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Editorial
(May 21,
2001)
From
Publisher and Managing Editor's
Desk...
Mobile computing and
wireless Internet continue to occupy the mindset of business
journalists and IT professionals. After all, dot.com businesses have
had their day and rest of IT is uninteresting. So what is new about
wireless?
We make some
observations on a couple of news items which did not catch our
weekly newsletter.
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RIM
in the News - Facing Competition from an upstart and also
Winning Patent for "Always-on" E-Mail Technology
Danger Inc. of Palo
Alto has just announced an inexpensive handheld device to
challenge RIM's domination in always-on e-mail devices. At press
time, very few details were available to validate this claim. No
doubt, RIM will face more competition in future. But they continue
to have a momentum and an advantage for some time.
As far as patent
licensing of "always-on" technology, we are not sure
whether it is enforceable. For a device to be "always
on", you just need to be equipped with a wireless modem (or
more accurately a transceiver), an antenna and be powered on. Rest
of the trick is in the communications software. Look for
more on this news item in future from this site.
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Problems
with 3G infrastructure and Consequent Delays
Short-term
prospects of 3G in North America and, to some extent, in Europe
are uncertain. NTTDoCoMo is going full speed ahead in terms of
registering significant profit and in its march towards 3G
implementation later this year. We at MobileInfo do not get
concerned about minor problems with 3G network implementation time
table in Japan or Europe. In fact, we would be concerned if
somebody said that there were no problems. We do not think it
deserves press coverage. These delays are not critical, nor these
are unexpected. We must remember that 3G is not an upgrade of
Windows 98 to Windows 2000. It is a complete change of hardware, antennas
and software. In fact, thorough testing of a change of this
magnitude is extremely necessary. BT of England need not rejoice
and think that it would gain any competitive advantage over
NTTDoCoMo by successfully implementing the first 3G network in the
world. Objective should not be to be clocked as the first in this
race. Instead, objective should be to implement a significant
network infrastructure with adequate coverage, speed and
reliability, then deliver killer applications at the right price
and finally become profitable soon. By these measures, Japan
will stay ahead with Europe in second position and North America a
distant third.
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There
is Money in Professional Systems Integration Services
Against this
preoccupation of the network carriers, large systems integrators
like IBM who are working with end user enterprises are bullish
about wireless. IBM is hiring 5000 wireless professionals in
2001and expects billion dollar in professional services This
is purely for initial requirements analysis, pilot application
development and IT infrastructure to support these applications.
Other companies like EDS, Brience, KPMG and others are
experiencing the same growth in wireless services. Aether may be
facing profitability problems because of its uncontrolled
acquisition strategy.
Chander
Dhawan - Your Site's Principal Consultant and Publisher
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e-mail.
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