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Written by beersoft
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Sunday, 29 February 2004 |
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Just to keep you guys reading, here is another interview.
JPZR I am jpzr - founder and writer for http://msmobiles.com website - also accessible under URL: http://MicrosoftMobiles.com, My personal photo blog is here: http://jpzr.textamerica.com msmobiles.com is a website dedicated mainly to Microsoft powered cell phones, it has no forum and no commenting features, and is concentrating on providing interesting content for readers: news, articles, interviews, photos, etc.
MSMobileNews.com How long have you been involved in smartphones?
JPZR Since 2001 although then, it were Symbian smartphones.
MSMobileNews.com Do you own a smartphone? if so which one?
JPZR Orange SPV e200.
MSMobileNews.com 'what's the most useful program you have on your smartphone?
JPZR Mobipocket Reader in combination with various eDictionaries. MSN messenger (pre-installed in MS Smartphone OS) is also a killer application for me.
MSMobileNews.com Which phone do you use as your day to day phone?
JPZR Orange SPV e200.
MSMobileNews.com What were your first impressions of the smartphone? Most people I have spoken to had very low opinions of it until they used it, and now they all have a smartphone
JPZR Slow and missing some important features available in Pocket PC. I was angry that Microsoft left out the Microsoft Reader - although porting it to MS Smartphone from Pocket PC would be easy.
MSMobileNews.com Do you think that smartphones will replace the low end PDA market? And if so how long do you think it will be before Smartphones and PDA's merge as one?
JPZR Yes, I think so. Smartphones in the broader sense though: covering both 'no touch screen + keypad' (smartphones) and as well as 'touch screen + no keypad' (PDA phones). Smartphones are already a merger of PDA and cellphone, so smartphones will not merge with PDAs but simply PDAs will vanish and smartphones will lead.
I see also a bright future for VGA resolution Pocket PC PDAs (like Toshiba e800 that I have). So VGA resolution for Pocket PC + MS Smartphone and both with Bluetooth - it is my 'dream team'. The only thing lacking yet is support for 3G/UMTS/WCDMA radio interface in MS Smartphone.
MSMobileNews.com Can an all in one device such as a Smartphone succeed against its separate counterparts (MP3 player, camera, pda etc)
JPZR in long term yes, in short term no.
MSMobileNews.com As a mobile gaming/application platform, do you think the smartphone platform is viable, comparing it to all the JAVA, BREW and N Gauge/symbian based platforms?
JPZR yes, MS Smartphone would be very suitable for gaming but it needs some hardware graphics acceleration - some MS Smartphones from Mitac already have it! I think that Motorola MPx100 is already very good phone for gaming. It is like in case of game consoles and PC - while game consoles are still the best for gaming, probably even more people use PC for gaming because PC is very good for gaming. Similar situation may happen with MS Smartphone.
However Microsoft targets smartphones at professional/enterprise users, so it is difficult to convince Microsoft to add more gaming features to the MS Smartphone OS...
MSMobileNews.com When do you think Microsoft Smartphone will possess the power to become more of a PDA?
JPZR Only after Microsoft will decide to put into operating system of MS Smartphone the Microsoft Reader.
MSMobileNews.com Out of the current smartphone games released, which do you play?
JPZR Free tetris games.
MSMobileNews.com The smartphone market is mostly aimed at men, have you developed or plan to develop software which is aims to attract more women to smartphones?
JPZR Well, generally I am not developing software for smartphones, but I have one application that is suitable for everybody: the 'MS Mobiles Servant' - you can fetch it here: http://msmobiles.com/servant . This application is consumer of web services and has some stuff interesting also for women - I plan to add more interesting web services also for women in it.
MSMobileNews.com Now that we have windows mobile 2003 with .net framework on the latest phones, do you think it's a good thing for development? Or do you think java is better suited to mobile applications?
JPZR .NET Compact Framework is superior to Java because it allows to access full operating system while wireless Java (J2ME/MIDP) in most cases allows only for very limited access to the system (not even files). The .NET CF is also much easier for programmers than Java - many many times easier. Programming model of wireless Java is different than programming model of Swing and server Java - but programming model of .NET is the same for big .NET and for .NET CF ! .NET is a heaven for programmers.
Java however has more interesting APIs like for example for Bluetooth or for 3D gaming but I think that shortly .NET will catch up also in this area.
MSMobileNews.com Will we be seeing more ports of pocketpc applications on the smartphone platform? Or more original titles?
JPZR Oh, yes, many developers will be porting Pocket PC applications to MS Smartphone, but most of them are still waiting till number of sold MS Smartphones will exceed some magical critical mass. It may be yet 2 years till that will happen: that developers will HAVE TO develop version for MS Smartphone, not just for Pocket PC, to get some reasonable sales.
MSMobileNews.com Out of all the applications and games released over the last 20 years which would you like to see on a mobile platform?
JPZR Some kung fu fighting but with playing over Bluetooth - and both for MS Smartphone and for Pocket PC - so that user with smartphone could fight kung fu with user on Pocket PC! Releasing such game only for MS Smartphone (without version for Pocket PC) is nonsense in my opinion.
MSMobileNews.com Can you give us any news or gossip on upcoming Smartphones products you have in development?
JPZR More web services to http://msmobiles.com/servant/ program! And this program will be released in a Pocket PC version too. Programming web services in .NET is so easy so it is fun to have such free program that handles them.
The msmobiles.com website however will never have forums nor commenting feature - it will continue focusing exclusively on content.
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