Universal Android Laptop Dock: Microsoft Nightmare, Or Toy? 262
ozmanjusri writes with this story from PC World: "A company that makes keyboard docks has announced a laptop-like peripheral that uses smartphones for processing and storage.
Since many Android and Apple phones have multi-core processors powerful enough to deliver laptop-level performance, they only lack usable screens and keyboards to be productive for most office work.
ClamCase believes their 13.3-inch 1,280 x 720 ClamBook with keyboard, multi-touch touchpad, and dedicated Android keys will make up for the lack, and turn smartphones into fully-functional laptops.
A device like the ClamBook could be a real game-changer for the computer industry. If it succeeds, peripheral makers could build docks which would allow any monitor, keyboard, mouse and storage to be powered by any Android phone. It's a combination which would make BYOD offices very tempting for the corporations who are the Windows/Office combination's remaining cash-cow." I only wish the company would license the idea as well to established makers, so otherwise conventional laptops could gain the ability to easily become advanced phone screens, too.
And when the phone rings? (Score:5, Interesting)
1) keeping the computer screen up and hands-free talking and annoying everyone in your office,
2) Picking the phone up out of the dock for a more private conversation, but losing your computer screen which could be a problem if someone has a question that requires your computer, or
3) Wearing one of those stupid headsets every time someone makes a call.
I like the idea, and the hardware looks sexy, but none of those options appeal to me. Anyone have a better way?
Re:It's the apps, stupid! (Score:3, Interesting)
I have an office application on my phone, I forget what it is but I can open Excel an Word files in it. Maybe not as well as MS office but that even depends on the version you have compared to the document author.
The idea is awesome, all my info on my phone easy to access and work with on the go. It is not going to replace laptops but it is going to dent netbooks.
Where has this guy been hiding? (Score:5, Interesting)
IT guys at large corporations have been monitoring this for at least TWO YEARS.
Heck, a friend of mine who works for SIEMENS says they've done some limited roll outs using the Atrix as a desktop replacement for some field support personnel. They've got teams learning the ins and outs of creating custom OS images for given phone sets so they can simply image peoples' phones the same way they do when you connect your laptop to their system now.
How eager people are to connect their 'work' phone, and what 'work' phone means now, is a bit more up for debate there. My friend says a lot of people are excited at the idea of ditching desktops AND laptops for certain types of employees and simply having offices filled with docking stations.
Ubuntu has already done this, sort of (Score:4, Interesting)
Mr. Shuttleworth has already been offering Ubuntu desktop on Android phones [ubuntu.com] for phone vendors. I don't see any reason why this wouldn't work for laptops.
This idea fits with predictions (Score:4, Interesting)
The palm pilot gave answer to the need to take your data with you but it didn't offer much in the way of user interface because the device itself was limited by its size. This fundamental problem hasn't been addressed well since.
But now, we are seeing something I once told people was coming -- the computer [and data] is in your pocket and everything else becomes just the user interface. So wherever you go, you just plug in to whatever interfaces are available... whatever interfaces are appropriate. Your desk? Your car? The table at a restaurant or coffee shop?
Yeah, this is Microsoft's nightmare. They could have gotten involved with some of these really good ideas, but instead, they put their money and effort into keeping things the same which pretty much never works.
Re:RaspberryPi + phone? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:RaspberryPi + phone? (Score:2, Interesting)
If this pairs up with Ubuntu for Android, I'd say there's a damn tempting reason to avoid buying £280-£350 craptops - perhaps one enticing enough to kill off that segment of shitty, bloatware'd, inferior grade hardware that so many unsuspecting consumers fall into the trap of buying into.
Re:BYOD... (Score:5, Interesting)
As the risks of BYOD are primarily about things like data theft/breaches and introducing malware into the organisation, I don't see providing a nice screen and keyboard as a mitigating factor.
Well, it isn't a risk in the same sense, but the other risk with BYOD is employees not being able to effectively work together.
Right now BYOD is OK because people only use it for email and browsing, for the most part.
When you try to apply that to everything else, you start having problems. One employee starts authoring all their documents in one format, and another uses a different one. So, you impose some standard. Now a bunch of employees can't comply with the standard readily, unless you buy a lot of software for them. Some employees have devices that don't work well with the corporate Exchange server or whatever.
