>Let's not forget that INTS and Microtec are already shipping
>embedded Web servers. Both companies also have demoed Java
>solutions.
I won't forget.
>BTW, embedded Web browsers are a real head scratcher. The
>simple question is who is going to buy them?
I suspect there will be a variety of small-footprint devices that will provide browsing, a la the Spyglass cut-down version of HTML. As I understand it, Spyglass is attempting to establish itself as providing browsers and servers that are designed for small-footprint devices, such as Geoworks smart phone. Unwired Planet is similarly oriented, concentrating on portable devices.
Consequently, RTOS vendors find it mandatory to offer Java, browsers, name services, etc. However, having said that, the lion's share of applications will be non-browsing and absolutely not using the PC paradigm. (The NC, and even small footprint browsers a la Spyglass, represent alternative implementations of the PC paradigm. And this paradigm will prove to be a very small part of the future world of ubiquitous computing.)
I guess this is a round-about way of saying I mainly agree with you.
I need to elaborate on the role of the internet in my recent post on the importance of EIDs.
Many investors are disappointed that the internet appears to have failed to live up to the commercial hype that surrounded the emergence of pure internet companies, starting with Netscape's IPO. In my mind, the internet has proven vastly more commercially valuable than the most optimistic views expressed about opportunities for wealth through shopping, advertising, or any of the other commercial ventures that lured entrepreneurs and investors alike. In my mind the internet enables Ubiquitous Communications, whereby virtually any point on earth can connect seamlessly to any other point for effectively zero cost, and with almost no added infrastructure.
The EID represents the crossroads in technology advancement where Ubiquitous Communications meets Ubiquitous Computing. This crossroads leads to the true beginning of the 3rd wave of computing that will prove so pervasive as to make the first two waves of computing appear like small ripples from the perspective of the 21st Century.
Allen |
