Adventures in Netbook land (1)

For my birthday, the family gave me some money to buy a netbook. There were surprised frowns all over -- why would I want a netbook, and not a laptop? -- but everyone helped.

I went on ebay, and started a few days (weeks?) of intensive search.

It's amazing the number of adverts or sales posters for cheap out-of-China WinCE netbooks. I mean, come on! WinCE? Even smartphone manufacturers are moving away from WinCE. Why would anyone want such a netbook: crammed ram (256M), crammed space (1G), crammed apps, and no upgradability? Beats me, but there we are, ebay is full of them...

Between the HP, Asus, Acer, and other brands, I decided to go for the Acer Aspire One range: they've got decent hardware, lot of options, are upgradable, seem to go on for ever, and sell for a good price The thing is, all these netbooks sell like hot cake and I was constantly outbidded. Until I sneaked in to snap the netbook I now own.

I really like my Aspire One. I like its weight and size, the keyboard feel, the fact that it's got all those ports, that the display is very good, the sound is OK, and the webcam is fine.

I didn't like the OS it came with - Linpus - even if it was very fast and did a cool thing with SD card (automatically extend the system disk space by inserting the SD card).

So I decided to work on finding a nice OS for my nice little Netbook

Hackers target Windows-based phones | IT PRO

Hackers target Windows-based phones | IT PRO

Just goes to show that it is NOT a question of market share. Microsoft trails Nokia, RIM (Blackberry) and Apple by a huge margin.

Adobe admits critical Flash flaw | IT PRO

Adobe admits critical Flash flaw | IT PRO

Finally! Although I don't see lots of magazines and newspapers publicizing the news. Bias? You bet.

Adobe's losing battle

To be honest I never have been a Flash fan (and not really a Java-on-Windows fan either). The reasons are the same as most people who dislike it: performance, resource hog, not really great quality, 'lazy' applications, etc.

Over the years, I have seen many sites go from no-flash to flash back to no-flash. Once the novelty of the little kind-of-app-with-fancy-graphics wears off, users who are left with having to wait for ever for a page to load, or having the browser give up the ghost, or wanting to go straight to the point, end up frustrated.

The world of browsers, spurred on by Safari's and Chrome's webkit engine performance has increased its speed by leaps and bounds. Firefox is staying close to these two with the latest Gekko updates, and IE - the snail of browsers (still today) - is doing its best to be fast...

Web sites that do NOT use flash, have extremely fast load times, even with complicated CSS and java script usage. But not so with flash.

In the world of mobiles, it's obvious, Flash is NOWHERE to be seen (well, there is Flash Lite for some - rare - smart-phones, but the truth is that it is OLD flash, and it is still a hog).

Flash's problem is that it is completely proprietary. The player is proprietary, and the tools are proprietary. The content is not, of course, hence the reason why programmer will say it is not, and they will show Flash specifications to confirm it. But the truth is, Flash is proprietary. Adobe rules supreme over the present and future of Flash, its players, and its tools.

I understand Adobe's position. They make A LOT of money from Flash, even if the player is free. Until HTML 5 came along, Flash was the de-facto standard for feature 'rich' web content ('rich' is a term that Microsoft - mainly Bill Gates - coined and used for anything and everything the company made, and is now used everywhere to mean anything from 'not character based', to 'whooping 3D with surround sound and mouse gesture word processor').

The truth is, the Web doesn't NEED flash. It may look convenient, but its convenience made for lazy programming and lazy design. I mean: how many times has an awarded web site been a heavy user of Flash? The technology itself may have been OK in a PC-centric world, but its proprietary nature, its poor resulting applications (let's be honest, in the main, Flash applications are not THAT great, are they?), and its performance is a NO-GO in a mobile-centric world.

Hence the aggressive PR battle that Adobe is forging against Apple, the convenient scapegoat to gloss over the inadequacies and lies of Flash.

The fact is, the main programmers of Flash applications are Windows guys. The Linux world hardly uses Flash, Mac users hate it, and it is quasi non-existent in the mobile world. However, this is not advertised by Adobe or their Flash proponents (who make a comfortable living from making applications with it).

