Apple’s announcement of “The world’s thinnest notebook. MacBook Air.” got me thinking. Where are we headed in the world of computing? What is Apple really doing here?

For the moment, it looks like the future of computing, as defined by Apple, has two basic elements: beautiful objects and the Internet. 

Apple creates the most irresistible computing objects – you want to have them, hold them, play with them, and show them to your friends.  The desire that Apple’s objects create in the minds of customers is undeniable.

Apart from their industrial design, Apple’s computing objects have gorgeous GUIs.  And the compute engines under the hood serve the common goal of creating delicious access to the Internet.  The days of differentiation through applications are long gone.  The Internet is the application. 

As long as you build a robust operating system – one that does not leave itself open to attack from the enemies of the manufacturer of the beautiful objects – customers are happy.

What about Microsoft?  Vista has a polished and attractive new face, but it rides on an operating system that is full of security holes and plagued with viruses.  As a result, Mom’s and Dad’s tech support is forced to work full time to keep home software defense systems at peak alert status.  How can that be good for business?

On the Linux front, desktop Linux is still for geeks and hobbiests (I count myself among them).  You can build yourself a wonderfully powerful desktop for $300, or buy a very cheap Linux laptop from Zonbu, but the community is waiting for stable releases of the latest GUIs from KDE and GNOME.  Still no competition for Apple.

Google’s mobile phone effort, Android, a Linux based platform and rapid application development platform could change the game, but only if it fosters beautiful objects on par with Apple’s iPhone.

In the end, Apple has an extraordinary edge.  Though the strategy may not be explicitly stated, the results are easily interpreted…and stellar.

Full disclosure: No position in Intel, Apple, or Google at time of writing.

Directory Tags: | Wireless | Apple | Google | 3G | Linux | Mobile

In the world of perception management, it does not get any better than this.  For months before Google’s entry into the wireless world, blogs were buzzing with speculation over the secret creation of a Linux-based gPhone.  But the real coup de grace was the coverage by the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times during the week prior, on the day of the announcement, and on the day after the announcement.  Getting that kind of business ink can only be described as a demonstration of pure market power, the likes of which rivals Intel’s paid-for Centrino nonsense of a few years ago and Apple’s recent iPhone launch.

But I have to admit that Google’s push into the world of mobile handsets means nothing but goodness for the business.  Google is not going to stem the melting of the ice shelf in Greenland, but it will change the course of the wireless service provider industry.

The drug that we are all hooked on – the mobile phone – will be altered to bring on more Internet applications and yield an even bigger dependency…Hopefully, mobile operators will see that.

Full disclosure: No position in Intel, Apple, or Google at time of writing.

Directory Tags: | Wireless | Apple | Google | 3G | Linux | 700 MHz |SEC |Mobile |

Gizmo is taking another stab at the mobile space.  Gizmo for Mobile looks like it combines IM, Presence, and some form of low-cost long distance, but the beta release has more than a few holes.  At first glance, it look as though Gizmo has the waterfront covered (see the apparent range of phone supported via the animated GIF).  But reading the Gizmo Forum reveals numerous issues such as lack of support for the Palm Treo Windows products.  In the end, I found the biggest problem to be confusion over mobile clients.  As one poster on the Forum put it, “… can they make this any crazier?”

1. Gizmo for Mobile is a call back system, not SIP.  This client is also known as “Gizmo5″ and is a Java-based application.  As the Gizmo Forum explains, “Gizmo for Mobile can do instant messaging and callback, but it cannot do SIP calling. The instant messaging occurs over your mobile providers data connection, and the callback occurs over the mobile network. The advantage of callback is that in many cases (like international calls) it may be cheaper than what your mobile provider would have charged you for the same call.”  It goes on to say “Our network is calling to both parties, and you do get charged for both legs of the call at our standard Call Out rates.  Many posters are already complaining about the cost of paying for both legs, and are asking why this client doesn’t operate like the laptop verison.

2. Gizmo VoIP uses SIP, but doesn’t do IM.  The Gizmo VoIP client also seems to be known as Gizmo for Nokia.  The client uses the Gizmo SIP network, runs on Nokia phones running Symbian S60 only, and allows users to make free Gizmo calls to other Gizmo users via Wi-Fi.  The supported phones listed presumably have the embedded Nokia SIP stack – hence the reason for Gizmo VoIP using a SIP-based client.  Where this product appears to be going is not is not clear.
3. Gizmo for Palm Treo appears to be different yet again.  This client is supported only on the PalmOS versions of Treos, offers interop with the usual list of most popular IM clients, and seems to offer free calling with other standard Gizmo PC-based clients and Gizmo for Palm Treo.  Though there is little technical information about the protocols in use, the IM and call traffic is all carried via the standard data services offered by mobile operators on these phones.

