Obi phones are currently available in India and the Middle East, and will be sold in Singapore via e-commerce site Lazada on November 11. The company aims to complete the rollout of its brand in the rest of Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, Africa and Latin America by mid-2015.
Launch timing 'perfect'
Obi's launch comes amid intensifying competition in the smartphone market, but Sculley says the timing couldn't be better.
"The reason we're excited about Obi is that right now in emerging markets around the world smartphones are seeing very high growth adoption [as consumers] go from feature phones to smartphones," he said.
At the same, the technology for mobile devices is becoming commoditized, so the ability to offer high quality products at a very affordable cost "has never been better than it is right now," he said.
Analysts aren't quite as convinced on the timing, however.
"I would have been more confident a year ago, if they had come with the same strategy. Now there are many options available at [a similar] price point, and consumers are spoilt for choice with options available from local, global and Chinese players in the market," said Kiranjeet Kaur, senior market analyst at IDC Asia/Pacific.
Apple chief executive Tim Cook has publicly acknowledged his sexuality, saying that he is "proud to be gay".
Mr Cook made his announcement to try to help people struggling with their identity, he wrote in a Bloomberg Businessweek article.
He has been open about his sexuality, but has also tried to maintain a basic level of privacy until now, he said.
This week Mr Cook challenged his home state of Alabama to ensure the rights of gay and transgender people.
Privacy trade-off
"While I have never denied my sexuality, I haven't publicly acknowledged it either, until now," he wrote.
Former BP chief executive Lord Browne says Mr Cook is "an important role model"
"So let me be clear: I'm proud to be gay, and I consider being gay among the greatest gifts God has given me," he added.
He said he didn't consider himself an activist, but that he realised he had "benefited from the sacrifice of others."
"So if hearing that the CEO [chief executive] of Apple is gay can help someone struggling to come to terms with who he or she is, or bring comfort to anyone who feels alone, or inspire people to insist on their equality, then it's worth the trade-off with my own privacy," he added.
Mr Cook said that he had been open about his sexuality with many people, including colleagues at Apple, but that it still "wasn't an easy choice" to publicly announce his sexual orientation.
He quoted civil rights campaigner Martin Luther King, saying: "Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?' "
Analysis
Rory Cellan-Jones, BBC News technology correspondent
Tim Cook's announcement may come as no surprise in Silicon Valley or across corporate America.
But that does not mean that we should underestimate the significance of the leader of the world's most valuable company talking openly about his sexuality.
Back in May, a piece in the New York Times asked "where are the gay chief executives?" and struggled to name any openly gay CEOs at America's 1,000 biggest companies.
Apple under Steve Jobs was not a company that took a stand on any issues which were not seen as relevant to its business.
Tim Cook has been more forthcoming on all sorts of issues, including equal rights for gay workers, and while he says he does not see himself as an activist, that is how many will now see him.
That could embroil him in controversy in the United States, let alone in other parts of the world with less liberal views of sexuality.
Mr Cook admitted that going public as a gay man was not an easy choice - but it certainly looks a courageous one.
This week Mr Cook referred to Martin Luther King in a speech in Alabama in which he called for equal rights for people based on sexual orientation and identity.
He said that Alabama had been too slow to ensure the rights of ethnic minorities in the civil rights era, and was now being too slow to guarantee gay rights.
"Under the law, citizens of Alabama can still be fired based on their sexual orientation," Mr Cook said.
"We can't change the past, but we can learn from it and we can create a different future."
Mr Cook has championed equality at Apple, but in August said he was "not satisfied" with workforce diversity at the company.
Outstanding, a not-for-profit professional network for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) executives, said on Thursday that many LGBT people in the UK felt it was "safer to stay in the closet" when at work.
In May a US study by LGBT organisation Human Rights Campaign suggested that 53% of US LGBT employees had not come out at work.
'Role model'
Former BP chief executive Lord Browne, who now chairs fracking company Cuadrilla, said Mr Cook had become a role model.
"By deciding to speak publicly about his sexuality, Tim Cook has become a role model, and will speed up changes in the corporate world," Lord Browne said.
The peer kept his sexual orientation a secret for decades, but was forced to come out after a boyfriend made his sexuality public in 2007.
If Microsoft wanted to grab a slice of the impending Apple Watch audience, it couldn’t have crafted a better plan than with its just-released Microsoft Band. The company’s first wearable piggybacks off of the style and functions we’re already familiar with in today’s activity trackers. But with nifty features, a more affordable price tag, and a broader potential audience, Microsoft is taking a different approach than Apple and other wearable makers.
First, and most importantly,the wristbandis not a watch replacement. It’s designed to be worn 24-hours a day on your less dominant hand. It can track your activity and sleep patterns, and if you have a favorite watch, it wouldn’t be weird to wear it on your other wrist.
Microsoft
This is a vastly different approach than Apple’s. Indeed, the Apple Watch is designed to replace the watch already on your wrist. To that end, the company spent a tremendous amount of resources to develop a product that’s not just functional, but also good looking enough to wear every day. It comes in an incredible number of varieties: You can get it with a gold band, a chain link band, a silicone band, and in different colors, textures, and types of clasps. It’s a fashion item. Microsoft’s Band is, at its heart, a generic fitness band.
