Who am I? Why am I here?

Caught up in what appears to be another Microsoft-Apple-Google battle was this release - the guys behind Linux, the free open-source operating system, have created one for mobile phones.

It could be the fourth-party candidate to fit the bill needed in this industry - some kind of standardization to create platforms ALL developers can use. (Forgive the political reference here and above to Ross Perot’s running mate Adm. James Stockdale). I don’t necessarily ascribe to the free model, but certainly open source makes a lot of sense.

It could certainly help wireless content/advertising creators as well - one of the big holdbacks in expansion in this frontier has been the dizzying array of operating systems and technologies that marketers have to navigate.

But at the same time, don’t expect Microsoft to go down without a fight, as evidenced here . Microsoft wants to make its Mobile operating system more consumer friendly to take on Apple’s iPhone - go figure.

I won’t hide my bias for Microsoft’s Windows Mobile - I grew up in the last decade using it’s PDA-based predecessor PocketPC, which was great for filing stories in the field if you had a portable keyboard. But Gates & Co. are losing sight of what makes that system so great - it is really catered to the guy who already uses Microsoft Office as a desktop application. In short, a businessman’s phone.

But as more people turn to Web-based word processing and spreadsheets, that all could change - we’ll have to see.

And then there is Google’s Android system, which has gotten a lot more hype and support from device manufacturers such as Samsung. This could help Google’s world domination drive even further - especially since AdSense (its automated sponsored links/online ad program) is reportedly built in.

Let’s just hope that it gets easier one day - but for now, it will be even messier. 

Could the PC eventually disappear?

Saw a piece this morning about a group of women from West Va. who pooled their money and won a $247 million jackpot in Powerball lottery.

Seems like a lot of money - but that’s chicken feed compared with what mobile search is going to generate, according to this new report from Juniper Research.

That’s $4.8 billion with a “B” in the next five years. All from people looking up stuff on their handsets.

The article also goes into how that money is going to be generated, and of most interest are the gradual reduction in the “walled garden” (which will be a combination of easier-to-use devices and the service providers losing control of what people want to do with their phones, novel concept I know). Also of note - the cost of data will be coming down or offered at a flat rate.

Not that phones are ever going to replace PCs, but as search is taking over as a major function of any computer, are we going to see a tipping point of PCs to phones over the next five years? Are people going to be willing to shell out $400-500 for a decent smartphone that can search, see flash pages, browse the Net, type e-mails or text msgs, and talk with their friends - and forego $1,000 for a laptop and another $25-30 a month for high-speed connections. Not to mention the added coming bonus of having that search linked to your location by your phone.

As I stated in a previous post (actually my first ever post), there is already anecdotal proof that this has happened in Asia, and especially Japan.

 Oh, and it doesn’t hurt that Google and Yahoo! are girding their loins to take on mobile. Just wait until Android (Google’s new mobile operating system) and its accompanying tie-in to AdSense really starts taking hold. 

 Addendum (added later in the day): Google is noticing the uptick as well.

“We have very much hit a watershed moment in terms of mobile Internet usage,” Matt Waddell, a product manager for Google Mobile, said in an interview with Reuters (run on the CNET Web site). “We are seeing that mobile Internet use is in fact accelerating.”

Yahoo! to go

Want to know why Microsoft is so hot to get into Yahoo!’s pants? Check out the new Yahoo! Go service.

Of all the non-device/non-network/non-service providers doing business with the wireless world, Yahoo! gets it the most.

Sure, I am a huge Windows Mobile fan, but the way that Yahoo! is linking the wired and wireless Web is two years ahead of everyone else.

Over the past month, the company also known as Google’s also-ran has been rolling out Yahoo! Go to different cell phone models (it’s a download into your phone that allows you to bookmark sites online and then take them with you - along with other virtual syncing services between your phone and your Yahoo! account).

It’s a client, sure, but it is closer to the Web based application model that works for the PC-based Internet for a cell phone than anything else out there.

As Google ramps up its mobile play with its new Android operating system for phones, and other venures, Microsoft is turning to Yahoo! to stay caught up.

Anyone agree/disagree? Any one besides me trying Yahoo! Go?

Ready to cut it up?

OK, maybe the reference to the Violent Femmes song is a bit much. Trying to be pithy, I guess.

 

I am cutting over content from my previous site, by the way, and will be adding new content as I go along.
 

Anyway, this will be an ongoing discussion of wireless media and advertising - the next great frontier with the ever improving and expanding wireless networks.

 

Think about it: Europe and Asia are already nearly a decade ahead of U.S. carriers. Those countries didn’t have the kind of copper and fiber infrastructure that we take for granted, so the consumers and service providers skipped over wire-based Internet and jumped straight to cell phones.

 

Did you know that the PC ownership in Japan is markedly less than in the U.S.? Even though that country is supposedly even more

technologically advanced than ours? (See this 2000 study by Japan expert Bill Gordon: http://wgordon.web.wesleyan.edu/papers/wwwpap1.htm)

 

As for the U.S., the next monolithic instoppable force in the business world has turned its own eye toward this as a new revenue stream. Google has even created its own operating system, and is planning to buy its own wireless spectrum in the latest FCC auction due to start early this year.

 

In short, the country’s most powerful advertising medium is looking to create its own platform and direct connection with consmers - it wants to become a telco.

 

Cool stuff to be delving into.