Tencent – Feathering the nest

Reply to this post           Rovio could help Tencent spread its wings. Rovio is almost certainly past its prime but it has an asset that could be capitalised on should the right buyer come along. Tencent is not showing any real signs of being the right buyer at the moment but its ownership of Supercell makes...

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Airbnb – American losing streak

Reply to this post           Airbnb unlikely to win in China. Airbnb, like Uber and Amazon before it, has fight on its hands when it comes to the Chinese market meaning that it will have to do something very different to break the current losing streak. Apple is the one exception which I think is due...

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Facebook – Dial M pt. II

Reply to this post           Very little AI in the assistant that has launched. Now that Facebook’s digital assistant is available in the wild, one can see how simplistic it is indicating just how far Facebook still has to go to get a real grip on making its services more intelligent. Facebook M has been in...

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E3 2017 – Glaring omission

Reply to this post           Very little interest in mobile gaming at E3. E3 is the biggest trade show for the computer games industry but it still seems to be ignoring one of its most important segments: gaming on mobile devices. Mobile gaming is radically different from gaming on PCs and consoles in three ways: First:...

ARM vs. Intel – Pause for thought.

Reply to this post           Intel shoots at Asia rather than at home. With another attempt to replace Intel chips in PCs on the cards, Intel has moved to protect its position with a not so subtle reminder that its instruction set is covered by a large number of patents. The 40th anniversary of the x86...

Alphabet – Goodbye blue sky pt. II.

Reply to this post           Homeless robots find permanent shelter. Alphabet has reached a deal to sell both Boston Dynamics and Schaft to SoftBank leaving it more focused on its core business of collection and monetisation of Internet data. Boston Dynamics is a robotics company that specialises in robots that are autonomous as far as navigating...

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Essential Products – Domestic bliss.

Reply to this post           Home is where the heart is While I am not a fan of Essential Products’ phone (see here), I think that the strategy around the smart home is bang on I think it has created the right product. I don’t like the phone simply because it does not do anything particularly...

Amazon – A song of ice and fire.

Reply to this post           Project ice has nothing to do with phones. After racking up nearly $1bn in losses from its last foray into handsets, one would think that Amazon would have had enough but it appears that it is at it again but for a totally different reason: India. Project ice appears to be...

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WWDC 2017 – Catch-up gems.

Reply to this post           Mostly catch up but studded with a few gems. While Apple spent most its time catching up with innovations made by other ecosystems, there were a few areas where its announcements put it ahead of the pack. Machine Learning Apple is weaving machine learning into all of its services. This combined...

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iOS vs Android – The big switcheroo

Reply to this post           The Digital Life pie is essential for stickiness. Following 2½ years as an iPhone user, I decided to try and make the switch to Android and was amazed by how easy it was. I have switched from iPhone to a Samsung Galaxy s8 I believe that the ease of transition came...