But more importantly, the Microsoft Band is cross-platform. This is huge as it’s something Apple can’t, and will not, do. Microsoft Health, the Band’s corresponding software platform, is available on iOS, Android, and Windows Phone making the tracker itself cross-platform, too. This opens the Band up to a huge audience (virtually all smartphone owners) rather than, in Apple’s case, limiting the product to devotees of its insular ecosystem.
For Microsoft, this means a chance to introduce folks on other operating systems to its mobile platform by offering a taste of its hardware quality and a sense of the software experience. It could even compel users to dive deeper into the Windows Phone realm. And while Windows Phone is a moderate success abroad, in the U.S., its marketshare is still paltry.
The Band also has some interesting features. More and more people want a wearable to perform heart-rate tracking; It does that. For pale folks like me, the inclusion of a UV monitor for getting a pulse on the day’s UV index is useful. It also includes GPS for those who want to track their run routes without having to strap on a wearable and tote a smartphone. The Band is also designed to get multi-day battery life, depending on how much you use some of these other battery-intensive features like GPS. Another cool feature: Guided workouts, which should offer ways to optimize your workout right on your wrist. And Windows Phone users also get access to Cortana through the band.
Unless things change, the first Apple Watch will not include GPS (it relies on the GPS in your phone) or a UV monitor, but it does offer 24-hour heart-rate detection.
Lastly, while a $200 price tag isn’t cheap, it’s a more affordable price point than Apple’s watch, which starts at $350 and goes up from there. Two hundred dollars is on the high-end for fitness trackers: The Garmin Vivosmart is $170, the Samsung Gear Fit started at $200 but can be found for closer to $100, and Fitbit’s latest trackers range from $130 to $250. While the Band doesn’t have a smartwatch form factor, it does perform the full suite of notification features a smartwatch typically does by pairing with your smartphone over Bluetooth, which partially validates the higher price point. The inclusion of GPS also makes it pricier than something like a Jawbone Up.
While the Microsoft Band still has to compete against all those other fitness trackers on features, styling, and price point, Microsoft’s wearable is taking a completely different approach than Apple in the space. And that’s a smart thing.
Obi phones are currently available in India and the Middle East, and will be sold in Singapore via e-commerce site Lazada on November 11. The company aims to complete the rollout of its brand in the rest of Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, Africa and Latin America by mid-2015.
Launch timing 'perfect'
Obi's launch comes amid intensifying competition in the smartphone market, but Sculley says the timing couldn't be better.
"The reason we're excited about Obi is that right now in emerging markets around the world smartphones are seeing very high growth adoption [as consumers] go from feature phones to smartphones," he said.
At the same, the technology for mobile devices is becoming commoditized, so the ability to offer high quality products at a very affordable cost "has never been better than it is right now," he said.
Analysts aren't quite as convinced on the timing, however.
"I would have been more confident a year ago, if they had come with the same strategy. Now there are many options available at [a similar] price point, and consumers are spoilt for choice with options available from local, global and Chinese players in the market," said Kiranjeet Kaur, senior market analyst at IDC Asia/Pacific.
Apple chief executive Tim Cook has publicly acknowledged his sexuality, saying that he is "proud to be gay".
Mr Cook made his announcement to try to help people struggling with their identity, he wrote in a Bloomberg Businessweek article.
He has been open about his sexuality, but has also tried to maintain a basic level of privacy until now, he said.
This week Mr Cook challenged his home state of Alabama to ensure the rights of gay and transgender people.
Privacy trade-off
"While I have never denied my sexuality, I haven't publicly acknowledged it either, until now," he wrote.
Former BP chief executive Lord Browne says Mr Cook is "an important role model"
"So let me be clear: I'm proud to be gay, and I consider being gay among the greatest gifts God has given me," he added.
He said he didn't consider himself an activist, but that he realised he had "benefited from the sacrifice of others."
"So if hearing that the CEO [chief executive] of Apple is gay can help someone struggling to come to terms with who he or she is, or bring comfort to anyone who feels alone, or inspire people to insist on their equality, then it's worth the trade-off with my own privacy," he added.
Mr Cook said that he had been open about his sexuality with many people, including colleagues at Apple, but that it still "wasn't an easy choice" to publicly announce his sexual orientation.
He quoted civil rights campaigner Martin Luther King, saying: "Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?' "
Analysis
Rory Cellan-Jones, BBC News technology correspondent
Tim Cook's announcement may come as no surprise in Silicon Valley or across corporate America.
But that does not mean that we should underestimate the significance of the leader of the world's most valuable company talking openly about his sexuality.
Back in May, a piece in the New York Times asked "where are the gay chief executives?" and struggled to name any openly gay CEOs at America's 1,000 biggest companies.
Apple under Steve Jobs was not a company that took a stand on any issues which were not seen as relevant to its business.
Tim Cook has been more forthcoming on all sorts of issues, including equal rights for gay workers, and while he says he does not see himself as an activist, that is how many will now see him.
That could embroil him in controversy in the United States, let alone in other parts of the world with less liberal views of sexuality.
Mr Cook admitted that going public as a gay man was not an easy choice - but it certainly looks a courageous one.
This week Mr Cook referred to Martin Luther King in a speech in Alabama in which he called for equal rights for people based on sexual orientation and identity.
He said that Alabama had been too slow to ensure the rights of ethnic minorities in the civil rights era, and was now being too slow to guarantee gay rights.
