Archive for the 'Predictions' Category

Curated computing: jargon (sometimes) is a good thing

May 16, 2010

This is supposed to *herald* curated computing. Nonsense.

Curated Computing: Fancy cynical analyst term. Here is Forrester Research declaring a new era (‘Post-iPad’, no less).

A consumer can do anything with a Windows PC or Mac… the iPad operates very differently. [It] works more like a jukebox than a desktop — consumers choose (and pay for) applications from a predetermined set list. Each of those applications is, in itself, also curated; the publisher selects content and functionality that’s appropriate to the form factor, just as a museum curator selects artworks from a larger collection…

Rubbish. ‘Curated computing’ has been Apple’s design philosophy for all this decade – that’s only now making its way into industry consciousness.

But it’s a good thing.

If anything, it indicates mobile manufacturers hitting reality. In the short years after the realization that people wanted to ‘do more’ with their phones, manufacturers packed in as many features as they could. A few really took off (cameras, music players, even email), and most others just didn’t (bluetooth, mobile office packages, bar-code readers).

In another way, it’s a sign of the industry beginning to mature. Even as hardware has gotten more capable (faster processors, storage, memory, larger displays, touch-screens) and networks have invested massively to build capacity, there’s a discernible trend to do less better. Manufacturers are (belatedly?) realizing that a mobile device isn’t a smaller personal computer, but something ‘very personal’. And that very personal is very different from personal.

Which is also why everyone in the industry wants ‘vertical integration’ – control over the hardware, operating system, software platform, applications/content, and network. It’s so that having bet on what (limited) tasks a device will perform, a manufacturer has greater control over the quality of what the customer experiences.

Expect, in the next couple of years, for all major smartphone players (in addition to Apple, RIM, Google) to create (curate?) really great out-of-the-box experiences for the 20% of tasks that matter most – email, web browsing, facebook/twitter updating, maps, and playing music/movies (yes, better than what we’ve seen). Expect new devices to ship with fewer radios and sensors, and very few basic applications out-of-the-box. All other features and applications will be available via an App Store, to which there will be a prominent link on the home screen.

If this sounds very much like what Apple’s been doing with iPhone all along, of course you’re right. Forrester’s just woken up, declared it a trend and slapped on an alliteration.

Footnote: also, this isn’t as global, industry-churning a movement as Forrester would have you believe: the Japanese, for the most part, like cellphones crammed with bells and whistles (TV, bar-code readers,credit cards, suchlike). And this doesn’t look to be changing anytime soon.

The real problem behind Microsoft's layoffs

January 26, 2009

Microsoft will lay off 5000 staff over the next 18 months. This is partly due to an 8% decline in client revenue attributed to “continued shift to lower priced netbooks”. Netbook sales have been robust. Buyers prefer Windows XP over Vista on netbooks because of performance issues, but Microsoft makes lower margins on XP. This is essentially the problem. Industry analysts are awaiting Windows 7, its Windows release.

But it won’t help.

Microsoft says Windows 7 is netbook-friendly (and it might well be), but that’s irrelevant. The issue is higher margins. If Microsoft prices Windows 7 like Vista, it’s going to raise the total price of netbooks. That is unacceptable. After all, the USP of the netbook is Cheap.

Now, I think the company’s realized the underlying problem: Mobile and Desktop are moving towards each other.

The company is more likely to make higher margins on its Mobile Operating System than on its Desktop Operating System. High-priced smartphones are becoming increasingly popular and also more sophisticated. On the other hand, PCs are getting smaller and lighter – and cheaper.

Most commentators have already identified Mobile and the Cloud as the defining markets for the immediate future and they’re probably right. Microsoft has plays (albeit relatively weak ones) in both these in the form of Windows Mobile and Windows Live.

I think we’re going to see a shift in investment toward these two markets, and away from the PC market. At the minimum, expect a quick rollout of Office Live soon (either free or monetized) and Windows Mobile 6.5.

What do Apple's App Store rejections mean for you users and startups?