What next for Gizmo Project?  Rationalize the product line.  This is a mess.  I can only imagine what it must be like for the developers – trying to keep this all straight – let alone potential customers.  Up against Skype and Google, I hope they can keep innovating without tearing themselves apart internally.

Full disclosure: No position in Skype, Google, Nokia, or Palm at time of writing.

Directory Tags: | Wireless | Nokia | Google | Palm | VoIP |Gizmo |Mobile |

The FCC’s recently issued an order on the use of 700 MHz spectrum.  The airwaves have been occupied by television broadcasters, and will be made available for other wireless services, including public safety and commercial services (download the FCC press release).  The spectrum will be vacated by TV broadcasters on February 17, 2009 and auctioned no later than January 28, 2008.  Based on the press release, the FCC order creates:

1. “Open Platform” wireless spectrum.  Whoever wins the auction for this huge chunk of spectrum (22 MHz) must agree to “provide a platform that is more open to devices and applications.”  The goal is to “allow consumers to use the handset of their choice and download and use the applications of their choice.”
2. Nationwide public safetey wireless spectrum.  The winner of the bid for 10–20 MHz of “Nationwide Commercial” wireless spectrum, will join in a Public Saftey/Private Partnership and will also win the right to “build out a nationwide, interoperable broadband network for the use of public safety.”  The winner also gets to use some of the Public Safety network (see the transparent overlap in the figure) as long as their use of the Public Safety network is pre-emptible when there is an emergency.

What is the impact?

1. Google must build a network if it wants to play.  Despite a severe attack of arrogance, Google did us all a favor by influencing the FCC to set aside spectrum for an open platform wireless network.  But the bad news for Google is the fact that it will not be able to buy the spectrum and make money by wholesaling access to the airwaves to others.  Google must bid on the spectrum like everyone else, and then it must build a network and operate it.  Maybe for the first time ever, Google will be faced with getting its hands dirty.  Build a real network, operate it, and deal with all those nasty users complaining that it doesn’t work the way they want it too.  Accountability.  Jeesh, what a bad dream.  Of course, Google can hire someone to build and to run it, but ultimately it will be theirs.
2. The big plum is in the Public Safety spectrum.  The winner of the auction for the National Commercial spectrum, not only gets to build out the Public Safety network and use some of the spectrum when possible, it gets to compete with the Open Platform winner in the 700 MHz band.  What’s so great about 700 MHz?  One of the biggest problems for mobile networks today is coverage, indoor and out.  Because 700 MHz is lower frequency than most of today’s cellular networks, it will have fantastic propagation characteristics.  It will go further in the open air than today’s cellular, and it will penetrate build walls better.  Expect the bidding to be fierce for this chunk of spectrum.

Full disclosure: Employed by AIRV, no position in GOOG at time of writing.

Directory Tags: | Wireless | WiFi | Wi-Fi | DSL | Cable | UMTS | CDMA | WiMAX | Google |Muni Wi-Fi |

Femto cells are miniature base stations — low-power cellular access points for the home environment.  Plug a femto cell into your cable modem or DSL router and you light up 5 bars of CDMA or UMTS cell coverage in your home.  If you live in a small town (like I do) that has been arguing about the location of cell towers for close to eight years, you will be a happy camper.  In the next 12–24 months, virtually every mobile operator in the known universe will be offering femto cells to consumers.

But femto cells are not without their technical hurdles.  One of those challenges is the requirement for femto cells to behave nicely in the overall macro cell radio frequency (RF) system.  In other words, when thousands or millions of femto cells interact with the larger cellular infrastructure in the RF domain, they must mitigate the potential interference with other femto cells and with the surrounding macro cell network.

