cloudguy

docbburk said:

Isn’t this very similar to Microsoft not allowing any other browser to be pre installed on windows machine?  The old internet explorer antitrust suit.  Take your fine Google, then let android handsets come with other search options be installed as the initial default.  If what Google says is true, then they shouldn’t have any issue with doing that, and shouldn’t fear losing revenue. 

Personally, rather than have that happen, I would rather Google simply ditch Android. Google needed Android at the time as they were on the verge of being run out of business by the combination of Yahoo - which was much larger and wealthier at the time - and Microsoft (at the time the biggest and most powerful company in the world and to this day still much larger and wealthier). Now they can survive without Android. So they should just go ahead and do it.

So - even though I personally love my Samsung Galaxy devices - Google should just dump it. That would make everyone happy, right? Let the EU, DOJ and all the other whiners who blame Google for all their problems take it over and see if they could do a better job. Yeah right ... fat chance of that happening. The result would just be even bigger market share by Apple and then Microsoft bringing back Windows Phone to fill the need for devices that cost less than $400 (and cost less than $800 if you want something with a screen bigger than 5.5 inches, which the global marketplace clearly shows that the vast majority of consumers do, including now most Apple fans). And what a wonderful world that would be ...

A power move: after ditching Android, Google could simply put ChromeOS on mobile phones. Result? Everyone who uses Android now would switch to that because that is the OS that Google still supports and the OS that is integrated with Google services out of the box. So go ahead DOJ. Make Android no longer worth the huge trouble and significant expense of Google maintaining it. I have been wanting a ChromeOS phone for years anyway.

Or even better: maybe it would drive Google to stop dawdling and finally release Fuchsia! That's the funny part. Google has been working on Fuchsia for years and is already prepared for the post-Android world that these whiners who are so desperate to go back to the Microsoft-Apple duopoly in PCs that we were forced to live in for 40 years (thankfully ChromeOS has FINALLY gotten enough market share to be a viable alternative). Those were great times, weren't they? Well hey, go ahead, sue Google and take us back to the good ole days where there were only two companies providing commercially available operating systems (and one of those only provides it to you with their hardware, making it effectively just one).

avon b7 said:

A potentially intelligent move by Samsung.

The S series phones are typically released around MWC in Barcelona. 

We still don't know if that will even go ahead and its biggest rival has an estimated 10 million new 5nm chips ready to go. That stock could be gone by January leaving Samsung to reap the rewards (potentially) but it would also need something to better the 2020 Huawei P series flagships from around the cancelled MWC this year. 

It would pose a direct challenge to both Apple and Huawei. Apple probably wont have another flagship unti the end of next year and We don't know what Huawei's short term plans are. 

It would make very good sense to release a product in January. There is also a more conservative case against a January release but that is just another option that would have to be weighed up. 

Eh. Consider this. Samsung was once Apple's main CPU manufacturer AND their Exynos line was considered a legit cheaper alternative to Exynos. Now neither is true: Apple has shifted their business to TSMC and Exynos has fallen so far behind Qualcomm that Samsung is pretty much the only one who uses them. Samsung's plan to get back in the game: beat Apple and Qualcomm to 5nm with the Exynos 995, which was supposed to be produced in 2Q 2020 to be used in the foreign Galaxy Note/Fold/Flip/FE phones for 3Q. However, the first run had flawed yields. Samsung corrected the problem, but not in time for their 3Q phones, forcing them to scrap the 5nm Exynos 995 use the 8nm Exynos 992 instead. But they did fix in time for the Exynos 1080 - a midrange CPU to be used in Chinese phones - and lure the 5nm Qualcomm 875 business from TSMC. As stated above, TSMC was swamped with orders for Apple iPhone, iPad and Mac 5nm CPUs for 2020 plus AMD 5 nm CPUs and Intel 7nm CPUs for 2021. They gave Qualcomm a "pay more or experience delays" ultimatum, which allowed Samsung to swoop in and offer "we can make them at the usual rate right now." 

So the S21 will have the Qualcomm 875 made by Samsung for North America and the 5 nm Exynos 2100 for everyone else. Both the 875 and the 2100 are going to do the 1-3-4 thing: 1 Cortex X1 super core, 3 Cortex-A78 cores, and 4 Cortex-A55 cores. Also, both are going to integrate the X60 5G modem. Further, the 875 is rumored to have minimal Qualcomm customization due to the need to adopt the Cortex X1, and Samsung paid ARM to help them design the Exynos 2100. Because of this, rumor states that the Snapdragon and Exynos chips are going to perform similarly again.

