|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| The Mobile Internet Arrives |
| New attitudes by big players herald a change in the way we view the Internet |
|
Robin Jewsbury (robdensby)  |
 Email Article
 Print Article
|
|
|
|
Published 2006-06-19 11:59 (KST) |
|
|
|
Technologies come along, are over-hyped and then fail to meet expectations on a regular basis. Many of those reading this have probably become immune to the hype. Immunity to hype is a good thing of course, but it now means that significant events are no longer technology-change events, but rather changes in the way some big players (such as Microsoft and Google) work.
On June 15, two things happened. I believe that sometime in the future these two events will be considered the decisive turning point for the Internet, and in particular the mobile Internet:
- Microsoft announced that Bill Gates would step aside so Ray Ozzie could take over as Chief Software Architect.
- Google announced that it would concentrate on Mobile development in its next phase of growth.
Ray Ozzie's internal memo, called Service Disruption, is an excellent analysis of why Microsoft has failed to deliver on the Internet in the last few years.
Both Google's and Ozzie's announcement talks about the fact that there are more mobile phones than personal computers, although this is played down by Ozzie to some extent. Ozzie in particular points out the failure of Microsoft to pick up on the advertising business models that Google has made successful. The stepping aside of Gates will enable Ozzie to push Microsoft into the area of new business models and technologies just now working across all devices. Google has taken the more direct step of stating that they need to make sure their services work on mobile devices.
For too long, many in the industry (including Gates) have assumed that if something works well in a PC Web browser then it will also work on a mobile browser. Slowly, mobile phone browsers have gotten better but it remains the case that data applications have to be specifically written or tailored for mobile phones. Google, headed by Nikesh Arora, the former CMO of T-Mobile International, is well aware of the real issues involved with getting data services working on mobile. Arora created the t-zones services for T-Mobile. He is fully aware of the investments needed to fully support mobile.
Meanwhile, Ozzie will also need to come to this realization about mobile.
Microsoft has been held back by the views of Gates in recent times, despite the undoubted positive effect he had on the company in its first 20 years of existence. Gates had failed to see the importance of the mobile phone. He still sees it as running the Windows operating system (OS) and providing all the facilities of a PC in a smaller form.
I would like to think that Ozzie sees the mobile phone more as the communication device it is and will focus on the community building aspects of data applications on phones. This is the correct approach.
Microsoft needs to move away from a single-OS-fits-all approach to a single form of interconnections on the Internet fits-all approach. RSS, XML and AJAX are Microsoft's new focus. These interconnecting technologies allow different devices and OS's to communicate. Microsoft just needs to explicitly accept that all mobile phones will not run Microsoft OS's. This is a big mind set change for Microsoft -- they need to concentrate on Internet services and compete directly with Google and Yahoo.
And I think this change in view by Microsoft and the re-emphasis by Google on mobile will be seen as a decisive moment in history when the new mobile Internet was born.
|
|
©2006 OhmyNews
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Comments Note: Kindly refrain from personal attacks and profanity. |
 |
 |
|
|
|
1. fdgdgd
|
gfdg , 2006-11-21 12:17
|
0 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
How worried are you about the H1N1 influenza virus? |
|
 |
| * Vote to see the result. |
 |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
RSS
Del.icio.us
Digg 
reddit
Y! MyWeb
.jpg)
