CrowdSpirit

Streamlined WiFi all-in-one communicator

posted by pedxing on 30 August 2007 0:04 Go to the market place Go to forum

Problem context :

Immediate communication capabilities with voice and text are things that are sought after DAILY in any small or medium sized business.

In creative work arenas where people aren't tethered to a particular office, chair, or building it can get to be quite tricky to get in contact with who you want when you want. Currently, people use a combination of desk phones, email on a computer, instant messaging software, and paging/loudspeakers to accomplish what could be handled by one singularly-minded device.

In the home, the need for powering and maintaining a computer or costly cell-phone/SMS charges would be erased.

The mobile professional already knows how useful open hot-spots can be at airports, hotels, coffee shops, and restaurants in staying effective while on the road. For those who don't need enterprise-level functionality a Blackberry is simply overkill, and expensive overkill at that.

 

Proposed Solution :

A WiFi SIP phone with gmail, POP, IMAP, AIM, jabber, googletalk, and googletalk VOICE support.

There are many SIPPhones, cellphones, and tablets on the market that boast VOIP and SIP/IM feature-sets, the only problem is.... THEY DO TOO MUCH and COST TOO MUCH for wide adoption. This device would be for communication only. This means that cell connectivity, fast processors(tablets), large video or touch screens, specialized audio hardware, and high capacity batteries would not be neccessary.

For useabilities sake I think a device with a QWERTY layout (sliding?)would be ideal.

There is one device that is SO close to pulling this all off maybe a product modification would be in order as a first proof-of-concept step. The Sony Mylo does everything EXCEPT it uses Skype for VOIP and has no googletalk Voice functionality. Since office PBX systems are most often going to use SIP instead of Skype this is something that would ABSOLUTELY need to be corrected. Hacking the Mylo might also get us around having to license technology from Google and AOL. The pricepoint on the Mylo is really just too high for it to have mass-appeal so again, this might be attempted as a mock-up for functionality/software testing since it currently runs linux. Drop MP3 and video playback from the hardware needs and we just may have a way to get to market with a low-cost super communicator!

 

update 9-8-2007

hhahaha.  my guess is that the ipod Touch will end up filling this void.  Its binary compatible with the iphone and so a SIP and messaging app will be right around the corner I'm sure.  The pricepoint is still higher than I think is neccessary because of the large screen and sheer power of the device but I think the handwriting is on the wall.