In a video titled, The Art of the Sizzle w/ David Bruce, HTC (TPE: 2498) satirically mocks the entire concept of the sizzle video that is designed to make you excited and intrigued by a simple video of a smartphone. There’s no doubt that HTC has participated in some of these sizzle videos, but the reality is that their competitors, namely Samsung, Nokia (now Microsoft), and Apple have really gotten the smartphone sizzle video down.

In fact, if you watch most smartphone introductions nowadays, you are almost guaranteed to watch some sort of a sizzle video in advance. Some companies like to focus on abstract angles and unique system features, while others simply try to make the phone look exciting by doing interesting motions and graphics alongside. A good example of this is Apple’s own iPhone 6 sizzle video. If that doesn’t give you a good idea of what’s in a smartphone sizzle video, then you can watch Samsung’s own Galaxy S5 introduction video.

The truth is that its actually quite hard to get a bunch of press and operators excited about a phone, especially since most phones nowadays are essentially the same phone with incremental upgrades and very little real innovation from one model to another. After all, it isn’t very profitable to be making major technological improvements from generation to generation. So, you need to focus on the exciting parts of the phone and accentuate them with the sizzle reel that gets people excited about your phone and gets their attention in preparation for the actual launch or actual unveiling in person or when people see them in stores.

Apple are the masters of these videos and I suspect that HTC is mostly mocking them with this video, however Samsung likes to do a lot of the same things that Apple does so it isn’t much of a stretch to consider Samsung part of this fad.

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隨著Google(那斯達克交易代號：GOOGL)在推出Android One之後，進一步掌控入門機型，平價手機部門勢必會出現重大變化。

Microsoft(那斯達克交易代號：MSFT)靠著Lumia 520，向來在這個部門維持極為優異的表現，Lumia 520也是這間軟體(現在包括硬體)製造商最成功的手機產品。然而這款手機主要出在採用512 MB RAM所造成的侷限和缺少前置鏡頭，以及市面上有多款採用Android的其他選擇，加上還以相近的價格提供更完善的功能集，都吸引使用者改用其他體系的產品。考慮到這一點，Microsoft打算改變在印度的裝置產品組合，更積極的把焦點擺在平價部門。

再度鎖定入門機型

改變包括將裁撤Asha系列，Microsoft也會在這個價格區段中，推出Windows Phone的軟體。最平價的Windows Phone裝置Lumia 530在印度現在要價$140美元($8,500印度盧比)，這樣的價格當然會嚇跑想找較便宜產品的買家。以Android One手機為例，$104美元(6,300印度盧比)的價格可謂來勢洶洶。

目前在$80美元($5,000印度盧比)至$125美元($7,500印度盧比)的區段中，還沒有推出任何Windows Phone裝置，但預期這種情況很快就會改變了。Microsoft不僅會提供更平價的Windows Phone手機，這間製造商還打算只以自己的品牌為名，推出一系列功能手機。這個打頭陣的系列裝置要價$40美元($2,500印度盧比)至$80美元($5,000印度盧比)，可讓第一次購買的消費者使用網際網路和其他基本功能。此外，Microsoft也提到他們正與印度通訊業者積極合作，推出類似Lumia 635的4G版手機。4G服務即將成為主流，而在入門機型推出4G裝置，必定會大幅拉抬裝置的銷售量。

雖說上述變化聽來很有意思，但我們也許還得等一段時間，才會親眼見識計畫成真。Microsoft銷售總裁Chris Weber表示可能需要12到18個月的時間，才會推出新的裝置產品組合。隨著Android One氣勢日益增長，要是Microsoft短期內沒有推出更多裝置供使用者挑選，恐怕在這個部門就沒多少競爭優勢了。

Microsoft在印度市場擁有一批忠實使用者，所以表現向來相當不錯。但是這間製造商依然得面對固有的挑戰。和市場上其他體系的裝置相比，Lumia 530有一堆嚴重的缺點，例如缺少前置鏡頭，以及採用512 MB RAM，因此侷限能安裝在裝置上的內容。事實上，和Lumia 520及Lumia 620相比，Lumia 530和Lumia 630並沒有改變多少，而且Microsoft也被點出沒對任何手機進行重大改變這件事。在此同時，Android裝置在硬體和支出價值上則是大有改進。這種情況不只發生在入門機型，Microsoft在中階類別也面臨類似的問題。