"Under the law, citizens of Alabama can still be fired based on their sexual orientation," Mr Cook said.
"We can't change the past, but we can learn from it and we can create a different future."
Mr Cook has championed equality at Apple, but in August said he was "not satisfied" with workforce diversity at the company.
Outstanding, a not-for-profit professional network for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) executives, said on Thursday that many LGBT people in the UK felt it was "safer to stay in the closet" when at work.
In May a US study by LGBT organisation Human Rights Campaign suggested that 53% of US LGBT employees had not come out at work.
'Role model'
Former BP chief executive Lord Browne, who now chairs fracking company Cuadrilla, said Mr Cook had become a role model.
"By deciding to speak publicly about his sexuality, Tim Cook has become a role model, and will speed up changes in the corporate world," Lord Browne said.
The peer kept his sexual orientation a secret for decades, but was forced to come out after a boyfriend made his sexuality public in 2007.
If Microsoft wanted to grab a slice of the impending Apple Watch audience, it couldn’t have crafted a better plan than with its just-released Microsoft Band. The company’s first wearable piggybacks off of the style and functions we’re already familiar with in today’s activity trackers. But with nifty features, a more affordable price tag, and a broader potential audience, Microsoft is taking a different approach than Apple and other wearable makers.
First, and most importantly,the wristbandis not a watch replacement. It’s designed to be worn 24-hours a day on your less dominant hand. It can track your activity and sleep patterns, and if you have a favorite watch, it wouldn’t be weird to wear it on your other wrist.
Microsoft
This is a vastly different approach than Apple’s. Indeed, the Apple Watch is designed to replace the watch already on your wrist. To that end, the company spent a tremendous amount of resources to develop a product that’s not just functional, but also good looking enough to wear every day. It comes in an incredible number of varieties: You can get it with a gold band, a chain link band, a silicone band, and in different colors, textures, and types of clasps. It’s a fashion item. Microsoft’s Band is, at its heart, a generic fitness band.
But more importantly, the Microsoft Band is cross-platform. This is huge as it’s something Apple can’t, and will not, do. Microsoft Health, the Band’s corresponding software platform, is available on iOS, Android, and Windows Phone making the tracker itself cross-platform, too. This opens the Band up to a huge audience (virtually all smartphone owners) rather than, in Apple’s case, limiting the product to devotees of its insular ecosystem.
For Microsoft, this means a chance to introduce folks on other operating systems to its mobile platform by offering a taste of its hardware quality and a sense of the software experience. It could even compel users to dive deeper into the Windows Phone realm. And while Windows Phone is a moderate success abroad, in the U.S., its marketshare is still paltry.
The Band also has some interesting features. More and more people want a wearable to perform heart-rate tracking; It does that. For pale folks like me, the inclusion of a UV monitor for getting a pulse on the day’s UV index is useful. It also includes GPS for those who want to track their run routes without having to strap on a wearable and tote a smartphone. The Band is also designed to get multi-day battery life, depending on how much you use some of these other battery-intensive features like GPS. Another cool feature: Guided workouts, which should offer ways to optimize your workout right on your wrist. And Windows Phone users also get access to Cortana through the band.
Unless things change, the first Apple Watch will not include GPS (it relies on the GPS in your phone) or a UV monitor, but it does offer 24-hour heart-rate detection.
Lastly, while a $200 price tag isn’t cheap, it’s a more affordable price point than Apple’s watch, which starts at $350 and goes up from there. Two hundred dollars is on the high-end for fitness trackers: The Garmin Vivosmart is $170, the Samsung Gear Fit started at $200 but can be found for closer to $100, and Fitbit’s latest trackers range from $130 to $250. While the Band doesn’t have a smartwatch form factor, it does perform the full suite of notification features a smartwatch typically does by pairing with your smartphone over Bluetooth, which partially validates the higher price point. The inclusion of GPS also makes it pricier than something like a Jawbone Up.
While the Microsoft Band still has to compete against all those other fitness trackers on features, styling, and price point, Microsoft’s wearable is taking a completely different approach than Apple in the space. And that’s a smart thing.
Obi phones are currently available in India and the Middle East, and will be sold in Singapore via e-commerce site Lazada on November 11. The company aims to complete the rollout of its brand in the rest of Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, Africa and Latin America by mid-2015.
Launch timing 'perfect'
Obi's launch comes amid intensifying competition in the smartphone market, but Sculley says the timing couldn't be better.
"The reason we're excited about Obi is that right now in emerging markets around the world smartphones are seeing very high growth adoption [as consumers] go from feature phones to smartphones," he said.
At the same, the technology for mobile devices is becoming commoditized, so the ability to offer high quality products at a very affordable cost "has never been better than it is right now," he said.
Analysts aren't quite as convinced on the timing, however.
"I would have been more confident a year ago, if they had come with the same strategy. Now there are many options available at [a similar] price point, and consumers are spoilt for choice with options available from local, global and Chinese players in the market," said Kiranjeet Kaur, senior market analyst at IDC Asia/Pacific.
If Microsoft wanted to grab a slice of the impending Apple Watch audience, it couldn’t have crafted a better plan than with its just-released Microsoft Band. The company’s first wearable piggybacks off of the style and functions we’re already familiar with in today’s activity trackers. But with nifty features, a more affordable price tag, and a broader potential audience, Microsoft is taking a different approach than Apple and other wearable makers.
