Category Archives: technology

The new patent troll economy

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bq. “Microsoft pays patent fees; film at eleven”:http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/10/08/microsoft_patents_acacia/

Normally, this story wouldn’t even be news — patent deals are cut all the time — but there’s an obvious strategy being developed here. Microsoft has identified patents as the most effective attack against anyone seeking to profit from FOSS. Rather than attack FOSS directly, you dump as much money as you can in to littering the intellectual property space for a given product with patent mines. Step on a patent mine and all of the sudden you’re paying Microsoft (or someone else) for sitting on their ass and building a patent portfolio rather than innovating with any real products.

Under the old rules of engagement, patents were the equivalent of nuclear warheads. No one really wanted to use them, but they were good for making sure that your buddies across the street didn’t fire off a salvo of patent suits in your direction. The problem for FOSS is that software patents are ideologically reprehensible to most of the people involved, therefore patents are not sought, and the intellectual property battlefield falls in to the hands of the patent trolls and big corporations.

As things stand today, we’re looking at a future where patents become a large market in and of themselves. Big corporations will push for international cooperation for patent enforcement, and up-and-coming companies who benefit from FOSS are going to face significant new risks. The biggest losers will be consumers. Virtually all of the new internet giants stand on the shoulders of FOSS. It’s only matter of time before the patent trolls find ways to attack everyone using their “IP”.

Ballmer’s opportunity cost

technology

Comments on: “Ballmer Dismisses Android. Oh, This Will Come Back to Bite Him”:http://nextparadigms.com/2010/08/02/ballmer-dismisses-android-oh-this-will-come-back-to-bite-him/

While this is mostly just a take-down piece about Ballmer and his lack of vision, there is some new insight here that I’m not sure I’ve read elsewhere. At least not written explicitly:

bq. “…when he’s [Ballmer] done nothing but extend their old business, Windows and Office, which is fine, but there are a lot of other CEO’s who could’ve done that just as well or better. Businesses don’t last forever. It takes someone special, a visionary, to create new growth opportunities in the company.”

Some time ago, there was a little storm around how poorly Ballmer had done as Microsoft CEO, mostly because of the flat-line stock. There were some good rebuttals showing growth in profits under his direction, which seemed to shock everyone in to believing that maybe he didn’t do all that badly. Everyone seemed to kick the dirt and say, “Well, we all know stocks aren’t the best indicator of success or failure of a company. While Microsoft is doing fine from financial perspective, Wall Street simply doesn’t recognize it.”

But let’s back up a moment and realize that Wall Street isn’t interested in what you’re doing today. Stocks are bought and sold based on what people thing you’re going to do tomorrow; next quarter; next year; five years from now.

Apple’s recent growth can be attributed, in large part, to iPad sales. This is a new market. Speaking from Microsoft’s market perspective, this is money that, at best, would not have been spent elsewhere. At worst, it was money that consumers might have spent on a netbook. I’ve seen research both ways, and honestly, neither side is terribly convincing.

The bottom line is that while Ballmer has managed to squeeze a little more life out of Windows, he hasn’t moved Microsoft forward. That’s inexcusable for a company with the engineering and capital resources Microsoft has.

The browser isn’t going anywhere

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Berislav Lopac thinks that “the browser is going away, and native applications connected to web-server backends are the future”:http://berislav.lopac.net/post/615858128/the-future-of-web-browser. I feel the opposite. I think native applications are headed the way of the cli. The browser is the great equalizer. Think about it like this: what barriers prevent you changing operating systems today? What barriers prevented you from changing operating systems 10 years ago? Our daily computing lives are dominated more and more by web-based applications. We can use these applications anywhere. It’s one of the primary reasons mobile and tablet devices have finally gained traction.

Not too long ago, our mobility between operating systems didn’t matter much. No one really cared if they could easily switch from Windows to Linux, because switching didn’t achieve a specific goal that they were interested in. That is, the tasks they could accomplish were too similar. The introduction of mobile and tablet devices has created a new incentive for operating system mobility. Users want to be untied from their desks, and they want to bring their experience with them.

The browser is already an application platform. It is its own execution environment. Ironically, Microsoft’s early vision of the web browser was that it would be a platform to which native-like applications could be pushed over the wire. ActiveX and proprietary browser features were an attempt to leverage existing developer toolsets in a browser environment. This failed (for a large number of reasons), but the persistence of IE6 in corporate environments is a testament to just how close they were to succeeding. As browser standards advance, we’ll see a surge in the development of fully in-browser frameworks that use design patterns like MVC. I don’t mean V and C in the browser and model on the server. I mean M, V, and C within a browser, where the model reaches out (sometimes) to a server for data-sync or specific execution. Apple’s guidelines for iPhone web apps are a great example. Their entire framework is built atop an open-source browser, which is seeing widespread adoption in the mobile and tablet space.

The balance between client and server based processing runs like the tides. Not every application will become a web application, but the number and broad importance of native applications will diminish. Web standards will continue to advance, supporting more native-like applications in the web browser. Projects like “Fluid”:http://fluidapp.com/developer/ will allow users and developers to package browser-based apps in launchable containers on the desktop, while mobile devices will continue with the existing trend of abstracting away the difference between mobile and native apps (see iOS and Android handling of web app shortcuts on homescreens). Browser application frameworks like “Sproutcore”:http://www.sproutcore.com/ will put new tools in the hands of developers that advance the way we think and build “web apps”.

