Giants to Enter WLAN Game?

Briefly Noted

• Taking Your Business On the Road: The Car As Wireless Office
  
  
• Standards, Standards Everywhere: A Business Guide to Wireless Standards
  
  
• M-Commerce: Are We There Yet?
  
  
• Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mobile Location-Based Wireless Services
  
  
• The Wireless Last Mile: Fixed Wireless Broadband Services
  
  
• Beyond Keyboards, Beyond Wires: Voice Activated Wireless Services
  
  
• Information, Entertainment, and Access At Your Fingertips: Interactive Wireless Information Services
  
  These white papers will be released over the coming months. To be notified when a new white paper is released, send an email to or check www.CTOMentor.com/wireless/.
  
  
• Microsoft’s Weak Xbox Security: From the It’s Not Really Surprising Department comes an item forwarded by Alert SNS Reader Todd Mortenson. MIT student Andrew Huang has figured out how to retrieve the software “keys” that a game disc must contain for the Xbox to recognize its contents as legitimate code. Andrew took the brute-force way and soldered a breakout box between two components on the Xbox motherboard that allowed him to observe system traffic. He says it took him only three weeks to get the secret keys because the Xbox security codes weren’t encrypted. Microsoft instead opted for “security by obscurity” measures, including dummy hardware chips. Developers with the security keys could create Web browsers, MP3 players, or other applications for the Xbox. And that would be wrong, obviously.
  
  One of the truly unfortunate realities of research such as Huang’s is that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act makes it illegal, even if he doesn’t share the results. Microsoft, so far, is saying it won’t prosecute. However, Princeton researchers who broke the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI) digital copy protection schemes weren’t so lucky, although their case has recently been resolved without penalties, but also without a court ruling on the First Amendment rights of researchers.
  News.com
  
  
• Wireless Predictions: Synchrologic, a company that provides centrally managed services for fleets of handhelds, has made a not-so-surprising prediction: Within a year the majority of handhelds will be centrally managed. In a survey, more than 70 percent of respondents expected to centrally purchase and manage handhelds within 18 months, with just over 40 percent already there. Of course, this prediction is a bit self-serving, but other aspects of Synchrologic’s survey are very interesting.
  
  
  • Just under 10 percent of respondents have already ported enterprise applications to handheld devices, and 50 percent plan to do so within the next 18 months.
    
    
  • Email is the most likely application to be mobilized.
    
    
  • Wireless connectivity options were very much preferred compared to wireline modems.
    
    
  • "Unexpected" business drivers are pushing companies to mobilize. Rather than justifying projects by a formal ROI analysis, many firms find competitive advantage and heightened levels of customer service are strong enough justifications for going mobile.
  Synchrologic
  
  
• Lindows and Microsoft in Trademark Trouble: You might expect Microsoft to be fiercely protective of its trademark on Windows®, and you might expect that they would take a dim view of a company like Lindows, founded by MP3.com founder and former Chief Executive Officer Michael Robertson. Lindows is claiming that its Linux-based OS, LindowsOS, can run both Linux and Windows applications.
  
  Naturally, Microsoft sued in December, 2001, but clear thinking Judge John C. Coughenour denied a temporary injunction in March and has thrown open the question of Microsoft’s trademark on Windows, saying that generic terms can’t be trademarked. The judge said in his opinion that Microsoft's claim to the Windows trademark might be precarious, as the mark was both generic and had been rejected multiple times by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office before its approval in 1995. In May, the judge denied Microsoft’s request that he reconsider his ruling and said Lindows could use the name at least until a trial could be held next April.
  
  The worst of it is: Microsoft shot themselves in the foot. It submitted materials, including press reports at the time of Windows’ introduction, and entries from Microsoft's own computer terms dictionary, that the judge claims show that “windows” is a generic term. Such materials are evidence that Microsoft's Windows is a product within a group of products, one part of the test of genericness, Coughenour ruled. “Even Microsoft's own computer dictionary includes expansive definitions of ‘windowing environment’ and ‘windowing software,’” the judge's order read.
  
  Add to this insult the fact that WalMart is now selling Lindows-equipped PCs for 300 bucks, and you can understand Redmond’s discomfort. Plus the company says it plans to allow any computer maker to put Lindows on as many PCs as it wants for a $500 license fee. Brilliant!
  
  Stay tuned. This one could get even more interesting.
  InfoWorld
  
  
• Motorola Pitches Canopy: Motorola, despite a recent reputation for missing the boat (see a previous SNS) on new trends, is making a strong bid as a player in the fixed wireless market. Canopy, released this week, operates on the unlicensed, but less noisy, 5.25-5.35 GHz and 5.725-5.825 GHz spectrum, and delivers 10Mbps speed. Motorola has set very attractive pricing to create a very low barrier to entry for wireless broadband entrepreneurs. A single access point can serve a 2- to 10-mile area. And the best thing about the system is it doesn’t require an expensive truck roll to install. Consumers or businesses just plug it in (indoors) and it works, according to the company. Despite its very recent unveiling, 45 Web providers are already using Canopy.
  EPrairie