Okay - finally - here's WOYP's official coverage of my "annual pilgrimage to Mecca." Just so there's no question of my hiding anything, I guesstimate this little outing cost Microsoft ~$2,000 to include me, counting airfare, lodging, food and yes, cool toys. I accepted this, and I'm going to tell you what I really think anyway. Some is positive, some is not, but I can guarantee it's all worth what you paid to read it.
Thursday, October 10, 2002
I flew out on United, the first time I'd been on a plane since 9/11/01. Airport security was a mix of funny (they had a sign listing all the prohibited items, including "Transformer robots that turn into toy guns" - sorry, Megatron - and cricket bats; who in the US has a cricket bat?) and spooky. My Rockport shoes set off the metal detector, so I ended up quarantined in the Plexiglas cages waiting to be wanded. I've ranted about this before, so let's leave it at this. I love airplanes, but I dread traveling.
We stayed at the Bellevue Club hotel again this year, a luxury hotel not far from the Microsoft campus. We had our reception in one of the hotel's conference rooms. I spent a lot of time talking to Beth Goza, Jeff McKean, Jason and Ashley Dunn, Jørgen Sundgot, Phillip Torrone, James Hromadka, Ryan Mock, Wes Salmon and Eric Levine (these last two now work for Microsoft after losing their web jobs). Nearly all the Microsoft folks there were packing T-Mobile Pocket PC phones. I got the impression that this device is the new geek badge of choice, like the iPAQ was two years ago.
Friday, October 11, 2002
We walked into the Chinook conference room in Microsoft's Building 117 to find the conference tables arranged in a huge "U" with largish red nylon backpacks standing opposite each chair, each bag bearing the name tag of who would sit there. We all knew our "goodies" were in these bags, but Beth quickly informed us that the bags were "held hostage" until the end of the day. Beth used to be a schoolteacher, and she knows how to ensure attention spans.
Beth started with an overview of Möbius. Möbius is about "the never-ending conversation." It's intended to foster two-way communication with the user community. While the marketing value to Microsoft should be obvious - hence the free stuff - but I think it's important to note that Microsoft gets a ton of useful feedback from attendees for a long time after the conference is over. The value goes both ways.
After Beth's intro, DAT Group demoed online ecommerce downloads to Smartphone 2002s via SMS links to CAB files. This was cool, if obvious, technology. Phone service carriers should be positively gleeful to discover how easy it will be to milk customers for more money.
Digital Concepts showed how easy it is to port Pocket PC code to Smartphone 2002 by showing off a few of their games. The developer said that it took just a few days to make the relatively minor changes to the code. The motocross game was remarkably smooth on the phone, running at over 30 frames per second with realtime shadow rendering.
We saw a wireless product called eBeam. This allows you to use a special marker to turn a four by six foot whiteboard into a giant touch screen, capable of mirroring the writing on the whiteboard on a PC or even a Pocket PC.
David Feldman from ViewSonic was next, showing off the new V35 Pocket PC. These should be on retail shelves by the beginning of December. The V35 is primarily targeted at the retail market, with its small size, lightweight and low price making it a compelling alternative to PalmOS devices. ViewSonic is serious about the mobile market, with more Pocket PCs on the way as well as Tablet PCs and Smart Displays (see below). All are display-centric devices, opening the door for ViewSonic to play to their strength. Playing with the V35 in person, I was amazed at how light it was. I just wish they'd added a half-ounce or so for a bigger battery. The XScale CPU and transflective display are supposed to be power-frugal, but I have a feeling the paltry 900 mah battery in the V35 might be an Achilles heel.
Jonas Hasselberg overviewed Smartphone 2002. We just got a quick overview, but I'll have a fuller review later. I did find out that Microsoft Smartphones are the most customizable and extensible phones yet, and keeping in line with Microsoft's recent embrace of open standards, Smartphone plugins are XML-based. Smartphones include a full version of Windows Media Player, which looks cool on the phone, but the spinning color wheel looks weird on a phone. There is no ClearType engine and no Microsoft Reader, although I don't see why this couldn't be a good ebook platform, with color screens and more pixels than a standard Palm. Given the ease of porting Pocket PC code to the Smartphone, I wouldn't be surprised to see popular Pocket PC ebook readers show up for the Smartphone shortly.
