Friday, March 22, 2002
The mobile Internet
Posted by Ed Hansberry in "THOUGHT" @ 12:45 PM
Guys and gals, the 'm' in mobile is lowercase for a reason. "Mobile Internet" is not a proper noun. "Mobile" is an adjective that describes how you access the internet, not part of the name serving as a adjective describing what type of internet you are accessing. Phone carriers need to get this through their thick skulls as they continue to try to force us to use their “walled garden” for internet access – think AOL here. It seems the competition does as well.
I visited the Palm booth at CeBIT. I went to their connectivity section and saw their "Mobile Internet" kit. YAWN! "Internet access with your Palm handheld" it shouted. Email, SMS, WAP and Web Clipping. Folks, I know the web isn't the Internet, but it sure as heck is 80% of the Internet - probably more if you compared the number of bytes transferred daily vs. the amount that goes through email, SMS, IM and Usenet.
This PQA web clipping garbage isn't Internet access anymore than AvantGo is. And WAP is about as fun and interesting as Gopher used to be. So, from this information, it seems Palm doesn't have an Internet solution, and of course, true to form, you don't need one. You can get Internet access "quickly and efficiently over a wireless connection without being slowed down by cumbersome graphics or unwanted information." Of course, that neglects to tell you that full blown browsers, like those in the Nokia Communicator, Pocket PC's, Smartphone 2002 and Symbian devices can turn the graphics off, and then selectively download that "unwanted information" which just happens to be a weather map, stock chart or just a Dilbert cartoon if you want.
We've heard it before Palm. We don't need it until you have it. Blahbedy blah blah blah. And it is interesting that even though I couldn’t find it in your booth nor in your “Mobile Internet” pamphlet, you now have a full blown browser that will be available in April – for $20 no less. It seems Palm fans, of which there are many, will finally be able to experience the web on their devices, provided it is one of the $200 or higher devices less than a year old. Why this wouldn’t run on the bazillions of Vx’s out there is beyond me. So what happened to not needing all of that other stuff, “cumbersome images” and the like? Oh, you have it now. :-|
I guess that is the thing that ticks me off most. If the hardware, software, or the infrastructure in the case of the carriers, cannot support it, then just say so, and tell us when it will support it. But incessantly telling us what we do and don't need based on what you can and cannot provide is insane. And the market place is speaking. The carriers that open up their data connection to the full Internet for use on smartphones, PDA's and PC's will be the winners. Not the ones that try the original AOL walled garden approach. Even AOL saw the error of their ways and opened the floodgates and were rewarded richly for it. And the manufacturers of mobile devices that support those data connections to their fullest, be it Pocket PC, Smartphone, Symbian, Nokia's Communicator, etc., will also be richly rewarded.
I visited the Palm booth at CeBIT. I went to their connectivity section and saw their "Mobile Internet" kit. YAWN! "Internet access with your Palm handheld" it shouted. Email, SMS, WAP and Web Clipping. Folks, I know the web isn't the Internet, but it sure as heck is 80% of the Internet - probably more if you compared the number of bytes transferred daily vs. the amount that goes through email, SMS, IM and Usenet.
This PQA web clipping garbage isn't Internet access anymore than AvantGo is. And WAP is about as fun and interesting as Gopher used to be. So, from this information, it seems Palm doesn't have an Internet solution, and of course, true to form, you don't need one. You can get Internet access "quickly and efficiently over a wireless connection without being slowed down by cumbersome graphics or unwanted information." Of course, that neglects to tell you that full blown browsers, like those in the Nokia Communicator, Pocket PC's, Smartphone 2002 and Symbian devices can turn the graphics off, and then selectively download that "unwanted information" which just happens to be a weather map, stock chart or just a Dilbert cartoon if you want.
We've heard it before Palm. We don't need it until you have it. Blahbedy blah blah blah. And it is interesting that even though I couldn’t find it in your booth nor in your “Mobile Internet” pamphlet, you now have a full blown browser that will be available in April – for $20 no less. It seems Palm fans, of which there are many, will finally be able to experience the web on their devices, provided it is one of the $200 or higher devices less than a year old. Why this wouldn’t run on the bazillions of Vx’s out there is beyond me. So what happened to not needing all of that other stuff, “cumbersome images” and the like? Oh, you have it now. :-|
I guess that is the thing that ticks me off most. If the hardware, software, or the infrastructure in the case of the carriers, cannot support it, then just say so, and tell us when it will support it. But incessantly telling us what we do and don't need based on what you can and cannot provide is insane. And the market place is speaking. The carriers that open up their data connection to the full Internet for use on smartphones, PDA's and PC's will be the winners. Not the ones that try the original AOL walled garden approach. Even AOL saw the error of their ways and opened the floodgates and were rewarded richly for it. And the manufacturers of mobile devices that support those data connections to their fullest, be it Pocket PC, Smartphone, Symbian, Nokia's Communicator, etc., will also be richly rewarded.
