Saved by Technology

Business Optimization

2010-07-15T12:36:00.000+07:00

Over the years I've introduced security, WAN optimization, caching, traffic shaping and numerous other technologies all jockeying for a position in the ranks of the evolving enterprise. Each technology promoting a unique spin on the same underlying value...a value that underpins every aspect of enterprise infrastructure...Business Optimization.

In simplistic terms all these technologies are basic components of a larger comprehensive traffic management solution. What's changed in recent years is the plethora of new types of traffic being managed, and with it new products and technologies. Now more sophisticated traffic analysis is required to examine everything from basic IP addresses and protocol types to signatures and even complete files. These technologies often confuse and obscure the real business objectives of traffic management which have surprisingly remained the same.

If we look at traffic through the eyes of Clint Eastwood we would loosely define traffic as Good, Bad and Ugly. Functions under our traffic management umbrella apply differently to each. Let's take it a step further and define what we mean by Good, Bad and Ugly.

Good
Good traffic is easy to define. It consists of traffic generated by applications required to run your business and includes corporate email, database, corporate IM, VoIP, intranet CMS, etc.

Ugly
Ugly traffic is equally easy to define as all traffic that is completely unnecessary on your network and in fact detrimental to your business's performance.

Bad
Bad traffic is a gray area and includes all those unmanaged applications that employees like to use and may help with their jobs but aren't officially supported by your IT department. This includes public IM, external web browsing, unmanaged VoIP and video, streaming audio, peer-to-peer, etc.

If we map our traffic management tools to this we typically want to block Ugly traffic, shape Bad traffic, and accelerate and prioritize Good traffic. Using a more comprehensive traffic management model we can see how this all fits together.

By developing a security, WAN optimization, shaping solution as part of a larger cohesive traffic management solution, organizations stand to gain value through simplicity. These systems need to work together and compliment one another. Trying to absorb each technology in a silo and integrate them later stands a much greater chance of frustration and failure.

Organizations need to develop a complete traffic management strategy, incorporating all these pillars with clearly identified goals; and in doing so, ultimately achieve their real objective...Business Optimization.

Moving to the IT-Lite Desktop

2010-03-11T21:02:00.000+07:00

It's been awhile since I've posted and we're finally starting to see the adoption of social networking front-ends in the enterprise space. Workbook, a Facebook plug-in by Worklight, creates a secure enterprise environment using the Facebook platform but allowing full integration into back-end applications. This in effect makes the "face" of the company a light-weight web interface. We can throw all kinds of terms out to try to enlighten people on how this is done but ultimately the adoption of a web front-end achieves several key things:

1) Portability
Almost 1/3 of all portable devices today have some browsing capability. Within the next five years expect this to double. The web is the window to our world of data and has little to no dependence on the underlying operating system. This may kill the Microsoft dominance in the desktop space that they have enjoyed for nearly 2 decades.

2) Flexibility
The use of Web Services and SOA-like applications allow simple drag and drop type web design enabling, for example, an IT-lite office to add a click-to-call widget to a locally hosted web directory. Companies will shift from trying to control the portal framework (i.e. MySpace, SharePoint, Facebook) and instead develop widgets, gadgets and portlets that focus their key product strengths into embedded applications.

3) Consolidation
We'll start seeing enterprise applications being outsourced at an ever increasing rate as this will be a prime source of revenue for service providers. A successful transformation will include reliable web communications, optimized bandwidth and QoS.

4) Mobility
Accessing content from mobile devices will become commonplace with SharePoint, Websphere, MySpace and Facebook adopting front-ends optimized for mobiles. Also LiMo (Linux for Mobiles) and Google Android will further drive mobile application development to allow enterprise users to work from a cell phone or iPod.

I remember when I started my career in telecommunications and there was a clear differentiation between my colleagues that chose the software path and those that chose hardware. Now these spaces are converging...if not at a technical level then most certainly at a business level. If you can't articulate the business values of why more bandwidth, more ports, better wireless coverage or better QoS is critical to your enterprise then don't expect to find a warm welcome.

Coming from a large telecommunications vendor I've seen a lot of selling technology for technology's sake. Every few years we start a new bandwidth upgrade cycle. Even today it is quite likely you can sell the value of increasing the bandwidth of a pipe to an IT manager but trying to sell that to the IT director or CTO is a bit more difficult. Why is the bandwidth required? What applications are being used? Will this be enough for the next five years?

These questions can only be addressed by looking at the applications and the way in which the enterprise is evolving. If today most users have individual instances of software packages installed on their machines then a user editing a Word or Powerpoint document has no impact on the network. A full adoption of a web environment means every application launched will now create web traffic. Applications that were commonplace and never considered as bandwidth consumers will now be the primary uers of it.

While shifting to a hosted model offers real benefits to the enterprise it will also create plenty of new challenges. Will the same E1 that was used previously be able to perform with a fully hosted environment? Probably not. In fact while the application guys are working on WS and SOA the hardware guys are working on new ways to better utilize resources. WAN optimization and caching is key to delivering the performance enterprises have come to expect. At the same time, experts in CSS and web design will help streamline content hosting and presentation to maximize performance.

When this all comes together everyone will win. The service provider will see an increasing revenue stream from hosting, the enterprise will realize cost-savings from outsourcing, application designers will find a lucrative market for services and business process integration, and web architects will see a growth opportunity in content optimization.

Now that everything is in place we simply need to articulate the business value of all the components.

Demystifying Web 2.0 Services

2010-01-22T18:34:00.000+07:00

Web 2.0
A term coined to include the new emerging interactive web services including blogs, RSS feeds, social networking. Web 2.0 can extend to include things like embedded presence, unified communications and business processes all integrated with an HTML frontend. The following technologies and services are just a few of the components that comprise the new collection of Web 2.0 services.

Presence
Presence is one of the fundamental technologies that allows Instant Messaging to function. It literally provides an indication of the presence of online users. For example a user may be offline, online, unavailable, busy, etc. Presence can be automatically updated by checking user activity. Many applications today have embedded presence meaning that within an email application you can see the user's presence beside their name.

Instant Messaging
Simply put a real-time messaging environment that leverages buddy lists and presence. Instant Messaging is quickly becoming the communication technology of choice for younger users as it provides a more comfortable environment to confront new friends. Since it is a texting service responses do not need to occur immediately allowing the user to multitask by chatting to several buddies simultaneously.

MSN
Yahoo
AOL
ICQ
Google Talk
Jabber
eBuddy

Realtime Simple Syndication
Allows for realtime feeds using packages of data in XML format. RSS can be used to receive updates from websites where content is refreshed on a regular basis (i.e. news feeds). RSS can also be used for any realtime feeds including multimedia and is often used for video and audio streaming between devices. RSS is a fundamental part of social networking sites as it is the technology that enables updates for users. For example when an onoline contact adds new photos or changes their profile, you may receive an RSS feed indicating the new changes.