September 13, 2008

Yesterday, Apple pulled an application named Podcaster from the iPhone App Store. With Podcaster, iPhone/iPod Touch users could “update podcasts directly on the device over wifi.” Apple rejected the application because

Podcaster assists in the distribution of podcasts, it duplicates the functionality of the Podcast section of iTunes.

This is about as anti-competitive as it gets – applications that threaten iTunes’s monopoly over loading content to/from iPhone/iPod Touch will not be allowed on to Apple’s iPhone App Store. John Gruber of Daring Fireball fame has more to say about Apple’s exclusionary policies.

So some apps are banned. So what?

This is a big deal because App Stores are becoming an important way (and for iPhone/iPod Touch, the only way) to add functionality to a mobile device – whether it’s from Apple or Nokia or Android. Installing applications on your mobile phone is tricky at best and throw-your-hands-up-it’s-impossible at worst, which is why such App Stores (which make the job much simpler) will gain a lot of traction in the months to come. This places enormous power in the hands of App Store owner – either the handset or mobile OS manufacturer.

Simultaneously, as mobile devices become ubiquitous, more capable and more functional (because of these apps), an application ecosystem will begin to form – there are already over 3000 applications for iPhone/iPod Touch on Apple’s App Store, with small startups entirely dependent on the money they make from sales through the Store. Indeed, Kleiner Perkins has set up an iFund to invest in startups that make apps for iPhone, and there’s a RIM-backed Blackberry Fund too. How much longer before we start seeing the same interest in Nokia/Android application startups?

But this rosy picture could be in jeopardy if such rejections – either arbitrary or anti-competitive – become more commonplace. It’ll scare application developers, and drive away investors. And a multi-billion dollar (because of the sheer numbers of mobile devices) global opportunity could be lost, lost even to the party behind the App Store itself.

What are mobile app startups and users likely to do?

There are two things, both of which are likely to happen:

1.) Web apps that try to offer the same functionality will pick up speed. No App Store will be able to restrict what web-based applications users choose to use. Tomorrow, the Twitter client Twitterrific might be in the soup (because it has a built-in browser and mimics the functionality of Apple’s own Mobile Safari browser – you never know), but the web-based Hahlo twitter client for iPhone/iPod Touch will face no such problems because Apple has nothing to do with it (and vice versa).

Ordinarily, I’m a strong proponent of native applications for mobile devices (at this stage of the industry). But circumstances are going to push app developers harder to write Good Web Apps.

2.) More jailbroken iPhones. Ironically, this warranty-voiding way of installing third-party applications is also the most open, offering several more native applications with fewer Apple-enforced restrictions. Developers will work harder to make it easier for customers to jailbreak their iPhones and iPods Touch.

Both these trends will represent a move away from the App Store.

Conclusion

As the technology industry becomes more open than ever (open software and hardware standards, community-based platforms for communication, convergence of desktop and mobile), this move towards closed application ecosystems is an anachronism.

More restrictions will mean more effotrs to circumvent (or just abandon) the App Store – whether from Apple or Nokia or Google’s Android. From the App Store owner’s ponit of view, this will be killing the golden goose – and the loss of possibly billions of dollars in revenue.

Why Safari won't matter

March 19, 2008

Apple released Safari 3.1 today, and has claimed that it is “the world’s fastest browser”.

“Safari loads web pages 1.9 times faster than IE 7 and 1.7 times faster than Firefox 2. Safari also runs JavaScript up to six times faster than other browsers…”

Having used it since it was first released last year on Windows, I think this is more than just twisted statistics. Forget those measurements (down to decimal points, for god’s sake), but Safari definitely feels faster than either Firefox or Opera. Safari’s UI needs a post to itself, but it puts both IE and Firefox to shame.

Apple could put more muscle behind promoting Safari on Windows (for reasons I outlined last June), but I don’t see it giving either Firefox or IE a serious run for their money. My prediction is that Safari’ll be locked in an inconsequential battle for third place with Opera (also a fast, snappy alternative).

