Rostelecom decided to buy operating system developers from Berezkin. Rostelecom decided to buy operating system developers from Berezkin Company open mobile platform
State operator Rostelecom filed a petition with the Federal Antimonopoly Service for the purchase of shares in the Open Mobile Platform and Votron companies developing the Sailfish mobile operating system. The purpose of the deal for both parties is to stake on import substitution
Grigory Berezkin (Photo: Vladimir Smirnov / TASS)
Rostelecom has filed a petition with the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) for the purchase of 75% stakes in the Open Mobile Platform and Votron companies. This was told to RBC by a source close to one of the parties to the transaction, and confirmed by a representative of the FAS. The interlocutor of RBC in the department specified that the application was received last Friday, February 2, the planned consideration period is a month (but it can be extended for another two).
"Open Mobile Platform" is the developer of the domestic mobile operating system Sailfish Mobile OS Rus, created on the basis of the open source Sailfish operating system. Votron owns a majority stake in the Finnish company Jolla, a developer of Sailfish and mobile devices under its own brand. The controlling shareholder of both companies is directly or indirectly the owner of the ESN group Grigory Berezkin.
Who owns Sailfish
According to SPARK, 100% of the Open Mobile Platform is now owned by the Open Mobile Platform-CR company, which, in turn, is 80% owned by Berezkin's sister, Olga Berezkina, and another 20% by the former ESN CEO Mikhail Verozub. As the owner of 100% of Votron, the Rusintekh company is listed, in which 80% is owned directly by Grigory Berezkin, 20% by Verozub. Neither Open Mobile Platform nor Votron disclose financial figures.
Rostelecom spokesman Andrey Polyakov declined to comment on a possible purchase of companies developing Sailfish. So did the representative of the ESN group, Marianna Belousova, and the CEO of the Open Mobile Platform, Pavel Eiges.
For the first time that Grigory Berezkin is negotiating the sale of the Sailfish mobile operating system to Rostelecom, Vedomosti reported in April 2017, citing its sources. According to the interlocutors of the newspaper, the businessman estimated the entire asset at $50 million. In July last year, Rostelecom for 3.2 million rubles. ordered an audit of development processes and Sailfish software from its subsidiary Sputnik, Vedomosti wrote. The companies themselves have not yet commented on the negotiations.
Operating system with state participation
The main manufacturers of mobile operating systems, which are also used by Russian government agencies, have been the American companies Apple (iOS system), Google (Android) and Microsoft (Windows Phone) for many years. Sailfish Mobile OS Rus is so far the only mobile operating system that is currently included in the Unified Register of Domestic Software. Government agencies must purchase products from this register on a priority basis (unless it is proven that there is no domestic equivalent).
The Sailfish solution, in particular, is used by Russian Post: since 2017, the operator has been introducing mobile fiscal registrars and mobile postal cash terminals running on the Sailfish Mobile OS Rus platform. At the moment, 15 thousand smartphones are being delivered to Sailfish with pre-installed applications that allow you to accept payments for housing and communal services, communication services, arrange insurance, pay loans, etc. at clients' homes. The amount of the contract with Russian Post is 171.1 million rubles.
Last fall, RSPP President Alexander Shokhin sent a letter to Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev proposing that businesses be allowed to print checks not only from cash registers, but also from cheaper mobile devices. Such a device will have to work on a domestic operating system included in the register of Russian software. “In the future, the Sailfish operating system can be used in mobile online cash registers,” a RBC source close to one of the parties to the transaction admitted.
As Eiges told Vedomosti earlier, the demand from government agencies could be about 5 million smartphones and tablets with Sailfish solutions. About 10 million more such devices, according to him, may be in demand in the corporate segment.
Rostelecom is actively cooperating with the state in the field of import substitution in the field of telecommunications and IT, so it is quite logical that the operator is interested in such assets,” says Konstantin Belov, Senior Analyst at FC Uralsib. Rostelecom's traditional business of fixed telephony, long-distance and international communications has been declining for several years in a row. The operator tried to compensate for the loss of income by providing broadband Internet access and pay TV services, but these segments will soon approach saturation, so the company is looking for new growth points. According to the results of the third quarter of 2017 (latest data), the share of traditional services in Rostelecom's revenue was 63% against 66% of the same period in 2016.
