Tag Archives: Huawei

August 21, 2015 · 07:41

Optus Yes = Optus WTF

You know, I have been in this field for quite some time and for the most I tend to give people (and organisations) the benefit of the doubt. Yet what should we think of an organisation that does not have its act together, seems to be clueless what it is doing, or should be regarded as massively incompetent?

I’ll let you decide on the following facts.

Fact one. The bulk of the Optus Shops, as well as nearly every other shop that deals in Optus mobile internet is out of stock.

This literally amounts to the notion that at Optus, at least two boss levels above the store keeper, people are either incompetent or asleep (which amounts to the same thing). The Huawei E5377 WIFI Modem is registered to be out of stock. How can a mobile provider like Optus continue without sellable product? To be this unable to service your customers, without any alternative is just beyond stupid. In addition, the fact that Optus stores are still in ‘Yes’ advertisement mode could be construed as misleading conduct. When we consider Australian Consumer Law, we see in section 18 Misleading or deceptive conduct “A person must not, in trade or commerce, engage in conduct that is misleading or deceptive or is likely to mislead or deceive“. Stating ‘yes’ and then not have it in stock, seems to be just that.

This is however not enough. You see, one product does not make for issues, this should be regarded as just a case of bad luck, which we all have that at times.

When people pay for services that cannot be upheld, we have an entirely different matter.

That part seems to be an additional issue that hit me like a steel mace across the chops. You see, I had a case of bad luck, I had to get a new phone, in my case the Huawei P7, which was on special. Less than three months later the battery buckles. I now only get 10 hours standby from a battery. This is massively unacceptable! So, I go to Optus and fair enough, they take it into repair under warranty. I cannot ask for more, which is fair enough, so now I am stuck with my old phone, which is a major concern on several levels. I got lucky, because I got to borrow a Huawei E5251 with 8 GB. The first file goes swimmingly, which means 700 Mb all done. Now the problem starts! Even though powered, it takes three attempts to get a 4.8 GB file, 1.7 GB, 3.8 GB, and after that at a little over 1.3 GB the system stops, failed attempts with corrupt data. No way to save it, this now implies that Optus can no longer maintain a functional 3G wireless connection. This now has large repercussions for the consumers, because the consumer pays for 8 GB of data, whilst it was never functional. The lobotomised excuse from ‘customer care’ is ‘you used your data’, whilst we now have an issue with the reliability of the Optus network. The half-baked excuse they gave that ‘this can happen’ holds little water when the consumer gets to pay for functionality that cannot be met.

The question in my mind now becomes, is this isolated or is this a symptom of a much larger issue? This now takes us to the Australian Financial Review of May 18th 2015, where we see “Singtel-Optus chief executive Allen Lew will focus on keeping costs down by providing more customer services via the internet and run a “hard-nosed” review of its 160 retail stores” (at http://www.afr.com/business/telecommunications/optus-in-hardnosed-retail-review-to-keep-costs-down-20150517-gh3h5q). Yet, when we consider the hard-nosed part. Is that the case or has the upper staff ignored infrastructure issues? When I cannot rely on 3G networks in Sydney city to download data (speed was not an issue), we must consider that the objective of ‘keeping cost down’ is now at the expense of its consumers, a part that was not that clear in the Financial Review. This makes the quote “yes, we will grow but we will make sure that the growth is profitable growth” debatable at best, and concerning at the very least. Another quote is “an Optus spokeswoman later told Fairfax Media that cutting costs would not lead to any decrease in service quality or an overall fall in jobs“, well the service levels are not met, whether the job situation remains good, is something for the future to be decided.

So, is there a pure stock issue, or is there more? The latter remains the more likely than not scenario as my personal point of view, for all shops to be without 4G wireless routers implies that that the stocktake part does not work or the shortage is nothing more than a signal that the Optus network is starting to get really congested. That last part is of course a speculation on my side, but doesn’t it make sense? Virgin and Telstra are selling their 4G modem plans, yet in the case of Virgin, they too ‘suddenly’ ran out of the Huawei E5377 WIFI Modem. Which would seem to give strength to the thought that this is a mere ‘stock’ issue. Yet, if that is so, how incompetent was the executive to let it go this far? In addition, the issue of the unstable 3G is not addressed.

