The m-Life of Reilly

In 2002, ATT Wireless launched with considerable fanfare its m-life ad campaign extolling the virtues of the mobile life. Since then, ATT Wireless has become part of Cingular and Verizon and other large carriers continue to argue the cell service is really not that bad and municipalities should stay out of providing WI-FI and WI-MAX access to their citizens. No wonder the US trails Japan, and indeed much of Asia in mobile usage and commerce.  It shows in Jonathan Schwartz's (President of Sun) frustration with US cell service while salivating at the prospect of a billion wireless devices worldwide. It shows in excitement in Sadagopan's blog as he writes from Singapore.

The void allows for innovations and offerings from a wide range of non-traditional players like Skype, web players like Google and Yahoo,software players like Microsoft and Apple and municipalities. Opens up new headaches for traditional carriers and for regulators, but should be great for consumers. And for new commerce models. New ebays and amazons to mine the global mobile "nation". 

I think we are in for some pretty exciting times - if you want to keep up with the changing times two blogs I recommend - Om Malik's  (he writes for Business 2.0) and John Sun's ( who tracks all the analysts who follow the mobile space).

Maybe Paul Simon will remix Kodachrome to a more contemporary "...Mama don't take my Nokia  away..."