Wednesday, October 01, 2008

Always Online?

We first had WiFi hot spot and networks in hotels, cafes and city centres. We then had the dongle, a USB stick with a WiFi modem that enable everyone to connect to their laptops to broadband services on the move. We had the take up of Smartphones and 3G services.

We now have mobile and IT companies working together to creating laptop devices that would be able to connect to WiFi broadband without even a dongle. The companies include Dell, Toshiba, Microsoft, Vodafone, T-Mobile and Ericsson. It means that any devices that has the service mark will be able to access the mobile broadband immediately after purchase.

The first notebook computers with mobile broadband inside will be ready in 91 countries across the world before the end of the year. Now that may be an attractive Xmas present!

The move may conflict with others such as Google backed Wimax, but WiFi out of the box has a real appeal and enables mass adoption by its very presence.
So we come back to what we have asked many times and will continue to ask. Why download files that may only have a limited life support system to devices that in the case of ebooks are clearly transient when you can be connected to anywhere at anytime? Online content is surely the ultimate goal. You log on with whatever device you choose, read, bookmark, annotate and the security and control is no longer in the device but at the center. No more clunky and restrictive DRM!

We wonder if the Kindle will have a new service mark and even whether Amazon will eventually sell online services.

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