The Mac in the Gray Flannel Suit (4)

In the last post, I was talking about what I believe the next 3 to 5 years will have in store for us - business-wise. I talked about what I think is the start of the iPhone phenomenon in the entreprise. I then talked about dramatic changes in the server world, with Microsoft buying Zimbra, Ubuntu becoming the n.1 name in Linux, OS.X server getting through by the main door, and Google Apps/Zoho getting a substantial size of the SME market. In the third post I mentioned about the standard desktop PC falling to sub £299.

In this post, I will resume by talking about technology


Technology

1. There will be a huge fight between Facebook, Google, MySpace, Linkedin, to get into the entreprise with Facebook starting with a slight advantage. I am not sure who will the winner be after a while, as we might see consolidation and strong partnership developing, although I believe that Google's Open Standard for Social Network will position them extremely favourably.
2. SME's will EMBRACE Social Networking as the new means of collaboration (Facebook has already chat and document sharing capabilities) as it allows them to communicate much more efficiently than email - with strong selling points placed on malware protection, spam elimination, inviting ONLY your 'friends' and partners, etc.
3. Changes in the Wi-Fi/Wi-Max world will impact the telephony operators, mainly them looking for ways to beef up their 3G performance (4G?) to keep up with the connectivity demands of their customer (Internet access, social networking, video chat, etc.). Prices shouldn't necessarily come down (at least at the low end), but customers will get more for what they pay today (although the need for bandwidth and extras will level that out)...

Basically, social networking will evolve and we will see some market consolidations, but the concept and technology is here to stay. The need for privacy and security in the face of spam, viruses, and malware, will push many companies to use the 'intranet/extranet' paradigm of working. SMTP will continue as a transport mechanism although other protocols will run alongside it.

What it means, is that tomorrow giants will be Google (Orkut - currently number 1 worldwide), Facebook, Linkedin, etc, although large corporations will use their own flavour - possibly based on Open Source components - of Social Network. In this scenario, and providing Microsoft doesn't eventually buy them, Yahoo could have a few cards up their sleeve.

To conclude the series, I forecast very exciting coming years in the ICT world, where the shift that is starting right now - from desktop to cloud - will gain momentum and reshape the landscape.

If you want to talk financial:

• Cisco and Juniper are safe. We will always need what they sell. They have reached a critical mass like GE, which will always be there
• IBM, Apple, HP will be there. Each for its own set of reasons, but mainly they all have in common the fact that they are diversified, 'own' a lot of their end products (software, hardware, design, patents, etc.), have ahead thinking plans and simple delivery process, and create healthy ands faithful ecosystems around them
• Dell needs to depend less on Microsoft and get back to sell solid systems with great support if they want to survive. I think that selling Linux servers with a good margin is imperative to compete in the cut-throat area of cheap PCs/laptops
• Microsoft should never be written off, but the departure of Bill Gates has opened a psychological void. Whatever is thought of Bill Gates, he WAS the face of Microsoft, and when he spoke, people listened. Now that he is gone, there has been a worldwide shift about Microsoft perception. If Microsoft doesn't do something about its licensing issues, about a revamp of Exchange, about a less-hungry/less-bloated Operating System, we will see HUGE moves away to the Apple/Linux/Open Source camp. I expect the Vista/Office downard slide to continue and anticipate flat or negative quarters at least for another year.
• The mobile operators with the best ratio of network coverage/network performance/data price/contract attractiveness will gain dramatically. In the long term, I envisage (in the UK) 3/Vodaphone to struggle, O2/Orange to do very well, and T-Mobile to stay flat.
• The new kids on the block (although Google is hardly a new kid, but in the Social Networking it could be thought as one) are pulling all the stops. Which one, out of MySpace, Bebo, Friendster, Linkedin, Gaia, DeviantArt will eat the other one, or be eaten, or just go out of business? One thing is sure, Google/Orkut is going up, and Yahoo is going up. Linked is most probably going up.

What do you think?

The Mac in the Gray Flannel Suit (3)

In the last post, I was talking about what I believe the next 3 to 5 years will have in store for us - business-wise. I talked about what I think is the start of the iPhone phenomenon in the entreprise. I then talked about dramatic changes in the server world, with Microsoft buying Zimbra, Ubuntu becoming the n.1 name in Linux, OS.X server getting through by the main door, and Google Apps/Zoho getting a substantial size of the SME market.

