Mobius 2008 - Seattle, Washington, December 8-11, 2008

 
Mount Rainer viewed from my flight into Seattle

Welcome to my daily journal for Mobius 2008

Mobius 2008 is being held in Seattle, Washington on December 8-11, 2008 and this will be my second invitation to join the annual meeting.  It will be a great time catching up with friends and colleagues in the blogging and media community!

What is Mobius?

Mobius is an exclusive group of the top gadget bloggers from around the world. Mobius, which was started more than five years ago, is about a never-ending conversation among a group - now 100 strong - devoted to following and reporting on topics and news related to mobile devices. We have a very active discussion group and an annual event.  At the annual event, speakers throughout the mobile industry come and speak, show new and future products and healthy discussion is encouraged.  While Microsoft sponsors Mobius, not all attendees run sites dedicated to Microsoft Windows Mobile technology.  In fact virtually all mobile platforms are represented by the group, giving it a well rounded and non-biased aspect.

When I arrived, Matt Miller, Mike Temporale and Rafe Blandford picked up me and Joel Evans at the airport and we all went to a local Fry's Electronics for a geek shopping spree.  I think most of us were well behaved - in fact Joel didn't buy a single thing! - and enjoy the time chit-chatting more than anything else.  It was during this trip and throughout the week that I made the determination that Rafe is the Symbian OS guy.  He knows that OS and the Nokia products inside and out and is a great guy to talk to about that platform and the market in Europe.

We kicked things off Monday night with dinner and welcoming party which is always fun.  Mike (Mobile Jaw), Judie (Gear Diary), Vincent (Slashgear), Paul (Modaco) and Ryan (gdgt) all had a pre-dinner meeting in the lobby of our hotel to get things kicked off.  At dinner it was great to catch up with everyone and meet up with friends that I most often talk to online.  Here is a list of all of the attendees:

As we wrapped things up on Monday night each attendee was given a Briggs & Reilly laptop bag.  This heavy duty and well padded bag is loaded with pockets and has a black outer shell with a burnt orange inner lining.  On the bag was a stainless steel Mobius branded luggage tag which was a very nice touch!

On Tuesday we started things in earnest.  One of the first items I noticed as the mix of PC, Mac and netbooks in use by various Mobians.  I don't remember this big of a mix being there in 2005 which really shows how things have changed in the marketplace.  We began the day with various members giving device demos of their favorite devices, applications and so forth.  This is a lot of fun as we get to see what is important to each other and what others like.  Mobility is a huge world and there are a lot of facets and this type of "show and tell" brings them out.

Next we had a great discussion around Windows 7 which will be in beta pretty soon.  There have been several improvements around home networking which will make experience better than that of Vista.  Still, as I pointed out in the session, it seems that Windows 7 is a "service pack" release - that's how I feel at least.  I didn't see anything that made me stand up and shout.  Still, if it will help get Microsoft over the Vista-hump then all isn't bad.  Another concern many of us expressed is that we did not see a lot of information around Windows Mobile intergration (translation:  Windows Mobile Device Center/ActiveSync/whateveriusetoconnectmydevicetomypc).  I suspect it is there but we just didn't go over a lot of it which I found bothersome.  One of the key things that has to improve is the integration between Windows and Windows Mobile in my view.

The rest of Tuesday was spent discussing the Windows Mobile roadmap.  This session was all NDA so I cannot speak about the content.

Midway through Tuesday we all received Flip MinoHD with the Mobius logo on the back.  I was somewhat suspect of them but as I used it and played with it, the MinoHD is a pretty darn cool piece of kit.  I'll be reviewing it later for everyone but to give you an idea, this 4GB device can record up to 60 minutes of 720p HD video. 

 
The Mobius branded Flip MinoHD digital video recorder

As we concluded our activities for Tuesday each attendee was given a HTC S740 Windows Mobile devices thanks to HTC.  These Standard devices have a slide-out QWERTY keyboard and are quite nice.  I haven't used a Standard device in a while so it will take me some getting use to as I play with it and review it.  Still, it is a solid feeling device in your hand and I was quite pleased to receive such a nice gift.  Thanks to HTC!

