| SwitchBlade's
Opinion (aka Rant!) on MS Smartphone (aka the war) |
|
The 3GSM conference has seen some big announcements for the mobile
phone industry. Chief among these are of course Symbian 7.0 and
the release of UIQ user interface not to mention numerous partnerships.
However you wouldn't guess this reading some of the regular generic
PDA websites. Oh no! You'd be thinking that Microsoft announcement
of Pocket PC Phone Edition and SmartPhone 2002 was the only thing
that happened, if Symbian is mentioned it's only in passing. It
makes you wonder why - its a 3GSM conference and you ignore announcements
about an OS that is backed by the 4 biggest mobile manufacturers
in the world. To be fair many of the sites are PPC based, but one
would hope that most people would be aware of what's going on. I
will, in due course be bringing you coverage of thew MS developments
in the form of a comparison.
SwicthBlade obviously has similar reasons, and it looks like he
has got a history with them. I dont think he likes them, especially
after what they did to his beloved BeOS ;).
Please note I have added a translation box at the end of the article
(please read if you like Microsoft and don't understand the article
below), aside from that its completely unedited. Remember this is
opinion.
Rafe
What can I say at the moment? Following the news and reports coming
out of the current GSM World Congress I have seen some utter b*ll*x
flying round the net. The majority of which a has come about after
todays announcement by The Beast (M$ or Microsoft to the uninitiated,
henceforth reffered to as M$) regarding it's forthcoming smartphone
OS.
Firstly lets get some facts in the open:
1) Symbian have had a smartphone OS that has been on the market
for over a year.
2) Symbian currently have Nokia, Ericsson-Sony, Siemens, and
various others subscribing to their OS for their planned smartphones
Nokia already having 2 released.
3) M$ have Hewlett Packard and Sendo as manufacturers (both
new to the market, although HP have previously released PDAs
before. There are also rumours of Samsung using M$ for their
smartphones.
4) M$'s other namedroppings include: Intel (who manufacture
the StrongARM CPU used in M$ PocketPCs and the Nokia 9210),
and Texas Instruments (who manufacture an alternative CPU that's
claim to fame is in built routines for faster Java support,
but then M$ have never supported Java anyway ;) )
5) M$ don't actually have a finished/running OS yet, and currently
all their screenshots circulating on the net are modified PocketPC
2k2 shots and faked shots on those themes for the games.
Now many people on this site already know that Symbian V6 is available
in 3 flavours depending on what people want to use it for. Although
only 2 have been used so far and I can see Symbian V7 coming out
before many more devices for V6. Similarly, M$ plan 2 flavours,
PocketPC 2k2 with phone extensions, for their versions of Communicator
style devices, and Smartphone which is a phone designed OS with
a bit of PDA support, in response to what is used in the 7650. Intel
M$ have made claims that there has been no standard design platform
for the mobile phone industry until they joined in the competition,
this comment is blatently false and should undoubtedly have Symbian
fuming.
Lets now have a wander over and look at the hardware, because,
let's face it, the engine is an important bit of the car ;). The
hardware pushing the Nokia 9210 are an ARM9 CPU (rumoured to be
running at 50MHz, though Nokia haven't stated a speed), and 8MB
of RAM, this device has a battery life from which I get an average
of 3 to 4 days use using it as PDA mainly, then for SMS and calls,
(Nokia quote 10 days standby and 10 hours talk time for the phone).
Powering the current M$ PDAs are the same ARM9 CPU running at 206MHz,
and 64MB RAM, these devices have a battery life measured in hours,
(Trium Mondo, the only existing M$ PocketPC powered phone, though
this is a hack on current OS not the new one, claims 2.5 hours talk
time, and 2 days standby time). What does this mean for chances
of success? Well, you don't have to be Einstein to be able to figure
out that people aren't going to buy a phone that needs to be charged
after less than a days use, and everyone knows that the times quoted
by companies are usually exaggerated and with usage my Nokia lasts
under half the quoted standby time, which means the Mondo probably
won't last a day, so that will be M$ first hill to climb, combine
that with the extra cost of the more powerful hardware and M$ look
more unnattractive. Their next hill, is more of a mountain, and
that is of bugs. Symbian, as we know, has a fair few bugs in the
V6 OS as seen on the 9210 although it seems with the latest revision
to be solved, M$ on the other hand have a known history of bugs,
and despite the amount of re-releases and service packs available,
never seem to solve the bugs. I can't personally comment on bugs
on the current range of PDAs as I only used one for a few hours
and *really* didn't get on with it, the lack of a keyboard really
annoyed me. Despite that, including a mobile phone into an existing
OS and integrating so tightly is bound to create bugs.