IE will always be number 1 because it’s pre-installed with Windows (and is un-installable). The vast majority of the installed base won’t switch to anything else (both home and business users). IE’s good enough. ‘Nuff said.

Firefox is the poster boy of the power-user crowd because it’s so customizable. But there’s an upper cap to the market share it can gain (see IE above).

Safari’s USP is speed and simplicity. Speed isn’t enough for the IE crowd to switch. And Safari’s simplicity (which implies non-extensibility) is a deal-killer for the Firefox crowd. Opera faces the exact same problems.

Between these massive masses of users, both of whom have diametrically opposite views on what a browser should be, are the miniscule 4-5% who use either of Safari or Opera, regardless of how good/fast/simple/snappy they are. Pity.

Footnote: Hark back to my June 2007 article about why Apple wants Safari on Windows – it’s got to do with the iPhone. Opera, with its large mobile push, probably has the same strategy too.

Scoble is not an idiot…

June 15, 2007

… but he doesn’t seem to have gotten things bang-on either, with regard to the supposed “closed” nature of the iPhone.

Steve Jobs admitted at the D conference that Apple was rather cagey about allowing developers to write third-party apps to run on the iPhone:

This is an important tradeoff between security and openness. We want both. We’re working through a way… we’ll find a way to let 3rd parties write apps and still preserve security on the iPhone. But until we find that way we can’t compromise the security of the phone.

That caused an angry wave of comments condemning Apple for alienating developers all over again (remember, lack of developer support is now the “accepted” reason for the failure of Apple’s original Macintosh computers). Scoble points out that Jobs “is not an idiot”, and that, in time, Apple will open up its iPhone:

So, what do I think will happen? Oh, I can see the Steve Jobs keynote in 2008 right now. “We’ve sold eight million iPhones, more than we expected” and “remember how I said iPhone apps needed to be done with JavaScript and HTML? Well, we heard from all of you that you wanted to play games on Pogo.com so we added Flash. And we’ve been working on our own iPhone applications for more than a year now and we’re sharing the developer tools we use internally.”

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But he’s probably wrong there. Steve Jobs is betting heavily on the Web. And Safari. Take a look at these comments from his interview with Walt Mossberg at D5:

The second reason (why Cingular invested in Apple’s iPhone) is more profound: they have spent and are spending a fortune to build these 3G networks, and so far there ain’t a lot to do with them. People haven’t voted with their pocketbooks to sign up for video on their phones. These phones aren’t capable of taking advantage of it. Youv’e used the internet on your phone, it’s terrible! You get the baby internet, or the mobile internet — people want the REAL internet on their phone. We are going to deliver that. We’re going to take advantage of some of these investments in bandwidth.

and, if that wasn’t enough,

… It’s REAL Safari, REAL OS X. We put a different user interface on it to work with a multi-touch screen… it’s an amazing amount of software.

Clearly, (notwithstanding Cringely’s comments today about AT&T’s bandwidth crunch), Jobs is encouraging developers to build web-based applications for mobile Safari making use of the high-speed 2.5G and Wifi networks that are near-ubiquitous in the US now (and Europe. And far-East Asia). That way, Jobs gets to have his cake and eat it too. And now you see the reasoning behind the strange release of Safari on Windows. (Getting developers to get their application services render well on Safari – REAL Safari, remember?)

Performics: Google's little Affiliate nugget

April 16, 2007

So Google’s decided to take the plunge and buy DoubleClick. And what’s more, along with the big bird, they also get Performics as part of the deal. Performics was a bit player in the affiliate marketing space until yesterday, but under the Google umbrella it transforms into a potential 800-pound gorilla. Understandably, the affiliate marketing corner of the blogosphere’s gone ballistic over it. Every affiliate consultant worth his/her salt has a take on it. There are two things which everyone seems to have missed. The less significant one first:

1.) Google doesn’t seem too enthusiastic about Performics. From the takeover FAQ:

Q. What will Google do with Performics?
A. Performics is part of DoubleClick, and we are acquiring it as part of the transaction. We have no plans to dispose of it at this time.