Otkritie Broker analyst Timur Nigmatullin believes that Rostelecom wants to diversify its business by developing the digital segment. However, he is confident that with the acquired Sailfish, the operator is unlikely to enter the mass market of mobile operating systems and will compete with Apple iOS and Google Android. “We are talking more about government orders, this will not become a significant part of the operator’s business,” the analyst says.
As it became known to Kommersant, the Open Mobile Platform (OMP) company, the founder of ESN Grigory Berezkin, agreed to create three versions of smartphones based on the version of the Sailfish mobile operating system it is developing. Until the end of the year, devices from Oysters and Jolla running Sailfish Mobile OS RUS, as well as an industrial smartphone "Ermak OMP" for corporate users and the public sector, will go on sale in the Russian market.
OMP has filed an application for inclusion of its mobile operating system Sailfish Mobile OS RUS in the register of domestic software, according to the register of the Ministry of Communications. According to the official website of the company at omprussia.ru, which is indicated in the application, three smartphones running Sailfish Mobile OS RUS will soon appear on the market - smartphones from Oysters and Jolla, as well as an industrial smartphone "Ermak OMP", intended for corporate users and being developed by Mobile Inform Group.
“We see our mission in making a mass product. The Jolla C smartphone based on Sailfish OS can already be bought in Europe, and its version on Sailfish Mobile OS RUS will go on sale before the end of the year. Around the same time, the Oysters smartphone will appear on the Russian version of Sailfish, now we are negotiating with the company regarding the necessary technical characteristics of the device, ”said Pavel Eiges, general director of OMP, to Kommersant. According to him, Mobile Inform Group is already preparing to release the Yermak OMP smartphone for corporate users. “We understand that we are entering a fully occupied market dominated by two operating systems, but we believe that there are gaps,” says Mr. Eiges.
Sailfish OS is an operating system with elements of open source code, which has been developed since 2012 by the Finnish company Jolla (created by people from Nokia), one of whose shareholders is the ESN group. Open Mobile Platform - CR LLC was registered in March in Innopolis. Initially, the company through Votron LLC was owned by the founder of the ESN group Grigory Berezkin (80%) and the former general director of the ESN Mikhail Verozub (20%), follows from SPARK-Interfax data. At the moment, an 80% share has been transferred from Grigory Berezkin to Olga Berezkina.
The Jolla C smartphone running Sailfish 2.0 OS was introduced in May. It is equipped with Qualcomm Snapdragon 212 quad-core processor with 2 GB of RAM and 16 GB of internal memory, 5 inch screen and 2500 mAh battery. Its price is €169. Oysters representative Mikhail Turkov confirmed to Kommersant that a couple of months ago the company began “close cooperation” with OMP and is going to release a smartphone on the version of the mobile OS they are developing.
The Ermak OMP industrial smartphone is being developed by the Russian company Mobile Inform Group (MIG), according to its website. According to SPARK-Interfax, M-Infogroup LLC is 34% owned by the CEO of the CDC group of companies Hussein Az-zari, 22% are owned by MIG CEO Konstantin Mantsvetov and Oleg Rozhentsev, the remaining 22% are owned by Advanced Mobility Solutions LLC ", which is also owned by Konstantin Mantsvetov and other individuals. Yermak OMP will run on a 2-core Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM 8960 processor with 1 GB of RAM and 8 GB of internal memory, a 3450 mAh battery, and a 4.5-inch display. “The device will work with all types of RFID tags, bar codes and data transmission via open and encrypted communication channels. The smartphone is built specifically for intensive multi-year operation,” the company’s website says. The customer service manager said that the price of the device, depending on the configuration, will be $ 1.5-2 thousand. MIG CEO Konstantin Mantsvetov adds that the choice of OS for Yermak OMP was due to its openness for improvements and customization for corporate clients, smartphone production will be established on the territory of the Russian Federation.
The development of the first Russian smartphone YotaPhone has been carried out since 2010, the first version of the device went on sale at the end of 2013, the second - at the end of 2014. By the end of 2015, YotaPhone manufacturer Yota Devices sold only 96,000 smartphones. Until recently, 64.9% of Yota Devices belonged to Sergey Adoniev and Albert Avdolyan's Telconet Capital Ltd fund, 25.1% - to Rostec, 10% - to MTH head of Yota Devices Vladislav Martynov. However, in the spring of this year, 30% of Yota Devices from Telconet was bought by the Chinese Rex Global Entertainment Holdings Ltd (later renamed China Baoli Technologies Holdings Ltd).
