Updated: AT&T changed its mobile data plans today — effectively putting an end to the all-you-can-eat mobile broadband pricing plans for smartphones. Having watched this space for the last year I knew that given the demand for mobile broadband and the capacity of the mobile networks, carriers were eager to end the practice of unlimited data because it wasn’t economically sustainable for them. As I wrote last July:

“The carriers keep discovering that if you give people access to fat pipes, they’re going to use them. That’s good for innovation, but on the wireless side, it can cause problems for the carriers’ bottom lines.”

Why Usage-based Pricing Is Here

The answer to that problem would be usage-based broadband, and in a GigaOM Pro piece (sub req’d) I outline how several of those pricing scenarios could play out. What’s key to understand here is that few folks in the industry believe it’s possible to offer the level of mobile broadband that people want on current wireless networks — even after carriers switch to more efficient technologies like LTE. An exception might be Clearwire, which has deep spectrum resources when compared with the other major carriers. Indeed, Clearwire’s Mike Seivert told me that currently its mobile customers consume an average of 7GB each month, a feat that would cost $75 a month on AT&T’s new pricing plans (on Clearwire it could cost $40-$55).

Clearwire, in which Sprint holds a 56 percent stake, has said it has the ability to stick with true unlimited service over the long term, and will likely use that as a competitive differentiator in its fight for customers among the major carriers. Meanwhile T-Mobile, the fourth-tier carrier, plans to offer unlimited speeds — until users reach 5 GB a month, at which point it will slow them down. There are no options to buy more bytes per month, and the slowdown will take place regardless of whether the network is congested or not.

Kevin did a great job laying out AT&T’s new pricing in his story this morning, but here’s the quick summary version:

• DataPlus — 200 MB of data for $15, which equates to $75 per GB. Customers that exceed the data cap will pay an additional $15 for another 200 MB.
• DataPro — 2 GB of data for $25, which works out to $12.50 per GB. Customers will pay $10 for each GB over the cap in a given month.
• Tethering — $20 per month for smartphones, on a DataPro plan. This option does not provide additional data — it uses the 2 GB provided for in the DataPro plan.

How AT&T’s Usage-based Plan Falls Short

AT&T’s pricing has taken current usage into consideration, with the carrier claiming that 98 percent of its users consume less than 2 GB per month, while 65 percent consume less than 200 MB. But in the long term, it isn’t a great option for consumers, and when it comes to the tethering fee, is downright punitive. It’s also inconsistent with managing user demand for broadband given that one reason for the shift is to manage scarce spectrum resources and prevent network congestion. Instead what it does is push more subscribers into a higher tier of service by creating an extremely low-usage tier with high overage fees, and a higher-usage tier with fees that, comparatively speaking, are much more reasonable. For example, using 201 MB on the lower-usage, DataPlus plan costs $30 whereas $25 on the DataPro plan will yield up to 2 GB. If you’re anywhere in that broad middle (or worried about landing there), you’re going to select the 2GB tier, even though most iPhone users use an average of 500 MB.

That’s not ideal, and the $20 fee for tethering is simply paying AT&T for the privilege of using your phone to connect your laptop to the web. Basically that fee is a $20 “Keep Your Laptop Off the Network” sign.

Effects on Innovation

Underlying the entire pricing structure is the idea that 2GB is enough when it comes to mobile broadband, a fact disputed by Cisco’s data noting that mobile users currently consume, on average, 1.3 GB a month, an amount it expects to grow to 7 GB by 2014. Already folks like Andy Abramson are noting how AT&T’s plan will limit the value of using Skype (especially video), since video on mobile phones will drive demand through the roof, AT&T’s pricing will cause pain for YouTube.

Data provided by Allot Communications

Also affected will be the app economy and developers looking to create the next big thing for mobile networks. For example, augmented reality requires a network connection that sends location data to offer information, but one day may rely on a database of imagery and photos sent by the camera to get a more accurate sense of where people are. Sending photos, especially those taken with 8-megapixel cameras, uses data, and could consume more if AR becomes an everyday way of finding information.

Other applications, including those that stream music, send real-time traffic updates or even web video conferencing, which is rumored as a possibility on the next-generation iPhone, would also be hampered by lower data caps, not to mention gaming and even ads consumed on the handsets. How acceptable will Apple’s iAds platform be if those fancy ads consume precious megabytes that might push consumers past their data plan limits?

