward to providing customers with a professional grade tablet that offers superior performance with comparable battery life.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101228/blackberry-playbook-car-battery-not-included/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101220/motorola-teases-a-honeycomb-based-android-tablet-for-ces-stings-rivals/ http://allthingsd.com/20101220/motorola-teases-a-honeycomb-based-android-tablet-for-ces-stings-rivals/#comments Mon, 20 Dec 2010 20:42:01 +0000 Ina Fried http://mobilized.allthingsd.com/?p=1166 Motorola has posted a video on YouTube hinting at a CES launch for its much-anticipated Android tablet.

The video shows the evolution of tablets, beginning with the hieroglyphs of ancient Egypt, which offered good graphics but weighed a little too much for good portability. Other stops on the journey include the Ten Commandments–”Excellent durability, but zero flexibility (can’t edit)”–and the 1989 Grid tablet, with its 20-megabyte hard drive.

From there, Motorola starts taking swipes at the current competition, including the iPad, which it calls a “giant iPhone,” and the Galaxy Tab, which it says is “Android OS, but Android OS for a phone.”

As for Motorola’s tablet, it is shrouded, but a buzzing bee next to a Motorola logo would seem to confirm its use of Honeycomb, the version of Android being explicitly developed for tablets. The video ends with the text “CES 2011.”

Google’s Andy Rubin showed a prototype Honeycomb-based Motorola tablet at last month’s D: Dive Into Mobile conference. He said the device was based on an Nvidia Tegra processor, but shared few other technical details. (If you missed the talk, there’s a video of Rubin’s presentation here).

In a backstage interview with Mobilized, Rubin confirmed that Honeycomb is specifically aimed at tablets, tweaking the Android interface to be better suited to running on larger devices and take advantage of the added screen real estate.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101220/motorola-teases-a-honeycomb-based-android-tablet-for-ces-stings-rivals/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101215/google-chrome-os-review/ http://allthingsd.com/20101215/google-chrome-os-review/#comments Thu, 16 Dec 2010 02:03:25 +0000 Walter S. Mossberg http://ptech.allthingsd.com/?p=1671 In the personal-computer industry, where things change fast, one fact has been a constant for years: There are two major, mainstream operating systems for consumers. One, Microsoft Windows, runs on many brands of hardware and dominates sales. The other, Apple’s Mac OS X, runs only on its maker’s Macintosh computers, and has had a resurgence in popularity in recent years. Other contenders, such as various versions of Linux, have remained on the fringes.

Next summer, however, Google hopes to add a third broad-based computer-operating system to challenge the duopoly. It’s called Chrome OS, and is based on Google’s Chrome Web browser. With Chrome, Google isn’t just aiming to elbow its way into the OS business. It’s hoping to change the entire paradigm. Instead of storing most programs and files on your computer itself, the Chrome OS will mainly run programs from, and require you to keep your data in, the cloud—remote servers located on the Internet. In effect, it turns your entire computer into a giant Web browser, instead of treating the browser as just one among many local programs.

The Chrome OS isn’t finished, and isn’t ready for broad public testing. Google readily concedes it has lots of bugs and rough edges. But the company has designed a small test laptop with the new operating system installed and distributed “a few thousand” of them to outsiders to try.

A Cr-48 test machine, with Chrome OS installed. Chrome will be licensed to select manufacturers.

I have been using this machine, called the Cr-48, for about a week, and have some explanations and first impressions to share. This isn’t a formal review; that will have to wait till the product is finished and is on commercial computers.

I focused mainly on the software, which is built on a Linux underpinning. That’s because Google doesn’t ever intend to sell the Cr-48 hardware, an all-black, unbranded laptop with a 12-inch screen, a rubbery surface and a large, buttonless touchpad that resembles those pioneered on the Mac.

In my tests, I found this early Chrome OS machine to be fast, with decent battery life and almost instant resumption from sleep. It handled most Web sites fine, and worked almost exactly like the very nice Chrome browser on Windows and Mac.

I also liked the one hardware feature worth mentioning: a radically redesigned keyboard. Instead of function keys, or various legacy keys such as Caps Lock, Chrome OS keyboards feature dedicated browser-oriented keys, like ones for moving back and forth among Web pages and windows, refreshing a page, entering full-screen mode, or quickly opening a new tab and beginning a search.

The Chrome OS will have a big advantage. Because it is mainly a front-end-to-cloud service, if you lose your laptop, you can get another one and just sign into your cloud accounts. You should be able to find all your stuff waiting for you.

However, users of the Chrome OS will have a huge adjustment to make. They will have to give up the rich, local programs they have spent years learning to use and tweaking to their liking. You can’t install local programs on a Chrome OS computer. Instead, Google provides a Web Store inside the browser that allows you to download icons for “Web apps”—mostly websites designed to look and work like standard programs.

Some of these, like Gmail, are familiar and popular. Others are newer. For instance, the New York Times and AOL already designed Web-based news apps for Chrome OS, and there is a Web-based version of the TweetDeck program for Twitter. These apps, and the store’s own icon, appear on the new Tab screen of Chrome OS (and also are available in the current Chrome browser.)

