As Andy Otwell notes, Marko Ahtisaari is a smart guy and a charming dinner companion. And the company he works for, Nokia, is a very smart company, driving UI into C21. The Economist has a smart article about smartphones. Includes this smart comment:
"But the direction of both computing and communications, on the Internet and in mobile telecoms, is towards open standards: communication devices are less useful if they cannot all talk to each other. Makers of pocket communicators, smartphones and whatever else emerges will thus have to compete on design and branding, logistics, and their ability to innovate around such open standards."
Smart! And this hopeful conclusion:
"(T)he collision of the computing and mobile-phone industries seems likely to lead to a surge of innovation, as the two camps fight it out to create a truly personal computing and communications device, with far wider appeal than the misleadingly named personal computer. And as these titans slug it out, it will be consumers who emerge as the winners.
Not the kind of sentiment you'd have heard from the powers that be at Doors of Perception, as noted elsewhere ... but I remain optimistic. Doors notes to follow when I get a minute - in the meantime, check out the notes of the two guys who were often sitting next to me.
The Economist also have a lengthier feature on Nokia vs. Microsoft [possibly premium content] which is well worth reading. This caught me eye:
"But just as car makers can make several entirely different models on the same �platform�, or chassis, the Symbian software is flexible enough to allow handset makers to try out many different designs without having to start from scratch every time. Some phones will focus on photography and picture messaging; others on playing music or games; yet others on corporate e-mail access ... An interesting twist on the Symbian model has already emerged. The Symbian software provides the underlying features that are essential to a smartphone operating system, such as support for telephony, graphics, security and Internet access. But Symbian licensees and software developers are able to examine and modify its innards, unlike handset makers who use Microsoft's software. Licensees may also change the software's on-screen menus and graphics, or 'user interface'. Nokia, for instance, has developed a user interface called Series 60, and has licensed it to other phone makers, including Samsung, Siemens and Panasonic."
Sounds like the Symbian licensees (Nokia, Motorola, Siemens, SonyEricsson, Panasonic etc. ... er, everyone except Microsoft) might be pursuing an Adaptive Design software methodology, based around flexibility, adaptation, transparency, and 'fit to purpose'. Interesting.
