I'm at a conference in Minneapolis for a few days this week. What surprised me is the startling number of times I heard the question "Is that a Nokia N800?"  Startling because they weren't all directed at me. There are about one hundred people at this conference, and by my count nine, yes NINE, N800s. And I assure you, none of the others are here via the Nokia Blogger Relations program. This is a group of information security professionals.

I was curious why so many. That penetration rate seems huge to me. So I asked around. And I learned why - Maemo. The N800 is not an S60 device. It doesn't run Symbian. It's viewed as a Linux workstation. Someone showed me Kismet (a very popular wireless sniffer tool) on their N800. They use it for wireless security.

One person described working on getting Metasploit running on the N800. That's a serious security and vulnerability assessment tool. We are not talking casual computing. We are not talking about simple surfing with an Internet tablet. We're talking serious security assessment technology...in your pocket.

I don't have Kismet or Metasploit installed and running yet. But those are two things that leaped to the front of my to-do list. Because fro me the N800 is a very serious tool that enables real, productive work. Serious work.

I'll be listening closely to other people playing with the N800 because this was, for me, an eye opener. We've all heard the phrase, "if you build it they will come." With the N800 Nokia built it, and I get the sense they're coming in droves. But I'm also gaining an feeling that people are very quickly starting to use the N800 in ways Nokia probably didn't think about at first. Users will always do the unexpected and that may be a real truism with the N800.

I'm curious who will be the first company, industry, or vertical sector that will roll out N800s pre-configured with custom apps oriented to very specific use. Truckers who hit WiFi enabled truck stops for fuel, maps and such. Real estate agents and brokers. Insurance adjustors. There are some possibilities that are both broad and deep.

Given email, web, VoIP, IM capabilities, coupled with the deep application support in a linux environment, the untapped potential is pretty amazing. I'm watching for Open Office running under Maemo real soon myself, but what after that?

I don't think we're even seeing the tip of the iceberg of what the N800 might become.


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