My pals in the Mobitex world will love this one. Ed Hardy, editor in chief of handheld Web site Brighthand, has discovered what many of us found out in late 1997: that push email on a mobile device with a keyboard can be a killer application. He reviews the rise and fall of the PDA market, then comes up with this gem:
Then something came along that gets people in droves to go out and get handhelds: wireless email.
Welcome to the party, Ed. Better late than never, I suppose.
By the way, Michael Gartenberg disagrees that the killer app is wireless email. He says that for most of us voice is the killer mobile application, but that the real key is context, as he wrote last summer:
Digital ubiquity is a reality; relevant access to information, both personal and professional, in multiple venues on multiple devices, is no longer a dream. The key to leveraging the freedom that this brings is understanding that there’s no killer application for digital ubiquity. Having the appropriate devices delivering what users need, when they need it, is what’s critical. In short, context is the killer app.
I think Gartenberg (who also notes the ubiquity of BlackBerry in the northeast corridor today) is close. Business customers buy converged devices when they will put up with the compromises required in exchange for the convenience of having fewer accessories to deal with. For example, I know more than one BlackBerry user who complains endlessly about the quality of the phone in the device but refuses to carry a separate phone. Conversely, users who value performance over convenience will continue to carry two or more devices. I personally want the flexibility to carry only the device I need for the particular circumstance: I see no need to carry my email device with me to dinner, and I prefer to carry my phone in my pocket rather than on a belt clip.
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