Dispose of it? Haven’t they any idea what they’re going to do with it? Or is this a subtle attempt to throw potential competitors off the track?

2.) Here’s the big one, though, and I’m surprised no one’s caught on to it: Late last month, Google announced a US-only, beta program for what it calls “pay-per-action” advertising which, from this page, looks like affiliate marketing masquerading under a Google-ized pseudonym. Take the very first question, for instance:

What is pay-per-action advertising?
Pay-per-action advertising is a new pricing model that allows advertisers to pay only when specific actions that they define are completed by a user on their site. Rather than paying for clicks or impressions, advertisers can choose to pay when a user makes a purchase, signs up for a newsletter, or completes any other clearly defined action that they choose. Pay-per-action ads are eligible to appear on publisher sites in the Google content network, and publishers can choose specific pay-per-action ads that are relevant to their site to run in new ad units that they create.

There you go. My take on it is that Performics technology is far more important to Google’s strategy than they’re letting on. With Performics as a complement to its pay-per-action efforts, the company acquires a ready seed base of merchants and publishers (although insignificant in comparison to giants like Commission Junction and ShareASale.com). Expect more innovations from the Goog’s stable, perhaps on the lines of the superbly-executed Amazon Affiliate Program, or even beyond.

Telcos are looking to play ISP – NYT

May 19, 2006

I wrote an opinion piece a while back about the battle between 3G and WiFi (that is, 802.11b/g/n v/s WCDMA/EDGE). To put it briefly, ISPs are increasingly getting households, businesses and cities connected via WiFi. At the same time, telcos are offering Internet access via mobile using 3G. Once they get ordinary devices (desktops, laptops) with 3G cards to access the Internet through their 3G networks, we’ve set the stage for a fierce turf battle between ISPs and Telecom Companies.

A report in the New York Times seems to confirm my predictions. (“Going Wireless Most Places You Go”, NYT).

“Wi-Fi, the wireless networking technology that can create an invisible field of Internet access over a limited area, has revolutionized the world of mobile computing. But while Wi-Fi is serving up Internet access in a growing patchwork of places like coffeehouses and, in some cases, across entire cities, it can fall short of the demands of laptop users who want a gateway to the Internet essentially everywhere they go.

“Another wireless option on the rise, this one from cellular carriers, provides high-speed Internet access over many of the nation’s most populated and heavily traveled regions. These services, made possible by the new networks that carriers are referring to as 3G (for “third generation”), may be useful to business travelers, professionals who need a connection constantly within reach, businesses with roving employees or small groups of users looking to share a single connection.”

The report then goes on to outline vendors, plans, hardware needed and such. But the essence is clear – telcos are looking to play ISP!

In fact, I think this battle will be played out more in India and (maybe) China, given the relatively low Internet penetration, and the scorching pace of growth of mobile connectivity. The US, on the other hand, is pretty saturated. Ironically, so is South Korea. There will be tremendous growth in all these markets in terms of getting more and more devices online (and that will also trigger an identical battle), but revenue from that will pale in comparison to getting PCs and notebooks online, through wiring up cities, communities – that kind of market is growing only in India and China.

(Of course, the reverse is also true – think VoIP, which is giving telcos nightmares, but has ISPs smacking their lips in sweet anticipation!)

3G v/s WiFi – Impending war between telcos and ISPs?

January 18, 2006

This announcement by Lenovo to include Cingular’s 3G implementation with its notebooks throws up some interesting questions. Right now, 3G only supports data transfer speeds of about 400-700kbps, and it is primarily used in high-end mobile smartphones. However, as this standard evolves, and it is able to support transfer speeds in Mbps, it’ll begin to compete with WiFi itself.