What It Says About Competition

Aside from the potential shackles it may place on the app ecosystem, particularly around the iPhone, the pricing plan says a lot about the state of wireless competition in the U.S. Recently, the FCC issued a report on the status of competition in the wireless industry that laid out how, from an infrastructure point of view, AT&T and Verizon have clear advantage. They both own large amounts of really good spectrum (about 92 percent of the spectrum in the 700 MHz band in the top 54 U.S. markets is owned by At&T and Verizon) and own their own wireline networks, which means they don’t pay other people for backhaul the way that T-Mobile and Sprint do.

The top two carriers also have the ability to set voice and data plans prices that are higher than both Sprint and T-Mobile — and yet still have the lion’s share of the customers. This might be because of better network coverage, possibly attributable to those spectrum and backhaul assets. Regardless, a better network is a competitive differentiator that could lead people like myself to pay higher prices for a better experience. The top two carriers are also more profitable, likely because of their infrastructure advantage.

Yet so far only AT&T and Verizon have raised their early termination fees on smartphones and unveiled plans to implement tiered pricing. While the details of Verizon’s tiers aren’t published yet, its CEO said last week that Big Red would offer buckets of data that a customer could use to connect multiple devices. Clearly, AT&T’s pricing change is the tip of a very large iceberg that could slow innovation and cause some consumers to pay more over time. However, it’s also a symptom of our demand for data and perhaps a warning that our wireless industry isn’t as competitive as we thought it was. In short, the U.S. wireless industry was always going to kill all-you-can-eat broadband eventually, but AT&T’s method isn’t a forward-looking one, nor does it effectively help the company manage peak demand on its network.

Update: For AT&T’s explanation on the particulars of the pricing plan and the timing of the changes, please see my interview with AT&T exec Mike Collins.

Today Facebook officially announced the option for allowing users to completely opt-out of the Facebook Platform and prevent applications from gaining access to their information. While many developers are rightfully concerned about the feature, we’d like to take the opportunity to thoroughly address how the new “opt-out button” functions and what it will mean for developers.

How To Turn Off The Facebook Platform

Prior to jumping into what the implications of the new button that lets you turn off the Facebook Platform and block all applications, we thought it would be useful to share how to block the Facebook Platform under the new configuration. It’s pretty easy to get to the button which says “Turn Off Platform”. We go through the three steps below:

Step 1: Click on “Edit Your Settings” under “Applications And Websites” on the new privacy settings page.

Step 2: Click on the link which says “Turn off all platform applications”

Step 3: Click on “Select All” and then the “Turn Off Platform” button

What This Means

For Users

The first thing to understand is what this means for users. Users will now be able to block all applications in only a few clicks. While much of this was previously possible, the major differentiator is that users will now be able to block all forms of app-to-user communications. Application requests, etc, will be blocked. One important thing that was clarified to us by a Facebook spokesperson was the following:

Users may choose to opt-out of of sharing their data with applications on Facebook Platform, however they will continue to see stories from applications that their friends use in their stream.

So yes, you can’t stop your friends from posting application stories, but you can choose to block them from sending you requests or any other form of “spam-like” communication from apps. However turning off the platform means users will not be able to install applications. Facebook users may also be prompted with the opportunity to turn the Platform back on. As Bret Taylor described on the developer blog today:

Users will have multiple opportunities to turn Platform back on. For example, when users who have turned off Platform click a Facebook login button in your application, they will be prompted to turn Platform back on before they can continue. Likewise, social plugins will not show any personalized content for these users until they click a “Turn Platform on” button on the plugin.

For Developers

For developers, the risk of a large number of users turning off the Platform is a real one. However, as any developer knows, five clicks is more than one, which means there’s already a significant hurdle to blocking applications. Additionally, as soon as a user sees all the applications they can no longer use, there’s a greater chance that they will stick around.

If a user blocks applications all together though, that’s one less user that application developers will have the opportunity to market to directly (through app-to-user communications). However stream stories will still be posted and developers have the opportunity to promote their application via advertisements and essentially convince users to install their applications, in turn turning the Platform back on.

So will this kill application growth? Probably not. However it’s definitely interesting to see that Facebook is letting users opt-out of one of the most integral components of the site. Do you think this will be valuable for users? If you’re a developer, what concerns do you have?

Google has just released a video demonstrating the speed of the new beta of its Chrome web browser. As we noted yesterday, Chrome continues to gain marketshare among tech savvy users. Speed has always been one of Chrome’s hallmark features and the latest beta really takes it to another level.

