Gadgetory

hello everybody it is Monday January 23rd 2012 I'm Jessica doll court this is C nuts podcast called dialed in and you are here in San Francisco with the lovely Lynn law technical producer Steven Beecham and then over in New York we've got Brian Bennett and special guest today Roger Cheng from cnet news we've got a really big show and we're just gonna dive right into it basically yesterday when we were watching the football game here the 49ers lost them set sadness our sadness was interrupted with the breaking news that rim blackberry maker had ousted its two CEOs or rather they had resigned and there was a new CEO in the pool so we are going to talk a lot about that Roger why don't you start us out yeah well uh when the the Giants made their way back to the Super Bowl for the first time we've got in there I've already in the midst of that excellent game at his kind of boring game they rim announced that the two CEOs were throwing in the towel basically stepping down and appointing their successor thorsten heins I think it's torsten actually torsten yeah I knew I screwed that up but torsten Heinz to be a nuisance it is it is they he's formally their CEO he's been with a company for about four years coming from Siemens and yeah he's he's taking the reins of the this troubled smartphone maker so basically what does this mean I mean he's an insider so he's not exactly fresh blood however he also wasn't a CEO of rim before I mean he was sort of higher in the ranks relatively unknown I think two people who weren't very closely watching the company and I you know what what do we expect from him is that going to be enough of a change what's going to happen I think that's a big criticism for today a lot of people were expecting more change you know if you're going to swap out the CEO if you're gonna make this big management shuffle why not go big with it and this is basically as temper to move as they could have made in terms of management change I mean this guy's been with the company for four years worked directly under lousy Rita sympathy Lee's so while he wasn't the CEO I mean he's been a part of this company as it stumbled over the past year so I'm a conference call today he basically said he doesn't see any real need for drastic change which Kylie's believe he's got that same kind of reality distorting bubble that they all have up there and rim and you know that that's sort of a trouble there and you look at Wall Street right now the stock is down about five percent it was actually up early on Lawrence then not a lot of confidence it was actually up early in the morning and then they had their conference call where he spoke for the first time publicly and then stock went down so so I guess he's probably not the most charismatic choice perhaps ah jobs you shouldn't have spoken basically who should have kept his mouth shut and rim would be fine is that it at this point yeah though that other I'm sure investors would have gone him from not talking enough so I mean either way probably lost I think he just said the wrong things you just said what people weren't looking for so what did he say specifically well basically that you know rim has the right strategy right now he's staying the course no need for drastic change all the things that investors are probably freaking out about right now consumers to I mean you know there's no change that means you're not going to get a you know brand spanking new blackberry for another nine months or so or at least you know blackberry 10 powered smartphone so it seems like yeah it's just more the same which is definitely not what people want from rim right now and I mean isn't the latest OS supposed to be coming out I mean is it already already backed up to q3 yeah it's well backed up they say second half of this year so we don't really know what that means they they like to you know mess with the calendar a lot when they say summer they can mean the very end of summer second half of the year could mean the very end of the year we really don't know but either way I think the consensus there is that that's way too late well that's true but I mean you say back up and my understanding from the blackberry developer conference when I sat down and spoke right after a BB X or blackberry 10 was announced was that it was always planned like that was always the time frame well I think there was a lot of speculation and I think even REM had sort of contributed this there was a lot of talk that the devices would come out earlier than the second half first half was really sort of the goal whether it be the end of it the beginning of the year was still unclear but the fact that they said second half that is a major change in their schedule they acknowledged in the last conference call basically the CEO said yeah we get it this is late but we're waiting for this brand spanking new chip that that's supposedly more power efficient okay so before we talk specifically more about rim and what it needs to do and who this guy is anyway I just there have been other changes to the board to that are also aren't exactly revolutions in topsy-turvy right like co-founder and previous co-ceos Lazar itís and ball silly are still on the board correct and it yes and lahser itís is in fact now like the vice chair of the board and chair of the board's new innovation committee right so it was the guy possible right because here he is and one