Blog Yes & Know

Software Platforms of the Future

A very important trend to watch in 2007 will be the ongoing efforts to separate the operating system from the platform (the APIs and user interface that an application interacts with).
Key players in this movement include Adobe’s Apollo and Microsoft WPF/E.

Is Vista the End of Windows?

At the end of 2006, Gartner Group predicted that Vista would be the last major release of Windows, with future updates being delivered on the fly, in modular format. “The era of monolithic deployments of software releases is nearing an end,” Gartner said. “Microsoft will be a visible player in this movement and the result will be more flexible updates to Windows and a new focus on quality overall.”

Will WiMax Change the Wireless Landscape?

Most companies that deal with the mobile industry are frustrated with the protected business models of the carriers. Unlike the wired Internet, it’s not generally possible for a software company to deploy a program to any cellphone without extensive reprogramming and often getting permission from the carrier. Deploying new hardware can be equally daunting — it’s often difficult to get a carrier to even offer a new phone.

Web 2.0, Meet College Politics 2.0

Reading the Wall Street Journal editorial page the other day, it struck me how far the societal impact of Web 2.0 has come. It is a great example of how the technological and cultural changes driving Web 2.0 are no longer limited to technology; in this case, the hotly contested election on the proposed Alumni Constitution at Dartmouth College.
Peter Robinson writes in the Wall Street Journal,

Web 2.0 vs. SaaS

Web 2.0, meet Software as a Service.
SaaS, meet Web 2.0.
You two need to talk. You’re working on many of the same problems, but you don’t communicate well, and sometimes it seems like each of you barely knows that the other exists.

The "Lamest Feature Ever" on a Corporate Weblog

All right, it’s probably not the lamest one ever. But it’s the lamest one we’ve seen in quite a while.
Sprint has a weblog that lists podcasts the company has created. That’s fine. But for some reason the site has a prominent tool to let the user change the background highlight color used in the weblog’s graphics. Not the whole background, just the highlight color. And there are only four choices.

The “Lamest Feature Ever” on a Corporate Weblog

All right, it’s probably not the lamest one ever. But it’s the lamest one we’ve seen in quite a while.
Sprint has a weblog that lists podcasts the company has created. That’s fine. But for some reason the site has a prominent tool to let the user change the background highlight color used in the weblog’s graphics. Not the whole background, just the highlight color. And there are only four choices.

Understanding the full impact of the web

This will probably sound crazy, but despite all the hype about Web 2.0 and web startups, the most common mistake we see tech companies making with regard to the web is underestimating its long-term impact on their businesses.
I’m not sure why this is. Maybe it’s a reaction to the Internet bubble — because the short-term effects of the web were oversold, people also tuned out the long-term effects. I know some companies are so settled in their current franchises that they don’t understand how vulnerable they are over time to the changes taking place in the marketplace. Others take the web very seriously in one respect, but don’t understand its full impact across their entire company.
To understand what the web is going to do to our businesses, you have to look at it as both an application development platform and a new communication medium. Either change alone would have huge impacts, but the two together are especially powerful. Here’s what we see happening in each area, followed by some ideas on what they mean for businesses.