Most people think of femto cells as Wi-Fi routers or access points with different radios.  But femto cells are quite different from Wi-Fi access points. When Netgear, D-Link, or Buffulo ship consumer-grade Wi-Fi routers or access points, they rarely lose sleep over their products’ interaction as a larger system.  Wi-Fi operates in unlicensed bands on a world-wide basis — and in the world of high-volume Wi-Fi products, each product is considered autonomous as long as it passes the test for regulatory compliance.  Some Wi-Fi products automatically select non-interfering channels and adjust their transmit power to avoid interference, and the whole next generation of Wi-Fi products based on 802.11n will use MIMO technology to punch through the noise.  Even so, few consumer designs consider their behavior in a larger system of millions of chatty little radios.  Since no one has responsibility for the good behavior of the overall system, Wi-Fi is your basic free for all.  If your Wi-Fi router is interfering with your neighbor’s, he can tell you to do something about it…that is, if he can find you.

Back to femto cells.  Unlike Wi-Fi, femto cells will interact with macro cell towers and other femto cells in close proximity.  As a result, every femto cell must have a means of listening to the environment around it, and then adjusting approprately to mitigate interference.  What does appropriately mean?

It turns out that each femto cell manufacturer will have its own method of mitigating RF interference.  But there is — in fact — no standard means of doing so at the moment.  Each femto cell producer will have an opportunity to thrive on inventions that outshine the competiton in this area, or crash and burn on something that hardly works at all.  Stay tuned.  The next 12–18 months will be interesting.

Full disclosure: Employed by AIRV at time of writing.

Directory Tags: | Wireless | WiFi | Wi-Fi | DSL | Cable | UMTS | CDMA | WiMAX | Muni Wi-Fi | Mobile | Femtocell |

The telecom world is abuzz with news of femto cells — minature cellular base stations that provide mobile coverage in the home.  A number of wireless operators have announced plans to deploy millions of the widgets (Vodafone, Sprint, Softbank, Orange, Clearwire, and others) and a pile of vendors have announced the intent to offer femto cell products (Huawei, Ericsson, Ubiquisys, ip-access, Airwalk, to name a few).  Femtos are likely to be offered in nearly every flavor of cellular technology: UMTS, GSM, CDMA, and WiMAX.

For consumers the value proposition is simple: better coverage, maybe family in-home calling plans, and higher performance data services since cellular bandwidth is shared by fewer users.

For operators, they get a much lower cost way of delivering mobile broadband — consumers pay for the femtos and the backhaul vial DSL, cable, or fiber services.

If this shift towards tiny base stations in the home does occur in a big way, what does it mean for competing technologies? 

• Muni-Wi-Fi could suffer further indignities.  As carried recently by the AP, it is unclear whether Muni-Wi-Fi can move beyond a community service project.  If mobile operators can offer better stuff via femtos, why would a town pony up for a municiple Wi-Fi project?  Look out, Tropos and BelAir.
• Home Wi-Fi routers will be in a roil.  Wi-Fi’s inherent interference problems will likely be mitigated by the introduction of 802.11n products, but Wi-Fi routers will be competing with femto cell products operating in the licensed spectrum and controlled by experienced operators.  In addition, femto cell products will also plug into the same DSL and cable modems as today’s Wi-Fi routers.  Some DSL router vendors, such as 2Wire have announced plans to offer femto cell products, but it remains unclear whether DSL Wi-Fi routers will subsume cellular femto cell technology or whether it will be the other way around.

Full disclosure: No position in Clearwire, Ericsson, France Telecom, Huawei, Softbank, Sprint, or Vodafone at time of writing.

Directory Tags: | Wireless | WiFi | Softbank | Orange | Clearwire | Wi-Fi | DSL | Cable |Vodafone | Sprint | UMTS | CDMA | WiMAX | Muni Wi-Fi | Mobile | Femtocell |

The dust is still settling on one of the most anticipated mobile wireless strategic decisions in the history of man – Sprint’s decision to spend $2.5 to $3 billion to rollout WiMAX to as many as 100 million people by the end of 2008 with partners Intel, Motorola, and Samsung.  But what about the other network, the nationwide 1xEV-DO Rev A network Sprint recently announced it was accelerating deployment of?  What’s going on?

1. Sprint is doing both.  Sprint’s press release says that it will be “creating multimode devices that will support services on both the 4G network and the 3G network [read: EV-DO] in areas outside the planned 4G coverage, and will provide voice service using the core 3G network. The 4G broadband network will offer a complementary, high-bandwidth service driven by data centric devices.”  Data centric devices obviously driven by Intel.  Multimode devices (e.g., phones) provided by Motorola.
2. EV-DO will be the back up for WiMAX.  Read the quote again, go ahead.  The plan is to have EV-DO provide coverage outside of 4G coverage.  But that ain’t all.  Sprint still needs a decent broadband alternative – in the same major markets as WiMAX – for devices that don’t support WiMAX.