In this post, I will resume by talking about the Desktop world


Desktop world

1. Companies like IBM, Sun, SalesForce, SAP, Cisco, etc. will come up in the next 2 years with an update to their products that will be Mac-as-on-PC and Linux-as-on-Windows compatible. They will make a BIG deal of it.
2. We will hear of big moves from XP to Mac or XP to Linux, this time not only limited to government agencies or charities, but also from reputable companies. Some moves will be triggered by a change of server technology (Apple Xserve, Linux), move of application technology to platform 'independent'(MsSQL to Oracle/MySQL,ProgresQL/etc) making dependance on Microsoft OS less attractive.
3. We will see a significant increase of sub-£299 laptop and sub-£200 desktop in the low end. They will mainly be running Linux or a streamlined (customized?) version of XP

The shift has already started: lBM has a large Mac platform pilot, Salesforce is moving to Macs, the eePC pioneered a sub-£299 PC/laptop concept that is now being followed by other manufacturers, etc.

What this means in the long term, is that Microsoft's vaporware Windows 7 has to take this trend into account in its design. If they want to sell at least as many copies of Windows 7 as Vista, they might have to delay its release until its specifications are slimmed down. It also mean that the couple AMD/ATI have better chances to greater market share than today, although the overall outlook would be for thinner margins - including for PC manufacturers.

I also see companies being prepared to partly subsidize a cheap laptop to their roaming employees, instead of purchasing a more expensive one that would be depreciated over 3 years.

In the next post, we will look at technology in general...

What do you think?

The Mac in the Gray Flannel Suit (2)

In the last post, I was talking about what I believe the next 3 to 5 years will have in store for us - business-wise. I talked about what I think is the start of the iPhone phenomenon in the entreprise.

In this post, I will resume by talking about the Server world.

Server world

1. Leopard server being Apple's first really serious alternative to Microsoft servers (SBS, or other), the next release of OS.X server  - perhaps released by the end of this year, but most probably some time in 2009 - will be aggressively positioned to conquer the entreprise by offering: greater integration of PC's into Open Directory, native or quasi native support for Outlook client (mail AND calendar), entreprise-level Time-Machine backup facility, easy access to groupware from Windows Mobile, web access to personal calendar, entreprise management of iPhones, etc
   
2. Ubuntu will gain such a momentum that it will soon climb up the Linux ranks  to become the de-facto Linux distribution (like it did with the desktop). Ubuntu's partnership with Dell will help Dell's server systems switch from Windows to Linux in a significant measure, and gain interesting market share (HP should follow suit)
   
3. Microsoft might buy Zimbra, as it is today the biggest threat to their Exchange supremacy. They might use the Zimbra client to incorporate it into their next version of Windows as the default email client, and tightly integrate it to their Microsoft Live offering. Zimbra server technology will help them rebuild Exchange from scratch, getting rid of their database paradigm that is so penalizing to Exchange performance, and changing the licensing scheme to be more on par with the the rest of the industry prices. Microsoft will stop development of Zimbra to platforms other than Windows, quoting "a focusing of resources", etc
   
4. Google Apps for Business and Zoho will gain a lot more interest from SMEs to the point of causing real disruption to the business app manufacturers, with MsOffice starting to see significant slide in profit, and servers shifting from internal resource to outsourced
   

It is generally agreed that customers are getting really unhappy with Microsoft licensing schemes. Even a 'simple' product like SBS - which a small business may be interested in - usually comes with 5 user-licenses only, pushing the customer to purchase additional license for every new user/PC, to the limit of 75 users; at this point the organization has to migrate to full versions of Server 2X + Exchange 2X + Sharepoint 2X + SQL Server 2X, with all its issues added to the dangers of integration, of having multiple servers, etc.

I believe that the increase of iPhone and Mac sales in the entreprise - as witnessed recently and well documented - will get many CIOs and senior executive to ask their IT department to look at Apple server. I think that the decision makers out there will be more interested than ever in the real ROI, cost saving per user, and growth capability. Hardened Windows-only ICT Managers will find it harder and harder to defend their 'cheaper administration, cheaper administrative staff' stance, as a couple of Xservers can easily replace two or three Windows server in performance and scalability, for a drastically lower cost.

