Will Microsoft be your next phone company?

• Bill Gates has had a very interesting track record in the prediction business over the past three decades, and now he’s making a new prediction: the business phone as we know it will be replaced by software that will unleash a higher level of collaboration and productivity.In the 1980s Gates articulated his vision of a “PC on every desk and in every home” that has become the foundation of the modern IT industry. During the 1990s he predicted that e-mail would become indispensable, that consumers would eventually be able to time-shift their TV shows, and that users and advertisers would migrate en mass from print publications to Web sites.

  On the hand, in 1987 he predicted: “OS/2 is destined to be the most important operating system, and possibly program, of all time.” In 2004, he predicted that SPAM would be solved within two years. He has also made bold predictions about the rise of Tablet PCs, voice-recognition software, and digital wallets, while none of those technologies have become a mass market phenomenon - at least not yet.

  Gates’ latest prophesies came on October 16 at Microsoft’s Unified Communications Launch 2007 event in San Francisco, where Microsoft revealed the full breadth of its products and plans for business telephony and unified communications. “In the next decade, sweeping technology innovations driven by the power of software will transform communications,” said Gates. “Working with partners, we’re making rapid advances that will enable fundamental advances in the way people communicate and collaborate at work.”

  Gates further explained that Microsoft’s newly-launch unified communications platform ” is about taking the magic of software and applying it to phone calls. We don’t just say phone calls because, of course, once you get software in the mix, the capabilities go way beyond what anybody thinks of today when we think of phone calls.”

  So the question is whether this latest prognostication will be another clarion call for the IT industry the way the “PC on every desk” prediction was, or if it will be a false prophesy like the OS/2 statement was, or if it will simply be an idea ahead of its time the way the forecasts about tablet computing and voice recognition have been.

  The Gates vision of the business phone

  If you want to know how significant Bill Gates thinks Microsoft’s unified communications platform is going to be, take a look at the lofty comparisons he made during his keynote on October 16:

  • He compared the PBX to the mainframe, and unified communications to the PC.
  • He compared the transition to software-based voice communications to the transition to computer-based word processing from the typewriter.
  • He compared the move to unified communications to the move to a graphical user interface from a command-line interface.

  

  Bill Gates points to the new Microsoft Roundtable device during his keynote presentation at Microsoft’s Unified Communications Launch 2007 event in San Francisco.

  “This is a complete transformation of the business of the traditional PBX,” said Gates. “The PBX in some ways is almost like the mainframe was many years ago where all of the functionality was there in that one piece. And the way that you had … to add value, to customize, to bring in third parties to do new things, it just isn’t there in that structure. And so by moving phone calls onto the Internet, using the powerful industry standard servers, we’ve got a very different way of being able to do things. And that can lead not only to lower cost, but far more effectiveness in how your employees work within your company, or with customers and partners outside your company.”

  Gates may not have much experience in the PBX and phone world, but he has had a ton of experience with the next transition he mentioned. He said, “So this transformation to software-based communications is going to be as profound as the shift from typewriters to word processing software. Moving from a dedicated piece of hardware to the general purpose, personal computer that happened over 20 years ago, and now we simply just take that for granted. Even 10 years from now, when people think about telephony … if you see in a movie that old desktop phone you’ll think, ‘Oh yeah, we used to have things that looked like that!’”

  Finally, Gates mentioned one of the prominent tech transitions that he will always be associated with. “I think [unified communications] will be a lot like the revolution that took place with graphic user interface, where at first some people didn’t participate [because] some people didn’t know that [GUI] was going to be the mainstream. [Eventually, unified communications] will become something that’s so pervasive it will just be expected.”

  Jeff Raikes, president of the Microsoft Business Division, added another comparison during his speech at the UC launch event. He said, “Unified communications software will transform business communications as fundamentally as e-mail did in the 1990s. Today, Microsoft is in the VoIP game, and our customers and partners are already winning with better economics and new business opportunities… We’re delivering revolutionary economics in VOIP, and increased productivity and quality in voice communications.”

  Gates and Microsoft are so invested in unified communications because they believe that it will solve several common problems and unlock new capabilities in business communications, including:

  • Make it faster and easier to find contact information for co-workers and business partners
  • Use presence and calendaring to find the appropriate times and ways to connect to co-workers and business partners
  • Reduce the amount of time it takes to schedule meetings, wait on hold, play phone tag, etc.
  • Increase the IT manageability and security of instant messaging
  • Simplify video calling
  • Simplify the setup of audio and video conferencing
  • Make it easier to deploy voice communications for new users and to change/move current users
  • Open the door to Communications-Enabled Business Processes (CEBP), which can use events from business systems (reports, databases, monitoring programs, GPS systems, cameras, etc.) to automatically trigger alert messages to the appropriate worker(s).
  • Enable fixed-mobile convergence so that cell phones and smartphones can be equipped with software applets that allow them to become an extension of the business communications network

  Microsoft’s new unified communications (UC) platform

  Microsoft’s vision of unified communications is delivered in a modular, extensible platform that can integrate with a variety of different platforms, but as you’d expect, it works best (and requires the least amount of capital investment) if you already have Microsoft infrastructure in place in your organization. For example, if you already have Windows Server 2003 and Microsoft Office 2007 in place, then the path to Microsoft’s UC platform requires a relatively short leap.

  Here are the key components of the platform:

  1. Office Communicator 2007 - This is the client application that brings together voice dialing/calling, instant messaging, presence, audio conferencing, video conferencing, document sharing, and integration with Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Office, and other applications that develop plug-ins. There are also versions of Communicator for the Web and mobile phones.
  2. Office Communications Server 2007 -OCS is the backend server application that ties all of this together and provides the VoIP, video, audio, and communications framework to make the platform work. It only runs on Windows servers and it also requires SQL Server.
  3. Office LiveMeeting 2007 - Like previous versions of LiveMeeting, this software enables audio and video conferencing, online meetings, PowerPoint sharing, document sharing, and whiteboarding. The latest version integrates with Communicator 2007 and OCS 2007.
  4. Microsoft Roundtable - While most of what Microsoft is doing involves software, Roundtable is a Microsoft hardware device that brings new innovation to video conferencing by sitting in the middle of a conference table and providing a 360-degree panoramic view of everyone in the meeting. At a price point of $3,000 and software integration with Communicator 2007, Roundtable is meant to improve and simplify video conferencing in order to bring it to the masses.
  5. Exchange 2007, Service Pack 1 - The new service pack for Exchange 2007 includes a variety of the usual kinds of updates and improvements, but the most significant change is integration with OCS 2007. This includes some nice additions such as “Conversation History” which allows you to call up an instant messaging thread from Communicator in Microsoft Outlook.
  6. An ecosystem of hardware and software partners - On launch day, over 50 hardware and software partners announced new products aimed at integrating with Microsoft’s UC platform. These partners make everything from desk phones and handsets that interoperate with Communicator 2007 to software plugins that take advantage of the presence and communications capabilities of OCS. Since of the prominent partners include Nortel, Ericcson, Motorola, Mitel, Polycom, Tandberg, SAP, BT, NEC, LG, Dell, HP, Palm, and Samsung.

  

  The most original piece of Microsoft’s UC platform is its Roundtable conferencing camera, which includes multiple cameras and microphones and uses software to automatically track who’s speaking.

  

  The Roundtable camera presents a complete view of everyone in a meeting as you can see at the bottom of this Communicator 2007 screen, which also includes a shared PowerPoint slide.

  

  The standard Office Communicator 2007 window shows advanced presence information.

  
  For offices that aren’t ready to abandon the standard business phone form factor, companies such as Nortel are developing desk phones that use Microsoft’s UC platform to present presence and contact data on the phone’s display.

  Sanity check

  Normally when you introduce a new platform that will change the way many users interact with their PCs, you can expect slow adoption from IT departments and businesses, as Microsoft has seen with its Tablet PC. However, I think there are two factors that could speed the adoption of Microsoft’s UC platform:

  1. VoIP - Thousands of companies have been engaged in VoIP deployments over the past three years. One of the original motivators was cost savings, but there was also the promise of improved efficiency and collaboration. Unified communications is what can unlock the potential of VoIP’s efficiency and collaboration improvements. For the companies that have recently finished or will soon finish a big VoIP deployment, layering on a unified communications deployment could be an easy sell, especially for the many companies that already have Windows Server 2003, Exchange, and Microsoft Office in place.
  2. Instant messaging - IM continues to be one of the biggest pain points for IT in 2007. While IM has become widely used by business workers, only a small handful of companies actually have an IT-sponsored IM client. The rest of the workers are using consumer services such as Yahoo, MSN, AOL, and Skype. Using public IM clients obviously has major ramifications for privacy and security. If IT can find an easy-to-use alternative IM client that gives users standard IM functionality and still lets them connect to contacts on many of the outside services (Communicator 2007 can connect to AOL, MSN, and Yahoo) then I think many of them will jump at the chance, because the stakes are getting higher all the time, especially with compliance audits putting additional pressure on IT. Microsoft’s UC platform could help make the pain go away.