中階部門也來勢洶洶

Microsoft在印度以$440美元($27,000印度盧比)的價格推出Lumia 830，這將是Windows Phone 8.1首度在這個國家推出中階機型。這間製造商也計畫在今年晚期，於印度推出Lumia 730。雖說這兩款裝置都搭載新的硬體及軟體功能，但是Microsoft的產品組合中，依然存在一項明顯缺失。

Microsoft今年針對中階部門推出的產品包括Lumia 730和Lumia 830，並將Lumia 830封為今年的旗艦機款。這就表示Lumia 830會成為印度價格最高的Windows Phone裝置。由於想要更強大機種的使用者會選擇6吋的Lumia 1520，因此就沒有任何旗艦級的裝置能和高階的Android裝置一較高下。

這種疏漏大部分是Microsoft自找的，因為他們沒法將Lumia 930打進印度市場。公司並未解釋原因，就從印度的網站上移除這款裝置，也沒有提到是否會在印度正式推出。印度好幾位使用者反應裝置過熱的問題，可能就是Microsoft決定不在印度發行裝置的原因。但是沒有任何Windows Phone裝置落在$490美元(30,000印度盧比)至$650美元(40,000印度盧比)這個價格區段，確實是一大弱點。

每個體系都必須存在旗艦裝置，強調平台可提供的最佳功能。說也奇怪，今年是由HTC奪得這項榮耀，HTC推出One M8 for Windows，這款裝置應用與HTC推出與One M8相同的硬體，卻搭載Windows Phone，而非Android。無法在高階部門推出裝置並不表示這種裝置就不存在。今年稍早時，有許多傳言指出Microsoft正著手發展搭配創新3D觸控動作辨識介面的高階裝置。據說這項技術是以Kinect體感控制器為基礎，此外還謠傳Microsoft將在11月正式公佈這個在內部以McLaren為代號的裝置。

Microsoft確實說過不再繼續發展3D觸控手機的原因，但若是這間軟體製造商想把握任何機會，延續在印度和其他全球市場的強勁表現，就一定要推出更多種裝置。隨著Nokia的手機分部全面整合至Microsoft，這間軟體大廠的目標，就是在手機部門掌握更龐大的市佔率。

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As Microsoft’s Satya Nadella takes the reigns of the company, it appears as though he’s pushing for some serious blood letting from within the company that currently employs 125,000 people. This enormous 18,000 person layoff figure is mostly thanks to their acquisition of Nokia’s handset and mobile division, which brought on 25,000 people. Out of the 18,000 figure, nearly 12,500 will come from the former Nokia division that they had acquired, which is somewhat to be expected but also incredibly infuriating. Sure, there are going to be a decent amount of redundancies between Nokia and Microsoft, but this amounts to a 50% cut of all Nokia’s workforce. Now, anyone that had left during the Nokia to Microsoft transition looks very smart right about now. And it doesn’t just have to do with the fact that they just dodged the Microsoft bullet.

Microsoft stated that they will do the first round of layoffs with 13,000 people at which point they will then lay off the next 5,000 afterwards, making people constantly fearful of being laid off and working longer hours and doing more work just to keep their jobs. This is the kind of layoff that makes companies look bad and overall will leave quite a distaste for the company with current and former employees. The sad truth is that what Microsoft is doing is really hard to watch when you think about it. Even if Nokia was struggling, they could have easily released Android phones and not ended up having to lay off 50% of their workforce like Microsoft is effectively doing to them now. If you think about it, Stephen Elop just cost half of Nokia their jobs because he decided to run Nokia into the ground. There will always be differing opinions on what Stephen Elop did, but the ultimate result is that Microsoft got a quality smartphone manufacturer for cheap and ruined their business in the process of doing so.

It doesn’t stop there, In addition to the 18,000 layoffs, Satya Nadella also said that Microsoft will cease to produce Nokia Android phones, which means that all future Nokia phones will have to be Windows Phone. Nokia did some experimental stuff with the Nokia X lines of phones prior to the Microsoft acquisition, but since then it appears quite clear that this does not fly with Microsoft. And truthfully, If Nokia had launched a Lumia 1020 with Android (whatever the latest was at the time) it probably would have been one of the best selling phones in the world, ever. Much like Nokia’s N9X line of phones, it brought a world class camera with a world class OS, which Windows Phone simply could not deliver at the time. Sure, Windows Phone is much better than it was, say a year or two ago, but it doesn’t change the fact that Windows Phone’s majority of sales are still in the mid to low end, and not in the high end at all.