For this I have to make a jump back to 2010, when this was posted “Optus is known to put a lot of its web data through a proxy which reduces the packet size and makes it seem like your connection is faster. This comes at the cost of reduced quality in the form of images and the like“, important to know here is that the source is not reliable, but it is one of many voices. In 2011 the Sydney Morning Herald gave us (at http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/mobiles/optus-makes-customers-pay-to-fix-its-blackspots-20110411-1da6b.html), with the quote “But analysts believe the real reason behind launching the product is that the Optus mobile network is struggling and Optus would prefer to make consumers fork out money to ensure their mobile phones work at home, as opposed to the Telco investing in more mobile towers“, which now gives us a clearer view, a view that is more reliable at least, in addition we get “Foad Fadaghi, a telecommunications analyst at Telsyte, said femtocells had typically been used in the US by poor quality carriers that had not invested enough in the capacity of their networks” which is an additional tone to the previous quote. The Optus response was “Optus said in response to the criticisms that the new technology was designed to ensure customers received “the best value and experience from their mobile devices”. It said it had invested over $2 billion in its mobile network over the past five years and built over 600 mobile sites in 2010, with a similar number of mobile sites planned to be built this year“, yet consider the issue when we read “Telco’s needed to be upfront from the start about coverage and the capacity of their networks and the onus should be on them, not the customer“, an issue I basically faced as no uncorrupted data house arrived at my station. The mention of ‘capacity of their networks‘ is now in play. For a 4G tower to scale back to 3G is one thing, yet do they process basic 3G in the same way? 600 towers is a massive amount, and that article is a few years old, but the final part in all this was at http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/133245-4g-vs-3g-it-s-not-just-download-speed-you-know, as well as the Telstra site (which I will ignore for now). A 4G network should be able to offer data at 15.1Mbps, which is only barely above normal broadband. 3G gives data at 6.1Mbps, which is considerable slower, yet if time was not an issue, 3G should work, but in my case it did not. I reckon that we are starting to see congestion where 3G is sacrificed to maintain the 4G standards. This is pure speculation on my side, but is that such a stretch? There were clear indications for half a decade that Optus was a failing network, now they thought they were back, but the deals offered through Optus Yes were so ‘fashionable’ that millions switched, now we see that adding a thousand towers whilst the data need of millions went up by 250% could be a clear indication of massive congestion dangers, which will now lead to dropped data packages and in some cases corrupt packages, which gave me my aggravating position. 8 GB to download 5 GB and none of it survived the trip. Now this month (actually this week) we see “Optus launches tri-band carrier aggregation“, which shows increased speeds. The quote “It is a more efficient use of our spectrum bands and will provide a more consistent and better experience for our customers“, it is the ‘more efficient use of our spectrum bands’ that flagged it for me. Is this truly about ‘speed’ for the customer or to deal with congestion? If congestion is a problem in Sydney, than we have new worries, more important, we will soon have a lot less stability. In all this I will state again, that some of these views are speculative and of course they are tainted due to issues I faced, but are they less of an issue because of that? Now let’s see if the same problem persists with Telstra, I know a guy with an extra wireless router, let’s see what happens tonight!

I try to stay on the fence and fair (even though I am very much pissed off), I just wonder who else has been faced with corrupted downloads whilst having to pay for the download. I reckon Optus has a problem and they still have to find a way to address it.

 

 

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March 31, 2015 · 22:58

Chicks for free

Yup, that is the name of the game, how to get your chicks for free. You can go towards the end seeing what you can pick up from the free handing from the tray that serves the drinks and babes, but the song is not that simple, you see The Dire Strait sang: “Get your money for nothin’ get your chicks for free“. The song refers to doing things for fun, when it is fun, at times it feels like you are not working at all.

In my view the expression has evolved. As I see it, ‘money for nothing‘ is more and more about value for money. Deals that are too good to pass up. Here we now get to the issue at hand. We look at players like Apple (with their iPhone), Google (with their Nexus) and several other players like Nokia, Microsoft, Samsung, LG and a few others, yet the one player many ignored, namely Huawei did what others would not in their iterative field of exploitation. They decided to give the people value for money, not some half-baked offer, but the power offer that the models P7 and Mate7 are bringing. The P7 priced at almost 50% of the old models of most is more than a contender, in addition, the Mate7 offers a massively stronger device than the new models from Samsung, Apple, LG or Nokia can offer, hundreds of dollars cheaper. So now we get to the BBC article (at http://www.bbc.com/news/business-32126628). So the quote “The world’s second biggest telecoms equipment maker said its net profit was 27.9bn yuan ($4.5bn; £3bn), up from 21bn yuan in 2013” is not all about mobile phones, but Huawei is now quickly showing to be the number one choice for consumers and students (consumers, usually lacking in funds) alike. It seems to me that even though there is a decent group with funds that is all about value for money and that group has been ignored by the providers at large, which means that Huawei is now sweeping the nations on a global level. There are two parts in the story, which become a concern.