The project manager for the Pocket PC development team stopped by and told us a little about the future of the Pocket PC itself. Their research indicates a roughly 30/30/30 split in demand for Smartphone/PPCPE/2-body Bluetooth PPC & phone. They've seen 42% growth in PPC sales this year. Although some have criticized the Pocket PC spec requirements for leading to "cookie cutter" devices, it does allow for "unnatural" acts, like an NR-like clamshell design or a Zaurus-like integrated thumbboard. It's up to an aggressive OEM to take those chances. We got to play with an HP Jornada 928. It feels nice, very solid. It would be an awesome enterprise product if it were ever released in the US. Microsoft is pushing for lower price points, attacking consumer markets.
We got a look at the Microsoft Smart Display, formerly known as Mira. Smart Display is a Windows CE .NET based, WiFi-equipped LCD panel. It requires XP Professional on the desktop and uses Terminal Services to connect. Smart Display is home-oriented, as opposed to the more enterprise-focused Tablet PC. The digitizer is a passive type similar to those used on Pocket PCs. I'm not sure how well that's going to work on a larger screen, where you're far more likely to rest your hand on the screen while using the pen. I also think that the combination of a home-focus and the requirement of XP Pro will make Smart Display a tough sell as an aftermarket product. It really only makes sense when bundled with a new PC.
On the mobile professional side, we have the Tablet PC. Targeted at Road Warriors and Corridor Warriors, this is what Microsoft considers the evolution of the laptop. They expect that within 5 years most portable PCs will be Tablet PCs. Tablet PCs can do everything laptops can do, but they add a "pen and ink" user interface. I hope to have a full review of Tablet PC soonish, so I'll just touch on a few key points here. Unlike the touch screens on Pocket PCs and Smart Displays, the Tablet PC digitizer is active, meaning that it uses radio signals to track the position of a special stylus. Not only does this mean that Tablet PCs are much more accurate than PDAs (as the digitizer can be much higher resolution) but that you can also control the mouse pointer by "hovering" the pen over the screen without actually touching it. The handwriting recognition works far better than Transcriber on the Pocket PC, but it is a static, non-learning system and it's optimized for cursive writing, and doesn't do all that great a job of recognizing printing. Fortunately, most of your handwriting can be left as ink, as - again, unlike Pocket PCs - ink isn't stored simply as static bitmaps. Ink is sortable and searchable on a system-level, so there's really little reason to convert it if it's not meant for presentation.
Beth Goza and Ed Suwanjindar then held an "On The Record" Q & A. MacOS support will be provided by 3rd party developers. Pocket PC Phone Edition is designed to be protocol neutral, so a CDMA PPCPE is inevitable. GPRS always-on is something of a myth. It's not really always on because of power considerations. Instead of "always on," think of it as "always available."
We finally got to open up our bags, and lo and behold, I had a shiny new T-Mobile Pocket PC Phone Edition. It obviously had no SIM card, so I didn't have any network connectivity. Looked cool, though.
That night we spent the evening at the Microsoft Consumer Home Center, a mock-up house full of Microsoft technology. I actually didn't play with much, preferring to use the Internet terminals to get as caught up as possible on my email. I did get quick looks at XP Media Center Edition and some cool X-Box games, but those are really beyond the scope of this column.
Saturday, October 12, 2002
We had breakfast at the Harbor Club and listened to a keynote address by Doc Searles. Doc is the Senior Editor of Linux Journal, and he talked about open WiFi, the nature of geekdom, and how technology is changing society.
After the keynote we were pretty much on our own until dinner at six. Several of us had never been in a Best Buy, so we ventured out on foot in search of mobile technology.
As I wandered around Best Buy with my new - but still unconnected - T-Mobile, a nice lady named Cydney with a T-Mobile golf shirt walked up and said, "Hey, nice phone edition." I explained that it would be even nicer if I had service, but I didn't have a SIM and I live in Denver, so I guessed I'd have to wait until I got home. She had to check with her manager to make sure they could do it, but she got my device activated on the spot with a Denver phone number! T-Mobile reps rock!
