AT&T in the NetBook / Mini-PC Game

This weekend I was surfing around the AT&T website trying to decide what my next BlackBerry will be (it's a toss-up between an old-school Pearl and a new-school Bold).

I discovered the following placeholders - NetBook and Mini-PC. These were well hidden and there wasn't any products included within the placeholders but it started me thinking. What if AT&T was also my computing provider (at the client side).

I have an iPhone and they suck at getting it 3G service (everyone I know has issues with this). The call dropping and quality is just dismal. They are behind the times on implementing tethering, MMS and upgrading their data network to keep pace with the demand. It also sucks that they can't figure out how to package WiFi + Data Card + iPhone in some usable/economically happy way.

Now they clearly must be planning a marketing spin toward non-AT&T customers because anyone who has already depended on AT&T knows better.

So the logic of cloud computing and thin clients end up converging here at the NetBook from AT&T. They create am incentive for you to buy their NetBook+Wireless data plan and thus build a business model based on transport/connectivity (to and from) the cloud. It's just interesting to see that in the consumer world, they are counting on transport to be their leverage point (as far as I can see).

The model of discounting equipment in order to lock-in to a service seems somewhat wrong to me. There are lawyers far smarter than me that can determine if there is an anti-trust issue somewhere in the "tying" market, what is certain is that it doesn't feel right.

If AT&T jumps into this market using the same dodgy service they have had already and they combine it with a contractual tie-in to a NetBook, it could easily ruin any customer base it has.

I want to go backwards with my phone technology

I am an accidental smart-phone user.

I got hooked on using a BlackBerry when I joined Topspin in 2003. My boss required me to use one and made it an MBO (one of my objectives was to carry it, not carrying meant no bonus $).

When I joined at AMD I was already hooked. It took a considerable amount of paperwork and the CIO's signature to add me to the BlackBerry server. AMD considered it an "senior executive-only" function. I started a trend and soon my boss and his boss and our team was ordering BlackBerry's and it became the norm.

Having a fully integrated collaboration experience was awesome (Exchange+Windows). Once you were setup, it just worked. You logged into your machine and were automatically logged into the exchange server (same credentials). That integration also extended to your device (assuming you were using a BlackBerry).

I once walked out of the office with a replacement (brand new) BlackBerry, hopped a commuter flight to LAX and from the LAX gate waiting area called AMD IT to get my BlackBerry setup and provisioned prior to my international flight and 3 week trip. It took 5 minutes on the phone and magically (via Enterprise Activation) my BlackBerry was syncing with the server at AMD and my mail/contacts/calendar all just worked. This trip was in early 2005.

Fast-forward to 2008 when I joined Sun. We of course don't use MS Exchange and instead relied on an "interesting" hybrid system that includes "standards-based" servers offering us access to our accounts via IMAP. The Calendar system was seperate and you could connect to it via Lightning (if you wanted) or just run your own calendar locally (iCal) and connect back.

I settled on using an iPhone to handle my email/calendar/contacts with synchronization to my Mac. This was a clumsy setup and gave me the ability to blame anything on the crazy list of software I used. If I spoke to someone within Sun they would understand and usually cut me slack.

Now while the iPhone does the job, it also required me to start consolidating on to one device. My work and personal life ended up sharing a device and anything that messed up my iPhone (sluggishness, AT&T screwups etc..) ended up screwing me up both at home and at work.

I have been carefully screening potential employers with one of my criteria being that they have to use some form of properly integrated collaboration system. I really want to be able to use my iPhone for the lightweight personal life I have and have a reliable and integrated tool for my mail/calendar & contacts.

I don't need an App Store, a Compass, Maps, YouTube, Photos, Stocks, Weather, etc.. on my device.

I do need EMAIL + CONTACTS + CALENDAR in a way that works without bloat or suckiness. The toys are fine for my personal life but it seems odd that the most reliable and best cloud client I ever owned was 4 years ago.

If anyone out there has a BlackBerry Pearl (brand new) -- send it my way ;-)

WiFi Fix (MacBook Air)

My MacBook Air goes everywhere with me. Now just because I have it, doesn't mean that I get to.

There has been an ongoing problem with the MacBook Air (and various other models of MacBook's - based on reports from friends) implementation of Wi-Fi.

The problem showed up when I was on campus at Sun and when I was at hotels that had multiple base stations. Apparently a WiFi network made up of multiple base stations all communicating with the same SSID confused the Mac and it ended up freaking out and not establishing a connection or being able to maintain such a connection.

There were multiple workarounds being used by folks such as pinging the default gateway/router, or bringing their own router and plugging it into the hardline networks. These both seemed silly to me ;-)

Eventually I found a post HERE that has been working fine for the last couple of hours. If it should fail I can go back to using the MacBook Air ethernet adapter. It looks like the issue is based on having a "location" named in your pref's.

Before this fix I would get dropped constantly (think like every 15 seconds or so) and the only way to recover the connection was by selecting the Airport Icon in the toolbar (upper right hand corner). When I hit the icon, the connection would magically fix itself .... bizarre

weird... this should be something that Apple fixes ;-) At least now I can be online in Maui without too much interruption.

kyle