Back in the post 'The IT Wars' I referred to an RDBMS war that was fought between Oracle and Ingres. In reality competition in the RDBMS space has always been a little more complex than that.
The Oracle/Ingres battle just happended to be the main one at play when I entered the fray. FYI - my first RDBMS was Ingres and I have to say that from the developers perspective it was a far superior product to Oracle. Ultimately it is recognised that Oracle won out because of superior sales and marketing prowess, although this simplistic argument undermines the fact that Oracle was the more reliable and scalable database (row vs page level locking anyone?).
In reality Oracle has seen off the following RDBMS competition over the years:
- Ingres in the late 80's
- Sybase in the early 90's
- Informix in the late 90's
Along the way the big O has also also gobbled up Rdb and MySQL databases.
The interesting thing is that when I worked for Larry in the mid to late 90's Oracle always saw the following two as being their major database rivals:
- IBM with DB2
- Microsoft with SQL Server
So it comes as no great surprise that with the acqusition of Sun Microsystems and the plans that Oracle has for its Database Machine that the likes of IBM and Microsoft are scathing in their response calling it a return to the bad old days of the 1960's.
So how does the combination of software/hardware affect the big players:
Microsoft - SQL Server runs on any platform so long as its Windows/x86 so no change there.
IBM - The various forms of DB/2 run on various hardware platforms - so long as they're IBM that is. Again no change.
Oracle - I'm struggling to see a downside here. Larry has picked up Sun at pretty much a rock bottom price and with the new capability can attack integrated hardware/software threats from IBM, Netezza and Teradata who have all espoused the integrated harware/software solution. The combination of hardware and software is not unlike that taken by Apple, but it doesn't preclude Oracle's regular business of selling database on pretty muuch every major platform out there.
He's also picked up Java which was the lynchpin of Oracle's development platform anyway and moved a long way to removing the potential threat from Open Source by picking up the most successful of the Open Source databases in MySQL. In short, it's a win win because it's unlikely that he will alienate any of the existing hardware partners as they know that they cannot ignore Oracle.
Does it herald a return to the heyday of the 1960's, however, or for anyone following this blog, does that mean that we can look forward to fully integrated corporate data model as I've referred to in a few prior posts. Not likely. When Larry refers to an integrated server platform I think you have to look deeper than the marketing blurb to understand that apart from improvements to the systems management space and perhaps better performance integration there really isn't anything new here. Im not saying that the Database Machine is a bad concept, but I'd be wary in thinking that it herald's a return to when life was simple.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Check, check, check and check!
Part 3 of a 3 part post on the role of the modern smartphone
In the previous two posts I've explored the impact of the smartphone on our lives. The first post explored my hopes and aspirations for a convergence device ten years ago and how the current smartphone vastly exceeds them. The second post explored what devices it has definitely replaced or is likely to replace in the near future. In the final post I wanted to explore what's left for the smartphone to achieve. Now I'm not pretending to be a futurologist and the potential applications for the smartphone are almost limitless. Why else have Google and Apple branded themselves as mobile devices companies when neither was their core competency less than a decade ago?
The focus of my smartphone predictions won't be around the likes of location services, enhanced reality, advertising and mobile TV as many are predicting, it's something far more mundane but essential to our daily lives.
Before I do this lets explore something that I do, and I'm guessing I'm not alone here, every day before I leave the house and go to work:
Check, check, check and check!
- Have I got my wallet? Check.
- Have I got my house keys? Check.
- Have I picked up my loose change? Check.
- Have I got my mobile phone? Check.
(Note that in my case I don't drive to work but if I did I'd obviously check for my car keys too).
So could the smartphone change things here? Well when you examine all these things they resolve down to two fundamentals of life: identity and money.
In my wallet is my drivers licence (a defacto identity card), my prepaid bus ticket (currently anonymous, but in other cases not so like the London Oyster Card), my work entry card (identity), some cash (money), credit and debit cards (money) and a lottery ticket (potential money). The other items in my pockets: loose change (money) and house keys (identity) and car keys (identity). Yes I know the keys don't strictly identify me but there is an implicit assumption that because I have the key I'm authorised to use it.
So can the smartphone morph and replace the above devices. Well technically yes. There's nothing revolutionary about the concept of using a smartphone for a payment device. Nokia were talking about this sort of stuff 10 years ago and I believe that many others are working on this technology right now. Lets also not forget that I can access our bank accounts never mind ebay and paypal on my phone and that we also already access our mobile phone accounts (either pre or postpay) every time we make a call or send a text. In short it doesn't take a huge leap of faith to believe that smartphones will become payment channels in the near future.