of the biggest criticisms was that there was no innovation and now he's taking the reins on the innovation committee and that makes me think that he thinks that you know being freed up for being co-ceo will allow him the time to really help innovate um I don't know what do you guys think about that and that sort of the problem though right I mean Lazarus hasn't really doesn't really have a reputation for innovating beyond sort of the beyond found email beyond sounding the company the whole the email premise it's really under his stewardship that RIM sir fell behind in terms of innovation so it's almost common oxymoron that he's running their innovation committee and then also beforehand I mean we knew that something was going to happen there were leaks and reports that there was going to be a change but everybody thought it was going to be Barbara whose last name I can't pronounce time I Stymiest right yes exactly so well she's greedy internal she was gonna be yeah she was going to be the chairman do so either way we didn't expect somebody from the outside maybe we were hoping somebody from the outside was coming in but if the reports were that she was going to be tapped who is already inside who has been a board member since 2007 then we were never going to get that big change in terms of outside leadership well I mean the I think the thinking there was one she's not an insight she's not a rim employee she's you know independent board member and two she was going to be named chairman of the board so that's that could have opened it up for her to name an outside CEO which would have brought in a new perspective and that's I think what people were hoping for you know love it was I think investor desperation they've seen their stock the stock tank so much that they're basically cling to whatever hope is left right and so um basically torsten Heinz so he does come from a background in Siemens in Germany and four years in rim like Roger said and their rim actually had on its website a series of Meet the Press videos their words like the series of youtube videos so I think in addition did you guys see those as well yep yeah so in addition you know there were just some quotes basically my favorite one is we have to make sure that we always stay ahead that we always stay on the edge and then converting this into a great product great offerings and then into business success that's it right that's the recipe so my thought when I heard that was like sounds really good but it's not really that simple yeah it's all about this execution I mean everyone likes to do that or says they want to do that but you know reality is a totally different situation absolutely and then what else he was saying basically I feel like it's sort of what rims leadership has been saying they want to do for a really long time you know focus on their core customers but also really reach out to the consumers you know also put out great product I I don't know what do you guys think that rim really needs to do in order to stay alive what does this guy have to prove though though though that I mean it's somewhat right I mean he has to prove that one he could still cater to the business customers which is rims core business I mean without the government enterprise customers the rim would be screwed right now but at the same time he has to acknowledge that rim is a consumer business majority of the people were buying his phones our consumers now and he needs to make devices i cater to them as well so it is a little bit of everything and right now black president was shown it could adequately and I mean isn't that part of the problem that you know they made that switch or tried to make the switch from being a business only business majority user base to trying to get into the you know the mass consumer market and then you know mass consumers are much more fickle they can they can leave and vote with their feet anytime they want so much much easier than a big corporation that's invested in a huge infrastructure and that type of thing so I think part of the problem is is that the devices aren't compelling to consumers you know they just want something one device that has the latest hardware can can you know surf quickly and have access to lots of apps and and cool services so and yet since about the time that torsten Hines joined rim there have been attempts to introduce consumer devices like the pearl like curves the girl was actually a chestful know the stroll was successful right and and we've moved was like a design that was like the last anymore yeah that was like the last real blockbuster consumer-focused phone for blackberry and then don't forget the storm exactly through and the storm two and the torch is i mean r it has been trying to do this they've been trying to play both sides of the game and they have not found a sweet spot they have not been able to succeed and that's exactly what they said with the playbook i remember covering this and it was like no we're reaching out to consumers but also to the enterprise but really it's both acceptable i'm not i think it really depends also on who you talk to within rim like the executive gun or the business guys would be like oh yeah this is totally a business tool and then you talk to someone who's more consumer focused no no this is this is for everybody this is the average show device this is the entertainment device so I think even