First Look: T-Mobile’s Shadow Stands Out as Ray of Light (PC World)

(The Shadow's rating is pending; we'll update this review once our battery tests are complete.)

Impressive Design

At first glance, the elegant Shadow doesn't even look like a Windows Mobile Smartphone. When you first power up the Shadow, you'll be forgiven for being confused: After the Windows Mobile logo comes up, the home screen that greets you looks absolutely nothing like Windows Mobile, save for the familiar Start icon in the lower left corner. Its keypad with 20-key keyboard (a la Research in Motion's design with the BlackBerry Pearl) is hidden beneath the slide-up screen. T-Mobile worked with Microsoft and HTC, which manufactured the phone, to refresh the primary interface to complement the phone's physical attributes. The result is a phone that's organic and easy to use together with the device's controls, which include a back arrow to easily move back screen-by-screen no matter where you are in the phone, and a masterful jog-wheel that doubles as a five-way navigation button. Unlike other recent wheel designs I've seen from LG's Chocolate phone and the Samsung u470 Juke (Verizon), this jog-wheel is a joy to operate: It's fast, smooth, and makes navigating a breeze. Spin the wheel clockwise or counter-clockwise to move through menu options or, for example, browse your photos from the main screen. At the core of the redesigned home screen is an inverted L design. Five menu choices line the left side of the display; pressing down on the five-way navigation button lets you quickly cycle through the menu choices available there: MyFavesSM, Notifications, Inboxes, Calendar T-Zones, Media Player, Photo Viewer, and Settings. At right appears whatever submenu options are available to you for a given menu choice; spin the jog-wheel or press the wheel right or left to cycle through those submenu options. This approach puts your most common activities right at your fingertips in an intuitive yet graphical way. For example, Notifications takes you to your new text messages, instant messages, voice mail, missed calls, and e-mail; Inboxes takes you to your text messages, picture messages, voice notes, and e-mail; the Photo Viewer lets you use the jog wheel to scroll through photos; and the Settings screen jumps you to the Windows Mobile Comm Manager, to battery and memory management, as well as shortcuts to changing your ringtone, wallpaper, and ring profile. The menu design, coupled with the location and precise operation of the jog wheel, made navigating the Smartphone seem smart.

The Rest of the Phone

The phone's physical design is pleasing, as well. At 4.1 by 2.1 by 0.6 inches and 5.3 ounces, the phone feels comfortable in the hand. It supports quad-band (850/900/1800/1900 MHz) GSM networks, as well as GPRS and EDGE, and has built-in Wi-Fi. Other specs include a 2.0-megapixel camera; a microSD Card slot (which supports up to 4GB media); 128MB of RAM and 256MB of ROM; and a crisp, generous 2.6-inch 320-by-240-pixel QVGA display. The slider mechanism is extremely smooth; it glides effortlessly with the touch of a finger. Operating the 20-key keyboard with predictive text took some practice, but it may be partly due to my personal preference for dedicated QWERTY keyboards such as those in Palm Treo or the AT&T Tilt (also built by HTC), for example. To me, the keyboard isn't ideal for composing long messages, but it's still a better bet than tapping away at a normal alphanumeric keypad. Of note: The large keys are clearly labeled. T-Mobile and HTC clearly paid attention to design, and it shows in the little details beyond the new home screen and the jog wheel. The USB and microSD slot cover flaps are easy to remove, yet fit firmly back in place when you're done; the universal back button is conveniently situated; and the programmable shortcuts button at the upper right side of the device helps you further personalize the device.