Looking at cars we are already starting to see keys be replaced by 'dongle-based' access devices. Is it such a stretch to see your car iPod/iPhone integration extending to cover car security too? The same could be said for home security too.
This leaves us with the rest of identity. For example can you imagine your driving licence being stored on your smartphone (or a cloud server accessed by your phone) If so what about your passport or even some future DNA based identity scheme? This is where I'm probably stretching the limits of how we will use smartphones in the future but not because of some inherent technical limitations, but bureaucratic ones. Could you imagine government departments accepting smartphones for ID. And I can already hear the din from the civil libertarians.
However, if the smartphone is going to evolve in these directions then we're going to need a pretty secure way for the device to identify us. Biometrics would definitely be required in the handset for this. We're also going to need some pretty secure encryption technology to ensure that nobody is hacking our accounts through the ether.
But the important concept here is that nothing mentioned in this post is beyond the bounds to reasonable technological advances in the next few years. Considering how far the smartphone has come in such a short space of time I'm beginning to see why Apple and Google are so interested in them.
In the previous two posts I've explored the impact of the smartphone on our lives. The first post explored my hopes and aspirations for a convergence device ten years ago and how the current smartphone vastly exceeds them. The second post explored what devices it has definitely replaced or is likely to replace in the near future. In the final post I wanted to explore what's left for the smartphone to achieve. Now I'm not pretending to be a futurologist and the potential applications for the smartphone are almost limitless. Why else have Google and Apple branded themselves as mobile devices companies when neither was their core competency less than a decade ago?
The focus of my smartphone predictions won't be around the likes of location services, enhanced reality, advertising and mobile TV as many are predicting, it's something far more mundane but essential to our daily lives.
Before I do this lets explore something that I do, and I'm guessing I'm not alone here, every day before I leave the house and go to work:
Check, check, check and check!
- Have I got my wallet? Check.
- Have I got my house keys? Check.
- Have I picked up my loose change? Check.
- Have I got my mobile phone? Check.
(Note that in my case I don't drive to work but if I did I'd obviously check for my car keys too).
So could the smartphone change things here? Well when you examine all these things they resolve down to two fundamentals of life: identity and money.
In my wallet is my drivers licence (a defacto identity card), my prepaid bus ticket (currently anonymous, but in other cases not so like the London Oyster Card), my work entry card (identity), some cash (money), credit and debit cards (money) and a lottery ticket (potential money). The other items in my pockets: loose change (money) and house keys (identity) and car keys (identity). Yes I know the keys don't strictly identify me but there is an implicit assumption that because I have the key I'm authorised to use it.
So can the smartphone morph and replace the above devices. Well technically yes. There's nothing revolutionary about the concept of using a smartphone for a payment device. Nokia were talking about this sort of stuff 10 years ago and I believe that many others are working on this technology right now. Lets also not forget that I can access our bank accounts never mind ebay and paypal on my phone and that we also already access our mobile phone accounts (either pre or postpay) every time we make a call or send a text. In short it doesn't take a huge leap of faith to believe that smartphones will become payment channels in the near future.
Looking at cars we are already starting to see keys be replaced by 'dongle-based' access devices. Is it such a stretch to see your car iPod/iPhone integration extending to cover car security too? The same could be said for home security too.
This leaves us with the rest of identity. For example can you imagine your driving licence being stored on your smartphone (or a cloud server accessed by your phone) If so what about your passport or even some future DNA based identity scheme? This is where I'm probably stretching the limits of how we will use smartphones in the future but not because of some inherent technical limitations, but bureaucratic ones. Could you imagine government departments accepting smartphones for ID. And I can already hear the din from the civil libertarians.
However, if the smartphone is going to evolve in these directions then we're going to need a pretty secure way for the device to identify us. Biometrics would definitely be required in the handset for this. We're also going to need some pretty secure encryption technology to ensure that nobody is hacking our accounts through the ether.
But the important concept here is that nothing mentioned in this post is beyond the bounds to reasonable technological advances in the next few years. Considering how far the smartphone has come in such a short space of time I'm beginning to see why Apple and Google are so interested in them.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
How many devices does your iPhone replace?
