谷歌暗示智能手机时代已到尽头？

把最近有关 Google 的三件大事──转手卖掉摩托罗拉(Motorola)手机业务、收购Nest 以及与三星(Samsung)签署交叉授权协议──连在一起，你发现了什么？ 笔者看到的是智能手机时 代的结束，或者更精确地说，是全球消费者与智能手机的热恋已经走到尽头；蜜月期已经过完了，我现在这样认为。Google 决定把摩托罗拉手机业务(不包括大部分的IP)转手卖给中国大厂联想(Lenovo)，并不完全意味着 Google 的失败，甚至是美国对中国的失败。 有些反应过度的媒体谴责 Google 未能实现当初的承诺：“…以摩托罗拉的新产品重塑手机硬件，并以自有手机软硬件直接与苹果(Apple)竞争。”虽然我也希望制造业职缺能留在美国，但我 不认为Google的决定有错；Google与联想的交易显然是该公司已经承认，涉足智能手机硬件业务并没有什么加分效果。 让 我们回过头看看Google花32亿美元收购Nest那件事。Nest的智能温控装置与烟雾/一氧化碳警报器都是被设计成需要与一个接收器连结──智能手机上的Nest应用程序。因此真正的价值并不在于智能手机本身，而是外围，也就是Nest的软件与硬件；智能手机扮演的仅是信息传递的角色，且快速 成为一种普及商品。 可以肯定的是，我没有预测智能手机市场的衰退；智能手机仍将在未来的几年无所不在，其价值是不变的。不过智能手机的关键功能将会是调制解调器，连结至各式各样的连网装置以及技术。总之，整个世界即将翻转。 把各种花俏功能塞进智能手机、让智能手机变成其他装置的传统概念将会式微，取而代之的是一个全新的、将智能手机看成既定事实的世界；新型态的竞争即将展开，附加价值不在于智能手机本身，而是利用智能手机之链接性的各种外围(有人称之为物联网)。 现在把Google转卖摩托罗拉、收购Nest这两件事，以及稍早之前Google与三星之间的专利战“停火协议”放在一起来看。IHS资深分析师Francis Sideco表示，这意味着两家公司都接受了一个最终现实──没有人能在诉讼中取得完全胜利，就算赢了某些案件、也会输掉某一些，而彼此一定会损失时间与精力，以及得付出大量律师费。 而 Google与三星签署交叉授权协议这件事更重要的一点，如Epicenter IP Group召集人Ron Epstein所言，在于：“因专利战火而点燃的智能手机平台之争，即将走向终点。”显然Google与三星都看到了藉由专利互惠，一起做生意的价值所 在；双方的和解也反映了智能手机产业逐渐成熟的事实，如果它仍在创新初期，这种情况是不会发生的。 智能手机时代的结束是一个不容易面对的未来，毕竟该市场是过去数年电子产业的成长动力来源；不过有件事情还是值得想想：这几年来，除了手机屏幕尺寸，产业界一直无法明显地将市面上的智能手机升级或是差异化。 今日的智能手机产业状态与2005年有惊人的相似之处，当时笔记本电脑的创新动能逐渐消失，而IBM将PC业务出售给联想。现在的不同之处，是PC产业主 要由台湾(以及部分日本)业者所有，未来十年的智能手机产业则将是中国大陆厂商的天下，包括联想、华为(Huawei)、中兴(ZTE)以及一些美国人 可能还不熟悉的业者。 如同许多中国工程师朋友对我说的，联想在技术、质量、人才与纪律方面都有高声誉(相对来说，我听过有关于中兴的评价就不那么好)；该公司也雄心勃勃，据说在去年成立了一个工程师团队，着手开发自家的智能手机处理器，目的是为产品创造差异化。联想的能力不容任何人小觑。 本文授权编译自EE Times，版权所有，谢绝转载 编译：Judith Cheng 参考英文原文：3 Google Moves Signal End of Smartphone Era，by Junko Yoshida

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{pagination} 3 Google Moves Signal End of Smartphone Era Junko Yoshida, Chief International Correspondent MADISON, Wis. — Connect the dots among the three big moves Google made this month to dump Motorola, snatch up Nest and make peace with Samsung, and what do you get? I see the end of the smartphone era -- or more accurately, the international consumer love affair with smartphones. The honeymoon is over. I'm calling it now. Google's decision to sell Motorola's mobile assets (sans a majority of its IPs) to Chinese behemoth Lenovoisn't exactly signaling Google's defeat, or even America's defeat against China. I see some overheated media reports blaming Google for failing to deliver its promise: "...to reinvent mobile hardware with Motorola's new phones, and directly compete with Apple by owning both mobile hardware and software." Just as much as I want to keep manufacturing jobs in America, I don't fault Google for this decision. The new Google-Lenovo deal shows a significant recognition by Google that the company has little to gain by hanging on to the smartphone hardware business. Added values are in peripherals Now, contrast this decision against Google's $3.2 billion purchase of Nest. Nest's Learning Thermostat and Protect smoke and carbon monoxide alarm are both designed to connect to one receiver: the Nest app on a smartphone. The value here isn't the smartphone itself, but in peripherals -- the software and hardware that run Nest. The smartphone, a mere messenger for these functions, is fast becoming a commodity. To be sure, I'm not forecasting the eclipse of