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The first cross-platform vehicle that hit the big time in a lot of peoples minds was the Netscape browser. The threat it posed to the Win32 platforms grip on the application market was considerable, and threatened to relegate Windows to being no more than a thin layer over a set of hardware drivers. One of the key planks of my argument that X-Box 2 will be Microsofts last console and an indicator of their irrelevance as an OS vender within the next ten years is the rise of the virtual machine, that once again threatens to relegate Windows to being a random collection of device drivers. This time around the game is different. Rather than being faced with a single company, Microsoft is faced by the might of the very hardware manufacturers it depends on not wanting their products subverted by a single vendor. These hardware manufacturers comprise console manufacturers like Sony and Nintendo, and the entire mobile telephone industry. The poisoned pill? Renderware Mobile. |
MS versus 3G
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FWB 56,369 posts
Seen 6 months ago
Registered 20 years agoWouldn't that be beautiful? And us Europeans pave the way with this tech. I think MS push into the industry highlights the importance of it. -
Jesus-Action-Figure 512 posts
Seen 11 years ago
Registered 20 years agoNot at all.
Feersum,
You also have to consider the stance MS took with its OS. As far as I know, MS has never made its own PCs. Instead, companies such as Dell, IBM and a host of others made the hardware.
In the same manner, MS is not making its own Mobile phones. It's just supplying an OS. Thus I believe it's in a similar position to when home PCs first appeared.
Perhaps these phone hardware manufacturers don't want to use MS's OS. Fair enough. But the alternatives are not exactly forming a cohesive standard. Java, on enabled mobile phones, can vary greatly depending on the hardware it's running on.
WAP is another good example. While it was a standard that many manufacturers agreed on and implemented, the final results where inconsistant with the standard (eg, some phones displayed pictures from left to right while others from top to bottom on a screen. Additionally, screen size and on-board memory also varied greatly from phone to phone).
And while the Renderware article was interesting, I still believe that Nokia will want developers to use its development platform, as will motorolla etc.
While deals are struck to use one system over an other, it's still difficult to see the true results of this and the long term implications, imho, for as long as hardware manufacturers 'tweak' the standard to maximise the functionality of their own handsets. I don't think we'll see one dominant standard for a long while yet, whether it be one by MS or Symbian or whoever.
Discuss...
Edited by Jesus: Action Figure at 02:57:40 28-11-2002 -
ssuellid 19,142 posts
Seen 2 days ago
Registered 20 years agoThere are not that many phones available that use Symbian either. All of the manufacturers that are signed up to Symbian use their own OS as well and that is what goes into the vast majority of phones.
The MS phone OS is actually Smartphone 2002 - its not XP embedded. There is one phone on the market which is the Orange SPV, its HTC who makes it but its supposed to be quite good. Samsung are the only big name phone manufacturer known to be also releasing a Smartphone device.
A more appropriate title would be MS versus 2.5G by the way.
Edited by ssuellid at 09:27:26 28-11-2002 -
ssuellid 19,142 posts
Seen 2 days ago
Registered 20 years agoSmartphone OS does not have 3G capabilities as yet so it cannot compete with 3G.
Also the MS phone model is rather different to the traditional manufacturers. The idea is that hardware manufacturer X can just assemble a phone from off the shelf software and hardware - bit like the PC market.
The 3G war will be Europe vs Japan. -
Ciaran 1,070 posts
Seen 4 months ago
Registered 20 years agoThe 3G war will be Europe vs Japan.
Probably, yeah. I've also been hearing rumours that Nintendo's 'Big Boom' or 'Megaton' announcement next month might have something to do with 3G or possibly DoCoMo gaming. It seems possible... maybe rolling out a service in Japan first and then moving it to Europe.
Let's wait and see though. Other rumours have it the Megaton thing could be just another big gameshow as well. -
ssuellid 19,142 posts
Seen 2 days ago
Registered 20 years agoAlso, I think that MS Smartphone will be more in competion with the traditional PDA manufacturers like Palm rather than the European phone makers. -
otto wrote:
Sure, but what I'm interested in is seeing the PDA and phone markets converge. At the moment I'm lugging around a Psion 5mx, a phone and a GBA all the time, can't wait for it to come together. When it does, my money's on the big European & Jap firms rather than Palm & MS.
I think you've got to think a bit bigger. Mobile telephones, PDA's, etcetera, are just becoming clients on the network. While a lot of the telephone services might be closed for now, I can't imagine them surviving into the future if they stay that way.
The companies appear to be arranging things so they can use their clients as a portal to services. That's the big reason why they don't want to get locked into the Windows platform. Microsoft has a nasty habit of making its client and server software work only with its own platforms.
