mike etal: San Jose Mercury article about "Smart Phones". There are some interesting perspectives. Does anyone know of Innovative Global Solutions, a San Diego Company?
Smart phones a difficult
accomplishment
BY DEBORAH CLAYMON
Mercury News Staff Writer
Talking may be the least important thing you do with
your next mobile telephone.
Wireless-phone makers are blending hand-held
computers and personal digital assistants into mobile
telephones, creating what they call smart phones:
devices that intelligently process data, not just make
phone calls.
Smart phones handle e-mail as easily as voicemail,
provide remote access to your company's network
without a laptop computer and allow you to surf the
Web on the go.
Eventually, every wireless phone will become a
simple smart phone. As we increasingly rely on
digital information, we will need to dial in to data
sources, like the Internet, as often as we dial each
other. Although almost 30 million wireless phones
were sold in the United States in 1998, Dataquest of
Santa Clara projects that sales will jump 43 percent
to $43 million by 2000, and more than 4 million of
those will be smart phones.
''Cell phones and voicemail were a perfect fit,'' said
Andrew Seybold, a wireless-communications analyst
in Boulder Creek. ''But now e-mail is equally
important. Only having voicemail access is not good
enough.''
Smart phones are great in concept. Reducing the
number of gadgets we carry in our pockets is
generally a good thing. But in reality, first-generation
smart phones fail to make the merger of your
computer and your phone something that's very easy
to use or comfortable to carry. Not to mention the
fact that some wireless carriers are not even ready to
provide the kinds of data services, like fetching
e-mail or accessing the Web, that will make your
phone as smart as you'd like it to be.
Sending data over the airwaves requires the wireless
carriers to upgrade their networks, a process that has
slowly taken place over the last several years in the
U.S. And in the process of making these upgrades,
U.S. carriers are following three divergent paths, in
contrast to Europe and Asia, which have embraced
one transmission standard.
The primary purpose of the upgrades is to increase
voice capacity. Turning on data services is a second
step that most service providers have yet to
implement.
Already an array of smart phones exist, from super
smart phones that are like small, mobile PCs, to
high-end wireless phones that don't have PC
applications built in, but serve as a conduit to any
kind of digital appliance. In between are smart phone
hybrids that provide a simplified set of data features
but still feel like a phone.
Which one fits you best will depend entirely on how
much you think you'll use your phone for tasks that
don't involve talking and how long you are willing to
wait for them to become affordable and useful digital
sidekicks.
Nokia Inc. created the smart phone category with the
1996 shipment of the Communicator 9000, the first
blending of a wireless phone and a handheld
computer. At 14 ounces (which feels like a brick
when held at your ear for more than a minute) and a
price tag of $699, Communicator's best selling point
is that it eliminates the need to carry both a wireless
phone and a laptop, common baggage for business
travelers and field professionals but not for the mass
market.
Communicator and other super smart phones that
follow in its footsteps will probably find their way
into the hands of very mobile professionals like
insurance adjustors who can process an auto
accident claim in your living room or at the scene of
a house fire.
One step down from Communicator is the pdQ from
Qualcomm Inc. The pdQ combines a wireless phone
with the PalmPilot, the popular personal digital
assistant from Palm Computing Inc., a division of
3Com Corporation.
Another effort to merge two gadgets commonly
carried together, the pdQ prototype succeeds in
bringing the best of those two worlds together.
Imagine this: when you look up a phone number in
the Palm address book, you can simply tap an icon to
have the pdQ place a call for you.
But the pdQ is still not much lighter or cheaper than
Communicator. Getting information like an address
from the Palm Pilot interface while talking on the
phone is next to impossible. And waiting for the pdQ
may be a long prospect. It is built to work only on
Code-division Multiple Access (CDMA) networks,
but those networks have yet to provide for data
services.
According to Paul Jacobs, president of Qualcomm
Consumer Products, CDMA carriers like GTE and
Sprint should be ready for data services by
mid-1999 and so will the pdQ.
When that happens, the pdQ could be a good option
for people who use both a wireless phone and a
Palm Pilot regularly. But because of its size, many of
those same folks may also choose to have a smaller
wireless phone to carry when all they need is voice
communications.
''There's a downside to smart phones,'' said Matt
Hoffman, an analyst with Gartner Group. ''You give
up all the advantages of today's smaller phones only
to get a device which requires you to carry around
much more than you regularly need.''
Instead of convergence, Hoffman thinks the most
exciting advances in mobile phones are smaller
devices that do voice exceptionally well and have
the ability to connect to data devices only when
necessary. ''Think of the phone as a conduit, not an
appliance,'' said.
To be convenient, that conduit has to be small enough
to go everywhere. Size continues to be the defining
factor in high-end wireless phones.
This year alone, Qualcomm will introduce its
CDMA Digital Thin Phone and Nokia its 8800,
which looks more like a Zippo lighter than a phone.
Samsung Telecommunications America Inc. will roll
out its 3.1 ounce SCH-6000, the lightest CDMA
phone for the U.S. market, and Motorola Inc. plans to
introduce its V series, a degree smaller and sleeker
than Motorola's current StarTac line, with phones
that are about the size of a stack of 20 credit cards.
Between these two extremes -- super smart phones
on one end and high-end wireless handsets on the
other -- a new category is beginning to emerge.
Smart phone hybrids, also called simple smart
phones or ''voice plus'' devices, have made the
handsets as small as possible while still enhancing
the screen as much as possible for data transmission.
''Consumers don't fit neatly into voice-centric and
data-centric categories,'' said Seybold. ''People who
need some combination of the two will be the biggest
market.''
Hybrid smart phones will be priced as mass market
products and serve as receptors for new data
services like short messaging from Sprint, an option
to receive text messages of up to 100 characters on
the phone. These hybrids are more intelligent smart
phones, said Phillip Redman, an analyst with Yankee
Group. ''They offer only the functions that most
people want in a size and with a price that the mass
market will buy.''
The most interesting entry in this new market is the
NeoPoint 1000 from start-up Innovative Global
Solution Inc. of San Diego. ''NeoPoint is a phone
first and communications device second,'' said IGS
founder and chief executive William Son.
A large display, big icons and easy-to-use menus
make the data functions of the NeoPoint simply better
for people who want to use them like they use their
phone, not like they use their computer.
But whether the NeoPoint will be able muscle past
similar phones from industry giants like Motorola,
with its new i1000 plus, and Nokia with the
upcoming 7110, remains to be seen.
Whatever the outcome, simple smart phones are soon
to become the standard offering for many network
carriers, as they work to get wireless phone users to
spend more on-air time by using their phones for
e-mail and other data services.
Like the phones, smart phone data services are in
their infancy. The industry recently established
WAP, the wireless application protocol, which is
designed to help information providers like the
yellow pages or a stock quote service make their
information fast to download and easy to read on a
smart phone and, in turn, encourage consumers to
spend more time on the phone.
From traditional news media to Internet publishers,
businesses with lots of information are busily
working out deals to be the exclusive sources of
content for wireless phone users. For example, on
March 18, IBM, Nokia and the Sabre Group Inc.
announced they were working on a travel service to
be delivered via mobile phones. Travelers will be
able to make flight changes and receive updated
information from airlines about flight times from
anywhere. ''Carriers are desperate for an alternative
to voice to boost their revenues,'' said Redman, the
Yankee Group analyst. ''But it is a chicken and egg
situation. Until there are useful data delivery
services available, there won't be much of a rush for
consumers to buy smart phones.''
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