Have you noticed the changes which tell that the web is yesterday's technology? Mosaic was created some ten years ago, IBM and other big giants have quietly removed the famous 'e' from their marketing material, the term 'computer' is being converted to 'digital' etc. Kevin Werbach explores the past history and prepares for the future.
Is the next bubble already about to blast? Wi-Fi. Lot's of talk and not so much deeds. Who is actually making money? Have you heard of roaming between different Wlan providers? Are you seriously willing to pay tens of dollars/euros for a few hours web-usage? Businessweek has probed the subject.
According to my knowledge Nokia and Qualcomm are not entering the Wi-Fi game. They stick strictly to their knitting of cellular networks. Still they have the knowhow to step into Wi-Fi radio chip market. Why are they voluntarily leaving out of the big pot of money? Or will the convergence make the 3G network providers the winners after all the buzz? I believe so. Cellular networks are reliable while on move and the roaming (&billing) is no issue. This is not the case with Wi-Fi and I don't see any clear paths to solve the issue in a near future. After all, who could bother making a big deal of the network technology from which the emails are pulled out as long as everything is working smoothly (and priced reasonably) ? I barely can wait the times of fixed priced global wireless connection...
Posted at May 27, 2003 10:27 AM