within the company that was sort of a mixed message on what that device was intended for but can rim do it I mean is there any smartphone on out there right now that successfully marries security and enterprise with sort of this consumer focus I would argue not really I mean it but the thing of it is is so many the sort of the trend now is for consumers to dictate what devices go into the enterprise anyways people are bringing in their own phones and just demanding that that gets hooked up to the business network that really the consumer device that wins that's why you see Android devices and and an iphone winning their I mean they're not necessarily the greatest enterprise device I would say they're actually quite inferior to blackberry when it comes like security and an email push system but the question is though do what's the real benefit there I mean do do most businesses really need that security um there's anything i would say some do governments banks certain healthcare industries definitely but right but as you're saying it into that like you know unsexy market of vertical industry yes you know it's like oh yeah well that's a dilemma for other businesses that don't require that that kind of security you know or comfortable with people bringing their own devices that's where rim loses out because you know people are gonna want to bring in their iphone you want to bring in their android phone and yeah it's kind of like it doesn't have to be the best it's sort of like don't make good enough the enemy of perfect and that's what i think is happening that they're sort of i think the IT guys you know there are there enough profiles now to be able to control i think for most people sort of the most you know the lowest denomination of security so we can provide x amount i mean even here in seen it we can get our corporate email on any of our personal phones and really there's all we have to do is add a password basically and there are other measures as well but it's sort of like to be able to use your phone for some work purposes which is good enough for a lot of people without going to extreme then there are the solutions exactly i mean that pretty much calls into question the entire business model or the last pillar i guess that rim was standing on you know as a security and if most people don't need it then you wonder like you know what's the viability there right have they back themselves into a niche yeah I would say so I think so yeah and I think personally for me I think their hardware is good um then oh yes bold I mean it's good they have great keyboards that some people don't want anymore even you know the full touchscreen torch I think is a really nice device I think what's holding room back mostly is the software it is a question of software and what I wonder is if they can't hold the puzzle pieces together I mean Apple right now is really the only one that creates both the hardware and the software and they release one smartphone a year if that if rim can't put up the pieces anymore if they can't juggle everything are they going to have to look to another partner to do that or are they just going to hang on to it and continue to not succeed I don't think they'll be switching to android and elias enter the CEO I don't think android is the answer for them either right that could be and I don't necessarily think windows phone is the answer for them either but you know I think that people are increasingly demanding cloud services and real integration and that's where you see iPhone and iOS and Android succeeding right is that you get all of your google services you get the cloud you get services you know in the cloud that are connecting to the phone and you don't really see a lot of that with rim I've got I've got a very bold prediction here let's get ready ok I see things developing two ways one they'll either be bought out by you know another handset manufacturer or some other major OEM you know like Lenovo or even like everyone's talking about Samsung in a while ago and that just fizzled out but some somebody like that who would come in take the brand and just buy that whole handset business away from them and then implement it themselves that can they're much better at you know pushing out products and creating things that people want to buy or they could do the HP thing rim that is and basically say okay we're just going to we're just going to do an enterprise service now we're going to focus on enterprise we're going to focus on security we're going to folk on securing other people's devices you know so yeah you know this you know your your gmail now has you know rim security just you know stamp of approval you know something like that you know and they'll pitch it out to businesses and folks who really want that extra security and sell it for you know an unbelievably high price you know and that's where they make their money that way but that that's how I see it really I don't see them existing in this particular like set up right now where they're making this soft this sought the software that's not you know very compelling and the the hardware is really expensive and and questionable you know as far as its whether it's relevant or not yeah we're actually we were talking about that same thing just a few weeks ago the idea of actually well I think actually switching Android would be an a decent idea but keeping sort of the the