That evening we all piled back on the bus and went to GameWorx in downtown Seattle, kind of a Chuck E. Cheese for grown-ups. On the way, though, we stopped at a hamburger stand where they come out to your car and take your order on wireless iPAQs, a neat demonstration of mobile technology in an enterprise/commerce setting. I played a few of the games at GameWorx, but spent more time learning the ins and outs of GPRS on my new toy. I spent so much time wandering that I narrowly missed an encounter with His Billness.
Beth Goza, Phillip Torrone, Ryan Mock and a few others from our group were sitting at a table by the bar. Bill and Melinda Gates walk in and sit at the next table. The waitress, who has the richest man in the world sitting in her section, does not come over to take his drink order. Gates starts to get impatient. The geeks at the next table are beside themselves. Should they say hi? So as one, they all wave their Pocket PCs at him. Disturbed, or overwhelmed with the seemingly massive market penetration of Pocket PC phones, Gates and Gates get up and leave shortly thereafter.
I arrived on the scene a scant few minutes later, and took the opportunity to try and soak up some of the mojo from the chair The Bill had sat in. I felt a brief antipathy towards Steve Jobs and Larry Ellison, but not much more.
After Gameworx we piled back on the bus to return to the hotel. We surprised Beth with a Starbucks gift card and a sterling silver stylus from Tiffany's - we'd taken up a collection after the burger stand - then returned one last time to the hotel. I flew out the next morning, and you've already heard my rant about that.
So enough of the play by play. If I can switch roles here from Michaels to Madden - where's my telestrator? - what did we really learn at Möbius this year?
Smartphone will dominate. This may seem obvious, given the glowing media reaction to the official launch in London this week, but it bears repeating. It's a device with much of the power of a Pocket PC behind both the size and ease of use of a phone. For all the talk about PalmOS devices being intuitive, everyone knows how to use a phone, and no one is going to carry a Palm and a cell phone if they can have this instead. Smartphone will outsell all PDAs combined many times over. Unless you need the rich data entry of a Pocket PC one the most absurdly tiny cell phone possible, Smartphone will be the mobile information device of choice.
Connected devices in general will enjoy a significant advantage over unconnected. I've used my last unconnected PDA. The ability to communicate directly from my "always on me" device is more than a quantitative change, it's a qualitative change. Computing in the 21st century is more about communication than anything else, and the ability to access voice and data anytime, anywhere makes using my PDA a completely different experience. Think about your cellphone, then think about the 80's when you had to track down a land line - usually a payphone - if you had to call someone. Now extrapolate that to data. If a PDA isn't also a phone, it had better be able to bond with one via Bluetooth. Unconnected devices are dead, even if they don't know it yet.
Pocket PC is still strategic product, but third party development will be key to filling Microsoft's deliberate gaps. Microsoft doesn't want to make the Pocket PC do everything out of the box. They're far more concerned with building a platform for other developers to fill out. Developers that address the limitations of the platform - like the folks that make PocketMac and TextMaker - are encouraged by Microsoft. In short, don't expect Microsoft to fix things that can be addressed by others. They don't need to add printing to the OS if Bachmann Software makes PrintBoy.
Pocket PCs are ready to tackle PalmOS at most price points. With the exception of the $99 Zire, the days of PalmOS devices ruling the sub-$500 price range are over. New devices from ViewSonic, Dell and HP are infringing on this territory, especially that magic $299 price tag, the psychological upper limit of the "impulse buy."
Will Tablet PCs bring ink back into the workplace? Digital has ruled in the workplace for nearly a decade. The Tablet PC allows workers to go back to the more natural, more flexible use of handwriting and doodling while retaining all the benefits of digital data. I think Microsoft has hit on the Great Secret that no one - not even Jeff Hawkins - hit on in the history of mobile computing. The key isn't to turn handwriting into text, but to allow the user to manipulate handwriting as if it were text.
The future is mobile. This last one is a big shock, I know, coming from me. I've been saying for quite a while now that a computer is bloody useless if you can't take it with you. What's interesting is why it's useless. It turns out that mobile computing is more than just taking your office with you wherever you go. It's also about enabling you to do things you wouldn't have been able to do otherwise, in some cases things you wouldn't have even thought about doing.
