Category: Emerging Technologies

Alsop’s contrarian view on ASPs: “There are a couple of ASP-style companies now doing good business. Their secret is that they don’t rent services that are core to corporate IT; they don’t try to get companies to trust the heart of their computing to someone else. Instead, they have shown IT managers that they can do a terrific job running discrete applications. In such cases companies may well prefer to rent rather than license software….The two providers that I’m thinking of are Webex and Salesforce.com.”

Our approach with the Thick Server is that of an “distributed ASP” — an ASP on the LAN instead of the Web. This way, we get past the connectivity issues so prevalent in emerging markets and the “I-want-my-data-in-my-office” desire.

We are starting by focusing on the core IT infrastructure with the Thin Client-Thick Server approach. But our target segment is one that hasn’t been exposed much to computing. The discrete (and integrated) business applications will come over time.

Amn interesting article – Teoma vs. Google, Round Two elaborates on some interesting aspects of Teoma’s search engine. These ideas could be useful for us in BlogStreet.

Teoma offers three kinds of results for each query. On the left of the result page are “relevant web pages” that are similar to what other engines produce. On the right are two other kinds of results: “Refine,” a list of “suggestions to narrow your search,” and “Resources,” which are “link collections from experts and enthusiasts.”

Teoma’s underlying technology is an extension of the HITS algorithm developed by researchers at IBM several years ago. In a nutshell, the search engine goes beyond traditional keyword and text analysis and seeks out “hubs” and “authorities” related to your query terms — a “social network” of related content that forms a “community” about the topic.

The cool thing about Teoma is that its community-seeking behavior is both query-specific, and happens in real time. “Whenever you type in a query, we’re actually looking for the communities after you type the query,” said Paul Gardi, Teoma’s Vice President of Search. “We’re using a method called dynamic rank, because there’s a lot of information you can learn about that page by its friends.”

“We’re going into the communities, finding the link structure of the community using text structure as well,” said Gardi.

News.com on Microsoft’s Tablet PC: “With its electromagnetic pen, touch screen and software that recognizes letters written on a screen, the Tablet PC hopes to be the notepad of the 21st century.”

I write a lot – 15-20 pages in my notebook a day, using pen and paper. Meeting notes, ToDos, ideas, personal diary, everything. Problem is searching the past archives. Something which can combine the ease of writing in a notebook with infinite capacity (so I only need to carry a single “notebook”) and wherein I can set keywords for quick retrieval would be very useful.

Video games are the bright spot in the gloomy tech industry, writes the Economist. It also offers a peek into the bigger future: “the opportunity to create a network of consoles through which all kinds of entertainment content, including films, games and music, can be distributed.”

There is a similar opportunity in the Enterprise world today. Think of the Thick Server on the Enterprise LAN as the equivalent of the game consoles. Once there are in place, they have the ability to control the Thin Clients on the desktops. So, the Thick Server can work as the distribution hub, just as the game consoles are morphing into home gateways or media servers.

The equivalent of the gaming titles are the enterprise software modules. Just as new titles come out regularly from different companies, new components need to be created for enterprises. They need to be easily pluggable into the Thick Server (like cartridges going into the game consoles).

This is the way to reach the small/medium enterprises in the emerging markets.

A BW special report. One of the articles is an interview with Clay Christensen on “Why Innovations Score — Or Stumble“. Writes Business Week:

One of the most important rules of successful innovation is to develop technologies for new markets where industry stalwarts have no status quo to protect — and no need to steal someone else’s customer to succeed. In management-speak, this is called “taking root in disruption.”

One example Christensen points to is the rise of the personal computer. The original Apple II computer was targeted at kids — the only customers willing to play around with such a dorky machine. But as PCs improved, parents started paying attention. By listening to these new customers, Apple and rival PC makers were able ultimately to unseat the computing incumbents, who were still focused on mainframes and other large, professional computers.