Representatives of M.Video, Euroset and Svyaznoy told Kommersant that they had not received offers to sell devices on the Russian version of Sailfish. “The popularization of a new mobile OS will depend not only on its characteristics, but also on the development of mobile applications based on it. At the initial stage, devices with the new OS may be of interest to experts, fans of technical innovations,” M.Video notes. Svyaznoy agrees that "the appearance of such models will arouse some interest among those who like to be the first to test technological innovations, but you need to understand that this audience is quite narrow." “It is unlikely that this product will meet the consumer's interest,” a representative of Euroset is skeptical, noting not only the new OS, but also the small diagonal of device screens. In his opinion, "it's hard to believe that in this market, in principle, you can make some kind of competition to iOS and Android."
Maria Kolomychenko, Anna Balashova
It happens that you prepare topics for release, come up with phrases, sort everything, you feel like a great fellow that you picked up pictures in advance and made your work easier on the weekend, and then the industrial smartphone “Ermak”, a Russian design, comes out. And you understand that it is impossible to ignore another tragicomic story. Therefore, most of the release is devoted to the history of the appearance of a pseudo-national OS of Finnish origin. Please read this thread carefully, it's worth it, after all, these exercises are spending our money.
For those who closely follow "Spikers", remember all the vicissitudes of the fall of Windows Phone, it's time to replenish the collections with outgoing kind, the prices for the latest Lumia smartphones, as promised, have crept down. Soon sellers will compete to be the first to get rid of warehouses with such smartphones.
And it's time for us to move on to the main theme of this issue.
“Open mobile platform” from Finland as a Russian national development
In the minds of some people, the school course of geography was postponed somehow incorrectly, in any case, they still consider the Grand Duchy of Finland to be part of the Russian Empire, apparently without looking into their passports, where the current state is written as the Russian Federation, and not somehow otherwise. Pupils of Soviet schools could love Finland as the birthplace of Viola processed cheese, a country that supplies foreign magazines to the USSR, or find some other reasons. Yes, and I will not hide, I have warm feelings for this small and quiet country, which I climbed up and down. But I never tried to encroach on the territorial integrity of Finland and did not declare that it is a vassal of our country. But some commercial organizations and the Ministry of Communications that joined them have their own point of view on Finland and what is happening in this small country. Let's figure out together how a new version of the national operating system appeared, which was allegedly developed in Russia, let's talk about the Ermak industrial smartphone, as well as other devices that are considered Russian. In fairness, it must be said that the majority sincerely pretends that these are Russian developments in order to extract certain benefits. But we do not need to pretend that the king is naked, and we can understand this situation thoroughly, which we will do.
But let's start from afar to understand what the Sailfish operating system is and how it came into being, who is behind its development. After Stephen Elop came to Nokia as CEO, the most promising developments of the company in the form of Meego (Maemo in girlhood), as well as the budget version of Meltemi, were first frozen and then completely destroyed. Moreover, the destruction of documentation, source codes and prototypes took place physically, as if on the threshold of Nokia there was an enemy that was able to break open the doors of R & D centers and seize equipment. The same Samsung, which offered to buy these developments for several billion euros, came across a categorical refusal, Stephen Elop built a strategy that played into the hands of Microsoft in the mobile space, and strong developments from Nokia or other players conflicted with this task. As a result, a funny situation came out, Nokia destroyed what they had been working on for several years, and what could become a major breakthrough in the market, several steps had to be taken before success, and the first products were able to come out within two or three quarters. The Maemo legacy race was fierce, with competitors buying out R&D staff and trying to rebuild the system bit by bit. But it was all in vain to go the same way, it took time, and gradually everyone abandoned it, the last was Samsung, which struggled with the task longer than others.
In 2012, part of the Maemo team realized that it would be out of work, and self-organized into the startup Jolla, which in November 2012 announced the creation of its own version of the OS, called Sailfish, as well as the release of devices under its control in the future.
Unfortunately, already at that time it was clear that this system could not take off. A year after the release of Nokia N9, a startup was able to show a prototype phone that can do about the same, but not in full. Jolla's problem at the time was that Nokia owned all the rights to the interface, and they had to re-create it and circumvent patents along the way. The speed of development was slow, and its quality left much to be desired, and Jolla had no money, which is clearly seen from the first presentation, which looked like a skit, and not an event of a large company.
