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Mobile World Congress Videos

Light Reading's Show Site: Barcelona, Spain  |  February 27 - March 1

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MWC 2011 Photos: Huawei Booth Tour

BARCELONA -- Mobile World Congress 2011 -- Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. is now the second-largest dedicated supplier of telecom systems and supporting services in the world, and, depending on the quarter (and the research company), the world's second-largest mobile infrastructure vendor by sales. (See Huawei Annual Revenues Hit $28B.)

(In both instances, Ericsson AB (Nasdaq: ERIC) is the market leader.)

Mobile World Congress, therefore, is an ideal place for Huawei to show why it has surpassed rivals such as Nokia Siemens Networks and Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU) to take that No. 2 position, and also show how it might grow to be the market leader.

So what was Huawei highlighting on its Hall 8 stand this year? We found out by including Huawei as one of seven vendors we visited with our photographer. We gave them all just 10 minutes to talk about, and show off, the three products they felt were the most important/cutting-edge/game-changing, etc. We've already run most of the other photo booth tours. (See MWC 2011 Photos: AlcaLu Booth Tour, MWC 2011 Photos: Cisco Booth Tour, MWC 2011 Photos: Ericsson Booth Tour, MWC 2011 Photos: NSN Booth Tour and MWC 2011 Photos: NEC Booth Tour.)

A year ago, Huawei upped its game and managed a B+ grade. Could it improve further in 2011? (See Booth Photo Tour Report Card and MWC 2010 Photos: Huawei Booth Tour.)

Check out the pictures below, with accompanying text, and find out how we (totally subjectively) graded Huawei's overall effort by reading the final picture caption.

Click thumbnails for full-size image.

Figure 1: Cloudy With a Chance of Amoebas
As we approached the Huawei stand we couldn't figure out whether we would be standing under a cloud or giant single-cell organisms...
Figure 2: Android Action
To start the 10-minute briefing, Huawei's Maria Strandberg showed us the company's IDEOS X5 smartphone, which has a 3.8-inch screen, a 1GHz processor, and runs the Android operating system. The key attribute of this device, though, is its great screen resolution, noted Strandberg.
Figure 3: Time to See More
We got a closer look at the IDEOS X5, which had seen a lot of show floor attendee action, and was therefore a little smudgy. And before we knew it, Strandberg was ready to show us two more smartphones. That, though, would have used up Huawei's full allocation of three products... and just before the next device was whipped out, the Huawei team led us on to the next product. There did seem to be some uncertainty about the rules of engagement, though.
Figure 4: The Healthy Option
Product No. 2 was Huawei's eHealth system, which was presented by Xing Chen.
Figure 5: In Sickness and in Health
This device has sensors that can monitor blood pressure, heart rate and other health metrics. The information can be saved and then shared with an off-site doctor, who can then make a remote diagnosis.
Figure 6: The Bigger Health Picture
Xing Chen explained that the information captured by the eHealth device could be accessed and displayed on a nifty tablet device, but also integrated into a telepresence system.
Figure 7: Screen Presence
That brought us to Huawei's telepresence system, which, as previously mentioned, can be linked to the eHealth system and used by medical professionals to provide a second opinion on cases.
Figure 8: The More the Merrier
Huawei's telepresence system can bring together three screens, with room to seat six people. It has also been designed, explained the Huawei team, to deliver high-quality audio and visual results over relatively low bandwidth connections -- just 3 Mbit/s per screen is all that's needed. And that concluded Huawei's 10 minutes. We had seen an Android smartphone, an eHealth system and a telepresence platform, with the latter two linked by the possibility of using a telepresence session as part of a remote health operation. But while there was certainly a degree of relevancy, there was a lack of any "wow" factor, and a sense that the 10 minutes could have been better utilized. This year, Huawei is awarded a B grade.

All photos by Siqui Sánchez/Getty Images. The captions, though, are not of his doing. Siqui is innocent. Please remember that.

— Ray Le Maistre, International Managing Editor, Light Reading
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Official Mobile World Congress Site: www.mobileworldcongress.com