The first one is “Huawei’s growth comes despite it facing challenges in several major economies. In the US, it was branded a national security threat by legislators, because of its alleged close ties with the Chinese government“. There is no clarity on how precise this quote is (the next one will touch on this). So, if the statement is true, how about OOCL (containers) and Evergreen (Taiwan containers). Are they a security threat? I think it goes further, as some players were sitting on their hands, Huawei has been growing the business globally, now they are ready to get into bed with ‘facilitators’ in a very wide area of business. If we look at the Huawei Tecal servers we see a device that goes beyond simple needs. Its citrix compatibility gives a first view that soon Huawei will be the number one choice for new SaaS solutions, mobile providers of consultancy but from a cloud environment, meaning that these new engineers will be global. They are not ready for the next part yet, the issue is not just the data; it is about the transit mode of data for Huawei. They are now one step away from nibbling at the feet of Cisco. Cisco is comfortable for now, but that could soon change. You see, in 2012 Huawei was not ready for any of it, but they remained quiet for 2 years whilst their consumer market grew, now within a year, if their router solutions are decently shielded, they can move forward.

Now we get the second quote: “Meanwhile, it has been banned from being involved in broadband projects in Australia over espionage fears“. Really? So American solutions are not any kind of espionage fear? I am not judging, it seems to me that either our personal data goes to America or China. The article does not seem to elaborate on this part. This we see in the final quote of the article: “However, the company said it was well positioned to capture business opportunities with heavy investment in innovative areas such as cloud computing and fifth generation (5G) mobile technology“. Personally, I do not think that 5G is anywhere near an option for providers of mobile networking at present in any affordable kind of way, but the cloud is another matter. Whatever next part will be used to get business growing and moving forward will require the cloud. Yet, as I saw it for the last two years, security is just not good enough, not from any provider. That part can be seen in this place: http://2015itss.ucdavis.edu/event/the-weak-link-in-cloud-security-2/, here we see the following: “This session will illustrate and demonstrate that the very collaborative nature of SaaS (Software as a Service), such as Box or Google Apps, may also be their weakness. When organizations adopt cloud applications, users must take care to ensure that the organization’s sensitive cloud data does not end up in the wrong hands“. This is at the core of one of several issues. SaaS is only one part. The adoption and implementation is at the centre of a cloud that could be the fog that keeps us all blind as we lose data towards whatever provider of consultancy requirements were miscommunicated too. What a weak data web we weave for ourselves!

This event in June 2015 shows several more issues that we all in business need to consider as we are at times decently in the dark of that what must happen and that what needed to be done. The reality is that Huawei is not even a factor here, this all becomes an issue in any implementation. So why is there no clearer broadband issue? Is there truly a Chinese espionage fear, or are some players too dependent on whatever solution SaaS offers and in this stride, data leakage will be an issue from day one, whether the owner of the solution is Chinese or other. What is without a doubt is that Huawei is making massive strides, they are doing it in places where they were not a consideration 6 months ago! So what is wrong with the picture I am showing you?

I am not showing you any picture, but I am implying that the other big players (all American) are currently losing out on business, on revenue and on profit.

I wonder how the Dow will take it!

 

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February 12, 2015 · 21:30

Supporting exploitation

This time, there is a different issue in play, this time, I have felt the consequence of both crime and scheming, all in one nice package. Part of this is set in the article ‘Robbed of a mobile, but we have to pick up the thief’s phone bill. Why?‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/feb/11/robbed-mobile-thiefs-phone-bill).

Now, my mobiles has been stolen, it has been broken and a few other issues have gone my way. Now in the first, I have to admit that I was with Optus at the time, stolen mobile, we had a business account and to my surprise, a new mobile and no hassle (just a small fee). This was great, the doom feeling of what had happened was a feeling that some places are great to be connected to. Now in the article we see the following quote: “it’s worth pointing out that you are not liable for any charges once you’ve reported a phone lost or stolen. But there are often good reasons why this may not be immediately possible, and during the briefest of delays, thieves can run up catastrophic charges“. Yes, this is true, but there is also an initial solution. You see, no matter how important you are as a business person, your ego is getting in the way fast. You see, disabling International calls on day one, in addition to 1900 and 1902 numbers stops massive costs coming your way. There is also the embarrassment you have when your boss asks you which distributor had 1900-blow-my-mobile is also worth the day one blocking action.

The next paragraph is the kicker: “In 2012, Ofcom gave service providers until that summer to present plans to cap customers’ liabilities and declared they would face enforcement action if they failed. Nothing happened. In December 2013 the government announced that six of the big providers had finally agreed a cap, and that, from spring 2014, customers – like victims of bank card theft – would not have to pay more than around £50 for thieves’ phone calls. Nothing happened. A year on, only Three has introduced protection – customers are liable for only the first £100 before a phone is reported missing, provided they report it within 24 hours“, so when you are on holiday or on business abroad, and your phone gets stolen, the chance of you notifying your stolen phone in time is not an option.