Now onto the forums online. I've seen many people posting talking
about the screenshots, and posting photos of the worlds ugliest
phones (thanks to TANKERx for bringing them to my attention, I needed
the laugh), and many people seem to have missed the appearance of
the 9210 and 7650 and seem to think that a currently fictional OS,
running a fictional port of DOOM is better than an existing one
running DOOM already. Many of the opinions seem to be that M$ is
coming and they will rule, and these people forget that owners expect
different things from a phone than a PDA, and a combination has
to have the best of both, a battery life of hours is no good here.
Also forgotten is that the top 3 mobile phone producers Nokia, Siemens,
Ericsson-Sony, are all in with Symbian, and are behind the financing
and production of the Symbian OS now. Many other phone manufacturers
are with Symbian as well, and this will be to M$ detriment.
Everyone knows about M$ business tactics, they are still in court
over them, and they dominate the PC market because of it. At the
moment the choice is a closed M$ OS where all the phones will pretty
much be standard with a little space for customisation, or the Symbian
OS which is open to the manufacturers and highly customisable. It
is obvious to see why Symbian is the OS of choice, and with the
announcements of OS 7 today I look forward to it's release.
Many people distrust M$ because of these tactics in business, and
with their track record on security, I personally can't imagine
anyone wanting a phone running their OS. Many people may have noticed
the very pro-M$ opinions circulating in magazines and many websites,
and I'd like to know where the brown envelopes come from and how
much M$ put in them, not being biased here, but a lot of sites seem
to carry propoganda for M$. I only read the IT news at TheRegister
(http://www.theregister.co.uk)
because it's the only news that is reliable and unbiased. Personally
I gave up on M$ OS's for the PC years ago, and am happilly running
BeOS and will continue to the whole time I can do the jobs I want
with it. I keep an M$ installation on my computer for installing
software to my 9210 :( and to play games now and then. I like many
others have grown disenfranchised with M$ constant bloatware and
crap releases and wonder if they are capable of producing a decent
piece of software. I can't see many people's love of M$ which seems
to be more because it supports more 3rd party software than other
OS's, and if people bothered to vote with their wallets and drop
M$ they will soon find many of their wanted apps ported to other
OSs, as was done in the days before M$ monopoly of the home market.
I shall end my waffle before I digress further and lead onto other
areas, I look forward to seeing M$ trying to fight against a dominant
OS on the phone/PDA combo when they are going to have to use a fair
fight and not use their monopolistic powers. Heh, I was meant to
write this in the day, and am that insensed I've spent the time
writing this before going to bed. Enough from me, thanks for reading.
SwitchBlade
| Translation Box (especially for Microsoft
fans) |
| M$ / Micro$oft / The Beast |
These terms all mean Microsoft as in the company. Now
if your reading this translation box you are probably
a Microsoft fan, to be fair you are reading something
about Symbian (or should I say inaudible?) so you are
probably not completely corrupted. However I better
explain the '$' symbol. This is here because Microsofts
soul purpose in life is to make money (shocking isn't
it), but its worse, its money at the expense of all
else (now calm down its not that bad...). Also you need
to understand the Beast - this is a reference to the
Devil who many (seriously!) believe is Microsoft. Many
regards this as slander on the Devil though.
|
| Balance |
This is taking an objective approach, being
fair (the normal meaning of fair not MS's), and given
equal consideration to each side. Balance is something
often lacking from websites and US election spending. |
| Bias |
A preference or an inclination, especially
one that inhibits impartial judgment. i.e. when someone
supports something without showing any reason they are
showing bias towards that. We are biased towards are own
countries in the Winter Olympics. |
| Lies |
Something not true. Think of something Microsoft
said that was derogotory about Symbian. That will be a
lie. Intel also lied when they said they were producing
the first ever reference design for a smartphone (oh sorry
that was a joke). |
| Joke |
Microsoft and this translation box. If you
don't get it, don't worry it requires... |
| Intelligence |
Something Symbian and its supporters have
in abundance. You must have at least a small amount if
you have read the above. Probably you have quite a lot.
Bill Gates also has intelligence. Like all thing intelligence
can be used for 'good or evil' you can be drawn to the
'dark side'. |
| Evil blood suckers |
These are generally known as Vampires. A
common misconception is that Microsoft is run by vampires.
This is unsubstantiated slander. Remember most vampires
will only attach family members. |
|
Please note that this is an opinion piece, the box above is intened
to be slightly funny (if its not blame me not SwitchBlade). Please
go and discuss what you think in the forum.
|
Copyright
(©) Rafe Blandford
2000-2001 | Last modified: February 20 2002.