Having just attended Office 2.0 last week I’ve been thinking a lot about my overall perspective on the event from the point of view of mobile functionality. I actually engaged in a sort of informal poll during the event, querying a fair number of the attending companies as to the ability to take their applications mobile in any meaningful way.
With the plethora of devices that have or are being developed for mobile-enterprise use you’d think that a significant focus would be applied to developing application functionality for at least some of them. What I found - although there were a few notable exceptions - was that for the most part, mobile is still the red-headed stepchild of the business world and this is every bit if not more true of Office 2.0 than of more classic software.
Potentially this is due simply to the relative newness of Office 2.0. Certainly as a space gains maturity, mass appeal and even ubiquity there is greater incentive to develop for the edge because the edge is still big enough to sustain a business, however it is pretty clear that Office 2.0 is nowhere near this mature yet.
A second reason for the paucity of mobile functionality of Office 2.0 apps may be due to the mobile ecosystem itself. First, you still have a lot of bandwidth constriction. A mobile application isn’t really mobile if you don’t have enough bandwidth to use a program that is running over the web. The next ecosystem wide problem is the limitations artificially imposed by the carriers. This problem is nothing new and continues to mystify me. When will the carriers realize that by opening their networks to innovative developers they have far more to gain then anything they could lose by keeping frustrated users in their silly walled gardens?
Third, we’ve still got a device/platform fragmentation problem. Unlike the world of the RIA, the RMIA (rich mobile Internet application) can’t be developed once for a single platform and reused over and over. Instead you develop it once and then develop dozens or even hundreds of iterations of it so it will work with all the different handsets. This is a never ending cycle of bang-your-head-against-the-wall foolishness that will continue to hamstring the growth of the entire space until the major players all sit down and decide on formal standards that everyone adheres to - at a maximum, in my opinion, there should be perhaps six configurations to cover all the possible devices that could conceivably called a mobile phone.
I’ve said more than once that we’re still very early in our experimentation with mobile devices. Even the panel I moderated on mobility and the future of devices made that fact more clear than anything else in my opinion. The bad news is that we’re still far from optimally productive (don’t even begin to call it equally productive - even I would laugh at that contention) but we’re slowly learning what needs to be fixed, what needs to be wiped and what needs to be maintained in order to have a really effective mobile office experience delivered from a platform that fits in a hand or a pocket. As always I’m on the lookout for the revolutionaries that are making the biggest strides.
In that regard, if you’ve got a new mobile application that you’d like profiled, please, please get in touch with me. I’m keen to see new stuff or updates to old stuff so don’t be shy; the traffic to BN is building all the time and the audience of readers seems very interested in the latest and greatest mobile applications and gear.
September 13th, 2007 at 6:00 pm
Oliver,
I am particularly interested in mobile access to applications like Google Docs and Zoho Office. I would love to see a piece addressing some of the “Ruble Goldberg” set ups people have used to gain access to AJAX applications on the road without a laptop. Your opening picture of the N800 with a keyboard and presumably Bluetooth-connected N95 probably represents one of the most capable configurations. Anyone using this or something else successfully? Inquiring minds want to know.
Curt
September 14th, 2007 at 2:48 pm
I have been trying to contact Marc Orchant for help with a new computer (small, mobile!) purchase. Can you get me in touch with him … or you?
Bill McIntyre
(970) 218-5374
bill@NewHopeFc.org
September 14th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
[…] … e drept cuplat cu un N95, o tastatură și probabil un abonament zdravăn pentru Internet mobil de mare viteză prin HSDPA. De fapt, dat fiind că N95-ul și N800-le se conectează (în lipsa unui access point WiFi) prin Bluetooth-ul care nu este renumit prin fantastica viteză de transfer a datelor, cred că un abonament 3G de date ar fi absolut suficient. Singura problemă că retailerii din România nu s-au grăbit din cale-afară să ofere publicului Nokia N800. Rămâne deci cum am stabilit: pentru mioritici un laptop ieftin cu modem HSDPA și abonament de date, de cateva ori mai greu și de 1000 de ori mai puțin cool decât combinația N800 + tastatură + mobil. Hm, se impune o “excursie de afaceri” prin Europa noastră dragă. [Sursa: BlogNation] […]
September 14th, 2007 at 3:12 pm
Curt, hi. Thanks for your comment. The image in the post is in fact Blognation USA co-author Marc Orchant’s “new, new mobile office” set-up. Both Marc, and to an even greater extent, myself, use this setup. I’m a huge fan of the N800 and with a Bluetooth keyboard like the Think Outside Stowaway, it really is almost a fully functional PC for day trips, short business trips and event blogging (thanks to the WordPy Word Press application).
