Microsoft (April 4, 1975 - June 27, 2008?)

As many of you probably know, today is Bill Gates' last day as a full-time Microsoft employee. He is stepping down to be Non-Executive Chairman, which essentially means that rather than spending hours everyday at Microsoft, he will only be spending a couple days each week there. The rest of the time he will be busy fighting diseases, reducing poverty, and enhancing education around the globe through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, leaving Steve Ballmer in charge as Microsoft's CEO.

Many people feel that Ballmer is going to do nothing but harm to Microsoft and that this is simply not the right time for Gates to leave. I agree. Not only did Microsoft really screw up on their last OS upgrade (Vista), but Microsoft has been on a downward slope since Steve took over in January of 2000. For instance, if you had invested $10,000 in Microsoft at their IPO, you would have had $7.3 million when Bill stepped down from his position as CEO. However, had you invested $10,000 in Microsoft the day that Steve Ballmer took over, you would now have $4,700.

In regards to Microsoft's actual products, Bill Gates has always seemed to know what was best for both the company and the consumers that used the products. Every product from the first version of MS-DOS until Windows XP was a huge step forward in the personal computing industry. Even Vista offered many advantages to XP, along with some significant drawbacks. Personally, I prefer Vista over XP because of its improved user interface, DirectX 10 graphics support, as well as its many other technological advantages, but it was not excepted well by general consumers because the only way that the advantages really outweighed the disadvantages was with the higher-end "Ultimate" or "Business" versions of Vista and a high performance PC to go with. I think, though, that Microsoft has learned its lesson from Vista and will make Windows 7 much, much better. After that, however, things may get a little bumpy again without BillG around every day to oversee things.

Bill has really been the brains behind Microsoft all these years, from both a technology standpoint and a business standpoint. That's why he's the one with the $44 billion to give to charity, and I think that Microsoft is definitely going to miss him. Windows 7 will probably turn out OK because he has already been around for a major portion of its development and will still be on the Board of Directors, but I think that it's very likely that it will be a lot like when Steve Jobs left Apple and had to return. Microsoft just can't survive without its great leader. I mean, he's the reason that everyone has a computer now, and you can't beat that.

SuperPhone or SubComputer?

There's a lot of debate right now over the future of Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs), so I figured I might as well throw in my two cents and set it all straight. Some folks say that everybody is gonna be dragging around a really small laptop with a ton of power, extremely long battery life, and a full operating system, such as ASUSTeK's Eee PC or Apple's MacBook Air; others insist that a smartphone-like device, similar to Apple's iPhone, will be what the world carries in their pocket. Me? I'll take the latter. Don't get me wrong, I think that tomorrow's laptops will be ultra-portable just like the Eee PC and the MacBook Air, or possibly even be similar to a UMPC. However, I have no doubt that people's primary portable device will be a "SuperPhone."

It simply makes more sense to just put a full (even more so than iPhone's Mobile Safari) Web browser and, at least a somewhat more, complete operating system on a device like a cell phone that nearly three-hundred million people in the United States alone already carry with them on a regular basis. The iPhone actually comes very close to this. Essentially, all a phone would need to fulfill these requirements and be just as good as having a UMPC or Eee PC is to have all of the features of the iPhone, in addition to a full Web browser and a full OS. The key points that the current iPhone's software lacks are the ability to view all of the Web 2.0 content on any page on the Internet, the ability to download any kind of file, including additional software, and, most importantly, the ability to easily develop and release applications for that device in order to expand its functionality. The operating system itself needs to be very flexible and easily allow features to be added via of 3rd-party software. The iPhone will be adding support for 3rd-party apps soon, but only from Apple approved developers. That's not enough, anyone needs to be able to develop and release software apps for the devices. Of course, they also need to support much faster mobile broadband, which will come with 4th Generation wireless technologies, especially LTE (Long Term Evolution) around 2011.

