Long accustomed to bad news, the WiMAX booster club took this all in stride. Lead booster Barry West, currently Sprint's CTO for WiMAX and CTO-apparent for the joint Sprint-Clearwire WiMAX company, did appear at the Centrino 2 announcement. In his opinion, "WiMAX is alive and well," and the service is still scheduled go live in September (assuming they don't defer that yet again). However, Intel's failure to deliver all but ensures that at that time, the installed base of devices with integrated WiMAX capability will be essentially zero.
I've been describing WiMAX as "Wireless ISDN" for some time, but it seems that I'm not alone. In a recent article, my old pal Tom Nolle of CIMI Corp. raises questions regarding the business framework required to make WiMAX a success in developed countries. Gary Olsen, Director for Alliances at Lenovo, said his company is planning to offer a WiMAX-compatible notebook in the US, though hedging their bets, they have also deployed HSDPA modules. Like many in the field, Leslie Fiering, VP for Mobile Computing at Gartner, feels that WiMAX will play best in emerging markets. Everywhere else, the market has opted for 3G and 4G cellular technologies, and Gartner is doubtful of the business case behind WiMAX.
Optimism is great, but at some point you have to get a grip on reality. One way or another, wireless broadband is going to happen, and we're going to be on the front lines deciding how this race is going to play out. Like Big Brown, it looks like WiMAX is coming up lame.
