OQO
Friday, May 5th 2006 | Ismael Ghalimi
Five years ago, I met one of the very few guys who could legitimately claim he helped create the BPM market: Jay Shiveley, who was Vitria’s Vice President of Sales at the time. I had lunch with Jay today, and got to learn more about his new job: CEO of UMPC maker OQO.
A month and a half ago, I expressed significant doubts about the UMPC form factor, and part of my interest today was in trying to understand what could have attracted someone like Jay to a hardware venture. I intuitively knew that OQO was special, but I could not really explain why until I could actually touch and feel their model 01+ device.
What’s interesting about OQO is precisely the form factor. It’s bigger than a smartphone, yetsmaller than a Tablet PC, and to me that means right on target. On one hand, my Cingular 8125 is very nice, but it’s too small to be used as a web browser. On the other hand, my old HP tc1100 is one of the best Tablet PC models I’ve ever seen, but it’s just too big to be carried around on a daily basis. The OQO model 01+ stands right in the middle, is slightly bigger than a Nokia 770 Internet Tablet, but comes with a built-in keyboard that makes it usable.
Some of OQO’s founders come from Apple Computer, therefore know a trick or two about industrial design, and it shows immediately when you start playing with the model 01+. It’s clean and feels solid yet lightweight. In other words, it’s the kind of device that I could see myself carrying around all the time. Currently, the model 01+ does not offer WWAN connectivity, but Jay assured me that the OQO team is working on fixing this. Everything else I was told cannot be shared on this channel, and all I can say is that OQO’s upcoming models will impress more than one, so stay tuned…
Entry filed under: Office 2.0
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Attractive devices, the only problem is the price :-(
Ismael,
Your blog is highly addictive. I read it daily, sometime more than once. I am totally buying the office 2.0 concept. I began unloading my files to stream load and experimenting with Writely and Zoho for spreadsheets and presentations. With my next laptop, I am going all Office 2.0. Also, how much are you paying for your setup and for what? Unlesss you run a business, it seems like all services have a single-user free version that would suit most users just fine.
Keep up the great work!
Zoli,
Prices should go down eventually.
Ryan,
Thanks for the kind words. Regarding the cost of my setup, I wrote an article on it three months ago. My setup evolved a little bit since then, but not significantly from a cost standpoint. The only major addition was Dabble DB, for which I am paying $25 a month. I would not trade this application for anything else though.
Ismael,
Zoho is coming out with a new release of their Creator, which is free.
How does it compare to Dabble DB?
Zoli,
Zoho Creator has many more features than Dabble DB, but Dabble DB’s user interface is far superior for the time being. Both are excellent solutions and a matter of personal choice at this point. Down the road, I expect Dabble DB to provide a more complete feature set, while Zoho Creator will be more tightly integrated with the rest of the Zoho suite, especially Zoho Sheet. If you already use Zoho Sheet and Zoho Writer, my advice would be to use Zoho Creator as well. But if you’re trying to build a best-of-breed solution similar to my Office 2.0 setup, I would suggest that you give Dabble DB a try.
I would suggest OQO study some history.
Small companies that build a product strategy around Microsoft Windows end up dead companies. In order to survive versus the likes of Samsung, OQO will need to eliminate the cost of Microsoft Windows, and that means:
1. Linux
2. Strong support for OpenDocument
That would allow OQO to leverage key market opportunities in Europe and gaps that are opening in the US such as the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Frank,
I’m not sure that I agree with you. Very many companies have developed quite successful businesses on top of Windows, Dell being a good example for it I believe. That being said, I agree with you that OQO will have to differentiate itself from competitors such as Dell or Samsung, and one way to do that is by offering a better user experience, which includes hardware, software and services, much like Apple is doing it today with the MacBook Pro, Mac OS X, and .Mac. My advice to Jay was to add a layer of services on top of the plain-vanilla Windows XP operating system in order to simplify the life of mobile workers, especially with respect to data synchronization. I’m not sure I managed to get my point across, but at least I tried.
Ismael,
I would suggest that while there have been a small number of innovative companies that have been successful working with Microsoft, they are the exception. When a company comes up with something really innovative, Microsoft’s lust for profits becomes all absorbing, and the small innovator gets squashed in Microsoft’s desire to build volume as quickly as possible. The Sendo example is a recent case in point.
At the very least, OQO would be wise to hedge its risk and become platform agnostic. As you’ve mentioned, the stack becomes its key selling point. The OpenDocument format could be a strategic part of this, as high volume manufacturers such as Samsung and HP are just focused on the Windows Mobile platform and the Microsoft Office format.
Frank,
I agree with you. A platform-agnostic model would be nice, but also much more expensive from an engineering standpoint, as Jay was quick to point out to me. In that respect, I’m not sure that the operating system matters as much as the completion of an integrated stack does.
Ismael,
One final thought from me on this!
If the Microsoft OS license makes up 5%+ of the total cost of the device — then it sure does matter. No matter how many times Microsoft and OQO kiss, the reality is that high volume manufacturers such as Samsung that have other large Microsoft engagements will always pay less for a Microsoft license than OQO.
There are now numerous options to create cross-platform stacks. These include Java, Mono, and Qt. Wouldn’t it make sense to use one of these and build a cross-platform stack?
Frank,
I’m with you! Your argument makes perfect sense from a bill of materials standpoint. Using a lighter-weight operating system would also help reduce power consumption, which is critical with such a device. Nevertheless, part of the appeal for the OQO model 01+ seems to be the ability to natively run any Windows application. I doubt that OQO will be willing to abandon this, even if that means giving up 5% of its revenues to our friends in Redmond.
Ismael,
It is now confirmed: Microsoft has outlined its plans for “Vistagami” — a form factor and concept virtually identical to OQO. I am still struggling to understand how OQO will compete against HP, Dell, Samsung, Toshiba, etc. unless it provides significant and attractive differentiators.
Those differentiators have to be in areas that Microsoft does not want to go, e.g. OpenDocument support. I would suggest OQO should be focused on the explosion of interest in the OpenDocument format amongst Government and Enterprise, particularly in Europe.
Frank,
Your argument makes perfect sense. I’m not sure OQO will agree though…
[…] In my quest for the best Office 2.0 mobile device, I recently came across the upcoming HTC Advantage. It’s a funny little device that is slightly larger than a smartphone or a PDA, but smaller and lighter than the Sony VAIO UX180P or the OQO Model 01+ we reviewed in past articles. […]
[…] Among all the devices a gadget lover can crave for, the OQO has been way up there on my list for a long time. Unfortunately, it is not distributed by any major retail chain, hence it’s not often that you can come across one, which makes it difficult to get a sense for its unique form factor. Last year, I got to play with the model 01 and was quite impressed. But this year, we signed OQO as sponsor for the Office 2.0 Conference, and we got sample units of the model 02 to showcase on the Mobility Area. Here are my first impressions about the device. […]
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