  One final thought: Noticeably absent from Microsoft’s list of partners in unified communications are IBM and Cisco. While Microsoft partners with both of them in many other ways, both of those two giants are building their own unified communications platforms. IBM is building an ecosystem of partners very similar to what Microsoft is doing (although even more open), while Cisco is trying to provide a high-quality end-to-end solution. Both have their strengths and are ahead of Microsoft in some areas. However, with the vast number of partners that Microsoft revealed last week and the simplified deployment path for current Windows and Office customers, Microsoft is establishing itself as a stronger player in business VoIP and UC than most of us expected.

  Would you be willing to have Microsoft’s unified communications platform power your business telephony? Would you prefer to simply have it interoperate with your current PBX or VoIP system? Would you prefer another UC system? Join the discussion.

  

• Read TechRepublic from your BlackBerry, Treo, or Windows Mobile device

  Posted: Thu, 18 Oct 2007 11:33:48 +0000

  Although I’m not a huge fan of reading the Web from my mobile phone — as you probably gathered from my recent post Five reasons why the mobile Web still doesn’t work — I do have about 30 of my favorite sites bookmarked on my Treo 700 and I regularly use them in airports, taxi cabs, and occasionally while I’m pushing the cart in the grocery store.

  Earlier this year, I compiled two lists of mobile sites that are worth viewing from the small screen:

  • 14 Web sites worth bookmarking on your Treo, PDA, or smartphone
  • Another 14 mobile Web sites worth bookmarking on your Treo or smartphone

  I’m pleased to announce that you can now add TechRepublic to the list. The mobile version of TechRepublic can be accessed at:

  http://m.techrepublic.com.com

  TechRepublic also has a version of each of its blogs optimized for mobile screens. For example, check out the mobile version of Tech Sanity Check. Soon you will see a little phone icon on each of the TechRepublic blogs that links to the mobile version of that blog. Stay tuned.

  

• Sanity check: Can WiMAX remain an open platform or will it be hijacked by big telecoms?

  Posted: Sun, 14 Oct 2007 15:23:12 +0000

  When you talk to the players in the WiMAX arena, you hear a surprisingly large number of references to things like “open architecture” and “open platform” and “interoperability testing,” and you hear surprisingly few of the little digs against competitors that are such a common practice in most segments of the business technology sector.

  Partly, this is because WiMAX hasn’t fully hit the open market yet, and so the competition hasn’t fully heated up. Nevertheless, as WiMAX prepares for wide deployment in 2008, the WiMAX platform itself is firmly grounded in open standards and interoperability. The question is whether it can remain that way.
  

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  This is the third installment of a three-part series on WiMAX. The first two are:

  • Sanity check: Is WiMAX almost here and will it unlock the next stage of the Internet?
  • Sanity check: Will WiMAX be a 3G killer, or is it vice versa?

  ---

  
  
  Attendees walk through the Expo at WiMAX World 2007 in Chicago on September 25-27. View the entire photo gallery.

  The technology industry and many of its customers would like to see WiMAX avoid a situation like the one in the cellular industry — especially in the United States — where each of the big providers uses a walled-garden approach to its network. Sure, you can roam from one vendor’s network to another vendor’s network, but that’s where interoperability stops. For example, in the cellular world, users can’t easily transfer phones and other wireless devices between providers. The hardware is strictly tied to the service provider (although outside of the United States, the standard use of SIM cards makes devices more portable between carriers).The result is that most hardware and software innovation is tied to the carrier platform and doesn’t happen across the entire cellular platform. That’s what WiMAX wants to avoid. The leading players in the WiMAX ecosystem want to make WiMAX an open platform using the model of the Internet and TCP/IP, and the WiMAX Forum is the vehicle they have established as a standards body to make that happen. So far this has been successful. However, let’s take a closer look at the big vendors in the WiMAX ecosystem and evaluate their commitment to open standards. Then, we’ll look at the new challengers and potential entrants into the WiMAX space.

  Openness of the current WiMAX leaders

  • Sprint — Since Sprint joined the WiMAX Forum in February 2005, the cellular giant has been an outspoken proponent of network and device interoperability in WiMAX. Sprint’s plans have been to build the Sprint WiMAX network for connectivity while also building a separate Sprint portal to help users best take advantage of Mobile WiMAX. In that sense, Sprint wants to evolve from a cellular carrier to a wireless ISP that also does voice. That vision has come under fire recently, as Sprint CEO Gary Forsee resigned last week under pressure from shortsighted investors who have grown impatient with Sprint’s long-range WiMAX plans and want the company to focus on its cellular business. Forsee, along with Sprint’s WiMAX leaders Barry West and Atish Gude, have shown commitment to open standards. But a change at the top could put pressure on that approach, as well as Sprint’s WiMAX plans in general.

  • Intel — Perhaps no other big vendor has been as influential in driving WiMAX toward open standards as Intel, which was one of the founding members of the WiMAX Forum. Let’s be clear: Intel wants WiMAX to succeed because it believes that the key to bringing computers (many of them running Intel chips, of course) to the next billion users in emerging markets is to first establish a network that can connect them to the Internet. Intel is betting on WiMAX as the technology to deliver that connectivity and wants it to be an open platform that can be tapped by carriers large and small throughout the globe.

  • Motorola — This longtime wireless powerhouse is betting heavily on WiMAX. Motorola is providing an end-to-end WiMAX solution to carriers because it can build out the backend network and radio infrastructure for WiMAX while also providing WiMAX client devices (e.g., broadband modems, multimode phones, PC cards, and USB dongles). Motorola won the contract to build out Sprint’s Chicago WiMAX network, which will be one of the first two to deploy, along with the Baltimore/Washington D.C area. While Motorola is compliant with all interoperability standards, the company clearly wants to sell as many of its own client devices as possible. Its commitment to continued standards will likely remain firm because of its desire to sell its client devices to carriers even when it doesn’t win the bid to build the backend network infrastructure.

  • Samsung — Like Motorola, Samsung can both build the backend infrastructure for WiMAX networks and provide the client devices. Samsung is much better known for its devices and it is on the cutting edge of WiMAX devices with WiMAX-ready laptops, phones, and UMPCs. However, the company is making a major move in networks and using WiMAX as a venue to prove its commitment and strength in networking. Samsung has already built a WiMAX network in Korea (using a related standard called WiBro) and has won the bid to build Sprint’s WiMAX networks in Boston and New York City. Naturally, Samsung will strive to provide end-to-end solutions whenever possible. However, it will want to build networks even when its client devices aren’t used exclusively, and it will want to peddle its client devices even when it doesn’t build the network, so that should ensure its continued commitment to open standards.

  • Alcatel-Lucent — Predictably, this network stalwart is focusing its WiMAX efforts around building the backend WiMAX infrastructure. It has won more than 10 contracts with global carriers and is especially strong in Latin America. Alcatel-Lucent is steadfastly committed to an open architecture because its strategy depends on client devices made by other vendors.

  • Nortel — Nortel also wants to be an end-to-end WiMAX provider like Samsung and Motorola, but its device strategy will likely be limited to broadband modems and PC Card and USB devices. Nortel has won WiMAX contracts in Taiwan and in southeastern Oklahoma in the United States, but it is not yet a major force in WiMAX, so it will likely follow the lead of others in open standards and interoperability.

  Openness of the new WiMAX challengers

  • AT&T – One of the terms of the merger between AT&T and BellSouth last year was that AT&T had to sell off more than 50 of the 2.5-GHz wireless licenses that BellSouth owned. That was prime wireless real estate for WiMAX, and AT&T sold them to WiMAX upstart Clearwire, which now owns more U.S. spectrum for WiMAX than any other carrier besides Sprint. However, AT&T still owns 22 licenses of 2.3-GHz spectrum and is planning to use them to offer Fixed WiMAX in a variety of areas in the southern United States in 2008. Last week, AT&T also struck a deal with Aloha Partners to buy a big chunk of 700 MHz spectrum, which will be used for mobile broadband services (either WiMAX or 3G). It’s still unclear whether 700 MHz will ultimately be used for WiMAX, because it would require some adjustments to the technical standards of WiMAX. AT&T and T-Mobile are the only major U.S. carriers to support SIM cards, so AT&T is already among the more open U.S. wireless providers. However, AT&T will not be a major player in WiMAX unless the 700 MHz spectrum gets opened up for WiMAX use (which is very possible). At that point, AT&T could likely follow the Sprint path and move toward becoming a wireless ISP. AT&T already knows the ISP business because of its DSL service, and it has indicated that it would like to use WiMAX to deliver mobile data and video.

  • Nokia — Through its Nokia-Siemens partnership, Nokia is preparing to build backend WiMAX networks, as well as gearing up to build WiMAX-ready client devices. At the end of September, Nokia announced that it would integrate Intel’s WiMAX chip into its N-series Internet tablets, which will be released in mid-2008. Nokia tends to be philosophically aligned with open platforms — as can be seen in its support for Linux, Symbian, and Mozilla — so it’s reasonable to expect it to be a proponent of WiMAX as an open platform.

  • Cisco — Currently, Cisco is not a player in the WiMAX ecosystem, but there are rumors that it is planning to buy its way into WiMAX with an acquisition of Navini Networks or Alvarion. If and when it does join the WiMAX party, we should expect it to push for openness so that it has to build only one line of WiMAX network equipment.

