The chairman's resignation wouldn't have been so bad, if it were not accompanied by many other key management resignations. In the upshot the company will to some extent lose their strategic planning team, which as a result will decelerate growth in the long term. It has already waned now as compared to the last years' rates when the company was on the rise. New management effect can be seen by the example of Sony Ericsson: Japanese management made the company's net profit drop to €133 million for the first quarter 2008. The sales value has decreased to €2702 million against €2,925 million, the operating income has fallen to €181 million this quarter against €346 million for the same period 2007.

Moreover, as Samsung announce, they will dismantle the Strategic Planning Office, which controls group operations and the Korean giant may be transformed into a holding company. According to the latest official data from Samsung, for the 20 years of Lee Kun-Hee management the company's income have increased nine times and have reached $159 billion (about 18 % of GNP) by 2006. Nowadays Samsung has got a rapidly weakening product line as compared to the said LG. If the latter used to be in the pursuing role before, everything is quite on the contrary now, a vivid example of which is the LG KE990 (Viewty) - Samsung F490 link. In the nearest future LG KF750 (Secret) and Samsung U900 Soul are also going to oppose one another and the latter looks paler again, though hit the shelf earlier. Provided LG take advantage of circumstances, they can press their compatriots hard, since the companies quite often play on the same field now, just like Nokia and Sony Ericsson do.

After the U900 Soul potential bestseller was offered for sale Samsung has got no more important trumps. Among other key models let's mention just G810, which evidently has been too late on the market – N95 from Nokia appeared almost a year ago, and partially F110 – a niche solution for those living a healthy life style and already endowed with the 5500 Sport model by Nokia almost two years ago. With the help of the DuoS line Samsung are planning to take up the second first place in sales on some non-operator markets and outpace Nokia, but suffice it to have just one look at the new D780 to see a reiteration of Fly B700 Duo that is available at retail for already half a year at a lower price. Thus, if Samsung don't take resolute steps shortly, they won't go far by means of advertising alone and will to some extent lose their position no later than in the second quarter.

At present we see the last year's inertia, which has influenced the results of the first quarter; the latter ones are very good with Samsung. Their first-quarter net income rose 37% in 2008 compared to the same period last year, from 1.6 trillion won to 2.19 trillion won ($2.2 billion). Based on the median estimate of 25 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg, Samsung Electronics was expected to post profit of 2.02 trillion won and revenue of 16.8 trillion won. In our opinion it is small wonder since G600 used to be a locomotive of demand at the turn of the year; D880 DuoS also kept on selling well. The advertising support being active, they have delivered the lion's share of profit. One shouldn't forget about successful low- and mid-end clamshells by Samsung either. At the same time, as well as in the case of Nokia, there is a drop as compared to the IV quarter last year.

Collaboration with eminent non-telecom brands is becoming more and more relevant nowadays; many companies have resorted to this trick, some of them several times. If LG claim they are planning nothing new of the kind in the near future after the PRADA, Samsung is ready to give further development to the joint projects trend in spite of quite modest results of the P520 Armani. The recent victim of collaboration is Adidas, so you may easily guess that their brainchild is a sports phone – the said F110. The gadget is quite an ordinary slider, but with an extended set of sport applications and respective stock accessories.

The sport menu is named miCoach; it is launched with a shortcut key on the front panel. The interactive training system can collect and analyze real time personal data to create customized training plans based on your fitness level and desired goals. The heart rate monitor, stride sensor and voice training tips are provided to instruct the user during his workout.

Supported by the Athletes' Performance Institute (API) training and sport research centre based at Arizona State University (USA), the Adidas Innovation Team and Samsung Electronics began research and development for the miCoach system over two years ago. It's a combination of a handset, a line of miCoach sports wear and shoes as well as a number of accessories including a stride sensor, a heart rate monitor and a specialized interactive website. All these components operating together provide for not only workout data registration, but also their analysis and selecting an optimum mode in interaction with the site.

The pedometer is a tiny sensor that clips onto your running shoe to track your stride count as well as pace and distance, and transmit the data to the Adidas miCoach phone. At the same time the heart rate monitor straps on your chest and transmits your heart rate to the phone too. The latter gives you some tips what to do next: go on the same way, pace up or slow down so that to provide an optimum running pace and keep within your ideal heart rate zone. It goes without saying, the sensor and monitor connection is done wirelessly, which spares you of the mess of wires.

The on-line analysis allows you to constantly track your progress, download personalised training programs, save and upload your workout results to the net, analyze all the data for you and present it in the form of graphs and tables developed by sports medicine experts. The sensor connection is done at one keystroke; after that you may input the duration of your run, your current physical state and so on. You can also opt for one of the already preset programs. An important point is that the interface is designed so that not to interrupt your running session: for example, suffice it to double-tap the gadget at any time to activate voice-coaching feedback.

