Author: Martin

One of my most difficult mobile challenges these days is to find a mobile phone and software for my girl friend to allow her to take notes and access her eMails while commuting to and from work. "So what’s the problem?" many people like me who use a mobile phone for these and many other connected tasks may ask. Well, here they are:

• Dimension: Of course it has to fit in a small bag
• Spam: The eMail account to be mobilized gets lots of spam and due to ‘legacy’ reasons we can’t open a new one for mobile use. Thus the eMail program must be capable of downloading and displaying many mails quickly (like 30 a day out of which 27 are spam…)
• Notes: A good keyboard is necessary, a communicator with a small keyboard will just not do.
• Patience: The targeted user (girlfriend) has no patience with technology, the device just has to work…

I’ve been leaning havily towards an S60 device together with a Bluetooth foldable keyboard (e.g. the Nokia SU-W8) to solve the issue. Even if the dimensions will get some critisism I am sure the size of a, let’s say, Nokia 6680 would be acceptable. Unfortunately two things have hindered me so far to take action: There just does not seem to be any usable notes application with easy synchronization to the desktop and the ability to write more than just a few lines. Secondly, the native S60 eMail application is nice to receive an eMail or two a day but is in no way suitable for the 30 eMails a day described above. It’s just too slow and it doesn’t use the display in an efficient way.

So here’s hopefully the solution: ProfiMail. I’ve installed it this evening and used it for two hours. I am enthusiastic. It’s fast opening mails, seems to handle HTML content quite well, and can handle attachments and multiple eMail accounts. Furthermore, the program allows to efficiently create eMails and is able to store drafts;  that looks like it could fulfill the notes requirement including synch to the PC (via eMail).

For a detailed review have a look over at AllAboutSymbian. Thanks to Ewan for the review, you ‘ve brought me a big step forward!

So I am going to test this one for a little while and if it doesn’t choke on 30 eMails a day, it will be a winner for me.

Today I got my hands on a cool PDA for tough environmental conditions: A Toshiba Toughbook-P1 PDA (see picture)running Windows Mobile. Waterproof, ruggedized, WLAN, Bluetooth and a GSM/GPRS module inside. Couldn’t resist to configure it for GPRS and test it. Perfect, works like a charm. The design is great for harsh conditions but it is somewhat heavy (1.2 lbs…) and big (see comparison in the picture to my SE// V800). Definitely nothing you can put in your pant pockets. Full specs can be found here. Ah yes, you can use it as a phone, too. Sound quality of the hands free mode is excellent.

The Carnival has moved on and has stoped this week at Dorrian Porter’s Silicon Valley Himalayan Expedition. Again, a superb collection of what people around the globe think about wireless topics this week. 

The Blogsphere has been in turmoil lately discussing Google’s approach to transform web pages to make them better suited for viewing on small screens of mobile devices. The main problem most people (content providers) see is that adds get dropped which thus has a negative impact on their business model. So here’s what I think about this from my (the consumers) point of view.

For easy reference, here’s a link to Russell Buckley’s blog entry on the topic which has attracted a lot of attention. And here’s a link to a blog entry at WAP Review on how Google Mobile works.

From the consumers point of view, probably 99% of the web content today is not mobile optimized (including this blog, shame on me, shame on Typepad) when requested from a mobile device. Most of this content can not be displayed correctly on a small device today. Recently, some mobile browsers have appeared on the market that render a complete page correctly and show you a small portion on it. I have my doubts that this makes it really usable. Also, mobile phone rendering capabilities are very limited and I simply don’t have the time to wait for the download of a full page and don’t have the deep pockets required for the amount of data transferred.

I often read blogs on my mobile phone with a great program called Resco News. Often enough an interesting blog entry is not contained completely in the RSS feed or has some interesting links to follow. In this case I am stuck on my mobile phone without Google Mobile’s help. With Google Mobile, however, I can get the complete blog entry and can also follow the link no matter if the page is mobile optimized or not (and most are not).

