You Can Never have Enough Friends

By Carl | October 31, 2010 - 2:44 pm | Carl Ford IMHO

@Apple, @Google and @Microsoft.

People often give me more credit than I deserve. I am a well connected person, but I am ecclectic in my friendships and tastes. Often there is an expectation that I know “EVERYONE”. I don’t and some that I do know don’t necessarily want me to chase them around for every inquiry I get.

So my general rule of thumb is to use Linkedin. I am an open networker and I believe that many of us trust it as a way to initiate a conversation.

While many friends want me to see Facebook in the same way, most of my immediate family uses Facebook, so getting professional work done is harder on that system.

Never the less, I have started a campaign to connect up directly with all my speakers on both Facebook and Linkedin. Yes I will do twitter too, albeit briefly ;<).

If you want to talk to the people I want to hear, its good for you to connect with me on either platform.

Should Intel and Nokia Merge

By Carl | February 22, 2010 - 5:57 pm | Business, New Products

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Andy Abramson had an interesting concept in his blog this week about Intel and Nokia working more closely together. The basis of the concept starts with the battle in silicon right now. Its and interesting question to contemplate for a number of reasons.

1) The WiMAX, ATOM revolution has not produced the momentum that Intel would like. Google, Comcast, Sprint and all the other elves involved with Clear are not enough to get the billions of cellphone devices looking to include Intel in the their space. So forging a relationship with Nokia where they could have a stronger presence in the 3G world makes sense.

2) If the goal was not to be a device company but to turn Nokia into a platform strategy, that would have a lot of value to Nokia, which has been coping with a market that is heading towards less customizaton. Nokia has been stuck delivering lots of phones with nuances to carriers, why not make this more like the PC market. You could even bring the PC manufacturers into the mix and have them be the private label.

3) It allows Nokia to get reset on so much of its legacy Symbian flavoring. Bringing the Nokia Developer community to the web where it can stop the internal battling and take advantage of the tools coming of age as we head toward HTML 5.0. The IPhone has everyone scrambling and it maybe that the goal should be to keep the apps as close to web development as possible.

While it is fun to speculate, I am not sure this is the move, that Intel wants to do next. I can see more advangates to Nokia, but it maybe that I just see the flaws in Nokia’a armor right now. Intel can afford to have several missteps in this market and unless their PC manufacturing customers are ready to attack the ARMy of cellullar players it maybe that all these things can be done with Nokia without the merger.

But if does happen, remember Andy said it first.

Mobile World Congress the Musical

By Carl | February 16, 2010 - 9:46 am | Carl Ford IMHO

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My rendering of the South Pacific song

APP APP APP APPY Talk
Appy talk is all we do
You got to have a dream
and any hair brained scheme
Some Developer is going write for you

Look at Apple’s Shares
look at all those subs
Don’t you wish you were one of them too.

Look at all those bucks
riding on phone
Geez, I never realized how much my phone sucks

APP APP APP APPY Talk
Appy talk is all we do
You got to have a dream
and any hair brained scheme
Some Developer will write for you

Hey I got a plan
I will write an app
Then I’ll watch all the bucks roll in

When you call the phone
It will it will ignore the call
I bought this to escape the human race

APP APP APP APPY Talk
Appy talk is all we do
You got to have a dream
and any hair brained scheme
Some Developer will write for you

Mark Kelley Interview

By Carl | November 27, 2009 - 7:28 am | PodCast

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Mark’s history mirrors the wireless industry closely and includes being the CTO of Leap and leading developments at Nextwave and Qualcomm. Today, he is doing some consulting and thinking about new opportunities in the market.
With all this history the discussion takes us to in-depth analysis. He blogs about various aspects of the industry and his life at http://spassmeister.com/ .

On this call, we discussed.
The History of GSM and CDMA and why we are at where we are.
The role of WiMAX in the market.
How it relates to wireless backhaul.
The issues of spectrum.
The smartphones impact on the carriers.
Demand and Costs are converging on the carriers roll out of wireless backhaul.
What business models are making sense right now?
What the opportunity for White Space in the market?

You can find Mark’s website at http://markkelleyonline.com/index.html

Mark Kelley Online [ 33:34 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Defending Verizon Wireless against Gigaom

By Carl | September 24, 2009 - 5:30 am | Opinion

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I was struck by the criticism from Colin Gibbs regarding Verizons efforts to build their app store strategy.

First of all, Colin is normally gives great insight into the happenings around the industry, and the criticism may feel valid to the web apps developers that Verizon is trying to entice. But the app store that Verizon is chasing is very different then any other in the market.