For those trying to gauge the speed of the WiMAX rollout and the rate of adoption (after the dust has really settled), I see two places to watch carefully.

• Handsets.  The rollout of any wireless network is usually gated by the availability of mobile handheld devices.  Limited availability of handsets can mean limited use of the network.  Narrow application scope – or narrow range of handset types – can mean limited usefulness on the network.  In the game of poker that is WiMAX, handsets are the tell, the nervous tick that tells you how fast the technology will be adopted.
• Mobility.  WiMAX’s biggest challenge going forward will be the development of true mobility.  Right now, WiMAX is largely a nomadic offering similar to Wi-Fi hotspots.  How soon WiMAX can support large numbers of users driving down the highway at 75 mph, and operate with the battery life expected on most phones, will determine how mobile it really is.

Directory Tags: | Wireless | WiFi | Wi-Fi | VoIP | EVDO |3G | Verizon | Sprint | HSDPA | Muni Wi-Fi | Mobile |

Why little networks will have bigger impact

The big networks are done…bring on the weenie nets

The Internet equipment business is still growing at a healthy clip, but try thinking of a new product to build for big networks that isn’t already in the Cisco or the Juniper price book. Going forward, the little networks of the world — the weenie nets — are more interesting.

Wi-Fi was first

Today, the most popular weenie net on the planet is Wi-Fi. Millions buy Wi-Fi because it is:

• Really cheap. Wireless LAN (WLAN) products were expensive door stops before they were standardized by 802.11.  Now they are built for next to nothing in China, a place where a really good software engineer earns $15K a year.

• Just good enough. Wi-Fi can keep up with your cable or DSL connection and basic web content. What else do you want? At those prices, nothing for the moment. Yes, I know, you need Wi-Fi coverage that reaches to the end of your house, but most suppliers have that problem solved with a new generation of antennas and chips.

• Connected to something good. Without the Internet’s content, plus IM and gaming apps, nobody would have cared about Wi-Fi — enterprise, SMB, or consumer.

Dreams of Smaller, Smaller, More, More

Okay, Wi-Fi has a proven market dynamic and some of the attributes for little networks. What’s next? I can only report on the dreams of the technology community at the moment. Unfortunately, many of these dreams are not roiling, boiling markets yet. Even so, they currently include:

• Passive RFID dream. As a replacement for bar codes, Walmart and others take delivery of pallets of Coca-Cola and Kleenex with passive tags (current cost ~$.10) that answer back when hit with radio waves at the door of the loading dock. Analytics engines sit behind the scenes to manage inventory and location.

• Active RFID dream. Picture a 50-acre facility for shipping containers, each with an active radio tag chirping about the contents of the container, or a hospital that can locate its defibrillators because they have little radios stuck to them. Once again the analytics engines are the brains of the bunch.

• Sensor network dream. Tiny network nodes, or smart dust, are dropped out of an airplane onto a battlefield. The nodes wake up when they hear human voices and self-organize into a mesh network that transmits surveillance. The landlord of a high-rise saves $.50/sq ft/month by distributing 50 temperature sensors per floor without pulling any wires.

• Home net dream. Whole-house audio and video, dueling game cubes, lighting control. Fun toys you’d like to have but don’t want to pay a lot for.

Watch out: dreams can turn to religion

Like Wi-Fi, next-gen weenie nets had better be really cheap, just good enough, and connected to something good. Beyond those key attributes, inventors are currently enamored with the following beliefs:

• Arbitrary topologies. When you throw surveillance sensors out of an airplane, you can’t predict where they are going to land, so next gen weenie net inventors believe they should support arbitrary topologies.

• Self-organizing behavior. Next-gen weenie net inventors believe the nets should be able to manage themselves without any central authority if necessary. If a central authority shows up, then the nodes should salute the flag, but until then they should be able to live on their own.

• Small. In addition to being low cost, weenie net elements should be small relative to the environment. The Star Trek communicator went from flip phone to badge, right?

• Always on. If they aren’t alive, what good are they?

• No maintenance. No tinkering and tuning, please. Especially, if I’ve got thousands or millions out there.

Like I said, I put these last attributes squarely in the category of belief systems. In the coming weeks and months, I will be writing about whether these matter or not — and how they fit as these technologies develop.