  • Google — While Google may seem like a strange fit on this list, Google has expressed its intention to bid in the FCC’s auction of 700 MHz spectrum in the United States in February 2008. Google told that FCC that it would participate in the auction if the FCC agreed to four principle guidelines for the winner of the auction: open applications, open devices, open services, and open networks. The FCC agreed to the first two and CEO Eric Schmidt has indicated that Google will likely participate in the 700 MHz auction. If Google wins, it doesn’t seem likely that it will become a wireless service provider, but it will likely lease the spectrum to carriers under Google’s four guidelines to ensure that the spectrum itself becomes established as an open platform for wireless broadband.

  • Verizon — Verizon might appear to be another strange name on this list since it has stated that it will not be adopting WiMAX but will instead focus on upgrading its 3G network and then transitioning it to LTE, a next-generation wireless technology that will rival WiMAX. However, Verizon is expected to be a major player in the upcoming 700 MHz auction, and it has publicly ridiculed the open access guidelines touted by Google and agreed to in lesser degree by the FCC. As GigaOm editor Om Malik succinctly put it, “Verizon thinks it can outbid even Google, win the auction and basically lock out all open-access backers.” Google has since fired back at Verizon, calling into question its lobbying tactics. If Verizon comes out a winner in the 700 MHz auction, this could get really interesting, since Verizon unabashedly plans to continue operating in the walled-garden model. If Verizon wins a big chunk of 700 MHz, it could dedicate that spectrum to its closed-access 3G and LTE system and try to trump WiMAX. Alternatively, if WiMAX gains a lot of momentum in 2008, Verizon could take that big chunk of 700 MHz and build and/or buy its way into WiMAX and try to integrate some of its walled-garden tactics into a set of Verizon WiMAX services. The latter scenario isn’t as likely as the 3G/LTE path, but if WiMAX starts to become the hot new thing next year, Verizon could find itself under strong pressure to respond — and LTE is still several years away.

  Sanity check

  WiMAX was built from its foundation as an open platform and all of the current momentum is around developing it down a path of openness. It seems unlikely that any new developments will change the course of WiMAX as an open architecture. However, the upcoming 700 MHz auction, the moves of Verizon, and the issue of WiMAX over 700 MHz will all play a role in determining the level of openness that WiMAX will ultimately achieve and the extent to which it can thrive as an open wireless platform with the potential to revolutionize the mobile Internet and cellular networks.
  For more on the 700 MHz auction, read the following:

  • The 700 MHz impact (Unstrung)
  • The 700MHz Question: Will the Wireless Spectrum Auction Lead to Innovation or More of the Same? (InformIT)
  • 700 MHz Scenarios (Dailywireless.org)

  How important do you think it is that WiMAX is established as an open platform? What do you think about the prospects of WiMAX as an open wireless platform? Will the issue of openness affect any of your purchase or deployment decisions? Join the discussion.

  

• Sanity check: Will WiMAX be a 3G killer, or is it vice versa?

  Posted: Sun, 07 Oct 2007 18:58:55 +0000

  Fierce competition can bring out the best and the worst in businesses, and it also makes for great theater. In the technology world over the past three decades, we have watched commercial empires rise and fall with amazing swiftness and drama. New competitors have arisen out of nowhere and trumped established dynasties in a matter of years, as Microsoft did to outmaneuver IBM in the personal computer business, as Linux did to marginalize Sun Microsystems and Silicon Graphics in the UNIX server market, and as Google did to race past Yahoo, AOL, and Microsoft in Internet search.

  Now there’s a new technology peeking over the horizon that could cause a major shake-up in the tech industry: WiMAX, which I wrote about last week in my article “Sanity check: Is WiMAX almost here and will it unlock the next stage of the Internet?” WiMAX has the potential to create new markets, change the scope of the Internet, revolutionize the mobile phone landscape, and upend empires.

  However, although WiMAX now has a large stable of blue blood supporters in the tech industry — led by Intel and joined by Motorola, Samsung, and Sprint — and a huge cash investment from them, it also has a healthy share of doubters. Those naysayers believe that it will be a multibillion dollar flop, and that by the time it’s deployed widely enough to make a mass market challenge, the world’s existing cellular carriers will have already beat it to the punch with a fully deployed version of 3G wireless.

  The WiMAX vs. 3G cellular showdown is poised to become one of the next great market battles in the tech industry. Fortunes will be made and lost in this battle, and the user experience of the Internet will be irreversibly changed (hopefully, for the better) in the process.

  The WiMAX advantages

  Conceptually, WiMAX has been designed as an Internet access technology and not as a replacement to the existing cellular networks that have gained global scale during the past decade. But since WiMAX is built around IP and has been designed from the ground up to support strong QoS and security, WiMAX provides an excellent platform to run VoIP.

  As a result, it is natural to associate WiMAX with VoIP, which is rapidly replacing many wire-based phone lines because it makes much more efficient use of the bandwidth and lines and opens up voice to a whole new range of applications.

  That’s why WiMAX is sometimes viewed as the technology that will make the current cellular networks obsolete. It’s actually VoIP that is the disruptor. WiMAX — once it’s fully deployed — will simply provide the roaming global Internet access that will bring VoIP to the same corners of the earth that cellular towers have covered today, and WiMAX could spread that coverage even farther.

  Initially, WiMAX was compared more to Wi-Fi — except with much longer range — than it was to cellular networks. WiMAX providers are essentially ISPs that provide either Fixed WiMAX or a combination of both Mobile WiMAX (for roaming users) and Fixed WiMAX (for home or small business access, very similar to cable or DSL).

  There are several important factors that distinguish WiMAX from other wireless technologies and make it a platform that so many tech heavyweights have been willing to support:

  • IP-based network — Since WiMAX is built on IP, it natively runs existing IP-based products, services, and utilities. VoIP is one example. This also enables much easier and cheaper network monitoring and management with standard tools.
  • A flatter, simpler topology — Because it has been designed as a data network from the ground up, WiMAX has a much simpler network topology than cellular networks, which have had to add extra layers and invent new tricks to enable their technology to handle data. WiMAX takes less equipment and less time to set up than traditional cellular infrastructure or wide-scale Wi-Fi. Figure A provides a quick look at the WiMAX topology.
  • Lower CAPEX and OPEX — As a simpler architecture that uses less network equipment, WiMAX takes lower capital expenditures (CAPEX) to build networks and lower operating expenditures (OPEX) to maintain them. Naturally, this can result in lower service costs for end users. But just as critical is the fact that this enables WiMAX to scale very low for small installations and to quickly scale higher to meet large growth on demand.
  • Low-cost interface chips — Chipset leader Intel and chipmakers such as Sequens and Beceem have always thought of WiMAX as a mass market technology and so have architected WiMAX chip solutions aimed at large production and low cost. This has resulted in inexpensive network interface devices such as WiMAX modems and PC cards, but more important, it will make it easier for computer and consumer electronics makers to soon embed WiMAX chips into a lot of different kinds of devices.

  Figure A: WiMAX topology (click image to expand)
  

  Source: Navini Networks

  The 3G alternative

  No company has been a more outspoken critic of WiMAX than Ericsson, especially in 2007. That may seem strange since Ericsson is not a cellular carrier, but the company is a major seller and developer of cellular infrastructure, and an important supplier of cellular handsets through its Sony Ericsson partnership.

  

  Ericsson has played a critical role in the development of cellular data networks, including various 3G platforms, GSM, WCDMA, HSPA, and the technology that it thinks will ultimately trump WiMAX: LTE (Long-Term Evolution) wireless. Ironically, LTE is almost more similar to WiMAX than it is to existing cellular technologies and it will require an investment (and technological transformation) on the same scale as WiMAX.

  Initially, Ericsson was a member of the WiMAX Forum and a lukewarm supporter of WiMAX technology as part of the future evolution of cellular networks. But this spring, Ericsson announced its decision to close down its WiMAX development projects and shift all of its focus to LTE. Since then, Ericsson has been actively touting the fact that its current HSPA-based networks will already have comparable performance to WiMAX when WiMAX launches on a large scale in 2008. The primary reasons that Ericsson thinks it can get away with HSPA are:

  • Bandwidth — In cooperation with carriers in its home country of Sweden, Ericsson has already deployed an HSPA-based network with mobile broadband speeds of 3.6 Mbps downlink and 1 Mbps uplink. A software upgrade that is currently in progress will double that bandwidth to 7.2 Mbps down and 2 Mbps up, and the network itself will eventually have the capacity for 14.4 Mbps downloads. WiMAX will have the capacity for about 10 Mbps. However, the usable speed for mobile broadband is expected to be about 2 Mbps. An Ericsson representative who lives in Sweden told me that he currently gets an average of 2 Mbps on the HSPA network in Sweden, and said that it is so reliable that he often stays on that network, rather than switching over to Wi-Fi, when he is working on his laptop at home. Ericsson views this type of experience as indicative of what current cellular networks will do in the near future.
  • Existing infrastructure — It took a decade to build out the current global wireless infrastructure. The cellular carriers doubt that WiMAX will be able to duplicate the breadth of this network within a few years. As such, they believe that it makes more sense to simply upgrade the current infrastructure.
  • Existing relationships — Cellular carriers can leverage existing relationships with customers and business partners to make it easier to transition users to mobile broadband. That will be much less expensive than WiMAX’s task of marketing a new product and explaining what it is, what it replaces, and how it will help the user.
  • Cellular IP — Ericsson is advising cellular carriers to transform their existing infrastructure into IP-based networks using Softswitch and the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS). If cellular can turn its networks into IP networks, it could pre-empt the threat from VoIP.
  • Fixed wireless — With its current cellular infrastructure, Ericsson wants to provide the same kind of fixed services that WiMAX is touting for spreading broadband Internet to lots of new places. With a widely deployed network and new fixed broadband modems to access it, this is an easy play for cellular carriers. It’s already starting to happen in many places, including Sweden.