TVersity

Mashups
Mashups refers to taking multiple Web 2.0 services and modifying their output to provide a new service. A simple example may be combining an RSS feed from a real estate site with Google Maps to plot the new properties on a map. Another common use is to custominze RSS news feeds. Often times a user might be interested in a particular topic and can combine multiple RSS news feeds and modify the output by filtering based on keywords. Several online tools exist to do this including Yahoo Pipes and Microsoft's PopFly. Dion Hinchcliffe has written a great article on mashups covering plenty of platforms.

Yahoo Pipes

Blogging
Posting personal articles in reverse chronological order online like a virtual diary. Blog sites often allow pictures and movie posting. Many social networking sites allow blogging. Blog entries can be posted in a number of ways including direct entries from the blog site itself, email submission and even IM and SMS.

Blogger
My Space
Facebook

Microblogging
Similar to blogging but with limits on blog entry size. The idea is to generate more frequent and presumably more digestable posts. Microblogging limits users to 140 characters allowing subscribed users to receive new entries via IM or SMS.

Twitter

Photoblogging
Although most blog sites allow photo posting the main puirpose of a photoblog is to allow sharing of photos online. Photoblogging often allows posting directly from mobile devices including cellphones and PDAs.

Photoblogs

Social Networking
Online communities of interest where users can customize their homepage, share photos and media, chat with friends, family and colleagues and much more. Many social networking services are creating APIs which allow third parties to create applications that can be embedded in a homepage. The power of social networking sites is in their ability to be customized and powerful searching functions. Social networking sites exist for virtually all interests so pick the one that best fits your needs. All social networking sites use the same fundamental concepts of customization, embedded presence so you can see who is online, messaging between users, email, searching, tagging, adding comments to others profiles, and auto RSS feeds to notify you of updates other users have made

My Space
Friendster
Hi5
Bebo
Facebook
Linked In

Technology is Broken - The Generational Pitch for Unified Communications

2009-11-13T13:13:00.000+07:00

In my job I spend a lot of time trying to convince an older generation why they should be adopting new technologies. I really enjoy seeing the responses I get when I explain to baby boomers the types of things Gen X and Y are doing with computers, mobile phones and other portable electronics. As a test subject I often run ideas by my parents...both of which are baby boomers. Actually my dad missed by 1 year but I'll let him squeak through for the purposes of discussion.

Every time I mention a new technology to my parents they respond with significantly less enthusiasm than I expected. Pushing even harder I try to get my parents to adopt these new services and am always met with some level of resistance. Their attitude is that the technology is broken which usually comes accompanied with "I don't know how". This made me think that maybe they are right and technology is broken for this generation. With a little more thought I realized it isn't technology that is broken...it's that this generation finds a way to break it. This may be a cynical comment so let me put it another way...the older generation will never fully appreciate the drive for a younger generation to adopt particular technologies.

I remember when I moved to Thailand and my mother was really concerned we'd lose contact. I told them they should try Yahoo or Skype. If I can recall Skype never worked for us because my father had some mystery installation problem so off we went down the Yahoo path. Instant Messaging was a new concept to my parents. They just didn't get it at first. Meanwhile Gen X and Y are all too familiar with this real-time two-way messaging system. I'd start by sending a simple message asking if my dad was available to talk. Then I'd see the line at the bottom of my IM window showing that he was typing a response. I would wait 5 or 10 minutes and finally my screen would scroll up about 20 lines. My dad had just send me his entire end of the conversation with one press of the enter key. I'd of course reply with a very short IM and again I'd wait patiently for 5-10 minutes for yet another essay response. I had to keep reminding him that this wasn't like email...IM was designed to provide an interactive communication experience. Even after using Yahoo now for 3 years with them I rarely get a response that includes less than 3 sentences.

For years I tried to convince my parents to buy a CD player. After lots of pressing they finally did and that soon became a DVD player along with a Dolby Digital receiver. I took them shopping and picked out a real slick system complete with optical cables, 5 speakers and a subwoofer. We got it home and of course it was my job to set it up which I quite enjoy to be honest. I'm all grins thinking finally my parents have entered the technology era when no sooner had I completed the connections than my dad asks "how can we connect the tape deck and VCR?” So much for component video and optical cables...in that one question my dad managed to rewind this technology experience by almost 10 years.

Back to the Yahoo story... After some time on Yahoo I decided to try Yahoo voice with my parents. I distinctly remember the first attempt; I was chatting with my mother via IM and I clicked the call button to initiate a voice session with her. The requisite 5 minutes went by and nothing. I tried again this time telling her to click the accept button. This immediately created confusion as I forgot to mention the accept button was actually not a physical button at all and was in fact in the same window in which we were having our IM conversation. While this was happening my mother was sending IMs indicating she couldn't hear me. I was baffled...on my end of the IM she hadn't even accepted the voice session yet she was expecting to hear me. After some questioning she said I just hear a dial tone. Sure enough she had picked up the telephone on the stand beside the computer.

We did finally conquer that and now enjoy fairly regular voice calls with Yahoo although they usually start with her accepting the voice session followed by a very long pause. In the background I'll hear shuffling and whispering to my father all while I'm continuously saying "hello...I can hear you already....”

In fairness to them they have lived with a certain set of expectations when it comes to communications. Voice is via the telephone, video is via TV, and text is via the computer. Unified Communications oddly enough would bridge this generational divide quite nicely. While a Gen X or Y would accept the call on the computer...the baby boomer could pick up the phone (as in my mother's situation) and still connect successfully to the voice session I initiated. In fact, it likely wouldn't even occur to the Gen Y that anyone would even want to answer a call on a traditional telephone.

I was visiting my parents in Canada last month for vacation. For my parents it was an opportunity for me to do all those things they had put on a to-do list when Mike comes home. First on the list (as usual) was reconnecting the stereo. I'm not sure how it happens...maybe its magic stereo fairies...but every time I visit them the stereo is mysteriously disconnected again. I understand the confusion that even one universal remote introduces but they have no less than 4. My mother doesn't stand a chance and just gives up on TV watching at all when my father isn't around. Anyway...I had to pull out the cabinet and rewire the stereo from scratch. This time I pressed my dad really hard saying "are you sure you really need the VCR connected?” They did after all only have 5 tapes. 2 of which were purchased the same time as the original VCR. He claimed it was a "just in case" thing so I diligently connected it realizing that even if my parents understood it was a dying technology there would no doubt be family and friends that would produce videos and expect my parents to be able to play this aging media.