First, and most importantly,the wristbandis not a watch replacement. It’s designed to be worn 24-hours a day on your less dominant hand. It can track your activity and sleep patterns, and if you have a favorite watch, it wouldn’t be weird to wear it on your other wrist.
Microsoft
This is a vastly different approach than Apple’s. Indeed, the Apple Watch is designed to replace the watch already on your wrist. To that end, the company spent a tremendous amount of resources to develop a product that’s not just functional, but also good looking enough to wear every day. It comes in an incredible number of varieties: You can get it with a gold band, a chain link band, a silicone band, and in different colors, textures, and types of clasps. It’s a fashion item. Microsoft’s Band is, at its heart, a generic fitness band.
But more importantly, the Microsoft Band is cross-platform. This is huge as it’s something Apple can’t, and will not, do. Microsoft Health, the Band’s corresponding software platform, is available on iOS, Android, and Windows Phone making the tracker itself cross-platform, too. This opens the Band up to a huge audience (virtually all smartphone owners) rather than, in Apple’s case, limiting the product to devotees of its insular ecosystem.
For Microsoft, this means a chance to introduce folks on other operating systems to its mobile platform by offering a taste of its hardware quality and a sense of the software experience. It could even compel users to dive deeper into the Windows Phone realm. And while Windows Phone is a moderate success abroad, in the U.S., its marketshare is still paltry.
The Band also has some interesting features. More and more people want a wearable to perform heart-rate tracking; It does that. For pale folks like me, the inclusion of a UV monitor for getting a pulse on the day’s UV index is useful. It also includes GPS for those who want to track their run routes without having to strap on a wearable and tote a smartphone. The Band is also designed to get multi-day battery life, depending on how much you use some of these other battery-intensive features like GPS. Another cool feature: Guided workouts, which should offer ways to optimize your workout right on your wrist. And Windows Phone users also get access to Cortana through the band.
Unless things change, the first Apple Watch will not include GPS (it relies on the GPS in your phone) or a UV monitor, but it does offer 24-hour heart-rate detection.
Lastly, while a $200 price tag isn’t cheap, it’s a more affordable price point than Apple’s watch, which starts at $350 and goes up from there. Two hundred dollars is on the high-end for fitness trackers: The Garmin Vivosmart is $170, the Samsung Gear Fit started at $200 but can be found for closer to $100, and Fitbit’s latest trackers range from $130 to $250. While the Band doesn’t have a smartwatch form factor, it does perform the full suite of notification features a smartwatch typically does by pairing with your smartphone over Bluetooth, which partially validates the higher price point. The inclusion of GPS also makes it pricier than something like a Jawbone Up.
While the Microsoft Band still has to compete against all those other fitness trackers on features, styling, and price point, Microsoft’s wearable is taking a completely different approach than Apple in the space. And that’s a smart thing.
Obi phones are currently available in India and the Middle East, and will be sold in Singapore via e-commerce site Lazada on November 11. The company aims to complete the rollout of its brand in the rest of Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, Africa and Latin America by mid-2015.
Launch timing 'perfect'
Obi's launch comes amid intensifying competition in the smartphone market, but Sculley says the timing couldn't be better.
"The reason we're excited about Obi is that right now in emerging markets around the world smartphones are seeing very high growth adoption [as consumers] go from feature phones to smartphones," he said.
At the same, the technology for mobile devices is becoming commoditized, so the ability to offer high quality products at a very affordable cost "has never been better than it is right now," he said.
Analysts aren't quite as convinced on the timing, however.
"I would have been more confident a year ago, if they had come with the same strategy. Now there are many options available at [a similar] price point, and consumers are spoilt for choice with options available from local, global and Chinese players in the market," said Kiranjeet Kaur, senior market analyst at IDC Asia/Pacific.
If Microsoft wanted to grab a slice of the impending Apple Watch audience, it couldn’t have crafted a better plan than with its just-released Microsoft Band. The company’s first wearable piggybacks off of the style and functions we’re already familiar with in today’s activity trackers. But with nifty features, a more affordable price tag, and a broader potential audience, Microsoft is taking a different approach than Apple and other wearable makers.
First, and most importantly,the wristbandis not a watch replacement. It’s designed to be worn 24-hours a day on your less dominant hand. It can track your activity and sleep patterns, and if you have a favorite watch, it wouldn’t be weird to wear it on your other wrist.
Microsoft
This is a vastly different approach than Apple’s. Indeed, the Apple Watch is designed to replace the watch already on your wrist. To that end, the company spent a tremendous amount of resources to develop a product that’s not just functional, but also good looking enough to wear every day. It comes in an incredible number of varieties: You can get it with a gold band, a chain link band, a silicone band, and in different colors, textures, and types of clasps. It’s a fashion item. Microsoft’s Band is, at its heart, a generic fitness band.
But more importantly, the Microsoft Band is cross-platform. This is huge as it’s something Apple can’t, and will not, do. Microsoft Health, the Band’s corresponding software platform, is available on iOS, Android, and Windows Phone making the tracker itself cross-platform, too. This opens the Band up to a huge audience (virtually all smartphone owners) rather than, in Apple’s case, limiting the product to devotees of its insular ecosystem.