blackberry brand in terms of security offering the best servers all that stuff would be where they would make their money off of sell an android phone you know the software is already in tact ecosystem is already there but later on all that security I'm just looking at my picture now I look really ridiculous no it's an awesome picture of you only brought Roger and Brian unfortunately aren't able to join us via video stream so we've got pictures of them and robot avatars and that is awesome yes that I stole from Antoine's desk because he's not in today and can't defend himself but there is a picture of Roger on a phone in like a phone booth and I think he looks pretty awesome and that's what he's referring actually that's great you look like like deep throat I look just I look really confused like using deep concentration like you're actually talking to us through that phone it doesn't know that's exactly what I'm doing I don't know where she found this but you're on London you're in London I can tell well he's either in London or using the SF office an hour sadly that I believe that's my twitter picture that would be my twitter picture um yeah um but back to rim yes sir I actually have to object to the suggestion that they pick up Android to me like I just personally I wouldn't want to see that I think there's too much Android there are too many players in that game and I don't know if that's the way to way and I like they're being an alternative um you know and I think that's what Nokia that's the conclusion they came to with Windows Phone and it's just just too much Android I don't want rim to go android even though they have any Android emulator which is fine but I don't want to see them become exclusively Android I just I just think it makes more business sense though I mean rather than to invest in their own software and ecosystem then just hop onto that and sort of make your margin make your business on higher-margin software and applications that run on top of it see that's why I say they're going to go completely enterprise and just put their software on top of other people's software and not even make handsets anymore okay Lindz got an opinion oh no it's just more like I'm just jumping on jessica's opinion about not just too much Android I mean I just like competition for everything and the more companies that are out there trying their best just would be good for everything because I think if everything's either iOS or Android it's just kind of like no one has choices anymore but of course if rim goes out of business then there would be no choice also right that sort of thing it's like competition where it makes business sense though because if you know it's competition for competitions sake then rim just goes out of business and then we're out one player of the way so which is good for Microsoft and their partner that would be good for my agent as well ok let us take a break from this and we're going to come back after this short break with more news from the day you dialed in is back we have been talking about rim and its shake up and whether its platform will survive or not but Android unsurprisingly will be the platform of choice for developers says a study Roger is going to very quickly run us through this part yeah it's a really really quick point of them makes the point that within the next 12 months that Android will be the platform of choice for developers now that's sort of a change from the past where really you know iOS was the the main platform for developers this is where you go to make your money we're given the ubiquity of Android as you guys were just complaining about these are the mass adoption yeah whether your complete fragmentation either way either way it's a it'll become the platform of choice for developers especially given sort of the the way that developers have tweaked their business models you know using freemium in-app purchases or advertising to kind of augment the reluctance the seeming reluctance of Android users to actually pay up front for an app that they've found other ways to make their money all right and yeah virgin mobile is going to be possibly throttling data speeds come March Lynn has the story on that and yeah well actually Roger covered it about a year ago but then they delayed it and when we asked them why they're going to delay throttling speeds they didn't have anything to say or we kind of get in contact with them but apparently March they're going to start date throttling speeds for anyone who exceeds their 2.5 gig cap and I got a lot of funny comments on this mostly that people are wondering who uses Virgin Mobile in the first place and if anything is it would they even exceed the 2.5 gigs but I know people who averaged that just and I definitely know people who use virgin mobile especially in its hometown of Chicago right so um a lot of people some people are saying they're being unaffected because they don't even use that much and others are saying that it's unfair to advertise themselves as unlimited when it's not really unlimited has hidden strings like these but a lot of them companies are a lot of carriers throughout it'll their data speeds anyway so it's nothing new and it keeps some you know it keeps their speeds going for everybody just to keep up with the demands of a 4g and 3g and all that stuff also they have like a really really good price for their unlimited data right in like 