I bring to you the best thing about democracy and open source all wrapped into a super-charged challenge to the established business models of the ‘man’ capped off with a bottled entrepreneurs spirit of true capitalism.
OpenMoko: How to disrupt and Industry, but make more money for everyone.
That is their sub-line, not mine…it links to a presentation the inventor did.
I’ve written briefly about this before, but I’ll summarize what this is again. You take a completely open source design for hardware (as in all schematics are available, and so are all of the API’s, drivers, and such for the chips in it), package a specialized version of Linux on it to look slick on mobile phones (much like motorola recently did for the RAZR and other new phones, aptly named motolinux), supply it only with open, standards-based protocols for communications (screw you Verizon and Sprint and your stupid CDMA) and you pop out a baby of bottled freedom and money in the form of a phone.
This phone’s release date for developers was announced recently on the mailing list.
For reference, here is a comparison to the iPhone.
http://www.libervis.com/article/forget_iphone_hail_openmoko_the_true_revolution, and here is a feature by feature breakdown
http://www.linuxtogo.org/gowiki/OpenMoko/iPhone, except this list is missing the new accelerometers that the Neo1973/OpenMoko have recently added to the retail hardware release.
So I’ve said I’m a libertarian at heart from a political standpoint, which is the political basis I start from when talking about my political opinion. But then you have to mix in the Christian aspect, and finally apply a liberal helping of to truly get where I’m coming from.
I say this all for a reason. I want to point out that I believe in market regulations because of this one simple principal. A market driven by publicly held companies, dominated by a press looking for change, yields a world that requires that more and more money must be made by an individual company in order for it to survive.
In other words, in terms of percentages, your company has to grow every year, it can never stay the same or decrease, in order to make its stock not plummet.
This drives companies to circle their wagons, not innovate, and to instead start cutting bottom lines, milking the consumer for more money for the same services, and go after anyone that steps within 30 feet of their intellectual property (IP)…as if IP is their only thing left making them float.
This has turned out a world full of copy-cats, not doing anything new. Even if you look at the Iphone it is just a copy of a lot of other stuff with an Apple spin on the UI. Believe me when I say the UI is worth a lot to me as a consumer, but also look at it and notice the only ‘new’ feature on it that is innovative is the multi-touch screen.
This isn’t capitalism…certainly not in an Ayn Rand / objectivist sense, and certainly not even in an old skool conservative sense either. It is a monopoly of like-minded / group-thinking people sitting around coming up with ways to maximize profits with a saturated market of the same idea iterated over a million times.
And we buy it!!!! WTF! Our data networks are a joke in this country, because we don’t demand improvement with our capitalism dollars. We just look at the coverage maps, and how much plans cost and then go buy whatever we feel like buying. Who does homework on a cell phone plan? Who knows that CDMA, the type of network used by Verizon and Sprint, are only available in the US (and US occupied countries…*cough*Iraq*cough*), and the rest of the World uses GSM? There are about 5 to 10 times as many phone models available with more features and a better network in Europe and Asia, and they only work on GSM. We don’t get them because the carriers don’t offer them, and the carriers for GSM and CDMA lock your phone to your account. So, even in a GSM network (like I have), I cannot take my SIM card (it is your cellular identity card associated with your phone number and carrier info) and put it into another phone, the phone won’t work unless “Activated” which costs me $36. The bitch of that is that the SIM card was invented and put into the GSM spec so I could do just that.
Anyway, I digress.
If you were wondering, GSM is also why Apple picked AT&T to partner with for the iPhone release. It isn’t easy making two versions of a cell phone, one for each type of network, so they stuck with the one that would allow them to get world-wide saturation of their product.
I’m glad for that, because it will hopefully point out to America that game-theory in economics and technological innovation extends beyond European partnerships. CDMA you see, is an American regulated, closed-off, privately-owned, method of cell-phone communications. And only America has played in this game so far.
