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太长了，我就译个摘要吧：
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- I6 }4 `8 z( _5 A1 G胖皮观察之第一部分：黑莓杀手
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; S5 K4 o1 C; K大部分的科技媒体都执着于胖皮是否iPhone杀手，但他们搞错了方向。我们测试了数天后，清楚地知道，Palm这台新手机的真正目标是黑莓。以下要谈的是Palm将如何用webOS来搞定企业市场。
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0 i8 ~' x, N4 B, c! x) F, PiPhone和黑莓取得成功的关键点在于，他们都有一件事情做得特别棒！而其他的一些事呢，做得马马虎虎还过得去。对于iPhone来说，杀手应用在于媒体播放和媒体贸易（通过itunes商店），黑莓的焦点是电子邮箱（日程安排紧随其后）。
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Ars Reviews the Palm Pre, part 1: the BlackBerry killer
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; D( d) m) K) W/ b3 {1 UMost of the gadget press is obsessing over whether the Palm Pre is an iPhone killer, but they're asking the wrong question. We've been testing one for the past few days, and it's clear to us that the real target of Palm's new phone is the BlackBerry. Here's how Palm will use the webOS to tackle the enterprise market.
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Since the Pre's unveiling at CES 2009, the tech press has been caught up in the Rocky-like narrative of a former champ, now fallen on lean times, who tries to recapture his former glory by stepping in the ring with a make-or-break, high-profile exhibition fight against the reigning titleholder. But there's a serious problem with how this narrative has been presented, and specifically with the mobile device that has been cast in the part of the young, strutting, seemingly invincible heavyweight titleholder. See, the Palm Pre isn't out to KO the iPhone, but rather it's swinging at the real reigning champ: RIM's BlackBerry.8 F# A4 G1 t4 L: U0 q% c, w# p2 r
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I've been using a Pre since late last week, and in this first installment of a multipart review I'll make the case that Palm is readying an eventual BlackBerry killer and discuss its messaging capabilities. 7 F3 i3 t2 V. k* ^' o
/ Q/ @; w/ ]8 E7 I+ _But before I can make the case that the Pre is intended as a BlackBerry killer, with any harm to the iPhone being just collateral damage, some background is in order.5 h y% n% c* @9 M
0 |7 m. N# Z; NWhy the iPhone and BlackBerry work* e0 `5 j3 a! w
4 g/ w/ S, l2 A, n( o' VThe key to the success of both the iPhone and the BlackBerry is that both of these devices do one thing spectacularly well, and they also do a few other things passably enough to get by. For the iPhone, that one thing is media playback and digital commerce (via the iTunes store); for BlackBerry, the focus is on e-mail (though calendering is a close second).% d8 a) h9 B" G& M+ d( A
Palm is definitely competing directly with the iPhone in the area of packaging, at least.! T0 b# [" T! \, A
- r% ^( M! K# @' g5 I7 YSure, RIM just jumped on the increasingly crowded App Store bandwagon, but as a platform the BlackBerry is really just a fantastic mobile e-mail client with a killer combination of enterprise messaging support (including remote wipe), battery life, calendering, and usability. Given this focus, it's no coincidence that the keyboard takes up half of the interface of a typical BlackBerry—this is a device that's tailor-made for constant two-way communication.
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r: A& Q" ~. a: @The iPhone, in contrast, is just a large screen, the main purpose of which is to show you things—pictures, video, webpages, maps. And its multitouch-based input scheme is less about two-way communication than it is about enabling you to manipulate and navigate the things that the screen is showing you.
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2 {4 u+ B& r6 fInterfaces alone tell only part of the story, though. The iPhone works because it is seamlessly integrated into a unified media and e-commerce ecosystem that can quickly and easily deliver TV shows, movies, and music to a constellation of Apple devices, from a set-top box to a media player to a laptop. Even if the majority of iPhone users don't live the Mac life, Apple's phone still gives them access to that larger ecosystem by virtue of the fact that the device itself is an expression of it.
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+ h$ @ O. s: NThe BlackBerry, too, is part of a larger ecosystem—the world of enterprise messaging. The virtue of this system for business is that it plugs right into Exchange or Domino, so that you can use your existing infrastructure (plus RIM's server-side package) to enable and centrally manage messaging and calendaring for a mobile workforce.
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Synergy: Today the cloud...
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. N( l$ M8 j# ~: N" w& gMy experience so far with the Pre is that it's as good a messaging device as the iPhone is a media device. And while it has solid Exchange and push e-mail support, where webOS really excels—at least, for the moment—is in the way that it embeds the Pre seamlessly within the much-hyped "cloud" messaging ecosystem. This cloud messaging integration is most spectacularly showcased in the way that webOS handles contacts and instant messaging.1 E2 }( l/ x8 B
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Pre's approach to contacts is really the future of contact management. There's a part in my interview with Russ Daniels, HP's VP of Cloud Services Strategy, that I keep coming back to, where Russ is describing the hassle of syncing contacts between multiple devices; most of this hassle stems from the fact that devices tend to view your contacts database as pool of data, instead of a service.' R% h& B" k9 ^4 {8 [
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What none of them do is the simple thing of, "tell me the URL for your contact service." Additionally, it has to be a service, not a repository, because in fact the contact information that's relevant for me includes the global address list for HP, and I have to be able to have that invoked... I can't replicate that data and keep it synchronized, so I need to be able to use a federation model behind this single endpoint to answer those kinds of queries.
