Friday, January 17, 2003
Who are Gandalf, Aragorn and Sauron?
Posted by Andy Sjostrom in "ARTICLE" @ 03:21 AM
http://www.infoworld.com/articles/op/xml/03/01/13/030113opwireless.xml
Ephraim Schwartz has written a "Lord of the Rings" inspired article related to mobile devices from Microsoft and partners. Given that PDAs were all in black and white, and cell phones as primitive as calculators, before Microsoft entered the stage and breathed life into this market, I would say that Gandalf and Aragorn live near Seattle and Sauron is either in California or in Finland...
"SOMETIMES I think of myself as a war correspondent stuck in Middle Earth, covering the dark forces of Mordor converging against the forces of light. Unfortunately, I'm stuck behind enemy lines. Just got off the phone with Microsoft. ... Will Microsoft make its platform available for Brew and Java applications? I asked Ed Suwanjindar, product manager for the Microsoft mobile devices division in Redmond, Wash. "There's no reason that can't be done. If people want to run Java apps or Brew on top of our platform, people can do that," he says. In other words, "No. If you want it, you do it without our help." Here's what I find curious. There is barely a market for sophisticated converged Pocket PC devices, such as the ones Hitachi and Samsung announced at CES, with 400MHz processors, keyboards, cameras, and Microsoft Office built in, running on any network. Yet Microsoft appears arrogant in its refusal to seed the industry, even for its own benefit. By the way, Suwanjindar is not arrogant; he's a nice guy. And, while we're at it, Bill Gates isn't Sauron."
Ephraim Schwartz has written a "Lord of the Rings" inspired article related to mobile devices from Microsoft and partners. Given that PDAs were all in black and white, and cell phones as primitive as calculators, before Microsoft entered the stage and breathed life into this market, I would say that Gandalf and Aragorn live near Seattle and Sauron is either in California or in Finland...
"SOMETIMES I think of myself as a war correspondent stuck in Middle Earth, covering the dark forces of Mordor converging against the forces of light. Unfortunately, I'm stuck behind enemy lines. Just got off the phone with Microsoft. ... Will Microsoft make its platform available for Brew and Java applications? I asked Ed Suwanjindar, product manager for the Microsoft mobile devices division in Redmond, Wash. "There's no reason that can't be done. If people want to run Java apps or Brew on top of our platform, people can do that," he says. In other words, "No. If you want it, you do it without our help." Here's what I find curious. There is barely a market for sophisticated converged Pocket PC devices, such as the ones Hitachi and Samsung announced at CES, with 400MHz processors, keyboards, cameras, and Microsoft Office built in, running on any network. Yet Microsoft appears arrogant in its refusal to seed the industry, even for its own benefit. By the way, Suwanjindar is not arrogant; he's a nice guy. And, while we're at it, Bill Gates isn't Sauron."
