From: Ed Kummel (tech_ed_at_yahoo.com)
Date: Thu Oct 13 2005 - 13:23:02 PDT
The past is riddled withthe corps's of converged
cellphone/pda devices going as far back as the AT&T
EO. I still have my EO 440 with the Analog phone
attachment...While I'm sure I can reactivate the phone
module (it's a re-packaged OKI 900 cellphone witha
data plug and handset), I'm sure I'll get raised
eyebrows when I give them the ESN to activate...and
then probably only the 50 year old guy in the back
will be the only one who remembers how to do that.
Anyone remember the IBM Simon made by Mitsubishi? This
wonderful marvel was a PDA/Cellphone device that did
everything quite well...unfortunatly, only SBC was
allowed to sell it...so they shot themselves in the
foot before it ever launched!
And there was the Nokia il7000. The first fold open
cellphone with a full keyboard and screen...Nokia is
still trying to push that concept!
In every case, the failure part has been two fold
1) the phone technology has been overshadowed by newer
and sleeker devices
2) proprietary systems...the inability for these
devices to offer an upgrade path...If you had a Simon,
and wanted something more, where would you have gone?
My personal vision is the exact oposite of
conversion...fully diversification! Multiple devices
that only do a single task. YET!!!they all communicate
seemlessly to each other and share common data...kinda
the same way the Newton soups work...Have an address
book device....have a cellphone...have an email
reader...all seperate devices that allows a single
dumb reader to request data from all of the above for
the feeling of convergence..This was the original
vision of Bluetooth...have a PDA and a cellphone, but
you don't have the phone number in your PDA...connect
to the pda to get that phone number...That, to me, is
the future...complete divergence..single task devices
that are autonomous and offer hooks to authenticated
devices...
Ed
web/gadget guru
Download Newton packages directly onto your Newton:
http://newton.tek-ed.com
--- Lord Groundhog <LordGroundhog_at_gmail.com> wrote:
<snip>
> For example, I think it might be interesting to see
> a full debate of the
> convenience of integrating the phone with the
> hardware and software you wan=
> t
> to link through a phone, versus the problem of
> having your whole PDA
> crippled by a breakdown of the phone portion, or
> perhaps the problem of
> having your PDA become [read: "seem"] obsolete just
> because its inbuilt
> phone technology is a bit long-in-the-tooth.
<snip>
"I'm not an expert, but I *did* stay at a Holiday Inn Express once..."
--Holiday Inn Commercial
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