I was talking with a woman today, a professional writer who works mostly in the health-care technology space. She said “These days, I want to stuff my Dell in the nearest trash compactor and do everything on my Blackberry. The computer, it’s real work to manage, and I can read whatever anyone sends me on the Blackberry, almost.” Is this the future?
The big question is: do I really need a laptop anymore? Yes, for work, just for Outlook, Visio and mainly Powerpoint (though there is a crazy Powerpoint-esque application installed on the E70). I might feel slightly less tethered though.
Our non-developers day-to-day use their laptops and desktops in three main areas 1) accessing the internet, 2) email and 3) office-type functions such as spreadsheets and documents. With smart phones like the Nokia 9300 and 9500, which we use internally, they can do pretty much everything from their phone. It seems inevitable that some day we won't have to all have bulky desktops or laptops - we'll just use our phones. Even more complicated enterprise apps can be hosted on a server and accessed from a browser on the phone. When back in the office, people will just dock their phones. External wireless keyboards for phones are already on the market. It will be interesting to see the development of external monitors for mobile phones.
Antony Pranata (comment to Regan Coleman's post):
Fully agree... In the future, we will be bringing our "laptop" inside our pocket. At home/office, we just attach our "laptop" to a wireless keyboard and big monitor and do normal work. Hope to see this happening in the next couple of years. Btw, don't forget about S60 phones too. S60 is coming to the enterprise world as well, for example with E61.
Insofar as time permits, I'm already getting a lot of mileage out of the E70. More about it soon-ish, I hope.