It’s All About the JavaScript, Baby

While differences in rendering engines still exist, relative or perceived loading speed has become the key differentiator between browsers. That’s why Opera highlights speed with each of its releases and why Mozilla is focusing more on speed with each Firefox release.

While there are some variables when it comes to speed optimization that cannot be directly controlled by the browser — ping time, server load, network latency — JavaScript rendering is one area that browser makers have found can make a tremendous difference in overall web speed. To that end, the major browser makers all have their own ideas about how to better tune the JavaScript engine in their respective browsers for better performance.

Google Chrome uses a JavaScript engine called V8 that has been developed in-house to be extremely fast. The latest version of V8, which is in the new Chrome beta, is reportedly 30-35% better than the last beta channel release. Google even notes that its overall performance with Chrome has improved between 213 – 305% when compared to the very first Chrome beta released back in 2008.

As a longtime Safari user in Mac OS X, I have to say that the latest Chrome beta is fast enough to almost become my default browser. I’ll need to see how it performs with some sites I use for work-related tasks before making the switch, but in terms of pure speed, the new Chrome beta definitely wins.

How the Speed Test Video Was Made

If you’re curious how Google shot and produced the speed test video, check out this clip that shows off the production process.

If you’re already running a beta build of Google Chrome, you should be upgraded to the latest version automatically. If you want to try the latest beta release, you can download it for Windows, Mac or Linux.

What do you think of the new Chrome beta? What do you think of Google’s speed test video? Let us know!

Tags: chrome, google chrome, javascript, opera, software, speed, web browsers

Another day and another potential buyer of Palm has been crossed off the list — HTC is reportedly passing on the opportunity to purchase the troubled smartphone maker. Which means all signs are now pointing to Lenovo making a bid, especially in light of its recent decision to jump back into the smartphone market. But at this point, I don’t see Lenovo — or any other handset maker, for that matter — spending the billion or so dollars some expect Palm would fetch, for I think it’s too late for its webOS to compete against the platforms of Apple and Google.

With application developers focusing the lions’ share of their attention on creating titles for iPhone and Android handsets, any company considering involvement with Palm faces a limited ecosystem for software as compared to larger rivals. As a former Palm Pre owner, webOS was a joy to use, but it never truly gained the attention of developers, and so without a vast library of high-quality apps to choose from, I jumped ship.

Multitasking is good, but not enough

To be sure, I’ve owned or used phones from every platform and can say unequivocally that Palm’s webOS handsets do multitasking better than any other smartphone device, thanks to their innovative card system. But it’s not enough of a differentiator; if it were, consumers would shun Apple’s iPhone, which offers limited multitasking for native Apple software.

And Lenovo has already started to build atop of the multitasking Android OS; it introduced the world to its Android-powered Lephone in February. Its decision was an easy one to understand: The operating system doesn’t cost the company anything and it can leverage the growing popularity of Google’s platform in the process.

Why not a Facebook phone?

So given that Lenovo’s already made its support for the Android platform clear, who’s left to save Palm? Maybe it’s time to step outside the box and consider a less traditional option: Facebook. The webOS Synergy feature can already be used to link a Palm phone with a Facebook profile for easier contact management. In light of the social networking site’s plan to make the entire web social, that’s just the tip of the potential iceberg.

Imagine that Facebook partners with and pays Palm to rebrand its handsets as Facebook phones. Due to ineffective marketing, consumers don’t know about webOS, but they do know what Facebook is. The rebrand alone could vault Palm’s handset line into the spotlight. With the right hooks between Facebook and webOS, the devices would be dedicated social networking mobile phones, the number of which is steadily increasing due to the rise in social activities on smartphones. Palm could use the huge Facebook ecosystem as a carrot to dangle in front of mobile app developers, and Facebook would gain control over a mobile platform.

Perhaps we’ve been asking the wrong question about Palm all along. It’s not which carrier does Palm need, it’s which company Palm should partner with to save itself?

Related research on GigaOM Pro (sub req’d):

Could Games Redeem Windows Mobile and Palm’s webOS?

To Win In the Mobile Market, Focus On Consumers

Image courtesy of Palm

We've talked now and then about college programs that are making strides to provide students with entrepreneurial training, but the Harvard Business School (HBS) has so far not come up in our discussions. This might seem odd that one of the top businesses schools in the nation doesn't gather much attention from things like The Princeton Review's ranking of entrepreneurial programs, but one HBS grad may have an answer to that puzzle.