20 bucks or like all you can eat for everything like like both voice and data it's like it's like thirty dollars or something that lot it was like 44 is comparable like metro pcs and leap it's not 50 I could have sworn it slightly less it's like 39 99 it's like really low really low it is a really good deal well sort of except when it's not except when you're not over that cap yeah right yeah I mean and and that is something that is sort of expected I think now but it's also really too bad um so you know how when you guys go to in and out at least here at West Coast you can there's this whatever I do whenever I go to the west coast I make sure to go to Internet that's the first place i go to when i when i drop in LA so I have to have a funny story i was asking people where I should go I wanted to take myself to a nicer lunch in vegas and i was asking people where I should go to eat and when responses in and out and there's been an in and out my hometown for like since I was in high school and I'm not in high school anymore so I just thought it was funny like in and out definitely has this mystique but anyway the point is there is a segue to this you know how you can go to in and out and there's a secret menu and if you know to ask for you can get it well it's like there's one with tmobile to Roger covered that yeah there's a apparently t-mobile has been doing this for a while but at least for this for a limited time right now if you sign up for their 10 or 5 gigabyte plan data plan you can ask for mobile hotspot feature and they'll tack it on for free you just need to ask for it they're not actively advertising it there's no national campaign for it but if you know to ask for in the stores though they'll give it to you apparently they've been they've been offering this not this specific plan but promotions like this for a while now so dr. us to kind of keep track of these promotions and let you all know where they are can you order a four-by-four animal style on top of that you know what they did they'd if they offer that I bet you they're subscriber numbers with job Oh mr. yeah I got can you order coronary bypass on tour by four by four with my galaxy s2 yes well just kidding i don't think i've ever heard that but I've always what do you call wanted to miss P fries what's the name for that ah surprise are we so Libya doggie I don't know I didn't know I had that they'll pass them back through the the deep fryer to crisp about a little bit like Belgian style is that Belgian style oh yeah was hoping belgian-style came with like a waffle underneath and some oh man that also come with me I think that's Doug's dad that's true too um so actually we knew about this a little while ago but there was a report that leaks out that Sony might be going windows phone 7 and this is of course sony that was sony ericsson before sony bought out the ericsson portion and now it's just Sony and it's very confusing for everyone yeah I got an email back from a representative from Sony and they said that they do not comment on rumors and if they were going to they never a comment release a product they would do it through the appropriate channels so everyone's just kind of having fun with this prototypes at a news company nokia WP spotted and everyone's kind of if it is happening people are excited for this Sony hardware with the windows 170 s if it's not then it's just fun to see what could have been so basically it's a picture I see and if they're very clear buttons for windows phone and then there's a very very very faint sony ericsson insignia on it yeah but this which could mean something or could not mean something right but the president of Sony Bert Nordberg he said that he's only interested in Android he's curious about he was curious about Windows Phone but he says he was uncomfortable with the kind of reaching outside of any OS that's not android so maybe it's not that's kind of a weird quote you know I'm uncomfortable with anything that's not android I know like I said he's curious about Windows Phone like he's just kind of sleeping i'm curious yeah he's like oh that's nice like and then just my papa it's a curiosity this windows you know he's checking it out like rocky back on his heels cigar and mouth I don't no idea what this guy looks like so we do have a couple reviews from this last week I took a look at the Samsung Galaxy attain 4G for metropcs it is not released yet but it is coming out soon it was a phone that I first saw at well we all four side at CES which was just last week in fact this episode if it weren't for him was going to be sort of like the CES like break down but but it became much more exciting than that all this es was very exciting but this phone basically it's a metropcs so it's a no contract carrier it's going to be two hundred dollars after a fifty-dollar mail-in rebate which is pretty good because it's about the same price as there are other 4G LTE phones which this is and it's an android phone as well so it's about the same price point but the most expensive one right now is a hundred dollars more so the features are pretty middle of the road it is a android 2.3 gingerbread no word on whether or not it will be upgradable but i'm not really expecting a lot of ice cream sandwich funds for metropcs for quite a while especially because there aren't really any that were announced during CES either that's anything new so ice cream