ON NOKIA "INTERNET TABLET": ISSUES, IMPLICATIONS & MICROSOFT

A TOE IN THE WATER

In a post entitled "On first US Broadband PDA Phone", dated March 18, I talked about the Audiovox XV 6600 combined with Verizon's unlimited broadband EV-DO wireless service, as being the cat's meow for wireless broadband to go in the US currently. 

The post also talked about how the vertical wireless carriers will have to increasingly support horizontal, open and quasi-open standards around WiFi, Bluetooth, and Internet telephony, to compete against the PC and consumer electronics industries. 

Both are moving "Terminator-style" towards offering consumers an almost unimaginable number of devices that will talk to each other with and without wires.  Telephony, wired and wireless, will just be that much more road kill, excuse me, "applications supported".

I also mentioned that wireless hand-set vendors will increasingly need to compete with the PC and consumer electronics (CE) industries, potentially rocking their comfortable relationships with the wireless carriers.

Nokia's announcement today of the first in a new line of "Internet Tablets" is a baby step in this direction.  You think the word "Tablet" gets Bill Gates' attention? Called the Nokia 770 (click image for larger picture), the product is significant for both what it has, and doesn't have. (by the way, that's NOT a Nokia 770 in Bill's hands there...it's a prototype, ultra-thin 7" Tablet PC he unveiled at a conference last month). 

The two devices could be twins, huh?

Nokia's no-Microsoft needed, Linux based device has a multitude of hardware and software options that allow it to compete somewhat well with everything from Microsoft's PocketPC, to some aspects of Sony's portable PlayStation (PSP).  Supporting Wifi, and Bluetooth, it offers good internet connectivity options around your main PC environment at home or at work.  Some highlights from the Infosync round-up:

"The main attraction of the device is its widescreen, 65K colour TFT touch screen with a diagonal size of 4" and resolution of 800 x 480 pixels. This, along with a navigational array flanking the screen on its left side, provides an interface to the Nokia Internet Tablet 2005 software which powers the device, developed atop Linux by the handset maker to power this new category of devices...

An extensive range of applications are included in the 770, such as a web browser with support for Macromedia Flash 6; an e-mail client; Internet radio; news reader; media player; image viewer; Adobe Acrobat viewer; file manager; search; calculator; world clock; notes; sketch; and games. To interact with the applications, an on-screen keyboard much similar to that found in the recently released Nokia 7710 is provided, with the 770 also offering zoom capabilities..."

Particularly notable:

"In addition to its existing functionality, Nokia also said it plans to further enhance the capabilities of the 770 with regular software updates, marking a welcome move away from the company's current policy regarding handset upgrades."

Wow, that sounds like what a PC hardware/peripherals/software/CE company might do...provide a software upgrade path!  Welcome to the party, pal...

From my perspective, what the Nokia 770 glaringly doesn't have are:

1. No internet telephony software and application support, Skype, or otherwise.  They say they'll offer software upgrade paths to support VOIP in 2006 i.e., manana.  Why not now?  It's not hard...can you say "don't bite the hand that feeds me"?
2. No inclusion of cellular radios, thus no seamless roaming from Wifi to your cell network and back.  Reason:  See 1 above.
3. No large iPod-like hard drive.  That would allow consumers to take their music, videos, photos, etc. WITH them from their PC, thus not providing network downloading revenues to Nokia's customers, the cellcos.  Having said that, Nokia is including a small (4ish GB) hard-drive in their upcoming N91, which I discussed in a post dated April 28th, "On new Nokia phone with  Wifi and Hard drive".

On the non-feature front, I also think Nokia should break away from the numerical branding schemes its uses for its phone/smartphone business, for these types of hybrid devices.  Call it a Duck, or even the "Espoo", after the second largest city in Finland that Nokia calls home...but not another number like "770" implying that it's just one in a long line of phones and smartphones.

In any case, the tempo of phone products that overlap into the PC and consumer electronics from cell phone manufacturers has already begun to increase.  The focus to date has been more on the wireless e-mail battle between the Palm Treo vs. Blackberry, as reviewed here by Walter Mossberg earlier this year.  But other fronts are starting to open up.

To Nokia's credit, they seem to realize where their core competencies may lie...recently they announced converting their N-Gage line of not well-received hand-held game player/cell phone (see picture below), into a software platform that would be supported across its line of next generation of smartphone/mobile devices as appropriate.

Come on in to the world of horizontal competition...the water's choppier, but fine.

P.S.  Two interesting and lukewarm and relevant reviews from Russell Beattie and Om Malik on the 770...ok, so Russell was more luke than warm and Om warmer than luke (not skywalker...sorry, couldn't resist...it's early)...

I especially agree with Russell on the no keyboard ding in this day and age...in fact, I think pens should be banned from larger Tablet PCs as well, and they should build them with built-in thumb keyboards, but that's a rant for another day...

I also agree with Palm's LifeDrive being a better feature-set and value relative to the 770...my major issue with the Palm device is the aging OS that doesn't multi-task.  Not sure how the Nokia device handles that issue yet...it'll also be interesting if the device stays Linux or evolves to Symbian down the road.

Comments

[Gary]

they were smart to go with Linux rather than MS Windows