Behind the times

I love technology but hate the way that it is highlighted and reported on the news. Here's an example. Back in June this year I wrote a blog about the smartphone being the ultimate convergence device. Low and behold the BBC's technology flagship show - Click - just ran a story about the same thing. Only true to form they sat on the fence when it came to the sum up. Typical.

And now the end is near

I've somehow managed to avoid owning a Blackberry all of my career ... until now that is. My current employer is still in the slightly delusional belief that Blackberry's are an essential corporate tool. So I now carry a brand spanking new Bold 9780 in addition to my personal iPhone 3GS which is still going strong.

I expected that there would be pros and cons between the two devices but I just can't get over just how bad the Blackberry is. Nothing is intuitive and the screen is truly awful. Indeed the one thing that should be great, and what Blackberry are reknowned for, is the keyboard. However, even that is crap. My old Palm Treo had a much better physical keyboard.

So if RIM can't make a great smartphone, can't make a decent touchscreen phone, can't make a decent tablet, can't keep their back end servers running then what can they do?

I guess not much - and judging by the latest reports (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/03/rim_market_value/) the market tends to hold that view also.

Is that a computer in your pocket or are you .....

One of my New Years Resolutions was to use Facebook a bit more. My wife is a facebook junkie and whiles hours away on it sat in front of the TV. I just don't get it but each to their own. Having started to use Facebook a bit more my question for today is where is facebook's strategy for tablet computers. The mobile app is fine but is a cut down version of the browser experience so why no app for the iPad for example.

I was intrigued at Mark Zuckerberg's definition of mobile technology at their recent Mobile press event which simply failed in any way to acknowledge the tablet computer as a mobile device. So according to him PC's and smartphones are important but tablets are not.

Link that back to Steve Ballmer's quotes recently about everything being a PC (including tablets and smartphones) thereby all being candidates for Windows (God forbid) and also the recently cleared up confusion from Google about where Chrome and Android sit and we can see that the Cupertino tablet has really caught the competition on the back foot. It seems to me that Job's vision and strategy is the only complete one on the market today.

So back to Facebook. Not only should people be asking why there's no app for the iPad but more importantly is where is the Facephone or FacePad.

Where did it all go wrong?

When asked about losing his fortune soccer legend George Best is quoted as replying "I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered". I'd be asking similar question of a company called Palm Inc. right now - only I don't think the answer would be anywhere near as satisfying. Palm's recent results were below market expectations and according to reports they are in the red and burning through their last $500m at the bank.

Back in 1996 Palm introduced a revolutionary low cost PDA device - the Palm Pilot - and it sold like hotcakes. Palm OS was a revelation with its simple and intuitive gui and grafitti was a pretty good stab at handwriting recognition too. The Palm Pilots influence can still be seen in devices like the iPhone today (large screen, no physical keyboard, few physical buttons, downloadable applications, pc syncing, etc). In fact when you think about it the only real difference between the Palm OS and iPhone OS is the replacement of the stylus with multitouch.

Then things started to go wrong for Palm:

- The brains trust left, came back and then and left again.
- The Treo capitulated and added keyboards, aping Blackberry's success, instead of building on the Palm Pilots keyboardless form factor.
- Palm OS stagnated whilst a new Linux based OS churned in development hell. Palm even commited herecy and lisensced Windows Mobile on some of their devices
- The ill-conceived Foleo debacle

The real irony here is that after all the issues related to the stagnation of Palm OS is that they really do seem to have come up with a great successor in WebOS. I might have even been tempted by the Palm Pre it it had been sold here in Australia. I for one hope that Palm can survive and prosper but that seems an unlikely outcome. The best I think we can hope for is that one of the big handset manufacturers becomes disillusioned with Android and buys the company for its IP so that WebOS can live on.