The rise of Ubuntu is a given. Whether the distribution is better or worse than other more established names is quite irrelevant here. Ubuntu is the name that is irresistibly growing. On the net - except for paid search - it comes first in Linux search, and also Linux server. For the anti-Mac clan, Ubuntu will be a credible alternative. I expect the company to come up with significant partnerships and announcements that will see it get even more positive publicity than today. Dell is already a partner and will be eager to expand its range into the server market for a very compelling price while keeping good margins. Dell only need a couple of high profile sales to see interest in its Ubuntu offering grow significantly.

Although all the talk is on Microsoft mesh, Live, and other on-line acronyms, Exchange/Sharepoint and Office are his bread and butter business. I concede that Microsoft buying Zimbra may be hard to believe for some, but I think that would be a smart move on their part: Zimbra has now a substantial user-base, it has a first class AJAX client - that Microsoft staff like, as disclosed in other blogs earlier on - and has a very modular architecture (zimlets); the server communicates with Outlook, has hooks for VOIP, is very fast and scalable, can be hosted, and is taking business away from Exchange. In truth, Exchange cannot really compete with Zimbra, because it is a dog to run, has a so and so management tool set, and Zimbra has an incredibly talented and forward thinking team of designers and programmers. It's a no-brainer.

Google Apps for businesses is a very nice product. You can assign your domain name to it, you can manage groups, users, email addresses, sharing, and other useful things using an easy interface, from anywhere in the world. Your users can use the built-in word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation applications, and save them in multiple formats (PDF included), or you can use your company's applications (MsWord, OpenOffice, iWorks, etc.). You can create a customized 'portal', multiple group calendars, and a chat network. An you are not platform limited; you can enter data from IE7 on a tablet-PC, modify a document from a Safari on a Mac or Firefox on a Linux PC. I think that it has all the functionalities that 75% of people will ever use. The tipping point will be when third party developers or Open Source programmers will start using Google Gear and the APIs to get their applications to integrate with Google Apps in a big way. I see this happening within the next 2 years, under the impulse of an aggressive Google. A typical small businesses only has to look after a gateway device (with DHCP), a cheap firewall, a good broadband SLA, and a few cheap PCs to get, and keep, going. The savings are impressive, and for disaster recovery you can keep going from anywhere!

In the next post, we will look at the Desktop arena...

What do you think?

The Mac in the Gray Flannel Suit

This article from business week was the catalyst for a brainwave. When I read this great piece, I was struck at how accurate my uptakes on the next 2 years were, when I made them to my manager sometime in September/October 2006. I made other comments at the time, which were not covered by the magazine cover story, but were just as close to how things turned out. The conversations I had at the time were in the light of where I saw the market going to.

After reading the article I sat down to write a quick email containing quick 15 predictions of the market in the next 3 to 5 years and forwarded it to some selected friends and colleagues.

I decided to copy them into this blog. Although my predictions were written in no specific order at first, I had to organize them into superficial and subjective categories for readability sake, and although I discovered afterwards that I had about 5 more points to jog down, I decided not to write them after all - at least in the short term - to stay as close as possible to the email content.

The iPhone

1. The iPhone 2.0 is coming out in June, perhaps with 3G straight away or maybe later this year, and within a few weeks/months, 'serious' business software will appear for it
2. We'll hear of large companies using the iPhone for business critical applications this year
3. RIM's blackberry will certainly struggle and have its shares down quite substantially over a period of time
4. Microsoft's Windows Mobile will also struggle in the higher end phones, as it won't offer anything comparable or better than the iPhone. They might keep it alive for a few years through their largest corporate accounts, but may pull out of it in the next 5 years
5. Sony/Erikson, Nokia, and others will rush to get Symbian phones and/or Linux/Android phones to match the iPhone capabilities but will have first generation problems (performance, bugs, etc.) and may end up concentrating on the already saturated low end by offering much higher specs phones for the same price to get people to switch. However within 2 years, they should have ironed the kinks of higher end phones and could offer an alternative to the iPhone. The rate of this change will depend, of course, on whether Apple decide to stick to their one operator per country policy, and not allow operators to subsidize the iPhone
   

Yep! I definitely believe that the iPhone 'second generation' will take the business world by storm - and I'm not even talking about the consumer market where end-users will crave for the games and cool software applications that are going to be made available - as the device will gain the respectability status it only had implicitly. The mixture of the iPhone controlled environment, classy graphics, corporate email management, storage size, and applications, will become too strong a pull for most businesses to resist. Here is a phone/PDA running an OS with free updates, which none of the competitors can properly offer.

next post will discuss the Server world...

What do you think?