For Microsoft, this means a chance to introduce folks on other operating systems to its mobile platform by offering a taste of its hardware quality and a sense of the software experience. It could even compel users to dive deeper into the Windows Phone realm. And while Windows Phone is a moderate success abroad, in the U.S., its marketshare is still paltry.
The Band also has some interesting features. More and more people want a wearable to perform heart-rate tracking; It does that. For pale folks like me, the inclusion of a UV monitor for getting a pulse on the day’s UV index is useful. It also includes GPS for those who want to track their run routes without having to strap on a wearable and tote a smartphone. The Band is also designed to get multi-day battery life, depending on how much you use some of these other battery-intensive features like GPS. Another cool feature: Guided workouts, which should offer ways to optimize your workout right on your wrist. And Windows Phone users also get access to Cortana through the band.
Unless things change, the first Apple Watch will not include GPS (it relies on the GPS in your phone) or a UV monitor, but it does offer 24-hour heart-rate detection.
Lastly, while a $200 price tag isn’t cheap, it’s a more affordable price point than Apple’s watch, which starts at $350 and goes up from there. Two hundred dollars is on the high-end for fitness trackers: The Garmin Vivosmart is $170, the Samsung Gear Fit started at $200 but can be found for closer to $100, and Fitbit’s latest trackers range from $130 to $250. While the Band doesn’t have a smartwatch form factor, it does perform the full suite of notification features a smartwatch typically does by pairing with your smartphone over Bluetooth, which partially validates the higher price point. The inclusion of GPS also makes it pricier than something like a Jawbone Up.
While the Microsoft Band still has to compete against all those other fitness trackers on features, styling, and price point, Microsoft’s wearable is taking a completely different approach than Apple in the space. And that’s a smart thing.
Obi phones are currently available in India and the Middle East, and will be sold in Singapore via e-commerce site Lazada on November 11. The company aims to complete the rollout of its brand in the rest of Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, Africa and Latin America by mid-2015.
Launch timing 'perfect'
Obi's launch comes amid intensifying competition in the smartphone market, but Sculley says the timing couldn't be better.
"The reason we're excited about Obi is that right now in emerging markets around the world smartphones are seeing very high growth adoption [as consumers] go from feature phones to smartphones," he said.
At the same, the technology for mobile devices is becoming commoditized, so the ability to offer high quality products at a very affordable cost "has never been better than it is right now," he said.
Analysts aren't quite as convinced on the timing, however.
"I would have been more confident a year ago, if they had come with the same strategy. Now there are many options available at [a similar] price point, and consumers are spoilt for choice with options available from local, global and Chinese players in the market," said Kiranjeet Kaur, senior market analyst at IDC Asia/Pacific.
If Microsoft wanted to grab a slice of the impending Apple Watch audience, it couldn’t have crafted a better plan than with its just-released Microsoft Band. The company’s first wearable piggybacks off of the style and functions we’re already familiar with in today’s activity trackers. But with nifty features, a more affordable price tag, and a broader potential audience, Microsoft is taking a different approach than Apple and other wearable makers.
First, and most importantly,the wristbandis not a watch replacement. It’s designed to be worn 24-hours a day on your less dominant hand. It can track your activity and sleep patterns, and if you have a favorite watch, it wouldn’t be weird to wear it on your other wrist.
Microsoft
This is a vastly different approach than Apple’s. Indeed, the Apple Watch is designed to replace the watch already on your wrist. To that end, the company spent a tremendous amount of resources to develop a product that’s not just functional, but also good looking enough to wear every day. It comes in an incredible number of varieties: You can get it with a gold band, a chain link band, a silicone band, and in different colors, textures, and types of clasps. It’s a fashion item. Microsoft’s Band is, at its heart, a generic fitness band.
But more importantly, the Microsoft Band is cross-platform. This is huge as it’s something Apple can’t, and will not, do. Microsoft Health, the Band’s corresponding software platform, is available on iOS, Android, and Windows Phone making the tracker itself cross-platform, too. This opens the Band up to a huge audience (virtually all smartphone owners) rather than, in Apple’s case, limiting the product to devotees of its insular ecosystem.
For Microsoft, this means a chance to introduce folks on other operating systems to its mobile platform by offering a taste of its hardware quality and a sense of the software experience. It could even compel users to dive deeper into the Windows Phone realm. And while Windows Phone is a moderate success abroad, in the U.S., its marketshare is still paltry.
The Band also has some interesting features. More and more people want a wearable to perform heart-rate tracking; It does that. For pale folks like me, the inclusion of a UV monitor for getting a pulse on the day’s UV index is useful. It also includes GPS for those who want to track their run routes without having to strap on a wearable and tote a smartphone. The Band is also designed to get multi-day battery life, depending on how much you use some of these other battery-intensive features like GPS. Another cool feature: Guided workouts, which should offer ways to optimize your workout right on your wrist. And Windows Phone users also get access to Cortana through the band.
Unless things change, the first Apple Watch will not include GPS (it relies on the GPS in your phone) or a UV monitor, but it does offer 24-hour heart-rate detection.