sandwiches a little bit slower to come but that said it does have a 3.2 megapixel camera on the back 1.3 megapixel camera on the front one gigahertz processor 3.5 inch screen so it's going to be pretty compact it's almost exact same size as the iphone i think it's pretty nice it definitely doesn't have everything so if you're a metropcs customer and you're interested in any Android phone that's got a few more features but that will still be newer then like the LG Esteem right now then you can keep your eyes posted for the LG Connect 4G and Lynn is taking a deeper dive look into that one so that is a the rundown on that phone and then Brian took a look at a really interesting phone that's right yeah but is it um well it's called the maze you and thanks yeah and this Maisie oh ok may sue is a company that's based in hong kong i believe and basically they they've got gotten a lot of notoriety for making devices that pretty much mimic iphones and apple products so they had the m8 before this one and you know basically the these phones and particularly the MX is almost it looks very I very similar to the iphone 3gs or 3g or even an ipod an old ipod it's a ripoff it looks almost exactly the same doesn't it yes and and you know anything well it is subtly different um basically when I first saw this I was I was really like oh my god you know what what is this this looks so shady you know first of all the device is only available in mainland China so it's kind of difficult to get a hold of and I was skeptical you know but then once I start to actually check it out I realized that you know this the you know this actual phone and software's is running Android it's actually running a gingerbread 32 to 35 I believe and it's actually running a skin on top which is made to look almost exactly like or very similar to iOS with the whole app tray layout and and the way the icons look and everything but I've actually seen you know these this skin and in this sort of software actually on SD what do you call it on SDA developers right so you know they they actually have a lot of these roms that people put on their phones you know and they you know put them the solve ailable for enthusiasts so it's actually something that people actually want this this type of interface so uh you know it's something that actually is pretty slick and once you pick it up it you actually think wow it's actually I could actually really use this um it's actually powerful it has a you know 1.4 get hurts cortex a9 dual-core CPU it's got a big 4 inch screen it's it's actually higher res than qhd matter of fact has a very similar same pixel count as the retina display just in a larger screen so it's not 3.7 inches it's four inches but the phone phone itself feels pretty nice I do have an engineering sample that I checked out you can take a look at the hands on post I wrote on Friday but it's actually a pretty slick device has 8 megapixel camera of HD 1080p video capture and all that good stuff so as a matter fact it's a Penta band device too so if you put in a microSD card from either eighteen t or t mobile it should accept the you know that and let you roam on 3g and or you know 3.5 v depending on where you're located so it's actually i was quite surprised by it and I kind of like it awesome um but we're not gonna see it here in the US I know I still love to see all of these phones and sometimes it's he s you're roaming down the halls and you see things you know you see a lot of things about phones that look like knockoffs and if it doesn't matter if we never get to see them it's just good to know that they're out there and that somebody will see them and if anything is I'm sure you can probably buy it you know through you know sort of a gray markets and things like that oh yeah do you know all about the grey market Brian oh I don't know anything about it's only in whispers um so we do have to wrap things up but I did want to say that the LG spectrum was also released this week for verizon we took a look at that at CES if you're interested go check out the site watch our video and also the blackberry curve 37 somebody help me 37 6 another so and there's so many girls phone for verizon I got that's the first thing you should do is CEO in solid eight the names just get rid of the number system like we don't care I bet a wall street like they don't care vision I don't start paying attention if we just gave them names like blackberry curve v4 verizon blackberry curve global I don't know something like yeah shortening names you know and actually I just for the record cuz I know I'm going to get a ton of mail about this it's actually xda-developers his name that form yes i have another peanut butter moment on there so peanut butter a moment what is this when you're you know Tungus look every mouth and really wanna you know glass of milk yes it's me older moment i like that i will start adopting it anyway um we do take reader emails and stuff so send us email it dialed in and cnet com you can leave us a voicemail which we will play at least in part at one and eight six six four zero two two 638 our blog is dialed in that cnet com or you can read all of the stories not just the ones we talked about here and you can read all the other podcasts at podcast cnet com Roger thank you for joining us and thank you everyone for this discussion and we'll see you next week on dialed in bye everyone well guys what