I had an idea back in the 80's of a portable book that would have a great screen, that would be connected, that had access to all the books. I thought that the biggest obstacle was to get the authors (or rather the publishers) to believe in electronic books, and that the copyrights was my biggest challenge. Hey, I even started the drawings for the patent (ok, give me some slack, I was young then), but I never actually made any serious attempt. Then, I bought my first handheld, a Casio Cassiopeia E10, I thought that the screen wasn't great and it wasn't connected but still, I was amazed. I showed it to my friend Andy, and he was amazed, and that was almost 10 years ago.

Now, when I look at the Kindle, I see that Jeff Bezos has another idea that is far from new, but he has some points. He aimed for a great screen and he aimed for connectivity. I still think that he missed out on the first one (even if a bunch of authors say it's great, I'll wait for the color display ), but he really got it on the second. I agree with Rob Tiffany on all points, but as a WM developer, it's the connectivity that gets me. I'm tired of reading all the connectivity small print ("...Connectivity and synchronization may require separately purchased equipment and/or wireless products...") on many WM pages. On an event back in 2000 I asked if Microsoft would enter the operator business because I believed (and still do) that the operators don't understand what an open wireless Internet can bring to everyone (it doesn't have to be free, but free us from abuse). I still ask the same question when I see they offer great devices without specifying the operating system. What is that? If I could reformat any phone (Nokia, etc) and install WM, they did have to inform me, but now I'm almost always stuck with what the manufacturer and/or the operator put in there. How could the mobile phone industry go so wrong?

Please Microsoft, the operators is not doing their job, let us free, get our users an open Internet...