NEW YORK-A multifaceted revolution is under way that will soon provide a tremendous boost to the battery life and processing capacity of wireless devices. The first phase of the handheld revolution will begin with extended battery life.
“Keep an eye on Transmeta, which is going public soon, because it has led with sub-1-watt power that will give us systems with battery life of over 6 hours, approaching 10-12 on some models, and processing speeds of 400 (MHz) to 500 MHz,” said Tim Bajarin, president of Creative Strategies Inc., San Jose, Calif. “Transmeta really wants to put this in handheld devices. In the longer run, this will have a major effect on field-force automation.”
Meanwhile, developers of Linux, an open-source operating system whose underlying code is publicly available, are “creating an operating system optimized for mobile devices,” Bajarin said at the recent DCI Field Force Automation Conference and Expo.
IBM Corp. “expects its Microdrive to be in WAP phones … and we will have full Web browsers in all kinds of devices,” he added.
This computer hard drive, which today has 340 megabytes of storage capacity, will go a long way toward eliminating a significant downside of WAP.
“With WAP phones now, there are no apps, if you are in a disconnect mode from the Web or the server,” Bajarin said.
Today, many applications for field-force automation run in the Microsoft Corp. Windows CE programming environment. However, within 12-18 months, these applications will transition to the XML language.
“With XML, all you’ll need is a clean Web connection and a clean Web browser. Once we go to XML, field force automation will broaden out to become mobile work force automation, instead of just a dedicated, vertical application,” he said.
Bajarin, a self-described “gadget freak,” said he is “most intrigued” by advances in handheld devices that promise to dramatically expand their capabilities.
Handspring, a company formed by expatriates of Palm Inc., fixed a “design flaw in the Palm handhelds by putting a 66-pin slot in the back that turns the Handspring device into a chameleon,” Bajarin said.
“Handspring’s not perfect, but it’s getting there, and Palm has gotten religion. But the bar code scanner in a Palm, for example, must still be a dedicated add-on from an outsourced vendor.”
One company he declined to identify has just announced a global positioning system wireless modem card for handhelds and will soon announce a plug-in module that will let users make wireless voice calls from these devices.
“Phone modules will change handhelds into totally different devices, and there will also be improving connection rates for Web browsing,” he said.
“FM band (data) rates are really slow, but GSM and TDMA will improve that, although I’m not holding my breath about the prospects for watching movies on handhelds.”
Recently, keyboards that are pocket size when folded up have been made available for Palm and Handspring models. When unfolded and plugged into a cradle on these devices, these keyboards allow the portables to function like desktop computers. Similar add-on keyboards are in development for palmtop computers using Windows CE.
Bluetooth, which will allow automatic wireless device synchronization, is another significant development in the offing. The first implementation of Bluetooth likely will be elimination of the wire between a mobile phone and a headset. Optimally, Bluetooth design will work best for wireless devices in upcoming generations when the dual chipset now required is reduced to one, Bajarin said.
Carriers like Omnisky and Metricom also are responding to the business opportunity that handheld devices offer.
“Omnisky has a great modem that fits into the Palm V, and one for the Palm VII is just being rolled out,” he said. “Metricom plans a massive rollout of its Ricochet modem service in 2001 with the goal of 128 K (kilobits per second) service in 30 major U.S. cities. They are now testing 128 K modem service in San Diego, Seattle and several other cities.”
