Podlover's Profile

It’s amazing how history repeats itself and yet we’re all so baffled when it does. CB radios, PDA’s, pay phones, pagers and even plain old cameras vanishing into thin air – NOT. I’m convinced that old Star Trekees are designing cell phones and none are employed by Wall Street. That’s right; there has been tens of millions of dollars lost in market research alone because we’re just plain stupid. It took Wall Street more that a year to figure out what happened to the PDA and pager, when all they had to do was watch an old version of Star Trek. The Tricorder, the Communicator and the Padd (Personal Access Display Device) are here but we call it the “Cell Phone”. Maybe we should change the name to Teleporter – A device that converts things into little electrons, transmits them to another Teleporter and converts them back to pictures, music, video, voice messages, email or money. Maybe a simple name change would end all the confusion. Let’s give it a try. A fully loaded Teleporter might have a PDA, walky talky, pager, camera, game player, voice recorder, Mp3 and iPod music player, radio, TV, Web Browser, remote control, electronic wallet, GPS, voice recognition, voice mail, email, video mail, instant messaging, electronic ID tag, electronic car and door key, an alarm system, a weather station, a heart rate monitor and… oh yes, a phone. The benefits of a fully loaded Teleporter are vast but for now, let’s just focus on music -- where it’s at and where it’s going. First there’s the iPod by Apple, a battery operated device that plugs into your computer and downloads a limited number of music files. It has a very nice user interface but for all practical purposes it’s a memory stick with a user interface and headphones. You either play the music through the headphones or plug the iPod into another device that plays the music. Then, there is the Virtual Jukebox such as Rhapsody by RealNetworks, where you have access to over a million songs that can be played on demand from a computer. Rhapsody uses streaming technology to computers but music files can also be downloaded to a portable player similar to the iPod (another memory stick). For those who want to buy a select number of music files, the iPod is a great device and for those who want to pay a monthly subscription for unlimited access to virtually any music files, Rhapsody is your best bet. But if you want unlimited access on a portable device, no mater where you are, you’ll need a music player that has a transmitter and a receiver so that it can communicate wirelessly with your preferred music supplier. Gee, doesn’t a cell phone have a transmitter and receiver already… Now, let’s take an iPod and Rhapsody and a cell phone and hook them all together and we have the perfect music player. Yes, it’s a Teleporter. It has the capacity to access and play any music titles ever recorded. You can rent, sample or buy. You can even send your play list to a friend’s Teleporter or to your home stereo system. Just imagine, you’re jogging along the beach listening to music and you hear a short little alert. Your Teleporter says, “The song you have been waiting for is now available”. You say, Play new song” and continue your run – All without a computer. So, when you hear Bill Gates say that he doesn’t believe that the success of the iPod is sustainable, don’t believe him. He’s late to the wireless game and even Blackberry offers better wireless email than Microsoft. The iPod is simply morphing into a cell phone. And, when you see a company like Yahoo compete on price alone, don’t get confused, streaming media alone is just a commodity. The real battle will be for the huge wireless market where cell phones dwarf music players. The winner will be the pacesetter of technology. Therefore, my money is on RealNetworks and Apple or someone who watches more Star Trek.

Bill Gates is right and wrong at the same time. The Ipod as we know it today will be short lived. However, as soon as the cellular carriers figure out how to get their cut, you will see Ipod software running Cell Phones. The Cell Phone as we know it is also changing and in the not too distant future, your Cell Phone will be a generic hardware device with only software that determines its’ character -- Just like the PC today. As for the winners and losers -- music over the internet will become a commodity where Yahoo, Apple, RealNetworks and the like will compete on price. The final war will be for the vast cell phone market where the winner will be the company with the most Patents and intellectual property. The Rim’s Blackberry pager is a good example and Qualcomm’s CDMA Cell Phone chips are another. If Apple would have filed a few patents on their novel features in the beginning, Bill Gates would be using a Mac and driving a Ford.