During my recent panel at Office 2.0 we addressed many of these issues, specifically mobile AJAX (there’s even a project called MoJAX that some developers have created) but as of yet there is no mobile device that I know of that has full blown AJAX supported. The Nokia N800 probably comes closest, particularly if you replace the default browser (a slimmed down version of Opera) with the newly released Mozilla version specifically ported to the N800 you’ll probably have the most advanced AJAX functionality of any mobile device.
One trend that I think holds tremendous promise are things like Google Gears that allows the offline synchronization of content. I think there’s a great likelihood that we’ll see some dramatic advances in this area in 2008, particularly if Google comes out with a phone.
Another promising trend for mobile applications is the amazing speed at which applications are being developed for the iPhone. Once this platform is opened up (either by hackers or Apple) we’ll see even more development strides for pocketable devices.
Oliver
September 14th, 2007 at 4:01 pm
Oliver,
Thanks for the reply. I was aware of the Minimo port, it’s just hard to find real-world reports of whether you can successfully use Google Calendar, Google Reader, and Google Docs with it. I’m even more excited about the rumors that the successor to the N800 will support Sprint’s WiMax service and may have a built in keyboard (for those sessions when whipping out a Bluetooth keyboard is impractical). I’m a big user of Skype and Skype-Out, and would probably ditch my Treo if this comes to pass. I do hope the iPhone mania doesn’t leave N800 development as a total backwater, as the iPhone has some limitations that the N800 does not, plus I’m a big fan of open source solutions.
Keep up the great work on your blogs. I probably look forward to yours and Marc’s posts more than any others I read regularly!
Curt
September 14th, 2007 at 5:35 pm
[…] […]
September 19th, 2007 at 8:45 am
What brand of bluetooth keyboard is that?
September 19th, 2007 at 9:43 am
John, that’s a Stowaway bluetooth keyboard by ThinkOutside. They’re probably the best bluetooth keyboards avaiable currently (at least that I’ve used so far, though I am willing to test others if manufacturers would like to provide units that can be tested).
September 19th, 2007 at 11:50 pm
I’ve been looking at the freedom input universal for now, and thinking about buying their “slim” keyboard when it comes out (thumb size). They were supposed to release it a few months ago, and they moved it back to October. So, I figure I should get a full size to use until the slim comes out … but I really want to get the slim. Especially if I can find a hard-shell case that would hold both the N800 and the slim keyboard, with a stiff or multi-position hinge, to use it like a tiny laptop.
Thanks for the info though. If the freedom input universal doesn’t work out, I’ll look at the stowaway.
September 21st, 2007 at 10:28 pm
how mobile is a bluetooth keyboard, pda and mobile phone as well as everything else you need to carry. surely a laptop with datacard is a much better solution and involves much less equipment, eg chargers etc.
September 22nd, 2007 at 9:53 am
Chris,
Thanks for your comment. While no one argues the value of a good laptop, particularly a small but full featured one like the Sony Vaio TX 790P that I have used for the past year (except for the time it has been undergoing one of Sony’s famous interminable repairs) there are certain things that a PDA or more specifically a Nokia N800 plus an N95 plus a bluetooth keyboard can do that are impossible with the laptop.
These include;
Start Instantly (even coming off of hibernation you can’t claim that these machines “start instantly” the N800 does. This means that on a plane I can frequently get one or two email responses done in the time it would take to get my laptop started.
Last ALL DAY on a single charge; again even the best laptop power misers don’t get aheight hours on a single charge
fit a pocket (or call it two pockets if you carry the bluetooth keyboard on your person which you don’t HAVE to do because the N800 accepts other forms of input)
Survive a 3-foot drop to a concrete surface. I double dog dare you to try it with a laptop (preferably not mine) N800s will survive multiple drops to concrete with little to show for it aside from a scratch or two.
Stimulate a conversation with your seat mate (okay, not always desirable but then I wouldn’t have met the Worldwide VP of Biz Dev for BBD (or the annoying woman from Toledo either - illustrating both sides of that “benefit”)
September 26th, 2007 at 3:52 pm
You’re right it is still early in the mobile game, especially for businesses. Although as more devices, applications and networks are deployed enterprise mobility will no longer be a option, it will be a necessity for organizations. That’s why Movero Technology a provider of managed IT services focused exclusively on mobility is simplifying the acquisition, deployment and the ongoing management of cellular voice and data access allowing organizations to easily manage enterprise devices and services for ubiquitous enterprise mobility throughout the organization. Movero Technology
October 5th, 2007 at 10:10 pm
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