What designers think of AOL's new logo

Here Florian Schmitt, creative director of hi-res!, comments on the new logo

Yesterday AOL provided us with a preview of its coming up new brand identity as the official spinout from Time Warner at December 10 comes near. Is shows a plain text logo in front of changing pictures like a weird staring at you goldfish to a ping floating brain and a rock-star hand symbol. The new logo that replaces the running man symbolises the ever-changing content. It was created by the brand consultancy Wolff Olins.
CEO Tim Armstrong told paidContent in an interview "...it's going to be very, very, very inexpensive because we're focused on just improving the products and services. I would say the marketing budget is the budget we're using on product development and the changes we're making." Maybe that wasn't such a good idea.
The new brand identity replaces the letters AOL with “Aol.” - complete with a period Here are some reaction to the new logo.
Florian Schmitt of the London based design agency Hi-Res!: "I like the idea of changing and adaptive logos, but this is such a literal and clichéed attempt at it. I happen to know that they had very little time to finish this, but even so, this is poor. It's literally the first thing you would do as a moodboard and the first thing you would put in the trash as well."
Om Malik of technology site GigaOM: "It is ambiguous at best, and as sexy as the obese, shapeless humans living on Axiom, the flagship of the BnL fleet in Pixar movie 'WALL-E.'"
Duncan Riley of the news site inquisitr about the ever changing images: "...if you think that sounds like drugs at play, you're not the only one thinking that."
Oliver Reichnestein, creative director of Tokyo based design agency Information Architects Inc.: "Radical identity changes usually suggest that there is something wrong with the company. Well, we all know what's wrong with AOL. Their original business (Internet access) is obsolete. Dropping all visual keys and forcing the logo to a negative appearance on random images surely is a drastic measure. If the goal of the redesign was to illustrate how the company is slowly vanishing from the fast changing digital surface of the planet, I'd say: Job well done."

Windows Mobile still in the game

There is no need to write Windows Mobile off yet, but Microsoft should release innovations for its mobile OS to market at a faster pace to best the smartphone competition, according to analysts.
Rachel Lashford, Canalys Asia-Pacific managing director, told ZDNet Asia in a phone interview that Windows Mobile has come under pressure from the competition which has been more innovative around the usability of the interfaces.
"I think Microsoft has come under pressure from more innovative OSes that have set the usability benchmark, such as Apple," Lashford said.
As a result, some of Microsoft's device maker partners have had to release user interface skins which "increase user experience", such as HTC with its Touch UI, she noted.
Developers have said that Windows Mobile offers less sophisticated UI tools, resulting in programmers needing to develop their own controls or purchase third-party add-ons--steps that are time-consuming and pricey, some said.
IDC Asia-Pacific personal systems research manager, Aloysius Choong, also said in an e-mail: "Microsoft can afford to move faster with its OS enhancements, especially in terms of usability."
Nonetheless, Microsoft has its sights on the competition and may quickly make up for lost time. Said Choong: "Microsoft as an organization not just thrives, but snarls and snaps at adversity. Compared with two years ago, I believe the company now has greater clarity and focus in its mobility mission."
The company has more recently started to realize the importance of the mobile computing component in building an overall cloud strategy, thanks to the "education" provided by the thriving examples displayed by Apple and Google, he said.
Shrinking market share
Numbers-wise, Windows Mobile appears to be taking a pummeling from the mounting smartphone competition.
According to Gartner, Windows Mobile lost almost a third of its smartphone market share between the third quarters of 2008 and 2009, from 11 percent down to 7.9 percent of the global market. At the same time, Gartner estimates the iPhone's share has risen from 12.9 percent to 17.1 percent, while Research in Motion has gone up from 16 percent to 20.8. percent in the same period.
Some of Microsoft's partners appear to be either shifting alliance or jumping ship to different platforms. HTC, known chiefly for its Windows Mobile handsets, has been ramping up production of its Android-based phones, with one aimed at the masses that it calls Tattoo.
Earlier this month, Samsung announced it would be focusing on its new Bada OS, indicating that the company would drop focus on Windows Mobile, on which the majority of the Korean maker's smartphones currently run.
That said, Winston Goh, Samsung Asia product marketing manager for mobile phones, told ZDNet Asia that Samsung will continue to release Windows Mobile devices "in the foreseeable future".
Commenting on the local market, Goh said: "It is our view that the Singapore market is mature enough to sustain and support multiple platforms and Samsung will be uniquely positioned to meet that demand with the experience we have built up in different operating systems."
Samsung intends to launch an Android-based phone early next year, adding another platform to its arsenal, he said.
Natasha Kwan, general manager, Asia, for Microsoft's mobile communications business, said in an e-mail interview that Microsoft expects its handset sales to increase, thanks to partnerships with OEMs and carriers globally.
She said: "The [rebranded] Windows phone means people can look forward to more than 30 new phones by the end of this year. In addition to this, we just signed a deal with LG to ship 50 LG Windows phones in the next three years."
On usability, Kwan said Microsoft's launch of its Windows Marketplace for Mobile is aimed at helping it reach more users with available software. "As more people buy smartphones, we've learnt that they want direct access to games and cool apps," she said.
Canalys' Lashford said Microsoft has a lot of "strong commitment" from partners, naming LG as one. She said Taiwan chipmaker, MediaTek, has also shown commitment to Windows Mobile, which is expected to help bring Microsoft into the burgeoning Chinese OEM phone market.
"There is no need to write Microsoft off at this point," she said.