Real programmers (sorry to the others), designers of elegant and performing web sites, don't use Flash, and are looking at HTML 5 specifications with a lot of interest. And so are CEOs, CIOs, CFOs, CTOs, COOs, who see where the shift in consumer usage is going: Smart phones, very portable computers (desktop computer purchase is now lagging behind laptops and netbooks by a significant margin), mobile activity. And they are moving their web sites to no-flash content in increasing measure.

The snowball is gathering momentum.

As every passes Flash is losing ground.

Adobe is losing its battle. Bye bye Flash. And good riddance.

Back online

It's strange to think that I haven't blogged for more than a year. One the one hand, I just didn't feel like it really mattered - even to me - and on the other hand I needed to refocus on family and personal matters.

I was reading my previous blog entries from last year, and especially the predictions - now at least a year and a half old. Although they were intended to cover a 2 to 3 years time frame - not yet passed - a few excerpts made me smile by how off they were but more often than not how accurate they were already. You be the judges.

There is no denying that in these few months, Apple has reshaped the mobile phone industry, has consolidated the iTunes position as music retailer, and has been pulling the whole PC industry upwards in its wake. Most investors expect the company to be at least as rich and powerful as Microsoft is today, in less than a year. Impressive.

In September last year, a company I was working for decided to bypass my recommendations and opted instead to tie themselves up further with Microsoft, spending a few dozens of thousands of pounds on hardware and licenses - which, in truth, are sold at bargain prices to charities. Although it was an enormous blow for my confidence and self worth - after so many years consulting - I am beginning to feel vindicated by the ever increasing number of organizations - some as big as 35,000 users - moving to Google Apps. We are talking about companies or institutions that are headed by very cautious high calibre executives:

http://www.vnetpros.com/content/?/vnet/blog/new_mexico_state_attorney_generals_office_goes_google/

http://www.cio.com/article/print/494752

http://seo9oneone.com/johnsondiversey-migrating-12000-users-from-lotus-notes-domino-to-google-apps-in-48-hours/

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE59B3M820091012?sp=true

http://www.itbusinessedge.com/cm/blogs/all/google-apps-gets-big-new-customer/?cs=32600

http://rootswire.org/content/denish-proposes-switch-google-apps

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/print/9138089/Will_government_gig_put_Google_ahead_of_Microsoft_in_cloud_race_?taxonomyName=Cloud+Computing&taxonomyId=65

http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B5AOHQcS-cAeNjQ5NDAzMjUtYzVjOS00OGRjLTgwMzQtZjUyZDkyYzU0MzIy&hl=en

In the midst of the heartache, I was consoled somewhat by finding it out that the aforementioned organization has since moved a very restrictive database application to a solution 'in the cloud', which enables sharing, gives better data integrity and up to date information. This was something I had been advocating for a while.

Finally, a note on the whole Windows 7/ Linux thing. The more I use Open Source, the more I am impressed by the breadth, depth, and innovation pace, of the applications.

• The newest version of Evolution is so stable, it's a joy to use, and it compares well with Outlook.
• OpenErp is just incredible; not only it's free, but it is so complete as an erp/crm/finance/hr solution. Its client is java-based so OS agnostic. Just outstanding
• LMMS is now a truly great midi studio and sequencer.
• OpenOffice is also starting to concentrate on performance as well as features and versions 3.x are very good (OxygenOffice is its best incarnation)
• uBuntu is now remarkable. Although the beta version of Karmic Koala has understandable kinks, it is so good already that I now loathe using XP or Vista (except for using Chrome). You should try it from within Windows - using wubi.

Whatever Microsoft is trying to impress upon the public with Windows 7 is already available on Linux. Even games play nicely with Wines!

The promising technology of the moment is wifi direct, who will compete with - and probably supplant - Bluetooth.

802.11.n is now ratified. Expect it to become the de-facto for all wifi networks. Price will go down. That's great news.

Apple's MiniDisplay port has now been officially adopted by VESA, so expect DVI/miniDVI ports to be phased out. it's good for video output.

Any thought?

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?