[JDEV] Nokia Series 60 and Wireless Village

[Tijl Houtbeckers]

Richard Dobson <richard at dobson-i.net> wrote on 27-12-2002 3:32:19:
>
>>> Urm from reading it it appears to have a lot to do with wireless
>>> village since it says "Wireless Village-based Instant Messaging".
>>
>> quote:
>> "Examples of coming features include Digital Rights Management,
>> Wireless Village-based Instant Messaging and Terminal Management."
>
>And... It is stating the fact here again that their instant messaging 
>will most likely be based on WV.

Nokia is not a content company, they want to present themselves as a 
solution company. There is no "Nokia" Instant Messaging. Wireless 
village was supposed to be the universal instant messaging on phones. 
This was the goal of the wireless village initiative. This has failed. 
Ofcourse they don't throw away all the time and money that went into 
R&D so now instead they market it as a solution that *someone else* can 
choose to install. Note that this is a VERY big chance from the 
original goal. I'm not saying Nokia is doing nothing with WV and that 
noone will use WV. I'm saying WV is not the *default standard*. 

Rest assured that if an operator that uses Jabber wants to buy Nokia's 
with a Jabber client on it, Nokia already has a Series 60 Jabber client.
 (maybe a SIP/SIMPLE one even) 

>>
>> More intresting (cause it actually excists) is the Wireless Village
>> J2ME API, but so far none of the manufactorers have chosen to include
>> it in with their J2ME stacks, including Nokia.
>>
>> Note your "apperently".
>> Series 60 is a *very* open platform, one could easily add a Jabber
>> messenger instead of a wireless village messenger.
>
>It might be open and one might be able to add jabber easily but the 
>fact remains that they are promoting the use of specifically wireless 
>village not jabber, and there is no generic mention of instant 
>messaging everywhere it seems to be coupled with wireless village.

If an operator chooses to go with Nokia and WV Nokia makes the most 
money, since they'll have to buy everything from Nokia. This is still 
very different from Nokia shipping all their phones with WV on it, that 
would be *pushing* WV, trying to force WV onto them. But Nokia 
recognized that WV is not going to be the only one outthere, and might 
be obsoleted alltogether. They don't want to ship phones with product 
that don't work on it. So they don't. Ofcourse this will mean an even 
lower adaptionrate of WV. This is what people mean when they say "WV is 
dead". 

>> Let's look at the Nokia series 60 devices that are outthere (the 
>> 7650) and the ones that have been officially announced. Can you see 
>> one with wireless village? In fact can you find *any* phone that has 
>> it? 
>
>Yes UK mobiles that are setup with vodafone live, Vodafone Messenger 
>appears to be a version of iFollow Messenger that its maker says 
>supports Wireless Village also it says on the wireless village site 
>that the iFollow server supports wireless village protocols. 

Well.. if iFollow is actually based on WV that could be the first roll-
out. Here in Holland we have Vodafone Live! too, but there's no mention 
of IM anywhere. Is it on phones in the UK? Again: (as I've said before) 
I'm not saying WV won't be used anywhere, it's just not the default 
standard. We've only mentioned Nokia that supplies solutions here, but 
besides that Motorola and Ericsonn provide solutions too.. but again: 
none of them have WV pre-installed on the phones they sell. 


>Now since 
>vodafone appears to be deploying vodafone live to all of their 
>subsidiaries I would classify that as a significant deployment. Also 
>there is the fact that Vodafone is one of the worlds biggest mobile 
>companies.

Even if it's just in the UK I'd still call it significant.

>
>> There have been some technical implementations, but has anyone 
>> actually commited to a roll-out? Don't hold your breath for too long.
>> . 
>
>Urm seemingly yes see above.

I have to admit: I wasn't aware of that one :)

>Not all though Vodafone arnt (see above), so far ive only heard about 
>France Telecom, Sprint and Orange going for Jabber, any other big 
>mobile operators with deployments?

I have to say: Vodafone is pretty big. Also note Orange = France 
Telecom. I still haven't been able to find out much more about vodafone 
UK services (their site seems to be down or something), and that the 
iFollow version deployed actually uses the WV protocol, but let's 
assume it does. 

That would surtenly level the score for WV a bit. I'm not aware of any 
other operators that use Jabber, but outside of the operators Jabber is 
used a lot. 

>Im not arguing against the fact that jabber is better (i think it is), 
>but the narrow view that everyone will agree and use it and that no-
>one is using wireless village and wont.

I must admit I'm still surprised about VF, but I never said noone would 
use it. I don't think (hope) this was the focus of our discussion 
either. 

>We might not want to start an 
>implementation of a gateway right now, but I do think we need to 
>prepare for it (read up on WV, get in contact with some people there 
>etc etc) as people do seem to want to use WV.

I'm not against having interoperability. I just don't see much use for 
it. That's what (more or less) I've been trying to point out in the 
discussion. The change of the scope of the WV initiative makes it less 
intresting for Jabber. 


Suppose we already had an implementation with some form(s) of WV 
interop. what could we actually do with it? 

Could we use it (C2S interop.) to deploy wireless clients? No, we could 
just deploy a Jabber client. Nokia (and others) are not shipping phones 
with a WV messenger unless you buy them in bulk and pay for it. Also 
they won't mind putting your (or their) Jabber messenger on it. 

Could we use it (C2S interop.) to let people with a WV messenger from 
their operator on it (the Vodaphone Live! people right now) use our 
Jabber Server instead? No, because the WV messenger they deploy will 
most likely only connect to Vodafone. 

Could we use it (WV transport) to let people who use jabber use their 
WV account (like we do with MSN, ICQ, etc. now)? (Most likely) No, 
because vodafone doesn't let us into their network, since WV is just a 
protocol they use, not the standard (pretty much) open network it was 
once supposed to be. 

Could we use it (S2S interop.) to let people who use jabber communicate 
with people who use WV? No and Yes. No, same answer as above. Yes, 
maybe on a commercial basis. This would be espc. usefull for operators 
(or maybe even other big third party contentproviders) who deploy 
jabber and want to interop. Still this would be the best reason right 
now, is that good enough for you? 

Could we use it (S2S interop.) so that companies (like vodafone) can 
use Jabber to develop services/components and use excisting ones for WV 
users using Jabber? Yes, but what's in it for us? (and who will 
actually deploy a mixed network like that) 

-- 
Tijl Houtbeckers
Java/J2ME/GPRS Software Engineer @ Splendo
The Netherlands