Panelists:
Paul Amery - Group Manager, Developer Forum, Orange World
Michael Booth - Sr. Director, Product Management, Motorola Inc.
Chee Chew - Product Unit Manager, Mobile Devices Division, Microsoft
Bruce Johnson - Lead Development Manager, .NET Compact Framework, Microsoft
David Jones - Lead Program Manager, Tablet PC, Microsoft
Laura Rippy - CEO, Handango
Irwin Rodrigues (Moderator) - Lead Product Manager, Mobile Devices Division, Microsoft
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Question: Why are you going into Voice Recognition for Smartphone and PocketPC. Why and what are the application types?
Answer: (Chee Chew) We see a lot of opportunity in the space. Why is because folks aren't focused 100% on the device so there is a mode of usage where they are not focused on the device. Voice dialog, Ask when is my next appointment and have them read back.
(Michael Booth) We are working with third parties to embrace this. The disabilities act forces this in the United States.
(Paul Amery) Don't want this to be a niche service. Want to make this available to everyone.
Question: (Glaxo) Mobile operators are offering up more of their services via Web Services. Will we eventually see a convergence of the APIs to these services? Are there any standards bodies.
Answer: (Paul Amery) You probably saw the Vodaphone announcement regarding this. We need to make some services available without Web Services for the local stuff like SIP access, call control.
(Bruce Johnson) We are actively working on a common set of standards focusing on SMS, MMS, and location.
Question: With Avalon we are getting flow layout. Will we see that in mobile devices?
Answer: (Bruce Johnson) We are actively investigating a number of longhorn features but are in the very early stages. Reflow is important for portrait to landscape and multiple resolution screens.
Question: There is a lack of experience standards for mobile applications. We have them for the desktop but you have to relearn them for each phone.
Answer: (Irwin Rodriques) There is a pull/push around creating that experience and still allowing operators to differentiate on their devices.
(Michael Booth) We do that already within Motorola. We still want carriers to be able to differentiate based on the UI. This typically isn't a problem for most folks however that buy only a single phone and use it for years. They don't move from device to device like many developers.
(Paul Amery) We have a standard with Vodaphone for attempting to provision your devices with the Paul Amery interface instead of the vendors interface.
Question: What are the killer enterprise applications to drive smartphone for enterprise workers.
Answer: (Paul Amery) We have found that customer's typically browse 5x a day and 80% synchronize with ActiveSync. It is about how do we extend the office applications. Don't treat the smartphone as a small PC.
(Laura Rippy) One clear industry above others is medical. Reference materials with rich interface. Classic sales professionals accessing control desks accessing opportunities, sales channels, etc. Enterprise customers killer application is frequently custom to bring down their key indicators.
(David Jones) Calendaring is a big deal. Finding who is supposed to be at a meeting, who is missing how do we track them down.
Question: Is location based services going to be a big deal?
Answer: (Laura Rippy) I see this being a big interest area for customer.
Question: What advice can you give with how to get started developing a course on Tablet PC development.
Answer: (David Jones) Three verticals are embracing TAblet PC. Medical, Insurance, and Education. Medical for walking around and accessing patient data. Insurance for folks who are on the road. Students love tablets for collaboration, wifi is ubiquitous. Hospitality based applications where folks walk around and help folks out.
Question: (InfoSpace) OTA device provisioning. What story do you have? How can developers leverage it?
Answer: (Chee Chew) OTA and on device configuration are the same. Using XML configs you can do it locally or push that XML OTA and use the bootstrapping protocol to load it. Have to sign the payload but other than that all facilities are available OTA.
Question: Push in keynotes was smart client instead of browser. What is the trend on the mobile devices? Is Click Once coming to the mobile platform.
Answer: (Bruce Johnson) We see quite a trend towards smart client due to speed/type/availabaility of connectivity. You want the data available when you don't have connectivity which leads towards sync scenarios using smart clients. We are looking at ways to do OTA deployments. Already a great store for deploying CABs OTA.
(Irwin) Manageability is a key decision point for folks with many devices.
Question: Why must I have a PC to install PocketPC software. I frequently purchase the boxed set in case my Pocket PC loses the bits.
Answer: (Laura Rippy) We have ways to purchase the stuff online and have done it for quite a while on handango.com. We enable you to keep a history of what you have purchased online in the Handango vault and will enable you to redownload the application once again. You just login and download the bits.
Question: Will I be able to do ActiveSync over bluetooth instead of requiring USB? Can my application communicate over bluetooth? When will TextToSpeech read me my email instead of me trying to figure it out on screen. Are you going in that direction?
Answer: (Chee Chew) Several third party applications allow this but Microsoft does not offer this at this time. We may in the future. Yes you can do a direct device connection over bluetooth. We are already working on the texttospeech stuff.
(Paul Amery) We already have TextToSpeech.
Question: Will the infrastructure be able to handle the load of SMS messages, etc. Will we be able to get a connection for a normal phone call?