Second on the list was fixing the computer. This seems to be an endless source of entertainment...or at least I wish I could call it that. My father's hobby in retirement seems to be keeping his computer running which is an arduous task. Oddly enough my father was one of the first on the block to buy an 8086 when they first came out. I remember having a Timex Sinclair TS-80, Coco 3, Coleco Adam, etc. It would seem that our household was destined to be a technology trendsetter. Sure enough…the technology broke again.

One of the best and worst things to happen in the 80s was opening up the PC component market. Now savvy engineers, hobbyists, and computer nerds could take the best parts from the cheapest shops and produce a better PC than the box stores. Unfortunately this poured over into the “I know enough to be dangerous” crowd with people like my parents getting suckered into unnecessary upgrades that a 15 year old gamer working at the local electroncis store sold them. Now my dad has a 4^th generation video processor that is faster than a cat running from a garden hose, meanwhile he is still gated by his 50 words a minute typing. There just isn’t enough screen action in Snood to warrant that kind of power.

The result is that millions of people now have botched PCs pieced together from various hardware sources and are endlessly having problems…not to mention similar issues with software. My father purchased a great new PC. I convinced him to go with the all-in-one job and forgo any upgrades until deemed necessary after using it for some time. This model came with the latest Microsoft OS. Months later I found out my dad was still using the older PC frequently. I inquired and he answered that there was a program that just wouldn’t run on XP and he was forced to use 95. To me this was ludicrous…I could see the whole DVD/VCR thing happening again. Try as I might to introduce him to new programs he was insistent that he had already overcome the learning curve of this particular application and just had to use it going forward. A full 2 years later he still has the other PC connected beside the new one.

This technology allergy is not something belonging only to my parents. There is a natural resistance to change. For the new generation this is still the case however the threshold for change is much higher. We’ve spent the last 2 decades tagging children with ADHD because their behavior seems erratic and unfocussed. More recently we're thinking this is simply a result of raising children in a hyperconnected environment. We have significantly more stimuli than we did 40 years ago. Children today can use a mouse by 3, own a computer by 5, talk on a mobile phone by 8 and design a Facebook homepage by 10; yet we call them antisocial and unfocussed when they constantly send SMSs, check email and IM, download multiple videos and MP3s, and interact with an online social community of 20 or more friends.

Back to my vacation last month… my older sister is quite tech savvy considering she really never displayed any interest in all the gadgets and gizmos we had around the house. She has a Facebook page, a family mobile phone plan, and stays connected with all her peeps. As part of an upgrade plan she gave her older mobile phone to my parents. Like cavemen with a coke bottle my parents struggled to find value in having a mobile phone in their life relegating it to an emergency line only. One day while out with my father we needed to ask my mother a question about what to pick up at the grocery store. I made the observation “dad, you should have a mobile phone”. His response was “I have one already”. Great I thought…and proceeded to tell him to call my mother. Turns out the mobile phone was sitting in his dresser drawer. So much for an emergency line.

After some convincing of the value of carrying it, the next outing was a little more productive. This time it was the reverse…we needed to contact my father. Now I knew he took the phone with him, thinking I had already won this technology battle. Sure enough we couldn’t get him. When he returned home it turned out he kept it powered off. After all it was an emergency line.

I had had enough. I sat my parents down and told them they needed to get a family plan with 2 phones that needed to be carried at all times. All of the sudden they were on board and off we went to the shopping center to seal the deal. During negotiations with the sales lady my dad now all of the sudden was an expert on mobile communications wanting a phone with SMS, MMS, Internet, Camera, etc. I did get them back down to a basic communication device but he was insistent in knowing exactly how many megabytes he had and how many SMSs he could send with each plan.

I had another 4 days with them after the purchase of the phones and I was determined to make my parents use them. Every opportunity I would say “call mom on her cell” or “ask dad to get milk”. Finally…I had won but technology was to break yet again.

One night my dad and I were sitting up at the computer and my mother’s mobile phone rang. It rang and rang and both my father and I wondered why she didn’t answer. Moments later my mother came upstairs twisted in a knot saying the phone doesn’t work. I was baffled…of course it worked. Her response “all I heard was dial tone”. She had once again answered the home landline phone. I had to explain yet again that if someone called her mobile she needed to answer her mobile.

We all think that unified communications is the result of a new generation of communication. That’s definitely true. In bringing together all the various communication technologies under one umbrella we are able to improve time to market, time to response, and any number of things. While the younger generations prefer to communicate via IM, the older generation can continue to use voice, meeting in the middle with service convergence and device convergence. My mother had the immediate expectation that she should be able to answer a voice all on whatever device she thought was appropriate for a normal voice call. In fairness to her…shouldn’t this be the goal of communication convergence...any service from any device? Unified communications seamlessly integrates all aspects of human and device interaction giving the user control of the experience. In doing so they not only add value to their business and social life but they help bridge the generational divide.

Interesting Technologies

2009-01-03T16:33:00.000+07:00

I recently bought a Wii I'm not a huge fan of overly complex games and I don't need life like graphics to enjoy a good time killer so I've been quite happy with it. The best part is the Wiimote. This is basically the wireless controller that comes with the Wii. It has motion sensing capabilities as well as a built in speaker and rumble pack. With the right game it is a very effective device that adds significantly to the gameplay. Being a frequent traveler I know that many hotels now have internet access via the TV. I've mistakenly tried to use this getting endlessly frustrated with the wireless keyboard and cursor-like mouse movements. The Wiimote (based on Gyration technology) is a much more effective device for interacting with a screen like a TV. In its simplest form you just point at the screen and click. For many this is the type of experience they would expect had they not been forced through years of small rodent education (aka the common desk mouse).

I decided to see if I could do a little mockup with my laptop. Turns out the Wiimote uses simple bluetooth to communicate with the Wii console. Even better is the fact that you can add this to any bluetooth capable PC. With a piece of software called GlovePIE you can then program all the Wiimote movements to interact with your computer. The GlovePIE application acts like middleware and interprets the Wiimote movements and then translates them into mouse and keyboard commands. A simple scripting language as well as plenty of default scripts can be used to add the Wiimote to virtually any application comfortably.

As part of my TV experience I also want to be able to stream content from any device to any device. After quite a bit of searching I came across TVersity. This application must be run on one PC in your network and basically hosts the content. All other devices can view the content directly over the network. Any video or audio is automatically transcoded for the device which can be autodetected. This means that XBOX, PS3, Wii, PDAs, Mobile Phones and other PCs can all share content feeds from the TVersity server. Best of all it's free!