There’s no denying that Microsoft needs to refocus their efforts in certain parts of the company and reduce their headcount, but in the end, this all just looks very bad for the company. They’ve already got a lot of things right with their strategy on Office and Windows Phone and they’re clearly improving in a lot of places, even if they did screw up the Xbox golden goose. Ultimately, Microsoft needs a restructuring to figure out exactly where they want to focus and how, but the timing is just very unfortunate and will leave a lot of people very bitter about the Microsoft/Nokia acquisition.

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So, on Friday the Nokia devices and handset division was officially absorbed into Microsoft’s corporate structure and folded into Microsoft’s Devices Group. This officially marks the end of Nokia as an independent handset maker and completes the acquisition that Microsoft had made when they bought the handset division from Nokia (now NSN). It seems as though many of Nokia’s employees will be joining Microsoft today as Microsoft employees, however, the company will only be taking on approximately 25,000 employees from Nokia as they are still going to be leaving a few factories with Nokia due to legal limitations. Elop participated in a Q&A today as the new EVP of Microsoft’s Devices Group and answered a lot of users’ questions about past Nokia devices and decisions, even though some believe he was placed inside Nokia to make the company an affordable acquisition target for Microsoft.

Elop started Friday with an open letter about his new position inside Microsoft and the momentum of Nokia and the brand as a whole, while saying very little to nothing about the future. Nokia also explains that they will continue to maintain the Nokia websites as both a company and as a brand moving forward so that it appears that Microsoft will continue to allow the Nokia brand name to continue to live on for now (thank god). Even though as a phone company Nokia is effectively no longer a company but a brand of Microsoft’s Devices Group. Stephen Elop even said himself during the Q&A that:

Microsoft Mobile Oy is a legal construct that was created to facilitate the merger. It is not a brand that will be seen by consumers.

The Nokia brand is available to Microsoft to use for its mobile phones products for a period of time, but Nokia as a brand will not be used for long going forward for smartphones. Work is underway to select the go forward smartphone brand.

Microsoft also launched a new commercial with the latest Nokia devices showing how colorful they are (as if we didn’t already know?) and how they bring color into our lives and wrapping up the ad with a Microsoft logo rather than a Nokia one. Nokia’s branding was incredibly weak in this commercial, but they make it quite clear that Microsoft is the one that’s in charge now.

In fact, Elop and Satya Nadella (Microsoft’s new CEO) spent some quality time together with their Lumia devices and talking about the new division and leadership. In a fairly detailed posting, Microsoft explained exactly what changes would be coming to Nokia and Microsoft as a result of the acquisition. This is where we learned about the 25,000 employee roll over as well as the continued operation of some of the factories by Nokia while Microsoft takes over the others. After all, as some of you may not know, Nokia manufactures most of their own devices unlike most handset makers that use 3rd party manufacturers/assemblers like Foxconn or Flextronics.

Satya Nadella and Stephen Elop

Also, as part of the agreement, Microsoft will honor all of Nokia’s warranties and policies meaning that no customers have to worry about a loss of coverage as a result of the acquisition. In fact, if you bought a Nokia Lumia phone from Microsoft’s Store like we did, then your warranty situation just got a little more simple if you bought an accidental policy. Even though realistically nothing changes since you are still dealing directly with Microsoft. It will be interesting, however, to see if Microsoft changes how they treat Nokia devices in their stores than they have in the past, even though Nokia’s devices have been pretty prominent in the front of most stores. Perhaps Microsoft will start pushing more of their customers towards Windows Phones now that they actually make a lot more money off the devices than they did in the past…

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For those of you that missed Microsoft’s announcement of the Windows Phone 8.1 update, they said that the update would be rolling out over the course of the next few months across the world. However, the developer preview (basically accessible to anyone that’s interested) is available today. That includes a whole host of small improvements across the OS as well as the addition of Cortana. Windows Phone Central actually has a quick guide of what you actually need to do in order to get your hands on Windows Phone 8.1. The one important thing to note, however, is that only users with Windows Phone 8 and up devices will be able to upgrade to 8.1 and anyone with a Windows Phone 7.x version will not be able to upgrade and gain the new features of 8.1. Some of those features include the Cortana personal voice assistant, VPN connectivity, notification center, more user customization of the interface and an overall better-class OS.

