Headworx

Over the years I have tried a number of cellular wireless modems. I remember my first one - the PCMCIA form factor Nokia so called "high speed" data card. It was before mobile networks started offering packet data. Sounds strange today... No packet data? Yes that is true... I made my first GPRS connection probably in 2001. I remember I used the Ericsson T39 to route packets from my laptop over Bluetooth and then over GPRS data connection, using the famous *99# dial string. But before the Ericsson and GPRS there was the Nokia HSCSD card, able to utilize up to four GSM time slots to make it 4*9600=38400 bits per second on a dedicated point - to - point connection. And then GPRS arrived, upgraded later on to EDGE and now to UMTS and its evolution standards. With UMTS I have used a USB - type modem most often. Purists often opt for integrated 3G module in their laptops, but somehow I have always felt USB gives me more freedom. I remember two years ago spending holidays in a very...

The 2010 GSMA MWC show was smaller than it used to be in the previous years. And there were not many surprises either. Shows are no longer calendar marking events for vendors, rather get-together places to meet and discuss. With two exceptions, most of the already present trends continue to evolve. Let me expand the most important ones a little. There seems to be no more money and innovation in voice. People use voice to talk and want to do everything else mobile using the data channel. Yes, Orange + Ericsson were running live HD Voice - a business class service based on wideband AMR-WB codec. But MNOs generally do not want this service. First it consumes more resources on their networks oversubscribed with data packets. And second - their marketing departments have no clue how to sell this service as most of them claim to have the best call quality already... So they are afraid of competitors pointing fingers at them "you see - to have a quality conversation you have to pay more...

A friend of mine pointed me to the recent article at MSNBC about the meh reaction . It is true our reactions to the continuous stream of new products and services crying for our attention is muted. The article points to weak economy as one of the reasons that we are not that much excited about replacing the aging stuff with new toys. In my opinion the reasons are somehow different. It is not money but time and skills we invest most. And putting it simply we expect a good return on our investments. In the continuous paradigm shift every new device or service we have to learn how to use it. And the pace of changes is so fast, we almost never fully learn before a new one comes. And at this point it is no longer funny, as we get tired trying to catch up. There is plethora of examples. The very recent one is the Google Buzz referred to in the before mentioned article. The Buzz was introduced last week and after reading the news I was expecting it to arrive on my Gmail desktop. And just afte...

Yes this will be about the iPad. Again. A couple of thoughts "the day after". First, last week there was this very sad article about Microsoft . I am absolutely not in a position to judge... But my very personal opinion is the reason of Microsoft demise has been the lack of strong visionary leadership. Simply put, after Bill Gates abandoned the ship, Steve Ballmer has not been capable of growing the company. It is not enough to shout loud or pound a table or have ambitious financial goals for each division to be a leader. Mr Ballmer does not have a clear vision of how Microsoft should be in five or ten years. He did not have a clue ten years ago either. Other than being the number one IT company. And without such vision he could not align his vice presidents to act towards that vision. Simply demanding better quarterly numbers from each of his lieutenants hardly can be called a vision. In the meantime Jobs, the other Steve, the super-CEO has had a vision. And has been leading...