Data centres to off-centre opinion

Wired Magazine have just published an article stating that Apple benefit a ton from its customers looking the other way when faced with problems. Indeed, the article has numerous quotes to support the view that Apples products are nowhere near perfect but customers live with them, warts and all.

From a business perspective, Apple are in a very enviable position. No company is perfect, but to have a loyal customer and partner base who live with the problems is a huge boon.

As a customer of theirs, I don’t cut them as much slack as others: I kind of think of their products as the puppy which chews the furniture – you get extremely annoyed but at the end of the day you don’t take it back to the store.

Photosynth is an application and website developed by Microsoft Live Labs (think of Live Labs as a bunch of mad scientists who get to try out interesting ideas in a lab, and share them with the public) which lets you create a 3 dimensional feeling scene using just normal photos. For example, say you visit the Opera House in Vienna and take a dozen or so photos inside the auditorium – uploading these to Photosynth would result in a photosynth view which you can zoom in out, pan left/right, up/down giving you a real feel for being there. Best of all, its free and you can share your “synths” with the world.

There are some impressive synths already posted to the site – the Taj Mahal is the best I’ve seen. You’ll need to install the viewer to see this (don’t worry, you’ll be prompted when you visit the site). Just think what you could do if you combined this with the photos on Flickr which had be geo-tagged. I bet we see something like this soon.

Go have a play…

I’m being objective by posting my experiences with the Windows SmartPhone I’ve had since December. This is the 4th Windows Smartphone I’ve had. The first one (the original Orange SPV) was an absolute nightmare, definitely a v1 device. However, we’re talking late 2001 here – and the device had an SD card slot, the ability to browse the web, a full media player capable of MP3, WAV, WMA and WMV (yes, it played video, quite well).

I like PDA-style phones far more than the candy-bar style – in fact the last two phones (Orange M1000 and HTC Tytn) I’ve bought myself and used the company SIM because they weren’t on the list of approved devices.

The TyTN II is a Windows Mobile 6 device with a full slide out QWERY keyboard which is really useful if you do as much email on it as I do. The screen is a bit too small, and performance is not brilliant, but on the whole its a good device. Battery life is good (2-3 days with push email enabled), the 3G signal is pretty reliable (more so than I’ve experienced with the iPhone – but thats on O2 and the TyTN II is on Orange so its unfair to compare them).

The touch-screen interface really does show its age compared to the iPhone (see my blog entry here and here). In fact, the interface is quite frustrating on occasion – having to page through menu after menu to find a function. The keys are all programmable; I’ve set mine up as shortcuts to the apps/features I use most. The Camera is surprisingly good quality (3 Megapixel) with better colour accuracy compared to the Tytn.

The most annoying thing about the device is the browser: Internet Explorer mobile is absolutely rubbish. I’ver installed Opera 9 beta which is far superior, but still nothing compared to Safari on the iPhone.

Compared to the iPhone, the TyTN II is has more features, is more reliable but nowehere near as user friendly or as nice to use.

I succumbed to the iPhones slick lines and lovely user interface last week, but just like my purchase of a Mac Mini last year, there are some warts under the glossy surface;

The touch-based user interface is a pleasure to use, but the ability to use the phone in landscape mode is only available in a few apps. E.g. If you’re browsing the web using Safari and come into range of a wireless network, the phone will swap back to portrait mode to ask you whether you want to connect to a network. Further, some of the screens lend themselves to working in landscape, but are locked to portrait. Contrast this to my Windows Mobile which allows all apps and user functions to work in landscape – but the iPhone UI is far nicer to use.

I’ve setup my iPhone to fetch email from my work server – which is does nicely. However I can see an obvious way to accept meeting requests which is pretty stupid (it might be me not seeing it).

There is no way to use the iPhone to connect a laptop to the internet. My Windows Mobile has internet connection sharing built-in, and I use it in hotels fairly often.

The AppStore is brilliant and I can’t work out why Nokia, Micorosft, Sony et al did not do the same for their phones years ago. Whilst there are thousands more applications for Windows Mobile, there is no central place to go an get them. Moreover, the experience is disjointed when you do find an app you want to buy: buy, download to PC, copy to phone, install. AppStore = buy and install all in one step.

26/8/8 Update

• If you setup push email, the battery lasts <24 hours
• If you setup syncronisation to occur every hour, the battery lasts <24 hours
• A number of the apps crash with no error – just dumping you back into the home screen (WordPress and Cannon Game on mine)

28/8/8 Update

Last.fm released an app which lets you sign in and listen to music on the iPhone. I installed it and sign-in failed claiming my password was wrong. I used Safari to sign in on the iPhone – no problem, back to the app, still fails. Uninstalled & reinstalled – still the same. Poorly written apps like this could be a big downfall of the iPhone. For me, the shine is rapidly turning to a dull glow (its still nicer to use than my Windows Mobile tho).

Today, most software you use is installed and runs on your computer, for example Microsoft Office and Adobe Acrobat Reader – we call this the traditional software model. Over the last few years we’ve seen more and more applications available on the internet and accessed via your web browser, for example Hotmail or Gmail and Flickr – this is known as software as a service (or SaaS). SaaS has the potential to significantly change the software landscape. Some people predict it will largely replace traditional software. Looking at some of the advantages, its hard to dispute these predictions;

• Always use the latest version
• Access the application from any internet-connected computer
• Its often free, or appears to be free

The first two benefits are pretty obvious so lets explore at that last statement; how can software be free? Simple: its funded by advertising just like many television channels. Why are companies like Microsoft, Google and Yahoo (to name a few) interested in providing application for “free”? Plain and simple: you have to have a username to use them, and once signed in, they can track what you do on their websites and ad networks. This tracking is then used to display relevent adverts on the pages you view. Lets look at an example; I have a Facebook account, in my profile I’ve told them rock climbing is my main hobby – now I get Google adverts all over Facebook offering me climbing-related products and services.

