I’d just like to quickly compare and contrast some semi-recent news items. (I’m only 1300 articles behind in my newsreader — I’ll get there one day. Who needs to sleep, anyway. Just crank up The Prodigy a bit louder and keep typing…)
Well-covered elsewhere is this total gem (nod to Boing Boing). In the immortal delphic words of El Reg:
New mobile devices based on a version of the Symbian OS are a serious threat to mobile operator revenue streams, according to consultancy Mako Analysis. Savvy users can use devices running on Symbian’s Series 60 operating system (OS) to completely bypass a range of services that are normally charged for by their mobile operator, the UK-based consultancy warned on Monday. While the threat is currently minimal, the loophole has the potential to cause major headaches for operators.
You don’t say…
The disgustingly insightful folks over at Techdirt have this one on those evil open Bluetooth interfaces:
Now, a company named TDK has launched a system for transferring content from your PC to your mobile phone using Bluetooth. They say it will let users get around the walled garden aspects of carriers who are trying to protect the content on the phone […] Now, the question is whether or not the wireless carriers will make the mistake of trying to further lockdown their phones to prevent people from using tools like this. […] Of course, any carrier who does this will be sacrificing long term opportunity for a short-term grab at profits. A carrier who does this will simply be pushing customers away to competitors who feel it’s better to let customers do what they want with the phone they bought.
If you’re investing any dollars in cellular telecom stock or bonds, ask yourself this: is your investee’s wireless data business model predicated on retaining control of the device? Do they appear to have a plan B? (Hint: the answer is almost certainly ‘Yes’ then ‘No’.)
Tangentially related is this one from Zimran Ahmed, who rather likes playing his MP3s in the car:
Currently, my iPod plays on my Mini via an adaptor plugged into the cassette deck. (Yes, the guy looked at us funny when we said we wanted a cassette deck). And as cool as the iPod/BMW adaptor kit is, all I really want is a line-in jack.
Oops. Can’t have an open, standard interface folks. That would give the customers too much control. Isn’t it totally sad to be plugging a miraculous hyper-shrunk hard drive MP3 player into a 1970s cassette interface?
What if motor transport were like the cellular industry? Then Ford would be trying to charge you 5 cents a mile for trips to the supermarket, and 50 bucks for a trip to the emergency room. The overage from a road trip vacation would make you want to take out a second mortgage.
Nobody would settle for that, so the car manufacturers try to shephed you into buying expensive proprietary addons. They do the “closed cellular phone” trick in the accessory market instead. They want you to buy their $3000 GPS satnav system, rather than place a $10 GPS chip in the engine controller and run a USB port to the dash.
But imagine a car where there was a USB port on the dash that spurted out your GPS position, speed, status of the lights, engine, all the controls, etc. One that let you interface with the non-critical controls, like the audio system. And a standard physical slot to stuff gizmos into. With power. It would revolutionize the car market. Does anyone dare?
Closed interfaces and closed ecosystems die in the stagnant sludge of their own economic excrement. Which is why Ford is making a pathetic 2.35% return on assets.
Is your cellular data investment going to do any better?
Posted by Martin Geddes at 01:06 AMTrackBack URL for this entry:
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