Edited by Feersum Boundah at 10:34:44 28-11-2002 -
Jesus-Action-Figure 512 posts
Seen 11 years ago
Registered 20 years agoIMHO, I don't think 3G will take off. The whole euro telecom industry has been left in a mess thanks to overvalued 3G licences (the govt. here must be laughing at the amount of money they made off the bidders!).
To survive, the telecom co. have to make money somehow. And to recoup the billions invested in those licences, the cost, per user, is too high to encourage mass market useage in the way that text messaging has.
They need to get their act together soon though. This article
http://asia.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/south/04/07/japan.nttdocomo/
was written in April last year, and details NTT Docomo's interest in Europe. It's the dominant standard in Japan, and they have a 3G service that actually works. So I agree with Duncan, it may be Europe Vs. Japan in the mobile phone wars. Though the US, in the form of MS, may be drafted in to help out, which is where their OS may come in valuable. Ooh, it's ww2 all over again!
Additionally, the uptake in the US of mobile phones, while getting better, has lagged behind Japan and Europe. Is it unfeasible that MS could get into this (big!) regional market? -
ssuellid 19,142 posts
Seen 2 days ago
Registered 20 years agoThe big market is not the US - its China. China does not have a very good traditional fixed line phone infrastructure - a lot of places are not even connected. It looks like China may be going its own way and completely shafting Qualcomm.
3G will take off the companies have invested way to much money to let it fail.
Edited by ssuellid at 11:25:39 28-11-2002 -
duncan wrote:
how is 3G going to kill the PC?
It's merely one brick in a bigger wall. Everything is going to become a network client if it isn't already. Products and services will be accessed through these clients, whether it be games, word-processing, browsing, or turning on the central-heating from work. The PC will become just another client along with the next generation of consoles.
The key to bridging the gap between all these devices is the virtual machine. Once your application is hosted on a virtual machine, as long as a VM is available for your device, it won't matter what you're using. More worrying for Microsoft's survival is that it won't matter what OS you're using. -
Jesus-Action-Figure 512 posts
Seen 11 years ago
Registered 20 years agoFeersum Boundah wrote:
duncan wrote:
how is 3G going to kill the PC?
The key to bridging the gap between all these devices is the virtual machine. Once your application is hosted on a virtual machine, as long as a VM is available for your device, it won't matter what you're using. More worrying for Microsoft's survival is that it won't matter what OS you're using.
Unless MS offers its own Virtual Machine solution as an OS -
ssuellid 19,142 posts
Seen 2 days ago
Registered 20 years agoIts not the phone manufacturers that control the contents and abilities of the phone its the network providers. Covergence on standard platforms is not happening - divergence is e.g. Vodafone Live is Vodafone own brand GUI. -
Polymath 121 posts
Seen 14 years ago
Registered 20 years agoWhether 3G kills the the current PC is almost a misnomer. The Personal Computer desktop existed only because it was the first personal computing resource available. It currently exists as it does because the notebooks and portable devices cannot compete with its functionality monetary unit for monetary unit.
We're slowly approaching a point when utility for the individual will not differ sufficiently for a person to require more than one mode of personal computing.
And at that point, the PC will be whatever that form is.
Whether it's implanted in the arm, in the brain, or contained in a 3G device, or simply a node on a universal network, that's where personal computing technology will go, barring massive technological/industrial collapse.
Whatever anyone else thinks, IMHO every major tech company wants to be at the right place at the right time to hit the front runner. But... as the 3G bidding fiasco demonstrated, the early bird sometimes just gets shot.
Can you imagine if BGates hadn't taken MS Dos from IBM, and IBM had gotten that share of the market too?
Talk about a behemoth! -
ssuellid 19,142 posts
Seen 2 days ago
Registered 20 years agoThe network client model was what Sun was attempting to do with Java a few years ago and it fell flat on its arse. -
ssuellid wrote:
The network client model was what Sun was attempting to do with Java a few years ago and it fell flat on its arse.
New born babies have no known utilitarian purpose. Kill them all.
Wait... babies grow into adults. -
I think 'MS v 3G' is about right since this is the holy grail they're gunning for. 3G is the potential PC killer, imo. J:AF and Feersum are dead right to point out that, this time around, the hardware manufacturers are far more chary and won't let MS do to them what they did to IBM and Apple. Hence Symbian and various other initiatives to keep MS out. My instinct is to agree with FB, MS are going to have real trouble maintaining their dominant market share five to ten years down the line. -
Sure, but what I'm interested in is seeing the PDA and phone markets converge. At the moment I'm lugging around a Psion 5mx, a phone and a GBA all the time, can't wait for it to come together. When it does, my money's on the big European & Jap firms rather than Palm & MS. -
Well they're not all switched on. And I think I've ably demonstrated that I'm not firing blanks. .gif)
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