June 22, 2005 – Emergic

Top Internet Trends

From an email newsletter by Safa Rashtchy – the top 10 takeaways from the first Piper Jaffray Global Internet Summit:

1) Online Advertising – The Big Winner
2) Changing Traditional Media and Telecom Models
3) Emergence of Mobile Media as the Next Big Opportunity
4) Google’s Brand Strength and Dominance in Search
5) Uncertain Future for Music Industry
6) Development of New Web Communities
7) Consolidation Environment with Increasing M&A Activities
8) Limited Upside Potential for Pure eCommerce Players
9) Vertical Search Gaining
10) Spyware, Viruses Could Slow Ad Spending

Enterprise Mobility Architectures

Mobile Enterprise Weblog writes:

From an enterprise perspective, mobility presents a challenge for device management, policy enforcement and mobile access to enterprise data and applications.

And platforms are emerging to do each of these things.

But the question remains: why are these platforms distinct and separate?

Why is there a platform like Extended Systems’ OneBridge for device management; BlackBerry Enterprise Server for mobile e-mail; and a plethora of separate servers for writing business logic, and accessing enterprise data and applications?

The annoying analyst habit of grouping these allegedly disparate platforms in completely separate categories makes absolutely no sense to me. In each case, we’re talking about a server, some software and ongoing IT support requirements. Each new server brings with it a business model that simply doesn’t scale.

As businesses deploy these platforms ad hoc in different areas to accomplish slightly different tasks, they’re committing themselves to a legacy with no scale and no architecture. Next thing we know, companies will have three to four platforms doing similar things with converging feature sets.

It’s only a matter of time before the data and apps platforms add e-mail and messaging capabilities. And it’s only a matter of time before someone builds device management into an e-mail platform.

IT Sourcing Options in China

David Scott Lewis writes:

China itself is divided into three economic regions: The Pearl River Delta (PRD), the Yangtze River Delta (YRD), and the Bohai Bay. In the IT sector, it is much better to think in terms of cities rather than regions, although the top three IT cities map one-to-one to a particular region: Beijing and the Bohai Bay, Shanghai and the YRD, Shenzhen/Hong Kong and the PRD. But this does not necessarily mean that the solution providers based in these cities are the best in addressing regional needs. For example: Hangzhou, part of the YRD, is strong in electronics manufacturing, but the three largest solution providers in Hangzhou do not have expertise in manufacturing automation. For the most part, the three economic regions of China do not map well with the IT sector.

I have found that the best approach is to loosely segment the IT sector into five tiers:

-The top tier cities of Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen.
-The second tier cities of Dalian, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Guangzhou, Tianjin.
-The third tier cities of Chengdu, Xi’an, Wuhan, Changsha.
-The fourth tier cities of Qingdao, Zhuhai, Xiamen, Ningbo.
-The fifth tier cities of Jinan, Harbin, Shenyang.

Of course, Hong Kong shouldn’t be discounted and clearly fits in the first tier. And there are other cities worthy of consideration for niche applications, although primarily for contract R&D, such as Suzhou and Heifei for fault-tolerant process manufacturing applications.

Why Carriers Love the New Game Consoles

Business 2.0 writes:

The new crop of consoles is superconnected in a way earlier generations could only dream of. Armed with Ethernet and Wi-Fi, these devices are designed to serve as launchpads for widespread online gaming, a potentially lucrative business that so far has failed to attract users beyond the hard-core.

If all goes according to plan, not only will the videogame industry get a boost but the broadband business will too.

Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony see their consoles as more than just gaming devices. The Xbox 360, Revolution, and PS3 are all designed to grow into entertainment hubs, serving up music, videos, and whatever other diversions viewers can grab off the Web. That means that demand for downloadable content should take off, pushing broadband demand further. And that, even more than an increase in online gaming, is music to the ears of broadband providers.

Google Fusion

A little old, but still good reading. Charlene Li writes about Google’s personalised home page:

Why is Google doing this? Is this a concession to the strength of portal competitors? To a great degree, yes. Of the people who use Google most frequently to search the Interent, only 17% also have Google as their default home page compare that to 72% that use MSN for search and also have it as their home page (more details are here available only to Forrester subscribers). google users The biggest advantage that Yahoo and MSN (and yes, AOL) have is that they each have tens of millions of registered users. This is important if these sites want to be able to provide differentiated services to their users. In the end, its all about loyalty and offering a better service thanks to personalized services will the differentiator.