Lastly, while a $200 price tag isn’t cheap, it’s a more affordable price point than Apple’s watch, which starts at $350 and goes up from there. Two hundred dollars is on the high-end for fitness trackers: The Garmin Vivosmart is $170, the Samsung Gear Fit started at $200 but can be found for closer to $100, and Fitbit’s latest trackers range from $130 to $250. While the Band doesn’t have a smartwatch form factor, it does perform the full suite of notification features a smartwatch typically does by pairing with your smartphone over Bluetooth, which partially validates the higher price point. The inclusion of GPS also makes it pricier than something like a Jawbone Up.
While the Microsoft Band still has to compete against all those other fitness trackers on features, styling, and price point, Microsoft’s wearable is taking a completely different approach than Apple in the space. And that’s a smart thing.
Obi phones are currently available in India and the Middle East, and will be sold in Singapore via e-commerce site Lazada on November 11. The company aims to complete the rollout of its brand in the rest of Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, Africa and Latin America by mid-2015.
Launch timing 'perfect'
Obi's launch comes amid intensifying competition in the smartphone market, but Sculley says the timing couldn't be better.
"The reason we're excited about Obi is that right now in emerging markets around the world smartphones are seeing very high growth adoption [as consumers] go from feature phones to smartphones," he said.
At the same, the technology for mobile devices is becoming commoditized, so the ability to offer high quality products at a very affordable cost "has never been better than it is right now," he said.
Analysts aren't quite as convinced on the timing, however.
"I would have been more confident a year ago, if they had come with the same strategy. Now there are many options available at [a similar] price point, and consumers are spoilt for choice with options available from local, global and Chinese players in the market," said Kiranjeet Kaur, senior market analyst at IDC Asia/Pacific.
If Microsoft wanted to grab a slice of the impending Apple Watch audience, it couldn’t have crafted a better plan than with its just-released Microsoft Band. The company’s first wearable piggybacks off of the style and functions we’re already familiar with in today’s activity trackers. But with nifty features, a more affordable price tag, and a broader potential audience, Microsoft is taking a different approach than Apple and other wearable makers.
First, and most importantly,the wristbandis not a watch replacement. It’s designed to be worn 24-hours a day on your less dominant hand. It can track your activity and sleep patterns, and if you have a favorite watch, it wouldn’t be weird to wear it on your other wrist.
Microsoft
This is a vastly different approach than Apple’s. Indeed, the Apple Watch is designed to replace the watch already on your wrist. To that end, the company spent a tremendous amount of resources to develop a product that’s not just functional, but also good looking enough to wear every day. It comes in an incredible number of varieties: You can get it with a gold band, a chain link band, a silicone band, and in different colors, textures, and types of clasps. It’s a fashion item. Microsoft’s Band is, at its heart, a generic fitness band.
But more importantly, the Microsoft Band is cross-platform. This is huge as it’s something Apple can’t, and will not, do. Microsoft Health, the Band’s corresponding software platform, is available on iOS, Android, and Windows Phone making the tracker itself cross-platform, too. This opens the Band up to a huge audience (virtually all smartphone owners) rather than, in Apple’s case, limiting the product to devotees of its insular ecosystem.
For Microsoft, this means a chance to introduce folks on other operating systems to its mobile platform by offering a taste of its hardware quality and a sense of the software experience. It could even compel users to dive deeper into the Windows Phone realm. And while Windows Phone is a moderate success abroad, in the U.S., its marketshare is still paltry.
The Band also has some interesting features. More and more people want a wearable to perform heart-rate tracking; It does that. For pale folks like me, the inclusion of a UV monitor for getting a pulse on the day’s UV index is useful. It also includes GPS for those who want to track their run routes without having to strap on a wearable and tote a smartphone. The Band is also designed to get multi-day battery life, depending on how much you use some of these other battery-intensive features like GPS. Another cool feature: Guided workouts, which should offer ways to optimize your workout right on your wrist. And Windows Phone users also get access to Cortana through the band.
Unless things change, the first Apple Watch will not include GPS (it relies on the GPS in your phone) or a UV monitor, but it does offer 24-hour heart-rate detection.
Lastly, while a $200 price tag isn’t cheap, it’s a more affordable price point than Apple’s watch, which starts at $350 and goes up from there. Two hundred dollars is on the high-end for fitness trackers: The Garmin Vivosmart is $170, the Samsung Gear Fit started at $200 but can be found for closer to $100, and Fitbit’s latest trackers range from $130 to $250. While the Band doesn’t have a smartwatch form factor, it does perform the full suite of notification features a smartwatch typically does by pairing with your smartphone over Bluetooth, which partially validates the higher price point. The inclusion of GPS also makes it pricier than something like a Jawbone Up.
While the Microsoft Band still has to compete against all those other fitness trackers on features, styling, and price point, Microsoft’s wearable is taking a completely different approach than Apple in the space. And that’s a smart thing.
Obi phones are currently available in India and the Middle East, and will be sold in Singapore via e-commerce site Lazada on November 11. The company aims to complete the rollout of its brand in the rest of Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, Africa and Latin America by mid-2015.
Launch timing 'perfect'
Obi's launch comes amid intensifying competition in the smartphone market, but Sculley says the timing couldn't be better.
"The reason we're excited about Obi is that right now in emerging markets around the world smartphones are seeing very high growth adoption [as consumers] go from feature phones to smartphones," he said.
At the same, the technology for mobile devices is becoming commoditized, so the ability to offer high quality products at a very affordable cost "has never been better than it is right now," he said.
