Russell Beattie, the cellphone maven from (for?) Yahoo, has written about the 770 on his blog, Russell Beattie Notebook.

He writes:
Then he takes six areas of complaints and points out how the 770 answers them -- screen size, connectivity, OS, keyboard, VoIP, audio/video. "So there you go," he says. "No more complaints. Every shop in the Valley who isn’t focused on cell phones should have a team dedicated to the 770....

"I can envision a million scenarios around this device."

And he concludes with as strong a statement in support of the 770's potential impact as has appeared anywhere:

"This is the open mobile platform that the Valley have been calling for. I really hope we can take advantage of it."

And all this from a fellow who doesn't even mention the value of the 770 as an X terminal that allows people all over the world to work in real time collaborative workgroups in absolutely every vertical market. If Roger understood that the 770 and devices like it offered this, too, then I think his head would probably explode. If it didn't then he would at least know what I have felt like for the past 20 years waiting for an affordable, mobile touchscreen X terminal. Roger; if you like what you think you see now, you better fasten your seatbelt and grab any handle you can reach.

I don't think we should slam Russell Beattie just because he sees the world through the lens of cellphones and the like. That's where he is coming from.

And to be fair, his post is addressed to the concerns he hears from people in that space, developers and users.

As for me, I'm lucky to see a single revolution in the 770 (my word). Methinks the explosion you see trails that slightly -- but it sounds like a chain reaction will happen once we reach a critical mass, so first, second, doesn't matter really, does it? And that explosion won't something we'll miss or be able to ignore.

These are also the days that we'll all be referring to as "back in the beginning" (prefaced with "I was there, "). These are the days when the device is raw enough to give anyone with any kind of intelligence free reign over it.

When Billy decides to pair it with his RAZR phone that he just got for Xmas and the OS crashes, or the device reboots, or the email client doesn't support LOLz0r smiley faces, I hope to hell the device isn't locked up to accomodate the money waving masses.

The issues that the tablet is exhibiting right now are par for the course for computer people. Only *one* reboot today? Not bad! The general public won't put up with it, nor will they put up with a "complex" interface.

If history's taught me anything, pandering to the masses means compromising to the lowest common denominator.

Remember when MS had 'deltree'?

I don't really mean to slam Russell. I think he has done a pretty good writeup.

I've been thinking between the lines and I've concluded that the 'undersupply' situation is nothing more than a 'surprising everybody / exceeding Nokia's wildest expectations' reaction by the market to Nokia's first step into the GNU free software universe. I don't think they ever intended to make more than a few thousand 770 devices. I have absolutely no knowledge of what Nokia's doing that isn't public knowledge here already, but I think they are merely testing the water with the 770 and, having received an overwhelming response (in both additude and in software support) to what the 770 represents, are confident enough to feel justified and go ahead and go into very heavy production of a follow-up to the 770. I think they've said as much in NY and SF.

The software support, the outpouring of readily useable software by the 770 user community, has pleasantly surprised everyone watching the the situation, I'm sure. This reaction has determined that the next stage of Nokia's plan will take place. That's what this has been about so far, at least that's the way it looks to me. Nokia can now refine their target and bring in the big guns, the production and distribution crews, knowing that the GNU free software dynamic is the gorilla in the room.

Well, purely speculating, I doubt "a few thousand" would have been their goal, but it wouldn't (it won't?) surprise me to learn Nokia's initial goals were modest and that the company expected a much slower upswing in interest.

I know that when I wrote a book, the publisher projected modest sales of one quantity, anticipated a possible doubling of that if it were a success (which is the basis they bought the book on), and then printed half the modest projection in the first printing, thinking that was on the safe side. Then actual sales were barely a tenth of the first printing. :-(

So Nokia may have estimated conservatively (especially given the field of computers is new to them), based on previous failures in this space, and then planned for a slow ramp up, so as not to overcommit themselves in case of lack of interest.

Don't forget, even though they sold 2 million NGage phones, that was a mere third of their projected sales, and they must have thought they knew what they were doing.

With the 770 now, of course, the VP for convergent products/multimedia can make the commitment: "We are in this for the long haul."

Geez, you don't know Nokia! They'd need more than that pitiful amount just to equip their own employees!

They are not just in this for the long haul, they are here to Change Everything.

I have mentioned in a couple places that I thought the much, much larger numbers that Nokia will be manufacturing and selling soon, in the next quarter, will be a followup iteration of the 770, one that addresses as many of the issues as possible that have been raised. My point is that the plan is to not make too many of the initial version of any product because the goal of the initial version is essentially the equivalent to the role of 'release candidate' software. The early adopters are helping to make the final, spontaneous refinements to the next iteration of what the 770 represents. This makes sense because the only product you can dare to expect to be successful is one that the public tells you it is willing to buy. It worked for Thomas Edison in the last part of the 19th century and it is working for Nokia now. All Nokia wants is to be #1 in the cell phone business and to be #1 in whatever comes after cell phones and PDAs. That's pretty reasonable. Microsoft has spent the past five years worrying that SONY was going to eventually snooker them with a rapidly evolving game console. That may yet happen. Meanwhile, Nokia has blindsided them with a GNU free software device that threatens (i.e., dooms) the whole PC paradigm.

Ain't no $1,500 tiny XP computer gonna make the exponentially increasing value and usefulness of the 770 and its followups go away. What am I telling all you guys this for, anyway. You all see this coming, too.

email from Steve B. to Bill G:
Dear Bill: That light at the end of the tunnel is a train. Inform me as to your plan, ASAP.
PS: Urgent, really, so call me at home if you need to.
Yours Truly, Steve

A large outfit like Nokia doesn't spend the kind of money it took to make our toy just to be egalitarian..

They expect to sell tons of these (or their progeny.)

If it's not a phone, it's just because they couldn't fit it in just yet (without huge additional cost or the entanglement that a phone encounters in the retail channel.)

The form-factor and functionality are the experiment. Phone screens just aren't large enough to be useful as a web appliance. They are hardly large enough to be useful as phones.

Short of a roll-out screen, the 770's is a wonderful compromise between a "tablet" PC and the aforementioned unusable phones. (Hey, I know some people use the chicklet keys and tiny screens, but they are using IM, not the internet.) Given that we don't have roll-out yet, much less color roll-out, much less touch-sensitive color roll-out, the 770 could be a no-compromise with today's technology.

With everybody from Google to Redmond jumping on the I-net based application environment, the 770 is a logical place for a high-volume manufacturer like Nokia to be. (As soon as someone also figures-out that a browser without JAVA will be punished.)

To Hedgecore: did you ever also have a Compaq PORTABLE? You're right. Same idea.

Remote User is ahead of the mark. This thing is X-heaven and we would all do well to rely less on RFB and HTML at the end of the chain. Through his posts he empasizes that we really just need a window to the application (running on the heavy stuff back at the office.)

In the other post: The $1500 non-device is out-of-time before they even have one. It's too big. Lots of people play PSP, but you don't see everyone carrying one in a belt-pack. The 770 is a stunning package.

RogerS is on the mark: make it fascinating, useful, and cheap enough to get penetration. Worry about performance and etc. until people realize how truly handy the thing is.

So that's $.03 -- I just hope they will be happy to lose the money on each unit that they have to be throwing away at this point..

paul