Colliding worldsBy Tore Storødegård
Last edited: 22 nd of march 1999
Colliding worldsSince wireless digital networks were launched some years ago, the wireless industry has been talking about the bright future of wireless data. So far this has been a dream. At the same time, in the hart of the software industry, Microsoft realized that the size of the windows operating system were becoming too big. The continuously increasing size would make Microsoft unable to response for the need of operating systems for devices with small storage and computer capabilities.
Then Microsoft launched Windows CE the day before Comdex, in 1996?, together with 50 hardware vendors, and took much of the show of Comdex that year. Same week, while Comdex was still on, Compaq announced that sales of their Windows CE terminal outpaced production. Personally I was using Psion's organizer that time, trying to understand how the organizer and wireless terminal would merge. The day I saw that Microsoft launched Windows CE my conclusion was that Psion was dead. Not because their epoc operating system was bad, but because Microsoft and their industrial structure would beat Psion on the marketplace.
But
before continuing the history of the war for wireless internet, let's go back in time.
About six months before Microsoft launched their Windows CE operating system, I tried to
figure out who would dominate the wireless internet industry. I then made a figure with
two important axis, PC/NC and Wired/Wireless. What I saw then was that the Wired and
Unwired PC was within control of Microsoft. The question then was who would dominate the
emerging NC market. For some time there was a lot of noise about the NC, but so far, the
NC has not been a big success. The NC was launched as the replacement of the PC, but is
still just a dream. At the same time as Oracle and Sun were fighting for the NC dream,
Microsoft established a strong position into cable TV. I think this was a smart move; the
wired NC for the mass market will be the TV (and the fixed phone, just wait). So when I
draw the figure, Microsoft were dominating two quadrants, and moving into the wired NC. I
then put a questionmark into the Unwired NC. I my opinion, with a background from the
wireless industry, I thought that the mobile phone would be the perfect Unwired Network
Computer. The phone has a small processor, small storage room, small screen, small
everything. Just the perfect NC. Then Microsoft moved into this quadrant by launching
Windows CE. I was surprised, and I was even more surprised when the wireless industry
seemed to accept that Microsoft took this position. During the next year we saw Bill Gates
visiting Ericsson, Nokia and other wireless vendors, shaking hands, and signing letters of
intent. Ericsson made their MC12 and MC16, bundling a Windows CE terminal with Ericsson
phones. And everyone seemed to be happy.
Then the first actions from the wireless vendor industry became visible when the Wireless Application Protocol forum was launched at Telecom Geneva in 1997. The WAP forum was was funded by Nokia, Ericsson, Motorola and Unwired Planet. The attention from operators was then limited, there were three operators at the launch event (and I represented one of them). The WAP forums intention was to develop a set of specifications optimizing the transfer of information from the internet to a wireless terminal over Narrowband networks. After some delays, the specification, version 1.0 was available at 30th of April 1998. While the wireless community were developing WAP, there were not very much discussion about wap in the media. There were some comments, questioning why we needed new specifications when the internet was working so well. Since then, the WAP forum has been working to develop the next version, and the vendors have been busy developing terminals.
The temperature increased a lot when the Symbian alliance was launched, the summer of 1998. Microsoft had been trying to get the wireless vendors on the team, and didn't like that the big three wireless vendors joined Psion to form a new company (Symbian) based on Psions Epoc operating system. Short time after Microsoft launched Wireless Knowledge together with Qualcomm. The heat was on, and the software industry and the wireless industry had decided to fight for the future of wireless internet.
The wireless internet market will create opportunities within a lot of areas. First of all there is the operating system. By launching Windows CE, Microsoft clearly stated that they wanted Windows to be the users choice for small terminals. This seamed to be an easy game until Symbian was launched. By launching Symbian, the wireless industry is moving away from proprietary operating systems (the digital phones today has an operating system to control the phone functionality) and tries to establish a common operating system for digital wireless terminals (phones). Another threat for Microsoft is Palm which is extremely popular in the US because of its nice design and easy functionality.