The paragraph becomes even more interesting if you Google the following “Ofcom spineless useless“, you get 32,000 hits. So we can say that whatever Ofcom pretends to be, which by their own statements is “Independent regulator and competition authority for the UK communications industries” (at http://www.ofcom.org.uk/), we can state with some certainty that it has failed the British people close to 100%. This view does not evolve in any positive way when we look at http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/enforcement/competition-bulletins/complaints-disputes/, where we see ‘Ofcom’s Approach to Complaints and Disputes‘, the text on that page is “This page provides links to guidance that Ofcom has produced setting out our powers and processes we will follow in conducting investigations into adherence with regulatory rules, consumer protection issues, competition issues and resolving regulatory disputes“, with a few PDF links, so how useful is Ofcom?

Well, the Guardian had this to say: “It would seem Ofcom is waiting for the government to do something and the government is waiting for the phone companies to find a solution“, which is not even close to the actual part, it seems that Ofcom is all about sort of regulating issues, but awaiting feedback from stakeholders in regards to these actions (which are likely to be phone companies and when we see the Telecoms Complaints Bulletin on Ofcom, we see a few charts on silent calls and unwanted marketing calls. So is Ofcom basically a report valve that gives the telecom companies a signal when marketeers and phone companies have to simmer down a little bit?

So when we see the claim “Ed Vaizey, the digital economy minister, met the big players last month. Once again they promised a code of practice, but, strangely, still haven’t agreed on the details. “We expect the networks to confirm shortly details of liability caps and when they will be introduced,” says the Department of Media, Culture and Sport“, we must wonder if Mr Vaizey is actually seriously looking into an issue that has played for many years now.

The next part involves Vodafone (or Vodafail as some call it) and opens up an entirely new can of worms, one that I myself have been privy to.

“Vodafone says it has agreed to “explore” a cap but the sticking point is how to do that without destroying the incentive to report a phone missing. “We do not want to create an environment where it is even more attractive for criminals to focus on theft,” it says“, you see, that is not the Vodafone I have been experiencing!

So, last year I had a heart attack, this happens, as it happens I had a sim for my iPad with Vodafone, which is a data only thing. Now, I admit, I was late with paying, which is my own fault and whilst in hospital, they had cut me off. With that I had no issue; I was late, my own fault, as I stated before. Now comes the kicker, whilst in hospital  and after that in recovery, I learned that even though cut off, I am still liable for ALL COSTS, so that means that whilst cut off, I am still due all monthly expenses, even when disconnected. The fact that I had had a heart attack did not interest them. So I am still in a legal fight with Vodafone, I accept the initial costs, but the months after that I refuse, so it is due to go to court at some point. Vodafone might state it is exploring, yet its main need is to stay afloat, which makes them close to desperate. That part is seen with ‘Mobile users flee Vodafone Australia‘, which started in 2013. The quote “Vodafone Hutchison Group lost 600,000 customers in the three months ending September 30, even as its British parent first-half results showed a return to profit” is only the tip of the iceberg that will sink the ‘Vodafonic’ (that event filmed by James Cameron, where you see Leonardo DiCaprio drown in icy cold water at http://www.businessspectator.com.au/news/2013/11/13/technology/mobile-users-flee-vodafone-australia). The fact that Vodafone is still linked to a class action brought by Piper Alderman should indicate that Vodafone has a league of issues, capping is not even close to their essential need to solve.

But we go back to the issue at hand regarding phone bills. The article ends with the realisation that in an election year these issues will not be addressed, which means that this issue will stay around until at least 2016, which is odd as we consider the article ‘Bankrupted by a mobile phone bill‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/money/2013/dec/07/mobile-phone-bill-cap-theft), which is 14 months old. The issue, that was raised and gave way for the quote “culture secretary Maria Miller told journalists in Beijing this week that a deal had been struck to introduce a bank card-style limit to a consumer’s liability – possibly as low as £50“. In my view as a Tory, both Maria Miller and Ed Vaizey need to wake up fast and start a few fires in the halls of telecom corporations. You see, it is after all an election year and should Labour or Ukip achieve that what the conservatives could not, the fallout will be, as I see it a conservative unpopular one (well over 80% of the population worries about their mobile bill), because governing from the opposition bench is not governing at all, it is merely spouting critique to those who govern. The first course of action, as I personally see it, is to shake up the Ofcom executive committee by replacing Steve Unger, Polly Weitzman and Jonathan Oxley. I reckon the signal that the chief executive, the general council and the group director for Competition are replaced by individuals with bite, who will hunt issues for the victims and the general audience, might give the signal to the Telecom companies to act now, or accept a much harsher deal soon after the elections are done. The reality is, that when that signal comes, they will all quickly agree with the Three policy, which means a £100 cap and possible a reporting extension to a max of 72 hours, which would be fair.