So, then you start certifying individual models of devices. At that point you're not really doing BYOD so much as Pay For the Corporate Device. My own company has started taking that route, which just means that I don't use my smartphone for work. They don't even certify a single device for my carrier, and since they aren't paying for my phone bills, I'm not going to revolve my phone around their selections.
Re:RaspberryPi + phone? (Score:5, Interesting)
"Granted this wouldn't work if an office required a piece of proprietary desktop (re: non-mobile) software which many do, sadly."
Only the out of date ones. Even big corps have moved everything to a "web based" or "cloud" setup... yes the cloud is in house, but they love marketing terms.... I heard "Cloud 2.0" being thrown around recently.
Right now, the only people in our office that cant use an ipad or chromebook for their job is Engineering and their need for AutoCad, and Accounting. Oracle has not made a purely web interface to their enterprise accounting systems yet.
But a good 80% of the workforce here, we are looking at moving them to chromebooks.
Windows 8. (Score:3, Interesting)
Stop laughing, I'm serious. The biggest hurdle is trying to merge two input paradigms into one OS. The second biggest hurdle is application support for the power-user.
So, on both counts, why try? An OS that has a huge application base and can switch between laptop mode and phone mode while sharing the same applications and storage is probabbly a better idea.
Incidentally, you can do this in Linux too. Install both window managers, say Gnome 3 and xfce, and switch between them at login time with xdm.
Re:RaspberryPi + phone? (Score:4, Interesting)
If you are doing ANYTHING that requires a lot of complex math, your phone will get it's butt handed to it's self by a old single core P4 processor.
That's the thing, though, most people aren't doing anything like that. Most people are just using the typical office software suites with some proprietary software thrown in the mix. The computers in many corporate environments are achingly old as it is...a modern mobile device can easily stand up to many of them in practical use.
Obviously this will never be a one-size-fits-all solution, but we're rapidly approaching the point (if not already at that point) where most applications, be it personal media consumption, general office work, whatever, can adequately be performed by a mobile device, and a dock with fully functional peripherals would do more to drive things that way...
The people that need the power of dedicated hardware will still have their beige monstrosities on their desk, but I doubt that's going to be more than 10% of users out there, and with 'The Cloud', we may actually be approaching that point where the computer as we know it is nothing more than a terminal to the real number cruncher's stored down in the basement out of the way.
Re:RaspberryPi + phone? (Score:4, Interesting)
" works well for normal folks"
You must not use it. It falls out at whim and is easily damaged. IDE,PCI and USB do not suffer from those epic failure points.
and if you think it will be around for ages, you also dont know much... Display Port is rapidly replacing it. HDMI will end up as the shortest lived connector spec out there.
Re:RaspberryPi + phone? (Score:5, Interesting)
> This is a model that I've seen as well. Basically all communication-related activities have
> moved to the iPad. The PC is there for heavy lifting...
Isn't this ass backwards? Buy a $500 (but probably a lot more, especially if cell data is involved) iPad and add another few hundred dollars for docks, displays, input devices and licenses for a sack of overpriced apps that can allow it to move from unusable to 'lame' for a desktop user. Lacking a wired network port they MUST suck in a cube farm, especially if remote display of terminal server is involved. Which do you want to run remote display over? Switched GigE or hopelessly overcrowded WiFi. Exactly.
Meanwhile the 'heavy users' run a generic PC that you can buy with display, inputs AND a copy of Office for hundreds less.
This is a vortex of stupid driven by three idiotic notions. One, that Apple (or Android) products are suitable for corporate use. Two, that Apple is pushing hard to get their stuff into the workplace but are unwilling to actually DO anything to compromise their 'perfect' vison of chains for everyone to make it happen, believing their RDF will instead force business to adapt their business practives to Apple instead. Finally, the eternal belief that employees can or should use consumer products in the workplace. Yes they use Windows in both but that is more of the reverse, using a cut down version of a corporate product at home. Which is of course one of the problems with Windows.
The PC (mostly the Apple ][) did break into the corporate world in the opposite way but that was because of epic failures on the part of the old priesthood of IT. The Apple was almost totally unsuitable but since the priesthood left such a huge unfilled need it was used in spite of its limitations. And we fought those limitations in adapting the early PC into the workplace for almost two decades and still fight some today. Name the huge unfulfilled need the iPad satisfies that a PC doesn't? Until somebody answers that question I just don't see it being a productivity enhancer worth reversing the long established trend toward lower TCO per unit productivity in corporate IT.