Analysts aren't quite as convinced on the timing, however.
"I would have been more confident a year ago, if they had come with the same strategy. Now there are many options available at [a similar] price point, and consumers are spoilt for choice with options available from local, global and Chinese players in the market," said Kiranjeet Kaur, senior market analyst at IDC Asia/Pacific.
If Microsoft wanted to grab a slice of the impending Apple Watch audience, it couldn’t have crafted a better plan than with its just-released Microsoft Band. The company’s first wearable piggybacks off of the style and functions we’re already familiar with in today’s activity trackers. But with nifty features, a more affordable price tag, and a broader potential audience, Microsoft is taking a different approach than Apple and other wearable makers.
First, and most importantly,the wristbandis not a watch replacement. It’s designed to be worn 24-hours a day on your less dominant hand. It can track your activity and sleep patterns, and if you have a favorite watch, it wouldn’t be weird to wear it on your other wrist.
Microsoft
This is a vastly different approach than Apple’s. Indeed, the Apple Watch is designed to replace the watch already on your wrist. To that end, the company spent a tremendous amount of resources to develop a product that’s not just functional, but also good looking enough to wear every day. It comes in an incredible number of varieties: You can get it with a gold band, a chain link band, a silicone band, and in different colors, textures, and types of clasps. It’s a fashion item. Microsoft’s Band is, at its heart, a generic fitness band.
But more importantly, the Microsoft Band is cross-platform. This is huge as it’s something Apple can’t, and will not, do. Microsoft Health, the Band’s corresponding software platform, is available on iOS, Android, and Windows Phone making the tracker itself cross-platform, too. This opens the Band up to a huge audience (virtually all smartphone owners) rather than, in Apple’s case, limiting the product to devotees of its insular ecosystem.
For Microsoft, this means a chance to introduce folks on other operating systems to its mobile platform by offering a taste of its hardware quality and a sense of the software experience. It could even compel users to dive deeper into the Windows Phone realm. And while Windows Phone is a moderate success abroad, in the U.S., its marketshare is still paltry.
The Band also has some interesting features. More and more people want a wearable to perform heart-rate tracking; It does that. For pale folks like me, the inclusion of a UV monitor for getting a pulse on the day’s UV index is useful. It also includes GPS for those who want to track their run routes without having to strap on a wearable and tote a smartphone. The Band is also designed to get multi-day battery life, depending on how much you use some of these other battery-intensive features like GPS. Another cool feature: Guided workouts, which should offer ways to optimize your workout right on your wrist. And Windows Phone users also get access to Cortana through the band.
Unless things change, the first Apple Watch will not include GPS (it relies on the GPS in your phone) or a UV monitor, but it does offer 24-hour heart-rate detection.
Lastly, while a $200 price tag isn’t cheap, it’s a more affordable price point than Apple’s watch, which starts at $350 and goes up from there. Two hundred dollars is on the high-end for fitness trackers: The Garmin Vivosmart is $170, the Samsung Gear Fit started at $200 but can be found for closer to $100, and Fitbit’s latest trackers range from $130 to $250. While the Band doesn’t have a smartwatch form factor, it does perform the full suite of notification features a smartwatch typically does by pairing with your smartphone over Bluetooth, which partially validates the higher price point. The inclusion of GPS also makes it pricier than something like a Jawbone Up.
While the Microsoft Band still has to compete against all those other fitness trackers on features, styling, and price point, Microsoft’s wearable is taking a completely different approach than Apple in the space. And that’s a smart thing.
Obi phones are currently available in India and the Middle East, and will be sold in Singapore via e-commerce site Lazada on November 11. The company aims to complete the rollout of its brand in the rest of Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, Africa and Latin America by mid-2015.
Launch timing 'perfect'
Obi's launch comes amid intensifying competition in the smartphone market, but Sculley says the timing couldn't be better.
"The reason we're excited about Obi is that right now in emerging markets around the world smartphones are seeing very high growth adoption [as consumers] go from feature phones to smartphones," he said.
At the same, the technology for mobile devices is becoming commoditized, so the ability to offer high quality products at a very affordable cost "has never been better than it is right now," he said.
Analysts aren't quite as convinced on the timing, however.
"I would have been more confident a year ago, if they had come with the same strategy. Now there are many options available at [a similar] price point, and consumers are spoilt for choice with options available from local, global and Chinese players in the market," said Kiranjeet Kaur, senior market analyst at IDC Asia/Pacific.
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Apple CEO Tim Cook speaks about Apple Pay during an Apple event at the Flint Center in Cupertino, California, September 9, 2014.
Credit: Reuters/Stephen Lam
(Reuters) - Some large U.S. retailers are refusing to use Apple Inc's APPL.O new electronic payments service as they commit to developing a rival payments system that would bolster their profits by eliminating credit card transaction fees.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc (WMT.N) is among the roughly 50 big retailers that have chosen not to accept Apple Pay, along with Rite Aid Corp (RAD.N) and CVS HealthCorp (CVS.N).
They say they are working instead on developing their own payment system, called Current C, through the Merchants Customer Exchange (MCX) consortium.
The driving force behind developing a retailer-owned mobile payment solution is to avoid paying credit card transaction fees to card companies like Visa (V.N) and Mastercard (MA.N), analysts said. Fees range between 2 percent and 3 percent of costs per transaction.