Answer: (Paul Amery) We have done some forecasting and looked at the traffic. We have seen a 10 fold increase.
(Michael) UMTS will also help with this.
(Chee Chew) The devices will have to advance to handle this but you will see a lot coming out to handle this in the future.
Question: What is the vision for content for stuff like music over the next 3-5 years.
Answer: (Laura Rippy) There is a billion dollar market for ring tones today. South Korea has a 700M for comics today. If you look at the scale of the opportunity it is huge. A lot of phone sales are to kids who are into music and whose parents get the bill. We think there is a factor in terms of the price point for applications vs ring tones. Games are a better opportunity due to the higher price points.
(Paul Amery) The music industry is a billion dollar industry that has been around for 50 years. Ring tones are a billion dollar industry and has only been around for 9 years. Some bands in Asia are releasing singles on ring tones first. People will pay money for a ring tone that isn't very good quality.
(Irwin) Thing brings up DRM. Chee can you address?
(Chee) We are following a lot of work that is happening on the desktop and trying to come up with a common facility to abstract this away for developers.
Question: If I go forward with Smartphone when will the service infrastructure be pervasive enough for my customers to use the devices.
Answer: (Michael) We are only dual band (850/1900) future products will be Tri-Band. ATTWS should have 1900 rolled out more completely by Q104. We wanted to launch the device with one major carrier in each region first and then will start to roll out to other carriers.
Question: VOIP is missing on the PocketPC. Who owns that? Will you support that?
Answer: (Chee) We are working on it. The hard point is all the competing SIP server products. We are looking at doing one that is compatible with the Microsoft stuff that also extends to other servers that has a common API.
Question: (Pen Computing Magazine) Conflict between mobility and affordability. There is a $700 difference in cost. $200 is for tablet features and $500 for ultra portable. (Editor: Couldnt figure out the question. More of a speech) You need to promote digital ink more than the mobility piece.
Answer: We are doing promotion amongst ISVs and are continuing to get support. We have 130 ISVs and Microsoft is also continuing to push out applications.
Question: Please highlight the major steps that a vendor has to take to distribute an application that targets the phone. We are exploring adding this to our enterprise application system.
Answer: (Paul Amery) There are 4 stages. 1. Create the application. 2. Test and certify. 3. Deploy 4. Market
(Laura Rippy) Pocket PC is easier since you don't have to certify with carier.
Question: Will there be an emulator pack that represents the devices more accurately without having to own 230 devices.
Answer: (Bruce) Whidbey will include a better emulator that supports PocketPC/Smartphone with skins, portrait/landscape, etc. We won't be adding multiple CPU emulations. We are working with operators to extend the emulators.
Question: How do you see functionality starting to overlap or will they always stay discrete? Does smartphone support 802.11b and/or RDP?
Answer: (David Jones) Looking to integrate more PDA functionality.
(Chee) That is an interesting question in the medical field because I don't see a lot of contention on which one you might choose. There is a lot of convergence between SmartPhone and PocketPC. We are moving towards enabling 802.11b in future versions. Do you want touch screen or one handed use. To that extent multiple choices is a good thing. Don't know of an RDP client for SmartPhone.
(Michael) Some of the things we are looking at is Bluetooth and 802.11b. Our primary thought on the decision point is do you want a phone first or a PDA first device. We are working on that convergence.
Question: What support is there for licensing models like Pay per Use or getting it onto the monthly bill.
Answer: (Laura Rippy) You can definitely bill via SMS, IVR, carrier bill with one time charge or recurring billing. Broadest purchasing options tend to be in Europe and the UK.
Question: What are the obstacles for convenient distribution.
Answer:(Laura Rippy) We try to provide one access point to many channels. We get that application ready to sell through all our channels. i.e. through Microsoft, Dell, Orange, Motorola, etc. We build the channels and then enable you to sell your applications through all those channels.
Question: We don't see penetration of smartphone in malaysia how can we work with Microsoft to get better distribution?
Answer: (Michael) We are actively working to get smartphones into the asian market. We are looking at how to put 2002
(Chee) from a platform perspective the smartphone is available in 43 languages.
Question: Can you share your user experience with what users can accomplish on smartphone
Answer: (Laura Rippy) Top application in London was the tube map.
(Chee) One thing a lot of people have problems with is input. Richer input and how you point to things is tough. Interesting research is being done at universities to tackle. Triaging is important with multiple events.
(Paul) We have the 4Ms. What do we need to do to get into mobile development. Movement - how do we apply it to the user on the move. Moment- Push it to the user so they don't have to wait Me- What is useful to me. I don't believe in a killer application but killer integration.
Question: How easy will it be to have one source base that runs on all platforms, i.e. Tablet, PocketPC, desktop.
Answers:(Bruce) We are working on best practices. The unified project and build system will help.
At this point things went into Rapid fire and I couldn't keep up with taking notes. Great panel. Thanks guys.