I'm writing this to describe the birth of a new era in software -- -- you no doubt are aware of many of these things but I thought it wise to write anyway. The new era of browser apps is now taking off. The prelude was Apple's iPhone apps and Google Android phone apps that both grew rapidly and offer innovative inexpensively priced software -- -- the apps are extremely easy to order and use.
The prelude is now transitioning to the main act -- -- these apps are no longer restricted to phones, but now work on PCs and Apple MACs. Just like the phone apps there are two classes, Google's marketplace apps ( http://www.google.com/enterprise/marketplace/home )and Apple's MAC apps. Each is off to a robust but modest beginning, Apple has around 1000 apps available on its first day of business, Google has around 50. This is only the takeoff point, the number of iPhone apps is a couple of hundred thousand and I expect the number of Mac apps to approach the same number. Correspondingly Android apps number in the tens of thousands and likewise I expect the Google app marketplace to soon number in the tens of thousands.
I believe this is a watershed event for software. A new way to deliver, a new pricing bracket, new innovations, the mixture of both games and industrial-strength software.
One of the strengths of Google marketplace apps is that it's cloud centric; the new third-party apps can integrate and use the well-established classical Google apps -- -- spreadsheets, documents, music files, calendars, pictures.
Another facet of this change is that, for better or worse, Google and Apple will now fully invade the corporate business software environment. Their consumer driven rate of innovation is orders of magnitude faster than present software companies. Hold onto your hat, this stuff is coming fast and furious and the landscape will change faster than we can imagine.
Tien and I will be presenting this new paradigm in our next March 9 meeting.
Captains of Industry
Captains of Industry
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Thoughts about Apps --- Mathew Reed, Associate of Pat Tzanis
Good article. Here are some quick thoughts; I realize some of this goes outside the article's points, but hope it doesn't go too far out.
His stress on the importance of convergence is extremely important. A small scale example of this is that products like ACT! by Sage will continue to loose ground because they have not continued to improve their convergence systems; ACT! still mentions PalmOS sync which was modern at the time, however this has not been updated to meet the expectations of users who expect realtime information without having to be tethered. If they developed a turn key server component for cloud service providers as apposed to end users it would be a perfect utilization of cloud services; ACT!'s primary target are smaller environments for which the expense of securely hosting their own Internet accessible collaboration servers would be beyond the point of diminished return, thus creating a server product that would be targeted to companies like Rackspace and other cloud providers to offer along side their existing storage and collaboration options for rates of $5 - $12 / month per user would be an effective way to update their offering to be in sync with the current times, work flow, and user's data availability expectations.
This convergence of cloud service providers (CSPs) and handheld devices offers an easily overlooked opportunity: a higher margin direct market while keeping the same endpoint market; a software company offering a small scale collaboration, groupware, or CRM system, for example, may have restricted their server R&D effort to be compatible with the low budget of their target, however now their target for the server component changes from the end user to the end user's cloud provider. Sell to the cloud provider and now people have a tangible reason to purchase your product over others; if they purchase yours they don't need a dedicated server and can be setup within minutes with reduced IT expense.
This leaves the question of how to sell to the cloud provider; companies like Rackspace, IBM, etc. would be better ones to answer that. It may come down to how easy it is for them to implement. A turn key GNU/Linux offering that could easily be applied to their existing infrastructure with multi-level administration so that the cloud provider has a dual target audience (direct users and VARs wishing to resell the service) may be the answer.
The handheld and large form factor PDA (LFF-PDA) market is incredibly volatile right now with offers varying by vendor and many companies competing for dominance. As an end user or a company considering standardization, their is no clear answer on the best "platform"; unlike other computer platforms, this market is in such flux that, in all likelihood, any choice made today will be incompatible with applications offered in the near future. As a software developer the choice of which platform(s) on which to focus support is the primary consideration. Each company is trying to gain your, preferably, exclusive support. How does a software developer choose the platform to support? The following points are a start:
See through the marketing: Companies like Apple will try to entice you by saying that the largest number of applications are available for their system. What they don't mention is their flexible definition of "application". Many of these "application" are actually widgets (web front-ends) offering no additional content compared to that offered from the content provider's mobile web page.
Does the platform provider acknowledge that your application is what provides value to their product or do they make you jump through hoops to distribute and gain access to the APIs needed to perform the innovative tasks to differentiate your product in a highly competitive market? Remember, the platform provider works for the application developer, not the reverse.
Is your freedom to establish your own distribution model preserved? Some providers offer only one outlet through which software can be distributed. This has already been shown to retard the progression of innovation as it may be required to remove features competing with offerings from the outlet's parent company. If there is no restriction, you may distribute the software via the store(s) of your choosing and/or self distribute to release faster updates and improvements than your competition.
Do you have the same freedom over the device as you would any other computer? The more freedom you have to control the device with your application the more opportunity there is set your product above the rest.
Is the platform your supporting licensed to multiple hardware vendors? A greater number of hardware vendors that can utilize the platform for which your product is developed will deprioritize the need to cross-develop between platforms thus enabling you to focus finite R&D to innovation rather than redundant development.
The increased priority of handheld and LFF-PDA products are raising their status from supplementary devices to primary devices. The companies that update their offerings accordingly will become dominant while others will suffer. While a supplementary device does not need a powerful offline office suite for files too sensitive to be saved to the cloud, flexible easy to use file sharing, diverse system wide printing ability, external display connectivity for mobile presentations, etc., a primary device does need these. In addition, implementation will be straight forward as it has already been done. Many organizers and PDAs of the 90's had network connectivity, flexible printing, and full featured office suites that rival options on many devices currently. Adopting some of these "primary device" features will also help their adoption as corporate standards. Some of these include:
Flexible centralized management and deploy features: Developing a configuration within an emulator with full applications, settings, etc. that could be easily deployed as an image to the entire company.
