That’s a computer in your pocket, not just a phone. Microsoft, Nokia and others are ready
to deal with that challenge head-on. Can the rest of the industry follow?
AT&T’s Apple iPhone, Verizon Wireless’ Research In Motion (RIM) BlackBerry Storm and Sprint Nextel’s Samsung Instinct have at least two things in common: All are cutting-edge touchscreen smartphones and all required rushed software updates to fix a variety of early bugs.
 |
| Rockfeld: Handset vendors need to do more testing. |
|
Bug fixes and first-day glitches may be the exception today, but are likely to be the norm tomorrow, as the world’s pocket-sized communications devices become less phone and more computer. Phones are known for reliability and usability; computers are known for crashing and frustrating end-users. What does that mean for handset companies and their customers?
NEW WORLD ORDER
“The issue for the phone companies is they don’t get the beta process and may not appreciate the media coverage of it. The reality is that beta testing exists widely in the PC and computer space but not so much outside of it,” computer industry analyst Rob Enderle said.
While it’s important for handset companies to maintain secrecy in their highly competitive field, “…without wide beta programs, first-generation phones tend to be full of bugs and no one wants to depend on a phone that isn’t reliable. On the downside, phones will increasingly need to be patched, updated and protected from malware and secured. They are becoming little PCs,” Enderle noted. “It is exactly, ‘Welcome to our world.’”
“I absolutely believe that,” agreed Microsoft’s Scott Rockfeld, director of product management for Windows Mobile. No company knows about software bugs and maintenance updates better than Microsoft, which in 2004 began its “Patch Tuesday” tradition of monthly fixes, often followed by the hacking tradition of “Exploit Wednesday” when malicious hackers seek unpatched systems.
 |
| Thibodeaux: IT industry must learn to adapt as well. |
|
“With the phones, because of the different radio stacks, modems, screen sizes, form factors, input methods – absolutely companies are going to have to get used to testing their software and then delivering those update mechanisms, and then with the mobile operator that adds even more complexity,” Rockfeld said.
For example, Microsoft’s next version of Internet Explorer Mobile will only ship on new phones and will not be available over-the-air, to avoid incompatibilities with older hardware and software. Leaving out the backward compatibility is exactly the kind of tough choice that vendors must make.
Ira Frimere, the North America product manager for Nokia’s high-end N-Series smartphones, agrees the transition from mobile phone to pocket computer means difficult tradeoffs are needed as handset companies gradually realize that they’re in the computer business now, whether they like it or not and whether they’re ready or not.
Time-to-market cycles won’t get any longer, but may get shorter, so companies like Nokia are focusing their testing on hardware, knowing that software can always be updated over the air. Nokia is also adapting itself to learn computer industry methods such as agile development, which essentially means building modular blocks of code to assemble later in various configurations.
“You might release a product with less functionality but you get the same level of quality,” Frimere explained. There can be trade-offs related to how fast a smartphone boots, how fast individual applications load, whether the device can multitask, how long batteries last and at what frame rate video plays, to name a few examples. “It’s not just manufacturers having to figure out the compromise, it’s letting the consumers have that choice as well… The compromises have to be made all around. People want and are paying money to make sure they’re getting what the manufacturer is promoting. There’s a lot of recent news indicating some instances where that’s not the case.”
 |
| London: Vendors may not like this change. |
|
OTHER WAY AROUND
If Microsoft and Nokia are leading the way in handset vendors being open-minded to new ways of development and testing, helped along by network middleware players, then what about the computer industry also training system administration to handle smartphones and not just computers?
“That’s going to be an area that I want to see brought into the organization,” said Todd Thibodeaux, CEO and president of trade association CompTIA, which specializes in training and certification. Throughout 2009, “I think that we need to do some things; we have the big enterprise companies as members, but we need to reach out and find a way for the carriers to participate,” he said. “We’re going to try to do quite a bit to make sure we reach out to that space because it’s become a bigger part of what the mainline IT companies are doing.”
 |
| Doran: Consumers may tolerate some glitches. |
|
The diversity of smartphone platforms is also an issue, Thibodeaux noted. It’s great for customers to have choices, but having more than two or three options can be a nightmare for IT workers when companies must choose applications to support. Even in all-Microsoft companies, there is still the dreaded “Patch Tuesday.”
Companies that specialize in phone activation, provisioning and updating also have concerns. Tom London, chief technology officer of InnoPath, and Pat Doran, chief technology officer of Synchronoss, both noted that modern smartphones have many computer-like features other than just sophisticated operating systems and high-level applications. A typical BlackBerry, for example, has a powerful central processor, mouse, networking, keyboard, RAM, storage, plus a massive third-party software marketplace – all the hallmarks of a PC. “It’s a big change and they certainly will need to adjust to it,” London said. “Whether it bodes well or not, it’s a fact.”
“In addition to this, there’s another vendor in the mix, that’s the carriers… they’re going to be the ones fielding the phone calls,” London said. Carriers do understand this, but they’re not experienced at thriving in such an environment – that’s an advantage for companies like Apple and Google. Conversely, Doran added, consumers already showed in the PC marketplace that some level of bugs are tolerable if the features are worthwhile enough. But the industry may soon see handset companies put more emphasis on system backup and recovery services.
Sour Apple
- Aug. 2008 – Apple updates iPhone 3G but doesn’t say what for.
- Sept. 2004 – AT&T fixes Web access outage for iPhone users.
- Nov. 2008 – Apple says its new 2.2 software means fewer dropped calls.
Bad Instinct
- July 2008 – Incompatibilities revealed in Sprint Instinct Java keyboard code.
- Oct. 2008 – Sprint fixes Instinct Web browser and fixes video player bugs.
- Dec. 2008 – Sprint updates Instinct calendar and long-awaited Java keyboard.
Storm Clouds
- Nov. 2008 – Verizon releases BlackBerry Storm, activation systems slow to a crawl.
- Dec. 2008 – Verizon rolls out Storm firmware patch for increased speed.
|