Yet, this is not even close to the only thing in play, you see, last month Google made an announcement to no longer support any Android version before KitKat (v4.4). This means that not only are people almost forced into new mobiles, the flaws, gaps and other issues that might pop up are at the heart of what follows and that what is already happening to the current mobile user base (including myself). First there are the iPhones. Apple is already experiencing the class action in that regard. The fact that IOS is taking up around 20% is just bizarre. Apple could have saved itself a lot of hassle by just having the 64Gb phone at a 16Gb price, I was told (from an unconfirmed source) that the parts involved costed no more than $49. So how ridiculous is the entire issue that Apple is forcing upon Apple? Let’s not forget they have around 170 billion in loose change. Now, I am not stating that they had to pay for it, but to just set the 64Gb edition at $799 would have saved them a boatload of hassles. In this Android is not without faults either. The new phones, with 2Gb ram and 16Gb storage drops down a lot in Android. There, of the 2Gb you are only left with 1Gb and you lose an easy 30% of your 16Gb. Now, that is still a decent amount, but to consider that my old smartphone, which was 1Gb with 4Gm storage has now dwindled to a 250Mb phone (so I can run 2 apps at the most), with just 2.4Gb storage is not what I signed up for. As Google became too clever for its own good, adding more and more trash I never want or need, setting dozens of updates which no longer let my phone work is now at the core of my problem. I cannot even deactivate most, it shows up at EVERY update, selecting what I actually need and not what Google thinks I might like is at the core of my growing resent of Android. And with every app pushed out, there is additional danger that the security of my phone gets compromised, especially as Jellybean is no longer supported.

Yet there is more. I am now looking at a new phone, whilst I know the limitations I face. The strongest was the Huawei Mate7 premium. Now, here is the kicker, the 3Gb phone with 32Gb storage will only get you 1.7Gb RAM and 25Gb from day one, Android takes the rest and this is close to the strongest phone that a limited budget can buy. In Australia the smallest iPhone starts at $1000, the 64Gb, which would be a minimum choice is 20% more expensive, whilst these phones only have 1Gb RAM. This all seems as short-sighted as the developers of Xbox One showed to have. Yet, it must also be said that 1Gb seems to suffice for Apple, that is shown in this small article (at http://www.phonearena.com/news/Why-Android-phones-need-3GB-of-RAM-and-iOS-gets-by-with-1GB-of-the-stuff_id62901), yes IOS is more efficient, but as IOS evolves, so will the need for RAM, which when it starts to be too little would of force us to upgrade again. Was it such a jump to set the iPhone RAM to 2Gb? When you become a penny pincher, you face class actions and that is exactly what Apple faces now. Although I remain (for now) Android minded, and When we compare the Nexus 6 (the very latest), we see that it only almost equals the Huawei Mate7 premium. The Nexus is however $100 more, whilst the screen resolution was a lot more impressive on the Huawei, but that could just be the Jazz screensaver. This shows that Huawei is not just the Android player, with the P7 and Mate7, Huawei is now the contender that makes Google sweat. Like Apple, Google could have saved themselves a lot of hassle by not skimping on resources, which could have pulled the customers in like a magnet, now in the margins they will see customers slip through their fingers, which will be an unsettling feeling for whomever misses out on commission.

All this as the providers supported exploitation; we see that the massive losses are now showing as the margins are not worth considering for some. The same could be said for the upcoming Samsung S6, it looks amazing, but as they fix one issue by being a 4Gb RAM player, they waste it on bringing a 32Gb version, which might suffice for now, but what in 2 years? Getting the 64Gb version makes sense, but then it becomes a $1240 millstone around your neck. So as I see it, Huawei is the budget choice, which still gives you a top of the line contender, iPhone and Nexus are slowly pricing themselves away by offering the entry option, which is a joke as we see space used.

All this now links back to the issue of phone theft and the inactions of Ofcom. If stolen bandwidth and phone time is all there is, than you are gravely mistaken, these smartphones are not just a connection, they are a link to your diary, your details, your credit, your access and your future. Soon, we will see that organised crime will not just call their mommy in Samarkand, Zhengzou, Davao or Vung Tao. Soon they will transfer your data and access and see what else is under the hood. That is the added danger of the smartphone, because you had one more mail to read, one more file to see or one more connection to make, all that in applications that were never closed and accessed be merely starting the application. You see, what we ‘need’ to have, came first, and we all seem to forget the consequences of such choices. Ofcom cannot be held responsible for this, but they should have set up several parameters a long time ago, as they remained inactive in the phone charges issue, they also did little to nothing into changing certain parameters in connection monitoring and non-repudiation, all that left to whomever else, that is the danger we will face in 2015 and 2016. Unless there is a drastic event that shakes up the media, there is every indication that nothing will be done until it is too late.