Remote support: Powerful remote peer to peer access for easy helpdesk support
Standard docking interface utilizing technology such as UWB and induction charging. By creating a contactless docking interface a low manufacturing cost docking system could be licensed to any accessory provider such as Belkin and many others. This would strengthen the power of this platform against others that are not appreciating the user's expectation and desire that their handheld device be a primary device. In addition, this style of docking system would be compatible with a wide array of physical sizes and form factors.
printing system for which low cost printer divers can easily be developed by any printer vendor.
Netbook convergence: A large form factor device with comfortable keyboard to which the handheld would connect to provide the user with a more comfortable interface to their existing handheld device.
The handheld platforms offer incredible opportunity for cloud providers and software vendors, but one of the points I think this article gets across is that if you don't take advantage of that opportunity you will become a victim of progress.
-Matthew
His stress on the importance of convergence is extremely important. A small scale example of this is that products like ACT! by Sage will continue to loose ground because they have not continued to improve their convergence systems; ACT! still mentions PalmOS sync which was modern at the time, however this has not been updated to meet the expectations of users who expect realtime information without having to be tethered. If they developed a turn key server component for cloud service providers as apposed to end users it would be a perfect utilization of cloud services; ACT!'s primary target are smaller environments for which the expense of securely hosting their own Internet accessible collaboration servers would be beyond the point of diminished return, thus creating a server product that would be targeted to companies like Rackspace and other cloud providers to offer along side their existing storage and collaboration options for rates of $5 - $12 / month per user would be an effective way to update their offering to be in sync with the current times, work flow, and user's data availability expectations.
This convergence of cloud service providers (CSPs) and handheld devices offers an easily overlooked opportunity: a higher margin direct market while keeping the same endpoint market; a software company offering a small scale collaboration, groupware, or CRM system, for example, may have restricted their server R&D effort to be compatible with the low budget of their target, however now their target for the server component changes from the end user to the end user's cloud provider. Sell to the cloud provider and now people have a tangible reason to purchase your product over others; if they purchase yours they don't need a dedicated server and can be setup within minutes with reduced IT expense.
This leaves the question of how to sell to the cloud provider; companies like Rackspace, IBM, etc. would be better ones to answer that. It may come down to how easy it is for them to implement. A turn key GNU/Linux offering that could easily be applied to their existing infrastructure with multi-level administration so that the cloud provider has a dual target audience (direct users and VARs wishing to resell the service) may be the answer.
The handheld and large form factor PDA (LFF-PDA) market is incredibly volatile right now with offers varying by vendor and many companies competing for dominance. As an end user or a company considering standardization, their is no clear answer on the best "platform"; unlike other computer platforms, this market is in such flux that, in all likelihood, any choice made today will be incompatible with applications offered in the near future. As a software developer the choice of which platform(s) on which to focus support is the primary consideration. Each company is trying to gain your, preferably, exclusive support. How does a software developer choose the platform to support? The following points are a start:
See through the marketing: Companies like Apple will try to entice you by saying that the largest number of applications are available for their system. What they don't mention is their flexible definition of "application". Many of these "application" are actually widgets (web front-ends) offering no additional content compared to that offered from the content provider's mobile web page.
Does the platform provider acknowledge that your application is what provides value to their product or do they make you jump through hoops to distribute and gain access to the APIs needed to perform the innovative tasks to differentiate your product in a highly competitive market? Remember, the platform provider works for the application developer, not the reverse.
Is your freedom to establish your own distribution model preserved? Some providers offer only one outlet through which software can be distributed. This has already been shown to retard the progression of innovation as it may be required to remove features competing with offerings from the outlet's parent company. If there is no restriction, you may distribute the software via the store(s) of your choosing and/or self distribute to release faster updates and improvements than your competition.
Do you have the same freedom over the device as you would any other computer? The more freedom you have to control the device with your application the more opportunity there is set your product above the rest.
Is the platform your supporting licensed to multiple hardware vendors? A greater number of hardware vendors that can utilize the platform for which your product is developed will deprioritize the need to cross-develop between platforms thus enabling you to focus finite R&D to innovation rather than redundant development.
The increased priority of handheld and LFF-PDA products are raising their status from supplementary devices to primary devices. The companies that update their offerings accordingly will become dominant while others will suffer. While a supplementary device does not need a powerful offline office suite for files too sensitive to be saved to the cloud, flexible easy to use file sharing, diverse system wide printing ability, external display connectivity for mobile presentations, etc., a primary device does need these. In addition, implementation will be straight forward as it has already been done. Many organizers and PDAs of the 90's had network connectivity, flexible printing, and full featured office suites that rival options on many devices currently. Adopting some of these "primary device" features will also help their adoption as corporate standards. Some of these include:
Flexible centralized management and deploy features: Developing a configuration within an emulator with full applications, settings, etc. that could be easily deployed as an image to the entire company.
Remote support: Powerful remote peer to peer access for easy helpdesk support
Standard docking interface utilizing technology such as UWB and induction charging. By creating a contactless docking interface a low manufacturing cost docking system could be licensed to any accessory provider such as Belkin and many others. This would strengthen the power of this platform against others that are not appreciating the user's expectation and desire that their handheld device be a primary device. In addition, this style of docking system would be compatible with a wide array of physical sizes and form factors.
printing system for which low cost printer divers can easily be developed by any printer vendor.
Netbook convergence: A large form factor device with comfortable keyboard to which the handheld would connect to provide the user with a more comfortable interface to their existing handheld device.
The handheld platforms offer incredible opportunity for cloud providers and software vendors, but one of the points I think this article gets across is that if you don't take advantage of that opportunity you will become a victim of progress.
-Matthew
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