Part 2 of a 3 part post on the role of the modern smartphone
In the previous post I reflected on how far the smartphone, in my case the ubiquitous iPhone but in reality it could be any smartphone, had come and how it had not only superceeded the mobile phone and the pda but also a plethora of other functions/devices. So lets look at personally what it's replaced or is likely to replace in the next few years in my scenario:
- PDA - will I ever buy another decicated PDA. Don't think so. Sorry Palm.
- iPod - again, I'm not sure I'll ever buy another dedicated music player nor an MP4 player. Bye Apple.
Sat Nav - Would I ever buy another dedicated Sat Nav device - probably not, although for true replacement technology I'd likely buy Tom Tom for iPhone. If I had a Google or Nokia smartphone this wouldn't be the case. Sorry Tom Tom.
- digital camera/camcorder - I'm not sure we'll replace our compact digicam when it dies. Maybe not the camcorder either. Sorry Sony and Canon. The digital SLR is, however, safe for now.
- Portable games console - The PSP barely get's any use and could well end up on ebay before the month is out. Sorry Sony.
- Portable DVD player - My better half wanted a portable DVD player so we could take the kiddie dvds with us when we travel. I've ripped and encoded this stuff onto my - iPhone and got a iPhone Composite cable for Christmas so we're pretty set on that front now too.
- Watch and Alarm Clock - this is probably not typical but for a few years I've stopped wearing a wristwatch and have relied on my phone for timekeeping.
It's amazing really that all this stuff has been or is likely to be replaced by the phone in my pocket. I'm not saying that the iPhone is better than any of these devices but in most cases its certainly good enough to replace many of the dedicated devices.
The other advantages are that it's always to hand and charged, unlike most of the other stuff which is in the cupboard most of the time out of battery.
In the previous post I reflected on how far the smartphone, in my case the ubiquitous iPhone but in reality it could be any smartphone, had come and how it had not only superceeded the mobile phone and the pda but also a plethora of other functions/devices. So lets look at personally what it's replaced or is likely to replace in the next few years in my scenario:
- PDA - will I ever buy another decicated PDA. Don't think so. Sorry Palm.
- iPod - again, I'm not sure I'll ever buy another dedicated music player nor an MP4 player. Bye Apple.
Sat Nav - Would I ever buy another dedicated Sat Nav device - probably not, although for true replacement technology I'd likely buy Tom Tom for iPhone. If I had a Google or Nokia smartphone this wouldn't be the case. Sorry Tom Tom.
- digital camera/camcorder - I'm not sure we'll replace our compact digicam when it dies. Maybe not the camcorder either. Sorry Sony and Canon. The digital SLR is, however, safe for now.
- Portable games console - The PSP barely get's any use and could well end up on ebay before the month is out. Sorry Sony.
- Portable DVD player - My better half wanted a portable DVD player so we could take the kiddie dvds with us when we travel. I've ripped and encoded this stuff onto my - iPhone and got a iPhone Composite cable for Christmas so we're pretty set on that front now too.
- Watch and Alarm Clock - this is probably not typical but for a few years I've stopped wearing a wristwatch and have relied on my phone for timekeeping.
It's amazing really that all this stuff has been or is likely to be replaced by the phone in my pocket. I'm not saying that the iPhone is better than any of these devices but in most cases its certainly good enough to replace many of the dedicated devices.
The other advantages are that it's always to hand and charged, unlike most of the other stuff which is in the cupboard most of the time out of battery.
Lets see how far we've come
Part 1 of a 3 part post on the role of the modern smartphone.
Back in the late 1990's I really wanted a mobile phone that was a true convergence device, something that meant I didn't have to carry around a mobile and a pda. At the time I had an Ericsson GF768 flip phone and Palm Pilot 3. Ultimately the single device that I wanted would be able to make calls, manage a consolidated contact list, scribble a few notes and maybe just maybe write an e-mail. WAP was the next big thing then so maybe access to the WAP web would be a nice to have.
These days any half decent smartphone will more than meet these needs and more but lets just consider how much more they can do. Today my iPhone gives me all of these incredible devices and applications in my pocket: phone, calendar, web browser, contacts, camera, video camera, audio recorder, texting, messaging & skype, IM & chat, access to social networking, email, music, movies, photo album, books, gps & maps and games. Oh and access to an almost unlimited suppy of applications too.
I may have had to wait ten years to get it but when it arrived my convergence device really did exceed my expectations. As Ferris Bueller says 'Life moves pretty fast. You don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it'.