In fairness, it must be said that the startup included 70 people, but almost all of them had experience in large companies, such as Nokia. The painful development of Sailfish was visible year after year, the company was looking for money, did not find it, tried to release devices, but canceled them. In a word, they shook very strongly and shook from side to side.
Now a few words about the product itself, the Sailfish operating system. The system is initially closed source, which includes inclusions of open source libraries. There are no semantic interpretations here, this system can be considered completely closed to any external developer, observer, manufacturer who decides to use it. Not all source code is written directly in Jolla, and there has never been any independent audit of this system, as there was no need for this. By November 2015, Jolla came in a deplorable state, there was no money to maintain the office, the team, and as a result, the company, having attracted a total of about $ 42 million in investments, officially applied in Finland for debt restructuring, plus announced the reduction of every second employee . As I see it, this well characterizes the demand in world markets for their product. But then the story begins about how money defeats common sense, fasten your seat belts, as it all starts with sanctions imposed against Russia.
Life sparkled with new colors for officials when sanctions against Russia appeared. Despite the crisis, it suddenly became possible to ask or even demand money from the budget for the creation of certain areas in IT, in particular, in software. This whole story is deeply disgusting to me, since it denies common sense, and if you re-read the statements of those who created competitive conditions within the country in previous years, built innovations and technology parks, you suddenly wonder how we came to the beginning of sanctions with half-down pants. But this is a separate and sad topic, let's not be scattered.
So let's look further at what's happening with Jolla. In 2015, the government of the Russian Federation issues tasks to departments and ministries to consider how they will implement the import substitution program. The Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications outlines six promising areas, one of which is the national mobile operating system. The ministry did not waste time on trifles and asked for billions of rubles for all projects, while at the beginning of 2015 there were no justifications for such amounts, which caused sharp criticism from other departments, in particular, the Ministry of Economic Development. However, the presence of public money beckoned many participants in this process, and Jolla was de facto saved. The company began to be looked at from the beginning of 2015, its management constantly met in Russia, in particular, top managers of Yandex, the Minister of Communications and other lower-ranking officials took part in these meetings. In the first half of 2015, it was Sailfish that was considered a contender for government grants to create a mobile OS. No other options were simply taken into consideration.
The Minister of Communications, Mr. Nikiforov, has publicly and repeatedly promoted Sailfish as a priority system for Russia, there is no hint of a position when various system options are considered and the best ones are selected, all conditions were created in such a way that the choice always fell on Sailfish. In any case, as an outside observer, I got the feeling that the PR activity of our Minister of Communications was going through the roof, and Sailfish never had any shortcomings. For example, in May 2015, Jolla Chairman Antti Saarnio attended a meeting at the Ministry of Communications, after which our minister stated that it was important to create a common mobile OS within an international consortium (press release can be found )
Mr. Nikiforov repeatedly repeated and confirmed that Sailfish would become the basis for Russian development, and an agreement in principle on this was reached with Jolla. And then there was a scandal, as the chairman of the board of directors of Jolla Anti Saarnio, having got out of Russia, immediately began to distribute comments that the Minister of Communications of the Russian Federation misunderstood what was discussed at the meeting. He repeatedly said: “In my opinion, there was a misunderstanding in the media. It won't work. There is no need for a national OS.” Or, in more detail: “I think there was a misunderstanding about the fact that there will be some kind of Russian version of the operating system. There is no such need. Our approach is to take a single code and integrate local Internet and e-commerce services into the user interface based on it. And that's enough. You don't need to create your own system." More details of his statements can be found.
Marvelous? Not the right word, the Finnish partners balked, although the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications has already appointed them to the role of their beloved wife, who should implement the Russian national mobile OS. For some reason, Jolla did not want to become a beloved wife and began to break a comedy, not understanding what would happen next. The scandal did not spoil the position of our Minister of Communications, since most of it took place in the Western media, which have not been very trusted in the corridors of power lately.
