Cellphone as the Next Computer

[via The Pondering Primate] Newsweek writes:

As our phones get smarter, smaller and faster and enable users to connect at high speeds to the Internet, an obvious question arises: is the mobile handset turning into the next computer? In one sense, it already has. Today's most sophisticated phones have the processing power of a mid-1990s PC while consuming 100 times less electricity. And more and more of today's phones have computerlike features, allowing their owners to send e-mail, browse the Web and even take photos; 84 million phones with digital cameras were shipped last year. Tweak the question, though, to ask whether mobile phones will ever eclipse, or replace, the PC, and the issue suddenly becomes controversial. PC proponents say phones are too small and connect too sluggishly to the Internet to become effective at tasks now performed on the luxuriously large screens and keyboards of today's computers. Fans of the phone respond: just wait. Coming innovations will solve the limitations of the phone. "One day, 2 or 3 billion people will have cell phones, and they are all not going to have PCs," says Jeff Hawkins, inventor of the Palm Pilot and the chief technology officer of PalmOne. "The mobile phone will become their digital life."

Could your phone one day actually perform many of the functions of the PC, like word processing and Web browsing? PalmOne's Hawkins thinks so. The inventor of the Palm Pilot and the Treo keeps a desktop PC and a thin Sony Vaio laptop in his office. Yet he waves at both dismissively, as if they were heading for the dustbin of history. Within the next few decades, he predicts, all phones will become mobile phones, all networks will be capable of receiving voice and Internet signals at broadband speeds, and all mobile bills will shrink to only a few dollars as the phone companies pay off their investments in the new networks. "You are going to have the equivalent of a persistent [fast] T1 line in your pocket. That's it. It's going to happen," Hawkins predicts. The computer won't go away, he says, but it might fade to the background, since people prefer portability and devices that turn on instantly instead of having to boot up.

Intel's Platformisation

The Economist writes about the change of guard at Intel as Paul Otellini' takes over:

Rather than just selling processing chips to PC-makers, Intel intends to offer them entire “platforms”—bundles consisting of a processor, its ancillary chips and networking components, and the software needed to tie them all together. By doing this, Intel hopes to sell more components, thereby taking a larger cut of the selling price of each PC. It also hopes to boost demand by devising specific platforms for several promising new markets, such as home entertainment, mobile devices and health care.

This strategy, it hopes, will also enable Intel to outflank its rivals, which specialise in particular kinds of chips, such as processors (as in the case of AMD) or networking (Broadcom). PC-makers, goes the theory, would rather buy a single integrated package from Intel than assemble components from several other suppliers.

While Intel has a good chance of getting the platform model to work in desktop PCs, breaking into new markets may prove much harder. Intel has yet to make any headway in the mobile-phone market; indeed, merging its laptop and mobile businesses into a single “mobility” division means that continuing losses in communications chips are helpfully obscured by the bumper profits from Centrino. Its prowess in processors is unquestioned, but Intel is still to prove itself when it comes to radio chips. It must do so if it is to realise its high hopes for new markets such as smartphones and wireless broadband (Intel is the main cheerleader for WiMax, a new wireless broadband technology). “They don't have a significant technological advantage over the incumbents in the cell-phone business,” says Kevin Krewell of Microprocessor Report, an industry journal. “Until they come up with something truly unique, they're just going to be a me-too player.”

IPTV in Oklahoma

Om Malik writes: "Pioneer Long Distance, a subsidiary of Pioneer Telephone Cooperative of Oklahoma is all set to launch an IPTV service over its network, and will soon offer triple play packages to 33,000 homes. They will be using technology from Entone, which makes personal video content hardware and software. PTC, the third largest telephone cooperative, is currently upgrading its entire eight-region network with high-speed ADSL2+ and IPTV services. When complete, it will deliver up to 166 channels of streaming broadcast video and use ADSL2+ to support the viewing of as many as three different TV channels simultaneously per home."

Sometimes, I wish that the broadband providers in India would wake up and realise the opportunities they are missing. We need to be leapfrogging to the new era. But alas, we are still stuck in the past where we define broadband as 256 Kbps and the real speeds on these connections are closer to 30-40 Kbps during the day. And now some of the operators want to charge us based on downloads! Let's learn from Korea and get to work building a state-of-the-art infra in India and then see the services bloom.

Mark Pesce's LiveRecord

The Feature has an interview with Mark Pesce, author of "The Playful World" (a good book published a couple years ago), by Douglas Rushkoff:

Based on his observation of what held social networks such as Orkut or even Amazon.com together, LiveRecord is basically a way for people to share their "quality tips," as they happen. Having a good meal, good view or a good time? Share the restaurant, vantage point, or method with your network. Sounds simple enough, but Pesce is convinced this sharing of tips will become the "new mobile crack."

