Gadgetory

this episode of Android QA is brought to you by HipChat so you guys remember this guy Curt McMaster he's the CEO of cyanogen and in January he went so far as to say that he wanted to take Android from Google but that wasn't enough because just last week he claimed that Samsung is going to be slaughtered in the next five years let's talk about that in an interview with Business Insider McMaster comments about how low-budget device manufacturers like Xiaomi and Micromax will diminish Tier one companies market share such as Samsung's over the next three to five years he even goes as far to say and I quote the Tier one OMS like Samsung are going to be the next generations Nokia's in the next five years they're going to get slaughtered we think long-term Apple itself will have problems because they're just not good at competing at the low-end Oh let's unpack that for a moment Apple doesn't want to compete at the low end they don't have to compete at the low end they spent three decades and billions of dollars building a brand that is premium I mean I can't even buy a power cord for my macbook pro for less than 150 bucks because they're a premium quality brand at least that's what they want consumers to believe so if they did want to compete at the low end with the micro maxes and shammies of the world they would want to create a totally new brand not under the Apple or iPhone brand but something completely different that's been done very successfully in the car market for example Toyota wanted to compete with mercedes-benz and BMW but they didn't create a premium high quality Toyota Corolla no they created the Lexus brand and we're very very successful at it now when it comes to Samsung well that's a totally different story because Samsung's trying to be all things to all people I mean what does samsung really stand for they have flagship power phones entry-level phones a mix of mid tier phones and devices you can't be all things to all people because you're not top mind in anyone market our segment and so that leaves them vulnerable to companies that do want to become first on the mind in one particular segment so if Xiaomi for example wants to become the best entry-level brand out there like for example what's the best entry-level you know affordable cheap super market out there its Walmart everyone knows that I mean everyone on the planet knows that but is what is Samsung known for we don't really know because they throw that kitchen sink at us all the time now imagine for a moment if a manufacturer like oneplus came out with an intense campaign that said hey we're the brand for flagship power without the flagship price not a bad slogan and it's not like we haven't seen a reversal of fortune in a very short period of time McMaster points this out it could get pretty bad pretty damn quick this is often the case look at what happened to Research In Motion look at what happened to Nokia last summer Micromax surpassed samsung as the dominant feature phone player in India we're talking literally in eight months this occurred this is just one market will see this happen all over the world cyanogen has worked hard over the past few years to break into the mainstream smartphone business by offering smooth software that is able to run on budget-friendly hardware and because of signage and success with the oneplus one McMasters opinions on a global market share are certainly worth something though the message may come off as a bit strong it does make sense smaller OEMs around the world can offer extremely budget-friendly hardware in areas where most people can afford a Samsung or Apple made device now another recent win for cyanogen is that they created a new hardware partnership with Qualcomm the partnership with Qualcomm means that future Snapdragon powered Qualcomm reference devices or QR DS will ship to manufacturers running sign engines operating system this deal covers the Snapdragon 200 406 series QR DS which allow manufacturers to quickly develop their own hardware or just place their own branding on the QR D and then ship it to the consumer you see if sign engine can continue to forge these hardware partnerships this is one of the best indications of sign engines future success you see signage in has to create their own app store their own version of Gmail their own version of Google now for example to be successful and to do that they need a lot of users and to get a lot of users they're going to need hardware partnerships and who is in a better position to do that then the Chinese manufacturers there's one caveat one worry that I have and that's that cyanogen will have to get into bed with the Chinese government why well they're going to have to create these partnerships with Xiaomi one plus one all these companies that are you know Chinese sponsored companies and China has had a tumultuous relationship with Google in the past Google refused to get into that relationship with the Chinese government sign engine might have to to make that work we'll have to wait and see I wonder how many of you are like me you work with your colleagues online collaboratively and if you've done so you know that doing that job through email can be painful that's where - like HipChat saves you a lot of frustration HipChat is an instant messaging video chat document sharing screen sharing system updates code sharing integrated into one simple platform and the best part is that HipChat integrates with top developer tools like github JIRA Zendesk and more check out the fifty-seven services that HipChat plays nice with get your team on the same page in seconds I want you to try HipChat free no credit card required by visiting HipChat com forward slash Android authority click on start chatting and then invite a few team members and tried free for 30 days remember that's HipChat com forward slash Android Authority and for the first 100 signups HipChat is going to extend a 30 day free trial to 90 days HipChat your team your project in sync instantly thanks for watching Android army my name is Jase I'd love to connect with you here on Google+ or Twitter but I did something a little new today I found meerkat it's a livestream sharing service that's only on iOS right now so I'm using it on my iPad I'm told that they will have an Android app coming out very shortly but it is a way to watch live streaming via your Twitter account and it's right in the stream so right now there's a number of people watching and they can comment like give comments or questions live right now they're like sitting right here watching me and it's pretty fun I'm going to experiment with it they've actually been watching me the entire shoot I've been doing this I don't know all night and they've been here with me watching asking questions well them and asking very many questions but they've been responding so if you'd like to do this if you think this is cool let me know in the comments below you can follow me right here on on Twitter and when I start live streaming it sends out an automatic tweet and then when you ask a question to respond or ask a question respond it automatically tweets on both of our feeds so all of our followers can see it and it's just a way to better engage at live like real time so if you guys like that I might continue it if not then you know it's just an experiment who knows three months from now meerkat may go the way of giggle we'll see don't forget about my brothers in Android Josh Jill and the tech ninja come on lawn and Chris Gary Nash and Taylor all working very hard to be your source for all things Angela