The future of the web browser is bright.

Ed Bott: Shining the light of truth on flash

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To say Ed Bott’s “piece calling Flash the new Vista”:http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/sorry-adobe-flash-is-the-new-vista/2139 was — uh — not well received by Adobe would be putting it kindly. That effort, in itself, was worthy of praise. Ed’s “response to the discussion”:http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/how-secure-is-flash-heres-what-adobe-wont-tell-you/2152 it generated was nothing short of Superman journalism.

Get some, Ed!

HTML5 and your future

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Browser plugins are a security risk. There “are arguments”:http://www.infoworld.com/d/security-central/are-all-browser-plug-ins-security-risk-449, of course, but I say, why take a risk that need not be taken? If business development has taught me one thing, it is that success is not about taking risks, it’s about mitigating them better than everyone else.

“This HTML5 demo”:http://www.craftymind.com/2010/04/20/blowing-up-html5-video-and-mapping-it-into-3d-space/ shows just how powerful HTML5 is. Click anywhere on the video while it is playing and prepare to have your mind blown. This kind of thing is difficult in Flash, and yet the author has achieved this effect using only his standard IDE that was never designed to support this type of special effect.

If I were Adobe, I’d be working very, very hard at a transitional toolkit that maps the Flash ActionScript DOM and scripting language to a JavaScript/HTML5 combo, all wrapped up in a slick, Flash-like IDE. Today we have Safari, Firefox, and Chrome browsers that support enough HTML5 to do cool stuff like this. By lagging behind, Microsoft only risks more defection from their browser platform, and Adobe could pull a major upset by rolling tools that incorporate open standards. It was tear down the wall between Flash developers and standards advocates, opening the door for a whole lot of innovation built on top of tools that Adobe controls.

Jet engine + ash cloud = big mess

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Popular Science has a nice write-up on the “effects of volcanic ash on jet engines”:http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-04/why-cant-planes-fly-through-volcanic-ash-because-nasa-tried-once. The scariest thing I read in the article is the fact that pilots often can’t tell that they’re about to fly through an ash cloud. Couple that with the fact that the ash can actually melt inside the engine and collect on the components and you’ve got a regular old Twilight Zone episode on your hands.

Larry Dignan is dead wrong: Apple and AMD

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Is it really fair to even pick on ZDNet these days. Adrian Kingsley is about the last writer they have on staff that I can even read without wanting to fall out of my seat. Take this little gem from an Apple speculation piece:

bq. Add it up and AMD could provide the graphics capability Apple is looking for. As AppleInsider noted, AMD traditionally trails Intel on raw performance. However, Ghz is a secondary issue for Apple buyers. An Apple purchase is about design, quality, OS X and ease of use. AMD can get by on the Ghz equation with a mere close enough to Intel if the graphics stars line up. Sean Portnoy asks whether folks would buy an Apple with AMD inside. I’d argue that the processor is a secondary consideration (at best) for buying an Apple.

Gee thanks, Larry. Give me a second to grab my box of crayons so I can scribble down a reply to your sweeping generalization about Apple users. I mean, the desire to own a computer that is easy to use is obviously mutually exclusive from the desire for a computer that is fast and powerful, right?

Oh, wait…

When run against PC laptops, the MacBook Pro line (running Windows under Boot Camp) has, on several occasions, been “the fastest Windows laptop in its class”:http://www.google.com/search?q=macbook+fastest+windows+pc. There goes that argument.

Apple doesn’t refresh their line up as frequently as many PC manufacturers do their consumer lines, so between refreshes, consumer-oriented PCs run away with faster processors. However, when you move up the line to a business-class machine like Dell’s Latitude or Lenovo’s ThinkPad, there are a lot of similarities. These companies test these configurations more thoroughly, so they don’t change as often. This results in a more stable configuration, but they also cost more. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

As an Apple buyer, I’m all about performance. I’d be unhappy if Apple moved to Intel while AMD offered an inferior product, and today, that’s the case.

I’d be willing to bet that the reasons Apple was talking to AMD were twofold:

1) AMD has graphics switching technology similar to what Apple just implemented on their own, so it may have been that AMD’s Optimus technology was up for consideration, but was ultimately ruled out.

2) It is in Apple’s interest to keep Intel on their toes. You never sit down at the table with one vendor and one vendor only. That’s a great way to hand margins over to your supplier.

Return to form

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Time Magazine has an excellent “gallery of vintage computers”:http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1670168_1461055,00.html from the book titled “Core Memory”. What’s striking about the photos is just how much “design” is there. I’ve always admired Apple for their dedication to making a computer that not only works well, but is pleasing to look at. A lot of hardcore geeks scoff at this notion, treating design as a superfluous luxury not worth paying for. I feel pity for the person that does not see any value in beauty. I absorb everything I see and hear, so I choose to surround myself with positivity and beauty. The benefits are worth a few extra dollars to me.