MIT/Stanford VLAB: Gadget Envy: "Which one can't you live without?"

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Mark Laubach <mark () broadbandphysics com>
Date: Wed, 16 Apr 2003 11:36:00 -0700
To: farber () cis upenn edu
Subject: MIT/Stanford VLAB: Gadget Envy: "Which one can't you live without?"

Dave,

I attended the MIT/Stanford VLAB last night (http://www.vlab.org) to hear
Stewart Alsop (NEA)moderate a Speaker (Danny Shader, CEO Good Technology)
and Panelists Brian Bogosian (CEO, Visto), Barry James Folsom (CEO, Laszlo
Systems), and Erwin Martinez (CIO, Silicon Valley Bank).

Well executed, very entertaining, and quite informative on presenting
a picture for the next couple years on when open portable wireless
platforms will be plentiful and what applications we'll see running
on them: always synchronized email, calendar, address, games, cameras,
video, voice, ear/mouth, eye/hands, and the whole shebang.  Quotes were
made about seeing a 2.5 year life cycle on a billion cell phones. Belt
laden folks showed Treo (Handspring), Tungsten (Palm), J2ME cell
phone(s), Blackberry, GoodLink, Tiqit, etc. Basic theme was dump the
hot sync cradle, open platform wireless applications is going to be
where it's at.  Also, the price has got to get down from $40/month
to below $20/month for more wide spread data adoption.  Bets are out
on 3G vs WiFi leaning towards WiFi.   Usual debates about phone centered
vs pda centered. Stewart opened polling the audience for "who can't
live without?...", a few hands went up in varying degrees for the various
wireless data products.  Everyone put their hand up for "cell phone".
All in all, I was was glad I attended this event.

I was given the opportunity to ask the last "quick question" from the
audience, so I decided to pull a Farber on the panel.  "Given that
the cell phone world is going towards a open application platform, in
what year do you think we'll see the first virus infect a billion
cell phones?".  Everyone uniformly said "we don't know how to answer
that" as the audience got up to leave. *sigh*  Given that whatever
form the cellphone/pda will take, it is clear it will strive to be as
ubiquitous at the PC and cell phone.  You think we might go rushing
into open this application environment with eyes wide open.......

Mark


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