This Amazon review
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00005B41S/icellulartele-20/002-50804
52-8182448
does lend weight to the argument that Japanese phones
can be successful in the U.S., with or without Java (the
scp5000 is Javaless, AFAICT).
More interesting to me:
One of the customer reviews above supports a view
that I saw first from Stewart Alsop: mobile phones
could blunt the advance of the palmtop, which is
itself hardly universal yet. Shocking as this might
sound to palmtop enthusiasts, it's not unpre-
cedented for a physical category to drop out altogether
when something smaller and - in most ways - better
comes along at the right (not necessarily lower) price
point. Remember the "portable computer", which is
what gave Compaq (not to mention the late lamented
Osborne) its start? Early laptops had pretty lousy
screens by comparison, but were dramatically more
portable than "portables" -- laptops were a briefcase
item, where the portables were a whole luggage
category unto themselves.
Yes, a palmtop might be easier to use as a computer,
but when made into a phone, it's not easier to use than a
mobile handset. A phone, on the one hand, is at least
usable as a palmtop computer, and on the other hand --
well, you have the use of your other hand.
Palm Computing is now about 1/30th of its (admittedly
ridiculous) IPO price, and a stockholder lawsuit
alleging a "laddering" scheme has been filed against
Palm and its underwriters.
Between the Bubble excess unwinding and the
advance of mobile phones, I wonder if palmtops
won't soon be squeezed into niche markets? (Though
they may yet do respectably well in those.)
The one hope I would hold out for high consumer-led
palmtop sales growth is a sudden vogue in hands-
free headsets for mobile telephony, perhaps by making
them as decorative and useful as the wristwatch
is now. Then the palmtop might outshine the handset
both as a phone and as a handheld personal computer.
This, however, is at the whims of fashion trend-setters,
and is not some technological fait accompli. Perhaps
as U.S. baby-boomers increasingly wear hearing aids
there'll be some movement in this direction, but that's
a long slow curve that seems more likely to end
in surgical implants than in a new wearable item.
Well, OK, I'm now speculating about technology
directions in non-keitai areas, just the sort of
thing I was inveighing against so recently.
-michael turner
leap@gol.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Aaron LaBerge" <aaronlaberge@msn.com>
To: <keitai-l@appelsiini.net>
Sent: Monday, August 27, 2001 12:31 PM
Subject: (keitai-l) Re: article on streaming media to keitai
> I don't believe the Sanyo SCP-5000 is Java-enabled.
>
> Does anyone know when/if ATT Wireless is actually going to launch i-mode
> in the US?
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: keitai-l-bounce@appelsiini.net
> [mailto:keitai-l-bounce@appelsiini.net] On Behalf Of Jamie Finn
> Sent: Saturday, August 25, 2001 8:28 AM
> To: keitai-l@appelsiini.net
> Subject: (keitai-l) Re: article on streaming media to keitai
>
>
> The plazmic solution also requires java. Although I do not think this
> will an issue in the future as most device manufacturers are now
> integrating java as part of their handsets.
>
> For example both motorola and nokia are shipping multiple models that
> are java enabled. Hopefully japanese manufacturers will also start
> selling their excellent java handsets across europe and the us. Like
> what sanyo did with the scp5000 and sprint.
>
> Jamie
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Received on Mon Aug 27 08:46:23 2001