  While Ericsson may be the most vocal detractor of WiMAX, it isn’t alone. Verizon Wireless has also opted to sit out WiMAX and put its efforts into expanding 3G and developing LTE. Mobile chip maker Qualcomm has also balked at building WiMAX technologies and focused instead on further developing 3G cellular chips.

  Sprint, which will become the world’s largest provider of WiMAX services with its major deployments in 2008, even has some internal detractors of its WiMAX strategy. Reports surfaced last week that investors and board members at Sprint have lost confidence in CEO Gary Forsee. They are unhappy that Sprint has not expanded its cellular business as quickly as AT&T and Verizon Wireless, but primarily they have grown impatient waiting for the huge investment in WiMAX to payoff, and some of them may even be losing faith about how much of a competitive advantage it will give Sprint.

  So we have Intel, Samsung, and Sprint on the one side betting heavily on the success of WiMAX, and we have Ericsson, Verizon Wireless, and Qualcomm on the other side betting heavily against it. Even in a converged marketplace that will likely have a place for both WiMAX and 3G in the short term, there will be big winners and big losers in this battle. And even the neutral players that are playing both sides, such as AT&T, Motorola, Alcatel-Lucent, and Nortel, will be affected as well.

  Sanity check

  Figure B provides a nice comparison of cellular (3G) and WiMAX and includes Wi-Fi in the mix as well. The graph shows that the current strengths of cellular include coverage, mobility, and QoS (voice quality), but it is also expensive for data, and the performance speeds are not great in most places. Wi-Fi has great performance and is relatively inexpensive (for small, localized deployments), but it’s not very mobile, has inconsistent coverage, and has voice quality issues. WiMAX does not have the top marks in any of these five categories, but it does at least have solid capabilities in all five.

  Figure B: Comparing WiMAX, WLAN, and cellular

  

  Source: Intel and Rethink Research Associates

  Ultimately, it’s still too early to predict the winners here. Nevertheless, I think there are three important factors to watch in determining who wins and why:

  1. Encryption modules vs. SIM cards

  Starting next year, WiMAX networking chips are going to be inexpensively embedded into tons of new laptop computers, phones, and consumer electronic devices. Cellular technologies such as HSPA simply will not be able to match that scale for one simple reason: SIM cards (Subscriber Identity Modules). Devices that connect to the cellular network must have a physical SIM card. The combination of cellular network chips and SIM cards is more expensive than the WiMAX chips and not as easy to deploy and manage.

  In place of SIM cards, WiMAX uses software encryption modules that are much more configurable, flexible, and scalable. If WiMAX starts to catch on in lots of different consumer electronic devices, this will be a win for WiMAX and a strike against 3G. Of course, 3G could switch out SIM cards for a software solution, but that would likely take years to show up in the market. The other strategic option for cellular carriers could be to focus on the phone as the mobile broadband connection hub and use Bluetooth or Wireless USB for last-mile connectivity to consumer electronic devices.

  2. True performance

  While 3G cellular advocates such as Ericsson talk about and demonstrate HSPA bandwidth speeds that are equivalent to WiMAX, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the performance is the same. Because WiMAX is IP-based at the core and has a much simpler network topology, it should have better spectral efficiency and lower latency than cell networks. Spectral efficiency is the amount of data that can be transmitted over a certain amount of bandwidth. In essence, spectral efficiency is the true performance of a network link.

  The other performance issue to watch is scale. WiMAX advocates claim that the current cellular networks simply would not be able to support wide-scale mobile broadband Internet traffic. They claim that it is a wireless spectrum issue. WiMAX will have a lot more wireless spectrum to occupy, which is the equivalent of a much fatter pipe. While these factors appear to favor WiMAX, it’s important to realize that WiMAX still has not been put to the test on a large scale, while cellular providers have been managing high volume wireless connections on the their current networks for over a decade, and that gives them a major advantage in experience.

  3. Customer perception and demand

  Cellular carriers will have a much lower bar to hurdle in convincing customers that next-generation wireless services will bring the same kind of broadband experience that they have at home to their mobile phone, and by extension to their laptop and any other devices that can connect to their mobile phone via Bluetooth. Many mobile users are already using Bluetooth devices and are using their phones for messaging and basic Internet services, such as checking the weather plus a few favorite Web sites that have mobile editions. In this scenario, the 3G-powered cell phone essentially becomes a mobile equivalent of a DSL or cable modem.

  The alternative scenario in which WiMAX could trump 3G would be if WiMAX becomes the equivalent of the next generation of Internet access in the minds of consumers, in the same way that cable/DSL were in relation to dial-up. That could happen if WiMAX pulls off a well-orchestrated combination of mobile and fixed WiMAX, in which a user has one high-speed Internet connection (10 Mbps) at home or the office using a fixed modem and can then roam with mobile Internet (2 Mbps) while away from home with a laptop, phone, and/or other mobile devices — all for about the same price they are currently paying for stationary broadband. That would be a revolutionary experience.

  The other big mobile Internet battleground for 3G and WiMAX will be with mobile business users. Sprint has an established business unit dedicated to enterprises and will certainly exploit that to offer Mobile WiMAX. However, other cellular carriers also have established relationships and have more mature, more widespread networks to offer. Since enterprise are allergic to new and unproven technologies, 3G has a good opportunity to hold on to that business in the short term. WiMAX will probably have its best luck with small businesses, entrepreneurs, and independent consultants.

  Your take

  What’s your opinion of the WiMAX vs. 3G battle? What are the most important features you would like see in these next generation wireless networks? How will all of this affect your choice of ISPs and mobile carriers in the future? Join the discussion.

  

• Five reasons why the mobile Web still doesn’t work

  Posted: Tue, 02 Oct 2007 17:29:02 +0000

  Scott Karp at Publishing 2.0 has a nice synopsis of why trying to surf Web pages from a mobile phone is so frustrating. His observations are pretty consistent with my experience, although I think the iPhone’s Web browsing is pretty darn good; it just needs a faster connection than the AT&T Edge network can offer.

  Here’s the list of Scott’s five complaints:

  1. Wireless carrier networks are SLOW
  2. Public Wi-Fi access is a SCAM
  3. Sites aren’t formatted for small screens
  4. Mobile device screens are too small
  5. Advertising gets in the way

  Read the original post at Publishing 2.0.

  Also, note that there’s now a mobile version of TechRepublic that is optimized for small screens at http://m.techrepublic.com.com.

  

• TechRepublic Job Board can help you find a new job or fill an opening on your team

  Posted: Tue, 02 Oct 2007 16:36:34 +0000

  TechRepublic has launched a new Job Board where you can search job listings based on your IT skills and your geographic location. You can easily get to the Job Board by clicking the Jobs tab in the navigation bar at the top of all TechRepublic pages. Also, in the right column of some pages you’ll see a TechRepublic Featured Jobs box that provides a short listing of several featured jobs.

  The Job Board has quick searches on a variety of popular IT job roles, including:

  • Network Administrator
  • IT Manager
  • IT Support
  • Web Developer
  • CIO

  The searches provide two sets of results: Featured Jobs from TechRepublic and Featured Jobs from the Web. The Featured Jobs from TechRepublic are jobs that employers have paid to specifically target the TechRepublic audience. The Jobs from the Web come from a variety of popular job boards from across the Internet. If there are no Featured TechRepublic jobs for a specific search, you will see only the Jobs from the Web.

  If you have a position that you are currently looking to fill, you can list your job in this directory using the Post a Job form. There’s a basic flat fee ($300 for 30 days), and these jobs get listed in Featured Jobs from TechRepublic.

  What do you think about TechRepublic’s new Job Board? Does it work as expected? What other features would you like to see on the Job Board? Join the discussion.

  

• Take some of TechRepublic’s best content offline with the TechRepublic-2-Go USB drive

  Posted: Mon, 01 Oct 2007 14:54:39 +0000

  We’ve known for a long time that TechRepublic users like to download articles and compilations as PDFs to save them offline for later reading, print them, or make their own collections on various tech topics. We’ve tried to make this process a lot easier with the TechRepublic-2-Go USB Flash drive, which you can now buy through the TechRepublic Store.

  This 2-GB USB drive (shown below) features the TechRepublic logo on the front and comes with a blue lanyard to make it even more portable. The drive is loaded with more than 500 files, including the elect TechRepublic Field Manual, the IT Shop in a Box, and the Administrator’s Guide to Disaster Planning and Recovery (in case a disaster knocks you offline and this is your only resource). Plus, we’ve included more than two years of the best and most useful files from the popular TechRepublic Downloads directory.