What that means is that telecom companies will find it more and more attractive to offer internet services through 3G, and not limit it to mobile subscribers. In fact, if a company such as Airtel (a major telecom company in India) were to start offering an “Airtel 3G connection” to virtually anyone who was willing to pay for internet access, it could end up becoming an ISP in itself. That’s where the competition heats up.

It’d be a cinch for Airtel to start offering wide-range wireless Internet services, for three reasons:
1.) Airtel could utilise its existing towers/current mobile infrastructure.
2.) Even if a separate parallel infrastructure were to be set up, the maintenance cost of a wireless network would be extremely low, even though the up-front investment would probably be higher when compared to cable.
3.) Existing subscribers could become ready-made, at-your-doorstep customers for Airtel. They could have an “Airtel account”, and access the internet either from their mobile phone, or their desktop/laptop, once they get a 3G network card.
4.) ISPs have already sunk in a huge amount of money into their wired network infrastructure, and would be loathe to cast that aside and setup a fresh wireless network.

What could go wrong?
1.) Simple – 3G fails to live up to its hype, cannot support high-enough data speeds.
2.) The vast majority of mobile phones begin to offer WiFi. In that case, it would be the ISPs who could start offering voice services, in addition to data, instead of the other way round.

Which way we go will depend on who builds better relationships with device manufacturers. The tipping point, in my opinion, will be mobile devices. Whoever (a telco or an ISP), does a better job of convincing mobile handset manufacturers to build 3G/WiFi into their most significant models, and then offering the best access plan.

We are now taking the first baby steps towards True Unification – the convergence of mobile devices (phones/consumer electronics) and notebooks/desktops. Whether the underlying infrastructure is going to be WiFi ( 802.11b/g/n) or 3G (WCDMA/EDGE), remains to be seen. Again, in any case, the real winners will be those companies which offer the best “unified” product-services. Google Talk is the prime contender at this moment.

Hula and the Future of Software

February 24, 2005

Jamie Zawinski’s (author of xscreensaver) has a post up on his blog (same article here), about how he talked Nat Friedman into changing the focus of Novell’s new calendar server project Hula. There’s one point that Jamie made in the article that set me thinking:

According to his article, Jamie told Nat that if all he was going to do was offer a free groupware server, it’d be attractive to corporations, no doubt, but unless it had a “coolness” factor about it, they’d never get any participation from the Open Source community. Groupware, in the traditional sense, he says, was all about ticking line items off checklists, popular among bureaucrats and committees. But their “focus in the client group had always been to build products and features that people wanted to use. That we wanted to use. That our moms wanted to use”.

Instead, Jamie went on,

“..narrow the focus. Your “use case” should be, there’s a 22 year old college student living in the dorms. How will this software get him laid?”

That set the gears turning in my mind. Novell has to balance two things here. It is a company whose products are overwhelmingly open source. That’s Novell’s new business model. For that, on the one hand, the company needs to build great, industry-strength products that large corporates will use, and will be willing to pay for support. But on the other, these products also need to be “cool” enough, “sexy” enough, for the average nerd to download, try out, and muck about with. To put it more succintly, Novell now needs to realise that the community needs to be looked at as the end user, regardless of which client base the revenue is going to come from. Indeed, how will this software get him laid? That’s what’ll get him started on hacking Hula.

Perhaps this model of development is going to herald a new genre of products: Products that are so well designed, they scale from casual, fun use to organisation-wide deployment. Jamie calls this “social software”. We’re also going to see companies coming up with interesting business models. Google is one such company. Novell is one which seems to be doing well too. And if you look at the product range of these companies, you’ll find a common thread – “coolness”, and a large community following. Gmail. Blogger. Picasa and Hello. SuSE Linux. Evolution. Now Hula. The future of software has never looked more promising!

The rest of the article is all about how Hula needs to include functionality that a group of students at University would find useful in their everyday lives. He’s drawn out a few great usage scenarios and don’t-dos. Defintely worth a read.

Archive for the 'Predictions' Category

So some apps are banned. So what?

What are mobile app startups and users likely to do?

Conclusion

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