http://tech-sass.com

I recently attended a presentation on WiMax, which left me feeling quite shocked. The presentation, from a software company, trotted out the usual dog and pony show about a mobile browser. They did have one interesting angle, that it would work the same on a desktop browser, and the mobile version would import bookmarks from it. But after that things continued to slide downhill. I thought I'd toss them a softball, asking "great I want it, when, where, and how much", but the reply was so much dissembling with no actual answer. OK, let's try another fat softball they can hit out of the park "what's the killer app". Shuffling of feet, staring at the floor, ok, um, "location aware is our killer app." As I understand it, the killer app is the engine that pulls along the entire train of adopters. The GOTTA HAVE IT app. "location aware" (nevermind that its not entirely clear to me how you accomplish this with WiMax, unless it uses triangulation, someone help me out here) "location aware" is not a killer app, its an enabling technology. A killer app is "press this button and the location aware will deliver a frosty horchata drink to you for free in 1 minute". A killer app is hotmail, email, iTunes, skype, spreadsheets.

At least they didn't say "mobile web" is the killer app. We need to draw some lessons from that train wreck. But I couldn't see any point in asking them, shell shocked as they were by my earlier probes. I'll go out on a limb and suggest why mobile web failed. Greedy carriers, tiny screens, bad initial experience. Not to worry, wiMax can deliver all of that faster... um...

Anyway, I'm an early adopter, the pioneers have the arrows in their backs, I'm ready to shell out $500 for my next phone to have a VGA 640x480 screen, wifi, wiMax, and android. 2H08 and I have a bridge to sell you.