  Even with all of this stuff loaded on the drive, you’ll still have 1.8 GB left to save other TechRepublic files, personal PDFs, documents, and files to create your own portable library, and/or to save software and tools you can use to turn this into a tech toolkit.

  Order TechRepublic-2-Go

  

  If we do another run of TechRepublic-2-Go in the future, what else do you think we should include on the USB drive? Join the discussion.

  

• Sanity check: Is WiMAX almost here and will it unlock the next stage of the Internet?

  Posted: Sat, 29 Sep 2007 03:00:15 +0000

  To cut through the haze of WiMAX buzz and hype, I went to Chicago on September 25-27 for WiMAX World 2007 to see how close WiMAX is to being widely available and to get a clear view of what the services are going to look like when they go live. Most of all, I wanted to get a sense for whether WiMAX is truly on track to revolutionize mobile Internet access and bring fast, affordable broadband Internet to new corners of the world, or if it is being hyped by overzealous expectations.

  I’m glad to report - and you can mark it down in pen - that 2008 will be the year that WiMAX arrives in full force as a new option for Internet access. In the United States, WiMAX will be available to more than 100 million people by the end of 2008, according to Sprint, and there are significant international WiMAX deployments happening in Asia, Europe, Australia, the Middle East, and South America. There are even some niche players, like Xanadoo in Texas and Wateen in Pakistan and KT Telecom in South Korea (using a related technology called WiBro), that already have live deployments in action.

  But what impressed me the most at WiMAX World was the huge vendor ecosystem that has coalesced around WiMAX. There were more exhibitors (350) at WiMAX World 2007 than there were at LinuxWorld 2007 (200) last month in San Francisco. The leading players in the WiMAX movement have taken a very open, standards-based, interoperable approach to the technology, and the response has been widespread participation from industry heavyweights plus a plethora of startups with solutions to help make WiMAX work or make it better.

  The WiMAX leaders

  While many players large and small exist in the WiMAX ecosystem, there are several leaders you should know if you want to understand the progress of WiMAX and who is driving it:

  • Sprint - The most prominent name in WiMAX in the United States is Sprint because it will be the first big national carrier to come to market with a WiMAX product. Sprint has branded its product Xohm and is acting much more like an ISP and an IT company than a telecom carrier in its approach to bringing WiMAX to market.
  • Intel - The world’s leading chip-maker was the first IT giant to put its weight behind WiMAX and has been an influential factor ever since, as a member of the WiMAX Forum. In mid-2008, Intel will start embedding dual WiMAX/Wi-Fi chips (codenamed “Echo Peak”) into its Centrino laptops. Intel has come to believe that establishing WiMAX Internet access is the key to creating demand for low-cost computers in emerging markets throughout the world.
  • Motorola - Motorola is both building out the network infrastructure to run WiMAX and producing many of the end-user client products that connect to WiMAX networks, from handsets to WiMAX broadband modems to smartphones and potentially even new mobile Internet devices. Motorola is building Sprint’s WiMAX network in Chicago.
  • Samsung -Like Motorola, Samsung wants to build both WiMAX networks and some end-user WiMAX devices. Samsung is building the Sprint networks in the northeast corridor of the United States, including Washington D.C, New York, and Boston, and has already built the South Korean network, which is based on the related WiBro technology and has been running since 2006.
  • Alcatel-Lucent - These venerable network specialists have been into WiMAX since early 2005, and they are building WiMAX networks for multiple carriers in Latin America and a number of other carriers sprinkled throughout the globe.
  • Clearwire - This upstart, founded by cellular pioneer Craig McCaw, is poised to become a key national WiMAX provider in the United States, with its WiMAX rollouts in 2008. Clearwire, which has gotten significant investments from Intel and Motorola, holds more wireless spectrum for WiMAX in the U.S. than anyone other than Sprint and has signed a WiMAX roaming agreement with Sprint so that users can traverse both networks. In 2008, Clearwire will likely start with small and mid-size cities, while Sprint will focus on the big metros.

  The two types of WiMAX

  It’s important to understand that there are two types of WiMAX:

  1. Fixed WiMAX

  This version of WiMAX is essentially the same as DSL or cable broadband Internet, except that there’s a WiMAX modem to connect to your PC or router instead of a DSL or cable modem. Fixed WiMAX is sometimes referred to as 802.16d (or 802.16-2004) because that was the standard that originally defined it; however, it has since transcended that standard. The biggest advantage that Fixed WiMAX brings to the Internet landscape is that it is simpler, quicker, and more cost-effective to put up WiMAX towers and antennas (once you have the wireless frequency reserved) than it is to lay wire for DSL or cable lines. Thus, Fixed WiMAX has the potential to spread Internet access to a lot of new places that don’t currently have affordable or effective broadband connections.

  2. Mobile WiMAX

  This is sometimes referred to as 802.16e or 802.16e-2005 or just WiMAX “e.” This is the latest version of the WiMAX standard, and it’s the one that the vast majority of companies are currently focused on implementing. This version allows for roaming (”handoff”) between WiMAX base stations and so it truly unleashes users for a mobile Internet experience. This is the standard that both Sprint and Clearwire are using for the WiMAX networks they are deploying in 2008. The other significant feature of 802.16e is that it is equally as effective for providing Fixed Wireless as 802.16d.

  Is this the next stage?

  As you’ve probably realized, Mobile 802.16e is the technology that has the potential to change the scope of the Internet. Sprint and Clearwire are planning to roll out 802.16e to provide both Fixed and Mobile WiMAX, enabling users to have Fixed WiMAX in their home or small business and to use Mobile WiMAX with a laptop, smartphone, or mobile Internet device when they are on the move — all with one broadband account. Sprint Business will also be using the 802.16e deployments to offer mobile Internet to enterprises for their road warriors and Fixed WiMAX for their remote offices.

  Thus, the primary benefit of WiMAX is to fill in the gaps of the Internet — the gaps of coverage in rural and remote areas and developing countries where it has been economically unfeasible to bring inexpensive broadband, and the gaps in coverage that mobile users have to deal with when they are away from their office, home, or Wi-Fi hotspot. The gaps won’t all be filled in 2008. It will take years for this build-out to happen, but we’ll start to see some of the gaps closing next year.

  A secondary benefit of WiMAX will be the ability to bring Internet connectivity to a lot more devices, including some that haven’t even been conceived yet because of the stationary nature of today’s Internet. Intel and others are already ramping up mass production of WiMAX chips so that they can be inexpensively embedded in lots of different devices and equipment, including cars, digital cameras, traffic lights, TVs, surveillance cameras, and medical equipment — to cite just a few potential examples.

  With lots of different devices connecting via WiMAX and the potential for roaming from fixed connections at work and home to mobile broadband on the move, Sprint has wisely decided to break out of a cellular model in pricing its WiMAX solution.

  Although all of the details weren’t released, during WiMAX World 2007, Sprint CTO Barry West stated that Sprint’s WiMAX would be focused on affordability and meeting the varying needs of users. West said that there would not be contracts like the ones in the cellular business, but that there would be subscriptions in which the user would get cost savings with longer terms. There is also a widespread — albeit unconfirmed — expectation that this will include pay-as-you-go and prepaid options as well.

  WiMAX is like a young athlete whose training has nearly come to an end and now it’s time to step out on the field and compete with the big boys. WiMAX has a powerful ecosystem, key support from important players in the technology industry, and the potential to solve an important set of problems that have been elusive and difficult to resolve up until now.

  Although WiMAX will clearly jump into the game in 2008, its success as catalyst for the next stage of the Internet will depend upon several factors:

  1. Will the Sprint and Clearwire deployments roll out on schedule? Will other small carriers roll out WiMAX quickly in local markets? Will the international deployments happen on time?
  2. Will Mobile WiMAX achieve average speeds of 2-4 Mbps and will the user experience be consistent and satisfying?
  3. Will any unforeseen technical challenges arise that will slow down the deployments or compromise the quality of the connections?

  If WiMAX deploys on schedule and with the kind of mobility, performance, and affordability that vendors are promising, it will almost certainly unleash a new era of possibilities and innovation in communications and technology. There’s a lot of optimism from key industry leaders that we are on the cusp of a major breakthrough, but WiMAX still has to prove it in the field in 2008.

  Next week, we will delve into the standards-based technology that drives WiMAX and look at whether it truly has advantages over 3G cellular, which is gearing up to compete with WiMAX for mobile Internet access. In two weeks, we will wrap up this three-part series with a look at whether WiMAX can remain an open platform and avoid being hijacked by a few big vendors.

  What kind of impact could WiMAX have in your organization? What kind of impact could it have on your personal Internet experience? Join the discussion.

  For more on the vendors and gadgets from WiMAX World 2007, take a look at my photo gallery:

  

  

• Sanity check: The four trends that will change PCs and computing over the next two years

  Posted: Fri, 21 Sep 2007 22:34:06 +0000

  If there’s one thing you can count on from the annual Intel Developer Forum, it’s that you won’t be bombarded with the kind of pipe dreams and vaporware you get at most of the events that cover “emerging technologies.” In the 10 years since IDF began in 1997, the conference has been a regular harbinger of what’s to come in computing, from the emergence of Wi-Fi to hyper-threading and dual-core processors.

