Cellular and Computing Industries Finally Collide

magarity writes "For years now cell phones have become increasing complex as computers become ever smaller. The two industries now directly collide. Of special interest is the change in mission statement by Microsoft from 'a computer on every desk and in every home' to 'empowering people through great software, any time, any place and on any device.' With mobile phone saturation in the industrialized world from +80% (Italy) to 45% (USA), this is the next battleground for information technology dominance. Both industries have giant sized players; the shakeouts, as well as implications for consumers, will be huge."

Comments

looking at cellular use objectively

[Anonymous Coward]

What gets lost in this discussion is why cellphone usage so much greater (in terms of percentage) in Europe and Japan is a comparison of the alternatives. How many European and Pacific Rim countries have unmeetered local phone service? That is, talk all you want next door or across town for a very low flat monthly fee?

cell phone companies have advantage

[pbranes]

I think cell phone manufacturers have a distinct advantage in this area because they have been working for years at making a product that is both user friendly, extremely small, and runs in real-time with no crashes.

As phones become more intelligent, it only seems natural that phone manufacturers would have an easier time than microsoft because microsoft has to scale down its product, clean out bugs, adapt the software to be real-time --- all while getting new teams organized that have the ability to do this.

Cell phone companies already have a large number of experienced exployees that have been meeting th ese necessary goals for years.

Re:cell phone companies have advantage

[interiot]

• they have been working for years at making a product that is both user friendly, extremely small, and runs in real-time with no crashes.

To some extent, the stability has been somewhat related to the fact that past phones didn't allow 3rd party apps on the phone without being closely inspected and signed. Now that there are open development environments (eg. WindowsCE, Symbian), cell phone stability could drop to WinCE/PalmOS levels.

And to be fair, cell phones aren't 100% stable... dropped calls are sometimes the software's fault, it's not always obvious that this is the case because it's easy to assume it's due to radio interference or cell tower issues.

Re:cell phone companies have advantage

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, remember that the safety aspect is very important regarding cell phones, as a single cell phone could take out an entire cell. I believe that is part of what has delayed MS's entry into this market. It is debatable if they have (had) the capabilities of developing safe small OSes.

Promise me something?

[MacAndrew]

I'm no Luddite, I think all this innovation is fine and dandy (although, sorry, I do not salivate at the prospect of MS getting into my phone) ... but can anyone promise that I'll still be able to buy plain, simple, boring phones and basically do telephone calls? And don't need an engineering degree to operate? Please?

This is from someone who misses corded dial telephones that never broke, or if they did the phone company swapped you for a new one. There were a lot of problems with that era, but some nice things, too. I still have a classic ugly-beige tabletop phone with a hard-to-turn dial and a REAL BELL. And even Alexander Graham Bell could probably use it in minutes.

Just make the damn phone work

[toothless joe]

Here's a partial list of my priorities when it comes to having a cellphone:

1) Geographic range
2) Sound quality
3) Dropped calls
.
.
.
75) Playing tetris
76) Browsing the web
77) Checking e-mail

It's a phone, for God's sake.

Re:80% italy - why?

[juuri]

Probably because like most of Europe it is far cheaper to put up cell towers than to have wires run everywhere. Americans tend to forget how subsidized our wired telephone system was.

A quote:

RIGHT NOISES. That's because Europe's fourth-largest economy suffers from an outdated, expensive telecommunications infrastructure...

From: http://www.businessweek.com/2000/00_09/b3670213.ht m

Celullar is Dead: Long live Mesh-Networks

[cosmosis]

As someone who worked for AT&T Wireless for years, I can tell you they are quickly running our of money. The centralized "cellular" paradigm is quickly running our of steam. It is simply not economically scalable to compete with very high speed ad-hoc "bottom up", software definted radio mesh networks that are the wave of the future. My opinion, is not only will telcos fail, but lets help them fail as fast as possible to make room for innovation by opening up more parts of the spectrum.

As for Microsft's involvement, who cares? I can't see them either dominating this space like they managed to do with the desktop. Interoperability will be the key, just like on the net today. Linux alread has a foot hold in this market.

Planet P - Liberation With Technology.

Re:great software...

[capt.Hij]

I know I shouldn't make a response to a joke, but... I find it very interesting that the Microsoft mission is becoming incredibly diffuse. They went from OS to applications over a very long time. In a relatively small amount of time they have added peripherils, hotmail, pocket PCs, the XBox, and now phones. Now their mission statement is reduced to "software for stuff."

This sort of diversification may be good for the company, but when they loose focus on their core it becomes very difficult to maintain the kinds of market share that they are used to. Of course, these other things rely on their dominance on the desktop but at some point something has to give.

Re:I can't wait to see...

[Mac Degger]

Case in point: phone sex lines. And the first service I could get on a WAP enabled phone? You guessed it: downloading dot-matrix style pixelated naked ladies. It's not cash that makes the world go round...it's pussy.