by amol on July 25, 2011 in About Peek
We like the infographic. Thanks Engadget.
However, bloggers take note! India is just *one* country where Peek-powered gadgets are cropping up. Keep your radio tuned right here for more.
by amol on July 20, 2011 in About Peek
The latest phone to feature Peek’s Genius Cloud is on the shelves, and it’s from one of the most exciting companies to arrive on the mobile scene: MicroMax.
Here is the MicroMax story in case you missed it featured in BusinessWeek a year ago.
In short, they focused on local Indian-market needs, built a killer brand and distribution operation, and have sourced the rising wave of Made In China devices built around Mediatek. You’ve heard about them before from Peek — though perhaps not in the typical US or European press.
Next you’ll hear about their billion-dollar revenue run rate and stock market splash. They are already the number one Indian phone brand and have pushed Sony Ericsson, LG, and many other global names aside to sit with Samsung and Nokia atop the overall India market rankings.
But today we are thrilled to be part of the launch of a terrific new phone – the Q80 EZPAD. A slick, shiny, metal phone with QWERTY keypad, two cameras, dual SIMs, 3G, and lots more under the flagship feature: real-time, instant, right now, don’t-blink email from Peek’s cloud platform.
In short, it outdoes Blackberry and it’s half the cost (about USD 100). Here comes the future.
by dan on July 19, 2011 in About Peek
Deep in the engineering bowels of Peek, we are churning out innovation after innovation. Today we are leaking this exciting new, never before seen game for the MediaTek platform:
Next up Doom and Super Mario Brothers. Yep, be excited.
by dan on July 14, 2011 in About Peek
When I talk to people in mobile in North America, the prevailing wisdom seems to be “Android is going to win”. Even in the sub-$100 phones, even eventually in sub-$50 phones. And so far it has been hard to argue with that trend. For instance Broadcom’s 2157 Android Reference Design has a $45 bill of materials and is enabling sub-$100 Android (maybe even sub $75 depending on duties and shipping costs)!! Well the times are a changing.
Android by Scarygami, some rights reserved
HTC settled with Microsoft and now pays a reported $5/device in fees. Microsoft has taken that success and is now working up and down the Android ODM landscape, and apparently looking for $15 from Samsung. In addition to Microsoft, Oracle is hot in pursuit, suing Google directly for the usage of Java and allegedly distributing Oracle’s Java code and using Java’s[1]. On top of going after Google, Oracle is offering manufacturers licenses for $15-$20/device[2]. So manufacturers looking at using Android may be looking at anywhere from $5-$30 of royalty fees/device depending on how the litigation settles out. On a phone with a bill of materials in the sub $65 range, there simply won’t be room to pay for the OS. Manufacturers will turn to alternatives that cost $0 or have more “predictable” business models not mired in litigious, patent hell.
In a world where companies like Amazon[2] are putting their own flavours of Android with their own app stores, collecting their own revenues, it may make Android’s business model less sustainable. There are now at least 30 app store alternatives to Google on Android [3].
It also seems that many of the major players in China are looking to provide alternatives. The big internet players have all announced major mobile OS initiatives – Alibaba, Tencent, Baidu, Xiamo Tech have all been rumoured to launch their own OSs, some based on Android, some built up from scratch . On top of these higher end smartphone initiatives, MediaTek themselves are pushing their new major platform, MRE, picking up big wins including a content partnership with Yahoo![4]. MRE is dubbed the “made for featurephones” OS that will run on platforms with very low platform requirements (think sub 104mhz processors).
A mobile OS with roots in China could be massively successful in China, leading to a further geographical splintering of mobile OSs as well [5],[6],[7]. It’d be very interesting to see how regions like India and South East Asia would be impacted by a new mobile smartphone OS coming out of China, given the current domination of MediaTek, no branded phones in those markets.
Android is clearly going to face stiff competition as it tries to move downstream and into emerging markets, and its ability to win will be largely based on its ability to keep its price at $0.
1. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2011/jan/21/android-patent-oracle-problems
2. http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/070711-oracle-win-would-strain-android.html
3. http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/22/amazon-appstore-for-android-goes-live-welcomes-newcomers-with-f/
4. http://blog.roound.com/post/6822533955/over-30-android-app-stores-globally
5. http://www.mediatek.com/en/news/info.php?sn=76
6. http://technode.com/2010/11/19/alibabas-big-plan-for-mobile-internet/
7. http://technode.com/2011/03/23/lee-kaifus-comments-on-baidus-mobile-phone-os/
8. http://technode.com/2011/07/08/alibaba-tencent-to-release-smart-phone/?amp
by amol on July 14, 2011 in About Peek
Who are these brands that are ballooning up on the MTK juice?
That is: who are these new phone makers who use the MediaTek chipset to make killer, low cost phones and steal share from Nokia?
Here are a few:
Fly Mobile who is big in Russia
MicroMax which is big in India
Nexian who is the top dog in Indonesia
Spice Group which has strong mobile businesses in several markets
Q-Mobile in Thailand (another one!)
