Search for the Killer App Never Ends

[Andy Sjostrom]

<a href="http://www.informationweek.com/story/IWK20030214S0024">http://www.informationweek.com/story/IWK20030214S0024</a><br /><br />"Never-Sleeps-Foo Fighter" caught eye on an interesting article called <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/story/IWK20030214S0024">The Myth of Messaging</a>. The author Carl Zetie presents an plausible and attractive idea that there is no "killer app" for the mobile and wireless market. Carl is well articulated and I agree with him that as with XML Web Services and relational databases, there is not one single "killer app".<br /><br />"One of the most popular questions about mobile and wireless is still, "what's the killer app?" A lot of people don't seem willing to accept that PDAs and wirelessly connected laptops have a significant role in the enterprise unless there's an obvious killer app. What's strange about this question is that few other new technologies, even ones equally as disruptive as mobility, are held to this high standard. What's the killer app for Web services? What was the killer app for relational databases?"

[Pony99CA]

Steve Bush talked about the "Myth of the Killer App" (http://discussion.brighthand.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=47416) over at Brighthand almost a year ago. The article itself seems to be gone, but the forum discussion is there (which the link takes you to).

I guess the mainstream is catching up. :-)

Steve

[jizmo]

I don't know if I've misunderstood the whole concept of "killer application", but atleast to me it's clear what would be revolutionary in communication between people.

So here goes:

A software of PDA that would recognise the sentences spoken to it, send them wirelessly to a main server that holds all the information (dictionares etc), and would then interprate and translate the spoken sentence.

After that it'd send the correct translation and the speech synthetizer in PDA would then output it. Just think about, being able to communicate with any man in the world, and understanding what he says. A big server would easily hold hundreds of dictionares while the actual program wouldn't take but a few megabytes.

Not only would this revolutionize the way we communicate, it'd be a huge boost to PDA sales, let alone a good source of money for the company that developed it.

/jizmo

[Phunkphantom]

IMO the "Killer App" will never be one piece of software that makes the PDA an absolute must have, for everyone. I think that it is the sum of all its abilities that is in actual fact the killer app.

Nobody has ever bought a Swiss Army knife because it has the best knife the world has ever seen, or the best saw!! Its the overall package that makes this thing so succesfull, (Dont get me wrong Im not the worlds biggest fan, just it was a good example :D )

As more and more software is developed. greater becomes the Killer App!

[ploeg]

The concept of the "killer app" is still useful for analyzing what propels the development of a market (even though we may have to refine the concept somewhat for it to be useful). Certainly it is a plus if a device can be used for any number of purposes (like a Swiss Army knife). When it comes down to it, most usage boils down to a few different purposes (just as with a Swiss Army knife, the corkscrew is the function that is used most often). (Well it's the one I use most often anyway.)

For example, back in the day of Visicalc, the purposes were maybe tracking financials and inventory. Certainly not everybody who purchased a PC back in those days did so for those purposes, but enough people did that it drove demand for PCs beyond its initial niche market.

Nowadays the "killer apps" could be email and word processing (with browsing in there somewhere). Certainly some people are interested in gaming or CAD or even tracking financials and inventory, but those aren't the reasons why the PC market is as big as it is today. The Internet and word processing (in conjunction with cheaper prices) have given the mass public the impetus to purchase PCs. If their PCs are too slow for those applications, the applications are the reason why people will upgrade to a faster PC. Absent a reason for the mass public to buy or upgrade to a new PC (a new "killer app"), the market will expand more slowly or stagnate. So "killer apps" are certainly important, if you change your understanding of "killer app" to one of a small group of apps that are used by most everybody nearly every day.

I'm not certain how much of this applies to Pocket PCs, though. It's hard to think of any single "killer app" for Pocket PC, and attrition (loss and damage) will force people to purchase new Pocket PCs more frequently than they purchase new PCs, even absent any single "killer app."

[Phunkphantom]

Good point.

Well then I think the "Killer App" for a a Pocket Pc would be television.
This is isnt something that I particularly care to see in my PocketPc. but the killer app will have to be something that appeals to the masses. And I think that it would be the one.

[kcchesnut]

i think there will be killer app(s) for consumers.
as a developer, what is really lacking is connectivity.
there is only so much you can do with synching,
or wiFi hotspots at the moment.
smartphones might do it,
but i really want the next gen of ppc phone editions.

[Skoobouy]

IMO, the most general "killer app" on the consumer level would be wireless Web and e-mail. Why? Because everyone who sees my Jornada asks, "can you surf the Web and do e-mail with that thing?" And I say "no," and the interest level in their face visibly takes a trip.

The problem is that, even though these are available, they're still complicated and expensive and/or slow. You mean I have to buy a _phone_? You mean I have to buy a WiFi card and stay in my house? You mean I have to buy a BlueTooth card and stay in my _room_??? You mean I have to buy a fat old PocketPC phone? You mean I have to pay $40 a month for a shaky 14kbps connection?

Talk about making people's lives more complicated instead of easier.

Of course, different niches will have different killer apps. I am a seminarian, and believe me, Pocket PCs are extremely popular for certain must-have apps. For me, the Mobile Gabriel channel, Acrobat Reader + liturgyhours.org PDF files, OliveTree Bible reader, Palm Reader, etc. are really killer apps. I'm 'converting' my whole school. :)