Sure, if the web page is already delivered in a mobile optimized format then Google should just pass it through without modifications. Thus, graphics in general and adds in particular that behave in a mobile friendly way stay in. I guess this is not so difficult for Goggle to do. They could fetch the page from the original web server pretending to be a mobile phone. In case the server returns a gigantic page with heavy graphics, java script, etc. then kind of a "self justice" has to kick in and the page needs to be stripped down to something usable on a mobile device. Sorry if some content is lost on the way but it is still much better than not to get the page on the mobile at all.

So here’s the essence of my opinion in other words: If the content provider does not adapt content for mobile viewing, then somebody else has to do it to make it usable on small devices. If on the other hand the content provider is willing to include mobile devices in his design then the page should be handed down to the small device unaltered.

P.S.: Some people argue that it is "evil" to modify content without permission. Well, then I guess most desktop web browsers with popup blockers and mobile browsers without Java script and full HTML capabilities are just as "evil" as Google Mobile as they alter the page as well.

How quick the week has passed again, quite unbelievable… This weeks Carnival of the Mobilists, the best ressource of blog entries written by the mobile community, is now online at the blog of C. Enrique Ortiz. Great job, Enrique, thanks a lot!

If you have a blog entry of your own you would like to be included in the Carnival next week, send an eMail to mobilists at gmail.com no later then next Wednesday and have a look at Mobhappy, founder of the CoM. See you next week!

It has sort of become a tradition for me to bring back a book on wireless from the 3GSMWorldCongress. This year, I’ve picked a somewhat unusual book for me as it is not about a particular technology but about how technology can enable work to go mobile. The book is called “Work Goes Mobile” and the three authors discuss the ongoing process at Nokia to mobilize their workforce. This blog entry is not intended as a full book review but rather for me to write done some thoughts about topics in the book that were of particular interest to me. Having said that I can recommend the book very much and further information about it can be found here.

Topics and statements in the book I found useful and some comments from my side:

Mobility is more than a technology: Mobilizing a business means to embed mobility into the fabric of a business.

Mobilizing a business has three dimensions which need to be addressed: People, process and technology.

Zero latency: The aim of mobilizing a business is to come as close to a ‘zero latency’ process as possible. In other words, a process is optimized to contain as few disruptions as possible due to inefficient communication. E.g. writing down a failure report on a piece of paper that is manually put into a CRM system a couple of days later.

Good and bad sides of mobility: The book discusses pros and cons of mobility and addresses prejudices and perceptions of workers on introducing new processes generally and mobility specifically.

Freedom of choice: One statement I particularly liked: “Mobility is about freedom of choice – it’s not a forced directive to work 24/7 but an individual decision to work when and where it is most appropriate”. Sometimes this is easier said and done and involves a learning process for both the mobile worker and the management that needs to understand how to manage mobile workers. Both mobile work and managing mobile workers are fundamentally different from working on a desk and managing desk bound workers.

The book is technology neutral: Even though written by Nokia employees and copyrighted by Nokia the book does not try to push any kind of Nokia devices or services. I like this approach very much as I find books, brochures, or articles written companies which only aim at pushing their products rather tiring.

Mobility is not an end state but an evolving process.

Workload management: Mobility is not intended to increase workloads. It helps workers to be as efficient as possible in the time they dedicate to their work. In general this is true but requires a management that understands this one the one hand and a good amount of self control to balance private and work time.

Challenges to Mobility: There are plenty and I like the discussion of how to overcome/deal/change/improve reluctance to change, management competency to deal with a mobile workforce, mobile workplace challenges, operation support, self management, family, processes.

Benefits: Mobility brings quantitive and qualitative benefits and one should be aware of both. A quantitive benefit can be measured in monetary terms, e.g. reduced time to spend on paperwork increases the number of cases a mobile field worker can deal with a day. Qualitative benefits are things one can not measure in such a way. Examples are increased employee satisfaction because of increased flexibility, freedom, etc., or increased customer satisfaction due to faster response times and quicker problem solutions.

