On CE - For Dealers, Distributors and OEMs of Consumer Electronics throughout EMEA

Juniper Research predicts WW smartphone shipments will reach 1Bn yearly by 2016-- up from 2010's 302m.

Smartphones will not only make the majority of mobile phone shipments in 5 years' time, but will cost less, thanks to intense competition making manufacturers to push their economy models (those costing an unsubsidised $150 or less).

Juniper says customers want want smartphone features-- with feature phone prices. Customers in developed markets want such upgrades for cheap, while those in emerging markets lack both spending power and operator subsidies, making low price points essential.

Such low prices will be possible thanks to falling component prices and open-source operating systems (primarily Android).

Meanwhile smartphone technologies will continue increasing, with features including NFC, 3D displays and biometrics, as well as those from other devices such as games consoles, tablets and netbooks.

Go Juniper Research: The Smartphone Opportunity

Fujitsu has a solution for customers thinking Windows Phone is not enough-- the F-07C, a Windows 7 smartphone.

It's basically a PC inside a compact (measuring 125mm x 61mm x 19.8mm) design, with a 1.2GHz Intel Atom Z600 processor, 1GB of LPDDRR400 memory and 32GB of eMMC storage.

The sliding 4" LCD display (1024 x 600 resolution) reveals a QWERTY keyboard and trackball for mouse control. Ports include USB and HDMI.

Since it has a x86 processor and standard Windows as OS, the F-07C runs any Windows software, including Internet Explorer 9 (included as default), Adobe Flash and Silverlight. Fujitsu also includes a 2-year Microsoft Office 2010 personal licence.

The device should launch this month in Japan, but there's no word if Fujitsu has any European launch plans yet.

Go Fujitsu Introduces Windows 7 F-OC Mobile Phone

In this last decade, the undisputed leader in consumer electronics has been Apple...people stood in lines just to buy Apple’s i-products, their much-coveted inventory has been often sold out, and their subcontractors regularly ran out of components just trying to keep up with demand.

Nothing has been hotter in CE in the last 10 years than sizzling Apple, right?

So here’s a question for you regarding the last 10 years...Which would you rather have?

1) 5 euro for each iPad sold (25 million as of June 2011), each iPhone sold (100 million as of March 2011) and each iPod sold (300 million at Jan. 2011)...

or...

2) 1 euro for each SD memory card shipped in last 10 years?

You probably guessed right if you read the title of this article: the SD memory card is one of the consumer electronics industry’s most successful innovations with an estimated 2.5 billion SD memory cards shipped in its 10-year history.

Yes, that’s right...the SD memory card...that humble, under-estimated memory card that goes inside mobile phones, media players, computers, televisions, personal navigation devices, digital cameras and many other consumer electronics gadgets.

During those 10 years as Apple polished its fame, SD memory card went quietly about its business. Life is not fair and nor is business... the SD memory card will probably never receive the public acclaim that Apple elicits. Yet inside the CE business, this unsung product hero has outsold Apple’s biggest hits by 5:1.

During the past 10 years, the SD Association has seen an estimated 8000-plus consumer electronics models manufactured by more than 400 brands worldwide rely on SD standards. More than 1000 members give the SD memory card an ecosystem that boosts the removable media market leader to nearly 80% market share today.

And it all started with a first SD memory cards that offered an impressive (at that time) 8MB of storage capacity in the size of a postage stamp.

If that one sales record of 2.5 billion sold was all to be said, SD would still go down in CE history as one of our greatest products...but-- like Apple—the SD Association has had to adopt continuous innovation to succeed.

How does a nice handwriting-input software company get into a mess like this?

Hanvon Technology developed software for handwriting-input pen in 1998 and expanded to include the Hanvon Pen series, the Graphic Tablet series, the OCR series and Intelligent Telephone series.

The first company in the world to incorporate Chinese handwriting recognition technology into PDA and mobile phone devices, Hanvon now owns a manufacturing campus, four advanced design centers, and operates over 5800 sales channels across China and in 20 countries across world. Hanvon Technology Co., Ltd became a listed company in 2010.

For Europeans, Hanvon might look like a cross between the Belgian OCR company IRIS and the well-known Japanese graphics pad company Wacom. Except Hanvon has the giant China market as its home base-- a market that has plenty of natural barriers to discourage foreign competition let alone many political ones.