Sponsor

Stu Wall, co-founder of the startup Postabon with an MBA from Harvard, recently wrote about some of the reasons that he thinks cause MBAs to make mistakes when trying to form a startup. The biggest obstacle in their way is that through their years of education, MBA students are taught to meticulously plan their businesses, but nothing can substitute from actually getting your hands dirty.

"With three months and ~$10K, we created a bare-minimum website and iPhone app that allowed us to iterate daily based on consumer feedback. No amount of time in Baker Library would have substituted," writes Wall. "Building a product will allow you to identify a viable strategy, iterate, and prove your team can win. Research, formatting and nicely worded emails are a prerequisite but by no means a differentiator."

Does this mean that no startup ever got funded without a working demo or beta phase product? Probably not, but the point here is that the amount of discovery and business education you give yourself by actually building a product and testing it trumps anything you can learn from a lecture or a book.

I would assume that at some point during his Harvard MBA education Wall had some sort of "lab" experience in which he was tasked with actually creating a business, but I can't be sure. If he did, it may not be likely that the experiments they ran were in the realm of startups, but they could have been. The point is, Wall seemed to learn a lot more about forming a startup simply by doing than he thinks he did from school.

Another pitfall he sees with MBA students is that the culture implanted into the minds of most business school students doesn't jive well with startup culture. By this he means that MBAs spend tens of thousands of dollars on an education as an investment toward a future with a high paying career, but that startup culture is a different kind of road to success than they may have expected.

"By the time we're thinking about career decisions, many have a 'what will you do for me' attitude," writes Wall. "Entrepreneurship is the truest form of meritocracy where 'credentialing' counts for nothing. Be humble and cognizant of your weaknesses, and put your passion for idea show (as opposed to your $$ aspirations)."

Paul Miller reviews the JooJoo tablet for Engadget. It stinks. It’s fast, though, but — shockingly — Flash video performance is horrendous:

Software issues aside, the JooJoo actually happens to be quite speedy thanks to its 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 processor, 1GB of RAM and 4GB solid state drive. It only takes about 7 seconds to boot and toggling between the menus is snappy. WiFi speeds were also quite fast with it taking 11 seconds to load Engadget and 8 seconds to bring up NYTimes.com.

But what about Flash? This is supposed to be the big differentiator, right? The iPad killer! In an interesting move, Fusion Garage coupled the Atom processor with NVIDIA’s Ion graphics to aid in playing full screen Flash video (or for doing… something). Unfortunately, the software just isn’t there yet. Currently the device is running Flash 10.1 beta 1, and won’t have hardware-accelerated Flash video for a good while now (the timing is partly reliant on Adobe support, and is labelled as a “work in progress” by JooJoo). That means some regular-sized YouTube and Hulu works, as decoded by the CPU, but full screen Hulu is jittery, and a 720p YouTube clip is like watching a slideshow. In one of the biggest moves of irony, JooJoo has actually implemented a hack for YouTube where you can view a video in Flash or in “JooJoo” mode which is a straight playback of the MPEG video file every YouTube video harbors. What does this remind us of? HTML 5, albeit with a less elegant implementation. This of course only works on YouTube right now, though JooJoo says it plans on supporting other sites in the future. Watch the video below for yourselves to see all this Flash tragedy play out.

(Ironically, Engadget’s video demos are only available in Flash. Why would a website devoted to leading-edge gadgetry continue to embed video in a format that can’t be played on the best web-reading gadget? If your video doesn’t play on the iPad, you’re like Steve Allen mocking the lyrics to rock-and-roll songs — an anachronism.)

Google (NSDQ: GOOG) Android’s U.S. smartphone market share jumped by an impressive 5.2 points in the three months ended in February to 9 percent. Meanwhile, Apple’s iPhone share remained relatively flat, comScore finds.

If those trends continue (and, that’s a big ‘if’), Google could catch-up to the iPhone by the end of the year. Still, BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion remains the pack leader with a dominating 42.1 percent share of the smartphone market.

The big differentiator that Google has going for it is the number of handset makers that are pumping out Android phones. ComScore (NSDQ: SCOR) said the top handset makers in the U.S. are Motorola (NYSE: MOT) (22.3 percent); LG (SEO: 066570) (21.7 percent); Samsung (21.4 percent); Nokia (NYSE: NOK) (8.7 percent) and RIM (NSDQ: RIMM) (8.2 percent).

Of those, the top three are all making handsets based on Android. It’s important to note that these figures are based on current ownership, and not sales, so likely there’s still a ton of Motorola Razrs out there skewing the figures.