My experience still isn't complete however as I want my TV desktop to have a few more useful applications. Digging a bit more I was able to find IM and VoIP plugins for my Facebook homepage. Today there is a limited selection so I resorted to adding a Meebo plugin as well as SkypeMe. Now from the comfort of my sofa I can interact with my big screen LCD and make phone calls, IM, view streaming content and surf the net all from a single desktop interface that is entirely run over HTTP meaning I'm not locked in to an OS.

From this single entry point I can also access my photo library, add RSS feeds and manage blog posts. Twisting this technology around a bit a hotel could offer guests a guesttop (patent pending ;))that allows a full suite of services through their guest room TV. This profile could be saved and recalled during future visits. Now combined with full online check-in I can arrive at my hotel room and immediate get the content I want on my TV. Further I can interact using the Wiimote to provide a much more intuitive experience. Now let's add remote call control and I can initiate a VoIP call from the hotel phone all enabled through the services interface that the guesttop provides.

Evolving IM

2008-10-30T23:43:00.000+07:00

While the majority of the world searches for the next killer application it might be staring us in the face all along. Instant Messaging is becoming so popular as a preferred means of communication that we may soon see voice as merely an option; taking a back seat to interactive text-messaging systems. Social networking sites, contact centers, and even the next generation of desktop software offer chatting and IM capabilities. It could even be argued that the basic feature set for IM is well defined. But what’s in store for the next generation of IM?

Often we communicate using the tools we are given at that moment with little consideration of how it might be improved. Such is the case with IM. To many it is approaching perfection but in reality as communications evolve there will be convergence across all these messaging platforms including email, SMS and voice systems.

With the introduction of corporate email employees became more productive; able to manage their own time more effectively. This resulted in a decrease in the number of voice transactions per day. Today many users receive 10s and even 100s of emails everyday bloating their inbox and pushing them back into a less productive state. Instant Messaging is introducing a similar pattern. Full adopters are using IM as their primary means of communication; not only as a replacement for voice communications but also as an alternative to a cumbersome email environment.

So what is driving the adoption of IM systems? Primarily ease of use and the ability to interact with others in real-time while still being able to manage one’s own time. The rate of adoption has definitely indicated that IM is a preferred communication method over voice and email for the majority of transactions however email-like functionality and voice will still exist. In fact most vendors are working towards a messaging environment that allows all of these systems to interwork seamlessly. The foundation of which is based on IM platforms.

IM could easily introduce new capabilities that would further accelerate adoption. One of the most prominent is federation and public IM. Basically this introduces the ability for corporate IM systems to interact with each other and with public IM systems. For example Yahoo users can add MSN users in their friends list.

What shape will IM take in the future? There are a number of features that come to mind that could greatly enhance IM’s usability:

1) Secure IM

The ability to create a secure communication channel between clients to prevent eavesdropping and secure file transfers

2) Interoperability with Web-Based Messaging

This includes the ability to support both a web and OS based client as well as having those clients able to communicate with IM agents built into websites (i.e. social networking)

3) Conversation Markers

IM conversations are stored as a continuous stream of chatting making searches difficult. The ability to manually or automatically set markers based on keywords would allow more convenient indexing

4) Improved File Transfers

Most IM systems today allow file sharing but this is hardly robust or secure. Improved file sharing capabilities would greatly increase usability.

5) Embedded P2P Agent

In addition to having a web-search capability a Peer-to-Peer sharing agent might be an ideal companion for joint file sharing and searching

6) Scratch Pad

Ability to add notes throughout a conversation that are visible only to that user and are stored as part of the communication stream

7) Offline IM

This exists today with limited capability and is the area that would create the cleanest bridge between email and IM. Essentially the ability to send IMs to any user present or not and have these presented to the receiving party in a more consolidated form (i.e. light-weight email front-end)

8) Any-to-Any Messaging

This is the ability for any device to send using any system (i.e. SMS, IM, email, voice) to any other system. In other words an email user can send an email to another user's IM, or to their mobile phone in an SMS format

9) Centralized Messaging Management

This is the consolidation of all user logins for all messaging systems including email, multiple IM accounts, social networking accounts, webmail, etc into a single client front end (web or OS based)

This is by no means a complete list however it is a clear indication that IM has some work to do. More interesting will be how the front-end of the IM system evolves. Today it is optimized for the limited feature set IM offers however once these messaging systems converge it will become apparent that the front-end will need better indexing, easier group communications (i.e. bcc and cc in the email world), the ability to accept non-solicited communications, etc. In addition with a fully embedded search engine that seamlessly integrates the local file system with the network we start to see a new desktop emerge.

We’ve come a long way from the days of having isolated computers scattered about the globe to one with a plethora of networked devices and communication systems. The power of these devices is their ability to communicate and share information. Bringing this all together is the next-generation of IM to the point that we can drop the I and more openly call this Messaging. With the right convergence of technologies IM will emerge as the fundamental component of the desktop and will cement its position as the king of communication.

Mobile Enterprise

2008-09-14T09:54:00.000+07:00

I just read Dennis Howlett's blog post over at ZDNet regarding the lack of business applications or direction at Mobile World Congress. I'm in agreement that as we continue to realize the benefits of accessing our enterprise content from mobile devices you would expect the leading handset producers to step up and recognize this emerging business opportunity.

One comment from industry analyst Dean Bubley when asked if emerging markets would bypass laptops in favor of mobile devices seemed to miss the point.

“I hear a lot of rubbish talked about this. Mobile handsets are still relatively expensive for these nations so what would you rather do - have everyone in a village with mobile phones or share a laptop that has a USB GPRS modem? People forget that in emerging nations, economic choices need to be made. There are better things to spend money on than handsets.” - courtesy of ZDNet

Maybe I'm just not buying his underlying message that a laptop is a cheaper or more effective business appliance than a yet undefined mobile device. It appears that he is also blind to the inevitable convergence between the laptop as we know it and our trusted mobile. In response to Dennis's post I added:

"3rd world nations where one laptop per community is the solution do not drive business needs anyway so I see these comments as moot.

I think the next big transition in the industry will be the Dells and HPs of the world competing or partnering with the Nokias and Sony Ericssons. While one tries to make powerful devices more portable and smaller the other tries to make an already small and portable device more powerful. Seems like the innovator's dilemma all over again yet no one sees it.

If both HP and Nokia launched an identical device that combined reasonable processing power, camera, phone, keyboard, WiFi, WiMAX, etc...which branding would you trust more?"

Clayton M Christensen put similar words to paper in 1997 with The Innovator's Dilemma which although sites aging technologies for his analysis still presents an infinitely valuable analysis of how juggernauts can miss the next technology cycle.

Seems to me that RIM is best poised to capitalize on the mobile enterprise if for no other reason than their acceptance in the corporate environment.