I believe that within the next few years, we will see a major shift in the cell phone industry, which in part has already been sparked by the inception of the iPhone, toward devices that more and more resemble a mobile computer. They will have complete operating systems with many interesting (and some nearly useless) features just as desktop and laptop computers today, complete with full Internet browsers, and extensive third-party application support to enable even more features and mobile gaming. Ultra-fast wireless broadband will accompany this array of new features with speeds of 100 Mbps or more (12 times faster than the average fastest wired broadband of today). These new devices will also have elaborate touch screens which will provide a brilliant user experience. Anything you can do on a computer, you will be able to do on your cell phone, or whatever they end up being called. However, as cell phones resemble computers more and more, security risks increase, but I'll save that for another day.


[Update]: Just a slight clarification...
First, I meant that future laptops would be a combination of ultra-portables and subnotebooks, hence the mention of both the MacBook Air and the Eee PC. Second, they won't be exactly like the current ones, but the general size and mobility factors will be something similar, only with huge upgrades in computing power, screen resolution, and other various factors. You can think of today's models like the early laptops of the 1990s. The future laptops will be like laptops today are, compared with those original models. Finally, Windows Mobile is a good platform, which does support 3G data connections, 3rd-party development, close-to-full Internet browsers, and many other goodies, but it's user interface, or the user interface of any other phone on the market today (including how you interact with that interface, such as via a touch-screen), is not even comparable to that of the iPhone. I'm not saying that the iPhone is the answer to the future, but it comes closer than anything else to this point in terms of software features. There will come a newer device that supports all of the features I mentioned in the original post, in addition to many others.

My New Social Network!

Today I'm launching a new social network, Tomorrow's Tech, specifically for everyone who loves technology and wants to discuss its future, whether it be one, two, ten, twenty, or even a hundred years into the future! I think it's gonna be awesome and I hope that everyone else will agree. Over the course of the next few months I will be adding more features, content, discussions, events, and, hopefully, new members too! So come on over, join, and invite all of your technology loving friends to join as well.

What iPhone 3G Means for Apple

As you probably know by now, Steve Jobs announced the new iPhone, dubbed "iPhone 3G," at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco today. With the new 3rd Generation wireless support for faster Internet connection speeds, it's certain that this new iPhone will offer a much faster, and overall more user-friendly, experience, but is adding only 3G wireless and GPS support enough to really make this new phone so much better? Will it really boost the iPhone that much further ahead of the competition?

For now that's yet to be seen, but I think that those two additional, seemingly insignificant features will definitely be enough to push the iPhone farther than any other mobile device will go, at least until Apple comes up with something even better. For example, the ability to connect to the Internet more than three times as fast as the original iPhone may not seem like much, but really that's only about 4 seconds slower to download an average Web page anywhere, via a cellular connection, than it is when using Wi-Fi. That is 36% faster than the current speed leader, the Nokia N95. The other thing to remember about the new phone having nearly four times faster Internet connectivity is that not only does it make Web browsing and email downloading that much faster, but it will also give the new third-party applications access to much faster Internet connectivity.

I know some people are also saying that the true GPS ability is not much of an improvement over the original iPhone's cell tower and Wi-Fi access point triangulation, but remember with that, the phone only gave a general position fix. To start following any driving directions, you still had to use the map and road signs to figure out exactly what road you were on. With real GPS (And, for all you stubborn Apple critics out there, Assisted GPS (A-GPS) is true GPS that uses cell tower and Wi-Fi access point triangulation in addition to the GPS data to get an even more accurate fix on your location.) the phone knows exactly where you are, so it does all the work; all you have to do is follow incredibly simple instructions.

The new iPhone certainly did fail to truly "WOW" us as the original iPhone did nearly a year ago, but Apple will probably add those features that many people felt were missing, like a better camera, video recording/MMS, and live video conferencing, at a later time (which most likely will still be before anybody else does all that stuff). Some of that, such as video recording and MMS and possibly even the ability to stream live video from the phone's camera in a sort of video conferencing feature, may be added in a future firmware update.