According to the plan of import substitution of software approved by the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications on April 1, 2015, the share of import client and mobile operating systems in the Russian market should decrease from present 95 to 75% by 2020 and to 50% by 2025. Imagine the dizzying march of our OS, when in three full years (from 2017 to 2019 inclusive) it suddenly takes Android from the first positions in the consumer market? This causes Homeric laughter in me, and the only possibility for such a scenario is the closure of the country for any external operating systems, and even in such a scenario it is impossible to reach 25% for a conditionally Russian OS. These are not just dreams, these are castles built on sand from sand. When people who are far from the market, from the realities of this market, talk about it, it does not cause any reaction. But when the relevant ministry comes up with such plans and tries to get money for them, it looks like at least a complete, total ignorance of the market or actions in their own interests. Let me remind you that the cost of developing an OS based on Sailfish was estimated at 2.225 billion rubles, of which 1.89 billion rubles. should have been funded from the budget.
I will leave aside the story, as Mr. Nikiforov wrote about the search for programmers for Sailfish and other PR activities that look at least surprising for an official. He is acting in the interests of a commercial player who could potentially receive a government grant, and this does not fit in my head. At all. No way. On the other hand, what's there to be ashamed of? After all, they are potentially doing a good job.
Now let's talk about the Russian roots of Sailfish. In 2015, Russian businessman Georgy Berezkin invested money in the company, he is known for many large projects and the fact that he knows how to negotiate with officials, in any case, this skill is mentioned in many publications. For example, you can read a recent publication in the magazine "Company".
In telecom, Georgy Berezkin is known more from the wrong side, he tried to fight for LTE frequencies with the big three, as well as Scartel, but failed, despite active support from Medvedev. At that time, the situation developed in such a way that he had to retreat, despite the active support of the Ministry of Communications, the ministry did not act in favor of the market, and the reaction was extremely sharp and diverse (you can read a little about that situation).
This time he acquired about 60% of Jolla, became the main shareholder and pays for all development. At the same time, the Minister of Communications already calls Jolla a company with Russian participation, which looks curious. In November 2015, the current management of Jolla, having not received another round of investments, fully realized that speaking out against the statements of Russian officials would not bring them money, and therefore resigned themselves to their fate. You can no longer expect problems from their side.
In fact, a race is unfolding before our eyes, in which one participant in the person of Sailfish, who is chosen by the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications from the list of non-existent alternatives, since the same Tizen will not initially fall under the selection conditions created for such systems in the ministry. The activity of the Minister of Communications, who voluntarily or involuntarily shows his attitude towards Sailfish, gives reason to believe that the winner is predetermined. I don't even stutter that this approach of choosing a closed source system that has never had any independent audit is a flawed approach. Our country needs its own mobile operating system, and there is no doubt about it. But throwing away money for someone else's development, which has already proven itself to be unsuccessful in the commercial market and does not meet modern requirements, was created not as a B2B / B2G project, but for the consumer market, it means to heat the fireplace with money. I do not believe that only this approach works in Russia. I just refuse to believe it, because I see completely different examples proving the opposite.
Now let's take a look at the company "Open Mobile Platform", which is engaged in the adaptation of Sailfish for officials and Russia. The site of the company .
The version of the site is a test one, we will write off some roughness on this. But the site has instructions for Sailfish 2.0, this is a translated instruction for the OS, no one really bothered and made the usual translation. You know what infuriates me, frankly infuriates me? The fact that people who claim to create a Russian national mobile system cannot bother to make screenshots in Russian for instructions. They are all in English, just like in the original instructions. However, like many menu items remained in English, which is App Grid.
And this is taking into account the fact that the Russian language for this version of the OS exists and all that was needed was to take screenshots. But there was time to paste the WMD logo into the instructions, but not to take screenshots. This is a good indicator of the level of “development” and involvement in the project. It is from these strokes that the whole perception of the project is formed.
But they managed to put in their two cents for officials: “Sailfish OS is a modern operating system for mobile devices. It is completely independent of any states and players of large industries that build their own closed ecosystems.”
Separately, I want to note the fact that they are trying to push Sailfish 2.0 (in our spelling Sailfish 2.0) as a program of Russian origin, which will automatically open up new horizons for OMP and make this software preferable when choosing certain devices for officials. But bad luck, it is physically proven that the second version of the OS was developed outside of Russia and our developers have nothing to do with it. At all. It will be interesting to see if they can push this system as "Russian" software.
Now let's go ahead and look at what has been done in terms of devices. Even before the appearance of Russian shareholders, Jolla entered the Russian market, where there is traditionally a large percentage of those who like to try the unknown. There were a fair number of Jolla fans, the 16 GB Jolla JP-1301 smartphone sold about a thousand pieces. By the way, this well characterizes 25% of the market for three years, which were drawn by the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications.