Voice is Dead

2008-08-25T10:08:00.000+07:00

A bold statement but one that needs some thought behind it. At a conference recently I asked a simple question about IM usage. Essentially I asked how many people had significantly reduced their voice usage instead leaning towards IM as their preferred communication method. Granted it was a small percentage that raised their hands (maybe 20%) but I attribute the small number to the fact that many aren't fully using IM in the workplace. Shortly after I got to thinking...the industry I work in has been heavily driving towards a model where voice is a critical service. In reality though I'd be more at a loss if my SMS or IM service failed. The days of me receiving and returning 10-20 calls a day are gone. Instead I spend most of my time communicating via instant messaging.

As another proof point take a look around you and count the number of people SMSing or using voice alternatives like CrackBerries. How often do you see a CrackBerry user actually using it for voice? When I walk into an Internet cafe I see the majority of users are chatting on IM...rarely do I see a voice call...in fact more often I'll see a video IM call (without voice). Essentially our communication habits are changing now that we have the facilities to communicate in a more effective manner.

So does this mean we've got it wrong? Well I think there will always be a need for voice. But when I think of how my normal calling habits flow it usually starts with an IM asking if the person can talk...then I try connecting with a voice session. If the Quality of Service is garbage I simply revert back to IM and am reasonably content. I guess what I'm saying is I'm starting to feel a little uncomfortable with a next generation network designed around strict and complex requirements to deliver a service that is dying. Well ok...not dying...but becoming a significantly smaller and less critical portion of the traffic.

Now...ask yourself...which service would impact your productivity more if it were to disappear? Maybe it's time we stripped ourselves of our legacy thinking and started designing networks around what we see emerging as 21st century communication.

Marketing to Millennials

2008-07-13T11:52:00.000+07:00

I recently presented to a room full of IT directors on the new demographic they need to be addressing. Millennials adopt technology faster than my dog stealing steak off the BBQ. Since I work in this space I try my best to use these technologies and at least understand what they do. I have accounts on all major Social Networking sites including Facebook, MySpace, Hi5, Friendster, LinkedIn. I also have IM accounts with MSN, Yahoo, Google; email accounts with Google, Hotmail and Yahoo; a microblogging account on Twitter; 3 real blogging accounts on Blogger. This stuff is amazing. Much of it might not appear to have any immediate benefit however forcing myself to work with each for a minimum of a week really opens my eyes. At a Microsoft Vista launch someone in the audience asked if SharePoint would be the next OS. The response...direct from the Microsoft president was...quite likely. SharePoint is Microsoft's Enterprise CMS (Content Management System). They've even added social networking plugs allowing a user to have friends lists with real-time updated presence, collaboration, voip (with vendor integration), etc. The same way you can add new applications to other social networking sites, SharePoint allows you to add Outlook Web Access. This allows a single customizable interface to provide all the communications services you might need including robust file sharing, IM, voice, etc. RSS feeds provide real-time information for newly added documents, business process status, and other user's information.

I often think it strange that today we power on a computer and after booting, the PC still doesn't have a single usable application (I'm talking the majority of users here). We still need to double-click to open an email client, login to messaging services, open a web browser to surf the net. It seems to me a better approach is to hide all of this and autoboot into a SharePoint homepage. Imagine all those vertical markets like hospitality, healthcare, manufacturing, retail, government, education, etc where you want to limit the applications running on the PC. In fact you can even run all this on a linux platform since it's all web based. Now you can customize a portal for any application or vertical and fully control what services that user has access to. From a single point of entry they can see status of colleagues, launch a voice call from a directory, post a broadcast message that could get pushed to mobile phones and IM clients, access shared and private file spaces, and much more.

This is powerful technology that the Millennials are already using. I've seen numerous reports with different numbers but one I use is 1 in 6 Millennials visits a social networking site every day. They're used to the look and feel and customizable environment. Forget the business drivers for technology convergence, the young consumer market will push this into our businesses.

So watch out...you might laugh now but it won't be long before we're micro-blogging our way to doctor's appointments and insurance quotes; elearning with collaboration and AV conferencing; and keeping our community updated regardless of whether they are using an IM client, social networking homepage, mobile phone or fully customized business front end.

Free Unified Communications

2008-06-05T11:06:00.000+07:00

I'm a Google fan. I use Gmail, Google Docs, Google Webtools, Picasa, Blogger, Google Talk, Google Desktop and will continue to adopt Google technologies going forward. This isn't because Google provides the best services. Actually it's quite the opposite. Google bludgeons their way into uncharted waters often creating waves as well as whirlpools. The reason I use Google is simply because I like their vision. Rome wasn't built in a day and any good product probably had several prior iterations. The media likes to compare Google's venture into applications with Microsoft but frankly Microsoft has been around much much longer. We've had to endure MS-DOS, Windows 2.x (ugh), Windows 3.1, 95, 98, 2000, XP and now Vista. Those that have followed this path know full well that there were plenty of problems and hurdles along the way. Even now after 2 decades Vista doesn't do things the way I think it should and it is struggling to find acceptance in the Enterprise.

Today it still annoys me that even though I can use my same Gmail account to log into most Google services I cannot necessarily transfer content between them. What I can say is that in a few years these issues will have disappeared and Google will be a solid competitive offer for a hosted Enterprise. In fact for most Small and Medium Businesses, Google provides all the applications you need to enable messaging, collaboration, document manipulation and now unified communications.

Grand Central offers a combination of personalized call routing, sim-ring, voice mail accessible via the web, inbound and outbound ringtones, click to call, screening and mobile access. In addition they offer unlimited storage for voice messages which are managed much the same way we manage emails today.

Unified Communications isn't new and companies like Cisco, Nortel, Avaya and Alcatel have been playing in the space for years however none of these telecommunication juggernauts has much to offer in the application space which is where Google has an edge. Although they each offer branded IM and UC solutions most rely heavily on interworking with heavy-hitters including Microsoft, IBM and SAP.

More traditional communications infrastructures relied on PBXs and desk phones with a slow evolution to soft phone clients. More recently, companies like Yahoo, Skype, MSN and Google have extended their communications reach beyond simple IM to voice, video and file sharing. As such there now exists two communications models that for the foreseeable future will need to play nicely together, hence the rush for the telecom giants to work with the application vendors.

In the coming years we'll see more devices moving towards a soft-client model meaning that even though it looks and feels like a mobile phone it will actually be running a VoIP client and sending the voice packets over a data infrastructure. Technologies like WiMax and LTE are driving mobile users towards a data model rather than discrete voice channels. This means you could conceivably buy a mobile data service from one provider and use a different voice provider. In fact you can even do this today however it tends to be cost prohibitive with the existing data charges. Further, mobile operators have yet to un-bundle the data service from the voice service.