Are you feeling that your privacy is being invaded here? Wake-up call: next to nothing is anonymous on the internet. Websites & Internet service providers may not know your name, but they’re tracking the sites you visit and every time you supply some information, their profile of you gets updated. How? By something called a cookie. SaaS applications are the new battleground for internet advertisers simply because they’re able to get richer profiling information on you. Every email you send/recieve via Gmail helps Google build up a profile of what you’re interested in – therefore helping them target you with more and more relevant adverts. The more relevant the ad, the more likely you’re going to click on it – and this is where they get paid. And its not just Google, they’re just the best at it…

Whilst I digress, this is useful background. This post is really about a whitepaper I wrote in 2007 which looks at the impact SaaS may have on software and large companies (which the IT industry calls Enterprises). Microsoft publish the Architecture Journal four times/year covering many subject which are of interest to Software/IT/Business Architects. The August/September 2007 edition was focused on SaaS and ran my whitepaper entitled “The Implications of Software plus Services on Enterprise IT“. I’m proud to have written the article and I’ve had a lot of good feedback on it, so I’d like to share it more broadly.

To summarise the conclusions I draw in that paper; the maturity of SaaS providers is not sufficient for enterprises for a number of reasons:

1. SaaS is simply not reliable enough yet as you can read here
2. Integration with the enterprise existing IT is difficult or impossible
3. Most SaaS providers do not provide a data export capability – therefore you’re tied to that provider.

Consequently, most SaaS applications are today aimed at consumers or small/medium business and generally are not providing line-of-business functionality. However, this is changing rapidly; point 1 is getting better as SaaS providers gain more experience and as the big players move into the market (Google, Yahoo, Microsoft). Point 2 will be addressed when the SaaS providers serious start to target the enterprise customers which will also drive number 3.

Ultimately, we’re undergoing a fundemental change to the way software is being developed, delivered and used along with a corresponding change to business models. Its an exciting time, and we, the users will gain from the invetments and innovations this change will bring.

After having Edison on my laptop for a week, I’m uninstalling it. The reason is I actively manage my power settings during the day and always hibernate my laptop at night – so in effect I’m better at power management than Edison.

However, Edison is doing great on my machines at home, especially as these are often left on all the time: this is where Edison comes into its own; allowing you to set a schedule for different power plans.

A few months back, one of my mentees asked me if I’d help him introduce a series of webcasts he was creating for customers.

The result was a 65-minute webcast I co-delivered with an ex-collegaue Jason Heyes last Wednesday. This is now available for watching on-demand. Whilst it requires registration, you can opt-out of all mailings.

Click here to launch.

This blog runs on software called WordPress. WordPress is available in either a hosted version (i.e. software as a service [SaaS] running on WordPress’ own servers) or you can download an run it in your own web server, which is what I’ve done.

The Good

Last month, WordPress 2.6.1 was released which added a few features and fixed some bugs. As I run WordPress on my own webserver, I had to manually upgrade to WordPress 2.6.1 – whilst not a difficult task it still takes time and has a risk of failure followed by hours of troubleshooting.

SaaS is good because upgrades, backups etc are all someone elses problem. In this case, had I used the WordPress service, my blog would have been upgraded to 2.6.1 by WordPress themselves.

The Bad

When you’re using someone elses service, there is limited configuration changes you can make. For exmaple, the theme I’m running has been customised by me. The image was replaced with one of my own and I edited the code and background images to use a screen width of 800pixels as the defaults were too narrow. If I’d put my blog on the WordPress service, I would not have been able to make these changes.

The Ugly

I’m going to talk about one area I consider ugly when it comes to SaaS, and this is very subjective. You have to trust the service provider. There is no guarantee that your data will remain private, no guarantee that the service provider has configured their servers securely, no guarantee the service will be available when you need it. Of course, many providers have privacy policies, its in their own interest to be secure and available most of the time. But it is beyond your control – therefore it depends 100% on trust. If this trust is betrayed, its down right ugly: there is often no migration path to another service provider – you’re locked into someone you’re not happy with.

Exceprt from this article;

Microsoft, the nonprofit Climate Savers Computing Initiative and a start-up called Verdiem are combining to put a spotlight on the energy-saving opportunity in PCs, and distributing a free software tool to consumers to help them do it.

And from the Microsoft site where you can download it;

Verdiem’s Edison is a free energy-monitoring application for eco-conscious consumers. You can use it to more actively control your PC’s energy consumption — and subsequently your household’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.

Once downloaded and installed, you’ll have to activate which is simply a process of filling in a form which is accessed via the click here link as as you’ll see in the picture below;

Note you do not need to provide a post code is you’re outside the USA. Finally, deselect the two options of keeping in touch and you’re ready to setup the power settings on your computer.

I’m installing it on my PCs, I suggest you do to.

I just saw an article and video showing off Microsoft Sphere – something a reseach team came up with. There has been a lot of investment in how humans interact with computers over the year, the most recent leap forward has been Apple successfully integrating touch into their iPhone. Microsoft and other have been working on similar ideas for quite some time (in fact I had a tablet PC which has the same concept as the iPhone) back in 2005, but in honesty the iPhone is more refined.

Anyway, check out the article here, or just watch the video I’ve embedded below;