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Over the past month I have received a lot reports that MRE does not
work with phones from Orange such as the C500 and E200. After a bit of
research and help from a few of you I found that the problem is Orange.
They have decided that users should not be able to remotely edit the
registry or for that matter install applications that have not been
Orange certified. They can do this because the Windows Mobile platform
allows operators to restrict the usage of your device. I can
deal with the fact that they closed off remote access, but requiring a
certificate to install applications is just plain annoying. The truth
is that I both love and hate this. Although I'm not an Orange customer
this is how I feel given the situation.
As a developer, I’m
irritated by the fact that I can’t access my device in the way I want.
More so by the fact that I can't install the applications I deem
worthy. It annoys me to no end that Orange can decide how I should use
my phone. I mean after all I paid for the damn thing, I should be able
to do what I want with it. Can anyone imagine this happening with the
desktop version of Windows? What if Dell was to restrict you to mostly
“Dell Certified” applications? People would riot and flaming feces
would be thrown at Michael Dell. The point being that I want to do whatever I
want with my copy of Windows, whether it’s on my SmartPhone, PocketPC
or computer. Shakes Fist! Then again what if I did do whatever I want...
With
my less moody, phone company compatible hat on, I can see lots of
reasons for locking down my phone. The first that comes to mind is
influenced by my developer background. Operating System stability. Most
people are not used to having a phone that can crash (as many of us are
now aware). Operators fear that if allowed, users will install every
app under the sun and cry foul when their phone can’t make calls
because of some strange error like “Cannot find mscore.dll”. With a
certification program Orange reduces the number of support calls they
get and improves the overall quality of software written for their
phone. That’s the goal at least.
Another important point is
security. Imagine a virus that gets onto your computer via an exploit
in IE, waits until you sync, edits your phones registry remotely and
installs itself over ActiveSync. After which it proceeds to turn your
phone into a better-than-your-average-rock skipping stone. Likely no,
scary yes. The point here is that by locking my phone down operators
reduce attack vectors and of course keep those support calls to a
minimum.
My take on this is that Mobile operators using the most
strict security policy (Orange) will eventually loosen the leash a
little. As devices merge and more PDA functionality is found in cell
phones operators have to realize that people will want more. And
crippling your platform (phones) by making it a pain for developers to
work with is just plain stupid.
Thankfully there is some balance in the force. If Microsoft’s Mobile2Market
program eventually works with all operators (privileged and
unprivileged) it will be a huge leap forward for developers wanting to
build the next killer app.
...
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Posted May 05, 2005 @ 9:59 PM |
Comments: 2
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Comments
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arfa@talktalk.net
(3/27/2007 7:28:08 AM)
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Thank you for this information. Have recently bought O2 Orbit PDA wv SatNav. Put 1Gb memory in and can't use any software I load. Now I understand why. It makes sense. I'll settle down again. Arthur |
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ravinder
(6/6/2008 11:15:07 AM)
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