Desk phones as well are changing and will eventually look more like a standalone IM client interface complete with buddy lists, voice and video capabilities. In essence we're seeing a shift towards separating the application from the device. No longer will a phone be synonymous with voice calls, nor a television with video. Instead all these devices will leverage a web services model that allows any service on any device meaning I can use Facebook to IM friends on my PC, phone, TV or mobile and then simply extend the messaging session to a voice call with document collaboration.

Looking around at who is best positioned to capitalize on this ubiquitous application model it seems Google has an edge. As an example I attended a session at a Lotus Notes 8 launch where the IBM speaker before me was introducing what he called UC2. To him Unified Communications and Collaboration doesn't even require a traditional telephony component. I asked him about interoperability with traditional devices and pointed out that the world has billions of phones and he looked dumbfounded. His view of the emerging Enterprise calls into question why anyone would want to use a desk phone. To me this was a very naive answer but in fairness to him everyone in IBM is using UC2 and phones are not considered a critical element in the emerging communications paradigm.

Microsoft paints a similar picture and believes the value going forward is with soft-clients and communications integration into portals like SharePoint. This might explain why Cisco announced in fourth quarter last year that one of their primary focus areas going forward is social networking which is really just a targeted portal and content management system. In the near term however there is a huge opportunity developing hybrid models meaning collaboration between vendors is critical.

The point is that this vendor landscape is huge and plagued with interop hurdles and frankly egos. The beauty of Google is in it's simplicity. Here you can get all you need entirely hosted including a PSTN gateway function. They are pioneering the open source Web Service vision without the baggage of a huge client driven install base. While many will argue they have a long way to go, in the end they will be well positioned to cross the finish line first. For now they just need to connect the dots, focus on usability, and gain some ground in the social networking space.

Some Thoughts on Bots and Enhanced IM

2008-05-20T11:17:00.000+07:00

Ever call one of those support numbers where you are stuck in a seamingly endless string of voice prompts and button presses? A well planned interactive voice response system can be very efficient however I seem to be the one that manages to find every loop, error and deadend possible. Maybe I need to change my career and become a tester. The same goes for voice recognition...at least in my case. I love the idea of it but I'm often redirected to a number I didn't want because some computer has interpreted my response incorrectly. Often times I rely on voice response driven directories when I'm on the go. Usually this means calling from my mobile phone from a noisy airport or restaurant. Certainly this is not an ideal environment for testing a computer's vocabulary.

Many people today prefer to communicate via instant messaging. In the last 10 years my primary communication usage has shifted from phone to email to IM. IM is a fantastic tool to stay in touch with colleagues, friends, customers, etc but it still lacks some basic features that would really take it to the next level.

Wouldn't it be cool if we could add group and support-like IM buddies to our lists. Now launching an IM session with thatcompany.com would be as simple as clicking on a friend to chat. Most mobile phones have IM clients available making this a very convenient solution. In addition let's take it one step further...while with a voice system I'm not happy to talk to a computer...with an IM bot I often don't care or even know that the replies I'm getting are not from a real person. Further such a system is less error prone assuming a reasonable level of typing is used. Imagine if you could add a friend called Google Expert that operated almost exactly the same way a Google search does today. Simply launch a session with Google Expert and type your question. This reminds me a lot of AskJeeves...my first reasonable searching experience on the web. A bot would reply in plain english the answer to my query and provide links to reference if I wanted to learn more.

Today's web experience is quite cumbersome. First you need to open a browser...then redirect to a search engine of your choice. Now you need to enter some relevant terms and hope you get a decent hit. Often this involves sorting through 10s and sometimes 100s of results only to find plenty of ads and redirects within sites. Even with all the available desktop tools that allow searching without first opening the browser...the response always comes in the form of a typical websearch results page within a browser. In addition to improving my interactive web experience, an IM bot would allow me to stay in touch with companies I like. Imagine opening an IM session with Amazon Guy and simply typing "what is the latest top ten fiction list?" After receiving the response you simply say "send me a copy"

This very simple mechanism would provide a more human experience for searching, purchasing, inquiring and supporting of a variety of products and services. Of course you can always use a browser for more comprehensive online shopping and research but often this could be offloaded in a more digestable format by adding buddies to my choice of already running IM clients.

By the way all this is available today including toolkits to build custom bots however finding this stuff is extremely difficult. Here's a couple you can start with for MSN. Perhaps if consumers are aware of this technology and start asking we'll see a whole new generation of bots.

Photo Blogging...What's the Point and Click?

2008-04-21T12:45:00.000+07:00

About a year ago I purchased a new Sony Ericsson K790i mobile phone. At the time I wasn't even thinking about using it for Internet access. Instead I bought it because it was a solid phone and also had the best camera available in a mobile phone. Recently I started to use the blogging function for posting photos directly to the internet. Essentially when I snap a shot I am given the option to save the file on the phone or memory card, send it to a friend, or post it on a blog. The blog it posts to is predefined and as of yet I haven't been able to figure out how to change it. After posting however it does ask you if you want to view the blog. Following this link returns the photo blog which is simply a continuous stream of photos I post. There is also an option to combine this blog to an existing one. This is useful since it allows you to give the blog a more meaningful name such as johndoephoto.blogspot.com rather than the cryptic value of 699382664.blogger.com.

At first I thought this was simply a novelty but more and more I am finding some value in this function. Just last month I was traveling and a friend asked me to buy her a designer purse. Being a guy I naturally have no knowledge of bags except that a cheap plastic one seems to fit the bill 95% of the time. I was having a hard time picking one out and resorted to calling her. This didn't help much since describing a bag is apparently a talent I don't have. Then it dawned on me...I took out my camera phone, snapped a shot, posted it immediately to the blog, and told her to check out my website. Sure enough it suited the purpose and she quickly responded telling me to buy the blue bag on the second shelf on the right. What a great way to use the technology. I did however encounter one problem. She of course selected the most expensive bag in the photo making me realize that perhaps there is still a market for lower resolution camera phones ;)

Content Portability: A Disruption for Triple Play Providers

2008-03-18T15:36:00.000+07:00

There is no denying that more and more users are adopting high-speed access as the distribution method of choice for data services. Further, some of these users have even adopted voice and video IP services. Combined the bandwidth required by these applications can easily exceed the 1-2 Mbps connection available to most users today. To address this providers are working to evolve their networks to enable 20 Mbps and more to the end user. This includes the long term goals of wireless providers as well. However, this may not be as easy as simply adding bigger pipes.