Back in the late 1990's I really wanted a mobile phone that was a true convergence device, something that meant I didn't have to carry around a mobile and a pda. At the time I had an Ericsson GF768 flip phone and Palm Pilot 3. Ultimately the single device that I wanted would be able to make calls, manage a consolidated contact list, scribble a few notes and maybe just maybe write an e-mail. WAP was the next big thing then so maybe access to the WAP web would be a nice to have.
These days any half decent smartphone will more than meet these needs and more but lets just consider how much more they can do. Today my iPhone gives me all of these incredible devices and applications in my pocket: phone, calendar, web browser, contacts, camera, video camera, audio recorder, texting, messaging & skype, IM & chat, access to social networking, email, music, movies, photo album, books, gps & maps and games. Oh and access to an almost unlimited suppy of applications too.
I may have had to wait ten years to get it but when it arrived my convergence device really did exceed my expectations. As Ferris Bueller says 'Life moves pretty fast. You don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it'.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Six Degrees of Preparation
Over a coffee the other day with a friend we were discussing what qualifications were most appropriate for a 21st Century IT professional. Obviously you would assume that a BSc in Computing or equivalent would rank highly, maybe even a BA in Information Technology, although at my Uni this were regarded as a soft option in IT degrees. Other studies related to New Media and Communications may also be relevant.
(FYI I studied on a Combined Sciences course of which one of my majors was Computer Sciences).
The funny thing is that when I got my first job in IT I was already COBOL trained so productive from pretty much day one. Not so for a couple of my new starter colleagues who read History and English Uni degree respectively. They embarked on a 6 month programming course.
IT is pretty unique in that way as it has alway been open to all comers. This is something that would be incoceivable in most other professions unless you had a relevant degree (i.e. Law, Medicine and Engineering) or even new fields like Biotechnology.
Back to the original question - what is the best degree. Well my mate believed that it would be a Law degree, followed by an MBA, because as we to oursourcing and cloud computing he believes that the only relevant skills for modern IT was drawing up and managing contracts.
That's a real shame.
(FYI I studied on a Combined Sciences course of which one of my majors was Computer Sciences).
The funny thing is that when I got my first job in IT I was already COBOL trained so productive from pretty much day one. Not so for a couple of my new starter colleagues who read History and English Uni degree respectively. They embarked on a 6 month programming course.
IT is pretty unique in that way as it has alway been open to all comers. This is something that would be incoceivable in most other professions unless you had a relevant degree (i.e. Law, Medicine and Engineering) or even new fields like Biotechnology.
Back to the original question - what is the best degree. Well my mate believed that it would be a Law degree, followed by an MBA, because as we to oursourcing and cloud computing he believes that the only relevant skills for modern IT was drawing up and managing contracts.
That's a real shame.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Dark Days at 1 Infinite Loop?
According to some recent techpress articles it's been a week to forget for Apple. Firstly, Redmond launched what appears to be their first viable alternative in the mobile devices space with Windows Phone Series 7 (catchy title, eh?) and then the rest of the also rans (excluding Google, RIM, Microsoft and Nokia) in the mobile phone industry announce the WAC as an alternative to the App Store.
Take this into account with some lacklustre reviews on the iPad and should we be calling an end to the Apple Renaissance?
Well, time will tell whether the Microsoft gamble will succeed but many pundits are already writing it off just like the Zune. Steve Jobs has used the Wayne Gretzky quote 'I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.' and I think Microsoft as skating at where the iPhone has been.
And as to the WAC check out http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/02/16/app_stores_szzz/ for some thoughts. Also if the OviStore has to resort to giving away the Nokia Maps Application for free to get some traction then how will the WAC fare any better? Nokia reported that there were 3m dowloads of its Maps application last week. This compares to Apple's overall 3bn App Store downloads and 10bn iTunes downloads to put some context around these numbers.
The much more serious threat to Apple in the mobile space comes from Google with its Android platform, despite Eric Schmidt's low key address today at MWC. Android, and a plethora of mobile phone makers, could challenge the all-in-one hardware/software philisophy that Apple has today, just like like Windows and a plethora of PC makers did for the original Macintosh computer. However, there are real differences between the early PC days and the current smartphone wars. Namely:
- different pricing models are at play - Back in the 80's everyone agreed that the Mac was superior to the PC but cost twice as much. Most mobiles are bought on the back of network contracts so unless Android sets start significantly undercutting the iPhone then that doesn't apply here. Indeed given that the mobile phone is something of a status symbol a market awash with cheap Android clones may even be counterproductive.
