Well, sorta...

Skype, Gizmo, Comcast, Bongo, Truphone, Vontage, and everyone else that does a SIP will have to get on board with doing something according to a standard and then take down the ego side that says what they are doing is more profit making than what another is doing. By rules of a free market, two or three will come out on top as the most used, and then the rest will fight over niche opinions from users.

Does Nokia (Google, carriers, and cable cos) have the moxie and the power to create a standard for such use. Because that would indeed make for the end (or at least a heck of a suite of competition) for voice services as we know them now.

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Given what we have seen about the Internet Tablet timeline, it would seem to me that the next device to be released would be something that's more of a replacement to the 770 than anything else. Something of a kit device that is almost like the low end car in a model series. Something to display the product, and development potential, but open the door to the N800 being replaced with something a bit more advanteageous.

Now, putting together a few dispiarate facts:
- we could see an AMOLED screen considering Nokia's recent request to increase production of said screen types
- we should see at least one new web browser, maybe two
- some type of video out would be there
- and maybe a new suite of development tools considering the jump that this should be for the platform

All in all, seems like Nokia/Maemo is setting up a bigger snowball from the device side than just an increase in device specs. Something says that Step 5 could indeed be like the Morph Concept, if not exactly (nanotech is a beatly subject) but given the OS advancement, the functionality could open the hardware to look and be considerably different.

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I want to sit and agree that HSDPA will be bad for the platform; and it could be. Given what we have seen from the wireless manangement issues and successes of the current ITs, it would be something rightly called into question.

However, it would be shortsighted to see the opening more of the platform in this respect as something that would kill it. What will kill it is pricing, legislation, and a general mismarketing of the device. I'm hopeful that in pricing and marketing that Nokia will get it right. Not because they want to, but because of devices like the HTC Touch HD, Xperia X1, Toshiba G910, and iPhone which are all very similar devices and now all have a very similar feature set and aim.

To take that view that adding this will be bad though is to be stuck in a comfortable place in one's way of use and you no longer want to be challenge. Open source, mobile, and internet technologies are about challenging and changing paradigms for the betterment of all. Some steps are easier to see than others, some are easier to attain than others. But a step forward is always a step into an uncomfortable unknown. Given how much the ITT community has stood by a tablet that has pretty much marketed itself, its probably time to put down the defensive mindset that change is bad, and pick up the mindset that you are leaders in a type of computing that is very much the stuff of dreams.

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Nokia becoming a services company that leverages open source methodologies and technologies will pit private industries against and with governaments for matters of communication. Reminds me a bit of the history of the Christian church, wonder if anyone is studying history and trying not to repeat the same mistakes.