History taught us that there is nothing as effective as taking away someone’s cushy job to make the next person consider showing their teeth from day one, but that might just be my imagination.

 

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October 10, 2014 · 09:54

Billion dollar blame

Some do it quick, some do it with conviction, some take a life time and some don’t experience it at all. You might want to guess on what naughtiness I am talking about. It is simple negative profit in a firm. Some seem clear, some are to be expected and some are just plain ignorant.

We could rephrase them as the alphabet, like A is for Airline that’s lost in the queue; B is for banks, who lost more than a few. But then, that nursery rhyme would get boring real quick. The issue is not Tesco, not as we read in Bloomberg: ‘Bank of America Lost $2.7 Billion in a Maze of Accounting‘, it is simple overreaching. First the car industry, now the mobile industry is getting hammered. It would be fine to just blame Apple, who does have a stake in this, but in the end the true culprit is what I call ‘lack of vision‘.

Sony is downgrading its profits to far below zero. It is projecting a loss of 2,140,000,000 at the end of the current financial year. So we are talking about a loss so big, I personally believe is that those ‘idea-illogicals’ are still with their heads in the pre-recession era, they keep on believing that the old ways still work. Guess what! That time is gone, the financial institutions and banks changed that game forever.

The electronics empire initially forecast a $466 million net loss by the end of the current financial year, but has now informed investors that the projected loss has been revised to $2.14 billion. That is the budget for a small nation, so how is Sony still around? Well, that is not about that part of the equation, but it is an interesting question to consider for the future. The biggest issue is with their mobiles and we should wonder how they are currently surviving. I have nothing against Sony mobiles, I have had Nokia mobiles, I have Sony mobiles and mobiles from Ericsson and currently I use a Motorola. The entire mobile market is plummeting, Apple is doing fine, but overall they are likely to see a peaking of profits too.

Why?

Well, like those in the car industry, the people behind them are just not too clued in. They listen to ‘experts’, ‘analysts’ and from there they think that they comprehend their customers. They get market research, get 1000-2000 responses, weigh the hell out of the data and they consider that they have the knowledge.

Guess what, it does not work that way!

True investigation takes more, takes longer and takes actual preparation. Some half-baked set-up, which is quickly designed on Monday, live on Tuesday, data collected up to Thursday and reporting on Friday can work for some parts to get a general idea, but in the end, you will not get the ACTUAL wisdom you need. And guess what, it is not just Sony doing this; there are a few other larger players. Apple, Alcatel, BenQ, HTC, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung, Siemens and Sony Ericsson et all. All of them have several models; most of them are not that cheap.

To this I add two facts. The first one is the economy. It has been 10 years when the 2004 crash came, that hit many people, then the 2008 crash that turned a massive amount of people over the brink of poverty. In that decade the consumer lost close to 21% of purchasing powers. In that decade, the bulk of all people lost a job, or was retrenched at least once, was forced to live on a frozen income, whilst prices of food and housing kept rising and many are not dealing with their debt, so that part is also hanging round their necks as an anchor. The consumer markets ignored that part and now they see the fallout, a fallout that could have been clear to them for at least 3 years, so the writing is not just on the wall, it is a massive neon billboard that was ignored by those who should not have done this (at http://www.cnet.com/au/news/sony-forecasts-2-1-billion-loss-this-year-due-to-its-smartphone-business/)

There is additional ‘evidence’, which is seen here in the quote “The Company blamed the ‘competitive environment of the mobile business.’ Sony has been hammered by competition and an inability to find distributors in key markets such as the US“, I consider that to be a statement of falsehood. Why?

Well, that is always the real question. Consider the list I gave earlier. Siemens has lost a large share, Ericsson lost it as it united with Sony (the company in question), Alcatel was never the largest party in this and neither is Siemens. Huawei is relatively new and several smaller ones do not make the list any more (like NEC), so overall Sony should have consolidated its visibility, but it did not and neither did Nokia. Apple, Samsung and HTC grew, yet overall Sony should not have lost THAT amount, which means that there is more. I blame the over flooding and iterative consumer model as one reason, such a model cannot be sustained if you cannot grow the customer base and that part is currently diminishing and will keep on diminishing for another 2 years. We can no longer afford a new mobile or car every year, in all honesty, we never could, but that part is mainly the result from the pushed idea of ‘ego’ and peer pressure.

The second quote that gives the ‘frying pan’ and ‘the fire’ expression is: “While its Xperia Z3 flagship is making its way into the US through T-Mobile“, many consumers have had enough of being held over a barrel by telecom providers, the ‘new’ mobile is less and less an incentive to hold on to a solution, that side only works for business customers and they too are shopping in the margins. The final quote is “companies such as Google and Microsoft are laying out plans to broaden their reach into the emerging markets with more affordable smartphones“, that group is now targeting the ACTUAL consumers that are available. Huawei had an advantage there, but they are quickly losing that advantage as they emulate Samsung and HTC more and more.

