Computer Interface
While 2009 was a year of slow down (in many respects), the
year 2010 has started off with a slew of launches and teasers. When I started my
research for something interesting, I was overwhelmed by the results of my
search. I was literally buried under the information overload. As a result, I
just couldn’t settle on the theme for this column. After much dithering and
scrapping several ideas, I finally settled on this topic.
Trends in the past:
Initially I thought that I was generalizing it a bit too
much, but after taking a relook at the trends, it seemed evident that the most
significant developments in the area of personal computing, happened during the
nineties. Similarly, the use and dependence on the Internet grew considerably in
the millennium years. It appears that the industry now believes the mobile phone
to be the next “biggest thing ever to happen”.
Smartphones:
Smartphones are a (near) perfect example of a dichotomy.
While there are some phones which tickle the fancy of a consumer (i.e. iPhone
types) and then there are others which would be the choice of an enterprise or
would be the proud possession of a yupee (BlackBerry). Needless to say, the
iPhone is not too popular with the enterprise and the
BlackBerry is not popular with the consumer.
The convergence
Going forward, one is likely to see many attempts to make the
mobile phone a one-point access for both basic and social activities. For
instance, one of the focus points this year, appears to be integrating all
social media under one platform and simplifying the user interface. Connectivity
will play a key role in shaping the future of the mobile industry. Real-time
information and analytics, coupled with strong networks, will lead to the
creation of utility-based services for consumers. Developments like mHealth and
mEducation, will be coined as the key growth areas of the future.
Rise of the application market
‘Context’ will soon become an important addition to basic
search-based functions (by using analytics). Existing features of the device –
such as GPS, voice-based telephony and in-built cameras – will be used to bring
in context. The trend indicates that the applications market will rise
considerably to bring about the biggest development for the mobile industry. The
focus will be on creating ubiquitous services. This will be instrumental in
evolving the app economy into a successful business model. The growth in the app
economy will power the vision for the mobile ecosystem (which among others
includes telecom operators, content providers and original equipment
manufacturers).
A much tighter integration between application developers and
service providers will ensure greater consumer experience and the next one and a
half years promise to be an interesting phase for this industry.
Armed with this background, it is interesting to see who is
doing what?
Microsoft’s strategy
Microsoft, whose phone operating systems have not been a big
hit with either of these groups, is launching a mobile operating system that
could (ahem!) appeal to both the consumer as well as the enterprise.
Over the past two decades, Microsoft has seldom rewritten a
piece of software from scratch and while each Windows version made substantial
changes, the core has in most cases remained the same. With Windows Phone 7,
Microsoft is apparently making a clean break from the past. It is a software
that supposedly has been written from scratch. The Windows Phone 7 is aiming to
provide a user experience that is completely different. It is as minimalist as
it gets. On the screen are several hubs around common themes: people, pictures,
music, videos, Microsoft Office, etc. The Phone 7 also uses Bing maps, which
would probably provide the same experience as Google Maps. Windows phone 7 is
supposed to work seamlessly with your PC software such as Outlook, OneNote and
SharePoint.
It is interesting to note that Apple wanted to merge the MP3
player and the phone, hence the iPhone. (Microsoft seems to be emulating the
idea—Zune Player and Windows Phone 7). It seems that Microsoft intends to bring
the phone close to the PC hence their mobile operating system has been designed
to work seamlessly with the PC.
The phone will have just three hardware buttons: home, search
and back (and you thought it would be CTRL + ALT + DEL—they have written the
software from scratch remember!!!!). The phone resembles a Zune Player
(Microsoft’s answer to Ipod).
One of the greatest strengths of Windows phone 7 is the way
its phone works with a PC. But that could be Google’s strength too, if the PC
world starts shifting to the cloud (Web-based computing world. Microsoft is
expected to reveal more about applications for the phone in the upcoming MIX
conference at Las Vegas. The next two years will see an interesting battle for
the enterprise smartphone.
Google’s strategy
Just like Microsoft, rival Google, too feels that the ‘mobile
phone’ is at the heart of the internet giant’s future. According to Google CEO,
Eric Schmidt, internet mobile devices will overtake PCs by 2013 and ‘Mobile
First’ will be the key focus for Google. At the World Mobile Conference in
Barcelona, he outlined how the web giant’s top programmers were now
concentrating on mobile phones. By taking search to mobiles, Google wants to
create an open platform that brings together location-based search with voice
and pictures.
To illustrate, let’s say you are in Barcelona and you are
looking for Indian food. The search platform would recognize that you are in
Barcelona and throw up the most relevant search results — Indian restaurants in
the city. The search recognizes your location and while you ask for options for
food, identifies your speech and sends you the desired results. This technology
goes further. For instance, if the Indian restaurant’s menu has some parts in
the Devanagri script and a non-Hindi speaking person does not understand it, all
the user needs to do is, focus a phone camera onto the script and within
seconds, the search will recognise the characters and send out intelligent data
on the meaning of the words with corresponding pictures for better clarity.
Schmidt also said that three unique areas had now converged on the mobile device: Computing power, interconnectivity and the cloud. To quote “The phone is where these three all interconnect and you need to get these three waves right if you want to win.” Using the examples of Spotify, Facebook and, of course, Google, he highlighted how the cloud concept is being used in both fixed and mobile communications. He also mentioned that recent trends indicate that in Indonesia and South Africa, more and more users are preferring searches via mobile phones than PCs.
RIM’s strategy
Not too far behind Microsoft and Google, IBM in collaboration with RIM said that they will bundle the Lotus collaboration applications on BlackBerry. While this would seem an innocuous announcement, the move assumes added significance when you look at a series of related developments in the smartphone world.
A smartphone is generally looked upon as a consumer device, thanks to the large number of applications developed for the consumer, particularly on the iPhone. Typically, a smartphone was used mostly for voice in the enterprise, and recently for email too. Though email is the killer smartphone application in the enterprise, two other sets of applications have emerged now: collaboration and document viewing.
The IBM-RIM partnership announced at the Lotusphere conference in Orlando — that Lotus Connections will be loaded on to BlackBerry devices. (There would be no fee as the applications are preloaded). BlackBerry is already integrated with Lotus Sametime, a messaging and calendar application that also tells you who else is online. Users will now be able to collaborate and view documents using the BlackBerry.
Enterprise software firms find that for many applications that they sell, companies ask for a mobile solution as well. This is on account of the fact that workers are on a routine basis spending more time on the road. They need to access documents as well as collaborate. Most users of the smartphone in the enterprise now use it for email, contact management and calendar. Viewing documents comes next (the smartphone will be used only for viewing and not creation), followed by collaboration applications.
Collaboration comes last, not because employees do not use them, but because they are not being made available. You need to pay, for example, for the BlackBerry applications. This is precisely why smartphones with bundled Lotus Connections will make a difference.
Observers think that conferencing is the next hot smartphone application in the enterprise. Till the advent of 3G, it was difficult to both talk as well as connect to the Internet at the same time on the smartphone. Even with 3G, Web conferencing still does not work perfectly in many places including the US, with many users complaining about call drops and delays. These technical issues are likely to be solved in the future, and meetings over smartphones would then become commonplace in offices.
This means several companies will now be working on a mobile solution for smartphones as well. That would also mean a new wave of applications for the smartphone. One major hurdle that needs to be crossed here is that each handset is different, it takes considerable time to develop applications for one handset, and then this has to be developed all over again for another one. While we will have to wait till the end of the year to see the outcome of this trend, the three traditional rivals — Apple, Google and Microsoft are in for a tough battle for market share. No matter who wins, one thing is for sure that the smartphone landscape could change dramatically by next year.
Cheers!
