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Originally,
I had planned to make this the Windows XP issue. It seemed like a good idea to send you our views on the news
Windows Operating System the day before the announcement.
But then I realized that I was going to actually attend the
Windows XP announcement in New York City on October 25th, so telling
you our Opinions about Windows XP before we heard what Microsoft was
going to say seemed less interesting. Of
course, there is an intersection between the topic of today’s
Opinions and Windows, so some of it will turn up anyway.
We’ll discuss it in much more depth next week. Our emphasis will be, of course, not on the features
(you’ll have plenty of places to read about that), but rather on
strategies, architectural, marketing, and development, in case you
want to share your immediate reactions to the usual Microsoft hoopla
in advance. The
Personal Use Of Personal Electronics Some
analysts have decided that the era of the PC is drawing to a close
and that by 2005 (or 2007 or 2010, it doesn’t really matter which
date is being less than accurately predicted) we will have walked
away from buying more PC’s and instead turned to a new collection
of computing devices. In
the office (to the extent that some of us will still work entirely
or mainly in a fixed place that resembles today’s shared office
space), we will migrate to devices that are designed to provide us
with fast, continuous access to multiple places.
(I’d say multiple “windows” but I don’t want to
confuse you, because, of course, this has nothing to do with
today’s Windows or Microsoft.)
Such devices are likely to consist of large, flat screens and
various kinds of access methods – voice, pointers (but not
necessarily the mice, touchpads and other pointing devices common
today), and data and image entry (probably image based and highly
automated). While
the devices can access anything a user’s authority permits, it
will require no local storage or processing; everything will take
place somewhere out on or attached to a network.
Small companies and individuals will simply pay for the use
of storage and services. Very
large companies may (for reasons of security or economies of scale
or sheer arrogance) choose to own or control their own “farms”
of storage, processing, systems, and applications software as well
as their own content. None
of this should surprise you very much.
In fact, a fine article on the economics of using network
stations and Unix recently appeared in LinuxWorld http://www.idg.net/go.cgi?id=579312.
Sun talks of similar strategies in describing its ideas for SunONE
and Services on Demand, announced yesterday (October 23, 2001). Microsoft, while continuing to insist on the importance of
Windows and Personal Computers, nevertheless foresees a future where
users will GET their software and much of their content from network
services. So
let us assume that one (or a combination) of these things will
happen (a subject we will discuss in much greater detail shortly, in
an article and then a White Paper on Web Services, in the works) and
talk instead of the Personal Electronics we are beginning to use in
greater and more sophisticated ways. What
Are Personal Electronics? The
real answer to this question is “No one is sure.” That means different people would answer the question quite
differently. For most
people, in 2001, personal electronics would certainly include a
personal PC (that is, the one you use at home, rather than the one
you use at work). This
PC might be a desktop or a laptop and in affluent households (like
those of many of our subscribers) there are likely to be more than
one. Many users have
both personal desktops and laptops (but in this case, the laptop is
likely to be a business-related purchase).
Your definition of Personal Electronics might also include a
Handheld Computer or Personal Digital Assistant such as a Palm,
Handspring, Compaq Ipaq, or one of several dozen others.
If you use your mobile phone for more than making phone calls
(receiving email, surfing the net, sending and receiving pages),
you’d probably count your mobile phone as well. Of
course, you could choose from many other less popular but still
widely used objects.
This
doesn’t even take into account the steady electronification,
education, and integration of all kinds of household goods:
the lighting system that turns on at dark, the microwave oven
that is controlled by what you’re cooking (oatmeal) rather than by
a technique (Time Cooking) and a Duration (90 seconds).
Not to speak of the refrigerator of the future, full of
bar-coded foods, that can reorder things as you remove them for use,
based on your ordering policies (we like to keep at least six cans
of Coke available at all times).
All
of this has been vividly bumping around in my mind at night as I try
to get to sleep because I know it’s time to make some decisions.
Does
all this sound all too familiar?
There are several ways to solve this problem.
There
are many serious considerations that we’re not addressing here
because each one of them would take a newsletter of their own.
In the future, they might.
(If they’re compelling for you, let us know and we’ll
move them further up the list.)
They include:
Every
time we buy another electronic toy we’re asking the question
(whether we know it or not) “How does this fit into the scheme
we’ve already got?” Eventually,
we may need to change the scheme, throw it out and create a new one,
or stop buying more toys. All
of these options are available and we need to start considering
them. As
someone who has bought nearly every toy that has ever come down the
road (we have a museum of dead small objects on the bookcases in my
office) I plead guilty. The
toys always look better when you’re raging with early technolust
than when you’ve tried them out for a week or two and found their
limits. Some stick,
most don’t. I’m offering an award – a $25 Amazon gift certificate – to the subscriber with the most “dead” (currently unused) toys. To compete, just send us a list and your name, email and real addresses to amy@wohl.com. We’ll all have a walk down memory lane together.
Comments or Questions: Send Email to
opinions@wohl.com
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