Also, did you ever wonder why it costs you at least $40 for a cell phone plan, and then 35+ cents / minute for overage, when your local land-line phone is pay-as-you-go? Or how about this one, why do I pay for incoming calls now on my cell phone plan?
It is not because the cell phone company has a right to change things that much. Do they really add that much more value to charge you at least double (double meaning you make about as many calls as you receive) for a phone that isn’t connected to the wall? I mean if you think about it, there is less risk in maintaining a cell phone tower than there is in maintaining lines to everyones house. It is a single controlled source from which maintain equipment is much easier than end-user equipment.
Also, ever wonder why the REEEEAAAAAALLLLLLy slow internet on your phone costs you $20/month. Cuz you pay that much for it? and there is no competition. Their competitors just look at how much they are charging and then charge that much. Data plans haven’t changed in the three years I’ve been eyeballing them for my phone, which signifies a stagnant market.
Here is another good question to ask. Why is it that you can buy a song from the iTunes store for $1, but ringtones cost around $2 for a 30 second clip in crappy quality for a song?
And, why don’t the cell phone companies (manufacturers and carriers) make it easier to put your existing music on your phone as ringtones?
Answer is: Because you will pay them for it, and because you pay them money as long as the easiest way to do what you want with your phone is to pay them money. (not related to this rant, but on a technical note this software called MP3Cut is really handy for making your own ringtones.)
So, what I’m saying here, is that if they keep demand high, and availability low, and think together for themselves, these companies think they make more money. Meanwhile, you get a phone that can not be upgraded or improved, a network that is bleeding you dry to do things that should seem basic in 2007 for a telecommunications network.
One solution to this problem (i.e. not needing a new phone as often) is this OpenMoko platform. Imagine being able to download any program available, for free, over your wireless internet to your phone, with a simple program on the phone.
No data cables. Just open a piece of software called a package manager, search for the thing you want, and it downloads.
You want a program to cut a section of an MP3 on your phone and make it a ringtone…just download it from the package manager. You want a guitar tuner (can you think of a better use for an LCD screen with a built-in microphone and speaker?), just download it.
You want to put your music on your phone. Connect a cheap, completely standard, USB cable, and drag the MP3 to the phone which is now seen as a storage device. Or better yet, share it over your wireless network with windows / apple /linux file-sharing. And now you have a service that someone is trying to make you pay for, for as simple as you share stuff on your computer with your iPod or digital camera now.
Anyway, the short point of this long long rant is that group-think, and circling your wagons fails to provide the consumer with the best deal for their money, and in the long terms slows things down for everyone in terms of technology being adopted by the masses.
And as the web 2.0 is teaching us, user generated content and software (programmers trying to scratch itches and in the process empowering / benefiting others) is the way of the future.
Maybe someday telecommunications companies will learn. I know that your internet service provider would like to have the cell phone companies model for getting your money though….that is what this net neutrality thing is about. But maybe, just maybe, if more of us take a stand, and peer-to-peer or mesh networking takes off with the OLPC project in developing nations, we might see some change that actually benefits us for once.
So, stick it to the man, buy the neo1973 hardware running OpenMoko software, and not the iPhone, or RAZR. And don’t buy Blue-Ray or HD-DVD, cuz that is a cluster-fuck of consumer screwing too. And don’t buy HDTV cable from the cable company, build your own antenna with tin-foil and coat hangers and pull down HD over the air (do you really need MTV in HD anyway?), and drop your local phone for VOIP service from some no-name company that charges like 0.2 cents per minute for US calls (hint, Vonage is not your only option. VOIP only requires a connection to the internet…nothing special from your ISP like Comcast, Quest, and want you to believe).
Take the time to be a good consumer. Doing your part to know what is out there and demanding the best deal possible helps people with less money than you in the US, and helps lower infrastructure costs globally, which in turn helps developing nations.
Capitalism works if monopolies stop and consumers do their part to demand more.
Ok, now I’m actually done….sorry that was so long. Congratulations to you if you made it. Drink a beer….you deserve it.