Michael Turner wrote:
> From: "Gustaf Rosell" <gustaf@xpedio.com>
>
> > At 10:29 2001-11-13, Tony Chan wrote:
> > >I'm sure everyone has seen this, but what the hell is going on?
> > >
> > >http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/011112/hsm038_1.html
> [snip]
> > Essentially it is not saying anything except using standards that all
> these
> > already had agreed upon, so there must be some kind of hidden agenda.
> > Probably combined with a scared me-too attitude from many of the players.
>
> I'm having a tough time reading between the lines, not least because there
> are so many of them. But there is grist for the mill here. For example:
>
> This press release is from Motorola, and Chris ("chip off the old block")
> Galvin's quote is the first out of the gate. Further down, though, you find
> a reference to the announcement having been made by a top *Nokia* exec, not
> Motorola. Maybe the definition of leadership *isn't* getting out in front
> of the crowd when it starts moving in some direction, waving your hands and
> shouting "follow me, follow me!", but don't tell Galvin that, because then
> he'll be just another sheep in the flock, shopping for baa-ing lessons. So
> maybe the joke's on him? (If there's a wolf swimming in this ocean of wool,
> my bet is on Nokia.)
I would never be one to bet against Michael and in this case, he is almost,
nearly, certainly right.
In addition to the "industry-wide" announcement that started this thread,
Nokia, a day earlier, signed a deal with Sony to work on, you guessed it, a
platform for the wireless Internet. Almost in the same breathe, Nokia decided
to license components of their technology, including things like their MMS and
SMS clients, WAP/XHTML browser and a SyncML-based synchronization engine, as
well as a semi-propriatery implementation of the Symbian platform in a device
reference design called, Series 60.
If you read between the lines (or between the different press announcements in
this case), you get a message that goes something like this: We are all for
industry standard. Oh by the way, we have some standards here and we are
willing to make it the industry standard, for a price of course.
One funny point was that when Nokia announced their deal with Sony, Sony's CTO
was quoted by Reuters to have said specifically that Motorola will be not be
part of the team. (Of course, everyone knows that Sony has a joint-venture with
Ericsson).
Reading deeper between the lines, you find the industry's "open platform" does
not include Microsoft, Openwave or Qualcomm. All companies that have been quite
vocal about keeping platforms proprietary.
The one glitch in the release is NTT DoCoMo. Remember that BigD just made their
i-mode specs available "in English" a short time ago.
Notice that the release names: "WAP2.0/XHTML, MMS (Multimedia Messaging
Service), SyncML and other 3GPP compliant technologies. Additional important
component examples of the initiative include JavaTM technology and the Symbian
OS."
What, these platforms are not standardized already? Why the big commotion about
making them a standard since at one time or another, all these technologies and
platforms have been proposed and more often than not, accepted, as the defacto
platform by everybody for a while - with the possible exception of DoCoMo.
Sorry for the long rant, but my conclusion is that the announcement is nothing
more than a big hoopla by the big boys to say: You are with us, or you are
against us. There is absolutely nothing concrete or enlightening.
Nokia will continue to try to sell its own solutions. BigD will still try to
push their i-mode protocol stack, messaging standard and business model, which
by the way is not that hard to copy - China Mobile, the biggest mobile operator
in the world studied i-mode for a couple of months and just ported it lock,
stock and barrel to the Chinese market using SMS and WAP.
Of course, if you are Openwave or Microsoft or Qualcomm, then it might be time
to start worrying and begging to be let in.
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Received on Wed Nov 14 10:49:14 2001