ConsumerIT - For Europe's High Volume PC Retailers, Distributors & Builders

First, Sony announced a new project (Sony’s Networked Application Platform or SNAP) that will allow developers to create apps for the company's TVs, set-top boxes and other devices.

Now SNAP has been snapped off. The project is on hold and no one knows exactly why-- except Sony. For a conglomerate like Sony to announce and freeze a publicly announced project suggests either litigation issues (or a conversation to avoid litigation) or an acquisition (let's imagine the fabled Apple buys Sony discussion is taking place or Sony is buying up a software platform) or a tech swap deal (going with Microsoft in exchange for patent concessions).

SNAP is based on GNUstep, an open source variant of OpenStep developed by NeXT (before the Jobs-owned company was acquired by Apple).

Sony wants to leverage the open source community to deliver an alternative to Apple's iOS Cocoa Touch. Apple maintains the OpenStep spec through Cocoa and Mac OS X, but Sony believes GNUstep code has "diverged considerably."

Sony's plan would  not enable its products to use iOS apps (created for the iPhone or iPad), but would offer developers a  platform familiar to those who have already used Cocoa Touch to target Apple's products.

That doesn't sound like a bad plan from Sony, except for all the platform competition that iOS itself faces. So why the freeze?

Apple appears ready to use Cocoa for its Mac App Store. Can this Cocoa-centric development have anything to do with Sony's sudden SNAP freeze?

Go SNAP

Steve Ballmer is one of those guys who just can't hide a mood. Probably a terrible poker player. Which is why-- when Microsoft is crowing about Kinect sales-- that the refusal to provide Windows Phone 7 sales figures is damning.

UK store deal aggregator MobilesPlease says Phone 7 has accounted for just 3% of their smartphone sales, with Android outselling WP7 handsets 15:1. With 800,000 visitors to their sites, you have to take this report seriously.

The site says Symbian devices outsold Windows Phone 7 handsets by 3:1, with one device (Nokia N8) outselling all WP7 devices from a variety of manufacturers.

They even questioned one Carphone Warehouse store who claimed no Windows Phone 7 devices were on the sales floor. That's 0 for sale, that's nada to the cash register. Although the store did volunteer they “might have one in the back.” They probaly would have Palm PDAs back in storage if thet went looking....

That report makes sense as Carphone Warehouse corporate just announced they believe Android will be their best seller in their 2000+ European stores in this all-important Q4. That drops Nokia down a peg after decade of sales leadership.

CPW has the exclusive contract to sell the newest Google-branded phone, the Nexus S, which will go on sale this month with Android 2.3 software, the "Gingerbread".

Meanwhile, retailers and operators report Microsoft's Phone 7 phones, released in October, have seen disappointing sales due to product shortages, consumer confusion and (in UK) rivalry between networks over co-branding with Orange.

CPW chief commercial officer, Graham Stapleton says, "Customers tell us that being able to have a choice, being able to personalise their choice of phone is a key difference about Android compared to some of the other platforms out there."

Microsoft's relaunch of its mobile offering through the Windows Phone 7 devices is off to a slow start. Stapleton says sales "haven't yet met expectations." He actually hopes the platform would grow in popularity. "It would be healthy for customers if Microsoft were here, too."

Better hang up now. Ballmer is not going to be pleased.

Go MobilesPlease

Micron integrates error management techniques with its NAND products with ClearNAND.

As semiconductor circuity shrinks, data error rates increase, calling for more sophisticated error correction code (ECC).

ClearNAND eliminates the ECC burden from the host processor through an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) and an 8 byte capacity NAND die acting a data collection cache.

The ClearNAND itself appears as a standard NAND interface to the host processor.

Micron uses its 25nm MLC process in its manufacture.

Products are available in 2 versions-- standard and enchanced.

Standard ClearNAND products are aimed at portable media players and other CE devices, in 8-32GB packages.

Enchanced products add enterprise-specific features to the package. Available in 16-64GB versions, Enchanced ClearNAND target for enterprise and computing applications.

Go Micron Unveils ClearNAND

Using IDC as a source for the statistics, here you can see mapped out from 2007 to 2012 (but excluding phones), the sales growth in key product categories.

The important trendline here, in our opinion, is the RED category of the Home Network devices. This category will also drag along other categories, e.g., Blu-ray, STB/DVR ...

In a world of devices, connectivity will be where retailers and distributors will find the better margins.

Looking at the whole, you can see how any whole store would grow if you stocked all categories at competitive prices (just as the industry grew according to the chart) but some product categories deserve more attention. For your sake as well as for the consumer's...

This is why Best Buy and others create zones of interest... and why zones of interest are becoming more than those inert, unmanned display areas of the past. Right now, the money is on showing the public how the network can be the spinal cord of all the digital activity in a home.

This creates opportunity to sell products connected to the network, an opportunity to offer installation, and an opportunity to get into rich new areas like energy management.

Go IDC