Software Everywhere — David Beers on Mobile Computing

Microsoft has followed through on an idea they introduced at the World Economic Forum in January to bring PCs to the poorer people of the world: developing a mobile phone that doubles as the CPU for a modular computer system. You plug the phone into an ordinary TV and a keyboard, and then have access to the web, email and simplified office applications. Called "FonePlus," it runs Windows CE and is still basically a prototype.

This is similar to the idea I suggested a couple of weeks ago as an alternative approach to OLPC's "$100 laptop." But it's aimed at a higher income level because it presumes users have electric power and televisions in their homes. That's not necessarily a bad thing. One thing I was amazed at when I lived in Mexico back in the mid-80s was the number of people living in dirt-floor shacks who nevertheless owned televisions and had satellite dishes in the yard. They studded the landscape almost like a field of mushrooms, even in the poor outskirts of Mexico City.

But if you want to reach the poorest of the poor--those for whom communication of information against political, geographic and economic obstacles is the most critical--challenges like the absence of power infrastructure must be addressed. To the MIT Media Lab's credit, OLPC has given this serious thought. I just wish they had considered a way to leverage the familiar mobile technology and existing infrastructure rather than whisk in with something that for all practical purposes is "alien technology."

But Mike Rowehl offers an important contrary perspective, questioning the wisdom of pinning hopes on mobile technology to bridge the digital divide while the wireless operators control the game. Like me, Mike believes that for software solutions to make a difference in the developing world they must be locally developed. But that requires a reasonably open platform that so far few mobile operators have allowed to exist:

Before I thought things through that way I had said the same thing... that the OLPC project should be using handsets not laptops... seemed obvious. I would like to publicly retract that statement. Cellular networks are a horrible place to try to build new, novel, well-situated solutions. The networks and hardware are not open, the communications subject to regulation and restrictions, and the solutions fundamentally tied to someone else's business model. Fuck, experienced entrepreneurs in developed countries can’t manage to get their applications out. If we really want to help out other countries in terms of building out their infrastructure do we want to lead them into tying their solutions to carrier networks? Do we want them forced to do Symbian C++ programming if they want access to non-JSR mediated functionality? Should they need to have to send their handset in for test enablement before they can try to use their own apps on real hardware?

Regretfully, I have to admit that he's got a pretty good point. While money and device volume of the kind that OLPC is working with could be used as leverage against the operators to allow the release of phones on a more open platform, you have to wonder if even this would penetrate the narrow logic the operators work under. They're already making good money in places like Africa without taking a "risk" on handsets with open platforms. But I'm not as pessimistic as Mike that wireless business models and social necessity need always to be at odds. For one thing there already seem to be some pretty remarkable cases where necessity and profit have aligned in this area.