Plenty of Goodness, But Not Perfect

With all that I found to like about the Shadow, I was all the more disappointed to discover some of the phone's weaknesses. The biggest of those was the call quality. The test unit T-Mobile yielded tinny, slightly echoed audio through the handset's earpiece, almost as if the caller was on speakerphone (even though the speakerphone wasn't activated). Likewise, the people I spoke with commented that my voice sounded a bit high-pitched compared with how I sound via another handset used on T-Mobile's network. Although this audio issue is tolerable, I was surprised by the call quality's mediocrity given the impressive audio quality I've heard recently from other HTC phones (including Sprint's Touch and the AT&T Tilt. Here's another gripe: The Shadow's front face is cleanly designed, with the jog wheel flanked by three buttons on either side. Sadly, the topmost of these buttons–the context-sensitive soft keys–are just a shade too flush with the handset. The difference I'm talking about is fractions of millimeters here, but I repeatedly found those buttons annoying to use as my finger jumped from the slightly more raised up Home and Back buttons. Finally, I was disappointed in the camera's operation. Pictures looked reasonable for 2.0-megapixel device, but I found the shutter lag frustratingly slow. I'd press the dedicated camera shutter button to initiate a shot with no car visible in the picture, then by the time I'd see the image on-screen, I'd also see I'd captured a car smack in the middle of the frame. Saving pictures between shots was slow, too. At launch, T-Mobile has the exclusive North American distribution rights to the Shadow (available in "sage green" and "copper brown" colors). My concerns about call quality aside, I'm not convinced that the phone alone will convince anyone to switch to T-Mobile. Still, the Shadow's impressive design certainly distinguishes it from the muddle of Windows Mobile smartphones. So long as perfect pitch audio isn't a requirement of your next smartphone, I'd recommend the Shadow (the audio issue may be annoying, but it didn't keep me from clearly communicating during calls). With the Shadow, calling a Windows Smartphone friendly is no longer an oxymoron.

T-Mobile Shadow

PC World Rating:0With the Shadow, T-Mobile delivers a smarter smartphone than most; however, its tinny call quality may be a concern.$150 (with two-year contract)Current prices (if available)

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C&W in talks about sale of pension fund (FT.com)

Among the buy-out firms understood to have started talks with C&W are Pension Corp, set up by Edmund Truell, the Duke Street Capital founder, last year. Prudential, an established buy-out provider, declined to comment. Chris Curry, research director of the Pensions Policy Institute, a think-tank, said a buyout of C&W's fund would be the biggest to date. C&W is considering the possibility of demerging its lossmaking UK business from its successful international operations. Last year the international operations made a profit of £269m on revenues of £1.2bn, while the UK made a loss of £17m on revenues of £2.1bn. The company has been working to turn round the UK business, and interim results in November are expected to show a marked improvement. Nevertheless, a demerger could be held up by the pensions regulator, as C&W pension trustees may raise questions over the ability of the UK business to make payments over the long-term. More than half of the fund's assets are in equities, and in March 2006 the company had to top the fund up to the tune of £98m. The fund last reported a £43m surplus in May, but it is thought C&W would have to make a one-off payment of several hundred million pounds to have the fund taken off its hands. In exchange for a one-off payment, companies make no further contributions to pensions funds. The buyout companies take full responsibility for making investments and paying pensioners. C&W said: "We are actively managing our pension fund. That means that we, along with the pension trustees, talk to advisers all the time. It doesn't mean that a pension fund transfer will happen.'' Mr Curry said buyouts were now a more viable option, particularly for bigger companies, as schemes were becoming better funded. Buoyant stock markets and relatively high bond yields had helped shrink scheme deficits.