  The leading trends at the Intel Developer Forum regularly become mainstream within two years because Intel has usually been very good at picking winners and putting its resources behind the right technologies.

  At IDF 2007 on September 18-20 in San Francisco, I spotted four important trends that IT professionals should keep an eye on over the next two years.

  4. Cleaner and greener technology

  A ton of momentum and collective will is building around environmentally conscious “green” technologies, from energy-sipping CPU chips to cleaner power to technology recycling programs. Large companies like Hewlett-Packard are trying to educate users and make it easier to recycle equipment. Startups like fuel cell maker Medis are producing low-cost power packs to give extra hours of battery life to portable devices, and doing it in a way that does not damage the environment even if the fuel cells — which are recyclable — are thrown in landfills.

  So the PCs and devices are consuming less power, battery power is getting longer and more versatile, and a lot of tech manufacturers are working toward building equipment with less-toxic, more recyclable materials.

  

  There was a whole section of the Technology Showcase at IDF 2007 dedicated to eco-friendly technologies.

  3. The wire-free desk (and living room)

  Just as we’ve heard about the “paperless office” for years but have only slowly made progress toward it, the idea of a wire-free desk enabled by near field communications (NFC) and personal area network (PAN) technologies has been swirling around for years but with only a few devices, such as wireless keyboard/mouse and Bluetooth headsets, going mainstream. With the advent of Certified Wireless USB and Bluetooth 2.1, over the next 12-24 months a lot more devices are going to cut the cords, including LCD displays, laptop docking stations, printers, digital cameras, and much more.

  These short-range wireless technologies will be assisted by Universal Plug ‘n Play (UPnP) to make the devices much easier to recognize and configure than the current Bluetooth devices, which can be a major headache for the average user.

  2. The incredible shrinking PC

  David Perlmutter, senior vice president and general manager of Intel’s Mobility Group, predicted that by 2009, laptops will pass desktops in revenue. Not surprisingly, some of the hottest devices at IDF were small form factor desktops, ultra-mobile notebooks, and phones and pocket devices that are as powerful as the PCs that people were buying five years ago. It’s ironic that PCs and notebooks are shrinking as desktop displays get larger, but that’s another story.

  There’s a new generation of powerful small form factor devices aimed at business professionals on the run. Nearly all of the big PC makers have ultra-portable laptops powered by Intel’s dual core Centrino chips, which are as fast or faster than the pre-dual core CPUs that ran the previous generation of desktops.

  However, there’s also a new variety of small, low-cost laptop PCs aimed at emerging markets. The One Laptop per Child machine is the most well-known, but there’s also the ASUS Eee PC and Intel’s Classmate PC. I tried out the Eee PC and Classmate PC at IDF and they are both quite useful, even if they are underpowered compared to today’s business laptops.

  

  Intel CEO Paul Otellini shows off the ASUS Eee PC (right) and Intel Classmate PC (left) at IDF 2007.

  All three of these will cost around $200 or less. The Eee PC, which runs Linux, could even be appealing to some business users and IT professionals as a functional machine for doing a few simple tasks in a remote or highly mobile environment. The arrival of these machines could help drive down the cost of low-end laptops in general. Plus, there could conceivably be high-end smartphones that are more powerful and versatile than some of these low-end laptops. One thing is clear: The days of the big, ultra-powerful tower are definitely over, unless you are a gamer or a graphics professional.

  1. Broadband everywhere

  WiMAX is another technology that has been promised for years, but with little visible progress and very few real world examples to show for all of the hype. However, as developments over the next 12 months will show, there has been a lot going on behind the scenes to make WiMAX the next great broadband technology, at the very least — and potentially the next great leap in computing, if it can truly spread broadband everywhere and connect new types of devices and technologies that haven’t even been conceived of yet.

  In talking about WiMAX at IDF, Intel’s Otellini said, “We are on the cusp of a new global network.”

  Sprint’s Xohm WiMAX service will officially launch in Chicago, Baltimore, and Washington D.C. before the end of 2007, and will then spread to a variety of other U.S. metropolitan areas in 2008. Clearwire, which has partnered with Sprint for WiMAX roaming, will launch its WiMAX service in the U.S. in 2008, most likely in many of the smaller metro markets. There’s also a entire ecosystem of vendors that are planning WiMAX launches in Asia, Europe, and South America over the next 12-24 months. Plus, Intel is going to start embedding dual-mode WiMAX/Wi-Fi cards in Centrino laptops in 2008.

  However, while WiMAX starts spreading over the next few months, 3G HSPA technology — which already has a strong foundation in place in the cellular networks across the globe — is attempting to beat WiMAX to the punch with roaming wireless cards and fixed wireless modems that can bring broadband to rural areas and other places with little or no broadband options.

  Whether WiMAX or 3G cellular ultimately wins, or they simply coexist, the future of broadband covering the far-flung corners of the earth and connecting devices of all sizes looks like a possibility that is finally coming to life.

  Check out my photo gallery from Intel Developer Forum 2007 for photos of these technologies and more.

  

  Intel and its PC partners had the latest (and upcoming) models on display at IDF 2007.

  Which of the four technologies listed above are you most interested in following over the next two years? Which ones could potentially have the biggest impact on your organization? Join the discussion.

  

• 10 great ways to hack and trick-out your USB flash drive

  Posted: Wed, 19 Sep 2007 16:53:51 +0000

  LifeHacker has a nice piece called LifeHacker Top 10: USB thumb drive tricks. Some of the instructions could be a little better, and they should include some more screenshots, but this is definitely worth a look.

  The tricks are:

  1. Boot an operating system
  2. Encrypt your drive
  3. Make a portable MP3 player
  4. Speed up or lock down Windows Vista
  5. Run a logoff message to unplug the drive
  6. Quick launch your workspace
  7. Assemble a PC repair kit
  8. Put on the DemocraKey “computer condom”
  9. Sync your data
  10. Assign custom icons

  What are some other cool tricks you can do with a USB flash drive? Join the discussion.

  

• Palm introduces new Treo design and consumer product line with Treo 500v

  Posted: Wed, 19 Sep 2007 16:36:51 +0000

  Palm has introduced the new Treo 500v in Europe in partnership with Vodaphone. The new smartphone (right) is thinner and smaller than previous Treos and it does not have the bulky antenna of the widespread Treo 600, 650, and 700 models.

  The phone is based on Windows Mobile 6 Standard Edition and it features a scroll wheel but no touch screen (a first for the Treo line). Some of the other significant features include:

  • 3G GSM/UMTS connectivity
  • 320 x 240 high resolution display
  • 150 MHz processor
  • 256 MB memory (150 MB for user storage)
  • 2 megapixel camera
  • 4.5 hours of talktime and 10 hours of standby

  This phone is being priced to sell at around U.S. $100 and it is being aimed primarily at consumers and prosumers.

  “The Treo 500v is priced to enable a broader audience to experience the Internet and e-mail on the go,” said John Hartnett, Palm’s senior vice president of global markets.

  Essentially, the 500v is a successor to the Treo 680, the original consumer Treo. There’s no indication of when it will be available on U.S. mobile carriers.

  The fact that Palm named it the 500v is significant since the number is so much lower than the 755 of the latest business model. This indicates that Palm plans to have a consumer tier of devices that is separate from its business tier.

  The other significant thing about the 500v is the new design, which is likely to show up in future business products, but hopefully with a touch screen.

  Additional reading

  • Palm Launches Treo 500v on Windows Mobile 6 for Vodafone Customers (Palm press release)
  • Treo 500v officially announced on Vodafone (MyTreo.net)
  • Palm tries to bounce back with Treo 500v (San Francisco Chronicle)
  • Palm Treo 500V Launches In London (Digital Lifestyles)
  • Palm Centro smartphone due this fall (Palm Infocenter)

  

• Sanity check: The six consumer technologies that are destroying traditional IT

  Posted: Fri, 14 Sep 2007 19:48:13 +0000

  Earlier this year, the researchers at the Gartner Group published a series of reports on the invasion of consumer technologies into the enterprise and the challenges that this phenomenon has created for IT departments. Gartner has wrapped all of that research into a special report called Consumerization: The IT Civil War. If this really is a war, I think it’s fair to say that IT is losing.

  Many users are circumventing IT by using widely available technologies such as Yahoo Messenger, Gmail, USB drives, and BlackBerry phones to help them accomplish their tasks at work. The practice is so common that The Wall Street Journal has even published an entire article aimed at helping business users circumvent their own IT departments. I wrote a diatribe about how irresponsible it was for WSJ to publish that article, but that does not diminish the fact that this is happening everywhere and IT has become virtually powerless to stop it.

  “It’s almost become a sport for users to vilify IT.”
  – Jeff Comport

  Gartner Analyst Jeff Comport, said, “There’s a reason people are trying to use this kind of technology and very often it’s to do their jobs better… We have IT very often coming from a world of budgets, controls, and projects, and they have spent their lives keeping this kind of stuff out.” As a result, “It’s almost become a sport for users to vilify IT,” said Comport.

  Let’s take a look at the six consumer technologies that are causing IT the most trouble and then consider what IT can do to turn around a situation that is quickly going from bad to worse in many places.

