BLOG – Currents – 02 Feb

BLOG – Currents – 02 Feb 2011

The Information technology sector continues to be one of the most rapidly evolving. Every year the same product is less expensive for the same money you often get twice the value. If you remember any of the things I wrote about the Web 2.0 environment when it comes to online development things are also evolving rapidly. I don't see this changing any time in the near future.

Why then are some areas of the industry seem to evolve and adapt to the glacial place. The most common examples include those in the media industries in particular movies and music. Today however the focus on the more traditional application developers. Many years ago someone came up with the idea of open source software development. Without open source products like MySQL would never have evolved to the level they are today. Think about Linux is another example, or the Apache web server. Where would the Web development industry be today if these three products had never been developed and handed out for free?

Why is it then that many application developers seem to be stuck in the past with both their development models and their pricing structures. Pick any subset within the IT product set, how about customer relations management software. If you go online to find a number of these in the commercial space ranging from three digits on up in price. Quick search in the open source community will provide you with products that challenge even the most expensive of these for a fraction of the price.

As the consumer becomes more aware of the depth available from open source products they then go back to their suppliers with the quite reasonable question why are your products are expensive when I can get almost the same thing for a small amount of money. Even more if I put in a request there is an excellent chance the additional features I'm looking for will be provided in the next release. A release cycle that is often far faster than the commercial equivalents.

Another traditional area tends to be abused is that of maintenance. I have worked from large organisations who have paid large sums of maintenance where even after 18 months there has not been an update. In recent times the response from the traditional lenders has been to do an audit. This means is that the application developers are placing demands on their customers to prove that each and every installation of their product is fully pay for a licenced. So instead of looking after their customers they are placing extra burdens upon them. Perhaps it is time that the customers started auditing their suppliers to make the improve that they are indeed providing value for money.

According to TechRights big names like SAP, Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Cisco Systems have been seeing customers drop off their membership lists. At the same time more and more organisations are handing over the bullying of customers to groups like the Business Software Alliance. In the process the BSA has seen its reputation diminish as it's gone after grandmothers and single mothers. When people find out that a particular organisation has been driving the BSA then their reputation has also suffered.

This process is one of the reasons that organisations like Microsoft are pushing to make their applications service on the Internet. Rather than installing a product, possibly a pirated version, customer must pay to access the equivalent service online. Like anything in the digital world this kind of system can be bypassed or spoofed but for the time being is less prone to such use.

The online service on its very nature provides inherits maintenance as each time you access the system a new update or version may be current. The other advantage that the customer is that they can get a reasonable amount of value for a smaller amount of money and only when their needs expand will cost more. Consider all the upgrades of say Microsoft Office that had been purchased by organisations with the new features have hardly ever been used. The upgrade applied simply to stay current with the latest file formats.

Imagine a world without piracy. A significant portion of the world's population would never become familiar with an application or game. To some extent pirates provide free marketing reaching people that the traditional models may never reach. Some of these people even pay for the product increasing sales to the developers. These would otherwise be unrealised revenue. At the smaller end of the market some clever developers encourage users to share with their friends thus expanding the market and increasing the likelihood of more sales. This may sound counterintuitive that there had been developers who count on this kind of model.

If you think about it even organisations like Microsoft, while not actively doing so, has tacitly encouraged piracy especially in places like China. This is provided the opportunity for some larger organisations in such countries to adopt the real version of the product. It is also limited the spread of alternatives like Linux. Why would you install Linux when you can get the Windows OS for free? Or so if the piracy young person when they get older and more established they are more likely to buy the real thing because it's something they're familiar with. They may also encourage their organisation to buy the product because of familiarity. There is also a group in the middle, not pirates, not customers who could flip either way and end up paying for the application because they've been exposed to it through their friends.

We've entered the age where people are not going to buy Oracle just because they have a big-name. Worse to such developers people are becoming very wary of proprietary products be day database formats, Codecs, or just about anything else if they can find an open alternative that works and has been tested.

While the traditionalists are bemoaning the change in the software industry many others are taking advantage of the new paradigms. In reality now is a great time to be writing software. The markets are larger, the delivery mechanism is easier, a number of pricing models have increased, and through the Internet you can make your product a service. People who are still in the business of stopping people from making copies and charging people for every upgrade should not expect to stay in business for very much longer. These are the ones that just don't get it but then the future will sort them out soon enough.

Industry News

Egypt. The Egyptian government has restricted Internet access and mobile phone coverage because of the demonstrations that are going on there. The Internet is supposed to be an open system accessible by all with minimal filtering. Over the past few years we've seen filtering in China, Australia, Thailand, Pakistan, Iran and a number of other locations around the globe. About the only website available in Egypt at the moment is a stock exchange. According to the CIA World Fact Book there are over 20 million Internet users in Egypt.

When it comes to USB 3 external drives Kingston Tech is about the only one with an SSD unit. Iomega has just announced their range in 64 128 and 256 GB versions. In England the latter will cost you something over £600. That kind of money you would be expecting a fairly impressive drive. In this case all you get are 191 Mb/s read speeds and 130 Mb/S writes. The other main benefit is no moving parts so if you accidentally bump or drop the unit it should still work. There are other faster units on the market at the moment pricing puts it out of the range of the casual adopter.

The Digital Video Broadcasting Project has added 3-D to their DVB Digital TV technology standard. This defines how broadcasters should transmit 3-D TV programming and how a set-top box should pick it up, decoded, and then displayed on your TV. The standard is compatible with a standard 2-D HD frame. This should allow any existing hardware to upgrade to 3-D with a simple software update. The new specification includes resolutions up to 24Hz 1080p side-by-side frames.

Notebook manufacturer Toshiba has come up with a notebook lid that changes colour. The T750, which is only available in Japan comes with a 2.66GHz Intel Core i5-480M, 4GB of DDR 3 memory, a 750GB hard drive, a 15.6in, 1366 x 768 LED-backlit display, Harman Kardon speakers, 2.4/5GHz 802.11n Wi-Fi, Gigabit Ethernet,  HDMI, USB 2.0 and eSata ports. The colour you see depends on the viewing angle giving a metallic effect that ranges from turquoise to purple.

The world needs more DRAM and the reason is an increase in the popularity of the tablet computer. Since this year's CES in Las Vegas and the introduction of units from Samsung, Dell, Motorola, RIM and others demand for DRAM is expected to grow over the next few years. This is good for the manufacturers have seen falling markets over the last couple of years. Of course forever person buys a tablet that is potentially one less person who buys notebook or a PC. Logic says that there will be a drop in memory requirements of these units so perhaps the DRAM manufacturers shouldn't be counting their profits just your.