Power 2002: Recharging portable & wireless products for e-business & consumer applications Los Angeles, CA--September 29-October 2, 2002

Advanced Battery Technology, Jan 2003 by Sieminski, Dennis

"Power 2002" was the tenth in this series of annual conferences on portable power produced by the Giga Information Group. It was chaired by Dr. Brian Barnett, vice president of battery industry studies at TIAX, and took place at the Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles.

The conference consisted of presentations, panel discussions, and a vendor exhibition area. In addition, lunches and evening cocktail receptions provided an excellent opportunity to see vendor exhibits and meet colleagues. The conference was host to about 400 people and 60 exhibiting vendors. There was also a pre-conference tutorial which covered several topics of current interest: Fuel Cell and Lithium-Ion Technology, Smart Batteries, Power Management in 2.5G Devices and Wireless LANs. For further details on the conference agenda, Giga's website, www.power-conference.com, is a good resource.

For battery people, the conference was an opportunity to step back and see the industry in the wider context of the whole mobile community by providing a look at the various industry segments - the portable device sector, software developers, content creators, and service providers, all of whom drive the mobile device and wireless world and contribute to the forces shaping the battery business. There was a very wide range of topics covered in the presentations. I have condensed them under a set of eight headings to provide a framework for summarizing the information and providing some discussion.

1. Portable computers. Under this heading, I have summarized the information from presentations that analyzed the portable computer market, provided news on new devices such as pen tablets, future trends in the form of wearables, and portable computer component news, such as new microprocessors.

2. Handhelds. Under this heading, I have grouped the information presented on market analysis for PDAs, cellphones and wireless service; a look at various phone/ PDA products; and key handheld component news such as Kodak's introduction of Organic LED (OLED) screens.

3. Batteries. Here I have included Hideo Takeshita's signature slicing and dicing of the rechargeable battery business, plus a summation of development news from several presenting battery manufacturers - Sanyo, BYD, Samsung, LG Chemical, Korea Powercell, B&K Electronic and GS Melcotec.

4. Digital content. Providing the right content in the right format will be key to opening a number of new markets in handhelds. I have summarized presentations dealing with digital rights management, content sharing across the spectrum of Internet-enabled devices, and new content opportunities as a consequence of adding imaging and multimedia capabilities to handhelds.

5. Software for mobile devices. Mobile applications will come into their own to the degree they work with the demands of the mobile environment. One major mistake to avoid is falling prey to the hardware limitations particular to the mobile environment. Various software vendors provided a look at the work that is going on to change the mobile experience - make it distinctly different from the desktop Internet, and move us from just voice, or voice and text, to much larger possibilities.

6. Fuel cells for portables. Information was presented on the status of this nascent technology, its relationship tq batteries, and expectations about its place in mobile hardware, presented by Panasonic, Motorola, MTI Micro Fuel Cells, Polyfuel, and Direct Methanol Fuel Cell Corp.

7. Power management. With energy density growth in batteries topping out and mobile device capability and usage rising, power management continues to play a key role. The contributors here were Intersil, TI, Microchip Technologies, National Semiconductor, Transmeta, and Philips. The themes included the necessity of a holistic top-down approach and system architecture, examination of the payoffs from techniques like frequency and voltage management in the device, and the contribution accurate monitoring and control can make in smart battery packs.

8. Applications. Several visions of portable computing have been long held, waiting for technology to reach the stage that will transform them into everyday experiences. In addition, new visions have emerged as the technology and the world change. I have included in this section information presented on various mobile applications. Among them: m-commerce, the concept of transforming our coin, cash, check and credit card transactions into something more convenient; a look at how mobile devices can contribute to homeland security, and visions on how life changes when you can conveniently connect and disconnect from the information pool when and where you want. For those of us who read Dick Tracy and have now experienced it, this is a place to look for the next icon of technology's possibilities.

Portable Computers

Rob Enderle, Giga Research Fellow, provided an industry update on portable computers. In general, the market this year has been flat with budgets in the corporate sector remaining tight. Tier One vendors each face widely different prospects. Dell is on target with its value approach, while HP finds itself with a majority of layoffs in front of it, and appears to be the target of all other sellers in the wake of its merger distractions. IBM will likely exit the general market and serve just direct corporate customers where they have service and software agreements. Tier Two vendors include Gateway, Micron, Apple, Sony, Acer, Sharp, Fujitsu, and Siemens. Those with regional strength are maintaining that edge. Apple's reliance on industrial design as a potent factor in switching users to Macs has not played out so far. Further, Tier Two players keep getting squeezed by Tier Three makers like Flextronics, so the question no longer is who is growing but who will lose the most.