You see, in this day and age, mobile makers have been pressing the ‘exclusivity’ option just a little too long and now the towers break down. You do not have to believe it, but not unlike the car industry, we do not need 7 models with 22 configurations. That image is created by advertisers, finding people telling you that ‘choice’ is all about ‘individuality’ whilst they try to sell that same package to millions; it is a fake concept as I see it. Yes, we want some choice, but the consumer driven industry took that way over the top. That same issue we have seen in mobiles for some time now and the bigger players, coming with half a dozen models are now finding that they are selling ‘hot’ cakes from a fridge in a place where there is no electricity. So why the ridiculous amounts of ‘add-ons’?

Apple avoided most of the issues by having one phone in 3-4 options, where memory was the choice. We do not need 8-12 models, having one phone, which does most, would suffice. Then we get the issue with price, smaller models cost some, or need a ‘contract’, in my eyes it is an interaction of pimping and harlotry for customers, but who is who is not clear to the consumer. Consider that many do not have $800 for a phone, yes we get options for cheaper, but many providers offer a lot less at that point, whilst a generic cheaper phone would be the solution to many, brands are ego pushing the more expensive models at any given opportunity. Although Huawei seemed to have nailed the market, they seem to slowly start making the same error the others are making. Consider that Huawei offered a 4G phone for less than half the price (unlocked and free of contract) than many other providers, so why would we pay twice the price?

Let’s not forget that many providers are no longer delivering a reliable mobile. If it has android than it is likely that the phone is forcing Google search down our throats, whilst forcing people to store all data on a Google account, so that they can copy the data. Apparently there is a way to switch that off, but the result is implied to be so disgustingly customer unfriendly, that we are starting to wonder whether criminal charges are in order. Now, my Motorola suddenly got ‘enhanced’ buttons at the bottom, where it seems that there is a software overlaid button that FORCES me to Google search. How was that MY choice?

So, in the age of data, the market will soon belong to the mobile maker that will respect the customer and BY DEFAULT, let the person choose what they want to do with their data, photos and other smart phone parts. This is all linked, because where confidence dwindles, people are less likely to choose a smart phone and more likely to go back to the old days of the Nokia 1100 (with silver LCD screen, offering voice and SMS only, oh and it avoided bank security for a little while).

It is my firm believe that if big boys like Sony, Nokia and others want to turn their market around, they will need to take time to ACTUALLY learn their customers’ needs and not force corporate choice as customer wishes down the throats of these consumers. For example, instead of 19 Nokia Lumia models make 4 with one extra landscape option. If you only need 5 models, you can simplify the process, down production costs, distribution complications and get a better return. It is just a crazy thought, but what do I know. I thought that the Lumia was gorgeous, but I am not paying $935 for a phone, not in this age of theft and pickpockets, especially as phone insurances are getting less and less affordable. Sony should consider that same idea. Do you think Apple was lazy? 2 phone models, each with three memory options, which means two models each with three memory chip options. NO! Apple foresaw the complicated BS that others face and as such they have more than a small corner in the market. This is odd as the main component for a phone is its battery and Sony has always had superior battery technology, so Sony should have been the number one choice, but alas, that is not the case, so why do we see a contender with a superior key part run a market at minus 2000 million? Beats me, but someone is clearly asleep at the wheel.

Of course, I admit that I am oversimplifying the entire issue, but am I so wrong? I do not think so. I will admit that I missed a few issues in this, but as Sony is at minus a lot and others have a dwindling market, I feel that I am onto something. I am also certain that people have had enough of data collection and these mobile players to use their consumers as off the books revenue piggy banks, the first one to change the wheel on that process might end up owning the market. For those who would ‘ignore’ that path, remember that no matter how ‘valuable’ that data seems to be, once the customers walk away, you end up without data and without people using your product. Sony has the option to bounce back, but that window of opportunity is small and quickly getting smaller as Google and Microsoft are tapping into their own worlds. Sony might have not have that many options left and they forgot the one lesson Miyamoto Musashi instilled upon them almost 450 years ago: “If you do not control the enemy, the enemy will control you”, they forgot this lesson as well as the fact that ego is as much an enemy as an actual opponent, especially as ego is not regarded as an enemy until it strikes after which it gets named Hinan!