Next is the software development environment. Both Windows CE and Psion has the ability to use variants of C for software development (are you expert in developing Windows CE and Psion application development, please send an article, and Mobic will publish it on this web). At CeBIT Symbian and Sun released the news that they will cooperate to develop a Java environment on the Symbian operating system. Personally I look forward to a reality when a programmer can download applications to a standard wireless media terminal.
Next level is the browser environment. The Symbian alliance has been developing WAP form some time, and several wireless vendors, including Ericsson, Nokia and Motorola has launched their WAP terminals during the February and march. See the terminal section of this web for a description of wap terminals. One aspect of integrating Java into the Symbian operating system, is that JINI is included (do you want to write an article explaining what services this will give to the user? please do so). JINI is made to allow electronic gadgets to talk to eachother. With Bluetooth connecting the wireless terminal with other local gadgets, this is getting exciting. Definitely, there will be a follow up article on JINI and Bluetooth on wireless terminals, please give your contribution if you have in-depth knowledge. What we have seen from Palm is not a browser solution, but a service oriented solution, called Web clipping. With Web Clipping the user download queries specially made for each service. The query request information on the internet very efficiently, going through a gateway at the 3com data network centre. To get a position within the GSM world, Palm has joined Alcatel. So far Microsoft has not been very clear about their wireless browser strategy.
The top layer of opportunities is the service layer. In 1999 we have seen a lot of alliances like CNN and Nokia launching wireless news for the wireless industry. A lot of operators are testing services based on wap and mobile commerce, and the number of press releases have been astonishing the last couple of months. This is a new opportunity, and there will be a lot of companies establishing a position within the wireless content and application marketplace during the next few years. Looking at the wireless knowledge web site, it look's like wireless knowledge is more focused on the services than the operating system and the browsing environment. This is strange, with Microsoft pushing Windows CE so hard. There is big opportunities within services, so if wireless knowledge has ambitions to become a service provider, there is big opportunities. But the Microsoft fan-list will probably not be any longer by establishing a service provider. Palm's strategy looks like expanding the business into services, offering a service to the customer based on the web-clipping of the PalmVII platform (being launched on US networks this summer). This market will become very big, and there is opportunities for everyone. So hang on.
I have not mentioned the traditional wireless airtime business. Simply; volumes will increase, prices will fall, and the wireless operators will earn a lot of money.
After the launch of Symbian and Wireless Knowledge, there was almost no news for some time, specially from Symbian. The last couple of months wee have seen very active PR work from WAP forum, Symbian, Wireless Knowledge and others, just see the news on the main page of mobic. With all this alliances between companies in the industry, it sometimes is hard to see how they have time to do product development....
It's natural that the media activities is very high. First of all there is a fight for standards. The media will be extremely important when the winning team is being selected. Second there is an opportunity to set the stage. Setting the stage an becoming the leading company, always gives a nice position, so the media activities will not disappear for some while.
So who will win? The technology and market development is so fast these days, so it is hard to predict the future. What is common is that all the companies see the wireless internet future as bright. There are some factors that I would like to comment. An important reason for the success of Microsoft has been the fact that almost all computers have been preinstalled with Microsoft operating system, and very often more software from Microsoft. When the big wireless vendors decide to install another operating system developed by Symbian, this is not good news for Microsoft. At the same time Symbian has decided to enable Java on Symbian, which makes life even harder for Microsoft. At the same time, corporate users want to access their Microsoft applications while they are on the move, as Microsoft and BT has stated in their cooperation agreement. Their root in the computer industry is an advantage for Microsoft. And then we have Palm that has developed this nice form factor that US byers love.
So there is difficult to predict the future.
Hopefully you have your comments to this article. Do you agree about the content, do you disagree, do you have a clear view of who will win this fight? Express you views in the discussion group (MobiChat), and make this article live. If your comments can improve this article, the article will be modified, and become live (the date last edited will change).