No matter what, iPhone 3G puts Apple even further than it already is ahead of all the competition to further revolutionize the mobile devices industry. I know that I'll be standing in line on July 11!

The Trouble With XOHM

A lot of people, including industry leaders, such as Intel and Sprint, think that WiMax is the future. Or at least the near future. There's no doubt that WiMax will be replaced in 2011 once all of the major carriers start rolling out their 4G wireless technologies, such as LTE (Long Term Evolution), but can it work for now as a sort of 3.5G wireless technology?

I certainly don't think so. The problem with WiMax is that, first of all, it's only got one major carrier actually deploying it, and there are very, very, very few devices that have built-in support for it. Second, by the time Sprint gets it deployed in most major cities, other carriers will be deploying their 4th Generation wireless technologies that will be much faster and more widely deployed and accepted. Third, if we're going to put into place a wireless technology to bridge the gap between 3G technologies and future 4G technologies, why not use something that's already supported by many devices; something like municipal Wi-Fi. Finally, municipal Wi-Fi, which uses a technology that is widely supported now, has failed in many major cities already. Why would the response from a technology that requires an external adapter, which doesn't work with many portable devices, and will only be available in a very limited number of cities (hardly the nation-wide access available with current widespread 3G technologies or what will be available with 4G cellular data technologies in a few years), be any different?

WiMax is a great technology, but it's coming too late. Had it arrived as it is today, two or three years ago, it would have had wonderful potential and would have knocked competitors like EV-DO out of the game, but now with better technologies only about three years away and very little widespread adoption, it has no chance. Sorry all you WiMax fans out there.

Why The iPhone Will Stay On Top

Will the iPhone's market share continue to grow? Will Apple meet its goal of 10 million units shipped by year's end? Is the iPhone really the best smartphone/portable Internet device? The answer to all of these questions is yes. The iPhone will continue to grow and thrive because:

1) Sure, some people say that the iPhone will soon be passed by some other bigger, better device from some other company. But being as far ahead as Apple got with the original iPhone, why would they fall back? Apparently some people have forgotten that with all of Apple's previous products (Mac OS, Mac hardware, iPod), Apple continued to update their products in order to stay on top. They will do the exact same thing with the iPhone. We are already seeing that with the new 3G iPhone (speculated to be announced on June 9 during Steve Jobs' keynote at WWDC '08). By the time someone else comes up with something better, Apple will have something way better.

2) The iPhone is by far the easiest device in its class to sync with the world's largest online multimedia content store, iTunes. You can even download songs from the iTunes Store directly to the phone, and it's also speculated that Apple will enable wireless syncing on the device, which will make the syncing process even simpler.

3) The iPhone offers by far the best user experience of any portable device yet. Its multitouch ability greatly outranks any other touchscreen we've seen to this point, making it incredibly easy to use. Its Internet browsing abilities are also unmatched. With the new iPhone firmware 2.0, the Mobile Safari browser will be compatible with Flash and Windows Media content, making it compatible with most of what Web 2.0 has to offer. It's array of other features, such as an accelerometer, not only make it more convenient to use than many other devices, but also allows for endless possibilities in games and other applications on the device, which will push the iPhone further ahead as a dominant new mobile platform.

In summary, the iPhone is by far the most advanced mobile device available now and most likely will continue to be the most advanced mobile device, with further hardware and software updates of course. It offers a truly unique user experience and offers virtually endless opportunities for developers to make it into a new dominant platform that's as popular as Windows and Macintosh.

Welcome to My New Blog!

Hey everybody! Welcome to my new technology blog, On Technology's Edge. You can view it here, at ontechnologysedge.wordpress.com, and (soon) at www.OnTechnologysEdge.com. Check back very soon for more once I start putting some actual content up here!