photos: Jon Harsem
So last night I carried out my monthly "Tablet Guy" duties with the Sydney Windows Mobile User Group. For anyone that hasn't attended the group...you should. For those of you that can't, well for you it's important that you know two things about SWMUG, lots of geeks, and lots of Pizza (oh, and lots of geeks).
photos: Jon Harsem
Last night there was a guy from Vodafone Australia (sorry forgot the name) who probably wishes he hadn’t come. Between Dr. Neil and I, we managed to intimidate the socks off him and perhaps think twice about coming near a Microsoft User Groups again. It was more in jest than anything else but what do you expect when “data bundles” and “content management” were what he put forward as topics. We also had the enigmatic engineer/salesperson (in his own words) Stephen Gray from Seratec. In he’s eyes Seratec could do no wrong and provide no harm; I decided to see him again for coffee as anyone this optimistic should surely be a hoot to spend time with! At half time the “real geeks” left the room and joined James Mccutcheon from J3 Technology on a quest into some really cool coding stuff; I stayed for Vodafone Guy and Stephen, oh well!
photos: Jon Harsem
Earlier that evening I arrived at the Microsoft building with a real sense of accomplishment and excitement. Not only had I arrived with the only eo Ultra Mobile PC currently in Australia but on this occasion I also had the only Samsung Q1 too. Now if you've ever heard me "Talk Tablet" you'll know that sometimes I find it hard to stop; on this occasion with both the eo and the Q1 in my pocket it was always going to be special.
Although my chat was brief and somewhat interrupted by our uberly time-protective leader, Roger Lawrence, I did manage to squeeze in a brief history of UMPC, an Aussie roundup of the UMPC success and failure and the future...imagine if Roger actually gave me three minutes instead of two! What was interesting after the close of the evening was the enthusiasm surrounding these devices. I still can't work out if it's largely due to the viral marketing campaign that pervades the blogosphere, or due somehow to reality.
What I know is this: "umpc remains a form factor that seems to hit-the-spot in the corporate arena. Not so much for it Tablet qualities but mostly for its size/computing ratio. Its success will revolve around getting it on the internet and its demise, as we all know, will revolve around the battery life. If the device carried 6 hours battery life and had a PCMCIA slot then the device would surely hit-the-spot we all want it to hit. For know between software developers, and enterprise mobility teams, it seems as though we're all trying to understand just where does UMPC lie in our arsenal of devices. Only time will tell.
Stay tuned as I bring to you more thoughts, reviews, pics and videos on these magical devices.
4 comments:
Hey thanks for the photo credit there Hugo =). There will be some more general shots on the swmug site very soon now.
Oh and the Vodafone guy was also called Stephen I think - though right now of the top of my head I can't remember his surname =\
Cheers Jon, photos were neat! Cheers on the "Vodafone Guy" Stephen.
Hey Hugo. You say "we're all trying to understand just where does UMPC lie in our arsenal of devices."
As you can imagine, the Lifekludger knows where he could use it. And it's definately one out of 'left-field'. You'll just have to find some potential business in Adelaide so you 'three' (You eo & Q1) can visit and get the Lifekludger inside story.
As my blog title says - 'unforseen custom uses of general purpose stuff'.
Dave
Hey Dave,
Adelaide is a real easy journey, show me the purpose and I'll show you the trio!
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