""The economics and benefits of having your own payment system is definitely one of the main reasons," said Hitesh Sheth, chief executive of retail technology cybersecurity firm Vectra Networks.
Apple did not immediately respond to queries seeking comment. Mastercard criticized the move by CVS and Rite Aid, saying it would limit the options of consumers.
"We are disappointed that both Rite Aid and CVS have decided to block their customers from using the payment method of their choice," Mastercard spokesman Jim Issokson said.
Apple Pay, unveiled just last month, is a mobile payment app that allows consumers to buy things by simply holding their iPhone6 and 6 Plus devices up to readers installed by store merchants.
The retailers shunning Apple Pay have also refused to use mobile payment systems like Google Wallet and Softcard.
Rite Aid stopped accepting Apple Pay last week at its 4,572 stores. Spokeswoman Ashley Flower said on Monday the company is continually evaluating various forms of mobile payment technologies.
CVS did not respond to queries seeking comment but a visit to two CVS stores showed the NFC (Near Field Communications) reader on which Apple Pay was used has been deactivated.
Wal-Mart spokesman Randy Hargrove said Wal-Mart is not participating in Apple Pay at this point. It is focused instead on MCX, as one of the heavyweights in the consortium.
Target said that it supports MCX but is also allowing users to make online purchases through its mobile app using Apple Pay.
Antitrust experts said CVS and Rite Aid have the right to drop a vendor if they believe they can save money by going around the credit card companies and Apple, both of which will take a piece of the action.
But they could run into antitrust trouble if they coordinated on dropping Apple Pay and Google Wallet or if someone else, perhaps a person working with CurrentC, organized their decision to drop Apple and Google’s payment services.
"If I was a regulator, I would want to take a look at that,” said Peter Carstensen, who teaches antitrust at the University of Wisconsin Law School.
(Additional reporting by Diane Bartz in Washington)
Well, that didn’t take long. Apple Pay launched only a week ago, and it’s already unmasking major strife in the retail industry.
According to The New York Times and others, Rite Aid and CVS both blocked the use of Apple Pay over the weekend. Though neither company is saying why, one likely reason is a competing mobile payments app that a group of big retailers have been developing on their own.
But it’s a battle the stores won’t win.
Retailers including Walmart and Gap, as well as Rite Aid and CVS, are part of a consortium called Merchant Customer Exchange, or MCX, that have created an app called CurrentC. Apparently, CurrentC relies on scanning QR codes at the checkout counter, which makes it sound old-timey from the start compared to Apple Pay’s simple wave of the phone.
But ultimately, the real problem for retailers isn’t dated design. It’s the impetus behind the decision to try to go its own way in mobile payments. Shutting out Apple and its user experience expertise isn’t about doing what’s best for customers. It’s about what retailers perceive to be best for their bottom lines.
Cutting Out Credit Cards
Retailers have long had a love-hate relationship with credit card companies. On the one hand, credit cards make buying stuff easier, which retailers like. On the other hand, credit card companies charge merchants fees for every transaction, which they hate. And when you’re Walmart or CVS or Rite Aid, those fees add up. As what amounts to a new way to swipe a credit card, Apple Pay does nothing to change this dynamic. CurrentC, meanwhile, connects directly to users’ checking accounts, which cuts out the credit card companies and their fees. If only retailers could get lots of people to use their app, they could finally stick it to Visa and Mastercard.
But cutting out a frenemy isn’t a compelling starting point for creating a first-rate user experience, especially when design isn’t a core competency of your business. Shoppers don’t care about the behind-the-scenes woes that stem from stores and credit card companies not getting along. For Apple, by contrast, the bottom line and better design are perfectly aligned. The better the experience of paying with an iPhone, the more iPhones Apple sells. And the more iPhones Apple sells, the more people who will want to use them to pay.
It’s understandable that many retailers would initially balk at Apple Pay. Letting Apple colonize their checkout counters means ceding a degree of control and potentially spiking their own product before it even launches. For now, retailers have a choice to make: more sales thanks to Apple Pay versus theoretical savings on credit card transaction fees if users embrace CurrentC.
Why Would Anyone Use It
But that math only works if anyone is using CurrentC. And without innovative design—or the option of using your existing credit cards—as incentives, retailers will have to look to more conventional nudges to get customers to embrace an unfamiliar product. But the cost to retailers of marketing, discounts, and other rewards needed to get people to pay attention to yet one more app could eat up any advantage that comes from curbing the fees they pay. “I’d argue the spend required to get consumers to use it will be larger than the cost savings,” payments industry veteran Dudas said.
In the end, Apple enjoys the same advantage that gives it so much leverage in so many contexts: It controls the hardware and the software. Anyone who has an iPhone 6 or 6 Plus has a way to pay at the counter. And with 10 million sold the first weekend, that’s a lot of people with that ability. Retailers will have to work a lot harder to get customers to bother with their own app. In the meantime, those that refuse Apple Pay will be missing out on potential sales. And if your business ultimately relies on getting people to buy more stuff from you, giving customers one less way to pay doesn’t really make sense.
Or maybe it doesn’t really matter. After all, how many people probably turned and walked out of a CVS this weekend because they couldn’t pay with their shiny new phones? They just did what everyone else is still doing, everyday, everywhere: They pulled out a credit card.
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