With voice revenues declining, providers are looking for new ways to breathe life into their service offerings. This includes the introduction of content in various forms including video on demand, multicast video, video conferencing, gaming, etc. However, content distribution adds considerable complexity and concerns: specifically content management and security. In addition QoS has been at the forefront of most infrastructure discussions as providers set their sights on application differentiation. The intention of course is to ensure provider resources are used as efficiently as possible while maintaining the QoS expectations of each service. Further this presents a future revenue opportunity for providers as they move more into the role of transport providers.

Combined these are complex requirements and it is becoming apparent that engineering and designing these next generation access infrastructures is not easy. While the direction may be well charted, a new disruptive technology is emerging that may help simplify provider’s woes IF it is recognized before it is too late.

Push versus Pull Models

There is a story that has been circulating for years about a man who was such a good salesman he sold the London Bridge…twice. While some would agree that the right salesman can sell anything to anyone, this is the exception and not the rule. Rather, end user requirements emerge for several reasons that might include cost, simplicity, control, customer service, trendiness, etc. These requirements drive technology in all areas of the users’ life. Evolution of technology to meet end user requirements is a pull model and has proven to be successful time and time again. The push model is much more difficult to sell as it can only be successful if it recognizes a need in the user before the user recognizes it himself. If it does not address one of the previously stated requirements but does add value as a new technology it may be considered a disruptive technology. Disruptive technologies are typically responsible for changing end user habits but tend to go unnoticed until it is too late.

Current triple play architectures are driven by the opportunity of providers to improve service revenues however they are not responding to any immediate need by users. As such current triple play services rollout follows a push model.

Convergence…but this is Ridiculous!

When large telcos talk of convergence they typically are referring to the end user convergence of services over a single common infrastructure. This might include convergence of the physically connected networks such that voice, video and data services are all carried over the same wire or it might refer to even further convergence of control technologies such as SIP and/or AAA services like Radius, Diameter, etc. However, this discussion seems to overlook one key item…the end user.

Most end users could care less about convergence of services from a physical infrastructure, management or control perspective. Rather, as long as the service makes it to the home, it doesn’t matter whether it is via Satellite, WiMax, RJ11, RJ45, Coax, etc. Convergence to the end user implies converged billing, support and hopefully a reduction in service charges.

Evolving Voice

We can already see from adoption of technologies that free VoIP services and even paid services are gaining momentum. This seems to be limited only by the technical savviness of users and as familiarity with these applications grows we can expect even more users to move away from traditional services. Keep in mind that users have no knowledge of how different services are handled over a data infrastructure. As such they purchase a high speed data service and expect to get reasonable quality voice in addition to their data.

The freedom that voice over IP introduces brings much needed simplification to the end user. Combine this with worldwide internet access now available via WiFi and wired data services and now the end user can make international calls from virtually anywhere to anyone without complicated dial patterns or expensive charges.

Now extend this service to the current cellular provider model. Today these providers are known as voice providers as the service they offer is predominantly voice however, as data services grow, consumers will quickly recognize the same benefits of VoIP over these networks. The same simplification of services applies including number portability, cheaper international calling, etc. Further, converging this with an IM or Internet presence application the same ID can be used for both wireless and wireline VoIP. Now even without the infrastructure change, the end user sees a converged service. And trying to get these users to switch back will be next to impossible thus relegating most providers to bandwidth providers only.

To fully understand how this type of convergence impacts an end user imagine the following example. Fast forward 3 years when typical DSL services offer 20 Mbps. New WiMax services offer similar speeds in major metro areas. Further, wireless hotspots exist in virtually any center including hotels, supermarkets, shopping centers, big box stores, schools, etc. Perhaps a preferred provider owns both a wireline and wireless infrastructure and offers a $20/month service for a 10 Mbps channel when available via the wireless infrastructure and a 20 Mbps channel when available via the wired infrastructure. The end user uses IM and presence such that he can be reached anytime, anywhere regardless of whether he is working on his laptop in the hotel, his desktop at home, or his cell phone while in the car. This service allows him to use a recognizable username that is easy for friends and colleagues to remember. Further calling parties never need to be forwarded through number chains.

Now imagine this user needs to attend a business conference half way around the world. As long as the hotel and conference offer data services his presence application will make it appear to interacting parties that he has not left the country. This user has just experienced voice service portability.

A Word about QoS

Quality of Service is something most users take for granted however it has been one of the biggest driving factors in network infrastructure design for years. While vendors continue to sell the value proposition of service guarantees to providers, end users are becoming more and more familiar with data applications and the expectations associated with them. No doubt a 5-9s service is desirable but if a 3-9s service is available for half the cost, residential users will accept it with open arms.

Companies like Skype and Vonage have already proved that the convenience of a VoIP service combined with presence at a good price will draw users away even at the expense of quality. Once more users adopt the service they will inevitably push for QoS and it will come however the war today is over attracting users.

Providers however need to look at alternative means to drive revenue and the most obvious way to do this is to offer QoS services to application service providers. While ultimately this improves the end-user experience, the user’s relationship exists between himself and the ASP and not the access provider. The bandwidth sold to the end-user will appear as one large pipe.

Designing Complex Systems

Often providers are so busy trying to design complex, convoluted systems to address the simplest of problems. Three top areas of concern for providers exist as follows:

Content Management and Security

Clearly if the access provider plays a role in content delivery they are also liable for management and security of that content. It is quite likely that digital video recorders and set-top boxes will be thought of as an extension to the provider network. As such it is the responsibility of the provider to ensure content stored on these devices is not compromised. This has been a major factor in the reluctance to roll out wide-scale video services.

Customer Premise Equipment

Ideally the end-user should have complete flexibility over the devices selected for use within the home. This however compromises the quality of experience as the provider can no longer guarantee service delivery from ASP to the end-user. Rather, the provider will continue to deliver a pre-defined appliance as part of the service which will operate as a closed system. This is the only way QoS can be maintained through the infrastructure to ensure appropriate service delivery however this is at the expense of cost and flexibility to the end user.

Quality of Service

Current design principles for broadband networks assume some differentiation of applications. Voice for example has a different set of QoS requirements than video or data. These applications can be identified and handled differently however this adds considerable complexity to network planning. Further, there is no standardized way to do this nor are all vendor product roadmaps aligned to deliver a complete end-to-end system with comprehensive QoS. Finally, end-user habits are changing such that the benefits to such a flexible QoS system are marginalized.

The User Model

Users on the other hand drive towards simplicity. In the music industry the big assumption is that if users can download MP3s they will do so illegally to save a buck. This is quite contrary to the normal user who in fact uses this system for the simplicity of content distribution. This is proven by the huge acceptance of services like iTunes. If content is readily available when and where the user wants, they will pay.