Heres an example. Today, if I type in a search for cruise vacation I would get the same results as you would . But with the advent of My Search History from Google and personalized search initiatives from Yahoo! and Ask Jeeves, the game appears to be to sign up users whom the search engines can then mine for data to provide a better search experience. Google is clearly behind and needs to step up their efforts to sign up users hence the launch of the personalized home page. Google is very behind in terms of default home page share and it hopes to remedy this situation quickly (stats on default home page and search loyalty are available only to Forrester clients.)

But why would people give up a rich interface like Yahoo, MSN, or AOL for Google? I believe that only Google loyalists will do so. You can recognized them they talk about how they used Google to solve gnarly problems and gross on and on about Gmail. But for the rest of us, well need to be convinced that it makes sense.

I think that day will come when Google not only offers RSS-enabled content (its an interesting change of pace to see Google chasing the industry leaders for a change) but also uses intelligence gathered from watching registered users behaviors. For example, if I subscribe to a feed of Canadian news in Google news, but only read articles about Montreal and always ignore news from Vancouver, then the service would push forward Montreal news and de-emphasize (or even not show) articles about Vancouver.

Needed: information dashboards.

TECH TALK: Letter to a 2005 Baby: 10 Big Ideas (Part 3)

Dear Abhishek,

4. The Rise of India and China

Building on Tom Friedmans flat world theme, the next pointer I want you to keep in mind is the rise of India and China. During the 1990s, China became the workshop for the world. Today, Made in China permeates a huge array of products sold globally. The past decade has seen the rise of India as a back-office to the world. Even though this services revolution has impacted only a small number in India, what it has done is given the country a new confidence by placing it squarely in the middle of many global value chains.

With successive governments who kept the liberalisation of the Indian economy happening in fits and starts, India has now become a happening business destination. CEOs of global companies are now visiting India to explore opportunities here. Investments are coming in across the board. There is a still a lot of work to do on all fronts from infrastructure to education but the process has started and cannot now be reversed.

In school, I remember having a choice in the ninth standard of choosing between Marathi and French as the third language (after English and Hindi). I chose Marathi even though I knew it would be, as my friends called it, less-scoring. Opting for Marathi (and not opting for French) was in my mind a decision to focus on my country after all, I expected to live in Maharashtra state. Also, the hot country that time was not France, but America. And English took care of that. My one recommendation for you will be to learn Chinese as you grow up. China and India will be the new power centres and engines. You cannot ignore China as a market and as an opportunity for whatever you do. It will be good for you to learn the language early in your life.

In your lifetime, these two countries along with other emerging markets like Brazil and Russia are where the opportunities will be. These countries have little legacy and a great desire to catch up for the lost years. Both India and China were great civilizations once upon a time. For different reasons, they suffered decline through the centuries China looked inward and shut itself out from the outside world, while India was colonised. Now, both are using their strengths to power ahead and take their people forward. You have to be a part of this onward march. These billions of the world need to be given the same opportunity that you have, with technology and innovation being an integral part of the development process.

It would be good to keep these words from the Economist (Mar 3, 2005) in mind:

The more interesting and important question is whether India can compete withor at least emulateChina in labour-intensive manufacturing for export. There is no other way that Indian economic growth can be raised consistently to match that achieved in China in the past two decadesIndia needs to raise its growth rate not as part of some artificial race with China, but for its own sake. Because of its population profile, not to do so would bring a big rise in unemployment, with all the misery that implies. The obstacles are certainly daunting, and include some political reform.

How the two countries cope with these and other social tensions will in part determine whether they can maintain or (for India) raise their present high rates of growth. China does not have the safety valve of regular competitive elections, but nor are there signs of an imminent explosion. India’s political structure has shown itself well able to absorb all manner of shocks, but not, as yet, to achieve sustained radical growth-enhancing reform. Many would agree with Lord Desai’s conclusion: China will again become a viable Great Power; India may become just a Great Democracy.

I hope you will play more than a meaningful role in also making India a Great Power.

Tomorrow: 10 Big Ideas (continued)

Continue reading TECH TALK: Letter to a 2005 Baby: 10 Big Ideas (Part 3)