Motorola says software will win tablet war

Motorola says software will win tablet war

CEO Sanjay Jha defends hardware performance of Xoom, but says user experience most important factor

By CAROLINE GABRIEL

Published: 2 March, 2011

http://www.rethink-wireless.com/2011/03/02/motorola-software-win-tablet-war.htm

Even when its hardware innovations ruled the mobile world, Motorola was never known for its software prowess. But Sanjay Jha, now CEO of Motorola Mobility, made it a key mission to change all that, when he joined the firm from Qualcomm. Now he says the decision to focus on Android is starting to reap rewards, in an era when the applications and user experience were more important than hardware in luring consumers.

Speaking at Morgan Stanley's Technology, Media and Telecom Conference, Jha said that most of the new tablets coming to market will have similar processing power and other physical attributes, but they would be differentiated in software. This was true in the enterprise market too, where he claimed a high level of interest in Android tablets. "CIOs like Android," he said. "The ability to add applications and customize your devices is appealing."

Ironically, then, most of the criticisms of the Motorola Xoom, which went on sale last week, have focused on its software, notably the new Honeycomb release of Android, the first to be optimized for larger screens. Although the Xoom has scored points by being the first device to run Honeycomb, and Google's showcase product, it also carries the burden of being associated with any teething problems. Early reviewers have said the new OS release is clearly still a work in progress, with users complaining of frequent app crashes. Also, Adobe Flash is not yet ready for Honeycomb, though it is expected to arrive on Android tablets next month.

One of the reasons for Jha's focus on the enterprise is that it will be less price sensitive. Motorola has taken the gamble of assuming that many users will favor high performance, especially the ability to upgrade to LTE soon, over price, so Xoom is more expensive than the iPad (and the iPad 2 is not expected to increase the Apple price tag). Jha reminisced: "We knew that iPad was launched and we got started building a product, and we felt very early on that we needed to deliver a product which had higher performance. And of course … we sort of thought that by the time we deliver a product, shortly thereafter there will be an iPad 2 or some such. So we had to shoot a little bit in front of where we felt the iPad product was."

宏碁收購海外軟體公司，野村正面看待

• 2011-05-13 
• 【時報記者任珮云台北報導】
  

    新台幣匯價走升趨勢確立，國內出口商面對匯損壓力成了不可抗拒的痛，但也是購併的好機。值此之際，野村證券以宏碁(2353)為例，認為國內高科技的電子業可以仿效宏碁，宏碁進行第三次的組織改革，規畫將閒置的資金投入收購海外的軟體公司。
新台幣匯率升值讓NB品牌及代工業者的OPM都受到侵蝕，野村證認為，宏碁最近展開的第三波改革計畫，將觸角延伸到軟體是朝「正確」的方面。
為了強化軟硬整合實力，宏碁已鎖定國內外的軟體開發商，將採取投資與收購行動。宏碁董事長王振堂指出，這次軟體投資案有助宏碁的電腦、智慧型手機、平板電腦更具競爭力。

野村證券認為，在新台幣匯價強升之際，將閒置資金導入更有效的事業，幫助企業重新界定戰略優勢，可以有效回報股東報酬率。