You can thank Socrates-the illustrious Athenian of the fifth century B.C.-for establishing the power of asking leading and potentially unpopular questions, without feeling the need to provide definitive answers. Ask the right questions, so the Socratic method would have it, and those around you will look within and discern the right path.
Enter Ken Dulaney, Gartner analyst, who probably would chuckle (or cringe) at any analogy between himself and the Greek philosopher-and, besides, we all know what happened to Socrates. (Just to refresh your memory, he asked uncomfortable questions, attracted notoriety in Athens after a disastrous war, was prosecuted for questioning the gods and subsequently sentenced to death by hemlock.)
But Dulaney is asking uncomfortable questions about the current state of the wireless industry and the functionality of handsets while he attempts to craft a sense of where the industry is heading, either by choice or necessity.
His essential question, which underlies far-ranging views of the evolution of wireless handsets and, in fact, the entire wireless ecosystem, is: Why are we being served up a crazy-quilt patchwork of applications and services that don’t answer any compelling need?
These are the amanuensis’ words, not Dulaney’s. But Dulaney will say as much when he delivers a talk tomorrow at Gartner’s Wireless and Mobile Summit 2006 in Detroit.
“Right now, cell-phone technology is pretty far ahead of the applications that have been built for it,” Dulaney said. “If we’re excited by downloadable ringtones, we haven’t come very far as a society. The good news is that there are a lot of capabilities in these phones. The bad news is that we haven’t engaged our imagination to take advantage of them.
“The endemic problem is that we buy these handheld machines from the mobile operator, each of which has a unique infrastructure. The software developer is at a disadvantage. You can’t write software once and run it on any machine, as on PCs. You have to adapt it for each carrier and that becomes complex. The developer simply doesn’t get enough return on each investment of time and effort, slowing down the progress of the industry.”
(So, Socrates was a software developer!)
“At some point, any market needs leadership, especially in an industry with players who realize they won’t get anywhere unless they come up with a common format,” he said. “A fragmented market doesn’t make money. I put the blame on the operators. We need leadership from them. The philosophy I see from them is: Let’s throw the `next big thing’ at the wall and see if it sticks, instead of getting input from the right sources and creating the next paradigm.”
Technology is accelerating at such a rapid pace across all dimensions of phone technology, according to Dulaney, that handset potential is being ignored in favor of applications that merely mimic the desktop experience.
Among the technologies that can enable compelling applications, Dulaney points to the use of sophisticated sensors that may personalize the wireless experience and make handsets an extension of the user’s own senses, especially in conjunction with embedded cameras in homes, for example.
Handsets could provide a link to view one’s home, pets or other sites that require monitoring. They could read UPC codes to comparison shop. They could monitor health conditions by reading medical devices.
Back on Earth, Dulaney points to San Francisco-based GeoVector Corp., which specializes in location-based services. The company has pioneered the application of two types of sensors; one is an accelerometer, which reflects the user’s height and elevation, and the other is an electronic compass that reads direction. Using this technology, Japan’s Mapion Local Search allows users to walk down streets in Japan and point at more than 700,000 buildings, retailers, restaurants, banks or historical sites to obtain information on what they see, or find what they need by pointing their phone. Mapion was the original developer of Yahoo maps and provides content for AOL Japan maps and Excite Japan maps. The service was initially launched over the KDDI Corp. network and available for users to download on W21S phones (CDMA with aided-GPS and an integrated compass).
Dulaney suggests that these two sensors combined could be used to provide millions of applications. For instance, a phone’s camera function, if pointed at the user’s face, should soon discern the user’s facial expression and, thus, the user’s mood, which might be used to craft both push and pull content.
Nothing earth-shattering in the examples, admittedly, but the theme is making the handset a dynamic extension of the user’s real-time preferences, tailoring the handset to the individual’s quirks and needs. For example, an Internet-based search by handset might turn up a small number of results, in contrast with the typical myriad results currently available.
“Today they’ve got phones that you use to get anything you want,” he said. “But searching for anything you want on a phone is painful.” By providing a closer read on your preferences, content providers can steer more applicable content your way.”
Who the heck is this guy and where the heck is he coming from? Dulaney said he bases his views and his latest talk on professional experience (he’s been in mobile computing since the beginning), vendors that share their technical direction, and feedback from Gartner clients who ask for advice and insights and, in turn, relate the successes and frustrations they’ve endured with enterprise wireless solutions.
So what’s the ultimate solution to a free market in which carriers are banking on outlasting, out-innovating or simply out-marketing their competitors?
“Consumers aren’t asking for mobile video,” Dulaney concludes. “They’re being pushed by the operators and, in the case of mobile video, consumers are basically saying, `We’re not buying this stuff. Do you think we’re nuts?!’ Consumers are saying, `When you give me what I want, I’ll buy it.”‘ RCR