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IBM offers “SOA Healthcheck” workshops (InfoWorld)

The company also is offering its "identity-aware ESB," which is an enterprise service bus that combines existing IBM products to provide identity management capabilities. Health-check services and software will be offered in two workshops to be held at customer sites, featuring specialized diagnostics and triage capabilities to help identify potentially unhealthy areas and recommend cures for problem areas. "We try to bring a real breadth of capability from the best practices that we've learned into these workshops," said Marie Wieck, vice president of middleware services at IBM. With some clients, IBM has had to perform somewhat of a rescue mission after clients have done an initial application and then had problems with scalability or performance, Wieck said. Workshops, which are priced in the $50,000 range or less, include IBM SOA Applications and Services and Healthcheck Workshop and Infrastructure Healthcheck Workshop for SOA. Both are 2.5-day engagements intended for midmarket and large enterprises. The applications and services workshop is intended to provide assurance that an SOA can expand beyond pilot projects. Factors such as application reuse and service use will be assessed, as will identification of rogue services as part of a governance policy. Security also will be checked for service controls and identity management. The infrastructure workshop features an assessment of infrastructure supporting applications and services layers in an SOA. Elements examined include infrastructure flexibility, the ability to adapt to spikes in demand, and verifying SOA configurations for connectivity. A service management review ensures that services are being monitored. IBM's identity-aware ESB combines WebSphere ESB products with Tivoli security and identity management software to help ensure that access to information, services, and applications is protected. Auditing of identity and access activity is enabled. "Identity management is very critical so that you can ensure that only the right people get access to these services," Wieck said. An analyst briefed on IBM's efforts lauded both the SOA and ESB programs. "Customers who have started with a SOA need checkpoints to have an outside source assess what they are doing and how it compares to best practices," said Judith Hurwitz, president of Hurwitz & Associates. "Companies are investing a lot of money, resources, and political capital on SOA, and management wants to make sure they are on track and doing the right thing. "Governance is a huge issue for customers in regards to SOA implementation. This is especially true since SOA is as much a business strategy as it is a technology strategy," Hurwitz said. "In terms of ID-aware ESB – clearly security and identity management are huge issues for companies because of governance issues related to security," she said. IBM offers information about its SOA programs . Also on Monday, IBM is announcing an initiative to help business partners increase revenues and better serve customers. Grow Your Business (GYB) with IBM Software provides cross-brand sales scenarios across the IBM software group's product portfolio. The GYB tool recommends scenarios that utilize business partners' existing areas of expertise. Partners through the initiative can analyze software products, get descriptions of business value, and determine return on investment via an online tool. Information is aggregated into one place. An online guide to marketing and sales materials also is highlighted.

Internet pioneer leaves oversight group (AP)

