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'Open' SIMs, brain chips and Google's Nest: What to expect in wireless in 2015
We look at events that will shape the industry this year
APRIL
Nadella cuts the Windows umbilical cord at last
The most important moment for new Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella came with the release of Office, still the firm’s most iconic application, for the iPad before it was shipped for the company’s own Surface tablets.
Nadella had indicated that he was breaking with predecessor Steve Ballmer’s policies of putting Windows ahead of everything else, and of integrating devices too. But with this move he put substance behind his cross-platform, "cloud first, mobile first" mantra and cut the umbilical cord with Windows, which limited Ballmer’s freedom of action for far too long. He has followed the symbolic release of Office for iOS with many other decisions that point to a cross-platform future – and even, eventually, one without Windows at all, but this was the starting point.
GE seeks to turn its Industrial Internet into a standard
Consumer and enterprise markets are, unsurprisingly, served by very different technology ecosystems, even when underlying standards are the same, and the split will continue into the internet of things (IoT). Much of the sound and fury is about the consumer side – smart home, wearables, connected cars and so on. But many of the profits will come from the vertical and enterprise side of things and that market may not be driven by operators or mobile providers, but industrial giants.
General Electric is the most important so far, and in April turned its internal initiative, the Industrial Internet, into a consortium of the same name, aiming to set a global standard. The IIC (Industrial Internet Consortium) was initially supported by GE itself, AT&T, Cisco, IBM and Intel, and the aim is to establish standards-based interoperability for gadgets and sensors, particularly those embedded in machines, and thus to support the massive big data opportunities in these markets.
MAY
Qualcomm foresees super-smart mobile devices with Zeroth ‘brain chip’
Many of the more futuristic stories of 2014 were about "5G", but just as important for the future mobile experience are R&D efforts focused on user experience. Many of these revolve around reinventing searching and browsing in a fully immersive, multimedia, context-aware way, to support highly personalised services and, of course, big data opportunities for the firms with the smartest AI-driven analytics engines in the cloud. Such advances will also require new user interfaces, some driven by virtual reality (Facebook’s purchase of Oculus is one indicator).
Google’s Physical Web project is looking at new ways to interact with objects and services without the barriers of apps.
And Qualcomm had one of the most sci-fi initiatives of all, with its work on a "brain chip" – the Zeroth neuromorphic chip platform. This claims to mimic the way the brain works, and could be a significant new source of revenues and IPR power if its neural networking techniques really can solve some of the challenges facing robotics. The aim is to create a widely applicable "neural processing unit" (NPU) to perform the core functions to support activities such as deep learning, in the same way that a GPU supports key underlying functions to drive graphics. It feels like a long term bet – and an area where Intel is also active – but the pay-off could be huge if neural networking, after so many false dawns, becomes mainstream in the internet of things, and if Qualcomm establishes the leading platform to deliver it.
Intel’s Rockchip deal in China shows off Krzanich’s new thinking
Intel threw down its biggest challenge yet to ARM’s mobile ecosystem, announcing an alliance with China’s Rockchip to push x86-based chips into the mass market for the first time, and making a bold break with its past models. It later followed this up with a similar deal, including hefty investment, in the company which controls Spreadtrum, the biggest rival to MediaTek among the Chinese/Taiwanese ecosystem.
These alliances allow Intel to adapt more easily to the challenging economics of mass market SoCs and give it powerful entry points to the Chinese base. They also have three points of significance beyond the immediate shipments potential – if successful, they will be a powerful proof point that the x86 architecture really can compete with ARM in terms of cost and power consumption, after many years of trying; they will open up new ecosystem partners to distributed x86 designs (vital in China’s fragmented and often inward-looking market); and most importantly of all, they indicate CEO Brian Krzanich’s willingness to embrace new business models in pursuit of success in mobile and internet of things (IoT) segments – identified, when he took the helm last year, as critical for future growth.