This is an oldie but shows that webphones may eventually be useful but they won't replace computers. I love/hate computers and I have a web phone. Phone's great for talking unless you're out of range but it's not a computer.
Phones: hung up on gadgetry
By Carmen Nobel, eWEEK
October 29, 2000 9:00 PM PT
Despite lagging sales, a lack of network support and the ever-present bandwidth crunch, mobile phone makers continue to churn out new, feature-packed handsets, ever widening the gap between what's nifty and what's necessary.
More significantly, the proliferation of expensive, gadgety phones and associated applications, which few users want and even fewer can actually use, is stressing manufacturers and may ultimately retard wireless communications development.
"Our industry has been focused on an entire generation of hype," said Martin Cooper, inventor of the cell phone and currently the CEO of smart-antenna manufacturer ArrayComm Inc., of San Jose, Calif. "So far, there really aren't any wireless approaches that do anything useful."
LM Ericsson Telefon AB and Motorola Inc., which have both suffered lagging handset sales of late, continue to push technically advanced models, although many industry insiders say the companies would do better to focus on their other businesses—infrastructure hardware and silicon innovation, respectively.
"I think both of them are certainly wanting to move up the value stack," said Mark Zohar, an analyst at Forrester Research Inc., in Cambridge, Mass. "The handset market is an increasingly commoditized market."
The idea doesn't sit well with phone makers. Ericsson, for example, is planning to release by year's end in the United States the R380, a flip phone with an LCD screen that spans almost the full length of the device. Running Symbian Ltd.'s Epoc operating system, the phone will incorporate handwriting recognition technology and the ability to synchronize with Lotus Development Corp.'s Notes and Microsoft Corp.'s Exchange. The R380 will also support Short Message Service with as many as 39,015 characters and a host of other data-centric features.
Early next year, Ericsson, based in Stockholm, Sweden, plans to ship the R520, a circuit-switched phone that supports a wide range of bleeding-edge technology, including Bluetooth, which enables devices to find one another and communicate at short range; Wireless Application Protocol Version 1.2, which provides more comprehensive security and better graphics than previous versions; and support for GPRS (Gener al Packet Radio Service) networks.
The company will also ship a tiny Bluetooth-enabled earphone, which will enable hands-free and wire-free phone conversations.
But each of these devices will cost more than $500, according to com pany officials. And GPRS, the data component of the GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) network, is primarily available only in Europe.
Motorola, for its part, is getting ready to ship a wireless phone that supports Sun Microsystems Inc.'s Java2 MicroEdition. With Java2 ME, users will be able to download applications wirelessly from the Web to phones.
The phone supports packet-switched networks for transactions of about 64K bps, a feature lost on today's largely circuit-switched networks, which support transactions that average only about 10K bps.
But as Ericsson and Motorola release their advanced handsets, the prospects for higher-speed wireless networks will continue to be hampered by battles over radio spectrum and standards.
As a result, the disconnect between what customers are able to use and what manufacturers continue to roll out will have a greater effect on vendors' bottom lines.
Ericsson, which continues to try to keep its sales and production at a high volume, last week reported a loss of 4.1 billion kronor ($401 million U.S.) in the third quarter, compared with a loss of 619 million kronor ($61.2 million U.S.) for the year-ago quarter.
"The replacement market was less than we expected," said Lars Nilsson, an Ericsson product manager. Ericsson also blames some of its losses on a fire in a New Mexico plant last March.
Ericsson officials also said last week the company was halting mobile phone production in Kulma, Sweden, and Lynchburg, Va., and moving production to Latin America and Asia. The Kulma plant will now produce GSM radio equipment, and the Virginia plant is being sold, officials said.
Motorola earlier this month posted disappointing third-quarter results, which included a 23 percent drop in cell phone orders. As a result, the head of the vendor's communications division resigned, and Motorola has since lowered earnings expectations through next year.
The only major handset manufacturer that isn't hurting right now is Nokia Corp., whose simple but tiny phones are hugely popular, especially in Europe.
"In this business, size and weight are a religion," said ArrayComm's Cooper, who invented the cell phone in 1972.
Still, the wireless airwaves are clouded by marketeers that issue hundreds of press releases weekly, hawking everything from wireless banking to wireless Britney Spears chat groups. Meanwhile, PDA (personal digital assistant) manufacturers and phone makers have repeatedly said they want to manufacture phones, PDAs and a combination of the two until it's clear what consumers favor.
While he agreed that many of the new devices available are overkill, Forrester's Zohar said he's hopeful, especially about a couple of technologies that don't necessarily require faster networks. "We see a number of things on the horizon that will lead to greater churn—location-based technologies will require new chip sets, and Bluetooth will require churn as well," he said. "We expect the average life of the phone will be about 12 months for the next several years, rather than the 18 months it is today." |