After fending off an international rebellion and planting the seeds for streamlining operations, Cerf is stepping down this week as chairman of the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers. “My sentence is up,” Cerf said with his characteristic sense of humor, which he and others credit for helping him steer the organization through several high-profile battles from which it emerged more stable and stronger. Cerf, 64, who’s also a senior executive at Internet search leader Google Inc., joined ICANN in 1999, a year after its formation to oversee domain names and other Internet addressing policies. Cerf was elected chairman in 2000 and leaves the unpaid position after Friday’s board meeting in Los Angeles because of term limits. When he joined the board, many questioned whether ICANN would survive. Now — though some people still complain that ICANN is arbitrary, secretive and slow — the focus is more on improving it than replacing it. Under Cerf, the organization withstood power struggles and ballooned in size. It also has shown signs of movement on key issues: After years of debate, for instance, it is now beginning to create mechanisms for more easily adding Internet addresses, including domain names in languages besides English. “In some respects it has gained credibility,” Cerf said. “It is now part of the Internet universe as opposed to a thing that was open to some serious debate.” That has been particularly so since ICANN, teaming with the U.S. diplomats, resisted efforts by China, Brazil and other developing countries to replace the group with a more U.N.-like organization over which world governments would have greater control. Among other things, ICANN critics wanted quicker action on addresses in other languages, saying the current restrictions are akin to requiring all English speakers to type in Chinese. Many foreign governments also resented the U.S. government’s veto power over the Marina del Rey, Calif.-based nonprofit agency. Calls to strip ICANN — and the United States — of its oversight of domain names, which are key for computers to find Web sites and route e-mails, grew as world leaders gathered in Geneva for the 2003 U.N. World Summit on the Information Society. The European Union even joined by the time the summit convened again in 2005, in Tunis, Tunisia. But ICANN ultimately emerged intact. Credit goes to many people besides Cerf, yet many say he had the gravitas to meet with heads of states and senior ministers — and tell them, “no.” “He has a certain star quality,” said Paul Twomey, ICANN’s chief executive since 2003. “He can open a door. He can talk to anybody. He can say, `Me and my colleagues actually invented the Internet and here’s how it works.’ There was a lot of ignorance, and he was able to say, `It just doesn’t work the way you think it works.’” Cerf tested the first Internet hookups in 1969 when he was a graduate student at UCLA. As a professor at Stanford University in the 1970s, Cerf led a team that invented the protocols, known as TCP/IP, that now serve as the Internet’s basic communications tools. Known since as one of the Internet’s founding fathers, Cerf continued working on Internet technology at the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and later developed MCI Mail, the Internet’s first commercial e-mail service. Google lured him in 2005 to be its “chief Internet evangelist” and gave him an office a few doors from CEO Eric Schmidt. In 1997, then-President Clinton presented Cerf and TCP/IP co-inventor Robert Kahn the National Medal of Technology, and in 2005 President Bush gave the pair the Presidential Medal of Freedom. As ICANN chairman, Cerf has played a hands-on role, attending many committee meetings and workshops in his trademark three-piece suit, often asking questions and contributing his know-how. Jeffrey Eckhaus, a business development director at domain registration company Inc., found him “very knowledgeable about every single topic that would go on. He would really know all the ins and outs.” Besides his sense of humor and his technical knowledge, Cerf brought business and administrative acumen, many ICANN participants say. He has a slew of anecdotes ready and has displayed a willingness to listen to concerns and “engage with people from heads of states down to university students,” Twomey said. Now that Cerf has guided ICANN from nearly its inception through a tumultuous adolescence and into early adulthood, many believe it’s time for an ICANN driven more by procedures than personality. “It doesn’t demean Cerf’s towering legacy to say people are ready for a change,” said Milton Mueller, a Syracuse University professor and frequent ICANN critic. The short list of potential successors includes telecommunications expert Roberto Gaetano and lawyer Peter Dengate Thrush. Both have been active with ICANN, but neither has Cerf’s name recognition or long-standing ties to the Internet. “The bad news is we’re not going to find another Vint,” said Steve Crocker, a high school classmate of Cerf’s and fellow Internet pioneer. “It’s equally a form of good news. We’re now going to go through a period where ordinary mortals are managing things.” Even with Cerf’s clout, ICANN has had its share of battles. For one, a decision to reverse preliminary support for a proposed “.xxx” domain name for porn sites was criticized as arbitrary and politically influenced. During Cerf’s tenure, ICANN’s staff and budget have grown, permitting faster response. Its roughly 100 staff members are paid out of a $41.6 million budget for fiscal 2008, compared with about a dozen employed during fiscal 2001, when ICANN budgeted $3.78 million for operating expenses. The board and its constituency committees have reorganized numerous times in an effort to better reflect the Internet community, and minutes to private board meetings have been posted more quickly to improve transparency. Nonetheless, many critics still complain that ICANN has neither opened the decision-making process enough nor acted as quickly as it should on issues like adding domain names — after several years, it is just now streamlining the approval process. Few of those complaints, however, are directed at Cerf. “It would have been a lot more without Vint,” said David Farber, former chief technologist for the Federal Communications Commission. “I don’t have warm, fuzzy feelings about ICANN, but Vint is not a person you want to get into battles with. He’s a nice guy. He’s smart. He’s reasonable to talk to.” Cerf plans to disengage entirely from ICANN for at least a year, freeing him to write books and devote more time to his Google duties. “This is a very important test ICANN both must pass and will pass, that it can withstand a change of its senior management,” Cerf said. “I have no hesitation at all turning this over to a new team.”

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