On Wednesday we started the day off again with more demos from various Mobius members and some general discussion of the day before.  Two things struck me about this particular Mobius event:  First, there was a lot of discussion.  Nobody kept quiet and no topic was really off limits and the conversation - both good and bad - was always done in a professional manner.  We may not all agree but we are all passionate about mobility and its success.  Second, there was a lot of NDA material covered.  There is a reason that this update is smaller than the one I posted in 2005.  It's because there is a lot of items we covered that I simply cannot discuss yet (and no an email asking me will not get you the information either).  I don't remember this much NDA information being shared - even to MVPs - in one meeting.  It was fantastic that Microsoft trusted us with this information and hopefully everyone will be pleased when things are made public.

Attendees of Mobius 2008 (Mike, Judie, Sasha, Lisa, Kzou, Dieter, G-A)

Attendees of Mobius 2008 (G-A, Jerome, Arne, Pressian, Ryan, Joel, Matt)

As we started the day all attendees were given red Microsoft Arc USB mouse's.  These are the latest designs from the Microsoft hardware department and are unique in that they are, as the name suggests, simply an arc.  It has four buttons and folds to about 60% of full size for travel.  It was a nice surprise given these are so new.  Thanks to Microsoft for providing this generous gift!

Eric Lin from HTC presented to us mid-morning, discussing mobility from an OEM perspective.  A lot of the discussion was around form factors and user experience, something that HTC I think has done well thanks to TouchFLO 2D and 3D over the last year.  It is always interesting to hear about this industry from the manufactures themselves as they have unique things to bring to the discussion.  Eric's main discussion points were around what HTC brings to the mobile arena and solicitation of our thoughts.  It was a good, hearty discussion with many ideas and perspectives provided to Eric.

After lunch we had a lengthy discussion with Beth Goza from T-Mobile around Android and their new developer program.  This brought out even more discussion as we covered the carriers and development on mobile platforms.  I have to say this was one of the more lively discussions with many (strong) opinions mobile development.  You can expect to see more on the developer program from T-Mobile in the coming days.  Beth also provided each attendee a T-Mobile branded phone holder for one's desk.

After Beth we had another NDA session around a new Windows Mobile application.  Again, this is an area that I cannot really discuss until it is public but I did like many aspects of what I saw during the presentation.

Michael Gartenberg was our next presenter and he discussed the mobility market from an analyst perspective.  Michael is one of those guys that I could listen to for hours.  His insight, knowledge and sense of humor is fantastic and he truly has a good grasp of this market.  If you have an opportunity to read his insights, do so.  Just Live Search him and you will quickly understand where I am coming from on my comments.

We concluded the day with a presentation and discussion around Mesh.  This is a great concept and was opened up to beta users just last week.  Essentially Mesh allows you to synchronize your selected data to any device at any time that is in your own cloud network or, get ready, your mesh. Think of it as folder sharing taken to the next level and Microsoft is truly making this any device ready as Mac and other clients are either available or on the roadmap.  For more information, check out the Mesh website and join the beta.

As we wrapped up the day we were provided another nice piece of equipment thanks to Microsoft.  We were each provided a Microsoft VX-5500 webcam which is one of their high-end units.  It provides a 1.3MP experience and has interchangable faceplates so you can change the color appearance of the unit.  The VX-5500 folds nearly flat which makes it a great option for taking a webcam with you as you travel.  Thanks again to Microsoft for providing this great gift.

Wednesday evening we concluded with an evening of skating and then dinner.  We had a great deal of fun and many of us have a few bumps, burns and bruises from the experience!  HTC once again provided several prize to the group for various contest we had throughout the evening including a HTC TouchHD which was won by Jerome.  We had a great time!

While Winter Mobius 2008 is only my second time to attend the event, this without question has been my experience since being invited to join.  The conversations we had this week were candid, honest and open about a variety of subjects.  Some of the discussion was passionate but all of it was professional and honest.  I'm truly honored to be a part of Mobius.

Thanks to John, Greg and Britney for all of their hard work over the week.  All of us owe a debt of gratitude for their hard work in all of the logistics of the event as well as extra curricular events, meals, hotel and many other things that I'm sure I don't even know about.  Thanks also to HTC and T-Mobile for their participation in this event as well as their providing of equipment to each attendee.  A special thank you to Microsoft as well for their sponsoring of the event, their willingness to share so much with us and for their providing of swag to the attendees.

The Winter Mobius 2008 Attendees