At the moment, you can not buy this smartphone, distributors do not supply it due to lack of prospects and demand. However, on the WMD website, they decided to show it among the products due to the fact that it is necessary to create some kind of appearance of mass character.
I repeat once again, they are trying to “sell” us, or, more precisely, in non-literary terms, to suck in stale goods that have already outlived their usefulness and were not in demand. Another smartphone from Oysters, which is a Russian B-brand that specializes in tablets, not smartphones at all. The company does not have any experience in smartphones, this applies to everything, including the development of such devices and bringing them to mind. Without a large staff of engineers, this is somewhat difficult to do.
The fact that it was surprising for Oysters to put a smartphone in their product line is even proved by the fact that the site in the description of this product appears funny, see the screenshot below about the type of operating system on the tablet.
The price of the smartphone from Oysters is unknown, its twin brother Intex Aqua Fish for India costs about $150, has a slightly smaller battery and a slightly different design. Based on this, we can assume the Russian cost in the range from 15 to 20 thousand rubles at least.
Now let's focus on the smartphone "Ermak OMP", which is "created" by the system integrator Mobile Inform Group, this is a Russian company. Let's read the description of this smartphone on the integrator's website:
“Yermak OMP is an industrial smartphone running Sailfish OS that provides work with all types of radio frequency tags (RFID), bar codes and data transmission over open and encrypted communication channels.
The device is equipped with a communication package supporting 3G/4G LTE cellular standards on 2 SIM cards and GPS/GLONASS modules. The device has a solid level of physical protection and is built specifically for intensive long-term operation: dust and moisture protection according to IP65, mechanical stability - multiple drops on concrete from a height of 1.5 meters, operation at temperatures from -20C to +60C, operation up to 10 hours without recharging (at - 20C.).
Depending on the configuration, the Yermak OMP secure smartphone is equipped with an internal RFID module for working with various ranges of tags and contactless cards: LF, HF, UHF. Optionally equipped with a fingerprint scanner, machine readable zone (MRZ) reader.
While reading the description, the feeling that I already held this “development” in my hands did not leave me, I dug around on the same site, and here it is - Coppernic C-One.
Please note that the image of the Ermak smartphone is a picture of a Coppernic C-One with the Sailfish logo attached. The device is called a Russian-French development, although it is an exclusively French model in hardware, it has Russian safety certificates and certification itself. This is a regular Android smartphone running Android 4.2.2. However, individual modules may be Russian, but the piece of iron itself and its design have nothing to do with our country.
That's how Copernicus gave birth to Yermak, you can't say otherwise. Sailfish was rolled into the old model, which costs about 800 euros, and received a “Russian smartphone”, which was developed by us. Interesting balancing act. With an estimated cost, which the Kommersant newspaper found out, is 1,500-2,000 dollars, depending on the configuration. I have certain gaps in my school education, as I never learned how to turn 800 euros of initial configuration into 1,500 dollars at no cost. In fact, the refinement of the device costs absolutely nothing, but its cost changes in a fabulous way.
What was it? Before our eyes, the history of the national mobile platform is once again unfolding, for which the corpse of Sailfish was pulled out of Finland and they are trying to revive this system with magical passes. And at the same time comb the dead man so that it seems that he is alive and can do something else. For several years, Jolla has been able to prove in practice that her efforts are meaningless and she has no support. Russia as a state in theory can provide such support, but that's bad luck, we need other operating systems according to their capabilities, we initially do not need a Sailfish-style system. The Jolla example proves that in a couple of years you can create your own OS and spend about $40 million on it. This is quite comparable with those 2-3 billion rubles that they want to send to support the national mobile OS. But the difference lies in the approach. If we develop a system to meet the requirements of departments and our security standards, and start doing it from conditional zero, then we will get a higher level of protection and the ability to change everything, inside and out. Using someone else's system leaves room for backdoors and holes, and money will be burned in similar or even larger volumes, because then you will have to switch back to your own OS, which will need to be developed.
Unfortunately, technology and politics in this situation are closely intertwined. I have no doubt that in Russia, the state, the military and officials need devices that are protected from the point of view of software, smartphones and tablets, in which the risk of intrusion from the outside is reduced. This is right. But seeing how and what the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications and personally Minister of Communications Nikolai Nikiforov is doing in this direction, I feel a sharp rejection. This is a waste of time and effort, which our country does not have. To some extent, this is direct and undisguised sabotage. There may be different points for various projects, but there is simply nothing to discuss here, since there is no Sailfish project for Russia, but there is a project on how to revive the corpse of this OS, present it as a Russian development and get budget funds for it.