In my tests, I found these apps generally worked fine. But most aren’t as rich and versatile as local Windows and Mac programs. For example, there was no way to play my local, personalized iTunes music collection, unless I spent many hours uploading it to some Web-based service.

I also had to settle for Web-based productivity programs—like word processors and spreadsheets—with many fewer features than standard local ones, such as Microsoft Office.

And I ran into plenty of frustrations. At this stage, Chrome OS can’t do anything with USB flash drives or SD memory cards, and can’t synchronize phones. And it has a very limited ability to store, or allow you to do anything with, email attachments or other files you might download and prefer to keep locally rather than on a server controlled by somebody else.

Printing was a chore, requiring a complicated setup on a Windows computer that Chrome used as a conduit to a printer.

Plus, Chrome OS is hardly stable yet. I suffered numerous crashes of Adobe’s Flash player, and even Google’s own Google Talk instant-messaging service, which appears in a little pop-up window on top of the browser. The company says it hopes to fix these problems by next summer.

Finally, the biggest downside: Because it’s a cloud-oriented system, Chrome OS is almost useless if you lack an Internet connection. Google says it plans to offer some limited offline functionality, and to encourage makers of Web apps to do the same. It will also eventually be able to make some use of some files stored on external hard disks. But the basic operating mode will require you to be connected to the Internet.

To help with this, the Cr-48 has a Verizon cellular modem built in, to supplement its Wi-Fi connectivity. Verizon is offering 100 megabytes of data free, but that is a small amount, and you have to pay for more.

Like the Mac OS, but unlike Windows or Google’s own smartphone operating system, Android, the Chrome OS will be deeply integrated with hardware. So, Google doesn’t plan to distribute or license the new operating system to every hardware maker—at least not at first. You won’t be able to install it on an existing computer. It will be available in 2011 on a limited number of computer models from selected manufacturers.

Google says this is because security is a high priority and requires special hardware designs that tightly bond with the software.

Also, Chrome OS computers will, in some respects, be more like iPads than laptops. They won’t have hard disks, just a limited amount of flash-memory storage, and they won’t have DVD drives.

They are an attempt to realize the old idea of a “network computer,” or one which is mostly a front end for network services.

Of course, many people already spend most of their time with their PCs and Macs connected to the Net. Many use Web-based email programs or streaming music programs instead of local software.

So the time may be right for a cloud computer, a change in the paradigm. Google certainly hopes so.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101215/google-chrome-os-review/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101214/nokia-layoffs-stop-christmas-from-coming/ http://allthingsd.com/20101214/nokia-layoffs-stop-christmas-from-coming/#comments Tue, 14 Dec 2010 18:03:49 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=54339 A colder, more brutal winter than usual for Nokia’s Finnish workforce. The company is sacking 800 employees in its home market as part of its effort to “accelerate the company’s transformation towards a leading mobile solutions provider.”

Nokia says the cuts have been on the table since October, when it announced a personnel restructuring during its Q3 results. And indeed it has. From a press release issued that month:

“Altogether, the planned changes are expected to result in a reduction of up to 1,800 employees globally, as activities are planned to be discontinued and integrated. Nokia will begin applicable consultations with employee representatives about these plans.”

News of the layoffs comes on the same day that Nokia said it will miss another shipping deadline for its new E7 smartphone. That device, which will run the next iteration of the company’s Symbian OS, was expected to launch this year. Now its debut has been postponed until early 2011.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101214/nokia-layoffs-stop-christmas-from-coming/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101210/verizons-cure-for-crackberry-addiction-android/ http://allthingsd.com/20101210/verizons-cure-for-crackberry-addiction-android/#comments Fri, 10 Dec 2010 11:00:05 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=54152 Another handful of worrisome data points for Research in Motion, which appears to be slipping down carriers’ priority lists as the BlackBerry struggles for purchase in an increasingly sophisticated market. New Verizon sales metrics from ITG Investment Research analyst Matthew Goodman paint a picture of RIM that, while not yet dire, describe a worrisome trend.

According to Goodman, who obtains his data from independent wireless retailers, 80 percent of smartphone sales at Verizon in November were Android devices (46 percent of those were Droids). Which is astonishing for two reasons. 1.) That’s a huge percentage for a relatively new mobile OS in a very competitive market. 2.) In December of 2008, RIM was touting the BlackBerry as Verizon’s best-selling device. In two years, it’s gone from a flagship to a johnboat.

And with Android continuing to lead smartphone sales growth at Verizon, it seems increasingly unlikely that the BlackBerry will ever reclaim its lost title. With sales of the Tour/Bold series dwindling and no Storm refresh in sight, BlackBerry sales at Verizon are in serious decline. They dropped 45 percent year-over-year in the third quarter of this year, and Goodman sees them trending down 49 percent YOY in the fourth.

An ugly and humiliating decline, and worrisome. Because if the BlackBerry is faring this poorly against Android at Verizon, how will it fare against Android and the iPhone, which is widely expected to debut on the carrier’s network next year?

No wonder Verizon doesn’t think the upcoming launch of BlackBerry 6 devices on its network will have a “material impact” on sales. Why would it?

Incidentally, if you haven’t yet checked out our coverage of RIM Co-CEO Mike Lazaridis’s appearance at D:Mobile earlier this week, you should.

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