My Meeting with SupportSpace and other Miscellaneous Debris

Had lunch with Patrick Plawner, an old friend from back when I first started working with Check Point nearly a decade ago. This picture was taken with my Nokia N93 (damn noisy sensor!) at a neaby Chinese place.

Patrick (center) and Doron Elgressy (left) work for a company called SupportSpace, which I will write about in more detail later. The concept they are going after is rather unique. They showed me what they are planning to do and how it would all work. I, of course, had no shortage of feedback–enough that I was exhausted afterwords.

Meanwhile, here are a few odds and ends that happened today:

• TruPhone and Google Talk interoperate! Complete with a video demonstration.
• Apple CEO Steve Jobs says we should drop DRM. I don’t think you’ll find any disagreement here.
• Former President of Nokia joins the board of a VoIP company. I certainly remember the name Pekka Ala-Pietilä, but have never heard of Hellosoft before. They recently licensed some technology to Skype (warning: PDF link) to help with Skype’s efforts to improve the experience on mobile devices. Hm…. (Hat-tip to Stefan over at Ring Nokia)
• AT&T Gets a $2 million USD phone bill. Well, at least now we know who was fronting FuturePhone some arbitrage. The question is: will this cause the rules to change so that rural carriers don’t get subsidized anymore or will it change the nature of the subsidy? Time will tell.
• Infineon Will Help Nokia Make $20 Phones. Probably not until 2008 given the logistical challenges. However, anything that helps make phones cheaper is a good thing. There are plenty of places where a $20 is the right solution.