They are indeed on a quest for the Network API. An elusive creature that adds value to being a Verizon Application.

As our friend Scott Snyder has pointed out in The New World of Wireless, 3G applications were the reason the money was spent by the carriers, and so far web developers have been the only applications of value.

At the end of the day, it may be that this is the best a carrier can hope for us to provide a great Internet experience. But repeatedly people suggest to carriers that they can do more with their role as a trusted service.

At the Verizon developers conference the team from Verizon explained their network API. It was not a strategy for most web developers. Entreprenuers’ in the garage, dorm room, mom’s kitchen, do not want to sit and consider the value of Parlay – X as an API to work with in connecting to Verizon’s systems.

But to those of us who use to work in the legacy of the telco systems where the Work Authorizaion Request form was a declaration of W.A.R. with IT this is an amazing extraction.

I also want to point out, that it may in the end be a necessary path for carriers, as the Network Neutrality debate implicates an ability to show non discriminatory interfaces.

So while I appreciate the goal of apps folks who want to port from the iPhone to Verizon, this is not the goal that Verizon has in mind.

Police report in Dutch

By Carl | April 21, 2009 - 1:54 pm | Uncategorized

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WIll have to get it translated when i get home.

Working on getting the MAC address have obtained the IMEI number.

Am keeping people updated here, facebook and skype.

My Mac and Phone were stolen, if you see me on IM its probably not me. Had to change password here since my skype account automatically recharges when the credits are low.

One Week to Go

By Carl | January 26, 2009 - 6:01 am | Carl Ford IMHO

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No Its not the superbowl. I expect the Steelers to win, but will root for the Cardinals! Its 4G Wireless Evolution I am talking about. And as we get ready for the next generation of wireless that will be part of the Internet, I am seeing the need. My small circle of non telecom friends discussed their phone options and frustration. Some hate the iPhone as a phone. Others have a variety of devices from Verizon, but no one was in that state of rapture that you get from iPhone enthusiasts. Device wise, I don’t think we are 1.2 yet never mind 2.0.

My Gphone has the battery life of the first analogs, My replacement blackberry is like a friend you had a blow out with and now are back together. An uneasy truce to cover the breached trust.

But at this stage we are not at the 4G device. The base stations are in deployment and the chips are being produced. We have a future to look forward to that may make old brands irrelevant and new brands our future. I am coming to Miami to be wooed with the hope of something better.

Change I can live with!

MacWorld less Mr. Mac

By Carl | December 17, 2008 - 9:46 am | Carl Ford IMHO

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Apple declared that it is pulling away from MacWorld which if I were IDG, I would be in total distress.

Afterall, MacWorld has been the platform for the discussion. So why the change?

While the health of Steve Jobs maybe the best reason. The other answer is that CES or CTIA maybe the venue of choice for their partners.

If that is the reason, I think Apple has done a disservice to their community, but another answer may be even simpler.

Apple remembers when MacWorld was not particularly popular and it took considerable effort to get noticed.

Today, like Google they are being watched by lots of people and the conference is at its peak.

So why not get out now at a high, rather than on a low.

Consolidating for the future

By Carl | November 13, 2008 - 2:18 pm | Carl Ford IMHO

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ATT and Verizon are rapidly becoming the last teams standing as the focus is continues on wireless opportunities. As I continue to hear that LTE is the clear winner. I can’t help but think this cant be about a single device and a single service. Is the iPhone all that we need? Lets get serious.

As I sit here on my MacBook and see the tools that are missing that were part of my world, I know that I will probably buy another PC in the future. Or at least reconfigure my bootcamp.

As i talk to people on my blackberry, I see the need for some better tools.

If innovation is fostered by discontent. I am an Innovation Evangelist.

I want more than I have with the devices I have. Is anyone else discontent?

A Tale of Three (FCC) Decisions

By Carl | November 5, 2008 - 5:25 am | News

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As the FCC enabled whitespaces for the computing industry the wireless world continued to be advanced with the merger of Sprint WiMAX into Clearwire and the approval of the Alltel acquistion by Verizon. While I will miss the wizard commercials, I think the more important observation is the question of how wireless evolves.

The Verizon story will be mostly around LTE, Clearwire around WiMAX. But who owns White Space? Who do you associate with this alternative? Google and Microsoft have been big advocates, but I am not sure they intend to be a service provider for this space. On the other hand, Cloud Computing is probably going to benefit tremendously from the access the White Space provides. Should I insert Ebay/Skype and Amazon into this discussion? Motorola and Phillips for their devices?

Imho the future of wireless is going to be very dynamic. And as we have seen from the iPhone’s success its going to be more about what you can do than what technology is used.