Who are Gandalf, Aragorn and Sauron?

[Andy Sjostrom]

<a href="http://www.infoworld.com/articles/op/xml/03/01/13/030113opwireless.xml">http://www.infoworld.com/articles/op/xml/03/01/13/030113opwireless.xml</a><br /><br />Ephraim Schwartz has written a "Lord of the Rings" inspired article related to mobile devices from Microsoft and partners. Given that PDAs were all in black and white, and cell phones as primitive as calculators, before Microsoft entered the stage and breathed life into this market, I would say that Gandalf and Aragorn live near Seattle and Sauron is either in California or in Finland...<br /><br />"SOMETIMES I think of myself as a war correspondent stuck in Middle Earth, covering the dark forces of Mordor converging against the forces of light. Unfortunately, I'm stuck behind enemy lines. Just got off the phone with Microsoft. ... Will Microsoft make its platform available for Brew and Java applications? I asked Ed Suwanjindar, product manager for the Microsoft mobile devices division in Redmond, Wash. "There's no reason that can't be done. If people want to run Java apps or Brew on top of our platform, people can do that," he says. In other words, "No. If you want it, you do it without our help." Here's what I find curious. There is barely a market for sophisticated converged Pocket PC devices, such as the ones Hitachi and Samsung announced at CES, with 400MHz processors, keyboards, cameras, and Microsoft Office built in, running on any network. Yet Microsoft appears arrogant in its refusal to seed the industry, even for its own benefit. By the way, Suwanjindar is not arrogant; he's a nice guy. And, while we're at it, Bill Gates isn't Sauron."

[marconelly]

Given that PDAs were all in black and white, and cell phones as primitive as calculators, before Microsoft entered the stage and breathed life into this market
Eh, Nokia communicator, IIRC, was on the market long before Microsoft even started talking about entering the phone market.

[Andy Sjostrom]

Eh, Nokia communicator, IIRC, was on the market long before Microsoft even started talking about entering the phone market.

Ah, well. There's always an exception to the rule. Even today, Nokia's production is mostly made up by black-and-white calculators... eh, phones.

[PlayAgain?]

Given that PDAs were all in black and white, and cell phones as primitive as calculators, before Microsoft entered the stage and breathed life into this market, I would say that Gandalf and Aragorn live near Seattle and Sauron is either in California or in Finland...

:roll:


Yeah, and what planet was that on? And I s'pose t'was Microsoft wot brought freedom for people to use their phones as and when they wish without worrying about the feds knocking on their door? :roll:

http://news.com.com/2100-1033-980803.html?tag=fd_top
http://www.twyn-y-berllan.com/mm/mmpc/articles/mssp2k.htm
http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/newsdisplay2.php?id=6633


Ah, well. There's always an exception to the rule. Even today, Nokia's production is mostly made up by black-and-white calculators... eh, phones.

And all of Microsoft's phones are colour? Of course they are, and there are so many of them to choose from aren't there? :roll:

[Andy Sjostrom]

Mainframe to PC. Microsoft brought colors and graphical user interface to computing. Same story when calculator (primitive phone) becomes Internet connected, rich multimedia mobile device. It seems, however, that the other side has learned the last year or so and is determined to not let history repeat itself. The recent Motorola announcments were really impressive. Battle is before us, but before the other side realized that Microsoft was serious about getting into the phones market all we had was b&w and beep-beepeti-beep...

[PlayAgain?]

Mainframe to PC. Microsoft brought colors and graphical user interface to computing.


You may want to rethink that statement, due to it being completely wrong and stuff?

I remember my Amiga running a fully pre-emptive multitasking, multimedia OS when PCs were struggling with EGA and CGA displays, and co-operative multi-tasking. You saying I should be thanking Microsoft for that?

And I don't feel I owe Microsoft any gratitude for my smart phones since they were on the cards and heading to market since before Sendo's deathwish.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not dissing the SPV. I really think it is a very nice unit, it's only your 'Microsoft saved mankind' mentality I find difficult to grasp, particularly when the evidence is there for all to see that Microsoft is not the source of all the good in the IT world.

My first PDA could have been a Microsoft PDA, only there wasn't one available. Someone else created the market (Palm) and Psion built a device that was, at the time very powerful. Who were the innovators?

Nokia combined phone and PDA technology in the 9110. Who were the innovators? Then came the 9210. Who were the innovators? For the mass market, we see SonyEricsson releasing phones like the T68. Who are the innovators?

Apart from Internet Explorer Micro Edition (as seen in the Sony J5), they had little to do with driving forward the technology we have today for mobile connectivity. Even my old Psion had IrDA drivers for me to connect via my mobile phone (an Ericsson I888 World at the time). They drove the innovation so that when the Palm Sized PC came out (I loved my Jornada), the hard work had already been done.

Anyway, I've said my last for this topic so carry on. Ignorance is bliss after all!

[James Bond]

Technicalities aside (e.g. who invented GUI and first color phone), most phones still are basic dumb devices. Even the colorful and smarter ones like the T68i etc have idiosyncratic interfaces, very limited expansion capabilities and programming model, etc.

Symbian and Windows CE are for now the only serious attempts to turn the cell phone into a smart and useful software platform. One might say that Symbian was a response to Windows CE for phones, and therefore Andy is right.