Also interestingly, Android and RIM were the only two handset makers to grow in the past three months. RIM grew by 1.3, and Android grew by 5.2 percent. Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) dropped the most, losing 4 percentage points and Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) lost 0.1 percent.

Here’s the chart:

1. RIM: 42.1 percent, up 1.3 percent
2. Apple: 25.4 percent, down 0.1 percent
3. Microsoft: 15.1 percent, down 4 percent
4. Google: 9 percent, up 5.2 percent
5. Palm (NSDQ: PALM) 5.4 percent, down 1.8 percent

• Understanding the Psychology of Twitter | Psychology Today
• More on the Psychology of Twitter | Psychology Today
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• The Psychology of Twitter | World of Psychology
• elearnspace. Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age
• Lars is Learning: Welcome aboard! Onboarding Model

In the past decade, firms have been praised for ideas. Experts have celebrated the power of brainstorming and idea-generation techniques. Eureka light bulbs have populated the covers of many books. Businessmen have been asked to improve their creative attitudes. And 2009 was named the Year of Creativity and Innovation by the European Union.

One consequence of a decade focused on idea generation is ideas are now more easily accessible, which has also made idea generation less of a differentiator in competition than it has traditionally been. When more than 30% of the population belongs to the creative class, as Richard Florida suggested in his 2003 book The Rise of the Creative Class, ideas are not in short supply. And with the diffusion of open innovation processes, ideas competitions, and the like, executives are increasingly exposed to a wealth of ideas.

What is in short supply, I'm afraid, are visionary thinkers who will be capable of making sense of this abundance of stimuli — visionaries who will build the arenas to unleash the power of ideas and transform them into actions.

Could the next decade be the decade of vision building? If so, we will witness a significant shift in the way we think about innovation, creativity, and leadership. Popular studies of creativity have suggested that the fast generation of numerous ideas (the more, the better); in contrast, visionary leadership requires a relentless exploration of one direction (the deeper and more robust, the better). Idea generation values a neophyte perspective; vision building is based on research and deep understanding. To generate fresh ideas we have been told to think outside of the box and then jump back in; vision building destroys the box and builds a new one. It does not play with the existing paradigms; it changes them. Studies of idea generation have lingered on variety and divergence, but vision building is based on convergence, on bringing others onboard. Ideas are culturally neutral as long as they help solve problems; visions are intrinsically ideological and biased towards a clear aspiration of how the world should be: They strongly reflect the personal culture of the thinker.

I'm certainly not questioning the essential value of ideas. They will still ignite the innovation process. Tossing around a large number of ideas will still be important, especially for incremental improvements. It is not one or the other. It is a shift in the most rare and precious asset that will drive competitive advantage: visions. It's time for thought leaders to move beyond post-its and embrace a more advanced form of creativity. A radical form of think-action that somewhat resembles that of researchers and entrepreneurs fighting to implement their vision.

What do you think? Is it time to call for a new form of creativity? If last decade was the decade of idea generation, will the new one be the decade of vision building?

Roberto Verganti is the author of Design-Driven Innovation. Changing the Rules of Competition by Radically Innovating what Things Mean and has pioneered research on the intersection of strategy, design and technology management. A professor of the management of innovation at Politecnico di Milano, Verganti also is a member of the board of the European Institute for Advanced Studies in Management. He has served as an executive advisor, coach, and educator at a variety of firms, including Ferrari, Ducati, Whirlpool, Xerox, Samsung, Hewlett-Packard, Barilla, Nestlè, STMicroelectronics, and Intuit.

It’s the most important product launch for Dell this year. Maybe in the company’s history. And if you ask Neeraj Choubey, general manager of tablets within Dell’s Communications Solutions Group, the Mini 5 isn’t just another slate. He uses words like “category killer.” And that’s because the device that he’s bringing to market will be the first 5-inch Android tablet in the U.S. that can also make calls. Yes, the Mini 5 is a phone, as well as a mobile Internet device, camera, camcorder, GPS navigator, and media player. You could call it a tabletphone.

Choubey, who spent five years at Motorola and created Yahoo’s mobile search product before becoming a VC, also feels pretty strongly that the Mini 5 won’t be swept away by the iPad hype. And that’s because the two devices have different target audiences. In fact, Choubey told us flat out that the iPad isn’t really a mobile device, saying that it’s best for those who “have a handbag or a murse or whatever.”