- Smartphones are as much fashion statements as a utilitarian devices meaning that design of the handset, operating system and application softeware is crucial. Here is where I think Apple have the edge. The key principles at the core of Apple are superior design and controlling the entire end to end user experience.
Will Android overtake the iPhone - almost certainly, but will that be at the expense of Apple. I don't think so. I suspect that it will be Nokia, Microsoft and RIM have more to fear from this weeks announcements.
Take this into account with some lacklustre reviews on the iPad and should we be calling an end to the Apple Renaissance?
Well, time will tell whether the Microsoft gamble will succeed but many pundits are already writing it off just like the Zune. Steve Jobs has used the Wayne Gretzky quote 'I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.' and I think Microsoft as skating at where the iPhone has been.
And as to the WAC check out http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/02/16/app_stores_szzz/ for some thoughts. Also if the OviStore has to resort to giving away the Nokia Maps Application for free to get some traction then how will the WAC fare any better? Nokia reported that there were 3m dowloads of its Maps application last week. This compares to Apple's overall 3bn App Store downloads and 10bn iTunes downloads to put some context around these numbers.
The much more serious threat to Apple in the mobile space comes from Google with its Android platform, despite Eric Schmidt's low key address today at MWC. Android, and a plethora of mobile phone makers, could challenge the all-in-one hardware/software philisophy that Apple has today, just like like Windows and a plethora of PC makers did for the original Macintosh computer. However, there are real differences between the early PC days and the current smartphone wars. Namely:
- different pricing models are at play - Back in the 80's everyone agreed that the Mac was superior to the PC but cost twice as much. Most mobiles are bought on the back of network contracts so unless Android sets start significantly undercutting the iPhone then that doesn't apply here. Indeed given that the mobile phone is something of a status symbol a market awash with cheap Android clones may even be counterproductive.
- Smartphones are as much fashion statements as a utilitarian devices meaning that design of the handset, operating system and application softeware is crucial. Here is where I think Apple have the edge. The key principles at the core of Apple are superior design and controlling the entire end to end user experience.
Will Android overtake the iPhone - almost certainly, but will that be at the expense of Apple. I don't think so. I suspect that it will be Nokia, Microsoft and RIM have more to fear from this weeks announcements.
Monday, February 15, 2010
I think I need an App for that
You may not know it but we are now in the middle of a new tech land grab as established iPhone developers desperately scramble to get native iPad versions of their apps ready for the new platform. This land grab has been measured by the incredible uptake of the iPad SDK.
And before you say it - yes I know that the vast majority of the existing 150,000 iPhone Apps will upscale and run on the iPad but that's a stopgap at best. No doubt new iPad owners will want shiny new iPad apps.
The land grab is underway because the smart developers know that there's a narrow window of opportunity before the AppStore becomes awash with tens of thousands of iPad apps.
No here's the thing I find most interesting. Viewing the AppStore today on my iPhone I can basically flick through 20 categories and about 300 apps per category - give or take, assuming I have an hour or so spare, that is. That's 6,000 apps I can access before I have to resort to a search strings or the genius recommendation.
This is tip of the iceberg stuff. There are another 144,000 apps out there that it's highly unlikely that I'll every find, unless they're featured in some way. Hence my problem how do I know that these apps exist if they're not featured and I can't easliy access them?
Maybe I need a better way of searching for the apps. You know what - I think I need an App for that!
And before you say it - yes I know that the vast majority of the existing 150,000 iPhone Apps will upscale and run on the iPad but that's a stopgap at best. No doubt new iPad owners will want shiny new iPad apps.
The land grab is underway because the smart developers know that there's a narrow window of opportunity before the AppStore becomes awash with tens of thousands of iPad apps.
No here's the thing I find most interesting. Viewing the AppStore today on my iPhone I can basically flick through 20 categories and about 300 apps per category - give or take, assuming I have an hour or so spare, that is. That's 6,000 apps I can access before I have to resort to a search strings or the genius recommendation.
This is tip of the iceberg stuff. There are another 144,000 apps out there that it's highly unlikely that I'll every find, unless they're featured in some way. Hence my problem how do I know that these apps exist if they're not featured and I can't easliy access them?
Maybe I need a better way of searching for the apps. You know what - I think I need an App for that!
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