Many discussions about what’s inherently wrong with the wireless Internet, m-commerce or mobile data in general seem to end up placing the blame squarely on the device. It’s too big. It’s too small. It’s too slow. It’s not powerful enough.
It definitely is rough to be a manufacturer these days, as the past several months have shown. The world expects a lot of you.
VoiceStream CEO John Stanton last week blamed the company’s lack of progress on the wireless data front on devices.
“The main shortfall came in the area of devices. We have not seen any devices which are commercially available and acceptable at this point.”
When all else fails point fingers.
You have to consider what the desired task is and what functionality the task requires. E-mail access, corporate data, news, sports weather, location services, m-commerce, two-way text messaging … through … qwerty entry, voice recognition, handwriting recognition, extra sensory perception, what have you.
Are expectations reasonable?
There may be a dozen new reasons a day to be wirelessly connected, but the killer app and the killer device have been arguably elusive for carriers and manufacturers.
I’ve heard it forecast more than once recently that we are not headed toward a single device to meet all of our needs but more toward a wardrobe of devices depending on the requirements of the day.
We can compare multiple wireless devices to multiple pieces of stereo equipment. Both device sets are intended to receive radio after all. You just use a different piece of equipment depending on the needs of the day.
You have your clock radio next to your bed, your car stereo, home stereo in the living room, portable stereo for a picnic or Walkman at the airport. With those pieces of equipment you have a few power cords, some CDs and a whole bunch of batteries.
So likewise, to be wireless, you have your wireless phone for talking; Blackberry pager for e-mail; Palm PDA for notes, wireless Internet access and scheduling; telematics unit for navigation; and laptop computer for everything else. You also have an entire suitcase full of chargers.
Forget about the single device, someone should be focusing on creating a universal charger.
