Palm - Cell Fusion

A confluence of factors is beginning to occur; we have improving digital cell phone coverage; we have improvements in the bit/second costs on digital wireless; we have improving performance of palmtops; and finally we have a growing need for an alternative to the MIS department strangled desktop PC that allows freedom of data fiddling away from MIS' prying eyes.

As we head toward G3 cell phones, we are also getting improved coverage in existing technologies, and improvements in performance with these older technologies. This level of feature improvement is occurring at the same time as a general reduction in usage rates (some what because of the telecom blow out of the last year or two.) The service improvements and price reductions are leading to ever increasing take up of cell phones, pretty much anywhere a cell can be connected with.

On the Palmtop front, the growth of the competing operating systems is less important that the improvements in technical performance of the machines themselves. The latest palmtops have processors that can top 200Mhz. Such speeds were in the desktop province only 4 or 5 years ago, and given that these chips are more closely related to the RISC chips IBM./Motorola make for the Apple Mac, its safe to say they are in the performance range of what Apple was offering just 2 years ago. These machines are also encrusted in RAM. Even the Palm Pilot models can now be fitted with up to 64Mb. With RAM being cheap, it's not hard to cram these little computers with the goods.

While many have suggested that cell phone users will want to view movies on their G3 cell phones, on tiny little 1 inch square screens, I question that direction. However, a palmtop user may indeed want to teleconference on their palmtop, or receive streamed videos of product presentations, that they can then down load to a clients system. In my none to humble opinion the real direction and the area that will gain most interest and investment will be in putting these palmtops into the hands of sales people, or staff that have to operate remote from an office or desk. Give a power line inspector a database of towers and transformers, one that can be updated when the inspector wants in to the palmtop computer, and you have given much needed mobility to someone who has an important role. The difference from existing solutions is that other than the software, the hardware will be commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS), and easily replaced or upgraded.

Sales people that currently have to drag around a laptop frequently leave it at home when they have to go to some localities, for fear that they will get mugged and the laptop be stolen. A palmtop with the same data and much improved connectivity would provide a more easily carried and concealed item. While certain presentations always looked pretty good on a laptop, the ability to carry a connected computer into practically all clients will be boon enough, especially if the clients demands can be serviced immediately. Obviously we can all think of locations that have poor or non- existent cell coverage, but any input transmission could be delayed till cell strength improves. Many companies sales people visit today have internet access, the demonstrations most sales people gave are available on corporate web sites, so clients should not be put off by missing out on the meeting room presentation of your latest PowerPoint.

Bluetooth communications will have less bearing on this revolution as it is too limited in range. It may be useful to down load a document to a users system, but other than local (tactical) use, it will have only a limited role to play in what I foresee.

Security will be the biggest headache. Corporations and software developers need to improve security during cell transmissions without completely crippling the palmtop (as it tries to decrypt all this data).

Will this happen this year? No. Will it happen next year? I think that the seeds are here, I think that the ever present need to improve sales performance, and the need to come up with more pro-active ways of pushing work out to remote work forces will see this kind of palmtop/cell phone fusion technology becoming a power to be reckoned with during the coming 2 years.