One example that can be cited is FM radio services. Many providers spent several years developing expensive next generation systems to evolve radio. As such XFM and Satellite radio became available. These are subscription services that offer predictable content delivered over a larger geographical area.

In parallel large scale music content portability was enabled with the introduction of MP3 players. Now users have become accustomed to taking their content with them. This is a model that will quickly follow suit in the video space as well. Today providers are spending money and resources on complex VoD and multicast video distribution systems leveraging high speed data networks with the expectation that the content will reside in the network. Meanwhile users are getting used to the feel of portable content. One issue is that users do not like to pay for something they can’t own. MP3s with appropriate Digital Rights Management allow the end-user to effectively own the content while at the same time protect the original content provider.

The Solution

New portable content devices make this real as they allow content portability of 100s of hours of video and 1000s of hours of audio. Not only is the content viewable on the device screen, it can be connected to a television or accessed via a computer for display on a computer monitor. Now imagine waking up in the morning to the alarm you set on your portable content device. You walk over and select the latest news program that your computer automatically downloaded and placed on your PCD as part of a video podcast subscription service. Every morning the latest 2 hour broadcast is downloaded during off-peak hours. You now walk into the living room and drop the PCD into the docking station next to the TV and the news feed jumps to life on the large screen with no interruption in service. When it’s time to go to work you grab the PCD from the dock and drive off, meanwhile listening to MP3s in the car. Once at work you re-dock it next to your computer and the video now jumps up as a window on your desktop.

Sound like a dream? Well it‘s not. This is available now and best of all it requires no complicated network infrastructures. Rather a simple subscription to that particular video podcast is all that is needed.

Video content portability will quickly become a reality and will follow the path set by music distribution. The enabler for this adoption is simplicity. iTunes offers a simple access agnostic universal content management interface for browsing and purchasing. Granted the market for real-time services will still exist and as these end devices evolve to include direct WiMax connections with RSS content feeds they will quickly be incorporated into the service.

Finally…some Real Convergence

Rather than designing complex systems to allow content mobility across multiple networks in hopes of providing access ubiquity, the user will adopt a model that leverages content portability. Why? Because of the simplicity of content distribution. After subscribing to preferred podcasts and video podcasts the user requires only a data connection anywhere in the world. Downloads can occur during off-peak hours and are autonomous.

Combine this with wide scale acceptance of VoIP services for residential users and it becomes quite clear that the end user requires only a large data connection. QoS from a video perspective becomes irrelevant as content is downloaded in non-real-time. Also, as the reliability of data services improves, subsequent VoIP quality improves to a satisfactory level for the residential user.

In addition to simplifying infrastructure requirements of providers, this model further allows complete flexibility in end user device selection: a goal set by many providers but quickly recognized as very difficult to achieve.

Further, content management in the home becomes the sole responsibility of the end user. The provider network, now operating purely as a transit infrastructure, may influence the content however there is no responsibility placed on the provider for security or management of this content. Rather this relationship exists solely between the end user and the content provider.

The Future

2 years from now we can expect to see the convergence between the portable content device and the mobile phone with large adoption in 5 years. Now all podcasts can be downloaded directly onto the PCD without the need of a computer. Further, voice services will be predominantly IP and will leverage presence to provide true access ubiquity. RSS services will enable real-time content distribution.

Subscribers will no longer purchase services such as voice and video from access providers but instead will purchase data services only. Subscription services will be used for video with VoIP enabling any provider virtually anywhere in the world to compete.

Content will be accessible anywhere in the world opening up whole new markets for video providers.

Further, companies seem to be in support of this model and have now recognized Apple’s DRM technology as being adequate for large scale content distribution.

TiVo has even moved ahead of the pack and announced that they will support the ability to dump recorded content directly from the set-top box to the PCD. This significantly simplifies the model and eliminates the requirements of having a PC and video conversion software.

This does not change the original requirements for higher bandwidths. Rather it further emphasizes that data is growing and hence the end game is still there…providers need to improve infrastructures to enable large data bandwidth to end users. The difference is that getting there now becomes much easier. By leveraging adoption habits of the end user, the provider can simply work towards large and reliable data channels without the cost and complexity of full triple play infrastructures.

Further, content management becomes the responsibility of the end-user. Combine this with support for content distribution services and portable content devices and the model changes from push to pull. Providers willing to embrace this disruption will be positioned to truly deliver next generation user driven services.

iWant my money back - Apple's new iTouch and iPhone folly

2007-09-12T08:27:00.000+07:00

After all the hype with iPhone it seems pretty clear to me that Apple is admitting to launching the product a bit prematurely. When news first came out about the iPhone, thousands of watchers laid in wait for a taste of the be-all and end-all convergence device. Unfortunately many of the iPhone capabilities that would have made it the king of technology never materialized. Here are just a few of the issues:

1) Locked to a Single Provider
In order to use the device you have to subscribe to one and only one provider's service: Cingluar (or AT&T). This is a pretty standard practice in North America however it becomes really limiting for any overseas users

2) Locked OSX
Personally I was hoping that Apple's decision to use the actual OSX kernel on the phone would mean they'd have opened it up a bit for application use. By this I am specifically referring the ability to install any OSX application (provided of course it meets the processing and memory requirements). I'm not expecting to run Logic however being able to run the normal OSX widget library would be very helpful. Unfortunately there is only limited support.

3) Limited Memory
Here I was expecting to retire my 60G iPod with the iPhone. Turns out I'll be stuck with my iPod for some time. Even more, Apple has recently announced discontinuing the 4G version of the iPhone. For me the whole reason to even consider the iPhone was the idea of combining my entire song library with my mobile phone.

4) iTouch Launch
Apple just recently announced a new generation of iPod. This version is almost the same as the iPhone minus the phone part. Here's the catch...it suffers from the same iPod limitations mentioned above meaning that it can not act as a true replacement of my iPod either. The iTouch is available with a maximum of 8G meaning only about one quarter of my music is portable. This launch also seems to signal a lack of confidence in the iPhone.

5) Price Reduction for iPhone
Is it not meeting targets? This would seem to be the case with Apple's announcement to significantly cut the price of the iPhone by $200. In fact to appease early adopters Apple is even reimbursing them.

I have both a mobile phone and an iPod. I have rarely been in a situation where I really needed my iPod contents in my phone. Granted we all want a convergence device but not at the expense of required functionality or capacity. For now a much better working solution is a proper mature mobile phone solution and a separate iPod. Looking at it from this perspective there are some very nice alternatives to the iPhone including the HTC Touch which offers a similar user experience while being cheaper, expandable, and not locked to a provider.

Is the iPhone doomed to fail? Not at all but now that the dust has settled it can be seen for what it really is...just another mobile phone and NOT yet a next generation content device.