Like we’ve written before, Microsoft certainly has gotten their act together and they appear to be working very hard to make sure that users are getting what they want from their smartphone while at the same time enticing users to switch to Windows Phone from Android or iOS. Currently, Microsoft is still struggling to bring over users that are already part of the Android and iOS ecosystem as most of their users are coming from their low-end devices which are usually people coming to Windows Phone from a ‘dumb phone’.

Microsoft is expanding their hardware partners and they’ve already shown that they’re spending lots of money on their software partners. Now, for them, it will merely be a matter of time until Windows 9 brings all of their platforms together under a single UI and ultimately allow for amazing cross-platform functionalities that utilize their OS’ strength and cloud platforms. Until then, it will be a game of catch up from Microsoft, a game that they’re currently working very hard to push for and honestly they’re making more progress in a much shorter period of time than Apple or Google did with their operating systems. I guess it is easier to make progress once your competitors have paved the way for you, but quality change isn’t easy no matter what what stage.

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If you haven’t been following Microsoft lately, then you’re missing out on what could be one of the most significant changes of strategy I’ve seen in a long time. They have slowly been making baby steps towards reorganizing and reconsidering how they address mobile. I have been following Microsoft’s attitudes towards mobile since Windows Mobile 5.0 and even owned a fair amount of Windows-based devices over the course of that time. However, Microsoft made a lot of mistakes along the way and is finally making major changes to remedy them. And with the smartphone market being a virtual duopoly between Android and iOS it comes as no surprise that people are looking for something different.

At the same time, Microsoft is struggling to retain users in Windows while people start to move towards Android, iOS and ChromeOS-based devices. With their release of Windows 8, Microsoft actually alienated a lot of users because they ruined a fairly well received operating system in Windows 7 and tried to modernize it for touch, but made an insane amount of mistakes. Since then, Microsoft has released Windows 8.1 which has made some significant improvements and is continuing to do so by bringing back the start menu in the Windows 8.1 update which will also bring a bunch of other tweaks that will make Windows 8 more usable for users without touch. One of Microsoft’s biggest mistakes with Windows 8 was to assume that everyone would have touch and that application developers would immediately switch to the ‘Modern’ Metro UI that Windows 8 employs with tiles, many of these tweaks fix those mistakes. Some of those fixes include allowing boot to desktop, a start menu, Metro apps on the desktop taskbar, a persistent taskbar, mouse friendly menus, reduced system requirements and much more. Sure, its a bit late when you consider that Windows 9 is likely due next year, but that’s an entirely different conversation. Right now they need to focus on keeping people happy in the now and preparing for the future, which is exactly what they appear to be doing.

Microsoft’s purchase of Nokia also signifies Microsoft’s renewed focus on hardware as did their announcement about their expansion of hardware partners for Windows Phone, which was necessary to show that they wanted to enable more than just Nokia. Clearly Microsoft can sell their own branded devices as Google does successfully with Nexus and Android. One way that Microsoft followed up on their hardware commitments was by announcing that they would be making Windows free on any device that is 9″ or less, which means we could actually see a lot of 8.9″ Windows tablets relatively soon. But what this enables is Microsoft’s operating system to become a considered option for OEMs when building tablets and smartphones.

Microsoft’s new strategy is to monetize on their cloud software like Office, One Drive and One Note and to utilize their strengths in cloud computing to make their operating systems more attractive. If they continue on this trajectory, they could have a fully unified operating system across all platforms. Eventually, with Windows 9 we can expect to see essentially the same OS plus or minus a few features (based on platform) on Desktop, Tablet and Smartphone. Which is reinforced by Microsoft’s move to make app purchases in their store universally applicable across Windows Phone, Windows 8 and Xbox. This will not only encourage people to use Microsoft’s platform for the flexibility and cross-platform nature, but it will also encourage application developers to make applications that think in a cross-platform manner. That is in combination with their announcement of Cortana, which I would expect to see intelligently integrated into all of Microsoft’s operating systems and eventually into Windows 9. Cortana is going to be Microsoft’s next weapon to fight against Google and Apple to help create differentiation.

I really feel like Microsoft really has it together more than they ever have in their history since Bill Gates left his position as CEO. And to be honest, considering that Bill Gates left Microsoft as CEO when I was 10, it seems pretty fair to say that this is the best I’ve seen them since he stepped down as CEO. They finally understand what they need to do in order to be successful in competing with Google and Apple, and their strategies are solid. Only time will tell how quickly they will start to erode Apple and Google, especially when you consider they’ve successfully helped erode Blackberry’s share.

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