  6. Instant messaging software

  Whether it is Yahoo Messenger, Windows Live Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger, Skype, Google Talk, or a variety of other IM clients, the fact is that instant messaging has spread to the point that as many as 20% of business users or more are now running it at work. Those are U.S. stats. The percentage is higher in Asia and far higher among younger workers everywhere.

  Users typically install the software themselves, often against IT policy. Most of the IM clients send data unencrypted so even two workers in the same company and on the same network can end up sending corporate secrets out onto the Internet for any hacker to sniff. There’s also the issue of IM file transfers that can introduce files that have not been scanned by antivirus software.

  However, IM can also be a good thing. It can relieve e-mail inboxes from worthless chatter and it can help users quickly locate colleagues to solve timely problems. And there are enterprise options from Skype, Microsoft, and others that are making IM much easier for IT to regulate and standardize.

  5. Personal smartphones

  Now that BlackBerry phones, Palm Treos, and Windows-based phones are priced as low as $200 by many of the big cellular carriers, lots of users who don’t have a spiffy company smartphone are just going out and buying one of their own. Many of them have figured out how to forward their business e-mail to their personal smartphones, which opens up a ton of privacy, regulatory, and security issues.

  There are secure ways for IT departments to handle this. Turning a blind eye or trying to block it are not valid options.

  4. BitTorrent and P2P

  Transferring big files is very difficult for most users. E-mail policies usually restrict it. FTP is too slow and often too difficult to configure (and sometimes even blocked by firewalls). IM clients are clunky and often fail at file transfers (usually blocked by firewalls). That’s why some users will turn to P2P programs such as BitTorrent, because they are much more effective. Unfortunately, these programs can also have a lot baggage since they are regularly used for hosting and transferring illegal music and video files.

  That doesn’t mean IT should necessarily abandon P2P software altogether. It can often prove extremely useful and efficient. For example, Collanos software can be used for sharing and collaborating on documents between various users in a team or workgroup.

  3. Web mail with GB of storage

  Another method that users often employ to transfer large company files is with a consumer e-mail account, such as Gmail, Yahoo Mail, and Hotmail, which all have much larger storage capacity and allow larger file attachments than most corporate mail accounts. The problem is that not only are these systems far less secure than corporate mail servers, but many of them thoroughly index messages and files and so sensitive corporate data transfered through these mail systems can get spread throughout lots of different servers and search indexes.

  New Windows storage technologies that do not save multiple copies of the same file can help IT deal with the e-mail storage issue and allow IT administrators to expand storage limits for users. There are also new Exchange plug-ins, such as Mimosa, that offload all attachments from messages and store them separately to streamline inboxes and allow IT to increase quotas.

  2. Rogue wireless access points

  It’s a wireless world in home networking now. Users who see how easy it is to connect a router to their DSL or cable modem and roam the house wonder why they can’t just do the same thing when they take their laptop from their cubicle to the conference room. If the company doesn’t offer wireless LAN access in their office, many of them just get sub-$100 wireless access points, plug into their Ethernet jack at work, and start roaming the building.

  Of course, if their desk is at the window next to the parking lot, they don’t realize that they just provided anyone who drives up with a free Internet connection and easy access to the corporate network.

  IT departments can follow best practices (see TechRepublic’s ultimate guide to enterprise wireless LAN security) to establish their own secure wireless LAN, or they can use products like Xirrus to simplify secure wireless deployments. They can also educate users and use intrusion prevention software to scan for rogue access points.

  1. USB flash drives

  Portable storage is nothing new. Twenty years ago, users were carrying around floppy discs full of files. However, the size of those old floppy discs limited the amount of data that users could take out of the company. Today, with 4-GB USB flash drives costing $40 or less (and flash drives as large as 64 GB now on the market), users can copy all of their My Documents files to a flash drive and walk out the door with them. Or a user could copy a huge chunk of a file server and walk out with it on an unencrypted USB drive.

  Users need to be able to easily transport their files in order to work from home or on the road, transfer documents to partners, etc. IT has to find ways to make it simple for users to do this while also protecting sensitive corporate data. For example, an IT department could educate users about flash drive security, provide encryption software for those who need to use flash drives, or simply provide company-sanctioned flash drives that are preconfigured with encryption and other security standards. The cost of the flash drives would be much cheaper than the legal fees and/or fines of dealing with customer data that slipped into the wrong hands.

  What will come of all this?

  Gartner Analyst Stephen Prentice said, “The critical thing to understand is that your employees are not doing any of these things … to be awkward. They’re not doing it because they’re trying to break security. They’re simply trying to get their job done… The approach has be to not go in there and stop them from doing it. Go in there and find what constraint have you put in their way that’s forcing them to do something that is out of your control, and then fix your problem. If you gave people the option of using an in-house, secure, controlled environment that meets all of their needs, they simply aren’t going to have the need to go outside. If you fail to give them that — if you give them restrictions that are unreasonable or stop them doing their job effectively — then they will find another way.”

  Gartner Fellow David Mitchell Smith added, “If rogue users start to see some flexibility on the part of the IT department — some genuine interest in wanting to provide what they need — they may be more open to go to them first and say ‘Can you help us provide this,’ as opposed to just going out and doing it. [They could] be part of the solution, instead of part of the problem. But long term, there’s this unstoppable force which is demographics. New people are coming into the workforce, in IT and in non-IT functions, and they are becoming more open-minded and having more and more of an impact. Over time it’s pretty inevitable that the trend is moving toward the more open way of doing things. It’s just a matter of how long it takes and how well it fits into the culture of each organization.”

  Ultimately, this “civil war” is merely a sign of two larger problems that IT must address:

  1.) There are lot of IT departments that have policies and attitudes that are stuck in a time warp. The procedures that allowed IT to deploy important technologies while protecting users from themselves are no longer valid in a world where individual users often have newer and more advanced technologies in their homes than the IT department has in the office. IT is now entering into more of partnership with users, and policies and attitudes need to reflect that.

  2.) There’s a general disconnect and lack of constructive communications between many IT departments and their users. IT departments need to view themselves as customer service organizations, with their users being their primary customers. IT departments have got to lose their paternalistic approach to users and focus their efforts around serving users and enabling them to become more productive.

Will WiMAX be a 3G killer, or is it vice versa?

Fierce competition can bring out the best and the worst in businesses, and it also makes for great theater. In the technology world over the past three decades, we have watched commercial empires rise and fall with amazing swiftness and drama. New competitors have arisen out of nowhere and trumped established dynasties in a matter of years, as Microsoft did to outmaneuver IBM in the personal computer business, as Linux did to marginalize Sun Microsystems and Silicon Graphics in the UNIX server market, and Google did to race past Yahoo, AOL, and Microsoft in Internet search.

Now there’s a new technology peeking over the horizon that could cause a major shake-up in the tech industry: WiMAX, which I wrote about last week in my article “Sanity check: Is WiMAX almost here and will it unlock the next stage of the Internet?” WiMAX has the potential to create new markets, change the scope of the Internet, revolutionize the mobile phone landscape, and upend empires.

However, although WiMAX now has a large stable of blue blood supporters in the tech industry — led by Intel and joined by Motorola, Samsung, and Sprint — and a huge cash investment from them, it also has a healthy share of doubters. Those naysayers believe that it will be a multi-billion dollar flop, and that by the time it’s widely deployed enough to make a mass market challenge, the world’s existing cellular carriers will have already beat it to the punch with a fully-deployed version of 3G wireless.

The WiMAX vs. 3G cellular showdown is poised to become one of the next great market battles in the tech industry. Fortunes will be made and lost in this battle and the user experience of the Internet will be irreversibly changed (hopefully, for the better) in the process.

The WiMAX advantages

Conceptually, WiMAX has been designed as an Internet access technology and not as a replacement to the existing cellular networks that have gained global scale during the past decade. But, since WiMAX is built around IP and has been designed from the ground up to support strong QoS and security, WiMAX provides an excellent platform to run VoIP.

As a result, it is natural to associate WiMAX with VoIP, which is rapidly replacing many wire-based phone lines because it makes much more efficient use of the bandwidth and lines and opens up voice to a whole new range of applications.

Thus, that’s why WiMAX is sometimes viewed as the technology that will make the current cellular networks obsolete. It’s actually VoIP that is the disruptor. WiMAX — once it’s fully deployed — will simply provide the roaming global Internet access that will bring VoIP to the same corners of the earth that cellular towers have covered today, and WiMAX could spread that coverage even further.

Initially, WiMAX was compared more to Wi-Fi — except with much longer range — than it was to cellular networks. WiMAX providers are essentially ISPs that provide either Fixed WiMAX or a combination of both Mobile WiMAX (for roaming users) and Fixed WiMAX (for home or small business access, very similar to cable or DSL).

There are several important factors that distinguish WiMAX from other wireless technologies and make it a platform that so many tech heavyweights have been willing to support:

• IP-based network - Since WiMAX is built on IP, it natively runs existing IP-based products, services, and utilities. VoIP is one example. This also enables much easier and cheaper network monitoring and management with standard tools.
• A flatter, simpler topology - Because it has been designed as a data network from the ground up, WiMAX has a much simpler network topology than cellular networks, which have had to add extra layers and invent new tricks to enable their technology to handle data. WiMAX takes less equipment and less time to set up than traditional cellular infrastructure or wide-scale Wi-Fi. Figure A provides a quick look at the WiMAX topology.
• Lower CAPEX and OPEX - As a simpler architecture that uses less network equipment, WiMAX takes lower capital expenditures (CAPEX) to build networks and lower operating expenditures (OPEX) to maintain them. Naturally, this can result in lower service costs for end users. But just as critical is the fact that this enables WiMAX to scale very low for small installations and to quickly scale higher to meet large growth in demand.
• Low-cost interface chips - Chipset leader Intel and chipmakers such as Sequens and Beceem have always thought of WiMAX as a mass market technology and so have architected WiMAX chip solutions aimed at large production and low cost. This has resulted in inexpensive network interface devices such as WiMAX modems and PC cards, but more importantly, it will make it easier for computer and consumer electronics makers to soon embed WiMAX chips into a lot of different kinds of devices.

Figure A: WiMAX topology (click image to expand)

Source: Navini Networks

The 3G alternative

No company has been a more outspoken critic of WiMAX than Ericsson, especially in 2007. That may seem strange since Ericsson is not a cellular carrier, but the company is a major seller and developer of cellular infrastructure, and an important supplier of cellular handsets through its Sony Ericsson partnership.

Ericsson has played a critical role in the development of cellular data networks, including various 3G platforms, GSM, WCDMA, HSPA, and the technology that it thinks will ultimately trump WiMAX: LTE (Long-Term Evolution) wireless. Ironically, LTE is almost more similar to WiMAX than it is to existing cellular technologies and it will require an investment (and technological transformation) on the same scale as WiMAX.

Initially, Ericsson was a member of the WiMAX Forum and a lukewarm supporter of WiMAX technology as part of the future evolution of cellular networks. But this spring Ericsson announced its decision to close down its WiMAX development projects and shift all of its focus to LTE. Since then, Ericsson has been actively touting the fact that its current HSPA-based networks will already have comparable performance to WiMAX when WiMAX launches on a large scale in 2008. The primary reasons that Ericsson thinks it can get away with HSPA are:

• Bandwidth - In cooperation with carriers in its home country of Sweden, Ericsson has already deployed an HSPA-based network with mobile broadband speeds of 3.6 Mbps downlink and 1 Mbps uplink. A software upgrade that is currently in progress will double that bandwidth to 7.2 Mbps down and 2 Mbps up, and the network itself will eventually have the capacity for 14.4 Mbps downloads. WiMAX will have the capacity for about 10 Mbps. However, the usable speed for mobile broadband is expected to be about 2 Mbps. An Ericsson representative who lives in Sweden told me that he currently gets an average of 2 Mbps on the HSPA network in Sweden, and said that it is so reliable that he often stays on that network, rather than switching over to Wi-Fi, when he is working on his laptop at home. Ericsson views this type of experience as indicative of what current cellular networks will do in the near future.
• Existing infrastructure - It took a decade to build out the current global wireless infrastructure. The cellular carriers doubt that WiMAX will be able to duplicate the breadth of this network within a few years. As such, they believe that it makes more sense to simply upgrade the current infrastructure.
• Existing relationships - Cellular carriers can leverage existing relationships with customers and business partners to make it much easier to transition users to mobile broadband. That will be much less expensive than WiMAX’s task of marketing a new product and explaining what it is, what it replaces, and how it will help the user.
• Cellular IP - Ericsson is advising cellular carriers to transform their existing infrastructure into IP-based networks using Softswitch and the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS). If cellular can turn its networks into IP networks then it could pre-empt the threat from VoIP.
• Fixed wireless - With its current cellular infrastructure, Ericsson wants to provide the same kind of fixed services that WiMAX is touting for spreading broadband Internet to lots of new places. With a widely deployed network and new fixed broadband modems to access it, this is an easy play for cellular carriers. It’s already starting to happen in many places, including Sweden.

While Ericsson may be the most vocal detractor of WiMAX, it isn’t alone. Verizon Wireless has also opted to sit out WiMAX and put its efforts into expanding 3G and developing LTE. Mobile chip maker Qualcomm has also balked at building WiMAX technologies and focused instead on further developing 3G cellular chips.

Sprint, which will become the world’s largest provider of WiMAX services with its major deployments in 2008, even has some internal detractors of its WiMAX strategy. Reports surfaced last week that investors and board members at Sprint have lost confidence in CEO Gary Forsee. They are unhappy that Sprint has not expanded its cellular business as quickly as AT&T and Verizon Wireless, but primarily they have grown impatient waiting for the huge investment in WiMAX to payoff, and some of them may even be losing faith about how much of a competitive advantage it will give Sprint.

So we have Intel, Samsung, and Sprint on the one side betting heavily on the success of WiMAX, and we have Ericsson, Verizon Wireless, and Qualcomm on the other side betting heavily against it. Even in a converged marketplace that will likely have a place for both WiMAX and 3G in the short term, there will be big winners and big losers in this battle. And even the neutral players that are playing both sides, such as AT&T, Motorola, Alcatel-Lucent, and Nortel, will be affected as well.

Sanity check

Figure B provides a nice comparison of cellular (3G) and WiMAX, and includes Wi-Fi in the mix as well. The graph shows that the current strengths of cellular include coverage, mobility, and QoS (voice quality), but it is also expensive for data and the performance speeds are not great in most places. Wi-Fi has great performance and is relatively inexpensive (for small, localized deployments), but it’s not very mobile, has inconsistent coverage, and has voice quality issues. WiMAX does not have the top marks in any of these five categories, but it does at least have solid capabilities in all five.Figure B: Comparing WiMAX, WLAN, and cellular

Source: Intel and Rethink Research Associates

Ultimately, it’s still too early to predict the winners here. Nevertheless, I think there are three important factors to watch in determining who wins and why:

1. Encryption modules vs. SIM cards

Starting next year, WiMAX networking chips are going to be inexpensively embedded into tons of new laptop computers, phones, and consumer electronic devices. Cellular technologies such as HSPA simply will not be able to match that scale for one simple reason: SIM cards (Subscriber Identity Modules). Devices that connect to the cellular network must have a physical SIM card. The combination of cellular network chips and SIM cards are more expensive than the WiMAX chips and simply not as easy to deploy and manage.

In place of SIM cards, WiMAX uses software encryption modules that are much more configurable, flexible, and scalable. If WiMAX starts to catch on in lots of different consumer electronic devices, then this will be a win for WiMAX and a strike against 3G. Of course, 3G could change switch out SIM cards for a software solution, but that would likely take years to show up in the market. The other strategic option for cellular carriers could be to focus on the phone as the mobile broadband connection hub and use Bluetooth or Wireless USB for last-mile connectivity to consumer electronic devices.

2. True performance

While 3G cellular advocates such as Ericsson talk about and demonstrate HSPA bandwidth speeds that are equivalent to WiMAX, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the performance is the same. Because WiMAX is IP-based at the core and has a much simpler network topology, it should have better spectral efficiency and lower latency than cell networks. Spectral efficiency is the amount of data that can be transmitted over a certain amount of bandwidth. In essence, spectral efficiency is the true performance of a network link.

The other performance issue to watch is scale. WiMAX advocates claim that the current cellular networks simply would not be able to support wide-scale mobile broadband Internet traffic. They claim that it is a wireless spectrum issue. WiMAX will simply have a lot more wireless spectrum to occupy, which is the equivalent of a much fatter pipe. While these factors appear to favor WiMAX, it’s important to realize that WiMAX still has not been put to the test on a large scale, while cellular providers have been managing high volume wireless connections on the their current networks for over a decade, and that gives them a major advantage in experience.

3. Customer perception and demand

Cellular carriers will have a much lower bar to hurdle in convincing customers that next-generation wireless services will bring the same kind of broadband experience that they have at home to their mobile phone, and by extension to their laptop and any other devices that can connect to their mobile phone via Bluetooth. Many mobile users are already using Bluetooth devices and are using their phones for messaging and basic Internet services such as checking the weather plus a few favorite Web sites that have mobile editions. In this scenario, the 3G-powered cell phone essentially becomes a mobile equivalent of a DSL or Cable modem.

The alternative scenario in which WiMAX could trump 3G would be if WiMAX becomes the equivalent of the next generation of Internet access in the minds of consumers, in the same way that Cable/DSL were in relation to dial-up. That could happen if WiMAX pulls off a well-orchestrated combination of mobile and fixed WiMAX in which a user has one high-speed Internet connection (10 Mbps) at home or the office using a fixed modem and can then roam with mobile Internet (2 Mbps) while away from home with a laptop, phone, and/or other mobile devices — all for about the same price as they are currently paying for stationary broadband. That would be a revolutionary experience.

The other big mobile Internet battleground for 3G and WiMAX will be with mobile business users. Sprint has an established business unit dedicated to enterprises and will certainly exploit that to offer Mobile WiMAX. However, other cellular carriers also have established relationships and have more mature, more widespread networks to offer. Since enterprise are allergic to new and unproven technologies, 3G has a good opportunity to hold on to that business in the short term. WiMAX will probably have its best luck with small businesses, entrepreneurs, and independent consultants.