According to Christensen, a company with a new technology has only a 6% chance of success if it tries to make a similar but better product than an incumbent and sell it to the same customers. By contrast, he says, the chances of success for a “disruptive strategy” are 33%.

Equally important is the principle that new technologies should disrupt competitors, not customers. Too often, new technologies try to make customers change the way they do things. Instead, Christensen says, innovation should help customers do things they already do more easily, conveniently, and for less money.

Interesting points for us to ponder when we start marketing our products.

An interview with the Danger CEO and CTO in News.com. Danger has launched the Hiptop, an all-in-one wireless device. Says Danger’s CEO:

The real question they should be asking is, “Is it a platform for third-party developers?” This is new. This is the first time that a phone has been turned into a platform for third-party developers. You’ll see a huge change and a huge shift on what the killer applications are. Danger is not saying that we’ve invented the killer application. We’ve just identified the opportunity that phones can become platforms.

When cell phones first came out, part of the reason they became so popular was because they were inexpensive and they worked the same way that your desk phone does. You have access to all the same content that you have for your desk phone. And there really hasn’t been a low-cost handheld device that offers that same kind of experience with what we’re used to on a desktop machine.

Its how we need to think of Emergic also [thanks to Veer for highlighting this — check his weblog called Knowledge Eldorado]. The Thin Client with the Linux Desktop will give the same desktop experience for a fraction of the cost.

WSJ on the growing Asian interest in biotech: “Governments around the Asia-Pacific region are pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into biotechnology, recognizing the industry as an important growth platform, according to accounting firm Ernst Young.”

WSJ’s Less Gomes writes on Artificial Intelligence and posts a follow-up with reades’ comments. Writes Lee: “To understand the mind, forget about computers and look at the gray stuff inside our heads.”

Fortune writes on three technologies that are that are changing production (Superglass for Tomorrow’s Chipmaking), inventory keeping (The New Wireless Movement in Factories), and the design of new products (Virtual People That Help Design Products).

A story in the Financial Express Simputer’s A Year Old, But No One’s Celebrating: “The fate of the much-hyped Indian portable computing device, Simputer, is hanging fire as it awaits commercial acceptance over a year after its launch….Only around 200 Simputers have been sold so far and most of them are being used either in small pilot projects or in research activities.”

In 2000, I had looked at low-cost devices to help create a mass market in India. In fact, my first Tech Talk talked about the vision of using low-cost devices to provide Internet access to 100 million Indians.

The vision is right, the problem lies in how we implement it. The approach many Indian companies are taking is to look at reverse-engineering PDAs and reducing their Bill of Materials. I had treaded along a similar path. My realisations were that (a) it would be extremely difficult to bring the cost down for anything which is custom-created to less than USD 200-250 (Rs 10-12,000) initially (b) the process is very time-consuming and expensive because manufacturing is done typically in Taiwan (c) initial investments are large because one has to look at volumes of 5-10,000 units or more.

My opinion is that for a mass market device to succeed in India the price-point has to be Rs 5-6,000. By selling at double this, the current set of devices limit their market and will only find niche applications.

When I see multiple companies going down this path, I get the feeling that we are trying to focus on the invention rather than solving the need. Yes, there is a great joy in holding an Indian-made device running Indianised versions of Linux (in local languages) but at what cost?

Lets think like entrepreneurs rather than researchers. We need to build the computing base in India first. We need to play to our strengths — which lie less in hardware, and more in software. We need to bootstrap this process — without investing too much money or spending too much time.

This is the thinking that led me to abandon the custom-PDA/device option and focus on leveraging older computers as Thin Clients. These PCs (and I have one on my desk) work just fine for the limited set of applications that most people will ever need to do. The price point for a 3-year-old PC (including colour monitor) is Rs 6-7,000.

Even in India, we can easily generate a base of 1 million second-hand PCs. If we need more, import them from the US or get NRIs to donate them. Volumes are not a problem. And in no case will the price point go beyond USD 150. Focus on writing the software applications on this platform.