Normally I think Andreas Constantinou is one of the smartest guys in mobile computing today. He knows the business inside out. His latest post, though, has me wondering: The Wintel future for mobile: a wakeup call for network operators hits on about seven of eight cylinders for me.

The premise of the article actually belies the title. Andreas is not saying that Intel (or MS, for heaven’s sake) plan to dominate the mobile world. Rather, he predicts that Android, along with Qualcomm’s parallel chipsets (and those from Mediatek to some extent, though I think TI might be a contender as well), is providing the same kind of disruptive force in the mobile marketplace that the Windows/x86 combination did in the 1980s for desktop computing. He states that this should be a wakeup call for network operators, who currently control 70% of the money surrounding mobile computing as a whole.

I certainly agree that the current state of affairs for the cellular business worldwide should indeed be a wakeup call for network operators, and frankly I am just loving the sight of these huge corporations starting to topple—I think that both developers and end users can only benefit from this. However, in my mind this sea change is not necessarily because of a Wintel-like disruptive influence, though that is there.

The issue is that these network operators who have controlled the game up to this point by charging for minutes and kilobytes are now seeing their service become obsolete. I propose that this is due as much to the disruptive influence of the iPhone as to the staggering innovations in hardware and software—the important difference is in the business model and in the expectations of the end consumer, not advances in technology. Technology has always changed fast and in disruptive ways, and will continue to do so. For mobile right now, it is the changes in business models which are disrupting the old guard, and which will eventually dismantle it in much the same way that GNU software upended the previously highly-profitable development tools business, in the same way that blade servers and server farms took down massive centralized servers, and in the same way that cheap cluster computing thoroughly dismantled the supercomputer industry. The consumers of those products found better, cheaper ways to get what they needed, despite any changes in the technology. Heck, clusters were originally built with used parts, optimizing for both cost and performance despite advances in technology.

It is not hardware or software that drives these trends, but rather the market’s insistence—and by that I mean the insistence of actual human beings in the marketplace—on being treated fairly, for two reasons: (1) they recognize that alternatives are possible; and (2) they either source those alternatives, or supply them. If it weren’t Android and Qualcomm this year, next year it might be MeeGo and… who knows, maybe homebuilt phones with Beagle Boards or Gumstix. Pandora’s box continues to provide disruptive tech, and that provides opportunities, but it requires humans to take advantage of those opportunities.

PS. Andreas still is the smartest guy in mobile.

Scott Berkun is the author of several very intuitive books, including his most recent Confessions of a Public Speaker. In his latest blog post, he propounds a method for focusing meetings on the work at hand by preparing properly, starting on time, and staying for only 22 minutes, preferably while standing.

Not only does this method feature some aspects of Agile methodology (like the standing scrum), it also points back to the same methods he uses for public speaking, which I found to be very enlightening. Prepare both yourself and the required reading material, which would be slides or handouts in the case of public speaking or relevant materials in the case of a work meeting. Start on time, which is an indicator of preparedness he also describes in Confessions. The act of standing, as it does in scrum, creates a physical immediacy and focus, along with an uneasy sense of exposure that can be a great motivator. In public speaking, normally the speaker is the only one standing, but in a meeting, making everyone stand and put down their phones and laptops can be the magic wand that removes all side comments and gets everyone out long before 22 minutes is up.

Finding a more efficient meeting structure benefits everyone. So, read the post and try it out for your next meeting. If you have success (or failure), let us know!

This is apparently my week off from posting and discussing open-source issues, both here and on my own blog where I recently posted about flying cars. Today, we report that Popular Mechanics has created an archive of their entire 137-year history and placed it online for free.

Completely and utterly awesome. And (very) tangentially related to embedded systems, as the gadgets shown in this venerable magazine are the forerunners of today’s technology. (How’s that for a justification?)

If there is any single person reading this blog who has the slightest interest in mobile computing and has not already taken my advice to go read everything there is to read on the Vision Mobile blog, well, now is your chance. Vision Mobile is packed with research and opinion that you should know about whether you agree with it or not.

Andreas Constantinou writes to us about Mobile World Congress, giving a pre-review of under-the-radar trends in the mobile landscape in 2010. Fellow blogger Richard Kramer describes to us the growing Demolition Derby in mobile devices. And someone under the lovely nom de plume of Thucydides Sigs has given us an anonymous devils-advocate opinion on MeeGo, a rebuttal to which you can read on another good blog (mine). (I may be in left field on this one but I think MeeGo is great.)

Vision Mobile guys, if you read this, keep up the excellent work!

A site called FreeTechBooks is offering free computer science e-books in non-DRM PDF. These are NOT pirated books - most are books with open licenses. There are books, textbooks, and lecture notes in a wide variety of well-organized technical categories, including computer science (as a science), programming, logic and circuit design, mathematics, signal processing, and even game development and multimedia. And plenty of books on Linux, naturally, including some O’Reilly titles that I recognize. Definitely a must-bookmark.

I am also adding this to my well-visited page on Free Embedded Linux Training, which I should probably rename to Free Open Source Training.

More news from MobileWorld Congress in Barcelona. Am I the only one who thinks this is far more interesting than CES?

• ARM smartbooks, DIY smartphones, and lovely dual-core Cortex-A9
• Notion Ink’s very cool Adam tablet
• Other Android tablets (link from the NYT no less)
• Qualcomm’s unbelievable new backlight-free screen called Mirasol

For those of us who couldn’t be there, here are some of the interesting headlines (from an open-source perspective, naturally):

• Maemo + Moblin = MeeGo
• Flash and AIR for Android
• OMAP 4
• HTC to unveil e-reader
• Verizon going 4G this year (will believe when I see it)
• Bug Labs is now OMAP 3, Beagle Board compatible
• LTE taking over mobile

Stay tuned for more!

This great news was just announced this morning.

Montabello is a very fun, lightweight platform, and the concept is compelling. Most of the time, devices are off or idle, but when you want them on, you want them on NOW. Montabello resolves this very well by remaining on all the time (as in its trademark tag Instant ON/Always ON), but also by maintaining very precise power management. As a result, the battery life is outstanding, and more importantly the user experience as a whole is very satisfying.

I wrote the Architecture Guide for Montabello. As I learned about it, I was very impressed not only with the idea and its execution, but also with the team who put it all together. I also demonstrated it at the Embedded Linux Conference last year, running the Meld community wirelessly on Firefox, which was running on Montabello, on a Beagle Board, in a Lego™ case made by my 12-year-old that (sort of) resembled an actual beagle. It was a true propellerhead moment.

I will be at ELC again this year and plan to have Montabello along with me, so if you want to see it operating in person, drop by the demo room.

Embedded magazine has produced an excellent multi-part article on the basics of programming embedded processors, all excerpts from Wayne Wolf’s book Computers As Components: Principles of Embedded Computing Systems Design . This is exactly the kind of educational material for which Embedded is known, and which is badly needed. Also, don’t miss their article on embedded programming in C, which is evidently becoming a lost art (not in my sphere!).

The Linux Foundation has opened up its Call for Participation (CFP) for the annual Collaboration Summit. The Summit will be held this year in San Francisco and is once again co-located with the Embedded Linux Conference (whose CFP just ended). This dual event is The Big Event for embedded Linux developers, so dust off your presentations and start begging for travel budget!