Constant Connectivity Just Around The Bend

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Over the weekend, Fred Wilson wrote on his blog about the music industry and the future of streaming music. An important quote:

Over the next five years, the number of places and devices where you can’t get a speedy wireless connection is going to dwindle to maybe the car.

Ah, to dream! For 10 years we have talked about this day in mobile computing. Some will dread a world where we are always connected. But I see a world of possibilities.

This is the world my generation is waiting for and a world my two kids will understand innately.

Interesting products and services at your fingertips all the time on any computing device.

Software companies can bring them to you less expensively because we can write it for the web and gain huge cost efficiencies to deliver it.

Advancements in learning and teaching and growing that will match our individual lifestyles.

And, of course, an off switch when you want to be left alone.

Photoshop Online: Web Apps, More Proof!

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More proof that Internet-based applications are finally arriving: Adobe jumps in with a scaled down version of Photoshop. (Read the announcement at Information Week.)

This follows on the heals of Intuit’s release of Quicken Online in early March. I talked about this trend in December, 2007 (read the article). It is a very important trend. As I said then and will repeat now, as big companies move online, suddenly the entire web-world has an air of legitimacy.

I started writing software for Palm handhelds in 1997 and, as they reached what I thought was critical mass in 2000, I kept waiting for the big boys to come on board and write applications. Intuit never did — they outsourced. Microsoft did with Office products but only because of the OS play. I expected to see name-brand companies, both aimed at business and gaming, writing portable versions of their software. It never happened.

So when I start seeing Adobe and Intuit, two of the biggest names in the desktop world writing web applications, I know we are not too far from main-stream web-based applications. It gives credibility to all of us looking in that direction. And it shows that the web can be used for more than looking things up and social networking.

Gazing Into My Looking Glass: 700Mhz Spectrum Edition

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For those who pay attention to such minutia, there was a big auction last week by the FCC. If you are unaware, the Federal Communication Commission auctions off bandwidth periodically. This bandwidth is the basis for all kinds of wireless transmissions, including bluetooth, wi-fi, CB radio, regular radio, etc. The bandwidth that was auctioned will come free next year and covers the spectrum of traditional broadcast television.

From a business perspective, this auction was interesting. Google fought very hard to get some restrictions on the use of this bandwidth. Most notably, the FCC required that the winning bidders must open the spectrum to all devices. For devices that use this bandwidth, you would hypothetically go to the store, buy a device and then choose which provider to use it with. In other words, you will be able to use your iPhone with Verizon services, if you so desire.

The second interesting impact of this auction is technical. This spectrum is very good at going through walls and over long distances. The former is a problem with cellular bandwidth; the latter a problem with wi-fi.  In other words, with the right receiver, we could have mobile devices that have high-speed Internet connections everywhere.

Will this happen tomorrow? Of course not. But it does show that at least the big boys, AT&T and Verizon who bought 80% of the bandwidth for $17 billion, are very concerned about solving this problem.

Apple: Ego and Elegance

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I have struggled lately with Apple. For one, I am completely intrigued by the company and their products. On the other, I am completely scared of them.

Before I explain this comment, let me tell you how Mac vested I am. Not much, actually. The only Apple equipment I currently own is an iPod, and at that their low priced Shuffle, which does the trick for me because I am deathly afraid of breaking the screen and this one doesn’t have an LCD display. I have owned two of these, the first and second generation models. The first did the trick but after a while didn’t function correctly. I am soon in the market for a new laptop, however, and am intrigued by the Macs.

Apple poses a strange juxtaposition for me, as I started to say before. For one, I am completely intrigued by the company. It’s hype is amazing. More importantly, though, its design and software is unbelievable. There are very few companies who do this well and, frankly, it is very hard to do. I have often thought about interesting consumer electronic products but it is such a difficult market for a start-up. Apple’s form and function is through the roof. It works well and is sexy as all get-out, a killer combination for consumer electronics companies.

On the other hand, Apple scares me. If the egos there are this big with 7% market share, what would it be like if they had Microsoft’s share? I hate to think of that beast.

I mentioned earlier that my first iPod stopped working correctly after a while. It would forget its shuffle spot if I turned it off, making me start at the top of the play list again. I found a number of references to the problem on the web and no fix, just work arounds. Nothing from Apple, though. No acknowledgment of the problem, no fix for it, nothing. The device wasn’t even a year old when it started happening. Apple’s response, which you can’t email them anyway without paying them, was buy version 2.

But here I am, knowing that Apple will treat me this way, and still looking at a laptop from them. Ugh… I must be crazy to help feed that ego!

Mobile Destiny: The Crossroads Approach

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I had a couple of great conversations recently with my friend Michael Mace who succinctly summed it up: In the world of mobile, we are at an inflection point. For the first time, mobile technology has become good enough to serve the business purposes of its users. Soon, the laws of diminishing returns will affect the market. In other words, does increase power and capability actually make the devices better? Or are these incremental improvements, same as what has happened in the PC world? There is no doubt that we are fast approaching this crossroads and soon, incremental technological improvements will be the norm.

There are still a few big hills in front of us that will make mobile technology significantly better, namely faster data connections, synchronization via the web (rather than sync cable), and truer browsing experiences (read here). But the top of this hill is fast approaching us, I believe, and we are within a year or two of reaching the top.

There is a dynamic in the market that has affected all of us. In order to make money, carriers and hardware vendors feel they have to make devices and services that broadly appeal to everyone. So the capabilities of the devices are generic and the plans provided are pretty close to “one size fits all.”

The problem is these are highly personalized devices. They are very oriented around niches, or vertical, markets. The needs of a Realtor are vastly different from the needs of a contractor or lawyer or business manager. So there is a disconnect between the way these devices are presented and sold and the way they are used. And that leaves all of us hunting for third-party solutions to fill the gap.

There are significant challenges for third-party developers, though; it is getting harder and harder for us to develop native applications (those that go on the device) and then get the word out about them. We can no longer partner with hardware manufacturers because all device and in-box promotion decisions are controlled by carriers. Carriers don’t care about niche markets, for one, and prefer no software be installed at all, raising huge certification and device lock-down barriers to keep software out. Finally, software resellers, the remaining sales channel, are either charging exorbitant fees or have disappeared altogether. Why not go after niches, you ask? Because there isn’t enough device penetration around a platform or two to make it worth the development effort (read here).

This is why the crossroads fast approaching, this intersection of business utility and technological prowess, is so important. The rise of the Internet as a medium for software and the ability of these mobile devices to run them effectively will open up a new world for you, as a business person trying to make the device useful for your needs, and for us, as a developer trying to help you get there.