This book is quite an eye opener for me as I mainly deal with the technical domain on a day to day basis. The book shows, however, that this is just one of many dimensions that need to be addressed to mobilize businesses in particular and people general.

P.S.: Daniel, this book could potentially be very interesting for you, too!

I feel greatly honored to host this week’s edition of the Carnival of
the Mobilists, featuring the most interesting posts of mobilists submitted this
week. In the best tradition of a mobilist, I exchanged eMails with Russel
Buckley leading to this on my notebook and smartphone in various airports and
taxies while traveling to Portugal. As you can see in this week’s Carnival once again, there are great ideas out there on the future of the mobile Internet:

• Mobile Application Development: Kelly Goto
  has written an interesting post this week on mobile application
  development in which she goes into the details of why " […] How,
  when, why and most importantly – where interaction takes place […]"
  are major things to consider during the development process.

• MVNO Strategies: Two entries this week on MVNOs (Mobile Virtual Network Operators): Carlo Longino gives us his thoughts on the business case of content MVNOs in his post called "Selling Dollars for a Dime". In another post, C. Enrique Ortiz takes a look at strategies of different MVNOs and gives us his thoughts on adoption curves for new services and service uptake.

• The Phone is the Key: Jim Downing over at Smartmobs reports on a new system in Japan that lets people use their RFID enabled mobile phones as virtual house keys. RFID is a hotly discussed topic for a while now and this is one of the positive applications of the technology.

• New Lifeblog version: It’s CeBIT time and lot’s of companies show their new products. Nokia is no exception, launching their latest version of Lifeblog. Stuart Mudie has taken a look and gives us his thoughts.

• External Identities: Xen Dolev had an interesting discussion with a new friend at her university about what mobile gadgets tell you about a man and manhood in general. Take a look.

• Mobile Advertising: Scott Shaffer over at the Pondering primate has written an interesting post on how Google could combine mobile keywords and SMS into an advertising platform. I like the idea, no unsolicited knocking on the front door this way.

• Mobile Internet and Politics: Justin Oberman has sent me a link to his recent blog entry where he reports about what some people do not get about the political mobile buzz
  during the recent "Politics Online" conference. He was invited
  as a speaker to talk about the mobile Internet in politics.

• Mobile Gadgets on the Run: John Sun reviews the Garmin Forerunner 2005 runner’s watch and it’s cool functionality when combined with Google Maps. Still needs the PC to connect to the net but other products with that capability are not far away.

• LBS Overview: Denis of Wap Review has written a great article on the how location based services work and how the U.S.’s E911 requirements have helped to bring the infrastructure in place not only for emergency services but also for great public LBS services. He does not stop there though and goes on to describe LBS in other parts of the world as well.

• Women in Mobile: My favourite post of the week: Rudy De Waele continues his great series on interviewing women in mobile with an interview of Keren Flavell. His post contains interesting thoughts from ‘down-under’ in Australia! I very much liked the interview and Keren’s mobile technology podcasts on her website.

• Karaoke on Mobiles: Looks like Karaoke has gone mobile in Finland and is a big success. Tomi Ahonen over at the "Communities Dominate Brands" reports.

• Service Discovery: Troy Norcross says that operators are not doing a good job in promoting their services because they only push their platform and not individual services.  In his recent post he shares some interesting thoughts on this topic .

And finally, my own post for this week is part two in my mini-series on different mobile VoIP systems, their applications, and their pros and cons. This week’s blog entry is on SIP and its use in the wireless word.

Next week, the Carnival
will be hosted by C. Enrique Ortiz. Make sure you’ve submitted your entry to “mobilists
(at) googlemail.com” by next Wednesday.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this week’s selection and I wish you a happy weekend,

Martin