So when you add that to the Google-Samsung CPU that will be released in 2021 and Qualcomm entering the smartphone market with their own branded device (made with assistance by Asus) and next year may be pretty interesting. If Samsung is able to retain Qualcomm's business, the shift to releasing the S21 in January may be permanent.

Yawn. 

1. Need I remind people that Apple burst into public consciousness with their 1984 attack ad against IBM (and by extension Microsoft and Intel) in the first place?
2. This is quite mild compared to Apple's years-long FUD driven "privacy! security!" advertisements and public statements with their recent commercial depicting people shouting credit card numbers and medical test results taking the cake. (Especially considering that while iOS may be secure the apps on it - Facebook, Twitter, TikTok etc. - are not, and that their "complying with local laws" makes the entire ad campaign outright false advertising since it doesn't have a "we protect your privacy so long as you stay outside China!" disclaimer).
3. And as if Apple has never done this before. The stylus anyone? (Despite Apple and its fans various methods of backtracking and recontextualizing that infamous statement.) 
4. If we were include the statements Apple fans - that Apple never disavowed - we can include: screens bigger than 4 inches, OLED, smart watches, mobile payments, wireless charging, CPUs with more than 2 cores, more than 1 GB of RAM, various types of multitasking, widgets, customizable home screens, app draws etc. All criticized by the Apple community as gaudy, poorly designed desperate gimmicks for years before Apple adopted them. Now that Apple has gotten a lot faster at adopting Samsung and Android tech, the criticism has basically stopped - very little mocking of foldable phones for example - because now everyone knows that Apple is going to adopt it if it sells.
5. By the way ... Samsung never did and never will adopt the notch or anything resembling Face ID. (Which Apple is going to ditch in a couple of years.) And they only ditched the headphone jack in Galaxy Note and Galaxy S devices. Meaning that the vast majority of the phones that Samsung sells still has them. 

22july2013 said:

When I put on my long term prognostication hat, I consider Disney to be Apple's potentially largest direct competitor in 2030. Disney's brand and IP could put them in a strong consumer facing position. They have a venture capital division that invests in high tech companies. The first segment they could easily dominate if they wanted to is an internet media streaming box. Note that Disney owns 60% of Hulu.

So ... Disney is going to start making smartphones, tablets and computers? And people would - for some reason - buy them if they did? Fascinating.
Yes, Disney owns Disney+, Hulu as well as the Disney Channel/ABC/ESPN cable and broadcast networks. That's only a fraction of the streaming landscape. Disney+ and particularly Hulu are dwarfed by Netflix and Amazon Prime. It would be difficult to identify someone who has Disney+ but not Netflix, for example. There are also streaming networks offered by their direct competitors i.e. Paramount+, HBO Max and whatever NBCUniversal purports to be doing. Are they going to put their channels on the DisneyBox? (Not likely.) And this goes back to my initial question: Disney is going to become a tech company with the capability to design and build a streaming box? Consumer-facing: Dell, HP and Lenovo don't have "consumer facing positions" yet they sell tons of computers primarily to enterprises each year. So these large (or medium sized or small) businesses are going to start buying Disney workstations and notebooks? Disney is going to have the software, support and cloud infrastructure to back them?

Good grief, Disney+ doesn't even support single sign on - something that some niche streaming channels are capable of - and you want to make Disney the #2 tech company on the planet. Also, you might want to read the several columns floating around about how much debt Disney is servicing right now. Disney is focusing on streaming because the theatrical release game is getting to be unsustainable.
Budget: $150 million (or no one will see it)
Marketing: $125 million (or no one will see it)
Theatres and distribution costs: at least 50% (or no one will show it)
A Disney movie now needs to make $500-$600 million at the box office just to break even. Do they have very many potential projects in the can capable of it? Star Wars is a mess. No one wants to admit it but their superhero movies have an uncertain future without their two most popular characters (initially Iron Man and later Captain America). As for their other movies ... their big thing going right now is either sequels of remakes - Maleficient 2 was last year, The Lion King 2, The Jungle Book 2 and Aladdin 2 are all in the works - or more movies based on rides (Jungle Cruise starring The Rock was supposed to be their big summer movie this year). 

The combination of their massive debt and not getting any real return on theatrical releases - to the point where their goal was merely to break even in order to make money on merchandising for a lot of their films - means they have no choice but to focus on streaming. And even streaming is going to cannibalize their cable channel revenues.