I just downloaded and installed this great app based on Zumobi for my Windows Mobile phone which makes it easy to look up snow conditions from anywhere! Check out REI Snow Report; it works for Windows Mobile, iPhone, and Blackberry.

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This is a very interesting idea. My buddy Mark and I were experimenting with his new Windows Mobile phone which enabled Internet sharing with his laptop via USB. Many phones support this through Bluetooth so you don’t have to take the phone out of your pocket. In both Windows Vista and Mac OSX, the experience of tethering your phone and getting Internet access through it is very simple.

A new feature found on newer smartphones (including mine) is WiFi connectivity. The idea is simple, if the high-speed 3G wireless WAN (WWAN) data connectivity from a cell phone can be accessed through a laptop via wired (USB) or wireless (Bluetooth), also make it available via WiFi, except to multiple concurrent PCs (or devices). This can be achieved by enabling access point (AP) functionality in the phone, or allowing the phone to establish multiple ad-hoc WiFi connections. Putting aside the battery life challenge, processing power in smartphones today can surely handle this functionality, and good software can make the setup experience effortless (like plugging in the USB cable).

This is not a technology problem, but rather a business issue. Like any sustainable business, cellular providers obviously want to maximize their revenue for each asset they own (such as their high-speed data network). As such, they currently limit the software on phones to allow only a single PC to access that network via the phone. Otherwise said, every PC that uses the carrier’s high-speed network has to have an associated contract and data plan.

There is also a capacity planning challenge, but this can be overcome and ultimately comes back to a business decision of whether there’s value diluting an asset’s potential return. Having been a Network Engineer in the past, if you can’t reasonably predict how many hosts will concurrently access a resource, it’s hard to ensure sufficient capacity for a pleasant experience (especially for those customers who have signed the contract and are paying for the service). Simplifying the issue, if there are only 10 contracts for high-speed data access, and 10 devices associated with those contracts, but each of the 10 devices can share access with a bunch more devices, the capacity requirements are much greater and far less predictable. The simple solution to this is to enable the capability in phones, but limit the number of devices that can associate with the phone for shared connectivity. This way, capacity planning is still a static figure, and the same over-provisioning rules apply as before.

Anybody know a provider who is doing this? What do you think? I know I’d like this feature, which will be increasingly probable for automotive scenarios in the coming years.

In my previous post about OEMs extending Windows Vista, I talked about my IBM (now Lenovo) Thinkpad and the ThinkVantage suite of software that extends the out-of-box Windows experience; specifically the extensions for fingerprint logon and the Mobility Center. In this post, I wanted to share how poor of an experience I had installing all these updates.

For starters, my experience would have probably been much smoother if I read the README files that came with each update, but lets face it, no consumer is going to open a README file when a Setup.exe file is in the directory next to it. Yes, I’m a Unix guy too, but my expectation for a Windows install experience is much higher than doing a source install on Linux. Second, in Lenovo’s defense, If I had installed the System Update package first, the end-to-end update of my system would have been smoother (this package handles the nuances of each separate installer). However, if the OEM wants you to take that route, don’t burry the System Update package among all the other packages.

My experience of installing the myriad of updates for my Thinkpad can be described simply: not consistent. Some of the packages are self extracting archives that ask where to extract the actual installer; others are self extracting archives that don’t provide the user with an option of where to extract (only the default is available). Even better, some of the packages are the actual installer (not self extracting archives). It’s clear that either (i) organizational boundaries exist between these components, (ii) there was very poor coordination across components, (iii) there are no guidelines for ensuring a consistent installation experience, or (iv) all of the above.

Take for example the fingerprint reader packages: the Client Security package is an actual installer, whereas the driver for the fingerprint reader and the administrative tools for managing the security stuff are self extracting archives. However, one of the archives provides an option of where to extract, but the other does not. It took me a while to figure out that dependent files were in different directories, and that’s why my install wasn’t working.

Lastly, almost every install (successful) resulted in the following error dialogue, indicating the the installer was not authored correctly for Vista (I don’t know the details about this though):

Yes, the Thinkpad series is designed for mobile workforces which are usually managed by IT professionals, but I won’t buy that as an answer to such a poor experience. Our friends in IT hate poor experiences too! Can anyone else report a poor OEM experience? I need to know what PCs to recommend to my friends and family so I don’t end up becoming the IT administrator whenever they need to be updated

A few days after my last post on WM6, The Mobile team officially announced the new version at the 3GSM (3G and GSM smashed together into yet another acronym) conference in Barcelona.

“By the second quarter of this year, the world will see the first Windows Mobile 6 powered devices available on the market…”

It looks like the T-Mobile Dash will be upgradeable to this new version, but so far no news for my Samsung Blackjack

I found a couple more reviews which are worth a read:

• Modern Nomads review of WM6
• Review of the Vista Mobile Device Center

It looks like Windows Mobile 6 (WM6) is nearly upon us. I’m not aware of any announcements from carriers releasing this update for exiting phones, but that’s probably because Microsoft has not yet officially launched the release. WM6 has three versions:

• Professional (formerly PocketPC Phone Edition)
• Standard (formerly Smartphone Edition)
• Classic (formerly PocketPC Edition)

There are a bunch of goodies in this release that I am looking forward to, including:

• HTML email
• New versions of mobile Office apps
• Improved calendar
• Windows Live for mobile
• File transfer in Live Messenger

This screen shot shows Windows Mobile 6 Standard Edition (smartphone). Check out more images at Engadget.

 

Update: PC Magazine did a review of WM6; check it out. Also, some more feature detail is provided in Jason Langridge’s blog.

I post fairly often on the core Windows networking blog, but often want to share other topics both professionally and personally. I’ll use this blog as my primary means to not only talk about the things I do in my life, but also to professionally answer all the questions I hear from customers and partners I interact with. I will also frequently comment on other online writings which I feel need clarification, or I agree/disagree with. I’ll share my thoughts on products, strategies, and even gaps in various markets.

If you have questions or want to comment on anything I write here, please feel free.