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The Pre is the first device I've used that expects all contact data to come from a service instead of a repository. Give it your Google, Facebook, Exchange, or AIM credentials, and it pulls all of the contacts for those services down onto the device. Ultimately, webOS presumes that the canonical source for your contact data is a cloud or server somewhere, and that your phone merely acts as a local cache for this data. (In fact, webOS's contact management is so service-oriented that it's kind of a pain to access a traditional contact repository—like a standard vcard collection, for instance.)& _6 l+ V- `9 P! o
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. S0 x8 U0 d4 HWhen it comes to IM, having a Pre is basically like carrying a running copy of the Mac OS X messaging client Adium in your pocket. Those on my buddy list who IM me via either AIM or Gtalk can't tell that I'm not at my laptop, and we'll have an most of an IM conversation before I mention that I'm actually on the Pre. (I can't decide if it's a blessing or a curse that I'm now constantly available on IM while out and about, and that I can be so available all day without killing the battery, but it's definitely a new experience.)
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: t% y, P6 A3 l8 y$ pThe webOS's much-touted notification system is also a revelation, and it gives you the feeling of being constantly connected without being constantly interrupted. As a Mac user, the way that webOS pops up notifications at the bottom of the screen reminds me of the Growl service; the two are similar in that they notify you of an incoming message in a way that you can easily choose to ignore.# {. U3 c. j4 @& ^$ }
0 q2 {* b- o+ rIn all, Palm put as much effort into making the webOS a first-rate messaging experience as Apple did into making the iPhone a first-rate media experience, and with just as much success. So if most of your communication consists of Twitter, email, SMS, and IM with the people in your Facebook network and/or Gmail contacts list, then the Pre will do for your personal messaging what your work BlackBerry does for your business messaging. Furthermore, I'm sure that email, SMS, Twitter, and IM aren't the end of it—I expect that things like Facebook updates will shortly be added to the list of notifications that can be pushed to you on the device. In short, if it's an update or message that comes from a network service, it's likely that the webOS's Synergy component will support it eventually.
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And, of course, Exchange- and Domino-based instant message integration is no doubt in the works as well. This will be necessary if Palm is to make headway in the enterprise.
9 g9 _- i6 \) a( nPalm Profiles: ...tomorrow the enterprise
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One of the most underhyped yet important features of the Pre is its support for over-the-air backup/restore using Palm's Profiles service. Like so many other Pre reviewers, my first review unit broke (the middle column of the keyboard stopped working). When Palm sent me a new unit, I used a built-in app to completely wipe the old one, and I did most of the setup on the new one by simply entering my Palm Profiles credentials. (Note that Palm doesn't offer OTA wipes yet, but this would be a trivial tweak of what it already has.) Once the new Pre authenticated me with Palm, it downloaded my apps, account information, and preferences, and after a reboot I was IMing and emailing again without having to reenter any of my data.5 x, L* X; N8 q* x' P$ R
$ N% n. M1 D9 N0 c" g) FNote that if you log into Palm Profiles online, there isn't much there. Palm has left this section pretty bare-bones, and I suspect that this is for a reason. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to see that Palm can easily release an enterprise profile management server that would let corporate IT departments create and manage profiles for a mobile workforce. It might even just tie everything to your Exchange credentials, instead of having you make an extra set of mobile device credentials.
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It's likely that a future webOS enterprise scenario will look something like this:
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( f# U- n2 N" V* ~' a. p& UWhen you're hired, you're issued a new or wiped Palm device along with log-in credentials for a corporate profile. On booting the device for the first time, you enter your credentials, and the device connects to the profile server and pulls down all of the apps and preferences that you've been assigned by IT. Your e-mail, IM, custom internal apps (CRM and the like), are all set up and ready to go as a result of that one initial log-in. And if you need access to more apps, you go to a private version of the App Catalog that has been customized for your company./ q% B7 T; A0 k. n) Z! V8 b
3 p# a1 q! D7 u8 Z- \ MIf you lose the device, IT can remote-wipe it and issue you a new one. Your profile, which has been backed up over-the-air, is still intact, and after logging into the profile server with your new device all your data is there.
/ U/ Z+ K5 M# Y5 I& K$ L! vParting thoughts
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2 Y6 z. C. u+ b2 uPalm didn't hire former Apple exec Jon Rubenstein, along with scores of former members of the iPhone team, so that the company that gave birth to the smartphone could finally compete with the company (Apple) that came along and killed it. Rather, Rubenstein and his crew appear to have set out with the goal of making a post-iPhone communication device that could do what the more media-centric Apple apparently has little interest in doing, i.e., go after CrackBerry addicts, some of whom still tote two phones (a personal phone and a BlackBerry for work), and get them to ditch both mobiles for a single device that combines some of the style and media savvy of the iPhone with the messaging prowess of RIM's enterprise-dominating mobile line. C4 `; ]9 m" }+ _
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With Synergy, Palm Profiles, and the Pre's existing wipe capabilities, all of the pieces are there for handing over complete control of the Pre to a corporate IT department. And Palm is already second only to RIM in existing enterprise relationships, since its smartphones have been standard issue at many businesses for years (Conde Nast included). So the company is set to take on BlackBerry directly in the enterprise, leaving Apple to continue to dominate the media space with its iPhone and iTunes Store ecosystem.6 a4 h5 }% d6 V* z
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Stay tuned for part 2 of the review, in which we take a detailed look at the Palm's hardware, software, and power usage.: [0 m& D% v" ~, y6 P
0 V+ {; |' n/ z4 z[ 本帖最后由 gotocool 于 2009-6-12 10:54 编辑 ] |
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