the smartphone. Smartphones will still be ubiquitous for years to come, their value intact. But the smartphone's key function will be a modem, attached to a myriad of connected devices and technologies. In short, the world is about to flip. Gone is the conventional wisdom of cramming more and more bells and whistles into smartphones so that smartphones can morph into something else. Emerging is a new world where the existence of smartphones is a given. Added value, where new competition will unfold, is not in smartphones themselves, but in "peripherals" (some call it the Internet of Things) that will leverage the smartphone's connectivity. Now, let's add these two events (dumping Motorola and buying Nest) to last Sunday's patent truce between Google and Samsung. That move will "short circuit" the drawn-out legal wrangling we see today, as Francis Sideco, senior director of consumer electronics and communications technologies at IHS, told EE Times. The "eventual reality" perceived by both companies is that nobody wins hands down in any litigation. While winning some individual cases and losing some, the net loss for both sides is in time and energy, and in the vast sums squandered on lawyers, Sidesco explained. But more to the point, the significance of the Google/Samsung cross-licensing agreement, as Ron Epstein, principal at Epicenter IP Group, put it earlier this week, is this: "The [smartphone] platform battle -- initiated by patent wars -- is coming to an end." Clearly, both Google and Samsung are seeing the value of doing business together by trading patents. The flip side of this détente, though, is the maturing of the smartphone business. If we were still in the early days of smartphone innovation, this wouldn't have happened. The end of an era The end of an era for smartphones is a difficult prospect to face. After all, the smartphone market has been the engine of the electronics industry in the last several years. And yet, think about this: For a few years, other than the screen size of a handset, the industry hasn't been able to significantly improve or differentiate the smartphones on the market today. The state of the smartphone industry today bears a striking resemblance to the moment in 2005 when the novelty of notebook computers began wearing off and IBM sold its PC business to Lenovo. The difference now is that the PC business then was predominantly owned by Taiwanese (and some Japanese) companies. The smartphone business for the next decade will be dominated by (mainland) Chinese OEMs including Lenovo, Huawei, ZTE, and many other names still unfamiliar in the United States yet. As many of my engineer friends in China would tell me, Lenovo has a stellar reputation for technology, quality, talent and discipline. (In contrast, from what I gather about ZTE, not so much.) Lenovo is also ambitious. Last year, it even assembled a team of engineers to start developing its own application processors for smartphones -- in order to differentiate their products. Nobody better take lightly what Lenovo can do. In an environment that will be marked by a declined smartphone innovation, Apple's next move -- virtually the first major initiative in the post-Steve Jobs era -- will be huge.