June 12, 2003
I want my wireless -mail
Bruno Giussani writes about a wireless mystery: Why the most pressing and explicit demand in the mobile telecom market remains unsatisfied.
"The wireless industry is in denial. It keeps pushing an ever-expanding range of services and devices, and trying to convince customers that their happiness and their success depend on them. Yet, it is practically ignoring the only thing that most people really care about and can no longer do without and find increasingly difficult to manage (and therefore they may welcome a little help).
That thing is e-mail.
[...] The systems are difficult to set up. They're incompatible with each other. The software is not standardized and the hardware sub-optimal. They make it impossible to quickly write a decently-spelled and properly-worded answer longer than five words. Their ergonomic is bulky and impractical. They don't offer a good overview of the message and of the mailboxes. They're slow. They're expensive. They don't provide enough security. In a business context they need a lot of integration and management efforts. This list of shortcomings can go on endlessly. The multiple announcements at the recent 3GSM World Congress in Cannes and at Cebit in Hannover have done nothing to shorten it."
A must-read article on a subject that is so important to every (e-mail frustrated) mobile user, yet curiously, has not been adressed widely by the press. I missed covering it too, even though after a couple of years of smooth sailing with receiving (replying is too strenuous) e-mail on my cell phone, since February I have just given up, as obviously there is some compatibility problem with my new phone or with my provider.
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