In a recent chat with one of the architects of the early Internet (who remains quite active as a leader in its evolution), we touched on the inherent chaos embedded in the process of technological evolution.
I introduced the concept by remarking on the curiosity of today's public restroom experience. You can pretty much count on an automatic flush. Whether or not to wave your hands under a tap or manually turn knobs to wash your hands is less certain. Soap almost always requires a pump or two, but I've experienced the wave in that case as well. As for paper towels, it's 50/50 whether they'll dispense themselves at your waved command or whether you'll need to pull and tear. Air driers, however, seem almost universally automatic these days. In any event, in most cases, what you end up with is a mixed experience, waving at some things and turning or pulling at others, sometimes appearing a bit foolish in the process. Bottom line: Evolution takes place at different paces, even in a public restroom.
Beyond generating an initial chuckle, my observation prompted my friend to pose a question he says he regularly asks: Imagine yourself going back in time 50 years and how you would experience the world around you, and how your experiences would be perceived by others. He suggested, among other things, that we'd all end up with broken noses. People would ask, "why did you walk straight into that door?" "Because where I come from, doors open automatically." People would wonder (perhaps not aloud) "why didn't he flush?" "Because where I come from, toilets flush automatically." And so on, and so forth... Then my friend suggested: Imagine yourself 50 years in the future, returning to our age. What things would you expect to experience that we've not today yet fathomed? Cool exercise. Indeed, a potentially endless exercise. You could drown in the imagining...
...So, I'm not gonna go there. Yet. Instead, let's focus on the more near-term, as we ended up doing in my recent chat, and, first, in the context of a topic I regularly blather about.
For starters, know it or not, the wireless industry is dead.
Okay, so that was perhaps overly provocative, and it's certainly not to say that's that wireless broadband isn't key to our digital future, rather, that wireless-enabled devices are merely additional nodes on the Internet. Mobile phones, smart phones, mobile computers, laptops, netbooks, tablets, e-readers, digital cameras, e-meters (wirelessly-enabled water, electricity, gas, or whatever meter that used to be or may still be read by a union-protected human being), etc., etc., are all just nodes on the net. The industry is broadband access - wireless is just one flavor.
Now let's think about user interface, looking a bit forward, not fifty years (I'm just not ready), but a few, a decade maybe... Take the qwerty layout for instance. While those of my generation and the one or two that have followed might still have an affinity for this user interface, it's dated, and, frankly, not terribly efficient beyond the fact that we've developed a comfort and familiarity for the experience over the years. What will we be using in 10 years? Touch is all the rage today, and will remain a key element of the UI experience. Voice activation will also become more and more common, but it has it's downsides in terms of use in public places (privacy, ambient noise, etc.). Gesturing will certainly play a role in some limited use cases (remote control, for instance, not of TVs, but of, well, practically anything), as will facial recognition and/or expression reading, as well as virtualization (projected and interactive displays). But will we still be fiddling with devices with old-school telephony keypads or qwerty data input layouts? Some, yes. But I'll hazard a guess that if not in 10 years, then certainly in 20, it may well be the exception, not the rule.
But let's go back to that public restroom scenario. And in a different context, yet another I tend to rant about - regulation- vs. marketplace-driven solutions to ensure competition, commercial success and consumer benefit.
There is certainly a need for baseline sanitary regulations and relevant plumbing and interoperability standards in the public restroom environment. But would it be sensible for a regulator to define the form factor and experience provided by every sink, toilet, spigot, hand drier, etc., or to dictate universal availability of the same? Of course not. And, while regular readers of this blog may now be thinking I'm going to dive into yet another network neutrality/network management discussion, I'll resist that temptation (but you can easily see how easily the parallel could apply), and drill down instead into that interoperability question, and in the context of a different regulatory debate.
IBM has been or is actively being investigated by both U.S. and European authorities. The question at hand: Are IBM's mainframe business and its actions related to that business anti-competitive - are challengers precluded from entering the marketplace? Is this an instance where antitrust or competition authorities should intervene to ensure a fair and open marketplace? Pretty arcane stuff, huh? Curious stuff too. Given that in an ever-evolving marketplace where cloud-based and distributed computing and faster, more efficient, more capable servers are providing new businesses with cost-effective mainframe alternatives and aging mainframe-established businesses with smoother and smoother migration paths to those same alternatives, is it any wonder that IBM's mainframe market share is in the single digits in the overall server marketplace. Indeed, many argue that the mainframe is a dinosaur, well-past retirement age (this, by the way, is not true). So does IBM's mainframe business represent a monopoly?
No. Just as in previous posts I've argued that network operators have the fiduciary right to reap the benefits of the billions they've invested in their networks (not, however, to the extent of precluding competition or consumer choice of devices, services and content), so too does IBM have the right and responsibility to monetize its investments and to continue to compete for market share. And yes, there is an interoperability question that merits attention - IBM's mainframes (anyone's mainframes) are a marriage of hardware and software and to the extent that the software side of the equation is closed there are indeed challenges to companies competing to introduce or desiring to implement migration paths to the alternatives referenced above. But this is not a case of plumbing in a public restroom or basic sanitary mandates governed (if not enforced - have you ever been to the toilet at Penn Station in NYC?) by the appropriate regulatory authorities. The workarounds exist and are being deployed, indeed, IBM itself is competing in the alternative space.
There will come a day, when the pubic restroom experience will be a touch-less one, everything automatic and/or gesture-driven. The technology exists, it just a matter of the evolution taking place, as the marketplace dictates. There may well also come a day when mainframes are a thing of the past (or not) - the technology exists, it's just a matter of the evolution taking place, as the marketplace dictates. It's inevitable. Government intervention simply stymies the process, disadvantages one player, and, quite likely, advantages others. Indeed, to this latter point, it is interesting to note the overlap of membership in The Mainframe Migration Alliance, openmainframe.org, and the Computer and Communications Industry Association, the former two which are promoting alternatives, the latter which is leading the charge against IBM in Europe. You see, sometimes governments and regulatory authorities are bent to action with the best of intent, yet at the commercial will of clever competitors seeking to disrupt the momentum of one or another leaders in their competitive space.
And now, in that context, think again about the network neutrality/network management debate, and the players on both sides... Stay tuned.
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