Mark Pesce: I realized that this mobile phone was, at least potentially, always connected to the Internet at a fairly reasonable speed. That means I am carrying around a constant connection to the Net, and because I can program the phone, I can make of that connectivity whatever I will.

That's a huge amount of power in my hand, and I have complete control over it. What could possibly be more seductive than that?

TheFeature: You almost seem to be saying that the LiveRecord messages themselves are less important than the network they create.

Pesce: Human beings naturally create social networks; it's what we do. Electronic networks accelerate communication speed to light and remove the boundaries of proximity. These two phenomena, now intersecting, are leading to the emergence of some entirely new things -- for example, Wikipedia -- which couldn't have been predicted from either tendency alone.

TheFeature: Is LiveRecord an application for the data itself, or the social experience?

Pesce: LiveRecord was an experiment in mobile connectivity; it starts with the basic understanding that modern mobiles on modern (2.5G and up) networks are more-or-less constantly connected to the Internet.
They're with you all the time, and they're always connected. So what can you do? You can get information. Fine. But, more significantly, you can record information. All the time. Anywhere, for any reason.

So what kind of information to record? Information of value only to you is fine, so far as it goes. But far better -- given that it's a network we're talking about -- is to provide a shared pool of data, of experience, in this case, which everyone adds to and reaps the benefit of.

So LiveRecord allows you make note of your "moments of quality": that is, a great movie, album, book, TV show, or whatever you like. It's recorded to a database, and everyone can record their quality moments to this database.

Web-based Aggregators

Richard MacManus asks: "Is there a Web-based RSS Aggregator out there that will be a Bloglines Killer?"

I use Bloglines - now have 300+ feeds subscribed in there. I find it more than useful. I think the Bloglines-killer would need to be incredibly mobile friendly - that is one area where Bloglines can do much better.

TECH TALK: The Coming Age of ASPs: Technology Building Blocks (Part 4)

7. Mobility Integration

PCs and Thin Clients are not going to be the only access devices. In emerging markets, mobile phones are starting to become complementary devices to the desktop computers. For many, they are the “PC of the East.” Yet, mobile phones have not been integrated into business processes. While devices like Research In Motion’s Blackberry have popularised push email and calendar synchronisation, much more needs to be done to architect mobile phones into the SMEs in Emerging Markets (SMEEMs) workflow.

Mobile Enterprise Weblog points to a white paper by Cingular Wireless and Accenture and comments:

At issue here is the fact that mobility is not a set of technologies in search of a "killer app." Instead, Cingular posits that there are business processes that need to be mobilized. We can put the consulting-speak aside and investigate these basic categories:

* Workflow Enhancers
* Knowledge Enhancers
* Transaction Enhancers
* Reporting Enhancers

Essentially, the mobile phone must become an equal partner to the desktop computer as Application Service Providers (ASPs) focus on SMEEMs. Users in these enterprises will already have mobile phones. The mobile phone can be used for alerts and notifications, and also making queries to databases via SMS. On higher-end phones equipped with GPRS and CDMA connectivity, much more can be done. For example, field support engineers can fill out forms on the phone itself and data can be sent to the central servers via the wireless network.

8. Information Dashboards and RSS

The automation created with IT will also create a flood of information. What SMEs in Emerging Markets (SMEEMs) will need are information dashboards on their computers and mobile phones to let them focus on the flow of information, products and money. This will be enabled by RSS. Employees and top management can set up subscriptions to the information and event streams that are of interest to them, along with appropriate filters to ensure that exceptional events are reported immediately. Information dashboards thus become the interface to the real-time enterprise that ASPs and the concomitant IT infrastructure will enable.

A related idea which can help in the process of creating information dashboards is datablogging. Here is how John Robb describes it: “Data is usually locked up in monolithic applications (CRM, ERP, etc.). Application seats are expensive. Training is expensive. Etc. People that need the data often can't get to it. What if human readable data flows (via RSS) could be generated by these applications? It would allow the development of easy to read weblogs (that republished these RSS flows) that almost everyone in the company would find valuable. The combinations are almost limitless and the flow is completely automated. The flip side is also extremely valuable. Using a weblog model of data entry, it would become much easier to train people to enter data in a timely fashion. Further, they get immediate feedback on their efforts since the data they post is transformed into an entry on the blog.”

Tomorrow: The Buyer’s View

Related Entries:  [All]
TECH TALK: The Coming Age of ASPs: Looking Ahead [June 3, 2005]
TECH TALK: The Coming Age of ASPs: The Problems [June 2, 2005]
TECH TALK: The Coming Age of ASPs: The Seller’s View [June 1, 2005]
TECH TALK: The Coming Age of ASPs: The Buyer’s View [May 31, 2005]
TECH TALK: The Coming Age of ASPs: Technology Building Blocks (Part 3) [May 27, 2005]