 

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March 27, 2014 · 20:31

Setting the stage

The Ukrainian escalation is slowly seeing some events, but not in a good way. We have seen several speeches as well as actions against certain heavy weight big wigs in-crowd at the Kremlin. Will these actions hold weight? Time will tell. I went over several facts in the blog article ‘Strongarm, Intimidate, Terrorise‘ which I published on March 18th. I also made a coalition mention in my blog article ‘Foreign and Domestic‘ on September 12th 2013, where I stated at the very end “that view might partially depend on the steps the growing New World Order coalition of Russia, China and India will take“. In the last two days we saw the following events.

1. India, Russia to sign deal for anti-tank ammunition (source: The Indian Express, et al) for $2.4B.
2. Crimea Crisis Pushes Russian Energy to China from Europe (source: Bloomberg) for $350B.
3. Private Chinese firm to buy 100 regional Sukhoi jets (source: Reuters, et al) for $3.5B.
4. ONGC, Russia’s Rosneft may join forces on oil flows (source: Reuters).

This is just in the last two days. So, yes, we might think that we are putting economic pressure on Putin, but are we?
The last mention is that if we persist, there is every chance that the cheaper gas meant for Europe could be redirected to the Indian consumer. That is exactly the fear I voiced in the story involving the Crimea (Strongarm, Intimidate, Terrorise). The Reuters article also states “Rosneft said it had also agreed with ONGC they may join forces in Rosneft’s yet-to-be built liquefied natural gas plant in the far east of Russia to the benefit of Indian consumers”, which implies that Russia will get additional Dineros (aka loads of money) to build that plant, or at least parts of it.
Europe basically has agreed to a spitting contest which could cost them. There are still moral sides to consider, both sides states that they are correct and Crimean’s who saw a loss of income for thousands of households and desperately tried to save them to remain with Russia. The Ukrainian top really did not think that part through (as I see it). Did they think that forcing Russia to Novorossiysk, leaving the Crimea without one of their biggest consumers would not have an impact? I still have questions on the legality of the ‘transfer’ from Ukraine to Russia of the Crimea region, but I do not have a proper view on the legitimacy of the referendum as such (from a pure legal point). The fact that this is what the Crimea people themselves want (for a massive part) is largely ignored by the press. I will state that the NOS at least tried to talk to a few of these people and many wanted to return to their Russian past (they were also very assertive in not letting others talk on their Ukrainian view).
So what will happen next? Let’s face it, 4 deals do not make for a Chinese, Indian and Russian summer party, but these are massive deals and this shows that the coalition growth I expected is now showing more rapid growth, likely because of the Ukrainian events. For me, I am a business man and as such, I have downloaded the Sukhoi S-100 PDF’s and see if I can start a trainings company to train the Chinese crews on using the flight and navigation instruments of the Sukhoi S-100 (just me trying to get creative). 100 planes mean at least 400 crews, which is 800 pilots and 400 engineers, so 1200 prospective trainees to train. At $750 a day, I could be employed for at least 3 years. So that might be an option as life in Sydney is pretty expensive. People might snipe at this thought, but consider the ego contest we see growing in west versus east. There is every indication that energy prices are likely to rise by unacceptable amounts soon enough. We see that governments are more and more selling off their healthcare and other services to meet budgets, which means more costs for the consumer soon enough. A step by the way for which a government cannot get faulted, but we the consumer still get to pay the bill.
As unemployment rates are still growing to the extent it does, we will have to look at alternatives. If we are willing to work hard, then it is not the worst idea to consider Russian companies like Sukhoi and Chinese companies like Huawei. The next wave is for those who are willing to put in the hours and as several businesses want to grow into several domestic markets, which they will one way or the other.
So getting out there and set the wave so you can be there at the beginning and get to the higher level of the pyramid when it grows above the others is never a bad idea.
Should you get questioned on basis of morality of choice then consider the powerbrokers of Wall Street who got millions after the 2008 crash, The events around Silvio Berlusconi (not the intimate ones), Karolos Papoulias, President of Greece who was in office when the Goldman Sachs creative accounting event was discovered. It is not the question whether he knew what was going on, as president the Euro will stop at his desk in the end. The Finance ministers over that period were Georgios Alogoskoufis, Yannis Papathanasiou and Giorgos Papakonstantinou. Giorgos Papakonstantinou was the person revealing what had happened before he took the office and negotiated the initial 110 billion Euro loan, which makes his acts the one of high moral fibre. The list goes on and on and on. So, consider that many high elected holier than thou politicians have often taken the coin road as this was not illegal or criminal, it is just the cost of doing business. When it comes to businesses there are even more questions. When we see the bad deal the people at Boeing got, as reported by several media outlets in January 2014 as well as the technical issues we see popping up with the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. We have been looking at American companies for too long, perhaps it is time to look at areas where the runner up is hungry to become the biggest one, as they could be the source of your next good meal. So several elements are slowly setting the economic stage for 2014 and 2015.
If your livelihood is in jeopardy, where will you look next?

 

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