Beware business cloud dangers, says EU agency

Businesses should exercise caution when procuring cloud services, according to the European agency charged with promoting IT security good practice.
The European Network and Information Security Agency (Enisa) published advice and a checklist for organizations thinking of jumping into the cloud, outlining the benefits and risks of using online service provision.
Primarily, organizations should beware of lock-in to cloud services, Enisa told ZDNet Asia's sister site ZDNet UK last week. "There is very little in the way of tools and standards for exporting data from one provider to another," said Enisa network security expert Giles Hogben. "That's one of the biggest risks."
Enisa risk management expert Daniele Catteddu told ZDNet UK that governance issues were also a major risk. "There are client code issues like patching, security testing, and policy enforcement," he said.
The Enisa experts also pointed to the dangers of 'isolation failure' where access control or bandwidth provision are inadequate.

Beware business cloud dangers, says EU agency

Businesses should exercise caution when procuring cloud services, according to the European agency charged with promoting IT security good practice.


The European Network and Information Security Agency (Enisa) published advice and a checklist for organizations thinking of jumping into the cloud, outlining the benefits and risks of using online service provision.

Primarily, organizations should beware of lock-in to cloud services, Enisa told ZDNet Asia's sister site ZDNet UK last week. "There is very little in the way of tools and standards for exporting data from one provider to another," said Enisa network security expert Giles Hogben. "That's one of the biggest risks."

Enisa risk management expert Daniele Catteddu told ZDNet UK that governance issues were also a major risk. "There are client code issues like patching, security testing, and policy enforcement," he said.
The Enisa experts also pointed to the dangers of 'isolation failure' where access control or bandwidth provision are inadequate.

Brin: Google's OSes likely to converge

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--Google's dual-pronged operating system strategy will likely produce a single OS down the road, according to Google co-founder Sergey Brin.

Many Google observers were puzzled when the company announced plans for Chrome OS in July, coming amid growing acceptance of the company's Android operating system project as a smartphone and Netbook OS. After all, why design an open source operating system with the goal of reinventing the personal computing experience when you're currently developing another open source operating system with the goal of reinventing the mobile computing experience?
Google executives, including CEO Eric Schmidt, have downplayed the conflict ever since, asking for time to let the projects evolve. And a few days after Chrome OS was revealed, Android chief Andy Rubin said device makers "need different technology for different products", explaining that Android has a lot of unique code that makes it suitable for use in a phone and Chrome has unique benefits of its own.
But Brin, speaking informally to reporters after the company's Chrome OS presentation last week, said "Android and Chrome will likely converge over time", citing among other things the common Linux and Webkit code base present in both projects.
It's not clear when Google thinks it might want to merge the projects, but it seems to be eyeing a future in which the smartphones currently served by Android meld into the Netbooks Google has in mind for Chrome OS. Of course, Brin's vision might not necessarily be shared by all members of the Google management team.
"As Sundar [Pichai, Google's vice president of product management] said in his presentation, we're reaching a perfect storm of converging trends where computers are behaving more like mobile devices, and phones are behaving more like small computers," Google said in a statement in response to questions about how and when the two projects would merge. "Having two open source operating systems from Google provides both users and device manufacturers with more choice and helps contribute a wealth of new code to the open source community."
This also allows Google to pick and choose the best ideas to emerge from each project, setting up a bit of friendly internal competition to develop new operating system technologies. The main difference is that while Android is a shipping product, Chrome OS is still very much in the research stage, with devices not expected until late 2010.
It's way too early to know how that pending convergence will affect development for the different operating systems, as it seems pretty clear Google is spending most of its time at the moment building out each one separately.
But Brin--no idle bystander--believes at some point, Google w