Here are just some of the other highlights of our interview:

• Dell is working with AT&T to bring the Mini 5 to market (even though no official carrier partnership has been announced).
• The Mini 5 will access the Android Market, a big differentiator versus devices like the Archos 5 ($339.99) and bigger screen Android tablets, and the front-facing camera is designed for peer-to-peer video calls.
• Dell is working on a portfolio of devices that includes Android tablets with larger displays.
• The company will be rolling out a service that will allow customers to buy content once and have it be available on multiple Dell devices. (Reminds us a bit of iTunes, but Choubey used Amazon as his example.)

Even with all of these tidbits there’s still a lot of other great stuff Choubey shared during our in-depth conversation. So dig in and tell us if you think the Mini 5 has what it takes to be a hit.

Do you think consumers are ready for a device that sits between a traditional smart phone and netbook?

I think we had the same conversations about netbooks a few years ago. Do you really need a netbook if you have a laptop? And the netbook was pretty disruptive because of the price points. How successful it was for long-term productivity gains I’m not sure, but here was a lot of chips sold on it. I think the tablet device coupled with some of the innovative things that carriers are thinking about as far as pricing, it will be something we’ll continue to look at. Right now my users are saying this is interesting enough, please tell me more about it. And once we get the device out there we’ll continue to listen to them, and if they say we don’t like this or we do like this, we’ll take that feedback and put it into the product development process.

Why are you calling the Mini 5 a Tablet if you can use it as a phone?

Yes, there’s a phone in the device. We’re working with AT&T and when you get this device you stick a SIM chip in it and make phone calls the normal way. And, yes, you can hold it up to your head or use Bluetooth. But the flip side is that we’re trying to make a device that developers will get excited about.

Other than the screen size and Market support, what features will make the Mini 5 stand out?

The number one thing a lot of developers have told us that’s a unique feature for this device is that we have a front-facing webcam on it. We’ll be able to do peer-to-peer video conferencing, and we’re talking to a number of partners about that right now. There are probably a bunch of people out there thinking about augmented reality and different things you can do with a person and their face and how to present that in a mobile context. My job as a general manager is to make sure that I stay on the forefront of technology, listen to my users, and make sure that I not only keep my users happy but make a platform that developers are going to be excited to develop on.

What is the target market for the Dell Mini 5?

I’d say it’s definitely a more tech-savvy generation of people that understand the value of using alternate devices. There’s a use case that says my phone is really good at making phone calls, but in order to get the true Internet experience, being able to see a website in the shape and form that the original content publisher meant you to implicitly means you need a larger screen device. We’ve listened to customers and customers are dissatisfied with how they’re experiencing the Internet on their devices.

If you’re Apple, Apple would say go make an app for every service you have. The New York Times, traffic, whatever it is, which fits their business model great. But there’s a lot of developers out there doing Web-based content, flash-based content, and asking them to go do an iPhone app is kind of an onerous thing, whether you’re a mom and pop shop up to a large publisher. We’re all about bringing Internet content as it’s meant to be to a form factor that doesn’t require you to squint at your device. It’s a much more realistic and natural way for you to view the content.

Doesn’t that also mean that the Mini 5 might appeal to an older demographic, too?

There is bifurcation that we found in the research. Ostensibly there is this quintessential soccer mom, and she has an e-mail device, a cell phone and a PND device for the car and she also has a video camera and a point and shoot. You can consolidate all those devices into one device. This device is better than a Flip video camera, it’s better than a lot of the point and shoots out there, it’s better than the GPS navigation device that’s probably in the car, especially if it’s an in-dash one. In the use case that you’re in the car this has Bluetooth, it’ll connect, you can use a headphone, you don’t have to hold the device up to your head. When you’re walking you can hold it in your hand, and while you’re on the call you have a great device that you can do other stuff on as well.

Can you tell me if the Dell Mini 5 will be able to access the Android Market?

Yes, we are compliant. The initial device that we have has been blessed by Google and will have Google Mobile Services. You’ll have Gmail, you’ll have Marketplace, and you’ll have all the stuff that you would normally expect.

What percentage of the apps in the market do you expect the Dell Mini 5 can handle?

We’re in the middle of testing and I can’t share what that testing has shown but my expectation is that if it’s in the marketplace, it should work. Mind you, some apps may not be written to Google’s coding guidelines, and they may break for whatever reason. But if we find those apps and work with the developers, I’m sure that there’s no reason why that everything in the Google mobile marketplace will not work on the device.