Following the Chrome OS announcement by Google and the hype it generated, I was asked be several people to comment on it. If you lean back and take a certain perspective, it is fascinating to realize how well it fits into the long term technology lifecycle evolution. Having hated History classes as a student, I’m becoming increasingly impressed by the insights it can provide as years go by…
What we see in computing technology is that initially, new features and products are delivered as independent products. Features that become successful and ubiquitous evolve in functionality and become more generic, often ending up as an infrastructure or Operating System option. One of the most dramatic examples that I experienced was the Image Viewer (that is today part of Windows) for TIFF images. In the early 90’s, when Document Imaging was introduced, you could only scan and view documents using specialized hardware accelerators (a dominant vendor was Kofax). The extra cost to support TIFF viewing on a PC was close to $2000, plus an expensive monitor. Many Document Imaging companies (mine included) made a lot of revenue developing and selling Software viewers, reducing user costs by half. Finally (about 8 years later), Microsoft purchased the TIFF viewer that Wang developed and incorporated it for free within Windows.
The evolving Internet now brings about Cloud Computing, and many new features and products are gaining wide adoption (I refer to this in my “living in SOA” post). The Browser was very material in making that happen. The Browser can be considered as a window to the internet. But as more and more users expect to use net-native applications and devices, the Browser is clearly outdated and underperforming. After all, it was designed to display information – not to contain and execute business logic.
What users want now is a door to the internet – designed for bi-directional exchange and more, not just for browsing. Some vendors with extensive web application experience already understood that, and have come up with alternatives to the Browser that support Rich Internet Applications – such as Adobe Air, Microsoft Silverlight or Magic Software uniPaaS RIA. These are very compact engines (the uniPaaS RIA Client is only 2MB) that are designed to execute net-native applications, where the application code resides “in the cloud” (like portals) yet the user gets a rich interactive desktop experience (unlike portals). As I describe in “A battle royale for RIA market” however, developing applications for most of these “new doors” is pretty complex. A handful of vendors started addressing this hurdle, led by Magic Software with uniPaaS and maybe followed by Microsoft with ‘Alexandria’
Google Chrome OS seems to be right in the same evolutionary line. From the scant information I was able to get, it is trying to move all those hurdles down into the OS level and abstract them from users, so that users and application developers would be able to once again focus most of their effort on business logic and user experience rather than on underlying technologies. But we have to be patient and wait for it to become available. And then wait a few years for it to mature.
In the meantime, why not go ahead and use what’s available? After all, history also shows us that those companies who used the early Document Imaging products and systems did gain competitive advantages and developed their business, independently of what became possible later.
The Impact of Social Computing
I came across one of those “Columbus Egg” postings which I found excellent, motivating enough to add this post. My trigger is a post by Gartner analyst Anthony Bradley about the realities of Social Media, and I would like to expand on this.
There’s a long dated debate about the limit between private and public life, and about media transgression in the lives of public figures. This got a dramatic exposure with the tragic death of Princess Diana. The internet and the new social sites give anyone access to the world, to the point of redefining the meaning of fundamental social terms (what does the word “Friend” mean nowadays?). People use social networking sites, blogging and messaging to gain exposure and develop (consciously or unconsciously) a personal brand. They are not always attentive to the “Pandora Box” effect, that what they publish is out there in the public domain. It reminds me of the venerable arrest warning “anything you say could be used against you”. As Anthony rightly points out, “No matter where you fall on the question of personal privacy, this is the way of the world and it is unlikely to change because there are too many people who feel that if you sell your persona then all your behavior is fair game. And certainly the demand for scandalous information is strong”.
Another related challenge is the impact of social computing on the enterprise. Businesses spend a very significant percentage of their income to carefully manage branding and communications. A press release that is less and a page often incurs more that an entire day of human labor until it hits the wire. In contrast, most of the content published in social media is essentially ad-hoc and often reflects temporal sentiments. We see more and more frequently situations where the personal brand of an employee becomes significant, and when that employee is also a visible figure in an enterprise it might challenge the communication effort of that enterprise and impact its brand.
How do you reconcile then privacy rights and professional limitations? The Internet gives private persons enormous potential power, and with power comes responsibility. If a person wants to play in the branding and exposure Enterprise league, then he/she should also accept the consequences, and realize that just as Facebook changed the meaning of “Friend” so did the social computing phenomena change the meaning and boundaries of “Privacy”.
I take this opportunity to wish you a happy festive season and a prosperous new year.
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