The handset is aesthetically solved in a slightly asymmetric, recognizable style of the typical for Adidas black and white color scheme. The central button with a coating is stylized to resemble metal and the textured (corrugated) back panel provides for a secure, convenient grip, which at the same time adds to the feeling of possessing a reliable sports gadget. Appearance is the main advantage of the handset along with a wide range of sports opportunities. However, it won't be highly praised by everybody; the device sporting good mobility, the lack of metallic inserts looks disputable, that's why the solution looks simpler. Besides, unlike with the said Nokia 5500 Sport, the casing isn't water and shock proof here.

Taking into account positioning, the soft-touch coating is quite to the point as well as the corrugated navigation button. Both considerably add to the sports ergonomics of the gadget. The basic color scheme available on some local markets will be the classical combination of black and white. On the whole, everything is not too refined but quite nice. And the hardware implementation is disputable; first of all it's the screen that gives rise to some reprimands - 176x220 pixels and 2" look already quite archaic for the mid-end class. Besides, there is no memory card, the onboard storage alone is at your service; the truth is, it's rather capacious - 1 Gb. The handset makes use of the camera most ordinary for the mid-end price segment - 2 Mpix without autofocusing. The quality of shooting is typical of this class, it'll hardly suit exacting users; the optional status of the element is evident. Let's give you some photo samples taken at maximum quality settings:

It's clear that as a cameraphone the new product looks rather mediocre for its price. The main emphasis is put in the sports features and everything is all right here. This aspect is implemented in the most elaborate and convenient manner among the counterparts. The miCoach menu consists of such submenu items as Music, Photo, Calendar, etc. These applications are customized (for example, the workout schedule in the calendar or the playlists in the player to match the pace of running); the variant is still standard for the Samsung platform. The animated menu sports the smooth slide feature and is quite logically implemented. The workout system is really impressive – it's capable of serving up not only trivial burned calories calculation and running time data, but has got much wider opportunities.

The gadget monitors your pace, gives out voice instructions based on stride and heart-rate sensors and does many other things as well. Some of the second-rate full size training simulators can envy such features. But only very few people will make use of all these, the rest will be scared away with the standard set of other functions offered at a high price. Even the battery lifetime isn't the highest against the background of similar solutions by other brands; the 800 mAh battery is sufficient to keep the device running for about a day and a half of moderate duty cycle. The continuous mp3 cycle lasted as long as some 14 hours. The software platform except for the miCoach system is typical of Samsung phones.

Let's mention the presence of preinstalled user themes (no support for custom ones) and also the ability to operate without a SIM-card. The player became a pleasant surprise to us. It has got a sports dedicated user interface and three new types of sorting - Stride, Motivation songs and Tempo. Besides, the list of FM-radio favourites is available right from the player application (the FM-tuner integrated in F110 is a doubtless advantage for the sports phone). Traditionally for Samsung, the Living World feature is available as well as the new SIM-card notification. For the rest, everything is also in keeping with the habitual implementation of this brand's devices, e.g., E950.

Market perspectives of F110 are rather vague - the model is actually a niche one and the considerable price makes it a prerogative of well-to-do sportsmen. Of course, the eminent brand and the summer release will positively affect the sales, but even with all this going on they will be singular. The alternative to the new product by Samsung are Nokia 5500 Sport and Sony Ericsson W580i, which are cheaper but yield in the sales package and implementation of the key aspect. The model is expected to appear in retail in the near future (the end of April - the beginning of May), the first shipments have already begun. The price will be around €400 for the full package consisting of the handset itself with a standard bundling, the heart-rate and stride sensors. In view of such marketing policy we expect Samsung to seriously cut the price in the short run due to the low demand. The European package will include running shoes.

In the upshot let's note that Samsung F110 Adidas is the best sports solution on the telecom market nowadays. The model comes with an abundant accessories package, miCoach interface and even a number of standard applications customized to suit the key purpose. Except for the sports features the device isn't too interesting, the offer being obviously overpriced. Recommended to exacting and well-to-do healthy life-style lovers.

+ Excellent implementation of sports aspect
+ Abundant sales package and eminent brand
+ 1 Gb onboard storage and FM-radio
+ User interface themes and fully functional flight mode
- High price and mediocre screen
- Average camera and no expansion slot
- Disputable design and no water/shock proof body

Author: Iliya Solovyev, editor@smape.com

SMAPE.com

	Comments: