What are software patents good for? NPR’s “This American Life” explained nicely the
theory behind the software patent business.
A more hands-on approach comes from Sanjay Jha, CEO of Motorola Mobility. After hinting that Motorola could use its bazillion mobile patents to tax some of its Android competitors, Google defended its Android franchise by buying
the whole of Motorola Mobility.
Popkom 2004. And Reuters asked the question: Is the mobile phone the next iPod Killer? Some analysts believe the mobile phone with hard disc capacity could revolutionize the MP3 player market just as the camera phone did for the photography world. “There’s no reason to think we won’t have a five-gigabyte hard drive on the market next year,” said Hubert Gertis, a technology analyst for Berlin-based consultancy gertis.media.
Back then, (Giga)Om Malik begged to differ. I just don’t buy “phone as an IPod Killer†argument. OK. Here are the specs and here’s Apple’s iPod killer in action.
See, told you so. Almost. (And could somebody please delete the last paragraph of this piece?)
Anyway. The iPod killer to be (formerly known as iPhone) is actually a video iPod you can shake and talk to. The first thing I thought: how can they build it? Seems like, designing and manufacturing mobile phones isn’t rocket science anymore. Seems like the hardware part in electronics is already a commodity. So they won’t build it but outsource it (just remembering my crappy Treo: Great UI, sloppy manufacturing. So commodity might be a but harsh).
But why’s everybody crazy about it? It’s not just the touchy-feely haptics and the supermodel looks. How about a sexy user interface. Look at the video, again. Compared to this, any Windows smartphone supersoftware looks like a second runner in yesteryears pug ugly contest (Treos refereed, the Nokia family made up the audience. And of course, Sony Ericsson gets the honorary village idiot award for implementing an email client which makes it utterly impossible to delete any message you receive).
gert.is 