You and I do not have many opportunities to stop this story at the very beginning, but still they are. Try to tell as widely as possible about this story, do not be lazy to share it on social networks. This is important for all of us, after all, officials are going to spend our taxes, not some virtual money, and spend mediocre. For my part, I will spend my time telling this story in all colors and details next week to a number of officials from other departments, which may once again affect the situation. Look, together we will change the situation for the better.
Goodbye, Moto - farewell to design happened imperceptibly
I didn’t expect amazing discoveries from Lenovo Tech World in San Francisco, I knew that they would show new thin Motorola smartphones, but I didn’t see them either in pictures or live. And then Artem made a report from the premiere, and I felt sad. Very much.
Look at this photo of Moto's Z line. Just look and say the first thing that comes to mind.
I do not impose my tastes on you, but this phone does not seem to me successful in terms of design, I would call it ugly. Let's take a look at the front panel, shall we?
The small square button is not a button at all, it is a fingerprint sensor, this square has no other function. This phone looks like a monster from nightmares, you can get used to it, but it has nothing to do with the Motorola that I still remember. This is a symbiosis of some strange desires and trends, from which something definitely original, but not very beautiful, came out.
As someone aptly joked in the comments, now Sony is releasing flagships with the letter X, and Moto launched the Z-series instead of X, from now on, life will improve for these companies. Joke for five points. But it's sad that such nonsense came out with the design, after all, Motorola gave many a guideline, both in what can be done and in the materials used. Apparently, all this remains in the past.
The claim of the Z-series is the modules that slap like magnets to the back surface. This idea came from R&D Lenovo, I was told about it at the birth of the Vibe line, in the Beijing laboratory. And now, apparently, they were able to use it in this line of devices.
The idea of a modular smartphone was played up by many manufacturers, and it does not lack a certain meaning, but in real life only the largest companies will be able to implement it, and even then with a number of restrictions. It simply won’t take off, people don’t buy modular devices, this even applies to PCs, which were initially perceived in Russia as modular devices, a kind of self-assembly kit. Those days are gone. In other markets, the initial perception of the devices was different.
Lenovo made a bet that the new smartphones were very, very thin, they clearly admired the release of the RAZR, which turned the market upside down in terms of design and was somewhat inferior in terms of its technical capabilities to other devices. But the RAZR had another advantage, I wanted to pick it up and use it. It was the bomb.
There is no bomb in the new Motos, they are just thin and scary. And in order to increase their functionality later, you can put on a panel, for example, with speakers from JBL. Good idea? In theory, yes. In practice, your phone becomes even more scary.
If the designers did it, I think they suffered and fought in fits. They were given the task of creating a very thin and attractive device. And then they gave the task to add external modules to it, which make it fat and ugly. Cool? Not at all.
A thin smartphone has long ceased to be an end in itself, 5 mm or 7-8 mm are not perceived as a big difference.
There were many Chinese thin smartphones on the market, but none of them achieved much success. These were fashion toys that were ultimately required to be low cost.
We have been discussing for several issues that Lenovo is somewhat lost in the market and does not know what to do. As I see it, the latest presentation and product line clearly demonstrates this. Lenovo simply doesn't understand what to do with Moto and is turning it into a hybrid monster that scares away Motorola's old audience and doesn't attract new ones. I'm afraid this will make a lot of people say "goodbye, Moto". What do you think? Share your sense of beauty, tell us if you liked these models.
Three days of rest, a holiday that many do not consider as such. It doesn’t matter how we consider this day, I use it as an occasion to let you listen to the song “Rodina” performed by Victoria Cherentsova, I accidentally stumbled upon it on social networks, look at other compositions, especially with your own lyrics. Surprisingly, Victoria broadcasts her driving singing on Periscope, but her own site is, to put it mildly, austere, as well as the YouTube channel. On the other hand, this is a demonstration of how modern technologies allow us to reach out to the audience and communicate with it, or, more precisely, with us. Take note!
P.S. On my own behalf, I want to wish you a good mood, let people smile at you, and you at them, and you can do it for no reason! Good luck.